The appointment of Gilderoy Lockhart to the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was, structurally speaking, the most catastrophic failure of magical education Sunshine Addams had ever witnessed.
To the sixty-year-old survivor who had been educated by Morticia Addams in the lethal arts of chemical warfare and psychological devastation, watching a preening, blonde-haired fraud prance around a classroom was not just an academic insult; it was a physical endurance test.
It was the third week of term. The second-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were seated in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, which Lockhart had enthusiastically redecorated. The walls were plastered with massive, moving portraits of his own smiling face. The room smelled overwhelmingly of expensive cologne and lilac water.
Sunshine sat in her usual spot: the absolute back corner of the room, as far away from the podium as physically possible. She wore her beige uniform, her golden hair tied back in a severe, unassuming knot.
As a documented Squib, she was supposed to be observing the practical application of defensive magic to broaden her theoretical understanding.
Instead, she was observing a masterclass in narcissistic delusion.
The heavy door swung open, and Lockhart swept in, his turquoise robes billowing dramatically. He flashed a blinding, hundred-watt smile that made his own portraits swoon in their frames.
"Welcome, welcome!" Lockhart beamed, striding to the front of the room. "I see you have all purchased my complete collection of works! Excellent! Now, Defense Against the Dark Arts is a complex, terrifying subject. But fear not! You have the five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award to guide you through the darkness!"
Sunshine did not roll her eyes, though the urge was physically painful. She sat perfectly still, her hands resting on the cover of Voyages with Vampires.
"Now," Lockhart continued, leaning casually against his desk. "Normally, I would begin with a practical demonstration of defensive hexes. But alas, the true foundation of defense is knowledge! Theory! The stories of triumph!"
He clapped his hands together enthusiastically.
"Therefore, instead of dangerous wand-work today, we shall engage in a dramatic reading of chapter four of my encounter with the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! Mr. Macmillan, be a good chap and begin reading aloud from page forty-two."
A collective, silent groan echoed through the classroom. Ernie Macmillan, looking slightly bewildered, opened his book and began to read aloud in a stiff, awkward voice.
"The werewolf lunged, its massive jaws slavering, but I simply flashed my trademark smile and executed a flawless, one-handed Impedimenta charm..."
Sunshine closed her eyes for a microsecond.
This was his curriculum. He did not teach defensive spells. He did not teach creature identification. He used the class periods to force captive children to read his own fictionalized autobiographies aloud, framing it as "theoretical instruction."
It was a staggering display of incompetence.
If Morticia Addams were in this classroom, she would not have uttered a single word of complaint. She would have simply slipped a microscopic drop of powdered Acromantula venom into Lockhart's water goblet and watched him quietly dissolve into a puddle of agonizing regret by the end of the period.
But Sunshine could not use poison. She could not use the Widow's Bite hidden beneath her sleeves. She was the Hufflepuff Squib. She was required to sit and suffer the banality.
As Ernie droned on, reading a highly embellished account of Lockhart wrestling a werewolf into submission, Sunshine's analytical mind detached from the classroom and focused on the broader tactical implications of the man's presence.
Why did Dumbledore hire him? Sunshine calculated, tapping a finger silently against her beige skirt. The Headmaster is many things—manipulative, arrogant, obsessed with prophecies—but he is not stupid. He knows Lockhart is a fraud. He must know.
In her previous life, she had read theories that Dumbledore had hired Lockhart to expose him as a fake, to teach Harry Potter a lesson about the dangers of vanity.
But viewing the situation through the cold, cynical lens of a survivor, that explanation felt inadequate. To sacrifice a year of defensive education for hundreds of students just to teach one boy a moral lesson was profoundly irresponsible, especially with the rumors of Voldemort's return circulating after the Quirrell incident.
No, Sunshine concluded, her bright blue eyes turning flat and cold as they tracked the preening professor. Dumbledore hired him because an incompetent Defense professor serves a tactical purpose.
The Chamber of Secrets was opening. The Heir of Slytherin was moving through the school. If Dumbledore had hired a competent Auror—someone like Mad-Eye Moody or Kingsley Shacklebolt—the attacks would be investigated professionally. The monster might be found too quickly. The crisis might be resolved by adults.
By hiring a spectacular, loud, completely useless fraud, Dumbledore was ensuring that the adults in the castle would fail to solve the mystery. He was creating a vacuum of competence, practically guaranteeing that Harry Potter would be forced to step up and solve the problem himself.
It was a terrifying realization. The Headmaster was actively cultivating a dangerous environment to force his chosen weapon to sharpen itself.
"And then," Lockhart interrupted Ernie's reading, striking a heroic pose at the front of the room, "I looked the beast directly in its glowing red eyes and said, 'Down, boy!' And would you believe it? The sheer force of my personality subdued the creature!"
Hannah Abbott let out a small, breathless sigh of admiration from the desk next to Sunshine. The twelve-year-old girl was entirely captivated by the blonde hair and the sparkling teeth.
Sunshine felt a sharp pang of genuine, protective anger.
These children were being fed lies. They were being denied the tools they would desperately need to survive the impending war. Lockhart wasn't just a fraud; he was an active hazard to their survival.
She felt the golden locket pulse against her chest, the raw, supermassive Addams magic inside demanding release, begging to shatter the grinning fool at the front of the room and teach these children how to actually survive a monster.
She took a slow, deep breath, wrestling the dark power back into submission.
I cannot expose myself, Sunshine reminded herself ruthlessly. I am a wallflower. The narrative demands blood, and it will have it. I cannot stop the gears from turning.
"Miss Addams!"
The sharp, enthusiastic voice sliced through her internal calculations.
Sunshine blinked, the cold, gray survivor vanishing behind the mask of the innocent, cherubic Squib. She looked up.
Lockhart was pointing a manicured finger at her from the podium, a dazzling, empty smile plastered across his face.
"Yes, you, the quiet one in the back!" Lockhart beamed, completely oblivious to the fact that he was calling on the only non-magical student in the room. "Why don't you take over the reading? Page forty-five, my dear! Let us hear your dramatic interpretation of my victory over the Banshee of Bandon!"
The classroom fell silent. Several Ravenclaws turned to look at her, their expressions a mix of pity and discomfort. Everyone knew she was a Squib. Calling on her for anything was generally considered incredibly bad form.
Sunshine sat perfectly still.
She had two options. She could refuse, citing her discomfort, playing into her pathetic persona. Or she could comply, demonstrating her utter, unremarkable obedience to authority.
Compliance was the beige option. Compliance maintained the camouflage.
"Of course, Professor," Sunshine said, her high, sweet voice echoing softly in the lilac-scented room.
She looked down at her book. She found page forty-five.
She began to read aloud.
She did not read with dramatic flair. She did not attempt to capture Lockhart's heroic, self-aggrandizing tone. She read the words in a flat, monotone, entirely devoid of emotion. She stripped the text of its intended excitement, turning a thrilling tale of a banshee encounter into a recitation that sounded like reading the ingredients on a box of stale cereal.
"I... raised... my... wand," Sunshine read slowly, deliberately mispronouncing a few complex words to sell her incompetence. "And... cast... the... spell. The... banshee... cried."
It was an act of profound, subtle sabotage. By reading his glorious prose with the enthusiasm of a dial tone, she was actively draining the energy from his ego.
Lockhart's smile tightened slightly. He shifted uncomfortably at the podium. The dramatic tension he had spent the last twenty minutes building was evaporating into the stale air of Sunshine's weaponized boredom.
"Thank you, Miss Addams," Lockhart interrupted after only three agonizingly dull paragraphs. He sounded slightly strained. "A very... steady reading. Er, Mr. Boot, perhaps you could take over and inject a bit more... passion?"
Sunshine closed her book, folding her hands neatly on her desk. She offered Lockhart a polite, incredibly dull smile.
She had survived the encounter. She had maintained her cover, confirmed her own utter lack of talent, and successfully bored the narcissist into leaving her alone.
As Terry Boot enthusiastically resumed the dramatic reading, Sunshine Addams retreated back into the shadows of her own mind. The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was a farce, the professor was a fraud, and the castle was gearing up for a bloodbath.
She touched the Widow's Bite hidden beneath her sleeve. She was the Hufflepuff Wallflower. She would not stop the basilisk, and she would not expose the fraud. But if either of those monsters ever cornered her in a dark corridor, they would quickly discover that the quiet girl in the back of the room was vastly more dangerous than anything written in Gilderoy Lockhart's pathetic little books.