Chapter 23
'Impossible', thought Voldemort. Felix Dirlewanger had been captured years ago and was currently locked up in the deepest, darkest bowels of magical Austria. And if he had escaped he was sure that he, Lord Voldemort, would have known about it. The terror in the boy's eyes said otherwise.
"Send him in."
The Death Eater quickly scurried from the room and a few seconds later a lone man wandered in, his wands in his pockets, and appearing quite at home in Lord Voldemort's personal quarters. Voldemort had to keep his expression neutral, both because of the man's lack of fear and at seeing him for the first time. He recognised him from the articles about his capture during the time he possessed that fool Quirrell, but only just.
In the photographs he was tall and well-built with light brown hair and rather dog like features, almost always with insanity etched into his expression that only added to his presence, even through the paper. Now though, he was skinny and pale with greying hair that fell limply past his ears. There were scars on his face, crisscrossing across his lips and nose, streaking down his chin and across his neck and one of his eyes was now clouded. But in that one remaining eye, well, there was more madness than even Lord Voldemort had ever seen. He made Bellatrix look sane.
A rival Dark Lord was precisely what he didn't need at the current moment, and were Voldemort not sure that Dirlewanger had men of his own that would likely retaliate if he did anything to their leader he would have killed him where he stood.
"My Lord," Dirlewanger said with a small bow, and Voldemort honestly couldn't be sure whether he was mocking him or not, "I have come with an offer. I have men, nearly one hundred of them, and you need men. You did just lose quite a lot of them after all. So," he continued as he ignored Voldemort's malicious glare, "what I'm proposing is a partnership of sorts. I don't expect to be equal to you in said partnership because, frankly, I just don't care about that sort of thing. I never have. You see, I want one thing and one thing only: to kill the man who beat you in Hogsmeade. You help me to kill him, and in return my men become yours to use as you see fit."
It was clear to Voldemort that there would be no explanation of why he wanted to kill this Ferryman so much, but that was hardly an important detail. Voldemort couldn't care less about what Dirlewanger wanted and why, he cared only about what he could give him. His offer of men was a welcome one considering his recent losses in Hogsmeade and the small group shortly before that included Bulstrode, Selwyn and Carrow. He assumed they had got themselves killed going after Nightshade, probably out of their own stupidity. The man had played them for fools and Voldemort had since given a few of his Death Eaters the task of finding the elusive lord. It would be difficult considering he hardly ever attended the Wizengamot but it wasn't the most important issue at the moment, more of a side project.
Beyond the men he could offer, Dirlewanger's reputation could also be a boon to his cause. If there was one thing that the Wizarding World did well it was remember, to the point that even those that were not even born during Grindelwald's crusade knew almost as much as the older generations did. The moment Grindelwald's right hand showed his face the sheep would be even more terrified than they were already.
What Voldemort didn't like though, and what made him more accepting of simply killing Dirlewanger and being done with it, was simply the man himself. Ever since he completed his ascension from a simple wizard to Lord Voldemort there had not been a single witch or wizard that was not either terrified of him or in awe of him, but Dirlewanger showed no feeling towards him whatsoever. He was just stood there with a smile on his face, completely unconcerned with the lowly hissing snake that was curled up in the corner or the tangible feeling of power that Voldemort knew was rolling off him. It was like the man just didn't care that he was in the presence of a God, and that made him as uneasy as it did angry.
Ultimately though, he had to admit that the benefits far outweighed the drawbacks. If it came to it he could kill the man with little effort.
"Very well, I will expect your men here by tomorrow to be marked."
"Yes, my lord." Dirlewanger smirked widely.
~Scene Change~
"Is she still not speaking to you?" Sirius asked.
"No, I haven't seen her since she yelled at me in my own office. Honestly, I really don't understand her sometimes. She was fine with all the rest of it, why not that? Some of the others were screaming in pain while they died and the Death Eaters she was getting angry with me about wouldn't have even known it happened. It was the best decision." Harry replied in genuine confusion.
Sirius looked at him from his place on Harry's sofa in a mixture of bemusement and exasperation. He loved his godson, he really did, but sometimes he wondered if Harry's brain was programmed differently to everyone else's and that it wasn't just a product of his upbringing. His own father had drilled mercilessness into him from a young age, but still he didn't think even he would be able to bring himself to kill unconscious people, Death Eaters or not. It had been a week and he still couldn't quite get his head around being able to do it and not see any problem, even if it made sense in a purely logical sense.
"I've been meaning to tell you, Fleur recognised you in Hogsmeade," Sirius said as he held up a hand to stop Harry's imminent interruption, "and she saw Tonks send the patronus to you so she knows the three of us connected."
"How does she know about you if you weren't even in Hogsmeade?" he asked with narrowed eyes.
"Well, actually," Sirius stuttered, "she and Tonks were going to have to have a talk about it at some point and they ended up doing it after the Order meeting the night of the attack-"
"That was a week ago Sirius! You didn't think to tell me in that time that someone had found out? And I suppose you decided to join them and therefore expose yourself just for shits and giggles?" Harry snapped.
"Its fine, its fine, she just wants to meet you." Sirius said, and the look he received could only be described as venomous.
"How the hellis that a good thing?"
"You saved her life more than once when you were working for her father – which you for some reason decided not to mention – and she just wants to say thank you. She's not going to tell anyone, she said she owes you at least that much." He said defensively.
"Oh, so because she said she wouldn't tell anyone its fine then?"
Harry exhaled deeply and ran his hands through his hair as he forced the tension out of his body. He needed to think about this. If all she wanted to do was say thank you then he could do that, obviously assuming she gave the same oath Sirius and Nymphadora had so the old man couldn't go crawling through her mind. It did have the potential problem of her wanting to hang around afterwards though, an idea he wasn't overly keen on. She was a nice enough girl from the little he remembered of her, a bit aloof maybe, but he didn't really have any desire to make friends. Her father being the French Minister wasn't particularly helpful at the moment either considering this war was a solely British problem so far, but it could be helpful afterwards once he'd killed Voldemort.
The main argument in his mind for allowing Fleur in a little bit was that she was a veela, and it was far from the reason that would go through the minds of most males. Anaïs was just starting to feel the full effects of her heritage and he needed someone who could help her through it. Contrary to popular belief it didn't happen overnight and the beginning stages had started barely a few weeks after she had returned to Beauxbatons. He had done what he could to help from the countless books he had read on the subject, but he didn't actually know what was going on. He didn't know how it felt for her or how to best deal with the changes. Her physical appearance hadn't changed much yet except for the slight sharpening of her features, but the allure had just started to flare and would continue to grow. He knew she would need to get a handle on it soon before it grew beyond the fairly weak level it was apparently at. He didn't know exactly, obviously, because he didn't feel it, but there had already been an incident.
A sixth year boy had tried to drag her into an empty classroom but she had retaliated before he could do more than grasp a meaty hand around her shoulder – a nasty little spell that Harry had designed himself: he had modified the blood acidifying curse so that it instead acidified a certain other bodily fluid unique to the male population. It only lasted thirty seconds and was dramatically downgraded in power but it would still be extremely painful for the wizard involved and give her plenty of time to get away. It was lucky Maxime had expelled the boy before he had got there; he didn't harm children but he would have seriously considered making an exception for this one.
"Fine, you get her to give the oath and then take her to the house I first met you in. Send me a patronus when you're there and I'll come. And do it before next week – Anaïs comes home then."
"Right," Sirius said, relieved but also equally aware that Harry wasn't particularly happy about it, "how goes the horcrux hunt?"
"The same as always: it doesn't. Neither the cup nor the sword has been seen for centuries, not publically at least." He said as he leant on his knees and ran a hand through his hair. "The people who collect those sorts of things are always extremely suspicious and just as secretive, so they would only ever tell anyone they had something that valuable if it was protected beyond belief and they trusted the person implicitly. There hasn't been even a whisper of either of them in over two hundred years when the cup was apparently seen in the collection of some Italian Dark Lord, assumedly stolen from someone he killed. When he was killed the cup was nowhere to be found, I checked, and until I find that and the damn sword, which hasn't been found by any of the countless generations of Potters who have been searching since Gryffindor himself hid it, I can't kill the bastard."
"If no one has seen either of them, what are the chances that Voldemort managed to find them? Maybe he used different objects."
"But those are the only things that fit, Sirius. We've already destroyed the locket and the diadem and they hadn't been seen in centuries either, so it follows that he would at least try to use artefacts from the other two founders. Hell, he might have found them at the same time as he found the others. Some collector might have had all of them, but there's no way to know that. I just have to keep looking and hope I get lucky."
~Scene Change~
Sirius barely restrained the urge to roll his eyes as he listened to yet more ultimately inconsequential details spouted by one of the Ministry personnel that made up the backbench of the Order. Things like this – international relations was all he had heard before he tuned it out – weren't going to help them against Voldemort. The opinions of the German Minister or the Swedish DMLE had no effect whatsoever when the war remained confined to Britain, which it would continue to be until Voldemort either took control or died.
There had yet to be any more mention of Dumbledore but no one was willing to push the issue yet, seemingly waiting for either the Longbottoms or Potters to bring it up instead of risking drawing their ire. That suited Sirius just fine; he already had to put up with seeing the Potters' all too punchable faces on a semi regular basis, he didn't really want to have to deal with the old man as well. He hadn't seen his stupid beard in weeks and he wanted that to continue for as long as possible.
Finally, the meeting came to an end and Sirius looked towards Fleur, whose eyes were subtly darting towards him expectantly. He flicked his own eyes upwards before walking out and up the stairs without a word to anyone, just as he always did. It was one of the occasions that he was thankful for his family's reputation; it made him quite unapproachable to almost everyone there even without his poorly concealed distaste for most of the Order.
He walked quickly upstairs and sat down to wait in the same room that he and Tonks had met with Fleur before as he tried to imagine how the meeting was going to go. Every imagined scenario ground to a halt the moment Harry arrived though and he was thankful when a few minutes later the door opened and she slipped inside before raising her own privacy wards around the room.
"Where is Nymphadora?"
"She and our… mutual friend are having an argument so she's refusing to speak to him. If there is one thing they both are its stubborn so I honestly have no idea how long their argument will go on for." He said amusedly as he gestured to the seat opposite him.
"Anyway, he's agreed to meet you, but only once you've given an oath not to tell anyone anything about him. He made both me and Tonks do the same thing so don't worry about it. Once you've done that, then I can take you meet him."
"You seem surprised."
"I am, but I'm also not surprised at all. He sure as hell isn't the most sociable or friendly person so were it anyone else I think he would of said no. But he has his own, more personal reasons for agreeing to meet with you I think."
"Do you know what those reasons are?" Fleur asked with a slight shift in her voice.
"Oh, it's nothing sinister. Sorry, I forgot that your imagination would probably be thinking worst case scenario. No, no, if it's what I think it is you might actually like it. There's only one thing that can make him do something that he doesn't actually want to do, and it is not me or Nymphie. Although, I would like to think he would for us as well."
For several seconds Fleur seemed to be assessing his truthfulness before the tension in her shoulders faded slightly and her hand moved back into her lap from its place at the charmed holster on her hip. Sirius passed her the piece of parchment on which Harry had scrawled the oath and smiled slightly at the way her eyebrows raised when she read it.
"You didn't think it would be soft, did you?"
Once she had given the oath she passed the parchment back to Sirius who immediately burned it to ash. He didn't bother to vanish it and instead let it drift down to the ground simply so Kreacher would have to clear it up; Grimmauld Place may be in a far better state than it had been before the locket was destroyed but he still didn't like the wretched little thing.
Sirius took her hand with an exaggerated bow and they vanished only to reappear in an ordinary looking living room but for the breath-taking view of the trees and the mountains. A hulking silvery dog bounded out of Sirius wand and through the walls as he dropped into a chair in the far corner.
"How do you think this will go?" she asked.
"Fleur, even I don't have even the slightest idea how he's going act. When I said he's not the most socialable person, what I meant was that I've never seen him socialise with anyone except me and Nymphie, and even then it's not exactly socialising. Far too much history for that."
Before she had any chance to ask what he meant by history the man she had known as Louis appeared silently, face as blank as it had always been when she had first met him.
"I was told you wanted to meet me."
Sirius snorted loudly from behind her only to receive a look that would have made most men stutter out an apology. He just started giggling harder until he was cut off with a yelp by a stinging hex to the chest.
"Yeah," she said somewhat lamely, "I just wanted to thank you for saving all our lives when you worked for my father a few years ago. I don't want to even think about what would have happened if you hadn't stopped them."
"It was my job, there's no need to thank me. However, there is something I would like your help with." He said, though admitting he needed help with anything seemed to cause him physical pain.
"Of course, anything you need."
She was eager to repay him in some way for saving her life not only all those years ago but also in Hogsmeade and simply assumed it would be to do with her father. He was the French Minister for Magic, she worked in Gringotts. What use would someone like 'Louis' have for her?
The look he gave her flickered somewhere between disappointed and pitying, yet was also ever so slightly predatory, as if she had given him an opportunity to pounce and he was trying to decide whether to sink his claws in or not.
"What I need from you is your experience. I have a daughter," he said, and suddenly where he had been hard and business like he became a little warmer, "not biologically but in every way besides that. She's veela, just starting to go through the changes. Obviously I don't know what it's like for her and no number of books will tell me, so I need you to help her to deal with it all. I don't want her having to do it by herself."
He had a child? And not only that, but he quite clearly cared for her. She would have never expected the man who could kill dozens of people without batting an eye to truly and deeply care for anyone. It made almost no sense. It was like finding out Voldemort was actually muggleborn; a completely ridiculous notion.
"Uh, sure."
"Excellent," he said with a genuinely pleased look in his eyes, "I'll give Sirius a portkey to give to you once she gets home from school so you can come and meet her."
Just as he looked to be about to apparate away when Sirius cleared his throat loudly and raised an eyebrow at him.
"You're just going to leave it at that?"
They locked eyes for a few seconds and seemed to be arguing between themselves before Louis turned back to look at her with an expression of annoyance on his face. It only stayed there for a second though, and then his features started to melt and contort, his hair darkened and he shrunk an inch or two until he looked nothing like the man she had been speaking to not a few moments before.
In fact, there was more of a resemblance between him and Sirius than him and his previous form. Was that how they knew each other? Was 'Louis' a Black? Metamorphmagi were rare and it was an ability passed down bloodlines, it made sense.
"And what's your name, Louis?" Sirius cooed, and the other man looked ready to kill him.
"Harry. My name is Harry."
And with that he disapparated before Sirius could say another word, so instead he just dissolved into a fit of laughter.
"A few months ago he would have cursed me for that." He said with a wide grin, "If I had done that when I first met him, well, chances are I wouldn't be still breathing."
~Scene Change~
Almost a week later Fleur was lounging in her apartment in Muggle London, still trying to decipher her mysterious new 'friend'.
Harry. It felt strange knowing the name of one of the most terrifying men in existence but that didn't even compare to how strange it felt that she was going to be meeting his adopted daughter. Sirius had explained a little once Harry had left, but still not given her any names. Apparently Harry had saved the little girl from somewhere – Fleur was guessing the house of some wealthy wizard who kept her like a pet – and had taken her home, initially just while he checked if she had any surviving relatives. She didn't, apparently, and so he had adopted her, but Sirius had said that even if she had he wasn't sure if Harry would have wanted to give her back. He had implied that he had some sort of personal history that made him particularly protective of children and that would make him want to be seen as the parental figure to a child.
When she had voiced her concerns over that Sirius had assured her that the girl was as happy with Harry as his own daughter was with him and that she was spoiled beyond belief, though he did acknowledge the potential for toxicity. Once she had seen them together, Sirius said, she would understand.
A knock at her door pulled her from her musings and she set down her still unread book and padded across the room. She assumed it was going to be one of the four men on her floor who had all been asking her on dates nonstop ever since she moved in and she was fully prepared to tell whichever one it was no yet again. When she opened her door, however, it was to the sight of Sirius stood grinning at her.
"How do you know where I live?"
"I know where every Order member lives. May I?"
"Uh, sure. Come in."
The grin on Sirius's face widened at knocking her off balance and he swept by her with an elegance that only the nobility possessed. Unlike most wizards he wasn't completely out of touch with the muggle world and instead of the mismatched and ridiculous outfits many wizards would wear was instead dressed in black jeans and a dark blue shirt that had been rolled up to his elbows. Honestly she was surprised he hadn't turned up in a finely tailored suit; he was a Black after all.
Fleur wasn't sure whether to go with the idea that he had stalked every member of the Order out of concern to make sure they were protected from attacks or whether he just didn't trust them, though she thought the latter was more likely. Sirius had never bothered to make his dislike for the Order secret.
"What are you doing here Sirius?"
In response he reached into his pocket and pulled a silver disk that he started flicking between his fingers.
"To give you this, of course. It will take you to meet your new little friend and Harry will no doubt be waiting for you when you get there. Knowing him he'll have rules for you to follow when you're with her; my advice is to follow them, even the more stupid ones, at least at first. He's not particularly forgiving."
"You're not coming?"
"Sorry, do I look like your babysitter?" he said with a smirk, "In all seriousness though, you have nothing to worry about. She's one of the sweetest kids you could ever meet, if she likes you at least. She didn't like me and Nymphie because of our past history with Harry, but I've seen her with him and it's like watching my wife with my daughter. They adore each other."
"Are you ever going to tell me what that past history is?"
"Probably not."
And with that he flicked the coin at her, and as soon as she caught it she felt the tell-tale tug of a portkey at her navel and disappeared to leave a grinning Sirius alone in her apartment.
When she reappeared she was immediately assaulted by freezing cold wind that made goosebumps appear on her skin before she even had the chance to cast a hasty warming charm on herself. She hadn't been planning on going out at all today so she was still in her pyjamas and the feeling of icy grass between her toes was making her squirm even if she couldn't actually feel the cold.
The building she found herself in front of was a huge grey stone manor with arching windows that when coupled with the winter gloom should have been imposing. But there were beautifully maintained flowerbeds and fountains of magical beasts gurgling with water and bright lights streaming out of the windows, so it wasn't. It fit quite well with Harry in her opinion; the potential to feel intimidating but, for some reason, didn't.
The great wooden doors swung open and Harry came striding out in what she assumed was his natural form. She could see him raise an eyebrow at her choice of clothing as he walked towards her and felt herself blush a little in embarrassment. He was dressed in well-fitting and clearly expensive muggle clothes just as he had been last time she saw him, and she was in her light blue satin pyjamas and no shoes. A careless flick of his wand transfigured her clothes into the exact same robes she had worn when she first met with him and conjured shoes around her feet.
"Come on, I'll take you to her."
"I've already told her about you," he said once they were walking side by side up the path, "so I'll tell you a little about her before you meet her. Her name is Anaïs, you may have seen her in the few weeks you were still at Beauxbatons before you left for Hogwarts. I rescued her from a sex trafficking ring a few years ago, you probably know about that one. Quite a few of the women and girls there ended up portkeying into the French Ministry so I suppose your father might have been involved in their relocation or the clean-up of the scene. All of her family were killed in an attack on her home; I suppose the men might have wanted to take her mother was well but decided it wasn't worth the effort when she started putting up a fight but I'm not sure. I didn't let the men that did it live long enough to explain their motives."
Throughout all of this his tone remained neutral, as if he were simply listening facts, but the way his fingers clenched slightly and his tight gait gave her hints to just how angry even talking about it made him.
"That's it, everything else she told me she wanted to tell you herself. There are only two rules when you're with her – there would be more but she talked me out of them. One, you don't mention or ask about what happened to her or how I got her. Even mentioning her family is still a subject that is best to avoid even for me. Two, you don't tell her what it is I do. As far as she knows I hunt criminals and dark wizards and I'm bound by oaths so that is all I'm allowed to say; I figure she'll settle on me being an auror for the ICW or something similar."
"You're lying to her?"
"You expect me to tell her I kill people for money?" he whispered harshly as he stopped dead in his tracks, "bad people, yes, but still people that otherwise wouldn't have died. She would hate me, I'd be a monster, no better than the bastards who killed her family for money. How will anyone ever love someone like that?"
The sudden intensity scared her. The anger in his voice was easily heard, but she suspected it was fake. Nothing more than a cover for the fear that she saw flickering in his eyes for a brief moment before he hid it.
"Okay." She said after a long silence, but Harry didn't reply and just carried on walking.
Instead of falling into the awkward silence she took the opportunity to look around at the finely wrought lamps and the peering portraits whose eyes followed her as she walked and who started whispering between themselves as soon as they thought she was out of earshot. It truly was a beautiful house, the sort of building that belonged to a single extremely wealthy family for centuries. Maybe this was Black Manor, assuming her suspicion about Harry and Sirius being related was true.
After a while they stopped outside a room with a stylised metal A with flowers curling around it stuck in the centre of a dark wood door.
"This is her room, I'll leave the two of you to get acquainted. If either of you need anything call a house elf and they'll get it for you."
And with that he walked stiffly straight back down the corridor and down the stairs without looking back at her for even a second. Fleur stood motionlessly in the corridor for a few seconds before she knocked on the door, feeling far more nervous than she would have expected. All she was doing was meeting and helping a little girl with something that she herself had already been through. Nothing major.
"Come in!" a voice chirped and Fleur hesitantly pushed the door open.
Her first thought was that Anaïs had clearly been allowed to do whatever she wanted with her room. There was no way Harry would ever have anything like this if it was up to him. One wall was covered in vines and flowers that she couldn't be sure were painted or real spiralling and climbing towards the ceiling, another was a bright blue and another a soft green while the last wall was almost entirely taken up by vast windows, above which the green and blue blended together like the meeting of two rivers. There was a table tucked next the window strewn with parchment, assumedly her homework, with a couple of chairs around it and two other doors that she could see lead to a bathroom and a closet.
Anaïs herself was sat fidgeting on her four poster bed, clearly very excited but also quite nervous. Fleur felt some of her own nervousness melt away when she saw her; she looked quite a lot like Gabrielle except for the sharper features, an effect of her heritage coming through.
"Hi, my name's Fleur."
"I know, I saw you at school before you went to Hogwarts for the tournament. I'm sorry you didn't win!" Anaïs blurted out only to immediately start blushing.
Fleur had to stop herself from giggling – she didn't want Anaïs to think she was making fun of her – but she reminded her so much of Gabrielle already. Maybe they would be friends when Gabby started school next year.
"It's okay, I'm quite thankful I didn't." she said with a shadow on her face that went unnoticed by Anaïs, "how do you like Beauxbatons?"
For the next hour or so they continued to talk about Beauxbatons, about which teachers they didn't like and their favourite classes. Fleur shared some stories from her own time there and told her a few of the secret rooms and passages she had stumbled across. It was much better to be friends, Fleur thought, before she started poking into the more personal things. Anaïs didn't seem to agree with her.
"How did you make boys stay away from you?"
The question was so laced with innocence that Fleur felt a tug behind her eyes and took a few seconds to form a response before she spoke.
"That, is a very difficult question to answer. The allure is something that all veela have to deal with. Some think it is a blessing, I think it is a curse. It certainly makes life much more difficult until you learn to control it, which hopefully I will be able to help you with. Has anyone tried to touch you?" Fleur asked, only just managing to stop herself saying "yet". It would certainly happen, there was no escaping that fact.
"A few times, but Papa only knows about one. Please don't tell him that it has happened more than that. I have never seen him more angry than when he came to make sure I was okay. I don't think it will happen very much because I used the curses Papa taught me on the boys who tried. Now I think all the others are scared."
The bright, bubbly girl from earlier was gone to be replaced by a sad, scared one who just wanted to be normal. It reminded Fleur far too much of herself at that age.
"I promise I won't tell Harry."
That was something she had noticed actually. Anaïs used Harry and Papa almost interchangeably, but always called him Papa when she was talking about him in some sort of parental way, like when she said he wouldn't be happy if he found out her and her friends snuck out at night to go flying or about how he worried about her. When she spoke about how he had taught her some normal spells before she went to Beauxbatons or how he sent her charmed objects she needed for pranks and jokes she would otherwise not have been able to pull off, he was just Harry. It was an extremely strange dynamic to her, but one that seemed to be working for them.
"As for controlling the allure, it took me a long time to master. It is hard to describe, but the allure is like this, this force I suppose that pulls people's attention to you. There is also a mental aspect that makes you appear even more attractive to people, kind of like the effects of a love potion. Weak willed people are enthralled, totally obsessed with you, while stronger willed people and those that have been trained in the mind arts are much less likely to be affected very much. It is often compared to the imperius curse in that way.
"My mama gave me a book when I was little that had been passed down for generations of veela in my family, all of whom had written advice for their children and their children's children and so on. I will bring it next time for you to read; it helped me a lot to understand what being a veela actually was and how to control the allure. Occlumency also helped, so you might want to ask Harry to teach you if he hasn't already. It's a very useful skill even without helping to control the allure."
Fleur left not long after that, not wanting to push too much and knowing that there was no going back to the previously light-hearted mood. She wasn't surprised when she saw Harry waiting at the front door when she managed to retrace her path through the corridors.
"How is she?"
"She's fine, we talked for Beauxbatons for most of the time and only really touched on the allure at the end. I didn't want to rush things and make her uncomfortable. Next time I'm going to bring the family book that my mother made me read when I was her age so that should help her."
"You can portkey back here anytime," he said with a satisfied nod as his eyes flicked up the stairs, "a house elf will greet you and show you wherever it is you need to go if I'm not around. I normally am in the holidays, but we will have to think about when she goes back to Beauxbatons at some point. You and her should probably talk about that closer to the time because what she wants to happen will depend on how much she likes you."
She nodded, still not entirely sure how she was supposed to act around him, and was half way out the door when he spoke again.
"And thank you, for doing this I mean." He said with his eyes looking straight past her and one hand in his pocket while the other was grasped at his side.
"It is no problem, she is a very sweet little girl."
"She is."
And then with a final look the door swung closed and she cast another warming charm before she began to trudge back along the path towards the edge of the wards. A tiny leathery hand was the only warning she had before she reappeared just outside the wards and the house elf was gone again before she even had time to look down.
It was a strangely considerate thing to do for a killer, she thought as she apparated back to her apartment that Sirius had at least had the courtesy to leave, to tell a house elf to apparate her to the edge of the wards just so she wouldn't have to walk a couple hundred yards. He didn't actually have to do much, admittedly, but he still had to think of it. He really was a confusing man.
Over the next couple of weeks until it was time for Anaïs to go back to Beauxbatons Fleur spent quite a lot of time at Harry's house. Her mother had quizzed her about why she wanted the family book, of course, but had eventually relented and let her have it once it was clear that Fleur wasn't going to answer any of her questions. The book itself was rather long so Anaïs was reading it on her own time and then she asked questions or talked about other things when Fleur was there.
She talked about Beauxbatons and her friends a lot, and thankfully none of them had left it a fit of jealousy once the effects of her heritage started to show as had happened to her. Fleur was sure that at least one of them would when they got older and boys started to become a bigger issue, but she certainly wasn't going to voice that idea out loud.
Apparently they had all gone round to one of Harry's other homes for the day – Harry would never allow them in to this one she said – and according to Anaïs all her friends liked him. Fleur was a bit sceptical of a group of twelve and thirteen year old girls liking Harry, simply because she couldn't imagine a word like fun ever applying to him.
That had been before she had portkeyed in to see the two of them racing around on brooms in snow so heavy they may have well been in the Arctic Circle, but still, she couldn't imagine him interacting with Anaïs's friends and them liking him any more than they would any other parental figure. Harry certainly wasn't a people person, as evidenced by her own interactions with him. Granted, it wasn't so stilted now after two weeks of semi-regular interaction but he still wasn't exactly friendly. There were moments when he would be a little more open or make an offhand reply without really thinking about it and seem more… she hated to use the word normal because in the magical world that didn't really exist, but that was the word that came to mind. More human, she supposed. Less like something else that was simply pretending to be a person and who didn't really know how to act like one.
She didn't think it was her though – in fact if Sirius and Nymphadora were to be believed he seemed to quite like her – she thought it was more that he just didn't know what to do. Sirius didn't think he'd ever had anything that could be called a friend with the exception of Nymphadora, who was still stubbornly refusing to speak to him, so he didn't really know how to interact with people. When coupled with the distinct lack of conversation topics there wasn't much they could talk about in the moments she saw him. The only two things she knew about him where that he adored Anaïs and that he worked as a wand for hire, and she didn't particularly want to hear about that.
She was sure that Anaïs was trying to set them up as well, and was equally sure that Harry was totally oblivious to that fact. She would often conveniently disappear to leave the two of them alone only return a while later with an impish smile on her face, and she would often try and drop Harry's name into any sort of conversation just to see how she reacted. This was one such occasion, a bare few days before Anaïs would be going back to Beauxbatons.
"Where do you work?" she had asked.
"Gringotts. I'm a curse breaker."
"You don't look like a goblin."
"No," she laughed, "all curse breakers are human, or at least part human. Goblins are not allowed to use wands so are unable to remove many of the curses and wards that wizards cast."
"You should talk to Harry. He is very very good at that sort of thing. I talked to some of the portraits and they said they've never seen anyone better."
She was used to Anaïs's not so subtle hints so didn't show any reaction, but she did privately decide that she would follow her advice. He had got through the wards in Hogsmeade in seconds while Dumbledore had been unable to get through at all, and then he had carved a hole in the wards cast by the aurors without even using his wand. In times of war knowing how to do that would be more than useful, it could be lifesaving.
With Anaïs returning to Beauxbatons Fleur half assumed that their little arrangement would stop, or at least pause until the next time she was home. She would still write letters to her – she rather liked the little girl – but she figured that would be the extent of it. Apparently not. Anaïs would be allowed to return home two nights a week so that she could learn to control the allure and about some of the other differences between veela and human witches in a more comfortable environment.
Fleur had absolutely no idea how Harry had been able to swing that. Madame Maxine was not one to be pushed around and was also not one to bend the rules for anybody unless the situation was dire. She had even refused a similar request from her mother when she was Anaïs's age. Either way, it meant that she would continue to see both her and Harry almost as regularly as she was now. She was actually quite excited about that.
~Scene Change~
"People are disappearing. The Ministry is covering it up, but rest assured it's happening." Sirius said as he paced around Harry's front room.
"Who? Witches? Wizards? Muggles? If Voldemort's kidnapping people it must be for a reason, maybe another ritual."
"Everyone taken is magical, but that's the only thing shared between them. Different blood status, age, nationality, power level. It's like he's just snatching people at random." Nymphadora said.
She was still quite clearly angry with him and was still refusing to speak to him, but it was her who had found out about it. It was far too important an issue to impede over an argument, she had said, before proceeding to not look in his direction for the next twenty minutes. The Order was also trying to figure it out but Harry doubted they would get anywhere. Even he wasn't.
"I'm not even sure if his body could stand another ritual at this point. It's not like he needs anymore power, and he's not going to risk his life in a ritual that isn't even necessary. Have any of them been found?"
"One. His body was so badly mutilated that his wife vomited when she saw what was left of him. Nothing to suggest that he was used in any sort of ritual – no runes, no charms, no residual magic. Nothing. As if it had just been done for the fun of it."
Harry didn't bother hiding the annoyed sigh that escaped him. It didn't sound like Voldemort – he was insane, but what he wasn't was wasteful. He didn't abduct nobodies off the street and kill them just because he wanted to; there was always a greater purpose. He didn't need the aurors distracted by another psychopath running around when they were in the middle of a war, even if it had been quiet for longer than Harry was comfortable with.
The three of them spent a little longer brainstorming before they accepted that they just didn't know and both Sirius and Nymphadora left, the latter without even bothering to say goodbye. Truth be told he was a little hurt that she could so easily just refuse to speak to him over something that was, at least in his eyes, rather petty. So they had different opinions of something, everyone argued about things. Even if he disregarded the fact that he was quite clearly right he didn't think that was something that you should stop speaking to someone over, especially not given that she had thought him dead for years.
When he had asked Sirius why she was so annoyed Sirius had tried to explain that she was upset because he thought that he was always right, and Harry had argued that this time he was. And he wasn't always right, he had said, he was just right most of the time. But that was just because he was smarter than most people, not because they themselves were stupid. Sirius had walked out when he said that.
He really didn't see where the problem was. People were so confusing.
But still, leaving without saying goodbye still stung. He had had no one, then he had her and Sirius, and now he felt like he was going backwards. Although, he thought that maybe he might make another friend if things carried on as they were. Fleur had started asking him about magic, more specifically warding, and that was a subject he could talk about at length. She was fine with the more basic wards, but once it got to the more complex or more resistant wards she seemed to hit a block. So, he had spent several hours across a few nights trying to properly articulate what wards actually felt like to him, and after that she seemed to find it easier.
At first he justified it to himself that he was simply helping her because her being able to break wards would be useful in his fight against Voldemort, but then he asked himself why he was trying to justify it at all. He was allowed to have friends, wasn't he?
It was different to when he spent time with Sirius or with Nymphadora, very different. Fleur's view of him wasn't tainted by what he had been like when he was five years old, and talking to someone without all that history looming over them was… nice. And if he was a little more patient with her than he had been when he was training Sirius and Nymphadora, well, that was just because the wards he was teaching her about weren't used to protect tombs and vaults so she had never had any need to learn them. He was training the other two in combat, and they had already been trained in that for their jobs. No, it was perfectly understandable for him to be a bit more forgiving with Fleur.
So, in the weeks since Anaïs returned he had gotten much more comfortable with Fleur, enough to be more himself. He had thought that might drive her off a little – he was hardly a ball of sunshine – but she still stuck around for a little while after she had finished speaking with Anaïs and she had even turned up a few times when she wasn't home. Harry found that he didn't really mind the interruptions.
He'd have to teach her how to properly defend herself next. She seemed to know plenty of spells, but being able to use them in the right place at the right time was what was important. Death Eaters always attacked in higher numbers so engaging multiple opponents would be crucial, as would be movement and using the environment to your advantage. It was quite a lot to cover, really, and he had to make sure he was training her properly. It might take a while.
AN: This one has taken absolutely ages so I'm sorry about that. Part of it has been that I'm working on something else and am now about 20k words in so keep an eye out for that in the near future if you want.
As always, thanks for reading.