It had been a long time since his sorting. The professor remembered that time all too well as he walked the halls of Hogwarts, beaming at the swooning girls and clapping the scowling boys soundly on the back as if he didn't notice their hatred and envy. Lockhart was on top of the world, teaching in the school where he once learned and riding a wave of glory unparalleled by any normal wizard. But of course, that was only to be expected with his brilliant mind and shrewd business practices.
His footsteps hesitated as he passed the stone gargoyle that barred the door to the Headmaster's office. His years at Hogwarts were not unpleasant to look back upon, but they were not quite what he had envisioned, either. Gilderoy had always had high hopes for his future, and those hopes had placed him--in his own mind--in the house of Slytherin, where Ambition was prized above all else. That confounded hat, however, had other ideas. The thought turned his cheerful mood dark, and rather than continuing to his own quarters he turned to face the gargoyle.
He had a score to settle. "Treacle Tart," the blond murmured, smirking as the gargoyle jumped aside. Long legs made fast work of the moving steps, two at a time as he nearly flew to the door. The Headmaster was out, he knew, but Professors were allowed within his office if the matter is urgent enough--to wait for his return, as the old man had once said. Lockhart tapped the pattern on the door frame once, slipping inside as the door opened. Again and again his wand flashed, and he smiled as the first snores from the portraits filled the room.
Only then did he take his first glance around the room. A smoldering pile in the corner of the room and the prevailing scent of ash told him that the insufferable phoenix would not give away his presence. All the better. And there it sat, innocent and lifeless: the Sorting Hat. With his wand still in hand, Gildery Lockhart--author of Wandering With Werewolves and all around great guy--plucked the cap from its resting place and, with a flourish, deposited it soundly on his head.
It fit much better now than it did the last time he wore it, certainly. Gilderoy caught himself grinning rakishly at his reflection in a nearby cabinet when the voice finally began to tickle the back of his mind. "Hmmm," the hat whispered, "back for a second try, Lockhart? Think I'll change my mind?" The professor tensed, his hands falling to his sides balled in angry fists. He hadn't expected to feel as though he was a young thing once more, tense with nerves and fright on his first day of school just like any other kid.
"I should think you would. I know you can see what I've done. Would you still put me in Gryffindor, now?" Idly, the proud man fidgeted with the cuffs of his steel blue robes, remembering the photo tours, autograph sessions, and the dark deeds he performed to get himself to this point. Was he happy with who he had become? He was a household name in the Wizarding world: loved by the ladies and envied by the gents! Of course he was content! He had earned his place in society, his achievements no less than those of the witches and wizards he had stolen the glory from.
A chuckle tickled his thoughts, and for a fleeting moment he thought he had won. Sweet success, to have finally proven to the confounded hat that he had spent seven long years sporting Godric's Crimson and Gold in the tower when he should have been in the dungeons, wearing a Serpentine Green and Silver that brought out his eyes! "It's all here, you know, same as it was all those years ago." The Sorting Hat seemed satisfied somehow. Smug. Gilderoy didn't like it one bit.
"Oh there's ambition enough, alright, but that alone doesn't get you what you want, now does it? Ambition and pride, the cunning of the snake you long for, is that really what you see? I've seen many like you, Lockhart, and I will see many more. Pride to disguise your fear, ambition enough to keep you from going unseen, a quick mind set in a perpetual loop suitable for a one-trick-pony; you are no Slytherin."
While he stuttered, the Sorting Hat continued without pause. "Yet even in your fear--of dismissal, of being overlooked and forgotten--you show bravery. No, you would never face those horrible beasts yourself, when someone else could do the work for you, but you would face the men and women who bested those beasts. You would face those stronger than what you fear, without even realizing what that means. You would modify their memories of their deeds, and you would move on. Would not a different man have killed them? Left them to die by the very beasts they had set their lives against? But you did not."
"You are a man of misplaced honor and misplaced bravery, Gilderoy Lockhart. Even now, I would place you in Gry--"
Hours later, Dumbledore would only quirk an amused brow at the state of his office. The portraits, finally waking from their slumbers, would have not a word to tell him. The Sorting Hat--crumpled, stamped, and stuffed beneath its own stool--had nothing to say of the incident, either. Still, he thought he had a pretty good idea of just what went on.
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