THE LIGHTNING LORD

Chapter 32 : Professor Lockheart

After lunch, a rather irritated Harry Potter proceeded to the Defence classroom. He had just left the Great Hall in a irritant mood. A first year named Colin Creevey had asked for signed photographs and Draco Malfoy had done his best to rile Harry up. It didn't work of course, as Harry had let Colin take his picture but had not signed anything. Draco Malfoy though had an embarrassing moment when he farted loudly in the middle of the Great Hall. He had just begun accusing Harry of doing it when he had farted again. All the students had started laughing at the boy who left with a murderous expression on his face. It had only been the first day and Harry had already managed to annoy two people. Lockhart had better not try anything underhanded, for Harry wasn't in a good mood.

He entered the almost full Defence classroom and without a care in the world, sat next to Daphne.

"What's wrong?" whispered Daphne as she took his hand in hers, rubbing circles on it with her thumb to calm him down.

"Well, turns out that we have Transfiguration and Potions with the Gryffindors this year. McGonagall made me do the spells non-verbally and gave me points for it. Granger tried but didn't succeed and has been giving me filthy looks ever since. As you know, Malfoy annoyed me during lunch as well. And I'm pretty sure Dumbledore will call me to his office later today. To top of off, the peacock known as Lockhart is going to annoy the hell out of me. What else could go wrong?" he exclaimed.

Daphne giggled softly. "Who cares what Granger or Malfoy think? Since when have you paid attention to what people think of you anyway? You can handle Dumbledore, I have confidence in you. As for Lockhart, well, here he comes."

Sure enough, Lockhart gave a dramatic entrance and pointed to the various portraits of him and said "Me. Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class; Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League; five-time winner of Witch Weekly's most charming smile Award. Ah, I see you've bought my complete set of books. Well done. Let's start with a quiz. You have thirty minutes. Start-NOW!"

Harry looked at the questions with eyebrows raised. He smirked slightly and started writing.

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?

Gold, the colour of the galleons he gets by making poor children spend an exorbitant amount of money by forcing them to buy his books for school.

2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?

To make lots of money by fooling not only the British Wizarding public but people all over the world as well by selling his worthless books.

3. What, in your opinion, is Gildoroy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?

He successfully fooled the public to believe that he actually achieved all those feats he has written in his books; making them believe fiction to be fact is a good answer too.

54. What would Gilderoy Lockhart's ideal birthday gift be?

A Niffler. That way he wouldn't have to make people spend tons of gold to buy his books; he can just dig them from the ground or find them in a toilet where he and his books belong. Although a mirror for him to admire his reflection would be a good choice as well.

Harry smirked and cast the Geminio charm on his answer sheet and duplicated it into several copies and passed them around the class with a few flicks of his wand. A few minutes later, snickers could be heard throughout the classroom. Terry Boot actually fell off his seat after laughing so hard. Lockhart seemed to not notice as he was looking at a mirror at the other end of class.

After a few minutes, Lockhart collected them and rifled through them in front of the class. "Tut, tut - hardly any of you is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to -" he stopped midway, his face turning red.

"Detention Mr Potter. You will spend one evening with me every two weeks till the winter holidays. And ten points from Ravenclaw" he snapped.

Harry maintained a cool expression. He really didn't care if the peacock gave him a detention. The man was an idiot, an inconvenience, nothing more. He wasn't even worth plotting to kill. He had to find some other way to get rid of Lockhart.

The man lifted a cloth covered cage and placed it on his desk. "Now-be warned. I'm here to train you against the foulest, most deadly creatures known to wizardkind! I must ask you not to scream. Stay calm, as you are about to witness freshly caught Cornish pixies!" he stated dramatically.

Harry couldn't help it. He burst out laughing, and many others followed suit. Lockhart looked annoyed and asked, "What's funny?"

Draco Malfoy looked at him and said "Well, it's funny because they're pixies! They're not all that dangerous."

"I have to agree with Cousin Dragon over there. The way you were going about it, I thought you were going to introduce us to a Nundu!" said Harry.

"Really? Let's see what you can make of them then!" said Lockhart as he let the whole swarm out of their cage.

It was a pandemonium. The pixies shot in every direction like rockets, destroying the classroom. Harry sat calmly and went back to his book. When a pixie would annoy him, he would just stun the pest and not do more. Lockhart rolled up his sleeves and said "Peskipiksi Pesternomi". Harry snorted as it didn't even sound like a spell. Sure enough, nothing happened and a pixie took his wand and threw it out of the window.

"Harry, do something!" exclaimed Daphne.

Harry sighed and shouted, "Everyone drop to the ground NOW". He then slashed his wand in the air and a jet of red light flew across the room in all directions and the pixies dropped to the floor unconscious. He had just cast a wide area stunner. It wasn't used frequently because you needed more power to cast it than the conventional stunner and it wasn't very effective during a fight as a simple shield charm could counter it. He then moved his wand in a gentle, sweeping gesture and the pixies on the floor floated back to their cage. He pointed his wand at the cage and it locked itself with a Colloportus charm.

"And here's a lesson for the day" said Harry. "Pixies are not dangerous, but a whole bunch of them can be bothersome. The best way to deal with them is to stun them. The incantation for the Stunning spell is Stupefy and the wand movement is just a point cast. Practice it on your own time. Class dismissed" he said and walked right out of the classroom leaving a spluttering Lockhart behind.

"You know Professor" said Theodore Nott. "I am not and probably never will be Potter's friend. But you've got to admit, he's got style."