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Chapter 7

The summer was oddly quiet. As far as Harry could tell, Voldemort was off licking his wounds somewhere, and despite the fact that he was constantly checking both magical and mundane papers for any sign of Death Eater activities, he couldn't find any of them either. Many people thought the Death Eaters were too afraid to act without Voldemort backing them up, but Harry was convinced it had more to do with plotting something big.

Still, Harry, Hermione, and Fleur were happy for the opportunity to relax and breathe. Their main focus became taking Fleur out on dates to catch up with all the time she had missed while finishing her last year in Beauxbatons. They had group dates, like the beach or a day at a theme park like Alton Towers, that they all went on together. They also had dates where either Harry or Hermione would take Fleur out by themselves, like dinner and a film date or a night at the theatre, the latter being a surprise favourite of the French Veela. They stuck to mundane trips, not just because if there was a Death Eater attack they were more likely to target a magical area, but also because it offered them more privacy. The truth of the matter was that both Harry and Hermione were easily recognised now, and it was kind of difficult to have a romantic date if everyone was staring at you.

Unfortunately, the time they had to take Fleur out was limited, because her first day working at Gringotts was quickly approaching. Once Fleur started there, despite being home every day to sleep, the reputation the goblins of Gringotts had meant that sleep would be all Fleur was fit for when she got home. The bank valued hard work, and the most effective way to weed out the applicants who were not inclined to give the level of effort they expected was to front load a lot of work onto the new hires. Apparently it calmed down after a while, but it did mean that it would be the end of taking Fleur out on dates for the summer.

-ϟϟϟ-

The morning of Fleur's first day at Gringotts, Harry crept down stairs and into the kitchen, Dobby and Sassy quickly following behind him. Harry's plan was simple: if Fleur was going to impress the goblins, she was going to need her energy, and what better way then for him to make her the best breakfast she had ever had?

The idea was to make everything from scratch. Considering Harry planned to make bread, pastries, and crepes, he definitely needed the help of one of the elves, but when he had asked, both were eager to help him. Harry had never made a baguette before, but Dobby had and was talking him through it. While Harry was doing that, Sassy was laminating pastry and butter,using magic to keep it at the perfect temperature the whole time.

It was a lot of work making everything from scratch, but it was also a lot of fun. Dobby had put up a silence ward around the kitchen so that they didn't have to worry about waking anyone up before breakfast was ready. By the time the first person to wake (Gabrielle) came downstairs, Harry and the elves had about six baguettes, a dozen croissants, another dozen pain au chocolat, crepe batter, a large bowl of whipped cream,and a bunch of chopped up fruits along with pots of jam and chocolate spread. Harry also had a large pot of espresso coffee that was being kept at the perfect temperature thanks to a charm by Sassy.

Gabrielle was excited to see all her favourite breakfast foods available and started babbling in French too quickly for Harry to follow. Harry asked if she could say it again but slow enough for him to understand, and she repeated it, asking if she could have a crepe. Harry was happy to have a test subject to test the first crepe on, especially as he thought that (like British-style pancakes) the first one you make was pretty much guaranteed to be a dud. He was right, as the first one just fell apart; still, it tasted fine and made for a good snack that he split with Gabrielle as he made her a new one. The second came out much better, and a little fruit and chocolate spread later and the French pre-teen was munching away happily.

Others started to come down, first the older Delacours, then Daphne and Tracey soon followed by Hermione and Fleur. Fleur's eyes went wide as she saw the breakfast spread, and when Harry handed her a cup of espresso she let out a moan of pleasure that had Harry picturing things that were still illegal for the next few days. He busied himself making crepes for everyone as they set upon the fresh bread, pastries, and spreads. Harry had just finished using the last of the crepe batter to make one last one for Gabrielle when he felt Fleur's arms reach around his waist from behind him and press herself into his back. "Thanks for breakfast, Harry."

Harry slowly spun around, staying within her arms as he did, and circled his arms around her. "I couldn't let my beautiful, talented, and absolutely amazing witch go to her first day without a proper breakfast, now, could I?" He leaned in, claiming her lips. Some may have thought it would have been Hermione, his other betrothed who would be the first to comment on the two of them kissing in the kitchen, or maybe Fleur's father, but the one who actually spoke up first was Fleur's little sister. Gabrielle let out a loud woo'ing sound at seeing her sister and her boyfriend kissing like that. Fleur's mother quickly shushed the youngest Delacour, but it was too late and the two teenagers broke apart looking flustered.

Fleur spent the rest of the morning getting ready for her first day in the workplace. She, her maman, and Hermione spent a good forty minutes going through all her clothes looking for the perfect outfit, Hermione presented her with a pocked-sized hardback mundane notebook and an ever-inking quill. "Perfect for taking notes and easier to carry around than a bunch of rolls of parchment." Gabby gave her a chocolate brownie "to help keep your energy up." And she had hugs from everyone just before it was time for her to leave, along with best wishes and, from Harry and Hermione, two rather mind blowing kisses.

She hugged her mother last, who had some last minute advice for her. "Remember, pay attention, work hard, stand tall and smile. Knock them dead, sweetheart." Fleur nodded and gave her mother a quick smile before she stepped out of the front door, turned on the spot, and Apparated directly to Diagon Alley.

The alley was still rather empty, and everyone Fleur could see was either opening up a business for the day or was on their way to work. She joined the crowd of people who were headed in the direction of the bank. As she walked, she wondered which of the people around her were going to be her new colleagues? Was one of them the person she was gonna start buying her lunch from every day? She reached the steps of the bank and the words her mother spoke came to mind, 'stand tall and smile', so she did just that. She walked into the bank trying to exude a confidence she didn't feel and went up to an information desk.

"Hi, I'm Fleur Delacour." Fleur said once the goblin behind the desk noticed her. "I'm supposed to be starting here today. I was told to report to Goldtooth, can you please tell me where I need to go?"

The goblin gave her some directions that were simple enough to follow to a meeting room just off the main floor. Fleur thanked him and made her way to where she was supposed to be. She pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time. It was five minutes before the time she was told to be there, so she opened the door and walked in.

Inside there was a mix of people: witches and wizards who looked to be around her age, and a few goblins who looked like they were also just reaching their adulthood. The two wizards who were waiting gave her a lecherous look over but she ignored it, going to stand with the three witches. "You're Fleur Delacour right?" A cheery witch with shoulder length dark hair asked. "I'm Melody." And she held out her hand to shake. Fleur shook the hand and confirmed that she was indeed herself.

"You were amazing in the Triwizard Tournament. I assume you're moving to Britain to be closer to Potter and Granger. How are they doing after what happened at the end of the year? I missed the whole thing because seventh years leave by boat instead of the carriages, but it sounds like it was scary." Melody talked so fast that Fleur didn't get an opportunity to answer any of the questions before the door opened and a goblin walked in looking like he was incharge.

"Right you lot, I'm Goldtooth. I'm in charge of the new hires for the bank. Think of me like your headteacher when you're in school, I may not teach you directly but I'm the one making the decisions. First things first, I need all of you to sign these non-disclosure agreements and apprenticeship contracts." He then started walking around handing each of them a bundle with their names on them.

Fleur opened her packet and started reading both documents thoroughly. About two minutes later, Goldtooth was standing in front of Fleur and said, sounding impatient, "What are you doing, Miss Delacour?".

"Reading these documents before I sign them," Fleur answered, not looking up from her reading.

"And you think we have the time to wait for you to do that?" He didn't sound angry but still sounded impatient.

"I don't particularly care. If you wanted them signed faster, you should have gotten them to me sooner. I'm not going to sign anything without reading it." That was a lesson her parents had drilled into her from an early age. It was dangerous, exponentially more so for a Veela, to sign anything before you read it and made sure you knew exactly what was in it.

"Excellent Miss Delacour, you just passed rule one. Never sign anything without reading it. We goblins may value our time and hate it being wasted, but reading a contract is never a waste of time. From today you work for a bank, documents you sign have the potential to be binding for the bank and we much rather you spend time checking a document than rush a job and find that someone has accidentally added an extra zero, and Gringotts is now paying someone a thousand galleons instead of a hundred." Goldtooth lectured them all.

Fleur did find a clause in her contract that she disputed with Goldtooth. If she had signed, then she would have been bound to either do a slightly embarrassing dance in the break room at the end of her shift today, or buy out of it for two Galleons. Goldtooth quickly gave her a contract without that clause in it, and after Fleur checked it she signed the new contract. One of the wizards who had signed straight away protested that it was demeaning and an insult, but Goldtooth had simply responded by saying, "It's a cheap lesson, one you won't forget. Just remember that a lot of the people watching will have had to do the exact same thing; even I had to dance on my first day. Or you can pay the two Galleons, the break room biscuit supply is dangerously low."

The rest of the day was orientation. The apprentices were given maps to the bank, shown where they would be learning, introduced to their teachers, and shown the basic runners' duties they were expected to perform while they weren't busy doing something they were directed to by their teacher's. The human/human passing apprentices were also given another task, to help the departments that leased with mundane banks and businesses. It was explained that there was more muggle money exchanged for wizarding gold than gold exchanged for pound sterling, in part because there were more than a few magical citizens, for example squibs, who worked in the mundane world but still needed magical money for things like buying Potions. Therefore, the bank maintained a few mundane bank accounts to deposit that money and use it to buy things that were either cheaper or of a higher quality in the mundane world.

At lunch, the apprentices all decided to go to the Leaky Cauldron for a meal and a "get-to-know-you" conversation. It was a bit pricey for them to do this every day on an apprentice's salary, but it felt like a good idea for the first day. There were twelve of them in all: four witches, two wizards, and six goblins who were all men. The two wizards were Ferris Whistle and Owen Boyd. Owen was the one who complained about being forced to dance at the end of the day, he was apparently a Gryffindor like Harry and Hermione. Ferris was quiet and said he was a Ravenclaw. The three witches were Andrea Salt, Jade Windel-Mint and Melody, who finally told them her last name of Jones. Both Andrea and Melody had been Ravenclaws, and Jade had been a Slytherin.

It was weird for Fleur that they all introduced themselves including their Hogwarts house. She supposed it was a side effect of Hogwarts sorting people by their personality traits. In Beauxbatons they were sorted into dorm wings, but apart from the obvious divide for gender those just assigned at random. British magical culture meant that everyone knew those traits, it had developed into a way to give people some general ideas of who you were as a person in a few words.

The six goblins introduced themselves as Slashcrack, Sawknee, Sickcurse, Stonegouger, Eyestink, and George. The goblins, like Fleur, didn't have some handy personality labels to hand over to their new colleagues. The other goblins had snicked at George when he said his name, but when he shot them some dark looks they quickly stopped. Melody hadn't been put off, though, and asked George about his name. George just shrugged and answered, "My father likes two things, gambling and drinking. He is also friends with a wizard. One night the two of them made a drunken bet, even made it a magical contract so neither of them could back out. If my father would have won, then the wizard would have had to give his first born son a goblin name. Considering my name is George, you don't need to be a genius to work out the other stakes or how it ended."

After lunch they were all split up to go spend one-on-one time with the masters who were going to guide them in working towards their own Masteries. Fleur's teacher, Elaine Malory, was a middle aged witch who had been a curse breaker, even a Gringotts tomb raider, but she was raising a family now and at least for now wanted a job where there was a lot less chance of not making it home.

Elaine had made it very clear to Fleur that, for at least the first year of the apprenticeship, only one of them was actually going to be bringing in any gold. That meant that Fleur's responsibilities were to take care of any and all mundane tasks that took time away from her developing or dismantling ward arrays, the thing that they actually got paid for. So, if she asked Fleur to do something like go buy a birthday present for her daughter, it wasn't Elaine milking her apprentice for extra, it was her handing off a job to Fleur so that Elaine could earn enough gold to pay them both. "As you develop towards becoming a ward master, I will be able to have you do more of the actual work and will have the time to do those things for myself again. But until then, you're just going to have to do the scut work." Elaine had then proceeded to give Fleur five thick tomes for her to read in her own time, then sent Fleur to go make her a cup of coffee.

-ϟϟϟ-

Fleur was exhausted when she got back home. Elaine hadn't had the time to ease her into her new role, so she was running all over Gringotts delivering messages, requesting documents, and keeping Elaine caffeinated. It was a surprisingly physical job, and Fleur had let the conditioning she had done for the Triwizard Tournament lapse over the last year as she crammed for her exams. There had been a lot sitting around reading books and notes she had taken in classes.

She was immediately sandwiched between Harry and Hermione, who wanted to know everything, and as soon as they let her go Fleur had a repeat from her parents. As soon as she collapsed into a chair, Sassy was right there with a mug of hot chocolate and a snack, just what Fleur needed, and then she told them everything they wanted to know.

After dinner later that evening, Fleur was trying to muster the will to pick up one of the heavy books she needed to start reading, but she just couldn't find the energy. Harry, seeing what the problem was, picked up the first book, snuggled in next to Fleur on the sofa, and started to read the book out loud to Fleur and Hermione, who once she saw that Harry was going to read a book out loud was never going to leave. The two girls spent the next three hours just listening to Harry as he read out from The Professional Warder, Part One.

-ϟϟϟ-

Over the next few days, the rest of Delacours went back to France, taking with them Dan and Emma, who were borrowing the Potter chateau for a week so that they could visit their friends Steve and Sara. Harry, Hermione, and Fleur had of course been invited, but Fleur couldn't request any time off at the bank so soon, she was already pushing it by taking a half day for Harry's birthday in a few days. Because Fleur couldn't go, there was no chance Harry and Hermione were going to abandon Fleur to go off to France without her. That meant that, for the most part, Sirius was the responsible adult. Luckily for the five teenagers, they were more than old enough to look after themselves. Harry, Hermione, Daphne, and Tracey spent most of their time reading the books for the N.E.W.T. classes they were hoping to take, and moving into Potter House in Hogsmeade.

They were moving out of Sirius's house for a number of reasons. One was safety, the house in Hogsmeade was a lot closer to back up in the case of an emergency and Harry could Step everyone to Hogwarts if something really went wrong. Taking a large group of people over such a short distance was doable for him now, even if it was still somewhat taxing. The other reason was that all five teens felt awkward in Sirius's house. Sure, he had done everything to make them feel welcome, but for Fleur it was weird that the house in Hogsmeade was her new home but she wasn't living there, and she wanted a space she could truly start making her own. For Daphne and Tracey, it was Harry they had accepted the offer of a place to stay from, not Sirius. While they could see Harry as family, they couldn't see Sirius that way, and because of that they were constantly trying to be good guests and just couldn't relax.

Harry didn't exactly have a problem staying at Grimmauld, but it didn't really feel like home to him. There were now three places that Harry had felt at home in. One was Hogwarts, his first escape from the Dursleys; second was the Grangers' place where he had found real family for the first time he could remember; and third was Potter House. He was sure if he hadn't had the Grangers' place or his own place he could have come to see Grimmauld as his home, but that was not the case. Hermione actually had it the easiest, as she truly believed that home was where the heart is. In Grimmauld she had her parents, her betrotheds, and her best friends, but if Harry, Fleur, and her best friends wanted to move to Scotland, then she wasn't going to stay behind, especially because she could easily Floo back and see her parents after they got home from work.

One thing Harry did do was send Dobby to buy a large jar of Floo powder. He then spent a few hours breaking the jar down into individual amounts that were just enough to open a fire to the Floo network, and then wrapping them in individual paper pockets that he folded out of an old cut up copy of the Daily Prophet. He wanted to make sure that Hermione could always Floo to Grimmauld to spend time with her parents if she wanted to, and he also set aside about thirty packs of Floo powder for keeping at Grimmauld Place as well so that Dan and Emma could also visit the Hogsmeade house any time they wanted.

They were all moved in by the time Dan and Emma came back from France the day before Harry's birthday. They came back on the train coming through the new Euro Tunnel that ran underneath the British Channel. The best part was the train line brought them straight into the centre of London without the need to change trains. Because it was such a new method of travel between Britain and France, it was also probably the safest way to travel, as both Harry and Hermione doubted that any Death Eaters would have the train station scoped out even if they had known Hermione's parents were travelling back from France that day. Harry even had to explain to Sirius three times that yes, there was a mundane train that went from the island nation of Great Britain to the European continent.

Once they were back at Grimmauld Place the whole family got together to hear about the trip. Alison had been accepted as a student studying magical medicine after taking a gap year, and Steve and Sara sent their love to Hermione and Harry. The Delacours had also given Emma a few of Fleur's things that had been forgotten when they had packed her things the first time. The rest was a recounting of time spent on the beaches, visiting their favourite attractions, visiting restaurants with their friends. Everyone was happy that Dan and Emma had been able to get away from everything for a few days.

After a nice family dinner, Harry, Hermione, and Fleur returned to Hogsmeade for the evening. Harry was working on his plans for mass production of the drying doorway plates and he didn't even notice both Fleur and Hermione staying up later than they normally would as he got absorbed in his work. It was only when the clock struck midnight and the two witches sandwiched themselves between them and kissed his cheeks and wished him, "Happy birthday!" that he noticed just how late it was. The two of them dragged him up to bed in the master suite. Harry was only a little surprised to see that both girls had already moved their things into the room as well. Now that Harry was sixteen, and no legal objections could be raised, the two women had decided they were going to be sharing the room whenever it was possible. Harry couldn't keep the grin off his face as they quickly changed and claimed into bed, this time sandwiching Harry between the two of them.

A/N

fun fact I actually finished writing the last 1000 words of this chapter on my birthday. Just a little fun coincidence.
I found a new energy drink dealer. So we are back to 1 comment equivalent to an energy drink. Let's hope stocks last.