Professor Moonshadow clapped her hands on the lectern, and the students snapped back to themselves. It wasn't that they'd been lost in her looks—rather, they'd been lost in everything else.
"Looks like your minds are elsewhere," Professor Moonshadow said, not the least bit angry about the class collectively drifting off. "In that case, we'll stop here. Go back and keep practicing the Disarming Charm. If your progress is fast enough, we can move on to exploring real combat applications of a more advanced spell very soon."
"Ma'am—no, Professor—but the lesson hasn't even been twenty minutes," Hermione raised her hand to protest.
"If you can't hold your focus for even twenty minutes in class, then there's no point continuing," Professor Moonshadow said with a casual wave. "All right. Listen to me—class dismissed. Free time."
And she drifted out, leaving the students staring at one another.
Everyone already knew the new professor had her own style, but they were still stunned by her teaching method. The moment Moonshadow left, the half-grown kids exploded into heated discussion about Lockhart's verdict.
"The sentencing should already be starting, right? Do you think Lockhart's going to die?"
"He's dead for sure. Over two thousand charges—just reading the verdict will take six hours."
"But isn't Professor Dumbledore there?"
"My dad's a lawyer," someone said. "He told me nobody can wipe that many charges clean. Unless…"
"Unless what?"
"I—I forgot."
Hermione had been arguing too, but at that, something clicked. She sprang to her feet, and her friends blinked.
"Where are you going?" they asked quickly.
"To the 'study room.'"
The moment she said it, Harry and the other two understood. The four of them slipped out of the noisy classroom; almost nobody even noticed they were gone. Hermione was running so fast she nearly crashed into a worker in the corridor.
"Careful there, little miss," the man said. He had a rough-looking face, but his tone was gentle. He smelled faintly of sewer rot and wore a filthy pair of rubber waders, leaving stinking muddy prints across the floor. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, saw them and practically went berserk—he had a massive problem with these workers and got into shouting matches with Mr. Bernini about them every day.
Hermione spotted the badge on the man's chest and flashed him a huge smile. "Thank you for all your hard work."
"Leave it to us, kid," the worker said with a hearty nod before striding off. "We'll make your old castle pretty and clean again. Every single sewer line—we'll clear them all."
Hermione flicked her wand and cast [Scourgify] on the floor, then hurried into an empty classroom.
The mark of the Tower of Tomes on her chest gave a faint glow. She gripped the doorknob and turned it—and the scene beyond the door abruptly became her private study room. As a junior member, she didn't have the authority to open a true portal, but she could convert any physical doorway into an entrance to the Tower of Tomes.
Harry and the others arrived one after another, and the four kids huddled together to talk about Lockhart's trial of the century.
"Hermione, what did you think of?"
Hermione swept her wand; a row of No-Maj law books flew off the shelves and landed on the table. The Tower of Tomes held legal codes from countless countries across history. It hadn't been hit by the outside world's information catastrophe, so everything here could still be read normally.
"Look."
Harry and the others stared, confused. "What does this mean?"
"These are No-Maj laws," Hermione explained. "Just now, Mullen said Lockhart might be found not guilty. It reminded me of the 'unless' his father mentioned."
Ron rolled his eyes. Out of the four, he cared the least about whether Lockhart lived or died—honestly, he didn't want to talk about Lockhart at all. "This is so boring. If Lockhart disappears, is the sun going to stop rising? Why does everyone care so much about that piece of trash?"
Harry's voice was steady. "Lockhart affected everyone. Our lives are a mess. We can still eat every day, sure, but nobody knows if war is coming." A shadow flickered in the boy's eyes—so fast nobody noticed. "War is terrifying."
Neville scratched his head, not sure what to say.
Hermione shot Ron a look. "You don't understand anything—and you don't even care. If Lockhart survives, he'll become the most celebrated person alive. A villain with no morals, gaining power? The damage he can do is no less than a war." She flicked her wand again, and a swarm of newspapers flew over like a flock of birds—No-Maj newspapers. To kids at Hogwarts, the headlines were bizarrely fresh and fascinating.
Ron grabbed a copy of The Times at random. "'According to our reporter's investigation, illegal gatherings worshipping Lockhart have appeared in Cornwall and Devon…' Whoa. What are they doing—hosting a cookout?"
"Since September 3, large-scale marches have appeared across the country. Public calls to free Lockhart are growing stronger by the day."
"Locals in Hawaii have invented a brand-new language with only five syllables: Gil-de-roy Lock-hart. They say they created it to commemorate this great wizard."
"Today, supermarkets in Los Angeles rolled out several new products. Clothing and household goods designed around Lockhart's personal image sold out the instant they hit the shelves."
"Multiple tribes in West Africa have clashed over who gets to put Lockhart's face on their flag. No deaths yet, but one man got hit by a club in the brawl and lost a test—" Ron choked on a laugh. "Merlin, that's insanely unlucky."
"In a public mass on the fifteenth, the Pope declared the Lockhart incident a warning from Jesus to humankind. The Pope urged the public to stop lying."
"The Maya believe this disaster is connected to the end of the world. Gilderoy Lockhart is the divine son who heralds the apocalypse."
The kids clicked their tongues as they read. "Hermione, where did you even get these papers?"
"I asked my dad to mail them," Hermione said shortly. "He has a friend who works at a newspaper. But you can see it yourselves—Lockhart's locked up, and his influence is still growing."
"That's horrifying."
Harry caught the key point. "No-Majs aren't united. Some want Lockhart dead, but lots of people want him to live."
"Exactly." Hermione's eyes lit up. She gave Harry a look that clearly meant, good, you're not slow. "And that's the problem. This trial is serious, but it's doomed to fail."
"But would public opinion outside the court really affect the verdict?" Ron suddenly sounded interested. "If all the representatives at the trial agree to execute Lockhart, isn't that enough?"
"These laws can't convict him," Hermione said, pointing at the mountain of No-Maj legal codes on the table.
"But No-Maj law is basically paper trash now," Ron objected. "All of Lockhart's charges were made up on the spot."
"Yes—except remember that 'unless'?" Hermione said. "For Lockhart's new charges to hold, they need broad agreement from countries around the world. But if those laws pass, they'll hurt the No-Maj countries even more. Take 'Defacing Documents'—every academic would end up in prison. Or 'Unauthorized Alteration of Images'—every video editor would get the death penalty."
"Those are small problems," Ron said.
"And there are bigger problems," Hermione shot back. "Lockhart wouldn't be the only one guilty of 'Falsifying Human History.' Almost every head of state would be trapped by that one. 'Malicious Trademark Registration' would drag huge media giants—Disney-level giants—straight into it. And 'Destruction of Ancient Relics'… the British Museum is basically a warehouse full of evidence."
The three boys listened as Hermione rattled everything off, then looked at one another. Ron muttered under his breath, "She's brilliant. Brilliant in a way that's kind of scary."
Hermione glared at him. "So if Professor Dumbledore insists on due process, demands that every country formally codify these laws into binding international statutes instead of today's temporary, ad hoc declarations, then Lockhart wins—easily."
From the start, Dumbledore's defense had never had any suspense. Before the trial even began, Skyl had given him a nickname: New York Pizza Hut—because in New York, he was guaranteed to deliver a win.
From morning until evening, they read out and ruled on more than half of Lockhart's two thousand-plus charges. The next day they continued—morning to afternoon—until every last charge was delivered.
Lockhart was cleared of exactly none of them.
"The defendant's counsel," the judge asked, scanning the courtroom, "do you have anything you wish to add?"
The stepped gallery was packed with representatives from all over the world—different skin tones, different languages, different clothing—yet all equally silent and grave, holding their breath for this verdict.
Dumbledore stood beside a shattered, hollow-eyed Lockhart. The old wizard inclined his head to the No-Maj judge and began his final defense.
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