Fleur caught her wrist before it could make it to the wand she had tucked through the waistband of her uniform. 'Why would you even try?' she asked, genuinely curious. 'Charms, duelling, enchanting, I am better than you at every aspect of magic. We are not children anymore, Emilie, you can't flaunt your first boyfriends and early kisses in my face anymore and expect me to care. Go back to your room and take her with you before you lose someone else you care about to me.'
They took her threat more seriously than Fleur had expected and scurried away like frightened mice. It was only when they were gone did she catch sight of her reflection in the window and realise she had partially transformed in her anger.
Veela were not half so attractive when they were enraged. Fleur took several deep breaths and watched her eyes shrink and shift back from black to their normal light blue. Under her uniform she felt the feathers slide back into her skin. At least she had not slipped so much as to conjure fire. Madame Maxime would have been furious with her if she had gone so far, though the thought of charring all the hair off the heads of both of her former friends was very appealing.
How could I let those pair of bitter little girls so affect me? she wondered.
It was worse than weak for her to let their words get to her. She had heard everything they had said before and was normally impervious to it and more.
Fleur hadn't calmed down all that much when she returned to her room. There was just so much that was wrong about being here. The food, the weather, all her normal problems with girls and with boys and the fact that her poor baby sister had been left alone in France without her sister to look after when her former friends were being cruel to her again.
I should write to Gabrielle and make sure she is ok, Fleur decided. Gabby would be lonely without her, even at school they spent most of their free time together.
Her gold-nibbed quill was where she had left it, carefully clipped to quill stand that unfolded from the back of the desk in the carriage. She had promised to write to both Gabrielle and her parents as frequently as she could.
Dear Gabrielle,
I hope you are not missing your dear sister too much, because I am missing you very much. We have finally arrived at Hogwarts. It is a dreary a sight, nothing like Beauxbatons. There's no sun, only rain, and everything is grey: the walls, the clouds, the ground and the sky. The food is terrible, even if the inside of the castle is tolerable, and there are too many boys. Their staring is even worse than before.
This evening, only a few minutes ago, I entered my name into the tournament, but don't worry I'll make sure I get through the competition. There's nobody else who will do any better than I.
I left you the key to my rooms if you need it to get away from anything. Don't listen to anything the other girls say. They don't understand what it means to be Veela and are just jealous. I've told you that before I know, but until they stop I won't either.
I know that you'll be lonely this year with me in Scotland, but Maman says she's trying to convince Papa to let you come with them to watch the Second task after Christmas. I will see you then, because as we know Maman always gets her way in the end.
Love,
Fleur.
She would send the letter at her earliest opportunity, but she would need to find where Hogwarts' owlery was because their family owl, a bird Gabby normally monopolised for their own use, was injured.
In a few days time her name would come out of the goblet and prove, once and for all, that she was better than the girls who shunned her. There would be nothing they could say once she was Triwizard Champion. The goblet chose the best possible candidate for each school.
The thought put a smile on her face even though she had only one more year of school remaining anyway. She would miss Madame Maxime, the chateau itself and her baby sister, but nothing else.
Absentmindedly she fell to polishing her wand with a soft cloth. If she was chosen as champion, something she was virtually certain of, their would be a wand-weighing ceremony to attend and that meant her wand had to be in perfect condition.
Fleur kept it in good shape regardless, her wand was quite temperamental and easily affected by anything from water to the slightest emotion. Another, less obvious effect of her heritage and something else the other girls would never understand.
Fleur the quarter-Veela, boyfriend thief and unkissed harlot was slander on all but one level. There was no such thing as a quarter-Veela, either you were Veela, as all female children of Veela were, or you were not, and she had certainly never stolen anyone's boyfriend. Fleur did not think she could be blamed if they broke up with their girlfriends to pursue a non-existence chance of winning her affections and she was most definitely not a harlot.
I have never been kissed.
It wasn't something she was overly insecure about, but it did rankle that her fellow students could accuse her of both never having kissed a boy and having slept with every male she came across in the same breath. She was Veela, there were a hundred, even a thousand boys that would have kissed her had she let them, but she had never been given a reason to allow them.
There was little she found exciting about kissing a boy so enthralled by her presence he could not even think and even less about spending time with one as the other girls did their boyfriends. When Fleur found someone that she wanted she would allow him to be with her and that would be that. It felt a little arrogant, but they always wanted to be with her, even the ones that resisted her aura and tried to pretend otherwise.
Fleur did allow herself a certain amount of pride. She was Veela and she was a talented witch. It was virtually guaranteed she would have a good career and the promise of a family in the future should she want one.
It is far to look forward to than either Caroline or Emilie have, Fleur decided smugly.
She reached for her hairbrush and began to pull it through her lustrous platinum hair. It didn't really need brushing, it never really needed it, she wasn't affected by the things the other girls spoke of in whispers to their coolest confidants. Acne, freckles, moles, rashes, none of them ever bothered her.
I must save a fortune on make-up compared to Caroline.
The small, too-sweet, plump girl was caked in artificial creams, hair products and perfumes from the moment she woke until the moment she slept. Fleur had no idea what she even really looked like underneath anymore.
Fleur replaced the hairbrush back on the desk beside her letter to Gabrielle and wandered into the bathroom, bypassing the mirror. The best thing about having her own room, besides not having to share her space with one of the jealous harpies that accompanied her here, was having a bathroom to herself. It meant she could spend as long in the bath as she wanted after curfew began because nobody would come to disturb unless the carriage caught fire.
Few enough of them would come then, Fleur thought bitterly.
She ran the water, making it hot, very hot. It was one of the few times she actually enjoyed any form of wetness. Her father had been shocked at the temperature she bathed at. The water would scald anyone not as naturally resistant to heat as she was.
As the bathtub filled she searched for her book on advanced charm alteration and found it buried underneath a pile of old articles about the tournament. Fleur hadn't given them anything more than a cursory glance. New restrictions had been imposed, new rules made, and the competition was meant to be far safer than before, though it would still be dangerous. There was little chance of a second rampaging cockatrice and she was more than capable of looking after herself.
If the worst came to the worst she would use her allure to charm her way past whatever she couldn't defeat with guile or strength. Were she less reluctant to utilise her Veela gifts she might consider turning her aura on the other champions. The Durmstrang champion was certified to be male, Igor Karkarof had only permitted Victor Krum to enter his name, so at least one would affected and it was well known that cheating was basically a part of the tournament.
That would be a very last resort. She would risk serious injury before doing anything remotely close to what the other Beauxbatons girls already accused her of. Fleur would prove herself their better without using anything but that which she had learned from Beauxbatons if she could avoid it.
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