You may I have some Lööps Bröthers
Chapter 2
The professor sat there, frozen for a minute or two. Gilderoy could see the thoughts whirring behind the half-goblin's eyes.
Gilderoy leaned back and waited for the professor's conclusion. Though if the man needed so much time to simply conclude that the spell had cast itself wrong (the fault was definitely not on his side), he would be quite disappointed.
"Have you ever," Flitwick started tentatively, "been involved in time travel?" He finished as if hesitating if he should even ask.
Gilderoy ran his hands through his hair as he contemplated the question. Had he ever been involved in time travelling? He had attempted to gain access to a time turner back in his student days by taking on more classes. So much more time to spread the word of his greatness!
But he'd been declined. His grades back in school had been good, but not that good. He couldn't imagine the personality and trust requirement not having been fulfilled. Why, back in the day he'd spent many days chatting with professor Flitwick just like he was doing now.
Back then professor had invited him under the guise of detention. It would have been, after all, quite unseemly if others found out that the former duelling champion had simply wanted to hear the tales of Gilderoy's adventures during his summer. It almost brought a tear to his eyes as he imagined how Flitwick must have railed against the ministry's decision to decline him the usage of a time turner. He'd been the man's favourite student.
The professor must have been saddened by him departing the school after getting his NEWTs. It wasn't something Gilderoy had thought about much, but now that he was one himself, he noticed that professors were human too. They had hobbies, interests, and people they admired, like how Flitwick admired him. And for this love that the man bore for his former student, now colleague, Gilderoy was willing to trust the man's word.
Time travel. It made sense, certainly. If he was in the shoes of that ghost, powerful enough, thankful enough for his greatest idol taking time out of his day to give him an autograph, he would have also given a boon in return.
And honestly, what better boon was there than being sent to the past? Now he didn't have to even attempt spinning the tale of three children dying under his watch into something positive. It hadn't happened yet! And never would if he had anything to say about it.
He was Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award.
Dumbledore had begged him on his knees to take a post as a professor here, drawing him in with promises of Harry Potter being present. A boy who had turned out to be all-too-disappointing. Delinquent even! Holding his professor at wand point.
That subject aside, teaching was not at all a very rewarding job. Fellow professors were jealous of his ability; students were too foolish to comprehend the hidden meaning behind his lectures.
And a basilisk! Gilderoy simply made his living with adventures. It did not mean he actually wanted to go through one. And even if he did, he certainly would not start with a sixty-foot-long snake that could kill him with eye contact.
No thank you. His life was worth more to him than the prestige he could gain from a professorship. He was a half-blood after all. The snake would come after him eventually, and it wasn't like he knew who the culprit was so he could reveal them.
"Your lack of an answer speaks for itself," Flitwick said solemnly, hands intertwined and propping up his chin. "I won't tell anyone." The man nodded his head and chuckled. "Thankfully you came to me with the tempus spell, and not someone with the ministry. I imagine you know what is done to people who have time-travelled, and have therefore been tight-lipped about it."
What. Gilderoy had lost track of the conversation after the revelation that he had time-travelled. So he simply nodded along with the last words he'd heard and stood up. Probably praise about some adventure of his. "Yes, yes, dreadful business that, sometimes it is better indeed to not speak of some occurrences." He opened the door and was halfway out before he turned around again. "Thank you for the help. I must convene with Albus now."
Flitwick waved him away and turned back to his papers. Gilderoy did not depart. He turned around casually, right hand raised in a gesture of "one moment please." Flitwick looked up, saw this, and continued reading.
When the professor reached for his quill, he brought his hand down in a gesture he'd practised hundreds of times, wand holster ejecting the wand into his hand and pointing directly at the now-scrambling-for-his-own-wand Flitwick.
"Obliviate"
Gilderoy watched in part as the man's head thunked down on the table, but he was mostly focused on the memories now flitting through his mind. He had to thank his half-muggle heritage here.
The usual way wizards edited the mind of the person they'd cast the spell on was quite complicated. He'd found out quite early in his training for the spell that he could simply imagine the memories as a videotape and simply cut out parts of it and replace them with the person getting drowsy and falling asleep to explain the position they would find themselves in once regaining consciousness.
Flitwick's case was even simpler. He only had to cut the videotape in one part, since he'd just had the conversation. And thus he did, replacing it with the feeling of drowsiness and the man deciding to lay his head down for a moment to rest his eyes.
Then he was out. Gilderoy shook his head to clear it. The spell was always slightly disorienting, especially when one attempted more finely-tuned manipulations. Brute memory erasure, when one did not care about the target, didn't even taken one into their mind.
He glanced at Flitwick and considered if there were any other edits he should go through with. But then he reminded himself that he shouldn't dawdle. The earlier he was out of Hogwarts the better.
He had a resignation to turn in. "I mean really, basilisks, in a school. Isn't Hogwarts supposed to be safe?" he tutted to himself as he traversed the moving stairs towards the headmaster's office. Halting before it, Gilderoy made sure everything about his appearance was in order. Clothing, unruffled. Hair, coiffed. Hands, bandaged. Shoes, shined.
Then he remembered that he didn't know the current password to Dumbledore's office.
He huffed and glanced at the frozen gargoyle. The one that usually received passwords. Well. He was quite sure of his peop-err, gargoyle skills.
Putting on his famous smile, he approached the stone construct. "Hey old chap, mind letting me in? Need to discuss some fairly important business with Albus. Might even be an autograph in it for you," Gilderoy whispered to it conspiratorially while theatrically glancing around making sure nobody was present.
The gargoyle cracked open an eye. How rude, surely he was worth both? "No," it said in a gravelly voice, after which it closed its eye.
Gilderoy was dumbstruck for a few moments, stunned at the fact that his trusty trick had failed to work this time. Then he huffed, turned around and stormed off.
Well, if Dumbledore didn't want to see him, then he didn't want to see the old goat either. The resignation would have to be done via owl!
-/-
Gilderoy became quite glad about the fact that Dumbledore had not been present when he'd tried to speak with him. The time travelling experience had clearly rattled him more than he'd thought. He'd become so emotional that he forgot to remove any incriminating memories before meeting someone probably capable of legilimency.
Hells, he'd even obliviated Flitwick before going there. The event had been so recent that it would still be floating at the surface of his thoughts for a few days. That wasn't mentioning the question of what Dumbledore would do to a man who'd managed to time travel. Surely the old man would be interested in the knowledge of how to return to his past, and his younger body.
Who knew? With a second, third, and a fourth chance, Dumbledore might even manage to become more accomplished than him. Although Gilderoy had to suppress his doubt at that particular thought. Dumbledore just didn't have the necessary flair in comparison to him.
Maybe the man would attempt to become his apprentice. Past Gilderoy hadn't had much to do with the man, so he might be tricked into accepting him as a student.
Hopefully that would never come to pass. Teaching in general was already quite unpleasant, and he had taught brats. Old men were probably even more set in their ways and unable to comprehend his lectures.
Der Albuz
I h3reby resgn 4om my pozittion as Defense againct the Darc ArTs techer.
Yours truly,
Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award.
There. Hopefully that horrendous spelling would distract Dumbledore from the fact that he was contractually obligated to serve a year as the professor of DADA.
Gilderoy summoned a house-elf and ordered it to deliver the letter to his owl. Then he started packing.
Which was quite a daunting task, to be honest. This was the third time he'd had to do so in the last year. Now, on arrival back then, and then for him leaving before the other professors actually forced him to confront the basilisk.
A truly foolish notion. Gilderoy had experienced many adventures, taken more than just one limelight, and sharpened his skills against many a foe. It would be quite a disservice to his colleagues if he took from them one of the few chances available at experiencing everything he already had.
Not every problem needed to be solved by Britain's foremost explorer. Why, that had the potential of creating quite the dependency! If he had to let others suffer tribulations so their inner flame grew brighter, then so be it. The fame he would have gotten from defeating the basilisk was a worthy sacrifice for strengthening Britain's spirit overall. Especially the spirit of teachers, who could then go on to spark the flame in new generations. Just like he had done!
There was a spell for packing. Gilderoy remembered knowing it once. He wished he still did, but he was not a man who shied from physical labour. He proved this by shoving the last poster of himself into the (breaking at the seams) trunk. He was sweating, but then it was quite laborious being successful. One had so much property that needed to be taken care of and packed away in the case of a relocation. Not all of the property was voluntary either!
Why, his fans sent him things all the time! Sure, the things had a habit of not being useful. But it wasn't like he could throw them away. They didn't get to meet him personally very often. Material possessions and fan letters were their only real way of letting him know how much they loved him. Gilderoy Lockhart was loved by the people, and he loved them right back. There was no one who could deny this very simple fact.
Of course, while some of the students were undoubtedly his fans, the ones who managed to lighten up even the most dreary a class, there really wasn't anything he could do against what was coming to Hogwarts this year. There were many fans, but there was one Gilderoy Lockhart. The distress it would cause amongst the people of Britain if he were to fall was surely larger than the individual pain of one person being petrified for a few months.
It was a tragic rendition of 'the needs of the many over the needs of the few.' It was simply for the greater good.
Although…
Gilderoy could leave some clues as to what the creature was… Which technically speaking, should help in its defeat. Now, he couldn't leave those clues to the professors. They wouldn't believe it without knowing its source. Student then.
He rushed off to the library after shrinking and lightening his trunk with a tap of his wand. People had realized fairly quickly that they were dealing with some sort of creature. Which was coincidentally his area of expertise. And Miss Granger had been able to narrow it down to a basilisk through clever deduction.
Well, at least that's what the two ruffians had been babbling about on their way to the chamber back then. They might have just been delusional, but the snake skin they'd found down in the chamber supported the theory of a basilisk. And it did make sense really.
Direct eye-contact with a basilisk killed. Indirect eye contact, while weakened should still have a plethora of other negative effects. Like petrification for example. This would also explain why nobody had died. Poor Creevey had gazed at the thing through his camera lens as he was trying to sneak a peek at his favourite professor, him!
Clearwater had been making sure she looked her best before entering his classroom with a mirror and Finch-Fletchley had been conversing with the Gryffindor house ghost, meeting the basilisk's gaze through its incorporeal form.
Though why one would converse with a ghost was up in the air… If the lad had been looking for courting advice he could have just asked Gilderoy. Or maybe he had wanted to court Gilderoy himself. The lad's wish of a romantic escapade would have to remain unfulfilled. Mister Lockhart, Gilderoy Lockhart, was a man of too much duty to dally in relationships.
Arriving at the library, he made sure that the librarian wasn't present before pulling out a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Finding the correct page, he wrote on the margin of the entry. If meeting the gaze of a basilisk through a medium, such as a reflection, the victim will only be petrified. And his initials underneath that, of course. G.L.
With a simple spell, the sentence was copied over into the other Fantastic Beasts books and Gilderoy was able to depart once again, knowing that he had bested the darkness of Hogwarts with his immeasurable wit.
Someone would eventually link the initials of G.L with the name of the greatest adventurer that had ever lived who had walked the halls of Hogwarts, no matter how shortly. He could probably claim some credit for solving the case when the people realized the connection.
Though the question of why he simply provided vague information and not actively done something while he had the chance would undoubtedly come up. The solution was quite simple, now that he brought up the issue. Having the ability to monologue innerly was quite important for problem solving, apparently. He would simply claim that he had written in the books when he himself had been a student here, not as a professor!
Gilderoy, having arrived in his empty room, took some floo powder in his hand and threw it into the fireplace. "Leaky Cauldron." He stepped into the fireplace and stepped out into the famous pub with nary a falter. Movement was an art, and Gilderoy was a master.
He mused about how much the proprietor of the pub had paid the ministry back then to have the entrance to Diagon Alley installed behind his building as he walked out into muggle London to his home.
Having everyone muggleborn and those unable to apparate or floo have to use the entrance was definitely great advertisement. And thus, despite its general state of griminess and the ugliness of Tom, the barkeep, the Leaky Cauldron was famous. Good for it, and its owner, he guessed. It was a building, so it wasn't his direct competition in the battle for fame and glory.
Not that fame and glory was all that glamorous most of the time. People liked to ignore the hard work that had to go into such an endeavour and the sacrifices famous people, like him, made. Why, he was unable to even live in the wizarding world without getting mobbed by fans. Surely, a rather humbling occurrence, but it did get tiring after the 394th time.
And thus, he'd moved into the muggle part of London. It also had to do with the fact that he could obliviate muggles indiscriminately, while doing so in a magical population would quickly get him caught. It was also smart to live away from magic when one wanted to avoid the magical press. For example, when one wanted to sample girls of ill repute.
It would be quite the scandal (as always) if it got out. The fact that most magical brothels and escorts were directly linked to larger publications was unproductive for his fame. The muggle world also simply had a greater variety of women.
He entered the twenty-floor apartment building he lived in.
Another good thing about muggles was that magicals were simply unable to blend in with them, unless they had heritage there themselves, like he did. And so it was pathetically easy to spot his fans when they once again found his place of residence.
Like for example, an older man with a peg leg and eyepatch, wearing what basically amounted to a very extreme goth ensemble. Black eyeliner, fishnets on his arms, a band t-shirt that nobody had ever heard of, and a pitch-black trenchcoat.
An older man who was waiting in front of the elevator leading to his penthouse apartment on the top of one of London's highest buildings.
Well. That was a bit of a bummer. That was the only real way to get to his home, unless he willingly scaled 20 floors of steps. Normally he was perfectly content in leading a fan into a secluded corner, giving autographs, and convincing them to not reveal his address to any unsavoury people, but he'd had a very long day.
So he simply attempted to walk past the goth-pirate acting as if he didn't know him, which he didn't.
Keyword being attempted.
"Stupefy"
Gilderoy was caught by a mobilicorpus before his unconscious body could hit the floor.
