great-warnovel Chapter 138 Lockhart's Wand
Chapter 138 Lockhart's Wand
Chapter 138 Lockhart's Wand (Two Chapters Combined)
"Although Mom didn't show it, she was still in pain. She truly loved Dad, but she chose what she considered more important—her three children."
The atmosphere was so heavy it felt like it was going to crush her. Hermione couldn't say a word, watching Lockhart act as if nothing was wrong, pulling her along as they continued forward.
"You're not of noble birth, so why would those pure-bloods want you to be the Head of Slytherin?" she asked, trying to find a topic to talk about.
"They think I'll be somewhat inclined towards Malfoy Castle, after all, I was born and raised here," Lockhart said. The nobles were just being wishful; they didn't know what Lockhart's childhood was like. In their eyes, this first-generation child from a wizarding family, born in Malfoy Castle, was a child raised on pure-blood values, and absolutely in their own best interests.
No one remembers what happened when the Lockhart family entered the city. Even the wizard in charge of the inspection had handled too many people; even if he had an impression, he wouldn't care, much less report it to his superiors.
The snow was still falling around them, and they had already entered the city.
This snow was specially sent down by weather wizards to complement the Christmas season.
Warm light shone through the sky above the inner city, illuminating the windows of every household. The faint sound of Christmas carols echoed in the air, bringing a rare moment of joy to even the poorest families.
They stopped in front of a small house in the outer city, which was far from the inner city and considered a rather remote area, where they couldn't enjoy much of the kindness emanating from the gentlemen.
"This is the home I grew up in," Lockhart said softly.
"My mother found a job as a clerk in the government affairs department, which was barely enough to support me and my two older sisters. The heavy rent and living costs made her seem like a different person, but I can't blame her, she was just too tired."
Standing in front of this not-so-grand little building, the dark windows are like gaping maws in a nightmare, a stark contrast to the warm firelight in other homes.
The house was filled with the screams of girls, the cries of boys, and the hysterical shouting and beating of a woman.
"You're already eleven years old! If there isn't a magical upheaval by next September, you won't be able to go to Hogwarts! You'll become Squibs, a laughingstock! More disgraceful than your good-for-nothing fathers!"
"Look at your brother! He learned how to move the cauldron with magic long ago! But what about you! You can't do anything but eat! Pathetic pigs!"
Even more horrific screams rang out, accompanied by increasingly vile insults.
After a while, perhaps Mrs. Lockhart had grown tired of hitting her, she said gently, "Oh, don't cry, my poor little darling. You are not like your two useless sisters. You are the most precious treasure, the only solace your good-for-nothing father left me. You are so wonderful, so adorable, who could bear to see you cry?"
"Mom, please don't hit my sister anymore!" the boy said, his voice trembling with tears.
"Okay, okay, I'll do whatever you say. Here, drink this. This is a tonic that Mom bought at a high price; it's very good for your health!"
Hermione looked up, but Lockhart seemed unmoved; perhaps he had already relived these moments countless times.
"Were the professor's two older sisters Squibs?"
"Yes," Lockhart said softly.
"You're probably the first outsider to know about this. Mom hid it very well; she made everyone believe that her three children would all enroll in school at the right time, become illustrious wizards, and return home after completing their studies..."
To become a superior person in Malfoyburg.
"The admission notice doesn't lie; whose child hasn't received an acceptance letter? Even if you can hide it for a while..."
When the next Christmas arrives and all the students go home, her lie will instantly fall apart.
"What happened next?" Hermione asked.
Lockhart didn't answer, but led her through the door, and the two filed inside.
In the brief moment of stepping through the door, the timeline leaps once more, the light outside the window changes rapidly, as if a whole year has passed in an instant.
She saw Mrs. Lockhart sitting in a chair; she looked much older than when she first entered the city.
At this moment, she is sitting under the fireplace and Christmas tree, gently stroking a magic wand.
Suddenly, with a bang, the door behind me was pushed open, and a lively and energetic voice rang out hurriedly from behind.
"Mom! Where's my present? You said you'd give me a precious gift this Christmas!"
"Another year has passed?" Hermione wondered to herself as she looked back.
That was Professor Lockhart in his youth, with his gleaming blond hair and beautiful blue eyes unchanged. His father's handsome genes were evident in him, but now he was more flamboyant and energetic. Perhaps because he received too much love from his mother, he was even a bit like Draco, with a touch of arrogance and an air of not caring about anyone.
"Come here, my darling, come and see what this is." Mrs. Lockhart called to her son, her eyes filled with doting affection, as if she saw her son and husband superimposed on each other at the same time.
"It's a wand!" Lockhart exclaimed in surprise, holding the exquisitely crafted wand and tentatively waving it. A firework burst and exploded at the tip of the wand.
"My son is a genius!" Mrs. Lockhart exclaimed with delight.
"Even Ollivander's masterpiece isn't something everyone can use smoothly! It was made for you!"
"This must be expensive!" Lockhart fondled the fine gold foil patterns on the handle. At the bottom of the grip, there was also a rather well-designed leaf-shaped decoration.
"Cherry wood, 9 inches, dragon's heartstring, slightly curved," the woman read aloud.
"You'll be going to Hogwarts next year, and I can't bear to see you go through that dangerous wand selection like the other children. You deserve the best!" Mrs. Lockhart looked at him with doting eyes.
At this moment, Lockhart, standing beside Hermione, said softly, "In that era, there were more Master Wands than now, but they were still extremely expensive. Only nobles could afford them; most wizards' children..."
They've already started using wand-selection.
"Your mother must have gone to great lengths to buy it," Hermione whispered.
But Lockhart did not answer.
Instead, Lockhart asked, "Mommy, where are my sisters? Why aren't they coming down? I want to show them my new wand!"
Mrs. Lockhart suddenly stiffened, then said in an icy tone, "Remember, you will no longer have a sister."
Lockhart suddenly froze, staring at his mother in disbelief, his clever little mind seemingly processing a multitude of ideas in an instant.
"You sold them? Mother!?" he shouted.
"To exchange for this wand?"
Mrs. Lockhart said coldly, "Those two good-for-nothings only waste food at home. I haven't been able to let them out since September because it would make our family the laughingstock of the neighborhood. Two children from a wizarding family who are eleven years old, and they're both Squibs!"
"Instead of leaving it useless, I'll give you my most precious treasure in exchange for a wand, a wand worthy of you!"
But Lockhart wouldn't have it. He looked at his mother like she was a stranger and yelled, "But they're your daughters! How can you be so heartless!"
Snapped!
A crisp slap landed on his face.
"How dare you say that to me?" Mrs. Lockhart looked at her son in disbelief, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes shrinking with anger.
"Do you know how much effort I've put into you?!"
The woman's expression was terrifying; no one knew how exhausted and painful she was inside, not even her own children could understand her.
Lockhart covered his face, looking at his mother with a shocked expression; this was the first time he had ever been hit.
The child, spoiled and pampered, was even angrier than Mrs. Lockhart at this moment.
"You don't deserve to be a mother!" he roared, snapping the expensive Master Wand in half with brute force before storming out of the house.
"Where were your two older sisters sold to?" Hermione already knew the answer in her heart.
Lockhart pulled her along, following little Lockhart out of the room, their mother's broken cries still audible behind them.
The two walked along the road at a leisurely pace, but the surrounding scenery seemed to rush past them in fast-forward.
Lockhart ran headlong through the dark alleyways.
It's Christmas again, and every household is lit with warm lights. From the magical dome in the inner city, you can hear laughter and drumbeats, from the performance troupe invited by the nobles.
The snow was still falling slowly. Little Lockhart had run for who knows how far when he tripped and fell to his death on the deserted side of the road.
He got up and looked at the huge house in front of him, like a monster devouring people in the night. He didn't know where he was or why he had come here.
"Perhaps it's a connection between family members; this is the last time I'll see my sisters," the adult professor said calmly.
Lockhart looked up and saw two little girls covered in wounds standing behind the dark window. They seemed about to say something when they saw him.
But the next second, they were dragged into darkness by an invisible force, followed by terrifying footsteps and the sound of bones being chewed, which drew ever closer.
Lockhart was terrified. He wanted to rush in to save his sister, but he was too scared. The chewing sound grew louder and louder, as if something huge was crawling and moving behind the door, about to burst through it at any moment.
He ran crying, using all his strength to try and leave the house.
"It wasn't until this year that I learned the Green Flame Party had a way of smuggling the Basilisk into Malfoy Castle. Before that, I just thought it was a Death Eater stronghold. They may not have killed my sisters immediately, but perhaps my approach alerted them. The Death Eaters used the Basilisk's voice to scare me and quickly moved the kidnapped children. Later, when I returned after completing my studies, the place was already deserted," the professor said softly.
"But as far as I know, Voldemort seems to want a young wizard, if your two older sisters are Squibs."
Lockhart chuckled, but his eyes remained cold: "Mama lied to them. She's really good at lying. Even the Death Eaters probably didn't expect this desperate witch to dare to use two Squirrel girls to deceive them."
He pulled Hermione along, following the fleeing child, as the surrounding scenery rushed past. Before long, they returned to Lockhart's house.
The room was quiet when Lockhart walked in, looking dejected. He had expected to be scolded by his mother.
But the quiet inside the room frightened him.
Two bystanders followed the boy into the kitchen, where they found Mrs. Lockhart.
She was facing away from everyone, trembling all over, and blood flowing from the table spread to the ground, forming a small stream.
"Mom! What are you doing!" Lockhart cried out in terror.
The next moment, Mrs. Lockhart turned around and saw that her left hand had been cut off and her mouth was a bloody mess.
She appeared to be insane, her perfectly intact right hand clutching a cleanly shaved arm bone, with a bloody, mangled tongue in her palm.
She rushed over and stuffed the two items into her son's arms, her heavy body causing him to fall to the ground.
Dazzling white threads emerged from Mrs. Lockhart's brain and connected to young Lockhart's head.
A huge, echoing sound reverberated throughout the space; it was Mom's voice.
"The Master Wand is ruined, but there's another way! A blood relative's voluntarily donated arm bone and tongue, mended with blood, can still create the finest wand!"
She pressed her son firmly to the ground, and under the surging magic, blood stained both of them. Her hand and tongue merged into one, transforming into the most suitable magic wand for her son.
"You are my son, I've given everything for you! You deserve the best!"
"You don't understand! You need to understand! I am your mother! I am worthy to be your mother! You need to know how much I have sacrificed for you!"
As Mrs. Lockhart poured in a flood of memories, they rushed into the boy's mind. He struggled with fear and pain. His mother's blood stained the ground and expanded outward at an extremely fast speed. In the end, the entire memory space was left with only a patch of crimson.
Hermione now understands why Lockhart remembers things before he was born; it's a scar his mother used to remind him of, a scar called sacrifice and giving.
When the professor turned back, he was gazing at the short staff floating in his hand, which was exactly the same wand Hermione had seen him use.
Its outer wooden shell peeled away piece by piece, revealing its true form: a gleaming white bone wand, oozing traces of red, like blood or tears.
"Because of poverty, my mother didn't have the money to buy the potion to make her tongue and left hand grow back," Lockhart said.
"She had to go out into the wild to find plants and concoct potions with her half-baked skills."
"But most of the plants in the wild are polluted. Although her left arm has grown back, it remains hunched and deformed forever, and ugly skin diseases cover half of her body."
"And her tongue turned into a huge tumor, and she could no longer speak normally."
Lockhart didn't say what happened next, but Hermione could imagine that, given the attitudes of those people in Malfoy Castle, they would probably find it hard to accept that such a witch would continue to work in the government offices.
She now fully understood Professor Lockhart's inner demons; it was under this immense and unbearable pain that he came to Hogwarts to study.
Every day at school, every Christmas that others enjoyed, was the source of his pain.