Everyone knows Hogwarts Castle is practically next door to Hogsmeade, the wizarding village. The Hogwarts Express station is right there in the village, and generations of students have fond memories of slipping out the school's back gate on weekends to wander into Hogsmeade for some fun.
But here's the weird part: Hogwarts was stuck in a never-ending rainy season. Based on Lockhart's experience, this downpour was likely to last at least six months. Meanwhile, the weather outside the castle grounds was bizarrely sunny and clear.
By afternoon, with the sun still high, Hogwarts was getting drenched again.
Yet when Lockhart Apparated with Dumbledore to the Carrow family's ancestral home—supposedly in the same climate zone as Hogwarts, just a county over—it was a warm, pleasant evening.
Bathed in golden sunlight, the Carrow estate almost felt… cozy.
The garden was bursting with blooming flowers, trees heavy with fruit, and the mansion's mushroom-shaped dome glowed under the sun's rays, giving off a vibe straight out of a whimsical fairy-tale castle.
For a moment, Lockhart's tense nerves actually relaxed.
Not every wizard is into the dark, creepy aesthetic. The Carrow estate felt more like a sweet old lady knitting with her cat napping nearby—warm and inviting.
It was the kind of place that must've felt like home to every generation of Carrows.
Anyone living here had to have been happy.
But sadly, a house is just a house. The Carrow family had completely fallen apart.
Especially after Amycus Carrow's arrest, the family was, strictly speaking, out of male heirs. One of the Sacred Twenty-Eight pure-blood families was on the verge of vanishing into history.
All their past glory and honor felt as hollow as the house now looked.
When Lockhart followed Dumbledore inside, he got a real glimpse of a decayed family's reality.
The place was falling apart. Sunlight seemed to shun the interior, leaving it dim and musty. The walls were peeling, damp corners sprouting dusty patches of mold.
"Wait!"
Lockhart stopped Dumbledore, who was casting a Lumos spell to light the way. "There's something wrong with this house!"
His eyes darted around, brows furrowing. He strode over to the tea area near the entrance and kicked a small black-and-white striped stool. "This thing's supposed to play hide-and-seek with the family, always moving around. But look at it—it's not budging!"
"This house doesn't have the spark a magical home should have!"
Dumbledore's expression shifted. He waved his wand, sending a cascade of colorful bubbles drifting through the air. They popped against the walls and ceiling with a bop-bop-bop.
"It's an illusion!" he said, quickly stepping in front of Lockhart, scanning the room warily.
He was right—this house was a fake.
As the bubbles did their work, the illusion unraveled. Wallpaper peeled off in sheets, the floor rotted and cracked, and everything began to collapse around them.
Boom!
Suddenly, the entire ceiling shattered and came crashing down.
Dumbledore grabbed Lockhart's arm, casting an Apparition spell to whisk them outside.
But something bizarre happened.
The usual sensation of Apparition—the twisting pull through space—felt tangible, like they were caught in a physical trap. The space itself seemed to stretch endlessly, no matter how Dumbledore tried to navigate it.
The house was under a powerful anti-Apparition ward!
Dumbledore switched tactics instantly, halting the spell. With a flick of his wand, a massive gust of wind tore through the falling ceiling, blasting it apart to crash harmlessly on either side, kicking up clouds of dust.
Lockhart looked up and froze. The ceiling was gone, replaced by a mirrored world.
Through thin clouds, he could just make out inverted trees and, at the highest point, what looked like an upside-down landscape with rivers flowing.
It was like a whole world was hanging in the sky.
And when he looked down, it was the same—like they were standing on a layer of clouds above another world. Below, in a lush forest, a squirrel clutching a nut stared up at them curiously from a tree.
Lockhart sucked in a breath and turned to Dumbledore. "Carrow's Bedtime Storybook! It's a magical heirloom of the Carrow family. It can pull people into a fairy-tale world! They've disguised the book as this house!"
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. Danger comes from the unknown, but now that they knew what they were dealing with, there was a way out.
"How do we break it?" he asked.
"Someone's controlling the book—it can't work on its own. The second Carrow generation put a restriction on it after an accident. Someone's watching us right now!"
Lockhart spoke quickly, keeping his explanation clear. "In the storybook, every scene has an exit. Scattered around are conches. Find one, listen to its sound, and it'll guide you out!"
As he spoke, the sky-world began descending rapidly, and the ground-world rose to meet it, like a book slamming shut.
He grabbed Dumbledore's sleeve. "Don't move! Struggling blindly could lead to unknown dangers. Every Carrow generation warns their kids about this when teaching them to use the book."
Lockhart was in his element, offering solutions and warning of risks.
He focused, feeling the air around them shift. His face fell. "Oh no," he muttered, then continued urgently, "Whoever's controlling the book heard me explain the Carrow secret. They're going to split us up. I'll try to find a conch and call out to you—find one fast and listen for my voice!"
Bang!
The book snapped shut.
The two worlds collided.
Everything swirled with dazzling, multicolored light, twisting and churning.
When Lockhart's vision cleared, he was standing on a scorched, barren wasteland. Looking up, the world was bleak and desolate beyond imagination.
The black earth was cracked, glowing orange with molten lava oozing through the gaps, radiating intense heat.
As far as he could see, there was no cover—just one charred, broken tree standing tall, its branches lined with creepy, carrion-eating birds waiting to feast on his corpse.
In the distance, where the gray sky met the horizon, faint, eerie wails echoed.
"The Desolate Land!" Lockhart's face grew grim. This was the setting of the thirteenth chapter of Carrow's Bedtime Storybook, "Caribou's Gem." Its defining trait? Conches were incredibly rare and hard to find.
Clearly, whoever was controlling the book had overheard his explanation to Dumbledore and deliberately picked this story to trap them.
Just then, a blackened, rotting hand, bones exposed, shot out from the scorched earth and grabbed Lockhart's ankle.
He looked down to see the ground split open. A corpse, buried who-knows-when, was pulling itself up, clutching his ankle for leverage.
Its head turned toward him, opening a mouth full of sticky black gunk, and let out a guttural roar.
Bang!
Lockhart lifted his other foot and stomped hard, smashing the corpse's head back into the ground.
But that kind of damage wouldn't kill it.
He kicked the blackened wrist, breaking free, and backed away quickly. A puff of black smoke shot out from his robe's pocket, hitting the ground. A tall figure draped in bloodstained rags slowly rose.
For some reason, the Boggart loved taking the form of a "Hanged Corpse God." It swung a massive cross-shaped axe, chopping down at the corpse.
Boom!
The axe's brute force sliced through the corpse and into the earth.
The corpse let out a piercing wail, spitting a gush of sticky black blood at the Boggart before collapsing, dead.
That black blood was their attack method—painfully corrosive on contact—but it had no effect on a Boggart.
Soon, the corpse began to bubble and decay, melting into a black, gooey puddle. Three new corpses started clawing their way out of it.
The Boggart raised its axe again.
"Wait, don't kill them!"
Lockhart stopped it, directing, "Throw them into the lava!"
The Boggart dropped its axe, grabbed the corpses' heads with its massive hands, yanked them from the goo, and strode to the edge of a glowing fissure. It tossed them into the lava.
The corpses wailed, spitting blood at the Boggart as they burned, until they were completely incinerated.
Lockhart was now certain this was the "Desolate Land" from "Caribou's Gem."
The heart of this story was "life." The most common creatures here were these undead Inferi-like corpses.
They were nearly impossible to kill. Each time one was "killed," it would revive, splitting into three more.
If you didn't know this, you'd end up with an army of corpses overwhelming the entire landscape.
The trick was to avoid killing them. Instead, you had to throw them into the environment they feared—extreme heat—where they'd destroy themselves.
Lockhart glanced into the distance, wondering if Dumbledore knew this.
Then again, he didn't need to worry too much. Dumbledore was Dumbledore—no amount of undead corpses could touch him.
Better to worry about himself.
He needed to find a conch fast and reconnect with Dumbledore.
Whoever was secretly controlling the storybook was watching them. The only place he'd feel safe was by Dumbledore's side.
And who knew how many enemies were out there—or if Voldemort himself was among them…