Golden Haze - Act Four, Scene Two

AN: Someone reviewed and said that Fleur and Hermione should talk about the future more, don't worry that comes next chapter, as well as in the following one. This has now been officially story boarded out - going to end on Chapter 40. Seems a good place as any to end it. Things are going to quickly come to a conclusion.

This chapter is all plot and a little bit of fun at the end, hope you all enjoy.

Special thanks to all those of you who review and all those of you who add this story to your alerts and favorites lists. It really means a lot to me. :D

Music of the Story: Daby Toure - Hassina

The news came by word of mouth and though the papers. There had been attacks by the madman Jones, on children, on young children, indiscriminate and very violent in nature. Her fingers were white-knuckled as she gripped the newspaper, scanning the articles quickly, not caring that her comprehension was not where it should be in order to fully pull the meaning out of the words.

There were no words for this.

Jones was attacking children, anyone he could find that obviously was not fully human. He'd nearly killed a half-giant girl the night before, the newspaper said. Jones' knife had marred her beautiful and youthful face beyond recognition. The newspaper article said that her parents were considering muggle reconstructive surgery the damage was so bad.

As she read the article, Fleur's thoughts were murderous. Her thoughts turned to the wonderment of how loving and kind the lone half-giant that she'd had in her life had been to her at the worst part of her life. This was unacceptable. The Mmnistry was not doing nearly enough to catch this man.

A small owl flew into the open window of her office and dropped a letter down onto her desk. Fleur had to lunge forward to grab it before it fell into her cup of coffee, still steaming under the warming charm that the house elf who had brought it to her had left on it when Fleur had distractedly thanked him. The parchment was soggy, but the owl was too small to have come very far. A quick glance outside confirmed that it was, once again, raining. Fleur wrinkled her nose as she saw the now recognizable scrawl.

What does he want now? She thought darkly, knowing that this could not be good. Jones had singled her out for some reason, and she did not know why. Fleur did not want to receive his taunts and his jabs at her heritage. She resolved to speak to McGonagall and potentially the rest of the Order of the Phoenix as soon as she could about it.

Her wand held at the ready, she cast the many dark and curse detection spells over the envelope that habit now dictated. She would not trust Jones to not curse whatever this latest attack was, but she was not going to take unnecessary risks. Jones' handwriting distorted under the sky blue light that emanated from the tip of her wand, and then swam back into view, the envelope was clean of any magical tampering. Fleur set her wand down, and gingerly broke the wax seal, her eyes narrowing as she unfolded the thin sheet of paper.

Today I attacked a little girl.

She could not have been more than five,

And yet when I cut into her flesh,

I could not have felt more alive.

The idea that a human, muggle or wizard alike, would mate with your kind is repulsive. I shall enjoy illustrating this point to your pretty little girl.

Her hands shook, her control wavered. Hermione was in Arithmancy class right now, Fleur had seen her go into the classroom on her way back up to her office to collect her things and prepare for her seventh year class. There was no way that Jones could hurt her. There was no way.

(Go to her.)

I cannot. It was not often that Fleur felt the veela's voice now, and it sounded so much less predatory and aggressive than it had before – following her own natural speech patterns. She knew that with that calm acceptance of her heritage came a certain degree of wholeness and she embraced it fully. There was little she could do at this point. Everything was forward, breathing, moving, taking steps to make her life complete once again. She was taking command, control, and ruling it with an iron fist.

Still, the veela had voiced her inner fears so delightfully well. Fleur did want to go to Hermione, she wanted to hold her in her arms and tell her how Jones would never, ever hurt her.

The small box hidden in her desk drawer told her that she, to this day, wanted to do more than that.

William had told her that she should have gone through with it at New Years, but it had been too soon. Their divorce had just barely been finalized magically and the paperwork had yet to even be filed. She had to wait, wait for that perfect moment when Hermione was sure to tell her yes.

She shoved those thoughts back into the drawer with the box that brought them on. Now was not the time or the place.

Jones would not get away with this.

x

The second note arrived as the first one had; only this one was delivered with breakfast three days later. Fleur had been talking to Professor Spout about possibly using some of the more violent plants that she kept in her personal greenhouse to showcase how it is not only wizards and creatures, but rather nature itself that her students needed to be prepared to defend against. She was thinking about using some sort of fungus with a nasty side effect in order to teach them about always making sure an area was clear before they moved on to the next one.

"Oh look, dear, you've got a letter," Sprout said as Fleur wrote down another suggestion from the herbology professor on a scrap of paper. She was using a muggle pen that she was fairly certain had once belonged to Hermione. It had been at the bottom of her satchel, so Fleur had not questioned it, but it wrote very differently than the quills she was used to, and she was having trouble getting it to actually make a mark on the thick bit parchment that she'd found in her bag as well.

Fleur picked it up and offered a bit of ham to the bird, grateful that she would not have to eat it.

"I am not sure that I'm going to want to read it," Fleur muttered darkly to herself in French, ignoring a raised eyebrow from Professor Spout. Jones' handwriting stood out like an omen in smudged black ink on the thin envelope.

She cast the spells automatically, trying to discern if he was again trying to attack her through her mail. His offense had been purely words, up until this point, but Fleur did not dare trust his lack of violent tendencies. The memory of Draco Malfoy's screams as he opened his own letter from Mister Jones was still quite fresh in Fleur's mind.

Blue, no magic involved.

Fleur opened the letter and read it quickly. No magic involved, not really, just idle threats and morbid descriptions of his latest victim. This girl was a newly-made vampire, and he'd taken great pleasure in pouring holy water over her body and watching her skin burn away.

Her hands were shaking.

Professor Spout looked concerned as Fleur's eyes started to franticly roam the Great Hall, looking for Hermione. She had to be there, she had to be safe. Fleur did not think she could handle losing Hermione again. She would kill someone for sure. She would not be able to stop the bestial rage inside of her.

There, Hermione was sitting with Harry and Ron. They were talking with some Ravenclaws at the next table over, leaning into the small corridor between the two tables and laughing. Hermione looked so alive, sitting there among her best friends and her peers. She belonged there, not shoved into something that she still did not fully understand.

Fleur exhaled, her hands growing gradually still over the table, the letter still crumpled in her fist. She was surprised that her palms where not bleeding from suppressing the shaking and the urge to fully lose herself to her instincts. She contained herself well, suppressing that urge to lose control.

A step forward.

"Bad news?" Professor Spout asked.

Fleur shook her head, "Just idle threats."

x

"I think that he's singling you out for some reason, Fleur," Minerva McGonagall leaned back in her chair and started impassively out the window. It was snowing again. Fleur liked the snow, but hated how cold it was here, far to the north of the winters that she was used to. She remembered how her mother had told her during her first winter at Hogwarts that she was a fool to go if she could not handle a little cold. Fleur had responded by jumping into the lake and getting mauled by grindylows. All in all, it seemed like a fair trade off. "You must take action against this, stop your mail for Merlin's sake! He's driving you mad."

Fleur said nothing. She knew what she had to do; their plan was already in motion. Jones was not backing down with his own harassment and Fleur could do little to stop it. She did not want it to stop. She was using it to build her case against him. Every single one of his notes and the corresponding auror reports (accessed via Hermione's rather dubious connection to one Rita Skeeter) were carefully filed away in her rooms, waiting to be presented to the aurors when their plan was finally put into motion.

"Zere is nozing I can do," Fleur muttered, her accent cutting through, wishing that she could speak French to someone. She should firecall her mother. "'e will make 'is move, until then, we are powerless."

Minerva's lips thinned into a white line and Fleur felt herself growing fearful that simply waiting was not good enough. The headmistress tapped her wand idly on the stack of newspapers at the corner of her desk, each marking yet another child attacked for no reason. "Draco Malfoy has a theory," she began, speaking as though it pained her, "And, after hearing it from both him and Harry Potter, I am inclined to believe that it may be true."

Fleur leaned forward, her over robe bunching against her chest and drawing her attention away from Minerva's musing and to the fact that it was incredibly hot in the headmistress' office. "Oh?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and wondering if Minerva would find it incredibly improper to take off her over robe in her presence.

She decided that she was too uncomfortable to bear it much longer. She shrugged off the coal gray garment and carefully folded it across her lap, waiting patiently for Minerva to voice an objection.

"I should turn off the warming charm," Minerva laughed, flicking her wand.

Fleur smiled at her gratefully, but made no move to put the over robe back on. She was fine for the moment in just her sweater.

"Young Mister Malfoy has a theory, when exactly did you file your paperwork to for a visa?" Minerva asked. Fleur wondered briefly if she had always looked this severe, if in her youth she had been the beauty that she seemed to have aged gracefully out of. She did not know what to think of Minerva McGonagall sometimes, there was so much more to her than met the eye.

When did I send that in…? She racked her brain; it must have been in September of 1995, maybe October. She'd started in Gringotts that December, once her mastery had been completed. Merlin, she'd been trapped in this country for almost four years now. "Sometime in the fall of 1995," she said at length, not being specific because she'd honestly have to pull out the papers to be sure.

There was a look of satisfaction in her eyes as Minerva continued: "There are not a lot of partial veela immigrating to a country like Britain. The laws, until very recently did not it very easy or the country very hospitable. You were probably one of the few that have come through in recent years. It was printed in the paper that Gwen Harper started her job at the Department of Magical Records around that time."

"Is 'e implying that Jones targeting me is just because of when I filed my paperwork?" Fleur's tone was incredulous. "That is… c'est ridicule. Was 'e wronged by a veela? Or is that just a 'appy coincidence aussi?"

Minerva's face was impassive, but her slight nod made Fleur want to scream. There was no way that this was anything but personal for Jones. The way that he was deliberately targeting her – Fleur ran a tired hand through her hair. "I don't know what to say, Minerva."

The headmistress bridged her fingers, looking impressively like Albus Dumbledore in the half light – albeit with square spectacles and a rather severe expression. Her eyes did not twinkle in the way that Dumbledore's had, and Fleur was not drawn into them by any other means than a mutual respect between herself and Minerva. "Continue with whatever plan Miss Granger has concocted. As long as it does not involve cat hair and polyjuice potion, you should be in very good hands."

Fleur blinked, she had not heard this story. Somehow, if Hermione had not told it, Fleur did not think it was her business to know it. It sounded far more like a traumatic experience than the fond memory that seemed to almost twinkle in Minerva's eye. "I … I shall endeavor to do that." She pulled her over robe over her shoulders, not bothering to fasten it (she rather enjoyed the billowing effect) and nodded to Minerva.

She had crossed the room in three quick steps and her hand was on the door handle before Minerva's voice gave her pause, "Oh and Fleur?"

"Yes, 'eadmistress?"

"Treat her well, she deserves it after what she's been through."

A fierce blush burning across her cheeks, Fleur nodded resolutely. "I will."

x

Hermione was not in her rooms when Fleur returned to them. She took down her wards slowly, taking the time to really inspect the old spell work that lay underneath it. She loved the look of it, the way that it swirled and adjusted itself to have new spells laid upon it. Beauxbatons was not like this, Beauxbatons would not have survived having the climactic battle of a war fought on its grounds – but Hogwarts – Hogwarts thrived. It grew out of the chaos of the battlefield, adapting and changing. The school had recovered gracefully. A mere summer and it was back to normal, it was almost… magical.

Fleur crossed the room easily and inhaled deeply. She had not spoken to her mother in some time, despite the fact that she had finalized the divorce with William, she had not found the words to tell her mother. She was desperate; she longed to have her mother truly understand why she had done what she'd done in the first place.

Her fingers closed around the small pouch of floo powder she kept on the mantle. She'd been using it to send letters to Gabrielle, knowing that her mail was being screened by the ministry. Fleur's fingers shook as she took a pinch of the glittery powder and threw it into the fire. Her voice spoke the name of her family's home, adding in the international keywords so that she did not end up popping into some random British person's home instead of her mother's kitchen.

The flames turned green and Fleur knelt and leaned forward into the flames.

The kitchen of her childhood home swam into view and Fleur's mother dropped the dish she had been washing. The tinkle of breaking glass in the sink met her ears and Fleur winced. Perhaps she should have announced herself before sticking her head into the fireplace.

"Fleur!" She shouted, her face blossoming into a bright smile.

Why didn't I do this sooner? Fleur though, smiling brightly at her mother. "Maman."

She did not push herself forward and step through the fire. There were all sorts of permits and visas required for that, and the strongly worded letter that she would receive, should she go through, was not worth the hastle. Her mother would be able to see her soon enough.

She and Hermione had talked, and Fleur had said that she did not think that she would be returning to Hogwarts to teach in the fall. Hermione had shaken her head and asked her if she had ever considered it in the first place.

Fleur had not, but she was not about to admit that to Hermione. Veela never admit defeat. Her grandmere had taught her that when she was a child.

Hermione had applied to a mastery program in Cairo, near to where Fleur still had an open offer to return to the local Gringotts branch. They'd both talked about wanting to travel, and Africa, Fleur reasoned, was as good a place as any to start.

"How are you?" Her mother clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "You do not call, you do not write, and then I read your name in the English papers – you helped apprehend a criminal?" Her mother's eyebrows were raised – never a good sign – and her lips were pursed, "How do you do all this while still being a professor?"

Fleur winched, she deserved her mother's ire. She had not been good about calling home, she had never been good at it. She wrote letters instead, but it was not the same once the Ministry started to read her mail to make sure that it was not full of curses and dark magic and acidic plant puss.

"I've given up sleep. It does wonders to the amount of free time I have," Fleur said simply, shrugging her shoulders, knowing that the gesture would show though the flames. "Besides, I had all of the winter holiday to catch up on my grading. My poor students did not know what hit them when I handed them back all that work."

Her mother laughed, before her expression turned more serious. "Mother tells me that you and William –"

"Yes it was finalized about two weeks ago. Filed officially after the law was passed." Fleur did not want to go into it. Her life was her own to live; she wanted this whole period of unpleasantness behind her. "I am sorry I did not floo you jumping for joy, but there were more pressing matters to take care of."

"I understand," Her mother nodded sagely. "Your mate was threatened, you did what you must."

Fleur nodded. There was not much else she could say about it. It was what she had said in the deposition and in Park's trial. She was following instinct, primal as it might be. "Maman… I…" She began, not really knowing how to begin to say that she was sorry for shutting her parents out of her personal struggle.

They had hated her choice to not embrace the veela in her, hated her choice to go to England, to marry William. Fleur had made a string of bad choices her entire adult life. Driven by duty and a quest for glory and greatness, she had been a fool at seventeen.

"I am sorry." She said quietly. "I am so sorry that I did – everything."

Her mother reached into the fire and touched her cheek. Worn and calloused fingers played across Fleur's cheek and she felt herself flush, embarrassed at her moment of weakness. It had been years since her mother had touched her, it felt amazing.

"You do not need to apologize, my Fleur." Her mother's smile was kind and reassuring. Fleur felt her heart warm at that smile. She had seen so much of her mother angry in recent years that seeing that smile reminded her so clearly of her childhood. "You are my daughter; I will always love you, no matter how bull-headed you are." Her mother glanced towards the door to her father's study and added in a conspiratorial whisper, "I blame your father's genes."

Fleur rolled her eyes. "I would have said yours, maman."

"No, my genes are full of beauty and perfection; also a great ability for arithmancy that I sadly did not pass on to my children."

She couldn't help it, she grinned. She had been trying to be serious, but her mother was obviously not in a serious sort of mood. She could only do so much around her mother, her infectious smile and way with words was hard to resist. Fleur shook her head, "I thought I did fairly well on that exam considering how challenging I found the subject matter."

"And now you dig around in tombs all day for a living," Her mother shook her head. "To think, you could have had a nice, indoor sort of job."

"I like my job," Fleur pointed out.

Her mother nodded absently, settling in more comfortably on the woven hearthrug. "So tell me, Fleur. What have you told Hermione about this?"

That was a difficult question. Hermione knew pretty much everything that Fleur could tell her about veela courtship and love. She was doing her own research and short of a conversation (that would never, ever happen) between Fleur's grandmere and Hermione, Fleur could tell her very little else. "She knows what I know."

"Are you going to give me grandchildren?"

The door to her rooms creaked loudly as it opened and Fleur turned to see Hermione carefully closing the door behind her. She was suddenly very grateful that her mother had asked that question in French, as she was bright red as it was. Hermione did not need to hear her mother talking about … about children.

She swallowed.

The idea was a little terrifying.

They were far, far too young to even be considering that sort of thing.

"Maman, Hermione is here," Fleur said quietly, waving at Hermione and trying to shoo her out of view of the fireplace. She had a feeling that this meeting would happen eventually, but she did not think that meeting a parent of one's lover over the floo was the best way to go about it. She would rather just take Hermione home, give her a chance to see Gabrielle and all sorts of embarrassing pictures that her mother was sure to bring up for this very occasion. It was better that way.

Her mother's eyes sparkled dangerously when Fleur mentioned Hermione's name, and Fleur quickly added, "I need to go."

Please let that be good enough. Please let me just go.

"No, bring her here; I want to meet this girl."