Title: The Gospel, according to Gilderoy Lockhart. Or, The Hogwarts Gazette

Chapter: Five: 101 Days of Randomness
Rating: M

Synopsis: Prequel to 'The Meaning of Life at Hogwarts (or The Hogwarts School Band)': This takes place during Harry's second year at Hogwarts, during the time of Gilderoy Lockhart. To assist his already over-inflated ego Lockhart suggests that the students put together their own paper – 'The Hogwarts Gazette'. Unfortunately, Severus Snape ends up on the wrong end of Hermione Granger's pen.
Original Character(s): Alistor Daker, a sadistic coffee-pot and an army of caterpillars

Legal: All the characters (besides those mentioned in the above) are the creation of the wonderful JK Rowling, this story has been written because I was bored and had nothing more exciting to do. This isn't for profit.

Authors Note: If you get the reference in the title and you're under eighteen – shame on you! If you get the reference and over eighteen – ooh, matron. Do you think it's strange that my spell check accepted 'Salazar' without questioning it? The word of the day is affenpinscher and the musical of the week is Sherlock Holmes: the Musical

101 Days of Randomness

The events of October 31st were discussed at every possible moment, during breaks, in classes and in the dormitories. It hadn't exactly escaped the staff attention; they were being badgered about the Chamber of Secrets constantly. Privately though, Madam Pince was very happy – people were using the library as a library and every single one copy of 'Hogwarts a History' had been taken out.

Professor Binns was muttering darkly about how people were only interested in myth and not stone-cold historical fact. He was in a bad mood. Apparently a student had asked a question during his second year History of Magic class.

"Will you stop complaining!" Snape snapped, "you should be glad that students are using the appropriate lesson to ask questions!" (He had been asked constant questions by his classes today.)

"It's hardly appropriate! I teach History of Magic, not mythology!" Came the equally angry reply.

"Myths have their basis in history. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table heading off an quest to find the Holy Grail is a myth based on historical truth."

"Don't try to lecture me, young Smith!"

"Snape."

"Whatever!" With that Professor Binns disappeared through the staff room wall.

Professor Lockhart (who had been listening to this conversation) sat down next to Snape, who groaned inwardly. Thankfully Lockhart had been wisely avoiding him for the past few weeks, after words had been exchanged in his office.

"What exactly is the Chamber of Secrets?" He asked in a low voice.

"Why are you whispering?" Snape asked, "afraid someone might overhear and see what a complete fool you are?"

"No, of course not! I was making sure we weren't overheard by one who isn't to by privy to the information."

"Do you ever listen to yourself when you talk?" Lockhart turned crimson; Snape caught McGonagall's disproving eye and sighed. "The legend goes that Salazar Slytherin built a secret chamber somewhere within the school. According to legend a creature of some-sorts is supposed to in this chamber."

"Oh how marvellous! What is this creature supposed to do?"

Snape shrugged, "who knows? Slytherin supposedly sealed the chamber, so that it could only be opened when his true heir arrived at Hogwarts."

"Has anyone thought of looking for this chamber?"

"Yes, and nothing has ever been found."

"So…that message…"

"Is neither here nor there, now piss off I'm busy."

Lockhart made as if to say something, but catching Snape's eye he decided against it and sauntered out of the staff room.

McGonagall looked over at him; "you certainly know your Hogwarts history, Severus."

"I'm a closet bookworm." He shrugged. "And you certainly can't be Head of Slytherin without knowing your history."

She laughed, "no you certainly can't."

The obscure invasion of paper eating caterpillars was slowly getting worse. After Professor Sprout had denied all knowledge of the creatures the blame had fallen to Professor Kettleburn. As far as he was are there were no such things as paper eating caterpillars, but the world was changing and so perhaps caterpillars had evolved to eat paper. It would make sense he mused.

Sadly though he was also being made to round the buggers up before they got into the library. He carefully baited the trap with a few pages of an old book he had found in the back of his wardrobe. It wasn't his book, and probably belonged to a previous teacher.

He wasn't exactly sure how one would go about capturing caterpillars, but hopefully this would work. He stood back to admire his handy work – miniature mousetraps!

Professor Snape had drawn the short straw again. Supervising prep. He hated spending his free time ensuring that people did their homework, he didn't mind so much when he was supervising the House prep, but this really was taking the piss.

"Sir, how do you spell celestial?"

"C-E-L-E-S-T-I-A-L."

"Ah, Professor." Dumbledore looked up as Professor Kettleburn entered his office. "Do sit down." Kettleburn sat down. "What can I help with?"

"I expressed my wish to retire at the end of this year, and I was wondering if you had found a suitable replacement. I would very much like to meet with them."

"Ah. Yes." He searched through several piles of paper. "At the moment there has been very little response to the advert I placed in the Daily Prophet."

"…Oh."

"I have however been in touch with Whilemnia Grubby-Plank, she said she would be delighted to cover until I find a permanent replacement."

"You can't have a supply teacher!"

"I'm sorry, but there seem to be very few people willing to teach the subject."

"What about the other schools? Surely someone there fancies the challenge."

"We are only one of four schools in Europe that teach this scheme."

"Can't you switch schemes?"

"I did suggest to the school board that we changed, but they feel that our current scheme is right for the school. Don't worry, I'm sure a suitable replacement will be found by the end of the year."

"Good. I have no intention of handing over my classes to a supply teacher."

"Professor Grubby-Plank is well-respected…"

Kettleburn waved his hand, "just because the woman wrote the book on Dragons, doesn't mean she is suitable to teach my classes."

"She has taught here before."

"When she loses a limb, I may start to take her seriously, but really Albus…"

The coffee pot gurgled and Lockhart instinctively took a step back. It didn't seem to like him very much; the other teachers actually (occasionally) managed to get coffee out of the thing! All he could manage was a foul smelling concoction potent enough to strip the paint off the walls.

"Perhaps you should switch to tea, Gilderoy." McGonagall wrinkled her nose at the smell wafting across the staff room.

"I just don't understand it…" He poked his wand at the mixture. It exploded.

"Goodness!" McGonagall visibly jumped. "Leave it alone and make a cup of tea!"

He sighed and turned his attentions to the teapot. It growled at him. "Perhaps I best not. After all, I do have to be careful what toxins I put in my body."

"Do people frequently poison you?" Snape muttered darkly.

"I don't know what you mean." Lockhart snorted and sat down at the table. "Oh, splendid a jigsaw!"

"Providing you're not as terrible as Severus, you can join in." Sinistra grinned.

"I am not terrible!" Snape replied somewhat hotly.

"Severus, we spent an entire afternoon putting the sky right." McGonagall looked over her glasses at him, "I would have thought you would have noticed that trees don't tend to be in the sky."

"The pieces fitted!"

"The picture didn't."

"What is the picture?" Lockhart leaned over the table for the box lid. It was blank.

"We won't find out until it's complete. Since we seem to have trees, I'm guessing a mountain scene."

"It was a mountain scene last time." Sinistra replied, fitting two pieces together. "I'm still holding out for a group of naked firemen."

"Has…er, anything like that happened before?" Lockhart seemed intrigued.

"No." She replied sadly. "Severus has a rude jigsaw, but he won't bring it with him."

"Really? And what is the picture?"

"You seem particularly interested." Snape observed, "are you queer, Lockhart?"

"Certainly not!" He replied (a little too quickly).

"There's no shame in it."

"I'm not queer!"

"Of course not."

"Are you looking forward to the Quidditch season?" Lockhart quickly changed the subject. "I was asked to play at National level in my day, but I turned it down to pursue my dream of eradicating the world of Dark Forces."

"So you've said before." McGonagall fitted a few more pieces into the puzzle.

"I believe that Gryffindor is the Quidditch Cup holder."

"We are."

"So, hoping to hold on to it this year?"

"Certainly. What do you think, Severus, are your Slytherin's up to the challenge?"

"They won't go down without a challenge." He replied. "Draco Malfoy has bought himself onto the team this year, but to be fair he is a particularly good flyer."

"I heard about that."

Snape shrugged, "what can you do?"

After the bone-banishing incident during the Gryffindor vs Slytherin game, Lockhart was keeping his head down. Madam Pomfrey had already had a loud discussion with him about his unauthorised use of healing spells. He hadn't really done that much wrong, the bones weren't broken anymore.

Madam Pomfrey had practically chased Lockhart down the corridor. For some reason, no one had come to his assistance. He hid in his office, slamming the door behind him. He caught the eye of one of his portraits; "don't you start!"

Midnight arrived and Professor Albus Dumbledore was knocking on the door of Professor Minerva McGonagall's private quarters. If this was unusual none of the ghosts seemed to think so, each one who floated past gave the ageing headmaster a wink, as did a wise caterpillar, as it carefully extracted the paper from a trap placed in a darkened corner.

"Yes?" McGonagall asked sleepily opening the door. "Albus!" She exclaimed seeing the headmaster standing outside with a grin on his face.

"May I come in?" He asked

"Of…of course." She stepped back to let him in, pausing to check the corridor before she closed the door behind them. She turned to him. He held up a bottle of wine as if this was a good enough answer to be sitting in a woman's bedroom at midnight. She sighed. "Albus, we can't keep doing this."

"I think it's romantic. Clandestine meetings in hotel rooms, midnight visits."

"We're both married…"

"To the wrong people." He finished. "Now please don't tell me I have to drink this all by myself?"

McGonagall sighed. "Since you're here…"

"Good." Dumbledore embraced her. "Maybe we should run away together."

"Who would look after the school?"

"Ah. Perhaps we should run away together and then come back."

"That defeats the point of eloping."

"Such a pain!"

They slowly danced around the room together to music only they could hear. The 'affair' had been going on for thirty-six years now, ever since McGonagall had taken his place as Transfiguration teacher in 1957. Technically, Dumbledore hadn't been at the school at the time he had been 'away', but that hadn't stopped them seeing each other during holidays; when had had come back to the school in 1960, he had returned not as the Transfiguration teacher, but as Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. Dippet had thought that Dumbledore had been the ideal candidate, after his three-year sabbatical facing all-sorts of Dark Forces. Their affair had continued, despite less than ideal situations.

There was a loud BANG! From outside the room.

"What was that?" McGonagall turned to Dumbledore.

"Stay here." He replied, taking out his wand.

He opened the door carefully and stepped slowly out, holding his wand in front of him. Looking around he couldn't see anything, nothing except a statue lying on the floor next to a bag of grapes. Wait…

"Minerva!" She hurried out. "We have to get him to the hospital wing."

"What if someone asks what you…"

"I was going for hot chocolate."

The teachers sat round in the candle-lit staff room. Albus Dumbledore had announced that he believed the Chamber of Secrets was indeed open again, and that they all needed to be extra-cautious until it the culprit apprehended. Needless to say, the atmosphere was somewhat depleted.

"So, what's actually in the Chamber of Secrets?" Professor Sprout asked, slotting a piece of the jigsaw puzzle into place.

"No one knows." McGonagall replied, putting the piece that Sprout had just put in, in another place.

"I think we should mount a search! I'm sure I could locate this Chamber, and remove the threat before anyone else dies." Lockhart announced.

"No one has died!"

"Yet." Snape replied quietly.

"Be quiet, Severus. Gilderoy, searching the school would be an impossible task. It's been done hundreds of times before, and it was done fifty years when…this happened. No one found anything then." McGonagall continued.

"What do we do in the meantime?" Sprout asked.

McGonagall shrugged, "keep our eyes open."

"I don't mean to boast, but I have been involved in hundreds of situations like this and I perhaps it is best if I began search. After all, parents and students will want to be reassured and knowing that I'm here, on hand doing my bit will no doubt reassure them." All eyes turned to Lockhart. "See my published work for further detail."

"You can shove your published work…"

"Severus!"

"I'm sorry." (He wasn't). "Professor McGonagall, this…creature…"

"Let's not talk about it anymore." Sinistra cleared her throat, "so, Severus what are you doing for your birthday?"

"Oh a birthday, how wonderful! When is it?" Lockhart clapped his hands in delight.

"None of your business, Lockhart. Annie, I'll talk to you later." He did have plans, but he would rather Lockhart was privy to them.

They continued their jigsaw in silence for another hour, before Lockhart broke the silence.

"You know, I was thinking about writing a teaching manual."

"A teaching manual?" McGonagall looked disapprovingly at him. "And what would you put in this…teaching manual?"

"Oh I don't know. Use my personal experience to offer advice to those planning on a career as a teacher."

"You've only been here two months!"

"You can learn an awful lot in two months. For instance, in two months I was on top of every best seller list in Europe!" They had heard this story far too many times.

"Severus is a published writer." Sinistra commented, taking a sip of her tea.

"Really! Well, you certainly have been keeping secrets. Perhaps we should get together some time and discuss the writing world. I am always willing to impart knowledge on the less experienced."

Snape wanted to say 'I'd rather fuck a blender', but instead said: "No."

Lockhart continued to press the Potions Master for information. "So, what have you had published?"

"None of your business."

"He's been the associated writer on several Potions books, the consultant on several more, three poetry anthologies and a couple of murder mysteries." Sinistra finished for him, earning a look that clearly said 'grr'.

"Oh marvellous! Anything that I'm likely to know?"

"You know those Angus Cavandish murder mysteries on radio?" McGonagall asked.

"Oh rather, awfully good aren't they? Almost equal to mine." He grinned, "…except of course, mine aren't fictional." He added hurriedly. "Written anonymously, I believe."

"You're sitting across from the author."

Lockhart almost did a double take; the Angus Cavandish radio-mysteries were on the world wide best seller lists. He was secretly jealous; so far he had only been able to sell in Europe he hadn't managed to crack the American market.

"Extraordinary! I've always fancied writing something fictional. The challenge of creating my own characters, plots…When do you find the time to write them?"

Snape offered his case of cigarettes round, only Sprout took one, "actually," he lit his cigarette, "I wrote them when I was about sixteen."

"Sixteen? Good lord, it's taken you a while in getting published! My first book was published three weeks after I sent off the manuscript! I must introduce you to my agent."

"I never intended to publish them. A certain someone, who shall remain nameless," he glared at Professor Sinistra, "sent the manuscripts to a publisher without my knowledge."

"You shouldn't have shown me them!" Sinistra grinned at the others. "You agreed at the time, and before you say anything a drunken agreement is still an agreement."

"Only if the person can remember it."

She stuck out her tongue, "screw me."

"Now, now ladies." McGonagall intervened. "Since we don't seem to be getting anywhere with this jigsaw, perhaps we should play cards."

"Stip Poker!" Sprout yelled.

"Oh, no I possibly couldn't." Lockhart smiled, "after all, I don't want to make Severus jealous."

"Why would I be jealous of you?" Snape asked.

"Oh, well you know…" He stuck out his chest in a way that said 'look at my sexy body'.

Snape snorted, "oh please."

"Let's not get too adventurous, Pomona." McGonagall said. She certainly didn't want to see Gilderoy Lockhart naked…or Severus Snape for that matter. "How about we play a simple game of pontoon?"

They began to play in silence, which from previous experience they knew wouldn't last very long. Also from previous experience it was somewhat obvious who was going to break the silence…the coffee pot was beginning to wish it had put money on it.

"You know," Lockhart started, "since we have two accomplished writers on staff, and the mood around the school is a little…depleted, how about we start a school newspaper?"

"A newspaper?" McGonagall looked at him, "and who would do this newspaper?"

"The pupils."

This was perhaps the first sensible suggestion Lockhart had made his entire life, not that he was aware of this fact.

"That's actually not a bad idea." Sprout mused. "Although, I think it would be very difficult for us to find the time to…"

"Ah, but the beauty of the situation is that we won't be involved!" He beamed, "well, only at an elementary level, such as interviewees and the such like. Let them run it themselves."

"I don't think it's a good idea." Snape lit another cigarette. "Things would get out of hand."

"I don't think so, I think if only the mature students were in charge then it wouldn't be a problem." McGonagall replied.

"Key word, 'mature'."

"There are quite a few, Severus. Not really in the younger years, more the older lot."

"I think some of the older years are less-mature than the first years." Sinistra commented.

"I agree." Sprout added. "It is a good idea, but like Severus said, things would get out of hand if we let the pupils have sole control."

"I would gladly volunteer to oversee the paper…"

"I think you're the last person I'd want working on a newspaper, Lockhart." Snape muttered.

Lockhart sighed, "well if you don't want to hear my suggestions…"

"We don't."

"I was going to ask you to assist at the Duelling Club…"

"What Duelling Club?" He asked, suspicious.

"Oh, has Albus not told you? He has graciously agreed to allow me to set up a little Duelling Club; teach the pupils how to defend themselves, in case of attack."

"I think it would be a very good idea for Severus to be involved." McGonagall looked at him with a somewhat desperate look, who knew the havoc Lockhart would cause if let to his own devices. Imagine the damage!

"Do I have much choice in the matter?"

Tune in next time for the launch of the Hogwarts Gazette!