AN Yeah, I'm looking more toward monthly updates at this point, hate to say it, hate to hear it, im just running out of prewritten material and haven't had any time or inclination to write at the moment, my brains been turning over original works, but I havent abandoned this and won't give it up, mostly because i have the end written already and just gotta bridge the gap
Thanks to my peeps, yall know who you are, you the realest.
Fleur - Chapter 2
The sun from the windows of the champion's private room did not fall directly on the bed; this was just yet another perk of the improved living quarters. Fleur woke shortly after dawn, too excited to get back to sleep once she cracked her eyes open and started the day.
It was Monday, the first day of Hogwarts classes for the visiting students, and she had a once-in-a-lifetime lecture to attend.
Madame Maxime was in the commons when she left her room, and her headmistress waved her over. Fleur looked toward the door briefly, hoping Luna wouldn't be looking out for her, and joined the large woman at the table.
"Do you plan to attend any lectures?" Maxime asked around her morning latte as Fleur ordered her own.
It would seem she'd been forgiven for her embarrassing hiccup at the welcoming feast. Likely owing mostly to the events following the selection ceremony, but Fleur would take the lucky break.
"Yes Madame," she said as their travel elf conjured a steaming cup in front of her. "Transfiguration for today, just before lunch."
"Ah, yes, it should be a treat, be sure to apply yourself. I've heard McGonagall's advanced lectures can be taxing." Madam Maxime did not sound concerned that Fleur would struggle, further proof that the little Hogwarts boy had drawn most of her ire.
"Of course, madam," Fleur said, and silence lapsed as she ordered breakfast.
She had a few hours before the only real lesson she wanted to attend that day, and she cast about for something to do in the meantime as her classmates joined them. Aimee was unlikely to make an appearance for some time with the way she slept, but Marie sat beside her and she gave Fleur a smile as she did so. Aimee was the bridge that connected them, the glue of their tripod of a friend group, so Fleur simply returned the smile and refocused on her crepe.
The library. She decided on that as her first destination for the day. She would see if Hogwarts had anything to offer that Beauxbatons had not, though she privately doubted it.
The meal ended and Fleur stood to make her way up to the castle. It seemed she was in the minority, most of the boys were moving to the casual seating around the carriage, grouped together and bearing their textbooks, and Arianne and her coven of minions were moving back down the hall toward the rooms. Marie was with her though, as well as Luc and Jean.
"Are you auditing any lectures this morning?" Fleur asked Marie as they crossed the lawns.
Marie nodded, looking miserable with her fists stuffed in her pockets and a constant shiver running down her spine. Fleur's Veela nature may make the cold, wet climate feel worse, but it did at least stave off some of the chill on a milder morning like this one.
"Charms, second period," her friend said brightly.
"Do you think this international study will look better on your mastery next year?"
Marie nodded again.
"Yeah, I don't trust myself with independent study all year, and Flitwick is supposed to be quite good."
"What about you Fleur, what's caught your eye?" Fleur spared a glance at the pair of boys walking with them.
Luc Bennet was likable enough, or at least he had yet to embarrass the both of them with some public declaration of love. She couldn't quite call him a friend though, she didn't make it a habit of associating with Beauxbatons boys. He also had an unfortunate, in Fleur's eyes, fixation with broomsticks.
"Transfiguration for sure," she said, "Potions, and the Warding class should be interesting."
Luc was nodding animatedly at her words. "I'm going to McGonagall's too! Maman would kill me if I didn't get an autograph."
Luc Bennet was many things, but a Transfiguration devotee was not one of them. She gave a calculating glance out of the corner of her eye and wondered if he were simply trying to follow her schedule. It was a self-absorbed suspicion, but not one without grounds.
They reached the castle and moved, as a unit, through the entryway toward the grand stairs.
"Are we all going to Charms?" Jean asked the group at the base the steps. The other two nodded, while Fleur shook her head.
"Library," she offered in explanation, if she recalled correctly it was somewhere on the first floor.
They parted ways with small farewells and Fleur turned from her classmates, trying to recall Luna's convoluted tour. It should be down the east corridor…
-o-o-o-
Fleur drummed her fingers on the empty shelf before her, frowning at its emptiness. Hogwarts' library was impressive, much like the school at large, in a formidable way. The lighting was low, without many external windows to let natural light in, and floor to ceiling bookcases took up most of the wallspace anyway. Privately she thought the space would be more effective as a place of study if there were more torches lit, but that was not her current issue.
She was in the Runes section, scanning the spines of books, and there was startlingly little advanced material. The selections available were largely translations of the same books she'd studied in her earlier years at Beauxbatons. Basic things for beginners, perhaps an intermediate text or two, but nothing that even reached the level Beauxbatons seventh years were working at.
She heard the bell chime through the halls and muttered her frustration under her breath as she retrieved her bag and joined the students milling out of classes. She'd been given a roster of available classes for the visiting students to attend at their leisure, and there were a few must haves on her list, starting with Monday's third period Transfiguration lesson.
Hogwarts had some big names in its staff, some like Flitwick were familiar to Fleur, but were matched in prestige by her own Charms professors back home. McGonagall was a world renowned practitioner, unmatched in the scope of actively publishing researchers, and it would be foolish to miss the chance to audit her lectures.
Outside the Transfiguration class, she had immediate plans to attend one of professor Snape's classes, as he was perhaps the second most famous of Hogwarts' teachers in their field. Otherwise she was planning to attend as many classes as she could, if only to escape the crowded Beauxbatons carriage, but those two classes took priority.
She recalled Luna's instruction as best she could as she navigated the hall, her roundabout tour made it difficult, but she was at least on the right floor and wing before the halls cleared and she caught an older looking boy in the colors of Ravenclaw house.
"Excuse me," she said politely, reaching out toward him to catch his attention but not actually gripping his sleeve.
He looked at her and blinked twice as he took her in. He was not reduced to a dumb smile and flush, but she was glad she'd refrained from touching him directly anyway. "I am looking for Madame McGonagall's class."
He perked up and smiled, "follow me, I'm on my way there now!"
She returned his smile politely and fell into step beside him as he continued down the hall.
"Name's Roger," he said, sticking his hand out, "Roger Davies."
She dipped her head in a little bow of greeting, but didn't take his hand. "Fleur Delacour, a pleasure." He took her greeting in stride, lowering his hand without an outwardly disappointed expression.
"Congratulations on your selection, by the way," he added as they approached an open doorway, "must be exciting."
She could tell from his tone that he had entered as well, she followed his wistful gaze across the classroom and noticed that the Hogwarts champion was also in attendance.
"Exciting, yes," she said, noncommittal.
In truth excitement wasn't quite the emotion she attached to the tournament. Since its announcement at the start of the term the pending champion selection had sat heavy in her stomach, a weight of responsibility.
She was determined to enter and win, of course, but it was not for personal glory as so many viewed it. She was a Veela attending Beauxbatons.
Her people were largely insular, most Veela children were homeschooled, and she knew that some places were less accustomed to magical races mixing in day-to-day life. Her participation in the Triwizard was almost compulsory, and her duty to perform was externally motivated as much as internally.
The classroom was far from full, as visiting seventh years they had two class periods to attend advanced transfiguration, and she assumed their division was done by house. This class at the start of the week, containing the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students, and a class later in the week for the other two. She split off from her guide, not wanting to accept his invitation to sit with him and give him the wrong idea, and took a vacant desk at the front of the class.
She already had spare parchment and quill out when the professor entered and closed the door behind her with a soft click.
"Apologies," McGonagall said, somewhat flustered as she strode between the desks to her own. "I had to resolve an issue with some of my house students. Now…"
She swept the room, taking in the few new faces among them, and offered a tight smile. Fleur returned it from the front row, a bit starstruck and eager to get into the lesson.
McGonagall did not disappoint.
She dove into her lecture on partial human transfiguring with a swiftness that had Fleur glancing around the room in a mild panic. She was sure she'd made some mistake at first, wandered into a mastery class or something, because the speed with which the professor moved through complex and abstract topics was baffling. It wasn't until she saw the Hogwarts students furiously taking notes, and looking as frantic as she felt, that she was reassured.
By the time the lecture was over her brain felt as if it had been wrung out like a sponge and hadn't quite soaked everything back up yet. She left the classroom smiling to herself nevertheless. All the way to the great hall she pondered the theory behind vertebrate/invertebrate conversion. A topic McGonagall had blown past like it was simple arithmancy.
She was no closer to understanding as she found a seat at the long Ravenclaw table next to her schoolmates. The year's Transfiguration study was going to be interesting and intense, that much was certain.
Marie and Aimee had chosen sleep over Hogwarts' morning offerings, and as such seemed to be taking lunch in the carriage. Fleur didn't mind, without the presence of her friends at the table she was able to take out her notes from the lesson and review while she ate. She was so engrossed in study she completely failed to notice Luna quietly join her.
She realized partway through the meal that Luna hadn't arrived and looked up to scan the table only to jump out of her skin to find Luna's shock of near-white hair to her left.
"Merde!" she gasped, putting a hand over her pounding heart as the little girl blinked up at her owlishly.
"What's that?" she asked, staring up at Fleur.
"It is… not a kind word, you scared me Luna, 'ow long 'ave you been there?"
"Oh, not long," Luna said, not sounding sure, "I was a bit late to lunch, some gnargles stole my quill."
Fleur didn't know what that meant, but she brushed it off and stowed her notes in her bag.
"Well, say something next time, I've been waiting for you!" She sent the young Ravenclaw a smile which was hesitantly returned. "So, 'ow were your morning classes?"
"Oh pretty good," Luna said vaguely, "I've just come from Divination, so that's fun."
Fleur's smile became a little wooden, but Luna was too focused on crafting a sandwich from odd choices of lunch cuisine to notice. Divination was a subject Fleur had a… contentious relationship with, at best. It was not on her agenda for class audits to be sure.
She'd made the mistake of mentioning her dreams in childhood a bit too often. She learned at a young age that it drew far too much attention and had successfully pretended they didn't exist for years now.
Casting around for a change of subject she remembered her trip to the library that morning. "Luna, do you know if there are more Runes texts besides the ones in the library?"
Luna took a bite of her abomination of a sandwich and blinked up at her as she chewed. She swallowed laboriously and only after chasing her bite down with juice did she nod.
"Professor Potter has loads."
Fleur's jaw snapped shut, and she couldn't help the involuntary way her eyes shot toward the staff table. He wasn't there.
Fleur ground her teeth, and it seemed Luna had noticed her reaction this time, because she was frowning up at Fleur when she looked back down.
"I'm sure he'd let you borrow some, he has stacks in his office, and he uses them in class." There was a defensive note to the little girl's voice, and a pleading undertone. Fleur reached out and smoothed her hair down on instinct, feeling bad for upsetting her.
"Oui, I will go ask," she said brightly, for Luna's benefit, internally she was cringing.
It was not like her to avoid a problem, she'd only really ever avoided the one, but that was hardly an option anymore clearly. It was one thing to ignore weird dystopian apocalypse dreams and hope they went away. It was another thing altogether to pretend the very real, very corporeal, Hogwarts professor wasn't a character in said dreams.
She left Luna in the entrance hall, determined to cross the Rubicon, and watched Luna cross the lawns toward the Beauxbatons carriage and her Care of Magical Creatures class beyond. She was stalling, and that fact annoyed her, so she turned decisively on her heel and marched up the grand stairs. Her destination was one she'd paid close attention to during Luna's tour, so fresh off her embarrassing display at the welcoming feast, so it was no trouble to navigate to the second floor corridor.
For all her forced confidence and determination she couldn't help flashing back to the feeling that had consumed her in the great hall a few days prior and it gave her pause at the entryway to the classroom. The door was open, the room empty, but she could hear the sounds of movement from the office at the head of the room. She steeled herself at the entryway and then crossed the threshold, holding her breath.
She lingered just inside the classroom for a moment before crossing to the office door with a scowl at her own timidity. The professor was in the office, back to the door, and hunched over a large scroll on the ground. On closer inspection Fleur noted it was not parchment, but a truly massive scheef of dragon hide vellum.
She stared at his back for a moment, eyes narrowed, unsure what to say or do. Eventually her pride reared its head once more and put a stop to her procrastination. Biting the inside corner of her lips to strengthen her resolve and clear her face she reached up and knocked on the doorframe.
He didn't respond at once, and though his reaction didn't take long, she felt an irrational irritation rise in her chest as she waited. He did turn, seeming to pull himself with difficulty from his work, and started to greet her.
"Yes, how can I-" he froze at the sight of her in his office, and Fleur stared down at his kneeling form with calculating eyes.
He did know her.
He may have masked it fast, he may be good at appearing the genial young professor, but she'd seen it in his eyes. In the hesitation in his speech. He recognized her, and not because they'd chatted briefly after the champion selection.
"-help you?"
He smiled, and stood, but she didn't respond immediately. She allowed her moment of shrewd inspection to stretch without comment. Her calculating looks could make even the Beauxbatons professors uneasy if she wished. She searched his face for answers, and he just smiled politely into the silence. The scar was a mystery, if her dreams were prophetic then he shouldn't have it yet, as she had seen him without it. His hair was shorter than it usually was, his face a little fuller, but she could still see the slightly hollowed-out look in his eyes.
"I was told you 'ad checked out most of the Ancient Runes books from the library," she said imperiously.
There were indeed stacks of books on the desk, and three separate tomes open with pages marked. If she weren't so focused on presenting an imposing front to this strange man she would be incredibly curious what he was working on. As it stood all she could do was stand resolutely in his office doorway and browbeat him into submission with forced eye contact.
It wasn't working.
He laughed slightly at her words, and turned to his desk in time to miss the glare she sent him in response. Something about this professor got under her skin. Obviously it was concerning that she'd seen him before actually meeting him, but it was more than that. She constantly felt judged by his looks, teased and mocked with every smile and laugh. It transformed an easy-going young man into a cocky asshole in her mind's eye.
"That I did," he said, the smarmy prat. "Was there one in particular you were looking for?"
He turned back to face her at the desk, and gestured with a wave of the hand toward the collected texts. She didn't have one in mind, but she couldn't say that, so she stepped toward the desk and scanned the various spines of books quickly.
"There are several," she said, buying time to find at least one she could take from him now. That felt important to her in this moment, that she not go away empty handed, and she wasn't quite sure why. The only thing that could be a certainty was leaving without a book now constituted a loss, and she would not lose. "Will you have them for long?"
She'd selected a book and breathed easier knowing she had her escape plan now.
"Unfortunately," he said, adopting a piteous look, and she fought to keep a scowl off her face. "I'm working on a number of projects at the moment, but you are free to peruse and take as you like, it's part of the deal I worked out with Madam Pince."
Fleur took his mention as an invitation to finally look to the large enchanting circle in the center of the room. Opinions of the man aside, his work was quite interesting at first glance. The complexity of the circle he'd been crafting when she walked in was beyond anything she'd attempted yet in her schooling, but she knew enough to at least read what could be read. It appeared to be some form of transportation, the runes and arithmancy present described momentum, and its effects on rigid bodies.
Of course, with Runes the entirety of their meaning could be altered with even one additional placement, but she was confident in her assessment of the partially completed work.
"Well," she said, sure to convey her dissatisfaction at the proposal. "For the time being, I will take this one."
She selected a book from the middle of a stack, daring him to deny her with the look she sent him. He simply nodded, still smiling that smug smirk at her. "Feel free."
She retrieved the book, holding it stiffly at her side as a silence stretched between them. He was leaning against the office desk, still looking her way, still smiling. She watched, incredulous, as one of his eyebrows began to rise. She realized she'd been standing still, staring at him, for long seconds as she tried to puzzle over who and what he was. She opened her mouth, and they both spoke at the same time.
"What are you working on?"
"I hope to see you in my class-"
Fleur's jaw snapped shut, she'd not intended to ask that. Her words were more barbed in her head, and they instilled a respectable fear in him, what she'd said was downright pleasant.
"I'm sorry?" he asked, head tilting to the side like some overgrown puppy.
"What are you working on?" she repeated quickly, now that backing out wasn't an option.
He stared at her for a moment, confusion written clear on his face, before he blinked and turned to his work on the floor.
"Ah, this, a little proof of concept," he said brightly, taking a few steps to the scroll on the floor.
She noted he walked with a slight limp as she followed after him, but then her focus was pulled to the mystery at their feet. On closer inspection it definitely included equations for transportation, similar to the circles used to create Portkeys, but it was all wrong.
"I don't understand, it is… incomplete?"
"Yes," he was nodding, and it was only when he responded in French that she realized she'd slipped into her native tongue in her distraction. "A part of a larger whole, this inner heptagon provides seven connection points to other circles."
He pointed out the component, the shape buried amongst a mess of other shapes, with specific linking runes at each vertex on its perimeter. Fleur looked over at him, her brow furrowed in interest now rather than distrust. He'd greeted her in French the night of the selection ceremony, but listening now his accent was not so terrible.
"So where are the others?" she asked.
He laughed.
"That's the question isn't it?" He knelt by the circle and pulled out his wand, despite herself, she crouched beside him.
He reached out and touched the aforementioned heptagon with the tip of his wand, precise and exacting in the mess of overlaid shapes and figures. It showed magenta, the color seeming to come off the scroll in an aurora above. She studied each of the seven runes on the perimeter, so complex and compiled, each unique and utterly baffling.
"Have you studied linked circles yet?" he asked, and Fleur was so distracted she forgot to glare at him for his insinuation.
"Yes of course," she said vaguely, "how have you filled these ports in if you don't have the other circles drawn yet?"
"I saw this one once," he said, drawing her eyes his way. "It took a while to get it reconstructed, but I'm almost there, and I have pieces of the others, and this connection point to build off of."
Fleur blinked at him, for a moment not fully processing what he was saying, before her mouth fell open in shock.
"You can not create an entire circle from its abstract alone, it's impossible!" She was laughing now, for a moment. The concept was so ludicrous she expected it to be a joke, but when she turned to him her laughter stalled to see him staring intently down at the shimmering illuminated geometry.
"Is it though?" It was as if he weren't even asking her, he was asking himself, or maybe the very runes before them.
Her mouth slowly closed, and her brow furrowed, as an unknown feeling swelled up inside her.
The professor had activated a few more segments, lighting them up in teals and greens, his eyes burning with a passion for his work. She could see the runes shining in his eyes, reflecting their mysteries.
"Yes, it is," she said in clipped tones.
"I disagree," he said with a smile, and the swelling emotion in her resolved.
It was anger.
Her eyes narrowed as they searched his face. His smile fell a bit, but did not wholly disappear, and his eyebrows rose. She was suddenly possessed by the burning desire to reach out and shove him. He had that bad knee, it wouldn't be hard to knock him to the ground, crouched as he was.
She stood quickly and snatched her selected book off the desk, determined to escape as swiftly as possible lest she act on the sudden irrational impulse.
"A fool's errand," she spat instead, switching back to English as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.
Her reaction to his hairbrained plan was shocking, most of all to herself, but she put that away for the time being. If she made it out without violence that would constitute a win, and she would take the win for now and reevaluate later. She made the mistake of glancing back his way at the door. He was just standing up, supporting himself on one leg and favoring the other, gazing after her with a quizzical look.
Fleur stroad out of the office, across to the classroom door, and fled into the hall. She made a quick pace toward the grand stairs, not looking back, as she took stock of herself. She was grinding her teeth, her fists clenched, and her brow was marred in a scowl. She released all her sourceless tension with a concerted effort, and with it her head cleared a bit.
It was yet another mystery, as everything seemed to be with that damned professor, but she tried to put it out of her mind. She did not want to puzzle over these strange events. She had a tournament to win, her final year's study to pad out her resume, and many far more important concerns to deal with than him.
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