The Fine Art of Falling (in Love)
Chapter 1: Meetings and Beginnings
With Voldemort on the loose, changes happen, and some of the Beauxbatons students are sent to Hogwarts. One of the students especially becomes friends with Harry, and brings to light some feelings which Harry would rather have kept secret. This will be slash in later chapters, so be warned.
The first part of the title, The Fine Art of Falling, is a boysetsfire song, which is really good. I love them, they're brilliant.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in the Harry Potter universe.
***
When Harry and everyone else piled out of the train which had arrived at Hogwarts, they were greeted with even more confusion than usual. As well as the crowds of pupils trying to catch up on what everyone else had done, or outdo each other with 'holidays from hell' stories, there seemed to be another group of students, wearing a different set of robes, and looking rather cold. They were Beauxbatons students Harry realised, recognising the uniforms and pointing them out to Hermione and Ron. Ron was struggling with the large bag his mother had insisted he take, but looked up at the mention of the new students.
Harry saw Hagrid by the edge of the lake, and tried to signal him to ask what was going on. Hagrid didn't spot him, as he was too concerned with herding the first years together, and at the same time trying to catch the attention of Madame Maxime, the headmistress of Beauxbatons.
"We'll find out what's happening when we get to school" said Hermione, who was trying to persuade Crookshanks to behave, but failing, which didn't help her temper. "I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will tell us, so if we hurry up we might find out sooner."
She surged ahead, and Ron and Harry followed, finding it hard to keep up on the wet grass. It didn't help that they were trying to look at the Beauxbatons students at the same time, remembering the lovely Fleur Delacour, the Veela who had visited for the Triwizard tournament. They knew she wouldn't be there, since she would have left the school the year before, but they looked anyway, thinking that there might be another girl as lovely as she had been.
Unfortunately, before they had got very far, Ron managed to trip over Draco Malfoy's feet, spilling some of the contents of his large bag.
By the time the two of them had exchanged their ritual insults, it had started to rain, and they were all soaked and very glad of the warmth when they arrived at school. The sorting seemed to go more quickly than they remembered, although most of the pupils spent it wondering what the Beauxbatons students were doing there.
Professor Dumbledore stood up at the end of the sorting to explain. "As many of you have noticed, we have with us a large number of students from Beauxbatons. This is because their school was attacked over the holidays, and has been destroyed. We don't know who was responsible, but with Voldemort around we can't be too careful. Hogwarts and some of the other magical schools have volunteered to take some of the Beauxbatons students whilst their school is rebuilt, and we find out who was responsible for destroying it. I am sure you will all be as welcoming as possible, and we will all try to overcome any difficulties that may arise. I have assigned a number of the Beauxbatons students to each house, so that we are not too cramped, and I hope all you who have been here for a while will help the students to settle in and find their way around. Thank you all"
There was a hum in the hall when he finished talking, as everyone talked about what he had said. The holidays had been quite uneventful, and people were saying that Voldemort obviously hadn't risen after all, so this came as a bit of a shock. Some people wondered why they hadn't heard about it in 'Wizards' Weekly', but all speculation was stopped as the food arrived, and they started to eat.
**
When they got to the Griffindor tower Professor McGonagall was looking slightly annoyed, and waved both of them over. "New policy for this year." She said, "You're in smaller dorms anyway, because you're higher up in the school, and we're having one Beauxbatons student in each room. Ron and Harry, you're together in room six, and Hermione, you're in room eight. You'll see who you room mates are when you get there, I don't have time to read them out." she turned to the next group of students who were coming up, and Harry, Ron and Hermione were left to find their rooms.
Harry entered the room first, and was surprised to see someone already there, sitting on one of the three beds, and looking out of the window. He looked up as Harry came into the room, and smiled. Harry was rather surprised to see that his hair was in spikes, and died an unlikely combination of blue and black. The light shone on his face. He looked - nice, harry decided. When he spoke, it was in perfect English, with only a slight trace of a French accent. "Hi, I'm Ben, I'm from Beauxbatons. You're my new room mates, right?"
"Yeah, hi, I'm Ron" said Ron, who had followed Harry into the room. He was staring pointedly at Ben's hair, and Harry was worried that he was going to make an unfortunate comment on it, so he quickly started talking.
"I'm Harry. It's nice to meet you. I like your hair, it's really original. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen anyone with hair like it."
"Really? Well, you obviously haven't been going to the right places" said Ben with a smile which took the sting out of his words "I'm a punk. There's quite a good scene here in London, it's big enough to attract some good bands. I came over in the holidays to stay with my father. He and my mother are divorced, I live with her in France most of the time, but in the holidays I like to come over and see my Dad. I lived here for a while when I was young."
"That must be why you speak such good English" said Harry, sitting on one of the beds and claiming it as him.
"I'm bilingual, I speak both" said Ben "we have to do another language at school anyway. Lots of people did magical languages, but most of the ones who did English got sent here. There's a few people who don't speak it here, though, I feel sorry for them. Anyway, what's Hogwarts like, are the teachers alright?"
"Some of them aren't, Snape, for instance, watch out for him, he teaches potions." said Ron, a frown on his face as he remembered all the things Snape had done to them. "Some of them aren't so bad. Are you going to be having lessons with us?"
"I think so. I've got my timetable here, let's have a look."
They compared timetables, and found that Ben was in all their classes except Divination, when he did Arithmacy.
"Hermione does that" said Ron "You'll meet her later. She's a good friend of ours, and she's really good at homework. Sometimes I think she's obsessed with it."
"Not everyone hates work as much as you do, Ron" interjected Harry, playfully. "You will like Hermione, though, Ben, she's really nice."
"We should go and see her now, before someone comes around to check whether we're available to help with something" said Ron "You know how things always go wrong on the first day of term. Lets go and see how everyone else is, then we can get out of being volunteered to help some first year find their luggage. We can introduce you to everyone at the same time, Ben."
Harry and Ben agreed, and they all walked out of the room pleased about the new friendships they were making. Hermione, when she met Ben was as taken with him as Ron and Harry were, but she had to rush off and help her two roommates, who were both from Beauxbatons, to settle into their room. The boys spent the time talking to the Griffindors who had congregated in the common room until they were chased out of it by one of the teachers.
***
The first class of the first day of term was, unfortunately, potions. They had four Beauxbatons students in their class as well as the Griffindors and the Slytherins. Snape was looking as mean as ever, and Harry felt sorry for the poor Beauxbatons student who couldn't speak English, and her friend, who had to translate for her. Both of them got many evil glares from Snape, and complaints about interrupting the lesson.
The lesson itself wasn't too bad for Harry and Ron, who had been in the class the year before. Ben found he hadn't covered some of the work they had done, so would have to make it up by himself. He didn't seem to mind too much, though, and they all got through the lesson without any points being deducted from Griffindor, which was something of a miracle.
As usual, Draco Malfoy threw some nasty remarks at them, Ron in particular, but they weren't quite up to his usual standard. "Perhaps he's warming up" said Harry "getting ready to be really nasty later in the term." He explained to Ben about how they hated each other, but Ben didn't seem to understand how it had all begun.
When the lesson ended, Hermione rushed over to the two female Beauxbatons students and commiserated with them over Snape's attitude. Then she brought them over to Harry, Ron and Ben, and introduced them. "This is Nicole and Marie, they're both sharing my room" Then she introduced Harry and Ron to the girls, explaining to Marie in halting French who they were. "I went to France on holiday once" she said when she saw Ron's surprised stare. "I knew learning the language would be useful."
***
They were eating lunch when Harry asked Ben about punk music. "You should come and see some bands play, Harry." was Ben's reply.
"I'm not sure, I don't know if I'd like it."
"You would, I promise."
"We wouldn't be able to get out and see them anyway, when we're in school."
"What about next week?"
"What's special about then?"
"Haven't you heard? It's the Ministry of Magic elections. Basically, it's an excuse for everyone to go and shout at the wizards who run it. Madame Maxime always used to let us go to the French ones, and she's convinced Professor Dumbledore to let our parents take us if they can get to London. I'll just have to convince my dad to take us to a gig instead."
"Do you think he'd do that?"
"I'm sure of it. I'll find out who's playing, then I'll send him an owl."
A/N: More to come soon. Please tell me if you like it so far, I'm not sure about this one.