Fleur had not missed Beauxbatons, not even when she left after her exams ended. The beautiful chateau with its, turrets, towers, galleries and stained glass windows was breathtaking. It clung to the mountains, poised delicately across the summit of a smaller peak, framed between the pine-covered sides of its larger neighbours. For all its spectacular splendour the castle had become cold to her, just as the students were.
She felt very sorry for Gabrielle. It was cruel that her little sister had to return here and watch as the galleries and gardens that had once housed such good memories were poisoned by solitude.
It would be worse for her softer, more empathetic sister than it had been for her. Gabby could not learn to stop caring, she would always know how those around her felt, and it would affect her for the entirety of her life.
When Fleur's friends had first begun to leave her behind, Gabrielle had come to take their place, when their distant pity had turned to jealousy, her sister's support had already been evident, and when they tried to avoid her because they disliked what she had become, Gabby had come to find her. Fleur would do her best to do the same, but there were so many other directions she was being pulled in at the same time.
'Your final exam was this morning,' her mother commented, drifting into the kitchen, bypassing the fruit bowl and it's collection of rather disappointing looking lemons. 'I take it that it went well since I find you down here, rather than being pent up in your room.'
'It went as well I needed,' Fleur shrugged elegantly, 'if not as well as I wanted.'
'Which one was it? Advanced Transfiguration and Conjuration?'
'Yes,' she nodded.
'It was never your strongest subject,' the older veela smiled, 'but you are still good at it.'
'It is more Harry's gift than mine,' Fleur agreed. She had only needed to conjure a goose and then transfigure it into a vase, a difficult, but standard request for the exam.
'He is better than you?' Her mother pursed her lips disbelievingly. 'Oh yes,' Fleur smiled faintly, recalling quite vividly the swarm of butterflies, a spell he had created himself, and the shattering of her Shield Charm. 'I could teach him years of lessons about enchanting and warding, but when it comes to transfiguring, duelling and likely most charms he will naturally exceed me.'
'At fifteen,' her maman muttered, shaking her head. 'At least you chose someone who would not be eclipsed by you,' she decided. 'If you are as successful this year as you have been every previous one then you will be Beauxbatons best student in almost two centuries.'
'It will only last until Gabrielle graduates,' Fleur laughed. 'She is determined to outdo me.'
'She will have plenty of time to study,' her mother said solemnly.
'Yes, she will,' Fleur agreed quietly, reminded of what she had been thinking of only moments before.
Her mother crossed the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee, waving her wand absentmindedly at different parts of the kitchen and waiting as her drink came to fruition in front of her. Gabrielle wasn't allowed to use magic to make her drinks anymore, she had a tendency to make mistakes which either made a vast mess or create an unstomachable concoction.
'Have you thought about what you will do now?'
'I have, maman,' Fleur told her, pulling her wand out to summon the letter she had received a few days ago down from her room. 'I applied to join the Bureau des Énigmes, and Gringott's offered me a job as a liaison between themselves and some of the private artefact recoverers.'
'Gringotts?' Fleur started in surprise when her father ducked into the room. She had expected him to be at work in Paris. 'That's an interesting coincidence.'
'You're home early, mon cherie,' her mother remarked. 'Was it a particularly good day, or a particularly bad one?'
'A good day,' he announced cheerfully. 'There was a miscommunication with whoever was arranging the portkeys for the other heads of departments and they all ended up somewhere in Sardinia rather than Paris. I was the only one missing from the meeting, so they had it without me.'
'Didn't you need to be present?' Her mother inquired.
'Oh not even slightly,' her father laughed. 'I'm the vice-président for the Bureau des Affaires Internationales, it was Henri who had to go and sort things out, I am glad that I am not the président. He had to cancel his entire afternoon in the vineyards and hurry off to somewhere in Sardinia while I did some interesting research on English magical nobility.'
'Papa,' Fleur admonished, frowning furiously at him. 'What sort of research?'
'Harry clearly has little knowledge of his family and its history,' her father responded seriously, 'he needs to know about things like this. You know how important it can be. I did a little bit of investigating though the outpost of Gringotts in Paris. The only wizarding bank is England is Gringotts, so they would have the most accurate records I could easily see.'
'The goblins do not share information on their clients for no reason,' her mother remarked, sipping her coffee.
'No,' her father replied hesitantly. 'I may have had to follow through the first steps of legal action against him to find out what I wanted.'
'You what?!' Fleur did not even try and resist the impulse to let herself change, but she was only halfway through shifting into her more dangerous form, before her father began to explain and she had to listen again.
'I didn't take any action, and the goblins will be discreet, they simply wanted me to have to pay them for the information by way of acting as legal advisors for a case that will never exist. I was rather hoping that you would invite Harry hear to join us. I expect he would like to learn this, and he should really be the first person I tell.'
'He is in school, papa,' Fleur reminded her father.
'He's been visiting you at all hours of the day throughout your suspension,' he chuckled. 'I'm sure he will come if you ask, especially if you tell him that it's about his family.'
'I will ask,' Fleur agreed. It would be nice to see Harry again, they hadn't done anything more than speak though the lockets she had enchanted since her exams had begun almost two weeks ago.
She wandered out of the kitchen, drifting up the stairs towards her room while she waited for Harry to respond.
'Fleur?' he answered inquiringly after a moment. 'I was about to go to one of my classes.'
'Can you come here instead?' She asked. 'I think it's important.'
He nodded, looking thoughtful. 'I doubt anyone will notice,' he agreed. 'Our teacher is a ghost, and his lessons are always impossibly dull.'
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