When does it happen?' Fleur asked him gently. Harry didn't need to be afraid of hurting her, they would still eventually be practicing duelling together, it had been a good idea.
'When I'm angry,' Harry responded quietly. 'I don't know why it happens.'
'It's a good thing, Harry,' she insisted, 'once you've learnt how to control it you'll have an unpredictable ability, that's perfect for duelling.' 'I can't control it,' he replied. 'If I'm really angry, and forget to use my occlumency techniques to clear my mind and focus, it just happens. I never know what will happen.'
'So think of something that makes you angry,' Fleur suggested, 'then try every spell you know a few times until you're aware of the outcomes. I'll help,' she promised.
'Maybe,' Harry responded tentatively. Fleur knew immediately that if he ever did consciously attempt to use his emotions to manipulate his intent it would not be while she was there.
Idiot, she thought, both exasperated and fond.
'Let's go somewhere,' Fleur decided. 'Somewhere nice.' She wanted to take his mind off this, off their argument, no matter how nicely it had ended. 'Where?'
'I know a place in Paris,' Fleur assured him, 'but we need to go kidnap Gabby first.'
'We do?' Harry's smile was back.
'I promised her that we'd go there with her, it's our favourite place, and she's been lonely at Beauxbatons with me always coming to see you.' Fleur had also made Gabby promise to be good, or at least as good as Gabrielle ever managed. She wouldn't be throwing her allure around at Harry, or pestering them about their romance.
'How are we going to kidnap her?' Harry asked, clearly he found the idea quite entertaining.
Fleur pulled the portkey she had made for herself out of her robes and waved it at him. Madame Maxime generally allowed her to do as she pleased, especially as she had finished learning what Beauxbatons could teach her. It was likely she'd get into a bit of trouble for stealing her baby sister without asking first, but Fleur had been scolded before.
'Doesn't Beauxbatons have anti-portkey wards?' Harry wondered.
'Of course it does,' Fleur enthused, proud of herself, 'only a member of staff can create a portkey to the school.' Harry raised an eyebrow. 'Aren't you going to ask me how I did it?' Fleur prompted.
'How did you achieve this most brilliant and noteworthy accomplishment, ma cherie?' Harry begged, the teasing glint returned to his eyes.
'I created a portkey to the willow tree while on Beauxbatons grounds that would return me to wherever I had come from. Yours does the same. How did you think it bypassed Hogwarts' wards?' His teasing was not enough to touch the pride she took in managing to achieve something so simple and clever.
He shrugged. 'It's never had to actually take me past the wards,' he revealed. 'I portkey to and from a place that's outside of them.'
'You might as well just apparate,' Fleur sniffed. 'It's a waste of my enchantment.'
'I'm sure it will come in very useful,' Harry grinned, patting her sympathetically on the back, 'but I'd rather not have to explain to Dumbledore where I keep vanishing off to when Voldemort might be lurking in every broom cupboard.'
Fleur supposed that was fair. Hogwarts might have wards to keep track of it students comings and goings, something Beauxbatons couldn't feasibly use, since many of its older students were traditionally allowed to leave the grounds upon earning positions of responsibility, and it was generally accepted that they'd take their siblings or younger friends with them.
'Let's go,' Fleur decided. 'Come here, Harry,' she said coyly, extending her arm, and smiling slightly when instead of holding it he linked his through hers.
'Argent,' she murmured, and they were standing in her room. Harry had seen it before, it was the first thing she had turned the Room of Requirement into, but that wasn't quite the same as having him actually standing here.
'I remember that picture,' he smiled, gesturing at the image of her and Gabrielle that stood at the end of one of her shelves. Her sister was smiling delightedly, waving at them out of the frame, while her own image stared curiously at Harry, who returned Gabby's wave with a small smile. 'Where's your sister?' Harry inquired. 'Do we have to sneak through Beauxbatons?' He seemed quite excited by the prospect.
'Well if we were anyone else we could just walk and nobody would think twice,' Fleur began, 'but since you're famous and I am who I am, it'd be best to disillusion ourselves.'
'Will she scream if we grab her while we're invisible?'
'Not anymore,' Fleur smirked, 'she's used to it. If she knows I'm coming she'll feel for my magic and grab me instead.'
'Does she know we're coming?'
'No,' Fleur smiled. 'Follow me.'
She led Harry out of her room, taking his hand and pausing only to disillusion themselves, then down the corridor in the direction of Gabrielle's favourite spot. Lessons had ended by now, so Gabby would have gone where she always went when she was on her own, a balcony on the floor above that overlooked the Pyrenees.
Fleur could sense his magic, flowing and swirling in its own unique way, a little to her left her as they walked, fingers intertwined, down the mostly empty corridor towards the stairs.
'I prefer Hogwarts,' she heard him whisper provocatively. 'Beauxbatons is beautiful, but it doesn't quite seem as magical.'
'You are biased, Beauxbatons is far more elegant and just as magical,' Fleur whispered back. 'Hogwarts is grey, draughty and has that horrible forest.'
Harry squeezed her hand affectionately and she heard him laugh quietly. 'You haven't seen half of the horrors of that forest.'
Fleur disagreed, but not aloud. She didn't need Harry worrying about her unnecessarily and telling him that Gabrielle had found burnt skeleton would definitely kill the upbeat mood. That conversation could wait for another, more morbid time.
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