Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter!
A/N: Part of several challenges.
200 Characters in 200 Days Challenge: 82. Gilderoy Lockhart
If You Dare Challenge: 849. Wild Gestures
Pick A Card, Any Card Challenge: 8 of Spades: Write about pride. Alternatively, write about a rivalry.
Who? What? How? Challenge: 35. Gilderoy Lockhart, 561. Pouring, 200. Spit
Are You Crazy Enough? Challenge: 147: (color) Yellow.
Disney Character Challenge: Pacha: a selfless, good-hearted soul who teaches Kuzco the values of everyone. Write about someone selfless.* Alt write about Helga Hufflepuff.
Harry Potter Chapter Challenge: Gilderoy Lockhart - Write about an egotist. Alternatively, write about Gilderoy. (Bonus, GilderoyGilderoy Crack!Fic)
This should be fun.
Once upon a time, there was a wizard who thought he was better than anyone else. He sincerely believed this lie. This pride and selfishness ended up being his downfall. We won't go into his backstory of how he lost his influence today. Today we will be talking about what happened after his memory was erased by a backfiring spell. Oops. Spoiler alert. It begins where many stories begin: in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Specifically, the Janus Thickey Ward. This is where they kept patients that had little to no memory of, well, anything.
One day, Lockhart was sitting up in his bed eating his breakfast, when out of the blue he stated, "Whatever happened to that poor little witch that was sitting in the corner a few minutes ago?"
The Healer at his bedside- Miriam Strout, a short, fat witch in her mid-40's who mainly took after Lockhart- smiled serenely at the confused man and said, "There are no witches here beside me and the other patients and the other nurse- and she's over helping the Longbottom's."
Lockhart frowned, not looking away from the corner closest to the door. "No. There was a witch in the corner."
"Okay, deary," the kindly nurse replied, "Whatever you say. Are you ready for another treatment to help your memory?"
Lockhart blinked a couple of times and turned to face Miriam. He looked as though he had just noticed her presence. He smiled one of the dazzling smiles that won him Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award five times in a row. "What was that my lovely assistant?"
"I said, are you ready for another treatment to help regain your memory?" The plump witch repeated, enunciating each word as though she were talking to a toddler. She smiled brightly back at him.
"Ready when you are," Lockhart responded. He pulled himself up in his seat a little straighter, pushed his food away, and gripped the armrests tightly. He felt a little nervous.
The Healer raised her wand at the wizard. "On the count of three, okay? One... two... three, Recipio!"
A pink strand of light shot out of her wand and his Lockhart in the middle of his forehead. He grunted as his head took the impact of the spell. The process of trying to dig up those lost memories was painful and seemed to have no effect on his muddled mind. "Again," he muttered.
"Recipio!" The witch cried again. Again, Lockhart winced in pain.
The nurse cast the spell one last time before lowering her wand. "That should do it for now!" she said cheerfully, "Don't forget to finish your breakfast." She walked away from the bed where Lockhart lay with his head back, face screwed up in concentration- to any onlookers, it may have appeared he was sucking on a lemon. He stayed this way for a minute trying to conjure up any image of his past- any fleeting picture would do. But nothing happened.
Disappointed, Lockhart shrugged and turned to his food. He promptly forgot about why he was trying to remember his past in the first place. He looked up from his food when a loud, "Ahem!" sounded from the corner he thought he had seen a person standing in minutes earlier.
"Why, hello, there!" He said loudly. It was the same witch as before. "Have you come to give me more fan-mail to sign?"
The witch shook her head silently. The witch looked very stereotypical. She was older with a long, hooked nose and warts on her face. She was very gaunt looking and had a pointed witches hat on her head. She wore a gray shawl that had most definitely seen better days.
"Well, how may I be of assistance, then?" Lockhart asked, unperturbed.
The witch smiled then, it was a very toothy smiled (though she couldn't have had more than 15 teeth), and said in a rough voice, "You have a very pretty quill there. May I have a look at it?"
"Sure, why not?" Lockhart motioned for her to come closer to his bed. "I haven't had many visitors since I arrived at this strange place. They call it a hospital."
The witch wasn't listening, however. She was holding the peacock quill Lockhart had had since his memory was erased. She turned it over in her hands a couple of times, weighing it's value, weighing its power...
"Do you know how much I've always wanted a pretty quill like this?" she croaked. Lockhart shook his head. "In all my two-hundred and eighty-six years of living, I have never wanted a quill more. How much would you sell it for?"
"Well, now, little lady," Lockhart started, his smile faltering slightly, "That quill is not for sale. I use it to sign all my fan-mail. If I sold it to you, I wouldn't be able to sign any more mail from my fans. Think of how devastating that would be!"
"I'll give you twenty shining, gold galleons for it."
"But you know, a wizard does need to buy new quills sometime," Lockhart said with a chuckle.
The witch gave off a strange cackle and pulled out twenty brand new, golden galleons. She poured them on his lap and with a snap of her fingers disappeared.
Lockhart stared at the money in his lap. Miriam walked in seconds after the older witch left and nearly dropped her tray of moving pictures when she saw the money on her patient's lap. "Where did you get that money?" the nurse asked.
"The old lady in the corner bought my quill from me!" Lockhart exclaimed brilliantly. He looked like a kid going through their candy the morning after Halloween.
Miriam looked surprised. "Your peacock quill? But that one's your favorite!"
Lockhart's smile started to fade. "Was it now? I can't quite remember..."
The nurse chuckled softly. "That's quite alright, Mr. Lockhart, I can buy you another one with this money." She flicked her wand and the coins disappeared. She pulled a quill out of the cup of multicolored quills next to her and placed the pictures on a tray in front of the wizard. "Why don't you start autographing these for your fans, okay hon?"
Lockhart nodded, but then asked, "Why do I have fans again?"
"Because you made up a bunch of lies to get famous," she said with a sweet smile. The witch turned before he could ask anything else and closed the curtain to his bed.
Lockhart did end up getting a new quill- this one was a bright yellow with pale green streaks. He spent his days in St. Mungo's, but he was happy. The nurse took care of him until the end of his days. The End.
A/N: What do you think? Any good? I will probably come back to edit later. Please review! Any kind of comment- positive or negative- is helpful! Just don't be hateful, please. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to check out my other works that are all in the process of being lengthened. ;)
*Let me be clear, the selfless person is NOT Lockhart. It's the nurse.