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Chapter 32
The day after the Yule Ball, Harry was awoken by a knocking on the door, and Emma stuck her head in the room. "Come on you three. Up you get, we need to be through the floo in forty minutes." With that, she closed the door, Harry just catching a flash of a grin on her face. He had just enough time to wonder what the smile was about when he felt other people in the bed with him, moving as they woke up. He remembered the night before and looked over at the two girls who were sharing his bed. Hermione had ended up between the two of them, but she had turned herself in her sleep so that she was using Harry as a pillow and her feet were draped over Fleur. The three of them were still fully dressed in their dress robes from the night before.
"Pour quoi faut se lever ? Il est pas super tôt ?" [Why do we need to get up? It's still early?] Fleur said something in French sounding groggy.
"Mum wants to go to the Sales." Hermione answered, sounding just as asleep.
"Sales?" Fleur asked, suddenly sounding a lot more interested and causing Harry to groan. He didn't actually mind shopping with the Grangers, but the times they made a day out of it like the Boxing Day sales or the day in Paris were exhausting.
The girls used the master bedroom's ensuite bathroom (which both of them had a little fun teasing Harry about keeping from them), before they disappeared to their own rooms to get dressed for the day.
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Harry came stumbling out of the fireplace, and despite almost falling face first this time he was able to keep his feet, mostly because he was carrying a large number of bags, each one stuffed full of things that had been bought by either Hermione, Fleur or Mrs Granger. Harry's arms and legs felt like they were ready to stage a revolution against the rest of him so that they could demand a holiday, and he almost groaned in relief when Sassy popped into the room and popped away the bags with a snap of her fingers.
The others started coming in behind Harry, and he had to quickly move to not be in their way. He sent slightly jealous looks at each of them, as none had the problems with Floo travel that he did. It apparently had something to do with his family's national gift at Apparition: the magic that let him pop anywhere he wanted interfered with the magic of things like Floo powder and portkeys. In the case of the Floo, he spun around a lot faster than a normal person when travelling in the network of connected fires. The sooner he learned to utilise his apparition power the better.
As the others arrived, Sassy popped away their bags as well, giving the aching arms of everyone there a break. "Why don't Misters and Misses go up to the family room and I'll serve tea?" Sassy suggested, and all of the exhausted shoppers readily agreed. Not five minutes later, the eight of them were sitting around the fire eating mince pies and drinking tea. Dobby came up to them after everyone had had a few minutes and held out two envelopes. "These came while everyone was out. There is one for Master Harry Potter sir and one for Miss Delacour." The little guy handed out the letters.
Harry's letter was from Gringotts. The first part of the letter stated that they had finally managed to bring down the mail redirection ward on him, they hadn't found who put it there or where all of Harry's mail over the years had disappeared to, but now that was gone and everyone else could send him mail again. The goblins had even included a warning that Harry also had to be wary of cursed mail, as someone as high profile as him would probably receive some. There was also a bill for the removal of the ward that Harry felt was more than a little steep.
The second and largest part of the letter dealt with his accounts. Now that it was all laid out for him in the end of year statements, Harry could see that in total he had a little under 35'000 gallons, or about £165'000. To him, that was a lot of money, now that he knew that he wouldn't have to buy a house, anyway. However, he still needed to pay for three years of Hogwarts and for his apprenticeship so that he could get his mastery, maybe even more than one. He had enough for a common head start at life, and there was enough left over to see his family through some lean times if he couldn't earn more gold for some reason: the two and a half thousand galleons he had gotten from his deal with Ollivander seemed to suggest that might not be to much of a problem, though the sales of the rings would probably drop off after a year or two as the market get saturated, then it would likely only be a few hundred a year sold. The rings had the same problem as wands, most wizards only ever needed one.
Fleur's letter turned out to be from her father. He was apparently going to be in Britain for the next few days, the Ministry was throwing a big New Year's ball for the British movers and shakers, and as the head of France's Department of International Affairs, Sébastian Delacour had an invitation. While he was in the country, he wanted to see his daughter and meet Hermione's parents to discuss something of importance. So Harry, after talking with Dan and Emma, gave his permission for Fleur to invite her father over.
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Monsieur Delacour arrived the next day for lunch. Sassy and Dobby decided that a cream tea and finger sandwiches would be best for entertaining, so they all sat around eating finger foods while chatting. The Grangers were introduced to the magical world's equivalent of embarrassing your kids. Instead of talking about temper tantrums in public or picking their nose in front of guests, parents of magical children apparently talked about their kids' bursts of accidental magic. Monsieur Delacour told a story of Fleur setting her dress on fire when she didn't want to go to "one of Daddy's boring work parties." In exchange, Dan and Emma told stories about Hermione pulling books off of shelves and locking the door to her classroom at hometime because she loved school so much. All the adults (Sirius included) and Harry had a good laugh, though Hermione and Fleur were a little embarrassed and grumbled good-naturedly.
Eventually, after the finger foods were all gone and all that was left was a near endless supply of tea, the conversation turned to what Monsieur Delacour had wanted to talk about. "While I was here, I was hoping to talk to you about amending the betrothal contract between Harry and Fleur." Monsieur Delacour's tone was conversational, but the words still sent a ripple of tension through the room.
"And just what amendments are you looking to make?" Sirius asked; his tone wasn't hostile but there was a definite note of wariness in his voice.
Monsieur Delacour smiled. "Peace, my friends, I am not looking to renegotiate terms or anything like that. While there are some even in this day and age who are willing to trade their children, the purpose of this contract was always to protect the happiness of my daughter when she bonded to Harry. But with Hermione in the picture, it's not really fit for its purpose anymore," he explained.
"This is barbaric. Are we really talking about choosing who these children will marry before they can even vote?" Ms. Richards didn't like the idea of betrothal contracts.
"Please, I know this might seem different from the way things are done in your world, but please be aware I am only concerned about my daughter's happiness here." The French man explained. Ms. Richards didn't exactly like it but agreed to at least hear him out.
Emma gave the man a calculating look before asking. "Do you have a copy of the original contract? And what changes are you looking to make?"
Sébastian Delacour smiled at her before talking. "Well, I propose to add Hermione to the contract. That basically means that we all agree that the three of them have until, as the youngest, Harry's twenty-fifth birthday to get married."
At this, Hermione couldn't just listen any more and jumped into the conversation. "And just who do you mean by 'we all?' It is no one's business who I marry but mine and the people I decide to marry." Hermione didn't herself notice that she had referred to marrying multiple people in her sentence, but both Harry and Emma did. Maybe Hermione was starting to like the idea of a potential three-way marriage, she was at least thinking about it.
Monsieur Delacour laughed at Hermione's words, and as she glared at him he held up his hand and apologised. "I'm sorry mademoiselle. I do not mean the offence. It's just, you have a soul bond, no? Saying you would like to marry young Harry here is a certain, yes? I'm not saying you are ready for that yet, few your age ever are and those who believe themselves to be are often mistaken. But when you think about your future, can you honestly tell me you don't see yourself with Harry? Could you even say Harry marrying a girl you hate would be enough for you to stop pursuing Harry?"
Hermione blushed and shook her head.
"That's the strength of a soul bond. Or more accurately, the strength of the feelings that you need to have to form a soul bond, as the emotional connection comes before the bond forms - unless one party is a Veela, that bond is formed differently. I didn't ask you what you want because marriage to Harry is what you want and I want to give you that," Monsieur Delacour explained himself.
"Wouldn't you prefer to keep Harry for your daughter though?" Dan asked, confused. "If this contract is as binding as I have been told, what do you gain by including Hermione?"
There was a definite hint of challenge to Dan's voice, and Fleur shot him a look and a few small glowing embers started to wisp around her hand. Her father put a hand on her arm and said, "It's a fair question, my lovely flower, he is just looking out for his daughter." At that, Fleur calmed down slightly. "What I get is nothing but a happy daughter. If I tried to enforce the contract as it stands, the best I would get is an unhappy Fleur who blames me for her marriage being an unhappy one, as Harry mourns the loss of your daughter in his life. At worst, Hermione goes nuts and kills Fleur to end the contract." Monsieur Delacour said with all seriousness.
"I would never!" - "Hermione wouldn't!" - "My daughter is better than that!" A bunch of them spoke at the same time.
Monsieur Delacour held up a hand to speak. "It's not the most likely outcome, but it does happen. And everyone has a point where they break. Where my daughter is concerned, even 1% is too much risk if I can do anything about it, and in this case we can. All we have to do is add Hermione to the contract, something I am sure by the nature of the bonds involved they all want, and will lead them to having a happier life. "
Monsieur Delacour's speech was enough to at least get Dan, Emma, Remus and Sirius to listen and go over the contract. One positive was that Emma and her mum insisted that each of them (Harry, Hermione, and Fleur) had an escape clause in the contract. There were a few loopholes to jump through, such as only being able to withdraw from the contract in a private meeting with the goblins after being checked for any kind of magic that might control them. That was insisted on by Fleur's father as a precaution, but given that the magical world had love potions, loyalty drops, compulsion charms and the Imperius curse, some extra checks were probably a good idea. And none of them could remove themselves from the contract until they were seventeen, to avoid any knee jerk reactions.
There was also a clause added that wasn't there before. While they could do anything they liked in the bedroom with each other, they were no longer allowed to do that with anyone else. Sirius joked that it was to stop Harry from forming a bond with a third witch, and saving them all from having to amend the contract again. One big improvement was that Dan and Emma refused to sign the changes until Harry, Hermione, and Fleur had all read and said they were happy with the contents, and that this wasn't some dictate by the adults controlling their lives. Soon everyone was in agreement, and the document was drawn up and signed.
After that things quickly became comfortable again, Monsieur ' call me Sébastian' Delacour's happy nature quickly infecting the others. The topic of conversation quickly turned to why Sébastian was in the country. "The post of Head of an International Department is more complicated than other posts; while a country can post anyone they like to the post, the personalities and politics of those people have an effect on other countries and how well they work towards others. For example, if French magicals needed to import more wand wood, then we might look to Britain, a close neighbour. However if we had a Head of International Magical Affairs who had a bad relationship with the British, then we might need to get that wood from further away, increasing costs and forcing up the cost of wands.
"The British ministry is currently in the process of trying to put someone in that post, but is having some trouble. A lot of countries don't like this Umbridge woman, and the British ministry is inviting a bunch of people from around the world to try to smooth the way for her. I intend to go and lobby the other countries representatives to not accept one of the biggest bigots this country has ever produced. It shouldn't be hard, Britain's laws on Veela, werewolves, dwarves, and goblins are draconian and harsh, and this woman is known to advocate for harsher laws. Many countries have a much better relationship with the other magical races and they won't want to risk that," Sébastian explained.
Everyone there who had met Umbridge wished him the best of luck in getting the woman out of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Harry offered the man a place to stay while he was in the country, but as a guest of the Ministry he was expected to stay in Ministry-provided accommodation. Better yet, as the Ministry was trying to butter him up, they were giving him the royal treatment. After dinner, Fleur and her father went for a walk around the village just so that they could have some father-daughter time together.
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On the twenty-eighth, Harry was in his dad's old room, looking around and trying to understand him a little better. There was a poster for Puddlemere United on the wall, the movement of the team now sluggish. Judging from the age of the poster, that must have been his father's team. Harry would have to ask Sirius or Remus if his dad was a lifetime fan or if he was the type to change his team regularly. He was jerked out of his musing when he heard something going on downstairs, so he left his dad's room and went to see what was going on
When he entered the family room, Harry found Ali hugging Dan and Emma and doing the French kissing thing that once again he had forgotten the name of, as well as being introduced to Sirius, Remus and Ms. Richards, though Ali was introduced to her as Steve's stepdaughter, as Ms. Richards had met Steve a couple of times as a friend of Dan and Emma. When Ali saw Harry walking in she pulled him into a hug as well. "Hey Harry, you have fun after the ball?"
"It was like a dream." Harry joked, causing Hermione and Fleur to laugh but Ali to look at him confused, so Harry clarified. "We fell asleep almost as soon as we got in. What about you? I didn't see who your date was."
"Some guy called Cormac McLaggen, turned out to be nothing but proof that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover."
"Yeah," Hermione said, "he has a bit of a reputation in Gryffindor. Nothing too bad, but very full of himself and thinks that touting how close his family is with the Minister of Magic is flirting."
Ali agreed with Hermione's assessment of the guy and they moved on, not wanting to spoil their catch up by talking about a bad date. Dan and Emma had been told Ali was magical, but actually seeing her in a magical setting wearing robes was still a bit of a shock. To them, Ali was still Steve's completely normal little girl. However, that image was completely destroyed when Hermione knocked a cup of tea off the table, spilling the drink and smashing the cup. Ali, almost as a reflex, vanished the spilled beverage and repaired the cup. Both Dan and Emma stared for a few moments before shaking themselves out of it.
The four teens spent some time showing Ali around the house then they relaxed in the library. "So, Ali, you and the twins worked out the chests yet?" Fleur asked.
"Yeah, why, do you three need some help?" Ali asked semi-seriously. While she was out to win, she didn't want her friends getting hurt either.
"Nah, we figured them out a while ago," Harry told their friend. "Just remember that our event was sabotaged, the Head of the D.M.L.E. has promised that she will have people there to prevent another attempt, but watch out in case we are sabotaged and it spills over." Harry gave her a warning.
That seemed to shock Ali. "We hadn't considered that…I'll need to have a word with the twins so we can put our heads together. Any idea who's doing this yet?" she asked.
Hermione sighed before saying, "No clue, Director Bones has confirmed that the signatures were taken from travel documents held by the Ministry, so there is at least a connection there, as someone who has access to those documents must have either done it themselves or given them to someone else so that they could do it. The problem is that it's not a very secure department, anyone with enough clearance could just walk in there after hours. Of course, that means the investigation has to look into all the senior staff at the Ministry, and they are not exactly cooperative. Most of them seem to find it insulting to be accused, and they have enough power to slow things down."
Fleur scowled. "Bureaucrats, give them a little power and it goes right to their heads. We French had a great way to deal with people who raised their power for themselves," Fleur said, and Harry realized she was referring to the French revolution.
Hermione snorted at that. "While it would be satisfying to see a few of them to the guillotine, it might just be a tad extreme," she joked back.
"Maybe, only a little though," Ali deadpanned. "So what else is Director Bones doing? Is she looking into any other ways to narrow it down?"
"Well, every time something happens, it narrows down her suspect pool. At this point I think she is just hoping that we stay alive long enough for whoever did this to slip up." Harry sounded so nonchalant about it that Ali gave him a sad look.
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Fleur sat in the library of the Potter home, trying to ignore what she knew was going on just upstairs. Hermione had told her about the complications of her feline side a while ago, but Fleur hadn't been this close when Hermione experienced one of her heats before. She and Harry had left to be somewhere alone.
A cup of tea was suddenly placed in front of Fleur, and she looked up to see her future mother-in-law standing by her with her own cup of tea. "Can I join you?" Emma asked.
"Oui," Fleur said as she waved her hand at the other chairs.
Emma sat, and the two women stayed quiet for three or four minutes just sipping on their tea. Eventually, Emma broke the silence. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Fleur sighed. "I'm not sure you want to hear it. You are Hermione's mum, after all."
"I know full well what my daughter is currently doing in Harry's room with him. Hermione may not tell me the gory details but my daughter and I talk, I know why they are doing this today, and I know they are being responsible. And most importantly, I know if something goes wrong Hermione will come to me. But right now I'm not worried about Hermione, my daughter is having fun. No, I'm worried about the young woman in front of me who looks like she's upset."
Fleur looked at Emma, wondering how much to say. "It's just hard." Fleur said then paused but Emma just waited for her to continue. "I have a reputation at Beauxbatons, one I never earned. You see, as far as I was concerned I had Harry out there waiting for me, so there was no point dating anyone else. But being a young Veela, my allure wasn't always as well controlled as it is now. I would lose control and boys would swarm me with attention, even boys already in relationships, and the other girls didn't exactly like that. Called me boyfriend-stealer, slut, easy, those sorts of names, but as I said I haven't ever been with anyone. But I can't deny that my blood calls for it, especially now that my bond mate is here. I can feel what they are doing upstairs, not like I'm involved, but a fire in my blood that is pulling me to join them, but I can't do that. It's driving me a little crazy."
"Why not? The contact between you says you can, I doubt your parents disapprove and Dan and myself aren't big enough hypocrites to get upset over things now."
"It's nothing like that. But I am 16, almost 17. It's illegal, most people wouldn't care and in France it would be fine, but here in Britain, there is too much prejudice against not full humans, against the French, and there are people who don't like some of the things my father has done with trade deals between Britain and France. These people would use such 'indiscretions' against me, see me arrested and thrown in prison for forcing myself on a minor.
"What about Hermione? She is older than Harry, could this be a problem for her?
"No, she will face some problems being first generation and because some will see her ears and think she is less human, but there is an exception in Britain's magical laws. They don't count as different ages if there is less than a year's age difference, then it is considered a matter for families to decide, not one for the law," Fleur explained.
"You seem to know a lot about British law," Emma asked without asking.
Fleur shrugged. "My betrothed is English, I was curious. I'm no law witch, but I looked up what I was interested in." That Fleur was looking up if she could legally make love to her betrothed didn't need to be said, Fleur was a teenager after all. They both knew the hormones that came with that.
"You said the law was different in France," Emma pointed out curiously.
"The laws aren't that different, it's how they are enforced. There is less prejudice in France against Veela, and there is an understanding regarding betrothals. As long as everybody is agreeing, no one cares." Fleur explained.
Emma nodded, and the two women continued chatting for a while, Emma providing a distraction so Fleur had something else to focus on.
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The Grangers, Ms Richards, Harry, and Fleur all went back to London for New Year's Eve. Ms. Richards was going home, while the Grangers were taking Harry and Fleur to their annual dental network New Year's party. They had gotten everyone an appropriate outfit when they went shopping on Boxing Day, so Harry wasn't surprised when Hermione and Fleur came down the Grangers' stairs looking amazing. Fleur, like Hermione, looked just as good in a mundane dress as she did in robes. The two girls had both decided that they would go with a variation on the 'little black dress', but both dresses were completely different in style. Hermione, instead of matching her hair band to her dress, had a black and white checked pattern that looked good with her dress.
Just like last year, the first thing they had to do was go around shaking hands and pretending to care about the things the adults were saying, just as the adults pretended to be interested in the academic achievement of some teenagers they saw only once a year. After that, they were finally free to join the other teenagers and relax a little. One girl, the energetic blond he had met last year (Mandy, if Harry remembered correctly), saw them coming and waved, "Hermione, Mr. Perfect, you made it. And you brought someone new. Pull up a chair and make introductions." They took some of the free chairs and Hermione introduced Fleur to everyone, also reminding Harry of their names at the same time. The others were all interested when they heard that Fleur was French and that her school was involved in a competition with Harry's and Hermione's school, and that Fleur was spending the holiday with Harry and Hermione because it turned out her parents had known Harry's parents.
"So Harry, are you and Hermione going to treat us to another midnight show this year?" Tina, the only Black teenager at the party, asked.
That interested Fleur. "What show did these two put on?"
Tina grinned. "Oh, they decided to ignore the fireworks last year and create their own. The two of them were snogging in front of everyone."
"We were not in front of everyone!" Hermione protested.
Beth jumped on that. "So you don't deny snogging, just that you're exhibitionists." Everyone laughed at that except Harry and Hermione, who blushed.
Fleur decided to get in on the ribbing. "Oh, these two are always disappearing to snog, they have their own little private corner of the school. If you are looking for them, they are usually in the library examining the books or in their hidden corner examining each other's tonsils." That got a laugh out of everyone.
They talked for a while, until Fleur decided to drag Harry and Hermione out onto the dance floor. They danced for most of the night, usually together though they had to rotate the pairings for the slow dances. During one slow dance, while Hermione and Fleur were dancing together, Harry was grabbing a few drinks from the bar. Lewis came over and leaned in before saying, "You, Fleur, and Hermione are more than just friends, right?"
"What makes you say that?" Harry asked, trying to keep the surprise from his voice.
Lewis nodded to Fleur and Hermione, and Harry saw the two of them dancing together closely. "You don't dance like that with just friends, and both of them dance with you the same way."
Harry didn't say anything, he just looked at Lewis waiting to see what the guy said.
"How did you get so lucky?" Lewis asked, and Harry relaxed when he realised the boy wasn't judging him.
"I have no clue, it's not something I was trying to do. It was mostly Fleur's plan, and then it just sort of happened," Harry explained.
"So no tips for me to convince Beth to try something like that?" Lewis grinned.
"Yeah, I got a tip for you: don't. You could lose everything if she takes it badly, it's not worth the risk," Harry told the older boy.
Lewis sighed. "You're probably right, but it would be an amazing experience."
Luckily for the three of them, the rest of the night went by smoothly and full of dance and fun. At midnight, the three of them shared a few kisses, though they were far more chaste than the year before. Neither Harry nor Hermione were really close enough with Fleur yet for more than a quick peck, but they were now close enough that they couldn't really leave their new girlfriend out. They returned to the Grangers for the night before Harry, Hermione, and Fleur went to the Leaky Cauldron on New Year's Day to Floo back to Harry's house and moved back into the castle later that night.
A/N
hope you enjoyed the chapter and I look forward to reading your comments