The same day during lunch, Draco found himself looking curiously at the Slytherin table. He nudged Neville, who was quietly eating a sandwich to Draco's left.
"What's going on there?" he asked while pointing at a small crowd of students.
Neville gave him a surprised look. "You don't know?" he asked. "Most of the students can't afford Harry's lessons, so Greengrass is giving them loans."
"Loans?" Draco repeated, his eyebrows rising.
"It's horrible," Hermione's voice reached them from their right. The bushy-haired girl looked scandalised. "She wants everyone to be indebted to her, I didn't know Harry was that sort of person…" she continued with a sad face.
Draco was pretty sure that the Dark Lord was this sort of person, but he tried to defend him in the eyes of his Housemates anyway. "Maybe Harry doesn't know about this?" he asked out loud. "This might just be Daphne's idea to get even more money."
Hermione seemed uncertain. "We should tell someone about this, I'm sure this wouldn't be approved of by the professors," she said.
Draco nudged Neville one more time. "Did you take out a loan?"
The chubby boy shook his head. "I didn't need to, my grandma thought that I should at least try attending the meetings so she sent me enough money."
"I will also attend," Draco said with a nod. "And you guys?"
"I won't," Hermione answered. "I can't support something like that, it's just so… wrong."
Ron, who was sitting next to Hermione, also shook his head. "I also won't go," he said, his cheeks blushing a little bit.
With the conversation slowly dying, Draco focused back on eating. As he munched, he glanced at the high table, where the professors were sitting. The main attraction of today's meeting would be the fact that the Headmaster himself was going to attend. As Draco took in the sight of the ancient wizard, who currently seemed to be tapping his plate with a spoon to the rhythm of some melody, the blond boy couldn't help but be worried for the Headmaster. He doesn't seem like a match for the Dark Lord.
"Draco?" a shy voice interrupted his musing.
"Yes? Sorry, drifted off a bit," he said sheepishly.
Neville gave him a small smile. "I was asking, do you want to go to the meeting together today?"
Draco nodded happily. "Sure, sounds great," he said with a smile of his own. The Neville boy really seemed alright.
Once more, a big crowd of students gathered near the entrance to the classroom where the Harry's ARMY meetings were taking place. Draco arrived there with Neville, the boys chatting pleasantly. They stood a bit further away from the crowd and took in the sight.
"Not as many as last time," Draco observed.
Neville nodded. "But still, probably more than half of the students are here. And most of them probably can be here only because they took out a loan."
Draco frowned. He realized that because of the incident during the first meeting, he didn't actually know what they were supposed to be doing today, apart from the Headmaster's visit. "What is the plan for today?" he asked the chubby boy.
"I'm not really sure either," Neville gave him an apologetic look. "But we should probably start learning, now that we know how powerful Harry is."
Just then, the door to the classroom opened, and a loud voice invited them in. Draco and Neville entered alongside the other students. Harry was standing on top of a platform at the end of the spacious classroom, with the students gathered in front of him. To Draco's surprise, the Dark Lord seemed a bit stressed today, something that others might have missed.
Regaining his composure, the Dark Lord spoke. "Welcome, everyone, to the second meeting of Harry's ARMY," he said, his voice amplified by a spell. "I'm delighted to see so many of you here," Harry continued and scanned the room carefully with his eyes, pausing his speech for a moment. "It seems that we are just waiting for our special guest for the day," he announced.
After a few seconds, the door to the classroom opened once more, a tall figure walking in slowly. It was the Headmaster himself, dressed in a surprisingly plain grey robe. He gave them all a smile and closed the door behind him.
"Welcome, Headmaster," Harry offered from his place, eyeing the ancient wizard.
Albus Dumbledore looked at the Dark Lord with a serious expression for a few long moments, the students all shifting in place nervously at this display of two powerful wizards seemingly judging each other. Then, just as the tension in the classroom became almost too much to handle, the Headmaster broke eye contact, seemingly satisfied with whatever he had seen. He smiled at the students jovially. "Please don't mind me and continue with the meeting, I will just sit in this corner and take a nap," he said, and with a flick of his wand, an outrageous armchair appeared there out of thin air. It was purple and ginormous, and when the Headmaster took a seat, his body practically vanished into the incredibly soft material.
The Dark Lord shook his head as if to bring himself out of whatever trance he was in, and announced the start of the meeting. Today, they were supposed to learn how to properly cast shield charms.
Harry proved to be an extremely capable teacher, explaining the theory quickly and, most importantly, in a manner easy for everyone to follow and understand.
A few moments later, they were allowed to try casting the shield charms themselves. Draco was still with Neville, and the two boys tried their best to cast the spell successfully. After a few minutes, Draco got a hang of it, and a small shield started to appear when he cast the spell.
To his disappointment, Neville couldn't get it to work, no matter how hard he tried.
After a few more minutes, Harry asked everyone to pair up. "One of you will cast a simple harmless spell at the other, and the other one of you will try to shield. Then, after a few minutes, you will change roles. I will be looking at everyone for at least a moment and trying to give you some suggestions," he said, and all the students paired up quickly.
Draco was working with Neville again, the blond boy managing to shield himself most of the time. He still failed every few tries, but that didn't stop him from feeling proud, especially looking at some of the older students, still failing to cast the charm successfully.
When it was Neville's turn to shield, things looked rather worse.
"I'm sorry, it just doesn't seem to work," Neville said after another one of Draco's spells hit him right in the face. "Maybe I'm just not good enough…"
"Try again," they heard a voice and both stopped in their tracks. Harry was looking at them expectantly. "Go on," he said.
Draco gulped and tried to shake off his nervousness. He glanced at Neville, the chubby boy beginning to sweat with stress and effort. His wand was shaking rather badly.
With a flick of his wand, Draco cast his spell, and Neville tried to shield himself. However, just as before, nothing happened, and Draco's spell connected with the boy's forehead.
Neville sighed sadly. "I can't get it to work," he said quietly.
The Dark Lord eyed the chubby boy with curiosity. "Is that your wand?" he asked.
"It is mine," the boy replied, showing the wand to Harry. "But it was originally my father's."
"Give it to me," Harry ordered and Neville quickly complied. The Dark Lord held the wand in his hand for a few seconds, before giving it back to Neville. "Buy a new one," he said. "This wand doesn't belong to you, it will never let you cast defensive spells."
"Why only defensive spells?" Draco asked curiously.
"The wand doesn't feel like it belongs to you. So it doesn't want to protect you. It wants you to die," Harry said without a blink and walked off towards another pair of students.
The two boys looked at each other with confusion.
"Was he joking?" Neville asked, eyeing his wand with newfound distrust.
Draco shrugged. "I think so, but also you really need to buy yourself a new wand," the blond boy said. "It will surely work better if it's truly yours."
Neville sighed and nodded. "I'll have to get a new one then, thank you Draco."
The boys took a moment to rest and Draco looked in the direction of the outrageous armchair the Headmaster was sitting on. The ancient wizard seemed to be asleep, but there was a big smile on his wrinkled face. "He must be having a fun dream," Draco said and Neville chuckled.
As the meeting came to a close, the Headmaster slowly stood up, vanished the armchair from existence, and clapped his hands. "What I saw here today brought me enormous pleasure, and I will be quite happy for this student club to continue," he said with a smile. "You are truly a gifted teacher, Harry," he said and with that, started walking slowly towards the door, a small spring in his step.
However, before the Headmaster was able to get out, a voice stopped him.
"Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore." It was one of the older Slytherins who spoke, bringing everyone's eyes to him, Harry and the Headmaster included. "During the first meeting, Harry mentioned something about you not standing a chance versus him in a duel," he said, and excited whispers erupted in the classroom. Everyone could see where this was going.
"Indeed?" the Headmaster asked jovially. "Well, I am quite old, as you all know." He chuckled.
Both the Headmaster and the Dark Lord were trying to stop the students' enthusiasm. However, after a few minutes, it proved that even ancient wizards weren't immune to peer pressure. Even if the said peers were over a hundred years younger.
Draco couldn't hide his excitement. He was about to witness a duel between the Dark Lord and the Headmaster of Hogwarts. If only the people who didn't turn up today knew what they would be missing. Draco chuckled.
If Daphne knew what would happen, I'm sure she would charge us way more.