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The more Lockhart thought about his altercation with Dahlia the more embarrassed he got. How could she, this waif, this child, speak to him that way? How, even if the headmaster's niece, raise her voice to her mentor. The confusion and embarrassment he felt boiled over into anger as he fumed off to find her. She was in front of the great hall with Oliver Wood, laughing. The blonde professor's eyes knitted together, feeling even more incensed that she was laughing with this boy.
"Ollie could you please for my sanity stay on your broom and out of my playbook?" she laughed with him.
His think Irish accent rumbled out in his ever jovial tone, "Ya graduated an' left all ya'r winning plays, I wasn' goin' ta take advantage of tha' Miss Teaching Assistant?"
"Miss Dumbledore!" Gilderoy bellowed echoing for yards around. The loud and booming voice of the DADA professor made the students milling around dash to anywhere else.
The two teenagers turned at the sound of the furious Lockhart to see the usually poised and composed professor flushed with frustration and fury storming over to them.
Oliver looked at Dahlia and she seemed startled, "Do ya need me ta stay?" concern was flooding his voice and he was moving protectively in front of the girl.
"No, Ollie," she pulled him back, "get to class, this should be over quickly."
"If ya need…" he started but she cut him off.
"Have I ever needed boys to fight my battles for me," Dahlia smiled sweetly at the Keeper as he chuckled slightly leaving the two Ravenclaws alone.
"You have a lot of explaining to do," the DADA professor chastised her, wagging a finger near her face.
She looked into his eyes over the round rims sloping down her nose ignoring the condescending finger almost touching the tip of her nose, "I have a lot to explain?" she asked incredulously. "Professor you have more explaining to do thanI ever would. I trusted you and put my faith in you as a teacher and all you have been doing is using that and your supposed background in battling dark forces to walk all over the practices and policies that the school has in place. You've made Hogwarts your personal bragging post and I have a lot to explain? For what, when my patience finally wore thin of you insisting on calling me by the wrong name or when you refused to get a student the proper care or left a room full of pests you let loose for second years to clean up?!" her voice and anger with all that Lockhart had been doing rose with each word. His posture once confident and righteous with his own anger had been driven out by the girl's words. "I have been patient and extremely forgiving at every turn, let you make your mistakes and helped fix them. If you wish to re-assign me I will speak to my uncle and have it taken care of immediately!" her arms crossed over her chest and her face was interlaced with all the exasperation she had been feeling for the first quarter of the school year.
Gilderoy looked defeated but he wouldn't back down, "That may be true but you still have not done what I've tasked you with," he said desperately grasping at any straw he could.
"In what aspect Professor, I have prepared your lessons, written that silly test of yours, cleaned up your messes in every single class, and got permission from my uncle for your dueling club. So tell me Professor Lockhart, what haven't I done for you?"
He lost every comeback he had, this child had put him in his place so rapidly and impeccably well that he couldn't think, "Very well Miss Dumbledore, I shall see you in class," he stated curtly and walked off completely trounced by someone 9 years his junior.