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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 Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
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.~*~.
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The day Teddy was scheduled to leave for Quidditch school dawned very differently than the day Harry had watched him fly in his back garden. Firstly, the string of good weather they'd been enjoying had broken, and the dark grey sky above had been hammering them with rain since the early morning hours. Secondly, Teddy no longer wanted to go. Sometime on Saturday afternoon a case of nerves had started to grow inside him at the idea of being away from home for two weeks, and by dinnertime that evening, he'd said he'd changed his mind and didn't want to go after all. His nervousness had increased all day on Sunday, and by Monday morning, the poor boy had nearly worried himself sick.
"Maybe we shouldn't make him go," Harry had suggested to Andromeda when he'd arrived and had seen the state Teddy was in. Teddy had inherited his mother's Metamorphmagus abilities and normally had his hair coloured some garish shade—most frequently Chudley Cannons orange—but that morning it was its natural shade of light brown, the same as his father's had been. At that moment, Teddy looked exactly like what Harry reckoned Remus had looked like at that age.
"Not a bit of it," Andromeda had said confidently. "By this time tomorrow, his fears will have been forgotten and he will have made friends with half of the other children." With a fond smile for Harry, she added, "Godfathers aren't the only ones who worry when a child leaves home for the first time."
Harry was unconvinced. Teddy looked miserable. If he didn't want to go, Harry saw no reason to force him.
"Trust me. Teddy will be fine," Andromeda assured him. Looking at Teddy sitting dejectedly on the sofa, she said, "We were just talking about how afraid his mother was the morning she left for Hogwarts for the first time. He doesn't believe me."
"Mum was an Auror," Teddy said. "She and dad weren't afraid of anything, ever."
Andromeda and Harry shared a glance, both thinking the same thought. All of Teddy's life, they'd told him how brave his parents had been. Maybe they'd overdone it, set them on too high a pedestal.
Andromeda sat down beside the young boy and stroked his hair. "Teddy, your mum was so brave, but that doesn't mean she was never afraid, far from it."
As Andromeda talked, Harry remembered when Remus had told him that he and Tonks were going to have a baby. It should have been one of the happiest times in Remus' life, but he'd been so utterly terrified and guilt-ridden that he'd passed on is lycanthropy to his unborn child, he'd run.
"Your dad, too, mate," Harry said.
It took some time, but eventually a few stories of times when his parents had been afraid—and a whispered promise from Harry, which Andromeda pretended not to hear, that if he really didn't like it after a couple of days, Harry'd come and bring him home—convinced Teddy to give it a try.
"But you'll come get me, right?" Teddy asked quietly when his grandmother left the room to fetch the Portkey they'd been sent to take them to France.
"Promise," Harry answered.
Mollified by the prospect of only two days away from home as opposed to two weeks, Teddy bent down to give his Crup, Finney, some last minute scratches, and Harry slipped away to follow Andromeda into the kitchen. He found her adding a plate full of Teddy's favourite Snickerdoodle biscuits into his already-packed trunk.
"A little surprise for when he unpacks," she said, not meeting Harry's eyes.
He waited to see if she would add anything before asking, "Decided anything?"
After sharing Malfoy's letter with Hermione, the next thing Harry had done was to visit Andromeda. Learning the nephew she'd never met—nor expected to ever meet—was the one running the Quidditch school had been a surprise that had unsettled her, but it had been nothing compared to the surprise she'd received three days later when a letter from her sister arrived.
Narcissa Malfoy had invited Andromeda Tonks to tea.
"No. I have not," Andromeda said in a soft tone as she closed the trunk. She sat down and rubbed her forehead. Restless, she looked around the room before saying, "Perhaps that means I should accept. After all, if I was definitely resolved against it, I'd have said so at once."
Harry didn't respond. While they were agreed that Draco's involvement with the school should not keep Teddy from attending, he honestly didn't know what he would do in her position, and he didn't want to influence her decision. As he stood in her tidy little kitchen, Harry wondered what she was thinking. Was she remembering happy times she and her sister had shared as children—impossible as it was for Harry to imagine Narcissa Malfoy as a child—or was she haunted by less pleasant memories? He hoped it was the former.
Teddy came into the room. Apart from the broom slung over his shoulder, he looked as if he were on his way to the Healers for a particularly nasty potion.
An elaborate cuckoo clock Harry knew Andromeda and her husband had bought on their honeymoon in a small magical village in the Black Forest marked the hour, and Andromeda startled as a small yellow bird flew out and fluttered around the room, chirping, before little lederhosen–clad children danced and sang. The portkey lying on the table was set to transport them to Paris in three minutes. She stood, no sign of anything weighing on her mind visible in her face or demeanour any longer. She was the picture of enthusiasm as she looked at Teddy.
"All ready, then?" she asked.
Teddy shrugged.
Harry ruffled his hair. "You're going to have fun, mate. You wait and see."
Teddy shrugged again.
The second hand of the clock ticked, the sound seeming to grow ominously louder as the remaining time passed. When it was nearly time, Harry picked up the Portkey, an old water bottle, and held it out. Andromeda and Teddy touched a finger to the bottle, Teddy as if afraid it might bite him, and seconds later, they vanished.
In the years since Harry's first time travelling by Portkey he'd got better at it, but only marginally so—to this day his feet hit the ground hard enough to jar every bone in his body, but at least he remained standing. They'd arrived at the International Portkey Station at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, from where they would travel to Beauxbatons in one of the schools carriages, just as the Beauxbatons students had once arrived at Hogwarts.
"Three past eleven from Tauntaun?" asked a uniformed young wizard in accented English.
"Taunton," Harry correct as he handed over the used Portkey.
"And you are Mr Potter?" the man asked, checking them off the clipboard he held.
For Harry, whose face was instantly recognised wherever he went in Britain, having to confirm his identity was a welcome novelty. "That's me."
"Très bien. If you will follow me, s'il vous plaît, ze carriage to take you on to Beauxbatons will be departing shortly." He extended an arm towards a door at the back of the room. "We are still expecting two more pupils for ze school. Zere are refreshments on board ze carriage. I 'ope you will enjoy your stay in France."
Teddy followed Harry and Andromeda through the door with his eyes downcast, raising them only when his grandmother asked, "Well, Teddy, what do you think?"
When he looked up, his eyes widened, their natural dark brown colour twinkling like Harry remembered his mother's doing. "Whoa," he said, awed.
Harry agreed. Outside the Portkey Station door was one of the most bizarre sights he had ever seen. The pale blue carriage that awaited them was exactly like the one Harry remembered the Beauxbatons students arriving at Hogwarts in. Its four wheels were twice the height of the average man and the carriage itself was the size of his house, but the most impressive sight was the dozen golden, winged, elephant-sized horses that would pull it through the air. In the background dozens of jet airliners arriving and departing, being taxied here or there, or arranged around tentacle-like corridors extending from de Gaulle's Terminal Two, created a bizarre juxtaposition of magical and Muggle travel.
"Cool," Teddy said just a little breathlessly.
Andromeda and Harry caught each other's eyes over Teddy's head.
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.~*~.
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Draco was not happy. This was the last thing he needed. One more trivial demand from one more over-inflated former Quidditch player . . . He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. In front of him, his star student bit her lip, the corners of her mouth twitching uncontrollably as she tried not to laugh.
"Répète-moi ça, s'il-te-plait," he said.
Émilie Renaud would begin her final year at Beauxbatons in September and was one of several students who'd agreed to work at the Quidditch school in the hopes of meeting some of the biggest names in the sport in the past twenty years. A Seeker like he himself had been, she had dreams of playing professional Quidditch herself one day, and Draco felt she had a real shot. She had both the natural talent and work ethic that could make it happen; she only lacked the confidence in her own ability. He only hoped actually meeting the players she strove to fly like didn't turn her off the sport for good before she found that confidence.
Émilie repeated the message she'd been given for him—that Hildegarde Lafarge, the famous Chaser from the 1994 French National Team, was demanding her room be changed because it did not offer her as nice a view as the room assigned to Mathilde Mallard boasted.
Draco grit his teeth. Personally, he was convinced the real reason the two women made such effective Chasers, throwing the Quaffle to each other with such strength and precision, wasn't their drive to score goals, it was because they hoped to knock the other off her broom.
He told Émilie he would take care of it, but in truth, Draco had a far more pressing matter to contend with than the renowned rivalry between the former teammates. Viktor Krum—who, being the youngest Seeker to fly in the Quidditch World Cup in a hundred years, was arguably the biggest draw of any of the former players they had got to coach at the school—had not arrived as scheduled. The Portkey the man had been sent had arrived at the de Gaulle Portkey Station with no passenger, and the two international Floo calls Draco had made had gone unanswered. Despite his international renown, Krum had been the easiest player to work with. Draco'd had premonitions of one or two of the other players pulling something like this, but he would had not have expected it of Krum, which made the man's behaviour all the more infuriating.
On top of that, the carriage from Great Britain was scheduled to arrive any minute, carrying Potter and Draco's aunt and cousin, along with the few students whose families had not pulled them after seeing just who it was running the school.
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.~*~.
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"Look—Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter."
"That's Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter!"
The whispers that greeted Harry when he stepped into the carriage erased any lingering sense of freedom having to confirm his identity to the Portkey Station attendant had given him, and with a repressed sigh he slipped into the familiar routine of ignoring his name being spoken by strangers in hushed, awestruck tones, as if he were some rare mythical creature and not just a man like any other.
As large as the carriage was, the inside was bigger still. In addition to tables of the refreshments the attendant had mentioned, Harry reckoned there was seating for at least fifty or sixty passengers arranged in clusters of comfortable looking chairs around low tables, but most of them were empty. Harry counted four kids Teddy's age, and the attendant had said they were expecting two more. Only seven students from Great Britain? Could that be right? From all the advertising that had been run in the Daily Prophet and the articles on which former Quidditch stars had signed on, Harry had got the impression there would be more than twice that many.
Unless—
"See, Mary? What did I tell you?" whispered a man with a Scottish accent, his voice carrying far more than he likely realised. "Why, Harry Potter himself is still willing to allow his godson to attend the school."
"I still don't like it, Malcolm," the woman responded, leaning over the child seated between them. "And you know what the—"
The woman never finished her sentence, shushed by her husband who seemed to suddenly realise they were not speaking quite as softly as they'd thought, but Harry knew what the unspoken rest of the sentence was.
"And you know what the boy's father was."
"Teddy, let's get something to eat, yeah?" he said, and the three of them made their way to the food tables, turning their backs on the murmuring crowd. There was an extensive array of foods spread out: breads and cheese, a variety of hors d'oeuvres, quiches, tartlets—both savoury and sweet, finger sandwiches, fruits, petit fours. . . Teddy would certainly be well fed while at Beauxbatons.
Their first glimpse of Beauxbatons Palace through the carriage window came about two hours after departing Paris and was nothing short of breath-taking. The palace was truly stunning: several storeys of ornately decorated white limestone, rows upon rows of long rectangular, mullioned windows, and huge round towers topped by steep slate roofs adorned with tall wrought iron spires and elaborate cresting.
Harry sneaked a peek at Teddy, who was staring out the window in wide-eyed wonder, his hair taking on a noticeably orange tint.
"Whoa!" exclaimed a young boy, drawing the attention of several others nearby. "Your hair just changed colour!"
It was as much the boy's Scottish accent that drew Harry's attention as his words. It was this boy's parents whose not-so-whispered conversation Harry had overheard when they'd boarded.
Teddy smiled and said, "That's nothing." A second later, his hair was the same shade of powder blue as the carriage they rode in.
"Sick!" said the boy.
.~*~.
The carriage appeared over the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees right on time, and as Draco watched it circle once, showing off the school and surrounding gardens to its passengers, he wondered what in the name of Nicolas Flamel he was supposed to say when he met his aunt and cousin. The only thing to do, he decided, was to adopt an air of professional detachment, to treat them as if they were any other student and his family. After all, he had no reason to think his aunt had any interest in acknowledging their connection—she would surely have responded to his mother's invitation if she had. While he was disappointed for his mother, Draco couldn't honestly say he was surprised. His aunt had lost both her husband and daughter during the war—her daughter to the wand of another sister—and truth to tell, the guilt he still felt for his part in the war left him feeling ill at the thought of meeting her. How could forgiveness be hoped after such a loss? Maybe, had they survived the war, there would have been a chance, but as it was . . .
Potter was another matter. Andromeda Tonks and Teddy Lupin might be his nearest blood relations after his mother, but they were perfect strangers to him. The same could not be said for Potter and himself.
And, as if Potter and his aunt and cousin weren't enough, there were also the other passengers on board to be dealt with. He felt a terrible sense of foreboding that he was about to become the centre of a very ugly scene caused by people who had somehow missed his name being included in the information packets he'd sent out.
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.~*~.
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As well aware as Harry was of the effectiveness of well-cast cushioning charms, he still remembered the violence with which the Beauxbatons carriage had slammed down onto the ground at Hogwarts, and he couldn't help bracing for the impact as if they were all about to be thrown about the carriage, half imagining something similar to landing a flying car on a Whomping Willow. When they did land, though, it felt so gentle and smooth he'd scarcely have known they'd touched down were it not for the teenaged boy in pale blue robes who had travelled with them standing and proudly welcoming them to Beauxbatons.
"Okay," Harry admitted as he and Andromeda followed Teddy and the boy with the Scottish accent—who, they'd learnt in the past few minutes, was called Douglas, liked to play Chaser best (because if your Chasers are good enough, it doesn't matter how good your Seeker is!), had two sisters and a brother and also had a pet Crup—down the stairs. "You were right."
Douglas, Harry liked just fine, but the boy's parents continued to gape at him like he was a shiny object and they were a pair of Nifflers. He and Andromeda had introduced themselves after the boys had begun talking. The boy's mother had almost swooned.
"Of course I was," Andromeda responded, clearly saying "I told you so" without actually saying the words.
The horses had pulled the carriage around to the side of the palace before the door had been opened and the stairs lowered, and when the passengers disembarked, they found themselves on a grand terrace facing a courtyard enclosed on three sides by the palace and on the fourth by a wall of five large arches, each standing three storeys tall. The pillars dividing the arches were heavily decorated and flanked on both ends by perfectly groomed potted topiaries that were more than twice as tall as Harry. In the centre arch stood a statue of a man who waved to people and greeted them as they passed by, and in the arches on either end hung pale blue banners trimmed in gold and bearing the Beauxbatons crest.
Walking through one of the open arches, came Draco Malfoy.
"Oh, my," breathed Andromeda. "So that's him," she said in a very controlled tone of voice that betrayed nothing of what she thought or felt.
"That's him," Harry confirmed in a whisper.
"That's who, Gran?" Teddy asked.
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.~*~.
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Allez, tu peux le faire, Draco told himself as he walked towards the carriage.
Almost right away, he saw them. How could he not with the way the rest of the small group of people standing near the carriage seemed to draw back as one as he neared? Draco was glad his mother had warned him how closely her sisters had resembled each other; had she not, he might have drawn back himself. The resemblance was uncanny. Even knowing it was not Bellatrix standing there, his mouth went dry from the strength of the likeness.
As for the boy, his cousin, it was hard to take in anything other than a head full of blue hair—a perfect shade of Beauxbaton's blue. A bit of accidental magic, Draco reckoned.
Then there was Potter. Draco had always maintained an image of Potter in his head as he'd been when they were younger. In spite of the fact that they were both nearly thirty, Draco still pictured Potter as scrawny and speccy and wearing obviously hand-me-down clothes that looked like their first owner had had some giant blood in him. It was safe to say the man standing beside the Bellatrix Lestrange look-alike and the blue-haired boy put that image to rest. Well-made robes—bespoke, if Draco was not mistaken—not tall, but nice broad shoulders, not handsome per se, but unquestionably attractive.
"Welcome to Beauxbatons," Draco said loudly, consciously reminding himself to speak in English despite the translation charms and ignoring the blatant staring and whispering of the rest of the pitifully small crowd. They'd had their chance to cancel like all the rest had. If they'd not wanted to contend with him, they ought to have done so. "I am Draco Malfoy, Flying Instructor and Quidditch Referee, and for the next fortnight, Director of the Beauxbatons Summer Quidditch School."
The whispering had quieted immediately as he'd spoken, and Draco now waited for the objections to begin, but the first voice raised was not raised in protest.
"Draco," Potter said, his voice loud and clear as he stepped forward and extended his hand. "It's good to see you again."
A step behind Potter came his aunt and cousin. Andromeda Tonks looked at him with appraising eyes. Like most of the other adults, her hand lay on her grandson's shoulder, but in a softer way than the rest, who all looked as if they expected him to attempt to snatch their children away and use them as potions ingredients.
"Potter," Draco said in greeting.
It felt odd, shaking Potter's hand, but odder still was when Draco's aunt reached for his hand with both of hers the moment Potter released it.
"Draco," she said, "I am pleased to meet you. This is Teddy."
Draco now saw why his mother had qualified her statement that her sisters could only be mistaken one for the other upon first glance. Not for one minute in her entire life had Bellatrix's face held the softness this woman's did. The resemblance was in the bones, but the women's divergent personalities countered it the moment one really looked.
"Hi," Teddy said, sounding as uncertain as Draco felt.
"Teddy, Draco is your cousin. His mother is my sister."
"Whoa!" Teddy exclaimed, looking at his grandmother in surprise. "Gran, you've got a sister?"
"Yes, I have. I am joining her for tea this afternoon after we say good-bye. If," she looked at Draco, "the invitation is still open?"
"I—I'm sure it is," Draco responded.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Teddy asked, looking between his grandmother and Potter.
Andromeda sighed. "It's a long story, Teddy."
At that age, Draco would never have accepted such a response as being the end of the matter, even for the time being, but the boy's immediate leaving off of the subject testified to how many "long stories" he'd born witness to in his ten years. Draco felt a rush of protectiveness for him.
The rest of the new arrivals had remained quiet when Potter had first come up to him, but now the low murmur of whispered voices could be heard again. Potter's and his aunt's behaviour surprised Draco, but he didn't have time to think on it. One by one, the other families began to come up to him, as if following Potter's lead, albeit reluctantly.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Potter whispered to him.
Draco looked at him, confused. What was one supposed to look like after seeing a ghost? He'd seen hundreds. They both had.
Potter's lips pressed firmly together, and his shoulders shook.
Draco ignored him.
"If you'll all follow me, some of our staff are waiting to sign your children in," Draco said to the crowd, beginning the same welcome speech he'd given several times that day already. He led the group into the school's courtyard, and as they passed through one of the arches, Draco paused and waved his hand towards a marble statue in introduction. "May I introduce Mr Nicolas Flamel, Beauxbatons' most accomplished alumnus."
"Bienvenue à Beauxbâtons!" the statue said as he bowed to the crowd.
"Mr Flamel was the greatest alchemist in history. Born in the year 1327, he lived to be six hundred and sixty five years old." Draco waited while the children "Ooohed!" and the statue downplayed the complement to his skill—"Really, much too kind"— before finishing, "Before the International Confederation of Wizards established the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, his accomplishments were known throughout the Muggle world as well as our own, and to this day there are streets in Muggle Paris named for both him and his wife, Perenelle. He has also been mentioned in some of the Muggle world's best-known works of fiction, most notably Viktor Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'."
"À bientôt,," called the statue as Draco led the group into the courtyard, where a throng of Beauxbatons students was waiting to take them off his hands.
"After their first two years, during which all students reside in the same house, Beauxbatons students are sorted into one of four houses, dependent on the aptitude they've shown for different disciplines of magical study," Draco explained. "They are Toubeau, Malecrit, Trèfle and Bonaccord. Whilst your children are with us, boys will be housed in Bonaccord House and girls in Toubeau House.
"The grounds and gardens surrounding the palace are open to the students in their entirety. However, for practical purposes, the only areas of the palace which will be open to Quidditch school students, in addition to Bonaccord and Toubeau Houses, are the dining hall and the Flamel Library. As explained in the literature you were all sent, there are students attending the school from over twenty countries, and translation charms have been woven over all areas open to students.
"Students will share dorms according to nationality, and for the first week will remain in those groups for practice sessions for all positions. During the first half of the second week, new groups will be formed according to preferred position, and for the last two days of the programme, teams will be assigned and matches will be played."
As the other groups he'd welcomed so far had, the children all grew excited at the prospect of playing in a real Quidditch match, and eager glances passed between them.
Several teenagers had gathered around him with their enchanted parchments, ready to sign the students in, and Draco planned to hand them over, say his au revoirs and make his escape as quickly and unobtrusively as possible—he still had a renegade Seeker to locate and drag bodily to France, if necessary.
His aunt and cousin were claimed by the Keeper for Trèfle House to be signed in, but Potter lingered at his side. "I don't reckon there's another group of kids from Britain arriving on another carriage?" Potter asked in a hushed voice that held more tact than Draco would have thought him capable of.
"No. Zere is not."
Potter looked at him, his eyebrows raised.
Striving to remember his position and everything he owed to Madame Maxime, Draco fought to keep his tone professional, but that Potter would have the nerve to act surprised at the comparatively low turnout of British students set his teeth on edge, and he knew some of his irritation made its way to his voice. "I fully expected you to cancel as well," he said.
Potter had the decency to act abashed, and he looked at the ground. "I did consider it—briefly."
"Monsieur Malfoy!" called a teenage boy called Mathieu Allemande, one of the Bonaccord Beaters, as he ran up to them. Reaching them, the young man said, "C'est M. Krum."
"Enfin. Il est arrivé?" Draco responded.
"Non."
"Non?" questioned Draco rather more sternly than he'd intended and slipping naturally back into French as he led the boy away from the crowd, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Purposely arriving late to make a big entrance was one thing, but this was taking the Snitch. Krum was rapidly approaching the time when one stops feeling irritation at the lateness of the arrival and begins fearing the arrival will not take place at all. Almost every person he'd spoken to that day had asked about Krum, and the last thing Draco wanted was for a rumour the man was not going to be present as advertised to break out.
" Non, Monsieur. J'étais dans votre bureau pour récupérer les parchemins pour les prochaines arrivées quand j'ai entendu quelqu'un vous appeler par Cheminette. C'était Madame Krum," Mathieu explained.
Draco sincerely hoped Mathieu was about to tell him a funny story about Krum standing in his kitchen at the appointed time holding a used tea bag or some such rubbish and wondering why he wasn't being Portkeyed to Paris whilst the Portkey Draco had sent him, half an old shoelace, arrived at de Gaulle without him.
"Elle dit qu'elle en est très désolée mais que son mari ne pourra pas être là avant dimanche."
Draco grit his teeth together. "Dimanche."
Mathieu winced. "Oui, Monsieur. Elle a dit que M. Krum était très malade, et que son guérisseur lui a interdit de sortir avant dimanche." Mathieu mentioned the name of the disease Krum's wife had said her husband had been diagnosed with, but Draco had never heard of it. Apparently, it was some extremely contagious Muggle thing, and as it had been misdiagnosed for several days, it had progressed beyond the point any potion might have helped.
Visions of hordes of irate families filled Draco's mind, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Wherever Madame Canfield was spending her summer holiday, he hoped she was enjoying herself, because the moment he saw her he was going to hex her into a turnip and feed her to a goat.
"Is something wrong?" Potter asked quietly from behind him, making Draco grit his teeth harder. If he'd wanted to include the man in the conversation, he'd not have led Mathieu away. "Is Viktor alright? He did mention he'd been feeling poorly when I talked to him Saturday—caught a cold, he said, but the potion his Healer gave him hadn't fixed him up at all."
"Krum hasn't got a cold. He's got something called measles," Draco responded tersely. He'd been about to curse the ineptitude of Bulgarian Healers, but the expression on Potter's face stopped him.
"Keep your voice down," Potter hissed. He looked around them anxiously. Taking both Draco and Mathieu by the arm, he urged them farther from the rest of the people in the courtyard. He looked at Draco very seriously. "Have you been in contact with him in the past several days? In person, I mean," he asked, keeping his own voice barely above a whisper.
"No," Draco answered.
Potter exhaled and closed his eyes. "Thank God," he said. "Nor've I. I only spoke to him through the Floo. Is there anyone here who might've been in direct contact with him in the past week or so?"
The seriousness with which Potter took the risk of exposure to whatever this Muggle disease was sunk in with Draco, and the visions of irate families were replaced with ones of the children he was responsible for falling ill. "No. Alexei Levski and Clara Ivanova are here, but they both said they haven't seen him in ages and were looking forward to seeing him again. The students from Bulgaria arrived an hour ago. They all said how excited they were to meet him, as did practically every single other person. But look here, Potter, what is this measles? Is it dangerous? I've got a couple of hundred kids and their families here already, and as many more en route."
"It's is an extremely contagious Muggle disease. In rare occasions, it can be very serious. It used to be really widespread, but they can prevent it now, so it's become really rare. Malfoy, if Krum had come here not knowing he had measles, it would have been a nightmare. Merlin knows how many people could have been infected, every single person here would have been at risk, unless they were Muggle-born and had been given the Muggle vaccine as children."
Draco swallowed, the scope of the problem they might have faced apparent to him now.
Inhaling, he turned his attention back to the problem at hand: the biggest name they had got to coach at the school would not be joining them for several days—if at all. He could not assume Krum would be fit to teach Seeking to hundreds of children after an illness. There would be an uproar when he broke the news, Draco was sure, but at the moment there was nothing he could do about that. On a more practical note, he was down a Seeker.
À moins que . . .
Years ago, when the news broke that the Cannons' new star Seeker Evan Griffin was really Harry Potter in disguise, the story had been big enough that it jumped the Channel and made it into the French newspapers. Draco looked at Potter with great reluctance, but the fact was that he needed to find a Seeker fast, and short though his career had been, Potter had played Seeker for the Cannons. As much as Draco hated to do it, desperate times called for desperate measures. Where else was he supposed to find a new Seeker on less than a day's notice? He had just enough retired players to keep the groups of kids at a manageable size, and he wanted to keep it that way.
"Got any plans for the next week or two, Potter?" he asked. "Want a job?"
"I've already got a job," Potter answered, what Draco was actually asking him going right over his head.
"I don't suppose you'd be interested in a holiday in France? Well, a working holiday, really"
Potters eyes widened comically as he caught on.
"I need a Seeker. You were a Seeker." Et tu es sur place, Draco added to himself.
"But only for two years," Potter protested.
"Two brilliant years," Draco admitted honestly. If Potter had been only mediocre, his career would have likely lasted longer. It was because he'd been so damned good—on a team renowned for coming in dead last—that so much interest had built up around him. The Cannons had gone from having last place safely to themselves to fighting their way up the standings in the two years Potter had flown for them. There'd been no way he was going to escape notice.
"I was alright," Potter admitted as he looked at the ground and shrugged.
"You were better than alright, and you know it. You know what your record was. That was your downfall, you know. You were too good to stay unnoticed.
"If there is any possible way you could clear the next two weeks of your schedule, I've got a few hundred kids who want to learn to catch a Snitch," Draco offered as last ditch effort, hoping a reminder of the kids would sway the man where helping him certainly wouldn't. "Even just one week. Krum should be alright for the second week, according to his wife." Draco wasn't at all sure he would be, but he hoped Potter might be more willing to rearrange his schedule for one week than for two. The second week of the school, Draco could deal with later if he had to.
"Harry! You should see my dorm!" Teddy shouted as he ran up to them. "You can see the pitch from the common room windows, and me and Douglas got beds right next to each other!"
"Really? Wow, that's great." Potter responded, his whole face changing when he looked at his godson.
Draco wanted to sigh with relief. The look on Potter's face said it all. He was staying, Draco was sure of it.
"What would you say if I were to stick around for a few days and help coach?" Potter asked the boy.
Draco smiled. If Potter ever played poker, he'd lose his shirt.
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Hope you enjoyed chapter 3!