Chapter 5: Unexpected Encounter.
Fleur was lost.
After dinner, she walked calmly towards the castle exit, well... maybe thinking about Harry quite a bit.
Oh, okay, yes, all her thoughts were of him.
It seemed like, here she was in a crowd of Beauxbatons, and just in second. Alone in a medieval castle. It was well past curfew. Sometimes dialoging with yourself doesn't do you any good.
Apparently, she had been wandering around the castle in her thoughts for an hour.
It was dark and scary; somewhere a Slytherin ghost was playing with chains, somewhere a poltergeist had once again knocked something over. Knight's armor, ghosts, and people walking around somewhere out there in the dark.
Veela was scared as hell.
Oh, sure, Hogwarts is the safest place in the world. Except that every damn year something happens here, and since there's no Harry around to save her, to her great regret... her death could mean new 'adventures' for him. Oh, yes, and about that, too, she was "making inquiries," if you could call it that - questioning the boy who was completely under her spell.
Suddenly, as she passed another fork in the road, Delacour smelled... the odor of cigarettes?
It was even offensive: a medieval castle and ordinary cigarettes. Fleur wanted to glamorize the bastard somehow. No, you've got to take the romance out of it.
She, having already thought out to herself the whole list of spells she would unleash on the poor, unsuspecting smoker, goes around the corner - to a small cul-de-sac with a huge open window, on the window sill of which the intruder is sitting.
"YOU-You know WHAT I'm going to do to you right now?"
Of course, given that it's a guy, Delacour guessed what he'd roughly be thinking: night, guy, girl-veela - questions like that. Oh well, there would be another excuse at least for herself to curse him.
"No, I don't," the unknown man replied calmly, turning to her.
"I..." Merlin knows what she wanted to say now, but she ran into the so familiar green eyes. "Uh... shall I sit down next to you?"
"Sit down," Potter replied detachedly.
"What are you doing here at this late hour?" seating herself next to him, the Frenchwoman asked. The windowsill was so wide that both Harry and Fleur could fit in there comfortably. Potter sat between her and the window, while she sat on the edge of the sill.
"Smoking."
"I get the feeling you're not happy to see me," Fleur decided to go in with a trump card, pouting her lips. Usually after something like this, men were willing to say anything to appease her. But not this time.
"Yeah, I'm not happy. And I won't be happy until you quit your dumb blonde pussyfooting around."
"Don't you like me just the way I am?" decided to pull the "joker out of my sleeve" veela and, bringing her shoulders together slightly to make her breasts seem impressive, turned to Potter.
The boy passed a quick, appraising glance over the figure. An analysis immediately flashed through his mind.
Veela. He appeared to be steady. Either she has a great deal of experience in amorous affairs, or none at all. In the first case, because she can get any guy she wants. The second is exactly the opposite - everyone wants her and no one sees anything beyond boobs. Delacour is the head of the French Aurorate, forty-something. So it's his daughter, hardly his wife. So it's not likely the first one. It's probably the second option.
All this flashed through his mind as he returned his gaze to her eyes.
Fleur saw that picture-appreciative look and was a little surprised. She thought she could easily embarrass him, and here...
"Might like you," Harry replied in a whisper, bringing his face closer to hers. "You know, night, dark castle, Hero of all Magical Britain, beautiful veela..."
Veela blushed, but didn't look away.
"Romantic atmosphere," she continued, working hard to make her accent as arousing as possible.
She liked the way things were developing. Even though she had little experience...well, like little, a couple of romance books. But a first kiss in such an environment was probably the limit of many people's dreams. As Potter had rightly said, "...dark castle, hero, beauty..."
"Yes," he agreed in as dry a tone as possible, turning his head sharply away from the window and taking another pull, "I guess."
The Frenchwoman was shocked. Here she was, trying to do her best, and this... this... she could only inhale and exhale sharply with indignation, but then she thought and calmed down. It was obvious he wasn't trying to piss her off. And he was. And she'd sort of chosen him herself…
"Okay... so, what are you doing here, 'Arry Potter?" she inquired already without any playfulness, just a tired voice. No kidding, so many worries in a day.
The teen abruptly threw away his unfinished cigarette, squinted into Fleur's eyes for a second, and then abruptly grabbed her hand and led her into the newly issued apartment.
"What...?" Delacour was first confused, then indignant, and then decided to see where he was taking her.
"Follow me," Harry said, as if cut off, and dragged the veela along. He led her into some small empty room, where three doors could be seen in the corners and an archway leading into a small kitchen.
"What is this place? Is this your room?"
There was a fireplace in the room with a chest of drawers in front of it.
Potter, not listening to the girl, took something from the chest.
"Let's get to deduction. I found this in the Gryffindor common room before I moved out of there. What do you make of this item?"
It was a black and white knitted hat, with a pompom on top and the same hanging down the sides. Fleur decided to accept this game. After all, she wanted to be close to Harry - so here was her chance. But it was a game that could be played with just the two of them.
"Why should I tell anything about a silly hat of a nervous and sentimental slave to his habits, and even with bad breath? Damn, He bought it."
"He?"
"Oui, he recently got a haircut. See the hairs that stick to the sweat stains inside?" pointed out Delacour a little squeamishly.
"Maybe a woman with a short haircut?" looking directly into her eyes instead of at the hat, Potter suggested.
And what he was seeing... damn he liked it. The girl was clearly very smart. And in some ways, she and he were alike. Ahead of Harry goes his scar and popularity, ahead of Fleur goes her charm. Judging by the girl's demeanor, she's also interested in him. Something could come out of this.
"The likelihood is much less likely. That he's sentimental is clear from the fact that the hat has been darned five times and thoroughly. It's not worth it. He's got a strong attachment to it. Moreover, a couple of darnings is a sign of sentimentality, but five is obsessive-compulsive neurosis."
"Hardly. The owner left it in the living room. Doesn't sound like obsessive-compulsive neurosis. Did you say he's nervous?"
"The pompon on the left tie is chewed up, indicating a tendency to neurosis and-"
"And he's a slave to his habits, since the right pompon isn't chewed," Potter finished for her.
In the time it took veela to look at the hat and speak, he had transfigured a small couch, which they both sat down on in the process.
"If you want to hang out with me, I'm going to ask that you always use all your intelligence and not pussyfoot around like a dumb blonde, okay?"
Fleur was a little confused when she realized that the two of them were sitting on a small couch, and from the fact that he had been staring uninterruptedly for about five minutes straight into her eyes. So she lowered her gaze to the floor and embarrassedly began to mutter in an accent strong with excitement.
"W'o said I was interested? I just got lost, and here you are asseyez-vous, fumez, alors j'ai décidé d'aller demander..." switching to French towards the end. Looking up, Delacour ran into his gaze as if he was asking: "Really? You expect me to believe that?".
How marvelous when with one look this Englishman can show so much emotion!
"Soit, but I'm used to acting like this. You know, I have no idea how it is over here, but in France, though de jure everybody is equal, de facto nobody can believe that a blonde veela is smarter than she looks. It's developed a complex in me, you might say."
"Oh, I understand you perfectly. I didn't have a great childhood either, and have a decent bunch of complexes. As of this very evening, I'm fighting them. Would you like to join this marathon?"
"For Britain's Golden Boy to have childish complexes? Te crois pas."
For a few seconds Harry froze, staring into the fireplace. He doesn't tell anyone anything about himself, but his childhood dream of having a family is impossible without talking to... well, at least someone. And he's determined to overcome his childhood complexes. This is one of them. And he's the right person to talk to. Smart.
"You know... you'll be the first person I tell anything about me. So ask me anything you're interested in. I'll try to answer honestly. After the first few questions, you'll probably understand why."
"Oui, just make us a blanket first, because it's really cold."
And looks at the main thing with those innocent, innocent eyes. So innocent that he even believed it and flooded the fireplace.
The girl's thoughts at that moment were of the jerk who, instead of conjuring up a blanket to cover them both, putting his arm around her and whispering a story in her ear, always straying into compliments that would have made her giggle, melted the damn fireplace and stared, "What more do you want?
Potter seemed to catch something in her gaze and conjured up a plaid, covering them. She quickly snuggled up to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
At first he'd expected the body's typical reaction to touch - a shiver, a desire to pull away. It had haunted him for quite some time. Ever since Vernon had started beating the then boy. But, surprisingly, it had been fine. Whether it was from Harry being so tired or the fact that it was a beautiful girl and not a fat boar, but either way he had nothing to do but throw his arm around her, pressing her closer to him. And really, it was cold. That's the only reason why. Definitely.
This is going to be a very interesting relationship. Both of them realize they like each other. But one of them is a fool.
"Tell me about where you lived before Hogwarts. Rumors vary up to and including that you're Dumbledore's personal apprentice. Which of course isn't true, from what I've heard."
"I was staying with my Muggle relatives. Hence, in fact, all my complexes. I was sort of a house elf there. Until I was five, I thought my names were 'Creep', 'Hey you', 'Freak', and so on. Then they put me in school and I recognized my name. Even in first grade I noticed I was smarter than the rest of the class, but after my first perfect grade, I was beaten up badly and locked up. So much for the ready-made complex. I never show everything I know how to do. Slightly above average is the level I've always demonstrated in everything. Starting tomorrow, of course, I begin to correct that. I've had a fruitful conversation with the principal and I'm taking the NEWT at the end of this year. That is, in effect, graduating from Hogwarts..."
Fleur, listening and realizing that he wasn't lying, was horrified. Oh, she understood all of her boyfriend's demons. Oh, well, I mean... a new friend. Delacour huddled closer to him and cried quietly. veela, unlike Harry, didn't nip emotions in the bud.
She kept crying and asking new and new questions about his childhood, and he kept answering and answering.
The girl fell asleep at the point of Potter's story about his first school year. The one, noticing that his living warmonger had fallen asleep, decided not to wake her up by moving her somewhere else, but to just try to sleep as well.
Of course, because he was too lazy to get up now, not because he liked her warm embrace.
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