Harry Potter and the Burnt Badger

How generous...

Professor Dumbledore really wanted to applaud Lockhart right now, right here.

"No, Professor Lockhart." Professor Dumbledore sighed and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, when I heard about your experience in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, I once doubted whether you were suitable to teach here. Students. Now, I have to apologize to you for my doubts. At the same time, I regret to reject your resignation application."

Lockhart's heart skipped a beat.

Is he overacting?

"Really, in this era, wizards like you who are smart, well-informed, powerful, and have a tolerant and philanthropic heart are already rare. So I think, maybe we need to go through Hogg Watts’ class, to pass this on.”

"That's it, Professor Lockhart. As for those little wizards who hurt you, I will find a way to punish and restrain them."

Without leaving any chance for Lockhart to defend or continue his statement, Professor Dumbledore hurriedly said this, and then hurriedly finished, "Mrs. Pomfrey will come over later to give you some help." Potion for physical recovery, rest well, Professor Lockhart, I look forward to your return to the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, good night."

Then, he turned around and walked away, leaving only his back to Lockhart.

There was no other way. Professor Dumbledore had to admit that compared to the exaggerated and boring words of praise he wrote in letters to Lockhart, it was extremely difficult to say similar words in person. Several times.And he is indeed more than a little weaker than Lockhart in this aspect.

Therefore, leaving immediately is obviously the most correct choice.

But this time, Lockhart was dumbfounded.

Although the long paragraphs he just said were all nonsense and the bad guys complained first, the problem is that his final resignation was sincere and came from the heart!

He really wants to run!

What the hell is this place!He was hung up at every turn, and stuffed into a Muggle house for three to five months, and there were monsters everywhere!

Who wants to continue working here?

Not to mention a Harry Potter, even if your shabby school is full of Harry Potters, I can't do it anymore.

Lockhart slapped his forehead in annoyance, but at the same time he felt a little proud.

Who is the greatest wizard of our time?Haven't you been fooled by me?Fortunately, I was smart enough and adjusted quickly. If it was still the same as when I was in that damn place, he would have been tied up and sent to St. Mungo's by now.

wrong……

Lockhart suddenly shuddered.

Before he really woke up, just a second ago, he was only thinking about how to teach those two damn little wizards a lesson. He had almost no other thoughts except anger and malice.Even when he thought about "after coming out" that Moon Fox said, he was just thinking about how to escape Hogwarts secretly, and even forgot about his best deception and disguise.

Why did he get better quickly after coming out...

The more Lockhart thought about it, the more frightened he became, and even his head began to hurt.

And three seconds later, he realized that the pain in his head was not because of what he was thinking - it was actually hurting.

"hiss--"

And the pain was getting more and more intense, just like the first time in a dream that he was dragged away by a monster, his skin and skull were bitten open, and his head was eaten away.

Lockhart covered his forehead in horror and struggled to huddle up on the hospital bed. The terrifying spider monster in the dream began to resemble the giant spider monster he had seen before at Hogwarts. Fusion into one, which made him suddenly become more afraid, and even felt that his surroundings might be full of spiders - under the bed, behind the curtains, and even in his pillows, bedding, and clothes...

Before he could fully walk out of the door of the school hospital, Professor Dumbledore was once again startled to a halt by Lockhart's crazy screams.

Chapter 56 reunion

"Sorry, Moon."

"Ok?"

Moon looked curiously at Hermione on the hospital bed, not quite understanding what kind of apology this little girl was having to apologize to him.

It can't be because he has become a "human bed mover". He can't lift it with his hands, and it doesn't take much effort to use a wand.

Seeing Moon looking at her, Hermione said seriously: "I was a bit avoiding you before...Actually, I never really understood what you said last year, uh, I mean, about the Four Powers. Harry and Ron originally promised me during the summer vacation that after arriving at Hogwarts this year, they would find an opportunity to argue with you about this matter again. But once they arrived at Hogwarts, They both forgot about it."

Moon was stunned for a moment and paused, feeling as if he had accidentally caught the truth about some "weird thing".

"I'm really a little angry with them for being like this. I talked to them once, and they kept trying to prevaricate me. They made it clear that they were all about you." Although Hermione had just apologized before, when Hermione mentioned these things , his mouth immediately pouted again, "So I decided to draw a clear line with them temporarily, and wait until I find a way to correct your 'misconceptions', or win the championship of the Four Powers Tournament through my own efforts. , I can stand in front of you openly and tell you that what you did is wrong, and then let both of them and you see it..."

As she spoke, Hermione raised her hands to cover her face, and said with embarrassment: "Oh my God, I am so naive. Just because of this kind of thing, I have been hiding from myself for a long time. A good friend..."

Moon, who had already led Hermione to an empty seat, straightened her hospital bed with a smile, and said with a helpless smile, "If you ask me, it's a bit childish, but I can make such determination. , you are really amazing."

Facts have proved that he did catch the truth about the "strange things" - no wonder Harry and Ron said before that Hermione was acting weird as soon as the semester started, and even ignored them.

Good guy, these two very nervous little boys didn't realize for so long that Hermione ignored them because of this?

It's hard for Moon to comment, he can only call him a good guy.

"Okay, you don't have to be so embarrassed. There is nothing to apologize for this kind of thing, just let's talk about it." The free wand gently passed through the air, and a small iron stool floated over and landed on Munn's butt. Later, "But don't expect me to change the rules just by apologizing. I still have the same theory as before. The Four Powers Tournament is just for everyone to have fun. There is no need to educate and entertain, and there is no need to try. What to teach everyone. Therefore, not only will I not change the rules of the Four-Powerful Tournament, I even plan to find ways to make the Four-Powerful Tournament more fun."

As he said that, Moon sat down on the stool and spread his hands towards Hermione, "And even if you really win the Four-wizard Tournament, I will only congratulate you and continue to go my own way."

Hermione looked at Moon angrily, but before she could hold her breath for two seconds, she started laughing. "Then it seems that it will be difficult for me to win the Four-wizard Tournament. Only Gobstone can do that." I really can’t imagine myself winning in a game where I spit on people’s stinking juice.”

Moon smiled and nodded slightly. He looked at Hermione and suddenly felt a little emotional in his heart - although the cursed dream of the Dreamweaver Curse only brought endless harm and torture to Hermione, but then again, The experience of these "few months" seems to have promoted some of Hermione's steps towards maturity, and also made her realize the value of friends more.

This can probably be regarded as a kind of misfortune that blessings rely on, and blessings that misfortune lies behind.

However, the price is too high. If possible, try not to let this happen.

As he said before, if you are childish, be childish. It is good. 12-year-old boys and girls are not childish. Do they have to wait until they are the age of Professor Dumbledore to be childish?

Hmm...it doesn't seem impossible?At least Professor Dumbledore looked happy.

"Okay, you should rest for a while first. I'll go find Madam Pomfrey to bring you medicine, and by the way, I'll share the good news that you've woken up with Harry and Ron. I heard that they've been sleeping every day for a while. Running to the school hospital is much quicker than going to potions class."

Hermione was amused again. She waved her hand to Moon with gratitude, and then said seriously again: "Thank you, Moon - whether it was saving me or other things."

"You already said that I am your good friend. Isn't this what a good friend should do?" Moon shrugged, raised his hand and opened the curtain beside the bed, but before he could fully walk out, Suddenly, a shrill wail came to my ears.

Although the voice of the howling man was distorted perhaps due to pain, Moon and Hermione immediately recognized the owner of the voice.

Yes, it was Lockhart.

At the same time, through the opened curtain, Moon also saw Professor Dumbledore who stopped at the entrance of the school hospital, and Madam Pomfrey who was hurriedly walking out of her small office.

He turned to look at Hermione, hesitated for a moment, and then said: "It seems that Madam Pomfrey doesn't need me to look for her. She will probably come over in a while. I'd better go and share this with Harry and Ron first." Exciting good news.”

Hermione looked at Moon in astonishment, "Aren't you going to check on Lockhart?"

"Forget it, I think it's better for me not to meet Lockhart until Professor Dumbledore has time to talk to me. At the same time, this rule obviously applies to you too, in case we accidentally say the wrong thing. What words."

Even without personally hearing the conversation between Professor Dumbledore and Lockhart, Moon could easily guess what reasons the old man would use to appease Lockhart.

Now that Professor Dumbledore has sent him and Hermione away, there is no doubt that Lockhart will never know that he and Hermione have told everything in the dream.

However, even so, it is necessary to talk to Professor Dumbledore first.In this way, he would not only know Professor Dumbledore's plan, but also know what method Lockhart used to shirk the blame for what he had done. Was he pretending to be stupid and ignorant when asking questions, or was he directly complaining first and exposing the dirty laundry? Water splashed on him and Hermione.

"Okay..." Hermione responded thoughtfully, lowering her head slightly.

"Well, see you later." Moon walked out of the range of the curtain, and when he looked outside again, Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey had disappeared from his sight.

I think these two people should have arrived at Lockhart's bedside - but it is an exaggeration to say that Lockhart has been howling for almost ten seconds, and he has not stopped yet.

I have a good voice, and I might consider joining the Azkaban Choir in the future.

Just as Moon thought, Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey have now returned to Lockhart's bedside.Madam Pomfrey looked anxiously at Lockhart, who couldn't comfort him at all. In desperation, she had no choice but to take out her wand and cast a soothing and hypnotic spell to make Lockhart fall asleep obediently.

"Oh my God, what's wrong with this guy? There seems to be nothing wrong with Granger's child?" Feeling the hard-won quiet environment, Madam Pomfrey breathed a sigh of relief and said in confusion: "He keeps hugging him Your head is shaking, is it a headache? Is it a sequelae of the Dream Weaver Curse? That’s not right, Granger has never screamed?"

The muttering Madam Pomfrey suddenly looked at Professor Dumbledore suspiciously, "Headmaster, you didn't use magic to make Hermione Granger sleep, did you?"

"No." Professor Dumbledore looked at Lockhart who was still in pain on the hospital bed, and a trace of doubt spread in his eyes, "The sequelae of the Dream Weaver Curse...?"

"If you didn't use magic to make Hermione Granger sleep, then I think it has nothing to do with the Dreamweaver Curse. It might be Lockhart's own strange disease." Madam Pomfrey shook her head. I have never heard of any curse that can cause an adult wizard to suffer from sequelae, but there is a screening method that can leave a 12-year-old girl unscathed."

"What if they are both under the same curse, but have different experiences?" Professor Dumbledore said softly: "Bobby, don't jump to conclusions, especially about these curses that we don't understand. ——Anyway, let me read the book first. Answers to human confusion can always be found in books. I really like the set of Muggle detective novels that Moon gave me last year. There is nothing new under the sun. For many questions, perhaps our predecessors have already left us the answers, but we were too impatient and failed to discover them as early as possible.”

Madam Pomfrey raised the potion in her hand, "Well, Headmaster, I hope your book can give you an accurate answer. Before that, I guess I have to add more to poor Mr. Lockhart." Double the dose of medicine and give him some tincture for labor pain."

"Of course, thank you for your hard work, Poppy." The old man sighed quietly and watched Madam Pomfrey put the potion in her hand into Lockhart's mouth. After a while, she finally left slowly.

…………

The next day, Friday, Harry and Ron, who had finished class early, refused to go to dinner with Seamus and the others without any hesitation. Instead, they rushed into the school hospital with their backpacks and went straight to Harry. Min's hospital bed and left.

"Hermione!!"

The two young wizards called in unison and quickly made Hermione put down the book in her hands. In fact, when she heard the running footsteps earlier, she had vaguely guessed that they should be Harry and Ron. However, she was still thinking at that time. How to tell Harry and Ron what happened during this time.

However, as soon as her two good friends called out her name, all these thoughts were immediately thrown out of her mind.

"Harry! Ron!" Hermione held up the hospital bed to sit a little higher, and then quickly opened her arms to the two of them.

Harry and Ron came up and hugged Hermione gently [Note 1]. The two teenagers were too nervous to use too much force, as if they were afraid that they would "break" Hermione directly by the waist.

Hermione giggled at the tension between the two of them, and accidentally choked and coughed twice, causing Harry and Ron to scramble again.

If the encounter in the dream hadn't been so terrible, Hermione suddenly felt that such a scene would be quite fun.

In the next few minutes, Hermione told Harry and Ron exactly what happened in her dream.When he learned that there was a giant spider monster in that weird dream, Ron nervously scratched the corner of Hermione's quilt until it was wrinkled, even leaving a little sweat stain; and when Hermione whispered When she talked about being pushed down the stairs by Lockhart, oh, Ron was so angry that he rolled up his sleeves and went to settle the score with Lockhart. Not only did Harry not stop Ron, he even Still yelling from the side, "Look! I told you so!"

At this moment, Harry felt that he was finally proud.He really wanted to rush to the Owl Tower right now and send a letter to Mrs. Weasley, writing down all the bad things Lockhart had done to Hermione, so that Mrs. Weasley could see clearly what Gilderoy Lockhart had done to her. Hart's true face.

However, Hermione quickly warned them: "Okay, okay, Professor Dumbledore said, we do have to find a way to punish Lockhart, but not now, nor to punch him twice - so, Lockhart Well, sit down quickly, and you, Harry, keep your voice down, maybe Lockhart is awake now."

Seeing that the two of them were still puzzled, Hermione could only explain: "Think about it, after Lockhart did what he did in the dream, his first reaction was not to kill me to silence me or something, but to It's to cast a forgetting spell on me. I mean, that's not reality. Even if he kills me, no one can do anything to him, right? What do you think this proves?"

Harry and Ron nodded together at first, and then looked at Hermione blankly.

Ron was the one who finally asked the question. "Well, it proves that he doesn't want to kill you? I don't understand. What does this prove? Does it prove that he still has some conscience? Shouldn't be thrown into Azkaban?"

"Oh...god." Hermione was so stupid that her two friends rolled her eyes. "Ron! This proves that Lockhart is used to using the Forgetting Curse to solve problems!"

"...Then what?" The person who asked the question this time was Harry, and both of them failed to follow Hermione's train of thought for a while.

However, after asking this question, before Hermione could give an answer, Harry's eyes suddenly lit up.

"You thought of that? Harry?"

"Ah? What?" Ron looked at Hermione and Harry in shock. "Harry thought of it? What did he think of?"

Harry said excitedly: "Ron, do you remember? Lockhart couldn't even deal with the Cornish elf. His first reaction when seeing the monster was to push Hermione downstairs, but he was very... Good at forgetting spells - doesn't this prove that Lockhart has probably never done the things he wrote in the book, and they are all false! Lockhart is just a person who deletes other people's memories and takes credit for other people's achievements. You are a despicable person! This is the only reasonable explanation!"

"Then we should tell Professor Dumbledore quickly!" Ron jumped three feet high, with a special light in his eyes. "God, I was worried that we would have to continue taking Lockhart's class. Yeah! Sirius and Remus taught him much better than him!"

"No -" Hermione poured a basin of cold water over their heads to calm the two of them down again. "As Professor Dumbledore said, the time to punish him is not now. We have no evidence now. Even if we get to the Ministry of Magic, He could also say we made it all up.”

"Then give him Veritaserum!" Ron smashed his palm with his fist. "I dare say that a showman like Lockhart will never be able to withstand the power of Veritaserum!"

"No, Ron, we have to find a way to expose Lockhart's scam and make him have to admit what he has done. This is the best way to give a result to the wizards who were harmed by him." Min said solemnly: "Instead of using those methods of torture to extract confessions, that is wrong!"

Ron and Harry looked at each other again.

"But, Hermione, he hurt someone else—"

"If we can use the wrong way to deal with bad guys, then what's the difference between us and the bad guys?" Hermione said with a straight face, refusing to let go at all. "There will always be a better way, for sure!"

"This..." Harry scratched his head, "Okay, but I don't think Lockhart will let go so easily. After all, he has been pretending for so many years. Unless there is a particularly good way, there is absolutely no way he will admit it. Of those things.”

Ron sat speechless, and he didn't know why Harry ran to Hermione. He still felt that Veritaserum was the best way to deal with Lockhart.

But now it was clear that the vote was two to one, and he could no longer insist on his opinion, so he could only reluctantly obey his two friends.

"I don't know either." Hermione held her chin. "You have to think about it again. There is absolutely no way that Lockhart has no flaws at all. Forget it, let me think about it again - you keep talking about me, How are you doing lately?"

Hearing Hermione's question, Harry was about to talk about the Duel Club, but as he spoke, he suddenly remembered that Ron had not passed the test, so he swallowed it back and turned to look To Ron.

However, Ron himself took the initiative to mention it.

"Ha, the first Quidditch match just ended last weekend. Harry helped Gryffindor get a good start. Unfortunately, he was also injured and came here to stay for one night. Then, we also went to participate Passed the first dueling club assessment." Ron scratched the tip of his nose twice, his cheeks slightly red. "Harry passed, I failed. Moon's assessment was really too difficult, but I think...next time, I’ll definitely be able to get by next time.”

"By the way, I thought you might want to see it - so I brought this to you..."

Under the curious gazes of Hermione and Harry, Ron took out a small volume of the school newspaper from his bag and handed it to Hermione, "Here, this is the school newspaper for this period."

Chapter 57 Purpose

While Hermione was happily flipping through the newspapers that Ron had brought her in the school hospital, Moon, who had just finished his dinner, had also arrived in the principal's office and sat down next to Professor Dumbledore. opposite.

"Ha, I thought you would wait two more days before coming to my place, but I didn't expect you to come here tonight." Professor Dumbledore fed Fox, who was already showing signs of decline, and said with a smile: "It seems You seem very urgent, maybe it was my behavior last night that made you feel 'threatened'."

Moon looked expressionlessly at this old man who was so boring that even his students would make unscrupulous jokes. He tried his best to remain indifferent and said: "What kind of threat? I am very worried about being beaten by a second grader." Are the little witches fighting for favor?"

Professor Dumbledore's beard trembled as he laughed, as if this was so much fun.

However, Moon's words soon came from behind him, "You seem to really hope to accept two students and let them compete for favor? What is this, the only pastime in the boring life of a centenarian?"

"Tsk..." Professor Dumbledore's laughter stopped. He clicked his tongue and clapped his hands that had become empty. He turned his head and glanced at Moon in surprise. "I knew it. I really did." You should have less contact with Severus, Moon, you are becoming more and more like Severus when you speak."