Hey guys. I decided to shake things up this chapter. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Still the same as always.

Chapter 7

A room.

Four walls. A roof. A door. Some windows. The volatility in meaning that lies in such a thing permeated the air like a light mist in the fogginess of the morning. To some a room would be as enviable to their life as a port in the storm. To others it might feel like yet another form of needless confinement. For Hermione, however, it was a little bit of both.

It had been a week since their encounter with the Grand Matriarch and as per usual the English witch had been left to her own devices within the confines of Fleur's bedroom. The routine that had formed thereafter had been relatively regular ever since: wake up, eat breakfast brought to her by one of two blond witches, Fleur would kiss her cheek before leaving for the day on some random assignment, and then she would return at the same time each evening, signaling that it was time for bed only to wake up and start all over again. The only contact she had with the outside world was Fleur and Gabrielle who would pop by every now and again and bring her some new books or a nice meal to eat. It was a daunting task—not being restless. But Hermione was well aware of the repercussions of strolling about so casually beyond the walls that kept her safe.

It was difficult to stay put in a house full of secrets just waiting to be uncovered. Fleur had instructed her on multiple occasions that while the others would respect the blond's claim on Hermione—in light of their courtship—it was still too dangerous for her to wander Delacour Manor alone. It was difficult pretending to be the house pet of a magical creature who was expected by her elders to mate and kill. And while danger was something the brunette was obstinately drawn to, she had not taken the blond's warning lightly. But restlessness still remained a problem. And it would continue to be a problem until the day she could walk away from all of this without the worry of death looming over her. If only it were as simple as just apparating away. Or better yet, if only it were as easy as walking out the front door. She certainly couldn't do either of those things. If she did, it would make it seem as if Fleur weren't truly mating with her. And if that were ever even an implication, Hermione would soon find herself hunted by a large number of predatory Veela.

The words "predatory Veela" sent a chill up her spine. She couldn't even fathom how that would end. All that thrall floating around, messing with her head. Fleur's thrall on its own was enough to turn everything about the girl into mush. Add another forty or fifty thrall-emitting Veela to that equation and she'd be dead within the hour. Of course, that's assuming there are only forty or fifty Veela women in the Delacour clan. That's also assuming that only forty or fifty of them would want to hunt her down. Hermione didn't know the actual count. She knew it couldn't have been less than that, but the possibility was high that there were more—an armys-worth more. So she would just have to live with the fact that Fleur's bedroom would be her home for the time being until they could come up with a better plan to covertly get Hermione out of there alive.

She ran her hand through the warm water streaming into the large porcelain tub. She often found herself here. Admiring of the way the light shined in brightly through the large window. The French witch seemed very fond of them, given how many times Hermione had encountered such a thing in her time spent with the blond. It was as if the woman wished for everywhere she went to be lit in the brightness of the sun—a staunch contrast to the darkness she exuded when describing her creature heritage. Nevertheless, Hermione thought it was a wonderful place to read.

Normally she would have never even considered being naked in front of a window so large that the whole world could see her in all her glory. But this was the one and only exception. She had successfully deluded herself into believing that she did it for beauty and the remoteness such a dwelling as Delacour Manor held. For outside there was nothing but miles and miles of open field. And at the very edge of that field began the start of a large, dark array of trees that reminded her of the Forbidden Forrest she and her friends use to adventure about back at Hogwarts. No buildings. No people. No creatures aside from the Veela who lived there. And even they were wrapped up in one thing or another. Who would even see her? In all honesty, one reason she kept the curtains open on a deeply subconscious level might very well be that she hoped for someone to see her. So if there were anyone out there, they would know she was there and in need of help.

Though that hope was a long shot as ambiguous as it was, which is why it remained subconscious and no action would ever be brought of it. She hadn't so much as considered running away. For all she knew, what she saw through that window could have been scenery that was charmed into existence for tactical reasons such as circumvention or dissimulation—making it no more real than you or me. Regardless of whether or not it was real, it was an indisputable fact that the Veela were a very secluded and private race. They were smart enough to do whatever it took to keep their nest safe and out of the public eye. That being so, Hermione had no idea where she was or where she would go from there. And she highly doubted the ease of which it would take to try and escape. Not that she really even wanted to. It was more a thought than anything substantial.

She reflected on this for a moment longer. Fleur had given back her wand. So she could have apparated if she felt so bold as to do so. But she was also well aware of the sensitivity of her current standing and having heard the stories the French witch told about Veela persistence, she was not overly eager to test Veela nature. Hermione would very much have liked to be the girl who accidentally stumbled upon a Veela nest and lived—no matter what it took to ensure her survival. Not to mention, the French witch had seemed very sincere in her desire to help the English girl out of the situation into which she had been unceremoniously dragged. And she trusted that Fleur would be true to her word when she said she would protect the brunette. But nothing would stop Hermione from staring out into the fields through that window and hoping. That and the scene before her of the miles of land that appeared as if it were infested with a most gorgeous bunch of foreign blue flowers was absolutely stunning every time she found herself in moments such as these.

What a strange sight, she thought to herself, a flower in bloom in the middle of winter.

Though Hermione was in this intricate position, she would not allow her time spent among the Veela to be all for naught. She soaked up every minute she spent in their presence to study and learn about their culture. Had she not been so respectful of their desire for privacy, she would have been wildly tempted to write down and possibly publish all of her findings during her stay. They were a fascinating bunch. Surely the world deserved to know about their history. She thought it a shame they were so secretive. Maybe if everyone knew more about them, there wouldn't be so much hostility towards their kind. As much as she'd been told of Veela culture, Hermione did not believe them to be evil—or at least not any more evil than humanity or any other creature race. If anything, they seemed misunderstood. Especially to themselves.

It was evident to the brunette that the Veela ran their operation much like a military would in a war torn country, being separated by groups. Groups that were determined by familial bond. At the head of each group there was a leader known as the Matriarch. But, Hermione had found that, due to certain events, the Veela had felt the need to no longer be as segregated. And this desire to be more united as a whole created a rank above the Matriarch—the Grand Matriarch as she is known—who serves to be the intermediary between the separate clans.

Hermione wasn't too sure who exactly they were fighting. Sometimes they gave the impression it was other Veela clans and other times it seemed as if there was something even bigger there that Hermione couldn't even begin to understand. Whoever or whatever that may be, they were most definitely at war with someone or something. Fleur was sent out every day all day on these missions her Matriarch had assigned to her. And the exhaustion that overtook her every night when she arrived home hinted that it was more than just a casual job she had been sent off to do while she was away. Then again, Hermione couldn't ever be too certain of these things. It's not like Fleur ever spoke about what it was she spent her days doing. And Hermione never pushed her to tell, so it remained a relative mystery.

The English witch did find that it made her very uncomfortable to know that Fleur was out there putting herself in harms way. The brunette quite liked the company of the French witch and wished to maintain what contact she had with her. Granted, there were feelings there that she purposely ignored for the time being—still very unsure as to whether they were her own or if they were there as a direct result of the Veela's thrall. But that did not deter her from enjoying the time actively spent in the French witch's presence.

Fleur was kind. She was thoughtful. She went to great lengths to assure that Hermione was as comfortable as possible given her circumstances. It would be near impossible not to be charmed by the beautiful blond. The English witch strongly felt that had certain aspects of the relationship between them not been so complicated, she would want to attempt to become closer to the blue-eyed beauty. There was a closeness that had already developed between the two that she had not readily felt before with any other being. Her heart began to beat harder in her chest. It always did when she thought of what was happening between her and Fleur. The way she laughed. The way she looked at her as if she were the only person on the planet. The way her hands felt as they touched any part of her body. Why did everything about her life have to be so complex?

Hermione adjusted herself in the bathtub. Once she was in a more comfortable position, her hand played leisurely at the necklace around her neck. A welcomed distraction from her thoughts. She looked to the clock that ticked away on the vanity. It was later than usual and Fleur still hadn't returned home. An unfamiliar feeling welled-up in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't like the blond to be late. Their daily routine had been very consistent—up until now. Fleur would come home, they would eat, and then talk about a whole bunch of nothing before going to bed.

Being a scholar who bases all rationale on fact and logic, Hermione wasn't one to normally cave to the wild ideologies of human intuition, but she couldn't help but feel as if something wasn't right. She twisted the plug allowing the water to drain and stepped out of the tub. A towel hung from the door and she carefully made her way to it to dry herself off.

Suddenly, a series of loud bangs and clatters echoed throughout the room. Something was not right at all.

Hermione quickly wrapped herself in one of Fleur's robes. And as if she had forgotten how she was to behave while staying in Delacour Manor, she ran off out of the room and down the stairs to investigate.

The closer she came to the sound, the more it changed from that of things breaking to that of a swarm of Veela muttering in French. When Hermione reached the source of the commotion, the living room looked as if a tornado had come through. Vases and lamps lay destroyed on the ground. Picture frames were turned down and smashed on the tables. There were so many women packed into the small space that Hermione's first guess was that maybe they had unintentionally been the cause of the destruction around them when they had gathered there—muttering and fumbling about. Then she realized they were all circled around something in the middle of the room. Hermione was not able to see what it was through the sea of bodies. But she froze the moment she heard her name.

"'Ermione," the feeble voice called out from the mass of worried Veela.

It belonged to Fleur. And she sounded so weak and frail. Hermione started to push through the crowd, trying to get to the center from where the words had come. Eventually, she got close enough that she could see a body laying on the floor through the throng of arms and legs that still blocked her from her target. However, she saw a blanket of red coating the woman that reinforced her determination to push through the last of the remaining Veela.

"Excuse me! I'm a doctor! Let me through!" Hermione called out, shoving the others out of her way. She wasn't sure if anyone there could even understand her but she repeated herself nonetheless, "She needs help! I'm a doctor!"

When they let her through, what she saw before her drew an involuntary gasp from her lips. Fleur's body looked as if it had been mangled. There were cuts and what appeared to be stab wounds all across her abdomen. Her face was bruised and the left side of her lip slightly swollen. The woman looked to be holding onto the cusp of death with every inch of her life. Her lips perked up into the faintest of smiles. And then, as soon as she saw the English witch, those crystal blue eyes started to disappear behind heavy eyelids as if they could no longer bear to stay open. Hermione immediately fell down to her knees beside the French witch and checked her vitals. Her heartbeat was near unresponsive. Her breathing had slowed to almost nothing.

The brunette reached at her hip for her wand and immediately cursed herself for having left it upstairs in the bedroom. Her first thought was to cast the summoning charm. But Accio required a great deal of thought and her mind was not clear enough in that moment to picture anything other than Fleur's lifeless body laying before her. So she reverted to the most base of medical practices to assure the blond's survival.

Two fingers pinched the French woman's nose shut. Hermione's lips gently cascaded down to Fleur's and she pushed as much air as she could into the other girl's mouth through her own. After several attempts to get the blond breathing, Hermione switched gears and released the woman's nose. Two eager hands pumped diligently at the French woman's chest, clinging desperately to the life that once lived there.

This continued in uninterrupted cycles for 30 minutes—until Hermione's lungs ached and her arms felt like jelly. But nothing she did opened those eyes back to life. A single tear fell from her eye. Her head dropped to the blond's unmoving chest. There was no trace of a heartbeat.

And it was then she realized that in any and every legal sense of the word, Fleur Delacour was dead.