Hydrus Black chapter 40

Chapter 40 -

Hydrus let out a small sigh as he got up from his bed. He took a moment to look around; his room at Hogwarts was more or less exactly how he had left it, besides his personal things, which he hadn't gotten around to setting up yet. He shook his head and went to the bathroom to perform his morning ritual. Once he was out, he came back into the room and paused when he saw Bowie standing on his bed and holding a toothbrush and using it to brush Rocky's teeth as the snake lay there with his mouth wide open.

Seeing absolutely nothing wrong with that scene, he got ready. After a quick goodbye to the pair, he walked out of his room and down to the common room where Daphne was waiting for him, sitting in a chair with a book in her hand.

"So, Hydrus, looking forward to your first day of school?" She asked knowingly.

"So long as I don't get Lockhart today, I'll be perfectly fine." He replied. "Yourself?" He asked politely.

"Same as you," She responded as she placed the book down in her lap. "His books seem more like storybooks than educational ones. Not even realistic stories, either. Honestly, one man holding off a vampire with one arm is ridiculous. They're strong enough to toss around hippogriffs, no way he could do something like that."

"It's stupid," Hydrus scowled as he stopped in front of her. "We've got the dark lord back in action, and we're stuck with this peacock. I swear to Merlin, he had better be at least decently competent or I'm complaining to every official that I can."

"With how scared everyone is, I doubt you'd be the only one," She sighed as she stood up. "People are scared; they want real protection. They want to learn real magic. Still, we can't really complain to anyone about Lockhart without at least experiencing one of his lessons."

"He gets one chance from me," Hydrus said through gritted teeth. "One."

(.)

'I was too generous,' Hydrus decided mere moments after sitting down in Lockhart's class.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was more or less the same as before; it had the standard desks and chairs and so on, along with many of the decorations like the dragon skeleton. But the problem came with the fact that there were also a few changes that were hard to swallow. Before, there were several pictures on the walls of former defence teachers, spells and even famous battles. But those pictures had been replaced, and more had been added.

All of them were of Lockhart.

There was a picture of him riding a broom and waving cheerily. Another of him waving his wand about in some ridiculous pattern before winking, one picture had him enjoying what appeared to be an admittedly yummy-looking pie. Hydrus even saw one picture of Lockhart sitting in front of a mirror and combing his hair. The Lockhart in the mirror and the Lockhart coming his hair looked towards him at the same time and winked at the same time. Along with the many pictures of Lockhart around the room, there was one life-sized portrait of Lockhart near the steps to his office. In the painting, he was painting another painting of himself.

'Sweet Merlin on a bike, I bet the prat's mother didn't even love him this much,' Hydrus thought along with several others. One agonising minute later, Lockhart finally exited from his office.

"Ah, greetings, students," He said grandly, smiling brightly as if he had just been declared emperor of all of the magical world. "How good it is to meet you all, I'm sure you're all quite excited to have your first lesson with yours truly. So I won't dilly dally too long," He continued to smile as he started walking down the stairs, giving his pictures an appreciative glance before stopping at the large portrait and staring at it for a good few moments before turning back to the class as he made it to the bottom of the stairs. "For those of you who don't know, you poor souls, I am Professor Gilderoy Lockhart. Grand adventurer, winner of the Order of Merlin - third class, the most accomplished explorer in modern wizarding history and five-time winner of Witch Weekley's most charming smile award." He announced as he sat on top of his desk. "But I don't like to talk about that, " He added with a dismissive wave. "After all, I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her." He chuckled at his own joke, though he faltered a bit when he saw that nobody else was laughing. "Anyway," He continued. "I see you've all brought a copy of my books, good stuff. I know that you are all concerned with the latest news about what's going on in the world, but fear not, so long as you are under my protection, nothing will harm you." He announced grandly. "Now, I thought we'd start things off with a little quick quiz, nothing too difficult, just a little test to see how much knowledge you've retained." He told them before he started handing out test papers.

Hydrus's deep frown had somehow managed to get deeper as he read the first few questions on the paper. Skimming through the rest of the paper, he saw that all of the questions were more about Lockhart than they were about any meaningful magic. Lockhart made his way back to the front of the class. The man opened his mouth to speak, but trailed off when he saw Hydrus raise his hand.

"Aw, Hydrus Black, my old friend," Lockhart greeted him cheerfully. "Good to see you, lad. Is there something I can help you with?"

"I'm not your friend," Hydrus said bluntly with a small scowl on his face. "And what I wanted to ask is why the hell we have to do this test? Most of these questions have no relevance towards actual magic."

"Come now, Hydrus, it's merely just to see how much you remember from my books, that's all," Lockhart said with a slightly strained smile.

"And how is remembering your favourite colour or greatest ambition going to help any of us when Voldemort and his bloody Death Eaters try to kill us in our sleep?!" Hydrus demanded, glaring at Lockhart when the man flinched.

"I agree," Daphne said, raising her hand at the barest height to be noticed before putting it down. "This is the worst possible time to be wasting time. We need to learn how to defend ourselves. My parents sent me to Hogwarts to learn about magic, not about my professors."

"Why don't you just show us some of the spells from the books?" Liv asked suddenly. "There was supposedly one that you used to stop a werewolf transformation, which could be useful."

"Voldemort used werewolves in the last war," Hydrus said with a note of approval. "Even without him, there's Greyback and his ilk. Cooper's got a point, why not teach us that?"

"Now, now," Lockhart said quickly before more questions could start flying. "I understand and I approve of your eagerness, but those types of spells take time to learn. We need to learn at a more gradual pace, so now just do the test, and we'll start with the lesson." He said, trying to sound somewhat firm.

Hydrus took a moment to try and incinerate Lockhart with his glare. When that didn't work, he settled on doing the test. Instead of writing any answers to any of the questions, Hydrus settled for writing a single word across each page, making sure it took up the whole page.

FRAUD.

Once that was done, Hydrus put the test down on the desk and glared continually at Lockhart, who was too busy adjusting his hair and staring at a hand-held mirror to notice. Around ten minutes later, Lockhart finally remembered that there were other people in the room aside from his own reflection and got up. He headed over and collected the papers before heading up to the desk and starting to look through them.

"Oh dear, oh dear," He sighed dramatically a few minutes into reading their answers. "Hardly any of you remembered that my favourite colour is lilac, a few of you even forgot my birthday and..." He trailed off as he came across Hydrus's paper. For the first time, an angry look came on his face. "Mr Black! That'll be detention!" He barked before taking in a deep breath and plastering a smile on his face. "I appreciate a joke as much as the next wizard, but some things are in bad taste, my boy. Now, I think it's time we start with something practical. He said as he stood up and pulled something out from under his desk, it was covered in a cloak and looked to be midly heavy based on Lockhart's grunt as he put it on the desk. "Now, be warned," He said in a serious voice. "I want you to stay calm, know that no harm can befall you whilst I am here." He said, some of the students leaned forward in anticipation. "I ask that you please don't make too much noise, it might provoke them!" He said loudly before ripping the cloak off, revealing a cage filled with pixies.

"Pixies?" Seamus laughed along with a few others while Hydrus face-palmed. His own mother had taught him how to deal with pests not long after he had first started living with her; he agreed very much with Seamus's reaction.

"Freshly caught, Cornish pixies." Lockhart corrected him.

"They're not dangerous,"

"Don't be so sure," Lockhart said, waggling a finger at the class. "Let's see how you deal with them." He said before opening the cage. As if a battle cry was heard, the classroom fell into chaos. Turns out that releasing dozens of hyperactive pixies in a confined classroom filled with lots of students was a bad idea.

A few girls (and one Ronald Weasley) shrieked as the pixies burst out from the cage as if shot out of a cannon. Within seconds, they were swarming around the room, causing chaos. Thankfully, they had destroyed a few of Lockhart's portraits, much to Hydrus's delight and Lockhart's horror. Books were thrown, desks were overturned, and the majority of students were panicking. Longbottom was even picked up and hung by his robes from the chandelier. One of the pixies made the mistake of trying to mess with Daphne's hair; he ended up being thrown into a wall, naturally.

"Come now, come now, round them," Lockhart said encouragingly. "They're only pixies! Come on, look, I'll show you. Peksy, piksy, peksanomy!" He yelled, waving his wand in a ridiculous pattern before one of the pixies took his wand and tossed it out of the window. "Oh, well...that's kind of embarrassing," He said sheepishly.

"Merlin on a half-decent tricycle," Hydrus growled irritatedly before aiming his wand in the air. "Immobulus!" A blue light burst from his wand, freezing everyone in the classroom, including the pixies. With an annoyed huff, Hydrus waved his wand and freed everyone besides the pixies. "Do you want some help?" He asked Longbottom who was still on the chandelier.

"Not from you," Neville said stubbornly whilst glaring at him.

"Fair," Hydrus shrugged before turning his attention back to Lockhart. You're an imbecile," He told him bluntly. "You need to leave this school, now. We're all going to die if we have to rely on you to teach us."

"I...now, I admit that the lesson didn't go quite as planned," Lockhart said quickly as he walked over to Hydrus. "But that's a bit extreme, Hydrus, my boy."

"I am not your boy," Hydrus growled at him.

"I assure you that the next lesson will be better," Lockhart said confidently. He needed to get Hydrus on his side, the boy was not only heir to the Black family, but also heir to the Potter family, not to mention that he was also the boy who lived and if rumours were correct, then he was a damn progidy in most magical fields, a partnership between the two of them would set him up for life. Once he was old and had his fun, he could sit back and enjoy the rest of his life, or he could live out a few more years through Hydrus. Sure, you-know-who was back, but they were all safe in the castle, plus he was apparently far weaker than he used to be. Once Hydrus agreed, they could prepare a quick escape to get out of the country should the dark lord become too much of a problem.

Not to mention the major benefit that came with getting Hydrus on his side, pulling in Hydrus meant pulling in his mother, the beautiful Bellatrix Black. The woman he had lusted after ever since he was a little first year, he had seen her a few times then, but at the time, he was nothing worthy of her, a short little thing with horrible hair, crooked teeth and the most horrible skin. But now was his chance; if he played it right, then she'd be his. Not only would he get to satiate his desires with the most attractive woman he had ever seen, he'd also be able to access her family fortune. Plus, if rumours were to be believed, her sister, Narcissa Malfoy, was going to be without a husband soon. Lockhart certainly wouldn't turn her down if she needed a shoulder to cry on.

"Yeah, well, I..." Hydrus trailed off as he noticed movement in Lockhart's trousers. It was subtle, but he saw it, the slight movement of the trouser worm. 'My nemesis!' Hydrus thought mentally before raising his fist.