Yes. That was the truth of it.
And Gilderoy Lockhart was determined to make sure the world knew it.
Such a sophisticated method of gaining fame left him in awe, but it also filled him with resentment. Why should he be the scapegoat, imprisoned here in place of Grindelwald?
"I want to get out!"
"It's just a simple unlocking charm. Now that I have a wand, even if this wand looks down on me, I should still be able to force it to open this simple door."
"Calm down, I must stay calm. I am a wizard…" Gellert Lockhart extinguished the fire in the cell, forcing himself to undergo a mental pep talk before confidently walking toward the door.
"A mere unlocking charm!"
He even adjusted his expression and demeanor, re-embodying the face he wore, as if he believed this would increase his chances of success.
It was hard to imagine that a once-excellent Ravenclaw graduate could feel so anxious and serious over attempting to cast a very simple 'unlocking charm'.
"Alohomora!"
Gellert Lockhart shouted, adhering to the principle that the louder the voice, the stronger the magic, as he released the spell. The wand in his hand immediately emitted a glow infused with magic.
"Click, click~"
The lock on the cell door shook a few times.
It seemed to be opening but remained shut.
Gellert Lockhart tugged at the cell door, but the imagined scenario of his immediate escape did not occur. This utterly ordinary lock seemed to mock him silently.
"Damn it!"
Unwilling to accept defeat, Gellert Lockhart gritted his teeth and tried again.
"Alohomora!"
The lock continued to resist.
"Alohomora!"
The resistance seemed to lessen.
"Alohomora!"
"Alohomora!"
"Alohomora!"
...
For a moment, the air was filled with his desperate incantations.
Inside the cell, the increasingly unwilling and angry incantations of Gellert Lockhart echoed— perhaps just as Ian had guessed, he had completely lost the diversity of magic as a wizard. Time and again, his attempts and failures were something even a new student just starting school could learn to cast this simple spell.
However.
Gellert Lockhart had only ever reaped failure.
"Open for me!"
Gradually losing his composure, Gellert Lockhart let out a roar, the magic power within him surging violently. The wand, which was already reluctant to be used by him, began to heat up.
"Alohomora!"
Unaware, Gellert Lockhart continued to cast the unlocking charm.
This time.
The wand did not remain in a state of forced use; instead, it chose a special response.
"Boom!"
It exploded.
The uncontrolled magic burst forth directly toward Gellert Lockhart's face.
"Aaaahhhhhhh!!!"
He let out an exceptionally painful scream.
Like the explosion of a misfired spell, Gellert Lockhart was struck by the out-of-control magic. Fortunately, he was only using an unlocking charm, so he did not suffer the fate of being blown to bits. Of course, even so, the charms that caused his right eye to bleed profusely made him feel excruciating pain.
"My face! My face!"
What is a professional quality? This is what it means to have a professional quality. Gellert Lockhart didn't care about his vision; he was only concerned about whether his face would be disfigured by this out-of-control charm.
He stumbled toward the mirror, even though he was dizzy and sweating profusely from the pain. He still forced himself to check his face with his other eye.
Fortunately, the charm had only struck his right eye.
"It's all that damned anti-Dumbledore alliance's fault!" Gellert Lockhart clearly still didn't understand who had come for him. His intelligence in this regard had not improved even after being subjected to magical transformations.
"You are Grindelwald now; shouldn't you be anti-Dumbledore?" Suddenly, Gellert Lockhart heard a light laugh and teasing from behind him.
It was not an illusion.
This made Gellert Lockhart's skin crawl.
"Obliviate!"
In what he perceived as a critical moment, Gellert Lockhart turned around and cast his most proud and only magic that could ensure a 100% success rate.
The surging and swift Memory Charm was a stark contrast to the previous unlocking charm; it was faster and more powerful than a normal Memory Charm, clearly showing that he had his own understanding and improvement methods.
Many unsuspecting powerful wizards would undoubtedly suffer because of this, but the source of the voice was not a person; only an ancient mirror floated there in mid-air.
It seemed to have anticipated the landing point of the Memory Charm, catching it directly with its mirror surface. Then, Gellert Lockhart's exceptional Memory Charm was immediately rebounded back.
The speed of the return was swift.
The rebound speed was naturally the same.
Gellert Lockhart had no time to dodge and was directly hit in the face by his own Memory Charm— he fell to the ground as if he had short-circuited.
The suddenly appearing strange floating mirror slowly disappeared.
After a long while.
Gellert Lockhart, who got up from the ground, held his head.
"Who am I?"
Gellert Lockhart struggled to support himself on the dressing table, his mind blank. He looked at the mirror in front of him with a dazed expression, and the eye that had been injured was still slowly bleeding.
"Am I a handsome old man?"
"What's wrong with my eye..."
Having lost his memory did not change his narcissistic tendencies. Gellert Lockhart raised his hand to touch his right eye, which was bleeding and had the texture of cataracts due to the out-of-control charm.
He squinted in confusion.
"Click~"
At that moment, the lock on the dressing table drawer suddenly popped open, startling Gellert Lockhart. He stumbled back several steps and even fell to the ground.
"You scared me to death!"
After patting his chest to calm himself down for a while, Gellert Lockhart finally stood up from the ground. He cautiously approached the dressing table drawer to take a look inside.
A thick diary lay quietly in the drawer.
"Gellert Grindelwald..."
Lockhart read the signature on the diary.
"This is my diary?" In a state of not being able to remember anything, Lockhart, already anxious and uneasy, felt as if he had grasped a straw of hope.
...
In the quiet and deserted village of Hogsmeade, under the big tree.
A middle-aged wizard wearing a comical top hat glanced up at the distant castle. An ancient mirror suddenly appeared out of thin air and was expressionlessly tucked into his robes.
Then, this wandering chess player looked at the chessboard in front of him. Unlike the one he had set up during the day, this chessboard was filled with various character pieces.
The pieces were uniquely shaped and did not belong to any chess type among wizards; instead, they resembled one after another living sculptures, including Dumbledore, Snape, and Grindelwald.
"The careless Prophet, this is the right direction..." The middle-aged wizard muttered to himself as he stared at the pieces, raising his hand to gently tap one of the black pieces on the board.
"At least it is for me."
In the tranquil night, the homeless wanderer whispered softly, his voice weary. Moonlight poured down through the branches, illuminating the pure silver ring he wore on his hand.
The ancient ring shimmered with a faint glow.
It was engraved with a raven.
...
The next day.
Ian woke up in the Room of Requirement.
He felt a bit of a headache, his mouth dry, and the pillow he was holding was too cold. It might be fine in summer, but in winter, it was somewhat inappropriate—slowly rebooting his mind, Ian opened his eyes to see a grotesque face without eyes staring back at him.
"What did I do last night!"
Ian let out a terrified scream.
He abruptly released the Dementor, which had been dressed up for Halloween and tied up like a dumpling, jumping up from the floor of the Room of Requirement like a startled deer.
"Yes, what did you do to us last night?"
Before Ian could recall his fragmented memories while looking at the Dementor on the floor,
In the next moment, dozens of books made of skeletons floated over.
They surrounded Ian.
They issued questions filled with indignation.
'The Book of Parselmouth'
Ian recognized the crooked handwriting on the book.
(End of this chapter)
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