A/N: Abysmally short chapter, sorry.
Chapter 31: Bulgaria VS Ireland
After a 15 minutes of being ambushed by well wishers in the box full of 'important' people, I spot Patrick Delacour across the room. Hedwig and I quickly move to him, hopefully the others will be less inclined to bother us if we are already talking. Patrick have laughed when I'd told him.
"Oh, Patrick. I thought we'd lost you." I turn to see the French-speaking newcomers.
"Harry here thought that if the three of us looked busy enough then we could get a little peace." Patrick laughs again. Allain looks similar to Patrick, blue eyes and light brown hair, but somewhat more unkempt than his younger brother.
"Harry Potter." I smile and offer my hand to the Minister of Magic. Should I add something about how honoured I am to meet him?
"Allain Delacour." He smiles and accepts the handshake. "Patrick showed me the photo of the two of you." He smirks at his brother. "I wish I could've been there in person to laugh in his face."
"Oh." I glance over at Hedwig. "This is Hedwig, she doesn't speak French." I offer her an apologetic smile. I didn't even realise that we'd been doing it. "Allain's the Minster of Magic in France, Patrick's brother, although you never actually met him either." Comprehension dawns on her face. I wonder if I can teach her French … I'd have to figure out how I learnt it first.
"I'm Hedwig." She offers Allain her best smile as they shake hands.
"This is my wife, Appoline." Allain gestures to the blonde woman beside him. I smile at her, but look over her shoulder to look at her wings. "And my daughters, Fleur and Gabrielle." Being blonde and attractive is a family trait it would seem. The youngest Delacour, Gabrielle, doesn't have wings like her sister and mother. That probably means something. As I move my hand forward to shake the hand of Mrs Delacour, Hedwig quickly grabs my wrist. I look over to her with a questioning look.
"Oh!" I could slap myself. I turn back to the confused looking Delacours. "This ring-" I hold up my hand. "-Wouldn't agree with your skin." I stuff the hand into my pocket and hold up my free hand. "Hedwig gets burnt, so she keeps a closer eye on it than me. Sorry."
"Forgiven, Monsieur. Most would not have been so considerate." I feel stupid for not realising that she would have been burnt. She switches hands to finish the greeting as I fail to resist the urge to look at her wings again. Slimmer than the mystery woman's, but still a magnificent fiery orange. I quickly look away once she realises where I'm looking. Sirius comes to the rescue.
"Harry, I found our … seats..." His voice trails off as he catches sight of Appoline. For a man that survived a decade in Azkaban, he doesn't hold out much defence against her allure, but this is Sirius Black after all – A saucy wink and a nice arse could persuade the man to break into Gringotts. I stifle a laugh as Hedwig stamps on his foot.
"Sorry about him, we're having him looked at soon." I watch Hedwig as she pushes him away. "It was nice to see you again, Patrick." I drop back into French. "And to meet you, Minister. Enjoy the game." I bow my head slightly and steal a quick look at the wings on Fleur Delacour's back before following Sirius and Hedwig.
Hedwig sits to my right, with Sirius on my left. The seats next to Hedwig are still empty, but judging by the rest of the room, they won't be for long. The game isn't going start for a while, but after all the walking and standing, it's nice to sit down. We are in the front row of this booth, giving us a brilliant view of the stadium before us. Hundreds of thousands seated tightly together, although they probably won't be staying in the seats much. The six rows behind us in the box are almost completely filled with the worlds 'important' people, or 'almost-important' as is the case with me. The multi-layered Ministerial box holds everyone that's been invited by the Minister himself. Or his secretaries.
"What did you think of the Delacours?" I ask Hedwig whilst drawing circles on the back of her hand.
"Fleur's a bitch." I look over at her cute scowl.
"You only met her for a few seconds and she didn't even speak." I try to reason with her.
"Actions speak louder than words. When Sirius came along, she noticed that her allure wasn't hitting you, I guess she hadn't realised until she saw him. She cranked it up to try and get you." She says angrily.
"That's not very polite." I agree, looking at her again. "But that's not why you called her a bitch, is it?"
"It felt like it was wrapped around my head. Like fire biting through my eyes and ears." She stays silent for a while, staring down into the stadium. "She saw that it was working on me … she smiled."
"Smiled? In a sinister fashion?" I ask her gently. She shifts in her seat and pushing a lock of messy hair behind her ear.
"It was beautiful … I wanted to throw up. That sadistic smirk … the evil aura." She trails off. Whilst veela can't 'turn off' their allures entirely, they don't have to aim it at people like that. Hedwig lets out a groan. "Great." She chimes into my head. The empty seat are to be filled. I believe that some events in the universe are predetermined. Perhaps a god with a sense of humour that will always make certain things happen or have things line up in specific ways. Such as the seats being designated to the Delacours.
"Just try not to slap her?" I suggest, drawing a glare from my ashen hair companion.
After Krum lead his rival into ground at a particularly high speed, the game slows down as the medical team make sure that Lynch's heart is still beating. Hedwig has been progressively fidgeting more throughout the match.
"You alright?" I prod her mind as I lace our fingers together. I'm treated to some angry, yet somewhat earned, insults about the veela sitting beside her in return. She stands up abruptly and heads out to the external viewing platform. Sirius leans into my ear.
"She OK?" He asks me quietly.
"Not a fan of Veela." I mutter, catching his eye. He frowns for a second, appearing to resists the urge to look over my shoulder. "Try not to start a fight, Padfoot." I say, only half joking, as I stand up to follow Hedwig. The platform outside opens up from one of the doors at the side of the room. It's a large balcony over-hanging the seats below with a waist high rail around the edge to dissuade speedy descents into crowd surfing. Hedwig is leaning on the rail with both hands. I cross the small space and rest my crossed arms beside her. We stand in silence for a while as the players take to the air again. "So … You haven't made a new friend?"
"Was that supposed to make me feel better?" She laughs dryly.
"It was either that or something about you both beings birds." She leans her head on my shoulder, encircling her arms around mine as I press a kiss to her head.
"You're an idiot." She says affectionately.
"I try." The crowd roars, jumping to their feet as Ireland score yet again. At this rate, Ireland will win if Krum doesn't get the snitch soon.
"It's worse because I can almost fight it off." She sighs heavily. "I'd prefer just to end up like Sirius, that way I wouldn't know how horrible it feels."
"Being that much of an arse is a finely tuned skill, you'd have to practice for years to be like him." I assure her, earning a laugh.
"You two alright?" Sirius has come out onto the balcony now. Hedwig straightens up and smiles at him.
"Just needed some air." Sirius doesn't seem to but it, but doesn't comment.
"We don't have to go back in if you don't want." I say as Hedwig shifts.
"It's ok." She shakes her head. "But … switch seats with me? I don't want to sit right next to her." She scowls again.
"You can sit between Sirius and his … Lady friend." I shoot a grin as Sirius. "Give her an assessment, just to make sure she's worthy of the esteemed Sirius Black." He looks a bit worried as we head back inside.
"It looks like I didn't inherit your resistance to veela." She says, with something akin to a mental scowl. "Maybe your sexual preference instead. Might explain why she can do that to me."
"It could just be a coincidence." I answer. "Or something birdy." She rolls her eyes as she lets go of my hand, leaving me to sit beside her new 'enemy'. She glances at me as I sit down, but otherwise ignores me. Maybe I should slap her, an enemy by association. It's faint, but I can see the aura that she gives off. A hazy pink that hangs in the air like perfume, thicker in some places than others, around my body currently. It looks like she's trying to catch me with it again. I decide that ignoring her is probably the best thing for now as I lean back into my seat.
Ignoring this episode, the day has been quite fun so far. I'm not the biggest Quidditch fan, but it's hard to not get caught up with the festivities. The construction of the stadium was nothing short of amazing, hundreds of magical-carpenters and ward builders worked tirelessly to put all the pieces into place. The architects we probably paid more than their weight in gold to plan this all out, and then on top of it all there are the wards, for not just the main stadium, but the whole site too. It's impressive what wizards can achieve when they are putting on an international show. If only they could the same effort into running the country year round. Another great thing is that nobody stared at me when we were walking up here, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to be anonymous. It's a nice break to be out in the normal parts of London, but to have the same in the middle of thousands of wizards in refreshing.
The esteemed Lord Malfoy has also been too busy, probably kissing Fudge's arse, or the other way round, to get revenge on me for interrupting him earlier. The game's not over yet, there's still time.
A/N: I'm not sure what i'm doing any more.