CH 148

'I'm not a pure-blood,' Harry shrugged, he knew well enough that France did not care about such things anymore. 'My mother was from muggle parents.'

'Ah,' her father seemed unsure of how to react. 'If I remember correctly the Potter family has some quite illustrious ancestry, a great number of great names ended up becoming Potter.'

'Honestly I wouldn't know,' Harry admitted. 'My only living relations are from my mother's family and are non-magical. I know very little about the Potter family, only that it nearly came to a very abrupt end fifteen years ago.'

'I know a little if you want me to tell you?' Her father seemed enthused by the prospect of having someone half-willing to listen to him talk about history.

'Perhaps another time, Laurent,' her mother smoothly cut in, preventing a conversational catastrophe. 'I understand you won the Triwizard Tournament, Harry?'

'I think,' Harry answered tactfully, 'that I simply lost the least.'

Surprise flickered in her mother's eyes, Harry did not know that she had not told her parents about what had happened in the third task. Fleur very subtly traced her fingers over his thigh under the table, forming the word no over and over until he turned and smiled at her to show he understood.

'Fleur was quite confident that she would win,' her mother continued, sending a small smile at her daughter.

'Yes,' Harry grinned, a genuine smile forming, 'when I asked for her name the first time we spoke to each other, Fleur told me I could read it off the Triwizard Trophy at the end.'

Gabrielle giggled and opened her mouth to say something that was certain to be even more embarrassing, so Fleur kicked her under the table.

Gabby was not deterred. She rarely was.

'Fleur said that she would beat you by such a margin in the last task that it would make you losing points for rescuing me irrelevant.' Fleur quietly sighed with relief. She'd said a whole litany of things more embarrassing and emotional in the months between the two tasks. The sort of things that she really didn't want Harry to hear, let alone her parents. Her own versions of the photos in the Room of Requirement.

'I didn't in the end,' she responded, slightly wistfully. It would have been nice to be the winner of the tournament, but she was glad that things had come out as they did. If she had not been unconscious then Harry would never have needed to help her. He wouldn't have carried her across the maze to where he was sure she would be safe, and Fleur would have never realised that he far from hated her.

'What did happen in the third task?' Her father leant forward, spreading his hands on the table either side of his now empty plate. 'Fleur told me that she was knocked unconscious early on by one of the other champions, but there were stories in the papers and rumours that contradict each other.'

'A wizard, one of the judges, interfered with the task, he was responsible,' Harry glanced at Fleur briefly before continuing, 'for everything that happened in the maze. Viktor Krum was killed, Fleur was attacked, and Cedric Diggory was stunned by me when I found him with the others. I briefly believed he was responsible.'

'Fleur said she was found on her own, at the centre of the maze?' Her mother asked sharply, catching the discrepancy between what Harry said and what Fleur had previously told them. A slight red tinge crept up Harry's cheeks at the question.

'Harry took me with him,' Fleur explained, to spare him further embarrassment. 'It wasn't safe outside of the warded centre of the maze.'

'That's so romantic,' Gabby sighed, 'why couldn't you have chosen someone your own age, Fleur?'

The red tinge on Harry's cheeks flared to bright crimson, and Fleur flushed violently herself before stamping on Gabrielle's toes under the table. Her sister gave a satisfying squeak and closed her mouth.

Say something like that again at your own risk, she tried to convey in her glare.

Gabby looked back with a slightly wounded expression.

The clock chimed softly behind her sister's head to mark halfway past the hour.

'You need to return to Hogwarts,' Fleur reminded Harry softly. He glanced up at the clock, then nodded slightly ruefully.

'You are welcome to stay,' her mother offered, 'there are plenty of spare rooms.'

'Or you can just share with Fleur,' Gabrielle giggled, before receiving a sharp glare from everyone except Harry.

'I would be missed if I was away for the night,' Harry explained, 'but thank you. It was nice to finally meet you.'

Make it sound like I kept us apart why don't you.

'Harry is not technically supposed to be here,' Fleur mentioned tentatively. 'His curfew at school begins in half an hour.'

'Ah,' her father remarked, looking more than a little amused by that. 'Then it was a pleasure to meet you as well.' Her mother smiled in agreement. 'You're welcome back whenever,' she told him kindly.

'Bye, Harry,' Gabrielle chirped, waving cheerfully.

He smiled at her family, then shot her a questioning glance. It was fairly obvious what he wanted to know.

'It will work,' she assured him. He flashed her a smile, reached out to squeeze her hand gently, then vanished with a whisper to the picture portkey. He could apparate back from their willow tree.

Her mother called Gabrielle away into the main room, leaving Fleur with her father. He was giving her the contemplative look he always wore when he wanted to talk about something.

'He's a little younger than you,' he began carefully, 'but he seems mature enough. I don't dislike him.' Fleur gave him a pointed look, a hint that he might as well come out and say whatever was on his mind.

'He's English, Fleur,' her father sighed. 'He seems like a good choice, especially as he was unaffected by the passive allure of my three ladies, but Britain is not the same as France or the rest of Europe and the old magical countries.'

'Why not?' Fleur struggled to see the relevance. She had chosen Harry, not Britain.

'That short stretch of sea between France and Britain has kept them isolated and exempt from the turbulence of the last few centuries. Across Europe revolutions have come, then wars and Grindelwald's anarchy followed to finish things. The pure-blooded families that dominated France were broken by the half-blood Robespierre and his attempt to create one equal French nation, their fading influence was shattered by the devastation of Grindelwald. Britain has never weathered such change, its Ministry is still controlled by a handful of old families, and the prejudices and hatred of darker times remain.'

He fears they will hate me because I am veela and not pure-blooded enough for a Potter.

The Delacours were descended, from the marriage of her father's grandmother, from one of France's more ancient families, the Beaulieus, but it was a single connection from centuries ago. In France nobody cared about these things anymore, not since Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite had brought over fifty magical families half a millennia old to an end, but in Britain she supposed they would be regarded with contempt by many of the pure-bloods. Fleur did not particularly care; they would be one more group of people to ignore. 'Harry does not share them,' Fleur defended, 'so it does not matter.'

'He is the heir to an esteemed pure -blooded family, over time he will be exposed to and affected by those opinions, and that is ignoring the rumours that are flying about him in Britain.' Her father looked quite concerned, pushing his palms together anxiously.

'He will not listen to them, he would never listen to them,' Fleur spat, her temper rising. She had found someone who she loved, and her father would have her give him up because he might have to listen to the prejudice of others, or, worse, because he believed the nonsense the British Ministry was extolling to discredit him.

'If the rumours are true, Fleur, then I fear for your safety. Either Harry is not what he seems, or their Dark Lord has returned and The-Boy-Who-Lived will be his first target.' He looked quite miserable, then steeled himself, pulling the stern expression of a government official across his face. 'I do not want my daughter hurt, if you are involved with Harry Potter then you will be dragged into the chaos that surrounds him.

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