Thank you to all of the people who support my creativity with special thanks to: Jimmy Adams, Rafał Badera, Jo Daviz, Antar Das, LegendaryWasabi, Ibuki Mioda, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime, Jack Schriner.
as always chapters 40 and 41 are already up on pat re on under the name Lowten
Chapter 39 - one step at a time
A few days after Harry had stuck the Mandrake root to the inside of his mouth, he started to have vivid dreams where he was flying in his animagus form - only, it was more like his animagus form was flying and he was along for the ride. Hermione was having similar dreams, but she still didn't know exactly what her form was, only that it had four legs, felt at home in tall grass, and had the teeth of a predator. When they brought it up to Fleur over breakfast, they all suspected that Hermione was a cat (for pretty obvious reasons), but that left a lot to consider. Was she a wild or domestic breed? Was she a larger type of cat? Cat breeds may look similar, but they were as different from each other as a Welsh Corgi to a German Shepherd. There was too much possibility for "cat" to be enough of an answer.
"I'll just need to keep trying the meditations and paying attention to the dreams, anything I see could be the clue I need," Hermione explained as she pulled apart a piece of kipper, fishing out some of the bones. Harry understood that to mean Hermione was going to be constantly trying to meditate to find her form, just like she did when she was studying for their exams. "I'm more interested in you, Harry. When are you going to try and learn to use your family magic? If something goes wrong in the last task, it would be good if you could just pop us out of there."
Harry knew exactly what Hermione was doing: distracting him while she focused on her animagus training. But Hermione was right, the ability to teleport even through wards could be key to keeping the most important people in his life safe. He had been thinking about it ever since Fleur had brought it up on their date, and obviously Fleur had told Hermione about that conversation. "I have been thinking about it. I have definitely done it before and possibly even here at Hogwarts, and I also have all of the markers my family grimoire mentioned, such as having trouble with Floo and portkeys. The book said normal Apparition would be a problem as well, but I haven't tried that yet. The only reason I'm hesitating is that Apparition is illegal without a licence, and even if my family magic is something different (and I think it is, because apparently there is no chance to leave part of yourself behind using the Potter affinity), the effect is still the same. I'm not sure that the D.M.L.E. will just accept, 'yes, the spell looks like Apparition, has the same effect as Apparition even, but trust me it's a completely different magic,'" Harry told Hermione and Fleur.
"Harry, you are a Triwizard champion. If it's for the tournament, that gives you a lot of latitude in learning and using magic. You can't learn and use anything you like, but if it's just age restrictions they don't apply to us right now. You could probably even apply for an exception to the age restriction after the tournament for anything that you learned for the tournament, and if you didn't get it you would still have the skill ready for when you come of age." Fleur told him, and Hermione nodded in agreement.
He pressed a piece of sausage into the yolk of his fried egg, popping the yellow dome and covering his sausage in the rich sauce. "As right as she is, you do realise why Hermione is bringing this up, right Fleur?" The blond looked at Harry curiously as he ate the piece of sausage. "Hermione is trying to distract me from the fact that she is going to obsessively try to keep meditating the same way she studies before exams: relentlessly, nonstop, using all of her free time."
"That is no good Hermione. You need to be relaxed to meditate, stressing yourself out will work against you," Fleur said as she was picking apart a croissant and occasionally popping a few small pieces in her mouth.
Hermione sighed. "I know, but if I don't put in the effort, then I start panicking that I'm going to fail. Relaxing to study just doesn't sound right. Relaxing is for after studying. You know what I mean?" Fleur promised to take over from Harry and help Hermione over the next few days while he focused on learning the Potter Apparition.
Ever since Linfred of Stinchcombe, the Potter family has had members able to traverse vast distances in a moment. This is not the skill of Apparition that has come into popularity in the last few hundred years, that is nothing but a pale imitation of our family gift. Unfortunately, the number of Potters who have this gift seems to diminish over time. There is some speculation that Linfred of Stinchcombe had a gift because he was a true muggleborn, and the more our line gets diluted with non Potters the more that gift is also diluted. Even if that is true, we must not fall into the trap that so many families have fallen into, keeping blood lines pure may preserve gifts but the costs would be great. Just look at the Gaunt Family, their youngest member and future heir to the family Marvolo was introduced to society recently. While he definitely had Slytherin's gift of the ability to converse with serpents, as all members of his family did, the 10 year old boy could barely read yet and still couldn't write. Yet, he was so assured of his superiority because of his breeding. Potters should never give up so much just to preserve a single skill.
But I am rambling, you're reading this to learn about our ability to Step from one place to another regardless of the distance. The first thing you realise is that because this is not Apparition, despite the similarities between the two, the same rules do not apply: wards, familiarity with the destination (though familiarity with something is necessary), distance. These are no obstacles for the Potter who can master how to Step. Unfortunately the process of Stepping is one that is hard to put into words. When you do magic any other way, you need to charge your magic with intent, such as 'I want to be in the kitchen in front of the biscuit cupboard.' But unlike with a wand, you must imbue this into it while the magic is still within yourself. Then let it envelop you as you take a Step.
Harry reread over the page for the fifth time that day. Strangely enough, the protection on the family grimoire kept all non-Potters from touching the book, but if he asked Dobby or Sassy to retrieve it for him that was counted as him retrieving the book according to the book's wards. Harry had copied out the relevant passage and sent Sassy back with the book. It didn't matter how many times Harry read and reread the parchment in front of him, there were no tips on how to imbue his intent into his magic. With his other spell work, this was done by words you said and the pattern that you moved your wand in. However, this sounded more like when he had learned the patronus charm, where he had to feel an emotion while casting, but at the same time different.
Harry looked around the large room the Room of Requirement had made for him. It was about the size of the main hall in his primary school, with a big thick window cutting the room in half. In each half there was what looked like a solid gold ring inlaid into the floor. The idea was simple enough: stand in one ring and try and Step into the other one. Harry stood in the middle of the ring and called up his magic. 'I want to step to the other ring. I want to step to the other ring. I want to step to the other ring.' Harry thought three times, then he stepped forward hoping to find himself on the other side of the glass, but instead he just took a step closer to it.
Harry spent the next three hours trying to Step, and beyond managing it one single time and confirming it was something he could do, he had made almost no progress at all. He picked up his notes and his bag and went to find Hermione and Fleur. They were having dinner with Ali tonight, as Hermione hadn't had as much time with the girl she saw as her cousin as she would like.
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Fleur set down a book on the library table and then took the seat next to Harry, who was so focused on the runic arrays he had spread out over the sheets of parchment in front of him that he barely said more than "Hey Fleur," before returning to his work.
Fleur was both amused and a little upset by this. On one hand, Harry was completely unaffected by her allure, and he looked good sitting there going over his notes muttering to himself as he followed the chains of runes across the paper looking for mistakes or improvements to be made. On the other hand, Harry had his drop dead gorgeous French girlfriend/betrothed sitting next to him, she deserved more than a couple of words. Fleur waited until Harry was at the end of a spell chain, and then took his notes from them and gave them a look over, trying to determine what he was working on.
"I'm upgrading the summoning rings," he explained. "After what happened in the last task, it showed that there were a couple of flaws in the design. Hermione had her ring taken from her and you broke your bracelet, so I am trying to add runes to prevent anyone removing the ring except the person wearing it, and I'm looking to make them more resistant to damage." He took his notes back. "The problem is the runes are overloading the wood in the rings and they are catching fire. Not something I want to risk with a ring that's designed not to be removed."
"The wooden rings are nice, but why not a metal ring? That way it would be stronger without the need to use magic to make them stronger."
"Mostly because I have no experience working with metal. It would probably take me longer to work out how to make a metal ring than it will just to work out the runes. Plus, the ward to keep the ring on your finger is constantly checking the intent of the wearer to determine if it should let go of its continuous low level use of power." Harry expected Fleur to maybe give him a few encouraging words or commiserate with him that she didn't know the answer. What he didn't expect was for her to smile.
"Well, I'm pretty good at transfiguring jewellery, it's a lot cheaper to have a few plain pieces that I change to fit my outfit, so I can help you with rings if we can get the metal. As for the removal ward, its constant use of power is because it's constantly in contact with the person who can remove it, right?" Harry nodded, and Fleur smiled. "You English, you don't have a drop of romanticism to share between your whole country. Change the ward so that only the person who put the ring on the finger can remove it."
She watched as Harry ran her solution through his head quickly, and by the smile and then the slight reddening of the cheeks, he had realised her solution mimicked the exchange of rings that happened during a wedding. "Hey, I'm plenty romantic!" Harry protested.
Fleur smiled at him again. "Oh? I have yet to see any romance from you. I was even the one who had to arrange our first date. When are you going to show me this romantic side you claim to have?" She was fully aware that Harry did have a romantic side, Hermione had told her about the dates Harry had arranged between the two of them. The thought of what Harry had done for Hermione last year for Valentine's made her wish that Harry was a few years older already. It was annoying that Valentine's was so close before the start of the second task that they had barely had the time to acknowledge the day, let alone celebrate. But, and it was a big but, Harry had yet to display that side to her. There were a few mitigating circumstances, of course. Harry had been together with Hermione for a year before he started doing stuff like that, whereas they had only known each other since Halloween and he spent the next month actively looking for a way out of their betrothal because both he and Hermione had fundamentally misunderstood a few things. There was also the tournament that had taken up a lot of their time, though it did have the benefit that it pushed the three of them together to train, and they had grown closer quickly because of that.
Harry looked at her for a moment, obviously trying to think of something he had done with her and not Hermione, but he soon realised that he hadn't. "I'm sorry Fleur, I'll arrange something soon, OK?"
Fleur felt her lips stretch as her smile widened then she leaned in and stole a quick kiss. She would have given him a longer one, but the stories she had heard about the Hogwarts librarian were enough for her not to risk the women's ire. "Merci Harry. I will be, as you English say, looking forward to it." Then she got up and took the book from the table and went to check it out, but she couldn't resist putting a little extra sway in her hips as she walked away from Harry.
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Hermione was walking through the woods tonight. Every night since the Mandrake leaf had been one of a few different locations. A meadow with long grass, a river bank with a lot of overgrowth, a mountain covered in heather. She had learned a little of her animagus form, it felt powerful for its size, which was big for a cat. Maybe a little bigger than Crooks, but nowhere close to being a big cat. The fur on her paws had a tabby pattern, the same as her ears and tail. However, she thought that her fur was grey instead of brown like her normal fur, though she couldn't be sure as her colour vision was very different.
She climbed a tree, feeling her front claws grip at the bark and then pulling up her back legs up, before sinking her back claws into the tree and pushing up with her back legs, jumping almost twice her length up the tree. She did that twice before settling on a branch. She was using the height to scan the forest floor, looking for threats or prey. It was only then that Hermione actually noticed it was night, her cat eyes having little trouble with the darkness. There was a rustling in a nearby shrub, and her eyes shifted and her vision focused on where the movement was located. A mouse came scootering out of the shrub, Hermione felt her mouth watering as she watched the mouse waiting for it to move into the open. She shifted on the branch readying herself to pounce, not taking her eyes off the mouse and moving with every care to not make a sound and alerting it to her presence.
The mouse moved into the open, and just as Hermione was about to pounce there was a blur and a faint wisp of air, and with a short squeak the mouse was gone. She saw a bird of some type flying away with what was to be her meal. A part of her wanted to rage over that, but there was no use, this was just the way of things. She jumped down from the tree and began her search again. Eventually she came across a pond and decided to see if she could catch a bit of fish. There was a convenient rock that was half in and half out of the water, so she crept slowly around the pond, her instincts telling her that any sound she made could result in her going hungry for the night. She crept out on the rock and stared down at the water, looking for any flicker of movement that would indicate a fish.
As she stared at the water, there was a shift in the clouds and the nearly full moon that had been hidden until now bathed the small clearing in pale light, and Hermione saw her reflection in the almost glass smooth water. Looking back at her was a powerfully built tabby cat, it's fangs sticking out of its mouth a little. Hermione's human self knew that this wasn't the form of a house cat that lounged by the fire, begged for ear scratches, and was fed every morning and evening. This was the form of a wild cat, a cat that had to fight for food every day, a brutally effective hunter. Then, there was a flicker in the water and the only thing that mattered was lunch.
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Hermione hit the library first thing when she woke up, looking to confirm what her Mandrake-induced dream had shown her. It took her almost an hour to find the right book and the correct entry, but she was able to confirm (at least as much as was possible) that her animagus form was a British wild cat. One fact that she learned about British wild cats, a slightly divergent subspecies of the European wild cat, was that it had incredibly bushy fur on their tails, and she was reminded of the often used instrument for her own hair.
Hermione was a little surprised to find Harry waiting for her outside the library, a breakfast sandwich wrapped in a napkin that he handed to her as soon as she stepped outside of the library. "You weren't at breakfast," Harry said, as though that explained everything.
"I saw my animagus form in my dream last night," Hermione answered the unasked question as she pulled the sandwich apart a little to see what was inside. Bacon, egg and mushrooms. Not a favourite, but more than delicious enough so she took a bite.
"As you aren't still pouring over the books, I assume you found what you were looking for?"
Hermione nodded while she chewed her bite of food then said. "A tabby British wild cat that I think is grey but I'm not sure, as I see colours very differently in my dream."
"Makes sense, my vision is different in my animagus dreams as well but it doesn't affect colour. We are probably seeing things how our animals see them. For me, I can see details from an incredible distance. I could probably read a newspaper if it was laid out on the ground and I was perched on top of Gryffindor tower," Harry said as they started walking slowly towards their first class of the day in no rush as they had twenty minutes. "So, Fleur mentioned that I have been a little lacking in the romance department. She has a point, but I realised something as well. While we have all had dates separately, one thing we should probably do is a date for all three of us," Harry said.
"That's probably a good idea. We just need to think of something we would all enjoy," Hermione agreed, and the two of them started to think of ideas that the three of them could do together. By the time they reached the Charms classroom, they had a few ideas to mull over.
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Fleur was a little surprised that Friday when, instead of disappearing for their regular date night, both Harry and Hermione invited her along with them. At first Fleur hesitated, "Um, I'm flattered, but I don't think we are ready for that yet."
Harry turned to look at Fleur. "Do you think our dates are nothing but marathon sex sessions or something?" The grin on his face telling anyone who cared to look that he was teasing.
Fleur felt her cheeks flush, and Hermione elbowed Harry before saying, "Stop teasing her." Then she turned to Fleur. "I will admit that at the start of the year our dates were like that, but we calmed down after a few months. We are inviting you on a regular date." Then she leaned in and gave Fleur a quick hug. "With everything going on, I am just as guilty as Harry for letting things fall into a comfortable pattern and not realising you were still left on the outside a little. Now, we are going to fix that."
Each of Fleur's arms were taken by each of her partners, and they escorted her through the castle. Fleur never understood the stairways in the castle moving as they did, it just seemed to be an annoyance to her. As she was led to the seventh floor from the ground, they had to go up ten sets of stairs and down three. The whole time the three of them made smalltalk. She was a little surprised that her calves weren't burning from walking up all the stairs, they definitely would have been before she came to Hogwarts, but they had done a lot of exercise as well as spell work for the tournament.
Harry opened the door to the amazing room that changed to whatever they wanted, and Fleur stepped into what appeared to be a bibliophile relaxation room. There was a large fire on one one wall with a large sofa facing it, one wall was made entirely of French windows that were open revealing a sunny day, with a warm Mediterranean breeze that lightly fluttered the pale blue curtains as it blew into the room. The rest of the walls were covered in bookshelves, apart from a few door's that were placed almost at random around the room. The bookshelves were crammed not just with books but curiosities as well, and Fleur wondered if they actually meant anything to Harry and Hermione or if it was just the room decorating. She was surprised when she realised she recognised the view outside the window. It was the mountains around Nice, and while the unplottable magical district that held her home was missing, she could see many places that were familiar to her.
"It's the view we had from our hotel room when we visited Nice last summer." Hermione explained, and Fleur suddenly realised just how close the two of them had been to her over the summer. It was one thing to know they were in Nice, it was another to look out of the view they had had and be able to just make out in the distance a road she had walked down a few hundred times.
Harry and Hermione gave Fleur the grand tour. Behind one door was a beautifully decorated dining room with a table that was already set for three, the only thing missing was food. Behind another door was something Hermione had raved to her about a couple of times, an outdoor hot spring.
"I came up with the hot spring last year, and with all the physical training we have done this year Hermione insisted we bring it back. I have to admit that it's soothing on sore muscles," Harry explained the room setup.
"If only I had a swimsuit with me," Fleur lamented.
"There are swimsuits in the changing rooms if you are genuinely interested," Hermione said, and Fleur remembered the room had provided the swimwear for her beach date with Harry a few weeks ago and felt a little embarrassed for forgetting. Hermione and Fleur both started sifting through the swimwear together as soon as they were in their changing room. "Should we get something that matches? Really give Harry a thrill?" Hermione said, holding up two almost identical black bikinis.
Fleur looked at them and chuckled. "If we are really looking to give Harry a thrill, then maybe something more like this?" She held up a far skimpier bikini.
Fleur watched as Hermione's cheeks flushed red for a few moments but then Hermione seemed to steel herself and she pulled out a matching style to the one Fleur was holding. Seeing Hermione had agreed, Fleur pulled off her top and unclipped her bra without even thinking. Being in a changing room, Fleur had just been thinking of Hermione as another girl. However Hermione wasn't just any girl, she was Fleur's girlfriend who hadn't seen Fleur topless yet, and now the girl's eyes were fixated on Fleur's breasts.
If it was anyone but Hermione or Harry, Fleur would have been a little annoyed but as it was Hermione, Fleur couldn't resist arching her back a little and giving Hermione a better view. "Planning on returning the favour?" Fleur asked and watched laughing as Hermione suddenly realised what she was doing.
"I'm sorry Fleur," Hermione quickly apologised, looking really guilty.
Fleur pulled the strings of the top half of her suit behind her and tied them behind her back in a well practised moment. As she did that she said. "Hermione, I don't mind you or Harry looking. And I have been to the topless beaches enough that I'm well used to people looking. However, I just thought that you need to change as well." Fleur finished talking as she was tying the second pair of strings behind her neck. Hermione quickly remembered why she was there and quickly changed into her swimsuit, focusing only on the task at hand, causing Fleur to giggle at her girlfriend's flustered behaviour. The swimwear matched exactly in style and cut, the only difference was the colour: Hermione's was pale blue, whereas Fleur had picked one in a mint green.
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Harry was unsurprisingly the first in the hot spring, but he didn't expect to be waiting as long as he was. He understood that girls had a little more to do, they had a few more clothes to take off and possibly more to put on, they also put charms on their hair and makeup so that the steam and the water didn't ruin work they had already put in, etc. Whereas Harry just needed to strip and jump into a pair of loose shorts. This meant that Harry was expecting a wait of about five minutes for the girl's to emerge. However, he was waiting closer to ten, and when the two came out of the doorway Hermione's face was red from blushing. It didn't take long for Harry to realise something had happened in the changing room.
Then he registered that they were wearing matching bikinis that left little to the imagination. While Harry's brain recovered from the attack of killer teenage hormones, Hermione and Fleur got into the pool of lightly steaming water. The pool was actually far bigger than the original one Harry had dreamed up, over time both of them got better at using the room and they had also learned more of what they wanted in a personal hot spring. There was now a long sided deep end of the pool that was perfect for swimming a few laps. The cooler water was now pumped over an artificial pile of heated rocks that Hermione had dreamed up and there was a sitting area right where the heated water rejoined the pool. There was also now a cool down pool where the water was presently chilled where you could cool off if you started to overheat.
Harry had been waiting in the hotter end of the pool, and Fleur and Hermione waited over to him and sank into the heated water, Fleur letting out a few appreciative sounds as the water raised up her body. Harry and Hermione maneuvered Fleur so that she was sitting between the two of them, and it wasn't long before the date devolved into a snogging session, with both Harry and Hermione making sure Fleur felt like one of them. They didn't get to the three course French dinner that Dobby had prepared for them for almost two hours.
A/N
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