Dawn, Magical London, The Majestic Manor (Gilderoy Lockhart's house)
*Thump thump thump* A sharp tapping echoed throughout the bedroom where a golden blonde-haired man and woman with white gold hair lie together on a bed.
*Thump thump thump* The tapping echoed again, "ughhh" the woman groaned as she began to sit up and walked towards the window. Opening the window, she saw a large gray owl perched on the window seal with a letter tied to its leg. Taking the letter from the owl, she fed it a few nuts from a bowl by kept by the window before shoeing it away.
Looking at the letter, she noticed the shield emblem with an H in the middle surrounded by a lion, snake, badger, and eagle. Realizing where the letter was from, she threw the letter down on the still sleeping man's chest and sat down on the edge of the bed, "Wake up Gil, you've got a letter." A melodious voice rang throughout the room.
"Mmm, five more minutes," a husky voice groaned backed, "fan mail in the afternoon."
Hearing him complain caused a sweet chuckle to escape the young woman's lips, "It's from Hogwarts," she sang in a coaxing tone. Hearing her sweet voice and processing her words the man slowly opened his eyes reaching his hands toward the letter on his chest.
Slowly opening the letter while blinking away his lingering slumber he soon read the letter out loud, "Dear Mr. Gilderoy Lockhart and Mrs. Fleir Lockhart nee Alexandrav, Hogwarts is proud to inform you that it has accepted your applications. As of today, you two will the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor and Assistant Professor. Please come to visit Hogwarts to set up your classroom and offices and prepare, make sure to bring the lesson plans for review. Sincerely Headmaster Albus Dumbledore." The letter was short and to the point.
"You were right Gil; we didn't even need to do interviews." Fleir said in a teasing voice, "Did you learn some divination when I wasn't paying attention?"
"I wish, no I was just pretty certain no one was going to apply this year." He said with a chuckle, "I heard last year there was only one applicant as well and he ended up having an accident at the end of the year like everyone else."
"So basically, we're their only option?" She slowly started to crawl up the bed and reached my waist, straddling me, "And here I thought Dumbledore was a super fan to skip all of the annoying steps."
Grinding on me I threw the letter onto the nightstand as I reached up to grab her waist, "Well that's another possibility, unfortunately for him you're the only fan I need.
___
Afternoon, Hogwarts Headmasters Office
Dumbledore was sitting behind a large, lavish desk. The room was dimly lit by a chandler floating above the desk, illuminating all of its wonders. Hanging on the walls were dozens of paintings with the portraits of men and women moving between them.
"Really, first it was that coward Quirrell, and now you want the biggest narcissist in the entire magical world to teach now? How do you expect any of these brats to learn anything, or have you already given up on this batch?" Across from Dumbledore was an angry man with long, greasy hair, scolding the greatest wizard of his generation.
"Now, now Severus, I am doing no such thing. You know as well as I do that the choices for DADA are limited to say the least. Besides, even if his personality is... questionable, his achievements are quite impressive. He even has an Order of Merlin, Second Class." Dumbledore placated his potions professor.
"His achievements themselves are questionable, he may have some accomplishments to his name, but Second Class is much to exaggerated of an award. The only reason he got it was because of how popular his books are, at most it should be Third Class." Snape argued, voice filled with contempt.
"Are you sure about that, I'll admit his fantastical retellings have quite a following, but I found his academic pieces on mind magic to be quite a bit more impressive. He even has a little bit of experience teaching from his time with that circle of veela." Dumbledore offered to rebuttal that seemed to fall on deaf ears.
"Of course that's what you would thing," Snape snorted, "I would hardly call those books academic. Magic isn't something as simple as emotions, wishes, and the soul like you like to imply. Magic is a science, like potions, it's built from a combination of words, wand work, and precise control."
Realizing that with Snape's current attitude there would be no end to the current argument, Dumbledore decided to put an early end to what could go on for a long time. "I'm sorry you feel that way Severus, but I've already made my decision. Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart will be the new professors for Defense Against the Dark Arts this year, maybe you'll get your chance next year..."
Sensing that there was no further room for discussion Snape turned around in a huff and stormed out of the office.
Dumbledore, alone in his office, leaned back in his seat. "Why must we do this song and dance every year." He tiredly sighed.
"Because you're too soft on him." One of the portraits on the wall scoffed "Back in my day I-" "Oh, shut your trap Phineas. Nobody wants to hear a babe pretending to be a sage." A withered old woman cut him off." "What did you just say to me? You muggle loving hag."
With insults thrown a brawl began to break out on the wall of paintings behind Dumbledore. But he just ignored it, the scene having grown old over his long tenure. having little else to do, the walls of painting are constantly filled with scenes of chaos in order to keep the memories trapped inside entertained over their centuries stuck in the castle. He just sat there thinking about how the year could go.
___
The Majestic Manor
After their morning exercise, Gilderoy and Fleir began preparing for their new job. With only two weeks left before Hogwarts starts sending letters to new students with their shopping list. Luckily, he already had all of the materials he planned to use picked out. He just had to finalize the specific syllabus for Dumbledore to review beforehand.
Gilderoy was currently alone in his home study finishing his latest book "Bargaining with Banshees." It was a book about the time he spent trying to convince a group of banshees to stop terrorizing the cemeteries of small towns on the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was one of the more challenging feats he had accomplished, not because of the banshees strength, because no matter you do you can't kill a banshee.
Even when he had driven the group away and warded the area, there were always more cemeteries they could run to next. That's why Gilderoy had to strike a deal with them. The reason they were causing so much trouble was because they wished to feed off of the tragedy of death around them, but with such an abnormally large group they couldn't all get their fill. In order to remedy that, Gilderoy had to find an area filled with grief and tragedy that they could all move to without bothering other beings, essentially making a smaller version of Azkaban for the small group of banshee.
That's right, Gilderoy actually did all of this. That's because this Gilderoy Lockhart isn't the same one as the from the books. He was somebody who had been reborn into his body. Stuck in the body of one of the weakest and most narcissistic adult wizards in the entire series, he had to work hard in order to turn his life around.
He had taken over the original Lockhart's body not long after he had written his first fake best seller, "Gadding with Ghouls." At first Gilderoy was going to find a normal and hope nobody found out about what he did, but the money and attention was addicting.
So, he continued with the act and secretly practiced magic in order to defend himself in case somebody found out his secret. As it turned out, Gilderoy Lockhart had amazing talent for mind magic, whether it came from the original Lockhart or the new Gilderoy he didn't know, but it was like second nature to him. Eventually Gilderoy began going on his own adventures and writing about them, though this time he actually wrote about his own achievements and also wrote accompanying research papers for academic purposes.
Gilderoy let out a long sigh. It was finally happening; the main plot of the book was beginning, and he was entering the story a year early. He had thought over his possible paths for the past seven years since he was reincarnated and ultimately made his decision.
Originally, he had no intention of involving himself in the main plot, after all he wasn't a particularly important character, and any haphazard change could put him in danger if he was around. But after all he had accomplished, and the magic he had managed to master, he had changed his mind. The fame and influence he could gain from helping the main characters was just too tempting for someone who had inherited many of Lockhart's negative traits.
Setting down the magic quill he had been using to edit his manuscript, Gilderoy got up from the desk and went to the living room. 'Stressing over the future isn't going to help me, it's too late to change plans now,' he thought to himself.
Making up his mind he wrote a small note and put it on the fridge for when Fleir gets home. Walking over to the fireplace, Gilderoy threw in some floo powder and called out "Hogwarts reception," before going up in a puff of green flames.
___
Hogwarts Reception Building
Appearing in the middle of a large reception room, Gilderoy looked around in with a strange feeling of deja vu. He hadn't been here since he took over Lockhart's body, but the memories of from the time Lockhart was in school was still with him.
Right now he was in the reception building in Hogsmeade. Because of the large number of powerful wards in Hogwarts, it was impossible to teleport into it by normal means, even the floo network and portkeys were blocked off. But not everyone wants to ride the Hogwarts Express when they want to visit. That's why this building, staffed with someone from Hogwarts, was made.
Finished reminiscing on his predecessors' memories, Gilderoy walked up to the door to exit the room and used the door knocker. While not strictly necessary if you didn't go through the process of talking to the Hogwarts employee in the building, then it would be a lot more annoying getting into the school without going through ectra steps.
After knocking on the door, he went to take a seat. Around three minutes later, a familiar short woman came into the room. "Gilderoy, it has been such a long time, how have you been?"