Chapter 93: Chapter 93: A curse? What curse? (Edited)
Lockhart never worried about other people's feelings, he instructed his photographer to frantically take pictures and plumes of smoke rose from the camera, "fixing" Lockhart and Harry in the photos.
"We'll be on the front page, come on, smile a little more natural." Lockhart flashed his gleaming teeth and gave Harry tips on how to smile: He had won five Wizard's Weekly awards for the most charming smile, an honor Lockhart likes to talk about.
But even after taking pictures, Lockhart wouldn't let Harry go.
"Ladies and gentlemen, look at me, I have an announcement to make!" Lockhart waved his hand to silence the crowd, and first handed Harry a copy of his autobiography and his complete works, and then made the big announcement that he would become the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.
Lockhart wanted to entice Harry to continue using the savior's popularity. In his mind, he had given Harry a book worth a lot of money and a chance to make headlines, and Harry should be happy with it. But he was wrong, Harry didn't need a few dozen galleons, and he was embarrassed by what Lockhart had done.
Just as Lockhart was at the top of his game, a somewhat dissonant voice shattered his illusions, "Mr. Lockhart, what about the curse left by the Dark Lord?"
"A curse? What curse?" Lockhart looked a little confused.
"The curse left by You-Know-Who!" Tom's acting skills were at their peak at this point: "It is said that You-Know-Who wanted to return to Hogwarts to teach as a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but the great Lord Dumbledore caught wind of his plan and turned him down. Enraged, You-Know-Who put a curse on the position, so that no one could teach for more than a year!"
A hush fell over the bookstore after this statement, most of the middle-aged women in the room had lived through that era, and Tom was right: since a certain point, the Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had indeed changed every year.
It had only been spoken about in private, but this was the first time it had been said in public.
"Many of those professors have met with misfortune, even death, like Professor Quirrell last year!" Tom said.
The fans on stage turned away from the conversation and talked about it.
"Professor Quirrell? I think I remember him teaching a Muggle Studies class before ..."
"That was a long time ago, then Mr. Dumbledore asked him to switch to being a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but he died!"
"I heard he was possessed by You-Know-Who..."
"No, the Ministry said he died from poaching unicorns."
In short, although there was a wide variety of opinions on how Quirrell died, one thing was clear: Professor Quirrell, who had been alive and well up until then, died less than a year after taking over as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.
And then the conversation stopped, as people searched their memories for what had happened to previous Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, and were surprised to discover that it seemed to be a really high-risk profession, as many retired, were maimed, and even died... One teacher was even killed by a wild boar!
Listening to the chatter from the audience, Lockhart nearly lost his composure, but his professionalism allowed him to keep a smile on his face, he took a deep breath and laughed.
"Why are you laughing, sir?" asked one fan cautiously.
"It's actually a coincidence, because as planned, I'm only going to teach for a year! It's a big world out there and I want to move on, so, if I may say so, the curse is valid for me" Lockhart said.
The fans in the audience nodded in agreement, feeling it made sense.
"Don't worry, folks," Tom interjected just as Lockhart was almost muddled, "It is well known that Mr. Lockhart is an adventurer well versed in lifting curses, as mentioned in "Recess with the banshee", no one in England, or the world, knows more about lifting a curse than Mr. Lockhart."
As he spoke, Tom danced with his hands as if he were playing an accordion, as if he were a Lockhart fan.
"Ah, this..." Lockhart just wanted to be on stage, but the fans were already divided into two groups. One group argued that the curse was left by You-Know-Who, and that even Dumbledore couldn't lift it, and that you anti-Lockhart fans were making things difficult for him by asking Mr. Lockhart to lift it.
The other faction thought, "My God, you anti-Lockhart people don't believe in Mr. Lockhart!".
The two factions soon clashed and the situation was out of control for a while.
In the end, Lockhart had to shout, making everyone look at him, "I, Lockhart, recipient of the Third Degree of the Order of Merlin, honorary member of the Defense Against the Dark Arts League, five-time winner of the Most Charming Smile by Witch's Heart magazine, I will do my best to break the curse with Professor Dumbledore!"
The fans present on stage applauded, some even burst into tears, and at that moment Lockhart's eyes also filled with tears. Finally, tears of emotion fell from the corners of his eyes, and many fans burst into tears as well, bringing the atmosphere to a fever pitch.
Lockhart was contrite at this point: I should never have accepted Dumbledore's invitation in the first place. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have become the cursed professor, and I wouldn't have been held by so many people to solve this deadly curse...
At that moment, I just wanted to say to that boy: I thank you for that, Tommie, er, Jimmy? Timmy?
Lockhart couldn't even remember his name.
He wondered if he had to find an excuse to give up Dumbledore. And if so, what was the best excuse?
But the next day he was out of options, as the Daily Prophet headlined his book signing at Flourish and Blotts Bookshop and highlighted the cursed professor's position at Hogwarts, taking stock of the professors who had suffered for it, and announcing his appointment as professor...
That wasn't the worst of it, because the next day, Dumbledore made an unprecedented statement in the newspaper, a statement that could not be avoided, as there would be one more professor per year! Then Dumbledore said that there was no such curse at Hogwarts, and that the history of the previous teachers was pure coincidence. He was looking forward to working with Mr. Lockhart to prove it.
Lockhart felt like his world had collapsed.
Chapter 94: Chapter 94: Isn't this programming? (Edited)
While Lockhart was in despair, what was Tom doing?
He was carving runes.
That day, he took advantage of the confusion to sneak off and join Harry and Ron in a corner for sandwiches. When Lockhart left the bookstore exhausted, everyone burst out laughing.
But their good humor was soon disturbed by two unexpected visitors: the Malfoys arrived at Flourish and Blotts Bookshop. They met Mr. Weasley and, just as hydrogen ions meet hydroxide radicals, the two naturally collided.
Mind you, Lucius Malfoy secretly confirmed before arguing with Mr. Weasley that the diary he had left there was missing.
In the end, the two parted without any physical altercation.
That day, Tom was extremely happy.
For some time after that, Tom studied. He had finished reading Riddle's research manuscript. He also felt the need to do something practical: he wanted to make a gift.
In later times, there was a hot key that was essential for paper writing: Ctrl+F, a keyword search that made it much easier for students to find information. But this, in the 1990s, did not exist in the magical world.
Tom had to create an alchemical device that could replace Ctrl+F.
So he found a piece of magic silver and shaped it into a leaf shape, Riddle had told him that gold and silver were good conductors of magic, but Tom tested it and found that magic silver was more suitable than either metal. It seems that Riddle had not had access to this magical metal at the time.
Tom wrote and drew on the parchment for a while before settling on his idea.
The alchemical creation was to first identify and record the contents of the book and its corresponding location. Next, he would record the words and phrases that the operator wanted to find in the book.
After thinking about the principle of operation, Tom began to carve the runes.
The principle may not seem too difficult, but in practice it is much more complicated. After carving all night, Tom felt as if he had just started.
Looking at the hair that had fallen out, Tom fell into a deep thought, this stuff removes hair!
And the runes always looked familiar: there were beginnings and endings, judgments, denouements, transfers in and out....
I'm a magician, why do I do things so much like programming?
For the rest of his days, he helped Mr. Lawrence restock and stock the bookstore, and acted as a guide for magicians who couldn't find their books. One of Mr. Lawrence's newly hired temporary workers signed a full contract to work in the Flourish and Blotts bookstore, since Tom only worked three days a week. Having found reliable help, Mr. Lawrence is able to sit in his office every day, relaxing with a book and a newspaper, and drinking some cider at lunchtime.
Mr. Ollivander's job was a little easier: Tom was mainly in charge of measuring arm lengths and heights of little witches for Mr. Ollivander. In his spare time, he would carve runes for Mr. Ollivander; Mr. Ollivander would mark the positions on his wand and let Tom carve the corresponding runes on it.
Every day after work, Tom worked on his alchemical artifact in the bedroom. As the start of the school year approached, the object was slowly being completed.
The whole thing looked like a summer oak leaf, except that Tom had painted it with gold leaf to give it a shiny finish. Tom had deliberately turned it into a bookmark.
It's easy to use, so you stick the leaf in a book and it automatically scans the contents. When you need a query, you write the word you are looking for on a piece of paper, stick the leaf into the writing and it remembers what you are looking for, then automatically inserts it into the book, pointing the stem of the leaf at the key word.
If the word is not what the searcher is looking for, it will automatically fly to the next place.
But Tom also found two small bugs....
The first is that if you scan one book and then scan a second book, the contents of the first book are not overwritten. This means that when you search for keywords in the second book, the keywords that match the first book are also picked up, and in the order they are scanned, the leaf bookmarklet also gives priority to the first book...
This is a headache. Let's say Tom scans the book "Standard Spells: Beginner" and then the book "Standard Spells: Level 2", and then Tom wants to search for the word "counterclockwise" in the book "Standard Spells: Level 2", the leaf bookmarklet will start searching for phrases with "counterclockwise" in the first book, and then start displaying phrases from the second book after it has indicated the phrases from the first book.
Another small problem is that once it gets going, it doesn't stop.... This was a problem that Tom realized by accident. Once he accidentally typed the letter "g" as the word he was looking for, and the marker jerked until it ran out of magical power.
Tom picked up his second alchemical creation, the first being the floating coin lamp, and looked at the description of the system:
[Keyword marker - Refinement 1 (3 stars): the work of a crude apprentice alchemist, can automatically search the book for a specific keyword, there are still a myriad of flaws in this object waiting to be discovered, after fixing the flaws the artifact may be able to be upgraded]
Tom was not convinced at first: all the chocolate frogs I drew had three stars! Is this marker of mine of the same grade as the chocolate frogs?
But after learning more about it, he realized that there is a star grading system for alchemical creations, and three stars is pretty good. His floating coin is only one star, and the note says "rated one star because it is the minimum."
Also, Tom's alchemy has gone from level 0 to level 1, currently at [Alchemy Level 1 (1/200)], thanks to Riddle's selfless notes.
The summer vacations were over very quickly for Tom, he had a busy vacation and it seems like only yesterday he was on a train back to London. He could even relax for a while after school.
Harry, who lived at the Burrow, also felt that the summer was over too soon, and it had been a memorable one for him: first he had met an inexplicable house elf at the Dursley's, then he had travelled in a flying car to the humble Burrow, and then he had lived there for a whole month: the happiest month of his life, Harry would say.
Of course, there were those who found the vacations so long that they couldn't wait for school to start, like Peggy Grossman.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
stone 
Paragraph comment