AN: A timeline of the events in Harry's past life:

1998: Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort dies by his own Killing Curse. (mostly canon up until this moment - except for Harry not receiving Snape's memories)
2002: Harry wins the Quidditch World Cup for England. (chapter 1)
2004: Voldemort resurrects again. On the 31st of December, the entire Weasley family is killed. The start of the second war. (chapter 4)
2009: Harry, Kingsley, McGonagall, and Flitwick fight against Voldemort in a 4 vs 1 battle. They barely manage to kill him. Everyone dies except for Harry who also loses his right arm in the battle. End of the second war. (chapter 8)

The totem scene from chapter 23 is from the end of the 3rd war, in 2020, not long before Harry stepped into the Veil. Hope this cleared things out for you.

Chapter 25 - Duelling Club (I)

"We can be friends if you want. But leave politics aside when I'm around. I don't care about your families and how noble and old they are. I don't care that you're some heir or whatever. I don't care about your blood status either."

Dumbledore thought that night about the words that the Grey Lady had heard Harry say to the Slytherin children. He could not stop smiling.

'I failed to stop Tom from going dark.'

He had always seen the rise of Voldemort as one of his personal failures. However, it looked like young Harry would not turn out like his other student.

'Both orphans, both growing up with Muggles, both descendants of Salazar Slytherin, both with a rarely seen talent in magic, both scarily intelligent. They even look somewhat alike. So similar... ...yet so different! Fascinating!'

He was marvelling at how different the two of them had turned out to be. It confirmed for him once again that the power of love was immeasurable.

With those thoughts in mind, despite that it was well past midnight, Dumbledore turned on the lamp on his nightstand, stood up from his bed and went to one of the cupboards in his bedroom. It did not take him long to find what he had been looking for: a fluid-like slivery grey piece of fabric. It was an invisibility cloak.

*sigh*

An unreadable expression flashed in his eyes as he looked at the cloak in his hands but then he closed them. When he opened them again, his eyes were no longer clouded by emotion. Still holding the cloak in his hands, he left his bedroom and went to his desk in the Transfiguration Office.

The wooden chair creaked loudly as he sat down and he winced at the noise.

"Merlin, this chair is wailing worse than my old bones."

He did put some pillows on the seat but it was nowhere close to how comfortable his chair had been in the Headmaster's Office. He missed his previous comfort. After making a mental note to change his chair as soon as possible, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand. Grabbing a piece of parchment and a quill, he wrote:

Your father left this in my possession before he died. I should have returned it to you the previous year but with everything going on at that time it had slipped my mind. You can treat it as a late Christmas present.

An old friend.

⁂

It was late in the afternoon and the sky was already dark. The castle's grounds were covered in a thick blanket of snow and it was so cold that cracking noises were heard when one stepped on it.

"Damn it, what is she even doing outside at this hour?" Harry complained as he trotted through the snow grumpily. "And why did you drag me along with you? I quite enjoyed sitting on that comfy couch in front of the fireplace."

"You'd let a lady go out alone at night? There are monsters out there!" Fleur said with a pout.

"And you're just an innocent doe in the woods," he said with a roll of his eyes. "If anything, whatever is lurking out there should be afraid of you."

"Tell me, 'Arry, why are you always swearing? And why is it that you are not 'appy now? Always so grumpy, no-one will like you with that attitude. You will die of old age, all alone!"

"It's so cold, my balls are freezing! That's why I'm 'grrrumpy'," He said, pronouncing the 'grumpy' word in a high-pitched voice and with a very accented R as to mock her.

To say that he was annoyed would be an understatement. His footprints in the snow became deeper as he stomped his feet and walked ahead of his companion. It was only after making a few steps, however, that he stumbled and, due to having his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he did not have the time to take them out and brace himself. He fell face-first into the snow.

For a moment, there was a deathly silence. Then, Fleur started to laugh out loud.

"Fuck! Shit! Fucking hell, fuck! Fuck!" The two of them were close to the Forbidden Forest. Harry had just stumbled upon an aerial root of one of the immense trees of the forest. With snow stuck all over his face, he was so angry that he even lost his ability to swear intelligently.

Hearing him scream profanities and seeing his rosy face still covered in snow, the older girl began to laugh so hard that she was holding her sides with her hands.

"Ahahaha! I can't...Hahaha!"

*woosh*

A snowball suddenly smashed straight into Fleur's face and her laughter died out in an instant.

"Did you just-" she sputtered but yet another snowball nailed her right in the forehead once again.

"Bwahaha!" This time, it was Harry's turn to burst into obnoxious laughter.

"Sous merde!" she swore under her breath, "You asked for it, now it's on!" she yelled at him. Grabbing a big amount of snow in her hands, she compressed it as hard as she could in the form of a ball before throwing it at him. In her anger, she put too much strength into it... ...which led to a serious loss of accuracy. The snowball whirred 3 feet above Harry's head.

"What a piss-poor aim! Haha!" he sniggered and threw another snowball at her. Fleur had to duck to not get a headshot again.

A few minutes later, it became painfully clear that Harry was the better shooter. Fleur's face was flushed a deep red; whether it was from the cold or from the anger, Harry did not know but he took great delight in bombarding her with snowballs. Seeing that she was losing (and quite badly at that) Fleur suddenly broke into a sprint towards him.

Harry threw the remaining snowball in his hand right into Fleur's face again and then started to run for his life, all the while snickering like a hyena.

"When I catch you I'll break your legs! Putain!" she yelled after him.

"What happened to your no swearing policy? Aren't you supposed to be a classy lady?" he yelled over his shoulder while running as fast as his short legs could carry him through the knee-deep snow on the ground.

But his laughter was short-lived. Taller and much faster than him, Fleur soon closed in the distance and threw herself at him like a bird of prey upon a pitiful rat.

"Oof!"

All air left his lungs as he got body-slammed to the ground and she landed on top of him. She was not done though. She started to wildly grab snow from the ground and throw it on top of him, burying his entire upper body in the snow.

"That should do it! That'll teach you not to- ah!" she began to say but let out a squawk when he suddenly turned around and pushed her to the side. She had not expected him to retaliate because he rarely tried to get physical since she was older and stronger than him. And that led to the current reversal: he was straddling her and pinning her hands above her head with his body weight.

Even as they both struggled - she to escape from his grasp and he to hold her down - she was not worried. Instead, she smirked because it was only a matter of time before she freed her hands and overpowered him.

The airy voice of a young girl was all of a sudden heard next to them:

"Are you guys wrestling? This isn't the proper way. When I saw my mum and dad wrestling this Christmas they had no clothes on them. They said you can do it better without clothes. So you ought to go inside. You can't wrestle here, in the cold."

It was a first-year Ravenclaw girl with long blonde hair, blue eyes and a round and innocent face. There was a blue Ravenclaw muffler around her neck and a winter hat resembling an eagle on her head, giving her quite the eccentric look.

The two of them stopped their struggle in an instant because they realized what their position looked like for others: he was on top of her, holding her hands above her head. When they also heard what the young girl had just said, Harry's and Fleur's faces started burning and it had nothing to do with the cold.

He quickly got up and said, his tone a bit strange due to how embarrassed he was: "We were-" he paused awkwardly, "-we weren't wrestling like your parents. We were having a snow fight - and she was losing. So she tried to beat me up using other means. Sore loser!"

The young girl perked up at his words.

"Oooh! A snow fight! Can I join you?" she said eagerly.

Fleur also stood up and smiled at the younger girl: "Of course you can."

"So, how do we do this? I've never had a snow fight."

Harry let out a wicked smile. "Like this!" he said and threw a snowball straight into the girl's face. Then, he started to laugh out loud. "Headshot! Forget about professional Quidditch, I should become a sharpshooter. Hahaha!"

Fleur went to the girl who was frozen in disbelief and started to gently wipe the snow away from her cheeks.

"Let's get 'im! We will make 'im pay for this. Us, girls, let's team up against 'im and beat 'im up!"

Hearing Fleur's words, it was as if the younger girl came to life again. "Yes, let's beat him up!" she also said, filled with energy.

"Hey, hey, hey! Two against one? How is that even remotely fair? We should have a battle royale!" Harry yelled while the two girls started throwing snowballs wildly at him.

⁂

Fifteen minutes later, two silhouettes appeared from the direction of the castle. One was tall and wearing combat boots and a long leather coat, while the other one was extremely short and wearing a suit with a bowtie under his opened fur jacket. The tall one was the Auror on duty responsible for patrolling the grounds of the castle and the very short one was none other than the Charms Professor and the Head of the Ravenclaw House, Filius Flitwick.

"Ms Delacour, Mr Potter!" he yelled their names in his high-pitched voice. "I sent you to bring Ms Lovegood back in the castle, not to stay outside and play with her in this weather! I was worried something happened to you! Ms Lovegood, why did you not tell me you went outside in the first place? And to the Forbidden Forest no less!"

Despite that it was only around 5 o'clock in the evening, due to the fact that it was January, it was night outside. Therefore, when Professor Flitwick realised that a student was missing, he sent his apprentice to find her. In turn, Fleur also dragged Harry with her (hence his earlier grumpiness). Flitwick's surprise was not hard to understand when he saw the ever serious French girl making angels in the snow together with Luna Lovegood. Furthermore, both girls and Harry had so much snow on their clothes that they looked like they had rolled around in the snow.

"I'm sorry, Professor," Luna said, a guilty look on her face. "I saw a knarl hiding among the bushes in the inner courtyard of the castle and I tried to catch it. But it was faster and more clever than I thought so it managed to escape. I followed its tracks up till the Forbidden Forest but my daddy said to never go there alone so I didn't. That's when I heard Fleur and Harry and came to them."

Since Draco Malfoy had been killed by a troll the previous year, students' safety has become paramount. The fact that a first-year student had managed to slip away unnoticed was already bound to make some trouble for the Head of her House and the two Aurors on duty as well.

"Don't worry, Professor, we found Luna right away. She was not in danger. And even if there was anything, you know that I am more than capable of protecting her," Fleur tried to placate him.

Flitwick sighed deeply but did not continue to scold the children.

"Well, let's not waste time anymore. Let's go inside before you catch a cold."

⁂

It was Saturday morning, still in the first week of the new term. While everyone was having breakfast in the Great Hall, Headmistress McGonagall stood up and cleared her throat. The former Transfiguration professor commanded as much respect as the previous headmaster and she was much stricter. With her in charge, discipline at Hogwarts had become better since the start of the year, especially since there were also two Aurors guarding the school at all times - one on the corridors of the castle and one on the grounds, outside. That being said, all students quickly quieted down when they saw her standing up.

"Good morning! There is just one announcement that I would like to make. In the light of the recent events - the assassination attempt on Professor Black and Harry Potter in Diagon Alley two weeks ago - Professor Black has decided to open a new club in order to help you to better protect yourself should you ever encounter such a situation. A Duelling Club."

The students burst with excited whispers, even the Slytherins. Bellatrix Black had been popular from her very first day as the DADA Professor due to her brilliant deeds in the past (saving the life of Neville Longbottom and that of his parents) and the following term only increased their appreciation for her due to her performance in class. They had never had such an experienced witch or wizard to teach them DADA before. That being said, her latest feat, that of surviving the attack of 10 grown-up wizards and even managing to kill them all, had made the students feelings towards her start bordering veneration. Hearing that Bellatrix Black was opening a Duelling Club had the entire school boil with excitement and anticipation.

Once the clamour finally died down, Headmistress McGonagall said: "I will let Professor Black tell you the rest."

Whistles and cheers came from the students in the hall, especially from the boys when they saw Bellatrix standing up. With her form-fitting black dress robes, her long wavy black hair styled over one shoulder and wearing a pointed witch hat, this chic lady was the wet dream of many if not all the teenaged boys at Hogwarts. The fact that she was known to be dangerous as hell too only added to her charm. The whistles and applauses in the Great Hall did not stop for a long time. It was to the point where even Bellatrix herself was starting to become embarrassed at imagining what her fellow professors were probably thinking at that moment about her. Nevertheless, she did not let it show on her face. Keeping her confident and slightly smug countenance, she said:

"The Duelling Club's meetings will be held here, in the Great Hall, every Saturday, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. There is no age restriction, even first-years are welcome-"

Another chorus of cheers erupted at that and she had to stop speaking for a few moments.

"-but I will tell you this: Today, I won't hold it against anyone if they decided just to come and see what's the club about. However, from next week, I want consistency. One does not become an accomplished duelist in a few days or weeks. It takes months or even years. It's a long-term commitment so I don't want to waste my time and effort on those who are too weak-willed or too lazy to keep studying and training to improve themselves. This Duelling Club is not a child's play. What you will be learning from me could one day save your life. As it had saved mine and Harry's."

Dozens of heads turned to look at the Ravenclaw table, at the second-year boy in question. Harry made a displeased face at the fact that she mentioned his name and implied that he was no stranger to duelling.

"Smile, everyone is watching you. Stop brooding. You're famous~" Fleur, who was sitting next to him like usual, whispered to him, not quite able to hide the gloating in her voice.

"Not. One. More. Word." he groused. It only made her start giggling.

"One last thing," Bellatrix started speaking again and people turned their attention back to her, "I want you to come properly equipped for the occasion. That means that girls should not come in skirts-"

"WHY?" Fred and George Weasley complained out loud.

"So your sort of mavericks won't have an excuse to peek under their-" Bellatrix began to say, only for McGonagall to loudly interrupt her: "Professor Black!"

Bellatrix showed a rather unrepentant expression while the rest of the students laughed at the Weasley twins' antics and at their DADA Professor's no-filter mouth.

"Anyway. Come dressed properly for intense physical effort. Tracksuits or casual clothes, and comfortable shoes. And don't forget your wands! That's all."

⁂

When Harry and Fleur arrived in the Great Hall at 3 pm sharp, the large room was already packed with students. Even most of the professors had decided to come. The long dining tables had been removed and a circular stage had been erected in the middle. It was 4 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter. Professor Black was already on the stage, a hand on her waist and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Ah, there you are! Finally!" she exclaimed when she saw Harry and Fleur entering the Great Hall. "Ms Delacour, hop on the stage please."

Fleur looked at Harry unsure of what the older witch had on her mind. Harry too shrugged his shoulders. He chalked it up to Bella just making use of the chance to poke some fun at them.

Turning her attention to the rest of the students standing beneath the stage, Bellatrix explained: "In case you didn't know, Ms Delacour here is a brilliant fifth-year Ravenclaw student, top of her year I believe. Furthermore, she has also become Professor Flitwick's apprentice at the beginning of the year. Seeing as Professor Flitwick is a Charms Master and a renowned Duelling Champion, you can look forward to her performance~"

With Bellatrix hyping Fleur Delacour so generously, both Fleur and Harry started to become worried.

"Careful, she most certainly has something in mind," he warned Fleur. But then, he made a face.

"What?" she asked when he saw him wince.

"I forgot about our piano lesson yesterday... ...I was with you and Luna outside, playing in the snow. Crap, she's mad at me!"

"And what's that got to do with me?" she whispered furiously.

"Maybe she's jealous?" At Fleur's incredulous face, he added: "You'd be surprised to know how petty and vengeful she can be. She'll hold a grudge for something minor even months and then get back at you. Since you stole her time with me, you're gonna pay for it."

"What?! I didn't steal her time with you!"

"Well, you did drag me to go with you outside, against my will I might add, and-"

"You said it yourself that you forgot you were supposed to have a piano lesson!" she retorted.

"Details, details. Off you go!" he said and gave her a shove all the while chuckling under his breath.

Even as she climbed the steps of the stage, she turned to glare at him angrily.

"You can do it, Fleur!" he cheered cheekily. "Kick her butt!" he shouted and pumped his fist.

Fleur gnashed her teeth. Especially when she saw the feral smile on Professor Black's face when she got on the stage. The girl swore to herself that she was going to make Harry pay even if that was the last thing she did.

AN: Some fluff/slice of life in this chapter. Luna got a bit more screen time (as you have noticed, her mother is not dead in this world) and you've got to see more Fleur and Harry time too. Also, many of you have been asking me "What about Harry's Invisibility Cloak?". Well, Dumbledore had not given it to him until now because he did not trust Harry with it, he was seeing him as if he was Voldemort Junior. But now that Harry is finally in the clear, he gave it to him right away. So you finally got your answer in this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.

EDIT: I have taken out the weeb-like expression that did not fit this story, you were right, lol. Thank you for the constructive criticism.