THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
“Are you going somewhere?” said Harry.
“Er, well, yes,” said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself
from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up.
“Urgent call — unavoidable — got to go —”
“What about my sister?” said Ron jerkily.
“Well, as to that — most unfortunate —” said Lockhart, avoid-
ing their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying
the contents into a bag. “No one regrets more than I —”
“You’re the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!” said Harry.
“You can’t go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!”
“Well — I must say — when I took the job —” Lockhart mut-
tered, now piling socks on top of his robes. “nothing in the job de-
scription — didn’t expect —”
“You mean you’re running away? said Harry disbelievingly. “Af-
ter all that stuff you did in your books —”
“Books can be misleading,” said Lockhart delicately.
“You wrote them!” Harry shouted.
“My dear boy,” said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at
Harry. “Do use your common sense. My books wouldn’t have sold
half as well if people didn’t think I’d done all those things. No one
wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he
did save a village from werewolves. He’d look dreadful on the front
cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Ban-
don Banshee had a hairy chin. I mean, come on —”
“So you’ve just been taking credit for what a load of other people
have done?” said Harry incredulously.
“Harry, Harry,” said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently,
“it’s not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had
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