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

I waited exactly 9 hours after finishing writing before posting this, mainly for the sake of sleep, so come and ******* get me Smokeapound. I'm waiting ;)

And here's some food for thought for those claiming Harry has loads of experience.

He's good with a patronus charm and excellent at keeping a brave face, but his survival in the first year was mainly due his mother's blood magic. I'm using my slightly adjusted series of events here. The second year was Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, he'd have been a very small bulge in the belly of the basilisk if he'd actually tried to do it all himself, third year he manages the Patronus, but really only because he already knows he has. Nothing he's done has ever completely been his own accomplishment until fourth year. He had guts, determination and all the stereotypical hero traits, but the key difference was always made by external factors. He knew about three useful spells at the end of the third year, has no real duelling experience and little knowledge of anything outside of the few classes he pays attention in. Fleur has a massive advantage over canon Harry in anything that isn't Gryffindor-esque personality traits or luck, and frankly Harry's luck only kicks in after it has dropped him in it already. Obviously my fic is now a little different, but the experience still stands in her favour as far as my opinion goes, especially from her PoV.

Anyway. New chapter!

This the filler, Fleur chapter before the ball that you were all really excited about!

Just joking, it's Yule Ball time!

Enjoy.

Chapter 24

The music was drifting up from the Great Hall to where Harry was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Professor Mcgonagall, who was clad in a tartan something, had elected that this was the place where all the champions and their partners should be gathered.

Harry felt it was a very poor choice. Everyone walked past the location to enter the Great Hall.

'You do have a partner, don't you, Harry?' His head of house asked tartly.

Does she not know anything about what goes on in her house and school? Harry was certain that everyone in the student body knew who his date was, clearly the staff were less observant, or just not privy to the rumour mill.

'I'm sure she is just fashionably late, professor,' Harry replied dryly.

'Well you can transfigure your robes into something more suitable while you wait,' she ordered him sternly. 'As long as she arrives before Miss Delacour and her date it will not matter.'

Harry resisted the surprisingly strong desire to ask Mcgonagall if she too was going to transfigure her clothes into something suitable.

'I don't think Fleur Delacour's arrival will come before that of Harry's date,' Cedric smiled. The Asian Ravenclaw on his arm giggled into her date's shoulder.

Viktor Krum said nothing and his date certainly wasn't stupid enough to try and speak to Harry either. Surprisingly Hermione was rather attractive once she sorted her hair out of its unmanageable mess. Viktor Krum either had amazing foresight, or found bossy, strident, jealous girls attractive. Harry didn't really care which.

He waved his wand over his school robes, transfiguring them in one smooth motion from plain black to a very dark, almost black, emerald with silver edging. Harry felt that both Fleur, who would almost certainly have some shade of silver on her and Salazar would appreciate his wardrobe.

I finally look like the Heir of Slytherin.

His former friends would probably take this as confirmation of their fears that he was under the control of a dark wizard. After all, wearing silver and green could only have one possible motive to most of the narrow-minded Gryffindors.

There was some faint disapproval in Professor Mcgonagall's expression, but the slight softness around her eyes was enough to indicate she understood how he now felt about his house.

Should have listen to the raggedy hat, Harry realised. It would have chosen Slytherin for him, had he let it. If he'd had the strength of will to accept himself for what he was rather than cave in to expectations and conform.

Better be Gryffindor, Harry snickered to himself.

'Miss Delacour,' Mcgonagall remonstrated very sternly, 'you are late and without a date.'

She was dressed in a gown of shimmering silver. It was as if the individual threads had somehow been coated in the molten metal and it shivered around her figure as she walked. There were going to be a lot of jealous males in the Great Hall tonight.

Fleur gave the transfiguration professor the sort of look that had reminded Harry of the Hungarian Horntail and wondered if it was something to do with her veela heritage. He knew reptiles and birds were distantly related.

'My date is already waiting for me,' she answered, her normal smile back in place. Now that Harry knew what she looked when she was genuinely happy he found he rather hated the expression. There were few things he wanted to do more in the instant it hovered on Fleur's lips than wipe it away and let her smile for real.

The french witch swayed gracefully into the middle of the group and slipped her arm through Harry's. A flicker of warmth passed through her eyes when he tensed, but did not flinch away from her.

Professor Mcgonagall's mouth opened and closed several times, but nothing came out.

'International co-operation,' Fleur explained in a tone laced with amusement.

'It is time for the opening dance,' the head of Gryffindor house said once she had recovered herself.

Time for the part that Harry was looking forward to least of all.

'I do not enjoy dancing,' Fleur told him in a whisper, 'not with people I do not know or trust, so I hope you do not mind if we dance together. For as short a time as possible if it makes you uncomfortable still.'

Harry gave her a very slight nod of the head as the three couples took their positions. The thin, immaculately dressed organiser of the ball was staring daggers at Harry. He assumed this was the wizard who had come up with the initial choreography and then had to change it once his name appeared.

Now he has to change it back because of Fleur.

Harry fixed his smile upon his face, flashing a mild apology at Fleur as Tom Riddle's adopted charm commandeered his expression. If he focused on the steps and not the feeling of Fleur being so unnervingly close he would be fine. It was just a single dance.

Fortunately it worked.

The feeling and motion of the floor beneath his feet was enough to focus on and drown out all but the occasional flash of bright, sky blue eyes a few inches from his own. He wasn't sure if Fleur was trying to use her aura to calm him, or if it was just her normal passive effect and the way she stood out from every other girl in the Great hall, but every wizards' eyes were on the two of them.

At least he was used to that.

When the opening dance finally came to an end Fleur was smiling. A genuine, warm expression that twisted Riddle's brilliant beaming to one side of Harry's face and made it his own again.

'That was not so bad,' he decided, following Fleur to the side of the room and the quite surprising range of drinks.

They're serving alcohol at a ball underage wizards and witches can attend?

'The ball was only supposed to be for students who were seventeen and over,' Fleur explained at his puzzled expression. 'When your name came out they had to let younger years attend or you'd be all alone for the event.'

'I guess nobody remembered to remove all this from the drinks list.' Harry ignored the slightly pitying tone Fleur had adopted in her explanation. He appreciated her understanding, but he didn't need or want her to pity him.

'Wine?' she proffered an expensive looking bottle of elf-made wine in his direction, two crystal glasses already tucked under her arm.

'You don't want to dance again?'

'I would not mind,' she told him kindly, 'but I think you've endured enough, none of my allure even affected you, and I threw a sizeable amount your way.'

'You should not have done, the others-'

'They would have stared regardless,' Fleur declared proudly. 'It is why I could not understand your lack of interest. Even without my aura I have always been watched.'

'I might as well,' Harry decided, indicating the wine bottle. He had quite enjoyed the Firewhiskey.

I hope Katie is not drinking.

Harry had the horrible feeling that a drunk Katie might just manage to find a way to ruin not only his evening, but Fleur's, Roger Davies' and her own, not that he particularly cared about Roger Davies. He glanced out into the crowd, but saw nothing of the Gryffindor chaser.

'Searching for someone?' Fleur followed his line of sight into the crowd. Harry counted himself fortunate that he had not managed to catch sight of Katie. Platonic shield or not he imagined the proud french witch would not take kindly to him spending the evening looking for another girl.

'Avoiding,' Harry smiled wryly.

'Ah,' Fleur responded. If anyone understood the benefit of evading some members of the opposite sex it would be her.

They found a spot further towards the end of the tables where it was mostly empty. The usual furnishings that had been pushed back against the walls of the Great Hall to make space for the dancing. Once seated Harry helped himself to a wide ranging selection from the nearby piles of Christmas food. Fleur was more picky, avoiding the heavier meats and potatoes in favour of the sweeter, lighter dishes.

'Hogwarts is very different to Beauxbatons,' Fleur told him, sipping her wine, and gazing around the room at the slightly confused style of decoration. Harry felt they probably should have removed some of the original decorations, the suits of armour, for example; they looked a little out place in a ball.

'I imagine it is,' Harry replied earnestly. He had gathered as much from the elegant, renaissance influenced architecture of the Beauxbatons' gallery Fleur had summoned from then Room of Requirement.

'We have ice statues at Christmas in France instead of this.' If Harry had not been paying close attention to the slight changes of expression that betrayed Fleur's true feelings he would have thought she were belittling Hogwarts. 'I learnt last year the enchantments to prevent the ice from melting, so I could make one for Gabrielle.' Most of Fleur's first wine glass was gone, her food too and Harry was left to marvel over when exactly she had managed to eat or drink it while speaking and watching the room. He'd barely touched anything of his own.

'You miss your sister.' Harry could hardly empathise with missing a sibling, or any part of his family, but there had been a time, not so long ago, he had considered his housemates siblings. He understood missing that company well enough.

'She is coming with my mother to see the second task,' Fleur announced, reaching for the bottle. Harry prudently drank some of his own when she glanced away. Half the glass went down very easily, far more smoothly than the sickly pumpkin juice he was used to.

On the far side of the hall Peeves caused momentary chaos, bursting into the room to shower nearby dancing couples with white berries. Harry guessed they were mistletoe, but knowing Peeves they could have been stolen from the more exotic end of Snape's stores.

He was, however, delighted to see that Dean and Ron, who were standing surlily and alone against the wall were among the poltergeist's victims.

'Beauxbatons does not have a poltergeist either,' Fleur remarked, proffering the bottle to Harry. There was a spark of mischief in her eyes as she watched the pearly figure of Peeves beat a hasty retreat from the hall when Dumbledore's eyes turned upon him.

Harry topped his glass up with the burgundy liquid. It looked and tasted perfectly innocent, but so had the Firewhiskey he had drunk with Katie.

'I believe there is a debate every year over whether he should expelled from the halls or not,' Harry said. 'He doesn't cause too much chaos, just enough to be a nuisance every now and again. The caretaker, Argus Filch, hates him.'

'From what I have heard your caretaker hates everything except his pet.'

'There is some truth in that,' Harry admitted, lightly sipping his drink and eyeing the rather delicious, but still untouched Christmas cake. He rather wanted a piece, but was very reluctant to be the first person to take a slice.

'Do you want some?' Fleur had none of his reservations about the cake. She stood, transfiguring the knife she held to something more suitable for cutting car-sized confectionery, and cut a very thin slice.

'Thank you.' Harry gratefully accepted the slice, noting that Fleur had cut herself one almost twice the size.

'I have a sweet tooth,' she confessed, 'most veela do.'

'Is that your weakness?' Harry asked playfully.

Fleur laughed softly. She had a very smooth, throaty chuckle. It was the first time that Harry had really heard it.

'No,' she shook her head. 'It would take more than the offer of something sweet to persuade me to let you win, though I am very fond of marzipan.'

'I would never have guessed that veela were partial to sweet foods,' Harry mused, watching Fleur's slice of cake vanish in a series of elegant forkfuls.

'Most wizards know very little about veela,' Fleur shrugged, 'and witches know even less.'

The bottle was emptied into Fleur's empty glass when Harry politely declined her offer of more.

'I have to admit that the only thing I know about veela is the effect of your allure. I felt it at the World Cup.'

'So you do feel it,' Fleur murmured, amused. 'I wonder, then, why you are so resistant to mine.'

'I heard that you were part-veela, perhaps your aura is not as strong?' Harry suggested.

'You were correct that the only thing you know about veela is the feeling of our charm,' Fleur told him with a frown. 'You should have really gone to the library once you knew I was veela.'

'I've had a lot on my mind,' Harry replied dryly.

'Well, so that you do not embarrass yourself, or me, in the future I will tell you something about veela.' She flipped her silver hair back over one shoulder and shifted her chair around to face him.

'You'd throw away your advantage?' Harry asked her.

'Don't be naive,' Fleur smiled. 'It would take less than hour for you to find out what I intend to tell you and this way I control what you know.'

'I do not think you would tell me that if you had any intention of actually using the opportunity,' Harry smiled. Fleur's eyes flicked towards the bottle momentarily.

'Perhaps not,' she admitted. 'The first thing you need to know is that there is no such thing as a part veela. A female child of a veela is a veela. It is a common misconception that we are part-human creatures when in fact we are simply witches with an extra set of inherited abilities.'

'Like parseltongue,' Harry observed, suddenly much more interested.

'A little more wide-ranging and less reviled,' Fleur amended with a sniff, 'but yes.'

'So where do the veela come from?'

'Eastern Europe has legends that fit our description going back millennia, they can be traced East and down through the Caucus mountains to the earliest such stories in Mesopotamia. There were myths of harpies and fire worship all across the region and the rituals and miracles in ancient scripture there are often familiar to us.' Fleur had not actually answered his question completely, but whether that was because she did not know any more or because she did not want Harry to know any more was a mystery to him.

'You can conjure fire,' Harry realised, remembering the veela at the World Cup. Some of his envy at such a useful ability crept into his tone.

'I am also resistant to it,' Fleur told him. 'Do you want any?' She had leant across the table to procure a bottle of sweet, desert wine. It was also elven.

'No, but thank you.' Harry felt that the two glasses he had already had were probably enough. He was fourteen and, unlike Fleur, not from a wine drinking culture and used to alcohol/

'It's very nice,' Fleur promised. She did not, despite her assurance, offer to share a second time.

She began to pour herself a glass, but, midway to tipping the bottle glanced up and caught sight of the nearby wizards who were making eyes at her.

'I hope,' the french witch frowned, 'you will not be insulted if I leave as early as possible.'

'Relieved,' Harry reassured her. He was not going to be offended by Fleur's attempts to avoid having her evening ruined.

'We can returned to the Room of Requirement?' she suggested. Harry raised an eyebrow quizzically. 'I can't go back to the carriage now,' she confessed. 'It would be humiliating and I have no other company I might prefer.'

Her blue eyes were earnest and Harry felt a light spark of warmth at her words.

'I don't see why not,' he agreed.

Katie won't be able to find me there, and nor will Ron, or Dean, or Ginny.

There was a moment's pause as Harry realised just how many people he did not want to see tonight.

I'm avoiding a considerable number of people.

They made their way towards the entrance, striding through the clusters of conversations which parted for Fleur like clouds before a summer sun.

'You're leaving.'

I was so close.

'I am,' Harry replied.

Katie had either been waiting at the only exit, or he had been very unfortunate to choose the one moment she was returning as his point to leave.

'If you're bored, or in want of a partner you can always come dance with me.'

Fleur, who had been slightly ahead of Harry after they split to walk around opposite sides of one of the groups of students, turned back, her eyes ever so slightly narrowed.

'Has Roger Davies abandoned you?' Harry asked, only slightly spitefully.

'Yes,' she admitted, pointing to where the Ravenclaw was dancing with a member of his own year and house.

She extended the same hand in his direction. 'Would you like to? Not as a date,' she hurriedly clarified, 'just as friends.'

He was tempted, for an instant he shifted his weight forwards towards her and the warmth she had once shared with him.

I don't need her. I'm stronger now. The little voice asserted its opinion proudly, coldly and correctly.

He relaxed back onto his feet and smiled brightly.

'I'm afraid,' Harry replied, one eye on Fleur's tightening grip on the bottle, 'that I can't.'

'Oh,' Katie realised, following Harry's gaze. 'I guess I would have had to worry after all.' Katie must have assumed that his going with Fleur would have ended just as prematurely as her night with Roger Davies. 'It's ok. I understand.' She gave him a weak, but honest smile. 'I'll find Alicia and Angelina, have a good night, Harry.'

He watched her walk away, very aware that the last chance to be anything more than friends with Katie Bell might have just passed. Surprisingly it did not affect him as much as he had expected.

'What did she want?' Fleur asked archly when he caught up to her.

'To dance,' Harry replied.

'You said no.'

'I had a prior commitment,' Harry explained casually. 'I couldn't abandon her to dance with another girl.'

'How noble of you,' Fleur smiled, her eyes soft as the summer sky.

'I think it would have been a bad idea,' Harry said calmly. A part of him had really wanted to dance with Katie, but that little voice had spoken up and he couldn't seem to ignore it. He hoped it was just his paranoia that made it sound like the younger version of Tom Riddle as the thoughts it offered were often right. It, or he, had known it would be a bad idea to risk getting involved with Katie again. He suspected Fleur might have eviscerated him for leaving her too.

'I think you were right,' she replied. Her tone implied just how much of her wrath Harry's decision had averted.

She would have definitely been angry.

Judging from the way she had been holding herself, and how concerned Harry had been that her grip might break the bottle of sweet, elven wine she had removed from the Great Hall, Fleur Delacour would have been very angry indeed.

Harry let her decide what form the room would take when they reached it. She would only be able to use it for as long as she was here, Harry had another three years of being able to utilise the remarkable magic there.

'Ice statues,' Harry murmured, stepping into the winter palace Fleur's mind had mustered. There were four of them, one in each corner, sparkling like so much diamond and reflecting a thousand scattered flares of the candles that hovered above them.

'I like the candles in the Great Hall,' she explained, gesturing at her hovering sources of light. 'Beauxbatons has chandeliers, but I think this is more scenic.'

The french witch took the furthest seat from the door, filling the elegant crystal glass that appeared on the arm of the chair with the contents of her purloined bottle. Harry took the only other seat.

'Do you like it?' she asked. 'I tried to make it something that was of both our schools.'

'I do,' Harry answered honestly. The room was more in the style of elegant, renaissance Beauxbatons than stout Hogwarts, but Harry didn't mind. He loved Hogwarts. It was the home he had never had, but it was not the most attractive building on the inside, no matter how awe inspiring its exterior appeared.

'Alone with a veela in a room that can provide almost anything you want,' Fleur began lightly. 'This, I imagine, is the beginning of many adolescent wizards' dreams.'

'Not mine,' Harry grinned. 'You told me too much about veela to risk me getting set on fire.'

'I would have an advantage here,' Fleur surmised, 'looking over the room. It's warm and dry, my magic would flow faster here than normal here.' Harry filed that away for a later date. Presumably if warm and dry had a positive effect then wet and cold would create the reverse.

I wonder how her faster flowing magic would compare with mine since doing that ritual?

'My wand is easier to reach,' Harry pointed out, letting it slip from his sleeve.

A ball of blue flames burst into sparks at his feet before he had managed to catch it. 'I do not need my wand if to set you on fire, remember.'

'Can you transform?' Harry asked her curiously. The veela at the World Cup had taken on a birdlike appearance at the very end.

'I can,' Fleur replied enigmatically, 'but I won't, not for your curiosity.'

'I suppose that's fair,' Harry answered evenly. He wouldn't start spouting parseltongue for her interest either.

There was a short silence as Fleur finished her glass of wine. It had been a small bottle and only half a goblet more remained.

'Where would you be if I had not asked you to be my shield?' The french witch seemed genuinely curious.

'Probably here, just alone' Harry admitted with a wry smile. 'Or,' he mused. 'If I had gone I might be downstairs kissing Katie.'

'I've never kissed anyone,' Fleur remarked, finishing the last of the wine. She was a little flushed, either from the alcohol or their topic of conversation.

'Neither have I,' Harry half-smiled. 'But I sort of suspect that if I had agreed to dance with Katie I would have ended up kissing her.'

'A good thing I made you come with me, then.'

'Possibly,' Harry conceded. 'I can't imagine kissing Katie would end well.'

'I asked you yesterday if you would let me test to see how resistant you are to my allure,' the platinum blond began as tentatively as he had ever heard her.

'I stand by what I said,' Harry responded before she had to actually ask. He was curious himself now that he knew Fleur was every bit as much a veela as those at the World Cup.

'Focus on me,' Fleur commanded, leaning in closer to him.

For the first time since he had met her Harry focused simply on Fleur. Her bright, clear, summer sky blue eyes, the lustrous, silver-blond hair, pale rose lips. Her face had soft, warm kind quality to it that he had somehow never really managed to notice when she wasn't smiling. Something lurched wildly in his chest; Fleur Delacour was really rather beautiful.

I am clearly not as resistant as either of us thought.

'What do you feel?' she asked, tilting her head coyly to one side.

'I have no idea,' Harry began, breathless, 'how I didn't notice you from the very beginning.' He swallowed his embarrassment at what he was about to say, relying on his occlumency to fight off the blush that he knew was beginning to creep onto his cheeks.

'You're the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.' Raw honesty was evident in the shakiness of his voice. Fleur stared at him for a long moment, a small, bemused smile at the corner of her lips.

Above his head green, twisting strands of leaves entwined their way down from around the candles. The sweet smell of hot leaves, joined the perpetual scent of burnt holly that clung to Fleur.

The leaves unfolded, their emerald hued, droplet shapes surrounding a scatter of white berries as they descended to hang just between and above their two chairs.

Fleur is in control of the room.

His eyes flicked down from the ceiling of candles and mistletoe to the girl whose thoughts they mirrored.

She was inches away; her face still ever so slightly flushed.

Harry froze, cold surprise gripping him at her proximity, then instantly thawed when Fleur pressed her lips ever so gently against his in a moment of such softness and warmth that Harry's mind lost track of his other senses.

He was vaguely aware of her lashes brushing against cheek, the same sweet smell of burning holly, and the taste of wine and sugar, but he forget them all when her tongue traced with excruciating bliss over his lower lip.

She pulled back, her blue eyes flickering open demurely less than a hand's length from his own.

There were no words that Harry could find in the quiet as she left the Room of Requirement with her real smile spread delicately across the curve of her lips. The only thing he could find on his tongue was the ever so sweet taste of Fleur Delacour.

AN: Please read and review! Thank you to everyone who does. I'll be very interested to know what people think of this chapter ;)

P.S. Noticed a few 'why doesn't he just avada kedavra Crookshanks or whichever pet is nearest ideas. I'm working off the principle that non-self aware creatures have less of a soul. It's like a sliding scale from ants, to the dolphins and humans, and the actual effect of fracturing comes from the strain of tearing the soul away with your magic. So using the Killling Curse on something less than human would not cause sufficient damage to the soul, especially since your intent would not be purely self-motivated as in using the curse on an animal you'd be trying to reserve others. I was saving this little piece of theory for later on down the line, but just in case I don't find a way to slip it in, here it is.