The feast at the welcome banquet was incredibly lavish, and Harry and the others were thrilled by it.
Once the new students had been sorted, Dumbledore gave his usual speech, and the welcome feast officially began.
During the feast, because the new students were full of anticipation for Elemental Magic, Katelyle was invited out to display its charm.
Hogwarts School had enrolled twice as many students this year as it had last year. This was because students who should have gone to Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, after seeing the power and wonder of Elemental Magic and giving it some thought, had chosen Hogwarts Academy instead.
In fact, even more students had wanted to come, but because there were too many students to manage and not enough dormitories, many who wanted to study at Hogwarts had been turned away.
"Harry, I asked around. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is that man, Gilderoy Lockhart. All the textbooks we bought were written by him," Ron Weasley said, looking at Gilderoy Lockhart at the professors' table.
Hearing this, Harry looked toward Gilderoy Lockhart, who was dressed in a suit, smiling broadly and boasting about something at the professors' table. For some reason, he found the man rather pompous.
"He's handsome, and he often appears in the Daily Prophet. He's a powerful wizard with considerable influence," Hermione Granger interjected from the side.
"He looks like a fraud," Neville said, staring at Gilderoy Lockhart for a long while with a frown.
Harry and Ron Weasley laughed.
Ron Weasley even teased, "Maybe he really is a fraud!"
"And I can imagine that he might not even be able to beat Harry!"
"Maybe Harry would be the one getting knocked down?" Hermione Granger said discontentedly when she heard Ron Weasley belittling Gilderoy Lockhart so badly.
"Hermione,