“How could it be you?”
Bruce asked in stunned disbelief. “Lockhart, was it you who put everyone to sleep?”
“It was me.”
Lockhart turned to face him, wearing his ever-present smile.
Around him floated countless small orbs of light, each one displaying scenes from someone’s dream.
He was watching everyone’s innermost thoughts.
Bruce struggled to accept the revelation.
How could it be Lockhart? How could it possibly be Lockhart?
The man who always acted like a foolish clown, groveling for attention, was the mastermind behind all this?
“But earlier, you—”
Bruce began, only for Lockhart to cut him off with a smirk.
“When I said it wasn’t me, did you really think it wasn’t me?”
Bruce was momentarily silenced.
Lockhart had said those exact words before. At the time, Bruce had dismissed them as the hollow bravado of a desperate man.
Lockhart raised a single finger, wagging it with a playful air.
“Everything is going according to plan.”
“Bruce, you may one day become a big shot—what do they call you? Batman?”
“But for now, you’re just a kid. There are some harsh truths you still don’t understand.”
“When dealing with an enemy, it’s better to kill mistakenly than to let them go.”
“That’s something I learned in the war. Consider it a piece of wisdom I’m sharing with you.”
Bruce’s expression darkened as Lockhart’s mocking words hit home.
His comments carried a cutting familiarity, as if Lockhart knew Bruce’s true identity.
Yet his tone hinted that this knowledge had come from somewhere else.
Was Lockhart a visitor from another world or a native of this one?
How had he found Ravenclaw’s chamber?
Bruce’s mind raced with questions, each more baffling than the last.
Could it be that he wasn’t as clever as he thought?
“Don’t doubt yourself, Bruce.”
Lockhart smiled. “The reason you’re struggling is that I cast a little spell—a taboo on a certain name, making it unthinkable.”
With a snap of his fingers, the enchantment was lifted.
The fog clouding Bruce’s thoughts dissipated in an instant.
His gaze shot to the unconscious Ravenna on the ground.
Ravenna Royal…
Rowena Ravenclaw?
Only now did Bruce realize how similar the two names were—something he had completely failed to notice before.
“You’ve finally figured it out, haven’t you, Bruce?”
Lockhart’s voice was soft and mocking. “It was Ravenna who opened Ravenclaw’s chamber, who attacked the teachers, tampered with the diary, and trapped Gryffindor.”
“Ravenna Royal is Ravenclaw’s heir!”
“That’s impossible!” Bruce shot back, unwilling to accept it.
Ravenna couldn’t simply be an heir.
The deeds Lockhart described were far beyond what a first-year witch could achieve.
“True.”
Lockhart remained calm. “For a little girl, those feats would indeed be impossible. But you see, she isn’t just any girl.”
He snapped his fingers again.
Suddenly, a black mist rose from Ravenna’s body, coalescing into the form of a woman who embraced her unconscious form.
The transformation was immediate. Ravenna’s Hogwarts robes were replaced by tattered, ancient witch’s garb.
She remained unconscious, her wrists and ankles adorned with glowing golden rings.
Perched on Bruce’s shoulder, Kathoom spoke up.
“The Enchantress.”
His tone was skeptical. “Why would Barbatos send someone like her? She’s barely famous and not particularly powerful.”
This was the same Enchantress who had once been the villain in the Suicide Squad movie.
Sealed in a doll for millennia, she had been freed only to be enslaved by those who held her heart.
Still, the Enchantress was known for her ability to trap others in illusions.
“She had just arrived in this world when I captured her,” Lockhart sneered. “That’s how I learned about you, Bruce Wayne—traveler from another realm, a priceless treasure coveted by a certain demon.”
“He sent her here to deliver something to you.”
“I’ve studied it for a long time but couldn’t figure it out. So here, it’s yours.”
Lockhart pulled a small object from his pocket and tossed it to Bruce.
Before Bruce could catch it, Kathoom darted forward, snatching it with his talons.
The owl returned to Bruce’s shoulder, revealing the object in his grasp.
It was a small red box, resembling an old-fashioned radio, but much smaller.
Bruce stared at it, puzzled.
“A radio? Did Barbatos record a message for me?”
While Bruce mulled over the possibilities, Kathoom’s expression turned grim as he tucked the box into his feathers.
“What is it?” Bruce asked.
“A Bat-Signal transmitter,” Kathoom replied with a heavy sigh. “I see now. The Enchantress wasn’t this round’s pursuer—she was just the courier.”
Unfortunately, she’d been captured upon arrival.
Barbatos’s true pursuer was another Batman.
A persona born from Bruce’s subconscious, independent of his main self: the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh.
Known as Zur-Bat, this alternate personality was everything Bruce was not—feral, decisive, ruthless.
Where Bruce shied away from killing, Zur-Bat embraced it without hesitation. The first time he took control of Batman’s body, he tried to kill the Joker with a gun.
This starkly contrasted with Bruce’s principles.
Zur-Bat represented brutality, savagery, and darkness. He wielded guns Bruce despised, killed people Bruce refused to harm, and, when he deemed Bruce too weak, sought to take over entirely.
The Bat-Signal transmitter was a device designed to awaken the Zur-En-Arrh personality.
“I was only joking earlier. How did this become reality?”
Kathoom muttered to himself, double-checking that he was still an owl and not a raven.
Bruce’s mind now harbored a second persona—a sinister scheme by Barbatos.
The demon had been enraged by Bruce’s defiance and now sought to replace him.
If Bruce’s persona were switched, Kathoom’s influence over him would be effectively erased.
Fortunately, the Enchantress had been caught off guard, or things might have been far worse.
“Bruce, I’ll explain everything later,” Kathoom said with a weary sigh. “But one thing’s for sure: I won’t let you touch this Bat-Signal.”
Bruce nodded. He had never seen Kathoom this serious before.
The situation was dire.
With the Enchantress dealt with, only Lockhart remained.
“Who are you, really?”
Bruce finally asked the question burning in his mind.
Lockhart sighed. “After all this, you still haven’t figured it out?
“Bruce, I take back what I said earlier. You’re not clever—or maybe—”
He began walking forward, his voice softening as he ran a hand through his hair.
“Maybe I’m just too clever.”
Lockhart’s appearance began to change.
His hair grew rapidly, his face shifted, and his figure became more graceful. His skin took on a porcelain smoothness.
Before Bruce’s eyes, Gilderoy Lockhart transformed into a stunning woman.
Her gaze held a playful glint as she looked at Bruce.
The face was one Bruce recognized from the Hogwarts portraits of the founders.
Rowena Ravenclaw.
The one who had opened the chamber wasn’t Ravenclaw’s heir—it was Ravenclaw herself!
“Surprised?”
Ravenclaw laughed. “I suppose you never expected Professor Lockhart, a proud graduate of my house, to turn out to be me?”
“No, I didn’t…”
Bruce admitted, at a loss for words.
“I always thought of Ravenclaw as a dignified lady. But as Lockhart, you’ve done some truly embarrassing things—including trying to hug me!”
Who would’ve thought Ravenclaw could stoop so low?
“That’s what you call acting,” she said with a shrug. “I respected Lockhart’s persona. As for the embarrassing bits, I admit they’re regrettable, but—”
She smiled wryly. “They were Lockhart’s actions, not mine. My dignity remains intact.”
Does that even make sense?
Bruce found himself begrudgingly convinced.
“I gave you so many clues, yet you missed them all,” Ravenclaw teased.
“My robes were always blue and silver—the colors of my house.”
“I wore my favorite perfume from life—there are records of it if you’d bothered to check.”
“And most importantly—”
She sighed dramatically. “I even updated my hairstyle, but you didn’t notice!”
“That’s a clue?”
Bruce was dumbfounded. Any of those could’ve been typical Lockhart behavior.
And why had Ravenclaw enchanted her name, only to scold him for failing to deduce her identity later?
Make up your mind!
“Details, Bruce. Only a man who pays attention to details deserves a place in my world,” she said.
“Sadly, you failed my test.
“Which means you’ll have to leave!”
She extended her hand, summoning a lump of clay that quickly divided into tiny figures resembling her.
The miniature Ravenclaws, with their oddly cartoonish proportions, charged at Bruce en masse.
Bruce drew the Elder Wand, but one of the miniatures shouted—
“Expelliarmus!”
“Reflect!”
Bruce reacted swiftly, rebounding the spell and shattering the clay figure into dust.
But more disarming spells flew his way.
Bruce couldn’t deflect them all. Eventually, one struck him.
The Elder Wand flew from his grasp, clattering to the ground.
“It’s over.”
As the thought crossed Ravenclaw’s mind, Bruce’s eyes suddenly glowed red.
He didn’t reach for the wand—he didn’t need to.
Twin beams of red light shot from his eyes, streaking through the air like comets.
—
T/N:…. SUPERMAN?
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