Hey there everyone!
I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Let me know what you thought. As ever, thanks to the Flowerpot discord and with special thanks to Charlennette for the help.
Cheers!
Despite the patchwork of its thatched roof and the cracks in its stonework that it had gained over the years, there was a warmth to Hagrid's home that even the most biting of Scotland's winter chills could not break through. And, whenever Harry found himself in Hagrid's presence, the great majority of his worries melted away.
"Come in here," Hagrid called out to Harry, his voice climbing above the wind that rushed through the cold December air. "You'll catch a cold out there."
Harry did as he was bid without hesitation, following the man inside, where a fire had already been burning for a long while and a kettle was already set to boil. He settled into one of Hagrid's chairs, its size so great that he felt, as he always did, that he'd been shrunk in the wash.
"Always nice to see ya, Harry," said Hagrid, settling down a mug in front of him delicately, and with a warm smile breaking through his great beard.
"I wanted to thank you for helping me out in the first task," Harry said, and with it making a mental note to visit his first friend more. "I'd never have stood a chance without you."
Hagrid waved away his words, his own tea sloshing in its mug as he did. "Don't say that, Harry!" he denied. "You'd do fine without me, I'm sure."
"I definitely wouldn't," Harry further insisted before adding with a note of finality. "Without you, I'd have had no chance."
Hagrid seemed to shrink into himself at his words, the very small amount of his cheeks visible through his beard reddening. "They're lovely creatures dragons, really," he mumbled behind his tea. "Just a bit misunderstood is all."
Harry's eyes watched out of the window, and into the white of the snow-filled sky, before turning toward the fire. "How are things with the Madame Maxime, anyway?" he asked, suddenly. "Seems like you two got along well. Are you thinking of asking her to Yule Ball?"
Hagrid grew even redder. "I don't know about that," he replied quietly; as quiet as Harry had ever heard him. "She's a sophisticated woman, Olympe is." His eyes found the floor and stayed there. "I don't think she'd want to spend her time with, well, someone like me."
"What do you mean 'someone like you'?" Harry asked, his voice beginning to rise. "She'd be lucky to have you!"
Hagrid fell back into his chair, despondent. "She's a Headmistress, Harry, and I'm just a groundskeeper," he said. "She's got a mastery in Charms and I've not got OWLs. I didn't even finish school." He shook his head, and in doing so Harry could see his eyes were shining. "Face it Harry, she deserves better than me."
"Hagrid," began Harry, his voice sharp enough to cause the older man's head to rise to look at him. "You're a Professor at the best school in the world, and you know more about animals than anybody I know; more than a stupid textbook or qualification could ever give you. You've been nothing but good to me and all of my friends-"
Harry stopped there to take a breath.
"Just, she'd be lucky," he finished, quietly. "And she seemed happier with you when you showed her the dragons than she usually is, too. And the worst that could happen is she says no."
Hagrid nodded to himself. "She did seem happy, didn't she?"
Harry smiled. "Yeah, she did," he told Hagrid. "And, if you take her to the ball, she'll have someone she can dance with."
"I do like dancing," Hagrid added.
Harry clapped his hands together. "There you go!" he exclaimed. Hagrid laughed, though it did not boom as it most often did. "I tell you what, Hagrid. If you ask Madame Maxime to the ball, I'll ask the Beauxbatons students about her; try and find what she likes, so you can make sure you get off on the right foot."
"You'd do that for me, Harry?"
"Without a doubt," Harry said quickly. "With all you've done for me, it's the least I could do."
Hagrid smiled then, with a giddiness that made him look decades younger. Fang, Hagrid's dog, appeared from his room and came to rest at Harry's feet, his head sitting in his lap.
"Are you looking forward to the ball then?" Hagrid asked.
"I'm not sure," Harry replied.
"Why not?" Hagrid questioned. "It's a night hanging out with your friends."
"Yeah, and with everyone else , too."
"But they're not important. You don't care about what someone like Malfoy thinks of you now, so why would you care then?" Harry found himself nodding to his words. "Just go and enjoy yourself, ignore the rest of them. They're not worth bothering about."
Harry found himself startled, for in moments, Hagrid had unwound the Gordian knot of his thoughts with absolute ease. Sometimes things were, strangely, rather simple.
Aimée was, of course, the first person Harry thought to ask about Madame Maxime, as she'd decided to take residence on the Gryffindor table at almost every mealtime, though only rarely with Neville. Most often, she and her friends sat in the space surrounding Harry, and yet her eyes always seemed to drift along the length of the table to watch Neville stare transfixed at one tome or another. Andrea joined them often too, quietly, though most often she found herself by the side of Hermione, who had struck up an immediate friendship with her over Star Wars, of all things.
He thought it odd that Aimée could be so forthright and so confident with Harry himself, and yet with Neville, she transformed into a form altogether shy.
"Why don't you just talk to him again?" Harry did ask, after having watched the odd occasion occur on one too many occasions. "He really did seem to like you."
"She is playing hard to get," said one of her friends, to whom Harry had not been introduced, yet still continued to sit with him on most afternoons.
Harry doubted her claim greatly; there was far too much pining in her eyes for that to be the case.
Aimée, however, looked at Harry with an odd intensity. "Did he truly say he liked me?"
Harry glanced for a fraction of a moment toward Neville, and by no surprise did he find the boy's interest to be centred around Aimée, and not the book he held in his hands. "Definitely," Harry added. "His exact words were, to quote, 'I don't understand why a girl that pretty was talking to me'."
He'd said those words on several occasions, too, and to almost anyone near enough to hear them. She'd made, it seemed, the greatest of first impressions.
"Then why does he never approach me?" Aimée asked. "Each day, it is always me that speaks first and I'm beginning to feel that I'm bothering him."
Harry smiled. "I don't think you could ever bother him," he told her. "I imagine he probably feels the same, though. Scared to bother you."
It was a fear that seemed to grip almost all of the boys in the castle, as of late. Harry suspected if one were to bring in a boggart then, it would not be Lord Voldemort that it so frequently turned into, but a crowd of pretty girls, giggling behind their hands and staring in derision.
Boys seemed to peel away from their friends from the corridors with hopes of talking to someone, only to return forlorn, their eyes a thousand miles away. Yet, such was the voracity of love, the hunger of desire, the vengeful plea of affection, those same boys returned the day after, and the day after that too, to perform the dance anew.
As Harry had delved into his thoughts, Neville, it seemed, had forded the streams of his fear, and approached Aimée himself. He took a deep breath, so as to settle himself.
"Could I talk to you?" he asked, and his words came out so quickly that they nearly blurred into one. Thankfully, Aimée offered him a bright smile.
"Of course," she said, already standing as she spoke. Aimée hugged Neville, before winding her arm through his, her hand holding onto his upper arm.
The pair fled the Great Hall as quickly as one could without running, and in doing so had the full attention of every Gryffindor there. Some, like Seamus and Cormac McLaggen, held unveiled jealousy in their eyes, yet still, they did not comment until Neville had left. It was only then that Harry had forgotten to ask about her Headmistress.
"Do any of you happen to know Madame Maxime very well?" Harry then asked Aimée's friends. They seemed to shake their heads collectively.
"Trying to butter up a judge?" Émilie, the girl who sat closest to Harry, asked. She was the seeker for her house back at Beauxbatons, and they found that they shared an odd, instant fraternity as a result.
"Not quite," Harry responded. The intention was buttering, but he wasn't the one holding the butter, so to say. "Just wondering what she's like is all."
"She's quite private," Émilie offered. "She still teaches the higher year's Charms classes, but otherwise she does not speak to many people."
That was almost completely at odds with Dumbledore, Harry thought. The man might not teach, but he was almost folkloric in his ability to appear behind one's shoulder at a moment's notice, speak in riddles and then leave before you could even begin to understand a word of what he'd said. Everyone had a Dumbledore story.
Harry sighed, put out by her words. "Is there anyone that she is quite close with, then?" he furthered. "Does she have a protégé or something?"
"Well, there is one," Émilie said, quietly. "But she does not speak with anyone else much."
Harry had a fair idea of where this was going.
"Fleur Delacour, I take it?" he guessed, resigned. They nodded quickly.
"Wonderful," Harry said. "Excellent."
Harry had limited exposure to Fleur, but from what he'd seen, she was not his biggest fan, or a fan of anything about Hogwarts or really anything in general. Quite frankly, she'd been unenthused about almost everything that he'd seen her come across, and he doubted that this would be any different.
In truth, Harry didn't know what to make of her. If he were in her shoes and had to go from a paradisal palace in the south of France to a freezing cold castle in Scotland, he doubted he would've had the sunniest disposition either. And, after having suffered through some of the less-than-thoughtful advances of his would-be suitors, he found himself astounded that she didn't hex every person that even looked like asking her out.
However, Harry had made a promise to Hagrid, and he wasn't about to break it.
Émilie nudged his side, shaking him from his thoughts, and pointed to a boy that stood before him; a boy he knew to be Justin Finch-Fletchley.
"Alright," said Harry, to Justin. Despite being in the same year, and having shared classes for four years by then, they'd never really spoken with one another. Harry supposed that, being muggle-born, he himself didn't hold any great intrigue to Justin. And, equally, Harry had met enough upper-class posh boys at the Dursley's dinner parties to be at all intrigued by the once-intended Etonian. "Can I help you?"
"I was wondering if you'd like to go to the Ball with me?" Justin asked, without a trace of nerves upon his voice.
Harry paused for a moment, thoughtful. Justin wasn't a pain to look at by any stretch. If Harry thought about him long enough, he could've found himself calling him handsome, albeit slightly foppish, however, he knew that Justin wasn't the answer to the riddle that he was continually asking of himself.
"I think I'm going to have to say no," Harry said gently. His brow furrowed for a moment. "Aren't you going out with Ernie, anyway?"
Justin, without prompting, sat down in the space that Aimée had vacated. Her friends didn't seem to mind though, the spectacle already proving much too interesting. "Well, we sort of…broke up?" he said, his word half question and half statement. "And, given that you haven't said yes to any members of the fairer sex." One of the girls giggled quietly, charmed. "I thought your interests might lay elsewhere."
Harry was beginning to understand why Ernie had broken up with him.
"Unfortunately not," replied Harry.
"Well then - what are you looking for?" Justin questioned, before offering Émilie a flirtatious smile. "If a girl as beautiful as the ones before you can't sway your interest, who can?"
It was an apt, though unwelcome question.
As time went on, Harry found himself becoming more and more confounded by the ease that his peers found attachment. In Justin, whose eyes did not know a place that they would not wander, or Lavender, for whom love was an ideal so desired she found herself forcing every boy she came across into its form.
Yet, with Harry, there seemed to be a disconnection between it all. He was attracted to Aimee, and to Andrea and Daphne Greengrass and Susan Bones and Parvati and Cho, but that didn't seem enough. He wanted, needed, the stars to feel as though they were aligning. He wanted a girl to remind him of first performing magic, and of first taking flight, and of first laughing. And, perhaps that was an ideal beyond what could be expected, but he simply could not settle for less.
He did not search, therefore, for pretty faces, but for moments, instances. In spaces where sparks might fly. In looks that would grow to be more. In words that need not be spoken, for both the speaker and the audience already knew what was to be said before it was ever said.
"I suppose I'll know when I see it," said Harry, before leaving the table, and leaving with the realisation that Justin had not heard him, for he found himself lost in Émilie's eyes.
There was no great difficulty in finding Fleur, of course, as she seemed to at all times to possess a procession of interested parties, all clamouring for her hand. The spectacle of it all was interesting to watch, in a way. The many manners that the boys and girls put their foot in their mouth in front of her. The fog that fell in front of their eyes at the sight of her. The blind, unblunted optimism.
The moment she arrived at the Quad courtyard, therefore, a hundred followers flocked there too. Harry was amazed to find Ron of all people, watching the entire affair, rather than join her long and ever-growing queue. He offered his best friend a quizzical look, to which Ron shrugged easily.
"I'm waiting for Fred and George to ask her out," Ron explained. "'Said they were going to offer themselves as a package deal."
"Didn't fancy giving it a go yourself?" Harry asked him, his expression unaltered.
Ron laughed. "I don't think so mate. I think I'd prefer to set my sights somewhere more realistic."
"Weren't you the one talking about the mythos and grandeur of love before?" Harry then asked. "Surely you'd want to set your sights as high as possible?"
"It's about how special you think the person is, Harry, not how special everyone else does," Ron admonished. "Merlin, it's like you've never even read a romance novel before."
He hadn't. He was astounded Ron had.
"Forgive me for my ignorance, oh great wise one," Harry faux-pleaded, before returning to his regular register. "I look forward to meeting your special someone, then."
Ron stood up straighter, his arms folding across his chest. "You will, actually."
Harry's eyes widened. "You've got a date, already?" he asked. "Who is it?"
"Don't sound so shocked," Ron replied, scoffing. "Anyway, it's a surprise."
"Sorry," he said, though confusion still lingered. Harry had expected his best friend to be screaming from the rooftops about it all, and after his newfound venture into romanticism, doubly so. Yet, there was a quiet nervousness about him that Harry found peculiar. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"When I work it out myself, you'll be the first to know."
Harry allowed a moment's silence, though his own curiosity couldn't be held back much longer than that.
"It's not anyone awful is it?" he asked, and in his mind's eye seeing his best friend in the clutches of Pansy Parkinson or Tracey Davis. He had to hold back a shudder at such a thought.
Ron shook his head in firm denial. "Definitely not!" he assured before his voice grew slightly speculative. "Just…different, I guess. Not someone I'd ever expected to be interested, though."
Harry thought to ask further, but Ron had already turned away from him and toward Fleur.
The latest of her perhaps-partners was a boy from Hufflepuff, whom Harry thought looked like he should still be in primary school, for he was about a half of Fleur's height, and so was forced to look almost-entirely upward in order to deliver his offer of companionship.
For a brief moment, Harry found himself worrying over what she might do or say to the boy. Her prior refusals had left a trail of anguish in the castle; most often, she managed it without a word spoken to the offering party, either. Thankfully, such fears were unfounded, as she gave the younger boy a small smile, her hand ruffling his hair as she whispered an apologetic refusal.
Nonetheless, the boy seemed to be floating on air as he left her to re-join his friends, his hand passing over his own hair, mimicking Fleur's own touch reverently.
"Have I missed the show yet?" asked Katie Bell, who seemed to appear from nowhere and suddenly stand beside Harry. Her presence brought a smile to Harry's face as she hugged him briefly, companionably.
She was a tactile person, Harry knew. From the first Quidditch training sessions they'd spent together, Katie had been one to celebrate every goal she scored with a hug. It was how she said hello, goodbye, thank you and sorry. To begin with, Harry hadn't known what to make of it, as he'd never really came across someone who'd behaved in such a way, but as he'd grown to know her, the act was such a reflection of her kindness, an action he connected so absolutely with Katie, that he couldn't help but welcome it.
"Not yet," Harry told her. "How's things?"
Katie grinned. "Eh, same old same old," she said, pushing a hair behind her ear. "I heard you've started playing cupid."
Harry looked at Ron, a question in his eyes.
"Well it's true, isn't it?" Ron asked rhetorically. "You managed to get Neville shacked up and Justin couldn't stop going on about his beautiful French flower in Defence today; 'thought Mad-eye was going to hex his tongue off."
"It wasn't really my intention." Harry rushed to tell her.
"I think it's quite sweet," Katie reassured him. "You'll have your own little lonely hearts club in no time."
"Are you looking for some help there?" Harry asked, teasing.
She shook her head. "I've already gotten myself a date, thank you. Roger asked me."
"Davies?" Harry clarified.
"The one and only," Katie confirmed. They were childhood friends, Harry knew. They'd played on the same under-ten's Quidditch teams, with Katie playing a year above her own age group. The invitation was a long-time coming, therefore. "Are you still looking for someone, Harry?" He nodded. "Well, Leanne is still available, and she may or may not have asked me to put a good word in on her behalf."
"I'll keep it in mind," Harry told her.
"Or," added Katie. "Failing that, if you could somehow get Marcus Belby to stop making eyes at her and actually pluck up the courage to ask her, she'd appreciate that too."
"Doesn't Davies share dorms with him?" Harry asked. "Why not get him to do it?"
"That…is an excellent point," Katie arrived at, realisation dawning in her eyes. "Why hadn't I thought of that?" She offered Harry an appraising look. "You're good at this matchmaking lark."
"Well, if I lose my arms in the tournament and can't play Quidditch ever again, at least I have that to fall back on."
'The show', as Katie so accurately described, began then in a manner typical to the style of the Weasley twins; an enormous explosion. However, the noise was not explosive in nature, but pyrotechnic.
Fireworks filled the air of the courtyard, though their crashing drone was soon displaced by the sound of a choir, and then violins. There was a veil of smoke, and then Fred and George appeared from nothing, side-by-side and on bended knee. Harry looked up, to find that the fireworks spelled out 'Fleur Delacour, please say yes'.
However, in the commotion, Fleur was nowhere to be seen.
The easiest method to talk to Fleur, Harry had decided, was not to talk to her at all, but rather to send her a letter. Of all of the ways he'd considered, that was the method that placed the greatest distance between the pair of them, and as such was the one that had the lowest likelihood of him being hexed.
He'd made the effort to write the letter in French, too. Harry had learned the language at primary school courtesy of Mrs Tremblay; it was the subject he'd most excelled at when he was younger, to the extent that according to her, he was near-fluent as he'd finished year six. He'd enjoyed learning it a great deal, so much so that he'd joined the after-school club devoted to the subject which, on most days, would be comprised of just him and his instructor.
He missed speaking the language, too, though admittedly not enough to tell Aimée and her friends that he understood all of their supposedly-secret comments.
After the summer between their second and third year, he'd been heartened to hear that Hermione had holidayed in Grenoble, hoping that her time in the country had swayed her into learning French. She'd attempted to learn, Hermione had told him, but had grown tired quickly of being bad at a language she would so rarely use, and returned to studying subjects that she was actually good at.
Therefore, he found himself in the company of Hedwig once more, though in Astronomy tower rather than the owlery. From what Harry could gather, there was something of a lover's quarrel between five or six of the messenger owls that lived in the owlery. His own companion had quickly grown tired of it all and moved residences as a result.
Harry found himself studying the tower with curiosity. Due to the nature of the subject, he'd never been there when the sky was not pitch-black and so had never had a moment to take it in fully. It was almost entirely deserted, too, as despite it being a couple's hotspot, the hour was decidedly too early for such activities.
Above his head, carved depictions of the sky's stars aligned in their constellations, a thousand years old and yet still immaculate. The moon, in all of its phases, too. There were tapestries adorning the walls too, formed in a time where the people of the world thought the threads of fate were held in the heavens above. The art moved along the stones, in eclipses lunar and solar, in northern lights and earthly equinox.
"I had hoped to find peace," spoke a familiar, feminine voice from behind Harry, their presence unnoticed in his perusal. "Yet, here you are."
Harry frowned, with his back still to the girl that had spoken up. She was from Beauxbatons, he assumed based on the accent. Probably one of Aimée's friends. "I'll be gone in no time."
Quickly, he approached Hedwig with his letter for Fleur. Yet strangely she refused to take the letter and, in an oddly human action, waved his attempts to give it to her with her wing.
Harry stared at the owl inquisitively, and Hedwig stared back, unblinking and unbothered. For a moment, there was a war of wills until, finally, Hedwig peered over his shoulder, the action causing Harry to follow the direction of her gaze.
Which, in turn, found him looking into the eyes of the intended recipient of his letter, Fleur Delacour.
"A letter, hmm," Fleur began to inquire, her eyes falling to the parchment in his hands. "To one of your conspirators, I assume?"
Harry's head tilted, his eyes squinting at her. "My conspirators?"
Fleur nodded her head. "I think I have the correct term in English, non?" She leaned against the strut of the tower's parapet. "You obviously could not have entered the tournament yourself; I could not do that. There must be someone helping you, therefore."
"You still think I'm in the tournament willingly?" Harry asked her. "Did the whole, 'outfly a dragon' idea seem like the sort of thing someone who's clever enough to get themselves selected would do?"
Fleur raised her index finger, as if to still him. "But it worked, did it not?" she asked, rhetorically. "Of course, you play the fool to the rest of the world. The poor, cute little fourth year, outmatched by everyone, but I see through you, 'Arry Potter. All of your networking, your manipulations, I see that too for what it is. You bring these people together only so that their union will help you later. You steal support from the real champions and I will not stand for it."
"Networking?" Harry blurted. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you think taking in so many of my schoolmates would go unnoticed?" Fleur asked. So she was talking about Aimée, it seemed. "You are growing your fanbase. Giving them love so that they will in turn love you, twisting their feelings."
Harry found himself lost for words. He blinked at her, for that was all he could muster in response for several moments. He placed his palms together and held them in front of his mouth, in order to smoother the heavy sigh that he couldn't prevent from escaping him.
Harry himself was not a trusting person. He'd spent the last years of his life uncovering plot after plot, and yet even he thought her theory was far-fetched. They approached him, for goodness sake.
"Do you have any idea of how insane you sound?" Harry asked of her. "What have I done to deserve this, anyway?" He threw his hands in the air, the tips of his fingers almost brushing against the diagrams of the constellations that hung above. "Can you not handle the spotlight away from yourself for one moment, is that it?"
She mirrored him, her hands flying skyward, and her left hand hit Andromeda. "Me? I'm the glory hound?" She began to walk toward him, her voice climbing as she did. "You're the one that couldn't stand a year without being the talk of the school, and so every year you concoct these lies to remain famous. Two years ago, a basilisk, and last year the dementors and now this year it is this."
Through the fog of whatever on Earth was happening then, Harry had to begrudgingly respect her commitment to her research. She'd really left no stone unturned in arriving at her conclusion. It was quite funny, really.
He laughed at the sheer absurdity of it. "God, how I wish you were right," he told Fleur. "My life would've been so much less stressful if I had any control over what was going on." He leaned on the parapet, settling against it. "Look, you clearly have some stuff of your own you're going through, and I quite honestly don't care. You can be wrong and spin these theories and it really doesn't bother me." He held the letter in his aloft, pushing it forward so that Fleur could grab it. "This letter was actually for you. I was hoping to get your help on something."
She swiped the letter from his hands.
"I'm sure no matter what I say, you'll turn it around until I'm somehow making you a pawn in my plans to control the entire world, but whatever," he continued. "Read it and believe it, if you want. Or don't."
Harry wondered then why it seemed that everyone always assumed the worst of him; it seemed to be the unifying factor of his entire life. If it wasn't the Dursley's it was Snape, if it wasn't Aunt Marge it was Draco Malfoy. No matter how unlikely it was that he was to blame, he was always where the finger was first pointed.
As Aimée said, it was probably his face.
Fleur's eyes roved over his letter with unabashed intensity, pulling the parchment close to her face as she scanned the page as though it were a legal document. Her expression didn't change, her eyes unfailingly scrutinising.
Only when she was finished did Fleur shift at all.
"I still do not believe you," Fleur stated, her eyes still not lifted from the page. One of her arms folded across her stomach, with the other still clutching to his letter. "However, it seems that both of us have plans that compliment one-another, and so I will listen to what you have to say."
Harry took a moment to absorb her words. "Complimentary plans?" he asked, of the air more than of her. "So what, Madame Maxime is interested in Hagrid too?"
"Perhaps," Fleur offered. "But the heart is a fickle thing and I would not see my mentor with someone who does not deserve her."
"And I wouldn't see Hagrid with someone that doesn't deserve him , either," Harry shot back.
Fleur took a step toward Harry. "Madame Maxime invented the Engorgement Charm!"
Harry took a step toward Fleur. "Hagrid invented Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
They stood stock still, only inches apart, neither willing to budge. They stared into one-another's eyes, searching for any failing, any weakness. Yet, neither found any.
"Let's do this, then," Harry said, first to speak and break the silence. "We'll get them together, they'll have the time of their bloody lives and then we never have to speak to one another ever again and I can go back to kicking your arse in the tournament."
"They're going to be so happy together," Fleur gritted out, defiant in her agreement. "And they'll be all the happier watching me lift the trophy over your fallen body."
The door to the top of the Astronomy Tower groaned open then, revealing Professor Sinistra holding a telescope in one hand and a jug of coffee in the other.
She was a young woman, almost certainly the youngest of all the Professors at Hogwarts. She was quite fascinating to look at, with flawless dark skin and sharp cheekbones, light green eyes and long hair worn in a braid. She was an acolyte of Professor Dumbledore, too, though unfortunately only in dress sense, her robes as bright and garish and horribly-patterned as the Headmaster's were.
She let out a sigh at the pair of them.
"Merlin, isn't it a little early for your teenage hormones to destroy my workplace?" the Professor asked. Then, rather than pour herself a mug of coffee, she drank it straight from the pot. "Usually you lot wait until it's dark before you ruin my life."
"We're - I - i-it's not," Harry spluttered in denial, just as Fleur hurried to do the same.
She waved them away. "Yeah, yeah. 'Oh, we got lost' or 'it's not what it looks like'. I've heard it all before," Professor Sinistra said, with a shake of her head. "Get lost, will you?"
Fleur was quick to rush off and away from the grumpy Astronomer. "I will see you soon," she told Harry as she fled. "And your French is awful !"
Harry had never been so offended in his life. His French was excellent .
"Potter, a word," she called out, just as he turned to follow in Fleur's footsteps. He turned back, meeting her eyes. She raised her wand, silently summoning coffee from God-knows-where and into her pot.
"Is there something wrong, Professor?" he asked tentatively. "I know I've been a little distracted lately in class, but with what's happening in my life at the moment, I think that's understandable."
She seemed shocked by his words. "No, you're doing fine. Unless you want to become an astronomer, in which case you're screwed," she told him, bluntly. "I wanted to speak about something slightly more informal."
Harry nodded.
"There is a rumour circulating in the staff room that you're the school matchmaker."
Harry found that worrying. Surely his teachers, some of the foremost wizards in the country, had better things to talk about than teenage gossip.
"I haven't broken any school rules," Harry was quick to tell her. "Or laws."
"There's a first time for everything, it seems," Professor Sinistra commented idly. "I want your opinion, Potter, not to reprimand you."
"Go on," Harry said, for want of anything better to say. The Yule Ball had really made his life absurd as of late.
She stood then, beginning to set up the telescope she'd been holding absentmindedly. "If I were to ask Charity to the ball, what would you imagine the likelihood of her saying yes would be?"
"Charity?" Harry queried, before seeking to clarify. "Are you talking about Professor Burbage?"
"No, I obviously mean the vague concept of charity, Potter," she muttered, her eyes transfixed as she shifted the dials along the length of her instrument's lens. "Of course I'm talking about Charity Burbage."
Harry sighed. "Well, I wouldn't really know. I can't say I've ever seen you two interact, and I don't really know that much about Professor Burbage," he told her. "Do you have any indication that she might like you?"
"Well, we have been seeing one-another for a few months," the Professor said. "But I'm still not sure that she likes me."
"After a few months, I would've thought that was a relatively safe bet."
"Still," added Professor Sinistra. "It just seems very sudden, doesn't it?" Beguilingly, she managed to continue fine-tuning the telescope whilst drinking her umpteenth coffee of that afternoon. "I mean, the Yule Ball is a big commitment, and I don't know if she's ready for that."
"Well, I'm sure if she's already going out with you, she's probably more than willing to go with you to a school dance," Harry said. "The worst that could happen is that she says no, and then you get to find someone who does see you for the great person you are. And, if she says no, you don't have to go to the Ball, which means you get a night in this tower without worrying about my fellow teenagers barging in and ruining it."
"You raise a good point, Mr Potter," she replied, at last lifting her eyes to meet his. "On second thoughts, I could just invite her here for the evening and show her the stars?"
"That does sound a lot more romantic than the ball, to be fair."
Professor Sinistra offered him a curt nod. "Thanks," she said. "You can forget about the homework over the holidays, if you want. One less paper to mark, anyway."
Harry left the tower quickly, his mind spinning. However, it most often settled on Fleur Delacour, and how on Earth he'd manage to get through the next few weeks without the two of them killing each other.
For Hagrid though, it was definitely worth it.
There you go!
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Until next time!