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By the beginning of October, Hermione and I, in our opinion, had become familiar enough with Lockhart as fans. One day, after a DADA lesson, we approached him with a stack of similar sheets of paper. We faked various letters and postcards for about a week, attaching Lockhart’s photos to them with an eternal glue charm.

“Professor Lockhart,” Hermione said to him, blushing a little.

“Yes?” Gilderoy took a break from his notes. “Ah, Miss Granger and Mr. Knight! My loyal fans and diligent students! How can I help?”

“You see, professor. Max and I have collected various postcards and stuff here so you can sign them. For our classmates and guys from our House. They are very shy to contact you directly. Here…”

Hermione blushed a little more, but not from embarrassment, but from such blatant lies that came from her. How I understand her. At her age, I couldn’t lie at all. Although later, I learned so much that even I believed in those lies. A doubtful achievement, but useful in life.

“Oh, of course! Of course, I will sign them.” Lockhart smiled dazzlingly and accepted the stack of papers, with incredible speed, began to sign them in beautiful sweeping handwriting. When the first form for visiting the forbidden section was supposed to appear, I spoke.

– It’s incredible, professor, how many things you managed to accomplish! You probably worked without sparing yourself.

“Exactly!” Lockhart looked at us with a wise glance and, despite not looking, signed the first form, putting it in a pile with already signed ones. “Only long and hard work can lead you along the path of mastery. Of course, it was much easier for me with my talent.”

Lockhart immediately smiled and began signing on. Hermione spoke on the next form.

“Do you really want world peace?”

“Oh yeah!” Lockhart signed the form again without looking and put it aside. “That would be great, wouldn’t it? Magical creatures, muggles, wizards, all live in peace! How many lives could be saved, how many nasty spells could be forgotten and consigned into oblivion!”

For a moment, Lockhart broke into a dreamy smile but quickly came to his senses and winked at us.

“I hope you will put your energies into making this simple dream come true.”

Lockhart signed the remaining few fake cards with a smile and handed the stack back to us. It took him just a couple of minutes!

“Thank you very much, professor!” we simultaneously thanked and, taking all signed cards, went to the exit. “Have a nice day!”

“And you, do your best on the lessons!”

Already in the corridor, having turned the corner, we took a deep breath.

“It was… close.”

“Yeah,” Hermione agreed. “He is strange.”

“Here, in the magic world, almost everybody is strange.”

On the same day, we went to the library and presented the forms to Madame Pince, the strict keeper of knowledge, books, tomes, and silence. She meticulously examined them, rubbed with her finger, waved her wand. She almost sniffed it, and only after these procedures led us to the Forbidden Section with disbelief. Despite its prohibition, during working hours, the large double doors that led there were wide open.

“You are allowed to visit the Forbidden Section at any time during business hours. Here,” Madame Pince pointed to a thick simple book on a pedestal next to the entrance, “you can read the instructions for books that require a specific approach. In case of non-compliance, your right to visit the section will be canceled. Indefinitely. Until renewal by the Headmaster personally. I hope I don’t need to repeat the need for careful treatment of books? Especially here.”

Madame Pince gave us a stern look and left us alone with the books.

The Forbidden Section was a quite spacious room with cupboards along the walls and two rows of similar cupboards in the middle. Many books were chained to them. Some were on special pedestals with rigid clamps, and some were entirely under glass showcases. All of them looked much grimmer than ordinary books in the library, which made these manuscripts and publications meaningful, to some extent, even frightening.

“It’s very exciting,” Hermione was excited and happy at the same time, looking around with an enthusiastic gaze. “We need to properly study the instructions.”

Someone else, perhaps, would have rushed headlong to study previously inaccessible knowledge, but common sense said: “Study the instructions. It’s not here for nothing.” This is what we did for two days, causing the approving glances of Madame Pince, who periodically visited here to check.

In theory, the Forbidden Section can be accessed by a student mainly from the sixth year for various projects, mostly on DADA. This is because here are the directions of magic that are mainly considered dark. On the other hand, there is information on higher potions, higher light magic, etc. It seems that all the most difficult, forbidden, dark things are simply collected here – everything in one place. I wonder if the Director is such a fighter against darkness, then why didn’t he throw it all away?

I remembered the senior students due to the complete desolation of the Forbidden Section. Apparently, there are also some kind of enchantments that only Madame Pince’s voice lets through from the sounds, but only if she wants to say something to those inside. And always the same volume and somewhat soft, not sudden. This is incredibly prudent, given the fact that in the Forbidden Section, you have to work with dangerous, rare, or fragile books. Or all of this together.

Having studied and memorized the instructions verbatim, we proceeded to the books. We decided to read them according to a simple scheme: I am from the entrance to the left, Hermione – to the right. We meet on the other side of the hall and go to the shelves in the middle. Yes, a month will not be enough, but then we plan to just go to Lockhart and simply ask him to sign the passes.