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The Secret Society Chapter 19: Leaving Him Breathless
🕑 Added 2023-03-27 23:06:36 +0000 UTCA/N: I really hate writing Fleur's accent. Epub is attached.
“Of course, we should talk!” Fleur gave Harry a blinding smile, “Zat was exciting, no?”
Harry had to reevaluate what he had assumed of Fleur’s personality. He had filed her under the type that was tough to get close to, but once that was accomplished, she would reveal the kindness she was capable of.
That was the conclusion Harry had formed with a rather small sample size, but it was one that he had felt comfortable treating as fact. Fleur’s thorny interaction with most of Hogwarts for a whole year and her fierce love toward her sister were something he considered reliable.
Now he was starting to realize that Fleur might have more in common with Emma Thompson than he would like. And he was alone with her in the Merlin-damned catacombs after a tiring fight with her… Harry wasn’t sure what Alex was to Fleur anymore. Surely he wasn’t a prospective boyfriend with how gleeful Fleur seemed to be when she asked if Alex was dead.
However, that didn’t matter at this point. Harry was on high alert to any move Fleur might make.
“Who is he?” Harry glared, “And what in the world gave you the idea that I would be okay being your attack dog?”
“Attack dog?” Fleur ignored Harry visibly tensing as she moved closer, “Non. ‘Arry, you were no such zing!”
“Is that right?” Harry stopped bothering to hide that he had his wand at the ready, “What would you call it, then?”
“Zat, ‘Arry, ees you protecting your date,” Fleur stopped just out of arm’s reach, “After all, eet’s what a wizard should do, no?”
Harry stared at her briefly before repeating, “Who is he?”
“Hm?” Fleur tilted her head, drawing Harry’s eyes to her golden-silver hair, “Oh, you mean Alex?”
“Stop,” Harry ordered as he brought up his wand, “The allure isn’t going to help you here. If anything, it’ll infuriate me even more.”
“So demanding,” Fleur almost purred, “Ees zis what I can expect een ze future?”
When Harry’s wand started to glow a menacing red, Fleur rolled her eyes and sighed. “Really, ‘Arry? Alex was an annoyance. He fashioned himself my suitor and made eet terrible for any boy I talked to.”
“… So you used me to take care of him?” Harry asked doubtfully, “Fleur, I’m not a fool. You could have done that yourself.”
“Oui,” Fleur nodded, not disagreeing with Harry’s claim, “But when Alex could be useful for once, why should I? And ‘Arry, you do zis all ze time, no? Eet’s not a big deal.”
Harry blinked, wondering if he had misheard. “Sorry, did you say that I do this all the time? Do what exactly?”
“You do ze… jobs, yes? Zat’s what ze girl told me.”
“Girl?” Harry almost felt faint. He knew that his little business in Hogwarts wasn’t airtight, but he had painstakingly gone after all the people he thought had an idea of what he did. He had paid a hefty sum, gold or otherwise, to get them to agree to a blanket silence by contract.
“You cannot expect me to know ze name,” Fleur scoffed at him, “She ees ze one zat always stares at you like a fool.”
“Oh,” Harry wanted to leave, hole up in his hotel room, and try to figure out who had escaped his attention. “… What color were her robes?”
“Why do you want to know? Are you interested een ze girl?” Fleur asked with a dangerous tone. A tone that was lost on Harry since he was still running through possible names of the leaker.
Harry forcibly shoved the new information into the back of his mind. This was fine.
Everything was fine.
It was to be dealt with later. There was something more urgent to focus on at present. Namely a potentially murderous and possibly psychotic Fleur Delacour.
Since she already knew about his business, so be it. Harry would pivot and try to use this as an advantage, even though there was no prior agreement detailing payment.
“Since you know what I do in Hogwarts, you must also know I don’t do it for free.”
Fleur’s frown disappeared, a teasing smile replacing it. “I already ‘ave somezzing een mind.”
“You do?” Harry hid his annoyance, having no doubt it would be nowhere near the value he wanted to draw from Fleur.
“Oui,” Fleur stepped closer, “And I zink you will like eet.”
Harry tensed his grip on his wand as he gave her a look in warning. However, they were interrupted by a pained groan.
“Stupefy!”
A flash of red lit up the dark catacombs as Alex was once again knocked unconscious by Harry’s spell.
“Alex ees not dead?”
“He has done nothing to me to deserve that,” Harry said as he rolled his eyes. There was a pause before he quickly corrected himself, “Not that I would go that far for any reason.”
Fleur gave a long stare at Alex’s unconscious body before eventually shrugging. “Even eef you did, I would ‘ave took care of eet. I suppose zis ees for ze best.”
“Come, ‘Arry,” Fleur beckoned as she started to walk away, “We will talk outside. Alex ees ruining ze mood.”
Even with Harry’s anger at Fleur and his confusion with her seemingly sudden personality shift, he still couldn’t stop himself from staring at her walking away.
“‘Arry?”
Harry blinked and cleared his throat when he saw that Fleur had turned her head and was smirking at where his gaze was. He glanced at the unconscious Alex and decided that if Fleur wasn’t concerned, he had no reason to be either.
Besides, the green spell that first knocked Alex out was nothing dangerous. While spells generally had their own natural color, they could be easily changed when skilled enough. It was just an overpowered stunner in combination with Alex’s disorientation that had ended the fight.
“You’re a strange witch, Fleur.” Harry kept his wand in hand as he walked to her.
“Zat ees for ze better, no?” Fleur didn’t seem bothered by the wariness Harry still showed around her.
“I’m not too sure about that,” Harry muttered before speaking clearly, “So, I’m guessing that the date in the catacombs was never real?”
“‘Arry!” Fleur pouted at him, “Of course, eet was real! But what you did to Alex proved more zan mere cursebreaking.”
“… Proof?” Harry felt like everything was starting to make sense. The date was a facade to some sort of interview, and apparently, he succeeded. Harry was already running through the possible clauses for the contract that was about to be made.
“Oui, eet was ‘ard finding someone zat could meet my expectations. Luckily, you arrived een France at a perfect time.”
Harry hummed in thought as they exited the catacombs. The rush of fresh air was a welcome change.
“So, what did you want from this?” Harry asked as they stopped walking, “And what am I getting from it?”
Harry’s eyes widened when his vision was filled with a face so beautiful that it was unfair to be called human. He was under the impression that one could see the imperfections the closer you looked at a person, but there were none to be found on Fleur’s face. Harry wasn’t sure if the allure was somehow more effective all of a sudden, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the stunning blue eyes staring at him.
“You know, ‘Arry, I always assumed zat the man I would chase would be a ‘andsome older wizard. My mozzer did zat and so did my grandmozzer.”
“Lucky wizard,” Harry muttered as he stared at Fleur’s perfectly pink lips, becoming dazed as they formed into an enticing smile.
“Oui, I agree. Ze imaginary wizard would be lucky.”
Harry’s mind felt like it was in a fog. If Fleur decided that now was a perfect time to attack him, she would succeed with barely any effort. He was aware of that but couldn’t bring himself to care.
When Harry felt soft lips press into his, he finally realized he was an idiot. He had been ignoring the obvious signs that Fleur was showing because he bullheadedly wanted to believe that he would get material benefits from this.
For once, Harry thought he might prefer what was happening instead of his usual type of payment. When he felt Fleur’s lips leave him, Harry slowly opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them in the first place.
“What…” Harry trailed off, feeling like his mind was muddled.
“Just being skilled ees not enough, ‘Arry,” Fleur said as she wiped his bottom lip with her thumb, “I ’ad to find eef we are compatible. Ze kiss ees just ze start.”
Harry blinked slowly, trying to escape whatever spell he was under. Still, he was very focused on the last part. “Just the start?”
“Oh, yes,” Fleur smiled, “Ze kiss was good, but eet’s nowhere near enough.”
Harry was lamenting his inexperience with witches a short while ago, and it seemed an opportunity to remedy that just presented herself. However, that was quickly doused by Fleur’s following sentence.
“Zis was a good first date, ‘Arry. I would love to stay longer, but I must go back ‘ome and tell my fazzer zat ze British ambassador’s son ees unconscious een ze catacombs.”
“Ah, alright, then,” Harry nodded dumbly as he kept staring at Fleur’s lips.
“Au revoir!”
Fleur disappeared, apparating with a small pop, and left Harry behind. Her absence let him start to clear his mind, which was more challenging than it seemed since all he could think of was feeling her soft lips on his.
If anything was to be gained from this, other than kissing a beautiful Veela, Harry realized he was more susceptible to the allure than he had thought. Or at least he hoped that was the case. The only other possibility was that Harry was simply weak to a witch of Fleur’s beauty.
Either way, becoming a mindless drone wasn’t the best idea around a witch who didn’t blink an eye at a possible death, especially with how Fleur seemed to wish that Alex was no longer part of the living.
Any muddleheadedness was chased away when thinking of Alex brought up what Fleur said right before she left. Harry’s heart started to beat faster in anxiety as he thought of gaining the attention of senior political figures due to what he had done, let alone the ambassador to Magical France.
It would be terrible in regular times, but when such drastic changes were happening due to the Dark Lord, getting such attention would be even more inadvisable. Harry made a quick decision and almost ran back into the catacombs, hoping that Alex was still unconscious.
With Fleur, and soon her father, knowing where Alex should be, Harry couldn’t do anything that would harm him, but neither was it possible to leave him be.
In less than a minute, Harry was standing over Alex’s unconscious body. He grimaced, and he brought up his wand to point at him. He had no practice whatsoever with using this spell, but there was a first time for everything.
Harry figured it was best to erase more than leave the chance of snippets of memory that could lead back to him.
“Obliviate.”
Harry watched the spell strike Alex’s head, hoping it worked as intended. He had decided to erase the past two days from his mind to be safe. Fleur might be right in saying she could take care of it, whatever that meant, but Harry couldn’t leave it up to someone else.
He holstered his wand and quickly left the area. Harry had no intention of leaving the hotel until the auction started tomorrow evening. Not even if Fleur came calling. In fact, he didn’t want to be alone with her until he could grasp what kind of witch she really was… even if a large part of him was craving to be back in her presence.
A short while later, Harry was sitting on the bed in the hotel room. He had his eyes closed as he tried to play back what he felt when talking with Fleur. It was a frustrating experience since simply thinking of her name brought up the feeling of her pink lips pressed against his, ruining the possibility of any sort of success.
Harry eventually had to give up trying to figure out if the allure or Fleur herself caused him to embarrass himself. He sighed in frustration and decided to see if he could narrow down the other issue that was, frankly, a more significant threat.
The leak in Hogwarts that somehow told Fleur about his business.
While Fleur didn’t tell him the color of the girl’s robes, Harry had automatically focused on House Slytherin. Of the Houses, his own was the one that had the highest chance of a student falling through the cracks. There were times at the start when he had been careless about privacy, and some girl might have overheard him making a deal.
It wouldn’t be too hard to assume from that point that every meeting in public would seem suspicious to the eavesdropper. The issue was the other thing that Fleur mentioned.
This girl was apparently staring at him constantly. There was nobody that Harry could think fit that description in Slytherin. In fact, the girls avoided his gaze most of the time.
Harry couldn’t use occlumency for this since the memories were too old, but that didn’t mean it was hopeless. A Pensieve would be of great help to find the little snitch. Unfortunately, that would have to wait until he returned to Hogwarts.
Until then, Harry had to somehow get some sleep while trying to ignore the image of Fleur’s lips appearing in his mind every time he closed his eyes.
Comments
Alatoic
Something tell me that the duel will have repercussions in the long run, wonder if the Obliviate worked? I dont think Harry is more susceptible of the Veela allure, more just hormones of a pretty girl making her intentions clear, quite normal for a any teenage boy. You know what will be funny? having Fleur as a posible love partner but Harry is pursuing (or being pursued) by another witch and Fleur take that as a challenge and double down.
CookieMonster
Noice!! 😏
