HP: The Root of Everything - The Magician

Teach Carr initially taught Hermione only basic magic and drew a few training circles for her to modify or improve their effects.

Therefore, Hermione Granger has never completed a full depiction of a training array on her own.

"Hermione, let me explain this to you first so you can be mentally prepared. Next, I will teach you the knowledge of depicting various effects magic arrays. The work of depicting arrays is very rigorous. If any line in the array is drawn incorrectly, it will cause an explosion at best, and at worst, the array will produce uncontrollable and unknown consequences."

"Therefore, I will be very, very strict in teaching you how to portray characters, and I will never be lenient."

Under Teach's imposing gaze, Hermione nodded somewhat fearfully.

......

The spring semester at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was more than halfway over, and the Basilisk had not yet come out to roam, but even so, Dumbledore remained vigilant.

The door to the Chamber of Secrets was not opened once during the school season because Tom Riddle was teaching Lockhart his dark magic.

Once the dark magic's influence on Lockhart reaches a certain level, Tom will be able to completely control Lockhart and thus carry out his plan for rebirth.

In comparison, Lockhart's maturity and logical thinking are far superior to those of eleven-year-old Ginny, which forces Tom to patiently use dark magic to corrupt Lockhart before he can control him.

For most of the school season, Hermione would use the teleportation array drawn on her bed board to enter Teach's office every night, where she would receive instruction from Teach Carr, a teacher whose strictness terrified her.

For making a mistake in learning the magic words, he was punished with a slap on the hand as part of his discipline.

One of the lines in the formation was drawn crookedly, and the person was punished by having their hand slapped.

Those who failed to extract the necessary materials from the training array were punished with a slap on the hand.

The materials used to draw the formation were not mixed properly, and the person was punished with a slap on the hand.

When Hermione's hands were red and swollen from being hit, Teach, in order to prevent Hermione's hands, which were used to draw the Practice Array, from being ruined, started making her bend over.

Hermione was relentlessly whipped by Teach Carl every night, to the point that she could only sleep on her side when she returned to her dormitory, and she would even dream of being 'slapped' in her dreams.

Meanwhile, Tom Riddle...

His teaching methods were far more ruthless than Teach Carr's. If Lockhart made even the slightest mistake, Tom would immediately use the Cruciatus Crush, which was much less effective, as punishment.

Even a severely weakened version of the Cripple of the Wrist is still excruciatingly painful for most people.

This caused Lockhart to writhe and complain endlessly in his own mental imagery.

At first, Tom Riddle thought Lockhart was a genius when he witnessed Lockhart's Oblivion Charm, but little did he know that he was actually a hopeless idiot.

Perhaps Lockhart used all his magical talents on the Oblivion Charm, which combines two spells, thus exhausting his abilities. As a result, no matter how Tom tried to teach him dark magic, Lockhart's learning was minimal.

Although Lockhart was able to learn the dark magic that Tom taught him, he used it poorly and ineffectively.

If Lockhart's understanding of black magic was haphazard, then the influence of darkness on him as a whole was also haphazard.

This made Tom Riddle's progress in gaining control of Lockhart far from ideal.

Ultimately, after repeated lessons in dark magic, Tom became disillusioned and gave up. He casually wrote a few dark spells in the Horcrux notebook and then disappeared into Lockhart's mental landscape.

He needs to think carefully and come up with a new way.

So a few days later, Tom wrote in the Horcrux notebook to Lockhart, who was still desperately practicing his dark magic powers: "Fool, stop your useless dark magic practice."

"...After thinking about it, I've discovered why you lack talent in learning magic, and I've also come up with a way to compensate for your lack of talent."

"Do you remember the little witch in your class? She drew a transmutation circle on parchment. After analyzing it for you, I figured out that the transmutation circle could be used to replenish your depleted talents."

"So go and get Him, then copy Him into my Horcrux notebook."

"Only in this way can I help you by changing that training array."

Tom Riddle actually wanted to control Lockhart so he could personally deal with Hermione's life alchemy array, but he was deeply helpless and could only find a reason that Lockhart couldn't refuse to make him do it.

"Help me?" Lockhart looked at the words Voldemort had written in the notebook and naturally didn't believe it at all, but he really had no other choice now. Even if Voldemort had ulterior motives for the transmutation circle on Hermione Granger's parchment, he could only do it and hope that he could find a way to complete his talents through Voldemort's research.

So, during the last Defense Against the Dark Arts class of the day, Lockhart kept Hermione behind and, using a prepared lie, said to her, "Hermione, you don't seem to be paying attention in my class at all~"

"And many times I've seen you draw very strange patterns on paper, patterns that make me dizzy, so I want to ask you seriously, are you... researching black magic?"

"Hermione, as a professor, I absolutely forbid you from studying dark magic, so hand over all your writings and drawings."

Seeing Lockhart's outstretched hand, Hermione's face instantly darkened, and a cold glint appeared in her eyes.

But in the end... Hermione still handed them over, though they were just some incomplete alchemy arrays. Hermione didn't want to cause trouble at Hogwarts because of Lockhart's deliberate provocation.

But to his surprise, Lockhart said after looking through the parchment, "Hermione, I remember you drew a strange pattern on parchment in one of my classes. Take that parchment out too."

The life analysis diagram on the parchment was of utmost importance; how could Hermione possibly hand it over?

Seeing that Hermione remained unmoved, Lockhart spoke up and said, "Hermione, hand over your dark magic parchment, or I have the right to punish you."

With that, Lockhart took out his wand and pointed it at Hermione.

Lockhart's personality had changed drastically by this time. Although the influence of dark magic on him was ambiguous, learning it still had an impact.

When wizards brandish their wands as a threat, it signifies a clear provocation to start a war.

Hermione wasn't about to let this go. She activated her Blink spell on the back of her hand, instantly appearing at the classroom door. But Lockhart, in his unstable state, wasn't about to let Hermione leave, and 'collapsed' to the ground.

As soon as the spell was cast, Hermione used Blink to dodge it after hearing the chanting. Then, the instant she appeared, she took out the Beretta pistol that her teacher Teach had given her from her waist.

After aiming at Lockhart, he pulled the trigger with icy eyes.