Disclaimer: The Kaleidoscopeverse is a melding of Harry Potter, Fate/StayNight, Tsukihime, Naruto, and world religions, the last of which belongs to everyone and is not limited to the three Abrahamaic faiths, Buddhism, Shintoism and Hinduism. Heh. You mad yet?
Author's Note: Guys. Fleur isn't pathetic or wimpy. She's just not a mother fucking sorcerer. She's actually bordering on A class - for a normal seventeen year old, that's, for the lack of a better term, fucking pro. Not everyone's as great as Harry and Dumbledore... If Hermione or Daphne attacked Harry for real, they would get the same results as she did, possibly worse, because they don't know any Hallowed magic, which travels so fast that you need an Eternal eye to dodge it properly. Point being, if she fought a lesser demon, she'd kick its ass. Honestly.
Author's Note: It appears that changing two lines can remove all the not so pseudo-rape from Chapter 36. So yeah. The lemon is consensual sex now, and I don't feel so disgusting and squicky and all. Harry's reaction to it has been changed very slightly as well.
Anon: I suppose it's a little bit OOC, but... I guess all I can say is "trust me for now"? Just a bit? You would think that after 37 chapters, 250 thousand hits, and 1.2k reviews, I'd possibly know where I was going with it? Maybe? Perchance? I'm sorry I'm coming off like a douchebag. It's just that I edited out the bits that could be construed as violently inappropriate by retroactivity, and still left enough motivation for the events that occurred. Honestly, I don't want you to stop reading, but please, please just bear with me? There's a reason for everything - nearly all of my chapters are either Character Development, Plot Devices, or Chekov's Guns.
tjg: All of that will be addressed - I haven't forgotten anything. Big fan of Chekov here :P
Mangekyo
"No, the Corkscrew Twist is around fifteen degrees further to the right. It affects the power quotient; any spell that has it, and is done improperly, will end up costing you around thirty five percent of the magical output you utilize per curse."
Fleur nodded and tried it again. While she had started learning how to duel properly from scratch, she was easily as dedicated as he was, which made for a very good student. Already, most of the weapons that were not enchanted in the Armory had been damaged by her spells, which were slowly picking up in power and accuracy.
"The Plebeian's Slash should be more forceful, as if you were attempting to actually cut someone with your wand-tip. That's possible, by the way. Observe." Harry conjured a wooden dummy, and cut it open with an impossibly fast slash. "Wands will not break as long as the magic being channeled into it is stronger than the target. That's why they can actually block bullets if you're quick enough."
"Can you be fast enough to block bullets?" Fleur wondered, undoubtedly thinking of all the bullets that demons would be sending her way.
"Yes. It's possible. James Evans can do it easily."
It appeared that James Evans was an international superhero nowadays. There were three articles a day in the Prophet that speculated about his existence and whereabouts, and a fantastically accurate Quibbler article that proclaimed that he was a student by day, and a Fae consort by night.
"You still have to introduce me to James Evans", she muttered.
They enjoyed each other's company. Fleur was relieved to be spending time with a boy who was nice to her, but did not want to get into her pants, and could understand French. Harry realized that he enjoyed teaching, and Fleur was a good outlet for releasing his frustrations in the form of barbed words that she generally ignored.
"So why are you competing in the Triwizard tournament?" Harry asked. He had been wondering for a little while.
"Glory", she said, without a thought.
"How are you going to kill demons if you get slain by an errant Manticore? I hear that the Manticore is a traditional beast to use in the First Task. In fact, I doubt even James Evans would enjoy retrieving a silver branch from such a deadly beast, with all his vaunted powers", Harry said, smiling indulgently.
Fleur frowned. "I will kill any Manticore attempting to impede my quest."
"That's the spirit!" Harry pointed at another dummy. "Lightning Decapitation, try for a better Wilmer's Flick this time."
Mangekyo
The better part of two months passed in a flash. Harry's defense classes had turned into mockeries. They were barely entertaining.
His continued lessons with Fleur helped him discover yet another aspect of the world he lived in. It appeared that the Confederation of Demon Hunters was a powerful organization, with four Families in each major country in the world, and two in every minor country. They mostly kept to themselves, but the Mage's Association seemed to be aware of them.
The majority of the Demon Hunters were humans with Bloodlines but no Magic. There were other part-Veela hunters who possessed Magic like Fleur, but the majority of them weren't capable of magecraft beyond the lowest applications of it - generally done by a process known as Circuit Forcing.
The Delacour family was a shamed family. While they had defeated no less than three thousand lesser demons, they hadn't killed any archdemons in so many generations that every single other family in Europe had surpassed them.
"I have to restore our Honor."
Fleur spoke of Honor with a capitalized H. Honor was how she lived, and it was the one thing that Harry never mocked about her. She was a Knight, in all senses of the word - impulsive, but with a heart full of resolve and steel that Harry respected above all else when it came to the blond girl.
He wasn't surprised by the fact that she was capable of using the weapon of nobility - the Rapier. She told him that the Delacour Rapier would be passed to her when she killed her first demon after she turned seventeen, despite the fact that she'd killed eight or nine demons already. She still hadn't killed one since she reached her majority.
Of course, Harry always defeated her. She may have been more skilled in a single style, but his Eyes allowed him to adapt to everyone he had ever fought (with a single marked exception of a seven hundred year old sorcerer).
"Who taught you?" Fleur ground out, as she was knocked on her ass by the flat of the Crimson Ruby again.
"James Evans. You know that already. Didn't you hear about his skill with the Caliburn?" Harry asked, his face completely straight.
"They're choosing the Champions today", Fleur said.
"Oh, is it Halloween already?" Harry's sword wove in and out of a series of pre-cut holes in the wall, displaying perfect accuracy with stabbing aspect of the Crimson Ruby.
"It's the day on which your parents..." Fleur trailed off, her rapid French taking on a sorrowful tone.
"Yeah. It's not something I care to talk about often." Harry paused, and then finally told Fleur to ask him another day, when he was in a better mood.
They walked into the Great Hall early, and Harry sat at the Gryffindor table. Fleur, as usual, sat next to the Ravenclaw prefects, who were already there, most of them reading.
As the Halloween feast began, Hermione sat on his left and Daphne on his right once more. Harry realized that he was noticeably more comfortable when he was around them.
"Fleur Delacour, Harry?" Daphne asked.
Harry stiffened. The conversations between them in the past two months were mildly strained, and generally about Runic Arrays or dueling techniques, as well as long lectures on Bloodline Theory.
"Yes. She is a good friend", he said carefully.
"Are you two...?"
"No."
There was no more conversation, but Hermione felt it was a start.
The feast continued slowly, and Harry found something cold settle in his stomach. He wondered if it was a premonition, or just a bit of unhappiness due to the significance of the day. He briefly wondered what life would be like with a mother to guide him through the development of his Sharingan, which would likely be single-tomoe at this point if he had parents - none of the Dursley's abuses would have happened, and Ovid wouldn't have died. He wouldn't have gone looking for Excalibur, and the Kusanagi would have rejected him for not having the Kaleidoscope.
"Suicidal thoughts?" Fleur joked, though neither of them laughed. She had seated herself across from Harry.
"You", Daphne hissed.
"She's a friend of mine", Harry said, his eyes narrowing.
"I thought I'd be around my only friend here when they chose the champions", she said, smiling. They were both aware that Fleur, while possessing a crowd of admirers, spent too much time plotting the death of Archdemons and crafting solutions to arithmantic problems to have any real friends. Harry had misjudged her. Beneath the facade of an obsessed Demon Hunter and the sharp-as-a-butter-knife blond, there was a religious girl who appreciated swordplay, muggle classics from the nineteenth century, and plants.
Dumbledore dimmed the light in the Hall with a wave of his hand, and the Goblet of Fire, the device that would decide the names of the champions, flared brightly.
The only protection around it was an age line that Dumbledore had drawn with a stick of chalk and several strands of iron filings.
"Undoubtedly, younger students have entered. I'm sure, however, that the Seventh Years are more qualified. I suppose I'd fancy a go at it."
"Oh please", Fleur scoffed. "You hate the idea of competing with schoolchildren."
"What's she saying?" Daphne asked Hermione, the latter of which understood French, but was staring at the Goblet intently.
"The Champion for Beauxbatons Academy of Magic is..." The Goblet flared again, and Harry observed the Roman design. It was rather large, and its magical power was quite obvious.
"Fleur Delacour!"
Fleur stood up and curtsied, then walked off into a small room attached to the Great Hall.
"The Champion for Durmstrang Institute is..." Harry stared at Slytherin table.
"Viktor Krum!"
Krum, who Harry realized was the Bulgarian National Seeker, stood up and grunted at the congregation of three schools, and sauntered into the room.
"The Champion for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is... Cedric Diggory!"
Cedric Diggory, who Harry remembered, was a morally righteous Hufflepuff Seventh Year that everyone but the Slytherin Quidditch team respected. He thought the boy was a good choice.
"And that concludes the selection for the Triwizard Tourna-"
The Goblet flared again, and another slip of paper was spat out of it.
Dumbledore caught it quickly, and stared at it long and hard.
"Harry Potter."
Huge strands of Magic poured out of the cup and attempted to wrap themselves around him, even as Harry dissected them.
They were endless - Harry knew it because the Goblet of Fire drew power from the earth. Harry stood as the red glow of a deconstructed spell with the power of a true Marble Phantasm (a term he had begun to use to refer to the Susano'o) attempted to wrap around him.
"No." He decided, and he lobbed the Crimson Ruby magically. It speed through the air and sank into the Goblet of Fire in an outpouring of multicolored sparks that reminded Harry of Aoko Aozaki's Starbow spell.
The Goblet stopped belching magic for a moment, before it began again, damaged greatly, but not quite disrupted.
Harry cursed under his breathe. The Caliburn or the Kusanagi both had the latent power to destroy magical artifacts with ease, but they were both broken or indisposed. Short of the Shining Heaven, he would have to endure the stupid kid's game, and so he let the magic wrap around him. It wound against him very tightly, and while he couldn't actually feel it, he could perceive it, and he disliked watching what looked like ropes bind him.
"Dumblydoor", Madame Maxime, the Headmistress of Beauxbatons said loudly. "I do not believe the boy put his name in the Goblet."
"I thought that was sort of obvious when he threw a sword at the cup", Igor Kakaroff, the Headmaster of Durmstrang snorted.
"Harry, please move to the adjoining room", said a very nervous Ministry representative whose name Harry didn't remember. A second look told Harry that the man's greatest pleasure and misery were both gambling.
Harry walked over to the Goblet and pulled the Crimson Ruby out of the Goblet with a metallic clang and sheathed it once more, then walked into the adjoining room.
"Harry, do they want us back or something?" Fleur asked, her cultured Parisian accent taking on a questioning lilt.
"No, apparently, someone entered my name as a joke, and I ended up a Champion. I'll probably forfeit the tasks or something."
"What is this?" Krum shouted in Bulgarian, as the three Heads and the Ministry representative walked into the room.
"Will someone like to tell me why my name appeared?" Harry narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore and the Ministry representative.
"Now, now, there's no need to be so hasty, Harry!" the Ministry representative said jovially. "I'm sure everything will work out in the end!"
"Who are you?" Harry and Fleur asked him at the same time, with equal amounts of coldness.
"I'm Ludo Bagman, the Director of Magical Games and Sports", he declared, not realizing exactly how upset Harry was.
"By who are you, I meant 'Why are you an incompetent buffoon?' and 'Why are you smiling, arse?'" Fleur muttered in English. Everyone heard her, and Bagman winced.
"Fleur, there's no need to be impolite", Harry said. Fleur rolled her eyes at him.
"The first task will be on November Twenty-Fourth, nearly a month from now", Bagman continued on, unfazed. "There were once three tasks, but due to popular opinion, especially after all the spotlight on Rome Duels! we'll be having a few more tasks than that, including a student Duel-off, and-"
"That's quite enough, Ludo", said a ministry worker who had just shown up. "I am Bartemius Crouch, from the Department of International Magical Cooperation. I have looked into the problem at hand. Unfortunately, I must announce that Harry Potter has to compete."
"You're just announcing that because you feel like it?" Harry asked incredulously. "Can't you cancel it and redraw the names or something?"
"The Goblet can only be lit once a year", Dumbledore interjected smoothly.
Harry suddenly froze, staring at a little malicious black strand that was attached to Crouch's forehead. "He's under the Imperius, sir!"
Dumbledore instantly leapt into action and made several slashing motions at the area around Crouch, managing to sever the strands with his wand by using a Mind-Strengthening spell as well as an Enchantment Destabilizer. Crouch slumped to the ground.
"What seems to be the problem?" Moody asked, thumping into the room. He stared at the unconscious body of Crouch on the ground.
"He had been put under the Imperius curse, and has just managed to snap it. Take him to your office, will you, Alastor?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes, I will do that", Moody said, looking very, very alarmed as he walked briskly away, levitating the body in front of him.
Mangekyo
"I believe Madame Maxime expects me to be at the carriages in the next three minutes, Harry. I'll see you soon", Fleur said, putting down the practice foil she had conjured and dispelling it with a wave of her wand. She walked off briskly after shooting Harry a final smile that most men would have described as heartstopping.
"My King and a Demon Hunter?"
"Hello, Lady Kingmaker", Harry said, his face heating up.
"Kneel."
Harry bit his lip and slowly sank to his knees, hating every moment.
"Excellent. You're obedient, if only because I'm more powerful than you are", she said, laughing. "It's a good trait for a king to have."
She ran her hands around his shoulder blades, and her face dipped in close. "Are you ashamed?" she asked. "Ashamed in the reaction I've caused? Oh Harry..."
Harry didn't say a word as she brushed the hair covering his right Eye out of the way.
"I'm not here to chat, or even to play games with you. There is someone... summoning demons in England. It's done in heavily warded atmospheres, so no one but a Fae could pick up on them, but the entity in question hasn't even thought of us, so there's no way we can influence him at all. Also, he's really evil, and we don't like that. If you see him, you'll know, because he has demons around him all the time, and the magical signatures are quite obvious."
She disappeared.
Harry thought of very many non-sexy thoughts to cool down, such as 'I think Voldemort might be summoning demons', or 'I just got entered into a tournament by someone who has seriously underestimated me, or has an ulterior motive that just requires my participation.' The embarrassment continued for several moments and he kicked a training dummy, shattering it with his Charge Step.
Mangekyo
"Add the nettles, Daphne."
"Yes, Harry."
"Stir eight times counterclockwise, Daphne."
"Yes, Harry."
There was a silence.
"Yes, Harry."
Despite himself, he smiled ever so slightly. He stopped abruptly.
"Add the roots, Daphne."
"Yes, Harry."
"Stir three times clockwise, Daphne."
She didn't respond this time, choosing to frown.
It was a game they played. Something akin to "who would crack first and beg for the other to join them". Harry was so sure he was losing. He could barely hold back tears when Daphne walked away from him nowadays. It was a side effect of fixing up the last person who had been at Rome Duels - an Asian girl named Cho Chang. She cried a lot, and Harry wasn't quite prepared to use his Reality Marble again for a while.
"Bugger", he muttered, as his eyes teared up for seemingly no reason at all. "Just two weeks until the Task."