There before him, stood none other than Arthur Weasley and Professor Severus Snape. Gilderoy remembered only too well his run in with the dark potions master at Hogwarts. Even though his memory was still a little hazy in some areas, he could never forget this sinister and enigmatic man, whose present close proximity sent a shock-wave of fear, coursing through his body. And as for Arthur Weasley being there too, was it just coincidence, or did someone up there really hate him?

As soon as the door was fully opened Arthur barged in angrily, with Snape gliding along expressionlessly behind him.

Gilderoys stomach had sunk to the floor. There couldn't have been two people that he would rather have seen less at this particular moment (well, maybe a couple of deatheaters could have been worse, but not much!) and he swore inwardly at his unbelievable bad luck.

"Gilderoy Lockhart!" Arthur said in a disgusted tone, looking like he was barely keeping a reign on his temper. "I knew you were a scoundrel from the start, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt, because Molly believed in you. I thought that if Molly saw good in you then maybe you weren't that bad after all. Hmmph!.. And she's normally such a good judge of character too, she got it dead wrong this time though didn't she? You're nothing but a lying, cheating scumbag!"

Gilderoy was struck dumb for a moment, then recovered himself, smiling amiably again. He quite successfully managed to feign an innocent expression, but now and again his eyes still darted nervously towards the bedroom door.

"You must be the famous Arthur that I've heard so much about!" he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Molly talks about you all the time an I.." Gilderoy began, but was cut off by Arthur speaking again.

"Save it Lockhart! You're not going to talk your way out of this one! Severus here knows exactly what you've been up to, he's been watching you!"

Gilderoy's glance at the potions master, in confusion and anxiety, was returned with a rather evil smirk of triumph.

"I really have no idea what you are talking about Arthur! I assure you, I'm at a total loss!" hecontinued smiling innocently, holding up his hands and shrugging (he was nothing if, not a good actor).

"You know very well!" Arthur retorted incredulously, "Severus saw you in knockturn alley at old Petulant Pete's place weeks ago and he wanted to know what you were up to, so he's been following you. Old Petulant is well known to us at the Ministry for selling dodgy stuff and he's suspected of getting involved in misuse of muggle artifacts too, but we've never managed to pin anything definite on him before. Severus has seen you buying large quantities of potion supplies from him and he's also seen you receiving stuff here at night and guessed that you've been storing something for him. Stupid idiot! Don't you know that's what he does to saps like you? Gets them to store his dodgy gear and then if he gets found selling the stuff, he pleads innocent and says he got it from you! He's well known for it!"

Gidleroy gulped with shock as the realisation sunk in that he'd been duped. He thought he'd been really clever storing Petulant Pete's stock as Pete had told him that it would be doing him a really great favour and in return, he could have some of his potion supplies for free. In retrospect it had been a pretty stupid thing to do, but at the time his greed had got the better of him. If only he'd sat down and really thought about the consequences, but Gilderoy wasn't big on thinking ahead.

"Well..it's pretty obvious that you've been buying those second rate potions to use in the business, haven't you?. No doubt mixing them with the real thing to fool Molly. I don't know how you've got away with it for so long, but it's probably only because Molly is so good with magic that makes up for the fact the potions are not up to scratch!" Arthur stated, bluntly.

Then suddenly he noticed his surroundings and looked around with a disgusted expression.

"Hmmph! You never did have any taste, did you Gilderoy?" and indicated with his head at the décor. Snape's smirk had now turned into a sneer of concurrence at Arthur's opinion, as he himself looked around.

Gilderoy chose to ignore this comment and instead continued with his denials. (Gilderoys policy, even when caught red handed, was always to 'deny everything!')

"I tell you Arthur, I'm completely innocent!..I admit I bought those potions from Pete, but it was in good faith, I honestly believed them genuine!" he protested imploringly. Then suddenly looking downcast, he exclaimed a regretful "Huh!.." then looked up again, before continuing "Unfortunately, one of my worst faults is that I'm too trusting and friendly – I'm afraid it's got me into quite a bit of trouble in the past! I assure you... I wasn't aware of any wrong-doing. I really had no idea that was the sort of business that charming old man was into, because if I had, I would certainly never have consorted to do business with him! And as for storing contraband here!..I can assure you, I have not been doing any such thing!" he finished, sounding mortally wounded.

"Then you won't mind if we search your flat then?" Arthur asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. He left Gilderoy no time to answer, though, as he had already gone off to make a start.

Gilderoy's initial alarm had now turned into an intense fear of being found out, as he was hoping to have got rid of them by now. But he wasn't worried about them finding any of Pete's stock in the flat,no, he wasn't that stupid. He'd hidden all of that stuff, somewhere safe elsewhere in the building. All his thoughts now, were of Molly – lying on the bed, no doubt waiting for him to come back. He began thinking desperately of ways he could hide her presence from her husband - who on finding his wife half naked in his wife's business partner'sbed would no doubt want inflict extreme pain on the said owner. Gilderoy was rather abhorrent to pain, so there was an extreme urgency involved. He quickly surmised that Arthur must have come straight from work and didn't know that Molly was out of the house or he would have probably asked after her by now. This was to Gilderoys advantage, as he wouldn't have to explain her whereabouts. If he got away with this - and he had everything riding on, that hemust -he'd just say he'd found her at some client's house. He'd say she had passed out from inhaling too many potion fumes or something and the client had contacted him to come and pick her up. Yes, that sounded like a plausible excuse, but his first problem was how to conceal her presence from his two unwelcome visitors.

"Erm, don't you have to be a registered Auror and have an Authorisation certificate to do a search?" Gilderoy protested hopefully, suddenly remembering.

"Didn't Molly tell you that I was an Auror now?" Arthur asked, genuinely surprised. Then with a flick of his wand, produced ascroll of paper and sent it flying over to Gilderoy's rather unwilling hands. Gilderoy groaned inwardly as he glanced at the official looking document in the Ministry's curly text and saw that it was indeed genuine (he'd seen a few in his time). His only hope now was that he could get to the bedroom before Severus and Arthur did.

Severus had joined in the search and he and Arthur used their wands with great skill (to the considerable envy of Gilderoy) to lift things up, open doors and take out the contents of drawers and cupboards (then put them back, just as easily). They left nowhere unchecked in the living room at least and Gilderoy could only look on in dismay when Severus walked decidedly over to the near empty bottle and glasses still left standing on the coffee table. He sniffed, then cautiously tasted the contents after wiping his finger round the rim. Looking up, he narrowed his eyes at Gilderoy, who attempted an innocuous smile in return.

"This is aphrodisiac wine!" he informed Arthur, matter-of-factly,now looking in his direction."It is highly effective, I believe, at making the drinker more receptive to sexual advances!" then turning back to Gilderoy,"I thought you were such a Ladykiller Lockhart and had no need for such things!" he said, in avoice dripping with sarcasm, finishing with an evilsmirk.

"Aphrodisiac wine! Really? I had no idea! No wonder the lady I was with tonight was so...how can I put it? 'Up for it'! I thought it was just my charm and good looks that turned her on!" he answered, with a nervous laugh

Severus raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips, in a disbelieving expression.

"Is the lady in question still here?" Severus demanded, his eyes narrowing again

"Erm.." Gilderoy had to think hard about this one, but he eventually decided to say yes, as it would be the only excuse for him to go into the bedroom first. On the premise of warning his said 'lady' to get up and get dressed.

"Yes..she's asleep in the bedroom" Gilderoy admitted nervously. Arthur had now gone into the kitchen and being alone with Severus, even for a moment, gave him the gitters.

"Good!" said Severus, looking back at him, a smile of great satisfaction on his face.

Gilderoy was pondering on this strange conversation, when Arthur suddenly appeared out of the kitchen. He didn't look too happy.

"That cooker looks a bit dodgy" he said indicating back with his head, "but I'm not worried about that sort of thing now, I'll let the boys from MoMA dept. sort it out.." hecontinued distractedly, as he looked around, thenhis eyes alighted on the only other door in the room apart from the entrance – the bedroom door! (The bathroom was en-suite). Arthur began to head over to it, followed by a stillsmirking Snape.

The moment Gilderoy had been dreading had arrived; they were going to search the bedroom! His heart began to pound and he felt sweat trickling down one side of his face - which he quickly wiped away on his sleeve. He had to think fast, which was even harder than normal because of the effects of the wine thatwas still in his system. He ran to the door -just about managing to get there first - and stood in front of it protectively.

"You can't go in there!"

"Why not?" Arthur said irritably, grabbing Gilderoy's shoulder,ready to push him out of the way.

"Because..because.. the lady I am with is not decent. She's well..she's, she's..tied to the bed! You know how it is sometimes!..when you just want to try something a bit different?" Gilderoy stuttered, sniggering awkwardly. His face soon fell when he saw that his joke was not shared.

"Go and untie her then! And be quick!" Arthur ordered gruffly

"Erm.. well, it may take some time..I ..I"

"NOW!" was the barked answer

Gilderoy obeyed meekly and opened the door, but only enough to squeeze himself through, then as he entered the room,closed it carefully behind him. His heart was now pounding so hard that it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest and his head was starting to spin with panic. What had started out as such a lovely promising evening had now turned into the worst night of his life.

"If they find her here.." well, he didn't want to think what would happen to him. He sighed, put his hand to his forehead and began to think desperately of what he could do.