The next morning, Allen adhered rigorously to his pre-established routine. Despite the early hour, he completed his usual regimen of advanced non-verbal spell practice and rigorous physical conditioning—a practice that always left him feeling sharper and more focused than any amount of sleep.
The lingering chill of the early autumn air was quickly burned away by the exertion, leaving him invigorated and ready for the first day of classes.
He arrived at the Great Hall's dining room just as the first few students were trickling in. Under the magical ceiling, which today reflected a vast, moody expanse of grey and cloudy sky, the long tables of the four houses were already laden with a glorious, overwhelming spread: steaming bowls of creamy oatmeal, platters piled high with savory pickled herring and smoked salmon, endless slices of thick-cut bread, and towering stacks of sizzling eggs, bacon, and sausages.
Allen was a quick and efficient eater, prioritizing sustenance over savoring the flavor. He grabbed a hearty plate of eggs and bacon, eating it quickly while observing the scene.Every morning after the holidays, the Great Hall transformed into a chaotic post office, with an unusually large number of owls making deliveries.
Indeed, after Allen put down his glass of fresh, cold milk, the atmosphere outside the enchanted ceiling seemed to darken as hundreds of owls, large and small, brown and snowy, gathered around the Great Hall and began circling the high windows, preparing for the great descent.
Benny, Allen's imperious owl, seemed to be the de facto leader of the feathered chaos. Standing aloof from the main frenzy, he positioned himself directly above the Hufflepuff table—a safe distance from the Ravenclaw chatter—and then, with a sharp, calculated drop, he tossed a large, square, heavy package directly toward Allen.
Luckily, Allen's quick reflexes, honed by years of training and a morning workout, kicked in instantly. He pushed his chair back with an audible scrape and shot out a hand, catching the package barely an inch from the table surface.
The weight was substantial, and had it landed, it would have undoubtedly knocked over the milk jug, the cutlery, and possibly the bowl of porridge, which would have been an absolute disaster—a nightmare scenario for the already overworked Hogwarts house elves.
Before Allen could even manage to open the neatly tied package, a truly explosive sound erupted, not from the roof, but from the delivery itself.
The Great Hall, already noisy with the clatter of cutlery and student chatter, fell into immediate, dead silence as the deafening noise—a powerful, magically magnified female scream—filled the entire space, raising a fine dust from the heavy stone ceiling high above. The sound was so physically loud that Allen felt the pressure against his eardrums.
The source of the sonic assault was a brilliant red envelope, perched precariously in Ron Weasley's hand at the Gryffindor table. It was a Howler.
"...Ronald Bilius Weasley! I wouldn't be surprised if they expelled you entirely for stealing the car! And when they do, you'll see how your father and I deal with you! You haven't even begun to consider how your father and I felt when we discovered the car was missing! Or the shame! The utter professional shame you've brought down on his head!"
Mrs. Weasley's scream, magnified a hundred times beyond its usual decibel level, clanged the plates and spoons on the tables, causing them to vibrate, and echoed deafeningly off the massive stone walls. Every single student and professor in the Great Hall turned, transfixed, to see who was the target of this furious, public indictment.
Allen saw Ron huddled low in his chair, seemingly attempting to become one with the wooden bench, only his bright, vivid red hair and the top of his forehead visible above the rim of his plate. Harry Potter, seated beside him, looked equally mortified and tense.
"Last night, we received an official, highly disappointed letter from Albus Dumbledore. Your father was so utterly humiliated he nearly resigned from his post! We raised you with so much care and effort, and we never expected you to do something so irresponsible. You and Harry—who is also culpable, Harry!—not only risked your lives but risked the complete exposure of the Ministry to the Muggles!"
Allen, feigning a calm curiosity, adjusted his chair and watched the performance with a quiet, internal satisfaction. This was the consequence Hermione had predicted—the absolute worst fallout was not detention, but the career-threatening trouble Ron had caused for his father, Arthur Weasley, the man in charge of preventing exactly this kind of breach.
"...This is beyond belief! The Department is already launching an investigation into your father's handling of his own vehicle, and it is all entirely your fault! If you don't behave, and I mean perfectly, we will withdraw you from Hogwarts immediately and you can spend the rest of your life as a Muggle!"
The roar finally subsided into a crackling hiss, but the high-pitched sound still echoed painfully in their ears. The brilliant red envelope, now spent, crumpled dramatically in Ron's trembling hand, burst into a small, satisfying jet of emerald-green flame, curling up into a handful of ashes that floated harmlessly away.
A few nervous titters broke the silence, and the Great Hall slowly, hesitantly, returned to its normal, noisy level of conversation.
"Bloody hell. That was certainly loud," Edward said, taking a piece of soft bread and beginning the meticulous process of spreading layers of butter on it with the solemnity of a high priest. "I heard Harry and Ron crashed their flying car into the Whipping Willow. I thought it was just Gryffindor bragging, but clearly, it's true! They managed to get here, but only just."
"Yeah, but Ron's father is in serious trouble, apparently. An investigation is going to be launched against him by the Ministry for the misuse of his own car," Edward continued, having finally achieved the desired consistency and homogeneity of the butter. He took a large, crunching bite of the bread, completely oblivious to the turmoil he was describing.
Allen wasn't paying any attention to Edward's analysis of the Weasley family crisis. His internal attention was consumed by a far more personal, burning source of fury. He had finally managed to suppress his anger enough not to throw the large, heavy package he held, but the feeling of resentment was a tight knot in his chest.
He carefully tore open the brown paper and twine. Lying on top of a small, carefully arranged pile of his favorite sweets and Muggle delicacies from his mother, Morgan LeFay, was an item that made his stomach churn: a thick, impossibly green, knitted wool scarf.
When Allen unfolded the scarf—a complex, intricate, and clearly handmade piece of work—a small, folded note fell out onto the floor. He snatched it up. It was in Daisy's distinctive, elegant handwriting.
The note read: "Please give this scarf to Professor Gilderoy Lockhart and give him my best wishes! I made sure the green matched his robes. — Daisy Harris."
Allen crushed the note in his fist. His anger, which had been simmering all morning, boiled over into a full, desperate rage. He had never been given anything Daisy had knitted with her own hands! He knew how protective she was of her creations, how much work and skill went into them.
And she was sending this beautiful, personal gift—this tangible expression of affection and time—to that charlatan? How could his intelligent, sweet sister possibly like this contemptible con man so much?
No matter how many complex sweets his mother had sent him—chocolate frogs, cauldron cakes, fudge flies—Alan's anger didn't subside. It was a searing, personal betrayal of his sibling loyalty, a testament to the effectiveness of Lockhart's deceptive charisma.
He gathered the entire package, the pile of food, and the hateful emerald scarf, and abruptly carried it all out of the Great Hall and into the relative privacy of the Ravenclaw dormitory bedroom.
Once there, the initial, burning heat of his anger was cooled slightly by a glimmer of analytical thought. Daisy hadn't sent the package directly to Gilderoy Lockhart. She had sent it to Allen, with a specific, awkward request for him to deliver it.
This meant they were likely not on close, direct terms—Lockhart had not been given her home address, or she had not wanted to risk sending it to him directly at Hogwarts. This slight distance was a crucial piece of information, a sliver of hope that Lockhart had not fully cemented his influence over her.
Allen knew what he needed to do. He needed to prevent any further meetings between them and use this precious time to look for opportunities to expose Lockhart's true nature—not just to the students, but to the faculty and the Ministry.
But simply exposing him wasn't enough; Allen felt a deep-seated need for retribution, for Lockhart to face the consequences of his serial crimes and manipulations.
The idea of merely committing him to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, a solution that the magical community often considered appropriate for damaged minds, seemed far too lenient a sentence for a man who had stolen the memories and entire lives of dozens of genuinely heroic wizards. He had to pay a heavier price.
With his resolve hardened into cold, focused malice, Allen checked the schedule pinned to the notice board: Defense Against the Dark Arts, Second Class, after Charms. Perfect.
A cold, mirthless laugh escaped Allen's lips. He didn't need to keep the scarf, not even for irony. He walked to his locker, opened the door, and tossed the emerald green wool into the back, shutting it with a quiet thud.
He arrived at the classroom a few minutes before it was due to begin. Allen brought no textbooks to class; all the genuinely useful, factual information about the curses and creatures Lockhart claimed to have defeated was already meticulously organized and stored in Allen's own impressive memory.
While the professor's books were fictionalized nonsense, they did contain authentic, if recklessly applied, details about various Dark Arts phenomena.
The atmosphere in the classroom was exactly as Allen predicted. The girls occupied virtually all the front-row seats, arranged in tight, excitable groups, buzzing with anticipation, and excitedly discussing Gilderoy's incredible (and entirely fabricated) experiences.
The boys, mostly in the back, were unusually silent, exchanging eye rolls and quiet, cynical bets on how long the class would last before Lockhart resorted to selling merchandise. Allen went straight to the far corner of the back row, a very secluded spot where he could observe the entire room without being easily observed himself.
The lesson's official start time came and went, but Gilderoy was nowhere to be seen. Whispers, initially excited, began to echo through the classroom, quickly devolving into noise.
Some students began fiddling with their quills, while others openly started practicing spells on floating bits of parchment. The class was rapidly becoming unruly, yet no one thought to go look for the teacher, proving how low their expectations were.
"This is a classic teaching blunder!" Allen scoffed internally, leaning back against the cold stone wall. A true professional maintains control from the very first minute. But then, Gilderoy is hardly a professional.
It wasn't long before the door finally swung open with dramatic flair, and Gilderoy Lockhart appeared. He wore a flowing, ridiculously shimmering turquoise robe that contrasted jarringly with the stone walls, and a matching turquoise wizard's hat, embroidered lavishly with gold thread. His gleaming blond hair stood upright in a carefully arranged, perfect wave.
As the classroom hushed, Allen made his move. Subtly, discreetly, and non-verbally, he cast a highly concentrated, localized, and entirely harmless Color Charm—a simple spell, but one executed with flawless precision, requiring only a fraction of his focus.
Instantly, small, vibrant patches of flamingo pink appeared on Gilderoy's already pale face, concentrated around his cheeks and forehead, as if he had applied a cheap, heavy layer of Muggle foundation badly. Simultaneously, his lips took on an unnatural, glossy shade of bright, aggressive red, like a newly applied tube of Dragon's Blood lipstick.
The class instantly, gloriously, erupted.
Lockhart, with his smiling, vanity-obsessed face now dressed in accidental, garish drag, with his curly blond hair visible from under the brim of his equally ridiculous hat, became a sight of utter, undeniable comedy.
His head was practically a palette of conflicting, unnatural colors, and his wide, gleaming grin—intended to be captivating—created an utterly comical effect next to the exaggerated makeup.
Gilderoy stood frozen in place, stunned by the sudden, uncontrolled laughter. He saw everyone staring, pointing, and dissolving into hysteria, but he couldn't grasp why. Assuming they were simply overcome by his presence, he displayed his famous, dazzling smile, which only made him look more ridiculous.
He paused, then cleared his throat loudly to silence everyone, but the laughter only increased. A genuinely kind, if slightly amused, little witch in the front row, Penelope Clearwater from Ravenclaw, reached into her bag and handed Gilderoy a delicate, silver-backed hand mirror.
Lockhart looked at his reflection.
The smile faltered. The vanity was so deeply ingrained that the shock of seeing his perfectly arranged face smeared with gaudy pink and red makeup was a genuine violation. Gilderoy could no longer maintain the forced charm. He snatched the turquoise hat off his head, rubbing his forehead furiously with the back of his hand, confirming the makeup was, indeed, not a trick of the light.
Seeing the perfect moment achieved—the shock delivered and the theatrical entrance ruined—Allen withdrew his subtle magic. It wouldn't do any good if Lockhart got genuinely angry and stormed out, forcing Dumbledore to appoint an even worse substitute. The man needed to stay exactly where Allen could watch him.
As quickly as the colors had appeared, Gilderoy's skin tone returned to its normal, somewhat sickly-pale hue. He quickly forced the smile back onto his face, though it was slightly strained. "Well, well! It looks like some clever, highly amusing student played a rather harmless prank on me!"
Lockhart declared, adjusting his robe with a flourish, trying to reclaim the narrative. "A little lesson in Charms, perhaps! Five points from... well, no matter! Whoever it was, you clearly have a flair for the dramatic! But now, let's get back to the true magic—the magic of my legend!"