Rowthan – 11

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

FOR THIS CHAPTER ONLY - Italics = French.

Harry immediately penned the letter and sent it off, knowing that if he did so now Fleur would most probably be with the rest of the coterie and not alone. If Louis and Remi happened to read the letter over her shoulder... well, there wasn't a whole lot he could do about that.

o-0-o

Fleur Delacour, descendant of the White Veela Clan of France, stood outside the Beauxbatons carriage. She was working on her NEWT homework, and as Beauxbatons did the NEWTs in one year instead of two like the other two schools, the classes were quite challenging. They started some nonverbal work in the lesser years, it was encouraged by the third year to master the entire first year syllabus nonverbally.

There were definite advantages to Beauxbatons but all of the Coterie knew the Delegation had an edge on all of the schools. If even one seventh year Delegate was chosen, Durmstrang would have an edge.

A snowy white owl landed near her and stuck out its leg where a letter was addressed. Although the owl could be a female as it was a bit darker than pure white.

She gently removed the letter and thanked the owl before the magnificent creature flew off with a regal "hoo."

Opening the letter, she immediately understood why it was addressed to her instead of any other member of the Coterie. No, what amazed her was that it was written in French, even if it was disturbingly polite - the language of the Upper Class.

-0-

Mademoiselle Delacour,

I apologize for the informality of this missive. I respectfully beg your pardon.

I am Lord H.J. Rowthan, heir of the Earldom of Radnor. The Durmstrang Delegation elected me to send this missive in the hopes that we may find an accord for the mutual benefit of all of our students.

It is our hope to ally ourselves in the venture of allowing the NEWT students (and OWL students with respect to the Sixth Years who are in the Beauxbatons Coterie) the privilege of auditing Hogwarts Classes.

We realize such an act cannot be done without careful consideration. As such, we respectfully await your reply.

With Highest Regards,

Lord Harrison Rowthan - Heir of Radnor

-0-

Rene Devereaux and Louis Geroux watched as the owl went to Fleur and not them. It made sense, Hedwig would go to the most influential of the Coterie without going to either of them. All to avoid a Conclave.

Sometimes, politics was more hindering than helpful.

"Mademoiselle Delacour," Rene said as he respectfully bowed. Rene had something of a common appearance for the French Aristocrats, a soft face, light brown eyes (almost amber in appearance) and dark blonde hair kept back off of his face. He had his hands behind his back and stood straight in his five-piece blue uniform (the suit was changed from silk to cashmere/silk blend, far more suitable to Northern Britain), looking quite like the noble he was – Marquis d' Thouars, son of the Duc de Thouars a title that was transferred to magical France after the heir of the Thouars dukedom was found to be a new blood in the early 19th Century.

"Oui?" she asked, looking up at the taller and thin noble who stood next to his royal cousin.

Louis Geroux was one of four living direct descendants of the infamous Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI through the "lost prince" who'd used Polyjuice to escape Madame Guillotine and married the Duchess de Bourbon of Magical France just six short years after his supposed death. To do so, he'd given up everything for his magic, including faking his own death from the muggles and having someone die using his face via Polyjuice. It was the primary reason Magical France and Muggle France only just started having contact again.

Louis Geroux's father Charles spent a great deal of time in Muggle France, becoming a working royal whose familial wealth increased substantially by the man's shrewd investing skills. It was the reason Louis took the family title at such a young age, his father was getting too busy playing around with muggle money but recently informed his son that he was going to pull his money out of the Muggle world soon, as he feared the bubble would burst sometime soon with the American economy.

Duc de Bourbon, Louis Geroux, was as much of a figure head of France as his royal Muggle cousin HM Elizabeth Regina II and the magical population of France loved their monarch even though the closest he got to ruling was giving final approval of the Premier Ministre de la Magie after the people of France voted and opening and closing the Senate. His grandfather had served the people of magical France from 1909 to 1989. Charles (Louis's father) abdicated in favor of his son, but was serving as Regent while Louis was in school. Louis was looking forward to having a quiet year, his final year of being a simple school boy before he would go to University to study politics and French History.

He was supposed to leave over Yule to visit with his royal cousin at Balmoral. The only reason he came was because people expected him to, he would not be putting his name in the Goblet of Fire.

Louis's title was a Dukedom given to his ancestress who was descended from Louis XIII who gave the title to his magical son and several land holdings to support himself with. Not surprisingly, much of magical France quickly moved into those areas and magical France moved the Senate into the palace Louis XIII built for his son. It was under some of the strongest wards in the world, and the "country house" was where the Duc lived with his family.

"Pray thee, from whom did you receive the letter?" Louis asked gently, knowing that the effort to avoid a conclave would be lost if he was not polite to his emissary.

"From Lord Harrison Rowthan of Durmstrang, they want to have their students join the Hogwarts students in their classes but seems to be of the opinion Durmstrang and Beauxbatons would have more weight in the request than if it was merely Durmstrang alone." she explained and gave Rene the letter. "Here."

Rene scanned it and then passed it to Louis, speaking in English. "I think our cousin wishes to avoid a Conclave. It would be problematic if we were forced to have a formal meeting for this."

Louis sighed. Only 5 of the 17 members of the Coterie were fluent in English and even though the rest of the Coterie had a working knowledge, they were going to need to be careful.

"Sometimes I wish I was not a member of the Thirteen. This is getting ridiculous. We need to avoid a Conclave."

Rene nodded his agreement, "What if we have one Conclave for the Thirteen and make an agreement that we can have informal meetings for the duration of the Tournament?"

Louis nodded, "Later, Lord Rowthan wrote to Miss Delacour for a reason. If we happen to show up to the same meeting. . . "

Rene smiled, "We avoid a Conclave."

They turned back to Fleur.

"We apologize for speaking so rudely, Mademoiselle Delacour." Louis said as he gave her back the letter. "We do not seek to offend you or yours."

Fleur was somewhat taken aback by their apology, but responded in kind. "I understand there are things that must be excused. You are excused."

Rene couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her response, not many Pure would know that by finishing informally, they were granting her permission to do so. Most would respond formally as they would not want to offend someone of higher rank. In reality, they were just annoying someone who wanted to speaking normally with another person.

Louis grinned, "Why Mademoiselle Delacour, I do believe that this is the start of a wonderful acquaintanceship. Please, call me Louis."

"And I am Rene." Rene said as the two nodded their heads in greeting.

While everyone at Beauxbatons knew each other in a vague sense, the school itself had a rather large student body. Smaller schools were everywhere in the country but with more than 600 students in the 7th year class and more than that in the 6th year, it was easy to develop a small group of friends and stick with them all seven years without really getting to know anyone else.

"I am thinking that my meeting with Lord Rowthan should be soon. The quicker we get into classes, the better."

Rene and Louis could not help but nod their agreements.

o-0-O-0-o

Inside Hogwarts, Lord James Potter was reading his mail. Another letter from the Dowager Longbottom about how Lily had missed ANOTHER meeting for the Potter Charity - the Dragon Survivor's Benefit - and asked Lord Potter if he was going to send a representative.

'Good thing Remus likes going to these things.' he thought as he quickly wrote a letter to his old friend who was practically James's Emissary to these things more and more.

Remus John Lupin was one of the leading Dragons who specialized in working with Werewolves, Vampires and Veela, teaching classes on how to combat said aggressors at the Dragon Academy. The man spent all of his life trying to fit in before realizing that he could do so much better by helping to combat the ones who gave him a bad name.

He'd been gainfully employed at the Academy ever since Alastor Moody finally convinced him after the war to go through training.

Remus still held records for combat training, not everyone could say that they had a werewolf's speed and strength.

He also held the record for fastest Dragon-Dragon marriage. Ten minutes after Nymphradora Tonks graduated from the Dragon Academy, the two were married by Amelia Bones. The newlyweds were enjoying their first year of marriage quite nicely after their August 28th nuptials.

He frowned as he heard someone knocking on his door. Dumbledore had offered him the use of a portrait but the retired Dragon declined for obvious security reasons.

He stood, "Come in."

The last thing he expected was to see Harrison Jacques Rowthan come in.

James darted around his desk and threw his arms around slightly shorter son. "Prongslet!"

Harry returned the hug with equal enthusiasm. "Dad."

James let himself out of the embrace and held his son at arm's length, "You've grown another couple centimeters."

Harry grinned that looked exactly like his Dad's. "Pretty soon, I will grow out of that nickname."

"Nah, I still call Jacob "Bambi" after all." James said as he sat down next to his son in front of his desk. "So, what's up?"

Harry sighed, "Durmstrang needs to attend Hogwarts classes."

James nodded, "Ok, I assume you're getting Beauxbatons in on this? Their sixth years are supposed to sit OWLs."

"Yes. We are going to meet with Mademoiselle Fleur Delacour to avoid a Conclave."

James frowned, "What do you mean 'avoid a Conclave'? There's no reason for a Conclave."

Harry looked at his father, his confusion evident. "Rene and Louis. . ."

"You're students! You avoid a Conclave automatically unless it regards the direct business that would affect ALL of the descendants of the Thirteen!"

Harry looked at his father with the utmost confusion. "What?"

James let out a laugh at his son's face, oh this was too good!

Harry's frown deepened, he did not appreciate his father finding joy in his misery.

"How do you think the British Thirteen avoid Conclaves? We're all members of the House of Lords, if we had to call a Conclave every time we needed to convene for government work then..." James trailed off, still grinning. "When our members find that we are all of a common group or have a common undertaking then we automatically avoid a Conclave."

"So, we're students and as such, we don't have to have a Conclave?" Harry asked for clarification.

James nodded, grinning. "Yep."

Harry sighed, "And none of us knew this information, why?"

James shrugged, "I wasn't planning on telling you until you graduated. I'm sure Lady Rowthan would have told you then as well."

Harry nodded and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he'd yet to grow out of, James noticed and was somewhat relieved that he was not losing his son to adulthood completely. "So, overnight shifts?"

James winced, "Yeah, you can take the man from the Marauder but not the Marauder from the man."

"In other words, you were at the end of your patience and Scrigemour didn't realize it."

James nodded, "Yeah. He's 'loaning' me to Albus for this year. He's also sending a few Curse Breakers over the summer to figure out the curse and break it."

Harry nodded thoughtfully, "It may be tied to something the Professors all have used, like the office or the classroom. Or it may be something as simple as the title of the class or the teacher themselves."

James smirked, there was his son. "Yeah, I saw the ring. I'm kinda disappointed you didn't come to me for Grandmother's ring."

"I asked for the Rowthan ring to appease Kat's family. They were of the opinion that Kat will be marrying beneath her by marrying me."

"A Pure family?"

"Yes, Pure and Russian. Allegedly they are descended from the Romanovs but Alexei denied any relation when I asked him a few years ago."

James shook his head as a wide smile spread across his face, "Have fun with those in-laws."

"I will." Harry promised and they sat in comfortable silence for the next few minutes before James broke it.

Chapter End – But only because this chapter is getting on the long side.