Here we go, my friends. This becomes increasingly harder to write while my spare time decreases, sadly. Also I've had an anonymous review with a complaint of my deferred updating: dear 'guest' – I've updated his weekly so far and I have a life, sue me you prat. I know this doesn't concern you other lovely readers, but as advice: you are welcome to ask for updates, but I'm doing this for free and I put a lot of energy into it. Such reviews seriously annoy me – so flame me all you like about content or whatsoever, but spare me those. Now enjoy!
Weeks passed by after their strange encounter in Hogsmeade and at some point Hermione started to think she might have imagined it all.
A few days Fleur was wandering the castle with her fellow Beauxbatons but she didn't even look at Hermione. Whenever this occurred the Gryffindor couldn't resist pulling the plain coin out, that she embarrassingly carried around with her at all times and would let it slide through her fingers but nothing ever revealed itself.
One faithful morning however, the whispers rising from the Daily Prophet readers became suspiciously loud - until some Slytherin girl threw a copy into Hermione's face.
"You don't stop at nothing, do you mudblood!", she hissed and while Harry tried with all his might to hold back Ron from ambushing the Slyterin table she was met with the portrait of her latest conquest: Fleur Delacour.
Shaking her head and swallowing a lump in her throat she let the paper sink to stare into the cold faces of her class mates.
"Oh really! Even you must admit that this is ridiculous!"
But she was met with silence, only interrupted by a few half-hearted statements of support and Ron's declarations of her untouched virtue. He seemed getting more purple while declaring this.
She heard the murmurs through out the day. Suddenly her interactions with Fleur were interpreted in a very different light what people had brushed of as a strange friendship now became a spiteful scheme.
The good part in this was that Ron's outrage went as far as to stop bragging her about an introduction to Fleur, who now was all enemy again. Yet she felt Harry's thoughtful glances on her and she knew her best friend was suspecting the truth about the situation.
Whatever the truth is she thought miserably.
Deciding to face the enemy Hermione wrote to the Daily Prophet offices that very afternoon and when the post owls arrived the next morning, she looked up eagerly.
"Percy won't've had time to answer yet", said Ron. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."
"No, it's not that. I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."
"Good thinking!" said Harry, also looking up at the owls. "Hey, Hermione, I think you're in luck -"
A gray owl was soaring down toward Hermione.
"It hasn't got a newspaper, though," she said, disappointed. "It's -"
But to her bewilderment, the gray owl landed in front of her plate, closely followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny.
"How many subscriptions did you take out?" said Harry, seizing Hermione's goblet before it was knocked over by the cluster of owls, all of whom were jostling close to her, trying to deliver their own letter first.
"What on earth -?" Hermione said, taking the letter from the gray owl, opening it, and starting to read. "Oh really!" she sputtered, going red.
It was not handwritten, but composed from pasted letters that seemed to have been cut out of the Daily Prophet.
YOU ARE A WICKED GIRL. HARRY POTTER DESERVES BETTER. GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM MUGGLE.
"What's up?" said Ron.
"It,'s - oh how ridiculous -"
She thrust the letter at Harry. "They're all like it!" she said desperately, opening one letter after another. "'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you... ' 'You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn... ouch!"
She had opened the last envelope, and yellowish-green liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushed over her hands, which began to erupt in large yellow boils. A searing pain shut through her hands and she hissed.
"Undiluted bubotuber pus!" said Ron, picking up the envelope gingerly and sniffing it.
Tears started in her eyes as she tried to rub the pus off her hands with a napkin, but her fingers were now so thickly covered in painful sores that it looked as though she was wearing a pair of thick, knobbly gloves.
"You'd better get up to the hospital wing," said Harry as the owls around her took flight.
"We'll tell Professor Sprout where you've gone..."
Hermione felt very alone and disturbingly bitter when she sat on her bad in the empty hospital wing. Gazing out of the huge windows she saw her classmates, including Harry and Ron, making down their way to Hagrid's for their lessons.
She was so sick of that isolation, that separation she had from the others her age. She didn't need to be on quarantine to feel that.
That was when she felt a sudden burning on her hip. Thinking she might have caught some bubotuber pus there as will she quickly opened her robes... and the silver coin from Fleur fell onto the bed.
Frowning she tried to pick it up, but her swollen and bandaged hands made it difficult for her.
Finally she managed to bring it to her face and her eyes widened.
The coin wasn't plain anymore. Now, in elegant cursive letters, it read:
I'll be with you in five minutes. Be alone.
"Amazing", she breathed out while for a blissful moment all her troubles vanished from her head as she tried to wrap her mind around how Fleur had managed that. What a piece of Transfiguration! What a -
"I see she 'as given you one of 'er coins."
Hermione looked up.
Above her stood a girl adorned in blue robes, long black hair falling down her back openly.
"Emanuelle", she said, baffled.
"May I sit?", the french girl asked politely.
"Ah... of course..."
Emanuelle sat down and stared at Hermione's hands.
"I am sorry for zat."
"Don't worry about it. I'm used to things like that."
The other girl's dark eyes flickered up to her.
She took the coin from her hands and a strangely bitter smile went over her lips.
"You know... she was twelve years old when she invented zem. Always ze best in class but not because she studied. She was a bit lazy, actually. Just... just very bright... one of ze best chasers Beauxbaton 'ad ever seen and ze biggest flirt of ze w'ole school."
Her hand tightened around the coin.
"You would be amazed 'ow she was zen. She 'ad everyone at her feed and picked who pleased 'er for ze day. Very supercilious, sometimes... but a good 'eart. Everyone was in love with 'er."
"And you as well", Hermione remarked with raised eyebrows.
For the first time Emanuelle really looked at her; the searing hatred in her eyes made Hermione flinch.
"What did you do?", she hissed. "What did you do zat she chose a little.. a little girl like zat! You torment 'er so, I 'ardly recognize 'er! And now even 'er mozer 'as come..."
Hermione let all the information sink down as she stared at the broken girl in front of her.
"It appears Fleur hasn't talked to you very much about what has happened between us."
"She tells me everyzing! We are best friends!"
Hermione shook her head.
"Then you should know about the mating of the Veela. It seems Fleur didn't really have a choice.. but she very well had a choice how to go about it and she messed that up hugely. So before you start blaming me, I suggest you have a talk with your 'best friend'."
Emanuelle looked as though she was about to strangle her, when Fleur appeared at the door.
"Emmanuelle!", she shouted harshly.
A quick look at the pair and the part Veela marched in, ambushing Emanuelle with a burst of french to quick for Hermione to understand. She was, however, alarmed to see the tears that started to build in Emanuelle's eyes.
Sobbing the girl stood and fled the room.
That left a very confused Hermione and a sighing Fleur who pressed her fingers to her eyes for a moment. The sun bathed her in a warm light and painted her silvery hair golden.
Hermione shook her had and sighed as well.
She felt Fleur's eyes on her as the french girl walked around her and placed something on her nightstand.
When Hermione looked to her left her mouth fell open slightly.
"I just picked zem in ze grounds", Fleur said softly. "I 'ope you like zem."
Hermione lent towards the flowers and breathed in deeply. She couldn't help but smile a little. When was the last time someone gave me flowers? Was there even one time?
"They're... it's strange", she muttered. "I almost forgot it is spring now..."
Slowly Feur lowered herself down on the bed, considerably further away than Emanuelle had.
"What did she talk to you about?", she asked warily.
"Oh... you know. About your times as glorious Casanova of Beauxbatons and on what I must have done to deprave your perfection."
Fleur sighed again and shifted uncomfortably.
"You must forgive 'er. I... didn't confide in 'er as much as I used to."
"You must have been very companionably."
Fleur's blue eyes looked up to her, an earnest in them Hermione had not witnessed so far.
"I used to be many zings, 'ermione", the blond said."But I always acted on my own will and took responsibility for my actions. Until now."
Tentatively she reached out a hand and rested it lightly on Hermione's bandaged one.
"I am very sorry for zis as well. Even when I stay away from you I seem to find ways to 'urt you."
The blond hang down her head.
"I believe zis was a warning."
Hermione didn't say anything. She looked at their hands and back to the girl that had invaded her life so much. The girl that almost raped her and now was holding her hand.
For some reason she had to think of Winky's hand, clutched around a bottle of butter bear.
"What does she want from you?", she asked bluntly.
For a brief moment Fleur looked up to her. She looked almost scared. Hermione felt an ugly sense of satisfaction at that.
"She offered me a bargain", Fleur said quietly. "She will make public what.. what I did to you... unless I share with 'er ze secrets of the Veela's eternal beauty. I told 'er zat I do not know zese secrets but she wouldn't believe me. I 'ave until ze end of the tournament."
Fleur watched how Hermione took a moment to process what she had told her.
How many times had she watched her during this year, from near from afar... and never had she seen that look of resignation and bitterness shadowing her beautiful features.
Together with the coldness she displayed now, she was completely different from the person Fleur had last seen in the church. She knew this was what she actually deserved... it didn't stop her from hurting, though.
Through the thick bandages she felt the warmth of Hermione's flesh and the unsteady beat of her pulse...
"Do Veela have eternal beauty?", Hermione asked finally.
Fleur shook her head.
"Ze full blooded, yes. We otzers.. time is much kinder to us zan to 'umans. Not even my mozer knows of zis secret... and if she would, it wouldn't matter. Ze Veela are very secret about their nature. Ze truth is 'ermione, zere is only one zing I can do."
"And what is that?"
"I must travel to my grandmozer's tribe... and ask zem for advice."
Hermione seemed to consider this; Fleur could see her mind working, the rushing and connecting behind her sad, brown eyes and she felt her heart beak.
Slowly the Gryffindor moved her hand from her own and pointed to her bag.
Fleur nodded and picked it up, carefully placing it on the brunette's lap.
With clumsy movements Hermione reached inside and presented a little book:
Politics in Wizard France.
Fleur swallowed.
"My french isn't good enough for this", Hermione said steadily. "I think it's time you tell me your story."
They locked eyes until Fleur balled her left hand into a fist.
"What is zere to tell? People always seem to forget what Veela are... because zey are beautiful.
'Zey forget zey are creatures. But the ministry in France 'asn't forgotten. And when ze people saw zat other part of ze beauty, zey would quickly come to see zem as well for what... we can be, too.
My mozer's brozer... 'e fought 'is whole life for ze rights of ze Veela. You see - ze sons of ze Veela do only en'erit ze beauty of zeir mother, not ze terrible part zat comes with it. But 'e was.. 'e was uite like you, actually. Very stubborn and alwas wanting to 'elp people in need."
Hermione adverted her eyes at hat and Fleur bit her lip, couldn't she do anything right?
"'e spend a large part of 'is and my fat'er's fortune to... bribe, is it?"
Hermione nodded, her eyebrows scrunched together.
"Yes, bribe.. to bribe ze whole ministry. Zey 'convinced' zem zat zere are part Veela who can control zeir abilities and zat can live like any ot'zer wizard or witch. But since my uncle died... ze voices against us in the government 'ave risen again and my fazer's fortune is not enough to keep zem all quiet. Zere are not many Veela in France - most of zem are found in ze Slavic lands - as you per'aps noticed with Viktor's be'aviour. So ze manner isn't known to most. But to rich powerful it is a welcomed excuse to bring down my family. Ze consequences of zat woman writing about what I - " Fleur drew in a deep breath -" -'ave done to you... it is unimaginable. But I don't 'ave ze knowledge zat could prevent it and I.. in truth, 'ermione, I don't know what to do."
She let out a releaved breath after her little speech. She didn't dare look up into Hermione's face as she tried not give over to her feelings of loss and confusion.
Then suddenly a loud rumble broke the mutual silence and she looked up.
"Was zat your stomach?"
Hermione blushed. "Well. Thanks to Rita Skeeter I missed out breakfast..."
Smiling Fleur reached into her robes and handed Hermione a red and white stripped bag filled with biscuits.
"'ere, 'ave zem. Zey were sent to me by my fazer."
Hermione stared at her and down at the biscuits.
"You know, sometimes I wonder how things would have been between us, if it wasn't for your Veela nature."
Fleur studied her carefully but chose not to respond. He remark left her feeling even more sad.
"Is it true your mother is here, Fleur?", Hermione asked quietly, her face unreadable.
Fleur hesitated.
"Yes, she is. She is still... contemplating what to do."
"I want to speak to her."
"Quoi?!""
"Yes. If you want my help... I need to speak to someone that truly knows about the Veela. But I promise you in any case - I won't let that woman destroy your family."
While Fleur still looked with desperation into those brown eyes Hermione reached for the biscuits in the bag - her bandaged hands however didn't move as planned. Just as the bag was about to fall to the ground Fleur jumped forward with inhuman speed and caught it.
Only when she clutched it to her chests she realized she was now hovering about Hermione, her thighs framing the girl and their faces only inches apart.
Hermione's breath had hitched and she saw her pupils widen.
A terrifyingly familiar ache spread though her. Unconsciously she bowed down. It was like magnetism - inevitable. Hermione just smelled so good - her face, though defiant was so open and vulnerable right now. She didn't flinch away but stiffened when Fleur put her hand to her cheek.
Desire once again took over Fleur's body and she felt the inhuman strength and voice coming back to her.
She closed her eyes.
"No..."
She strained every muscle in her body to keep where she was, but couldn't bring herself to move away either.
It became difficult to breath; especially so when something was pressed onto her mouth...
her eyes snapped open.
Hermione's face was just beneath her, her brown eyes open but her lips connected to her own.
The brunettes gaze was clouded.
She released a breath flowing into Fleur's mouth... her wet tongue gazed her own upper lip.
"Bon sang!" Fleur cried and ripped away from her. She sat upright, her thighs still around Hermione and looked down at the suddenly frightened girl. Fleur breathed in heavily.
"What are you doing?!"
"I... I don't know", Hermione whispered. Her gaze was still clouded over. At the same time she looked confused... and worse, aroused.
Her eyes flickered to the legs framing her and her arm slowly moved. The exposed flesh beneath her bandages grazed the thin layer covering Fleur's thighs.
Fleur skipped down again forcefully, her face pressed onto Hermione's.
The desire was painful.
She felt Hermione's hand wandering to her hip and she clenched her nails into the sheets beneath them.
"Are you mad?", she whispered against Hermione's eyes and her lips touched her forehead.
"Do you want me to loose control?!"
Hermione shook her head beneath her.
"No, I... I just want -"
Forcefully Fleur raised her arms and sat up slightly so Hermione could see her lenghtend nails.
"Do you see zat?", she shouted with tears in her eyes. "Zis is what zis does to me, what is inside of me! What you feel is not real! Fight it!"
Hermione's eyes were still transfixed to her lips and the look on he face made Fleur shudder.
She acted as though she was drugged.
"But it feels real", she whispered almost inaudibly.
For a moment they remained that way, Fleur's clawed arms still outstretched.
Slowly, ever so slowly Hermione lifted her head upward, bringing her lips to her own, her eyes a kaleidoscope of emotions - and Fleur knew, she knew she wouldn't be able to resist this time...
"Merlin's knickers!", someone shouted.
Fleur literally flew backwards onto the bed and Hermione gasped.
Hissing with a voice not her own Fleur's gaze shot to the intruder;
Ginny Weasley stood there, her eyes wide and jumping between the two, her mouth wide open.
She felt Hermione sit up beneath her and sigh loudly.
"Why does everything always have to become more and more complicated?"
Now it really gets confusing in both hearts, eh? Please leave a note on what you think! If I can write eleven chapters, you can write me a line ;)
