Plain to See

By Tanzy

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Rating: PG

Summary: Lockhart talks to himself. Short.

Not every thing comes through these walls
but just enough to hear those things I don't want to hear.
I heard you late last night, I wish I had my distance.
- Jump, Little Children - 'Say Goodnight'


It's the dinner parties that bother me the most. They think I don't notice the way they look at me. How their eyes try and suppress the knowledge that they know they're better than me now. Utterly self-assured in their presumptions on what I've become. They all think I have no conception of the man I used to be. I can hear the whispers they barely bother to conceal the moment I turn away. They like to snigger at the shade of the man I've become. It's amusing to them because they think I can't remember.

Two very different opinions united by one sense of indulgence and bemusement. On one side are the people still enchanted by my previous self and always watch me with a rather insulting sense of benevolence. Poor, poor Gilderoy Lockheart. Still trying to recover from that little accident with a memory charm.

On the opposite side are those who seem to be glad I am no longer The Gilderoy Lockheart. People who smile at me with a touch of scorn. Finally got what was coming to him, the arrogant bastard. The thoughts are there, plain to see. I am tolerated like some annoying member of the family gone to seed.

What most of the wizarding world doesn't seem to realize is that Gilderoy Lockheart has a damn good idea of the man he used to be. I've read the books I wrote about my exploits. Magical Me, what an utter piece of crap that book was. I even had my own signed copy. What kind of person gives themselves a signed copy of their own book?

I have hundreds of copies of pictures of myself. Watching yourself prance and preen around in pictures is rather unnerving; it's almost embarrassing the way I carry on in them. Those pictures and my books are a gateway into a past I can't remember and I am beginning to wonder if I want to. I look almost dependable in those pictures, arrogant...but dependable.

I don't feel dependable.

Even a cursory look at my memoirs shows numerous times I've dashed to the rescue of people everywhere. Quite the proverbial dashing hero in sparkling robes. I definitely don't feel like a hero and my robes don't really sparkle much anymore. Anytime there's a loud noise or someone yells my first thought is where to hide. I have no heroic instinct to run out and face the unknown bravely. Hell, I can't even seem to face the man I used to be, what would lead me to think I could face someone else's unknowns any better? No one seems to realize the coward I've become; they just think I'm slightly shell shocked and scatter brained.

Well, that's not completely true. I can see it in some people's eyes. There are people who can see through my bewilderedness into the core of fear and cowardice that lies beneath. Young Harry Potter looks at me with eyes that know. I could see his vaguely sad and amused expression from where I sat at the teacher's table at the end of the year feast. Though he and his friends spent most of their time laughing, mostly at my expense I'm sure, Harry would occasionally shoot looks in my direction at informed me on no uncertain terms that he saw through whatever I was trying to pull and that he felt.... sorry for me.

A gaze like that almost makes me think it's okay to be scared sometimes.

I had managed to brush off the scorn and outright loathing I'd been getting from the other teachers and students, the pity in his eyes was completely unexpected. There are no Harry Potters at the dinner parties I go to now, which is I suppose why they bother me so much.