Gilderoy Lockhart

> "*Fame’s a fickle friend, Harry... Celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that.*"
> ― Lockhart's dubious advice to Harry Potter[source]
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**Professor Gilderoy Lockhart**, Template:OM, (b. 26 January, 1964) was a half-blood wizard, a Ravenclaw student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and later a famous wizarding celebrity who authored many books on dark creatures and his supposed encounters with them.

Prior to his tenure as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the 1992–1993 school year, he received many prestigious awards, such as Order of Merlin, Third Class; Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League; and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award. He invented an Occamy egg yolk shampoo, which was too dangerous and expensive for open market; it subsequently became his dream to market these products. His favourite colour was lilac.

Lockhart never actually did any of the heroic acts he claimed he had done, but instead used his considerable talent in Memory Charms to force the actual people who had done them into forgetting what they did. Ironically, Lockhart lost all of his memory on 29 May, 1993 due to a backfired Memory Charm cast by Ron Weasley's damaged wand.

Lockhart then became a permanent resident of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. He was institutionalised in the same ward as Neville Longbottom's parents, the Janus Thickey Ward for permanent spell damage. Following his hospitalisation, he dictated his final book entitled *Who Am I?*.

## Biography

### Early life (1964–1975)

> "*It's not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog.*"
> ― Lockhart speaking about his life during a detention session[source]
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Gilderoy Lockhart was born on 26 January, 1964, to a Muggle man and a witch, and had two elder sisters, both of whom were Squibs. Lockhart's mother loved him more than any of his siblings, and this, combined with the revelation of his wizardry and acceptance into Hogwarts, caused his vanity to grow like a tenacious weed. He and his mother forgot, in their excitement, that Hogwarts was a school for all British and Irish wizards, and thus his introduction into the school along with everyone else was, in his eyes, extremely dull.

### Hogwarts years (1975–1982)

Gilderoy Lockhart entered Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on 1 September, 1975, and was four years below James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, and Severus Snape. He was Sorted into Ravenclaw, but he came close to being a Hatstall, as the Sorting Hat also found him an excellent fit for Slytherin, but decided against it by a narrow margin.

He had hoped to be greeted by whispers and stares, as in his mind he was already a fully-fledged genius with an exceptional magical prowess; the fact that he was merely ordinary, that more talented and gifted children were there, and that nobody was particularly impressed by his naturally wavy hair, disappointed him. He did have above-average abilities, and he was cleverer than most of his classmates, but he had a bad flaw in that he would not try unless he was confident that he was the best of whichever particular team, group, or class he happened to be with at the time.

Gilderoy did achieve good marks and his teachers did think that, with hard work, he might be able to make something of himself. Even if he fell short of his ambitions that he would freely share with anyone who bothered listening (he told them that he would succeed in creating the Philosopher's Stone before leaving school and that he intended to captain England’s Quidditch team to World Cup glory, before knuckling down to becoming Britain’s youngest Minister for Magic). Despite this, according to him at some point during his education he managed to play as Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.

His vanity was such that he valued learning not for education, but because it granted him attention; he craved attention and prizes, and begged the Headmaster to start a school newspaper purely so he could see his own name in print. When these exploits failed to grant him attention, he took to grander, more dramatic means of garnering attention. Though he had never been popular with the other students, he did manage to achieve small notoriety by carving his signature in twenty foot long letters into the Quidditch pitch (earning him a weeks' worth of detentions), creating a spell that shot a hologram of his own face into into the sky in imitation of the Dark Mark, and sending himself eight-hundred Valentines, causing breakfast to be cancelled due to the number of droppings and feathers in the porridge. He increasingly devoted his talents to insincere shortcuts and cowardly dodges, focused on attention and neglecting true learning.

During the course of his magical education, the school fell under the threat of the sinister defensive measures of the fabled Cursed Vaults after one of his peers tampered with them, although Lockhart was not known to have been impacted in any way during the ordeal.

### Career as an author (1982–1992)

> "*Why, I remember the time when I was writing my second bestseller,* Gadding with Ghouls*. I believed that the more exposure I got in the press, the better my career would progress. Trouble was, I became overexposed! And it wasn't until I went mysteriously missing for three weeks, subsequently leaking the story to the Prophet that I'd been captured by Trolls in the wilds of Stockton-on-Tees, that I managed to regain my former prominent position as the world's most popular wizard.*"
> ― Lockhart talking about his early adventures[source]
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After his graduation from Hogwarts in 1982 (with a faint sigh of relief from the school staff), Lockhart became an accomplished author, travelling to exotic parts of the world and, having mastered Memory Charms shortly after his graduation, tricking accomplished witches and wizards into revealing their greatest deeds and then erasing their memories. This sole focus on Memory Charms came at heavy cost. All his other magical abilities had degraded to the point they were beyond repair, which spelled the end of Lockhart's fame when Lockhart became a Hogwarts Professor.

He then returned to Britain with a new book each time, all of them self-promoting and filled with a wealth of invented details that (for the parts referring to him) were nothing but conceit, self-praise, vanity, gross exaggerations, sensationalizations, and when referring to other things and people, idle speculations; known victims of his trickery included an Armenian warlock and a witch with a hairy chin. His books were very popular, and he reserved a special quill of peacock feather just for book signings. He also received many awards for his supposedly great deeds and was invited to join the Ministry of Magic's Dark Force Defence League as an honorary member, all the while managing to successfully hide his fraudulence. His former teachers, who were unaware of his status as a con artist, began to think that they might have misjudged him, due to his supposed bravery and resilience in combating the Dark Arts.

According to Lockhart, he initially believed that the more exposure he got in the press, the better his career would progress. By the time he was writing his second bestseller, *Gadding with Ghouls*, he became overexposed, something that damaged his popularity. He, then, went mysteriously missing for three weeks, after which he leaked to the *Daily Prophet* that he had been captured by trolls in the wilds of Stockton-on-Tees. The story boosted his popularity once again. Through this experience, he claimed that one must be "*sparing with [one's] public appearances, at first*", as one might become overexposed.

At some point after the release of *Wanderings with Werewolves*, Gilderoy held a symposium centered around his alleged experiences fending off the Dark Forces to talk about his supposed defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf. In attendance were among others Cecil Lee of the Werewolf Capture Unit. During this event, he gave a public demonstration of the Homorphus Charm, which he claimed he could cast so effectively as to cure werewolves. During the same conference, he also said that werewolves were weakened by sunlight, presumably as a joke.

Outside of writing, Lockhart was an amateur potioneer. He invented a shampoo that guaranteed lustrous locks of hair, one of his few claims that proved to be true. Due to its main ingredient being too dangerous and expensive to procure, it was never produced for mass marketing. Lockhart hoped to gain a steady stream of income by marketing other high-priced products, but this never came to be due to few people be willing to risk their lives for such a superficial issue as hair care.

#### Voyages, Vampires, and Valentines!

In 1988, Lockhart came to visit Hogwarts shortly before Valentine's Day as a part of his book tour. He invited six Hogwarts students to his book signing at Flourish and Blotts, claiming the students were randomly selected.

After the book signing, he and the six students went to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, where he informed the students that they were special guests and planners of an event called *Voyages, Vampires, and Valentines!* held at the tea shop on Valentine's Day. In reality, he was planning to use this as an opportunity to learn the students' stories and Obliviate them afterwards in order to use these stories for a new book. At some point, he talked about his plan on the Grand Staircase, where it was heard by the portrait of Sir Cadogan.

#### Employment by Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster during Lockhart's time, happened to know two of the wizards whose memories Lockhart erased and easily deduced the truth behind Lockhart's fame and decided to make Lockhart pay for his crimes. He correctly believed that dragging Lockhart into a normal, school atmosphere would reveal his fraudulence, and with a vacancy in Defence Against the Dark Arts having opened up in June 1992, tracked down the author and offered Lockhart a job at Hogwarts (something Lockhart had not been too keen to do, as he saw how well his career as an author was progressing and because those who knew him from his time as a student like Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape were still there as well).

Dumbledore slyly hinted that Harry Potter was a second-year student at the school, and being a teacher to the "famous Harry" would propel Lockhart's fame into the stratosphere. Ego, fame-hunger, and glory-thirst overruled caution, and Lockhart took the job. The other teachers remembered Lockhart as the obnoxious attention seeker back then, regardless of his later achievements, and were baffled at Dumbledore for inviting Lockhart to teach; Minerva McGonagall, in particular, asked what possibly could be learned from such a vainglorious man, in which the headmaster replied that there was plenty to learn from even a bad teacher: what not to do, how not to be. Hagrid correctly deduced that Lockhart only got the job because he was the only applicant for the jinxed position due to the fact that no one at the Ministry who was a specialist in Defence Against the Dark Arts with impeccable credentials or who was a trained professional who worked in either the Auror Office or the Dark Force Defence League wanted the job because of what happened to Quirinus Quirrell at the end of the 1991–1992 school year.

> "*Nice big smile, Harry, together, you and I are worth the front page.*"
> ― Lockhart demonstrating his vanity in front of Harry Potter in Flourish and Blotts[source]
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Lockhart thus became the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for the 1992–1993 school year, and several of his books were assigned for the course that year, resulting in an unusually expensive book list (his books alone amounted to 35 galleons). In August of 1992, Lockhart went to Flourish and Blotts to sign books to his fans and announce his employment; it was there that he met Harry Potter for the first time. He became quite excited and dragged Harry to the front, taking as many pictures as he could with the famous boy and then gifting him all of the set books in an attempt to garner some of Harry's affection. The incident, in fact, embarrassed Harry, who gave his books to Ginny Weasley, both because he could afford his own set and also because he did not particularly cherish his interaction with Lockhart.

### Career at Hogwarts (1992–1993)

#### Early classes

> "*Me, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award — but I don’t talk about that. I didn’t get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!*"
> ― Lockhart arrogantly introducing himself to his second year Defence Against the Dark Arts students[source]
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Being the only willing applicant for the jinxed position, Gilderoy Lockhart became Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the 1992–1993 school year. His classroom and office at Hogwarts were decorated with pictures and portraits of himself (before the class started, Fred thought that the teacher must be a fan of Lockhart, for which he was certainly correct) which moved and smiled (there was even one of himself as a classical artist painting *another* medieval version portrait of himself). He also decorated the office with copies of his publications.

For his first lesson, he showed everyone in his class what he really was. He first did this when he gave his second-year class a "little quiz" which was filled with questions that had nothing to do with Defence Against the Dark arts, but instead concerned his autobiography, *Magical Me*, and the parts of his books just referring to him, such as what his favourite colour and his ideal birthday present was; he simply wanted to see how much the class has read his books. Despite his claim of "little", it ran for three pages with fifty-four questions, and only Hermione got all of them correct. Lockhart, delighted with Hermoine's perfect score, awarded Gryffindor ten house points. He showed his true colours a second time when he then proceeded to release a cage full of "freshly caught" Cornish Pixies into the classroom, causing a large amount of pandemonium. He showed his true colours further a third time when he tried to stop them with a spell that had absolutely no effect on the pixies and then irresponsibly instructed Harry, Ron, and Hermione to clean up after the mess while running back into his office.

He was not the least bit popular among his fellow Hogwarts staff members and constantly gave them unsolicited pieces of advice on their specialities. Harry and his friends (except for Hermione Granger) also found him quite obnoxious and could not take him seriously as a Professor. Even Rubeus Hagrid, the Gamekeeper, who usually refrained himself from criticising a teacher, showed public disdain for Lockhart. Many male students, such as Ron Weasley, immediately saw that Lockhart was an annoying and an incompetent fool whose reason for doing so poorly was because he had no idea what he was doing, and gave him very little respect outside of his presence. However, Lockhart's charms had attracted many schoolgirls such as Hermione Granger and Susan Bones. Muggle-born students who have recently been introduced into the wizarding world, such as Justin Finch-Fletchley and Colin Creevey, also admired Lockhart due to their lack of experience with the magical community, and easily ate up his tall tales.

After the pixie chaos, Lockhart did not bring any more live creatures into class, but instead read from his books and re-enacted several portions of his "achievements," sometimes dragging Harry to help him with it. The only reason Harry agreed to do so was to get signed permission from Lockhart for a book in the Restricted Section of the library, which Lockhart signed without even paying attention to what book they wanted (Hermione claimed she was interested in reading more about Slow-acting venoms, but in reality she wanted to learn how to brew Polyjuice Potion). His idea of homework included composing a poem of one of his alleged achievements and offered a signed copy of his autobiography as a reward to the best composer. Due to Lockhart's overall poor performances, the class did not learn anything about true Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Ron claimed that he only learned not to set pixies loose, and would have dropped the course had he been allowed to. Lockhart's once powerful potential had been wasted from years of misuse and neglect, resulting in him being unable to properly teach (or even understand what he was attempting at times).

#### Irritating Harry Potter

> "*You could've fried an egg on your face.*"
> ― Ron Weasley commenting on Lockhart embarrassing Harry Potter[source]
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For the majority of the year, Lockhart kept hounding on Harry, trying to use him to boost his own fame, much to Harry's humiliation and irritation. Lockhart made it look as though Harry was trying to use his fame of defeating Lord Voldemort to make a name in the wizarding world, that the Flying Ford Anglia he rode on to school was a publicity stunt, and that he was enjoying his companionship with Lockhart and ignored much of Harry's attempted contradictions to these ridiculous hypotheses.

After Hagrid told him that Harry was more famous than him without trying, Lockhart personally requested Harry to help him answer his fan mails for detention while bombarding Harry with his advice for fame and thought Harry would think of this as a treat, much to the contrary. In fact, Harry practically begged Professor McGonagall to be in Ron's detention in assisting Argus Filch in cleaning the Trophy Room instead, though the strict Transfiguration teacher refused. Harry then suffered several long hours of dull boredom, addressing envelopes. When Harry heard mysterious voices during this detention, Lockhart thought Harry was merely tired. Following the disastrous episode in which he released "freshly caught" Cornish pixies in class, Lockhart staged dramatic readings from his books and often chose Harry to participate in re-enactments, much to Harry's aggravation.

After a Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, in which the Gryffindor Seeker Harry had his arm broken by a rogue bludger, Lockhart offered to help repair his arm. Ignoring Harry's refusal, he ended up vanishing all the bones in Harry's arm, using the spell ‘*Brackium Emendo*’.

> "*Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape, He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don’t want any of you youngsters to worry — you’ll still have your Potions master when I’m through with him, never fear!*"
> ― Lockhart foolishly underestimating Snape's far superior duelling skills[source]
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Lockhart founded a short-lived Duelling Club for students. He made a fool of himself at the very first meeting by firstly being disarmed by Severus Snape and then falsely claiming that he had allowed Snape to do so. He also angered a snake conjured by Draco Malfoy by launching it into the air rather than vanishing it, causing it to aim at Justin Finch-Fletchley. Lockhart was also indirectly responsible for bringing out Harry's full-fledged Parselmouth ability because if he had vanished the snake successfully, there would be no need for Harry to run at the snake and demand it to leave Justin alone. The snake was subsequently successfully vanished by Snape immediately afterwards.

When Hermione Granger was in the Hospital Wing for a malfunction dosage of Polyjuice Potion, Lockhart sent her a get-well card, with an unnecessarily long introduction of himself as a signature. Hermione slept with this under her pillow, much to Ron Weasley's disgust.

#### Valentine's Day and the Chamber of Secrets

**Snape**: "*I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn’t had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested, Didn’t you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?*"
**Lockhart**: "*I — I really never — you may have misunderstood —*"
**McGonagall**: "*We’ll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy, Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We’ll make sure everyone’s out of your way. You’ll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last.*"
**Lockhart**: "*V-very well, I’ll — I’ll be in my office, getting — getting ready.*"
— Lockhart reveals his cowardice and incompetence in front of all the other Hogwarts Professors[src]

During Valentine's Day, Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes, completely redecorated the Great Hall with pink flowers and raining heart-shaped confetti as a morale-booster to cheer up the mood against the Chamber of Secrets incident, much to the distaste of Ron Weasley and the teachers. Lockhart received at least forty-six valentines, one of which was from Hermione Granger, and made unwelcome suggestion about performing Entrancing Enchantments and brewing Love Potions, suggesting that they should ask Professors Flitwick and Snape, respectively. This made Flitwick bury his face in his hands in embarrassment, and Snape furious enough for Harry to make a bet that he would force the first person who dared to ask him for a Love Potion to consume poison. He even had dwarfs wear golden wings and carry harps to deliver valentines throughout the school, which they did (even if they have to do so forcibly), much to Harry Potter's embarrassment when one forced him to listen to one from Ginny Weasley by knocking him down. This event was, ironically, somewhat a repeat of his attempt to earn attention during his youth in Valentines Day, being equally as annoying.

When the Chamber of Secrets was opened, Lockhart made false claims that he knew where the Chamber was and what the Salazar Slytherin's monster was all along. He even claimed that he knew Rubeus Hagrid was guilty all along when the Minister for Magic arrested the gamekeeper, even though it was only done as a precaution. While the other teachers were serious and tense from all the attacks, Lockhart was the only one who remained relaxed and unconcerned about these security measures. For instance, after Ginny Weasley was taken into the Chamber, he walked into the Hogwarts staffroom and simply told the other present Professors "*So sorry — dozed off — what have I missed?*", showing his complete lack of awareness and smug nonchalance.

On 29 May, 1993, after the aforementioned occurrence, the other teachers, after giving him stony looks of hatred, told Lockhart to go down to the Chamber and deal with the monster, in response to his arrogance and many claims that he knew how to solve the problem. Instead of trying to rescue Ginny, Lockhart attempted to run away from the school, but was caught by Harry Potter and Ron Weasley when they came to his office to give him information regarding the Chamber, and he accidentally revealed his life-style of fraudulence. Harry and Ron forced Lockhart to go down to the Chamber with them.

> "*The adventure ends here, boys! I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body — say good-bye to your memories!* Obliviate*!*"
> ― Lockhart's attempt to erase Ron and Harry's memories, his final mistake[source]
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There, Lockhart seized Ron's broken wand and attempted to perform a total Memory Charm on Harry and Ron, planning on taking a piece of basilisk skin back up to the surface and tell everyone that he was too late to save Ginny and that the two "tragically" lost their minds at sight of her mangled body. The wand backfired and the charm hit Lockhart instead, blasting him against the rocks and causing him to lose all of his memories, giving him complete amnesia. Lockhart was eventually rescued from the chamber with Dumbledore's pet Phoenix Fawkes, along with Ginny, Harry and Ron after Harry slayed the Basilisk, with him proclaiming, the whole situation was "just like magic". An amnesiac Lockhart then arrived in Minerva McGonagall's office with Ron, Harry and Ginny, where a returned Dumbledore was present, who then derided the clueless Lockhart of his recent memory loss, having achieved his mission of exposing his fraudulence, before sending Ron to take him to the Hospital Wing. His departure from school was met with the joy and celebration of many students and teachers, as he had ceased to be universally popular at Hogwarts. He was then became a permanent resident of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, in the Janus Thickey Ward, for permanent spell damage.

### Permanent incapacitation (1993–?)

> "*But as he stepped on to the landing he came to an abrupt halt, staring at the small window set into the double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted SPELL DAMAGE. A man was peering out at them all with his nose pressed against the glass. He had wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes and a broad vacant smile that revealed dazzlingly white teeth.*"
> ― Lockhart in the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungos[source]
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Blissfully ignorant of his own fraudulence, or of anything else, for that matter, Lockhart's many crimes were never actually revealed to the public, presumably because his former employer, Professor Dumbledore, felt that Lockhart had already got what he deserved and decided against making his fate any worse by exposing him to the wizarding world and see him treated with contempt for the rest of his life for wrongdoings he had no idea he had even committed. This is evident by how not even the Healers at St Mungo's had been informed about the details around his admittance, as Miriam Strout, one of the employees at the long-time ward he was admitted to, spoke casually about how Gilderoy had been "quite well-known a few years ago" and were optimistic to the prospect of Gilderoy's signs of improvement later in his treatment. Due to this, the ex-professor was allowed to continue his career as an author, after a fashion, getting someone to help him write the book *Who Am I?*. Based on Miriam's statement, it appears that the wizarding world in general came to forget about Lockhart.

On Christmas, 1995, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Ginny Weasley saw Lockhart at St Mungo's in the Janus Thickey Ward. He had regained his memory to the extent that he could write in cursive ("with joined-up letters"), and still enjoyed signing autographs. Ron felt somewhat guilty since his malfunctioning wand was responsible for damaging Lockhart's memories, but Harry felt less sympathetic, for it was Lockhart's attempt to remove their memories in the first place that resulted in this backfire. Overall, Harry observed Lockhart had not changed much and voiced this opinion, making Ginny giggle.

> "*Teach? Me? Did I? Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!*"
> ― An Amnesiac Lockhart humorously demonstrating his remaining vanity and extravagance[source]
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It is known that Gilderoy never got visitors, suggesting that his family was either deceased or did not care for him. However, Lockhart still received fan mail including weekly letters from Gladys Gudgeon (further evidence that the foundation of falsehood on which he had built his career as an author never became common knowledge), though he had no idea why. He also kept his peacock-feather quill, though it had become somewhat battered by that time so that he could keep signing autographs.

Though he retained some memories, Lockhart never fully recovered. Fortunately, however, he is known to be happier that way. It's unknown if Lockhart ever returned to Hogwarts, was released from the hospital, or ever encountered Harry Potter and his friends after 1995.

## Physical description

> "*There was a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes*"
> ― A physical description of Gilderoy Lockhart[source]
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Gilderoy Lockhart was a foppish, handsome wizard with wavy blonde hair and particularly straight and shiny teeth. He was known for wearing flamboyant, flashy and incredibly extravagant robes in a wide assortment of colours.

However, during his moments of cowardice, Lockhart's handsomeness was lost, as he looked weak-chinned and foolish in the midst of his ineptitude.

## Personality and traits

> "*Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking! 'He's an internationally famous wizard already!' But when I was twelve, I was just as much of a nobody as you are now. In fact, I'd say I was even more of a nobody! I mean, a few people have heard of you, haven't they? All that business with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! I know, I know — it's not quite as good as winning Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award five times in a row, as I have — but it's a start, Harry, it's a start!*"
> ― Lockhart displaying his arrogance as he talks to Harry[source]
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Gilderoy Lockhart's defining characteristics were his extreme arrogance, exceeding vanity, conceit, egomania, narcissism, impudence, insensitivity, inconsideration, and self-obsession. He was a voracious self-promoter and claimed to have done many great deeds, though in actuality he was just a fraud who merely took credit for other wizards and witches' accomplishments and whose claims about himself were for the most part nothing but conceit, self-praise, and vanity and whose claims about other things were idle speculations, gross exaggerations, and pure sensationalism; he went as far as to claim his winning of the Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award five times in a row was more impressive than Harry Potter defeating Lord Voldemort.

He also made outrageous claims and suggestions, whether about other people's professions or in times of danger, in order to make himself look more important and powerful than he truly was. Like Stan Shunpike, Gilderoy tends to come up with fabricated concepts on the spot rather frequently just to impress his admirers. Even as a student, he already made far-fetched claims of his goals such as creating a Philosopher's Stone before graduation, intending to captain England's Quidditch team to World Cup glory, before knuckling down to becoming Britain’s youngest Minister for Magic, none of which he accomplished. His attempts to earn himself more fame also led him to attempt spells without fully understanding them (such as removing Harry's bones instead of mending them, and launching a snake into the air instead of making it vanish). It is also speculated that he invented some incantations and names for spells that do not actually exist, such as *Peskipiksi Pesternomi* (a proven nonsense incantation), and possibly the Transmogrifian Torture along with the Homorphus Charm. Indeed, many of his books contained a large number of invented details to promote his supposed feats. Lockhart was very proud of his books, since his falsely-acquired achievements recorded within were highly popular with its readers, and would always make reference to them whenever giving advice based on his so-called experience.

In addition to his self-promoting nature, he was also highly impractical, to the point of being reckless, in many situations. When the Chamber of Secrets opened, he made many pointless suggestions and false volunteers despite the seriousness of the situation, and his "morale booster" outright disturbed classes instead of building up confidence. His school lectures and materials were simply selling his overly expensive autobiographies while reading out chapters from these uninformative books and even theatrically reenacting them, thus lacking any educational purposes. He insisted on mass-producing his own shampoo despite the ingredients being too dangerous and expensive to procure, especially for something as superficial as hair-care. With a little flattering, Hermione Granger was able to get Lockhart to sign a permission form for a book within the library's Restricted Section, to which Lockhart did not even bother to look at the book she wanted, much less question her for reasons for wanting a potentially dangerous document, which other teachers would not be so reckless. Later, being the only teacher to not take the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets seriously, he neglected his duties of leading his students to their next class when Harry and Ron flattered him, as Ron pointed out, in order to fix his hair. Even in his time as a student, his antics of garnering attention caused huge amounts of trouble that earned him scorn and loathing instead of the popularity and the praise that he desired.

Lockhart's overbearing self-centred personality and insensitivity irked most of the people he encountered who were not included among his fans. His unprofessional behaviour earned him the dislike of the Hogwarts faculty, as well as many of the students. However, his arrogance did have limits and he recognised that Albus Dumbledore, his employer and Headmaster of Hogwarts, was a greater wizard than he was, as he never considered himself to be a better wizard than Dumbledore. Also, like many magical folk (human and nonhuman alike) Lockhart feared Voldemort to the point where he could not call him by his name. Lockhart was overall considered a joke and a nuisance by many people at Hogwarts, and when he left the school due to memory loss, the majority (if not the entirety) of the school was happy to see him go.

> "*Lockhart'll sign anything if it stands still long enough.*"
> ― Ron Weasley regarding Lockhart[source]
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He also seemed to be completely oblivious to the reactions he elicited from other people or misinterpreted them completely. When Ron looked revolted at his ostentatious peacock quill, Lockhart thought that Ron was admiring it. He ignored Harry's many attempts to contradict his theories of enjoying his company and attention, as well as Harry's pleas for Lockhart to leave his broken arm alone, and also completely failed to notice the looks of hatred he received from the rest of the faculty for his ignorance. He asserted that Hogwarts was safe from the monster of Slytherin after Hagrid was arrested, claiming extra security was no longer necessary, and though proven wrong almost immediately, Lockhart stubbornly refused to retract his earlier claims, and continued to complain about how the extra security was tiring him out. His ignorance, arrogance, and self-serving nature ultimately led to his downfall when he attempted to use Ron's damaged wand to perform the complex Memory Charm despite seeing the backfires it has caused over the year (mainly in the Duelling Club), evidently forgetting the dangers of attempting such a feat (or that the wand was even damaged).

When he faced with true danger, Gilderoy showed his true nature of a self-serving coward. He attempted to flee from Hogwarts when the other teachers pressured him into entering the Chamber of Secrets after Ginny Weasley's abduction (though this was more to get him out of the way so the teachers could get the real work done), and claim that his books can be misleading, contradicting his past vain support on them. Even after the location of the Chamber's entrance was discovered, he was willing to leave Ginny Weasley to die, attempting to modify Harry and Ron's memories to cover himself.

Although Lockhart started out as a clever and very skilled student, being sorted into Ravenclaw house, his main flaw was that he would never try in his studies (or anything) unless he was the very best at it, having been spoiled by his mother's overly affection and his own ego. Even in his childhood, he already expected the students and teachers to greet him with admiration and excitement, as he deluded himself into thinking he is a genius above all others of undeserved rights, and was very disappointed and dulled when he was not given any special treatments. He studied not for education, but for attention and awards, and spent much of his time with annoying vanity projects for fame and glory that instead earned him a small notoriety. He was never an unskilled wizard, just a lazy one who increasingly directed his talents to insincere shortcuts and cowardly dodges; his gifts wasted away, as the only spell he focused on was the Memory Charm. His abilities eventually deteriorated nearly beyond the point of recovery, which went past that point when he was struck with his own backfiring Memory Charm. Despite his ineptitude in most other areas of magic due to long-term neglect and misuse, Lockhart was skilled in Memory Charms, it being the one spell he focused on for his entire life, and was conniving enough to deceive other wizards and witches to thoroughly reveal their work to him before erasing their memories and claim the credits for himself. He also appeared to have been a skilled writer, publishing many books consisting primarily of his embellishments of other people's achievements, taking credit for them as his own. Given his propensity for lying, however, it cannot be said for certain that Lockhart himself actually wrote any of the books, though he did understand that the readers would not be nearly half as interested in his books if they realised his feats were no more than fictionalised plagiarism. He also added many invented details in such feats to promote himself further, distorting facts with fictional concepts. Lockhart's fraudulent lifestyle has proven a certain degree of cunning, resourcefulness and disregard for rules, qualities that fall under the specifics of Slytherin, which he was narrowly able to avoid being sorted into.

In addition to his other flaws, Lockhart may have had a spiteful streak in him. After learning from Hagrid that the Gamekeeper hadn't read any of his books and that Harry Potter was more famous than Lockhart without trying, Lockhart was put out and later insisted that Harry serve detention with him so he could show off his fan mail to Harry and gloat about it. After Hagrid's arrest, Lockhart openly claimed to be certain that Hagrid was truly guilty, but whether this was a real hint of ill will or another sign of Lockhart's ignorance is unknown.

By his own claims (written in his many published works), his favourite colour was lilac, his secret ambitions were to rid the world of evil and to market his own range of hair care potions, and that he desired harmony between magic and non-magic peoples as a birthday present. Given his egotistical and self-serving cowardice attributes, some of these may have been fabrications to boost Lockhart's own reputation as opposed to truth. His empty ambitiousness shown since his studentship, such as claiming to create a Philosopher's Stone before graduation, captain the England Quidditch team into championship before knuckling down to become the youngest Minister for Magic yet accomplishing none of which he speak, it is very likely his "secret ambition" and "ideal birthday present" were just the same meaningless claims to gain attention.

After losing his memory, however, Lockhart became a much more humble and happier person, even if he did not particularly know it. Upon seeing Harry and Ginny after the spell hit him, he greeted them cheerfully and spent most of the time humming to himself absentmindedly. When addressed as Professor, he expressed surprise at the idea and remarked that he must have been hopeless, without any reluctance at all. Despite forgetting his desire for fame and attention, he continued to enjoy signing autographs and responding to fan letters, a trait that Harry noted had not changed.

## Known published works

*Main article: Gilderoy Lockhart's collected works*

> "*For full details, see my published works.*"
> ― Lockhart referencing his advice to his books[source]
>
>

Lockhart was an accomplished author, with twelve of his books shown. Although nine of them were supposed to be about eradicating dark forces, they were in fact just recollections of his experiences (of which he stole from other people) and his personal profiles, somewhat an extension of his autobiography, and contained a good deal of invented details as opposed to pure facts. All of these (with the exception of *Who Am I?*) were published at some point between 1982 and 1992, before his stint as a Hogwarts professor. Due to the immense popularity, the books were very expensive; he gifted an entire set to Harry Potter as a publicity stunt at Flourish and Blotts, which Harry donated to Ginny Weasley.

Lockhart assigned seven of these books to be his textbooks for his Defence Against the Dark Arts course, though it was simply an excuse for him to sell his works to the students, as none of them had any educational usefulness. He gave an overly long "little quiz" during the first lesson to test out how much his students took in from his collected works, but most showed little interest and did poorly. After the first lesson ended up in disaster, Lockhart simply read from these books aloud and sometimes reenacted the contents to the class in a theatrical manner.

* *Break with a Banshee*
* *Gadding with Ghouls*
* *Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests*
* *Holidays with Hags*
* *Magical Me* (autobiography)
* *Marauding with Monsters*
* *One Hundred and One Practical Uses for Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans*
* *Travels with Trolls*
* *Voyages with Vampires*
* *Wanderings with Werewolves*
* *Who Am I?*
* *Year with the Yeti*