"So you're going to just...walk in, sit at the Gryffindor table, and hope nobody notices?"
Gabbie pouted — when Blaise put it like that, it sounded completely ridiculous.
Her amazing brilliant smart-person idea of flying up to Hogwarts by herself was, perhaps, not quite so straight-forward as she'd thought. It hadn't been her original plan, of course, she'd wanted to go up with everyone else — in that carriage thing where she wouldn't have to fly, and there'd be food, and it'd be warm — but Papa had backed her into a corner.
Gabbie never lied to her family...but, she was perhaps inappropriately proud to admit, that didn't mean she never did things they didn't want her to do, even when she made it seem like she'd promised she wouldn't. Papa had told her she couldn't go to Britain, and tried to make her promise she wouldn't, so Gabbie had, carefully, promised she wouldn't go to Hogwarts, with the others. She, very carefully, hadn't said she wouldn't go to Hogwarts at all.
Honestly, she'd been a little surprised Papa hadn't caught it. She pulled that kind of trick all the time...
It had seemed the easiest thing in the world, just, tag the carriage, fly up after it, then hang around the school for a few days to prove she was fine, she wasn't going to get herself hurt or whatever staying in Britain for a few months, hopefully make an argument that would be convincing enough for Papa to let her stay. It honestly hadn't occurred to her just how long the flight would be — Britain was right there, okay, it hadn't seemed that far, maps were stupid. The flight had been long, and cold, and hard...
When Lyra had appeared out of nowhere, Gabbie had honestly thought she'd exhausted herself so badly she was hallucinating. She had been rather light-headed by then, and everything had been fuzzy and floaty and terrible. She hadn't actually been certain Lyra was real until that warming charm, and even then she'd wondered — she was just so quiet, magic without any feeling behind it, it was creepy...even more than Bellatrix, but Gabbie wasn't supposed to let anyone know she'd stayed with them for a couple weeks over the summer, so she hadn't asked if they were, like, the same sort of weird and creepy, if they were related or something. (They probably were, they looked very similar too.)
But she'd made it! Like, it'd been awful, and if Lyra hadn't shown up to help her skip most of the second half of her flight she might not have, but she had, she'd gotten to Hogwarts by herself! Well, no, not by herself, but still!
And Papa was so full of shite, all the British people she'd met so far were perfectly nice! True, that was only five people...er, four — she hadn't actually spoken to Lyra's Maïa, just felt her moving around in the room on the other side of the curtains. (Still half-delirious from exhaustion, and finally having food and being all warm, she'd been so sleepy, she'd barely resisted the urge to reach out to Maïa's mind. She was just so pretty! All swirly and cool and sparkly, she couldn't help it...) Lyra was quiet and creepy, sure, but she'd helped her when she really hadn't needed to, and was quick and funny, and also a perfectly reasonable and rational person if she did say so herself — she'd understood Gabbie's plan to sneak to Hogwarts on her own and force Papa to let her stay instantly, and hadn't tried to "reason" with her for a second — and Gin had been...not friendly, exactly, but she hadn't been mean either. (She was slightly scary, her magic all hot and vicious, her eyes all sharp, but Gabbie was related to scarier people, she didn't care.) And then there was Harry and Blaise, they were super nice!
This trip hadn't gone quite so smoothly as she'd expected, but it was going well enough to be getting on with, if she did say so herself.
Even if she did still hurt. Sort of a lot. She'd never flown that long before, okay, she hadn't realised how hard it would be. There was still a dull, tense, throbbing ache all through her arms, her back and neck and shoulders, she felt all stiff and awful and bluh. She'd nearly tried to wheedle Harry into a massage, before reminding herself at the last second she didn't want to seduce him — yet, she didn't doubt she would eventually. (She'd been told several times that outsiders found it odd when you came onto them too hard too soon, sometimes it was difficult to remember these things.) And she was still tired, even after her two naps.
The first time she'd fallen asleep didn't count. That had been back in Lyra's (and Maïa's and Gin's) room, and she'd maybe only been...half-asleep for a few minutes before deciding this just wasn't going to work. She meant, the room itself was rather smaller and closed in than she liked, but those curtains, she had to leave those closed so no one would come up and find her where she wasn't supposed to be, and those were awful, before long she'd started getting all tingly and nervous, there was no way she'd be able to sleep properly. So she'd snuck out, with the cloak she'd borrowed from Lyra's Meda, found a window, gripped the cloak in her teeth, then flung herself out into the air.
She'd nearly plummeted straight to the ground (well, the roof several floors below her) like a fucking idiot. The fires of the change had swept over her as smoothly as ever, of course, but she was so stiff and tired, she'd nearly crashed before she'd gotten her wings under her properly. (She wouldn't have died, the People were quite impact-resistant, but it would have hurt like hell, certainly.) She'd swept over the castle, before long finding a little valley between two angled roofs, where she could nestle without rolling off an edge anywhere — after all, she wasn't an idiot. Once she was human-shaped again, she'd wrapped the cloak around herself — it was kind of cold up here — and settled in for a proper nap.
And was woken up by a British boy after a few hours, because of course she was. But that was fine, he was very nice! His mind had the legilimens thing, all shifting and curling and playful, like a kitten weaving between her legs — though, it also had a fascinating ambivalence to it, cold and hot, smooth and spiky, it tickled — but unlike any human mind mage she'd ever met he'd quickly started intentionally projecting feelings and thoughts at her, even...mostly recogniseable images (it was kind of weird and fuzzy, but she mostly got them), which was just—
That was just brilliant! Why didn't people do that all the time?! Even the People didn't do the thing with the images and stuff! Gabbie hadn't even realised they could, not until she'd tried doing it back at Harry — it did work, but she thought hers were even fuzzier than Harry's, there was always a moment of confusion before it clicked. She didn't know why people didn't just do that all the time, it was very convenient.
Especially in this case, Harry's French was practically nonexistent, and English was stupid.
It'd been a bit embarrassing at first, some unknown British boy floating right up to her in her sleep — especially since he was very cute, with the messy hair and the bright green eyes, all tiny and snarky, his magic quick and tingly, and when he'd found her Gabbie had been drooling — but it was fine, he was nice. He'd found her sleeping, he could have hurt her easily if he'd wanted to, and he clearly didn't mind her weird mind magic stuff. Papa was just a paranoid old person, it was fine.
And Lyra had said Harry was the most normal person she knew, and she probably knew lots of people, so it was fine for Gabbie to be here, obviously.
Though she was still sort of confused. See, she'd known Auntie Lise used to be British. She'd been married to Aunt Chloé for longer than Gabbie had been alive, so she didn't really know all that much about it. All Gabbie knew was that she'd gotten into a huge argument with her father over her refusal to consent to an arranged marriage (or even play along with the courtship game, apparently), and that her British family's colours were red and white — that scarf Auntie Lise wore, Aunt Chloé had made it for her ages ago, before they'd married even, she'd made it red and white for that reason. That her family had colours suggested she was from one of the British noble families, but she was a pureblood (in the silly sense the mages used, she meant, though she was a hundred per cent human too), so. Honestly, Gabbie hadn't even known what her name had been before she'd become Lise Delacour, she'd never asked, it'd never seemed particularly important.
But Lyra had seemed very confident Auntie Lise had been Elizabeth Potter. Gabbie hadn't really believed her at first, but...well, she clearly did know who Auntie Lise was, and she claimed to even be related to her (by marriage), so she probably knew what she was talking about.
But Harry didn't know anything about her, which was...weird. Especially since Gabbie was only more certain Auntie Lise and Liz Potter were the same person after meeting Harry — they had the same hair, thick and dark and stubbornly disobedient. (They even wore it at a similar length, Auntie Lise kept it short because it somehow resisted grooming and styling charms, and using potions on it all the time was just tedious.) Even if she hadn't been told they were related, she might have guessed on her own. She had the very clear impression Harry thought Lyra was just being silly, that Auntie Lise was, like, the third cousin of a godparent...by marriage...or something.
Gabbie was pretty sure the father Auntie Lise had the big argument with had been Harry's grandfather. (Or great-grandfather, maybe?) It was very weird...but also not really her business, trying to pick apart Potter family drama that had happened a generation ago, so she'd decided to just ignore it.
(Or try to ignore it, anyway, it was very weird.)
But anyway, Harry was very nice, making sure she was okay and then going to get food for her. Though it had taken longer than Gabbie had thought, she'd wondered if something had gone wrong. And something had gone wrong, when Harry had returned with food (and Blaise) the smell of blood had been lingering over him, faint but unmistakable, a few speckles of it on his collar. He'd brushed it off, saying he was fine, some boy named Malfoy was just a jerk, so...
And Harry's Blaise, British person number four she'd met, was also perfectly nice. Though, his magic and stuff wasn't nearly as odd, nothing like the neat warm-cold ambivalence Harry had. She thought he was probably shadow-kin — or part-demon maybe? — the peculiar stillness to his mind and the orange in his eyes was a giveaway, but he mostly felt like any other legilimens, the texture of it reminding her very much of Arte (though not as prickly). Probably less experienced than Harry, he'd picked up the projection Harry was doing, but he was far clumsier at it...sort of? The images were clearer, when he got them out, but it was... He wasn't nearly as smooth at it as Harry, she couldn't say how, exactly, just seemed to take a little more effort for him. But he was perfectly nice too, so.
Way more flirty than Harry, though, he kept making Harry go all flushed and stuttery. It was adorable.
(There's an idea, she should seduce both of them. Splitting herself between two people made it less likely she'd accidentally hurt either of them, and mind mages would be better able to stop Gabbie from pulling too hard, so that was just perfect! Not right now, though, normal humans didn't like it when you did it too soon, she didn't want to come off all creepy or something...)
There had also been food, but Gabbie had liked that rather less than Harry's silly flirty boyfriend. In his little basket had mostly been ham sandwiches, which, blech, ham — it was all salty and gamey and gross, she'd had to pick it off. Which had left her mostly with bread and butter and cheese, which was fine — a little bland, but she'd been too hungry to be picky — and Harry had been all guilty for not asking first and accidentally getting something she didn't like. Blaise did a much better job than Gabbie at getting Harry out of his funk, all teasing him like, should have said they were getting food for a veela, silly boy, and Harry had been too annoyed to be properly guilty anymore, neat trick.
Gabbie had passed out again shortly after eating. She was still tired, okay, flying long distances was hard. She'd woken up when it started getting really cold, the sun disappearing behind the hills. At some point, her head had ended up in Harry's lap, using him as a pillow — she hadn't started there, but she wasn't surprised, she had a tendency to migrate in her sleep. (She'd wedged herself between two slopes for a reason.) And Britain was cold, and Harry was warm, and his magic was tingly, so, yeah, that's exactly what she would have expected to happen. He was being all silly and awkward about it, though. She'd literally bitten her lip to keep herself from saying anything, whatever she said would have come out all flirty, which would have just made Harry more awkward.
But now she was awake, and it was starting to get too cold to sit outside anymore, and she was hungry again! And Blaise didn't think she should go to the dinner feast thing. Boo.
With a bit of a drawl to his voice, Harry said, "I get the feeling people will notice if we just stick you in Ravenclaw robes and pretend you're supposed to be there."
She wasn't certain if that was supposed to be a compliment or not — it kind of sounded like one, that people couldn't not notice her, but it wasn't really said like it. "But they don't know I'm not supposed to be there! They just think I'm one more guest, no problem."
Blaise pushed back the shiver of amusement (from the Ravenclaw robes comment, she thought, though Gabbie didn't get it), before talking. "No offence, Gabbie, but you're leaking magic all over the place. People are going to notice you there."
"Yeah, but I'm not the only veela in the room." She was still slightly confused by the words they used for the People in English, not sure where they came from, but that was fine, they were easy enough to pronounce and remember. "It is... Veela magic in the air everywhere, they can't feel it coming from me." She thought she was making sense? English was stupid.
Both of the boys were slightly stumped by that one, throwing each other uncertain glances — if she had to guess, they hadn't realised normal people wouldn't be able to tell which direction the magic was coming from, that it'd all be the same to them, so she shouldn't attract any particular attention. (Unless she tried to make them notice her, but she was trying to be all sneaky, so she wouldn't. If anything, she'd be trying to make herself seem unremarkable.) Which, in her experience, humans tended to be very bad at pinpointing the source of this sort of thing. Put several people projecting stuff in a room, most people couldn't tell who was doing what, it was just an...undifferentiated soup all around them, one direction was the same as any other.
Mind mages (and empaths) were the major exception, so, she wasn't surprised that hadn't occurred to them. They probably thought the idea that someone wouldn't be able to tell was weird.
"Okay, forget about that, then." Blaise didn't sound like he believed her, but he was moving on anyway. "Even if they won't be able to tell you in particular are projecting anything, you still look like a veela. If you sit at any of the student tables with us, people are going to wonder who the veela is and why she's sitting with us, which is going to ultimately draw attention from the Beauxbatons people. If you go to dinner with everyone else, you are going to get caught."
"Glamours, maybe? It's really the hair and the eyes that look really...veela-ish, that might help." At least Harry was trying to be helpful, because he was nice like that.
Even if his idea wasn't actually helpful. "Our magic pushes off things of that kind. Even if it sits correct, it doesn't stay." There were potions Gabbie could use to change her hair colour temporarily (or just the dye muggles used), and coloured contacts would work for the eyes, but they didn't have the time to get their hands on any of that.
Harry seemed to think that was very weird, but he clearly decided to take her word for it. (Blaise didn't even try to hide the doubt he was feeling, but he also didn't say anything about it, so he was also taking her word for it, just more like, okay, if you say so, silly person.) "Maybe just an unobtrusive charm?" Gabbie wasn't certain what that even was, stupid English...
Blaise shook his head. "If she keeps leaking magic everywhere, an unobtrusive charm will break almost instantly. Even if people don't consciously notice anything, projecting like this will still subconsciously attract their attention, which will cause the charm to fail."
"Shite, Blaise, do you have any ideas, then?"
"Sneak her into the kitchens?"
"That's not a solution, that's avoiding the problem entirely. Sure, the elves would feed her, but she'd miss the feast and the selection of the Champions, which is sort of the whole point."
Gabbie tried to hold in a smug grin — Papa was full of shite, see, British people were perfectly nice, it was fine.
Blaise let out a long sigh, eyes tipping up toward the darkening sky. He was acting all put-upon and irritated, but it wasn't convincing at all, Gabbie could feel the amusement and reluctant warmth in his head. Harry must feel it too, he wasn't even trying to hide it that hard, he was just being silly. (Not that she minded, she liked silly.) "We could talk to Daph and Astoria, get them to pretend Gabbie is a distant relative from the Greenwood — there are a lot of very odd people there, they could pass off Gabbie's more unusual traits as something someone did to themselves with blood alchemy generations ago." Technically, that was even true... "Claim her name is Fabianna Snow-Holly or some shite, I bet Tori would think the whole thing hilarious, but Daph would take convincing.
"Or, we could just find Lyra and see if she has any ideas."
In the end, it was decided they would find the quiet girl, and see if she had any ideas. While the boys squeezed together on Harry's broom — Harry got a little distracted, Blaise sliding up that close to him, Gabbie failed to hold in a giggle — she whipped off her borrowed cloak. Which meant she was fucking cold, standing out in the open in the stupid British autumn, not wasting a second she gripped the cloak by the hood between her teeth and called her magic up, let the flames wash over her.
Ah, much better...
Harry's head had gone all hot and jittery with surprise and...concern? Oh, to someone who'd never seen it before, it might have looked like she'd just set herself on fire, right. Anyway, now he was just staring at her, wide-eyed and quiet (while Blaise looked on in amusement). It was kind of funny.
She couldn't even twitter mockingly at him right now, with the cloak stuck in her mouth, so she just rolled her eyes, hopped over to the edge of the roof and threw herself into the air.
Harry got over his weird quiet awe very quickly, zipped up ahead of her in a blink — she hated flying on brooms, but she could admit they were faster. Harry led her on a gentle, leisurely glide down to the ground, not to the front door but over to the side somewhere, behind a row of greenhouses, shielded from the main entrance by the buildings and a row of bushes. The boys landed near a smaller, less fancy-looking entrance — rather awkwardly, Blaise nearly fell over, tripping over the broom — so Gabbie tipped down to the ground a couple metres away. With one hard back-flap to kill most of her momentum, trying to ignore the burning ache in her shoulders and her wrists (she really needed to rest for a couple days, everything hurt), the flames passed over her in a wave, her feet, human-shaped again, skipping down to the ground. She flung the cloak back around herself immediately, hugging it tight around her — without the magic and the feathers it was bloody cold out here...
She'd barely been on the ground for a couple seconds, before Harry — his tingly magic sparking with excitement, a low-smoldering envy in the background — said, "Seriously, that's so damn cool!"
Gabbie smiled.
While Blaise flounced off to go find Lyra — she wasn't sure how he intended to find her, the castle was bloody huge, but he must know what he was doing — she and Harry were left in a little sitting room sort of thing, with chairs and couches in yellows and blacks and blues, a fire cheerily crackling in the hearth. The room was completely empty though, which was sort of weird? She meant, the castle was huge, and the student population was tiny — there were, what, five hundred kids total? There were probably more than that many in just her year at Beauxbatons. (Beauxbatons was the largest magical school in Europe, and Hogwarts was far more selective, so that wasn't really fair, but still.) But, if they didn't need rooms like this, why did they bother maintaining them? Hmm.
Gabbie went straight for the armchair closest to the fire, because she was cold and fire was pretty.
Harry didn't sit down, leaning against the wall just next to the hearth, his broom propped up against his hip. He wasn't quite looking directly at her...sort of, she got the feeling he was trying not to stare. He was clearly being awkward about something, his hands stuck in his pockets, feeling weird and shifty. After a few seconds turning over what he wanted to say, he asked, "I'm sorry but, how does that work, exactly? Veela magic, I mean."
"Why are you sorry?"
"I'm just..." Harry shrugged. "I wasn't sure if it'd be rude to ask."
That was very silly, Gabbie barely managed to hold in a giggle. "It is not rude, la curiosité. You don't have veela here, you don't know. That is not rude."
Harry huffed, rolling his eyes — not actually annoyed, just being silly, because Harry was silly sometimes. "Well, fine, bad on me for trying. Just, you can turn into a great bloody bird? How does that work, exactly?"
"Aahhh... Véritablement, it is opposite, I can make of myself this. This," she said, gesturing to herself, "is not real, not... It is compliqué." Was it compli...cked? Eh. Anyway, it wasn't actually that bad, she just didn't know how to say it in English. It was hard to explain it in French, honestly, human languages didn't tend to have the words for these things. And why should they? Human languages were obviously meant for human things, they wouldn't have needed to come up with words for things outside of human experience. "Do you know how my People came to be?"
"There was a ritual a long time ago, right? Lyra said something about that once, I think."
"Yes, a ritual. Much time ago, before written, ah, l'istòria, our ancestors did the ritual to change themselves. They were human, and they become veela." Well, technically, veela and lilin differentiated from each other generations down the line, but that wasn't really important to explain. "When we are born, we are human...or not truly, it is compliqué. We have the shape of humans, in any case. But when we mature, that changes. We echo that ritual of our ancestors, change like they did. When the Fire comes the first time, it burns away the human things, and we are different. I can choose to use the human shape, but it is not real, not truly." She...thought that made sense.
"So..." Harry frowned at her — not annoyed, just turning what she'd said around in his head, his interesting warm-cold mind sparking. "The...bird thing is your real body, this one is, like, a transfiguration. Like wilderfolk."
"Wilderfolk?" she repeated, blinking. The fire was very nice, she was warm enough now, so she shrugged off her borrowed cloak. His cheeks going a little pink, Harry's eyes tipped up to the ceiling, silly boy. "I don't know this word."
"They're, um, part-human... I don't know how to explain it, exactly. I've only ever met one, a friend of Lyra's." As he spoke, he pushed an image toward her. More than an image, really, a whole memory, though it was very fuzzy and vague — in a forest, she thought, meeting a strange, blonde-haired girl who was also a playful, white-yellow wolf.
"Oh! Yes, okay, wilderfolk they are called. A boy in my class, Dragí, he is a wolf too."
"In your class? I didn't think wilderfolk usually went to school."
"It is not common, no." Dragí's particular case was exceptional, and also very sad — his whole tribe had been murdered by stupid racists, he'd been found starving and alone by Cvétka, whose family had brought him home with them before they'd realised he was anything other than an ordinary wolf pup. Apparently, their parents had thought Cvétka was making it up when she said her "new pet" was a boy sometimes until he'd just turned up at the dinner table human-shaped, very naked and very confused by the adults' confusion.
Cvétka and Dragí had, just, the funniest stories sometimes. Their poor parents...
"Yes," Gabbie said, dragging herself back to awkwardly trying to explain these things in a language she really didn't speak well enough, "it is like wilderfolk. Not the same precisely — the wilderfolk are born like they are, and for us, it is something that changes at a certain age. I was twelve when I changed. But yes, the same idea."
"Huh." Harry was quiet a moment, blankly staring at nothing, his warm-cold magic still churning with some unspoken thought. Until he spoke it, anyway. "So, it's not something you'd be able to teach me, then."
Gabbie couldn't help it, she burst into giggles. While she went on, Harry shot her a glare — a slightly uncomfortable glare, not having the extra layer of the cloak was obviously making him awkward (she was aware the material of her shift was slightly sheer, and didn't really cover much to begin with, but she'd been around humans for years now and she still sometimes forgot how weird they could be about some things) — so she took extra care to push her feelings at him. She wasn't laughing at him, it was just a little adorable, wanting to learn to fly, Harry's fascination with the whole thing, it was cute. Also, part of it was relief, that Harry was so okay with what she was that he was wondering if he could be too, and Lyra had said Harry was the most normal person she knew, so that had good implications for dealing with other British people. Which meant this flying away to Hogwarts idea was going very well, she'd probably be able to stay the whole term!
Because Papa was full of shite, she was fine.
Of course, it was also funny because, "No, silly, I can't teach you. It's not a thing I learned, it comes to us naturally. It is possible you can do a ritual to make yourself one of us, but that is the only way." In fact, that was very possible — their People had been created through ritual magic in the first place, and Auntie Lise had advanced those sort of fundamental alterations through blood alchemy (when it came to the People in particular) quite a bit over the last decades. This sort of thing was over Gabbie's head, but she'd heard recently that there were some political difficulties involving Auntie Lise's work, people concerned if Auntie Lise's trick became too common they might breed themselves out of existence.
Personally, Gabbie thought this was ridiculous — when the Calling came, it came. Whether Auntie Lise had helped someone have children with a human lover had absolutely no bearing on whether or not they'd end up having children naturally, the clans that were working with her just had half-human children in addition to the ones they would have had normally. It didn't look great, politically, that Aunt Chloé hadn't heard the Calling since meeting Auntie Lise, but that didn't mean anything. Aunt Chloé was barely sixty — the People had long lives, and they were (theoretically) fertile for literal centuries, there was still plenty of time.
One of Auntie Lise's side-projects at the moment was actually just this thing, turning a human into a veela. Or, the thing she was doing was actually less complicated than that — she was working on it specifically because Gabbie's baby cousin Maëlie, Lise and Chloé's youngest, badly wanted to be a full proper veela. Bad enough she was seriously depressed about it sometimes, which was apparently a thing that happened with some of the other half-human kids around, it was a problem that had started turning up the last few years. Gabbie had only even heard about the political issues going on places she wasn't paying attention because Auntie Lise, explaining this thing she was looking into, had said it'd solve them neatly: if only even a small portion of the half-human kids decided to undergo this second ritual, it'd effectively increase the birth rate, so silly concerns about them somehow being bred out of existence would be even sillier than they'd been before. That wasn't the reason Auntie Lise was doing it, she'd started looking into it just because Aunt Chloé had asked her to find some way to help Maëlie — she was hoping to have it ready before Maëlie got to the age she should be meeting the sky, which was still a couple years away — but still, it didn't hurt.
But anyway, Maëlie was only half-human, so it'd probably be easier than doing it with a full human like Harry, but Gabbie was still certain it'd be possible for Harry to become one of them if he really wanted to. She seriously doubted he did, she was just thinking, it was actually possible for him to learn veela things...it'd just involve an extended blood alchemy ritual that didn't exist yet, so. (Not to mention, it'd probably have some consequences, what with him being the head of a British noble family and everything.) There was a much simpler solution than all that. "You know, if you want to fly, you can learn to make yourself into a bird. I don't know how you say it, in English, but I know that's a thing humans can do. You can't be the same bird as me, you'd be very smaller, but you can still be a bird."
His previous irritation gone, even smiling a little now, Harry shot her a doubtful but light look. "I didn't think animagi could choose which animal they get to turn into."
Gabbie mouthed animagi to herself a couple times — it was obvious where it'd come from, that was just a very silly portmanteau, she thought. "I think you do. I don't know, my People cannot learn that, but how else will it be chosen? I think, if you learn it because you want to fly, you will learn a shape that can fly. That has sense, I think."
"Really?" That almost childish excitement was back, his warm-cold mind pleasantly shivering, his smile stretching into a grin. "I thought you just— I'll have to ask Sirius about that. He's my godfather, you know, he's an animagus. He pulled it off while he was still in school, so, it's possible he'll have ideas, I should do that."
"I don't understand, what is he taking off?"
Harry laughed. Because apparently he needed to get revenge for her giggling at him earlier. Rude.
And so Harry started talking about his godfather (uncle/cousin) Sirius — he had mentioned him earlier, in passing, just never spoken of him extensively. Gabbie was slightly surprised when she put together she had actually heard of this Sirius Black before, he was one of the people who had been sentenced to life in Azkaban without a trial back in the early 80s. Britain's use of dementors in a prison was one of the reasons their reputation was so horrible, just chucking people in there without any formal process at all had started a big international scandal in the wake of the Knights' little insurrection, people were still talking about it over a decade later, especially since this Sirius had just recently been revealed to have been innocent the whole time. Some people on the Continent actually called for other CIS nations to put together an international mission to occupy Azkaban, disperse the dementors, and basically convert the island into a prison-hospital, helping the inmates recover from state-sanctioned psychological torture while also determining if they should even be there in the first place. (It was generally assumed a significant proportion of the population would end up being released.) Papa, who supported doing such a thing, said they hadn't enough backing at the moment, but if incidents like Sirius Black's wrongful imprisonment kept coming up, it was only a matter of time.
This might be just her, the People tended to hate being confined, but Gabbie thought Azkaban was completely horrifying, the stuff of nightmares. Though, that there were humans all over Europe who also thought it was awful suggested it wasn't just her, which was really just sort of baffling. She didn't understand how British people could possibly be comfortable with the existence of such a place within their country.
She was distracted out of her silent tangent about how confusing it was that Azkaban was a thing people let exist by a subtle shift on the magic in the air. It felt a lot like when Evi shadow-walked up to her and paused for a moment just on the other side, checking if she was awake and alone before appearing...except it couldn't be Evi, of course, and there apparently weren't any vampires at Hogwarts — Gabbie vaguely remembered Lyra saying something about a Miss Stacey, she wasn't sure, she'd been too tired — so it was probably Lyra herself. (It was still slightly weird that the quiet girl could shadow-walk, but apparently wasn't a vampire or part-demon, Gabbie had a thousand questions but she hadn't really had the chance to ask.) Remaining in Shadows just out of sight, the looming presence drifted over her, Gabbie's skin itching, like she were being examined somehow. And then, abruptly, Lyra left. Okay, then.
Harry's Sirius actually reminded Gabbie quite a bit of Uncle Émi, she was in the middle of a story about him orchestrating a drunken brawl that had taken over a good quarter of the commune (and eventually transitioned into an orgy, naturally, though she didn't tell Harry that) at a party one night — for no real reason, just for fun, some people were just like that — when the door clicked open, Blaise walking inside. He paused only a couple steps into the room. "Did Lyra not show up? I thought she'd get here before me."
"Because Lyra always just goes along with what you ask her to," Harry said, feeling a bit exasperated.
"She was here." Both boys turned to her, she shrugged. "For a few seconds, I think she went to—"
Lyra appeared in the middle of the room, magic black and playful flooding the room (but silent, without any hint of feeling underneath, that was still a little creepy), face split in a wide grin. There was, Gabbie noticed, a dress folded over her arm. "Right, I had to run to Ancient House quick to find something — why does everyone have to be taller than me?! — but yeah, I think this should fit you."
—get her something to wear, was what she'd been about to say. Gabbie popped up to her feet, leaving her borrowed cloak behind. Harry's face went a bit pinker, eyes tipping up to the ceiling again, because he was silly — obviously, if she had a problem with him seeing her in just this little shift, she wouldn't let him, she didn't get it, outsiders were weird. Lyra held out the dress to her, a silky thing in purple, a few glints of gold here and there. Idly, she wondered if Lyra had gotten something in the Empire's colours on purpose. Eh, didn't matter, she just threw the thing over her head.
"Er, won't she kind of stick out? I thought you were picking up school robes."
"It's Samhain, and there are a lot of guests about, I bet you less than half of the students will be in their school uniforms. Here..." While Gabbie was still pulling her hair out of her collar, Lyra slid up behind her, started fiddling with the laces.
And then yanked, the cloth clenching in a band around Gabbie's waist. She yelped, choked back the urge to set the dress (and Lyra) on fire, hissed through her teeth, "Not so tight."
"Oh, right." Lyra picked out the laces a bit, loosening to something much less uncomfortable. "Worse than Maïa, honestly. You're just lucky I remembered not to bring you anything with a corset."
Gabbie shuddered.
After a brief moment, Lyra was done. Gabbie idly smoothed the cloth of the dress with her hands, rolling her shoulders, and tried not to feel too self-conscious — this thing was rather looser than most human girls would probably prefer, she could pluck the material away from her skin easily, but it was still clingier than she would like. Not that feeling uncomfortable wearing a thing was unusual. Honestly, Gabbie preferred to avoid clothing entirely, but that really wasn't an option most of the time. Boo.
(A pervasive preference for nudity was another thing the People and wilderfolk had in common. Harry probably didn't realise how close to the mark he was with that comparison.)
"Oh, and, this will solve your hey why is there a little veela at the Gryffindor table problem," Lyra said, pulling a hat out of nothing and holding it up to Gabbie.
It was a little bowler hat, with a card stuck into the band reading PRESS, like the sort of thing sometimes seen in old-timey muggle photographs. Unlike in the old-timey muggle photographs, the letters spelling PRESS were seemingly hand-drawn in a dizzying mix of brilliant colours, with extra curly bits at the ends — pretty, but it'd probably be illegible from a distance. Even as Gabbie watched, the letters swirled around, reforming into the word QUIBBLER ("quibble" like chicaner?), before switching back to PRESS, back and forth every ten seconds or so. And there were a few big, fluffy feathers sticking out of the band, some of them presumably quills, purple and green and yellow and red.
Oh, also? The hat was a brilliant, neon pink, the band a lurid yellow that didn't match at all.
"How adorable!" Gabbie plucked the hat out of Lyra's hand, turning it over for a moment, some kind of enchantment tingling against her fingers. "It's very colourful, I love it, but I don't think people are going to notice me less if I'm wearing this — it seems very eye-catching, you know." Especially this particular shade of pink against her hair, that was going to clash delightfully.
Her lips twitching with a smirk, Lyra said, "That's what the unobtrusive charm is for."
Gabbie didn't realise until Lyra spoke that she'd just been babbling in French, poor Harry over there wouldn't have understood a word. Oops? Oh well, that static she felt on the air was probably Blaise translating for him. "I still don't know what that is."
"It's a spell — a class of spells, really — that deflect attention away from the target."
Oh! "Unobtrusive" was déremarqé, okay. "But, this is so colourful. And it has a sign on it!" Gabbie said, pointing at the thing. "What is the point of identifying yourself as a member of the press if you're just going to make yourself unremarkable anyway?"
Lyra smiled. "According to Luna, a true journalist should never make themselves part of the story — but they also need to wear a press hat, because true journalists wear press hats."
Gabbie opened her mouth to respond to that, but then closed it a second later. She had absolutely no idea what to say.
"Yeah, Luna has that effect on people. You can keep the hat if you like, by the way, Luna doesn't want it anymore. She recently...had a religious awakening, you could say, she has moral qualms with concealing magics these days."
...She had absolutely no idea what to say to that either. (Was Lyra implying this Luna person was a white mage? That's what it sounded like, or maybe just that she was an Acolyte of Truth, but, wasn't that sort of thing Anathema in Britain?) So she just shrugged it off, turned the hat the right way around, and plopped it down on her head. Once she had it properly straightened — and by properly she meant not straightened at all, because obviously hats like this should be worn at a rakish angle, everybody knew this — she grinned at Lyra. "So, how do I look?"
Lyra giggled. "Perfectly ridiculous, which I'm sure is the way you like it." Switching back to stupid English, "Harry, Blaise, get over here, Gabbie needs to touch you to break the unobtrusive charm."
The boys did feel slightly confused, something in their heads strangely twitchy. They were still looking at her, but it looked like it was taking some significant effort, squinting eyes occasionally turning away to flick back again. As she touched their hands, though, their discomfort immediately vanished, the spell broken. (Gabbie held onto Harry's hand a little longer, long enough the pause was probably noticeable, but she couldn't help it, his magic was very pretty, it tingled.) Lyra gave a little lecture about how the spell on the hat worked — it wouldn't make people not notice her at all, it'd just make her seem uninteresting. It would break with skin contact, and if she pushed at a specific person's mind too hard that'd probably break it too. People practised with mind magic might know something was going on — Harry and Blaise had been so uncomfortable because they'd been (successfully) fighting the nothing interesting to see here feeling — but anyone else should be fine. She could still talk to other people with the hat on, they just might sound a little distracted speaking to her, it was fine.
Though they shouldn't sit too close to Maïa, since her occlumency was coming along and she'd probably notice something happening if she interacted with her too much. Lyra would keep her occupied, don't worry about it.
Gabbie couldn't help smiling a little bit at that — yeah, she bet Lyra would keep Maïa occupied.
By the time they were wrapped up, it was already full dark out, the feast should be starting any minute now, they really should be going. With a last cheerful command to have fun, Lyra snatched up Gabbie's borrowed cloak and Harry's broom, then disappeared again.
In the rest of Europe, Britain had a certain reputation, one that was perhaps not entirely fair. From the perspective of older countries, like the Mediterranean states and France and Helvetica and Austria and Bavaria, the British and the Nordmen were thought to be a rougher, less civilised people. Not in a mean way, really, just...kind of condescending. They were thought to be younger nations, like, that they were just behind a lot of the rest of them.
There was, Gabbie knew, some truth to that, depending on how you defined 'civilised'. Both had been beyond the reach of the old Empire — about half of Britain had been Roman, but only half, and not for very long, it barely counted — the very frontier of the known world, had been at the fringes of European society for centuries afterward. Compared to 'civilised' Europe, the British and the Nordmen had remained divided, tribal societies rather longer, had developed the trappings of centralised power and high culture relatively late.
Gabbie didn't even necessarily think this was a bad thing! There was a lot of...pomposity, in this claim of being a 'true' civilisation, an 'advanced' culture, it was honestly sort of irritating, she thought. (Or, maybe she just thought so because the People had been 'civilised' millennia before Rome had even been a thing, and they didn't feel the need to brag about it.) If the British just embraced this perception of being crude, uncultured people, she'd be fine with that.
The Nordmen had done exactly that, in a way. Generally speaking, they had no pretensions of being fancy, sophisticated people, some of them she'd spoken to in the past actually had disdain for the trappings of 'civilisation', thought more 'advanced' cultures were silly fakers for prioritising the impractical things they did. She meant, like, big fancy buildings of granite and gold, pretty silk clothes and feathered hats, fine cuisine, complicated orchestral music and theatre, proper etiquette and dignified, professional leadership, their friends in the far north had adopted very little of these things, and had a sort of pride about it. They weren't concerned with such superfluous, useless things, no, they were a more honest, down-to-earth kind of people — and a freer, more egalitarian people, which, there was a good argument for that, their odd, decentralised society was actually sort of fascinating.
The British, though, going back many centuries, had tried to portray themselves as another 'great' European culture, just as 'advanced' and 'civilised' as the rest of them. Which, the rest of Europe hadn't really taken them seriously, not for a long time. It would be, like, if a group of violent criminals had broken into the estate of one of those ancient magical families that had dotted the Continent here and there, killed everyone and took the whole thing over, then their great-grandchildren went around in high society circles behaving as though they were one of them (which is exactly what the Norman French had done ages ago, actually). The British put on a good show, speaking all the right words and throwing around gold and the right pretty things, but much of the rest of the Continent had considered their pretentions toward 'civilisation' to be only skin-deep. (It hadn't helped that much of their claimed territory had still been largely controlled by disorganised tribesmen.) It wasn't until just before the Statute that the English had actually started to be taken seriously as a real European power — and that was before their absolutely awful civil war, the first few generations after Secrecy they'd been a wounded, traumatised people, it'd taken them a while to recover.
Really, as much as it might sting for them to hear it, the rest of the European nobility had kind of considered the British ruling class to be a bit of a joke. They were interlopers into their society, in a way, parvenus pretenders only a few bare generations removed from common thugs. Which, well, those old families were butt-faces — most of them were dead anyway, exterminated during the Grindelwald-inspired communaliste revolutions across the Continent nearly sixty years ago now — but they weren't entirely wrong about that, were they?
Gabbie honestly thought that particular attitude about the British was condescending and pretentious and all around just kind of silly, but there was an argument for the British being less 'civilised' than most of the rest of the CIS that she did think made a bit of sense. After all, in Britain, only humans had full citizenship rights, and they still had that ridiculous idea of pureblood supremacy, or whatever. Both of those would have seemed right at home in the rest of Europe...back in the 15th and 19th Centuries respectively. And don't forget, Britain was still ruled by a tyrannical aristocracy, but most of Europe couldn't feel too superior about that one — most of them had been much the same until the communalistes had simply killed them all, Aquitania was one of the very few countries that had already been a proper democracy before Grindelwald. If those were the standards 'civilised' was measured by, Gabbie thought they would kind of have a point, but it wasn't where that perception had come from, originally.
Which was what made this kind of ironic, when she thought about it. It was only a short walk from where they'd been waiting for Lyra to the Entrance Hall, which was...well, very pretty, yes, but rather over the top. The whole thing all done up in shining polished granite, the ceiling arching stupid far over their heads — not that Gabbie minded that part, low ceilings made her uncomfortable — gold filigree gleaming all over the place. It was like whoever had remodeled the place (it certainly wouldn't have looked like this when Hogwarts had been founded in the 10th Century) had seen Renaissance basilicas, or some of the more ostentatious palaces owned by noble and royal families on the Continent, and decided they just had to do something similar. The Dining Hall was much the same, the walls if anything even more intricately carved and gleaming, the ceiling was hidden by a very fancy enchantment reflecting the night sky above, magic candles floating all over the place, the plates and goblets covering the tables gleaming fine gold and silver...
The place was making her think this is some Versailles shite right here, and that was not a compliment.
Which was funny, because this sort of thing didn't really exist in Aquitania anymore. There were a couple old families that still lived in their fancy palaces and such — Arte's family had been living in the same spot near Narbona for literally two millennia, they'd been adding to and refurbishing the complex the whole time, it was ridiculous — and there were public buildings and churches and stuff that could get quite fancy, especially in major cities like Tolosa and Bordèu and Barcelona and València and Marselha...but most of those kinds of things were solely controlled by muggles these days. And she knew, all the British noble families had big fancy manors and such, and those were certainly crazy places too. Maybe not so over the top as Arte's family's, but the same general idea.
And a lot of the people who weren't in their school robes were in fancy silk, and there was a tonne of food, more different things than she could recognise and some of it very fine-looking — some of it even looked edible, must have had her People in mind, which was nice of them — and it was all just...
The measures by which Britain had gotten their reputation for being uncultured barbarians, they were probably more 'civilised' than much of Europe now, especially after the Revolutions. It was just kind of funny, she thought.
(Of course, because history, Gabbie tended to assume 'civilised' humans tended to not like the People much, so this was probably a bad sign, she guessed.)
The boys led her to the table with the gryphon banners above it — the red and gold colour scheme matched the (old-fashioned) robes of the kids at this table wearing their school uniforms, Gabbie could only assume that meant something. She vaguely remembered something about Hogwarts dividing its students into four groups, named after the famous sorcerers who had started the school, but she really didn't know much about it besides that. (She couldn't even think of all their names off the top of her head.) After a brief hesitation, Harry's head shifting with uncertainty, he picked a spot to sit down.
And Gabbie was introduced — not with her real name, she was Gabriella Lovegood tonight, a distant cousin of another Hogwarts student randomly visiting for the Tournament, which was apparently explanation enough for her presence and her weirdness (by human standards), nobody even commented — to the rest of the school quidditch team Harry played in. (The 'Gryffindor' team, and wasn't that one of the Hogwarts people? the one famous for fighting on hippogriff-back?) They were nice enough, but they were rather short and dismissive with her — she felt Harry's simmering irritation, making the back of her neck itch. Which was sweet of him, but completely unnecessary, and also very silly. She tapped his arm to get his attention, then pointed at her magic hat. Harry let out a huff, clearly not impressed with his friends' rudeness despite the magic affecting them giving them little other choice, but the irritation dribbled away all the same.
Well, the irritation for her, anyway, Harry's fellow Gryffindors (she thought she was using that word right) weren't being exactly nice to Blaise either, and Harry definitely noticed, being a legilimens and all. They weren't being mean — they were, like, exasperated with his presence, but not quite outright annoyed, as though they didn't like it but had learned to expect it by now — but they were clearly only tolerating him because he was Harry's boyfriend, and they didn't want to hurt Harry. Which, Gabbie understood that part, but she didn't get why nobody here liked Blaise. He was very nice! and funny! It was weird.
So, she just outright asked. And Gabbie got a lecture on the apparently all-important Gryffindor–Slytherin rivalry. (She did recognise the name Slytherin, they were one of the old British noble families that'd been more involved on the Continent, a Slytherin had been another founder of the school, Blaise was in the section named after him.) The way the rest of the quidditch team talked about it, this silly childish rivalry was very serious business, but Blaise seemed to be struggling to hold in laughter the whole time, and Harry started off just uncomfortable, and grew increasingly irritated as the conversation went on. Enough he ended up glaring at his plate and grinding his teeth, Gabbie looped her arm around his, projecting soothing feelings at him, it's okay, they're very silly, don't worry about it.
Harry stiffened for a second, but he relaxed. He was just very tired of so many of his friends being stupid about Blaise, and a couple of Blaise's friends he liked, that was all.
Which, that was a very explicit thought she was catching, kind of weird — Harry must be slipping the thought into her head, doing the sneaky mind mage thing, because that was far more specific than Gabbie would be able to pick up normally. And apparently he was still in her head, because he tensed up again, sparks of nervousness threading through his magic, worried she'd be annoyed with him. But she wasn't, that was fine. There was this mind mage back at school she was...well, not screwing — Arte was all proper and weirdly shy sometimes, they hadn't gone further than snogging (which was just kind of confusing, honestly) — but the point was, she was used to it, no big deal.
Harry coughed, his head flaring with embarrassment. He didn't pull his arm out of Gabbie's, though.
(Actually come to think of it, Arte wasn't back at school, she should be here right now — one of the tasks involved a dueling tournament somehow, and she was really good, better than a lot of the older students, she was one of the students too young to enter the Tournament Beauxbatons had brought to compete alongside the Champion. Shouldn't look around to check, though, Arte might recognise her through the Press Hat...)
Gabbie noticed, belatedly, that Papa wasn't at the high table with the other people from the CIS, where he should be. That was...odd.
Anyway, after getting those first few things out of the way, Gabbie didn't actually pay that much attention to the conversations going on around her. Partially because a lot of it didn't really seem very interesting? She meant, it was mostly about quidditch stuff, and Gabbie still didn't get quidditch — it was fine enough to watch, she guessed, she just didn't know or care enough about it to do more than smile and nod (it didn't help that she hated flying on a broom herself, so getting into it had just seemed kind of pointless) — and speculating over who the Hogwarts Champion would be — apparently Angie, one of the chasers on the Gryffindor team, had entered her name, they were hoping it'd be her — but Gabbie didn't know who most of the people they were talking about were, obviously.
Also, they were all talking in very fast, very slangy English, and Gabbie was having a bit of trouble following it. Harry and Blaise could translate for her, mind magic was convenient like that, but then they'd have to explain what they translated, because even if she understood what they were saying she didn't know what or who they were talking about. But that was fine, she didn't really need to know, she could just eat and that was fine. She was very hungry, after all.
Harry was feeling a little bit guilty, about dragging her to a conversation that she couldn't even really follow, much less participate in. But that was silly, she didn't mind. Which, he was in her head, so he should know that. Silly boy. She sidled even closer to him, ended up with her cheek resting on his shoulder.
She was pretty sure she fell asleep at some point. She couldn't help it, she was tired! She'd flown like forever, and hadn't gotten much sleep, and she'd just eaten, and Harry was warm, and it just happened, okay. One of the boys prodded her awake, after she didn't know how long, and she jerked upright to find the lights were darker than she remembered, the gold all over the place moodily glinting, and the noisy chorus of a hundred separate conversations had dissipated, reduced to a low hissing of whispers, like wind through grass.
After a couple seconds glancing around in confusion, she noticed the Goblet on a pedestal in front of the high table, Dumbledore standing nearby. Must be time to choose the Champions, then. Dumbledore was giving a ramble about the Goblet making its decision soon, those who were chosen would go into a side room to get instructions, blah blah.
Gabbie wasn't really listening, she spent most of it just watching Dumbledore. Apparently the rumours about his delightful fashion sense had been spot on — long, old-fashioned robes a bright purple with shooting stars all over the place, very nice. (Too many British people were all stuffy and boring, she thought.) If she was being honest, Gabbie didn't actually know very much about Dumbledore, just what people said, and what people said was very conflicting. She knew he'd been adorable teenage boyfriends with Grindelwald ages ago — by the way he twitched with surprise, this was new information to Harry, which was just absurd (everybody knew that, it'd been in Grindelwald's book!) — but his politics have always been very strange and confusing. Like, if anyone was somehow communaliste and loyaliste at the same time, it was Dumbledore, the combination of his support for more populist economics and his whole let's be nice to muggles attitude while simultaneously propping up the old institutions in Britain (and critiquing people dismantling their equivalents on the Continent) was, just, Gabbie wasn't sure how that worked, even. Weren't those things...kind of mutually exclusive? It was weird.
Of course, some of her doubts about Dumbledore were just because he didn't like the People much, everybody knew that. Well, no, it was even sillier than that: he was fine with veela, thought they deserved equal rights with all the other nice people, but not lilin, who were apparently dangerous and nice magical people needed protection from them. But, they weren't really...different things? She meant, it was a cosmetic difference, mostly? It'd be like saying humans with light-leaning magic like Ginevra and humans with dark-leaning magic like Lyra's Maïa were entirely different species somehow, and should be treated differently under the law. Hell, people usually considered her family to be a veela family, but there were lilin Delacours — Gabbie herself was half-lilin! (Though she actually wasn't certain if Dumbledore even realised moon-kissed veela were a thing.) One of the first times she could remember anyone saying anything about Dumbledore was back when she'd been a little kid, seven or so maybe, and one of the Italian states (she forgot which) had decided to give the People within their borders full citizenship rights, and it'd come out Dumbledore had been talking to the leadership there trying to convince them to exclude lilin. For the protection of the rest of their population, because lilin were evil. Naturally.
So, yeah, she didn't know what to think about Dumbledore. He was super famous, obviously, mostly because of Grindelwald-related stuff forever ago, but he was so weird and confusing, she couldn't decide if he was a good guy or a bad guy, or what.
Harry was trying not to laugh at her.
Gabbie was drawn out of her thoughts by a sudden flare of intensely dark magic on the air, the fire in the Goblet shifting to a deep, moody red. A single tongue of flame shot out of it, resolving after a second into a slip of parchment. Dumbledore summoned it to his hand, called out...in Nordic, which was nice of him, she guessed — a significant chunk of the Durmstrang students would have had to learn the local tongue as a second language in the first place, expecting them to all speak English too would just be silly. So, the only parts Gabbie caught were "Dúrmstrangr" and "Viktor Krum."
The room erupted in cheers, because of course it did — Gabbie didn't really follow quidditch, but even she knew who Viktor Krum was. (Except, she'd thought he was at least a couple years older? Whatever.) Though, Gabbie had heard girls gossip about Krum before, and she didn't really get it? He was all hard and muscly, and some people liked that, but not her sort of thing, she guessed.
Also, he looked all dour and solemn and, just, seemed like a very boring person to her. No thanks.
For some reason, Harry was trying not to laugh at her again.
Before too long, the international quidditch star (who was apparently still in school?) was squirrelled away in the side room, and the Goblet was flaring again, with another pulse of binding magics. The little circle of paper fluttering in the air was very familiar — even from here, Gabbie could tell it was one of the bits of dyed crêpe paper students at Beauxbatons used to pass notes. She practically held her breath as Dumbledore summoned it to his hand.
Just for a second, his wrinkly brow twitched with a frown. Then, in French, he announced, "The Champion from Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour!"
The applause this time was much more modest than it'd been for Krum — but Gabbie didn't care, it was Fleur! She barely stopped herself from jumping up to her feet and cheering, or running up and hugging her, as her big sister stood up, gracefully flipping her hair behind her shoulder with the tiniest smug smirk toward the other Beauxbatons students. (Gabbie knew a lot of her classmates didn't like her much.) She could still barely hold it in, clinging to Harry's arm so she didn't do anything too obvious, bouncing in her seat and giggling. "Harry, it's Fleur, it's my sister, she's our Champion! I knew she might be, of course, Fleur is very smart and clever, she's one of the best students in her class, and she can be kind of scary when you make her angry, honestly, that she might be picked is a big part of why I wanted to come to Britain in the first place, but it's her! This is so cool! Ooh, I have to go talk to her later, once Papa says it's okay if I stay, and where is he, anyway, he didn't even get to see Fleur get picked, and do you think she'll win, I think she'll win, she's the best, and this might be kind of mean to say but the People do have a magical advantage over humans when it comes to some things, though they might ward against some of them, depending on what the tasks look like letting Fleur firewalk probably won't be fair, but still, this is—"
His head sparking with amusement, Blaise said, "You realise you're babbling in French, right? Poor Harry doesn't understand a word of this."
...Oh. No, she had not realised that. Oops?
Now both boys were trying not to laugh at her. So mean.
By the time Gabbie had managed to control herself enough she wasn't bouncing and giggling anymore (though she still kind of wanted to, Fleur was the Beauxbatons Champion, this was so cool), the Goblet was ensnaring another student with a flare of dark magic, another piece of parchment flying into the air. This one, Gabbie noticed, was rather bigger than the others, much more than was necessary just to write down a name.
Once he had the parchment in his hand, Dumbledore scowled. The silence stretched on for another moment, the much longer pause almost tactile, the anticipation growing so thick around her Gabbie's ears started ringing. "The Hogwarts Champion is Lyra Black."
The first response was a wave of confusion, some perfectly neutral, some so sour it made her skin itch. Which was understandable, she guessed — she wasn't a Hogwarts student, but she got the impression everyone knew who Lyra was (she was impossible to miss), and she technically wasn't old enough to enter the Tournament. Though, according to Blaise, she had just walked across Dumbledore's age line, so maybe she was old enough, Gabbie hadn't gotten an explanation for that. Of course, the Goblet didn't care whether someone was technically old enough to compete. It selected from among the names it was given the person who would be best suited to the task at hand, things like the law or rules made by the professors were completely outside its consideration. (Magical constructs could be very simple like that.) Given what little Gabbie had seen of Lyra's abilities, she wasn't even surprised the Goblet had picked her. She didn't doubt the quiet girl was easily more capable than most of her older peers.
The silence was broken by waves of irritable grumbling and delighted laughter, quickly followed by applause and shouting so loud Gabbie covered her ears — mostly from the Gryffindors, many of whom had stood up or were stomping their feet or otherwise making a noisy nuisance of themselves, but also from the table behind her, who were apparently called Hufflepuffs (though they were rather more reserved about it). Past the guest table, where most were politely clapping, hung a cloud of simmering resentment over the other two tables. Though, even there a minority of people joined in the cheering, mostly younger students, it looked like.
After extricating herself from her girlfriend — Gabbie couldn't isolate her mind from here, but Maïa looked like she couldn't decide if she should be pleased or angry or resigned, so had seemingly settled on a very confusing mixture of all of them — the quiet girl skipped up toward the high table, as light and carefree as a child at play. The dueling kit and the bloody grin on her face mostly ruined the innocent act. At the back of the room, she gave a quick little bow toward the British Queen — Gabbie hadn't needed Blaise to point her out, she'd seen her on television before, though she wasn't certain why she was here (how involved was the muggle British government in the affairs of their mages, exactly?) — before turning back to the rest of the room, dipping into a much deeper, much more florid (complete with the fancy hand swirling), much more sarcastic bow. A lot of the Gryffindors laughed again, but the minds in the room already broadcasting more negative feelings just turned blacker.
Gabbie's neck tingled, her shoulders hunched, she had to remind herself they weren't feeling like that at her, she wasn't under any threat. It wasn't hard, she was surrounded with much more cheerful people anyway.
But she was distracted enough she missed the beginning of Dumbledore's speech. She didn't really pay much attention to that anyway, because Harry was talking. "I was kind of hoping Lyra wouldn't be picked."
At her other side, Blaise snorted, his tingling amusement running down her spine made her giggle. (He must still be pushing things at her intentionally, her reactions to other people's feelings usually only became that intense after extended contact.) "Did you really expect anyone else to be picked above her?"
"No, not really. But this is only going to encourage her, she's going to be insufferable."
"You think she needs encouragement to be insufferable?"
Harry huffed, but he didn't disagree.
She had the feeling Harry was about to say something, but he was cut off by the wave of surprise that broke across the room. Gabbie was confused by everyone's confusion until she noticed the Goblet was flaring red again. There was another pulse of dark magic on the air, and Gabbie cringed, practically throwing Harry's arm out of her grasp. Normal veela were uncomfortable around dark magic, but she was moon-kissed, so it didn't bother her — Lyra's magic actually felt rather nice, all bouncy and playful, no idea why, it was weird — but none of the People were comfortable with binding magics. Binding magics had this kind of sick slimy feel to them, which other people apparently couldn't even feel at all, which was just weird, being too close to this particular spell was actually making her rather ill.
Thankfully, it was over quickly. Gabbie let out a relieved breath, before realising, belatedly, that the disgusting magic had been binding Harry.
She glanced between Harry and Dumbledore, who was staring incredulously at a slip of parchment now, frowning to herself. That should not be possible. She knew Harry had never been anywhere near the Goblet — she hadn't been around him the whole day, but he'd said at lunch that he wouldn't even enter if he could, and she believed him (it was hard to lie to empaths) — and besides, it was only supposed to pick three people. Somebody must have tampered with it.
Harry seemingly hadn't noticed the binding spell (which was completely incomprehensible to her, that thing had been really gross), but he was watching Dumbledore with a resigned sort of horror — as though this wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening, why did this shite always happen to him, while simultaneously thinking he really should have expected something like this, because this shite always happened to him...
His voice low, featureless, Dumbledore called, "Harry Potter."
As a storm of disbelief raged around them, Gabbie pouted. It looked like she was in one of those silly Boy Who Lived stories, and she couldn't help the feeling this wasn't going to be one of the happy ones.
Hogwarts student population — In canon, Harry's year has exactly forty kids; assuming this is the average class size, that means Hogwarts has a student population of 280. (Of course, JKR claims the actual number is much higher, but there's no direct evidence of this in the original text, and seems completely impractical given the size of the staff.) However, in our headcanon, this is not normal — due to a number of factors over the last century or so, the Hogwarts population is at an historic low. (Some of these factors didn't apply in Lyra's home universe, she's referenced there being more staff before.) Harry's year and above are tiny, but the first and second years are much larger, from a combination of a post-war baby boom and the Death Eaters no longer murdering all the muggleborns before they even get to Hogwarts. So second year currently has about eighty students, first year has just over a hundred, and the class size will probably continue to trend upward for a few more years. Gabbie's estimate of about five hundred kids, what she would have been told back at Beauxbatons, is still slightly high, but it's pretty close.
[l'istòria] — This is Occitan (specifically Gascon), not French. Technically, French is Gabbie's third language, and Gascon, the local language where the Delacours live, is second/first. (The veela/lilin have their own language, which would be Gabbie's first/second, raised bilingual.) Since French is the international language in Europe, she defaults to using it talking to foreign people, but she still prefers Gascon. In this case, she's not 100% certain how to pronounce the English word, but she's pretty sure the Gascon pronunciation is closer than the French (and it is). And yes, I'm aware I think about these things way too hard.
[déremarqé] — I'm pretty sure this isn't a real word. I took remarquer ("to observe, notice", cognate with "remark"), and just added the prefix dé- to it to make an antonym. The spell name should actually have a reflexive pronoun involved, for a meaning of "to deflect attention", but "unobtrusive" is an adjective marking the target of the spell, for which déremarqué would be the equivalent. If this isn't perfectly grammatical, that's fine, it's supposed to be magical jargon, and jargon isn't always perfectly grammatical.
[communaliste] — A French synonym for Gemeenschoppist, Grindelwald's followers and allies. The similarity to a modern term for a concept in leftist anarchism is a coincidence. (While by our politics Gemeenschoppismus would be considered left-libertarian, it's not nearly radical enough to be considered properly anarchist, the ideologies aren't interchangeable.)
[parvenus] — Synonym for nouveau riche
[one of those silly Boy Who Lived stories] — It was mentioned in a previous chapter that Gabbie was familiar with a series of children's books about Harry Potter. She'd actually been under the impression he was a fictional character before Lyra told her he was a real person. At this point, she still thinks the name is just a coincidence, nobody has filled her in on what's fiction and what isn't yet xD
Oh, reminder, "CIS" is the ICW in French (Confédération Internationale des Sorciers). —Lysandra
I love Gabbie, this whole chapter just makes me sit here with a silly, everything is so very adorable smile.
Heads up, I just started a new assignment at work, and I'm probably going to be working ten or eleven hour days for a while, so my contribution to this fic is probably going to slow down kind of majorly. Which means updates are not likely to be as frequent over the next few months.
Also, I've been kind of obsessed with this stupid plot bunny based on something Lily mentions as a throw-away comment in the chapter after next, so I have like, 86k words in a silly sixteen-year-old-Sirius-turns-himself-into-a-girl-and-unintentionally-completely-derails-the-war story now. If it actually develops a plot I may have to post it...
Actually, I may have to post it anyway, because I amuse myself. —Leigha