Chapter 2
At the insistence of Helen's dad, both Helen's and Hermione's families went to the Quidditch World Cup. Having been to a couple of the Quidditch games at school neither Helen nor Hermione was very interested in going so both of them brought books about the Tri Wizard Tournament that James had told them about that would take place at Hogwarts that year.
After the game the two families quickly left the camping grounds to go home, except for James who had to stay in his duties as an Auror.
During the train ride to Hogwarts that year it was quite obvious who had parents working in the Ministry or not, as those who had almost all knew of the 'secret' that there was going to be a Tri Wizard Tournament that year.
On the day before Halloween the entire school is assembled in front of the main doors to await the arrival of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Shortly after everyone has settled into good enough rows a large carriage can be seen being pulled through the air by a dozen Abraxan. The carriage lowers to the ground with barely a jolt and stops right in front of the collected Hogwarts students. From within the carriage exits an even twenty students, divided evenly between male and female, together with their Head Mistress and two other teachers.
As Helen looked over the French students she felt herself somehow drawn towards the smallest student, a boy who looked like he was about two years younger than the otherwise youngest student in the group. As she looked at the boy the boy seemed to sense her and turned to look back at her. There eyes meet and, for the first time she can remember, she feels complete, she gazes into the green eyes that so match her own. The locked gaze between the boy and Helen is only interrupted when the rest of the Beauxbatons students start moving and he doesn't, causing the person behind him to give him a small nudge. At that the boy smiles at Helen and moves forwards to settle into his place in the moving column.
They meet again when Hermione and Helen enters the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning. As the two friends sit down to eat a boy dressed in the Beauxbatons school uniform asks politely if he can join them. When Helen looks up at the boy she recognises him from the previous evening and agrees with a smile. "This is my friend Hermione Granger and I'm Helen Potter," she introduces herself and her friend.
Before the boy has a chance to reply Hermione falls back to her little too eager personality that she had mostly gotten a hold on with the help of Helen, "Why are you here? You look like you are at least two years younger than the rest of the students from Beauxbatons, and I thought that only sixth and seventh year students would come, and you would seem to only be in fourth year..." Hermione trails of when she feels Helen's hand on her leg squeezing harder and harder. Thinking back to what she just rambled she blushes and a says a quiet sorry down towards her breakfast plate.
The boy takes a seat across the table from Helen and replies, "Don't worry, it's okay. I'm Harry Marie, I'm am a sixth year student from Beauxbaton." He starts collecting things to eat to his plate but his eyes does not really leave Helen's eyes. "The reason I look younger is that I am, I started school a year early because I had problems with accidental magic, and as I was a year younger than the rest of the first year I was a bit of an outcast, so not really having any friends I spent most of my time studying ahead and at the end of first year I tested straight into third year. It was hard but I managed."
The three engaged into a conversation with Hermione only joining after a while when her blush had finished receding. The three sat together at lunch that day as well but at dinner in the evening he had to sit with the rest of the Beauxbatons students as the Goblet of Fire would be choosing the contestants afterwards.
The first name from the Goblet was Viktor Krum from Durmstrang, the second was Harry Marie, at which point Harry left the room to join Viktor, giving a small wave towards Helen who got a small blush. The third and what should have been the final name was Cedric Diggory, but as Dumbledore was turning to join the champions in the side chamber of the Great Hall a fourth name shot out from the Goblet. Catching the piece of parchment by reflex and with a surprised look on his face he read the last name, "Helen Potter?"
As Helen entered the side room Harry immediately moved over to her and asked what was wrong. At her down look he put two and two together, the noisy mutterings of the crowds outside and with Helen entering like the rest of the champions had, "It choose you too? You did not enter your name did you?" At the small shake of her head he gave her a short comforting hug and lead her up to the other two champions. "It seems that the Goblet of Fire has chosen an unwilling fourth champion for the Tri Wizard Tournament. Let's not make it any harder on her than it already is."
After two Head Masters and the Head Mistress a lively debate started with the adults not letting any of the students have a word in edgewise until Viktor Krum blew a sharp whistle through his fingers shutting everyone up, he then gestured to Harry to speak up. "Helen Potter did not put her name in the Goblet, is there anyway of getting her out from the tournament?" After a short discussion and several shakes of the heads of the school leaders Harry continued, "Then if there is nothing to do about it let's just get this thing going, tell us what we need to know so we can go."
After Barty Crouch told them that they would not get to know what the task was about because it was to test the courage to 'face the unknown' the four champions left the room to rejoin the students. Helen sat back down beside Hermione but after several accusations of cheating she stood up together with her best friend and sat down next to Harry at the Beauxbatons table instead.
The next three and a half weeks Harry and Helen spent almost all the time that they did not have classes together. During the first week until Harry was told by his Head Mistress that the task was about dragons Hermione felt rather useless as there was nothing she could do to help, but after that she spent her time in the library looking through any and all books regarding dragons for spells and other things that could help her friend. Most of the time Harry and Helen spent together was with Harry showing and helping Helen, but every now and then came things that Helen knew that Harry did not, also there were several things that Hermione came up with that neither of them knew beforehand and that they learned together.
A week before the first task was set to start Harry and the two best friends had decided upon tactics that they could use. Harry taught Helen a spell that allowed her to swim through the ground as if it were water, with the limitation that she would not be able to see anything while submerged. The spell itself was fairly easy, the hard part was to never forget what direction was up and to surface exactly where she wanted, as well as being able to keep her breath long enough to get there. Harry practised an advanced camouflage spell, the spell would create a two-dimensional camouflage that you put between yourself and the one you want to hide from. While the spell was pretty much a perfect invisibility against anyone who saw the screen from straight ahead, it would be pretty worthless against a group of people or against someone who you don't know where he is.
The day of the of the first task was finally there, the contestants were showed into a tent beside the arena they had made just for the occasion In the tent they drew the dragons they were going to face from a bag, Victor drew the Swedish Short-Snout and was to be the first out.
By the commentary Viktor blinded his dragon and when the dragon charged at his last known location Viktor ran around and scooped up the egg.
The second to compete was Helen herself with the Welsh Green, she begun casting the spell to allow her to swim the ground as soon as she got out from the tent and into the arena. When the dragon took a breath to blow fire she made a quick glance to make sure of where to emerge for a breath and then dove into the ground. As she was swimming she could feel her feet warm slightly as the dragon fire heated the ground she just left. After swimming to the place she thought was the correct one and stuck her head up. She at first could not place where she was until she remembered that her viewpoint was very close to the ground and that she was facing the wrong direction. She had just turned around and spotted a good place for a second breather when she saw that the dragon was ready to breath another jet of flames. Diving quickly she swam hard for her second point, this time trying hard to turn around to the right direction. This time when she looked she was just a quarter of a turn wrong so she was very quick at spotting where she was going to go next, right next to the Golden Egg that was her goal for the task. By the time she started swimming again the dragon had just barely spotted her and instead of flaming the ground there just looked on in confusion as its prey disappeared down into the ground. Next time she surfaced she did so just inches away from the egg she came to get, so taking a deep breath she grabbed it and took off swimming towards the entrance. She had not counted on it being so hard to swim with just one hand so she had to go up for a breath an extra time on the way back to the safe start area of the arena, though even with that she managed without getting too close to any of the dragon's flames.
Third out is Harry, when he exits the tent he already has the camouflage screen up between himself and the dragon, the Chinese Fireball, as he is walking towards the eggs in a circular route he casts a couple of additional spells, they don't seem to do anything but according to what Harry told her before, the spells are so that the dragon can't smell or hear him. With the dragon still looking towards the entrance to the arena Harry has little problems with carefully lifting the egg out of the nest and then taking the slow route around the dragon again to get back to the entrance.
The last out is Cedric Diggory with the Hungarian Horntail, he tries to distract the huge dragon by transfiguring boulders into dogs but the dogs does not seem to draw the dragons attention much and when they get too close the dragon just smashes them with its tail. He changes his approach and transfigures his fourth animal into a sheep instead and when the dragon lounges to eat it he tries to race past his dragon to snatch the egg. It almost succeeds but the dragon turns quickly around after having snapped up the sheep and swings its tail hitting him in the arm and throwing Cedric from the arena. He was lucky when he was hit that it was only on the blunt edge of the dragon's tail and missed all the sharp spikes, even so he suffered a broken arm and a twisted leg from the landing, all of which Madam Pomphrey had mostly fixed within minutes.
After one week Harry, with the help of Helen and Hermione had figured out that the screeching from opening one of the eggs is mermish. He transfigures a big rock out in the grounds to a big tub and fills it with water where all three dips their heads to listen to it. It took several days, during which he was mostly just sitting and staring at the ceiling, for Harry to remember something he had read in a book more than a year ago. This staring got on Hermiones nerves and if Helen had not been there to calm her down she would have hit him, as it were she loudly accused him of just wasting time when he could have been reading book and figuring out a way to complete the next task. When he finally gets up and goes to the herbology section of the library Hermione thinks that he has just stopped pretending to help and is just doing regular homework or something.
Returning, Harry almost exclaims, "I knew I remembered there were something to help us somewhere. Look at this." He puts the book in front of Helen with it open to show gillyweed.
During the second week after the first task, Professor McGonagall announces the Yule Ball to Helen's class. As the class comes to an end and everyone is leaving class to go to lunch Harry is leaning against the wall across from the door to the room waiting for her. Passing the door he pushes away from the wall he was leaning against and holds out a red rose to her, "Would you do me the honour of going to the Yule Ball with me?" He looks and sounds slightly nervous but when Helen smiles and says yes he gives her a broad smile, both relieved and happy.
At Christmas day Helen hides at the top of the stairs that lead down into the hall in front of the Great Hall trying to spot Harry, she is very nervous, continually making up different scenarios of what bad things that can happen. She has been hiding up there for over five minutes when her best friend Hermione comes having remained in the Gryffindor tower a little longer than Helen to finish fixing her hair. Hermione can almost see the nervousness rolling off her friend in waves and says the only thing that she can think of that would make her not chicken out completely, "Harry must be starting to think that you have stood him up, he has probably been waiting for a while, think of how he must be feeling."
Helen's face gets pale and she almost runs down the stairs, Hermione though catches her arm forcing her to walk in a sedate pace. They walk side by side down the stairs and the people around the bottom clears so that only two persons stand there, Harry and Victor, with Harry only having eyes for his date. As Helen steps off the last step of the staircase Harry walks up to her and takes her hand. "You are beautiful!" he exclaims breathlessly.
Helen and Harry dances almost every dance, holding each other tightly pressed together, when the ball is over Harry walks her all the way to the Gryffindor tower and as they get within sight of the portal into the tower he stops his date and turns her to face him. Holding both of her hands he asks her, "Would you be my girlfriend?"
Helen's smile widens and she takes a moment to collect herself to answer, "Yes, yes I will." Harry's smile at the answer almost splits his head in two and he picks her up and twirls her around.
They walk the short distance remaining to the portrait of the fat lady and their lips meet in a sweet kiss, "This is the best day of my life." Harry whispers. Helen whispers back, "For me too."
Having nine weeks until next task and already knowing what to do the new boyfriend and girlfriend spend more time just cuddling together and sneaking kisses than learning spells and such to help in the task. After two weeks though Harry notices that Helen has been almost ignoring her best friend and makes her take time to spend just with here, even if that reduces their together time.
The last week of February arrives with the second task and the four champions stands beside the Hogwarts lake, Harry standing in the cold February weather in just swimwear. When Helen looks at him askance he reminds her about warming charms. When the task begins Helen throws off her robes and steps out of her shoes and starts to shiver right away, she stuffs the gillyweed into her mouth and swallows it quickly and wades out into the almost freezing water causing her shivers to get even worse. Right by her side is Harry who takes her hand and leads her deeper into the water until it reaches Helen just below her shin and is right around the top of Harry's shoulders. As both of them start having trouble breathing they submerge and sets off swimming side by side, by now the other two contestants have already left their sight as they did not have to wait for a magical herb to start working, though they catch up to an pass Cedric by within just a couple of minutes, of Victor they don't see even a fin.
It takes just barely fifteen minutes to get down into the merfolk village, they had a brief scuffle with some grindylows but they were easily scared away with bursts of hot water. The village itself was small enough that they found the hostages quickly, Helen quickly freed Hermione and Harry freed a girl that looked to be around twelve years old. Together they turned around and started making their way back to the surface, the way back took almost double the time of the way down though, because they could only use one arm to swim with and had to drag their hostages with them.
Arriving back at the start point of the task with at least a good ten minutes left before the gillyweed would wear off Harry summoned two vials of some bright green potion from where he left his robes. Giving one of the vials to Helen and drinking the other one himself the two contestants' gills quickly receded and they could once more breath air so that they could haul their hostages up on land. They were quickly given towels to get dry and into their clothes again while the two that they rescued were revived. The judges for the event decided on giving them almost full scores, with just some taken off because while working together was not stated as being against the rules it was not to be encouraged.
Not feeling like watching the lake for the other champions to surface Harry decided on introducing Helen to the girl that he rescued, his sister Sarah, though it was not long until one of the teachers from Beauxbatons came to collect her to go back to her school again.
The end of year rapidly approached bringing with it the last task as well as end of year exams, when the day of the final task was there both Harry and Helen felt that they were as prepared as they were going to get. Standing in front of the maze Helen was let go first, as she and Harry had gotten the same score on the second task and her performance in the first was deemed to be better, so once she entered the labyrinth she waited for the half minuted it took for Harry to enter it as well at which point they started off together.
Working together the obstacles in the maze was a breeze to pass and it was not many minutes after the last contestant entered the maze that the two arrived to the centre finding the Tri Wizard Cup. After disabling the acromantula they both stand over the cup and wordlessly agree to grab it at the same time. Feeling the pull of the portkey both of them are whisked away to arrive in an almost deserted graveyard.
Almost immediately they hear a voice saying "Kill the spare!" and another voice incanting the killing curse. Both Helen and Harry throws themselves away from the curse in different directions and retaliate with blasting curses, one hitting the person in the head and the other in the chest.
Not seeing any other immediate dangers Harry helps his girlfriend up and starts leading leading her towards the cup, "Let's grab the cup and then I'll apparate us back to the school." He bends down to get the cup without releasing Helen's hand and is surprised by the cup taking them back to school and right in between the maze and the watching crowd. Having only been gone for a couple of minutes no one knows that something had happened and cheered the two of them for winning the Tri Wizard Tournament.
Later that day the two of them spoke to Dumbledore of what happened, Dumbledore went to take a look at the scene, getting the destination from the portkey cup. After coming back he tells them that the person they hit with the spells were a known fugitive Death Eater and that he found the remains of a baby-like homunculus that had contained Voldemort.
After what happened both of them are happy that there are only a few days left before the school lets out for summer so they can have time to come to terms with ending a persons life, even if it was a Death Eater.
As Harry is about to enter the Beauxbatons Carriage to return to France Helen gives him a last kiss and asks if he would come stay with her during the summer if she can convince her parents of it and he gladly agrees.
It takes Helen less than a week to convince her parents to invite Harry to stay with them for the summer, though when Lily and James talk to Harry's parents they invite the whole family to come stay with them for a couple of weeks.
It takes another two weeks for the Marie family to get time off from work and settle affairs to be out of the country for a two week vacation. Helen's parents and Helen herself meet Harry, his sister, parents and a new little brother at the international portkey terminal and they all head to Potter's place.
At dinner during one of the early days of the stay Harry announces that he wants to transfer to Hogwarts for his final year, and when questioned about the reason he admits that he wants to transfer so he can stay closer to his girlfriend. Despite both sets of parents knowing about the relationship they did not know before how serious it was, so all the parents said that they would decide later that week and would let Harry and Helen know. So the four parents spent the next week observing choughspyingchough on the young couple and by the time they had set to decide none of the wanted to break up the oh so adorable couple that where so clearly in love. And so it was decided that Harry could transfer for his last year.
The next school year was busy for both Harry and Helen, with them having NEWT and OWL exams to study for respectively so, according to both of them, they did not get nearly enough time to be alone together. By the time school let out for Christmas break, more often than not, one of their beds stood empty while they both occupied the other one and during the break Harry took Helen out to a fancy restaurant and proposed to her, to which she said yes with tears of happiness streaming down her face.
As the final exams of the year ended Helen had started getting comments that she should eat less and exercise more, though the three month pregnant girl paid them no attention. After the school let out Helen said to Harry that she did not want to continue school, she thought that she could learn anything left that she needed from Harry as he already had his NEWTS, because she wanted to be there for her coming child. To this Harry was completely supportive and with with discussion with both of their parents they all decided that they would marry that coming August when they were both sixteen. Harry went along with Helen's wishes that they would both take the name Potter as she did not want her family name to end with her parents.
With his high grades and having family both in England and France both magical ministries thought he was an ideal candidate as an ambassador between the two countries even with his young age. Harry readily accepted the position.
Helen happily continued as a stay at home mum, though even when she did not need to, she took her NEWTs at the same time as her friend Hermione, all her studying after her OWLs having been done with the help from her husband. She got pregnant three more times, finishing the happy family at six children.
After about three years of marriage they each share a suspicion that they have, that they might actually be real twins, but as neither really care if this is the case or not they never do any tests to find out for sure.
They die peacefully in each others arms after a fulfilling life at one hundred fifty three years of age, having seen their children, grandchildren and many times great grandchildren grow up.