Sirius was at the school the first chance he had, which was during the Hogsmeade weekend. Not only did he want to assure himself that his pup was alright, but he really, really wanted to meet Lilac's mysterious French boyfriend.
Lilac looked ready to hex him.
"Sirius, you are an idiot. Colonello isn't my French boyfriend," said Lal rolling her eyes.
"Then why does he have his arm around your waist, and why did you dress up so nicely for him? Besides, I'm betting he's the bloke you wanted to see at that camp of yours."
"Yup," confirmed Colonello cheerfully. "Colonello 'Cole' Usignolo at your service. But everyone just calls me Colonello for short."
"See! He's your boyfriend, so why are you trying to deny it?" asked Sirius triumphant.
"I wasn't denying that he's my boyfriend. Just that he isn't French," said Lal. Then she looked at Colonello oddly. "Your name is 'Colonel Nightingale'?"
Colonello made a face.
"Why do you think I only go by Cole around others?" he replied.
"Well if you're not French then what are you?"
"An Italian veela," chirped Colonello.
"...There's male veela?" said Sirius in disbelief. He always thought it was a girl's only club.
"Yeah, there's male veela. We have complete control over our allure, a natural ability to turn into full birds instead of partials, and we tend to marry 'in-house' so to speak because our allure is way more powerful than any of the girls. The only ones that are guaranteed to have an immunity to it are the girls, but the Matriarchs are very careful that we never marry into the same branch in order to avoid accidentally mingling cousins," explained Colonello.
At least Sirius was being reasonable about the whole 'male veela' thing, compared to the teachers.
"And before you ask about his allure, the teachers had to stun every female in the room besides me because they were acting like animals in heat and would have tried to rip his clothes off," said Lal.
"I thought you said guys have complete control?"
"Lilac is such a hard ass normally that when she started acting like any other girl with actual hormones, they started getting suspicious about what was actually going on," said Colonello, openly annoyed by that. "I let just a tiny bit of it slip to prove a point."
Sirius looked at his goddaughter.
"Are you happy with him?"
"Yes. He might be an idiot sometimes, but I do like him a lot," said Lal honestly.
Sirius looked at Colonello.
"Do you honestly love my goddaughter?"
"I was fully prepared to petition the Matriarch to seal my magic, just so I had a chance to actually be with her," admitted Colonello.
That got Lal's full attention.
"What?!"
"It's the only way to permanently contain a male veela's allure. If you aren't immune to it, then the only way to insure I never actually slip up is to seal my magic. I'd still be immune to other veela, but I wouldn't be able to influence anyone with my own. To be honest, I probably would have done that anyway just to get away. I love my family, but being surrounded by that many girls is a pain in the ass. Especially when you're expected to marry in-house because of how rare it is for men to born into the Sisterhood," said Colonello.
'Well that explains a lot...like why I never knew Colonello had magic or came from a veela bloodline,' thought Lal.
From the sound of things, Colonello was rather hen-pecked by the Sisterhood because he was a guy who happened to be immune to the allure and was considered 'safe' because he was family. His aunts, cousins and sisters likely kept a close eye on him, driving him batty.
No wonder he was so quick to memorize her monthly schedule and knew exactly what to say to help appease the her inner demon that always came out during that time of the month.
Sirius looked between the two of them and saw a much stronger love than Lily and James had before their deaths.
"You have my approval, but if you hurt her then I call first dibs after she's done turning you into target practice with that armory of hers...and set Fluffy on you."
Colonello blinked.
"Armory? What armory?" he said confused. He looked at his girlfriend.
"He hasn't seen it yet?"
"I'm still reeling from the fact he's a wizard. The idiot had the audacity to sweep me off my feet in a princess carry the second he realized I was a witch that attended Hogwarts," said Lal in open embarrassment.
Sirius let out a bark of laughter hearing that. It seemed his pup was in very good hands if her boyfriend felt secure of her feelings for him to pull a stunt that brazen. The fact she hadn't shot him for it with her gun that he knew all too well she kept strapped to her leg and hidden under her skirt at all times said that she hadn't been too irate about the move either.
A few hours later...
"Why is it that the guy who has to attend mandatory therapy sessions was perfectly okay with the idea of us dating and actually bothers to ask whether or not I'm influencing you, but the teachers jump to conclusions first and ask after all hell breaks loose?" asked Colonello later.
"Probably because he knows perfectly well that if you were influencing me I would shoot you repeatedly with the things I have in my case, and because he knew there had to be a reason why I wanted to go back to that camp despite the fact it severely limited our time together since he's started to stabilize. It's mostly the armory thing though."
"What's this about an armory anyway?" asked Colonello.
It wasn't like his fierce angel had an large amount of weapons lying around, right?
The smile on her face was somewhat terrifying, and he was happy it wasn't aimed with any ire towards him.
Colonello walked out of Lal's special case slightly terrified...and highly aroused.
Seriously, Lilac had to be his soul mate. How many other witches was he going to find that walked around with that much ordinance and a knowledge of how to use anti-tank rifles like it was nothing? Hell, she and actual tank in that case and ammunition to go with it, and even offered to let him drive it for a bit in the Room of Requirement to blow shit up!
He was head over heels in love with this girl and there was no turning back.
He knew that much when she said with a smug expression on her face "Bitches love cannons"...while holding a pair of fully automatic rifles in her both hands and able to aim them accurately enough to do a lot of damage.
(He was also not admitting to Fleur or any of the women in his family the wicked, wicked things Lilac had said to him when he got a chance to try out the tank she had in her armory. Though the look Fleur gave him when she noticed the fact he had to use a cleaning charm on his pants said she knew too much for his liking.)
Lal was not in a happy mood, but at least she knew exactly what was going to happen so she didn't stress overly much about the details.
Flitwick had been pleasantly surprised when she asked to take her Ordinary Wizarding Levels anyway, despite being exempt from them as a champion.
The first thing she did upon leaving the tent...was to change out of the ridiculous 'outfit' they made the champions were.
Her shirt and pants became much more form fitting and far less tacky to look at. Her shoes were left alone as she had worn her favorite combat boots, as was her rather sloppy pony tail.
She heard a wolf-whistle and flipped Colonello off.
She took one look at the Horntail and smirked.
"AVIS!"
She put a lot more power into a summon bird summoning charm. Then again, it wasn't likely the wizards knew exactly what she was summoning in the first place.
A massive creature, which was decidedly not bird-like in form or feature, appeared from her wand.
It was bigger than the actual dragon, and had leathery skin. The small arms were off-set by the thick legs clearly meant for running hard at long distances to catch prey. Jaws that could only belong to a carnivore dripped saliva, and had teeth that made the wizards very nervous. A long, thick tail moved easily, to keep balance. Small eyes tracked every movement made, but there was no doubting this was an apex predator.
It looked like a big dragon without wings, to be honest.
The second it roared, over half the audience pissed themselves in fear.
Colonello, on the other hand, starting howling with laughter so hard that he was having trouble breathing. Trust his fierce angel to use a simple bird conjuring spell to create the Tyrant Lizard!
"Get 'em Rexy!" shouted Lal, though it was clear she was close to cackling herself.
The T-Rex roared, and the dragon roared back.
While the fire-breathing lizard was distracted by the dinosaur, Lal slid under the ancient predator to grab the egg.
However the second she did, her face twitched.
"WHAT IDIOT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CARING FOR THESE NESTS? THESE EGGS ARE ALMOST STONE COLD!"she shouted infuriated.
No wonder the horntail was pissed! She probably sensed the eggs were dead, or about to be!
Lal didn't even think twice...she blasted the chains holding the dragon in place and the dispelled the T-Rex once she was out of the dragon's range.
The horntail focused on her eggs, rather than the witch. It started desperately breathing fire onto the nest in hopes of saving the hatchlings inside.
Seeing the dragon handlers come on to the scene, likely to pull the dragon back, Lal saw red and dropped the egg.
She stormed up to them, looking very much like a dragon herself and went straight up to one Charlie Weasley.
"Which one of your idiot co-workers was in charge of the eggs?" she demanded.
Charlie blinked. Suddenly the twin's comments that Lilac Potter was like a miniature female version of Bill made a lot more sense.
"That would be Igov. What's wrong?"
"That nest was almost stone cold when I took the fake from it. I may not know dragons as well as you, but I do know they require a large source of heat to stay viable until hatching! Whoever chained the dragon up put it too far to properly keep those eggs warm, and if that nest was cold then you had better check the ones that didn't get smashed as well! I'd love to see how you explain to your supervisors why you allowed four perfectly good nests be destroyed for a mere tournament when props that were fire resistant could have been used instead!"
Charlie winced.
"Shit...she's right, this nest is almost completely dead! At least four of them are goners, and the last three will need careful attention to avoid being killed off in the egg!" shouted another handler.
Her job done, she picked up the fake and went to the medical tent.
Only to find the other champions staring at her.
"What?"
"What in the hell did you summon that roared like that?" asked Cedric.
"A Tyrannosaurus Rex," said Lal without hesitation.
Fleur sputtered.
"Well that explains why I heard an idiot laughing his ass off," said Fleur.
"What the hell is a Tyrannosaurus Rex?" asked Cedric.
Lal's smirk did not inspire warm and fuzzy feelings.
"Would you like to see for yourself?"
The boys wisely shut their traps. Fleur merely smirked.
When Colonello came in to give his girlfriend a congratulatory kiss, he was still snickering.
"Oh god, their faces when you made that dinosaur instead of a flock of birds! Half the guys around me literally shit their pants!" cackled Colonello with appreciation.
Lal smirked with feminine superiority.
"Well they do say that the T-Rex is loosely related to chickens...besides, I made sure to practice that trick last year."
It was a great way to exercise her core, and forced her magic to become much more flexible when it came to interpretting what she wanted.
"If you two must make out, then for the love of magic do it outside. I do not want to see my cousin with his girlfriend," said Fleur rolling her eyes.
"Can do, cuz," said Colonello with a grin.
"What...put me down you idiot!" shouted Lal flustered. She beat upon Colonello's back as he had scooped her up like a sack of potatoes.
"Nope," he said cheerfully, before absconding with his girlfriend for a bit.
"...Never thought I'd see the day the Demon of Ravenclaw would be bested by a guy...and not try to hex him for it," said Cedric after a moment, staring after them.
"Why do you call her that?" asked Viktor.
"When you piss her off, she becomes a demon in the form of a tiny underclassman. I know for a fact the teachers are making her one of the Prefects next year," deadpanned Cedric. "She's the only person in the castle that's ever gotten the Weasley twins to behave and not try to go behind her back after...not even McGonagall had managed that and she's tried."
"Sounds like a fearsome woman," said Viktor.
"Most of the students wisely fear pissing her off...but at the same time the younger students all love her. She's like a big sister figure to them and I know she's taken one of the younger eagles in as her little sister to the point of sharing her dorm with her."
Fleur snickered.
"In other words, she has the 'mom' voice down pat."