A/N: This is my first HP fanfiction. I always intended to write one but the fandom's so large, it's kind of intimidating! Hope you guys enjoy. I don't know if I'll stick with the 'T' rating but we'll have to see for now. Pairings will be Fleur/Harry and Draco/Hermione. Feedback/Constructive criticism would be nice and heavily appreciated to hear as I am very new to writing HP fics so please review if you have the time or like this fic. I would definitely appreciate it! Oh and it's hard to write Fleur since I have to remember her lines need to be frecnh-sounding like in the books/movies but hopefully I got her right without overdoing it. Slight Ron bashing also contained as well as manipulative Dumbledore...
Although she had not won the Triwizard Tournament, the outburst of cheers and congratulations from the other girls at Beauxbatons made it feel like she had. Almost everyone was joining in on the applause and many speaking highly of her courage and skill, especially during the infamous challenge involving the deadly dragon that almost burnt her to a crisp. Her heart was beating endlessly during the whole thing and while she had not won the tournament, she had definitely won a multitude of affection from various boys at Hogwarts. The 'boy who lived' interested her the most however. The image of his scar burnt right into her own memory. The boy spoke of strange tales and theories, mostly concerning a horrifying fact that the 'Dark Lord' has returned but of course, there was no way that was true. Fleur knew, along with everyone else, that 'he who must not be named' was dead. Dead a long time ago, the remains of him vanished into darkness. Gone, along with the dust and dirt he stood once upon. It wasn't too hard to believe that people still supported him but prophesying that he had returned from the dead was pretty ridiculous.
Yet the feeling of hidden truth haunted Fleur ever since the end of the tournament, when the winner was truly revealed. She couldn't get the dead body of the Hufflepuff boy out of her mind. Nightmares became more vivid and violent, screams of pain and terror raising in intensity as if she was actually there, witnessing Cedric's death first hand. She tried to ignore it, tell herself that the monster wasn't real but deep inside of her, she secretly knew that Harry was telling the truth. Yet she just didn't have the courage that everyone else thought she had to admit it.
She opened her eyes, trying to get comfy on the bed but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get to sleep. Although she tried blaming the terrible quality of the Hogwarts living conditions since it absolutely faltered in the comparison of the beautifully decorated and designed Beauxbatons bedrooms with silky luscious pillows made out of the fur of unicorns themselves, she knew she had too much on her mind to sleep peacefully tonight. The window next to her only showed the pitch-black night sky, glowing stars radiating the only source of light in the room and as she looked out of it, she witnessed a strange glowing light visible outside. She recognised what the light was immediately. The 'Lumos' spell. She planted her face against the window, trying to see who it was. It was definitely a student from Hogwarts but he was too far away to identify. Curiosity got the best of her and putting on some slippers, she exited the bedroom and made her way through the corridor and down the stairs, her footsteps silent and cold in order to not alert anyone of her presence. She opened the door to the outside courtyard, looking around for the light to guide her in the direction of the mysterious individual. She has no clue what this person was doing up so late at night but she just wanted to know. She followed the bright light to the bridge, where the student seemingly stopped and glanced at the frozen river, resting his hands on the snowy railing. The river was completely covered with ice and the cold made Fleur shiver delicately. The light disappeared in a flash as they stopped moving. She stepped onto the bridge and with a few deep breathes, she called out to the stranger...
"Hey. Who is zat?" cried out Fleur with intrigue, slowly stepping forward to get a better image of the student. This was definitely a boy. She could make out his raven black hair and a Gryffindor robe as well as some glasses. The boy turned around with a huff, sighing with annoyance at the French girl. Fleur gasped in shock. He was instantly recognisable with that lightning bolt scar. The stuff of legend. "Harry Potter!" Harry didn't seem to react with as much enthusiasm, instead glaring at her with indifference.
"Fleur? You followed me down here? That's interesting..." he said with a slight frown, rubbing his messy hair with his hand in order to make it look a little bit neater. Fleur was slightly flattered at the attempt regardless.
"I 'ad nothing better to do." Fleur responded, laughing it off. Silence surrounded the both of them, only the cold air whistling past them making any resemblance of a noise. In an attempt to break off the silence, she questioned Harry again politely. "Why are you here all alone so late at night?"
"I like being alone from time to time. It's peaceful. Helps me think." Harry responded blatantly, clutching his hands together from the cold. "Especially when everyone back in the common room is calling you crazy or a freak. I never asked for this. To be famous. To be the chosen one. Ron thinks it's great that everyone's gawping at your scar twenty-four hours a day. I'd gladly swap places with him any day of the week and watch how he realises that isn't the wonderful dream he thinks it is to be 'famous'." Harry ranted, looking back at the river with a scowl. His face was slightly red, the words that escaped him may not have been all deliberate. Fleur understood that he was just getting his grievances of his chest, an attempt to calm himself down. Fleur stood to the side of Harry, looking over the river. Despite the coldness, Fleur did not shiver but instead placed her hand on Harry's leaning arm softly. Harry's head did not turn from the river but his eye's were fixated to the right of him.
"I cannot lie. Zees is a terrible zituation for you Harry. I admeet I am sort of... Frightened. If he is back zen..." but Harry immediately cut her off, eyes widened and a look of shock on his pale, white face.
"Hang on. You believe me?" stated Harry in surprise, the impact of her words affecting him much more than she thought it would. Fleur sighed, brushing off the snow from her aqua blue jacket. She certainly didn't want to believe him. The most powerful dark wizard back at large. Just his name cast fear into even the toughest of hearts so obviously the scared majority brushed off Harry's claim, considering him paranoid but Fleur had no reason to doubt him. He was the saviour of her little sister and to that, Fleur decided that she owed him her own life. Harry was trustworthy and reliable in her mind, she was sure of it. Who else would murder an innocent Hogwarts boy in cold blood than he who must not be named himself.
"None want to believe you. My girls are denying it right now as we speak! They're being quite 'stupide' if I say so myself!" Fleur admitted, making Harry chuckle slightly at the random insult. "You zaved my seester Harry. I av no reason not to trust you." Harry smiled weekly at her honesty.
"Well at least that's one person who believes me. Well you, Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione. Although I'm not sure if they are saying it just because they're my friends or what. I don't put it past them to lie to me." Harry moaned, resting his head in his hand as he watched a delivery owl fly by.
"You need to have more faith in your friends." Fleur answered back thoughtfully and Harry nodded his head slowly.
"I know. I know. It's just I keep thinking everyone's against me. Not only do I have to deal with Voldemort coming back, (Fleur made a slight gag hesitating to stop him from saying his name) I have to deal with everything else. It's just so unfair..." Harry spoke sorrowfully, resisting the urge to make a tear fall down his face. Fleur, witnessing his upset demeanour, wrapped her arms around Harry and embraced him in a passionate hug. Although Harry was shocked at this unexpected hug, he didn't let go or push her away and the main reason was that an extremely attractive girl was barely a centimetre away from him right now. He couldn't help but immediately blush as she pushed forward to his own body, her hands stroking the back of Harry's neck. She let go after a few moments passed, the raven haired boy in utter disbelief as his green eyes were now focusing only on Fleur's delightfully happy face, Her face beaming with a golden smile.
"Hope zat made you feel better!" giggled Fleur. Despite her intention to make the hug a friendly gesture, Harry seemed to have considered it more than that. His blush rose in magnitude.
"Yeah... I mean it did. It totally did." Harry answered back quickly, rubbing the snow of his glasses. Then a loud "humph" came from behind the two. They both turned around frantically, realising Hermione was standing there looking rather bemused.
"Hermione? What are you doing here?" asked Harry. Fleur raised her eyebrows at the suspicious girl, only recognising her from the Yule Ball as Viktor Krum's date to the dance. Strangely, she was wearing her school robes this late at night while the other two were in their pyjamas and sleeping robes. Her face seemed to be on the urge of bursting into laughter.
"Me and Professor McGonagall were sorting out next year's timetable so I have permission to be out here so late at night. I've already finished so I was returning back to the dorms when I stumbled across..." she stopped suddenly, a snort came from her due to the fact that she was trying not to laugh rudely. Fleur rolled her eyes in annoyance, already disliking the immature girl.
"Nosy girl." whispered Fleur almost silently so only Harry could hear.
"Well we'd better get back to the common room Hermione. It's really late. Um... I'll see you at the end of year ceremony tomorrow I guess." Harry said kinda awkwardly, waving goodbye to Fleur. As the two ran off, Fleur could hear the girl giggling and clutching Harry's shoulders. She walked back to the Beauxbatons dorm rooms, wondering in her mind what Harry really witnessed that night of the finale. The ending of the triwizard tournament marked such a massive turning point that no one could truly forget. The innocent boy's death meant only one thing.
The Dark Lord had truly returned...
Fleur's early morning was typically uneventful. She got herself changed and spent a long time making herself look splendid. Although she always told her friends that the eyes of boys was something she didn't care much for, it was a pretty obvious lie. She loved being the centre of attention, especially when it came to really attractive boys but unfortunately the Durmstrang boys didn't seem to be too interested in the likes of dating. She followed the rest of the Beauxbatons students into the great hall, noticing Madame Maxime sitting next to the giant beast Hagrid. Olympus Maxime gave a polite nod in recognition and Fleur returned one. She sat down at the Ravenclaw table, next to a ditsy blonde that seemed to be reading a newspaper upside down. She was wearing a weird band of braclets with horrifically awful designs and in her pocket was some sort of hypnotic glasses that was quite discomforting to stare at. The strange girl gave a kind smile, putting down the paper on top of some chocolate cupcakes.
"I thought the maze was quite an easy task. Just give the plants some Laerium potion and they wouldn't attack you at all. Of course, you didn't know that! I'm Luna by the way. I'm a big fan!" the girl spoke excitedly but her face gave off a quite surprised look. Fleur struggled to respond but ended up giving the girl back a kind smile and a quick "Merci."which came across less sincere than she meant it to be. She turned her head to the Gryffindor table where she saw Harry speaking with a Scottish boy about something. She scoffed happily. He has so much more friends than he think! She stared at him for a while until Dumbledore's loud voice interrupted everyone's conversations. The voice almost made her jump.
"Silence!" shouted out Dumbledore and at that moment, all noise seem to cease to exist. "Before we begin the end of year festivities, we have an extremely important announcement to make." Fleur raised her eyebrows at the word 'we'. Madame Maxime and Igor Karkaroff got up from their seats and stood side by side to Dumbledore, both with stern, serious expressions on their face. Igor looked quite angry in fact, a scowl prominent on his face. Everyone's attention was undivided on the three leaders, no other sounds but their voices could be heard at all. "There has been careful deliberation and the staff from every school has thought long and hard about this decision. However we feel that what we are about to do will not only guarantee protection but it will also have the opportunity to save lives. Danger lurks in every corner, from the veil of darkness covering the tiniest of secrets to the blossoming flower that poisons even the most knowledgable of travellers. My top priority is the safety of all students, whether my own at Hogwarts to the ones Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Although you may not know it, the danger I have warned you about is coming. Faster than ever. We cannot avoid it, nor stand by idly as we let it consume us. We must fight it. That is why..." Dumbledore spoke emotionally and he motioned a hand gesture to Karkaroff, his twinkling eyes focusing on the once evil man.
"From next year onwards, everything will change for all of you. Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons will merge together as one. You will all stay, learn and live on these very grounds until the O.W.L.S. There will be no disputes or arguments on this matter. The decision has already been made." Karkaroff said quite uncharacteristically, barely any emotion featured on his face.
There was a massive uproar by all the students. Fleur gasped in shock, realising why this was happening. This was all because of the Dark Lord's return! It had to be! What Harry said was entirely true. Death was coming any moment...
A/N; Sorry about the short chapter but the next ones will be MUCH longer. Most likely around 4K each. Hope you guys enjoyed!