A/N: Hello people and thank you so much for your support! Here's a little mini-fic with Fleur and Harry at Beauxbatons!
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Harry couldn't believe it.
Somehow, for some reason, he'd had to join the upper-years aboard a Gryffin-pulled carriage, large and enchanted beyond belief by the likes of Dumbledore himself, to another school. He'd expected another year at Hogwarts, one in which Voldemort or one of his insane followers would make yet another attempt upon his life, but that wasn't to be.
No.
Dumbledore amongst others had somehow secured Harry permission via the Ministry to go with the Hogwarts delegation to Beauxbatons, for a tournament that had long-since been banned.
Until now.
The Triwizard Tournament, it was called, and Harry had been given plenty of time to read about it. He'd learned via first-hand tellings how dangerous it oft was, and how few typically survived going through it; that'd been the reason for its ban — the number of dead students from the schools that attended.
He shook his head as he peered through the little window his room possessed. Land was in sight, green and rich-looking, and the terrain which lush trees stood upon seemed mountainous. It wasn't any land he recognise—
Merlin.
Harry's eyes widened of their own accord when he took in a river that ran betwixt two steep mountains. It wasn't the nature-filled sight that left him so stunned, but the white, marble-like castle that was built upon the mountainside. There were many a pointed, ornate tower that rose up from the castle, each progressively taller the closer one drew towards the centre.
What struck him as most impressive, was how close to the water the place seemed. It almost looked like a portion of it hung over the river.
Further thought was interrupted when an announcement shook the carriage. One in the voice of Dumbledore. He was light-hearted as could be based on voice alone as he encouraged all aboard to look out their windows. The man recited history as one might suspect, and he threw in no small amount of levity, but Harry didn't hear much of it at all.
He was focused on the school, and the rows of blue-dressed figures lined up in a courtyard along the water's edge.
Harry disembarked from the carriage with the Seventh Years from Hogwarts. The Slytherins were behind him and huddled close together, unhappy in the foreign environment, it seemed. The Ravenclaw group was well in-front of him, eager and pointing towards various parts of the castle.
As for himself, he'd been grabbed by Alicia, Angelina and Cedric. The trio had taken it upon themselves to keep him closeby.
"Stay close," Angelina, ever the watchful big sister figure, said with a hand on his shoulder as they joined the Ravenclaws in stopping before the crowd of blue-covered witches and wizards.
Cedric signalled the witches covered in blue specifically when Angelina and Alicia looked to Dumbledore, and winked at Harry, a grin on his face. When Harry snickered back, recognising the same thing that Cedric did, he heard a tut. Alicia had spotted him, but she simply shook her head with her own little smirk in place at their antics.
She did mouth two words not long after, and right before Dumbledore made to speak. 'Be careful.'
He could do that.
When the greetings and initial words were all said and done, the Mistress of Beauxbatons sent forth her students to pair up with a student from Hogwarts. The dozens of them were eagerly seeking out a peer from the United Kingdom, and oft in groups given how many more of them there were.
Harry was still near to the three that'd told him to stay close when two blondes unknown to him rolled up. Those around them, even Cedric, seemed out of it the closer those two drew to him. He wasn't sure why that was — the older one was pretty, and the younger one looked like a smaller version of the older one, but she was partially hidden by the bigger girl.
"Hello?" Harry figured he'd greet the pair, but the word came out as more a question than anything else.
The older one smiled wide at him, the look as beautiful as any smile he'd ever seen before. "You are young to be weez ze ozzers, non?"
Was that why she'd come over to him?
"Not by much," Harry reckoned that was the truth.
The older girl laughed. It sounded beautiful, and it made him smile; he wasn't sure why it disarmed him as quickly as it did. "Zat ees not 'ow eet seems to me," she moved closer and cocked her head down at him. "We are told to 'ave a guest from 'Ogwarts eef we 'ad not taken one earlier from Durmstrang. You weel be ours, yes?"
Harry sought out the others for a moment; Alicia was busy, but Angelina was watching with the eyes of a hawk, and Cedric, well, he was being dragged off by other Hufflepuffs and the Beauxbatons students alongside them.
A little more confident with her gaze, he shrugged. It wasn't like he could really say no anyhow. "Sure."
"Fleur," the girl held out a hand, a curiosity in her eyes as she stood now boot a foot away from him. "Ze one zat ees peering from by back is Gabrielle, my leetle seester."
Harry took her hand and shook it… and then she kept hold of him and started back whence the pair had come.
He reckoned this year would be quite different than the past ones.
Harry had been pulled along by Fleur and her sister Gabrielle until the trio had reached what seemed to be their Great Hall. Once therein, Fleur pulled him to a corner table, to which the trio were the first to sit at and sat herself down right beside him; her sister sat next to her.
"Oh, I 'ad almost forgot," she leaned in without preamble, and as Harry's eyes went wide as could be, she drew closer and closer, until she pressed her lips on either of his cheeks.
He was stunned silent… until Fleur leaned back and giggled, French passing her lips as she spoke to her sister. Harry blinked himself back to sentience then.
If this was his welcome, he reckoned he'd quite like the place.