It took a while but Harry eventually explained everything to Fleur. He was a little afraid that she'd blame him for what had been done to her and she saw his fear and while she wanted to be angry, she wanted to go hex Bill and Ron into next week, but she didn't want Harry to think she was mad at him. Honestly, she thought, exacerbated, what has been done to him that he's so quick to take the blame on himself? What happened to the brave boy who had saved Gabrielle when he hadn't needed to? What happened to the boy who saved me from Victor in the third task as he was about to kill me?
She didn't understand, so in spite of the fact that she wanted to rail and sob and, yes, hurt Bill, she found herself comforting Harry. It didn't take long to get his story from him, and while Fleur might feel guilty using his emotionally exhausted state to get information out of him, she needed to understand, both because she was stuck with Harry, and because she genuinely liked him. If not for their age difference she was pretty sure she wouldn't have left Hogwarts without staking a very firm claim on the boy. After all, very few are immune to the Veela charm, and most girls in her position, being part Veela, have the problem of too much charm, and not enough control.
It had caused her endless grief as she was growing up, and it still caused her grief whenever she lost her tenuous control. A small, traitorous part of her mind could even be grateful that Bill had traded her to Harry, for she knew many ways it could have been far worse.
Harry, meanwhile, collected himself quickly after a short while. He was embarrassed how much he'd told Fleur; for example, he'd told her in graphic detail how his 'family' had always treated him, and he'd never told anyone so much before. It left him feeling oddly light, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, so he kept talking. He told her all about each of his years at school, both muggle and magical. He told her about meeting Serious, and how, for a brief moment, he had hoped that he might be free forever of the Dursley's. Finally, he told her about his fifth year, about the visions, and the ultimately futile rescue attempt that ended in Serious' death.
For most of his story Fleur stayed quiet, slowly coming to realize all that he'd gone through, and when it finally processed that the betrayal that led to her current predicament was originally aimed at him, she was angrier than she could ever remember being before that point. Not just for herself, but for Harry, Her Harry, that small part of her mind cried out, but she ignored it. She knew neither would likely be ready for such a step for a long time, and even that traitorous part of her mind didn't suggest doing anything about it.
All of this took hours, but in the end Harry insisted that she tell him about her own past, and he was shocked to find that she had, in many ways, been even lonelier than he had growing up. She had a family that loved her that he'd been denied, but in her first 17 years she had failed to make one true friend. All the boys had been drooling idiots from a very young age, and all the girls had been jealous of the attention the boys paid to her. Even when she'd been very young that had been the case, though drooling was replaced by the childish equivalent of hair pulling, and jealousy was replaced with a child's unwillingness to accept anything different, and whatever else was going on, the girls could tell that Fleur wasn't like them.
Unfortunately, telling her own story gave her anger a chance to cool enough for her to start crying again, but the body can only maintain such mood swings for so long before it becomes exhausted, and eventually she cried herself asleep. Also unfortunate was the fact that Harry was too tired to pry himself loose from Fleur's arms and he soon fell asleep as well. Of course, even with red eyes and puffy cheeks from crying so much, Fleur Delacour was still a beautiful girl, and a small part of Harry's mind was telling him that it might not be such a bad thing to fall asleep being held by a stunningly, that part of his mind added, beautiful girl.
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It would be almost noon before Harry and Fleur would wake up again and realize that they'd fallen asleep like that, but in the meantime, at the Burrow, a little more truth came out. After Bill slugged Ron, breaking his nose, the whole story came out as to how Ginny was brought home so quickly. If Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had done the deed themselves they would simply have asked Harry to forgive Ginny, and being Harry, he might well have done so, but neither would ever have thought of trading another person's freedom away like that. Naturally, when they understood what Bill had done Bill's parents were apoplectic with rage at their son.
Before long they asked him to leave their home, and Bill was drunk enough that he didn't fight it. He tended to be a sad drunk and that was why he so seldom drank strong liquor, but he didn't care at the moment. He first went to the apartment that he had shared with Fleur, but the standard wards most witches and wizards have on their places of residence, prevented him from apparating directly inside and instead shunted him to the front door. He was angry at first, but then his memory caught up with him and he broke down crying on the doorstep.
Back at the Burrow, after his nose was fixed, the story eventually came out of exactly what Ron had done and if his parents had been mad at Bill than there was simply no word adequate to describe what they felt towards Ron. If it had been possible, they would have gladly kicked him out of the family for the betrayal he'd been the cause of, and to Harry, who they considered another son? No, Ron was very lucky that he survived that night, much less that he had a place to stay.
As for Ginny, when she'd learned that she could have belonged to Harry? Well, it wasn't the way she would have liked to go about it, but it would have been a start. Heck, she'd only signed that letter of Ron's thinking that after a time of being alone he'd be more interested in being with her if she offered. In her mind, she'd imagined the whole seduction and had planned out how to go about it. She had decided that she'd lose her virginity to Harry and then get pregnant, and of course he'd then want to marry her to give his child a stable home. It never entered her head that Harry might not be happy trapped into such a situation, after all, the muggle romance stories she was so fond of commonly used that scheme for the heroine to get the hero.
After her initial disappearance from the dinner table she'd found herself in a small, but comfortable cell, and a goblin had explained the situation to her. Close by she could hear Hermione wailing about how Harry would never forgive her, but she had been thinking of those romance stories, and changing her plans to suit. As such, when she'd suddenly found herself in the lobby of Gringots Wizarding Bank next to her oldest brother she had been confused. She'd been thinking, Where is Harry? So when she'd gotten home and the story had eventually come out she'd been furious with Bill for saving her. How dare he, she'd thought, but now she was trying to think of some way to salvage this mess. Maybe she could trade herself back? But…no, that wouldn't work, and Harry had only really saved her that once, so she didn't have any other life debts she could betray to get her back to where she wanted to be.
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were blissfully unaware of their daughters scheming, and only saw her anger at Bill, they thought, for what he'd done to Fleur, thankfully for her. If they'd known better they would be horrified as that would totally undermine their faith in their own parenting skills. As it was, they ended up consoling their daughter, though for entirely different problems than she was actually facing.
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Of the Grangers, little could be said for the time being. They were provided with a potion to induce dreamless sleep and installed in the guest quarters that Bareblade had offered them. Both ended their late night in a similar position as Harry and Fleur would a few hours later, with Mrs. Granger crying herself to sleep holding Mr. Granger for dear life. Fortunately, they remembered to drink their potion and would pass an uneventful night, until they next awoke.
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Ever since signing that note that Ron had shoved in front of her, Hermione had been feeling slightly sick, like she'd done something unforgivable, and when she'd found herself in a small, but comfortably furnished cell, she knew. The goblin outside her cell began to describe what had happened and she began to cry. She couldn't understand how she could do that to Harry. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep as well, though she fell asleep much earlier than any of the others involved in this little tragedy.
It was thus that around 6am she woke up feeling somewhat grimy for having slept in her clothes. She immediately went to her door and asked to speak with someone in charge. Under the circumstances, this meant that a groggy and unhappy Bareblade was summoned. Hermione was respectful, but she'd dreamt all last night, and in one nightmare after another, she saw Harry always there for her. She couldn't understand how she could have sided with Ron against Harry, and so, when Bareblade arrived, she asked if she might be tested for various magical influences that would have prompted her to act as she had.
Bareblade was intrigued, mostly at the audacity of this human to blame magic for what she had done, but he told her to hold out her hand, and he carefully took a small sample of blood and said that he would have it tested, but not to get her hopes up. "Often as not," he said, "you humans just naturally betray one another," and before she could come up with a reply that wouldn't anger him, he was gone.
All Hermione could do after that was sit in her cell and chew her nails, hoping that the goblin had been wrong about her.
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Bareblade did have the blood tested as he said he would, and he even had a rush put on it. Thus, it was no more than two hours later that her blood-work came back. "Huh," he said to himself as he slumped into his chair, "well I'll be dammed."
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Author's Note: First off, Hermione won't get out of this situation easily, and her forgiveness won't be Harry's standard get out of jail free card for anyone who calls themselves his friend, but she will earn his forgiveness. No matter what though, this story will NOT become a Harry/Fleur/Hermione story, that just doesn't work for me.
Second off is Bill, in canon I really like him, but in order to get Harry with Fleur I had to get rid of him and making him into a bastard was surprisingly easy. Just so you know sacrificing Fleur wasn't his first thought, and he already had the engagement ring, but when this whole situation came up he wasn't really thinking straight. Just the same, he will face consequences for his action and Fleur will NOT be forgiving him. Also, he only thought of sacrificing Fleur at all because when the new laws had passed in they had made the news and he and Fleur had talked about them. She had said they should move to France where it's civilized (her words), but Bill had assured her that it didn't change how he thought of her (which might all mean you hate him more, but that's okay since I think I'm about done with him).
Last of our current villains, Ron, will be held mostly responsible for the whole betrayal, though Ginny might catch some as well, but with her, try to remember, she's a teenage girl intent on snatching a boy she likes and isn't really thinking clearly…or at least not in the way we hope she will in the future. Naturally, she won't get Harry in this story, but she'll probably keep trying. Tell me what you think I should do with her though, as she is guiltier than Hermione, but less so than Ron.
The rest of the Weasley's will be largely faultless in this story, though even that will have some bumps coming up next chapter, and possibly in other places along the way.
Those hoping for some good old Headmaster bashing might be disappointed, though I really do love bashing the incompetent old man, I plan to have him turn a new leaf after the betrayals Harry has suffered at the beginning of summer (where we are in the story since I don't know how clear I made that before).
To manipulativerunner: Good point with Harry picking up Fleur like that, and the explanation is that Veela are a kind of bird like creature (Harpies is what they sounded like after transforming at the World Cup) thus they have hollow bones, making them much lighter then they look. Thus, even though she's a bit taller than Harry for now, she doesn't weigh what a full human of her proportions should weigh.
If anyone has something they think doesn't quite make sense, or that they just find curious I'll try to answer why it is the way it is, unless it impacts the story down the road.
P.S. Sorry not much happened this chapter, but I'm tired, so TTFN.