Ravenclaw, Head of House, Themed, Prompt: We're all mad here, WC: 5000 (as per Google docs)
Slightly AU, as I wasn't sure of exact timings, and that Gilderoy doesn't actually come out of care as far as we know. This occurs post-memory-loss.
0-0-0-0
"Gilderoy? Gilderoy, can you hear me? My name is Susan and I'm your healer."
Words, is that what they're called? Words, yes, it seems familiar. But what's a susan? Healer? And goodness, Gilderoy? Can a word be more complicated? I feel a coolness and pressure entering me - breath, if I remember correctly. The problem is that I don't remember anything at all. I know that the glow behind my eyes is light, and the shade of the darkness is... Blue? No, red.
"Gilderoy, we need you to wake up. Just open your eyes for me, sweetie," the voice shouts. I find my brain to be screaming at me because I don't know how to operate my eyes. The panic builds, a growing tension in my chest. How in Merlin's name do I open my eyes?
Looks like I don't have to find out as someone is prying them open with thick fingers. I wonder if it's the healer, a susan. Bright lights burst across my vision and I instantly know I should look away from them. Pink blobs dance in front of me, all lips and eyes and teeth and worrying hands clenched tight on clipboards. How did I get here? And where is here? Where am I? Who are these people? Why are they all shouting so loudly; something is so obviously wrong but I don't remember what. I don't remember anything.
"Healer McKinnon, we're going to have to sedate him, he's acting up."
I didn't know I was acting up, but as soon as the harsher, courser voice speaks, I notice my arms are flailing and my heart is pounding ridiculously fast. I want to understand, and I want to escape. Why can I not rememb -
0-0
A light, silvery sheen of darkness covers my subconscious. It's like I'm floating through a never-ending abyss of pure nothingness. Memory comes and it goes, but nothing tangible or lasting. I know that it's happening, because people keep telling me. Susan is a name, and apparently my name is Gilderoy Lockhart. People love me for the terrors I have faced. It all sounds very impressive, and I've tried reading the books fans bring me, but I can barely remember words I'm saying five minutes ago let alone those I wrote in these hulking tomes. I'm hardly able to read.
My handwriting is improving, they say. The main problem is that I can't seem to get my fingers to obey me. My hand wants to fly off in a curling cursive, but my brain doesn't work that way nowadays. After a year, people stop visiting. Susan tries to tell me that I'm not a lost cause, but I know she will leave as well soon enough. If only I could... I don't know. Where was that thought going?
0-0
"Frederick, darling, there's a visitor for you!" calls Susan through the ward. I turn in her direction so fast that my neck cricks. But then I remember that my name isn't Frederick, that it's something far more complicated like Gildred, or Handeroy. "Come on Freddie. It's your granddaughter, Kate. Yes, Freddie, Kate."
A loud noise erupts from Frederick's mouth, followed by a blown raspberry. I can't decide which is more disturbing. Slowly, I peel aside part of the curtain that separates me from the other patients. It scrapes against the metal rail, but this goes unnoticed in the cacophony.
"Oh, he really is quite mad," the woman named Kate laughs lightly. She's stunningly beautiful.
"We're all mad here," I announce, thinking this my grand entrance.
Unfortunately, my feet decide that they don't remember how to walk. Or stand. Then the rest of my body fails me, too, laying me out on the cold linoleum floor there. Kate brushes aside her golden sheet of hair, eyebrows raised somewhere between mirth and incredulity. I'm hoping for the more positive one, though I'm not sure which it is.
What an idiotic thing to say. We're all mad here. That's it Gilly, just claim lunacy to the beautiful woman who already thinks everyone here is insane.
"Sorry about him, dear, he's not used to new people," Susan apologises for me. Then she helps me, chuckling as though I am a toddler. Of course, I don't even know how old I am, but maybe there are some toddlers who are this tall? I try to stand up by myself, then realise I don't know how. Susan hauls me back to bed and hands me another of my books to read. This means another very quiet afternoon of trying to decipher what all the symbols mean. Eventually I'll come across a letter I know the sound of, then try to figure out what the word must be.
Mostly, that's completely useless because one letter in a huge sea of letters is entirely unhelpful.
The curtains are closed around Kate and Fredericks area, and they're closed on mine. The only entertainment I can glean is the mismatched conversation between the two of them. He mumbles, and she talks. I hear all manner of strange things and wonder whether she is just as mad as the rest of us – Romania, winged-bowtruckles, horticulture. If only I understood.
"Sorry Kate, he just needs to go to the loo. We'll be back."
Like a cold-caller, opportunity is knocking on my door. I've heard the saying somewhere, in the depths of my subconscious, and I can only guess at what it means. It means that now is my chance to say something vaguely more interesting than noting our collective madness.
Gradually, I pull back the green curtain that blocks me from everyone else and see her. She's not of the same vibrancy as before, curling into herself with her head in her hands. I don't understand. Is she tired? I curl up when I'm tired. But she's shaking. Is she cold? Susan told me that people shiver when they're cold, so I must always have a blanket because shivering is bad. In that case, I pull the spare blanket from the shelf at the bottom of my bed. It is my weapon against her tiredness and coldness.
Confident, striving for the witty and glorious smile on my book covers, I exclaim, "I'm Gilderoy Lockhart! Would you like a blanket?"
Kate looks up, and her face is red. Why? That doesn't make sense at all. She's frowning, obviously confused. I know that expression because it's the one my face wears whenever I look in the mirror. Confusion, at how different I look from the gold-stained photographs on book covers, and confusion because I hardly know my own name consistently, never mind how the world around me operates. What lies outside these clinical white walls?
"Hello, Gilderoy, was it?" she responds, voice quiet. I nod, taking another step towards her. Even with her blotchy eyes, she's beautiful. "That's very sweet, but I don't need a blanket."
"Are you not tired?"
"Well –"
"Then take it." Kate sighs heavily for a second and rubs a hand over her eyes. "I've been to Romania, supposedly," I tell her out of the blue. "It says so in my books, but I can't remember ever making the trip, let alone fighting off some mystical beast I've never heard of." I swallow thickly, hoping she speaks soon, because I don't know when to stop. "Do you want an autograph? My handwriting has improved vastly. I can now write letters A to F."
"Why would I…?" she starts. "Never mind."
I take another step towards her, noting that her face is clearer and her voice is lighter.
"You know, he talks normally sometimes," I tell her, still holding onto the ridiculous white blanket, like some oversized child. "He has full conversations – mostly with himself, but it's more than just noise."
For a moment, her eyes rest on mine and I'm caught there. Perplexed, uncertain of what to do, I stay standing there, even when Kate turns in the direction of footsteps. Susan's voice penetrates the silence, babbling to Frederick kindly, trying to prompt something more than the muttering jargon only known to himself.
"Thank you," Kate smiles weakly at me. "I hope you remember Romania someday. It's very beautiful."
A sudden rush of warmth fills me. It's completely unprecedented almost knocks me off my duck-footed feet. My stomach absorbs the molten gold feeling, and it floods to the rest of my body. Kate is still smiling, and my heart is still pumping on despite my brain having shut off completely. I barely respond when Susan takes my arm, leading me back to my bed, away from the beautiful woman across the ward from me, as she tucks her hair behind a delicate ear.
I hear Susan provide the usual apology for when I engage with other people: "He used to be quite famous, you know."
"I haven't been here for years, I wouldn't know any better," Kate responds, the most interesting visitor to have come here in all the time I've been resting in my bed. Suddenly, I have the strong inclination to burst free from the ward and run away to Romania, to see the beautiful landscape her eyes seemed to tell me of. And yet, as much as I don't know where Romania is, I have not a clue how to be free of this small room, let alone the hospital, and the country. I wouldn't last a day outside.
"I've never seen him engage so well with someone. Will you be coming back?"
0-0
Susan gives me a small cube to play with for the week, calling it Rubik. I tried to tell her that it's a ludicrous name, but she refuted that by raising an eyebrow. My name is ludicrous, that's true. Rubik is sitting on my bedside cabinet when Kate returns, three days after she visited Frederick the first time. She appears more rested, or at least bouncier. Is that a sign of happiness? She even glances in my direction and practically stops my organs from working.
I feel like I'm having a heart attack when she smiles. And I don't even know where my heart is.
In a vague attempt to appear more intelligent, I slide a few of the smaller cubes on Rubik into a different position and get no further to making it complete and having a garish pattern of mismatched colours on every side. Susan never told me exactly what I was supposed to do with it, other than occupy my time. I read, I slide the cubes, and I wait for Frederick to need the toilet for so long that I end up running in the apparent direction of the bathroom, tailed by two Healers.
According to Susan, it was not the correct direction, and I was foolish for not informing her of my toiletry needs. To which I hide my face from the world for the next hour inside Gadding with Ghouls. It's a thrilling read. Am I some sort of profound, artistic writer? Or did someone do the writing for me?
"That's my favourite," Susan tells me, setting down a plate of something yellow onto my lap. "You really are quite the enigma, Gilderoy."
"Was," I murmur to myself.
Frederick is taken for examinations and tests halfway through the third hour of Kate's visit, which means she is sitting on the plastic chair by herself, pensive again. As I'm staring back intently, she glances upwards and sees me looking right at her. Merlin, how embarrassing. And yet… she's coming over? Okay, Gillyweed – oh, wait, that's a plant – don't overthink things. Perhaps the use of overthinking is ironic as I don't seem to be able to think regularly, let alone think too much.
"I wanted to thank you for the other day," Kate murmurs, tucking a strand of hair behind her left ear again. I swallow thickly, words failing me, as always. "You were sweet. Kind. Generous."
"You looked unwell, it was the right thing to do." She laughs at this, as though my words come out in a funny language she can't quite understand. "The Gilderoy in these books would have done that, I think, and everyone says that I'm him."
"Do you not think you are?" she asks in return, taking another step closer to my bedside. Ever so slightly, I feel embarrassed about my attire – the thin strip of green plastic clothing that covers me, supposedly in the shape of pyjamas. She's black and white and golden hair, and I'm pallid green and blonde. "Aren't they all autobiographies?"
She draws my attention back to our conversation. "Supposedly. They feel more like fiction to me."
"Have you thought about writing anything more?"
"I'm hardly in a position to go out and leave this room, let alone go out and save a village from… Ghouls, or vampires, or… A giant something or other," I laugh, but feel the bitterness of my own words.
Frederick has visitors – more than just Golden Kate with her beautiful smile and her more than intriguing life – and he just groans in languages unspoken by anyone ever. I, however, am fated to talk to the dregs of visitors, doctors, and Susan. Without knowing what made me special before, how can I ever possibly imagine to be special like him again? To be Gilderoy Lockhart? Hundreds and thousands of fans, a winning smile, and brave beyond measure.
Kate's face is sort of crumpled, like a used piece of parchment. Is she upset?
"Gilderoy…" she starts, twisting her lips to the side. "I think you are so much more than the man in those books, regardless of him being famously revered. You ought to give yourself more credit."
"But he's so…" I break off my sentence, unsure of what word I could possibly use to describe my affliction with myself. Better didn't seem to cut it. He was the me that I'm supposed to be. "I'm meant to be him."
"You don't have to be."
Her words are gentle, and the sentiment gives me this warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Almost as though I am achingly full, but not the heavy, sickening type of full. It's an impossible task to even attempt preventing the glowing smile spreading fast over my lips, eyes, and face. I know it's not the smile on the front cover of those gleaming books on my bedside, and I'm not bothered by it.
"Do you want me to show you how to complete that cube?"
After another ten minutes or so, Susan comes back with Frederick, and by this time Kate has already shown me how to make all the colours fit together on Rubik several times over. Frederick is asleep, so Kate remains at my side for a short while longer, her eyes occasionally catching mine, and wondering something. But I have no idea what. I don't know what she's feeling, or what she's thinking, but at least I know that I am fond of her company. And not even because she's the only one who has offered it.
What she said got me thinking, though, about seriously writing another book. I've done it several times before – like these people keep telling me – so, surely, I must be able to do it again? It won't matter so much that my handwriting isn't perfect, or that I haven't got shimmering headshots to glue to the front cover, because I will be writing it for myself.
0-0
Kate visits thrice more that week, talking to her grandfather about nonsensical things, as usual. When he disappears for something or other, she completes Rubik and answers my ever-growing list of questions I have about her and her life. I learn so much so quickly, and I absorb the information as if I am a sponge. It's the most I've ever remembered in a very long time.
She's a horticulturist in Romania, but she was born here, in England. In this very hospital, in fact. Her favourite food has always been – and will always be – biscuits dunked in tea. On a warm Thursday afternoon, she demonstrates the wonder that is a soggy digestive biscuit, having brought the snacks in secretly and fetching me a cup of tea when she went to get her own. The colour she tends to wear is red, but her favourite is green. There aren't many things in the world she hates, and she can usually find happiness everywhere. I find it an extremely compelling characteristic.
As if by magic, a new novel starts to take place in the back of my mind. Kate smiles when she sees me writing – perhaps she thinks me silly, or she really is pleased by it. Either way, I don't mind, because it fills my chest with a flood of warmth and joy. I can't quite explain how much my heart speeds, or how my hands go clammy, or how the world really does seem a whole lot more golden with her around.
"Can I read what you've done so far?" she asks, as my hand trundles loosely across the page.
"Not yet," I reply, grinning back at her.
If anything, we have time.
"Do you get bored here? Staring at the same walls all the time, not able to go anywhere?"
"When you say it like that it sounds awful." Kate laughs at my comment, short but sweet. "I feel a bit ridiculous sometimes, sat in bed all day. But I don't know what it would be like if I did anything else. I don't know what the world is… Like out there." I gesture to my books. "They sound all very magical and wonderful, but completely terrifying. How can I go back out there as me and not him?"
"The world is magical, and wonderful, and terrifying. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't explore it," she responds easily. "It doesn't matter that you don't know what you're doing, or that you feel like everything is brand new. Trust me. Besides, you are doing so much better now."
I know this to be true only because everyone seems to be saying it around me. My handwriting is better, I can read faster and articulate the words floating aimlessly around my head, and walking is easier as well. I don't trip up over myself nearly as much as I did only a month ago when Kate first arrived. Although I don't know if I am anything like the old Gilderoy Lockhart, but people seem to like this version of me just as much.
0-0
As Christmas approaches, the flow of people through the ward increases vastly. Young families visit Frederick, a boy and his grandmother attempt conversation with the couple at the end, and only Susan brings me a card the day before the twenty-fifth of the month. Kate is absent in all of this, though I'm sure she must be too busy over the festivities to come and see me, and that it's okay. I didn't acknowledge how much her presence changed me until she was gone for almost two weeks. Rubik became more difficult, and ideas for my novel seemed to halt altogether.
Another week blurs past in a dizzying array of nothingness before she bursts through the ward doors, smiling so wide her face might split open, and carrying an enormous wrapped box under her left arm. Golden hair flying in every direction. Chocolate eyes focused totally on mine. As though there is no one else around, and no one who can stop the two of us colliding.
In my pyjamas, I sit up, then stand, feeling like I could glow brighter than the burning fluorescent lighting above.
"Gilderoy Lockhart! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," she hollers brightly. She waves briefly at Susan, who looks completely bewildered by this sudden behaviour, and stalks over to my bedside, holding out the box. "This - is a present for you."
"What do I do with it?"
She smiles even more widely, though I had not thought it possible. "Open it."
In my desperation to peel off the box's second skin, my finger cuts on the paper. With a flick of her wand, Kate fixes it, and kisses the place where the blood had begun to seep out. She's impossibly brilliant today, for reasons unknown. Maybe it has something to do with this box? Either way, I am drowning in the glorious light of her and the warmth surrounding me and my heart.
"It's a typewriter," she announces as I'm staring at the grey-blue object in front of my eyes. "You tap the keys and words are put onto parchment automatically. I thought it might be easier than writing – you know, because you find it tricky to write the words. But now it's all just text, right? – Oh Merlin, I'm babbling." Kate laughs nervously and I can't help but think it's the most wonderful sound.
"This is –" I start, holding the typewriter. As they used to, words completely evade me. Instead of being able to speak, my throat closes up and my eyes sting. I don't understand. "I don't even know how to use it properly."
"I'll show you, just there's something you should see first."
Utterly disorientated and adoring her, I allow Kate to grab hold of my hand and pull me from the ward. Susan doesn't even glance in our direction. The world outside the ward is glowing and brilliantly luminous, green and blue and white. It's lively. I don't remember much of when I've exited the comfort of my bed space – only that it only happens for off-ward examinations and toilet breaks. Now, patients, visitors, Healers, all rush past us from place to place, a disarray of blurred colours and sounds. Instantly, it thrills me.
Only a few steps down a corridor and a sharp turn left, and apparently, we have arrived at our destination. The door reads "Private", but I don't question Kate's judgement when she barges past the Healer, straight into the room. She must know what she's doing, because I haven't known where we are for at least two years. She squeezes my hand encouragingly, causing my confidence to grow vastly, before pulling me all the way inside.
A rich, fresh, earthy scent assaults my nose immediately. I can't place it. Dirt, soil, the outside air. It wreaks havoc on my memories and my mind, but it exhausts me to attempt in remembering why. What I had assumed would be the same clinical, white walls are not at all like that – instead there are endless pastures of thick, lush, green grass stretch out miles before us, only stopping and curving over mountains and around glittering lakes. The landscape is stunning, as though painted from the most beautiful corners of my forgetful mind.
"Romania," I murmur into the silence as a breeze rustles my hair. "It's so green. And not at all like this green." I gesture to my pyjamas, the pale colour associated with the hospital. "A good green."
"I wanted to show you what you've forgotten. It's not something I'd ever wish to forget."
With those words, she presses her soft lips to my cheek, causing an instant flush of warmth to them. My heart throbs. I smile. Gently, carefully, she conjures a plaid blanket and invites me to sit beside her. And we talk, for what seems like days – and it might have been, had I much concept of time. The view is her favourite from Romania, just a few miles walk from her villa amongst the forests adorning the mountains. It's impossible to think that there is so much outside, that the world could be even more spectacular than I imagined.
I brush aside the golden hair having fallen across her face, smiling. It feels like my chest might burst from the burning happiness that's taken residence there. So different from the monotonous day-to-day routine of reading and reflecting on who I am and who I might be. Here, I know a little bit more of who I am. Here, I know a little bit more of where I want to be, and that I want to spend every waking moment with the glorious woman beside me.
"I know what the title will be," I murmur into our comfortable silence. She turns towards me, curious. "Who Am I."
"It's perfect, Gilderoy," she grins. "I cannot wait to read it."
"I will persevere in writing until my hands fall off!"
Together, embracing the wondrous future, we laugh.
0-0
"Leaving?" I ask, almost a week later, looking up from my typewriter which I had so eagerly been writing on since the holiday. She stands in front of me, her face red but certain. She's not joking with me, and I know no reason why she should be. And yet, the words don't really register properly inside my head – why would she be leaving? It doesn't quite make sense. I got so used to having her around and feeling the familiar tug of my navel every time we spent even a minute together. "Why?"
"I have to go back to work – they're requesting me for some reason or other," she shrugs, letting her head drop. "It's the end of my holiday period, as well. I'd have to have left at some point."
My head moves, as though in understanding, but I don't understand at all. Hands frozen on the keys, frowning, lips slightly parted, I swallow thickly. Being here, trapped, enclosed in this space, I had practically forgotten that there is a world outside – that people have lives outside of St. Mungo's, and that people have places to be other than here like me. I'm the one who cannot move, and people will always leave and alter around me.
Words don't appear to be forming as they had done so easily for the past two months or however long. They are stuck in my throat, waiting to be vocalised. But everything is just… Not working.
Silently, Kate hands me a piece of paper, presses another swift kiss to my cheek, and departs.
And I haven't said a word.
0-0
Susan tries to make the speech come back, but each day I disappear further into myself. The novel becomes words on a page, rather than having any particular meaning. Who Am I, it's titled. I don't know who I am. Is it me the one that stares back from Magical Me, or is the me that's going to remain in this ward for the rest of my life? Is it me the one who was once asked for autographs, or is it me who can barely write his own name, let alone the brilliant cursive of just four years ago?
I keep the slip of parchment in the top pocket of my pyjamas. Golden Kate remains close to my heart physically, because I can't find her any other way than through the text she's written.
"What's this you keep looking at, Gilderoy? Oh lovely, it's from Kate! 'I expect to see you in Romania when you can make it,' and there's an address. That's so charming! I suspect that's where she wants you to send the book to."
0-0
A bound copy of Who Am I under my arms, I step off the shuddering train. People stare in my direction, that's what people do with unfamiliarity, but it doesn't matter. I'm here, and I've made it. Despite the hazy patterns of transport, cacophony of voices shouting instructions and questions, and the churning, bubbling fear that this was a mistake, I've made it to Romania! Lights burst into being, flickering against the twilight sky. It's growing darker – either that, or rain is about to begin pouring from the clouds.
A year and a half ago, Golden Kate left me a scrap of parchment with a Romanian address on it, two miles from the vast landscape she showed me in a private healing room. Since then, I've just about managed to write the book I promised, as well as retaining the memory of her. I don't remember much else that's happened since she left, my ability to hold onto myself dwindling every day she was gone.
But I'm here, and I've never felt better before in my life – or that which I can recall of it.
I pull the parchment from my pocket again, this time not wearing pyjamas but having donned cotton trousers, a blue shirt, and a tweed jacket. Never did I expect the material to be even more comfortable than my last four years of nylon and everything being a pale shade of green. It feels more like the me I have come to know, rather than the version of myself that was locked inside a hospital.
Susan told me to get a taxi. She said they would be black cars, all lined up, waiting. Then to speak in clear English, and that I would have to talk to them.
She was right.
After reciting the address to the balding Romanian man, I am on the final step of Gilderoy Lockhart's biggest adventure to date. To me, right now, this is scarier than anything the other version of me has ever done. With my total lack of memory and occasional inability to talk, move, or think, it seemed ludicrous to suggest this trip last year. I was adamant, however. Coming to Romania was the absolute right thing to do, and I still firmly believe that. At some point, I had to get out of that ward and attempt a life beyond the hospital.
I've travelled the world to find her again, all through Muggle methods.
Finally, the door is stood in front of me.
Blinded by the lights and deafened by the noises, the warm feeling in my chest growing because I am so certain I'm in love with Kate, I knock three times.
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Thanks for reading!
Huge round of applause and thank yous to Alixx for her amazing support and beta work!