A Hero?

A Hero?

It was a late Thursday afternoon, and the setting October sun cast rays of golden light through the huge windows. The resulting cosy atmosphere didn't fail to affect the current occupants of the Gryffindor common room. Nobody felt inclined to work very much. Harry and Ron had settled in opposing armchairs, a small table with a chess board between them. Ron's white Queen had just shattered Harry's last rook with a satisfied smile, and with this had sealed the fate of the black King for the fifth time.

Even Hermione had abandoned her homework assignments a while ago and had watched Harry losing match after match against Ron. But soon she had got tired of it and looked for another distraction. Hermione deemed time way too valuable to waste it with doing nothing and even the soporific ambience couldn't change that conviction completely.

So she had finally immersed herself in the Daily Prophet. It was the usual mix of terrible news: Death Eater attacks, Ministry reports about the ever increasing number of Muggles who had to be obliviated because they had witnessed the Dark Mark in the sky, and a long list of death notices of people who had had the misfortune not to fit into Voldemort's vision of the wizarding world. All those distressing articles were only marginally broken up with positive news, for instance about Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. This new mail-order firm for joke articles was founded by Ron's elder brothers Fred and George and boomed extraordinarily. The reporter explained this success by people's natural yearning for a diversion in these hard times.

But it wasn't that article that caused Hermione to suddenly exclaim, "Oh no!"

A picture of a man with blond curly hair, wearing a garishly coloured cloak, merrily waving, and showing two rows of perfect white teeth with a winning smile had caught her attention. It was at the last page, a thick black line crossing the photograph's top left corner, and accompanied by a lengthy obituary.

Harry and Ron suspended their resetting of the chess pieces and gazed questioningly at Hermione.

Seeing the inquiring looks of her friends, she continued with a sympathetic sigh, "He's dead! Gilderoy Lockhart is dead!"

Harry's face became puzzled. "Dead? Why should Voldemort want him of all people dead?"

"No, no," Hermione shook vehemently her head, "He wasn't killed by Death Eaters. He died as a result of his amnesia."

"I didn't know that amnesia was fatal," Ron remarked surprised.

"Oh, usually it isn't. But Lockhart heard about that village somewhere in Eastern Europe being terrorized by a manticore, a creature half lion, half human, that feeds on humans. He volunteered to rid those poor people of the monster."

Harry snorted, eyebrows arched in disbelief. "He volunteered?"

Ron concurred with Harry. "Are you sure they're writing about the same Gilderoy Lockhart who was willing to let Ginny die and tried to obliviate Harry and me because he was too cowardly to stand up to a basilisk? The inept one who strutted in borrowed plumes and managed to deceive everyone? The one who--"

"Yes, yes," Hermione interrupted Ron's rant. "It's him. Apparently he has read all his books in an attempt to gain back his memory. He assumed everything that was written there to be true. It seems as if he'd managed to deceive himself this time and considered himself as being a hero."

"Oh-oh." Harry had suddenly a strong sense of foreboding.

Hermione confirmed his worst assumptions, "Yes, indeed. He went there and faced the manticore with no prospect of success whatsoever. Of course he was devoured."

Ron shook sadly his head. "As much as I despise him, I wouldn't have wanted him to die such an awful and senseless death."

"Poor wretch," Harry added nodding.

"His death may have been terrible, but at least it wasn't useless," Hermione interjected. "Lockhart managed to keep his promise to slay the monster - in a peculiar way. His robes turned out to be a quite effective weapon against the manticore. They were made of a new, ultra-fashionable, utterly inedible, synthetic fibre. The manticore couldn't digest it and died painfully."

Ron gave a hollow laugh. "So he actually did a deed himself for a change. Too bad that he can't write a book about it."