Chapter 108: Lockhart's efforts (Edited)

"Ebony, fifteen inch, Occamy feather." Tom pulled out his earlier inaugural work and handed it to Ron.

"This is the first wand I've ever made, it's not as good as the professional wand makers, but at least it's stable."

Ron took the plain looking wand and was ecstatic, he picked it up, waved it twice, tried a few simple spells and found that the spell casting, although a bit slow, was better than a broken wand.

"Thanks, Tom, I really don't know how I would have made it through the rest of the semester without you...," Ron said as he stowed his new wand in his robes.

"A wandmaker's job is to find a master for his wand." Tom gave him a small smile in return, it was only a small effort, and to be honest, his wand was very poorly made.

An apprentice's first job, it was good enough if you could use it.

After helping Ron with his wand, Tom and Hermione returned to the Ravenclaw Common Room.

"Thanks for the bookmark, I really like it." said Hermione to Tom in the doorway of the Common Room, she looked like she wanted to say something else, but in the end nothing came out, except that her cheeks flushed again.

She thought for a moment, as if she had suddenly remembered something, and pulled a silk handkerchief from her pocket and gently wiped Tom's cheek.

"If you're in trouble, you can come to me, I should be able to help you."

He slipped the handkerchief into Tom's hand and ran off at a trot.

Tom felt the lingering fragrance on his face and smiled shyly.

He looked at the handkerchief, the handkerchief was white silk with a red tulip embroidered on it, there was a very delicate fragrance on the handkerchief, Tom couldn't help but lean over and smell it.

...

"Well?" Hermione was surrounded by her roommates as soon as she returned to the dormitory, and the questioning that awaited her was as intense as a trial.

"So Little Sun didn't confess to you?", Sue Li looked disappointed.

"What confession?! I don't understand anything you're saying!" exclaimed Hermione angrily.

"Looks like the little minx is still hiding something..." Mandy Brocklehurst sensed something unusual, so she pounced on Hermione and tickled the itchy flesh under her armpit, "Come on, you're telling me? "

"What... haha, wait... wait a minute..."

Soon, the roommates discovered what had happened.

"Wow!"

('?ω?') (='ω'=) (??ω??) ?(ω)? (????)

"That's a good start!"

"Come on, try the bookmark he gave you!" Lisa Turpin brought a book and told Hermione to try it.

Hermione placed the bookmark and scanned the book.

Then it was... they looked at it with wide eyes.

"So how do you see if it's finished?" Someone asked that soul question.

Silence fell over the room and Hermione was speechless: it was true that Tom hadn't said what the scanner looked like when it was finished.

But, fortunately, the book was so fine that within a minute the bookmark finished scanning it.

"I think it's finished scanning!" Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, and somehow she didn't want the bookmark to reveal her flaws to her friends, and she regretted it a little: why did she tell her friends? It was supposed to be a secret between her and Tom!

Suddenly, she didn't want her roommates to touch the bookmark, which had a special meaning for her.

Hermione wrote a word on a piece of parchment, then took the bookmark to scan the word, and the bookmark automatically started looking up the word for her, and the little witches around were stunned.

But while they were still trying to play, Hermione put the bookmark away: she was going to start scanning the textbook.

Hermione wanted to be selfish with her bookmark.

Of course, she also cleverly found a topic to talk about: professor Lockhart.

Speaking of Lockhart, they soon forgot Tom.

The girls chatted about Lockhart's experiences, Lockhart's new book, and Lockhart's amazing car ride, an act that most thought was great, such a fantastic ride was what they were looking for.

Even Hermione fantasizes about riding in the car with Tom, but she only thought about it, as it goes against the secret statute.

But it's very romantic! A car ride down a river of stars.

The girls chatted for a while and noticed that everyone seemed to be a fan of Professor Lockhart. Then, they smiled to each other: So you're a Rohat fan too!

They all pulled Lockhart posters out of their suitcases and put them on the dorm walls. Hermione didn't have a poster, but was holding a copy of Lockhart's complete works: the Flourish and Blotts Bookshop edition, which also aroused the envy of the young witches.

Where was Professor Lockhart at the time? In a dark room.

When he awoke, he found himself in his trunk, his mouth gagged and his hands and feet bound.

He struggled to remember what had happened before he passed out, the last thing he remembered was Tom sending him flowers, and he couldn't remember much else.

Suddenly, the suitcase opened, light shone inside, dazzling Lockhart, and a figure jumped in, took the contents out of his mouth, untied his hands and feet, and threw a bucket of water and a packet of sandwiches beside him.

"Behave yourself, if you make a noise, you won't be able to move freely."

Lockhart recognized the voice, and it was Tom.

"Tom, is there some kind of misunderstanding between us? I know my new book is too long overdue, but locking me in a dark room isn't going to help, I'm not inspired..."

Tom looked at him emotionlessly as he spoke, then pulled a pair of handcuffs and anklets out of his pocket, and brought a large iron ball to keep Lockhart securely locked up before he made any serious moves in the box; all kindly sponsored by Filch, who, upon learning that the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was interested in the "tools" in his office.

He carefully explained to Tom how to use the various instruments of torture, and was proud to say that they were as good as new under his care. With a small show of interest, he presented Tom with a set.

"Really, Professor, please believe me, if you are willing to let me hang a punished pupil, no one will distract your class!" Filch gave Tom his word of honor.

Tom put the shackles on Lockhart with a playful grin.

"Professor Lockhart, please explain this secret room in your suitcase."

Lockhart's chattering ceased.

He said in a panic, "I don't know why there's so much room in my suitcase..."

Tom just looked at him like that, with an expression on his face that seemed to say, Do you think I'm stupid?

Lockhart gradually felt guilty.

"Professor Lockhart, all those experiences you've had, they're from other people, aren't they? You took the experiences from the mouths of those lonely old wizards and packaged them as your own..." Tom said.

"I did not!" shouted Lockhart.

"And as for the wizards you got the stories from, you killed them all, didn't you? Just like I did to you, imprisoned them here, then tortured them and finally killed them..."

"I've never done this before!" Lockhart panicked as he heard Tom's reasoning become more and more outrageous, and he couldn't help but panic: Tom said he would do the same to him, but he didn't actually kill those wizards, at most he had only tortured them before erasing their memories.

Lockhart didn't start writing as soon as he graduated, he started his own business. He invented a shampoo made from Occamy egg yolk, which actually "blocked the shine," but because of this, the raw materials for this product were too dangerous. and expensive, and it was never produced for the mass market.

He later became a writer by chance.

When Lockhart started writing, he did so with the intention of publishing the adventures of other wizards, but one day, he discovered that his interviewees did not distrust him!

So he got the evil idea to take the story for himself.

He stole the magician, took his story and succeeded. After tasting the sweetness of fame, he began his own path of plagiarism. He tracked down and found magicians, asked about their experiences, a process that sometimes required force, and erased their memories. He became an expert in this process.

But as his skills matured, he no longer needed to use spells other than Obliviate Charm, and Lockhart's abilities to cast Charms became increasingly scarce, until finally he had nothing left but Obliviate Charm.

"My dear Tom, calm down: listen to me well, I admit that those adventures were not all mine," Lockhart said, really frightened, fearing that the boy in front of him would torture and silence him: he knew it was impossible for him to endure torture, so he explained his experience quickly.

"Think about it, boy, think about the experiences of those old wizards, how could they sell it? For example, the old wizard who saved a whole village from the danger of werewolves, he is very ugly and has very bad taste in clothes, so if it was used as a cover, no one would want to read such a book..."

Seeing Tom's angry look, Lockhart quickly explained, "I have also worked hard, it is not easy to find wizards with stories, you have to ask very carefully, you can not leave out any details, and then you have to cast a dememorizing spell. It takes great skill to engage in such extensive memory modification, and one can become a fool if one is not careful..."

"So you've had problems with the dememorizing charm? Did it turn some people into idiots?" Tom interrupted Lockhart's argument, but Lockhart ignored him.

"Boy, do you understand? I had to do a lot of preparation too, it looks easy, but it's a lot of work, it's physical work, but you have to work hard to be famous, I envy Harry Potter, only a few dead parents and he's world famous..."

Tom was stunned at these words, and his last sympathy for Lockhart vanished.

He looked at Lockhart as if looking at an animal and then opened the suitcase.