"Cocktail Time" (Rita Skeeter, Gilderoy Lockhart)
Author: therealsnape
Prompt/Prompt Author: See summary. Submitted by featherxquill
Title: Cocktail Time
Characters: Rita Skeeter, Gilderoy Lockhart
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word Count: 10K
Summary: Not many people know this, but Rita Skeeter and Gilderoy Lockhart flatted together for a while after Hogwarts. They stole each other's hair products rampantly. He painted her nails, she transfigured his clothes. She wrote about him, he invited her to parties. It was fabulous, darling. This was Feather's brilliant prompt. And it sums it up, really. But then, things went wrong.
Author's Notes: When Rita Skeeter was absent from the public scene, following the horrific events at the Triwizard Tournament, speculation was rife. It has been suggested she had a passionate love affair (she’s had many, but they didn’t stop her from writing). Or that she suffered from Writer’s Block (Rita? Really?). Evil tongues even suggested Harry Potter stopped her from publishing. (As if. It was Potter who begged her to return to interview him for the Quibbler.)
Truth is, Rita Skeeter took a sabbatical to write a new book. And hp_friendship gets the right of First Publication. Rita wants to thank her fabulous editor for all her hard work and the friendship mods for having the courage to publish this outspoken, honest account of her years with Gilderoy.
Prologue
Opening lines are hell.
“Just start at the beginning and go on till the end,” is the advice one often gets. Usually from people who can’t even write a decent shopping list.
Where, exactly, is the beginning of a story? Especially when it’s not fiction, but a biography. Does one start with the subject? Or with their parents? The latter is, of course, a staple solution for biographies of those poor dears who’ve had five minutes of fame, but are not interesting enough to fill a book on their own. In, say, Young Potter’s case going back all the way to Adam and Eve would make sense.
In this case, however, that won’t be necessary. I’ll even skip birth and early life - there’s plenty of scintillating material. The one thing that needs explaining is why this book was written in the first place. And that particular story did start at a very precise moment.
It was the Monday morning from hell. I had overslept. The night before, I had taken that last Firewhisky that was just one glass too many. The result was a general sense of queasiness - not enough to call in sick (and besides, I had called in sick on Monday mornings with a frequency that had already made its way to Appraisal Forms), but enough to make me loathe Mondays with a passion.
When I arrived at the Daily Prophet, Fate improved upon the shining hour with a broken-down coffee urn. And, to round it off nicely, my esteemed colleague Peregrine Grumpole was in full cheerful-babble-mode. I sat behind my desk, nursing my headache, thinking things couldn’t get worse.
Grumpole looked up. He was finishing his piece on a book launch and said, gleefully, that “that friend of yours, Lovely Lockhart, wasn’t at the party. Not like him to miss a do, is it?”
“Perhaps he wasn’t interested,” I replied, but with a feeling of unease in my stomach that had nothing to do with Firewhisky. Of course Gilderoy hadn’t been interested - the launch was for the memoirs of some third-rate Seeker. Self-published, of course, no editor would be mad enough to touch the drivel. There’s a prejudice that professional sportsmen may be good on the field, but are otherwise dumb bricks who can’t string two sentences together. And this Magnum Opus was called The Snitch and I. Need I say more?
But there were other reasons Gilderoy should have been present. Of course, Grumpole came up with the wrong one. “I was really surprised,” he said. “We all know our Gilderoy; he’d go to the opening of a bottle of butterbeer.” And he guffawed lustily at his own remark.
That settled it. I was not going to spend my Monday morning in the company of a man who trots out a cliché like that and who is then genuinely delighted by his own wit. I told him I was off to Fortescue’s, for a real coffee.
“Jolly good,” came Grumpole. “Could you get me one, too? A Skinny Latte?” And he looked smug, poor sod. Thought ordering a skinny latte showed that you were on the cutting edge of cosmopolitan living. He’s the kind of man who drinks cappuccino after dinner and believes he’s acting like a true Italian.
I grunted something ambiguous and Apparated away.
I had two reasons for going to Fortescue’s. First one, during his stay in Sicily Florean learned more than just how to make the best ice cream in the world. A stunning barista, he is. Second reason, he knows everything that goes on in the Alley. And I needed the most recent gossip.
For it was odd that Gilderoy had missed that launch, and I had worried about it myself. I had been there. Not for the Biography of a Nobody, but for the truly famous Quidditch players who would show up. We’d gone off partying elsewhere, and I’d gleaned copy for at least two gossipy stories. One of which involved Gwenog Jones, a Harpies Groupie, and an empty room at the Leaky Cauldron for which no rent was paid, for, as Gwenog put it, “It’s not as if we actually slept here, is it? And we didn’t mess up the bed, either.”
True. Hearth rugs are forgiving things. I had beetled along to get my story, and I had taken great care to keep both room and bathroom as spotless as those two had left it. Girls do want a quick wash on occasions, and an Investigative Journalist may urgently need to release built-up tension, but not at the cost of a hard-working publican.
Gilderoy, however, had failed to show up at the launch, and he loved a work-out between a Quidditch player’s thighs as much as he loved a book-signing session. Yes, that is a valid comparison. When Gil takes a quick break in the middle of a signing, it’s not for a glass of water and a hairbrush, darlings.
So I went to Florean, ordered a ristretto, told him to make it a double one, and listened gratefully to the hiss of the espresso-maker and his anxious “Poor darling, it must be a hellish day, then. Any way at all in which I can help?” Florean can read between the lines and knows what a double ristretto at 9.30 AM means. A man who truly understands coffee is a man who understands life.
Well, to keep a long story short, Florean told me the rumours that were doing the rounds among the Hogwarts students. Rumours involving Potter (of course) and Gilderoy, who had been spotted in the Sick Ward, heavily sedated.
I set of for Hogsmeade at once. I ferreted round for a bit. I got the full facts. And I got the god-awful, scandalous spin-doctor job Dumbledore made of the whole thing. You’ll remember the articles, of course. Great danger blah blah blah. Noble tradition of DADA teachers blah blah blah. Gilderoy Lockhart, courageous as always blah blah blah.
Outrageous. Of course, even Dumbledore didn’t manage to keep the devastating truth a secret from the students. But he turned it into “a most unfortunate incident - we’ll never know what happened in the dungeons, or how Gilderoy Lockhart got hit by such a dreadful Charm.”
Well, I knew. I knew all right. I knew the Truth Beyond Albus’s story. The fully-grown Basilisk. In a school, for crying out loud. The Petrifications. The student that went missing. The Memory Charm and who cast it. But I decided not to use it. I wrote the bland version Dumbledore wanted.
Yes, that comes as a surprise, doesn’t it? But I had my reasons, Dear Reader. They had nothing to do with Dumbledore. Nor with Potter. I kept silent because telling the full story would have exposed Gilderoy in the most ghastly way.
And, here‘s another surprise, I just couldn’t do that. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for a good story, including but not limited to selling my dear old Granny (would have to be one hell of a scoop, though - Gran is a barrelful of tales in her own right), but I simply couldn’t grass on Gilderoy Lockhart.
But the story I uncovered that dreadful Monday is what made me sit down, more than two years later, to hand in my notice at the Prophet.
Not because I have writers block. Are you kidding? What with all the things going on at Hogwarts alone? There’s Young Potter’s claim that he has seen the Second Coming of You-Know-Who. And there’s the whole mystery surrounding Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody. I happen to know for a fact that one teacher, at least, knew Moody very well. Knew him the biblical sense. Why did no-one recognise the impostor?
And I didn’t resign because anyone made me, either. Of course not. Who would possibly in a position to do that, I ask you?
No-one can make me stop writing. I am, after all, Rita Skeeter, Investigative Journalist. It’s how I define myself. I would go stark, staring mad if I couldn’t write.
No, the reason I am taking a sabbatical, Dear Readers, a sabbatical right in the middle of a wonderful career, at the top of my profession, is that I want to, need to, must write this book. The tale is simply too good not to be told. It is as if Gilderoy is standing next to me, saying, “Darling, you know you’re the only one who can do me justice. Do absent thee from felicity awhile, to tell my story.”
And he is right. There is no-one else better suited to give you the full, true, frank, and delicious account of the years we spent together.
Chapter 1 - For all that’s wonderful
“Rita Skeeter, for all that’s wonderful! Darling, how are you?”
I had been scanning Diagon Alley for familiar faces. But not ‘familiar’ in the sense of young Lockhart, that funny little chap who had arrived at Hogwarts during my N.E.W.T. year. He had been sorted into Slytherin, and he had been quite an entertaining addition to our Common Room. But other than that he hadn’t been interesting.
He still wasn’t. What I was looking for at the time was a mildly famous face. The kind of mildly famous face that would love to be interviewed for the Saturday edition of the Daily Prophet. Ideally, someone thrilled enough to agree to an interview over dinner and willing to pick up the bill, too. That way I’d strike lucky thrice: a hot meal - the first in two days, a fee for the interview, and, truly essential, my name in the by-line.
Four years ago I had graduated from Uni. I had gone there to pick up a First in Transfiguration and to find out what I wanted to do with my life. My parents hoped the degree would lead to a teaching position. A safe thing to fall back on for a girl, should she ever not marry, thought my Mum. “Not that that would happen to my lovely girl,” said Dad. I loved them as much as I hated their plans for my future.
My four years of student life resulted in an absolute passion for writing. For journalism, that is. I had been an eager contributor to the students’ rag, and I had soon realized that I loathed the semi-profound fiction, the navel-gazing philosophies, and the meaningless debates others indulged in. Give me events any time. May Balls. Interviews with Famous Visitors. First Nights at the Uni theatre. I settled for a Second so that I had more time to write, write, write.
I had found my vocation.
Three subsequent years as general dogsbody at Witch Weekly taught me how to use the tools of my trade, how to craft a good article. And they taught me that I emphatically did not want to spend my life scribbling for the good little homemakers “who look upon Witch Weekly as a dear friend, a confidante, and a guide,” as the Editor-in-Chief reminded us regularly.
On the day I met Gilderoy, I had spent nearly a year as Junior Reporter on the Daily Prophet. I was paid for three evening shifts, the Sundays to Tuesdays. The most boring ones, of course. And I got fees for any other articles they accepted - hence the quest for the mildly famous face.
“Gilderoy, how nice to see you,” I said, careful not to make too much eye-contact. I didn’t want a long chat. His clothes looked poorly. Not that he hadn’t made an effort. His sense for colour and line was remarkable, but unfortunately his Transfiguration skills weren’t, and the result simply screamed that he was as broke as I was.
“So good to see you! We simply must catch up. No, I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Hop over to the Leaky, darling, you know you want to,” he enthused, taking me by the arm and suggesting a degree of intimacy that was utterly non-existent but remarkably well-done. At that point, I did feel a certain interest for the lad. I didn’t know what he hoped to get from me, but he was playing his cards exceedingly well.
Besides, it had begun to rain, and I had more chances of finding my Famous Face in the Leaky than on the streets. So I agreed, and we were soon ensconced in a little booth with an excellent view of the room. “What can I get you?” asked my self-appointed New Best Friend. I noticed the look of anxiety in his eyes. Clever enough to realize one must invest in one’s network, but scared stiff I’d ask for something truly expensive. I told him we’d have half a cider each and we’d pay for ourselves. You don’t sponge off a penniless fellow Slytherin. You wait till they have made their fortune and are properly grateful to kind friends from the past.
He told me he had briefly trained as an Auror (“Darling, you wouldn’t believe the amount of sheer physical exercise they ask of One!”), had tried his hand in what he called the Hospitality Business (“The roughness of One’s customers! It’s not to be borne!”), and was now ‘between jobs’.
I told him about my career and the interview I hoped to get. And luck was on my side, for at that very moment Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped in. The rising star who had just finished his Auror training with the highest marks since Amelia Bones. I told Gilderoy I’d try my chance. He told me to wait, turned around, and yelped, “Kingsley Shacklebolt, for all that’s wonderful! How are you?”
Shacklebolt bowed to the unavoidable and chatted for a few moments; Gilderoy suggested a boys’ night out and mentioned my interview plans in the same breath. And, understandably, Shacklebolt choose the lesser of two evils. I had my story.
Two days later I ran into Gilderoy again as I got off my evening shift. Despite the late hour I said I’d buy him a drink. I owed him one for landing me the interview, and I always make a point of returning a favour at once and quite explicitly. That way I get to decide the terms.
When we were seated in the booth at the Leaky - “our booth”, said Gilderoy, who didn’t miss a step in the ingratiating process - he set to work in earnest. “Rita, darling, can I be absolutely frank?” he said. “You’re broke. We both know it. When we met the other day, you hadn’t had a decent meal in days. (Never eat all the courtesy peanuts, darling, or at least not that quickly - such a tell-tale sign.) Now, I’m broke as well. What I propose is this. I happen to own an apartment. Mummy’s inheritance. A lovely four-room flat right here on Diagon Alley. And I’m that broke I may have to sell it unless I find a small source of income. That’s where you come in. I could let you have two of those rooms - one would make a reasonable bed-sitter and one could be a study. And I’d charge you a mere two Galleons a month. Use of bathroom and kitchen, of course. What do you say?”
I said nothing for quite some time, and Gilderoy was clever enough to let me think in peace. I had digs in a side-street of the Alley. A reasonably good address. If you want to be a success, look the part. Good clothes, good address. I had a two-roomed flat. Theoretically a living room and small bedroom, but I had turned the bedroom into a study. I needed a place to write. And, true enough, I was that broke that paying the rent was hellishly difficult. I had dodged my landlady for weeks, but she’d catch me sooner or later and demand two months’ worth of rent. Which I had, but it would take my last Sickles.
Gilderoy offered basically the same space for half what I was paying at the time. It would mean giving up the kitchen (but I wasn’t much of a cook anyhow) and, a real sacrifice, the private bathroom. But as solutions went, this wasn’t a bad one. Financially, things really were getting desperate. And the address was even better.
I decided to have a look at the place then and there. Gilderoy hadn’t lied too much. ‘On’ Diagon Alley was pushing it - the door was on Diagon, true enough, but most of the rooms were above Knockturn. Still, they looked all right. And the door, the address, was what mattered. It was clean, too. Large enough for my needs. The decorations showed the same flair for colour and the same painful lack of Transfiguration skills. Nothing I couldn’t solve. They were furnished, that was the main thing. My current digs were furnished, too, and I had no furniture of my own.
“You can be utterly, utterly private, darling. We’ll hardly see each other. I do understand that a journalist must be able to work without interruptions,” Gilderoy assured me. I accepted his offer.
The next day, I moved in.
The day after that, a colleague asked after that “young friend of yours - the one who kept vigil outside the office for two days. So romantic. Did you go out with him?” And when I went to see my landlady to pay the remaining rent, she told me about “a charming young man who might want your rooms. Such a lovely smile, so polite. He thought my prices were most reasonable.”
I felt a grudging admiration for Gilderoy Lockhart’s style.
Chapter 2 - Cocktail Time
Gilderoy was as good as his word: the first week I hardly saw him. I had no idea of what he did during the day, but he was away quite a lot. I heard him move around a bit, but he was most considerate about noise, and he kept himself to himself. I must admit that I got slightly curious about my new flat mate.
The only information I got came from his - now our - bathroom. That man had the most fabulous range of hair products you could imagine. Conditioners, shampoos, brushes, and all in the top price bracket. When I saw the display on the first day of my stay, I grinned. And I felt relieved. His clothes, his feeling for colour, and his flamboyant ways, not to mention the use of darling had all pointed in one direction. The hair products confirmed it even more: he wanted a flatmate, not a sexual adventure. My future would not hold a painful rejection scene with the inevitable search for new digs. Most reassuring.
The second day I took a good look at that conditioner. Promised ‘glorious, shiny, seductive hair’. Don’t they all? But one look at Gilderoy’s locks proved that either his cradle was blessed by every fairy in the world, or this stuff actually delivered.
The third day I used it. He owed me one for his backhanded approach of my former landlady. And, as I said, when it comes to paybacks I like to decide the terms. My hair did feel softer afterwards, and I thought it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
On Friday evening, around six, I heard the door slam. Gilderoy had come home from whatever it was he did during the day. I heard him hang up his outdoors robes, but this time he didn’t go into the kitchen, as was his routine. Instead, he shouted, “Rita, darling! Cocktail time!”
I rose and went to the hall. Gilderoy was standing on the threshold of his living room, a bottle of Tequila in his hand and a smile on his face.
His smiles really were special, you know. Use every cliché you like. A smile that lights up a room. A smile that spreads happiness. The whole world smiles with him. In Gilderoy’s case it would merely be a description. If anything, an understated description.
I agreed to join him for drinks. It was only civil, and his choice of a Friday night seemed to suggest that it was a ‘celebrate the weekend’ thing rather than the start of a privacy-invading habit. Besides, I wanted to know more of the man I shared a house with.
He mixed me a marvellous Tequila Sunrise. His spell in the hospitality business clearly had not been a total waste. I asked him about it, and he confirmed that he had been a bartender in a wizarding hotel in Edinburgh. But he refused to give me the recipe. “My special creation, darling. Can’t expect me to give away my secrets, now, can you? Not on our first Cocktail Time?”
He proceeded to tell me a few stories of the weirdest of his customers, and I soon found myself screaming with laughter and having a thoroughly good time.
At some point, I felt things were going well enough between us to mention the changes I had made to my room. You remember the lack of Transfiguration skills? His efforts were painful to see, and I modified things on my very first day. He was all enthusiastic about it. “Of course, darling, you’re free to change what you want - you know, that whole teapot-to-tortoise thing just isn’t me.
When he saw the results, he gasped with pleasure. I had kept all of his colour schemes - they were perfection, better than anything I could have come up with. Gilderoy was generous in his praise, and begged me to do the same thing for his part of the flat. “Darling, please, if it isn’t asking too much? This is just fabulous. I knew we were a match made in heaven!”
That weekend I helped him Transfigure his furniture and curtains. He was quite demanding, verging on the difficult. Made me redo things several times. But whatever he asked, he was always absolutely right. When we were both finished, his apartment looked like a Beautiful Homes feature from the Witch Weekly. And we’d had a great time together.
The next Friday, I took care to be at home well before six o’clock. And, sure enough, Gilderoy came home and shouted, “Cocktail Time!”
Sidecars, this week. Just as perfectly mixed, with a kick like a Hippogriff’s, and a little Gilderoy twist that turned them into a work of art. “Merlin, I needed that,” he said. “I’ve found a job - started this week. Only temporarily, of course. Not what I want to do all my life.” He shuddered briefly at that thought, and continued, “Madam Malkin’s sales lady is on maternity leave, and I’ve taken over. Darling, it’s ghastly. You simply won’t believe …”
I interrupted him then and there. I spent most of my working days interviewing people who had absolutely nothing to say and said it for far too long. I had no intention of spending my leisure hours listening to a whinger. Can’t abide whingers. Boring as hell.
“Darling,” I said, taking a leaf out of his parchment, “believe me, there’s nothing worse than listening to non-stories. And you’ll have to admit that most work whinges are non-stories. Neither one of us will do that to the other. Let’s agree to give each other one scoop each on these lovely Friday drinks (such a wonderful idea of yours): the absolute number one Worst Story of the Week.”
He looked crest-fallen for a moment, but my enthusiasm for his ‘wonderful’ Friday Drinks won the day. He even let me have the first turn. Well, my choice was easy. The interview with Gwenog Jones. “Are you into Quidditch at all?” I asked him, and he shuddered once more.
“Darling, please. Far too active. Messes up One’s hair. Mind, some of those lads are simply strapping. Those thighs! It’s all that riding brooms, of course. But the game - no.”
“Well,” I said, “this isn’t about the lads. You’ve heard of the Holyhead Harpies?” He nodded. “One of their Chasers, Rolanda Hooch, had a bad fall last Sunday. She’s still in St Mungo’s, and it’s probably the end of her professional career. She was in no condition to give an interview, so I had to make do with Gwenog Jones, the Captain.
“I tell you, Gil, darling, it’s the hardest piece of work I’ve ever done. I asked her, ‘How do you feel about this ghastly accident? Your best chaser and dear friend, who may never fly with the Harpies again? Who may never fly again at all? You must be utterly devastated.’
“‘Bad show.’
“That was all. Can you believe it? Her best Chaser, her best friend, and her lover, according to some rumours. And all she finds to say is ‘bad show’.
“’What do you plan to do now? Will you withdraw from your next match? Out of respect for an outstanding sportswoman, a great team player, and a wonderful friend?’
“’Game must go on. Would want it.’
“Would Hooch have wanted it?” I asked. And how did Gwenog know? Had Hooch ever mentioned an eventuality like this, in a moment of great intimacy, perhaps? If they meant to play, how would they do it? How could they see the Quaffle through their tears, whenever they thought of that poor, lonely, broken figure in a silent hospital room?
“’Must do it. Would want us to win.’”
And on it went - one monosyllable after the other. Gilderoy commiserated most feelingly, and he was speechless - no, make that very eloquent - in his praise of the article I had managed to squeeze out.
His own tale was fun. One of his first customers had been the redoubtable Augusta Longbottom. She had stumped in early in the morning and asked for a new robe. In Gilderoy’s words, “that should have told me everything. A new robe. Hardly a woman with dresses for each occasion. And a difficult figure, too. But strong features and a wonderfully-straight back. At least whatever I put on her would hang well.
“But that hat. Rita, dear, it was too, too frightful for words. A vulture, of all things. I mean, cherries? Horribly bourgeois, but then, Madam Longbottom is just that. Flowers? So very Seventies, but I guess in her case that would still qualify as ‘modern’. A feather? Terribly outdoorsy and country side, but she may well be on the local Harvest Festival Committee, for all we know. But a vulture. The pits, darling, the absolute pits.
“That was my first idea: the hat would have to go. So I selected a lovely midnight-blue robe. Beautiful cut, splendid colour, would do justice to her fine posture, suitable for every occasion. And look at the matching hat!
“I nearly convinced myself. And, actually, she would have looked splendid in it. But she refused flatly. She already had a hat, she said. No reason for a new one.
“Darling, that bird was positively moulting. I did try, most tactfully, I assure you. But she merely said, ‘the blue hat isn’t me.
“I told her that the vulture wasn’t her, either, that no-one was a vulture; leave alone a wonderful woman such as herself. But she refused to try on the blue robes, and insisted I get her a green one. Said she always had a green one, because it would save her the trouble of getting new matching shoes and a bag. That was why she always wore the same colour. And a dreadful mossy hue it was. As if she won’t be pushing up the daisies for long enough - no need to look like a neglected tombstone before her time.
“So I asked to see the bag, and what do you think? Red! Effing, bright, Gryffindor red. With green robes, I ask you. And she thought it combined well! Silver combines, as we both know. But that’s about all. Such a difficult colour, green.”
In the end Madam Longbottom had marched out with a new green robe, leaving Gilderoy’s self-confidence in tatters and his stomach all queasy from the ghastly clash of Gryffindor and Moss.
And that evening was the start of a routine. Hard work during the week for both of us. But on Friday night, Gilderoy would shout, “Cocktail Time!” And we’d start a weekend of fun, fashion, and gossip.
Just a few weeks later we enlarged our scope of action.
Chapter 3 - A Gilderoy Twist
It was a Thursday night, but when Gilderoy threw the door in the lock, his first words were, “Rita, darling? Cocktail Time?”
There was a funny sound to his voice - the sound you get when someone tries to behave perfectly normally, but it takes every ounce of their willpower not to cry. “Coming,” I cried back, and made loud clearing-away-the-work sounds. Give him a second or two to compose himself.
When I entered the living room, he was mixing us a Bloody Mary. However upset he might be, there was the little Gilderoy Twist that made me gasp with pleasure. Best Bloody Mary ever. “Bloody Malkin,” Gilderoy muttered. “I know you said one story a week, darling, and it is a day early. But here’s one for the books: I got fired. Now, try to top that one tomorrow!” And there was the beginning of his cheeky smile.
“She’s crazy,” I said, and I meant it. “Fire you? You have the most unerring eye for clothes I’ve ever seen. What on earth happened?”
The story was actually quite funny - Gilderoy always told his stories well. The wedding party from hell had come to the shop. Mother wanted Country House Elegance at middle class prices. Daughter wanted to look like a fairy - all sixteen stones of her. The bridesmaids wanted to look halfway decent, which is just a tad irrational when it comes to bridesmaids’ dresses. Everyone was absolutely furious with everyone. When the bride screamed she wouldn’t marry at all, Gilderoy decided the time for dramatic action had come.
He had started on Mother’s dress. That calmed down the others, for they couldn’t care less what Mumsy would wear. After fifteen minutes of Gilderoy’s compliments and smiles, with a ‘Darling’ or two thrown in, Mumsy was completely won over. “She started with a smile, but after that it was practically heavy petting! Darling, when One thinks of One’s sufferings, all for Bloody Malkin, it’s really too much.”
Then he had turned his attention to the bridesmaids. Mumsy clearly was delighted with their outfit as it stood, and Gilderoy confirmed it was class personified (“squib’s class, darling”) and looked as if it came straight from a Country House (“That wasn’t a lie, you know. Plump, squishy and upholstered in cabbage-rose-patterned chintz? Straight from a country house, indeed - just not human.)
He had taken a good look at the cabbage roses (“turned my tummy all queasy”), groaned, and told Mumsy that he could not possibly let her have her delightful pale lavender and purple dress robes, “for they would clash horribly with those roses - just think what it would look like in the pictures.” He had selected a boring grey dress; Mumsy had taken one good look at it, and had decided the bridesmaid dresses had to go.
“Well, it was just a few days before the wedding, darling. The very last fitting. So I got in one of our little seamstresses, and she Transfigured the things on my instructions. Infinitely better, beautiful match with Mumsy, and those girls will love me forever. And recommend the Bloody Malkin, more’s the pity.
“And I changed the bride’s dress as well. I mean, really, sixteen stone in tulle? White? She ended up in silk, a regal cut, but one that gives a good view of her boobs. She may have the gait of a legless Giant and the arse of a hippogriff, all anyone will see is those gorgeous tits. And they’ll tell her she’s the most beautiful bride ever.”
And then Madam Malkin had accused him of tampering with her designs. His changes had been minor and unauthorized, she said, (but an undeniable improvement, which must have caused quite a bit of her fury), and to make matters worse, he had spoken about ‘his’ creation. She had sacked him on the spot.
Well, she had a point there. Gilderoy had talent. She might think he’d accepted the job to steal her customers - I know all about earning your living as a single woman, and I knew how Malkin had felt. But that was not what Gilderoy needed to hear. So I agreed that another cocktail was in order and tried to cheer him up by praising the quality and the Gilderoy Twist.
And at some point I suggested he might actually start his own dressmaking business. It seemed the obvious idea. Gilderoy nearly choked on his drink, raced out of the room, and banged the bathroom door. But there were no sounds of frantic coughing.
When he returned, he did claim that ‘something went down the wrong way, darling’. And he had brought my nail polish, of all things. “Your nails are chipped,” he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow, “I just can’t look at it any longer. Here, let me.”
He started to paint my nails. And he started to talk, and then I understood the point of that polish. An excuse to keep his head down, so that I couldn’t see his face. It was a heart-breaking story.
His mother had been the first to discover Gilderoy’s talent for fashion. They had been “everything to each other after Dad walked out” as he put it, and he had advised her and suggested changes to her clothes - like he did with me, and already with unerring taste, I dare say. And during his schooldays he had done the same for his female classmates, “which is how I graduated with such lovely marks - all those essays the dears wrote for me! Except for Charms. I’ve always been really, really good at Charms. ” Then he had gone to Paris to be apprenticed with one of the dressmakers there.
His first year had been deliriously happy. Being the general dogsbody hadn’t bothered him - he just soaked up the knowledge. His first creative jobs - little changes to dresses, finishing touches to simple designs - had been praised.
The second year he had begun to doubt. He still got praise, but less. He was no longer a high-flyer.
The third year, Monsieur Laudinel told him he would never make it to the top. He couldn’t think up anything from scratch. All he could do was modify the designs of others. Adding a little twist. A good twist - and Monsieur Laudinel was more than willing to offer him a well-paid position as salesman and assistant - he, Laudinel, would be sorry to lose the talent Gilderoy undoubtedly had. But Gilderoy was not, and never would be, a designer.
“So, ever since I’ve been between jobs, so to speak. “ When Gilderoy finally looked up, I had three layers of perfect nail polish that lasted a whole week, he had faintly red rims around his eyes, and I poured him a straight shot of vodka.
You see, Dear Reader, I was lucky. I had this overwhelming need to write, but I also had the talent to match my ambition. How would it feel to have quite a bit of talent - but not enough? To feel, time and again, that one could not?
“I’ll never be good enough at anything,” Gilderoy said. “I’ll never be the top.” And I realized that was his definition of ‘being good enough’. Only the top would do. It was then that I realized he did have all this wonderful creativity, but, indeed, not enough. Not enough to create a cocktail - he could just add a Twist. Not enough to create clothes - just a Twist. Not enough to create furniture or curtains - again, just a Twist. A Gilderoy Twist.
I told him his talent for giving things a Gilderoy Twist ought to be worth something. Then we had more Bloody Marys; we maligned Bloody Malkin and everyone under the sun. I remember Gilderoy shouting that he was the fucking best Twister in the world. I remember agreeing.
Unfortunately, I also remember the day after.
If you have never been woken by the loud, insistent tapping of an owl’s beak on the window, the morning after that many of Gilderoy’s cocktails, you don’t know what suffering is.
The only way to make the agony stop was to get the parchment. It turned out to be Mumsy’s invitation to the wedding - and it was The Event of the Year! Gilderoy hadn’t recognized the girl. Not his fault: at that time she was a Nobody. But she was none other than the Dowdy Deb, the one who, to the rage of every mother in the country, had managed to ensnare Dominick Lestrange, catch of the season. Love-potion, said some. Imperius, said others. Dom likes them plump, said his friends. But no-one understood the attraction.
“There is something about that girl, you know,” said Gilderoy when I had told him the story. “It can’t be a Glamorgana in her ancestry - not with those looks. But something that goes beyond looks. When she wants to charm - and after she’d seen what I had done about the bridesmaid’s dresses, she wanted to - she just … well, she attracts people. Darling, she nearly attracted me.”
Something, indeed. I’ve been to six of her weddings, and I can only confirm what Gilderoy said. She dropped Lestrange at exactly the right moment, had a Scotsman after him, then a few others, then a Greek portkey-builder, and now it’s the Italian. Not quite sure what his business is, but I’d like thirty seconds of free shopping in his vault at Gringotts. Ten seconds, even. Yes, there’s definitely something about Mrs Zabini.
I told Gilderoy we would accept the invitation. It would mean a free meal for both of us, he could get some useful contacts, and I’d get an article out of it.
The article was the lead on the Society Page - Gilderoy had worked the room for all it was worth, and he had come up with the most delicious stories. You see, when people talk to me, they know I’m a journalist, and they’re cautious. With Gilderoy they just gossip, and he’s the best gossiper in the world. Gilderoy had got an invitation for a weekend at a manor. Or, to be precise, “a Friday-to-Monday, darling, they don’t call it a weekend.”
That Friday I was surprised at how much I missed our weekly Cocktail Time.
The next week, we both had good news. My editor had told me he would like to see more Society Page contributions from me. And Gilderoy had had further invitations for a dinner and a vernissage. I couldn’t come to the dinner, of course; he had been invited because he was a spare man. But when he mentioned the vernissage, I realized we had the makings of a Golden Pair.
Chapter 4 - A Match Made in Heaven
As Gilderoy mixed the Singapore Slings, I outlined my plans. He would become the Answer to a Hostess’s Prayer - available, single, and charming. He’d get me invitations to society events, I’d get articles out of them, and we’d both get free meals. He would give me the gossip I couldn’t get, I’d use part of the money I made with the stories to pay him a slightly higher rent.
It worked out beautifully. Gilderoy soon had invitations for three or four nights a week. I got by-line after by-line, and within months I was offered a permanent contract at the Prophet. We were still both strapped for cash, and on the at-home nights we’d eat cheap pasta meals or sardines on toast, but several times a week we pigged out on glorious party food. And afterwards we’d share all the gossip in endless, giggly talks. It truly was a match made in heaven.
One day, at dinner time, I found Gilderoy at the kitchen table, scribbling on a roll of parchment. He blushed when I asked what I was writing, but in the end he let me read it. It was an account of one of the Friday-to-Mondays. Pure, unadulterated libel - unprintable, but hilarious. Very well-written. Once you started reading you couldn’t stop. I told him it was brilliant. He should write a book, I said. He just laughed at the suggestion and said he couldn’t possibly.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened. Well, not exactly what happened, I don’t think for a moment that Violet really has the hots for Isobel - they just glared and glared at each other, and I thought it would be too, too funny for words if they had this passionate, secret affair. But make up a whole story? Never. Still, I’m glad you like my little creation.”
There it was again, Dear Reader. A story with a Gilderoy Twist. Not his little creation at all. I poured both of us a glass of wine and changed the subject.
We continued our merry round of parties, stories, gossip, and Cocktail Times. And occasionally Gilderoy would write one of his little tales, just to entertain me. They went from strength to strength.
I did notice he had even less money than usual - when the bottles of hair care products ran out, he didn’t replace them but used mine instead. Without asking. But then, what’s a bit of conditioner between friends?
But somehow the thought of a book must have stuck in his head, for a few weeks later he told me his Great Plan. He really did speak about it in capital letters. And you know, it was the perfect idea. Gilderoy told me he had saved some money (I knew there was a reason he was not buying conditioner) and planned to use it to travel. To Greece, for starters. And then he’d write a travel book.
“Not one of those utterly boring things with hotel this, museum that, quaint village there, darling. An account of my adventures, my encounters, my views. Not a holiday guide - I want to write escapism. The kind of book that people curl up with on a dreary winter night, when the holidays are still far-off. I want to make them feel as if they are in Greece - with wonderful me. I am lovely, gossipy company. Everyone says so. Do you think it might work?”
There was real anxiety in his voice. I was glad I could reassure him; I sincerely believed it would work very well. He had a fun writing style. He wouldn’t have to make up a story - the events would be all there. They just needed a Gilderoy Twist. And he was the effing best twister in the world.
I offered to pay the costs of keeping the apartment in his absence. I could afford to, on my new salary, and it would be a real help to Gilderoy. He had given me my break; I owed him his. And I like to pay back on my terms.
Soon after, Gilderoy set off, leaving me the free use of the apartment and, more importantly, of his address book. We told each other we would both work like mad at our careers for the next few months, and upon his return we would have the mother of all Cocktail Times.
Chapter 5 - Holidays with Hags
Gilderoy returned on a chilly Friday night in September, bronzed, happy, with stunning highlights in his hair and a turquoise robe that would have looked ludicrous on anyone else. He told me his trip had been everything he hoped for and more. He’d had the most wonderful adventure, “with a Hag, darling, a real one. She was terrorizing a whole sweet village. And I managed to do something about her. Those Auror days weren’t a complete waste of time, you know. I’ve the most wonderful story to write. It worked, it really worked.” We hugged, screamed, and practically danced round the room.
We had the Cocktail Time to end all Cocktail Times.
Followed by a very, very quiet weekend. Or Saturday-to-Monday, if you prefer.
And then Gilderoy set to work with a vengeance. Each morning as I left for the Prophet, I could hear the scratching of his quill. Each evening I’d find some discarded parchments in the bin, and a growing pile on the dining room table he used as his desk. “Do you mind, darling?” he had asked, and I had told him not to be silly. We’d always preferred kitchen sups. Sardines on toast on polished mahogany? Far too ‘genteel poverty’, thank you very much.
That Friday night he handed me one of the parchments. “Would you look at it, please? It’s the first chapter. I’ve already drafted a few other ones - but I’d like to know … Well, before we have our drinkies, actually … you see, if it’s totally ghastly … If you could just give it a quick look?”
I told him I would, took the parchment, and went to my room. I felt literally sick with fear. What if it was ghastly? How could I possibly tell him?
I started to read. At the end of the first paragraph, the sick feeling went away. At the end of the second paragraph, the knot in my stomach eased itself out. At the end of the third paragraph, I had forgotten that I was Rita Skeeter, Journalist, who had to give a professional opinion.
At the end of the parchment, I rolled it up and returned to the living room. “Those other chapters you mentioned …” I said, as severely as I could.
“Oh god,” Gilderoy groaned. “You hate it. I knew you would. I knew it’s ghastly. You want to burn them.”
“No, you idiot, I want to read them. Now! It’s fucking fantastic!” I shouted. And it was. It was the most wonderful, rollicking escapist read you could imagine. The critics would loathe it, but it would sell, sell, sell.
He just stared at me at first, and then he smiled.
Whenever I think of Gilderoy as he is now, I try to remember that moment, that smile. I try to remember he once was that gloriously, blissfully, endlessly happy.
Gilderoy Lockhart, Master Twister, had found his destiny.
Chapter 6 - The First Tiny Cracks
Over the next few months, Gilderoy wrote his book. I helped him to polish it, taught him a few tricks of the trade. He was eager to learn all he could, and he improved his style day by day. Meanwhile we took up our merry round of party invites, I wrote my Society Page, and, spurred on by Gilderoy’s enthusiasm, started on the first, tentative research for what would later become Armando Dippet, Master or Moron? Halcyon days.
Then Gilderoy’s book was published, just in time for the Christmas shopping, and life got even better. The book was an overnight success, he got invitations to the most fabulous of parties, I was made Editor of the Society Page, I got a pay-rise, he got royalties beyond belief … We were on a roll. The Golden Pair. The Match Made in Heaven.
And then I had an interview with one of Dippet’s Old Pupils. Just a little routine research. I mentioned it to Gilderoy over dinner, in the loosest possible way. “You know, Gil, darling, you’re really the hottest things in town right now. Take Robert Abbott. He’d seen our picture in the paper - I got the interview on the strength of that. He was all excited. Had met you in Greece, he said.”
“Oh, really?” said Gilderoy nonchalantly - but not quite nonchalantly enough. I looked at him. He looked back, mildly embarrassed. “Yes, quite, Bobby Abbott. We did run into each other, briefly. At Mykonos, I think. Or possibly Santorini.”
That explained. It had been Mykonos, of course. Wildest gay scene in Greece. And right now he didn’t want to advertise that side of his life. Gilderoy had never made a secret of his preferences, but the main part of his new-found reading public consisted of women. Witch Weekly women. The kind that called him the perfect son-in-law, but in doing so they weren’t exactly thinking of a partner for their girls. There may be a tigress inside every mother ready to protect her cub, but underneath those aprons and dishcloths and matronly dresses there is a cougar in every one of Gilderoy’s fans, ready to jump him.
“You won’t mention me, Rita, darling?” Gil said, but he knew I wouldn’t. What was said in the flat stayed in the flat. Apart from the professional, article-writing gossip, of course.
The next morning Gilderoy was up before me and about to leave as I made my morning coffee. He looked somewhat furtively. “A few things to deal with,” he said. “Some loose ends to tie … the book, you know …”
I didn’t think much of it. I just hurried out to my appointment with Abbott. I found him most helpful, but at the end of our interview, I couldn’t resist asking after Gilderoy. He had always refused to discuss intimate details of his love-life. I would never put it in print, of course I wouldn’t, but I admit I was curious.
Bobby Abbott stared at me with unseeing eyes and muttered, “Gilderoy? Lockhart? No, can’t recall … can’t recall anything …” It was quite uncanny - such a completely vacuous look. His mind misted over. A cliché, but not in this case. You could practically see the fog set in. Reminded me of the after effects of a Memory Charm, it did. Dangerous things, those Charms.
I Apparated back to the flat and started to sort out my notes. And then I realized - Gilderoy’s trip of that morning. Tying up loose ends. Had he been to see Abbott? To … to …
To warn him, I told myself. Gil had warned him not to mention anything to me (the poor, distrustful sweetie), and Abbott simply was a lousy actor who was overdoing the denial thing. That was all.
And I picked up my quill and continued writing. The problem was settled. There had been a tiny mystery (those glassy eyes …); I had solved the mystery, so now it didn’t exist anymore (like the memory of Gil didn’t exist …). Life could go on. We would have supper together. A cocktail, even, although it was a Wednesday.
We were the Golden Pair. It was our Golden Year. There was nothing wrong.
*****
“One espresso macchiato, love. And how’s the Great Biography going?” Florean Fortescue was good at things like that: remembering what his clients did, asking after their work. I told him the book was fine. He mentioned a few people I might want to talk to. Robert Abbott was one of them.
“I’ve met Bobby Abbott,” I said. “He was helpful enough. Didn’t know any really juicy details, but he was all right.” (That vacuous look. The stuttering.) “He was all right,” I repeated, to convince myself.
“Hope you didn’t mention you live with Gilderoy?” grinned Florean. “I ran into Bobby in Greece. Your Gil had dumped him, more or less - and it wasn’t even a Best Man Won sort of thing. Gil went off with some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them. Gil said she had fascinating stories to tell. Poor Bobby was thoroughly pissed off - can’t say I blame him.”
I settled my bill and left after exchanging a few further pleasantries with Florean.
It didn’t mean a thing. There was a logical explanation.
This one, for instance: They had had an argument, and Bobby was pissed off. That was step one. Step two, Bobby didn’t want to talk about Gil at all, but couldn’t act for two Sickles, hence the over-performance. It all fitted - except that Bobby had mentioned Gilderoy himself and had been all excited.
No, there was a better explanation: Florean was wrong about the argument. It wasn’t a big thing at all, just a small lover’s tiff. It had happened the very day Florean had met Bobby, obviously, and Bobby had vented his anger. But now the lovers were back together, and Gilderoy had been to see Bobby, just as I had thought before. To warn him.
But why had Gilderoy, that marvellous twister of tales, chosen this ‘I’ve never heard of’ approach? Why not let Bobby admit to a simple, manly friendship? Surely that was much safer? Besides, why would Gil want to hide a love-affair from me?
For some very good reasons that were none of my business. Gilderoy had a right to a private life. There was a difference between Best Friends, Flatmates Forever, and interfering busybodies. I would forget all about Florean’s words. For once, Florean had been misinformed. (But he never was. Never.) It was completely unimportant.
“Gil went off with some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them. Said she had fascinating stories to tell.”
The words kept echoing in my head. They meant nothing. They meant Gilderoy had been kind and attentive to some old bird, and Bobby had resented it.
Only, Gilderoy didn’t do ‘kind to elderly ladies’. Gilderoy was kind to people who were useful to him. One of the things we had in common - we used people. We used each other, and we were honest about it, and that’s why we were The Golden Pair.
“Said she had fascinating stories to tell.” Fascinating stories to tell … fascinating stories …
We were the Match Made in Heaven, and I wasn’t going to ruin that over some silly nonsense. Gilderoy had fought with a hag, he’d written a great book, and I was happy for him. And I had been the first to spot his writing talent. I had encouraged him. Told him he should write a book.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened - well, not really happened …”
Gilderoy was my best friend. We shared everything. We shared our hair care products, dammit! How close could you get? We shared each other’s ups and downs. The day he gave me his first chapter to read. The day I found an agent for my Dippet book. The day Kingsley fucking Shacklebolt dumped me. The day he lost that stupid job at Malkin’s.
The day he lost that job was when we had truly started to share things. When he told me he couldn’t be a designer. When I first called his creative gift “The Gilderoy Twist”.
“I’m the fucking best twister in the world, Rita, darling. Aren’t I?”
Chapter 7 - Shivering in the Sun
A few days later my Editor-in-Chief announced that there were some problems with the holiday arrangements. “So someone will have to be very, very accommodating and take their holiday straight away. We’ll be able to solve this between colleagues, I’m sure,” he said.
It turned out that two journalists had asked for leave in the same period. The Editor had approved both requests; they had booked holidays. No-one else could change. Three colleagues had children at Hogwarts, and number four came with an arrangement for the care of an elderly mother-in-law that made the logistics of the Quidditch World Cup sound easy.
I’d had a few sleepless nights. Work stress. Not that I was worried about Gilderoy. Not at all. Gilderoy was fine. We were fine. But I was still stressed, and a holiday would do me good. Would get me kudos with the Editor, too, for accepting this last-minute arrangement.
I took the next week off and booked a portkey to Greece. To Mykonos. I had heard good things about Mykonos. Lovely island. Lovely nightlife. Lovely old town. Lovely white churches. With blue roofs. Lovely blue sea. All right, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with that last one, but there really were lots of reasons to go to Mykonos. Perfectly valid, touristy reasons that had nothing to do with a desire to check out “some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them.”
Well, Mykonos was great. Not quite as great as in Gil’s book - that had been Mykonos with a Gilderoy Twist, everything just that little bit larger than life. But it’s a nice holiday place. On day two I’d found a bar that did great coffee, with an owner who was a fountain of information. On day three I was greeted as a regular customer. On day four we were new best friends, and he told me all about “that charming man - is he really a friend of yours? Such a smile!”
Yes, Gilderoy had been with Bobby. “The good Bobby, he comes here every year. Lovely man. Spends lots of money. And truly kind. We once talk about your English digestives with chocolate on top. I tell him to Owl me a package. Just a joke. But he actually did. Lovely man. Too bad about your friend and him. Two fine men. Your friend is kind, I could see that. The attention he gave old Evgenia!
“Evgenia was a character, you know. Came here often for a cup of coffee. Told stories about her glorious past. About fighting with hags. Always about fighting with hags. No, of course that is not a true story. A woman, win a fight with a hag? She must have meant fights with her sisters, when they were all children together. She had four sisters, you know. The weddings almost ruined her poor father. But Evgenia herself never married. If you want a husband, perhaps you should not always say that you have won from a hag, eh? We didn’t really listen. We don’t have time to listen in the tourist season. The tourists don’t have time either. But your friend had. Time for Evgenia. Lots of time. Fine, kind young man. Too bad Bobby and he broke up.”
Evgenia, I was told, no longer lived in her little white house at the end of the village. “The mind went, you see. It happens. One day you are a great character, and then you’re too old. Your mind is too old. It goes. She’s in a home, now. A good home. One of her nieces arranged it. We go to see her sometimes. I’ll go soon. When the tourist season is over. Soon.”
I went to see Evgenia, too. Sooner than my barman. That very afternoon, in fact. She was well taken care of, and pleased to have a visitor. I mentioned Gilderoy. No reaction. I mentioned hags. No reaction.
That’s not true. There was a reaction. I didn’t want to see it, willed myself not to see it- but it was there. The vacuous look. The glossy eyes. The mind misting over. The fog - for poor Evgenia the fog had set in permanently, but you could see it getting denser.
Every single symptom of an exceedingly powerful Memory Charm.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened - well, not really happened …”
“A Hag, darling, a real one. She was simply terrorizing a whole sweet village. And I managed to do something about her. Those Auror days weren’t a complete waste of time, you know. I’ve the most wonderful story to write.”
I spent the last days of my holiday drinking myself into oblivion. Flinching as I thought the very word oblivion. And getting a good tan. There was no point in advertising what I’d been up to.
I had made up my mind: I wouldn’t give Gilderoy away. Life had dealt him a rotten hand. A Dad who walked out, a Mum who spoiled him rotten, not with money, but with so much praise that only the top would ever be good enough for him. And Life’s sickening little joke: a too-small talent. Enough to have him burning with creative desire - without the possibility of release.
He had written a good book. With his own hands. I had seen him do it. And that was all there was to it. I’d forget all about Greece, I’d Obliv... no, I’d make myself forget all that had happened.
We were flatmates forever, Gilderoy and I.
Chapter 8 - The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side
I got home before Gilderoy arrived. I unpacked, dealt with mail. I thought about the story I would tell him. I’d say I had been to Mykonos. That his book had inspired my destination. I’d say I had spent my days on the beach and in quaint, old Mykonos Town; that I had spent the nights in a club. That I hadn’t done much else - just a very lazy, very lovely holiday.
I heard Gilderoy come home. I heard him pause in the hall. He noticed I was back, and, as I expected, he shouted, “Rita, darling! For all that’s wonderful! It’s Cocktail Time, my dear. Or should I say ‘Ouzo Time’?”
I went to the hall and we hugged. He steered us both to the living room and started to mix a Tequila Sunrise. The drink he had made during our first Cocktail Time, so long ago. “How was your holiday?” he asked. “Such a last-minute thing! I don’t even know where you went, darling.”
I looked at his beautiful, blue eyes.
I looked at that wonderful smile.
The last things Evgenia had seen before her mind went.
I took a deep breath, and I said, “Rhodes. I went to Rhodes.”
*****
The next day, I studied the ‘Flat for rent’ section of the newspaper. I found that, with my new salary, the options weren’t bad. Not bad at all. I checked out two or three places and made a decision.
That evening, I told Gilderoy I’d move out. “It’s been wonderful, darling, but let’s be realistic. I need more space to write that Dippet biography. You can’t write your next book at the dining room table - you need a proper study, too.”
Gilderoy protested briefly. Very briefly. Then he agreed. “You’re right as always. I do need a bit more space - to prepare my next trip. I’m doing research right now. That thing with the hag - that’s the real me. To go places, to rid the world of its pests. And then to write a book about it. I’m thinking Yetis next. Or trolls. And who knows, one day, when I’m too old to travel, I may start my own range of hair care products. I feel like the world’s my oyster.”
We agreed that it had been fabulous when it lasted.
We both got a bit teary.
In the end, we hugged.
We told each other that, even though we wouldn’t live together anymore, we’d be Flatmates Forever.
We promised to meet up, frequently, for Cocktail time.
Even at the time I knew it was a lie. Gilderoy knew it was a lie. We said it, nonetheless.
*****
“Gil went off with some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them. Said she had fascinating stories to tell.”
I couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened - well, not really happened …”
I’d never be able to forget Evgenia, gazing into her fog under the bright, Greek sun.
“A Hag, darling, a real one. And I managed to do something about her. I’ve the most wonderful story to write.”
He had. And he could write it. Nothing could stop him now. Nothing would stop him. Except, perhaps, the thought of Obliviating me. Then again, perhaps not even that.
I would never know, would I? Unless I cared to test him.
I didn’t.
“I’m thinking Yetis next. Or trolls. And who knows, one day, when I’m too old to travel, I may start my own range of hair care products. I feel like the world’s my oyster.”
I told myself Gilderoy deserved his oyster. I told myself it was time to go.
“I’m the fucking best twister in the world, Rita, darling. Aren’t I? Aren’t I?”
You were, Gil, darling. You were.
Prompt/Prompt Author: See summary. Submitted by featherxquill
Title: Cocktail Time
Characters: Rita Skeeter, Gilderoy Lockhart
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word Count: 10K
Summary: Not many people know this, but Rita Skeeter and Gilderoy Lockhart flatted together for a while after Hogwarts. They stole each other's hair products rampantly. He painted her nails, she transfigured his clothes. She wrote about him, he invited her to parties. It was fabulous, darling. This was Feather's brilliant prompt. And it sums it up, really. But then, things went wrong.
Author's Notes: When Rita Skeeter was absent from the public scene, following the horrific events at the Triwizard Tournament, speculation was rife. It has been suggested she had a passionate love affair (she’s had many, but they didn’t stop her from writing). Or that she suffered from Writer’s Block (Rita? Really?). Evil tongues even suggested Harry Potter stopped her from publishing. (As if. It was Potter who begged her to return to interview him for the Quibbler.)
Truth is, Rita Skeeter took a sabbatical to write a new book. And hp_friendship gets the right of First Publication. Rita wants to thank her fabulous editor for all her hard work and the friendship mods for having the courage to publish this outspoken, honest account of her years with Gilderoy.
Prologue
Opening lines are hell.
“Just start at the beginning and go on till the end,” is the advice one often gets. Usually from people who can’t even write a decent shopping list.
Where, exactly, is the beginning of a story? Especially when it’s not fiction, but a biography. Does one start with the subject? Or with their parents? The latter is, of course, a staple solution for biographies of those poor dears who’ve had five minutes of fame, but are not interesting enough to fill a book on their own. In, say, Young Potter’s case going back all the way to Adam and Eve would make sense.
In this case, however, that won’t be necessary. I’ll even skip birth and early life - there’s plenty of scintillating material. The one thing that needs explaining is why this book was written in the first place. And that particular story did start at a very precise moment.
It was the Monday morning from hell. I had overslept. The night before, I had taken that last Firewhisky that was just one glass too many. The result was a general sense of queasiness - not enough to call in sick (and besides, I had called in sick on Monday mornings with a frequency that had already made its way to Appraisal Forms), but enough to make me loathe Mondays with a passion.
When I arrived at the Daily Prophet, Fate improved upon the shining hour with a broken-down coffee urn. And, to round it off nicely, my esteemed colleague Peregrine Grumpole was in full cheerful-babble-mode. I sat behind my desk, nursing my headache, thinking things couldn’t get worse.
Grumpole looked up. He was finishing his piece on a book launch and said, gleefully, that “that friend of yours, Lovely Lockhart, wasn’t at the party. Not like him to miss a do, is it?”
“Perhaps he wasn’t interested,” I replied, but with a feeling of unease in my stomach that had nothing to do with Firewhisky. Of course Gilderoy hadn’t been interested - the launch was for the memoirs of some third-rate Seeker. Self-published, of course, no editor would be mad enough to touch the drivel. There’s a prejudice that professional sportsmen may be good on the field, but are otherwise dumb bricks who can’t string two sentences together. And this Magnum Opus was called The Snitch and I. Need I say more?
But there were other reasons Gilderoy should have been present. Of course, Grumpole came up with the wrong one. “I was really surprised,” he said. “We all know our Gilderoy; he’d go to the opening of a bottle of butterbeer.” And he guffawed lustily at his own remark.
That settled it. I was not going to spend my Monday morning in the company of a man who trots out a cliché like that and who is then genuinely delighted by his own wit. I told him I was off to Fortescue’s, for a real coffee.
“Jolly good,” came Grumpole. “Could you get me one, too? A Skinny Latte?” And he looked smug, poor sod. Thought ordering a skinny latte showed that you were on the cutting edge of cosmopolitan living. He’s the kind of man who drinks cappuccino after dinner and believes he’s acting like a true Italian.
I grunted something ambiguous and Apparated away.
I had two reasons for going to Fortescue’s. First one, during his stay in Sicily Florean learned more than just how to make the best ice cream in the world. A stunning barista, he is. Second reason, he knows everything that goes on in the Alley. And I needed the most recent gossip.
For it was odd that Gilderoy had missed that launch, and I had worried about it myself. I had been there. Not for the Biography of a Nobody, but for the truly famous Quidditch players who would show up. We’d gone off partying elsewhere, and I’d gleaned copy for at least two gossipy stories. One of which involved Gwenog Jones, a Harpies Groupie, and an empty room at the Leaky Cauldron for which no rent was paid, for, as Gwenog put it, “It’s not as if we actually slept here, is it? And we didn’t mess up the bed, either.”
True. Hearth rugs are forgiving things. I had beetled along to get my story, and I had taken great care to keep both room and bathroom as spotless as those two had left it. Girls do want a quick wash on occasions, and an Investigative Journalist may urgently need to release built-up tension, but not at the cost of a hard-working publican.
Gilderoy, however, had failed to show up at the launch, and he loved a work-out between a Quidditch player’s thighs as much as he loved a book-signing session. Yes, that is a valid comparison. When Gil takes a quick break in the middle of a signing, it’s not for a glass of water and a hairbrush, darlings.
So I went to Florean, ordered a ristretto, told him to make it a double one, and listened gratefully to the hiss of the espresso-maker and his anxious “Poor darling, it must be a hellish day, then. Any way at all in which I can help?” Florean can read between the lines and knows what a double ristretto at 9.30 AM means. A man who truly understands coffee is a man who understands life.
Well, to keep a long story short, Florean told me the rumours that were doing the rounds among the Hogwarts students. Rumours involving Potter (of course) and Gilderoy, who had been spotted in the Sick Ward, heavily sedated.
I set of for Hogsmeade at once. I ferreted round for a bit. I got the full facts. And I got the god-awful, scandalous spin-doctor job Dumbledore made of the whole thing. You’ll remember the articles, of course. Great danger blah blah blah. Noble tradition of DADA teachers blah blah blah. Gilderoy Lockhart, courageous as always blah blah blah.
Outrageous. Of course, even Dumbledore didn’t manage to keep the devastating truth a secret from the students. But he turned it into “a most unfortunate incident - we’ll never know what happened in the dungeons, or how Gilderoy Lockhart got hit by such a dreadful Charm.”
Well, I knew. I knew all right. I knew the Truth Beyond Albus’s story. The fully-grown Basilisk. In a school, for crying out loud. The Petrifications. The student that went missing. The Memory Charm and who cast it. But I decided not to use it. I wrote the bland version Dumbledore wanted.
Yes, that comes as a surprise, doesn’t it? But I had my reasons, Dear Reader. They had nothing to do with Dumbledore. Nor with Potter. I kept silent because telling the full story would have exposed Gilderoy in the most ghastly way.
And, here‘s another surprise, I just couldn’t do that. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for a good story, including but not limited to selling my dear old Granny (would have to be one hell of a scoop, though - Gran is a barrelful of tales in her own right), but I simply couldn’t grass on Gilderoy Lockhart.
But the story I uncovered that dreadful Monday is what made me sit down, more than two years later, to hand in my notice at the Prophet.
Not because I have writers block. Are you kidding? What with all the things going on at Hogwarts alone? There’s Young Potter’s claim that he has seen the Second Coming of You-Know-Who. And there’s the whole mystery surrounding Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody. I happen to know for a fact that one teacher, at least, knew Moody very well. Knew him the biblical sense. Why did no-one recognise the impostor?
And I didn’t resign because anyone made me, either. Of course not. Who would possibly in a position to do that, I ask you?
No-one can make me stop writing. I am, after all, Rita Skeeter, Investigative Journalist. It’s how I define myself. I would go stark, staring mad if I couldn’t write.
No, the reason I am taking a sabbatical, Dear Readers, a sabbatical right in the middle of a wonderful career, at the top of my profession, is that I want to, need to, must write this book. The tale is simply too good not to be told. It is as if Gilderoy is standing next to me, saying, “Darling, you know you’re the only one who can do me justice. Do absent thee from felicity awhile, to tell my story.”
And he is right. There is no-one else better suited to give you the full, true, frank, and delicious account of the years we spent together.
Chapter 1 - For all that’s wonderful
“Rita Skeeter, for all that’s wonderful! Darling, how are you?”
I had been scanning Diagon Alley for familiar faces. But not ‘familiar’ in the sense of young Lockhart, that funny little chap who had arrived at Hogwarts during my N.E.W.T. year. He had been sorted into Slytherin, and he had been quite an entertaining addition to our Common Room. But other than that he hadn’t been interesting.
He still wasn’t. What I was looking for at the time was a mildly famous face. The kind of mildly famous face that would love to be interviewed for the Saturday edition of the Daily Prophet. Ideally, someone thrilled enough to agree to an interview over dinner and willing to pick up the bill, too. That way I’d strike lucky thrice: a hot meal - the first in two days, a fee for the interview, and, truly essential, my name in the by-line.
Four years ago I had graduated from Uni. I had gone there to pick up a First in Transfiguration and to find out what I wanted to do with my life. My parents hoped the degree would lead to a teaching position. A safe thing to fall back on for a girl, should she ever not marry, thought my Mum. “Not that that would happen to my lovely girl,” said Dad. I loved them as much as I hated their plans for my future.
My four years of student life resulted in an absolute passion for writing. For journalism, that is. I had been an eager contributor to the students’ rag, and I had soon realized that I loathed the semi-profound fiction, the navel-gazing philosophies, and the meaningless debates others indulged in. Give me events any time. May Balls. Interviews with Famous Visitors. First Nights at the Uni theatre. I settled for a Second so that I had more time to write, write, write.
I had found my vocation.
Three subsequent years as general dogsbody at Witch Weekly taught me how to use the tools of my trade, how to craft a good article. And they taught me that I emphatically did not want to spend my life scribbling for the good little homemakers “who look upon Witch Weekly as a dear friend, a confidante, and a guide,” as the Editor-in-Chief reminded us regularly.
On the day I met Gilderoy, I had spent nearly a year as Junior Reporter on the Daily Prophet. I was paid for three evening shifts, the Sundays to Tuesdays. The most boring ones, of course. And I got fees for any other articles they accepted - hence the quest for the mildly famous face.
“Gilderoy, how nice to see you,” I said, careful not to make too much eye-contact. I didn’t want a long chat. His clothes looked poorly. Not that he hadn’t made an effort. His sense for colour and line was remarkable, but unfortunately his Transfiguration skills weren’t, and the result simply screamed that he was as broke as I was.
“So good to see you! We simply must catch up. No, I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Hop over to the Leaky, darling, you know you want to,” he enthused, taking me by the arm and suggesting a degree of intimacy that was utterly non-existent but remarkably well-done. At that point, I did feel a certain interest for the lad. I didn’t know what he hoped to get from me, but he was playing his cards exceedingly well.
Besides, it had begun to rain, and I had more chances of finding my Famous Face in the Leaky than on the streets. So I agreed, and we were soon ensconced in a little booth with an excellent view of the room. “What can I get you?” asked my self-appointed New Best Friend. I noticed the look of anxiety in his eyes. Clever enough to realize one must invest in one’s network, but scared stiff I’d ask for something truly expensive. I told him we’d have half a cider each and we’d pay for ourselves. You don’t sponge off a penniless fellow Slytherin. You wait till they have made their fortune and are properly grateful to kind friends from the past.
He told me he had briefly trained as an Auror (“Darling, you wouldn’t believe the amount of sheer physical exercise they ask of One!”), had tried his hand in what he called the Hospitality Business (“The roughness of One’s customers! It’s not to be borne!”), and was now ‘between jobs’.
I told him about my career and the interview I hoped to get. And luck was on my side, for at that very moment Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped in. The rising star who had just finished his Auror training with the highest marks since Amelia Bones. I told Gilderoy I’d try my chance. He told me to wait, turned around, and yelped, “Kingsley Shacklebolt, for all that’s wonderful! How are you?”
Shacklebolt bowed to the unavoidable and chatted for a few moments; Gilderoy suggested a boys’ night out and mentioned my interview plans in the same breath. And, understandably, Shacklebolt choose the lesser of two evils. I had my story.
Two days later I ran into Gilderoy again as I got off my evening shift. Despite the late hour I said I’d buy him a drink. I owed him one for landing me the interview, and I always make a point of returning a favour at once and quite explicitly. That way I get to decide the terms.
When we were seated in the booth at the Leaky - “our booth”, said Gilderoy, who didn’t miss a step in the ingratiating process - he set to work in earnest. “Rita, darling, can I be absolutely frank?” he said. “You’re broke. We both know it. When we met the other day, you hadn’t had a decent meal in days. (Never eat all the courtesy peanuts, darling, or at least not that quickly - such a tell-tale sign.) Now, I’m broke as well. What I propose is this. I happen to own an apartment. Mummy’s inheritance. A lovely four-room flat right here on Diagon Alley. And I’m that broke I may have to sell it unless I find a small source of income. That’s where you come in. I could let you have two of those rooms - one would make a reasonable bed-sitter and one could be a study. And I’d charge you a mere two Galleons a month. Use of bathroom and kitchen, of course. What do you say?”
I said nothing for quite some time, and Gilderoy was clever enough to let me think in peace. I had digs in a side-street of the Alley. A reasonably good address. If you want to be a success, look the part. Good clothes, good address. I had a two-roomed flat. Theoretically a living room and small bedroom, but I had turned the bedroom into a study. I needed a place to write. And, true enough, I was that broke that paying the rent was hellishly difficult. I had dodged my landlady for weeks, but she’d catch me sooner or later and demand two months’ worth of rent. Which I had, but it would take my last Sickles.
Gilderoy offered basically the same space for half what I was paying at the time. It would mean giving up the kitchen (but I wasn’t much of a cook anyhow) and, a real sacrifice, the private bathroom. But as solutions went, this wasn’t a bad one. Financially, things really were getting desperate. And the address was even better.
I decided to have a look at the place then and there. Gilderoy hadn’t lied too much. ‘On’ Diagon Alley was pushing it - the door was on Diagon, true enough, but most of the rooms were above Knockturn. Still, they looked all right. And the door, the address, was what mattered. It was clean, too. Large enough for my needs. The decorations showed the same flair for colour and the same painful lack of Transfiguration skills. Nothing I couldn’t solve. They were furnished, that was the main thing. My current digs were furnished, too, and I had no furniture of my own.
“You can be utterly, utterly private, darling. We’ll hardly see each other. I do understand that a journalist must be able to work without interruptions,” Gilderoy assured me. I accepted his offer.
The next day, I moved in.
The day after that, a colleague asked after that “young friend of yours - the one who kept vigil outside the office for two days. So romantic. Did you go out with him?” And when I went to see my landlady to pay the remaining rent, she told me about “a charming young man who might want your rooms. Such a lovely smile, so polite. He thought my prices were most reasonable.”
I felt a grudging admiration for Gilderoy Lockhart’s style.
Chapter 2 - Cocktail Time
Gilderoy was as good as his word: the first week I hardly saw him. I had no idea of what he did during the day, but he was away quite a lot. I heard him move around a bit, but he was most considerate about noise, and he kept himself to himself. I must admit that I got slightly curious about my new flat mate.
The only information I got came from his - now our - bathroom. That man had the most fabulous range of hair products you could imagine. Conditioners, shampoos, brushes, and all in the top price bracket. When I saw the display on the first day of my stay, I grinned. And I felt relieved. His clothes, his feeling for colour, and his flamboyant ways, not to mention the use of darling had all pointed in one direction. The hair products confirmed it even more: he wanted a flatmate, not a sexual adventure. My future would not hold a painful rejection scene with the inevitable search for new digs. Most reassuring.
The second day I took a good look at that conditioner. Promised ‘glorious, shiny, seductive hair’. Don’t they all? But one look at Gilderoy’s locks proved that either his cradle was blessed by every fairy in the world, or this stuff actually delivered.
The third day I used it. He owed me one for his backhanded approach of my former landlady. And, as I said, when it comes to paybacks I like to decide the terms. My hair did feel softer afterwards, and I thought it could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
On Friday evening, around six, I heard the door slam. Gilderoy had come home from whatever it was he did during the day. I heard him hang up his outdoors robes, but this time he didn’t go into the kitchen, as was his routine. Instead, he shouted, “Rita, darling! Cocktail time!”
I rose and went to the hall. Gilderoy was standing on the threshold of his living room, a bottle of Tequila in his hand and a smile on his face.
His smiles really were special, you know. Use every cliché you like. A smile that lights up a room. A smile that spreads happiness. The whole world smiles with him. In Gilderoy’s case it would merely be a description. If anything, an understated description.
I agreed to join him for drinks. It was only civil, and his choice of a Friday night seemed to suggest that it was a ‘celebrate the weekend’ thing rather than the start of a privacy-invading habit. Besides, I wanted to know more of the man I shared a house with.
He mixed me a marvellous Tequila Sunrise. His spell in the hospitality business clearly had not been a total waste. I asked him about it, and he confirmed that he had been a bartender in a wizarding hotel in Edinburgh. But he refused to give me the recipe. “My special creation, darling. Can’t expect me to give away my secrets, now, can you? Not on our first Cocktail Time?”
He proceeded to tell me a few stories of the weirdest of his customers, and I soon found myself screaming with laughter and having a thoroughly good time.
At some point, I felt things were going well enough between us to mention the changes I had made to my room. You remember the lack of Transfiguration skills? His efforts were painful to see, and I modified things on my very first day. He was all enthusiastic about it. “Of course, darling, you’re free to change what you want - you know, that whole teapot-to-tortoise thing just isn’t me.
When he saw the results, he gasped with pleasure. I had kept all of his colour schemes - they were perfection, better than anything I could have come up with. Gilderoy was generous in his praise, and begged me to do the same thing for his part of the flat. “Darling, please, if it isn’t asking too much? This is just fabulous. I knew we were a match made in heaven!”
That weekend I helped him Transfigure his furniture and curtains. He was quite demanding, verging on the difficult. Made me redo things several times. But whatever he asked, he was always absolutely right. When we were both finished, his apartment looked like a Beautiful Homes feature from the Witch Weekly. And we’d had a great time together.
The next Friday, I took care to be at home well before six o’clock. And, sure enough, Gilderoy came home and shouted, “Cocktail Time!”
Sidecars, this week. Just as perfectly mixed, with a kick like a Hippogriff’s, and a little Gilderoy twist that turned them into a work of art. “Merlin, I needed that,” he said. “I’ve found a job - started this week. Only temporarily, of course. Not what I want to do all my life.” He shuddered briefly at that thought, and continued, “Madam Malkin’s sales lady is on maternity leave, and I’ve taken over. Darling, it’s ghastly. You simply won’t believe …”
I interrupted him then and there. I spent most of my working days interviewing people who had absolutely nothing to say and said it for far too long. I had no intention of spending my leisure hours listening to a whinger. Can’t abide whingers. Boring as hell.
“Darling,” I said, taking a leaf out of his parchment, “believe me, there’s nothing worse than listening to non-stories. And you’ll have to admit that most work whinges are non-stories. Neither one of us will do that to the other. Let’s agree to give each other one scoop each on these lovely Friday drinks (such a wonderful idea of yours): the absolute number one Worst Story of the Week.”
He looked crest-fallen for a moment, but my enthusiasm for his ‘wonderful’ Friday Drinks won the day. He even let me have the first turn. Well, my choice was easy. The interview with Gwenog Jones. “Are you into Quidditch at all?” I asked him, and he shuddered once more.
“Darling, please. Far too active. Messes up One’s hair. Mind, some of those lads are simply strapping. Those thighs! It’s all that riding brooms, of course. But the game - no.”
“Well,” I said, “this isn’t about the lads. You’ve heard of the Holyhead Harpies?” He nodded. “One of their Chasers, Rolanda Hooch, had a bad fall last Sunday. She’s still in St Mungo’s, and it’s probably the end of her professional career. She was in no condition to give an interview, so I had to make do with Gwenog Jones, the Captain.
“I tell you, Gil, darling, it’s the hardest piece of work I’ve ever done. I asked her, ‘How do you feel about this ghastly accident? Your best chaser and dear friend, who may never fly with the Harpies again? Who may never fly again at all? You must be utterly devastated.’
“‘Bad show.’
“That was all. Can you believe it? Her best Chaser, her best friend, and her lover, according to some rumours. And all she finds to say is ‘bad show’.
“’What do you plan to do now? Will you withdraw from your next match? Out of respect for an outstanding sportswoman, a great team player, and a wonderful friend?’
“’Game must go on. Would want it.’
“Would Hooch have wanted it?” I asked. And how did Gwenog know? Had Hooch ever mentioned an eventuality like this, in a moment of great intimacy, perhaps? If they meant to play, how would they do it? How could they see the Quaffle through their tears, whenever they thought of that poor, lonely, broken figure in a silent hospital room?
“’Must do it. Would want us to win.’”
And on it went - one monosyllable after the other. Gilderoy commiserated most feelingly, and he was speechless - no, make that very eloquent - in his praise of the article I had managed to squeeze out.
His own tale was fun. One of his first customers had been the redoubtable Augusta Longbottom. She had stumped in early in the morning and asked for a new robe. In Gilderoy’s words, “that should have told me everything. A new robe. Hardly a woman with dresses for each occasion. And a difficult figure, too. But strong features and a wonderfully-straight back. At least whatever I put on her would hang well.
“But that hat. Rita, dear, it was too, too frightful for words. A vulture, of all things. I mean, cherries? Horribly bourgeois, but then, Madam Longbottom is just that. Flowers? So very Seventies, but I guess in her case that would still qualify as ‘modern’. A feather? Terribly outdoorsy and country side, but she may well be on the local Harvest Festival Committee, for all we know. But a vulture. The pits, darling, the absolute pits.
“That was my first idea: the hat would have to go. So I selected a lovely midnight-blue robe. Beautiful cut, splendid colour, would do justice to her fine posture, suitable for every occasion. And look at the matching hat!
“I nearly convinced myself. And, actually, she would have looked splendid in it. But she refused flatly. She already had a hat, she said. No reason for a new one.
“Darling, that bird was positively moulting. I did try, most tactfully, I assure you. But she merely said, ‘the blue hat isn’t me.
“I told her that the vulture wasn’t her, either, that no-one was a vulture; leave alone a wonderful woman such as herself. But she refused to try on the blue robes, and insisted I get her a green one. Said she always had a green one, because it would save her the trouble of getting new matching shoes and a bag. That was why she always wore the same colour. And a dreadful mossy hue it was. As if she won’t be pushing up the daisies for long enough - no need to look like a neglected tombstone before her time.
“So I asked to see the bag, and what do you think? Red! Effing, bright, Gryffindor red. With green robes, I ask you. And she thought it combined well! Silver combines, as we both know. But that’s about all. Such a difficult colour, green.”
In the end Madam Longbottom had marched out with a new green robe, leaving Gilderoy’s self-confidence in tatters and his stomach all queasy from the ghastly clash of Gryffindor and Moss.
And that evening was the start of a routine. Hard work during the week for both of us. But on Friday night, Gilderoy would shout, “Cocktail Time!” And we’d start a weekend of fun, fashion, and gossip.
Just a few weeks later we enlarged our scope of action.
Chapter 3 - A Gilderoy Twist
It was a Thursday night, but when Gilderoy threw the door in the lock, his first words were, “Rita, darling? Cocktail Time?”
There was a funny sound to his voice - the sound you get when someone tries to behave perfectly normally, but it takes every ounce of their willpower not to cry. “Coming,” I cried back, and made loud clearing-away-the-work sounds. Give him a second or two to compose himself.
When I entered the living room, he was mixing us a Bloody Mary. However upset he might be, there was the little Gilderoy Twist that made me gasp with pleasure. Best Bloody Mary ever. “Bloody Malkin,” Gilderoy muttered. “I know you said one story a week, darling, and it is a day early. But here’s one for the books: I got fired. Now, try to top that one tomorrow!” And there was the beginning of his cheeky smile.
“She’s crazy,” I said, and I meant it. “Fire you? You have the most unerring eye for clothes I’ve ever seen. What on earth happened?”
The story was actually quite funny - Gilderoy always told his stories well. The wedding party from hell had come to the shop. Mother wanted Country House Elegance at middle class prices. Daughter wanted to look like a fairy - all sixteen stones of her. The bridesmaids wanted to look halfway decent, which is just a tad irrational when it comes to bridesmaids’ dresses. Everyone was absolutely furious with everyone. When the bride screamed she wouldn’t marry at all, Gilderoy decided the time for dramatic action had come.
He had started on Mother’s dress. That calmed down the others, for they couldn’t care less what Mumsy would wear. After fifteen minutes of Gilderoy’s compliments and smiles, with a ‘Darling’ or two thrown in, Mumsy was completely won over. “She started with a smile, but after that it was practically heavy petting! Darling, when One thinks of One’s sufferings, all for Bloody Malkin, it’s really too much.”
Then he had turned his attention to the bridesmaids. Mumsy clearly was delighted with their outfit as it stood, and Gilderoy confirmed it was class personified (“squib’s class, darling”) and looked as if it came straight from a Country House (“That wasn’t a lie, you know. Plump, squishy and upholstered in cabbage-rose-patterned chintz? Straight from a country house, indeed - just not human.)
He had taken a good look at the cabbage roses (“turned my tummy all queasy”), groaned, and told Mumsy that he could not possibly let her have her delightful pale lavender and purple dress robes, “for they would clash horribly with those roses - just think what it would look like in the pictures.” He had selected a boring grey dress; Mumsy had taken one good look at it, and had decided the bridesmaid dresses had to go.
“Well, it was just a few days before the wedding, darling. The very last fitting. So I got in one of our little seamstresses, and she Transfigured the things on my instructions. Infinitely better, beautiful match with Mumsy, and those girls will love me forever. And recommend the Bloody Malkin, more’s the pity.
“And I changed the bride’s dress as well. I mean, really, sixteen stone in tulle? White? She ended up in silk, a regal cut, but one that gives a good view of her boobs. She may have the gait of a legless Giant and the arse of a hippogriff, all anyone will see is those gorgeous tits. And they’ll tell her she’s the most beautiful bride ever.”
And then Madam Malkin had accused him of tampering with her designs. His changes had been minor and unauthorized, she said, (but an undeniable improvement, which must have caused quite a bit of her fury), and to make matters worse, he had spoken about ‘his’ creation. She had sacked him on the spot.
Well, she had a point there. Gilderoy had talent. She might think he’d accepted the job to steal her customers - I know all about earning your living as a single woman, and I knew how Malkin had felt. But that was not what Gilderoy needed to hear. So I agreed that another cocktail was in order and tried to cheer him up by praising the quality and the Gilderoy Twist.
And at some point I suggested he might actually start his own dressmaking business. It seemed the obvious idea. Gilderoy nearly choked on his drink, raced out of the room, and banged the bathroom door. But there were no sounds of frantic coughing.
When he returned, he did claim that ‘something went down the wrong way, darling’. And he had brought my nail polish, of all things. “Your nails are chipped,” he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow, “I just can’t look at it any longer. Here, let me.”
He started to paint my nails. And he started to talk, and then I understood the point of that polish. An excuse to keep his head down, so that I couldn’t see his face. It was a heart-breaking story.
His mother had been the first to discover Gilderoy’s talent for fashion. They had been “everything to each other after Dad walked out” as he put it, and he had advised her and suggested changes to her clothes - like he did with me, and already with unerring taste, I dare say. And during his schooldays he had done the same for his female classmates, “which is how I graduated with such lovely marks - all those essays the dears wrote for me! Except for Charms. I’ve always been really, really good at Charms. ” Then he had gone to Paris to be apprenticed with one of the dressmakers there.
His first year had been deliriously happy. Being the general dogsbody hadn’t bothered him - he just soaked up the knowledge. His first creative jobs - little changes to dresses, finishing touches to simple designs - had been praised.
The second year he had begun to doubt. He still got praise, but less. He was no longer a high-flyer.
The third year, Monsieur Laudinel told him he would never make it to the top. He couldn’t think up anything from scratch. All he could do was modify the designs of others. Adding a little twist. A good twist - and Monsieur Laudinel was more than willing to offer him a well-paid position as salesman and assistant - he, Laudinel, would be sorry to lose the talent Gilderoy undoubtedly had. But Gilderoy was not, and never would be, a designer.
“So, ever since I’ve been between jobs, so to speak. “ When Gilderoy finally looked up, I had three layers of perfect nail polish that lasted a whole week, he had faintly red rims around his eyes, and I poured him a straight shot of vodka.
You see, Dear Reader, I was lucky. I had this overwhelming need to write, but I also had the talent to match my ambition. How would it feel to have quite a bit of talent - but not enough? To feel, time and again, that one could not?
“I’ll never be good enough at anything,” Gilderoy said. “I’ll never be the top.” And I realized that was his definition of ‘being good enough’. Only the top would do. It was then that I realized he did have all this wonderful creativity, but, indeed, not enough. Not enough to create a cocktail - he could just add a Twist. Not enough to create clothes - just a Twist. Not enough to create furniture or curtains - again, just a Twist. A Gilderoy Twist.
I told him his talent for giving things a Gilderoy Twist ought to be worth something. Then we had more Bloody Marys; we maligned Bloody Malkin and everyone under the sun. I remember Gilderoy shouting that he was the fucking best Twister in the world. I remember agreeing.
Unfortunately, I also remember the day after.
If you have never been woken by the loud, insistent tapping of an owl’s beak on the window, the morning after that many of Gilderoy’s cocktails, you don’t know what suffering is.
The only way to make the agony stop was to get the parchment. It turned out to be Mumsy’s invitation to the wedding - and it was The Event of the Year! Gilderoy hadn’t recognized the girl. Not his fault: at that time she was a Nobody. But she was none other than the Dowdy Deb, the one who, to the rage of every mother in the country, had managed to ensnare Dominick Lestrange, catch of the season. Love-potion, said some. Imperius, said others. Dom likes them plump, said his friends. But no-one understood the attraction.
“There is something about that girl, you know,” said Gilderoy when I had told him the story. “It can’t be a Glamorgana in her ancestry - not with those looks. But something that goes beyond looks. When she wants to charm - and after she’d seen what I had done about the bridesmaid’s dresses, she wanted to - she just … well, she attracts people. Darling, she nearly attracted me.”
Something, indeed. I’ve been to six of her weddings, and I can only confirm what Gilderoy said. She dropped Lestrange at exactly the right moment, had a Scotsman after him, then a few others, then a Greek portkey-builder, and now it’s the Italian. Not quite sure what his business is, but I’d like thirty seconds of free shopping in his vault at Gringotts. Ten seconds, even. Yes, there’s definitely something about Mrs Zabini.
I told Gilderoy we would accept the invitation. It would mean a free meal for both of us, he could get some useful contacts, and I’d get an article out of it.
The article was the lead on the Society Page - Gilderoy had worked the room for all it was worth, and he had come up with the most delicious stories. You see, when people talk to me, they know I’m a journalist, and they’re cautious. With Gilderoy they just gossip, and he’s the best gossiper in the world. Gilderoy had got an invitation for a weekend at a manor. Or, to be precise, “a Friday-to-Monday, darling, they don’t call it a weekend.”
That Friday I was surprised at how much I missed our weekly Cocktail Time.
The next week, we both had good news. My editor had told me he would like to see more Society Page contributions from me. And Gilderoy had had further invitations for a dinner and a vernissage. I couldn’t come to the dinner, of course; he had been invited because he was a spare man. But when he mentioned the vernissage, I realized we had the makings of a Golden Pair.
Chapter 4 - A Match Made in Heaven
As Gilderoy mixed the Singapore Slings, I outlined my plans. He would become the Answer to a Hostess’s Prayer - available, single, and charming. He’d get me invitations to society events, I’d get articles out of them, and we’d both get free meals. He would give me the gossip I couldn’t get, I’d use part of the money I made with the stories to pay him a slightly higher rent.
It worked out beautifully. Gilderoy soon had invitations for three or four nights a week. I got by-line after by-line, and within months I was offered a permanent contract at the Prophet. We were still both strapped for cash, and on the at-home nights we’d eat cheap pasta meals or sardines on toast, but several times a week we pigged out on glorious party food. And afterwards we’d share all the gossip in endless, giggly talks. It truly was a match made in heaven.
One day, at dinner time, I found Gilderoy at the kitchen table, scribbling on a roll of parchment. He blushed when I asked what I was writing, but in the end he let me read it. It was an account of one of the Friday-to-Mondays. Pure, unadulterated libel - unprintable, but hilarious. Very well-written. Once you started reading you couldn’t stop. I told him it was brilliant. He should write a book, I said. He just laughed at the suggestion and said he couldn’t possibly.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened. Well, not exactly what happened, I don’t think for a moment that Violet really has the hots for Isobel - they just glared and glared at each other, and I thought it would be too, too funny for words if they had this passionate, secret affair. But make up a whole story? Never. Still, I’m glad you like my little creation.”
There it was again, Dear Reader. A story with a Gilderoy Twist. Not his little creation at all. I poured both of us a glass of wine and changed the subject.
We continued our merry round of parties, stories, gossip, and Cocktail Times. And occasionally Gilderoy would write one of his little tales, just to entertain me. They went from strength to strength.
I did notice he had even less money than usual - when the bottles of hair care products ran out, he didn’t replace them but used mine instead. Without asking. But then, what’s a bit of conditioner between friends?
But somehow the thought of a book must have stuck in his head, for a few weeks later he told me his Great Plan. He really did speak about it in capital letters. And you know, it was the perfect idea. Gilderoy told me he had saved some money (I knew there was a reason he was not buying conditioner) and planned to use it to travel. To Greece, for starters. And then he’d write a travel book.
“Not one of those utterly boring things with hotel this, museum that, quaint village there, darling. An account of my adventures, my encounters, my views. Not a holiday guide - I want to write escapism. The kind of book that people curl up with on a dreary winter night, when the holidays are still far-off. I want to make them feel as if they are in Greece - with wonderful me. I am lovely, gossipy company. Everyone says so. Do you think it might work?”
There was real anxiety in his voice. I was glad I could reassure him; I sincerely believed it would work very well. He had a fun writing style. He wouldn’t have to make up a story - the events would be all there. They just needed a Gilderoy Twist. And he was the effing best twister in the world.
I offered to pay the costs of keeping the apartment in his absence. I could afford to, on my new salary, and it would be a real help to Gilderoy. He had given me my break; I owed him his. And I like to pay back on my terms.
Soon after, Gilderoy set off, leaving me the free use of the apartment and, more importantly, of his address book. We told each other we would both work like mad at our careers for the next few months, and upon his return we would have the mother of all Cocktail Times.
Chapter 5 - Holidays with Hags
Gilderoy returned on a chilly Friday night in September, bronzed, happy, with stunning highlights in his hair and a turquoise robe that would have looked ludicrous on anyone else. He told me his trip had been everything he hoped for and more. He’d had the most wonderful adventure, “with a Hag, darling, a real one. She was terrorizing a whole sweet village. And I managed to do something about her. Those Auror days weren’t a complete waste of time, you know. I’ve the most wonderful story to write. It worked, it really worked.” We hugged, screamed, and practically danced round the room.
We had the Cocktail Time to end all Cocktail Times.
Followed by a very, very quiet weekend. Or Saturday-to-Monday, if you prefer.
And then Gilderoy set to work with a vengeance. Each morning as I left for the Prophet, I could hear the scratching of his quill. Each evening I’d find some discarded parchments in the bin, and a growing pile on the dining room table he used as his desk. “Do you mind, darling?” he had asked, and I had told him not to be silly. We’d always preferred kitchen sups. Sardines on toast on polished mahogany? Far too ‘genteel poverty’, thank you very much.
That Friday night he handed me one of the parchments. “Would you look at it, please? It’s the first chapter. I’ve already drafted a few other ones - but I’d like to know … Well, before we have our drinkies, actually … you see, if it’s totally ghastly … If you could just give it a quick look?”
I told him I would, took the parchment, and went to my room. I felt literally sick with fear. What if it was ghastly? How could I possibly tell him?
I started to read. At the end of the first paragraph, the sick feeling went away. At the end of the second paragraph, the knot in my stomach eased itself out. At the end of the third paragraph, I had forgotten that I was Rita Skeeter, Journalist, who had to give a professional opinion.
At the end of the parchment, I rolled it up and returned to the living room. “Those other chapters you mentioned …” I said, as severely as I could.
“Oh god,” Gilderoy groaned. “You hate it. I knew you would. I knew it’s ghastly. You want to burn them.”
“No, you idiot, I want to read them. Now! It’s fucking fantastic!” I shouted. And it was. It was the most wonderful, rollicking escapist read you could imagine. The critics would loathe it, but it would sell, sell, sell.
He just stared at me at first, and then he smiled.
Whenever I think of Gilderoy as he is now, I try to remember that moment, that smile. I try to remember he once was that gloriously, blissfully, endlessly happy.
Gilderoy Lockhart, Master Twister, had found his destiny.
Chapter 6 - The First Tiny Cracks
Over the next few months, Gilderoy wrote his book. I helped him to polish it, taught him a few tricks of the trade. He was eager to learn all he could, and he improved his style day by day. Meanwhile we took up our merry round of party invites, I wrote my Society Page, and, spurred on by Gilderoy’s enthusiasm, started on the first, tentative research for what would later become Armando Dippet, Master or Moron? Halcyon days.
Then Gilderoy’s book was published, just in time for the Christmas shopping, and life got even better. The book was an overnight success, he got invitations to the most fabulous of parties, I was made Editor of the Society Page, I got a pay-rise, he got royalties beyond belief … We were on a roll. The Golden Pair. The Match Made in Heaven.
And then I had an interview with one of Dippet’s Old Pupils. Just a little routine research. I mentioned it to Gilderoy over dinner, in the loosest possible way. “You know, Gil, darling, you’re really the hottest things in town right now. Take Robert Abbott. He’d seen our picture in the paper - I got the interview on the strength of that. He was all excited. Had met you in Greece, he said.”
“Oh, really?” said Gilderoy nonchalantly - but not quite nonchalantly enough. I looked at him. He looked back, mildly embarrassed. “Yes, quite, Bobby Abbott. We did run into each other, briefly. At Mykonos, I think. Or possibly Santorini.”
That explained. It had been Mykonos, of course. Wildest gay scene in Greece. And right now he didn’t want to advertise that side of his life. Gilderoy had never made a secret of his preferences, but the main part of his new-found reading public consisted of women. Witch Weekly women. The kind that called him the perfect son-in-law, but in doing so they weren’t exactly thinking of a partner for their girls. There may be a tigress inside every mother ready to protect her cub, but underneath those aprons and dishcloths and matronly dresses there is a cougar in every one of Gilderoy’s fans, ready to jump him.
“You won’t mention me, Rita, darling?” Gil said, but he knew I wouldn’t. What was said in the flat stayed in the flat. Apart from the professional, article-writing gossip, of course.
The next morning Gilderoy was up before me and about to leave as I made my morning coffee. He looked somewhat furtively. “A few things to deal with,” he said. “Some loose ends to tie … the book, you know …”
I didn’t think much of it. I just hurried out to my appointment with Abbott. I found him most helpful, but at the end of our interview, I couldn’t resist asking after Gilderoy. He had always refused to discuss intimate details of his love-life. I would never put it in print, of course I wouldn’t, but I admit I was curious.
Bobby Abbott stared at me with unseeing eyes and muttered, “Gilderoy? Lockhart? No, can’t recall … can’t recall anything …” It was quite uncanny - such a completely vacuous look. His mind misted over. A cliché, but not in this case. You could practically see the fog set in. Reminded me of the after effects of a Memory Charm, it did. Dangerous things, those Charms.
I Apparated back to the flat and started to sort out my notes. And then I realized - Gilderoy’s trip of that morning. Tying up loose ends. Had he been to see Abbott? To … to …
To warn him, I told myself. Gil had warned him not to mention anything to me (the poor, distrustful sweetie), and Abbott simply was a lousy actor who was overdoing the denial thing. That was all.
And I picked up my quill and continued writing. The problem was settled. There had been a tiny mystery (those glassy eyes …); I had solved the mystery, so now it didn’t exist anymore (like the memory of Gil didn’t exist …). Life could go on. We would have supper together. A cocktail, even, although it was a Wednesday.
We were the Golden Pair. It was our Golden Year. There was nothing wrong.
*****
“One espresso macchiato, love. And how’s the Great Biography going?” Florean Fortescue was good at things like that: remembering what his clients did, asking after their work. I told him the book was fine. He mentioned a few people I might want to talk to. Robert Abbott was one of them.
“I’ve met Bobby Abbott,” I said. “He was helpful enough. Didn’t know any really juicy details, but he was all right.” (That vacuous look. The stuttering.) “He was all right,” I repeated, to convince myself.
“Hope you didn’t mention you live with Gilderoy?” grinned Florean. “I ran into Bobby in Greece. Your Gil had dumped him, more or less - and it wasn’t even a Best Man Won sort of thing. Gil went off with some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them. Gil said she had fascinating stories to tell. Poor Bobby was thoroughly pissed off - can’t say I blame him.”
I settled my bill and left after exchanging a few further pleasantries with Florean.
It didn’t mean a thing. There was a logical explanation.
This one, for instance: They had had an argument, and Bobby was pissed off. That was step one. Step two, Bobby didn’t want to talk about Gil at all, but couldn’t act for two Sickles, hence the over-performance. It all fitted - except that Bobby had mentioned Gilderoy himself and had been all excited.
No, there was a better explanation: Florean was wrong about the argument. It wasn’t a big thing at all, just a small lover’s tiff. It had happened the very day Florean had met Bobby, obviously, and Bobby had vented his anger. But now the lovers were back together, and Gilderoy had been to see Bobby, just as I had thought before. To warn him.
But why had Gilderoy, that marvellous twister of tales, chosen this ‘I’ve never heard of’ approach? Why not let Bobby admit to a simple, manly friendship? Surely that was much safer? Besides, why would Gil want to hide a love-affair from me?
For some very good reasons that were none of my business. Gilderoy had a right to a private life. There was a difference between Best Friends, Flatmates Forever, and interfering busybodies. I would forget all about Florean’s words. For once, Florean had been misinformed. (But he never was. Never.) It was completely unimportant.
“Gil went off with some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them. Said she had fascinating stories to tell.”
The words kept echoing in my head. They meant nothing. They meant Gilderoy had been kind and attentive to some old bird, and Bobby had resented it.
Only, Gilderoy didn’t do ‘kind to elderly ladies’. Gilderoy was kind to people who were useful to him. One of the things we had in common - we used people. We used each other, and we were honest about it, and that’s why we were The Golden Pair.
“Said she had fascinating stories to tell.” Fascinating stories to tell … fascinating stories …
We were the Match Made in Heaven, and I wasn’t going to ruin that over some silly nonsense. Gilderoy had fought with a hag, he’d written a great book, and I was happy for him. And I had been the first to spot his writing talent. I had encouraged him. Told him he should write a book.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened - well, not really happened …”
Gilderoy was my best friend. We shared everything. We shared our hair care products, dammit! How close could you get? We shared each other’s ups and downs. The day he gave me his first chapter to read. The day I found an agent for my Dippet book. The day Kingsley fucking Shacklebolt dumped me. The day he lost that stupid job at Malkin’s.
The day he lost that job was when we had truly started to share things. When he told me he couldn’t be a designer. When I first called his creative gift “The Gilderoy Twist”.
“I’m the fucking best twister in the world, Rita, darling. Aren’t I?”
Chapter 7 - Shivering in the Sun
A few days later my Editor-in-Chief announced that there were some problems with the holiday arrangements. “So someone will have to be very, very accommodating and take their holiday straight away. We’ll be able to solve this between colleagues, I’m sure,” he said.
It turned out that two journalists had asked for leave in the same period. The Editor had approved both requests; they had booked holidays. No-one else could change. Three colleagues had children at Hogwarts, and number four came with an arrangement for the care of an elderly mother-in-law that made the logistics of the Quidditch World Cup sound easy.
I’d had a few sleepless nights. Work stress. Not that I was worried about Gilderoy. Not at all. Gilderoy was fine. We were fine. But I was still stressed, and a holiday would do me good. Would get me kudos with the Editor, too, for accepting this last-minute arrangement.
I took the next week off and booked a portkey to Greece. To Mykonos. I had heard good things about Mykonos. Lovely island. Lovely nightlife. Lovely old town. Lovely white churches. With blue roofs. Lovely blue sea. All right, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with that last one, but there really were lots of reasons to go to Mykonos. Perfectly valid, touristy reasons that had nothing to do with a desire to check out “some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them.”
Well, Mykonos was great. Not quite as great as in Gil’s book - that had been Mykonos with a Gilderoy Twist, everything just that little bit larger than life. But it’s a nice holiday place. On day two I’d found a bar that did great coffee, with an owner who was a fountain of information. On day three I was greeted as a regular customer. On day four we were new best friends, and he told me all about “that charming man - is he really a friend of yours? Such a smile!”
Yes, Gilderoy had been with Bobby. “The good Bobby, he comes here every year. Lovely man. Spends lots of money. And truly kind. We once talk about your English digestives with chocolate on top. I tell him to Owl me a package. Just a joke. But he actually did. Lovely man. Too bad about your friend and him. Two fine men. Your friend is kind, I could see that. The attention he gave old Evgenia!
“Evgenia was a character, you know. Came here often for a cup of coffee. Told stories about her glorious past. About fighting with hags. Always about fighting with hags. No, of course that is not a true story. A woman, win a fight with a hag? She must have meant fights with her sisters, when they were all children together. She had four sisters, you know. The weddings almost ruined her poor father. But Evgenia herself never married. If you want a husband, perhaps you should not always say that you have won from a hag, eh? We didn’t really listen. We don’t have time to listen in the tourist season. The tourists don’t have time either. But your friend had. Time for Evgenia. Lots of time. Fine, kind young man. Too bad Bobby and he broke up.”
Evgenia, I was told, no longer lived in her little white house at the end of the village. “The mind went, you see. It happens. One day you are a great character, and then you’re too old. Your mind is too old. It goes. She’s in a home, now. A good home. One of her nieces arranged it. We go to see her sometimes. I’ll go soon. When the tourist season is over. Soon.”
I went to see Evgenia, too. Sooner than my barman. That very afternoon, in fact. She was well taken care of, and pleased to have a visitor. I mentioned Gilderoy. No reaction. I mentioned hags. No reaction.
That’s not true. There was a reaction. I didn’t want to see it, willed myself not to see it- but it was there. The vacuous look. The glossy eyes. The mind misting over. The fog - for poor Evgenia the fog had set in permanently, but you could see it getting denser.
Every single symptom of an exceedingly powerful Memory Charm.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened - well, not really happened …”
“A Hag, darling, a real one. She was simply terrorizing a whole sweet village. And I managed to do something about her. Those Auror days weren’t a complete waste of time, you know. I’ve the most wonderful story to write.”
I spent the last days of my holiday drinking myself into oblivion. Flinching as I thought the very word oblivion. And getting a good tan. There was no point in advertising what I’d been up to.
I had made up my mind: I wouldn’t give Gilderoy away. Life had dealt him a rotten hand. A Dad who walked out, a Mum who spoiled him rotten, not with money, but with so much praise that only the top would ever be good enough for him. And Life’s sickening little joke: a too-small talent. Enough to have him burning with creative desire - without the possibility of release.
He had written a good book. With his own hands. I had seen him do it. And that was all there was to it. I’d forget all about Greece, I’d Obliv... no, I’d make myself forget all that had happened.
We were flatmates forever, Gilderoy and I.
Chapter 8 - The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side
I got home before Gilderoy arrived. I unpacked, dealt with mail. I thought about the story I would tell him. I’d say I had been to Mykonos. That his book had inspired my destination. I’d say I had spent my days on the beach and in quaint, old Mykonos Town; that I had spent the nights in a club. That I hadn’t done much else - just a very lazy, very lovely holiday.
I heard Gilderoy come home. I heard him pause in the hall. He noticed I was back, and, as I expected, he shouted, “Rita, darling! For all that’s wonderful! It’s Cocktail Time, my dear. Or should I say ‘Ouzo Time’?”
I went to the hall and we hugged. He steered us both to the living room and started to mix a Tequila Sunrise. The drink he had made during our first Cocktail Time, so long ago. “How was your holiday?” he asked. “Such a last-minute thing! I don’t even know where you went, darling.”
I looked at his beautiful, blue eyes.
I looked at that wonderful smile.
The last things Evgenia had seen before her mind went.
I took a deep breath, and I said, “Rhodes. I went to Rhodes.”
*****
The next day, I studied the ‘Flat for rent’ section of the newspaper. I found that, with my new salary, the options weren’t bad. Not bad at all. I checked out two or three places and made a decision.
That evening, I told Gilderoy I’d move out. “It’s been wonderful, darling, but let’s be realistic. I need more space to write that Dippet biography. You can’t write your next book at the dining room table - you need a proper study, too.”
Gilderoy protested briefly. Very briefly. Then he agreed. “You’re right as always. I do need a bit more space - to prepare my next trip. I’m doing research right now. That thing with the hag - that’s the real me. To go places, to rid the world of its pests. And then to write a book about it. I’m thinking Yetis next. Or trolls. And who knows, one day, when I’m too old to travel, I may start my own range of hair care products. I feel like the world’s my oyster.”
We agreed that it had been fabulous when it lasted.
We both got a bit teary.
In the end, we hugged.
We told each other that, even though we wouldn’t live together anymore, we’d be Flatmates Forever.
We promised to meet up, frequently, for Cocktail time.
Even at the time I knew it was a lie. Gilderoy knew it was a lie. We said it, nonetheless.
*****
“Gil went off with some local biddy. Old enough to be his mother, ugly as they make them. Said she had fascinating stories to tell.”
I couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened.
“I’d never be able to come up with a plot, darling. This is just what happened - well, not really happened …”
I’d never be able to forget Evgenia, gazing into her fog under the bright, Greek sun.
“A Hag, darling, a real one. And I managed to do something about her. I’ve the most wonderful story to write.”
He had. And he could write it. Nothing could stop him now. Nothing would stop him. Except, perhaps, the thought of Obliviating me. Then again, perhaps not even that.
I would never know, would I? Unless I cared to test him.
I didn’t.
“I’m thinking Yetis next. Or trolls. And who knows, one day, when I’m too old to travel, I may start my own range of hair care products. I feel like the world’s my oyster.”
I told myself Gilderoy deserved his oyster. I told myself it was time to go.
“I’m the fucking best twister in the world, Rita, darling. Aren’t I? Aren’t I?”
You were, Gil, darling. You were.