Those reminders helped the others quite a bit by jogging their memories, which meant they did not fail nearly as badly as they would have otherwise. Ron's performance, in particular, was completely different from how it had gone in the book, since this time he actually had a functional wand. He still struggled, of course, but no more than anyone else did. Hermione, being her usual overachieving self, was busy transfiguring her beetles into buttons of different colors and sizes. 'She's going to take it rather badly later in Lockhart's class,' Julian thought with a quiet chuckle.
He himself fully intended to leave Lockhart's paper blank, since he neither cared about the man nor felt any desire to feed his ego. If Lockhart tried to challenge him over it, Julian had no issue pointing out that the man's job was to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and nothing else. Since not a single question on the paper had anything to do with the actual subject, Julian saw no reason to give it the slightest attention. It was not only a perfectly valid position, but also a good way to highlight Lockhart's lack of professionalism, two birds with one stone.
Things played out a little differently than expected once they headed to Lockhart's classroom after lunch. "Ah, Mr. Ravenclaw, just the person I wanted to speak with!" Lockhart said with a broad smile as Julian and his friends approached. Judging by the way the man's eyes kept darting toward Dusk on Julian's shoulder, Julian doubted this conversation was going to go well. "You see, I heard about the incident yesterday involving your pet here, and I assumed I would graciously offer to take it off your hands, since a beast like that clearly requires an exceptional wizard such as myself to tame it properly," Lockhart said eagerly.
Before Julian could even respond, the man actually had the nerve to reach out and try to grab Dusk as though he were some ordinary chicken. Dusk immediately reacted, flaring up in flame and forcing the pompous blond fraud to yank his hand back in fear. Julian smiled and stroked Dusk's chest to calm him down before turning to look at Lockhart. "Your first mistake was assuming Dusk is a pet rather than a companion. The next mistake was assuming that I am the one who gets to decide where he goes and, more importantly, with whom."
"And your final mistake was trying to lay even a single finger on him without his permission, which is a major taboo among all immortal birds, as I'm sure someone so 'accomplished' would know," Julian said in a clearly condescending tone before walking into the room and taking a seat beside Harry, who gave him a high five. Everything Julian had said about Dusk was true. He did not own the bird and in fact had no control over him whatsoever. Dusk stayed with him entirely of his own will, which also meant he was equally free to leave whenever he pleased.
Quite a few girls were glaring at Julian as though Lockhart humiliating himself in front of the class had somehow been Julian's fault. 'Ugh, fangirls are the absolute worst,' he thought with open disdain before choosing to ignore them and splitting a cookie with Harry while Lockhart made his way to the front of the room. Julian had to give the man a little credit, though, because he managed to spin that entire embarrassing incident into some sort of deliberate test on his part when it obviously had been nothing of the kind.
After that, the class unfolded almost exactly the way Julian had expected. Lockhart handed out that ridiculous quiz about himself, and Julian did not even bother writing his name on the page. Once all the papers had been collected, it quickly became obvious to Julian that Lockhart had been watching for his specifically. "Mr. Ravenclaw, where is your paper?" he asked with a frown after sorting through the pile twice. "I didn't do it," Julian answered casually. "Why not?" Lockhart pressed, clearly irritated. "Because it did not contain a single question about the class itself, nor about any of 'your' methods of magical defense from your books," Julian said evenly.
"Minus ten points from Gryffindor. Next time I expect you to complete whatever work I assign without entertaining these mistaken thoughts on the matter," Lockhart said, barely containing his anger. "No need to worry, it won't happen again," Julian replied with a mocking smile. Lockhart let out a small snort, then slipped right back into his false persona as he dragged out a large birdcage covered with a cloth. "Inside this cage is a most dreadful creature indeed. Be warned, any sudden movement might set them off," he said, trying to build suspense before whisking the cloth away.