𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 | 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 BOOK ONE

fourteen.

"I think I'm losing my mind," I whispered in horror to Noctis.

The two of us were sitting together at our desk in Defense Against the Dark Arts. After I had scrambled to run back to class, the class was already filled with only one seat open that Noctis had saved for me.

Draco had insisted that Warren move from besides him, but the boy was already resting his head against his hand to rest. And no amount of yelling would ever wake Warren Orion from sleep.

Noctis raised a brow at me in question. "Oh? Do share," He prompted.

"I don't know who it was, but it was odd. He didn't seem like a ghost, actually he seemed quite real, at first." I leaned forward on my desk faintly, pouting up at him. "Tell me, I'm going mental, aren't I?"

He chuckled as he rested his head too on his arms to make eye contact with me. "I can go mental with you, if you'd like," He cheered me up.

We both smiled at one another playfully.

The office door open, and we sat up straight to look at the man above the stairwell and looking down at us all with a charming smile.

"Allow me to introduce you to your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Me."

I scrunched my nose, unimpressed.

He strutted down towards the giant frame of himself. He stopped to admire it as if completely in love, before walking toward the lone desk in front of us all.

"Gilderoy Lockhart. Order of Merlin, third class. Honorary Member of the Dark Arts Defense League. And five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award," He flashed said smile and most of the girls in the room swooned.

"Someone's a tad full of himself," Noctis muttered to me.

"A tad?" I repeated.

"But, I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her," Lockhart joked, laughing at his own joke. The rest of us stared at him blankly. "Now! I see you've all bought a complete set of my books. As such, I decided we should start off today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about, just to see how much you've all read and taken in..." He began passing out the papers.

I snatched the papers as Gilderoy stopped for a moment to look at me, and his smile grew. "Ah, Miss Potter. A shame you weren't at my book signing alongside your brother. I gifted him a complete autographed set of my books, you know," He announced happily.

I looked up with a bored stare. "I'll mourn the missed opportunity forever, Professor," I said sarcastically, while my friends snickered from the tables around me.

Even Harry had smiled towards me.

Gilderoy looked more than pleased, continuing down the aisle.

After thirty minutes of dealing with Lockhart's ridiculous quiz—which were all questions about himself—we finally moved onto the cage with the blanket over it.