A Cadmean Victory by DarknessEnthroned

Chapter 29: Valentine's Day

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

Next chapter is up, still managing to keep things on schedule, though my muse has sadly abandoned me and things aren't quite coming as easily as before. It took me five hours to write this, which is twice as long as normal. I blame the muse. I shall have to find another one who's more devoted ;)

Chapter 29

It was Fleur's least favourite day of the year. The day where everything in her life that she could not stand became far worse. Saint Valentine had a great deal to answer for in her opinion.

By now everyone at Beauxbatons knew that Fleur Delacour did not go anywhere with anyone on Valentine's day. That didn't stop some of the more susceptible wizards from asking her, however, and it didn't come anywhere near quelling the glares she got should her aura affect someone's date, so Fleur normally went home, or remained in her room.

Everything was fine when she could go home and be with her family or just her sister, but when she could not Fleur began to feel the hollowness of isolation. Nobody should spend an entire day shut off from the world; it wasn't right. At the first signs loneliness she would always throw herself into whatever magic she was studying. Valentine's Day was often one of her most productive days.

This particular Valentine's Day was worse than any other so far. Fleur could not go home, she was not at Beauxbatons with Gabrielle, and her only company until the evening was the unenchanted veil across her lap. It was more lonely than she remembered it being on previous years.

She twirled her rosewood wand around her index finger, disconsolately staring out of her carriage window. It was somewhere between lunchtime and the evening. Fleur had heard, a little while back, the movement of several of the other girls in the direction of the Great Hall, but had decided not to accompany them. There would be a lot of people there, and there were only three, maybe four, who Fleur really wanted to be with. Her mother and sister, half of the people she felt close to, were arriving this evening, after Gabrielle had finished school and her mother returned from work at L'ingrédient Parfait, the potions shop in Carcassonne. Her father was too busy to come, as he'd profusely apologised for many times before she left. Fleur wished he could, but did understand. A head of department of government was always busy. The last was, of course, Harry. He would understand her isolation, he wouldn't be affected by her passive magic and was more than comfortable in his company.

In the days that had led up to this one Fleur had on occasion considered asking Harry to once more be her date. Only this time it was different. Fleur was not taking an interesting, potential equal who was both disinterested in her and resistant to her allure. She would be inviting a wizard she had kissed, one who was only fourteen, out on Valentine's Day, and consequently she had never managed to work up the courage to speak to him. It probably would not have mattered, because, once again, he seemed to be unable to notice her.

They had crossed paths in the library multiple times, and each time Fleur had frozen, unsure of how to act around him, but Harry had never looked up from whichever book he had been buried, or he'd always be watching something else. He too was focused on the second task and from his choice in reading material Fleur assumed that he and Viktor Krum were both using some form of self-transfiguration to survive underwater.

In fact the only champion she had not seen in the library at least once a day was Cedric Diggory, but she knew from overhearing the same group of Ravenclaw girls, one of whom had been his date to the Yule Ball, that Hogwarts' champion already had his solution perfected.

Some cruel part of her rather hoped he had chosen the Bubble-Head Charm.

Harry and herself worked away in their respective, opposite corners of the library, quietly concentrating on their solutions. Viktor Krum had laid claim to one of the tables near the entrance and, along with Hermione, his date, and former friend of Harry, spent as much time conversing with her about Hogwarts and Britain as he did about transfiguration.