I had heard about Gilderoy Lockhart, most people had. Most people hear about him from their mothers or witches in their families who think that he is a genius. I have heard rather less pleasant stories about him. He of course is the author of books such as “Voyages with Vampires” and “Guide to Household Pests”. He is beloved by most witches up and down the country who find him to be charming and stylistic. My uncle on the other hand found him to be arrogant. He was my Defence against the Dark Arts teacher in my third year and I had been hearing moans and groans from Professor Snape since the end of term. Most were things about plagiarising and not having done it himself… the rest was stuff like, his smile was too big, his teeth too white and his hair too bouncy. I was given a set of signed books thrust at me and “For Miss Snape” written on each one.

I generally like to make my own decisions about people but in this case, he was definitely correct, when I went to visit Leanne, we discussed this at length as her mum was a massive fan. It turned out that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. As a third-year student I had a much better about the dark arts than Gilderoy Lockhart and I am sure that I could have beaten him in a duel any day. He taught us so little that I told my uncle who proceeded to hold demonstrations to my class. They say that Professor Snape never actually taught Defence against the Dark Arts until 1996-97 however he was an incredibly active teacher throughout his whole time at Hogwarts. That is, whilst we had terrible teachers such as Professor Lockhart and Professor Umbridge.

I think the Slytherins got off lightly because Professor Snape thought he was a joke anyway. Many of the female students from all houses and all years were taken by him. I just rolled my eyes. He always looked at me with fear. He was so scared of my uncle I think he thought I would say something to “out” him. He was just so fake he didn’t need outing, not even to Dumbledore. Although why he hired him will always be a mystery to me. Not even Professor Sprout liked him and she was the kindest of the bunch.

For our first lesson he gave every year group a quiz. The questions had absolutely nothing to do with the Dark Arts and everything to do with him. His favourite colour, what he would like as a present etc… The best thing about having Professor Lockhart was that we got a lot of hands on experience of what NOT to do. It also made my Uncle look fantastic, maybe not in the looks department but certainly in the skills department, which I was all for.

At eight ‘o’clock in the Great Hall he then preceded to give us duelling lessons. He had the gaul to tell us that we would still have our potions master at the end of it. He even winked at me. I was not impressed. Fred & George thought it was hilarious. My uncle and I obviously did not. If I hadn’t been in so much trouble anyway then I think I would have tried to strangle him. He was pompous, arrogant, up himself and always dressed in the most ridiculous clothes.

In our class we had the MOCK-HART group. We basically got together and made fun of practically everything that he would do, this was mainly made up of boys but it did consist of a few girls. Luckily, we didn’t get into too much trouble for mocking a teacher but he was ridikulus! In his study he had pictures of himself smiling at other pictures of himself. I swear not even Hermione Granger, a second-year muggle-born, believed some of what he was saying. The best one was when he tried to mend Harry’s arm at the quidditch match and took all the bones away. Mme Pomfrey was not impressed and my uncle looked as though he was going to burst.