Gilderoy Lockhart
Defence Against the Dark Arts (1992-1993)
International celebrity, author, heroic adventurer, sex-symbol and respected academic.
Professor Gilderoy Lockhart is introduced to us in the second Harry Potter
story, The Chamber of Secrets.
He has been brought in to teach at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as
a replacement for Professor Quirrel who met his demise at the end of the
previous year of schooling.
His class is Defence Against the Dark Arts - fighting back against evil magic,
which at the time seemed a fitting job for him as he appeared to have done so
much in his travels. This being documented in his books that he sells and that
are used for a year as a Standard Set of Books.
He made an instant impact there by, in his first lesson, giving his second year
class a test which had nothing to do with the subject at hand, but revolved
somewhat more around his biography. He was not popular amongst his fellow staff
members and was particularly disliked by Professor Severus Snape, who was after
the position Gilderoy held. However, teachers and students alike eventually grew
to tolerate him.
Many of the boys did not like him because he seemed overly boastful and
annoyingly arrogant about his own accomplishments whereas most of the girls
especially liked him because he was apparently so adorable looking, having being
the 5 times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile. He also holds other
such Award as Order of Merlin (3rd class) and Honorary Member of the Dark Force
Defence League.
His literary works include:
Magical Me - The Autobiography
Break With A Banshee
Gadding With Ghouls
Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests
Holidays With Hags
Travels With Trolls
Voyages With Vampire
Wandering With Werewolves
Year With The Yeti
Who Am I - (not canon - only in CoS movie)
In these books he tells of fighting an assortment of magical creatures.
The truth is that he interviewed the people that had done these things, the ones
that had dealt with these creatures. After getting his story he performed memory
charms on them to make them forget the story and he claimed them as his own. One
of these memory charms that he tried to cast on Ronald Weasley with Weasley's
own damaged wand it backfired on him and Lockhart lost his own memory.
His recovery in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries seems to
be coming along well. On Christmas in 1995, Harry Potter saw Gilderoy in the
hospital, slowly regaining his memory, saying he was so advanced that he could
write joined up letters. Lockhart still gets fan mail, though he has no idea
why.
I think this is a sign that he will eventually make a full recovery.
Whether or not this ill be in time for the final two books or not I'm not sure.
I would like to see him return in a later book maybe trying to redeem himself
and make ammends with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley.
Notable things about him:
The Memory Charm is "Obliviate!"
His favourite colour is lilac.
His ideal birthday present would be harmony between all magical and non-magical
peoples though he wouldn't say "No" to a large bottle of Ogdens Old Firewhisky.
His ambitions in life are to rid the world of evil and market his own range of
hair-care potions.
He is single - apparently because he just hasn't the right girl.
He is the only character in the series to date to use a peacock-feather
quill. The peacock is a traditional symbol of vanity, a very apt implication in
Lockhart's case.
The spell Lockhart used that failed to control the freshly caught Cornish Pixies
was Peskipiksi Pesternomi.
When Harry got detention with Lockhart he had to address envelopes for
Lockhart's fan mail, the first one is to Gladys Gudgeon. Lockhart comments with
"Bless her - huge fan of mine."
When Harry hears the Basilisk in the pipes while still in detention he gives a
huge jump and a large lilac blot appears on Veronica Smethley's envelope.
He once claimed "I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep." -
Professor Severus Snape did not like this comment.
Don't think that his life has been an easy one as he will tell you himself that
"There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how
they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so
they wouldn't remember doing it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my
Memory Charms. No, it's been a lot of work. It's not all book signings and
publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long
hard slog."Written by
The Duke
-=D=-
With the help of sites such as:
grusha.net/magical-me/ - Magical Me! Gilderoy Lockhart.
hp-lexicon.org/wizards/lockhart.html - HPL:Gilderoy Lockhart.
fact-index.com/g/gi/gilderoy_lockhart.html - Gilderoy Lockhart.