Lockhart quickly figured out what had happened.
A gaggle of kids was marched into his office.
Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville.
Draco, Goyle, Crabbe, Pansy.
The culprits just so happened to be members of Lockhart's Duelling Club.
Truth be told, if it weren't for Harry Potter's spectacularly reckless "Expelliarmus," it wouldn't have been so easy for a bunch of young wizards to send a 15-meter Quidditch goalpost flying across the pitch.
"They started a brawl right there on the Quidditch field! Spell lights were shooting everywhere, and plenty of students who were supposed to be cheering for them got hurt in the chaos!"
Professor McGonagall's voice was sharp as a wand. "The school teaches you advanced skills so you can pull stunts like this?!"
Her gaze swept over the group like a hawk.
"Miss Granger, I expected better from you."
Her words hit Hermione like a Stunning Spell.
She was on the verge of tears, her voice frantic as she pointed at Draco. "They started it! It was so dangerous—Harry was in trouble, and they cast a spell on him! If I hadn't reacted quickly, he would've fallen from the sky!"
Draco shot her a cold look. "I didn't do anything. We didn't do anything! You lot… you don't understand what it means to have pure-blood pride. We'd never stoop to that on the Quidditch pitch!"
"Liar!" Hermione shrieked. "Loads of people saw it! Harry was dangling in midair, nearly thrown off, and when I cast a spell at you, his broom steadied right away! Don't tell me it wasn't you!"
"It wasn't!" Draco's eyes blazed red. "You lot always assume I'm the bad guy. You don't even stop to think if I'd actually do something like that—just pin every bad thing on me!"
"Professor!" He turned to McGonagall. "This whole mess was them targeting me. We were just defending ourselves!"
Both sides dug in, their arguments erupting again. Gryffindor's Head, Professor McGonagall, and Slytherin's Head, Professor Snape, stood by with faces darker than a moonless night.
Lockhart, though, had pieced it together.
It was pretty clear—Draco and his crew were being unfairly blamed this time.
If his hunch was right, the real culprit was Dobby, the Malfoy family's house-elf, fiercely loyal to Harry. Dobby must've sensed danger at Hogwarts and tried to "save" Harry by sabotaging him in a clumsy attempt to get him sent home.
A bit of a sloppy move.
Like most dark creatures, house-elves didn't always grasp human logic.
But Lockhart couldn't say any of this out loud.
He had no way to explain how he'd know about Dobby's existence.
A house-elf sneaking into Hogwarts and meddling with students? Merlin's beard, who knows if Dumbledore was already keeping an eye on things.
If this got out, the old headmaster, seasoned by years of political battles, wouldn't brush it off as kids' play. He'd likely suspect some scheme tied to Voldemort.
Nope, Lockhart wasn't touching that mess.
Still, letting these kids bicker in his office wasn't going to cut it. He rapped his knuckles on the desk, signaling for silence.
His months of teaching had earned him some sway with these students—more than Snape's cold sneers, at least. Even Harry and Hermione zipped their lips.
"According to school rules, you attacked your classmates. You're all getting detention."
A few of them opened their mouths to protest, but he shot them a icy look. "One more word, and I'll ban you from this year's Quidditch House Cup."
That shut them up quick.
Draco, Harry, and the others had too much house pride to risk their teams' chances. Missing Quidditch would be a disaster for their houses.
Detention at Hogwarts was a serious punishment, just shy of expulsion.
But "detention" varied depending on the professor. In the books, Umbridge had Harry carving lines into his hand with a blood quill. The original Lockhart? He'd have students answering his fan mail.
Those were nothing.
These kids, though? They'd landed themselves in hot water.
Lockhart wasn't exactly a saint. With the curse on his Defense Against the Dark Arts post looming, he could use some capable helpers—and these young wizards had just served themselves up on a silver platter.
No way he was passing that up!
They'd be serving detention with him outside of class, basically joining him in facing whatever dangers came their way.
Pointing at the Quidditch goalpost now sprawled across his office, he said, "You lot need to own up to your actions and make up for the classmates you hurt. And this goalpost? You're fixing it."
Repairing the office wasn't too big a deal.
Harry and Draco, in a rare moment of teamwork, hopped on their broomsticks, tied ropes to the goalpost, and hauled it back to the pitch. Hermione cast Reparo on the windows and walls.
Interestingly, Pansy—usually a bit of a background Slytherin—knew Reparo too.
No surprise there; pure-blood families like hers often gave their kids extra training.
Their spells weren't the strongest, though. The windows came out fine, but the wall still bore an ugly crack.
Hermione looked mortified, staring at the crack with tears welling up.
Lockhart's gaze lingered on the fissure, his thoughts unreadable. He said nothing.
Whatever was coming would come. He was curious to see how the curse would play out.
He hung a string of Cornish Pixies, like wind chimes, in front of the crack and clapped his hands. "See? Looks fine, doesn't it?"
Hermione, still apologetic, gazed at Lockhart's dazzling smile, opening her mouth but unsure what to say.
Lockhart didn't comfort her.
This wasn't Hermione's first time hexing a classmate. Last year, she'd hit Neville with a spell, quick and clean—a clever Gryffindor who charged headfirst into trouble.
A lesson or two wouldn't hurt.
"Looks like I need to keep you lot busy."
Once they'd finished and returned to his office, Lockhart pulled out a stack of books and documents borrowed from the library and handed them to the energetic bunch. "I'm working on a book called Where to Find Dark Creatures. You're going to help."
"There's eight of you. I want each of you to pick one common dark creature and compile as much detailed information as you can."
Lockhart had plenty of practical experience with dark creatures from his memories, but for precise, scholarly descriptions and historical cases, he needed to dig through resources.
That was a tedious job.
With these kids helping, it'd be a breeze.
He'd just need to add his own defense techniques and tips, and the book could become a staple in Defense Against the Dark Arts classes across wizarding schools.
But more than that, this project would weave him into these kids' "fairy-tale lives." From the perspective of their magical journeys, the payoff wouldn't just be the book.
When Harry, Ron, and Hermione faced Voldemort head-on, when Hermione climbed the ranks in the Ministry, when Draco and his crew became pillars of their pure-blood families, this shared project would spark all sorts of fascinating ripple effects.
Lockhart was looking forward to it.
The kids' choices were intriguing.
The Slytherins—Draco, Pansy, and the like—leaned toward dark creatures already used in wizarding society, like Dementors.
Harry and his friends picked creatures they'd encountered.
Ron, for example, chose a Ghoul. His family had one living in their attic, though Lockhart had no clue why it stuck around—did it have a steady supply of corpses or something?
Neville went with Imps, a broad category that included the Cornish Pixies dangling in the office like wind chimes. Another common one was Peeves, the castle's resident poltergeist. Poor Neville must've been pranked by Imps plenty.
Hermione picked a Grindylow, a horned, green-skinned, humanoid water creature. She'd likely read about them in Hogwarts: A History, since the merpeople in the Black Lake kept Grindylows as pets.
Harry's choice was the most curious—a Basilisk.
Lockhart gave him an odd look, wondering if this was the Chosen One's aura or some twist of fate at work.
"Strictly speaking, a Basilisk isn't exactly a dark creature in the technical sense," he said.
Harry froze, looking embarrassed and ready to pick something else, but Draco's scoff made his expression harden. "Professor, can I stick with it?"
"Of course."
Lockhart nodded, seeing a teachable moment. He told them to set their books down and pulled a chair over to talk.
"What I'm about to tell you stays in this room. I won't admit to teaching you this outside."
"It follows strict academic classifications, but it could offend certain intelligent creatures."
"In the real world, Ministries of Magic have to juggle too many interests, so they make definitions that suit various groups, even if they're not academically accurate."
He shrugged, grinning. "Take Centaurs—they'd hex us for calling them 'magical creatures.'"
"But if you keep these distinctions clear in your mind," he tapped his temple, "you'll figure out the best defenses faster. Keep that wisdom in your head and use it when it counts, not to blab about. Got it?"
The kids nodded eagerly.
Harry, especially, felt this deeply.
He'd caused a huge mess today, nearly wrecking Lockhart's office with the skills the professor had taught him. Then McGonagall and Snape dragged them here to face the music.
He'd been terrified he'd lose Lockhart's guidance.
Harry loved everything about magic, and no professor had ever led him so deeply into the wizarding world like this. He didn't want to lose that chance.
He understood—he couldn't go spreading what Lockhart taught them and risk getting him in trouble.
"Good."
Lockhart pulled over a small blackboard, scribbling a few words and holding it up for them to see. "We'll look at this from three angles: the difference between magical creatures and fantastic beasts—magic, magical traits, and biology."