Houses Competition Year 4. Ravenclaw, HoH, standard, prompt: Make up your own song and dance., WC: 1990

Prequel, in which Gilderoy Lockhart is going out to Romania to find the vampires that started it all. Where Voyaging with Vampires is his first novel. He brought onions, thinking they were right. And the spells: obliviate and reducto belong to JKR, but the others are mine.

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At eighteen years old, things were dull for Gilderoy Lockhart. His sisters were working in retail - Debenhams, or something - and his parents spent most of their sweet, quiet life in the cobbler's shop they owned together. Having finished his education at Hogwarts just six months prior, Gilderoy was feeling ever so slightly put out about life, missing the thrill of Hogwarts - of learning new spells and being around so many interesting people. And he was too intelligent to take on an assistant job in the family shop, right?

He was a Ravenclaw. He read The Prophet - because that's what intelligent people would do. They would read the paper and learn about the world.

On November sixteenth, he read about the event that changed his life.

VAMPIRES TERRORISING ROMANIAN VILLAGE

The village of Biertan, Transylvania, has been having problems with vampires for a few weeks. Family members have gone missing, children dead, and more blood has been shed than in many years. The village asks anyone with suggestions of defeating a seemingly invincible race of vampires to come forward and help these innocent people.

Gilderoy grimaced at the description. But then… This was it. This was his big idea. Like Merlin himself, he would go out into the world, prepped with strength and magic enough to defeat the beast that held these innocents against their will. He would be a hero to these people and that would be his glory. He stood up from his breakfast chair hurriedly, sending it flying across the room, clattering against the far wall.

"Gilderoy!" his mother shouted from upstairs.

"Sorry, mother," he called back. He really hadn't meant to do that. Alas, things to do.

He set the chair back at the table and sprinted upstairs, all the while thinking about what he would need. A way of travelling would be most important, of course. Next, clothes. Would it be cold? Probably not. But he ought to take a small variety of items with him, just in case. His wand, that was fairly necessary. Study books, because he had no idea how to defeat an undefeatable vampire.

He had no idea.

Gilderoy deflated all at once, a t-shirt slipping from between his fingers.

"I can't do it," he murmured to himself.

"Can't do what?"

His mother had appeared at the doorway, smiling widely at her son. He frowned up at her.

"I can't save the people in the village. How am I supposed to be a hero now?"

"Oh, Gilderoy," she said, sighing as though he had asked why the stars shine for the seventieth time in an hour. "My sweet boy. Heroes are that for their hearts, not just their brave acts. Plus, I think I have something that will help you. I have a book around here somewhere. Accio!" After a few crashes and thumps, the book flew into her waiting hands and she turned to the appropriate page.

Gilderoy grinned. "This will work, I know it will."

He packed the book into his now-hefty bag and shouldered it, suddenly feeling more than ready to take on this Romanian vampire clan. The page was bookmarked in place; page 235 entitled Vampires hate music more than anything. Reading on, one would find the book to explain how vampires of particular skill disliked made-up music, especially when paired with an illogical dance.

It wasn't difficult to find the place. He travelled with exchange students from the Ministry into the centre of Bucharest. That was where the Portkey had landed after an unpleasant, navel-tugging journey that had taken a little too long for Gilderoy's liking. At least he wasn't the one who tumbled to the floor when the tennis racquet clattered to the paved streets of the city; he was already a hero, having endured that. Without much conversation from the others or pause to take in the city, he was off again, searching for the train station to take him further out into the countryside. He didn't want to risk apparating in a country he didn't know, and his father had taught him that Muggles appreciated normality. Since childhood he had been proficient in the Memory Charm, having mistakenly shown magic to his Muggle cousins several times. He could restore their normality with a simple obliviate and be done with it.

"Where to?" the ticket-master asked in Romanian just as Gilderoy was settled into his seat on the train.

"Biertan, please," Gilderoy replied, just about managing the accent. He had perfected a translation charm and hoped to Merlin that it would hold long enough.

"Are you sure? There is trouble there," the ticket-master said.

"I'm here to help."

The ticket-master nodded and handed Gilderoy the required slip of paper, then wandered down through the train to help others. If anything, the train-ride would give him time to think and plan his journey a little better. He could catch a bus into the village from the final destination of this train, it seemed. The best course of action would be to alight the bus just outside the village and walk in carefully. Otherwise, a vampire could spring upon him at any moment. He would be dead instantly.

But he was better than that.

Thankfully, it was not so busy when he got to the train's final destination. Many people had left throughout the journey, and this was a little further into the Romanian countryside than one might normally venture. After noticing the reduced crowds, the second thing that Gilderoy noticed was the landscape. As his father might have said, God had spilled more beauty here than any other place he had seen. It was like Eden; stunning, glorious, and mystical. He was supremely glad he had made the decision to come to this place, and so glad that his mother had found that folklore tale. Otherwise, he wasn't sure he would have come at all.

After the somewhat stuffy bus-ride, Gilderoy was standing outside Biertan, where he was certain he would find his destiny.

One might have called it idyllic. A small town, wrapped in countryside, with the focal point being a fortified church sat right in the middle of everything - like a soul to the surroundings.

"Arrrhhhhhhhhghhhhhhhhh!"

A scream just ahead jolted him awake. Everything was all so suddenly real. He had to think quickly, because that's what heroes did. He swung his bag from his back and summoned the book from inside. Quickly scanning the words again, he thought about what he was about to do. A little song, a little dance. Something new, something fun, and something distracting. Then…. Then what? A very powerful disarming charm, perhaps. He had some onions with him - those were what stopped vampires, weren't they? There might be a way of reducing their teeth to dust if he could get the spell right. There wasn't time to perfect that now, though.

Gilderoy shoved the book back in his bag and threw it over his shoulder. Showtime.

He ran into the town, keeping his eyes open and peeled for an attack. His wand was tucked up the sleeve of his jacket.

It was more terrifying than he had originally considered.

All around him, people were running in different directions, carts of fruit and bread splitting and cascading their contents into the streets. No one cared about this mess because they were screaming bloody murder. Blood seeped into the drains like rainwater. Inanimate bodies too, certainly not at rest, laid against buildings.

The paper had not mentioned this much trauma. He had imagined maybe one lead-vampire, and then a couple of other weak followers. This was a new level of destruction.

He proceeded with caution. The shouts of others in the town covered up his footsteps, which he supposed was a benefit of the place being in total catastrophe. He felt the impending need to remind everyone to calm down because he was there, and he was going to save them all. As one old lady came rushing past him, he tried to stop her, to ask her where the vampire was, but all she did was shake him, stamp on his toes, and run off into the bleak distance. Extraordinarily helpful. No matter, he went on. Besides, the stench of blood and death was really starting to make him gag.

A solitary figure was standing on the steps of the fortified church, glaring out at the subjects it had so clearly tried to dominate. He watched as a young woman sprinted through the courtyard in front of it. The vampire moved with sickening speed, its limbs a blur, and was at her side in less than seconds. It sunk its teeth into her neck, causing blood to gush from the wound.

She sank to the ground, dead.

"Hey!" Gilderoy shouted at the vampire. It turned to him, lips and chin drenched with the crimson remains. "Cut it out. And wipe your chin, that's gross. I have something to say."

"English?" the vampire replied in a thick Romanian accent, meaning that Gilderoy's translation charm had worn off. "Very well, Englishman. I will speak in your tongue, and abide by your rules. Despite my superior strength, agility, and these." It tapped its fangs with humour in its glinting eyes. "I could kill you in seconds and you wouldn't even be able to blink."

"First of all, that made no sense," Gilderoy replied, relaxing a little. If the vampire was going to talk to him, maybe he shouldn't have been so worried. "Second of all. I hope you enjoy this."

The vampire looked confused for several moments, especially when Gilderoy cleared his throat and began to sing.

"My name is Gilderoyyyyyy, and I am a wizaaaarrrrrd. I like soup for lunch and salmon for dinner, and everything is better with cheese on top." The vampire was shaking its head in horror, and so Gilderoy assumed that it was working. With this in mind, he started to dance, first shaking his legs out, then wobbling his arms as though he was caught in the wind. "Eat a banana, eat, eat banana, peel banana, peel, peel banana. And now - DENTAL REDUCTO!"

Except, the spell bounced off the vampire's chest, who appeared to be laughing.

"You were right, I enjoyed that very much. But, now, you will die, Clown -"

"Endendium inchiomas suspende!"

The voice came from nowhere, female and commanding. It was a spell Gilderoy had never heard of, but it sounded powerful. A woman dropped from the sky, feet from the vampire. It was laughing still, and then, very suddenly, it wasn't. It was frozen, as it trapped in some sort of time-bubble. The blood that had been dripping from its mouth halted, and its laughing face was halfway between mirth and total shock.

"Alright, Rookie, do you want to see how it's really done?" the woman asked Gilderoy, smirking at him. He didn't like that at all. "I mean, really, a made-up spell? And a dance? Clever trying to reduce his teeth, but you want to change the mind really. Watch and learn."

Gilderoy just stared at her in shock.

"Lettucin regademitis!" she said. In its spell, the vampire's face was slowly turning green. "Bond with your brethren, and you will all only eat lettuce! Inchantem finite!" She stopped to breathe. "And that's how it's done, kiddo. So, just you run-on back to mummy now and I'll sort this mess out."

"I think not," Gilderoy said, totally affronted, an idea forming. "Change the mind, right? I'll take your advice and do you one better. I have an excellent memory. Sadly, you will not. Obliviate!"

The memories faded from her in an instant. There was no one around, which meant that Gilderoy Lockhart could be the saviour that he was meant to be. He would write novels about this, and he would save other places and write novels about those instances too. For this first one, he would call it Voyaging with Vampires.

Perfect.

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Thanks for reading!