A/N: Here's chapter 1! I've thought about it, and decided that I'm not going to do a threesome pairing, so it's just going to be Harry/Gabrielle, though that's a long way off. A reviewer pointed out that this story is about Harry and the Delacours, and that doing that would take away from the eventual pairing. I happen to agree with this assessment. I'm going to try to follow this story through with a sequel in the same world, where she will eventually be old enough to become more romantically involved with him. Then he'll kill Voldemort and save the world and all of that rot.

Disclaimer: I do not own any familiar references. All familiar characters, settings, and creatures are the property of J.K. Rowling. There is some (not very much, but some) text that was copied directly from GOF. I doubly do not own this. That is why you may recognize it.

October 30st, 1994—Present Day (this is the last date marker that you get)

The news that the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would be arriving on October 30th created a firestorm of rumours about the castle. All anyone could talk about was the TriWizard Tournament, and the delegations from the other schools. According to the letters that Harry had been receiving, Fleur and Gabbi were both excited for the excursion as well, though they refused to tell him how they were going to get to Hogwarts.

On the morning before they were supposed to arrive, Harry got out of bed to go down to the Common Room early. It wasn't actually common knowledge that he had been raised in France, or that he was betrothed. In fact, the Weasleys and Hermione seemed to be the only people that actually knew about his current family situation.

Jean-Paul had warned him about Albus Dumbledore before his first year. Dumbledore believed that the only place that Harry would be safe was with his maternal Aunt and her husband, people he hadn't laid eyes on since he was three years old. Dumbledore wouldn't care if Harry was treated terribly there; he was only concerned with protecting Harry from external threats. Therefore, whenever Dumbledore had made some comment or other that showed that he still believed that Harry was living with his muggle relatives, Harry hadn't made any effort to correct him.

His legal adoption could be a matter of public record, however; as long as Dumbledore didn't have any suspicions or reasons to check it he wouldn't bother Harry or his family. Harry was sure that it would come out this year, though. Dumbledore would wonder how he managed to know Madame Maxime so well, seeing as she was an old friend of the family. And Harry wasn't going to pretend not to know Fleur and Gabbi in order to have Dumbledore remain in the dark.

Breakfast was more discussion about the tournament, followed by a Hermione Rant™ about the general treatment of house elves, in which she intimidated Neville about SPEW and ignored Fred and George telling her about the kitchens and how happy the Hogwarts house elves were. Harry, for his part, was staying out of it, glad that Hermione hadn't encountered any of the Delacour family elves during her stay in the manor last summer.

After breakfast, classes seemed to drag on. Ron and Hermione covered for his inattention at least twice with McGonagall, and once with Flitwick. Potions, the last class of the day, seemed to go doubly slow, though this could have been because he hated that class on the best of days, and therefore it seemed to take longer than any other on a regular basis.

Finally, finally, Potions ended and the Gryffindor fourth years ascended from the dungeons to go and get their cloaks from their dormitories and meet the rest of the school converging in the entrance hall.

McGonagall lined them all up according to year and fussed over the younger students before turning to him and his classmates

"Straighten your cloak, Longbottom," McGonagall ordered, obviously still disgruntled about the earlier incident during transfiguration during which Neville had managed to transplant his own ears onto a cactus. "And take that ridiculous thing out of your hair, Miss Patil."

Scowling, Parvati slid the large butterfly clip out of her dark hair and put it into her book bag as they followed the procession outside.

Harry draped the two extra black cloaks that he had brought over his arm, knowing that it wasn't nearly so cold in France, and Gabbi and Fleur undoubtedly hadn't thought of putting on their own cloaks.

The procession came to a halt on the lawn facing the lake. Hermione shivered and grabbed Ron's arm to pull him closer, and then in turn huddled them both closer to Harry for warmth. Harry wrapped one arm around both of them, grateful for the impromptu huddle to share body heat.

He wasn't sure how long they stood there for, but most people were starting to get restless when finally a Gryffindor first year whose name Harry didn't know spotted a shape in the sky. "It's a dragon!" she shrieked, losing her head completely. Everyone was now staring at the distant object hurtling forever closer.

"Don't be stupid, it's a flying house!" Dennis called. While Harry thought that this was no more accurate than the first guess, it did turn out to be closer. The shape turned out to be a massive, powder blue carriage pulled by elephant sized Abraxan horses, possibly as big as the sprawling Delacour mansion. It gracefully landed on the lawn beside the lake. Harry knew that this had to be Beauxbatons. Everything that he knew about Durmstrang in particular, and about Karkaroff specifically suggested that they wouldn't go near such a form of transport as this.

He broke into a grin as Madam Maxime's massive, pump clad foot stepped out the door of the carriage. Fleur, as the Head Girl, was hot on her heels, alternately gracefully sweeping and shivering and scanning the crowd, for him; he presumed. The blue silk clad students followed in lines, getting progressively less graceful and more scraggly as the students got smaller, and finally ending the progression with the first years, Gabbi among them. Harry grinned at the sight of his family. Fleur finally saw him and smiled back, but Gabbi did more than that. She catapulted out of the line shrieking his name and threw herself at him.

Laughing, and ignoring the collective stares that he was well used to by now, he swung her up into his arms and held on. Fleur, obviously having given up on dignity in order to ensure that her sister remained under some semblance of control, also left her place to join them. Harry offered her one of the spare cloaks that he had brought, the larger one, before draping the smaller over Gabbi's shoulders.

"Merci," Fleur murmured quietly. Gabbi gratefully wrapped the fabric around herself, it looping several times around her tiny frame.

"Fleur!" Madame Maxime called. "We are going inside now. You want to stay out here until Durmstrang arrives."

"Yes, Madame," Fleur replied. "Gabrielle and I shall remain outside for the moment. As you can see, we are in no danger of freezing, since my wonderful, courteous brother thought to bring us heavy cloaks." All of this was spoken in rapid French.

"Arry!" Madame Maxime had finally recognized him. "I haven't seen you for ages! I was quite disappointed to find that you had decided not to attend Beauxbatons with your sister and betrothed." She then hugged him tightly and kissed both of his cheeks. She was much better at not crushing people than Hagrid was.

"Yes, well..." Harry paused. "My parents had my name down here before I was born. I knew that this was what they would have wanted."

"Don't worry," she said cheerfully, patting his cheek. "I understand completely. You must visit for tea one day, though, yes?"

"Yes, of course, Madame."

"Oh, none of this Madame business. When did you ever have to call me Madame when you were growing up? Fleur and Gabrielle must maintain the school charter as my students, but you are no student of mine."

"Yes, Aunt Olympe," Harry agreed quickly, trying to avoid creating more of a scene than they already had. The rest of the Beauxbatons delegation moved inside, leaving Gabbi and Fleur standing with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Blimey, mate! When did you learn to speak French?" Seamus wanted to know, clearly too worried about what the actual situation was right now to ask about Fleur and Gabbi.

"I grew up in France, Seamus. This is my older sister, Fleur, and my betrothed, Gabrielle."

"You can call me Gabbi," she interjected charmingly, sliding her ice-cold fingers into his own and clinging tightly. He saw her taking Hermione's hand with her other free one.

Seamus opened his mouth, and everyone around the vicinity that had heard him all looked shocked. Since Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had heard him, he knew that the entire school would know before the feast would start, as soon as Durmstrang got here. But Seamus' comment, whatever it was, was halted when a shout rang up across the lawn, and everyone faced the lake. A ship emerged from under the water, docked by throwing down and anchor, and a procession of marching students wearing red robes and thick furs marched off, accompanied by a man with a goatee that looked distinctly rat like.

"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied. Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.

"Shall we?" Dumbledore asked cheerfully, gesturing towards the doors to the Entrance Hall. The Hogwarts students breathed a collective sigh of relief as they followed the Durmstrang students indoors. Fleur broke off to reattach herself to her Beaxbatons classmates, already tired of Ron drooling at her.

Harry steered Gabbi to the Gryffindor table as the hall flooded with people, the three school heads being the last people in. The Beaxbatons students, Gabbi included, though she was sitting at an entirely different table from her peers, leaped to their feet upon Madame Maxime's entrance and didn't regain their seats until she had been seated in the chair to Dumbledore's left.

"I thought Krum had graduated," Hermione said conversationally, over the sound of gossip from all quarters. Harry Potter lived in France with a hot older sister and an eleven year old betrothed (who would undoubtedly grow up to be just as hot as the older sister, judging by appearance), Viktor Krum was still in school, and sitting just across the Great Hall, and the Tournament would be starting any day now, since the schools had arrived and no one would want to delay unnecessarily. They would probably discover how the champions were chosen tonight, and, in Fred and George's case, they could begin to work out how to get around whatever security that Dumbledore wanted to set up.

Ron gaped across the hall, still unable to comprehend such a concentration of pure famousness in a single area. Hermione reached over and smacked him over the back of the head, before his eyes could light on Fleur again. Ron had gotten better over the years, but he seemed to be especially susceptible to her Veela Allure, or maybe he just had less innate resistance. Harry, who had built up the ability to resist Fleur's allure even as she was developing it, couldn't really understand where Ron was coming from.

"Harry!" Gabbi tugged frantically on his sleeve to get his attention. He loved the sight of her, sitting here with him at the Gryffindor table, ready for a school year of them allowed to be together every waking hour. He had understood that him and Gabbi would be married for as long as he had been old enough. Right after Apolline and Jean-Paul had adopted him, Harry had been consistently told that, if they wanted to be, him and little Gabbi would be married just like Maman and Papa.

He grinned at her. "Yeah?"

"Your Headmaster's beard is enormous!" Harry laughed. Dumbledore's beard, long enough to be tucked into the belt of his (usually very colourful) robes, was certainly one of the longest that Harry had ever seen.

"He reminded me of Gandalf when I first saw him," Harry said. "But then I realized that Gandalf would never be caught dead in those robes." Gabbi, a veritable French beauty, was very into fashion even at such a young age. She caught a look at the Headmaster and gagged at the star-spangled, rich purple robes that Dumbledore wore. He had undoubtedly been forced into something even that conservative by McGonagall, who was looking at him disgustedly out of the corner of her eye.

Their conversation, simple though it was, was hushed with everyone else as Dumbledore stood to address the crowd.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and - most particularly - guests," said Dumbledore, beaming around at the foreign students. "I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable."

One of the Beauxbatons girls still clutching a muffler around her head gave what was unmistakably a derisive laugh.

"No one's making you stay!" Hermione whispered, bristling at her.

"The tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast," said Dumbledore. "I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!"

He sat down, and Harry saw Karkaroff lean forward at once and engage him in conversation.

The plates in front of them filled with food as usual. The house-elves in the kitchen seemed to have pulled out all the stops; there was a greater variety of dishes in front of them than Harry had ever seen, including several that were definitely foreign.

"What's that?" said Ron, pointing at a large dish of some sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak-and-kidney pudding.

"Bouillabaisse," said Hermione.

"Bless you," said Ron.

"It's French," said Hermione, "I had it on holiday summer before last. It's very nice."

"It's fine," Gabbi agreed. "Well, Fleur likes it, anyway. I'm not that big of a fan, and I don't thing Harry likes it very much, either," she shot a look at Harry, who nodded in agreement.

"I'll take your word for it," said Ron, helping himself to black pudding.

The Great Hall seemed somehow much more crowded than usual, even though they were hardly crowded; the tables in the Great Hall had a much larger capacity than usually filled them. Perhaps it was because their differently coloured uniforms stood out so clearly against the black of the Hogwarts' robes. Now that they had removed their furs, the Durmstrang students were revealed to be wearing robes of a deep blood red.

Hagrid sidled into the Hall through a door behind the staff table twenty minutes after the start of the feast. He slid into his seat at the end and waved at Harry, Ron, and Hermione with a very heavily bandaged hand.

"Skrewts doing all right, Hagrid?" Harry called.

"Thrivin'," Hagrid called back happily.

"Yeah, I'll just bet they are," said Ron quietly. "Looks like they've finally found a food they like, doesn't it? Hagrid's fingers."

At that moment, a voice said, "Excuse me, are you wanting the bouillabaisse? Are you behaving yourself, Gabrielle?" Fleur added sternly. Harry picked up the dish from in front of Ron and offered it to Hermione for a moment, to ensure that she was done with it before handing the dish to his sister.

"You know that neither Gabbi or I like that stuff, Fleur," Harry said cheerfully. "Help yourself. Hey, sit down for a minute, would you? And why didn't any of you think to bring cloaks? I warned you about England being much colder. You've only really been here during the summer."

Fleur took the offered seat and dished some of the bouillabaisse onto Harry's unused bread plate and helped herself to his dessert spoon, flushing delicately (Veela didn't blush unattractively, so it just served to make her even more heart-stoppingly gorgeous). "I warned them, but I forgot myself. They must have, too. Merci, for thinking of me." As one of the only Beauxbatons students in the hall that wasn't freezing, Fleur must have been something of an envy to her classmates, though her sky-blue silk robes were covered entirely by Harry's black cloak with its Gryffindor crest.

"Did your friends ask where you got that?"

"They assume that I used my allure to seduce some hapless schoolboy out of his cloak," Fleur said. "They do not actually like me much, so they wouldn't really believe me if I told them otherwise." Harry knew that Fleur had it difficult, with her beauty and Veela allure. The other girls were jealous of her, the boys couldn't get too close to her without drooling all over her. It was why she had clung to Percy when she had met him years ago—a boy that was too straightlaced to show his reaction to her allure. And after he had spent enough time with her, he too had built up an immunity to Fleur's unrestrained power.

Soon enough, Fleur returned to the Ravenclaw table and left Harry to introduce Gabbi to his classmates. Soon enough, though the feast finished up and Dumbledore addressed the Hall over again.

Once the golden plates had been wiped clean, Dumbledore stood up again. A pleasant sort of tension seemed to fill the Hall now. Harry felt a slight thrill of excitement, wondering what was coming. Several seats down from them, Fred and George were leaning forward, staring at Dumbledore with great concentration.

"The moment has come," said Dumbledore, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket —"

"The what?" Harry muttered.

Ron shrugged.

"- just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation" - there was a smattering of polite applause - "and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."

There was a much louder round of applause for Bagman than for Crouch, perhaps because of his fame as a Beater, or simply because he looked so much more likable.

He acknowledged it with a jovial wave of his hand. Bartemius Crouch did not smile or wave when his name was announced. Remembering him in his neat suit at the Quidditch World Cup, Harry thought he looked strange in wizard's robes. His toothbrush moustache and severe parting looked very odd next to Dumbledore's long white hair and beard.

"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore continued, "and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts."

At the mention of the word "champions," the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen.

Perhaps Dumbledore had noticed their sudden stillness, for he smiled as he said, "The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch."

Filch, who had been lurking unnoticed in a far corner of the Hall, now approached Dumbledore carrying a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels. It looked extremely old. A murmur of excited interest rose from the watching students; Dennis Creevey actually stood on his chair to see it properly, but, being so tiny, his head hardly rose above anyone else's.

"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman," said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before him, "and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways … their magical prowess - their daring - their powers of deduction - and, of course, their ability to cope with danger."

At this last word, the Hall was filled with a silence so absolute that nobody seemed to be breathing.

"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Dumbledore went on calmly, "one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."

Dumbledore now took out his wand and tapped three times upon the top of the casket. The lid creaked slowly open. Dumbledore reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly hewn wooden cup. It would have been entirely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue-white flames. Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it, where it would be clearly visible to everyone in the Hall.

"Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet," said Dumbledore. "Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete.

"To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation," said Dumbledore, "I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line.

"Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all."

"An Age Line!" Fred Weasley said, his eyes glinting, as they all made their way across the Hall to the doors into the entrance hall. "Well, that should be fooled by an Aging Potion, shouldn't it? And once your name's in that goblet, you're laughing - it can't tell whether you're seventeen or not!"

"But I don't think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance," said Hermione, "we just haven't learned enough …"

"Speak for yourself," said George shortly. "You'll try and get in, won't you, Harry?"

Harry thought briefly of Dumbledore's insistence that nobody under seventeen should submit their name, but then the wonderful picture of himself winning the Triwizard Tournament filled his mind again … He wondered how angry Dumbledore would be if someone younger than seventeen did find a way to get over the Age Line. Then he considered the constant danger that was his life, and immediately discarded the idea. The fact remained that this tournament was dangerous, and, as nice as finally earning some glory for something that he had actually done for once sounded, Harry didn't want or need to risk his life again, especially not for something so stupid. Knowing that Fleur was planning on entering the Tournament didn't help his nerves, and he resolved to enlist Gabbi to try to talk her out of entering all of tomorrow, though, Fleur could be very stubborn when she wanted to. He doubted that they would make a dent in her resolve.

"Where is he?" said Ron, who wasn't listening to a word of this conversation, but looking through the crowd to see what had become of Krum. "Dumbledore didn't say where the Durmstrang people are sleeping, did he?"

But this query was answered almost instantly; they were level with the Slytherin table now, and Karkaroff had just bustled up to his students.

"Back to the ship, then," he was saying. "Viktor, how are you feeling? Did you eat enough? Should I send for some mulled wine from the kitchens?"

Harry saw Krum shake his head as he pulled his furs back on.

"Professor, I vood like some vine," said one of the other Durmstrang boys hopefully.

"I wasn't offering it to you, Poliakoff," snapped Karkaroff, his warmly paternal air vanishing in an instant. "I notice you have dribbled food all down the front of your robes again, disgusting boy -"

Karkaroff turned and led his students toward the doors, reaching them at exactly the same moment as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Gabbi. Harry stopped to let him walk through first.

"Thank you," said Karkaroff carelessly, glancing at him.

And then Karkaroff froze.

He turned his head back to Harry and stared at him as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Behind their headmaster, the students from Durmstrang came to a halt too. Karkaroff's eyes moved slowly up Harry's face and fixed upon his scar. Harry, sensing that this man was dangerous, shoved Gabbi behind him and out of the possible range of Karkaroff's malevolent notice. He needn't have bothered—the Eastern European Headmaster was clearly too focused on Harry's scar to notice anything or anyone else.

The Durmstrang students were staring curiously at Harry too. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw comprehension dawn on a few of their faces. The boy with food all down his front nudged the girl next to him and pointed openly at Harry's forehead.

"Yeah, that's Harry Potter," said a growling voice from behind them.

Professor Karkaroff spun around. Mad-Eye Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on his staff, his magical eye glaring unblinkingly at the Durmstrang headmaster.

The colour drained from Karkaroff's face as Harry watched. A terrible look of mingled fury and fear came over him.

"You!" he said, staring at Moody as though unsure he was really seeing him.

"Me," said Moody grimly. "And unless you've got anything to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You're blocking the doorway."

It was true; half the students in the Hall were now waiting behind them, looking over one another's shoulders to see what was causing the holdup.

Without another word, Professor Karkaroff swept his students away with him. Moody watched him until he was out of sight, his magical eye fixed upon his back, a look of intense dislike upon his mutilated face.

Harry draped one arm around Gabbi and led her without thinking about it to the stairs in the entrance hall before Professor McGonagall interrupted him.

"Mr. Potter, as wonderful as it is that you seem to be taking the lead in International Cooperation and are making friends, but you must let Miss—" she looked to Gabbi.

"Gabrielle Delacour," Gabbi helped her.

"Delacour return to the carriage that her classmates are staying in—good heavens, child, are you part Veela?" Ron snorted, Hermione managed to suppress her reaction, and Harry simply stared at his Professor as if he'd never seen her before. And as it was, he had really only seen her shocked in one situation: when he, Ron, and Hermione had blasted into her office in first year to tell her that the Philosopher's Stone was in danger.

Gabbi flushed slightly. "Yes." She raised her chin, thinking that this was the beginning of the persecution that Fleur had suffered through all of her life. "My grandmother. And there is no such thing as part Veela. All females born of a Veela line will be all Veela, until the blood has diluted enough that they are not."

McGonagall stared at her for a moment before responding. "Your English is very good, Miss Delacour. I can barely hear an accent. You are a tad bit young for your allure to be affecting Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, are you not?"

"I haven't grown into my allure yet," Gabbi said. Harry could tell that she was starting to get irritated with the line of questioning.

"Of course not."

"And Harry's immune to allure, anyway," she added, before Harry could shut her up. "Fleur's has never affected him. Overexposure has made him immune. But Ron always drools at her. It's funny."

This time, Ron flushed, and he didn't do it in an attractive, Veela-ish manner—everything from his ears to his neck and everything in between turned a deep, lobster red. It was a very prominent Weasley blush, and it matched his hair well. Not that Ron would have been comforted by this knowledge had anyone told him that. So his blush and hair didn't clash—that was hardly something to be proud of.

"Please, Professor," Harry broke in. "It's still a couple of hours till curfew, can I show Gabbi the Gryffindor common room and then walk her back out the carriage?"

"I asked Madame Maxime earlier," Gabbi added, throwing in a pair of absolutely perfect, conniving puppy dog eyes. "She said it was alright, as long as I was back by ten."

McGonagall looked stern for a moment before she relented. "Well, all right. You can show your new friend the common room, but take care not to be too late. You have classes tomorrow, and I'm sure that she does as well. And if I catch you out past curfew—again —I will not hesitate to take points, and you will be in detention with Mr. Filch so fast that your head spins. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Professor," Harry said, thanking his lucky stars that she hadn't questioned how he had had a chance to build up an immunity to Veela allure, or how they knew that Ron wasn't immune to Fleur's. That would suggest that he spent a lot of time with them, after all. And he wanted Dumbledore to remain unaware of his living conditions for as long as possible.

A/N: There, done. Speaking of, I'm sending out an official poll that I'll put on my profile, whether you'd prefer shorter updates (like this one) more often, or longer ones (I was going to cover the next day and the drawing of the champions' names too, but decided to get this posted) with more time in between. If you recognize some areas, that's because I kept finding myself getting away from the scene and had to copy and edit some chunks of text that are directly from GOF. These do not belong to me, either, BTW. I'm sure you saw the author's note that was in the previous chapter. I'm sorry for tricking you with two chapters, but the note was getting so long that I separated them. I am posting them at the same time for that reason—I didn't want people to try to flay me with a wet noodle for doing the author's note thing.

~I Took the One Less Travelled