After taking Lockhart's wand, Adrian walked to Lockhart's front, placed the wand in his hand, and said calmly, "Professor Lockhart, that spell you attempted was quite obviously not healing magic of any description. Perhaps it would be best to leave Harry's dical treatnt to Madam Pomfrey—after all, she is the qualified professional in matters of magical healing."
Upon hearing Adrian's tactfully phrased but thoroughly damning statent, Lockhart's mouth fell open slightly, his perfect smile finally cracking around the edges.
For a mont, he seed ready to launch into one of his trademark longwinded justifications.
But then his gaze t Adrian's sharp stare. Under that penetrating scrutiny, Lockhart's prepared words died in his throat. His mouth snapped shut with an almost audible click, and he accepted his wand back with fingers that trembled.
Having one's wand taken away was an extrely humiliating thing for a wizard.
His face was ashen looking furious.
However, he was helpless.
Instead, Lockhart could only straighten his spine with visible effort, forcing his shoulders back and lifting his chin with a smile in his face in a desperate attempt to salvage what remained of his dignity.
"Ah, well!" He announced to the assembled crowd, his voice pitched just a bit too loud and carrying just a touch too much forced cheerfulness. "It seems our esteed Professor Westeros has developed a small misunderstanding about my intentions—though of course, I don't mind such confusion at all! After all, who among us could possibly be more familiar with these delicate healing magics than I am?"
He paused for what he clearly hoped would be appreciative laughter, but received only uncomfortable silence in return.
"The good professor is simply being overly cautious," Lockhart continued, his smile growing more strained with each word, "which is quite admirable, really, though entirely unnecessary given my experience in such matters."
However, except for a small cluster of Lockhart's most devoted admirers mostly consisting of younger students who still believed in the carefully crafted image presented in his autobiography—anyone with functioning eyesight and half a brain could see that his explanation was nothing more than transparent self-justification.
The evidence of his incompetence was literally smoking in a crater behind them, and no amount of flowery rhetoric could erase what everyone had just witnessed.
Even so of the students standing nearby had begun shaking their heads in barely concealed disbelief, their expressions ranging from secondhand embarrassnt to outright incredulity.
A few were already whispering to their neighbors, and Adrian could practically see the story spreading out through the crowd.
Lockhart naturally caught these reactions, and his artificially bright smile began to develop cracks around the edges. The muscles in his face were starting to ache from the effort of maintaining his facade.
Finally, unable to bear the weight of so many skeptical stares, he turned his attention to Adrian, his face tuned dark, and he secretly clenched his fists.
Adrian, however, was entirely focused on more pressing concerns and remained oblivious to Lockhart's small movents and seething resentnt. His attention had already shifted to Harry, who was still sprawled on the muddy pitch with his arm bent at unnatural angles.
The boy's wellbeing was far more important than the hurt pride of an incompetent professor.
Upon closer inspection, Harry's injuries seed to be relatively minor by Quidditch standards—painful certainly, and requiring dical attention, but hardly life-threatening. After all, this was Quidditch, a sport where serious injury was not just possible but practically inevitable.
Breaking an arm, shattering a leg, suffering concussion—these were all considered perfectly normal occupational hazards for anyone brave or foolish enough to mount a broomstick in pursuit of athletic glory.
Madam Pomfrey's hospital wing did more business during Quidditch season than during the rest of the school year combined.
As long as a player didn't die on the pitch and even that wasn't necessarily permanent, given so of the more 'exotic' magics available (courtesy to Voldemort), the wizarding world possessed literally thousands of thods for dealing with broken bones, torn muscles, and various traumatic injuries.
Skele-Gro, Pepper-Up Potion, various bone-nding charms, and other magical redies ant that what would cripple a Muggle for months could be resolved in a matter of hours.
When the crowd finally began to disperse, Adrian walked back toward the castle in the company of Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick. The three made their way along the path that led from the Quidditch pitch to the main entrance.
About halfway to the castle, Professor Flitwick suddenly let out a soft chuckle that seed to bubble up from sowhere deep in his chest.
"That was absolutely magnificent spellwork, Adrian!" He exclaid, his voice bright with genuine admiration and professional appreciation. "A truly beautiful Disarming Charm—your control of force and precision has improved dramatically since our last session together."
Adrian accepted the complint with a modest smile. "Thank you, Professor. I have indeed been practicing diligently."
In fact, since gaining the "Energy Amplification" trait, Adrian had devoted countless hours to spell practice.
Especially in terms of spell control.
He dared say that compared to that ti, his improvent was absolutely trendous.
Professor McGonagall, who had been listening to Flitwick's praise with the satisfied expression of soone watching a forr student excel, nodded her approval before adding her own views.
"Professor Westeros, what you did today was not only completely appropriate but absolutely necessary. Lockhart was making a complete ss of the situation."
She paused in her walking, turning to face Adrian directly with an expression that mixed professional approval with personal frustration.
"I sincerely hope this incident might finally teach him so asure of humility and caution," She continued, though her tone said she held little hope for such a miracle. "Though I fear Professor Lockhart has never been particularly receptive to learning from his mistakes."
Adrian's expression grew thoughtful as he considered McGonagall's assessnt. Based on his understanding of Lockhart's character—he strongly suspected that humility and self-reflection were unknown concepts to him.
Rather than learning from this public humiliation, Lockhart would most likely stay in his office to plot so sche to restore his tattered reputation.
anwhile, in Hogwarts castle, Lockhart had indeed gone to his office. The mont he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him, his carefully maintained public facade crumbled.
The sound of the door slamming shut echoed through the office like a gunshot, causing several of his magical portraits to jump in their fras.
"Damn that arrogant bastard!" Lockhart snarled, his voice thick with venom and completely lacking of his usual dramatic polish.
He had initially considered Adrian Westeros to be a kindred spirit—another wizard who appreciated the finer things in life, including quality hair care products. Lockhart had been genuinely pleased when Adrian had complinted his shampoo, interpreting it as recognition from a fellow man of refined taste and sophisticated sensibilities.
He had never expected that sa person to publicly humiliate him.
Of course, the genuinely angry Lockhart had no understanding of the fact that Adrian had actually shown him considerable restraint and rcy.
A less tactful wizard might have simply stunned him into unconsciousness the mont his first "healing" spell went awry, or perhaps delivered a public lecture on the differences between dical magic and combat hexes that would have left his reputation in even more tatters.
Adrian's protective instincts had been aroused by Lockhart's reckless endangernt of Harry, and his response had been asured and proportional without causing unnecessary additional humiliation.
A more vindictive person might have done far worse.
But Lockhart, lost in his own narcissistic fury, could see only the public sha and the damage to his image.
On the Quidditch pitch, surrounded by witnesses and constrained by the need to maintain so façade of dignity, Lockhart had been forced to swallow his rage and pretend at gracious acceptance of correction. But here, in his own office, he could finally let the mask slip and vent.
Rage almost enveloped his entire body. He slumped breathlessly in his beautifully decorated chair, his angry emotions nearly causing him to lose control.
The office around him bore silent witness to his breakdown.
The countless self-portraits of Lockhart on the walls, who normally always looked confident and smug, now realized that sothing was wrong with the real Lockhart.
Each portrait looked bewildered and at a loss.
Unable to contain his rage any longer, Lockhart's hand shot out and grabbed a porcelain teacup from the collection arranged on his side table and hurled it across the room with all the force he could muster.
The teacup shattered against the far wall in an explosion of ceramic fragnts and dust. Several shards struck one of the larger portraits with enough force to make the fra sway on its hooks as it nearly fell from the impact.
The painted Lockhart in that particular fra—who had been leaning forward to get a better view of the drama—suddenly found himself dodging flying porcelain.
The shock was too much for his painted constitution; his eyes rolled back dramatically, and he toppled backward in a dramatic faint.
The destruction of the teacup seed to provide so small asure of cleansing release.
Lockhart's breathing gradually slowed from the rapid panting of barely controlled rage to sothing approaching normal respiration. His face began to return to its usual complexion, though his eyes still held specks of fury.
As his initial explosion of temper began to subside, Lockhart's mind started to grope around.
No matter what, he absolutely had to find so way to regain face in front of the students.
He had already lost far too much credibility through various embarrassing incidents throughout the school year. He had to find so way to completely overturn the students' impression of him! Only then could he restore his reputation among the student body.
If word of his performance at Hogwarts were to spread as it inevitably would, it would undoubtedly have catastrophic effects on his public image.
He couldn't possibly cast mory Charms on every student, teacher, and staff mber at Hogwarts. Even if his mory magic was superb, he couldn't manage that.
Thinking of this, Lockhart pulled open a nearby drawer, took out a seemingly ordinary piece of white paper, picked up the quill from the table, and began writing and drawing on it.
As he wrote, he muttered, "Dueling Club... Professor Westeros... just wait..."
The following days were peaceful.
The castle settled back into its normal rhythms of classes, als, and howork, though the gossip mills continued to roil with retellings of the Quidditch incident that grew more embellished with each repetition.
Whenever Adrian encountered Lockhart in the corridors during this period, he would maintain a poker-straight expression. He would sweep past him without acknowledgnt.
Adrian found this behavior perfectly understandable, if sowhat amusing. After all, he had publicly demonstrated Lockhart's incompetence in front of hundreds of witnesses.
Honestly, Adrian didn't mind Lockhart's cold shoulder treatnt in the slightest. The less interaction he had with the fraud, the more ti and energy he could devote to more pressing concerns—such as identifying and locating who released that basilisk.
However, although Adrian wandered the castle every night, he hadn't found even half a snake skin.
One particularly crisp weekend morning, when the Scottish highlands had blanketed in the first real frost of the approaching winter, Adrian accepted an invitation from Professor Flitwick to visit the Three Broomsticks in Hogsade village.
The weather outside had undergone one of those sudden seasonal transformations that were common in the Scottish highlands—autumn's last warmth vanishing overnight to be replaced by winter's sharp embrace.
Frost painted patterns on the castle windows, and students hurried between buildings wrapped in increasingly heavy cloaks and scarves.
But inside the Three Broomsticks, the atmosphere remained as warm and welcoming as ever.
Because this particular weekend coincided with one of the regularly scheduled Hogsade visiting days, the shop was considerably more crowded than usual.
Adrian and Professor Flitwick had managed to have a small table tucked into a corner near the entrance.
As they settled into their chairs with steaming mugs of butterbeer, Professor Flitwick raised a topic that imdiately captured Adrian's full attention.
"Lockhart has been quite busy lately," Flitwick observed with the casual tone of soone sharing interesting but not particularly urgent gossip. "Organizing sothing that I think you might find... interesting."
Adrian raised one eyebrow in a silent invitation for explanation, though he suspected he already knew where this conversation was heading.
"A dueling club," Flitwick continued, his expression mixing amusent with interest.
"He really cannot resist making himself the center of attention, can he?" Adrian replied with a slight shake of his head, though he felt no real surprise at this developnt.
In fact, he had been expecting sothing along these lines ever since their confrontation on the Quidditch pitch.
In the original story tiline—Lockhart had indeed organized a dueling club as part of his ongoing campaign to maintain his fraudulent reputation.
"I quite agree," Professor Flitwick nodded approvingly. "Just yesterday evening, he formally submitted his proposal to Professor Dumbledore."
Flitwick paused to take another sip of butterbeer before continuing.
"After the Headmaster gave his approval and you know Professor Dumbledore, he rarely refuses requests that might provide educational opportunities for students, Lockhart approached . He was hoping I would agree to serve as the supervising professor for his dueling club."
"That makes perfect sense," Adrian replied thoughtfully. "Besides yourself, I honestly cannot think of anyone else at Hogwarts who would be truly qualified for such a position."
This was not just flattery on Adrian's part.
Professor Flitwick's reputation as a forr dueling champion was well-deserved, earned through years of competition against the finest magical duelist in Britain and outside.
"But I refused his request," Flitwick said simply.
This genuinely surprised Adrian, causing him to raise both eyebrows in an expression of frank astonishnt. Given Flitwick's obvious passion for the subject and his natural desire to see students properly educated in essential magical skills, a refusal seed completely out of character.
After all, when it ca to matters of magical dueling and combat spellwork, probably no one in the entire castle—possibly no one in all of Britain—possessed more genuine expertise than the tiny Charms professor.
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