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Harry and Ron hurriedly raced through the castle corridors to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Their faces were red and they were panting heavily like they had just completed a marathon.
"Lockhart may be useless, but he's going to try to get into the Chamber. At least we can tell him what we know!" Harry shouted out as they burst into the classroom and quickly climbed up the stairs to Professor Lockhart's office.
Ron followed Harry closely, his face filled with displeasure. As they entered the office, they found Professor Lockhart stuffing clothes into one of his trunks. He quickly closed it and turned towards them. Harry spoke up, "Professor, we have some information for you."
Harry looked around the room that was filled with packed trunks and turned back to his professor. "Are you going somewhere?" He asked.
Ron was visibly perplexed as Lockhart muttered, "Um... well, yes. Urgent call. Unavoidable. Uh, got to go." He couldn't believe what he had just heard and blurted out, "What about my sister?!"
Lockhart seemed to be lost in his own thoughts as he cleaned up his table and muttered, "Uh, well, um... As to that, most unfortunate. No one regrets more than I." Ron's outrage was palpable when he exclaimed, "You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. You can't go now!"
"Well, I must say when I took the job, there was nothing in the job description about--" Harry interrupted him by blocking his path and exclaimed in disbelief, "You're running away? After all that stuff you did in your books?!"
Lockhart tried to justify himself by saying, "Books can be misleading."
"You wrote them!"
"My dear boy use your common sense!" The Professor had just placed his bag on the table when he turned to Harry and continued, "My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things!"
But Harry was staring at him, disbelief etched on his face as the realization hit him. "You're a fraud. You've just been taking credit for what other wizards have done!" he exclaimed. Ron joined in, asking if there was anything Lockhart could do to rectify the situation.
"Yes. Now you mention it. I'm rather gifted with memory charms. Otherwise, you see, all those wizards would've gone blabbing, and I'd never have sold another book," Lockhart said, his face stern with a glare.
As Lockhart made his way towards a suitcase, Harry and Ron shared a knowing look. They had already guessed what he was up to.
"In fact, uh... I'm uh..." Lockhart trailed off, and Ron nodded at Harry, understandingly. Both of them reached into their robes, pulling out their wands. Lockhart was too late to react as Harry and Ron pointed their wands at him. "Don't even think about it," Harry stated, gesturing for the professor to drop his wand, which he reluctantly did.
