Although Ron felt Harry's suspicions might not be entirely unfounded, he had not seen that powerful magical flame himself. Besides, Harry had said he had not discovered anything unusual, so Ron remained unconvinced of Lockhart's abilities.
Unless Lockhart could actually demonstrate the abilities he displayed in his books right in front of him, Ron would still consider him all show and a peddler of tall tales.
During the first week of term, even though the Hogwarts professors habitually paid no attention to their young students' sleep and assigned demanding homework at will, the workload for the first weekend was still not very heavy.
Harry, Ron, and Neville were all getting fairly good marks now, and with Hermione and Padma's help, they easily finished their homework early.
Having also read ahead in some of their subjects, the three boys felt they had a little room to spare, so they began fooling around with their friends that evening.
The young wizards, who had barely been able to lift their heads under the weight of homework over the previous few days, finally relaxed on the weekend evening and inevitably began chatting about things they had seen and heard during the holidays.
Hogwarts drew most of its students from the United Kingdom, but its admissions actually covered all of Europe. There were even students from Asia and a small number from Africa and the Americas. With young wizards from all over gathered together, there were plenty of new things to hear about.
Harry had spent most of his holidays at his aunt's house, with little access to the wizarding world. Even after he went to stay with the Weasley family, the information he received was limited, since they, too, were somewhat out of touch with the wizarding world.
Now he was catching up on