A/N: Here's chapter 3! Yay. Something that I wanted to address—accents and languages. Just so that it's clear, I am not going to label or italicize it when they speak another language. Use your common sense. Since French is their mother tongue, Harry, Fleur and Gabbi will speak French when talking to each other, unless they are speaking so that others can overhear their conversation. If they are in private, it will be French. And as for why Madame Maxime has a French accent and Fleur and Gabbi don't, it's because I reason that when they adopted Harry and decided that he would go to Hogwarts, they immediately began teaching all three children to speak English as well as French. It has made them nearly fluent in both languages. This is even moreso for Harry, since he has spent most of the last three years at an entirely English speaking school, in an English speaking environment.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything familiar. All mentions of the Harry Potter Franchise belong to J.K. Rowling, and I make no profit off of my work.

Now, on with the story.

"Fleur!" Harry hissed, tossing a pebble to the window of the room that she shared with Gabbi, poking his head out from under the invisibility cloak. "Gabbi!"

"Harry! What is it?" Fleur demanded, sticking her head out the window. "It is three in the morning! Go back to bed."

Harry knew that he looked dejected, knew that he looked a bit like a lost puppy. Fleur softened. "What happened?"

"Ron doesn't believe that I didn't put my name in. He accused me of stealing all of the glory." Fleur swore under her breath.

"Come around to the door. I'll open it for you." Trying to ignore the hole in his chest that his best friend—his brother had torn into it, Harry allowed himself a triumphant smirk before his expression slid back into being dejected as he traced the path around the massive powder blue carriage and stopping at the side door, which opened for him just after he got there.

He had never been so happy to see his sister, standing there framed by the carriage. She looked tired and disgruntled, her hair was a mess and she was wearing a dressing gown. "Come in then. You can stay with us." She led him through the halls of the carriage to a small room on one end, with two twin beds, and a hurricane of female clothing and products strewn about the floor. The beds had been pushed together—his family had always been a bit touchy-feely, and after the night that they had all had, Fleur and Gabbi had probably pushed the beds together so that they could heap together and cuddle. Harry gratefully cast his invisibility cloak to the side and joined the sleeping Gabbi on the bed. Fleur curled up next to him, and, despite the fact that he had been trying to get to sleep in Gryffindor Tower for hours, was lulled into unconsciousness as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Harry woke before his sister and Gabbi and extracted himself from between them, dressed and went up the lawn into the castle, severely not looking forward to breakfast. He was glad that he had thought to bring some clean clothes with him when he had gone to the Beaxbatons carriage the night before, knowing that he wouldn't have wanted to return to Gryffindor Tower in the morning. He sighed, resigning himself to having to suffer through the crowds in order to grab some food when he came face to face with Hermione, exiting the Great Hall.

"Hello," she said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was carrying in a napkin. "I brought you this … want to go for a walk?"

"Good idea," said Harry gratefully.

They crossed the entrance hall quickly and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before.

To his immense relief, Hermione accepted his story without question. She also looked relieved that he had found someone to comfort him, and that he hadn't had a sleepless night fretting over his fight with Ron in Gryffindor Tower.

"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," she said when he'd finished telling her about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody's right, Harry … I don't think any student could have done it … they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's -"

"Have you seen Ron?" Harry interrupted.

Hermione hesitated.

"Erm… yes… he was at breakfast," she said.

"Does he still think I entered myself?"

"Well… no, I don't think so… not really," said Hermione awkwardly.

"What's that supposed to mean, 'not really'?"

"Oh Harry, isn't it obvious?" Hermione said despairingly. "He's jealous!"

"Jealous?" Harry said incredulously. "Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of himself in front of the whole school, does he? And, I have to compete against Fleur. She was always better at magic than me."

"Look," said Hermione patiently, "it's always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it's not your fault," she added quickly, seeing Harry open his mouth furiously. "I know you don't ask for it … but - well - you know, Ron's got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you're his best friend, and you're really famous - he's always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many… And what is this mess about Fleur? She's three years older than you, of course she's better at magic. You have a huge disadvantage in this mess, but I think that's the least of your worries."

"Great," said Harry bitterly, addressing the Ron issue rather than his obvious inadequacy problems. "Really great. Tell him from me I'll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me he's welcome to it … people gawping at my forehead everywhere I go …"

"I'm not telling him anything," Hermione said shortly. "Tell him yourself. It's the only way to sort this out."

"I'm not running around after him trying to make him grow up!" Harry said, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm. "Maybe he'll believe I'm not enjoying myself once I've got my neck broken or -"

"That's not funny," said Hermione quietly. "That's not funny at all." She looked extremely anxious. "Harry, I've been thinking - you know what we've got to do, don't you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?"

"Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the -"

"Write to Sirius. I know that Fleur probably wrote to your parents last night, but Sirius wasn't staying in France, was he? You've got to tell him what's happened. He asked you to keep him posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts … it's almost as if he expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill out with me -"

"Come off it," said Harry, looking around to check that they couldn't be overheard, but the grounds were quite deserted. "He came back to the country just because my scar twinged. He'll probably come bursting right into the castle if I tell him someone's entered me in the Triwizard Tournament -"

"He'd want you to tell him," said Hermione sternly. "He's going to find out anyway."

"How?"

"Harry, this isn't going to be kept quiet," said Hermione, very seriously. "This Tournament's famous, and you're famous. I'll be really surprised if there isn't anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing … You're already in half the books about You-Know-Who, you know … and Sirius would rather hear it from you, I know he would."

"Okay, okay, I'll write to him," said Harry, throwing his last piece of toast into the lake. They both stood and watched it floating there for a moment, before a large tentacle rose out of the water and scooped it beneath the surface.

Then they returned to the castle.

"Whose owl am I going to use?" Harry said as they climbed the stairs. "He told me not to use Hedwig again."

"Ask Ron if you can borrow -"

"I'm not asking Ron for anything," Harry said flatly.

"Fine," said Hermione. "Ask Fleur if you can borrow Pierre, then. Or use one of the school owls. Just send it."

"Pierre's probably halfway across the channel, delivering that letter to my parents," Harry muttered irritably. School owl it was, then.

They went up to the Owlery. Hermione gave Harry a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harry sat down against a wall and wrote his letter.

Sirius

Hermione thought that you'd like to know that my name came out of the Goblet, and I apparently have no choice but to compete. Moody thinks that someone put my name there to kill me. I agree. Fleur's also in the tournament, she'll protect me. Don't come back to England, they've still got the dementors chasing you because Fudge is an idiot. I even took a magical oath that I hadn't put my name in myself.

Love, Harry

Sirius,

Hermione scribbled on the bottom of the parchment.

Ignore him, he needs you. No one knows about Snuffles, and Fleur is his competitor. She can't be around to hold his hand all the time.

"Hey!"

Hermione ignored him and continued writing.

You know how Harry is. He could be dying, and he'd pretend it's nothing. Just don't get yourself killed.

Love, Hermione

Harry snatched the parchment from her, but Hermione snatched it back. "I'm going to send it anyway, you know. Might as well be now, cut down on the owls going in and out of his hiding place. You need him, Harry. Trust Sirius to keep himself safe, and swallow your pride. Yes, you have Fleur and Gabbi here, but they aren't adults. You need adults right now. You need parents, and yours are too busy with stuff in France, especially Monsieur Delacour, to just up and leave. Sirius has no obligations that he'd be neglecting. Nothing but his obligation to his godson—you. He'd want to be here. And you making him feel useless won't help anything."

Harry bowed his head in acquiescence and let Hermione take the scroll and tie it onto the leg of a brown school owl. Hedwig came down from the rafters hooting, but glared balefully at him when she saw him and Hermione using another owl. Harry quickly took up the quill and parchment again to write a letter to his parents, just giving them an update. Since he was sure that they had already been updated by Fleur, it was really to give Hedwig something to do. She could be very tetchy when she thought that he had been cheating on her (ie: paying attention to another owl), and the last thing that he wanted was for his ears to be pecked off.

The fact that it was Sunday meant that he could effectively avoid his fellow students (especially Ron) for the entire day. That night in the Common Room, faced with the prospect of going up the stairs to the tower and going to bed in the same room as Ron, Dean and Seamus (Neville wasn't so bad—he clearly believed Harry when he said that he hadn't put his name in) simply didn't appeal at all. Instead, he went up the stairs and pulled his invisibility cloak out again, and grabbed some clean clothes and his pyjamas. Hermione stared at him when he came back down the stairs.

"Can I come?"

Harry stopped for a moment. Hermione was his sister too, after all. There really wasn't any reason why she shouldn't. There wasn't any reason why he couldn't bring her out to sleep in the Beaxbatons carriage—as long as they weren't actually out after curfew.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Run upstairs and get some stuff, make sure to bring a change of clothes for tomorrow morning so that you won't have to come back in here. Fleur and Gabbi have more hair products than you've probably ever wanted to see in your life—" here he paused to shiver—"So they'll have everything else that you need."

Hermione looked at him in a pitying way for a moment before rushing up the girls' stairs and coming back down with her book bag, empty of books and stuffed full of clothing (well, maybe one book for a little 'light' before bed reading).

Harry offered her the loose fringe of his invisibility cloak and wrapped an arm around her waist so that they could be close without bumping into each other. Even if it was before curfew this time, he knew that Snape wouldn't hesitate to attempt to make his life miserable if he ran into them, and Malfoy was going to be even more of an idiot—after Harry Potter of all people, his archrival in all things, had been deemed worthy of competing in a tournament that Malfoy himself had been unable to even enter (though, honestly, if anyone would have had the money and simplicity to bribe an older student to enter his name into the Goblet for him, it was Malfoy. So it was entirely possible that he had entered his name, and the fact that Potter had thought of entering under a different school so that he would be sure to be chosen had to grate. As well as the fact that he had lost out to a Hufflepuff), Malfoy had to be in an especially bad mood concerning Harry lately. And Harry didn't want to have to deal with him. Ever. At all.

As Harry and Hermione snuck out into the night (since it was almost winter, it got dark at about six in the evening, so of course it was dark now, at 8:30), they made sure to be as silent as possible. Harry was sure that if anyone found out that he had been ditching his bed in the Tower in order to take a female friend outside to sleep in the quarters of another school, and share a bed with two other girls, they would not have been best pleased with him.

"Fleur," he hissed again, sliding the invisibility cloak off. Since it wasn't actually curfew yet, it didn't really matter if anyone saw him. And the quarters of the other schools weren't off limits, as long as someone invited them inside. This time, perhaps since she was awake and probably expecting him, it only took one tossed pebble to get his sister to stick her head out the window.

"Come around, Harry. Hermione."

Grateful for her unending acceptance of him, Harry led Hermione around the back of the carriage to the side door, and waited for Fleur to open it. This time she was still dressed, still immaculately prepared, and there were students wandering the large corridors around the rooms. Some of the French students gave Fleur and her Hogwarts companions odd looks, but let them pass without comment.

This time, not tired and distraught as he had been last night, Harry noticed that there was a brass nameplate on the door that read:

Head Girl: Fleur Delacour

Feel free to visit anytime during classes or free time during the day to ask questions or voice concerns, and if necessary, Miss Delacour will bring them to the Headmistress.

And the underneath, in smaller print,

Gabrielle Delacour

Fleur propped the door open and let them in. Gabbi was sprawled across the beds, which were still pushed together from last night, diligently scribing some essay or another with a capped ink bottle next to her on the sheets, using a hardbacked book as a writing surface and a French First Year Transfiguration text open in front of her.

Hermione immediately settled herself at Gabbi's unused desk without a word and pulled out some of the homework that she had brought. Harry pulled up an extra chair to the side of the desk to join her, and Fleur went across the room to her own desk to get back to her schoolwork. They stayed in companionable silence for awhile, quills scratching and pages turning. It was so much easier to concentrate here than in the common room, where the weight of angered stares and the quite-audible-Harry-related-whispers hung on his back.

Ron had been sitting across the common room to work on his work with Dean and Seamus, and Harry hadn't been able to help his anger from showing at Ron's stupidity.

A couple of hours later, after homework had been completed and recreational reading had been commenced, Fleur yawned and suggested bed. The girls shoved Harry into the bathroom with his pyjamas, and informed him that he was not to come out until they had told him that it was okay. Harry took the opportunity to brush his teeth and go to the bathroom before they kicked him back into the room and took over the bathroom themselves. Girls could be so demanding. Harry settled himself onto the bed, glad that Fleur had thought to perform a sticking charm on the two mattresses so that nobody fell between the crack.

Hermione was the first out of the bathroom, but Harry's platonic feelings prevented him from feeling anything inappropriate towards her, despite her wearing nothing but a faded, overlarge men's Beatles tee-shirt. It fell easily to almost mid-thigh on her, the letters and images peeling off, and had probably (almost certainly) had belonged to her father at some point. The dates that were scrolling on the back made it clear that this was a concert tour tee-shirt.

Gabbi showed up next, dressed in a lace camisole tank top and a pair of Harry's old pyjama pants (not because she didn't have anything of her own to wear, but because she had always said that it made her feel better when she was away from him). Though they were several years old, they were also several inches too long for her and the drawstring was pulled to clumping around her thin, undeveloped hips.

Fleur was last, and dressed in a tiny little silk nightgown, that, had she not been his sister, Harry would have viewed as blatantly sexual, and probably would have had a very embarrassing and unfortunate problem that would have destroyed his ability to sleep. As it was, Harry would only get aroused by imagining a grown up Gabbi in a similar nightgown.

As it was, Gabbi snuggled up on one side of him, using his shoulder as a pillow, and Hermione took the other. Fleur curled up next to Gabbi and clicked off the light. Harry drifted to sleep with no trouble, stroking his betrothed's hair and curled with his family.

Despite the nice warmth that he had felt last night, Harry had had to face reality come morning. Fleur's alarm clock had gone off at seven, and she had stumbled out of the bed and to the shower. One shower between four people was hardly difficult to share, but it still needed some logistical planning. As soon as Fleur had finished running water, Gabbi had gone in to take her shower while Fleur was fixing her hair and makeup. Hermione had followed suit, and Harry had gone last. There wasn't really much immodesty, though most of the teachers probably wouldn't have approved—the shower doors had been fogged up so that none of the girls in the bathroom, parked in front of the mirror could see anything private about Harry, and they had all dressed in the bathroom and were now lined up with towels wrapped around hair.

Fleur and Gabbi were currently attempting to tame Hermione's bushy brown mass, something that they had relentlessly tried to talk her into over the summer, but she had always refused. Obviously now Hermione had relented. Harry knew that Hermione was prone to the occasional fit of vanity, and imagining the looks on the faces of Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown if Fleur and Gabbi succeeded in even partially taming her hair.

Harry shut off the stream of water and stuck his hand out beside the shower door to grab a towel and efficiently dry himself off inside the shower, before tucking it around his waist and emerging. The girls barely spared him a glance as he stepped into the outer room and dressed quickly.

But then there was a knock on the door. Fleur came barrelling out of the bathroom, towel finally removed and wet hair hanging down her back and shoulders, getting her robes wet. She gestured sharply for him to get away from the view of the door.

"Oui?"

"Fleur, one of the Hogwarts champions is missing. They say that he's your brother, so we thought you should know."

Fleur groaned loudly. "You didn't tell anyone where you were going, you little brat?" She demanded over her shoulder. Blushing, Harry slid in view of the door.

"I'm not missing. If you're going up to the castle, can you tell them that I'm fine?"

The nameless Beauxbatons student (probably a third year, she looked a little younger than him, but older than Gabbi), stared at him in shock. It was one thing to be within the presence of the Beauxbatons Head Girl and champion, who she saw every day. But to actually find the Hogwarts champion (the unpredicted fourth champion) that everyone had accused of cheating in that Head Girl's bedroom was a bit much.

"Yes, of course." The fact that he was Harry Potter of all people probably didn't help, but even as she stared in undisguised shock and hero worship at his forehead, Harry appreciated that she hadn't stuttered. Then he reflected that it was very sad that he appreciated that she hadn't stuttered.

"Rebecca," Fleur attempted, opening the door further. "Please come inside, and we will explain the situation to you."

Still staring at Harry like a wary animal, she slipped inside the room and moved to cower in the corner. Okay, maybe he wasn't very charitable towards her, but he really was sick of this.

Gabbi came out of the bathroom, hair blow-dried and sat on the bed with her book bag and piles of books, sorting through what she wanted to take. Since everyone that understood English/French/Whatever language that they spoke at Durmstrang (Harry had not bothered to find out—he knew that he didn't speak it, and had no interest in attending Durmstrang classes anyway) was being offered the opportunity to attend some classes of the other schools, and see how the education was there. Gabbi had jumped on the opportunity to attend classes with all of Harry's professors, partially because she wanted to see if Snape really was that bad, and laugh at Trelawney, and partially because she had heard tons about McGonagall and Flitwick from him and Hermione (and Sirius and Remus, to a lesser extent) over the summer, and wanted to experience those classes.

As such, she had been sorting through his old first year texts, all of which were still viable except for the defence one, and deciding what she wanted to do today. Hermione had joined her, laying on her stomach length-wise on the bed, to give advice and inform on the schedule.

"Rebecca," Fleur began. "This is my adopted brother, Harry Potter and his best friend Hermione Granger. Harry has been going through some... trouble recently, with his dorm mates, and didn't want to sleep in his dormitory."

She stared some more. "Oh."

"So it would be greatly appreciated if you would simply state that you had seen him, or perhaps that he was out flying on the Quidditch Pitch in the morning, okay?"

"Oh, yes, of course," she agreed in rapid fire French, still looking bashful.

"Good." Fleur said. "Is that all that you needed to tell me?"

"Yes, Fleur."

"Okay, run up to the castle and say that you saw him, now. Thank you," she added to the girl's fleeing back. "Well, that was easy."

Harry snorted, and looked over at Gabbi and Hermione. The Delacour sisters had indeed managed to tame the frizziness of Hermione's hair down to a minimum, leaving her with soft brunette curls that framed her face. And her eyes looked a bit different, too.

"Come on," Hermione said, helping Gabbi finish shoving books into her bag. "It's time for breakfast—if we don't go soon, we'll be late."

Most of the Beauxbatons students had left already. Perhaps since they only had to share a bathroom between two, instead of four, or maybe because they hadn't had any reason to stall. But as it was, when Harry arrived in the entrance hall, he balked at the thought of breakfast with everyone. The Gryffindors would cheer for him, and the Hufflepuffs (who were mad at him for stealing Cedric's glory) would probably boo.

"Ignore the peanut gallery, Harry," Hermione encouraged. "Go on." She shoved him through the door and followed close behind. Harry had to admit that running the gauntlet was so much easier, knowing that his family was on his side. He was greeted with glares and gossip from all quarters. Ignoring them, he settled into breakfast with Hermione next to him and Fleur and Gabbi sitting across from him. The general shock of the Beauxbatons champion sitting with him—his sister forgiving him for stealing his glory cause complete silence for a moment, and then the whispers grew louder. Harry ignored them in favour of shovelling food like Ro-

He stopped. Thinking about Ron was painful right now. He had potions first. Dreading, it Harry finished off his breakfast and went down to the dungeons with Hermione, wanting to arrive ahead of the rest of the students. He hoped that Gabbi was doing all right, auditing the first year Hufflepuff/Slytherin Transfiguration class. He knew that none of her classmates had been eager to start so quickly, so unless anyone from Durmstrang had started, she was probably all alone in there. He hoped that the others were nice to her—no. If they weren't nice to her, they would answer to him. That was that.

"Look, Potty!"

"Very creative, Malfoy," Harry drawled, turning to look at the person that thought that he was Harry's arch-nemesis, but in reality was nothing more than a pest. "I'm impressed. Potter. Potty. First class insult you've got going there—you must have thought for hours to come up with that one!"

Malfoy fumed. Since he was so pale, he flushed red very easily, almost as much so as the Weasleys. Harry took a sadistic kind of pleasure in the way that Malfoy looked.

Malfoy was wearing a green-inked badge that read Support Cedric Diggory, the Real Hogwarts Champion. Harry snorted. If that was supposed to rile him up, Malfoy clearly didn't understand him at all.

"Is that supposed to bug me? I swore on my magic that I hadn't put my name in the cup. In fact, give me one of those and I'll wear it. Maybe that will get the point across." He backed up to survey all of the fourth year Gryffindors and Slytherins gathered in the dungeon corridor. "In fact, let everyone know that I said that. That I told you to support Cedric over me. I don't very well need people rooting for me, since I'm not trying to win. Just... you know, not die."

Looking bewildered, Malfoy thrust a badge at Harry. "But look what else it does," he boasted. He pressed down on his badge, and the green letters blurred into a purple Potter Stinks.

"So I won't wear it like that," Harry snapped, pinning his new badge to his robes, hoping that, if nothing else, it would shock people into shutting up when he could hear them gossiping.

"Want one, Mudblood? Careful not to touch my hand, I've just washed it." Hermione glared at the offered badge, and every Gryffindor within hearing vicinity snarled. Ron did more than that—he shot a spell at Malfoy, who shot a spell of his own. The spells collided off one another, one hitting Goyle in the face and the other glancing into Hermione, who shrieked and clapped a hand to her now-rapidly growing front teeth.

Then Snape arrived. "What is going on here?"

Surprisingly enough, Lavender Brown jumped to his defence. "Malfoy's spreading derogatory slurs about Harry, who did nothing to deserve it, and then called Hermione a mudblood and Ron hexed him for it, and Malfoy hexed him back, and the spells hit each other and rebounded into Hermione and Goyle," she said rapidly.

"Detention for fighting, Weasley. Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape added.

"But what about Hermione?"

Snape looked coldly at Harry. "I see no difference. Ten points from Gryffindor for disrespecting a Professor, Potter. "

Hermione shrieked again and bolted off down the corridor, trying to hide her rapidly growing teeth, which had already descended past her chin. Harry glared at Snape and followed her.

When he finally caught up with his best friend, she was halfway to the hospital wing, and her teeth were halfway down her neck. Harry walked with her silently, sensing that she didn't want to talk, but not wanting to abandon his currently only friend while she was in need.

The end... For now. Duh Duh Duh. No, seriously. The updates may be slower since we're getting into finals now, but I promise that I will do my level best. Next chapter: The Weighing of the Wands, and more Harry-Family interaction. I have now completely diverted from canon—since my Harry is different, I've decided that his actions are going to be different in the face of adversity, as you can see with the whole 'wearing the badge' thing. That is all for now. Oh, and just because I wanted to clarify, despite the title, his name is not actually Harry Delacour Potter. He didn't change his name. Nor will he ever think of himself like that or refer to himself that way. I just wanted to get across the differences from canon in the title, and I was lacking inspiration. I am trying to think up a better one. If you have any ideas, please mention them.

~ITookTheOneLessTravelled