“Well,” Lockhart said, still ignoring his glasses, “it appears to be an archive where people write stories.”

“And?”

“Well, the interesting part is that many of them are about me in particular. Over 3,000 of them, in fact.”

Quirrell studied Lockhart for a moment. His delight was genuine. This wasn’t a joke.

Lockhart consulted a list.

“Almost three hundred stories are about me with Peter Pettigrew. My, that's a fascinating concept, don't you think, Quirinus?”

“Pairing an introvert with an extrovert usually works well in literature.” A pause. “So... this means you're reading fiction about yourself?” Quirrell ventured.

“Yes.” Lockhart pushed parchment at him. “Some of it is quite flattering.”

Quirrell leaned over, took the glasses off Lockhart’s head, and raised an interrogative eyebrow.

“Go ahead,” Lockhart said, waving him on. “I wasn't using them anyway.”

“I noticed,” Quirrell said. “But your arm is only so long, you know.”

Shaking out the page, he started to read the story Lockhart had handed him.

A few pages in, he looked over the glasses.

“I don’t recall you kissing me behind the greenhouse path during Fourth Year.”

Lockhart had another sheet out at arm’s length, but set it down to grin at Quirrell.

“That’s because it was Fifth Year and we were in a lavatory stall. Not at all glamorous. I didn’t snog you properly until Seventh Year, and that was behind the abandoned greenhouse,” Lockhart replied. “That's the beauty of artistic licence. It’s much more picturesque the way this person’s written it. This fan fiction business is brilliant.”

“It's creative, I'll grant you that,” Quirrell said carefully. “But I assume—”

“I’m going to write one!”

“—you're going to write one,” Quirrell finished, nodding.

“I’m going to write the definitive Gilderoy Lockhart fan fiction,” Lockhart said. “Who better than I, after all? Set the record straight, give the readers what they want.”

“Who better, indeed?” Quirrell agreed. He pushed another page back at Lockhart. “You might enjoy this one, Gilderoy. You’re fighting a werewolf whilst shirtless.”

Lockhart read the shirtless-werewolf story through, then set the printed pages down. He wore an enormous smile and a gleam in his eyes that Quirrell recognised all too well.

This was Entrepreneurial Gilderoy Lockhart, front and centre.

“I’ve read quite a few of these ‘fan fiction’ stories now. I’m sure with my expertise, I can expand into this area. Imagine! A whole new generation of prospective fans of my collected works!”

Quirrell looked down over the tops of the reading glasses he’d swiped from Lockhart’s head. Lockhart was pacing in a patch of golden sunlight that did nothing but make him even more handsome than before.

He sighed and picked up the stack of pages Lockhart had left on the table.

“I suppose it’s possible to convert readers into buyers from this, but I think it may be more work than you’re anticipating, Gilderoy.”

“Oh, nonsense. You always worry about these things, and you’re always wrong, you know,” Lockhart said, flapping a hand at him. “And they’re not ‘buyers’, Quirinus. They’re fans. There is a difference, you know.”

“True,” Quirrell said, and sipped his coffee. Though Lockhart’s sins were without number, he really did love his fans. Sales weren’t precisely sales, in his mind. They were more like a measurement of how beloved he was by the public.

Lockhart disappeared from the room for over a minute. A very quiet minute. He returned with a graphite-coloured rectangle in his hands.

“This blasted thing’s switched off again,” he said, setting down Quirrell’s MacBook. “Can you wake it, please?”

“I was going to use it to watch movies this morning, but I suppose I can let you borrow it,” Quirrell relented.

Looking Lockhart dead in the eye, he rested his right index finger in the MacBook keyboard’s upper right corner, and the display came back on. Grinning, he swung around the laptop.

Lockhart rolled his eyes. “You’re such a showoff. Did you know that? Always have been.”

Quirrell burst into a fit of rollicking laughter, and Lockhart grinned. Even he couldn’t deny who the showoff was.

“Hmm. Popular pairings… strong emotional stakes… dramatic confessions… yes, yes.” Lockhart leaned in close to the monitor to read what appeared to be the AO3 website. “Ooh, I like this tag. Quirinus, jot all this down, won’t you? There’s a good fellow.”

From his pocket, Quirrell brought out a small scratch pad and a battered golf pencil. “Ready.”

“Severus and I are the second most popular romantic relationship listed under my name.”

Quirrell could only blink at this news, trying to process it. “Honestly? After Peter Pettigrew?”

“Mad, isn’t it? At any rate, I think that’s my ‘in’. Never try to compete with the top listing, always go for second or third.”

“What’s third?” Quirrell asked, scrawling after what Lockhart said.

“Harry Potter, I’m afraid. Then Rita Skeeter, which is tempting, actually. And then Miss Granger.”

“I can see you with Rita Skeeter quite well,” Quirrell mused. And he really could too. They’d have made a savage blade of a couple. “And that age gap is rather sexy.”

“I thought so too, but she’s in a very distant fourth place, unfortunately. That won’t do for this exercise.” Lockhart leaned towards the screen again, then glanced back at Quirinus. “You’re in sixteenth place, I’m afraid. Don’t be hurt.”

“I’m not hurt. And I had no plans to ask,” Quirrell said.

He stopped to study Lockhart across the table, and a wave of affection overtook him. Lockhart wasn’t especially good at thinking of others before himself. In fact, he was awful at it. That he’d considered Quirrell at all, and tried to offer reassurance, was a surprise. A warm one.

Lockhart squinted at the screen.

“Let’s see, I think we’ll want ‘slow burn’, ‘mutual pining’. Oh! And ‘brilliant but misunderstood Gilderoy Lockhart’. But there seems to be an oversight, that tag’s not here.”

Quirrell jotted them down, then stood and crossed the table. He took Lockhart’s reading specs off and placed them on the owner’s face.

“You’re going to drive me round the twist if you don’t use these. And you’re slouching.”

“Yes, but I hate these,” Lockhart said, though he did sit up straight. “I don’t mind wearing spectacles if I must, but they ought to be the pair I selected. The gold wire pair. Those are distinguished. These are boffin glasses. They don’t suit me at all.”

“Ah. That’s why you keep giving them to me. The truth is out.”

“Well, they do suit you, you must admit,” Lockhart said absentmindedly. He was typing at the same time he talked, which was a great deal slower than his automatic quill, it turned out.

By the time Quirrell’s coffee had gone lukewarm, Lockhart sat back and read aloud. His voice was pleasant, as always, and tended to carry, but never more than when he read his own works.

Severus had never liked beautiful things. At least, that was what he told himself. Beauty was distracting. Usually vain. Frequently useless. Lockhart was all three. This ought to have made matters simple. Unfortunately, Lockhart had smiled at him over breakfast.

It had not even been one of his famous smiles.

Severus knew those. He had seen the dazzling one Lockhart produced for photographs, the modest one he wore when accepting compliments, and the absurdly radiant one that appeared whenever a student asked him to sign something.

But this one had been different.

“Good morning, Severus.”

Nothing more. A small smile over the rim of a teacup. The difference was, this one seemed intended for him alone. Severus had looked away. And by lunchtime, he was still annoyed about it. Why should Lockhart presume to smile at him, of all people?

Lockhart found him in the staff room that afternoon. Because of course he did. He possessed an unerring sixth sense for finding where he wasn’t wanted and inserting himself there. Charm, some people might call it, but Severus did not.

“Severus, may I ask you something?”

Without even the decency to remain standing, Lockhart sat across from Severus, as if they were old friends meeting at a cafe. His robes were a ludicrous shade of peacock blue that had the unfortunate effect of catching the eye.

“You ask whether I permit it or not,” Severus replied.

Lockhart laughed and pulled the chair closer whilst Severus continued marking essays. Or attempted to, at least. The squawk of the chair legs coupled with the close scent of Lockhart's cologne made it difficult to concentrate.

“Do you actually dislike me?” Lockhart asked.

The question was so unexpected that Severus stopped his work and looked up to find Lockhart was not smiling now. And that was somehow worse.

“Would the answer alter your behaviour?”

To his credit, Lockhart appeared to consider before replying. “Probably not.”

“Then I fail to see the relevance.”

Lockhart thought again. This was the most careful Severus recalled ever seeing him. As though the answer actually mattered.

He resumed writing, tired of looking at Lockhart's face. The page offered respite that the company did not.

“I suppose I wondered whether I’d done something to deserve it,” Lockhart said. “I might've done, I suppose, though I can't recall anything in particular.”

Severus’s quill stopped.

There were dozens of answers available to him. Lockhart was vain. Loud. Tiresome. Bright. His Valentine’s decorations had required three days to remove completely from the Great Hall.

None explained why Severus could recognise four different versions of his smile. Or why any of those smiles sometimes came to mind when Lockhart was not present.

“No,” Severus said at last, looking up from his work.

Lockhart blinked.

“No?”

“No. You have done nothing.”

The smile returned, and Severus immediately regretted everything.

Why had he been foolish enough to admit that? It served no purpose other than to give Lockhart an excuse to resume being insufferable.

Severus returned to his marking. He expected Lockhart to leave, positive answer obtained, but he continued to sit.

“Something else on your mind?” Severus ventured, careful not to sound welcoming.

Lockhart sat with the easy grace of an athlete, one arm resting on the table, manicured hand annoyingly on display.

His smile remained in place.

How anyone could win an award for a smile was beyond Severus’s comprehension. It was like winning an award simply for existing. Foolishness.

“I can't help but notice, you didn't answer my original question. You sidestepped it rather neatly, I thought,” Lockhart said.

“What question was that?”

“‘Do you dislike me?’” Lockhart sat forward. “That was my original question. You only said I'd done nothing to deserve being disliked.”

“Then you have your answer, don't you?” Severus returned.

There was a long stretch of silence; Severus ignored it.

“I'm not sure I do have my answer,” Lockhart said quietly. “I think you may be avoiding it. Why is that?”

Severus sighed and laid down his quill.

“Professor Lockhart,” he said with questionable emphasis on ‘professor’, “I am attempting to work. Please take your juvenile nonsense elsewhere so I may complete my task. I'm under no obligation to like you, or to explain my feelings on the matter.”

Lockhart sat back, then his smile appeared again, chin tilted up. Triumph, Severus was sure, but what idiotic victory he perceived was a mystery.

“That always does me in, too,” Quirrell murmured when Lockhart paused.

Lockhart looked up at him and smiled, pushing the spectacles back on top of his head.

“What? Me smiling at you over the breakfast table?”

Quirrell nodded. “Like you’re doing right now. Yes.”

Unsurprisingly, Lockhart’s smile widened. “Yes, well, you’re an easy mark, my dear. Severus never was.”

Quirrell nodded and stirred his coffee, now cold in the delicate porcelain cup.

“Do you want to know what else I was wrong about, Gilderoy?” he asked halfway through the stir.

“With you, it’s endless,” Lockhart teased. “What is it?”

“I never thought you could write proper fiction. But you could, all this time.”

There was a long pause as Lockhart folded his hands on top of the table and considered him.

“So you liked it.”

Slower this time, Quirrell stirred the coffee again. “I did, yes—”

“No, no, don't qualify it now. You liked it. Correct?”

“Yes, it was quite immersive. Tension building nicely, too.”

Lockhart beamed and reached across the table to take his hand.

“Excellent! You can read the rest before I publish it, then. How does that sound?”

“I think they call that a beta reader, Gilderoy,” Quirrell said, but smiled anyway.