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.
"He's the Defense professor and he assigned seven books he wrote - that he makes money off of - to every Hogwarts second year," Hermione explained, lips scrunching up to match her furrowed brow as the banshee book went back on its shelf and she flipped through a new one, Voyages with Vampires .
"It's not just second years," Harry said. "It's every year."
Hermione pinned him in place with a look.
"At least Ginny, Ron, the twins, and Percy all have them on their lists," he explained. "I assume everyone else does too."
She snapped the book shut and let it fall to the floor.
"So not only does he force families to buy multiple copies of every book he's ever written-," Hermione said, her hair seeming to inflate as her temper was worked up. "-But worse, all those books are completely narrative in structure."
"So?" Harry asked, curious how the books were written could be worse than the man extorting money from people.
"So?" Hermione echoed disbelievingly. "That's fine for a novel, but not for a textbook," she explained. "If we had to fight a real werewolf we'd have to read through several hundred pages of that book, sort through a mountain of meaningless information for the tiny clues he left readers to find which hint at how to identify the person in question, and then you'd have to read dozens more for information on how he fought it off."
Harry had to concede her point; it would take too much time to learn anything useful that way. Unfortunately he never got the chance to get a word in edgewise to tell her he agreed with her before she rolled on.
"In a proper textbook," she continued, "the first part of the werewolf section would probably be a general description of the phenomenon and how it affects the person, along with the general hunting characteristics of the werewolf itself and whether or not it hunts in packs. The identification would probably only take a handful of pages, depending on how complex the problem is, and a few more would focus on how to defend yourself from it."
He opened his mouth but she continued to roll right over him.
"You wouldn't teach a class using the book you sent me, would you? It'd be equally useless."
Harry opened his mouth again and held it there for a second, just to see if she'd let him speak. It seemed she was finished.
"First off, I agree with you completely," he said, pleased to be included again. "And secondly, I wouldn't want anyone to read books like the one I sent you. The last thing I need is a bunch of little Asian kids following me around calling me 'Doctor Jones.'"
Harry'd been hoping the joke would lessen Hermione's desire to burn Lockhart alive and dance around a pyre she built of his books but his luck didn't seem to be that good.
"Someone should say something about the appalling abuse of power the man just admitted to," she said before turning to go confront their would-be teacher.
Harry had to grab her hand before she charged off.
"Let's not create a scene, please?" he asked quietly, not wanting to be near the center of attention today. "I'm sure one of the parents would've noticed and there's a newspaper man standing right there asking questions in case they didn't. I think this bookshop's had enough fights for one day."
The hunched look of her shoulders gradually lessened as Hermione reluctantly agreed, but he wouldn't put it past her to give her father an earful on the subject on the trip home and maybe send a letter to Professor McGonagall to boot.
"Besides," Harry said, "if there's one thing I've learned this summer is that just because something's wrong doesn't mean it's illegal and vice versa."
"So he's just going to get away with it?" she asked indignantly.
"If it's not illegal there's nothing he's getting away with," Harry explained. "And shouting at him certainly won't stop them from selling any more of his books or get anyone their money back. The lists have been out for days, who knows how many people have bought their copies already. We can run it by Lichfield later, if you want, and I'm seeing McGonagall tomorrow; I can mention it to her then."
"When did I become the hothead and you the logical one?" she asked while trying to regain her composure. "That Lichfield must've had an effect on you."
"Er-," Harry said with a shrug. "I guess so."
"Well, we can't just rely on him for our Defense instruction this year, whether what he's doing is illegal or not," Hermione said definitively. "I looked over our notes from last year and was shocked at how little course material was actually covered. Compared to the other classes, that stack of notes was tiny ."
"That might've been because the last professor had Lord Voldemort growing out the back of his head," Harry said quietly lest he cause a panic.
Spotting the book on hexes and jinxes he wanted to buy last year, Harry took it down and gave it a look.
"An alternate book list?" Hermione asked, looking at what he had picked up. "Might be a bit less serious than I'd prefer but it'd work better than the Chronicles of Indiana Potter and his adventures in Narnia."
Harry groaned. "Must we continue with the Indiana Potter thing?" he asked as she looked through a book on Dark creatures.
"We could always go with the romance novel angle but a bullwhip so much easier to find than a sword," Hermione chuckled. "I could always dye my hair red, rip your shirt half off, and lounge all over you but I don't think my father would approve."
.....
Want to read ahead. Then Join my Pa*treon 60+ exclusive chapters that are waiting for you.
Even Free members can enjoy 2+ advanced chapters FOR FREE.
Link: pa*treon.com/Lotus_Lover (Remove the *)
Join Right Now