Hogsmeade Village, Three Broomsticks Tavern.
"You don't look too well."
"I had a bit of a cold a couple of days ago."
"It's July!"
"Who says you can only catch a cold in winter?"
"Your symptoms seem rather unusual, though—more like you're recovering from a serious illness."
"—Speaking of recovering from a serious illness, how is Alastor doing?" Remus Lupin sat at a small round table by the window, glancing at the handful of wizards scattered at the other tables, and asked the pink-haired young witch across from him in a low voice. "I heard he was hauled in by the Ministry for questioning a while ago."
The witch's attention was instantly diverted; her heart-shaped face lit up as she leaned forward.
She opened her dark eyes wide, covered her mouth conspiratorially with one hand, and whispered, "Oh, I'd bet it's all Macnair's fault. He went around telling Fudge all sorts of nonsense, insisting Alastor was someone else in disguise."
"Alastor's tight-lipped. They wouldn't have gotten anything out of him," Remus said.
"Of course they didn't—Alastor's the one who interrogates people, not the other way around!" Tonks said gleefully. "In the end they had someone watch him around the clock and finally had to admit he hadn't been impersonated."
"I imagine he wasn't pleased about it."
"Oh, he was furious!" she said. "He yelled at the officials questioning him for ages, aired every one of their dirty little secrets, and threatened to have the lot of them thrown in Azkaban. It was chaos. Then Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, stepped in. She was satisfied he was innocent and had him released once the paperwork was done."
"Thank Merlin for that," Remus said, though he still sounded worried. "Even so, he shouldn't let himself get so worked up. His health—"
Tonks smiled.
"If he had enough energy left to shout at them like that, I'd say his health's better than it's been in a while."
"True enough. He made quite a scene when we suggested he stay behind at Hogwarts instead of coming to the graveyard." Remus's tone carried a note of exasperation.
"You know how he is. He's always desperate to be where the danger is. He wanted to get to that graveyard and catch a few more Death Eaters with his own hands—" The witch tightened her grip on her butterbeer and fell quiet.
"Tonks, I have to admit, I misjudged the situation," Remus said after a moment. "Your read on it was exactly right, and you moved fast when it mattered. You got Cedric out. I couldn't manage the same for Harry—"
"That's right! So no more calling me a rookie and looking down your nose at me?" Tonks's voice turned bright and teasing.
Remus took a sip of his butterbeer and frowned.
"I never looked down on you," he said quietly.
"Don't sulk. Honestly, it was mostly luck—I didn't do much. Cedric Apparated us out on his own, Harry and me both." Tonks glanced at him, smiling. "You were right about him, though. He's a fine wizard, taking two people along like that."
"Of course," Remus said, watching her. "A credit to Hufflepuff."
Tonks nodded, looking rather proud on Cedric's behalf.
He was quiet for a moment, then asked, "Why did you go back?"
"What?"
"You got them safely to Hogwarts and met up with Alastor and the others. By any reasonable measure your mission was already a success—better than planned, even. So why turn around and rush back to the graveyard?"
"Don't remind me, it still makes me angry. By the time I made it back to you, it was already over," Tonks said, a trace of regret in her voice. "Dumbledore and Sirius were gone, everyone else had scattered. I didn't see any of it firsthand—I only found out what happened because you lot wouldn't stop talking about it afterward!"
"But when you decided to go back, you had no way of knowing the danger had passed. You left in the middle of the worst of it, with curses flying and people fighting for their lives. If that Killing Curse had gone even slightly wide, it could have hit you."
"I suppose so—" Tonks said with a shrug. "That green light really was unsettling."
"Didn't you weigh the risk before you Apparated back? If you'd returned without knowing what was waiting for you, you might not have found us at all—you might have walked straight into a pack of Death Eaters, or even into—" Remus glanced around the room, then lowered his voice and changed what he'd been about to say. "—You-Know-Who."
"Yes, I did think about that," Tonks said, unbothered.
"I assumed you hadn't," Remus said, more sternly now. "Knowing that, you still shouldn't have gone back. Don't you think going that far beyond the mission was reckless—"
"But you were still there," Tonks cut in. "Shouldn't I try to help my partner after I'd already finished my part?"
"Oh—" Remus stopped short.
He swallowed whatever argument he'd been about to make.
"Is that really how you see it?"
"Of course! Did you think I was the sort of person who'd abandon a partner just to save my own skin?" Tonks asked, sounding almost offended by the idea.
"Obviously not," Remus said quietly.
"Speaking of which, why didn't you leave?" Tonks asked. "Everyone else had gone, and you stayed behind alone in that graveyard. What exactly were you planning to do?"
"I didn't know where you'd gone," he said softly. "The odds were slim, but if you did find your way back, someone needed to be there to meet you."
At that, Tonks's hair seemed to flush a shade pinker. "See, you did the exact same thing! That's what a good partner does!"
A moment later she held out her hand, beaming. "Give me five! I knew you were solid."
Remus had little choice but to shake his head, return the high five, and let a faint smile show.
Seeing her pleased with herself, his tone lightened further.
"So you invited me to the Three Broomsticks today just to get a high five out of me?"
"Not entirely. I actually came to ask what Sirius Black's been up to lately," Tonks said. "My mother wants to have him over for dinner and asked me to find out if he's free. But he's practically impossible to track down these days."
"Him? I'd guess he's busy with appointments," Remus said, with an odd look on his face. "He's mentioned, rather vaguely, that he's been meeting a certain lady quite often lately."
Sirius Black was, in fact, on his way to meet "a lady" at that very moment.
He stared at the soft, flickering candlelight on the table in front of him, wincing as a woman across from him pressed on with her question.
"So you met this girl, kissed her on impulse, and then pretended nothing had happened—never brought it up again—until she got angry enough to kiss you first?" The woman spoke calmly, but her summary landed like a blade.
"That's right," said the handsome, dark-haired man sprawled in the deck chair, looking thoroughly gloomy.
"It really is hard to understand why she'd be angry with you. You were just being irresponsible and pretending nothing happened," the woman said, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
"I know I made a mistake." He frowned, a note of regret in his voice.
"So. Do you like her?" the woman asked—the crucial question—jotting something down in her notebook as she said it.
"It's complicated," he said uneasily. "She's much younger than I am."
The woman studied him seriously. "Is there anything here that runs afoul of public decency, morality, or the law? Should I be concerned?"
"Of course not—she's an adult!" the man snapped.
The woman let out a breath of relief.
"Since you're both adults, you're free to take responsibility for your own choices, aren't you?" she said, more warmly now. "So tell me—do you like her?"
"The trouble is, I have a lot on my mind. I have a godson who's nearly fifteen, and I'm the only family he has. This is a critical time for him. He's dealing with a great deal right now, and he needs me—" A flicker of hesitation crossed the man's grey eyes.
"Forgive the interruption, but has he ever expressed disapproval of your... approach to raising him?" the woman asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"No, he seems to be handling it well." He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it slightly. "Still—"
"So. Do you like her?" the woman pressed again.
The arrogance that had been etched on his handsome face slowly gave way, and something surprisingly vulnerable showed through.
"My mental state isn't entirely sound right now, if I'm honest. That word you keep using—PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—I haven't fully recovered from it."
He went on, bitterly, "I know I should make the most of every minute I have left, like you keep telling me. I've been trying. But my life stalled out for years while I was locked away, and now it's like an old engine sputtering back to life—still stalling out here and there—"
The woman seemed entirely unmoved by the performance.
She jotted a few more notes calmly and asked, in the same flat tone, "Does she know about your past? The years in prison, the pain that took root in you, and the way your life still stalls sometimes?"
He sighed. "I think she does—she even comforted me over it."
"So. Do you like her?" she asked again. For the fourth time.
"Of course I like her!" Sirius shot to his feet, his face twisting, and rounded on her. "Will you please stop hammering on that?"
The woman said nothing. She simply looked up and set down her pen.
She smiled, unhurried, and watched him.
Sirius glared back, but her composure deflated him almost instantly.
"I know what you're getting at," he muttered, sitting back down and turning to stare out at the gloomy sky. "Forget it. I don't want to talk about this anymore today. Let's stop here."
"Fine," the woman said easily, and went back to writing in her notebook without another word.
The only sound left in the room was the scratch of her pen.
"That's far too loud—it's driving me mad!" Sirius snapped, glaring at her. "I can hear you laughing at me in your head!"
The psychologist smiled and finally spoke again.
"This is the first time I've heard you mention this girl," she said gently. "You've been coming to see me for six months, and this is the first time I've seen you show anything other than melancholy. I'd call that progress."
She watched him, amused, as his expression slowly turned into something close to panic.
"At least you're still capable of feeling something, wanting something—instead of just unloading your frustrations on me every week," she said calmly. "Why not get to know her properly and give it a chance? Not everyone is lucky enough to find someone who loves them back."
"That's exactly the problem!" Sirius burst out, the frustration he'd been holding back finally spilling over.
His eyes went wide, and he looked genuinely stunned, as though it had never once occurred to him that any girl could treat him this way.
"She's gone. I have absolutely no idea where to even start looking for her."
Fleur Delacour had, indeed, vanished.
She was supposed to be interning at Gringotts in London.
Sirius had waited until midday at the wizarding café near the bank—she usually stopped there for a coffee—but there had been no sign of the mercurial French girl.
Bill Weasley greeted him warmly as he stepped out through Gringotts' main entrance.
"Sirius, what are you doing here?" Bill asked, curious. "Where are Harry and the others?"
"Harry's off having ice cream at Florean Fortescue's," Sirius said, a little awkwardly. "You wouldn't happen to know where Fleur is?"
"Not really—I only know she asked her supervisor for some time off." Bill smiled. "Have Ron and Ginny arrived yet? I'd like to see them."
"Of course, they're with Harry." Sirius waved him off, letting the redhead go ahead.
As for himself, he stood there a while longer, restless and annoyed.
Sirius shook off the memory and turned back to the astonished psychiatrist. "She's gone! Just like that!"
"Well, that's not something I can fix, is it?" the Muggle psychologist said with a shrug. "You'll probably want to put a notice in the paper, or go to the police."
"Extremely helpful," Sirius said flatly, clearly unconvinced.
The woman shook her head and finally closed her notebook. She looked at him and offered one last piece of honest advice. "If it were me, I'd go find her and sort things out properly—instead of moping about like a child who's just lost his favorite toy."
Sirius gave a noncommittal hum in response.
He stared out at the sky, still grey after all this time, and wondered where London's sun had gone.
At that very moment, the French woman occupying Sirius Black's thoughts was strolling peacefully down a sun-drenched Paris street.
A girl had her arm looped through Fleur's.
It was a girl who would leave anyone at Grimmauld Place speechless—Hermione Granger.
"Who'd have thought we'd run into each other here?" Fleur said happily. "What a coincidence!"
"I know!" Hermione said, still a little dazed, not quite sure what had just happened.
Ten minutes earlier, she'd been sitting in the oval reading room of the Richelieu Library at the National Library of France, paging through a Muggle book she'd finally tracked down in English—Exchange Rates and International Finance—trying to work out what "purchasing power parity" actually meant.
A faint scent, orchid and musk, drifted past her; a shadow fell suddenly across the light from the glass ceiling; a strand of silver hair brushed the page in front of her.
Hermione looked up, startled, and found the French champion who'd once pinned Sirius to a wall standing right beside her.
Today, that same champion looked like some rare orchid found deep in a quiet valley. She wore a beautifully tailored white dress, and despite wearing no makeup at all, everything around her seemed to fade by comparison. A man walking past turned his head to look and promptly walked into a pillar.
"Fleur?" Hermione whispered, startled.
"Hermione! What a lovely surprise!" Fleur's sky-blue eyes shone with delight.
She leaned down familiarly and kissed Hermione on both cheeks, then dropped into the empty seat beside her with a smile.
"It really is you. I thought I might be seeing things," she said.
Hermione shook off her daze and stammered, "Oh—hello..."
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the man who'd turned to stare at Fleur moments earlier picking himself up off the floor by the door.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he mumbled to a startled passerby, and wandered off looking faintly concussed.
Hermione gave Fleur a small smile, then felt a flicker of nerves.
"I thought you were still interning at Gringotts in England."
"Don't get me started. Gringotts in Britain works its interns half to death—they don't even get proper holidays..." Fleur complained, sounding thoroughly put out and entirely unapologetic about it.
There had been a time when Hermione would have judged that kind of complaint harshly. But now that she'd stopped holding her old prejudice against Fleur and had learned to see the French girl's passion, boldness, and independence for what they were, those same princess-like grumbles read less like arrogance and more like refreshing honesty.
And the warmth radiating from Fleur herself—quite apart from anything to do with her Veela blood—was so genuine and easy that Hermione found herself caught off guard by it.
This girl, who'd recently won her admiration, was now tucking a friendly arm through hers as though they'd always been close. Hermione found it harder and harder to say no to any of Fleur's cheerful suggestions.
"...Anyway, I did manage to talk my supervisor into a few days off, so I've come to Paris to see my grandmother." Fleur gave her a knowing wink.
"But how did you end up here, of all places?" Hermione glanced around, several guesses already forming. "Is there some sort of wizarding event happening at this library?" She thought suddenly of the wizarding conferences Draco had once mentioned to her.
"No, nothing like that. It's just an ordinary Muggle library. I only came to borrow a French-English dictionary," Fleur said simply.
Hermione nodded. "I've noticed that too—there don't seem to be many textbooks in the wizarding world dedicated to teaching languages, apart from ancient ones like Runes that involve actual magic."
"True. And what are you reading?" Fleur flipped through a few pages of Exchange Rates and International Finance and raised an eyebrow. "Thinking of working at Gringotts one day?"
Hermione flushed. "Oh—I've just suddenly taken an interest in the subject."
I've just suddenly missed him terribly, more like.
When I miss him, I try doing his homework for him in my head. Doesn't that count as coping?
A thought struck Hermione, and she looked up at Fleur.
She'd nearly forgotten—Fleur was interning at Gringotts. She'd know all about wizarding finance, and probably a fair few of Gringotts' secrets besides.
Who better to ask than Fleur?
But she couldn't simply come out and ask. This touched on a secret belonging to Draco's family—something he'd said outright he "wouldn't tell outsiders."
Hermione frowned slightly, unsure how to broach it.
Fleur said warmly, "I really must thank you again for pulling me up those stairs at Grimmauld Place. I'd have been in a much worse state without you."
"Oh, it was nothing," Hermione murmured—just as her stomach growled, loudly.
Hermione, are you hungry? Haven't you eaten lunch yet?
She glanced up at the wall clock and realized with a start that it was already past two. She'd been so absorbed in her book that lunch had slipped her mind entirely.
"Come back to my grandmother's for afternoon tea. She's made enough éclairs today to feed ten people." Fleur gave her a knowing look. "Everything decent will be closed by now anyway—you won't find much else open at this hour."
"Wouldn't that be intruding—" Hermione hated the idea of showing up uninvited.
"Don't be silly! Forget your British manners for one afternoon and try a little French ease!" Fleur happily hooked their arms together. "Come along!"
Hermione found her enthusiasm nearly impossible to resist.
"Well—if you're sure, then thank you," she said.
"No trouble at all. I was already expecting someone else," Fleur said cheerfully. "Do you know Cho Chang, from Ravenclaw? Lovely girl. She always looked out for me at Hogwarts. She's coming for tea as well."
Cho Chang? Hermione blinked, half convinced she'd misheard.
Of everyone she might have expected to turn up at Fleur's afternoon tea, Cho Chang was very near the bottom of the list.
And yet, thinking about it, it made perfect sense.
Beauxbatons students had always shared the Ravenclaw table at Hogwarts, which meant the Ravenclaws had far more chances than most to get to know Fleur.
Still—there's something strange about meeting a girl you'd assumed you had nothing to do with, in a place that has nothing to do with either of you, only to learn that yet another unlikely girl is about to join you both. It has the texture of a very odd dream.
Even once Fleur had swept her off to her grandmother's flat by the Seine, and Hermione stood on the flower-lined balcony looking out, she still felt as though she hadn't quite woken from her strange, glittering afternoon in Paris.
"Well?" Fleur called cheerfully from behind her. "Isn't the view from my grandmother's flat lovely?"
Hermione looked out over the balcony.
A café or two sat on the corner below, where a few French locals sipped coffee and soaked up the sun at outdoor tables; a group of teenagers laughed loudly as they made their way toward the faint sign for the Iéna Métro station; and beyond it all, the whole of the Eiffel Tower rose into view.
"It really is beautiful," Hermione said.
Fleur beamed.
Just then her grandmother called out from the kitchen in rapid, fluent French, and Fleur answered her at once.
"I'll be right back, Hermione." She hurried off toward the kitchen.
The sky overhead was a bright, clear blue, and Hermione, enjoying the breeze off the Seine, couldn't help smiling. She took out her phone, meaning to send her boyfriend a message about her day, but before she'd typed more than a few words the doorbell rang.
"Can you get that? I'm making the tea!" Fleur called from the kitchen.
Hermione went to answer it and found Cho Chang, Ravenclaw's Seeker, standing on the doorstep.
She wore a dark denim outfit, her long black hair loose over her shoulders, and carried a box marked "Pierre Hermé."
She looked briefly surprised at the sight of Hermione, then smiled.
"Hello, Hermione. What a coincidence," she said.
Hermione and Cho weren't exactly strangers. Back in their third year, Cho had joined the Patronus study group and had traded notes on spellwork with Hermione more than once.
Later, when Harry seemed to fancy her for a while, Hermione had kept half an eye on Cho for Ginny's sake.
But once Cho and Cedric became a settled couple, Harry's interest had faded, and Hermione had stopped paying her any particular attention.
Their most recent encounter had been an awkward one—Hermione and Draco running into Cho and Cedric outside the owlery, where Draco had been rather rude to them both. Thinking of it now, Hermione couldn't help a sheepish smile.
"Hello, Cho." She led her in to sit on the sofa. "Fleur will be out in a minute."
Cho smiled and settled beside her, entirely at ease, apparently not holding the earlier awkwardness against anyone.
Hermione hesitated, then made herself say it. "My boyfriend was a bit much last time. I know it startled you. I still feel bad about it..."
"It's fine—Cedric told me the whole story," Cho said easily. "Neither of us took it to heart. Malfoy's always talked to people like that. It wasn't exactly a shock."
"Well—thank you for that," Hermione said, half amused and half exasperated. "You're very understanding."
"Actually, I've been wanting to ask—how is he so tame around you? It's almost hard to believe!" Cho's eyes were bright with curiosity.
"I wouldn't call it 'tame,' exactly," Hermione said, choosing her words carefully, "but I do think he's a gentle person, underneath it all."
"Right," Cho said, with a knowing look. "Love makes people blind, doesn't it?"
Hermione was about to argue the point when Fleur's voice rang out from the kitchen. "Cho, you're here!"
"That's right, and I brought dessert!" Cho called back.
"Wonderful—give some to Hermione first, she hasn't had lunch!" Fleur's cheerful voice carried through.
"Will do!" Cho called.
She turned and opened the box beside her, revealing a neat row of plump macarons, and offered one to Hermione with a smile. "Want to try one?"
"Will it be very sweet?" Hermione asked, a little wary. With both her parents being dentists, she'd never been the type to crave sweets without limit.
Cho looked pleased to hear the question.
"This one's good—not too sweet," she said.
Curious now, and encouraged by Cho's expression, Hermione picked out a pale one with a faint blush of pink.
"Excellent choice—that flavor has the most complexity," Cho said happily.
Hermione took a cautious bite and found the first notes surprisingly bright and clean.
"It's not overly sweet at all. Actually quite lovely," she said.
"Can you place the flavor?" Cho asked, watching her intently.
"Hmm—fig, I think, with a hint of rose." Hermione chewed slowly. "It's delicious."
Figs. Roses. They reminded her at once of Draco.
He seemed to have wormed his way into everything, quietly turning the most ordinary things into reminders of him, distracting her from every direction at once! Hermione smiled anyway, enjoying the dessert regardless.
Seeing her smile, Cho grew even more enthusiastic.
"I love how sharp your palate is—not everyone can pick out flavors like that," she said admiringly, launching into an eager explanation. "Wait until the aftertaste settles in. The shop clerk swore there was a hint of foie gras in there, though I've never quite tasted it myself."
Watching Hermione finish the macaron in one go, Cho offered her another.
"Try this one too—pistachio," she said, clearly enjoying herself.
Hermione hesitated before taking it, turning it over in the wrapper to examine it.
"Cho, aren't you going to have any yourself?"
"Oh, I just love watching people enjoy their food," Cho said with a smile, popping a honey-colored macaron into her own mouth. "Everything tastes better when you're sharing it."
A lovely sentiment, Hermione thought.
Between bites, it occurred to her that, given Cho's particular fondness for food, there probably wasn't a boy alive better suited to win her over than Cedric Diggory—a Hufflepuff who loved his meals as much as she did.
After all, the Hufflepuff common room sat right next to the Hogwarts kitchens.
Hermione knew the house-elves down there had a soft spot for Hufflepuffs in particular. They never turned away a hungry, sheepish Hufflepuff who'd wandered in looking for a late-night snack.
If she ever discovered that Cedric had once smuggled Cho into the kitchens for a midnight treat, she wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
"Oh, thank you—this one's lovely too," she told Cho.
Cho beamed at her.
"Isn't it? And the caramel one's rather good as well..." she went on, her enthusiasm infectious.
It was the same look Hermione often wore when trying to talk Draco into reading a book she loved—she'd caught herself wearing it more than once in mirrors, in shop windows, even reflected in his own eyes up close.
"Cho, you're really quite passionate about food, aren't you?" Hermione asked.
"Caught me," Cho said, a little sheepish. "I've never had much willpower around good food—though I am a bit particular about it, too."
"When I say the food at Hogwarts is a touch heavy, only Cho ever knows exactly what I mean," Fleur said, poking her head around the kitchen doorway. "It's not that Hogwarts food is bad—the school's been very generous to us."
The French girl once dismissed by Hermione and Ginny as "picky, arrogant, and rude" guided the teapot out of the kitchen with her wand, adding, "I just prefer lighter food. It's not only about keeping my figure—it's that these dishes let the natural flavor of the ingredients come through. Too much seasoning just buries it. It's such a—" She paused, searching for the word in slightly imperfect English. "—a waste, don't you think?"
"I think I finally understand you," Hermione said, seeing at last the real meaning behind complaints she'd once dismissed.
A French girl not entirely comfortable in English, speaking her mind honestly about her own preferences—a taste for milder food, nothing more. There might have been grumbling in it, but very little that deserved words like "picky," "arrogant," or "rude."
Fleur settled down beside Cho and asked, curious, "Cho, did you come to Paris just for the sightseeing?"
"I'm visiting my aunt over the holidays. She and her husband live in Montmartre..." Cho said.
Hermione watched the two of them, feeling faintly dazed.
This might well be the most unlikely tea party she'd ever attended.
If Ginny knew what she was doing right now, she'd be stunned.
Hermione could already picture exactly how Ginny would describe it: "A Gryffindor bookworm with a mane of frizzy brown hair, wearing a plaid shirt; a Ravenclaw Seeker with sleek black hair in sharp denim; and a Beauxbatons champion with dazzling silver hair in an elegant white dress... could you find three more different people?"
And yet there was something quietly shared between them, some invisible thread running through it all, stringing together ruby and sapphire and pearl into something unexpectedly harmonious.
"Are you here on holiday nearby, Hermione?" Fleur asked as she poured the tea.
Hermione watched the steam curl up from her cup. "Yes—I'm here with my parents. They're spending the month in Avignon, buried in Muggle art."
"That's quite a way from Paris. How did you end up here?" Cho asked.
"Don't forget, she's the most studious girl at Hogwarts. I only ran into her at the library—" Fleur said, smiling.
When had Fleur even noticed her at Hogwarts? Hermione glanced at her sideways, surprised to catch an admiring look in return.
"She's practically furniture in that library," Cho teased. "Isn't that right, Hermione? You and your Slytherin Seeker, tucked away in the same corner every day?"
"We're—studying!" Hermione protested, cheeks going pink. "And what about you and your Hufflepuff Seeker, always turning up in the Quidditch stands together?"
"We're—training!" Cho said quickly, and buried her face in her teacup.
"Is this some sort of Hogwarts fashion? Everyone falling for a Seeker?" Fleur watched, grinning. "The only house that hasn't been caught yet, like the Snitch itself, is Gryffindor. Isn't that right?"
Hermione glanced at her, wondering whether she dared tease Fleur back about Sirius Black.
"Girls, remember—there's more to talk about than boys. There are ideals, good food, good music, and a little philosophy of life besides—" Fleur's grandmother announced grandly, sweeping out of the kitchen.
With a flick of her wand she sent a heaping plate of éclairs floating into the room, delivering the rest of her speech in a rich French accent. "There is so much more waiting for you to conquer in this life—boys are only the icing on the cake! Don't waste your youth on some half-grown boy!"
"Thank you so much for having us," Hermione and Cho both said, rising at once.
Fleur's grandmother was a full-blooded Veela.
She wore an elegant black suit, her beauty carrying the unmistakable grace of age. Her deep blue eyes hadn't dimmed a bit—still full of life—and her long, silver-white hair shone, utterly captivating.
"No need for manners—you're very welcome here," she said, smiling, and blew them both a kiss across the table.
Hermione and Cho couldn't help smiling back, half-dazed.
"Isn't our Fleur simply delightful? I doubt the language ever gets in her way of making friends in England."
"You don't have to worry about that," Hermione said. "Plenty of people adore her. The whole school does."
—Especially after Fleur ran Rita Skeeter out of Hogwarts.
Cho nodded quietly beside her.
"Well, that's a relief." Fleur's grandmother tossed her hair and swept toward the door with a mysterious look. "Enjoy your tea, girls—I have a battle to fight today."
"A battle over what?" Fleur asked, not quite catching it.
"The battle's on! My oldest friend of forty years has gotten into it with that dreadful old man next door. Yesterday he made some remarks in public about women's independence that simply won't do. Someone has to set him straight, don't they?" She dashed on a coat of red lipstick before the gilded mirror by the door, snatched a pair of sunglasses from the cabinet, and put them on with an air of sudden authority. "I've never lost an argument in my life. Don't wait up for dinner!"
The three girls at the table simply stared as she swept out, the door closing behind her with a flourish.
"My grandmother," Fleur said, laughing, "is quite something, isn't she?"
"She really is," Cho said softly.
"I have to say, she's got real philosophy in her," Hermione added.
"Come on, then—more cream puffs, and let's talk about ideals," Fleur said. "Cho, didn't you finish your O.W.L.s last term? Have the results come in yet?"
"They were good. My parents were pleased."
"Wonderful—so, thinking about your future yet?" Fleur asked, genuinely interested. "What do you want to do? The Tutshill Tornadoes? You've always been mad about that team."
"It'd be nice," Cho said hesitantly, "though I'm not sure I'm good enough to be noticed by the Tornadoes."
"You're always too modest. I know you fly better than Cedric does. You'll be fine. At least try," Fleur said.
"My parents would rather I take something stable—clerical work at the Ministry, that sort of thing," Cho said.
"Anyone can push papers. Not everyone can play Quidditch. If you've got the talent and the passion for it, you ought to be brave enough to chase it," Fleur said firmly. "It's your life, not theirs. You should be the one in charge of it, shouldn't you?"
Cho went quiet. The éclair in her hand suddenly seemed to lose its appeal, though moments earlier she'd called it the finest cream puff in all of Paris.
"And you?" Hermione asked Fleur. "Are you hoping the Gringotts internship leads to a career in wizarding finance?"
"It's certainly possible," Fleur said with a shrug. "I do find it interesting, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can. But I'm not sure yet whether I'd want to give my whole life to it, once I really understand what it involves."
"So you haven't quite figured out your ideal yet?" Hermione asked.
"That's exactly what makes an ideal worth having—it's never easy to work out!" Fleur said calmly. "I have to try my hardest at it, so I won't have any regrets later. Isn't that the point?"
"That makes sense," Hermione said.
Fleur topped up her cup and asked, "And what about you? What's your dream?"
"That's a good question. Like you said—it's not so easy to work out," Hermione said thoughtfully.
While she turned the question over in her mind, she pressed send on a message to share her day with a certain boy.
"I saw the Eiffel Tower," she wrote.
"In Paris?" came the reply, a moment later.
"I ran into Fleur, and Cho! What a coincidence!" she wrote back, excited. "Where are you?"
After a pause: "Savile Row."
She sent back only a question mark, waiting for him to explain.
"Getting measured. New shirts, a suit," he wrote. "Strange thing—I only wore that shirt once, to the ball last year, and a button came off already. I ought to find a tailor who actually knows how to sew one on properly."
"Give the shop another chance—I don't think that button came off on its own," Hermione typed, smiling to herself.
Having talked herself out of confessing, she reached into her beaded bag, pulled out a small white mother-of-pearl button, and held it up in the sunlight, delighted with herself.
The second button from his shirt. Evidence of a mistletoe kiss gone slightly out of hand. Hermione Granger's secret little trophy.
Draco Malfoy had no idea his own girlfriend was responsible for his shirt's sudden unemployment.
He was, at that moment, far too busy discovering the finer uses of Muggle phones.
Once you realized this device wasn't bound by distance, and you no longer had to squeeze every thought down to exactly seven characters, even a wizard with little patience for Muggle inventions had to admit—phones, in some respects, beat communication rings hands down.
On the evening of their first day apart, Draco hurried along the banks of the Rhône toward the Muggle hotel where he was staying and found her first message waiting for him against an orange-red sunset.
"I miss you," it read simply.
"I thought of it first," he wrote back, matter-of-fact.
"I sent mine first!" she reminded him, both amused and a little put out, smiling despite herself.
The day after they'd parted, Draco went with his grandfather to visit a French wandmaker, and felt his phone buzz faintly in his pocket.
He glanced at the lit-up screen the moment no one was looking.
"I met a golden-shaded cat today, with the most enormous eyes. Isn't he lovely?" she asked.
He ran a hand through his hair, suspicious. "Is that supposed to mean something?"
"Not at all," she wrote back, all innocence.
On the third day apart, Draco was making his way down the dark, desolate slope near Nurmengard, lost in thought, when her message reached him again: "It's sunny here. I'm chasing the sun through a field of golden sunflowers."
"Sounds nice," he wrote back briefly, eyeing the clouds gathering ahead of him with a pang of longing.
"The sun sends its regards," she wrote warmly.
"Hello, my sun." His worries eased at once, and warmth flooded back into him.
Hermione Granger.
Yes. His sun.
Nothing in the dark could keep him from finding his way back to her.