Harry Potter and the Marauding Champions by NonsensicalRants
Chapter 10
Relationship Troubles Part 2
Harry remained steadfast in his decision to remain gentlemanly and magnanimous towards his girlfriend for the rest of the week.
On Wednesday, after he returned from lunch with her royal mother and angelic sister, she had caught him walking down the path of Hogsmeade with the usual goofy smile on his face. And so began the interrogation into his supposed unfaithfulness. Surely he would only bother to sneak out to the sleepy scottish village for purposes of doing things with other girls that they themselves had yet to do together; or so went her reasoning.
Harry had to wonder at her detailed descriptions of the lurid acts she was accusing him of, and wondered further at her specifically accusing him of finding a more beautiful woman than her. He wanted to rotort with something along the lines of "Are there many Veela-Succubus-Nymph-Dryad hybrids running around the scottish highlands?" - as that was the only thing he could imagine outstripping her in beauty. Instead, he settled for denying any kind of affair with a patient smile and stole a bone-breaking hug from her at every chance. Hugs which she responded too by unceremoniously shoving him away with much angst and rage.
Thursday went much the same.
She turned away from him when he tried to give her a peck on the cheek outside of the carriage, and so he gave her a Hermione hug.
Snide remark about him screwing other girls in Hogsmeade during breakfast? Hermione hug!
Giving him the silent treatment as he walked her to class? Hermione hug!
And that time she sprouted feathers when a Slytherin girl with a skirt so short you could see her thong walked past and he noticed? You better believe he gave her a Hermione hug.
She must not have appreciated the damage to her internal organs because she was persona non-grata during lunch; leaving him in the company of Viktor and Cedric.
"I notice you hugging your vooman like my vooman hugs." Viktor pointed out.
"Yup." Harry said. "It never fails to make me feel better when she crushes my ribs like that." Harry told him, noting in his peripheral vision that the subject of their conversation had just entered the great hall. "I used to think I was just especially scrawny and that's why I found it painful. But Ron complains about the cracked ribs and dislocated spinal disks too."
He waited a few seconds for Hermione to get within earshot before continueing. She was approaching them from behind Viktor and Cedric so he made sure to maintain eye-contact with them as not to give away her presence.
"What about you Viktor? Does Hermione's hugs hurt for you?" He asked a little too loudly. Hermione stopped dead in her tracks and glanced towards him in confusion. "You're all muscle so imagine you're more resistant to her vice grips."
Hermione must have gotten the clue when he didn't acknowledge her presence because she took to tiptoeing towards her boyfriend in a exaggerated bugs-bunny gait.
"Da. That girl has a strong upper body. Probably from hugging so many large tomes to her chest all day. Shame she is afraid of flying, else she could make a great beater." Viktor said, oblivious to the world of painful affection headed his ways. "Or keeper, really. But yes, very painful hugs."
"I've never gotten a hug from her so I can't exactly compare notes." Cedric added offhandedly, causing Hermione to change course.
"Never?" Harry asked.
"Never." Cedric confirmed.
"Stick around. She's bound to give you one eventually." Harry told him before very quickly making eye contact with her and giving a nod.
Hermione hug!
Fleur managed to avoid the group for the rest of the day, and most of Friday. Though Harry did see the twins sneaking back into the castle through the hunchback witch passage and meetup with Fleur on the Marauder's map. This did not bode well and so he interrogated them. In short order they explained how they brokered a truce with her in exchange for sweets.
"We wrote to her sister and she said to buy her lots of sweets." Fred said. "So we bought her lots of sweets."
"Gabby said to get the especially sugary pastries. Baklavas and the like." George added. "Just sent our letter thanking her for the advice yesterday."
Oh. Oh! Ohhhhhhhh. Oh shit.
Harry sprinted down to the dungeons, tickled the pair on the painting to reveal the entrance to the kitchen and hunted Dobby down in the ocean of floppy ears. Barely finding him in time to avert disaster.
"How can Dobby be helping you's today Har.." Dobby had tried to say before Harry roared his order.
"Fleur Delacour. Mail. Like you did to mine." He told the little blighter. "Now!"
Dobby popped away without asking for details or even acknowledging the command.
It was several hours later as he was let out of potions that Dobby popped back into existence with a soft-looking package in his hands. It was similar to the one Harry had received from Dumbledore on his first Hogwarts Christmas. Taped to the string which bound it was a letter bearing Gabrielle's signature.
Harry took the package, secluded himself in one of the ubiquitous and numerous abandoned classrooms, and opened the letter.
Dear Fleur,
While trying on some of your old clothes I came upon one of your favorite nightgowns. It's much too big for me but I thought you would want it back now that it's starting to warm back up in Scotland. I'm sure Harry would like seeing you in it more than your winter pyjamas.
I hope it still fits you.
Your loving sister,
Gabrielle.
The little devil had the audacity to add a little smiley face with a halo over it next to her name. He opened the packing itself to discover a partially transparent silver nightgown. It had strange coattails like a trenchcoat with a veiled hood like something out of an Arabian fantasy.
He was inclined to agree with Gabrielle. He would very much enjoy seeing Fleur in this, but that would have to wait until their relationship was in a less rocky state. For now, he would repackage the dress, instruct Dobby to hide it someplace safe and write a chastising letter to his maybe-future-sister-in-law. With all that done, he found Fleur on the map loitering near the entrance hall.
Presuming she was waiting for him to walk her back to the carriage, as he was wont to do, he high tailed it down there where the long lost dazzling smile of hers made a re-appearance. She happily took his arm and allowed him to walk her back. Fred and George's sweets must have done the trick. That or they dosed them with alcohol. Would explain the flushed cheeks and cheeriness of his girlfriend. He would forgive them if they had.
Fleur was her usual, glowing self again. That's all that mattered.
As he walked her back to the carriage he was blindsided when, out of the blue, Fleur turned around and planted a firm kiss right on his mouth. She kept her lips latched onto his for a good, long minute before they parted
"Wow." Was his sputtered response. "Sooooo, that was a first."
She laughed at him as he struggled to catch his breath.
"It was not! Do you really think we wound up naked in a rose bed zat night without having a fencing duel of ze tongues beforehand?" She teased.
She had a fair point. But that didn't change the fact that this still felt like thier first real kiss. Even without the tongue-fencing, as she put it.
"Well, I don't rightly remember the nasty things we did that night. So let's henceforth consider everything new we try to be the first time, yeah?" Harry asked.
"You are evair ze romantique 'arry." Fleur chided, tapping him on the nose with a finger. "Remain zo and I will always be yours."
Harry was sure his blush could be seen from space.
"But I do wish to get back to where we must 'ave gotten zat night sooner razzair zan later. Wouldn't you agree?" Fleur asked with a husky tone in her voice.
Harry tried to translate her broken english. Her accent only ever got that thick when she was nervous or overly emotional. But images of her very nearly naked body in that bed of leaves and rose petals came rushing back to him, along with that oh so delightful evening gown Gabrielle had sent.
"Err, no!" Harry said nervously. "No, I'm not... At all ready for that."
She pouted, and unlike her usual pout, this one seemed genuine.
"Well. I am!" She snipped with a hint of anger before sighing. "But... I've waited all my life, I can wait a leetle longer. Unteel you are ready, 'arry."
He was positive her pronunciation of the word little was to give him a reminder of how she initially thought of him back in that trophy room when they'd first met. But he let it slide. He'd made it this far without letting her misbehavior get to him, he wasn't going to falter now.
"Goodnight 'arry." Fleur said before planting another soft kiss onto his lips.
"Goodnight mom cher." He answered before lightly planting one back onto her lips.
"Bye." Fleur said as she walked up the steps to the carriage.
"Bye." Harry said back as he started walking backwards on the trail to the great hall.
"Bye." Fleur said again as she opened the door and stepped inside.
"Bye." Harry replied again, still walking backwards.
"Byebye." Fleur said yet again, her body obscured by the door.
"Byebye." Harry said, worried his goofy grin might grow so big as to cause a year at the edges of his lips.
"...bye." Fleur finished their awkward encounter by ducking her head inside and closing the carriage door.
Harry turned around at last and began his lonely truck up to Gryffindor tower. Feeling as warm as a summer breeze on the inside.
Harry had invited all of the boys in his year, sans the still unaccounted for Weasley, to the common room where they shared a bottle of firewhiskey that Fred swore to him wasn't spiked with anything. Now George was the only one who owed him a peace offering.
They were discussing their misadventures around the castle throughout the week and where they could look next to find Ron as they knocked back the shots. Occasionally pelting each-other with accusations of unmanliness whenever one failed to get the liquor down. Seamus was particularly foul-mouthed, calling Dean a pussy on no fewer than five occasions whereas Harry thought "lightweight" was a perfectly appropriate insult. Harry humored them in their guesses as to where Ron could be despite knowing full well - thanks to the Marauder's map - that he wasn't anywhere in the castle. They, in turn, were humoring Hermione, Levender and Parvati as they made snide remarks on their drunkenness from the table at which they were doing their homework. Fay was there too, but she kept to herself.
Neville was detailing the possibility of Ron somehow accidentally reopening the chamber of secrets when something resembling the creature of the black lagoon in drag entered through the Fat Lady's portrait.
It was dressed in tattered rhobes covered in barnacles and lichen, with seaweed hanging from the coattails. Upon it's head was a matted carpet of red and orange kelp.
The creature marched to the only available seat in the common room and plopped down next to Seamus with a sigh. It removed the wig of kelp to reveal a familiar pale, freckled face made even more pale by time spent - presumably - underwater. The creature then reached out, picked up the bottle of fire whiskey, and began downing the remains.
The rest of them shared awkward glances before Seamus grabbed his new couch-mate by the scruff and - acting as if he had just dragged him through the portrait hole himself - declared "Hey look everyone! I found Ron!"
"Eyyyy!" Harry cheered, making a toasting motion with his glass.
"Oh thank god! We were so worried!" Said Dean.
"Good work Seamus!" Neville said, clapping him on the shoulder.
They all said this at once and with an air of complete sincerity. All the while they made their fanfare at his return Ron simply gave them a two finger solute and continued chugging the firewhiskey like a champion.
Their antics were apparently too much for the girls who broke down in a fit of giggle and ran up the staircase to avoid laughing themselves to death. Fay Dunbar remained at the table, appearing to all the world as if she were olivious to the going ons around her.
Ron finished the bottle and dropped it back on the table. He smacked his lips in satisfaction before glancing between his friends.
"So. How was your week?" He asked the room.
"Meh. Girlfriend's been a bit moody." Said Harry
"Sounds like a hard-knock life." Ron deadpanned.
"I might be underplaying how moody she's really been." Harry said honestly, but without elaborations.
"Speaking of Moody, the psycho is teaching class again." Said Seamus.
"He's missing his eye and lost a lot of weight." Neville added.
"That's a shame. The old Auror only had one good one." Ron bemoaned. "Did they put a red fake on into the empty sockey to counter the blue fake one?"
"Oh no, it was the fake blue one he lost." Harry corrected.
"Neat. So who wants to know about my week?"
They all uttered trepidation-filled sentences along the line of "go ahead." And so Ron shared his tale of woe.
"Oh you know. Got kidnapped by mermaids again. Spent the week playing spin the bottle with them against my will. I'm half disturbed and half glad they were all little girls. On one hand they weren't old enough to know what rape is or how to commit it; on the other hand I now have to live with the memories of my reverse-pdeophilic tongue-fencing." He paused to burp. "Can't decide which was worse, that or them repeatedly giving me a makeover like a trussed-up, life-sized barbie doll."
Harry shared concerned glances with his other yearmates. Even Fay had disregarded her homework to stare at Ron with unhidden concern.
"How did you get away?" Harry managed to ask.
"A couple of their older sisters found me and let me loose." Ron explained. I think Fred is engaged to one. So am I for that matter. Hopefully mum can veto it. She probably won't be happy to let that go on."
He was probably right. While the Weasleys were more open to interracial or interspecies relationships than most, seeing one of their sons go off to live with mermaids was a bit beyond the pale. It was akin to a British family being okay with their son marrying a black girl. They still wouldnt so hot on the idea of that son being inducted into the Mardudjara tribe where he would be genitally mutilated through removal of the foreskin and slicing of the urethra - thus forcing him to forevermore squat when he peed - and for the rest of his life subsist on a hunter gatherer lifestyle until he died of some yet undiscovered aboriginal virus.
Let's just say mermaids are similarly underdeveloped culturally and leave it at that, shall we?
"Why did they kidnap you specifically?" Fay asked in what may have been the eighth time Harry had ever heard her speak.
"Apparently they really like redheads." Ron explained.
"I can relate to that." Dean mumbled suggestively.
Ron glared at him over the insinuation.
"But why kidnap you? Why not Percy? He's been stuck at Hogwarts lately." Seamus asked.
"Because that would be interesting. And interesting things do not happen to Percy." Ron explained. "It's a universal constant."
None of them could rightly argue against that.
"Plus they specifically developed a crush on me during the second task." Ron explained. "The entire damn tribe did, apparently."
They all returned to silence as the story came to a close.
"You hungry!?" Harry asked. "I could run down to the kitchen and grab you whatever you like."
"Nah Im good." Ron declined to the shock of all. "The girls kept me well fed with gillyweed and their attempts at sushi - sans the rice of course. I'm not sure if they were terrible at food prep - as they were young and claimed to be using me to test their skills - or if it just wasn't food worthy of human consumption."
He paused to think on this.
"Probably both." He decided before getting up and heading up to the boy's dorm. "I'm gonna go take a nap next to the toilet. If you need me I'll be blowing chunks until the early morn."
It was as Ron was climbing up the staircase to the boys dorm that Harry yelled up after him.
"You want any help getting back at the twins?!" He offered.
Ron turned to him with a mischievous smile.
"Nah! I'll take care of it. You and your crew have already done your damage to them. It's my turn now."
Fleur brushed her hair lazily as she vainly stared into the vanity mirror and hummed a song she couldn't quite place.
She had been so unlike herself lately. Fawning and being sappy and all that stuff she always thought to be stupid before. Now that she was with Harry she understood completely. All that humdrum about love and sex in the mountains of tomes on poetry had been boring time wasters before, but now acted like road maps and now it was unthinkable that she could have ever been so standoffish and closed-off to the possibility of the happiness of being with a man.
And there weren't words to describe the constant giddiness she felt, so full of being in love she was.
Her toes danced as she hummed, hell, every part of her body danced at all hours of the day at times she was so out of control of her feelings. But was being out of control such a bad thing when it felt this good?
She put the brush down and slowly braided her hair for bed. She couldn't help laughing at her reflection. All smiles and blushing lately. It was so stupid! She was old enough to be doing more "grown-up" things with her boyfriend, and though she wanted to do those things it was the cheesiness of being unable to say goodbye at the end of the day that filled her mind with fantasies before bed. Fantasies that wouldn't lead to any acts of self-affection unbecoming of a lady, unlike the fantasies she used to have when love was just a concept to her.
With her hair braided Fleur got up from the vanity, removed her fluffy slippers - thus breaking the completeness of her full-body fluffy pyjamas - and slipped under the five layers of blankets whom welcomed her back. She settled in for what was bound to be a restless hour of fighting to fall to asleep.
Her happy feet made her happy legs restless, and along with her fingers and lips constantly twitched and made her toss and turn in bed.
Oh, but the perils of being in love! It almost wasn't worth being lowered to the status of an idiot unable to think clearly any longer or to maintain her usual airs.
But sleep did find her. Frighteningly quickly. So quickly, in fact, did the darkness close in that the part-Veela felt a sliver of panic rise in her chest - like that of being caught unawares by an unexpected stunner. But the panic wasn't enough to keep her from falling into darkness.
And as she fell into unconsciousness, she saw in the corner of her room a dark figure appear from beneath an invisibility cloak.
Sirius discarded the invisiblity cloak and approached the unconscious Fleur.
It was a tricky bit of enchanting, setting up a stunning ward, and trickier still to contain it within the confines of a twin-sized bed. But the results were well worth it, for it ensured she wouldn't regain consciousness during the coming procedure. Without it the pain alone would wake her, to say nothing of the noise.
He neatly folded the Deathly Hollow, the one invisibility cloak in the world that would allow him to sneak past all of the protections in the Beauxbatons carriage undetected, and placed it on the vanity. He felt guilty for "borrowing" the ancient artifacts James had told him all about, but it was for his sons own good.
Atop the cloak he placed a black plastic container resembling a toolbox. Noticing a hairbrush he removed several of the silvery hairs for later use. You never knew when you needed to polyjuice as a particular enemy after all, though research into part-veela hair as a polyjuice ingredient would be paramoint. He placed the hairs into an empty vial - one of several he kept on hand at all times for similar purposes to this - and returned to the task at hand.
He opened the toolbox and removed from the tightly fitted molding each piece of the familiar device. One he had used many times; both on himself and on others. He put it together with the speed and skill of a soldier reconstructing his rifle. Then he connected it to the power source.
It was one hell of a task creating a battery capable of operating within the Hogwarts boundaries, and even then the enchantments against magical interference would only last so long before every single part of it short-circuited. He had to move quickly.
Approaching the prone figure he hardened his heart to do what must be done. To mutilate this girl in such a way as to discourage any man from wanting to know her intimately, and to ensure Harry didn't come to know her carnally any time soon. A mutilation that was as big of a labido killer as a half-shaven head or illigitimate child to any would-be suitors. One only he would ever be able to undo.
He flipped the switch for the device and it came to life with the loud buzzing of hair clippers. Kneeling down he parted the five entire layers of blankets and lifted her shirt just a few inches. With deliberation he recreated a signature he had spent the entire week practicing, though this time he put it on a canvas of skin instead of paper and so he worked much more slowly.
When this Veela hussy next woke up it would be to discover the signature of Roger Davies stamped just an inch above her arse. And lo, her scream would most assuredly wake the mountains.
She'll think twice the next time she decided to pressure his godson into sex.
Discord:
I have a discord server now. Join it to know when future updates are coming a month ahead of time, to chat with me personally, as well as other readers. I'm thinking about doing a weekly Dungeons and Dragons game or other rpg too, once I have enough people joined. I'm also working on FanGame content, ripping textures and modeling resources for the PS1 Harry Potter games and Spyro. If that interests you, come on over.
Here is the discord invite.
/UQfd5nY
Reviews:
Jean11089 wrote:
The reference in the latest chapter wouldn't happen to be from a Sovietwomble arma video talking about cyanide's girlfriend would it? Nice choice if so
Smbreu Wrote:
Cyanides Super Hot Girlfried
Response:
You both answered correctly. It took Jean a while, but he asked me for the spoiler reward but didn't ask for anything specific. Leaving me to decide what to spoil. I told him the identities of the Marauder's during Tom Riddle's Generation.
Guest Wrote:
Short sheeting did it for me. It was a very popular prank the Boy Scout Camp LaNochee staff liked to pull on what was deemed to be the most obnoxious camper of the week. In my 1960 tour of duty as the camp bugler my humble suggestion was chosen once of the twelve weeks I was on staff. I was able to direct the prank toward the most arrogant captain of my high school football team who made life miserable for scrawny date deprived band members such as myself. Yep, I played first trumpet in said band. The funny bit was that no-one ever figured out who did it or that it was an ongoing prank.
Response:
You sound like the kind of guy I like to hang out with and shoot the shit. Shame you reviewed anamymously so I can't pm you. Didn't know people your age read fanfiction.
Even bigger shame that the boy scouts had to close down because of all the gay pedophiles.
Guest Wrote:
I realized that this story is somewhat the magical version of the movie the hangover.
Response:
I hate that movie series, and it in no way inspired this story. The hangover is not the first story to have ever included a night nobody could remember. It's kind of a trope that's existed since alcohol was invented.