great-warnovel Chapter 139 The Moon Over Falling Snow
Chapter 139 The Moon Over Falling Snow
Chapter 139 The Moon Over Falling Snow
"Sometimes I wonder, if I hadn't angrily broken that wand, would I have avoided all this torment?"
"After enrolling at Hogwarts, I never returned to Malfoy Castle during my student years." Lockhart's voice was light and airy, like an empty puppet.
"Every Christmas, I take a fixed amount of the Water of Life and Death to keep myself asleep in my dreams most of the time, while during the summer vacation, I sign up for study tours with my professors."
"I can't face a mother like that, even though I hold her hand all the time—"
Hermione felt an overwhelming sense of nausea. She had only empathized slightly with the situation, but she felt the suffocating pressure that made it hard to breathe. Just how resilient must one be to face that wand and all the memories it evoked?
And I'm not lying to you, I really did wet my pants in first grade because of a snake that my rival conjured up. Because that snake might have devoured my sisters, it kept appearing in his dreams.
"You may know that I had a hat-making incident when I enrolled." He looked at Hermione and forced a smile.
"The Sorting Hat originally wanted me to go to Ravenclaw, saying he valued my intelligence more, but at the last minute it hesitated for a long time, saying that perhaps a more honorable heart could save me than intelligence."
Hermione could imagine the Sorting Hat's hesitation. It had seen too many students and was willing to offer the best choice to each child, just as it had chosen Gryffindor for itself. But when it came to Lockhart, it hesitated for so long. Perhaps it hoped that Lockhart could heal his wounds by gaining glory, or perhaps it believed that only Slytherin, who was firmly on his own path, could prevent him from being tormented and destroyed by his memories.
"I studied hard and tried to focus all my attention on my studies, but the nightmare still haunted me."
Every time a spell is cast, every time a hand is swung, those fears and nightmares will follow like a shadow.
"Until fifth grade, when I learned the Forgetfulness Charm ahead of time, I decided to change all of this," he said calmly.
"Perhaps I am truly gifted in this area. In just one Christmas holiday, I completed the creation of a false self—a strong, confident, righteous, and radiant me."
He pointed to himself: "This is the me you see here."
The man before them seemed to have dropped his disguise; he had transformed into a nearly translucent humanoid form, with ribbons of light flowing within him, forming a framework that resembled "human."
Hermione was somewhat surprised. She had originally thought that Professor Lockhart had separated his personality and shown his good side, but she did not expect that he would choose to completely shut down his true self and instead create a false, perfect version of himself.
Perhaps in his view, the cowardly, timid, pathetic, reckless, and irrational real self had no part that could be shown to the outside world, or perhaps those painful memories had already constituted his entirety, making it impossible for him to cut off a part that could support another personality.
Therefore, he chose to construct a false personality, to understand and suppress those painful parts from the perspective of an observer, a "perfect outsider" who is strong enough to bear all of this, unable to empathize, but a rational being who can bear all of this.
"Then where is the real you?" Hermione asked.
The fake Lockhart regained his normal appearance, and with a wave of his bone wand, the surrounding crimson faded as if washed away by rain. They returned from their original memories to the surface of the water, to the dark, surging things.
They were all submerged in the bottomless depths of the water.
"Come with me." Lockhart led him toward the moon.
The moon, which had been hanging in the air and was out of reach, suddenly grew larger and larger within a few steps, until it became a blurry, huge ball of light.
Layers of sheer curtains enveloped it. Hermione looked down and saw that she was high in the sky. The boundless water seemed to be a giant mirror, reflecting the bright moon.
The thin, translucent curtains were fluttering and disintegrating, the scattered fragments turning into snowflakes that fell to the ground.
Only when she got this close did she realize that these curtains were actually composed of incredibly profound forgetting spells. Their snowflakes fell and turned into water that blocked everything, burying memories deep inside.
Following the false Lockhart, she passed through layer after layer of curtains and finally arrived at the center of the moon, a giant egg radiating endless light. Inside the giant egg, an identical Lockhart, curled up like an infant, was fast asleep.
Even though the Oblivion Curse isolated him from everything, even in the deep, dreamless slumber, his face still bore sorrow and dejection, a stark contrast to the dazzling, confident expression of the fake Lockhart beside him.
"Voldemort's curse is extremely powerful. Under normal circumstances, after it invades my body, it will drag me into boundless fear, and eventually drive me insane and die," Lockhart explained.
"But the real me is hidden and dormant. The curse only trapped the false me. It could not kill the soulless false personality, and because of the constraints of the false me, it could not find the real soul. And because of the disappearance of the false me, the real personality manifested and took over the body. So no matter how other professors examined me, they could only come to the conclusion that I was healthy and that I was dormant."
At this moment, Hermione finally understood the cause and effect, why the professor had fallen into a deep sleep, and why no trace of the curse could be found.
"But Hogwarts' protective barrier is so strong, Voldemort couldn't possibly affect you from the outside, could he?"
"unless"
The two fell silent.
"Someone brought a cursed object into the school."
Even including the upperclassmen, there was only one person who had ever spent an extended period of time alone.
"Draco," Hermione said calmly, and she now understood why Draco hadn't given her a gift this year. It probably wasn't that he'd forgotten; he was just too panicked and anxious to prepare gifts for anyone else.
She noticed Lockhart's expression; he seemed hesitant.
"You want to cover for him?" She frowned.
This wasn't the first time Draco had made a mistake. Hermione had already shown him mercy once last year at Chernobog, when countless voices in her head urged her to kill him. There is no mercy in this place.
However, there is a merciful short sword, specially made to bring final peace to those who have been struck down.
But she still believed that Draco was not beyond redemption, that he was just a spoiled child, an immature kid who didn't know his place.
But this time, he colluded with the Green Flame Gang's Wolf Fox, bringing dangerous magical artifacts into the school. As a child of a magical family, he couldn't possibly not know that this would cost Lockhart his life, but he still did it anyway.
Hermione felt that she could no longer give him another chance.
"I just feel that he is somewhat similar to me back then," the fake Lockhart said softly.
"At a similar age, he experienced a major upheaval, his family was torn apart, and everything that he was once proud of became the source of his pain."
"He was once arrogant and spoiled, and his mind was controlled by his emotions until his life was suddenly destroyed."
"He must have been sleepless at night, and he must have cried in secret, angrily cursing the injustice of fate."
"He has very few options, and if he is not careful, he may make a mistake."
He described it this way, as if he were describing his childhood self.
"But that's no excuse for making a mistake." Hermione frowned, appearing somewhat cold and unapproachable.
"Preaching is useless; broken bones are the best lessons."
Moreover, Lockhart did not make the wrong choice back then. Even though he retreated into his inner self and chose to close himself off, he still gave the world a perfect Lockhart who helped countless people.
"Let me think about it some more, okay Hermione? Let's not tell the other professors yet; this is just between the two of us?"
Lockhart smiled wryly and spoke in a pleading tone.
Hermione, disagreeing with the professor's idea, changed the subject: "So what happens next?"
Lockhart looked at his sleeping true self within the sphere of light and slowly said, "Thanks to you for breaking the curse, I have also been freed. I will be able to send you out unharmed in a moment, and I will continue my mission as a flawless defense professor."
"However, we still need to find that cursed artifact. Although you destroyed it, there should still be a part of my sisters' artifact inside. I can't just leave it there."
"So, will the real you continue to sleep? Continue this lie? If I'm not mistaken, doing so is harmful to you as well, isn't it?"
The person before me remained silent.
Hermione remained noncommittal as she gazed at the real Lockhart, who was sleeping soundly in the light.
Although the curse did not cause any more serious consequences, Lockhart will probably still have to stay in bed for a few days.