Their ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher

Their ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher pushed open the doors and moved towards them, wearing a long lilac dressing gown.

‘Well, hello there!’ he said. ‘I expect you'd like my autograph, would you?’

‘Hasn't changed much, has he?’ Harry muttered to Ginny, who grinned.

‘Er—how are you, Professor?’ said Ron, sounding slightly guilty. It had been Ron's malfunctioning wand that had damaged Professor Lockhart's memory so badly that he had landed in St. Mungo's in the first place, though as

Lockhart had been attempting to permanently wipe Harry and Ron's memories at the time, Harry's sympathy was limited.

‘I'm very well indeed, thank you!’ said Lockhart exuberantly, palling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. ‘Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!’

‘Er—we don't want any at the moment, thanks,’ said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry, who asked, ‘Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn't you be in a ward?’

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart's face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, ‘Haven't we met?’

‘Er ... yeah, we have,’ said Harry. ‘You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?’

‘Teach?’ repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. ‘Me? Did I?’

And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming.

‘Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!’

But just then a head poked out of a door at the far end of the corridor and a voice called, ‘Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?’

A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at Harry and the others.

‘Oh, Gilderoy, you've got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day, too! Do you know, he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can't think why, he's such a sweetie, aren't you?’

‘We're doing autographs!’ Gilderoy told the Healer with another glittering smile. ‘They want loads of them, won't take no for an answer! I just hope we've got enough photographs!’

‘Listen to him,’ said the Healer, taking Lockhart's arm and beaming fondly at him as though he were a precocious two-year-old. ‘He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving

autographs is a sign that his memory might be starting to come back. Will you step this way? He's in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door's usually kept

locked ... not that he's dangerous! But,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘he's a bit of a danger to himself, bless him ... doesn't know who he is, you see, wanders off and can't remember how to get back ... it is nice of you

to have come to see him.’

‘Er,’ said Ron, gesturing uselessly at the floor above, ‘actually, we were just—er—’

But the Healer was smiling expectantly at them, and Ron's feeble mutter of ‘going to have a cup of tea’ trailed away into nothingness. They looked at each other helplessly, then followed Lockhart and his Healer along the

corridor.

‘Let's not stay long,’ Ron said quietly.

The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, ‘Alohomora.’ The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoy's arm until she had settled him into an

armchair beside his bed.

‘This is our long-term residents’ ward,’ she informed Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a low voice. ‘For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can

produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we've seen a real improvement in Mr. Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn't speaking

any language we recognise yet. Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I'll leave you all to chat.’

Harry looked around. The ward bore unmistakeable signs of being a permanent home to its residents. They had many more personal effects around their beds than in Mr Weasley's ward; the wall around Gilderoy's

headboard, for instance, was papered with pictures of himself, all beaming toothily and waving at the new arrivals. He had autographed many of them to himself in disjointed, childish writing. The moment he had been

deposited in his chair by the Healer, Gilderoy pulled a fresh stack of photographs towards him, seized a quill and started signing them all feverishly.

‘You can put them in envelopes,’ he said to Ginny, throwing the signed pictures into her lap one by one as he finished them. ‘I am not forgotten, you know, no, I still receive a very great deal of fan mail ... Gladys Gudgeon

writes weekly ... I just wish I knew why ...’ He paused, looking faintly puzzled, then beamed again and returned to his signing with renewed vigour. ‘I suspect it is simply my good looks ...’

A sallow-skinned, mournful-looking wizard lay in the bed opposite staring at the ceiling; he was mumbling to himself and seemed quite unaware of anything around him. Two beds along was a woman whose entire head was

covered in fur; Harry remembered something similar happening to Hermione during their second year, although fortunately the damage, in her case, had not been permanent. At the far end of the ward flowery curtains had

been drawn around two beds to give the occupants and their visitors some privacy.

‘Here you are, Agnes,’ said the Healer brightly to the furry-faced woman, handing her a small pile of Christmas presents. ‘See, not forgotten, are you? And your son's sent an owl to say he's visiting tonight, so that's nice, isn't

it?’

Agnes gave several loud barks.

‘And look, Broderick, you've been sent a pot plant and a lovely calendar with a different fancy hippogriff for each month; they'll brighten things up, won't they?’ said the Healer, bustling along to the mumbling man, setting a

rather ugly plant with long, swaying tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall with her wand. ‘And—oh, Mrs. Longbottom, are you leaving already?’

Harry's head span round. The curtains had been drawn back from the two beds at the end of the ward and two visitors were walking back down the aisle between the beds: a formidable-looking old witch wearing a long green

dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a pointed hat decorated with what was unmistakeably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed—Neville.
gucci outlet
burberry outlet
chanel 2.55
gucci shoes for men
cheap uggs on sale