Title: Untouchable Face (Making of a Monster)

Author: Amalin

Contact: rainpuddledancer@yahoo.com

Rating: R

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is based on characters and settings in the books of J. K. Rowling. No profit is being made. The song "Please Remember" is the property of Leann Rimes.

Summary: When your memory is something that other people play with and your mind their discarded playground, what else can you believe in besides your own reflection? When no recollection is a pleasant one, is it better just to forget? How many new lives are too many, before the past catches up to you? And what do you do when the face in the mirror is no stranger than the dreams you once cherished? What then?


c h a p t e r e i g h t -- m a k i n g o f a m o n s t e r

"...please remember, please remember
i was there for you and you were there for me
please remember, our time together
the time was yours and mine and we were wild and free
please remember, please remember me..."



Larry Kendall's job usually entailed compiling statistics on a Muggle laptop and perfecting the dangerous art of procrastination. He was rarely allowed creativity, much less a good laugh.

Because of this, he was in heaven. Or at least the closest cloud.

"Poor bugger," he chuckled, nudging his partner Jim. "Got to feel bad for him, don't you?" The two men watched the monitors in silence, then burst into hearty laughter.

"Well," Jim conceded, "I wouldn't wanna be in 'is place, I'll give ya that much."

They both watched the motionless figure through the heavy pane of glass. His heartbeat on the monitor was a steady green pulse; both considered themselves experts on mixing Muggle machines with magic for treatment and so were chosen for the job. Both had been equally excited at the assignment.

"I heard," Larry whispered, "that he worked at the Crane."

"Go on! You're jokin'!"

"I'm not! What, you're surprised?"

Jim shrugged. "I s'pose not. 'Ad a friend whose brother went there, once. Real upper class place, 'e said."

Both eyed the tattered clothing of their subject with skepticism, blinking at the prone form in the adjoining room. They shrugged. Behind them, the door clicked open.

"Boys?" The supervisor poked his head in and winked. "Operation Lockhart may now proceed!"

Larry and Jim shared an excited grin. They were creators with fingers anticipating the clay, forming an Adam of their own. They were doctors with the shared secret of stolen parts, fabricating their own monster. They were painters, writers, musicians; he was their masterpiece.

They were having a hell of a lot of fun.

"So where we gonna start?" Jim demanded. "They gave us all these papers, wanted us t'read and study 'em so we could let-"

"Forget that," Larry said, tossing a carefully rolled parchment over his shoulder. "We know the basics. We're gonna have to teach him everything about the magical world and whatnot, not just his life. So we might as well play it by ear. And besides, who needs these directions?"

Jim bit his lip as he stared down at carefully scripted lines. "Says here he's a writer."

"What, like a reporter?" Larry frowned. "That's no fun."

"No, an author," Jim clarified. "Look." They both peered at the page for a lengthy moment, taking in the words. "Mm, on the bestsellin' lists. Real turnaround from 'is last profession, eh?"

Larry chuckled. "Well, we can't always pick and choose." He grabbed the bound book lying on his desk, a much cleaner and charming vision of Lockhart winking at him from the cover. He blinked at the first page, one eyebrow slowly raising. "What is this trash?"

"A bestseller, 'pparently."

"Like I said," said Larry, "you've got to feel bad for him. I mean, he's being manipulated in the worst way. Told he's some silly prat like this, and made to think he's popular in public opinion."

"Maybe 'e is popular, who knows? I s'pose it could be worse."

"You think? What, like locked away for the rest of his life in some rotting dungeon?" They both chuckled then. Such stories were reserved for hardened criminals and murderers of millions. That, and Death Eaters recently guilty of collaborating with You-Know-Who. However, to rot in Azkaban was not for this rather silly looking man lying unconscious in the adjoining room. "Well, maybe you're right, but he's still being made to look the fool."

Jim shrugged.

"Oh, Jim! He's waking up. We better go in there?"

"Sure."

"From this minute on, he's Gilderoy Lockhart, famous author of the wizarding world. Women gush over his picture. No mention of anything else, right?"

"Right."

They entered to find a disheveled version of the "famous author," staring at them out of bewildered blue eyes. "Um," he said. "Where am I?"


-=-=-=-


"I'm Lockhart?" the man asked for the third time.

"Yes, you're Gilderoy Lock'art," Jim said for the fourth, exchanging a glance with Larry. "Like I said, I'm Jim 'n that's Larry. We're to 'elp ya."

"I - I know," he said uncertainly. "Don't I?"

Larry gestured to take over. "Look, it's simple," he told Lockhart. "You were the unfortunate victim of an erroneous Memory Charm; wrong place at the wrong time, poor fellow. We're here to remind you about your old life. We've already tried the cures and St. Mungo's sent you here because nothing worked."

Lockhart scratched his head. Before going into the actual "conditioning" they'd given him a haircut, a shave, and several suitable robes for the occasion. He had to, as Jim called it, look the part. "So," he said slowly, "who am I?"

"Lockhart!" Jim nearly yelled, before Larry placed a hand on his arm.

"He knows that, Jim. He's not stupid, he's only forgotten. Now. You're a traveling author, see? You go places and see wild beasts, sometimes havin' to defeat or slay them, and then you come back and write about them so's the whole magical world will know."

"I do?"

"Oh, yes. Quite the popular one, too, eh, Jim?"

Jim nodded encouragingly and held up a book, where a dazzling portrait of Lockhart was beaming at them. It read, Befriending Your Boggart. "You're doin' a whole series," he said. "Topped th' lists for three weeks straight. Got interviewed in Witch Weekly an' you were the cover story, too."

Lockhart took the book, eyebrows drawing together. "I wrote this?"

"Quite so," Larry told him. And Galleons had passed from hand to hand, or so he'd heard, to put this Lockhart fellow on the bestseller lists and in the papers, so much effort just to be convincing. The real story, though, behind Gilderoy Lockhart, remained a stubborn mystery. Rumor alone was circling, and everyone knew how rumors spread and multiplied around the Ministry. "Look, your adoring fans think you broke your leg while battling a manticore. You're here to be 'healed,' see?"

Lockhart nodded.

"You've got a book signing in two weeks," said Larry. There was no doubt that the crowds would show; Lockhart's book, written no doubt by some bored Ministry official, had topped the lists, and his portrait on the cover did loads for sales. Besides, if they wouldn't come, they would be bribed.

Larry and Jim had never really stopped to wonder why so much effort was going into this one man. They did their jobs behind the scenes and then forgot their questions.

It was part of the job.

Lockhart was still thumbing through the book, having reached his biography. Both men watched his eyes grow larger and larger. He looked up. "I can do magic?"


-=-=-=-


"Garlic, that's the trick," said Larry. They watched as Lockhart furiously scribbled notes on the margins of his book. "And stakes, right, Jim?"

"Oh yeah, stakes do 'em right in."

They exchanged a glance. Both had jumped into the subject with enthusiasm, speeding off from fact at alarming rates and turning to legend and folklore and just plain imagination. It didn't much matter if they were telling him fictional information. He took it all in. Larry had chuckled over dinner that if they told him the moon was made of chocolate, he'd probably believe them, and not only go around telling people but preach it in his books. Jim had no doubt that it was true.

"Stakes," said Lockhart, and underlined his note. "I should, eh, carry stakes, then?"

"Oh, yeah. Messy job, though. I s'pose you've got to have a special kind, uh, don't ya? Larry? Special stakes?"

"Very special. Uh, iron. Iron stakes. Wood just don't work."

IRON was carefully inscribed just before stakes, which Lockhart underlined again for good measure. He had no desire to be caught off guard. "Any kind of metal?" he asked tentatively. "Or just-"

"No, no, no. Iron. Silver, now, that's for werewolves."

"Werewolves?" Lockhart asked, eyes huge. "Did I ever meet a werewolf?"

Larry hesitated, but Jim nodded eagerly. "Blimey! You said 'e was about, oh, this wide," he spread his hands, "and as big as from you t'me. Great snarlin' face, drippin' blood an' all. Terrifyin'!"

"I would have been scared to death," Larry put in. "But you, we heard you were fearless! Just stepped right up-"

"-took this big silver knife-"

"-plunged it in his heart!"

"Nah, 'is liver," Jim corrected. "Then you cut out th' heart."

Lockhart looked just the slightest bit green. "I - I did?"

"Oh, yes, you did! Miraculous healing powers, those. Could've sold for a couple thousand, maybe even half a million."

"But," Jim added enthusiastically, "you gave it to th' local village, they were undergoin' some sorta plague."

"Because of the werewolf."

"Right. Nasty buggers, them, spreadin' disease. So you healed 'em all."

"They erected a statue of you," Larry grinned, winking at Lockhart. "Lockhart the Werewolf Slayer."

"Oh," said Lockhart, and he looked rather ill indeed.

-=-=-=-


"Oh," said Larry, pointing at the monitors, "he's all shook up, look! Heart's racing. Wonder what the whole fuss is."

"I'm ready when you are," Jim said, wand held out.

"All right." Larry leaned forward, took the microphone in his hand, and said slowly, "All right, Lockhart. We're right here in case anything goes wrong. Why don't we start out with something simple, like lighting your wand?"

Something made Lockhart's heartbeat skip; it was clearly buried in the memories his mind would not allow through. His expression was still complacent. "Lumos," he commanded, and the tip of his wand blazed. Half a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, and Larry and Jim exchanged a pleased glance.

"Good, good. Now, why don't we do something harder. Remember the spells we taught you?" There were several objects arrayed before him on a table. "Lift that."

It was an apple, round and probably magical in its perfection. Lockhart squinted at it, and raised his wand.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Jim whispered at the same time as Lockhart, his voice masked by Lockhart's voice. The apple shot into the air. Even Lockhart seemed stunned at its sudden flight.

"D-did I do that?"

"You sure did," Larry beamed. "Go on, we all knew you were famed for your skill."

"Right!" chimed in Jim. "You stunned a dragon with a simple spell. Everyone else panicking, and you as cool as can be, jus' walking up like that and stupefyin' the huge beast. 'Twas enough to content th' Prophet for a week."

"I'm not so sure I-" Lockhart began, though he was still eying the apple with a pleased expression.

"You're Gilderoy Lockhart," said Larry, firmly. "You can do anything."

Lockhart shrugged uncomfortably.

"Now, I want you to summon that book from across the room. What's the spell?"

"Accia?"

"Accio," Larry corrected. He raised his wand, and they both summoned the book, which zoomed across the room and hit Lockhart solidly in the chest. He flailed back into a chair, wand flying, eyes wide. "Right," Larry muttered. "Er, a little less power, but that's good."

"I'm Gilderoy Lockhart," Lockhart echoed under his breath, as if to convince himself. "I can do anything."

-=-=-=-


Lockhart gazed at himself in the mirror. Shadows darkened the lines of his jaw, leapt about the hollows of his face. After day and day rolled on after each other, until those endless days became a month, he thought he was more or less reconciled with his former self.

"Gilderoy," he said slowly, reaching towards his reflection. "Gilderoy Lockhart."

The book signing that morning had been a wild success. Women had been fighting over the last copy; he was asked to autograph body parts, sleeves of robes, covers of other books that had nothing to do with him. He truly didn't understand his own popularity, but when he raised the question with Larry, he received only an incredulous look as if he had said something obscenely out of line.

There was but one point of confusion from the signing: a young, blonde woman who had pressed a copy of a book called Macbeth at him. "What's your name, please?" he had asked politely, and she had hurriedly said, "Oh! Med - Miranda. But this isn't for me, it's for a friend. Her name is Arizona."

So he had signed it, as she turned to her white-bearded companion and wiped her eyes. He had heard her choked whisper of, "This is the alternative you bargained for him? This farce?" He had heard the much older man say calmly, "Is it better than the Crane, my dear?"

"Do I know you?" Lockhart had asked, handing back the worn book. The old man had smiled.

"Well, we are devoted fans of yours." And he had whisked the young woman away into the crowd, the crowd that eagerly pressed around Lockhart and obscured them from sight.

There was a yawn from the bed beside him, and Larry poked his head from the covers. "Lockhart? What are you up to?"

"Couldn't sleep," he said softly. His reflection stared back at him, weary-eyed and alone in the shadows.

"Well, go t'bed. You got portraits to sit for tomorrow, and then the board examination to assure everyone you know yourself. C'mon, it's a busy week and who knows what you'll be up to after you're out of our care." Another yawn rippled his jaw. He passed a hand over his eyes, squinting into the faint moonlight that defined the shadows.

"You're right." Lockhart looked at himself once more, blinking at the man he saw staring back at him. It was only natural, he supposed, for nothing to feel familiar. That was what everyone had told him. "Larry, I - sometimes, I don't feel right, I-"

Larry laughed. "Now you're just being stupid. You had a complete loss of memory; how're you supposed to feel right? It takes time."

"Time," Lockhart repeated, convincing himself.

"Oh, sure. It's troublesome for you, too, being so public all the time. You always loved fame, though."

"Did I?" Lockhart frowned. His reflection frowned back. It seemed wrong that such things happened, that entire lives were forgotten with a wave of a stick. Sometimes he doubted the magic, even feared it; there was quite a bit of power in that little wand. Power that he, supposedly, held a large amount of. It was like fame, probably - some people had what they wanted and were content, others craved more. Did he crave more? He wasn't sure. Now he just craved knowing who he was, without a doubt, without a question.

Was that, then, ambition? To be yourself?

"Go to sleep," Larry grumbled, though he was more awake by this point. "Your signing was a huge success. We didn't even expect so many people."

"I never - they all looked at me like I should know them, like they knew me-"

Larry snorted. "You're famous. Of course they know you." At Lockhart's bewildered look, face shining faintly in the shadows, his voice softened. "Now, like I said, it takes time. Wasn't it great, bein' up there with everybody knowing you, though? Knowing your name and your face and wanting a bit of your fame? Wishing they could be as famous as you? Wasn't it wonderful, having something they all craved?"

He looked at himself in the mirror, his reflection, the face the world now knew. "Yes," he said, softly.

"Good. Now, go to sleep."

Lockhart returned to his own cold bed, and even in his dreams the people that haunted him were strangers.

-=-=-=-



The sky was the most brilliant color of blue, spotless and rich. It was the shade just between blue meeting purple, a blueberry stain strained into iridescent azure. There were no clouds to dust it lighter, no obscuring haze, and only the too-bright orb of the sun interrupted the bowl of color.

"Here I am," said Lockhart, almost to himself. He glanced back, but Jim - who had patted him heartily on the back and shooed him out the door - was already out of sight. And here he was, back in the world, the world that bowed down and warmed his back with sun, welcoming him into its sunny depths.

"Excuse me," a voice said by his elbow, and he turned around. He did not recognize the man, the barely taller man with tousled blonde hair and an imperious set to his chin, impeccable robes tumbling in shadows around his form. "Ah, Gilderoy Lockhart?" Lockhart felt the impossible chill that he should know this man, probably had, but after weeks of the feeling with everyone he met he'd learned to ignore it.

"Do I know you?" he asked politely, fanning himself in the shimmering heat. A chuckle. "Of course, you probably know me."

"I -" The blonde man paused, considering Lockhart. "No, we've never officially met, I don't believe. I've been, ah - well, your book has many fans. I heard about your release from this, er, hospital-"

"Broken leg, you know," Lockhart interrupted. "Got in a terrible row with a manticore a bit ago."

"Ah. Well, I, er. Brought you these." And he held out a bag, quickly. "I'm Lucius, by the way. My mother made them, she, er, wanted you to have them."

"Would you like an autograph?" Lockhart called, perplexed as he watched the other man hurry away without another word. "If you have a book, I'll sign it…"

But he was gone. Still rather confounded by the man's brief visit and sudden departure, Lockhart peered at the cookies. They seemed all right. Familiar, perhaps, in a way - the sort of cookies you expect to find waiting beside a cup of tea on a warm afternoon, the kind that always reminded you of home.

Only, he didn't remember home; he only remembered names and statistics that were given to him. Shrugging, Lockhart took one.

They tasted bittersweet, sugar and spice, the sun-kissed rays of summer and a farewell last kiss. The crystal sweetness of silvery lake water, the nostalgic fragrance of wildflowers swaying gently in the wistful, whispering breeze. The taste lingered on his tongue as he chewed thoughtfully.

Almost…

Gilderoy Lockhart shook his head. That was fans for you, bringing you cookies, adoring you to such an extent. Such was fame.

"Hey!" The man ran up to him, clutching a scrap of parchment and a quill. He too looked familiar, having worked in the same building Lockhart was living in for a month, but Lockhart could not place him. "Aren't you that man? Gilderoy Lockhart?"

Lockhart beamed. "That I am! What can I do for you?"

The man thrust the quill into his hand. "Just an autograph, please," he said breathlessly. "Th' name's John. Thanks ever so much!" He watched eagerly as Lockhart scribbled his name and an inspiring message, inwardly beaming when he realized what good news he'd have to report back to Jim and Larry. Lockhart, as expected, was now completely immersed in the life bestowed upon him of intricately woven lies. "Wow," he said, letting awe tinge his voice. "Thanks!"

Lockhart watched him dash back into the building, glancing rather blankly into the wistfully bright sky. And he smiled and ran his hand through his - suddenly robustly curly - hair, acting the celebrity because that was what he did best.

_________________________________________________________
Belated A/N: Thank you so much for waiting me out. I've been terrible with the wait for this chapter. All of your reviews mean an incredible much. ~throws flowers~ And, at long last, I am done. Following this is the epilogue, and Untouchable Face is a completed project (unless I decide to rewrite some of the parts). Thank you, everyone. Here's to Gil. ~raises glass~