Lightning Strikes Twice (Harry Potter)(Time Travel)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Fleur has been training for this~

-x-X-x-

Fleur has to admit, she’s barely listening as one of the Tournament Officials rambles on and on about the Third Task. She gets the gist of it, after all. Big massive magical hedge maze with dangers galore and the grand prize at the center of it. Easy enough to understand.

Ultimately, she has her eye on that prize. She’s going to win… she HAS to win. It’s funny, Fleur always wanted to win the Triwizard Tournament. She was the ambitious sort, and she wouldn’t have put her name in the Goblet of Fire in the first place if she didn’t want to come out on top.

… But that original desire to beat the other Champions feels almost like a distant memory if she’s being honest. It’s no longer about winning for the sake of accolades and glory, for the fame of having won a contest that was considered so dangerous it’d been discontinued for decades.

No, now Fleur has to win so she can prove herself to Harry Potter. She has to win so she can show him, once and for all, that she’s worthy of joining his Wizard’s Coven and having her magic bound to his own.

… She’s reconciled with her mother, as Harry wished her to. Apolline and her still don’t see eye to eye on this, but Fleur has ultimately forgiven the Delacour Matriarch for her betrayal. Harry was right. Her mother loved her and though the betrayal still stung, it wasn’t nearly as deep of a wound as Fleur had initially thought. In the end, time healed most things Fleur supposed.

That didn’t change what she wanted out of this though. She was going to prove to Harry once and for all that she was worthy of his coven… even if that meant having to beat him in this competition.

Fortunately for Fleur, she had a huge advantage… as it turned out, she’d somehow wound up in First Place after the Second Task. Despite her somewhat abysmal performance in the First Task, Fleur had nevertheless done well enough that placing first in the Second Task had pushed her ahead of Krum and Harry. Cedric was… a non-issue, though Harry’s full healing of his injuries meant he would likely be able to give a much better performance this time around than in the Second Task.

Still, the advantage for being in First Place was that Fleur got to enter the Maze first as well. Followed by Harry and Krum, and then Cedric. It was the best possible scenario she could hope for, really. Beating Harry to the center of the Maze wouldn’t just take all of her skill and ingenuity… it would take luck too. Fleur acknowledged that fact. But maybe, just maybe, the head start would be enough to push her over the edge…

“Are our Champions all ready?”

At their nods, Ludo Bagman clears his throat, his eyes flickering to Harry for a moment before focusing on Fleur with a smile.

“Very well then, let’s begin. Ms. Delacour, you’re up!”

Moving to the start of the Maze, Fleur waits for the Ministry Official to let a bang off with his wand. Then, she’s off to the races. Sprinting into the Maze, Fleur immediately casts a Point Me spell as soon as she’s out of sight. One might not think it would be all that helpful… but it does actually work in pointing her in the direction of the Maze’s center, which is in and of itself hugely beneficial in helping her keep her bearings.

Once she knows the general way she has to go, Fleur begins navigating the hedge maze. She moves swiftly, but also cautiously, keeping her head on a swivel for anything that might come after her. The Maze was supposedly populated with all sorts of monsters and traps galore, and Fleur would be damned if she fell afoul of any of them.

Of course, it’s not long before her time advantage is used up and she hears another telltale bang behind her that lets her know the other Champions are being allowed to begin their own runs of the maze. Fleur tries not to flinch at the loud sound and tries to stay focused on what’s right in front of her eyes.

Of course, then she turns a corner and runs smack dab into a scene straight out of her nightmares.

“Oooh~ oh… Fleur, I’m sorry you have to see this baby, but you should know he prefers a real woman. You’re just not good enough.”

Fleur’s teeth audibly grinds as she points her wand at the… debauched sight in front of her and intones the Boggart-Banishing Charm with a bit more forcefulness than necessary.

“Riddikulus.”

She puts so much power behind the spell that the Boggart, which had most definitely taken the form of her greatest fear, doesn’t even transform into something silly. It just warps and screeches and flees from her as fast as it possibly can. As well it fucking should! Showing her something like that… ugh!

Fortunately, the Boggart flees towards the outer edge of the Maze, rather than towards the center. So, putting it firmly out of her mind, Fleur keeps moving. She’s spent the last few months training night and day for this. Ever since she and Harry had their talk, Fleur has put her nose to the grindstone and been hard at work. Truth be told, she barely recognizes the witch she used to be before this year. The Fleur Delacour, who originally came to Hogwarts all those months ago… would be shocked to find what’s become of her.

Fleur didn’t care though. That other Fleur had been shallow. Weak. Arrogant. She’d been so sure of herself, an unjustified amount of confidence that even now made Fleur shudder in remembrance.

Now she knew that the world was a much bigger place than she’d ever realized. Now… she knew what she truly wanted out of life.@@novelbin@@

Harry was going to be her Master. She was going to join his coven. And no one was going to stop her… not even Harry himself.

And certainly not the magical creatures thrown in her way. Fleur sneers as she fights her way through the Maze. The biggest thing that gives her trouble is an overly large monster Fleur had been informed was called a ‘Blast-Ended Skrewt’, but while that sort of thing might have been the downfall of Fleur from yesteryear, the Fleur of now has no trouble with it.

Then, she turns a corner and finds herself face to face with a Sphinx. This brings Fleur to a halt, mostly because… well, even if she’s riding high on life, she’s not stupid enough to tangle with a Sphinx directly.

“Hello. Will you answer my riddle and perhaps receive a clue to the last threat facing you before the middle? Or will you turn and try to find another route to the center?”

Fortunately, it’s not a fight, but rather a test. Fleur straightens up as she realizes she’s on the correct route to the grand prize. Otherwise, the Sphinx wouldn’t be here. Still, if she fails the riddle… she’s likely out of the competition. But she doesn’t have time to find another path. While Krum and Diggory are competitors in their own right, Fleur knows her true competition is Harry Potter. Always has been.

“Give me your riddle!”

Humming, the Sphinx smiles and then begins to speak in a melodic, ethereal voice.

First think of the person who lives in disguise,

Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,

The middle of middle and end of the end?

And finally give me the sound often heard,

During the search for a hard-to-find word.

Now string them together and answer me this,

Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?

Fleur blinks and then immediately begins going over the lines in her head. Fortunately, it’s not that hard of a riddle actually. You just have to pull it apart and take it line by line before ‘stringing them together’ as it says at the end. The first two lines… refer to a spy, obviously. The next two lines… can only mean the letter ‘D’. And finally, the sound often heard when someone was searching for a word on the tip of their tongue. Err.

Spy-D-err, or rather…

“The answer is spider!”

The Sphinx smiles all the wider… and steps aside. Fleur releases a breath she didn’t even know she was holding as she races past. She doesn’t forget what the Sphinx said however… about the riddle also being a clue for the last threat that stood between her and the prize. Fleur was so close now, but that didn’t mean she was going to let her success go to her head.

Thank fuck too, because keeping her head on a swivel and her eyes up as much as down is what lets her see the Acromantula before it’s too late. The massive magical spider, easily twice her size, screeches as Fleur makes eye contact with its myriad eyes. With a snarl, she raises her wand and casts her strongest spell.

“INCENDIO!”

Veela had something of a fire-based heritage. Some even liked to claim they were distantly related to Phoenixes, the greatest magical bird in the world. Fleur didn’t know about all of that, but she did know she had an affinity for fire.

A jet of bright blue flames thirty feet long crosses the space between her and the arching Acromantula in a single instant. The massive spider screeches and rears back as the flames hit it’s underbelly. That’s not enough to kill it though… nor was Fleur expecting it to.

She dives forward into a roll just as the huge magical spider flings itself through her spell and at her last location. Then, coming up into a crouch, she spins around and jabs her wand at the Acromantula’s backside.

“Incendio!”

Another jet of flames just as hot, delivered so soon after the second… this time, the spider is sent careening forward, hissing and screeching as it flees from her. And just as Fleur had planned, it flees away from the path it was guarding, away from the center of the Maze.

Coming out of her crouch, Fleur checks with another Point Me spell one more time just to make sure… but yes. The center is directly in front of her. With a grin on her face, the part veela charges forward, sprinting to the finish line as fast as she can.

Finally, she reaches the center. She sees the Champion’s Cup, a glittering diamond thing, sitting in the center of the clearing. And… she sees Harry Potter reaching for it just as she enters, skidding to a halt.

Sensing movement out of the corner of his eye, Harry looks over and blinks, actually surprised to see her.

“Fleur. I knew you were getting close but… to get past both the Sphinx and the Acromantula that quickly… extremely well done.”

Wha- he… he knew she was getting close? Was he tracking her or something? No, rather… he was probably tracking all three of his competitors wasn’t he? Damn it all! Why didn’t she think of that?!

More than that, he even knew about the challenges she’d faced along the way. Tch… she never had a chance, did she?

“Why the long face, Fleur? You should be proud of yourself.”

Pouting, Fleur crosses her arms over her chest and glances away.

“… I wanted to win.”

Harry tilts his head to the side.

“Sorry, what was that?”

Huffing, Fleur stomps forward a few feet so he can hear her better.

“I wanted to win! To prove to you that I was worthy! So that you wouldn’t second guess your decision to bind me over the Summer! But I guess… I guess I never had a chance, did I?”

On the one hand, it kind of makes her even more aroused. Being defeated by Harry like this… what witch doesn’t want a wizard who’s stronger than her? A man to hold and comfort and protect her?

On the other hand, Harry already has so much power at his fingertips. An entire Wizard’s Coven. What makes her special? What sets Fleur Delacour apart? Why should he bother with her when he has plenty of other witches at his beck and call… including Apolline?

“You didn’t, no.”

Fleur flinches at Harry’s blunt, if gentle admission. He’s trying to be nice about it, but at the same time, he’s being brutally honest… which she kind of appreciates, at least a little bit.

“Fleur, this was the way it always had to be. This cup… it’s a portkey. And to be fair, it was meant to be a portkey. When you touch it, its supposed to take you out of the Maze, to the Winner’s Podium. But it doesn’t do that.”

Fleur blinks, even as Harry shrugs as if to say ‘what can you do?’.

“Instead, this portkey will take whoever touches it to a graveyard in a place called Little Hangleton. There, the remains of the Dark Lord Voldemort and his lacky are waiting to capture the winner, namely me, so that Voldemort can resurrect himself using my blood and a profane ritual.”

Eyes widening at that information, Fleur takes another few unconscious steps forward.

“What?! We need to tell someone, Harry! We need to tell the Judges or the Minister or… or someone!”

But Harry shakes his head.

“I’m going to handle it, Fleur. Everyone else would just muck it up. It has to be me.”

His confidence radiates from him like an aura. Or maybe that’s just his magic. Fleur swallows as she’s reminded of just how much power Harry is packing. His boasts might not actually BE boasts… they might just be plain old statements of fact.

Even s-still…

“Then take me with you! Let me help you! I’ve been training for this!”

Harry pauses at that, before raising an eyebrow at Fleur. Coloring, she ducks her head.

“W-Well… I mean, I’ve been training for the Third Task. Still, a Dark Lord and his lacky can’t possibly be that much more dangerous than everything I’ve faced tonight!”

Harry chuckles and shakes his head again.

“You’d be surprised, Fleur. You wouldn’t think so, sure… but you’d be surprised. No, I’m sorry but you need to stay here. Stay where it’s safe and let me deal with this.”

And then… he reaches for the cup again. Fleur hadn’t even realized she was doing it, but she’s been getting closer all this time. In that split second, the part veela sees that she’s close enough she could lunge forward and grab the portkey at the same time as Harry would. He’s not moving particularly fast. He clearly doesn’t think she’ll disobey him.

And… maybe she shouldn’t. M-Maybe she should do as she’s told. Could she live with herself though, if anything happened to Harry due to her inaction?