Fleur’s short, enameled heels clacked on the floor, marking the quick legato of her fleeing feet. She looked back, but her admiror was not in sight. She could hear the muffled and confident steps following though, and cursed alternatively the decision of Beauxbatons of such loud shoes for a uniform and Hogwarts’ one of forgoing carpeting on most of its hard, stone floor.
She had not expected to find anyone so persistent and bold as to keep bugging her so long after she declined his ‘generous offer,’ yet here he was. Even after such a public and definitive rejection still he hounded her, quite literally, down the castle’s halls, trying to convince her otherwise.
She was really not sure how she would react to even further prodding, especially with how blunt his approach was. She was not keen to find out either. Jail at seventeen did not sound quite that appealing; if the Englishmen school was so cold and unrefined she could not even imagine their prison. Well, she could, but she’d rather not.
Oh! How she lamented that Chloe was so academically uninclined. Had her friend not managed so absolutely to fail to get invited to come with the delegation she could have taken her to the ball and be done with it.
She would have a million times more fun with her than with anyone else too. The rumours about them would soar again, of course, but she was sure Chloe would not mind. She was too lighthearted for it to get to her, and in any case, neither planned to set foot on the palace after graduating. At least she would actively avoid it.
The footsteps of her pursuer grew louder and she doubled down, her own steps shifting to a livelier tempo. She turned a corner and there, shrouded in a golden spotlight of sun and frigid air, stood an answer to her dilemma.
Harry Potter.
She powered towards where he leaned on the open window, her body rebelling against the notion of standing in front of an open window in the middle of this tundra’s accursed winter, the horror growing even further when she realised it was an open lancet, not even a proper window. Barbaric.
With nay but a few steps of her long and decided legs she reached him. His face was already turning in response to her bell-like heels, but even then she was faster, and before he had processed her approach her head was already nestled -if not comfortably- on his shoulder.
“Fleur?” he asked with a jolt, his eyes going from her face to where her hands had suddenly and efficiently embraced him and then to the corridor behind her. He had heard him.
“There's no time. Just play along, I’ll explain later,” She whispered, her warm breath causing a shiver to pass him from the difference to his cool skin.
With a strange sort of grace she let herself fall sideways against him, his reflex to catch her playing along with the sneaky way her arms wound themselves up to his shoulders. Where he expected her to pull herself upright, she clung to his neck and furrowed further into him, his overly large winter coat almost starting to drape over her. The light from the window fell on her face as her bonnet fell, her hair unwinding in a cascade of lustrous, liquid silver.
If he was confused before he was positively flabbergasted now, and his flatfooted expression drew a laugh out of her.
They were friendly enough, sure. Friendlier than it maybe would be normal considering that they were competitors in an international tournament, and they were a frenchwoman and an englishman, if that were not enough. But they were surely not that friendly, and his discomfited disposition was evidence enough of the novelty of the situation.
Harry was, however, nothing if not quick on his feet, and realizing that the approaching steps had something to do with Fleur's sudden fit of fancy, he made himself look as amicable as he possibly could.
She laughed again, for his soft eyes and his goofy crooked smile gave him an adorably silly look. They looked specially out of place behind his wild, chopped hair and broken glasses. He normally looked so… sharp, so cagey, that the expression was endearingly contradictory.
At the sound of her merriment the approaching steps halted.
It was time.
“Zo, mon petite, I think you should wear something dark to contrast with my dress.” Her affected tone was one of the most vapid things Harry had had the pleasure of hearing, and that was said by someone who grew up with Petunia Dursley. Her fingers brushed around the shape of his eye, making his breath hitch. “Maybe some green accessories, to accent those somptueux eyes of yours.”
Harry gulped under the weight of her eyes, “That’s a tall compliment coming from you,” he breathed. Adventurous, his hand took a reprieve from holding her waist to push a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I think I may have just the thing though.”
“Magnifique.”
As if pushed by the exhaust of her breathy voice, Fleur Delacour lifted herself from her comfortable lean, her arms exerting the most delicate and measured of pressures, until her lips were close enough to plant a gossamer kiss on the very edge of his lips.
For someone standing behind her, the small distinction would have been hidden behind the privacy of argentine, scintillant curtains.
Harry himself had been quite close to either dropping her or falling under his promptly weak knees as it was.
She giggled once more, not being able to help her amusement at seeing a Harry so different from the one she had gotten to know until now. The silent, frowny and distrustful boy from her memory, who kept looking around as if doing some dastardly dealing, who shifted away from anyone that so much as brushed against him was difficult to reconcile with this sof boy in her arms.
His eyes lifted from hers, still wider than usual, but the near constant furrow of his brow returning to his face.
“Why was Cormac Maclaggen following you, and why did he look at me like he wanted to gore me with his beater bat?” He asked, his eyes affixed to the corridor where she had come from.
Fleur’s mirth dissipated on par with the comfortable heat of him as she straightened herself and put a more acceptable distance between them.
Stepping back from the opening in the wall had not been so effective as hugging him had been to ward the cold.
“That Macgallan-”
“MacLaggen.”
She glared at him. “That pesky, arrogant boy ‘as been a thorn in my side for weeks now. ‘E’s obsessed with taking me to the ball.”
“Didn’t you say no to him?” He scratched his head.
“That’s adorable, ‘Arry, but you don’t seem to get what ‘obsessed’ means.” Her lips turned up as her brows did the opposite. “‘E decided to take my no as a ‘try ‘arder’ instead. ‘E’s been insufferable.”
“He's always insufferable.”
“I believe you.” she shivered and retrieved her dropped hat, affixing it on her head with unwarranted violence.
“You know,” Harry started, “I even felt bad for the guy for a bit there. Not anymore thought, he’s firmly back into the ponce category.”
“Why in ‘eavens did you feel bad for?” she looked at him incredulously.
He ruffled his hair, “Well, it was quite public, you know? I thought just a ‘no thank you’ would have been enough. No need to put salt in the wound, as they say. Felt a bit cruel to me.”
She huffed and crossed her arms. “You are not entirely wrong,” she conceded begrudgingly. “Everyone’s got a limit though, and mine ‘ad been reached a lot earlier than that. Still, if ‘e is like this after that I can’t imagine ‘ow ‘e would be if I ‘ad been friendlier.”
“Surprised, for one. You are hardly friendly most of the time,” he smiled.
“Oh ‘ush, I am friendly enough to you, am I not?” her own smile tugging at her lips.
“That you are,” he said, his face taking the same goofy quality it had before.
After that they stayed in silence, both lost to ruminations entirely too personal, and not a little bit conflicted. Birds that had no right being so resistant to the cold chirped outside, their song floating on the waves of snow laden air, a symphony of comforting silence.
Harry breathed in and let his body melt against the cold stone wall, hoping the heat of embarrassment and fluster would bleed into it, leaving him with enough room to think.
Fleur watched him, the silence less comforting to her, but the peace on his face doing enough for her nerves. She saw the light steal brown reflections of an otherwise absolutely dark hair, saw his posture slackening against a stone that she would not dare touch. She saw him unconcerned and the illusion of peace in her broke.
“I ‘ave to apologize, ‘Arry.”
His eyes snapped open and fixed on hers, his cageyness apparent now even more so than normal because of the contrast with before, with that soft expression she had no place getting used to.
“What for?”
“What for?” She blinked, “For jumping at you? For involving you on a problem you ‘ad nothing to do with?”
She had been guarded before, but after realizing Harry had not surmised the problems she had caused him she turned apprehensive. For all she said boys were a nuisance, she had just done him the same wrong she bemoaned.
“Oh. That? Don’t think about it. It’s quite alright.” Her wide eyes followed his dismissing hand waving before setting on his own eyes.
“Alrigh- No it’s not! That idiot boy will talk about this, no doubt about it. By tomorrow everyone will know I’m taking you to the ball, your date won’t believe any excuse you tell ‘er, your friends will think you are a cochon and me a séductrice. This will be completely problematic for you. Ugh,” she pinched her nose, stopping the pacing she had started to do as her tirade grew, “This is like fifth year all over again.”
She started as Harry put his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, listen, it’s fine. Really. No harm done.”
She mouthed, wordless, and he gave her a crooked smile again. Her flush was unexpected and unwarranted, and so she spouted the first thing she could think of.
“ I will speak to your date. I will make ‘er understand that it’s all a misunderstanding .”
Harry cackled at that, his hands dropping from her as the laughter devolved into a coughing fit.
“Zis is not funny, ‘Arry!” She stomped her foot.
He only laughed louder.
“So-Sorry,” he coughed, his face now even rosier than her’s, his breath thin from the laughter, “It really is funny though. I don’t even have a date, Fleur. I was thinking about skipping, no matter what threat professor McGonagall used.” He scratched the back of his neck, “I think you may have made me a favour, even. I won’t have to fend that weird third year anymore after this gets out. Or deal with my best mates’ sister making eyes at me.” His brow furrowed, “At least your admirers are not all third years, now that I think about it.”
This brought forth a snort from her, but her hands dropped the grip they held on the edge of her sweater, and her face softened from the tension it held. “I assure you, I ‘ave to fend more than a few third years too. It's less awkward for you to have third years after you than it is for me. I can't help but think of my little sister.” she shivered.
"I can see how that would get old fast." He said as he grimaced.
"In any case," she held her head high, " I should ‘ave come to you before doing anything. It was wrong of me to use you like that."
He looked at her, at her clear eyes, her shining hair, her pearly skin and prominent cheekbones, he saw her as she stood before him, and he felt rattled, flat footed.
He gulped.
"Well, it looks like it worked well for both of us as it is," he breathed in, "No one will bother us and you get to ask someone you want and I get to skip the whole thing in peace."
"The only person I'd ask is back 'ome," she breathed, her eyes dropping. "I think skipping it would be a nice option for me too, were it not for Madame Maxime. She'd murder me."
"Hey, it's not like MacGonaggal will not murder me too." He shrugged, his posture affecting calmness, his eyes belying it, “We could always go together. I mean, everyone will already think we will…" he added quickly.
She grimaced and at the sight of it he grimaced too. "I just wish this was not mandatory. Balls are really not my thing."
"Nor mine…" he sighed, dropping back against the stone wall, this time less gracefully, but certainly more naturally.
She looked at him, at his windblown hair, his bright eyes, his long lashes, his elegant chin, his nonplussed posture.
She breathed deep.
"It may not be such a bad idea." She bit her lip, his flush suffusing his face at an accelerated speed. "None of us wants to go, so we can go and be miserable together."
There was a strange inflection to her voice, to the way the last word rolled off her mouth. Like she was undecided on its use even as she said it.
The tip of her nose brightened to a rosy parlour, the scattering of freckles hidden suddenly revealed.
Harry mouthed once, then twice and then stood away from the wall once more, his fingers fidgety. "It would be quite convenient, yes."
"So, it's decided then? We'll go together?"
"Yes, yes. I think so. Yes." He dragged his foot across the edge of one of the stones on the floor.
"Bon. Bon. Good! I meant good." She took her bonnet off and ran a hand through her hair, smoothing inexistent cowlicks.
They stood facing each other, each dealing with their ticks, and then they locked eyes. A tentative smile blossomed on one face, and quickly the other followed, like a pair of tulips in spring.
“I will see you then.” he said.
“Oui. Oui, I will see you, ‘Arry.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. “And thank you. Again, I’m sorry, and I shouldn't have, but thank you.”
“I am glad you did.”
She smiled again, and he averted his gaze. She giggled and turned to leave.
“Good bye, then. And bonne chance.”
“Same to you.”