Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does!
The darkening of the day began to envelope the remaining sunlight that settled over the stadium in the Hogwarts grounds. It was a clear night and all the stars were visible for everyone to see, the stadium was an astonishing display of colors, the four Hogwarts house colors, the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons colors and many others that were emitted from bewitched wands to act as lights or the badges that most of the Slytherins were wearing. The atmosphere in the place was overwhelming; the cheers from the crowds were incredible roars being let rip in to the warm July air.
She looked around from her place in the front stands; she was wrapped in one of those awful blankets that Madame Maxime had insisted she wrap around herself as soon as she had been collected from the maze. Madame Maxime was besides her now, telling her not to worry, that she did brilliantly and it was ever so hard to even make it to the third task. Several of the Beauxbatons girls were around her too, as well as many of the Hogwarts students. All telling her that she had been a brave soul for even daring to go into the maze. She wasn't listening though; her eyes were thoroughly scanning all possible entrances and exits of the maze, waiting for the other three champions to return.
"Where are zay?" she asked, her thick French accent cutting through their compliments and all the cheers in the crowd, "Zay should be back by now."
She listened carefully to the chants, split into three different sounds. One for Harry Potter. One for Victor Krum. And one for Cedric Diggory. The crowd didn't seem fazed by how extraordinarily long the champions had been in there, according to Madame Maxime, Fleur had been in there about an hour and a half before they saw red sparks. By the time she had been retrieved the champions had been in there two hours, that had been four hours ago.
Fleur had always known that she wouldn't win; she had been the weakest, even up against Harry Potter, who was a good three years younger than herself was stronger than she. She had entered because so many of her friends had urged her too; it had seemed like a good idea at the time. When her name had been fired out of the goblet, she had experienced a fleeting moment of glory amongst her peers. She had bravely walked forward and disappeared into the room where the champions were meant to stay.
She glanced around, the champion from Durmstrang sat in a corner, cracking his knuckles, and he stood up when she walked in. He bowed respectfully and kissed her hand. She recognized him of course; she couldn't imagine there was a wizard alive who hadn't heard of Krum, the best seeker in the world. His fame was almost as incredible as that of Voldemort or Dumbledore, even Harry Potter. She was charmed by his impeccable manners, she didn't let it show though, in fact she was terrified, and the man that stood before her was obviously a lot stronger than her.
"Victor Krum," He said, looking down at her. She smiled and he seemed to melt from her gaze and beauty, she was of course used to this, it sometimes became a problem, when no one would take her seriously, she was just a pretty face. That was another of he reason she had wanted to enter, to break the image that she so reluctantly held.
"Fleur Delacour," She replied.
At that moment she heard the cheers from the hall and knew that the Hogwarts champion had been selected, she turned to stand besides Krum as they waited for the door to open and for the champion to come in. The door was opened and an extremely tall and handsome boy of about seventeen came in. Fleur remembered him from when she had first arrived; he had helped her and some of her friends with directions around the school. He too seemed to remember this and smiled at her with recognition. He turned to Krum and shook his hand cheerfully.
"Cedric Diggory."
"Victor Krum," the quidditch player answered. He turned to Fleur and bend down for her hand, she let him have it. He kissed it gently, his lips lingering a second longer than Krum's had done. She could feel him looking at them, and feeling like he was almost imposing. He stood up and looked around at the room; Fleur sat down neatly on a chair and waited for her headmistress to come and tell her what was to happen now. She glance nervously at the other two boy's, she had rather hoped it might've been a girl from Hogwarts, perhaps so she didn't feel as if the fact that the other two champion's in the competition were boy's automatically made her the weakest of the three.
The door of the room opened, and a boy with jet black messy hair stumbled in. He looked at them worriedly; Cedric was looking confusedly at the boy. Suddenly she heard angry raised voices, voices she recognised, Madame Maxine was arguing!
"This is impossible!" she heard the headmaster of Durmstrang say, "How can this be Albus?"
"I don't know." Dumbledore said appearing at the doorway, he stopped to look at the boy with black hair before walking briskly towards him. He took him by the shoulders and roughly shook him.
"Did you enter your name? Did you enter your name Harry?"
Fleur saw the hair fall away and on the forehead of the boy was a thin lightning shape scar. The boy was Harry Potter.
"How can z'ere be a fourth champion?" Madame Maxime asked.
"This is an outrage; Hogwarts have a greater chance at winning now!"
It had turned out of course that Harry Potter did indeed compete; in fact Fleur adored Harry immensely, especially after he had been kind and brave enough to rescue her sister when she had failed to complete the second task.
And now here she was yet again, failing yet again, not finishing yet again.
"Don't worry Fleur, zay will be back." Madame Maxime assured her, resting a heavy hand on the slim girl's shoulder.
A loud bang crashed over the top of the maze and red sparks flew up through the openings of bushes. All three head teachers and Fleur were on their feet immediately.
"Cedric!" She cried, her voice piercing through the fresh silence. A hand flew to her mouth when she realized her mistake. She hurriedly sat back down and watched as the faces that had turned towards her slowly made their way back to the head teachers.
Three wizards made their way through a new entrance that had opened off to the side of the stands; this obviously led them straight to the place where the signal had been called from. The disappeared from view into the thick branches.
Ten minutes passed and not one student had dared speak again, apparently it had been the same when red sparks had been sent up when she was in trouble. She kept her eyes focused on the new entrance, not even turning to face Madame Maxime when she whispered in her ear. One wizard came running out and whispered something to Dumbledore who passed on the message to Karkaroff. The three of them ran towards and into the maze. They returned a few minutes later, all of them holding still a thrashing Krum, he was yelling incoherent phrases and words, mostly forming grunts and moans. His arms and legs were bound with what appeared to be a very thick rope. He was taken to the medical tent, where he remained for a good hour.
She remembered Krum standing over her, a wand trained at her throat, before she had been pulled under the bushes by the vines that had wrapped themselves around her. She watched him approach her now; she shivered slightly and recoiled against her headmistress. The teacher recognized fear and held the girl tightly against her. The look on Krum's face was not the same as the one he had worn when he had attacked her, it was one of sorrow and guilt, and this calmed Fleur's nerves a bit.
"Fleur," He began, his apology already evident in his eyes, "I'm so sorry."
She nodded, not daring to make eye contact with the distraught teenager. She had weaknesses, just like everybody else; she just didn't want anyone to see them.
"Eet is okay," she said with all the bravery and courage that she could muster.
"It vasn't me, I mean it vas but I couldn't stop..." he trailed off; realizing that Fleur had accepted his apology and now all he needed was to five her space and time to forgive him. He nodded towards her and walked off solemnly.
The next couple of hours changed the evening sky to night. The clouds had rolled in and the air was black. Thunder could be heard in the distance, but no one in the audience moved, the crowd had gone back to chatting and chanting. It had become remarkably cold for a July night, perhaps she had just stayed outside for too long, Madame Maxime kept urging her to go back inside but she stayed where she was, never protesting with more than a quiet 'no'.
Madame Maxime watched the girl with confusion and amusement; she hadn't moved since she had been given the okay from the medical tent, she had been extremely lucky; she had escaped with only scratches and bruises. Her eyes never moved from the maze in front of them. Waiting for the last two to arrive back, she knew she had grown extremely close to Harry after he had rescued Gabrielle from the lake.
CRASH
Two figures lay sprawled on the floor. Fleur jumped to her feet, rushing down from the stand to the platform below. The crowd was going wild; cheers for them both were deafening her.
"Fleur!" a voice called, she spun round to see him standing before her, "What are you doing out here? You'll freeze to death!"
She smiled at him; he was always so concerned for other people's wellbeing.
"I just need zome air." she replied. She had been standing on the balcony to the astronomy tower looking down at the Great Hall; students were starting to walk about in the gardens now. She had spent time studying them, trying to figure out their life story in her head. Roger Davies had soon grown bored of her once he realized he wasn't going to be kissed that night. He just wasn't the type of boy or man she could see herself having a relationship with, he didn't care about her, he cared about her looks.
"Me too." He grinned; he joined her by the railing, draping his cloak over her shoulders. She smiled gratefully at him as she pulled it tightly round herself. In truth she was cold; she just wasn't ready to go back yet.
"So... Have fun tonight?" he asked, making small conversation, Fleur thought it was charming, she had quickly fallen for the boy standing besides her, which was odd to her because she never fell for anybody that didn't like her first.
"Yes, eet iz wonderful." She told him, the ball had been wonderful, the decorations had almost been as good as those in Beauxbatons even though she had said they weren't earlier.
"Hmm, I don't know about all that dancing though."
She laughed prettily and noticed his date wasn't anywhere to be seen.
"Where iz your date?"
"Oh, she couldn't stand my dancing either."
Fleur looked disbelievingly at him, she had seen him dance that evening and he was not at all bad.
"You are not bad at dancing," she told him. He raised an eyebrow doubtfully.
"Sure. You haven't danced with me, therefore you haven't experienced having been stepped on a thousand times."
"Okay zen, dance with me!" She said determinedly, she put down her goblet on the railing and took of the cloak to lay it beside it. She walked to the middle of the balcony floor and waiter for her partner to join her. He did so hesitantly.
"Don't blame me when your feet are killing you tomorrow."
"Pfuit!
He held her waist with one hand and took her hand in his other. She rested hers on his shoulder. He began to dance with her around the small space within the balcony. She flicked her wand to produce a quiet soundtrack of music in the background, just to keep them in time.
"Zee! You are an excellent dancer!" She triumphed; he smiled a little at her, his concentration being put in to making sure he didn't mess the dance up. She didn't mind though, just to be held while he danced with her was enough. They danced for ages, though each minute to Fleur seemed like a second and when they finally did stop, she felt as if they'd only been dancing for a minute.
"Well, my date will be wondering where I am." He told her finally pulling away; he gave her an apologetic smile before swooping down, kissing her hand and walking back down the stairs.
It was in that time when Fleur danced with him that she realized. Her realization was that she, Fleur Delacour had fallen in love with Cedric Diggory.
She landed neatly on her feet on the floor below, rushing forward to what she assumed was Harry and Cedric, and she stopped just before them in astonishment.
Harry was sobbing, half-laying on Cedric who didn't seem to be moving himself. She could hear the chants and shouts in the crowd starting to die out with realization that something was terribly wrong.
She gave a cry of startled surprise when Harry was dragged off of Cedric; he lay lifeless on the ground. Gray eyes seemed to stare up at the cloudy sky, almost as if he was analyzing them, but everybody knew they weren't. Fleur dropped to her knees after Harry had been taken away. She could make out screams from the girls in the crowd, but she could make out one particular sound, the sound of crying coming from in front of her. She lifted her eyes from his body to look into those of Cho. They were glistening with tears and her cheeks were streaked, she was sobbing quietly looking at Fleur as she did. Fleur looked to her left and saw who she assumed to be his father, he was sobbing and howling quite loudly.
She felt a hand on her shoulder; she turned to see a grave looking Professor Dumbledore, his eyes too were glistening, this time with unshed tears. They were shiny due to reflection from his half-moon glasses. She let him gently help her up.
"We should leave his family alone with him right now," He told her gently, she noted that he made no move to take away Cho. Cho wasn't family so why should she be allowed to stay? He seemed to take in her silent question.
"Cho was very close to Cedric, I think we should leave her too."
So Fleur was led away into the stillness of the school halls. They were deserted because everybody was down at the maze. Dumbledore led her to her room where she sat on the bed in a daze. He quietly shut the door behind him as he left. As soon as she heard the lock click, she fell backwards, sobbing into the unknown depths of her pillow. The only comfort she had. And there she stayed until dawn came, when Madame Maxime came to wake her, she of course was already up, unable to sleep for the fear she would dream of him.
That morning there was a memorial to him, his family and Cho were sitting in the front row, with Fleur in the fifth or sixth, her heart broke at the unjustness of it all. Cedric never knew the feelings that had plagued her heart ever since the beginning of the school year and now he never would. She was stuck with fifth or sixth place in his heart. If even that.
THE END
Author's Note – Hey, I just went to see Harry Potter at the cinema and had to come home and write this, I never thought of a Fleur/Cedric pairing but now that I have, I love the idea! Please review! Mwah!
Coral Candy