Kiss Me, I'm A Gryffindor
It was common knowledge that Nice, France was the veela capital of the world. Annually, during the first week of summer, there was a large festival held across the beaches of Nice. It was a wild magical party Fleur had only heard of from her parents and older cousins. Apparently, veelas partied like they were at a large family reunion, and the festivities were enchanting and magical. Something one would have to see to believe, her cousins told her.
Fleur always dreamt of the day when she would finally get to go and see first-hand what she had heard such wonderful tales of before. Since she was only a quarter veela, her parents thought it would be best if Fleur and her sister, Gabrielle, waited until they were teenagers to go to the festival. This year Fleur was thirteen, so this year she would get to join her parents and the rest of her family at the festival.
When the day finally arrived, Fleur took extra care to make sure she looked extra special for the festival. She combed her hair and braided it into a long plait that wrapped around the back of her head and fell against the small of her back. She chose a simple silver dress and even tested out her mother's makeup—failing miserably at the eyeliners, concealers, blushers, and lip liners, she opted for some plain pink lip-gloss.
"Gorgeous, darling!" her father said, greeting her at the foot of the stairs. Fleur blushed and did a quick spin.
"She's all grown up!" Fleur's mother cooed. "Our baby is all grown up!"
They travelled by side-along Apparation to the seaside, just as the sun sank low in the sky like a beaming orange orb. It cast its golden glow over everything, and Fleur stood for several minutes, trying to take it all in.
The festival was gorgeous. There were several tents set up in all sorts of soft, metallic colors: gold, silver, bronze, and pale pink. There was a huge bonfire in the center of the festival, blazing brightly. It was like walking into a medieval carnival, except much more colorful and veela-like. There was an endless amount of things to see and do from unicorn riding, to magical showcases, to eating contests, to drinking games, to sporting events.
And the people, Fleur knew there were going to be veelas at the festival, but she had never imagined them to be this beautiful. Before today, the only full veela she had met was her grandmother who, despite being drop-dead gorgeous, was getting on in years. Now she stared wistfully at the alluring creatures, whose skin appeared to literally glow golden in the light of the waning sun. Their hair was long and silver, and their faces shined with joy and enchantment.
"Fleur!" a boy yelled. It was her cousin, Antoine, who was fifteen and, like Fleur, one-quarter veela. "Come here! There are some friends I would like you to meet!"
Fleur smiled and rushed over to her cousin, who was surrounded by three veela girls and two veela boys, who seemed to be around Antoine's age, maybe a little older.
"Meet Toby, Felicia, Clemence, Yves, and Mariette," he said gesturing toward a different veela for every name he spoke.
"Nice to meet you!" Fleur said, curtsying and feeling as if she was in the presence of royalty.
"Ah, she is so adorable!" Clemence cried. "I just want to grab her cheeks and squeeze them!"
Fleur's smile faded slightly. She was a little offended by Clemence's condescending comment.
"Fleur will be staying with us for the night, won't you Fleur?" Antoine asked kindly. Fleur nodded. It was her first night at the festival of the veelas and she was happy to be spending it with her cousin and his veela friends.
"Here," Toby said handing her a glass of a clear liquid from a tray of a passing waiter. Fleur took it hesitantly.
"It's fine, Fleur," Antoine said. "You aren't going to get in trouble." He took his own glass, and passed the tray around for the others in the group.
"Oh gosh," either Felicia or Mariette said, Fleur couldn't remember who was who. "I really needed one of these if I was going to make it through the night!" she took a sip.
"Go on, it won't kill you," Yves said. "Just a little alcohol to lighten the mood."
Fleur took a sip of what she thought was a very clear wine. It turned out to be something she had never tasted before. She spit it immediately onto the sand. "What is this?"
"What a cute little girl, Antoine," Clemence said, again condescendingly. "Vodka!" she said sucking down some more of it and smacking her lips. Fleur, who had only ever had wine with her family, felt sickened.
"Antoine?" she asked. "Why did you give this to me? I'm leaving!"
"Please stay, Fleur," Antoine pleaded. "We won't make you drink any more; I swear!"
"Ah, how will she participate in the festival's game of spin the bottle if she isn't even a little bit drunk?" either Felicia or Mariette said.
"She'll manage," Antoine said defensively. "Have you ever even tried to play that game sober, Felicia?"
Felicia slurped the rest of her drink, "Nope! Here have some more, Fleur!"
Fleur ducked out of the way of Felicia's swinging arm just in time. She wondered how many drinks the group had consumed before her arrival.
"It would be a treat for her to kiss someone as pretty as us!" Yves exclaimed. "She's just a little girl, and she's not even a full veela!"
"Neither am I, Yves!" said Antoine, but the amount of anger in his voice was hindered greatly by the amount of alcohol streaming through his blood.
Fleur felt hurt even though she knew Antoine was trying to defend her, no matter how much he was failing at it. Before any of the veelas had time to insult her again, she ran from the scene as fast as she could.
"Fleur!" a man's voice yelled from behind her, but she kept running. She ran for a quarter of a mile to where the tents stopped and the sandy beach began to stretch on for miles. "Fleur?" a hand tapped on her shoulder, and she turned face to face with Toby from Antoine's group of friends.
"I'm not coming back!" cried Fleur defiantly, slumping to the ground at his feet. She buried her hands in the sand and felt the grains sift through her fingers as she pulled them out again.
"I know," Toby said sinking down to meet her. He placed his hand on hers and brushed the sand off of it. Fleur looked up at him. "Veelas are selfish, vain, tempered, and a lot of them are alcoholics. You should be glad you aren't a full veela. I should be happy that I'm not a pure veela either."
"You're not?" Fleur asked. If she had seen him on the street she wouldn't have believed him. Apart from his long, blond, never-been-cut hair, blue eyes, and golden skin, Toby was physically attractive, suave, and generally veela-like. Fleur scooped up a handful of sand in her hand and let it fall like a waterfall onto Toby's hand. She guessed he wasn't quite as vain, selfish, and tempered as the others.
"No," Toby said. "My mum is a veela, my dad's a muggle. So I got Mum's looks and dad's personality."
"Hmm," Fleur hummed, "Have you ever considered telling your friends?"
"That bunch of drunkards? No way," Toby said. "The only reason I hang out with them is because I'm friends with Antoine, but even he drinks at this festival."
"Bummer," Fleur said. They sat in silence for a while. Toby leaned back gracefully on the sand.
"You know what they said?" Toby finally asked. "About someone having to be drunk to be able to kiss you?"
Fleur nodded and stood up brushing the sand off of her dress. "What about it?"
"I think they were wrong," he said. He scrambled to a standing position. "Really wrong."
He leaned over and put his lips on Fleur's. It lasted five seconds at the most. Then Toby and Fleur walked back to the festival, hand in hand. Fleur didn't participate in the veela version of spin the bottle that night, not that it mattered much anyway.
"Wow, you've actually been to the veela festival?" Hermione asked, impressed.
"From ages thirteen to eighteen," Fleur said. "Then I met Bill."
"You've just made me sound like a wet blanket right there," Bill said.
"Oh no, darling!" she said kissing him on the lips. "As you can see I am once again the one who is not drinking! That makes me the wet blanket."
Everyone cracked up a little. Fleur scrambled to get comfortable in her chair, but she was having trouble because of her enormous belly.
"Who have we got left?" Fleur asked maliciously. "Bill," she pushed Bill slightly. "Audrey, and George. Who wants to go next?"
No one volunteered.
"I think I'm going to choose…Bill," Fleur grinned.
"No way!" Bill retorted. "My first kiss was you honey!" He kissed Fleur again.
"What a load of bull!" she said. "Tell us! I told you mine!"
"Fine," Bill grumbled, refilling his glass of Firewhiskey. "But don't be disappointed because the story of my first kiss is hardly even a story at all."
"Denying it?" Harry asked. "Ooh, this must be good."
A/N: Happy Mother's Day! This chapter was a bit different from the others, but that made it fun, right? It was fun to write—most likely because I wrote it at some obscene hour of the night. When I said the veelas' skin glowed, I meant it in a veela way, not a vampire way, capisce? Keep in mind that they are speaking French throughout the chapter, but (1) even though I've been taking French classes for years, the most I can say is, "Je ne parle pas bien français," and (2) no one except for the people that actually speak French would be able to understand it. Also, I was looking on some websites, and there seems to be some confusion as to whether of not there are any male veelas. I think that the veelas in the book are all female because they are the magical version of cheerleaders. In other words, there aren't that many male cheerleaders, so at the Quidditch game where all the veelas were female, they were all being cheerleaders, if that made any sense. Any thoughts? I hope you liked it, and I hope you leave a review too. P.S. I think I might write a story about Fleur's first haircut. It would probably be very intense seeing as veelas can't ever cut their hair and all. I'll let you know if that ever gets posted. This is the longest author's note ever...
Sammie
