Mrs Weasley was bending over to check the page on Doxys in Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa.

'Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because Doxys bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it.'

At five to five Harry bade the other two goodbye and set off for Umbridge's office on the third floor. When he knocked on the door she called, 'Come in,' in a sugary voice. He entered cautiously, looking around.

He had known this office under three of its previous occupants.

In the days when Gilderoy Lockhart had lived here it had been plastered in beaming portraits of himself. When Lupin had occupied it, it was likely you would meet some fascinating Dark creature in a cage or tank if you came to call. In the impostor Moody's days it had been packed with various instruments and artefacts for the detection of wrongdoing and concealment.

'What floor's this?'

'I think it's the fifth,' said Hermione.

'Nah, it's the fourth,' said Harry, 'one more -'

But as he stepped on to the landing he came to an abrupt halt, staring at the small window set into the double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted SPELL DAMAGE. A man was peering out at them all with his nose pressed against the glass. He had wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes and a broad vacant smile that revealed dazzlingly white teeth.

'Blimey!' said Ron, also staring at the man.

'Oh, my goodness,' said Hermione suddenly, sounding breathless. 'Professor Lockhart!'

Their ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher pushed open the doors and moved towards them, wearing a long lilac dressing gown.

'Well, hello there!' he said. 'I expect you'd like my autograph, would you?'

'Hasn't changed much, has he?' Harry muttered to Ginny, who grinned.

'Er - how are you, Professor?' said Ron, sounding slightly guilty. It had been Ron's malfunctioning wand that had damaged Professor Lockhart's memory so badly that he had landed in St Mungo's in the first place, though as Lockhart had been attempting to permanently wipe Harry and Ron's memories at the time, Harrys sympathy was limited.

'I'm very well indeed, thank you!' said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. 'Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!'

'Er - we don't want any at the moment, thanks,' said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry, who asked, 'Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn't you be in a ward?'

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart's face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, 'Haven't we met?'

'Er… yeah, we have,' said Harry. 'You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?'

Teach?' repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. 'Me? Did I?'

And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming.

Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!'

But just then a head poked out of a door at the far end of the corridor and a voice called, 'Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?'

A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at Harry and the others.

'Oh, Gilderoy, you've got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day, too! Do you know, he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can't think why, he's such a sweetie, aren't you?'

'We're doing autographs!' Gilderoy told the Healer with another glittering smile. They want loads of them, won't take no for an answer! I just hope we've got enough photographs!'

'Listen to him,' said the Healer, taking Lockhart's arm and beaming fondly at him as though he were a precocious two-year-old. 'He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be starting to come back. Will you step this way? He's in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door's usually kept locked… not that he's dangerous! But,' she lowered her voice to a whisper, 'he's a bit of a danger to himself, bless him… doesn't know who he is, you see, wanders off and can't remember how to get back… it is nice of you to have come to see him.'

'Er,' said Ron, gesturing uselessly at the floor above, 'actually, we were just - er -'

But the Healer was smiling expectantly at them, and Ron's feeble mutter of 'going to have a cup of tea' trailed away into nothingness. They looked at each other helplessly, then followed Lockhart and his Healer along the corridor.

'Let's not stay long,' Ron said quietly.

The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, 'Alohomora.' The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoys arm until she had settled him into an armchair beside his bed.

This is our long-term residents' ward,' she informed Harry, Ron,

Hermione and Ginny in a low voice. 'For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we've seen a real improvement in Mr Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn't speaking any language we recognise yet. Well, 1 must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I'll leave you all to chat.'

Harry looked around. The ward bore unmistakeable signs of being a permanent home to its residents. They had many more personal effects around their beds than in Mr Weasley's ward; the wall around Gilderoy's headboard, for instance, was papered with pictures of himself, all beaming toothily and waving at the new arrivals. He had autographed many of them to himself in disjointed, childish writing. The moment he had been deposited in his chair by the Healer, Gilderoy pulled a fresh stack of photographs towards him, seized a quill and started signing them all feverishly.

'You can put them in envelopes,' he said to Ginny, throwing the signed pictures into her lap one by one as he finished them. 'I am not forgotten, you know, no, I still receive a very great deal of fan mail… Gladys Gudgeon writes weekly … 1 just wish I knew why He paused, looking faintly puzzled, then beamed again and returned to his signing with renewed vigour. '1 suspect it is simply my good looks…'

A sallow-skinned, mournful-looking wizard lay in the bed opposite staring at the ceiling; he was mumbling to himself and seemed quite unaware of anything around him. Two beds along was a woman whose entire head was covered in fur; Harry remembered something similar happening to Hermione during their second year, although fortunately the damage, in her case, had not been permanent. At the far end of the ward flowery curtains had been drawn around two beds to give the occupants and their visitors some privacy.

With a sudden rush of understanding, Harry realised who the people in the end beds must be. He cast around wildly for some means of distracting the others so that Neville could leave the ward unnoticed and unquestioned, but Ron had also looked up at the sound of the name 'Longbottom', and before Harry could stop him had called out, 'Neville!'

Neville jumped and cowered as though a bullet had narrowly missed him.

'It's us, Neville!' said Ron brightly, getting to his feet. 'Have you seen -? Lockhart's here! Who've you been visiting?'

'Friends of yours, Neville, dear?' said Neville's grandmother graciously, bearing down upon them all.

'Bellatrix Lestrange did that?' whispered Hermione, horrified. That woman Kreacher's got a photo of in his den?'

There was a long silence, broken by Lockharts angry voice.

'Look, I didn't learn joined-up writing for nothing, you know!'

'Bode…' said Ron. 'Bode. It rings a bell…'

'We saw him,' Hermione whispered. 'In St Mungo's, remember? He was in the bed opposite Lockhart's, just lying there, staring at the ceiling. And we saw the Devil's Snare arrive. She - the Healer - said it was a Christmas present.'

Harry looked back at the story. A feeling of horror was rising like bile in his throat.

'How come we didn't recognise Devils Snare? We've seen it before… we could've stopped this from happening.'