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Three twelve-year-olds are gathered in a bathroom, copying a diagram from a book onto the floor in chalk.
"Do you know what all this writing means?" asks the green-eyed boy.
"No," says the bushy-haired girl, "and that worries me too, but we need to find out who the Heir of Slytherin is and this ritual is the best we've got."
Eventually, one or another of them draws the last bit of the outer circle.
And here's Lockhart's office! Lockhart presents Cam with a wooden disk on a leather cord and a long-winded story about how he once had to enchant one of these on the fly while rescuing the princess of some country Cam has never heard of.
"Is that some kind of secret magic country," Cam says, donning the necklace, "or the magic name for a country Muggles know by another name...?"
"I believe it's in the area muggles call Timbuktu. What brings you to Hogwarts, by the way? Would you like an autograph?"
When Cam puts the necklace on, the architecture goes from "crap even before the decades of neglect" to "beautiful and very well-maintained stonework". All the walls and doors are in the same places, at least.
"A basilisk? Fascinating. Unfortunately I have just been, ah, called away to, ah, a very important conference. I'm sure you'll all be able to handle yourselves without me." He pulls out a suitcase and starts tossing random objects into it.
...Cam looks at the kids because he does not know if this is expected wizard faculty behavior.
No, this is very surprising!
"But you're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher! You can't just leave when there's a monster attacking the school!"
"The Defense curriculum is supposed to cover protecting yourself from dangerous creatures."
"Hmm. I can't have you lot going around spreading this story," says Lockhart, closing his suitcase and drawing his wand. "Totally incongruous with my image. So just to be sure . . . obliviate!" He flicks the wand at Ron.
That wand is going to be encased in a block of ice now, grown so as to break his grip but probably not any fingers! "What the actual fuck did you just do?"
"You're lucky I didn't just snap it! Memory charm? I should snap it - do those wear off, are they reversible -"
"They might be reversible? Oh, Ron, I'm sorry, this is all my fault for trusting him."
Lockhart tries to break the ice off his hand by banging it on a table, winces in pain, and then stands there looking stymied.
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