December 26th, 1995
Something soft tickled the corner of his mouth and sweet vanilla stirred in his nostrils. Tristan blinked one eye open, staring through a faceful of platinum-blonde hair up at a pair of dark wooden beams that ran along the ceiling.
'My room?'
A head rested on his chest and a pair of warm arms and legs were wrapped tightly around him beneath a tangle of covers.
'She's still here.' Tristan ran his fingertips down the curve of her back, over smooth, hot skin. 'It wasn't just a dream.' He choked on a fistful of emotion. 'But how could something so perfect not have been snatched away already?'
"That tickles," Fleur murmured into his neck.
"Désolé." Tristan paused his hand.
"C'est bon," she whispered with a small smile. "I'm not going anywhere."
'Does she really mean that?' Tristan kept his hold on her tight and let his head sink back into the cushions, exhaling deeply. "How are you feeling?"
She snuggled warm, smooth curves even closer against his body and sighed. "I'm a bit sore."
"Mhm…" Tristan smothered a rueful grin. "Sorry about that."
"Non, I don't think you're sorry at all," her soft laughter tickled his chest. "I think you quite like the idea."
Images of his hands on Fleur's smooth curves flashed through Tristan's mind. The distant echo of soft moans and gasps that broke from her lips as he moved within her lingered in his ears and had his blood rushing south.
A possessive little whisper fluttered through him. "Perhaps... i like it a little bit."
"I felt that," Fleur whispered.
"I'm actually as surprised as you are." Tristan chuckled. "Especially after how... demanding you were last night. There must be something to the rumors about veela being sex-craving bird witches."
"Let's not pretend it wasn't the best night of your life, Tristan," she hummed into the crook of his neck, her warm breath sending a shiver down his spine.
"Fine, I won't." Tristan fell silent. A warm glow spread from his chest, rushing through his veins, and settling in every fiber of his body. 'Because I couldn't, even if I tried to…'
He swallowed quietly and held her close, finger absently brushing through her long hair. 'But what happens now?' A knot of anxiety coiled tight in his stomach. 'Did she just want to have some fun for the night? We're still competitors in a deadly tournament after all...'
"What's wrong?" Fleur's eyes slid open and she blew a stray lock of her hair off her face. "Your thoughts are so loud they keep me from snoozing for a few more minutes."
Tristan attempted a roguish grin but the mirth died somewhere in his throat. He studied the softness in her blue eyes, though his lips remained sealed.
Fleur sighed. "You wish to know what happens now..."
'I do.' He gave the tiniest nod in confirmation. A fierce yearning rose from his breast. 'I need to know...'
She lifted her chin and pressed a soft kiss to his jaw. "I meant what I said when I told you you were different, Tristan." She held his eye with a soft, warm smile. "We can continue competing against each other and also explore what we found last night, non?"
"I'd like that." Tristan swallowed a hot lump of emotion and kissed her forehead. 'Perhaps she really is different.' "It sounds parfait."
"Très bon," Fleur smirked. "Just don't assume that I will go any easier on you now. I will still win. Fleur Delacour doesn't lose. Never."
Tristan laughed, his hand wandering down to her breast. "You're always so eager to finish first, petite Fleur. But after last night, it should really be my turn."
"Non." A touch of pink crept up her cheek and her lips curved into a smirk. "I made more than up for it. Several times as well. We are even now." She turned her nose up at him, familiar haughtiness creeping back into her expression. "I will finish first in the tournament. I'm in the lead already. Perhaps you should just spare yourself the heartbreak and get used to me coming first, Tristan."
"The second task is only a little over a month away," he grinned. "I have two clues to work with; you only have one, petite Fleur."
"That can easily be changed, non?" Her eyes lit up playfully. "I only need to bribe you with some kisses to reveal them to me."
'She's just teasing again, isn't she?' A flicker of apprehension flared through him as he watched her little smirk widen. 'Would she really manipulate me into telling her my clues just so she wins?'
'I have to find out.' Temptation fluttered through him. "Go ahead. Give it your best shot, petite Fleur. My lips will remain sealed."
"On va voir." Fleur rose from his chest; the blanket slipped down the swell of her breasts and exposed smooth pale skin. Tristan dragged his eyes back up to her face.
"Tell me-" she pampered his face and jaw with soft kisses, "-about your first clue, Tristan. S'il te plaît."
'Nothing unusual so far.' Countless little quips and teases he had endured from Fleur over the last few months buzzed through his mind. "You'll have to do better than that, petite Fleur."
She crushed her lips against his and slipped her tongue into his mouth, fingernails scraping over his shoulder and chest. "Your first clue, Tristan... What is it?"
A warm wave of emotion lifted the weight off his shoulder and calmed his swirling thoughts. Tristan brought his hands to her waist and relaxed into the heated dance of their tongues.
"You can tell me, Tristan." Fleur broke the kiss and held his eye with a small, soft smile. "You can trust me. What is it about?"
Two small slips of parchment in familiar handwriting swirled through his mind, along with the countless notes he had written about them.
'Something important... An hour's time... The Forbidden Forest...'
Doubt rose within him like the tide on a beach. 'Is that her doing?'
"I was thinking about going on a date with you soon." Her smile lost its softness and turned into a small smirk. "Tell me, Tristan, would the Forbidden Forest make for a good spot?"
'She knows!' Ice laced through his veins and Tristan dragged all thoughts on clues down into the abyss.
Fleur cupped his jaw with warm hands. "After getting rid of the nasty creatures, we can enjoy our date together there, non?"
The doubt grew stronger the softer her smile turned, and the more her summer-sky blue eyes began to sparkle like stars. What usually lifted his heart to a place far above the clouds now dragged it down into an empty, cold pit.
'Her allure.' The realization froze Tristan's heart and he edged away from Fleur as she leaned down for a kiss. 'She saw the clues. It must be similar to legilimency.'
"Tristan?" Fleur frowned and slowly slipped off of him. "Ca va?"
"You're still just playing your little game with me, aren't you?" Ice slipped into his voice "Petite Fleur is doing everything to win…"
"Non. I am not." She wrapped the covers tight around her midriff and over her breasts. "What are you talking about right now, Tristan?"
'Is that supposed to erase countless images burned into my mind?' Tristan snorted. "Don't lie to me. I know it is you, Fleur, I felt it." He tried to smother a rising swell of anger underneath a shaky gulp of air. "You tried to use your allure and ensnare me so I share my clues. All so you can win. Because that's everything Fleur Isabelle Delacour truly cares about…"
"Tu es ridicule." Fleur shook her head vehemently. "My allure is a compulsion to impress, as you should know! Not that it ever mattered with you because you're all but immune to it anyway."
'I'm not immune to wanting to impress her. How could I after we share a night like that.' The desperate yearning clawed back up, smothering his anger for but a second. 'But I still need to know the truth…'
"Tell me the truth then, Fleur," he demanded, avoiding her eyes to not get blinded by her beauty. "Did you, or did you not use your allure on me just now?"
Her lips began trembling. "Oui, I did," she admitted and reached out to take his hands "But I was only using it to tease you a bit, Tristan. Like we always had! Because that- because that's… us!"
"I don't believe you." Tristan pried her hands off and edged even further back. "How could I believe that when all you've ever shared about yourself is that you never lose at anything?"
"Merde! This is not about the tournament!" she hissed, her eyes flashing dark with fury. "Why are you doubting everything right now, Tristan? You were supposed to understand me, to be diff-"
"-don't fucking tell me I'm different!" His stomach churned, flashing hot and cold as he forced the words through numb lips. "Tell me this instead: If it were Krum who received two clues for the second task, would you've spread your legs for him instead of for me last night?"
"How dare you!" Small white feathers fluttered all along her arms and heat haze shimmered around her fingers. A bright flash of azure flames seared at his eyes and pain flared over his chest, hurling him out of the bed.
Tristan landed hard on the wooden floor and leaped back up, catching a glimpse of Fleur's furious face. Dark mist spewed from his fingers, curling around his wrists cold as ice water as he summoned his wand from the nightstand into his palm.
Silver hair and white bed sheets slipped back into the corridor before the door fell shut.
"Fuck!" The storm burst in his breast, screaming and clawing so deep it scorched the breath from his lungs "She was meant to be different!"
Ebony whisps exploded from his wrists, tossing over the bed and shattering the glass window to his left into thousands of shards. His magic clawed at everything in its path, like a torrent of thousand sharp razors, scoring ragged cracks into the stone walls and biting deep into the wood of the floor and ceiling.
"I will win, Fleur," Tristan vowed. He clawed his magic back into himself, clenching his knuckles so tight his fingernails drew blood. "And if it's the last fucking thing I'm doing, I will beat you!"
Smooth, silver fabric, pooling around a pair of crimson stilettos by the bed caught his eye.
'Hers...'
Tristan dragged his wrist around and leveled his wand at them, feeding Fleur's image to the screaming storm in his heart.
"Fiendfyre!"
The faintest puff of smoke spewed from the tip of the yew wand and gushed out instantly.
"I said burn!"
He forced more magic into his wand, pushing until the wood grew hot between his fingers. Instead of screaming and billowing flames all his mind managed to conjure was an image of Fleur, smiling softly up at him from underneath a tangle of covers.
'My magic?'
Tristan stared down at his trembling arm with a frown. The stench of burned flesh stirred up to his nose. The pain, so freshly caused by her fire, lingered far out of reach now.
"Vulnera Sanentur." He traced his wand over the raw, weeping skin on his chest, and sighed in comfort when it wove back together and smoothened out.
Relief flooded through him, washing away some of his anger like water down the drain. "Not my magic then, just my intent... or perhaps-"
His stomach grumbled loudly.
"No, I doubt it's a lack of food either," Tristan grimaced. 'And, of course, the Room can't conjure anything edible for me. Gamp's Law be fucked...'
He conjured himself a pair of casual black robes. "I suppose this is my sign to stop hiding and face the music."
He left his secret room and strolled down the abandoned corridor to the Giant Staircase. Sunlight flooded through the large, frost-bitten windows onto the steps as he took them two at a time.
Tristan glanced down at his wristwatch with a frown.
'That makes more sense, it's already lunchtime.' A cocktail of emotions stirred in him. 'Fleur and I must have slept in quite late.'
A host of stares began prickling on his skin, the moment he arrived down by the balustrade and headed for the Great Hall. Tristan quickly strode to Valeria, who sat by the rear of the Slytherin table, and plonked onto the bench next to her.
Her green eyes bored into him, dark as the pine trees of the Forbidden Forest. "Where. Were. You?"
His stomach rumbled loudly again.
"One second please." He reached for a bowl of mashed potatoes.
"I really need some food before this interrogation begins, Auror Peverell."
"No," Valeria hissed, pushing the bowl down the length of the table. "You won't get anything until you've answered my questions!"
"That sounds like a very illegal interrogation technique. May I speak to your supe-"
Tristan raised both hands when her eyes flashed dark and she pulled her wand on him. "Okay, okay. Can we at least have some privacy?"
"Fine," she murmured under her breath, her eyes never leaving him as a faint dome of magic fell over them and turned translucent. "Now spill!"
"Where do I even start?" Tristan ran a hand through his hair. "I need a status update first. What do you or anyone else know by now?"
She slapped a copy of the Daily Prophet on the table. "Anything that has been written here is currently regarded as the truth."
Tristan eyed the headline warily.
TRIWIZARD-LOVE-TRIANGLE
"That's a damn good headline…"
A picture of him in his dress robes garnered the front page. Adelaide flung herself into his arm and kissed him, his lily behind her ear. The scene changed and he spun Fleur in her silver gown over the dance floor, snippets of their heated snogging blurred into the photo.
'You were meant to be different, petite Fleur.' Tristan swallowed a hot fist of emotion and dragged his eye away from their kiss.
"Well, I'm definitely not reading all that," he grimaced at the wall of text that followed underneath. "Can't you just give me a summary?"
Valeria's knuckles whitened around her fork. "You attended the ball with Adelaide Goldstein as your date. You two kissed and shared the opening dance together, then Adelaide was seen running away crying an hour later. Meanwhile, you're back on the dance floor, licking faces with Fleur Delacour and then disappearing to Morgana knows where with her!"
"Adelaide..." A stab of pity bored through Tristan's heart and he glanced up to the 'puffs' table.
Through a wall of comforting friends, he caught a brief glimpse of her; eyes red and puffy, yet glaring back at him venomously.
Valeria followed his line of sight. "Start with what happened with her last night."
"Adelaide was jealous of Delacour and I only caught the signs after playing right into her insecurities once too often," Tristan sighed. "I'm not sure if we were dating already, but we're evidently not anymore."
"What about Delacour?" Valeria fired, lips pursed. "Last you told me, you were only going to share a dance with her." She thrust a crimson-painted nail at the paper. "This looks like a lot more than just a dance... Care to explain why?"
A storm of anger, sadness, and frustration rose within him, clawing at his insides and he balled his fists.
"Tristan?" Valeria's eyebrows drew together and a small wrinkle creased her forehead. "Are you... okay"
"Fine," he muttered. "I just learned that Delacour is not the person I thought she was."
Valeria frowned. "What did she do?"
"This morning she tried to use her allure to get me to share my clues with her." Tristan recounted. "We had a fight when I called her out on it."
"This morning you say?" Her frown deepened. "You… you two spend the entire night together?"
'Let's not pretend it wasn't the best night of your life, Tristan,' her words rang in his ears and he buried flashes of pale curves within a tangle of white sheets.
"Oh, Merlin help you, Tristan," Valeria groaned and lowered her head onto her palms. "I thought you only sneaked off to the gardens to snog around a bit like most of the other couples did."
'We did a bit more than that...'
"What's done is done." Tristan reached past his sister for the bowl of mashed potatoes. "I won't go anywhere near her again."
"Because she used her allure on you?" Valeria piqued. "I thought you were pretty much immune to it, so how did you know?"
"She tried to get me to talk about the clues, playfully at first, but then all the notes I've written on them just drifted past my inner eye like dandelion seeds." He clenched his jaw tight. "Next, she mentions the very place I suspected the second task to be held at... That's hardly a coincidence, is it?"
"No. No, I don't think it is." Valeria gnawed at her bottom lip, a fierce gleam in her eyes. "So now she potentially knows all three clues for the next task."
"Well deducted, Officer Peverell," Tristan snorted and busied himself with his breakfast.
He noticed Valeria studying him for a few seconds out of the corner of his eye. Then she tentatively reached out to squeeze his hand. "You seem rather taken by all of this." Her eyes softened. "Do you- I mean- did she mean... something to you?"
'Yes. She was meant to be different. Someone who understands me.' Her own words rose from the back of his mind, accompanied by her soft, high laughter. 'But if she betrayed me she can't be that person.'
"No," Tristan declared firmly but the lie still tasted foul as the Lethifold's breath on his tongue. "Fleur Delacour meant nothing to me."
"Good." Valeria nodded determinedly. "This should be the moment where I say 'I told you so and you didn't want to listen', but instead, I'll ask you to work extra hard so you can beat her in the second task, got it?"
"Oh, don't worry, I will." Tristan murmured, ambition fluttering through his breast in a bright, hot swell. 'I will make her regret ever betraying me.'
A blur of white feathers sailed over his head, dropping a small scroll of parchment with a crimson crest right in front of him.
Valeria sniggered. "Uh-oh, someone's in trouble."
"Shut up, you little harpy." Tristan watched the scroll apprehensively, giving it a little nudge with the tip of his wand.
It burst into a crimson flame and crumbled to ash.
A small smoke-like shade shivered into being from the ash, flapping two majestic wings. It threw its long mane back, bleeding little wisps of gray shadow until it sharpened into a granian.
"The Three Broomsticks," his mother's voice stabbed through Valeria's privacy wards like a spear and echoed coldly over the Slytherin table. "At two o'clock."
The granian faded away like mist before the morning sun. Tristan could feel every eye in the Great Hall on him in the awkward silence that followed.
Valeria shook with silent laughter. "Still better than a howler from the Weasley Matriarch, don't you think?"
His lips quivered. "That's true, I guess." His eyes flickered to his wristwatch and then longingly to his half-finished breakfast. 'Only half an hour left and I still have to collect my trunk and get there.'
"Better hurry, Brother." Valeria patted his shoulder with a broad smirk. "If you show up on time and behave well, Mother and Father might even buy you some lunch afterward."
"Anything's better than listening to your silly chirps, harpy." Tristan rose from the benches.
"Just a moment, Mr. Peverell." McGonagall strode towards him from the staff table, nostrils flared. "You have my permission to leave for Hogsmeade already." Her lips pursed. "I very much hope your parents have a word with you. Your... performance during the first task was a lot more praiseworthy than what I witnessed last night."
'I bet Fleur would disagree with you there.' Tristan held his tongue. "Thank you, Headmistress." He turned towards Valeria. "I'll see you later, harpy. Have fun riding the Express by yourself."
"Oh, I will." She gave him a small wave, her laughter following him out of the Great Hall. "Enjoy your lunch, Brother."
Tristan hurried toward the dungeons and collected his trunk from his dorm, shrinking it down to fit into his pockets. He fought his way through one-foot deep snow to the village. Cold, crispy air left his nose tingling and flushed his cheeks red.
His parents sat in a secluded corner of the pub, two steaming mugs of hot chocolate on the table in front of them.
"You're on time." His mother eyed him cooly and pointed opposite them. "Sit down."
"Merry Christmas to you as well," Tristan murmured, slipping onto the bench. "You look very lovely today, Mother." He gestured at her tight, royal blue robes. "Are those new by chance?"
Her eyes flashed dangerously. "Oh, so now you have found your manners again? Where did you leave those when you took the Goldstein girl on a date last night?"
Tristan rolled his eyes. "You of all people should know how Skeeter twists the facts in her articles."
"We didn't need to read the dragon dung that leaves her quill. The few photos we saw speak for themselves," his mother snapped. She twisted her wrist and curled her fingers, summoning the newspaper from an empty table beside them and pointing at the front page. "Is that how I taught you to treat a lady?"
A teary-eyed Adelaide shielded her face from a camera flash while he kissed Fleur in the background.
"No," Tristan admitted with a sigh. "But in my defense, Adelaide didn't exactly openly communicate her issues with me. She just got all jealous all of the sudden and stormed right off after the opening dance."
"And so you decided to continue the night with the very girl she was worried about?" His father shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Let me ask you what you'd do to a boy who'd treat either of your sisters the way you treated Adelaide last night?"
Tristan frowned. 'If a boy had asked Valeria out, kissed her, and then made her cry, only to dance, snog, and shag another girl that same night, I'd probably curse him to a very small pile of ash...'
His parents eyed him expectantly. "So?"
"Let's just say I'm lucky Adelaide's brother is an ickle fourth-year." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'd do worse..."
"What you will do is apologize to her, Tristan," his mother scoffed. "Your actions not only reflected badly on you but on the entire family."
Tristan snorted. "And since when do we care what the little people gossip behind our backs?"
His father's expression hardened. "We don't want our family to be caught in some endless loop of bad standing. You might have children of your own one day, Tristan, and so will your siblings. Wouldn't you want each of them to grow up with fewer hardships than you did?"
"You bet I would," Tristan muttered, a bit of ice slipping into his tone.
"I'm glad you see our point then," his mother folded her arms and shot him a long look. "Now then, what happened with the veela?"
Tristan felt his ire rise.
"Her name is Fleur Delacour, Mother, using it won't hurt you," he scoffed. "And whatever issue you might have with her and her kind, you can put it to rest." He smothered his ire as best as he could. "Fleur and I are done."
"Why is that?" His father's brow creased. "What happened after you left the ball together?"
A pair of intense gazes bored into him.
'Merlin, help me... This is awkward.' Tristan shifted on the bench. "I don't think that's a conversation I want to have with my parents."
"No… No, no, no." His mother shook her head and her lips grew thin. "By Morgana, don't you dare tell me you've slept with her!"
He buried his head in his hands with a groan. "Can we please not talk about this? I told you Delacour and I are done for good."
"Tell me you were at least... responsible, Tristan!" Her knuckles clenched tight around the hem of her cup and the chocolate inside began bubbling. "Tell me you didn't completely turn off your brain!"
'Oh fuck.' The wicked little gleam in Fleur's blue eyes as she spread her thighs dwelled from the back of his mind and he felt the heat rush to his face. 'I didn't even ask her if-'
"Oh, you reckless, hormonal fool of son!" his mother hissed, having interpreted his silence. "How could you do something so stupid? Especially with her?"
"Will you believe me when I say that I already learned my lesson?" Tristan snapped in irritation. "There's no need to keep bringing it up now."
His mother opened her mouth to retort when his father squeezed her hand. "And what lesson have you learned exactly?"
"That I should not have trusted a stranger so easily, especially not a competitor in the most renowned magical tournament there is." He gritted his teeth. "It was not me she was interested in that night."
His father's brows drew together in a frown. "She wanted the clues for the tournament... Did you tell her?"
"I didn't tell her about them, but when she mentioned them to me I think she might have... glimpsed them in my mind with that weird allure of hers," Tristan said. "She denied that part, of course. However, she admitted to having used her allure on me just then and also that it wasn't even the first time."
"She dared bewitch my son with her veela magic." His mother's breath quickened and her chocolate began spilling over her mug. "I'll chase that pretentious, French goose down and plug all her feathers one by one."
"Hey, calm down a bit, love." His father placed a hand on her hers, brushing the other down her back, and turned to Tristan. "Your recount is rather interesting because I wasn't aware veela could even direct their allure that way. It's not supposed to work like legilimency. The entire team of Bulgarian mascots could sit here naked with us-" his mother's jaw clenched tight and her hand twitched underneath his father's, "-and direct their allure at you but you still wouldn't feel compelled to share something like the clues with them. You'd only make an idiot of yourself and try to impress them like that poor Egyptian referee at the World Cup."
Tristan grimaced. "Then there has to be something special about the way Fleur uses it." Irritation boiled up in his veins. "It's - it's like she always knows what I am thinking. I can tell she does anytime she smirks that dumb, little smirk of hers and-"
He felt shut when he caught his parents exchanging a small glance; his mother seemed highly irritated, his father somewhat amused.
The latter cleared his throat. "Valeria told us that you and... Fleur have spent time together before, at Slughorn's party for example, and that she saw you two talking on other occasions."
'This little snitch... I should steal all her chocolate bars for that.'
"Yes, I did," Tristan admitted grudgingly. The back and forth of their little quips echoed through his mind and almost brought a smile to his lips. "Fleur was... very irritating at first but not completely unpleasant to talk to."
"What's she like then?"
'She's a bit like me.' Tristan held his tongue. "Lonely, I think. She doesn't have any friends in her year at Beauxbatons. She didn't make any new ones at Hogwarts either."
"What about that Davies boy who accompanied her to the Yule Ball?" His mother asked with pursed lips. "Valeria said he took her to Slughorn's party as well? That's two dates with the same boy already..."
"She's got him wrapped around her little finger." Tristan shrugged, smothering a small twist of his insides. "But he's just a toy for her, nothing more."
'And he wasn't even her favorite toy.'
"I think it's best you stay away from her for a while-"
"-for good," his mother interrupted firmly.
"-and let things calm down a bit," his father continued, his lips twitching slightly. "Focus on the second task and use the clues you've been given. Perhaps Fleur has caught some sort of glimpse at them, perhaps not; we don't know for sure. However, unless you've been sharing notes with her, you're still the champion with the most information while she only has a single, completed clue to work with."
"You're right." Tristan nodded. "She only has one-' his nods suddenly froze as a strange thought rose from the back of his mind, "-clue..."
'What if Fleur only mentioned the Forbidden Forest because it was included in her clue and she sought some sort of reassurance from me?'
Tristan tried to recall their exact exchange of words but all his mind supplied him with were flashes of the fury and hurt burning in her darkened eyes.
'It doesn't really matter.' He dragged the images away. 'Even in that case she still tried to manipulate me...'
His father cleared his throat. "Are you still with us, Tristan?"
"Yeah, sorry." Tristan blinked between the two of them. "Uhm, what were you saying?"
He chuckled. "I said that aside from your preparations for the next task you'll also have an opportunity to... redeem your behavior from the Yule Ball over the coming break."
Tristan frowned. "How so?"
"Because we've been invited to a ball. All of us." His father produced a purple-ribboned scroll of parchment from his dark robes and offered it to him. Tristan caught a glimpse of his own name in golden letters up front.
"An invitation to the freshly-revived, annual New Year's Eve Ball at the Bones' Manor."