Chương 77: Two Birds Dancing part 2
IMPORTANT: New chap in sheo.bio, they are also responsible for this bonus chapter.
(This Chapter is dedicated to my friend, treasured madlad and fellow writer Ashy, wish him good luck for his super duper important exams.)
When a Veela gets something in her mind, it is very much impossible to dissuade her from it. That was a lesson Magnus learned very quickly, and how could he not when Fleur had done her best to make them completely, utterly, irrefutably late to the Yule Ball.
"Miss Delacour, Mr. Arr…Black, you've finally decided to show up." A very much not amused Professor McGonagall asked the two of them.
Both Magnus and his date were by now pretty drained from the long walk in such impractical clothing. Yet none of them was willing to show it. Call it displaced pride, or some form of vanity, Magnus just thought that their rude behavior would be way less stylish if it was marred by fatigue.
The spare and his girlfriend who dated the Boy-Who-Saw-Him-Die a few months after he got MurderWizarded into character development were already there. The two looked good enough, but Magnus could only see a Chinese girl making eyes at a freaking disco ball.
'Yeah, the Cullen thing was a bad call.' Magnus thought, taking a look at Viktor Krum and his not-longer-so-bushy-haired date. 'No amount of Sleakeazy can fix her personality.'
He didn't need to use the mind arts to know what the Durmstrang champion was thinking, his mental capacity was seemingly limited to Quidditch, the girls that didn't try to suck him up nonstop, and his rather mean competitive streak.
The last two Magnus could understand, the first one not so much. He wouldn't ever voice this opinion McGonagall would be outraged…more outraged than she already is.
"Do you have anything to say?" She crossed her arms, looking at the duo with the full power of her highly disappointed stern face.
"Your gown suits you?" He said, tilting his head.
He didn't expect much results, but he did make her lips twitch, she did not break her facade, however.
"Nice try…" He heard her mumble.
"Shouldn't be saying such things to me?" His actual date learned to whisper in his ears, but he knew everyone heard them.
It also meant that they probably saw what her hot breath and scent he couldn't define did to his composure. But that was something he'd rather not deal with right now.
"Fleur, you'd look good even covered in soot and wearing a potato sack." He said, only after actually speaking the words did his mind supply a way too hot image to think about in public.
'Thank god for Occlumency.'
*Cough*
The transfiguration teacher was not amused, or at least didn't want to look that way.
"If you two absolutely need to have such conversations, could you at least try and keep them private?" She said in a tone that was way too bland to be sarcastic, yet still managed to be just that.
"Hmm." Fleur put a finger on her rosy lips, eyes looking up as if the ceiling held her answers. "Nope."
Magnus chuckled but decided it was time for payback.
"You really have no business being this adorable." He whispered all too loudly, making her cheeks slightly more crimson.
The Veela frowned at him as if warning him not to start a battle he could not win. Fleur had an allure, a solid grasp over his heart, and way too much beauty for one person. But one shouldn't forget that Magnus had the power of Occlumency and testosterone on his side.
'I like these odds.' He smirked, challenging the champion.
The boy offered an apologetic smile to his favorite teacher, much to Flitwick's sadness, while she left muttering something about unruly children and vixens stealing away her little boy.
He had no idea what she was talking about, and no wish to find out. No sir, he had a sense of self-preservation.
"Already alienating my family, your wicked plan to steal me away is advancing quickly, Fleur." He said, making her giggle, from the corner of his vision he saw the two other champions and their dates closing in.
"What can I say? I am simply that good." She smiled, but it soon lost most of its warmth when her competitors came near.
"Finally here, we almost thought you wouldn't be coming." Cedric smiled brightly, he moved to shake his hand but finally realized his partner was holding his right arm.
Krum made no such mistake, but he didn't have the intention to greet him warmly. A nod was all he and Fleur would get, Granger smiled but looked even more weirded out than he was with this entire situation.
"Punctuality is overrated," Magnus said simply, getting himself a few strange looks.
"It's called being fashionably late." Fleur nodded in agreement, though it wasn't the point of their little stunt.
Or was it? He honestly didn't know, or care.
The conversation soon ended, devolving into an awkward mess the likes of which only teenagers could create. The Hogwarts girls and Diggory did try to keep it going, launching random subjects and making useless remarks in hope of ending this torture, alas it was to no avail.
Viktor was too Krum to chat, Fleur was humoring her sadistic streak and Magnus was humoring Fleur.
"Your dress is so pretty." The Chinese girl whose name he did not remember gushed over Fleur's robe.
"It is."
Nonplussed, the girl continued with a bright smile that did not reach her eyes.
"What kind of robe is it?"
"A silver one," Fleur said, slow and clear all the while looking down at the shorter girl with something akin to pity in her blue eyes.
That had the effect of a B- on the Asian student whose first name was somehow a Korean family name but nobody cares because it's a freaking fictional book, she quickly dropped the conversation with a forced giggle.
She sought out comfort in the arms of her little boyfriend, but he was sadly occupied doing the single most sacred thing two men do when they meet up in this kind of situation: Men Talk.
"So you and Delacour…" He smiled, conveying a message known to every male in existence.
"Yes." Magnus nodded, it was important to stake his claim as soon as possible. "We agreed to come together for this farce."
"Don't let them hear you, I don't know about the others but every single she-badger decided that balls were the best thing since Merlin discovered unicorns," Cedric said, shaking his head.
"That's true for every girl in the whole damn school, but it doesn't change the fact that this whole thing is just a PR stunt by the tournament's organizers to show that the whole 'international relations' bullshit was a success." He said, not minding the mix of embarrassment, amusement, and awe Cedric experienced in front of such a display of gentlemanly crassness.
The Hufflepuff turned disco ball got over himself relatively quickly, as befitting of a school champion.
"Dad thinks the same, but I'm just happy to spend some time with Cho." He smiled again, staying away from the topic of politics.
House Diggory had influence, but most of it was due to his father's skills and efforts. Even then it paled before the power the name of Black could inspire in the Wizarding world, which is exactly why Magnus could afford to badmouth the impressive collection of scumbags known as ministry officials without fearing the repercussions.
If Kreacher was there, he'd cry about how his fair master Magnus would have made Lord Arcturus proud.
His great-grandfather had a legendary nasty tongue, one he used viciously to verbally destroy his enemies to such an extent he did not even need to use his extensive spell arsenal and nearly infinite funding.
All the while exhibiting all the good manners of a gentleman from polite society, so long as he stayed silent.
That was the level of brutal rudeness Magnus aspired to.
'Too bad he died soon after my birth.'
McGonagall came back, announcing the start of the ball and urging the guests of honor to make their entrance. Cedric and Cho would go first, which had had nothing to do with Hogwarts pulling some strings to make their Champion the obvious star, of course.
The Bulgarian and his bookworm would be next, and that sentence sounded like the name of an R-rated movie, with Fleur and Magnus being last.
His placement, cloturing the overly dramatic appearance of the champions had nothing to do with his surrogate aunt pulling some strings to make him the obvious star, of course.
"Well, it has been a pleasure to talk with you." Magnus smiled for the first time at the jolly Englishman, he shook his hand before Cho could grab him. "You are a good man, Cedric, regardless of your dubious tastes in women and entertainment."
"Thank you?" The young man said, not having the time to make sense of his words before his girlfriend pulled him away to make their debut in the ball.
"That was mean," Fleur said, finally done tormenting both Cho and Granger in every single way she could think of. He wondered where that shy and unsure young girl who stalked him for a few days disappeared, but disregarded it quickly.
Young people could change every day, that was life. It's not like there was an inexperienced and very much fallible yet omnipotent force out there that didn't make the start of his tale with Fleur nearly as good as it should have been.
That was just ridiculous.
"You are the one saying that." He raised a brow, a habit he knew he picked from her, though it wasn't nearly as graceful as her own. "If Minnie gave you ten more minutes the poor girls would have broken down in tears."
"You really think so?" Fleur asked, her lips quirking in a way that stirred something very dangerous within him.
At least, it did for all ten seconds it took for him to realize she was in fact trying to fluster him.
"You…" He leaned closer to Fleur's face, making her raise a brow in that exact way that almost made him kiss her, "…are a very wicked witch."
"Now that you're done stating the obvious, we should probably get going before 'Minnie' curses us all the way down." She said, taking his arm once more.
"She wouldn't do that." He protested, "Turning us into a cuter, animal version of ourselves is more like it."
Fleur held back a giggle.
"Well, I'd be cuter." He added on an afterthought, "There is no magic powerful enough to make you more adorable than you already are."
It availed him a blush, which made the embarrassment he felt saying such a cheesy line worth it.
Magnus: 1 Fleur: 0
The best thing is that there was no way she could retaliate anytime soon, for the doors had opened and the two of them had to come down the stairs in front of a crowd of students in fancy-looking robes.
Some came alone to enjoy what they could, but most of them brought a date to make the evening more pleasant.
He could Potter with Padma's sister, Ron with Lavender Brown, Padma came with Dean Thomas who he shall ruthlessly shovel talk tonight. The Six of them shared a table, but he could see two spare seats for Luna who agreed to go with Longbottom of all people.
Magnus didn't like their choices, but then again he wouldn't approve of the grand majority of the male population. He was happy enough to see them going with good enough boys, boys he could and would crush if they even thought about possibly ever dreaming about perhaps doing something remotely untoward to his most loyal friends.
Much farther away he recognized Malfoy and the legendary pug of Slytherin, they sat with a few people of Durmstrang and Slytheirn. A few of their housemates kept their distance like the Slytherin Ice Cream…*cough* Ice Queen, he could never get over this silly name.
She came alone with her half-blood female friend, Tracey Davies who didn't find a good partner either.
That was the sad thing about going to Slytherin, no one outside your house would ever trust you, and those within it were often bigots of the worst kind.
If he was a good man Magnus would have approached them, he would have tried to break the limits between houses and give the Slytherins who weren't as bold and politically protected as Greengrass a way out.
But he wasn't.
All he ought to do is be a good partner, avoid stepping on toes of any kind not that he'd accept anything less from himself, enjoy the time spent with the Beauxbatons Champion and have fun.
'No need to be saviors.'
(Author Note:
Hey guys! It's Uncle Sheo here!
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