Time passes day by day, and no one will be aware of the crises lurking in the darkness for the time being.
The relaxed and free summer vacation is like a refreshing breeze, quietly smoothing over the critical events of the last semester without leaving too many waves.
Everything seems to be calm, but no one knows how many undercurrents are raging and entangled under this calm.
But anyway, Hogwarts is about to start.
On the eve of the start of school, Diagon Alley is always quite busy, because most students need to come here to buy things they need for the new semester.
At this time, Flourishes and Blotts Bookstore was even more crowded and overcrowded. Of course, it's all because of the star writer in the wizarding world named "Gilderoy Lockhart".
"We can meet him in person!" Hermione exclaimed. "I mean, he wrote almost all the books on the list!"
Although most of the crowd were middle-aged women, it was obvious that Mr. Lockhart's charm was also very effective in the circle of little girls.
Harry, Ron and Hermione slipped through the cracks.
A long queue has formed inside the bookstore, stretching all the way to the street outside the door. They each grabbed a book signing and snuck over to where the Weasleys and Grangers were lining up.
And just outside the gate of Flourish and Blotts Bookstore, a large banner was hanging. The line of words on it was not only bright and dazzling, it even moved - Gilderoy Lockhart's autobiography "Magical Me" is for sale this afternoon. 12:30-16:30.
"Oh, it's great that you are here!" Mrs. Weasley said.
She breathed quickly and kept stroking her hair, trying to make it smoother, "We'll see him soon..."
As the team continued to move forward, they finally saw the protagonist of today's Flourish and Blott Bookstore.
He was sitting behind the table, surrounded by photos of different sizes. The faces in the photos were all blinking at the crowd, showing their dazzling white teeth.
The real Lockhart wore a robe that was as blue as the forget-me-not flowers - a perfect match for his blue eyes, and a pointed wizard hat tilted playfully on his permed curly hair.
In front of him, there was a short man holding a camera. He was jumping around, looking for various angles to take photos. The flashes were almost connected, and streams of purple smoke kept coming out of the camera.
"Get out of the way," the short man obviously had a bad temper. He yelled at Ron who blocked his angle, while taking a few steps back to choose a better angle, "This is for the Daily Prophet."
"It's amazing." Ron said as he struggled to lift his feet in the crowd and rubbed the instep that hurt from being stepped on by the man.
Lockhart evidently heard this. He raised his head, first looking at Ron, but then he immediately saw Harry. His eyes suddenly lit up and he said happily, "Isn't this Harry Potter?"
The crowd made a way, and amid everyone's whispers, Lockhart rushed up, grabbed Harry's hand, and pulled him to the front.
"Come on, come on, take some pictures for us," Lockhart showed his neat white teeth, "Gilderoy Lockhart and Harry Potter, this will definitely make the front page headlines!"
The whole audience burst into enthusiastic applause, but Harry's face turned red from the scene.
When he finally let go of Harry's hand, Harry felt that his fingers were numb from his pinching. He wanted to sneak back to the Weasleys, but Lockhart still had an arm around his shoulders, holding him firmly to his side.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Lockhart shouted, waving everyone for silence, "what an extraordinary moment this is! I want to take advantage of this wonderful occasion to announce a small announcement, which I have been suppressing for some time. I never said…”
Lockhart took this opportunity to reveal that he was going to Hogwarts to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
Suddenly, the crowd's applause became even more enthusiastic.
But in the crowd behind them, two little wizards were squeezing their way out. Hermione, who happened to hear Mrs. Weasley speaking, turned back and glanced at her accidentally.
"That's... Maka?" Hermione asked in surprise, "Who is the girl he pulled?"
She turned back and pulled Ron in front of her, but when she turned back again, he had disappeared into the sea of people.
"Maka? Where is it?" Ron stood on tiptoes and looked around, then asked doubtfully, "Did you see it wrong? There are so many people..."
Hermione poked her head and looked at it for a while, and finally shook her head, "I don't know... is it possible?"
In fact, Hermione actually saw it clearly. But what she saw about Maka made her a little suspicious—she wondered if she had really seen it wrong.
"No, Maka's eyes will be softer. It can't be that..." Hermione muttered softly, "It can't be that cold."
"And who is the girl with long pale blond hair next to her? She looks weirdly dressed."
She thought for a moment and shook her head again, "Maybe I really saw it wrong?"
Hermione was thinking about it when she heard an annoying voice coming from behind.
"You must like this, Potter?" It was Draco Malfoy, with his usual sarcastic smile on his face.
"The famous Harry Potter!" Malfoy said. "Even entering a bookstore makes front-page news."
"Don't be ridiculous, he doesn't want that!" Ginny said loudly, standing next to Harry.
This was the first time that she took the initiative to speak in front of Harry, and she was usually shy and silent.
"Potter - you have a girlfriend -" Malfoy drawled.
Ginny's face suddenly turned red.
Ron and Hermione squeezed in from behind, each holding a stack of Lockhart's books, separating her from Malfoy.
Ginny is the treasure of the Weasley family, and if Malfoy dares to bully her, Ron will naturally not accept it. He and Malfoy despised each other, making sarcastic comments about each other.
After a while, Ron was so excited that he wanted to rush up and punch Malfoy twice in the face. Harry and Hermione quickly grabbed the back of his clothes tightly.
"Ron!" Mr. Weasley squeezed over with Fred and George, "What are you doing? People here are crazy, let's go out-"
"Oops—Arthur Weasley."
Just as Mr. Weasley was trying to pull the children out, a man came out of the crowd behind Malfoy.
"Lucius." Mr. Weasley looked at him coldly and nodded slightly.
It was Lucius Malfoy, with a hand on Draco's shoulder, and the sneer on both father and son's faces was almost identical.
"I heard that my brother is very busy with work!" Mr. Malfoy said, "So many checks... I think they paid you overtime?"
He reached into Ginny's cauldron and pulled out a tattered copy of "The Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration" from among the shiny new Lockhart books.
"Humph, it doesn't seem like it. My God - what's the use of being a scum among wizards if you can't even get a good reward?" Mr. Weasley's face suddenly looked bigger than that of Ron and Ginny. Very red.
"We have very different ideas of what it means to be a scumbag among wizards, Malfoy!" he said angrily.
"Of course!" Lucius raised his head and said disdainfully.
His pale eyes turned and fell on Mr. and Mrs. Granger, who were looking at them with fear.
"Look at the friends you've made, Weasley... I thought your family had fallen as far as it could go?"
Mr. Weasley lunged at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him into a bookshelf. Dozens of thick spell books fell on their heads, and even Ginny's cauldron was knocked out with a clang.
Twin brothers Fred and George were shouting things like "Hit him, Dad!" while Mrs. Weasley was screaming, "Don't do it, Arthur, don't do it!"
The crowd retreated in panic, knocking down more bookshelves and causing the clerk to grimace.
At this time, a loud voice overwhelmed all the sounds.
"Spread out, gentlemen, spread out!"
It was Hagrid, striding over among the books on the floor and pulling Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy away in the blink of an eye.
Mr. Weasley had a cut lip, and Lucius was hit in one eye by a thick book, and he was still holding Ginny's old Transfiguration textbook in his hand.
Ginny next to her had already picked up the cauldron. Lucius saw this and stuffed the book into her cauldron with a vicious light in his eyes.
"Here, little girl - take your book! This is the best thing your father can give you." He broke free from Hagrid's arm, waved to Draco, and rushed out of the shop without looking back. Door.
"You shouldn't pay attention to him, Arthur," Hagrid stretched out his hand to smooth Mr. Weasley's robe, but he was so strong that he almost lifted him up.
"This guy is bad, his whole family is, everyone knows it - the Malfoys are not worth listening to! They have bad blood, that's all. Come on, let's get out."
The clerk on the side seemed to want to stop them from claiming compensation, but with Hagrid's physique, most people really didn't dare to stop him casually. After a while, they went out of the store, leaving a group of store clerks crying and staring at each other.
They walked quickly to the street. Hermione's parents, both ordinary Muggles, were shaking with fear, while Mrs. Weasley next to them was furious.
"Well done to the boys! Fighting in public? What would Gilderoy Lockhart think—"
"He was so happy," said Fred, "didn't you hear when we came out? He asked the guy at the Daily Prophet if he could include the fight in the story! He said it would make a splash... "
And in the crowd not far away from them, a young man was looking over there indifferently, a pair of deep black eyes staring at Ginny's crucible intentionally or unintentionally - to be precise, it was a black book in that crucible. Cover diary.