As we stood in the line to have our books signed we heard a sudden spike in the noise levels among the crowd and knew that the star of the show had arrived. Gilderoy Lockhart had come with his usual high fanfare and antics, while praising himself. It was hard to believe that a man so in love with himself would make the women go gaga over him.
Mrs. Weasley also got excited and urged us to keep squeezing so that we do not miss our spot in the line. I knew that this was futual because just as he would spot me in the crowd he will be sure to ask me to come in the front and then she will get the autographs easily but I could not say it to her so I just followed her orders as did Ginny and Ron.
As we were trying to fight for every inch, as if fate itself was in play I was slightly pushed outwards and Lockhart spotted me. I honestly thought that the mediocrity that I had shown all year round would make it so that he does not think worth his while to single me out but I had underestimated the fame that I carried just by being The Boy Who Lived.
I had always thought that my crazy adventures in the school and on the quidditch field were what had caused people to go so over the board. Yes, I was famous because I survived but I thought that after coming to Hogwarts it was my antics that had increased it. Today I finally found out how highly I thought of myself. Irrespective of whether I do something or not the fame was not to diminish. Either everyone will revere me or hate me but with the same enthusiasm.
The antics of Lockhart followed as they did previously. He praised himself by boasting about the fact that even I was such a big fan of his and that he always strived to be a role model to the younger generation. He then asked the reporter to take a photo and announced that just like harry he will inspire the entire younger generation as he has will be joining Hogwarts as their new defence against the dark arts teacher.
This announcement caused the already fantic crowd to cheer more enthusiastically. He announced that since I was such a big fan he will be giving me all his books with his signature for free.
Mrs. weasley then wrestled me out of the crowd and asked me to stand aside with Mr. weasley while she gets our books signed now that she got direct access. We stood beside Mr. weasley while I waited for the second part of the drama to unfold.
Sure enough the haughty voice of Draco was heard but this time it was not targeting me directly but instead was focused on taunting Ron. Ron and Draco had many small skirmishes during our first year. With me being absent from the equation, Ron had become the leader of the group fighting the slytherins group headed by Draco. Previously it was just me and ron with the other side having draco and the two cronies but after taking me out of the equation, Ron had amassed a group of five and Draco had also added two more boys thus escalating the fight.
Draco taunted by saying that Ron has always acted like he was the leader of the group inside the school but here in the real world he was nothing but one of my underlings. Ron got very angry and retorted that he was nobody's underling and harry was friends with his brothers and not him. He also taunted Draco that he should be the last person to speak of being underlings because everyone knows who's underlings their whole family was. This sentence had suddenly escalated the entire situation.
The two father's understood that the spat had taken an unwanted turn and choose to reign in their kids while greeting each other with a subtle hostile undertone. Mr. Malfoy then looked towards me while expressing that it was good to finally meet the great Harry Potter in person. I too greeted him and then stood beside Mr. Weasley without continuing. Mr. Malfoy seemed to understand and turned his attention to the Weasley's to complete his plan.
He looked towards Ginny and passed out his judgement on how sad he was to see the various second hand things this little girl was carrying and would have to attend her first year at Hogwarts while enduring the various mockings of her fellow students.
This was nothing but balant mocking and belittling of not just them but their entire family. A man could handle almost all shame shown towards him but when someone questions his ability to even provide for his family he is very hurt. I knew that it was just provocation from Mr. Malfoy to slip in the diary so I did not say anything.
He turned towards Mr. Weasley and asked him if he was so poor that he could not even buy new things for his child who had to attend her first year and if he should speak with the minister to have his salary increased because he too would understand the burdens of raising such a large family. While saying this he took the chance to grab the book from the cauldron Ginny was holding and after waving mockingly he finally slipped the Horcrux along with the book back into the cauldron.
He then moved his attention back towards me and teased that I should be able to see the difference between the wise and unwise because both the Weasley's and Malfoy's were part of the sacred twenty eight but due the difference in their visions one had progressed far more than other. Seeing that it was no use continuing the conversation with such a foul person as Lucius, Mr. weasley ignored him and asked us to move along and go outside.
Last time the situation escalated into a fight because Lucius insulted Mr. and Mrs. Granger but since the friendship between me, ron and hermione never manifested, they were absent from the equation which caused Mr. Weasley to ignore the situation and taunts because he was used to most of it.
We all moved out of the book store and soon we could see Mrs. Weasley coming out of the store while carrying a large amounts of books and asking Mr. Weasley to help her.
After Mr. Weasley kept all the books in his extendable pouch, we moved towards completing my shopping.
It was early evening when we completed everyone's shopping and the twins met us at Tom's bar as was decided. We had a early dinner and then went back to the Burrow.