Arte ducked her head against the wind, wrapping her arms tight around herself. "Fuck, why is it so cold, it's not even winter yet!"

Shrugging, Gabbie looked up at the dark, cloudy sky. It was after sunset...maybe, she thought? She hadn't seen the sun all day, but it was nearly six, so. Point was, sure, might get cold all the way up here at night, not really surprised. It was only November, but they were also way up north — more than she'd thought it would be, maps are stupid — so it wasn't that weird, was it? "I guess it is kind of cold, I barely even noticed."

"Yes, well, you're a veela, aren't you?" Pulling out her wand, Arte drew a few little circles in the air, muttering under her breath. The spell caught with a flare of light magic, and Arte immediately relaxed, the tension falling out of her shoulders. "And the first task is going to be outside. What the hell were they thinking? I'm going to have to get my mountain gear sent up..."

"Um, I thought it was just going to be a big fight or something, what do— Oh, right, never mind." Sometimes, Arte's family would all go up a mountain somewhere and stay there for a bit...for some reason? Gabbie assumed it was a religious thing of some kind, by how awkwardly Arte brushed it off when she'd asked about it, she didn't know anything about it. But, she didn't mean rock-climbing stuff, just the clothes, which would be enchanted for warmth. Right. "You know, if some of your family want to stay here, like your parents and stuff, at least around the actual tasks, you could probably ask Harry to ask his godfather if they can stay with him."

Arte gave her a sideways glance, her head going shadowed and shifty. (Arte's magic was pretty, all soft and warm and shiny, like a sunny spring day, moments like this like a cloud was passing in front of the sun for a bit.) "Isn't Potter's godfather Sirius Black?"

"Yep! Auntie Lise and Aunt Chloé are staying with him right now, and Mum is finishing up with something she has going on at home, I don't know what, and she'll be staying there too. Apparently he's weird, and a little hyper-active, but nice so far. Izzie says he's funny." Isabèu and Laïa had shown up at Hogwarts not long after the Champions were selected, they'd all be staying in Britain the whole year.

Harry was being all silly and awkward about his cousins he hadn't known he had, which Gabbie guessed sort of made sense, since he wasn't used to having cousins all over the place all the time. (Gabbie sometimes forgot a lot of people didn't grow up with a bunch of cousins.) It probably didn't help that Izzie was all excited about their British vacation, she was being maybe a little too aggressive about getting to know their shiny new cousin. She'd even followed him around to class and stuff a few times, sometimes chatting with his friends who actually spoke French, which Gabbie thought was kind of adorable, but Harry clearly had no idea what to do with her.

But Arte didn't stop giving her an odd look, despite how smart and perfect that idea was. "I'm not certain putting up Cæcinés with the House of a Black is a great idea."

Gabbie blinked. "Is this fancy people old family stuff?" The Cæcinés were one of the older families in all of Europe — like, older than the Roman Republic old — and they were all rich and important and stuff, so there were all these things to do with what kind of relationship Arte's family had with other big important families, stuff going back generations and generations, it was confusing. In the last couple years, Arte had just started ignoring some of it, which she could get away with because...reasons (Arte hadn't actually explained what the hell happened to make everything suddenly change), but just because she wasn't expected to hang out with the annoying prissy rich kids at Beauxbatons anymore, and was allowed to do things like be friends with Gabbie without getting in trouble for not being a proper young lady or whatever, didn't mean she wasn't still a Cæciné, which meant there was stuff she had to pay attention to, which was all too much and weird and stupid Gabbie could never keep track of any of it.

The cloud in Arte's head broke up, amusement bubbling to the surface, putting a skip in Gabbie's step. "Yes, Gabrielle, it's fancy people old family stuff. The Blacks are sort of like the Cæcinés of Britain, in a lot of ways, except Dark. Especially the last few centuries — there's this thing called the Covenant that, well, it's supposed to be a secret, but..." Arte shrugged.

Arte didn't actually explain what this supposed-to-be-a-secret thing was, so that meant it kind of was a secret (at least to Gabbie). She also didn't explain quite enough for Gabbie to connect the dots, but she could figure it out from context. "So, I'm guessing them being like Dark Cæcinés is a bad thing, and means you don't get along, because of someone being vaguely rude to someone else like a thousand years ago, so now you all hate each other for no good reason."

Arte's lips twitched into a wry smile. "Something like that. Lord Black might be fine with hosting veela at his home, but my family might make things...complicated. Politically."

"Politics are stupid."

With a bright laugh, Arte admitted, "Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it, Gabbie, I'm sure my parents can find somewhere to stay around the tasks. If they can't arrange something suitable themselves, they can just ask the Longbottoms or the Prewetts or the Smethwycks or something. They'll be fine."

Gabbie wanted to insist they ask Harry — clearly all their family and people should stay at the same place together, that was just efficient — but it wasn't really her business, she guessed, so she dropped it. Arte chuckled some more, so she'd probably caught that, the sneaky cheating mind mage. (She could keep Arte out if she wanted to, of course, she just didn't care.)

"You could try," Arte said, as they walked through the big doors into the stupid-glitzy Entrance Hall. The biting chill on the air vanished the instant they stepped through the threshold, Arte dismissed her warming spell with a flick of her fingers and a crackle of dissolving magic.

"Yes, yes, I know, you're all powerful and scary, I didn't forget." Case in point: wandlessly dispelling elemental magics was not an easy thing to do, that was just showing off. There was a reason the President had picked her to be their second Champion over all the older students who'd come to enter. (It was supposed to be a random draw, but Gabbie suspected Maxime had cheated — it was tradition, after all.) "I thought you were trying to get into the habit of not directly responding to people's thoughts before they say them out loud. Because normal people think it's creepy and stuff."

Arte shrugged. "Gabbie, most people think I'm creepy." Implying there was no point in continuing to try to not do creepy things, because people were going to find her creepy anyway.

"Well, yeah, but that's because you were trying to be a normal proper young lady, pretending to be something you're not can be really exhausting, it was making you all cold and irritable and grr." She made little claws with her hands which...wasn't quite right, that made it sound way more aggressive than the distant, smooth, sophisticated façade Arte had been aiming for, and while she could be pretty snappish, she'd never been as bad as a lot of the other rich important people from fancy old families...and it'd usually only been when Gabbie was being especially annoying...

"People think I'm even weirder when I'm not pretending, that was the whole point."

"I don't think you're weird."

"Exactly. You're a moon-kissed veela, and you don't think I'm weird — have you ever met a normal person ever who doesn't think you're weird?"

...Good point.

Arte laughed at her again. Mean.

The Great Hall, the one with its awesome sky-ceiling thing (which was just showing the boring bland clouds today, boo), was already mostly full when she and Arte got there. Not a surprise, they'd been practising transfiguration — well, Arte had been helping Gabbie with her transfiguration, she was, like, three years ahead of Gabbie and much better at it — and they'd gotten distracted, they were a bit late. Arte led them off to a seat in the middle table, not where most of the Beauxbatonnais were clumped together but between some of the Durmstrangers and some of the British muggles. Some people weren't very happy with Arte being their second Champion, she'd been avoiding most of the older students for days now.

Arte greeted the Durmstrangers in Nordic and the muggles in English, because of course she did. Thankfully, the conversation going on around them was mostly in French — rather laboured French in some cases, but French. Gabbie's English was still barely passable, and she knew enough Nordic (specifically Vestlandsk, they'd gone there on holiday once) to tell if someone was threatening her or hitting on her, that was about it. Also, like, basic travel stuff, like what's your name and which way to the bathroom and sorry I didn't mean to I'm a veela these things just happen and I'll have the fish please, that didn't count.

Of course, the British muggle next to Gabbie — Christopher, his name was, a somewhat severe-looking man in his...forties, maybe — his French was very laboured, Arte (and Gabbie) still slipped in an English word now and again when he wasn't getting something. When she and Arte had turned up, the muggles and the Durmstrangers had apparently been talking about, like, politics and government and stuff. Which had probably been very confusing for them, even without the language barrier, because the Danes had a really weird system of government compared to most other people, and would seem even more foreign to muggles. It was...sort of like how the People did things, though without the big national government they had over in Media, just all the little clans and syndicates on their own. Which was weird, but she could sort of get it.

Arte, being from a family of fancy people who knew lots of fancy people, had a lot to say about how the government back home worked, which was a lot more similar to what the muggles were used to. (Though, without a queen or anything, obviously.) And they were going off on that for a while, which Gabbie didn't have a lot to say about, so she mostly focused on her food. At least, until the enclaves the People had dotted here and there came up, so then Gabbie did have to talk about that, because while Arte knew how these things worked from the Aquitanian end she was less familiar with the Empire. Not that Gabbie really paid that much attention to politics herself, but Papa did, and he complained about things enough she'd picked up a little, and there were Delacours in the local syndicate, obviously...

As fun as meeting new people from other countries was, this conversation was boring.

Letting her eyes randomly wander around the room, Gabbie spotted familiar silver hair at one of the tables at the far side of the room, one of the student houses — Slytherin, the green everywhere meant Slytherin. Yup, that was Izzie — she was the only one of Aunt Chloé's half-veela kids who'd gotten her hair, the other three had gotten Auntie Lise's — apparently she'd decided to follow Harry to the Slytherin table with his Blaise for dinner today. Though, Izzie wasn't actually talking to Harry, at the moment, instead babbling away with a little blonde girl (brighter than veela hair, sunny yellow), both of them grinning and giggling.

Gabbie didn't recognise her at first glance, but she looked a lot like Blaise's Daphne — they were engaged, apparently, or going to be engaged, the weird dancing around it shite fancy people like to do, which was kind of weird, because while they were definitely friends, like the really close really old kind that had been together forever and probably always would be, but she didn't think Daphne liked Blaise at all, in the sexy way, she meant, which was weird, because she was pretty sure people who were married were expected to have sex. That was sort of, you know, kind of the point? She meant, the People didn't really do marriage, most of the time, but from what she understood it was a whole...family thing? Like, that was the point. And you kinda needed to have sex to have kids. Well, no, you didn't actually, because blood alchemy was a thing, she was just saying. She didn't entirely get what was going on with that, but Harry had said it was a thing and just shrugged and moved on, and Blaise and Daphne seemed happy enough, so...

Whatever. Point was, sunny blonde girl was probably, like, a baby sister or cousin or something. Daphne sitting nearby looking exasperated — very similar to Fleur's my baby sister is being embarrassing near me but I can't do anything about it face, which was kind of funny — so that seemed like a good bet. Okay, then. They also must be talking in French, because Harry had on his very intense because I'm doing mind magic to understand a language I don't speak thing — Harry was actually very good at that, which was weird, because, Harry was really good at mind magic in general, but he didn't seem to realise he was? Like, multiple times, he'd dropped comments about Blaise being the better legilimens, which, he was more experienced, certainly, but even just from how they projected images at Gabbie and from observing them interpreting foreign languages and stuff, she had the feeling Harry actually had better intuitive talent for it. In fact, Gabbie suspected there were a couple times Harry hadn't even noticed she wasn't speaking English...

Of course, Harry also seemed to think he was, just, an average wizard, which...was very silly? Like, he might not be good with the book stuff, and he didn't have the formal training a lot of the people around him did, but they were mostly from fancy old families, so, obviously? He'd mentioned something, at one point, about his patronus being a cat, and, okay, he'd been thirteen when he'd first cast a corporeal patronus — that was the same age Arte had been when she'd first done it, and she was fucking amazing at light magic. Gabbie suspected Harry was actually a very talented wizard, and just...didn't know this...for some reason?

Also, his magic was all fascinating and tingly which, sure, wasn't exactly scientific, but veela tended to have good instincts for these things.

Speaking of tingly...

Gabbie watched Harry and Blaise for a moment — leaning in and muttering to each other, probably over Izzie and maybe-Daphne's-sister being ridiculous, something Blaise said had him smirking and Harry rolling his eyes — biting her lip in thought. A week was probably long enough, right? maybe? True, even after a few years at Beauxbatons, she still wasn't great at figuring out outsider things, and obviously all outsiders weren't exactly the same, so it could be kind of hard to tell what was...like, normal for them, and what was just that individual person being weird, she meant? It didn't help that outsiders seemed to have a whole wide range of ideas about sex and relationships and stuff, which just made it even more confusing. Like, compare Arte and Evi and Laëttie and Eckart, and there were four completely different perspectives right there, and sure, you had a fancy old family person from Lengadòc and a vampire from Greece and a not-quite muggleborn from Auvèrnha and then a normal not-fancy person from Helvetica, so they weren't the same kind of outsider, but still.

Point was, a week of actually knowing each other at all and hanging out had been enough for Evi and Eckart — both had commented that it might not have been, normally, but sexy veela mind magic tended to help skip over a lot of the buildup normal people...apparently often needed, so that wasn't so much of a problem, as long as she wasn't, like, just coming up and molesting practical strangers. But not for Arte and Laëttie, though, but she thought they might actually be kind of weird? In Laëttie's case, she'd been raised mostly muggleborn, and had sort of had weird ideas about them both being girls, that had been her big hang up, because apparently a lot of muggles cared about that. Which was weird — she didn't see why it should matter whether someone was a boy or a girl or whatever, and also, they were literally different species, getting hung up on whether it was normal or whatever was just...kind of silly? Like, the core of that argument was that sex was 'supposed' to be reproductive, so there was something inherently problematic about things that couldn't eventually lead to babies somehow...but veela and humans couldn't interbreed, she could have sex all day every day with as many human boys as she wanted and never get pregnant, so... She didn't know, she'd always thought the whole homosexuality is unnatural thing was just inherently silly, which might be because she was a veela and they did things different, but also might just be because it was silly to begin with, she wasn't sure. Laëttie had gotten over it, eventually, so maybe it was just silly, who knows.

(Also, people were part of the natural world, so...if people did gay stuff, didn't that mean it was a natural thing for people to do, like, by definition? Wouldn't there have to be some external force influencing them for it to be inherently against their nature? There wasn't one, not any she could think of, so... She didn't get it.)

Anyway, then there was Arte, who... Well, she didn't actually know what was going on with Arte. They made out quite a bit, and Gabbie knew the shape of her body pretty damn well by now...through her clothes, because that was as far as it went. Which was confusing, because, Gabbie could feel Arte wanted her, it was impossible to hide that from a veela, and a few times she'd literally had to twist around with mind magic to shut herself down to force herself to stop, which was, just, she didn't get it. She'd asked, but Arte just said she was being careful or something, the explanation hadn't explained anything and also hadn't really made any sense, no, she didn't know what was going on with Arte.

Which was fine, Arte was great, just confusing sometimes. But it did mean Arte couldn't (wouldn't) help her sustain herself while they were in Britain.

It wasn't an emergency, like, she didn't need to do something about it right away, or anything. But, even just thinking about it right now, it was very obvious to her that she was a bit more...scatter-brained than usual. Which could be an early sign she was starting to get tired, though one that was usually subtle enough most other people didn't notice, because she was pretty much all over the place by default, other people couldn't tell if they weren't looking for it. (With the exception of Mum and Fleur and some of her cousins, but they could also tell by the feel of her magic, she thought, so they were cheating.) At least, she was at a point she should start thinking about how she'd be taking care of it, if nothing else.

Normally, the obvious thing to do would be to arrange something with the people she was sharing a room with, but that didn't seem likely. Gin did not like her — for some reason, Gabbie had no idea why — and Maïa was still slightly irritated about Lyra springing Gabbie on them with no warning, and that little misunderstanding the first morning, but she was mostly over that by now, and her mind was so cool and pretty and sparkly, so maybe Gabbie would wonder if she should be trying to approach her. But, the problem there, Maïa probably didn't have the skill with mind magic to protect herself if Gabbie accidentally pulled too hard, especially while distracted, so it wouldn't be safe for it to be just the two of them...which ordinarily wouldn't be a problem, because Maïa had a convenient girlfriend right there, but Gabbie couldn't touch Lyra's mind at all, so that just wouldn't work. Which was sad, because Maïa really was very pretty.

(Though, Gabbie had noticed — it was impossible for people to hide from a veela if they wanted someone else, too — other people didn't seem to think so so much, which...was confusing? She did tend to notice the feel of people's magic and stuff more than what they actually looked like, so sometimes she was really bad at telling whether someone was physically pretty or not, but she didn't think Maïa was, like, bad-looking? Maybe people just got distracted by the hair and the teeth, because she'd thought normal people liked girls being curvy and stuff, that was a whole thing, and especially for her age Maïa's figure was very obvious...)

When she thought about it, it was really probably better if she came to an arrangement with someone she wasn't sharing a room with? Because, see, outsiders, and humans in general, really... Even in the euphemisms they used, sleeping together and taking to bed and the like, she'd noticed a good shag could really...wipe people out? Like, they were tired after, so it was convenient to have a bed there. She meant, beds were convenient for other reasons, they were just comfortable, but Gabbie honestly couldn't imagine wanting to sleep right after, she was always really keyed up, there was no way in hell, sometimes she didn't even get to sleep until the next night. For that reason, she usually thought, like, mid-morning was best? The afternoon also worked, but the earlier it was the less likely she was to mess up her sleep schedule (or annoy the people she was with), and it was kind of counterproductive to try actually sleeping with someone she was shagging, because if they got sexy thoughts then she would get sexy thoughts, and then sex happened, and then she had far too much energy to, just, lay in bed...

Yeah, it was a whole thing. Not good. So even if any of her new British roommates were options, she probably shouldn't anyway.

She guessed now that Laïa was here, she might maybe be an option? Except, it couldn't be only Laïa — her occlumency was good enough Gabbie wouldn't hurt her, at least not the first couple times, but if Gabbie was only drawing from her Laïa would get tired eventually. And, she was pretty sure, the only Beauxbatonnais here Gabbie or Laïa knew (excluding Arte) were other People — Gabbie had spotted Laïa at the table a bit down that way, sitting with Fleur and Marc and Céleste, so — and that just wouldn't do Gabbie any good at all, would it? Maybe Laïa and Izzie would be fine, but Izzie was younger, her occlumency wasn't as good...

Also, they would have to make sure other people didn't know about it, because cousins and siblings having sex with each other was one of those things outsiders were very weird about, and that would be a pain...

Harry and Blasie were really looking like a better and better option the more she thought about it. They were both mind mages, so it was unlikely she'd hurt either of them one-on-one, but with two of them there was virtually no risk of that at all. Not unless she pulled really hard on purpose, which, that was a horrible thing to do, an extreme last resort she would only do if she really needed to to protect herself. (Which was silly, some outsiders seemed to think that was a thing the People just did, walk up to people and drain them dead, they apparently didn't realise the People themselves thought that was an absolutely disgusting thing to do — and also, they would feel the person break and die while they did it, like it was a part of them dying, and that just sounded seriously unpleasant, why would anyone do that?!) And, Harry was also a rather powerful mage, so it was less likely she'd hurt him for that reason too, though Blaise didn't have nearly so much of a cushion, she'd have to look out for that. And Harry and Blaise's room was down in Slytherin, and Gabbie's awesome new balcony was way up in Gryffindor, so she didn't have to worry about accidentally keeping them up either, she'd just leave and let them sleep. Good she had somewhere else to go, she didn't know if she'd be able to sleep underground...

But even outside of practical concerns, Harry and Blaise were great! They were nice, and funny, and they were sweet and just adorable together, and their magic was pretty — Harry more than Blaise, admittedly, but Blaise was also fine — and they were fun to hang out with. So that sounded just about perfect, didn't it?

But first she had to convince Arte to leave her alone with people who weren't Fleur or Lyra. Boo.

Gabbie glanced at the people around them, Brits and Danes, and spoke to Arte in Gascon. Arte didn't actually speak Gascon, but she did speak Lengadocian — they weren't the same, but they were similar enough they could understand each other, and different enough from French the others probably wouldn't get it. "So, I'm gonna go with Harry and Blaise."

Trailing off from whatever she was saying to someone across the table from her, Arte blinked back at Gabbie for a second. "Er, okay? They're right over there, why are you—" There was a sharp ringing of realisation from Arte's head, one hand came up to rub at her temple. "Gabbie, that is a terrible idea."

"It is not! They're very nice boys."

"I'm sure they are." Arte didn't entirely sound like she believed it — she was mostly suspicious of Blaise, but not Harry, really. Apparently, Blaise's mum was kind of creepy — Gabbie knew she was the British Director of Education, and was also a businessperson in like computers and stuff in the muggle world, she didn't know what about that made her suspect — and Blaise himself kind of gave Arte the willies, though she couldn't say why.

Harry she felt sorry for, getting wrapped up in all this Tournament junk against his will, and also thought he was just vaguely adorable, in a non-threatening little kid sort of way. It was actually sort of funny just how completely beneath Arte's notice Harry was — not, like, as a person, she meant as competition. (Though she did not think the same way about Lyra, according to Fleur in their wargame meeting Arte had warned the others to take Lyra deadly seriously, being a Cæciné and all they just took her word for it.) Gabbie was certain he would hate that, she didn't plan on telling him, and had warned Arte to keep it to herself if she didn't want to offend him.

"I only mean, well, you haven't known them very long..."

"Really? It's been a whole week." She would have been perfectly fine shagging them within a couple hours of meeting, and she realised she was a veela, but...she didn't entirely understand why someone wouldn't be? She knew people could be skittish about these things, but she didn't get it, was the point, so bringing it up wouldn't do any good.

Arte was a little exasperated with her, probably thinking bloody veela to herself or something. "Sometimes I forget how cavalier you are about relationships." Well, that was silly. "Okay, Harry, fine — he seems mostly all right, and I guess you are cousins by marriage and everything, so he's not going to do something stupid. But you don't know Zabini."

"He's Harry's boyfriend."

"Gabbie, he isn't just Harry's boyfriend."

"No, but Harry wouldn't like him if he were terrible."

Arte shot her a flat look. "I'm almost positive his mother is a serial killer."

...Was that why she thought Blaise's mum was creepy? Also, was she really? But, like, she was rich and famous and stuff, if she were going around killing people, wouldn't somebody notice and do something about it? Sounded kinda dubious to her. "I don't see what that has to do with anything. He's really nice! I mean, in a kinda cold, I-find-you-amusing sort of way, but, you know what I mean." Nice people weren't necessarily good, or vice versa. Honestly, some of Gabbie's favourite people were also kind of horrible, not to her, but they could be scary and sometimes do bad things, and...well, she had trouble remembering she should care, sometimes, which she realised might end up getting her in trouble some day, but she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do about that, exactly.

A little, reluctantly amused smirk pulled at Arte's lips — which, it should, Arte was one of those people she liked despite how scary she could be. Then she sighed, rubbing at her forehead a little, exasperation and a sort of self-directed irritation falling off of her in little waves, made Gabbie's skin itch. "I'm coming at this from completely the wrong angle. You realise a large proportion of the human supremacists in the Hogwarts population are likely to be concentrated in Slytherin. I've caught several names of people who followed their Dark Lord with the silly name."

"There are Greengrasses in Slytherin. And Inghams and Monroes." Those were all names she'd actually heard before, the latter two because they turned up on the periphery in Aquitanian history, and the former in the People's. The Greengrasses in particular had long been one of the British noble families most friendly to other peoples, including Gabbie's People, they'd had plenty of contact with enclaves of nonhumans across the Continent...though before the Statute, mostly, Britain had been relatively isolated for a while now. Daphne had seemed nice enough, if very meticulous in her occlumency, so Gabbie couldn't be certain whether it was genuine, but she had no reason to think it wasn't.

"Yes, from what I've observed, it appears Slytherins tend to be one of either extreme. You might have friendly people, like Greengrasses and Monroes, but that doesn't mean stridently racist arseholes aren't there too." By the twitch of surprised amusement from a few of the people around them, the others at the table had caught the profanity — Arte had said it in French, so. "Set aside any personal concerns, I worry it might not be safe."

"No one's gonna try anything, silly. And if they do, I can just flame out."

"And if the Slytherin dorms are warded against it?"

"Um, I'm pretty sure they're not?" Gabbie was certain Lyra could shadowwalk all over the castle, including into Slytherin. If Lyra could shadow-walk in and out of Slytherin, there was no reason to think Gabbie couldn't flame-walk — they weren't the same exact magic, of course, but they were similar enough in how they worked that they were equally difficult to ward against. And, it was more likely for there to be people in Hogwarts who could shadowwalk, since the People didn't have any syndicates in Britain — she was pretty sure Hogwarts had literally never had a veela or lilin student, though they would have been around for Triwizard Tournaments and things — so that was a good sign, she thought.

Arte looked less than pleased, but by the grumbling irritation in her head she couldn't refute Gabbie's argument. Her unspoken argument, but Arte had obviously been looking in her head, there was no practical distinction between thinking something and saying it aloud when talking to Arte. "If you didn't need to find someone to sustain yourself, I wouldn't let you out of my sight. But I can't think of any better options."

"You don't have to let me out of your sight, you know."

A cold, unamused sort of feeling shooting through her head, Arte glared at her. When Gabbie thought about it, she should have guessed Arte wouldn't be comfortable joining in, she was still skittish with Gabbie alone even, that was obvious. "If something goes wrong, don't stay there and try to calm them down. Just leave. If you really need to to get away from someone, don't hesitate to set them on fire, let your father or Black deal with the consequences."

Grinning, Gabbie nodded. "Yep, sure, I can do that." She'd try to do that, anyway — Gabbie's first impulse was always to try to make people feel better, so getting out of a tense situation didn't necessarily occur to her when it probably should, and certainly not hurting them. But, if doing that would make Arte feel better, that would help her remember.

Arte sighed, but clearly decided to accept that as good enough. "Please check in with me when you're done, no matter how late it is." Because she would worry otherwise, she meant.

"I will. I probably won't be there very late, I'll try not to keep you waiting too long." After all, sex did tend to wipe humans out, especially with the extra soul magic bit the People did, Harry and Blaise would probably conk right out not long after. Arte had practice with the rest of the team for the first task on top of all her schoolwork and stuff, she needed her sleep, Gabbie would go straight to her before finding something else to do with her time for the night.

"You won't be getting yourself into too much trouble while I'm asleep."

"No, I think I'll probably just go flying for a bit." She was...mostly recovered from the strain of flying up here last week, and for some reason the idea of, just, aimlessly flying around was always very appealing after she'd just shagged someone. "I'll see you in a bit," she chirped, leaning over to kiss Arte quick before popping up to her feet and skipping away.

There'd been a flash of blank surprise from Arte — she hadn't expected the kiss, and it'd happened so quickly she'd hardly had time to react — followed by a sort of...affectionate but baffled exasperation. If Gabbie had to guess, Arte thought it was weird that she'd kiss her before going off to shag other people, which, Gabbie didn't get what was so weird about that, really. Obviously, since she was thinking about going to have sex with Harry and Blaise it was only natural that she'd be in an affectionate mood, and when she was in an affectionate mood she tended to do affectionate things. She didn't see what was so unexpected about that. She would have been snuggled all up over Arte for that entire conversation if she didn't know doing that in public made Arte uncomfortable.

Before Gabbie had skipped too far away, the exasperation only pulsed stronger, so apparently Arte was still listening. You know, I don't get you sometimes — you shouldn't be surprised by kissing now and again, I like you, silly!

There was subtle pressure of thought on Gabbie's mind — like a mental nod, sort of, Arte acknowledging the point. Then she lifted away, and Gabbie was alone in her head.

Harry and Blaise were apparently done with dinner too, they were nearly out the door into the Entrance Hall by the time Gabbie caught up with them. She pounced at Harry from behind, a brief flare of anxiety shooting through his head before he recognised her, relaxing a bit, but still holding on to an undercurrent of nervousness (which was silly). Harry was conveniently short, it wasn't difficult at all to get an arm around his shoulders, his magic tingling and tickling under her skin. "Harry! Hi."

Slowly, Harry's arm slipped into the natural spot around her waist, the reluctance more out of nerves than anything. Gabbie had noticed Harry could be weirdly cautious about touching her, as though he wasn't certain he should, or was worried she'd get annoyed with him or something. (Which was very silly, he was a mind mage, he should know better.) Tipping a smile down at her, he said, "Hi, Gabbie."

"Bubbly as always, I see," Blaise said from Harry's other side, his spring-breeze-cool mind flicking with amusement.

Gabbie tipped her head back to shoot Blaise a grin over Harry's shoulder, quick projecting a burst of her giddy cheerfulness out around her. Harry and Blaise were more than good enough at mind magic to resist it if they wanted to, but they didn't bother, taking on a bit of her bubbliness for themselves.

There was an odd, choked snrk noise from nearby, like a shocked laugh smothered before it could barely get out. Gabbie glanced that way to find one of the other Slytherins — er, Tracey, that was Tracey, right — had jerked to a sudden halt just a few steps into the Entrance Hall. She'd covered her face with both hands, Gabbie could feel her scrambling to firm up her occlumency. Must have hit her with that too. Whoops? Daphne had stopped next to her, fixing Tracey with a concerned frown. At least, Gabbie thought that was maybe supposed to be concerned, it was hard to tell with Daphne's mind completely closed up, she only got a faint trickle from Daphne most of the time, it could be hard to identify exactly what she was feeling. Hmm.

Oh well. Turning back to the boys, carefully speaking in her very best English, Gabbie said, "Is there cause to not be bubbly?"

Blaise didn't say anything, shaking his head with a smile. "Did you want something, Gabbie?" Harry asked. His head sparking with sudden anxiety, he added, "Not that I don't want to— I mean, I'm just saying, me and Blaise were thinking about going down and, we have this essay for Transfiguration, you see..."

"Ooh! I will come with, I have not seen Slytherin, you know. I hear it is very pretty!" That was only kind of a lie — she had heard the Slytherin dorm was pretty, with the fire and the silver and the big window with the lake outside it, but Gabbie suspected she wouldn't appreciate it much. The People tended not to like enclosed spaces, and Gabbie really didn't like being underground. She could only stay with Evi in the Warrens — the dorms at Beauxbatons for people who just liked being underground, like dwarfs, or people who needed to be insulated from sunlight, like vampires — for a few hours at a time before she needed to leave.

"You realise," Blaise said, "that if you come with us we're not likely to get much work done."

"Yes. And?"

His mind bubbling with amusement, Blaise thought, loudly, Harry, I think the veela plans to seduce us.

"Yep! But, if you are busy I can come back later."

"No! I mean—" Harry cut himself off, embarrassed by his own outburst, a sudden pulse of nervousness intense enough Gabbie's skin itched. And he kept on being embarrassed, Gabbie could tell he was blushing without even having to look, she could practically feel the heat of it. "I mean, if you— Not that I wouldn't, er..." Harry had no idea what he was saying, all awkward and nervous and flustered, he was being very adorable. And, he must be listening in on her head right now, because thinking he was being very adorable was just making him more embarrassed, which was making him even more flustered (which was adorable).

Gabbie was pretty sure what Harry was trying to say was that, no, the work they had to do wasn't urgent, and they could totally all go have sex together instead, but he didn't want to seem, like, the only reason he would hang out with her was if sex was involved, he'd be perfectly fine just hanging out in Slytherin, he didn't want to come off like a jerk about it. Because he did want her, yes — couldn't hide these things from veela — but he also just liked her in general — also couldn't hide that from veela — and he didn't want to come off like he only liked her for sexy reasons, but he was also an awkward teenage boy and had no idea what he was doing (which continued to be adorable).

Which was a silly thing to worry about! Honestly, she was a veela, she could feel everything he was feeling, she knew all that already. And even if she couldn't do it on her own, that's what mind magic is for, silly!

Harry huffed, muttered "Right, why don't I shut up, then." He tried to make it an annoyed-sounding grumble, but it came out a little tense, the mix of feelings jumbled up in his head too much to not slip into his voice at all.

Gabbie just giggled — she didn't really mean to, couldn't help it, the nervous excitement in Harry's head was infectious.

His magic practically shivering with amusement, Blaise hooked Harry's other arm, and the boys led her through the Entrance Hall and down toward Slytherin.

And then they fuuuuuucked.

I could write a fumbling teenage threesome — though less awkward than it could be, what with sexy veela magic smoothing things over — but I'm not gonna. No matter how adorable it should be, I doubt I have the experience with sex scenes to pull it off, and also I just don't feel like it. You'll just have to use your imagination.

[people who just liked being underground, like dwarfs] — As a reminder, the Aquitanians call goblins dwarfs.

The pacing should finally start kicking back up again soon, now that all of our side plots and characters and worldbuilding are established. Next chapter is weighing of the wands, and then the run up to the first task, and the second task only a couple chapters later, and then the lead up to the total clusterfuck that is Yule/Christmas. Good times.

—Lysandra