154 Chapter 151
"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the ever-growing list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Turbans and Glowing Red Stones of any kind. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty items I believe, and can be viewed on the door of Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it."
He took a pause to control his twitching beard before he continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year. And now, may I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," said Dumbledore brightly into the Hall, "Professor Lockhart."
The whole hall burst into tumultuous applause as the frighteningly blond man stood and bowed to the entire hall.
"Professor Lockhart has been ever so kind to fulfil our Defense Against the Dark Arts position for this year, and I'm sure he will be able to fill all of your heads with his amazing insight that he must have gained through his extensive travels," Dumbledore said as he joined the students and staff in their applause.
Ping!
Lie detected!
Harry waved it away. Of course, he already knew that Dumbledore was lying through his teeth to the entire school right now. Gilderoy Lockhart could only fill the heads of students with copious amounts of bullshit.
Harry wondered how long it would be before the entire school grew sick of the man's vomit-inducingly saccharine personality. He'd wager that it wouldn't take more than a month.
Suddenly, he caught sight of Dumbledore pulling out his wand.
'Oh no,' Harry thought, realizing what was to come.
"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.
'Oh no.'
Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.
'Oh hell no.'
"Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!" And the school bellowed,
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot."
Oh dear lord! He'd forgotten how mind scramblingly horrible this was. He stuffed his fingers into his ears and prayed to the heavens that it would end soon.
Thankfully it did.
Ping!
For surviving the apocalypse of auditory disasters, you have gained +1 VIT!
Harry, looking just as glassy-eyed and traumatized as the first years who'd just heard that monstrosity for the first time, leaned on Hermione all the way to the Entrance hall, where he pulled himself together and excused himself in the name of going to the bathroom for a second.
He had a Slytherin to catch.
Flipping on his Invisibility cloak, Harry used Unicorn Dash to dash all the way down to the dungeons, where he found an alcove to hide in. He stuffed the cloak back into the inventory and waited for the incoming queue of Slytherins who would pass him on the way to their common room.
The moment he saw the familiar blond haired boy, he wrote out a single message on a small piece of parchment, which he crumpled up and deftly levitated out to a spot directly in front of the face of the blond boy, who frowned as he grabbed it and read it, before he excused himself from the group he was talking to and headed out towards the dungeons boys bathrooms.
Thankfully, no one saw him levitate the paper to Draco. With a sigh of relief, Harry dropped into an ID, and made his way to the bathroom before he popped back into the real world in one of the stalls.
Opening the door to the stall, he saw Draco leaning against the sink, washing his face.
"Why did you send me to that compartment?" Harry asked with no warning, startling Draco.
"Yeesh! Harry! You scared me!" Draco snapped, wiping off the water that had fallen onto his robes.
"Why did you send me to that compartment?" Harry reiterated.
"Oh…um…Father has alliances with the Belby family," he replied, looking a bit nervous, "And he has a very large amount of dislike for the Lovegoods. He'd have been…upset if I'd interfered."
"So you decided to scapegoat me?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey! I told you I'd owe you one didn't I?"
"You can count on me to hold you to that" Harry said, before he asked the question that was on his mind, "Why did you even want to help her?"
Draco hesitated for a second before replying, "She…she's family."
After that particular conversation, Harry quickly caught up with the procession of students and joined them as they made their way back to the tower. The firsties got a little speech from the new prefects, and the rest of them headed up to the dorms, where Michael, Stephen, and Anthony spent quite a bit of time examining and admiring Hedwig, whose ego was taking a huge bump up from all the attention she was getting.
They went to bed soon after, but Harry wasn't going to sleep. He had one more thing left to do.
Peeking out to make sure that Hedwig was sleeping well on the gilded perch that stood in the center of the room, Harry muttered, "ID Create."
The glowing moon outside took on a red tinge as Harry walked out of the Ravenclaw tower, and headed towards the portrait of the blue bearded wizard in the fourth floor who was poking a Mimbulus Mimbletonia and slipped out of the ID.
Fred and George had told him during the last Christmas break that this was where Professor Vector's office was.
Harry poked the Mimbulus Mimbletonia with his wand, making it burst open and shower the blue bearded wizard in stink sap. The wizard grumbled for a second before he waved his own wand, and with a click, the portrait opened up to show an oaken door, which Harry knocked on.
.
.
.
.
.
🐉 patreon.com/William777🐉
Subscribe to my Patreon for more advanced chapters
