With a pack on my back, the seagulls are already calling me!
I'm setting off on my journey, Mum—I'm about to hoist the sails and sail away!
I'll battle monsters in the treacherous seas, and I'll step foot on a new land bursting with flowers!
I'll fight on, bloodied and bruised, fearless in the face of danger!
My dearest Mum,
Please believe me—I'll return with riches, and I'll place the most beautiful crown in the world on your head!
Because that glory belongs to you alone!
Not…
Not to me!
…
Gilderoy Lockhart grew up bathed in praise. His mother always told him how special he was, fostering a confidence and pride most people could hardly imagine.
That pride was so intense that he wouldn't even glance at jewels or money dropped on the ground.
Not out of high morals, but pride.
Pride wouldn't allow him to stoop so low.
Yet, in the end, he became a thief—the most despicable kind of thief.
All to keep feeding that pride.
How pitiful. How laughable.
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Lockhart wasn't happy, despite winning Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award multiple times.
Through his carefully built connections, he once met a witch known as "the most vigilant witch in the American Magical Congress." She was an old forest witch living a simple life in Manhattan. Her hair was streaked with gray, and after countless years living among Muggles and wizards alike, she still had that peculiar, twitchy energy so common among pure-blood wizards. In a hushed, mysterious tone, she told him, "Child, if you can't find joy in magic, you might lose yourself completely."
How absurd, Lockhart thought, sneering inwardly. No joy, no self? Ridiculous.
But for some reason, her words haunted him, creeping into his mind in the dead of night.
Life goes on, though. He had to make peace with himself, with his pride.
And he did.
The pain faded.
He started basking in others' praise, chasing every crown and accolade he could get his hands on. There was no turning back now.
All the dark things he'd done in the past had become a monstrous beast, chasing him, gnawing at his heels. If he slowed down even for a moment, it would swallow him whole.
So, enjoy it all! That way, even if destruction came, he'd be happy until the end.
The forest witch was right—he needed to find joy.
And he did find joy in magic. The moment he effortlessly stripped the memories from a wizard so powerful others feared him, a rush of unprecedented achievement filled his soul with delight.
Then he heard another perspective, this time from an old wizard—an expert in Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Rumor had it this wizard once knew Dumbledore, had even been close to him. During an interview, the old wizard said, "Using dark magic doesn't make you a dark wizard, just as avoiding dark magic doesn't mean you're not one."
He explained that when a wizard falls to darkness, the clearest sign is that their ability to steal magic's power comes at a cost—they're slowly consumed by magic itself.
Like the old legends said: a wizard trades their soul to a demon for power.
Not every wizard can become a ghost or pass into the world of spirits. A fallen dark wizard's soul is devoured by magic, leaving nothing behind—not even a trace.
Lockhart lost it. He flipped the small tea table between them, yanked out his wand, and, in the old wizard's stunned expression, frantically cast the Memory Charm.
He thought the wizard had seen through him, was mocking him.
But when he probed the old wizard's memories, he realized the man meant something else entirely: resisting such a curse could fuse magic into your soul, even your bloodline. That might be the origin of pure-blood wizards.
What an intriguing idea. Think about it—the Dumbledore family, each member with a powerful phoenix by their side. The Slytherin bloodline, every heir a Parselmouth, effortlessly commanding serpents.
If his Memory Charm could become a bloodline trait, passed down through generations…
That would be the greatest glory his mother could ever dream of—she'd be the mother of the "first-generation Lockhart pure-blood family."
Merlin's beard, what a thrill! What a dazzling future!
Greedy now, Lockhart had no reason to stop.
He had to become part of an elite wizarding family!
Even if the old wizard's theory was just a wild guess, Lockhart chose to believe it.
He went mad stealing memories, churning out books to rake in more fame. He wormed his way into high society, even joined the Anti-Dark Magic League, earning the title of honorary member.
More!
He wouldn't stop. Another crown fell into his hands—the Order of Merlin, Third Class!
He'd broken into the most ancient wizarding organization of all, the Order of Merlin.
What else could he conquer?
He craved more glory.
Then Dumbledore came knocking, offering him a job at Hogwarts as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor—Harry Potter's teacher, no less.
Yes, the Anti-Dark Magic League was impressive, and the Order of Merlin was ancient, but in this day and age, the heart of the wizarding world was its schools.
He accepted.
But what followed was like a nightmare. It was as if he'd been cursed. All the glory he'd amassed teetered on the edge of collapse.
No, it wasn't just him—the whole school seemed cursed.
The Chamber of Secrets was opened. Students were attacked. The wizarding world buzzed with heated debates.
Then Hagrid was hauled off by the Ministry for questioning. Dumbledore was sacked by the Board of Governors. The school faced the real threat of closing its doors forever.
And then…
Every professor unanimously agreed that he, Gilderoy Lockhart, should live up to his boasts and face the Chamber's monster alone—a beast even Dumbledore couldn't figure out.
Was this a joke? He wasn't that foolish.
Run!
Time to get out of here!
But the blasted Boy Who Lived caught him, forced him at wandpoint to face the monster.
Fine. If he had to face it, so be it—Harry Potter had a wand to his back.
They found the Chamber of Secrets with surprising ease.
No escape, no way out.
No path left behind him.
So…
It was time to prove himself!
With all the wisdom he'd gathered, he had to be powerful!
Lockhart stepped boldly in front of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, flashing his wand with confidence at the massive snake slithering from the shadows.
"For my glory! For everything!"
"*Evanesco Ascendere!*"
The spell worked like a charm!
Even a beast as mighty as the Basilisk was hurled into the air, crashing against the Chamber's ceiling with a boom that shook the entire room.
But it seemed he'd thoroughly enraged the monster.
The snake's massive jaws lunged at him.
Terror widened his eyes as he heard the young wizards scream, staring into the Basilisk's enormous green slit-pupils.
Then…
A bone-chilling cold surged through him, seeping into his very marrow. His body stiffened.
Thud!
He heard his body hit the ground. Disbelieving, he looked back at his corpse, then down at his pale, translucent hands.
"I…"
"I'm dead?"
The world went dark. Everything seemed to fade away, leaving only his cold, ghostly form and the body on the ground.
In that moment, he understood: When your virtue doesn't match the glory you've stolen, it only brings disaster.
Everything he'd taken, everything that was never truly his, had always been an illusion—a fleeting, misty dream.
"No, you're wrong!"
His corpse suddenly spoke.
It stood up, morphing into his likeness, flashing that perfect, dazzling smile. "I just borrowed a bit of your memory to play a part in this fairy-tale book. I lived your life, died as you—simple as that."
The corpse waved its wand, and silvery threads of memory drifted out.
Lockhart knew this scene all too well. It was his spell, his theft of memories—and now, he was the one being robbed.
The irony.
Soon, Lockhart stopped thinking.
His memories were stripped away entirely.
It was as if he'd never existed—as if his entire life had been an anomaly, a glitch in reality. Once his memories were gone, he vanished completely from the world.
"Just one more step…"
The "corpse" tucked the memories back into its mind, fingers tracing the wand thoughtfully, hesitating.
Voldemort's killing curse carried a double edge: the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position and the curse tied to knowing his secrets.
The first had already been muddled.
The second required another severance—stripping out the memories of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
That way, the Lockhart who knew Voldemort's secrets would truly be dead.
"Blasted hell!"
"Voldemort, you've made an enemy of me! Just you wait!"
Lockhart, fuming, pulled a crystal from his pocket. He pressed his wand to his temple, extracted that memory, and sealed it into the crystal ball.
He stared at it for a long time, eyes dark and resolute.
Tom.
You think this will silence me?
No way!
We'll see who's the real master of memory!
With a final flick of his wand, he shouted, "*Evanesco Ascendere!*"
Crack!
The crystal ball shot upward, smashing against the Chamber's ceiling, shattering into glittering fragments that drifted away like smoke.
…
At the Carrow family's ancestral home, night had fallen, and the hall was cloaked in darkness once more.
Dumbledore sat steeped in guilt, replaying Lockhart's words in his mind:
"Professor Trelawney made a prophecy about me. If I don't walk away from all this, Voldemort's curse will find me. She said I'd die!"
Many dismissed Trelawney's prophecies, but Dumbledore had felt their power firsthand.
And, well, Tom surely had too.
He stood motionless in the dark, staring at the fairy-tale book glowing faintly on the floor, his eyes brimming with hope.
Maybe…
There was still a chance?
After what felt like an eternity, the book flared with light, as if the final gate in a fairy-tale had swung open. A radiant white passage stretched from the pages.
Lockhart's figure emerged, growing from the size of a book illustration to full human height.
The only problem? He was floating.
His pale, translucent body was painfully obvious.
"!!!" Dumbledore's lips tightened, a tear glistening in his aged eyes. His hands gripped his wand tightly, anger toward Tom surging within him.
If Tom dared show his face now, Dumbledore wouldn't hesitate to hit him with an Avada Kedavra.
But then, Lockhart's ghostly form flickered before him. The translucent pallor surged, growing vibrant.
It was a vivid intensity, pulsing with life.
Color flooded back, and right before Dumbledore's eyes, Lockhart became real again.
Flesh and blood, tangible and alive.
This was no ghost—this was a man.
"Lockhart?" Dumbledore stared, incredulous.
"Hey, sorted!" Lockhart grinned, flashing that perfect, signature smile. "Told you, this wouldn't stump me!"