AN: An almost completely new version of Chapter II and a cleaned up, updated version of Chapter I.


The stables of Hogwarts Castle were usually empty. Wizards had little use of horses, and in truth, beyond leisure, Harry no longer needed to. Nonetheless, having extorted the right to stable his monstrously large, ill-tempered black Nightmare in there, he enjoyed having the means of escaping the hubbub of the school, and the children within. Unfortunately, he couldn't escape one of the few of his classmates who had the maturity for him to get on with them.

"Harry! McGonagall's expecting us on the castle lawn immediately." Hermione chided him. Harry just rolled his eyes. "Come on, or we'll lose Gryffindor points."

"I hardly think that she'll miss one person in a crowd of three hundred students and staff." he responded, not pausing in saddling up the black Nightmare.

"Since when have we ever passed under anyone's notice." it was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes.

"Since I bribed the Twins into making a little distraction." he smirked., tightening the girth belt.

"I take it you have no intention of being present when the French and the Durmstrang contingents arrive?" she sighed.

"I have no issues with the Durmstrang lot, beyond their unsavoury reputation. The French though, they and I have an uncomfortable history." Harry explained, heaving himself into the saddle, the horse pawing at the cobblestones, striking sparks off with his iron-shod hooves. Hermione groaned to herself as his cloak fell aside to reveal the ladder-hilt of a two-century old heavy cavalry officer's sword, one which had served them well on a few adventures, and since Harry had grown tall enough to wear it this year, he had taken to wearing as much as he could get away with, even if it was banned from daily wear in class.

"You know they'll be here for the rest of the academic year, you can't avoid them." Hermione warned, crossing her arms stubbornly. "Besides, what do you have against the French?"

Flanders. Ireland. Spain. Belgium. Quatre Bras. Waterloo. The Battle at La Haye Sainte. Something of this must have shown on Harry's face, as Hermione was looking puzzled at him.

"Memories. A summer, a French lady I thought highly of." he admitted. "We ended up having one hell of a fight."

He still couldn't remember the outcome. The memories blurred as they crossed swords, his staggering charger barely upright, her own fully blown, neither able to charge, thrusting and hacking with their swords. The thunder of hooves and the thunder of guns, the flash of steel and the aches in his body all blurring together in one hellish symphony. Shaking loose his recollections, he raised a gauntleted arm.

"Hedwig!" he called.

Hermione stumbled back as, ghost-like, the white feathers of the Harpy Eagle brushed past her, the massive raptor diving from the roof timbers, alighting on his arm, her gentleness the complete opposite of her ferocious appearance.

"With a little luck I'll bring back a rabbit or two, maybe we'll even catch a Wild Haggis." Harry grinned. The lightest touch of his spurs, and he was gone in a clatter of hooves and squeaking leathers, leaving Hermione feeling once again like she was the only responsible one in their circle of friends. Shaking her head, she left, hoping the stable-smell didn't linger. When had Harry had the chance to make nice with a French girl anyway?

-x-

Fleur restrained nervous reactions, settling instead for sitting at the corner of the table they'd been shown to with her back to the corner of the Great Hall, able to view the entire space without too much difficulty. For a lifetime, hearing English spoken usually meant trouble, a sudden melee with their cavalry, or the sharp report of their well-feared rifles. For a summer in Paris, long ago, it had meant sporting exchanges in the sparring ring, hospitality with their 'guests', and at times like this, intimacy as she retired to her private chambers, rarely alone after she had met Le Colonel de Dragon.

A memory surfaced, a wry grin and characterful eyes, green like nothing she'd ever seen before. A hand dragged through a windswept mess of black hair. Of blood, screams, the bellow of her foe, and the clash of steel. Dwelling on the long-dead would do her nothing but ill, so near as soon as they came up, Fleur tried to forcibly bury those recollections. Perhaps she would have succeeded but for the terse, heavy accented voice of the Deputy Head of Hogwarts.

"Mister Potter!" she barked, rising from the head table and striding down the hall like a ship in full sail. That alone caused Fleur's head to snap around. Then there was the heart-wrenchingly familiar sound, all to rare in modern horsemanship, of a horseman's spurs on the flagstones. "Mister Potter, did I, or did I not request that all students gather on the castle lawn to greet our visitors."

"I confess I quite forgot... it has been fully a week since the sign with the announcement was put up." the source of the Deputy Headmistress's ire shrugged unrepentantly. "Perhaps we've studied too much to remember such passingly minor details."

As her eyes alighted on the newcomer, Fleur's heart froze for a long moment in her chest. He looked so young, pale skin which had never seen an Iberian summer's day, and with an easy mischief that she had seen only the embers of, long stifled by responsibility and war. Yet, it was undeniably him.

The venerable Scottish witch, McGonagall, swelled, and though Fleur did not know it, she could imagine that like Madame Maxime, she had been lecturing her students on the twin matters of examinations and not embarrassing their school in front of the competitor schools.

"You expect me to believe that?" one eyebrow rose in challenge.

"No, but it was worth a try."

"To your table Mister Potter. Rest assured we'll be having words later."

The final thing to draw Fleur's attention was that he unclasped his cloak, revealing that, carried on a snake-clasp belt, was a sword of a design with which she was awfully familiar. After all, one such had found a home hung on the back of her chamber door in the garrison in Paris a lifetime ago. It was a struggle to keep her mask intact. In another life, another time, the woman who had been the bride of war had found in a single summer that she thought that she could love. The heartbreak on the field at Mont Saint Jean still felt as fresh as the day of the battle.

She resolved to retrieve from her travelling chest, stowed safely in the Beauxbatons carriage, an old family heirloom, one which had been hers in another life. Three feet of steel, which he would recognise at once, and maybe she would have answers at last. Just as soon as she could find him and pin him down.

-x-

With enough years spent putting their lives on the line, soldiers sometimes began to develop an inexplicable sense for when they were being watched. Fleur, however, didn't realise when her surveillance was noticed, nor, after decades of being one of the more noticeable people in any given space, really considered that her mere presence caused people to move around her, whispering to their fellows.

She could hardly be termed 'inconspicuous', half-a-head taller than the majority of students in the castle, and her striking good looks combined with a barely-controlled natural enchantment to draw every eye. Nor, in truth, was her garb any help, a heavy broadcloth manteaux which served to barely conceal the weapon at her side, the chape of its steel scabbard peeking out by her left ankle.

Fleur's first warning that her plan was shot, after several days of wasted effort, was the dragonskin boot which suddenly was stuck out from behind a suit of armour, sending her stumbling to one knee, the jarring blow against flagstones causing an aching shock through her thigh. The rasp of steel that followed, of a sword being drawn from a steel scabbard, was terrifyingly familiar.

"That," the voice behind her stated, "was rather unwise of you."

A curse rose, unbidden, to the Frenchwoman's lips as the weight of a blade came to rest on her shoulder. Fleur resolved, furiously, that she would not be held at sword-point by this high-pitched pubescent pale little shadow of Him. She snarled an insult to cover the motion of undoing the clasp of her manteaux, then at once threw the weight of wool onto his sword and drew herself to her feet, old reactions taking her hand over the sheath for her wand and grasping straight at the wire-wrapped black leather of her pallasch's grip. Wheeling around, she tore the sword from its scabbard, and brought it to face him, the length of her arm and the length of the blade between them.

For the first time in a lifetime, Fleur met his gaze. His eyes were like chips of green ice, and his expression flat as he, with an air of disdain, simply slid her manteaux from his sword and brought it up, a sharp note announcing the meeting of their blades. When she felt the first deliberate pressure from him down the length of her sword, something old and angry awoke in Fleur, and refused to allow him the little control he sought. With the greater strength gifted by three more years of growth, she pushed back strongly.

In but a moment, a flash of triumph crossed his face as all resistance vanished before the pressure of her blade, and he used her own force to rotate his sword from near-vertical before him to inverted along his right flank, stepped inside her reach and dealt her wrist a sharp blow with his off-hand. Fleur reeled back, narrowly avoiding a fight-ending strike as he brought his sword up-over-and-down at her exposed forearm, the dull glint at the edge of the old sword paying testimony to the threat it posed.

The young swordswoman cursed both herself and him. She had forgotten that he had held the position of Regiment Sword Master long before he'd been commissioned an officer, and that she had forgotten that, during that summer in Paris, when he commanded the Duke of Wellington's military escort, he had but rarely ventured into serious sparring, choosing to instruct and to observe far more often. In short, she had underestimated him on the basis of not enough knowledge, and was fast trying to open enough distance to retake the initiative with her longer blade. Not an easy task when he realised exactly what she was attempting to do.

With her fine thrusting sword reduced to hammering away at his impenetrably maintained defence, unable to force him back, Fleur decided that if steel wasn't the answer she required, then sorcery might well be an adequate substitute. Curling her off-hand into a tight fist, she snapped her fingers, a spark erupting into a fiercely-burning ball of balefyre nestling in the palm of her hand as she opened it.

"Defend this." she hissed and thrust her hand forward, throwing a stream of fire at her opponent.

-x-

"Duelling in the confines of the school! With swords no less!" snarled Snape. "And though I could not say I would mourn the loss of the tedium that is attempting to force the delicate art of potion-making into Potter's thick head that would have come about had Mademoiselle Delacour's fireballs succeeded in setting the dunderhead on fire, equally I dislike the thought of his thuggery causing a Diplomatic Incident should he have maimed his foolish opponent."

Harry glanced over at Fleur, both of them having sheathed their swords after their fight was interrupted by the dour professor. She just rolled her eyes at him as he shifted his gaze back to the Deputy Headmistress who was surveying them with a stern look, her face pinched with irritation.

"Well, Mister Potter, Mademoiselle Delacour? Do you have any explanation for this unseemly display?" McGonagall snapped.

Silence followed, Harry deciding against blaming his opponent for following him, a thin excuse that it would be for triggering a duel. He and Fleur once again exchanged glances, the Frenchwoman tossed her head back, staring down her nose haughtily at the two professors.

"A private disagreement between friends which got out of 'and, Madame McGonagall." she dared them to argue. "I can assure you zat it will not 'appen again." she poked Harry in the back, aware of her old flame's smirk. "And, of course, dearest 'Arry will be getting a new cloak at my own cost."

"...Very well." McGonagall pursed her lips. "Madame Delacour, I have little or no jurisdiction over your part in this matter, but I will have no repetitions of these events. Mister Potter... I suppose you can spend a few evenings cleaning the stables, given you are the only student to have your own mount, you can relieve Hagrid of that burden."

"I think, Professor McGonagall-" Snape began, "that Potter should be relieved of that weapon for the – hopefully short - remainder of his education at this institution."

Instantly the humour dropped off the faces of the two students as Snape advanced on them. Harry simply turned to present himself left-side on, allowing his singed cloak to shield the sword and conceal any motion he made towards the hilt, while Fleur's hand openly dropped to the blade at her side.

"I would advise against that, Professor." Harry narrowed his eyes. "As an heirloom of my family, I would take the gravest offence to someone attempting to appropriate it. Theft."

"Enough!" barked the Deputy Headmistress. "Potter, Delacour, you're dismissed. A word, Professor Snape."

The two students nodded their heads to McGonagall and departed, leaving her pinching the bridge of her nose as she prepared to deal with her most troublesome colleague.

-x-

"I can assure you zat it will not 'appen again." he parroted her. "I trust I won't need my sword for this?"

"Not unless you are intending on losing a re-enactment of Mont Saint Jean... again." Fleur snorted.

"I had you beat, admit it. Though causing a diplomatic incident with a public crossing of swords between leading representatives of our respective institutions won't do my reputation much good." Harry shook his head in amusement. "I was trying to avoid exactly that happening."

"What?" she looked puzzled, then burst out laughing. "Is zat why you have been 'iding since I arrived?"

"I get into enough trouble as it is, so when you started wearing that thing I decided to avoid us re-enacting the events of La Belle Alliance." he shrugged.

"Merde! I've been carrying zis around all damned week to try and get you to notice!"

"I don't think I could not notice you, sword or no."

Somehow, as Harry descended through the castle, from halfway up the upper keep to the stables below the lower bailey, he found that, despite their recent conflict, having Fleur at his side felt right, and the banter and the subsequent silence between them not awkward, but companionable. It reminded him of the quieter hours of that distant summer in Paris. The stables and the enclosed field outside of it were his retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the castle-school, one which only a handful of people actually knew of, and he wasn't in the habit of showing people around there.

Yet, he found himself unwilling to cause her to depart his company, even as they reached the school's old stables, vaulted stone thick with the smell of hay. Their presence attracted some attention, a harsh whinny coming from outside the open stable doors, and a huge black-coated charger cantering in, shoes striking in the stone lintel of the stable door. Flame-orange eyed, and snorting smoke from its nostrils, there could be no mistaking the beast.

"A Nightmare..?" Fleur's voice, soft and lilting voice jerked Harry out of his reverie as he ran a hand up the hell-horse's brow. "Unusual, 'ow unusual. They rarely accept a rider."

"He's a handful." Harry admitted fondly. "Magical power seems to be the answer though, and, in all modesty, I have enough of it."

"Magic." she sighed. "Surely but for it we should be in Belgian soil?"

"I have looked for answers, and found none." Harry's jaw tightened slightly, but

"Be it God's gift or that of magic, we do not need to cross blades again Harry." to his relief - and slight disappointment, she turned her attention back to the charger. "I confess, I would probably prefer a good Arab-blooded Percheron."

"The horse of choice, if I recall, of the French cuirassiers of old." he raised an eyebrow to match the humour in his voice, and offered her a hand.

"Something I recall too, oddly enough." she replied, taking his hand with a touch of puzzlement, and, ignoring the warmth that bloomed in her chest, let him tug her out of the stable onto the fenced-off grass outside.

Her eyes widened, for there was the Hogwarts groundskeeper, fully the height of her own Headmistress, his features hewn out of the living rock of Scotland, and in his hand was a rope, on the end of which, longeing, was a dappled grey horse, broad and muscular, yet still lithe and elegant. Half Percheron and half Arab, Fleur reckoned, she would bet her sword on it.

"A small peace-offering I had planned. Only you jumped the gun with the sword." he gestured to the grey horse. "I figured those Abraxans were a touch too big for you to ride."

Fleur laughed, an open and honest laugh, disbelief warring with glee as she seized him in a close embrace. As Harry's eyes widened, she tipped his chin up and brought her lips to his, a sweet kiss that felt almost chaste given their youth. She decided that, as much as she had enjoyed - and had every intention, in the future, of enjoying - the maturity of her flame when he was over six-foot in his boots and spurs, that these, their younger years, were to be savoured.

Harry was smiling as they broke apart, their heads on each-other's shoulders. He had known the woman Fleur had been and perhaps would be again, and though he could see the last remnants of her teenage coltishness, all the same, there clearly were the beginnings of the woman he had loved and who he had fought in a battle to the death fully three times.

"You know 'Arry, I do not blame you for La Haye Sainte or Mont Saint Jean. I did not blame you even when we fought, even when I awoke in a French witch's body. We did our duty to the fullest, Mon Chevalier." she intertwined her hands with his.

"Did we ever have a chance?" he asked.

"Does it matter? We do now."

-x-

Professor Minerva McGonagall wondered, not for the first time since James Potter's son arrived at Hogwarts, if it was not time to retire. Drawing herself up to her full height, she strode out of Hagrid's cottage as her wayward student came riding out of the forest. The Forbidden Forest. She was about to call him over for a well-earned chewing out when she saw his horse was panting, and he was red-faced and a wide grin plastered across his face, almost from ear to ear.

Then, in a thunder of hooves, a second horse broke out of the treeline, bearing the most prominent of the Beauxbatons students. She too was windswept, flushed and grinning, her silver-gold mane flying in the wind, her stance in the saddle upright and confident, as experience a horsewoman as the young Potter.

She trotted her horse over to Minerva's wayward student, she leaned forward, intertwining her fingers in his hair. They met in the middle, a kiss that lasted for a few long moments, and when it broke, they remained, forehead to forehead for a time. Then, the Frenchwoman wheeled her horse about and galloped off towards the castle. As her student gave chase, Minerva decided to save her ire for another occasion when the young Marauder would earn it. Lily would never forgive her if she interrupted her boy and his lass.