"Wait, you mean that's a snake?" Harry asked. "Neat. I didn't know you could turn into a ball, " he said to the snake which prompted the blotchy ball in question to uncoil and reveal a small head in the center of it. The whole animal couldn't have been bigger than the tank was across.
"Merlin's beard!" the shopkeeper cried. "What's going on over there?"
A shocked Hermione hid Harry behind her as the man hurried forward. Whatever had spooked her was no concern of the shopkeeper though for as soon as Harry found himself stuffed into the corner the man angled off to stare out the window; a curious Harry and Hermione followed suit.
There was some sort of disturbance over at Flourish and Blotts; the crowd had parted and two men were rolling around on the ground.
"I hope they don't go for wands," the shopkeeper moaned. "It's very bad for business."
"Arthur, you stop that this instant!" Harry heard Mrs. Weasley call as she pried the blond-haired man off her husband.
"Mr. Weasley?" a stunned Harry asked no one in particular. He'd been such a bumbling, kind of humble man Harry couldn't imagine what could've caused him to turn violent. The scene was then graced by another blonde, this one none other than Draco Malfoy, which the blonde man grabbed to haul himself up.
"Come, Draco, we're leaving," Mr. Malfoy said straightening his clothes. "Leave those, Dobby," he snapped as a walking pile of books appeared from the crowd around them.
Dobby's family was the Malfoys? No wonder the elf said they'd kill him before selling him; Draco probably would've done the job himself. If his father was anything like him there really might be something dangerous being planned for Hogwarts this year, and Draco would probably be in on it.
As soon as the Malfoys' backs were turned Harry gave Dobby a smile and wave. He got one in return, not only from Dobby, who scampered off afterwards, but from Mr. Granger as well who was part of the crowd and started to make his way over. Harry decided to give the Malfoys plenty of time to finish any paperwork at Gringotts so he and Hermione left the shop to find out what happened.
"If you knew who he was insulting you would've hit him too," Mr. Weasley defended himself as he drew his wife aside, obviously not wanting to air their laundry in public.
Mr. Granger looked rather embarrassed from being so near what went on and eager to avoid any attention. Apparently the man disliked the public spotlight even more than he did himself.
"Dad, what happened?" Hermione asked.
"Apparently, those goose-steppers don't like gingers any more than they like people like us and it came to blows," the odd-haired man said succinctly. "Why don't you two go inside while I try and put out some fires? He's an alright guy, your friend's dad," Mr. Granger said about Mr. Weasley, "and doesn't deserve to be crucified for bloodying that idiot."
Hermione shook her head and quickly became engrossed in a sign by the bookshop's door as Harry watched Mr. Granger make his way over to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. He must've had a way about him because only a few seconds later Mrs. Weasley hugged him about the neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She hadn't even been that welcoming when he'd offered to sell them the Burrow.
"Harry, look," Hermione said, pointing at the sign.
'Meet Gilderoy Lockhart, ' the sign said. 'Book Signing - Wednesday & Thursday .'
Harry couldn't help but chuckle.
"What is it?" she asked curiously.
"Well if it's the lilac-loving Lockhart I've heard about," Harry said with a grin, "-let's just say a lot of people aren't too impressed."
"I've been wondering about him ever since we got our book list," Hermione said with a frown as they went inside.
"Not to worry, Mr. Lockhart," a man said in unctuous tones as they made their way around a crowd of onlookers. "Those troublemakers won't find their way in to disturb you again today, I guarantee you that."
"Well done, Mr. Flourish," a wavy-haired, lilac-draped wizard said as he put his arm around the man and faced the bulk of the crowd, his back to the newcomers. "It was only a pity I couldn't make my way over sooner or I'd've taught them both a lesson they wouldn't soon forget. Am I right?" he asked the ring of book-buyers who clapped sycophantically.
Harry followed Hermione back into the book aisles as Lockhart made his way back to the grotesque desk they'd set up for him to use. Once he was there he addressed the crowd again.
"Now you parents shouldn't have any worries about that sort of thing happening while I'm at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," the abnormally bright-toothed man said, causing a bit of a stir in the onlookers.
"Did I forget to mention it?" Lockhart asked, teasing things out a bit more. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher - is me," he finished with his arms spread as wide as his saccharinely sweet smile, earning another round of twittering approval from the gaggle of witches around him as a cameraman fluttered about taking pictures.
Beside him, Hermione wasn't taking the news nearly so well.
"That's absolutely repellent," she said, snatching up a copy of one of the man's books, Wandering with Werewolves, from a nearby shelf and began flipping through it.
If Harry had thought he wouldn't like the man before, now he didn't want to have anything to do with him. Anyone so eager for a bit of attention they lapped up as much as they could simply had to be avoided, especially if they had wavy-blond hair, immaculately shiny teeth, and robes so garish they're rivaled only by his peacock quill in terms of ostentatiousness. Even worse was the thought that none of it would matter in the slightest as far as anyone else was concerned. What's done was done, and they were going to be stuck with him all year. Grumbling about torturous teachers, he grabbed one of the werewolf books for himself and started looking for the others.
"You can put that back down, Harry," Hermione said unexpectedly as she tossed her copy back on the shelf before leafing through another one, Break with a Banshee .
Hermione was never one to turn away information but here she was telling him to throw it away, again. He looked at her curiously.
"Don't you see how unethical he's being?" she asked, brow furrowed at him like the time she'd caught them sneaking out of the dorms last year. Maybe she and the cat would've gotten on well after all.
.....
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