Dennis used a Coolant Charm to lower the temperature another few degrees and pulled on a hoodie for warmth. Colder temperatures didn't kill germs. He knew that. That's what Sanitising Spells were for. He kept his loft studio chilly to help himself stay focused on work. The fact that cold air made any stray germ inactive was a bonus. A flick of his wand and his kettle heated to boiling. His mum would have loved that. Muggle kettles had never heated water quickly enough. He smiled at the memory of her snapping at him to wake up and then leaning down to kiss his forehead. "Sorry, love," she'd always said. "This Creevey is cranky without tea."
"I, on the other hand," Dennis said to himself, "am cranky because I forgot to eat yesterday. A wizard cannot live on tea alone." He made a cup of Chai and added a generous splash of coconut milk. "Hunger also makes me loony. I start talking aloud because I miss my brother and we had the same sort of voice." Not that he needed an excuse to think about Colin. He always thought about him when he was in the studio. Dennis had created Wizard Comics to realise his brother's dream and atone for not being brave enough to follow him into battle.
Last Friday had been the tenth anniversary of Colin's death. Dennis and his dad had their traditional booze up at the family home in the Thames Valley. Dennis refused, as he did every year, to try his dad's infamous Milk Punch or to take Colin's camera with him when he left. Photography wasn't his medium. And the camera brought up too many memories.
Dennis! Look at these photos I took of Harry Potter! Wouldn't he make a brilliant Super Wizard?
Harry had been a good sport about the homage, too, when Dennis had shown up at the Ministry, fresh out of Hogwarts, with Super Wizard Vol. #1 in hand. "He's like you, but he's not you," Dennis had blurted. "No offense. I hope you don't mind." Harry had been relieved, and he'd bought Dennis a drink at the Iron Shackle. They had become friends.
Another one of Colin's dreams fulfilled.
Dennis's stomach rumbled. Food. He needed food, and perhaps a haircut later. His hair was falling into his eyes. He turned toward the owl lunging up from his sandbox to catch a moth. Burrowing owls enjoyed sun and heat, so Dennis had conjured the habitat in front of the window by the stairway on the opposite side of the loft. "When you're finished, fly down to the Tandoori place. They'll see you and know I want the usual." The owl opened the spelled window with the tap of his claw. "Thanks, mate."
He finished his tea and set it on the conference table loaded down with the newest marketing ploy: action figures. Play sets were next on the agenda. A dungeon laboratory for Professor Doom, a French boudoir for LaVeela.
An alluring laugh floated up the stairway. Dennis stared at the action figure he'd picked up. Did LaVeela come with sound? He dropped the toy when the click click click of footsteps echoed on the metal stairs. How was he hearing that? His private studio and living area were soundproofed! Someone wielding great magic . . . and wearing high heels . . . had bypassed security both at the warehouse entrance and inside where Creevey Studios artists took his concepts and created art.
Dennis cast a Protection Charm and held his wand at the ready, only to drop it when LaVeela herself stormed into his loft.
He hadn't seen Gabrielle Delacour since Harry's wedding. She'd sat across the aisle from him on the last row. Not that she would recall. She'd tapped manicured fingertips on the clutch purse on her lap. Impatience to leave projected like an aura. Her dainty blue hat with its birdcage veil—the name of the veil supplied by the matronly witch who observed him drawing on the wedding programme—had obscured her expression, but he'd seen the slight curl of her lip when Ginny Weasley had passed by, radiant in her wedding gown. He'd drawn that beautiful sneer into his comics.
She wore a red sundress this day, an appropriate colour considering that her eyes were shooting fire. "Where ees he, the bastard whose mother ees so small her head smells of feet!"
Amazing how a French accent made the strangest aspersion sound like a compliment. "My mother wasn't small," Dennis said. "Her children were late bloomers."
Gabrielle sneered. It was even more breath-taking than he'd remembered. She stalked toward him, moonlight strands of hair sensually caressing her bare shoulders. Logically, he was aware he was in danger of being hexed. That voice of reason was muted by the pounding of his heart. Why had he never done justice to the sensual movement of her hips, the way her lips parted as if demanding kisses?
"You? The great artist? Non." He was still reeling with delight over being called a great artist when she said, "Dennis Creevey is Le Petit Prince. I saw him at Hogwarts. You, Mr. Pretty Hair, are tall as me." She looked past him. "Creevey! I weesh to speak with you, you tête de noeud!"
Dennis understood French better than he spoke it. "I'm a dickhead? You burst into my studio uninvited and I'm the dickhead?" He would use the insult in a comic, perhaps with a visual play on words. LaVeela could spit the insult while untying knots to escape her bonds, since the literal translation was knot head. Her eyes captured his. Indignation drowned in the depths of her sapphire eyes. "I'm taller than you are if you took off your heels," he said. "Not that I'm tall. Below average height, actually. You're the one who's petite." He'd never realised that. "Funny how I've always drawn LaVeela so . . . statuesque."
Gabrielle's breath hissed between her perfect teeth. "That ees why I am here. LaVeela." She said the name like a curse. "You 'ave gone too far, zis time, Mastermind." Her French accent grew heavier when she was angry, exactly as he'd imagined. He forgot to breathe when she stepped closer. Her skin was glowing. He was burning. Her nostrils flared. "I demand you stop trying to seduce ma sœur!"
He exhaled in a gasp of disbelief. "Your sister? What the bloody hell does LaVeela have to do with your sister?" Fleur Weasley as LaVeela? She was married to Bill Weasley, a very likeable yet dangerous curse breaker. They had two or three children. LaVeela was only maternal about orphans. He gave a short laugh. "No. Stars, no."
"Non?" Her lips trembled. "But, but you draw her so beautifully, and Mastermind, he loves her, yes? They fought so well against the Green Knight, and when they parted . . . ."
"It broke his heart." Mastermind had never declared his feelings, but Gabrielle had seen the love and pain in the villain's face. Dennis asked, "Why did you call me Mastermind?"
"Because that ees who you are," she said softly.
He sighed. "And you're LaVeela."
Her blush was a sunrise. He could even hear birds sing. No, they were scratching at the window. He blinked. "Colin!" he gasped. Dennis kissed Gabrielle for one glorious, achingly brief moment and then said, "I have to let in my owl," and rushed across the loft.
The takeaway bag was too large for a tiny burrowing owl to manoeuvre through a narrow window opening, but it had a Featherlight Charm cast upon it. "You've carried squirrels home from the park that weighed more," Dennis said. He tossed out a few treats and returned to Gabrielle. "Would you care for a late lunch?" He checked his watch. "Or early dinner? I have kebabs, prawn cocktail and chicken pikka puri."
She pointed to the owl munching on a spell-rehydrated caterpillar. "You named your owl Colin?"
Dennis shrugged. "If a pirate can call a monkey 'Jack', I can name an owl after my brother." She didn't get the reference: something to change in the future. He said, "Colin was the best friend I ever had, and being tiny didn't stop him from being brave."
"You give names to honour."
He heard the unspoken question and put the takeaway bag on the table. "I named LaVeela 'Vee' for obvious reasons. Her last name, Durand, comes from the Latin Durandus, meaning strong." Dennis said, "When I saw Harry Potter carry you out of Hogwarts Lake, I thought you looked like a princess from a fairy tale. Everyone was amazed by how quickly you recovered, but I wasn't surprised. I knew you were strong."
Gabrielle's skin had that silvery glow again. Instead of giving her the appearance of a vengeful goddess, it invited him to touch. His pulse raced. She didn't have goose bumps. "The Coolant Charm. Is it set too cold?"
"Non. Veelas are hot-blooded."
He remembered the fire in her eyes when she'd ordered him to stop trying to seduce her sister. Did that mean he might have a chance with Gabrielle? How did a bloke use art to seduce a girl? He picked up the LaVeela action figure. "I'll have to have these redone," he said. "Make them more . . . true . . . to the source." Encouraged by the smile playing across Gabrielle's lips, he asked, "Would you allow me to do a few sketches after lunch?"
"Mais oui." Her smile became that of a seductress. "And then you will show me your etchings."
.
.
A/N: I keep wanting to write all the plot bunnies! Thanks to everyone who reads this story. After writing Dennis in the Scorpius goes to Creevey Comic Con one shot Rose is Better, I couldn't help wanting to write his romance. I subconsciously set it up with this line to Scorpius: "I'm shorter than you expected, aren't I?" Creevey said. "Not much to look at, how did he snag a Veela?" Now we all know. ;) It made me happy to think Gabrielle helped him change from fulfilling his brother's dreams to living his own. The French insults I found online. I wanted unusual ones and I certainly found them.
drcjsnider deserves special thanks, for catching that I originally left off that she'd seen him at Hogwarts and making me want to edit this note in case some readers don't know that The Little Prince is the classic French tale of an alien boy, who is in love with a rose and is described as having golden hair, a scarf, and a lovable laugh. Gabrielle saw Dennis at Hogwarts and thought of him as Le Petit Prince. I think one night she'll confess that (as the prince told the narrator he could do) she looked at the stars and thought of Dennis's lovable laughter, and that it seemed if all the stars were laughing.