Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

I've reposted this, changed a few things that I wrote when I was tired (no love-magic bonds, sorry guys, normal relatable romance only) and included without really thinking about it. Although my purpose in writing this is to play with the clichés, to offer them up and turn them into something different as best I can, I'll try not to let them have a profound impact on things. I do ask that when one begins to loom you stick with me for a bit, since it's highly unlikely I intend to just let it flow down the same old path as before.

Chapter 7

The face that gazed back blankly from the mirror was proud. High, refined cheekbones, slender, elegant brows, bright, clear, blue eyes and full lips all framed by flowing, silver hair. This was her face and it was perfect.

Fleur was not like other girls. She hadn't really believed that when her mother had told her when she was little, but she'd learned swiftly enough it was true. She'd been a cute child, popular and loveable, but then the other girls had changed and nobody wanted to be cute anymore. They had grown curves where she had only had sweet innocence. Fleur had been left behind. She had been derided, mocked and her friends had left her. It had hurt and despite the strong facade she had maintained there had been more than one occasion when it reduced her to tears.

It had been three very long years of wondering why she was cursed to be different and waiting to catch up, then she had changed too. Now it was those foolish, petty, plain girls who envied her. They had abandoned her for boys and now their boys abandoned them for her at the slightest glance. Fleur didn't even want their boyfriends. That was not how her magic worked, regardless of the jealous whisperings of her self-entitled rivals.

I have no real rivals, she smiled, proud of that fact.

She was more beautiful, more intelligent, her family just as prestigious as any other in France, and her magic was stronger. She would not have wanted her former friends back if they had crawled towards on her knees. Fleur had outstripped them the moment she had hit her Veela puberty and they would never, could never, catch up.

Fleur had her own room in the carriage where other girls had to share. Madame Maxime had known the moment her differences from the other ordinary, human witches became apparent that she would not be one of them again. She had her own rooms at Beauxbatons and the privilege had accompanied her here to this miserable, wet castle in Scotland.

Her younger sister, Gabrielle, had just entered her fourth year at Beauxbatons. She, like Fleur, had already been abandoned by her so called friends, but Gabby had finally begun to change as Fleur had. She had grown three inches in the last month alone and would soon follow in the footsteps of her elder sibling as she passed from being held in contempt to being regarded with jealousy. It was of paramount importance to Fleur that her baby sister not have to go through it as alone as she had.

She had been there when Gabby had come to her rooms crying because her friends had nothing better to do than taunt for remaining like a child and she would continue to be there for her. When Gabby came to her again because the girls she hoped would become her friends now she had changed lashed out in spiteful jealousy and avoided her; Fleur would still be there.

The Triwizard Tournament was not something she needed to compete in, she'd rather be back in France with Gabrielle, but nobody else from school would do as well as her. Since leaving Beauxbatons there had been those hopeful of being champion rather than her and toppling her from her pedestal. It was time to make sure the pretenders were reminded that they had not been her equals since they forsook her and would never be on the same level again.

Madame Maxime was holding a slow and painstaking conversation with Hogwarts' gamekeeper when she peeked outside. Most disturbingly the vast man was wearing an expression she recognised all too well from the faces of the boys she passed by.

Fleur quietly slipped past her up towards the castle. She was not supposed to leave the carriage unattended, but who, other than her headmistress would accompany her. It was not like she was worried about herself. A sixth year she might be, but she had had plenty of time to advance her learning while the other girls had been making eyes at boys and gossiping spitefully about her. Even so, she reduced the aura of allure that radiated off her as much as she could. This was not a time to attract attention when it might bring trouble. Madame Maxime would be beside herself if she caught her unescorted in the middle of a boys school late at night.

It would also validate the rumours those harpies like to spread. Fleur scowled at the very idea of people actually believing those lies.

Somehow her cloak was soaked before she had even reached halfway to the indoors. The rain wasn't even visible. There was as much water in the air as there was in the foul, cold looking lake. Veela were creatures of emotion and fire; they did not enjoy the wet or the cold and Fleur was no exception. She longed for the bright sun of southern France.

The grey, dreary battlements of Hogwarts were a far cry from the graceful architecture of Chateau Beauxbatons. Everything was solid, square and grey, even the few towers were sturdy rather than slender. She supposed they needed the thick walls to keep out the rain and, furthermore, deduced that there was little point in building a beautiful castle when the clouds would always obscure it.

The Great Hall was quiet; a far cry from how it had been when they first arrived. As she had hoped, the initial enthusiasm about the goblet and entering names had faded and the students that had stayed to cheer prospective champions had lost interest after a few hours and none had lingered after curfew.

With quick, confident strides she made her way down the centre of the hall to the flame-filled artefact. The age line rippled as she crossed it, but nothing happened. She was seventeen and had been for almost a month.

Fleur Delacour, the parchment's slanting, delicate script read in the blue light of the goblet before the flames swallowed it and the light flared red. Her name was accepted, as it was always going to be. She had had no doubt of that.

She spun on her heel to make her way back down the hall and to her room where she would be free of both gawping boys and gossiping girls.

Fleur froze as a shadow passed the entrance of the hall. Someone was coming.

If it is Madame Maxime I am in trouble.

The headmistress was the only person at the school she respected. The other teachers were either affected by her allure directly or were just as jealous as the girls they taught.

It wasn't the headmistress and Fleur's shoulder slumped with elegant relief. A dark, messy-haired Hogwarts student made his way along the wall to her right. He was a little shorter than her, about her younger sister's age from first glance, with round glasses that protruded past his face. He wasn't unattractive. There was an untidy, casual appeal to his face, Fleur had seen hundreds of boys with similar aesthetics back in France.

The bespectacled boy followed the edge of the wall, his head tilted to one side in thought. He looked much too young to be taking part in the tournament and must be, like her, sneaking about after curfew for reasons of his own.

As he approached the end with the goblet, its flames illuminated his face, reflecting off his glass and giving her glimpse of intense, emerald eyes. Fleur watched him dispassionately, waiting for him to notice her and grind to a halt, but he never slowed.

She knew he must have seen her, but he did not even acknowledge her presence in the slightest.

Fleur was not sure how to react to that. Boys always noticed her. Men certainly noticed her. Nobody ever just didn't notice her.

It was the same student she had briefly spoken to on her short quest for French food and the boy who had conjured the butterflies; something that had earned him the disgust of those around him at the table. She had not been able to face the idea of heavy English food after travelling and the other girls had swiftly monopolised what native cuisine they could get the hands on. Obviously none of it ever reached her.

He did not even look at me then, Fleur remembered.

Once she could ignore. She had brushed off her surprise at his lack of reaction within moments of taking the Bouillabaisse from his disapproving friend. Twice would not pass without some investigation.

Releasing her hold on her allure she allowed it to swell back to the usual, passive level and made her next step a little louder than necessary so he would turn to look at her. Her charm would only work if he was looking at her. She did not like being ignored, it was unfamiliar and made her strangely nervous.

The young wizard paused a few steps from the end of the hall and Fleur celebrated internally. Nobody ignored Fleur Delacour. She was almost looking forward to seeing his glazed over eyes for having the audacity to not notice her twice.

'Tempus,' she heard him whisper. Silver numbers ghosted from the end of his wand and she saw him shake his head in apparent relief, but he didn't look back and simply continued on his way at the same leisurely pace.

Fleur was speechless and infinitely grateful there had nobody else present to witness her humiliation. She had all but intentionally levelled her charm at him and he hadn't so much as turned to look at her. The dark-haired wizard had piqued her curiosity. She was going to find out what made him so special that she was so far beneath his notice.

As her moment of surprise faded she realised it was not such a slight really. After all, she barely noticed any of the boys around her. They were all the same to her, with their blank, charmed faces and laughable dreams. As if she would ever deign to make their dreams of her real. This boy was no different to any of the others. She had come across those who were resistant enough to her charm to not be affected by the passive aura of attraction radiating from her.

Those boys do still notice you, though. He isn't aware that I exist, resistant or not.

Fleur was still a little curious about exactly how resistant he really was. The few she had come across before crumbled quite quickly once she actually tried to charm them and focused her allure.

Bringing him to his knees would rather make up for his inexplicable indifference to her and restore the pride he had unintentionally wounded. The idea brought a slightly cruel smile to her lips.

Now she had to hurry back to the carriage before Madame Maxime noticed she was gone.

Stealing back out into the drizzle, she cast an enchantment to ward the rain off her clothes and moved quietly back down the hill. The steps were uneven, steep and slippery under foot and it was hard to see how high they were in the dark, so she was forced to take them slowly.

She was back inside before Madame Maxime saw her. Her poor headmistress was still outside speaking to the gamekeeper in increasingly hushed tones. If the man hadn't been so useful in allowing her to leave and return undetected Fleur would have felt a little but annoyed at him for bothering Madame Maxime for so long.

'Where have you been, Fleur?' Caroline's overly dulcet tones caught her before she could reach her room. The small, rounded girl had been skulking the shadows at the of the corridor with a friend, probably waiting for a chance to try and provoke her again. Caroline had a jealous streak as wide a tree trunk and little self-restraint.

'Been sneaking up to Hogwarts to bewitch little boys again?' the second girl cut in.

Emilie. She was Caroline's counterpart in every way. Tall where her friend was shorter, skinny where she was not. The baby fat had melted away over the last few years to leave little but sharp bones and a sharper tongue. It was a wonder she even managed to survive on her vegetable only diet and tiny portions. If she was chosen as the Beauxbatons representative then a well aimed piece of meat would send her into a full, disgusted retreat. Not that the goblet would ever choose someone like either of them.

'I don't bewitch anyone,' Fleur responded icily. 'If you're both still upset that your boyfriends are so weak minded they cannot resist my charm then take it up with them, or, better still, ask yourselves why they might be looking at other girls when they have you.' She was not in the mood to be merciful, especially not to these two who had once been her closest friends.

'Our boyfriends were fine until you used your Veela magic to enchant them and lure them away,' Emilie hissed furiously. 'At least we know those rumours about you really are true. Why else would you be sneaking out in the middle of the night.'

'It's barely even early evening,' Fleur corrected coldly, 'your ability to tell the time is as poor as your duelling, Emilie. Would you like me to remind you which of us is the school duelling champion?'

'You wouldn't dare,' Caroline sniffed. She had a babyish face that reminded Fleur of the mandrakes they had occasionally taken care of herbology. The fact she had ever managed to get a boyfriend in the first place was the real mystery. Fleur suspected heavy doses of amortentia had something to do with it.

'It doesn't matter,' her friend remarked with spiteful, mock innocence, 'she's probably too tired to do anything after her excursion. How many was it, Fleur? Did you lure enough in to satiate yourself?' That was quite a cheap shot coming from a girl renowned for throwing herself at any male who gave her so much as a second glance and still couldn't keep a boy long enough to get her to avoid Fleur.

'Or are you going to go back later and find some more?' Caroline tacked on.

Ignore them, Fleur told herself. They have no understanding of Veela magic.

'Not going to share? We won't tell,' Emilie pressed, triumphantly. 'Or are the other rumours true. The ones that say for all your unnatural abilities poor Fleur has never been kissed.' That hit a little too close to the mark for comfort.

'As if I care what you or your rumours say,' she declared with carefully feigned indifference. 'You are both of you less than me. Less attractive, less powerful and less important. Go satisfy your empty lives by whispering about your superiors to compensate for your own inadequacies.'

Caroline gasped, the sugary pretence of over friendliness completely collapsing under the weight of Fleur's statement. Emilie reached for her wand.

Fleur caught her wrist before it could make it to the wand she had tucked through the waistband of her uniform. 'Why would you even try?' she asked, genuinely curious. 'Charms, duelling, enchanting, I am better than you at every aspect of magic. We are not children anymore, Emilie, you can't flaunt your first boyfriends and early kisses in my face anymore and expect me to care. Go back to your room and take her with you before you lose someone else you care about to me.'

They took her threat more seriously than Fleur had expected and scurried away like frightened mice. It was only when they were gone did she catch sight of her reflection in the window and realise she had partially transformed in her anger.

Veela were not half so attractive when they were enraged. Fleur took several deep breaths and watched her eyes shrink and shift back from black to their normal light blue. Under her uniform she felt the feathers slide back into her skin. At least she had not slipped so much as to conjure fire. Madame Maxime would have been furious with her if she had gone so far, though the thought of charring all the hair off the heads of both of her former friends was very appealing.

How could I let those pair of bitter little girls so affect me? she wondered.

It was worse than weak for her to let their words get to her. She had heard everything they had said before and was normally impervious to it and more.

Fleur hadn't calmed down all that much when she returned to her room. There was just so much that was wrong about being here. The food, the weather, all her normal problems with girls and with boys and the fact that her poor baby sister had been left alone in France without her sister to look after when her former friends were being cruel to her again.

I should write to Gabrielle and make sure she is ok, Fleur decided. Gabby would be lonely without her, even at school they spent most of their free time together.

Her gold-nibbed quill was where she had left it, carefully clipped to quill stand that unfolded from the back of the desk in the carriage. She had promised to write to both Gabrielle and her parents as frequently as she could.

Dear Gabrielle,

I hope you are not missing your dear sister too much, because I am missing you very much. We have finally arrived at Hogwarts. It is a dreary a sight, nothing like Beauxbatons. There's no sun, only rain, and everything is grey: the walls, the clouds, the ground and the sky. The food is terrible, even if the inside of the castle is tolerable, and there are too many boys. Their staring is even worse than before.

This evening, only a few minutes ago, I entered my name into the tournament, but don't worry I'll make sure I get through the competition. There's nobody else who will do any better than I.

I left you the key to my rooms if you need it to get away from anything. Don't listen to anything the other girls say. They don't understand what it means to be Veela and are just jealous. I've told you that before I know, but until they stop I won't either.

I know that you'll be lonely this year with me in Scotland, but Maman says she's trying to convince Papa to let you come with them to watch the Second task after Christmas. I will see you then, because as we know Maman always gets her way in the end.

Love,

Fleur.

She would send the letter at her earliest opportunity, but she would need to find where Hogwarts' owlery was because their family owl, a bird Gabby normally monopolised for their own use, was injured.

In a few days time her name would come out of the goblet and prove, once and for all, that she was better than the girls who shunned her. There would be nothing they could say once she was Triwizard Champion. The goblet chose the best possible candidate for each school.

The thought put a smile on her face even though she had only one more year of school remaining anyway. She would miss Madame Maxime, the chateau itself and her baby sister, but nothing else.

Absentmindedly she fell to polishing her wand with a soft cloth. If she was chosen as champion, something she was virtually certain of, their would be a wand-weighing ceremony to attend and that meant her wand had to be in perfect condition.

Fleur kept it in good shape regardless, her wand was quite temperamental and easily affected by anything from water to the slightest emotion. Another, less obvious effect of her heritage and something else the other girls would never understand.

Fleur the quarter-Veela, boyfriend thief and unkissed harlot was slander on all but one level. There was no such thing as a quarter-Veela, either you were Veela, as all female children of Veela were, or you were not, and she had certainly never stolen anyone's boyfriend. Fleur did not think she could be blamed if they broke up with their girlfriends to pursue a non-existence chance of winning her affections and she was most definitely not a harlot.

I have never been kissed.

It wasn't something she was overly insecure about, but it did rankle that her fellow students could accuse her of both never having kissed a boy and having slept with every male she came across in the same breath. She was Veela, there were a hundred, even a thousand boys that would have kissed her had she let them, but she had never been given a reason to allow them.

There was little she found exciting about kissing a boy so enthralled by her presence he could not even think and even less about spending time with one as the other girls did their boyfriends. When Fleur found someone that she wanted she would allow him to be with her and that would be that. It felt a little arrogant, but they always wanted to be with her, even the ones that resisted her aura and tried to pretend otherwise.

Fleur did allow herself a certain amount of pride. She was Veela and she was a talented witch. It was virtually guaranteed she would have a good career and the promise of a family in the future should she want one.

It is far to look forward to than either Caroline or Emilie have, Fleur decided smugly.

She reached for her hairbrush and began to pull it through her lustrous platinum hair. It didn't really need brushing, it never really needed it, she wasn't affected by the things the other girls spoke of in whispers to their coolest confidants. Acne, freckles, moles, rashes, none of them ever bothered her.

I must save a fortune on make-up compared to Caroline.

The small, too-sweet, plump girl was caked in artificial creams, hair products and perfumes from the moment she woke until the moment she slept. Fleur had no idea what she even really looked like underneath anymore.

Fleur replaced the hairbrush back on the desk beside her letter to Gabrielle and wandered into the bathroom, bypassing the mirror. The best thing about having her own room, besides not having to share her space with one of the jealous harpies that accompanied her here, was having a bathroom to herself. It meant she could spend as long in the bath as she wanted after curfew began because nobody would come to disturb unless the carriage caught fire.

Few enough of them would come then, Fleur thought bitterly.

She ran the water, making it hot, very hot. It was one of the few times she actually enjoyed any form of wetness. Her father had been shocked at the temperature she bathed at. The water would scald anyone not as naturally resistant to heat as she was.

As the bathtub filled she searched for her book on advanced charm alteration and found it buried underneath a pile of old articles about the tournament. Fleur hadn't given them anything more than a cursory glance. New restrictions had been imposed, new rules made, and the competition was meant to be far safer than before, though it would still be dangerous. There was little chance of a second rampaging cockatrice and she was more than capable of looking after herself.

If the worst came to the worst she would use her allure to charm her way past whatever she couldn't defeat with guile or strength. Were she less reluctant to utilise her Veela gifts she might consider turning her aura on the other champions. The Durmstrang champion was certified to be male, Igor Karkarof had only permitted Victor Krum to enter his name, so at least one would affected and it was well known that cheating was basically a part of the tournament.

That would be a very last resort. She would risk serious injury before doing anything remotely close to what the other Beauxbatons girls already accused her of. Fleur would prove herself their better without using anything but that which she had learned from Beauxbatons if she could avoid it.

AN: Enjoy and review. Thanks again to those that have. This is the first Fleur chapter, I'll keep doing them if you like them, but you'll have to review to let me know ;)