Hogwarts’s idiot professor

Chapter 102: No! Mate?

"I was terrified! The werewolf's teeth were less than a centimeter from me!" Ron's voice was loud, sounding extremely excited. "Luckily, Harry arrived just in time and cast an Incarcerous Charm on the werewolf!"

"Ron, you don't have to be so modest. We all know you single-handedly held off so many werewolves' attacks—"

Everyone gathered in small groups, excitedly discussing.

Among the older students, the Weasleys were also the center of attention. Everyone discussed George and Fred's amazing trick: using Stink Bombs to explode and blind the werewolves, causing these creatures with sensitive noses to go into a frantic frenzy, unable to pinpoint their location by scent. This was a magical offensive technique.

"I declare the Stink Bomb the MVP of this match! We, the Weasley brothers, have discovered the best way to deal with werewolves!"

"Everyone, look forward to it! We plan to improve the Stink Bomb!"

"If Mum knew we successfully fought werewolves with prank items, would she let us continue our research?" George mused aloud.

"Good idea!" Fred's eyes lit up. "She'll definitely be proud of us!"

Cedric, standing nearby, wore a strange expression and couldn't help but say, "If she knew you fought werewolves and dark wizards, she'd only be worried."

Among the students, only Draco stood beside Professor Snape, looking as if he wanted to speak but hesitated.

He had heard this name in some private conversations among his father's generation. This was the werewolf leader who had formerly sworn allegiance to the Dark Lord. Although the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters didn't think highly of this werewolf, no one could deny his contributions in some matters far surpassed those of some Death Eaters.

Such a person, leading a werewolf army and several dark wizards, arriving at this secluded place through the Crabbe family's secret Floo Network fireplace, carrying magical items specifically designed against Professor Lockhart's dark magical creature pets—it was hard not to make him think in the direction of "these people were sent by the Dark Lord."

Why did they come?

Did they intend to kill the Savior, Harry Potter?

Or to kill Professor Snape, the Death Eater 'traitor'?

If the Dark Lord truly intended to purge traitors, would his father, and old Crabbe and old Goyle, also be attacked like them?

He didn't know.

He wanted to ask Professor Snape. He knew it wasn't appropriate to discuss such topics with schoolmates around, but he was so anxious.

Snape remained silent, his face grim, watching Lockhart comfort his pets and then begin to go through the bodies.

He wondered what could be found.

Hmm, Snape probably hadn't done much looting of bodies.

The dark wizards had brought various magical items specifically for dark magical creatures, which were precious and rare things that ordinary wizards could hardly access, impossible to buy anywhere.

Werewolves, though poor, often dwelled in dark corners and always carried their most valuable possessions. As Lockhart went through them, he found more expensive magical materials, herbs, and all sorts of strange things.

Of course, Galleons were always welcome too.

And finishing blows—that's often something many people overlook.

Once young wizards disengaged from the heat of battle, asking them to cast cruel offensive spells on corpses or to slit a corpse's throat with a knife was clearly too much to ask.

Proud wizarding bigwigs like Snape sometimes made the same mistake, assuming the dust had settled, instinctively not wanting to do something so undignified.

Lockhart didn't think that way. Finishing blows, looting bodies—these were excellent habits.

Hmm, it made him look very busy.

As Snape watched, Lockhart soon disappeared from his sight. Even though he had been watching Lockhart, he only saw the fellow pull out a red cloak, put it on, and then vanish!

What was that fellow doing?!!!

Snape was truly terrified of more things he couldn't control, and yet Lockhart was constantly causing such things.

Honestly, he was starting to get scared.

Where did he go?

How did he just disappear?

Snape looked back at the Crabbe family's Flobberworm farm, and suddenly had a realization—that dark magical creature, which looked a lot like a red cloak, had been continuously effective for decades, forcing the Crabbe family to abandon this valuable farm because they couldn't find any Flobberworms.

How to deal with it?

He knew the method, and probably the young wizards present also knew it.

Snape thought for a moment, then instructed Draco behind him, "Go be with your classmates."

"But, Professor—" Draco wanted to say something else, but seeing Professor Snape just stare at him with dead fish eyes, he swallowed and reluctantly turned to leave.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Snape waved his wand, releasing his Patronus, a doe. Sure enough, with the Patronus's help, he saw Lockhart again.

He was kneeling in front of a werewolf's body, one hand propping up the werewolf's furry chest, the other holding his wand, seemingly casting some spell.

He quickly walked closer and finally heard Lockhart's incantation.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Damn it!"

Lockhart shrieked, as if burned, almost dropping the wand in his hand. Then, he neurotically apologized to the wand, "Sorry, sorry, I didn't react quickly enough. You don't like me using you to cast dark magic."

He gently stroked the wand, as if soothing it, then put it into his wizard's robe pocket and pulled out a handful of wands from a ring enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm.

Yes, a whole handful.

They were clearly the wands of the dark wizards and werewolves present.

Lockhart picked and chose among them, selected one, and then pointed the wand at the werewolf again. "Avada—"

"What are you doing!" Snape finally couldn't help but ask.

"Holy crap!" Lockhart cried out in his mother tongue, almost dropping the wand again. Seeing it was Snape, he sighed in relief, but couldn't help rolling his eyes.

"Your fairy tale adventure is over, but my fairy tale adventure isn't!"

It was that damned familiar rhetoric again. Snape suppressed the irritation in his heart. "What adventure?"

"My old man's wishes, don't you remember? I have to find the key to dealing with werewolves. And the forest's wishes, I have to find a way to cage the beast in my heart!"

Lockhart muttered, "A fairy tale is a fairy tale, reality is reality. Back in reality, I lost my Wolfsbane Potion, and the 'wild containment' I honed in there isn't complete—"

"I was just one step away. I've found the answer. I have to try it. And then a werewolf just appears before me—isn't this fate's guidance, clearly wanting me to put an end to this adventure—"

"It's very simple: Tom's method of making Horcruxes, the old-school wizard's approach of 'not disciplining wildness, just locking it up,' and a little bit of my understanding of memory and soul—"

Snape listened to this whole rambling speech with a furrowed brow. Honestly, he didn't quite understand it.

He only caught one key piece of information: Tom! Horcrux!

Having read Lockhart's draft of Lord Voldemort: A Pure-Blood Supremacist with a Muggle Father?, he knew what this meant!

Voldemort's method of creating Horcruxes!

"Gilderoy, what exactly are you doing?!!!"

Lockhart simply put a finger to his lips, "Shush," motioning him to be quiet. He leaned on the werewolf's furry corpse again, raised his wand, and said, "Just once, just once, and I'll know if my guess is wrong."

There was one cruel thing he didn't mention.

The werewolf before them wasn't dead; it was merely in a deep coma.

But he didn't care. He had no mercy for these werewolves who tried to attack him and his students.

"Avada Kedavra!"

There was no greater malice than his current state, treating life as an experimental subject to be manipulated at will.

A flash of green light, and the werewolf's 'corpse' clearly shuddered and twitched. The muscles on its body visibly relaxed.

Snape vaguely glimpsed something. A powerful and chaotic magical force erupted—it was the werewolf's soul's final cry in this world, releasing all its emotions, feelings, desires, everything, breaking apart, destroying, dissipating like dazzling fireworks.

And this force seemed to be used by him, rapidly surging within him.

The red cloak on his body seemed startled, began to struggle fiercely, trying to get off his back.

Lockhart knelt on the ground, head tilted back, hands hanging limply, eyes vacant as if he had lost his soul. His mouth was open, as if wailing in lonely sorrow, or perhaps laughing in joyous abandon, an indescribable strangeness.

Soon, black smoke billowed from his mouth, then from his eye sockets, from his nostrils and ears. Then, he seemed to ignite, thick smoke rapidly rising from him, swirling like black flames.

Within the flames, a seemingly evil and ferocious werewolf quietly emerged, roaring at the sky, its cries tearing at the heart.

"This feels good—" the werewolf, formed of flames within black smoke, moaned. The voice sounded like Lockhart's, yet so alien. It looked down at Snape.

"Severus, this feels good. Don't you want to try it? Emotions are like beasts; you can't lock them in your heart and cling to them, otherwise they'll bark endlessly in the cage, disturbing your mind and denying you a moment of peace. Nor can you release them from the cage and let them run wild like unbridled horses—"

"!!!" Snape's eyes narrowed, his gaze becoming dark and cold. Before he could say anything, a curse suddenly came from his ear—"Bullshit!"

He abruptly turned his head, seeing a furious and ardent horse in a cloud of silver mist, angrily cursing the werewolf in mid-air. "You're the wild horse, your whole family are wild horses!"

Saying that, the horse's head turned to look at Snape. "Don't listen to him. That beauty should be carefully kept in your heart, so it can brew into the mellow sweetness of fine wine!"

"Hehehe~~" The werewolf looked down at the horse and Snape, laughing maniacally, its crimson eyes full of malice, mocking, "What if it brews into sour green apple vinegar? Bitter and sour, oh, or maybe poison wine!"

Snape had truly had enough!

Truly!

How he wished Lockhart was Voldemort; then he could pull out his wand and cast the Killing Curse on him without any psychological burden.

Avada Kedavra!

Oh, then the whole world would be clean and quiet!

Please, can I just hide back in my sack? Don't leave me exposed to the biting cold wind! Snape felt as though his entire being was tearing apart, his heart utterly chilled.

Fortunately, this chaotic scene didn't last long.

A translucent figure, pale as if drained of life, floated up. It looked somewhat like a ghost, but it was definitely not a ghost.

Snape was very certain.

What ghost is five meters tall?!

The giant ghost looked down at them, grabbed the werewolf from the black smoke with one hand, and the horse from the silver smoke with the other, forcefully stuffing them into its own chest.

After putting them in, it seemed to gain vital colors, starting to glow with such vibrant hues.

The giant ghost was clearly still not satisfied. It turned and grabbed the wildly shaking red cloak, opening its mouth as if to swallow it.

Perhaps the red cloak was shaking too violently, struggling desperately. This made him not want to experience the pleasure of eating a pile of cockroaches like Dumbledore.

Perhaps he wasn't very willing to devour this thing into his soul.

Ultimately, the giant ghost only vigorously shook the cloak, making it rapidly expand in the wind, draping it over itself. Then its entire body quickly collapsed and merged into Lockhart's kneeling body on the ground.

"Oh~~~"

Lockhart groaned, "Severus, this feels good, you—"

Suddenly, a wand appeared in his field of vision, pressed firmly against his eye. He looked up to see Snape trembling, gritting his teeth, and muttering, "You damned bastard, if you dare say another word, even one word, I'll kill you!"

"!!!"

Lockhart froze for a moment, blinked, and leaned back. "Severus, what are you doing? My legs are just numb; I was hoping you could help me up?"

What are you doing!

Is helping me up that hard?

When people are speechless, they really do laugh.

Snape laughed, tears streaming down his face, laughing so hard that he also knelt to the ground, sobbing like a lonely wild wolf.

No!

Mate?

Lockhart truly looked bewildered at the man. "Are—are you alright?"

Snape was not alright at all. He seemed to have completely broken down, gripping the wild grass on the ground with force. The thorns pricked his skin, but he ignored them, only howling like a werewolf.

Lockhart was stunned.

Seriously, who was the werewolf here?

Shouldn't it be me?

Oh, he realized. The unique emotional influence of dark magical creatures!

Just as Dementors, by merely being near, made living beings feel the fading and dimming of life, and just as the golden retriever made living beings feel terror and freeze like statues, his Patronus horse and the werewolf probably also carried such unique influences.

One moment, ardent joy and beauty, the next, a malicious, bone-chilling loneliness. Anyone experiencing that would struggle to cope.

Moreover, this should now be a targeted solution. Severus's current magical resistance in this regard was terribly weak.

Old Snivellus, he's broken down.

Lockhart sighed, rolled over, and sat beside Snape, feeling somewhat helpless.

He knew it. Snape wasn't a good person. People couldn't overlook his past evil deeds just because of his deep affection or his dark past of being bullied. Thankfully, Lockhart himself wasn't exactly a good person either, and he had no moral hang-ups about befriending his first friend since transmigrating.

Everyone was the same. They had a malicious side and a beautiful side.

That's just how life was.

It was tough.

Lockhart gestured to the now docile dark magical creature, the sack-like cloak, expanding its boundaries to envelop both him and Snape, preventing the students from seeing their professor in such a pitiful state, preserving Snape's dignity.

Cry.

Perhaps this crying was Snape's reward from this adventure.

How wonderful!

Everyone had their own rewards.

Lockhart contentedly sat beside the sobbing Snivellus Snape, beginning to tally the assortment of items he had gained from looting the bodies.

....

For early access to advanced chapters on p@treon

[email protected]/Chaos_God

Thank you so much for your support and for reading