Darling, don't look now but the universe is laughing - Hugo_falcon - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: The first time we met

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You toy with your fingers nervously as you wait on the outskirts of... what was it they called this room? The Great Hall? That implied that somewhere there was a lesser hall. You didn't doubt it, this place was huge and you were getting more and more nervous. You didn't know anyone present, though you supposed that was kind of the point. Professor Dumbledore organised theese Induction Weeks for those students who would know nobody and no magic and would begin learning now. The problem was you were already failing both objectives as you huddled against the wall, too nervous and awkward to do much more than people watch.

It hadn't been your idea to go, you'd wanted to stay home and spend your final few days with your brother Luke. You were close despite the two year age gap, and it was him who'd ordered you to go. Things would be different if he was here with you, you'd be pulling him around the room to meet people. But he wasn't allowed here because he was a 'muggle'. You thought that was a stupid rule, but mostly just because you were missing him so damn much.

A slightly older girl catches your attention. You're mouth felt dry all of a sudden, her movements were so graceful and elegant, her hair was a shade of blonde away from being gold and her pale face was ever so slighted pointed. In short, she was beautiful, so beautiful every eye was watching. She saw you, smiled and your stomach flips as she made her way over to you.

“Do you mind if I stand here with you?” The girl asks, her voice was rich like honey and accented.

“Why?” You splutter, you mean to say yes but you're geuinly astonished.

“Out of everyone here you seem by far the most fascinating,” The girl tells you and you scoff.

“Hardly, I'm nothing interesting,” You tell her and the girl shakes her head.

“Oh really? I think you're fascinating. A mysterious girl surveying the action from the outskirts? Surely you must be a spy or perhaps an assassin,” The girl says speculatively.

“Oh dear, you seem to have found me out,” You jest and the girl smiles, leaning into you in a way that felt strangely natural despite the limited amount of time you'd known each other.

“However will you silence me?” The girl asks, tipping her head back.

“I'll have to kill you,” You declare and you both freeze for a moment and then you laugh so hard that you have to lean into each other for support. You felt a though your wrist was on fire and you pulled away guiltily, running a finger over the name written in an elegant scrawl across your wrist. From birth every persons soulmate was written in their flesh like a tattooed clue to your heart. Yours read 'Fleur Delacour' your brother, Luke had a mark reading 'Millicent Bulstrode'. It could be difficult to find your soulmate but most people agreed that it was worth it.

“Everybody, please gather around,” The man you recognised as the headmaster called out cheerily and you all obliged, though much to your chagrin you were separated from the girl you'd been talking to by a tide of boys desperate to stand beside her. Eventually, you finally managed to spot her again eight people down. Instinctively, you angled yourself so you could still see her.

“Very good, very good, now I thought that we could play a game to get to know each other. Does everyone have their wands?” The headmaster asks and there were many nods though also a few sheepish shakes of heads, “No matter, no matter, those without wands will simply have to attempt this wandlessly which is more challenging, those who wish to may also attempt this,”

You replaced your wand in your holster, and smile at the girl who you saw had put her wand away too. The headmaster summoned a ball of light and smiles, “So what your going to do, is when you receive this ball your going to pass it on to a new person, state your name and one fact. I'll go first and show you how it's done and also because you've probably forgotten my name,”

“I am Professor Dumbledore, and I have a fondness for muggle sweets,” The Professor said, and then he sent the ball outwards, towards you. Why did you have to speak first? You screamed inside your mind. You hadn't liked the idea of socialising one to one and now you had to speak to everyone simultaneously. The expectant looks from people and the warmth of the girls eyes finally force your tongue to work and your mouth to move.

“Hi.... I'm Y/N Y/L/N, and I'm definitely not an assassin,” You say and watched as the girls jaw dropped. Your stomach sank, maybe you said something you shouldn't have.

“Thank you miss Y/L/N. I'm sure we are all glad to hear that and how wonderful it is that you do not loose your sense of humour in front of crowds,” Professor Dumbledore compliments you kindly, “Now send the ball on to someone, close your eyes and envision it moving,”

The girl from before quickly gestures to herself and you frown, closing your eyes and envisioning the ball moving from you to her. You know you've done it right when you hear her voice.

“My name is Fleur. Fleur Delacour,” The girl says and your wrists burns.

Chapter 2: Can you keep a secret?

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You bolt upright, rubbing your nose, pained, and glaring at your (soon to be) sister-in-law Millicent (Millie) Bulstrode. The Slytherin girl chuckled and you rolled you eyes, lifting the pillow and hurling it at her. With ease she punches it to the side, and it lands back on it's original bed. You pout at her and she laughs even harder.

“Go get dressed! It's the first day of your sixth year and at this rate you're going to be late! I thought Ravenclaw's cared about this stuff,” Millie comments and you roll your eyes.

“I do care! I just also value my sleep, especially after a long night of studying! How did you even get in here?” You ask annoyed as you make your way to the bathroom.

“What you mean your little riddle? Come on! That was easy!” Millie says and you give her a look and she sighs. Millie was smart but she was not willing to spend time messing around trying to work out a stupid riddle, it just wasn't her style.

“Jake and Ant let you in then?” You ask and Millie sighs.

“Yeah, but in my defence, why would I waste time with a riddle when I could just order those two to let me in?” Millie asks and you laugh.

“Hey, they do say Slytherin's are cunning!” You call out to her and then you step into a shower.

The hot water warmed your chilled bones, dreaming (or rather remembering) your first meeting with your soulmate Fleur Delacour always left you shaking. You were on your way to loving her back then, but after your first meeting things didn't go so smoothly and it wasn't yours or Fleur's fault. Outside sources had interfered and despite the fact that Fleur was suppose to be spending her second to seventh year at Hogwarts, you hadn't seen her since that Induction week between your first year and her second.

You had faith that at some stage you would be reunited with her and you would be together since every relationship had it's struggles but it was always worked out eventually. All you had to do was think about Luke and Millie and your faith was restored. At first, after learning Luke was a muggle Millie had wanted nothing to do with him, she was pretending she was a pureblood and didn't want her parents to know she was marrying someone they perceived as beneath her. Then the first letter came to her and though she didn't respond, a second. She didn't respond until you were in your third year but you knew she was reading them and you saw how she smiled as she read. When she finally wrote back to your brother it wasn't long before you gained a sister and best-friend for life.

You stepped out of the shower, and headed downstairs to see your other best-friends, Jakob and Anthony – twins you'd met during your induction week - who'd both been sorted into Ravenclaw too. You greeted them both, Jakob (or Jake) with a hug and Anthony (Ant) with a smile. Millie ruffled your hair and you pretended to be annoyed even as you fixed it with a wave of your hand.

“It's still weird how proficient you are at wandless magic,” Millie tells you and you roll your eyes.

“Maybe you ought to put more work in and then you'd find it less weird,” You tell her.

“Yeah Millie, get on her level!” Jake jokingly calls out and you roll your eyes.

“Jake, she's better at it then you, maybe you ought to think about that,” You point out.

“But she's not as cute as me, right?” Jake protests and you roll your eyes.

“Jake, you know that there's no way you're going to win that argument if you're asking me,” You point out and Jake pouts while both Millie and Ant snicker at his misfortune.

“Aww! I'm hurt!” Jake protests and you roll your eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever everyone's attractive let's eat!” Ant says, jumping from the couch and heading out of the dormitory. You grin and race after him.

Nobody dares to comment when Millie sits with you at Ravenclaw's table instead of with Slytherin, it's a mixture of people having grown used to it and no one wanting to see what the four of you might do if angry. You all tucked in, you were never particularly hungry in the mornings and although you let Millicent bully you into a piece of toast. Your friends were the complete opposite. Ant, a skinny but lanky runt, had the most every morning – where he put it was still a mystery – Jake couldn't quite match him and Millie was still slightly self-conscious about acting lady-like despite the fact she knew you all loved her without her 'pureblood' etiquette.

“Where were you last night?” Ant asks around a mouthful of food, Millicent smacks his shoulder and he quickly shuts his mouth while Jake smirks.

“I didn't fancy being around a bunch of people so I went to check out the prefects bathroom,” You told him and he eyes the new badge pinned to your lapel like it's the first time he'd seen it.

“Abusing your position already?” Jake jokes and you grin evilly.

“Oh yeah!” You agree and the twins exchange horrified looks while Millie just laughs.

“I've trained you well I see,” Mille jokes and you laugh.

“NOT ANOTHER ONE!” Jake protests causing you to just laugh even harder.

The owls arrive a few moments later, and you smile when you see Wenegeden (or Wen) your owl flying towards both you and Mille. You take the two letters from her, giving the one marked for Millie to her and keeping the other. You brush back some of her feathers and scratch some of the harder to reach places and Wen coos at you affectionately before heading away.

“You know that's just not fair!” You protest when you compare the sizes of your letters. They're both from Luke. Yours is a post-it-note while Millie's is almost two double-sided A4 pages long. Millie doesn't answer, instead she smiles down at the words on the page. You roll your eyes reading the post-it-note quickly but with a rush of affection for your brother.

Hey Peek,

have a great day,

I love you,

Boo

Peek was Luke's nickname for you, it was a pet name that he only ever used when no one else would see it since he knew it embarrassed you a little to hear the childish nickname from him.

You slip the post-it-note into your pocket and focus back on the twins who seem to be having a quiet but serious argument.

“Something up?” You interject and the twins exchange – frightened? - looks. There eyes fall to Millie, but the seventh year doesn't look up.

“Nothing,” Ant says and you raise an eyebrow, your eyes narrowing.

“What are you three keeping from me?” You ask, you don't like secrets and you know that this isn't going to be a good surprise since your birthday isn't for another four months. They both bent nearly double beneath the force from your state and a small part of your mind wondered whether or not you really had been spending too much time with Millie.

“Ant, Jake, remember who's scarier. I will not go easy on you,” Millie drawls, not looking up from her letter. Millie didn't often seriously threaten people but there was a hint of malice in every syllable of her word and Jakob and Anthony wisely shut up.

“You're behind this?” You ask and Millie nods, picking up her goblet and taking a drink still reading her letter. She was onto the back of the second page now and you frown.

“Tell me,” You order and Millie shakes her head.

“No,” Millie says shortly. You see Ant and Jake scurrying away out of the corner of your eyes and other students also scooting away.

“Millie. Tell me. Whatever it is, I deserve to know,” You tell her and Millie finally looks up.

“You don't want to know,” Millie tells you and you shake your head.

“I do, I really want to know,” You tell her and Millie looks at the seriousness on your face.

“Fine. I'll tell you, but not right now," Millie tells you and you shake your head.

"Then when?" You ask and Millie sighs.

"Tonight, you have my word, but you need to focus today,” Millie tells you and you sigh knowing this it's the best deal you were going to get.

Chapter 3: Punching your Professor

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You had already collected your timetable from Professor Flitwick the night before and so you already knew exactly where you were going when you stepped out of The Great Hall. You quickly made your way to Defence Against The Dark Arts, curious about who your new teacher would be but not too concerned. Whoever he was, he probably wouldn't last until the end of the year.

“CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” A voice yelled from behind you and before you could even comprehend your actions you had hit the owner someplace squishy.

“Oh! Oh no! You're the new defence teacher, aren't you?” You yelp, as you help the doubled over man. He looked familiar... who was he? One of those singers? No, definitely not, but he was important in wizarding society... His blue eye swirled dizzily in his socket and it hit you like a well placed stunning spell.

“I'm-” The man starts but you cut him off, mesmerized by the hero in front of you.

“Mad-eye Moody?” You say and he nods.

“Yes, ten points to Ravenclaw, good punch and now in we go!” The professor barked and you blinked. Surely, you ought to have been in some kind of trouble for that right? You punched your professor, I mean he shouldn't have snuck up on you but... you punched your professor!
You take a seat at the front of the class watching this man with confusion, Jake and Ant try to engage you in conversation but you shake your head too focused on the man before you. By his side was a hip-flask and you watch fascinated when he takes a gulp of the drink before seeming to wince at the taste. How peculiar.. You watched him for a few seconds as he stared at the class, no one was talking but he seemed to be waiting for something. What was he waiting for?

The door opened, and in walked a familiar boy. Wasn't that... Cedric Diggory? Hang on a second though, why was the Hufflepuff seeker entering a class for sixth years, wasn't he a seventh year?

“Your late boy! A dimwit and incapable of arriving on time! Anything else I should add to your list of faults?” Mad-Eye Moody yelled at him and the boy bowed his head in shame.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Cedric apologises and Mad-Eye Moody shakes his head and points to the seat besides you. Cedric stands and moves a few feet forward until he's sat beside you and takes out his book all the while his head still remains bowed with shame.

“Are you OK?” You whisper under your breath as Mad-Eye Moody begins to write on the board.

“Fine...” The boy told you although you suspected he wasn't entirely honest.

“I am Professor Moody and right now, I might not know who you are but rest assured that anyone who even attempts to break a rule will be punished. I did not survive as an auror by forgetting people's faces!” The man introduced himself and you smiled, this dude was awesome and it seemed like he was going to be able to keep all his lessons under control. You watch him, and you're surprised to learn that the first lesson is unforgivable curses.

“Imperio,” Professor Moody casts and your hand reaches for your desk as a spider starts to tap-dance over and over across the desk. Your body starts to shake when it appears the Professor is getting bored.

*************************
“Y/N, I want to show you something,” Fleur whispers. You slowly slide your eyes open, it was the final induction day before tomorrow when the rest of the students would be coming to school. Since that first day when you discovered that Fleur was your soulmate you hadn't slept alone. Your soul-mate and girlfriend slept beside you, although at your young age girlfriend meant little more to you then the very best-friend you could ever have.

“What is it?” You ask sleepily, your arms have been wrapped around her waist seeking warmth and comfort from her embrace so you wouldn't get scared or homesick.

“Do you remember how we were talking about Unicorns a few days ago? Well from my research there should be some in the forest right now,” Fleur tells you and you blink up at her.

“Isn't the forest dangerous?” You ask and Fleur frowns.

“I know some magic already, I told you that I was supposed to be starting my second year, right? Well I'm already quite far ahead with my studies, I just wanted to get my English perfect,” Fleur explains and you nod thoughtfully, Fleur had explained to you that tradition dictated she go to Hogwarts instead of Beabuxtons but you were being surrounded by so much knowledge that it was hard to keep track of it all.

“Can you protect us?” You ask and Fleur nods. Your trust in her outweighs your fear so you take her hand and let her lead you out of the dorm. You weren't supposed to be sneaking out of the dorms late at night but with Fleur by your side how could you possibly get caught?
Quite easily as it turns out. You had no sooner placed your hand upon the door to the outside than a voice called out to you.

“AND WHERE EXACTLY DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?” Professor Flitwick yelled, despite his shorter stature he could be intimidating when he wanted to be, it was not for nothing that he was the best dueler of the century. Both you and Fleur bowed your heads and with a sigh, he turned his back and you both followed him.
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A hand was gripping yours, Cedric Diggory was looking at you concerned. He reached out to steady you but then the dreaded word was muttered and you were dragged back inside your mind.

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“I'm afraid we'll have to contact your parents,” Professor Dumbledore had said once Professor Flitwick had explained the situation. He had left through a green fire and Professor Flitwick had left to go back to his patrol.
The first set of parents to arrive through the fire had been Fleur's. You had felt Fleur stiffen slightly by your side but you were both nervous.

“Who's this?” Fleur's Dad asked, pointing at you with an accusatory look.

“Father this is my girlfriend and soulmate, Y/N Y/L/N,” Fleur introduced you stiffly.

“Y/L/N... hmm... I don't recall that name as a pure-blood. Don't tell me, you're a half-blood? Not too bad then I suppose,” Fleur's... father, why did she call him father?

“I'm a muggle-born actually,” You correct and you saw Fleur's eyes close. What was up with her?

“MUD-BLOOD!” Fleur's mother spat, taking over from her husband.

“I'm sorry...” You said, confused. What was up with them?

“Don't use that word!” Fleur yelled at them angrily, “You know for all your talk about muggle-borns being equal to purebloods you're some close minded, ignorant -”

“FLEUR!” Fleur's mother yelled.

“MOTHER! You're supposed to be an auror! How can you possibly-” Fleur starts but she's cut off again.

“SILENCE! HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT? THIS IS THE GIRLS FAULT!” Fleur's mother yells.

“It's-” Fleur starts but her father pulls out his wand.

“You will leave this girl and this school, this was a mistake,” Fleur's father tells her.

“NO! I WON'T! I'VE FOUND HER, NOW I'M NOT LEAVING!” Fleur yells. Fleur's father shakes his head and then he whispers something.

At first it wasn't so bad, it was like someone pressed a finger into your eye. Then it stopped. You took a deep breath, relieved and that's the moment when you felt an agonizing pain in your stomach spreading like wildfire throughout your whole body.
“LEAVE AND WE'LL STOP!” A voice yells. SometThing was clAWINg at YoUR CheST, It Wanted out... it wanted to...
The scream was too loud, it was like someone had blasted your eardrums and now they were throbbing. You wanted to get away, find some way to be more comfortable but even adjusting slightly felt like you shattered half the bones in your body.
It all stopped suddenly, and you collapsed to the ground, covered in sweat. You tried to catch your breath but your body was too heavy. You let your eyes close and for a moment you were certain that you heard her voice a final time. Then it was all gone and a new pain settled into your heart.

*************************
“Avarda Kavarda!” Professor Moody yelled, green flashed before your eyes. That was enough, more than enough. Your class was dismissed, and you grabbed your bag before racing past concerned faces and into the girls bathroom... There goes a good breakfast you think grimly and then you let yourself slide to the floor and close your eyes.

Chapter 4: Skipping?

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“Y/N! Y/N! Y/N! Open the door or I'm going to break it down!” Millie's panicked yelling finally forces you to open your eyes. Despite the hellish nature of the Cruciartious curse, that wasn't what always made you react so poorly when you thought about Fleur. No, what left you shaking and sick was the fact that Fleur left with them and you had no way of knowing if your soulmate was safe asides from the fact that you knew the mark itself hadn't gone black and burned like it did when soulmates died. Fleur was alive, somewhere, and you could only hope she was safe.

“I'll be out in a minute,” You call out to her and hear Millie taking a seat on the floor outside. You guess she wasn't leaving without you. You let your eyes close again for a second and hear Mille say something outside of the door.

“What happened?” Millie asks and you grip your knee tightly to try to keep yourself grounded.

“Professor Moody used the cruciartious curse, it brought stuff up. I just... I wish I knew she was OK,” You whisper and hear Millie pull in a deep breath.

“I think I'd best tell you, I didn't want you to miss any classes or have any bad reactions but it looks like it's a little late for that,” Mille tells you and you frown.

“What's going on?” You ask and Millie sighs.

“It's about Fleur, well maybe, it's still not-” Millie starts but you cut her off.

“Tell me what's going on? I need to know Millie!” You demand and she sighs.

“Do you know what the Twiwizard Tournament is?” Millie asks and you frown.

“What does this have to do with Fleur?” You ask impatiently and then sigh knowing she won't answer you until you answer her, “It's a tournament between magical schools, challengers face three tasks of bravery and skill until one challenger can be seen as the champion. It hasn't run in years since people died during it. It's probably sensisible,”

“It's back, Beauxbatons and Drumstrang are going to be participating along with Hogwarts. Y/N, Fleur could be coming here!” Millie tells you and you're on your feet throwing open the door so quickly that Millie doesn't have any warning. You glance down at the girl now on her back without a care for the fact that she's currently rubbing her skull.

“WHAT?” You yell and Millie shrugs.

“Fleur might be coming to Hogwarts,” Millie tells you. Not sticking around to hear anymore, you leave her letting your feet carry you away somewhere. You aren't looking where you're going and so you bump into someone solid. Today just isn't my day, you think glumly as whoever it is you bumped into falls on top of you.

“I'm so sorry,” The boy apologises, pushing himself to the side.

“It's my fault, although who knew Quidditch players would be so heavy?” You ask Cedric and he smiles sheepishly, offering a hand to you.

“I sit next to you in Defence right?” Cedric asks and you nod.

“Y/N, in case you've forgotten. How come you're in my defence?” You ask and he sighs.

“I failed it but my Dad pulled some strings and now I have to retake it,” Cedric explains.

“Do you need a tutor?” You ask and Cedric blinks at you surprised.

“Uh... yes, probably,” Cedric tells you and you nod.

“I'll tutor you then,” You tell him and his eyes go wide.

“Are you serious? Um... thank you but I don't know how much help you'll -” Cedric starts but you roll your eyes.

“I have O's in all my subjects, and the only reason I'm not sitting my exams early is because I would rather spend another year here than leave early,” You tell him frankly, “As it is I have surpassed the point of seventh year studies I'm just working on my own research,”

“Wait... really?” Cedric asks and you nod.

“I'm hard-working and I'm smart with both of those things there's not a lot I can't do academically,” You tell him and Cedric nods.

“OK, so maybe I could use your help, please. But... if you're helping me, is there anything I can do to pay you back?” Cedric asks.

“No. I'll just tutor you, because I don't like having people sitting next to me I don't know. If I get you to seventh year standards quickly enough I'll have a free seat, right?” You ask and Cedric frowns.

“That's a little unnecessarily mean,” Cedric points out.

“It's been a long day, I'm tired, I'm upset and I really need a hug so I don't really care to be kind to people!” You snap at him and then are surprised when arms wrap around you.

You stand still for a second and then shake your head.

“What are you doing?” You ask flatly.

“Shush! You said you need a hug, here I am,” Cedric tells you and you sigh, but then close your eyes and let yourself get your breath back on his shoulder.

“OK, I'm good now,” You tell him after a minute of his hugging, “See you Friday, six o'clock, in the Library, review what you know and don't and then I'll go through what you don't know,”

“THANK YOU!” Cedric calls as you walk away. You shrugged, tutoring was nothing new for you – Professor Flitwick often called upon you to help and you were glad to help. Also, even though Cedric would give you nothing nor would you make him, being signed up as a tutor for Hogwarts students meant that Professor Dumbledore paid you a galleon per hour for as long as the student showed demonstrable improvement. You weren't in it for the money but it was a delightful bonus.

You return to the Ravenclaw Common Room to find Professor Flitwick already stood there waiting, you let out a small sigh at the stern look on his face and took a seat on the sofa before him.

“Why are you skipping class?” Professor Flitwick asks as you fiddle with your hands nervously. Fleur was still alive.

“I'm ahead in all of them, does it matter?” You ask weakly. Fleur was still alive. Fleur was still alive.

“Of course it matters! You are a prefect, you're supposed to be setting a good example to the students and that does not include gallivanting around the school when you are supposed to be learning!” Professor Flitwick snaps.

“I'm sorry, sir,” You apologise. Fleur might be coming here. Fleur might be in danger.

“This isn't like you Y/N. What happened?” Professor Flitwick asks, his voice holding a gentiler note.

“I just found out about the Twiwizard tournament,” You tell him and then expose your mark, “If she comes here she might be in danger,”

“The ministry has made it as safe as possible,” Professor Flitwick reassures you.

“Do you really trust them?” You ask tiredly and he sighs.

“Get to class Y/L/N, it'll be OK, you'll see,” Professor Flitick promises and you nod, standing and heading out of the room. You don't really believe him, but you also know better than to argue.

Chapter 5: The Theory Of The Wandless

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You felt like a stone had been dropped into your stomach yet again, when you read the name scrawled across your wrist. Fleur. Soon, Fleur may or may not be here and you wouldn't know until tomorrow. You'd waited a month since you found out, the other schools weren't supposed to be attending until October and the announcement had been made in September. You had found yourself in a month of limbo. They were set to arrive on Halloween, and now Peeves wasn't the only thing haunting you. What if she came? What if she didn't?

“Y/N, did I do this right?” Cedric asks, pulling you from your thoughts. You smile at him weakly, before peering over his shoulder to see the theoretical properties of defensive spells when not spoken aloud. You edit a few lines, adding suggestions and a few minor corrections to spelling and grammar before looking back up at him.

“Almost perfect, I think you're ready to test it out,” You tell him and Cedric nods, but pauses hesitantly. Ever since he became your tutored student he'd been making progress at an alarming rate to the point when Professor Moody had called on him in class and Cedric had even been able to correct parts of what Professor Moody had said. You were proud of him.

“Are you OK?” Cedric asks and you sigh, Cedric was doing his best to help you but it was hard to let him in. You had Millie, Ant and Jake, but this annoying Hufflepuff was becoming an unexpected addition to your inner circle of friends. You never wanted many friends, or close friends at least, but some people were just persistent in their desire to become your friend.

“I'm fine, I'll be better once you've mastered this spell,” You tell him, firmly but politely placing a barrier between the two of you. Undeterred by your defences Cedric continues.

“If you need anything, I'm here,” Cedric tells you and you force a smile.

“Thank you, but that's not necessary, now hurry up and get practicing!” You order and Cedric salutes you mockingly, causing you to chuckle a little bit despite yourself. Cedric stands inside your warded zone and you both bow respectfully before you begin to throw spells at him. At first, Cedric's shield is completely ineffective but eventually you see him start to block well.

“What are you two doing?” A familiar feminine voice calls from behind you.

“Good afternoon Hermione, how are you?” You ask. Unlike a few too many others, you rather like the Granger girl since you both love to read.

“Don't change the subject, you know there's no magic to be used in the Library,” Hermione points out and you shrug.

“We won't damage anything, I've made the barriers and we won't get caught so there's not much problem. Besides, we need to study and it takes too long to move,” You tell her and Hermione sighs.

“What are you learning?” Hermione asks Cedric.

“Trying to cast shields non-verbally,” Cedric explains.

“Well... don't you need someone to attack you?” Hermione asks and Cedric nods towards you.

“I'm attacking, don't worry, I'm just doing it wandlessly,” You explain and Hermione fixes her gaze on you with a new level of interest.

“Isn't that really complicated?” Hermione asks and you nod.

“That's why I only use my wand after trying wandlessly, the more I practice the greater the strength and diversity of the spells I'll be able to use,” You explain and she frowns, wandless magic was all but extinct in Wixing Society now. It was easier to use a wand and therefore the type of magic where a wand was not used at all was considered outdated even amongst pure-blood families.

“Can you show me how to do that?” Hermione asks, and you look her over and then nod.

“Cedric's mastered the spell, give me another minute to test his defences and then I'll teach you some really simple parts of it,” You offer and she nods. You face Cedric and start attacking him with a new ferocity, you really want to make sure he has this shield perfect since everyone might one day have to rely on one.

“Show off,” Cedric grunted when his wand flew from his hand with enough force to propel him back into one of the barriers. He slides to the floor, a bit bruised but relatively uninjured. You turn to Hermione and start to explain the fundamentals of wandless magic when Cedric steps besides you.

“What are you still doing here?” You ask and Cedric shrugs.

“I want to learn,” Cedric tells you and you raise an eyebrow, “... also Cho is hanging out with her friends again and I love her but there's only so much I can take even if she is my romantic soulmate,”

“Don't worry, no one has exactly the same tastes as someone else,” Hermione reassures him and Cedric smiles. Cho Chang is his soulmate and they've been best friends since third year before they worked out that they both had feelings for each other.

“Shall we continue?” You ask, you don't particularly want to talk about soulmates right now. To your relief both of them give you their full attention and you nod.

“Tell us how to start,” Cedric requests and you nod.

“It's best to start with a simple spell, like a lumos. Envision a pure ball of light, and try to summon it. It helps if you can sort of.. feel... the air around it and the spell itself,” You try to explain and Hermione closes her eyes and so does Cedric. They both struggle for a second but then both eventually manage to summon forth a weak ball of light. Hermione opens her eyes and frowns.

“It's so small...” Hermione says and you see Cedric stifling a snort. You elbow him in the chest and he smiles apologetically before looking over at his own tiny ball of light.

“Wandless magic is linked to feelings, you have to power it with your feelings. Any feeling, fear, anger, happiness, sadness, any feeling. Whatever emotion you use it has an effect on your magic, if you power a spell with sadness it will go a colder colour although it has no effect on what spell you cast. However much you feel something is the same power the spell's dependent on,” You explain and they both nod their heads to show they understand.

“Like a patronus?” Hermione asks and you raise an eyebrow, the patronus charm is an advanced pieces of spellwork it's surprising that she knows anything about it, “Harry can cast a full patronus so I wanted to know how it worked,”

“Oh, nice. Yeah, it's a lot like a patronus, but you can use any feeling,” You tell her and she nods. You cast a quick tempus charm, and sigh when you see the time.

“Something up?” Cedric asks and you sigh.

“I promised Ant and Jake that I'd meet up with them. They want to... well it might be best if I don't tell you,” You trail off, Cedric smiles knowingly and Hermione rolls her eyes. You and the twins aren't really known for having perfect behaviour, apparently, duelling in school corridors just because you need space isn't appreciated. Neither is jumping off the Astronomy tower to see if you can cast the anti-falling charm correctly (you did so it was fine). Nor is seeing whether or not you can fly a broomstick all the way around Hogwarts (you can, but you have to be careful since it's a little too easy to set the back end on fire.

Chapter 6: Cold

Chapter Text

On the day that the students are set to arrive, you don’t feel ready to see (or not see) Fleur but Anthony and Jakob’s ironclad hold on your arms keeps you firmly pinned in place with the other Hogwarts students. You want to run but you can’t. You’re stuck waiting and watching with a heavy heart.
A cold breeze hits you, and a chill runs through you all, but spite stops you casting a warming charm for you and your friends. You know you need to see but you’re scared to think what the results could be. If she’s here, she’s in danger, if she’s not then... You spend another year without her.

You thought that some time after Hogwarts you’d go out and try to find her, to know she was OK if nothing else. Yet now, faced with the possibility of seeing her, right now, right here, you couldn’t help but feel both dread and hope that she’d be here.

Around you, students talk and stare at the sky expectantly. You didn’t care what they said, you couldn’t pay any attention to anything but the fact Fleur might be coming. Your attention is finally regained, when excited shouts hit your ears. Your eyes widen when a dozen carriages pulled by winged horses fall from the sky, the Beauxbatons crest on the door, and you know that if Fleur is here she’s about to come out of one of these carriages.

You’re pulled forwards by Millie, who grabs you and shoves people out of the way to bring you to the front. You feel people elbowing you and giving you death stares as you get ahead but you don’t have time to apologise. You ignore everything, including the stern glare of your professors and the giant woman in your search for Fleur. You scan over faces impatiently, boy, boy, brunette, green eyed, grey, auburn, Fleur. Fleur! That’s Fleur…

Your heart stops as your eyes lock onto her. Fleur is here, pale face pointed, blonde hair waving in the wind and blue eyes widening as she sees you.

“Do you see her?” Millie asks, but she might as well have tried asking a wall.

“Fleur!” You yell, not thinking clearly. You need to touch her, hug her, know she’s OK. Anything as long as you know… Your feet race across the grass and you’re heading closer to her. You’re faintly aware of a break out of murmurs slowly getting louder and louder. You don’t care, Fleur is here. Her eyes get even wider as you get closer, she smiles, and then a decisive look comes over her face. You can’t stop to wonder what she’s decided, you already have too much momentum.

Fleur pulls her arm back - making room for you to hug her? You keep going. Faster and faster and faster and -

The fist connects with your nose so hard that the crunch echoes around the school. The next thing you know, you’re on the ground, staring up at the sky as a cloud of birds fly past. ‘Why do birds suddenly fly?’ Because you punched me in the face, you joke inside your head to try and lessen the sting.

Fleur punched you.

Fleur Delacour punched you.

Fleur punched you!

“I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care who you are, stay away from me you creep!” Fleur orders you and you blink up at her.

“Fleur it’s me,” You whisper and she shakes her head.

“Me? Why the hell would I care who you are?” Fleur asks, does she not know who you are? You fumble with your sleeve, pulling it up to show your mark and Fleur… scoffs?

“I’m your soulmate, I still remember you. Don’t you remember me?” You ask.

“What? How am I supposed to remember you? You aren’t my soulmate. I don’t have one. Tell me, did someone draw that on with a bit of crayon? Did someone tell you my name? Come on! Spit it out!” Fleur demands from you but you are still reeling.

“You don’t have a soulmate?” You repeat and she laughs.

“No! I don’t!” Fleur repeats, exposing her arms to you and revealing that they are perfectly free of any mark. You sit there wordlessly, and then you hear the first laugh. Then another, and another and another. You push yourself into a sitting position, blood dripping from your nose as laughter breaks out over the assembled crowd. You watch Fleur’s face, hoping for even the barest hint that she cares but she remains at best, blank and impassive and at worse, actively enjoying your pain.

That’s when you force yourself to your feet, and take off towards the black lake. You see a ship, but you don’t care. You pull your robes off, leaving you in your shorts and a t-shirt (it was cold and you had muggle clothes that would easily fit underneath so you were wearing double layers) and then you slid into the water. You cast a warming charm, and push yourself further into the water.

You aren’t worried about drowning, you know several buoyancy spells you can easily cast and you’ve swum the distance before. You don’t want to think, you just want to keep going until you no longer care. It’s not a real possibility but here’s the other great thing about swimming in the lake, you can’t tell whether it’s your tears or it’s the water on your face.

By the time you pull up on the other shore, the sun has gone down and you aren’t foolish enough to try swimming over to Hogwarts in the dark. You lay back, and stare blankly at the sky. The only way this can get worse, is if it rains, you think to yourself. As if on cue, the sky gives a menacing rumble and then the first drop falls. You let out a sigh, you could cast a shield, but you are already soaked from the lake anyway and besides casting a shield to keep the rain out will just exhaust you. The best thing you can do is curl up, try to ignore your rumbling stomach and hope that the rain mostly avoids you.

A slight coo, drags your attention to the sky. An owl flies towards you and you recognise her at once.

“Wen…” You whisper and smile when the owl lands on your shoulder, “Have you come to keep me company?”

Your owl nods, blinking at you wide eyed and that’s when you notice the fact that she has a fish in her beak. You look at it hungrily, and Wen coos approvingly.

“For me?” You ask and your owl nods, you smile at her gratefully before summoning a shield so that you can cook your food. Then, with a full stomach, you curl up and close your eyes. You would treat Wen to her favourite treat later, but for now you had to lay back and sleep.

When you awake the next morning, Wen is still by your side and you smile at her grateful for her companionship and care before you start the trek across the lake and back to the castle. You know you’re in trouble when you land on the other side and cast tempus to discover that you’ve already missed both breakfast and lunch, Flitwick’s going to have your hide.

You know that all too well, but when you arrive in the Ravenclaw common room and hear his stern voice you still jump.

“What exactly were you thinking?” Professor Flitwick snaps and you sigh.

“I needed to get out of there, that’s pretty much it,” You tell him and he shakes his head.

“I’m going to have to give you two weeks worth of detention and suspend your privileges as a Ravenclaw prefect until you can prove to me that you deserve that badge. Now, go get a shower and then report to the medical wing, your nose is a mess,” Professor Flitwick orders and you nod before making your way up to your dormitory.

Chapter 7: Mateless

Chapter Text

Ant and Jake let out identical gasps of surprise when you take a seat in front of them. Millie doesn’t say anything, but you can’t miss the way that her eyes dart down to Fleur with a threatening look in them. You pile your plate high with food, not saying anything and trying to ignore the stares and whispers that not even Millie is scary enough to make go away.

“Are you Ok?” Ant asks and you let out a low humorless laugh, that turns into a sigh halfway through. You don’t want to talk about what happened or else you fear that you’ll start crying or worse you’ll take out your pain on your friends and say somethings you really don’t want to.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” You tell them simply and Millie nods her head and changes the subject. You tune her out, and stare only at your plate. Fleur’s mark is gone. You are… nothing to her anymore. You mean nothing, she wants nothing from you.

The day passes in a blur. You don’t know how or why, but at some point you end up in the Library. You stare blankly at the books before you, what is there to say? What is there to do? Why does it matter at all? You don’t have a future with the one you were waiting for, her mark is gone but you’re still marked.

“Hey,” A voice calls to you and you turn your head, and stare at the girl before you. Hermione. You know her but you don’t see why you should care that she’s here. What is there left to care about?

“What do you want?” You ask, you know you’re being rude but you don’t really know what else to say or to ask.

“Nothing, but… you aren’t giving up, are you?” Hermione asks and you blink at her.

“Giving up at what?” You ask, tiredly.

“Being with your soulmate,” Hermione repeats and you laugh humorlessly.

“What soulmate? I have no soulmate, I am mateless,” You tell her and Hermione shakes her head.

“You have her name, now find out why she doesn’t have yours,” Hermione orders.

“No. I won’t. What’s the phrase? The universe brings soulmates together? Well if that’s the case then it can do it’s worse. If it’s supposed to be then I’ll end up with her but I’m not chasing someone who told me quite firmly not to bother,” You tell her.

“Then you’re an idiot!” Hermione tells you.

“No, what I am is alone. So thank you, but goodbye,” You retort, and then you walk away from her and head out alone.

The details for your detention arrive that evening. You aren’t unfamiliar with how detention works, you’ve faced it several times for several stunts you pulled with Ant, Jake and occasionally Millie. This time, you’re all alone.

“What did you get?” Jake asks and you sigh.

“Library duty, guess I’m shelf stacking,” You tell him and the twins both shoot sympathetic looks at you while Millie snorts.

“They take your wand and tell you to do it by hand. Yes, that’s a problem for some people but Y/N… You can do wandless magic!” Millie points out and you smile.

“Maybe it’s not as bad but still…” You trail off and Millie shrugs.

“You did the crime, you do the time,” Millie mocks and you roll your eyes.

“Thank you so much for your kind and compassionate words dear sister-in-law,” You say drily and Millie grins.

“Happy to help!” Millie says sarcastically. You throw a chip at her, but she catches it in her mouth and now, not only are you without a soulmate but you’re without your chip. Despite it all, you can’t resist the small smile that crosses your face.

With your friends by your side, life isn’t so bad and besides, who needs love?

Chapter 8: Champions

Chapter Text

Remember when you said your life wasn’t too bad? Yeah, you would like to retract your earlier statement. There you were, in the Library, serving your detention and guess who shows up? Fleur Delacour. Apparently, Professor Dumbledore didn’t think it was fair that you got punched in the face and got a detention for leaving the scene and Fleur didn’t. So, what did your supposed genius of a headmaster do? Shoved the two of you into the same detention hour!

“Madame Prince, Miss Delacour,” You greet formally.

“Miss Y/L/N, Miss Delacour, come with me,” Madame Prince orders, you both follow wordlessly. You think you can feel Fleur’s eyes on you but you don’t dare look at her. You can’t, you haven’t looked at her even once since she hit you in the face, it hurts too much.

What’s worse is that tonight, after your detention, you are going to see who the champions for the Triwizard tournament will be, and as if you weren’t worried enough, Cedric decided to throw his hat in to prove himself to his dad. So yeah, both your soulmate… or Miss Delacour and your friend might be chosen and taken from you if the Ministry are as incompetent as you think they are.

You don’t pay attention to Madame Prince, you’ve been here before and done Library duty before, you get it. You’re supposed to reorganise and stack the shelves, by hand, for two hours and you must do it for two weeks. Of course, Madame Prince is not watching you since if you haven’t reorganised the stacks correctly then you’ll be back until they are done anyway. You have two weeks to reorganise eighty stacks, Fleur is here for one week so she has forty stacks. If you finish quickly enough you’ll get to be freed earlier.

You work wandlessly, in the stacks away from Fleur. You don’t want to think about her, or feel her presence in the room, but it feels like a weight has been forced into your shoulders. You can hear her, hear her agitation and annoyance as she stacks book after book by hand and it makes your whole body hurt to know she is here.

You’re moving the books to another shelf near the end of your shift when you see Fleur struggling under a huge weight. You cast a spell to lessen and lighten her load, and you sigh when you see that your spell is bluer and colder than you’ve ever cast.

Fleur jumps, surprised, and turns her head to see you but you walk away as fast as you possibly can. You don’t want her to see the pain in your eyes. You don’t say anything as you quickly get away and make your way back to your work. You’re done for the day after an hour, and then you make your way to The Great Hall to sit with your friends and wait for the champions to be called.

“Are you OK?” Milie asks and you can’t look at her.

“Y/N?” Ant asks and you take a deep breath.

“I’m not,” You admit, “But I’d rather just pretend like nothing is happening until it happens. There is no way I can think of to prepare for this, it’s better to just handle it when it comes,”

“OK, we can do something else,”Jake reassures you, pulling out a pack of cards. All around you, people are whispering excitedly or nervously shifting in their seats. The danger here is going to be real but they don’t seem to realise that the ministry have already proved their incompetence, after all they let death-eaters like the Malfoy’s go. You have no faith in the government, none at all. Supposedly multiple governments are working together, but that doesn’t make you feel any better. Here’s the thing, you learned in first year that the government in the wizarding world was made up of liars who would say anything to be fitting in with society and then use a cruciatus curse on a child because of their blood status.

You zone out, but Ant brings you back in when he piles food onto your plate. He doesn’t ask you anything or make you talk; he just forces a fork into your hand and you eat without tasting. You thank him quietly and then the sudden ripple of sound breaking out across the room gets your attention. Professor Dumbledore talks but you don’t hear, your eyes are fixed on the huge fiery goblet as a slip of paper is flung from the goblet.

“The Drumstrang champion will be…VIKTOR KRUM!” Professor Dumbledore announces and you grip the table tightly.

“The Hogwarts champion will be…” Professor Dumbledore starts and you’re screaming inside your head to please let your friend not be chosen but the universe is frowning down on you, “CEDRIC DIGGORY!!”

Your eyes follow your friend, and you see him smiling slightly but your whole body hurts with the fact that he’s in such danger. This is going to be dangerous. You know it is, or else it would never have attracted such attention and the age line would’ve been less than seventeen. Cedric leaves and you’re left with only one more school, one person that you need to be safe but might not be.

“The Beauxbatons champion will be…” Professor Dumbledore starts, your friends grab your hand and hold it tightly to try to offer support, “FLEUR DELACOUR!”

Fleur stands to leave the hall and follow in the other champions footsteps, you want to leave, get away from this but you can’t because your friends hold you in place. Professor Dumbledore starts to speak but he’s cut off by a fourth scrap of paper being thrown out of the goblet.

“Harry Potter,” Professor Dumbledore calls out. Murmurs of confusion and doubt echo across the hall as the boy that seems so small and tiny from your eyes. For crying out loud! He’s what… fourteen? There’s no way he should be in the tournament, but of course the ministry’s foolproof plan to keep people safe has already gone wrong!

Your friends' hands have lost their weight in surprise, so you shove them off you and storm out of the hall. You need to be alone, with all the shouting and surprise of the other schools and your own school, no one really pays any attention to one lone Ravenclaw girl.

“Ladies and gentlemen… your champions,” You hear Professor Dumbledore call out, and you turn your head once to see that the four champions are being presented to the crowd. You don’t mean for it to happen, but you catch Fleur’s eye. It probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the fact that she was staring right at you. Her eyes burn you with something you can’t understand but it leaves you shaking.

With some desperate effort, you tear your eyes from her gaze and force your way out of the hall. The door slam shut behind you, and your wince at the noise. You lay your head back against the wall, and close your eyes.

Cedric is in the tournament.

Fleur is in the tournament.

You push yourself away from the wall and spurn yourself to action. You let your feet carry you across the grounds and up towards the owlery. Wen seems to be waiting, and you sit there in silence with her as you stare blankly at the stone wall knowing what you wished you didn’t.

Cedric is in the tournament.

Fleur is in the tournament.

Both are in danger.

Chapter 9: Serving your detention

Chapter Text

You grit your teeth as yet another whispered remark slips past you. There was an unexpected secondary ramification to Fleur being chosen as the Beaxbaton’s champion, the whispers and stares were bad enough when you were just some idiotic Ravenclaw girl who tried to claim to be the mated one of a Beauxbaton student. Now that Fleur was a champion, you were the idiotic Ravenclaw girl who tried to claim to be the mate of a champion and for some reason champions were being hailed as the greatest people in their respective schools. They were the cream of the crop, yeah right. This was just like a raffle, which is something Cedric had agreed with you on despite his new found status.

That’s not to say you weren’t supporting your friend, you were. You were helping him in a far more real way than some of his stupid freinds, you were helping him study and prepare spells for the tournament. Hermione was also hanging around and you were helping both of them with wandless magic although you’d made it clear to Cedric that it would be better for him to not try the magic until after the tournament.

Oh, and you were still stuck in detention. You had made excellent progress, within the next five days you should be finishing up your detention, eight days earlier than planned. Fleur too, was still at her duty but she was taking longer than you and so would probably have to stick around longer than she expected. Things between the two of you were weird, she kept staring at you as you worked but you couldn’t quite tell if she pitied you or was angry at you. It didn’t matter, Fleur didn’t want you and you weren’t going to do anything. If you were soulmates and supposed to be together then the universe was supposed to act, right? In which case you felt perfectly justified in not going anywhere near her.

Unfortunately Millie was not letting you off the hook that easily.

“What are you doing?” Millie asks, sounding rather annoyed.

“Stacking these shelves,” You say, Millie had accompanied you to the Library both to keep you company and also because she needed to finish a potions essay.

“That’s not what I meant, don’t tell me you’re oblivious to it!” Millie says angrily and you turn to face her, with a tired look on your face.

“What?” You ask and Millie points over to Fleur, who you see is looking at you once again. You turn your back and face the shelves to avoid having to look into those cold, blue eyes.

“I’m sorry!” Millie yells and you shush her, you’d prefer for your friend not to get kicked out, “No! I won’t be quiet! Did I just see what I thought I saw?”

“What? And be quiet Millie, or else Madame Prince will kick you out!” You argue back and Millie shakes her head.

“Did you really just hide from her?” Millie asks.

“I’m not hiding, I’m just avoiding getting hurt,” You tell her firmly and Millie shakes her head.

“You can’t hide from your soulmate!” Millie protests and you laugh humorlessly.

“What soulmate? She doesn’t have my mark,” You point out and Millie shakes her head.

“Is that girl Fleur Delacour? Does she look like the girl you met six years ago? Is that the name on your arm? Were you the name on her arm? Then yes, that is your soulmate!” Millie tells you angrily and you sigh.

“So what? My names not there now,” You tell her, shoving a book onto the shelf, before summoning another.

“You have to keep pursuing her!” Millie tells you and you shake your head and finally turn to face her again.

“I can’t. Don’t you get it? I can’t. If we were meant to be together the universe would find a way but clearly we aren’t, so…” You trail off, Fleur’s eyes are on you again and you can’t resist looking back at those blue orbs for just a few seconds.

“The universe has found a way! Look around you, idiot! Where is Fleur Delacour? Is she in France, hundreds of miles away? No. She’s here, at Hogwarts School Of WitchCraft and Wizardry, stacking shelves in the exact same Library at the exact same time as you! Come on and wizen up already! Your soulmate is here, now go get her!” Millie demands, and then you feel yourself being physically shoved towards Fleur.

You try to step back towards your stacks, but Millie’s glare has the same effect as someone holding a knife to your throat and ordering you to walk. Uncomfortably, you traverse the distance between the two of you. You get more and more nervous the closer you get to her. Fleur’s face turns to look at you, and you see a cloud of emotions you can’t even begin to process. Hate? Amusem*nt? Fear?

You step a little bit closer, and then the board beneath you creaks and it’s as if the spell you are under is broken. Without thinking, you sprint away from her and off towards a different set of stacks. You sneak around them to get back to Millie who has her head in her hands.

“Smooth Y/L/N, reeeeally smooth,” Millie tells you sarcastically and then she packs her bag and stands up.

“Where are you going?” You ask.

“To the owlery, I want to send a letter to Luke,” Millie explains and you smile faintly.

“You really love my brother, don’t you?” You ask and Millie nods.

“I do, and do you want to know something? If you bothered to talk to Fleur you’d be able to have what we have. Just think about it,” Millie tells you and you sigh, and nod quietly before returning to your work.

Half an hour before you can leave for the day you finally look over at Fleur, who is struggling with yet another stack of books. You cast a spell, and have them hovering alongside her, her eyes dart around her until they land on you. Everything in you wants to hide away from her gaze but you stand your ground and meet her gaze.

Thank you, is what you think she mouths to you and you nod once to her and then turn your head not needing to look in order to guide the books to her since you can feel where everything is. It’s like the spell gives you extra infrared eyes that float alongside her. It took you ages to master that, but it’s a gift that pays off in dozens of different ways.

Something unexpected happens after your shift, Fleur approaches you. Everything in you freezes up in fear, so that when your voice comes out it comes out like the iciest winter you’ve ever known.

“What do you want Delacour?” You ask and you can hear the sharp intake of breath from the other girl.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Fleur tells you, she sounds nervous. Does she really not know that you really are her soulmate? Is that why? Does she think you are insane? Or is it something different?

“Your welcome. Anything else?” You ask, your voice no less cold.

“I’m sorry for punching you,” Fleur apologises and you flinch away from the memory. You don’t want to have to remember that you’ve been marked for the girl in front of you and yet she doesn’t love or want you.

“Is that it?” You ask, you feel as though your mark is burning, like flames are spreading up your arm.

“I… Yes… I guess it is,” Fleur whispers quietly, and the pain in your mark intensifies like someone’s literally coated the inside of your arm with paraffin and shoved a match into it.

“Great. Goodbye,” You tell her as you turn to walk away. Why does your arm hurt so much? You turn your head slightly, unable to resist saying one last thing, “Oh? And Delacour? Have a good evening,”

Her smile is faint, and you feel like you might have just fallen into her trap and given her something else to mock. Your pain lessens and you sigh slightly in relief.

Chapter 10: Celebrating Cedric

Chapter Text

“Y/N,” Cedric calls to you. It was your final day of detention, Fleur still had another two, but just because you were still in detention it did not mean you weren’t going to help Cedric with his studying.

“What’s up?” You ask, quickly peering over his shoulder to his essay.

“It’s not this, I think there’s a party tonight and I wanted to invite you,” Cedric explains and you tilt your head in confusion.

“Why?” You ask and Cedric doesn’t quite get your question.

“Cho’s throwing something together with my friends, a slightly more private celebration of me being made a champion,” Cedric explains and you frown.

“Why me?” You ask and Cedric looks taken aback.

“You’re my friend, I think you’re really cool and I want to invite my friend. You can bring your friends too, Jakob and Anthony right? Oh! And the scary slytherin girl!” Cedric explains and you smile a little at the mention of Millie as a scary Slytherin girl.

“Thanks dude, it means a lot,” You tell him and he smiles.

“Anytime, thanks for this,” Cedric says pointing to his essays which you’d helped him with.

“Your welcome,” You tell him and then you check over his essay, “Looks good,”

After Cedric leaves, you’re about to go back to stacking your shelves before you pause and look over towards Fleur. If you start your job now, you can finish completely in half an hour.

You’re not sure what makes you go over to Fleur, it’s like something takes over with a demand inside you almost like you’ve been put under the Imperius curse.

“Miss Delacour, would you like a hand?” You volunteer, your voice threatens to shake and you only just hold it together.

“Are you genuinely offering?” Fleur asks and you nod, “Then yes, please,”

You nod, and start to summon books down. Fleur watches you and you feel yourself boiling.

“What?” You ask, and Fleur blushes but forces a question from her lips.

“You use wandless magic?” Fleur asks and you nod.

“It’s better than using my wand, since I don’t always have it,” You explain.

“How does it work?” Fleur asks. You frown a little, your voice is threatening to break at any moment and you’ve barely contained it for short sentences, there’s no way you can handle a lengthy explanation. You summon a book quickly and hand it to Fleur.

“I think this one will explain it well,” You tell her and you expect maybe a bored expression but Fleur looks like she plans to devour the book and something about that is so unbelievably… attractive to you. Quickly, you turn and head away from her focusing on doing the detention.

“Hey… are you going to the party?” Fleur asks and you blink at her.

“Which party?” You ask.

“The one for Cedric. His soulmate, Cho, invited me since we’ve become friendly,” Fleur explains and now that she mentions it, you do recall seeing Fleur sat with Cho quite a lot although you weren’t paying attention to anyone else but Fleur.

“Yeah, Cedric invited me,” You tell him and Fleur’s eyes flash, she takes a step towards you and you back up against the bookcase.

“Oh… are you going to be cheering for him then?” Fleur asks, she’s stood so close to you and your stomach flips, there’s something about her eyes that just seem like they are lighting you on fire.

“Depends if another champion steals my favour,” You tell her, you want to sound confident, but your voice is barely above a whisper. It’s like she’s just stolen your breath away from you. Fleur’s eyes scan you and you feel like she’s looking at your lips. She leans forward a little, and your stomach flips. Is she about to… to kiss you? Fleur suddenly stops, something passing over her face like a cloud passing over the sun.

“I have to go. See you at the party,” Fleur says, stepping back quickly, the book you gave her still firmly in her grip. She turns her back and is gone before you can even say anything.

“...yeah, see you there,” You say to an empty library, you pull yourself away from the bookcase and make your way down to The Great Hall to sit with your friends.

“You OK?” Ant asks as you put food on your plate.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” You question and Ant looks at your plate pointedly. Eww… why is there so much beetroot? You don’t hate beetroot but you don’t want a full plate of it.

“OK, new rule! You can not touch your plate, you’re too distracted, let me handle this. Weirdo,” Ant says, trying to taunt you to disguise his big heart.

“Sorry dude, how have you been?” You ask him, “I know I’ve been a little distracted lately…”

“We’re fine, it’s fine. Want to go out flying tonight?” Jake asks and you grin a little.

“Cedric invited me to a party… want to come?” You ask and your friends raise their eyebrows.

“Hufflepuff seeker and current Hogwarts champion, Cedric Diggory?” Jake asks and you nod.

“Why?” Ant asks and you shrug.

“I tutor him and he’s become one of my friends accidentally?” You say.

“I don’t think we are invited,” Millie says self-consciously.

“Millie, he said specifically to bring the twins and the scary Slytherin girl. Come on,” You tell her and Millie looks at you and then nods.

“Then… HELL YEAH!” Millie agrees and you giggle at your friends enthusiasm.

Chapter 11: The beauty of Beauxbatons

Chapter Text

You all eat quickly and then head up to the Ravenclaw tower to get changed. Millie makes you use your talent in transfiguration to transform her robes into a black, mid-thigh, dress. Despite the fact you prefer casually dressing, you’re forced to allow Millie to transfigure your robes and end up in a scarlet dress that only just ends below your knee.

You come downstairs to see your two best friends in jeans and t-shirts. You glance over at Millie with a small glare, how come your friends get away with wearing jeans and you are in this dress? Millie shrugs and shoves you out of the common room and you sigh heading off towards the Hufflepuff tower.

“Password?” The Hufflepuff door asks and you frown when your friends look at you expectantly. You don’t know the password.

“Genius, Y/L/N, simply genius,” Ant says, clapping a hand down on your shoulder.

“In fairness, I’m used to just answering a riddle,” You point out.

“For a Ravenclaw, you can be remarkably dumb,” Millie tells you drily.

“Well you’re a Slytherin, can’t you work out a way to break us in?” You ask sarcastically and Millie rolls her eyes. A retort is on her lips when the portrait door swings open.

“Y/N!” Cedric shouts, embracing you enthusiastically. You hug him back, somewhat less enthusiastically. You’re confused for a second since your friend is not usually so touchy or happy to see you but the smell of firewhiskey clears up any confusion.

“Cedric… when did the party start?” You ask, pulling away from him.

“An hour ago, come in!” Cedric says, pulling you in through the door. About eighty students are in the room, dancing to a muggle song; Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, drinking and a few are even making out against walls. Even with all the chaos in the room, your eyes are immediately drawn to a girl with hair like liquid gold, leaned against a wall by a beverage table.

Fleur’s piercing blue eyes lock onto yours, her eyes traverse your body and you see her visibly gulp before she looks away again. Millie smirks at you knowingly and you stubbornly refuse to look her in the eyes.

“You should go talk to her,” Millie tells you and you frown.

“No, I came with you, I’m staying with you,” You tell her but Millie shakes her head disbelievingly.
“Wuss,” Millie tells you and you shrug.

“I’m not a Gryffindor, that won’t work on me,” You tell her.

“You just don’t want to prove that Millie’s outfit choices are going to have any effect on Fleur,” Ant says and you sigh.

“Fine. I’ll talk to her, happy?” You say, your nerves manifesting as annoyance. You head over to Fleur, hearing Jake high-fiving Ant and advising Millie to take notes. You smile slightly, and then you focus solely on Fleur. She’s moved away from the refreshment table and you sigh, scanning the room for her.

You extend your magic, feeling for Fleur’s form. Your eyes land on a group of guys drooling over her, obviously they haven’t met their soulmates yet or learned proper conduct. You sigh internally knowing the reason that you’re so annoyed with them is simply that you are jealous and nervous. You shove past them and stand in front of Fleur. A silver dress adorns her figure and you have to tear your eyes from the elegant but casual ensemble.

“Avoiding me, Delacour?” You ask, her last name acting as your shield against how vulnerable her first name makes you feel.

“You, specifically? Why would I do that?” Fleur asks sarcastically, “You look nice by the way,”

“Fleur… if you want I can go, I didn’t come here alone anyway,” You tell her and Fleur stays silent, you can’t resist the sigh that leaves your lips or the crushing sense of disappointment that threatens to overwhelm you as you begin to walk away.

“Wait! I… Stay, I- Cho’s drunk, I don’t know anyone else and I’m not in the mood to make friends,” Fleur tells you and you smile slightly, turning to see Fleur… blushing?

“Way to make a girl feel special,” You tease and Fleur blushes, even more, you cautiously walk closer to her until you are standing beside her, “You look nice too, but I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that,”

“True, I’ve been told more than a few times, unfortunately. Still, I’m glad you like it,” Fleur tells you and you smile slightly. You get the sense that Fleur isn’t being vain or shallow she’s just generally tired of people staring at her, and with that in mind, you suggest something.

“Do you want to go for a walk? This place is pretty loud,” You point out and Fleur looks nervous for a second, and then she nods, taking your hand and letting you lead her out of the portrait hole and to the corridor outside. Your hand feels like the first time you concentrated any magic into it, warm and full and like it might explode into a shower of sparks at any moment.

“So… where are we going?” Fleur asks and you have to think fast.
“The black lake’s really beautiful, and it’s a nice night,” You tell her and Fleur smiles.

“It does look beautiful,” Fleur says, but her eyes never stray from your face to the window. You quickly turn and lead her down the stairs and out towards the lake, trying to hide your blush underneath the darkness of the night sky.

“What’s Beauxbatons like?” You ask, curiously.

“Nothing like here, it’s in the mountains and made of ice. It’s beautiful, at dawn or dusk the castle gets a purple hue. At night, it glistens under the light of a thousand stars. There’s nothing quite like it,” Fleur says, a faraway look in her eyes as she talks.

“It does sound beautiful…” You agree, the moment between the two of you is perfect but the question bubbles to your lips and you know you have to ask, “Fleur… why did you come here?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Fleur says firmly, trying to close herself off as you turn to face her.

“Fleur, you being here is so unbelievably painful for me, the least you could do is explain,” You tell her and Fleur tries to look away, but you place a hand to her face and force her to look you in the eyes. You deserve this, you should get to know.

Fleur’s piercing blue eyes burn into you, this close you can see tiny flecks of gold in them and then suddenly, she ducks forwards. Her lips lock onto yours, and you let out a surprised sound that is quickly lost to the night. Your eyes fall closed and you move your lips carefully, a bit uncertain at first until you find a rhythm that works. Fleur’s hand moves to slide against the back of your head, entwining in your hair and pulling you closer. You take her bottom lip between your teeth, nibbling gently and revelling in her quiet moan. You let your tongue flick out towards her bottom lip, she tastes sweet like cherries, she moans again and you feel a heat concentrating in your stomach.

Fleur shoves you away, and you stagger back to see Fleur’s lips puffy, her cheeks flushed, her pupils dilated but her ice-blue orbs glisten and you watch in stunned silence as a single tear falls down her face. All ice melts eventually.

“Fleur?” You ask worriedly and you see Fleur struggling to inhale and then she exhales the words that you wish would never be said.

“I came here, to find you, but I can’t do this. I can’t,” Fleur tells you and you desperately want to throw your arms around her but you’re afraid she might punch you if you tried,

“Fleur, I’m not… I won’t give up,” You tell her firmly, trying to find the words that will make this better.

“You’re not listening! I don’t want to be with a… a… mudblood!” Fleur spat her venom at you and you stepped back. You heard that word from across the four houses but you never thought you’d hear it from Fleur. You didn’t care about the word itself, it was the fact that she chose it to hurt you, that she was saying that a factor outside your control was the reason that you wouldn’t ever be good enough for her.

“Right. I’ll be going then. Bye,” You said, trying to maintain your composure. You walked away from her, feeling like you’re going to throw up.

You arrive back at the party, to see that it’s more or less winding down. About ten people are left in the room and only about a third of them are functional. Hufflepuffs can not hold their liquor it seems. In fairness, neither can your friends from the looks of it; Jake is falling into a drunken stupor against a wall while Millie and Ant drunkenly argue over whether or not Ravenclaw’s or Slytherin’s were superior.

“At least our mascot makes sense. Serpents! For Slytherin!” Millie argues, her words slurred but her point still kind of valid.

“Eagles are smart! Besides, they eat snakes for breakfast, literally!” Ant argues back, his words equally slurred. You laugh quietly to yourself and see Cedric and Cho cuddled up in one of the armchairs, you summon a blanket and tuck the two in together. You banish the empty cups and force cups of water on the stragglers and your friends.

“You’re such a Hufflepuff,” Millie slurs and you snort quietly.

“Sure. Now come on, you can kip on my floor,” You tell her, lifting her to her feet and wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her. Jake and Ant get to their feet too. Despite your initial assumption you quickly discover both of your friends are sober.

“We aren’t seventeen so no one would give us any, and Millie seemed like she would break our heads off if we took any of hers,” Jake explains and you laugh at the fairly accurate description.

“Why is Ant slurring his words then?” You ask curiously and Jake smirks.

“He tried chatting up someone else's soulmate, but it didn't go well for him. Idiot,” Jake says, affectionately ruffling his brother's hair, “How did it go with Fleur by the way?” Jake asks and you sigh.

“Another time,” You promise, trying not to think about melting ice or vicious words. Around your friends, it didn’t hurt so much, but it would still be a long time before you were ready to talk about it.

Chapter 12: The spell-singer

Chapter Text

A fortnight after the party, you still hadn’t spoken about what Fleur said. Your spirits had been low and your friends could tell even though you were constantly forcing a smile. To make your mood even worse, today was the day of the first task.

You sighed, dissatisfied as you crawled out of bed and into the bathroom. You took a long shower, hoping that it’d make you forget about it. Alas, when you came out, it still hadn’t worked. You take a seat on your bed and try to take a few deep breaths to steady yourself.

Your door was suddenly flung open, and you jumped when Millie made her way in carrying… a Drumstrang uniform?

“Millie… why is this here? Who did you kill?” You ask, concerned, and Millie lets out a light chuckle that does nothing to appease your fears.

“Don’t be stupid. I didn’t kill anyone, I borrowed these. As for why, it’s simple. We are going to the first task wearing these, and we are going to mess with everyone’s heads,” Millie tells you and you find yourself feeling just a little bit better.

“We're bad people,” You tell her and Millie grins.

“We are,” Mille agrees, throwing the uniform on your bed and turning her back so you can change.

When you, Millie and the twins make your way downstairs sporting the wrong colours and make your way to the Ravenclaw table there’s more than a little whispering. Victor Krum approaches your table and tries to thank you.

“Don’t thank us, good luck, but we are just wearing this to mess with everyone,” You answer in Bulgarian. One thing most people don’t know about you is that you are fluent in four different languages and are approaching fluency in two or three others.

The Bulgarian boy blinks at you, surprised and then nods once and returns to his seat in a daze. You watch as he tries to communicate in Bulgarian to one of the Hogwarts students sitting next to him only to get a blank look in return.

“Did that just happen?” Ant asks, looking at you with an identical look of surprise as Jake. Millie too sports a slightly surprised look but she already was aware of your talent with language since she was your brother’s soulmate.

“Yep, I have a thing for languages,” You explain.

“Why?” Jake asks and you smile a little.

“My brother, Luke, is mean. When I first asked about… Fleur’s name… on my arm, he told me that it was probably a Spanish name, so I learned Spanish. Then he said it was Bulgarian, so I learned Bulgarian. Then he said German, so I learned German. He finally told me it was French when I was… eight? So then I learned French, but since then a passion for languages has kind of stuck with me,” You explain, “I get a new dictionary every year for Christmas. This year I think I’ll get Mandarin,”

“Wow, way to keep a secret! How did we not know?” Ant asks and you shrug.

“I never really have to try to speak any language other than English,” You tell him and then you dig into your breakfast ignoring your friend's surprise.

When you get to the stands, you climb into the Hogwarts box, revelling in the filthy, annoyed and angry looks you are getting from people.

“Whoo! Go Beauxbatons!” Millie yells, further annoying the already annoyed people and adding new glares from Drumstrang students. You see a few people laughing, probably having worked out that you are just messing with everyone and finding the situation as amusing as you do.

Before the students who don’t find the four of you cheering for the opposing teams so funny, Ludo Bagman’s voice comes echoing around the stands. You wince when he starts to talk, his voice seems to grate on your nerves for some reason, perhaps because he is just a touch too jovial and has a tendency to add unnecessary details.

“To summarise, champions have to get a golden egg from a… a dragon,” Jake says, his voice faltering near the end as if not quite believing what he was hearing.

“Because that’s safe!” You answer sarcastically, feeling like punching one of the idiotic ministers in the face.

“Focus. Cedric’s about to face off against a Swedish-short snout,” Ant demands, forcing your attention to the pitch. Cedric seems nervous, he’s shaking slightly, his eyes lift to the crowd and despite your earlier joking there’s nothing but sincerity in your tone when you call out to the boy.

“YOU CAN DO IT!” You yell and his eyes land on you, he chuckles a little when he sees your clothing, understanding why you’re wearing it. His eyes slide past you and upwards towards his soulmate and girlfriend who nods at him encouragingly and then he steals his nerves and focuses solely on the dragon and the egg.

His eyes scan around the perimeter landing on a large boulder, and you watch as he transfigures it into an empty dog - a non-living thing cannot be made living. With a small, more confident, smile, Cedric sends the dog closer to the dragon. The dog dances back and forth in front of the dragon, who moves closer to it. The dog continues to sneakily lead the dragon further and further from its nest as Cedric creeps closer.

About ten foot away from the nest, Cedric starts to run and the dragon’s attention is suddenly captured by the boy. Jake grabs your hand, keeping you grounded and your view of Cedric is obscured by a jet of flame.

Ten seconds pass, the entire time you sit on the edge of your seat terrified in case Cedric is gone. The flames disappear suddenly, and a cheer rises across the entire stadium when Cedric is revealed holding the golden egg high in the air, not a scratch on him.

You're smiling as your friend receives his score, you aren’t interested in what he gets, you’re just glad he’s alive.

“Fleur’s next, she got the Welsh-green” Millie whispers in your ear, and your eyes fall closed. After what you’ve just seen with Cedric, you aren’t sure you can face seeing Fleur facing off against a dragon.

“Eyes open,” Ant orders, and you force yourself to do as he orders. Fleur stands on the pitch, a maniacal smile on her face and written in her eyes. Your stomach feels like it’s been ripped out and left on the sidewalk at the sight of her. Be safe, you beg her inside your mind even though she made it quite clear that you mean nothing to her.

Your eyes fall on your soulmate, all too aware that this could be the last time that you ever see her alive. You watch, confused when her hip suddenly sways to the side like she was on a dance floor instead of facing off against a dragon.

Every eye falls to the girl in confusion, including the dragons. Fleur’s eyes scan the stands, landing on yours and you almost flinch back when you see the look in her eyes. It was terrifying, it wasn’t like she was angry or even sad, just full of longing, loss and acceptance. Her eyes dart away, but you wish they would come back to you so you could believe that Fleur was going to be safe.

Fleur seems to throw herself in the air, she flips, hips swaying still and then her mouth opens and a string of words escape her. Not in French, not in any language you know. It sounds so musical, and Fleur’s voice carries a chilling beauty with it. You’re surprised when you see magic being released from her. She was singing magic! Fleur was a spell singer! You could see the blue hue of her magic making its way through the air and pressing lightly against the dragon. You watch confused when nothing seems to be happening, but then you notice that the dragon is getting closer and closer to the ground.

With one sudden swish of her hips, the dragon’s eyes close completely and Fleur confidently strides over to the golden egg. You let out a sigh of relief. Fleur was OK.

A flame suddenly envelops your soulmate and you feel your mark starting to burn. You can’t help it when you scream her name, gripping your mark tightly, eyes watering against the pain as you begged it not to turn black. Not completely. Please, please, let her be OK. You throw your hand out into the air sending a jet of water towards her.

The fire goes out almost immediately, but you collapse against the floor, trying to recapture your breath.

“MISS DELACOUR HAS HER EGG!” Ludo Bagman yells, and you look at your mark, seeing that her name is still visible on your arm and not laying beneath burnt skin.

Whispering voices surround you and you know you’ve just added to the Hogwarts rumour mill but you don’t care. You pull yourself up, leaning heavily against your friends. You know you used too much magic all at once, now you feel drained and exhausted.

“We’ll get you back to the dorm,” Millie offers but you shake your head.

“You guys want to watch this, I’ll go alone,” You tell them and then, still staggering slightly, you make your way past the crowd and down. You have to lean heavily on the sides to be able to make your way along the Quidditch pitch, so you take the back way to avoid being seen by anyone else. Or, you hope not to be seen by anyone but a voice calls out to you.

“Y/L/N… do you need a hand?” Fleur asks and you sigh.

“Sure you can stand to touch a mudblood?” You ask. Fleur’s silent, but her footsteps speed up until she’s walking beside you.

“Look it’s better we have nothing to do with each other, we just wouldn’t work, but I’m not going to watch you struggle and not offer assistance,” Fleur tells you.

“Well, you’ve offered, now leave,” You order her stubbornly, but your words are undermined when you crumple to the floor half-a-second later. You let out a few choice words, and try to pull yourself back up. Unfortunately, your strength seems to have completely failed you since you can’t even get half-way back to your feet before falling back against the ground.

“Please, just let me help you, this is painful to see,” Fleur tells you, offering her arm.

“Like your face,” You mutter not too quietly, taking a tiny grain of satisfaction from seeing Fleur flinch back a little as you take her arm.

You walk in silence, leaning heavily against Fleur until you finally break it.

“Why aren’t we a good idea?” You ask quietly, not wanting to know but feeling a need. This can’t be about your blood status, not really, right?

Fleur doesn’t answer you right away, and you think that she intends to just ignore your question, but she breaks the silence suddenly.

“Are you seriously this dumb? Do you not remember what my parents did to you the first time they met you? Are you stupid enough to believe that they would accept you as their daughter-in-law? They would never accept you. They might even try to kill you, I am not entirely sure how far they would go. At best, they would ostracise me and attempt a further attack on you. Are you still confused as to why we would not be a good idea?” Fleur asks, a bitter note in her tone.

“Does that mean my blood status isn’t an issue for you, personally? Just how your parents would react to it?” You ask.

“I don’t care about your blood status, I’m just not willing to see you hurt,” Fleur explains and you raise an eyebrow.

“What if it’s a risk I’m willing to take?” You challenge, Fleur lets out a small snort and you raise your eyebrow.

“I’m not worth that,” Fleur tells you bluntly and you shrug, with the one arm that’s not desperately clinging onto her for support.

“I thought you were worth it for six years already, I didn’t even know the person you are now,” You tell her. You are somewhere in an abandoned corridor that leads to the stairs that will take you up to the Ravenclaw Common Room. Fleur stops abruptly and you're forced to stop with her.

“And now?” Fleur demands, quietly.

“You’re still worth it,” You tell her, honestly.

“Why? Because I’m pretty? Because my name’s on your arm?” Fleur asks, sounding angry.

“No. You might be on my arm, and you are undeniably pretty but even though I don’t know you as well as I’d like since you keep pushing me away, it’s still obvious that you’re smart and brave, you’re kind and you're hard-working,” You tell her, she turns around and her eyes burn into yours. You can’t tell if she wants to kiss you or kill you, you're suspended in her gaze for one crystal clear moment and then Fleur turns her head.

Your hand turns her face forcing her to look at you. Fleur’s eyes are full of longing, you move closer hesitating inches away from her lips. Fleur’s lips capture yours, suddenly. Her movements are quick, desperate. She smells like smoke, sweat and something sweeter like cinnamon underlying it. Fleur pushes you back, against the wall and you pull her closer. Fleur takes the lead, and you let her because she needs to.

She pulls away for air and you know from one look at her eyes that she isn’t ready to accept you into her life yet. Not yet. It’s written all over her face.

“Just think about it,” You request before, pulling the last of your strength together and heading up the stairs to your common room, leaving Fleur at the bottom.

Chapter 13: The rumors

Chapter Text

Whispered murmurs surrounded you as you made your way to the Raven claw table for breakfast (or more accurately, lunch). You can’t seem to find the strength to be irritated. Your friends waved you over and you sat down, faking a smile.

“Good rest?” Millie asks and you smile.

“Brilliant, I feel much better,” You tell her and don’t miss the looks of relief on your friends' faces. Ant piles food onto your plate, and you know you worried him yesterday since he doesn’t use form some sort of verbal defence against you when he does.

“Want to know the latest rumours?” Jake asks, eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Go on,” You say, rolling your eyes. You don’t care what other people think of you but Jake always enjoyed the rumour mill. He was only ever allowed to tell the really interesting, ridiculous or funny rumours, other than that rumours were banned from your table.

“Well, firstly, people are saying that you are a pure-blood in disguise since you use wandless magic,” Jake tells you and you roll your eyes.

“That’s ridiculous if I was a pureblood why would I use wandless magic?” You challenge but Jake seems, if anything, to grow more excited.

“Well, people are theorising that you’re Professor Dumbledore’s daughter or you’re someone like Gellert Grindelwald's. Either you are hiding from a dark name or your dad wants you to pretend like you are to be more tolerant,” Jake tells you and you scoff.

“As if. Jake, Ant, Millie, I solemnly swear that I am a muggle-born,” You tell them, and they laugh. They seem so happy and bright and bubbly, and you do your best to keep play-acting the same for their sakes.

“Another theory about your dad is that you’re a descendant of Merlin,” Jake tells you and you blink. Merlin’s a strong wizard, insanely strong, why would anyone think you are a descendant of Merlin?

“Why?” You ask and your friends tilt their heads at you.

“You do know it’s not a normal thing to be able to cast an argumeti charm, wandlessly, and certainly not at the range and strength you did?” Ant asks, tilting his head.

“But it’s more logical to not use a wand! That way you can always fight and you have a better choice of spells!” You challenge, you wanted to be an auror when you left school and so fighting had always been one of your key thoughts. You needed to be able to fight and capture criminals as well as have a good head on your shoulders. Mad-eye Moody had seemed like a hero when he arrived at your school.

“We know. You’ve gone down that rant a hundred times,” Ant groans.

“Well… it’s true!” You point out and your friends roll their eyes.

“Final rumour, they’re saying that Fleur and you were kissing outside the Ravenclaw tower. Don’t worry we know it’s not true, you’ve barely even talked to her yet. There’s no way-” Jake starts, as he speaks you feel your stomach sinking.

“Jake stop,” Millie orders, sensing your tension.

“-you were kissing her. She already rejected you-” Jake continues.

“Jake. Stop.” Ant says, kicking his brother's leg.

“- very publicly, and we know your walk didn’t do much. There’s no - OW!” Jake bellowed, squirming in his chair as Millie cast a stinging hex. You countered it, not bothering to move much.

“Jake, why do you have to be such an idiot?” Ant asked his brother exasperatedly.

“I’m not an idiot! It’s just… that really happened?” Jake asks.

“How the hell did they find out? That corridor was deserted!” You ask, trying to sound angry but your friend's eyes narrow and you guess that they finally saw through your facade. You let out a small sigh, sensing a shift in magic as someone makes their way towards you and your friends. Fleur was pissed, you could feel her anger as she walked.

“Delacour,” You greeted, not wanting to sound so cold but not having a choice. An invisible wall seemed to cut you off from your emotions and there wasn’t a lot you could do about it.

“WHY THE HELL ARE PEOPLE SAYING WE KISSED!” Fleur bellowed, her anger unmissable and drawing attention from the whole of the Great Hall. Great, more people to witness your emptiness.

“I don’t know,” You tell her, your voice monotone. This was just… great. You grab a bite of a cheese wrap to give you some time. Your emotions were being delayed right now, but at some stage, they would snap back into full force and effect. You often had no warning as to when your emotions would or wouldn’t be there, it was just something you had to deal with.

“Fleur, this isn’t a good time,” Millie tells her, eyeing you worriedly.

“I didn’t ask for your input. What are you even doing here? Aren’t you a Slytherin?” Fleur snaps and you reach out and grab Mille’s hand sensing her rising anger. Millie hated being told she couldn’t be somewhere or do something for stupid reasons, especially if it was by someone who had no authority over her.

“Millie is our friend. Why are you here, Delacour? My friend was in no shape to be spreading rumours last night, so someone else probably got bored and decided to spread it. Your yelling is unwarranted, save it for the real culprit,” Ant says, a scowl on his face.

“I didn’t ask for your input either! What’s a mudblood and two halflings doing with a pureblood Slytherin? Don’t you know their kind hate you? Don’t further prove your stupidity by getting involved in this fight, it’s between me and her!” Fleur yells, Jake’s face suddenly darkens. He’s not typically one to get angry but when people go after his friends his typical friendly demeanour disappears.

“I think you’ve overstayed your welcome. Leave,” Jake orders.

“SHUT UP! I SAID HER! NOT YOU!” Fleur snaps, losing her patience.

“Delacour. Examine who is here; you’re outnumbered. You may be a spell singer but we are far from easy targets. Whatever this quarrel is about, leave it until later,” You tell her, your voice cold. You don’t want to threaten her but you don’t know how else to deal with what she wants from you.

“Coward,” Fleur spat at you before turning on her heels. You finish your lunch, quickly sensing Millie wanting to talk but it’s better not to talk here.

When you’ve finished, you stand and leave the hall well aware that your friends are following you. You lead them up towards a typically abandoned charms classroom.

“Tell me, is it an overextension or are you shielding again?” Millie asks.

“I’m not sure. It could be either considering the state of things,” You tell her.

“How long do you think it will last?” Ant asks and you scan over yourself. Sometimes using wandless magic left you completely drained of emotions until you’d recharged your batteries, the more you used it the less often your batteries had to be recharged. There was another reason that sometimes your emotions were cut off from you, but it was better not to think about that.

“A few days, then I should be fine. I can’t be sure, you know how imprecise it can be,” You informed Ant and he nods. Sadly, your friends were all too aware of when you became known as ‘The Empty One’.

“What do we do with everyone?” Jake asks Millie, the one who normally had a strategy sorted for dealing with you.

“We’ll say you came down with an illness, flu maybe? Get you into the hospital wing and get you discharged when it snaps back,” Millie speculates. You nod, “Good. I’ll start the potion. Ant, Jake, keep her away from the others until I can get back,”
“Yes sir!” The twins said, unironically snapping twin salutes to the girl.

It was important to keep you away from the others since you couldn’t form emotional responses to other's questions. As well as this, you couldn’t fake enough emotions in your voice so you only ever came out as cold. Your friends were used to this, and they didn’t care about who you were and when. Whenever you wanted their company they would be there and vice versa. Others were not as forgiving though, and there was a good chance that you’d regain your emotions and find that you had a dozen more rumours to deal with.

Another problem with when you were ‘The Empty One’ is that you were extra suggestable and tended to overcompensate for your lack of emotion by doing stunts like climbing the Quidditch hoops or attempting parkour along the Quidditch seats. It was better to keep you away for a while.

Millie came back with the potions shortly, your friends each held a single vile.

“Cheers!” Ant said, clicking his vial against Millie’s and Jake’s. Then they all threw back their potion and drank. Here’s the other thing about your friends, they didn’t leave your side. When one of you was sick so would the others be.

Chapter 14: The kick-back

Chapter Text

The snapback came as suddenly as it always did. It took less time than you expected, probably a sign it had been because of overexerting yourself with wandless magic. A day after taking the potion, you and your friends swallowed the antidote and were dismissed from the Hospital Wing. You still weren’t quite perfect, in fact for another half-a-day you were probably going to be a little over-emotional but having not spent a lot of time around other people your emotions weren’t so overpowering.

“I love you guys so much, did I ever tell you that?” You ask, wrapping an arm around Jake and trying not to blubber too noisily.

“Yes, eight times and counting and for the eighth time, we love you too,” Ant says, letting out a deep sigh.

“How come I’m the one you always hug?” Jake asks, ordinarily, the boy loved hugs but right now you were overly huggy.

“You’re so soft and nice and kind!” You sing, springing away from him and twirling around childishly. A fourth-year stared at you strangely. Wait! Not just any fourth year, “HERMIONE! How are you? You look happy today!”

The bushy-haired girl stopped in her tracks.

“Did someone cast a confundus charm on you? Or did someone over strengthen a cheering charm?” Hermione asks, taking her wand and attempting to cast a diagnostic spell only to be blocked by a shielding spell from Millie.

“Ask for permission before attempting to get a diagnosis, Granger,” Millie grunts protectively. A wave of fear suddenly crashes over you and you let out a squeak, backing away from Hermione. No one can know your secret. Ant pulls you back against his chest and holds you steady, forcing you to calm down a little. You concentrate on his steady breathing and trying to match the rise and fall of your chest to his.

“What’s up with her?” Hermione asks, an accusation evident in her tone.

“I don’t know Granger, maybe she’s tired of dealing with you,” Millie suggests hostilely.

“What did you do to her, snake?” Hermione asks, stepping closer to Millie.

“Nothing. Now back-down little lion cub, you won’t like the outcome of this fight,” Millie hisses, everything in her going to your defence. Hermione’s hand flies to her wand as Millie’s does, but before either of them can try to duel Jake steps in between them.

“Enough. House rivalries have no place here. In truth, Hermione, Y/N has a condition that can sometimes cause effects like you are seeing. However, if she has not chosen to share those effects with you then we will do everything we can to prevent you from finding out. That’s why Millie is being so defensive and hostile. Now, both of you, holster your wands before there’s trouble - seeing you fight will not do her any good,” Jake says, causing both of the girls to return their wands to their holsters. Jake has always been charming, the type of person who could talk a mountain into moving and this time was no exception.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Hermione offers.

“No. Right now, we just need to get her up to the common room, she’ll be right as rain before tea - we just have to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid,” Jake answers and you feel your eyes burning at the idea that you would do something stupid.

“He doesn’t mean it like that, he just wants you to be safe,” Ant whispers in your ear, sensing your brief slice of pain. Without thinking, you make your way over to Jake and wrap your arms around him grateful your friend cares so much.

“Come on then, up to the tower we go!” Ant calls out, and you grin, following him up the stairs.

You’re almost to the Ravenclaw tower when you stop. The deserted corridor awaking a memory in you. Fleur was here, so were you. So was someone else.

“I HAVE TO GO!” You yell suddenly, taking off at an impossible speed. You hear your friends cursing behind you but you don’t care, you need to see Fleur and assure her you weren’t the culprit. This rumour spreading had nothing to do with you!

You spread your magic through the air hoping it’ll help you find the one person you most need to see. The slight blue you feel when your magic comes into contact with her runs through your veins and your legs carry you towards her. She’s in the charms classroom but it’s not lesson time yet. Curious.

No time to stop and think about it. You fling open the door, and that’s when your heart was truly shattered.

Fleur jumps from the table she was resting on, her eyes seeming almost triumphant at your crumpled form. Besides her, the boy she’d been kissing scrambles to retuck his shirt. You’re filled with disgust at the sight of him. Fleur was kissing someone else.

Normally, you think you’d have more self-control, be more able to pretend to be indifferent to the whole ordeal but not today when all your emotions are flooding into you. No, today your tears fall. Today, she sees you cry no matter how much you will come to regret this, Fleur’s seeing you cry and there’s nothing either of you can do to stop it.

Roger Davis quickly exits the room, clearly wishing not to become a part of this. Fleur stays though. You know she’s there, you just wish you didn’t.

She crouches down beside you, her hand reaching out to touch you. Everything in you wants to knock her hand away but you can’t. Your tears collect in her palm, and you see her staring at them with something akin to pain and sorrow.

“You know that I had to,” Fleur tells you and a bitter laugh escapes you.

“You didn’t though. You didn’t have to do anything, but instead, you kissed … him. Was it worth it?” You ask, you can feel the numbness starting to spread back through you and all you can do is pray that you won’t have to spend another month like the one you had to spend in June.

“I did it! I had to! Please, understand me! I was on my own, you disappeared! I didn’t know what to do, but I had to cover it up so I spent time with Roger Davis!” Fleur defends herself.

“Glad that’s working out for you. If you don’t mind, I’ll be going now,” You tell her, Fleur’s hand flies to your face forcing you to look at her. Her icy eyes meet yours but recoil back from what she sees in them. You don’t need to ask, you know what she sees.

The emptiness.

Chapter 15: The broken girl

Chapter Text

A broken girl sits at the Ravenclaw breakfast table. If you cared enough to look, you’d see that there was nothing left inside her. Few dare to get close to her. How can she sit there so emptily? The first years are supposed to be full of life, of joy, but that one’s empty.

It’s hard to catch a glimpse of her. She eats breakfast way earlier than anyone else and it seems as though she’s skipping lunch and dinner. Her lessons pass her by in a blur. The moment that she’s dismissed she’s gone.

A part of the castle is littered with scars. Sometimes, if you happen to walk past in the silent hours of the day, you’ll see that broken girl throwing magic at the wall. Red, blue, green, white and black sparks smacking the walls over and over, but never yellow. There’s never any happiness.

She’s easy to miss, that broken girl. It’s hard to remember she exists, the moment you pull your eyes from her she fades from your mind. Nothing changes for her, day in day out. Others make friends but she stays alone, always, empty.

That broken girl was you.

“Eat,” The command comes. You do as ordered. You aren’t sure how much time has passed since your friends have started having to give you orders. Sometimes you disappear from them completely, but they find you just as quick.

They put you in the hospital wing for a week, but when it became obvious that you couldn’t fight off the block so quickly they had to get you out again. You’re lucky, they are here with you even though you cannot be as present for them as they are for you. That’s not to say that you aren’t aware of what’s happening to your friends and around you, because you are extremely. The problem is, you can’t react and faking only gets you so far.

The Yule Ball will be starting near the end of December.

Jake has finally had a brief conversation with his soulmate; Angelina Jhonson.

Millie and Luke are setting a date and getting married once Millie leaves school.

Anthony is struggling in defence, ironically.

You offered to tutor Ant, it was a logical decision. He agreed, and you added him to his tutoring list. You’re still tutoring Cedric too although it’s getting harder and harder. Cedric thinks he’s done something wrong and doesn’t understand why you’re being so cold, he’s so apologetic constantly but you don’t know what to do. Sooner or later, Cedric will decide that it’s time to leave you.

“Stand,” You are commanded. You do so, the words aren’t cold - if anything they are full of more emotion than you can comprehend - they are just designed to make it easier for you. You can follow an order, but it’s harder to react to other things.

You know it hurts your friends to see you like this. You’re so far away and there is nothing they can do but wait for it to fade. You hear their fear sometimes, what if it never fades. What if you are always stuck like this? What if the broken girl stays broken this time?

Luke sends his love to his sister, constantly. You know it’ll be easier once Millie sneaks him in for the ball. Luke has always been able to rescue you, but the longer you are away from him and at Hogwarts the harder it is for him to do so. Or, maybe, it’s getting worse. Both things could be too true.

It used to be that Luke would simply have to touch your shoulder. Then it became a hug. Then a game of Mario. Then two. Then a day-trip. Even though Luke still has the biggest effect on you, sometimes you wonder if there is a time when nothing anyone does will work. Your friends aren’t the only ones who fear you’ll be stuck like this forever - or at least when you can feel the fear.

“Walk to the Ravenclaw Common Room,” The command comes. Your feet carry you with a single-minded determinedness. Nothing can shake your focus now, you’ll do the task and that’s it. Nothing else exists.

A figure blocks your path. You try to dart around it, but it won’t let you. It slams you up against a wall. You reach around to summon a wave of magic but before you can a fist passes by your face, smacking into the figure.

“What are you doing Delacour? You don’t get to touch her, not after what you did!” Millie spits. You watch the scene before you, blankly.

“WHAT I DID! ARE YOU SERIOUSLY PINNING THIS ON ME? YOU ARE THE REASON! YOU MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING FOR HER TO BE WALKING AROUND THIS CASTLE LIKE A ZOMBIE!” Fleur screams at Millie.

Millie crouches down, waiting until she’s right in front of Fleur’s face.

“No. You are directly responsible, and now she’s paying for it. I would never hurt her, not the sister of my soulmate, but sadly you don’t seem to possess that loyalty for your soulmate herself,” Millie hisses. Fleur flinches back.

“You can’t blame me,” Fleur says, “Trust me, it’s for the best.”

“DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE BEST TO YOU!” Jake yells, his words throwing his anger in the face of Fleur. You flinch back, your head smacking against the wall, but no one notices but you. It’s like a switch is flipped and you feel the snap like an elastic band against your skin. Emotion floods through you, coursing through your veins.

You’re staggered, overcome by it all. Guilt flows through you sharply, guilt for what you’ve been putting your friends through even though you had no control. Next comes the fear, the fear of being stuck, unable to respond or feel for the rest of your life. Then comes the fear for Jake, he needs those grades. Happiness follows fear, Ant is improving, so is Cedric. Your brother’s getting married to a wonderful woman! Jake is talking to Angelina! Progress is being made! Then comes the sadness, the pain you feel because of what Fleur put you through.

“Y/N! Are you OK?” Ant asks, running over to you. He slides to the floor beside you, his hands cupping your face and resting your head on his shoulder. Shaking breaths in and out is all you can give to answer his question. Gradually, the wash subsides and you can answer him.

“I’m OK. I’m OK,” You answer, you feel around you and find no excess. Sometimes the switch is like that, and the feelings you have to feel come all at once instead of being constantly triggered by other minor events.

“Do you want to do something?” Jake asks, you watch out of the corner of your eyes as Millie gives Fleur one more hard glare before she turns and joins the three of you.

“What did you have in mind?” You ask and Jake smiles.

Half an hour later, you and your friends are doing stunts on your brooms, laughing and joking. You tip your head back, feeling the wind in your hair and loving the lightness in your chest that eases everything. Millie starts a game of tig, a favourite game of hers since she discovered it although sometimes she could get a little murdery with her attempts. A single-minded focus on the game, not necessarily a bad thing.

The spark comes without warning, and you grin when a jet of yellow sparks fly through the air forming three bouquets of roses that form in Millie, Ant and Jake’s hands.

Chapter 16: Muggle Magic

Chapter Text

The news that Fleur is taking Roger Davis to the yule ball threatens to force the block back down, but Millie stops it.

“If Fleur’s taking Roger, you’ll just have to take someone better!” Millie tells you and you laugh bitterly. You don’t think anyone is better for you than Fleur, there’s a reason that her name is on your wrist and not someone else's.

“There is no one better than Fleur, at least not to me,” You answer, tiredly.

“Oh, there are plenty of girls and guys better than Fleur, as long as you act like it,” Millicent cuts in, firmly and evilly.

“Name one,” You answer, drily. Jake and Ant scratch their heads thinking.

“Eliza Rdumart,” Jake offers and you laugh out loud.

“The sixth year Hufflepuff, the same one who’s slept with half of the quidditch teams? Hard pass, I’m not interested.” You say shaking your head, you aren’t interested in yet another player.

“Think how jealous Fleur would be if she thought that you were-” Millie starts but you cut her off.

“Hard pass.” You cut her off. That’s just not your style.

“You could take me,” Ant offers and you laugh.

“No thanks, I like girls. Besides, you should go with someone you like,” You tell him, “Thank you for the offer though,”

“Hey, no problem, I love getting rejected over breakfast,” Ant jokes.

“OK! So, no players, only girls and considering your blood status not many people from Slytherin can fit the bill. I suppose that narrows this down somewhat,” Millie says, trailing off and thinking.

“GOT IT!” Millicent says, slamming her fist into the table.

“Yes?” You feign interest.

“Katie Bell,” Millicent says, with an evil smile. Well, that’s got your attention. You used to have a minor crush on her. She’s a fifth year, so the age gap isn’t too awkward. OK… possible… Only one major problem.

“She likes boys,” You point out.

“Nope.” Millie says, popping the ‘p’. “You see, a little birdie told me she’s been caught with several girls in compromising positions. You’ll just have to work your muggle magic,”

“Work my muggle magic?” You repeat sarcastically.

“Uhuh, that means, work those hips, butt and for goodness sake, once you’ve finally secured the date try not to stare too wishfully at Fleur. Now then, I’m going to go get Luke’s place secured,” Millie says, finally standing.

“How are you going to do that?” Jake asks.

“Word of advice, never cross a Slytherin,” Millie says, throwing a wink over him and swanning out of the Great Hall, her confidence overpowering.

You hunt down Katie after eating. You aren’t entirely sure how to work your ‘muggle magic’ but it seems you’ve caught her at the right time.

“Alicia, please, why can’t we just go to the ball? We’ll have a good time, and nobody has to know we’re soulmates,” Katie pleads near a deserted stretch of school grounds.

“Yeah well, I’ll know. We swore when we started this thing that we only wanted to be friends, but now there are feelings involved and I love Lee! I love him, so I’m going to go with him!” Alicia pushes back, “I don’t want to hurt him,”

“So you’ll hurt me instead?” Katie asks, her voice tight with pain.

“I’m just waiting for him to break up with me,” Alicia explains, “Stop being such a baby! It’s just a dance!”

“So I suppose you won’t care if I take someone else then?” Katie threatens.

“Go ahead,” Alicia says, marching past her.

“I could be your someone else,” You call out once Katie’s on her own. Insensitive, you accuse yourself with a small sigh.

“Excuse me!” Katie yells you frown shaking your head at your stupidity.

“I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I mean our situations are similar, so maybe we can work together?” You offer and Katie marches over to you, her stormy-blue eyes fixed on you and her jet-black hair shaking in the wind. When she reaches you, she grabs your arm, shoving the sleeve up to expose your mark.

“So… it is true,” Katie says, letting out a quiet hum.

“Uh… yes,” You answer, trying not to freak out over how exposed someone else looking at your mark makes you feel, “I can bake you a cake if you need something to sweeten the deal,”

“Seriously?” Katie asks, and you nod. “Fine, I’m in, but that cake better be a cheesecake,”

“You’ve just become my new favourite person.” You grin, cheesecake is the best.

“Too right I have, oh, and do it properly! You have to ask me properly, with a cheesecake by Wednesday,” Katie says with a huge grin.

“Fine, save me a slice though,” You bargain.

“Deal,” Katie says with a huge grin.

Later, when you join your friends you tell them that you’ve secured a date with Katie.

“So…” Millie asks, “Did you work you muggle magic?”

“Something like that,” You agree.

Chapter 17: A proper question

Chapter Text

When Wednesday comes, you carry your chocolate cheesecake - that you baked yourself - over to the Gryffindor table. You hold it on a plate that you’ve attached a sign to that reads: Will You Go To The Yule Ball With Me?

Despite your agreement, when you stand in front of Katie with the cake there’s a look of genuine shock on her face. It’s like she didn’t expect you to ever do it for her, but of course, you did - you like cheesecake and that was the agreement after all. You feel Fleur’s eyes on you, but you don’t care anymore because Katie's face is too cute with its excitement.

When she says yes, Angelina congratulates her and Alicia looks a lot like she wants to storm away from the table. Suddenly, you don’t care about the slice of cake anymore, you’re just happy from Katie being happy.

The two of you start to hang out more in the days leading up to the ball. Katie makes you show her how you bake, and so you spend a lot of time cooking in the kitchens. The house-elves don’t seem to mind since they can often give you an item to cook and you lighten their loads by doing so.

You find out that Katie’s funny, with a huge sweet-tooth and a lot to say. At one stage, you accidentally over-do some wandless magic so that you are emotionless for half an hour but to your surprise, Katie keeps you company without seeming offended by your lack of emotion and reaction. When you come back, you find yourself at peace.

On the night of the Yule Ball, you spend an hour helping Millie get ready. Once that’s done, you transfigure the red monstrosity your mother sent you into a stylish, clean-cut, midnight black, suit. You slip it on and then Millie sends you on.

Luke’s waiting for you. When he sees you, he wraps you up in a huge hug.

“Do you reckon we have time for a quick game?” Luke asks, tipping his head to the side indicating the chessboard. Your brother was the one who taught you to play so well, although you were much better at it than him now. Maybe, it’s because you can leave emotion completely out of the game. Still, Luke’s always desperate to reclaim his title of the family's best chess player.

“Probably not, has that ever stopped us before?” You ask and Luke grins. You study your brother while he makes his first move. His hair is a silvery blonde and his eyes are dark, people used to say that your brother looked like he’d been dipped in moonlight and tonight in his stylishly cut suit you couldn’t help but think it was especially true. You both got good genes.

“Checkmate,” You tell your brother, smugly ten minutes later. Luke pouts as he looks at the board but the truth is undeniable.

“Ah, I’ll get you next time boo,” Luke tells you and you laugh.

“Keep telling yourself that peek,” You say with a small grin packing up the board.

“Hey, have you been OK lately. Your last few letters, well they sounded a bit too empty,” Your brother tells you and you let out a small sigh.

“It’s a long story,” You tell him truthfully.

“Look, I was there when this all started you can tell me anything,” Luke promises and just like that the words spill from your lips. Everything to do with Fleur and you. Luke listens patiently, while you wait for your friends to finish getting ready. Once you’ve finished you feel better.

“You know, not all soulmates are supposed to be together. Some are better as friends and some don’t even get the chance. Maybe, you and Fleur are meant to be friends or are supposed to be together at different stages of your life. I’m not telling you to give up if you think that Fleur wants you to but maybe it’s time to focus on being happy with someone else first. Katie sounds like a lovely girl,” Luke tells you and while you shrink away from the idea of just being friends you’re forced to admit he might have a point. You didn’t have to spend your whole life waiting for Fleur, you deserved to live a little.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” You promise.

“That’s all I ask,” Your brother agreed.

Your brother stops talking, suddenly, when his eyes land on his fiancee. He smiles, his eyes shining with adoration for her. Millie smiles back, the same look on her face. You turn your head and stare at the fireplace while they both greet each other with a kiss. You're glad that your brother and Millie are happy.

“Eww, come on, let’s go!” Ant calls, he’s wearing elegant, dark blue dress robes unlike you and your brother who went for traditional muggle suits.

“Yeah, shift it!” Jake calls from behind his brother. He too wears elegant blue dress robes but his are a lighter shade.

With a smile, you all make your way down to the hall.

You watch as Ant steps away with a familiar girl you recognise from your potions class. They’ve both yet to meet their soulmates.

You see that Jake is taking Angelina Johnson. The two still have yet to work out if they want to be platonic or romantic but it’s clear that they’re both going to have a good night together.

Your attention is taken from your friends when you're approached by your date. Her eyes are smoky, her hair is in an elegant bun and her movements are confident and self-assured. You didn’t think you’d be able to feel attracted to someone other than Fleur but Katie manages to make you question your statement.

“You look stunning,” You tell her honestly. Katie grins at you and takes your hand.

“So do you,” Katie says sincerely and you feel a soft blush make its way up to your cheeks.

Chapter 18: Bell Of The Ball

Chapter Text

You and Katie keep are already laughing and chatting when you enter the hall, but you go from laughter to complete awe when you examine the great hall and see how it’s decked out for the Yule Ball. It’s gorgeous, incredibly beautiful.

The ball’s supposed to be started by the champions, and you expect seeing Fleur dancing with someone else to be excruciating but it’s not. For the most part, Katie distracts you and then when you focus back to the champions a little while later it’s over much to your surprise.

“I guess we’re allowed to dance now,” You say grinning.

“Well then… shall we?” Katie asks, extending her hand. You both attempt to slow dance only to discover that neither of you has even the slightest idea how it’s supposed to work.

“OK, this isn’t working is it?” You ask.

“Nope,” Katie replies, popping the ‘p’. You both burst out laughing.

“Maybe we should just dance how we want to,” You suggest and Katie grins.

“That might be for the best,” Katie agrees. You’ve never really been an amazing dancer but there was a short time when you and Luke were attending street dance classes together. You wonder if you can remember any of the moves.

You try one out, only to fall face first. You close your eyes and think, it’s obvious that you don’t have the agility to manage to do the move normally so what can you do? The idea hits you suddenly and you carefully feel about you with your magic.

With a second attempt, you attempt a back-flip. With the help of your wandless magic, you manage to do the full flip. You grin ecstatically, hearing Katie give a small whistle.

“Damn, you made that look easy,” Katie says with a small laugh.

“Want to know a secret? I cheated,” You admit, in a hushed whisper.

“What? How can you cheat?” Katie asks and you grin.

“I used wandless magic to help me flip,” You tell her and Katie’s mouth opens slightly.

“Well… that’s even more impressive,” Katie says smiling slightly, “Can you make me?”

“Probably, let’s try it,” You offer and Katie pushes herself back, you catch her with your magic and finish the flip for her. When Katie lands on her feet, she smiles at you.

You dance together as best as you can for a while, neither of you taking it seriously, just having fun. Once you’re hungry you both head over to eat.

“Cheesecake,” Katie tells the magically enchanted plate that could summon any food a person wanted. You grinned, saying the same to your plate.

After you’ve both finished eating, Katie glances over you and frowns.

“Is something wrong?” You ask and Katie shakes her head.

“Not wrong, I just don’t understand you,” Katie tells you and you frown.

“Go on?” You try.

“You made me a cheesecake,” Katie says and you blink at her.

“Yes?” You say confused, was there something wrong with the cheesecake?

“That’s what I don’t get. Alicia’s never treated me as nicely as you have tonight, she says she wants me but then she doesn’t follow through on anything,” Katie sighs.

“Honestly, same boat sort of. Fleur says she wants me and she kisses me but then she never wants to be a thing and it’s tiring. I get why but still…” You sigh.

“I think these are broken,” Kaie says, indicating her soul-mark.

“Agreed, although, with a few exceptions,” You say, smiling when you see Luke and Millie cuddling in a corner just talking but looking like they’re above cloud nine.

“Want to dance again? I think I’d like to try slow dancing with a beautiful girl again,” Katie says offering her hand.

“And I’m good enough?” You say expecting Katie to be joking.

“No. You are the beautiful girl,” Katie says and you blush, shaking your head slightly.

“Well, I’m not one to refuse a girl as pretty as you,” You answer back, just smooth enough to make Katie blush. You grin slightly as she leads you out onto the dance floor.

You start out arms length apart but quickly end up closer. Neither of you can dance, so you just sway back and forth a light smile visible on both of your faces. Then someone arrives who threatens to end your fun.

“Dance with me,” Alicia demands and you get ready to clear out only to find Katie refusing to let go of you. Well, you were happy enough here.

“No. I’m good, thanks,” Katie says with a small shrug, swaying you away from Alicia and into the crowd. Alicia follows you though, irritation evident on her face.

“Are you saying you’d rather hang out with this freak than your soulmate? That’s not how this works!” Alicia says angrily.

“You don’t own me, Alicia! I am not yours, and you aren’t single anyway. I don’t care that we’re soulmates if you aren’t willing to treat me like I deserve to be treated!” Katie says, standing up for herself, “Besides, Y/N’s not a freak. She’s a genuinely good person and I’m finding her company much more preferable,”

Alicia looks taken aback and then with a scowl, she storms away. Katie grins at you ecstatically.

“I can’t believe I just did that! And I can’t believe I’m about to do this!” Katie celebrates, she’s close enough that you can see all of her perfectly straight white teeth.

You open your mouth to question what it is she means and then lips slightly rougher than Fleur’s are on yours. You're surprised for a moment, and then you follow what you want to do and kiss her back. Her lips taste like cheesecake and your tongue flicks out to chase after the addictive taste. You hear her gasp, and then her hand slides up to your neck, running her calloused thumb up the line of your jaw in a move that makes a shiver run down your spine.

Someone coughs and you’re reminded that you are not alone but in a crowded ballroom. You and Katie smile at each other sheepishly, Katie runs a thumb across your lips and then she steps back, leaving you a blushing mess.

Katie walks you back to the Ravenclaw Common room, stating that, “You can’t be the gentleman all night,” that’s when you both manage to talk.

“About the kiss…” Katie says nervously and your heart starts hammering in your chest.

“Yeah?” You ask, trying not to sound too nervous.

“I don’t regret it but I don’t think you and I are going to ever be something really serious,” Katie tells you and you nod your agreement. You are both soulmates to someone else and you both want those soulmates no matter how intoxicating you find the other right now.

“It’s probably for the best,” You agree and Katie nods.

“Here’s the thing, I’d still be interested in the kind of flings people have before they meet their soulmates. I sometimes wish I’d missed Alicia years later, and since she doesn’t appreciate me, I wouldn’t mind a little fun,” Katie grins and you smile mischievously.

“Oh… You want a little fun?” You ask, leaning in.

“Definitely,” Katie agrees, a similar grin on her face. You suddenly find yourself with your back against the wall, and you smile at Katie, grabbing her tie and pulling her in.

“So where was it we left off?” You ask with a smirk.

“Hmm… maybe my mouth was here?” Katie asks, skipping your lips and instead peppering kisses along your collarbone. You let out a mix between a gasp and a moan, before Katie’s mouth finds yours and you both engage in a battle for dominance. You lose but you don’t mind, you swear Katie’s tongue must be magic.

You aren’t sure how much time passes before you hear the common room door open. Reluctantly, you pull away from Katie in time to see Fleur’s eyes filling with hurt. You want to do something but you know that nothing you do makes a difference. Fleur isn’t ready and you aren’t willing to be a dog on a lead anymore.

Fleur’s eyes are surrounded by spectacles and you have to admit that they make her look even more attractive than before.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, please, continue,” Fleur says walking past you.

“Do you want to call it a night?” Katie asks, a resigned look in her eyes. You quickly capture her lips, trying to explain that you like her when your words are failing you, it’s a short kiss mostly because it’s cut off by a yawn.

“I’m sorry, I might have to call it a night. I’m quite tired,” You say apologetically.

“Don’t worry, we can continue this another time,” Katie promises.

“Have a good evening,” You say as Katie starts to walk away.

“Oh, I will. Alicia’s going to be desperate, I think it’ll be entertaining to watch,” Katie smiles. You feel a pang in your chest although you know you have to let Katie go when or if Alicia manages to prove to Katie that they should be together.

“Do me a favour? Make her wait a while,” You ask.

“Don’t worry, I want to explore this and I’m not willing to let her have anything from me until the start of the sixth year at the very least,” Katie chuckles, before walking away.

Chapter 19: To still a raging mind

Chapter Text

The morning after the Yule Ball, you make your way to the owlery with a bag of Wen’s favourite treats. Your mind is too loud with thought and memories you’d rather not relive, spending time away from people and with your owl helped to quiet it. Maybe it’s the fact that Wen lives as much in the moment as possible, it’s good to be reminded of it.

You head to the top of the owelry, magically cleaning a spot on the floor and sitting down there. Wen flies to your shoulder the moment she realises you’re here and starts the game. You don’t know what tune she’s playing until four bars in and then you smile. Joining in when she reaches the chorus.

“Am I all that you never wanted, or has it been so long that you forgot it? All we ever share are dial tones…” You sing, a lump forming in your throat when you think of how you can relate this to Fleur. You take a deep breath in and out and then you whistle your tune to Wen. After a few bars, Wen whistles the next four having finally worked out the song.

“Nice one Wen,” You congratulate and your owl bites your ear affectionately, managing to make your chest feel even more light-hearted.

“IS SOMEONE THERE?” A familiar masculine voice calls up, Wen’s talons grip your shoulder a little tighter and you know the voice spooked her.

“Yes. Good morning, Cedric,” You call down, gently stroking Wen’s feathers to soothe her.

Footsteps sound, slapping against the concrete and you wave a hand to clear a space for your friend. He sits down beside you and smiles at your owl.

“She’s a beauty, what’s her name?” Cedric asks and you grin slightly with embarrassment.

“Wenegeden. When I met her I’d just come back from watching Armegedden with my family at a cinema and then we were looking for Hogwarts supplies and an owl and well, Wenegeden got her name. We just call her Wen,” You tell him and Cedric grins.

“Makes sense, what were you doing?” Cedric asks and you blush slightly.

“It’s a game we play, Wen and I listen to a lot of music and now we just sort of take it in turns to sing a few bars and then the other has to continue. It’s fun,” You admit, feeling a little embarrassed.

“It sounds fun, let me give it a go?” Cedric asks and you nod.

“Lately, I’ve been, I’ve been thinking, I want you to be happier, I think that you’ll be happier,” Cedric sings, his voice pretty far from lovely but not entirely awful.

“So you’ll go, you’ll go, you’ll go?” You ask, chuckling slightly at the mock offence on Cedric’s face.

“Well fine!” He says dramatically slapping a hand to his chest.

“Go on, they’re serving breakfast in the Great Hall. Let me bond with my owl,” You tell him and Cedric laughs.

“Well, that’s not an offer I can refuse. I’ll see you later,” Cedric promises, standing and heading downstairs. You grin as Wen starts up another tune.

An hour later, you’ve sung so much that your throat hurts - maybe you ought to keep a hip flask like Professor Moody. Wen pecks your ear affectionately and heads off to her perch, you wave goodbye and head off to the Great Hall to get some food and drink. Katie’s over at the Gryffindor table when she sees you enter the hall, you feel her eyes travel up your body leaving you with a blush in your cheek that only gets worse when she winks at you.

You smile at her and she grins back, before returning to her conversation with Angelina. You make your way over and sit with your friend, you grab a few pancakes and pour yourself a glass of pumpkin juice.

“So how was the ball for everyone?” You ask.

“I don’t think I want to be romantic with Angelina Jhonson. Romance with her just isn’t for me but she seems like a wonderful friend,” Jake says and you nod.

“I’m glad for you, does she seem to want that too?” You ask and Jake nods.

“Well, that’s wonderful. Just don’t forget us, bud,” Ant says, patting his hand.

“Never!” He promises and you smile, wrapping an arm around him and giving him a quick squeeze.

“I had fun. I’m not interested in seeing her again like that but we had a good time as friends. I’m still waiting to meet this Mickey bloke,” Ant says, gruffly, pulling up his sleeve to show the untidy scrawl across his arm.

“Fair enough,” Millie agrees, “Are we going to have to be prepared for a potions attack or was she cool with it?”

“Didn’t tell her, but I didn’t kiss her either so hopefully she’ll just accept that there’s no spark,” Ant says and you frown.

“Be careful,” You warn him and Ant nods.
“I will be, don’t worry,” Ant promises.

“I had a lovely time, your brother’s even more handsome than last time and it was really good to sit and talk. I think I have the best look here,” Millie tells you and you smile.

“Luke’s lucky. You’re a great person, and you know we always want to be your friend,” You tell her and Millie grins.

“Same here. Now, stop being weird and deflecting. Tell us how it went!” Millie says and you grin knowing that you didn’t manage to fool them.

“Well… I don’t kiss and tell, but I think it went very well,” You tell her and Millie groans.

“Is that it? We don’t get any details?” Jake demands.

“Was she a good kisser? How did it happen? How did she kiss you?” Ant demands to know.

“Extremely good, she just went for it, she’s a little rough but that’s not a bad thing since she’s still careful,” You tell them blushing.

“So…. are you doing it again?” Ant asks.

“I hope so, we said we would but I don’t know if she’ll still want to. We’re not soulmates so whatever this is might be very short-lived,” You admit with a small sigh.

“It might be, but I’m not the type to turn back on a promise,” Katie calls from behind you, “Want to do something today?”

Your face blushes bright red again and you see that Jakob and Anthony are laughing at your misfortune while Millie seems to be doing her best to try and keep a straight face.

“Would you guys be OK with that?” You ask your friends. Millie practically forces you to your feet.

“GO! GO!” Millie orders and you hop to your feet quickly.

Well… this should be interesting.

Chapter 20: The one-eyed witch

Chapter Text

You expect Katie to lead you out across the Hogwarts grounds but instead, she leads you up a flight of stairs towards the statue of the one-eyed witch.

“Why are we at the statue of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor?” You confusedly ask.

“Who? Wait… of course you’d know the statue,” Katie says with a small chuckle, you blush and look away feeling like a total idiot.

“I-I read about her,” You explain, turning your head. A soft hand rests on your face and gentle eyes look at you.

“Don’t be embarrassed, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, I’m just impressed. Most of the people I’ve been on dates with… let’s just say they aren’t necessarily the smartest. So… tell me about her?” Katie questions.

“It’s OK, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to pretend to be interested, let’s just have a good time,” You offer but Katie shakes her head.

“I’m not pretending. I’m genuinely interested, what’d she do?” Katie asks and you study her eyes to find genuine curiosity.

“OK, well for starters she found a cure for Dragon Pox. It used to be a much worse problem but because of her, it claims far fewer lives. That’s not the real reason I find her so interesting though, there’s another reason that’s been forgotten by wixing society,” You explain and Katie looks at you still seeming interested, “Some of her spells only work wandlessly but she had some insane theories about life and death involving the soul,”

Katie mutters a password to the statue and leads you into a tunnel and you think that she wants you to stop talking until her eyes find yours with rampant curiosity.

“If enough wandless magic was pooled together she theorised that a person who is still breathing’s soul could be found. It was this idea that if there was enough magic then you could sense and see where missing souls were and offer them a way back,” You explain and Katie frowns.

“Wait… do you see as I see?” Katie asks.

“Most of the time, yes, but when I’m casting I can often see things that I shouldn’t be able to. It’s like an x-ray, if I push my spells around me then I can see around a whole room. The furthest I’ve managed is about five hundred metres in one direction and two hundred in a concentrated area,” You tell her.

“Do you see it?” Katie asks and you frown.

“It depends on how far I’m searching. I can see someone in perfect microscopic detail and from multiple angles but the more I push it the harder it is to see,” You try to explain.

“You said she theorised people can feel, can you?” Katie asks.

“Yes, although I doubt I’m strong enough to do the kind of thing she’s talking about. There were a few people who’ve tried it but it took teams of fifteen to twenty wixes at a time to get even close,” You explain, “Nowadays, nobody tries wandless magic,”

“Why do you?” Katie asks, her voice echoes off the walls and you start to realise you’re in a cellar.

“At first I wanted a challenge, but then I had so much bottled emotions that wandless magic gave a purpose too. Soon, it became much more natural to not use a wand than even attempt to use mine,” You answer and Katie nods thoughtfully.

“Sometimes I get so angry, but I can’t let it out the right way. My dad used to take me boxing but now I don’t have that except for in the Summer. I think it’d be nice to have a way to let it out,” Katie acknowledges, holding open a trapdoor for you. Quickly you follow her up before becoming aware of something.

“Are we in Honeydukes?” You ask and Katie nods.

“Yep, don’t worry they won’t say anything. They like the business and the Weasley twins won them over long ago,” Katie explains, feeling around in the pockets of your robes you find six sickles and a knut.

“What can I get for you?” You ask, admittedly, six sickles and a knut isn’t going to get you far but you’d like to try.

“Put it away. It’s a date, so I’m paying. You can do it next time,” Katie tells you.

“Are you sure?” You double-check.

“Positive. What can I get you?” Katie asks, throwing your words to you.

“Can I have a sugar quill?” You ask and Katie grins.

“Of course, I’ll get the same. It’s funny to see the teachers' faces when the quills disappear,” Katie says grinning.

“It’s even better when you slide a few into their quill stashes. Thirty quills get sent out, none come back and everyone’s faces are covered in sugar,” You chuckle remembering the time you and the twins had done just that to a teacher's quill stash.

“One time I had a stash of sugar quills but someone kept taking them. So I made a fake stash out of real quills… yeah one mouth full of feathers later, and now people don’t take my food,” Katie grins.

“Clever,” You compliment and Katie blushes slightly.

“Thank you. Do you want to grab a butterbeer?” Katie asks and you smile.

“Absolutely, tell me I can pay for these though?” You ask, six sickles were just enough for the two drinks.

“Fine,” Katie agrees and you cheer slightly.

The two of you take your two butterbeers to the shrieking shack and sit and watch the skies in a peaceful silence until Katie shivers. You cast a warming charm quickly and Katie smirks.

“I can think of better ways to keep warm,” Katie says with a wink that sends you crimson but leads you to gently edge closer. You cup her face, feeling bold, and then you press your lips to hers. Katie responds gently and you realise that she’s following your lead. Nervously, you open your mouth locking Katie’s lower lip between your lips. Katie gasps slightly, and you take confidence sucking on it lightly and hearing a low moan that fills your cheeks with colour. Katie pulls you closer, arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you closer until you’re straddling her. You feel her hands slip lower, waiting for your nod before slipping up the back of your t-shirt. The feel of bare skin on skin takes your breath away, makes you feel electric until Katie gently pushes you away.

“I swear every time we kiss it gets better,” Katie muses.

“Oh, am I only better?” You ask, still breathless.

“Hmm… another kiss might help me decide,” Katie tells you with a smile.

Chapter 21: Another way

Chapter Text

Despite the wave of warmth that wrapped itself around you when you entered the common room, you were still disappointed to escape the February chill. You had been sitting, talking and occasionally trading kisses by the Black Lake with Katie. Despite the fact it had been going on for a few weeks by now, your relationship still lacked an exact definition but there was no rush and you were content to simply sit in her company for as long as you may.

“Did you have fun?” Millie asks drawing you from your moping. Students were scattered around the room reading or working on their homework but despite the clutter of the common room, your friends had still managed to claim the comfiest chairs.

“Lots,” You answer, climbing onto the sofa in between Ant and Jake. Ant shook his head, feeling the coldness of your skin through your cloak and summoning a blanket for you. A restful silence passes over the four of you, or you think it does until Millie breaks it with a question.

“What, no details?” Mille asked in disbelief.

“Nope,” You answer smugly. What happened on your dates was strictly between you and Katie and that was a rule you’d maintained despite how much Millie and Jake seemed to hate it. Ant just shrugs accepting your decision.

“Anyone for a game of chess?” Ant asks, only to be greeted by a groan from Millie.

“No way, you’re insufferable after a win,” Millie complained.

“Well, maybe you should beat me more often then,” Ant challenges. In fairness to him, he could be an awful winner but he was always a good loser.

“Maybe, or maybe we should play that muggle game you introduced last month… What was it?” Millie offers, pulling a deck of cards from her pocket.

“Poker and I don’t think I can take the hit,” Jake sighs.

“Hey, it’s not like we use money,” Millie points out.

“I meant to my pride,” Jake replies drily but accepts his cards when Millie starts dealing.

You all play long into the night, winning a few rounds but mostly being beaten over and over by Millie until there’s only one other person in the common room. Soon after, Millie heads back to her dormitory and Jake and Ant both disappear off to bed, yawning loudly. You stay on the sofa playing a game of solitaire absentmindedly while you wait to see what she’ll do.

Finally, she sits beside you. She’s closer than normal, her arm gently resting against yours in a way that could be mistaken for accidental. Normally, she didn’t sit so close but something was different tonight. Your brain started up an in-depth analysis but outwardly you didn’t show any signs you were even aware she existed.

“You went on another date?” Fleur asks as you move the Queen of Spades onto the King of hearts.

“Yes,” You confirm, the words lacing the air between you with an unbreakable weight.

“Did you have fun?” Fleur asks, her voice heavier and carrying forth a note of sorrow that would have been unnoticeable if it wasn’t for the fact you could often hear that same slight catch in your voice when you talked to Fleur.

“Lots,” You confirm. It’s become clear that you’ve lost this game of solitaire, so you gather your cards back into the deck and slide them into your pocket.

“Did you kiss?” Fleur asks, her voice even heavier and you let out a small sigh. You liked Katie, but you’d always like Fleur more. Fleur couldn’t accept you as her soulmate, not yet, but you hated her pain.

Albert Einstein is credited with saying that insanity was; "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Something needed to change.

“You don’t want to know, Fleur, so let’s do something different,” You point out.

“What would that be?” Fleur asks, quietly.

“Would you like to play chess?” You ask calmly.

“Why?” Fleur asks humorlessly.

“We… I can’t be what I want to be for you for so many reasons but no one has outlawed friendship though,” You tell her and Fleur smiles weakly.

“Sure, let’s pretend we’re just friends,” Fleur answers drily.

“Hey, I didn’t make the rules,” You smirk with a dry sense of humour. You should take the chair opposite Fleur and put the chessboard on the table but you can’t find the strength to move so far from her. Whatever else this was, it was also fragile.

You place the board on the sofa between you and then you open. Seconds later, Fleur’s formulated a response. You’re both quiet for some time, focusing only on the game. Fleur’s a better player than some, not falling for fool's mate or the knight fork.

“Have you managed to work out the egg?” You ask carefully, building a defence on the board.

“I haven’t…” Fleur trails off troubled. Her defence lapses and you manage to form an attack that seizes a pawn and places your queen in a more advantageous position.

“I could help you,” You tell her, not looking away from the board.

“We aren’t supposed to ask for help,” Fleur tells you, launching a poor defence in retaliation to your attack.

“You aren’t asking. Besides, the egg is the clue, not the task,” You argue, seizing Fleur’s queen. It wouldn’t be long before you won.

“You worked it out?” Fleur asks and you smile slightly at the memory.

You’d studied the eggs metal casing and internal working with interest, certain it was a mechanical problem. Katie was the one to suggest that you try setting the egg on fire like a mother dragon would to help her young. Gathering around the black lake, you’d fired fire spells at the egg until you’d disappointedly concluded that nothing was happening. Stupidly, Cedric had tried to lift the red hot metal and without thinking, you had sent both him and the egg into the lake to cool off. Only… Cedric didn’t resurface.

Quickly stripping off, you had prepared to dive into the lake to go after your friend until he suddenly resurfaced cheering and whooping as he held the egg having finally uncovered its secrets. You and Katie had had a lot of fun in your celebration which involved cheesecake, kissing and practising slow dancing just for the heck of it.

“I did,” You tell her, not saying anything else and allowing Fleur to work through her thoughts as you finally checkmated her.

“I want to try some more myself first,” Fleur finally answers, “But I may need your assistance…”

“If you need it, you can have it,” You promise, and some of the stiffness fell from Fleur’s shoulders but not all, “Fleur?”

“I want to hold you,” Fleur whispers, “But I don’t know that I can. It seems like doing so would be wrong but I want to feel you in my arms,”

“Friends touch,” You say, it’s a poor defence. You and Fleur will never just be friends but you want to hold her too. Fleur’s arms reach out to you, and you lean into them. You quickly find yourself on top of Fleur, her arms around your waist and your faces inches apart. You tuck your face under her chin, searching for the safety there but that doesn’t stop you from hearing the shaking of Fleur’s chest and the racing of her heart. You know that both of you are engaged in an internal battle but you can’t help it. No matter how many times you think about Katie it doesn’t make you not want to kiss Fleur anymore it just gives you another reason to fight against your urges.

Fleur’s breathing eventually settles and you close your eyes listening to her heart slow.

“This… is nice,” Fleur whispers, the common room has gotten dark as it always does somewhere past the midnight hour.

“It is,” You agree. Fleur’s body is warm and comforting, you feel like two pieces of a puzzle designed specifically to be put together.

She doesn’t tell you that she loves you. She doesn’t tell you that she’s scared. She doesn’t say anything but in between the beats of her heart, the truth is still clear as day to the both of you. You lay there silently holding onto each other like a lifeline you can’t let go off, the rope you can not take to the mountain and so you savour the moment you can take.

You stayed together, too scared to fall asleep but unwilling to move until the lights came on at five a.m. and you both sacrificed the others touch for warm beds and a precious hour of sleep.

The next morning, you both act as if it nothing ever happened.

Chapter 22: The question

Chapter Text

Katie’s hand holds yours as she leads you up to the Astronomy tower. You’d been helping Cedric with wordless magic since the second task was a week away and he wouldn't be able to speak while in the lake. However, both of you had decided you needed to relax and so you were spending some well deserved time with Katie.

You settle on the floor and stare out at the great stretch of space before you. It had a breath-taking beauty to it that few ever bothered to stop and appreciate. Katie settles beside you and you pick up on the tension in her shoulders.

“Is everything OK?” You ask, gently probing her.

“Can I talk to you about something?” Katie asks.

“Of course, anything,” You promise.

“So we’ve been doing… whatever this is for almost two months and well… that’s just it. What is this?” Katie asks.

“I don’t know,” You admitted with a small sigh.

“Exclusive. For now, at least. I want to be your girlfriend and I don’t want to have to worry you’re going to leave me. I have feelings for you, and I know I’m just a place holder but you aren’t that to me and if I’m not that to you then, I want to be your girlfriend,” Katie told you.

“Is this because of what I told you?” You asked you’d come clean about the whole thing with Fleur almost straight away although Katie had seemed to prefer nothing happened.

“Partly. I guess you don’t feel the same though… I… I’m sorry I asked.” Katie apologised, abruptly shattering your thought spiral as she jumps up and heads towards the stairs.

“WAIT!” You call, jumping to your feet and trying to follow after her but she’s already gone.

“What do I do?” You asked Millie, uncertainly, having explained the whole thing.

“Do you like Fleur?” Millie asks.

“Yes,” You answer.

“Do you like Katie?” Millie asks.

“Yes,” You answer.

“Uhm… then… I don’t… I don’t know? I’m sorry… I don’t know… You must work it out for yourself and probably talk to Luke, he might know,” Millie answers you, for once uncertain. Millie was not designed for love triangles, she never had feelings for anyone but Luke.

“Agreed,” Jake chimes in, romance wasn’t his forte at all.

“Hear, hear,” Ant voices.

“I can even give you floo powder. Just wait until tonight and call him up,” Millie tells you. Ordinarily, a muggles fireplace shouldn’t be hooked up to the floo network but Millie’s family were proof of what a sizable bribe could achieve.

It was with that advice in mind, that you waited patiently in your common room watching orange and red flicker in the fireplace as people trailed off to bed. You’d talk to Luke, you’d promised yourself but when the sofa shifted next to you that promise seemed unlikely.

Fleur settles beside you and you both stare at the fireplace in silence. Since that night, Fleur and you have had a dozen or so experiences like that one. It was always when no one else could possibly be aware of what you were doing.

“Hey,” Fleur says, quietly.

“Hey,” You whisper.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Fleur asks and you frown.

“You don’t want to know,” You advise.

“Tell me,” Fleur insists and you let out another sigh.

“Katie wants me to be her girlfriend. I don’t know what to do, she ran off before I could answer,” You admit.

“Does she make you happy?” Fleur asks, sounding distant.

“Yes. She makes me happy in ways I never expected,” You admit.

“Then be with her. Why wouldn’t you?” Fleur asks, voice icy cold.

“Because of us. Fleur… I want to be with you and you want to be with me… Why don’t we just do this? Even if it’s in secret, I’d take one night with you for a thousand with Katie,” You tell her, turning your head to look in her eyes. Fleur stands and moves away from you.

“I cannot give you that night. I do not love you or want you,” Fleur answers, staring out the window.

“I know you don’t mean it, Fleur, so why do you say it?” You ask, “I know about your parents and I know it’s hard but-”

“If I told you how I really feel, you’d never give up,” Fleur whispers, and you think that she didn’t intend for you to hear.

“I still won’t. Fleur… please,” You beg her.

“Fine. You want to know how I feel?” Fleur asks you.

“Yes,” You tell her.

“I wish you were dead, so I wouldn’t have to deal with your pointless advances or seeing the pain in both of our eyes. I hate you, and I love you, and I wish you were dead,” Fleur answers you at last.

You don’t make a sound, just stand on unsteady feet and make your way to your bed.

Chapter 23: Drowning

Chapter Text

A sudden pop hits your ears and you frown, taking a deep breath only to feel a sudden weight enter. You spit it out but more takes its place. You shake as you try to expel water and inhale air only discovering water each time.

Air. Water. Air. Water. Air. Water. WHERE IS THE AIR?

Then it hits you.

UNderWater. you’RE unDERwaTeR. aNd yOU’rE dRoWnInG.

Your magic reaches out reflexively summoning a barrier and separating the little air it can find in the water to make a bubble for you. Air, sweeter than any you’ve ever known fills your lungs and you gasp and sputter as you pull it in.

Seizing panic as your only emotion, you create a light to find three people besides you. Hermione, Cho Chang and Ronald Weasley.

You can’t leave them here, so you quickly cut them free, you see that they have balls of air around their heads. Good. You grip their shirts and start to swim in the direction you think is up.

Your arms are aching not long after you try to carry them, but you don’t have a choice. Even when you try to cast something to help you carry them easier the going doesn’t get much easier.

Not much further, you tell yourself, not sure if it’s a lie or not.

In this underwater world, not much is certain.

The moment when light first breaks your desolate vision is the moment when hope fills you.
Not much further, you tell yourself, knowing you mean it this time.

Finally, you break the surface. Your three companions sputter and spit water from their mouths before turning to look at you

“Later,” You tell them exhaustedly, as you gesture towards the banking. Cho doesn’t move away; instead, she pulls you out of the lake with her, weakly you try to aide her but she shakes her head.

“Stay still, I can get us both back, easily,” Cho promises you. When you land on the bank, you and your friends rest on the bank taking shaking breaths in and out.

“Are you responsible for this?” The stern, annoyed voice calls out.

“Responsible for what?” You ask tiredly.

“Pulling everyone out of the lake. We needed you down there,” The voice explains, and you finally match it to the shrivel posture of Barty Crouch.

“Yes. I am, I take it you’re the reason we were down there,” You answer, meaning to sound angry but too tired to summon anything more than a conversational tone.

“I am. What of it?” The man asks and you laugh hollowly.

“Your bubble charm didn’t work. Dumbass. I almost died,” You tell him and watch him flinch back.

“What do you mean it didn’t work?” A different voice says.

“Oh shut up Percy, isn’t it obvious. The bubble didn’t work, she was underwater, she almost drowned!” Ronald pipes up, sounding outraged, “You let me be put in that position?”

“Well… I - Well…” The man you assume must be Percy starts and sputters.

“Be that as it may, we must return you. You’re the second task, see? The champions have to rescue someone they love,” Barty Crouch explains.

“Who am I supposed to be rescued by?” You asked in disbelief.

“Fleur, of course. Your soulmate,” Barty states as if you were an idiot.

“Fleur wouldn’t come for me,” You stated.

“Come now, I get you may be apprehensive about going back into the water, but surely-” Barty Crouch starts but you finally get to your feet.

“First of all, none of us will be going back into that water. Secondly, Fleur Delacour will not come for me. I am nothing to Fleur Delacour. This mark means nothing to Fleur Delacour” You answer him voice lowered until it was almost a growl.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see someone reaching for their wand as if wishing to test how well you could stick to that statement. Anger courses through you and a red wave flies out from you knocking the man over and leaving him wheezing on the floor. For a moment, you push against him ignoring the screams and shouts from around you just watching as his eyes bulge before pulling back your magic and leaving him unharmed.

“DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!” You yell, turning and facing Barty Crouch who suddenly seems far less certain of himself.

“Perfectly. We’ll make fakes and switch them out when the champions surface,” Barty Crouch says with a gulp.

“WHY WASN’T THAT THE FIRST IDEA?” You yelled, and Barty Crouch cowers back. You shake your head in disgust and step away from him.

“We’ll get started on that right away ma’am,” Crouch calls obediently.

“Good boy,” You say mockingly, “You three, with me. I’m keeping watch over you. Oh? And Crouch? I mean it. Delacour won’t come for me,”

“I’ll find someone else,” Crouch promises.

“Good. When you do, send them to me. We’ll be waiting on the fourth floor,”

Chapter 24: Petite Souer

Chapter Text

“So… how do you know Percy?” You ask Ron. The four of you are sitting on the floor near the main staircase to the fourth floor, waiting for Roger Davis to show up.

“He’s my brother,” Ron explains, seeming disgusted by the words that leave his mouth.

“Families are complicated,” Cho sympathises.

“Agreed.” You say with a small sigh.

“You know, you’re all right. I always thought that all Ravenclaws would be book obsessed, goody two shoes,” Ron voices and you laugh so hard you think you might have torn your ribcage.

“RON!” Hermione yelps and the boy blinks in confusion.

“I was just saying…” Ron says with a confused expression.

“Don’t worry Hermione. As for you Ron, Ravenclaws often seem intelligent, and some of us like books but houses don’t change a thing. I still love mayhem,” You tell him with a wink.

“And I can remember a fair few times I’ve snuck out with Cedric after curfew,” Cho says with a grin that causes Ron to blush as his mind goes who knows where.

Footsteps sound on the steps and you turn your head to see a scared little girl in a Beauxbaton’s outfit.

“Are you looking for us?” You ask, your French rusty but the girl seems to understand.

“I don’t know. Maybe? I was told to come to the fourth floor,” The girl answers.

“Come and sit with us. Are you related to one of the champions?” You ask, well aware that you were looking at a younger version of Fleur.

“Oui. Je suis Fleur’s petitie souer,” The girl answers, “Gabrielle,”

“That’s a pretty name,” You tell her and she nods but seems confused.

“You speak French. Not many here do,” Gabrielle asserts and self-consciously you hide your mark.

“I like learning different languages,” You explain, “Do you know what’s happening?”

The girl shakes her head and you feel a flash of rage roar inside of you but you silence it, the girl’s needs greater than your desire to kill Crouch.

“OK, this is the second Triwizard Task. The Champions are going to rescue look-alike dolls from the bottom of the lake and when they surface you’ll be pulled into the lake, just above the surface,” You explain.

“Like a reverse portkey?” Gabrielle asks, taking a seat in front of you, seeming far less nervous and far more relaxed.

“Exactly. You’re an intelligent one, huh?” You ask and the girl blushes slightly.

“Yes, my professor says I am one of the most intelligent in the school,” Gabrielle answers and you smile.

“I can see that, would you like to play a game of exploding snap while we wait?” You offer, pulling a deck of cards from your pocket. The girl nods in response, and you deal for the four of you.

You play for an hour until people start disappearing one by one. Cho first, then Hermione.

“Can we talk again?” The girl asks when it’s just you and Ron left. Your chest tightens slightly.

“That might not be the best idea,” You tell her quietly.

“ Why? Please, I haven’t got many to talk to here…” Gabrielle begs, and your heart softens.

“We’ll talk again,” You finally agree, with a soft sigh.

And then she is gone.

Chapter 25: The Article

Chapter Text

You’re down for breakfast before your friends the next morning. Normally, you would wait, but you forgot that dinner existed yesterday and are subsequently very hungry this morning. You grab a slice of toast and start buttering it when a shadow falls over your table.

“Good morning Katie,” You greet quietly. You still haven’t given her an answer. Truthfully, you don’t want to be in a relationship with her but you’ve been missing her. Katie settles across from you and you know that you don’t have a choice. It’s time to talk.

“You don’t want to be in a relationship with me, do you?” Katie asks and you sigh slightly.

“I’m so sorry Kaite,” You apologise but she shakes her head.

“It’s OK. I get it, I feel the same about Alicia but I just… I don’t know that she can change and I wanted someone who’d treat me right,” Katie explains.

“I get it. If it wasn’t for Fleur… I’d be with you. You’re an amazing person and you make me feel so much happier when I’m around you but I don’t feel the same. I’m sorry,” You apologise again and Katie touches your hand gently.

“I get it. It’s OK. Here’s the thing, even if we aren’t dating, I don’t want you out of my life. Can we be friends?” Katie asks and you smile.

“I’d love to. Friends,” You agree, stepping around the table to bring the other girl in for a hug.

“We should confirm this over cheesecake,” Katie tells you with a grin.

“Race you,” You say with a wink, and then you’re both sprinting towards the kitchen at insane speeds.

Really, it’s no surprise you bump into him.

“Sorry Cedric didn’t see you there,” You tell the boy, only to see a blank look in his eyes. An all too familiar blank look. For a moment, you’re about to summon a flu potion so that both you and he can stay in the hospital wing and then the boy's eyes fill with something. Panic. You scan around you but feel nothing.

“Everything OK?” Katie asks, causing the boy to flinch and fall into you. Ah, you’re familiar with this. Gently, you rub reassuring patterns into the boy's skin.

“We might have to wait for that cheesecake,” You tell Katie quietly. She nods once.

“Meet me in the Great Hall when you’re ready,” Katie requests and you nod.

“Cedric. Did you overdo it?” You ask him and hear an affirmative sound.

"I told you not to use wandless magic," You say gently, but keep rubbing his shoulders to try to keep him calm.

"Group of Grindilow had to tackle several at once," Cedric explains, "Don't be mad,"

"I'm not mad. It's OK," You promise him as you do a mental calculation and frown. At least eight hours of the emotions block which means he’ll be like this for four more.

“OK. Cedric, I’m going to give you a choice. Would you like to lie down and rest, just for today or would you like to be active?” You ask, your voice gentle. A sleeping draught would allow him peace until he was OK again, whereas in his state the flu potion would cause him distress.

“Rest,” The boy answers and you nod.

“Come on, let’s go to the hospital wing,” You tell him, quietly, gently leading him up the stairs and making sure to talk to him in your best ‘everything’s going to be OK’ voice. When you finally get to the Hospital Wing, you hand him the vial and point to the Hospital bed.

“Stay with me until I sleep?” Cedric asks, quietly.

“Of course,” You promise, holding the boy's hand as his eyelids slowly flutter closed. You want to stay with your sleeping friend, but you know that you need to find and tell Cho, so you gently ruffle his hair before reluctantly leaving, “Sweet dreams Cedric,”

Breakfast has officially started when you enter the Great Hall, there’s more talking than normal although you name it as the left over-excitement from the second task. That is until you see your friends standing outside, accompanied by Cho, Katie, Hermione and Ron.

“Cho, Cedric’s in the hospital wing. He’s just sleeping because he overdid it yesterday,” You tell her quickly, getting the feeling you wouldn’t get the chance to otherwise.

“Is he OK?” Cho asks worriedly.

“He’s just sleeping,” You reassure her, “He’ll be fine in four hours, so you can wake him up then if you’d like,”

“OK, thank you,” Cho tells you, but her serious expression doesn’t change.

“Did you start a food fight or something?” You ask your friends. They exchange looks, before handing you something.

“Maybe you should read this,” Millie says, hands shaking.

“Really? It’s from Reeter Skita, anything she says is pointless,” You tell her.

“I agree. But you should read this,” Hermione says and you frown, finally looking down at the article.

Shameful Secret?
Talented Reporter, Rita Skeeter, is working to uncover The Delacour’s secret.

Fleur Delacour is the current Beauxbatons’ champion in the Hogwarts Triwizard tournament. While most papers will tell you all about the brave heroism the champions displayed yesterday Rita Skeeter reporter extraordinaire delves into the shameful undercurrents of the French champion. Let’s begin, shall we?

The Delacour's are an affluent family of mixed veela and wixing descent. Fleur’s mother, Apoline Delacour is an Auror for the French ministry and has worked on numerous high profile cases along with the task force who famously tracked down Gellert Grindelwald. However, this seemingly respectable family might be harbouring a secret.

Yesterday, three brave champions pulled out a student from the black lake. For Hogwarts champion, Cedric Diggory, it was his beloved soulmate, Cho Chang. For Drumstrang champion and international Quidditch Player, Viktor Krum, it was his yule ball date Hermione Granger and for the sweet boy who lived, it was his best friend Ronald Weasley.

When the boy who lived surfaced, however, he had two people with him. Ronald Weasley and Fleur Delacour little sister Gabrielle Delacour.

That’s right dear reader, Fleur did not rescue her sister. But why?

Officially, it’s claimed that Miss Delacour could not get past a group of Grindylows but considering the power of this witch, this seems unlikely. What other explanation could there be Rita? I hear you ask, and that’s the same question that was going through my mind, so please, allow me to take you back a few hours before the event started.

Picture this, five ministry officials are on the banks of Hogwarts’ black lake. As they put in place the final finishing touches, something goes wrong. Four heads appear above the surface of the water, the targets for the four champions; Cho Chang, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley… But wait? What’s this? Could it be…

Fleur’s little sister doesn’t surface, instead 6th year Hogwarts student Y/N Y/L/N does. Who? You are probably asking. What? I hear you cry! Another player has entered the game but who, how and why?

It took some work but eventually, I discovered the story. Y/N Y/L/N is the soulmate of one, Fleur Delacour.

While being held in stasis under the black lake, the 6th year's bubble charm broke but, just before drowning, she created an air bubble and pulled the other students and herself out of the lake.

Oooh! This girl’s got spunk! No wonder she’s the soulmate of Miss Delacour!

But wait… Why wasn’t she the person the boy who lived brought up?

Maybe, it’s because after being lifted from the lake, the girl said;
“Fleur wouldn’t come for me,”

Now, are these simply the heartbreaking words of a teen or is there evidence to back it up? Here’s a question for you readers… who did Fleur think was beneath the water?

You see, champions were warned that if they did not complete the task the person would be taken. So… was this what Fleur wanted? And why?

Rita Skeeter has yet to find out, but perhaps hiding behind the rank of Auror is a sinister secret sunk deep into the family of the Delacour's. Rest assured, I’ll find out and when I do I’ll bring you the scoop. Until then, dear reader.

Rita Skeeter, signing off.

Chapter 26: The Panic

Chapter Text

You read the article twice, just to avoid looking into the eyes of your friends. Your hands are shaking as your mind forces you to relive the cruciatus curse that was used on you. Deep breath now. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

You can feel your friend's eyes on you, searching for an explanation. OK, Y/N, take a deep breath. OK, in a moment, meet their eyes.

Everything’s going to be OK.

Fourteen eyes are staring at you, and just like that, the bank bursts. Hot painful tears run down your face.

Something went wrong. SOmEThInG WeNt WrONg. SOmeOne’s GoINg To LeAvE. MoVe. CeDRiC. HoSpItaL WiNg. GO.

Your feet skid as you race along the floor.

NEED TO GET TO THE HOSPITAL WING! You tell yourself, your thoughts barely even make sense to yourself. You’re outside his room when a thought pops.

FLEUR IS HERE! DON’T LeT hEr LeAVE!

Where would she be? Downstairs. Big rooom.

GO!

Footsteps, clattering behind you. Voices yelling. Not them! Not them! If they find you, they’ll hurt you! NOT THEM! NOT THEM! HIDE!

You dive into a broom closet, closing the door and laying as still as possible in the dark.

VOICES COMING CLOSER!

CLOSER!

Shush! Breath, quietly! DOn’t LeT tHeM fInD YoU! DoN’T LeT ThEm FiND YoU!

Voices moving away. Quick, stand. Wait! Listen.

Further away.

Scan.

Voices, heading down, away.

SoMeOnE bEhInD YoU.

Who?

Fleur.

FoUnD FlEUR!

Hand. Grab. Leave!

WhErE To Go? WhErE cAn’t ThEy tAkE HeR FrOm?

YeLLIng.

Shush. We NeEd tO Be QuIet! Can’T lEt ThEm FiNd Us!

Up! Go Up!

StAiR! StAir! StAiR!

Bell!

Clocktower!

SaFE! Hide!

Voices, down below.

HiDe! HiDe!

Staggering, stumbling.

NO! DoN’T LET ME FaLL!

Chapter 27: The promise

Chapter Text

A groan escapes your lips. Too bright. Too much light. You flinched back, feeling something hard beneath you. The light faded away but a red glow still burned behind your eyelids.

“Miss Y/L/N,” A voice calls out to you, and you let out another groan. Why were they shouting? This wasn’t fair.

“What?” You moaned.

“Don’t go to sleep. It’s time to wake up. Can you open your eyes for me?” The voice requested and reluctantly you opened your eyes.

You were in the Hospital Wing.

“Why… am… I… here?” You asked, your voice hoarse.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Madame Pomfrey asks and you realise she’s the owner of the voice.

“I … I brought Cedric here,” You answer. Madame Pomfrey hands you a glass of water.

“Anything else? Think about it as you drink,” She advises.

“Um… I met my friends outside of The Great Hall… there was… there was… a paper… paper…” You started, breath shaking as you remembered.

“Fleur and then… falling…” You answered, breath shaking. You started fighting to get up but found something stopping you.

“Just relax. You’re OK. No one can hurt you,” Madame Pomfrey reassured you, pushing you back down on the bed.

“I can’t fill in the rest…” You trail off and Madame Pomfrey nods.

“You went over the edge of the clocktower. Your friends were below and managed to cast slow falling charms but you hit your head on one of the staircases and were still falling at quite a speed when you landed. You’re OK, you’ll be hurting for a long time but nothing permanent, luckily. You’ve been unconscious about three days, your friend hasn’t left your side once,” Madame Pomfrey tells you and you blink at her in confusion. There’s no one else in the room, and then Madame Pomfrey opens the window and Wen flies in, chirping excitedly.

“Wen,” You say with a small smile, as your owl perches at the side of your bed. Wen whistles a tune and then takes off out of the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey curses quietly.

“Health hazard! Damn… I trusted you,” Madame Pomfrey mutters. Moments later, the sound of hurried footsteps sound, heading straight towards the hospital wing.

“OH NO!” Madame Pomfrey yelps, “Not that lot again!”

Quickly, she disappears into her office as the mob runs in.

Millie’s first, followed by Ant, Jake, Cedric, Hermione, Katie, Cho, Ron and…

“LUKE?” You ask in disbelief.

“I AM SO MAD AT YOU!” He yells, and you flinch back, “DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED I WAS?”

“Sorry Luke,” You apologise weakly.

“Don’t scare me like that again. Jeeze. I love you,” Luke says, pouncing on your bed and hugging you tightly.

“To be fair, it wasn’t really her fault,” Millie argues, hugging you tightly when Luke finally moves slightly to the side. Someone else joins the hug pile and then someone else and before you know it all your friends are piled on top of you, wrapping you in a tight hug.

“Crushing… me....” You gasp, and your friends quickly back away.

“How are you feeling?” Ant asks.

“Confused. Very tired, and like I could drink the sea,” You summarise, “How has everything been?”

Your friends exchange looks at your question, seeming to nervously debate things.

“Tell me,” You order, and Millie looks at you.

“Not this time. Just rest,” Millie tells you, and you sigh about to try again when you let out a yawn that shuts off any defences. With a small apologetic smile, you let your eyes fall shut.

Your eyes slowly open, the world around you is dark but you can feel someone creeping near you. Panic builds in your chest until you manage to fully scan and work out who it is.

“You shouldn’t be here, Gabrielle.” You point out.

“You are,” Gabrielle says.

“I’m injured,” You retaliate gently.

“I wanted to see you,” Gabrielle says, now at your bedside.

“How come?” You ask and Gabrielle plays with her fingers.

“I had a nightmare,” Gabrielle admits, “But Fleur’s asleep and I couldn’t find anyone else who spoke French. I just wanted a distraction and also I wanted to make sure you were OK,”

“Mostly the nightmare?” You guess and Gabrielle nods her head once. You shuffle over in your bed until you're pressed up against an edge and then pat the empty space beside you.

“It was scary,” Gabrielle tells you quietly, as she settles beside you.

“What was it about?” You ask and Gabrielle’s quiet for a moment.

“What if Fleur gets hurt? You almost drowned? What if my sister gets hurt?” Gabrielle asks and your chest tightens. Damn you Fleur.

“Fleur’s strong Gabrielle. I can’t promise you that she won’t get hurt, but she’s made of strong stuff,” You tell her, gently, Gabrielle leans closer resting her head on your shoulder and cuddles up against your chest.

“Is there anything you can do?” Gabrielle asks.

“Why me?” You ask quietly.

“Because you love my sister too… You’ll try to help her, won’t you?” Gabrielle asks voice muffled. Absent-mindedly, you stroke the top of her head.

“I’ll try,” You promise, not entirely sure why you do.

“Anything?” Gabrielle asks.

“Anything,” You agree, and then hear soft snuffling snores as the young girl falls asleep.

Chapter 28: Speculation

Chapter Text

“Gabrielle? Gabrielle?” A panicked voice yells as it enters the room. You let out a small groan of pain, instinctively trying to move your arm only to find it pinned by an unexplained weight. Ah, Gabrielle Delacour.

“I think I have something of yours,” You call out tiredly. Your bed curtains are flung back and Fleur stares down at you and your companion.

“Why is she here?” Fleur asks, sounding angry.

“She had a nightmare so she woke me up,” You tell her.

“Why you?” Fleur asks.

“I speak French and you were asleep,” You answer tiredly.

“Yeah right,” Fleur sighs, shaking her head.

“OK, believe what you want. I’m going back to sleep, you can take your sister,” You tell her and then close your eyes and pretend to start snoring.

“So childish,” Fleur sighs.

“You love it,” You tease and hear Fleur’s exasperated sigh.

“Shut up,” Fleur orders you and you go back to pretending to snore as the soft weight of Gabrielle is removed.

“Say good morning from me, would you?” You ask and can almost hear Fleur’s eye-roll before sleep actually does claim you.

When you wake again, Wen is perched beside you.

“Hey, have you come to keep me company?” You ask, gently reaching out to comb back some of Wen’s most stubborn feathers. Wen coos quietly but holds her foot out to you, which is when you notice that she has a piece of paper clutched tightly in it.

“For me?” You ask, voice shaking slightly as you recognise it as a page from the daily prophet. Wen gives you a look that seems to say, who else?

Gently, you take it from her and hold it up. It looks like Wen has ripped the article out instead of being sent with it. You take a deep breath and start to read.

Attempted murder?

Delacour’s soulmate plummets from the top of the clocktower shortly after an article claiming the Delacour’s had a dark secret was released.

Typically, when I write I come to you with a joyful scoop of gossip but today I write this with a great deal of fear. I cannot tell you how many hours I pondered the creation of this article, and the danger I felt certain it would put me in and yet after long hours of consideration the truth must come out.

As you no doubt know, three days ago I released an article pointing out the peculiarity in the relationship between 6th-year student Y/N Y/L/N and Beauxbatons champion Fleur Delacour. Two soulmates are bound by love whether it’s platonic or romantic, but this duo is nothing like the traditional soulmate pairings.

“Upon arrival at the school, the first thing Fleur did to greet Y/N was punch her. It was clear that they knew each other since the Y/N managed to pick her out of a crowd of beauxbatons students but Fleur adamantly denied that she even had a soulmate let alone that it was Y/N,” One Hogwarts student reported, “It was clear Y/N was in pain since she left the school grounds and didn’t return until the following afternoon,”

What can we infer here? Beneath the beautiful grace of the Beaxbaton’s champion lies a wicked heart with a secret love of violence. How did someone so violent get paired with the brave 6th year who rescued herself and three other students from the lake? Truly, sometimes these marks make no sense.

But wait! I hear you call, punching someone is entirely different to trying to murder them and that’s true but we must note the violent nature of Fleur Delacour and no doubt her mother, the auror before we get to what happened on top of the clocktower.

At 8:37 a.m, most of the students currently residing in Hogwarts were in the breakfast hall, just about to read my article except for the two most noticeable exceptions. Fleur Delacour, and Y/N Y/L/N. Witnesses report seeing Y/L/N running up to the clocktower with Delacour, perhaps intending to talk and offer support to the champion.

However, barely three minutes afterwards, an assembled group of students searching for their missing friend arrived underneath the clocktower just in time to see her plummeting to her death from the tower. The quick thinking of her friends saved her when they cast spells to slow her fall, it is certain that if it had not been for them Y/N Y/L/N would have died, so what happened in the clocktower?

For now, this is simple speculation, but Fleur Delacour and Y/N Y/L/N were the only two students up there and something must have happened to trigger Y/L/N’s fall. Was she pushed? I cannot say for sure, but what I can say is that when I visited the unconscious student, I found her deep in the throes of a nightmare.

And who could have guessed what she cried out in her sleep?

Fleur.

Coincidence? I think not.

It is for her safety that I am publishing this article, Miss Y/L/N must be kept safe from the terrifying threat that the Delacour family poses to her.

Will you help me help her?

I shan’t rest until the truth is revealed, regardless of the threat to my own life that surely will come, I owe it to the poor Ravenclaw girl who still lies restless and endangered by the Delacour's.

This is Rita Skeeter, gravely, signing off.

So… this is what Millie has been keeping from you?

Fleur didn't push you, this you know. Skeeter just wants a story and yet a queasy feeling runs through you, and you feel a soft panic trying to force you to action. Wen bites your hand, hard, forcing you to look at her and keeping you in place.

You feel a shield begging to spring itself into place, and you fight to try to retain something.

Remember when you first beat Luke at chess?

Not enough.

What about when Katie kissed you?

You felt the tide slowing, but it still wasn’t enough.

When Ant, Jake and Millie threw a surprise party in the astronomy tower?

It was an awesome birthday celebrated by the three of you, but the tide was still approaching.

When Fleur kissed you?

Frozen, the tide stays but you feel a lingering numbness.

When she held you? When she told you that she loved you?

The tide finally retreats as you fuel it with the happiness you have felt in your life, fighting to keep the painful memories away. Before falling asleep exhausted.

Chapter 29: Where darkness bleeds

Chapter Text

The first thing you become aware of is the cold, a hailstorm breaks out across a great expanse of snow and you can feel the sting of the ice pelting you as you walk.

A conscious part of your brain tries to snap itself awake, you’ve been here more than enough times for one life. Something always pins you to this place though, as it always does, you know exactly what awaits you up ahead and although you can’t change anything you can’t leave it.

Feet carry you along the painful terrain, you have no shoes and stones cut the soles of your feet with every step. It’s a favourite trick of theirs but you can’t let it slow you down. Skip past all the bubbles and you’ll allow yourself the one at the very end your mind tries to compromise hating the way it feels and what it sees.

Any hope of compromise flees when you near the first bubble to feel the yellow glow and the warmth, a bubble full of light and warmth and happiness.

“What is this place?” A voice calls out in question, freezing you in place more effectively than any trick of theirs ever has. She can’t be here, she can’t see this.

“How are you here?” You ask, your voice shaking as it escapes you. From the corner of your eye, you see swirls of snow being taken from a snowbank, slowly but surely taking the shape of paper Marinette. Blank faces, of pure stone-cold white. One leg large the other small, and stretched out like a failed attempt at splits. Slowly but surely it staggers towards you. For now, it’s easy to step back and away but it will get you, it always does and behind it you see two more of them taking shape.

“I’m not sure, I was in the common room and then I suddenly got very, very, sleepy,” Fleur says, rounding a corner, “What is this place?”

“I - it’s -” You start, stuttering, unable to find the right words as Fleur suddenly strides towards the bubble of light and warmth.

“Let’s talk in here, it’s warmer,” Fleur says, grabbing your hand and pulling you in.

Once inside, your brain takes over and you yank Fleur down beside you and shove a hand over her mouth. A muffled shriek of protest sounds, but you place a finger to your lips before peering around the huge Holly bush blocking your view.

A small boy, five years old, with messy hair, silvery-blonde that slipped just beyond the curve of his neck stares down at a small strawberry bush disappointedly.

“It’s dead,” He sighs, catching the attention of a small two-year-old, his sister. Toddling over, she reaches out to the bush trying to make her brother happy as the spark leaps from her hand strong enough that huge, gorgeous, strawberries spring to life on the plant.

From this angle, you can’t see it, you can’t see the moment her eyes go cold and void of emotion. Her brother reaches out, pulling her into a hug. He’s happy, jumping up and down with excitement, enough to shake her from her head and soon she too is jumping.

“We fixed the bush! We fixed the bush!” The duo chant, the girl’s more excited and happy then she’s ever been, the surge of double emotions taking over. Two flares of happiness instead of just the regular one.

“Let’s tell mum and dad!” The boy suggests, and the two disappear inside the house. Shouting already seems to shake the foundations, so when the two run inside accusations of lying and attention-seeking get transferred onto them until they suddenly become another topic to argue over.

Outside, the strawberry plant shrivels up and dies. Nothing ever grows in that patch again, the girls fear is too great.

Grey fades across the horizons, stealing the colours. You know you have to move before the emptiness gets too close, Fleur’s face is full of questions but you don’t have the time to answer them, instead, you grab her hand leading her out into the cold, bitter, winds.

The sounds of the quickly approaching marionettes drive you forward, your feet starting to quicken their pace until your running. You don’t want it, not the emptiness, not right now. The next bubble shows up, radiating the same energy as the previous but not one that will last for long. You yank Fleur through, slamming her up against a tree and peering around it to see the same little girl from earlier.

She’s older now, five maybe? Magic courses through her body as she sits, fiddling with a flower making it grow and shrink for her amusem*nt. Her brother had encouraged experimentation when away from their parents, slowly but surely she’d grown stronger, learned more and felt more. It interested her, but most of all it seemed natural.

Now the girl, who meant no harm was being snuck up on by a blonde-haired girl with a shrill voice.

“What are you doing?” The shrill-voiced girl asked and a tremor ran through you. Fleur’s hand grips yours tightly, trying to offer reassurance.

“Playing,” The girl answers, displaying the growing and shrinking flower.

“That’s weird,” The shrill girl states, eyes full of anger.

“It’s not,” The girl answered, distressed by the notion.

“It is! You’re a freak!” The girl said, a grin on her face as she realised the word.

“I’m not!” The girl protests.

“FREAK! FREAK! FREAK!” The girl chants. Spark of anger, sadness and fear explode from the girl sending the other flying away from her where she lands unharmed but shocked and angry. The blonde girl stands and runs towards the school building to tell anyone who’ll listen what the freak did.

Empty light floods the child’s eyes. Hands reach out to try to make the flower grow, but there’s no joy. It won’t work. The child has been broken.

Or at least, at that moment she thinks she is but as always her brother only has to hug her when he gets home that night and she’s full of emotions once again.

“Who is she?” Fleur breaths in your ear.

“Me. These are all memories,” You answer sadly.

“Why are we here?” Fleur asks.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m fighting,” You answer. No has ever joined you in this before.

“Fighting what?” Fleur asks, just as you finally notice the sky has gone grey. Small flecks of snow start to fall, the chill racking your bones with horror as snow marionettes climb through the bubble.

“THEM. RUN!” You yell, grabbing Fleur’s hand and racing towards the edge of the field. Your only hope is that you could lead them away from the bubble so you could leave.

“INCENDIO!” Fleur bellows, sending the first Marietta to water.

“Stop!” You yell. A second spell is fired from Fleur, crumpling the second Marietta into water. Fleur sends one more spell, watching as the third Marietta melts away.

“That worked, see?” Fleur asks, and you shake your head.

Six Marietta spring to life, proportions more accurate, footsteps quicker and all intently trained towards you.

Shuffle, thunk, shuffle, thunk, shuffle, thunk.

Their footsteps echo in your head louder than your heartbeat

Chapter 30: Stay Away

Chapter Text

“Run!” You yell, grabbing a hold of Fleur’s hand and yanking her around them.

Marionetta number one barely reaches you, darting around it you hurl straight towards the second. You slide to the side, kicking up a shower of mud curving around only to be blocked by the third. No time to stop, a burst of light escapes you and it drops to the floor reassembling quickly. Your footsteps pound against the ground, almost a loud as the heartbeat that has started up in your ears. Not the emptiness. Not this.

Adrenaline shrieks through you, as you roll between the fourth and fifth. Almost there, you promise yourself as your breath comes in loud strained pants. A marionette leaps from the side and a scream escapes you, before changing to a roar.

Magic sizzles through you, but it dodges away, moving too quick. It's better, stronger, ready for your attacks and full of anticipation as the great puppet master swirls its strings. Your magic throws itself out like a bubble, invisible and the Mariette closes in only to fade away the second it makes an impact.

The puppet master isn't the only one capable of learning new tricks.

"Where are we?" Fleur asks again as you hurtle towards the exit.

"Inside the battlefield of my subconscious and conscious," You answer diligently. Before stepping out into the storm.

Outside, the storm is getting harder, thicker. Wind howls, the snowbanks are shifting, itching to pull out one more. The terrain is even more dangerous, now that the master puppeteer has remembered how to change it all.

The more you fight the more it adapts. It's better to be a wandering passer-by than to actively fight against yourself or else new tricks will develop faster and faster. No, it's better the puppet master slumbers.

You race to where the third bubble typically is, only to find it’s missing. Clever, very clever. A much better trick but not good enough, quickly you find the edges of the snow blanket yanking it away to reveal the bubble still firmly in place, pulsating with fear.

You pull Fleur through, you don’t hide here, instead, you crouch down and take spot amongst a crowd of oblivious children. In the centre, your younger version is penned in, with a boy who resembled a rat with dark hair. Luke used to be able to stop this, but he’s at high school now too far away to know it’s happening or to help. It’s OK, your eyes are blank, you can't find any way to care anymore.

You’re younger self has discovered the art of shielding to make it through the days of being called a freak, taunted, spat at, hated. Of course, not everyone does it but it’s safer to act like you hate the freak than become a target for standing up for someone who won't even acknowledge you.

The first punch comes quickly, making an impact with your younger selfs face. Fleur flinches, her arms sliding around you and pulling her tight against her as she stares with a transfixed misery at your younger self.

Blood drips from the girl's nose, it must be a favourite target considering how often the boy goes for it. Truthfully, your younger self could take the boy out with no difficulty but she hates using her magic like that. It wouldn't stop anything and besides, what's the point? The emptiness suppresses even the briefest desire to defend herself, it's already in the highest mode of defence. She doesn't feel anything anymore.

There’s no reaction from the girl, and so the boy hits her harder, smacking the side of her head like she's a punch-bag in a gym. Over and over he hits her until she finally falls and then he chooses to kick her until she’s covered in bruises and spitting blood.

“That’s enough!” A voice yells, and the kids disperse. No one will rat out the boy responsible today and you won't say anything, no one knows how to ask and you don't care enough to talk to anyone but Luke. Coldness is in your every move. You are a frozen box.

You stand and make your way inside toward the office where they are all too used to treating your many injuries. It’s been so long since it started they don’t even bother to try to converse just speak about you as though you didn’t exist.

The medic steps away, finally, and your younger self stands and walks down the empty corridor. Somethings different though. Something is waiting, or someone. You've never seen them again after this day but you're still looking around when the girl speaks.

“Are you my angel?” She asks, turning around and locking her eyes onto the air. You remember how there’d always been a beautiful stranger observing you, eyes full of pain. You weren’t sure if you’d simply taken too many hits that day, but now you realised something.

You were addressing Fleur.

“I-” Fleur stutters, surprised.

“It’s OK, I can see you. I’m not scared,” Your younger self promises.

“Are you OK?” Fleur asks, eying the wounds carefully. The emptiness in your eyes is gone, but you don't seem to be feeling anything like you normally would.

“It’s fine. Happens all the time. I have to ask, have you come to take me away?” Your younger self asks.

“No. I can’t take you with me, yet,” Fleur says apologetically.

“I understand. Will it be over soon?” You ask instead.

“Yes,” Fleur promises.

“Thank you, angel,” Your younger self says and then she turns on her heel walking away as skies grey.

“I thought we were in your memories,” Fleur says and you blink at her dazed.

“We are,” You say surprised, “How did you know what to say?”

“I didn’t…” Fleur says and you both stare at each other stunned by the revelation. This wasn’t just a memory, this was a portal.

“I’m dreaming,” Fleur says, trying to deny what just happened.

“We both are,” You remind her.

A hand wraps around your arm, ice-cold races up you. The thudding heart in your head stops. The block is thrown into place. Turning your head you see a Marietta upon you. The shield is thrown up as white snow spreads through your skin freezing everything inside you.

“What's happening?" Fleur asks.

"I lost," You answer, Fleur's hand falls onto your arm and you feel warmth and cold both fighting over who got to keep you. Unfamiliar sensations take over, jolts as your mind wandered side to side.

"You can't have her," Fleur tells the Marinattie. It looks at her blankly, tilting its head as if listening.

"You can't have her!" Fleur repeats anger in her tone and the Marinette staggers back suddenly, letting go. Fleur pushes you behind her, angling herself in front of you.

"She's mine," Fleur tells it and then light washes over everything.

Sun streams in through a window and the Marinattie is taken away with it. Fleur watches it melt away and then she turns to you.

"I'm sorry, you're not mine. I shouldn't have claimed-" Fleur starts but you press your lips to hers and feel her join you.

Sweet, intoxicating smells find you. Lips move in unison, sending light tingly feelings through you. Stars burst along your eyelids but you suddenly pull back, wanting desperately to kiss her but too terrified to.

"I can't do this. It won't change anything," You say quietly.

"No," Fleur disagrees, "I'm done with this,"

"Say what you mean," You beg.

"My parents wrote to me after you fell, congratulating me on my dedication to the family. As if! No, I want you safe and I will protect you from them regardless of anything else. I don't want to give this up, staying away does nothing because you keep coming back, even when I fall asleep! I'm done. Please, believe me, it's time I stayed," Fleur says, fiercely.

You look into her eyes, not entirely trusting her but see nothing but sincerity there. You don't entirely believe her, but you pull her back towards you, kissing her fiercely as the light grows.

Then you feel the stern metal of the hospital bed beneath you and you know that it's time to wake up.

Chapter 31: Mistake!

Chapter Text

A stream of expletives forces you to open your eyes, Millie paces around your bed wildly gesturing about her clutching the paper in her fist tightly. You recognise it immediately as the article, someone’s hand was holding yours, following it up soon you see Luke’s face awash with sadness. Behind him, you can see Ant and Jake arguing with each other.

“What happened?” You ask, surprised by your friend's distress.

“Nothing. Drink,” Millie says, pushing a cup of water into your hand.

“You can’t stop me asking that easily, what’s up?” You ask and Millie’s eyes widen slightly.

“Hermione’s cat’s dead,” Millie told you.

“That’s horrible! Can we help? Damn, she needs a hug… Luke, go hug her!” You insist.

“Hermione’s cat’s alive. I just… we thought you were shielding again and we got concerned. How aren’t you?” Luke asks, a strange hope on his face.

“I fought it off,” You answer lamely, not quite sure how to explain that somehow you pulled Fleur into a dream and she helped rescue you. Luke looks at you, expecting more but you can’t answer so instead you choose a different tactic, “Fleur didn’t push me,”

“She didn’t?” Millie asks, a guilty look on her face.

“No, I fell, Fleur was just there at the time,” You answer, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t want anything traced back to me… but I might have encouraged people to play some… tricks… on her. Katie managed to take her homework, Cedric keeps getting Hufflepuffs to lead her down wrong turns on the pretext of short-cuts and Cho managed to block her access to the Ravenclaw tower when she’s on her own,” Millie lists.

You sit still for a moment, a mixture of gratitude towards your friends care and concern for what Fleur has been going through burning inside your chest.

“It must end now,” You tell her simply and Millie nods.

“I know. I’ll fix it,” Millie promises and you let out a small sigh.

“I love you, even if your actions are sometimes incredibly misguided,” You tell her and she smiles.

“Love you too,” Millie agrees, ruffling your hair slightly, “Now… how do you feel about leaving this place?”

“Getting out of the hospital wing? Sounds wonderful, I half thought I’d never leave,” You say with a small smile.

Whispered voices reach your ears, eyes follow as you pass in the halls. Your friends tried to form a barrier of hostile faces to force them to look away but you’d refused to allow them, the whispers and the stares didn’t bother you and you needed to see Fleur. Preferably on her own.

It’s two hours until dinner before you finally manage to reach Fleur. Her eyes scan the hall, and then she leans in to press a kiss to your cheek.

“I was truly not dreaming then?” Fleur asks and you smile.

“No, you were dreaming, but we were dreaming together,” You tell her, “I’m not entirely sure how you managed it but you saved me,”

“I’m glad I did. Trying to protect you doesn’t seem to work when I’m the one I’m trying to protect you from,” Fleur sighs.

“Glad you’ve given up,” You tell her, taking her hand. She smiles slightly.

“Can we go somewhere… nicer?” Fleur asks, the corridor was deserted but it wouldn’t be for long you could already feel another presence.

“Of course,” You say with a smile, “Does your sister want to come too?”

“My sister?” Fleur asks as you turn to the closet door.

“Good morning Gabriel,” You greeted, “Been there long?”

“How did you find me?” Gabrielle asks, bemused as she pulls open the door.

“Magic,” You tell her with a smile.

“Which spell?” Fleur asks.

“No spell, just magic,” You answer, “Shall we?”

An hour later, you’re all at the top of the Astronomy Tower. Fleur watches intrigued although seeming to try and hide it as she reads her book as you show Gabriel tactics and increase her ability at chess, a soft smile plays over her face that you pretend to be unaware of.

“You’re much better than me,” Gabriel told you and you shrugged.

“I’ve had more practice,” You pointed out.

“Fleur will beat you,” Gabriel says, shuffling out of the way and staring at Fleur expectantly.

“Come on then, let’s see,” You excitedly say.

Fleur smiles, setting down her book before engaging you in battle.

Chapter 32: A plan, a rescue and a princess

Chapter Text

With a small grin, you settle across from your friends where they are arguing over something, Fleur and Gabriel had been behind you but had yet to arrive. You pile a slice of pie onto your dinner plate and then listen in on the conversation.

“If we got the password then-” Jake starts but Millie stops him as the first bite of savoury goodness enters your mouth.

“How are we getting the password?” Millie asks, and Jake frowns.

“We get ourselves sent to the Headmasters office,” Jake offers, “Maybe a fight?”

“Jake… our heads of houses deal with fights, not the headmaster,” Millie points out.

“What about reconnaissance? We wait until someone uses the headmaster's office, and we listen for the password then. It shouldn’t be too hard if we use disillusionment charms,” Ant suggests.

“Ok, so we have the password, we enter the headmaster's office and what? Just shave him?” Millie asks and you snicker slightly in amusem*nt. Your friends look at you, and you try to disguise it as a cough.

“We could cast a paralysis spell and then he’d be stuck in place until we’d shaved him. If we got him before he opened his eyes then he’d have no idea who-” Jake starts but you laugh again in amusem*nt.

“What?” Millie asks and you know the cats out of the bag.

“Professor Dumbledore’s beard has properties somewhere between the ageing line used for the tournament and a permanent sticking charm,” You tell them, “If you shaved him you’d end up with your own beards and the man would still be as bearded as ever,”

Jake and Ant both glance at each other contemplatively until Millie push them slightly and they wisely accept that it’s perhaps not the best plan. With a small chuckle, you get the last bite before turning to look back down the bench searching for Fleur and her sister. Nothing.

“What’s wrong?” Millie asks.

“Nothing,” You lied, not entirely sure how to explain everything.

“OK. You don’t get to keep secrets from us, explain what’s wrong and we’ll always try our best to help you. You know that,” Millie says and you sigh internally.

“OK, so… I was hanging out with Fleur and her sister before dinner and it’s probably nothing but they aren’t here,” You explain and your friends look around the hall confirming that what you said's true.

“Do you think they’re OK, or do you think something’s wrong?” Ant asks and you bite your lip thinking.

“Something’s wrong,” You answer finally, your friends exchange glances and then they get to their feet.

“I’ll alert Hermione, Katie and see if I can get Angelina to help,” Jake says, smiling when he mentions his platonic soulmate.

“I’ll get Cedric and Cho,” Ant volunteers, and Millie nods.

“OK, we’ll start looking,” Millie says, looking at you for final approval of the plan.

“Let’s go,” You agree, you throw your magic as far as you can in each direction but you can’t sense Fleur or Gabriel’s presence. You pull your magic back in, sensing that you’ll need to conserve your magic.

“Anything?” Millie asks, your footsteps have sped up and now you’re both running through the halls.

“They’re out of range. I can’t find them,” You tell her.

“Y/N, you don’t think that… well what if someone’s trying to get payback after the article?” Millie asks and your eyes widen with horror at the realisation.

“TO THE CLOCKTOWER!” You yell, a piece of parchment rests on the ground and you construct a message before sending it off towards Ant and Jake. Your footsteps speed up, running even faster as desperation fuels you. Sounds of fighting reach you as you round the corner to find Fleur facing off against a dozen students who you vaguely recognise, while Gabriel cowers behind her. The spells are numerous, forcing Fleur to retreat closer and closer to the edge.

Millie curses, pulling her wand from her holster as you seize an opportunity to stun one of the students. The brown-haired boy you recognise as one of the Ravenclaw chasers topples over, smacking into a blonde girl next to him sending the violent red spell racing towards you. Your magic responds instinctively, forming a shield around you that removes the energy from the spell giving Millie enough time to throw a spell back at the girl.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” You demand to know.

“She needs to be taught that she can’t just attack one of us,” A red-haired girl sporting Hufflepuff colours growls.

“I am that student and I fell!” You tell her.

“Memories can be misleading,” The Hufflepuff replies.

“I don’t think they’re listening,” Fleur yells, forcing up a shield when the students try to take advantage of her lapse in concentration. You step beside her, using anger to fuel yourself as spellfire lights up the top of the tower, you force a shield up around you as Fleur and Millie control the offensive.

Your opponents aren’t stupid though, you see four controlling similar-sized shields and know that your spells are entirely ineffective. It was just a matter of who’s shield would break first and you didn’t have a lot of faith.

Shouts from below reach your ears, louder than the sounds of the fight taking place around you.

“Gabriel, I need you to do something for me,” You tell the girl in French. She doesn’t say anything, but her pale face looks at you attentively.

“Look over the ledge, I need you to describe who’s below us,” You order her.

“The two girls from the second task, the Hogwarts Champion and twins,” Gabriel delivers.

“When I say jump, jump off the Clock-tower,” You say clearly.

“You can’t be serious,” Fleur says, disbelieving.

“Merlin, you are serious!” Millie exclaims, knowing you better.

“Jake and Ant are down below, we’ll probably be fine,” You tell the exhausted duo.

“Y/N, NO!” Millie yells.

“Mon dieu!” Fleur curses.

“JUMP!” You yelled, turning around and grabbing Gabriel before running towards the edge. The sound of curses behind you greet your ears, and then Millie’s running behind you.

“Fleur! Trust me!” You yell, leaping from the edge while simultaneously casting a slow fall spell on you and Millie, Gabriel still tightly clutched to your chest. Shouts from below greet you and then your friends lift their wands and you feel yourself moving even slower.

“FLEUR!” You yell and finally sense the girl leaping from the ledge.

When you hit the ground, your forced to tip back and forth like a rocking horse to regain your balance but you manage to stay on your feet.

“You OK?” You ask Gabriel, who’d gone as pale as a ghost. The girl nods, clinging to you tightly. You hold her to you, anger rolling off you at the idea that someone would even consider hurting her.

“Everyone OK?” Cedric asks, pulling you into a hug as a sigh of relief escapes him.

“I’m OK,” Millie agrees, “Fleur?”

“I’m OK. Thank you,” Fleur enunciates, but her face says she is anything but OK, “Where is Gabby?”

“She’s here,” You reassure her, turning to show her the girl still clutching tightly to you. Fleur grabs hold of you, her arm snaking around your waist as she pulls the both of you close, you can feel her shaking but know that she’d never let herself cry in front of her sister.

“Are you hungry Gabriel?” You ask and the younger girl nods.

“I can take her,” Cedric volunteers.

“You speak French?” You ask surprised.

“A little. I don’t think I can hold a conversation but I can understand a little bit,” Cedric tells you.

“Would that be OK with you?” You ask Fleur and she nods, “OK, you’re going to have to let go then,”

Reluctantly, she lets go.

“My friend is going to take you to get some food. He’s nice,” You promise Gabriel and she nods before moving over to him and taking his hand.

“Return her in one piece or I will kill you,” Fleur threatens, but Cedric doesn’t seem concerned by the threat already attempting to converse in broken French with Gabriel. His pronunciation is truly reprehensible but at least Gabriel seems to be relaxing a little more, your friends follow after him after one final look at you seeming to sense it might be a good idea to give you a little space.

You pull Fleur back against your chest, feeling her shaking.

“They would’ ve-” Fleur sobs, now that the adrenaline is fading the anguish attacks her.

“You’re OK, you’re both OK,” You promise, rubbing circles into her back.

“Because you came. If you hadn’t-” Fleur cries, you can feel the tears falling onto your cloak.

“But I did, and they won’t get away with this,” You promise her if the professors failed you then you knew for sure that your friends would be more than willing to reign havoc onto the offending parties.

“You don’t get it. They weren’t the only ones and they went after me and Gabriel!” Fleur shrieks, “I couldn’t protect us,”

You cling to her tighter, fighting back your own emotions to try to be stable for Fleur. You don’t know what to say, you want to tell her that you’ll protect her but the empty layer would offer no comfort to her. Instead, you held her tightly, until, at last exhausted, she pulled back her stomach rumbling.

“I don’t know how to help you right now, but I can get you food,” You tell her.

“Then let’s get it,” Fleur agrees, taking your hand and holding it tightly in hers.

When you eventually arrive in the kitchen, you see Cedric and Gabriel spooning pink, glittery, buttercream onto fairy cakes both sporting identical glittery pink tiaras smiles adorning both of their faces.

“You both look fabulous,” You say to Cedric and he grins.

“Thank you very much, I feel like a princess,” Cedric tells you.

“Can we help?” You ask and Gabriel nods excitedly.

Chapter 33: A solution?

Chapter Text

“What’s this?” Fleur asks as you hand identical necklaces to her and Gabriel. You’re sat by the lake with Cedric, Fleur and Gabrielle- Katie had plans, Hermione was with her friends, Jake was getting to know Angelina better and Millie, Ant and Cho were planning exactly how to get revenge for what the students had tried to do to Fleur and Gabriel.

“It’s a pendant that will let me know where the two of you are if you touch the diamond. If you run into trouble, I can come help. It’s not much, I know but it’s the best I can do right now,” You offer and Fleur pulls you into her arms.

“Thank you,” Fleur breaths into your ear.

“Anytime. Oh! And I didn’t even tell you the best bit! It has a shield,” You tell her ecstatically.

“Does Cedric have one?” Gabriel asks, she’s sat in the middle of you, Fleur and Cedric. Since you found them making cupcakes in the kitchens, Cedric and Gabriel have become fast friends - almost inseparable - with Cedric even asking you to help him learn French during tutoring. He was steadily improving, motivated by the prospect of being able to say more to his new friend, who he treated like the little sister he never had.

“Right here,” Cedric says, holding up his pendant, that was hung around his neck, “We can all help each other,”

“Cedric helped me design and make them, I couldn’t have done it without him,” You tell your friends and Gabriel smiles at him.

“Wow! You must be really smart!” Gabriel grins.

“Thank you,” Cedric says, “But I didn’t do much,”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Gabriel chides lightly.

“Alright, alright,” Cedric concedes, “I’m soo wonderful, better?”

“Much,” Gabriel agrees, something you loved about their friendship is that Gabriel forced Cedric to be better at accepting compliments and challenged what Cedric’s dad had told him.

“Cedric, can we go climbing?” Gabriel asks, gesturing towards the outskirts of the forest. While slightly dangerous, if they stayed to the outskirts they would probably be fine.

“It’s fine by me,” Fleur says, “Just be careful,”

“We will be,” Cedric promises, before allowing Gabriel to climb onto her customary position on his back.

“Something on your mind?” You ask Fleur quietly, as she cuddles up closer to you.

“I don’t know how to stop them. I know you’re protecting me but the fact is that they’ll still be attacking,” Fleur whispers.

“How long has it been happening?” You ask, holding her tightly to you.

“Since you got into the hospital wing! People look at me and Gabriel as though we’re monsters and they attacked us! How the hell do we make this stop?” Fleur asks, her whole body shaking. You hold her tightly to you wrapping around her.

You're not sure how long you stay, holding each other together until a voice forces you apart.

“You two, with me,” Millie calls out, and the two of you clamber to your feet, her voice demanding absolute obedience in a way that would leave even those with the strongest wills finding it hard not to do as she says.

“Where are you taking us?” Fleur asks.

“To the Owlery,” Millie answers, marching ahead and not slowing her pace in the slightest, forcing you and Fleur to speed up.

“Why?” You ask, trying not to feel the slight stitch in your side.

“Because you are going to send a letter, of course,” Millie says with a spectacularly wicked grin before her extreme pace becomes too much. Fleur and you give each other a look of frustration as you force your footsteps to become even quicker. When you finally reach the top of the Owlery you see Millie leaned against a wall and looking like she’s been waiting for ages even though you know she hasn’t.

“Shut up,” You groan, pushing her shoulder.

“I didn’t say anything,” Millie smirks.

“You were thinking it,” You accuse and Millie grins.

“Well duh,” Millie agrees.

“What’s this letter?” Fleur asks and you recall that there was a reason you were here.

“You’re going to offer Rita Skeeter an exclusive interview. Pretend you’re going to give her juicy details and use the interview to clear your name,” Millie explains.

“No,” Fleur says flatly refusing.

“Why?” Millie asks.

“She’ll spin anything we say,” Fleur answers.

“You can introduce another narrative at least, it may lessen it. It’s worth a try at least, or you could tell her what your parents did. All Rita wants is a story,” Millie points out.

“NO!” You yell, “We’re not telling anyone what her parents did,”

An arm wraps around you, keeping you in place as sick jolts race through you, tears stinging your eyes as you try not to feel the pulsating fear.

“OK! OK! You’re OK, don’t say anything about them then but just try the story,” Millie says, you realise Fleur’s hugging you.

“We’ll think about it,” Fleur replies, before leading you out of the owlery. Her arm wraps around you, keeping you breathing and focused, “You’re OK. They aren’t here,”

“Stay! Please, stay,” You beg.

“I will, I always will. Just breath,” Fleur reassures. You rest her head into the crook of her neck feeling the familiar fear fading as you match your breathing to hers.

In, out, in, out, all OK. It’s Ok.

“Better?” Fleur whispers and you nod.

Chapter 34: Interview

Chapter Text

The room was dark, cold and a wicked draft seemed to blow through the window. Fleur wrapped an arm around you, casting another warming charm when she noticed your shivering. Fleur was angry at Rita but you felt mostly the fear of trying to talk, the possibility of her finding a way to find out about what Fleur’s parents did. Fleur’s parents were dangerous, that was something that had solidified itself inside your mind since Fleur first got taken away.

Fleur and you kept a tight hold on each other, her to comfort you and you subconsciously ensure she wouldn’t disappear. The door’s shoved open, a glow of sunlight creeps in, and a face you were growing to hate appeared in the doorframe. Despite never actually having met her, you recognised her face instantly.

How did you let Millie talk you into this? You regret it already, and a desperate desire to run strikes you but before you can the woman slams the door closed and you’re stuck inside the room with the unnaturally wide smiled woman.

Everything about her was unnatural, not to be trusted, terrifyingly.

“Good morning ladies!” The shrill piercing voice said. Theoretically, you knew she was just doing her job, that you asked her to come but it didn’t make her being here any easier.

“Hello,” Fleur greeted, her voice icy but still courteous while you stayed silently entwined around her no sense of shame or embarrassment inside your soul. There’s a pause like they’re expecting you to talk but you can’t, so Fleur forces Rita’s attention away from you, “Shall we start the interview?”

“I like to wait until my interviewees are comfortable before trying to ask questions, I tend to find that the more comfortable you are the better the responses I get are,” Rita explains.

“I’m perfectly comfortable,” Fleur answers shortly.

“Your… soulmate isn’t,” Rita comments, purposefully leaving a gap just long enough to feel like an insult but short enough that she could pretend it wasn’t.

“We can start,” You answer, and Rita seems to realise she’s outvoted and seems to be ready to begin the interview.

“I can see you both seem very close right now, may I inquire into the nature of your relationship?” Rita Skeeter asks.

“We’re together,” Fleur answers.

“I see… Who asked who?” Rita questions.

“It was mutual,” Fleur responds.

“No juicy details?” Rita presses, “Maybe from miss Y/L/N?”

“It was like a dream,” You answer, smirking at the inside joke.

“Oh? Have you kissed yet? What’s the farthest you’ve gone? How does Fleur’s sister find you?” Rita asks, a wider grin on her face.

“Um… yes we’ve kissed, we’ve only kissed - not ready to do any more than that - and I think I get on well with Gabriel. I’m fond of her, she seems really intelligent and very kind,” You answer, blushing slightly, while Fleur smiles.

“Oh, she is,” Fleur agrees, pride for her sister evident in her tone.

“How sweet,” Rita smiles, “Now then, why don’t we talk through your story? From the beginning? When did you two first meet?”

“Just before Hogwarts started. You see, I was considering attending Hogwarts for tuition and so I intended the induction week to test the waters but ultimately I decided I’d prefer to attend Beauxbatons like my parents,” Fleur answers, a lie but a necessary one since you need to keep her parents away from it.

“I still remember it, I was standing against the edge of the Great Hall panicking and she approached me. Without even knowing who I was she approached me, calming me and the conversation just felt so natural. In under a minute she had me almost completely at ease,” You reply with genuine affection in your voice as you recall the memory.

“Aww, how sweet,” Rita smiles.

“So, after Fleur moved away, did you two stay in touch?” Rita asks.

“Sadly no, we couldn’t convince owls to fly far enough,” Fleur answers smoothly.

“What was it like when you first saw each other again? Why did you punch her, Fleur?” Rita asks.

“I didn’t recognise her, and when I did I was too embarrassed to admit it,” Fleur lies.

“I see. What about the second task, what made you think that Fleur wouldn’t rescue you and Fleur would you have?” Rita asks.

“Of course I would have!” Fleur scoffs.

“Our first impression wasn’t the best,” You answer, uncomfortably.

“Final questions then, and the one we’ve all been waiting for. What happened at the top of the owlery and what did Fleur’s parents do?” Rita asks.

“I fell off the owlery. Fleur’s parents had nothing to do with it. I was sneaking up there for some alone time with Fleur and I was stupidly trying to impress her but ended up falling off the edge,” You lie.

“I see, very thought-provoking. Very well, I think we can end this here,” Rita concludes, “Thank you for allowing this, it’s been very insightful. Here’s your ten-gallon fee,”

“Fee?” You ask.

“Yes… you bartered for it remember?” Rita answers bemused, handing over a small black leather bag.

“Oh… right,” You answer, knowing full well Millie arranged this whole thing.

“Very well, have a good day,” Rita smiles, but you can’t get a read on her well enough to pick up on the hints of what will happen next before she leaves.

You and Fleur sit for a while mulling everything over.

“These gallons, they’re technically ours right?” Fleur asks, and you nod slightly, “Then let me take you out on a date, someplace really special, next weekend is a Hogsmead weekend right?”

“I think so?” You ask.

“Then let’s do it, we still haven’t had a proper date yet,” Fleur points out, “I want to do this,”

“Then… let’s do it,” You agree, pressing a kiss to Fleur’s cheek, your stomach feeling just a little lighter.

Chapter 35: The Article

Chapter Text

The sound of cursing reaches your ears, loud and distinctive, the sounds of spells being fired along with shouts of encouragement reach you. Swinging open the door, you discover Fleur attacking Millie with a furious fervour. You move to stop them, but a hand wraps around your wrist forcing you to stay in place.

“Millie’s letting her take out her tensions, just leave them too it, Millie’s shields still strong,” Ant asserts.

“What - ?” You start to ask, but Jake cuts you off, appearing on your other side with something in your hand.

“Rita’s new article… absolute trash,” Jake answers, pushing the paper into your hand. With a frown, you glance down at the article in your hand.

The puppet master and her puppet.
Is Y/N Y/L/N under the control of Fleur Delacour?

My footsteps seemed to echo on the stone floor, the sounds getting louder and louder in my head as the sickening feeling threatens to overtake me. Why dear Reader? I’ll tell you, why. I’m coming back from the offer of an exclusive interview and the things that I have seen have shaken me to the very core.

To recap: Fleur Delacour, Triwizard tournament challenger, has had a whole new side of her exposed by yours truly. The appearance of her soulmate in my recent articles has shown that things are very far from OK. I last left you with Y/N Y/L/N in the hospital wing, with Fleur Delacour suspected of putting her there, so when I got the chance of an exclusive interview with them and of course I had to take it.

So, what’s left me so rattled? Perhaps it is that for every question that Miss Y/L/N answered with a seeming loving devotion, Delacour seemed to remain cold throughout. Worse, almost every answer from Y/L/N seemed forced while Delacour seemed to lie at every opportunity.

When asked what happened at the top of the tower, Y/L/N told me that she fell trying to impress Delacour. Do we believe that? Not even slightly.

So let’s speculate, let’s try to work out how poor Y/L/N fell under Delacour’s control, I believe it’s a combination of a genuine feeling of love from Y/L/N and a mixture of intimidation and fear. Perhaps, even, Delacour has lied about how she feels for miss Y/L/N.

What can we do? I don’t know, but I suspect that if Y/L/N is truly under Delacour’s control then we must avoid off-setting the Delacour’s rage. For now, I will leave them but if Miss Y/L/N ever comes to me then I shall try my best to assist.

Please, if you know Y/L/N then try to talk some sense into her.

As the nightmare continues, I must pray for the best.

This is Rita Skeeter, gravely, signing off.

You stare at the words in disbelief, and then hysterical laughter escapes you getting louder and louder, forcing every eye on to you. Ant glares at them, driving the eyes away. Jake wraps an arm around you.

“It’ll be OK,” Jake promises.

“Yeah, if anything, no one’s going to dare try to hurt Fleur,” Ant points out.

The intoxicating smell of cinnamon surrounds you as soft, smooth arms wrap around you. For a moment everything seems far away as you rest your head on the crook between Fleur’s shoulder and neck.

“Are you OK?” You ask, slight guilt filling you. The article was far harsher on Fleur than it was on you.

“I’m… angry and frustrated. I feel like I could cry from anger and yet I can’t bring myself to do so in front of all these people, your friend has let me take it out on her shield. It’s almost as effective,” Fleur answers you, and you’re grateful for her honesty, “What about you?”

“I want to punch Skeeter. I get why she does it, she needs a story, but what she’s accusing you of… and you’re nothing like your parents… I hate it,” You admit and Fleur pulls you tighter.

“We’ll get through it. I have faith in us if nothing else,” Fleur whispers and her words bring you more comfort than you expected.

“I know. We will, we’ve waited too long to let anything stop us now,” You agree pulling back slightly. Fleur rests her forehead against yours and there’s a certain comfort to the contact.

A voice shatters your brief moment of peace.

“That won’t fool anyone Delacour! And Y/L/N I thought you’d be smart enough to-” A fifth-year you faintly recall helping with his studies starts to say before a fierce stinging spell gets fired from somewhere in Millie’s general direction.

“Let’s leave,” Fleur whispers in your ear, you can sense her desperation to avoid confrontation almost as strongly as you feel your own burning.

“We can handle this,” Jake promises, “It’s OK,”

You take Fleur’s hand, leading out into the hallway, hearing the faint clunk as the stone wall slid back into place. A cold chill reaches you and you shiver slightly, Fleur drapes her robes around your shoulders, wrapping it tightly around you.

“You don’t have to-” You start but Fleur interrupts.

“I want to. I wanted to see how you looked in my robes and you were cold. It’s a win-win situation,” Fleur tells you.

“Oh… how do I look?” You ask a slight lightness starting in your chest.

“A mixture of adorable and beautiful,” Fleur smiles, her voice quieter.

“Sweet talker,” You tease lightly, blushing.

“It’s not sweet-talking if it’s the truth,” Fleur counters.

“I’m counting it as sweet-talking beauty queen,” You tell her. Fleur shakes her head slightly, slipping her hand into yours with a smile. The warmth and the weight of it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. You lean into Fleur’s shoulder; she presses a kiss to your forehead.

Chapter 36: A burning rose

Chapter Text

Sun streams in through the window by your bed. You groan, covering your eyes trying to escape the much to bright light. Then it hits you.

It’s the weekend! Not just any weekend - Hogsmead weekend which means, you and Fleur are going on a date.

The thought makes you bolt upright in bed, rushing to get ready. You shower quickly before getting dressed. The weekends were special because you could dress in what was comfortable and not just your uniform. You pull on a pair of jeans, a black t-shirt and a jumper. Your stomach sinks when you try to think if it's good enough to wear on a date with Fleur.

You need help, and there's only one other person you think who can help.

You race down the stairs, diving out of the common room and hurtling down the hall to the Slytherin Common Room. You catch Millie just as she’s coming out, accidentally slamming her against a wall unable to stop. Millie slams you behind her, positioning herself in front, eyes scanning the hall warily, wand in hand.

“Where’s the danger?” Millie asks and you grip her shoulder, trying to catch her breath.

“No… danger… need… help,” You gasp out. Millie turns around and hugs you until your breath returns.

“I’m going on a date with Fleur and I have no idea what to wear,” You tell her, panicking.

“In,” She orders, leading you up the stairs to her room before she turns and stares at your current outfit.

“Ok, absolutely not. You need something smarter - don’t you have some black jeans? Maybe get a blouse… It’s smart enough but also casual enough,” Millie assesses, waving her wand in the air. A few moments later the articles fly through the window and Millie hands them to you, before turning her back. You change quickly, and when she looks back again she nods once in approval.

“Perfect,” Millie nods.

You’re almost too nervous to eat breakfast in the Great Hall, but Ant forces you to eat a slice of toast while Jake starts a lecture of what not to do and what to.

“And remember if you need help, touch your necklace, I’ll be there as soon as possible,” Cedric finishes for Jake.

“Are you sure you’re OK to watch Gabby?” You ask.

“Looking forward to it, she’s fun to hang out with,” Cedric smiles.

“Ready to go?” Fleur asks, approaching your table with a small smile. Your mouth drops and you're fairly certain a lot of others do too. Somehow, Fleur looks even more beautiful than before. Light blue stud earrings adorn her ears, a silvery dress clings to her figure.

“I- yes, absolutely,” You stammer.

“Too much?” Fleur asks, nervously.

“Not at all,” You say, “You look amazing,”

Fleur smiles slightly, blushing, “You look beautiful,”

You stride into Hogsmead, exchanging stories about your life. You tell her about the time you and your friends were practising wandless magic by turning peoples hairs random colours and trying not to get noticed. No one ever worked it out, because you all liked to mess with each other a fair amount. Fleur likes to hear more than she likes to talk and you love the way she laughs, it’s deeper, her chest shaking and then a higher tinkling sound like a bell.

Fleur’s hand is a comforting weight in yours, and the softness of Fleur’s hand is so unbelievable. She must use lotion or something, there’s no way someone’s hand is naturally that soft.

“Thinking deep thoughts?” Fleur asks with a small smirk. You blush, turning your head and glancing away suddenly realising that you don’t know where you are.

“Where are we?” You ask and Fleur smiles.

“A little bit away from Hogsmead in a muggle village,” Fleur smiles, “There’s a ‘cinema’”

“Oh, what film?” You ask.

“I’m not sure, I have to admit mostly I was curious,” Fleur sighs, “I’ve never been to one,”

You smile, glancing over to the movie title and realising it’s a movie you already know. Carol. Your face goes completely crimson as Fleur pays for two tickets and a bucket of popcorn, the teenage attendant looks at you both with a smirk on his face.

“Man I love this film, maybe I could join you?” He asks.

“Thank you, but no,” Fleur says, a mixture of bemusem*nt on her face.

“Oh really? Come on, you don’t know until you’ve tried it,” He winks.

“Tired what?” Fleur asks.
“We’re declining, officially, unless you’d like us to talk to your manager I’d stop asking,” You tell him clearly and his face pales.

“Jeeze, excuse me for asking,” He mutters, and you take Fleur’s hand.

Halfway through the movie, you glance over to see Fleur’s face bright red and fidgeting in her seat. You smile, leaning closer to her and resting against her shoulder. You didn’t think it possible but her face gets even redder. You want to press a kiss to her cheek but worry that she might combust if you did.

Once the movie finishes, you lead her out into the colder air and watch as she tries to recover.

“I did not know the film would be like that,” Fleur told you and you smiled.

“Didn’t you?” You tease.

“I didn’t, I swear,” Fleur promises, flustered, “Umm… So I want to take you out to a restaurant?”

“Then let’s go, although I might need to get you some ice cream to cool you down first,” You smirk.

Fleur walks you into Hogsmead, the closer you get the nicer the smells get. A waiter leads you over to a table lit by candles that you know Fleur's reserved for you. Fleur pulls your chair out for you and you blush, taking a seat.

"So... what's good?" You ask. Fleur's just about to answer, an ethereal glow from the candles lighting up her skin.

“Fleur!” A voice calls, and you watch as she tenses up, her eyes widening with a look of horror. Fleur stands, her back to you like she's trying to shield you from view.

Chapter 37: Meet the family!

Chapter Text

“Fleur! How good it is to see you!” A loud, burly man calls. He looks similar to Fleur and your stomach drops until Fleur speaks.

“Uncle! I- I wasn’t expecting to see you,” Fleur says, panic in her tone that makes you instinctively drop to the floor and hide under the table, grateful for the long tablecloths.

“We came to support you, I can’t imagine what it’s like to try and touch a - mudblood - while trying to win this tournament,” Fleur’s uncle says, sympathetically.

“Yes, I’m sure you can’t,” Fleur states, just close enough to sound like an agreement but far enough away that it could not be.

“What are you doing here, anyway? On a date with someone?” Fleur’s uncle asks hopefully.

“Sadly no, I’m here alone, figured I’d grab a spot of lunch,” Fleur answers.

“Why don’t we join you?” Fleur’s uncle asks.

“I… You should enjoy your alone time,” Fleur attempts to refute and you cross your fingers hoping it works.

“Ridiculous, we came here to see you,” Fleur’s uncle answers defiantly, and you peek under the table cloth to see a pair of sparkly-red heels you assume must belong to an aunt of Fleur’s. The heels clatter on the floor, heading closer and you shift away from the edge.

Garish, sparkly-red heels slide under the table, and you shift out of the way. The next to follow are dragon-hide shoes; you have to shove your way into a corner to avoid being kicked and blowing your cover. Thankfully, Fleur positions her legs more carefully, allowing you as much space as possible and shifting her hand beneath the cloth to squeeze yours twice.

“What do you want to eat?” Fleur’s uncle asks.

“Spaghetti,” Fleur answers stiffly.

“Yes, I doubt even this establishment is capable of delivering good food, better to go with something easy,” A high-pitched voice that you assume belongs to Fleur’s aunt comments, “Speaking of which you look a little thin. Have you been eating OK? Or has the English slop been too much for you?”

“The food at Hogwarts is fine, of course, I miss home and Beauxbatons but I want to win this tournament,” Fleur answers, you don’t blame her. You love Hogwarts, it felt like home, it was the place you spent most of your time and you doubted any other place could fully compare especially since all your friends were there.

“You haven’t been doing so well, are you OK?” Fleur’s uncle asks.

“It’s… It’s hard, there’s so much to do. I’m terrified and it doesn’t help that the last task was in the water,” Fleur admits, and you feel your heartthrob a little, you hadn’t picked up on Fleur having any aversion to water but now that you think about it you can’t remember her ever swimming in the lake even on the much hotter days.

“I can imagine, especially considering that Francis-” Fleur’s uncle starts.

“Please, don’t,” Fleur begs and there’s a moment of silence as you try to work out who Francis might be.

“Is there somebody else here? You normally don’t have any problem discussing what happened,” Fleur’s uncle says, amusem*nt evident in his voice and you watch in horror as the bottom of the table-cloth starts to lift. You curse loudly inside your head, trying to cast a disillusionment charm but unable to think clearly as old memories threaten to resurface.

“NO!” Fleur yells, panicked and then more carefully, “No, of course not. I just… I don’t want to talk about Francis. My brains already cluttered with the thought of having to deal with that mudblood, I don’t want to think about Francis right now,”

“I- Of course, I understand. Has it been truly terrible?” Fleur’s aunt asks sympathetically.

No, you thought inside your head, truly terrible would be ending up married to someone with a voice that could break glass and horrible taste in heels.

“You have no idea how bad,” Fleur sighs, and you flick her shin but she ignores you, “I mean, she’s so annoying! Honestly, everybody thinks she’s so smart because she uses wandless magic instead of using her wand like a regular Wix! Plus, I just feel dirty after I touch her, she disgusts me! It’s like being forced to kiss a slug over and over!”

Harsh, you could feel your eyes burning.

“Oh, my poor dear. I would wring that Rita woman's neck if I could. What right did she have to publish that article? Who cares about a mudblood, certainly not her, but nowadays it’s all about dragging good, respectable families down to push mudbloods up. It’s ridiculous,” Fleur’s Uncle rants.

“I’ll tell you this uncle, I didn’t push her but I wish I had. One less of her kind could do nothing but good for the world. It’s so messed up that we find these thieves and just decide to give them a chance in an academy of magic? Seriously, what the hell?” Fleur asks.

“I know, I feel sorry that this cruel, twisted fate has decided to give you her. I can’t think of a single reason that the world could be this cruel,” Fleur’s aunt answers.

Right now, you couldn’t either. Did Fleur really mean what she’d just said? There had certainly been a passion in her voice that you hadn’t heard elsewhere.

“Evidently, the universe is playing some incredibly cruel joke on me,” Fleur answers.

“Oh, sweetie,” Fleur’s uncle says sympathetically.

The conversation takes a turn, and within another few minutes, dragon-hide and garish pink shoes have left the table having finished their dinner. Only you and Fleur remain. Perhaps she expects you to move above the table cloth and take a seat across from her, but you’re still, completely frozen from what you just heard.

“Y/N?” Fleur asks finally, poking her head beneath the cloth. You don’t respond, expecting her to pull her head away and prove that she meant it all along and for a second she does disappear only to reappear a few moments later with her plate of spaghetti in her hand as she slides to sit beneath the cloth with you.

“What are you doing?” You ask, curiosity getting the better of you and causing you to break the silence.

“Well, since you aren’t getting out from under the cloth I figured I would join you. I like it here, it’s like being in a fort,” Fleur mussed and for a moment you just watch her with a weary kind of disbelief. Ant, Jake and maybe even Millie, you could understand getting under a tablecloth with you and pretending they were in a fort but this was Fleur. Elegant, graceful, beautiful, Fleur and she was sat on the far from clean floor of this restaurant with you seeming completely unbothered by the state of your surroundings. Plus, somehow impossibly, you were more attracted now you knew this side of her than when you didn’t. Is this what a relationship was? Slowly but surely learning more and more things that made you love a person?

“I’m mad at you by the way,” You speak up, not sure what it is that gets you to find your voice but somehow you do. Fleur nods.

“I know, you’re right to be,” Fleur agrees, “But I promise you, I didn’t mean it, I just didn’t want them to see you,”

“So you don’t find me annoying?” You ask, sceptically.

“Only sometimes, and normally just because I miss you or you’re making me like you too much for my brain to handle,” Fleur answers.

“And my wandless magic?” You ask.

“The way I see it, we both like a challenge. For me it’s this tournament, for you, it's wandless magic, that’s something I love that we have in common, not a fault in any way,” Fleur says easily.

“Oh really? I was fairly sure you were saying something about me being a mudblood and how touching me makes you feel dirty,” You challenge and Fleur smirks.

“Firstly, I’m sorry I called you a mudblood. It’s just what my family expects me to use and I can’t not without arousing suspicion and trust me; neither of us are ready for their attention yet,” Fleur apologises, leaving your mind to linger on the yet.

“And secondly?” You push.

“Oh, yeah, to be honest touching you does make me feel dirty. Inside my head it’s like Carol but a thousand times less tame,” Fleur answers, you feel your face burning as you see a blush in Fleur’s cheeks even though she tries to play it cool.

“So the universe didn’t make a mistake?” You ask and Fleur laughs.

“Nope, I like you. I wouldn’t take anybody else over you. Ever,” Fleur answers and then pauses consideringly, “Unless they had a huge library,”

“Never heard it called that before,” You answer and Fleur chokes on a piece of spaghetti.

“D-did you actually just-?” Fleur starts and you wink at her, grinning as she bursts into laughter.

“I love you,” You whisper, absent-mindedly before you freeze, this was the first time that you’d said it since you both decided you were willing to do this thing. A screaming started up inside your head as you silently prayed that Fleur wouldn’t have heard. Fleur’s head rockets up, proving that you have no such luck. Your heart beats, suspended in her grasp, the power to crush it in seconds all that you could think about. A beat, another and then...

“I love you too,” Fleur smiles, pushing her plate of Spaghetti to the side and leaning closer to kiss you. For a moment you remembered your hunger, but that left your mind the moment the older girl straddled your waist, pulling you in and kissing you.

Lipsticks smeared, tongues intermingled, hands found hair and then yours found the edges of her dress, hesitantly pushing it up slightly, waiting for Fleur to grant you permission or refuse you but instead she guided your hand up her waist. Your breathing speeds up and your heart rate accelerates as you slide your hand along her legs, Fleur’s moans of pleasure swallowed by your mouth.

“WHAT THE HELL?” A surprised masculine voice asked. Whoops, it looked like the floors did get cleaned sometimes.

“RUN!” Fleur yells, a huge grin on her face as she drops some money on the table and then grabs ahold of your hand leading you back up towards the castle.

Chapter 38: Duelling

Chapter Text

With hurried footsteps, earning you a glare from the foreboding figure of Madame Prince, you race over to your usual table finding Cedric already sitting patiently waiting. You’re not exactly late but you’re not quite early for your tutoring session either, which is a fact that both frustrates and flusters you.

“I’m so sorry,” You find yourself apologising as you summon the various texts from the shelves that you need.

“Hold on a second,” Cedric orders and you pause, glancing over at him to find his gaze firmly locked on your lips, your eyebrows lift with confusion.

“Something on my face?” You ask and he smirks.

“Oh yes,” Cedric agrees, languishing backwards in his chair and propping his legs up on the table in an uncharacteristically confident gesture. On second thoughts, someone needed to stop him getting too big of ahead.

“Feet off the table, were you raised in a barn?” You demand to know and Cedric chuckles, dropping his legs from the table and opting to lean forwards instead.

“You’re smiling,” Cedric chuckles and you roll your eyes.

“Well, you are rather fun to tease, shall we get to it?” You ask, trying to disguise your slight embarrassed happiness.

“N-uh, give me the details,” Cedric demands and you blush, looking anywhere but at him.

“Details for what?” You ask.

“Your date with Delacour, it must have gone pretty well for you to look like that,” Cedric grins and you groan, hiding your head in your hands. How are you supposed to describe what happened on your date with Fleur?

“It was very, very good. Let’s leave it at that,” You finally decide and to your relief, Cedric nods his head in agreement.

The next hour passes without incident, you start by helping him understand what’s been happening in defence and put it in terms that make sense to him before moving on to help him with preparation for the third task. The reality of how close the task was hit you like a tonne of bricks and internally you prayed he’d be OK.

“I’ll be fine,” Cedric promises, catching you in your thoughts.

“You can’t make that promise,” You point out, biting your lip, “Come on, show me that shield again. How quickly can you throw it up?”

“Very,” Cedric grins, seconds later the two of you are engaged in a fast and furious duel that had both of you sweating with exertion after a few minutes.

“Why did I help you?” You ask, throwing a shield up with your chest while firing a stunning spell with your index finger. Cedric dodged it easily, his steady stream of spells never letting up.

“Because you care,” He offers.

“Ptth, keep guessing,” You tease, slowing your spells slightly to lull him into a false sense of security.

“Tired already?” Cedric asks, “Guess being a Seeker has some benefits,”

“Shut it,” You snap, in a way that he takes to mean that you’re annoyed with him.

“Or what?” Cedric asks and you smirk, throwing forth an angry red ball of magic with as much speed as you can. With a sound like thunder, it throws Cedric back against the wall and you watch slightly horrified as he slides to the ground where he lays limp.

Curses escape your mouth as you run towards him, terrified.

“Urf, for someone who seems so innocent you sure do know a lot of swear words,” Cedric says in between huge huffs of air. You don’t say anything, just grabbing ahold of him and wrapping him in a tight hug of relief.

“I’m so sorry,” You apologise.

“Don’t be, I’m fine… mostly. What the hell was that?” Cedric asks.

“Another advantage of wandless magic, you can harness the energy of your emotions and throw them at someone without forming a proper spell,” You explain and Cedric nods.

“Well… damn,” Cedric coughs slightly, and you hold him even closer to you as immeasurable guilt threatens to overwhelm you.

“I’m fine,” Cedric promises just as a voice calls from behind you.

“Should I be worried?” Cho jokes and you let go of Cedric.

“If you mean the possibility of her accidentally killing him, then yes, otherwise I think you’re good,” Ant announces, sliding around the edge of a bookshelf.

“How long have you been there?” You ask in disbelief.

“Ages, I only started paying attention to the duel though, that was fun,” Ant tells you and you shake your head in slight disbelief before making an obscene gesture towards him.

“You sure you’re OK?” You ask and Cedric nods.

“Perfectly fine, stop worrying so much Y/L/N,” Cedric sighs, pushing your shoulder lightly. You nod, standing and making your way to Ant.

“I’ll talk to you later,” You promise and Cedric grins.

“Cool, say hi to Fleur for me,” Cedric smirks, finally breaking you out of your tension as you make a similarly obscene gesture towards him too as you leave the Library.

Chapter 39: I never got to eat

Chapter Text

Blue eyes catch you as you drape yourself against the cold stone wall. Fleur watches you bemused at the somewhat suspicious way you’re leaning against the wall; you wink at her ignoring the way others are staring, used to and excited for your next big prank. Finally, with excited eyes still focused on you and more than a few slightly nervous looks from the teachers, Fleur makes her way over to you.

“Where’s the action?” Fleur asks, a slight curiosity on her face and you smirk.

“Not here, we’re skipping it today,” You tell her and she raises an eyebrow.

“Oh?” Fleur asks, a confused look on your face.

“When it’s time, grab my hand and run,” You tell her with a small smile.

“When will I know when it’s time?-” Fleur asks just as an earthshaking crash comes from the charms classroom. Curiosity and excitement leads to a rush to find out what happened, Fleur grabs your hand and you start running in the opposite direction, a smirk on your face as you lead her up to the statue of the one-eyed witch and disappear down the trapdoor to Hogsmead.

“What was the noise about?” Fleur asks bemused.

“We needed a distraction. No one will notice we’re gone for a few hours now, wanna grab dinner?” You ask confidently. Fleur grins, stopping and pulling you to her.

Soft lips meet yours and you smile slightly, kissing Fleur back as her hand strays to rest on your hip-bone lighting a small fire with her touch.

“Mmmh, what was that for?” You ask, smiling faintly.

“I just wanted to,” Fleur answers slightly shyly.

“Hmmm, I approve,” You smile, “Now… dinner? With me?”

“Didn’t we do that last week?” Fleur asks.

“Of course, but it’s Monday now. Aren’t you hungry? I didn’t get dinner Saturday so I still have no idea what the foods like,” You answer.

“Don’t you have lessons?” Fleur challenges.

“The whole of our friend group is volunteering to clean. Everyone will assume we’re helping,” You point out, “And I know that you, like me, are ahead in your studies. So, dinner?”

“Yes, dinner,” Fleur agrees, entwining her hand with yours.

You make your way into Hogsmead, going back to the restaurant from before having already checked that no Delacours have booked a table.

“Can we have the food served under the table again?” Fleur asks, “I like forts,”

You stifle a laugh when you see the sudden horrified realisation on the waiter's face.

“Please… just don’t get each other pregnant,” The waiter begs.

“Don’t worry, that’s not how it works,” Fleur winks, leaving the waiter with his head in his hands.

“We’re going to have to tip so well to make up for our various sins,” You point out and Fleur smirks.

“Worth it,” Fleur smiles.

“What's the best thing on the menu?” You ask as Fleur looks through the menu.

“Not sure, what do you think?” She asks, “I haven’t tried a lot of this stuff,”

“How about… lasagna?” You suggest and Fleur smiles.

“Sounds great,” She agrees, and you smile placing your orders before slipping under the table.

Beneath the table, the darkness greats you, unnerving you until you feel Fleur’s body beside you. Pushing yellow bubbles of light from you, pushing the darkness away and making the under-table fort more comfortable. The cloth is lifted, and a different waiter hands you your lasagnas.

“Enjoy your meal,” The blonde-haired man says, an amused expression on his face.

“We will, thank you,” Fleur answers politely.

“How’s your week shaping up so far?” You ask, and Fleur smiles.

“It’s great, someone recommended a biography on Alberta Toothill. She’s a famous dueler from the 1400s and… why are you smiling like that?” Fleur asks, bemused.

“Let me guess… Professor Flitwick recommended it?” You ask and Fleur raises an eyebrow, “Flitwick’s reading list is kind of infamous for the students he thinks shows the most promise, Jake has a theory that he’s trying to create a next-generation dueler,”

“Oh… so when did you get the list?” Fleur asks and you blush.

“First year, I think he just felt guilty and wanted to try to make things up to me,” You explain.

“Or he could have just realised how amazing you are,” Fleur states matter-of-factly.

“Well then he definitely saw it in you, tell me once you’ve finished the book I need somebody to fangirl over it with me,” You smile.

“I will. What comes next on Flitwick’s list?” Fleur asks.

“The research papers of Gunhilda of Goresmoor,” You answer.

“Oh! I’ve read that, she discovered the cure for dragon pox,” Fleur says excitedly, “And she inspired me to keep my wandless magic going,”

“I haven’t seen your magic,” You frown, curiously. There was a certain style to everyone’s magic, Jake liked to cast from his heart, Ant from his forehead and Millie from her middle finger (you’d kind of been impressed by her tactics once you’d heard the logic that when an opponent was aggravated they’d make more mistakes). Fleur blushes, reaching out a hand to caress the air and you watch with a smile when you see the air start to ripple but then a questioning look crosses your face. You don’t recognise the colour, a pink like cherry blossoms, as the waves ripple through the air and soon pink bubbles locked amongst waves are floating amongst your yellow.

“What…” You start and Fleur takes your hand.

“It’s a spell I made, sometimes you can take the images and just make them real. I’ve been trying to see what more I can do and I fueled it with love. I didn’t know you could do that but I’ve been working that out slowly,” Fleur answers.

“Since when?” You ask.

“Since you,” Fleur answers smoothly. You blush, resting your head against her shoulder.

When you make your way back to the castle, you find all but Anthony have disappeared from the hall.

“Where are the others?” You ask, casting a spell to repair the broken hinge of a cupboard.

“I sent them on, they were getting in the way and being too… much,” Ant answers, pulling a face of displeasure. You look around to find more than one broken piece of furniture and don’t doubt that your friends somehow decided to start a furniture fight.

“I’ll take the right if you’ll start putting it in the right place,” You suggest.

“Perfect,” Ant agrees and for a while, you work in silence until you hear a crash.

“ANT!” You yell worriedly, finding him on the floor on top of a terrified girl with bits of broken wardrobe around them.

“I’m OK,” He reassures you, rolling off the girl.

“Are you OK?” Ant asks the girl, “I’m so sorry for…”

You edge closer, confusion overpowering you and that’s when you see it. A section of the girl's shirt has torn revealing Ant’s name on her collarbone.

Ant looks from her mark to his own with visible confusion, the girl starts to shake as he rereads the name aloud.

“Mickey…” Ant says looking from the mark to the girl, “You’re-”

The girl turns tails and runs.

“WAIT!” Ant yells, but she’s already rounded the corner.

“Do you want to-” You start but Ant shakes his head.

“No. Not yet, I need to process,” Ant answers, “Let’s just get this over with,”

Chapter 40: Nightmare

Chapter Text

The hallway is empty as your feet smack against the concrete over and over. Never have you ever seen a hallway in Hogwarts so deserted. The hall seems endless, and you walk without seeing anybody. That is until you near the entrance hall.

You jump, startled as the doors are thrown open. Steadying your breathing, you greet the person responsible for your panic.

“Professor Hagrid,” You say, a small smile on your face until you see the uncharacteristically grave expression on his face. Frantically, the man races past you, holding someone in his arms. Limp hands drop from the sides. Heart-pounding, you follow them, terrified of what you might see. Blonde hair falls in a single wave down past a face white and cold.

“FLEUR!” You scream. Wake up, respond, please, do something you're screaming internally. Your soulmate lays limply in the half-giants arms, a hand lands on your shoulder and you spin around to see the face of your headmaster.

“Miss Y/L/N, there’s been an accident. Miss Delacour has been gravely injured in the final task. It is unlikely she will recover,” The headmaster tells you.

“How unlikely?” You hiss, needing to know.

“She’s dead, Miss Y/L/N, I’m so very sorry,” The headmaster apologises.

“YOU SWORE THAT YOU’D PROTECT HER!” A voice screams at you, and you turn your head to see Gabrielle Delacour standing on a staircase.

“WE SHOULD’VE KILLED YOU WHEN WE FIRST FOUND OUT,” A voice bellows from your right, your eyes fly to Fleur’s parents. Appoline Delacour rushes to you, seizing you by the throat and slamming you against the wall.

She glares at you, squeezing tighter and tighter. Black dots start to float before your eyes.

YoU CaN’t BrEaTh! yOu CaN’T BReaTH!

Your eyes fly open, pulling you from your nightmare to find a figure above you, disguised by the dark until they lean closer. That’s the moment when you begin to realise that you still can’t breathe even though the dream’s over.

You're going to die. You're going to die and the last face you'll see will be bared with hatred. You reach for your magic, trying to throw her off you but you feel too weak like you're still a first-year with no magic and no defence.

You close your eyes, pulling up strings of memories. Luke, Millie, Ant, Jake, Cedric, Cho, Katie, Gabriel and Fleur. You stare into blue eyes and beg for her to be safe when you can't be around to help her.

“We’re watching you, mudblood,” Appoline Delacour hisses, throwing your back against your bed, letting go of your throat and striding out of the room. For an hour, you sit, rocking back and forth in the dark; then you climb out of bed and go to the only place you feel like seeking solace.

Slipping out of your room is terrifying. Every step you take you expect to be hurt by an angry relative of Fleur’s but after a few scans, you find the coast clear. Eventually, you find yourself crossing the green grass of the grounds until you can pound your fists against Fleur’s carriage.

“What… Y/N… What are you doing here?” Fleur asks, stepping back to allow you into the carriage.

“I just… Can I sleep here?” You ask.

“Of course… But j-just slow down a second. What happened?” Fleur asks. You start to stumble over words, and Fleur takes you by the shoulders, leading you down onto her bed and pulling you tightly to her chest. You close your eyes, trying to regain a balance before opening your eyes to look around Fleur’s room, taking comfort in the sight of a book collection and the neat way she orders things that are so Fleur.

“I… I was having a nightmare. In the dream, I… You…” You tried to find the right words before giving up, “It was bad. It ended with someone strangling me,”

“Oh… sweet-” Fleur starts.

“When I woke up, there was a hand around my throat. Fleur…” You trail off uncertain.

“Give me a name. I’m going to kill them,” Fleur promises darkly, holding you tightly to her.

“Fleur… It was your mother,” You finally breathe out. The older girl freezes, holding you tightly against her and you close your eyes.

“They’ll pay for this. I don’t know how, I don’t know when but I’ll make them pay,” Fleur promises, fingers massaging your arm“I just… I have to work things out. Once I have, they’ll pay,”

“Work what out?” You ask tiredly.

“I’m not leaving Gabriel with them. I need to find a way that I can keep her with me,” Fleur explains, “I need to get her out of there,”

“We’ll find away. We’ll take her away to someplace safe and spend the rest of our days hiding from all the monsters,” You whisper.

“With you, that sounds beautiful,” Fleur whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead sensing your tiredness because she moves you until you’re laying down and then snuggles into bed beside you, wrapping her arms around you. Feeling safe you hold tight to her.

Only one thought stops you from being completely able to sleep.

The final task was one week away, and you had a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Chapter 41: Sleeping Beauty

Chapter Text

Your eyes open, finding the bare skin of a collarbone, you follow it up to a sharp jawline. An arm is tucked around you, and your head rests on another. There’s a softness, a warmth like a heater and an unbelievable sense of safety. You snuggle closer, trying not to wake her only to hear a slight groan as Fleur shifts slowly awake.

“Merde,” Fleur whispers, slowly opening her eyes, “I was having such a good dream,”

“Oh, what were you dreaming about?” You ask, Fleur stares at you and then arms release you. Pouting from the sudden loss of contact you start to sit up and protest when the older girl straddles you, pushing you back down. Your mouth goes dry as you see the older girl on top of you and a wave of warmth envelops you.

“Want me to show you?” Fleur asks, smirking when all you can do is nod your agreement. She leans closer, pressing kisses along your collarbone, you moan arching against her, and she smiles, trailing a hand down your chest and resting on your abdomen.

“We were positioned somewhat like this,” Fleur whispers to you, pressing a kiss to your lips and you shiver as her tongue slides in.

“My hand started to slip lower,” Fleur whispers in your ear, her hot breath directly in your ear driving you insane as her hand slips further down past the waistband of your pyjamas before pausing.

“And then?” You ask, barely breathing.

“And then…” Fleur smiles and you hold onto every second.

“I woke up!” Fleur smirks, rolling off you and removing her hand. You roll over, grabbing a pillow and screaming into it hearing her laughing behind you.

“Not fair!” You mutter, into the pillow but Fleur just laughs harder.

“One day maybe,” Fleur promises, kissing your hair, “Just not yet,”

“Urf, go take a shower,” You sigh.

“Yes sir,” Fleur agrees co*ckily. You roll back over, keeping the pillow over your face and trying to control yourself somehow. When you finally feel like removing the pillow, Fleur’s dressed with wet hair dripping on the floor and is holding a salve.

“What’s that for?” You ask curiously.

“It should help lessen the pain in your neck. You might not have realised yet, but there’s a huge bruise, and it looks incredibly painful,” Fleur tells you, and you push yourself up, feeling a burn in your neck and sudden lightheadedness.

“Ow,” You breathe, barely, slamming your eyes closed against a grimace of pain.

“Yeah, I didn’t realise… I was a little distracted,” You sigh, resting your head back against the pillows.

“Just lie still for a second,” Fleur whispers, and then you feel something cold caressing your neck, and the pain lessens.

“Almost done?” You ask.

“One more thing,” Fleur tells you, and then you feel a soft, light pressure against your neck, your eyes fly open, and Fleur lifts her head.

“Magic kiss,” She whispers, and you roll your eyes, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” You whisper.

“I love you too,” Fleur says, before pulling away.

“Where are you going?” You ask, pouting.

“I have to go to class, but you need some rest,” Fleur explains, “I’ll bring you food,”

“It’s just a bruise… Please don’t… What if your mother-” You start but Fleur cuts you off, coming back to you and wrapping her arms around you and kissing your forehead.

“You might not realise it, but she’ll have siphoned your strength before attacking. She’s a coward. Now, you need to rest, there are dozens of protective spells around the compartment, I’m surprised that you made it here. I’ll set up some more, but trust me, you’ll be ok,” Fleur promises.

“Are you sure?” You ask.

“Yes, I promise,” Fleur promises, taking your hand and pulling back a little so that you can see the sincerity in her gaze, “For now, you’ll be safe here. I’ll get our friends, and we’ll work something out, a way to keep you safe,”

Finally, you let her go.

“I’ll be back at lunch, and I’ll ask a house-elf to bring you some breakfast,” Fleur promises. You nod, letting her go. For a while, you’re alone. You stretch your magic around you, pushing your magic around you as far as it can go, knowing you should rest but too weary not to.

You feel someone stepping closer to the carriage, and your body starts to shake. The net of magic you’ve woven around you crumples, and then someone knocks at the door.

“Fleur promoted me to house-elf, need something?” A familiar voice asks, and you open the door, studying the form apprehensively.

“Have we ever kissed?” You ask the girl, there’s a momentary shock when she takes you in, but she quickly schools her expression.

“Um.. yes?” Katie answers and you nod, stepping back to let her in.

“Sorry, you’re Katie. Had to check,” You tell her.

“Why?” Katie asks.

“I can sense polyjuice potion somewhere, it has a specific signature, but I can’t work out where,” You admit.

“How do you know what polyjuice potion… senses like?” Katie asks.

“I helped someone make a batch when I was in my fourth year,” You answer, “Whoever made this batch is lazy, there’s not much of a masking charm around it. Either it was brewed very recently or I’m getting stronger,”

“Hmm,” Katie says, biting her lip and thinking, “I’ve no ideas, do you want breakfast?”

“Yes please,” You agree, feeling slightly guilty.

“So… Fleur said that you got hurt last night… Did she give you that mark?” Katie asks, handing you a bowl of porridge and some water.

“No?” You ask, confused, “Why… you don’t believe Skeeter do you?”

“I’m just checking!” Katie protests, raising her hands defensively, “I just want to make sure-”

“Her mum did,” You say, pulling her away from wherever she was going to go. Katie pauses midspeech and just stays in contemplative silence.

“Does Fleur know?” Katie asks.

“Yep, we just… we have to get Gabriel out before we do anything. We’re trying to think,” You explain and Katie shakes her head.

“That’s-” Katie starts.

“The path I’d rather take. Gabriel is still a child. I could detach myself from the situation if it got to be too much, but Gabriel is still dependent on them, and so we need to get her away first,” You interrupt.

“This is a sucky situation,” Katie sighs.

“Yep,” You agree.

Katie rests her head against your shoulder, and you rest your head against it.

“I missed you,” Katie sighs, and you realise that you hadn’t talked in a long time.

“I missed you too,” You agree, sighing slightly, “How are things with Alicia?”

“She broke up with Lee and announced to our classmates how she feels about me. Not,” Katie sighs, “She is breaking up with Lee but she’s still unable to admit to more than just me that she likes me in a not so platonic way. I wouldn’t mind so much, but I’m tired of her thinking I’m supposed to be such a huge secret… At the very least she could tell Angelina!”

“Does she know that’s what you need?” You ask, and Katie pauses.

“I haven’t spoken to her in anything other than a friendly way since the yule ball,” Katie admits.

“Maybe you should, or at least tell her what it is that you need and why,” You suggest, “It might be time,”

“I’ll take it that you and Fleur are an actual thing now?” Katie asks, “Not that I need to ask when we’re in her room,”

“Yeah, we’re a thing,” You smile.

“I know, it’s written all over your face,” Katie smiles and then she sighs.

“I have to get to class, talk to me again soon,” Katie orders and you nod.

“I will,” You promise.

“Good now get some rest,” Katie orders, obediently, you lay back on the bed and close your eyes. You hear the door open and shut, and then oblivion claims you.

Chapter 42: Hunter's

Chapter Text

“Y/N, open up!” A voice demands, and with a small groan, you open your eyes and cross to the carriage door. You open the door and reveal your best-friend Ant.

“Have we ever danced to a pop song?” You ask and the boy raises his eyebrow.

“No? We don’t dance together… Should we?” Ant asks.

“Could be fun, but who’s going to break the news to Jake?” You ask and then glancing down to the tray in his hands you ask, “Is that for me?”

“Half,” Ant answers, “I talked Fleur out of coming for a moment. I need to talk to you,”

“Is this about your soulmate?” You ask, crossing to a small table to eat your lunch.

“Yep,” Ant agrees, biting his lip.

“What’s up?” You ask and he sighs.

“Look, I thought I was like Jake. I’ve been with guys and girls before and never felt much of an attraction but this girl’s been driving me insane and I don’t know how to find her. I can’t just look for a Mickey, no one knew who a Mickey last time I tried and if she’s not open about it then I don’t want to be that douche,” Ant explains, “I want to get to know her, but-”

“Hold that thought, did you get a good feel on her?” You ask.

“Kind of?” Ant suggests.

“Describe her to me,” You order.

“Um… she smelled kind of flowery,” Ant starts, your eyes slip closed and you start searching the castle.

“Wait are you sure you should be-” Ant starts, concerned.

“I feel OK, it won’t take me too much to do this,” You tell him and Ant pauses, consideringly before sighing and nodding his head. You close your eyes again.

“What kind of flower?” You ask.

“Lavendery?” Ant suggests. Sixty people seem to fit that requirement, you zone in on a pretty blonde.

“Hair?” You ask.

“Brown, long,” Ant answers, twenty people.

“Build?” You ask.

“Lithe?” Ant suggests and you find six people.

“Height?” You ask.

“Shorter than Fleur, taller than Millie,” Ant offers.

“Found her,” You tell him, opening your eyes, “Let’s go,”

“Are you OK to walk?” Ant asks and you shrug, standing only to half fall backwards.

“Maybe not, can you carry me?” You ask, and Ant lifts you like a fireman and starts to hurry in the directions you give him.

“Excuse me, miss?” Ant calls out, you’re by the kitchens you can smell food.

“Set me down,” You whisper to him and he sets you behind a pillar, obediently, before calling again for the girl. You close your eyes, watching the scene from over Ant’s shoulder.

“Uh, yes?” The girl asks, nervously. You note the Hufflepuff tie with interest.

“I think you have my mark,” Ant says calmly.

“I doubt it,” The girl says even more nervously.

“On your collarbone?” Ant asks, “Look, I know I have the wrong name, but maybe we can fix that? What’s your name?”

“Mia,” The girl answers apprehensively, reluctantly, she pulls the shirt aside to reveal Ant’s name.

“Sorry for dropping the wardrobe on you,” Ant apologises, “I’m Ant,”

“I know,” Mia says, “And you’re forgiven,”

“Can I… can we go for a walk?” Ant asks, “I’d like to get to know you,”

The girl looks torn and Ant pushes gently.

“We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to. We could talk about anything you like,” Ant offers, “Dragons, toadstools, books, Quidditch-”

“Music?” The girl suggests, “I play the guitar?”

“I’ve always appreciated a good six-strings,” Ant agrees.

“Sure,” The girl says, slightly disbelievingly.

“OK, I know nothing about guitars but I’m willing to learn? Does that get me points?” Ant asks and the girl chuckles slightly.

“I’m just kidding, I know nothing either. Do you like pranks?” The girl asks and they both start to walk away.

“Have you ever heard about the students that spent half a year turning everyone’s hair various colours?” Ant asks.

“That was you?” The girl asks disbelievingly.

“And some friends,” Ant agrees, the girl smacks his arm, “OW!”

“I ended up with bright pink hair!” The girl complains and Ant doubles over with laughter that even the girl ends up joining him in.

You smile, pulling your magic away from the duo, not wanting to invade their privacy too much. Then you realise one flaw in your plan, you’re kind of stuck without Ant. Great.

With small deep breaths, you force yourself to remain calm. It would be fine, Ant was spending time with his soulmate and at some stage, someone would find you and get you somewhere safe. Maybe then Fleur would let you continue what she started this morning…

Your eyes stayed closed, picturing your girlfriend with a small smile.

SomEtHINg smaCkS InTo YOu, InSidE yOur mINd ChAOs EnsUeS. YOU CaN’T MoVE! You CAn’T mOvE!

“Should’ve stayed away mudblood,” A woman whispers.

You have no control. Nothing, so you fight to control the one thing you can.

You force yourself to calm down, you look down on the scene from above, seeing a pair of garish pink heels you remember belonging to Fleur’s aunt.

The woman wields a long wand, twenty-two inches, she twirls it around and around almost lazy unless you could see the way she seemed to be bargaining with herself. It seemed as though it wasn’t entirely her choice to be here.

If only you could talk, perhaps you could dissuade her.

You try to make your lips move but the stunner refuses to yield.

The woman finally comes to a decision and so do you. With quick movements, she stops kneeling beside you and makes her way over to the wall.

“CRU-” The woman starts, but you throw her backwards into a wall. Never again will you feel that pain.

You hurl a stunner at her, but she doges. You throw up a shield, channelling magic through any bit of bare skin you have. You throw another spell, stealing her wand and then you shatter it.

The woman stares in disbelief at the broken object scarcely believing that someone could cast magic while stunned. You’re grateful that wandless magic doesn’t require you to move.

Quickly, you take advantage of her surprise and throw her to the floor with a stunner. The crunch of her nose on the stone makes you wince. You cast a spell to remove the stunner, and then find one problem remains.

With a deep groan, you try to stand, only to collapse to the ground.

Too much magic and not enough time spent healing.

Closing your eyes tightly, you try to stay calm. Your mind drifts away and you find yourself looking over Fleur in your cabin, confused as to why you’re not here and worried. You need to get a message to her, but how?

Ah! You mind clicks, and you spot a quill and some loose parchment on the table.

S

You manage to get it to write. It takes so much more effort than casting a spell regularly.

SOS

You write, taking a deep breath to still yourself, you see Fleur; still distracted but keep trying.

Kitche/

You can’t manage any more of the spell, and instead, use the last of your strength to hurl the quill at Fleur. She glances up, surprised, and then she finds the note. Fleur reads it over, twice and then she starts to run.

You rest your head back against the stone, but this time keep your eyes open despite your exhaustion. There’s no way that you’re going to let someone sneak up on you again.

It’s not long before Fleur arrives, she examines the damage with slight confusion but dismisses it when she sees you.

“Are you OK?” Fleur asks.

“Your aunt attacked,” You answer, resting your head on her shoulder, “She stunned me… and then she tried to… use the unforgivable?”

“She tried to kill you?” Fleur asks.

“No… she tried to… hurt me,” You finish lamely, not sure you feel up to voicing the curse. Fleur grips you, lifting you and carrying you away from her aunt.

“How did you get up here?” Fleur asks.

“Ant took me, we went soulmate hunting,” You tell her.

“Me?” Fleur asks.

“No, Ant’s soulmate. He left with her, I’m glad he did,” You tell her and Fleur frowns.

“He left you in danger,” Fleur points out.

“I would’ve been fine if your aunt hadn’t shown up, besides, Ant’s waited so long to be with this girl. I couldn’t not,” You argue back and Fleur shakes her head, holding you tightly.

“We have to do something,” Fleur hisses, she stops walking towards her room and takes you to the Library. Millie, Cedric, Jake, Cho and Katie are looking at a piece of parchment, arguing over something they look up when they see you, and there’s a look of pure disbelief.

“I’ll kill them,” Cedric threatens, a look of rage in his eyes.

“No, you won’t,” Cho cuts him off.

“It’s time,” Fleur says, authority in her tone, “Millie, are you sure we can get the right price?”

“I’m a Slytherin, you won’t be set for life, but I can get you set for the first few months before you find a job,” Millie answers.

“Cedric, can you keep Gabriel safe?” Fleur asks.

“Always,” Cedric promises.

“Cho, can you help me get a job?” Fleur asks.

“I’m reaching out to my contacts,” Cho says.

“I might be able to help,” A voice calls out, and you glance over to see Hermione, awkwardly standing by the books with her friends behind her.

“How?” Fleur asks.

“Bill mentioned that Gringotts is understaffed,” Ron explains, “I could check what jobs are available,”

“That would be great,” Fleur says with a small smile.

“Jake and Katie, can you get Ant and spy on my family,” Fleur asks

The duo nods their agreement.

“Thank you,” Fleur smiles, “I’ll take you out for pizzas soon,”

“You don’t have to. Y/N’s been a great friend, we just want you both safe,” Cho speaks up.

“What’s happening?” You ask.

“It’s time to tell the full story, and we’re getting the Aurors involved,” Fleur answers.

“This is a story Rita would pay for so it’s likely you could keep Gabriel with you,” Millie explains.

“We’re fixing this,” Fleur tells you.

“Really?” You ask, and Fleur nods.

“Really,” Fleur answers.

Chapter 43: Dissolving the Dealcours

Chapter Text

Fleur lets you walk to Dumbledore's office. You lean on her heavily, still exhausted and not entirely sure you can make it without her help. She pauses stumped by the gargoyles, with no idea of the password.

“Jelly bean,” You whisper, the gargoyle jumps aside, and Fleur carries you up the staircase.

“How did you know that?” Fleur asks.

“A good prankster knows all passwords. We realised that even though we couldn’t shave Dumbledore, we could still play a million different pranks. We managed to booby trap his office with Filibuster’s fireworks once. It was great,” You explain.

“Oh, that was you!” Professor Dumbledore says, and your eyes widen realising he heard, “Marvelous prank,”

“Thanks, Professor, can we talk to you?” You ask, and Professor Dumbledore doesn’t miss a beat although you can sense him re-adjusting to match the severity of yours and Fleur's expressions.

“Always, shall we sit down in my office?” Professor Dumbledore asks, and Fleur takes you through and sets you in a squishy armchair. Professor Dumbledore summons a second one for Fleur.

It takes you an hour to relate the full story to Professor Dumbledore. It’s hard, and both you and Fleur have to take many breaks to try to steady yourselves. He’s patient with you and when you’ve finished telling the whole story including the two recent attacks he stands up and starts to pace.

“I know six aurors we can get you help. We’ll also need someone who can assess the best place for Gabriel,” Professor Dumbledore says.

“That would be with me,” Fleur says firmly.

“Maybe, but do you have a place set up yet? It might be best if Miss Y/L/N’s parents or someone similar looks after her for a few months until you’re on your feet,” Professor Dumbledore bargains.

“No,” Fleur answers, “She will stay with me; I'll find a way,”

“OK,” Professor Dumbledore agrees, “I’ll do my best, but please think about your sister. It might just be for a little while,”

“I’ll think about it,” Fleur finishes, “When will you call the aurors in?”

“I’ll do it now, but it might take a few hours before anyone shows up,” Professor Dumbledore answers, “Until then, you are welcome to stay in my office. We can fetch your sister, and your friends to ensure their safety,”

“That might be for the best, but we have a lot of things to do. We’re looking for jobs, and Millie is bartering with Rita Skeeter,” Fleur explains.

“Well, my office is open to you,” Professor Dumbledore offers.

“Thank you, sir,” You say, and he smiles.

“‘I’ll have the professors round up your friends and Gabriel,” Professor Dumbledore says, and you nod.

“I’ll take a nap,” You whisper, you’ve done your best to stay awake, but you’re exhausted.

“Good,” Fleur agrees, summoning a blanket and throws it around you.

When you wake up, there’s a room full of people with activity everywhere.

“Ready to talk?” An auror with purple hair asks, handing you a cup of something.

“If you wanted me to take verisium you could have just asked,” You speak up, causing a few surprised looks from the assembled aurors and amused ones from your friends.

“How did you-?” One auror starts to ask.

“She’s very powerful and smart and pretty. At least that’s what Fleur says,” Gabriel speaks up.

“GABRIEL!” Fleur yells, eyes widening, face flushing with embarrassment but also looking incredibly proud of her sister.

“Nice English,” Cedric congratulates the girl.

“Decent French,” Gabriel answers back.

A look of amusem*nt passes amongst the aurors faces.

“Aw, you have a crush on me,” You smile at Fleur sneakily.

“We’re dating… besides, you have a far bigger crush on me,” Fleur argues, you smile and stick your tongue out at her.

“If you’d please,” The purple-haired auror asks, indicating the cup in your hands. You down it and the auror takes the cup.

“My name is Tonks, I just need to ask you some questions,” The woman explains, and you nod your head.

“What happened in this first incident?” Tonks asks and you realise that you won’t get any privacy. When you tell this story, everyone’s going to know.

You don’t like the feel of the verisium in your veins, it forces the truth from you whether you want it or not. There’s a burn inside you the longer you try to resist.

“I was eleven, we were in the Headmaster's office, and Fleur’s parents arrived. They were mad that I was someone they perceived as unworthy of their daughter so they used the crutiartious curse and called me a mudblood,” You answer, trying for a blank detachment but you can’t quite manage to avoid the clenching of your fist or feeling your nails punch into the soft skin.

You're faintly aware of the room's anger and pain on your behalf, but you don’t want it. You just want to get this over with.

“Who attacked you?” Tonks asks.

There’s a thudding inside your head. The shield begs for permission to come down. IT tRiES to CONvince YoU tTHaT YoU CaN UsE It LiKe you uSED To. The thudding continues no matter how you try to ignore it.

It feels like someone’s hammering away inside of your skull.

“Fleur’s-” Thunk, thud, thunk, thud, thud, thunk, BANG, “Fleur’s father,” You answer, your eyes dart around the room. You feel like a spider has latched onto your spine and now all you can do is feel it’s skitters as it disappears down, down, down.

“Is this the man that attacked you?” The auror asks, as the door is swung open and an all too familiar man enters the office you feel a tremor pass through you. Glancing at him makes your heart stop. Eyes colder and bluer than Fleur’s stare at you, their eyes are just the tip of the iceberg; the true coldness lies in his heart.

He’s going to hurt you.

What if he hurts you?

How will he hurt you?

You’re not safe.

“Yes,” You answer, forced on by the verisium. It’s for the best, you tell yourself. The man strains against his captors.

“YOU DID THIS!” Fleur’s father screams at your soulmate, and your hand reaches out on instinct, but you hesitate to place your hand on her shoulder. Fleur flinches when you finally gain the confidence to touch her shoulder, and you draw your hand away, but she takes a deep breath and takes your hand.

“You hurt her. You’re vile, disgusting and I won’t regret this,” Fleur says, voice shaking as she says the words, “I loved you dad, but you messed up,”

The man fights even harder, but the auror casts a spell stunning him. Fleur holds your hand tighter burying her head into your shoulder.

“What happened during the second attack?” Tonks asks.

“I was in bed, when I woke up Fleur’s mother, Appoline Delacour, was strangling me,” You answer, distracted by Fleur’s pain and barely thinking as you hold her to you, both of you seeking comfort.

“And this -” Tonks asks, only to be taken by surprise when the woman boldly strides into the room, unbound. You tense and Fleur lifts herself to her full height ready to address her mother.

“I’m so sorry for all the pain caused, it was my husband's influence!” Appoline begs forgiveness.

“That will be for a jury to decide,” Tonks replies coolly.

“I will happily testify that it was not,” Fleur answers.

“Good. For the love of God! Someone get that woman in chains!” Tonks yells infuriated by her team.

“You ok?” Fleur asks.

“Are you?” You ask and Fleur breaths out.

“It’s hard. They’ve hurt you so much - they’re my parents - I just - there’s a lot of conflicting emotions,” Fleur explains.

“I know,” You whisper, holding her tighter.

“Third and final attack,” Tonks says.

“Fleur’s aunt attacked me. I overpowered her,” You answer, this is the one you aren’t afraid of. Not really.

The woman is pulled into the room. She doesn’t say anything, a look of surprise her most prominent feature.

“That’s the woman,” You answer.

“Thank you very much, I think that concludes this,” Tonks says.

“Wait, one more thing. Could you look into the death of my cousin?” Fleur asks, and you freeze not already having been privy to this information. Tonks pauses, listening attentively.

“I was eight when Francis drowned, he was… seventeen. The thing is that he was a strong swimmer. I don’t think Francis’ death was an accident. Please, can you investigate?” Fleur asks, her voice shaking.

“In light of the recent activities we might have a good case for sufficient suspicious circ*mstances to reopen an investigation,” Tonks nods and then she finally follows the aurors through the floo.

You hold Fleur to you for a while, her body shakes as she cries, and even if you hated Fleur’s family, you can understand why.

“When you finally face your friends you see Gabriel hanging onto Cedric, and a wave of guilt threatens to overwhelm you.

“I think I need to talk with Gabby,” Fleur says, and Cedric hugs his friend once more before letting Fleur take her away.

You don’t follow, feeling guilty.

A sudden slap on your shoulder has you focusing up.

“Don’t do that,” Millie says sharply.

“Do what?” You ask.

“You think you’re guilty even though it’s their fault. One day, you’re going to give Gabriel an amazing home, and she’ll be safe with you, just you wait,” Millie whispers, pulling you into a hug. You relax against her and other arms soon wrap around you.

“It’s over,” Ant assured you.

“Is it?” You ask, it just doesn’t feel that simple. The Delacour sisters are going to have a difficult transition, and then there’s trials and the tournament and-

“You’ll be OK. We’re always going to be here for you,” Cedric promises.

“Anything you need,” Cho adds.

“Any time,” Millie swears.

“For any reason,” Ant agrees.

“Because we love you,” Jake tells you, and you hug your friends tighter to you.

Chapter 44: Come back to me

Chapter Text

Sunlight streams through the windows. A now-familiar warmth reminds you that everything’s OK. You smile slightly to see Gabriel still cuddled up to you, lying on her stomach with her arms stretched out like she can’t decide if she wants to hug you or Fleur and so does both. It’s hard for her, everything that’s happening but right now she’s still sleeping, and she’s so peaceful. It helps that Cedric is showing her catalogues and helping her design a room for when you and Fleur manage to get a place and jobs.

You lift your gaze from the relaxed sleeping expression on Gabriel’s face to see Fleur pacing back and forth, and then it dawns on you. It’s been a tough week but after the article with Rita came out and cleared her name she’d seemed more relax, what reason could there be for -

It’s the morning of the third task.

Careful not to wake Gabriel, you climb out of bed and make your way to Fleur. Your arms wrap around her, and she stops pacing relaxing against you. A deep sigh escapes her, and you press a kiss to her shoulder.

“Are you OK?” You ask as the older girl turns to you, resting her forehead against your own in a way that just feels right.

“I’m terrified, what if I fail? What if I get hurt? Gabriel needs me, I can’t-” Fleur starts but you cut her off.

“Gabriel has me and Cedric and all of our friends, no matter what she’ll be OK. We’ll make sure of it,” You promise her and Fleur nods, resting her head against yours.

“It’s just… It’s not so simple, there are so many factors, and I have so much I want to live for. I want to get married, see Gabriel graduate, get her first job and meet her soulmate. I want to grow old with the one I love, I have so many dreams that I’ve been wanting to carry out but I may never get the chance,” Fleur explains and you hold her to you.

“You will, you have a shield and you're so smart that I just know you’re going to be OK. Trust me, one day you’ll get married, and you’ll see all the things you want to see just take a breath and trust in yourself,” You whisper, and that’s the moment when you realise that she really will be OK because Fleur’s smart, and brave, and she amazes you every day. Fleur will be OK and so will Cedric. You just know it.

“You have too much confidence in me,” Fleur dismisses.

“I have exactly the right amount, you’re tough Fleur, you’ll be OK,” You promise, peppering kisses to her forehead until at last, a giggle escapes her, and she lifts her head out of the way and switches in her lips.

For a while, you marvel at the softness of them and the taste of cherries that still never fails to leave you breathless and light-headed.

“EWWWWW!” A voice calls from across the room, and you smirk at the blush on Fleur’s cheeks as she glances over to her sister.

“Go back to sleep,” Fleur grumbles, and her sister shakes her head, and burrows under the pillows just long enough for Fleur to press a longing kiss to your lips before sneaking over and tickling her sister's sides.

You laugh as Gabriel’s laughter fills the carriage and then join in, helping Gabriel gain the upper-hand until it’s Fleur on her back rolling around on the bed laughing uncontrollably.

“I- thought- you’d- help - me-” Fleur says in between howls of laughter.

“Where’s the fun in that?” You ask cheekily.

“Yeah!” Gabriel agrees giddily, “Much more fun,”

You smile, Gabriel’s English was impressive especially since she was still only around eight.

“See? Gabriel agrees,” You point out and Fleur looks like she wants to reply, but can’t.

A knock interrupts your fun, and you and Fleur exchange a slightly worried look - it would be a long time before the fear of Fleur’s family would completely fade.

“Are you killing someone in there?” Cedric asks, and you roll your eyes, nearing the door and asking a question.

“Would you ever wear a tiara?” You ask, and Cedric blinks.

“Yes… I’ve actually,” Cedric answers, and you open the door, hugging your friend tightly.

“We’re all tickling Fleur,” You explain, and Cedric gives you an amused look before entering the carriage and taking a seat.

“Morning, I brought breakfast,” Cedric says, holding a few bowls of porridge.

“OOH! FOOD!” Gabriel yelps, jumping off the bed and racing over to Cedric, you take the opportunity to settle next to Fleur and smile when she lifts herself so that she’s resting against you.

“Are you nervous?” Fleur asks, and Cedric nods.

“I’m bricking it,” He admits, “But we’ll be OK, won’t we?”

“You both will, you both amaze me daily, I know you’re going to be OK,” You tell them and Fleur smiles leaning closer to you, and even Cedric’s back loses some of its stiffness.

“You’ll be OK!” Gabriel promises Cedric “You’re so smart!”

Cedric smiles, reaching out and pulling her tighter to his chest. He holds her like he thinks it’s the last time he’ll ever hold her despite your words and you frown. A knock comes at the door, and Cedric closes his eyes.

Standing somewhat nervously, you cross to the door to find Ludo Bagman waiting.

“I’ve been sent to collect Miss Fleur Delacour and…” The man trails off, his eyes locking on someone behind you, “Oh, Mr Diggory, I hadn’t expected to find you here,”

“Just saying goodbye,” Cedric offers by way of explanation.

“For now,” Gabriel states firmly, “You’re coming back,”

Cedric doesn’t say anything, just hugs her once more and then lets her go.

“I love you,” Cedric says, pulling you into a hug.

“I love you too,” You tell him, a lump in your throat and a terrible fear coursing through your veins. He releases you, looks once more about the cabin, a smile comes across his face, and he waves goodbye to Gabriel and then he’s gone.

Fleur wraps her arms around you and whispers what you need to hear in your ear already anticipating what you need.

“I’ll look out for him,” She promises, kissing first your head and then your lips with an unimaginable softness. Fleur releases you and then makes her way to her sister, wrapping her in a hug.

“Stay with Y/N, don’t want you to get lost in the crowd,” Fleur tells her and Gabriel pouts.

“But I’m a big girl,” Gabriel protests.

“Nope, your tiny,” Fleur smiles, running a hand through Gabriel’s hair.

“Please, we must get going,” Ludo interjects, and you wonder how much trouble you’d get into if you hexed him, just a little one, but a hex all the same.

“I’ll be back,” Fleur promises.

“You’d better be,” Gabriel says seriously, wrapping her arms all the tighter around her sister.

There’s a silence after Fleur leaves the carriage, you sit down on Fleur’s bed, and Gabriel crosses to you sitting next to you while you wait. After a little while, you send Gabriel off for a shower and switch your pyjamas for robes. Once you’re both dressed, it’s just close enough to the start of the third task that you can justify going to the stands.

Gabriel takes your hand as you walk, and you squeeze it offering the younger girl comfort. You’re surprised when you find the Quidditch pitch covered by hedges, and then you realise it’s a maze. When you make your way to the stands you become aware that it’s incredibly hard to see into the maze and so you stretch your magic out so you can see.

“Hey,” Millie greets, taking a seat next to you. Behind her, you see Ant and Jake following. Cho slides into the stands next, sitting beside Gabriel and you know that she’s as afraid as you are for your friends. Next comes Katie with her friends, Alica and Angelina, you smile when you see them hand in hand. You shoot her a questioning look and Katie winks and gives a slight nod towards you. There’s a slight lightness inside you, but it fades quickly.

“They’ll be OK,” Cho whispers, but you’re not sure if she’s trying to convince you or herself.

Chapter 45: Entering the maze

Chapter Text

The sound of a horn fills your ears, the stands become instantly more crowded, and people hurry to seats. Ludo Bagman strolls across the Quidditch Pitch, hyping-up the crowd but your eyes slide past him focusing instead on the figure dressed in light blue.

Gabrielle pushes her way into your lap so she can better see her sister, Fleur’s eyes drink the sight of you both in. For a moment you both just stare at each other and then Cedric and Harry both run into the maze, seconds pass, time ticks away and you wish it would slow down. Viktor runs into the maze.

Ten seconds remain before Fleur will be forced to enter the maze. You want to race to her, pull her into your arms and tell her how much you love her just in case you never get the chance to again but you can’t. You bite your cheek to keep yourself steady and strong for the young girl in your lap.

The final horn sounds, Fleur looks back at you once more before disappearing into the maze, the entrance closing behind her.

The silence is deafening. People strain in their seats, some of the bravely stupid students attempt to climb higher up the stands in the hopes that the view from the unstable roof will be better than the ground. Thankfully, Professor McGonagall catches them, and the students sink back into their chairs cowed by the force of her gaze.

“How are we supposed to see?” Cho asks, and you know that her irritation comes from the stress and worry for Cedric.

“Ministry idiots, word of advice, if you ever want something doing then do it yourself these idiots couldn’t find the exit to a paper bag if one just so happened to smack them in their over large noses,” Millie grumbles, “Stupid, blo-”

“Child present, hush,” Angelina orders, stooping forwards in her seat to cover Millie’s mouth. Millie pauses, blinking before removing the girl's hand with a menacing look on her face.

“Millie, I wouldn’t forgive you if you killed her,” Jake says, putting his hand on her shoulder. With a groan of annoyance, Millie settles into her seat.

“Bl - asted soulmates,” Millie mutters.

“It might not be entirely the Ministries fault,” You speak up, and feel the eyes of your friends suddenly turn to you, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Do you need to go to St. Mungo’s or-?” Ant asks, but you cut him off.

“Tradition dictates that the final task of the tournament be a maze, and of course the last tournament took place 1792. Back then wandless magic was mostly on the way out, but there was an element of it still put into practice most particularly the extending of one's senses using it. Most students would’ve been able to watch,” You explain and see several perplexed looks on your friend's faces.

“Well… Can you do that then?” Cho asks, desperately.

“I’m already doing it,” You answer, “How else do you think I’ve managed to be so calm? Only twenty percent of me is here,”

“Narrate,” Millie orders firmly, and it’s far easier to follow than the emotional subtexts in everyone’s voices. You close your eyes fully, focusing only on what’s happening in the maze.

Claws whirl like knives through the air, the Griffin lurches through the air, settling on its hind legs and propelling itself down towards Cedric threatening to crush him beneath it. With a seeker’s agility, Cedric rolls beneath it, landing under the Griffin’s stomach whispering something beneath his breath. The Griffin crumples suddenly, falling forwards and for a moment you wonder if the Griffin is dead until soft snoring sounds reach your ears and you realise the Griffin has succumbed to sleep. A few moments pass, and then Cedric slinks out from underneath the Griffin. Satisfied that he’s safe, your gaze switches your focus to Fleur.

Hedges coil around the figure in pale blue like a python coils around its prey. Fleur curses, dodging between the hedges that never let her progress as they threaten to crush her. Your anxiety skyrockets. A hedge crashes towards her from behind, forcing her to quicken her pace between the two hedges. Dammit, weren’t maze walls supposed to be static? Fleur’s eyes widen, and then she raises her wand. Blue light shoots from the end, ice forms along the hedges. For a second you’re afraid it won’t be enough, until the ice grows, tightening and finally halting the hedges. Fleur casts a blasting hex, creating a hole in the hedge and allowing her to escape. You let out a breath of relief, switching back to Cedric.

A man with greying hair catches your eye. He’s slightly shorter than Cedric, and his face shows clear signs of age, but you still see the similarities. With a jolt of surprise, you realise that you’re staring at a carbon copy of Cedric’s father.

“- a disgrace! A complete disappointment,” The man hisses, “A Hufflepuff? Too dumb to pass Defence Against the Dark Arts the first time and with no real ambitions? I am ashamed to be your father,”

Cedric stays silent, body shaking slightly.

“I wish you were never born,” The man hisses.

A huge bellow of laughter escapes Cedric, and the boggart starts to shake, searching for a form to take.

“If I still cared about proving myself to anyone but myself, I’m sure I’d be terrified right now,” Cedric tells the boggart, laughing harder and finally allowing it to disappear from view allowing Cedric to continue.

A rush of pride threatens to overwhelm you as Cedric confidently strides away. You let yourself return to Fleur, only to find her in the same spot as before and this time you see her problem.

The lake was about thirty feet long, the water seemed still with no current flowing, and most of the champions would probably have been fine, but Fleur was afraid of water. After what happened with Francis Delacour, you didn’t blame her for her hesitation. You watch as Fleur tries to conjure a bridge, but with no success. Fleur tries to blast through the hedges, but the spell is reflected, forcing her to dodge out of the way.

Finally, Fleur looks back towards the water, defeatedly as she realised that there was nothing she could do other than swim. A stressed sound escapes her as she kneels on the edges of the bank. Fleur pushes her hands into the soil, hesitating. With a sudden grim determination, Fleur pushes herself into the water wincing, breaths coming too quick.

Fleur starts to swim, pushing through the water.

“Fleur!” A voice calls, and she lifts her head. Something is terrifying about the sight of Gabrielle Delacour sitting at the edge of the water, that seems a bad omen.

“Gabby!” Fleur yells, confusion and fear is evident in her tone. The girl smiles, sliding into the water only for a look of pure panic to come over her face as she starts to slip beneath the waters.

“GABBY!” Fleur screams, hauntingly as she starts to dive towards the girl.

It’s not real! You yell inside your head, Gabriel is sitting on your lap. It’s not real! Fleur’s head lifts above the waters a look on her face of grimness as she makes her way through the water. Quickly, Fleur moves through the water, and you let out a sigh of relief when she makes her way to the edge of the lake. Fleur hesitates, hands leaving imprints in the soil.

“It’s not real,” Fleur whispers and then she finally pushes herself out of the water, escaping.

You’re about to leave and go back to check on Cedric when a voice screams out.

“STUPEFY!” A strong, gruff, masculine voice calls out, and Fleur smacks into the ground, eyes rolling into her head until she lays still.

Chapter 46: The Graveyard

Chapter Text

You tense in your seat, fighting to be able to do something, anything to help Fleur. Beyond her, you see her attacker standing above her. Viktor Krum. He doesn’t cast again, seeming satisfied with her being stunned, but something seemed wrong with him.

His face is entirely blank like he has no idea what’s going on. Behind him, you see a figure running into view, and you realise with a start that it’s Cedric.

“CRUCIO!” Viktor yells, and the dark red spell is shot from his wand. You watch horrified as your friend thrashes on the ground, screaming in agony as the curse racks his body. You reach out, slamming a partial shield around him, the distance you are from the maze making it so much harder to achieve, even though you can remove some of the stings from the spell you can’t stop it all. You hiss, feeling the spell locking around you as though you were taking some of the hit for Cedric and not your barrier.

A black-haired boy comes racing from behind, stunning Viktor without hesitation, you let out a sigh of relief removing your barrier and praying you will get a chance to recover before you next use a shield.

Harry helps Cedric to his feet before looking at the duo before them. Cedric is quicker to action, shooting red sparks in the air to send help to Fleur and Viktor.

“Guys, I think we have a problem,” You speak up, pausing your narration to them and instead choosing to address the problem that needs to be considered.

“Is everything -?” Cho starts but you cut her off.

“Cedric’s fine, for now, Fleur should be too, the problem lies with Viktor,” You answer, “I wasn’t sure, but now I am. Viktor was under the imperious curse,”

“He’s being taken out of the maze… what’s the problem?” Alicia asks.

“Because neither Fleur nor Cedric could have put him under the imperious, and I’m highly doubtful that it was the boy-who-lived,” You answer.

“That means it was someone outside of the maze,” Millie answers and you nod.

“Coupled with the fact that you said you sensed polyjuice last week and the nature of the curses, it’s possible there's a death-eater amongst us,” Ant speaks up.

“But how are we supposed to narrow it down?” Cho asks, and you frown.

“There didn’t seem to be anything off about Krum at the start of the tournament,” Jake voices and Ant picks up.

“So then the caster had to have done so after Krum entered the maze,” Ant adds.

“Our villain is someone who could see through the maze walls,” Millie summarises.

“That means they’re either highly skilled with wandless magic or more likely have a magical item,” Cho considers, “Whoever’s been in this place must have been here last week but could they have been here longer?”

“It’s very likely, I was incredibly paranoid, and so I kept my magic expanded a lot,” You answer, “I don’t typically do so,”

“But surely we’d all notice if Professor Flitwick was acting weird,” Alicia points out.

“So someone at this school, and new to the school. Someone with the capability of casting an imperious curse and a cruciartious curse,” Katie adds.

“So, someone with a magical object, someone capable of casting advanced magic and someone who wasn’t here before. Also, someone who’d be able to access polyjuice potion without alerting suspicion,” Ant lists, “That leaves us with…”

“Professor Moody,” You guess, eyes widening with surprise. A bustle of argument breaks out amongst the group before Millie cuts in.

“She’s right,” Millie answers, mouth agape, “His eye caught me and Luke during the Yule ball. We all saw him cast the three unforgivables so he’s clearly capable and Alastor Moody is a paranoid recluse, hardly anyone knows him, and strange behaviour would be dismissed as lingering changes left from his days as an Auror,”

“We have to find him,” Ant states, panicking slightly.

“Someone should tell Dumbledore,” Cho speaks up.

“We’ll handle that, you need to know Cedric’s OK,” Millie answers firmly, putting you, Gabriel and Cho in the stands.

“I’ll tell Dumbledore,” Alicia speaks up.

“We’ll hunt down our so-called ‘professor’” Angelina answers standing.

“Don’t go in groups smaller than four. He may not be the auror, but he’s still dangerous, and it's obvious that he’s willing to cast unforgivables on children. There’s strength in numbers,” You advise, and your friends nod their agreement.

You focus back on the maze, finding Cedric and Harry a few seconds from the Triwizard cup. They both reach out, hands locking around it firmly, and then they disappear. You curse, realising that they’re not appearing outside the maze. Where were they?

“What can I do?” Cho asks and your mind races; trying to concentrate.

“Get me something of Cedric’s and get Hermione Granger,” You order, you need to extend your magic and holding something of Cedric’s would help since it would help you to focus on only him. Still, what if you don’t manage to push yourself far enough?

A hand grips yours, offering her magic to you without question. Besides you, Cho shoves a ring into your hand. You don’t throw your magic out, instead, you concentrate on throwing it through the ring, it’s not enough. A hand touches your face and pushes more magic to you. You have no idea who’s hand it is, but you take the magic and use it until you come across somewhere unnaturally dark.

Tombstones are scattered around haphazardly, and you realise it’s a graveyard.

Another hand joins the fay, channelling stronger and stronger magic.

Harry and Cedric stand, staring out at the cemetery with a deal of fear in their eyes. The boy who lived collapses to the ground suddenly, holding his scar in agony. Cedric pushes himself forwards, evidently willing to protect the boy as a shrouded figure makes his way through the graveyard towards them.

“Kill the spare,” A voice hisses, and all you have time to see is a wand being lifted and a jet of green light blasting out of the end. You throw a shield in front of Cedric, using more magic than you ever thought you’d be capable of, managing to disapparate most of the magic. Cedric is thrown backwards, smacking against a rock where he lays with his eyes closed, dark spots fly across your vision, few at first and then more until the innumerable dots completely obscure your vision and throw you into the dark pits inside your head.

Chapter 47: The end

Chapter Text

The first thing you become aware of is a hand holding yours, it’s soft and familiar. One you recognise almost immediately; if your eyes weren’t so heavy you’d open them to see the angels face, but you’re not sure how to when there’s such a heavyweight tying them down. A breath gently pushes against your ear as your angel whispers in your ear.

“I know you’re awake, can you open your eyes? Please?” The girl whispers, and with a few attempts, you finally wrench them open, forcing them to stay open despite the brightness of the lights. For a moment, all you do is look at Fleur, scanning her for any signs of injury. She lets you for a while and then satisfied, you finally look back into her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Fleur asks, and you struggle with the thought for a while.

“Can I have some water?” You ask, and Fleur pours you a glass from the pitcher by your bed. You reach to take it, arms like lead but she stops you.

“It’s OK, I can help you,” Fleur promises, and with a small nod of your head she presses the glass to your lips, carefully pouring it little by little until the pain in your throat and head lessens.

“Thanks,” You say after a moment there are questions you have, but you don’t know if you’re allowed to ask them yet or if there’s something else you’re supposed to do first. Thankfully, Fleur seems to be able to read you like an open book.

“You have questions,” Fleur states and you nod, she waits for a second and then gives you what you need, “Ask them,”

“Are you OK? Were you OK?” You ask while it was rare for stunners to cause much damage, there was a part of you that was still screaming for your soulmates safety.

“I’m fine,” Fleur promises, “Absolutely, completely fine,”

“What happened?” You ask, “About Professor Moody?”

“Millie, Jake, Angelina and Katie found him. Millie managed to stun him, and we discovered that you were right. Alastor Moody has been at the bottom of his trunk since the start of Hogwarts. A death-eater took his place,” Fleur explains, “Your hunch was correct,”

“I see,” You answer, “Is Cedric OK?”

“He unconscious, but he came round about four hours ago,” Fleur explains, “He managed to convince Madame Pomfrey to let him go to the end of term feast, and that’s where he is now. He’s sore, tired and admitted to having a headache but he’ll probably make a full recovery,”

“Thank God,” You answer, there’s no emotion in your voice almost making you seem sarcastic, but Fleur seems to take it the way you mean it.

“You saved his life, Cedric said that something shielded him from harm and I doubt the fact that you were watching over him and suddenly collapsed was coincidental,” Fleur smiles softly, running a hand through your hair, “You get more and more impressive every day,”

You smile on the inside, sharing a lingering look with her before a thought struck you.

“Fleur… Where are you and Gabriel going this Summer?” You ask, and Fleur sighs.

“A friend of mine has offered to let me and Gabriel stay for the Summer, I’ll be returning to France tomorrow evening,” Fleur answers and your heart falters at the thought of the distance between the two of you.

“Actually, you’re not, I wrote to Luke and mentioned this problem to him. If you’d like to, you can stay with us,” Millie offers, “You and Gabriel would have to share a bed, but you’d be more than welcome to stay with us while you're getting on your feet,”

“Are you serious?” Fleur asks, an edge to her tone. Millie frowns, looking a little uncertain for a second.

“Um… yes?” Millie says. Fleur races away from the bed, grabbing ahold of Millie. For a moment, Millie looks quite like she expects to be attacked and then Fleur wraps her in a hug. Millie stands completely still for a second and then hugs her back.

“Thank you,” Fleur says, and Millie smiles slightly.

“Anytime,” Millie promises, “Now, can you let me go?”

Fleur quickly removes her arms, as the sudden patter of footsteps reaches your ears.

“Oh no!” Millie gasps and Fleur blinks in confusion, as the girl grabs her and pulls her up against a wall. A sudden bustle of people seems to remove Fleur’s confusion as your friends storm your bed.

“Why didn’t you just stick to three friends?” Millie asks as the huddle around your bed threatens to crush you.

“Because she’s got the heart of a Hufflepuff,” Cedric says, hugging you tightly to him.

“I’ve never been more insulted,” You answer, your voice still lacks emotion, but you realise something beautiful. The people around you, your friends, know you enough to know how you’re feeling without you having to display your emotions.

Cedric pushes your shoulder slightly, a grin on his face.

“I love you,” Cedric tells you and you smile at him.

“I love you too,” You tell him, glad you took the risk of opening yourself up more.

When you get onto the Hogwarts Express at the end of term, Millie has to cast a spell so you and your friends can fit in the compartment. You hold Fleur’s hand, enjoying the familiar weight of it.

“I can’t believe you won’t be here next year,” Ant sighs, leaning against Millie’s shoulder in an unusually affectionate gesture towards her, “You have to stay in touch,”

“Well there was never any way that you were going to get rid of me, I’ll be owling you at least once a week,” Millie promises.

“I’ll owl you to Ant, don’t worry,” You promise and Ant raises an eyebrow.

“You’re leaving?” Ant asks, surprised.

“I think, maybe, it’s time to start moving on,” You answer, subtly glancing towards Gabriel and Fleur, a nervous feeling rises in your chest as you await his reaction hoping that the sudden change of plans won’t be too much for him.

“Hey! What about my letters?” Jake pipes up after a second and you chuckle.

“I’ll have to think about that,” You jest and Jake rolls his eyes.

“Are you scared?” Cedric asks.

“Are you?” Fleur asks, and Cedric’s face takes on a grave expression that makes Fleur cover Gabriel’s ears.

“Harry… he says you-know-who is back,” Cedric admits, “I’m scared for when the day comes that we have to fight,”

You all pause for a moment, a grim air in the cabin.

“Who knows, maybe someone will kill him before we have to fight,” Katie offers optimistically, “And if they don’t… well, it gives us a reason to make the most of every moment,”

Thankfully, the solemn mood of the group has disappeared by the time you enter the station. Laughter fills your cabin - which is now the size of a full corridor - as well as the sound of minor explosions as your friends, and you take turns to see who’s better at duelling. It gets down to you, Fleur, Millie and Cedric by the end but you’re pleasantly surprised by the revelation that Gabriel had been practising wandless magic all year when she successfully disarms Cho Chang (admittedly, Cho hadn’t been expecting anything from the girl and so didn’t have any defence set up).

“Welp looks like we’re going to be raising a genius,” You whisper to Fleur, and the girl smiles at you.

“Yeah, but I couldn’t imagine a better family to raise a kid with,” Fleur whispers back.

Your hands stay connected, as you watch Millie and Cedric throw spells back and forth with varying success. Jake cheers for Millie, Cho cheers for Cedric and Ant seems intent on winding Millie up by cheering for Cedric too. You laugh to see Gabriel and Angelina just cheering when the duo uses fire-based spells. At the back of the carriage, you see Alicia and Katie sneaking kisses when they think no one’s looking.

Your family may be slightly crazy, but you loved both the biological and non-biological sides of it dearly.

“Me neither,” You agree, resting your head against her shoulder.

Chapter 48: Epilouge

Chapter Text

The faint buzzing reaches your ear. With a small groan, you roll to the edge of your bed determined to let yourself out. Strong arms wrap around you pulling you back in. With more willpower than you thought you possessed you resist the urge to cuddle with her knowing that if you do you’ll be here for another hour and end up being late.

“Babe, we can’t,” You groan, as Fleur presses a gentle kiss to your shoulder. She persists for a moment but when it’s clear that you won’t budge, she sighs and releases you, rolling out of the bed.

“Do you smell burning?” Fleur asks, as you’re pulling on your jeans. You both exchange worried glances and then hurriedly make your way downstairs to see Gabriel struggling with a bowl of mixture. You glance at the ingredients and then quickly assess that she’s trying to make pancakes, but from the acrid scent that hangs around the kitchen her past few attempts have been a little… unsuccessful.

“Do you want some help?” You ask, as Fleur takes the burned up mess at the bottom of the frying pan and starts scrubbing it away.

“Please,” Gabriel agrees, looking distraught.

“It’s a learning curve,” Fleur tells her, brushing a hand over her hair gently. You make your way over to the stove and help Gabriel cook some of the mixture. Before finally taking a seat at the breakfast table.

“Thanks for cooking,” You tell the young girl, who seems more than a little disheartened by her first few fairly disastrous attempts.

“It tastes good!” Fleur compliments, digging into her pancake and watching as Gabriel’s smile returns. The three of you tuck in, before Fleur apparates you onto the platform.

Gabriel peers around you, wide-eyed and excited. Fleur’s grip on your hand tightens and you know that she’s almost definitely going to cry a little.

“You better not cry, if you cry, I’ll cry,” You whisper to her and Fleur smiles, giving you a quivering smile with watery eyes.

“So… Are you excited?” Fleur asks, “First day at school?”

“I can’t wait! This’ll be amazing!” Gabriel grins.

“And you?” Fleur asks looking over to you, you’d be starting your first day as a professor today although you had permission to spend three evenings a week outside of Hogwarts.

“I’ll tell you all about it tonight,” You promise, “I’ll also be kidnapping Gabriel,”

“You can’t kidnap me! I’m grown up!” Gabriel says, “I’m eleven!”

“Oh really titch?” The new defence against the dark arts teacher asks, ruffling Gabriel’s hair with an amused smile.

“My hair!” Gabriel yelps, “You’ll pay for that,”

Gabriel jumps up, climbing the tall man and ruffling his hair and forming a huge bird nest like mess before settling on top of his shoulders.

“HEY!” Cedric yelps trying to dislodge the girl, while Fleur nimbly steps behind them to make sure Gabriel’s favourite uncle doesn’t accidentally cast her into the ground. Thankfully, he sees Fleur hovering and airs on the side of caution.

“You’re my dragon now!” Gabriel giggles - and yes, Gabriel’s obsession with one day riding a dragon terrified both you and Fleur since you had no doubt she would probably achieve or try to achieve her dream one day.

“RAAARGH!” Cedric growls, acting the part. Gabriel blushes.

“Cedric… I’m too old,” Gabriel protests, frowning slightly.

“You’re never too old, don’t you worry,” Fleur reassures, you duck down, sweeping Fleur off her feet and onto your shoulders. Fleur squeezes your shoulders tightly, and you walk around for a few minutes with her before settling her safely on the ground. Fleur wraps an arm around your waist, glancing behind you before stealing a quick kiss as if you were still teenagers. Red blush fills your face quicker than a bolt of lightning and Fleur smirks.

“Hey are we still on for tonight?” A very pregnant Cho asks.

“Have I ever let you down?” Fleur asks with a grin, wrapping her arms around you as she turns to face the girl, referring to the monthly meeting of your friendship group.

“Great, so shall I bring my famous apple pie-” Cho starts but Fleur cuts her off, her arms tightening around your waist.

“No!” Fleur starts and Cho looks insulted for a moment, before a small smile appears on Cho’s face.

“I see,” Cho says with a smirk. A cloud of smoke fills the station as the Hogwarts Express pulls into the station, and everyone hurries to say goodbye. It's a flurry of arms and kisses and sentiment. Fleur does her best to hide her tears as Gabby hurries onto the train.

“She’ll be ok,” You promise.

“I know it’s just all those years, all those moments and soon she won’t even let me kiss her goodbye at the stations. She’s been so strong and she’s growing up so fast, damn, I just… I already kind of miss her,” Fleur admits and you smile.

“Me too, but it’s a good change, and hey, itf it’s any help, I’ll always kiss you goodbye at the station,” You promise and Fleur’s lips twitch.

“You’d better,” She smirks, pulling you in for a quick but heated kiss before Cho’s shoving you up towards the train and linking her arm with Fleur’s dragging her away. You turn to Cedric sharing a perplexed smile as you make your way towards an empty carriage.

You’ve barely settled into your seat before Cedric starts questioning.

“Astronomy?” Cedric suggests you've not revealed to any of your friends what you’re teaching, not even your family knows.

“Nope,” You say with a grin, popping the ‘p’ as three welcome faces join the fray.

“Can’t be potions,” Millie says, a small grin on her face.

“Definitely not Transfigurations,” Ant adds.

“And it’s not Charms,” Jake agrees.

“Herbology went to Neville Longbottom,” Millie adds with a frown.

You smile, settling into place while they keep asking, never getting closer to the truth.

Night has fallen, having gently wrapped itself like a blanket around the castle. You enter as a quartet, a stern expression on faces hoping to scare newer students into not messing around too much in your classes. The moment you slip beyond their sights, however, there’s an explosion of laughter, joking and looks that promise mischief. Your students would be foolish to mess with you while you can still wandlessly, wordlessly and sneakily cast a hair changing hex.

The four of you settle into places on the staff table, feeling the hundreds of eyes on you as the newcomers. Amongst your friends, they are quickly forgotten once the sorting ceremony gets brought up.

“A galleon says that Gabby’s a Hufflepuff,” Cedric betts.

“No, she’s kind but she’s way too sneaky to be a ‘puff. Remember when she went through that phase of pinching everyone’s food when their backs were turned? My money’s on Slytherin,” Millie argues.

“Yeah, but she's smart, not just sneaky. Think about all those times she made a diversion and all the things she already knows,” Ant points out.

“Ptth, that’s Y/N and Fleur’s influence. She’s far more likely to be a Gryfindor, she’s never been afraid to climb trees or enter those dark caves near -” Jake starts but you cut him off.

“What dark caves?” You ask, slightly threateningly as what your friends refer to as your mama bear instincts take over. Your friends shift sheepishly and you let out a sigh, knowing that Gabriel would have been safe with them, “Nevermind. I don’t want to know,”

“Yeah, you really don’t,” Ant agrees, only for Millie to jab him with her elbow.

“Whatever house she’s in, I just hope she’s happy, I know I’ll be proud as long as she is,” You smile, as the doors to the Great Hall open and Gabriel enters. She already seems to be making friends and talking to someone as she walks in, when she sees you, she shoots you this huge smile that you return without hesitation.

Students pass by and you watch with feigned patience until Gabriel’s name is called and you watch as she steps forwards, taking a seat on the stool. Professor Mcgonagal places the sorting hat on Gabriel’s head and you lean forwards slightly waiting for the hat to announce her house.

Seconds and then minutes tick by, Gabriel’s hard to place just like you knew she would be.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” The sorting hat announces suddenly, and a wide grin makes its way across your face as you clap for her. You’re vaguely aware of money exchanging hands as Cedric leans back in his chair a triumphant smirk on his face.

“You proud then, mama bear?” Ant asks teasingly.

“Always,” You admit.

Professor Mcgonagal stands to announce the new members of faculty and you smile slightly.

“And finally, a new addition to our subjects. Wandless magic will now be offered by professor Y/L/N, indefinitely,” Professor McGonagal announces.

“Damn, that’s awesome!” Cedric grins, once you settle back into your seat. You grin, it would certainly be challenging but well worth it.

Students are sent to their dormitories at eight o’clock, and most disappear except Gabriel.

“Are you sure you want to come?” You ask, “You don’t want to miss out on making friends or having to struggle to find your common room,”

“That’s OK, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Gabriel answers, leaving a touch too much ambiguity of what exactly ‘this’ is.

Cedric grabs her hand and leads her through the floo quickly, with you following behind.

“What house did you get?” You hear Angelina asking as Millie steps out.

“Hufflepuff,” Gabriel answers.

“Nice one! Proud of you Delacour,” Angelina says, high-fiving the girl as Katie messes around with a banner behind it pulling up a HUfflepuff flag.

“Me too,” Fleur grins, wrapping an arm around her and hugging her tightly to her chest. The twins stumble out of the fireplace, Mia steadies Ant and you steady Jake keeping the two clutz from falling over.

You take a seat on the sofa and a steady flow of conversation breaks among the group, while Gabby strong arms her uncles into playing poker. Judging from the deepening frown on Luke’s face and the answering smirk on Gabriel’s the game isn’t going well for them.

“Ooh! I think the cake’s ready,” Fleur says, standing suddenly and disappearing from the room. You frowned slightly, she seemed way too nervous for some reason. A few of your friends exchange knowing glances seemingly clued into something.

“You know this game is going way too well for you,” Cedric suddenly announces, instinctively every eye turns to Millie who lets out a small groan.

“Kid, I told you to lose some games!” Millie curses and Cedric’s jaw drops.

“You sneaky little cheat!” Cedric curses, and Gabriel smiles.

“Uh, whoops?” Gabriel replies, with a cheeky grin.

“Hey! Who wants cake?” Fleur announces.

“Your sister’s a cheat Delacour,” Ant mutters, only to be shot a death glare from Mia that shuts him up.

“I’ll take some,” You say with a small smile, “It smells delicious,”

Fleur’s hand shakes slightly as she cuts you a slice.

“Hey, babe, is everything ok?” You ask worriedly.

“Just eat the cake,” Cho suggests and bemused, you stab a slice out of your cake aware that everyone’s watching you. A sudden clink reaches your ears and you pause staring at what’s at the bottom of your bowl.

“Fleur…” You whisper as she plucks the silver ring out.

“Y/N, can I?” Fleur asks, slowly lowering herself to one knee. You just nod, wordless, “I love you, every day, I love you more and more. You mean the world to me, your kind, your caring, we’ve been through so much and I want to spend my life with you and I don’t ever want you to leave, so please can we get married?”

You don’t answer her, just pulling her in for a kiss while your friends cheer.

“So… that’s a yes?” Fleur asks.

“Always,”