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Chapter Text

Gringotts, Fleur decides after the Tournament ends. Prying old flyer from Hogsmeade free from the confines of her trunk, she stows it safely away in her robes. She will go for a job at Gringotts, she will improve her second language, and she will try to recover from her ordeal. Their ordeal.

(Perhaps Fleur will for once be taken seriously with the bank's insignia on her lapel...)

Her failure to win the Cup will fade away before long, she hopes. A youthful error in a soon-to-come history of successes. A footnote. The Delacours enjoy an illustrious reputation in France's magical circles. Fleur does not want her ineptitude to sully it or Beauxbatons again. The shame!

The world's turned on its head overnight, though. A friend died. A Dark wizard—the most frightening one of all—returned to life. Fleur does not need her grandmother's veela blood to sense the change in the air, but the awareness creeps into her brain anyway and fills the crevices in the stonework of Hogwarts with a new...malevolence. If Amortentia hints at your innermost desires, the stench of war flips over your stomach.

Her stomach hasn't felt normal since the Third Task began. Cedric's stillness, Fleur recalls, made the world grind to a halt too. Her disappointment over losing the Cup seems best left behind in girlhood and the accompanying naiveté, but...Fleur doesn't feel quite so naive anymore, not really. She just feels lost. Perhaps a job will give Fleur a stronger sense of direction than a flyer induced whim. "Pointe moi," she murmurs to herself, giving the castle a final look. She will not miss the decorations, the drafts, the food, or even that infernal poltergeist. The students, on the other hand, are a different story. Sighing, Fleur turns away from the smiling poster of Cedric Diggory, locates her sister, and strides toward the carriage.

All musings flee from her mind, however, as Professor Dumbledore himself approaches Fleur before her departure, still in his mourning robes.

"A moment, Miss Delacour, if you please," the headmaster greets, peering at her over his half-moon spectacles. His French is flawless.

Too astonished to do anything but comply, she turns to Gabrielle, heels clacking together like the hands of a clock. "Run along, Gaby," Fleur says in English, nudging her sister as the girl dawdles, eager as all children are to be in on a secret. In the corner of her eye, the headmaster looks amused.

"Laisse nous," she coaxes. Gaby pouts. Wanting to impress Dumbledore, Fleur returns to English. "Tell Madame Maxime I will join you shortly."

She spies Harry, Ron, and Hermione on one of the lawns, also dallying. With any luck, she can say her goodbyes before the trio boards the train.

On their stroll across the grounds, Dumbledore inquires into her health. Fleur takes a minute to consider the circumstances. She has the privilege of speaking with one of the greatest wizards of all time and instead of a clever spell or words of wisdom, he offers her an arm and a patient ear.

"I was...I was only Stunned, Headmaster," she lies. The least injured and the lowest scorer. How shameful, Fleur cannot help but think.

Dumbledore is not deceived. It was he who freed her from the living, hungry brambles. "Grief takes many tolls. Fear sups greedily too."

"Cedric was a good wizard," Fleur deflects, averting her eyes. "I will not forget him eezily, sir. Easily," she corrects, self conscious, and retrieves a few rocks from the shore of the Black Lake. As undignified as she will seem, Fleur can't resist an opportunity to anger the herd of grindylows.

Dumbledore watches the first of her stones hop, hop, hop, before he speaks again. The ripples lure the giant squid to the surface, curious as a cat.

"I have need of you, Miss Delacour, now that your studies are complete."

Fleur wonders if she's heard him right. "Professor?"

"Our Minister will not see reason," Dumbledore admits as the second rock skips further than the first and then sinks into the water. Seemingly affronted, the squid retreats. Cradling the last stone in her hands, she listens. Fleur prided herself on being of age when the Goblet spat out her name, but recent events made her feel so...young. Too young to rationalize what happened, but Fleur heard Harry. She attended the Leaving Feast and gave the headmaster's speech her undivided attention. Cedric's death was not an accident. "Soon, the Ministry will fall under his influence."

"The whole Ministry?" Fleur asks, aghast. After that, it will be nothing less than a flood... "That is disgraceful!"

"That is fear. Fear can drive good people to do terrible things. Willful ignorance," says Dumbledore, "is an agent of evil."

That is not the kind of good I want to be. She throws the last rock with all her might. They watch the voyage. With a cast of the wandless magic she never got a chance to use during the Tournament, a whirlpool of her own creation swallows the stone. That is not the kind of good I want to do.

Perhaps the rumors are true. Perhaps, among other things, Albus Dumbledore can read minds, for his eyes are twinkling, and he is smiling again.

"There is a need for a person like you, Fleur. If you will allow me to explain, Madame Maxime will not be kept waiting long..."

In the end, Fleur receives one job offer (from the Ministry) and one call to arms (from the Order of the Phoenix) and accepts both gladly.

"Are you sure about this, darling?" Apolline asks, studying what she can see of the room from the fireplace. It is, Fleur will confess, as cramped as the broom closet that Rita Skeeter pushed every champion into for interviews. In the August heat, she's grateful for the lack of a formal dress code.

August. Fleur has an entire month of employment under her belt. It doesn't make her feel any older, though.

"Of course," she answers, summoning an interdepartmental memo from its perch in the doorway. Lazily, it sails into her waiting hand.

"I simply worry—" Moments like these make Fleur wonder if the Gringotts job would've fared any better with her mother.

"I'll be fine, Maman," Fleur interrupts, unraveling the memo. Mafalda Hopkirk requests a meeting for the following morning... "I am not alone."

She is, but only just. She doesn't need to share her office space with anyone as her neighbors are near enough to call on if she so desires. The Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes has one supervisor and a pair of Curse-Breakers. A vacancy kept Adrian Bell and Leslie Chang busy for as long as either one could remember until Fleur filled the open spot almost as soon as her graduation ceremony was over.

On Fleur's last day in France, there was no room for grief, only joy.

Flushed with pride, Céline congratulated Fleur on her appointment. Giselle promised to write from her own post in the French Ministry. Hugo was skeptical. Edgar teased about her new love of the British. Madame Maxime slipped a vial of Felix Felicis into her pocket and winked. Gabrielle wept at the thought of their parting and pleaded with Fleur to visit often. Her father was delighted (merveilleux, he exclaimed, kissing her on both cheeks). Her mother was cautious. Her grandmother was more reserved, but supportive. As sorry as Fleur was to say goodbye to her friends and family, her excitement couldn't be contained. There was noble work to be done here, even in her dingy, hemmed in office. Her tour guide, Arthur Weasley, chuckled at the sight in commiseration. William chimed in as well, from one Curse-Breaker to another. Nowhere to go but up...

Up is the aim. The Order's gained Aurors and professors and tinkerers, all keen to stave off You-Know-Who's rise to power. Instead, Fleur hopes, the power of good will rise to every department in the Ministry until all believe the truth and stand united against the growing threat.

That day is not today. On her desk, the Prophet splays a photograph of the headmaster below an accusation—DUMBLEDORE: DAFT OR DANGEROUS?

"Fleur!"

Startled, Fleur's attention bounces back to Apolline. By the expression on her face, she's been speaking all along. Fleur winces.

Her mother heaves a sigh, forcing sparks onto the hearth. They already argued once before over the Order's mission; Fleur has no wish to repeat it.

"I simply worry about what's to come," Apolline repeats, troubled. "Mallièvre is as quiet as usual, but there are rumors, Fleur. Whispers of them in the mountains." Fleur doesn't know if 'them' means giants or Death Eaters, but she's nevertheless filled with foreboding, just as Apolline intended. In the First Wizarding War, Fleur's grandfather did not escape the Snydes, and left Fleur's grandmother a widow, despite all efforts. The veela love so deeply, Fleur thinks sadly. Without Apolline, maybe her grandmother would've willingly wandered into Massif Central and never returned.

Or not, Fleur muses, remembering her grandmother's affection for her and Gaby. A veela's affinity for any love can surpass heartbreak, in time.

"I am protected," is all she says. Great Britain has Dumbledore and Harry Potter, despite their beleaguered reputations and failing public opinion, as well as dozens of wizards willing to lay down their lives so they may save the world. What else can Fleur do but join her strength to theirs and fight?

"You are too arrogant, darling," Apolline grumbles, her disappointment making the flames crackle and hiss. "That will be the end of you, I swear it."

"Perhaps it runs in the family," Fleur declares, and then douses her mother's indignation and the Floo connection with an unsaid Aguamenti.

From August to June of the next year, Fleur does almost nothing but work.

Thanks to the upswing of disappearances and rumblings of You-Know-Who's forces, most of the divisions within the Ministry are collaborating.

She trails after Aurors like Kingsley and Tonks when their arrests are finished, tasked with examining the crime scenes for Dark magic. She joins Arthur on his house raids, wand at the ready and keenly focused. She finds more and more curses by the day, attuned to the innate wrongness that even talented wizards can overlook. The scent of ill will. A Muggle-born and a voracious reader, Adrian delightedly starts to call her 'Hawkeye'.

"It's a comic book," he insists, barreling on despite Fleur and Leslie's bemusement, "about an archer who never misses."

"This Hawkeye uses a bow, not a wand?"

The ancient veela fought with bows and arrows and Fleur's been trained accordingly but the appeal—beyond utility—is lost on her.

Muffling a suspicious cough, Leslie stands to fetch the kettle.

"It's a Muggle story from America," Adrian explains patiently. "He never misses a shot and fights crime and aliens with the Avengers."

"That does not sound much like a good story." It makes Loony Nonby look like real literature!

"He sounds busier than we are," says Leslie, refilling the tea with a sly little look. Fleur laughs.

"This is just your payback, madam," Fleur's partner says, pointedly lifting his lion-emblazoned cup, "because Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw last week."

My Katie, Adrian often announces, brandishing letters from his daughter, week after week. Leslie's girl, an old friend, writes regularly too.

"Cho can only do so much!" Leslie retorts, just as pointedly rearranging the Ravenclaw pennant that sits atop her desk. "The Chasers lagged..."

As eager as Fleur is to do her part, bickering over Hogwarts matters is not a tempting prospect. Gathering up her paperwork, Fleur excuses herself and makes for the lifts, a flock of memos fluttering ahead to accompany her down the corridor. Haunting the lifts, amazingly, was Mundungus Fletcher's idea. (Hear alotta of things in a lift, I do, he mumbled during an Order meeting, after delivering a report. Find alotta things too.) When she can, Fleur takes to listening to the other employees of the Ministry as they go about their business, eavesdropping for news or emerging judgments of the shadow war (or, in the least, the mysterious occurrences that Fudge allows to escape his notice) that is building to a boiling point.

"Did you see, Basil?"

Royden Poke shows Basil the newest edition of the Prophet. On the front page, a shifty looking Harry Potter ducks into a pub in Hogsmeade, with Ron and Hermione at his heels. The photograph—Ron flips a rude gesture, while the likeness of Hermione marches haughtily on. Fleur smirks.

"What's he up to now?" Basil Harington asks, disinterested. A friend of Mr. Weasley's, Fleur seems to recall, and a potential ally.

"Running Dolores ragged," says Royden with a chortle, easing back to let a pair of witches into the lift. Wedged into the corner by the influx of boarding and departing employees, Fleur is all ears. Subterfuge works best when Fleur is not immediately seen by those vulnerable to the thrall.

"Dolores is working?" One of the witches asks with a snort. Her friend make a shushing noise, looking concerned. Anxious.

Dumbledore's star is falling. Umbridge's is rising. The Prophet favors her in its own slavish way, and paints Harry as badly as Sirius. Fudge's regard for Umbridge, though, casts a weight over the Ministry, making its people more afraid of his wrath than the idea that You-Know-Who himself is back. Less than a year out of school, Fleur observes, darkly amused, and the Order of the Phoenix has made her into something of a spy.

Spycraft's becoming necessary when the Minister demands resignations from anyone with a mere acquaintanceship with Dumbledore, she reflects. His behavior makes Fleur curious about Giselle's place in the French Ministry. If Harry grew up in the Pyrenees and attended Beauxbatons, would the circumstances be the same? Would Nadine Dumont treat him as poorly as Fudge does? Would her own Ministère rub his name in the mud?

In the noisy, forever bustling Atrium, Fleur's lunch date Apparates in and joins her at the fountain.

"Bonjour," Bill greets, sporting the usual smile and dragon fang earring.

"Bill," Fleur chides, stowing her paperwork into her bag, "I want to improve..." Her time with Bill always allows for a lot of English practice.

"Don't be cross! I know. But I'm learning French, see," he says, leading the way out. The Leaky Cauldron awaited. "Edgar wrote me yesterday."

"Il a fait?" Fleur demands, brightening at the thought of her friends, old and new, getting as close as can be. "Please, I must hear all about it!"

She and Bill part ways in the afternoon, with promises to meet again over the weekend. Fleur hurries back to her office, lest she want the in-tray to overflow again. After a year at the Ministry, Fleur's used to working long hours and doesn't expect to see daylight until Friday night at the earliest.

As the newest employee in her division, she's often saddled with the reports and the clerical work. As one of the junior members in the Order, she got most of the night shifts in the Department of Mysteries. Tonks too. Sheer happenstance let Arthur get guard duty on the night of his attack.

Fleur shakes her head. If it were her against that horrible serpent, she knows it would have gone better. She once subdued a dragon, after all.

Collecting the papers of her latest case into a file, Fleur tucks the folder into one of the overfilling cabinets, then stops to check the time. It's late, she realizes, more tired than she anticipated. Much later than she intended to stay. Fleur tidies up her desk quickly, thinking eagerly of her flat, until a week-old, unanswered letter catches her eye. Céline, she thinks, feeling guilty. Fleur never meant to get behind on her correspondence, but such is her life nowadays. At Beauxbatons, she saw her friends every day in her lessons; after more than a year in England and never not harried, she has only managed one get-together with the old crowd, and a handful over the holidays with her family, to Gabrielle's growing displeasure.

Will Madam Chang give her any time off? Fleur doesn't know. She's never asked for a personal day, preferring to press on and make a good impression among the seasoned staff of the Ministry. Maybe she can drop in and surprise Gaby at school. She'd like that. Fleur zips up her jacket, considering. She misses France more than she'd prefer to admit. A break would do her good...and she'd see her parents outside of a fireplace...

Scratching a reply to a devastated Céline, who writes of Myron Wagtail's publicized engagement, Fleur doesn't notice the Patronus until it speaks. "Potter is on his way," the doe sneers in Severus Snape's voice, flooding Fleur's office with light and sound and a danger like she's never known before. She gasps, crushing her quill in her fingers. "The Dark Lord has lured him into a trap. Hurry, Miss Delacour. You do not have much time."

Grabbing her wand, Fleur dashes right through the silvery apparition and sprints for the stairs, the echoes of Snape's words at her heels.

Protecting the prophecy, Dumbledore warned last July, was critical. It was also a risk.

"Lord Voldemort," the headmaster had explained, politely ignoring the room's discomfort, "does not know the complete prophecy. Fifteen years ago, a Death Eater heard enough of it to report back to his master, and so doing set the course in which Harry must walk. This prophecy is the key."

"The key to what?" Molly Weasley asked, fearfully voicing the words that no one else dared to ask. Next to Fleur, Bill drew in a breath.

"To the end of him." Dumbledore surveyed the group gathered in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, then continued. "Lord Voldemort cannot hope to gain access to the Department of Mysteries, not while our warnings fall upon the Ministry's deaf ears. He will send others in his place. Do not expect quarter from these agents, for he will punish the unsuccessful and make those still left in his circle rue the day they joined his cause."

No one spoke. The headmaster went on, graver than a gargoyle.

"This is not a duty to be taken lightly," Dumbledore added, reminding Fleur of his words about the Triwizard Tournament. This time, the circumstances were far more dire and even more dangerous. "Should one of Voldemort's supporters appear, you stand alone until help arrives."

This was the man that Madame Maxime wanted to prove was just a man, Fleur remembered. All she could see now, though, was a just man.

Skipping the slow moving lifts in favor of the staircases, Fleur keeps a steady pace in the descent. She's made a home of Level 2, but the Department of Mysteries lies deeply below on Level 9. Her body knows where to go better than she does (Fleur feels as if she left her brain behind in her office). To her dismay, the fear and panic and dread are in lockstep with her, staying as close as her next breath, and the next, and the next.

Kingsley isn't due for his shift until one...

The route is familiar, however, allowing Fleur to ignore the details she gawked at only months before, like the bluish torchlight, the black-tiled walls, and the windowless alcoves. During her nights of endless filing, Fleur wandered around the Hall of Prophecy, wand aloft and silent as the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw. Pacing down every row, it was Fleur who was the ghost. Still, the hall was not so much a hall but a cathedral, which stretched wider and longer than the Notre Dame itself, and sat to hold the hundreds if not thousands of copies of prophecies of the wizarding world. Too short to see Harry's properly, she at one point managed to find an orb naming another student of Beauxbatons: Nicholas Flamel.

Hurrying into the Entrance Chamber, Fleur spots a line of fiery Xs in front of a few of the doors. Smart magic, she judges, as the walls begin to rotate and the blue light gleams from beneath the twelve handleless doors. The crosses stay put, giving her a slight indication of where to go.

The vial of Felix Felicis sits back in her flat, unopened, but Fleur wonders if she drank the whole thing in her sleep, because her first choice of doors draws her right into the Hall of Prophecy, closest to the one hundred and thirtieth row, not too far from the action. Faint pops of Apparition, laughter, and the murmur of voices pull her ever onward, until she's standing behind the black robes of an oblivious, meandering Death Eater. Curious to know if he is one of the recent Azkaban escapees, Fleur points her wand at his back, steels herself, and thinks, Petrificus Totalus!

When the mask fades away like smoke, Ewan Avery glares up at Fleur, and looks nearer to seething after she pockets his wand and moves on.

"You hear him?" A woman exclaims, the noise of her shriek bouncing about the hall like a curse. Fleur can't see her yet, but it doesn't take a savant to know that the voice can only belong to Bellatrix Lestrange. "Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

Fleur creeps further along, paralyzing Mulciber when she catches him alone. She slows the fall of his body, steals his wand, and keeps moving, trying to ignore the sweat beading at her hairline and the trembling in her arm. There are no Triwizard points at stake here, only human lives.

"I know Sirius is here!" Harry Potter snaps, making her heart sink through the floor like it's due for its own trial before the Wizengamot. The trap. She can't blame him. If she heard of Gabrielle falling into danger, Fleur would've rushed to save her without hesitation. "I know you've got him!"

The Death Eaters laugh. Though Fleur would like to punish the lot for their cruelty with some of the curses she's learned to break, she refrains.

"Hand over the prophecy," says Lucius Malfoy, just four rows from Fleur now, "and no one need get hurt."

Listening to the argument and keeping out of sight, she surveys the scene. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and two of their classmates are surrounded, outnumbered, and unhurt. The exits are not within reach, unless they run for it. And the Order...the Order will be too late, if Fleur doesn't do something. Between Portkeys and Apparition and the Floo, she doubts any help will come before the stand-off becomes a battle.

"Yeah," Harry is saying now, albeit foolishly, "yeah! I've got no problem saying Vol—"

Merde, Fleur can't help but think, recognizing a distracted Macnair at the end of her row, this is the boiling point.

"Shut your mouth!" Lestrange roars, spewing more bile than a doxy. Harry retorts, brave as always, as Fleur inches closer, empathizing with Hermione's pained groan. This is going nowhere, Fleur knows all too well, but every second of the impasse gives them another second to live...

"Do not play games with us, Potter," Malfoy warns. Fleur watches Hermione whisper in Harry's ear, nod, and then lean into Ginny, still whispering.

As Harry asks about the prophecy and the room's tempers pitch to new heights, Ron Weasley's eyes find Fleur. His jaw drops open.

"Quiet," Fleur mouths, and he looks away, tensing. With a similar shift in the others, Fleur realizes with sudden horror that they're going to strike.

"NOW!"

Fleur has the chance to duck, but the array of six Reductor curses sends the Death Eaters sprawling and prophecies smashing to the floor. Utter mayhem seizes the night between one breath and the next. In the time it takes for Fleur to avoid the cascade of glass and dart past the wispy seers, the room's occupants are scattering. She flings Stunning Spell after Stunning Spell, hitting Jugson in the face and startling Travers so badly that he's buried with Nott in the wreckage. Dodging a collapsing shelf and the bellowing rage of Bellatrix, Fleur runs through a door and spells it shut.

"...under the desks," Fleur hears from the adjoining room, and rushes to join the fray.

"Stupefy!" Fleur cries, forcing the second Death Eater careening face-first into the bell jar. To her astonishment, a baby's head comes to sit on the man's body, trapped in a cycle of life. She supposes her grandmother would find that interesting, but Fleur has no time for it and turns away.

"Fleur?" Harry gasps belatedly.

"It's time," Hermione manages as she, Harry, and the other boy glance between one another and the shrieking grotesquerie, left at a loss.

"It is time to go," says Fleur, drawing herself to her fullest height. "Come along," she adds, with authority. The Order's counting on her. To Fleur's relief and alarm, the three of them obey and follow her, though Harry insists as they start running that they need to find Ron, Ginny, and Luna.

Fleur is garishly green as she catches sight of her face in a mirror. Any further and she'll become into a banshee. "We will," she tells him.

A door bursts open, letting more Death Eaters in, wands aloft. Fleur readies herself, wishing she was a better duelist.

"In here!" The first yells. "In the office of—" Hermione's Silencing Charm traps his words in his throat.

"Impedimenta!" The other shouts, growling when Fleur deflects it.

Fleur flings Backfiring Jinxes and Cascading Jinxes as fast as she can, then Langlock (she really must thank Bill for that one, if she survives the night). Soundless green and purple curses ripple across the room, though, hitting the other boy and Hermione in the chests. The first curse sears Fleur's eyes and burns her skin as it sails past, filling her with a horrible dread. She's...she's only seen a description of that spell in a textbook...

"Stupefy! Stupefy!" Fleur shouts, spinning on her heel when the men fall bonelessly to the floor and Harry's gasp of agony reaches her ears.

"Neville! NEVILLE!"

Shocked out of her stupor, Fleur hurries to Hermione and feels for a pulse. When the faint thrumming beats below her fingers, she looks up.

Merde. Harry's crouched next to Neville, trying to rouse him. Trying to protect the body, Fleur realizes, aghast, like he did Cedric's.

"Harry..."

"I—no, he can't!"

An explosion crashes just outside the door, rattling it on its hinges. The fallout is much closer, Fleur realizes, horrorstruck. The crisis is here.

"Harry, we have to go now," Fleur urges, hating to hear the quavering in her own voice. So much for her authority as a member of the Order. She drapes a limp Hermione's arm over her shoulder, and then tightens her grip on her wand. "Please, Harry. I need you to help me with Hermione."

"I won't leave him," he mutters, face shining with sweat and tears. Fleur flounders for a control that won't stick. "I can't. Can't," Harry croaks.

"We'll come back for him," Fleur pleads, desperate. "Please. S'il vo—" She swallows thickly. "There is no time. We must go."

Time? Time for what? She manages to wonder, ashamed to push Harry through a tableau of comfort at the worst moment. They shouldn't be here. Neville shouldn't have been here. If none of them were here and Kingsley was on duty, Fleur laments, then Neville wouldn't...wouldn't—

Slowly, Harry gets to his feet, steadies his wand, and pulls Hermione's other arm across his shoulder.

"Ready," Harry mumbles. With a wave of her wand, Fleur unlocks the next door and begins to guide Hermione back into the Entrance Chamber.

The crosses are long gone, Fleur sees when the Time Room is well behind them. As she tries to get a hold of herself, another door pops open, letting Ron, Ginny, and Luna tumble out of the dark to meet them, flushed and panting.

"Ron," says Harry, sounding scared. A giggle draws Fleur's attention. Ron's...smiling?

"You're all messed up, Harry," Ron says feebly, a trail of blood dripping down his chin. A Babbling Curse, Fleur guesses, trying to remember the counterspell. Under such pressure, Fleur can hardly name any magic she's ever learned in her life. "Hermione?" Ron asks, eyes wide and distant. "Looks bad! And you!" He sways toward Fleur until Luna snatches a hand out and rights him. "Veela-girl. Fleur Del-a-cour," he exclaims.

Still supporting Ron, Luna explains what happened as they walk with Ginny hobbling behind the rest of the group, cussing under her breath.

"Episkey," Fleur murmurs, Hermione's head lolling onto shoulder. If not for the pulse below her skin, Fleur would think her to be dead too.

"Blimey," says Ginny, straightening up. Relieved, she joins Luna in shepherding her brother along like mother ducks. "Thanks, Fleur."

"Wait." Luna turns her protuberant eyes in Fleur's direction, missing Ron's attempts to play with her silvery hair. "Where's Neville?"

"He didn't make it," Harry answers when Fleur can't. Ginny claps a hand to her mouth. Luna chokes. "C'mon," he mutters dully. "We gotta go."

They stagger on, avoid Bellatrix Lestrange by the skin of their teeth, and manage to temporarily barricade themselves in the Brain Room...

...where things quickly go from bad to worse. The Death Eaters break in. Luna gets Stunned. Ginny does not emerge from beneath a bookcase that fell on her. Fleur is disarmed. She sinks to her knees, trying to keep the others out of the line of fire. Protego, she thinks again and again, deflecting the curses with her mind. Most break in the air before they are formed; others destroy the furniture around Fleur and Hermione, splaying metal and wood across the floor. Beyond the shimmering wall of her Shield Charms, Harry fires spell after spell, alone and outnumbered again.

"Accio Wand," Fleur calls, nearly breathless, and catches it in time to deflect another Impediment Jinx from Crabbe.

"Accio Brain!" Ron shouts gleefully, summoning one of the hideously floating brains out of the tank for his own amusement.

In spite of themselves, both sides watch in mingled horror and fascination as the tentacles start wrapping around Ron like living ropes.

"Diffindo!" Harry shouts, narrowly missing another hex meant for Fleur. Two against five, she realizes, overwhelmed.

Nonetheless, Fleur steps up to help Ron, dodging curses left and right. With one last look at Ron and Fleur, Harry runs for it, the prophecy held high over his head, and draws the crowd along with him. Left behind the Brain Room, Fleur freezes the tentacles, severs them off, and frees Ron.

"I dunno if I...feel so good," he babbles, keeling over in slow motion with a flick of Fleur's wand. "'Lo, floor," Ron muses drowsily, twitching.

"Sleep, Ronald," she suggests, chest heaving with effort, and after a long moment of grappling with her nerves, Fleur races after Harry.

By the time she gets to the Death Chamber, the battle is already over.

A gurney apiece for the others occupies the corridor of Level 9, casting that bluish light on every face. Scarred and giggling, Ron lies as still as a malfunctioning Sneakscope; Luna, devastated, says little and moves even less; Ginny, beside herself with rage, resists treatment from the Healers from St. Mungo's. Neville, Fleur realizes with a pang, is still and peaceful below a sheet, undisturbed by the traffic of reporters, Order members, Ministry employees, and the Weasleys. But the worst of all is Harry, who lies repose on his own cot, eyes unfocused and a sheet of sweat on his face. She would think him Petrified if not for the terrified pleas that sneak past his lips, begging for a reprieve from someone named Tom Riddle.

"Dumbledore says he's catatonic," Hermione offers in her approach, resting her weight on a crutch when she reaches Fleur. Her eyes are as blank as Harry's. Dumbledore revived Hermione after he arrived, but the Healers insisted on the crutch to stave off the potential of a fainting spell. Fleur thinks Hermione looks closer to beating someone to death with it than fainting. Fleur is almost afraid to ask, but she presses on ahead anyway.

"From...?"

"Sirius died. Then Voldemort"—Fleur winces but Hermione barrels on, flat and cool—"got into this head and stayed there."

"I'm..." Tonight (rather, this morning) Fleur is probably losing brain matter by the bucketloads. Too ashamed of her failures to face a debriefing with Dumbledore and the rest, she gives Hermione her full attention. "I am so very sorry, Hermione. I simply was not...quick enough to help."

Hermione shrugs. Fleur wonders if her tears are coming now or later. No one is unfeeling, not even Hermione. "You did all you could."

Fleur was the top of her class at Beauxbatons, and an up-and-coming Curse-Breaker. How has it all gone so terribly wrong?

Running a hand through her tangled hair, Fleur avoids the eyes of Bill and Dumbledore and Kingsley and Tonks and wanders away, trying to wriggle free of a nightmare that refuses to end. She wants to wake up. She wants to start the day over again. It showed such promise earlier, she recalls wistfully. Tea with Adrian and Leslie, lunch with Bill, many a good hour of filing, and even a promise to herself to return to France for a few days...

Things were much simpler when she was still a Beauxbatons girl.

That's it. Fleur draws to a halt, then quickens her pace, not bothering to heed the calls of her name until she's at the door to the Time Room.

"Fleur," Hermione wheezes, staggering along in pursuit. Fleur eyes the crutch warily, unwilling to let the idea get beaten out of her brain.

"What?" She calls over her shoulder, not bothering to seal the door shut. Hermione would just find her way in somehow.

"I know." Hermione sucks in a breath, eyes finally blazing again, this time with anger. They reach the bell jar. "I know what you're doing."

Fleur is surprised to learn they are already on the same page, albeit with differing interpretations of the text. "Then you will not stop me, no?"

"I should. You're breaking—you're breaking so many laws that I don't even know where to begin!"

It is not like Hermione not to know something, Fleur observes, staring down at the cycle of breaking and repairing Time-Turners. In her limited appraisal of life at Grimmauld Place, Hermione never seemed to go anywhere without a book. Never went anywhere without an opinion, either.

"Fleur," Hermione says pleadingly, "you shouldn't..."

"I will," says Fleur, and reaches into the repeating field just long enough to grab one of the chains. Her skin burns hot and cold, constricts and releases, even bristles under cuts of glass, then kisses of sand, until she pries one of them free. Outside of its paradox, the Time-Turner slows its growth cycle, whirring faintly. She watches the clock hands on her watch move, Hermione at her side, just counting. "Three minutes," she murmurs.

"Until what?" Hermione asks with an admonishing whack to Fleur's ankle. "Until you come back to your time? Until you get stuck in the past?"

"I don't know," Fleur admits hotly. Are the minutes in between the break and the remodel a guaranteed delay? Three minutes do not get her very far. If Fleur has to pick, it would not be three minutes in the past, it would be months. No, a year. A year ago, she was...what? Finishing the Third Task. No, she thinks, it shouldn't be a year. It should be almost two. She has to go back much further if she wants to change things properly.

On the watch on Fleur's wrist, thirty precious seconds have gone by. She has a suspicion that the Time-Turner will not survive much longer.

"Messing with time is a bad idea." Hermione watches Fleur arrange the pendant around her neck, dismayed. "Fleur, we lost. Don't make it worse."

"I owe Harry," Fleur says simply. She hasn't put it into words before, but it fits. It explains. "He saved Gabrielle. I have not forgotten that."

Two minutes left, she sees, antsy. The hourglass has a small crack, spilling sand into her palm. Living time, she guesses, or fading opportunities?

Hermione groans. If her resolve is weakening, she does not show it. "Gabrielle was never in any real—"

"He saved her anyway. Now I must save him." Fleur pauses. "And Ron. Neville. As many as I can." And Cedric if I could...but that is a pipe dream, as the English like to say. An intact Time-Turner would give her less than a day; saving Cedric Diggory regrettably requires something of a miracle.

Without warning, Hermione flings the crutch into remnants of the bell jar, then grabs the chain so she can fit it around her neck as well. It's not a moment too soon; the voices in the hall are only getting closer. Tonks and Lupin. Their time is almost up even before the cycle's begun again. Fleur's heart leaps into her throat. Nose to nose, they exchange a look in spite of themselves. "I'm going with you," Hermione insists, scowling.

One minute. Any longer and the cycle will start over. Any longer and someone will intervene, preventing Fleur from mending the night's errors.

Tuning the timepiece with a flick of her wand, Fleur nods once. That is another thing she knows of her new ally. Arguing with Hermione Granger is seldom done by anyone else but her best friends. But now both of her best friends are damaged beyond repair, and after tonight, there will be no one to stand in You-Know-Who's way but Albus Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, and a lost prophecy. "Allons-y," she says grimly.

Of all directions, Fleur did not expect to go in reverse. Point me, indeed. Perhaps this way, Fleur reasons...even hopes, she will be able to do the good she set out to do when the first offer to join the Order was extended to her along the shore of the Black Lake.

The hourglass flips and flips and flips. The room lurches backwards. Color and shapes flit around Fleur and Hermione. Fleur feels the floor vanish beneath her feet. Unlike Apparition, where the world shrinks in itself and forces the wizard through a pressurized tunnel, jumping back in time feels like she and Hermione are falling off a very high building with nothing between them and true space but the broken, wobbling Time-Turner...

Chapter Text

When Fleur and Hermione return to the Department of Mysteries, Fleur's watch is frozen at five past five in the morning.

"Did it work?" Hermione whispers as Fleur untangles her from the chain and slips the hourglass under her shirt.

Fleur examines the intact bell jar and the cabinet of unharmed Time-Turners. This room is yet untouched by battle. "It seems it has."

"We need to..." Hermione trails off, blinking. Fleur finds herself wondering when the last time either one of them slept. She has half a mind to trudge all the way to her flat and go to bed or at least march into her kitchen and brew a Wideye Potion before they get moving. "We need to contact Sirius ourselves. If he's the one to tell Harry that he's okay, then Harry won't feel the need to rescue him from You-Know...from Voldemort."

Fleur can't argue with that logic, although she isn't sure if it'll be that simple. Harry Potter and Sirius Black share a few things in common, but a streak of recklessness and a penchant for being stubborn are the most obvious ones. Will Harry believe Sirius, or trust his own judgment?

"We should go," Fleur says what feels like the hundredth time in many hours, dropping her voice to a whisper. "If we are caught here..."

Hermione lifts her chin, steeling herself as if they are again under attack. Fleur wishes she had such resolve. Oh, you Gryffindors.

"Okay," says Hermione, and accepts Fleur's steadying hand. Without the crutch, she sways a little on her feet.

With a wave of her wand, Fleur casts Disillusionment Charms on both of them and leads the way out of the Time Room. The Atrium is the only place that you can Disapparate from and Apparate into in the entire Ministry, unless one wants to end up between Levels 9 and 10. How the Death Eaters bypassed the jinxes and charms is a mystery to Fleur. Usually everyone who tries always seems to land between the floor dedicated to confidential, experimental research and the floor devoted to sentencing wizards for their misguided attempts at experimental magic (Bill finds it funny). Too exhausted to bother with the stairs she flew down last night, Fleur presses the lift buttons and gets Hermione to lean against the opposite wall.

"We did it." Glinting strangely due to the charm, the silhouette of Hermione sounds far more confident than Fleur feels.

Against Fleur's skin, the Time-Turner smolders like a hot iron. After one long agonizing moment, it winks out of existence.

"I hope we did," Fleur manages, electing to keep the knowledge—and the pain—to herself.

The lift eases to a stop.

"The Atrium," the overhead voice announces, cool and humdrum as ever. The golden grilles slide apart to let them out. As Fleur expected, the room is deserted, although the interdepartmental memos are starting to nest in the secretary's in-tray, fluttering their wings and waiting to be opened.

Taking a deep breath, Fleur draws Hermione over to the Fountain of Magical Brethren, links their arms together, and Disapparates.

They smack down onto a street in Islington, toppling a few wastebins and scaring a stray cat into its next life. With a gasp, Hermione wrenches her arm free of Fleur and stumbles toward one of the bins, retching, the Disillusionment Charm fading away from her body like enchanted ink.

"That's what Apparition feels like?" Hermione moans, raising a trembling hand to her mouth. Fleur wrinkles her nose.

"You have never—?"

"Never! I mean, I used a Portkey to get to the Cup..."

"Well, buck up, as you English like to say," Fleur insists, ignoring Hermione's glare. There is little room for delays. "We have a job to do."

Under Fleur's shirt, the Time-Turner reappears, cold as a frost. If Fleur's watch still worked, she would know if it is running right on schedule.

Has it been three minutes?

They exit the unkempt little park after Hermione is strong enough to walk, the streets mercifully quiet and still at this time of day. Shivering in the wind, Fleur and Hermione move to stand in front of Numbers 11 and 13 and watch the Muggles in their morning routines through the windows.

"You have to envy them," Fleur remarks, zipping up her jacket. The cold is unusual for June. Are dementors about? "Their lives are so easy..."

"I doubt that," Hermione points out. "That family is moving, and that one has old post piling up on the stoop. Now, can we get to Sirius?"

"Oui," Fleur relents, miffed, and studies the bricks very carefully. The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at Number—

Unable to finish the whole address, Fleur tries again. The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at Number—

She glances at Hermione, unsure if the fatigue is disrupting her focus too or if it is something else entirely. "Did you—?"

"It didn't work," Hermione answers, a hint of worry flitting across her face. "I know it. I know the address. We know the address. But I..."

"We can't get in." Fleur crosses her arms over her chest. There's no...familiarity in the air between Fleur and the space where Number 12 lies, ostensibly occupied. Fleur's last meeting was in May, for Fulcanelli's sake. There, she felt the magic as she always had ever since Albus Dumbledore made her a Secret Keeper. Now, she just feels the wintry air on her skin and the exhaustion from running amok in the Department of Mysteries in her bones. It's as if Number 12 doesn't exist. It's as if Fleur and the magic across the street are strangers again. "The Fidelius Charm has worn off."

"But Fidelius Charms are eternal!" Hermione protests, resting her weight against a broken streetlamp. "The fact that we can't see it is—is—"

"Either Professor Dumbledore has died," Fleur posits uncomfortably, "or the charm has given us the shoe."

"The boot," says Hermione, sounding too distressed to try getting past the defenses of Number 12 again. "He's not dead, Fleur. We would know."

Would we? Fleur steps back onto the curb to avoid a waste collection truck and watches it creep by, disconcerted. "Well, we cannot stay here."

"Let's Floo in," Hermione suggests, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. "We know the location. We just can't share it."

"I do not feel comfortable using the Floo to visit a home that bars us from entering." And an Unplottable home at that...

Hermione drops her hand from her face. "Then what's your brilliant idea? If we can't stay here and we can't Floo in, what are we supposed to do?"

What, indeed. Fleur doesn't want to linger too long on the situation, or in Muggle London for that matter. They only have a day to rewrite last night's tumultuous events. "We will not visit," she decides, opting for the high ground instead of snapping back, "but we can still use the Floo."

Unsurprisingly, Hermione follows the logic without help. "Where?" She asks, failing to hide a yawn behind her hand. "Which fireplace?"

Few shops in Diagon Alley let just anyone use their fireplaces for free. And Fleur has the Ministry to consider. "Hogsmeade," she replies, fighting another shiver. Her last resort is the Burrow, but Molly Weasley isn't fond of her, no matter what Bill says to the contrary. "I know just the place."

"Oh, do enlighten me," Hermione mutters, curling a hand around Fleur's arm. In a second they are gone, the wastebins rattling in their wake.

They land near the Hog's Head Inn, startling a goat that's wandered into the alley. An alley choked with snow.

"What the..." Hermione glances in Fleur's direction, just as puzzled and, as far as Fleur can tell, queasy from the Side-Along journey.

Fleur does not feel much better, loath as she is to admit it. She declined help from the Healers for the weak Stinging Jinx on her cheek, then Apparated from London to the Scottish Highlands without much rest in between. Trying not to tarry with such small problems, Fleur only shrugs in answer. Unseasonable weather and mild indispositions are the least of their worries right now, with Harry's condition and the deaths of Neville and Sirius still needing mending. In fact, she does not want to give them another minute of her day.

"This way."

Trainers sinking into ankle-deep drifts, Fleur leads Hermione to the post office, searching to no avail for the sun in the gloomy Scottish sky. The owner lights up as they step through the door, abandoning his tea and the morning edition of the Daily Prophet to meet them at the counter.

"Miss Delacour!" He greets, delighted. Fleur smiles politely. He mailed the Christmas gifts for her last year. "Coming in rather early, aren't you?"

"I hope I am no trouble," she says, cajoling. As she expected, he waves that off. Hermione rolls her eyes. "May I borrow your fireplace?"

"Certainly, certainly." The owner presses a bag of Floo powder into her hands. "If you need anything else, my dear, please do not hesitate to ask."

Hermione follows Fleur into the back room, a sour look on her features. "Don't you ever get tired of that?"

"Yes, I do get tired, Hermione," says Fleur, approaching the hearth.

"No, I meant—"

"I know what you meant." Fleur unties the bag and grabs a handful of the powder. Unlike the leaking sand of the Time-Turner, the Floo powder is a rich green, sparkling in the way the morning will not. She offers the pile to Hermione, frowning. "I am...accustomed to the attention, I assure you."

"Accustomed," Hermione repeats, dubious, cupping her hands together to catch the powder. Not even exhaustion deters her thirst for knowledge.

"I do not appreciate it, Hermione, but I am accustomed. You understand that, I hope, from one witch to another?"

After a moment of scrutiny, Hermione nods, then tosses the powder into the fire. When the flames are glowing green, Hermione kneels and declares, "12 Grimmauld Place!" Less than a minute later, she sits back on the hearth, soot on her nose and confusion everywhere else. "It's empty."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The kitchen. It's empty."

That infernal kitchen is one of the few habitable rooms in the Black estate, so Fleur does not find it likely that the Order will convene to the dining room, which has spiders the size of teacups in the cabinets. "Allow me." When she peers beyond the flames, her relief at bypassing the intricacies of the Fidelius Charm is short-lived. From her vantage point, the kitchen is nothing like it was in May. In the gloom, rodents and insects scurry as they please, cobwebs stretch from chair to chair, and a revolting stench overpowers even the smell of ashes and burning wood. It's as if no one has laid a finger on the dusty table in years, not even Mrs. Weasley. "'Allo?" She calls impatiently. "Is anyone here?" Sirius ought to be...

"Who dares," a voice grumbles, approaching the fireplace on a gait of shuffling feet, "enter my Mistress's halls?"

At last, the house-elf comes into view, easily the palest thing in the kitchen. "Monsieur Kreacher," Fleur greets, relaxing. "Where is Sirius?"

"Master Sirius?" Kreacher asks, looking disgusted. "Master Sirius is cavorting with blood traitors and brats and filth. He is not here, Kreacher knows."

Everyone insisted she ignore the house-elf's dislike of his master, so Fleur soldiers on despite the discomfort. "When will he be back?"

"He swore never to return," Kreacher answers with a revolting little relish. "Not after he came of age. Mistress disowned him, she did, and good riddance. We are better off without him. He has not been here in...oh, twenty years."

His memory is not the best. She's heard that too. "Sirius moved back in," Fleur reminds Kreacher, uneasy, "don't you remember?"

"Kreacher hopes not. Maybe the boggart ate him," Kreacher says, a picture of indifference. He shuffles away. Fleur pulls back into the post office.

"Well?" Hermione asks, slowing her pacing about the room.

"Kreacher said Sirius wasn't...in," is all Fleur can honestly say, brushing the soot from her hair. "Perhaps we should find Professor Dumbledore now."

"Umbridge is still the headmistress unless the centaurs keep her. And Professor McGonagall is in St. Mungo's," Hermione adds, looking glum.

Merde, Fleur forgot about that. Both of those things. And a letter won't help—an owl would need an address to locate Dumbledore, wouldn't it?

That leaves them with only Severus, Fleur knows, who will send the same Patronus message to the others in the Order with different results. The potential is tempting. Would Kingsley or Dumbledore himself do better in Fleur's place? Definitely. Perhaps no one would've died if Fleur had gone home last night. She tunes back into Hermione's musings. "I suppose we should just try to...head ourselves off?" Hermione is wondering with a frown. "I've done it before. It's tricky, but not impossible. We'll need to be smarter than I am, obviously," Hermione continues, walking out of the shop as she ponders what to do next. Fleur waves goodbye to the owner on her way out for propriety's sake, pursuing Hermione on sluggish feet.

"And Harry wouldn't be fooled, either, unless if we do something drastic...last time we had a werewolf and a hundred dementors to distract us..."

Then Hermione stops dead, not even complaining when an unsuspecting Fleur smacks right into her back.

"We can't get on the grounds."

"What?" Fleur demands, aghast. First the Fidelius Charm, and now this? Problems upon problems!

"Fudge passed dozens of Educational Decrees," Hermione explains, changing direction. "Nobody's allowed in or out unless their parents write to Umbridge and 'renew their permission' to Hogsmeade. It's rubbish and everyone knows it, but new enchantments are still over all the entrances."

"So how are we supposed to—?"

"We'll need to use the Shrieking Shack."

Few from Beauxbatons dared to venture closer to it after the Hogsmeade villagers told them of its unpleasant history, Fleur included.

"Isn't the shack haunted?" Fleur has no interest in the discovery of another poltergeist.

Hermione scoffs. "Of course not. That was Professor Lupin all along."

Off the beaten path, the Shrieking Shack sits forlornly in a fenced off clearing. The gate squeaks as she and Hermione slip onto the estate and hurry to the front door. Wooden boards block the door as well as the windows, barring even the smallest glimpse of the rooms within. But not all is as it seems, Fleur notices. There are some enchantments at work here, keeping not only the outside world from getting in but also keeping whatever beyond inside. Beneath the smell of locking charms and deterrent spells, she detects a strong hex.

"I would not do that," Fleur says just as Hermione raises her wand at the door to force it open. "You will sprout antlers...or horns."

"I—are you sure?"

"Who is the Curse-Breaker between us?" She prompts, disregarding Hermione's huff and approaching the door for a closer look herself. All spells are never completely impervious to an undoing, she learned from Leslie. Curses, jinxes, hexes...none are exactly the same, but there is always a vulnerability in every casting. Even the Killing Curse can be thwarted, however rare and misunderstood the method is. Spells on locations are the easiest to unravel, Fleur observed after many a raid on old pureblood mansions, than the like left on people. People are more complex, Madam Chang said after Fleur dismantled a nasty Vermiculus Jinx at a cauldron shop in Diagon Alley. Most inanimate objects won't fight you back.

Fleur spots the weakness in one panel of wood that is newer than the rest. "Emancipare," she says, focusing precisely on that spot.

The door swings open, screeching on its hinges. Hermione steps in first, throwing a glance at Fleur over her shoulder.

"How did you do that?"

Distracted by the state of the Shack, she doesn't reply at once. "Mademoiselle Granger," Fleur remarks, "are you impressed?"

"Of course!" Hermione sounds almost offended as the two of them descend into a tunnel. "You know magic I couldn't even dream of yet."

Fleur tries not to feel too pleased by that.

When it becomes too dark to move safely, Hermione's distracted Lumos forces the shadows to retreat.

Trying to stave off the chill that's gotten worse underground, Fleur plies the path with Warming Charms. At the end of the tunnel, Hermione holds up a hand. "We need to freeze the branches," she whispers to Fleur after the tunnel gives way to an opening of earthen stairs, giant roots, and fresh snow. Fleur even gets a peek at the open sky from what looks like the base of a very large tree. She watches Hermione grab a rock and levitate it.

"Freeze—?"

"This is the Whomping Willow. It'll kill us if we get too close." A clatter makes the ceiling groan, then settle. Hermione scrambles up the stairs.

"Hogwarts," Fleur mutters when all is said and done, accepting Hermione's hand of help to climb out of the nest of roots, "is mad."

Brushing dust away, Hermione makes sure Fleur doesn't miss the exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Oh, don't you complain. We're here, aren't we?"

They head off, extinguishing their wands and starting up the path. The sun is creeping higher when the greenhouses at last come into sight. It will be a long and miserable walk to the castle, but Fleur cannot help but be relieved. Her watch is still frozen, but by her estimate, most of the students of Hogwarts will be waking up for breakfast soon. That gives her and Hermione an entire day to figure out what to do about Harry's vision.

Then a pressing worry jumps to Fleur's mind, banishing the residue of the Warming Charms.

"Hermione, I may have discovered a flaw in my reasoning," she admits, extricating her trainers from another bank of snow. She is not fond of this Scottish weather that so often strikes when she is wearing precisely the wrong thing.

Snow in June—it's just preposterous!

"Yes," Hermione offers absently, "I know. It's against the law to be seen by your past self. We'll cross that bridge when we get it to it, Fleur."

Is that a Muggle expression? "I am sure my Disillusionment Charms will fail under the scrutiny of your teachers," she persists. They haven't discussed the next steps. Shall they lurk in castle's corners until nightfall and the right moment to deter the group that will try to save Sirius?

"I don't care," says Hermione, shocking Fleur, but she goes on without looking back. "If we can save everyone, so be it, we'll break the law."

"If you saw yourself, would you believe it?" Fleur has to ask. She would think it to be sophisticated—Dark—magic and not a true omen.

"If you asked me when I was a second year, no. If you asked me as soon as my third year was over, yes. I told you," Hermione goes on, "I've done this before. I've meddled with time once already. It went as well as it could. Sirius lived, Buckbeak lived...Harry got to know Sirius as the man he was, not as the mass murderer everyone thinks him to be." Fleur listens to Hermione pause, trying not to linger on Harry's current condition, with Sirius still gone too. "This time," Hermione concludes, the words harsh, "I'll do whatever it takes to get it right."

Unsure of what else to say, Fleur holds her tongue. They've gotten this far, haven't they?

After a long silence and a longer spell of walking, Hermione points out the Entrance Hall. To their surprise, it's already bustling with people. A familiar color catches her eye, but Fleur doesn't believe what she sees until she's near enough to study the robes and catch bits of conversation—

In French.

"Why has Beauxbatons come?" Fleur asks of Hermione, who shrugs, mystified. If Fleur isn't mistaken, the last of the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams go on today. She doubts even Dolores Umbridge would invite another school to visit with the fifth and seventh-years are under so much stress...

Small matters. Before Fleur can cast the Disillusionment Charms again, however, she hears a call of her name.

Try as she may to hide it, the appearance of Giselle is a shock. With her flyaway red hair and the pretty twist of a belt around her waist, she looks as she did during Fleur's last year at Beauxbatons, newly seventeen and selected to join Madame Maxime for the exchange. What is she doing here?

"Hugo asked me to the Yule Ball!" Giselle exclaims, beaming. "We were walking up to the castle and—!"

For the first time, Fleur's transition back to her native tongue is graceless. Either the cold is getting to her once and for all, or the Time-Turner.

"The Yule Ball?" Fleur repeats, struck with a mad desire to laugh. No...surely not...

Oblivious to Fleur's alarm, Giselle giggles. "You are always so groggy in the mornings," she scolds. "The Yule Ball follows the First Task, silly girl."

Giselle's teasing drowns out Fleur's confusion, but it is the appearances of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley that shoves the confusion into near hysteria. While Giselle painstakingly recounts Hugo's romantic streak, Fleur spies Hermione going paler and paler, even as her friends chatter amongst themselves about the breakfast she missed and their upcoming Care of Magical Creatures lesson with the rather aptly named Blast-Ended Skrewts. Unmarred by the Brain Room, Ronald offers Hermione half of a piece of toast, for once not noticing Fleur. No longer possessed by You-Know-Who, Harry looks longingly at the sky as his friends speak as if wishing to use his Firebolt again, a feat of daring that impressed even her...

Get it right, Hermione said. It seems they have actually gotten it right, Fleur supposes, or perhaps horrifying wrong...

Touching her neck, she's no longer sure of what she is saying to Giselle or Edgar for that matter, who wandered over in the interim and gave Fleur another scare. The Time-Turner has disappeared again after a much longer than usual stay with Fleur. Did she miscount its pattern of life?

She has to speak to Hermione.

"Actually," Hermione interrupts the boys, "let Hagrid know that I'll be in the Hospital Wing. I'm not feeling very well."

"I should go," says Fleur, hurrying to clarify over the amusingly similar noises of puzzlement from Harry, Ron, Edgar, and Giselle, albeit in different conversations. "I went for a walk," she explains, indicating her clothes, "and I'm afraid I've caught a chill. Give my regards to...Professor...erm—"

The Hogwarts exchange gave all twelve of the Beauxbatons students a chance to see how the other half learned in the dreary highlands of Scotland, to the dismay of the castle's already overworked professors. Fleur knows that. She remembers that. Of course, Fleur lived it, but that was more than a year ago, a lifetime ago. Beneath the panic that is on the precipice of overwhelming Fleur entirely, it is a small relief to know that her recollections will not always desert her in a time of great need. Just, apparently, during the odd life-or-death duel!

"Professor Snape," Edgar pipes up, mirroring Fleur's apprehensive look. Giselle is pitying. "He won't be happy, Fleur."

Though she is sure she will regret it, Fleur dismisses him. "He is never happy. Please, do go on without me."

Wishing her well, Giselle and Edgar turn and traipse toward the dungeons. Fleur lingers behind, hoping Hermione can make her excuses fast.

"'Girl problems'?" Harry repeats loudly. Trying to be inconspicuous, Fleur stifles a groan. "What kind of problems'll send you all the way to Pomfrey?"

"C'mon, mate," Ronald hisses just as Hermione gains some color again, albeit an embarrassed flush. "Girl problems!"

"Oh," says Harry, nodding jerkily. None of the three seem able to look each other in the eye. If the situation were not so desperate, Fleur probably would've laughed. And they call themselves lions! "Right," Harry adds, recovering himself the quickest. "Okay. We'll see you later?"

As the boys flee as if someone's set their trousers aflame, Fleur joins Hermione. The Entrance and Great Halls are emptying as bells begin to ring, signaling the start of the lessons. Wanting to avoid the exiting professors, they make for the staircase, passing a handful of Hufflepuffs and a heated argument about Gobstones. Despite favoring her left side over her right ever since she was struck by the Death Eater's spell in the Time Room, Hermione does not forget to skip the stairs that tend to eat your feet (to Fleur's annoyance, Hermione's assistance is soon required).

"We should talk," Fleur suggests under her breath, trying to fight the limits of her body. There is so much to discuss, to consider, and yet...

To Fleur's relief, Hermione seems to feel no better. "Later," Hermione sighs, swanning to the nearest bed in the Hospital Wing, and that is that.

When Fleur wakes much later in her own bed, the Hospital Wing is darker than the Hall of Prophecy.

Still in the much abused clothes she wore to work on Thursday morning, Fleur sits up against her pillow, disoriented.

"Hi," Hermione whispers, illuminated by the light of the oil lamps along the wall. Surrounded by sweets and comfortable in her pajamas, Hermione sits crosslegged on the next cot. She puts her book down, peering over at Fleur. "Thank Merlin. You slept for so long I thought you were really ill."

Over the noise of her stomach rumbling, Fleur gazes at the sweets with longing. "I just needed rest."

"We both did. I don't know if Madam Pomfrey bought the cover story, but she let us stay anyway."

"What story?"

Following Fleur's eyes, Hermione passes over the tin of Pink Coconut Ice. "I said you fainted on the grounds," she explains, carrying on over Fleur's half-choked cry of protest, "and I found you on my morning jog. Muggle exercise," Hermione hastens to add, well-practiced at making herself heard over the pigheaded and the foolish. "You looked pretty awful, so she must've assumed you were stressed about the Tournament..."

While Fleur isn't fond of admitting weakness, she concedes to cleverness. In the very least, Hermione's quick-thinking kept the questions at bay.

With great effort, Fleur swallows. "I was...nervous. The first time. The Tasks were frightening." But now she has a second chance? Her head feels fit to swim. "Are we...back?" She must ask quietly. The infirmary is deserted, but Hogwarts is like a living thing at times, always eavesdropping.

In the depths of her dreams, a part of Fleur hoped her horrible Thursday never occurred at all. As she slept, Fleur was far from the mess in the Ministry, idling the hours away in Mallièvre with Gabrielle, safe and happy and careless within the Delacour estate and its beautiful gardens...

"I think so. This feels too elaborate to be a dream."

"You 'think'?"

"Also," Hermione continues, lifting her chin and fixing Fleur with a haughty expression, "the calendar says it's the second of December."

So much for an unusually cold June. In Islington and in Hogsmeade, it was December of bygone year all along. The last year of peace.

Her last stay at Hogwarts fills her mind again. The heavy food, the drafty halls...the excitement of the Yule Ball and its (subpar) decorations...shopping in Hogsmeade for gifts. No wonder the owner was so delighted to see Fleur again. She had gone into the post office only a week before at this time. She remembers wanting to finish the process fast so she could devote all of her attention to the festivities...

That isn't important. What is important is the absurd fact of their journey straying so far from the goal. Somehow, the Time-Turner's leap backwards obeyed Fleur's impossible wish instead of its own rules and limits. And Cedric if I could, she remembers thinking, when the plan to rewrite the battle fell into place and their chance to do so was running out. At the time, Fleur was both desperate and good-intentioned—were those significant details? Did the Laws of Magic bend to her will because she wanted it? Or was their jump a fluke at best (and a mistake at worst)?

"That explains the snow," Fleur says to mask her silence, pulling the bedcovers higher. "Your horrible weather sent me for a ring."

"Threw you for a loop. What else did you think was going on?" Hermione asks with narrowed eyes, missing nothing.

Keeping her gaze on the sweets, Fleur shrugs, not yet keen to draw attention to the Time-Turner. Best to be blasé until it's properly investigated.

"Nothing."

"Well..." Hermione offers a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, letting Fleur start rooting around inside for a favorite. "We need a plan."

"Our plans have gone awry," Fleur points out, making a face and dropping the offending bean in the bin. Phlegm!

Hermione continues without interruption, speaking more to herself than Fleur. "I mean, what happened is just unprecedented! We broke the rules and the law...successfully. It should've been impossible to go so far in the past without serious injury. One witch died, you know. An Unspeakable. Professor McGonagall made me read the Ministry's declassified research to get a Time-Turner. Eloise Mintumble went backwards five centuries and...well, she never left St. Mungo's. Then everyone she met in the past made their descendants in the present disappear. They were un-born."

Fleur gets rid of a bean with an envelope glue flavor, horrified. "Un-born?" She repeats, praying she's just lost in translation again.

"Yes. They were erased from history." Hermione busies her hands with the duvet, looking fearful. "What if that happens to us?"

Briefly, Fleur tries to imagine a world without herself or Hermione, only to give up when the possibilities begin to strain the brain that she most certainly did not leave behind in her office...in 1996. Should Hermione and Fleur bounce back to their own year, she doesn't doubt that the timeline would warp and twist and curve in irreparable ways. Would Hogwarts Castle cave in on itself? Would Britain collapse into a...vortex? A whirlpool?

No wonder Grimmauld Place shut them out. Sirius Black hasn't yet reclaimed the residence, and with it, named Albus Dumbledore as the Secret-Keeper. No wonder why Kreacher hadn't seen his master in two decades. No wonder why Beauxbatons students loitered in the Entrance Hall...they're still in their inter-school exchange. The Triwizard Tournament is not over, You-Know-Who hasn't yet risen, and the war hasn't started!

"Until it happens, we should not worry," Fleur manages, trying to find some control in the situation. "We have a job to do."

"This job is too big," Hermione protests in a whisper, though she may still be swayed... "We're changing so much, Fleur. We can save—"

Despite her doubts, Fleur has her answer ready. She refuses to lose her nerve again, not wholly and not for long. "Cedric."

"Cedric," Hermione repeats, eyes widening. "I didn't realize..."

Leaning back against the pillows, Fleur studies the ceiling. She's slept for many hours, but the conversation is tiring in itself. Grief takes many tolls. Fear sups greedily too, Dumbledore said, but she and Hermione are the only ones who are grieving, the only ones who are afraid... "We can save Cedric, Harry, Sirius...Ronald. Neville." The opportunity to rework so much pain and misery is a tantalizing prospect that Fleur simply cannot resist.

Harry was so noble saving Gaby, convinced as Fleur was that the hostages were in jeopardy. All she can do—must do—is return the favor.

But can Hermione resist the lure? If Fleur were to do it alone, can Hermione return safely? The Time-Turner is unpredictable, even dangerous...

"What of ourselves?" Fleur asks, a new puzzle coming to mind. She had no spare moment to wonder where the Fleur Delacour of 1994 went, but the disquiet is now climbing into the bed and curling alongside this Fleur's cold feet and squirming worry. "Our old selves. You said not to be seen."

"I haven't seen myself or you," Hermione admits. Going by the reception from their four friends in the Entrance Hall, it's as if they vanished from their beds in the morning, undiscovered by all. Erased. "Either they were un-born, or we just took over. Took their places."

"And what of the future?" Fleur prods, wondering about the other end of the long line of time, the leap-off point. "Are we...missing?"

"I don't know."

Fleur gives a sigh. That is a troubling thought. She has no way of checking in on the future, not without a talented seer. "I don't either."

They're quiet for a few minutes, just thinking about it. Just stewing on it, like the Time-Turner is a cauldron and Fleur and Hermione are part of the ingredients list of a complicated potion. Botching their adventure might mean the end of everything and everyone they know...

But what if they get it right? (Still so many questions, Fleur understands, and fewer still that can be answered right now.)

Hermione fiddles with the box of Ice Mice, looking like she's preparing herself for a fight again. "We can save Cedric," she echoes decisively.

"We can also die in the attempt." Fleur hasn't often considered the possibility, but it looms. "This may cause more harm than good."

"That happens to me every year," Hermione opines, clearly hit by a Cheering Charm, because she's smiling now. Fleur eyes her, confused.

"Quoi?"

Fleur's never seen her smile so big. "Being Harry's friend brings life-or-death situations around pretty regularly. I'm almost used to it."

Perhaps she would grow as comfortable with so much fear too in Hermione's place as one of Harry Potter's best friends. "With every risk, a reward," Fleur observes, wry. Perhaps Hermione is accustomed to poor odds. Bad odds. Fleur, on the other hand, may need to expand her purview.

Extending a hand, Hermione adopts a challenging look. "To the reward," she says, returning to typical brashness even Fleur herself has noticed.

The reward.

Fleur knows that to mean a great many things. A united wizarding world, if the cards fall correctly. Friends, old and new, keeping the lives that were so unfairly taken away. A chance at something better. There are catastrophic consequences too, much like the risks of breaking old curses...

There is nowhere left to go but on, Fleur realizes, onward and upward to the very end. "To the reward," she agrees, and shakes Hermione's hand.

Chapter Text

Skipping stone after stone along the shore of the Black Lake, Fleur watches the sun's steady rise into the sky and takes a moment. Takes stock.

If anyone else stood in her shoes, Fleur doesn't doubt they too would feel just as out of sorts.

Somehow and against all odds, she and Hermione successfully returned to the days of the Triwizard Tournament, unharmed and sane. For now. Their mode of travel is still intact. For now, Fleur can't help but think, listening to the clink of the Time-Turner's chain as she bends to fetch another stone. (The hourglass should disappear in a few minutes, if her calculations are correct.) Their journey, meanwhile, has still gone undetected...for now, she reckons for the third time, wishing the reward for saving a lot of boys from the fickle fingers of fate was not so far away.

Fleur lets the last stone fly, dusts off her hands, and starts walking for the castle, for once glad of the heavy Hogwarts food. She is starving.

She left Hermione in the Hospital Wing before dawn, wanting to freshen up and change her clothes, but it was only after she stepped into the Beauxbatons carriage that she felt the journey begin to sink in. It worked, Fleur had thought, creeping into the dormitory that she shared with Céline to grab her toiletries and a set of spare robes. Instead of considering the past in a hazy darkness of old and near forgotten memories, Fleur lingered in the doorway and gazed upon the now clear-as-crystal details—the matching vanities on each side of the room, the faint whiff of perfume in the air, the twin desks piled high with schoolwork, the keepsakes, and the grinning photographs—and for the first time, felt immersed.

Anchored, she supposed, like a kite on a string.

It was the possessions that were pulling Fleur in and planting her in the past as solidly as the roots of the Whomping Willow, so she lit her wand and slunk to her side of the room, careful not to wake Céline, and pried open the wardrobe. At one point, she'd closed her eyes as she tiptoed across the floor, thinking of little but her belongings, the things she painstakingly collected and kept until more than a year in the future, stowed safely away in her now lost London flat. The duplicates remained, however. The Beauxbatons uniform. A pair of veela-blessed earrings designed for eavesdropping after your name emerged in a conversation. Her beloved heels. Her books. Gaby's handprints on a piece of parchment, painted when she was still crawling. Smiling a little, Fleur gathered her things and strode for the washroom, comforted.

Some things needed to change, Fleur decided, donning her hat to brave the Scottish wind as she left the carriage, but the rest could stay.

Just as Fleur predicted, Snape does not take kindly to her absence. At lunch, the news of the penalty comes quicker than the food—a detention.

It's the first of her academic career. Fleur doesn't bother to hide her dismay from the messenger, nor anyone else. "Thank you, Cho," she says.

With a sympathetic smile, Cho Chang leaves Fleur with her regrets and then joins her friends at the end of the bench.

Truthfully, Fleur doesn't care that much. It's the only second run of her academic career, after all. Will one bout of misconduct really ruin the whole thing? And yet, in a series of unexpected and unprecedented events, Fleur Delacour is seventeen years old again. A girl in the last leg of her education would detest the shame of such a blemish on her permanent record, and complain bitterly of her misfortune to her closest friends...

(This all according to a certain Gryffindor, which struck Fleur as odd when she heard it, as she recalls Hermione's disregard for breaking dozens of wizarding laws. The lions of Hogwarts, she's found, like scheming, playacting, and making impassioned stands over, say, self-recrimination.)

"Merlin's beard, Fleur," Sacha chuckles, glancing up from his plate, "what did you do?"

Staring with unabashed curiosity, the rest of the Beauxbatons party waits for the answer. Fleur rolls her eyes and lowers her spoon.

"Gossips, the lot of you," she grumbles but succumbs to the pressure of eleven inquiring faces. "I missed a class yesterday." All of her classes, actually, if the matron is to be believed. Pomfrey was even heard to wonder if Fleur had ingested the Draught of Living Death by mistake.

Fleur's other professors were more understanding. Flitwick even withheld an essay, instead preferring to discuss her charmwork in the First Task.

Madame Maxime was not so generous. When Fleur presented herself after breakfast, her headmistress simply deferred the punishment to Snape.

"Why?" Manon asks, slipping a Canary Cream onto Henry's plate while his attention is diverted. When she feels Fleur's gaze, Manon winks.

"Was it something to do with the Tournament...?" Céline questions, only to trail off and lift her eyes to a point beyond Fleur's shoulder.

They're all looking now, studying the spot with the same frank interest and polite reserve. Getting rather curious herself, Fleur turns in her seat.

"Excuse me," Hermione greets, books clutched close to her chest. In spite of their twice-lived Thursday, her gaze is just as sharp, attentive, and determined as ever. Unlike Albus Dumbledore, though, Hermione's command of French has—unfortunately—lapsed. "May I have a word?"

"An arm, a leg, or a word, it's yours," Charles says at once, and endures Giselle's disapproving smack upside-the-head with good grace.

Flushing pink, Hermione's eyes dart imploringly back to Fleur.

All too willing to leave their audience in suspense, Fleur stands. "Very well. Lead on, Mademoiselle Granger." On their way out, shouts of laughter rise from the Ravenclaw table. Glancing back, Fleur spies a large canary flapping its wings at Manon and molting all over Henry's old place.

"What was all that about?" Hermione asks after the Great Hall is not far behind, switching back to English with ill-disguised relief.

Fleur widens her eyes, feigning innocence. "The larks of the Weasley boys are very amusing. I did not wish to spoil Manon's fun."

"No, that..." Hermione makes shudder quotes with her fingers, waiting until Fleur skips the ankle gobbling steps to add, "Miss Granger rubbish."

"That 'rubbish' was your idea, Hermione. I was only following your advice."

Before they can begin to get their bearings in the past and further develop a plan to save the future, Hermione insisted maintaining previous appearances was a priority. Finding no alternative worth keeping, Fleur acquiesced. For all intents and purposes, things are just as they used to be—she is a Triwizard champion and Hermione is the brightest witch of her year. In that sense, Fleur is not sure what she's missing.

Head bowed peevishly over her books, Hermione mutters something about taking things too literally.

Trailing behind a gaggle of Viktor's admirers to the library, Fleur soon finds herself alone in the threshold and turns on her heel to learn why.

Hermione's stopped short of entering, looking for all the world like a girl denied a treat. Fighting a mean urge to laugh, Fleur adopts a quizzical air.

"I'm late for Potions," Hermione explains regretfully, "but can we meet here afterward? I really did want to speak with you."

Now more bemused than anything else, Fleur agrees and strolls on unattended, taking care to ignore the suspicious looks from Madam Pince on her way to the aisles. During her last stay at Hogwarts, Fleur soon discovered not to take Pince's nature personally. Viktor, Fleur recalls, made her and Cedric howl with laughter after he suggested the librarian should've been their shared opponent in the First Task. We would steal the oldest book in her stores, Viktor added, giving a rare smile as Fleur and Cedric fumbled for some semblance of poise. Imagine dropping one in the water!

Taking a book off the shelf without a second glance at the cover, Fleur settles into a seat beside a window. She is not so long out of school that old habits are out of her reach. Like Viktor, she spent much of her days at Hogwarts in its library, fervently researching and preparing for each task, often aimlessly running her fingers along the peeling spines and dusty shelves. Though Madame Maxime did warn Fleur of the dragon, she left Fleur to her own devices to find a way to subdue it. Cheating in the Triwizard Tournament was as old as the contest itself and the headmistress was eager to further her silly agenda against Dumbledore. Professor Karkaroff arrived with the same intent whether Viktor knew as much or not.

And here I am again, Fleur muses, loyal to another headmaster and keen to save both of his champions, no matter the cost.

In a few respects, it is nice to be back. Fleur is free from her responsibilities, bound only to the duties of the Tournament (like the boys, she was also exempt from the end-of-year exams, but she took the N.Y.M.P.H.s anyway after she returned to France). She isn't constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if the next Dark curse she breaks will be her last. She isn't scanning the Daily Prophet, searching for a familiar name in the growing number of mysterious disappearances. Instead, she's ensconced in the protections of Hogwarts and Dumbledore himself. But here, in the skin of a seventeen year old, she feels smaller, or at least as small as a champion can feel with the eyes of so many on her body.

Her body is all they care about, thanks to the thrall. Fleur sighs. Things are just as they used to be, but it does not please her, not as much as she felt in service to the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix, twice sworn to make the world safer. Foisted back into the life of someone who hasn't seen a real fight, she can see herself bristling at the outgrown limits sooner rather than later. After over a year at the Ministry, enjoying all the trappings of independence and adulthood, going back to the easier life of a Beauxbatons girl is...stifling. She misses the challenge, the thrill, even the ironclad belief from Leslie and Adrian in her own skill (one not judged by a point system). Here she is a stranger in her old-and-new skin, like a portrait trying to climb bodily out of its frame, like a creature evading its inevitable, wintry hibernation, like she's wearing Gaby's too small hat, skirt, and shoes. She is stuck deferring to her elders again. She is caged by her 'lack of' knowledge and her 'lack of' experience!

Not taken seriously again, either...

Feeling a bad humor coming on like a chill, Fleur vacates her seat, content to wander the stacks again and leave her grousing behind, but the mood is as eager of a shadow as the boys of Hogwarts. Despite being older and wiser and different and much more experienced, she's still—still—

Still sulking? A more reasonable part of Fleur asks, sounding calmer than she is at the moment, and perhaps a hair more mature.

Yes, Fleur realizes, sulking and looking a gift Abraxan in the mouth, because the chance to save Cedric Diggory is no small matter. If Fleur is being honest with herself, the complaints are about as small as she feels. The real problem, Fleur must privately admit, is the Time-Turner.

This time, Fleur ducks into an aisle with renewed purpose.

She starts pulling books from the shelves, attracting the librarian's attention again. A book on metaphysics joins the stack, followed by studies of cosmology. She grabs outdated Arithmancy textbooks, discarded Divination treatises, Atlas of Celestial Anomalies, and then Magical Moral Perspective for good measure. The Tales of Beedle the Bard is left behind in her haste, but Fleur doubles back for it, wondering if solutions can be found in its fantasies and legends. World Mythology follows suit. For all Madam Pince knows, it is just another day at Hogwarts, and just another student touching her precious books, but Fleur knows better. After all, she has a job to do. A duty not to be taken lightly. It is not the time for reminiscence or crying over spilt potion, Fleur decides as she finds another seat far from the main thoroughfare, it is the time to investigate.

"Paradoxes," Fleur murmurs, toying with the Turner's chain and jumping to a passage about the temporal kind. A contradiction, an inconsistency...like the fluke and facts of her journey into the past with Hermione. Until last night, such a scope of time travel was hypothetical (Eloise Mintumble notwithstanding). Fleur remembers escaping the cold clutches of time and the void of space, yet cannot imagine herself and Hermione into the equations she'd sooner see in Professor Vector's class, or even Mademoiselle Montagne's, Vector's counterpart at Beauxbatons. Instead, Fleur keeps returning to the things that she can touch and see and feel with her own two hands, the things she knows to be real and here and there, like her robes, silk and unchanged and beautiful, or the skin of her wrist, still bearing scars from a hex accident as a Curse-Breaker. The two of them slipped into their old bodies, as if nothing went amiss in the first place, but the proof of things going amiss is both skin deep and not. Contradictions. Fleur has a scar from an accident that may never come. Impossibilities and inconsistencies, starting with what I wanted...

The Laws of Magic bend for no witch, not even if she begs for it, not even if she prays for it. Fleur knows better, but for now it seems the rulebook along with the clock have flown unceremoniously from the window. Then again, she reasons, trying to take a more accurate stock, the Time-Turner is broken. Could that have anything to do with it? Have Fleur and Hermione dodged a nasty outcome, or is it on the way?

Gloominess swallows up that reasonable part of Fleur in a flash. This morning, she left the Hospital Wing in the early hours before breakfast, thinking of little but her possessions, the device at her throat, and a phantom ticking. Can their time actually run out? Will she and Hermione be drawn backward—or forward instead, to the future her incompetence left so mangled?

With a little more force than necessary, Fleur snaps her book shut, wrests another free of the pile, and flips to the first page.

In the foreword of a book about retrocausality, an Unspeakable for once has much to say. Just as the human mind cannot comprehend time, Saul Croaker writes, worsening Fleur's budding fears, it cannot comprehend the damage that will ensue if we presume to tamper with its laws...

Eloise Mintumble survived for nearly a week, Fleur seems to recall, unable to rid her thoughts of their own new shadow of desperation. Can we?

Fortunately, a distraction arrives before she works herself up into a panic. Worries of bad outcomes will just have to wait for her in the dark.

"Doing a bit of light reading?"

Hermione sits down as Fleur's flipping through A Brief History of Time, arms laden with parchment.

"Not quite," Fleur admits, glad to set Hawking's work aside for now. "I am thinking in circles." She does not enjoy the additional layer of uncertainty that will distinguish her second Tournament from the first one.

"Join me in History of Magic, you won't think much at all."

Before she's aware of it, before she's put all her fears under lock and key, Fleur is smiling. "The class with the—ah, ghost?"

"Yes. Harry and Ron never pay attention, then ask me right before an exam to copy my notes. Professor Binns has no idea."

Shaking her head, Hermione stows her notes away and retrieves a Charms textbook, a new leaf of parchment, and a quill. Fleur watches her for a while, only remembering Hermione hoped to talk to her when it becomes apparent the fussing with her supplies is a play for time. Fleur marks her place in Hawking's pages with a finger and clears her throat. "You wished to speak with me earlier."

"Er, right." Just as Fleur decides to put her foot down and demand an answer after suffering another awkward silence, Hermione continues. "When you left the Hospital Wing, I started thinking..." (Now Fleur is forced to wonder if Hermione ever stops thinking.) "And I changed my mind."

"About this?"

Has Hermione succumbed to cold feet? It would be a shame to remain the only one aware of the coming horrors, but if Hermione can't commit to their lark of danger and shortsighted foolishness, so be it, Fleur will go at it alone, face everything bravely and—

"No!" Horrified, Hermione lowers her voice. "No, about right now. About my appearances idea."

"Elaborate," Fleur orders.

"Things don't need to be exactly the same," Hermione says finally, accidentally shredding a piece of her parchment. Fleur gazes at the rip instead of Hermione, hoping to spur the conversation forward into more intelligible waters. "I mean, I wouldn't mind if some things were different." Giving Fleur a glimpse of her usual daring, albeit in its early stages, Hermione barrels on. "This time, I thought you and I could possibly become friends."

Fleur prods at the presumption, a bit lost. She certainly wouldn't call Hermione an enemy. "Aren't we?"

"No, we aren't." Hermione heaves a great sigh. "Look, I don't make friends easily, Fleur. I never have. I'm loud and pushy and...too much. Harry and Ron had to save me from a troll before we started getting closer." A troll? Hermione doesn't clarify, disappointing Fleur immensely. "But we're—we're so different now," she goes on, imploring again. Below the appeal, Fleur wonders if she is imagining the dread in Hermione's expression. "You and I know so many things about the future that I may shout them out any second. If I don't have you to talk to about it all, I'll go barking mad."

"You want a confidante."

Her resolve is weakening. Hermione's nervousness is distracting. She cannot think of a reason—not even an unfeeling or petty one—to refuse.

"Yes."

Now Fleur plays for time, unable to believe her ears. "You never did warm to me, Hermione." And I never warmed to you. While Fleur's respect for Harry grew after the Second Task, her interest in his friends did not. Ron stared like all the other boys, and Hermione glared like all the other girls.

"That was before."

They did not get on at Hogwarts, nor in Grimmauld Place, but all of that lies before the Department of Mysteries, an end in itself until Fleur and Hermione spun the hourglass and rewrote the whole book instead of omitting its last chapter. Another chance to be better, Fleur had thought, eager to rewrite the narrative. It's a fair point, because despite their agreement to behave in the manners that are most familiar to them, they are not the same anymore. Fleur's eyes opened to a larger, more frightening world after Harry escaped the maze, clutching the Triwizard Cup in one hand and Cedric in the other. Hermione's loyalty to Harry drew her into danger again and again, dragging opportunities for disaster ever closer.

Is it so wrong, Fleur wonders, to seek a rapport with the only other person in the world who can understand you?

Mistaking Fleur's silence for rejection, Hermione jumps to her feet, aghast, only for Fleur to huff and shove Hermione back down into her seat.

"I will be your friend, Hermione, if you promise not to storm off," Fleur warns, watching Hermione's cheeks bypass red for a blotchy maroon.

"Well, if you insist...?"

Fleur laughs before she knows it, losing her place in the book as she claps a hand to her mouth. "I insist," she whispers, mindful of Pince. Hermione spares her a rueful, relieved grin. Fleur's relieved too. If she was forced to navigate the mission alone, she doubts it'd go well.

"Walk me to dinner?" Hermione suggests, still a bit red. She glances at her watch and studies the face, frowning and tapping her nail on the glass. The watch looks frozen, just like Fleur's. Unlike Fleur herself, however, Hermione has slipped back into the routine of her fourth year seamlessly.

Unwilling to shatter their fragile, timid accord over a rather telling failure of timekeeping, Fleur agrees, and leaves the books behind—for now.

When Fleur rejoins the Beauxbatons party at suppertime, Edgar leans over to whisper in her ear, a look of intrigue on his face.

"That's twice in one day I've seen you with that Granger girl. What's going on, Fleur?"

"It's a secret," Fleur lies, smothering her flare of panic behind a gulp of pumpkin juice. They still have many things to discuss—namely, how to maintain said supposed appearances and acceptable behaviors. They have yet to touch the subjects of 'Alastor Moody', the Tasks, and Cedric.

"Come on, I can keep it. Try me."

"No, you can't. I know it was you that set off the Dungbombs in the parlor last week," she accuses, smiling to soothe the sting out of it.

Edgar has the grace to grin, sheepish. "Manon claimed all the credit anyway, so what does that matter?"

Slipping back into old routines is strange but not impossible. Fleur remembers enough to get along and genuinely likes the chance to be among friends again, but she can't quite shake the feeling of being a step ahead...meters ahead, actually, and forced to wait for everyone else to catch up.

It is the out of sorts feeling, she realizes, from the morning. Even with her attempt at research, her good try of settling in, she still hasn't acclimated. Parts of the day—the place, the people—still seem dreamlike, like the past isn't happening at all. Sometimes, in the small moments between remembering what to say and what to do, Fleur feels like the ghost in the Hall of Prophecy again, walking the aisles alongside the swirling orbs, alone and unpredicted. If she doesn't have a stored prophecy of her own on the shelves, will anything she does now—or then—truly matter?

Fleur levels him with a look, admitting nothing, thoughts elsewhere.

Catching her name in the air, Manon sits down on Fleur's other side, smugness rolling off her shoulders in waves.

"Guess who just asked me to the Ball?"

"Your Imp Prince," Edgar suggests. "A trickster," he adds for their benefit, flaunting his exemplary grades in his Muggle Literature practicum.

"George Weasley." All aflutter, Manon adopts a dreamy expression. Edgar mimes a swoon. Fleur laughs. Merlin, I've missed them.

"How do you tell them apart?" She has to ask, ladling soup for the three of them into bowls. Somehow Bill never confused one for the other, Fleur had learned as they pored over complex calculations in a collaboration between Gringotts and the Ministry. "Are you sure it wasn't the other—Fred?"

"George is sweeter. He was very impressed with my Cantis Jinx on Cassius Warrington..."

Fleur lets the conversation continue on without her, preferring to just listen and eat. She's sure she already heard about Manon and George in the past, but hearing it a second time is more of a novelty than a nuisance. In all her haste to start her new life in Britain, Fleur allowed a distance to grow between herself and friends, never once thinking that calamity would pull her even beyond the breadth than she intended. Now that she and Hermione are so much farther afield than they thought possible, it make Fleur again wonder...are they missing in the—their—present, or has the future been erased? Will Fleur be forced to rewrite her friendships now, or repair them all later, in a world built from their efforts to save the boys?

Thinking quickly, she dives into her bag for parchment. Under the table, Fleur points her wand at the surface and charms a message, hoping the spell for interdepartmental memos will work outside of her office. The message curls up in her palm, scuttles down her leg like a spider, and darts out of sight. Over Céline's shoulder, Fleur searches the Gryffindor table until she spots Hermione and returns her wand to her pocket. Hermione startles and looks down at her lap.

She locates Fleur with her eyes, nods once, and returns to her conversation with Ginny.

In her relief, Fleur jumps at the nudge to her ribs. Much like his owl, Maximilian, Edgar misses little.

"Writing to dear Mister Davies?"

Roger is already reddening when Fleur glances down the bench. "Maybe," she says vaguely, just to needle a snickering Edgar again.

"I hear he's plucking up the courage to ask you to the Ball."

"If he can ask me without blushing or stammering," Fleur counters with another arch smile, rising with the rest at the end of the meal, "he has a chance." Roger hadn't asked her until next week, if Fleur remembers correctly. She's curious to know if everything will remain the same a second time, or if small differences will pile up thanks to her and Hermione. Don't Muggles have a phrase for that—the Moth Effect? "Who are you asking?"

With everything that Fleur intends to keep straight, she supposes she has to reconcile with not remembering these countless small matters.

"Just me," Céline chimes in during the bustle to exit the Great Hall, linking arms with Edgar. "He saved me from going with Artem Poliakoff."

"He still had food in his mouth and all over his robes when he asked," Edgar explains as Fleur tries to stop giggling, "and Pucey shot me down."

That does the trick. The dating pool for Edgar is half the size of Fleur's, and considerably less occupied outside of Beauxbatons.

"I know just the man for you," Fleur assures him, sobering and kissing Edgar's cheek in consolation. "He'll be at Hogwarts by the Third Task."

While Céline gives a teasing ooh and Edgar's sunny grin comes back, Fleur catches sight of Hermione in the Entrance Hall, loitering beside one of the great stone torches by the staircase. With a quick word, Fleur excuses herself and hastens to meet Hermione in the middle of the floor.

Another difference. She never spoke to Hermione last time. Now Fleur can't help feel like she's playing a potent game of Exploding Snap.

"What's so urgent?" Hermione whispers, taking no notice of the group of students sauntering nearer, bedecked in green. "I was worried..."

All Fleur can think of now is that Muggle chaotic moth theory and Croaker's dire warnings about interference. Both are sitting badly in her stomach along with the soup, making her earlier sense of being anchored here feel slack, almost feeble. As if it's following her mood and erratic concentration and advising against getting comfortable, the Time-Turner grows hot again. Fleur bites back a huff of frustration, unwilling to let her temper get the better of her. "There is much we should discuss, Hermione, and I'm afraid it cannot wait any longer—"

"If you want a better conversationalist than a Mudblood like her, Fleur," a passing Draco Malfoy interrupts with a sneer, "don't hesitate to ask us."

Hermione stiffens. Chortling for reaching a bar well below sophomoric humor, the Slytherins wander away.

Fleur glares after him, seeing his awful father in every one of his steps, the same father that mocked Harry in the graveyard with You-Know-Who and the man who led the attack on the Department of Mysteries. Then she makes a decision, a difference that never crossed her mind in the past.

(It is done in the interests of collaboration, expediency, and friendship, because this, Fleur knows, will matter.)

"Citrouillétafors!"

Fleur's jinx hits Malfoy in the back, forcing him to stumble forward like a drunk and cradle the enormous pumpkin that's replaced his head.

The hall explodes with laughter. Hermione gasps. In the distance, Céline and Edgar are leaning against the door for support, utterly delighted.

"DELACOUR!"

Tucking her wand back into her robes, Fleur looks around, searching for the voice over the din of Malfoy's friends struggling to get him up the stairs to the Hospital Wing and the guffaws from the crowd. Professor Snape stands in the threshold of the Great Hall, beckoning with one finger.

Hermione offers a tiny groan from behind her hand, just as she did in the Hall of Prophecy after Harry spoke so rashly to Bellatrix Lestrange.

Well...

"You shouldn't have done that," Hermione mutters through her fingers, torn between disapproval and pure glee. Fleur shrugs.

"Monsieur Malfoy should learn better manners," she answers, tired and imprudent and angry, patting Hermione on the arm. "Until Saturday, then?"

Hermione lowers her hand, a little starry-eyed now. "If you survive Snape..." she ventures, braver. "Let's meet on the grounds around, er—nine?"

Unperturbed by the warning, Fleur nods, tosses a wave of farewell at Edgar and Céline, and strides over to Snape, heels clicking across the floor.

"Another night's detention, I think," Snape declares softly as she approaches, albeit taking her sweet time to reach him. If she will be hanged for a dragon as an egg, she will delay, delay, delay it. "Funny," he adds, wearing his coldest smile, "I had expected more from a Triwizard champion..."

"Je suis désolé, Professor," Fleur answers. She indicates the stairway to the dungeons, smiling back as irreverently as she dares. Only she will know it to be a grimace of pain as the Time-Turner burns out like a match and vanishes from her throat again. "Shall we?"

Some things can stay the same, Fleur decides with renewed resolve, but others won't. She'll make damn sure of that.

Chapter Text

After a long evening of extracting the slime from billywig stings without gloves, no one was more relieved than Fleur to get to the weekend.

But she was no better off in her dreams than in detention. Fleur fell and fell and fell with no end in sight, lacking a veela's wings to right herself in the air. Fleur finally gave up on rest when she heard the cries of the gamekeeper's roosters and resigned herself to a long, drowsy day.

While Céline sleeps the morning away, Fleur packs. A gift from her father, her old rucksack's Undetectable Extension Charm (thanks to France's more permissive stance on private ownership) will suit her and Hermione's purposes well. In the rucksack's already brimming nooks and crannies, Fleur stores the golden egg, the research borrowed from the castle's library that she doubled back to get, some of her books from Beauxbatons, the wands stolen from Mulciber and Avery in the Hall of Prophecy, the last of Hermione's sweets, a kettle, and her aunt Ninette's beloved teapot.

Fleur keeps the Time-Turner around her neck, however, far too reluctant to let it out of her reach.

At breakfast, as Henry goads Charles into trying the boudin noir, Edgar inquires into her weekend plans.

”Solving my riddle.” She hadn’t bothered last time until after the new year though now she intends to use every opportunity the egg provides to plan out the coming months with Hermione. Fleur hopes not even Madame Maxime would challenge such a ready made excuse.

”Join us next weekend, please? If Hugo waxes poetic about Giselle for one more minute, I'll walk into the Forbidden Forest and never come back.”

Fleur promises to do her best.

Just before nine, Fleur steps into the cold, bundled up in Muggle clothes and a pair of good boots. She's barely out of the Entrance Hall when she realizes she has a shadow. Streaking across the snow, Crookshanks darts ahead of her like a hinkypunk in a marsh, drawing Fleur farther and farther from the castle to where his mistress must already be waiting. Punctual, Fleur notes, committing that to memory, and a planner. They hadn't decided where to meet before Fleur followed Snape to the dungeons. "Slow down, please," she murmurs, descending a hill and listening to the jangling from her rucksack. "Auntie will kill me if I destroy that teapot..." Supposedly it belonged to Madame de Sévigné, but Fleur remains dubious.

The Whomping Willow is flicking ice off itself as Crookshanks scurries to and fro, evading roots and flying limbs until he reaches the trunk. To Fleur's astonishment, Crookshanks claws at the knot in the center without prompting, then ducks out of view. Lighting her wand and shaking her head, Fleur climbs into the tunnel behind the cat, grateful for the residual Warming Charms that reveal Hermione's recent progress into the Shrieking Shack. Magicked warmth or not, Fleur nonetheless has a feeling the day will only grow colder from here on out; the sky looked gloomy along the Great Hall's ceiling as the post arrived, and the air beyond the walls reeked like a biting rain when Fleur dared to venture outside again.

Crookshanks is inspecting the exposed paneling when Fleur enters the decrepit parlor. Hermione, predictably, has her nose buried in a book.

"Salut," Fleur greets at the end of a yawn, depositing her bag on the floor and conjuring a blanket from the stores within to sit on.

"Morning, Fleur."

Extricating the kettle, the teapot, and the tea leaves, Fleur conjures some water to boil and starts emptying the rest of the rucksack. She sets the stolen wands in arm's reach, the golden egg at the corner of the blanket, and arranges the books into piles. Once the tea is ready, Fleur passes off the first cup to a pacing, absentminded Hermione, surprised to discover she is—in the midst of the mindless preparation—missing Adrian and Leslie. (Afternoon tea was sacrosanct to these Curse-Breakers, Fleur soon learned.) Though not perfect, they were the first people in the Ministry not to know her by way of Beauxbatons or the Triwizard Tournament, as well as the first adults after Albus Dumbledore to treat Fleur as an equal, like someone worthy of their confidence. Her first older and more worldly friends, however ordinary and charmingly mundane they were (are). After Leslie and Adrian came Bill, amused by her admiration of his style, then Tonks, then Kingsley, then Sage Bragnam, then Russ—Cerberus Langarm...

"Shall we get started?" Hermione asks as Crookshanks drapes himself unhelpfully atop Mintumble's Mishap. Eager to get answers, Fleur agrees.

They go over with what they know. After receiving a false vision of Sirius Black from You-Know-Who, Harry and the others flew to London on thestrals. As soon as he could, Severus Snape sent a warning to Fleur, who arrived in the Hall of Prophecy only minutes before the battle began. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the Order suffered grievous losses that even Hermione can't bring herself to repeat, so Fleur changes the subject.

"That belongs to Avery," Fleur explains as Hermione examines the plunder, looking curious, "and that one belongs to Mulciber."

Hermione weighs Mulciber's wand as intently as Ollivander weighed Fleur's, brow creased in thought. "I'm of two minds," she says at last, "or three."

"The left head, I hope," Fleur ventures, trying to decide where Harry and Ron fit into her absurd runespoor metaphor. Hermione pays her no heed.

"I suppose the theories depend on what the wands mean to us..." she mutters, setting one parallel to the other. Patience fraying thin, Fleur returns her teacup to its saucer, waiting for Hermione to grant her the favor of her attention. "They're proof of something, but of what? Or, rather, which?"

"Which, what?"

So much for waiting. Searching for the patience that allowed her to crack open so many curses, Fleur resolves to hold her tongue.

Hermione pries the book out from under Crookshanks, who slinks away. "I'm getting to that," Hermione replies, a new briskness entering her voice. She pulls Fleur's research closer to her side. "Let's start again. We need to consider all the aspects of time and time travel before we can move on."

Only a little regretful to snap at her new friend, Fleur nods, wishing she'd brought along a pot of coffee instead.

"Time magic, as you know and read, is unstable," Hermione reels off, pointedly deaf to Fleur's impatience. "It's as complex and strong as our own everyday sort, but it also tends to offer more problems than solutions. When Eloise Mintumble went back in time, things went wrong very quickly. Her presence in 1402 made...shall I say 'waves'? From what she described to the Healers in St. Mungo's, everyone Mintumble had spoken to, helped, or hated was affected by her existence and engulfed in these waves. This was before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, so she may have helped or harmed Muggles during her stay too, only to vanish from their lives when she was needed. They only got so much from her before she died, but the descendants of these friends and enemies eventually disappeared and were never seen again. The only reason we know of the changes is in part due to the Ministry's defensive spells, the impenetrability of the Department of Mysteries, and their own Quill of Recounting."

"The un-born," Fleur supplies politely. Uneasily.

"That's right. With every new 'wave' of Mintumble's choices, life paths were radically changed. Professor Croaker suggested Mintumble might've cured a wizard or a witch from an illness that was meant to kill them, or mediated feuds that ended differently. If a witch didn't die and went on to marry a suitor who formerly was married someone else in a rewritten timeline, then the descendants of the original family were lost." Hermione pauses for breath and a gulp of tea. "Xavier Rastrick was another potential victim, since the Ministry's experimentation with time only ended in 1899. These wands," she adds, gesturing with her free hand, "are proof of something, but it isn't clear which theory of time travel they support yet."

"But you have your suspicions."

"I do. The problem with time travel, however, is that goes against logic."

"Muggle logic," Fleur observes. Hawking's words on quantum mechanics and general relativity made her head spin.

"Logic," says Hermione sternly. "Traveling through time, even with magic, goes against the rules of...creation, I suppose. Life, if you think of life and time and reality as straight lines, of course, as most do. Our understanding of cause and effect only goes in one direction, but time travel throws us for a loop, if you pardon the pun. But let's get back to the wands again. Both stayed on your person after the battle. Everything we had on us, in our hands, in our heads, all of it tagged along for the ride to the past. That might very well prove we are in a fixed timeline, or it might not."

"Explain," Fleur orders, then adds after Hermione shoots her a look, "please. Explain what you mean by 'fixed', Hermione."

"Remember, this is just a theory, but if we were living in a fixed timeline, then the future can't be changed." Gratified by Fleur's alarmed expression and renewed scrutiny, Hermione presses on. "Everything we tried to stop would happen anyway, regardless of our meddling. Essentially," Hermione continues, "all fate is predestined, none of us can fight it, and every action, no matter what the circumstances, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Going back to the past makes the future we're trying to prevent. If we tried to change the outcome of, say, the First Wizarding War, all the things we wanted to prevent would just happen anyway, only differently. If you or I somehow managed to kill Lord Voldemort in 1981"—Fleur recoils—"and then tried to return to the new and improved future, we'd only find another wizard getting called You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, not Tom Riddle. Or, alternatively, everything we did to stop Voldemort would just make him into the monster he is today...are you still with me?"

Barely. "Yes."

"That also must make you wonder if there's a greater plan of the universe if things don't go our way, doesn't it?"

Perhaps she was right to wonder if Hermione Granger ever stops thinking. "Ah..." Fleur tries, nonplussed.

"Depending on who or what you believe in, that is. For the sake of the argument, let's reserve judgment on higher powers for now, all right?"

"Right," Fleur murmurs, in no mood to discuss hitherto unsaid religious beliefs.

"To put it in more urgent and familiar conditions, our meddling with the Triwizard Tournament would still end with Cedric's death, and our future would stay on the same path," says Hermione, now sounding as apprehensive as Fleur feels. "Here is where the trickiness of paradoxes comes in."

These Fleur knows. "Contradictions and inconsistencies."

"Yes, but I think you and I are safe from a paradox, at least for now. If there was a paradox at play," Hermione opines, "I'm sure I would've noticed any unusual events going on around me in my fourth year without an explanation in hindsight. When Harry and I used a Time-Turner to save Sirius and Buckbeak, things attributed to coincidence happened because of us. A rock smashed a jar, Harry saw his father, that sort of thing. It was only later that we realized it was me who threw a rock to get our attention, and it was another Harry casting the Patronus Charm, not his father."

"The future caused the past," Fleur says, following along, though the idea isn't at all appealing. Fleur answered the Order's call before and it was a disaster. Coming back to the past to guarantee a miserable future is the last thing she wants. What does it offer to them, anyway? Are she and Hermione doomed to repeat the same journey to '94 and '95 over and over again, forever, gaining nothing from each jump but Sisyphean grief?

"Right!" Hermione brightens. "But here's the difference—I've got it all figured out. To stop the battle, we just need to move the prophecy."

Oh, is that all?

Fleur shouldn't feel so surprised. Hermione gets to the heart of the matter first, like the suggestion to contact Sirius.

"Prophecies can only be recovered by the one about whom they are made." Fleur watches Hermione's enthusiasm dim, bit by bit.

"Well, we can just ask Professor Dumbledore to bring Harry to get it—"

Another conundrum. Instead of closing doors to their problems, Hermione is opening them. Duplicating them. Complicating them.

A difficult conversation, and best avoided for the moment. "Go back to the minds," Fleur interrupts, smelling an argument brewing in the air like rain. She has her suspicions about how that discussion would end, and none are good. "I want to understand before we go on to our...plans."

Hermione's irritation colors every one of her words, but she complies. "The second 'mind' is a dynamic timeline. This theory suggests altering the past does affect the present, and it's instantaneous. Us, the travelers, control more than we think, but the consequences are severe and there's little room for error. If you went back in time and killed your grandmother"—Fleur glares at that, though Hermione only rolls her eyes—"your own birth would never happen, and neither would the infamous trip back in time, but if you never go back in time, your grandmother never dies, until..."

"The traveler is born again," says Fleur, remembering, "and a paradox is created."

"I believe these wands can be proof of any timeline, especially a dynamic one," Hermione adds, frowning, but she doesn't sound totally sure. "If they begin to disappear, we'll know our actions will prevent the battle from happening in the first place. We'll be rewriting the old timeline, literally."

"That sounds better," Fleur wagers.

"In some respects, yes..." Hermione is grim now. "If our actions are so influential, though, we will be overwriting our own purpose for going into the past, therefore removing the broken Time-Turner from existence. That's the paradox, I expect. By changing the past to avert the future, we would never need go into the past at all, but we did and have. It worked and it didn't, because we erased our past selves, hence the...er, contradictions..."

Are Fleur's eyes crossing? This is more complicated than she thought.

"Oui..." she sighs, pausing. "So our actions to save the future can be...monitored by the stolen wands."

Their bodies and wands are living links between points, per Hermione, but Fleur wonders if they better resemble fossils, or relics of a bygone day.

"Yes, but I have a suspicion about our situation," Hermione hastens to add, looking a bit frazzled and desperate to keep the conversation alive, "and it's neither fixed nor dynamic. I think, based on what we managed to do so far and what we want to do, is that we've created an alternate timeline."

The third mind, Fleur muses, weary. "Can you—?"

"I can. In an alternate universe, things like the Laws of Magic, for instance, can be very different. Our lives can be different. Given the fact that we erased ourselves from this year," Hermione explains, "everything that we know and did is the same. There are no bizarre changes to the world, or evil twins, or absurd what-ifs of history made real, or such things you would read in the most fantastical pieces of Muggle literature. This is an alternate timeline, which is identical to the other apart from its soon-to-come point—or points!—of divergence. The only changes that I can see are our knowledge of the other...life, or timeline if you prefer, and our intentions to change the outcome of the Tournament. If we change the ending, which is to say that Cedric will not be murdered, then hopefully the future will be drastically different than...than the one you and I are from."

"But...?" Fleur prompts, waiting.

"Remember," Hermione goes on, "the timeline has diverged, or will diverge. Us, the travelers, can do anything we want with impunity, but our actions only affect the timeline we are now in. Say you did feel homicidal, went back far enough without hurting yourself, and succeeded in killing your grandmother before she could start a family—oh, stop scowling, it's only an example. Nothing would happen. A new timeline would simply be created without you in it, while the original is unaffected, as it must exist to give you a reason to travel to another. You would just be someone without an identity, a stranger in a strange land without any connections. The problem with an alternate timeline, however, is that it's..." Hermione's words speed up and combine into a single chain, forcing Fleur to parse each link out, one at a time. "It's impossible to return to your old one."

Remember, this is just a theory...

Fleur mulls over the answers in silence, fidgeting with the chain of the Time-Turner. It is not as much of a surprise as she anticipated, having felt a gnawing fear of that very result since she and Hermione arrived, but now the possibilities of failure and loss are looming. They're stuck? Yes and no. Their actions leave little room for error...or perhaps their actions will ensure the rise of You-Know-Who? They can't go back—wait, forward—without injury? Must Fleur consider special relativity, Albert Einstein, and spacetime? And where does the Time-Turner fit into the discussion?

The last time Fleur felt like her brain was spewing so spectacularly out of her ears, she was fighting Death Eaters. Or, possibly, sitting for exams.

Today marks the third day of their expedition, which presents the coming Monday as worse than a usual Monday if that will mean bouncing forward and dying of extreme old age in St. Mungo's. Merlin, she thinks sulkily, if I spent my last weekend alive drinking tea and poring over textbooks...

In the end, Fleur opts for honesty.

"This is...des ordures. Rubbish."

Hollow-eyed and wan, Hermione seems to feel no better about everything. "Yeah."

Gazing into the dregs of her cup, Fleur asks the first question that comes to mind, starting small. "If the wands don't disappear, then what?"

"What? Oh." Hermione blinks and makes a valiant effort to resume her guesswork. "Either the wands were overwritten, like our past selves, establishing a fixed timeline and a long wait between the end of the paradox and the beginning...or the wands possess identical copies, with Mulciber and Avery still wielding them." Hermione pauses, presumably imagining, as Fleur is, Mulciber and Avery's doings in the months before their master returns to life. "These ones are...leftovers, like us. Strangers in a strange land, carried from one timeline to the next by sheer luck."

Caught between a hippogriff and the cliff, as the saying goes. Fixed or alternate. Old or new. Fleur is in no mood to puzzle everything out again.

"Wouldn't it be best to learn the wands were overwritten?" Fleur asks absently. "Two Death Eaters would be...disadvantaged."

By the subtle laws, the wands are now Fleur's. Neither feel as comfortable as her own, but there is a grudging subservience to both of them, like students sent to the front of the class to write lines. The wands may very well bend to her will if she demanded it, though Fleur hopes never to see that day. Her grandmother would know more about the finer details of wandlore, though, and look so unhappy to see her dearest gift abandoned.

"I don't know." For Hermione, it sounds like a pained admission. Yesterday, Fleur might've even laughed about it.

Fleur sighs again, unable to recall a day in her life—old or new—where magic felt both stifling and perilous, all at once.

Speaking of perilous magic...

Still a bit lost, Fleur returns her cup to its saucer, unclasps the Time-Turner from her throat, and makes an ungainly change of subject, electing to finally let Hermione in on the secret, for better or worse. "It may be impossible to go home with this." Hermione's eyes follow the Time-Turner as Fleur bewitches it to hover in the air between them. Revolving like planets in an orrery, the hourglass spills sand onto the blanket, one grain at a time, luring Crookshanks back into the room for a sniff. "Whichever...land we are in now, Hermione, I don't know if we can travel home safely."

"Time-Turners aren't designed to move forward, Fleur," Hermione says, very quietly.

"There is a chance they could." Fleur cannot interpret Hermione's expression. "What about Madam Mintumble? The research shows she returned—"

Fleur breaks off as Crookshanks hisses in alarm, drawing their eyes back to the Time-Turner. It flips and flips and flips and finally, disappears.

"This has been doing..." Hermione manages, voice hushed, features very pale.

"Since we arrived," Fleur admits. "I did not wish to say so without research, but you know more than I on the subject. It was foolish to hide it."

Hermione swears under her breath, which, suffice to say, is an understatement.

Fleur can't help but feel like her hopes come and go like the Time-Turner itself, poised so delicately on the head of a pin that wobbles at three minute intervals. "I think we are stranded, Hermione," she confesses, reiterating a fact that hovered at the edges of every conversation since Thursday. They had agreed on the reward, after all—saving the boys and ensuring a better middle for them rather than unhappy ends. Fleur just...hadn't anticipated staying in the past after changing it, despite her attempts at acclimation and her promise to be Hermione's friend 'this time around'. They had overshot her wish by six months, and a part of Fleur had hoped the Time-Turner would correct that mistake without hurting them. If only they could've plucked Cedric from the graveyard in Little Hangleton, dropped him off at the pitch, and made their way home...

Cedric and Harry, Fleur corrects herself, stricken. Perish the thought of abandoning Harry at his darkest hour.

"Stranded until we 'catch up' with our own history in 1996," Hermione points out. "After that, it's anyone's guess."

Fleur can't imagine the scope of that altered future until she sees herself. "That is a long way away, Hermione. Many things could go wrong."

Hermione waves her off, stern again. "Forget that for now. I'm concerned with the Time-Turner. It's too dangerous for you to wear anymore."

"Where else am I going to put it?" Fleur must ask. "It could be stolen."

"We could take turns wearing—"

"No. If something happened to me, you must finish what we started." Fleur can be removed from Harry's side with ease, but Hermione cannot.

Hermione frowns, weighing her strategy. "If something happened to you, Fleur, I'd follow. Things would warp around us, the strangers."

"Maybe," Fleur argues, "but your books are hypothetical! Nothing has been proven, and all that is was documented by the Ministries. Our journey made history by permitting us to go back this far without repercussions. We can't let anyone know I have this, and the only way is to wear it."

"I'm sorry, are you suggesting we ignore the chance that you could die while wearing that stupid—" Hermione watches the Time-Turner return, filling the air with ice. Huffily, she restrains Crookshanks, keeping him from leaping toward the device, claws outstretched. "—that stupid thing?"

"You nearly die every year!" Fleur bursts out, getting angrier now, Hermione not far behind. "You said so yourself! It is no different!"

"The impact was much smaller," Hermione snaps, eyes flashing. "Not even Lord Voldemort could manipulate reality."

"Not yet!" Hermione's problem, Fleur decides, viciousness emerging, was that she lacked vision. She is not the left head of the runespoor, the clever planner, or the middle head, the dreamer and visionary. No, Fleur concludes meanly, Hermione is the right head, the critic, the head of the snake that is usually bitten off when the former two are chastised too much. "I remember Harry said in that Quibbler piece that You-Know-Who went 'further than anybody on the path to immortality'," Fleur fumes, "so what will stop him from trying to next alter reality to achieve his goals—"

"Immortality is not the same as manipulating the Laws of Magic! Even your sister would know that, now you've gone completely past the point—!"

"You don't know what he will do after we stop him!" Fleur yells, upending her tea. "This talk is worthless. Our journey has already broken the rules, so you must leave your logic at the door and proceed on faith! Is that at all possible for you, or are you unable to think outside of the box?"

"Wizards who lack logic do things like use broken Time-Turners!" Hermione shouts back, scrambling to her feet as Crookshanks escapes her arms. Fleur snatches the Time-Turner out of the air, earning a hiss for her troubles. "We can't abandon all logic, what sort of sense would that make?"

"No sense!" Fleur means to snarl, no longer exactly sure what her point was, nor Hermione's, but stops speaking at the sound of whistling.

"Your Scottish wind," she snaps out in a fury, but Hermione isn't listening. She's dived for her own schoolbag, and is tossing things over each shoulder until she locates the source of the noise. Triumphant, Hermione holds out her palm for Fleur to see a whirring, shining Sneakoscope.

"Why—?"

Crookshanks and Hermione are studying the passageway now, the former with his hair standing on end and the latter with new alarm. "Someone's here, or near enough," Hermione whispers, hastily silencing the Sneakoscope and grabbing Fleur's hand, earlier anger forgotten. "Come on!"

They run down the passageway and into the tunnel, wands aloft, boots clattering on the stone. The trip back to the Whomping Willow feels much shorter, thanks to the dread that seems to be chasing them. Who is near enough, Fleur is forced to wonder, to alert the smallest of Dark Detectors?

Hermione is already hidden among the roots when Fleur catches up. Together, they peer into the rain and spot a familiar figure in the brush.

"...doesn't know what kind of danger we're in," Karkaroff is mumbling to himself, looking like a drowned man in the ongoing storm. "The fool..."

"He must be talking about Snape," Hermione whispers, her breath tickling Fleur's throat.

"Once a Death Eater..." Fleur whispers back, eyeing Karkaroff with contempt. The roots above them creak and stretch threateningly in his direction.

"We need to Confund him." Fleur's confusion wilts under Hermione's glare. Not so forgotten anger, then. "He'll see our footprints in the snow!"

Still sour from their argument, Fleur scowls and complies. Squinting into the deluge, Fleur aims, flicks her wand, and thinks, Confundo!

Karkaroff gives a full body shiver, then looks confusedly around in the rain. After a long moment, he shambles away, muttering.

Fleur sighs in relief.

"That was close," Hermione breathes out, sinking down onto one of the earthen steps.

"Where is Karkaroff now?" Fleur asks, watching Karkaroff's figure growing smaller and smaller on the horizon. "In our time. I do not recall."

"On the run. He fled on the night of the Third Task."

"But why?" Fleur asks, wracking her brain. "Was he—involved?" Madame Maxime warned her away many men, Moody and Karkaroff included.

"No," says Hermione, weary, "but Karkaroff and Snape's brands were darkening all year. He was afraid of Voldemort growing stronger."

"But Snape was not." Snape never feared anything, as far as Fleur knew. In the Order meetings, he seldom reacted beyond a sneer.

"Neither was Crouch." The tense air returns, filling the passage with ice much like the Time-Turner's arrivals. "We haven't discussed Crouch, Fleur."

Gathering her sodden hair into a ponytail and clasping the Turner back around her neck again, Fleur purses her lips. "We should."

"Yeah. We're not finished."

We've yet to begin, Fleur muses, already exhausted, and then follows Hermione back down the passageway.

Their mutual disinterest over the summer in Grimmauld Place was always distant, but never angry.

For the sake of their fledgling friendship, Fleur ignores it, although there is a sense of anticipation in the air, dogging the steps on the hike back into the Shrieking Shack. Unwilling to break the silence first, Fleur retrieves the sweets from her rucksack and arranges the pile on the blanket for them to share. Strangely, it's like they're making a go of peace talks with chilly diplomacy than trying to make sense of a nigh impossible event.

Then the gauntlet is thrown, and all bets are off.

"We need to be careful of Crouch," Hermione declares, practically daring Fleur to contradict her. "He's smarter than both of us put together."

"Not necessarily," says Fleur, sufficiently goaded and glaring right back. So much for her newfound, Order-bred maturity. "He is nothing but a puppet. I will make short work of him." Long after Cedric had died and the news of Crouch impersonating Alastor Moody became public knowledge, Fleur wondered about all the times Crouch had Hogwarts completely at his mercy. Hundreds of students learned from him. Teachers discussed lessons with him. Even Dumbledore rubbed elbows with Barty Crouch Junior and saw no difference, no falseness. If she and Hermione know who lies beneath that craggy face, can the past be altered so significantly? Can Harry not be summoned to the graveyard to see his nemesis rise again?

"Did you speak to him as often as we did?" Hermione demands in ringing, mocking tones. "Did you get a sense of what he is capable of? He helped torture Neville's parents and escaped Azkaban, if you didn't know. But no, of course not, here you are, thinking you already know everything!"

"I do not know everything!" Fleur protests, stung. "But you there you sit, discounting my experiences because you think your own are better—"

Stopped by the fluttering of Hermione's hand, Fleur glowers. In the interim, Hermione has inhaled a breath so big that Fleur is forced to wonder if her heart will explode and her lungs will collapse, only for Hermione to simply...cave in on herself, losing the color in her cheeks and the angry look on her face like a charm that is quickly fading away. "Stop," she says curtly, a little hoarser than usual. "Stop. Please. This is getting us nowhere."

"I'll say," Fleur mutters, resentful, despite a more reasonable part of her brain poring over the inanities of her own arguments, one after another.

A tic jumps in Hermione's cheek, but she's playing at magnanimity now, seemingly determined to steer the argument into safer waters.

"We can't do this. We can't get caught up in...in our tempers. We're here for a reason. Many reasons."

"You're right," Fleur relents, grudging. If Hermione can afford to lower the gauntlet, so can she. They'll both cede an inch. "I am sorry."

"Sorry."

A beat. She hopes such awkward silences are not a characteristic of Hermione's friendships, lest Fleur be forced to fill them with chatter.

She tries to relax her shoulders, unsure of what to say until inspiration strikes. "I think..." Fleur begins carefully, reviewing this and that of Hermione's theories, uncovering little sense and more unanswered questions, "that it no longer matters how we got here, only that we are here."

Hermione nods, also cautious. She scoots away from the stack of books, as if their influence will color her perception again.

"We are here," Fleur adds, "and we have a job to do. This danger with the Time-Turner..." Fleur inclines her head, acknowledging Hermione's points. Good points. There is no doubting that. "It can wait until the...ah, demiguise shows itself, yes?" She hopes the expression will translate well.

"I'm not very happy with a 'wait and see'," Hermione admits, guarded again, "but that's okay. We can deal with whatever happens as it comes."

Some progress. More relief. A chance to pull away from seemingly unsolvable and complicated existential problems, which Fleur is glad to do.

"So be it," she ventures, thinking of their walk back to the castle on Thursday and Hermione's blustering disregard for the law. Lips twitching, Hermione draws her knees to her chest now, staring at the Time-Turner as it whirls out of existence, leaving a trail of steam near Fleur's ear. Flushing, Fleur fixes her jumper and hides the device from sight. The Notice-Me-Not Charm should keep their classmates from seeing anything.

"What's our next step?" She asks, trying to be gracious. If the future is again in a straight line, Fleur wishes to know where to place her feet.

"I...I want us to wait and see with Crouch as well," Hermione offers, her eyes hesitantly sliding back to Fleur. Knowing better than to jump to a conclusion, Fleur waits for an explanation. Perhaps wizards often do lack logic. "He's smarter than we give him credit for. You didn't hear from Harry what he did, but—but once I put it all back together again, it was so alarming. He's quicker on his feet than even Snape," says Hermione, looking rattled. "Snape makes you wait ages for his excuses, but Crouch thinks of it all on the fly. He tricked us into thinking the Barty Crouch on the Marauder's Map was his father. He manipulated Harry throughout the Tournament so he'd win—he manipulated the Goblet of Fire!" Hermione shakes her head, paler now. "He's powerful, Fleur. I wouldn't put it past him to have a contingency plan if he was discovered. Contingency plans."

Fleur recalls the green ray of light that hit Neville in the chest before anyone could react. "Crouch will kill," says Fleur, "to protect his secret."

"Yes. Or he'll spin an attack as self-defense. And he has Moody's eye." Hermione shivers. "I think he'd see us coming floors and floors away."

"So," Fleur guesses, "you do not want me to dispatch him."

"No," Hermione says, "but not for the reasons you might think. I know you're a good witch. I've seen it. Dumbledore wouldn't have asked you to join the Order of Phoenix if you weren't. The Goblet of Fire wouldn't have picked you if you weren't the best of Beauxbatons. But there is always someone better, Fleur, and that one is Voldemort's right-hand man. Who's to say that he wouldn't just...cut his losses and kidnap Harry early?"

Forced to choose between feeling unduly flattered and seeing reason, Fleur chooses reason. "I will leave him be." She's disappointed, though there is wisdom to be found here. Let the puppet dance and keep up his pretense, she decides. She can cut the strings when opportunity knocks and the boys are safely returned to Hogwarts. Hermione's words kept a coldness in Fleur's skin, however. What if Crouch does decide to hasten his plans?

He put Harry in the Tournament, the reasonable part of Fleur's brain muses. He has no choice but to stay to ensure Harry's survival until June...

If Fleur emerges from this new ordeal without needing a round of firewhiskeys, she will count herself on the luckier side of the draw.

Tentatively, they move into a negotiation stage. Hermione, Fleur discovers, argues like a fishmonger. Tempers simmer just below the surface, but Fleur is determined not to let hers boil over to the top. She suspects Hermione is doing the same thing, if only to keep them on an equal footing.

"He can help us," Hermione protests rather crossly. "Honestly, why does no one but me ever consider asking an authority figure for advice?”

"Professor Dumbledore is still the Chief Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot!" Fleur insists. "What will you do when he plucks the truth straight from your head? We have broken more laws that even you could name, remember?”

"That doesn't matter. He always helps Harry—"

"Can you assure me that he will not report us?" Fleur asks. "If I recall, he was suspended twice by school governors and bowed to their wishes—"

"That was different! The first time, Lucius Malfoy threatened those governors," says Hermione, "and the second time, Fudge and Umbridge clearly had it out for him. He covered for us when he didn't need to so Harry wouldn't be expelled. If we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."

"We did not break a few school rules, Hermione," says Fleur, "we broke dozens and dozens international wizarding laws. Criminal laws. He would be duty-bound to report them." Dumbledore is a just man, she had observed once. Just men do not make a habit of bending the rules very often.

"You don't know him like we do," Hermione mutters, but her eyes betray her.

"Perhaps I don't, but what can you say? What would you say?" Fleur presses. "What can he do for us? The Tournament must continue or every champion will die. If the headmaster tries to dissolve the magical contract, he will be doing You-Know-Who's work for him." At that, Hermione flinches, but Fleur barrels on and on. "Dumbledore would listen, but he would not understand. No one else will understand. They were not there."

"It sounds like you don't want to tell anyone."

"Of course not," Fleur protests, "but Harry and Cedric, yes, they should know—"

"Harry and Cedric?" Hermione exclaims, growing as frazzled as her hair. "Are you mad? We can't tell Harry!"

"I—" Fleur is hopelessly lost again. "Of all people...you do not want him to know?"

Hermione is already out of her seat and pacing the room. There isn't a temper brewing here, Fleur suspects, but something deeper. "We can't tell Harry, Fleur. Please. If we agree on only one thing today, let it be this. He—he can't know." When she returns her gaze to Fleur, Fleur is astonished to see tears in Hermione's eyes. Finally, the tears. There is the emotion that left Hermione so bereft only several days before. "Harry's—the Tournament scared him so much last time. He never said so...he's like Ron in that way, bottling things up, but I knew. I could tell. He had no idea who put his name in the Goblet and never would've dared to try it himself. And he was so miserable! No one believed him..."

Fleur certainly didn't, but had been grateful all the same to see his goodness at the Second Task when he rescued Gabrielle from the lake. Her suspicions had been forgotten and cast away, making her blithe in her indifference. So what if he cheated? She had told Céline, awestruck by the boy she had long written off. He rescued a hostage that wasn't his because he believed he had no other choice, just like Fleur.

"He just wants a quiet life, Fleur. Don't you see? Every year, he comes to Hogwarts, hoping for a good term, and every year, s-something horrible happens!" Hermione bursts out. "He and Ron and I didn't get used to trouble without reason. Voldemort's shadow falls over Harry every year and then as soon as summer hits, he goes back to a house that doesn't w-want him." Hermione wipes her eyes on her sleeve, but the words keep coming, flooding like giant waves over a levee. Fleur swallows, still at a loss. "You probably don't know about this, but his u-uncle and his aunt and his c-cousin are horrible people. They're what the wizarding world thinks of Muggles! They're cruel and heartless and Harry always has to wait two long months until he can come back here. Come home. Hogwarts is his home, and I can't, we can't, tell him about Voldemort. It'd be...too much."

Fleur cannot help but feel like they are leading a particularly sweet lamb to slaughter, though she holds her tongue.

"Do you understand?" Hermione asks, nearly sobbing now. Fleur can't remember a sight so disquieting, save for Cedric's body at the entrance to the maze at the end of the Third Task. "Harry would only see it as a choice to die now if he runs or die later if he goes and that's no choice at all! We can't breathe a word, Fleur, or he won't...he won't act as he did last time. Knowing what will happen would change the outcome of the duel—!"

"—because his mind would be exposed," Fleur interrupts, getting to her feet. Between Skeeter's articles and the smear campaign in the Daily Prophet, it was no longer a secret that Harry had a mental connection with You-Know-Who. It was that same connection that alerted the Order to Arthur's condition after the snake attacked. It was also that connection that lured Harry to the Department of Mysteries and later trapped him in the clutches of his enemy, begging for help on a cot in the Level 9 corridor, a prisoner in his own body. Fleur shudders to think what You-Know-Who would do with the knowledge of a Time-Turner that changed the world so drastically. Perhaps that would set her and Hermione on the path to a paradox, or at least doom, if Fleur's fears were the inciting incident to get You-Know-Who into a greater scope of power in the first place...

Eyes shining, Hermione nods. "I-I know I can't say it's what's best for him, but this is the only way I can think of that'll keep him safe. I'll beg him for forgiveness when the war is all over but—" Hermione pleads, jumping in fright when Fleur pulls her into a hug, knowing no other balm but that.

After a beat, Hermione's arms timidly circle Fleur's waist, forcing Fleur to realize that she wasn't the only one worried over the past week.

Tomorrow, she'll start asking.

"I won't say a thing, Hermione," Fleur promises, drawing back at the sound of a hiccup and trying for an encouraging smile. "You have my word."

"Thank you."

Releasing Hermione, Fleur passes over a handkerchief, surprised to learn she's puzzling over what it will mean for her to have a friend as loyal as this one...a friend like Hermione Granger, who dares to cross time and space to save the lives of a handful of boys and a falsely accused murderer.

A wonderful thing, she would wager.

"Can you—?" Fleur asks gently.

"Yes," Hermione answers, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. "I'm—I'm fine. Let's keep going, please."

They return to their seats.

"What of Cedric?" Fleur asks, considering their other lamb and waiting for Hermione's perspective on the matter. She offers the sweets again, thinking it over. It won't do to inform Harry of the unpleasant future, but what about Cedric? Could his participation alter things for the better?

They may be caught in a corner by the rules of the Tournament, Crouch, and You-Know-Who, but they will not be idle in that time, Fleur decides.

"What do you think?" Hermione prompts instead, nibbling on the Wizochoc and scratching Crookshanks behind the ears with the other hand.

"Perhaps we can tell Cedric," Fleur says, surprised to be asked, "when the time is right."

"Which is..."

"Before the Third Task, I think," Fleur explains. "I do not wish to...spoil his year at Hogwarts, either." Whether that meant persuading Cedric not to touch the Cup, or convincing him of the truth in some other manner, Fleur doesn't know, but she supposes it can be decided later. Perhaps Cedric would not understand any more than Albus Dumbledore, but she can appeal to his sense of fairness, at least, and have a partner in the maze.

"Okay," Hermione agrees with a sigh, and the planning starts anew.

"I do not believe," Fleur continues, after a back-and-forth vetting members of the Order, "save for Cedric, that we should tell anyone."

"Me neither," Hermione says, having also found no one that meets her standards. "We ought to keep it between us. It's our job, our responsibility."

"Our foolishness, our silly Time-Turner..." says Fleur, droll again. Hermione smiles.

"All of my adventures usually begin this way," she confesses, sheepish. "Harry and Ron's recklessness has certainly rubbed off on me."

"I think you were always this way," Fleur remarks, fixing up a new pot of tea. "You weren't placed in Gryffindor for nothing, mon amie."

Blushing, Hermione quickly redirects. "So we're keeping things mostly the same until the Third Task. And then what? We go about our business like we did before?" Perhaps Fleur was wrong to think Hermione was settling into 1994 perfectly. Next time, in the interests of friendship, she will ask.

"Yes and no." Fleur dons what little courage she has and stares down the lion. Here it is, the moment of truth. In truth, the idea is only a few minutes old, but Fleur knows she must pass it along. Sending Harry and Cedric into You-Know-Who's path again is the same tragedy in the making, and a waste of their efforts to stop—and change—the war itself. "But I feel that I should make my own way into that graveyard."

Hermione's cup slips from her fingers and smashes, sending her cat darting into the other room with a yowl.

"What?" Hermione demands, regaining all the color she lost in one fell swoop. This is rather unfortunate for Fleur, who was counting on a longer period of tranquility and gentle pliability. With a wave of her wand, Fleur repairs the damage, hoping Aunt Ninette doesn't learn of the incident.

"Hermione, please," she hedges, marshaling her thoughts into order, "I have an idea."

"An idea to get yourself killed? Do go on!"

"If we tell Cedric, I think it would be prudent to join him and Harry, if Cedric should reach the Cup just as he did before. Do not scoff, Mademoiselle Granger, until I am finished. As I said...it would be prudent to follow the boys so Cedric and I may witness the...resurrection."

If Harry's interview is any gauge to go by, Fleur is sure to vomit when she sees it with her own eyes.

Hermione gives a snort of mirthless laughter, seemingly unable to believe her ears. "Now who's choosing to die? Fleur, are you going mad?"

"No," Fleur says calmly, "it is the opposite of madness. Between Harry, Cedric, and I, fewer would doubt You-Know-Who's return."

That shuts Hermione up. In the meantime, Fleur returns the books, the wands, and the golden egg to her bag, waiting for a roar or a resolution.

After a silence spent studying the minutiae of Hermione's facial expressions, Fleur's patience is rewarded.

"Besides the numerous logistical problems of getting you and Cedric to the graveyard," Hermione finally manages, tired exasperation replacing the anger, "I fail to see how you both won't be seen by Harry, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, or the Death Eaters. I don't know how you won't be discovered by the snake, Nagini, and I don't know how you'll escape, unharmed, Harry and Cedric in tow, and still make it back to Hogwarts!"

"That," Fleur persists, "is what we should be doing. It does not need to be as it was before, Hermione. We should spend our year—our second chance—planning for that, for the war, for the sake of the boys, for their very lives. If we are prepared for the worst, it will not turn out so poorly." They have a chance to set Fleur's regretful what-ifs after the Department of Mysteries on their heads. Why in Flamel's name would Hermione refuse?

"But Voldemort won't openly declare—"

"We will have the advantage, nevertheless," Fleur urges, spying a weak point. Getting the upper hand on You-Know-Who is too tempting to ignore. "If you and I are ready, the others will follow, and the future will be unlike anything we can imagine. Perhaps the war will end earlier. Perhaps—"

"Perhaps you're playing a dangerous game." Hermione's disapproving, but her eyes betray her again. She's considering it. "Hubris doesn't suit you."

Fleur wrinkles her nose. "That belongs to ancient myths and foolish heroes. I am far better than the likes of Odysseus and Icarus."

Hermione gives a faint laugh. "That's what you think." She gazes at Fleur, amusement fading. "We'd have to plan so carefully, Fleur. It worries me."

"You like to plan, and you always worry."

"I do," Hermione admits, offering her begrudging concession. Calmer now, she still carries a familiar air of anxiousness about her. "You could die."

"So could you," says Fleur with a shrug. She is not so blasé with Hermione's life as she is with her own, but only aware of the chance of an unsatisfied Death dogging their heels, offering beguiling gifts to reverse the spinning of the Time-Turner. "Come now, Hermione," she wheedles, grinning and trying to appeal to yet another noble heart with a reminder of a promise already made, "think of the wonderful reward at the end."

"Don't push your luck." With a sigh, Hermione accepts the fresh cup and resigns herself to Fleur's cajoling. "What do you have in mind?"

As the Time-Turner bids a burning adieu on her skin, Fleur leans forward, and the planning starts again.

Chapter Text

The ceiling begins to shudder as Fleur and Hermione wander back into the passage, spraying down dust and gravel like rain.

Fleur has a feeling she'll grow just as fond of the Whomping Willow as she is of the grindylows.

"Our friend is awake..." As if summoned by a spell, Crookshanks hurtles past their feet and out of sight. "For the moment," Fleur amends. In Grimmauld Place, the most Fleur saw of him was the pair of glowing eyes beneath sofas and the streak of fur that forever chased after Ginny's discarded butterbeer caps. This time, Fleur supposes, she'll learn a little about Crookshanks, and perhaps more than a bit about Hermione.

Unlike the morning, where the conversation flowed continuously, the walk back from the Shrieking Shack is quieter, with each of them keeping their own counsel. Fleur tries not to linger too long on the Time-Turner again, yet the chill of its arrivals make Fleur feel like she is transforming into an Augurey, poised to foretell every horror to come, poised to bring every horror to come, if the—"time and space continuum" per Hermione—broke around her like it nearly did for Eloise Mintumble. Should Sunday and Monday pass without incident, however, Fleur may start to relax.

Slightly.

Despite herself, Fleur's attention drifts ahead to the Third Task, remembering the anticipation that froze her face and kept her stomach as restless as the Hopping Pot when she stepped into the maze, the last champion to enter and the first to leave. That was the task that mattered, and in her first run of the Tournament, the days and months preceding it seemed to fly by, putting all of her frantic preparation into sharp relief. Now that anticipation has turned entirely on its head, forcing Fleur to feel like the coming months will pass much slower, like honey oozing off a spoon.

There is time enough to change things, Fleur reasons, shivering, but the margin for error will grow thinner than a thread.

When nest of roots comes into view with every earthen step allowing a river of rainwater to flood the passageway, Hermione breaks the silence.

"I never thanked you."

"Pardon?" Happy to abandon worries not so easily solved for a time, Fleur's distracted by the state of her boots, now ruined by the mud overflow. These are Maison Capenoir originals, for goodness' sake. She stifles a groan. Only Triwizard winnings can cover the cost of replacements!

Hermione's words find Fleur again in the gloom. "I never thanked you," she repeats, louder, "for bringing me along. For coming back.”

"Ah," Fleur demurs, still unsure how to feel about everything, "that was…” A coin in flight, with every flip in the air holding the consequences and its audience in suspense, the true outcome to be known only in hindsight. A desperate and dangerous gamble in pursuit of an impossible goal.

Fleur would've pursued that goal alone with the Time-Turner even if Hermione didn’t approve, although she would’ve certainly met different results. The rewards for her recklessness will not come until June, making Hermione's gratitude ring wrong in her ears and put quills and needles onto her skin. Since she was a child, Fleur's expected good marks and compliments and the highest praise, yet getting a due for carelessness feels—very unsuited. Undeserved. Giving a murmur of acknowledgment and keen to drop the subject, Fleur walks on. Hermione hastens to keep up.

In the end, she and Hermione managed to arrive in the past unscathed, but what if they hadn't? What if Mintumble's fate had become their own?

(It still could.)

"It wasn't nothing, Fleur." Hermione is not deceived nor deterred, although there is no hint of a reproach in her voice. She sounds so sad that Fleur slows her steps and glances over her shoulder. Swathed in shadow, Hermione looks younger than her years. "Trust me. I couldn't..." After listening to Hermione's tireless speculation for hours, the fumbling for words is like a new language to Fleur's ears, so she takes note. "I couldn't think. I never can under pressure, not very well. Without you and that mad Time-Turner, I-I would've gone back to school like nothing happened."

To her dismay, Fleur has yet to shake the recollection of Hermione in the Department of Mysteries, dead-eyed and solemn, from her thoughts.

"I keep dreaming about it," Hermione whispers, stricken, “about wanting to leave and...and missing my chance. Can you imagine it if I had?"

Images of Hogwarts swim in Fleur's brain like memories in a Pensieve, with its student body adorned in mourning and misery all over again.

"So please, please let me thank you, Fleur,” Hermione says in a rush, drawing both of them right back to reality. Fleur's glad to be free of that reverie. Her vision of Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, sans the boys, was haunting. “Without you and that Time-Turner, I would've lost my best friends.”

After a moment, Fleur nods, more flustered than she'd like to admit. Has anyone ever been so thankful for Fleur doing anything before? The gratitude is almost overwhelming. The sensation of quills and needles returns as she searches for a reply. She is a confidante now, a friend, and Hermione ought to be heard. "De rien. It was my…" It gives her no pleasure to jump into the fray, but she would be remiss not to do so. She swore more than one vow to fight. "I cannot do this without you, Hermione, but you—you would've found a way to help them somehow, I think.”

Admitting weakness and conceding to cleverness again. Fleur wonders if she ought to be proud of so small a bettering step, or concerned.

"What, and fight Voldemort alone?" Hermione asks, recovering herself enough to snort. "That's likely!”

Hermione knows the perils of their journey much better than Fleur, though. She understands Harry and Sirius. She recognizes the stakes that are only growing higher and higher, having held a vantage point since the very beginning and stood by her friends at every opportunity...but would all that prior knowledge guarantee success? Fleur hasn't forgotten yesterday's confession in the library. It would've been a lonely, pyrrhic victory for Hermione if she managed it at all, and dependent on a number of forces outside of her control. What would stop You-Know-Who from getting his hands on the prophecy, if Harry and Sirius stayed away from the Department of Mysteries? Perhaps Hermione could've acted at just the right moments, but would that give her everything they wanted now—Cedric? Harry? Ronald? Sirius and Neville? A united and war-ready wizarding world?

Maybe. Maybe not. It's a line of choices and chances and coincidences too serpentine to follow, so Fleur abandons it. What's done is done.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." As Fleur intended, Hermione only smiles at the ribbing and raises her eyebrows. "We still have a long way to go.”

"That we do."

Braving the rain, Hermione ascends the earthen stairs first and clambers out of the roots, retrieving a grumpy, drenched Crookshanks on her way. In the interim, Fleur summons an umbrella from her bag, enlarges the canopy, and allows a grateful Hermione to share cover from the storm. As they maneuver around the petrified roots of the Whomping Willow and start back toward the castle, Hermione finds another reason to smile.

"You know, I still can't believe it." To Fleur’s relief, Hermione practically glows with excitement. "Not even seventh-years study wandless magic..."

Not wanting to offer the wrong impression, Fleur's amusement is kept far from her face. She already observed a few quirks of Hermione's since they met, her punctuality and practicality among them, but this is different. Hermione's appreciation for learning new things is rather well known, and therein lay a unique opportunity to let their fledgling friendship sprout roots. Fleur meant what she said when it came time to present her ideas for the rest of the term. Preparing Hermione for the war to come is the smart choice. The right choice. If Hermione can get the hang of magics so advanced that Hogwarts did not include any in the curricula, Fleur will consider Harry, Ron, and Neville somewhat safer than they were before.

It's an unusual way to make a friend, but since nothing about their situation falls anywhere near usual, Fleur will seize the day and the chance.

"This will take all year," Fleur warns. "Can you handle that?" If it is possible. In the future, Hermione only finished her O.W.L.s. Fleur will be forced to cover nonverbal spells as well, if her promise has any chance of success, and brush up on her own understanding of theory rather than practice.

"I can do it," Hermione insists. They ease along, boots sinking into paths trod upon by generations of former students. "When shall we start?"

"That I do not know. Allow me to consider..." Fleur searches for the appropriate word. "A syllabus."

Between the Tournament, her classes, and this...tutoring of Hermione, Fleur's second run of her last year of adolescence is to be her busiest yet.

"Are you going to quiz me?"

This time, a giggle escapes Fleur before she can stop it. Hermione joins her after a beat, looking sheepish.

"You have not had enough of your examinations?" Fleur asks, smiling. "I would think after the O.W.L.s..."

"Fine, fine, fine," Hermione groans, but then she's grinning too, “you don't need to quiz me!"

Another thing to remember, Fleur muses, in the study of Hermione Granger. She's practical, punctual, loves learning, takes her tea without sugar if there is none to be had, and for all her oddities, her sharp tongue, her bravery, and her way of bristling like a knarl, she can make Fleur laugh.

Fleur reports to the dungeons that afternoon, dragging her feet every step of the way. This is not how she would've liked to spend her Saturday.

"You're late, Miss Delacour. Do not test my patience again."

Trying not to lose sight of the positives of being in another Hogwarts detention, Fleur swallows her pride and says, "I am sorry, sir.”

Fleur joins Neville Longbottom and a first-year Hufflepuff at one of the tables. Instead of cauldrons, the space is filled with cartons of preserved boomslangs. Snape glides over to illustrate the punishment. "Boomslang skin is, as only one of you may know, quite a rare ingredient in potion-making. Longbottom, due to your recent experience in collection, you will explain the procedure to Miss Delacour and Miss Branstone. Begin.”

As if Beauxbatons has taught me nothing, Fleur grouses, doing her best not to breathe in the smell from the cartons. Of all things to inherit from her grandmother, Fleur's sense of smell is by far the worst. Without its uses detecting Dark magic, Fleur would've cursed her nose off years ago.

While Neville mumbles his way through the process, meeting nobody's eyes, Fleur reaches over to correct Branstone's grip on her knife.

"Like so," she advises softly, seizing an opportunity to endear herself. Neville, to her relief, is also listening. "This way, you'll get more off the bone."

"Okay," Branstone whispers back, gazing down without enthusiasm at her specimen. Thinking wistfully of her sister, Fleur lowers her voice again.

"Don't think of it as a snake," she suggests, adopting the conspiratorial air best employed to draw Gaby into her secrets, "but a fruit."

"A fruit?" Neville and Branstone squeak out in unison, the former incredulous, the latter trying not to giggle, unable to believe their ears.

When Fleur and Manon were little girls and still squeamish, their first foray into Potions went similarly. Monsieur Kader's suggestion to think of their class as a cooking exercise rather than a school assignment made the handling of pufferfish eyes and rat tails far more bearable. While neither would be asking their house-elves to add bat spleens into their stews on the holiday break, Fleur and Manon had since taken the subject seriously.

"Unless you want to remember you are in detention," Fleur says, smiling in encouragement. Mental, Bill would chuckle, when Fleur crossed some stodgy British line of decorum, but her hopes are soaring high here. Fleur has to lessen the gulf between her and them before it was too late.

Her advice, mental or not, does the trick. Cheered slightly, a feat that seldom seems to happen in these dungeons, the pair gets back to work.

Broad strokes, Fleur reminds herself, starting to cut, and a time limit. She and Hermione had about six months to reshape the pocket of wizarding society that Hogwarts was hosting for the Tournament before disaster struck (though that wasn't a guaranteed paradigm shift). Small courtesies, Hermione nevertheless insisted, could go a long way. Perhaps this Hufflepuff and this Gryffindor would look more warmly upon Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and see people instead of the intruding competition. Perhaps, come June, a bad first impression of a visiting student could change, as it had for Hermione. Perhaps, Fleur reasoned after the idea steeped, Britain would not stand alone against You-Know-Who the second time around.

Or is it the third?

(There is too much uncertainty in the mission for Fleur's liking, but needs must.)

Fortunately, the wall clock's hands seem to spin like the wings of billywigs, freeing Fleur from the dungeons in what feels like just a few minutes.

With no desire to eat after that detention, Fleur trudges back to the carriage and runs a bath, hoping the steam of its waters will soothe away all her troubles. To her disappointment, Fleur surfaces no closer to calmness. She dumps the golden egg on her bed and dons her pajamas, more exhausted than she can ever recall being, excluding her twice-lived Thursday in the Hospital Wing. This time, there'll be no need to fear fitting into her dress robes for the Yule Ball; the stress over the Time-Turner, the Tournament, and the duel in Little Hangleton solves that problem quite well.

After supper, her classmates begin to file into the carriage's kitchen, bearing sweets—among other things—from Hogsmeade.

"Allow me," Sacha announces, summoning Fleur's mug away from her and pouring the contents of his flask into her drink.

Fleur gives the mug a frown, remembering Sacha's delighted sorties into J. Pippin's Potions and Dogweed and Deathcap, then pushes it away.

Hugo laughs.

"Confusing me for C—Professor Moody?" Fleur asks.

"Of course not," says Sacha. "You're so..." He looks around the room for help, paling a bit when none is offered. "And he's so..."

"Grouchy," Edgar adds, plainly trying not to smile as he joins Fleur at the table. Giggling behind her hand, Céline sits down on Fleur's other side.

"But Fleur's grouchy and groggy, especially in the mornings," Giselle points out, refusing to quail under Fleur's dirty look. Sacha makes his escape.

The group recounts their adventures in Hogsmeade, including a detour into Maestro's Music Shop and a snowball fight near the Shrieking Shack. Charles, Fleur learns, flirted with Madame Rosmerta for a free round (and was summarily shot down). Henry ducked into Madam Puddifoot's with a girl from Durmstrang, only to come running back out, covered in espresso. Edgar bought a pair of socks from Gladrags that screamed when they got too smelly (Fleur is glad she isn't his roommate). On their way back to the carriage, the group spotted Professor Karkaroff wandering the grounds, looking like he'd been Confunded. These are the things seventeen year olds care about, but Fleur finds herself shuttling between impatience and guilt, because she isn't truly seventeen anymore. She longs for them to catch up—and grow up—like her, but...is that her place? Why should Fleur ruin their exchange with the fear-filled telling of the future? To them, the most powerful Dark wizard of all time is only a story.

"You look..." Edgar ventures after Fleur loses track of the conversation and mutters an apology.

"Absolutely awful," Giselle says, pressing her hand to Fleur's forehead to check for a fever. The effect is ruined when a few other hands join Giselle's, forcing Fleur to bat them away with a fond huff. "Did you drown in your bathwater? Are we speaking with the ghost of Fleur Delacour?"

Try as she might, the gulf between her and them is widening, only this schism hurts more than the other. This is a price of being reckless, Fleur realizes. She's so close to her best friends again and yet unable to trust them with the twin burdens of the Time-Turner or You-Know-Who.

"I was working on the egg," Fleur lies, fishing for the same words that explained why she'd brought it along to the washroom. Céline had laughed herself silly last time when she saw Fleur carrying it back into their room. "It doesn't shriek as loudly when it's hit with water," she confesses.

"That's why you went out into the storm?" Edgar asks as the group huddles closer, eager for news of their champion.

"Yes."

They digest the update, buzzing about the kitchen like a flock of birds.

"I'm thinking of submerging it," Fleur says, for once amusing herself with the secret. By now, she can recite the mermaids' song by heart.

"Ooh," gasps Céline. "Maybe it will tell you something?"

"It'll be a riddle," Edgar opines. "Remember what Ludo Bagman said? They'll have to solve the clue inside the egg!"

As the group begins bickering about what the clue may entail, a jet of flame flies out of Edgar's pocket, surprising Fleur. Across the table, the model dragon that mirrored Fleur's opponent in the First Task waddles out of Edgar's hands, chirruping faintly. That, she realizes, is why half of her classmates are crammed into the kitchen. Céline produces a bag of various foods filched from Ravenclaw plates, trying to tempt the dragon to eat.

"Did you decide on a name?" Fleur asks, stroking the dragon's wings with a finger. Thrilled by Fleur's gift, Edgar had taken to carrying the beast in his robes. Only Professor Sprout's cottoned on so far, but she'd let the infraction slide after the dragon freed her hand from a Fanged Geranium.

"Perenelle," says Edgar as the dragon purrs under Fleur's attentions and curls its tail around her palm, "Perenelle Flamel."

"Bah!" Hugo exclaims, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Edgar," says Céline, disapproving.

Giselle sends a four into the air with her wand, mimicking the judges after the Tasks. Edgar ignores them all, glancing at Fleur for her opinion.

"Charming," she offers at last, prompting groans and Edgar's jubilant grin. Uncurling from Fleur's hand, Perenelle waddles back to his arms.

Fleur tries to let them lift her spirits, to no avail. They aren't to blame for her poor mood, but her earlier disappointment returns, making her lonelier than ever in such a crowd. They don't understand even a fraction of what is bothering her, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Sacha pokes his head back into the kitchen, dispelling the rest of the smoke from Giselle's score. "Fleur? You've got a visitor."

After the appalling length of her Saturday, Fleur's in no mood for more company, not even if it was the French Minister of Magic. "A visitor?"

"That Hogwarts girl," says Sacha, failing to hide his curiosity as Fleur rises from her seat at once, tightening the belt on her dressing gown.

"Granger again?" Edgar prompts in a sotto voice.

Fleur glances back at the others without really seeing them, terrified of what Hermione may say that can't wait until morning. "Just a m—"

"No need," Céline interrupts, banging her knee off the edge of the table in her eagerness to get out of her seat, "we'll join you!"

Against her protestations, the rest trail behind Fleur to the foyer like ducklings, whispering amongst themselves. The spectacle attracts the attention of the rest of the carriage, making Fleur relieved that Madame Maxime went for drinks with the gamekeeper. Paul, Charles, Henry, Emma, Manon, and Isabeau watch curiously from their seats in the parlor, neglecting their card game as Hermione Granger waits at the entrance, rocking back on her heels and fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. Feeling embarrassingly underdressed for the occasion, Fleur forces a smile in greeting.

"Salut, Hermione," she says, then switches to English as a courtesy, wishing she'd downed Sacha's improved drink after all. "What brings you here?"

"Hi, Fleur. Can we talk?" Hermione asks. "Alone?"

Right to the heart of the matter, Fleur can't help but notice. That could only mean trouble.

"Whatever for?" Giselle dares to inquire with all the gusto she gave updating Fleur of Charles and Henry's love lives.

"Tutoring," Fleur improvises with a wan, admonishing look at these overgrown ducklings, just as Hermione blurts out, "English lessons."

There is a pause.

"But you're fluent," Hugo observes, gaining a look of dawning comprehension at Giselle's whisper, "but, ah, one should always practice?"

Seizing the explanation, Fleur nods and reaches to steer Hermione somewhere else. The theatre, she decides, on a whim. "Excuse us."

"Hurry back," Edgar calls over the upswing of laughter at their backs and its echoes down the corridor. "We haven't been properly introduced!"

As soon as they are out of earshot, Fleur scoffs. There is no subtlety to be found among that lot.

"Ignore them, please."

Hermione pays her no heed. Instead, to Fleur's delight, Hermione gazes in every direction as Fleur guides her along by the hand, a look of fascination on her face. Fleur glances about too, trying to view the carriage's magically expanded interior as if she's seeing it the first time. Like its larger mirror, Beauxbatons, the carriage is designed in the Renaissance style, much like one of France's Muggle châteaux, the Palace of Fontainebleau. Every inch of the wall, pilasters, and lintels are colorfully painted, baring a gold trim that always seems to sparkle in wandlight. The theatre is a long walk from the foyer, letting Fleur draw Hermione past the larder, the wine cellar, ballroom, the chapel, the dormitories, the washrooms, the dueling room, the archives, and the lecture hall, their footsteps clattering across the floor that is radiating heat from below.

"Just how large is this place?" Hermione asks in amazement.

Fleur ushers Hermione into the duplication of the Beauxbatons theatre, trying to hide her pleasure at the sincere wonder on Hermione's features. See, Fleur wants to say, to brag, this is the kind of magic you are missing at Hogwarts! "To my knowledge, Madame Maxime has never complained."

"Now," says Fleur, shepherding Hermione into a seat before she can get distracted by the beauty of the theatre's interior, "what are you doing here?"

"I had a thought."

"This is not a surprise," says Fleur, leaning against the wall. She's dreading that thought, whatever it is, and would rather present a distraction. She can't shake the feeling of having too much time and not having enough before June arrives. Her head is aching. "You always have so many."

"Fleur," Hermione chides, extracting a crumpled newspaper out of her bag, "listen. I was reading the Prophet and I found something."

Following Hermione's directions and folding down the creases, Fleur finally spots the advertisement that brings her all too close to fainting.

Missing English oak wand, Ewan Avery writes, making Fleur's stomach plummet, dragon heartstring core. Ten inches. Send any information by owl.

She thinks back to this morning, the morning of what has become the longest Saturday of her life, and stills. If Avery's wand is with Fleur, then—

"We changed something," Fleur says. The carriage feels too small, suddenly. "Our Avery's wand replaced this one's." Her brief good humor withers away. In the deluge of Hermione's speculation, the facts are beginning to stick. Somehow it doesn't relieve Fleur of fear, only heightens it.

"Yes." Hermione's eyes are bright and no longer quite so doubtful. "It worked," she adds, echoing Fleur's thoughts from Friday. "Time isn't fixed."

It worked. It worked. It worked. They had proof. They had an amalgam of Hermione's ideas, a miscellany of what could be and what is.

"So far," Fleur mutters, anxiety tightening its grasp on her breathing. This is no coincidence, but will the magic hold? Can it remain stable?

Hermione's face falls. "Fleur?"

Stepping away from the wall, Fleur takes up Hermione's habit of pacing. It doesn't help. Hermione prompts her again, brow creased with worry.

"Avery could always buy another wand," she says, panicky, trying to push common sense back into the conversation. Is the room spinning?

"So?"

"So?" Fleur feels sick. Her trophies mean nothing, not when the Death Eaters can simply use replacements. "They aren't disadvantaged at all!"

"Fleur—"

"I don't know what I am doing! What we're doing. This is—a mistake." Fleur latches onto that word. "A mistake." She thinks of Neville at his station, Branstone's astonishment, the laughter of her friends at the other side of the carriage, oblivious to the dangers on the doorstep. She remembers the daily appearances of Harry and Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall, the odd group of fourth-years who managed to be involved so deeply in the Tournament. Of Luna and Ginny and Sirius. They're making her sick. Their lives—all their lives—are at stake because of Fleur's arrogance.

"Fleur," Hermione presses, looking alarmed, "what changed since this morning? You couldn't wait to calm me down earlier."

"I don't know!"

But she does know. Fleur makes another circuit on slippered feet that are, to her shame, getting colder and colder by the minute.

"Well, stop! Fleur, can you stop pacing and listen, please?"

Fleur obeys, albeit reluctantly, heart still hammering rather fast. Hermione beckons her closer.

"Look. Do you remember our conversation in the library?"

"I do."

"Great," Hermione agrees, not unkindly, "because I remember the two of us deciding to be friends, and friends confide in each other."

Fleur bristles out of habit. "I don't need to—"

"Yes, you do! And you need peace of mind, which we don't have." Hermione wavers between the patience of speaking to a furious toddler and the restraint of a girl quite unlike herself. Fleur tries very hard not to take offense. "It's like you said. We have to deal with whatever comes as it comes."

"It came," Fleur protests, "in your paper. This wand is—it is like its own Grim." The Grim or Death himself, stalking them from the shadows.

"Oh, don't get me started on that rubbish!" Hermione says scornfully. "Divination is a woolly subject, first of all, and the Grim is a story that frightens people to death, same as the Augurey. Fleur, you have to confide in me when you start feel like you're losing your nerve, all right?" She snatches Fleur's hand up in both of hers. "We're in this together. Frankly, I'm surprised you lasted three days without going to pieces about it."

Not appeased, Fleur just studies their hands. Hermione isn't fooled.

"Why don't you explain it to me?" She prompts, releasing Fleur and settling back against the plushy seat. "Just talk. I'll try not to judge you."

Despite herself, Fleur raises an eyebrow. "I will not hold you to that promise, Hermione."

"Thank you."

For a minute, Fleur stands still and simply breathes. Outside of the small circle of her friends and family, she is seldom heard, only seen.

"Are you—" Fleur pauses, just to check. Old hurts are not easily forgotten, but she will try for Hermione's sake. "Are you going to hear me?"

"I'm listening," Hermione assures her.

Fleur tries to force steel into her spine. "It got to me. The magnitude of our...trip." All day it did. Dread haunted every step. Every whirling worry had one thing in common: the phantom at the end of every poor choice, plucking Fleur from the path she had chosen at the Order's darkest hour.

"I understand."

"It has only been three days," Fleur says, a bit helplessly. She scrubs a hand over her eyes to stay alert, fighting furious tears. "Why do I feel so...?"

"It's been more than a year for us."

She voices another complaint, crossing her arms to stave off the chill from the Time-Turner. "Our proof of change is paltry."

"Until we get more, save Cedric, and move the prophecy, we'll wait and see," Hermione says patiently.

This will not do, because that was Fleur's stance half a day ago...

But now she grasps at straws. Hermione is Muggle-born, which is why Fleur hesitates to explain the most outlandish aspects of her fears. Hermione said so herself in their talk of time travel—everything is a theory or a fantasy until proven otherwise, even magic. Fleur still spies skepticism behind some of Hermione's words, much like Giselle's when they were Gaby's age and studying at Freya's School of Sorcery, the brief precursor to Beauxbatons. Giselle was always so surprised when their practice dogwood wands actually worked. Hermione, Fleur's seen, acts similarly.

"I am not accustomed to failure, Hermione, and if we fail in this endeavor..."

There's an odd knowing in Hermione's eyes, but she simply nods in encouragement, like Fleur had done to Neville and Branstone.

"I must ask if you know the Tale of the Three Brothers."

"I don't," Hermione admits.

Fleur draws her wand and conjures the three brothers, Death, and the prizes for outwitting him. As Fleur narrates the story, the glowing figures follow the script. The oldest brags of his unbeatable wand, only to lose his life that very night; the second brother reunites with his lost love, only to kill himself join her when she grew weary of the mortal world; the youngest brother reveals himself to Death, gives the cloak to his son, and dies when he is ready. The tale is not her favorite of Beedle's stories, but Fleur never forgot the day she had seen the tale on Avenue Lisette, or the way the marionettes jerked when the wizard pulled the second brother from the stage, making Death as the one behind it all, pulling the strings.

But Death was cunning. Stealing the Time-Turner was so easy, and Fleur hasn't wondered until now why that was. Does a fly notice how accessible its food is before the Venomous Tentacula opens its jaws? Do wizards see anything off about a cloak before the Lethifold shows itself? No and no.

"So..." Hermione prompts after the last brother and Death have faded into nothingness.

"So," Fleur repeats testily, pulling the hourglass into view, "this is like one of the prizes to me. It is like we are waiting for one of Death's tricks."

"Fleur," Hermione sighs, "we're all going to die someday. You know that. The Time-Turner brings us that much closer, but you're the one who wants to go to that graveyard in June, aren't you? You want to watch Voldemort return—for a good cause, I know! But you asked me to leave my logic at the door, and I'm trying. You need to try to...stop being so imaginative. Death isn't holding us hostage. That's just a story that you grew up with, not me, and frankly, I have to draw a line somewhere!" She shakes her head, bushy hair following suit. "Remember, we agreed to reserve judgment on the higher powers. It's our choices putting us in danger, not myths. Not legends. I believe in what I read and see, and so far, one of my theories was confirmed. We replaced ourselves and the wands. Time isn't fixed. We changed the past." Hermione pauses, looking expectant.

"Imaginative," is all Fleur can grumble, almost completely stymied for counterarguments. Hermione ignores her.

"My point is we're playing a dangerous game. Together. If you're scared about it, talk to me. If I'm scared, I'll talk to you. Is that reasonable?"

"Yes," says Fleur, running a hand through her hair. She feels better. Calmer. There's still a weight on her shoulders, but now she has help.

"Follow your own advice. Think of the rewards at the end. And if—" Hermione's eyes dart to the Time-Turner's smoking exit on Fleur's neck, seemingly gathering new strength from the sight. "And if our timeline falls apart, we won't need to worry about the rest of the year, all right?"

"You speak of time as if it is a piece of pottery," Fleur points out, nonetheless relaxing little by little, "and not the fate of the world in our hands."

"I'm sorting out my priorities," Hermione corrects. "So should you, because I'm counting on you. I can't do this by myself. I don't want to."

Fleur heaves a sigh, grateful to put her doubts and irrationality to bed, at least for now. This is the direction she's longed for, after all—that is to say, having one upon which to tread—and it is far too tempting to refuse a hand of help when it is so swiftly offered. "You may count on me."

"Good, because we have to focus on what we can do." Hermione looks steely now, like Hit Wizards before raids. "I don't want to think about the abstracts, Fleur. That Time-Turner may defy the all the logic I grew up with, but certain facts are holding. We went back in time and we literally changed history. We shouldn't linger on may or may not be Death when Voldemort is waiting in the wings right now, playing that role quite nicely!"

Unhappy to learn how quickly the tables turned over a single day, Fleur frowns. "I thought you were the one who worries."

"So did I," Hermione says, brightening. "Now come here and sit, I have more news for you."

Fleur obeys, joining Hermione in the front row. Another thing to remember. Whenever possible, Hermione cuts to the quick.

"I was talking to Viktor earlier—"

"While I languished in detention..."

"—and he thought my idea of getting students from every school to mingle was a good one, which is fair if I do say so myself—"

"I am sure he did," says Fleur, wondering whether she should point out that Viktor will probably agree with whatever Hermione said. Best not.

"So," Hermione repeats, louder, "he suggested we can meet in Hogsmeade to get to know each other."

"Just you and Viktor, or are we all invited?" Fleur asks innocently.

"Anyone can join us." Hermione blushes again. "Come on, this is part of the plan! We're pushing for international magical cooperation, aren't we?"

"So that Britain will not stand alone," Fleur finishes, gathering her thoughts. The relief is soporific, lulling her like a good draught. "Yes, I know."

Of all facts, figures, and fears that Fleur is to remember, let it be this one—she isn't alone.

"Did you pick a theatre on purpose to speak with me?" Hermione asks in askance, fighting a smile. "I can't remember you ever being so dramatic..."

"Or 'mental'?" Fleur suggests. This is a strange and wending way of making a friend, but she's beginning to like it.

"You're under a lot of pressure," Hermione says, gazing at the room's embellishments now. "We both are. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"Cooler heads prevailed."

Hermione takes her hand again.

"Don't worry. We're going to get through this together," she promises, so assured that Fleur must fall in line and believe it. "Every step of the way."

Chapter Text

After stomaching little but stress lately, Fleur stirs on Sunday morning feeling oddly certain for the first time since she stole the Time-Turner.

They have a plan (many plans), a purpose (to save the world), and some peace of mind (however fleeting and elusive that peace will be). This mission won't be easy, but Fleur's starting to believe she can regain her footing. Her old confidence. Curse-Breakers always swagger about, Cerberus had insisted, leaning against the threshold of Fleur's office in a rare bid to distract her. Fleur only laughed, because his accusation came months into her job at the Ministry, and it was also true! Fresh from Beauxbatons, she dived headlong into the dangerous work of poking and prodding Dark objects in the hopes of not hurting herself, and joined the war effort against You-Know-Who. A swagger was inevitable at that point.

(Her mother called that arrogance in another life, but that life spun out of Fleur's hands last week and it wasn't coming back, not without a miracle.)

Stretching, she glances sideways. Since we stole the Time-Turner, Fleur amends, gazing at the girl replacing Adrian Bell as her field partner—

Until the alarm and comprehension sink in, forcing Fleur out of her seat as if catapulted.

"Hermione," she hisses, gathering information in split seconds, like the snaps of flashbulbs between photographs. The theatre. A crick in her neck. Hermione, asleep, curled up in the adjacent chair like a cat. The crowing of Hagrid's roosters and the buzzing of fairies in his garden. "Wake up!"

Startled awake after her elbow slides off an armrest, Hermione shifts to give Fleur a bleary-eyed look. "Hmm?"

"We overslept," Fleur hastens to explain, steadying Hermione before the shock can unseat her. "You must get back to the castle!"

After so much fretting over the Time-Turner, the volte-face into the matter of Hermione Granger being out of her bed is almost laughable, but Fleur's happy to do it. If she truly is a Beauxbatons girl again, she should be concerned over the consequences of a late-night visit from a friend.

Now properly motivated, Hermione springs to her feet and scurries after Fleur, throwing an invisibility cloak over her shoulders.

"I should be fine once I get to the staircases..." Now only a disembodied voice and light footsteps, Hermione begins to remind Fleur of a real ghost as they hurry down the carriage's long and winding corridors, at least until she yawns. "Even Mr. Filch needs to sleep...goodness, what is the time?"

"Sunrise," Fleur sighs, missing the days where she slept well and deeply.

They had spent much of the night planning again. While the endless discussion in the Shrieking Shack gave birth to Fleur's idea of tutoring Hermione in advanced spellcasting, Hermione's idea of international magical cooperation needed fine-tuning. Broad strokes would do, Hermione had persisted, but surgical strikes were necessary too. ("Surgical strikes?" Fleur had asked, although she didn't get a satisfactory explanation.)

Emphasizing how important it was for the students to get to know each other, Hermione suggested things like dueling clubs, tours of the grounds, Durmstrang ship, or Beauxbatons carriage ("Professor Karkaroff will not be accommodating," Fleur had muttered), as well as Quidditch friendlies ("so I won't have to listen to people ask why we aren't playing it," Hermione irritably explained), small competitions, like Gobstones or Exploding Snap, and finally, hangouts in the Three Broomsticks ("or the Hog's Head Inn, if anyone is feeling adventurous," Hermione added, amusing Fleur).

And yet, Fleur could see a glaring problem: the cooperation itself. Who from Hogwarts would play Exploding Snap with a student of Durmstrang?

"Cedric, I suppose," Hermione had said, and that really was that, because then Fleur could step back and see the new links that would pull the unsuspecting and the unknowing to the middle of their widening web: the schools' champions. Of course. If Cedric, Harry, Fleur, and Viktor built a rapport outside of the competition, the rest of their classmates may follow. First our classmates, then the staff, Fleur had thought, then Britain...

In the end, Hermione is angling for perfection, or as close to perfection as they can get in their bid to revise the past. Fleur simply hopes not to lose her head remembering all there was to remember. Save the boys, she had determined as Hermione rambled on, albeit nearing sleep herself. Expose You-Know-Who. Craft Hermione into an even greater witch. Watch Crouch. Watch the Time-Turner. Endear Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to Hogwarts, and vice versa. Attend classes, keep up with the coursework, pay attention to every friend, maintain correspondence with Gaby and Maman and Papa and Grand-Mère, feign ignorance of developments in the Tournament, and whenever necessary, plan and plan and plan...

Sacha's stash of novelties from apothecaries on either side of La Manche is more appealing now, Fleur muses, if only for the stress relief.

At last, they reach the foyer, then the entrance. Fleur opens the carriage door, feeling the slightest brush of the invisibility cloak against her arm.

"See you later," Hermione whispers. Her footsteps grow faint, then disappear altogether.

Doubting she'll sleep any longer despite her tiredness, Fleur returns to her room, dresses, and whiles away the hours before breakfast sifting through books and gathering material for Hermione's syllabus. Just after ten o'clock, Céline emerges from beneath her pillow, puffy-eyed and pale.

"Where," she croaks, ignoring the mocking smirk sent her way, "is your little friend?"

"In the castle," Fleur replies, donning a pair of spare boots and sliding the ruined Capenoirs under her vanity. "She'll join us for breakfast."

Or brunch, at this rate...

"But we're all hungover," Céline protests, burrowing below the covers again at the sound of Fleur's laughter. "None of us will be pleasant company!"

"You can act pleasant," Fleur says, rising so she may wrench her best friend out of bed. "If anyone can appear welcoming, it's you." Céline's greatest ambitions were to attend the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts before she auditioned for the elite French playhouses on the Avenue Lisette.

Now divested of her bedcovers, Céline drapes an arm over her face instead, still grumbling. "This friend sounds rather important to you, Fleur."

Much to her own surprise, Fleur has the answer ready.

"Very," she promises, sparing a brief thought for the past four days of absurdity and upheaval and another for Hermione herself.

Céline peeks out from under her arm. Try as she might, Fleur doesn't know what to make of that look. She's seen Céline delighted and devastated and affronted and proud over the years, but never so...shrewd. Perhaps Fleur should've joined the team of Unspeakables, not the Curse-Breakers.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Céline demands, breaking the spell. "Let's go!"

Her efforts get Céline moving, but it isn't until after eleven that Fleur has a group willing to brave the walk to the Great Hall. She spies Hermione sitting with Ron and Harry, and returns Hermione's sharp look for her lateness with a shrug. I tried, she mouths, getting only a frown in reply.

Feeling that frown aimed at her forehead like one of Hawkeye's arrows, Fleur plays with her food, waiting until the others recover some cognitive function to broach the subject. Perenelle worries at a thread on Fleur's sleeve, trilling her musical cry so Fleur will stroke the beast's wings again.

"Say," she ventures after a while, browbeaten into following Hermione's ridiculous script to the letter, "would anyone like to meet a friend of mine?"

Céline surfaces eagerly from her coffee cup. Hugo and Giselle stop kissing and look round.

"Formally, this time?" Edgar teases.

"Of course," Henry answers for everyone, tousling his hair a bit more artfully in a reflection from a spoon. "I'll give her a warm welcome."

"Not as warm as mine," Charles is quick to interject, never to be outdone.

"Is that the girl who came to the carriage?" Emma whispers to Isabeau, who shrugs, already bored. Unperturbed by all, Fleur waves Hermione over.

"Where are you going?" Ron demands, startling Harry and the Gryffindors, but Hermione just bustles to Fleur's side without another word and settles into her seat. Beauxbatons shifts its attention to the interloper at once, reminding Fleur of a business of jarveys clustering around a knarl.

"Mademoiselle Granger," Edgar greets, diplomatically shifting to English, "right? Potter's friend?"

"Potter's girlfriend," Isabeau murmurs. Emma snickers. That particular article of Rita Skeeter's entertained the Beauxbatons carriage for a week, Fleur recalls, but it had only angered her at the time, as Skeeter only deigned to mention 'Flore Delacroix' and 'Victor Krastev' in the very last line.

With the same frosty restraint Fleur witnessed in the Shrieking Shack, Isabeau's comment goes uncontested. "Hermione, please," she asks of Edgar.

"Try to pronounce that!" Fleur orders, going off the cuff. Hermione raises an eyebrow. Baited by such a challenge, the efforts begin immediately.

"'Erm..." Hugo pauses, then cedes his defeat with a shrug.

"Hur-my-knee?" Giselle suggests, patting Hugo's arm in consolation.

"'Ermy-oh-nee," Céline tries, already well on her way to disappointment. "Errr-mee-oh-nn!"

"Hermione," Henry declares, bolstered to smugness by Hermione's nod of confirmation. "I did spend most of a term in an exchange at Ilvermorny..."

"Until you angered the headmaster," Charles says, sliding closer to divest Hermione of her ignorance. "Professor Fontaine walked in on him and—"

"She doesn't need to know that!" Henry blusters, aghast.

Sacha snorts into his cereal. Emma and Isabeau smirk. Paul and Manon smother their laughter behind flagons of pumpkin juice. Fleur rolls her eyes.

"What I would like to know," Céline declares, leaning forward with that odd and shrewd look once more, "is how you two met one another."

Fortunately for Fleur and Hermione, that question was anticipated. Still, it is something to consider, Fleur realizes, stepping on Hermione's foot to prompt her to speak. In the midst of their next scheme, it should be worth noting how these grand plans of theirs actually look. Seemingly out of nowhere, Fleur befriended a girl not only two years her junior, but from Hogwarts, the place and school that she so regularly disparaged (last time).

"In the library," Hermione answers, recognizing her cue to take the lead. "Fleur offered to tutor me for my O.W.L.s—"

"In exchange for...'English lessons'?" Giselle asks with all the airs of an Auror following up on a case.

"Yes, and she's been a very good student so far," Hermione explains, brisk again. "I also think Fleur is really taking this competition seriously."

"Oh?" Céline prompts, glancing sideways to gauge a reaction. Fleur keeps her face blank.

"Of course. We're here to mingle with wizards and witches unlike ourselves, aren't we? It would be the same if your school hosted the tournament," Hermione says, sounding so thoughtful that Fleur wonders if her musings are real or faked. Likely real, Fleur decides, as Hermione Granger never stops thinking. She gives them all a shrug now, laying a trap of her own devising. "Surely I would enjoy Beauxbatons if I spent a term there..."

Checkmate, Fleur thinks with admiration, listening as nearly everyone chimes in their agreement and rattles off their favorite things about Beauxbatons, school secrets be damned. The grounds, Hugo insisted, illustrating this thing and that thing with his hands. The palace, Céline sighed, dreamy as she had been as a girl when their class first gazed upon the building. The fountains. The gardens. The hedge maze. The tunnels beneath the maze, Charles proclaimed. The art galleries. The salons. The theatre. The chapel. The paddock for Abraxan racing, Henry asserted, airing his own future ambitions. On and on it goes until Fleur feels the group is less wary of Hermione, allowing her to steer them elsewhere.

"You must see Beauxbatons someday, Hermione," Fleur opines, getting back to her lines. "Perhaps I will bring you there myself."

"I would be honored."

Angling to keep hold of their attention this time, Fleur addresses the lot in a much quieter voice, counting on the promise of intrigue to do her some favors. "Now that we are all acquainted, Hermione hoped for us to join her in Hogsmeade," she says after the chatter has died down.

"Whatever for?" Giselle asks.

"Well, when Fleur and I started our tutoring, we thought to ourselves, 'why is it only us? Why isn't anyone else trying to get to know each other?' This competition is about establishing ties between our schools, after all, so we want to do just that. As for the rest of you, the more the merrier."

"George said your next weekend trip isn't for another month," says Manon. Beauxbatons students, meanwhile, could come and go as they pleased.

"George and I know how to enter the village undetected," Hermione admits, so blasé that a few incredulous glances are exchanged around her. In the interim, Fleur tries to imagine this conversation without her prior knowledge. Will the lure of a mystery be enough to sway someone along?

"And why do you want to get into Hogsmeade so badly, ma chère?" Henry asks, voicing the curiosity that has fallen upon the benches.

"Why not?" says Hermione, then continues, familiarly conspiratorial now, "I also have a meeting with some friends that I'd rather not miss, you see."

"A 'meeting'?" Isabeau repeats before she can stop herself, forgetting her indifference.

"Well, yes," Hermione answers, drawing out the suspense until the last moment. "Professor Karkaroff is rather strict, so Viktor can't stay long—"

Before Fleur's eyes, the pin drops. Perhaps that will do the trick, she supposes, marshaling the next volley, a not-so-casual mention of a celebrity...

"Viktor?" Emma squawks, staring at Hermione in unflattering shock. "Viktor Krum? You know him?"

"Of course," Hermione replies almost confusedly, as if Viktor were not a famous athlete. Oh, well played! "We met in the library too."

"And now he wants to meet you in Hogsmeade with his friends...?" Céline concludes, glancing Fleur's way again with a puzzled look.

"Viktor wants to meet everyone," Fleur corrects, stepping in again and hoping Hermione had come up with more or less the same explanation for the Durmstrang students when she pitched this idea to him. "He would like to get to know Hogwarts and Beauxbatons better during his stay here."

"Why do you need us, then?" Edgar wonders, voicing the question that has been waiting in the wings all along.

Manon smiles when Hermione does, clearly recognizing a possibility for mischief when she sees one.

"I need you all to distract a shopkeeper," Hermione confesses, "so we can sneak into the village through a secret passageway."

This revelation sits as restlessly among the group as the idea of Hermione knowing Viktor Krum. Fleur tries to imagine what they are thinking.

"The castle has those?" Hugo asks with delight, oblivious to the bewilderment and disquiet around him.

"Plenty," Hermione answers, just as she and Fleur had discussed last night. "Before the term is over, perhaps Fleur and I can show you them all...?"

"This will make your stay at Hogwarts fun," Fleur adds, upping the ante. "I am sure a distraction from your classes is more than welcome."

"Fun and informative," Hermione remarks, now barreling through a point that Fleur shot down. "Who doesn't enjoy a good history lesson?"

"And you may use today as an opportunity to find a date for the Yule Ball," Fleur pipes up, swiftly dredging up a point that Hermione vetoed.

Hermione steps on her foot.

We are throwing things at the wall and hoping they will stick. Wincing, Fleur watches the group digest the information, hoping the multifaceted prospect is appealing to some of them. This will be their first foray into pushing the schools together. Can a trickle of interest become a flood?

"Well, I'm going," Manon declares, enthused even as Hermione departs for her table, promising to see Fleur soon. "Will George be coming along?"

"Yes," Fleur answers, knowing all too well that the Weasley twins would never turn down a chance to break a rule, baited or not.

"We'll go," Giselle says, speaking for herself and her new boyfriend in the tidy manner of couples.

"I'm free," Céline adds, hangover apparently cured.

"Count us in," Edgar says as Perenelle climbs up his arm and settles atop his shoulder. "The squirrels are getting cheeky in the village!"

Division occurs after the last voice—Henry—has acquiesced. To Fleur's dismay, Paul, Charles, Sacha, Isabeau, and Emma decline the invitation.

"Why do you want to socialize with Durmstrang?" Sacha demands of Fleur now. "That school denies entry to wizards like me and your little friend!"

"This Tournament is about making new friends," Fleur reminds him, "and perhaps Viktor doesn't believe the same things as Karkaroff..."

Her words fall short of reassuring Sacha, although there is no simple way to say to anyone here that Fleur does know that Viktor Krum believes otherwise. In the future—rather, the alternate future—Fleur and Viktor corresponded every other week after Cedric's death. It was in those letters she learned that in his native Bulgaria, Viktor and his family were just some of many purebloods pressuring the Durmstrang board of governors to change their tradition and let Muggle-borns into the school instead of forcing them to go as far as Koldovstoretz for a proper magical education. He was still waiting on their decision, if Fleur remembers correctly, though that potential shift has been pushed backwards a year. The thought of not being so friendly with Viktor again is a sobering idea indeed, so Fleur puts it out of her head, clinging to the hopeful mood that she woke up in.

"Of course he doesn't," Henry says scathingly, rounding on Sacha from his seat. "Three members of Krum's team are like Granger!"

Some Ravenclaws turn round at the rising noise level further along the table, but Giselle only waves them off.

"This Tournament is about winning!" Paul protests, Isabeau and Emma nodding along. "When you win the Cup, we'll be tied against Hogwarts!"

Is that all you care about? Fleur forces herself not to ask, because the answer is as obvious as it is understandable. When Harry's place in the Tournament was still being fiercely debated, Fleur's concerns laid solely with the glory she could bring to Beauxbatons and her own reputation.

"I have my coursework to finish," Emma says, politely disinterested. "Enjoy yourselves. Coming, Isabeau...?"

"I can't join you either." Isabeau doesn't bother to feign any courtesy. "Unlike you, we are not exempt from our final exams. Excuse us."

"I'm sorry, Fleur, but I simply don't see the point," Charles adds as the girls leave. Fleur has to envy him for all his surety; thanks to the Goblet of Fire, Charles has little to worry about this term but his grades and his love life. "We aren't staying here after you win. This won't change anything."

Another problem we overlooked, Fleur realizes, watching him go. To push the schools together, they had to chip away at old biases and in some cases, fresh wounds. Some were fond of the supposed superiority of the wizarding world over the Muggle one, but prejudices cut deeply here as well, rotting a seemingly perfect apple from the inside out. Three members of Krum's team are like Granger, Henry said, thinking not once of Giselle, Sacha, or Hugo, all of whom hailed from homes with no more magic than that found in their daytime serials. Mudblood, Malfoy sneered of Hermione before strutting off, confident that he would not be punished for his impertinence. Fleur also cannot pretend that Beauxbatons doesn't possess its own unpleasantries, however hallowed she thought its halls to be; her ancestry put whispers in her wake, placing every hard-earned grade and commendation into question. Everything they threw at the wall had to not only stick, Fleur now understands, but break down the wall.

Who from Beauxbatons would play a game with a student of Hogwarts or Durmstrang? For now, only half of them. Maybe.

Not for the first time, she fights the sense of being overwhelmed by more responsibility than anyone could possibly handle, even with a partner.

"We'll be in the village if Madame Maxime asks for us," she finally offers of Paul and Sacha, the last of the opposition to remain. "Join us next time."

While the rest of Beauxbatons considers her proposal, heads bent together and debating in furious hisses, Fleur wanders over to the Hufflepuff table, spotting her quarry among a group of sixth-years. She waves to Branstone as she passes by, earning a tiny smile and a wave for her trouble.

"Cedric?" Fleur asks when she reaches him, making the conversation draw to an abrupt halt. Cedric looks up in surprise. "May we speak privately?"

Whispers erupt. Eyes glaze over. Cedric nods, gaze flitting to the Ravenclaws. He joins her near the doors, puzzled and immune to the thrall, for which she is thankful. Relations between the two of them are much warmer than that of Fleur and the other boys, a fact she will gladly rely on.

"Do not worry," she tells him, guessing his concerns about Cho Chang with an airy laugh. Truthfully, she had settled for Roger after Cedric's gentlemanly rejection. To save her pride, she won't ask him again. "I only wanted to know if you wished to join my friends and I in Hogsmeade."

"Why?"

"Viktor is meeting us there," Fleur explains, trying a different approach on a whim, "if you aren't afraid to come along."

Cedric smiles at that, just as she hoped. "Afraid?"

"Of the competition," Fleur says playfully. "Harry is also attending. If you do not join us, perhaps you will fall behind in the Tournament..."

Cedric's smile becomes a full blown grin, albeit one rife with incredulity. "Teaming up against each other is against the rules, you know."

"Break the rules, Cedric," Fleur advises, willing her voice not to waver as she drinks in the sight of him, imbibing on the unmistakable signs of life his body lacked when Harry returned from Little Hangleton. This is the first time she has spoken to him in years, though it's only been two weeks for him. Fleur had mumbled something encouraging in his direction before clamming up thanks to the idea of facing a much bigger version of Perenelle; Cedric's brief and kind reply only deepened her interest in him. After he died and she prepared to leave Hogwarts, Fleur saw just how far he extended similar kindnesses to those around the castle. Even the ghosts wept for him. "One should always have a little fun while you can, no?"

Oblivious to her turmoil, Cedric gives her a rueful look.

"I appreciate the offer but...Cho and I already have plans," he confesses, glancing over Fleur's shoulder with waning hesitation. "Don't tell her, but I'm not as rubbishy at History of Magic as she thinks. Mostly I like to let her talk. Somehow she makes giant wars seem interesting, you know?"

Despite herself, Fleur feels her mood lifting. "Charmant, Cedric. Do you plan to ask her to the Ball?"

He brightens, thinking little of confiding a secret in a stranger, although after facing dragons together, she supposes any conversation of theirs is no longer quite so strange. This morning, she would like to see this admission of his as an act of trust. "Today, actually," Cedric says. "Any advice?"

"None at all," Fleur replies with another laugh. This future needs no meddling from her. "I am no Seer, but I assure you, she will say yes."

Cedric holds up his hands. "Far be it from me to argue with such a sure thing. Should we rain check that Hogsmeade invitation then?"

Tempted to summon her English dictionary, Fleur tilts her head to the side, bewildered. "'Rain check'?"

"It's an American thing," Cedric explains, taking pity on her. "Baseball. Those Muggles are mad for it. It just means we'll reschedule."

Bah! What was this obsession with American media that I keep seeing...?

Perhaps she ought not to judge Cedric so fast. Many of her favorite wonder tales are Beedle's, the English bard (even if he is no Madame d'Aulnoy).

"Bring Cho with you next time," she suggests, content to temporarily cut her losses. She has all year to endear Cedric to the mission. One excursion without him, though disappointing for its lack, won't foretell his untimely death. "Let us show you how the French make merry."

"I'll hold you to that!" he calls toward her retreating back, and Fleur smiles.

When Fleur has a much diminished line of ducklings trailing after her for the second time in a matter of days, Céline speaks up, apropos of nothing.

"Have you taken a Calming Draught?" Céline asks, torn between mirth and puzzlement. "We all thought you would tell Isabeau to shut her mouth!"

Taking offense, Fleur does not answer. Her temper isn't that bad, surely?

"Have you taken a love potion?" Giselle prompts, keeping pace with them and grinning. "That would explain far more!"

Fleur ignores that too.

"Of course not," Edgar protests. Fleur shoots him a grateful look. "We would've seen that!" Her gratitude ebbs away just moments later, replaced with stinging betrayal as Edgar's expression grows sheepish. "But I am rather curious about your...defense of Hermione against that Malfoy brat..."

This sets the flock abuzz again, much to Fleur's exasperation.

"Of course!" proclaims Giselle, smacking a hand to her own forehead. "And we still have no idea what to make of your hush-hush conversations..."

"Perhaps H—Miss Granger used a secret passageway to deliver the potion to your room," Hugo posits gamely. "We would never know."

"She wouldn't get past the carriage's defenses," Fleur bites out, unable to hold her tongue any longer.

"Not unless invited," Henry points out, so sly with implication that there is an outburst of cackling. She glares at Perenelle in lieu of a better target, who's now taken to chasing after a bug. Grumbling, Fleur soldiers her way onto the grounds, patience fraying thin as the jokes go on even as Hogsmeade comes into view. What she wouldn't give for the thestral drawn carriages that Céline gossiped about last time, if only for a distraction.

When they find themselves outside Honeydukes almost an hour later and waiting to spring the trap, Manon turns her attention back to them all.

"I volunteer," she declares, looking more devilish than a pixie. "I'll draw out the owners."

"You'll be banned forever," Hugo points out eagerly, "but I'll help!"

Maybe Fleur ought to worry about wrinkling the fabric of the past so audaciously, but instead she's riddled with excitement. This prank is a novelty, needless and new, but fun! It's a way to immerse herself back to the beat that everyone but Fleur and Hermione dances to. And today has no comparison, no parallel. She wouldn't be found among any student of Hogwarts or Durmstrang in the old past unless truly necessary; in this fashion, she has no idea what will happen next. Unpredictability, Fleur muses, will become as potent and dangerous as a glass of firewhiskey.

Perhaps she ought to worry about tempting fate, acting so reckless and arrogant, but Fleur has tempted fate plenty already. Let it court her.

Smiling, Fleur beckons them closer. "A few bewitched snowballs should do. Try not to break any of the windows, if you can."

With a kiss apiece for luck from Giselle, Manon and Hugo hurry toward to a safe distance, hooting like children. Giselle laughs.

"I can't say I've ever seen you masterminding a scheme before," she observes, jumping back to the ribbing without hesitation.

"No," Céline agrees, singsong, "don't you remember, darling? Fleur was always much too busy with her schoolwork for mischief."

While Fleur heaves a long-suffering sigh, Edgar kisses her cheek in consolation. "Don't fret. We'll let up. It's just...well, you so rarely—"

"Branch out?" Céline opines, dodging Fleur's swipe with a leap and a pirouette into a puddle.

"Lighten up?" Giselle reckons, mimicking Fleur's scowl.

"Relax?" Henry muses, the last head of the hydra. She resists the urge to cuff him on the ear, for all the good it would do.

"Enough," Fleur complains with ill grace. "Look over, won't you? Manon and Hugo are starting..."

Twirling her wand like a baton, a distant Manon mutters a spell, enchants the nearest drift into a flock of snowballs, and then sends them careening toward the sweetshop like a shower of meteors. Hugo's own spell makes the snowballs drum along the panes to the beat of Venez Divin Messie.

Less than a minute later, the door slams open, rattling on its hinges.

"Oi!" Ambrosius Flume roars, spotting Manon and Hugo across the street. A crowd of customers follows him out, but only Fleur sees the numbers grow slightly and fill with familiar faces. Mrs. Flume peers over the heads of the Weasley twins, looking scandalized. "BUGGER—OFF!"

"Nous sommes désolés, monsieur!" Hugo shouts back, frantically shaking his wand out like it's a bottle of champagne. "Eet's my wand—"

"You need anuzzer one!" Manon shouts back in her best imitation of Charles and Fleur's accents, accidentally-on-purpose sending more snowballs at Flume when she reaches for Hugo to steady him. Giselle turns away, shoulders shaking with mirth. "We shall go to Ollivander's zen! Allons-y!"

Swearing, Flume returns to his shop, followed by half the crowd. The rest of it lingers outside, then wanders over to where Fleur is standing.

"Manon was very believable," Hermione says in lieu of a greeting, giving Fleur an unconvinced look.

"Céline is the actress," Fleur says, pointedly taking no notice of Céline's exaggerated bow. "Manon prefers to play her tricks from afar."

"Well," Fred Weasley declares, rubbing his hands together and interrupting with the typical Weasley gusto, "here we are."

"There we go," Hermione counters, indicating the blind knoll leading to the Shrieking Shack. "That's where we'll meet the students of Durmstrang."

Fleur studies the Hogwarts group now, wishing it was bigger. As big as our plans. Aside from herself, Giselle, Hugo, Henry, Edgar, Manon, and Céline, Hermione rounded up her own handful of attendants—the Weasley twins, Harry and Ron, and Angelina Johnson. A pair of Gryffindor girls. Lee, a boy that Bill mentioned once upon a time. Even Neville Longbottom stands among them, looking nervous. Introductions are made quickly, putting names to unknown faces (Katie Bell, the girl that's long since outgrown her father's desktop picture, and Alicia Spinnet, Katie's girlfriend).

Awkwardness lingers in the air, heavier than the cold, but Fleur joins the walk in spite of her discomfort, and presses on.

"Where was your passageway?" Fleur asks Hermione, playacting again. "Some of us are desperate to know."

"Hear hear!" Hugo chirps from the back.

"On the third floor, behind the statue of the One-Eyed Witch."

"Perhaps you and I should visit this passage," Giselle suggests to Hugo, smiling. He waggles his eyebrows in reply, earning a chuckle from Henry. Just as Fleur starts to worry that the groups will stay separated, coexisting as peacefully as poisons and antidotes, there is a crack in the ice.

"Just watch out for Mr. Filch," Angelina warns. Katie grimaces in commiseration. "He knows most of the good hiding places."

"So does Mrs. Norris," Alicia adds, wrinkling her nose.

Another beat. While Fleur listens on tenterhooks to a conversation that is only beginning to flourish, Harry drops his voice to speak to Hermione.

"I thought we were meeting your study group."

"This is my study group," Hermione says patiently, appearing unconcerned about any holes in her story. "We needed more space."

"Why would you want to study with Durmstrang and Beauxbatons?" Ron asks in disbelief. "Angelina would've helped you if you asked..."

"For the O.W.L.s, of course," Fleur chimes in, determined to widen the gap in the ice. "The practicals are the most important part of the tests."

Ron blushes red as soon as Fleur is near enough, but Harry seems only curious, a little wary, and to Fleur's relief, immune to the thrall.

"That's generous of you."

"It is the least I can do." With a start, she realizes this is the first time she's spoken to Harry since the Department of Mysteries. While it is a relief to find him whole and healthy again, anxiousness creeps into her skin like the cold. Around him, Fleur can't shake the feeling of being his own personal Grim. Pairing that fear with a persona that no longer suits her pushes Fleur's confidence from this morning far and away. Should she apologize to him now, or pass off her initial frostiness and contempt without a word? "Hermione was courteous enough to correct my English."

After a pause, Harry cracks a smile. "Don't worry," he confides in a stage whisper, "she corrects mine too."

"I do not," says Hermione, huffing a bit as they ascend the slope.

"You do," Ron protests, pulling his hat down further over his ears. "And our spells! Remember Wingardium Leviosa?"

"You needed my help! If you pronounced it wrong you would've blown off your eyebrows like Seamus did!"

Fleur stifles a laugh in the nick of time, but Neville, newly in earshot, chuckles aloud, giving Fleur another shock.

"He burned off the hair on the back of his head too," he recalls, turning his smile to the sky. "Peeves wrote a song about it."

"Peeves," Fleur grumbles, recovering enough to grow sour and earning a round of Céline's tinkling laughter.

"Fleur hates him," she announces, easily attracting attention to herself. "I once heard a plot to exorcise him from your castle!"

Amidst murmurs of approval, there is a shuffling in the traipsing group until Fleur is presented with the sight of the wiliest Weasleys.

"The secret to dealing with Peeves—" Fred advises.

"—is to call the Bloody Baron," George finishes, swinging the hand of his linked with Manon's. "When the Baron puts his foot down, Peeves listens."

"How horrible," Fleur retorts with a shiver. A ghost so frightening that a poltergeist fled from him? She has no desire to ever meet this Baron.

She's spared from further discussion as the group finds the whorls of magic left by the Durmstrang students to mark the way. The knoll soon opens up to the clearing next to the Shrieking Shack, the same spot that Fleur and Hermione used to enter Hogwarts without attracting attention. That day and its battle seems closer to a nightmare than a reality that they had left behind less than a week ago, Fleur decides, thinking of their desperate trek to the castle to warn Harry or anyone that could listen of what was coming. It is more picturesque now, Fleur must admit, relieved by this fact; surrounded on four sides by great oaks, the clearing is bedecked with shooting targets, a stock of arrows so large that Fleur would bet Galleons and Bezants on the use of the Doubling Charm, and finally, a score of quivers. Beside the targets, Viktor raises his hand to wave.

"Viktor Krum is in your study group?" Ron squeaks.

After Fleur and Hermione present their respective parties again, Viktor introduces the small band of Durmstrang fellows in turn: Ebbe, Jakob, Ragna, Helene, and Misha. They are met cordially, shyly, although Ragna sneers at Henry, likely the same girl to douse him in espresso yesterday in Madam Puddifoot's. In lieu of schoolwork, Viktor explains, he arranged a lark few wizards here would succeed at without wandwork—archery. Students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang dare to exchange mirthful looks with one another as Fleur smiles to herself. This is not so new to them.

The students of Hogwarts, however, drift toward the targets, laden with doubt and derision. Fred Weasley wonders why they ought to bother.

"I can just shoot one of these into the sky," he dismisses, chortling, "like that lot from Appleton."

"You won't always have your wand with you," Harry observes, drawing the eyes of everyone around him. His words are calm but flat, belying some fright that left him helpless if Fleur has to guess. She shivers again. Few wizards want to think of a time where they will not be able to defend themselves, herself included, although her grandmother's teachings had alleviated this fear somewhat. "Magic isn't always going to help you."

This bleak idea is drowned out by George with feigned solemnity. "Right," he proclaims. "That basilisk got skewered by Gryffindor's sword..."

Sidestepping the boys and not making the effort to ask after the punchline, Fleur makes her way through the throng towards Hermione. To her delight and horror, Hermione's picked up a bow and a single arrow like everyone else, but joins the others in mixed results. Fleur arrives at her side just in time to avert calamity, with Viktor at her heels, and hears the students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang begin to critique their Hogwarts counterparts on their forms. It makes her wish that Hogwarts joined its fellows in the teaching of arts that Muggles still favor, for their own sake.

"Hermione," Fleur chides, stalling the bow's upward trajectory with a touch. Viktor gently pats Hermione's hand that grips the arrow.

"I'd like to try," Hermione protests, already on her way to offended by the sound of her voice and the sharpness of her eyes, but Viktor only smiles.

"We would like to let you try," says Viktor, glancing at Fleur in askance, "but you do not have the proper stance yet."

"There's a stance?"

"Oh, yes. I am surprised you have not read about it in one of your books."

While Hermione is distracted, Fleur corrects the position of her feet and hips, steals her hat, and promptly returns to her fussing with a tie.

"What are you doing?" Hermione demands.

Viktor sounds like he is fighting a laugh. "She wants your hair out of the way. This will help with your shooting."

Once Hermione is standing appropriately and won't scalp herself with an arrow, Fleur crowds her again, adjusting the position of her arms.

"Is all of this really necessary?" Hermione asks, bright red.

"For your safety, yes," Fleur answers, tilting Hermione's chin ever so slightly to her left. Hermione huffs.

"We are taking every precaution," Viktor adds, offering Hermione a leather glove, an arm bracer, and a chest guard. "Notch your arrow."

Fleur takes up the song, ignoring the clear window of opportunity left for her to leave them alone. Viktor would have the Yule Ball to act on any designs of Hermione; Fleur is only here to ensure that the lesson will be mastered. "But don't raise your bow yet. Simply look at the target first."

"Shoulders down, please," Viktor points out, tapping the closest one of Hermione's with a finger. "But no crouch—no slouching."

"And do not rotate your elbow, Hermione."

She hears a ripple of Celine's giggles and Edgar's shushing across the clearing, though Fleur pays them no mind.

Hermione obeys, following every suggestion that gets in edgewise between Fleur and Viktor, until they both judge her ready to try.

"Pull your string back," Fleur says, standing a little too close despite her warnings. Hermione's hand moves to rest below her jawbone. "We call this, 'kissing the string'." She watches a blush spread across Hermione's face for a moment. "Stay," Fleur continues, pleased to watch Hermione take aim—and the orders—with few complaints. Somehow the others in the clearing have disappeared. "Stay. Now, let the string slide from your fingers."

Fleur hears the arrow hit some point on the target, but her focus lingers on Hermione, watching the follow through of her hand as it ghosts along Hermione's cheek and falls. Struck with a thought as the targets around them are with arrows, Fleur must admit it—perhaps Hermione was wiser than Fleur expected to ask that they become friends. There is only one person alive who can understand what Fleur may be feeling at any moment. In that way, she will always have someone willing to listen to errant worries before they spin out of control. Fleur too can offer the same comfort...

Lured from her reverie when she is met with a familiar expectant look and its flare of curiosity, Fleur blinks and opens her mouth to speak.

"Well?" Viktor prompts before Fleur can say anything, reappearing and bringing the volume of the world back with him. "What did you think?"

Flustered, Hermione clears her throat, dropping her eyes. "I need more time to answer that question, actually."

Fleur offers a quiver and its fresh stock of arrows before Viktor can, content to see that data gathered, piece by piece. "By all means."

She and Viktor watch Hermione for awhile until the others come back into focus by way of sound and sight, griping about being bored and casting their bows into the snow. Viktor steps to the center of the clearing, nodding agreeably as one of his classmates shouts a suggestion in Bulgarian.

"You," Viktor says, gazing around for inspiration and settling at last on Henry, "can you fight?"

"I am the best of Beauxbatons!" Henry declares, bereft of Charles's necessary put-downs. He wrestles himself free of his coat and sets it aside.

Viktor peels off his jumper, startling a beetle that was drifting in his direction.

"I thought wizards hated Muggle dueling," Hermione mumbles, watching the rapidly developing scrap from the gaps between her fingers. Fleur laughs over the new upswing of noise as students from each school form a ring around the boys, shouting encouragements and hedging bets.

"British wizards, you mean," Fleur corrects. "On the Continent, we're taught to mingle better with the Non—with the Muggles."

"How?"

Fleur inches out of the way so the kickback of the wrestlers won't dirty her clothes. "At Beauxbatons, for example, we are still taught etiquette, fencing, archery, dancing, dressage...even diplomacy. When we leave those beautiful grounds for the last time, we are expected to be polymaths."

"And wrestling falls under which category?"

"Durmstrang protects its secrets well, but from we can guess, they continue traditions found among the Vikings. Hunting, wrestling, swimming..."

"But why?"

"To mingle, Hermione," Fleur reminds her. "To hide. Wizarding communities are small. Not socializing with your neighbors was—is—dangerous. It is wise to learn what you can about them, like the ways they fight and fare, should they ever call upon you for aid. Your own Gryffindor dueled Muggles and wizards alike on the battlefield." The veela never missed opportunities to cross swords with their enemies, either, though Fleur is certain the days of fighting for territory are long gone; instead, clans cloister close, live quietly, and pass on their stories to the next generation.

"The Intentional Statute of Secrecy didn't go into effect until 1692," Hermione points out skeptically, "the Vikings were gone long before that."

"Traditions remain. Quidditch is already nine hundred years old. The Triwizard Tournament ran for six centuries before it was disbanded. I am told you have kept your Sorting ceremony since Hogwarts opened its doors. If we are to live in secret among Muggles, we must adopt their traditions."

There is a pause.

"More to the point, I thought you didn't want to give anyone a history lesson," Hermione says, brows furrowed.

Fleur shrugs. Belatedly realizing that Hermione's hat was still clutched in her hands, she returns it.

"You have many questions, and I have the answers. It was no trouble."

Henry wrangles Viktor into a headlock. Fleur feels the Time-Turner leave and return before their companionable silence is broken again.

"Durmstrang doesn't admit Muggle-borns," Hermione continues, looking pensive. Fleur imagines her thoughts are still ticking on, inexorable as time, poring over this fact and that fact until the puzzle is complete. "Why bother socializing with Muggles if they're considered so 'inferior'?"

"Your books are biased," Fleur says simply, opting to let Viktor explain his views to Hermione. Perhaps that is something they discuss at the Ball?

"Then give me your books," Hermione insists, "so I can learn about all of this."

"Of course."

Hermione's habit of haggling surfaces again.

"As long as you read Hogwarts, A History."

Fleur wrinkles her nose. She has no time for yet another endeavor, even if it is only a book. "Whatever for?"

"I thought knowing more about Hogwarts would give you less to complain about," Hermione elaborates in a lofty voice.

"Fine," Fleur grumbles, resigned to cutting her losses again. What's one more thing?

The wrestling goes on and on, pulling nearly everyone into the fray. Edgar conjures laurels out of mid-air to crown the winners. The Weasleys fight to a stand-off. Ron bests Harry. Harry bests Lee. Angelina scrapes a victory from Alicia after many cobbings. Céline distracts Giselle long enough to send her sprawling. Ebbe outmatches Viktor by a hair. Ragna loses to Manon by way of trickery and well-timed taunts. Hugo and Jakob are forced to a draw. Standing on the outskirts with Hermione and listening to the cheers and groans from their assembled parties, Fleur finds herself at ease.

"This is not how I imagined our day to be," she confesses, so low that it is only for Hermione's hearing. Archery and wrestling aren't tours or friendlies, but Fleur enjoys the results anyway. These pastimes felt natural, normal, as if this group and that group got along on the first try.

"Neither did I," Hermione agrees, likely thinking of the ideas and 'surgical strikes' they'll need to postpone. "But it's rather nice, isn't it?"

"I can only hope this...momentum of our mission is like your shooting."

"I missed half of those," Hermione protests, nevertheless amused.

"Some hit the target! Do not forget that, Hermione. Some effort is always better than none."

We have to focus on what we can do, Hermione had said just yesterday. Fleur follows up with a question, remembering her promise.

"And you?" Fleur prompts of her newest field partner. No, she corrects herself quickly, even easily, my friend. "How are you feeling?"

Hermione considers that whilst clapping for Viktor's triumph over Misha. "Hopeful, I suppose. I like to think we're doing the right thing."

This right thing—wobbling ever onward in fits and starts, like some untransfigured animal between metamorphoses—will close out the fourth day of their expedition, she realizes. It is a relief to know that they didn't spend all of it amidst tea and textbooks. She tilts her head to the crowd now. "I can't believe this worked," Fleur admits, gazing at the small delegations of each school, briefly united by a game that has no magic whatsoever.

"It's like we're chaperoning another Yule Ball," Hermione muses.

"Or a single's mixer at Reynardine's," she whispers back, thinking fondly of Diagon Alley's best dive bar.

With furtive looks around them, Hermione leans over to grasp Fleur's arm and pulls so she may pass on a secret without being overheard. Fleur bends down obligingly. "This was a good spot to meet," she murmurs, her breath tickling Fleur's ear and skin. "Snuffles is living past the stile."

Briefly distracted, Fleur quirks an eyebrow when the words finally register in her brain, incredulous. "All along?"

What an uproar that would arise if Sirius Black made himself known again in Hogsmeade...

Hermione laughs, shaking her head in answer and stepping back. "Only after Harry mentioned his scar hurting. Buckbeak's with him."

The matches end soon after, with far too many laurels atop heads to count. Hearing her name, Fleur glances around for the source of the noise.

"Start building!" Edgar crows once he has her attention, gathering enough snow as if intending to build his own castle. "We're making snowmen!"

Seeing groups and pairs already hard at work, Hermione grabs Fleur by the hand and pulls her toward a pile of unclaimed snow. Any Muggle measures are quickly forgotten; she and Hermione summon drifts with magic and shape them into a form of their liking, hoping to best what appears to be a snow giant from the Weasley twins. Flakes and clumps of white bend into a woman with wings, making Hermione smirk.

"A snow veela, I presume?"

"It—it was the first thing that came to mind!"

Hermione enchants the wings to flutter as the veela gains recognizable features; Fleur shows the effigy how to walk with a twist of her wand.

"Time's up!" Katie Bell cries, stalling the projects. Few are snowmen, Fleur notices, but no one seems to care. "Let's take a look!"

Some collaborations are successes, others not. Ebbe and Jakob's snowman blinks its button eyes, immobile; Neville, Harry, and Ron's figure wobbles on shaky legs and collapses; Hugo and Giselle's kneazle hisses like Crookshanks at the Time-Turner; Fred and George's giant roars and beats its chest to a powdery demise; Katie and Alicia's figure splits into a flock of birds by a well cast Avifors Spell; Lee and Angelina's bowtruckle brandishes claws; only Celine and Edgar's nymph comes closest to life when it dances about the clearing like its counterparts at Beauxbatons.

"And what do we have here?" Fred prompts, only to howl with laughter as Fleur and Hermione's veela takes flight and pelts Ron with a snowball.

"Hey!"

One snowball becomes two, then three, until the clearing is besieged by crumbling missiles and shouting on all sides. Ragna defends Céline; Henry dives to protect Ebbe; Fred and George attack each other and everyone else. Dodging Harry and his spectacular aim, Fleur is pulled behind an oak.

"This is some reward," Fleur jokes breathlessly, and Hermione laughs again, her gaze brighter than any charm.

"The best there is," she says, and then there's nothing left for Fleur to do but agree, gather their ammunition, and swagger back into the fray.

Chapter Text

Much to Fleur's astonishment, Monday comes and goes without a hitch.

Still and rather stubbornly, she waited for the worst to happen. She searched the sky for odd cloud formations, anticipating an abrupt return to the future by way of a nightmarish vortex from the heavens. She scoured the halls between classes for echoes of herself and Hermione, keeping a lookout for paradoxes. For once embracing her most irksome sense, Fleur hunted for a hint of the rank malevolence that polluted the stonework of Hogwarts Castle after Cedric died, to no avail. It was only natural to be suspicious, Fleur judged, nevertheless mindful Hermione's advice to be less...imaginative. Eloise Mintumble was flung forward during her fifth and final day in 1402, and that had been with a functional Time-Turner and the by laws of its Hour-Reversal Charm obeyed to the letter. It was wise to be cautious and so Fleur was...at least until Monday came to an end.

At length, Fleur finds nothing at all, save for the stinks that trail Barty Crouch Jr. wherever he goes, and the constant expiries of the Time-Turner. By Tuesday, Fleur loses the feeling that they've gotten away with murder; by Wednesday, the consequences—varied and bountiful—begin to pile up.

Perhaps influenced by her increasingly familiar presence at Hermione's side, Ron asks Fleur to the Yule Ball again, albeit earlier than expected. Or, at least, Fleur would've expected it, had she cared to remember the scene Ron had made when shouting the question at her over all the other things jockeying for position in her brain. Caught off guard and mid-conversation with Cedric, she's silent but nonetheless able to snatch Ron's wrist at the last second to stop him from running away. Before the Entrance Hall can ring with laughter at his misfortune, she hastens to speak.

"I'm sorry, Ronald, but I am attending with another," she tells him, tightening her grip. He breathes out in distress. "Will you save me a dance?"

This time, she'll be gentle with him. He, Ron, who stood up to Death-Eaters so he could help Harry, only to run afoul of the experiments in the Department of Mysteries. Ron, who resembles his brother so much that Fleur aches to go back to the life where Bill Weasley is so very dear to her.

Was so very dear to her.

"Y-yes," Ron squeaks as Fleur lets him go. Recovering his wits from her thrall, he gives her a shaky nod, like he's just remembered Fleur to be the girl that's joined him, Harry, and Hermione for meals since Sunday. Fleur smiles up at him, softening her expression in encouragement. "Yeah..."

Over the muttering of the crowd in the hall and the sight of Ron's not-so-ignominious exit, Cedric shoots Fleur a look.

"That was nice of you. Nicer than...well..."

"Monsieur Towler."

"Yes," Cedric agrees, although his voice suggests being of the opinion that Towler deserved the hexing he got after cornering Fleur in the Owlery.

"I can be nice," Fleur insists as she enchants Sacha's bag and books to smack and chase him for laughing uncontrollably at her latest rejection.

Adding insult to injury, there are titters of disbelief among the dispersing Beauxbatons students. Fleur rolls her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure," Cedric teases, accepting Cho's kiss of greeting and bidding Fleur goodbye.

Fleur trails Sacha to a courtyard but he manages to give her the slip and hastens back to the carriage. Not long after, Hermione arrives.

"Now I have a detention."

Forcing her attention from the Clock Tower's pendulum, Fleur's gaze finds Hermione's over the chime signaling the end of classes and the bustle of students fleeing to their breaks. After a week spent so closely in one another's company, it's safe for Fleur to wager that look of high dudgeon is not feigned. Though she's often found with troublemakers, Fleur has a strong inkling Hermione was quite protective of her own academic record.

Or, perhaps, in light of their Ministry misadventure, just her leisure time. Hermione mutters something about inconveniences and sneaks.

"That is not much like you." They set off for the grounds, passing a line of curious Hufflepuffs on the way back from Herbology. "May I ask why?"

"Why? I'll tell you. Someone knows we went to Hogsmeade," says Hermione, "and went running to Professor McGonagall about it."

"We were not very subtle, Hermione," Fleur points out, entering the Stone Circle. That had been the plan...to be seen together. To be noticed. "If I recall, you were not so—judicious when you said 'sneak into the village' and 'secret passageway'. Any Ravenclaw could've reported you."

"Perhaps one of your classmates from Beauxbatons said something."

"Possibly."

Fixing her scarf, Hermione is still grumbling about her apparently awful morning. Fleur follows along.

"...and finally, after all that, some idiot asked me for advice on how to chat you up!"

"And what did you say?"

"To stuff it!" Hermione shakes her head in disgust. "That's the fourth person to ask me after Patricia Stimpson and Lucian Bole, and I'm sick of it."

So is Fleur, all acclimations aside.

In no mood to spar with Hermione in a battle of wills and wits, nor defend her boldest admirers, Fleur changes the subject. "Buck up," she commands, easing down a steep bank of the Black Lake with an arm spread crosswise to keep her balance, "and tell me of your progress so far."

Losing the thread of her irritation like steam pouring out of a kettle, Hermione concedes.

Over a fortnight, their journey across the grounds becomes a routine. Fleur feels less and less bound to timetables and former obligations now that they managed to survive what Mintumble could not; instead, there is a selfsame relief in the act of bowing her head and playing her role of champion as there is to pursuing unpredictability and plotting out new paths. Between lessons, revising, and idling away the days among friends, Fleur meets Hermione whenever possible to talk and to tutor, where, true to her word, Fleur offers Hermione a syllabus (but no quizzes, to Hermione's dismay). Before proceeding further into more advanced magic, Fleur introduced Hermione to a litany of spells better found in the sixth-year curriculum. Soon, Hermione masters the Gouging Spell, the Fire and Water-Making Spells, the Descending Charm, and the Slowing Charm.

"Arresto Momentum!"

A stone sinks gently into the water and disappears into the depths. Hermione looks pleased with herself.

"Now," Fleur declares, smiling, "we move on."

Her sessions with Hermione have grown to be the better part of Fleur's days. An excellent student, Hermione is predictably thorough and brimming with questions, not only about practical applications of each spell but theoretical ones too. Fleur answers what she can and notes what she can't until they can track down the solutions in the library. They review magical theory exhaustively before getting into the brass tacks of posture, wand movement, incantations, concentration, and intention. Halfway through the third meeting and observing Hermione conjure a jet of water from nothing does Fleur realize why they're so appealing: she's taken at her word. Taken seriously. Her advice has weight and meaning. She's trusted.

"Already?" Hermione asks, failing to hide her eagerness. "What's next?"

"Nonverbal magic, I think."

"You think?"

As if the anticipation might kill her at any moment, Hermione adopts a beseeching look. Fleur laughs and relents.

"I know." She sets down her book and approaches Hermione, hearing pebbles clatter beneath her feet. "The first step is to free your mind of—"

"If you're just winding me up to...I don't know, start emptying my thoughts, or thinking of a happy memory, I already know what to do with both of those. Harry taught me how to do a Patronus Charm and I've read about Occlumency when he was having all those bad dreams about Voldemort."

Dumbledore's Army certainly wasn't idle during their run at Hogwarts. Impressed, Fleur files away the information for later.

"Check," Hermione says.

In Fleur's distraction, Hermione's resumed their little game. Outmaneuvered, Fleur is forced to answer.

"This kind of magic is not about emptying your mind like one does a cauldron," she scolds. "Nonverbal magic requires focus and feeling, not an absence of either. When I say to clear your mind, this is a suggestion to help you. We have a long way to go before you can perform spells as I do."

"Okay, okay!"

At Fleur's behest, Hermione closes her eyes.

"Good." Fleur circles Hermione now. "Relax. Take in this place. Let it calm you." She gestures, though Hermione can't see it, to the bank along the lake that became their place of practice. Not far from the gamekeeper's cabin and the Beauxbatons carriage, Fleur likes the peacefulness it provides, and better yet, its privacy. "You have been taught to access the magic in your blood with the use of a wand. What I ask is this...what must you do to cast a spell? Tell me in the simplest terms. Though it may not seem so," she amends, "this is the path to nonverbal and wandless magic."

"I think of a spell," Hermione answers, "then I cast it."

"What else?"

Hermione pauses, clearly deliberating something that has become second nature and therefore almost undefinable. "I...focus my magic?"

"Focus, yes, but not simply your magic." Hermione's eyes open to follow Fleur's movements, drawn to the distraction and helping Fleur's point. "Any spell you wish to cast needs your complete attention. It needs all your wanting. You must demand it. I know you have improved your skills over the past five years at Hogwarts with your place at the top of your class, but I am looking for more than that, Hermione. Do you understand why yet?"

"No..."

"No?" Fleur changes tack. "Then you must tell me of the very first magic you have ever done. Perhaps that shall make it clearer to you."

"My first—before Hogwarts, you mean? When I was a child?"

Fleur nods, pauses, and smugly spots her chance to retaliate. "Check."

"Well..." Embarrassment floods Hermione's face, intriguing Fleur rather too quickly. "Right. I remember. I wanted a piece of candy, erm, very badly."

Fighting an urge to grin, Fleur motions for Hermione—and the game—to go on.

"My parents are dentists, you see. They tend to people's teeth, so they've always been, erm, rather strict about sweets. One day, my mother and I went shopping at the market..." Hermione wrings her hands. "A girl at school had told me about these—these Aero bars, the chocolate ones with bubbles inside, like the kind you'd sooner find in a fizzy drink. Of course, I wasn't allowed to have fizzy drinks, either," Hermione says ruefully. "Anyway, I begged and begged for the candy for so long that my mum had to scold me. When she turned her back to get something else...I took it."

"Without touching it?"

"Sort of," Hermione admits. "I stomped my foot and every shelf in the aisle collapsed onto the floor. All the candy I could ever want flew to me."

Failing to restrain her giggles, Fleur imagines a pint-sized Hermione, bushy hair bristling with indignation. "A lion all along, weren't you?"

Redder than her scarf, Hermione just smiles and shuts her eyes again, more readily than before. "Is that enough?"

"It is plenty." There's no way to know if that was the first sign of Hermione's powers, but Fleur doubts it. The Grangers may've kept quiet. That kindles Fleur's curiosity, though. Are Mr. and Mrs. Granger as outspoken as their daughter? As brave? Fleur will ask of them another day. "You can remember the day and what you did. Now, you must remember how you felt. Do not think of the shame of doing something wrong," she advises, approaching Hermione to lay a hand on each shoulder, "but of the sheer wonder of the magic itself. You recall that, don't you? The...excitement?"

Try as Fleur might to ignore it, allusions of her wonder and her excitement about Hermione are never far from the witch in question.

Hermione's eyes flutter below closed lids. "Yes," she breathes, reminding Fleur inexplicably of a girl waiting for a kiss. Flushing, Fleur loosens her grip and steps back. "I was so...amazed. Not scared about it, really," Hermione murmurs, a smile resting on her mouth. Fleur looks higher, retreating from whatever train of thought that image produces, only to meet Hermione's gaze as she opens her eyes. That's more arresting than any spell, though, so Fleur gazes back and listens without interruption. "It was like I was Mary Poppins. Or Matilda Wormwood! You have no idea..."

Lost in thought, Hermione doesn't finish.

"I do not know this Mademoiselle Poppins, nor Wormwood," Fleur says finally, "but think of your feelings and nothing else. Let them fill you up like a fizzy drink." She clears her throat. "That is your next assignment, Hermione. Find moments in the day to clear your mind and think only of what you feel. The magic in you bends to your will. It is only a matter of directing the path, whether it be with the use of your wand or simply yourself."

Trekking back to the castle as the sky darkens, Fleur and Hermione spy Viktor on a jog. He waves on the pass-by, pursued by a score of suitors.

"They do not seem to like you," Fleur observes, rebuffing the group's glares with a scowl of her own.

"Viktor asked me to the Ball again," Hermione admits, trying to sound matter-of-fact instead of pleased. "They're disappointed."

Before long, the conversation shifts to another subject without her notice. This little lark has a drawback—which is to say, Fleur's interest in learning all she can about Hermione crops up more rapidly and insistently than alihotsy trees, and at worryingly inopportune moments. It is very worrying, the interest, because it imbues Fleur with an awareness of Hermione that goes beyond memorizing quirks for the sake of understanding them. Somehow she feels as if she is hunting for an answer to a problem like she did in the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes. In the end, the fruits of her labor were always a defeated curse, untangled and decoded for all to see, yet this awareness Fleur still cannot decipher nibbles at the edges of her thoughts and words like a pest that is not close enough to catch, making her pulse quicken and her heart hammer...

"Fleur?"

"What?"

"Don't you find it strange, I said?" Hermione repeats, undeterred. She presses closer, linking their arms at the elbow as the wind bears down and roars like a dragon. Two weeks have gone by since Hermione's detention and she's still complaining about it. "Only Harry and I had to write lines."

"Not Ronald?" Fleur asks.

"No! Professor McGonagall didn't punish Ron, or Fred, or George, or anybody else because she only heard about us—Harry and I."

Hearing an implication too ambiguous for her liking, Fleur sighs and steps farther into the Entrance Hall. "Just say what you mean, Hermione."

No sooner do they reach the queue milling in front of the Great Hall for supper does Neville Longbottom hurry over, clutching a newspaper.

Under the pressure of a distant Ginny's eyes boring into the back of his head, urging him on, he mumbles, "Have you...s-seen the Prophet yet?"

"Not yet," Fleur means to say, but Hermione's already snatched the paper from Neville, ripped it open, scanned the page, and dragged Fleur away.

"Wh—allo?" Fleur demands, having half a mind to dig in her feet like a hippogriff if not for the sudden fear leeching strength from her body. What portent of fate has shown up in the Daily Prophet now? Mulciber asking for a new wand? Travelers from their alternate timeline, begging for help?

Marching past the Grand Staircase until she faces a portrait of a man named Percival Platt, Hermione snaps, "This password is absurd!"

"Just like your wretched school," Fleur would've snarked back, if the portrait hadn't creaked and revealed another secret passageway. Really?

"What I mean," Hermione finally insists, pushing Fleur through the portrait's door and clambering in after her, "is someone is watching us, Fleur."

"The whole castle is watching us!" Fleur exclaims, stomping her foot. What in Fulcanelli's name is Hermione talking about? "This was the plan!"

Thanks to the grand plan, her fears are ebbing away by the day. Nightmares—fewer and fewer still—leave her so terrified of what's come she can't speak; dreams engulf Fleur in a haze much like the reaction to an Elixir to Induce Euphoria if she thinks of all the things they can achieve together.

Their first strike at unity was a success, but not a resounding one. Shyer than they will be at the Yule Ball, the schools closed ranks again, with a few exceptions, like Fleur and Hermione joining one another for meals, sometimes accompanied by a friend or two, their chats in the corridors between classes, and the hours spent with Viktor or Roger, respectively. Fleur and Hermione don't speak of anything important in public, truly; Fleur uses this time amusing herself by voicing complaints in Hermione's ear where she can't retaliate without squandering their new camaraderie. Hermione whispers about the things she'd like to learn about, if Fleur knows of them (Fleur's taken to keeping an ever growing list). Fleur appreciates these meetings as much as their lessons, though, because they offer an illusion of confidence. Of familiarity. She pictures the obvious inquiry with ease: What does Fleur Delacour possibly have to say to Hermione Granger? Well, a coy Fleur would reply, wouldn't you like to know?

They find places to be found, letting gossip spread like a pox. The courtyard is for public discussions. The covered bridge if they want to stretch their legs. The lake if they want to relax. The Shrieking Shack for subjects of upmost secrecy. Fleur begins relying on the routine, relishing in the moment of reprieve only Hermione can offer and with her, a sense of exclusive intelligibility. You, these discussions say, can speak my language.

It's all no longer an illusion, however. They are getting as familiar as they pretend to be (or so Fleur hopes) and the occupants of the castle are watching it all. They murmur when Hermione steers Fleur away from her friends to ask a question, never once hesitating to wind her hand around Fleur's arm. They gawk when Fleur begins greeting Hermione with kisses to both cheeks, offering a custom given to none outside Beauxbatons. They try to eavesdrop when Hermione and Fleur swap books and dawdle on the staircases, thinking the other would like this text or that essay. In the interim, Fleur and Hermione watch the watchers, curious to know if their plan is working. Are the watchers entertained, they wonder, or willing to make new connections of their own? Well accustomed to scrutiny, Fleur takes these stares and whispers in stride. Hermione, apparently, less so?

With a flick of her wand, Hermione illuminates the passage. "Here."

Under Hermione's supervision and the spell's flickering radiance, Fleur finds the offending article and starts reading.

THE LADY'S FAVOR: A TRUE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT?

It seems there is another contest mounting on the grounds of Hogwarts, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Canny readers will remember one Hermione Granger, fifteen, who previously captured the heart of the Boy-Who-Lived (for full details on the affair, see my published works).

Sources close to the couple divulge the lovebirds spend so much time together, it's been suggested the precautions separating their dormitories in good old Gryffindor Tower are being reassessed in earnest. Unfortunately for Harry Potter, Hermione Granger has shown her true colors at last. This past month alone, Miss Granger was seen absconding to Hogsmeade to meet not only a certain Bulgarian Seeker, but another champion as well: Fleur Delacour. Miss Delacour, who has already attacked another student on Granger's behalf and gotten cozy with her in the Beauxbatons carriage, seems all too willing to fight Mr. Krum for Granger's fickle affections, whether it be within the walls of Hogwarts or during the next Triwizard Task.

All's fair in love and war, as these foolish Muggles like to say!

"'Gotten cozy'?" Fleur smirks. "Remind me to wear something a little more demure around you, Hermione, if Madam Skeeter is so bothered—"

"That doesn't matter!" Hermione storms farther into the passageway. Fleur follows. "I should've—she's done this before—why didn't I remember?"

"Remember...?" Fleur pulls her muffler higher over her ears, feeling a rush of cold air bouncing off the walls.

"She's an Animagus," Hermione snarls. "Skeeter. That's how she gets information out of people!"

Emerging from the passageway at and into a glass boathouse on another stretch of the lake, Fleur ponders upon Rita Skeeter. Their interview had been brief and unremarkable, giving Fleur the impression that Skeeter was barely listening to her speak at all—and why would she, when Harry Potter himself sat so near and so nervously on the other side of the room? Articles penned during the Tournament didn't overmuch concern Fleur either, aside from the appalling news about Rubeus Hagrid's parentage and the amusing tall tale (?) of Harry, Hermione, and Viktor's entanglement.

"That is how she found us in Hogsmeade?"

"Yes." Hermione looks even angrier than she did in the Shrieking Shack. "And she's not registered with the Ministry, so she's never noticed."

"And how did you find out?"

Hermione swells like a bullfrog. "I caught her," she hisses. "In a jar, as a beetle. And I bloody well mean to do it again!"

"Ah," Fleur tries, feeling a tad alarmed now, "do you not think this is an...unjust...overreaction?" Hermione's mouth drops open, forcing Fleur to hurry up and explain, if only to propel reason back into the proceedings. And, of course, to save Hermione from a cardiac episode. "We have our own columnists in France such as, ah, Bertrand Launier, and with his work, one knows to simply to feed the words to your crups and bundimuns—"

"Fleur, I don't care about Bertrand Launier, I care about Rita Skeeter. Did you know, because of her, nobody believed Harry?"

Nausea worms its way into Fleur's belly as if it never left, souring any earlier cheer or indignation in an instant.

"Explain."

"Skeeter's articles laid the foundation for Fudge and Umbridge." Hermione bypasses old netting and stained buoys in a walk so furious that Fleur must step hastily out of the way. "By the Third Task, Harry's reputation was ruined. The whole wizarding world thought Harry was going mad or becoming a Dark wizard himself or spouting lies for attention, as I'm sure you remember," she fumes, hands curling into fists. "That's all thanks to Skeeter. If she hadn't been eavesdropping on us, on Hagrid, on anyone, Harry's story coming out of the maze would've been taken seriously."

Fleur swallows, trying not to think of Cedric's still body on the grass, Harry's weeping, or Cho's quiet gasp of horror. "Cedric's death would not be called an accident," she suggests faintly, following one consequence its logical conclusion. It is all so very logical now, if not another risk...

"Exactly."

"I saw a beetle, that day," Fleur recalls, latching on to something inconsequential, just for a minute, to breathe. "Near Viktor."

"She's always lurking. In the fountain at the Yule Ball, at the docks during the Second Task...she even flew to Harry's classroom! Anything to get the scoop. Well, that won't be happening again," she growls, so angry that Fleur is grateful for boathouse's privacy, "because we're going to stop her."

"We are?"

This isn't about Skeeter, truly, but a question of...ethics. Ethics, yes. Is it right to lay bait for the beetle if said beetle hasn't done any harm...yet? But, she allows, they're after Crouch for the same reason! His conspiracy would still exist and whirl inexorably on until You-Know-Who rose again.

Is it unjust to be so logical? So cold-blooded? They aren't living in the same world anymore, despite a near identical set dressing.

"I need your help, Fleur. Please." Hermione is bitter now, sullen, and the worst part is that she isn't having a go of Fleur. Saving Harry and Ron pushes Hermione to a level of desperation Fleur would only see in herself for Gaby, so who is she to argue? Fleur's already crossed a rather significant line jumping through time and space to right a wrong. "If we let her run amok like before, this will all be for nothing. Trust me."

Therein lay another stumbling block: Hermione Granger, who is anything but cold, who struggled to stay iron-hearted in all her planning and plotting, only to burst into the tears at the mere thought of Harry, her best friend, shouldering even more pain and fear...Fleur saw it...

Was Rita Skeeter the Exploding Snap card that would topple the rest of the house? Fleur isn't entirely sure, and so tries one last appeal.

"If we are to embark on this road, Hermione, you must be certain. This is not some jaunt into Hogsmeade, or a little plan we have brewed in a dark corner." Fleur stares Hermione down, adding this glimpse of ferocity to the tin of tidbits that she's been collecting of Hermione for almost a month. Hermione Granger does have her finer qualities—loyalty for one—but this is the third hint Fleur's seen of bleaker impulses, of pure ruthlessness. This may be first step of many to hell on a route initially boasting good intentions. "Are you sure you want to do this? Is it for the right reasons?"

Silhouetted in the light of the sunset, Hermione hesitates.

"Check," Fleur orders.

While Harry and Ron despaired over Fleur and Hermione's mutual dislike of Quidditch and wizard's chess, the borrowed board condition became a means of getting acquainted, albeit in a brusquer way than any friendship of Fleur's has ever begun. Check compelled you to answer any inquiry.

A part of Fleur still objects to the idea, but the larger counterpart is...well, fascinated. Can Fleur judge Hermione so fast when Hermione's thrown herself into danger for her best friends over and over again? Is it so astonishing because it's just one of many for a friend of the Boy-Who-Lived, a grim but crucial step into saving his life? Or is the plan so shocking, Fleur muses, because she, the supposed spy, didn't come up with it first?

No one regards what is before his feet when searching out the regions of the sky, Edgar whispers in Fleur's memory, feverishly revising for his practicum. Shouldn't she do the same? Shouldn't Fleur attend to the placement of her feet in the present, where it may count as much as their bid at international magical cooperation in the future? Troubling herself again with more questions than answers, Fleur lets them all go, waiting.

"Believe me, I'm sure. If it makes you feel any better, I'm not going to hurt her." Hermione pauses, looking mulish. "I'm just going to threaten her."

"Blackmail," Fleur corrects delicately, trying to hide her interest. To think...Harry's story not being mocked...Fleur publicly corroborating the tale with Cedric if he is willing...it sounds too good to be true, but stranger things have happened. "And...how do you intend...?" She lets the sentence drop in a sudden flare of excitement, realizing Hermione's newest plan bolsters the other—getting to Little Hangleton to witness the resurrection.

Is that a thrill creeping down Fleur's spine just now, marveling at such a show of synergy, or foreboding?

Fleur is not sure she would like to know.

"Let's figure that out together, shall we?" Hermione asks, beckoning. As always, Fleur follows.

On Friday, Fleur finds herself again in Hogsmeade, scouring the shops for inspiration.

Three weeks (or almost two years) ago, Fleur finished her Christmas shopping. Now, stuck in a bygone time, Fleur has another recipient...and no idea where to begin. What to get Hermione Granger, who grows only more complicated during the time spent together? Only more intriguing?

All in the interests of staying present, of course. How else to reconcile buying a gift for her new—and rather admirably ruthless—friend?

At Dervish and Banges, she examines Hex-a-Gones, Remembralls, scrying mirrors, and an Eye of Horus, but none of them match what Fleur's gathered of Hermione's inclinations. She lingers in Dogweed and Deathcap and Maestro's Music Shop, her efforts fruitless. Gladrags offers a nice pair of gloves, but Fleur can't bring herself to buy them. They don't match the elusive feeling she divines of Hermione, so she moves on. In Honeydukes, Fleur ponders the shelves. Had Hermione enjoyed the Ice Mice or the Wizochoc more? J. Pippin's, Ceridwen's, Scrivenshaft's, and Spintwitches are scoured to no avail. Fleur ends her afternoon at Tomes and Scrolls, weighing one book and another, frustrated, finding nothing.

Books would be welcome, but which book? Fleur sets down How to Woo Witches...after a quick scan. Definitely not.

She glances at the clock, starts, abandons the books, and dashes back onto High Street, anticipation hastening her steps. She can't be late.

Ducking into the alley beside a cauldron shop, Fleur casts a Disillusionment Charm on herself and moves until her back hits a wall made of bricks. After a few minutes of waiting, Hermione joins her, alone and nervous. "Fleur?" She whispers, moving to face the street and its oblivious shoppers.

"Right here." Fleur knocks three times along the wall in their agreed-upon code. Hermione's shoulders relax.

Soon enough, Rita Skeeter appears in ostentatious yellow robes, the letter sent off at breakfast grasped in her hand. "Miss Granger," she exclaims. "Should I be surprised you called yourself 'a friend'?" She consults the page, curls bobbing. "A friend with 'secrets worth Galleons and Galleons'?"

"You should," says Hermione. Fleur watches closely, getting ready... "You're no friend of mine."

Skeeter advances, smiling. "Then why am I here, if not to hear more about you and young Harry? My editor is waiting with bated breath."

"I'm surprised someone as pigheaded as you knows Shakespeare."

A blotch of red glows on Skeeter's face. Her smile tightens as she steps cluelessly forward again.

"Pigheaded?" Skeeter's Quick-Quotes-Quill appears between her fingers now. "Is that how you describe...hmm, Mr. Krum? For a bit of drama?"

Unseen, Fleur raises her wand. Time to spring the trap. Accio! In a flash, the quill flies into Hermione's hand.

"What—?" Rita Skeeter is furious. "Give that back to me, you stupid girl!"

"Afraid I can't," Hermione replies breezily, keeping her cool. "You're not going to need it."

"You thieving—!"

Accio! Rita's wand soars out of her bag and zooms to Hermione, who catches it. Disarmed, Skeeter goes ashen.

"I'll scream," she manages. Fleur hopes she is frightened. For all intents and purposes, Hermione did magic without moving or speaking.

"If you do," Hermione warns, "I'll tell everyone in the village that you're an unregistered Animagus."

Skeeter glances frantically over her shoulder to the street, not bothering to deny it. Coercion is sapping her courage to the quick. "How did you—?"

"It doesn't matter. What I want you to know," Hermione says, "is that if you continue to write about Harry and I, the Ministry of Magic will get an owl from me and my friends about you breaking the law." She tosses the wand back at Skeeter. "I wouldn't try anything, by the way. If I don't turn up in the Three Broomsticks with my memories intact in...oh, about two minutes, my friends will send that owl on my behalf. We have a system, you see. There's an owl coming from Gryffindor Tower, another flying from the Owlery, another from the grounds...oh, do you get it now? I needn't go on?"

Reddening with rage, Skeeter's mouth clamps shut. Chin quivering, she stows her wand back in her robes. Hermione returns the quill.

"Let's see if you can stop writing about others for a year." Hermione pretends to consider the leverage. "Break before, and it's Azkaban for you."

"What am I supposed to—?"

"You're a smart woman. Unscrupulous and cowardly and cruel, maybe, but smart. You'll figure it out." Hermione smiles broadly.

Needless to say, Skeeter is aghast over the loss of her livelihood, and Fleur? Fleur is captivated.

"I'll get you for this, Granger. In a year, you'll be begging me for a reprieve." Infuriated by Hermione's mocking yawn, Skeeter storms off.

After a minute, Fleur removes the Disillusionment Charm. "Well done, Hermione," she declares, beaming. "You were mesmerizing!"

Hermione goes pink.

With a certain awareness hovering in the periphery like a ghost, Fleur cheerfully joins Hermione in lambasting Skeeter for the rest of the afternoon.

Quicker than she expected, the end of the term stirs Hogwarts into a frenzy.

Perhaps it is Fleur's imagination, but the rumors flying about the halls seem more outlandish than last time. Not only does the tale of the Weird Sisters excite the student body again, but Fleur hears a breathless invention of Spellbound and Celestina Warbeck coming to join them. Edgar gets wind of a Honeydukes buffet and a fountain of Chocolate Frogs. Giselle and Hugo start inventing rumors themselves, like the Quiberon Quafflepunchers, the Ministers of Magic (Dumont, Fudge, Obansk, and Stefansson), and Barry Winkle attending to meet the champions. In the bedlam, Manon dares to organize an underground lottery with George. Most exciting of all is Henry and Charles and their plans for an afterparty.

"Don't mind us," Henry confides after Fleur confronts him in Arithmancy, "but we borrowed the idea from you and Hermione!"

A prefect in one life and a scofflaw in the other, Hermione is determinedly neutral on the subject, at least until Fleur has her say.

"Let it happen," she advises under her breath, studying for a Transfiguration exam she can pass in her sleep. "They are inviting anyone."

Hermione cottons on, eyes lighting up. "Without our pushing and prodding..."

It's one thing to ham-fistedly push the schools together, and yet another to see the hints of attraction sparking without help. Fleur is pleased. Teenagers are the same wherever you found them. They like meeting new people, showing off, and having fun. First the assembly in Hogsmeade, then the Yule Ball, then its imminent afterparty...she isn't sure she wants to know what happens next, beyond their meddling. Let it be a surprise.

"Indeed."

Fleur's glad to instill Hermione with some peace of mind. While Hermione now spends a great deal of her time with Fleur, she doles out almost as much for Viktor, which lead an argument with Ron. Like the rest of his peers, Ron could eventually not fail to notice Viktor so frequently (and openly, this time) in Hermione's company and assumed he was after any knowledge she may have on the clue within the golden egg or Harry himself. Thanks to a screaming match in the courtyard, the details of which were spread gleefully throughout the castle by Peeves, the story was known to most by the end of the day. Now Harry was splitting his time in half to see both of his best friends, Hermione was dining exclusively among Beauxbatons and Ravenclaw students, and Ron was going out of his way to avoid Fleur, perhaps fearing a retribution as bad as Draco Malfoy's (in fact, her wrath had been stalled only by Hermione's pleas, forcing Fleur to settle for following Ron with her eyes and letting his imagination do the rest). But the argument concerned Hermione for different reason; much to Fleur's shock, she learned that the fight had come early. It was not due to happen until Christmas Eve. Fleur tries not to dwell too long on the matter, preferring to push all of her stress to the doom-like June that occupies her nightmares. Some behaviors are predictable, even destined, Ron's immaturity aside. Others, like the afterparty, are curios, meant to be celebrated, for they would not exist without deliberate interference...so she will do just that. Celebrate, make merry, and so on.

"Fleur?"

They look up. Roger Davies stands before their table, rocking back on his heels and brimming with confidence. His appearance is no surprise, but his sureness is unfamiliar. She's watched him struggle to pluck up the courage to ask her out for weeks, only to lose steam and change the subject.

"Roger," she greets, setting the notes aside. "What can I do for you?"

"I—"

Never fond of interruptions, whatever face Hermione is presumably making behind Fleur's back while Roger is talking must not be helping much.

"—want to speak to you privately," Hermione recites under her breath, irritably collecting her things. "Find me later, Fleur, won't you?"

Before Fleur can even breathe a parting syllable, Hermione has strode off without a backwards glance.

Roger sits down in Hermione's abandoned seat, again bearing no trace of the nerves that belied his first invitation to the Ball, all that time ago. She had asked around of him in her last stay at Hogwarts, only for Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe to sigh in real admiration and give their stamps of approval. Roger had been a stammering mess before, so Fleur wonders what has changed. Did her more recent teasing words reach his ears?

It's appealing and rare to find immunity to the thrall, although...wasn't Roger engulfed originally? He didn't eat and barely listened to Fleur speak...

"You must've gotten a lot of invitations," Roger muses, "but I thought I'd try, despite the rumors. Would you like to go to the Yule Ball with me?"

"Y—the rumors?" Fleur asks, changing her answer mid-word.

"Well...with the Prophet...I thought you and Granger...or you and a Weasley? Cedric said you had a date, but your friend Edgar said you didn't—"

Thinking of Skeeter's rage, Fleur waves these implications away, eager to put such troubling thoughts to bed—to rest, Fleur corrects herself hastily. "Your newspapers have no integrity, Roger. Hemione is...a dear friend, that's all." She smiles at him. "I would love to attend the Ball with you."

He grins, producing a flower from inside his robes.

"Here. This made me think of you during my Herbology class yesterday..."

Fleur accepts the orchid, a bit disappointed. Boys and girls have been giving her flowers since she was a child and calling themselves clever for it, so she expected more from a Ravenclaw. Even Cerberus teased Fleur about that, later pointedly bestowing her with a honking daffodil and an atrocious limerick to accompany it before he asked her out, claiming to be different. She had only laughed, enamored, and wrote back, agreeing...

"...at eight o'clock," Roger seems to be clarifying, drawing Fleur from her reverie. She blanches. Was he talking all along?

Thoughts nowhere as clear or understood as the stack of notes on her desk, Fleur watches him go.

Thanks to the feast waiting for them at the Yule Ball, the traditional réveillon supper is held on the night of the twenty-third in the Beauxbatons carriage. They prepare the dishes themselves after a delivery of supplies from Hogsmeade, serving each other food from all corners of France. There is roast game and foie gras, pike and trout and smoked salmon, a variety of cheeses, seven meatless dishes, and of course, the thirteen desserts. Wine from Céline's family vineyard is sternly apportioned, though not without grandstanding from the aspiring actress herself. Later, Madame Maxime directs a midnight mass. Fleur and her friends sing themselves hoarse into the dawn, belting out their favorite carols. In the morning, everyone slips about the corridors on socked feet, having left their shoes in front of the fireplace for the night, where Bezants and Galleons are found in the soles, mixed amusingly with papillotes. In the hours before the Yule Ball, their merry band goes ice skating on a transfigured piece of a Hogwarts lawn, waving to the score of Gryffindors embroiled in another snowball fight. Happy yet homesick for the first time since the disaster in the Department of Mysteries, Fleur excuses herself from the others on Christmas Eve and calls home from Maxime's office.

"Fleur!" Gabrielle exclaims, darting headlong for the fireplace. "You're here!"

"And there," she jokes, making her father chuckle. He's in his finest dress robes, waiting to Apparate to Christmas dinner.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready, darling?" Louis asks, making room for Apolline as she spies Fleur and beams. "The festivities are about to begin!"

"I am. I will. I just missed all of you," Fleur admits, thinking wistfully of the visit she postponed after Snape's Patronus flew into her office.

"Don't worry, we'll be seeing you sooner than—" Louis chuckles after Apolline reprovingly nudges his side.

"Olympe swore us to secrecy, my love, don't you remember?"

"Not me," Gabrielle whispers to Fleur at the hearth, features rife with mischief in the flickers of green firelight. "I'll spoil it if you ask me...!"

Fleur feigns ignorance. "Oh? Papa, Gaby, is there something you would like to share?"

"Yes!"

"Hush, Gabrielle. Why aren't you dressed yet? Your grandmother..." With a fuss, her mother and sister wander off, arguing all the way.

"Simply this, on behalf of each of us," her father declares, blowing a kiss in farewell, "enjoy your holidays."

Cheered, Fleur retreats to her dormitory, where Céline is already dressed and hunting through her possessions for accessories. Seizing the opportunity to feel like she used to, unburdened and oblivious, Fleur dons her dress robes, smiling at the way the silvery satin sparkles in candlelight, before sitting at her vanity. Across the room, Céline meets Fleur's eyes in the mirror and holds two pairs of earrings up for her opinion.

"Emeralds." Nodding, Céline dons them carefully as Fleur puzzles over her own, debating over the pearls or the ones from her grandmother—

That's it!

She adorns the pearls and the dragonfly diadem, conjures a box for the veela pair, shrinks it to the size of a Galleon, and stuffs it in her pocket.

When everyone in the carriage has been deemed appropriately dressed for the occasion and Manon's jar of Whizzing Worms has been confiscated in aggravation by Madame Maxime, they traipse up to the castle, again led by the elephantine strides of their headmistress and Hagrid. Roger finds Fleur in the Entrance Hall, smelling pleasantly of peppermint. That is another change, albeit an enjoyable one, so Fleur isn't going to complain.

The doors open, admitting Professor Karkaroff, Hermione, Viktor, and his classmates, one of which, to Fleur's surprise, joins Emma as her date.

Emma catches her looking. "He's been admiring my charmwork since All Saints' Day," she admits in French, blushing slightly. "He wouldn't have been brave enough to ask me without your"—she makes a half-hearted gesture as if batting away her own earlier rudeness—"party in the village."

"Shall I say 'you're welcome' now or later?" Fleur asks, trying not to wince. Below her robes, the Time-Turner is warming again.

Emma smiles wryly. "Later, as long he as is gentlemanly...but I don't need to worry."

"Why not?"

"He knows how skilled I am with a wand!"

Laughing, Fleur steps back to Roger's side and returns Hermione's wave, who has caught Harry and Parvati's attention. Both are staring, offering a distraction as Fleur takes note of Hermione herself. Even she looked twice on the night of the first Yule Ball at the beauty of the girl on Viktor's arm. Upon closer inspection, Fleur was clued into her identity. That girl, she remembers thinking, the one who went everywhere with Harry Potter...

"You look beautiful, Hermione," Fleur teases in a voice so low a passing McGonagall does not hear it, "is there something different with your hair?"

"Very funny," Hermione retorts, sounding pleased all the same. Viktor glances between them, unsure whether he ought to comment or not, but there is no chance. The oak doors open and allow the champions to file in, accompanied by their dates. At the front, Roger matches Fleur stride for stride. She's been looking forward to testing his skill a second time. At the first Ball, Fleur and Roger glided across the floor as elegantly as the nymphs of Beauxbatons in their pantomimes of Swan Lake. At the table, Fleur and Hermione make a hurried change of seating arrangements, this time sitting together. On a whim, Fleur orders something different off the menu to reshape the past further. Hermione orders the pork chops.

"Going to comment on our decorations?" Hermione asks out of the corner of her mouth, lips twitching. "Like our 'ugly armor in ze 'alls'?"

"They are simply not as artistic as the like of Beauxbatons," Fleur strikes back, letting her voice carry. "Wouldn't you agree, Madame Maxime?"

"Fleur," Madame Maxime chides, although a glimmer of amusement is apparent in her eyes. "You are a guest here..."

"Forgive me, Professor Dumbledore," Fleur says. "But it is difficult to compliment the mutton when you have been living off the filet de bœuf, no?"

"I understand completely, Mademoiselle Delacour," Professor Dumbledore replies, eyes twinkling. "While I myself am fond of Hogwarts, I confess, when I first laid eyes on the Uagadou edifice, it took my breath away." Madame Maxime makes a noise of approval from behind her glass of wine.

"Dumbly-dorr, is it not magic at its finest?"

This diversion keeps Percy Weasley from yammering about Mr. Crouch, to Fleur's relief. As she listens, the Time-Turner returns, jarring and cold.

"Have you been to each of the wizarding schools, Professor?" Cho asks.

"Does Koldovstoretz really play Quidditch on uprooted trees, sir?" Cedric questions eagerly.

Fleur isn't surprised to hear affirmatives from Dumbledore, who has done it all. As Percy interjects his opinion on the matter, she leans sideways.

"Check," she whispers in Hermione's ear, who just smirks, accepting the challenge. She straightens up, searching for an opening.

"...Castelobruxo ought to be a little more recriminating, don't you think?" Percy is saying, not seeing Harry's boredom. Parvati seems to take pity and strikes up a conversation about Quidditch, which Cedric and Cho strain to hear. "My brother's ears shriveled up thanks to that boy's dirty trick!"

Having heard this tale firsthand from Bill, who found the whole thing funny, Fleur's attention drifts as she accepts a sweet from Roger's plate.

"Our friends at Mahoutokoro ought to be less admonitory." Karkaroff shakes his head. "Students are expelled if they betray that silly code of theirs!"

Unfortunately for Fleur and their mock game of wizard's chess, Hermione's entry into the debate oozes with nobility.

"The Japanese wizard's code is not unlike ours, Professor Karkaroff," Hermione ventures, drawing many eyes now, Fleur's included. "Those students are expelled if they use Dark magic, which warrants the same consequences here at Hogwarts. Personally," she adds, with something of an edge to her voice, "while I've heard wonderful things about Durmstrang from Viktor, I think your own school should take a leaf from Mahoutokoro's book."

Karkaroff's disbelieving smile does not reach his eyes. "Do tell, Miss...Granger, was it? Forgive me, I don't recall seeing your surname anywhere."

On Hermione's other side, Krum shifts in his seat, frowning at Karkaroff, no doubt hearing the same implication that Fleur does.

Just as Fleur is considering another Confundus Charm, Professor Dumbledore stands and sends the champions to the dance floor.

"Checkmate," Hermione whispers in passing, features glowing with triumph and entirely unruffled by Karkaroff. Outmaneuvered, Fleur is silent.

The first tune of the Weird Sisters starts slow, allowing Fleur and Roger to gain their bearings. Hermione whirls by with Viktor, Cho and Cedric more sedately. Harry and Parvati revolve in a small circle. Soon, the floor is flooded with new pairs, letting the champions mingle as the music shifts to something faster. Cedric and Fleur swap between Roger and Cho and back, until Edgar and Céline appear to steal Fleur and Roger away for a gavotte that goes disastrously off-beat. Viktor and Hermione are suddenly available to learn, so Fleur pulls them in too, with Edgar shouting instructions and Céline miming the steps. Fleur cannot say how long they have been dancing, but measures the time in the changes in song, in dress, in partners and passes, noting repeats of old behaviors—Harry and Ron at a table, the Patil twins dancing with Charles and Henry, Fred and Angelina's dangerous dance moves, Ludo Bagman's waltz with Professor McGonagall, Madame Maxime's spin with Professor Dumbledore—and new ones too, like Jakob sitting with Emma and making her smile, Ragna whispering a joke to Giselle and Hugo, and Sacha spiking the punch bowl.

While Roger and Viktor bustle off for drinks, Fleur watches Hermione approach Harry and Ron. Trying to listen, Fleur makes a slow circuit of the tables, greeting friends and classmates as she passes. The result involves less shouting, but Hermione storms off anyway, leaving Harry and a tetchy Ron alone. With a sigh, Fleur follows Hermione to find that she has not gone far, only to an unoccupied corner of the Entrance Hall.

"He's still a prat! I can't believe it!"

"You expected more?"

Fleur has a suspicion that Hermione hoped cooler heads would prevail, but tonight, such is not so. "I expected better," Hermione mutters, submitting to the brief hug that Fleur bestows upon her as she tries to find the right comforting words. From what Fleur has seen of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, grudges ran deep and tempers ran high. It was galling or brave to try rewriting history, though it is no surprise that Hermione made an effort. That is the intent between them, after all. "But he's still got the emotional range of a teaspoon! It's like I'm watching a rerun—"

"Ronald is still young," Fleur says, trying to be gentle with both camps. "He has no idea what you have seen and done."

"Well..." Hermione sniffs.

"I am sorry, Hermione. This was inevitable. You cannot expect the weeks here to have altered everything. Ronald will change when he is ready."

Nodding wearily, Hermione is at a rare loss. Intending to ramble on and fill the silence until necessary, Fleur's interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Are you well, Herm-own-ninny?"

Viktor and Roger stand nearby, drinks in hand.

"She was just feeling a little faint," Fleur lies, stepping partially in the way so Hermione can wipe her eyes without notice. "Too much dancing."

"Would you like to sit down and talk?" Viktor asks.

Roger asks Fleur under his breath if she'd like to walk with him in the gardens. She agrees, promising to see Hermione later, and takes Roger's arm.

In the courtyard, Professor Snape is ousting couples from steaming carriages, so they hurry hastily by, unwilling to court his wrath.

"You and Granger seem close," Roger observes after a silence.

"She has been very welcoming." With her eyes fixed on the fairies in the bushes, Fleur amuses herself with the idea. Hermione, welcoming?

Among the roses and standing before the sparkling fountain, Roger's smile gets shy. "You know, I couldn't take my eyes off you."

"I did know," she whispers back, thinking better of teasing him for his numerous failures of late to ask her to the Ball. Tonight, Roger is...Sir Luckless at the end of Beedle's tale. They even have a fountain to commemorate the evening a second time, its only magic being the wonders of a ceremonious first date. It is so very easy for Fleur to be around a boy like Roger Davies, though the appeal has been tempered. She knows exactly what to expect from him and that is...that is the problem and the whole story, back to front. Hermione's words ring in her ears now. It's still strange to me, sometimes, she had said as both of them watched Viktor depart for the ship, like you and I are reading lines and everyone else is a half step behind us. Fleur closes her eyes as Roger leans down to kiss her, no longer so keen to stay outside in the cold with him until the midnight curfew.

Ceremonious, maybe, Fleur decides, drawing back for breath, but also...disappointing? Boring. She blinks, bewildered. Yes...she was bored! Her night is proceeding almost the same as before, yet she—she has no interest in anything but its end. In the middle of another kiss, Roger hiccups.

"Roger?"

He recoils, covering his mouth with a fist. Another hiccup escapes, then a laugh. Then, more astonishingly, a yawn.

"Are you well?" Fleur asks, alarmed.

"I..." A sweat breaks out on his brow. "I was so nervous about—about tonight that I..." He coughs, stifling another ill-timed laugh. "I took a potion."

"What potion?" Fleur presses, spotting the forms of her headmistress and the gamekeeper on the other side of the fountain, talking quietly.

Sweating profusely now, Roger follows her line of vision and gulps. "Erm, the first—"

"The first?" Fleur demands in a whisper. "You took more than one?"

"I wanted tonight to go well!" Roger mops his brow. "The first was the, you know, Invigoration Draught..." For his presumption and preparedness, Fleur rolls her eyes and gestures for him to continue. "And the other, erm...your friend suggested it. Edgar. He said I should ask to you to the Ball without—without stammering, or something to that effect, so I-I made a Draught of Peace to calm myself down...I've been taking it for a week..."

"And mixing potions with contrasting natures," Fleur admonishes, seizing him by the arm and towing him away. "What were you thinking?"

"I just—wanted the night to be special," Roger mumbles as they stagger into the hall and totter for the staircase. "I didn't want to disappoint—"

"What disappoints me is your unconcern, Roger! Your Draught of Peace could've been too heavy-handed," she snaps back in disgust. "Will this have been worth all the trouble if you fell into an irreversible sleep?" She tugs him harder onto the landing. "As if I would care about—about—"

The other Roger Davies had been admiring and enthusiastic, maybe a little embarrassed by his reaction to the thrall, but Fleur hadn't minded a whit. He was one of the harmless Hogwarts boys, and after their fling, they parted on good terms. This Roger is...duplicitous. Thinking hard, Fleur struggles to get him up another step. Perhaps she ought to forget about their imagined web and its lure of a better future. Nothing is ever so easy or so simple as it seems, and as a Curse-Breaker, she should've known better. The flies in the web aren't stupid. They all reacted to Fleur and Hermione in different ways, countering actions and plans and words as they saw fit. This journey backwards feels closer to a shattered vase than time waves or that Muggle moth theory, Fleur judges, glancing sidelong at the consequences of one teasing comment and Edgar's well-meant advice. Every advance scatters another part of the vase, creating new paths from its branching cracks and complicating the route ahead. There is no telling how the pieces will land, or if they can be repaired at all, or if they will hurt someone on the way down, like herself, or Hermione, or Harry...

Gazing at Roger's blotchy, miserable face, Fleur can no longer remember what drew her eye to him in the first place.

"Of course you would care! Your—your thrall only affects the most willing, the most qualified! Trust me, I know, I've read all about it!"

"Do not speak of what you do not understand, you careless, idiotic boy!"

"Come off of it!" Roger protests, panting. "Of all people, you picked me! You could have anybody you wanted! I didn't want to ruin my chance!"

"Your...chance...to...what?" Fleur asks in a hiss, despite knowing perfectly well what he means. Quailing in fear, he is silent.

"What is the meaning of this, Miss Delacour?"

Madam Pomfrey has bustled out of her office, drawn to the new noise in the Hospital Wing. Fleur shoves a punch-drunk Roger at her. He stumbles.

Pomfrey catches Roger by the elbow and eases him into a chair, looking scandalized.

"This foolish boy has mixed a Draught of Peace and an Invigoration Draught," she snarls, by now halfway to the door. "You must excuse me."

With Pomfrey's lecture already off to a flying start, Fleur takes her leave.

When Fleur finally returns to the Great Hall, having walked the length of the ground floor twice to abate her anger, the Yule Ball is almost over. The Weird Sisters are finishing a set of torch songs, lamenting their ill luck in love. Couples sway contentedly together on the dance floor, whispering.

Hardly able stand the sight of them, she sits down beside Céline.

"Fleur?" Céline asks, glancing her way as best she can without taking her eyes from Myron Wagtail. "What's the matter?"

"This isn't what I expected it to be," Fleur admits for lack of a better answer, hating, besides the latter part of her evening, how much easier it is to lie to Céline now. She lies so quickly that these evasions are out of her mouth before they register as wise, or right, and to Fleur's eternal shame, her best friend believes them all. But...how else to explain—everything? How and where to begin a story that is unfolding as fancifully as Beedle's The Fountain of Fair Fortune? With the Time-Turner, Fleur would say, increasingly desperate, but then she would have to go into detail, because, no, of course she can't leave out Harry Potter, or his false vision, or You-Know-Who, or Sirius Black, or Cedric Diggory dying in the first place—

No, Fleur has to settle for sharing the abridged version. "Roger was not who I...thought," she says after a beat.

"Come with us," Céline consoles, wresting her gaze from her favorite singer. "We got greenhouse five for the afterparty."

"Thank you, but I think I will be turning in." In vain, Fleur tries to recall the earlier cheer. "I should be working on the golden egg."

"You work too hard," Céline points out with affection, pushing the plate of truffles at Fleur. "Take a break. Eat something. Be merry!"

Fleur's reply is drowned out by Hermione, for which she is grateful.

"All right?" Hermione asks, out of breath. Céline smiles politely at the interruption, and a bit wider as Viktor shows up.

"Will you dance with me again, Herm-own-ninny?"

"I need to rest my feet," Hermione groans. "Do you lot dance like this at your schools all the time?"

They nod and murmur assent. The Weird Sisters, meanwhile, round up for their last number with a melody so fast that the tables seem to jump.

"Oh, I love this song," Céline sighs, looking around hopefully for Edgar. Ever the gentleman, Viktor offers his arm.

"You do not mind?" He asks Hermione, heedful of Céline, who looks as if she'll combust like a Filibuster firework if she doesn't dance soon.

"Go ahead, I'll stay with Fleur," Hermione says. They do. Finding the truffles not to her liking, Fleur pushes the plate away.

"Viktor is lucky that it is almost midnight. That girl can dance all night."

Hermione rests her chin on her hand, eyes probing. "Are you okay? You seem..."

"This was not the Christmas I was expecting." Fleur tries not to be so sour. "Did you know the people in our little web have wills of their own?"

"They do." Hermione is sympathetic and watchful and not at all hesitant to inch her chair closer to Fleur's so they may talk with some semblance of privacy in such a crowded hall. Fleur's stomach uncoils, buckling eagerly to the intimacy of Hermione's knowing and Hermione's understanding of what she may be thinking, as opposed to Ron and Harry and Viktor and the degrees of nearness she will allow them, at least until they are caught up to their own time. Somehow it is Fleur that will get a better view of her secrets, a keener vantage point of her worries, and a front row seat to her fears and hopes. "Can I help you in some way?" Hermione asks. She eyes the plate of truffles for a second, eyes brightening. "Come with me."

"What?"

Hermione offers her hand. For a long and thrilling moment, Fleur almost expects them to head onto the dance floor themselves, but she is instead brought elsewhere, first into the Entrance Hall for the umpteenth time in many hours, and then past the staircase, to a door on the left side. The corridor, brightly lit with torches and decorated with paintings of food, baffles Fleur. Fingers still intwined with Fleur's, Hermione reaches with her free hand and—tickles one? Just as Fleur is about to laugh, incredulous, the pear shivers, chuckling, and lifts out of its frame to become a handle.

"Your Hogwarts is—"

"Mad, I know," Hermione says cheerfully, and pulls the handle so they may enter yet another of the castle's secret passageways. Only after Fleur has clambered through and righted herself on her feet does she see they are not in a passageway at all but the cavernous Hogwarts kitchens where a cadre of squeaky-voiced house elves run to greet them. Hermione bends to greet the nearest one, smiling. "Hello, Dobby. It's good to see you."

"Dobby is pleased to see Hermione Granger, miss!" As Fleur puzzles over how they met, he asks, "How may we be of service to you and...?"

"Mademoiselle Delacour!" Another elf squeaks, giving a deferential bow. She inclines her head in reply.

"Actually, I've forgotten to give Fleur here a Christmas present..." Swatting away Fleur's indiscreet attempt to waylay her, Hermione smiles again. "And I know it's short notice—I see you've been working hard all evening at our meals for the Ball—on that note, the pork chops were delicious—"

There is a chorus of appreciation.

"I suppose I wondered if you could...erm, whip something up for Fleur? A little taste of home? Within reason, obviously..."

Unbidden, Fleur lets out a breath. That awareness gnaws at her mind again, just out of reach, shrouded like a test answer she cannot remember.

"Certainly, miss!"

"It would be Dobby's pleasure!"

Over a hundred pairs of eyes move to Fleur, who cannot think of a single thing she'd like to eat. Anything but heavy Hogwarts food, hurry!

"Niniche," she blurts out at last. "Niniche bourdeaux. Not the one from Quiberon. It is a chocolate fondant, but with a...a caramel—"

More squeaks. At least one house-elf knows how to prepare it. The group scurries away to assist. Hermione glances at Fleur, smiling sheepishly.

"Forgive me, I really did forget. Who knew traveling through time would put a whole holiday out of your mind?"

Fleur retrieves the box from her pocket, returns it to its proper size, and presses it into Hermione's palm. "I did not, but you have my forgiveness."

They find seats by one of the dozen fireplaces, keeping out of the way of the goings-on. Hermione pulls the earrings out of the box, eyes wide.

"They are veela blessed," Fleur explains. "You will catch whatever is said after your name in a perimeter of...this castle, perhaps. I supposed they would be helpful during your adventures with Harry and Ronald, but beware," she warns, wagging a finger, "you won't always like what you hear."

"Fleur..." To Fleur's horror, Hermione's eyes well up. "I don't know how to..." She sucks in a deep breath, composing herself. "Thank you."

"It was my pleasure," Fleur soothes. "Let them be put to use. My grandmother did not consider that I hear enough about myself without them—"

"Oh no, I can't!" Hermione protests, only stilling when Fleur's hands cover hers. "They're a family heirloom, Fleur, I couldn't possibly..."

"You will. It is terribly rude to refuse a gift from a veela. Or a Frenchwoman."

"But you aren't a veela."

"No," Fleur agrees, all too gladly, "lucky for me. Still, I would like you to have them. They were going to waste in my jewelry box."

Her candy arrives. She waits until they are out of earshot of the elves to remark that it wasn't quite what she expected.

"Oh, Fleur," Hermione sighs, rolling her eyes with exasperation and more fondness than Fleur dared to expect, "never change."

In their absence, the Great and Entrance Halls are empty, save for Peeves in the rafters, who is crooning a Weird Sisters ballad to himself. It's past curfew. Hermione walks Fleur to the front doors and pushes one open, allowing wintry air into the threshold. Snowflakes catch in their hair.

In the moonlight, Hermione's eyes and gifted earrings sparkle like flashbulbs. Details Fleur's catalogued and later ignored pop back into focus.

That awareness of Hermione is finishing its shape now, unraveling the secret like spools of ribbon below the doorway's sprigs of mistletoe, until...

Oh.

Traitorously decoded, Fleur's heart is hammering again.

"Happy Christmas, Fleur," Hermione says, smiling again as she eases Fleur down by the elbow, as is her wont. This time, she presses a kiss to Fleur's cheek instead of confiding a secret in her ear, leaving Fleur with a giddiness like Roger's and no desire to laugh. No, she wants...wants—

"Joyeux Noël, Hermione," Fleur murmurs, thoughts at last tellingly and terrifying clear, and flees.

Chapter Text

Much to Fleur's chagrin, Boxing Day provides no opportunities for the rest she so desperately wanted after the Yule Ball.

Instead, the source of her unrest asks to meet in the Shrieking Shack...at seven in the morning. In the end, Fleur is not pleased, though her complaints are begrudgingly swallowed thanks to Hermione's foresight to bring both a cafetière and a desire to practice the Refilling Charm.

"Is this a custom in Britain?" Fleur must ask, grumpy. "Waking one another at an ungodly hour after a holiday?"

Topping off the cup thrust in her direction after a mutter and a flick of her wand, Hermione shakes her head.

"Not quite, but you and I needed to talk."

"Regarding...?"

Neither weary nor wicked, rest was elusive for Fleur in the hours following the festivities. Try as she might, her mind wouldn't shut down, and in the brief reprieve between the Ball and this meeting, she had glared up at the ceiling of her bedroom, fruitlessly seeking answers different than the ones she already knew. In a better humor, Fleur would've smiled at so much thinking, shaken her head, and compared herself to Hermione, but—

Best not, she mused again and again, struggling to keep her thoughts from wandering in that direction. In Hermione's direction. In her mind, Fleur tied imaginary bows and braids, as if her thoughts were a ship moored on a stormy sea. She built hedges, trapping her discovery in the middle of a maze. She cloaked the musings in a fog, hiding, hiding...at least until Hermione crossed her mind, by chance or by coincidence, and at once, the fastenings would unravel. Each time, Fleur was back to where she began, in a bad mood, brooding over an infatuation that wouldn't disappear.

But each time, tossing and turning, she wondered what exactly it was she was so afraid of.

Fleur had pulled at those threads all night, poring over everything. Curse-Breaking required the same discipline, the same thoroughness. While Aurors trailed Dark wizards for days, piecing together clues of their whereabouts like Muggle inspectors with leads, Curse-Breakers did all that and more, because most curses emerged from a state of mind that was not happy, not content with their lot, and certainly wicked and weary. Curse-Breakers had to track down the casters as well, where Fleur wondered why any wizard would be weary or wicked when they lived in a world of magic and possibility, but the longer she stayed in England and saw the forces of You-Know-Who gathering strength, the more obvious the answer became: some people just wanted more. More of this, more of that, more of life, more of wealth, or what have you. It was innate, that wanting.

Now it is Fleur who wants more, but first she must follow her own wending logic, one painstaking footfall after another.

When did it start? Fleur didn't know. She had the who, a what, and the where. She even had the why, and it was that question poised to rip the secret to shreds, because ascertaining why—why she, Fleur, liked Hermione more than she had ever thought or wanted—was so easy. Rather, Fleur moped, the question ought to be changed. It was not a why, but a why not. Why not like Hermione Granger, who was at times so passionate that she put all of her peers to shame? Why not Hermione, who hardly ever hesitated to speak her mind, who made a point to recognize house-elves by name, who did whatever she could to get her way, whether it be jumping backward in time or browbeating a bully into submission? Why not?

That was a compelling question, so compelling that Fleur wasted a long while reimagining that mistletoe kiss before she came to her senses.

In the present, Hermione marks her place and sets a biography on Zygmunt Budge aside.

"Our progress so far, and the Tournament! Can't leave those late, can we?"

Luckily for Fleur, a number of other reasons existed for the why not question, and she was all too happy to oblige them. By sunrise, after hours of stewing sleeplessly over the problem, she had a new plan, albeit one less grander than the likes of which she supported lately. For the rest of the year, Fleur'll do what anyone with common sense would do in her shoes: she was going to put her head in the sand and wait for it to go away.

As usual, Hermione appears all but immune to tiredness, and barrels onto business.

"...know you want to get to the graveyard, but how?" Hermione asks, assailing the logistical problems of Fleur's idea as if she's been dying to for weeks. "You won't be able to Apparate from inside the maze, and Harry will get the Cup if we're still...you know," she whispers, unable to verbalize what Fleur's come to think of as a death march for Harry, despite his escape. "We can't call the Knight Bus or Floo anywhere, and with a Portkey—"

"Then I must make myself a Portkey."

Crookshanks and Hermione seem to wear the same incredulous expression. "Make a Portkey? Do you know how?"

"I shall take a leaf from your book," says Fleur, "and read."

"I highly doubt the library will have anything about that."

"Not even in the Restricted Section?"

While Hermione pauses, impeded by the possibility, Fleur busies herself with a fresh cup of coffee.

"Fine, you can try making a Portkey, but we should test it a few times before the Third Task, just to be safe."

"Fine."

"You should be able to carry it on your person," Hermione muses, airing another problem after one moment and crafting its solution in the next, more or less talking to herself. Fleur listens closely. "Like the stolen wands, and the box with your grandmother's earrings...it ought to be inconspicuous, or they'll confiscate it and name you a cheater...and I for one don't want to find out what happens to a disqualified champion..."

"Another piece of jewelry?" Fleur suggests, sidestepping that grim prospect. Cheating is one thing, getting caught is another. "I have many options."

"Let's sort that detail out later." Hermione shakes her head again. "Transfiguring the object will be the easiest part, I'm afraid."

Transportation and transfiguration, regrettably, do become their simplest quandaries.

"You can't be seen," Hermione reminds Fleur, pacing the parlor and wringing her hands, "by anyone. They'll kill you just like they did Cedric."

"I remember. In Harry's own words." Kill the spare. She and Bill spent an afternoon discussing The Quibbler interview, debating what they would've done or felt. After her first true glimpse of war in the Department of Mysteries, well, Fleur can't say she would've done any better than Cedric had.

"What were you thinking to do?"

"Another Disillusionment Charm should keep me hidden. With the graves, I will not be spotted."

"You're forgetting Nagini..."

"Then I will watch out for her," Fleur answers, starting to feel annoyed. "This snake is no dragon. I shall bewitch her to sleep."

Looking dubious, Hermione lets that go, marshaling the next volley at the speed of light. Fleur lowers her cup, keen to keep pace. "Let's talk about your performance in the Second Task. You are going to lose again, aren't you? That's the only way to determine the order of entry into the maze."

"I cannot very well ask the grindylows to attack me again, Hermione, but yes, I will try. I will cut myself to ribbons if I must."

Not happily. This was a task Fleur hated for many reasons. In the cold, in the dark, it won't be a game to her. It will be real.

"You needn't be so drastic—" Hermione tries, abashed.

"The other world still exists, Hermione," Fleur adds, talking louder to discourage interruptions, "with that Harry and that Gabrielle. I do not forget my debts." Two Gabrielles, done and due to be saved by a pair of Harry Potters. The prospect sits strangely with Fleur. Are Harry's deeds as noble and true if she and Hermione manipulate the conditions behind the scenes and pull at strings? After a moment's thought, Fleur decides they are.

Following a pause spent checking their tempers, the talks continue and jump ahead.

"Then," Hermione prompts, "Voldemort returns. You—and maybe Cedric—are nearby. How do you get close enough to Harry to escape?"

"We run."

Hermione is quick to conjure up another worry.

"Say you do let Harry get the Cup..." Her brow furrows. "Crouch has Imperiused Viktor, and Cedric is a...wild card, if you will. That doesn't leave you with a lot of time to get to the graveyard if you're avoiding all three of them. You'll need a whole lot of luck to pull this off—to pull everything off."

"Yes." They share a sigh. "And Crouch will still try to remove me whether or not I am successful."

"So we find a spell for that too." Hermione combs through the pile of books, bushy hair spilling into her eyes. "A way for you to know where he is on his patrol of the maze...perhaps a charm...?" Fleur watches the rest of the process without catching another word, far too absorbed in her study.

The new plan is not going well.

In the lull, she changes the subject, desperate for a break from both dilemmas sooner than she expected. "Tell me of your progress," Fleur orders now, clearing her throat. Amidst the ups and downs surrounding the Yule Ball, they haven't had a session in almost a week. "Did you practice?"

"Some," Hermione admits, sounding reluctant to confess to anything less than her typically stellar work, "but I'm having a bit of trouble."

"What troubles you?" Fleur asks, standing. Hermione follows. They share these too: a liking to solve problems, a liking of their lessons.

"My focus. And not saying the spells aloud. It's difficult...and bloody tempting," Hermione adds, frowning.

In the face of such entertaining disappointment, Fleur does her best to look stern. "You are still mouthing the words?"

"Of course I am! That's how I was taught. I can't just throw that away, Fleur. It takes time to learn." Hermione pauses, dismayed. "Even for me."

Fleur is smiling in her approach, and, unable to help herself, already reaching for Hermione and clapping a hand over her mouth. "I could cast Oscausi on you," Fleur supposes. Hermione gazes back at her, eyes narrowing. "You would have no problem casting nonverbal spells after that..."

"Very funny," Hermione says, voice muffled.

"Unfortunately, Hermione, we cannot proceed until this wall is felled." Fleur lets go and steps back. "Try again. Close your eyes. I will direct you."

"We should be hammering out the details of our next move," Hermione chides, although this point is mumbled rather feebly.

"But it is so 'bloody tempting' to try this, is it not?"

"It is." Another concession, delivered behind a rueful sigh. "We're going back to the other thing later, all right? It's important."

"Of course," Fleur assures, pressing her advantage. "After this and our lunch. I see no purpose in plotting on an empty stomach. C'est impossible."

"You're moving the goalposts..." Hermione protests, lips twitching. Tension leaves her shoulders in waves, pleasing Fleur.

"That I am. Let us begin."

Midday comes and goes without any significant progress made, perturbing both parties. Hermione, oddly enough, cannot stay focused.

Nor can Fleur, for different reasons.

When they join the boys along the Gryffindor benches, Harry and Ron are already tucking into their meal. Tensions are also eased here, Fleur observes, watching Ron and Hermione from the corner of her eye as they greet each other like diplomats and act as if the Ball never happened.

"Did you enjoy the dance, Fleur?" Harry asks between bites. Hermione disappears behind a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Not as much as I hoped, save for the end."

"Neither did we," Ron says, forgetting his usual fluster and Fleur's past hostility. "My brother went on and on about the Ministry with Bagman..."

"You have more brothers than the twins?" Fleur asks, feigning ignorance. Seated on Ron's other side, Ginny snorts.

"Three. Bill, Charlie, and Percy. Percy was the one at your table, filling in for Mr. Crouch. Talked your ears off, I bet..."

"And where is Monsieur Crouch?" Fleur asks to maintain appearances, thinking of the curt little man who haunted the proceedings of her exchange.

"On leave," Harry says, sliding an empty plate toward Fleur. "He's still sending letters to Percy. There's a bug going around, I reckon."

"A 'bug'?"

"Ginny was just telling us a friend of hers is probably sick," Harry explains. "Luna Lovegood. Another disappearing act. Maybe she caught a cold?"

"We don't get ill like Muggles," Ron interrupts, devouring his third bridie. "Anyway, if she's really unwell, it'd be, I dunno, dragon pox."

Luna certainly didn't have dragon pox at the Ministry... "And Madam Pomfrey?" Fleur questions, actually confused now. "Can't she help?"

"Probably, yeah."

"I'm going to the Hospital Wing to check," Ginny says, peering past Fleur to the Ravenclaws, "but nobody's seen Luna. I'm starting to worry."

"Isn't this the girl that wanders off all the time?" Ron muses, spoon stock-still as he contemplates a fourth helping. "Loony Lovegood? Sleepwalks without shoes? Lives near us, somewhere in the mountains? Seamus was going on about her in Divination last month, you should've heard him."

"Don't call her that, Ron." Taking care to box him about the ears, Ginny departs. Ron yelps.

"Serves you right, mate," Harry says.

"It does not!" Ron protests. "She's scary now! And Loony isn't even here to get offended, so it's no harm, no foul."

Just then, Hermione causes a slight diversion by spraying the newspaper with pumpkin juice.

"Scourgify!" Harry says hastily, drawing his wand in a flash to get rid of the mess. "What's the matter, Hermione?"

Hermione slaps the paper down. Fleur and Harry crowd close to see, half rising from their seats to see what Ron is already scanning through.

BETTY'S BLIND ITEMS: A NEW COLUMN

It is the Daily Prophet's pleasure to welcome Betty Braithwaite, our newest gossip columnist and special correspondent. With dear Rita hard at work on her newest biography, Mrs. Braithwaite has been selected by lottery to fill in...with a special twist. Heard something juicy lately? Got a scoop? Readers are now strongly encouraged to send anything of note by owl for Betty to review, which it just may make our latest edition. Stay tuned!

"This does not look promising," Fleur says.

"Definitely not," Harry agrees.

Glancing sideways, Ron quails at the sight of Hermione's wordless rage. Fleur opts to keep reading.

A ROUÉ(N) ROMP AND NOËL NO-NO!

Readers, you heard it here first, writes Betty Braithwaite, Guest Correspondent. This Triwizard Tournament is the most exciting one yet! While one champion got a goodnight kiss, another played wallflower and sulked the night away. Another champion meet their beau in the garden for a little charmwork and wandwork, only for said beau to botch the whole thing up like a bad potion! Our last champion, the pouty and devil-may-care—

"This is so pedestrian," Fleur complains. And if she is not mistaken, it also stinks of Skeeter.

"Why does she mean by 'sulked the night away'?" Harry demands. "I danced!"

"Oh, is that one you?" Ron frowns at the page. "I thought—"

"We need to speak in private," Hermione bursts out, eyes blazing.

"Us?" Ron asks nervously as Hermione jumps to her feet and storms away, cursing under her breath.

"Just myself, Ronald," Fleur answers, sighing in recognition of her cue and gathering her things. "Au revoir."

"Now do you think they get scary as they get older?" Ron demands of Harry just before Fleur is out of earshot.

When she reaches the Stone Circle, Hermione's anger is at its boiling point. The newspaper crinkles in her grip, distressing the photographs.

"I can't believe her!"

"The beetle has become a spider. She has eyes everywhere now, don't you see?"

"Of course I see! That bloody witch tricked me!"

"You tricked her first. Did you not expect a retaliation?" Fleur certainly didn't.

"No!" Hermione kicks a stone with her shoe, bristling. "Last time—she—this didn't happen!"

"When did you trap her?" Fleur asks. "The last time?"

"June. After the Tournament."

The event horizon. Fleur tries not to dwell on her research of Muggle physics, but this term sticks. In June, there's no going back. Still, she pushes herself back to the matter at hand, to the here and now, where their actions bring immediate effects, relishing the chance to make bold moves.

"Don't you see, Hermione? The game is not up!" She pries the paper from Hermione's grasp and points to a line in Braithwaite's column. "Readers of the Prophet are encouraged to participate. She has made it a sport. A hunting season. Our peers will compete for the clout of their names in print."

"I don't—"

"And Skeeter has taken you at your word! It is not she who is doing the writing, it is Braithwaite, and it is not you or Harry who is discussed."

"Thus, the blind item," Hermione mutters bitterly, crossing her arms. "It's clever, really. She found a loophole better than any barrister, and since she can't go after us, she went for you and the other champions...and this comes after she's insinuated about your love lives to drum up interest..."

"Oh, Hermione," Fleur scolds. "Keep up! You are cleverer than she, than both! Can't you see your opportunity?"

"I am?" Hermione asks in surprise. "I do?"

"Think," Fleur says, flicking Hermione's forehead with a finger so that all the gears within will turn again, "of the readers."

Like lightning catching a weathervane, Hermione begins to smile, finally getting it. "Yes, the readers...you're—you're right, Fleur!"

"I am."

Hermione's excitement compels her to pace, overcome with the possibilities. Fleur entertains an image of the columnists besieged with letters.

"This will be so easy! The Slytherins will be buzzing about it, but we can stop them and make up our own stories...oh, we'll send a dozen owls..."

"More," Fleur says eagerly.

"A hundred!" Hermione grasps Fleur's gloved hands in her own, delighted. "Let's fight fire with fire. Braithwaite won't know what hit her!"

They set off for the Owlery at once.

"So..." Fleur ventures, calmer now. "Did you enjoy the Ball?"

Still aglow with triumph, Hermione is slow to respond. "I did! More than the last time, so it must've been the company," she says, beaming.

Fleur ducks her head.

"How was the rest of your evening, by the way?" Hermione asks in a slightly softer voice, undoubtedly remembering the leftovers of Fleur's anger. They have that failing in common as well, Fleur realizes now—a towering temper. "I feel like I barely saw you between all the dancing and the end."

"You read the paper," says Fleur, sighing again. "I joined Roger in the garden. It did not go well."

"Why?"

"Skeeter—or Braithwaite—had it nearly right. Roger experimented foolishly with a potion. Two potions," Fleur amends.

"No!"

Fleur nods, wondering if she ought to have suspected Hermione to be so fiercely retributive on her behalf. Worser still, it is deeply flattering.

"That's ridiculous! A first-year would know better. No wonder he can't keep a girlfriend."

"Roger was lucky I refrained from a curse."

"Lucky..." Hermione agrees, thoughtful. "Right."

They walk in companionable silence the rest of the way to the Owlery, automatically pressing closer together as the wind gusts overhead. They stagger up snow-covered steps and enter the tower where a chorus of hoots and calls greet them from all directions. Fleur sets her bag down, pulls a few extra rolls of parchment and quills from the depths, then splits the supplies in half and passes Hermione her share on the way to a seat.

"I don't know what I should write..."

"Use your imagination," Fleur orders, twirling her quill between her fingers. "Think fantastically."

"How about, 'I saw Viktor Krum swimming in the Black Lake'?"

"Swimming naked," Fleur suggests without looking up, busy attending to her own letter.

"Fleur!" Hermione is outraged. "I can't—"

"It is not you, Hermione, or Viktor, or true, so do not worry so much!"

Bright red, Hermione obediently puts the scandal to paper and seals it, before wondering aloud who she should sign it as.

"Severus Snape."

Hermione's eyes widen.

"Who are you doing?"

"Monsieur Malfoy," Fleur answers, coaxing an owl down. "The boy simply must tell Braithwaite of his admiration for the Beauxbatons champion."

After another round, a competition arises, and it's fun.

"One champion has developed a horrible habit of sleepwalking..."

"I saw one champion smuggling a fwooper into the castle."

"Another was spotted releasing doxies onto poor and unsuspecting first-years..."

"Dolores Umbridge expresses concern over how little misery was inflicted in the Tournament—"

"—all champions exposed to a love potion devised by the late Laverne de Montmorency, details on the love pentagon to come—"

"Gilderoy Lockhart officially endorses Cedric Diggory..." Hermione carries her newest owl to the window, grinning.

"But can he outmatch Harry Potter?" Fleur asks, beckoning another to deliver her lie. "Dear Harry, who is favored to win by the Minister of Magic?"

Hermione is torn between alarm and amusement at the thought of Fudge discovering the forgery. "You know how hard he leans on the Prophet..."

"With this, I guarantee Braithwaite's enterprise to fail," Fleur assures, sweeping into a bow as if that was her intention all along and not a serendipitous whirl of events heartily taken advantage of. She has a feeling this won't be the last time such a thing happens. "De rien!"

Hermione snorts.

They send off another dozen falsehoods and then start back for the castle in considerably higher spirits. Not even the threat of Peeves dampens Fleur's mood. In fact, he falls prey to a spell of Hermione's and smacks face-first into a wall, trying to extricate the gum now stuck up his nose.

"Miss Granger," he curses, shaking his fist, "and Fanny Dellycour! Peevesy knows your little secret! He does!"

"What secret?" Fleur calls after him. "The means and manner to be as foul as you?"

Forced to dodge a vase flung from above, Hermione yanks Fleur out of the line of fire and shoves her behind a tapestry.

"Ow!"

"Where did you go?" Peeves demands between huffs and puffs. "Sneaking out of the castle for kisses, girlies? Wait until I tell Professorhead!"

They exchange looks of relief when his voice and the sound of sniffling fades.

"We're on his bad side now," Hermione warns after the coast is clear, stepping out from the tapestry. Fleur follows. "Although..." That telltale look of hers returns, the one that somehow promises both deep thought and unpredictable danger. "Don't you think, well, maybe he has a bit of a point?"

"What point?" Fleur asks, trying not to laugh for Hermione's sake. It's been a long morning. That would be unkind. "The merits of being a pest?"

"No." Hermione is still deliberating. "You and I. The narrative." Another odd look appears, making Fleur wary. "Stupid!"

"Excusez-moi?"

"No, I meant me. I've been stupid." Almost in a trance, she looks at the newspaper, then back to Fleur. "I should've thought of it myself..."

"Of what?" Fleur asks impatiently.

"Of us! It's brilliant!" Hermione is gleeful. "Rita Skeeter might think she's backed me into a corner, but that—it—" She shakes her head in wonder. "It's so simple, and we're already carrying on in a way...most people will think whatever they want, but I think this may actually work!"

"You have less than a minute to explain yourself, Hermione, or I am going back to bed."

"You and I should pretend to be a couple!"

Has Hermione become a Legilimens in her spare time? Fleur is abruptly panicked. Confusion muscles it way in too, giving logic a thrashing.

"Excusez-moi?" Fleur repeats, trying to buy herself some time. Hermione advances. Fleur's back hits a suit of armor.

"Don't you get it? Everyone knows we're 'cozy', and your friends mock you endlessly anyway, so why not lean into the charade? It's ready-made!"

"Why would I do that?"

Hermione ignores her irritation. "This is just the thing to get everyone invested, I think. Making a friend from another school is all well and good, but it's like you said! We have to get creative and think carefully. Us starting a relationship would really show that old school rivalries are ending."

"You even don't like women, Hermione..." Fleur forces an uneasy laugh, hoping that will settle the matter. "This is the opposite of...of caution."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Hermione asks, almost offended. "That isn't the point! We'd only be pretending."

"Nevertheless..."

"But don't you see?" Hermione presses. "It's believable! That's my point. And you're always kissing me anyway—"

"It is a custom! This is common in France!"

"—since we spend so much time together, it would be the perfect cover—"

"You asked me to be friends," Fleur says, still more loudly.

"—and it'll work with our prank! Braithwaite will be forced to publish everything and look ridiculous. Then the Prophet won't be seen as reliable—"

"But I-I don't want to do this!"

Hermione is—unusually—confused.

"What?"

"I don't want to pretend to date you!" Fleur blurts out before she can stop herself. "Did you—did you not think of what this will do to me?"

A long and unpleasant silence falls, so long that Hermione's next query feels as if it comes a thousand years later.

"Are you afraid of dating someone like me?"

"It has nothing to do with you!" Fleur snaps, trying to recover her composure. Today's sense of fun is gone. "It concerns my...my reputation—"

"Excuse me? Your reputation?" Hermione demands, vacillating between confusion and hurt. "You can't afford to date a Muggle-born? Or a girl?"

Quickly, the other why not reasons begin spilling out of her mouth, jumbled, tangled, and perhaps worse of all, inarticulate.

"Do not presume the worst of me," Fleur snarls. "You have not heard my reasoning, and you promised to listen to me. A relationship with you will destroy my credibility. Do not scoff at me again, Hermione!" Fleur stamps her foot. "Enough! I am facing poor odds in the Tournament. If we have it as you say, the Tasks will happen the same way. Not only am I the loser among the other champions, I am the only girl, and most damning of all, I am French! I am older than you!" Fleur scowls. "It is not a matter of being seen with you, or having you on my arm! It is a matter of...of propriety!"

Hermione sneers. "Propriety, how archaic—"

"It still matters in the wizarding world!" Fleur could shake her. "Our goal is to destroy old prejudices, not stir them up again! If you and I walked the halls together, they will only see the philandering French champion taking advantage and then our entire plan is ruined! Do you understand me?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't." Hermione is cold. "The only way to get rid of prejudice and bias is to face it head on and bring opposing groups together."

"You ask too much of me! How can I support Harry in June when I am torn to shreds in your papers?" Fleur exclaims. "Look at this Braithwaite. She has eyes and ears everywhere. This 'romp' rumor is just the beginning. What will they say to discredit me when I kiss you in the corridors?"

"We already sent material to Braithwaite! This isn't any different!"

"It is!" Fleur's shout makes the nearby portraits cower. "We meant to overwhelm the Prophet, not offer a scoop!" She's fuming. Why must Hermione complicate each and every problem beyond recognition when it falls into her lap? "No, Hermione, I will not be your girlfriend, pretend or otherwise."

"AHA!"

A familiar apparition leaps out from within a suit of armor.

"I knew it! Fanny lurves Gangly Granger! Fanny lurves Granger—and her fickle fanny! HAHA!"

Screaming the absurdity at the top of his lungs, Peeves whirls out of sight, cackling.

"Now look what you've done," Fleur hisses, rounding on Hermione.

Hermione's chagrin folds back into anger, suffusing her features with heat.

"If all you care about is your image, then I can't help you." Disgust has made its way onto the face Fleur's become so fond of. "Harry's was torn to shreds for a year and he still kept his chin up. Professor Dumbledore lost more prestigious titles and awards than anyone will ever see in a lifetime and he managed to get over it. If you're so concerned about what people say about you," she adds, "then you're not the person I thought you were."

"Hermione..." Fleur trails off, aghast and indignant. That wasn't it at all! "This is not just a bit of fun—please, consider the consequences of—"

"I'll see you later," Hermione interrupts, edging away, like she can't bear to look at Fleur a second longer. "If you can stomach it, that is."

In the ensuing days, Fleur steers clear of the castle.

It doesn't take long for Peeves's handiwork—after its speedy decoding—to make waves. With nothing to do but homework, little else circulates.

Fleur, meanwhile, only sulks.

It's often said that absence only makes the heart grow fonder, but her heart was already fond, already enamored, so their distance is simply irritating. It makes her angry. It's all Hermione's fault, Fleur decides, seething, spiteful, and simmering like a kettle on a stove. This was Hermione's arrogance, Hermione's doing, Hermione's hypocrisy that pushed them so far apart, didn't she know that yet? Why didn't she understand that yet?

Why, indeed.

Well, Fleur wasn't going to explain a thing to her. If Hermione was so smart, so adept, perhaps she'll figure all of this out on her own without—without Fleur communicating anything she felt or thought to her, like both always promised to do at dire straits, as a sign of real friendship...

Fleur's stomach gives a furious, guilty squirm. This doesn't count, Fleur tells herself, unwilling to examine her own silence.

Edgar plops down beside Fleur after Isabeau leaves, having laughingly quizzed her on the matter. Céline joins them at the end of the bed.

"Are you—?"

"Fine," Fleur interrupts, turning a page of Hogwarts, A History. Edgar clears his throat.

"And Hermione?"

"We haven't spoken." Fleur didn't even budge when a very confused Ginny acted as an intermediary, asking for a minute to talk.

"Did you have a fight?" Edgar prods.

Our first real fight. The first left unresolved, with so many misunderstandings, big and small, and it is far greater than a difference of opinion.

"In a manner of speaking."

"What kind of manner?" Céline asks patiently.

"I...I don't want to talk about it." It's not very fair of her to give them so little to work with, but she couldn't unravel it all if she tried. She doesn't know how. Fleur cannot say which way is up when it comes to Hermione, or the ever perplexing mess that has become their flight back in time.

In the present, Edgar drapes an arm over Fleur's shoulders.

"Well..." Céline trails off. "Come with us to the village tonight? Take your mind off things?"

After some consideration, Fleur relents, glad to push a schoolgirl crush and a schoolgirl's plot out of her mind. "Where are we going?"

"The Three Broomsticks," Céline suggests.

"The Hog's Head," Edgar counters. "There's less people and it's cheap!"

With Fleur as the deciding vote, she casts it for Edgar. Céline is disappointed.

"You're buying the first round," she informs Edgar as Fleur gets ready. "We aren't drinking wine. I would not even feed that swill to the Abraxans."

"You're such a snob," Edgar accuses, catching Perenelle by the tail before she can claw at Céline in his defense. "Not all of us grew up on vineyards!"

Content to let this familiar bickering drown out her thoughts, Fleur follows the pair out of the carriage and onto the path to Hogsmeade, listening.

"...only stating the obvious, which is to say that I have a refined palate as the daughter of sommeliers, and you don't!"

"Are you going to be quite so modest when you win awards for your stage performances, or should I give you some advice now?"

When the trio reaches Hog's Head Inn, there are only a handful of other patrons, each hooded and deep in conversation.

The bartender eyes them suspiciously, but pours three glasses of Dragon Barrel Brandy and slides each one down the bar.

"Bah," Céline mumbles after the second round, smacking her lips. "That is strong."

After the third round, Fleur, significantly cheered up, changes the order to Blishen's Firewhiskey.

"Merlin," Edgar groans, eyes streaming, "they should...change the name of this. It's wildfire whiskey."

They laugh at him.

"So," Céline says after another drink, resting her chin on her palm, "are you ever going to tell us what's going on?"

Edgar hiccups, nodding. Fleur toys with her glass.

"You've been a little...distant, that's all," Céline explains, a little more knowing than Fleur would ordinarily like, "as if you're not even here."

"I don't mean to be," Fleur admits, "but I'm sorry if I...seemed to push either of you away. It's only—"

"The pressure," Edgar says, "of the Tournament?"

"Yes," Fleur agrees, jumping at the excuse. It is true, at least in part. "I want to do Beauxbatons proud. You understand."

But they don't. There are too many layers, too many lies, between her and them. She is still something of a stranger in her own life.

"And..." Céline speaks now as if she's addressing an unhappy hippogriff, eyes rather sharp. "Dating Hermione?"

"We aren't dating."

Yet, Fleur's mind supplies, as if the idea is an inevitability.

"Are you afraid to?" Edgar asks.

"Yes," Fleur lies and not lies, trying to wriggle out of this as quickly as possible.

"You shouldn't be," Céline insists, covering Fleur's hand with her own and provoking new guilty squirm. "It'll work out in the end. Trust me."

Fleur buys the last round. She leaves a tip for the bartender as Céline and Edgar stagger out, harmonizing a Spellbound song. Trailing behind, she tells them to go on ahead after they pass through the gates, wanting to be alone. With sloppy kisses to her cheeks, Céline and Edgar totter back to the carriage, holding notes and laughing uproariously. Fleur turns on her heel and starts her walk, hoping the fresh air will ease the tipsiness.

She shouldn't be scared, Céline seemed to think, but Fleur was scared. Scared of failing. They don't have unlimited chances to get this right. Their time grows shorter every day, as if the minutes are falling apart at the seams. But she isn't averse to being observed, or even judged, albeit by a jury of their peers. People have gazed at Fleur all her life and judged every bit of her too, forever on the hunt for an imperfection or, more frequently, her attention. She was accustomed to it, as she told Hermione, and in truth, their many plans depended on the judgments of outsiders, didn't they? They wanted a paradigm shift in all things entrenched and established. But had it appeared that way, she ponders, meandering through the grounds without a destination in mind. She hadn't articulated it well to Hermione, instead trusting her to understand her point of view without being told, only to grow furious when no common ground was found amid another absurd idea for their future...

Judgment and scrutiny are easy for Fleur to accept, but not Hermione. Why invite more attention—unnecessarily—if the project depends on secrecy?

And why, Fleur wonders, frustrated, should they entertain another ruse, another idea, that will only make the mission so much harder?

Fleur drags her hands down her face. Of all partners to be stuck with, it has to be Hermione Granger, who behaves like the trick stairs of her beloved school or the depths of a murky ocean, hiding her convictions in one moment and proudly putting all on display in the next—

Wait.

She startles. At the edge of the wood, there is a flash of silver. Silver hair, she sees clearly, and black wings, less clearly. Fleur squints, heart hammering. Is that...? She picks out shapes in the gloom, nearing all the while. Thestrals, a whole herd—and Fleur's never seen them before.

She pursues the silver-haired figure, half-thinking her to be Gaby, sneaking away from a lesson.

"It is dangerous to be out at this hour," she calls, confused and relieved to find Luna Lovegood at the outskirts of the forest, shoeless and alone.

"The herd can protect me. They're no more evil than I am." Luna pockets a scrying mirror, smiling. "And I saw you coming."

Fleur rubs her eyes, trying to clear the blurred edges of her vision, unsteadier than she intended. The Blishen is making her feel wistful too, warping annoyance and anger and hurt toward Hermione into a melancholy that's trailed her since the fateful leap into living time. "You did?"

"Oh yes. Very insistently."

Fleur joins Luna and offers her hand. As the foal sniffs it, Fleur relaxes. Why, they're no more different than Abraxans...

"You can see them, can't you?" Luna observes, glancing sideways. "I'm sorry."

Fleur looks back, calm vanishing. Neville Longbottom is dead in one world and breathes obliviously in another. It's a stark, horrifying discovery. "So am I," she mumbles, "for you." Here lies further proof of another place, another impossible feat of magic, and she can't share it with anyone else.

After a few minutes, Luna breaks the silence.

"A Galleon for your thoughts?"

Fleur's words are out of her mouth before she stop them, tongue loosened by the drinks. "I wish to do something. For right and wrong reasons."

Maybe it is inevitable that she would come around to Hermione's reasoning, but Fleur wants...a third opinion, for her own sake.

"Oh? Why are they wrong?"

Fleur purses her lips. "They are deceitful."

"Deceitful to whom?"

"A friend. Many friends."

"So you are lying to your friends," Luna surmises. "Why?"

"To protect them," Fleur explains, thinking of the vows made in service to others. She thinks of Luna, then and now, with no idea what's to come.

"Then is it so bad?" Luna asks. "It's only a little lie. No bigger than a wrackspurt, truly?"

At another loss, Fleur shrugs. The lies are not very little, the farce is too big, and Fleur herself is less than enthused to keep it all up, and yet...

"Is it so wrong to lie to protect a friend?" Luna muses. "I would do that for my friends, if I had any."

"Perhaps you and I could be friends," Fleur says, feeling more generous than usual. This too she blames on the drinks.

"We could?" Luna asks, so promptly buoyant and Gaby-like that Fleur has to smile, despite her queasiness. They shake hands.

"Of course. Join Hermione and I for breakfast," she offers, insides twisting. That is, for now, an empty promise. "You won't have to go very far."

"Are you sure?" Luna asks over the noise of the thestrals rumbling amongst themselves. "I've seen wrackspurts bounce off her ears in the corridors with my Spectrespecs, you know. They don't seem to like her much. Not many people do, either," she adds, stroking the stringy mane of the foal.

"Why not?" Fleur asks, trying not to drum up the answer to that question herself.

"She doesn't seem very nice. From what I hear."

Fleur is silent. That's the part and parcel of Hermione Granger; she is a paradox herself, rife with contradictions.

"She stands out, though, don't you think? Like you."

"I do," Fleur admits with a sigh. That kept her enthralled, certainly... "You are as wise as my grandmother, Luna."

"I started Divination this year, so I don't know if it's wisdom or my Inner Eye seeing things. Maybe the latter, because I made a prophecy in class and Professor Trelawney told me I should wait out here until it came true..." While Fleur digests the mystery of Luna's absence, Luna changes the subject. "Is it true your grandmother is a veela?" Luna asks. "I've always wanted to meet a veela. Veela are the cousins of heliopaths, did you know?"

"I—what?"

"Heliopaths. They're spirits of fire that burn everything in their path. The veela can wield fire, can't they?"

"Yes," Fleur answers, wishing she didn't feel so foggy. Perhaps Luna's comments would not swim quite so oddly in her brain. She tries to get them back on track. "But I would be pleased to introduce you. And to my sister," she adds on an impulse. "Gaby is very interested in Magizoology."

"Perhaps she would enjoy a subscription to The Quibbler? Daddy tries to stay at the forefront of Magizoology, so we print everything we hear."

"Everything you hear?" Fleur repeats, curious. "Even the lies?"

"It isn't a lie until proven untrue," Luna explains, glancing over her shoulder at the whickering mare. The foal returns to its mother, joining the herd in their huddle of shadows. "Crumple-Horned Snorkacks haven't been documented by wizards yet, of course, but they do exist! They're in Sweden somewhere, you see, but I think they simply like to go on holidays sometimes, like we do, or visit the Short-Snouts. There's a distant relation."

This is a ridiculous conversation in a chapter of Fleur's rather ridiculous life, but she lets it slide.

"I am sure my sister would find your paper quite...compelling."

After a minute, Luna returns her gaze to Fleur. "May I give you some advice? Friend to friend?"

"You may," says Fleur, smiling back. Things don't feel so fraught with Luna. Maybe that was why Harry brought her along to London.

"It's easier to beg for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission," Luna says, turning as Fleur does as the thestrals rustle closer together, grumbling and flicking their tails. "Not better, really, but that's a matter of opinion. So I say, tell your little lie," she adds, thoughtful, "and do whatever you must to protect your friends. If they are your friends, they will try to understand why you did whatever you did...deceitfully."

Fleur considers the advice as she and Luna part ways, feeling the last vestiges of her resolve beginning to crumble.

As the Beauxbatons carriage holds a soiree commemorating the start of the new year, Fleur stays in her bedroom, declining all company.

At some ungodly hour of the following morning, however, Céline wakes Fleur, looking adamant.

"Come with me?" She pleads as Fleur struggles to gain alertness. "I need to discuss my grade. An Acceptable in Defense isn't acceptable to me."

"This couldn't wait until—eight?" Fleur croaks. "Or the start of the term?"

Céline steals the blankets off Fleur's bed. "No! Pip, pip, as the English like to say!"

Mutinous, Fleur sidles to the washroom. They find Edgar in the parlor, also roused to join Céline, but he's fallen back to sleep in his chair, dressed in wrinkled clothes and stinking of gillywater. Perenelle drowses in his hair, steam funneling from her snout, as if Edgar was a fire recently put out.

"He gets to sleep and I don't?"

"He was my backup plan," Céline confesses, "but he drank more than I did!"

The sky is still oppressively dark as they hustle up to the castle. Outside of Moody's office in a matter of minutes, Céline knocks on the door.

"It's a shame you missed the party in the greenhouse, by the way," Céline remarks, scanning her report with a wistful look. "I didn't get to tell you too much about it before, but Sacha let us try out one of the new tinctures he was working on all summer. Morgana's skirts, it was wonderful!"

"And what did you see this time? The inside of Morgana's skirts?"

Céline laughs. "No, Giselle explained it to me. It was like those photographs Muggles take of their insides...ah, an x-ray?"

No devotee of Muggle Studies, Fleur is flummoxed.

"I spent the end of the party looking at my hand like it belonged to a skeleton," Céline explains. "Then Edgar and I shared a daydream. You and Hermione showed up with Celestina Warbeck and Herbert Beery. He said my Altheda was magnificent." She sighs happily. "Sacha outdid himself!"

"Professor Gautier would not approve." Their Herbology professor was never fond of Sacha's experiments in the palace gardens.

"Who cares what he says?"

Their chatter is interrupted by Crouch's gruff inquiry, seemingly of the same mind as Fleur regarding lie-ins. Céline bounds forward.

"Professor, I'm sorry to disturb you so early—"

"—and myself—" Fleur mutters.

"—but I wanted to discuss my grade, if that's all right?" Céline shows the report. "We have an understanding at Beauxbatons about a dialogue..."

"A dialogue," Crouch repeats, beadily turning Alastor Moody's eye in her direction. Céline recoils.

"It is like a salon, sir," Fleur interrupts. "At Beauxbatons, students are free to appeal any grade if they aren't satisfied with the outcome."

"I don't know what sort of claptrap you're learning in France, but that isn't done here at Hogwarts."

There's a layer of malice and impatience in his eyes now, shielding a casual cruelty the real Moody lacks. And the smell...his master is the source of it, Fleur knows instantly. Its roiling rottenness is so disgusting, it takes all she has not to retch and to stubbornly hold his gaze, waiting, waiting...

He breaks first.

"Miss Moreau, you best make it quick."

Céline darts inside, looking delighted. Crouch follows, with Fleur at their heels. At the hearth, a fire glows, warming a steaming cup on the mantle. On the desk, a cracked Sneakoscope is balanced on its point, motionless. By contrast, a Secrecy Sensor hums threateningly as the three of them move further into the room, arching closer to Crouch when Céline's back is turned. Fleur, meanwhile, pauses at the desk to examine the shadowy figures moving about in the Foe-Glass. For a few brief and startling moments—Fleur blinks. No. She was so sure they were solidifying.

"Now," Crouch grumbles, after he and Céline are seated before the hearth in armchairs, "what makes you think an Acceptable wasn't on the nose?"

"Well, at Beauxbatons..." Céline launches into her argument, letting Fleur study the office more thoroughly.

She does not like being in such cramped quarters with a Death-Eater, disguised or not, and tries to work off this discomfort by wandering around. She keeps her back to them, trying to deflect suspicion. Moody's eye may be following her, and she can't afford to...what? Be observed preparing to take him on? Hermione opposed that choice in their discussions and Fleur...can't risk it. It's early, she isn't at her best, and she's considering a whim that undermines all that she and Hermione are working toward. She and Céline are at Crouch's mercy, isolated, and outmatched. She tries to imagine the outcome if she tipped her hand here and started casting curses. If Crouch didn't disarm her right away, gifted with a well-known ability to improvise, he would fight. Or would he perhaps deescalate the situation, and play upon Fleur's status as an outsider with his own as an insider? Who would dare attack an ex-Auror unless that person had a nefarious purpose? Yes, Fleur muses, pretending to examine the antenna of a Probity Probe, that would work to his advantage. The nerve of these French fools, Skeeter might've scrawled, had Hermione not tricked her...

"You see, the French are imaginative," Céline is saying now. "Fantastical. Our ways of looking at things are—"

"Catastrophic?" Crouch suggests. "Plagued by delusions of grandeur?"

"Be that as it may," Céline amends, "our scope of Defense Against the Dark Arts is gigantic. Our people suffered greatly in this century, and we armed ourselves accordingly. Grindelwald left a horrible stain, and his counterpart..." Even Fleur knows of the horrors associated with his Muggle counterpart. "I did not understand the margins of your lesson, sir. Safeguarding a house against ill-intent needs more than one trick, I thought."

"A Tongue-Tying Curse would deter most intruders from the home, which was the assignment, but..." Crouch seems rapt now. "Could be wrong."

"Do you see?" Céline asks, sounding relieved. "To truly keep something safe, you must outfit its surroundings completely. You prefer the practical approach, professor, you said so yourself. One defensive maneuver will be overcome eventually. It is—it is practical to incorporate many defensive ploys. Take our Ministries. We share Anti-Disapparition Jinxes, but did you know that the French premises are guarded by a cluster of matagots?"

"Quite the trick. Does your lot favor..." The discussion continues. Unlike Fleur and Hermione's debates, though, it never reaches a fever pitch.

Hermione and her tricks, Fleur thinks now, softening a bit at the thought. Hermione and her schemes. Try as she might, Fleur cannot stop thinking about the latest one. What would changing the pretense do for anyone? She considers the idea again. Plenty, a voice not unlike Hermione's whispers in the back of her mind, planting goosebumps along Fleur's neck. Wouldn't you do so much more for a lover than you would do for a friend?

But Hermione and Fleur had done all that and more for their friends, so what was going through her head, besides some petty revenge against Skeeter? Crouch would still be an enemy—Harry's enemy and working against him all the time, which made him Ron's as well as Hermione's...

Hermione this, Hermione that. Forget the runespoor metaphor; her thoughts of Hermione always spin out in a dozen directions, not three.

Below the window, the bewitched trunk rattles and groans.

Fleur flinches at the noise and glances away, only to chase a specter that has caught her attention in the corner of her eye. She saw...she sees...Harry, Ron, and Hermione, in the Foe-Glass, clear as reflections in a mirror and as ill-tempered as their photographs in the Prophet. Fleur gapes. She spies Dumbledore and McGonagall, Snape, Mr. Crouch, even Alastor Moody himself before the images return again to the trio. Facing a fabrication of Hermione's real glare, Fleur does the first thing that comes to mind, breath catching as her fingertips touch the cool glass surface.

Confundo.

She'd overlooked something. In Fleur's haste to save Sirius and the boys, she'd forgotten someone. An important someone.

What if Crouch saw Ron and Hermione again in the mirror? What if he changed his mind and deemed them a threat to him after all?

What is she so afraid of? Being observed? No. Being judged? Somewhat. Getting hurt? Fleur can handle that. She handled it after Cedric and Cerberus and every loss in the Department of Mysteries. She undid it all and successfully kept the worst of the pain to herself. What she can't handle, she knows now, is the possibility, however small, of Hermione getting hurt. Or worse, Fleur supposes, heart pounding as she remembers how near Hermione and Neville were to one another when the Death Eaters' spells met their marks. Can Fleur do this? Can she stray even closer to Hermione and act as her shield? That might be necessary after all, she thinks, trying to calm her breathing. That would excuse their discussions as the closest of confidences and these fights as lovers' quarrels. That would show anyone—everyone, especially Barty Crouch Junior, a man with a talent for working toward his goals without attracting notice—that they are a team, that you couldn't get to one without facing the other.

In a flash, the images fade. The glass whirls with intangible smoke, like the core of a crystal ball. A temporary fix, truly, but a fix all the same.

Perhaps she should take Céline's advice too and outfit the defenses surrounding their plan by covering their tracks. It is practical, Fleur tells herself, even as a sliver of fear crawls up her spine, but will the ends justify the means? Is it appropriate to do the wrong thing for the right reasons?

"...hoped you would come around," Céline gushes. "Right, Fleur?"

"Yes," Fleur lies, pretending to fix her hair in the mirror to regain her bearings. "But I would've seen that at noon, or the start of spring term."

"Agreed," Crouch growls but he sounds approving as he looks to Céline. "I'll change the mark, Moreau. You'll get your Outstanding."

Céline jumps to her feet, ecstatic. "Merci beaucoup! I knew you would understand. The Brits are Frenchmen at heart, you know!"

Crouch ushers them to the door, gruff and disbelieving again. In spite of herself and the lingering unease, Fleur can't quite blame him. "Says who?"

"That Muggle king! William the Conqueror," Céline insists as she and Fleur step into the corridor. "England was never the same after—"

The door slams shut.

"I shall quit while I'm ahead," Céline proclaims, and holds her paper aloft like a victory flag all the way to breakfast, deaf to Fleur's many protests.

After so much thinking, drinking, and shrinking from the important job she vowed to complete, there is only one thing Fleur can do now.

She locates Hermione in the Entrance Hall later that evening, standing alone in the torchlight while the rest of the schools eat supper just beyond the double doors of the Great Hall. Hermione appears to have dawdled, apparently waiting for Fleur so they may be seen walking in together despite not speaking for days. As always, there is a book tucked under her arm and a pensive look on her face. Half afraid her outbursts erased the leaps and bounds made together toward a real friendship, Fleur studies Hermione's expression from her place along the balustrade until the last of her indecision withers away and resolve takes its place. Finally, Fleur descends the stairs, the click of heels announcing her approach.

"I've been thinking," Hermione greets without prompting, tightening her grip on the book and staring past Fleur's ear, "about another plan."

Another plan? Fleur isn't deterred, though, and simply waits.

"You said something about Roger the other day that I couldn't get out of my head," says Hermione, shifting her weight from foot to foot and still not looking at Fleur. For once, her businesslike attitude is wavering. Unlike Fleur, she's nervous. "About luck. It might help you in the Tournament."

Fleur says nothing.

Something in Hermione softens in reply, making worry dart across her features.

"Fleur? Are you listening to me?"

"I would rather to do this one." Cupping Hermione's face, Fleur swoops down to kiss her.

Somehow it is better than she imagined (and she imagined a lot). Braver and more experienced than Fleur anticipated, it takes no time for Hermione to kiss her back and pull at Fleur's robes, bringing her closer and into the light. The idea of fizzy drinks comes to mind again as the kiss deepens and lengthens. Fleur's nerves simmer below the surface, threatening the cool veneer of strength she's worked hard to create like a jinx spinning out of control. When they part for breath, Fleur fights a maddening impulse to press forward again but stays close, keeping up the charade.

Somehow Hermione's blush bolsters Fleur's confidence to a swift, swaggering calm.

"I am sorry," she says, opting to speak in code in the likelihood of her voice carrying. For once, the deceit gives Fleur no pause. "For my words."

"It wasn't your fault! I'm sorry. I bulldozed that—that judgment—on you without us discussing it beforehand—"

"Not all your ideas are brilliant," Fleur says warningly, mindful of the murmuring in the Great Hall, "but this one has promise."

Promise, indeed. What Fleur failed to consider is Hermione taking her advice to heart. Not even she dared to think so far out of the box.

Hadn't she done the same by not underestimating Crouch? Perhaps later and in a better humor she will let Hermione in on the joke.

"Still..." Hermione clutches the book closer, looking guilty. Fleur crowds nearer to skate her fingers soothingly along Hermione's cheek.

"Another time," she whispers, feigning the intimacy she longs for now that they have an audience. "What was it you wished to tell me?"

Forgetting her self-reproach, Hermione allows herself a conspiratorial smile. In the hall's flickering firelight, her eyes dance.

"I figured it out. I know how to get you through the maze."

With Hermione, the possibilities for mayhem and mischief and mystery are endless. With her, Fleur will never be bored.

"We just, erm, need to break a few dozen rules..."

"Oh, a few more?" Fleur teases. They're both eager to act boldly, it seems.

Hermione laughs and ducks her head, helping matters significantly. This inquiry may very well be mistaken for flirtation, if they are lucky.

"Come with me," she says warmly, offering her hand. Fleur takes it, less and less concerned about hows and whys of being here. So be it, Fleur is here and no longer able to let the dust settle. There's enough to consider, namely, where to next place her feet. The Tasks. Harry. Cedric. You-Know Who. The Time-Turner. Hermione's safety. "Let's discuss how your next shot at the Third Task will go from ordinary to extraordinary..."

Chapter Text

A few minutes later, Fleur finds herself towed to, of all places, a lavatory.

"What are we doing here?"

Here is a place that long ago said goodbye to better days. In the center of the room, cracked mirrors and chipped sinks slouch toward the floor, tarnishing strangely with age. Stall doors are scratched and squeaky, while guttering candles just barely illuminate the dark corners. A current of water from an overflowing toilet makes its way to Fleur, only to obediently yield to her Impervius Charm and splash away in another direction.

"No one ever comes in here, so we'll be left alone."

"Oh?" This evening still feels light, almost carefree, and in turn so does she. "Is that so?"

"Don't you start," Hermione scolds—nonetheless trying not to smile—and then shakes her head, casting her gaze down to the book still in her grasp. She rifles quickly through the pages in search of a specific entry. "Just listen," Hermione adds, passing over the book, "and be amazed."

Knowing Hermione, amazement is never far. While Fleur scans the familiar description of Felix Felicis, Hermione hurdles into an explanation.

"...portable, easy to hide, and it will definitely give you the edge you need to get to and survive the graveyard."

Survive? Fleur lingers over that word.

"This is a very advanced potion, Hermione," she ventures, a hesitancy borne of their squabble catching up to her. Their disagreements are always a sure bet for a fight and she's more reluctant than ever to stir these calm waters to a boil. "Did you study the brewing time? The ingredients?"

"No, I came to find you as soon as I saw 'lucky potion'. I had never heard of it before, you see—"

"Then you must know this needs six months to complete," Fleur says, returning the book to a crestfallen Hermione, "and requires a great skill to brew. Not to mention, the ingredients are dangerous and difficult to find." Fleur softens her voice. "When they are found, the expense is steep."

"How steep?"

"My Gringotts account, if not more," Fleur answers, raising the price based on the creature eggs alone. Dejected, Hermione gives the book another hopeless glance, all but forcing Fleur past each of her qualms to blurt out, "but I am willing to pay whatever I must, if that becomes necessary."

"You are?"

"It is only money," Fleur says with a shrug, an old regret revived in her heart. A thousand Galleons in prize money, she had shouted at the others after Harry's name flew out of the Goblet and her dreams of winning the Tournament were all but dashed. This is a chance many would die for!

Trying not to dwell over unrealized postgrad plans, Fleur moves on.

"I am able to help, Hermione. I only wished to appraise you of the challenges."

"If you're sure..."

"I am."

"Okay."

Awkwardness descends. Fleur crosses her arms and mills near the sinks, footsteps echoing in the quiet. Near the mirror, Hermione opens her mouth and closes it, gazes at the book, to her feet, and then to Fleur, also seemingly at a loss. Perhaps it was naive to believe all things settled after one kiss—one concession, rather. Without an audience or a new, pressing emergency, unrest creeps into the enclosed space like a shroud.

"Perhaps we must come to a new understanding," says Fleur, at last addressing the erumpet in the room.

Hermione nods eagerly.

"We should never leave it cold again." She waves a hand, vexed, trying to articulate herself better. This is too important. "We should not leave things...untranslated. This was a problem. If we are to meet an understanding, no matter the cost, I would think the problem will not arise again."

"If you're saying 'don't go to bed angry', fine. I think we should try putting pins in our arguments. If we let our tempers get the better of us and don't take breaks, we'll kill each other." Hermione is rueful. "Next time, I don't think we need to spend quite so long clearing our heads, though."

Fleur agrees. These are good compromises.

"Speaking of 'ours' and 'we', perhaps we should figure out that plan of yours...the details of our, ah, 'relationship'?"

"Right." Hermione sounds relieved to get back to business, even if their new business sticks out sharply among the likes of time travel and Triwizard camaraderie. Fleur would laugh about it all if she were not so closely involved. "We should make up some rules. And pin down a story."

Fleur spares a moment to consider whether she ought to invest in a Remembrall or a Pensieve. Their lies are beginning to pile up.

"To start, how could this have happened?" Hermione asks now. "Us."

"I admired your compassion," Fleur suggests, recovering. "You escorted me to Pomfrey after I 'fainted on the grounds'."

"That's it?" Hermione looks disappointed. "Not for my grades? I'm supposed to be giving you English lessons."

"It is not only your intelligence I admire, Hermione."

"All right. What should we do for you?"

"Surely you can think of something." Fleur scowls. "It was you who insisted we become friends."

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" Abashed, Hermione does just that, muttering to herself for a bit. Finally, she returns her attention to Fleur, seemingly giving up on any detailed contrivances. "Okay, I'm tutoring you in English, you're tutoring me for the O.W.L.s. It really could've been that simple."

"Affairs have been built on less." And infatuations, Fleur's traitorous mind supplies.

"Then one day, we kissed." Hermione is deep in thought. "Maybe I was impressed by your bravery after you hexed Malfoy."

"You were."

"And yet, why would we lie about it?" Hermione wonders, guessing the first question to come from their friends, then the second. "Why hide it?"

"The age difference."

"Our school rivalry..."

"The Tournament tensions."

"You being so French," Hermione adds, more matter-of-fact than disparaging.

"You being so English," Fleur parries, pronouncing each word with deliberate care.

"Yes, yes, the list goes on. Then came tonight." Here, Hermione looks determinedly neutral. "You kissed me. You didn't want to hide anymore."

That would explain plenty.

"Of course," Fleur allows, glad the charade will extinguish the torch she's carted around. "I have a veela for a grandmother. Love is in the blood."

"This doesn't put us in a bind by any means, but now we will have to consider how everyone will react."

"Branwaithe will be inundated with correspondence, if she has not already been shut down," Fleur muses. "The news will get out somehow."

"As it always does. Are you prepared to deal with it?"

"Are you?" Fleur must ask. "I do not say this to be unkind, Hermione, but you do not receive bad news with any grace whatsoever."

"I know. I took Skeeter's words to heart. My plan to thwart her was...personal. But I'll make do. What else could they say about us?"

"It can not be so bad, dating me?"

"It won't be terrible at all, I'm sure." They share a smile for a long moment, until Hermione gestures to the textbook again. "Shall we?"

"Go on," Fleur orders, conjuring a chair and taking a seat.

"Then it's onto the ingredients." Hermione reviews the list, brows furrowing. "Some of these I've seen before in the student storeroom cupboard. Common rue, thyme, murtlap tentacles...a fresh squill bulb can be harvested in one the greenhouses as soon as we need it. As for the Ashwinder and Occamy eggs, well, those will be harder to come by, like you said. I doubt any of the shops in Diagon Alley sell any." She frowns at the page. "Occamy, Occamy...I can't remember what those are. Are they even listed in my edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them...?"

"Then we must venture into Knockturn Alley," says Fleur, politely waiting for the shuffle of reluctance and concession on Hermione's face to settle. It is a small thrill to know they will if she only remains patient. "Since this will require many elements of subterfuge, I propose we go in disguise."

"And what, ring all the shops and ask for highly regulated, barely tradable materials? That Occamy egg cannot be legal."

"No," Fleur says calmly, "we get someone to do it for us."

"Who?"

"Mundungus Fletcher."

Hermione groans.

"Don't fret, Hermione," Fleur scolds, ignoring some qualms of her own. "Mundungus has succumbed to my thrall before. He will do as we ask."

Probably.

"Now our pressing concerns," says Hermione, ever relentless, "are how to disguise ourselves, and how to get to London."

"Leave the disguises to me," Fleur assures her, thinking fast. "And we ought to use the Knight Bus."

Hermione groans again.

"Buck up."

With a look of censure, Hermione resumes their discussion. "What sort of disguises do you have in mind?"

"A few simple spells to transfigure ourselves," Fleur answers, shrugging. "We are not on the run or at war, so this will be the easiest part."

"Thank Merlin. I expected you to go with the Polyjuice Potion," Hermione admits in relief. "If I never have to brew another batch, I can die happy."

Fleur raises an eyebrow. "That is beyond your N.E.W.T. levels." Even the N.Y.M.P.H. exams at Beauxbatons didn't include that potion.

"I know."

More impressed than she would like to admit even in the face of such smugness, Fleur squints.

"And when did you do this?"

"My second year. It's a long story."

"We have the time."

"Well, I suppose all started with Harry," Hermione smiles, "as most of my adventures do..."

"Hold my hand, will you?"

"That looks artificial! I don't need to hold your hand to say you are mine."

While the idea to brew Felix Felicis ends with little fanfare and a new batch of obstacles, Fleur's gamble does not. Their little lie has complications.

Meetings between lessons and joining each other at meals become laden with suggestion. Scrutiny comes from three schools and beyond, monitoring Fleur more closely than before. Hermione is inundated with ridicule until several pumpkinheads land in the Hospital Wing. Charles cheekily proposes a double date in Madam Puddifoot's with himself and Parvati. Edgar expresses how proud he is of Fleur. Ginny is baffled. Ron is perplexed. Harry is supportive. The twins ask prying questions. Katie, Alicia, and Angelina offer congratulations. Ragna and Ebbe are warm and approachable. Luna insists this was coming all along. Professor Trelawney advises caution if presented with gifts. Madame Maxime and Professor McGonagall allude to consequences of untoward behavior. Fleur tolerates it all until Céline's face foretells imminent doom after Charms class.

"Salut, Fleur," Viktor Krum greets as a sea of students part for him. His gaze slides to Céline to check his pronunciation. She nods, encouraging.

In the meantime, blood has rushed to Fleur's face like a curse. "Viktor."

"May I have a word?"

Bidding a concerned Céline goodbye, they traipse onto the grounds. After a long silence, Viktor speaks.

"I would like to know your intentions with Herm-own-ninny."

Ah. "She is my..." Fleur catches herself at the last second. "Girlfriend."

"This does not surprise me," Viktor admits, though he sounds cross. "But I thought...we went to the Ball together. She did not refuse my invitation."

Fleur doesn't know what to say, but Viktor goes on.

"Am I to understand that the two of you were...involved all along?"

"No—"

"I have already heard Herm-own-ninny's explanation. I do not believe the papers. I want to hear yours."

Forced to choose between a flimsy cover story and denying Viktor altogether, she tries to find a compromise.

"You know Hermione. She is...enchanting. As it appears," Fleur adds, the most truthful she's been in months, "I am one of the many hopefuls."

Viktor's disapproval is clear. Fleur sees hurt as well. "But you did not say. I would have stepped aside. I thought we were friends, not competitors."

"Viktor..." Fleur tightens her grip on his arm, dismayed. "You must understand. It was never my intention to complicate the situation. Hermione was only a dear friend but things changed. Quickly. When I realized my...feelings, it was after the Ball." Right after. "I did not wish to hurt you."

She hadn't wanted to hurt anyone, least of all Viktor. She had been drawn to him before, despite their differences in speech, in upbringing, in home. He was more like her in Britain than out, one newcomer to another and guest of novelty with something to prove, no sympathy from the press, and a cultural rift that only widened, never closed. This time, the rift is knowing and not knowing, Hermione is the confidante in her trust, and there is no way to bridge the gap, not when the consequences are constantly about to spin out of her control in dozens of unexpected ways.

But she can still try.

Viktor steers Fleur away from a twist in the path, brow creasing. "She said almost the same of you. She said even she did not see it coming."

"That bothers her so," Fleur suggests. "To be—" outfoxed "—surprised."

Viktor's smile is small, but there. "Yes. In any matter."

After another silence, he sighs.

"I want to be a gentleman, Fleur, but I confess I am envious of you. That will not go away soon." He pats her arm, adopting a bracing expression. "But it will. Hermy-own-ninny has made her choice and I will respect it. Yet I must step back...for some time. Will both of you be well with that?"

"I understand, but please don't forget that we are friends." In theory. Fleur misses the understanding between herself and the other Viktor, who once muscled his way into her office by Floo after a bad day and swept her away to a bar. "I would miss you terribly if we could not repair things."

"I would not have you missing me too soon. The Second Task is coming, and I mean to win it, friendship or no."

"Won't you tell me what you are doing?" Fleur teases, pressing her luck. "In the spirit of friendship?"

"You will see," Viktor promises, smile rather sharklike, and kisses her hand in farewell.

While Hermione pores over the Daily Prophet in search of the Knight Bus schedule, Fleur makes her way into the Restricted Section. The selection isn't as large as she hoped, but Fleur makes do with what she has: a tome on the history of Portkeys, pamphlets on the intricacies of the Department of Magical Transportation, and some theoretical introductions to spellcasting. Perhaps she'll discover more in Flourish and Blotts.

"You didn't need a note from a professor?" Hermione whispers as Fleur settles in, sounding envious.

"Students in seventh year don't require one," she answers, piling her research onto the table. "Nor do the Triwizard champions."

They spread out a map, forcing the printing of London's primary wizarding locale to lie flat between them.

"We should try to land somewhere less frequented..."

"This cross-street will do," says Fleur, tapping a finger on Horizont Alley. "It is much quieter than Diagon."

"Okay. When should we go on our, erm, romantic getaway?" Hermione asks, abruptly switching topics when a prefect wanders by.

"On the next Hogsmeade weekend," Fleur answers without missing a beat, batting her eyelashes. "Then I will sweep you off your feet."

"You can try," says Hermione, the challenging glint in her eye soon fading into her typical worry. "That trip is in two weeks. I should be free, considering Skeeter hasn't published her scoop on Hagrid. We're cutting it very fine, however," she adds, words so low Fleur must lean forward to listen. "We need to have all the ingredients for the potion by midway of this month if we want our Felix Felicis to be entirely ready by June 24th."

"This we can do," Fleur promises, despite her misgivings about yet another approaching deadline. "Trust me."

With a few more things sorted or in the works, Fleur hustles Hermione from the library after a while and draws her by hand to the grounds.

"We are late," she explains as Hagrid's garden comes into view at the bottom of the slope, "for the Potions Championship."

This competition lacks the flair and dramatics of the Triwizard Tournament, but the prizes lured many sixth and seventh-years into the ring.

"Wow," Hermione mumbles, admiring the grand prize—a golden cauldron—from a distance. "Why didn't I know about this?"

"It was only open to N.E.W.T. students," Fleur answers, pretending not to notice the eyes flicking from the potioneers to them and back.

"Typical," Hermione says, half-turning to give a long suffering glance at Fleur. "I could've done well."

Thinking of the amazing story behind Hermione brewing the Polyjuice Potion, Fleur concedes. She waves at Giselle, who grins and gets back to work. Fleur is not too sorry to know the competition will end with Ragna's victory, now that Beauxbatons has warmed up to Durmstrang.

"Shall we place a wager on the winner?"

"No, you cheater."

"Not yet!"

Less than an hour later, Ragna hoists the cauldron over her head, joining her Durmstrang classmates in a victory chant.

"I missed one teaspoon of pearl dust," Giselle mutters, standing morosely beside her cauldron of nearly perfect Amortentia, arms crossed over her chest. Some of its spiraling steam finds Fleur, filling the air in a strange and pleasing combination of spearmint, flowers, and burning wood.

"You won't need to brew that at the Ministry..." Hugo consoles, heaving Giselle's consolation prize of silver scales into his arms.

Hermione, meanwhile, hovers by Ragna's cauldron as Professor Snape directs the students of his latest detention to begin cleaning up the contest.

"Something to your liking?" Fleur asks.

"Lilies, maybe," Hermione says, puzzled. "Or another flower. Freshly mown grass, new parchment...I'm not certain..."

"If you lovebirds are quite finished," Giselle announces, startling Fleur from a reverie, "we're going to the Three Broomsticks. I need a drink."

"You could've gone," says Hermione after Fleur recovers enough to decline the invitation. "I don't mind. I've been neglecting Harry and Ron."

"I see them every day." In the distance, Giselle and Hugo share a kiss, utterly unburdened by any doubts. Fleur envies that. "It is no bother."

Not in much of a hurry to carry on with schoolwork or plan another leg of their scheme, she and Hermione wander along the grounds.

"I'm surprised you didn't join the competition," Hermione says, adjusting her earmuffs.

"Between the Tournament and my classes, I did not have much time to myself. Another competition would've ruined me."

Hermione narrows her eyes. "Is that the only reason?"

"No." Too old to pout over it, Fleur is nonetheless sorely tempted. "Potions are not my strong suit."

"What was your N.E.W.T. grade?"

"In France, they..." Fleur bows to the inevitable. "Acceptable," she confesses, trying unsuccessfully to be annoyed at Hermione's triumphant look.

"Oh." The note of superiority is undeniable. Hermione's features are nearly glowing. "Perhaps I should brew the potion, then, just in case?"

False modesty was awful on Roger, but it is awfully appealing on Hermione. "Perhaps," Fleur says in willing defeat, "I already trust you with my life."

After a fortnight of anxiety and impatience, Fleur rises early, packs her bag, and departs, careful not to wake Céline on her way out of the room.

A Disillusioned Hermione is waiting at the gates for Fleur, breath steaming in the air.

"Nervous?"

"Are you?" Fleur asks, removing the charm and pulling Hermione deeper into the woods so she can start working on her disguise.

"A little. These plans always seem so smart and well organized in the beginning..."

With a flick of Fleur's wand, Hermione's hair straightens into a shiny auburn. Her eyes, loath as Fleur is to change them, lift to a faint green.

"Huh," Hermione remarks, examining her reflection in a mirror Fleur conjures. She flips the mirror around and holds it steady so Fleur can turn her hair into an inky black much like her cousin Émilie's. A tap and a murmur alters other features; Fleur's nose shrinks and Hermione's face fills out.

"That should do," Fleur decides. Had she not made the changes herself, she'd be hard pressed to find Hermione in a crowd by looks alone.

In Hogsmeade, they join the queue of sleepy wizards and witches, only to startle and squawk like owls at the sound of a loud BANG!

Stan Shunpike mumbles his way through his usual introduction, collecting wares and escorting everyone to their seats. Fleur and Hermione hastily buckle into a row in the middle, keen to avoid a passenger that tripped on her way to the restroom and splattered vomit all over the back floor.

"Never a dull moment," Hermione manages around a shaky laugh as the bus careens from Aberdeen to Glasgow in less than a minute.

As the Knight Bus crosses the border into Carlisle, she blanches and grabs Fleur's hand.

BANG!

Leeds.

BANG!

Liverpool.

BANG!

Ipswich.

BANG!

By Birmingham, Hermione has yet to let go, so Fleur tightens her grip, trying to soothe.

"Carkitt Market," Stan says finally, yawning. "Horizont, Knockturn, and Diagon Alley acc-accessible that way. Next stop...Dover."

They stumble off the purple monstrosity and into the open air arcade, grateful to ease away from the foot traffic to gain their bearings.

"I've never been on this side," Hermione says, once her face loses its sickened look.

"The Hopping Pot is very good," Fleur replies, pointing. They stroll on, unwilling to rush a long day. "Bill and I have gone many times in the—past."

Fleur navigates them through Horizont Alley, then at last the friendlier Diagon Alley. Hermione relaxes, gazing at the familiar shops.

"Where to?"

"Gringotts," says Fleur. "Let us get that over with."

"And how much exactly are you withdrawing?" Hermione asks.

"I am selling, not withdrawing," Fleur explains, stepping into an alcove to pull her prize from her bag before they walk any further. "This teapot belonged to Madame de Sévigné, a French aristocrat. Even in the wizarding world, Muggle artifacts hold some value. My aunt will miss it dearly."

They step into the bank. With Hermione at her heels, Fleur diverts from the line of high desks to a smaller, shabbier pod of cubicles at the end of an ill-lit hallway. This room is filled with a staff of treasure hunting humans, all of which are unpacking pallets and sorting gems into different bins. Bill's desk is not yet his; without the Gryffindor scarf and waving images of his family, the space is lacking. Hunched over a piece of parchment is the man Bill will eventually replace as punishment for a risky purchase. Happy to encourage history to repeat itself, Fleur clears her throat.

"Good morning, Monsieur Bletchley." Fleur ignores the nervous shift of Hermione's feet. "I have a relic I wish to sell."

"Hmm? Oh." Marius blinks and gestures for them to sit. "Forgive me, did we have an appointment?"

"We did," Fleur exclaims, smelling weakness in the air. "Do you not recall? Must I speak to your manager?"

"No!" Marius breaks out in a sweat and shoves a pair of trifocals onto his face. "Of course not. Please, may I see your...relic?"

For a while, Marius studies the teapot, turning this way and that with his hands. He petitions Fleur with question after question of its provenance, taking copious notes and acknowledging each answer with a nod of assent. Finally, he slides over a paper with his price. Fleur pushes it back.

"This is not enough." Beside her, Hermione makes a quiet noise of dismay. "This piece is one of a kind."

"Perhaps, Madame Michu, but is it worth the trouble?"

"The Muggles will pay you handsomely," Fleur points out, thinking of Bill's stories. "Sotheby's alone...well, you know better than I."

Hermione peers over Fleur's shoulder to read the new offer and gasps. Fleur slaps the paper down impatiently.

"Be reasonable, sir."

Marius pulls at his tie, looks over his shoulder, and lets a third—and ostensibly final—offer falls to the desk. Fleur twirls the paper, pretending to consider it. Truly, it is more Galleons than she anticipated. She makes them wait another minute before she extends a hand. "We have a deal."

When she and Hermione occupy the street again, this time a few thousand Galleons richer, Hermione lets out a breath of laughter.

"I didn't think he would go that high," she admits, sidling an admiring look to Fleur. "You were fearless."

Fleur grins, electing for her own brand of false modesty. Hermione only smirks, not fooled. "Gringotts will make much more selling the relic to Muggles and converting the money back to Galleons than they would ever offer me for it," she says. "And Marius is desperate for a promotion."

In her time, Marius was demoted to a door guard of low vault. Fleur isn't sorry to hasten his journey to operating Probity Probes day in and day out.

"Couldn't we've done that?"

"Not legally," says Fleur, "or quickly. They have a system and wizards in their employ, like Bill, to handle exchanges, but we are short on time."

"I've underestimated you, haven't I?"

"You did." Fleur beckons. She's enjoying herself. Her skills were falling into disuse at Hogwarts. "Come along. Mundungus won't be here until noon."

Thanks to the exchange, they spend extra on ingredients of higher quality than Hogwarts offers, visiting different stores and arranging to end the errand with the Ashwinder egg in Knockturn Alley. Being away from Hogwarts gives Fleur a strange sense of relief. In this way, she can pretend nothing in June happened at all—as if she is still mulling over an impromptu trip to France, unaware of the coming danger in the form of Snape's Patronus. She watches Hermione as they step into Flourish and Blotts, smiling at the expression she could now recognize through any disguise.

"Look," Hermione says, more disgusted by a Skeeter-penned biography than their brief foray into Borgin and Burkes for the Ashwinder egg.

Fleur guffaws.

"This does not tickle your fancy? She is said to be the epitome of truth telling."

"Not for all the gold in Gringotts!"

Trying to kill time, Fleur makes a detour into the Travel and Arithmancy sections, hoping to find a guide for Portkeys. There must be some level of calculation behind the Portus spell, she reasons, much like the malice within the Unforgivable Curses, or the invoked destination in the magic of Apparition. She's engrossed in an argument concerning Britain's restrictive laws on magic carpets when Hermione taps her on the shoulder.

"He's here."

Outside the window, a familiar head of straggly red hair is arguing with a customer.

"Let us give him a few moments." Fleur amuses herself with the irony of using Mundungus's advice against him. "We do not want to be too eager."

The would-be customer storms off. Mundungus loiters near the entrance of Flourish and Blotts, smoking a pipe and standing in the middle of a smelly green cloud. Once another quarter of an hour passes, Fleur trails in Hermione's wake, following the script of Fleur's own making.

"Good morning," Hermione says brightly.

"Innit, luv?" Dung waves some of the smoke away and blinks, spotting Fleur who gives him a wide smile.

"This is...um, Jean. My girlfriend." With difficulty, an exasperated Hermione manages to draw Dung's attention back to her. "She's visiting from France, you see, for her birthday. I want to surprise her with something special as a gift, but it's proving hard to track down, I'm afraid..."

"You're not very good at surprises," Dung observes, glancing at Fleur.

"Not to worry. She doesn't speak English. N'est-ce pas vrai, mon chéri?" Hermione prompts, rising on tiptoe to kiss Fleur's cheek.

"Oui."

"What d'you have in mind?" Dung asks, all business. He lights his pipe again. In spite of the smell, Hermione leans closer to whisper.

"It's a Non-Tradeable Substance."

"Aye."

"It's rare," Hermione says with feigned—or real—hesitation. As much he tries to hide it, Fleur watches Dung's interest grow.

"Tha's my speciality. Go on."

"Well..." Hermione leans closer still. "Have you ever sold an Occamy egg before?"

"Can't say I have." Scratching his chin, Dung's disappointed. Fleur isn't surprised to learn that Mundungus has some knowledge of magical creatures, rare or otherwise. In Grimmauld Place, she once overheard him telling the twins about an ill-fated procurement of manticore claws. "There's a fella over in Knockturn who might have one. A competitor. We don't get along. He's been yammerin' on and on about his supposed treasures o' the East. Load of bollocks if you ask me, but he's been poachin' my regulars for months." He pauses. "Suppose you need it right away?"

"As soon as possible," says Hermione. "It's for her hair. There's nothing else like it on the market."

"And worth a lot of money," Fleur reminds Hermione in French, forcing Dung to look between them and try his best to decipher things. She runs her fingers through said hair, letting it catch a glimmer of sunlight and glow, albeit not as vibrantly as her own. Disguised veela hair or not, Dung goes cross-eyed. "Now I'm going to ask you if we can seek out his competitor for help instead. If that doesn't work, I'll kiss you to distract him."

"Oh, I-I don't know." Going scarlet, Hermione wrinkles her nose. "Can't we work with him, Jean? Please, I don't want to go into Knockturn..."

Fleur huffs loudly and looks away, hunching her shoulders.

"I can help!" Fraught with anxiety, Dung is insistent. "I'm—look, you aren't gonna find anyone with my set o' skills. Let me get you the egg."

"Are you sure?" Hermione looks dubious, putting more pressure on Mundungus. "That person doesn't like you. If it's too dangerous..."

"Stuff 'im. He's got it comin'. Don't give me that look, dear." Dung stows his pipe in his sleeve. "He's an arse. I'll get my hands on yer octo—"

"Occamy."

"—Occamy egg. Ol' Dung can handle it. Tha's what I do."

"Well, if you're sure it will be that easy. Here," Hermione adds, brandishing the paper with Marius's counteroffers, making sure to show only the largest sum. Dung doesn't seem to notice how much sharper she is now that he's in her clutches. "This is what I'm willing to give you if you find it."

Mundungus's grin shows a gold plated tooth. "Back in a mo'. Don't go far."

"Wonderfully done," Fleur says, beaming at Hermione after Dung scarpers to Knockturn Alley. "You almost had me convinced."

"Did I? I was so nervous." Hermione wrings her hands. "Now what?"

"Now we must you get you a drink."

Paying no heed to Hermione's protests, Fleur marches her down the road and into Reynardine's and orders them both a glass of Quintin Black.

"Drink, Hermione. You'll feel better."

"This isn't legal," Hermione says, nonetheless lifting the glass to her lips and mumbling something about Muggle substance laws.

"Good?"

"Not as good as butterbeer, but it's close." She nibbles on the chips Fleur orders. "When do you think he'll be back?"

"Soon. Dung is a confident wizard when he wants to be," says Fleur. "This money is enough to bring out his best work."

"By 'best work', you mean..."

"Hexing or Stunning that competitor of his and robbing him for all he is worth," Fleur says cheerfully. "Today is a windfall. Why waste it on us?"

"I still don't know why he's in the Order at all," Hermione grouses.

"You sound like Molly."

"Well, she's right! He's so unscrupulous."

"Not as much as you and I," Fleur reminds her, downing another shot. "This is a grand heist, is it not?" Or a farce. Both are possible.

"I suppose so," Hermione concedes, but she's grinning after she finishes a second shot. "I still don't know how you talk me into these things."

"Is it always not you, talking me into nonsense?"

"Maybe. We seem to do a lot of negotiating. More than I do with Harry and Ron." Hermione hiccups. "I'm not sure why you and I can be so..."

"Difficult?"

"Different. And hard. I suppose my parents would call it 'conflict resolution'. They're always talking things out."

"Perhaps it is so difficult because we both care so very much about the results," Fleur muses, resting her chin on her hand and frowning at her glass, "and we are unaccustomed to...change." But that isn't true, at least for her. This is hard for Fleur because of a silly crush, and how it influences every interaction with Hermione. Overnight, she found herself navigating a friendship that shifted when she wasn't paying attention.

It does not help that a visit to Reynardine's feels like a date. Cerberus Langarm brought Fleur here once upon a time.

"I don't know. Every term changes things for me." Hermione reaches for another chip. "I didn't think I'd have friends here after my first year."

"Why?"

"Well, the boys didn't write to me in the summer and didn't show up on the train. I sat by myself the whole way. I guess I thought I was just...too hard to deal with. Too much." Hermione sighs. "Of course, I learned later that night Dobby hid my letters to Harry and that Ron prefers to catch up in person. Then I found out they drove a flying car to school and crashed into the Whomping Willow, so I was only out of the loop, not ignored—"

"You are never too much, Hermione."

"Really?"

Their eyes meet.

"Really." There's no hope of hiding how much Fleur means it, nor how fast the outburst came to life. "It is a pleasure to know you."

"Same here," Hermione declares before adding, flushed and always so honest, "and that is something I never thought I would say."

"...I think you have had enough, yes?"

Sheepishly, Hermione surrenders her glass to the bartender.

At half past two, as they are milling near Ollivander's and chatting about nothing of importance, Dung catches up, carrying a box and panting with the effort. "Got it!" He looks left and right, abashed. "Got it," he repeats in a much quieter voice, accompanying them into a shadowed corner.

"Let me see," Fleur commands in French.

"Show us," says Hermione.

Dung eases the box open. Fleur's misgivings falter slightly. Surrounded by a layer of felt, the eggshell gleams, its surface made of pure silver. Fleur casts a silent and wandless Revealing Charm to test its properties, but the egg merely shines, offering nothing special but its ethereal sheen.

"Told ya I deliver."

Hermione swaps the sack of gold for the box. Dung tests the weight and lets out of a whoop of relief.

"Thought you were gonna swindle me. Can't be too careful, yeah?"

"You really can't." Hermione smiles, clutching the box closer. Dung shrinks the sack to fit his pocket, eyeing them with curiosity.

"Quite a lot o' gold for a gift, dear."

There's a glint in his eye Fleur dislikes. She steps between Hermione and Dung, pretending to flick dust off Hermione's sleeve.

"Only the best for my Jean," Hermione answers, enthused and oblivious. "Thanks to you."

"See, I heard that," Dung continues, hand again drifting to his pocket. His wand hand, Fleur can't help but note. She keeps her focus on him but he only has eyes for Hermione. "A friend of mine seemed to think that egg was worth a lot more than you gave me." At the end of the alley, another shadow steps into the sun. Dung's friend, Fleur guesses, and he's blocking the exit. She tenses, somehow reminded of her veela cousins and their horror stories of traveling in countries where they're forbidden to carry wands and classified as beasts. You must learn how to protect yourself, her grandmother had warned. "So I got to thinkin'...I better see what I can get for it myself with the highest bidder." Finally noticing Widdershins, Hermione goes pale. "Willy here says you can make liquid luck with it. Me? I just want my cut." He raises his wand. "Better luck next time. Stup—"

"Confringo!" Fleur's spell, aimed deliberately low, forces Dung to dive aside. She whirls around, deflecting Willy's Impediment Jinx.

"Glacius."

Widdershins goes stock still in a block of ice. Hermione summons Dung's wand before he can get to his feet.

"Y-you should've taken our deal," she accuses, recovering.

"Most unwise, Monsieur Fletcher," Fleur adds to Dung's shock. She immobilizes him and sets the wand high up on a ledge. "Bonne chance."

"Were you expecting that?" Hermione questions, still frazzled. The drinks are not sitting well with her, nor the surprise.

"Bah. I suspected."

They're almost out of the alley when Dung's voice reaches them.

"Stop!" He yells as loud as he can, lying prone on the ground but nevertheless attracting dozens of eyes. "Thieves!"

Fleur doesn't wait for the rest of Diagon Alley to react; she grabs Hermione's hand and Disapparates.

They smack down in Carkitt Market again, beside Cogg and Bell Clockmakers. Fleur shoves Hermione into an alcove and gives her another makeover. She shrinks the box and stuffs it into her pocket, then twists around her own appearance. In seconds, they're unrecognizable.

Now looking more like Katie Bell than Ginny, Hermione lists sideways, green-faced.

"I...don't feel so good."

"At least," Fleur declares over the familiar noise of Hermione retching into a bin, "we found what we came for?"

(She's had worse missions.)

It's after three when they return to Hogsmeade, having jumped into the queue for the Knight Bus. Mundungus and Widdershins only got as far as the Hopping Pot before Ernie hit the gas pedal, giving Fleur and Hermione a glimpse of the would-be double-crossers, out of breath and furious.

Falling into the crowds of students visiting the village, Fleur and Hermione dally about, pretending to shop until the cold drives them away.

The way back to the unused lavatory is long, but the silence is comfortable. Soon, Fleur can't deny her excitement as Hermione assembles the ingredients and invites her to help. Fleur passes over each one with an increasing thrill, watching the finnicky potion begin to take shape.

"Careful," she warns as Hermione dons a pair of gloves and lowers the Ashwinder egg into the cauldron, then the horseradish and squill bulb.

Adorned in her own gloves, Fleur lifts the Occamy egg to her eyes. "What a waste. This would do wonders for my hair. There is a recipe—"

"Gilderoy Lockhart's, right?" Hermione pries the egg out of Fleur's hands.

"Yes!" Fleur has all his books back in France. Her mother got them autographed. "Il est merveilleux."

"He is. He taught here a few years ago."

"You know him?" Another thing to envy about Hogwarts, albeit privately.

"I do. He's very charming." She examines the potion. "This ought to do for the time being." Hermione hides the cauldron in a stall. "I'll stop by every day to check on it." She dusts off her hands and smiles at Fleur now, leaning back to set her weight against the wall. "Today was really...fun."

All disguises shed but one, Fleur is quick to agree. "Another adventure, I hope?"

A triumph worth remembering, when all is said and done. She will hold onto that feeling.

"Another one for the books. Thank you for trusting me to help."

"Of course." Fleur is teasing again. "I will look back fondly on your willingness to break more wizarding laws."

How far they've come since that night at the Ministry. Fleur can't quite believe it herself, going from an acquaintance of Hermione's to...

"You just couldn't wait to use that one, could you?" Hermione asks wryly.

...something else. "It made the day rather difficult, but I managed." She makes sure Hermione does not miss the smirk.

"You'll be happy to know," insists Hermione, "I've come to another overdue understanding, all on my own."

"Oh?"

"Sometimes, you can't follow the rules if you want to do the right thing."

This subject has been well-canvassed by both of them, so Fleur simply waits for the punchline.

"And sometimes..." Hermione passes over a butterbeer from Reynardine's. "You have the break the rules to get what you want."

"My little thief," Fleur croons, clasping a hand to her heart and raising the bottle with the other. "I am so proud of you. À votre santé."

"Which reminds me," Hermione adds, "if we're listing things to brag of, I should tell you about the time I lit Professor Snape on fire."

This is not a perfect reality, Fleur knows. There is danger everywhere and danger nowhere, left in the offing of nonbeing alongside the Time-Turner. There is hurt here and hurt there and more hurt to come, if they are successful. If they aren't successful. Some things are just inevitable.

And yet, for all her complaining, for all her regrets, for all her wistful wishes, she would choose this place over any other.

"Go on, little thief," Fleur urges, bowing again to the inevitable appeal of Hermione Granger, "and spare no detail. We have the time."

Chapter Text

"I can't do it!"

"This was never going to be a simple affair, Hermione. Keep going."

Stopping just short of throwing her wand onto the ground, Hermione opens her eyes. "I should have this already."

"You are much closer than you think, believe me. Try again."

"No, please, I need a break."

With a sigh, Fleur gives in. This morning, they are again braving the biting winds along the Black Lake for yet another lesson. Nonverbal magic is perhaps the first true challenge of Hermione's abilities, and it makes Fleur in equal parts contemplative, entertained, and understanding. Hermione's success is all but inevitable, clawed closer to every day and each minute of practice, though every inch forward is hard-won and bitter. Fleur has half a mind to suggest alternative approaches, despite knowing now—knowing well and confidently—that Hermione would only refuse.

So would I. With that judgment in mind, Fleur elects to console.

"Most don't pick up nonverbal magic until the sixth year. It is a very advanced discipline."

"I'm not most of us."

"That I know."

"Neither are you." Now skilled in the art of reading Hermione's moods, Fleur sees this frown betrays longing, not scorn. "I want to reach your level."

This is not a new refrain. Fleur's heard it many times before, as if it were Hermione's mantra and Fleur's job to say yes, dear. The routine of coupledom, she muses, almost able to find her dilemma funny. Many dread such a turn—the end of spontaneity, the dwindling of passion. With Hermione, in their fanciful facade of a relationship, Fleur is never bored. Every day is an adventure, even if the adventure is an afternoon spent on the grounds practicing spells or walking around, talking about anything and everything. Every subject has a new layer to explore, a new argument to dissect. Their friends quickly learned to stay out of these conversations, for few can get a word in edgewise (and are often unwanted anyway).

"And so you must keep trying, but perhaps later."

"Later?"

Fleur hesitates, pronouncing each word with greater care to her accent than usual. "It would be prudent to be seen with you today. For the holiday."

Hermione's face flickers between disbelief and amusement. "It's only Valentine's Day, Fleur, not a deathday party."

"You will not like where we are going."

Suspicion quickly replaces the amusement, as if they have just started to duel. Fleur parries with a firm look.

"You don't mean..."

"Allon-sy, Hermione. We are off to Madam Puddifoot's."

After more bargaining, cajoling, and threats than Fleur has ever needed to employ, they enter the tea shop in low spirits and pricklier tempers.

"This is ridiculous," Hermione hisses.

She refused to see the wisdom in keeping up appearances on the most romantic holiday of the year until the last minute; Fleur doggedly insisted otherwise until they compromised on a short visit (and none of her deliberately annoying pet names, as Fleur was partial to giving in testy moods).

This is the nature of their entente, after all. A thousand debates and a thousand understandings, with many more to come.

"No more ridiculous than your idea," Fleur bites out, all but ripping Hermione's cloak from her shoulders and pulling out a chair. "Sit."

Gimlet eyed, Hermione complies. Fleur joins her, their knees knocking together as they arrange themselves around a table. Confetti begins to rain down, luring a murderous glare from Hermione to the ceiling, where a gang of golden cherubs hide and babble between arms of the chandeliers.

"What can I get you, m'dears?" Madam Puddifoot asks, once she has made her way through the maze of chairs and tables and handholding couples.

"Tea," Hermione says curtly, just as Fleur murmurs, "coffee."

"Lovely. Back in a moment."

In the corner of Fleur's eye, a familiar head of brown hair shifts nearer to his date, smiling at her over the sugar bowl.

Hermione follows her gaze. "Oh, I forgot about that."

"Moi aussi."

"You don't miss him, do you?" Hermione's voice, reeking of payback, has all the recrimination Fleur cares to hear on the subject of Roger Davies.

Bristling, Fleur decides not to retaliate by asking if Hermione misses Viktor, though their exes could not be any more different.

"No."

The drinks arrive. They sit silently. Hermione stirs her tea, stopping the clanging of her spoon when Fleur's eyes drop to it. In every direction, real couples ease closer, laugh, brush confetti from their hair, and whisper promises in each other's ears. These gestures make Fleur vaguely sad, knowing any done between them are pale imitations of true feeling, at least on Hermione's end. On Fleur's side, however, she struggles to keep her feelings beyond their calculated expressions of affection. Even kisses have her holding back in fear that she will cause Hermione discomfort.

As if anyone could tell. Mistakes are fewer and farther between after they reached yet another understanding, idle bickering like today's aside.

Their goal to draw the three schools closer together appears to be working, but old tensions remain and wait watchfully in the wings. Fleur can't help but wonder whether the unity will endure after the Tournament ends, or if life in the wizarding world will go back to 'normal.' She hopes not. Fleur had sensed something unique when they sneaked into the village and played games better suited to their age than the collective mourning they may expect in June. That afternoon was fun, and watching Ragna defend Céline and Henry protect Ebbe was somehow like the first taste of magic itself, filling the air with possibilities. Do others feel the same when she and Hermione seek out each other's company? Maybe. They're on the cusp of something wonderful here, she reflects, and despite the odds and the private quandary in her heart, Fleur tells herself it will all be worth it.

(Someday.)

"Did he kiss you like that?" Hermione asks, disrupting the sullen and quiet slog of Fleur's thoughts. "Like he was plumbing a clogged sink?"

Fleur chokes.

"Excusez-moi?"

"It looks like a lot of tongue from here. Not an attractive sight, really."

Fleur's hand flies to her mouth. She shouldn't be quite so delighted by Hermione's irreverence anymore, but the surprises are always sweet.

"It was more as if I were a stubborn Snargaluff stump, if you catch my meaning," she demurs. If this is a white flag, she's taking it.

Hermione's laughter is poorly concealed with a cough.

"Is he drooling? Shall we fetch her a towel?"

"And perhaps a mint..."

Hermione laughs again, this time not so quietly. Fleur draws closer, a smile springing to her lips of its own accord. Now, how can she truly despair when found in moments like these? Adventure may chivy at Hermione's heels, but joy is a pursuer too and always dragging Fleur along with it.

"Shall I warn the girl of his impotence?" Fleur asks, holding still as Hermione brushes confetti from her hair. "She should know what to expect, yes?"

"In detail!"

Their cackles ring loud enough to summon Madam Puddifoot, who comes bearing a tray and an irritable look.

"Ladies, I think it's best that you leave. You're disturbing the other patrons..."

Behind Puddifoot, Roger is red-faced. His date looks vexed.

The room has also fallen silent, appalled by their lack of savoir vivre, but Fleur and Hermione—again on the same clever page—don't care one bit.

Mirthful behind their apologies, they abscond from the shop hand in hand, catching the last vestiges of a blue sky on the way back to Hogwarts.

Much later, Fleur returns to the carriage with a skip in her step and happens upon a card game.

Henry, Hugo, Giselle, Céline, Sacha, and Emma are placing bets as she moves to stand behind Céline's chair, glimpsing all the hands in play.

"Back so early?" Céline inquires.

"We were asked to leave."

Their fits of laughter in the cafe are sure to serve as fodder for new Braithwaite blinds, but Fleur doesn't mind. Let them talk.

The afternoon continued much like the morning had, their fight all but forgotten. They went to the Shrieking Shack this time instead of the shore of the Black Lake, jests and witticisms interposing discussions of how to get Hermione closer to mastering nonverbal magic. Anticipation of Hermione's success infected Fleur like a balm, infusing the fears of shadowy futures with hope. She can do this, Fleur had thought. We can do this.

Hermione eventually begged off so she could drop more timely hints to Harry about solving the egg, but promised to write to Fleur afterward.

Henry chortles. "Did Puddifoot find your arguments and inside jokes and endless flirting as tedious as we do?"

There are a few giggles.

Céline loyally cuffs Henry upside the head, although when she peers back at Fleur, her eyes are sparkling with mischief.

"Alas, no. This time it was Hermione's wicked sense of humor."

"How disappointing to hear 'sense of humor,' isn't it?" Giselle asks Sacha. He waggles his eyebrows.

Fleur rolls her eyes. Hugo offers a piece of chocolate in commiseration. "Giselle will not mind?" She asks in a stage whisper.

The pair titters.

"They were for me," Céline says, slipping into the role of peacekeeper again. "A secret admirer. The gift wrapping serenaded us all after it was delivered, unfortunately off-key, but the chocolates make up for it." Fleur agrees. They certainly put the fare at Puddifoot's tables to shame.

She reaches for another piece as the group decides to show their hands.

"I fold," Sacha grumbles. Emma and Henry follow. Giselle and Hugo engage in a brief standoff before they slap their cards down onto the table.

The winning hand, however, sits on the other side. Fleur smiles as the Bezants dance into Céline's purse, its owner already glowing with triumph.

"The key to getting what you want," Céline declares, assuming a mocking gravitas, "is waiting for it."

"Then I'll keep waiting for Lorcan d'Eath to find me," says Emma. "I can be patient."

"What about Jakob?" Fleur must ask.

"It was his idea," Emma explains with an arch look, prompting a new round of laughter. "We'll be dancing to 'Necks to You' in the meantime!"

All in all, it is not the worst Saint Valentin Fleur has ever had. She even goes to sleep smiling, far and away from earlier catastrophizing.

In the morning, however, Fleur is sick. Her stomach twists into knots. A cold sweat gathers on her brow and neck as she flits in and out of the washroom, getting dressed and applying makeup. Toeing on one heel and then the other at a pace that feels somehow much slower than usual, Fleur uses the nearest wall for leverage, seeing no sign of Céline in the other bed. In the kitchen, Sacha is hunched over a cup of tea, Manon is chewing listlessly on a piece of toast and staring at nothing, while Henry lies drowsing in the parlor with an arm hanging across his face.

"Those chocolates were potent," Fleur observes, trying for a smile that doesn't come. How can she? She doesn't have who she wants.

Telling herself to let that go, she winces, her stomach only continuing to twist knot after knot, plagued by a distressing malaise. Even the world is off-balance today; colors are dim and sounds are muted. The last thing left for certain is a lone and obscure longing that gnaws at her deeply.

J'ai mal aux cheveux, Fleur wishes to plead with these stodgy English professors she's due to see soon, though she doubts she'd get any sympathy.

"And yet Céline was out of the carriage before dawn." Manon disposes of her toast. "Chattering on and on about someone she had to find..."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Maybe I should help her out. George tells me McGonagall isn't above giving detention for lateness. Are you coming?"

"Before lessons?" Fleur supposes she could. Searching for Céline may ease her own troubles.

They make their way up to the castle. Fleur's mind drifts, sulking over her hangover, until Céline herself crosses their path on the seventh floor.

"I can't find him anywhere," she insists, grabbing Manon's arm. "Have you seen him?"

In spite of the fresh air, Fleur is not doing any better; the sight of Céline's anxiety just makes her feel worse.

"Who? Edgar?" Manon asks, confused. "He isn't feeling well. I heard him telling Madame Maxime that he couldn't attend class—"

"No, Kenneth," Céline says impatiently. "I want to thank him for his thoughtful gift and I can't get into the Gryffindor common room!"

Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth!

Fleur's insides squirm with eagerness now, reinvigorating her. She wouldn't mind seeing that boy again. Perhaps cursing him had been a mistake...

"Kenneth Towler?" Manon's laughter cuts off when Céline's fist flies in her direction. "Hey! What in Morgana's name are you doing?"

"This isn't a joke!"

Wands are drawn. Fleur steps aside. It's clear who is in the wrong here and she wants no part of it. She should slip away while they are distracted.

"It ought to be!" Manon's cry makes the nearby portraits gasp in affront. "You can't be serious! Kenneth Towler? Please tell me you're joking."

Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth.

Noises elevate. Colors pop and flash. Fleur imagines his smile, pleased as the lopsided world appears to right itself. She's been feeling so stressed lately, enough to forget that lovesickness would be the cure-all for overwhelming fear and loss. This turn of events is practically veela approved.

"Yes, Kenneth," Céline snaps back shrilly. "I think I'm falling in love with him and you're not being supportive in the slightest!"

"You've gone mad." Manon looks to Fleur helplessly. "Hasn't she?"

"Kenneth Towler would make anyone very happy." The common room is not far. She can persuade the Fat Lady to let her in and then, well...

"Anyone meaning you?" Eyes narrowing, Céline points her wand at Fleur now. "Not a chance, darling. He's mine."

"We'll see, won't we?"

"What's going on here?"

Manon turns to the newcomer—Hermione—with relief. "Thank Merlin it's you. I need help! They've both gone mad and I have no idea what to do."

Frowning, Hermione crosses over to Fleur's side. "Fleur, are you okay? You never answered my owl."

"Je vais bien." Fleur appreciates the concern, however unnecessary. "Céline is growing hysterical. Perhaps she should see Pomfrey—"

"While you steal Kenneth away from me? Bah! Absolutely not!"

"Kenneth Towler?" Hermione asks in confusion, unable to follow Céline's detour back to French. "Why would you want to see him? He's a boor."

"He is the last thing from boring!" Céline screeches, stomping her foot. Befuddled, Hermione appeals to Manon.

"You know him?" Fleur demands, grabbing Hermione's arm now. Such an opportunity cannot be wasted. "Can you introduce me?"

"Why? You've already met him!"

Yes, but Fleur badly needs a second chance at a first impression. Perhaps a fellow Gryffindor could smooth over the awkward moments?

"Mon dieu." Manon slaps a hand to her forehead, cartoonish in her dismay. "I know what the problem is now."

"What's going on?" Hermione repeats, trying to wrest free of Fleur's grip. Fleur ought to give her a lesson in courtesy.

"A potion..." Manon steps closer to whisper something in Hermione's ear. Fleur eyes Céline with distaste, who glares right back. The desperation she sees here is truly unflattering. Poor Céline, resorting to violence to get what she wants. Who she wants, but cannot have. What a pity!

"Good thinking," Hermione murmurs. She holds no candle to Kenneth, obviously, but somehow Fleur wants to hear what she has to say.

"Viens avec moi," Manon announces, plucking Céline's wand from her hand and tugging her along. "Ton copain est là-bas..."

"Follow me, please," Hermione says in English as Fleur moves to pursue them.

"Why? Manon said Kenneth is in that direction!"

"She's lying," Hermione says confidently, drawing Fleur close and lowering her voice. "Don't worry, I tricked them. Manon's bringing Céline to the library because she believes Kenneth will be there before classes begin." Fleur likes that. Studiousness should be admired in all genders. "But he'll actually be in the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey has to give him a Pepperup Potion...um, or so I heard. Maybe we can catch him on the way out."

"I shall be all the Pepperup that is needed," says Fleur, smiling even as Hermione makes a face, "but she will do the best she can."

They make for the Hospital Wing, Hermione glancing at her every so often.

"I'm not used to to see you like this, Fleur." Something not welcome, evidently, though Fleur would rather not waste her time deciphering it.

"Too many drinks," Fleur admits. Enough not to remember drinking any. Sacha's handiwork, no doubt, or those delicious chocolates.

"Pomfrey should take a look at you while we're there to find Kenneth," Hermione suggests as they wait for the stairs to bring them down a few levels. She pauses, resting an elbow on the railing and studying Fleur again. "That would give you the advantage over Céline, don't you think?"

"I do." Fleur's appreciation grows. Perhaps Hermione will make a good ally when she and Kenneth make a debut as a couple.

The stairwell jerks to a stop, suspending them a hundred feet in the air after Hermione insisted on taking a reliable shortcut.

"Sorry! You'd think after five years at Hogwarts, I'd know better." She plops down on the stairs and gazes up at Fleur. "Let's wait it out, shall we?"

"Will the seize and pull charm help us?" Fleur asks, looking at the dizzying stew of stonework below, floating independently and inscrutably.

"The stairs won't like it." Through the balusters, Hermione studies the abyss beneath them. "I know horror stories of people getting thrown off..."

With a sigh, Fleur bows to logic and joins her on the step. Hermione clears her throat.

"I forgot to mention, I took out a new book on nonverbal magic," she says, barreling on when Fleur doesn't reply, "which might help me. We'll see."

Fleur does not bother to feign interest. Good for Hermione, she figures, unwilling to linger on the subject.

"I checked on our lucky potion earlier. It's brewing very well. Myrtle hasn't said a word to anyone about it, shockingly enough..."

Undeterred, Hermione keeps talking, seemingly determined to force a conversation between them. You have met your match, Fleur thinks sourly, allowing mentions of Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Luna pass without a word, as well as a scheme surrounding the Prophet. She's more concerned with repairing her watch, to no avail. How long are we going to wait here? Impatience bites at her tongue, demanding a rescue from these infernal staircases. Perhaps Kenneth will be willing to move to France and finish out his schooling at Beauxbatons, where no such obstacles existed.

"So, um..." Hermione looks as if she is pulling teeth now. "When did you start having feelings for Kenneth?"

Finally, something she enjoys. Fleur perks up.

"This morning. Cupid's arrow caught me quickly." Like an old tale of Beedle's, though no tale ever mentioned the nausea or dry mouth.

"A day late. A bit odd, isn't it?"

If there is a subliminal message in Hermione's emphasis and pointed stare, Fleur does not intend to acknowledge it.

"Love pays no mind to rules. Perhaps you will understand that someday."

"Oh, maybe." Annoyed, Hermione fiddles with her own watch. "What drew your eye to him? Or, er, I mean...what are you looking for in a partner?"

Fleur gives her answers in dribs and drabs as a shape pools in her imagination, coloring in its lines and shades like a portrait. She wonders if she is still imbibed after all—the smells of the painting come to mind much faster than the words. Spearmint, flowers, and the trace of burning wood.

"Intelligence, for one. Bravery, for another. I cannot abide cowardice." Her love is a lion, which will indeed suffice.

"Definitely not." Those distinctions appear to interest Hermione, sweetening the earlier pique. "What else? About Kenneth, I mean?"

That name flows so well in Fleur's ears, she nearly forgets the question. She was being honest; hopefully Hermione will discover the same—being entirely consumed, mind and body and soul—with someone. Why care about anything else? There's no need, not with her love in every thought.

She is relieved, entirely relieved. Whatever worries plagued her before are gone. This love has made her weightless.

"Truth. I cannot stand a liar. Cerberus Langarm was a liar aplenty." The memory of him now fills Fleur with anger. "They must be genuine with me."

"Who?"

"A Hit Wizard. Our departments collaborated on a case." It was thrilling. Fleur hadn't felt such excitement since the Goblet spat out her name, or earlier still, her grandmother holding her close and taking flight. "The man was...charmant. Spoke French. I was pleased to spend time with him."

"Until..." Hermione prompts, albeit hesitantly. Fleur sighs again.

"Cerberus did not wish to be exclusive." Her stomach clenches at the memory. How small she felt at the time—how naive. "I did not know. He did not say. An office party came, but Cerberus did not want to go with me. 'This job is all I want,' he told me later. 'I don't want anything serious.'"

He was so surprised Fleur had wanted the opposite after months of dates. You? His eyes appeared to say, contempt clear. A veela girl?

For the sake of her heart, she hopes Kenneth Towler will be different. She dares not imagine otherwise—how dreadful that would be.

"He led you on?" Hermione asks, outraged. The stair lurches sideways, delaying Fleur's reply. This is not a thing she often enjoys thinking about. Bill and Tonks had tried to warn her about Cerberus, both in vain. Neither let her be embarrassed for too long afterward, however, only plastered.

"I suppose. I don't know if I was truthful about the matter from the first day..." She shrugs. "But I hoped things would be like my maman and papa."

"What do you mean?"

She can gush about love all day if asked, so Fleur seizes the chance to discuss her second favorite tale (the first being her own, naturally).

"You must see for yourself. They are always laughing. No other couple is so joyful. That was their manner of meeting, after all." Fleur passes over the photograph she's kept in her bag since her first day at Beauxbatons, for the nights she felt homesick. Hermione smiles at the Delacours once the photo is safely in hand, all of whom wave merrily and beam, Louis overtopped by Apolline by more than a foot. "Maman was besieged by suitors in those days, each praising her beauty and such. This she knew very well, yet never needed reminding. She wished to be seen for more her looks."

"That sounds like someone I know."

Their knees nudge together. Strangely, Fleur doesn't mind.

"In a cafe, she sat surrounded by the hopefuls. None left her be—four fetched drinks, another demanded the chef's best from the kitchen. When the men began arguing, a fellow at another table suggested sending the group on a hinkypunk hunt so they'd finally give her some peace and quiet."

"And did she get it?"

"Oh yes, with great aplomb. She claimed to have lost her pet jarvey on the Champ de Mars, so could they please go and find it?" Fleur grins. "A stampede ensued. The only ones left in the cafe were her and a little man at the next table, who made a silly joke about erumpets to cheer her up."

"That must've been quite the joke," says Hermione, eyes twinkling.

"It was not, but she laughed anyway. For once, a man sought nothing but idle conversation." Their staircase descends now. "The conversations went on and on, day after day. They went to new cafes to avoid her admirers. My maman is half-veela, so you can imagine the ardor that followed."

"Easily."

"This fellow never asked her for anything, only her opinions of history, politics, even the curricula of Beauxbatons. At last, it was she who asked him to dinner, much to his surprise. 'Why?' He asked, shocked. 'You could have anyone you wanted!' She only smiled and said, 'it is you I want'."

The stairwell comes a stop on the second floor. Hermione reaches out a hand to help Fleur onto the landing.

"That's romantic."

"It is! I wish to be romanced as so someday," Fleur confesses, "after many disappointments."

"Maybe you will."

They share another smile—Fleur wistful, Hermione quiet and pensive—until their objective returns to the forefront.

In Hospital Wing, a crowd of Beauxbatons students are either sitting in morose silence or arguing furiously with Madam Pomfrey. Professor Snape keeps the latter half in place with a steely gaze and unspoken menace; Madame Maxime nearly has the others in hand, professing her sympathies.

"I do not see Kenneth," Fleur says as she looks around the room, anxiety whirling anew. Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth. Where has he gone?

"Let me get you something to drink, okay? I'll ask about him," Hermione promises, hurrying over to Pomfrey.

They return to Fleur in less than a minute.

"Oh, dear, not another one," the matron murmurs, pressing a goblet into Fleur's hand and patting her arm. "Severus? That makes eight."

"Eight weeks of detention with Mr. Towler..." Snape's lip curls. "The dungeon floors will never be cleaner."

"Drink," Hermione says gently, drawing Fleur's eye. "You'll feel better. Trust me."

Fleur obeys, appreciating the consideration. A pick-me-up would soothe her nerves so she can prepare for...

Embarrassment replaces anxiety so fast Fleur is not quite sure how one becomes the next until an equilibrium levels out the scales.

Has she ever been so horrified? Twice, yes, and she knows those days are coming, but now she is consumed by it. She grips the goblet, flushing bright red. This was no hangover. The sense of doom in a hangover is fleeting; at this juncture, her humiliation will instead linger a long while.

"It's okay," Hermione whispers. Fleur ignores her.

"It was a love potion, my dear," Maxime interjects, extricating the goblet from Fleur's shaking fingers. "That boy will be punished, I assure you."

"Can we join in?" Céline mutters, angrier still. Her hair seems to crackle with electricity.

"Sign me up," adds Hugo, gulping down a glass of oak-matured mead.

"We will leave the details of his punishment to his Head of House," Professor Dumbledore interrupts as he strides into the room, McGonagall at his heels. He casts a sharp gaze upon them all, saving Fleur for last. She glares right back. "I will not have Mr. Towler become a target of two schools."

"Dumbly-dorr, will you not reconsider?" Maxime frowns in disgust. "Our own Ministry would sanction him quite severely..."

"That boy would go to prison!" Fleur snarls.

"In France, his wand would be snapped," Edgar presses. "You set a dangerous precedent, sir." Giselle huffs in agreement.

The group Snape kept quiet is growing restless. Forever persevering in the face of opposition, Dumbledore politely waits for them to finish.

"Mr. Towler will not cross the line again. You have my word." Perhaps to soften the blow, he excuses them all from lessons for the rest of the day.

That's it? That was the best her just man could do?

The room seems to bite its collective tongue and then mutinously and grudgingly disperse, for who would dare question Albus Dumbledore's word?

Bah! Many! Fleur remembers headline after headline in the Daily Prophet of her past, all overflowing with questions on the headmaster's sanity.

It is too neat. It is too tidy. She loathes this inopportune tendency of sweeping things under the rug in Britain—to soften everything, to excuse all errors of youth. Before she can say something she regrets, like voicing queries on the old man's understanding of justice, Fleur slips away.

"Fleur?"

Oh, her, she thinks, relieved to shake off any vestiges of a future criminal and a misguided professor in a welcome exchange for one Hermione Granger. How could she forget Hermione? Fleur slows her steps, watching Hermione's approach and cataloguing all the features the love potion had only repurposed at the speed of light—a bushy mane of hair, bright brown eyes, and the standard Hogwarts uniform with no thread out of place. What a strange relief it is, she muses, to be relieved of one burden and return to another, like one must do upon waking to the waiting reality.

Now in earshot, Hermione clears her throat, looking awkward. Fleur's temper abates slightly.

"I wanted to check on you."

"I am well. Do not fear."

But she isn't. This school seems committed to making a fool of her. This new past seems keen on turning all her understandings and expectations on their heads. Maybe it is not only the past that is changing—perhaps she is changing too, into a person whom she despises. A liar. Weak.

Hermione's expression flickers too quickly to follow. Does Hermione herself know what she's feeling? "It's okay to be embarrassed, Fleur. Kenneth took advantage of you all. You didn't hear Professor Snape talking about it earlier, right?" Fleur shakes her head. "Kenneth got a hold of the Amortentia from the potion competition. Remember? The one Ragna won? He'd been planning this stunt for some time. It wasn't an accident."

That does not make Fleur feel any better. In fact, the pity is almost stifling. For Hermione's sake, however, she stays civil.

"So?"

"It's okay to be upset," Hermione insists, pressing valiantly on in the face of Fleur's unhelpfulness, "and while I may not be the best at giving advice or keeping a cool head, I wanted you to know that you can feel...safe with me. Really. I'd never dream of mocking you for something like this." Hermione's hand finds her own and squeezes tight, as if her touch alone can leech the indignation and mortification from Fleur's body. Perhaps it can, she guesses, somehow feeling better, little by little. "This could've been so much worse." A breath escapes her. "I'm—I'm so glad you're okay."

Fleur squeezes back. This is an admirable showing of tact from Hermione, enough to winnow Fleur's sour feelings and snarls to sundries.

"For good or for ill, I am myself now."

"Back to normal," Hermione agrees. She's contemplative again, if confused. Even within the fog of the potion, Fleur saw that. "I like your normal."

In the distance, the clocktower begins to chime, drawing hundreds of feet to the stairs in search of lunch. Another old and welcome refrain.

Dumbledore notwithstanding, Fleur's disappointed, but such is life. Toads like Towler will get what's coming to them, one way or another.

"As for Cerberus," says Hermione, ignoring the commotion, "I know my way around the Ministry. If you want me to curse him, say the word."

"That was another world," Fleur reminds her, consoled yet embarrassed, the latter still peppering her neck with heat, "and another Cerberus."

"Even so."

"My little thief." For the girl who stole her attention and never gave it back, Fleur has to smile. "You would break another law for me?"

"What's one more?" In the short time since she was not herself, Fleur missed Hermione's arrogance too. "We've already done the impossible."

Doing, not done, Fleur would protest, now that her mind is clear, but perhaps she'll raise her own white flag, if only for the day.

With the Second Task so near on the horizon, Hogwarts is flooded with anticipation all over again.

Fleur senses the change in the air, the walls, the ground. She spies it in the faces of the boys, who downplay or outright deny it once asked.

"Nervous?" Cedric repeats, shaking his head as she catches him between classes. "A bit. It's like a Quidditch match, really. Nothing to worry about."

Viktor is frank but also less distant than he's been around Fleur in weeks.

"I want to do well. That is what we all want, yes?"

"We do," says Fleur, smiling back.

Harry, meanwhile, mumbles something incomprehensible and ducks away, a bemused Ron trailing in his wake. Hermione sighs.

"As I recall, he'll take Cedric's advice shortly," she explains, falling into step with Fleur on the way to the carriage. "He can be stubborn sometimes."

"That sounds like someone I know."

Hermione rolls her eyes. Fleur smirks, dumping her bag onto a chair in the parlor. They aren't alone; Henry and Charles occupy a pair of sofas across the room, betting away their allowances in a game of wizard's chess, while Paul and Isabeau share a settee and a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"What about you?" Hermione asks now. Her attention on Henry's likely victory, Fleur sits back to hear the question again.

"What?"

"Are you nervous about the Task?"

"Not at all," Fleur lies, waiting until Isabeau and Paul move to the kitchen before adding, "very."

Is a duel more terrifying when you know it is coming, or when you do not? Having seen both sides for herself, Fleur can't decide which one is worse.

Merde. When exactly in the year did her thoughts become so maudlin and stay that way? Fleur cannot quite remember.

"That's perfectly natural," Hermione assures. This time, the double meaning and pointed stare are not ignored.

"No one ever knows when you're nervous," says Henry, dispelling the tension. "You have a spectacular poker face."

"That's why we never invite you to play with us," Charles admits in French, perhaps to save face in front of Hermione.

"Don't be rude, Charles," Céline scolds, swanning into the room with the post and distributing letters to each of her classmates in turn. Reaching Hermione empty-handed, yet never one to leave anyone out, she offers a book from a nearby shelf. "Here, seek enlightenment. It's Fleur's favorite."

Hermione tilts the spine for Fleur's inspection as Céline departs, fingers already creeping to open the first page. "The Fountain of Fair Fortune..."

"That is one of Beedle's tales, and yes, my favorite. My cousins and I would reenact the story over and over again." Missing simpler days on the estate, Fleur unravels Gaby's letter. Her sister stayed true to her word from the Floo call at Christmas, albeit clumsily. A code rests between the lines of her adventures at Beauxbatons, promising she'll see Fleur very soon at Harry Potter's school, but she must act surprised for Maman, okay?

Further down the page, Gaby demands to know what Fleur is doing. Is she making new friends? Having fun? Can she send more Quibblers, please?

"Gabrielle is concerned I am not enjoying myself."

"Tell her I'm not," Charles ventures, frowning as Henry's bishop strangles one of his pawns. "I can't wait to go home."

"You're just upset you came all the way here and can't go for that Camargue purse next week," Henry reminds him, not unsympathetically.

"Charles, like Henry, wishes to race professionally," Fleur translates. "Madame Maxime will not let him go before the end of term."

"That purse is twice as much as your Triwizard prize. She would not even consider the counteroffer of splitting it with me!"

The pawns still left to Charles pat his palm consolingly, urging patience he hasn't employed much in the game. Henry chuckles.

"Why can't you race the Abraxans here?" Hermione asks after Fleur gives her the gist of Charles's outburst.

"Maxime would never allow it—" Fleur points out.

"Many have tried, if you must know—"

"Alexei kicked Raoul so hard, he flew a dozen paces..."

"—the professors would catch us—" says Henry, joining the barrage of regrets.

"My detentions are already lined up for the next month," Charles finishes in English, looking glum. "I can't afford to accrue any more."

Rustling the pages of the abandoned Prophet, Hermione disappears behind it. Her voice floats back over. "That's going to stop you?"

No stranger to the hint of mischief in Hermione's words, Fleur smiles to herself. Meant for the boys, the idea nonetheless attracts her too, pushing away the dour and dreary worries that have clung to her thoughts like barnacles for a while now. Why shouldn't they race the Abraxans here?

Such an opportunity cannot be wasted.

They could all use a diversion, lest the anticipation of the Task wring everyone out. And if it happens to coincide with certain goals, well, so be it.

"That does sound like fun," she muses, catching Hermione's grin in the corner of her eye. "And you missed our outing in Hogsmeade, Charles."

"Yes, you did." Henry is smug again. "I wrestled Krum. It was spectacular."

"A spectacular tie," Hermione reminds him.

"It would be easy to unlock the gate," says Charles. There is possibility in his features, a trace of successful persuasion. "I know the charm."

"We will say it was my idea," Fleur promises, sweetening the pot further. "They cannot expel a Triwizard champion."

"This school has driven you mad," Charles declares cheerfully, "but I cannot say I am not enjoying it."

"Or have you been mad all along?" Henry opines before he agrees to help, enthusiasm plain. "What do you need from us?"

"Well," says Hermione, the four of them putting their heads together in bold conspiracy, "as you must know, a distraction can work wonders..."

As it turns out, the distraction is a series of enchanted advertisements.

"It's a rather simple spell," Luna Lovegood explains to the group loitering on the grounds that had been summoned relatively fast, enticed by the chance of a spectacle. "Daddy uses it often. It's similar to what Muggles call 'flash blindness'. The charm stays in your vision for, oh, about an hour."

With help from the Hogwarts students, the inescapable ads became personalized to dupe the people who would stop the spectacle.

"McGonagall's never been on the cover of Transfiguration Today, so her flyer begs for an interview in Hogsmeade," says George with a grandiose bow, earning a round of nervous laughter. "This also may be the last prank I pull in my school career, so it's been a pleasure entertaining you all."

"We're blaming the whole thing on Fleur," says Manon, swooping in to kiss his cheek, "so don't fret."

"Hear hear," Hugo and Fred chorus in unison.

This is not untrue; with a flick of her wand, Fleur taught the advertisements how to fly like the Ministry's interdepartmental memos and then smilingly curtsied to applause. They had all watched the paper birds flutter up as a flock and separate, each jetting off to a different recipient.

"That wouldn't be fair," Cedric protests, missing Cho's little nod of approval behind his shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll say we cooked it up together."

Cedric's presence is a coup, Cho's a luckpenny. Fleur is pleased to see more international magical cooperation, albeit an unwitting kind.

"I'll cop to tricking Snape," Harry adds. "That detention would be worth it." Ron nods fervently.

"Karkaroff would never expel me," Viktor admits. Fred hastens over to give him a hearty clap on the back. "I will be happy to join you."

Other professors are hoodwinked by their varied interests—Sprout by a sale of screechsnaps in Dogweed and Deathcap, Flitwick by a Celestina Warbeck appearance at Maestro's Music Shop, Snape and Karkaroff by new arrivals at Tomes and Scrolls, Maxime by a new branch of Luna et Aurore Jumelle, an astronomy shop based in Place Cachée—save one. As the group who snuck into the village (alongside some new additions) watches their teachers troop obliviously through the gates of Hogwarts and onto the path to Hogsmeade, Fleur looks to Hermione with sudden concern.

"We have forgotten Professor Dumbledore."

"I didn't," Hermione whispers, quick to assuage Fleur's worry. "He prefers to see how something harmless unfolds before he steps in. We have time."

"That is your expert assessment?" That does not sound like a good teaching method to Fleur.

"It is." A kiss is pressed to her cheek, pursued by an irreverent smile. "I know you're still angry with him about Kenneth, but I sorted that out."

"Can I ask—?"

"How I did it? You'll see." Hermione's irreverence ripens into wickedness. "Consider it a surprise birthday gift from me, Fred, and George."

"My birthday is not until May," says Fleur, intrigued. She's never met someone so devious. It is riveting. "Must I wait so long?"

"You must."

At the paddock, Henry and Charles are arguing over their mounts. The spectators mill around, waiting impatiently for the race to get underway.

"You cannot have Cendrée," Henry insists, barely audible over the shouts and suggestions of their audience. "If I have to duel you for him, I will."

"Cendrée is our fastest horse," Fleur explains for Hermione's benefit, pointing to the furthest stallion. "Maxime named him for his eyes." The creature, irritated by the noise, beats his wings and sends Neville's hat flying. "But the boy has a temper. One may fall off rather than fly with him."

"Have you ever tried?"

"Oh no, never. I prefer Alexei." Fleur even wore her jodhpurs for the occasion, gleeful for Hermione's blush when she caught sight of them.

"The one that kicked one of your classmates?" Hermione asks now, missing little. "I prefer thestrals and unicorns if I must pick a horse, thanks."

"Raoul Auvray is a fool," Fleur says dismissively, "who tried to drink the same single-malt whiskey from Alexei's trough. Pay him no mind."

Hermione is not convinced.

Henry and Charles eventually agree upon Mayblossom and Pharos, each horse dancing with excitement as they are led from the paddock after being kept so long on the ground. The crowd splits in half, offering a wide track of land for the starting line. There is no hope of quieting them now, Fleur notes, nonetheless pleased by their cheering and enthusiasm. Whatever punishment she is due to receive will indeed be worth it.

Among other things.

"We need a Triwizard champion to send us off!" Henry yells, energizing the crowd anew. "Get over here, Fleur!"

No fan of the spotlight, Viktor eggs on his Durmstrang classmates to start chanting her name. Fred and George chime in, joined by Cho and Cedric.

"Be careful," Hermione mumbles as Fleur retrieves a handkerchief and changes it to a bright green. "I'm having visions of you getting trampled."

"You are sweet to care, ma chérie." This time, it is Fleur who bestows a kiss to alleviate the worry.

Striding past the Abraxans, Fleur waves at the crowd, the riders, and Hermione. She raises the handkerchief high, pauses, draws out the moment...

The flag falls.

Pharos and Mayblossom dart forward, their wings unraveling like the spans of overgrown hawks. They shoot up and take to the sky, hooves leaving deep grooves in the earth. The gusts of wind bring up the rear, sweeping Fleur's hair back like a banner as she turns her body to watch them fly.

The crowd roars, watching the Abraxans climb higher and higher. Fleur returns to Hermione's side, windswept and exhilarated.

"What did you think?"

"I'm not fond of flying, but the Abraxans are amazing," says Hermione, matching Fleur's grin. They join hands without either made aware, hearts galloping like the racers themselves. "I'll never get over that—Muggle myths coming to life! It makes me fall in love with magic all over again."

"Keep this feeling close," Fleur urges, "for the nonverbal magic. That is what I have been trying to show you."

She knew such an opportunity was too rich to throw away. After a beat, Hermione understands.

"Feeling, not thinking." She's elated, awed. This is the first lesson not attached to a spell, the only one so far without a guide. "I-I remember."

"Feeling first, thinking second." That is crux of Hermione's struggle, Fleur had realized. Her head always gets in the way. "Wonder and possibility are powerful things," Fleur explains, leading an unsuspecting Hermione into the paddock. "To perform a spell without an incantation means demanding what you want without a conduit, your wand. You are the conduit. Your feelings must be strong to force the river through the reed."

Alexei blinks as they approach, flicking his tail. Fleur extends her free hand, letting him sniff. "Bonjour, bon garçon."

"I was perfectly fine looking at him from the fence, Fleur," Hermione grumbles as she is yanked closer. "Horses aren't really my—"

"Perfectly fine was not getting you anywhere. Now, let him get to know you and then Alexei may get..." The Abraxan's ears perk up. "...an apple?"

Despite herself, Hermione laughs. After Alexei allows Hermione to stroke his neck, Fleur passes over the apple.

"Keep the palm flat. Good, just like that." Looming large, Alexei swipes his snack from Hermione and gobbles it up in one bite.

"See? This was not so frightening." Fleur fetches a stepladder. "Good memories make for stronger spellcasting. Remember that, if nothing else."

"I have to admire your ingenuity," Hermione admits, "even if your methods leave much to be desired."

"To each their own." Fleur retrieves a brush to comb out Alexei's hair, who bends obligingly lower. "It is a pity you are not fond of flying, Hermione. A broomstick is not at all like an Abraxan. He thinks and feels. He fears. They are just like us! Together, in the sky, it is as if you can do anything."

Today, it feels like they really can do anything. For some time, she and Hermione were actors a beat out of step and afield from the script; today, Fleur is in control. They aren't following a script anymore—she and Hermione are writing one as they go, making the cues everyone else will follow.

"If you trying to impress me, it's working. Try not to get a big head about it."

Fleur turns, concealing her delight in Alexei's mane. She'll take her wins wherever she can.

"I'm glad we did this." Hermione is speculative now, words picked carefully. "I don't know if I'll ever be used to how—how well we work together."

"Moi aussi. It was lucky the boys were so susceptible to our..." Deceit, if examined closely, but Fleur would rather not dwell on the subterfuge.

"Thrall?"

"Charms," Fleur corrects. A common mistake for outsiders. "One mustn't be confused with another, but that is a lesson for another day, I'm afraid."

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Hermione nods, seeming as if she would like to say something else, but it never comes.

Tired and for once unwilling to pry, Fleur sets the brush aside and bids Alexei to return to his fellows.

Beyond the paddock, bellows and whoops swell to a deafening level. Neck in neck, the riders are on the way back.

"Come along." Their hands meet again. Hermione's gaze lingers on them, brows furrowing. "We have a winner to congratulate."

For all her hopes of wonderment and possibility, it is she who feels their pull now. It is Fleur who gazes upon the motley gathering of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang students with confidence. They can do this, she thinks, watching Henry and Charles plummet back into view, the wind at their heels. They will do this, she knows, joining Hermione and the others in a howl as Henry and Pharos hurdle over the makeshift finish line. And Fleur—Fleur will be okay. Her feelings will pass, she will keep an extraordinary friend, and life will go on, shadowy futures be damned.

Sooner than Fleur would like, the Second Task arrives.

Residual nervousness nibbles at the ends of her thoughts, ever hungry. The dark water. The grindylows. An imagined Gabrielle, white as a ghost in the merpeople's village. It is not quite so terrifying to know her sister will be fine at the end of the day, but anxiety gnaws at Fleur, never far away.

They had escaped the race quandary nigh unscathed; in the end, Dumbledore found it all rather funny. His colleagues were not so forgiving.

(Cedric kept Fleur from getting too sulky over her pile of punishments. If this is how the French make merry, count me in for the next round!)

"I haven't seen you with the egg," says Céline, toweling her hair dry as Fleur flips through Witch Weekly, back from a detention with McGonagall, who wanted a tidy classroom and half-transformed hedgehogs sorted from half-transformed pincushions, sans magic. "Have you figured it out?"

"I have." The pleasure at the discovery was once and still marred by fear, but such is life. "This will be an easy victory for me."

If only. Hermione's sternness reached a new level earlier. Fleur, you should know better by now. We must treat the Task exactly as we did before...

Momentary temptation aside, Fleur can never commit to ruining this connection to Harry. A life for a life. She will never forget.

Trying to keep her mind from wandering, Fleur lets her feet do the wandering instead and answers Hermione's open invitation for a chat.

Sequestered in the library with Harry and Ron, playing a part she knows well, Hermione peels herself away briefly to meet Fleur in an aisle.

"It's so tempting to just tell him," she murmurs in greeting, pretending to look for a book on water magic. On the other side of the section, Ron and Harry are in a heated debate over a particular line of the riddle. Fleur sympathizes. Comprehension dawned on her slower than a flobberworm.

"It is very strong to deny yourself of that," Fleur consoles. "And I know it must feel so..." Duplicitous? Unscrupulous beyond measure?

"Unconscionable. Yeah. I'm just...you know." Hermione clutches a book tighter to her chest and gazes helplessly at Fleur, searching for an understanding only Fleur can provide, so she does, trying to convey with only her eyes that everything will truly be fine one day. Someday, Fleur reminds herself, focusing hard on the future where there will be no wars or Dark wizards to fight and no ploys or schemes to arrange.

"We talk of this in circles," says Fleur, breaking the silence so she may lighten the moment, "yet I am always prepared for another dance with you."

Hermione smiles and looks down, her ears going slightly pink. "Me too. It'll get easier."

"Someday," says Fleur, pondering the opportune word. Hope, always a heady temptation, curls at the edge of her smile. Hermione returns it.

"I should be getting back."

"Adieu, Hermione. Look for me on the dock."

"I'll be the one looking like a drowned rat," Hermione promises, and Fleur's laughter gets her shooed from the shelves by a vengeful Pince.

In the morning, Fleur dons her robes, tucks the Time-Turner safely beneath her shirt, and joins the group waiting for her in the parlor.

"So you're retrieving something," Edgar muses, continuing his train of thought now that Fleur is present. "Any idea of what it is?"

"I know what it is." For all her vexation over repeating history, the obstacles are the same, the stakes are identical, and the heart-wrenching havoc is back in full force. But she's in control now. This dive into the darkness is a quick, passing cruelty of the Tournament and then it will all be over.

"Can't you tell us anything?" Giselle grumbles.

"You'll see."

Lakeside, Madame Maxime greets Fleur with a nod and a hand gathering her close.

"Good luck, my dear."

"Thank you." Peering up at her headmistress, she feels eleven years old again, fresh from Freya's and the second girl with veela blood to attend Beauxbatons in a generation. Maxime kept a close eye on her, afraid of how she would be treated. Fleur had risen above her deterrents, however.

"This is only a competition," Maxime says, her typical sternness again cracking into concern. "Do not overreach yourself for the sake of points."

Fleur nods like before, this time trying not to let confidence show rather than gut churning fear. Is this what Seers are plagued with? Déjà vu? She is already exhausted by this languor, this stalemate, this waiting. She is always waiting, always for a world moving like dripping honey to catch up.

Splat!

Harry arrives, accidentally splashing Fleur's robes with mud and catapulting her back to the present.

"Scourgify," Viktor murmurs, having since approached the shore without Fleur knowing. She smiles at him gratefully.

"Sor—sor—sorry," Harry pants, clutching a stitch in his side. Cedric steps closer to steady him.

Percy Weasley and Ludo Bagman appear, ushering the champions into boats, where they'll meet the crowd at the jetties in the center of the lake.

"Have you seen Ron or Hermione?" Harry asks under his breath as the boat cuts through the water like a dagger.

Viktor is listening, Fleur sees, but he does not turn around from his conversation with Karkaroff.

"No," says Fleur, "not today."

Edgar helps Fleur out of the boat, squeezing her wrist one last time before she joins the boys at the edge of the dock. The crowd is raucous and excited, for what little they will see of the Task itself. A beaming Bagman rallies for the countdown to begin, his voice ear-splittingly loud.

"On the count of three, then. One...two...three!"

She, Viktor, and Cedric dive into the water; Harry falls in at her heels, choking on his contraband gillyweed. Sinking into the depths and briefly stunned by the cold, Fleur creates a Bubblehead Charm and rushes into the weeds, her breath fogging the shell of her spell. Ahead, a boy with webbed feet races past, trailed at a slower pace by the other two. Kicking her feet harder, Fleur doesn't need to feign her inability to keep up.

Between the strands of kelp, spindly fingers wind around her ankle and tug.

"You," Fleur hisses, blasting the first grindylow away from her in a burst of light and a frothing stream of bubbles. It is no use. A herd is surrounding Fleur now, greedy hands trying their upmost to deflate the charm and feast upon her flesh and bones. "Relashio! Relashio! Relashio!"

There is a second wave of water demons after the first line retreats, chittering angrily.

Has she given the boys enough time to get to the village? There's no way to know. Fleur's watch hasn't worked in months.

The creatures block out the last bit of sunlight. She hears more screeching in the deep. Relashio! Relashio! Relashio! Curses cascade like rain.

She forgot how terrifying these grindylows are. It makes her want wings like her grandmother's so she can fly, fly, fly...

"Relashio!" Two grindylows smack face first into each other as her spell rebounds from one skull to another, but the nearest and cleverest fellow pops the bubble, forcing water into Fleur's mouth. She coughs, choking, spitting, trying to summon the breath for the Ascending Spell—when—

Her throat is hot, hotter than it has ever been before. She panics, chokes, yells, uses her wand to bat the grindylows away instead of casting spells. They tear at her face and clothes, only to skitter backwards like spiders after the heat at Fleur's throat expands in all directions like an explosion.

No, she would cry out if she could, not the Time-Turner...

The hourglass flips and flips. The lake lurches forward, as if Fleur has been kicked and pushed by a gigantic foot. Colors and shapes ooze into blues and greens and browns, bleeding like paint. She is falling again somehow, against the weight of everything and the void of nothing—until—

She lands. Hard. Wheezing, Fleur hacks up enough water to fill the lake before a hand covers her mouth, cooler than the steaming hourglass...

...which lays in the dirt at her feet, its chain broken. By the time Fleur comes to her senses, the hourglass has vanished, along with her way out.

"Quiet," a voice murmurs roughly, turning a woozy Fleur's head sideways and meeting her eyes. Her own eyes. Whatever breath she got back shrivels into another terrified cough. A second Fleur covers this Fleur's mouth, her tone full of warning. "You don't want them to hear us, do you?"

Chest burning, head aching, sopping wet, and seemingly well on her way to drowning, Fleur blinks, hoping her 'no' is conveyed. And who are 'they'?

The other Fleur nods in acknowledgment, as if she knows the disorganized mess of this Fleur's thoughts and has no plan to stand on ceremony.

"Not the grindylows," the double says helpfully, smiling, though she sobers quickly. "But we don't have time for jokes. Sorry."

Why not? Fleur's eyes flick left and right. Is there no time to know why she has a twin? Guessing the why hurts. Scares her. It would be sophisticated Dark magic, Fleur long ago determined as she and Hermione discussed seeing doubles and breaking wizarding law to get what they desired...

She does not want think about that and so turns her attention elsewhere, each of her deductions jumping to the next in instants shorter than seconds. The ground she landed on smells dusty and dead. Her skin crawls. There is a foul malice here and near and this place—is a graveyard.

Her back rests against a grave, she realizes, still kept quiet by the other's hand. Her heart feels like it will gallop out of her chest. Has she died?

"This isn't a dream," the double says, "and you haven't died. Not yet anyway. You've gotten there by now, haven't you?"

Fleur is nonplussed. Can the other perform Legilimency? The double smiles again, looking sad.

"I know. This—us—is shocking. Then painful. You'll be annoyed by the end, then perhaps as wild as me. Who knows? We aren't exactly the same person, after all." Unable to parse one daunting line of questioning from another, Fleur does wonder how much time is left, if it is so limited...

"You're right." The double lets her go. "I should hurry. So should you, before it's too late."

"Me?" Fleur croaks. "How?"

The double reaches for Fleur again, luminous in the wan light of the night sky. Far back, a commotion stirs among the other graves. Robed figures appear in swirls of Apparition, masked and dropping to their knees. In the center of the circle, a figure goes from man to man, hissing like a snake.

No, not you, not them, not yet...

The double cups her cheek as Fleur so often does to comfort Gaby. Their foreheads touch, the gesture so intimate that tears spring to Fleur's eyes. Something is so wrong here, so terrible, that she can't move. She can't, can't, can't... "Trust Hermione," the double says, finding a new urgency. There is a familiar glint of molten gold in the double's eyes. "Trust Cedric. Break the paradox. That's the only way you're getting out of this—"

It wasn't supposed to work like this! Her Time-Turner was—is—defective! This wasn't the way Fleur wanted to get here!

Crunch.

The double jumps up and back in horror. Fleur follows her gaze, unable to process what she is seeing until a jagged bloom of pain spreads from her arm to her elbow, shoulder, and neck. A giant snake has her forearm in its maw, its long fangs meeting one another in a deathly embrace.

Something snaps. The bloom of pain zigzags across her skin. The fangs dig deeper, their grip tighter. Fleur cries out in shock.

"Confringo!"

Nagini releases Fleur, dodging the blast of earth and stone after the double's spell misses it and hits a grave. Fleur cowers beneath her injured and useless arm, gasping in agony and struggling to crawl away with the other. Every plodding inch is torture. She starts to sob, aching all over.

The Time-Turner comes back, its chain meticulously repaired. It shudders and cools like a living thing, cinching vise-like around Fleur's throat.

"I forgot about her," the double seethes, oblivious to Fleur's anguish. "How could I do that?"

The commotion slows, pauses, and rises in volume once more as the group of robed men gaze at the Fleurs in surprise.

Beyond, a boy in red is held captive by a statue; at his kicking feet, a boy in yellow lies immobile, cast aside like rubbish.

The Time-Turner grows warm. Burning. Fleur sobs harder. The serpent, the hourglass, the water, the pain—it hurts. She needs it all to stop.

"Nagini has interesting news, my friends!"

The source of the malice smell fills a still crawling Fleur with fear. Heart pounding like thunder, she tries to move faster, further, to no avail.

"We are in the presence of not two, but four Triwizard champions!"

No, not me. Fleur hears Nagini hissing and slithering somewhere in the darkness. Not me. She isn't here. This is a dream, an awful dream.

Tinging all over with pain and shivering uncontrollably in the too warm night, Fleur tries to rise, but can't go any higher than her hands and knees.

Turning, the double moves to stand over her like a guardian, betraying no fear whatsoever. Leave, Fleur wants to beg her. Hurry!

Unfortunately, Fleur's counterpart has taken the other Dumbledore's words to heart and stands alone, helpless and defiant to the last.

"You won't win," the double informs the monster. She does not seem to care that she is doomed.

They always say he was handsome in his youth, but no longer. In terror, Fleur's eyes skitter from his face. Her counterpart has no such qualms.

"Don't you know? Harry will stop you."

Run, please—please!

That was always the plan, wasn't it? Her idea of getting close to Harry and running if seen? So much for that. So much for any plan.

The Death Eaters roar with laughter, just as they will do next year in the Department of Mysteries. Fleur could retch.

Their jeering and catcalls almost obscure Harry's voice, who pleads with Fleur—the Fleur he can see, the one from the future—to get away.

"He won't," Lord Voldemort says quietly, and a burst of green light sends the double tumbling down to the ground, dead.

Fleur gasps.

"No!" Harry yells.

The Time-Turner sizzles and scorches. Her skin feels as if it has been set ablaze. Tears stream down her cheeks.

She's—I'm—

The onus of scrutiny shifts to Fleur. She plods back, inch by inch, on and on, heels and palms digging into the dirt, wounded arm throbbing.

The night grows blurrier. She clutches her wand, shaking. Faster, she thinks in desperation, still engaged in her pathetic retreat. Please!

"And you?" Voldemort gazes down at Fleur as if she were a particularly fascinating animal. He is ghastly, a nightmare made real. "Anything to say?"

Nothing, for Fleur is lurching backwards, a shriek of rage following her into oblivion. She falls again, falling far and wide and back, tethered to nothing and no one but the quivering hourglass until the waters of the Black Lake are surrounding her again, cold, deep, dark, and painful.

In the depths, Fleur does the only thing that makes sense—she screams and screams and screams and screams...