Harry was annoyed.

He'd always prided himself on the fact that all those... feelings weren't about him. He had never felt anything for anyone since he was nine years old. To him, everyone around him was someone he could easily neglect, disregard their interests, their requests, their lives.

And nothing seemed to portend trouble until one French witch showed up.

After that incident, something changed in the seniors' bathroom. Invisible, but tangible. He liked to look at her, no matter if she was dressed in her usual robe or just waking up. He began to like her touch. If before he could just tolerate them, now he absolutely loved sleeping in the same bed with her, cuddling with or without her. Any kind of body contact. What he used to be so intolerant of, he now enjoys.

To be honest, it scared him a little. Scared that now it wasn't just his life he was worried about.

Oh, and now he seems to be jealous (it's kind of been called that) when the veela sometimes spends more time with her sister than with him. Fleur seemed to realize by purely her feminine or veela, who knows, intuition that something had changed, and began to spend as much time as possible around Harry, even in his lab. Touching him as often as possible. And in general, to be honest, from the outside they looked a lot like a couple: walking together all the time, sitting together all the time. In general, everywhere and always together.

Gabrielle, on the other hand, just loved everything about this place. It's her favorite mess that she's forced to clean up in her room at home. You could throw candy papers anywhere you wanted, the elves would clean it up. You can stay up late into the night. But there's nothing interesting here! She's never once caught Harry and Fleur doing anything... anything! They're always asleep. She's never even seen them kiss. Probably in that room she's not allowed in, they go in and kiss. So she can't see. Definitely, yes!

Right now, Harry was sitting in front of the fireplace with his hands folded in a lock and deep in thought. He was sitting on the couch, not his typical chair, because on the couch he could sit next to Fleur. The first time the thought had occurred to him, Potter had hovered for ten minutes, trying to realize why such thoughts could even enter his head. He analyzed the facts, his behavior, his... feelings. Fleur, Gabrielle... basically everything from the last six months. With such immersion, he could both remember where he'd left the book three days ago and come up with something more important. Right now all he wanted to understand was his relationship with Fleur.

What had Harry come to in an hour and a half of such brainstorming? That Fleur liked him. Even more than that...she probably loves him. She's put up with him for six months without yelling at him once. After realizing that fact, the feeling in his chest that arises at the thought of her has increased dramatically.

Now we must consider his attitude towards her. She is clearly dear to him. It's not yet clear how or why, but he does. Usually there are two ways of development here - either friends, or lovers, couple, husband and wife and the like. Often the second happens, derived from the first. They have the first, they're clearly friends. Potter would even say, they are smoothly approaching the second. Is he against it or not? Is she clever? Smart. Clearly smarter than most, he realized that a long time ago. Pretty? Of course she's beautiful. She's a veela.

At that moment, Fleur and Gabrielle returned to the room after a walk around Hogwarts that Harry himself had barely escaped. Gabrielle climbed into Fleur's chair, while the veela herself collapsed on the couch, putting her feet up on it.

Harry traced from her feet to her face with a surprised look and wondered:

"A cheeky person owns half the world?"

"Yes," she replied, blushing slightly at his direct gaze while smiling like a naughty cat.

'That's why all these emotions are evil,' thought the boy, leaving her feet in his lap.

" 'Arry, how are things going with the journal? Have you come up with anything new? - Fleur asked.

'I wasn't really thinking about the diary. Just analyzing the last six months," Harry said leaning back.

"Tel? You didn't come with us saying you were going to think about what to do about the diary," frowned the veela's eyebrows adorably.

"Actually, I've tried every magical cipher I or Dumbledore knew. Now I have to try the Muggle ones, but there are so many of them, and there's triple coding involved. We need to make an artifact that will decipher the diary many times until after three random Muggle ciphers there's no intelligible sentence left... but how to make such an artifact I have no idea," Potter expressed his thoughts.

"Hmm... you don't have to make an artifact, make a program! The methods are Muggle, meaning magic isn't needed here, so you can just make a decryption program," Fleur exclaimed.

"I don't know how to make programs. And it's not something you can learn in a couple weeks...I've already considered that option," Harry was once again surprised that instead of yelling at him for basically just not going with them, she was helping him with the solution.

"Well, so let's go to any programmer's office and order such a program," raised one eyebrow in mute question to the veela.

Potter hovered. Somehow that option hadn't even occurred to him. He was a champion and could leave Hogwarts quite safely, having warned the headmaster in advance.

"Also, we could have lunch together somewhere," Fleur continued in a purring voice.

And when Harry had already opened his mouth to agree, a voice came from the chair:

"Oui, oui, let's eat in London!" clapped Gabrielle's hands happily.

Fleur looked at Harry and laughed, but then abruptly slammed her mouth shut when she saw that he was laughing too. Quietly, into his fist, a little tentatively, but laughing. It was the first time he had ever laughed in front of them at all. Harry had said that the Dursleys really disliked it when he showed positive emotion.

"What, I can't laugh anymore?" saw their surprised looks on Potter's face.

"This is the first time you've ever laughed in front of us," still looking at him surprised at Fleur.

"So? Come on pack up both of you, we're going to London. Get dressed decent, we're going to a restaurant."

Fleur loved it when Harry acted like this. He was completely out of his thoughts, which he'd gotten used to sitting in for the last six months without a break. Potter had told her that he had rarely, ever been able to withdraw into himself before. He had to conform to the expectations of his surroundings, and now that everyone knew, there was no point in it.

"Youpi! We're going to the restaurant, we're going to the restaurant..." ran Gabrielle to the bedroom closet to pick out her clothes.

"Okay, mon chéri, I'm going to go get dressed too, so no peeking," she said, deciding to do what she'd been planning to do for so long, which was to kiss him on the cheek and quickly run off to the bedroom, not noticing that Harry froze in place for a couple of minutes and then broke out into a crooked, uncertain smile.

At the first decent firm Harry and Fleur looked into, they were immediately promised to have everything done during the day so they could pick up in the evening. Free of charge. Looking at the veela's cleavage. The 'pick up in the evening' had only been said to her, too.

Delacour didn't know how to get away from them until Potter came over and returned the kiss on her cheek, which already made her freeze with open eyes and a smile. Harry, on the other hand, put one arm around the veela's waist and led her from there. With his back he could feel some very angry looks. He was just as angry himself.

Harry wasn't in a hurry to let her go, Fleur didn't mind though. Gabrielle, meanwhile, was running around them and pointing at every shop window. Still, if the older veela had been to the Muggle world and more than once, the younger one hadn't until now.

After a few failed attempts, Harry decided:

"Look, why don't you two sit quietly in Fortescue, have some ice cream, and I'll make a quiet arrangement?"

"Yeah, go ahead, just not for long," Fleur said, kissing Harry's cheek vindictively in farewell.

This time the boy got over his stupor in just a couple seconds. Nodding goodbye, he took a quick step to the Muggle section. Fleur and Gabrielle sat down at a table and ordered ice cream.

"Ms. Delacour?" said a voice behind them. Fleur was in no mood to put up with another fan.

Putting a polite smile on her face, she turned to face whoever had decided to pester her. Gabrielle, on the other hand, was calmly eating her ice cream. This isn't the first persistent guy to hit on her sister, and it's not the first time the girl has seen her sister politely send him away.

"Sorry," the young red-haired wizard said, "I didn't mean to impose. I just saw you sitting here and thought you might enjoy some company.

"You'd be surprised at how many wizards make the same mistake," Fleur pointed out. "However, they are usually more affected by my magic," she softened a little, noticing the clear, unaffected look in her eyes. "Bill Weasley, huh?" remembered the veela as he had approached her at the World Championships.

"Oh, just Bill. Otherwise I feel old," the red-haired wizard marveled a little. "I didn't expect you to remember me," he smiled broadly.

"Just remembered," Fleur shrugged. "A lot of wizards take it upon themselves to get to know me."

"You get harassed by that quite a bit, don't you?"

"Yeah," she replied dryly. "The worst is when people don't realize when I want them to leave."

The redhead was clearly more uncomfortable, and Fleur tried not to smile, enjoying it. Bill, however, didn't leave, but instead slid into the chair across from her. A thin, dainty earring swung in his ear.

"It's a dragon fang," he explained, noticing where the veela was looking, "a gift from my brother. He works as a dragonologist."

"Nice earring," she remarked politely. "Your brother has good taste."

"Harry would look cute with an earring like that," Fleur mentally remarked. "It doesn't fit his style though," she immediately mentally shook her head.

"Charlie prefers dragons to humans," Bill said cheerfully. "He just recently moved back to Romania. You know, I was told about how you passed your first test. Face to face with the dragon. You're a very brave girl, I'll have you know."

"Thank you," Fleur replied politely again, wondering involuntarily (how long is Harry going to be there?).

"But I was wondering, aren't you supposed to be at Hogwarts?" smiled Bill.

"I excused myself from my headmaster. We, as champions, are allowed to leave the school."

"Oh, and what did you need in a humble English shopping street?"

"I'm... Harry," seeing the young man approaching the table, Fleur smiled softly at him, hoping Bill would understand and leave.

"Do you two know each other?" raising his eyebrows, Weasley asked.

"Of course," Harry grinned. "She's at least my rival in the Tournament."

"You should try to become a curse breaker, "smiled Bill. "After some of the spells I figured out, I'd rather run towards a dragon than try again."

His nonchalance would have been more impressive if he hadn't looked so upset that Fleur smiled at Harry instead of him.

"So what are you doing here?" asked Harry, trying to be polite. Jealousy was a new feeling for him, he was having a hard time dealing with it.

"Fleur is mysterious," laughed the redhead. "She hasn't even told me what they're doing here."

"Sorry," Potter's polite smile turned into a small grimace. "I know why they're here. I'm asking you," minted each word, but staying within the bounds of politeness, Harry. Gabrielle broke away from her ice cream in anticipation of something. Fleur remembered that the last time his face had contorted like that was when he flew into the Champions room. She was pleased.

"You know?" Bill didn't seem to notice Harry tense up. "I'm here with my family, we're picking out Christmas presents. You should probably go and buy something too, otherwise they'll all be sold out," Weasley tried to send him away.

"I already have," Harry said coldly. "And you should probably catch up with your family or they'll pick everything out without you."

"I should probably keep score," Fleur thought, enjoying their duel. She knew that Harry had already won the battle Bill was trying to wage six months ago.

"Ah," Bill exclaimed, "They're all here."

Veela glanced over Harry's shoulder to see a large group of redheads approaching the table. All the Weasley family members were there, as it was still Christmas vacation. Fleur didn't really want to meet any random people for her right now. Harry didn't look too pleased either. Gabrielle, on the other hand, had stolen her sister's ice cream and was still watching the show.

"I should introduce you," Bill decided cheerfully.

"Mum, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny," Bill pointed to each in turn with their pronunciations. Harry sat down and leaned back in the chair beside Fleur, watching the performance. The wizard, however, cast a warning glance at his family, as if to hint that he wanted them to behave appropriately in front of her. "This is Fleur Delacour," he finished cheerfully.

"I'm 'Arry's girlfriend," the veela added obligingly.

She had never seen anyone look as devastated as Bill Weasley did at this moment. At first everyone fell silent and looked at the calm as a boa constrictor Potter, then everyone had a different reaction, but generally negative. Ginny cried, Ron was now looking at Harry even more angrily, Molly looked like she had been hit over the head with something, only Fred and George gave each other a cheerful high five and nodded to Potter.

At this point Gabrielle had had enough of everything.

"Fleur, 'Arry, let's go further out, I've eaten all the ice cream!" she declared loudly and capriciously.

"Mine too, you little rascal?" asked Fleur cheerfully.

"Yes, let's go. I guess we'd better be going. Good to see you," the redheaded family may have been trying to tell Harry something, but he wasn't listening to them anymore. Hugging Fleur around the waist, they briskly walked around the Weasleys and headed for the restaurant. A lovely dinner for three awaited them.

He should also get a guitar. The piano wasn't working out for him. So maybe he'd have better luck with a guitar?

Hi. You can find ten more chapters at the link from the profile. If you want to, of course.