Chapter Nineteen: The Sweet Smell of Pureblood Supremacy
Jamie Devereaux sat in the empty Transfiguration classroom with her favorite Professor, as they had done so many times before. It was the beginning of October, the first month of school had flown by quickly. Jamie had had few emotional outbursts, all of which were due to Fred Weasley and his angry responses to the blonde's presence. Often, Jamie found herself wanting to punch a wall after one of their exchanges. The crush that Cedric had assured her would eventually fade was doing no such thing. The Bruce girl would fantasize about a different life where she and Fred could be together. She was just a muggleborn witch with a normal parental background and Fred Weasley didn't just think she was a pretty face—and actually liked her. Overall, she was miserable.
Professor McGonagall studied Jamie patiently, "Have there been any strange things you have experienced at all, Jamie? Dumbledore wants to hear anything, no matter how small it may appear to you. We can't be sure exactly what information is important when it comes to you."
"Right, because I'm a dangerous ticking time bomb?" Jamie asked. Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes with a sigh. Jamie thought about her question and decided to tell McGonagall everything, "I keep getting headaches whenever I'm around Professor Moody. I think it might have to do with his magical eye, but it makes DADA classes positively miserable."
"I'll talk to Professor Dumbledore about that, maybe he can look into it."
"If he does, see if he can find more than just sixty pages about the male Veelas. It's starting to become bothersome to rely on just one source of information to tell me everything about myself." Jamie grumbled, sulkily. The young witch took a sip of the tea that was in front of her and, with her heart racing, asked McGonagall a question she had been dying to ask her since last term. "Do you think I'll ever be able to be in a relationship with—with anyone?"
Minerva looked at her with wide eyes of concern, "Jamie, I only told you that right now it would be a bad idea. I do not know what is going on with you and Fred, but I think the two of you are suffering from severe lack of communication. Did you tell him you liked him?"
Jamie's head jolted up in shock, "Of course not! If I did that then I'd have to tell him I couldn't be with him."
"What's wrong with that?" McGonagall asked. "You are children. Surely if he really liked you he could wait, knowing you had feelings for him, before you started dating."
"I can't expect him to wait around—this entire conversation is pointless. He doesn't like me."
The thin eyebrow of the deputy headmistress quirked upward, "I don't believe that for even a moment."
The little Bruce glared. "He told me he didn't like me."
Minerva McGonagall wanted to tell Jamie that there was a possibility that Fred Weasley was in love with her, and that's why he could lie. But somehow, telling Jamie this felt like it was taking it away from the blonde and Fred. Professor McGonagall wanted to be there when Jamie Devereaux came floating into her Transfiguration classroom, telling her that Fred Weasley had finally confessed his feelings for her. Hopefully, by then, Jamie would know a bit more about Devereaux and would be better at controlling her emotions where a relationship wouldn't do more harm than good. With the rate the pair was going, however, Minerva was worried that it would be years until Jamie stopped being so stubborn and Fred stopped being a fool.
Fred Weasley and George Weasley were in the back of the potions classroom. Snape was passing around a potion for everyone to take a look at before he expected them to recreate it. Fred and George were plotting the creation of their aging potion when Snape made his way to their desk. Amortentia, the most powerful love potion in the world. Fred rolled his eyes when he smelled it, not at all phased when vanilla, flowers, and fresh baked brownies hit his nose. He hadn't needed Snape to bring it over toward him and his twin for the Weasley to know that the only thing he would smell would be the little blonde witch three people away from him.
Jamie Devereaux, on the other hand, was battling internally with the fact that she smelled Fred Weasley so strongly, for moment she had thought he had walked across the classroom. Fresh soap, cinnamon, and campfire smoke surrounded her. It made Jamie light headed and flushed. The last time she had been immersed in this scent was the night of her birthday when she had been certain Fred Weasley was going to snog her. Evidentially, she had been mistaken. She leaned closer to Cedric as they started cutting ingredients, "Do you smell Cho?"
Cedric paused in his cutting before continuing, "I don't know. I smelled a combination of things that I find attractive, but not one person. That's how Amortentia is said to work. Why? Do you smell one person?" The Hufflepuff boy's eyes flitted briefly to Fred before looking back at the ingredients for the love potion.
Jamie's eyebrows were furrowed as she focused on adding and stirring her ingredients, "What are the things you smell?" She asked, avoiding the question Cedric had asked her. She made sure to put a lack of emphasis on the question, so as to not accidentally persuade the boy to answer.
Cedric hummed under his breath in thought, "It smelled like a perfume, I don't know which. And this distinctive scent that I smell when I am at an early quidditch practice and up in the air on my broom. It's crisp and fresh."
"Fresh air is attractive to you?" Jamie teased.
Cedric laughed and teased back in a whisper that only she could hear, "Beats having a thing for red-heads."
Jamie shoved him and they laughed together. Snape shot them a look of disapproval and they went back to their work in relative silence for a few minutes until Cedric began talking again, "When I put my name in—don't give me that look, Jamie, you know I'm going to at least try to be the Hogwarts champion." He stared at her as if daring Jamie to contradict him. When she merely pursed her lips together and said nothing, he continued, "When I put my name in, will you wait while I do it? Or come with me? I'm not sure how we're going to have to approach the impartial judge but it would mean a lot if you were there."
Jamie looked at him and sighed loudly, "Fine. You're so annoying. Wanting eternal glory, how lame." This comment prompted another winning smile from Cedric. The pair continued to work on their potion and, by the end of class, Jamie caught a distinct whiff of cinnamon rising from their Caldron. "I think it worked!" She said eagerly looking around for Snape.
Professor Snape hated Gryffindor's. All of them. But, Jamie Devereaux Bruce was distinctly less annoying than the others. Dumbledore's request for him to keep a close eye on the little blonde did not seem like such the chore as another demands the headmaster had placed on the potions teacher. When he saw her big eyes looking across the room at him, eagerly, he sighed and reached her and the Diggory boy's cauldron. Snape caught the smell of lilies immediately, though it was faint, and knew they had successfully completed their assignment.
While Severus Snape would have given a Slytherin with the same potion a few points for their house, he merely looked at the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor and said, "It's passable." Then turned to address the next Cauldron.
Jamie Devereaux's dimples appeared on either cheek, "I think that was the nicest thing Professor Snape has ever said to me."
Fred Weasley was walking out of potions behind Jamie and Cedric. Cedric turned left while Jamie continued straight, leaving her alone. Fred then spoke to his twin loudly, in order to attract the blonde's attention, "Do you want to know what I smelled, Georgie?"
George's eyes went to his twin and then to Jamie, who's head had turned to the side to hear better, "Yea I reckon I would love to know."
Jamie's heart was racing. Me? Said an annoying voice inside her head. Jamie slowed her steps considerably. Fred Weasley took a dramatic deep breath, as if he could still smell the Amortentia potion, "The sweet smell of Pureblood supremacy."
The silver-haired witch's head whipped around and stopped in her tracks to glare at the red-head. George was still going along with his brother's jest, "And what does that smell like, Freddie."
The tall Weasley twins were now also stopped, and Fred was looking into Jamie's eyes, "You know, the usual. Enslavement of House-Elves. Abuse of power. Jamie getting abracadabra'd by Death Eaters." Jamie's wand was out and pointing at Fred Weasley in an instant.
"That is a very specific scent, but I think I know exactly what you're talking about." George continued.
Fred's hands were in his pockets and he looked unfazed by the fact that Jamie was threatening him with a wand. In fact, the Weasley's heart rate picked up in anticipation. The long white wood was against his throat and Jamie was looking up at him with heat in her eyes, "I will hex you into oblivion, Weasley." The blonde threatened. Fred didn't doubt she would.
The smile on Fred Weasley's face shocked Jamie enough to make her retreat her wand a few inches away from his throat, "Be careful, Bruce. People will start to think you're affected by the things that I say. Or maybe that you even care."
"I doubt People" Jamie emphasized coldly, "would be that dumb."
A rush of heat hit Fred's face. "You'd be surprised." He shouldered past the little blonde witch, brushing by her wand and her shoulder. He felt the heat of her arm and the tingling sensation that happened to him whenever he touched her. Fred Weasley stopped and leaned down to speak in her ear. The same smell his and George's potion had transformed into hit his nose. He tried not to breathe it in. "Had any interesting dreams recently? Is 'Dream Fred' enough for you?"
Fred watched as the little blonde's back straightened considerably. He met her eyes and felt guilt flood him when all he saw was anguish and embarrassment in the dark green eyes that he loved.
Chills flooded her body. His deep voice whispering created an inexplicable feeling within her. She was embarrassed and confused. How did he know she had dreamed of him and how she, in her mind, called him Dream Fred. She was blushing furiously at her intimate secret being revealed. Jamie's mouth opened to say something, to give a sardonic or witty retort. Nothing came out. Instead she turned her body and strode quickly away. Her steps seemed unnaturally heavy.
It was October 30th and Hogwarts castle was alight with good spirits and excitement. All anyone could talk about were the guests that would be coming to the grounds that evening. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were on their way to participate in the first Triwizard tournament in many centuries. Of course, there was a reason that there had not been a Triwizard tournament for so long. A reason everyone was forgetting, except for Jamie Devereaux Bruce. The little blonde witch had taken to calling it the Death Tournament to anyone who spoke to her about it. She was also in a rather foul mood since her most recent encounter with Fred Weasley. How dare he throw something in her face that she couldn't control. Heat would flush into her cheeks at the thought that the red-head boy knew she had a crush on him and had thrown it in her face so carelessly.
Fred and Jamie had transcended anger with one another. It was pure fury. Whenever they caught each other's eyes there would be cold silence between them. They both thought the other was in the wrong and nothing short of divine intervention would convince them otherwise.
Jamie Devereaux stood, staring up at the giant flying carriage that headed toward Hogwarts and housed the Beauxbatons students. Fred Weasley was only a few feet behind her, the cold wind caused her hair to blow behind her and tauntingly close to him. Had it been this time last year, Fred would have eagerly pulled on the locks. Now it felt as if she was intentionally mocking him, telling him he was so close but would never get her. When the Beauxbatons students exited the carriage—along with the largest woman Fred had ever seen—the Weasley boy was forced to hear Alicia giggle to Jamie about how cute the boys were. The red-head had to stop himself from shielding the little blonde from view when she caught one of the French student's eyes. The boy smiled at Jamie, sending Alicia into even more giggles and making Fred flush with annoyance. But nothing annoyed him more than Jamie Devereaux's squeal of delight when she caught sight of Victor Krum. Fred rolled his eyes and hissed, "So famous Quidditch players are your type, Bruce?"
Jamie looked over her shoulder and gave Fred an annoyed look that made his heart race, "Woof-woof, Weasley."
Despite himself, Fred heard a sharp, genuine laugh leave him. Jamie's eyes widened and shoulders slackened. She turned a little more toward him, looking to see if this was his way of holding up the white flag on whatever kind of war they had going on now. Just as she opened her mouth to say something to him, her small frame was swept away with the crowd as Alicia and Angelina pushed her toward the Great Hall with anticipation for the feast.
People were talking so loudly around her that Jamie figured she must have imagined the genuine burst of laughter at her snide remark. It must have been more sarcastic or cruel than she had heard. The wind must have played tricks with her ears. Angelina and Alicia sat across from Jamie, while Hermione sat next to the blonde. Next to Hermione was Ron and across from him none other than the Weasley twins. Jamie Devereaux tried to strategically position her head so that she wouldn't be looking at Fred, but would be able to see him from the corner of her eye. Regardless of how rude they were being to each other, she couldn't help the deep need she had to just stare at him. Jamie was convinced that she could study his face for hours and never get sick of it. That thought in and of itself made the little witch feel fairly ill.
The loud feast had commenced and Jamie was happily stuffing herself, with great conversation between her and Hermione that, for a rare occasion, did not involve dismantling the hierarchy between wizards and other creatures. Jamie Devereaux actually began to get excited for the death tournament, as long as none of her friends were actually chosen, when Ron Weasley made their strangest sound.
There was a beautiful, tall girl standing before them in Beauxbatons robes. She was asking to have some of the food that was at their table but Jamie was in shock. The Beauxbatons girl had her hair. Her exact hair. The silver waves that flowed without wind.
In that moment Fleur Delacour's eyes shifted from the young red-headed boy to the small blonde girl that appeared to be about her age. There was an immediate connection between the two witches, like they sensed each other's similarities without having to say a word. Fleur wanted to ask if she was Veela, but knew doing so in front of these people would only draw unwanted attention. She held out a slim, pale hand to the tan witch that had her hair, "Fleur."
"Jamie Devereaux." Jamie said, instantly, slipping her hand that looked starkly tan next to Fleur's.
"You are French?!" Fleur asked eagerly, even more excited to meet this Veela-witch.
Jamie shook her head, "My father's name was Devereaux. I don't speak French." There was French being spoken from the Ravenclaw table, motioning Fleur to come back to them.
The quarter-Veela looked down at Jamie and smiled, "We talk later, yes?"
Ron Weasley watched the exchange with a slightly ajar mouth. He turned to Harry, saying, "I guess it is true what they say. Beautiful people flock together."
When the feast was over and the Goblet of Fire had been revealed as the impartial judge for the tournament, Jamie stayed behind her friends. They were all so eager to talk about who was putting their name into the cup, that no one noticed that the small blonde was no longer with them. No one except Fred Weasley, who watched as his Jamie Devereaux headed toward the Beauxbatons girl that had introduced herself as Fleur during the feast. Fleur and Jamie stood off to the side of the Great Hall, standing together and drawing the attention of every boy within a ten foot radius. Fred fought the urge to deck one of the seventh year Slytherins that gave a low, appreciative whistle.
"Hi." Jamie said tentatively to Fleur, certain that this girl was like her.
"You are Veela as well?" Fleur asked in a thick French accent. When Jamie nodded, Fleur grabbed both of her hands in excitement, "My Grandmother was one." The giant woman that was the head of Beauxbatons called for the beautiful French Veela to follow her. Fleur's shoulders deflated a little, but she squeezed Jamie Devereaux's hands. "Tomorrow we speak more?"
The Hogwarts blonde watched as Fleur retreated out of the Great Hall, her heart rate beating from excitement. She needed to know more about Devereaux, and maybe someone that had always know they were a Veela would have information about Male Veelas.