Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
Next chapter.
I noticed some people think he should be blaming Fleur for what happened with Katie. He does a little, but really when all things are considered I think he's less likely to place the blame on someone he empathises with than Roger Davies' cheap attempt at vengeance and Katie's idiocy.
Chapter 23
The Owlery was not really the most romantic place to meet, but Harry supposed Fleur knew that and had chosen it deliberately. Their Yule Ball agreement was not a romantic thing, she was unlikely to want to actually date a fourteen year old and Harry thought that if she did then her taste in romance was ringing some serious alarm bells.
Nobody should find the smell of bird droppings and musty wood romantic.
He had agreed to meet her here, but she had not specified a time. He assumed, for the sake of safety, she meant early, but had rather resigned himself to spending some time in the dilapidated tower under his disillusionment charm.
He was rather proud of his mastery over it, even if his most effective spells did have a concerning parallel between them.
Harry put the basilisk of nothing out of his mind and focused on whatever Fleur Delacour expected of him.
Perhaps showing off my perfect invisibility is not the right way to start.
He considered dispelling it, but there were a lot of people that came here over the course of a day and he did quite want to see her face when he surpassed her. Not all of that pride was superficial.
'That,' the soft, french voice of Fleur Delacour remarked from behind him, 'is an even better disillusionment charm.'
How amusing, Harry thought, abandoning his concealment. Our positions have reversed.
'How did you notice?' he asked, following the pattern of their previous and only real conversation.
'I am aware of the weaknesses of the charm,' she replied, with a smile altogether different from the perfect picture of proud politeness he was accustomed to seeing on her face from afar.
'I suppose I owe you an apology for laughing,' Harry began, wanting to get this out of the way.
'I would rather know why you thought it was funny,' Fleur cut in. 'I expected you to understand.'
'I was laughing at Ron,' he finished simply.
'And the first time?' Harry stared at her curiously, before remembering the incident that had cost him Katie had started with his laughter.
'I found some irony in not being the one who was stared at when I entered the room.'
'Ah,' there was flicker of something that might have been guilt in her blue eyes. 'Then consider my company tomorrow an apology for overreacting. I thought you were laughing at me.'
'If it were an apology I would not accept it,' Harry responded in a slightly cooler tone. 'I am aware that you chose to go with me for your own reasons, not to apologise for your part in destroying my relationship with Katie.'
'It is destroyed?' The same flicker appeared and disappeared and Harry was sure this time that it was guilt.
'Whatever becomes of my bond with Katie it will never be what it could have been because of you and Roger Davies,' Harry replied. He would not sugar-coat anything for the french witch. He owed her nothing.
'I am sorry to hear that,' Fleur told him earnestly, 'but perhaps, if such a small thing can do so much damage, it is for the best.'
Harry wanted to argue, but had nothing with which to refute her statement.
'Shall we go?' she suggested. 'The tower has an aura inappropriate for what could loosely be termed a date.'
'Where would be better?' Harry followed her down the stairs, keeping his distance ever so slightly. Every few steps Fleur would linger a little longer than was usual, taking her back inside the area Harry preferred people did not come. He got the impression she was testing him and his reaction, but could not fathom how she knew and had found something that made him so uncomfortable. He was not aware anyone had noticed his aversion to close contact, nobody had ever mentioned it, but Fleur barely knew him, and if she had picked up on it surely anyone could have.
'Perhaps I will think of somewhere as we walk, though I admit I am not fond of Hogwarts. It is cold, grey and wet.' Fleur took a long route back to the castle, one that avoided passing by where Harry knew the Beauxbatons carriage was.
'I hope,' she began calmly as they neared the Great Hall, 'you do not think less of me for using you as a shield.'
'A shield?'
'I am a veela,' she informed archly. 'You might not have noticed, but I attract a lot of attention in ways I would rather I did not. If I could, I would not attend this Yule Ball, but having a similarly minded date will be far preferable than the alternative.'
There was far too much emphasis on the part about Harry not noticing her for him not to get curious.
'You dislike the attention, but find the fact I do not stare at you annoying too.'
'I dislike being dismissed,' she answered proudly, scrutinising him with her sky blue eyes. 'I do not enjoy being looked down on, either.'
'I would rather be dismissed than stared at,' Harry remarked. Fleur's hostility seemed based on rather conflicting feelings. If she did not want to be stared at she should not be so upset by people who did not stare.
'There is a difference between those who do not stare and those who display such an insulting indifference.'
They stepped through the doors into the Great Hall and heads immediately began to turn in their direction.
'I do not know who they are looking at,' Harry said with a wry smile.
'I do,' Fleur sniffed. Harry took a longer look about the room and noticed the slightly glazed look in the eyes of most.
'I know somewhere most people do not,' Harry offered.
'Let's go,' Fleur agreed, shifting inside his area of comfort again. Harry flinched away slightly. He really wished she would not do that.
Harry led her higher and higher up the moving staircases, covertly keeping an eye on the Marauders' Map; he did not need to be ambushed again, until they reached the seventh floor.
Peter Pettigrew, he read from the edge of the quidditch pitch. The traitorous rat had started lingering around there far more than before and Harry was seriously starting to consider doing something about it. The longer he was left out there the more likely it was somebody else would get hurt. He couldn't tell Dumbledore, not anymore, his motives were unclear and Sirius couldn't find out, because he might risk himself trying to take revenge again. That just left him.
Perhaps I will incapacitate him myself.
He was probably capable of it by now, especially if he caught him by surprise.
It had occurred to him that he was about to share something he had not shared with anyone yet, and it was one of his most precious secrets about the school. Still, Fleur would not be here long, and he doubted she would share anything he told with anyone else. They seemed a little too similar for that.
'This,' he gestured calmly at the blank space of wall opposite what had to be Hogwarts' worst tapestry, 'is the Room of Requirement.'
To her credit Fleur looked more intrigued than sceptical. 'How does it work?' she asked, tilting her head to one side to regard the wall from a different angle. Her action sent her silver hair cascading over her ear and onto her shoulder.
'Imagine what you want,' Harry told her, 'and the room will provide. It has to adhere to the laws, though, so no food.'
The door that appeared on the wall was very different to the thick, stout wooden doors of Hogwarts'. It had a slender, elegant appearance and was painted a very light shade of blue.
'How ingenious,' Fleur remarked, reaching out to touch the door very tentatively. 'I suppose we should go in.'
It was clearly her own room that she had imagined. Harry could understand that. If he had ever had a room that had been his enough he might have tried to recreate it to.
It was a window into the mind of Fleur Delacour. Harry gazed through in avid curiosity.
Everything was kept neat, from the bed, to the shelves of books and, where her collection spilt over onto the floor, the towering stacks that rose almost to the ceiling. A vast collection of tiny, enchanted items surrounded everything in a deliberate, ornamental scatter.
'You can change it from within,' he told her, as she shifted slightly uncomfortably. Her eyes had immediately fallen on the single picture in the room. Two almost identical, silver-haired girls, one with eyes of deep blue, the other with eyes touched by grey, both were smiling.
Gabrielle, Harry surmised. Fleur evidently loved her little sister very much.
'Thank you,' the french witch said quietly and the room began to shift around him into something much larger.
The ceiling transitioned into a high, arched vault similar to that of the only cathedral Harry had ever been in. There were long, tall windows of thin glass down either side. They looked out onto mountains and a sparse woodland of gnarled, short pine trees. The stonework was pale ivory, broken only be decorative terracotta tiles.
'Beauxbatons' gallery,' Fleur informed him. 'We have no Great Hall, only an open forum, when winter comes this is where large groups gather.'
'I can understand why you do not find Hogwarts attractive.' If all of Fleur's school was like this then Hogwarts was, for all Harry loved it, rather ugly in comparison.
'It is not a beautiful place,' Fleur agreed, 'but we do not have a room such as this, either.'
Harry thought that was probably the most complimentary thing she had ever said about his school.
'Tell me, Harry,' she said, with sudden confidence, 'do you know how to dance?'
'No.' The beginnings of regret started to seep in. Dancing was something he wanted to spend as little time doing as possible. Harry had no fear of tripping, or falling, he expected with practice he could be every bit as elegant as was necessary. It was the partner he objected to.
The treacherous room had started playing music, Fleur's desire to dance was clearly stronger than his will not too. It was something of a surprise to him since he could think of few things he wanted to do less.
'My date will have to dance. If you can dodge a dragon, you can avoid standing on my feet, so there are only the steps to be learnt.' Fleur stepped very very close to him.
Harry froze.
He could feel the warm that emanated from her and the brush of her breathe against his face. She was too close. It was wrong.
Fleur was studying him with bright, blue eyes.
'You do not like the closeness, do you?' she asked after a while. Harry noted that she did not step back.
'No,' he answered shortly. The music drifted on underneath their voices, the happy, fast-paced tune oblivious to his emotions.
'I can try and alleviate your discomfort,' she offered. 'You will not feel it if you pay attention to me.'
Harry grasped instantly what she meant. Fleur Delacour was willing to use her allure on him. She had done it before, of course, but never with the intention of making things better for him, and never at the cost of the one thing she gained from attending the Yule Ball with him.
'I will be fine,' he managed, twisting his face into Tom Riddle's brilliant smile. He would never allow her to do something like that. He had his own pride.
Something slightly unkind marred Fleur's face and she reached out to firmly, but gently take his hand in hers. Her other drew his arm about her waist and pulled them so close there was less than an inch between his body and hers.
'These are the steps,' Fleur murmured, her breath washing over his cheek. She still smelt of burnt holly leaves. It was a sharp, sweet smell that Harry found hard to ignore.
In the end focusing on learning the motions of the dance was the best way for him to forget how close she was to him and he became proficient enough to be released.
It was an instant relief.
Harry's heart relaxed its pounding and his body, that had remained tense the entire time, slackened ever so slightly. A very small sigh escaped his lips.
'Do you know how many there are within these walls who would like to take your place?' Fleur asked him, but she seemed more amused than annoyed.
'Many,' Harry shrugged, 'but I am not them.'
'No,' Fleur mused, 'I suppose you are not. We are both a little bit different to the rest.' She favoured him with the softer smile; the one he had glimpsed next to Gabrielle's. Her eyes seemed a great deal warmer in that more natural expression.
Harry gave her his most charming version of Tom Riddle's smile, pushing as much emotion into his eyes as he could. It was his most brilliant yet.
'Do not,' Fleur snapped coldly, 'smile at me like that.'
Harry flinched, startled. She should not recognise its source.
She knows it isn't real, he realised, remembering her more usual expression from the Great Hall.
'Sorry,' he apologised, 'it has become a habit.' They were unnervingly similar in some ways. Fleur Delacour was as alone as Harry, just in a different way.
It struck him then why she might have actually asked him to be her date to the Yule Ball. It had nothing to do with wounded pride, escaping from the attentions of her enraptured admirers, or apologising for the fiasco she had helped cause with Katie.
She's looking for an equal, for somebody who understands.
They were looking for the same things and even if Harry had to die Fleur Delacour might understand that too. Then again, Harry recalled how proud she was, verging on selfish, she might not.
A slightly wry, half-smile crooked at the corner of his mouth.
'That,' Fleur commented quietly, 'is much better.'
They stood in silence for a while, the music had faded away the moment Fleur had released him.
'How does a fourteen year old forget how to smile?' she asked, breaking the silence.
'How does a seventeen year old?' Harry countered.
'She has nobody to smile with,' Fleur replied with surprising candidness, 'only people to smile at.'
'Then you already understand,' Harry told her. His words carried unintentional weight and the french witch turned to scrutinise him more carefully.
'Do I?' she asked. 'We are not the same.'
'Similar enough. Fleur Delacour is seen through,' Harry smiled, remembering the wand-weighing, 'a rose tinted lens. I fall underneath my own shadow.'
'It is equally hard for others to see either of us,' Fleur finished. She tossed her hair back over her shoulders, smoothing it with both hands. 'I am glad that your name came out of the goblet,' she admitted.
'You are?' Harry grinned. 'You might change your mind when you come second.'
'I will come first,' Fleur said quite adamantly. 'You did not enter, did you?'
'No,' Harry sighed. 'Things like this always seem to happen to me.'
'Do you know how an age line works?' Fleur asked curiously.
'Professor Dumbledore explained it to me. It detects the age of your magic.' Harry wasn't quite sure where she was going with this.
'Nobody younger than seventeen could have crossed the line,' Fleur told him. 'So you could not have entered your name.'
'You believed me all this time?'
'Albus Dumbledore is too powerful to have one of his wards broken by any student, you could not have crossed. My reason for bringing this up is because I also know how the Goblet of Fire works.'
'So do I,' Harry remarked. 'It selected names.'
Fleur gave him a pitying look. 'It selects the best possible candidate from the names it accepts and it cannot be lied to. If I tried to put another's name in, I would fail.'
'So nobody but me could have put my name in.' The horrible sinking sensation had returned to his stomach.
'Nobody who was not called Harry Potter and was above the age of seventeen,' Fleur corrected, 'but such a scheme is far-fetched.' Harry had come across some fairly far-fetched schemes at Hogwarts, but had to concede it was unlikely.
'So I had to have put my name in for it to come out,' Harry said slowly, 'but I did not, and my cloak has not been missing.'
'Your cloak?' Fleur looked confused. 'An invisibility cloak cannot conceal you from an age line, Harry. Your friends are wrong.'
'My former friends,' Harry amended, 'are more right than they realise. My cloak is an heirloom capable of bypassing the line.'
'Had I known that before I would have never questioned your attempt to enter,' Fleur confessed.
'Dumbledore assumed I used it.'
'Your headmaster cast a charm that made it impossible for you to enter, and the goblet makes it impossible for almost anyone else to enter you. The fact that he read your name out-'
'-does not mean my name came from the goblet.' Harry understood perfectly now.
Every year I encounter danger at Hogwarts under the nose of Albus Dumbledore. Every year I almost die. He's been trying to quietly destroy his accidental horcrux from the very beginning.
Some of his anger must have shown on his face because Fleur had take several steps back.
'Sorry,' he apologised. 'I just realised something that has made me quite angry.'
'You think your headmaster put you in the tournament,' Fleur concluded. 'I arrived at the same deduction, but I could believe Albus Dumbledore would do such a thing. He must believe in you very strongly.'
'I'm sure he will be overjoyed when I win,' Harry ground out.
'When you come second.' A small smile played around the corners of Fleur Delacour's mouth.
'We'll see,' Harry retorted, but not harshly. The bitterness of their previous encounters had been abandoned.
'Have you progressed anywhere with your egg?' she asked.
'I solved it a few days ago,' Harry lied, unwilling to show any weakness in their competition.
'What solution did you come up with?' Fleur seemed genuinely curious. 'I thought your plan for the first task quite ingenious. A simple charm and plan, you solved the problem spectacularly and gave away little of your abilities.'
Harry laughed. 'If I told you it would rather undermine my chances, no?'
'I suppose that is true,' Fleur frowned, her delicate eyebrows arching into a gentle vee. 'I won't be able to convince you that I have already found one of my own and am just interested?'
'You might,' Harry conceded. 'I don't think you'd lie to me, but I still won't be able to tell you.'
Mainly because I have no idea what the clue is.
His golden egg was sitting on the desk in Salazar's study, acting as both a book-end and a wonderful device that prevented his ancestor's portrait from getting too carried away in his lectures.
'Caution is to be admired,' Fleur said simply. 'I would not risk any of my rivals using the same solution as me.'
'Do you know if either Cedric or Viktor have figured it out?' Harry asked.
'Why would I know?' Fleur smoothed her uniform and took a seat on the chair that had appeared behind her. She was grasping how to use the room far quicker than Harry had.
'You knew about my cloak, and despite the fact my two untrustworthy ex-friends have spouted about its existence to most of my house, I doubt that reached your ears so passively.' Harry had, in fact, received the distinct impression she had been keeping an eye on her rivals and anything that happened to them.
'It might not have done,' Fleur smiled. There wasn't the slightest shred of guilt visible in her eyes. Harry quite envied her confidence, if he had had her strength of will earlier so many things might have been different.
Peter Pettigrew would not have escaped.
'As far as I know, neither of them have done anything more than decipher the clue, but from their actions I would assume Viktor at least has a plan.'
'You don't seem very worried about them,' Harry remarked.
'Cedric Diggory is an exceptional student and a talented wizard, but he has overestimated himself by entering this tournament. He lacks the will to win it. Viktor Krum is used to winning, but his abilities do not lie in making plans. Igor Karkoroff can only compensate for that so much.' Fleur's analysis of the other champions was quite brutal and direct, but knowing less than she clearly did Harry could only accept it.
'And me?'
'Young but prodigious and powerful, with a will strong enough to win it and capable of cunning.' She patted him on the shoulder in mock consolation. Harry twitched away only very slightly and Fleur smiled. 'You'll make a very good runner-up.'
'I think silver is more your colour than min, Fleur,' he joked, indicating her hair.
'The Triwizard Tournament trophy is silver, Harry,' she reminded him.
So it is.
'What about you?' He was quite interested to see what Fleur thought of herself, though he doubted she would share everything.
'I am more complete than any of my rivals. My experience is greater than yours and I am just as talented. Provided the tasks do not exploit my natural weaknesses to much, I will win.'
'You are very confident,' Harry remarked.
I wonder what her natural weaknesses are? He assumed it was something to do with being veela, or part-veela, or whatever Katie had said Hermione had found out.
Harry was a little tempted to go and look for them in the library, but it went against his nature to do something so underhanded, especially when Fleur had done nothing to deserve it of late.
Katie, the small voice whispered.
Katie and Roger Davies are to blame, he decided, silencing the Riddle-esque whisper that he was starting to fear might be the voice of the horcrux itself. He shuddered to think how many of his thoughts might have been its if that was the case.
'I take pride in being the best at my school, Harry. When you are older, you will do the same.' She paused to consider something very briefly. 'Do not mistake my pride in myself for dismissal of the abilities of others. I may be better than most, but I still respect the talents of others, and will have my own equals and betters in turn.'
It was perhaps the most honest thing she had said to him yet. Fleur Delacour was proud. She refused to lose, to listen to others around her or to accept anything less than the best from herself. It had made her strong, just as Harry wished to become.
'I think I should return to the carriage,' Fleur decided. 'I should warn you before the Yule Ball that there are those, amongst Beauxbatons' students at least, who believe that I have charmed you into going with me after stealing you from your previous girlfriend.' Her tone indicated both how laughable and how annoying she found the rumours. Harry could empathise with that.
'I do not care,' he answered simply. 'I have never noticed your allure before and I did not even know you were veela until Katie told me after the incident in the Great Hall.'
'I am sorry about that,' Fleur apologised. 'I misunderstood and reacted very badly to having my pride slighted.'
'I blame Roger Davies and Katie for what happened to my relationship with her more than you,' Harry assured her.
Fleur rose to leave and Harry got up too. He really needed to get started on working out the golden egg if his three rivals had likely already solved it.
'I should like to see if my allure has more of an affect on you at some point,' Fleur suggested. 'I haven't met anyone quite so resistant to it before.'
'If you like.' Harry suspected his resistance was what had captured her attention in the first place and if i helped her feel slightly less insecure then he was willing to let her try. He had thrown off the influence of the veela at the World Cup, so he doubted he would do anything particularly humiliating.
'Thank you.' Harry was enveloped in sudden warmth, his face pressed into her silver hair, Fleur's arms around him. The smell of burnt holly was suddenly very strong.
She hugged me.
Tentatively he returned the gesture, ignoring his instinctive desire to move away.
The only person who had ever hugged him like that before was Katie.
AN: Please read and review! My thanks to those that do. It's the little things that make everything worthwhile ;)
P.S. Who would turn down a date like Fleur when there's only a day to go and nobody to ask... I thought that was obvious enough from the context, but if anyone seriously disagrees I'll spend a minute or two adding it in.
P.P.S I rather stupidly, at about 2am, tried to moderate all my reviews using my haywire trackpad. It has water or dust under it, so unless another mouse is connected it clicks and scrolls everywhere on its own. I'm not sure exactly which reviews were deleted and which were posted, normally I just allow them all, but if you can't find your review that will be why. Fortunately I could read them all first so their main purpose was fulfilled. I can also announce the return of PaC, whose reviews are among my favourites (no sarcasm, I promise). Hopefully PaC's made it through the roulette, I'm fairly sure I saw several parts when I went back through the pages. Anyway, this will be among PaC's favourite chapters, I added a few bits just for for his/her enjoyment. (That one may have contained some sarcasm), but I'm quite looking forward to your review of it PaC, in a french accent, of course, so don't disappear please! I'd actually appreciate it if you PM'd me as well, feedback is so much easier if it's a two way thing, but I fear it is unlikely.
