บท 89: Chapter 87- Meet Ups
***** Regular Chapter ***** A/N: Been very interesting to read everyone's theories regarding the 7 deadly sins. We'll Probably start moving through the story again soon since most things have been set up or will be set up properly in the coming chapters. And also since I'm super excited to finish up the canon parts and get more into Khan's mystery so we can get more theories going around.
Oh ya..... I've been working on my stockpile, which is why I had a day break between each chapter last week. So the story is Basically I'm about to hit 200k words in this Novel; to celebrate that milestone, il be coming out with daily chapters for the next week. Strap in. Should be fun🫡*****
*Flash*
Khan appeared in a flash, in the middle of Hogsmeade, by a street fireplace.
It had been a month now since his run in with his little brother figure, Harry, in the prefect bathroom, and with the busy start of the new term, funnily enough, Jordan had not met or seen him since, other than in classes.
Not that he had been avoiding Harry; on the contrary, Jordan and Fleur had spent many a night in the past month swimming together in the prefect bathroom 'practicing' for the upcoming second task.
Khan of course, did not know of any other large body of water in the castle, other than the large outdoor lake…. And it was too cold to regularly practice outside in the middle of January, like Krum appeared to be doing….
So it was a little strange to him, that he had not yet run into Harry, practicing himself, for the second task in the prefect bathroom, especially with the 2nd task coming up at the end of the month.
Khan and Fleur had even begun taking their preparations a little bit more seriously lately with the next task within the next month, actually practicing their swimming spells and strategies the past week, and not simply fooling around.
Although Jordan had indeed spoken to Nerida, and she had assured him that the second task was quite tame, with little to no dangers, after the disaster of the first task, Khan was not so confident in the tournament planner's abilities.
Fleur herself was especially worried; being part Veela, she had an inherent weakness to water, and thus was not looking forward to the second task.
Thus, with both their worries increased, they had both accelerated their practices in the past week, intending to keep that schedule up for the next few weeks, leading right up to the second task, just in case something unforeseen were to happen.
But other than their increased practice schedule, the month of January passed without much incident.
Well, for Jordan and Fleur At least.....
For the others, there was one particular incident involving Rita Skeeter once again; Except this time, instead of Khan or Harry, she targeted Hagrid!
Similar to what she did with Jordan, she also accused Hagrid of being brutal and violent, however, instead of it being due to dark magic, it was instead because of him being 1/2 giant.
Except this time, it seemed that her news actually had an effect on its intended recipient, as Hagrid would not be seen again, skipping all of his responsibilities and duties.
He didn't appear at the staff table at mealtimes. He didn't go about his gamekeeper duties on the grounds. He didn't even teach, with his Care of Magical Creature classes being taken care of in the mean time by an interim teacher named Professor Grubbly-Plank.
Which was strange to Khan as everything that the article referenced that was remotely true, was simply not news to him.
Not being too involved with the 'rumor-mill' and student gossip this year as a result of himself being a Jr. Prof, Jordan assumed that many of the students would support Hagrid, similar to how they supported himself in the past.
Anyone who knew Hagrid would know that he is a completely gentle person, incapable of most if not all of the violent and brutal actions that Skeeter accused him of. Not to mention, Khan assumed that anyone who saw Hagrid, should logically automatically assume he is half giant, especially with his large stature.
However, contrary to Jordan's expectations, there was not as much support for Hagrid, with many students being surprised at the news. As many of them were inherently terrified of giants, some of them chose to err on the side of caution, believing the article, and were thus 'celebrating' that Hagrid was missing.
It also didn't help that his replacement for his classes, Prof. Grubbly-Plank was actually quite the skilled teacher as well, with even Hermione secretly preferring her classes over Hagrid's.
Other than that however, there wasn't much else that happened the month of January. Classes proceeded as usual, Khan back to once again mainly teaching Defense classes, with his mentor Moody more than happy to let him teach;
Moody himself would never tell anyone, but even he was learning new tricks and tips and even spells from Jordan.
Similar to before, many of Khan's lessons were practical combat lessons, based on his previous experiences. And due to him being from another era, where combat was arguably much more common and prevalent, many of his lessons, tricks, and lectures were all new to Moody.
Moody previously respected Khan as a senior simply due to his heroism and actions during the last Goblin Rebellion. And while that respect and gratefulness increased after learning that Jordan was the main one responsible for rescuing him, it was only after learning directly from Khan, that Moody truly began to respect him as a senior, in every sense of the word.
In fact, Moody didn't consider himself Jordan's mentor; He had not taught him anything, and had been imprisoned most of the term.
Instead, it was Moody that was learning from Khan when he taught Defense. It got to the point that Moody was even considering asking Khan to personally mentor himself and his own Protégé Tonks.
This also meant that unfortunately, Jordan ended up being quite busy in January; with the preparations for the second task, alongside his Professor duties, he had to admit, he he was more than looking forward to the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend for a well deserved break.
Which led us to today, with Khan appearing in the middle of Hogsmeade, 'surprising' all the students.
As many students were already there, shopping/spending time with their friends, Jordan of course quickly became the center of attention, especially with his rather 'flashy' appearance and celebrity status.
But they were not surprised with his 'sudden' appearance, being used to Khan Flashing around the Hogwarts already.
Instead, they were all surprised to see their idol actually alone!
Thats right! Khan had actually appeared in the middle of Hogsmeade, WITHOUT Fleur!
As previously mentioned, since the night of the Yule Ball, it became exceedingly rare to See Jordan without seeing Fleur attached to him or lurking close by.
She had even started 'auditing' his classes, sitting in while he taught his various lessons.
So to see him actually without Fleur, needless to say shocked all the students present.
"Where is Ms. Delacour?"
"Do you think they broke Up?"
"Maybe This is my chance!"
Whispers were heard from all around him as usual, not that Jordan paid them much attention. It's not like they were broken up or anything...
While it was indeed true that Fleur and himself were constantly together lately, not to mention he did intend to take her to Hogsmeade that weekend for another date, Fleur had surprisingly told him that she had made other plans.
He had no idea Fleur even had other close friends, not being introduced or meeting any of the other Beauxbatons students, even with the amount of time that he spent together with Fleur. Thus Khan could not help but wonder what she could be up to that day. Who could she be meeting?
Not that Jordan would stalk her or anything.... He trusted her, and more importantly, he wasn't insane.
'Flash-stepping' out of the gathering crowd that was beginning to surround him, he escaped, heading to his Hogsmeade shop wanting to check in on Lenny and Fastidio.
And although some of his fangirls tried to follow him, his magical enhanced movements were much to quick, for them to all keep up.
Within a few short minutes of 'flash-stepping' around, he had arrived in front of his shop, Stiches and Draughts.
*RING RING*
"-our new books on curses!"
"Yes, of course!"
Pushing open his shop door, the doorbell ringing out in greetings, he saw that Daphne had once again returned to his shop to look for new books on curses, and was currently receiving/looking through the new ones from Lenny, as was expected of her.
"Hello Ms Greengrass!" Khan greeted her enthusiastically, with a welcoming smile on his face. "Lovely to see you here again!"
"Prof. Khan, a pleasure." She nodded at him politely, before immediately going back to skimming over the various books on curses that Lenny had managed to gather for her in the time since she had last visited.
'Looks like she's busy.... I should probably leave her alone.' Khan moved to a nearby bookshelf, looking to see if he could find any books on Egypt. Although he wanted to talk to this interesting Blonde Junior of his, especially after he had learned about her regular visits to his shop in the past, he controlled himself, not wanting to come across too nosy or intrusive.
Funny enough, Daphne was going through a similar yet slightly different thought process herself.
Although she did intend to ask her professor for help, she did not want to be a bother to someone that was already so busy! He was a Champion, a Professor, and was his family's head of house! The last thing he had time for was bothering with her personal family problems.
Plus, Daphne didn't want to entrust her sister's life to him, and end up in his debt, especially if she could find the cause of this curse, help Astoria herself.
Unfortunately for her, after a few moments of glancing over the various new curse books, she quickly realized that they too did not have what she was looking for.
Her sister was going to run out of time at this rate! Her regular bouts of pain were only getting worse, and she was growing up extremely frail, appearing much smaller in stature, than Daphne herself was, at her age.
Sighing to herself, she placed the books down, thanking and tipping Lenny as usual, before turning to her professor, who was idling in the corner reading over some old books.
Pausing for a few moments to gather some courage, as it was the first time she was asking anyone for a favor, she then spoke out hesitantly.
"Professor…. I was wondering if you had seen the retraction printed in the Daily Prophet?"
Jordan thought back to the short paragraph he remembered reading, in the same issue of the prophet that was recently released on Hagrid.
It was a small formal retraction of Rita's previous article regarding Khan and his use of dark magic.
Although it was very short, as if only a footnote for the greater article about Hagrid, the Prophet did retract their article about Jordan stating that their previous accusations towards Khan had been proven baseless, and that themselves as well as all of the British Ministry are looking forward to formally welcoming back the Khan family to the British Isles.
He did find it odd at the time, especially since he and Fleur had yet to implement any of their previous plans to retake the media narrative surrounding his family name, but with his increased workload, he quickly forgot about the weird article.
Until Daphne brought it up that is.
She paused while Khan thought about everything for a few moments before finally nodding his head that he remembered.
"You may be wondering why the Prophet even printed such a retraction…."
Khan nodded in response.
"Well that is mainly due to my father, Lord Greengrass, as well as Lord Malfoy." Daphne continued. "Similar to the entire student body, many of the British Noble wizarding families were quite offended at the Prophet's accusations of the Noble Khan family."
"As such, Lord Greengrass has sent a letter on behalf of the neutral party of the wizengamot, demanding a formal apology and retraction of the previous erroneous article. Lord Malfoy has of course, done the same, but on behalf of the dark party of the wizengamot."
"Ms. Greengrass, thank you, truly! You all really did not have to do that." Khan was rather flattered that all the nobles still appeared to support the Khan family name, even after so many years. Although, when thinking about it, Khan was sure that they were slightly influenced by their children he was teaching.
"Nonsense! It is only right! My father actually insisted on sending the letter to the prophet himself, regardless of what the rest of the Neutral Party decided! His only desire was to meet with you, at your earliest convenience of course, to discuss some business and perhaps, if amenable to you, a possible partnership."
Daphne's Heiress training was on full display.
"Of course, Ms Greengrass! Please tell your father, Lord Greengrass, that I would be more than happy to meet with him!"
He paused to think for a moment, before frowning a bit and continuing.
"Unfortunately, with all my current responsibilities with teaching classes, participating in the triwizard tournament, as well as organizing my Summoner's Cup Tournament, the earliest available time for us to meet would have to be some time over the summer."
"That's perfect Prof. Khan! Thank you very much! My father will be most pleased!"
"It's not a problem at all! Now is there anything else I can do for you Ms. Greengrass?"
"I.... was wondering if you knew anything about Blood Curses, Professor?"
*****
Fleur entered the noisy establishment called the three broomsticks.
Now, one would assume that upon entering a place such as this, she would immediately attract attention, being subject to numerous stares. Not only was she part Veela, and naturally very stunning in terms of beauty, she was also a triwizard champion, not to mention publicly known as Khan's woman! They were THE celebrity couple of Hogwarts!
In this case however, it appeared nobody noticed Fleur, many of the patrons and students, passing around her, not even giving her a second glance.
It was no surprise however, with her appearance.
Wearing a heavy cloak complete with a large hood draped over her head, it covered all of her features except for her mouth, making her quite unrecognizable.
She moved immediately towards the upper floors, where the rooms were located, before stopping to knock on one particular door, waiting there, her nerves on edge.
She didn't like this.... not one bit.
Although she hadn't exactly lied to her husband, since she really did have plans that Hogsmeade visit, she didn't really tell him the complete truth either.
She had been working herself up to it, since she thought she had more time before the second task, but it turned out that he arrived early.
And apparently he wanted to have a chat with Jordan....
She was not looking forward to talking to her husband and explaining everything later that night.
The door to the room opened, and Fleur greeted the Gentleman with a shy hug.
"Hello Papa!"
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