Vana'diel Potter
A Fanfic by Viral Inque Author's Note: This is a Harry Potter fic set in FFXI's world of Vana'diel. It was inspired by my own character in FFXI, who's name happens to be Fleurdelacour, though I'm not sure why I chose the name. Stop by and say hi if you see me wandering around the streets of San d'Oria. Anyway, I just moved, so I'm offline for a while till I get resituated. I'm dying to get back, so I'm writing this fic about the origins of my character to pass the time. Let me know what you think, good or bad. Enjoy.

Chapter I: Disassociation

Harry was sitting between Ron and Hermoine in potions class. Professor Snape had just finished berating him on the importance of preparing his ingredients properly before adding them to a potion mixture. Harry was sure he had done his mixing right, and was sure that Professor Snape knew this as well. Malfoy was at the ready, as he often was, to make an attempt to compound Harry's misery. Harry pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and started scribbling on it, trying his best to ignore Malfoy's taunts.

Malfoy slipped out of his chair while Professor Snape was making notes on the blackboard. He inched his way closer to Harry, until he was in an empty chair at the table directly in front of him. Malfoy stared back at Harry coyly through his beady gray eyes. Harry saw Professor Snape turn around to address the class, but when he saw Malfoy, he turned back to the blackboard and continued to write. Ron and Hermoine stared at Malfoy suspiciously, Hermoine's fist raised in silent menace. Harry continued to write on his sheet of parchment, his arm resting in front of him and his head low to shield what he was doing.

As if sensing Snape's consent to the act, Malfoy reached over towards Harry and dropped something into Harry's cauldron, where he had been making his potion. Harry's potion turned from a milky white to a crystalline blue and started shooting sparks. Harry pushed his cauldron away carefully without looking at it. He was concentrating on putting the finishing touches on what he had been writing on his parchment.

When he was satisfied with his work, Harry showed the parchment to Malfoy, who was grinning and looking quite pleased with himself. Professor Snape wheeled around at the same exact moment and stared right at Harry with a vindictive sneer. Harry, of course, knew Snape had been waiting for his chance to nail him, but he didn't care. Sometimes you have to give back, he thought. As his gaze fell on the paper, Malfoy's face turned as pale as porcelain, then red as a beet.

Ron and Hermoine leaned forward to look at what was written on the parchment. Soon, as a bestial growl emanated from Professor Snape in a pitched crescendo, the whole class turned to Harry as well. The room gasped and Harry smiled, as his face flushed from the sudden attention, in spite of himself. Ron and Hermoine tried to snatch the parchment out of Harry's hand, but it was too late.

On the piece of parchment was scribbled, in surprisingly accurate rendition, two caricatures. If you couldn't tell by looking, two names were written neatly above each character. One said Malfoy, and the one next to it said Snape. Both of them were bent low to the ground, their faces pressed against a snake curled up in front of them. Above the snake, 'you-know-who' was written. The two faces on the caricatures were puckered up, and it looked as if they were supposed to be kissing the snake's backside.

After a moment of muted suspense, Seamus Finnigan let out a stifled chuckle, followed closely by several more from other Gryffindor students. This seemed to incense Professor Snape more, and he came charging across the room towards Harry with a look on his face that made Harry start to wonder if maybe he had done the wrong thing. Harry's potion continued to fizz and spark deviously in front of him as Harry defiantly persisted in holding up the portrait of the two. Malfoy's look of repulsion was replaced by one of smug satisfaction as Snape breezed past him, his cape flapping wildly.

Ron had to jump out of the way to keep Snape from barreling over him to get to Harry. Hermoine decided it might be best to do the same. In their haste, they bumped the table, and Ron's potion's work spilled across the desk. Snape stopped dead in his tracks, his face less then a foot from Harry's and his hand wrapped tightly around Harry's arm. Harry followed Snape's gaze to the spilled potion on the table as one of the sparks from Harry's potion jumped out of his cauldron and landed in the puddle of liquid on the desk.

They had been working on an assignment that required them to used mandrake root as the main ingredient of their potion, but nothing more specific then that. Harry didn't know what Ron had been working on, but he soon found out what it did when it was combined with Harry's. A thin column of glowing blue smoke shot up towards the ceiling. The faces of everyone in the classroom followed it as it quickly rose upwards. The smoke began to pool as it hit the ceiling, billowing and spreading across the room.

Everyone watched closely as the smoke continued to swell, backing away towards the walls to keep from under it. Snape squeezed Harry's arm tighter and started dragging him away from his desk and the spreading smoke, eyeing the mass above them suspiciously. Despite wanting to get clear of the smoke, Harry struggled to get loose of Snape's grasp, refusing to be led around by him. As he fought to get free from Snape, he looked back in time to see the string of smoke break away from the desk. Harry heard Ron and Hermoine calling for him to get away from there, and then everything around him went black. Professor Snape's hand closed into a fist as Harry's arm, as well as the rest of him, disappeared entirely.

Harry made a deliberate attempt to open and close his eyes. He couldn't see anything but darkness in front of him and he began to feel panicky. Instinctively, he fumbled around in his robes until he found his wand. "Lumos!" he screamed, and saw the faintest light where his wand might be, but it faded so fast it might as well have done nothing at all.

He thought he might have gone blind, but something else was wrong. Everything, the classroom, his classmates- were all gone, or he had left them somehow. He felt like he was being pushed at an alarming speed through a black hole. He was sure of this because he could feel the darkness, could feel its infinite, cold embrace. Harry began to shake uncontrollably as memories of the dementors flooded his memory. He continued to tumble through nothingness for some time, and soon he couldn't tell whether he was flying forward or falling down or how long he'd been there or even where he had come from.

When it started to look like there'd be no end to the gloom, Harry began to desperately grope at the air, looking for something to hold onto to. It felt like if he didn't do something drastic soon, his heart would beat right out of his chest. Harry's hand went to his mouth as his stomach threatened to empty itself of it contents.

He thought he saw a ball of pale light pop in his field of vision, like after you looked at the sun for too long, but he dismissed it as all hope began to escaped him. Another ball of light flashed and he wondered if he was about to pass out. His stomach lurched and he felt hot acid try to push up his throat. Suddenly, a series of flashbulb-like globes exploded around him, making him blink hard. He was sure he was heading towards something, or something was heading for him, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it. He readied his wand for either.

Soon he saw he was right, as the area around him became more detailed. The black began to fade slowly and crude shapes started to take form in shades of gray. Harry shook his head to make sure he wasn't just imagining it all and it felt like someone was banging his head against a brick wall. He rubbed his temples with a grimace, and the world around him continued to take shape. By the time he came to his senses, he found himself sitting in a vast, green, meadow. He absently ran a hand through the soft, moist, grass that surrounded him on all sides.

When he was sure it was safe, Harry let himself fall back into the tall grass. He took deep breaths of cool, clean air, and after a while, he almost felt good. Once his eyes had readjusted to the light, he looked up at an unspoiled, clear, sky. It dawned on him that he had been in potions class and now he wasn't. He sat up and his head protested violently to the movement.

He pushed the pain in his head aside and surveyed his surroundings. He saw that there was someone else laying in the grass nearby. He couldn't see the persons face, but she seemed to be a girl roughly about his size and age. She had beautiful, long, shiny hair that looked like it could almost be white. She seemed to be trying to pick herself off the ground, pushing up onto her elbows and shaking the cobwebs out of her head, just like he had just done. Harry thought maybe it'd be a good idea to see if she was okay and if maybe she could help him. He got to his feet gingerly and had taken just two steps toward the girl when he realized who it was.

"Fleur?" Harry called as he came sprinting across the field, tripping over a rock hidden in the tall grass, "Fleur!"

Fleur Delacour, the girl who had come to Hogwart's the year before from Beauxbaton's to compete in the Triwizard Tournament, looked around her in a daze until her and Harry's eyes met. For a moment she looked confused, and Harry thought she didn't remember him, or maybe she'd bumped her head and had developed amnesia.

"'Arry? Potter?" she said sleepily, rubbing her head with a sour look on her pretty face, "What is going on 'ere?"

"You don't know?" Harry asked, sounding a little disappointed.

Fleur stared at the ground in front of a her quietly, a look of intense concentration furrowing her brow. After a while, she shook her head. "I'm not sure. I don't understand how I got 'ere," she shrugged, then looked around her questioningly, "Wait, where are we?"

"I don't know," Harry said nervously. When he'd seen Fleur, he'd been hoping she'd be able to tell him something about what was going on, "I was just in class, and Malfoy had put something in my potion, then Ron's and mine's got mixed tog-"

Harry froze and thought hard for a second. What if what had happened in Snape's class had triggered him and Fleur winding up here? If only he knew what was in Ron's potion he might have a better idea, but he didn't. He didn't even know if any of this was possible.

He finished explaining what happened to Fleur. She didn't say anything at first, just looked off at nothing with that same look of deep focus. Harry couldn't help but notice that she looked even more beautiful when she wasn't trying to be.

"I don't think zat is it, 'Arry," she said finally with a shake of her head, her flowing hair whipping back and forth, "'Ow would zat explain 'ow I got 'ere?"

"Oh, I guess it wouldn't," Harry sighed glumly. He thought he should feel better to be off the hook on being responsible for what was going on, but these kinds of things always happened to Harry, so he just couldn't be sure.

"But," Fleur continued, looking slightly embarrassed, "To tell you ze truth, I don't know if maybe it isn't some'ow my fault. I was in my room when I disappeared, just like you said you did. I had been studying for my Apparating License. I won't even be able to sign up for it till later zis year, but I've been so excited about it I couldn't 'elp myself. I thought maybe I could get away with trying to disapparate from one side of my bed and apparate on ze other, just as practice. I was in ze middle of giving it a try when it happened."

"I don't know," Harry thought out loud. He watched Fleur absently plucking blades of grass out of the ground with her thin, pale hands. He noticed he had been doing it too, and felt the blood rushing to his face. He nervously put his hands in his robes. "That wouldn't explain how I got here, either."

"No, I suppose not," Fleur said with a relieved smile, "So we don't know where we are or 'ow we got 'ere. What should we do now?"

Harry considered this question carefully. It wasn't strange enough that he had just disappeared out of potions class and into a field in the middle of nowhere, but what was Fleur doing here? She had gotten there much the same way he had. So he guessed there had to be a link between them somewhere. Could it be another ploy by Voldemort? But if it was, what did Fleur have to do with it?

Harry figured they wouldn't find out by just sitting there. He stood up and walked around in a circle slowly. They were sitting roughly on the top of a short hill. Behind them, down a fairly steep drop and half a mile through more tall grass, was a run down, abandoned, old barn with half its roof missing. To their left, he could just catch sight of a dirt road off in the distance. Aside from that, there really wasn't much else to look at.

"I guess we'll take that road," Harry said, pointing it out. Fleur had to squint hard to even see it. "We'll have to run into someone who can help us out eventually."

"Maybe we can find out where ze local ministry is," Fleur added hopefully, "Zey would be able to get us 'ome at least."

"Good idea," Harry added, confident that everything would be alright as soon as they found someone to point them in the right direction.

The road turned out to not be much of a road at all. It wasn't more then four feet from one end to the other and no car could really have driven across it. Fleur looked down the road in both directions doubtfully. In the end, they decided it was a road one way or another and after some debate, they chose a direction and started walking.

"So how have you been, Fleur?" Harry asked after a while, trying to strike up some conversation.

"Well, I supposed, till about five minutes ago," Fleur said distantly, preoccupied with examining a grass stain on her silky robes, "And you?"

"Okay, I guess," Harry answered, but it didn't seem to him that Fleur was listening.

They continued to walk down the path and slowly the plants got taller and taller on either side of them until Harry couldn't see anything but the road ahead or behind of him. Fleur didn't say anything, but would occasionally let out a long and deliberate sigh. She seemed to be growing more and more agitated the further they walked. Harry began to grow more and more uncomfortable the longer the silence dragged on. He searched desperately for something to talk about.

"I wonder what this could all be about, you know, us being here, wherever here is?" Harry said casually, and wondered why he hadn't been thinking about just that. Of course, it could very well be the work of Voldemort, or his Death Eaters. They had been quiet of late, but by no means did that mean the wizarding world was out of the woods yet, and certainly not Harry. But none of this seemed to have their name written on it. Still, you usually never knew till it was too late.

Up ahead of them, Harry thought he saw something move, but when he looked there was nothing there except a large rock that partially blocked the road coming up. Suddenly, the rock wheeled around to reveal an ugly face with a smile full of razor sharp, blood crusted teeth. Whatever it was, it let out a raspy howl and, brandishing a sword, started to slowly amble its way towards them.

Harry started backpedaling away from the thing and tripped over his own feet, throwing up dry dirt as he landed on the dusty road. He groped in his robes until he found his wand and pointed it at the creature with a shaky hand. He got back to his feet quickly but deliberately, keeping both eyes on the creature. It wasn't moving very fast, so Harry thought it would be best to back away so he could keep his wand on it at all times. Fleur stood frozen in place, staring blankly ahead of her with her arms hanging limply by her sides.

Harry cursed under his breath. He jumped in front of Fleur and started waving his hands in front of her face. "Fleur! Fleur! We gotta go!" he pleaded. Fleur blinked but refused to move. Harry tried to think of something fast, shifting nervously and turning back to look for the creature, who was getting dangerously close. He could see a hide of spikes like a dinosaurs running along its arms and the top of its head.

All Harry could think to do was to reach up and smack Fleur across the face. Instantly, she came back to her senses, glowering at Harry intensely. He pointed behind him with his thumb. He could now smell the monster's overpowering body odor and rancid breath that reeked of rotting meat. Fleur gasped, grabbed Harry by the arm, and started running back the way they had come. Fleur was surprisingly fast, and Harry had to work to keep up with her as she dragged him along. He looked back to see that the creature had stopped its pursuit.

"Wait! Fleur, he's not chasing us anymore," he cried, trying to make her stop. She looked back, and when she was satisfied that they were safe, stopped running and let go of Harry's arm. They both bent over and tried to catch their breaths.

"What was that?" Fleur panted.

"Dunno," Harry answered, grabbing at a stitch in his side, "But I'm guessing we can't go that way."

They examined the foliage to either side of the road. It was too tall and thick to walk through. They had no choice but to go back the way they had come. Fleur said something coldly in what Harry guessed was French. Harry sighed and wished he was back in potions class.