All the young wizards were filled with anticipation for the upcoming Defense Against the Dark Arts course.
It had to be said that, purely in terms of appearance, Gilderoy Lockhart was absolutely impeccable.
Although almost everyone knew it was wrong to judge by appearances, in reality, people still couldn't help but do so unconsciously.
Like now.
Even without doing anything, Professor Lockhart merely standing there already gave people a feeling of being far superior to Quirrell.
There was no helping it—compared to Quirrell, who reeked of garlic, wore a strange turban, had twitching eyes, and spoke with a stutter, the handsome and charming Professor Lockhart was incomparably better.
Simply put, even the wizarding world cared about looks.
The young witches looked at Lockhart with sparkling eyes, and a few even had heart-shaped pupils.
Sitting in the front row was the round-faced Neville Longbottom.
Professor Lockhart, seeing that everyone's attention was focused on him, casually picked up Neville's copy of "Travels with Trolls" from the desk and held it up.
The cover featured a photo of Lockhart himself winking. He turned this side toward the young wizards and slowly began to speak,
"I am Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award.
Of course, I won't go on about that, because I didn't rely on my smile to banish the Bandon Banshee!"
Lockhart's admirers were mostly female, spanning a wide age range.
There were young witches like Hermione who were fascinated by legends, as well as middle-aged witches like Mrs. Weasley.
So, if all the students in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom could be replaced with females, it would be absolutely devastating.
Unfortunately, that wasn't possible.
There naturally couldn't be any middle-aged witches in the classroom, so Professor Lockhart's self-introduction didn't have the effect he had imagined.
The main issue was that girls of this age were quite shy and couldn't give him the enthusiastic response he had envisioned.
"He says he won't go on about it, but he already mentioned it at the opening feast!"
When facing Lockhart, Ron's disgust seemed even greater than Harry's. He muttered under his breath, "Then why don't you just not mention it!"
Lockhart's gaze swept across the class once more as he continued,
"I see you've all bought my complete works. That's excellent—"
"As if we wanted to buy them! They were mandatory on the book list!" Ron whispered again. His resentment was deep. Because Lockhart's books were really expensive.
With Ginny starting at Hogwarts this year, their family had to buy five complete sets of textbooks.
What made it worse was that there were no second-hand copies of this guy's books!
So, before shopping, the family had to go to the Weasley vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank and withdraw all their savings.
Even with help from Bill and Charlie, who had already left school, they had to scrape together money for a long time to afford the gear for all five children.
After his somewhat ostentatious self-introduction, Professor Lockhart continued,
"But before we begin today's formal lesson, I'd like to give you a little quiz first."
"What a load of rubbish!" Ron struck again for the third time.
"Ronald!" Hermione was very displeased with Ron's repeated complaints about Professor Lockhart, and even the nearby girls like Lavender and Parvati shot him dangerous looks.
Seeing this, Ron immediately fell silent.
Upon hearing Professor Lockhart's words, except for a few individuals, the entire class instinctively tensed up.
The truth was that most students had similar attitudes toward exams—this was the same whether in the Muggle world or the wizarding world.
Lockhart observed everyone's reactions and showed a gentle smile,
"Don't be afraid. I just want to see how well you've read and how much you've understood.
Of course, even if you don't know anything, I won't deduct points."
Hearing that Lockhart wouldn't deduct points, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
In the blink of an eye, he waved his wand, and dozens of test papers flew into everyone's hands.
"You have thirty minutes. Start now!"
The young wizards all lowered their heads to look at the papers in their hands.
Then—what the hell?
"What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?"
Harry was petrified upon seeing the first question. What kind of nonsense was this?
He steadied himself and looked down to find the following questions,
"What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?"
"What do you think has been Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?"
"When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would be his ideal birthday gift?"
All similar questions filled three entire pages.
Harry stared at Sherlock in bewilderment, his green eyes full of confusion.
Mate, this is the professor you thought would be useful to us?
By "useful," did you mean having the entire class produce ridiculous expressions while staring at the test paper?
Sherlock naturally noticed his friend's gaze. He sighed and said to Harry,
"My dear friend, regarding this test paper, I suggest you answer from back to front."
Harry became even more confused.
In Muggle school, teachers had indeed taught the method of doing the big questions at the end first, then the smaller ones at the beginning.
But Professor Lockhart's test paper was all short-answer questions—what difference would it make to go from front to back or back to front?
With a puzzled attitude, Harry flipped to the last page of the test paper and was stunned once again.
Hermione and Ron naturally heard what Sherlock said to Harry.
Both curiously flipped to the last page.
Then they were as stunned as Harry.
The last question was indeed still a short-answer question, but its style was completely different from before.
"What are the weaknesses of vampires?"
Looking at the second-to-last question,
"Please describe in detail the specific process of how Gilderoy Lockhart dealt with werewolves."
Looking further back,
"After Gilderoy Lockhart's confrontation with the banshee, what method did he use to banish it? If the conditions weren't available at the time, what other methods could have been used to banish it?"
All such questions were extracted from the adventure stories he had written in his books.
Although there were only seven such questions on the entire test paper, comprising merely one-eighth of the total fifty-six questions.
Even so, it was enough to surprise the three of them.
Hermione clenched her fists secretly. Indeed, she hadn't misjudged him! Professor Lockhart did have real ability!
Harry and Ron exchanged glances, their eyes filled with unprecedented shock.
Could it be that they were really wrong?
Did Lockhart's ostentatious exterior actually hide a practical side?
Although he appeared to be messing around on the surface, had he actually arranged everything clearly for them?
Regardless, the test paper Lockhart had given them did make them reconsider this Defense Against the Dark Arts professor somewhat.
After discovering the last few questions, the other young wizards felt similarly to the trio, and their gazes toward Professor Lockhart changed considerably.
However, the content of this test paper was quite jarringly divided.
To put it metaphorically, the first major portion was more like content for a Lockhart fan club.
Only the small portion at the end was actually related to the Defense Against the Dark Arts course.
The half hour passed quickly.
As soon as time was up, Professor Lockhart collected the students' papers.
Then, to the amazement of the entire class, he began grading them on the spot.
While grading, he provided commentary,
"Tsk tsk—hardly anyone remembered that I favor lilac, a point I mentioned in Year with the Yeti.
It seems several students need to reread Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully, because I clearly stated in Chapter Twelve that my ideal birthday gift is, for all magical and non-magical people to live in harmony.
Of course, I wouldn't refuse a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey either!"
If not for the different style of the last seven questions, most people wouldn't have bothered listening to his awkward commentary.
Even so, some young wizards, represented by Ron, still looked at him with distrustful eyes.
Seamus Finnigan and his friend Dean Thomas in the front row tried their best not to laugh out loud.
Gilderoy Lockhart? He's just a novelist who doesn't know squat about Dark Arts!
Of course, some young wizards were listening intently to his comments, such as Neville in the front row and Hermione in the back.
Harry couldn't help but glance at Sherlock beside him.
Finding that he was also watching Lockhart with interest, Harry patiently continued listening.
Just then, Professor Lockhart suddenly mentioned Hermione's name.
"Miss Hermione Granger!"
Hearing her name, Hermione, who had been listening intently, was startled. She looked at Professor Lockhart in surprise.
"Not only does she know the answers to all the above questions, but she also knows that my secret ambition is to rid the world of all evil and to market my own line of hair care products!
Good girl, truly a good girl. In fact—"
Professor Lockhart flipped Hermione's paper over, his face lighting up with delight,
"One hundred percent! Which one is Miss Hermione Granger?"
Hermione excitedly raised a trembling hand.
"Excellent!" Professor Lockhart looked at Hermione with a smile. "Very good, very good indeed! I'm awarding Gryffindor twenty points for this!"
The entire class looked at Hermione in amazement.
The young wizards in her year knew exactly what kind of person Hermione was.
Despite coming from a Muggle family, she was undisputedly the top student.
So far, no professor had ever been able to stump her in class.
Not only had she become last season's point leader, but she had also undisputedly claimed first place in the year-end exams.
With her abilities, answering the last few questions would be no problem at all.
But the issue was that she even knew the answers to those boring questions at the beginning!
This was too ridiculous!
Who would remember what color an author likes or what their ideals are?
Miss Know-It-All, you've fallen!
Just as the young wizards were hesitating, Lockhart, who was still grading papers, once again showed a surprised expression,
"Which one is Mr. Sherlock Holmes? His paper is also completely correct!"
Seeing Sherlock calmly raise his hand, all the young wizards in the class were shocked, even more so than when they heard Hermione got a perfect score.
The little eagles taking the class with Gryffindor were somewhat better off.
But the little lions collectively lost their minds.
Impossible, absolutely impossible!
How could Sherlock do this?
Lion King, you've fallen too!
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