If all our life is but a dream
Fantastic posing greed
Then we should feed our jewelry to the sea
For diamonds do appear to be
Just like broken glass to me
When the world stopped spinning around the small group, Harry took a look at the place he was in. The teenager was immediately astonished. It felt like going back in time to the first time he saw Hogwarts, when they were on the boat.
The jet lag between the UK and France wasn't much, only an hour. Consequently, it was also the morning at Beauxbâtons. Because of the cloudless turquoise sky, the students could observe the mountains surrounding the place they currently were in. Even though this alone would be enough to take anyone's breath away, the real beauty of the place wasn't the horizon.
The students were now in a huge garden, in front of a typical french castle.
At their right, they could see a maze but not the same kind of maze than the one used for the triwizard tournament, Harry thought. The maze he was currently watching also had plants standing for the walls however, those plants didn't looked like they were going to attack anyone. Quite the contrary, actually. Above the walls, Harry could see a golden statue of a young woman. She was standing on what appeared to be the middle of the maze.
On their left and behind them was a beautiful park with numerous flowers of countless colors. There were trees standing proudly near a lake while others were on the park. Further away, Harry saw what seemed like a protection for some vegetable garden.
But what was really breath-taking was standing right in front of the seventh year students. There was squared pound the size of an immense lake on which was reflecting the castle that was behind it. The pound was surrounded by trees and a small way that was leading to the castle.
On the pound were numerous fountains and statues that were probably representing famous people, but with a quick first look, Harry knew none of them. Every sculpture had at least some gold on it. Some were completely golden and others had hair or clothes made of gold. The sculptures really surprised him at first, because they were all moving, as if they were alive but after all, if painting could move, why not the sculptures too?
The castle that was most likely Beauxbâtons looked like a XVII century castle. Well, actually, he didn't really know that, but he heard Hermione say it when they had arrived. It was really different from Hogwarts though. Hogwarts was more like a Middle Age era castle. If Harry had to find a word to describe the castle, it would have been "classy". It was made of white stones and the roof appeared to be pastel blue.
"Well then!" professor Neruda called out, a small smirk on his face, visibly enjoying watching the reaction of the new students "We'll have to walk to the castle now. Apparition doesn't work on the ground of Beauxbâtons, it's the same at Hogwarts, I think."
A few students nodded to answer. This seemed to satisfy the teacher as he turn around to join the way Harry had seen a few moments earlier. He was however stopped by the cry of Padma Patil.
"Wait, Monsieur Neruda! Are we really going to walk all the way there? It looks pretty far away."
The professor only smirked as an answer and as he heard a few sighs coming from the students, he said.
"It's not so bad, plus, you have to get use to it."
When he was over talking, the students started walking lead by their teacher. On their walk, that Harry found surprisingly short considering the size of the pound, the two boys of the golden trio listened to Hermione rambling about the beauty of the place and the species of the trees that were apparently very rare.
When they reached the castle, the teacher stopped the group in front of a tall and very elegant door. When every students were arrived, the teacher got closer to the door and it open itself. Seeing the curious look on some students face, he explained.
"The door open itself because the castle recognize my magic. It doesn't work for you yet, but it should soon."
At those words, the golden trio grinned slightly. So here as well the castle was alive? This year was definitely going to be interesting.
The insides of the castle was very classy and richly decorated. First of all, it was nothing like one could see at Hogwarts. The chandelier looked like it was made of diamonds and it was projecting a very bright light everywhere in the room and against the wall were very large stairs. But the things that were really different were the walls and the roof in itself. At Hogwarts, one could see walls full of different paintings and a blank roof. At Beauxbâtons, they were both painted with bright colors. The people represented were moving and talking around, just like with normal wizarding paintings.
They headed towards the stairs and passed by a few rooms before stopping in a bigger one. This one was different from everything they'd seen before. It was huge and very impressive. Harry supposed it was the equivalent of the Great Hall in Hogwarts. Except that here, there wasn't just four big tables but lots of them. They were disposed all around the room and people with their blue uniform were staring at them from where they sat. On the side of the wall, against the wall, were tables with plates full of food on them.
Teachers didn't sat above the students, even though there was a stage, it wasn't used, or probably just to make a speech, Harry though. He was proven right when Neruda headed towards the professor's table after asking them not to move from where they were. He walked to Madame Maxime that Harry had recognize a few moments before then. The two adults exchanged a few words before Madame Maxime stood up, walked to the stage and started talking when the room had turned silent.
"Students, as you know it, this year we will receive seventh years students from Hogwarts. This is why every seventh years didn't have any lessons today. Right now we will explain you how is this year going to be any different from the last six you've been through at Beauxbâtons. First of all, we will give every students here a potion that will allow them to talk and understand French without them even knowing it."
At these words, a potion appeared in front of every British students. The two boys from the golden trio watched Hermione to see if she accepted to drink it. After a quick glance at the texture, the color and the smell, she nodded at the two boys who drank it, immediately followed by the others students. The potion didn't taste very good, but it could have been worse.
When everyone had drank his potion, the Beauxbâtons headmistress continued.
"Now that this is done, you should be understanding me perfectly well, even though I'm talking French and you don't even know any French word. Now, this year you will all be in pairs with a Beauxbâtons student."
With these words, every French students started talking, looking very excited or panicked. They all quieted when the headmistress raised her hand.
"As you are probably wondering, those assigned with a British students won't be keeping the one they had before. We will announced who is changing, and when this is done, you will show where they will sleep and answer their questions. When you hear your name, you will join Monsieur Neruda, he will give their timetables to the new students."
Students started getting called and gathered around the teacher. Hermione was the first assigned to another student. Her name was Ellie Olivier. Harry was second with Alex Assous, followed by Ron with Anne Bach.
The teacher gave each students their timetable and then said to the students:
"Now that you all are in pairs, the Beauxbâton student will show the others where they will settle down and explain the idea of pairs, how everything goes on in this school and get to know each other. You are free for this afternoon, lessons will start tomorrow morning."
A few students cheered at the announcement while some others began talking with the other parts of their pairs or in other cases, like for the golden trio, just glared and stood awkwardly in front of each other.
Ron threw a short glance at his two friends to see if one of them decided to talk, but as no one seemed to fancy the idea, he sighed and broke the awkward silence.
"So... is this the room where we eat?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and Harry cracked a smile at the sentence.
"Can you, please," said Hermione, "stop thinking at food?"
Anne answered with an awkward smile, "Yes, it is. Come on, follow us. We'll show you where we sleep."
The three Beauxbâtons students found their way through the maze walls that was the castle and stopped in a big room.
"This" announced Alex "is the seventh years common room. I heard you guys are separated between the smart ones, the brave ones, the cunning ones and the kind ones. Well, we don't do that. It's just separated between levels. Even though there are three different kinds of classes. The L, ES and S. No idea what it actually means. They must have told us at some point but no one remembers it."
"It's not exactly that for our four houses." frowned Hermione "In reality, it's way more subtle."
"You're probably right" agreed Ellie "Basically, in S you will mostly focus on potion, arithmancy, alchemy, astronomy and herbology. In ES, it will be more DADA, transfiguration, duel, muggle studies and study of ancient runes. In L it will be charms, history of magic, care for magical creatures, astronomy and divination."
"And do you know what we're gonna do?"asked Harry.
"It's written ES on our timetables, Harry."answered Hermione before anyone could think of an answer.
"I guess we should show you your beds." realised Ellie.
The two girls headed to the girls dormitory while boys went to theirs.
The two boys were surprised by the room. It was small with three beds. Alex explained that all the rooms were small and that most students had to change because of the new Hogwarts students coming. Ron was on a room with Dean and another student they didn't know called Adam Le Floch. Harry was with Neville and Alex.
After being shown their rooms, the two boys asked Alex if they could have the uniforms so they could get changed. This made him laugh as he explained that Beauxbâtons' students only used their uniforms for formal events. The rest of the time they would just wear casual clothes, or whatever you wanted to wear. The duo was a bit surprised at first but it explained why they didn't see any student wear those blue outfits.
Once they were done talking, the group decided to go back on the common room and see if the girls were already there. Fortunately, they were and the small group decided to talk a bit to get to know each other better. However, at the very beginning of it, the thing Harry had feared all along came out.
"We were also wondering" said Alex "if you were really Harry Potter?"
"No offence, of course" assured Anne.
"It's okay" sighed Harry "and yes, it's me."
"Awesome" whispered Alex.
"No." continued coldly Harry "Not really. Except if you consider fighting in a war and watching people you know and like being hurt or killed as something awesome, it really isn't."
An awkward silence followed his announcement until the bushy haired girl broke it.
"Sorry. We just don't like to talk about it. You don't really know what the war is like here, so we don't mind."
"We also lived through the war, here. He-who-must-not-be-named had followers all around the world but it was nowhere as bad as it was for you. They've all been defeated or they're just hiding. They're all too scared to do anything now anyway so we're all safe." assured Ellie.
After this, the talk continued on a lighter subject.
Author's note: I'm sorry about the long wait, I was writing another story and I didn't have any idea on the plot of this story. It's been so long, I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish this story... I'm just reposting it because this chapter was unreadable. Hope you liked it anyway!
