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I tugged at the handle to the classroom, and it opened, presenting to our gaze Lockhart, that was quickly packing his things. He jumped up in fear and turned around, staring at the opened door, and numerous frames with portraits literally fell from his hands.
Harry and Ron immediately threw off invisibility cloak, and I remained invisible.
"I'm not here," I whispered in Potter's ear, and he didn't even budge.
"Professor," he began the conversation. "Are you in a hurry somewhere?"
Lockhart stood in a stupor. There was no smile, no shine. Even the blond curls were disheveled and somehow faded.
"Ah… Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley… What an unexpected meeting..." the professor smiled weakly, and I pointed my wand at him and very, very quietly conjured Confundus with a simple wording - to tell the truth.
"Are you going somewhere?" Ron asked already.
"Oh, yes, I'm going," Lockhart furiously began to shove portraits and a couple of books into a large suitcase. "An urgent request ... An urgent need ... I have to get ready."
"Ask him what happened," I whispered to Potter.
"What happened?"
"Oh, nothing serious," said Lockhart, but the spell demanded more of him. Not Imperio, but in such a tense state, it can act as a potion of talkativeness. "Miss Weasley was dragged to the secret room ..."
Lockhart realized what he said and stared at the guys with a surprised look.
"What?!" Ron roared. "Sister ?! How so-o-o ..." panic instantly took possession of the guy, and Lockhart was already pulling out his wand.
"And you run away?!" Potter shouted.
"Uh ... No, of course not ... Yes ... That is ..."
"What about my sister?" Ron frowned. "You are a teacher of DADA! Help her!"
"Are you saying you're just running away?" Harry looked at the teacher in disbelief. "After all the feats described in your books?"
Then I listened with the edge of my ear, carefully watching professor's hands and wand - I don't want to fall under Obliviate if Harry doesn't have time to disarm him. Lockhart said that it was not he who performed feats but other wizards. They "looked bad on the cover" and all that stuff. He confessed that he asked their stories, erased their memory, and calmly retold these stories on his own behalf, not forgetting, of course, to embellish this matter solidly.
Lockhart finished packing his suitcases and turned sharply to the guys, pointing his wand at them. But Potter really has a good reaction - as soon as the wand showed itself, while Lockhart was turning around, Harry had already pulled out and pointed at him his wand. This boy is some kind of a cowboy.
"I'm very sorry, boys, but I'll have to use the Obliviate spell, so you don't tell my secrets. Otherwise, I won't be able to sell a single book ..."
A complete fool? He didn't even neutralize the potential opponent who was holding the wand! Lockhart started swinging, but Potter got ahead of him with his Disarming. The professor's wand flew out of his hands, and the professor himself flew back, crashing onto the suitcase.
"Take him to the Moaning Myrtle toilet," I whispered in the kid's ear and went in the right direction.
When I got to the right place, I had to wait no longer than a minute for the guys, and now they came, holding Lockhart at gunpoint.
"And what have we forgotten here?" the former professor was examining the room.
I walked over to Potter and whispered.
"Look for the sign of the snake near the central washbasin and hiss something to open the passage."
Harry nodded and followed the instructions exactly. With hiss at one of the sinks that stood in a circle in the center, attached to the columns, the guy activated the mechanism. The columns parted to the sides, and one of them went into the floor altogether, revealing a wide black hole. The guys were determined to jump inside, and Lockhart - to escape, but he was simply pushed there. It's funny, I used to think that the scream of a falling man receding into nowhere happens only in cartoons, but no - it's real. The guys jumped after.
I sighed and jumped after.
It's some Hogwarts roller coaster - darkness, branches of a huge tunnel, always going down, and a slimy stone surface.
In the end, I flew into the spacious hall, which was already lit by Lumos from Harry's wand. Underfoot was a real graveyard of skeletons of small animals. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart were talking about something and moved forward. I walked a step ahead of Potter, followed by Lockhart and Ron behind him. But at one fine moment, Lockhart imperceptibly lagged behind, and when we got to the next branch, where a huge, more than twenty meters piece of shed skin lay, Lockhart simply fell. Ron immediately jumped up to him.
"Get up!" Ron pointed his wand at the sloppy and dirty writer, and he reluctantly, which with difficulty, began to rise. In a moment, Lockhart had already grabbed Ron's wand, and his face was again beaming with a dazzling smile.
"End of the adventure, boys! I'll take a piece of this wonderful snake skin with me upstairs. And I'll tell all at school that it was no longer possible to save the girl, and you two lost your mind at the sight of her mutilated body. Say goodbye to your memory! From now on, you will not remember anything about the past! Obliviate!
I abruptly moved further along the corridor, and behind me, there was an explosion. Stones and dust fell down. We ran, trying not to fall and not look back. When everything calmed down, and for some reason, the spell fell off me, I conjured Lumos and looked around. Harry stood next to the floor and also conjured Lumos. Behind our backs was a huge stone blockage that completely blocked the entrance.
"Why you didn't help!" the guy yelled at me, not without pretensions. Dirty, covered in traces of stone dust and crumbs.
"Ron's wand," replied with a shrug. Harry didn't understand right away, but when he did, the guy smiled. For a second.
"Ron!" he rushed to the pile of stones.
"Harry? I'm here! How are you? K-ha, k-ha ... There is so much dust..." came the muffled voice of a redhead from the other side of the blockage.
"I'm fine. What about you? How is Lockhart?"
"I'm okay. But everything is littered here! And this bastard seems to have been hit hard! Max with you?"
"Yes!"
"Why he didn't help?!"
"Your wand!"
"What has it to do with ... Ahhhh, got it ..."
While deciding what to do next, it took at least a couple of minutes. As a result, I again conjured invisibility on myself and went with Harry to face the danger face to face. It was decided to use invisibility as an element of surprise in case the culprit was there.
We went out to a large hall, which looked more like a cave. On the opposite wall was a huge round door with serpents from the center. It looks like a bank door, to be honest.
"Probably," Harry said as he approached, "Parseltongue is also needed here."
On the second try, he hissed something at the door, and again the mechanism worked. An iron snake crawled along the edge of the door, and as soon as it crawled to one of those that diverged from the center, they shrank with the characteristic sound of a giant bolt opening.
"Come on, Sir Potter," I said softly. "And if we meet a basilisk, then under no circumstances look him in the eye - it'll kill you."
Harry nodded and took a step forward…