Chapter Text
Harry ran. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running for, or where he’d been running towards. All he knew was that he’d lost his wand in the scuffle after the World Cup Final, been separated from his friends, and was now being chased by two drunk men in dark hoods.
Mr. Weasley had asserted that the men assaulting the poor Roberts family had simply been drunk hooligans, a sad group trying to relive their glory days. Harry and Hermione, both of whom knew about the existence and escape of Pettigrew, thought differently. Their raucous bellows and indiscriminate hexes into the panicked crowds had not felt like mourning. No. They were celebrating.
They’d left to find a quiet spot while the Ministry dealt with the men. Only for Ron to become enraptured by two Veela holding court next to a quiet stream. In the scuffle to pull him free of the crowd surrounding the women he’d been separated from his idiot best friend, Hermione, and the Twins.
To compound his already piss-poor luck, the next people he ran into were the two idiots he’d ‘affectionately’ named Idiots One and Two. They seemed to have splintered away from the main group in search of victims of their own and without a wand he was helpless. Having seen what they’d done to Muggles and having no desire to find out what they’d do if they got their hands on the Boy-Who-Lived, he had kicked Idiot Two in the shin and ran.
He pushed through the thick bushes, unable to see more than a few feet in front of him due to the darkness and the dense undergrowth. He could hear their voices grow fainter and fainter but he kept his head down, hoping to minimize the chances of the spells they were shooting in his vague direction making contact with him.
After a few minutes of silence, he heaved a sigh of relief and straightened, only to immediately trip over someone and land headfirst into the wet soil. He turned toward the person with wide eyes, only for a dainty hand to be pressed over his mouth before he could say a word. Serious electric blue eyes peered at him.
A Veela?!
The aura was familiar. He felt the same warmth wash over him, a sense of hope and power filling every fiber of his body. He studied the girl who had her hand clamped over his mouth. She held a lit wand in her other hand, not that she needed it. Her platinum blonde hair shone faintly in the dark like a piece of the moon itself had been plucked from the heavens to craft every strand. Her high cheekbones and flawless jawline only completed the image of perfection. He couldn’t see the rest of her body, but it did not matter. He doubted her figure harbored a single imperfection.
“If I remove my hand, monsieur, you will not scream. Oui?” she asked quietly in heavily accented English. How she knew to use English, he did not know.
Harry nodded.
The girl slowly pulled back her hand, keeping her wand pointed squarely at Harry’s chest. Not that he blamed her. It was a smart move. He was dealing with a smart witch, someone more than capable of defending herself. “My name is Fleur Delacour.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Harry blurted before he could help himself. He immediately turned red, his blush only deepening at Fleur’s musical chuckle.
“I am flattered, monsieur, but I do not even know your name,” Fleur murmured with an amused smile.
“Sorry. I’ve been getting better at resisting the Allure. That was… embarrassing,” Harry mumbled, suddenly wishing he was back with Idiots One and Two. “Can we start over please?”
Fleur laughed. “Yes.” She extended her free hand. “My name is Fleur Delacour.”
Harry raised his hand to grasp hers, shaking it lightly. “Harry. Harry Potter.”
Fleur’s eyes narrowed and she leaned closer, gently pushing aside the fringe of his hair that covered the scar with her wand. “You are Harry Potter,” she breathed, sounding surprised.
“You had your doubts?”
“Men pretend to be many things they are not around me, Harry Potter.”
“Just Harry is fine. And if I’m pretending, I’d rather be anyone but myself if I’m being honest. But you have a point. My best friend is probably still posing as the owner of the Chudley Canons to impress your kin. Although why he thinks pretending to own the worst team in the league will impress them… I do not know. Maybe he’s hoping for pity sex,” Harry said, smirking.
Fleur laughed. She finally lowered her wand, using their enjoined hands to help Harry sit. “Veela are not known to be charitable in matters of love. It is our biology. We only choose mates strong enough to withstand us at our best… and at our worst.”
“Hey, you’re selling Ron short. The man was willing to plunge to his death for the Bulgarian cheerleaders. My best friend is strong. Stupid, but strong.”
Fleur’s lips quirked. “You are funny, Harry.”
“One of my lesser appreciated qualities.”
“What brings you here?”
“The World Cup Final,” Harry said, completely serious.
Fleur snorted. Her new acquaintance was being a smartass, which was a refreshing change of pace from the usual slobbering and telling her what they thought she’d want to hear.
“Uh, when the riot started-” Harry slowly pushed himself back until he was leaning against the tree opposite hers. “My friend’s father told us to find a quiet spot. I got separated from my friends and lost my wand. Then I ran into two idiots in dark robes and since I didn’t want to participate in whatever they had planned for the Boy-Who-Lived, I kicked one of them in the shins and ran in the opposite direction as fast as I could.”
“Next time, go for their balls.”
Harry chortled. “Why’re you here?”
“I got separated from my maman and sister. I was pursued by a man just like the ones after you, but I fear he would have done much worse than just kill me.”
“You have a wand, why’d you run?”
“You don’t fight at a disadvantage, Harry,” Fleur said. Despite the fact that she was stating the obvious, she wasn’t condescending. She said it matter-of-factly, like it was wisdom she thought the younger man needed to know. “I didn’t know how many of his friends were lurking around. It could have been a trap.”
“What do we do now?”
“We sit here and we wait for your Ministry to capture all the rioters.”
Harry nodded. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, studying the tiny sapling between them. Despite the easy flow of conversation, Harry couldn’t help but notice Fleur’s expression had stayed guarded and that she had carefully steered the conversation away from any personal details about herself.
CRACK.
Harry snapped his head, straining his eyes in the darkness. His attempts to make out who had stepped on the twig were futile.
“Nox,” Fleur whispered. She tightened her hold on her wand, crawling over to him.
“This is where he ran?” A voice growled.
“Yeah, man.”
“And it was him?”
“Why do you keep asking us that?”
“Three?” Harry turned to Fleur, who nodded. Those were three distinct voices.
“Crucio,” the voice that seemed to be in charge said coldly. There was a flash of red a few paces from them, followed by an unearthly scream. “Because you drunk incompetent f*ckwits let Harry f*cking Potter escape. Imagine the fun we could have had before those idiots got their act together. Now come on! He couldn’t have gone far.”
“It’s him,” Fleur whispered, as pale as a ghost. “I recognize his voice.”
Harry racked his brain for a plan. Two against three weren’t good odds to begin with, but him being wandless meant he was useful only as a target.
As a target.
“I’m going to run out there and show myself.”
Fleur looked at him like he was insane. “Why?!” she hissed, her eyes narrowed.
“They’re after me. I’ll show myself and lead them away. That way you can go and get help.”
“I have the wand. I should be the one leading them away.”
“What if there are more of them out there? I’ll just end up being captured anyway. You have a better chance of getting help.” Harry took a deep breath. “Look, I spent the first fifteen years of my life running away from my cousin and his friends. When you know the alternative is a beating and getting your head dunked in the toilet, you get really good at it. I’ll be fine.” He grinned at her before standing. Before she could say anything else he began stomping his way over to the voices, making as much sound as he could.
He didn’t have to go far to find them. They were in a small clearing just a few steps away from where he’d been hiding with Fleur. Idiot One was helping Two to his feet, the large burly man who seemed to have taken command glaring at both men.
“Hello. I heard you were looking for me,” Harry waved. He ducked and ran the minute their attention was his, weaving through the trees as he avoided the jets of light shot in his direction. He kept running, ignoring the branches catching his shirt and pants and ripping the fabric in a million different places. He stumbled over more than one root, his right ankle throbbing by the time the edge of the forest was in sight. He was covered in scratches and cuts from head to toe but the bleeding was the least of his concern. He could hear their voices close behind him and he summoned up the last of his reserves to push through to the clearing, hoping against hope that he would run into someone of the not-evil variety.
Except he wasn’t that lucky. He was never that lucky.
He ran clear of the forest only to find himself on the banks of a wide river. He contemplated jumping into it, but the current was too strong and he wasn’t the best of swimmers.
He turned to face the men pursuing him, a wry smile on his face. “Looks like you caught me. Although I have no idea why you were chasing me. Is it my Viktor Krum figurine?” He pulled out the doll from his pocket, desperate to buy time for Fleur. “I hear they’re selling like crazy on the gray market.”
The burly man glared at him from under his hood. The other two were doubled over, wheezing and gasping for breath.
“Harry Potter,” the man hissed, making a show of drawing his wand.
“You know my name but I don’t know yours.” Harry wondered if he was supposed to be intimidated by the low growl and the menacing way the man was stomping toward him.
We do not point out how silly the guy who wants to torture us looks, he reminded himself. The man looked like a villain straight out of the cartoons Dudley loved to watch when he was younger.
“You’ve caused us a lot of trouble.”
“Who is ‘us’? The Society of Unrepentant Creeps? Look man, I’m not saying you guys deserve it, but-”
He was cut off by a flash of red light colliding with Idiot One’s back. The man slumped over and hit the dirt, the ground shaking with the weight of his body. His friend rushed over to him, only to be dropped by another flash of red light coming from a different direction.
The burly man whirled around to face the new threat, presenting his back to Harry. His first mistake. The fact that he didn’t think to neutralize Harry before doing so? A critical error.
Before he could shoot off a spell Harry pulled his uninjured foot back and brought it up between his parted legs, kicking his balls as hard as he could. The man’s eyes bulged in shock and he doubled over, howling in pain. A fireball sped from the treeline and collided with his left shoulder, lighting his robes on fire.
Before Harry could finish the job another shout distracted him.
“MORSMORDRE.”
His eyes flickered over to the direction of the yell, before moving to the sudden green glow in the sky. He watched the skull form in the night sky in astonishment, his gaze fixated on the snake slithering out of its open mouth.
“I do not need rescuing.” Fleur’s voice brought him back to reality. He looked around for his assailant, only to realize his momentary distraction had let him escape. The other two men still lay where they were, having been stunned by Fleur’s impeccable Stupefys.
Harry turned his gaze to the girl’s determined face, frowning at the scowl she sported.
“Fleur, the entire point of the exercise was that you rescue me, not the other way around. This was the only way to even the odds.”
“So you did not run to sacrifice yourself? To impress me?”
Harry raised an eyebrow. His expression clearly asked the girl, ‘Do you know how self-absorbed you sound right now?’
“I’m many things but I’m not suicidal. This was the best plan we had.”
Fleur shrugged and gave him a shy smile. “I thought maybe the Allure-”
“Doesn’t really affect me. Every time I run into a Veela I need a minute to adjust but after that, it’s just background noise. I’m talking to you like a normal person, aren’t I?” Harry asked, walking over to Idiot One.
He bent and flipped their hood away, revealing a very familiar face. “Huh,” he murmured, studying a face that looked exactly like Crabbe’s. “I knew there was a reason I felt like I knew you.”
“Do you know him too?” Fleur had knelt next to the other man, pushing away his hood to reveal Goyle’s father.
“Yeah. Well, I know their children. They’re these two thugs in my school. Complete-”
His words were drowned out by loud cracks followed by twenty different roars.
“STUPEFY! ”
It was pure luck that they had been crouching, the stunning spells arcing harmlessly over their heads and disappearing into the forest and over the river.
“Freeze!”
Harry crawled over to Fleur and helped her to her feet, both their hands raised up in surrender.
A man with a scraggly beard strode over to them, snatching the wand out of Fleur’s hand. “A Veela?! Why did you cast the spell?! Did this man help you? Answer me!”
“Amos, wait!”
Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Mr. Weasley’s voice. He could see sparks dancing along Fleur’s fingertips, and judging by the fireball she had used to scare off their unknown assailant, he knew she had no need for a wand to defend herself. And as much as he wanted to see Cedric’s vain father knocked down a few pegs, he doubted setting his beard on fire was the right way to go about it.
“One of them is mine. Harry? What’re you doing here?”
“Harry? Harry Potter?!” a short wizard squeaked. There was a murmur of excitement among the assembled witches and wizards.
“Yeah. And this Veela .” Harry turned to glare at Amos Diggory. “Is the only reason I’m alive. We didn’t cast whatever that is if that’s what you were asking.” Harry gestured to the skull in the sky. “If you mean the stunning spells, yes, Fleur did cast those. But since they were hunting us for sport, I’d say it was more than justified.”
“What’s your name girl?” Mr. Diggory asked, keeping her wand clutched in his hand.
“Fleur Delacour,” Fleur replied haughtily, her voice trembling with barely suppressed rage. There was another murmur of excitement. Harry frowned. Was she famous too? It certainly sounded like everyone had recognized her name.
“We heard a voice from there.” Harry pointed to the relevant part of the forest, eager to get Mr. Diggory away from Fleur before she incinerated him for his completely unwarranted hostility.
“They’re lying. There was no one else here. Check all their wands.”
Harry groaned.
Mr. Crouch hobbled up to Amos, a look of pure fury on his face.
“Come now Barty,” a witch wearing a long nightgown and with curlers in her hair said. “Are you seriously suggesting Harry Potter and the daughter of the new French Consul to Britain were responsible for this?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting!” Crouch roared, his mustache trembling. A vein throbbed angrily on his forehead, his entire face red. “A dark creature and a boy… a boy clearly tainted by the darkness. Check their wands!”
“I do not consent,” Fleur said calmly.
“Then you will have to accompany me back to the Ministry, miss.”
“Look here Amos, Amelia is clearing up things at the main site. She’ll be here any minute. How about we let her handle this?”
“My department, Arthur. She’s a magical creature.”
“She’s a person!” Harry shouted, outraged at the way Diggory and Crouch were treating Fleur as less than human.
“She’s a Veela.”
“I do not consent,” Fleur said again, calmly reaching out to take Harry’s hand and squeeze it. Harry’s eyes flickered to her, surprised at how tranquil she suddenly was. “I’m the daughter of a Consul. You cannot test my wand and you certainly cannot arrest me. If you have a problem, take it up with my father.”
“She has a point, Amos,” the witch pointed out. “You don’t want an international incident, especially with You Know What coming up.”
“Oh, there will be an international incident, miss,” Fleur replied cheerfully. “My treatment will make every single paper tomorrow. What’s your name, sir?”
Mr. Crouch looked like he wanted to throttle her.
“Amos Diggory,” Mr. Diggory replied calmly. “Just doing my job, Miss Delacour.”
“Harassing young girls is part of your job, Mr. Diggory?”
“You are way out of line,” Crouch hissed, looming over Fleur menacingly. Fleur maintained the same placid smile on her face, turning to the enraged man. “And your name, sir?”
She received no answer.
“Barty Crouch Sr,” Harry said coldly, ignoring Mr. Weasley’s desperate silent pleas. He knew Mr. Crouch was a powerful figure in the Ministry, but he simply did not care. “Ironically the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.”
“Thanks, Harry.”
“We should search the area the kids pointed out,” Mr. Weasley said, desperate to defuse the situation.
“Whoever it was will be long gone,” the witch pointed out.
“A lot of our spells ricocheted off into the woods. Maybe they were stunned? We should search the area,” a short portly wizard wearing a pinstriped suit over shorts said.
“I’ll go!”
“He’s hiding something,” Fleur whispered to Harry, the two watching Crouch practically run to the area they had pointed out.
“No, he’s just an asshole,” Harry whispered back.
Crouch didn’t return for ten minutes. Mr. Weasley and the witch exchanged worried glances, both of them deciding to go see what the matter was.
“Barty?” Mr. Weasley called out when they reached the edge of the woodline.
“I’m alright!” Mr. Crouch called out. All anger had seeped out of his voice and the man sounded strangely defeated.
“Is that… is that an elf, Barty?” the witch asked as they chanced upon Crouch bent over a small creature.
Harry and Fleur exchanged glances.
“Yes,” Barty croaked, carrying Winky’s body out into the clearing. Mr. Weasley and the witch followed, worried frowns on their faces.
“This is ridiculous. Elves can’t cast the spell. You need a wand for it,” Mr. Diggory said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“She had one, Amos.” Mr. Weasley held up the wand he had found next to Winky’s body.
“Hey!” Harry exclaimed. “That’s mine!”
“So you are admitting to being the one to cast the spell!” Crouch roared. He looked around at the gathered faces desperately, like a drowning man clutching onto a liferaft.
“What? No! I lost it,”
“Calm down, Barty. We don’t even know if this was the wand that cast the spell. Your poor elf might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She might have found the wand and maybe she was roaming around, trying to locate its owner.”
“Test it,” Amos said grimly.
Mr. Weasley sighed, pressing the tip of his wand against Harry’s. “Priori Incantatem,” he murmured, a surprised gasp rolling through the crowd as a miniature dark green skull and snake emerged from Harry’s wand.
Mr. Crouch looked like he was about to explode.
“We should revive the elf. Question her. Maybe she found something?”
“Amos, do you mind giving me Miss Delacour’s wand?” Mr. Weasley said, holding out his hand. Mr. Diggory reluctantly passed him the wand.
“Children, things are quiet in the camp again. Ron and Hermione are worried out of their minds, Harry. Fleur, I’m sure your parents will be glad to see you back too.” Mr. Weasley handed them their wands, clearly dismissing them.
“What’ll happen to Winky?”
“I don’t know, Harry. But I’ll make sure she’s treated fairly.”
“Thank you. You are a good man, Mister-”
“Weasley.”
“Thank you, Mr. Weasley.”
“My pleasure. Now go, before Barty loses his mind again and slaps some other charge on you two.”
“You’ll take care of these two?” Harry gestured to the two stunned men.
“I’ll drop them straight in Amelia’s hands. A stint in Azkaban would do them good. Now go.”
Harry nodded, slowly turning around and following Fleur into the forest.
“I told you he was hiding something.”
“Winky? I met her before the match. She looked scared of her own shadow. It wasn’t her, Fleur. Something is wrong.”
“Perhaps we shall find out.”
“We?”
Fleur chuckled. “You do not know?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“We shall meet each other again this year, Harry Potter. For now, let me take you to my tent and heal your wounds. I can’t leave the man I rescued in such poor condition,” Fleur smirked. “If I rescue a man, I do it properly.”
Harry shook his head. His new friend was a strange woman. Simultaneously flirtatious and introverted, courageous but gentle, a creature of passion and a woman of tranquility. He’d never met anyone quite like her. “Lead the way.”
