Lockhart

"He isn't as famous as you," Aya said, "he is riding on your coattails, Harry, you have to charge him money, this is monetizing traffic!"

"...What is she saying?" Ron heard a word he didn't understand yet again, though he caught the part about charging money, and turned to ask Harry, who lived in the Muggle World.

"I don't know, but-" Harry took a deep breath, "I never wanted to be famous, you know that, he was just talking to himself a moment ago, completely disregarding my personal wishes."

"All right, but don't you wizards have laws? Pick up the legal weapon to protect yourself!" Aya raised a hand, balled it into a fist, and waved it.

"...I don't remember any laws about this?" Ron racked his brains, and under Harry's expectant gaze, he uttered these words, causing the light in Harry's eyes to vanish.

"Harry, this is where you're wrong, how can you expect an answer from Ron, you have to go ask Hermione." Aya suggested earnestly, only to be pushed aside discontentedly by Ron.

The three people who had been spacing out and whispering turned their heads together to look at Hermione, only to discover that she had gone on a rampage—she had practically monopolized all of Professor Sprout's questions, completely ignoring the three of them, and in just a few sentences, she had earned twenty points for Gryffindor.

"...Take a pair of earmuffs each!" Professor Sprout said loudly, pointing to the earmuffs on a table in the corner.

Everyone swarmed forward, and the students were not particularly keen on getting the pink earmuffs, but Aya wondered if she needed to take two sets—she did have human ears, though most of the time they were covered by her short hair, and besides, she was much more accustomed to using her cat ears, which were far more sensitive-human ears could use earmuffs, but what about her cat ears?

"Report, Professor," Aya raised her hand high, "what about my ears?" As she spoke, she flicked her cat ears.

"...Er." To be honest, Professor Sprout had completely forgotten about this detail, "Um... well, it's my fault for not considering things thoroughly, it seems this class doesn't quite suit you. How about this, I'll give you a separate make-up lesson next time, why don't you go play in Greenhouse One for a bit?" Sprout said. Greenhouse One was the safest and most harmless one, so she could safely let this student who liked playing in the mud go stay there.

Aya was naturally happy not to have to attend class, agreed readily, and under Ron and Harry's envious gazes, walked out the door of the Third Greenhouse.

Aya was very glad she had left; with the Second Greenhouse and two walls in between, Aya could still hear the shrieks from over there, which were simply too piercing.

When class ended and she saw the students drenched in sweat, aching all over, and covered in mud, Aya felt even more glad.

She arrived at the Transfiguration classroom alone first—the other students all wanted to go back and take a shower—and by the time they hurried to the classroom, there wasn't much time left before the class bell rang.

"I feel like after running that errand, I've sweated all over again." Hermione said, panting as she sat down next to Aya, "Still, I had to wash up, there was too much mud. That Mandrake seedling, oh lord, not only was it struggling, but the dirt on its body was flying everywhere, I almost got a handful of mud thrown right in my face!"

"It's fine, throw it back next time," Aya drank some water, "I really hope Professor Sprout can't find suitable earmuffs for me next class. I just like playing in the mud, I don't like being played by the mud."

"That's impossible," Hermione said, "and if you keep skipping lessons, what are you going to do when the final exams arrive!"

"Eh, if that's the case, wouldn't I be able to rule out an exam topic on the very first day of school?" Aya said pleasantly.

"Professor Sprout did say she'll give you a make-up lesson later." Hermione reminded her.

"Fine then."

Before the class bell rang, Professor McGonagall arrived in the classroom. Today's practice involved turning small animals into objects, and the practice subjects were beetles.

Aya waved her wand somewhat boredly, looking around. She watched Seamus off to her right-rear; every time he waved his wand, an explosion went off on his desk. The beetle he had been assigned seemed exceptionally agile, and several consecutive explosions failed to injure the beetle, leaving it scurrying across the desk as lively as ever.

"I really envy him for having such an energetic beetle," Aya turned her head to look beside her, "Oh, yours isn't bad either, Harry."

"Not bad at all!" Harry said, somewhat disheartened, "This thing is too nimble, my spells can't hit it at all!"

"Even if you hit it, it might not transform-" Ron tugged listlessly at the Unicorn Hair protruding from his old wand, "It has to be this wand holding me back, otherwise I definitely would have succeeded."

"Don't blame the tools when you lack the skill." Aya threw out another piece of gamer trash talk.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

"You're trash." Hermione lifted her chin, holding an exquisite button in her hand.

Aya cooperated by clapping, and Ron was successfully riled up.

When the end-of-class bell rang, Aya had also transfigured a button, identical in shape to Hermione's, successfully passing the assignment, though she was not spared from writing an essay.

When the lunchtime bell rang, Aya walked happily in front with Hermione, while Harry and Ron lagged behind, walking unsteadily as if sucked dry of their vital energy by studying.

"What class is this afternoon?" Harry asked listlessly.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione answered immediately, and Aya nodded along. Ron leaned close to Hermione to look at her schedule, "Eh, why did you circle all of Lockhart's classes with little hearts?"

"Because he's a mass idol?" Aya answered.

Hermione nudged Ron with her elbow, pushed him away, glared at him, and put away her schedule. "What's wrong with liking someone talented and profound? Should I go like someone with an empty brain instead?"

"I think I'm quite well-liked," Aya said with both self-awareness and a complete lack of it, "every older female student likes me."

"Of course-" Alicia, who had been listening to their chat, chimed in smoothly, "Even if a cat's brain is empty, it's still a cat!"

"That's right!" Angelina affirmed.

"Look!" Aya put her hands on her hips proudly.

Hermione rolled her eyes speechlessly. "All right, hurry up and eat, don't go claiming later that we're ostracizing you again. Honestly, it's clearly you every time who isolates all of us by yourself and then goes running to make complaints with righteous indignation..."

Hermione was referring to an activity from last semester when they were discussing Nicolas Flamel. Knowing that Aya disliked reading and preferred asking directly for answers, the three of them told her during a meal and left to go to the library to look up information. Clearly, Aya had also spent the whole afternoon playing wildly, but unexpectedly, when they returned, they were met with accusations from Aya.

She claimed they were freezing her out, that she couldn't hear any news while eating, and that they had done it on purpose-Hermione was simply too speechless to retort.

Aya slurped down her pasta in a few bites, packed a few sandwiches and fish fillets to use as afternoon snacks, and then left with the three of them.

Lunch break was not long, and most students had no intention of insisting on going back to the common room to rest-especially since Gryffindor Tower was on the eighth floor, so most Gryffindors chose to pass the time in the courtyard or some corner, while Ravenclaw's choice was even simpler: go to the library.

"I don't think reading outdoors is a good choice." Aya followed the three of them out to the courtyard, watched Hermione sit on a bench with a book, and then looked up at today's overcast skies. "What if we get caught in the rain later? Let's change places."

"But you can breathe fresh air outside." Hermione carefully turned to her bookmark page and lowered her head to continue reading.

"What if it rains later and wets your book?"

"Fine, let's move," Hermione snapped the book shut as if raindrops were already falling from the sky, "let's find somewhere with a roof."

"You change your mind really fast." Ron muttered, not really wanting to move anymore. Harry didn't mind either way; anywhere was fine for passing time, so he pulled Ron along to follow the two girls.

They quickly found a covered spot. Hermione went right back to reading Voyages with Vampires, while Aya pulled out the wizarding toys she had bought and started playing with the two boys.

By the time class time rolled around, Aya felt like she was about to fall asleep.

"All right, let's go, don't be late for Professor Lockhart's first class." Hermione pulled Aya up the stairs, "That's definitely not a good thing."

When Aya and the others arrived at the classroom, quite a few people had already arrived, especially the front rows, which were almost completely occupied. They could only find seats as close to the front as possible. Lockhart was already standing in front of the first-row seats, resting his hands on the desk and chatting with the students.

Once the whole class had arrived, the class bell rang as well. Lockhart loudly cleared his throat, casually picked up a student's copy of Travels with Trolls, held it up to display his own photograph on the cover, pointed at the picture, and blinked. "Me, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary member of the Anti-Dark Magic League, five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award—but I don't go around flaunting those honors, I don't rely on a smile to banish the Bandon Banshee!"

"Hasn't he already gone around flaunting them?" Aya whispered, and was jabbed by Hermione.

"I see you've all bought my complete works-splendid, I thought we could start today with a little quiz? Don't be afraid, just to see how well you've read, how much you've grasped..."

"It was mandatory on the booklist to begin with!" Ron muttered under his breath, "Talking as if we're all his fans!" Hermione jabbed Ron with her other hand.

"You have thirty minutes, now-begin!" Lockhart finished handing out the test papers and returned to the podium.

Aya looked at the test questions: One, what is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color? Two, what is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? Three, what do you consider to be Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?

Aya flipped the test paper over; there were three full pages of them, all asking about Lockhart's personal information, making her dizzy just looking at them.

Pardon her inability, but her best reading record was the History of Magic exam at the end of last semester, for which she had drunk an Awakening Potion beforehand, and now-Aya dropped her head and went straight to sleep.

Having been through a year of tempering, Hermione should have resigned herself to her fate and left Aya alone, but after rapidly finishing "Lockhart's Fifty-Four Questions of True Love", she saw that Aya hadn't written a single word—not even her name—and hurriedly shook her awake. At least write your name!

"I won't, if I write my name, wouldn't I get a zero score!" Aya was completely limp and flatly refused.

"But if you don't write it, when class scores are tallied in the end, you won't have a score and it'll still be zero." Hermione said coldly.

"...Let me see, Hermione, I know absolutely nothing about Lockhart." Aya switched attitudes in a single second and pleaded with Hermione.

Normally, Hermione firmly refused to let others copy her homework, but now, with only four minutes left until papers were due and Aya's blank test paper completely empty, Hermione flipped through her book while whispering the answers to Aya, telling her which book they were in-doing so seemed to ease the pain of betraying her own soul.

Time was up, and Lockhart collected the test papers and immediately began flipping through them.

Unsurprisingly, Hermione's true-love-fan questionnaire was answered entirely correctly, earning ten points for Gryffindor.

"Hermione..." Aya said hesitantly, "getting everything right will only harm you-"

Yet Hermione flushed and directly clapped her hand over Aya's mouth with trembling, excited fingers, physically interrupting her spellcasting.

"Now-be warned, my job is to teach you to defend against the foulest creatures known to the wizarding world! You will face the most terrifying things in this room, but remember, as long as I am here, you will come to no harm, so all I ask is that you remain calm." Lockhart produced a cage draped with a cloth and said with a touch of exaggeration.

The young, naive wizards were momentarily bluffed. Aya gauged the size of that cage, shook her head, and lost all interest, though many craned their necks wanting to see what was inside, while Neville shrank his neck back in fright.

"I must ask you not to scream," Lockhart lowered his voice, continuing to build the atmosphere, "it will provoke them!"

The entire class held their breath, and Lockhart whipped off the cover.

"Right," his voice was as dramatic as a stage play, "newly caught Cornish Pixies!"

"Pfft-" An obvious snort of laughter escaped the crowd. Aya actually wanted to laugh too, but her face was paralyzed.

For Gryffindors, who were the kind of young wizards wanting to march right up and tangle with a Troll, Cornish Pixies were clearly BabyBus-level stuff-eh? What was a BabyBus?

As Aya stroked her chin pondering this question, Lockhart up on the podium had already grown angry at the students' lack of respect and flung the cage open.

These pixies were terribly ugly, with iron-blue skin, standing eight inches tall with sharp little faces and extremely piercing voices. From the moment the cover was lifted they were restless, not the least bit cute like Duoduo and the others-Aya thought to herself through a filter.

Opening the cage made things even more disastrous. The pixies shot out like exploding fireworks, flying chaotically around the classroom.

Aya obediently waited for Lockhart to take action-Neville was grabbed by the ears and lifted into the air, the classroom windows were smashed, ink from inkpots splattered across the students, books and parchment were torn to shreds, and even Lockhart's own autographed smile posters were ripped down-yet Lockhart did nothing at all, merely casting some ineffective dud of a spell before having his wand snatched away by a pixie and thrown out through the broken window.

Just as the end-of-class bell rang, a pixie attempted to grab Aya's ear. Aya slapped it flying, which only provoked it. Screaming, it summoned several more pixies to attack. Aya released Xiaohua, who leaped among the desks; their agility was no match for a cat's, and within a few moves, several pixies were batted away, while Neville was rescued by Xiaohua and hurriedly scrambled under a desk.

Hermione cooperated with Xiaohua, using a Freezing Charm to restrict the movements of the dizzy pixies knocked onto the floor and shove them back into their cage.

As for Lockhart, when the end-of-class bell rang and most of the students had already fled, he decisively opened the door and ran outside, leaving Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Aya locked inside the classroom behind him.

Under the fine-sounding pretext of testing their abilities.