Hogwarts: A Chinese-Style Professor

Chapter 70 Are you insulting me?

On Monday morning, Hogwarts awoke from a deep sleep.

Today is a special holiday for the principal, because everyone got up late due to yesterday's banquet.

However, the auditorium was already quite lively.

The owl's wings obscured the sky above the auditorium, and copies of the Daily Prophet kept falling from above, their front-page news concerning their new professor.

[Exclusive! Gilderoy Lockhart, the embodiment of courage and talent, is about to illuminate Hogwarts!]

Written by: Rita Skeeter

The article inside lavishly praises Lockhart as a great wizard, while also subtly putting down Levi—the fact that he, as a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, was attacked by monsters in the castle clearly proves that his abilities as a wizard are inadequate.

The young wizards were not happy about the notice in the common room about purchasing new textbooks.

It's as if Professor Li Wei had just been laid off, and someone immediately tried to forcefully kick him out.

Professor Levi is so outstanding, but this is Lockhart.

They weren't the only ones who felt the same way.

In the faculty section, Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, watching the flock of owls scatter Lockhart's smiling cover of "The Magic Me" everywhere, her brows furrowed.

Snape's aura was even more oppressive than usual, and his gloomy expression lasted all morning—not a single young wizard in the Great Hall dared to make a sound.

A strange scene unfolded in the auditorium—noisy owls kept intruding, but the people inside remained unusually quiet.

On Tuesday, the sun rose at Hogwarts as usual.

Except for the two professors who were petrified, everything has returned to normal.

In the Great Hall that morning, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, made his first appearance.

He wore a long robe the same blue as forget-me-nots, which perfectly matched his blue eyes, and a pointed wizard's hat was playfully tilted on his curly hair.

He seemed to have prepared gifts for all the young wizards, and every student who passed through the Great Hall received a signed photo of him.

The students' performances varied, but most were very satisfied.

Like Professor Levy, Professor Lockhart had a good appearance—which matched their imagination of an excellent professor.

Moreover, Professor Lockhart was far more lively than Professor Levy—which made them both quite interesting.

After a breakfast break, the students were already looking forward to what Professor Lockhart would teach them in class.

Ron discovered that Hermione had circled all of Lockhart's classes on the timetable with hearts—Hermione blushed with annoyance at this.

But once classes officially started, they gradually sensed that something was wrong.
“I must ask you not to scream,” Lockhart said in a low voice, “that will enrage them!”

Then he took out something the students were very familiar with—Corndine elves.

Seeing these little elves that had once caused them so much trouble, the second-grade students all showed subtle smiles—a mixture of emotion and pride.

After all that, this is it? They thought they'd at least have to face a dark creature of XX difficulty on their own.

“Not bad,” Lockhart said dramatically, “a Cornish elf that I just caught.”

"laugh--"

Some students couldn't help but sneer, and more than one of them did.

Lockhart clearly sensed their contempt and the awkward atmosphere.

“Fine,” he said loudly, his voice trembling with annoyance, “let’s see how you deal with them!”

He opened the cage door.

In that instant, the students in the arena, at varying speeds, pulled out their wands and shouted:
"All petrified!"

Just as the Cornish elves in the cage were about to fly out, they were immediately attacked by more than a dozen spells with the same effect—the impact not only forced them back into the cage, but also quickly bound the leaders.

"grumble--!"

The remaining elves huddled in their cages, watching the little wizard still holding his wand and locking onto them, too afraid to go out again.

Lockhart gasped in shock at their display—he had already shrank to the side the moment all the young wizards raised their wands. Seeing all the students looking at him, he coughed loudly, hastily trying to cover it up:
"Hmm—it seems you are even more outstanding than I imagined. I'll have to intensify your training from now on."

But that's enough for today. Now I'm going to test your theoretical knowledge.

Upon hearing that a theory test would be required, some people's expressions changed, and they lost their initial confidence.

Lockhart didn't see any of this. He carefully and solemnly locked the cage containing the Cornish elves before putting it away and handing the test papers to the students.

Harry looked at the test paper and read aloud:
1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
3. What do you think is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?
And so on, filling three whole pages, with the last question being:

54. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday? What would be his ideal birthday present?
His face showed obvious disgust—this was supposed to be a theory exam? Testing his liking for Lockhart?
Is this some kind of joke?

What a joke.

"What a joke!"

Paz, a seventh-grader, slammed his hands heavily on the table.

"Is this all you teach us? Answer our birthdays? Are you insulting me?"

"Eh—of course it helps."

Lockhart never expected that a student would challenge him on the very first day of class; this was the first time in all his years in the magical world.

"What kind of help do you want? Tell me."

"Do you know that the monsters we usually fight in class are dark creatures of XXX difficulty level?"

Another seventh-grade student stood up after Paz and added with an unfriendly expression.

“3X level? That’s not bad. I once encountered a werewolf with a danger level of 4X alone in a phone booth. Did you know that? It’s in my book, ‘Dancing with Werewolves’.”

Lockhart gestured animatedly as he spoke about what he knew.

But Paz just stared at him coldly without saying a word.

The other seventh-grade students also sensed something was wrong, but some of them stepped forward to smooth things over.

"Professor Lockhart, several of us are preparing to take the NEWT exam at the end of the semester, and Pass has even volunteered to become an Auror."

Therefore, he had to achieve a perfect score of 0 in his Defense Against the Dark Arts exam—he was under too much pressure and simply didn't have time to waste on such things.

"Ah, I want to become an Auror. I understand."

Lockhart's voice trembled slightly, but he still insisted on saying:
"But this was just a test I gave you, to see how much you really knew about me as a professor—unfortunately, you didn't pass."

He shook his head and walked out of the classroom.

“My advanced class is only for students I value and approve of. You have not passed my test, so I will not teach you anymore.”

You'll never know how valuable what you've missed; from now on, you can learn on your own.

After saying that, he walked away without even turning his head.

"I believe what you're saying now. If it were Professor Levi, he would have already pulled out his wand."

The female classmate who had spoken earlier looked speechless as Lockhart left.

"Of course, I experienced Professor Li Wei's skills just six months ago in sixth grade."

"So what do we do next? We'll really just study on our own—although this result is already pretty good."

"Don't rush—I've already given the lower grades a heads-up, and they'll definitely want to test the new professor's abilities—there are some things they can do more easily than we can."

"What's going to happen?"

"What could possibly happen? At most, that guy will be temporarily hospitalized due to a spell cast by a lower-level student—that's just bad luck on his part."

Which student at Hogwarts these days hasn't experienced this?

"That's good—oh—I really can't imagine what kind of life we ​​had before Professor Li Wei—I never want to go back to those meaningless courses."

(End of this chapter)