Chapter 7
You Know What Time It Is
In which #NotAnotherTriwizardMovie
Harry set the dishes to washing themselves and made the clean up motions after dinner, while Luc and Fleur handled kid duties. That left Gabrielle to sit on the counter and kick her feet while she swirled her whiskey, a general nuisance to his clean up efforts, but a loved one at least.
"So, Luc Bennet..." He said, side eyeing his little sister, who almost couldn't remember a time before Fleur brought him bruised and battered into their home.
"Maybe Luc Bennet," She shot back, half embarrassed and half defiant. "I don't know, he's decent enough, and I've known him for ages, we're just talking." She finished wistfully, and downed the rest of her drink, shaking the empty cup at him.
"Hey no need to convince me," He chuckled, not refilling her drink because he still saw sixteen year old Gabby who'd gotten black-out drunk on firewhiskey after his second world cup. "Obviously I approve of him."
Thirty-three year old Gabby got herself a second drink, and he didn't stop her, they moved to the sitting room, or it might've been the smoking room, or formal living, he didn't know the names of the rooms in this house. It was a stupid purchase, but they used it for gatherings because their cottage by the mountains didn't have extra rooms. It was his drinks-after-dinner room, with comfortable armchairs and a fire more for aesthetic than warmth.
"Kids though, that's a tricky situation," Harry said, seated across from her she shrugged and pulled her legs up into her chair.
"Yeah, but I've known them too."
"Gonna have kids of your own?"
"We're not having this discussion Harry," She said, showing a little bit of the blushing little sister he was used to. "We're just talking."
"Talking about what?" Luc asked, coming into the room with Fleur behind him. She had a wine bottle to herself, surrounded by unrefined whiskey drinkers as she was.
"Quidditch," Gabrielle said quickly just as Harry said:
"The world cup."
"Ah which one?" He fell into a chair beside Gabby and Fleur sat on the arm of Harry's.
"Ninety-four" Harry lied quickly.
"A good one," Luc hummed thoughtfully. "You get Krum's invite?"
"Yeah, one of our cousins is the bride." Gabrielle informed him with a laugh.
He made a 'oh-no-shit?' face. "Did you guys have any family in the Bulgarian mascots that year?"
"Oh yeah, you should've seen Fleur at the game…"
-o-o-o-
Richard Delacour had been looking for a reason to get to a world cup for years, many converged in the year of ninety-four. It was just across the channel, Elise knew some of the Bulgarian mascots, they could get good high seats, but most important of all: Harry came back from his third year six inches taller, seemingly twice as broad shouldered, and burning with quidditch obsession. So he dragged his family to England at the end of that summer and they camped out for a few days outside the stadium smack dab in the middle of the Bulgarian mascots. Elise pulled some strings and got Harry an introduction to Victor Krum, it was a funny interaction, he swung by their fire one night and Harry knocked over his chair in his haste to stand and shake hands. Krum seemed nice enough, with a heavy accent and a soft voice he introduced himself to which Harry responded:
"Harry Potter, I'm going to beat you in the next world cup." Krum sized him up and their hands remained clasped, Richard would have bet galleons they were seeing who could out-squeeze the other.
"I have not heard of you," A lie, but he meant it in relation to quidditch. "How old are you?"
"Fourteen."
"You still have time, if you get signed by seventeen then I'll keep an eye on the papers, da?"
They parted ways and Harry fell into his chair with all the Delacours looking at him curiously, he broke out into a grin. "He's brilliant! Eighteen and on the Bulgarian national team." He said with longing, longing for the boys life it would seem. "He started playing professionally at sixteen, he's the youngest seeker in the world, youngest to ever make it to the world cup!"
Fleur was testy and on edge the entire time. Richard was all but immune to Veela magic, being married to one for so long, they had a certain bond that dulled the effects of others. Harry spent half the time they were there in a minor stupor, if they weren't constantly on alert he would wander off after a passing Veela only to be dragged back by one of them. Fleur took it upon herself to be the one to do this, with much vigor and acidic looks at Veela and boy alike. It was entertaining to all but the affected parties who were embarrassed and agitated respectively.
The game was crazy.
Fleur yanked him back into his chair when he stood for the Veela performance, and he had to watch most of the game from it because she kept a restrictive arm across his shoulders in punishment, but with the omnioculars he didn't care, he recorded every Irish chaser play he could for study later. This level of play was above what they did at school, but it was possible, he just needed to get everyone on Firebolts too. He had enough money, and mentally logged it away to discuss with Richard alone. He could probably get the Delacour patriarch on his side of the expense if he could talk quidditch with him alone. What was important though, was that he had seen the level of professional play expected from international players, and he could achieve it he was certain.
He got ready to enter his fourth year as a captain. He'd been written over the summer, with Jacques graduating the coming year he was passing captaincy onto Harry, he would be there to help his first year but it was Harry's show now. He had omnioculars full of drills, and a determination to craft his team into that impressive Irish offensive line. He would be their Krum, and they would be unstoppable.
Then they were told of the Triwizard tournament.
He begged Maxine to let him go to England, begged and begged, but she wouldn't have it. It was restricted to adult witches and wizards, which Fleur had become last spring, and of course she was going to enter, because she was going to win it. Of this Harry had no doubt.
He stayed stuck to her side those two months they had before she would leave for Hogwarts. The shaky image of his house, grand and filled with silver hair, wavered. She would be gone a year early. Despite his efforts, despite his plan to shave two years off the time they would be separate, it had just yawned open further, and it was starting now.
He didn't realize how much this last year meant to him until it went away.
-o-o-o-
"Oh my poor baby," Fleur pouted, sliding off the arm of his chair into his lap. He held her with a forlorn expression, nodding sadly.
"It was very sad for me, yes."
"He was a nightmare," Luc chimed in, more for Gabby's sake than anything because the Potters were making sad faces at each other and taking turns to kiss them away. "Always moping around school. We were the most popular, most eligible bachelors on campus, and he just trudged around sad that his Lily Flower was gone."
"I never asked to be fancied!" Harry defended weakly, but it was Fleur who cut in with a roll of the eyes.
"Oh please, the only thing you could've done to be more fanciable was stalk around all brooding and tragic." The three shared a look at Harry's expense.
"Which he did…"
-o-o-o-
"Too bad about the Triwizard huh?" Harry didn't want to think about the bloody Triwizard Tournament. The Beauxbatons delegation was leaving in three days. They had just won the first quidditch game of their season with a dazzling 300 point lead thanks to his Irish chaser plays and he was sitting up at his second favorite place in the whole world, watching the lights in the village flicker on from high above the valley. He should be elated, ecstatic, by all accounts they were going to destroy the quidditch league this year, he needed the scouts looking at him now so that they noticed him next year and remembered. He couldn't muster it. The Triwizard Tournament hung over his head like a dark cloud.
He grunted a noncommittal response.
"It'll be coming back around our seventh year, but any luck we'll be gone by then anyway." Luc carried on, unperturbed by his foul mood. When he got nothing in response from his surly friend he dropped his firebolt in his lap and pushed him off the cliff with a boot in the back. Harry silently vowed revenge, but after tumbling through the air a bit and some relaxing loops and dives in the valley he landed back atop the Gate feeling far more charitable.
It helped that Jacques was also dropping off his smugglers bounty to Luc with a wicked grin. "Try not to finish it tonight, and if you do … well, you didn't get it from me." He was telling Luc as he passed him a bottle three quarters full of amber liquid. It seemed to glow in the twilight with a honey coloured light of its own. Jacques stayed long enough to share a round of the bottle which left the two younger boys choking and gasping and the older laughing, then it was just the two of them. Neither particularly enjoyed drinking the firewhiskey, but they were young boys, and it seemed like the thing to do. To make appreciative exhales and see which of them could take bigger gulps while maintaining their composure the best. Luc won. By the end of the night he could take a casual swig from the bottle and not so much as cough. They drank probably half of it between the two of them, and had a most interesting flight back to the dorms. It would've been dangerous, if not for the fact that these particular teens jumped from cliffs to relieve stress.
Harry had been sleeping in a third floor single room since his second year, when he got in a fight with Luc and learned that he could pick his own room at will. That night though, he didn't go straight to his room. Emboldened by alcohol he tried the door across the hall and found it locked. He knocked, shifting unsteadily from foot to foot and trying not to sway, and it was answered even as he began to fear she was asleep.
"Cannai come in?" He slurred and she knew at first glance of his pink cheeks and glazed eyes he was drunk. This was new. But he looked distinctly windswept in that way she liked but couldn't let him know lest his big head burst. She stood aside letting him swagger in and collapse on her bed.
"Good aftergame then?" She asked amused as she sat beside him.
"Good enough," He shrugged, "Whiskeys no fun to drink." He hiccuped.
"I think it's meant to be sipped" She confided in him, "and enjoyed, not chugged on the side of a cliff." He shrugged again, and she gave in to the ever present desire to try and fix his hair, it was easier to avoid now that he wore it longer and kept it pushed back and windswept. The extra weight reduced the state of birds nest to manageable levels, as long as she put in regular work. What she didn't expect was for him to close his eyes and turn into her ministrations with a sigh. It stilled her hands for a second before she could continue with feelings bubbling up in her throat.
"I wish you weren't going," He whispered, after such a long silence that she had long since assumed he was asleep. It was a guilty selfish admission, but one she didn't begrudge him. She wished he were coming.
"I know little eagle,"
"You're going to win." She smiled down at him, more confident in his confidence in her. It was the same unwavering belief he had about his quidditch. In his mind they were both unstoppable, immutable forces to be reckoned with, and it brought her heart to be reminded of that.
She wasn't sure how it happened.
One second, she was leaning over him toying with his hair. And then those green eyes were open again, and it all went a little fuzzy and his lips were against hers, and she was laying back fisting his hair to keep them there. And this was not the kisses she'd given him to make him blush when he did something particularly deserving of praise, this was something in an altogether different category. His lips were moving against hers like he knew what he was doing, with a practiced ease they would be discussing at some point, and it seemed to stretch on for endless blissful moments until it was abruptly over. He reared back breathing heavily and they sat there for a few seconds in her bed staring at each other.
"I should go," he said first, because she was paralyzed in indecision. He should. But part of her was roaring at her shaky hands, telling them to reach up and break the buttons off his shirt and pull him back over her. There were more voices in there, shouting over that one, everything from 'slap him' to 'that's your brother'. He staggered a few steps across the room but stopped at the door. He seemed to be struggling for words. Fleur could only stare at him, still breathing heavily and feeling hot and uncertain.
"I- You should-… just win the tournament." He said at length, "I'm going to play quidditch. I'll be the best- the best seeker and- and I'll buy you a mansion and whatever else you want and we'll fill it with kids." It all came out in a rush that choked off there, and scarlet at what he'd said, he bolted.
-o-o-o-
"What, you just kissed?" Luc sounded incredulous, "What a load, you're leading me on, having a laugh."
Harry laughed, "Yeah, the rumor mill ran for months on that one." Fleur looked up at him with an arched eyebrow. "I didn't start them," He told her looking down in amusement, "and you left a few days later so you never really got the full picture. Oh the sordid tales they told."
Luc snorted, "Yeah, well I just lost about a dozen bets, so try to keep your chaste version of events quiet, yeah?"
"There was nothing chaste about it!" Fleur defended hotly but Luc just rolled his eyes.
"It was rather chaste, compared to the rumors most believed." Harry admitted to her quietly, and she blushed like it wasn't almost thirty years ago.
"You feigned memory loss," She accused instead of addressing that. "Coward." He laughed.
"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" He did not seem at all perturbed by it, but he gestured around the ostentatious room they all drank and talked in. "But I followed through."
"So, what was your fourth year like then?" Gabby asked Luc, because she knew all about the Triwizard tournament, but less about her older brother's lady-killer days as Beauxbatons' angsty heartthrob.
Luc, who did not want to regale this particular witch with tales of his teenage conquests, opened with:
"Absolutely brutal…"
-o-o-o-
Harry Potter was a man possessed.
"It's the look in his eye," Jean could be heard saying at practice, as Harry yelled orders at his chasers "he's gone completely round the bend." But then their young captain was turning toward them and the beaters split off to fall into the play, lest he turned his attention fully onto them.
He was a hard captain, he treated every one of them like they had aspirations to play in the next world cup too. Apart from Luc, none of them really dreamed of athletic stardom, but they stuck around for the glory, and the Aigles had a record breaking season that year. They won every game, caught every snitch, and the only time they didn't clear 300 points was when their captain snatched the golden ball out of the air three minutes into the game to end it 160 to 0.
Off the field Luc was finally, finally, getting some of that quidditch attention he expected at eleven. His friend had taken to reading everywhere they went, sprawled out on a broom or eating on the balcony, it didn't matter. He was going to take History of Magic and Transfiguration exams at the end of the year with the sixth years. It was almost unheard of, but Madam Maxine had approved it, it seemed his plans to graduate early were on track.
His distraction with books did nothing to curb the tide of witches longing for him. Some of them bounced off his shield of disinterest into Luc's lap, but for the most part his cool dismissal was just petrol on their fires. Some of the more hopeful of Potter's Pack were growing down right dangerous, their attempts at slipping love potions growing more and more erratic as the year wore one. One in particular stood out, Madeleine Garnier-
-o-o-o-
Fleur's nostrils flared, the other two visibly winced, and Luc could only blink at them all in confusion.
"Don't say the name," Gabby hissed at him lowly, as if trying not to light the fuse that was Fleur Delacour by speaking too loud.
"What?" He asked dumbly, still completely oblivious.
"She-who-must-not-be-named" Gabby supplied, "trust me it's not worth it." She carried on when he looked disbelieving. Evidently braver than he was sensible Luc turned back to look at Fleur.
"What that old cow? Come off it Fleur, no contest, you're jealous of that?"
"I am jealous of no one," She said haughtily, but she was obviously mollified by Luc's strategy of disarmament.
"She was the only one that got inside Fleur's talons, she'll never forgive her for it." Gabby told Luc.
"Well it was short lived enough wasn't it? I couldn't believe it, when you started let-" He trailed off at the look Harry was giving him, or perhaps the look Fleur was giving Harry. He cleared his throat and tried to transition away bluntly.
"So tell us about the tournament then…"
-o-o-o-
Fleur went to England, competed, won.
-o-o-o-
"What were you saying about dearest Maddy?" Fleur shot at Luc while Harry failed to contain a bark of laughter at her description of the tournament.
"I- er- was I?" He was looking at Gabby for help, but the younger Delacour girl was studying the contents of her glass dutifully as her older sister glared daggers at the man.
"Yes. Something about your disbelief, when Harry started letting? Letting what?" Fleur Delacour had a certain talent for making people feel like misbehaving children. Something in the clipped tones and angle of attack made them feel like she was their disappointed mother, who already knew they'd done wrong and there'd be no lying about it now.
"Oh… uh nothing really," Luc was stalling wildly, "really just letting them know he noticed them," he chuckled a tight, horribly forced chuckle, that came out more nervous hyena's cackle. Harry put him out of his misery by leaning forward and whispering something to Fleur that was lost on the other two. He followed his little disarming whisper with a kiss right behind the ear. They could see him lean back in :smug: victory as her hackles visibly lowered.
"You remember Ginny Weasley?" Harry asked his friend by way of subject change.
"World cup '06… English seeker?" Luc seized on his conversational life raft.
"Yeah," Harry said with a laugh "I ever tell you she managed to slip me a love potion?"
-o-o-o-
To say that Hogwarts was anticlimactic was an understatement.
Harry and the Delacours apparated into the little Hogwarts village to stay the weekend and watch Fleur in the first task. It was bitterly cold, bleak, with two inches of snow blanketing everything. They appeared in the street with a pop, and Harry, who was in a dress shirt rolled up to the elbows and a silk vest was immediately unimpressed. He knelt and Gabby climbed onto his back so he could carry her, she was getting a little too big to be carried around at eight years old, but she was not willing to accept that and neither were those around her.
They hurried into the pub on the main road, it was sparsely populated, and Richard set about getting some rooms reserved. Harry, in retrospect, had a bit of a… complex about England in those days. He felt fiercely loyal to the Delacours, Beauxbatons, and most importantly, the French National team. He was English, and his schoolmates were quick to remind him that first year of school, that blood ran deep enough to be used against him at the very least. Technically speaking he'd been to the country a few months prior for the World Cup, but truthfully that felt more like a trip to Bulgaria given their camping arrangements. This was otherwise the first time he'd been back since infancy.
All things considered, he probably could've been worse.
Richard was the consummate good sport, like a dad that had dragged his unwilling family camping and refused to give in to their complaining.
"This is the wine list?" Elise asked, at the same moment Harry was casting a raised eyebrow around at the fireplace saying:
"Bit drafty."
"Bagman!" Richard called in genuine surprise, but also conveniently ignoring their critiques.
A tipsy man was coming down the stairs, he looked vaguely familiar to Harry, but not instantly recognizable enough to hold his attention. He was staring off at the door that had just opened admitting what had to be a Hogwarts student.
Bagman, who'd swayed slightly then sauntered over, had to squint at Richard for a second before exclaiming "Delacour!" Then, as he shook hands with Richard his eyes moved over to the beautiful silver haired woman next to him and then went wide with recognition. "Blimey, it's your daughter competing innit!" Hairy looked over at the loud drunk Englishman with disdain only for said man's eyes to repeat the surprised process over again with him.
"And you're Harry bleedin' Potter!" Harry side-eyed Elise, who just grimaced and shrugged.
"Ah, zorry, no Inglesh" He offered contemptuously with a fake little smile and turned to Richard.
"Can I have a firewhiskey?" He fired off in French, and it looked like Richard was considering it before Elise shot it down, also speaking French.
Bagman it seemed had brushed elbows with Richard when they were both younger and working for their respective ministries. He seemed decent enough, apart from his perpetually high volume and generally drunken nature. Harry was not nearly so charitable in his assessment at the time, but he was looking for reasons to look down his nose at anything north of the channel back then.
The pub filled steadily, and before long they all spotted that familiar head of silver hair entering with two other girls in Beauxbatons' blue. All three had scarves around their faces and looked miserable, Harry was off his stool the moment they spotted her. He drew eyes, he knew, as he strode across the bar to her. He didn't care, and it would seem neither did she, as she pulled him into a hug the moment she saw him. He realized during that hug that the twenty three days since she'd left for England constituted the longest stretch they'd been separated since they met. The hug lingered, and both of them were thinking of that night in her room when they split, but Harry had missed her too much to let such things keep him quiet and awkward.
"This place is awful," he bit out as a greeting, leading her toward her parents. "Is the school any better?"
"No! It is always cold, it rains nearly every day, and the whole school is made of stone." She made hellos with her parents and dragged him over to the bar with her by his hand clamped in hers.
"Get me a firewhiskey," he sent her his best roguish grin, and she eyed him imperiously, weighing whether she should reward such tactics. "It's so cold here!" He rubbed his exposed forearms pitifully.
"You have to drink it here," She warned him, and he nodded enthusiastically, surprised that it had worked. She ordered her own and they slammed them with all the bold inexperience of teenagers. It burned his throat and lingered painfully as he forced the swallow around a gag. Fleur coughed, but started laughing at his pained grimace. They retrieved two of the strange English low alcohol cream beers and ventured back to the Delacour table.
Fleur delighted in fixing Gabby's hair while Richard grilled her for information about the tournament. Harry was supremely aware of a lot of eyes on their little party. He could scan the crowd and see, based on who looked dutifully down at their table, which had been staring their way before he looked. Some of them, all witches, didn't even avert their gaze when he passed over them. One red headed, brown eyed gaze, from only a few tables over, was waiting eagerly for her chance to smile shyly at him, but it had the effect of seeming rehearsed. He lingered on her simpering wave for a second before moving on to a big set of blue eyes framed in white blonde hair. Harry blinked, for a second almost thinking he was looking at a little Veela cousin.
"Fleur, who's that-"
-o-o-o-
"Oh," Fleur said fondly, with a hand over her heart. "Little Luna, I need to write to her."
"Luna?" Luc asked.
"Luna Lovegood, she was Fleur's surrogate little chick while she was at Hogwarts." Gabrielle filled him in.
"She was so cute." Fleur said fiercely. Like it hurt how cute the girl was.
"And barking mad." Harry told Luc, "ab-so-lute-ly mental."
Luc laughed as Fleur elbowed Harry in the ribs none too gently.
"She is!" He laughed in defense and she sent him a lethal glare, he just pulled her in tighter so she couldn't get a good swing angle on him and told Luc: "Sweet girl, but she's got a fictional magizoological reason for everything from a sneeze to muggle war practices. None of which she can prove, and anyone who questions it is closed minded and daft. She once told me the German bombardment of London during those muggle wars was actually just the mating season of- of wrinkled horned snorlaxes or something like it." Fleur was trying not to grin, in solidarity for her eccentric English friend.
"You were speaking of little girls, and their silly potions." She told her husband, it seemed she was far less concerned with this English witch than she was with the witch-who-shall-not-be-named.
"Ah, yeah, so after the first task…"
-o-o-o-
The difference between Harry and Fleur was a matter of agency.
Fleur could not help but feel powerless as she sat in the stands and watched him hurdle through the air dodging iron cannonballs, she was therefore fiercely opposed to all things quidditch. She could not protect him out there, and it did not matter that he didn't need protecting, she was instinctually inclined to pull him under her wing and smother him with safety and warmth. The only reason she hadn't long since put a stop to quidditch was because she loved him, and this was the twentieth-century, and using Veela magic to crush all resistance and enslave your mate to your whims was heavily frowned upon. Conversely Harry had supreme confidence in Fleur's abilities, he viewed himself as the master of the skies, and she was the master of everything else. She did not need his protection, or help, and he roared his support of her with wild excitement as she faced off against the dragon.
She did great of course, and Harry booed loudly when the Durmstrang headmaster docked way too many points for a singed skirt. She was in the lead, the Hogwarts champion had caught half a body full of dragonfire, and while he got his egg and got out they had to give him medical treatment. Harry's arch-rival Krum was unscathed but had caused the destruction of multiple eggs, which his headmaster was quick to ignore but which the other judges balanced out his bias for in their scoring.
Harry sat at one of the Hogwarts tables that night for a grand feast, sandwiched between Fleur and that wide eyed little girl from the pub.
"You're Harry Potter," She said dreamily, looking up at him, Fleur had introduced her with a fondness that told him he could not feign a language barrier.
"Oui, I am 'Arry Potter." He said back, a bit bemused.
"You're rather famous over here you know," She told him, and he didn't exactly know that. "From what I've heard it was a rather nasty shock when you didn't turn up at Hogwarts, but I wonder if you'd even be famous if it weren't for your absence."
He didn't know what to say to that, she had a weird manner of speaking, she would plow right through the points you would expect to respond, and then stop to give you the chance to reply when it seemed least convenient.
"Er- well, I 'ave live in France my whole life, why wouldn't I go to Beauxbatons?" It seemed a fair few Hogwarts students around them were tuned in.
"I wish I could go to Beauxbatons," She said wistfully with a grin, "I've heard it's lovely there."
Harry could only look at Fleur, who raked her fingers through the little girl's hair and readjusted the way it fell over her shoulders.
"We must 'ave you over this summer Luna, I insist." She told her instead of commenting on their conversation. The little girl blinked and beamed up at them.
"Yeah- I'd like that!"
Harry was tapped on the shoulder then, he turned away from Fleur and Luna's baffling conversation to see a vaguely familiar witch standing in the aisle behind them. She was maybe a year younger than he, with long red hair and big soft brown eyes. It took him a second to recall he'd seen her in the bar his first day.
"Hello, my name's Ginny," She said with the faintest blush. He opened his mouth to try and politely dismiss her but she pushed forward before he could.
"I just wanted to invite you over to our table," She gestured to the far table against the wall, the red and gold one. "It's Gryffindor house, the one your parents were in, you would've been too…" She trailed off hopefully.
A jolt of shock went through him at the offhand, purely unexpected, mention of his parents. It was followed by a shrewd reevaluation of this girl, she was willing to play dirty, and unfortunately for her she'd been overheard. Fleur turned out to face the aisle and withough ceasing her assessment of Ginny with a dangerous look she said to Harry:
"Try the treacle tart Harry, the Hogwarts elves outdid themselves." She then switched to English as he looked at her with an amused expression. "Can we 'elp you, little girl?" The English witch bristled at her condescension, but Harry was turning to the table under the pretense of inspecting the desert selection to hide his laughter. She threw him one last look, then a fake smile at Fleur, and turned on the spot to retreat in defeat.
-o-o-o-
"Honestly, how did it take you two another two years to shack up?" Luc asked in exasperation.
"You weren't there for the dark times." Gabby said blackly.
Harry, who had successfully calmed his wife down after mention of the interloper, and was keeping her good mood aloft with tales of Ginny Weasley was quick to get her talking.
"So, you figured out the egg clue…"
-o-o-o-
To say that Hogwarts was a disappointment was an understatement.
All of the Beauxbatons delegation stared bleakly at it. Huddled together for warmth outside their carriage in the frigid Scottish autumn while their headmasters exchanged greetings.
The school did not grow on her throughout the duration of her stay. The only redeeming qualities to the place were the elves cooking and Luna Lovegood. The former was no better than Beauxbatons offerings, but when she saw coq au vin at that first meal her heart soared as she realized she wouldn't be stuck eating overcooked meat in gravy for the rest of the year. The latter was beautifully unique to Hogwarts and immediately seized her heart. The lost little duckling was sitting at the blue table alone with several empty spots on the benches around her and a book on the table before her.
It was a combination of school color, Veela features, and the familiar sight of a lonely English kid reading at the table that pulled Fleur to her that first night at Hogwarts. Her schoolmates followed and that became their table, more often than not they could be found sitting around little Luna Lovegood who always looked confused and elated by the older French student's company. Luna triggered an instinct in Fleur, very similar to how she often felt about Harry, she wanted to fold the little girl up and stick her in her pocket and protect her from the world.
She was of course chosen to be Beauxbatons champion. She allowed herself a small victorious smile as she crossed the Hall before the Hogwarts students, but let out a shaky breath once through the door into the adjacent trophy room. Krum stood awkwardly by the fire so she crossed to join him, wondering if he would recognize her from the World Cup.
"Hello, I am Viktor," he said politely in accented English, evidently not recognizing her, but he had the strength of mind not to be dazed by her passive allure.
"Yes," She said with a smile, "we 'ave met actually, at the World Cup." He looked confused for a second before a grin split his face.
"With Harry Potter, da." He laughed, "He is your- close male friend?" He struggled for the English sentiment, she straightened, and nodded because he wasn't technically wrong in his wording. Even if she knew what he actually meant. "I had my people look into him," he had a hungry look in his eye then, one that she recognized all too well and did not like at all. "I do not think he was wrong about meeting me in the air, da?"
The door opened again and they both turned to see the Hogwarts champion enter, and she was spared playing the enthusiastic quidditch girlfriend of Harry Potter to Viktor Krum.
Madam Maxine tipped her off to the dragons a few days before the task and she had no trouble conceptualizing her charmed song to sedate it. She knew as soon as she heard the screeching egg that it was Mermish, and she spent the following months dreading her impending swim.
The Yule ball was a singularly uncomfortable experience. She was told by the Headmistress that there was no way she could bring Harry back for it, and then that she was required to attend as champion. She accepted the invitation of the first boy that could deliver it without drooling, hoping his resistance to her allure could hold through a dance. It didn't, and after a few dances and a brief altercation in the impromptu garden set up on the lawn, she left her date for the solace of the carriage.
The morning of the Twenty-fourth of February was, predictably, frigid. Fleur was not happy. It had nothing to do with wearing a bathing suit on a platform over a Scottish lake in the dead of winter. No, it was because the previous night professor Dumbledore had swung by the Beauxbatons carriage and asked to speak with Harry while she sat with her family in the carriage sitting room. The two had left and not returned.
Fleur suspected at least a handful of the people in this school of plotting to get Harry back in England full time. Chiefly Dumbledore and that Weasley girl. She glared over at the judges looking for his birds nest among them until the big announcement was made. Harry was in the lake. She rolled her eyes. He was going to be insufferable after this.
-o-o-o-
"Which he was-"
"Was not!"
"You kind of were…" Gabby said guiltily.
"Et tu, Gabby?" Harry asked, looking between the two girls, offended. Luc wisely remained silent, having put one too many feet in his mouth this night.
"I was never- I didn't- how?"
"Well, you got really moody after that year didn't you?"
"That had nothing to do with the task!" He objected indignantly.
"Never said it did!" Gabby defended "just that you were a bit insufferable after that." Fleur laughed but patted her husband's chest in consolation.
"So you won the second task-" Luc led, looking at Fleur, "and then the third task was in June-"
"No! You're skipping the most important part." Gabby told him, settling into her chair with a smile directed at her sister…
-o-o-o-
Fleur reached the Merpeople's city at almost the same time as the Hogwarts champion. A rough patch with a pack of Grindylows had slowed her but such mildly dark creatures were more a nuisance than anything. She swam hard, even as a burst of red moved sluggishly through the water from behind her, narrowing missing Cedric.
Krum had entered the fray, and as the furthest from the hostages he'd opened with a stunner. Fleur dove a little lower to swim over the lake bed and under their volley of exchanged spells and gained a lead for it. Krum turned his attention to her briefly, but she shielded his attack and he was forced to return his focus to Cedric.
The merfolk were gathered around a stone plinth, she kicked through the water down their main street wearily. They didn't attack though, most seemed interested in observing the duel happening behind her. Three figures were tied to the rock edifice, bobbing lamely in the tide. On the left, an Asian girl who's long black hair was fanned out wildly, on the right a bushy haired girl around Harry's age. Fleur recognized both of them as the Yule ball dates of her competition. In the middle was Harry, in his ridiculous springtime-in-the-south-of-France get up. He refused to dress warm, as some sort of misguided protest to the existence of Scotland it would seem.
She severed the ropes holding him down and caught his arm, ascending toward air and victory. Whatever spell was laid over him broke the moment they broke the surface. He gasped in a lungful of air and then swore.
"Merde! It's so cold!" His lips were blue, she was sure hers were too. "Are we first?" She nodded, exhausted from nearly an hour of swimming and dragging his body to the surface. Mercifully her little gentleman took some of that burden now, treading water toward the platform and pulling her along.
They were given blankets, and pepper-up potions by a team of students being directed by the head nurse. They huddled together shivering pitifully, while they waited for the other two to surface. Cedric came next, Krum last. That brought the two boys to a pretty close tie once the points were doled out, with Fleur having a sizable lead. She tried to sit straight and adopt a regal smugness, but her whole body was convulsing in the chilly midmorning air. Another round of potions was handed out, and this time it had a greater effect. She could at least speak now without her jaw chattering.
"Let's get changed," She tugged Harry toward the carriage and sweet sweet warmth. He was sluggish to follow, jogging reluctantly across the lawn with his head down.
"Come on, let's get to the school." He said impatiently twenty minutes later after they'd put on dry clothes and they sat in her room in the carriage.
"The feast isn't for hours," She dismissed, combing her hair now that it was magically dried.
"Yeah, well I just want to go up there, we can wait around in the hall." She snorted, because that was definitely not happening. "I want to try and find her."
"Luna?" She asked, but she was only half paying attention.
"Ginny." That wrangled her focus. She froze, and her eyes flicked to his form in the mirror. He was seated on her bed, looking at the wall in the vague direction of the school.
"What?" She said icily. He didn't so much as blink.
"Let's go up to the school." He said again, and she noticed this time the hollow sound to his voice. He had the faintest blush and a dumb look in his eyes.
"Harry," She positively purred, "come over here." He didn't move. She reached out with her allure and brushed against his mind experimentally. She'd never felt something like this, but she could deduce what was happening well enough. The normal cadence of his feelings was disrupted, they were saturated and made sluggish by something else. It was like his mind was a lush white carpet, and someone had spilled red wine on it. Something foreign was soaked into the fibers, muting his thoughts and coloring his feelings. She wrapped herself around his mind, stains and all, and this time she pushed a desire to listen to her command into his mind as she said it. "Come here Harry."
His head turned toward her slowly, he seemed to be struggling with himself, like his body wanted to do it but but only with her help could they get his mind to fall in line. He came to her and she slid over on the small bench before her vanity. She pulled him down onto it when her spoken command to sit did nothing.
Veela's allure was strongest with physical contact, it was why she avoided people as a general rule, but now she placed both her hands on his face.
"You do not want to see Ginny," She informed him, she could feel the sane part of his mind struggling to agree with her, the effects of the potion prevented it.
"Of course I do." He said vaguely, and he struggled to pull himself free of her hands in loyalty to his beloved English witch. She did not release him, she raged against the tide in his mind, forcing contentment. She made him stare at her, forcing his mind to take in her beauty and focus on it even as it tried to wander back to the redhead.
"Who is Ginny?" She countered and he opened his mouth to respond but seemed to be a loss for words.
"She's beautiful," he said dreamily after a long pause in which the potion thrashed wildly to continue motivating him. They did not work very well when the poisoned party had no idea who the subject was. He could only operate on having seen her one time, so the potion just played that encounter up. She knew this, but she still snarled a little at his stupid face while he longed for the girl.
"Am I more beautiful than her?" She poured her own brand of longing into the allure, making him crave her. Her empathetic magic warred with chemical magic, the field of battle his poor addled mind. He struggled for almost a full silent minute on the question, she held his face near hers and made him look into her eyes as he pondered it.
"... y-yes." She smiled, half at him, but half at her own victory as well. The potions effects were burning strong, a twenty-four hour dose working overtime to keep its clutches on him in the face of her interference.
"Then stay with me, do not go to her." She spoke softly, and it didn't really matter what she said, she was just voicing the feelings she pushed down the bond toward him. He was swaying slightly, wanting to stand and wanting to sit at the same time.
"But- I want-" He said pitifully, eyes flicking to the wall in the direction of the school again.
You want to kiss me
His eyes flicked back, down, and took in her lips. They were close, she still held his face, he leaned in slightly and she purred approval into his mind as he succumbed.
It was as hot and intense as it was in her room fueled by firewhiskey. More so, because this one was fueled by her. His lips against hers ignited the desire and lust for him she harbored under careful lock and key. Her own passion in turn leaked back into him through the allure and increased his fervor. It was a dangerous, scintillating, feedback loop unique to Veela relationships and they experienced it there for the first time.
They burned through the silly girl's love potion in less than fifteen minutes of blistering kisses. His mind went into overload at almost first contact of their lips and they ended up on the floor by her vanity. She sat on his stomach and pinned him under her lips, wrapped tight in her mental embrace, so she could squeeze the little girl's influence out of him. They separated panting and she let go of his mind as the last stains faded.
"Fleur-"
-o-o-o-
"That is the real moment you realized you loved me." She told him playfully and he didn't contradict her. He looked a little flustered at her retelling of it. Gabby, Luc noticed, also looked a little pink in the face. Luc looked down at his drink, it was his second one, and that didn't make sense because he felt drunk. His head was fuzzy and he felt a little hot under the collar.
Luc Bennet did not know Veela magic well enough to recognize the combined effects of the two girls. Their control was lax from alcohol and their allures excited by the tale. Harry had a near constant tether to his wife, much stronger than the passive surface connection affecting Luc, and was too caught up in her sitting in his lap and reliving that scene to realize his friend was getting sucked in.
Fleur caught it though.
She saw his glassy eyes slip from them in their shared seat over to her sister, who caught Luc's gaze and realized what was happening. She smiled a dangerous little smile of delight, and her allure became suddenly altogether not accidental as it circled him, picking at the frayed edges of his mind. He smiled dumbly at her in response to her own delight.
Fleur stood, pulling Harry up with her, he came up with no complaint.
"Come mon coeur," she purred, taking his hand to pull him toward the door. "You promised me a son." She whispered as they left Gabby in the room to swoop down on her prey.
AN this ones gonna be long, you don't need to read it if everything was all cool here, but if you're a little frustrated that I'm glossing over so much allow me my defense:
I fought long and hard with myself about ending this chapter with a little Dumbles to give the fic a halfassed horcrux cop out. I decided against it and any sort of graveyard scene because that's not what this fic is about. If you're like me and you can't quiiiiite let go of that need to tie it back to cannon then I present to you this background for your approval. Dumbledore has taken his horcrux hunting much more seriously over the years, and has made great progress with them. Before the second task, when Harry is taken and put in magic naptime for the task, the horcrux in him is destroyed, the cup was never a portkey, voldy uses ANYONE elses blood. Harry goes back to France, and only really comes to England professionally after this. Someone else deals with Voldemort, idk who or how, because I'm figuring all that out and walking that line in another project and I started writing this one expressly to take a break from the nightmare of retelling GoF in an interesting way after half of all ff out there is a retelling of GoF. Finally, I've gotten a few comments about who people want to see scenes of, like Sirius, Ron/Hermione, Remus etc. and I want to give people that sweet sweet content but it doesn't really make sense for this story, there's no real reason Ron or Hermione would approach Harry on his limited trips to Hogwarts nor would he give them the time of day, HOWEVER when I reach the end of this story I plan to have a sort of running epilouge, by which I mean I'll be randomly adding on to the end of it with scenes I think of in this universe but didn't fit the narrative I'm telling here, I'll include them there. As for Sirius and Remus... well they would seek Harry out, and that's all I'll say for now :smug:
Join the flowerpot server! discord . gg / uqEeHRhTk7 I update my name regularly giving teasers of the coming chapters, and the people there are great, this fic wouldn't be online right now if it weren't for it and them.