Team: Pride of Portree

Round: Month by Month

Position: Keeper

Keeper's Prompt: January: Severus Snape, Lily Evans, Gilderoy Lockhart.

Word count: 2104

In the 2nd book Lockhart talks about using a spell on a werewolf to turn it back to a human. Yet in the 3rd book there seems to be no spell to cure Remus. Thus I have interpreted it as such that there are different kinds of werewolves with different cures. This particular belief for curing a werewolf comes from an Estonian folktale.

I've also gone by Harry Potter wiki with how Lockhart's early life was.

Warning for coarse language.

You Never Forget Your First

Gilderoy Lockhart was not a bad child. He was in fact a child with a great deal of potential that had gone to waste only partly through his own faults. At least to some extent the fault lay with his mother. The woman had by then already given birth to two squibs and was overjoyed when Gilderoy was born. Yet she too was not entirely to blame, for parents are only human and can't help but be all too happy to finally have a child they can share their own lives with. Gilderoy's mother thus introduced her son to the world of witchcraft and wizardry and often told him how special he was to have magic running in his veins.

By the time Gilderoy reached Hogwarts and could have realized he wasn't that special after all, the damage was done. He was a child driven solely by admiration and for anything less than hero worship he was rather reluctant to lift his wand. He could hardly be bothered to study and was abysmal at making friends. A couple of attempts to write his name and face into history, or more precisely onto the lawn of the Quidditch Pitch and into the sky, led to universal contempt.

After school, he did not fare much better. Numerous tries at instant fame and fortune had been for naught. The last straw had been his patented shampoo. For a refreshing change, the formula did lead to the most luscious and beautiful hair he had ever seen. On the downside, the main ingredient (the Occamy egg) was very dangerous and expensive to procure, leading to the shampoo never being mass-produced. Though the failure had not been too spectacular, it still led to a rather nasty article in a local magazine and Gilderoy thought it best to take a short vacation in the north.

Which in short was why at this point in his life, Gilderoy Lockhart, the owner of the most luxurious locks the world had ever seen, found himself in rather seedy tavern in the middle of nowhere. He'd had a few drinks already and being a virtual stranger, saw no harm in polishing up his reputation a bit with a few embellished stories to the assorted villagers and ruffians. That earned him more free drinks and the additional alcohol led to the stories becoming wilder and wilder.

He was in fact somewhere in the middle of bragging about his prowess with magical monsters, when a tankard of ale came down with a loud crush and the whole tavern went quiet. A man at the bar turned slowly towards him, sending shivers down Lockhart's spine. He was exactly the kind of man whose attention one didn't want to catch when one was in a seedy tavern. He was tall and heavy-built. His expression was stony and a long scar split his mouth diagonally. He was wearing a grey and dusty Garrick coat, a pair of heavy boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and Gilderoy could see at least two wand holsters.

The man sized him up for a couple of seconds before spitting on the ground and declaring loudly: "Horse piss!"

"I beg your pardon, sir?" Gilderoy asked with rather more courage than he felt.

"I called your story horse piss, you pathetic worm." The man took one menacing step forward and the whole tavern seemed to instinctively pull away further from him. "You taking out a group of Romanian vampires on your own, my arse. You couldn't take a little bunny rabbit even if you fought dirty."

Gilderoy opened his mouth though his tongue felt as dry as if someone had dipped it in ash. "I don't have to take this from you!" he declared, as his eyes searched to secure an exit just in case. "You were not there, and I will not be challenged by some villager⎯"

The silence in the tavern was now painful. Eyes turned from one stranger to the other as if they were watching a slow motion ping-pong game. His face hardened and for a second it seemed that he was about to draw his wand. Then the man's features relaxed again and he smiled. "Yes, indeed I was not there. But I'll tell you something: there's been a werewolf about in these parts, terrorizing the people and attacking the sheep in a village a few miles to the north. The local blacksmith fears it's his boy who's been cursed. He called me in to help the poor lad. But seeing as you're a big shot monster hunter from England and I'm just a villager." At this point he paused, allowing the others in the tavern to burst into a laughter that seemed to signify some inside joke only Gilderoy wasn't in on. "How about you do it? Show us all that you're not just some slick con artist blowing smoke up our arses?" Another bout of laughter filled the tavern, then the eyes were back on Gilderoy.

The wizard gulped. It was true, he had told stories. The stories hadn't even been strictly lies. They had been true in the sense they had happened to someone. Just not necessarily Gilderoy. Yet he sensed if he were to admit his embellishing of the truth, his reward for honesty would be something rather painful and humiliating and Gilderoy couldn't take so much humiliation again. So with shaky legs, he stood. "Deal! I will help the poor lad!"

The stranger arched an eyebrow at this clearly unexpected act of bravery but nodded. "Good. Meet me here at nightfall and I will take you to where the beast likes to hunt."

The hours remaining until nightfall did not give Gilderoy all that much time to read up on any relevant werewolf-vanquishing spells. There was one that promised to reverse the curse, yet warned that it would take years of practice and after the couple of times he tried it, he only managed to set his second best suit on fire. Finally, he had no choice but to go out there with no plan and only a hope that it would somehow turn out fine.

A group of villagers gathered to send the pair off. They shouted encouragements and patted Gilderoy on the back. Some called the other one, Johannes, and told him not to be too hard on "the kid," (obviously referring to Gilderoy). Johannes only growled with annoyance, pulled his coat tighter and motioned for Gilderoy to follow. Thus, off they went into the woods.

Johannes was a gruff and quiet companion and the woods themselves were thick and dark with trees reaching high towards the full moon and spreading their branches out wide to hide all its secrets from the world. Gilderoy didn't particularly like the woods and he tried to stay close to his guide, no matter how mean he was.

After a few miles of trekking, Johannes finally gave him a glance over his shoulder. "I'm assuming you brought bread?"

"Bread?" Gilderoy asked, frowning.

"Yes, bread, " Johannes replied impatiently, "You know, to feed the werewolf?" He ran a hand through his hair, "Next thing you're going to tell me that you didn't bring a silver knife either!"

"Wh-why would I have brought a silver knife?"

"Because, city slicker, you're supposed to feed the werewolf a piece of bread from the tip of a silver knife and the werewolf will turn back to a human." Johannes shook his head. "You really have no damn clue about anything, do you?"

Gilderoy raised his voice to object but before he could, Johannes stopped abruptly and raised a hand. "He is near. I can smell the beast. Be quiet now and if you're not going to be of use, stay the hell out of my way!" He moved forward slower now, quietly pulling a knife from his belt and a piece of bread from his pocket. The trees stood further apart in this part of the forest and finally Johannes and Gilderoy stepped into a small clearing.

There, on the other side, stood the wolf. It was the biggest creature that Gilderoy had ever seen, with soft brown fur and glistening white fangs. "Now stay back and if, only if, the creatures attacks me, stun it. You do know how to stun a creature, don't you?" Johannes glanced at Gilderoy but before he could answer, stalked off towards the wolf, "Who am I talking to, you'll probably try to stun it with your fancy hair."

As Johannes approached, so did the wolf. He snarled loudly and parted his mouth, displaying white gleaming teeth. "Down, boy!" stated Johannes in turn. He placed the piece of bread on the knife and extended it toward the creature. "Come on, take a bite, boy. It'll help!"

The wolf snarled again and Gilderoy pulled out his wand with shaking hands. There was no way this was going to end well. The fool Johannes was going to get himself killed and likely Gilderoy too. He should never have gone into the woods on this imbecilic expedition. He had nothing to prove to these...these peasants. What did they know of his fame and abilities? And so what if the stories were a bit polished⎯

The wolf snarled loudly and jumped at Johannes, his mouth going for the bread. Unfortunately for them all, Gilderoy's nerve did not hold out. The moment he saw the leap, he saw in his head a pair of fangs tearing out his throat. He was both too young and too special to die, so he aimed his wand and cast the spell.

Turns out a stunner wasn't one of the spells he'd given much practice to. What followed was the most spectacular bang and when the smoke cleared, two bodies lay on the floor. One of Johannes and one of a young and rather naked boy, by the looks of it around 15. As Gilderoy took a hesitant step forward, the boy stirred. He rose from the ground slowly and looked around, his eyes landing on Gilderoy. "What happened? Did you save me?"

Now, the correct answer of course was "No, it was not my doing," as the piece of bread from the tip of the knife was gone. In fact Gilderoy was about to say that. When suddenly Johannes too stirred and sat up. His eyes roamed around aimlessly and he seemed a bit confused. "What happened? Where am I?"

And as the reality that Johannes had hit his head and was not quite sure of anything right about then occurred to Gilderoy, he realized that he had an opportunity. After all, was the whole truth really to the boy's benefit? What kind of a story would it be to tell back at the village? That he was saved by some scruffy-looking ruffian? Whereas this way he could tell everyone he'd been saved by a dashing hero. Yes, it was better this way. And the men back at the tavern would not laugh at him for panicking. Yes, better for everyone! Thus, Gilderoy nodded. "It was I indeed. Lucky I came around at the right time. You were about to kill this poor man!"

Johannes's eyes snapped to him and for a second Gilderoy was sure the game was up. Then the man just sighed. "Yes, lucky!" He stood and held out a hand to Gilderoy. "Thank you for saving my life!" Shaking the hand of that arrogant bastard was the very best feeling in the world for Gilderoy.

The next few weeks passed in a blaze of activity. He got offered free drinks at any tavern in a thirty mile radius, as word travelled fast. The blacksmith and his wife invited him to dinner and everyone greeted him with cheers and Gilderoy realized that he'd learned a valuable lesson. The heroics didn't have to be his. They just had to be presented correctly. He had big plans and already a few ideas where to start as he began picking up hints about other heroics in faraway places that would be hard to disprove. He even mailed a quick draft of an idea to a couple of people in the book business and got positive answers.

Of course, another few weeks later when Johannes's memory returned and Gilderoy was chased out by pitchforks and a mob demanding he pay back all the free alcohol that should have gone to the real hero, he learned another big lesson. Before he embarked on his new career of borrowing heroics, he needed to take a week or two and brush up on his memory charms.