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

Someone mentioned in the reviews my Harry was quite OC, it was a guest, I think, so I can only respond in a note here. You guys do read the summary, right? The little bit that mentions how his personality is very different and why might have offered some warning.

So it continues.

Chapter 25

Light had spilt in through her window, bright and offensive. Fleur gradually became aware of a pounding in her head, the taste on her tongue, dryness in her mouth and the slightly unsettled, fragile feeling of her stomach.

Too much wine.

Her weakness for sweet things like dessert wines had led her here before, but normally only when she was at home and among those she trusted and was open enough with to risk drinking so much.

The lingering effects of the night of the Yule Ball disappeared after a long drink of water and a a strongly cast charm directed at refreshing and cleaning her mouth. It was one of the most useful spells she knew. It took five minutes and Fleur felt much better afterwards, as if it were any other morning.

Just like that all the problems of my morning are gone.

A nagging feeling that that was not even slightly true could not easily be dismissed and after a few seconds it struck her.

I kissed a fourteen year old.

There were so many more problems this morning than any other morning in her life.

That was my first kiss.

It hadn't been so bad. Fleur distinctly remembered enjoying kissing him, as disturbing as that was. She was not so sheltered she didn't know how to kiss someone, but she'd never had practice and Harry likely hadn't either.

Harry.

Fleur had no idea what he must think of her.

Harry, for all his prodigious talent and insight did not know as much about veela as Fleur both feared and wished he did. He did not know how their allure worked and so had remained blissfully oblivious that he remained unaffected by hers even as he spilt out his feelings to her.

You're the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

Just remembering it made her shiver.

If he had been affected by her allure he would have wanted to impress her, needed to catch and keep her attention, but instead he had simply told her she was beautiful. There had been nothing Fleur had wanted so much in that moment as to kiss him and he didn't even know what he had said.

She was smiling just thinking about it.

His shyness had demonstrated without any doubt that he had not even noticed the full force of her allure and Fleur could not be more glad that he had not. His notice of her, now that he finally he had, was completely of her, there was no magic compelling him.

Harry still does not realise.

Her happiness came crashing down.

He still believed that he had been under the effects of her aura, which meant he would attribute everything he had felt to her magic. Fleur was caught somewhere in the middle of relief and despair. She didn't want to him to ignore his emotions when expressing them had brought her so much happiness, but he was three years younger than her.

Merde, she swore silently. Merde. Merde. Merde.

For once Fleur had no idea what to do.

This wasn't something she could use magic to fix, not unless she leapt to extremes and attempted to obliviate Harry. The very idea of doing that disgusted her. He had trusted her, treated her as an equal, understood far more than anyone she had ever met, and chosen staying to keep her company over dancing with the girl he would likely have ended up with had Fleur not interfered.

Something unpleasant, jagged and angry twisted in her chest at the idea of the two of them dancing together. It tightened when she remembered what he had said about kissing her.

Katie Bell.

A girl who did not deserve Harry. She was not his equal. She would never be able to stand alongside him.

Fleur could. He would be the one standing next to her, the one who understood her, and held her back against the world. She was sure of it. If only she hadn't kissed him and potentially ruined everything her dream of friendship could have been.

Harry might well like her. He would not be the first boy to, even if he was the first that had clearly managed it without the aid of her allure, and she had no idea if she liked him. He was fourteen.

Or he might not like me.

Fleur really didn't know which was worse. The idea that he might like her when she did not like him, or the fact that he might not like her when she liked him.

She tried categorising her feelings, sorting through them for signs, attempting to quantify her emotions, but the only conclusions she came to were that she did not want to let her go of her hope of having a close relationship with someone similar enough to understand her, and that she was horribly confused about how close she wanted that relationship to be.

What do I do next?

That was the most important question. Fleur needed to know how she should act around him, or others might notice things she didn't want them to see.

A cold, sickening plummet of her stomach heralded a new, more horrible realisation.

Everyone knows I used my allure on him.

They would all think she had charmed their Boy-Who-Lived, stolen his affections and enthralled him. Even Harry might believe it; she had tried in the Great Hall and on the evening of the Yule Ball, even if it had been for different reasons.

Merde.

'Fleur?' Madame Maxime's stern query was accompanied by a rap on the doorframe that could only have come from her headmistress.

My scolding for the incident in the Great Hall and my choice of date, no doubt.

It could not have come at a worse time.

'One moment,' she sighed wearily, kicking her crumpled dress from the floor of her room into the bathroom out of sight. It was a deplorable way to treat such a beautiful item of clothing, but far preferable than letting her headmistress make any more assumptions about her evening.

'I did not see you return from the castle after the Yule Ball,' Madame Maxime stated in a tone that very much demanded explanation. Fleur had not even managed to fully open the door.

'The disillusionment charm. I left early.' The first question had been mercifully easy to answer.

'You did not return here early, neither Emilie nor Caroline saw you.'

'I spent some time with a friend,' Fleur answered resignedly. She knew where this was going now. Emilie or Caroline, likely both, had not even waited until the next morning to start spreading stories.

If they'd managed to get dates they wouldn't have had time to make things worse for me, Fleur thought scathingly.

'Your friend was also your choice of company and fellow champion Harry Potter, I assume.' Madame Maxime's voice was stern and disapproving.

'You assume correctly.' There was nothing to be done until her headmistress actually gave her something to refute.

'He is fourteen, Fleur,' the towering french teacher remonstrated. 'I can understand your desire to have a platonic date, one that is not affected by your natural magic, but sneaking off with him for the evening… I can not and will not condone such behaviour. He is a child.'

'I think,' Fleur cut in as respectfully as she could manage, 'you should have put less trust in what you have heard about my evening.'

'Oh,' her headmistress remarked. 'So you were not seen by your fellow students disappearing off to the abandoned upper floors of the castle?'

'I'm sure we were,' Fleur snapped, her patience short, stressed as she was. 'I wanted to spend the evening away from gossiping, shallow individuals who had nothing better to do than cast aspersions at their betters. Harry was kind enough not to leave me on my own. My only regret of the evening is failing to avoid them half as well as I had hoped.'

And kissing Harry, a treacherous thought reminded her, or kissing him and leaving before he understood why I did.

It was safe to say that Madame Maxime had never had one of her students speak to her like that before. The headmistress went through several different stages of shock and rage before eventually settling on disbelief.

'You mean to say you spent the whole night talking?'

'Until I left at a little before midnight,' Fleur responded testily. She was pointedly ignoring the memory of mistletoe descending in spirals of tear-drop leaves around the hovering candles.

What is the point of asking me these ridiculous questions if she is not going to believe my answers?

Her headmistress steepled her fingers and adopted a thoughtful expression for a long moment.

'I believe you,' she said after a while. 'However you showed poor judgement in directing your allure at him so blatantly, then again in attending the Yule Ball with him, and you compounded it by vanishing with him for evening. Rumours are already flying.'

'Let them,' Fleur sneered with disdain she did not feel. 'I have never cared before.'

I hope Harry doesn't believe them.

'It might be best for the two of you to let things calm down before spending too much more time in each other's company,' Madame Maxime advised. 'I approve of your friendship Fleur,' she continued more softly, 'Harry Potter stands a better chance than most at understanding the trials you suffer because of your heritage, but neither of you have made things easy for yourselves in acting as you have.'

She might be right.

Fleur had to sort her own feelings out, prepare for the second task, and deal with all the other Beauxbatons girls before facing up to a candid conversation with Harry. He was strong enough to last a few days, she was sure of that.

'You should probably read this,' her headmistress finished, depositing a copy of the Daily Prophet in Fleur's hand.

'I don't think I need to,' Fleur replied. The title was more than enough to convey the message that was in the article.

Part-veela rival charms Boy-Who-Lived. Fleur snorted angrily. There was no such thing as a part veela.

It was the work of the scavenging Rita Skeeter who had been pestering Harry at the wand-weighing. The woman would probably forget all about her and move on the moment she found her next juicy victim. As long as Harry did not believe it the article would do no damage to anything Fleur was concerned with.

'I have already written a letter to your father in France to reassure him there is no truth behind this piece of trash.' Fleur doubted her father would have even believed it for a moment, but she appreciated her headmistress' assistance.

'Thank you.'

'I must suggest that you focus on preparing for the second task. It will help take your mind of this and allow time for the air to clear for both you and Mr Potter. He has his own solution to worry about too.' Madame Maxime retrieved the paper from Fleur's hand and tucked it away somewhere within her clothing, presumably for further reading.

'Is there anything you would like assistance with?' Her headmistress leant a little further through the frame of the door, blocking out most of the light.

'How much are you allowed to give?' Fleur asked suspiciously. Her brief talk with Harry and his reaction to the dragons had implied that either he was getting less help than he should, or the others were getting more than they were supposed to.

'As long as I am not directly helping you with the task it is not cheating,' Madame Maxime explained, a little abashed.

Fleur weighed up her options.

Better to win, she decided. The others were likely all cheating anyway and she was already at a disadvantage due to the nature of her magic.

'I need to adapt the bubble-head charm for long and repeated underwater use,' Fleur told her headmistress.

'Not the best choice for a long underwater venture in which you might encounter dangerous creatures,' Madame Maxime frowned. 'The more power put into the charm the more dangerous the reaction when the bubble is burst.'

'Is there an alternative?' Fleur had not considered the extra compression over-powering the charm might cause.

'Transfiguration, or enchanting an item of clothing to convert water to breathable oxygen would be your best solutions,' the headmistress suggested. 'The latter especially given your skill at enchanting and charming. There are plenty of pieces of spell-weaving capable of creating such an effect, but I suggest simplicity. You do not need it to last the rest of your life.'

Finding an appropriate set of enchantments meant another disillusioned trip to Hogwarts' library and a long week of research and practice before she was done.

I won't be able to see Harry for a short while anyway, Fleur realised. It was probably for the best. It would give her some time to straighten out her thoughts and let the rumours fade before they had to talk about the evening of the Yule Ball.

'I shall leave you to it,' Madame Maxime decided, withdrawing from the doorway as Fleur began to ponder her new solution in earnest.

She already had an item in mind. A thin piece of gauze that had one been part of a scarf. It could easily be tied around her lower face and secured so that she did not lose it.

A light tap on the window heralded the arrival of Hedwig, the owl Harry had leant her. She had made a few journeys between Fleur and Gabrielle now.

Opening the pane of glass and allowing the snowy owl in to her room Fleur decided that writing everything she felt down in a letter to her sister would at least help her. Gabby might not understand, being younger, but pushing it all through a pen would certainly make Fleur feel a little better.

At least until Gabrielle starts asking questions.

Her sister's letter, which Fleur knew she was only allowed to take once Hedwig had made sure of who she was. The beautiful, white owl scrutinised with first one eye, then the other, and finally both, before hooting softly, dropping the envelope and vanishing back out of the window.

Fleur would have to go to the Owlery again later. The bird was as difficult as her master.

Gabrielle's letter was long, very long, and rambling. A very tightly folded and compressed wad of parchment that was covered in her sister's small, neat handwriting from top to bottom on both sides. She knew her baby sister well enough to know what that meant. Gabrielle was lonely.

Their letters were probably the only company either of them had had until recently. A longer letter demanded a longer reply. Gabby needed some attention.

Fleur's welter of feelings swirled.

Her sister was about to get a lot more than she bargained for.

It took Fleur the better part of an hour to pour her tangle of troubles into ink. Seeing them in dark, blue script made them feel a bit less daunting than before. They were just words, and Fleur had dealt with words before, both hateful and kind.

Time to find Hedwig.

She twirled her rose-wood wand over herself, waiting for the charm to take affect and render her virtually invisible. Fleur would venture first to the Owlery, then to the library. It would be best to get started on her solution for the second task straight away. The quicker it was done the sooner she could concentrate on other things.

Emelie and Caroline were sitting in the communal part of the carriage when Fleur passed it, sniggering over the article. They seemed a little too pleased with themselves for Fleur to stomach.

'Credidero,' she whispered angrily, looping her wand in a circle at each of the girls.

The believing curse was fitting revenge, one she had been saving for just such a moment. It was more commonly known as Cassandra's Curse now. Nobody would believe a word that came from either of their mouths while the magic lasted. Fleur only regretted that she did not have the skill with the curse to make its effect on them as permanent as it had been on the Trojan witch and seer.

She swept out of the carriage and up the hill towards Hogwarts with a satisfied smile on her lips. Emilie and Caroline deserved everything they got for setting Madame Maxime on her.

The grass was wet, and Fleur had to follow the stone paths to avoid leaving footprints and getting herself soaked. Part of her hoped that this would make it more likely for her to run in to Harry by accident, but part of her was afraid of the exact same event occurring.

The Owlery was blessedly empty, but Fleur was still cautious, especially once she had dispelled her concealing piece of magic. Harry's disillusionment charm was perfect, unlike hers, and he had told her that he owned an artefact capable of completely hiding his presence. She had only found him last time because he knew he would have come under concealment and that he would have been here.

Why would he sneak around his own school? Fleur asked herself.

The question did nothing to reassure her as she hoped it would, only called to mind all the times she had spent concealed at Beauxbatons.

Hedwig was on the same perch that Harry had first found her on. She weighed the letter a little grumpily in her beak when Fleur passed it to her, but left with it all the same. He had a very smart owl. Most birds did not demonstrate half the things Hedwig did. Her bond with Harry was strong.

The snowy owl disappeared out the window just as she had the first time, and every occasion in between.

To the library, she decided after a moment's hesitation.

If Harry was here he did not want to speak to or be seen by her. Fleur hoped that neither of those were true. She might be conflicted about what to say and how to act around him now, but she wanted him to want to speak with her. They could never develop the friendship and bond between equals that Fleur desired if he did not.

The journey from the Owlery to the Library crossed the entire breadth of the school so unless Harry had returned to vanishing, which was possible, Fleur conceded, then there was a chance she might see him. The prospect made her both smile and frown above the butterflies that danced in her chest.

She did not.

The only other Triwizard Champion that she noticed was Viktor Krum. He too was in the library, slumped over a stack of transfiguration books and what looked like a detailed anatomical study of some kind of fish.

So he is aware of the second task too.

His solution looked rather more complicated and less elegant than Fleur thought hers would be, provided she managed to make it work.

He glanced up as she passed, blinking away the slightly glazed look that immediately affected him and covering his notes.

Fleur dipped her head in greeting. Viktor Krum would do very well if he managed to transfigure himself as he appeared to be attempting.

'Someone took out the best book about magical creatures,' she heard Hermione Granger announce as she approached Durmstrang's champion. Evidently school loyalty was not as important as personal loyalty to the former friend of Harry.

The girl had at least made whatever she did to her hair to fix it permanent.

'Madam Pince told me that it was the Beauxbatons' champion that took it out,' Hermione said fiercely. 'She shouldn't be allowed to take books out of our library, isn't one schools knowledge enough for her.'

'We do not have access to our own libraries, Hermione,' Viktor reminded her in his thick accent. He seemed on the verge of laughter at her vehemence. 'It is a good sign. Fleur Delacour is winning, if she has the book we want it means we are on the right track.'

Yes it does, she thought a little smugly, glad that there was at least some mutual respect between the champions if not the rest of the schools.

'It's still a bad idea,' Hermione sniffed. 'She's bewitched Harry already, and he was joint second with you. You're her next target, Viktor, her nearest competition.'

'You think because she is veela she will manage to charm me into letting her win.' Fleur could hear the smile in his tone as she leant against the bookshelf. 'I am from Bulgaria, we have a proud tradition of veela witches there, they rarely stoop to such a thing. Besides, I am very competitive, I do not let anyone beat me.'

'And Harry? She used her allure on him, everyone knows that.'

Fleur ground her teeth but listened regardless. She needed to know what Harry would be hearing.

'He did not seem enthralled by her at the Yule Ball,' Viktor dismissed. 'You can tell when someone is under the charm of a veela, it shows in their eyes. I have never seen it in his, Harry Potter is more more resistant than I am, so even if she tried she must have failed. It hardly matters given the location of the next task. A veela is at a disadvantage in such conditions.'

'Only if you manage to transfigure yourself,' Hermione reminded him.

'Exactly why I should be concentrating on learning the details of this diagram and not getting distracted talking with pretty girls.'

Hermione huffed loudly, but Fleur could tell she was flattered.

'It's only a partial transfiguration,' Viktor continued, 'I shall be fine, but we should keep our voices down, Fleur Delacour is in the library too and might come back this way.'

'Maybe she brought the book back,' Hermione wondered eagerly as Fleur started her search for breathing enchantments in earnest.

'It will not be returned until after the task.' She faintly caught Viktor's chuckle at the younger girl's naivety.

Of course it won't be, Fleur scoffed, locating the right section of the library.

There were a surprising number of books on enchanted items that turned water breathable. Fleur found her preferred choice in one the older less obviously useful books. A study of the greek wizarding city of Atlantis that had been collapsed into the sea by the eruption of the volcano Santorini over a millennia ago. The wizards there had made a great deal of money raising and growing aquatic plants and coral, but needed a way of harvesting them.

Their solution had been to develop an enchantment that effectively summoned the oxygen from the water around and kept a thin, but constant layer of it on the reverse, or dry, side of the enchanted item. Fleur was half-tempted to use it on all of her clothing to try and keep the water from interfering with the flow of her magic.

It was cited as the precursor to the bubble-head charm, but Fleur felt that the popularity of the newer charm was probably more down to a widespread lack of enchanting ability than any true superiority over the simple, ancient solution of the people of Atlantis.

She couldn't cast and test the enchantment here, however, which meant it was time to return to the Beauxbatons carriage.

The fastest way back was through the Great Hall. It was the most likely place she would see Harry and with that in mind Fleur couldn't quite bring herself to reapply the disillusionment charm she had used to arrive.

There were a lot of stares.

Fleur ignored them, her polite smile never slipped until she passed by the entrance of the Great Hall. It crumbled the moment she caught sight of the head of unruly, black hair and twisted into something both bitter and longing without Fleur's permission.

Harry was sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table, staring up at the vast, stained glass window that covered the end opposite to the door.

She made the first few metres into the hall without really thinking about it. Harry needed to be told what had happened, why it had happened, and that she was going to be occupied for a bit.

Fleur had made halfway down the tables before looking around at the other students and then back at Harry. Her smile fell from her face, whatever form it had taken crumbling away.

I don't really know why it happened.

She had no idea what she would say and there were so many people around them. Her indecision froze her for the briefest instant.

I can't do it.

Her pride had deserted her. No number of polite smiles would save her from how much it might hurt if she made a mistake and ruined the friendship she hoped they might be able to build.

Very slowly and quietly Fleur turned and walked back the way she had come.

AN: Please read and review! Thanks to everyone who does! This was probably the hardest chapter to write so far and I'd imagine it shows, so apologies for that, but it's a necessary chapter. A special mention to PaC who managed to guess how I was going to do the second task in regards to Fleur, albeit I'm not sure he did so intentionally, but in retaliation I've changed it ;)