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HP Chapter 27: Bad People and Bad Deeds
🕑 Added 2025-08-06 14:00:11 +0000 UTCThat afternoon was Defense Against the Dark Arts.
As usual, the students of Slytherin and Gryffindor kept to their unspoken truce during class, sitting in two clearly divided camps on opposite sides of the room.
Once everyone was seated, Lockhart, draped in aquamarine robes, cleared his throat to quiet the room. He picked up Neville’s copy of Travels with Trolls, raising it so the blinking photograph of himself on the cover was in full view.
“I,” he said, pointing to his own photo, “am Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award. Not that I talk about it, I'm not famous just for my smile~”
Anne resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If you don’t talk about it, then why bring it up?
“I see all of you have purchased the full set of my works. Excellent! I thought we’d begin today with a little quiz. Don’t worry, it’s just to see how well you’ve read my books~”
Once everyone had a paper, he said, “You’ll have thirty minutes. Begin!”
Anne glanced down at her quiz paper, and immediately downgraded her opinion of him again. The quiz had fifty questions, things like:
What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?
What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite pet? ...and so on.
She scribbled I don’t know across the top and tossed the paper aside. A moment later, Pansy tapped her on the shoulder. Anne turned, confused.
Pansy held up her own paper, pointing to the few incomplete answers on it. Anne showed her own blank sheet. Pansy gave Anne a look of admiration and bent back down to write again.
Fanny, having finished her quiz, glanced at Anne’s and simply pursed her lips without saying anything.
After thirty minutes, Lockhart began flipping through the quiz sheets right there at the front of the class.
“Tsk tsk tsk... almost no one remembered that my favorite color is lilac! I mentioned it in Year with the Yeti! Clearly, some of you will need to do a bit of reviewing after class... Oh, what’s this? Miss Hermione Granger? Who’s Hermione Granger?”
Hermione shot her hand up from the front row.
“Excellent! One hundred percent! Ten points to Gryffindor!” Lockhart beamed.
Fanny looked over at Hermione with envy. Anne just scowled.
Next, Lockhart dramatically unveiled a cage on the desk. Inside were a bunch of Cornish pixies, electric blue, about eight inches tall, with sharp, pointed faces and high-pitched screeches. They were bouncing around frantically.
Without explaining anything to the class, Lockhart announced, “Right then! I’m letting them out! Let’s see how you handle them!”
“Crap! Duck!” Anne muttered, diving under the desk and dragging Fanny with her. Fanny didn’t understand at first, but a second later, she was very grateful she’d listened. A few Slytherins nearby who followed suit also ended up counting their blessings.
The pixies exploded out of the cage like fireworks. Two of them grabbed Neville by the ears and hoisted him into the air. Others shot straight for the back of the room, shattering glass and raining shards everywhere. The rest wreaked havoc: tossing ink bottles, ripping paper, flinging books and bags out the broken windows.
Within minutes, half the class had taken shelter under their desks. Neville was now dangling from the chandelier.
“Come on now! Round them up, round them up! They’re only pixies, ” Lockhart called out, then rolled up his sleeves and dramatically waved his wand:
“Peskipiksi Pesternomi!”
Nothing happened.
One of the pixies snatched Lockhart’s wand and chucked it out the window.
He gasped and immediately ducked under the teacher’s desk, nearly getting flattened as the chandelier gave way and crashed down.
The bell rang. Everyone bolted for the door. But with the crush of bodies, Anne decided it was safer to stay under the desk a while longer, pulling Fanny back with her to avoid a potential stampede.
Once the chaos had calmed a little, they slipped toward the door, but Lockhart popped back up and cheerily said, “Ah! You five, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Anne, and Miss Fanny, would you kindly round up the remaining pixies and return them to their cage?”
And with that, he walked out and closed the door behind him.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Anne muttered, freezing two pixies mid-air before standing up. “Can he even be called a teacher?”
“He was just trying to give us hands-on practice,” Hermione said, flicking a freezing charm at two more pixies and tossing them in the cage.
Anne dumped her frozen pixies in too, muttering sarcastically, “Practice? He has no clue what he’s doing. Have you ever seen a professor get his wand stolen by a pixie?” She cast another freezing charm on a pixie sneaking up behind Hermione.
Ron and Harry nodded in agreement.
“That's not fair,” Hermione insisted. “You’ve read his books, you know the amazing things he’s done!”
“Exactly!” Fanny chimed in. “He’s been on so many adventures!”
“I haven’t read a single word of them,” Anne said, catching another pixie. “And who’s to say any of those stories are even true? Even if they are, who knows if he actually did them.”
“That's just being argumentative,” Hermione sniffed.
Anne shrugged without comment.
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On Saturday, Anne was out near Hagrid’s hut, in a clearing where several massive pumpkins were growing. She was taking notes in a small notebook as Hagrid gestured at one of the pumpkins, explaining something.
But then Hagrid stopped mid-sentence and waved toward the castle.
Anne turned and saw Harry, Hermione, and Ron coming, Harry and Hermione supporting Ron, who was… vomiting slugs?
“Hey! Harry! Ron! Hermione!” Hagrid called, motioning for Anne to join him.
Anne packed her notebook away and came closer, just in time to see Ron retch up another slug. Hagrid noticed too.
“What’s happened to Ron? Get inside, quick!” Hagrid practically carried Ron into his hut.
Anne and Hermione brought up the rear. “Anne, why are you here?” Hermione asked.
Anne pointed to the pumpkins. “Hagrid’s growing these. I heard about it from Professor Sprout, so I came to check on their growth. What happened to Ron?”
“I’ll explain inside...”
Once inside, Harry quickly described what had happened, but Hagrid didn’t seem too worried. He just brought out a large copper basin and placed it in front of Ron. “Better out than in!”
He sat down and added, “Just give it time, Ron. It'll probably stop on its own.”
Anne suddenly remembered a potion she'd brewed a few days ago and was meaning to test. “Maybe not...”
Everyone turned to her.
“You’ve got an idea?” Harry asked.
Anne casually spun a Knut between her fingers. “Maybe. But first, how did this happen exactly?”
“Ron’s wand’s busted,” Hermione explained. “He tried to hex Malfoy, but it backfired.”
Anne burst into laughter, she’d never heard of a wizard hexing himself. But she quickly caught herself under the group’s unimpressed stares. “Ahem, sorry. Just... picturing it. Anyway, if that’s all, I think I’ve got something. Hold on.” She tucked away the coin and dug through her bag.
“Got it!” She pulled out a tiny black glass bottle and handed it to Ron. “Drink this. You’ll feel better in five minutes. By the way, why didn’t you go to Madam Pomfrey?”
Harry replied, “We were near the Quidditch pitch. This was closer. And we thought maybe Hagrid could help!”
Ron opened the bottle, sniffed, and recoiled. “What is this?”
“You really don’t want to know the ingredients. But hey, either you drink it, or you keep vomiting slugs. Up to you.”
Ron gave her a look, then pinched his nose and downed the potion. Immediately, he vomited even more slugs.
Harry and Hermione stared at Anne.
“That’s normal,” Anne said. “One last purge. He’ll feel much better afterward. So, what did Malfoy say to set him off?”
Hagrid looked at Harry. Anne turned to Hermione.
“He called Hermione something,” Harry said quietly. “It must’ve been awful. Everyone was furious.”
Ron’s voice was hoarse but clear, “He called her a Mudblood!”
Hagrid’s face darkened. He turned to Hermione. “Is that true?”
Hermione nodded. “Yes. I don’t really know what it means, but it sounded... awful.”
Ron said angrily, “It’s the worst insult he could think of. ‘Mudblood’ is what they call Muggle-borns. It means dirty, inferior blood. Some pure-bloods, like the Malfoys, think they’re better than everyone else. It’s nonsense.”
He blinked. “Wait... I don’t feel sick anymore!” He looked at Anne, astonished. “Anne, it worked!”
She gave a distracted nod, her gaze on Hermione, who had gone pale and looked hurt.
Anne thought of a psychology article she once read. Childhood insults could leave lasting wounds.
She gave Hermione a soft smile and said gently, “Hermione, can I ask you something? If someone gives you a gift, and you refuse it, who does the gift belong to?”
Hermione blinked, confused, but quickly answered, “Well... the person who gave it, I suppose.”
Anne nodded. “Exactly. So if someone gives you something awful and you don’t take it, then it’s still theirs. Bad people always end up keeping their bad things.”
Hermione smiled faintly, cheeks a little pink.
Harry and Ron also smiled, understanding her meaning.
Anne rubbed her stomach, pulled out her notebook, and said to Hagrid, “Right. Problem solved. Now let’s get to that magically enlarged pumpkin of yours, I’m starving, and I’d like to eat early.”
