A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

When Felix returned to the castle, a satisfied smile was on his face.

With several professors joining, my dueling course is growing stronger. Perhaps I can bring in other professors to try it out later?

Especially that afternoon, when he received a text message from the owl "White Fresh"—

"Dear Felix Heap, my investiture ceremony is tentatively scheduled for 10:00 AM on Saturday, February 4th, in Room 3 on the second floor of the Ministry of Magic (to the left of the Wizengamot Office). I cordially invite you to attend. — Damocles Belby"

Felix wrote his reply and estimated the timeframe: about two weeks.

That evening, after Felix finished tutoring Hermione Granger in runes, he handed the little witch a glass of pumpkin juice.

Generally, after the spell class, the assistant will stay in the office for a while, partly to relieve the fatigue from the Mind Chamber, and partly to chat about interesting topics or answer some questions.

Today, they mentioned Gilderoy Lockhart.

Hermione, holding her cup, asked, "Professor, what's your opinion of Lockhart?"

What's your opinion?

"It's about my opinion of him personally, his teaching, the books he's written, and so on..."

Felix glanced at Hermione. His assistant had been on the job for almost half a year, and he was very familiar with her speaking habits. This was one of the ways she was trying to extract information from her.

"Professor Lockhart is a very talkative and expressive person, which is different from me, even though we are both writers."

Hermione pressed on, "So what's your opinion of his books? You must have read them, right?"

"I have seen it," Felix said. "It wasn't very useful to me, but for students, the methods for dealing with and identifying danger are still quite valuable."

"Actually, I admire his approach of integrating knowledge into stories, and maybe I'll imitate him in the future." Felix looked at Hermione with interest, her eyebrows furrowing.

"But—" she stammered, "don't you think his books and his classroom performance are completely different, with a strong sense of disconnect?"

"Perhaps," Felix commented noncommittally. "Obviously, there are fictional and ambiguous elements in his book, but we can only criticize his private life. At least he did a lot of research when he wrote it."

"But what if," Hermione said nervously, beads of sweat forming on her face, "his story was stolen from someone else's mind?"

There was a brief silence in the office—

"This is a very serious accusation, Miss Granger. If your claims are true, then the person who committed this act should be imprisoned in Azkaban," Felix said sternly.

"Granger, I need evidence."

Hermione, trembling, pulled a stack of crumpled parchment from her wizard robes.

"This is...this is what we found in Professor Lockhart's office," she said with difficulty. Ron was the one who did it, but she and Harry decided that they couldn't put all the blame on Ron.

Felix glanced at her with some surprise. He understood why his assistant had been assigned to Gryffindor; she was a restless and irritable witch.

The kind of person who would barge into a professor's office at the slightest provocation.

Thinking about it this way, my practice of placing the Binding Vine at the door every time I leave the office was truly prescient.

He flipped through the document, and a name on it caught his attention: "Armenian Visit to an Old Wizard (Note: Werewolf Adventure)".

"Why are there two different handwritings?" He glanced through the pages and quickly noticed the problem.

There were more than twenty pages of parchment, most of which were in Hermione's own neat handwriting, with only three pages in a different handwriting.

"We, I..." Hermione swallowed hard. It was too embarrassing for her to admit how she had broken the school rules.

"Take your time, I'm listening," Felix said.

"Here's what happened: Ron was being held in Lockhart's office as punishment for copying fan letters. He discovered a hidden document, realized something was wrong, and secretly took three pages back with him. Based on the contents of those three pages, we concluded that Lockhart's book might not be based on his own experiences, but rather on other people's stories."

"We decided to secretly gather evidence and investigate the truth."

Felix listened calmly.

"—Over the next week, Ron took advantage of his confinement to extract parts of the documents."

Felix was astonished by their audacity. "So he wasn't discovered by Lockhart?" Could Professor Lockhart be an idiot?

"Lockhart hasn't been doing well lately. His memory is terrible, and he's talking incoherently. Also, after we receive a few pages of information each day, he quickly copies them down and returns the original manuscript the next day..."

"These three pages of the original manuscript are what we consider important; they are evidence that Lockhart stole other people's stories!"

Felix didn't know whether to applaud their meticulous arrangements or criticize them. They hadn't listened at all to his words of reassurance to focus on their studies.

He pulled out three pages of the original manuscript and immediately recognized that the text on them was written with a professional shorthand quill pen.

These shorthand quills are very distinctive; they generally record text according to the owner's ideas, and they also distort and modify dialogue, adding exaggerated descriptions of expressions and actions.

Felix had witnessed how powerful this thing was at Rita Skeeter's house.

He began to read it carefully—

The crooked-mouthed wizard: My head hurts so much, it feels like a spoon is digging into my brain. What's wrong with me?

(Exceptional) Adventurer: That's perfectly normal. Here, have some juice; it'll do you good.

The crooked-mouthed wizard painfully drank the juice laced with an unknown potion.

(The extraordinary) adventurer: Let's continue the story of the werewolves. You've talked a lot about them at the bar these past few days, haven't you? I bought you quite a few drinks. But I'd like to know more details… By the way, may I see your memories later? After all, readers need a story that feels immersive.

Crooked-Mouth Wizard: I don't know, something's wrong, something's wrong...

(Exceptional) Adventurer: How could that be? Look at me, I can help you.

The adventurer raised his wand.

Felix read the three pages of parchment with a solemn expression; the situation was more serious than he had imagined.

He pieced together the general logic: Lockhart found the target in the tavern, spent several days getting information out of him, or rather, befriending the unfortunate guy, and then either ambushed him or drugged him; in any case, he successfully took control of the target.

Lockhart then obtained the whole story using memory magic or something similar to truth serum.

"What do you want me to do?" Felix asked calmly.

"Of course, it's to expose his true colors," Hermione said without hesitation.

“Shorthand notes written with a quill pen generally don’t count as evidence, but,” Felix said, “things are easier once you know what he did.”

"I will tell Headmaster Dumbledore that he is capable of handling this properly. If all else fails, I can also resort to some less appropriate methods."

Hermione hesitated, as if she wanted to say something but then stopped herself.

"Is there anything else?" Felix asked.

"Professor, it's Ron who's in trouble. We need your help."