So this is a one-shot (i seem strangely fond of those recently...) and it's just to help my brain stop fretting over a quiestion I've been asking myself for about a year now... review when you're done. you know that little blue button down there. it's the nicest thing you can do for a person, so ... yeah....

"Oh! And Professor?" said Harry, turning around, his hand on the doorknob just as he was about to leave the Headmaster's residence for the very last time.

"I'm not your teacher, anymore, Harry. You don't have to call me 'Professor'."

"Sorry, I just- well, I was just curious about something."

"Yes, Harry?"

"In my seventh year… you mentioned that you – you don't have to answer this if you don't want, but I was just curious – you said that you had a scar above your left knee."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at the mention of his scar.

"You said it was a perfect map of the London underground."

"Yes, I recall," he said, his blue eyes drilling into Harry.

"I was just wondering, um … where you- you got it?"

Dumbledore took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. Several of the portraits of the former Headmasters were leaning forwards, obviously intrigued.

"Funny you should ask that, Harry," he said. "It was actually your mother."

Harry's heart jumped. "My mother?"

"Yes, Lily," he said, smiling. "She was veryfrustrated with me. She came up one day, her seventh year, the first day of school, and asked me why I had chosen your father as Head Boy. She was very angry…"

"Professor Dumbledore, I just don't understand!"

"What is there not to understand, Ms Evans? You and Mr Potter will Head Girl and Boy, respectively."

"But why him? He wasn't even a prefect!"

"I have found him to be an appropriate candidate for the job."

"What about Remus? He would be a wonderful Head Boy. Why the bloody hell James?"

"Mr Lupin was offered the position, but decided to remain prefect, as he was already quite busy with school and other matters."

"James plays Quidditch! Why the hell not Sirius? Even Peter would have been better. Or- or some other student! But James?"

Dumbledore stood up and leaned against his knuckles on his desk, his tone rising with Lily, who was pacing around his office, angrily. "Ms Evans, I ask you to accept the fact that Mr Potter has been chosen for the position and try to cooperate with him, as you two are to set an example for the rest of the students, particularly the first years."

"Exactly!" she screamed, facing him. "How do you expect him to set a good example!" She picked up a trinket from his desk and threw it under his table, smashing it on the ground very near Dumbledore's feet, spraying pieces of glass in every direction.

Dumbledore stood still for a few moments, his eyes in a glaze, before sitting down, quite unsteadily. His mouth was hanging open, and Lily took a small, shy step forward.

"I'm so sorry, Professor. That was very out of line."

And with that, Lily turned around and left his office, her head bowed, leaving Dumbledore sitting, stunned, at his desk.

The portraits around his office were mumbling. "What happened?"

"What did she break?"

"I can't believe she just did that."

"The Head Girl, too."

Dumbledore looked down at his knee, seeing the blood seep through his robes in slow motion. There were several pieces of glass rudely protruding from his knee, smeared with the red of his blood. Lily must have thrown the glass trinket down extremely hard for the glass to lodge itself so securely in his leg.

He stood up, wobbling slightly, putting his weight on his good leg, and hobbled over to an armchair near the window on the opposite side of his office. He delicately plucked each piece of glass from his leg and set the red fragments neatly aside on the small, round table to his right. Lifting up his robes so as to better view the damage done to his leg, Dumbledore observed the cut. It was strangely long and neat, creeping up his leg in a pattern that strangely reminded him of a map of some sort.

"Ms Evans," he laughed. Cleaning up the mess with a wave of his wand, he could see the skin heal itself, leaving a thin map of white lines.

The cuts had been deep and were therefore too severe to heal without a trace, but starring fondly at the scar, which only stung faintly, Dumbledore was somewhat thankful that it left a mark.

He would clear up his suspicions in the morning.

He would send someone to fetch him a map of the London underground.

"What a strange coincidence," he thought to himself.

Not a very good explanation, but I had been wondering about it for a while. If you have any better ideas of how he got it, let me know. I just thought it was a strange piece of info for JK to insert without having a good reason to do so. Maybe it'll come back and bite us in the arse with some strangely important piece of info or something, just something to ponder over....

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