Chapter 6: Fame and Fortune
Harry Lockhart leaned back in his chair and studied the tired student lightly shaking his weary fingers.
"In all seriousness, Harry, you cannot let your fame drag you along in its wake, like a helpless leaf caught in the wind. I realized when I was a student here at Hogwarts that you have to seize control of your fate, or it will make your life miserable. And I am more than happy to help you navigate those treacherous waters, for it is all too easy for fame to slip from your grasp and leave you as a has-been, a nobody. You have to work at being famous."
The black-haired boy frowned at him. The professor could just about read his mind. 'Now what is the twit going on about?'
He leaned over, picked up, and placed a pile of thin books on the desk. "Do you know what these are, Harry?" he asked softly.
The boy looked at them briefly, and then made a disgusted face. "Those . . . fakes."
"Precisely, my boy, precisely," said Gilderoy. "And do you realize that the publishers and authors of those tomes are getting rich off of you?" The boy looked up at him, astonished. "That's right, they have stolen your name, your face, your fame, and are making money hand over fist." The boy frowned at him. "And all the while telling lies about you to the gullible public.
"Now it's okay to exaggerate your deeds on occasion, everyone expects that. But to portray pure fantasy as the truth? Well, that will only backfire on you in the worst possible way.
"How many times have you run into someone who said, 'Oh, I've read all the Harry Potter adventure books, it must be wonderful to live in castle. Do you really have a dragon for a pet?'
"Or, worse, to let stand as fact things you know are lies, such as what happened on October 31st, 1981."
The Wizard watched Harry stiffen. "There are history books — Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, to name just three — that purport to tell what happened that fateful night. You and I know they are all lies. No one alive knows what exactly happened that night.
"From the evidence and spell residue we can make conjectures as to the sequence of events, but what was actually said and what really happened? No one knows. Nor does anyone know what your life was like after that incident. Yet these books . . ." He waved his hand at the stack on the table, ". . . all claim to tell the unvarnished truth. According to these . . . frauds, you grew up with a loving foster family, with older foster brothers and younger foster sisters who all adore you, in a castle hidden somewhere safe where you have many adventures because you're just that sort of kid who can't help falling into thrilling escapades. And they are all lies, aren't they?"
The man shook his head sadly, "But the little Wizards and Witches, the children, they really do believe them. They think you are rich. They think you are spoiled. They think you have a loving foster family who dotes on your every wish, spoiling you shamelessly. And when you don't live up to those expectations, they hate you for ruining those expectations. Everything you say or do that reveals you know nothing about Wizardkind, Wizard traditions, and Wizard lore, they take as an indication that you really do know those things but are too arrogant to pay attention to them! You really don't know those things, but it is easier for them to believe you do but don't care. Otherwise they would have to admit that the books were lies — and nobody likes to admit they fell for a lie because it makes them look foolish."
The boy was looking more and more astonished with every sentence.
"And the publishers are continuing to feed that image that you don't care by putting out new books every year telling them how their hero, The-Boy-Who-Lived, is still being a hero when in truth you are just a student trying to make the best of a bad situation."
Harry leaned back, blinking.
"And the reason they are doing that is that you have let them steal your name and likeness, and make up these fantastical stories. You have done nothing to say, 'But those books are all lies.'"
The boy's eyebrows shot up.
But before he could say a word, the professor continued. "I know, I know what you're going to say, but here's the deal. By not saying anything to them, by not complaining about what they've done, you have tacitly given them permission to continue in what they are doing. By not talking to them, you have given them permission to continue making up lies about you, to continue selling dolls with your face, to continue stealing money from you. And while you might not think the money is important, given your family's great wealth, by doing nothing you give the impression that it is perfectly fine for them to continue to lie about and steal from you!
"Now, I know your guardians have been somewhat lax in that regard, that your family lawyers have ignored the problem, but that doesn't excuse last year. Last year you had ample time to tell everyone the books are lies and start correcting the record. You had ample time to contact the publishers and tell them to stop. And you didn't. That you didn't know you should is not an excuse they are willing to accept.
"By the way, did you know they released three, three books about your first year in Hogwarts? And not one of them even comes close to matching what really happened, except that you are the youngest Seeker in a hundred years. And they have you single-handedly winning every game with your teammates cheering you on from their brooms.
"And by not saying anything you let people think you are an arrogant braggart with delusions of perfection and grandeur."
He paused and let Harry think about that. Lockhart could see the boy getting angrier and angrier. And the angrier the boy became, the easier it became for Gilderoy to do what needed doing. And he had somehow missed Gilderoy's references to his family's wealth. The professor decided to let that lie for the moment.
"And I bet you're thinking, 'but what can I do about any of that? I'm just a kid!'"
"Well, Harry, what I propose to you is to let my legal firm — Fleecem, Cheatem, and Beatem — take care of this for you."
Naturally, on hearing the firm's name, Harry's eyebrows repeated their climb to his hairline. Lockhart had to suppress a smile and pretend not to notice Harry's incredulous reaction. Wizards really were oblivious, not to mention naïve, in many areas. Most wouldn't even blink on hearing that name.
He wasn't going to mention that he actually owned that firm. He had set it up last month and staffed it with hand-picked sharks.
"What they will do, at no charge to you, is go after these scoundrels and make them pay the royalties they should have been paying you all along. I realize you don't care about the money — if you cared about money you wouldn't wear those atrocious muggle clothes and you'd dress like a proper gentlewizard. Or at least dress in a manner that didn't suggest you were a homeless gypsy who accidentally wandered into the castle by mistake."
He pretended not to notice the blush that lit up boy's face.
"That's one of the reasons people don't take you seriously, and why the Slytherins make fun of you. If you don't take yourself seriously, why should they? They think you are insulting them by ignoring proper dress traditions, so they get mad at you for dressing like a homeless person."
Harry looked startled at that. And well he should. By the time future Harry had learned that lesson it was far too late to be useful, he was too busy dodging Snatcher squads and muggle strafing and bombing runs.
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