Lucius/Gilderoy - Part 7
Title: Remember Me: Candle in the window
Characters: Lucius/Gilderoy implied, Harry Potter mentioned
Prompt: Candle in the window
Rating: G
Word Count: 777
Author's Notes: Seventh of Seven! - sixth here, fifth here, fourth here, third here, second here, first here.
Remember Me: Candle in the window
It was - or should have been - just another routine tour of St Mungo's illustrating what all Lucius' hard-earned (or perhaps, hard-inherited) cash went towards. They invited him for these peculiar tours from time to time in a nervous sort of way as though to remind him that they still existed and that they would like some more money, please. Lucius inevitably obliged in the tiresome role of the concerning benefactor knowing full well that the next big contribution he made would coincide nicely with the next big piece of legislation due to be pushed through, rather than the distressing ailments he was about to witness. Funny, really, how it happened like that every time...
It should have been another one of those agonising mornings of nothing more than a polite, interested expression and asking small questions he already knew the answer to and making sure that he didn't step in anything that resembled vomit and keeping himself away from small, sticky children and incontinent old witches.
Should have been.
Instead, here he was on the fifth floor, the Janus Thickey Ward, looking through the glass of a locked door and staring despite himself at a mass of sagging golden curls. He was vaguely aware of the rotund, pompous man who had been showing him around tugging at a rather unimpressive moustache behind him and asking quizzically if there was anything wrong.
"Why don't you go and have a cup of coffee," Lucius instructed with an unusually distracted tone of voice, flicking open the lock with a casual wave of his wand and a soft spoken 'Alohomora'.
"I will be along shortly." With that, the aristocrat entered into the ward, closing the door behind him with a soft click, leaving the astonished manager gaping in his wake.
Even unkempt as they were, there was no mistaking curls like those. Lucius had never followed his career with interest because it would be, he knew, crass in a sort of way but there had been no hiding from him the fate the Potter boy had seen fit to prescribe for Gilderoy. The ward was quiet apart from the soft, tuneless humming that Gilderoy emitted when he was filing his nails and, inevitably, the soft rasping of the nail file.
Even if the presentation of Gilderoy himself left Lucius in any doubt of identity, the numerous snapshots plastered over the wall behind him, all of the same grinning, cheerful wizard, all waving with a creepy sort of determination, eradicated any uncertainty. No one else could possibly have that many pictures of Gilderoy, not even the most crazed fan. A large, carved lavender candle sat on the windowsill next to him and reminded Lucius a little painfully of their last meeting... and perhaps the time they'd sat up over the early hours of 1990 with the lavender walls of Gildeory's flat bearing down on him. A smirk twitched at the corner of his thin lips; Gilderoy Lockhart, the only man to have lavender scented wallpaper. He must have had it specially made... it was the special brand of tackiness that couldn't be manufactured.
Lucius didn't say anything. He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to and the temptation to walk out again as quietly as he entered was all too great. He knew, at the far end of this drab, colourless ward, sat the Longbottoms and for them he felt no pity, no remorse. It was their choice to be here in his cold eyes, but Gilderoy... for what? He had been landed here for what? All because he had been the wrong man in the wrong place who had let people believe the stories he spun, just as he'd tried to make Lucius believe some of the fantastic things he came out with when he was in his first year at school. It was hard, perhaps to believe that Lockhart wouldn't greet him with the same obscene familiarity and rabbit on about the most inane things common to them both, comfortable that Lucius was interested even if he wasn't.
"Good afternoon," he said at long last, his voice more taut than he'd intended, expression unreadable as Gilderoy turned, supernova smile glinting toothily already. It was an almost Pavlovian response and, for a fleeting, golden moment, Lucius was almost convinced that there was going to be a joyous shout of his name with the peculiar emphasis on the first syllable that Lockhart had procured...
"Hello! Are you staying here too? Would you like an autograph?"
***
St Mungo's were utterly astonished by an untimely donation from the Malfoy family a few weeks later, leaving the manager's moustache looking more harassed than ever before.
Characters: Lucius/Gilderoy implied, Harry Potter mentioned
Prompt: Candle in the window
Rating: G
Word Count: 777
Author's Notes: Seventh of Seven! - sixth here, fifth here, fourth here, third here, second here, first here.
Remember Me: Candle in the window
It was - or should have been - just another routine tour of St Mungo's illustrating what all Lucius' hard-earned (or perhaps, hard-inherited) cash went towards. They invited him for these peculiar tours from time to time in a nervous sort of way as though to remind him that they still existed and that they would like some more money, please. Lucius inevitably obliged in the tiresome role of the concerning benefactor knowing full well that the next big contribution he made would coincide nicely with the next big piece of legislation due to be pushed through, rather than the distressing ailments he was about to witness. Funny, really, how it happened like that every time...
It should have been another one of those agonising mornings of nothing more than a polite, interested expression and asking small questions he already knew the answer to and making sure that he didn't step in anything that resembled vomit and keeping himself away from small, sticky children and incontinent old witches.
Should have been.
Instead, here he was on the fifth floor, the Janus Thickey Ward, looking through the glass of a locked door and staring despite himself at a mass of sagging golden curls. He was vaguely aware of the rotund, pompous man who had been showing him around tugging at a rather unimpressive moustache behind him and asking quizzically if there was anything wrong.
"Why don't you go and have a cup of coffee," Lucius instructed with an unusually distracted tone of voice, flicking open the lock with a casual wave of his wand and a soft spoken 'Alohomora'.
"I will be along shortly." With that, the aristocrat entered into the ward, closing the door behind him with a soft click, leaving the astonished manager gaping in his wake.
Even unkempt as they were, there was no mistaking curls like those. Lucius had never followed his career with interest because it would be, he knew, crass in a sort of way but there had been no hiding from him the fate the Potter boy had seen fit to prescribe for Gilderoy. The ward was quiet apart from the soft, tuneless humming that Gilderoy emitted when he was filing his nails and, inevitably, the soft rasping of the nail file.
Even if the presentation of Gilderoy himself left Lucius in any doubt of identity, the numerous snapshots plastered over the wall behind him, all of the same grinning, cheerful wizard, all waving with a creepy sort of determination, eradicated any uncertainty. No one else could possibly have that many pictures of Gilderoy, not even the most crazed fan. A large, carved lavender candle sat on the windowsill next to him and reminded Lucius a little painfully of their last meeting... and perhaps the time they'd sat up over the early hours of 1990 with the lavender walls of Gildeory's flat bearing down on him. A smirk twitched at the corner of his thin lips; Gilderoy Lockhart, the only man to have lavender scented wallpaper. He must have had it specially made... it was the special brand of tackiness that couldn't be manufactured.
Lucius didn't say anything. He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to and the temptation to walk out again as quietly as he entered was all too great. He knew, at the far end of this drab, colourless ward, sat the Longbottoms and for them he felt no pity, no remorse. It was their choice to be here in his cold eyes, but Gilderoy... for what? He had been landed here for what? All because he had been the wrong man in the wrong place who had let people believe the stories he spun, just as he'd tried to make Lucius believe some of the fantastic things he came out with when he was in his first year at school. It was hard, perhaps to believe that Lockhart wouldn't greet him with the same obscene familiarity and rabbit on about the most inane things common to them both, comfortable that Lucius was interested even if he wasn't.
"Good afternoon," he said at long last, his voice more taut than he'd intended, expression unreadable as Gilderoy turned, supernova smile glinting toothily already. It was an almost Pavlovian response and, for a fleeting, golden moment, Lucius was almost convinced that there was going to be a joyous shout of his name with the peculiar emphasis on the first syllable that Lockhart had procured...
"Hello! Are you staying here too? Would you like an autograph?"
***
St Mungo's were utterly astonished by an untimely donation from the Malfoy family a few weeks later, leaving the manager's moustache looking more harassed than ever before.