Desperate Measures

Chapter 12 - Neville

It was a Wednesday morning when the school was finally witness to an enraged Veela's fireballs.

Surprisingly, it had been neither Ron's nasty comments nor Hermione's questions that had finally set him off enough to lose control of his form and his fire. He had honestly thought it would be. In fact, it hadn't even been a Gryffindor, and neither was it a Slytherin, which had been his next guess. Shockingly, it had been a Hufflepuff. Even more shockingly, it had been a snotty little first year Hufflepuff.

He had just finished breakfast and stood up from the table to prepare to leave for Hogsmeade for his morning evaluations. He had settled his bag at his hip and placed his cloak – the lovely cloak that Draco had gifted him – around his shoulders. That was when the little snot had shot off his mouth.

He couldn't remember exactly what the brat had said, but it had been some stupid, completely nonsensical comment along the lines of only wearing the cloak so he could attract the ladies and screw as many as possible before getting married to some guy.

The first-year end of the Hufflepuff table had needed to be replaced.

The Hufflepuffs had avoided him since.

It was just as well since he was still tempted to fry the little menace.

He'd told the headmaster that, too, when the man had tried to punish him for the incident. What the little monster had said could easily be taken as a mortal insult – Veela were not promiscuous and, in fact, mated for life just like hawks – and the kid should be glad for his life, that Harry still had had enough self-control to fry the table and not the brat.

He wore the cloak because it was warm and because he liked it. He absolutely adored the cloak, in fact, and considered it one of his most prized possessions.

He had gotten a lot of hassle about the cloak – it was very obviously quite expensive – and that was before that horrid paper had reported the fact that it had likely cost more than a year's tuition at Hogwarts. Nonetheless, he persisted in wearing it every day and ignored the comments about gold-diggers. Perhaps he should have considered the possibility that it would be comments about the cloak that would finally anger him beyond reason, but he hadn't. Then again, it hadn't been a comment about the cloak that had angered him but the suggestion that he slept around indiscriminately. He would never!

He had mostly calmed by the time he had reached Madam Puddifoot's and had been able to attend the lunch and dinner meetings in a decent frame of mind. He'd even managed to keep said frame of mind all the way back to Hogwarts' main doors. It was the headmaster's request to speak to him about that morning's incident that had re-annoyed him. He had quite rudely told off the headmaster and stomped his way to Gryffindor tower. In a desperate bid to keep his snit from erupting into yet another display of Veela fire prowess, he had immediately retreated to his bed and sealed the curtains so he wasn't disturbed.

It was now Sunday afternoon and he finally felt that he could be his normal, mildly stressed, self. And so it was that when he found Neville hunting through his trunk in the dorm upon returning from the lunch meeting Harry issued a greeting instead of once again hiding in his bed.

"Hey, Neville," Harry greeted calmly as he removed his cloak. "How are you?"

Neville looked up and smiled. "Hey, Harry. I'm good. I can't find my book on magical tiger-lilies, though. I swear I've looked through this mess three times." He waved his hand over the clearly disheveled trunk contents.

"Did you look under the bed?" Harry asked. He well knew that Neville often read at night and sometimes the books got pushed to the floor once he fell asleep.