Maurise developed a profound interest regarding the hidden legacies the other three Founders might have left behind in the castle.
Unfortunately, that intense academic interest proved entirely useless.
Even if he theorized that such legacies existed, he possessed absolutely zero clues regarding their potential locations. Furthermore, Hogwarts had been established over a millennium ago. It was highly probable that those hidden secrets had either naturally degraded over time or had already been discovered and plundered by exceptionally talented students generations ago.
The fact that Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets had remained completely untouched for a thousand years was a statistical anomaly in itself.
Realizing the futility of chasing ghosts, Maurise deliberately reined in his wandering thoughts.
Rather than chasing after ethereal, highly improbable myths, it was vastly more practical to focus entirely on the massive, tangible treasure trove currently sitting right in front of him.
He was going to dedicate all of his limited energy to diving headfirst into the infinite ocean of newly acquired knowledge!
When discussing the magical disciplines Salazar Slytherin was most renowned for, Legilimency—the art of navigating the layers of a person's mind—was undoubtedly near the top of the list.
Maurise quickly discovered that Slytherin's personal research into this specific branch of mind magic had reached a staggering, almost terrifying level of depth and complexity.
According to the ancient manuscripts, Salazar Slytherin was allegedly capable of extracting every single thought, memory, and secret from a person's mind with nothing more than a passing glance.
Naturally, Maurise strongly suspected that claim was heavily exaggerated for dramatic effect.
However, the historical accuracy wasn't important. What truly mattered was that the manuscripts provided an incredibly detailed, comprehensive breakdown of the core principles and rigorous training methods required to master Legilimency.
Unlike standard, wand-based incantations, Legilimency was fundamentally a psychic skill. It relied entirely on sheer mental willpower, absolute focus, and innate magical talent.
At its highest level, it required neither a wand nor a spoken incantation.
Naturally, beginners usually relied on the incantation Legilimens to act as a magical crutch while establishing the initial mental connection.
Maurise was incredibly eager to begin practicing this new skill immediately, but he faced a significant logistical hurdle: he lacked a willing test subject.
After all, absolutely everyone harbored deeply personal secrets they desperately wished to keep hidden from the world.
Taking Maurise himself as a prime example: he would rather face a Basilisk unarmed than willingly allow anyone to view his internet browser history, let alone grant them unfettered access to his deepest, unfiltered memories.
It was a matter of life and death.
---
One perfectly ordinary morning, while Maurise was casually enjoying his breakfast in the Great Hall, his eyes landed on Gilderoy Lockhart flashing his unnaturally bright, pearly white teeth at a group of giggling Hufflepuffs.
Suddenly, a brilliant flash of inspiration struck Maurise.
'Of course! I can just use Lockhart as my personal training dummy!'
Lockhart's mind was undoubtedly stuffed full of fascinating, highly dramatic, stolen adventures. Maurise was genuinely curious to see what they looked like.
Furthermore, Lockhart was a thoroughly despicable fraud. Maurise felt absolutely zero moral obligation toward him. He could simply invade the man's mind, rummage around, practice his Legilimency, hit him with a heavy Obliviate afterward, and casually walk away.
He wouldn't feel a single ounce of psychological guilt.
Action followed thought.
Immediately after breakfast concluded, Maurise trailed discreetly behind Lockhart, watching the man strut arrogantly down the corridors, waving at every single student he passed.
Lockhart eventually retreated into his private Defense Against the Dark Arts office. At some point, an absolutely massive, life-sized poster had been plastered to the office door, featuring a moving portrait of Lockhart blowing endless kisses to anyone walking past.
'His taste remains impeccably atrocious,' Maurise noted.
Suppressing a strong urge to cast a burning curse on the poster, Maurise waited patiently for a few minutes before stepping forward and knocking politely on the door.
"Enter!" Lockhart's overly dramatic voice called out.
Maurise pushed the door open. He immediately noticed that the office looked remarkably bare. The endless rows of framed photographs and self-portraits had vanished from the walls. The bookshelves were completely empty, and various golden trophies and gaudy souvenirs were already packed neatly into several large trunks.
Feigning mild surprise, Maurise asked politely, "Professor Lockhart, are you... packing up to leave?"
Lockhart spun around, flashing his trademark, blindingly brilliant smile. "Ah! You are incredibly observant, my dear boy! Yes, as you can plainly see, I am currently in the process of organizing my affairs. I, Gilderoy Lockhart, am preparing to embark on my next grand adventure!"
"The fact that Hogwarts managed to retain my services for an entire academic year is genuinely remarkable! But ultimately, I am an adventurer at heart! The call of the wild is my soul's true..."
Maurise had absolutely zero interest in listening to the man's narcissistic rambling. He simply wanted to practice his mind magic.
He locked his gaze directly onto Lockhart's eyes.
And then, he launched a brutal, unfiltered mental assault.
Maurise's magical will smashed directly into Lockhart's unprotected mind. The fraudulent professor felt the highly invasive anomaly almost instantly.
"Gah!"
Lockhart let out a sharp, pained gasp, a look of sheer, unadulterated terror twisting his handsome features.
"What... what exactly are you doing?!"
He distinctly felt as though his own brain no longer belonged to him. Countless memories—stolen exploits, fabricated lies, and genuine, pathetic moments of cowardice—were violently churned up and dragged mercilessly to the surface of his consciousness.
"Ah. It seems I applied slightly too much force," Maurise muttered under his breath, sounding mildly apologetic.
Being his very first attempt at Legilimency, he lacked the necessary finesse. Not only had he completely scrambled Lockhart's short-term memory, but he had also failed to extract any coherent, useful information.
All he saw was a chaotic, dizzying kaleidoscope of fragmented images: a screaming, terrified witch; the blinding flash of countless wizarding cameras; and hours upon hours of Lockhart standing in front of a mirror, meticulously practicing his signature smile.
"Stop! Stop it immediately!" Lockhart shrieked, clutching his head desperately with both hands.
He had finally realized exactly what was happening. This seemingly ordinary second-year student was violently invading his mind!
If the boy pushed just a fraction deeper, all of his darkest, most closely guarded secrets—the true origins of his published adventures—would be laid bare.
Lockhart was entirely unaware that Maurise already knew he was a fraud.
Right now, his mind was dominated by a single, overwhelming instinct: Escape.
Immediately! Now!
"Please relax, Professor. I promise I will be vastly more gentle on my next attempt."
Maurise offered a warm, polite smile. However, to the terrified Lockhart, it looked exactly like the sadistic grin of a demon.
A bone-chilling cold shot straight up Lockhart's spine.
"Let me go!" Lockhart screamed in pure desperation. Mustering every ounce of his physical strength, he shoved Maurise aside and scrambled frantically toward the heavy office door.
Unfortunately for him, Maurise had already engaged the locking mechanism with a wandless Colloportus.
Realizing escape was physically impossible, a sudden, desperate calm washed over Lockhart.
"What do you want?" he asked, pressing his back flat against the locked door. "Is it money? Fame? Influence? I can easily provide you with all of it!"
Maurise merely shook his head and casually raised his wand.
"Obliviate."
---
Half an hour later, Maurise strolled out of Lockhart's office, looking incredibly refreshed and highly satisfied.
He had essentially mastered the fundamental mechanics of Legilimency.
His training methodology had been incredibly simple, brutal, and highly efficient. He would aggressively invade Lockhart's mind, completely wipe his short-term memory using the Obliviate charm, and then immediately repeat the entire process from the beginning. Over and over again.
Practice truly does make perfect.
Currently, Maurise possessed the finesse to seamlessly slip into Lockhart's mind and casually browse his thoughts and memories without the man ever registering the intrusion.
Of course, Maurise fully acknowledged that his success might also be partially attributed to the fact that Lockhart's cognitive functions were likely severely degraded after being subjected to over a dozen consecutive Memory Charms.
Regardless of the specifics, the final result was highly satisfactory.
As a minor bonus, Maurise had completely ransacked the man's mind, uncovering every single despicable act he had ever committed.
The sheer volume of adventures Lockhart had stolen was vastly greater than Maurise had initially estimated. Aside from the highly sanitized exploits published in his best-selling novels, there were countless other, significantly darker stories that were entirely unsuitable for public consumption.
Maurise idly wondered when exactly the authorities would finally step in and expose the man's crimes to the world.
'Oh, right.'
Maurise suddenly recalled the hushed conversation between Dumbledore and Minister Fudge back in Hagrid's hut.
It seemed Lockhart's comfortable, glamorous days were rapidly drawing to a close.
Maurise firmly decided that he needed to maximize his training time and practice his Legilimency on Lockhart as frequently as possible before the Ministry officially dragged the man off to Azkaban.
It was incredibly rare to find such a perfectly disposable, highly compliant test subject.
'Tsk, tsk, tsk.'