Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.

Chapter 3– The Library.

----------------------------------------

Closing the door and locking it behind me, I turn around to gaze upon the empty living room that belonged to Gilderoy Lockhart to me. Even the Gilderoy art of me can feel how pointless it is, even if it is full of gaudy furniture and all those years' worth of accolades and awards that just feel so hollow. Still, I quickly pushed that feeling away and rid it from my mind having had years of experience doing so after getting my hopes up and then being brutally rejected by so many families. I don't know why I thought this magical world would be any different.

Shaking my head, I place my keys on the desk by the door and walk into the apartment without a clue of what to do so I just get to explore the rest of the condo, which I was doing earlier but got distracted by that stupid letter from Hogwarts but to be fair if anyone else got shoved into this year no matter the age of the inhabitant they resided in they would get excited at a Hogwarts letter because that is just the way it is though this Hogwarts letter held no joy to me.

Continuing my exploration of this pompous apartment, I didn't discover much else apart from a few new rooms without anything interesting them and functioning as you would expect them to. I have explored the rest of the place. I am now in the final room, which turned out to actually be a library which excited me as a library in a wizard's home will obviously hold books about magic. So I quickly grabbed the first book on a shelf and began to read through it, but it was just a piece of literature, and so I put it back in its place and picked up another, which was also another piece of literature.

I put that back and picked up another and then another and then another until I had picked up almost half of the books in the library, and not a single one of them had any magic spells inside of them. All of these books were just literature books and stories from both the magical and muggle worlds, as I spotted a fair few muggle classics on the wall. So I guess even if Gilderoy is a hack, he is at least a good hack who actually knows how to write a story and make it enticing. He at least does his research and looks at all sorts of books, both magical and non-magical, but what pisses me off is that there is not a single book about learning magic actually in this place.

Getting frustrated but not wanting to give up my search, I give one last glance around the library and try to see if I can spot anything of interest. Still, all I can see are shelves and shelves of useless books on rich mahogany bookshelves with an excellent grand desk at the back of the room with a fancy chair which should be called a throne with how fancy it was and I guess this is where Gilderoy does all his work as I can see a pot of ink with a quill inside it on the desk and a bunch of parchments spread across the length of the desk as well as a typewriter set on the side of the desk which can be easily moves to the centre if you need to use it.

And behind it, in his usual arrogant fashion, is a magical portrait of Gilderoy Lockhart hung on the wall that continues to wink and smile charmingly at me as I move around the room. Still, I have already seen too many of those in too many rooms to actually pay attention to it as they all just do the same thing and continue to pose at you, so I ignore it in favour of moving to the desk and searching it for anything interesting.

I move to the desk and begin to look through at the contents on it, which is just as I described before. Still, now I can read all of the parchments on the table. It seems like Gilderoy Lockhart was comfortable enough in his fame and pedigree that he thought he no longer had to go and steal stories from accomplished witches and wizards and that he could instead make his own fictional story up with him as the main character and tell everyone that it was true and thought that they would all believe it. The crazy thing is that I actually think he is correct, and he could have done that.

But as I look at his desk, I realise that he actually had some roadblocks because while he may be an excellent storyteller and writer, that is only when he has good material to write up. I could only assume his imagination is shit because on the desk are loads of scrapped story ideas. There are 'Tap Dancing With Trolls', 'Vacationing With Vampires', 'Meanderings With Mermaids', 'Pontificating With Pirates', 'Lunching With Liches' and my personal favourite 'Various Vacuous Venemous Veelas', which makes me release a bark of laughter thinking this guy is becoming a smut writer and trying to be like the man, the myth, the legend, Jiraiya from Naruto who wrote the Icha Icha Paradise series.

"Haha, aren't I amazing? What would you say is my best feature?" I freeze and turn around slowly to see the Gilderoy Lockhart portrait on the wall looking directly at me. I wonder if I am hearing things or if that is just the Gilderoy Lockhart in my head's thoughts, and he is coming out to the front of my mind again. Still, those worries diminish as the portrait in front of me moves.

"Come on now, don't be shy. I know I am an amazing specimen of a man, but you have to choose a single feature that you think is my best. Actually, now that I think of it, this might be the most difficult thing to do since all my features are great. But, even so, you must pick the one you think is my ultimate feature." The portrait talks again, seeming to have some actual intelligence and cognition behind all the magical oil and whatever else goes into making this magical, moving portrait. However, this is also the first one I have seen that actually talks.

The rest I have seen, while of different sizes and grades, all continue to change between various poses and wink and smile charmingly at whoever could see the portrait, but this is the first I have noticed that can actually talk, which freaks me out a bit. I wonder if he can tell I am not Lockhart anymore and how intelligent this portrait is, but I realise it will only have Gilderoy's intelligence as it continues to talk. So I should be safe, so I resume my nosying while ignoring the chatty portrait obsessed with its features.

"Is it my blonde wavy hair? Or maybe my dashing white smile? Or perhaps my enchanting laugh? There are too many great features to choose from. No wonder you have yet to answer me." I try to ignore the portrait as I pour through the contents of the desk. Still, I don't find much since these draws only seem to be full of different coloured ink pots and different kinds of quills, and I doubt they are any different from each other except for the decorations upon them and quite a few different types of parchment.

I even found a single desk drawer full of muggle pens and paper that all seem to be unused. There are quite a few different muggle items in there as well. Apart from the books, these are the only things I can find of muggle origin in this apartment. They were hidden in a draw, so I can easily guess that ol' Gil didn't quite like the less pure half of his blood which was quite obvious when you noticed him distancing himself from his family and his mother, that married a muggle man, throughout all of this that damn portrait has been continually chattering in my ear and has constantly been arrogantly boasting about himself and asking me what his best or my best feature is. I can only bare it for so long.

"So, come on now, what is my very best feature? Look closely now, take your time and think about it because there is a veritable treasure trove to shift through to get to the most valuable piece of treasure, and that is what I am, a national treasure. I, Gilderoy Lockhart, am the very best and most handsome wizard in all of Britain, nay, in all of Europe, nay, in all of the wor-" I slam the desk drawer I was looking through closed, having gotten very angry with my lack of results and this dumbass portrait has brought me to boiling temperature. So I turn around to see its stupid smug self-assured grin as it looks down at me, and I feel the intense urge to just launch my hands at the blasted thing and just tear it to shreds.

But I somehow stop myself before I can and take a deep breath to think about my situation. This is one of those magical portraits, and as I know from the books, the people in the magical portraits could travel between different paintings, which could all be at completely other locations, so even if I did tear this thing to pieces, there is no guarantee that this annoying man in the image would be destroyed.

There is even a chance that he could go to a different portrait somewhere and tell someone about me, Gilderoy Lockhart, tearing his own magical picture to pieces which are definitely out of character, so it would be best that I leave this portrait alone for now and just never come back into the library until I figured out a way to destroy the painting or simply silence or remove it.

"Oh, have you finally figured it out? How much time has it been since I first asked you? You must have taken ages and researched a lot to finally come to a decision. So, go on then, tell me, what is my best feature?" I hear the portrait ask as I move to leave the library, and I am nearing the door when it asks me once again what Gilderoy Lockhart's best feature is. I find myself utterly bored and fed up with the question, and yet my feet slow to a stop for some reason. I don't know why or how, but for some reason, I open up my mouth to answer.

Even though I don't know the answer, words rise unbidden from my throat. But then, those words escape from my mouth into the open air. "Gilderoy Lockhart is the most brilliant wizard in all the land. His blonde wavy hair glistens in the sun, and his straight white teeth shine even in the dark. His brilliance is as if a rainbow that has been given physical form, and his elegance is that of royalty. Still, by far, his best feature is his boundless talent at magic which surpasses that of even Dumbledore himself."

I stand there for a moment, completely confused and shocked at the utter drivel that I myself just spoke into the air. I can only feel intense relief that there is no one else around me to have heard me spout such bullshit. I don't even know why I said it, as I was fully intent on leaving this room and never coming to hear again. Still, as I listened to the portrait ask me that question one last time before I left the room, I had an insane feeling that I would regret leaving the library and not answering the question. So I opened my mouth, and those words came out automatically as if those words were what the portrait was actually asking for.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

The crazy thing is that I think those words actually came from the Gilderoy Lockhart part of my mind that sometimes rears its head. I think this portrait is merely here like a mirror-mirror on-the-wall situation to remind Lockhart how awesome he is. That intense feeling that I might regret leaving this room came from him as well because I can see no possible reason why saying those words to that portrait could serve any other purpose except feeding the massive ego of this tool and feeding the unearned arrogance of this pompous man.

"Indeed. Gilderoy Lockhart is the greatest wizard born in the past century. there is no doubt about it." After the portrait finishes his words, I hear a loud creaking sound from behind me. I spin around to see that one of the bookshelves on the back wall has swung open to reveal a passageway or something behind it, so I move closer to investigate it shocked that this arrogant man actually had a Hogwarts common room password-type thing set up with a long ass paragraph like that being the fucking answer which is kinda fucking brilliant as he would be the only one who is able to think up so many brown nosing things about himself.

Shaking my head at the idiocy and unexpected brilliance of such a foppish waste of a wizard, I move closer to the new opening in the wall. But, unfortunately, I discover that it is not a passageway that has been revealed but a whole other room behind the bookshelf, which is full of more bloody bookshelves all around the secret room.

Still, to my disappointment, there are only a few books that are placed together on the shelves with the space being wholly empty apart from that, which saddens me as I expected more. Still, then again, I had nothing at all 5 minutes ago, and so I went to inspect the books because at least I got something out of them, and for these books to be hidden like this, it must mean that they are important books.

I reach my hand out to pick up the farthest book on the left. As I do so, I feel the old black leather which is cracked in quite a few places and feels rough to my fingers. As I pull it out and look at the front cover, I see that there is no name on the front at all. I move my fingers to the edge to pull the book open when I remember that scene from the first harry potter book where he is in the restricted library, and a book he takes has a face inside that begins to scream. I wonder if there may be anything inside this book that is as if not more horrendous than that.

And then I remember that this book belongs to Gilderoy Lockhart. My hesitation flutters away because there is no way that this cowardly man would ever go near such a book, let alone bring it into his house and so flip open the page. I come to a contents page, and I read the title at the very top of the first page, which is 'How To Ensnare The Minds Of Witless Humans' which instantly grabs my attention as I then pour through the contents page to find headings such as 'Invading The Mind', 'Corrupting the Mind', 'Subverting The Minds Of Muggles', 'Subverting The Minds Of Animals', 'Subverting The Minds Of Magicals' and one of the ones which I am ashamed to say caught my eyes which is 'Molding The Minds Of Women' and I feel great excitement at the fact that I have found Gilderoy's secret stash of illegal/reputation damaging books.

Leafing through a few pages of the book, I realise that this book is about as dark as you can get when it comes to the mind. It is evident that Gilderoy never really read or learnt from this book, probably scared of its contents because if he had divulged all the secrets from this book, then Gilderroy Lockhart would have been one of the most dangerous men on the planet having the ability to mould the minds of anyone. He would have been able to use it to get whatever he wanted because I know for a fact that only a few people are cautious enough to have prepared and learnt Occulemency, and they are in positions of power.

But they would not be able to do anything without the workforce, which is made up of simple men and women, and those could be easily controlled. So it would not be hard for the entire muggle world to be in my hands as I could manage all the important people at all levels of government. While it would take more effort, I would eventually be able to control the magical side of things as well as any wizard can cast a killing curse.

I could just keep taking over random wizards' minds and implanting subtle orders into their heads to kill Dumbledore or whoever else with a killing curse. So eventually, the old fogey would be worn down, and I would be king of the world and free to take whatever I want from the sheep of the world and to enjoy anyone I want in this new world that is ripe for conquering.

I shake my head and push the thoughts to the back of my mind knowing that I would have to learn other things first and sort out my own mind before I could invest myself into the highly advanced magic of this book. So I go to put it back in its place on the shelf, and the moments my fingertips remove themselves from the rugged black leather, my body uncontrollably shudders as I feel some kind of dark evil remove itself from my mind and all of those dark thoughts that I was thinking dispelling and receding from my mind. I am quick to jump backwards and away from the dark book stumbling and falling onto my back with a thud, but I don't care as I quickly scoot backwards and away from the bookshelf.

I didn't think that the book had any dark magic in it, but it turned out that the magic was much more subtle than I had expected. It brought forth dark thoughts in my mind about how to use the spells within. The worst thing is that it did not give me those thoughts but merely fed the ideas inside of my own head. Even if I had only thought that thought for a millisecond ten years ago, it would be able to draw it out and fester inside it until it corrupts your very soul. I know that I had random fantasies about what I would do with access to Harry Potter Magic and some pretty wild thoughts about the women in the world, and they were all brought to the very forefront of my mind and amplified to an insane degree.

The only reason I put the book back was that the book must have also amplified the dark thoughts and feelings that were inside me. One of my most prominent feelings was my intense jealousy at Lockhart for having everything that I have ever wanted and squandering it and being undeserving of it as well, and that emotion fed into my rage. I wanted to completely destroy Lockhart, but I am now Lockhart, and so the next best thing would be to altogether remove him from my mind and rid myself of him.

So I put the book down in order to go and get a book about Occlumency to gain complete control of my mind and purge myself of the blight that is Gilderoy Lockhart, and that is the only reason that I am still around right now and not a homicidal egomaniac hellbent on ruling the world. So I find myself worrying about how this book affected Lockhart but ultimately shake my head, thinking that he probably had very selfish, self-absorbed goals, which the book brought to the front or some bullshit like that.

Getting back to my feet and dusted myself off while thanking my lucky stars that I had escaped such a horrible fate because the plan I was cooking up was really idiotic as Dumbledore had The Order Of The Phoenix (Or the only valuable and efficient member, Mad-Eye Moody) who would investigate and eventually track me down to stop me, so it seems that book brought out my dark thoughts and also made me stupid as there is a better way to assassinate Dumbledore.

The correct way, or at least the most likely way, to assassinate Dumbledore would be to set mental orders on all the people in the Wizengamot and have half of them throw lethal spells (not the killing curse) at the other half of the room at some kind of signal like a muggle alarm clock which would force Dumbledore to move in front of them to protect them. Then that half of the room would have the mental command to throw killing curses and other spells at Dumbledore when they see his back and him protecting them, which would most likely kill him as he would not be expecting such an attack. I just thought that up quick. I am sure there is a more efficient way.

Of course, I am not going to do anything like that since doing that now would mess up my life a lot since his existence is crucial to the development of Harry Potter, who would go on to kill Voldemort, which would make my life easier, so I don't really plan on doing anything quite so drastic anytime soon though I suppose for the storyline to continue correctly, I will have to teach Harry Potter's second year, but I will worry about that later.

Right now, I do actually have to sort my head out and make a clear partition in my head between myself and Lockhart in my head or, at the very least, restrict those memories' effects on my thoughts and actions, so I move back over to the bookshelf making sure to keep a healthy distance away from that dark book and looking at the rest of the books on the shelf but making sure not to touch any of them and read what it actually says on the text.

Of course, if there is no title, then I am not going to touch that book with a ten-foot pole because if a magical book does not have an obvious title on it, then that could only be because the maker wanted the book to remain hidden and inconspicuous. Still, the only reason to do that for a book would be if the contents of the book were private and or illegal, and if that book is in Lockhart's personal secret library, then I really don't want to be reading it.

I look through the collections of books and spot some very interesting reads such as 'Living With Legilimens: Choose Your Minds Wisely' by The American Society of Legilimens, 'The Memory Charm: The Incantricities Of The Forgetfullness Charm' by Johnathan Applecough, 'Memory Charms: A Full Lexicon' by Arthur Longtrough, 'Protection charm Your Mind: A Practical Guide to Counter Legilimensy' by Franciscus Fieldwake which I quickly pick up and then I pick up the final book that I need right now which is 'A Guide to Advanced Occlumency' by Maxwell Barnett.

There are quite a few more books on the shelves that look interesting and that I will need to read through later. But, still, for right now, I only take these two as I first need to read all I can about Occlumensy before I start to learn it and hopefully use it to sort out this messed up mind of mine and hopefully hack into all of the residual Lockhart memories in my head and salvage them of all their use for me to use in the future and hopefully gain all of the knowledge that is needed to continue my life as Gilderoy Lockhart and start actually making that name worth something and I don't mean in the literary sense but in the power and magic sense.

Leaving the secret room with my two books in hand, I turn around to see the bookshelf magically close and move back into its position. After marvelling at the wonders of magic for a moment, I turn around and make my way over to the desk-

"Haha, aren't I amazing? What would you say is my best feature? Come on now, don't be shy. I know I am amazing"- I make my way out of the library and over to my nice quiet living room, nicely decorated with only a few magical portraits that thankfully don't talk. I can only assume that the limited amount in the living room compared to the rest of the rooms is because he probably receives guests here.

They don't want to see a hundred more Gilderoys than they asked for. So I settle down on my surprisingly comfy fancy sofa (so comfortable that you would think it was made with magic, and it probably was) and get ready to absolutely binge these books and sort out my mess of a mind.