AN: Enjoy!

Chapter 6 - Just a Windy Spell

Dumbledore's unexpected offer had made Harry fall into deep thought. He had not expected that he would be adopted and he had certainly not seen it coming that it would be Bellatrix Black of all people.

'Is she batshit crazy in this world too?'

He had not looked up information on her before, he had only assumed that she was locked in Azkaban and that even when she would be broken out by Voldemort he would have nothing to do with her since if things went his way, he would be far away from the war.

'What about Fleur?' he asked himself.

His first thought was to confront her but then he felt like slapping himself upside the head.

'She's neck-deep into the war before the actual war even started.'

Would he not be looking for needless troubles if he tried to speak to her face to face? If her recent actions were anything to go by, she was not going to stop at only Snape, Fudge, and the Malfoys. Harry's 'saving people thing' (as Hermione used to call it) had never gone away even after decades of war and killings. Because of that, he had to remind himself and tell himself every day that he would not get involved with the war again.

'It's unheard of for one to get a second chance at life, a life where they could be anything they wanted. I can't screw up this time. I won't.'

After reminding himself of his resolution once again, he decided: he would not involve himself with the girl. But he started smirking when an evil thought popped up in his mind. He could not simply ignore this thing altogether now, could he? A small prank, a bit of harmless fun was always welcome. He grabbed a quill and piece of parchment and wrote two lines on it.

'She's going to die from anxiety.' He thought as he grinned mischievously. Tapping the piece of parchment with the tip of his wand, it transformed into an origami aeroplane and flew towards the girls' dorm, particularly towards the fourth year girls' room.

⁂

Fleur Delacour was packing her things in her trunk with the help of magic, preparing herself to leave. The express did not leave from Hogsmeade until half a day later but she liked to have everything ready with time to spare. She was absentmindedly levitating her clothes into her suitcase with her wand when someone knocked on the door. One of her roommates went to see who it was, only for the origami aeroplane to quickly fly through the opened door, directly to Fleur.

"Another admirer of yours?" her roommate said snarkily.

Fleur did not even deign to give her an answer, merely glancing at her indifferently before taking the floating origami plane in her hand. She was still very young, only 14 years old, so her charm/allure had yet to truly kick in. It was when she reached the peak of her puberty around the age of 15 or 16 that her nature as a Veela could no longer be hidden. Her unnatural beauty and allure would give away her identity at a glance. If other girls were envious now, it would get twice as bad next year.

'Beauxbatons or Hogwarts, French or English, it looks like it doesn't matter. Petty and narrow-minded people are the same everywhere.'

She still remembered that even her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law used to call her "Phlegm" for years when they thought she was not around to hear them. Putting that thought aside, she unfurled the piece of parchment and read its contents.

You were wearing a fresh, spring-scented perfume when you passed by me on the third-floor corridor. I watched you on Halloween night too.
Your invisibility cloak can't hide you. I know what you did.

Her already pale white face drained of all colour when she read that. A wave of panic came over her and the hand holding the piece of parchment started to tremble.

'How?! How was I found out?!'

She was almost hyperventilating. She had no illusions as to what would happen to her if she were to get caught. She was, after all, a bona fide serial killer. She had killed a professor, an eleven-year-old boy, an influential figure and the head of a Noble and Ancient House and she had even killed the Minister of Magic. There would be no lenience for her whatsoever. Even a life sentence to Azkaban would be considered a mercy... No, she would be sentenced to a Dementor's Kiss.

Even worse was that she could not understand how she had slipped up. She had no friends at all and she had made an image for herself as a bookworm too so nobody would find her absences strange. People would think that she was just in the library or in some empty class, studying. Furthermore, she had spent fours years being an exemplary student, never getting caught breaking any rules, just silently preparing for what was about to come. In addition, whenever she went on her "adventures" she would cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself and also wear the invisibility cloak on top of it. Even more, she always tied her long silvery hair up in a bun with a special charm that would make it impossible for her to leave a strand of hair behind by mistake. She truly did not understand how she had been caught.

'No way for just discovering the scent of my perfume to be enough to catch me!'

She could not accept that something as trivial and banal as that had thrown such a wedge in her carefully planned out actions. Closing her eyes, she breathed in and out a few times. It took some effort and a few good minutes, but with the help of her Occlumency, she managed to clear her mind and rid herself of her anxiety and panic.

'Whoever sent this note could have turned me in to Dumbledore. It would have been over for me. But they didn't...clearly, they want something from me. Trying to blackmail me?'

A murderous expression appeared on her face. If someone thought she would play to their tunes and let them take advantage of her, they had another thing coming for them. Her eyes flashed when she looked at the crumpled piece of parchment in her hand as an idea came to her. The note may have been unsigned but it had been sent using magic. And it had happened only a few minutes ago.

Every witch and wizard had an area of expertise, something that they excelled at. Some were better at duelling, some at Transfiguration, some at Potions, while others were better at Charms. Fleur Delacour was more than proficient when it came to charms. With a few muttered incantations, she tapped the piece of parchment and transformed into an origami bird which started flying ahead of her. She had charmed the note to return to the sender. All she had to now was follow it from behind.

With a silent Summoning Charm, a fluid-like silvery cloak flew from the trunk into her hand. Ignoring the strange looks her roommates were throwing at her, she left the dorm and followed the flying origami into the common room and then through the entrance, outside the Ravenclaw tower, on the corridors of the castle.

⁂

As a young boy, Harry did not have many things to pack. His clothes and shoes were stuffed into his trunk with a mere swish of his wand and his school items (books, quills, ink, parchment and so on) were packed easily with another household charm too. His Nimbus 2000 was always in his trunk when he did not fly with it at night so he had nothing else to do except for telling Hedwig that they were leaving. With that thought in mind, he left the Ravenclaw Tower and headed towards the Owlery.

He was close to arriving at the top of the West Tower (where the Owlery was located) when a piece of parchment that looked like a bird cut his way.

'Did she send me a reply?'

Curious about what she had written, he started unfurling the piece of parchment. However, it looked like the origami bird had been glued in that form with a spell because he could not open it up. As he was tinkering with it and thinking about ways to see its contents without destroying it (Finite Incantatem had not worked when he tried it), a red beam of light shot at him out of nowhere. It was only thanks to his instincts and sense of danger that he had honed after more than a decade spent on the battlefield that he managed to dodge it.

Another red beam of light followed up but after throwing himself to the side, he turned around smoothly with his wand in his hand and easily batted away the Stunning Charm with the tip of his wand. A master-class deflection.

Hogwarts' corridors were rather spacious but it was still only one way from which the two spells could have come. Even if the attacker appeared to be invisible, the moment they cast the next spell, he would be able to see their position easily.

However, now that he had turned around, his assailant was no longer casting any spells either. It looked like they did not want to give away their position.

Harry Potter grinned. It was a smile that looked rather evil on a childish face like his. Still trying to play the part of an 11-year-old boy (and conveniently forgetting that even among 6th-year students very few were capable of deflecting spells properly) he cast a Windy Spell by saying its incantation out loud instead of casting it nonverbally:

"Ventus Duo!"

⁂

Fleur Delacour cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself and also hid under her invisibility cloak the very moment she left the Ravenclaw common room. Then, she had to start jogging in order to keep up with the origami bird. She was mentally preparing herself for the confrontation ahead. While she did not put in her eyes the skill with a wand of any student in the school she still decided to be cautious instead of overconfident.

'Whoever managed to find my secret is probably very intelligent. They wouldn't dare to blackmail a serial killer without having the means and the confidence to protect themselves. They should know that they could become my next target.'

She had no intention of actually killing the one that had discovered her. But she would definitely Obliviate them of any memory that was related to her.

Running after the origami bird on the stairs and corridors would have been strenuous for an ordinary girl of her age but she had not been idle all these years. She had trained not only her mind but her body as well. At the very least, running out of stamina would not happen any time soon. By the time she reached the top floor of the West Tower, the origami bird just arrived in front of its original sender too.

'A firstie? That's what I've been sick with worry about? A little boy?!'

She had never been a mild-tempered person. Right now she felt as if she had been played like a fiddle. She really wanted to shoot a few very painful Stinging Hexes at him just to get her annoyance out of her system. But her Occlumency proved its usefulness once again and she managed to get her ire under control. Sticking the tip of her wand out of her invisibility cloak, she cast a Stunning Charm.

The boy jumped and rolled to the side as if he had a third eye in the back of his head. If that had only surprised her, the way that he almost lazily deflected the second Stunner she had cast at him downright shocked her. Momentarily, she stopped casting any spells.

'Is that really a first-year student?!' was her first thought.

When she saw the mean and confident smirk that crept up on his face she got a bad feeling.

"Ventus Duo!"

It was an advanced, slightly more powerful version of the Windy Spell. However, what came out of the boy's wand was definitely not a Windy Spell!

⁂

"Ventus Duo!" Harry said the incantation out loud.

He had cast that charm in order to create a gale of wind that would throw off the invisibility cloak of the person hiding underneath it if they were not holding onto it properly. And even if they had a good grip on it, the fluctuations it would create in the air would be enough to show him their location.

That had been his intention but what had come out of his wand was not a gale of wind... ...it was a goddamned hurricane!

A vortex of wind burst forth like out of an air cannon. Everything on the corridor was swept away violently and the windows were shattered too by the powerful wind. When the effect of the spell ended, the entire corridor looked like a tornado had passed through it. Suits of armour, shards of glass and paintings from the walls were all jumbled together towards the end of the corridor in a messy pile of junk. Half buried beneath a suit of armour was also a blonde-haired girl with parts of her body covered by an invisibility cloak. She was unconscious and bleeding from a gash on her temple. (1)

Harry's jaw almost hit the floor.

"The hell just happened?!" he said in disbelief.

He knew he was a very powerful wizard even despite his young age but this outcome was downright ridiculous. He had wanted to create a mere gale of wind to make her cloak flutter, not to almost kill her and wreck an entire corridor with a thrice-damned tornado! It was just a bloody banal Windy Spell!

"How did it turn out like this?"

When he took another look at the destroyed corridor, realization dawned on him: Dumbledore was going to be there at any moment.

"Fuck!"

AN:

(1) her Disillusionment Charm was cancelled when she lost consciousness.