For Gilderoy Lockhart, the fact that his fans were spread all across Europe was, of course, something he took for granted.
He signed his name on the female Auror's robe as she requested, then tentatively asked, "What happened here? Why are so many people needed to guard this place?"
The female Auror, who had been quite delighted to meet her idol, quickly sobered up upon hearing the question.
Glancing back at her superior, who was still fuming, she apologetically said, "It's a secret mission. According to regulations, I can't tell you about it."
Hearing this, Lockhart felt his pride was somewhat bruised, but he also understood that no matter which country it was, even the smallest one, Aurors were still Aurors. He couldn't afford to overstep his bounds.
So, he quickly put on a magnanimous expression and said, "Ah! If it's a secret mission, then of course you can't tell me."
He flashed his signature smile, using a tone that was somewhat oily and playful, "After all, if I were to know the details and couldn't resist writing them into my adventure stories, that wouldn't be too good, would it?"
The female Auror let out a giggle.
Seizing the moment, Lockhart then asked her the crucial question. "You must have been in this forest for quite a while, right? I wonder if you've seen a friend of mine here? His name is Pique Andrews, an expert on troll research and an adventurer. I came here specifically to visit him."
Hearing the name Andrews gave the female Auror pause, she seemed to find the name somewhat familiar: "A troll research expert? I think I've heard that name from the people at the Dragon Nature Reserve. Please wait a moment, let me go ask someone for you."
Her reply filled Lockhart with immense relief and delight. After days of roughing it in the forest, he had no desire to waste any more time there.
If this Albanian Auror could help him find Andrews quickly, that would be the best possible outcome.
He stayed where he was and didn't have to wait long before the female Auror came back.
He didn't have to wait long before the female Auror returned. However, she looked somewhat chastised, as if she had just been scolded.
Upon seeing Lockhart again, she said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Lockhart. Because there's been a rather troublesome incident in the nature reserve, the dragon tamers are all very busy right now. So even though they know where your friend Mr. Andrews is, they don't have time to take you there."
"But from them, I roughly found out the location of your friend. I can Side-Along Apparate you to the vicinity. I haven't been to that river fork where your friend is, but when I first arrived in this forest, I visited a small waterfall not far from there."
Lockhart's face immediately lit up with excitement. Even if he couldn't be taken directly to Andrews, being dropped nearby was more than enough!
Moreover, being Side-Along Apparated by this Auror was far less risky than attempting it himself, as there was no danger of splinching.
"Thank you so much! You've been a tremendous help!"
"It's no trouble at all. If this helps you finish your new book sooner, it would be my honor!"
As she spoke, the female Auror grabbed Lockhart's arm and performed Side-Along Apparition, bringing them to a small waterfall on the eastern side of the Magical Creature Reserve.
After delivering Lockhart, the Auror left immediately, as she clearly had much work to do and couldn't be away for long.
Before leaving, she helped Lockhart locate their current position on the map, "Just follow this river downstream from the waterfall eastward. You should reach the river fork where your friend is after about ten kilometers or so."
After she left, Lockhart didn't linger. He eagerly set off eastward along the small river, all his weariness from the past few days seemingly gone.
He walked the entire ten kilometers through the latter half of the afternoon and finally, just before sunset, through the sparse trees ahead, he saw a large clearing at a river fork.
There, standing in stark contrast to the pristine forest he had trekked through, were human structures!
They were a row of enormous wooden huts! The shortest of these timber buildings stood at least twenty feet high, the height of a normal two-story house.
Next to the huts, some dull, hulking creatures were lounging by the riverbank. They looked as if they had just finished some work and were now lazing about.
Furthermore, in the clearing among the row of huts, a short, portly wizard could be seen trying to light a fire.
At this sight, Lockhart was thrilled. Without a moment's hesitation, he quickened his pace, emerging from the tree line while calling out to the wizard, "Pique! Pique!"
Having encountered a dragon attack during their migration, Andrews and the others hadn't managed to relocate all thirty-plus trolls to this clearing.
This meant that while Severus and the others had to start building wooden houses for the trolls again, the workload was actually less than before.
It took them about five days. By noon that day, they had finally finished all the work, building huts for all twenty-one trolls that had remained here.
However, it was clear that the concerns Andrews had raised before Severus proposed the migration plan were justified. It hadn't been many days since their narrow escape from the dragons, but many of the migrated trolls were already growing restless, wanting to return to the valley where they had lived comfortably before.
It was only because of Lulu that it could keep its fellow trolls in check, preventing them from simply running away. If Andrews and Lulu were to leave this forest one day, the trolls would undoubtedly return to their doom.
This led Andrews to ask Severus daily about when the Memory Charm Expert he had mentioned would come to find them.
On the very day all the huts were finally completed, Severus, calculating the time, thought that given Lockhart's abilities, it would probably take him another day or two to find them in this forest. Severus had already begun briefing Andrews on some matters.
"No need to ask every day, Pique. If the person I mentioned entered the forest from the far east looking for us, he should probably arrive here tonight. If he got lost in the forest, he'll likely find this place tomorrow or the day after at the latest." Severus said.
He, along with Remus, Harry, and Draco, had packed their belongings, looking as if they were about to depart.
This surprised Andrews a little.
"You're leaving now?"
"The task I promised you isn't completely finished yet, so of course we won't leave right away," Severus shook his head, "But if the person coming here finds out I'm here, there's a high probability he'll just run away, too scared to stay. So, for now, we'll be over there."
He pointed towards a small, raised hill to the north of the clearing.
It was densely wooded, and from its slope, one could overlook the entire troll camp, seeing clearly everything that happened there.
Andrews felt a bit confused by what Severus said.
"You have a conflict with him? Then how can you be so sure he will help me?"
Severus smiled mysteriously, "You just need to do as I say. Trust me, he will definitely help you, and he'll do it willingly!"
Afterwards, Severus instructed Andrews on what to do when he met the famous British adventure novelist. Then, he took Remus and the others to the small hill near the troll camp and set up a temporary camp there.
Not only Andrews, but even Remus and the others were puzzled by Severus's absolute certainty that the writer they had encountered earlier, the one pestering Angelo, was a Memory Charm Master and would be willing to help Andrews.
On the hillside, Harry was the first to ask, confused, "Didn't Mr. Andrews only write to his cousin to tell him his new address? How can you be sure that Lockhart, who was pestering him, would definitely find out where Mr. Andrews is?"
Draco also crossed his arms and said, "I didn't get the impression at all that he was going to give that flashy wizard the address."
By this point, Severus didn't keep them in suspense any longer, "Angelo wouldn't give him Pique's address, but Lockhart would definitely find a way to steal it, or even take it by force, from Angelo."
This answer surprised Remus, "Would he really do that? If such a thing got out, wouldn't he be afraid of damaging his reputation?"
Severus simply turned to look at him, "Then haven't you wondered why Lockhart has been clinging to Angelo, dead set on finding Andrews?"
Remus hesitated, "He said the subject of his next book is related to trolls, so he wanted to find an expert like Andrews to get more specialized material."
"Then perhaps you should think again about what his previous books were about."
This time, it was Harry who answered Severus. He counted on his fingers, clearly having been briefed by Remus on Lockhart's works during the plane ride, "Break with a Banshee, Gadding with Ghouls, Holidays with Hags..."
As Harry recited the book titles, Remus's eyes widened. He seemed to have thought of something, his expression full of shock, "You mean..."
Severus said calmly, "Exactly what you're thinking."
Harry and Draco, however, didn't understand their exchange. Both looked utterly confused, scratching their heads, completely in the dark about what was being said.
"None of the stories Lockhart wrote are his own," Severus finally revealed the truth.
This only surprised Harry, but for Draco, who was more familiar with Lockhart's reputation in the Wizarding World, this news was nothing short of shocking.
"He has never had any real adventure experiences and doesn't know how to deal with those magical creatures at all. All the adventures in his books are ones where he attacked the real adventurers who experienced these stories, used Memory Charms to wipe their memories clean, and then impersonated the protagonist himself."
Harry quickly recovered from his surprise. He didn't doubt Severus's words for a second and said indignantly, "That's theft! No, it should be called robbery! It's what a bandit would do!"
Draco just stared intently at Severus, "Do you have proof for what you're saying?"
Remus also watched Severus, holding his breath. He, too, found such a thing hard to believe.
Severus simply gazed into the distance at the troll camp by the riverbank, "We just need to wait here. Once he actually finds Andrews, won't the proof be right before your eyes?"
As the sky gradually darkened and the sun was about to set, the man in the flashy purple robes, looking somewhat disheveled as if he hadn't tended to himself properly for many days, Gilderoy Lockhart, actually managed to find the troll camp.
Andrews, who had been going about his life in the camp, heard someone calling his name from the woods to the west and turned to look.
Clearly, years of life as an adventurer had removed him from the British wizarding fashion scene, so Andrews didn't recognize Lockhart.
He just watched as the wizard, acting very familiar, called his name and then ran excitedly towards him, carrying a suitcase.
"Haha! Pique! You certainly made me search for you! It is you, right? You are Pique Andrews?"
Lockhart was panting, double and triple-checking he had the right man.
Even after hearing some things from Severus, Andrews was still completely in the fog. He didn't know who this person was at all.
"I am Andrews. You are...?"
"I am Gilderoy Lockhart!"
Lockhart enthusiastically grabbed one of Andrews's hands.
"Winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award five times in a row, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and the best-selling author in UK… Gilderoy Lockhart!"
Faced with this string of prefixes, Andrews only gathered that he seemed to be an adventurer too.
"So, Mr. Lockhart, you came to find me because..."
"Your cousin Angelo and I are good friends!" Lockhart said without batting an eye, flashing a brilliant smile. "I'm currently conceptualizinga novel about trolls, and he told me you are the most professional troll research expert in all of Europe, so he referred me to meet you and discuss research."
As Lockhart spoke, he walked around curiously for a couple of steps, then confirmed his feeling was correct: this troll expert's gaze remained fixed on him, not wavering for a second.
"Is there something on my face?"
Andrews shook his head.
"No, no, of course not."
Andrews, of course, didn't have some strange quirk. He was merely faithfully executing one of the crucial techniques Severus had taught him for dealing with Lockhart upon meeting him:
Never turn your back on this man!