A/N: Admit it, in the HP realm, coming up with your own take on creature!Harry is eventually a given. With the kind of creatures JK Rowling gave us, it's irresistible.
Oh, and happy Labor Day (I didn't have to go to class! Yippee!). Since I finally finished this I'm posting it partly to prove that I'm still alive (real life can be so interfering) and partly to prove--to myself--that I can still finish something, but that still leaves me with the reality that I'm a very slow writer... sigh... Further info on upcoming stories on my profile now if you're interested.
Also, this oneshot is not supposed to be this long. I'm not sure how it happened, but in my head it's only about half this...
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Yes Ron, Harry is a Veela
Harry had actually been acting oddly on the train bearing him and his friends back to Hogwarts for their fifth year, just not so out of character that Hermione noticed. She normally would have noticed any difference, especially since the last time she had seen him he had still been dealing with the aftereffects of having witnessed Cedric Diggory's death and Lord Voldemort's rebirth, and she had fully intended to be however attentive and supportive Harry needed as his only close friend with a greater emotional range than a teaspoon... but really, her failure to follow through on her intentions was perfectly justified. She was reading.
Not just reading, but reading the very last (very long) chapter of a truly fascinating tome on the ancient wizarding law and order that eventually birthed their own modern Ministry... she had to finish the last chapter, there was plenty of time for everything else after that!
Thus, the train ride was a blur to her memory, and she only became aware that Harry was different at the Welcoming Feast when she finally laid her book aside with a deep sigh, loaded her plate, and, allowing herself only a brief moment of regret, mentally shook her head briskly and resettled into her usual mindset of focused practicality dealing with the everyday world around her. The first thing she noticed was that Lavender and Parvati, her overly socially-oriented (and totally airheaded, in her unvoiced opinion) roommates were seated on either side of Harry, giggling and taking turns attempting to feed him as though he had lost the ability to do so himself.
Harry was staring straight ahead at nothing as though trying to erase their presences by simply refusing to recognize them, which Hermione merely thought showed greater restraint and maturity than squirming around trying ineptly to deflect them like she would have expected from him last year. The only behavior she wondered about was Lavender's and Parvati's. They'd never shown any particular interest in Harry before.
Then she noticed that Ginny, sitting further along the Gryffindor table, was staring at Harry with unfocused eyes while moving her fork vaguely around her plate rather than eating, but Hermione dismissed that as normal also--she was crushing again?--until she noticed that Romilda Vane, across from Ginny, was doing exactly the same thing. Hermione didn't know enough about Romilda to know if she had a thing for Harry, but she did know enough about Ginny to know that the two girls had nothing to do with one another--although, granted, sitting across from each other could easily be coincidence and neither of them seemed aware enough of their surroundings to notice that they were mimicking each other.
Right.
Suspicion finally aroused, Hermione turned to Harry and took her first good look at her friend since their parting last summer... and frowned. He was still sitting there, straight as a rod, staring like a blind man, making no movement even to eat.
This meal was lunch and dinner--excluding the sweets trolley on the train, which didn't count--Hermione suddenly frowned further, a disconnected snippet of memory surfacing in relation to sweets that her brain had filed without bringing to conscious attention at the time:
"Any reason you were just giving the trolley lady the eye, mate?"
"No."
"Okay then."
Hermione huffed to herself and settled back on the bench. Ron was an idiot, same old, same old, but Harry--the trolley witch? She had to be at least sixty! And all the explanation Ron needed was 'No, I wasn't giving her the eye'?
"Harry," Hermione said significantly, keeping in mind that she wasn't possessed of full information yet and therefore had no right to judge prematurely.
He turned his head in her direction without actually seeming to focus on her, making Lavender and Parvati pout and flutter as if their tea-party doll was acting undirected.
"Harry," Hermione repeated firmly.
He looked at her with oddly blank but vivid green eyes. After a moment he said, "Yes?"
"You're attracting the attention of every girl at the table. Stop that."
His expression (or lack thereof) changed, but too vaguely for her to classify as puzzled or a frown. "Can't," he said after another moment.
Hermione marshalled her patience, reminding her intellect that different behavior posed a challenge to solve rather than just another reason to bang her head against the nearest flat surface until all the drivel around her withered away as it surely someday must. Besides, he was a boy. Intelligent responses were not exactly in his natural repertoire.
All right. Think. Why was Harry suddenly attracting the attention of every girl--no, make that everyone--at the Gryffindor table? Of course, a whole table focused on one person was naturally attracting the curiosity of the nearer two tables, and why leave the Slytherins out when the entire rest of the room was all a magnifying lens for the Boy Who Lived? What had he done this time...?
"What's got you so preoccupied?" she decided to ask, figuring she could at least possibly take care of whatever cause that had.
Harry took a moment to think about it. Of course. Why break his apparent new habit by becoming verbal.
Then, having metaphorically chewed over and digested the whole five-word question, he did unexpectedly give a real answer, calmly offering, "I want to find a mate."
Having delivered his bombshell, he picked up his fork and began placidly eating. Lavender and Parvati sat like statues on either side of him, mirroring the rest of the Gryffindor table within hearing range.
Hermione's brain kicked into high gear from neutral, turning over every logical and rational possibility for such a statement that occurred to her and ordering and filing them all away for in-depth research at the soonest available opportunity. She kept only enough presence of mind to hear Ron say, somewhere in the background, "So let's start up the Quidditch tryouts soon as we get upstairs, and we'll make plenty of new friends training up the new team."
Boys.
A small side part of her brain noted and filed away that Ginny had kindly picked up an empty bowl from somewhere and smacked her brother upside the head with it. She filed a mental note with it to thank the younger girl later and continued thinking.
Considering Hermione's near-constant research into nearly everything since she'd entered the wizarding world five years before, it didn't take her long to come up with the likely class of answer to Harry's behavior--and, unfortunately, the most likely specific answer immediately followed. Hermione nearly dropped her head on the table and groaned. She would have liked to remove the idea, and the evidence in Harry's behavior, roll them up neatly into a ball and deposit them in a muggle garbage incinerator never to be seen or heard from again. It was going to make so much trouble!
But she didn't have that luxury, and she knew it, so she sat up straight and forced herself to announce her conclusion: "Creature heritage."
Despite the lump on his head he was massaging, Ron turned and gave her a puzzled look through the mouthful of something disgusting he was still chewing. "Hrnh?"
Ginny thunked her head on the table. Without raising it, her hand began to grope for the empty bowl again. There were some blessings to being an only child.
"Honestly, Ron!" Hermione said, exasperated. "Have you ever even once noticed that you grew up in this world and I didn't? Shouldn't you know some of these things?"
"You find everything out 'cause you didn't grow up here," Ron protested, mercifully having finally swallowed. "I just hang around playing Quidditch and chess. Course you know more."
He offered her an ingratiating smile that Hermione was displeased (slightly, anyway) to realize actually mollified her a little. It was nice to be recognized. But that was beside the point right now.
"Creature heritage," she repeated, giving herself a mental shake and turning her mind firmly to the subject in front of her. "Harry did something this summer to wake up his creature heritage."
"Maybe on his birthday?" Lavender suggested helpfully from Harry's side.
Hermione fixed a polite smile on her face rather than rolling her eyes. "No, Lavender, unusual magic or emotion tends to wake up inherited traits, not particular times or ages. It really doesn't matter what caused it." Probably survivor's guilt over Cedric's death, but of course--unfortunately--that would only occur to people with greater emotional ranges than teaspoons. "The problem now is dealing with the result."
"What is he?" Parvati asked eagerly from Harry's other side.
Hermione restrained herself with great forebearance from showing what she thought of that question. "It's quite simple." And obvious. The TriWizard Tournament had been just last year! "Harry's a veela."
Ron spewed a blast of pumpkin juice over the unfortunate students sitting opposite him across the table. Hermione made a mental note to never sit there relative to him.
"Harry's a guy!" he objected, taking no notice of his ill-pleased victims.
Hermione finally let herself roll her eyes. "And how exactly do you imagine a species can perpetuate itself without both males and females, Ron? Harry's a 'guy' veela. I can't believe it never occurred to me before; from all the stories his father obviously had veela blood too..."
"How so?" Ginny asked from down the table, glancing toward Harry, who continued to sit vaguely and let Hermione's roommates play with him as they wanted.
Well, that ignorance was less galling, since it was a male-only trait, but hadn't anyone else researched veelas after one entered the Tournament last year?
"Because--" Hermione stopped suddenly. A horrible probability had just dawned on her. "Ron, did Malfoy and his goons visit on the train today? Don't give me that look; I was reading. They did, didn't they? And were their usual charming selves. Merlin's balls!"
Without another thought for the effect of her uncharacteristic use of profanity she jumped up, left the table, and strode rapidly across the hall to the Slytherin banner, stopping by Draco Malfoy.
"Be nice to Harry this year, Malfoy," she ordered with magnifying-lens intensity.
"Excuse me, mudblood?" Malfoy returned, scowling.
"For your own sake, ponce!" Hermione warned. "Be sugary sweet or--"
"Hey, Scarhead, getting your friends to fight for you now?" Malfoy drawled, looking past her. Hermione barely winced and turned to see, as feared, that Harry had come up behind her. As feared, he was looking at Malfoy with evident interest rather than dislike. Not good.
"Hullo Malfoy," Harry said placidly after a moment, still looking.
Malfoy was starting to look slightly unnerved. "What's up with him anyway?" he demanded, glancing back to Hermione. "Finally lost it, have you, Potty? Can't say I'm surprised, the way you--" He broke off as Harry took another step closer, looking even more interested.
"Malfoy," Hermione hissed, stepping between them and firmly restraining her friend from approaching any closer. "Harry has veela heritage. Active. That means he's looking for a mate and the one he wants is the one who resists him most! Stop proving you're not under his allure! Be nice!"
"Are you absolutely barmy, mudblood?" Malfoy demanded. Hermione could have strangled him for proving how little he ever listened at this particular time and place.
Harry somehow edged around Hermione and into Malfoy's personal space without seeming to move, startling the blond into bristling and drawing himself up like an indignant peacock. Before either of the boys could do anything to further escalate the situation Hermione whipped out her wand and jabbed it in Malfoy's direction, furiously muttering a Confundus Charm--there wasn't much point in putting one on Harry.
Malfoy started to jerk away, then stopped, blinked, and looked around with a vaguely pleasant, blank gaze that was scarily similar to Harry's expression. Harry leaned closer in apparent curiosity. Malfoy noticed him--and smiled.
Hermione sighed in relief. Confunding the prat had made him susceptible to Harry's newly appealing aura. Harry straightened and turned his attention elsewhere, momentarily disappointed.
"Come on Harry, finish your dinner," Hermione instructed briskly, taking him by the arm to guide him back to the Gryffindor table.
He went without complaining. It was going to get ridiculously tedious if Harry didn't start settling back to his usual self soon; she'd have to look up the details of mate-seeking male veelas as soon as she had a free period tomorrow. Unless she were to borrow Harry's cloak and go to the library tonight... it wasn't as if he would object in this state, and things could so quickly and easily turn disastrous if he didn't get at least a little control over himself...
But Hermione was a prefect this year. Prefects upheld rules, not broke them whenever convenient.
Lavender and Parvati reclaimed their doll as soon as Harry got within reaching distance. He sat back down between them, by all indications perfectly willing to be petted and played with.
"Keep an eye on him, Ron," Hermione directed, coming to a decision. There were no rules about prefects upholding expectations. "Get him to eat something if you can."
Lavender and Parvati (surprise surprise) promptly took up the delightful kindergarten game of attempting to feed their oversized baby.
"Why, where are you going?" Ron asked, looking puzzled.
"To the library." She collected the bag she had kept from the train with her schoolbooks already organized in it and made sure her plate was neat and clean--no need to make any more work for the Hogwarts house elves than absolutely necessary.
"But dinner's not over!" Ron protested, looking as if the concept of leaving when food was still on the table was entirely alien. Hermione disliked and disapproved of Malfoy and every deliberately unpleasant thing he ever said to her and the boys, but sometimes she had to wonder about the faint possible truth behind his barbs about the Weasley clan barely providing for all their members. Surely Ron's appetite couldn't be all natural.
"I'll see you in the tower before curfew," Hermione replied, wasting no more time unproductively. She hurried off to the library, thankful that the librarian Madam Pince was so devoted to the books that she wasn't at the welcoming feast and by virtue of her presence the library technically was open. She spent an hour or so going over every book with useful information on veelas she could find, which said information proved appallingly scanty, and finally headed up to Gryffindor with a resigned sigh. She had a backup course already plotted, but it wasn't likely to be pleasant. Nor was it nearly prompt enough for her tastes.
The next morning, before the term's first classes even started, a nondescript Hogwarts owl set off bearing a letter addressed only by name, inscribed with a precise angular script much neater than most students' but quite a degree more brusque and with less thought given than the writer usually devoted. I don't expect you to know of me from last year, but I'm a Hogwarts student and a friend of one of the brothers of a certain Bill Weasley I've heard you do know, part of the message inside ran. I'm writing to ask for your personal perspective on a relative crisis that has come up here at Hogwarts...
While the owl was away, most of Hogwarts went on as it always did--all except for the little knot of 'specialness' that always hung around an oblivious Harry. After their first shared class in which he sat there the whole time like a benevolent zombie, Hermione lost patience with the ridiculous charade and pulled him and Ron into a side corridor immediately after class let out, throwing up a quick attention deflecting charm to prevent anyone else from following after the unconscious magnet. Fortunately Ron was beginning to feel a little less tolerant of his friend's behavior too.
"You going to snap him out of it?" he asked Hermione hopefully as she erected the charm, not even noticing, of course, the complexity and degree of attention required. In fact that particular charm wasn't even in their year's curriculum. Hermione had an untested hypothesis lingering in the back of her brain that Ron's attention was directly related to any smell catalogued as "food" or any sound catalogued as "Quidditch" with about two gray cells left over for all other everyday requirements. It would certainly explain his constant need of her help with homework.
"I'm going to try," Hermione answered tersely, aware that she was being forced to operate on incomplete information and that the only methods that offered likely successes weren't guaranteed to be very welcomed by the recipient. "Aguamenti."
A jet of water shot from her wand and doused Harry from head to foot. He jumped, looking more aware than before judging from his startled expression, but only turned mutely hurt and reproachful huge green eyes on her in response.
Veela, Hermione reminded herself, refusing to succumb to the desire to feel sorry for him, and briskly incanted the Bubble-Head Charm.
"What's that for?" Ron asked intelligently. Hermione ignored him, focusing on Harry, mentally crossing her fingers--although she was too rational to give any real credence to such superstitions--that her hypothesis would be accurate.
Harry reacted slowly. He blinked, rolled his eyes around lazily and then tilted his head as well to get a view of the faint shimmer now enclosing his head in a globe, and finally began to look puzzled. Hermione waited another moment, until he blinked again, drew in a slightly deeper breath than normal, then held it a moment, blinked, and let it out as his expression changed, faster than before, to lost and mournful.
"Harry?" Hermione checked, cautiously pleased at the seeming evidence of success.
"Hermione?" His voice sounded as though it came from a slight distance, presumably due to passing through the 'bubble' membrane. "Can you get this off me?"
"No," Hermione said, allowing herself much greater pleasure but quelling traces of relief. The experiment had worked. "The charm's filtering out everyone's pheromones before they reach you, Harry, and since that seems to be keeping you lucid I'm not going to take it off. You'll have to adjust, unless you can learn to control your allure on your own."
"What?" Ron asked.
"But it feels... lonely," Harry said.
Hermione noted, categorized, and filed that information as the remaining piece that made Harry's zombie-like reaction understandable. "You're a part-veela, Harry," she began, just to make sure he knew--it didn't seem likely for him to have found out shut up in the muggle world over the summer. "You seem to be giving off an allure essentially non-stop, which I suppose is reasonable given you said you're looking for a mate, but as a veela you're also much more receptive to everyone else's pheromones than you were before."
"What--" Ron started.
"Think of allure as an invisible sort of wave that hits everyone near the source," Hermione explained with great seeming patience and none genuine. An interruption deserved no better. "Pheromones are like the tiny invisible particles of air that carry the allure to everyone nearby."
Ron looked dubious. Then, just as she was opening her mouth to continue her original explanation, he spoke up again. "But then how come Harry's affected?"
Hermione sighed. Did he have no idea how much concentration it took to hold one train of thought in waiting while considering and expanding a second? "All right, never mind the last explanation. Pheromones are... tiny invisible particles that everyone gives off, Ron, and that everyone else receives, that are responsible for things like finding another person appealing. They're similar to hormones. Harry's allure is probably extremely powerful pheromones, but he's still receiving everyone else's normal pheromones, except now he's more sensitive to them, so it's like they're stronger to him."
Ron looked confused.
"How come?" Harry asked. "I don't remember Fleur liking anybody else like they liked her last year."
Pleased by the question suggesting a modicum more intelligence, Hermione patted his arm and went back to her original explanation consolingly, "Well, Harry, I suspect you're reacting so much more because... well, you didn't get much affection as a child. You've never mentioned even liking the Dursleys, you know. You're probably overcompensating a bit for that lack by wanting a mate so strongly right off the bat, and you're getting a bit lost in the responses you can feel now from your new allure."
If he was really as attention-starved a child as Hermione privately suspected, he had probably been getting metaphorically drunk on every positive emotion around him with a teetotaler's instant addiction and incapability of holding it.
"Oh," Harry said slowly. Since she wanted him to put more effort into thinking again, she waited quite patiently to let him try doing so and to encourage any results.
"I do want a mate," he said after a moment had passed in silence, Ron off to the side with his face alternately screwed up or scowling deeply in thought. Hermione continued ignoring him since after four years no effort seemed likely to improve his thinking ability.
"Of course you do," Hermione agreed soothingly. The Bubble-Head Charm could only filter out outside influences, not his own new internal drives and needs. "But you also have school to concentrate on, Harry, and the teachers will get upset if you distract everyone else from lessons too."
Harry looked unhappy, but didn't argue. Hermione was pleased. Then he asked, almost adorably, "But I can have a mate?"
Hermione caught herself when she started to pat his arm again, and realized that--of course--the Bubble-Head did not filter anything leaving the membrane (otherwise it would suffocate anyone it was used on), so his allure was still active. She refocused her mind briskly to dismiss the effect and said, "Of course you can, Harry." Fifteen was terribly young to be looking for that sort of thing to her, but she acknowledged that Harry was different and with the kind of life he led any new source of support would probably be needed and should be encouraged--but looking in people like Malfoy... the Bubble-Head was definitely staying. "But school too, all right?"
"All right," he agreed. Hermione, just for a moment, felt justifiably victorious.
"Hey!" Ron said suddenly, the light of discovery in his eyes when the other two jumped and turned to him. "You mean if I'd used this charm on myself last year I wouldn't've been affected by Fleur?"
"Yes," Hermione reluctantly confirmed, suspicious of what prompted such a seemingly random question.
His eyes lit further. "Which might've made her notice me..."
Maybe it was Harry's allure, Hermione told herself uncharitably. Maybe it somehow had the effect of strengthening old crushes in stupid straight males rather than strengthening interest in the likewise male source. That could be an interesting research topic some day she gave up on any hope for the entire sex. At least Harry could at least partially blame non-human physiology now.
"Although that is, of course, irrelevant now, as she's dating your older brother," Hermione reminded Ron sweetly, and marched off to see if the owl she had sent off had returned yet, dispelling her privacy charm as she went.
Four more days passed before a reply arrived for her, four days in which Harry made repeated trips to the Hospital Wing to erase the influence of surreptiously slipped love potions and missed nearly half his classes from wandering off in a pleasant heedless daze because his idiotic fellow students kept removing the Bubble-Head in an apparent belief of helping him out. Hermione, in her mantle as Prefect, started to develop a legendary reputation for subtracting points and assigning detentions to anyone who almost so much as breathed in the hapless part-veela's direction, her temper increasingly short-fused despite her best efforts to remain calm and logical.
Malfoy did not help the situation by refusing to be anything but his usual insulting obnoxious self. Hermione formed a new private hypothesis which she had no time to investigate that the blond pureblood was simply not capable of learning anything related to acceptable social behavior, probably mostly because he was just too thick. By Saturday morning, just as the owl post was arriving, he stormed into the Great Hall in unusual disarray howling, "I swear, if that effing poofter comes near me ONE MORE TIME, I'm going to CASTRATE HIM! That little--"
"Language, Malfoy," was all Hermione said absently, since he had proved deaf to all mentions of positive action he could take to improve his situation himself and she wasn't one to keep beating a dead horse (although the idea of beating Malfoy was occasionally extremely tempting). Her eyes lit up as an unfamiliar owl landed in front of her place at the table, and she proceeded to ignore the ferret completely even though she seemed to be the one he was mainly directing his rant at--Merlin knew why.
She tore her letter open with far less care than normal and skimmed its entire contents as much as possible first rather than settling in to read it comprehensively, so anxious was she for actual useful information, but her first reaction was a scowl. Fleur apparently considered Harry's development hilarious, and was less than subtle about expressing it. Nor did she offer any facts or advice to help Hermione deal with it--she only mentioned, just vaguely enough to be worrisome, that she should have known and that her little sister was going to be impossible about it from now on. Hermione sat and stewed. Fleur had never been one of her favorite people after meeting her in passing last year, and after a letter like that it was almost certain she never would be.
More importantly, why--how--should she have known? Had there been signs before last summer that Hermione had somehow missed, despite being quite possibly Harry's closest friend throughout the entire Tournament? And what did Fleur's little sister have to do with anything?
Malfoy started yelling again, probably from being ignored, which disturbed Hermione's introspection and increased her already-pent-up irritation another notch. Fortunately for Malfoy (and Hermione's permanent record), one of the professors paid attention to him instead and packed him off to the Slytherin table with a sound scolding.
Hermione sent another dirty glance at her letter, reluctantly stuffed it into her bookbag, and left breakfast to, yet again, go find Harry and make sure he and everyone in his proximity were disengaged from each other and in as close to their right minds as possible. It was too much to hope that he would still be in bed as he had been when she came down to eat--that would be too easy. Perhaps once Hermione had been that naive, but the past neverending week and the castle's inhabitants had left her forever disillusioned in that regard.
Malfoy started up yet again as she left the Great Hall. It was too much, she decided perfectly calmly. He was becoming too big a nuisance, and he'd had more than a reasonable number of chances already.
"Ron," she said when she entered the Gryffindor common room.
At least half the present students' heads popped at the sound of her voice, most with distinctly wary expressions even though she hadn't called their names, because Gryffindors were not as thick as Slytherins would have everyone else believe and it had been increasingly circulating among them that the bushy-haired know-it-all was soon going to blow. Hermione's reputation had become such that none of them wanted to be anywhere near the crossfire zone when that happened.
"Yeah, Hermione?" Ron answered with a yawn, shuffling down the stairs from the boys' dorm with his red hair sticking up every which way and both his shoes completely untied. Hermione put down his obliviousness in this case to not having woken up yet, since even she was aware that her housemates were starting to tiptoe around her (the ones that weren't fixated on Harry to the exclusion of almost all else but breathing, of course).
"I need you to do me a favor," Hermione said calmly. Ron started to visibly hesitate. "Go hex Malfoy."
Ron instantly brightened, and not a few of the other Gryffindors pretending to not be listening forgot to not look interested. "Really?" he asked eagerly, stumbling down the rest of the stairs in a sudden hurry. "You mean it? Even though I'm supposed to be setting an example for the firsties now and--"
"I mean it. Just this once," Hermione said firmly. "And if you try not to get caught doing it, you can keep hexing him longer."
Ron beamed. His wand was already in his hand as he strode through the portrait hole, making Hermione briefly wonder if he even intended to actually skip breakfast for once for the cause. Of course if Malfoy was still in the Great Hall, which was likely, surely even Ron would have the sense to act normally and wait for a better opportunity later... well, that didn't matter. Even if he got caught, Ron motivated by Hermione's explicit permission was sure to keep trying for at least the rest of the day.
"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked of the general crowd remaining, and several of the younger girls started glancing at each other and shifting in their seats and then studiously trying to look perfectly normal. Hermione narrowed in on Romilda Vane, who was one year below her, and proving positively psychotic when it came to throwing herself at the Boy Who Lived. She also appeared to be almost as incapable of learning as Malfoy. "I said where's Harry?"
Romilda shifted and slid her gaze away to the left and didn't look the least bit guilty. Hermione palmed her wand and marched over to loom above her, while everyone else watched in rapt silence to see if this would be the straw that finally caused their prefect to break and kill someone.
Five minutes later Hermione was marching Harry off to the Hospital Wing to flush yet another love potion out of his system, Romilda Vane had slid from her chair onto the floor under the table that had been in front of her without even appearing to notice, and the rest of the common room was sighing in disappointment and turning back to whatever they had been doing before Hermione's entrance. Hermione had a distinct lift in her step and had to suppress a smirk when she thought of their blatancy. As if she had that little control.
Besides, she had Ron. With all the homework help she'd given him over the years she could have him take out the entire tower and he'd still owe her.
Since it was the first day of the weekend, and therefore there were no classes, after Nurse Pomfrey released Harry Hermione took him outside to spend most of the day as far away and hidden from the rest of the castle population as was possible while still staying on school grounds. But it was a futile effort, as the rest of the castle population had apparently all spontaneously come up with the exact same idea. By dinnertime Hermione had given over her plan to start setting Ron on everyone who annoyed her past bearing (not that she ever really would, of course) and was mentally compiling a list of long-lasting, deviously painful hexes and jinxes that would be technically untraceable to the caster even if she was the only student capable of finding and using them.
Then, at dinner, the fireplace at one end of the Great Hall that always provided a cheery glow even on warm days suddenly flared up and turned bright green, and out of it tumbled a little blond girl dressed in sky blue. Those at the closest tables stopped eating and stared, which led to those at the other tables stopping and staring, while the little girl picked herself up and dusted herself off with calm perfect self-possession. Then she marched forward until she was standing in the middle of the four House tables and declared, in piping French (which Hermione distractedly wondered who besides herself could understand), "Where is Harry Potter?"
Most of those present continued to stare at her with total incomprehension. Harry perked up a bit, recognizing his own name of course, and craned his head to see over the heads of those sitting opposite him.
The little French girl, who was giving Hermione an inexplicable but increasing sinking feeling in her stomach, brightened as she spotted him and marched over until she was standing right behind his seat, looking even younger in close proximity to the teenagers on the bench. Without a pause she leaned forward and kissed him directly on the mouth, with an audible smack, then sat down between him and Parvati without any apparent discomposure, although Parvati looked disgruntled at being forced to scoot to the side to make room for her. "Feed me," she directed him imperiously with a lisping accent.
Hermione thought, with an internal huff of completely unanalyzed disapproval, that she looked far too young to be going around kissing boys like that, no matter who Hermione suspected she was. Harry, with a vaguely bemused but not displeased expression, complied with her terse English by looking over the contents of the table in front of him and offering her a serving of shepherd's pie. Everyone else just kept staring, looking more dumbfounded than ever.
The little girl inspected the dish offered for a moment, then pushed it away shortly with a small hand and demanded of him again, "Sweet!"
Harry replaced the shepherd's pie and considered the "sweet" choices available since dessert hadn't yet appeared. He tried offering her some Yorkshire pudding, at which she scrunched up her mouth and regarded it as dubiously as though it had personally displeased her. Except that she did condescend to try a bite, after Harry handed her one of his own utensils (which, thankfully, he hadn't yet used himself). Apparently inspired by the success, Harry went on selecting bits of other dishes and adding them to her plate of his own volition, while she began swinging her legs and looking around the Hall as she ate, ignoring him completely.
"Is this a nice school?" she inquired, sounding more like an ordinary little girl, although she was seemingly oblivious to the increasing annoyance of those around her at such high-handedness from such a tiny stranger--except for the nearest boys, who didn't appear to have gotten that far yet.
"Keep using English," Hermione advised absently, still watching her and Harry's every action closely with all possible attention devoted to analyzing them, which therefore left her surprisingly relaxed compared to everyone else and her own self the past week. "It never hurts to practice."
The little girl made a cute moue, which Hermione wouldn't have been the least surprised to find out was practiced, then said airily, "I am Gabrielle. 'Oo are you?"
"I know," Hermione said. The vaguely familiar name only confirmed her suspicion--this was Fleur's little sister. Depending on how the rest of this evening went, Hermione decided, she might well give in to the irrational female instinct to hate all veela women. Or she might wind up with Fleur Delacour for the sister-in-law of her best friend. "I'm Hermione."
"Ah! 'Oo are othair boy's victim!" Gabrielle said happily, still swinging her legs. Hermione smiled fixedly and reminded herself that she was the one who had just told the girl to use English and all the evidence so far suggested she didn't have a masterful grasp of it, so she really couldn't logically be faulted for that. "We be friends?"
"Er," Hermione said, her smile slightly more strained, as she tried to figure out an appropriate response, because she normally didn't get on well with ordinary girls, much less veelas. Much less want to.
"Hey," someone further down the table (female, of course) snapped at the uninvited guest. "Aren't you going to tell Harry thank you already?"
Harry and Gabrielle both paused, Harry a split second after Gabrielle did. Gabrielle glanced briefly at him, which Harry immediately noticed because he was paying more attention to her than the girl down the table, and then Gabrielle deliberately turned away. "No," she said, seemingly giving no more thought to the subject.
Several people's jaws dropped. Hermione, who had been bending most of her mighty intellect on the two across from her and again rapidly analyzing every tiny nuance she caught, hesitated for a second over her own ingrained reservations, but then dismissed them with a mental flick and caught Ginny's gaze, as she was sitting right next to the girl who had spoken. Ginny also hesitated, biting her lip and glancing back with clear doubt, but then she shrugged and, under the table, raised her foot and brought it down solidly on that of the girl beside her. The girl yelped and ducked to clutch at it, distracting most of the others from their growing ire.
"I think we should all try to make Gabrielle feel welcome while she's here," Hermione said loudly, although her sincerity rang false even to her own ears. Everyone stared at her, none looking convinced, but Hermione had just spent the past week building up her reputation as quite possibly the most dangerous person in Gryffindor tower--who still had yet to blow at full steam. She stared around back meaningfully. Every single one of them dropped their gazes and silenced their mutters, although the air of the table remained nothing like welcoming.
Gabrielle didn't appear to notice. Neither did Harry, who continued observing her carefully every time she tried a bite of a new food in between searching for other things to put on her plate.
After dinner the Headmaster called Gabrielle up to presumably discuss what she was doing there, and Hermione and Ginny united as Harry's guards and guides to get him back to his dorm after the unexpected drama. (Ron was still preoccupied hunting Malfoy.) Harry evinced a desire to linger in the Great Hall rather than going with them agreeably, and Gabrielle glanced back at him as she marched off toward the head table in response to Professor Dumbledore's summons. Hermione, feeling vaguely repulsed and completely unlike herself, managed to wink broadly at the French girl since they weren't exactly in a position to talk, and the little blond turned back and continued on, looking satisfied.
"I'm assuming there is a reason you actually supported that little tart rather than turning her into a quivering puddle like Vane?" Ginny grumbled as the girls led Harry down one of the corridors to a lesser-used staircase, a corridor virtually empty thanks to Hermione's new reputation and voluminous glares at anyone who had taken even a step in the same direction.
Hermione sighed. She got on reasonably well with Ginny, and she knew Ginny had probably been harboring a crush on Harry again ever since he'd started letting off the veela allure. So she wasn't likely to appreciate the older witch's decision.
"She was already getting Harry in hand in less than an hour."
Ginny looked both taken aback and a little upset, so Hermione added in explanation, "I haven't been able to find much about veela in the library, but I did read that they're more likely to be interested in other veela than straight humans, even the ones with diluted heritage."
Ginny pinched her lips together and said nothing.
"Is Gabrielle coming?" Harry asked, startling Hermione a little when she realized she'd forgotten to cast the Bubble-Head Charm after leaving the Great Hall. That proved the little girl had had at least a temporarily lingering effect on him.
"Maybe," she answered distractedly, patting his arm. Ginny glanced at him sidelong, then sighed and took one of his hands. Harry ambled along between them with his usual new amiability, and the three made it back to the tower without incident.
The next morning over breakfast the Headmaster rose and announced (with a noticeable twinkle in his eye, which Hermione was sure wouldn't fool anyone) that last night's visitor, Gabrielle Delacour, would be staying on at the school for a little while as part of a special foreign relations program with France, and he hoped everyone would help make her feel at home. Gabrielle skipped over to join Hermione at the Gryffindor table, bubbling over with accented cheer and mixed phrases, demanded introduction to Ginny with another confident declaration that she was sure they would be "good friends!" and ignored Harry completely, even when he tried offering her samples of the breakfast foods laid out. Instead she quizzed Hermione on what tasted good, why things tasted funny, and what she planned to do all day.
"I'll be with Harry," Hermione said, feeling incomprehensibly like a devil's advocate even though she wasn't sure for which side.
Gabrielle stopped swinging her legs and chattering on a mile a minute and frowned at her. "Oh? 'Y?" she asked suspiciously.
"She's Harry's friend," Ginny said coolly from a few places along the table, having deliberately put that distance between them when the girls sat down. "And she has to protect Harry's virtue."
Hermione sent her a glare for choosing such phrasing, especially when the little blond rapidly brightened at it. It wasn't as if Harry's virtue hadn't been ambushed, bewitched, and generally all around abused already despite her best efforts.
"Per'aps 'Arry is gigolo, then, to toy with so many women?" Gabrielle then said in Harry's direction with another frown, while Hermione and Ginny both tried to keep from choking at hearing such a word from such a princessly child.
Harry looked perturbed, then vaguely contemplative. Romilda Vane chose that unfortunate moment to try to sit down next to him, apparently already recovered from Hermione's verbal flaying the day before--and Harry regarded her for a moment, and then, for the first time since arriving at Hogwarts for the new school year, scooted away.
Romilda gaped. Gabrielle looked pleased, then raised her nose in the air and went back to ignoring Harry when he glanced back at her to see her reaction.
Ginny caught Hermione's glance and held it for a moment, then sighed deeply, while Hermione tried to look sympathetic and slightly irritably hoped she was judging the wordless exchange correctly. The two girls and Harry, plus, of course, their visitor, spent the rest of the day wandering around the castle on a nominal tour for Gabrielle's entertainment. Hermione roiled internally over all the homework and studying she could have been doing, even though it was only the first week of classes, and Gabrielle made comments to Hermione and Ginny that were really directed at Harry which he practically fell all over himself trying to adhere to or carry out. He also tried to play tour guide for her, displaying more verbal and mental acuity in a few hours than he had the entire previous week.
"I still don't like her," Ginny grumbled that evening in the common room when the girls had finally divested themselves of their guest and planted Harry in a corner playing Exploding Snap with Seamus and Dean. "She's just a kid, anyway; I bet she's not even eleven yet."
Hermione did not point out that most wizards had longer lifespans than most muggles, so as they got older a five-or-so year age gap would be less and less significant. She was aware that Ginny was probably hurting a little and coping by criticizing her succeeding competition. Nor did she point out that, no matter how young the little Delacour actually was, she certainly seemed to know exactly what she wanted and how to obtain it.
"Look at Harry," she only said instead, for he was actually talking and grinning with the other two boys, although judging from their winks and nudges it was probably a conversation about girls, and a disgustingly crude one at that.
Ginny did so, then flopped down over the arm of her chair with a moody pout. "She's too blond," she muttered, which left Hermione entirely unable to come up with anything to say in return. Gabrielle was blond, that was obvious.
Ron chose that moment to pop in between them, draping his arms and chin over the back of his sister's chair with casual familial disregard for her scowl. "Hey, what's up with you two?"
"Gabrielle," Ginny said, making the name sound like something she had scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
Ron brightened. "She's Fleur's little sister, right? Looks like she's gonna grow up pretty nice. You think I could make friends with her and maybe get closer to Fleur?"
Hermione looked at Ginny. Ginny looked at Hermione. Then they both turned around and started beating Ron with the scarlet cushions from their armchairs.
When she went to bed that night, Hermione decided that even if she wasn't quite comfortable in Gabrielle's presence yet either, at least it'd had the effect of improving her friendship with one other girl.
The week after that saw Gabrielle blithely attending classes she was far too young for with Harry and Hermione, inevitably choosing to go with Hermione whenever the two fifth years had differing schedules, making Hermione wonder slightly frazzedly if the little blond actually really did intend them to be new best friends. It wouldn't have been so bad if only she wasn't always whispering questions, distracting Hermione from the professors' lectures and trying to take notes. But at the same time she couldn't quite actively dislike the girl because of her obvious effect on Harry.
All on his own, Harry took it upon himself to start trying to improve her English, which help Gabrielle condescended to accept although she still occasionally turned to Hermione for confirmation when she doubted Harry's explanations. And when, after catching one of Hermione's muttered sighs and querying its cause, their French visitor took it upon herself to pointedly criticize those who didn't put effort into their schoolwork, then took Harry's resulting essays to Hermione to judge their improvement, Hermione was forced to admit to herself that clearly the little veela wasn't so bad after all. A trifle overbearing, perhaps, but then she was much younger than everyone else she was currently spending time around and quite possibly just trying to fit in as well as she knew how. A pity her pronouncement hadn't had any effect on Ron.
A little later Gabrielle caught Romilda Vane stalking Harry yet again, and although no witnesses came forward to what happened, Romilda reportedly missed five classes and took to sneaking to the kitchens for meals, and Fred and George took Gabrielle under their prank-making wings and somehow got hold of a spare wand that they started teaching her to use. The rest of Harry's most ardent pursuers started mysteriously losing interest in him soon after that.
"Veela magic," Gabrielle explained to Hermione proudly when she mentioned how long it had taken her to get up to detailed spells after she first learned she was a witch. "We women learn early."
Hermione decided, for possibly the first time in her entire life, that she would find out more about that later. An undefined amount of time later.
"It looks like she's going to stay, you know," Hermione said to Ginny later in the common room, partly resigned and partly wondering if Professor Dumbledore could really come up with an excuse to let the French girl remain for the entire year before she could legally enroll.
Ginny sniffed and said nothing, and Gabrielle's ability to carry out exactly what she wanted to do without leaving evidence continued to improve what sometimes seemed like exponentially. It wasn't until Professor Umbridge unexpectedly vanished from the castle the day after assigning Harry a detention in which she made him use a Blood Quill, though, that the youngest Weasley was forced to admit that maybe Gabrielle was worth making friends with after all. Although she still didn't like her.
Hermione, having been accosted with a sweet request for more information about international Floo setup and having overheard the twins conspiring with their new ward on how to get into Umbridge's office shortly before the disappearance, didn't say a word except turning the subject to speculating who might come in to replace the woman on such short notice.
"You know," Harry suggested, increasingly more like his old self except unusually cheerful and still single-minded when around a certain little blond veela, "we ought to just study on our own some in the meantime--everybody share what they're good at. Gabby would fit in great with that."
Ginny made an obligatory face, then quickly straightened it as she realized that such an idea would let her study with Harry too. Hermione sighed, since she was being interrupted from a thick tome on wizard/goblin treaties, and set to thinking about the administrative tasks involved that wouldn't occur to anyone else. "We'd have to form a club..."
Ron perked up from the chess game he was currently slaughtering Harry in, which Harry had good-naturedly agreed to because the redhead needed distraction after having been put back on restriction of hexing Malfoy. Gabrielle entered the common room just as he said, "We could ask her to ask her sister to come as a guest!"
Ginny and Hermione glanced at each other, while Gabrielle looked vaguely puzzled, then waved her over to the sofa between them and explained in a whisper. It was really only fair, after all, that their new friend be properly indoctrinated to the group if she was going to be staying anyway. Ginny graciously gave her full and lasting permission, and Hermione handed her one of the scarlet sofa cushions.
Gabrielle took it, climbed onto the back of the sofa, and grinned and whooped fiendishly as she launched herself through the air to beat Ron over the head. Ginny, Hermione and Harry exchanged startled glances, then smiled indulgently. Ron yelped and dove under the table, knocking several of his own chess pieces (including his king) off the board in the process.
"I win! I just beat Ron at chess!" Harry cheered. "Hey, Gabby, would you mind doing that again?"
"No!" came the muffled reply.