Golden Haze – Act Four, Scene One

AN: The story is rapidly coming to a close and I'm starting to tie up loose ends. As such, I would really appreciate some feedback on these last few chapters, as I am sure that everyone here would also like for the story to end on a positive note. Is there anything that I've left off that needs to be resolved? Any pieces left unturned?

Let me know. :]

Music of the Story – Death Cab For Cutie's new Album

Things were changing. Fleur watched as January waned, her life seemingly stalled as stood in front of her students, teaching them things that they should have learned many years ago, trying to prepare them for examinations that did not take into account the lack of continuity in their teaching. Defense was a subject that built upon itself every year, and the infuriating lack of continuity that plagued the Hogwarts students was beginning to feel like a constant thorn in Fleur's side.

They had moved on from warding and into curses and breaking them in her seventh year class. This was one aspect of the subject that all of the students still in NEWT-level Defense should be quite skilled at before even coming into the class – as it was fifth and sixth year subject matter. So far her students had not disappointed her, and their theoretical knowledge of many curses was well beyond what Fleur herself had known at eighteen. That was the cost of war, it seemed.

She stood in the front of her class, and posed a question that was probably not the smartest that she'd ever asked. She was curious as to what they would think, their minds were not as innocent as her own had been when she had first been asked the question in her own Mastery classes.

"Why is it that when one is not fully 'uman, that certain spells carry different effects?" She paused, directing her wand to the chalkboard and spelling the chalk to stand poised, ready to write down responses. She'd gotten good with using levitation spells to control chalk since she'd first started teaching. The amount of finite control that it took to form letters with such a simple spell was challenging and mentally draining to anyone, Fleur reasoned, and her skill with the spell had only gotten better since she'd started to have to use it on a daily basis.

The class was silent, and Fleur pursed her lips. "Well, perhaps if we go back a little further, to review." She glanced out across the room, her eyes meeting intelligent brown as Hermione watched her with interested eyes. Hermione was the only one who seemed even remotely interested in what she had to say today, the rest of the class was staring out at the rain through the window or dozing. Maybe she should award points today, just so that they'd wake up. "Who can name me a 'umanoid magical creature?"

She was pleased to see a good number of hands shoot up. She turned, taking the chalk that had been hovering in midair. She would write these down without the aid of magic. "Just shout zem out," she called over her shoulder.

The first voice belonged to Neville Longbottom, surprisingly. He faltered when she turned her head to meet his eyes. Fleur would have thought that Hermione or Draco or maybe even Ronald would want to get the first word in. This was an easy question, after all. "Go ahead," she nodded to him over her shoulder.

"Well there's banshees," Neville said, watching as Fleur carefully wrote 'banshee' on the chalkboard. She had to be careful to not use the French spelling, and she was sorely tempted to, just to see if they would notice. She had to wake them up somehow.

"Mmmm bon, what else?" Fleur said, nodding to a Ravenclaw girl in the back. Soon she had several other magical creatures to add to her list, save one rather important one. She thought it funny, that they would avoid mentioning her own affliction, but Fleur knew better than to think that they were doing it out of innocence. A good number of them probably did not even know. It was not as though she had ever directly come out and announced it – and Rita Skeeter had published so much drivel during the Triwizard Tournament that they could have just assumed that the reporter had made it all up.

She turned then, staring out across her classroom, "We 'ave most of them 'ere now, but there is one. One small, but rather important one that you are all missing, non?" She smiled, all teeth and feeling slightly predatory. "Mademoiselle Granger, perhaps you would like to enlighten the class?"

Hermione stared at her for a moment, before answering tentatively, "We've forgotten the veela."

There were a few 'oh's and 'I don't believe we forgot that' that floated around the room after that and Fleur could not help but smile. "It is amusing to me that only Mademoiselle Granger remembered such an important member of this list." She shook her head slightly, trying to clear the image of the stunned faces of her peers at school the first time they had discovered her heritage. "Veela ancestry is one of the most common of all magical creature 'eritages. I would be willing to stake quite a lot on several in this room 'aving such ancestry."

Their eyes flicked around, resting on Draco Malfoy for a moment, and then back to Fleur. A few of the Ravenclaws that she knew were also from old families glanced around at each other as well, cautiously trying to see who else had that same almost inhuman and aristocratic look about them.

"My grandmere, you know," Fleur shrugged, answering their questioning gazes. She was not opposed to people know, it would explain a lot to them. "But my 'eritage does not particularly matter, for the purpose of this discussion was 'ow do certain spells – or curses – change when one's blood is not purely 'uman." Fleur waved her hand at the chalkboard, only half paying attention as it flipped over and she began to teach in earnest.

The subject had been covered in the previously assigned reading, but Fleur was still young enough to know that there was no chance that many of the students in the class had done more than glance at it in the minutes before class. They had simply too much to do, and with the NEWTs drawing ever closer, Fleur could not say she blamed them. It made it easier to teach, however, without students constantly interjecting and asking for clarification. She was willing to give it, but only to a point.

At present, she wanted to lecture and get this class out of the way. She had half a mind to assign each student to look up their wizarding genealogy and write a good two feet on why certain spells sometimes did not work correctly for them. This idea, however, would not be fair to the muggle born students in the class, not to mention rather challenging for those students like Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom whose parents were not around to answer such questions.

Fleur finished her lecture with several minutes to spare, and paused to answer any general questions that the class had.

"Have you ever met a banshee?" One of the Hufflepuff girls – Hannah Abbot – asked with a curiously cocked eyebrow.

"Non," Fleur thought for a moment. None of her classmates at Beauxbatons had been anything other than human. She had been the lone part-veela that she had been aware of. There were probably others, but they kept their heritage hidden well. Fleur was one of the unlucky ones that she was not so far removed from the veela blood that she still bore a close resemblance to the full-blooded variety. "Although, I do hear that the drummer for The Weird Sisters is at least a quarter."

They giggled at that, collectively. Group laughter was cathartic, improving Fleur's dark mood over the trial and the fact that Jones was going to get away with what he had orchestrated unless she was able to do something.

"What's it like, being part veela," Ronald asked. She glared at him, and he clarified, "I mean, what spells don't work for you an' stuff."

Fleur shrugged, "There are a few self-defense spells that carry different weight. I think this is because the risk of a veela getting sexually assaulted by one under their thrall is much 'igher than an average attractive woman. The effects are quite a bit more potent."

Terry Boot, an unusually quiet Ravenclaw (for her class), raised his hand and asked a question that Fleur had been dreading since she had opened this up to questions. "Is it true that veela can only fall in love once, despite how er… attractive they universally are?"

The window was suddenly fascinating. She turned and stared at the icy rain that had been pounding against the window panes for the better part of the day for a long moment before she finally found the words to respond. She could feel their eyes on her, and she felt so completely and utterly uncomfortable that there were no words to describe how much she wanted to melt into the floor and simply walk away from the conversation.

"Yes," she said simply. She placed both hands flat on the desk in front of her and glanced at the clock on the wall, "I will let you go five minutes early if you do not tell Professor McGonagall."

This seemed to brighten the mood, and the seventh years began to gather their things. Fleur remained behind her desk, gathering up the essays that they'd handed in at the beginning of class and straightening them into a neat pile that she would take with her back to her office.

Terry Boot lingered, his expression unreadable as he stood by the door. Hermione had glanced at him and then back to Fleur on her way out, wordlessly saying that she would come by later with a slight nod and a careful pat on her book bag.

Fleur watched Hermione leave and then faced Terry Boot. "Did you 'ave a question?" she asked quietly. She bent and picked up her satchel from the floor beside her desk and began to slide the essays into it.

"Just wanted to say that I did not mean to make you feel uncomfortable," He was a tall boy, one of the few that she had never really spoken two – with quiet eyes. "I was just curious."

She nodded to him, almost surprised by his humility. At eighteen, a young man would think themselves at the top of the world, but here was a boy who knew better. He had asked an academic question without thinking much of the consequences. She got that a lot from Ravenclaws in all years, and wondered if it was just the nature of the house. She did not remember them being quite so nosy during the Triwizard Tournament when she sat classes with them. Then again, she'd spent much of the tournament worried about Gabrielle and Hermione and not preforming well and how Hermione seemed to be going out with Harry and Viktor and a least half the school if the papers were to be believed.

She'd learned her lesson about that.

"The books are not very specific on this matter, are they?" She sighed, "It is for the best you asked me and not a true veela, Monsieur Boot. They are not so kind about invasions of privacy." She clasped her satchel closed and pulled it over her shoulder. "Good afternoon."

x

Fleur retreated to her office and hoped that she would be left alone. There were some things that simply were not asked of individuals with creature heritage, and she had made a bit of an ass of herself in speaking to Terry Boot that way. She was sure that he would understand her reaction, especially when he did the research she was sure that he would do upon returning to his dormitory. They simply did not understand sometimes, Fleur reasoned. There was no way that she could teach such a thing.

Hermione had seen the exchange. (She probably already knows.)

Fleur shook her head violently. She had avoided telling Hermione just how stuck she truly was on her, she'd explained the singular attraction to one's mate, she'd explained how veela mating worked, but never how Hermione was her one chance at happiness. She did not think that she could do it, that she would ever be able to find the worlds. She loved Hermione with all her heart, and she hated herself for not being able to give Hermione that choice.

A quiet knock came on her office door and Draco Malfoy's head appeared on the other side. This meant that he was skipping his Ancient Runes class, and Fleur narrowed her eyes. NEWTs were less than five months away, he had to go to all his classes or he would miss something important! "I was hoping to catch you after class," Draco said when she motioned for him to come in. "Did Boot apologize?"

Sitting up a little straighter in her chair, Fleur nodded. "Oui, he did."

Draco sat across her desk from her, in one of the more comfortable armchairs that she'd commandeered from the staffroom. He folded his arms across his chest and suddenly looked very much like a first year instead of the second-year seventh year that he truly was. "Good, I'd hate to kick his insensitive ass."

She laughed. Threw her head back and laughed. Draco Malfoy of all people was standing up for her honor. She did not know what to make of it.

Kinship is strong with veela, no matter how diluted their blood is. "Draco an affront to me is not one to you." Fleur said, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "It is ridiculous to think such a thing."

He scowled, "I am also in the same predicament. Also Granger was right there."

"Your ancestry is diluted enough that you can love as many times as you want." Fleur's tone was gentle, as if speaking to a child and not a man of eighteen. Sometimes she found herself doing this in her classes with the older students. She did not understand it, knowing that these children, all of them, had seen enough to catapult them into maturity far before their time. "Do not be dramatic."

Draco seemed put out by her comment, and she put on her best smile. Fleur was so grateful that his distant ancestry made him immune to the veela. She did not have to mold her face into a perfect scowl just to get him to look away.

They fell into a silence then, awkwardness filling the air with a tension so thick that Fleur thought that she could reach out and cut through it with a knife. She bent down and opened her satchel. The essay papers were in her hand and deposited on her desk and she'd gone back for her grading ink when Draco blurted out, "I went to Potter's defense club."

Her fingers closed around her jar of red ink and she set it back down on the table. "Wonderful! 'ow did that go?"

"Miserable. I'm pants at defense."

Fleur frowned. Draco was not that bad, and he was a skilled fighter when he actually had the chance to research what he was doing beforehand. His knowledge of practical defense was so terrible that she wondered how he had managed to get through so many years of the class while maintaining such a high average. "I would not say that." She said with narrowed eyes, "I think you need to keep going."

"Obviously." Draco's face pulled downwards into a sneer. He looked at his hands for a moment and Fleur watched him, wondering what he could be thinking about. After several long moments, Draco seemed to settle on what he wanted to say. "Look, I know that you go tomorrow to give you statement for the trial. What are you going to say about Jones?"

She couldn't. She did not want to talk about this. About how she had failed Hermione so spectacularly, or how she was unable to bring the person who had actually perpetuated the crime to justice. They'd discussed it, and everyone seemed to be in agreement that it was a better plan for her to simply get Park convicted for kidnapping and not try for anything else. Jones was the sort who would gloat about getting away with what had had done. Of that Fleur was completely positive.

"Nothing." She said quietly, not looking at Draco.

"Nothing? But why not? He's going to get away with it!"

Fleur sighed. Draco's anger was understandable. Jones had not just hurt Hermione, he'd hurt Draco and threatened a great many of Draco's friends. Fleur had realized long ago, while still at school, that her feelings about her heritage were unique. Most embraced the chance to be a little bit different and to have the gifts of their non-human ancestors. Draco would not understand why Fleur was not forcing the issue.

She had discussed her plan with Hermione. They'd long-since realized that Jones was the sort of egotistical maniac that would need to be drawn out. He was already trying to goad Fleur into trying to get him, his continued notes were evidence enough of that. She wondered if he blamed her, for getting his mole within the Department of Magical Records arrested. Park had been a fool to take a Veela's mate, and Fleur did not think he knew anything about that bond.

Hermione had suggested that Fleur find a way to use the adamor curse on him. She had said that if Fleur used it on him, all her research indicated that it would probably fill his head with horrible images long enough for the aurors to actually catch him. They'd have something to hold him on as well then, which Hermione thought was the most important thing. Now all it required was their getting Jones to slip up and actually come out into the open and attack them.

A small smile played across Fleur's lips, "'e will not." She knew she sounded smug. She was proud, Hermione had come up with a fantastic plan and it would be relatively easy to implement it. "I 'ave a plan."

Draco leaned forward, his palms pressed together and his unbuttoned shirt sleeves riding up. She could see the Dark Mark still burned into his flesh and she looked away quickly. It was strange for him to reveal it, but she supposed that it was a mark of his past that he was unwilling to move away from, and that he had no shame in it. She admired that, to some extent, and knew that the fact that Harry Potter had given evidence at his trial that made clear how he was forced into doing every crime he was implicated in during the war. He was not hiding from his past nor from any aspect of himself.

Fleur only wished she had that skill.

Still, to see the mark shining so brightly disturbed her greatly. She tried to not look at it, for it was disturbing to see it so closely. She supposed that others still had the mark, but they were all in Azkaban, or serving life sentences of house arrest.

Draco pursed his lips, "You can't do anything illegal. Your mate is not threatened, you won't be protected."

Ah, their conundrum.

Hermione had asked her why she was not being charged with assault on Park in the first place and Fleur had begun to explain how the tenants of wizarding law tended to view Veela.

It was a less than human existence, she explained. The laws reduced her ancestors to nothing more than their basic level, thinking them incapiable of making a decision other htan the need to protect their mate. While it was necessary and important to do just that, all veela could make conscious decisions to commit crimes, losing control like Fleur had was rare and out of character. Most veela embraced their heritage to some extent, and Fleur knew that her rejection of her ancestry was what caused her to lose control so completely.

She told Hermione that she should be grateful that the law does not see veela and those with veela ancestry as fully human, as Fleur's loss of control and the way that she had used a long-term paralytic spell on Park would have been enough to warrant at least an investigation had she been fully human. Hermione had frowned at this, and said that everyone should be seen equally in the eyes of the law.

They had gotten lucky, and Fleur had let the subject drop. She did not want to fight with Hermione over something that had kept her safe.

"This spell will not be detected as anything other than one cast in self-defense," Fleur explained. She smiled at Draco, her eyes narrowed and slightly predatory. "Do not worry, I will still be around to make sure that you pass your NEWT so you can go on to a resoundingly dull career in politics."

He hung his head, not all that perturbed by her jab. Things were getting better. Fleur knew that she could not trust him, that he was entirely self-serving, but there was so much about Draco Malfoy that she found herself liking.

Hermione trusted him, to some extent, and he had granted Fleur a boon. Things were getting better, he understood the old ways.

She was far more veela than he was.

"Couldn't we just slip her veritaserum?" Draco asked and Fleur jerked her head up, she'd been staring down at her hands, watching as her control swam in and out. Her nails were growing.

She clenched her fist and shook her head violently, hair going every which way. "Non, 'e must be drawn out." There was so little else she could say, she did not trust Draco enough to actually tell him the plan. She did not even know if it was feasible. Hermione seemed to think it was, but the half-written letter to the auror McKenzie half-hidden under the stack of essays she'd collected during her second year class that morning. "I know what I am doing, Draco."

He stood, his shirtsleeves falling down and the Dark Mark again vanishing. "I'm not so sure you do…"

Fleur watched him go, holding her tongue and merely raising her hand to him as he left. She did not know what to say to him other than that yes, she did know what she was doing. This was what she did. She planned, she schemed.

Gringotts did not hire her for her looks, that much Fleur was certain of.

x

McKenzie –

I know that we have not spoken at length in a few weeks, since I gave you my statement about what happened with Madame Park. I wanted to get your opinion on a course of action that could potentially bring down our elusive Monsieur Jones.

As you well know, he has continued to send letters to me despite the fact that logic suggests that keeping a low profile might actually be a smarter course of action. I want to use this, to force him out and to attack me. I suggest you research the adamor curse and its effectiveness and let me know if you think that this will help you to catch and convict him of being the mastermind behind these murders, kidnappings and assaults. As far as I can tell, the effects would be limited to the moment, and at least then, you would be able to take him into custody and get a full confession in the ways that I'm sure aurors know how.

I shall be giving a deposition at the trial tomorrow, please let me know if you think that this course of action has merit.

Sincerely,

Fleur Delacour

Hogwarts.

x

"What did you tell them?" Hermione asked. She was sitting on the sofa in Fleur's sitting room, a book in her hand. Fleur squinted, but could not make out the title.

Fleur pushed the door shut and sighed. She was exhausted. The deposition had taken far longer than she'd initially thought it would, and she had ended up missing both lunch and dinner. She had stopped on her way out of London and gotten falafel at a muggle street vendor but it had barely taken the edge off of the pressing exhaustion that she felt.

Hermione was here, and Fleur felt at ease.

Ever since they had returned from the Christmas holidays, Hermione had found her way down and into Fleur's rooms late in the evening. She said it was only a temporary thing, but Fleur knew that they had both become far too dependent on the other to sleep at night. Still, it was a singularly pleasant feeling, pulling Hermione close and drifting off into sleep that was no longer plagued with nightmares of battles long past.

She knew that Hermione came because of other reasons, because the trauma and her own nightmares. Fleur wanted to tell herself it was because she too, found sleeping with another soothing, but Hermione had been rather close-lipped about the whole thing and Fleur had been unable to get a straight answer out of her about it. She resolved to simply not push the issue.

Fleur sat down on the sofa next to Hermione and shrugged off her cloak and jacket. Hermione's magical signature was everywhere in the room and Fleur inhaled deeply, feeling the slight tickle of Hermione's magic around her. She had refreshed the warming charms, probably a good thing, as it had been freezing that morning. "The truth. Exactly as it 'appened," Fleur explained, a slight smile playing across her features.

Hermione carefully marked her place in her book and closed it. Fleur could read the title of it now and her eyes narrowed. She owned that book. She was fairly certain that she'd loaned that book to Hermione back at the beginning of the school year.

"Mn," Hermione acknowledged, setting her book down on the ottoman. "I was worried when you did not come back right away."

Trying not to wonder why Hermione was reading up on the various aspects of veela culture that Fleur had yet to talk to her about, Fleur put on her best grin. "It took far longer than I 'ad expected." Her expression turned sour, "They did not even feed me. I 'ad to get dinner on my way back 'ere."

"The horror!" Hermione clapped her hand to her mouth and Fleur could see the merry twinkle in her eyes.

Fleur grinned back at her. "I know, it is terrible." She said the words with the thickest accent she could, trying to sound as dramatic as possible. Her hand was on her chest and her other was flung out like an opera singer.

It felt good to see Hermione burst into giggles. Things had been so deathly serious between them for so long that just having a laugh at the expense of the Ministry of Magic was cathartic, and Hermione's laughter was contagious.

She felt as though she had not truly smiled in ages, and Fleur could not help herself. She laughed right along with Hermione.

"You look so silly like that," Hermione said between giggles, "Did you want to eat?"

Fleur shook her head. "After all that I recounted today – and the falafel - I do not think my stomach could 'andle anymore." Her face darkened, thinking back to the way that she had been questioned by the solictors and the prosecution. They had wanted an airtight case, and Fleur could not give them one. She could not honestly say that she was acting like a veela, because that would be admitting to something that she was only just beginning to accept. She knew that it would make everything easier, but the last thing she wanted was to add a complication into the precarious legal situation she now found herself in: complete and utter freedom.

The laws were gone. She could do whatever she pleased. Fleur had no idea how to deal with such a change, she had no idea what to do with the knowledge that she could go home if she wanted to. She was no longer married to William.

Nothing was holding her back now, save the aching feeling of doubt and fear in the back of her mind that Hermione would not want this. Would not want her.

"They questioned my mental state." She said quietly. She did not look at Hermione, for Hermione had seen that mental state – she had seen Fleur completely and totally out of control and had managed to bring her back to something that could, on good days, be called control.

Hermione bit her lip, her brow furrowed and her eyes thoughtful. "Oh." Was all she said, but Fleur could see the younger girl's mind working. There was something to be said for the way that the veela instinctively knew what their mate was thinking, even if Fleur hated that intuition.

Hermione was wondering the same thing that the prosecutor had wondered, that Draco had wondered, that every single person in Fleur's life had wondered when they heard that she was the one who had caught Park.

Was she really out of control?

She had been, she had let the veela take her, and it was the most whole Fleur had been since Halloween. Since she had promised something to Hermione that Hermione had yet to truly understand.

"But it went alright?" Hermione asked after a long moment. Her eyebrows were raised and her cheeks were slightly puffed out.

Fleur leaned forward and kissed both of those cheeks, her lips lingering longer than was necessary, a promise of things to come. "Oui, it went well."

Silence claimed them then. Fleur settled in closer to Hermione, who shifted her weight so that she was resting into the crook of Fleur's arm. They rested so well together, fitting into each other like perfect puzzle pieces.

Hermione's fingers reached up, brushing the hair by Fleur's ear out of the way, "You're wearing them," she said quietly, satisfaction coloring her voice.

Fleur raised her fingers to brush against the earrings that she'd put in early that morning as she dressed both as conservatively and as traditionally as possible. She did not know what the proper dress code for testifying in a court room was and she did not want to risk looking improper or out of place. It would hurt the case; it would potentially get Park released into the public.

"I wear them a lot, 'ermione. They are lovely," this was not so much a confession, as a confirmation. Fleur loved what Hermione had found for her in some hole-in-the-wall boutique, they were perfect teardrops – spelled to reflect light and change in different ways depending on the light. Hermione's gift was colored with innocence and the satisfaction that a first love. Fleur could not help but wear them as often as possible. She wanted people to know.

"I like them on you," Hermione grinned, leaning forward and kissing the top of Fleur's ear. She lingered there for a moment, her hair ticking Fleur's nose. Fleur inhaled, enjoying how Hermione's hair smelled.

Hermione pulled away, her eyes downcast and Fleur immediately began to worry. What was wrong? She shifted, but Hermione began to speak once again, giving her pause: "I feel like I'm, I dunno, laying claim or something."

She did not understand it, then. Fleur knew that she was expecting too much when Hermione had pressed the carefully wrapped package into Fleur's hands in the middle of the Weasley's kitchen. She should have known that the way that Hermione looked at her was because of love and not because of some adherence to an ancient rite that by all accounts should have been disbanded eons ago.

A promised one, at the beginning of the relationship between those who are destined, would often give a veela a piece of jewelry. It was always plain, pale in comparison to the veela, to the love that they were just beginning to build between their two hearts. She had thought… incorrectly, it seemed. She had been floored when she'd opened the gift, completely unsure of what to say to Hermione.

"You do not need to do that." Fleur hooked her finger under Hermione's chin. Their eyes met and Fleur held Hermione's curious gaze. She would tell Hermione of what she had done later. There was something that was so incredibly romantic about the gesture that everything else could wait. "I 'ave always belonged to you," Fleur whispered fiercely, pressing her lips against Hermione's.

Hermione responded against her, their bodies shifting as one, struggling to become more comfortable. Fleur twisted so that Fleur was lying on top of her, and Fleur grinned as they pulled apart.

Her fingers lacing into Fleur's hair, Hermione asked, "Terry said that veela only fall in love once." When Fleur said nothing, she continued, "It's true isn't it?"

"Mn…" Fleur said, leaning down to kiss Hermione's neck. She lingered there, inhaling the pleasant scent of Hermione's skin and her shampoo. "It is more that there is only one person for them. They can 'ave flirtation, admiration, even lust, for others, but true love only comes once."

"It's very romantic." Hermione pointed out.

"Perhaps, then, 'ermione, I can show you just 'ow romantic it can be."