Speak Up - Female Deaf Harry Potter AU

Fraud

Darkness was falling as they ran to Lockhart's office. Ron knocked, the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart's eyes peering through it.

"Oh - Miss Potter - Mr. Weasley -" he said, opening the door a bit wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment - if you would be quick -"
'We've got some information for you,' signed Hari, "We think it'll help you." Ron translated.
"Er - well - it's not terribly -" The side of Lockhart's face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. "I mean - well all right -" He opened the door and they entered.

His office had been almost completely stripped. Two large trunks stood open on the floor. Robes, jade-green, lilac, midnight-blue, had been hastily folded into one of them; books were jumbled untidily into the other. The photographs that had covered the walls were now crammed into boxes on the desk.

"Are you going somewhere?" said Ron

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. "Urgent call - unavoidable - got to go -"

"What about my sister?" said Ron jerkily. Hari stayed silently in the doorway, letting everything play out.

"Well, as to that - most unfortunate -" said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. "No one regrets more than I -"

"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!" said Ron. "You can't go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!"

"Well - I must say - when I took the job -" Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. "nothing in the job description - didn't expect -"

"You mean you're running away?" said Ron disbelievingly. "After all that stuff you did in your books -"

"Books can be misleading," said Lockhart delicately.

"You wrote them!" Ron shouted.

"My dear boy," said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Ron. "Do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think Id done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He'd look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a harelip. I mean, come on -"

"So you've just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?" said Ron incredulously.

"It's not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work. It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog." He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them.
"Let's see," he said. "I think that's everything. Yes. Only one thing left."

He pulled out his wand and turned to them. "Awfully sorry, children but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book -"
Hari reached her wand just in time. Lockhart had barely raised his,  when it flew out of his hand,  high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window. They pointed their wands at him.

"What d'you want me to do?" said Lockhart weakly. "I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There's nothing I can do."

'You're in luck,' Hari signed, Ron translating as usual, forcing Lockhart to his feet at wandpoint. 'I know where it is, and what's inside it. Let's go.' She planned to use Lockheat as bait for the heir.

They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Hari walked around to the back of the sink, opening it.