The old boy is at it again. This time he manages to injure every known Professor in Hogwarts in some way or another.
Gilderoy Lockhart awoke to the sound of his alarm clock, which happened to be one of his portraits singing. To any sane person, this singing would sound eerily similar to a freshly uprooted mandrake, but when Gilderoy opened his eyes, he almost believed that some angel had come down from the heavens to serenade his waking.
Scratching himself vigorously, the professor stood up and as always at the beginning of the day, looked into the mirror. He blanched at the sight, knowing full well that half the makeup previously applied to his face was now probably imitating a perfect impression of his face on his pillow. Shrugging, he lifted his wand to his cheek and muttered an incantation. His misshapen face immediately molded back into the face of what he thought to be a stunning and daring rascal. After a few talking exercises, in which he adopted many mouth and chin positions (all absolutely gorgeous), he slipped into some mild orange robes and kicked the door open, hoping to make a grand entrance for his portraits residing in the classroom outside. He was well rewarded with polite applause and a few cat calls.
Severus Snape, meanwhile, was painfully squished behind the door, having been just about to burst in and threaten Lockhart with disembowelment and pickling if he didn't shut that stupid singing portrait of his up. The crunch his body made as it was smashed between wall and wood was quite astonishing, but went unnoticed by the crowd of cheering Gilderoys.
"I know, I know!" cried Lockhart to all the other Lockharts staring avidly at him. "Please, please, I am but a mere trifle compared to all of you."
"No, of course not. Three cheers for the old boy!" they all called back.
"Well…" said Lockhart nodding, and he said no more on the matter. Off he trotted from the classroom and made his way to the dining hall. Behind him, his portraits began a good natured argument.
"No you're prettier."
"I insist, you are the prettier one."
"No you are."
"No you are."
"No you are."
"Well if you say so…."
On his way down the corridors Gilderoy waved and smiled to the passersby. Some waved back, while others shrank against the walls and quickened their speed. They didn't want to trip him of course! He blew a kiss to Professor Sprout.
In her scurry to get away, she smashed headlong into a suit of armor (which had been obliviously picking his face grille, where his nose had once been), in which the Bloody Baron happened to be dozing. She was later found, buried up to her neck in dragon dung with a Devil's Snare seedling perhaps getting a little too cuddly. Also, around her lay six baby mandrakes, who squealed shrilly at her, demanding to know if she was their mummy. (Doctor Who pun, harhar.)
With a delicate sniff of appreciation, Lockhart entered the noisy dining hall and surveyed the breakfast board. No chocolate cake in sight. Oozy sausages, oozy eggs, oozy toast, oozy marmalade too. Now with a sniff of polite disgust (if there is such a thing) he sat down and sipped coyly from a goblet.
…Professor Flitwick's goblet to be exact. Gilderoy took one gulp and set it back down in front of the little man, who had not seen. The charms teacher was later sent to the hospital wing after having ingested a lethal amount of lip gloss and a Dentine whitening strip.
Ah, there was Harry Potter sitting over there with his little friends. Lockhart simpered as he ran through the similarities between himself and the woebegone child. He had had to wear glasses as a student. The teasing had been dreadful, but he had made it worth his while by changing their color from brown-rimmed to pink-rimmed and glued on a few rhinestones. Ha! No one said a word about them after that. The other boys in his dormitory seemed actually to fear the star studded glasses, and one glance set them scuttling.
A Dark Lord had been after Lockhart too! What a coincidence! The crazed man had affected much of the professor's younger life. Pursuing him at every chance.
Only because the poor milkman had been hypnotized by those evil glasses and had vowed the day afterward, that no other should face such an appalling fate. Unfortunately, he was cut short of his goal, when, whilst pursuing his enemy, he fell down an open man hole and was swallowed by the murky water (and swallowed again by a waiting alligator.)
The guy had even given Lockhart a scar, having hit him around the head with a broken milk bottle. Gilderoy fancied it looked like a lightning bolt, or perhaps an M for Magnificent.
Malodorous actually.
Shrugging, the professor nibbled the ends off of McGonagall's toast and waved to the trio.
Hermione's hand came up so quickly to wave back that it collided vociferously with Ron's nose. Like a fountain, the blood from his nostrils shot across the table, over Dean Thomas's head, and onto the flagstones on the other side. An oblivious Dumbledore promptly slipped in the gory pool and broke his hip. Hagrid stood up so fast to help the old man that his knees slammed into the table, sending it's top smashing into the long boney chin of Trelawney. Her face now perfectly resembled a Jack O Lantern who has been left on the front porch for far too long. Crying hysterically, she fell to her knees and scurried around to find all of her missing teeth.
My, the dining hall was getting rather boisterous, wasn't it? With a smile and a nod at the teachers milling about, Lockhart left the room, hoping to get past the next chapter in Mincing With Mermaids before lessons started.
Tucking said book under his arm, he flounced through the corridors, looking for a quiet place to read. He was to his favorite part, in which the mermaid princess fell in love with him and tried to hide him under her bed so that her father wouldn't catch him. Gilderoy clicked his tongue thoughtfully. She really hadn't been his type. Luckily he had been carrying that harpoon around with him at the time.
"Lockhart!" said a voice sharply.
He spun gracefully on the spot and smiled endearingly at McGonagall, who was stalking toward him. "Yes, professor?"
It seemed to Gilderoy as if she shuddered with exhilaration at the sound of his voice. Clearing her throat, she said huskily, "We have a situation, in the great hall. Your assistance is needed."
"Why, of course it is!" trilled Lockhart. He seized McGonagall's hand and strode majestically down the hall. By the time he returned to the dining hall, he did not even notice that McGonagall was no longer behind him.
She had managed to keep up with him through three corridors, but on the fourth, had tripped over Mrs. Norris. Tangled together, both witch and cat were wrenched from his grasp and lodged in a door jamb. The door was a rather heavy specimen, but a nice breeze blowing from the open window caught it and sent it slamming shut on Mrs. Norris's tail. Being stuck to a cat with its tail caught in a door is not a pleasant experience. McGonagall later was diagnosed with strong Feliphobia and had her body surgically altered so that she would transform into a stick bug and not a cat.
What heroic deeds await me, wondered Lockhart. He stepped into the Great Hall, and immediately silence was restored. The wreckage caused was quite astonishing, and bodies of unconscious students and teachers lay everywhere. Harry Potter looked up from trying to stem Ron's nose bleed. "Oh no, not you," he uttered.
Lockhart smiled. "Not to worry dear boy. All of this will be fixed in a jiffy. You don't have to fret. I promise no harm will come to me. You'll still be able to come to my lesson." With a flourish of his wand, Lockhart efficiently removed several globs of treacle from Hagrid's face, that had become splattered their during the turmoil.
The resulting ripping noises could be attributed to the fact that they were not treacle, but were in fact, some dreadlocks that looked particularly greasy because Hagrid had semiconsciously let them hang in his plate of eggs. The students of Hogwarts finally knew what Hagrid's face looked like without a beard (and covered in blood too).
"Now everyone calm down," said Lockhart pleasantly. "I am here to help you!"
Every single person charged for the door to escape him, trampling Filch underfoot as they went.
In a split second the hall was silent, except for Filch's occasional whimper of pain. Lockhart smiled to himself. He knew order would be restored! He meandered over to Filch and looked pityingly into trampled squib's eyes. Then he looked at his watch.
"Oh dear, I'm sorry old boy!" he exclaimed. "I would help you clean up this mess, but class is about to begin!" Humming loudly to himself (Under Da Sea!), he flounced from the room with Mincing With Mermaids tucked under his arm and the flattened face of Lockhart scowling after him. The school bell rang merrily, calling students to Defense Against the Dark Arts, the only class available today.