The Man Who Knew Almost Nothing

Chapter Twenty-two

Lockhart Manor

“Harry, I think I’m ready to see it,” Gilderoy said suddenly one morning as they all ate breakfast together.

“See what?” asked Harry, frowning.

“Lockhart Manor.”

Gilderoy had not said a word about the manor since the keys had arrived with his wand weeks before. Harry had expected him to ask sooner, but the entire matter had slipped his mind because of recent events.

“Fine. Do you want to drive out today?” Harry questioned.

Sirius snorted softly and went back to the book he was reading as he ate, muttering, “Count me out.”

“What about our schedule? The lessons and everything?”

“We deserve a day off,” said Harry. “And it looks like a wonderful day for a drive in the country,” he added.

There was no mistake about that. It was unseasonably warm and particularly sunny that morning as Gilderoy and Harry sped away from the Little Burrow, leaving Sirius to his books, a luxury that he had sorely missed in Azkaban. He was pursuing his studies again with a renewed fervor, claiming that his skills had been in decline while incarcerated. Gilderoy and Harry were pursuing other ends.

Harry believed that if Gilderoy saw his childhood home, perhaps he would remember happy times there, although there was certainly the risk that he would remember the attack of the Dark Wizards upon his parents. But it was Gilderoy’s risk to take and he was going into the situation full willing.

The trip was a pleasant one, though Harry had insisted upon dressing in less outlandish wizarding costume than Gilderoy considered normal. They folded their robes up and packed them away in the trunk since they would be using muggle roadways for the journey. Harry was far more accustomed to how things were done in the muggle world than most wizards, having been raised by muggles, but he had not set foot in their world to any large degree since leaving school, except, of course, for the little hamlet wherein he bought his groceries. As he saw the situation, they could put on robes when they arrived at the manor, the address of which had been easy to come by. It would not do, after all, to be dressed in full wizarding attire if they happened to be stopped by a policeman.

The road leading to the manor, a private drive from a small and seldom used country lane, was overgrown with brown grass because of disuse and also quite bumpy, though still very much passable. Harry was rather certain that there were muggle repelling charms in place as no wizarding estate was safe without them.

As they approached, Harry slowed to a stop at a closed gate that stood before a large gray stone house. The windows were dark, but all intact. After so many years, it would not have been at all unusual to find one broken either by a storm or other causes, non-muggle prowlers for instance. The yard appeared to have been trimmed and raked late in the summer or earlier in the autumn. The grass was no nearly so high as that on the drive had been.

“Do you recognize it, Gilderoy?” Harry questioned as they sat in the car before the wrought iron gate, gazing at the rather grand old house.

“I ... I can’t say for certain, Harry. I don’t remember, but it looks familiar somehow,” Gilderoy replied, fiddling with the box in his lap, the box containing the keys to his ancestral home.

“Ready to go inside then?” asked Harry, reaching to open the car door.

“Yes,” Gilderoy nodded before they both left the car.

The gate opened with a simple turn of a key in the lock and squeaked loudly as it swung open. Harry noted absently that it could do with a bit of grease or something. He was far too busy inspecting the grounds, eyeing the windows, and watching Gilderoy to give it much thought.

“Should I knock?” Gilderoy asked when they reached the great oaken doors of the manor house, which were inlaid with pale gold that still gleamed in the sunlight.

“It looks deserted, and it is your house. Just open the doors,” Harry shrugged.

Unlike the gate, the doors opened soundlessly and with only a slight push. Gilderoy pocketed the keys and stepped inside with Harry at his elbow.

Harry had expected the house to smell musty at the very least, but he frowned as he took a deeper breath. It smelled clean. The floor under his feet had been polished to a high shine, and the air was relatively free of dust. It was quite extraordinary.

“A charm of some kind?” he wondered silently, looking around the dimly lit foyer.

To their left and right there were doors and directly before them, a spiraling staircase leading to the upper floor of the manor house. The doors were closed and the top of the stairs was shrouded in shadows.

“This was my home?” Gilderoy questioned quietly.

“So they say,” said Harry.

Gilderoy spun around, taking in his surroundings, which while hardly opulent were much more lavish and rich than Harry’s little cottage. There were tapestries on the wall, though in the dusky light, they could not make out their design, and ornamental candle holders of silver and gold with fresh, unlit candles in them.

“Lovely place, isn’t it?” said Gilderoy with a smile.

Suddenly there was the sound of small feet on the stairs, both Harry and Gilderoy froze. The manor wasn’t deserted after all!

“Master is home! His most excellent handsomeness is returning at long last!” squealed a voice that Harry knew immediately belonged to a house elf.

The little creature came running down the stairs with hurried, happy steps. She, judging by the voice, was wearing a dress that appeared to also be a small and rather splendid red table cloth, holding up the hem as she scooted down the stairs. Her eyes were honey-brown and especially large with excitement.

Gilderoy squealed, nearly matching the pitch of the house elf’s voice, as she wrapped herself around his leg.

“What is this thing, Harry?” he questioned, instantly trying to shake her off.

“A house elf,” answered Harry, laughing at his reaction.

The little elf popped off Gilderoy’s leg and curtsied before she said, “Bell is ready to served her beloved master again! Bell is hoping that master has come to stay, yes?”

“Bell? That’s your name?” Gilderoy questioned.

The elf suddenly looked distraught as she replied, “Master is forgetting Bell when he named Bell himself when he not much bigger than a house elf.”

“Your master has been through a lot, Bell. He was ... sick for a very long time and even now his memory isn’t so good,” Harry explained, kneeling to be at her eye level.

“Ah, master, is bringing young man home. It is being a very long time,” said Bell approvingly. “Why if master sick, he not come home? Bell could be taking care of everything for him,” she said, reaching and taking Gilderoy’s hand.

Gilderoy looked imploringly at Harry who had stood up again.

“No one knew that Gilderoy has such a faithful house elf or he certainly would have been brought straight here,” said Harry with a grin.

“Yes, that must be it,” said Gilderoy.

“So master is still not remembering Bell? Maybe master should give Bell a new name, one he is remembering. Bell’s mother Finny is always telling her that Bell is being too fine a name for her. At least until that day ...” said Bell, her ears drooping. “Poor master and mistress!” she sighed.

“You were here when Gilderoy’s parents were killed?” asked Harry.

“Bell was here. Finny hid Bell and little master when shouting started in downstairs of house. Locked Bell and young master in secret closet. We was staying there together until house quiet. Nobody left but Bell and poor little master,” said Bell, her eyes brimming with tears.

Harry thought of the article he had read about the Lockharts, Celeste and Godfrey, and how the Ministry was unsure of how Gilderoy had escaped harm. It wasn’t necessarily kindness or honor. The attackers simply couldn’t find him, thanks to a devoted house elf named Finny and her daughter.

Gilderoy dropped to one knee and said, “Much of my life is a mystery to me, but thank you, Bell. I am very grateful.”

“It is part of a house elf’s duty, master, but if I was anything else, I is helping you anyway. And so was my mother. She fought beside master and mistress and died with them as well,” said Bell proudly. “House elves is not being good at fighting, but Finny I is told was very brave.”

“I’m sure she was,” said Gilderoy.

“Is kind and wonderfully good-looking master here to stay now? Bell is waiting long time for his return,” she said hopefully.

“You don’t have to call me those things,” said Gilderoy, though he was obviously very flattered by her extravagant praise.

“Silly master! Of course Bell is saying what master wants to hear! I remember the words exactly like you wanted when last you was here,” she said.

“When was that?”

“Seven years ago. Before master is going to become great and famous professor.”

“Bell, did Gilderoy live here for a long time before he went away?” asked Harry.

“We was living here fifteen happy years. Master was traveling quite often though. But the house was always in order for master’s return.”

“I can’t imagine it being otherwise,” said Gilderoy.

“Is master and his friend wanting tea? They is looking famished and in need of a little something to be tiding them over until supper,” said Bell.

“That would be delightful,” said Gilderoy.

“Master is sounding more like self! Tea is being served in parlor in just a moment,” said Bell, gesturing toward a door to their right before disappearing.

“Fascinating!” said Gilderoy.

“House elves are that,” chuckled Harry in agreement.

When Gilderoy and Harry stepped into the parlor, they were unaware of what awaited them there. The room was filled with bright, freshly lit candles that illuminated a large chamber with a high ceiling and windows that, if they had noticed, looked out over the garden outside. There was a hearth with an immense, high-backed comfortable chair with a footstool in front of it. Two long couches that were a lovely shade of green sat in the glow of the windows, one facing out and the other facing in with an impressive, stone coffee table in between. But none of this was shocking.

The things that extracted an audible gasp from Gilderoy were the paintings. They were all of him in various costume. Over the mantle he was dressed in riding clothes with his hand on the neck of a unicorn. By the windows he was decked out in wintry wizarding clothes with snow in his hair. On the other side of the windows he was dressed to the nines in fantastically elaborate formal robes and standing in a ballroom. Above the door was a painting of him in jaunty casual clothes, reclining on one of the green sofas in an almost seductive pose. To the left of that one hung a painting of him in a dark black cape over white and silver robes, holding a wooden stake delicately in both hands.

And they were all smiling incredibly fake smiles and staring right at him.

Gilderoy wobbled on his feet as though he were about to faint and stepped backward into Harry, who was gawking at the images on the walls. Harry caught him by the arm, and they silently backed out of the parlor.

“Get me out of here!” Gilderoy demanded in a raspy voice.

“What about Bell and our tea?”

“Forget them! Get me out of this house!” he pleaded, seizing a handful of Harry’s shirt.

“Fine, fine,” Harry agreed, taking his hand and leading him through the foyer and out of the house and into the crisp autumn air.

“Those eyes! That smile! Do I look like that?” he asked as Harry escorted him to the car.

“Of course not. You look much nicer,” Harry assured him. “Now let’s go home before you have a heart attack or something.”


Two days before they were scheduled to leave for Quidditch practice, which was going to be held in a secluded area a few hours away by car, and long after the shock of their trip to the manor had worn off, Sirius went to Hogwarts to have ‘a romantic dinner’ with Remus, leaving Harry and Gilderoy alone for the evening and perhaps the night. As was in keeping with their daily routine, which was seldom interrupted, Harry sat at the typewriter and worked on his book with Gilderoy sitting nearby, listening and offering suggestions as Harry asked for them. His reading skills had greatly improved with practice, or perhaps partly due to the return of some of his memory, though certainly not all of it.

“Harry, I heard something while I was ... incapacitated after the ball that I’ve wanted to ask you about,” said Gilderoy as Harry sank back against the couch, removing the paper from the typewriter.

“Go ahead,” said Harry.

“I heard Sirius and Remus talking about you ... They seemed to think that you weren’t well. I don’t want to make a fuss, but if you aren’t well, should you really be playing Quidditch?” he questioned.

“Love, I’m touched,” Harry chuckled. “But to tell you the truth, they worry too much. I’m fine,” he said.

Gilderoy looked both relieved and skeptical as he asked, “Are you sure?”

“Quite. Oh, I tire easily sometimes, maybe a bit faster than some men my age, but I have felt better recently. You’ve seen me on my broom. Fast as ever.”

“Yes, but ...”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Harry.

“If you say so, but I ...” Gilderoy began to say, glancing at the typewriter and then the floor. “I worry that you won’t be around. That I’ll lose you.”

Harry left the couch and knelt by Gilderoy’s chair.

Taking his hand, he told him, “You don’t have to worry. I mean that. I plan to be around for a long time to come, no matter what anybody else says. I was planning to tell you something. I wanted it to be after you saw me win my first Quidditch match, but now is as good a time as any,” Harry fumbled for something in his robe pocket, something that he had hidden there days earlier. “I love you and ... and I want you to be my husband. I want us to grow old together.”

Harry slipped a simple gold band onto Gilderoy’s finger as tears came to their eyes.

“Harry, I never thought you. I mean, this means that you want me to be with you forever, doesn’t it?” asked Gilderoy.

“If you’re willing. We could have a ceremony and everything. I know Sirius and Remus would want us to,” he said, babbling as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

“I am willing, Harry. I want to be yours forever, and you to be mine, and for us to be one another’s,” he laughed, pulling Harry to his feet and kissing him.

“I love you,” said Harry, breaking the kiss for just a moment, just long enough to say it.

“And I love you. Forever.”

“Let’s not waste a night with the place to ourselves,” said Harry with an impish grin, pulling Gilderoy toward their bedroom.

Gilderoy was sleeping soundly, and in Harry’s opinion that was always a good thing. Harry shifted slightly as he held his lover close, his arms wrapped around his waist. The world seemed to only consist of warmth and comfort and the two of them in their bed. Then why couldn’t he sleep?

“I wanted to wait, but everything is rushing ahead again,” Harry thought, looking at the ring on Gilderoy’s finger. He did a quick calculation and realized that they had known each other just slightly less than three months.

“Fast,” thought Harry. “Are you doubting the decision already?” he asked himself. Harry shifted again and looked at Gilderoy’s sleeping face. “Not at all. Just ... worried. About him and about us,” Harry thought, settling against the pillow and closing his eyes.

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