DAILY PROPHET COMPETITION TIME: ROUND WE GO AGAIN
Round: 3. Careers Advice by Cheeky Slytherin Lass
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Captain
Captain Prompt: Minister of Magic
Word Count: 978
The Golden Boy
Gilderoy Lockhart was in trouble. Sure, he did his best to appear otherwise by smiling and waving, but inside, his mind was whirring with anxiety. He barely contained a shriek of panic as he neared the end of the hallway towards the large ballroom that the Ministry used for important events. He could hear the muffled sound of thousands of people talking behind the tall, slim doors ahead.
"Oi! Minister! Please look over here!" A reporter held up a large camera and Gilderoy instinctively flashed his thousand-watt smile from years of book tours and celebrity appearance events.
He could not help but wonder how things could have gotten this far.
It had all begun innocently enough. Gilderoy had been invited to speak at a fundraising dinner for hopeful candidate Marsha Perkins. Unfortunately, Marsha's speaking skills were about as interesting as a bottle of flat champagne, and Gilderoy had pointed this out rather loudly to the witch on his left.
"Why, I could be ten times better than she is without even trying!" he boasted.
He hadn't expected to be overheard, but Marsha had run from the room crying. Gilderoy tried to make it right and took the podium, but it had somehow taken a detour and soon he was talking about what he'd accomplish as Minister if they'd only "give ol' Lockhart a chance." It had been a lot of hot air, but Gilderoy had finished the evening with more than a few floo addresses from attractive witches.
He was flabbergasted when he received an official owl from the official Lockhart for Minister campaign. It was, after all, the first he'd heard of it. At first, he began to panic, but as he read through the letter, it became very obvious that he would not be expected to do much of anything other than show up and talk about himself and his plans for the Wizarding World. In return, he was promised lavish parties, new political connections, and all the attention his heart desired.
Who was he to pass up the chance of a lifetime?
"I'll just go, show off a bit, then figure out some way to disqualify myself from the running at the end," he mused, tapping the envelope on the table. "I could even pretend to be all broken up about it and then talk about my new book, sure to be a bestseller. It's pure genius!"
The truth was that his book sales were in a bit of a slump as of late, and the excitement and coverage of an election was the perfect opportunity to encourage his followers to buy his newest release.
And so, Gilderoy went to the rallies and the parties. He stood up at a podium each night and told people what they wanted to hear. He'd perfected this particular skill down to an art form. Give them a little suspense, a little mystery, promise them the moon and the stars, then knock them out with a one-liner and assure them of their safety. It never failed to please the crowd. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that his little game had worked far too well. Gilderoy had, at one point, suggested developing a program that would "unlock" squibs' magic. A day later, one of his rallies was filled to the brim with squibs and their (mostly pure-blooded) families, all of whom hung on his every word when he described the process of "creating a new branch of the Department of Mysteries dedicated to squibs and getting to the bottom of their malady by using the finest in Ministry minds!"
The letters to the editor after this debacle were at once glowing and scathing. Experts in the field utterly decried Gilderoy's ideas as fraudulent and downright dangerous.
"He's making light of a lifelong affliction. Getting their hopes up is simply cruel!" wrote Theodore Lynch, who'd written five books on squibs.
But others, such as Dismelda Black, a prominent member of the Squibs Rights movement, saw Gilderoy's impassioned words as a beacon of hope. "Lockhart is asking the questions that no one else cares to ask!"
Of course, emboldened by his new adoring fans, Gilderoy began to come up with all manner of pie-in-the-sky ideas, such as the creation of a magical "orb" that would shield the magical world from Muggle interference and a new blood registry to ensure that people could "test" their magical potency (muggleborn, half-blood or pure-blood) with a potential mate. Unsurprisingly, this was very popular with the wealthy pure-blooded families, who began to write all manner of cheques and letters requesting Gilderoy take on some of their pet projects as a courtesy.
Gilderoy quite fancied the idea of being Minister, but only so much as it was an idea.
As he opened the doors to the ballroom, he saw all manner of familiar and unfamiliar faces staring at him and he had to force himself not to trip on his own feet as he made his way to the signing podium. When he looked down at the official document, a small droplet of sweat dribbled down his temple and he could not seem to comprehend any of the words on the parchment below beyond the line at the bottom marked "signature."
Gilderoy hastily grabbed a quill from an inkwell and signed with a flourish as though this was simply another autograph for an over-eager fan.
A roar went up from the crowd as he finished and he looked up at the joyful faces of the people he'd duped with his ridiculous lies.
"We now present to you your new Minister of Magic," the announcer exclaimed, "GILDEROY LOCKHART!"
With a nervous smile, Gilderoy waved with both hands and tried to enjoy the applause, but a dark pit was growing in his stomach.
After all, he had absolutely no idea what a Minister of Magic actually did.