From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 197: The Darkest Day for Wizarding Britain

Snape's voice undoubtedly gave Lockhart, who was in desperate situation, hope, and he quickly climbed up the pole.

"Severus! You won't watch me die in front of you, right?"

"Maybe? Do you want to try it?" Snape pretended to think for a while before saying slowly.

"Please, Severus..." Lockhart gasped and pleaded without dignity, "I am a shameful liar! I deceived Dumbledore and everyone in the school just to gain greater fame by teaching at Hogwarts!"

"I'm not surprised," Snape finally felt the long-lost happiness in Lockhart after such a terrible Christmas holiday, "You weren't a really smart guy when you were in school, right, Gilderoy?"

"Oh! Stop talking nonsense, Severus!" Lockhart dodged another peck from the bird-snake. This newborn baby did not know how to use its size to gain advantage in battle. It just followed its instinct and used its sharp beak to peck at the enemy.

"I know you've been eyeing the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor! I can tell Dumbledore to give this position to you!"

"I'm afraid Dumbledore wouldn't agree." Snape said leisurely.

"I can beg him!" Lockhart wailed. "All my novels are fake! It was an old bald American wizard who got rid of werewolves in an entire village, and it was an old witch with a gaping mouth who got rid of the ghost of Wanlun! I bought their stories! And packaged them as my own deeds!"

"You are really a wizard who is good at taking shortcuts, Gilderoy?" Snape shook his head.

Lockhart was completely out of strength. Seeing the bird-snake attacking again, he couldn't even turn over. He could only curl up in a ball, waiting for death to come.

"Immunize it quickly!" Snape chanted while holding up his wand. A thick hemp rope flew out from the tip of his wand and tightly tied up the bird-snake that almost occupied the entire boathouse.

"Thank God!" Seeing that he was saved, Lockhart did not miss the opportunity to strike back at the man who had fallen. He raised his wand and chanted randomly, "Flames!"

However, his spell was unclear and his hand holding the wand was weak, so the fire spell bounced back from the bird-snake's bright feathers and went straight towards Snape in the corner.

"Incurable idiot!" Snape waved his wide black robe sleeves and deflected the spell again, which landed right on Lockhart's head.

The golden hair nourished by the bird-snake egg yolk immediately caught fire, and Lockhart himself realized this devastating fact only after a few breaths.

"Ah! My hair!" Lockhart slapped his head with both hands, turned around aimlessly for several times, and then dived into the waterway in the middle of the boathouse.

The Hogwarts boathouse is an open wooden structure, more like a shed with several doors than a house.

Because there is no wall on the side of the boathouse facing the Black Lake, but rather two slopes extending into the water and a rectangular waterway that brings water into the interior of the boathouse.

Every year, the small wooden boats that the new students take will follow the waterway into the boathouse. Only then can the little wizards get off the boat and step back onto the ground along a stone staircase that also extends into the water.

Except for the annual enrollment of new students, the small wooden boat in the boathouse is not used, so it is turned upside down on a wooden rack and placed on the stone floor of the boathouse. The bird-snake previously crawled out from under an upside-down wooden boat.

Now that his head was on fire, Lockhart chose to jump into the water to put out the fire, which was a smart move. But it was January, and Hogwarts was built on the Scottish Highlands, which was much higher than the average altitude. Even the Black Lake was frozen, so there was no reason why the waterway in the boathouse could be spared.

Then after a dull thud, Lockhart's eyes rolled back and he fainted.

Snape on the shore ignored Lockhart lying on the ice, and chose to continue chanting to tighten the rope that bound the bird-snake.

As a magical creature that can change its body size, the young bird snake quickly changed its strategy after the initial panic, reducing its body size in an attempt to escape from the gap in the rope.

Almost in an instant, the bird-snake regained its freedom.

The bird-snake, having regained its freedom, faced the cold wind blowing from the frozen lake, and its body swelled to the extreme, even collapsing the ice in the houseboat waterway.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, who was burning himself alone on the ice, tilted his body and rolled along the tilted ice surface into the freezing water.

The lake water extinguished the flame on top of the human-shaped candle and also awakened Lockhart's consciousness. After struggling in the water that had just reached his knees for a while, Lockhart finally managed to get his head out of the water and immediately saw the bird-snake's thick belly.

"Ah—" Lockhart screamed.

Several spell lights flashed through the air, and the bird-snake's movements immediately became slow, swaying in the boathouse as if it had drunk too much. However, before it fell down, it still noticed the creature that made the loudest noise in the boathouse - Lockhart.

So it opened its mouth wide and swallowed half of Lockhart's body in one gulp, leaving only his two legs swinging back and forth outside.

"We should help!" The three little ones outside the door were also confused by the twists and turns of the battle. Hermione couldn't help but whispered, "But it's better not to let Professor Snape notice us... The holiday is about to end, and he might deduct our points."

"Harry! Can't you speak Parseltongue?" Ron had another trick up his sleeve. "As long as you command the bird-snake..."

"Harry can't do that!" Hermione snapped.

"I haven't even tried..." Harry tried to make a hissing sound, but was interrupted before he could even form his lips.

"Bird snakes are not snakes, but birds." Hermione rolled her eyes and began to educate them, "Just like a Basilisk is a snake, and a Cockatrice is a chicken."

"What the hell is going on here? I feel like you're talking about a tongue twister..." Ron was completely dumbfounded. He had never heard of those two names.

"They are both monsters with chicken heads and snake heads, and they look very similar, but the chicken body snake is only poisonous, while the snake tail chicken can turn people to stone." Hermione continued to explain, and her tone became calmer. Because she found that the bird snake that bit Lockhart had already taken him to the ground and did not continue to attack, and it was obvious that it had lost consciousness.

As a magical animal that has just hatched for less than a month, the baby bird snake is not yet able to resist the wizard's spell.

Snape waved his wand and ripped Lockhart, who was covered in saliva, out of the bird-snake's mouth. The usually bright and handsome professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts was now in a very embarrassed state.

The carefully selected robe turned into dusty rags, the skin that was once shiny and healthy red was now covered with wounds, the one on the arm was still bleeding, and the hair that was carefully maintained with bird snake egg yolks had completely turned into charred hair. Even a skilled healer like Madam Pomfrey might not be able to restore the charred hair to its original state.

"Are you okay, Professor Lockhart?" Snape asked knowingly. After poking the wound on his arm with his wand, he reluctantly cast a healing spell.

"Yes, I'm fine, very good..." Lockhart's condition was obviously not good, but after realizing that he was out of danger for the time being, the first thing he did was not to check his wounds, but to run to the waterway to check his reflection.

The Lockhart in the reflection was so different from the one he remembered that he didn't even recognize himself at first. "My hair—" Lockhart screamed miserably, with almost no tears in his eyes, "I just took care of it! How can I post autographed photos with it in this state? My fans will die of sadness!"

"If you want, I can help you find Quirinus's turban. He used it to protect himself very well." Snape had already squatted down beside the bird-snake and began to examine the temporarily unconscious magical animal.

Lockhart remained silent for a long while, still immersed in great sorrow.

Snape thought he didn't understand his humor, so he further explained, "You don't know who Quirinus is? He was the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor last year, but he was discovered to be a dark wizard in the second half of the semester, and his whereabouts are unknown."

A gust of cold wind blew, and the soaked Lockhart shivered: "I... I can't... Severus... please don't tell anyone about what happened before... It will ruin my image... My books will never sell again... The British wizarding world will be eclipsed because of the loss of an adventurer like me, a best-selling author, an honorary member of the Dark Arts Defense League, and a recipient of the Third Class Order of Merlin! This will be the darkest day for the British wizarding world!"

Even the biting cold wind couldn't make Lockhart stutter while speaking long lines.

Even Snape, who had taught at Hogwarts for many years and had seen countless idiots, was amazed at Lockhart's eccentricity and didn't know what to say for a moment.

But Snape was not an ordinary man after all. His psychological quality had already been tested by both the Dark Lord and the White Lord. He paused for a moment and then said, "If you tell these words to the wizard jury of the Wizengamot, maybe they will allow you to take your book and the Order of Merlin, third class, to Azkaban."

The bird-snake that had fainted on the ground let out a hoarse hiss, which attracted Snape's attention again. The huge body shrank rapidly, and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The only evidence that the bird snake really existed is the wooden boat fragments scattered all over the boathouse and the few remaining bird snake eggs.

Seeing Snape turned his head away, Lockhart's eyes turned and he reached out to fish out his wand from the waterway. Fortunately, the wand was made of wood, otherwise it would have sunk to the bottom.

"I'm sorry... Severus, I can't let you tell anyone!" Lockhart pointed his wand at Snape and shouted, "Oblige!"

"Expelliarmus!" Harry, who saw everything outside the door, jumped out suddenly.

Before Lockhart could cast a spell, the red disarming spell hit Lockhart's body first. He was knocked back a few steps and fell into the waterway, landing on a piece of broken ice floating on the water, with half of his body submerged in water.

The cherry wood wand flew high into the air and was caught in Harry's hand.

"Potter!" Snape's pale cheeks trembled, and he spat out Harry's name through gritted teeth, "Why are you here! Do you think you saved me? Do you want to be a hero like Gryffindor again?"

Harry wanted to retort, but he didn't have the courage to look Snape in the eye, so he just lowered his head without saying a word.

"Professor..." Hermione walked in from outside the door, holding up the parchment in her hand, "We are just here to hand in our homework - Lockhart classroom layout, about the Chamber of Secrets..."

Snape's face became even gloomier, as if water could drip out of it: "Where's the other member of the iron triangle? Where's the red-haired Weasley?"

"Here..." Ron walked into the boathouse with gritted teeth.

Before Snape could get mad again, Hermione quickly finished what she had said earlier: "And there's a basilisk inside!"

When he heard the word "Basilisk", Snape's black eyes fixed on Hermione's face for a while, then he walked quickly to her and snatched the parchment.

"Obviously your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor has no good intentions. Maybe he is just using you to collect materials for his book..." Snape said in a deep voice after quickly reading Hermione's paper, and quickly rolled up the parchment again.

"Ms. Granger, when did you find out?" Snape stared at Hermione's face.

"Before the Christmas holidays..." Hermione whispered.

"You are not allowed to tell anyone what happened here, including Professor McGonagall, before getting the headmaster's permission! Otherwise, you can just wait to go home and grow pumpkins!" Snape said viciously, "Now, get out!"

The three little wizards didn't even dare to breathe and went out in shame.

"Potter!"

Harry, who was almost at the door, shuddered all over and was scared half to death.

"Wand!"

Harry and Ron looked at each other in horror, both thinking that Harry was going to be expelled because they had heard how his wand had been broken in Hagrid's hut.

Harry turned stiffly, walked shakily to Snape and handed over his wand.

Snape was so angry that he laughed. He pointed at Lockhart lying on the ice and said, "It's his!"

Harry suddenly realized what was going on and quickly handed over the cherry wood wand in his hand, then ran away.

Before leaving, he kindly turned back to remind Snape: "Professor Snape... those bird-snake eggs should be Ivy's..."

"I know!" Snape replied unhappily.

----

"So, this is why our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor appears here in such a mess?" Dumbledore sat behind his desk and sighed deeply.

Then he looked at Ivy who was standing aside and watching the show, "Can Professor Victor teach us the Defense Against the Dark Arts class for another half a year?"

"Don't even think about it!" Ivy answered immediately. He was called to take away the bird-snake eggs. "I killed Quirrell last year, but Harry killed Lockhart this year. You should ask him to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

"Perhaps I can do it for you." Snape offered himself after stating the facts with some embellishments (mainly the parts related to Harry).

"Thank you for your kindness, Severus," Dumbledore said softly, "You are already too busy. I can't let people say that Hogwarts exploits its faculty and staff..."

(End of this chapter)