Lockhart chuckled to himself for a moment. Seeing that his joke hadn't achieved the desired effect, he hauled a large cage covered by a black velvet cloth up from beneath his desk.
The cage was visibly rattling, and a high-pitched, tooth-aching screeching emanated from within—it sounded like a hundred furious bats stuffed into a tin can.
This actually managed to frighten a few of the young wizards; after all, the unknown is always a bit terrifying.
"What is that?" Seamus, who had been eager for practical work just moments ago, couldn't help but shrink back in his front-row seat.
Lockhart paced elegantly over to the cage and tapped the iron bars lightly with his wand. Instantly, a flurry of sharp, rapid banging erupted from inside, drawing gasps from several girls.
"Haha, what's inside are some little troublemakers I captured during one of my most perilous adventures."
Lockhart deliberately lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. "They are dark, insidious, lightning-fast, foul-tempered, and—they absolutely love yanking the hair of any wizard who thinks too highly of themselves."
Swish. With a rapid flourish, Lockhart yanked the velvet cloth off the cage, finally exposing the little creatures lurking in the dark to the sunlight.
They were about eight inches tall, their skin gleaming with a metallic luster in a bizarre shade of blue that sat somewhere between copper patina and a lizard's underbelly.
The ugliest thing about them was their faces: their features might have been molded from a cherub—if that cherub had been smoked in a chimney during thunderstorms for twenty years.
Embedded in their wrinkled, old-man-like faces were pairs of narrow, utterly malicious eyes. Their pupils darted around rapidly, and every blink flashed with the cunning gleam of a prankster about to succeed.
Their wings looked like the illegitimate offspring of a bat and a dragonfly. Though paper-thin, they vibrated at such a high frequency that it made you wonder if the buzzing sound came from the wings themselves or from some innate malice vibrating within their bodies.
However, the appearance of these creatures actually caused the students from wizarding families to breathe a collective sigh of relief, as most of them recognized the little beasts.
"Cornish Pixies," Malfoy sneered to his two cronies. "I could take on three of them at once."
Julien noticed that even Neville looked visibly relieved.
"Yes, indeed! Cornish Pixies!" Lockhart spread his arms wide, as if introducing a flock of adorable pets. "But don't be fooled by their appearance; these little pranksters are incredibly tricky! Since you all seem to think they're so easy to deal with, well then..."
He waved his wand at the cage door, and the lock sprang open with a sharp click.
"Let's see what you make of them!"
Instantly, a swarm of Cornish Pixies—outnumbering the students in the classroom—burst out in a frantic flurry of wings.
Normally, a young wizard might have encountered one or two of these pixies, but dealing with an entire swarm was a first for all of them, let alone the Muggle-born students.
The iron-blue figures shot out in every direction like an exploding firework, plunging the classroom into instant chaos.
The second the cage door opened, Julien ducked low. His silver lime wand snapped from his sleeve right into his palm, while his left hand simultaneously yanked the velvet cloth off the desk.
"Scatter! Get down!" But his shout was entirely drowned out by the explosive screeching of the pixies.
One pixie dove straight for Hermione's face, only to be swatted away viciously by her copy of Break with a Banshee. Ron was scurrying around holding his head, a pixie actively trying to rip his ear off.
Harry was being swarmed by three of them. The Impediment Jinx he fired only hit one; the other two were already gnawing on the hem of his robes.
The most miserable of all was Neville. Several pixies had grabbed him by the ears, hoisted him into the air, and left him dangling from the chandelier.
"Impedimenta Terra!" (Obstacle of the Earth!) Liriya invoked her tribe's unique natural magic once again.
However, since the thorny vines of this spell only took root on the ground, they were utterly useless against creatures bouncing around the room and flying through the air.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Just as Hermione was about to cast the Full Body-Bind Curse, Rosier beat her to it.
One pixie's legs instantly snapped together rigidly, and it plummeted to the floor. But it recovered almost immediately and resumed its reign of terror.
"Professor Lockhart, what do we do?!" A student finally remembered they had a professor standing at the front of the room and screamed for help.
Seeing the utter pandemonium, Lockhart seemed somewhat taken aback. With a strained smile, he called out, "Don't panic! Allow me to demonstrate."
He flourished his wand and chanted: "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
It roughly translated to "Pesky pixies, pester no me." Julien highly suspected this wasn't a real spell at all, but rather something Lockhart had just made up on the spot.
A beam of silver light shot from the tip of his wand, bursting into a harmless shower of sparks in the air. The pixies paused for half a second before unleashing an even more furious volley of screeches.
The spell not only failed to have any effect on the pixies, but it actually made the chaos worse.
Two of them immediately changed direction and dive-bombed Lockhart himself.
"Clearly requires a bit of adjustment!" Lockhart ducked pathetically behind his desk, a few strands of his golden hair already yanked out of place. "Class, feel free to improvise! Show me your—ouch!"
Julien didn't have time to laugh. His eyes swept rapidly across the classroom, his brain working in overdrive as the pages of An Analysis of Cornish Pixie Behavioral Patterns automatically flipped through his mind.
While ferocious, these pixies displayed distinct swarm behaviors: they attacked the most prominent moving targets, quickly lost interest in completely stationary objects, and were highly sensitive to high-frequency sounds...
"Everyone! Stop moving! Get on the floor and cover your heads!"
His voice cut through the chaos, carrying an undeniable, commanding calm.
Harry was the first to react, dragging Ron down beneath a desk. Edgar hesitated for a second before grabbing Hannah and ducking behind an overturned chair.
"Julien, what do we do?!" Hermione yelled from under her own desk.
Seeing that most of the young wizards had taken cover, Julien shouted back at Hermione: "Area-of-effect magic! The Freezing Charm!"
Suddenly, everything clicked into place for Hermione. Gripping her vine-wood wand, she pointed it upward and yelled: "Immobulus!"
In reality, three voices rang out simultaneously. Whether Rosier and Liriya had heard Julien's prompt or not, they both cast the exact same spell.
Three ripples of icy-blue magical light expanded outward. They didn't target individual pixies; they blanketed the entire upper airspace of the classroom.
The pixies' wings instantly froze. One by one, they hovered in mid-air like frozen raindrops, their iron-blue bodies locked in place by the magical light, creating a bizarre, three-dimensional still-life painting.
Haha, delegating work is so much better than doing it yourself, Julien thought, pulling a handful of peanuts from his pocket and tossing one into his mouth. Wait, what's the peacock doing?
Julien peeked out from his cover toward the podium, unexpectedly locking eyes with Lockhart.
Lockhart was also peering out. There was no trace of panic in his grey-blue eyes. Instead, they carried a look utterly detached from his vain persona—it was a look of... scrutiny? Evaluation?
"Brilliant, absolutely brilliant." Seeing the dust settle, Lockhart stood up and elegantly smoothed his robes, as if his pathetic display moments ago had never happened.
"Miss Granger, Miss Rosier, Miss Liriya, an outstanding performance. I award Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff five points each."
By now, the young wizards had righted their desks and chairs, and they offered the three girls a round of applause.
"This lesson perfectly embodies the 'stimulation' I spoke of at the Welcoming Feast: learning how to respond reasonably to sudden, unpredictable situations."
His tone then shifted. "I am, however, quite curious... Mr. Black, what exactly were you doing just now?"
"I was panicking, sir," Julien answered with total righteous conviction.
"Is that so? Because I distinctly remember you being the first to call out the Freezing Charm."
"Oh, yes. But I don't know how to cast it. That's third-year material."
...
Late at night. The Magical Resonance Library.
"Hey, Murphy. What about that book on Memory Charms?" Julien asked eagerly.
"It's over in that corner," Murphy stretched lazily. "Though I doubt you'll be able to understand it yet."
"Is it that difficult? Does that mean this Lockhart guy is going to be tough to deal with?" Julien asked in his mind.
"If it's just Lockhart, he's not difficult at all." Murphy yawned. "His biggest problem is that he isn't really a person."
"Isn't really a person? Then what is he?"
"A perfect, hollow vessel... pieced together from the countless memories of others."