December 19, 1992, Saturday
The Three Broomsticks was already quieting down for the night when Gilderoy Lockhart finally pushed open its door. A soft jingle from the brass bell overhead announced him, far too cheerfully for his liking. Half an hour until closing. Perfect. Late enough that he wouldn't have an audience, but not so late that Rosmerta could turn him away without cause.
He stepped inside, smoothing a hand over his hair even though there was no one looking at him. Habit, defense mechanism, performance. He wasn't sure anymore.
The pub was warm and golden, humming softly with the final conversations of the evening crowd. Students were long gone (the Hogsmeade weekend had been advanced a week thanks to the coming Christmas); only a few locals lingered over half-finished drinks.
Rosmerta moved between tables with her usual grace; effortless, glowing, infuriatingly beautiful. She laughed politely at something a customer said, though there was no spark in it. She was tired.
Of course she was. This was her busiest season. Lockhart chose a seat at the bar, carefully lowering himself onto the stool as if the wood might complain under him. He folded his hands, then unfolded them. Sighed. Straightened his cloak. Looked at the door. Looked at Rosmerta. Looked anywhere except into the truth of why he had come.
It took several minutes before she noticed him; intentional or not, he couldn't tell.
When her eyes landed on him, there was no warmth in them, not even a bit of softening. Just a flat, unimpressed stare that hit him harder than any hex.
He brightened anyway. "Rosmerta!" he said, the enthusiasm in his voice sounding painfully rehearsed even to his own ears. "Good evening! Lovely as always to…"
She cut him off, tone clipped. "Are you ordering something, or did you come here to take up space? If it's the latter, get lost."
He winced. It was subtle, but it was there. A tiny tug at the corner of his mouth that betrayed the sting before he could hide it behind his celebrity smile.
"Oh right, no, of course I'll order something." He cleared his throat. "Butterbeer. Please."
Rosmerta grabbed a tankard and filled it with the frothy drink, no, half-filled would be more accurate. The rest was piled high with foam, the kind of petty indignity she usually reserved for rude customers.
She set it down in front of him a bit too sharply. Not enough to spill it, she wasn't cruel. But very much on purpose.
Though she had briefly considered throwing it at him, that much Gilderoy could guess.
Without a word, she turned away and resumed shepherding her final customers toward the door.
Lockhart sat there, sipping his butterbeer foam, while he watched her glide from table to table. Polite smiles. Firm reminders that closing time was upon them. A gentle touch to a shoulder here, a soft laugh there. She was good at what she did. Better than he deserved.
One by one, the remaining patrons trickled out into the cold night, leaving only the crackle of the hearth and the fading scent of warm wood and ale.
Rosmerta exhaled deeply and approached him, wiping her hands on a towel. Her patience had run out.
"Alright," she said, planting herself across the bar from him. "What do you want, Gilderoy? Make it quick. I'm tired, and I'd like to get some rest."
Lockhart swallowed, the sound embarrassingly loud in the quiet pub.
"Well… do you remember what we talked about last time?" His voice dipped, softer, the bravado slipping. Rosmerta's expression soured a fraction. "How could I forget?"
"Right." He nodded. "I… well. I'm sorry."
Her eyebrows shot up. Actually shot up. "Excuse me?" she said, incredulous. "What is it I'm hearing? Did Gilderoy Lockhart really apologize to me?"
She leaned in slightly, narrowing her eyes. "Say it again. Slowly this time. I want to make sure I'm not hallucinating."
Lockhart inhaled sharply, bracing himself, then straightened his shoulders as if preparing to duel a dragon.
"I'm sorry," he said again, louder this time, much clearer, and painfully earnest. The words scraped out of him, unfamiliar and awkward, like a muscle long unused. "I am sorry, Rosie. Sorry for hurting you. Sorry for being such a coward. Sorry that it took me so long to realise I'd made a mistake."
His voice wavered, but he pushed through it. "I'm sorry for never saying how much you mean to me."
Rosmerta stood frozen. Her expression didn't soften, but something in her eyes flickered.
Gilderoy pressed his palms together, fingers knotting, then released them. He looked like a man turning himself inside out, one truth at a time.
"You've tolerated my antics for the past decade," he said, quieter now, "and I took it for granted. These past few weeks have been awful. We've been apart before, Merlin knows my travels kept me away for months at a time, but I always knew that when I returned you'd be here. Waiting for me."
His breath hitched.
"But now? Now that I ruined it… the thought that I couldn't come see you, that we wouldn't have our easy talks, that you wouldn't look at me with that easy smile I love so much…"
He swallowed hard.
"It breaks my heart, Rosie. Just as much as I must have broken yours."
Her lip trembled. Her hands slowly rose to cover her mouth.
Lockhart's next words came in a whisper, barely audible, yet somehow filling the whole room.
"I love you, Rosie. And I don't want to lose you."
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then Rosmerta's shoulders shook. Tears spilled over her fingers, soft and silent at first, then harder as emotion overtook her entirely. It was the first time, the very first time, Gilderoy Lockhart had ever told her he loved her.
Her voice broke as she spoke through her hands.
"…say that again."
Gilderoy blinked. "Which part? Rosie, please don't ask me to say everything again, I swear, for the first time in my life I spoke from the heart and not a single word of that was rehearsed."
"The last part, you idiot!" she snapped, eyes shining with tears.
"I don't want to lose you?" he guessed weakly.
"Before that!"
He fell silent.
And something in him softened, cracked open even, as he took in the sight of her: exhausted, overwhelmed, crying because of him, for him, with him.
Slowly, gently, he reached across the bar and took her hands in his.
He held her gaze, and for once there was no performance in him at all.
"I love you," he said.
The words came warm, steady, unpolished, and completely true.
Rosmerta didn't give him a chance to say anything else.
With a choked sound, half-sob, half-laugh, she fisted his collar, yanked him forward across the bar, and kissed him with everything she had. Anger, heartbreak, longing, weeks' worth of emotions poured into that single desperate, furious, hungry kiss.
Gilderoy melted into it instantly.
Her tears wet his lips, but he didn't mind. He didn't mind anything except getting closer.
After a long, heated, and dizzying minute, they finally broke apart, breathless and flushed.
Lockhart stared, eyes unfocused, hair a little mussed. "…wow," he breathed, dazed. "That was even better than usual."
Rosmerta sniffed, swiping at her eyes. "Don't get used to it. You still have a lot to make up to me."
"Right, yes, of course…"
But something suddenly shifted in her expression. Her brows drew together sharply, eyes snapping up to pin him in place.
"What about Aurora?"
Gilderoy actually gulped. "Ah, well, Rosie, that's…"
But she barreled right over him, voice rising with protective fury.
"Don't you dare tell me you broke up with her and shattered her heart like you did mine!" she scolded, pointing a finger an inch from his nose. "Don't you dare, Gilderoy Lockhart! You march yourself to her, you apologise, you grovel if you have to, Merlin knows you deserve to, and you fix things with her! And don't even think about coming back here until…"
"There's no need, Rosie," he said quickly.
She inhaled, ready to unleash more righteous wrath. He raised both hands defensively. "Wait, wait! Let me finish before you hex me!"
She froze mid-lecture, arms crossed so tightly her knuckles went white.
Gilderoy cleared his throat. "It was Aurora who told me how sad you were."
That stopped Rosmerta cold. "…what?"
"You won't believe this," he said, looking genuinely rattled. "But she proposed something absolutely outrageous."
Rosmerta narrowed her eyes. "Gilderoy. What did you do."
"Nothing! She, she suggested I start a new magical house."
Rosmerta blinked. "…a what?"
"A new magical house," he repeated, voice dropping to a nervous whisper. "Apparently it's the only legal way to marry more than one woman."
He licked his lips, glancing around as if worried a Ministry official might leap from behind a barstool.
"She said that way… I could give you both what you deserve."
Rosmerta's mouth fell open.
Gilderoy pushed on, hands tightening around hers again, earnest and sheepish all at once. "Personally, I think you both deserve better than sharing a man," he admitted. "But since it's me, well, I don't think you'll find a better man."
Rosmerta gave him the flattest look she had ever given in their decade of knowing each other.
He coughed, then added quickly, "So right now I'm… working on how to get an Order of Merlin, First Class."
Silence.
Pure, stunned silence.
Rosmerta blinked once.
Twice.
And then, "…you're insane."
"Yes," Gilderoy agreed, straightening proudly. "But that's why you love me, isn't it?"
She buried her face in her hands and groaned. Then she let out a slow, disbelieving exhale and dropped her hands from her face.
"Alright," she said, voice thin with equal parts exhaustion and exasperation. "Let's pretend, for the sake of my sanity, that I'm not going to question the fact Aurora Sinistra somehow suggested that." She jabbed a finger at him again. "What I will question is this Order of Merlin nonsense."
Lockhart perked up, brightening as if she'd asked him about his favorite subject.
Rosmerta gave him a flat look. "Gilderoy. Do you have any idea how absurdly hard those are to get? Unless you're the Minister himself or you've donated half your vault to him, you have better chances of learning to speak Mermish backwards."
He waved a hand breezily. "Oh, don't worry about that."
"I am worrying."
"You don't need to." He leaned forward with a confident grin that was either deeply reassuring or deeply stupid. Possibly both. "I've got everything planned."
Rosmerta raised a brow. "Everything."
"Everything," he repeated. "If things go as expected, I should have it by next year at the latest."
She stared.
He maintained the grin.
Finally, she snorted. "You're unbelievable."
"Yes, but you love me for it."
"I do not love…"
Gilderoy gave her that insufferably smug little smile.
Rosmerta sighed, defeated. "Fine. I might love you. A little. Against my better judgment."
He grinned like a man who had just won every raffle in Britain.
"Well then," he said, leaning in with a wiggle of his eyebrows so exaggerated she couldn't help but swat his arm, "how about we celebrate our reconciliation… in your room?"
"Merlin's sake," she muttered, though her lips betrayed her with a smile. "You never change."
"And you'd hate it if I did."
She shook her head, softening. "You're lucky I love you so much."
Gilderoy's expression gentled. No theatrics. No preening. For just a moment, pure sincerity.
"I'm the luckiest man alive."
Her chest tightened.
Then she sighed dramatically, turned, and gestured toward the back hallway.
"Come on, then. But if you say one more cheesy line, I'm hexing your hair off."
Gilderoy straightened his collar, glowing. "Rosie, please. You know I only get worse."
She rolled her eyes and led the way with a sway on her hips.
And he followed with a smile that could've lit the pub even if every lantern went out.
…