Harry's P.O.V

August 20th

1:30 a.m.

They had stayed far longer at the Weasley's house than they had intended, and now that they were back in Fleur's home, neither knew what to do with themselves. So, they opted to make their way to the sitting room and just lean against one another in front of the fireplace.

Dazed. That was how Harry felt as he held Fleur's hand while they sat contently on her families expensive looking ottoman. Her parents had greeted them when they had returned, but they had left when they had sensed an odd atmosphere around the pair.

Harry felt Fleur jerk suddenly," are you okay?"

Fleur laughed fanning her now bright red face," I just realized I didn't say anything about what you said before."

"What I said?" Harry asked, knowing fully well what she was talking about.

"Ze beautiful thing you said to me," Fleur whispered, pulling their entwined hands to her chest," zat you love me."

Harry blushed deeply, and leaned closer to her, suppressing the part of himself that wished never to get as close as he was about to. Harry wrapped his arms around her and buried his head in her hair; a weak shuddering breath tickled his neck, and he pressed closer than he had ever dared before. " I do love you, and everything that's happened has really shown me hesitating will only make me regret not telling you if I'm ever not able to."

Fleur's soft, warm arms wrap around him tenderly, her hands smoothed the unruly strands atop Harry's head comfortingly," I love you too. I realized it last year, but I knew 'ow you 'ad been treated and I didn't want to burden you further."

Harry laughed softly, looking at her openly and admiring her face," I suppose my playing hard to get at the end of last year was a bit of a wasted effort in the end. I caved at the first sign I might lose you."

"Zat isn't such a bad thing though. Is it?"

Harry smiled looking into her soft blue eyes," I suppose not."

Fleur bit her lip, her eyes darted from Harry's own to his mouth and back up all in the space of a few seconds," m-may I kiss you again, 'Arry?"

Harry gulped, thinking about a kiss between them not being a spur of the moment thing for once, and it felt odd to deliberately harbor the idea when he had so vehemently spurned all such kinds of contact up until this point. But he found himself leaning closer, and breathing in the familiar smell of burning holly and sugary desserts wafting from her.

Fleur's lips were as sweet as any dessert, and her soft whispering breaths filled him with a life he never thought he could have. Her hands gingerly traced Harry's jaw and a small shudder went down his spine as he felt her hold him as if he were made of delicate glass.

She pulled back, gazing longingly at him, but she seemed to know his limits. She herself seemed to be approaching her own.

"Your hair is squirming," Harry laughed, running a finger through her hair that rose in an unseen updraft. The strands flickered mesmerizingly, like licking tongues of blue flame turning her hair into a gentle inferno.

Fleur blushed, trying and failing, to smooth the locks down into a normal order. She laughed lightly and gazed into Harry's eyes," I think we should both 'ead to sleep. It 'as been a long day, and I think we are riding a bit of an adrenaline 'igh."

"It may be a bit difficult for me to go to sleep," Harry admitted, running a hand through his own unruly hair.

"Yes, well, I suppose I could convince myself to resume our dueling routine until you feel tired enough to pass out," Fleur offered.

The very thought sobered Harry and he stood up a bit too quickly to escape her borderline insane training." That's alright; I think I've suddenly come down with a case of drowsiness." As if to hammer the point home, Harry raised his hands above his head and yawned theatrically.

Fleur's musical laughter did a better job of making him tired as she walked with him. The bell-like ring settled around him, and he smiled tiredly. "Now you really do look tired," Fleur laughed as she pulled him along, looping her arm through his. They made their way to their rooms, their shoulders bumping lightly as they ascended the stairs, and their smiles threatened to split their faces.

"Goodnight, Fleur," Harry smiled up at her as they stood outside of her room. They had passed his own room while walking, but Harry felt it the gentlemanly thing to do to walk her to her door.

"Goodnight, 'Arry," Fleur bent lightly and pressed her lips against Harry's cheek.

Her door had been closed almost half a minute ago, but Harry still stood staring dumbly at the wood as if it held the secrets of the universe. And perhaps, for Harry, it really did. Because in this moment all he could think of was Fleur, her soft smiles, the way she held her head up when she was proud, her stubborn determination, and the gentle way she had held him.

'Pathetic. Disgraceful. Disgusting.'

'Shut up,' Harry scowled, his good mood drying up at the intruding voice of his hated enemy.

'How disappointing, to openly hold affection for the creature is one thing, but to love it is folly. You will learn before long that all others are good for is to further your own power, and use as pawns in the quest for true strength.'

'Why do you care? It's not like it affects you in any way, and besides I'll do what I want as long as I want.'

'You will learn the inevitable truth, boy. All your love will gain you is a swift death at my hands, and when you realize you should not have been wasting your time on such redundant things, I will kill her.'

Harry glowered at his door, not realizing he had made it back to his room during his inner turmoil,' you'll die long before you ever get the chance to try, even if it means I have to die to take you with me. So take the fact that a stupid boy like me can kill you at a moments notice and shove it.'

That shut the fragment of Voldemort in him up, so Harry entered his temporary room in the Delacour Manor and locked the door behind himself. He knew that no matter what he did the fragment of the dark lord would always know what he was doing or thinking, but he still slid down the door and buried his head in his knees.

Harry was tired, oh so tired. It wasn't the sort of tired one had from a full and fulfilling day of activity, but the tired miasma of mental exhaustion at something so stressful it may as well be emotional torture.

But even though he was tired emotionally and physically, this did not diminish his resolve to make good on his threat if the fragment ever tried anything like it had before. That didn't mean he wasn't afraid of what it might do before he was able to take them both out, and so Harry sighed making his way to his bed.

He removed his glasses and set them on the nightstand beside the bed. The uneasy pull of sleep dragged him under after an hour of tossing and turning that barely helped him relax, and the nightmares he often had returned in force. Most likely his horrible dreams were a retribution reeked upon him by the fragment who had been threatened, but Harry knew even if he suffered the dreams his threats had still scared the fragment more than it wanted to admit.

Harry smiled, despite his dreams that soaked his shirt in sweat, and woke him periodically.

Harry's P.O.V

August 21st

1:30 p.m.

"Are you sure you must go 'Arry?" Fleur asked, her hands clasped together under her chin, and her pleading face fully in focus at Harry.

Harry had long known that if he did not want to cave in under her look, he needed to avert his gaze as quickly as possible," Yes, Fleur. I'm sure. I need to practice with my other friend for the next week before school starts. It's for the best; this way, you can practice at your regular pace without worrying about me."

"Mon chéri, you are holding him up. I know you cannot possibly live without him for even a moment, but you will survive a week," Marcus laughed ruffling his oldest daughter's hair as he teased her.

"Je vais te mettre le feu, papa," Fleur glowered at him as she straightened the hair he had put into disarray.

"C'est une bonne chose que je porte mon costume ignifuge alors," Marcus laughed back.

"Hush you two," Apolline chided, giving Harry a warm smile," you are welcome back any time, 'Arry. But be sure to try and stay out of trouble zis coming year, I know 'ow much trouble you found without trying last year."

Harry laughed," I'll try, but trouble normally finds me anyway."

Harry shared one last look with Fleur before stepping into the fireplace and leaving through it. It had gotten a bit easier to use, but Harry still hated the slapping sensation that seemed to always knock his glasses askew. Cobalt seemed to hate it just as much, because as they traveled he yowled and clung to Harry's burgundy shirt for dear life.

The pair spilled out onto the floor of Septima's office, startling the woman from her focus on the papers she seemed to be pouring over.

"Harry! I told you to tell me when you were heading back!" She chastised him, helping Harry to his feet and cleaning him of soot with a quick cleaning spell.

"Sorry. It's been a few weeks after all, but it's not like I haven't been writing. I swear I even sent the Weasley's owl telling you I was coming back today."

Septima stared at him for a moment before turning back to her desk. The surface was littered with papers so high they added an inch to the desk. She shuffled through them for a minute before pulling a still sealed letter.

"Ah, here it is," Septima opened the letter and read over its contents," I guess you did try telling me. Sorry about that Harry, I've been busy organizing my assignments for the year and I guess it got lost."

"That's fine, you were busy, so I understand. I'll leave you to it, I've got a few things I need to take care of myself," Harry was nearly at the door before Septima stopped him.

"How did your time with Fleur and her family go?"

Harry knew Septima would ask, she was the sort of person that liked to act calm and collected on the outside, but was really an impulsive worrier on the inside.

"It went really well, there were a few bumps here and there, but it all worked out in the end."

A sharp teasing grin spread across her face and Harry knew what was coming next," so, does my surrogate little brother have himself a girlfriend now?"

When Harry didn't answer and continually averted his gaze from her, Septima's jaw hit the floor," Really? I thought the advice I gave you was good… but that good?"

"Calm down," Harry sighed," it just kind of happened."

'After a very near fatal accident that is,' Harry thought to himself grimacing.

"No need to whinge over telling me," Septima laughed, taking my grimace for embarrassment," I'm happy for you two. It's been a while coming and I'm fairly sure everyone in the castle knew it."

Harry didn't think she was entirely wrong about that. They had been hearing from almost every single person they ever interacted with that they assumed Harry and Fleur were an item, and now it seemed they wouldn't need to deny it.

This year was going to be so exhausting, Harry just knew it. So he figured he had better hurry down to Salazar if he was going to make every second of the years embarrassment worth it.

The echoing cool stones of the chamber eased Harry in a way that was almost unsettling. What did it say about him that a dark, cold, and dangerous secret room set him at ease and relaxed him? Probably that he had a few loose screws, but that didn't feel like any new news to Harry, so he just shrugged and sauntered toward Salazar's study.

"I'm back!" Harry shouted into the mouth of his ancestors statue, chuckling when he got a snort and a string of curses in return. Apparently, he had woken the cranky portrait of his ancestor from a nap.

Harry entered and Salazar, who was mounted on the study wall, glowered down at him. The snake that he always wore was pushed up on his brow as if he had been using it as a sleep mask.

"Who taught you to barge in on someone when they're not expecting you and yell at the top of your lungs? Because when I find out, I'll strangle Them with your intestines!" Salazar glared, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"That would be my muggle relatives," Harry laughed with no mirth," and by all means strangle away."

Salazar's piercing green eyes gazed down from Harry, a bit of warmth crept in," is your time away already over? It doesn't feel like much time has passed."

"There's a few day's left in the summer holidays, so I figured I might as well come back and check on my favorite portrait relative," Harry smiled magnanimously, as if his very presence were a gift.

Salazar didn't seem too impressed," yes well I can assure you I was doing fine without your annoying existence accelerating my decent into madness. Although, I could begin teaching you the theory on a few of the subjects I intended."

Harry perked up at that," like what?"

"Ritual magic would be a good start. It's a more complex branch of magic, but it can give you a good baseline of knowledge for both Arithmancy and Runes, both of which you'll be taking in school."

Harry's shoulders slumped," so no spells?"

"Don't take that whiny tone with me! Rituals are an integral part in strengthening yourself. Perhaps, if you have a firm enough grip on the subject, you could devise a ritual that might extract the fragment of Voldemort in you," Salazar grumbled, clearly not happy with Harry's disinterest in the subject.

Abruptly, Harry's interest came back in full force at the idea of being free of the voice in his head. "Do you really think that's possible?"

"Through rituals, nearly anything is possible. The amount of magic that is required for such rites can be immense, but you have proven to have magic a plenty running through you, so I imagine the sky could be the limit. Of course, reaching that level will require study and a fastidious fervor for the practice, so you're in for an uphill battle."

Harry sighed looking around for a chair to sit in, but when his eyes fell on a broken heap of wood, he remembered he had broken the piece of furniture," reparo."

The chair pulled itself together, swirling for a moment in a storm of whirling wood and splinters that pulled together into the chair he had broken. Harry sat down, pulled a quill and parchment from the desk in front of him, and looked to Salazar," let's get started."

Salazar cleared his throat and stood straighter, he adopted a serious expression," ritual magic is the accumulated knowledge of both runes, Arithmancy, and to a lesser extent potions. While Arithmancy is self explanatory in this situation, it is important that you understand the mathematical importance of magic when in conjunction with magic of this magnitude. Rituals are used to change the very nature of a thing; whether that is a human, object, or any other such focus, is up to the caster. It is important to know that, where Arithmancy is concerned, rituals require a focal point that is determined by shapes."

"Shapes?" Harry wondered, incredulous," shapes determine how a ritual works?"

"Yes, and if you let me finish, I will explain how!" Salazar grumbled irritably.

"Sorry," Harry turned red, looking back to his notes.

"The base of a ritual and its potency is decided by the outline you use for the 'ritual circle', " Salazar made air quotes at ritual circle," it is called a ritual circle, but a circle is the worst base you can make for a ritual. You see, our effect on magic is intrinsically tied to our understanding of the things we wish to do, and the more magic you learn, the more your mind will tie meanings to certain actions."

"Like how we cast spells using words and motions, but that isn't necessary with someone who is familiar enough with a spell to not need either?" Harry theorized.

"Precisely! While, theoretically, a ritual could work with a person who has enough belief they do not need the formalities of circles, runes, and essence focuses; that is easier said than done. So it is important to understand the sides of a 'circle' are important, and they add varying degrees of complexity to any ritual you may perform. Say you make a triangle, there would be three levels of complexity to what you wish to accomplish, and with such few sides the effects may be negligible at best. For instance if you wished to improve muscle definition to give more strength, a triangle array would perhaps give muscle definition equivalent to perhaps a month's exercise."

"How do the sides add complexity," Harry asked, wondering how the number of sides could possibly increase difficulty. "And you mentioned it a second ago, but what is an essence focus?"

"The number of sides is actually tied with the essence focuses heavily. You see for each side you incorporate, and depending on the desired outcome of the ritual, you will need an essence focus to reinforce the effect. However, the complexity of the ritual will affect the focuses you can use. Say for instance we continue the triangular ritual example. If you have determined to use it to strengthen your muscles adding the muscle fibers of a troll, the tendons of a griffin, and the bone of an erumpant; you would add perhaps three extra months of exercise and strengthen your bones well enough to support such a drastic increase in strength all at once. The potency of each ingredient will affect the outcome, and the more complex the ingredient, the more sides of a 'circle' each one would take up."

"So, if you tried using dragon muscle fibers, Nundu tendons, and Manticore bone with a triangle, what would happen?" Harry wondered aloud.

Salazar looked thoughtful and seemed to be deciding whether or not to answer such a question. After a moment, he seemed to decide it was better he did," I knew a wizard who asked a similar question, a few of the ingredients were the same, but he couldn't get his hands on manticore bone so he used chimaera instead."

Harry waited with bated breath," and?"

"He did not want to take the time to engrave the runes needed into a more complex array and attempted to use a simple triangle configuration. We cleaned his mangled and nearly exploded body from that room the next day. It seemed his body had been incapable of imbibing such potent traits in a single ritual with so few failsafes in the rune work, and the sides of the configuration had not properly split the distribution of the essences in his mind. So you can see where comprehension of the inner workings of rituals can be detrimental, even now, since I have warned you of the consequences your mind has associated such powerful creatures with the necessity of more complex rituals."

"So, in a way, as you learn more about rituals, the Understanding starts to hinder you while also helping you," Harry laughed, running a hand through his messy hair," so the sky may be the limit of rituals, but the mind is the limit of the caster."

Salazar nodded," yes, and now we come to the necessity of runes in rituals. Runes are used to assign meanings to each side of a circle. In the scenario of the usable troll, Griffin, and erumpent strengthening ritual, you would need to assign runes to determine where each ingredient will be used. For instance on the side with the troll muscle fibers, you will need to engrave the runes for the muscle groups you wish to affect. For the griffin tendons you will need to engrave runes for each joint that requires the elasticity of the ingredient to compensate for the increase in strength. And finally the erumpent bone will need to have runes for every single bone in the body, so that the strength and extra tendon elasticity will not shatter your bones."

Harry grimaced," you do know there are a lot of tendons, bones, and muscles in the human body, right?"

Salazar glowered down at him," I never said this subject would be simple, and now we get to the real meat of your study,"Salazar pointed over to the bookshelf to the right of his desk," look for the book titled "Rune's, Arrays, and Essence's". It will be the book I am assigning you to read before we ever even attempt a single ritual."

Harry stood from his chair and looked through the shelves. His shoulders fell in defeat and sorrowful acceptance as he pulled a book so thick from the shelf it looked more like a cement block.

"You are evil," Harry hung his head and slammed the book down on the desk.

"I'm so glad you noticed," Salazar guffawed.

Harry was grumbling as he began to pour over the books contents, but before he could get more than three pages in, Cobalt had hopped onto the desk.

A letter was fastened sound his neck by a thin piece of cord and he glared into Harry's eyes. He seemed to be saying," get a damn owl, I am not a messenger!"

"Sorry," Harry sighed untying the cord from around Cobalts neck so he could read the letter.

Dear Harry, it was so lovely to have you over the other day, and I had hoped if you haven't collected your school supplies yet that you may be agreeable to join us as we shop. We'll be leaving at three o'clock on the dot for Diagon Alley, and we'll all be meeting in front of Gringotts. Please write back as soon as possible.

-Molly Weasley

Harry looked down to Cobalt who was still glaring at him," how the hell did she even give this to you? The Burrow is all the way in Ottery St. Catchpole and we're in bloody Scotland! That's like six hundred miles, what were you doing so far from Hogwarts?"

Cobalt continued to glare up at Harry, as if the very idea of him questioning the cat was ludicrous," fine whatever, if you like roaming around so much, then you won't mind taking my reply back to her."

Harry furiously grabbed a blank sheet of parchment and scratched out a response.

Dear Mrs. Weasley, I would be happy to accompany you during your families shopping, so long as I am not a bother.

-Harry Potter

Harry paused for a moment,' maybe Fleur would like to come too?'

"And you know what," Harry grinned evilly down at Cobalt," take this letter to Fleur."

Dear Fleur, The Weasleys have invited me to do my school shopping with them today at three o'clock we will all be meeting in front of Gringotts and I wondered if you would like to come with us.

-Love, Harry

Harry had agonized over whether or not to include 'love' in his letter, and whether or not it was warranted this early in their strange relationship. Eventually, he decided to cross it out, but a quill was only so good erasing. He was sure she would see it, but a small part of him wanted her to. So he didn't grab another sheet of parchment to rewrite the letter.

Harry fastened the letters around Cobalt's neck, while the little menace spat, hissed, and clawed at him.

"This is what you get for being a fair-weather familiar," Harry sighed as the cat finally settled into an annoyed glower," don't be that way. I promise when we go to Diagon Alley, I'll buy a ruddy owl."

Cobalt seemed to calm at this and his eyes softened a fraction, but he didn't seem so placated that he would let Harry pet him when he raised a hand to. The cat jumped lightly from the desk, avoiding Harry's hand and slipping out the door.

"That cat is something," Salazar marveled, watching after the feline.

"I'll say," Harry sighed standing up," I'm going to go shopping for my school supplies."

"Take the book back to your dormitory, I wouldn't want you missing any of your light reading," Salazar cackled.

Harry's nose wrinkled in disgust," I hate you."

Salazar just laughed all the harder as he left.

A/N: so it's been a while since we've seen an update on Ghastly Artifacts and I figured it was about time. I'd had maybe half this chapter written and I wrote the last half with Salazar and Harry over the e course of maybe half a day. Surprisingly the idea of how ritual magic works came to me fairly easy, but it was the editing that was the biggest headache. As always, hope you enjoyed!!!