Not Your Usual Veela Mate

How did the Headmaster get in?

Monday, Sep 2

"Hah! One down, two to go!" Harry crowed happily as he signed his essay with a flourish. "Trust Snape to assign three four foot essays when all the other teachers only assigned one."

"That is Severus for you. He wants to make sure that only those who are really interested in Potions select his NEWT class," Draco said with amusement, looking up from his book.

"Figures! Umm, Draco, would you mind looking through my essay? I'd like a second opinion before submitting it to Snape in case I've made some horrific blunder," Harry asked with his best puppy dog look, holding the essay out for the other boy to take.

Draco snorted but accepted the scroll. Unrolling it, he began to read. When he came to the end, he was impressed. He himself couldn't have done a better job of arguing the pros and cons of using the horn of a unicorn versus the horn of a darcorn in healing potions.

"This is bloody brilliant!" he said, handing back the scroll. "Couldn't have done better myself. But where in Salazar's name did you find a copy of Light Versus Dark When Healing? It is rumoured that there are only three copies left in the world, but if anyone has one, they aren't telling. Father and Severus have been trying to find a copy for years. According to them, there should be a potion mentioned in it that could be used to remove the Dark Mark."

Harry got a pensive look on his face, but before he could say anything, the door opened and Dumbledore walked in. "There you are, my boys, and already hard at work." He beamed. "Lemon drop?"

"No, thank you. May I ask what you are doing here?" Harry asked through gritted teeth. He had thought the adults had put up measures that would avoid precisely this kind of situation.

"Why, I came to check up on the two of you, of course. Wouldn't want you to be fighting or some such, now would we?"

"Of course not," Harry drawled darkly.

"I also wanted to tell you, Harry, to start making plans for that little club of yours." Dumbledore continued, ignoring Harry's comment and the way he bristled at having the DA brushed aside as a 'little club'. "Lucius has graciously agreed to supervise you, so I have made the DA available to the entire school, third year and up. I announced it at lunch, and by the looks of it, there will be quite a crowd at your first meeting, which I told the students would be held sometime next week. I expect you to let the student body know the exact date within the next few days. You will have to change the name, of course, we can't continue to call it 'Dumbledore's Army', no matter how flattering it is," Albus added with a chuckle.

"I also went by the kitchen, and the house-elves told me you haven't had lunch yet, so I took the liberty of ordering you something. You have to eat, Harry, starving yourself won't help you deal with your grief and your anger," Dumbledore scolded gently.

Harry was by now furious and wild magic was crackling around him.

"You really need to learn how to control that temper of yours, Harry. Occlumency would be of great assistance to you there, I'm sure, and since I refuse to make the same mistake twice, I won't ask you to learn it from Severus. I will teach it to you myself. Our first lesson will be tomorrow night at eight, please try and be on time," Dumbledore said as if he was bestowing a grand and generous gift. He then swiftly decided it was time to leave, as a breeze was beginning to blow around the room. That breeze had been the only warning of some spectacular explosions this past summer, and he had no wish to be caught in another one.

Harry slowly counted to one hundred once the door had closed behind the Headmaster before leaping to his feet. "That is it!" he seethed, marching towards the door as well, Draco hot on his heels.