The words froze in his throat as he looked into her eyes.
The intensity of his feelings overwhelmed him, making it hard to breathe.
Harry took a deep breath, gathering his courage.
"I love you."
Three words, simple yet profound, that changed everything.
Fleur's eyes widened and she broke their embrace, standing up.
Her expression was a mix of shock and something else Harry couldn't quite read.
He felt his heart stop, fearing he might have made a mistake.
He had laid his heart bare, vulnerable in a way he had never been before…
But then, a radiant smile broke across Fleur's face and her eyes shimmered with tears.
She threw her arms around Harry's neck, falling onto him.
"Je t'aime aussi, 'arry," she whispered and muffled down her sobs.
The words were soft and foreign to his ears, but they were just what Harry wanted to hear.
His heart soared, a warmth unlike any he had felt before, spreading through his chest.
All thoughts of Madame Maxime and her threats faded away.
"Are you sure? It's not something you can say-"
"Of course, I am, you idiot," Fleur said with a laugh, her eyes sparkling with joy.
She cupped Harry's face in her hands.
"I've known for a while now, I was just waiting for the right moment to say it."
Harry leaned in, pressing his lips against hers, pouring all his feelings into the kiss.
Fleur responded with equal passion, her fingers threading through his hair.
Harry caught Fleur's eyes as they broke apart, breathless and flushed.
After holding her gaze for a few moments, he seemed to realise something and broke down laughing.
Fleur looked at him quizzically, a mix of amusement and confusion on her face.
"What's so funny?" she asked, her lips quirking into a smile.
Harry shook his head, still chuckling, and pulled her close once more.
"Just thinking about how we got here. From me being a 'little boy', to rivals, to... this," he gestured between them.
Fleur's confusion melted away as she caught on to his train of thought and she started giggling, her laughter mixing with Harry's.
"Oh, mon amour, we've come a long way, haven't we?" she said between laughs, resting her forehead against his.
"Indeed we have," Harry answered and pulled Fleur closer for another make-out session…
.
After finishing their… catching up, Harry told Fleur about his findings and flashed with her in the chamber.
He led her towards the long table where he had been studying.
The ancient tomes and scrolls lay scattered across the stone table, just as he let them.
"I've been trying to figure out a way to modify the ritual into a spell, something that will protect you in the lake," he explained.
"But it's complicated… too complicated, and I'm not sure it'll work."
Harry ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident in his voice.
"The challenge is not adapting the ritual's core principles into a spell form, but making sure it will hold for a whole hour," Harry paused, his brow furrowing in concentration.
"You will be underwater, there will be Merlin knows what creatures and you will be constantly casting magic. I don't know where to even start the arithmetical calculations. The variables are just too many." Harry sighed.
He could simply cast the spell, but that would have left a few things to chance, something he didn't feel like doing.
Harry gestured towards the scattered papers on the table, filled with complex equations and diagrams.
"I've been working on creating an enchantment instead of a spell so that it will hold regardless of time, but I feel like I'm hitting a wall."
Fleur listened intently, her eyes following Harry's gestures as she processed the information.
"Perhaps we're approaching this from the wrong angle," she mused, her eyes scanning the scattered papers. "What if we made a potion instead?"
"Yeah, don't depend on me for that…"
Harry had told Fleur all about his classes with Snape, and how fun they could be…
"Don't worry, I wasn't under such delusions," she replied with an amused wink.
"You might be onto something there, but I still think I can manage to create an enchantment that will work."
Harry paused, his eyes stopping at the texts he had left scattered across the table.
He knew he was close to a breakthrough, but something was still missing.
"What if we combined the enchantment with a runic sequence?" he suggested, not really wanting a reply.
"We could even copy some of the runes from the tome directly, providing the stability needed."
Noting that Harry was in a world of his own, Fleur decided to pursue her own train of thought.
Moving towards the towering bookshelves, Fleur's eyes scanned the various tomes.
"Point me potions textbooks," she murmured while thinking of rituals and her wand shot an almost transparent trail.
Following the trail, she found herself in front of a dusty shelf filled with ancient-looking books; all of them looked the same.
Her fingers traced the spines, feeling the embossed titles beneath her touch.
She pulled out a particularly intriguing volume, its cover adorned with intricate alchemical symbols.
Beauxbatons had alchemy as an elective for their sixth and seventh years.
Fleur had taken the course and found it fascinating, especially the way it combined theoretical knowledge with practical applications.
As she flipped through the pages of the ancient tome, her eyes lit up with recognition.
.
Hours passed as Harry and Fleur worked silently on their respective tasks.
The chamber echoed with the occasional rustle of pages and the occasional murmurs of incantations as they tried spells out, mostly Harry.
Harry looked up from his work, his eyes meeting Fleur's across the room; she was sitting on the other side of his desk.
They shared a small smile and returned to their work.
'We've got one week for the task. I have to pull through,' Harry thought to himself, determination etched on his face.
After another hour of intense work, Harry, who was growing restless, finally looked up from his notes, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.
He turned to Fleur, who was still engrossed in her own research.
"I think I've got it," he said, his voice a mix of excitement and exhaustion.
"Come take a look at this."
Fleur looked up from her work, her oceanic eyes showcasing her exhaustion.
She wordlessly stood up and made her way around the table, leaning over Harry's shoulder to examine his notes.
Her eyes scanned the intricate runic sequences which were drawn on top of a bracelet's sketch.
'Ah. I don't understand this part,'
'Ah. I don't understand this part,' Fleur thought to herself as she focused on a particularly complex section.
Her brow furrowed slightly as she traced the tangled patterns with her finger, her lips moving silently as she deciphered the runes.
After a few minutes, her eyes widened, and she hugged Harry's back.
"You've outdone yourself, mon amour."
She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, her breath warm against his skin.
"I won't lie and say zat I understand all of this, but are you sure this will work?"
Harry nodded and melted into the hug.
"I'm as sure as I can be without actually testing it. The runic sequence should keep my spell stable and surround your body with sort of a bubble, which will be barely a millimetre thick. The bubble will even allow you to breathe underwater and protect you from the cold and pressure," he said confidently.
"I assume the bubble will prevent me from directly contacting the water, which is why I won't experience the Veela weakness," Fleur mused aloud.
"Actually not. Not entirely, at least. If that was the case we would have started with a bubble-head charm and worked from there. The bubble's purpose is to channel the spell, which I have yet to create, all around you. And to let you breathe, of course," Harry explained.
"The spell will nullify the Veela weakness and the bubble will keep it working," he added; sometimes simple explanations paved the way for understanding more complex concepts.
Fleur nodded, impressed by Harry's solution, and considered the air container's flaws.
"Won't the bubble simply pop in the first collision with an obstacle?" she asked slowly.
"And what about casting spells through it? Will it interfere with my magic?"
Harry shook his head, a confident smile playing on his lips.
"The bubble isn't fragile like a soap bubble. It's more like a flexible, magical membrane that can even withstand physical impacts. As for spell casting, your wand won't be inside the bubble so it won't interfere with it. Even if it was, the bubble is permeable to magic and it wouldn't have mattered," he finished his explanation.
Fleur nodded, absorbing the information and unable to think of any more weak spots, she let a mischievous smile form on her lips.
"Well then, mon chéri. When will we test this ingenious creation of yours?" she asked with a playful tone.
Harry snorted but couldn't hide the excitement in his eyes.
"Tomorrow. I'll get the spell and we can head to either the lake or the prefects' bathroom," he suggested.
"We'll need to test it thoroughly before the task to make sure everything works as intended," Fleur said and nodded in agreement.
"I can't wait."
.
Stones??
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