Chapter Text
When Gilderoy Lockhart woke up, it was with a splitting headache. He had had too much Firewhisky, that's for sure, but who was he to refuse to toast his fans? Holding a book sale in Hogsmeade had been a good idea — so many shiny galleons had clinked their way into his purse. But oh, the headache.
Our hero rubbed his eyelids and risked a look at his room. His bed felt more feathery than usual. He wondered if the house elves had done something to it. The room itself was still a bit dark; a lazy light barely crept through closed curtains, falling strangely over an array of chests and what seemed to be a suit of armour. Gilderoy Lockhart groaned. This wasn't his room in Hogwarts — nor his room in his own home — and a great grin stretched his handsome face: obviously, he had seduced someone and ended up in their bed. The fact that he didn't remember it left him unfazed. To better be safe than sorry, he tousled his blond hair and stretched in a way studied to show off his chiseled chest before asking in a seductive drawl: "Well well well, darling, how did you spend the night?"
No one, however, answered. The room was quite silent; birdsong crept through the window, and Lockhart thought he could hear a metallic, rhythmic sound in the distance, but he was alone. Careful exploration of the other side of the bed confirmed it. Drats.
With another groan, Lockhart propped himself upright. The headache seemed to recede. He was naked — as was to be expected in these circumstances — but he felt strange, and the hangover wasn't the only reason for it. What exactly was the problem, however, eluded Gilderoy Lockhart at the moment. He had no fear of having underperformed (he always held unto a very specific potion just in case), no. But he really wondered where he was.
The stone floor was cold on his feet. A very beautiful floor it was: tiles of marble, of several colours, arranged in decorative patterns. Our hero tiptoed to the window and opened the curtains wide. Sunlight poured it. Gilderoy Lockhart's jaw dropped.
No, he wasn't in Hogwarts anymore. He wasn't even sure that he was in England anymore. Scratch that, there was no place like that one on planet Earth. Blue skies — startlingly blue, bluer than the idea of blue. Tall white mountains in the distance, that could have been the Alps, but were not. Had Gilderoy Lockhart studied Muggle philosophy, he would have said they were the platonic ideal of Mountains, shapely and elegant like a bas—relief carving on the wall of a forgotten king's tomb. But Gilderoy Lockhart was an ignorant fool (albeit an ambitious one), and he just knew that these were, indeed, Mountains with a capital M. Yet the scenery wasn't the most striking thing he saw: the city was.
Beyond a courtyard planted with green trees and rosebushes — it had been winter, dammit, roses shouldn't be in flower, and the air shouldn't smell so sweet — busy streets sprawled under Lockhart's gaze. It seemed to be midmorning; people walked around in a busy and cheerful way. Horses, too. And the buildings... The buildings were, once again, like nothing Gilderoy Lockhart had ever seen. More towers than in Hogwarts, but so, so, much more elegant too: slender and tall, blinding white, and narrow windows where colourful drapes flew in the breeze. Each house was a palace, a wonder of architecture and design that would have put even Venice to shame. Lockhart shivered; the air was colder than it should have been, he told himself, and he left the window to look for his clothes.
He didn't find them, so he had to settle for a set of green velvet robes fished from a hanging closet. Despite their embroidered collar, they were much drabber than what he was used to, but they were less intimidating than the rest of the stuff that hanged there: a mix of courtly clothes of precious silk embroidered with gems, and sturdy working gear of coarse linen and leather (quite worn out, too). He didn't find his wand either, and that worried him. He never misplaced it. Nine inches of cherry wood with a dragon heartstring core, and he'd had it for years — pretty, expensive, and powerful, he had bought it on credit before he was famous, on the gamble that the wand makes the wizard. Unfortunately, he had been wrong — but the wand still performed flawless Memory Charms of all kinds.
Shoes he found in one of the unlocked chests, and he settled for some kind of slippers that matched the velvet robes. They fit him, well, like slippers, and although a small corner of his mind registered that fact as odd, he didn't stop to dwell upon it. Gilderoy Lockhart wasn't the musing kind. He was also hungry, and thirsty, and surmised that going exploring was in order.
*
The bedroom opened in a lovely antechamber, from which Lockhart walked into a living room of some kind. It was large and airy; an eclectic array of seats and tables stood around it, ready to receive, it seemed, many friends to laugh and celebrate with. Gilderoy Lockhart was in the process of examining the wall paintings — elaborate affairs that were a mix of geometrical patterns and flowing floral lines — when someone entered the room, startling him by their sudden appearance. He had barely time to compose himself that the person spoke, and he felt once more his jaw drop.
First, they were startlingly beautiful. He had a hard time at first assigning them a gender, but rather bent to male: willowy and strong, tall, with long black hair bound in elaborate braids. But his (yes, his, Gilderoy was nearly sure of it now) eyes were — they shone. Grey like a summer night sky filled with stars, grey like a shimmering lake under the sun — grey like wisdom and grief, the man's gaze was transfixing. And his voice! Fair and clear, his voice was like a song, so that Gilderoy didn't notice right away that the man spoke in a language that he knew not. But as words poured into his ear, he felt a strange grammar fill up his head. New words, new idioms, new accents — he wondered if he was having a sort of reverse stroke. Perhaps he should go to St Mungo. Perhaps he had suddenly become panlingual.
"My lord", said the man, "are you listening?"
Lord, huh? Well, our hero wasn't above a little roleplay, particularly with one so handsome, so he put his hands upon his hips in a commanding manner and said, the strange words uneasy in his mouth: "Pardon me, I was distracted. You were saying?”
“The lady Galadriel called upon you earlier this morning, shortly followed by the lord Annatar. Since you had given orders not to be awoken on any account, I merely drove them off.”
Ha. A lady and a lord. Why not both? Nobility recognizes talent, it was said; although Lockhart didn’t buy into the Pureblood ideology, the patronage of the mighty held some appeal. There was only a hitch: no witch or wizard of, shall we say, acceptable reputation styled themselves so. Gilderoy Lockhart was quite keen to avoid any and all association with the Dark Lord’s minions — very bad for book sales, except in that small subset of society that anyway wouldn’t enjoy stories about defeating Cornish pixies, the Kelpie, or some barely known Kenyan lion monster. He had build his brand on a heroic approach, not a “let’s become buddies with dark creatures” one, so he said: “Good. Excellent. What do you think they wanted with me?”
A strange smile played on the handsome man’s lips, and he answered: “The usual, I should think: to try and persuade you that the other one is up to no good.”
Dangerous ground, that. Still, it wasn’t the priority, so Lockhart filed the information in the part of his brain specialized in social trivia (it was quite an extensive one). So he fluttered to the man and, putting his hand upon his shoulder in a way that could be acceptable both for a lover and a friendly underling, asked: “Would you mind to tell me, dear, if anything special happened last night? I awoke with the worst headache after the Hogsmeade thing.”
“I dare say you probably had too much mead indeed, my lord,” laughed the man. “Whether from a hog or a bottle; the Dwarves craft powerful drinks. It’s little surprising that you should feel off today — you’re not used to that kind of stuff, if I may.”
Dwarves? What had small people to do with that? Gilderoy Lockhart didn’t remember the Hogsmeade bartenders as being particularly diminutive. It didn’t make sense. And that language! So fit for puns of all kinds, supple and inventive. He could double his sales if he could write into that. The innuendos he’d be able to fit! Anyway, the longer it went, and the less likely it appeared the man had been his one-night-stand; he felt more like a secretary at work than someone having suffered the throes of love.
“You’re right, healthy lifestyle and all,” laughed Gilderoy. “That was a one off. Say, you wouldn’t have found a wand, would you?”
“A wand? Of what kind? Where would it be?”
“Cherry wood. Nine inches of it. Extremely beautiful grain. And I don’t know where it is, that’s the whole point of my question!”
The man frowned, thinking, as his eyes wandered around in the trained reaction of someone whose charge (either particularly messy children, enthusiastic inventors, or fifty-year-old heterosexual human males) was prone to misplace important things and rely on others to find them again. He remembered no particular wand of wood of any kind; trying to be helpful, he suggested: “Perhaps you could head to the workshops of the Guild. They do store wood there, if only to craft handles and hilts.”
“Excellent,” beamed Gilderoy Lockhart. “Let’s go there together, shall we?”
“In your nightgown, my lord?”
Without losing a beat, our hero (who by now was feeling quite out of his depth and decided to navigate by feel), retorted: “Why don’t you help me chose something more appropriate then?”
Soon enough, Gilderoy Lockhart therefore found himself walking in the strange streets of this strange city, clothed in fine silk of many colours, waving an absolutely fantastic cape around — it was fastened with a clasp of gold set with purple gems and was perhaps the most elegant dandy Gilderoy had ever worn. He had shot down two or three suggestions before settling on that one, and he didn’t regret it at all. Getting the secretary to drive him through the streets was a hurdle, though: for some reason, he always tried to walk a step or two behind Gilderoy Lockhart. Finally, Gilderoy snapped at him to go first in order to warn people at that Guild that he was coming; the man darted away, and Gilderoy only had to follow his trail. Many people saluted him along the way, or tried to stop him and have a chat. It took all of Lockhart’s use of handling fame to get rid of them fast enough to avoid loosing sight of the man’s silhouette.
All of these, he noticed, shared the same fair features — it wasn’t a family air, but something more akin to an ethnic type. Gilderoy Lockhart wondered if they were all part Veela. Whatever the reason behind their wonderfully slender faces (one might have even said elfin, as those Muggle writers who’ve never seen a house elf say), Lockhart all filed them in the “potential fans” category. It was also quite extensive, and his excellent memory allowed him to quickly place again even the most casual acquaintances.
After a comparatively short walk, Gilderoy saw the man stride into a very impressive compound made of sprawling low buildings. The metallic clang he had heard earlier was stronger now, its source quite nearby, and was accompanied by many other sounds, that all displayed the signs of a considerable workshop indeed. As our hero passed under a great arch adorned with an eight-pointed star, two guards (they had to be guards, but why the shining armour? Was criminality so bad in these parts?) saluted him. He answered with one of his flashing smiles and little hand waves, and they shouted: “All hail the lord Celebrimbor!”
The lord what? They called him lord? No, he was plain Gilderoy Lockhart — well, handsome Gilderoy Lockhart. Another stroke-like sensation was back, but this time it was a more familiar one: Lockhart’s mind was rattling through the gears, putting the pieces together. The strange secretary who called him lord and wasn’t into roleplay but into business. The rich clothes, richer than he had ever seen. The respect he’d seen in people’s eyes in the streets.
Well, of course: he was a lord. Or, rather, these people believed him to be, which amounted to pretty much the same thing — more precisely, they obviously thought him to be this lord Celesomething. Merlin’s beard, how had it happened? Was he a long lost twin, separated at birth? Gilderoy was pretty sure that he was an only child, but reason screamed for a rational explanation. It howled, even, and rolled itself on the ground tearing at its metaphorical hair. Or could have he drank, unbeknownst to him, Polyjuice potion? Gilderoy hadn’t looked in a mirror since he awoke, but his hands were exactly the same as usual; he could even see the small hangnail that had pained him for the last two days. His buttocks felt the same, too, as well as his belly and ears. No, it wasn’t Polyjuice. And even if it had been the case, how had he gotten there? Apparated? Portkey? Plain old abduction? But where was the kidnapper then? None of this made a shred of sense.
Still, thought our hero, calming his frantic reason down, it could be worse. He knew how to be a celebrity. A lord couldn’t be that different. He’d play along for now, until some sort of sanity came back into the world. If there was something Gilderoy Lockhart was good at, it was impersonating clever and bold people — after all, he wanted to be one. He just didn’t want to put that much work into it.
*
Wand. Finding his wand had to be his priority. Or any wand. Gilderoy Lockhart mind’s was reeling again as he watched the people assembled before him. How many of them were they, Gilderoy asked himself before counting. Twelve was the answer. Twelve strangely handsome people who stood in front of him, with the harried air of those used to unexpected summons. Mister Secretary (as he had dubbed him) had retreated, leaving him alone. But back to business, thought our hero. I need a wand.
Before he could speak, however, one of the twelve asked: "Laicaril said something about you needing wood, lord?"
"Not any wood," he replied. "I am looking for a wand of cherry wood and dragon heartstring core. Nine inches."
The twelve exchanged worried glances. Damn but these people were hard to place.
"What for, my lord?"
"Why, but magic, of course," said Gilderoy Lockhart with his usual dazzling smile. Was the man an idiot? "What else would you use a wand for?"
"Directing music?" hazarded another who could probably be a woman.
Didn't anyone use wands in this place? This was infuriating — at least quite as much as having misplaced his beloved wand. And they certainly weren't Muggles; Gilderoy still thought they must all be part Veela. Feeling like he was talking to a toddler, Gilderoy Lockhart slowly said, the unfamiliar grammar flowing in his mouth: "Wands are to focus magic. Spells. Charms. Like a sort of lightning rod. I need one."
The woman gave him a puzzled look. "Isn't this what the rings we are making are for?"
"Rings," repeated Lockhart. "Who needs rings? Jewelry is nice and all, and I do love gold and stuff, but you can't do half the work of a wand with a ring. Forget everything about rings. Wands is where it's at."
A collective groan issued from twelve mouths, and not a few eyes rolled. Here he goes again, did they all seem to think. The first to have spoken exclaimed: "But we can't throw years of research down the drain! Years, my lord!"
Oops, sensitive subject. Time for a very swift course correction. With another charming smile and a wave of the hand, Gilderoy said: "Well, you can still research these on your own time, of course. I'm not forbidding anything. But I'm telling you — wands are what I'm interested in right now."
Whomever Gilderoy was impersonating, he must have been the kind to change projects every so often, because the man relaxed, even if he asked what Annatar would say. Annatar? Wasn’t that the name Mister Secretary had said earlier? Some strange corner of Gilderoy Lockhart's brain informed him that Annatar meant Lord of Gifts, and that Annie was, for some reason, an acceptable variant.
"Screw Annatar," he said, twirling around the room like a débutante at her first ball. Someone snickered quite audibly, and he wondered if — oh, yes, his brain told him, the double meaning existed too in this language. That was an interesting information. As long as he wasn't exactly sure who this lord Celewhatever was exactly, perhaps he'd better avoid this Annatar. A (former? current? wanabee?) lover (or boss?) would probably be harder to fool than a bunch of underlings.
“Screw Annatar," he repeated with a bright smirk and a wink. "And let's get cherry wood and dragon heartstring, shall we? Come on, chop chop, let's get to work!"
The twelve dispersed, mumbling. Audiences were all the same, and our hero was fairly confident that he had seduced that one. If he couldn't find his old wand, he'd just have to make another.
He decided to wander around in order to get his bearings. This soon turned in an inspection of several workshops — jewelry workshops and store rooms, if you can believe it! This place was absolutely brimming with treasure, and no one said anything when he pocketed a diadem and a diamond ring. The ones who opened their doors for him were even happy and proud of seeing him take their work, so he added an emerald ring on top. Green flattered his eye colour, and it did go extremely well with his purple cape.
He was eyeing a shining silver cup exposed under a series of archways along a cloister-like garden when someone caught up with him. Man, dark hair, tall, and another extremely beautiful face except that his expression would have curled milk.
"Tyelpe," he growled, "what the hell is this talk of dragon heart?"
This was the first time someone had addressed him with less that great deference, so this must be a friend or, at the very least, an equal. Scratch that, friend — he had used a nickname. So Gilderoy played dumb, asking what was wrong with dragon hearts.
"Everything," cried the man. "You asked the Guild for a dragon's heart. The Guild. Smiths. So of course they come to me, saying oh Halarova the lord Celebrimbor has asked for a dragon heart, please Halarova can you go kill one for us, and now it's my turn to ask what the hell is wrong with you because I am not going dragon hunting for you, Tyelpe! You want a dragon's heart, you kill it yourself! I'm not Turin bloody fucking Turambar!"
(Of course, Halarova didn't know that, in another timeline, he would indeed end up facing a dragon on his own, much later and for someone else, but this is not the point today1.)
Gilderoy tut-tutted, and put a familiar arm over the man's shoulders. Oh but he was muscular, that was lovely. "Come on, Halarova," he said. "I never asked for a whole dragon's heart, only for its heartstrings. And I'm sure you'll be more than up to the task."
Halarova blinked. "So you want me to ride all the way north, which will take about a month or more." The farther the people who really knew lord Thingythingbor the better, so yes, thought Gilderoy Lockhart, please please please ride all the way north. "Then find a dragon. Slay it. Open it up like I'm a butcher and not the captain of your guard. Get his heart, if I can find it in the mess that are a dragon's insides. Open it to get the heartstrings, whatever these are. Grab them, and ride home, which will take another month and that's if I haven't been burnt like a crisp in the meantime. And that's for another of your hare-brained projects that you'll probably abandon before I'm even back."
"Exactly," said Gilderoy, beaming. "It's not that difficult."
"No," flatly said Halarova. "Use something else." And he left, abandoning Gilderoy Lockhart with his hand hanging up in the air and not a few internal curses.
Before our hero could resume his tour of the extensive workshops of that Guild of smiths (if he had put the pieces together correctly), a tall woman with blond hair sprang upon him. She was, if that was possible, even more beautiful that all those he had seen before; her hair, in particular, was striking. It shone like living gold, but had deep copper undertones and silver reflections, and her braids made the most precious crown over her head. She lost no time and gave him a bone-breaking hug before squealing that she knew he had it in him and that she was so, so, proud of him. Gilderoy Lockhart returned the hug: she was extremely beautiful and it would be criminal to let such an occasion slip. Now that was a Veela to end all Veelas.
But it appeared the squeals were unusual, because the woman soon collected herself and retreated to a more dignified distance before saying, in a deep musical voice: "I am so very glad you have forsaken ringlore, Celebrimbor. Annatar was corrupting your heart and blinding your wisdom."
"Rings would not bring what I seek anyway," answered our hero, trying to mimic the Veela's noble poise. "I see now that I must find another way to harness magic." He was grasping at straws, really, but he needed to make sense of everything, and what better was for that than get people talking?
The Veela blinked. "Magic is the device of the Enemy," she said. "I tell you this, upon my name of Galadriel, nothing good can come of it.”
So that was the lady who had called upon him in the morning! Well, he could do worse. Much, much, worse.
"So much prejudice, my dear Galadriel," exclaimed Gilderoy Lockhart. "Wizards are not your enemies! Magic can be used for good, and I want to use it for good!" Really, he thought, non-humans could be as prejudiced against wizards as the worst elements of the Ministry for Magic were against them. Strange how ruthless oppression tends to do that to people. "Nay, I will use it for good, I swear! Cross my heart and hope to die!"
The idiom probably lost some meaning in literal translation, because Galadriel looked at Lockhart as if he was babbling nonsense. So he insisted: "As soon as I get myself a wand, you'll see the wonders I shall perform for you."
Wand, wand, but if he couldn't get a dragon heartstring, perhaps Veela hair could do? "I say, Galadriel, by the way, I will need something for my wand." And our hero slid closer to Galadriel, all but purring, so he could ask with puppy eyes if Galadriel would be kind enough to give him a single hair of hers to use for his wand. His hand hovered close to her braids, fingers ready to pluck at a them. But, fast as an adder, the Veela grabbed and twister his hand so hard it brought tears to his eyes; she didn't relax her grip and looked at him as if he was some disgusting Flobberworm and not his usual handsome self. So much for seduction. Gilderoy Lockhart whimpered.
"You're as demented as usual," she spat, and she left in a flurry of anger, her footsteps echoing hard through the halls.
The sun shone bright over the enclosed garden, and Gilderoy Lockhart crawled to a bench along the closest alley to nurse his hurting wrist. It was hopeless, he thought. Wandless magic was only possible for the most powerful wizards, and he was fairly self-aware of his abilities. Despite all he might claim in his books, he knew that he was, at best, average (except in Charms, where he was brilliant). He might just as well go buy another wand at Ollivander's — if Ollivander's existed in this weird universe full of Veela who didn't want to hunt dragons or give away their hair.
Without much conviction, our hero tried to Apparate to Diagon Alley. It didn't work.
The more he breathed this air, the more he saw this place, the longer he interacted with the locals, and the more Gilderoy somehow knew, deep down, by some instinct, that he was in another universe altogether — just like he knew sunlight was good and the ground was down. Some kind of hysterical energy had sustained Gilderoy Lockhart so far, but now it had run out, and he was feeling dejected. Hungry, too. But mostly dejected.
Just as our hero was wondering if his authority as lord Celethingor extended to loudly call for some brunch, the garden gravel crunched behind him — footsteps. Someone sat on the bench by his side, and it was Gilderoy Lockhart's turn to blink in disbelief. The sun was blinding, true, but in his shadow sat — someone — not a Veela — not a human — someone. Someone whose appearance spoke of grace and power, of limitless energy, of smoldering fire under porcelain-white skin and an abyss of knowledge behind calculating amber eyes. Someone whose every gesture was studied to display an aloof kindness combined to a strange affectation. There was something about that — that being — that creature with unnatural red hair that flowed like a river. There stood, Gilderoy Lockhart felt, a twin soul. Lockhart was a conman; he instinctively knew he had met a master of the trade. It took all his strength not to flinch before that smile full of hidden promises and that gaze full of tender disappointment as a honeyed voice said: "Tyelpe, what did I hear? Ringcraft doesn't interest you anymore? And you want to screw me?"
"Annatar," he murmured, and Annatar slid a warm finger under his chin to lift up his face.
"For that last part," added the creature, "that can easily be arranged. I despaired you would ever ask."
Think, think fast, Gilderoy, thought our hero. You're the lord here, but for some reason that one thinks he can boss you around. He thinks he can seduce you into doing anything, that much is obvious, but you don't want rings or whatever, you want a wand to make your way home and out of this madhouse. And that Annatar is dangerous; if his own gut instinct hadn't screamed it, the smiths' attitude and Galadriel's words would have been enough to convince him.
So, Gilderoy Lockhart did the only sensible thing: he kissed Annatar on the lips to shut him up.
"Ah," the entity sighed.
*
Meanwhile, in Hogwarts, a very confused Celebrimbor had awoken with an end-of-the-world migraine. He peered over a comfortable duvet and was horrified to see moving pictures of his face plastered upon the walls with the words GILDEROY LOCKHART: WIZARD OF THE YEAR written underneath in a strange language that, for some reason, he understood like his own.
- You can read the whole heroic thing here. The story is long (very) and still ongoing, so I'll also point you to the chapter where Halarova suffers a lot, because I'm a sadistic bitch who loves to make characters fight dragons alongside characters not exactly trustworthy. You can also read the one just before, because it sets the characters and the scene, but I pity the lazy among my readers.