Chapter 97

When Felix returned to the castle, he had a satisfied smile on his face.

With multiple professors on board, his dueling lessons were growing stronger and stronger. Perhaps, in the follow-up, he can pull the other professor in for fun?

Especially that afternoon, when he received a short letter from the owl, ‘White Fresh’ –

“Dear Felix Hap, my award ceremony is scheduled on February 4, at 10 a.m. (Saturday), the venue is located on the second floor of the Ministry of Magic, Room 3 (to the left of the Wizengamot Affairs Office), you are kindly invited to observe the ceremony – Damocles Belby”

Felix wrote a reply letter, mentally gauging the time, there is still about half a month.

In the evening, after Felix finished tutoring Hermione Granger’s runes lesson, he handed the little witch a glass of pumpkin juice.

Generally speaking, after the magic runes’ lesson, his little assistant will spend some time in his office, on the one hand, to relieve the exhaustion in the thinking room, on the other hand, also to talk about some interesting topics, or answer some questions.

Today, they talked about Gilderoy Lockhart.

Hermione held a cusked, “Professor, what do you think of Lockhart?”

“How do I think about him?”

“Just what do you think of him as a person, in terms of lecturer, author, whatever …”

Felix glanced at Hermione, his assistant had been on duty for a little over half a year, he knew some of her speaking habits very well. Right now is one way, she is ready to extract Intel.

“Professor Lockhart is a very talkative person, very expressive, quite different from me in that respect, despite the fact that we are both writers.”

Hermione pressed, “And what do you think of his books? You must have read his books, right?”

“I did read it,” Felix said: “Not much use to me, but for students, those who deal with danger, the method of detecting danger is still has a lot of reference value.”

“In fact, I rather appreciate his approach of incorporating knowledge into a story, maybe I’ll imitate it later.” Felix looked at Hermione with interest, her eyebrows furrowed.

“But–” she stammered, “don’t you think he writes a completely different version of him than he ever showed in class, there’s a strong sense of separation from the book?”

“Perhaps,” Felix judged non-committally, “it’s obvious that there are elements of fiction and ambiguity in his book, but we can only accuse him of being immoral, but at least he did a lot of research when he wrote it.”

“But what if,” Hermione said nervously, a thin bead of sweat dripping out of her face, “what if he stole his story from someone else’s mind?”

There is silence in the office for a few seconds-

“That’s a very serious accusation, Miss Granger, and if your claim is valid, then the person who committed that act is going to be put in Azkaban,” Felix said seriously.

“Granger, I need proof.”

Hermione shuddered and pulled out a crumpled wad of parchment from her robes.

“This is … this is what we found from Professor Lockhart’s office.” She said, with some difficulty, it was Ron who had done this, but she and Harry had decided unanimously that they couldn’t put the blame on Ron alone.

Felix gave her a somewhat surprised look, he understood somewhat why his assistant is assigned to Gryffindor, this is one angsty, feisty witch.

Whenever you don’t understand, you break into the professor’s office.

When you think about it, it was truly a foresight to place the Vine of Binding at the door every time he left his office.

He looked over the information, and the name on it made him pay extra attention, “Record of the Armenia Interview with the Old Wizard (Remarks: Werewolf Adventures).”

“How come it’s in two handwritings?” He flipped through it roughly at first and quickly noticed the problem.

A total of two dozen or so parchments, most of which were in Hermione’s own neat handwriting, and only three parchments were in a different kind of handwriting.

“We, I …” Hermione swallowed hard, it would be a difficult thing for her to say in person how she had broken the school rules.

“Take your time, I’m listening,” Felix said.

“The thing is, Ron had been in detention in Lockhart’s office, his punishment is copying fan letters, and he found a hidden file, realized something is wrong, and smuggled back three parchments. From the content of these three parchments, we determined that Lockhart’s book might not be his own personal experience, but a stolen story of someone else.”

“We decided that we should secretly collect evidence and investigate the truth.”

Felix listened calmly.

“-In the following week, Ron took the opportunity from detention and kept pulling parts of parchments from the material.”

Felix is amazed at the boldness of these guys, “So he wasn’t found out by Lockhart?” Professor Lockhart would not be a fool, right?

“Lockhart he is not in good shape recently, his memory is very poor, and his speech is upside down. Moreover, after we obtained a few sheets of material during the day, we would quickly copy them down and return the original manuscript the next day …”

“This three original parchment, which we think are more important evidence of Lockhart’s theft of the story!”

Felix didn’t know whether to applaud their careful layout or to criticize it. His own words to make them study at ease were not taken into account at all.

He drew out three sheets of the original manuscript and immediately recognized what’s on it as words recorded with a professional shorthand quill.

These shorthand quills are very characteristic, they usually record the text according to the owner’s thoughts, and will also distort, modify the dialogue, and add descriptions of gestures and actions.

Felix had seen how good this stuff could be in Rita Skeeter’s house.

He looked at it carefully –

Crooked Mouth Wizard: My head hurts a little, as if a spoon is constantly digging into my brain, what’s wrong with me?

(Draconian) Adventurer: It’s normal, here, have some juice, it’s good for you.

The crooked-mouthed wizard painfully drank the juice laced with an unknown magic potion.

(Draconian) Adventurer: Let’s continue the story about the werewolf, you’ve talked a lot about it in the bar in the past two days, have you forgotten? I bought you quite a few drinks. But I want to know more details … By the way, can I look at your memory later? After all, a clever woman can’t cook without rice, readers need immersive stories.

Crooked Mouth Wizard: I don’t know, something is wrong, something is wrong …

(Draconian) adventurer: How? Please look at me, I can help you.

The adventurer raised his wand.

Felix finished reading the three parchments with a solemn face, things were more serious than he thought.

He sorted out the general logic: Lockhart found the target in the tavern, he spent a few days to set up a conversation, or rather, to become friends with the unlucky guy, and then, either by sneaking or drugging, in short, he took control of the target.

After that, Lockhart used memory spells or something like a Veritaserum to get the whole story.

“What do you expect me to do?” Felix asked calmly.

“Naturally, expose him for whom he really is,” Hermione said without thinking.

“What’s on a shorthand quill doesn’t usually count as evidence, but,” Felix smiled, “once we know what he’s doing, things will work out just fine.”

“I will convey to Headmaster Dumbledore, with his ability, it will be handled properly. If it is not feasible, I can also take some less appropriate measures.”

Hermione wanted to say something.

“Is there anything else?” Felix asked.

“Professor, it’s Ron’s trouble, and we need your help.”