Chapter Number: 23
Chapter Name: Painful encounter of the Veela kind
When the class finally finished Harry looked at the concentration on Hermione's face and realized that it was because she had been concentrating on something else in class that she had not answered the question. For a moment he thought that she had realized something that Harry had been dreading to tell her, but his fears were proved to be unfounded when he tentatively asked her why she hadn't been paying attention in class. Her reply sounded totally plausible.
" Just thinking about Victor..." she added a sigh at the end to make Ron jealous. ' So easy to set him off,' thought Hermione.
A relieved Harry barely managed to hold on to Ron's mouth. Hermione smiled as she caught the struggle between Ron and Harry from the corner of her eyes. The trio with the Gryffindors had just joined the line outside the door when they saw someone running frantically in their direction.
She had run all the way from her previous class to make it there before rest of her house got there. As the panting Pansy joined the girls she stood exactly opposite of Harry on the line for the boys. Standing right next to Pansy, Harry could hardly ignore the fact that she kept eyeing Neville every few seconds. Pansy turned a deep scarlet color, before turning away from Harry when she saw that he had seen her look at Neville.
' Damn! I'm going to miss this interesting new development when I'm in transfiguration with Professor Dumbledore' thought Harry just as he saw the door open.
The bright room behind the person who came out of the room made the person appear to Harry, who was at the back of line, as a silhouette. As the person walked further out of the room the more details of the face and body became clear. Pearly white skin and beautiful silver blonde hair was one of her best features.
It was Fleur Delacour. One of the TriWizard champions that Harry had beat the year before.
She walked out into the corridor in a nice red cloak, the back of which was trailing behind her as she almost floated down the corridor inspecting both lines of boys and girls. The all too familiar signs of loathing, hatred toward her from the girls and the unmistakable signs of lust in the hormonal teenagers' eyes... not to mention rest of their bodies were there. The sweat on their faces, the quivering of their lips... it all made her a bit sick.
The boys were using the camera in their mind to capture a million snapshot of her as she walked slowly down the corridor. There was no doubt in her mind that the boys would later use those pictures to fuel their imagination when they had more privacy. All her life most men had lusted after her, so one can hardly blame her for having a very low opinion of the whole male species.
She froze in mid step when her eyes caught those of the third boy from the end of the line. There was no sign of lust toward her from this boy. He had raven black unruly hair and a set of very bright green eyes behind his square glasses.
* Oh Mon Dieu! Ça ne peut pas être...la cicatrice...C'est! C'est lui!*, thought Fleur.
" 'Arry?" she asked as she took one step back just to make sure that this was who she thought he was. The lightning shaped scar barely visible because of his wild hair was the clue that made sure that she was right in her assumption.
Veela women were extremely hard to resist and only those with extreme mental focus could do so. Though part Veela women are not as hard to resist as full-blooded Veela women it would takes an enormous amount of strength of character to resist them. That is why Fleur was surprised to see Harry not been affected by this.
Fleur attributed the no lust towards her as how strong Harry had become since he took on a Nundu, but that was not the real case.
Harry knew he had no chance in hell of attracting this woman and lusting after her was a waste. He had a better chance going after Hermione than Fleur, even though Hermione was currently involved with Victor Krum, world famous Quidditch player. He had ample time to think of such things in Morocco and had decided that if love finds him it was good but he would not seek it out from somewhere there was no chance in getting it. Harry smiled at her and said, " At your service, Madam" with a small bow.
Fleur examined Harry more closely when he finished his bow. Harry was not the same person physically as he was a few months ago when she had last seen him. Harry had changed from the scrawny little boy she had seen months ago to a rather tall and very decently muscled boy. Nature had been kind enough to give him an early growth spurt (even for wizards), making him appear almost a fully-grown man. Being a head taller than most girls and almost all the boys gave him the appearance of a giant in amongst the other students.
She rushed forward and hugged Harry tightly before kissing him on the cheeks a bit more than necessary... especially considering she was a teacher.
All the boys in class and none more so than Ron, were glaring daggers at Harry who had turned pink at the excessive hugging and kissing. The girls in the class were a different matter altogether. They didn't know if they should be happy that for the moment rest of the boys weren't lusting after Fleur or to be furious with Fleur for the excessive amount of affection that she was showing Harry.
Harry knew why Fleur had reacted like this. Last year during the second task of the TriWizard tournament Harry had risked his life and a chance at outright victory to save her little sister, though it was a mistake on both his and her part in assuming that her sister was in any real danger.
" It's good to see you too," said Harry as he vigorously rubbed his cheeks to get rid of the bright shade of red lipstick she was using, before saying, " How is your sister?"
" She's okay... She is in school thish 'ear. Talks about Oou all the time" She looked him up and down once and said, " Oou 'ave changed. Not skinny, short and lanky boy no more" There was a pause as she said " Oou look 'andsome"
As soon as she had said those words, Harry almost wished she hadn't. Being a part Veela woman she had seen a ton of men follow her like puppies, so a complement from her was a big deal, but it also meant that the dagger eyes from the rest of the boys in the class were getting to critical level. After that point they would simply want to kill him. " Thanks," was all Harry could say as his face flushed once more.
' If there's any more, I'll have to use a shielding charm all night long to be safe.' thought Harry as he saw Fleur move away from him and open the door to the class.
Ron like all the other hormonal boys had scrambled for the seats at the front of the room once Fleur had opened the door to let the students in. This left only Harry and the girls to take a seat that weren't occupied by the drooling boys. Though Harry and Hermione walked next to each other as the entered the room, he noticed that Hermione was rather cold to him and didn't talk, but he dismissed the thought as they stated to talk after taking their seat behind Ron.
Fleur went to the front of the room and started to search for something on the desk. Frustrated with the search she yelled " Tidus" with her wand pointed at the desk.
A bright beam hit the table and it's contents. Everything started to sort by itself magically. The scrolls arranged themselves to reveal what she was looking for. It was small red bag no bigger than the length of Harry's palm.
" When I give frog to Oou..." she did a gesture to suggest that they had to eat it. "...You ea it."
The frog was actually a chocolate frog. Harry was a bit confused as to why she gave the chocolates to only boys. When it was Harry's turn she didn't give him any. The rest of the boys were enjoying the chocolate frogs, but not as much as the fact that they all got something and Harry didn't.
Once all the boys had finished eating their chocolate Fleur started to talk.
" Zee reason for giving zee 'chocolat frog' was to get rid of some of zee attraction Oou all seem to huv towards me."
" Of course!" cried Hermione, not believing that she had missed the obvious clue. Harry was still uncertain as to why Fleur had given everyone a chocolate frog other than him. So he asked Hermione why he didn't get one. "Er...Hermione?"
" What?" Hermione was still mentally punishing herself for missing the clue so her voice had an edge to it that she was unable to get rid of.
"...er. Why didn't she give me one?..." he blushed and then said, " I mean... does she want me to be attracted to her?"
Hermione couldn't believe what Harry had just said. ' He has absolutely no clue...' thought Hermione fondly. " No!... You're a moron if you think that" Hermione was surprised by how intense her response had been.
Harry looked hurt at what Hermione had said, " I mean... No. You weren't drooling at her like Malfoy or Ron...." she paused and reformed what she wanted to say. " You were the only boy in the class who wasn't looking at her like they wanted to have their way with her right there." Hermione blushed, as that wasn't exactly the sentence that she had wanted to say either.
" OH!" Harry thought for a second and then asked not certain if that was a good thing or not. " Is that a good thing?"
" Honestly Harry!" she said making a face at him. "Yes, it is a very good thing."
" Ok." Harry's face burst into a big smile. Hermione couldn't help but imitate it soon after.
A few seconds after Fleur's sentence finished, all the boys looked positively sick. When they looked up to ask for help, they saw her point to the far right side of the room. All the boys ran to the sinks that lined the wall of the right side of the class. They waited for something to happen. What happened next, Harry would remember for the rest of his life. Malfoy, Ron, Neville and Seamus all threw up simultaneously, while the rest waited until the vomit fairy paid them a visit.
' So that's why they were there,' thought Harry who had noticed the sinks when he had entered the room but didn't understand what their use was. ' Glad...I'm not lusting after her thought Harry.'
" Hey Hermione..." he turned to look at her, " ...are those guys going to go through this every time we have Defence against Dark Arts?" he asked. The thought was terrible. Throwing up three times a week.... it was almost enough to make Harry want to go and join the boys in emptying his own stomach.
Hermione was smiling when she saw Ron thrown up. ' That's what you get when you go after a Veela woman... I couldn't have had given a lecture that would even come close to this- ' Hermione's thoughts were interrupted by Harry's question.
" No- Well for about the next month or so, but it'll stop after they learn to control their hormones a little better." Harry was quite surprised to see the evil happiness in Hermione when she said this.
She looked like she was indeed enjoying this more than she really should - Harry thought. Aside from this nothing of importance happened in the class. They learned about Dragons and some of the famous Dragon Slayers...well names of wizard groups that took care of the dragon pest problems in the medieval times.
They were told to read up about a creature called " Blissy", as it was their midyear exam topic. The whole thing would be about that creature and how to handle it. They had to do detailed research without any help from the teacher and prepare themselves for an encounter with the creature. There would not be any help given out for that topic. Harry made a mental note to do some research on the topic to get himself started.
The Charms class was the next, after lunch, but before that the trio had lunch. Fred and George Weasley who were two years ahead of Harry and his two friends had had that class the day before and as such knew what was in store for the boys. Ron took only a few seconds to get angry with his two brothers, because they neglected to mention what to expect. But they were much more interested in Harry's experience in the class. " So Harry... Did you enjoy throwing up?" asked Fred and George with smug faces when the trio sat down on the table.
" I...I..." Harry wasn't sure what to say and as if on cue Hermione spoke up.
" He didn't throw up... actually he was the only boy in class that didn't drool at the mere sight of Fleur, if you must know." She said patting Harry on the back much to Harry's embarrassment.
The answer was not what the twins were hoping for and their jaw dropped in obvious disbelief. The answer was intended for Fred and George but the rest of the table heard her too. Most of the girls looked like they had seen Harry for the first time in their life. Harry could see his normalcy flying away from him after that comment. He prepared himself for another day like the Saturday and hoped like hell for a day like Monday to come around.. soon. Harry decided that he would fake one of his nightmares to stop the girls from taking too much of a notice of him.
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END OF CHAPTER
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