The Soul of a Teacher

The Soul of a Teacher

Chapter Two:

Defense Against the Dark Arts (2^nd year)

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It was a barren wasteland. The wood was rotting and ductile, and smelled of decaying insects. Beads of water were dripping from the damage in the ceiling, an unaffectionate gift from the splattering rain above the roof. The room was particularly small, unfurnished with only small beams of faint light illuminating the desolate surroundings. It was a room in the hostile surroundings at the downtown area of a muggle community. Later, Gilderoy would wonder himself why and how he got there.

Pests and various small filthy animals were often seen scurrying round the area and that wet, gloomy Monday afternoon was not an exception.

A blond, fairly built, but utterly disheveled middle-aged man was slouched in the far-off corner of that said room, rocking back and forth with the rhythmic thumping of the scattering rain further above his head. He was wearing, not his once usual elegant midnight blue or emerald green robes, but he was togged up in now foul and sullied dirty white rags that he passed off as clothes.

No one knew, not even himself, what had happened to the once famous and valued writer, named Gilderoy Lockhart. He was just at the verge of his successful career, with every middle-aged women swooning over at his feet, his books selling thousand of copies and him winning the Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award five times in a row. Why he was here now? The once distinguished, but phony writer and celebrity, could only think again and again what had happened to his supposed to be almost perfect and glamorous life. What had happened to his past, that now seemed too foggy to even think of.

A hurricane of thoughts ran through his mind as he sat there, just waiting for something that would not happen, waiting for something that would never come up to his life ever again. He remembered the start of this whole fiasco. He reminisced about the time when he started writing books about how valiant and courageous he was, when in reality all of those things that were in the books were done by other witches and warlocks. He stole it from them, and then made them all forgot that they ever did such a thing. What a wonderful idea, yes it was, and seemingly foolproof too.

But as his past became clearer these past two years, he noticed that he was not remembering the pleasant and delightful things that happened in his life, but the regretful and contrite ones that took place long before all of those. He started to recall the painful ones, which were the numerous moments before his borrowed fame and prominence. In fact, the memory of it was too vivid to ignore.

***

There was a boy

A very strange, enchanted boy...

***

"You're a disgrace to this family, do you know that?" his father had once shouted right at his face, veins bulging through his thick corpulent neck, a half-empty bottle swinging from his left hand. He was drunk. Gilderoy knew that, but he was only eleven years old at the time and therefore very helpless whenever his father suddenly decided to quench his thirst for inhumane violence on him. It was an abnormal addiction that he often put on his own son and his own wife, Gilderoy's mother, whenever he was drunk or just plain angry, which he was unfortunately both at the moment.

"Father..." he tried to calm his own father down, in a futile attempt to escape this horrible quandary "I..."

"Shut up!" he bellowed, taking another swing of the alcoholic liquid that he was clutching at his hand. "Don't call me father, I have no son," Then he paused as if weighing what he had just said. The child remained silent, but fear could be clearly seen in his large, curious, but innocent blue eyes. "Have you realized how and what I felt when I realized that you're nothing but a sissy, weak-hearted, feeble little child, who's good for nothing but getting himself beat up into a stupid, idiotic pulp?"

The young Gilderoy remained silent now, too scared to speak. And even if did he find the voice to share what was on his mind, what could he say anyway? He knew that it was again one of the many insulting tantrums that his father was having and therefore could not be controlled even if his mother were there, which providentially she wasn't.

"I raised you to be better than any of those reckless wizard children that you see running around the street, living life as if it was too predictable and that they have the complete grasp and control of it," his father continued, his beer swinging more wildly. He was now swaying uncontrollably, knocking things off their proper placement all over the dark and gloomy place that they call their home. "But no, you just have to disappoint me and your mother once more, adding the ever growing humiliation that seems to come automatically together with our family name."

"My mother doesn't care about that," young Gilderoy suddenly spoke up. "She never told me that I was an idiot or a disappointment or a regret to this family or anything like that. Why is it that only you, my own father is the only one that I can't seem to make proud of me? Why can't I make you appreciate my achievements, no matter how little they are or how small they may seem?"

In his amazement, his father unexpectedly laughed.

So, the alcohol in his blood is finally taking its toll, he realized while watching his father's eyes ran out of focus. Gilderoy just hoped that he would still be alive or not beaten into a bloody spot of mush when his father finally backed off.

"Your achievements? Your achievements?! My, my... I did not know that you even have those!" his father mocked, grinning stupidly at him. "And what might those be, I dare ask? Was getting teased by your so-called friends an achievement for you? Was proving yourself a sissy in front of everybody was what you call an accomplishment? Was showing to every wizard in the whole wizarding world, including my crowd, my own circle, even your mother's friends that you are nothing but a complete idiotic, brainless, HOMOSEXUAL piece of worthless crap! Is that what you call your achievements?"

Gilderoy gaped at his father in absolute horror. How did he know? He had been so cautious... So careful...

"I'm not-" the young Lockhart still tried even though he just knew that there was already no hope.

"Don't ridicule me!" his dad spat. Taking yet another swing from his beer bottle. "I'm not blind child, and I am definitely NOT stupid! Do you think that you can deceive me? Did you think that you could HIDE that fact from me? I'm not as dense as you think, you stupid miserable bit of malodorous garbage!"

At that time, what was going on in Gilderoy's brain was that there was absolutely no hope for him to survive that staggering incident even remotely alive.

"You're a disgrace to this honorable family, have I told you that?" his father again bawled.

"Yes, twice already," Gilderoy said flatly. At least if he was going to die, he was going to leave this cruel world being sarcastic and cynical.

"Don't you dare mock me! GET OUT!" his father heartlessly bellowed.

It had taken all of Gilderoy's inner strength not to ask, 'Get out where?' Instead, he just gawked innocently at his steaming father.

"Get out of this house!" the smoldering older man roared. "Get out of my house! You are NOT my son anymore! GO AWAY! GET OUT!"

The young Gilderoy Lockhart might never know, as he reluctantly moved slowly out of the great big gates of his home, dragging his feet as he went out of the supposed to be sanctuary fortress for him, that the reason for his father's sudden outbreak, the motive of kicking him out of the house of his said callous father, was that he was afraid that he might hurt and kill his only son.

Yes, he was terrified at the thought of having to take the life of his own son with his own bloody hands. He was still his child after all, no matter what he did, no matter what happened. In the long run, even though he might not admit it face to face if anybody cared enough to ask him, he didn't care who his son was, he was still his own blood. His immortality! He was still the last best creation as a Lockhart! And he was not going to risk his solitary legacy just for the kick of his anomalous thirst for ruthless brutality.

He still loved his son, even in the tiniest incarnations and events that he showed that mere fact. But even as Gilderoy's father felt the tears ran from his eyes to his stubble cheeks, his son could and would never know that his father cared about him even in the smallest possible way.

***

Then he said to me...

The greatest thing you'll ever learn

Is just to love, and be loved... in return...

***

A quick thunderous lighting sliced from the sky, illuminating just for a second the adverse ambiance that Gilderoy Lockhart was in at the present time.

He shuddered at the cold chill of the air that was coming from the broken glass window just behind his shivering body, and was all of a sudden brought back to the time when he was in the same condition as he was right at that pathetic moment. To quote a famous expression, he remembered that distinct painful memory as if that event happened just yesterday.

***

The wind was unpleasantly cold and downright freezing. He had been walking for miles and miles into the village near their house, looking for some sort of shelter that he could use as a barrage from the chill, or just someone who was kind enough to even help that little pitiable and weak eleven-year-old who had been kicked out from his own home by his very own father.

But unfortunately, this experience made little Gilderoy believe that there wasn't really a kind and loving soul left in this whole biased and prejudiced world, to help even just a little his damned existence as a dishonor to his family and just a meaningless space in the universe.

He wandered far and wide, walking on the wet and slippery deserted sidewalk, feeling the unforgiving splattering rain above his head, drizzling down on his damp hair and clothes. It was when that he could not take the cold and his growing fatigue anymore that he unconsciously collapsed right at that very sidewalk. The hard cement felt so rough against his smooth cheek and the force of the impact was, fortunately insubstantial enough to not give him permanent brain damage or just to blow his brains out.

***

He remembered that sorrowful incident as he sat there, gazing thoughtlessly into the darkness, observing the black shadows that seemed to dance through the desolate room that he was currently calling home.

But of course, for every evil there is good, since neither would exist without the other one. And some even might believe that the same thing goes for pain. And the young boy with a hopeless and indefinite future proved to be a living proof of it. For every pain, there was also ecstasy waiting to happen, waiting to be felt. Oh, yes there was.

***

If it was just coincidence or not, Gilderoy might never know, because when he fell unconscious right there on the cobblestones, he woke up not in the cold rain, but in a beautifully decorated room. Stylish furniture decorated the wide interior of the said area, and he could feel the soft texture of the silk that composed the thick but comfy bed and comforter that he was wrapped in.

There was a second that young Gilderoy wondered if he had already died and gone to heaven. But as he looked outside, behind the striking elegance of the life-size window and saw still the pouring rain outside, he realized that this was still the hell that he was living in. Just clothed in an exquisite façade of this stunning house.

Wherever he was; he did not have to wonder long because at that moment, a man entered through the door, and his life was changed forever.

***

Because of that incident, because of that man, he finally got his life back on track, and there may be actually a definite bright future ahead of him, Gilderoy could only hope.

Five years had passed and that unfamiliar room that the eleven-year-old boy suddenly woke up from became his second home. Whatever happened, whoever said to that kind and munificent that he obviously needed help, Gilderoy could only care less, because from the moment that his to-be-father walked in that great big doors of the foreign room and asked the young boy various questions about who he was and what happened, he inadvertently found his new home, his new family.

It was when that he saw on the Daily Prophet that news that nearly broke his almost perfect life into pieces. It was in the headlines, and there was no way to escape the horrible truth.

His father killed his mother.

The news was all over the wizarding world. Whatever happened to the once honorable family that broke into pieces, they all speculated. But even if his own father was now in trial for a lifetime in Azkaban, Gilderoy could not care less. The painful fact still remains.

His father killed his mother.

His father, the one who was always drunk, the one who always practiced his invented hexes on him, killed his mother.

His own goddamn wife!

At that time, he felt that cut slice and sting of that cold sensation of grief and regret. Why had he not returned for his mother when he got his brand new life, was the thought that seemed to be stuck at the roof of his brain and at the core of his heart. It had been days before he recovered, thinking that it was all in the past now and there was nothing that he can do anyway, why waste time thinking about it?

And as the present Gilderoy Lockhart sat there, listening to the softening thumping of the rhythmic rain that had turned into a light drizzle just a few minutes ago, above the almost collapsing roof, he realized that his life was not that bad after all. Yes, his childhood was painful. Yes, he suffered so many discriminations and torment in his life but yet; there was still that happiness that seeped through his heartbreaking life.

What was a lifetime of torture, compared to that precious single instant of paradise?

But Gilderoy had to admit that after that faithful day, his life did not continue to be perfect and free of problems.

His foster parents, his wonderful and loving second parents died in a Voldemort related massacre. It was after that that he decided to leave this magnificent new life that he had been gifted and pursue other aspects of life.

He traveled far and wide in the wizarding world, using the fairly large amount of fortune that he inherited from his second family. And there he developed those schemes. There he met those, one could say, unfortunate witches and warlocks that met the end of their wonderful and cherished memories. Memories and recollections that are now in the hands of Gilderoy Lockhart.

His master trained him perfectly well, but it was not his fault that he can't understand or do a thing right. But there it was, his Memory Charms, they were absolutely perfect and ingenious.

And of course, to again quote a legendary saying, one could say that 'the rest was history.'

Thousand of books, photographs, his mad passion for fame and fortune, Harry Potter, the Chamber of Secrets, and on and on... Those were the times that seemed too vague and muddled to recall.

Then obviously, just to end the long and strenuous story of his senseless life, he ended up here, in an inhospitable muggle community after Madam Pomfrey tried to fix his memory back, now banished from the wizarding world because of the downfall of his career as his humiliating secret was printed all over the Daily Prophet.

The rain had stopped and a small but distinct ray of light shined through the small cracks in the almost collapsing ceiling. The air smells and feels damp and sticky to the skin. Those beams of warming light were like an omen to him. A radiance that seemed to bring him hope and joy in the most desperate and distressing part of his life. And as he looked around the space that he was in, he perceived that it was just the same gloomy place that he was in minutes before when the rain was at its hardest. But still, there was something vaguely different about it...

It was a barren wasteland. The wood was rotting and ductile, and smelled of decaying insects. The room was particularly small, unfurnished with only small beams of faint light illuminating the desolate surroundings. It was a room in the hostile surroundings at the downtown area of a muggle community.

A blond, fairly built, but utterly disheveled middle-aged man was slouched in the far-off corner of that said room, but he had finished rocking back and forth, the main reason for this was that the rain had already stopped, and there was no rhythmic pattern for him to follow anymore. He was wearing not his once usual elegant midnight blue or emerald green robes but he was togged up in his now damp and sullied dirty white rags that he passed off as clothes.

But even as he sat there, staring foolishly into the now none existent shadows that were once there in his room, in his mind, he realized that this was not the end. His career might never recover and his life was at the moment far from pleasant, but as he gazed at the small beams of light that was seeping through the cracks in the ceiling, he became conscious of the mere fact that... there was still a chance and there was still this unique possibility that he may actually survive from this terrible ordeal, this staggering phase that his life had gone through.

And from that moment, he started to look at his life in a new light. After every dark night that passes, there was still that beautiful dawn that was thoroughly anticipated, right?

And behind those dark rain clouds, if you did look hard enough, there is that rainbow that is waiting to appear. You just have to have that different perspective in things and the will and hope that will help you make it through.

And for Gilderoy Lockhart's case, yes, he noticed that there was still hope, in the pretense of that little beams of faint light that was shining and seeping through his worn-down ceiling.

***