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Fourteen-year-old Harry Potter was strolling through the woods on a cool mid-morning of Saturday November 5, 1994. He was having a rough time ever since the goblet of fire spewed his name out and declared him to be the fourth champion (which made him the second Hogwarts champion). It was bad enough having most of Gryffindor House turning against him, but the fact that his best friends turned on him made it worse. Ron Weasley accused Harry of looking for more fame and glory while Hermione Granger accused him of cheating by getting past the age line. Harry even spotted Ron’s sister, Ginny, sitting at a table while she was blushing madly but kept her distance. That wasn’t a surprise because Ginny always saw Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived, and the fact that she continued blushing in his presence while staying away from him was as good as saying that she thought of him as a cheater. Harry’s quidditch teammates (including the Weasley twins), Neville Longbottom, Lee Jordan, and Dean Thomas assured Harry that they believed him to be innocent.
The morning after the champion selection, Harry got a few supporters from Hufflepuff: Cedric Diggory, Susan Bones, and Hannah Abbott. The only Ravenclaws who supported him (so far) were Cho Chang and her best friend, Sue Li. Naturally, nobody in Slytherin showed any support for Harry, which was to be expected because of Harry’s arch-nemesis (Draco Malfoy) being in that house. Even Hagrid believed Harry, as did Sirius Black (who had written to him to let him know) his godfather. Neither Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, nor (naturally) Snape did anything to help Harry out even when Draco Malfoy passed out buttons that supported Cedric (the true Hogwarts champion) and degraded Harry. As if having Snape bully him and Neville wasn’t enough, Harry finally lost respect for McGonagall and Dumbledore for their failure to do something about the buttons. McGonagall would’ve just dismissed Harry while Dumbledore would’ve gone on and on about the importance of second chances and pacifism with the bullies while giving the victim the cold shoulder.
Harry continued strolling through the woods trying to clear his head of all that had been happening ever since he was reintroduced to the magical world. He was starting to regret coming to Hogwarts given that it was practically a repeat of his primary school days when he had no friends because his cousin and his gang made sure of that, with the adult Dursleys spreading lies around Little Whinging to ensure that they were the top dogs while ‘the freak’ had the worst reputation imaginable. Harry thought about planning to transfer to another school, preferably as far away from Hogwarts as he could get. Even though he knew Dumbledore would try to stop him, Harry decided that he wasn’t going to let anyone control him or his life on their terms. It was his life and he could do whatever he chose, but refrained from choosing the path of a criminal. The sound of someone grunting or something resulted in Harry stopping in his tracks.
‘I wonder who’s doing that?’ Harry mused.
So he followed the source of the noises to find out what was causing them to happen. The closer he got, the more and more audible the grunting was becoming. As Harry got even closer, he came upon a clearing in the trees and, to his surprise, it was the Beauxbatons champion because everyone knew about her chest-length platinum-blonde hair (which was in an elegant bun at the moment). What surprised Harry even more was that Fleur was wearing a long-sleeve yoga shirt that had the torso black and the sleeves blue, a pair of black yoga trousers (which was showing off her nice-looking butt), and a pair of gray trainers. Harry found himself looking at Fleur’s butt covered by the yoga trousers, he was a teenager after all. But he quickly came to his senses and tried to back away slowly to avoid any temptations, but as usual luck wasn’t on his side. That was when he stepped on a twig and made it snap. The sound of which resulted in Fleur perking up, so she got up onto her feet and turned around to find Harry with a shocked look on her face.
‘Krud, she spotted me!’ thought Harry, feeling his life flashing before his eyes.
He tried backing away as fast as he could, only to fall over backwards onto the ground that the force of made him respond with an ‘oof.’ Harry quickly got back onto his feet, turned around and ran off at such a speed that Fleur widened her eyes in surprise. Harry kept running without looking back, fearing that Fleur would clobber him if they were to cross paths again. He felt certain that she sensed him checking her out, intensifying his intentions to steer clear of her. Harry kept running for a few minutes before he decided that he put enough distance between himself and Fleur, and slowed down to catch his breath while strolling on.
‘That was a close call!’ thought Harry, breathing a sigh of relief.
Harry continued walking in the woods and upon spotting a tree close to a gentle-flowing stream of water, he approached said tree and sat down by it to lean back and relax. Harry had been sitting there for ten minutes or so when the sound of footsteps brought him out of his musings. Harry turned his attention to the source and saw Fleur standing there with a neutral expression on her face for some reason. She was now wearing a black jacket (since the weather was a little cool, but not enough for a heavy coat) and navy-blue jeans. Since he was seated on the ground, Fleur looked much taller from his point of view. Harry felt himself stiffening not because of that, but due to the belief that she was going to clobber him in retaliation for watching her doing the stretches moments earlier and maybe the neutral expression meant that she had finally found him after hard work through searching and what-not. Harry opened and closed his mouth several times as if to say something, but his mouth didn’t seem to want to work. So he squeezed his eyes shut tightly in anticipation of the inevitable, unaware that Fleur was smirking and trying her best not to giggle.
“Monsieur Potter,” Fleur spoke up. “I’m not here to beat you up or anything like that.”
Harry forced himself to open his eyes and saw that Fleur was really trying not to giggle, but he didn’t know why that was happening. Fleur was grasping her sides to try suppressing the giggles. She ended up taking some deep breaths to also make it easier to avoid any more laughter, and somehow managed to get all of the laughter urges out.
“May I join you, Monsieur Potter?” asked Fleur, keeping her voice polite sounding.
Harry nodded his head to give her permission, since he was at a loss for words. Plus, he knew that actions spoke louder than words. Harry knew that any boy would kill to be in his spot right now because Fleur was, according to the rumour mill, at least a part-veela.
“The way you kept opening and closing your mouth was what was making me laugh,” Fleur explained. “Your expression made it even more priceless.”
“Well, I was expecting to get clobbered,” stated Harry. “After you caught me not too far from where you were doing those stretches.”
“I would’ve done that if any boy got too close to me and gave me those lustful looks with their tongues hanging out while drooling!” Fleur told Harry. “But the fact that you still gave me some space and quickly turned around and ran off made me realize that you weren’t like most of those moronic boys who’d drool at the sight of me. The speed in which you took off was even more impressive.”
“Well, I grew up in the muggle world,” Harry explained. “So I like to go half-magical half-muggle. I figured that being a powerful wizard also requires you to be physically fit to avoid tiring so quickly, and it seems that most pure-bloods at least get easily exhausted.”
Fleur nodded her head in acknowledgement, since she knew it herself. She and her family even got physical exercise, since their manor was out in the sticks within a forest so they could go hiking whenever the chance arised. What Fleur realized was that Harry put emphasis on the words ‘grew up,’ which meant that he didn’t have a good home life. Nevertheless, she decided to stay silent about it for fear of pushing his berserk button. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Harry’s torso and embraced him to show that she was grateful that he was treating her like a person instead of drooling at the sight of her. Harry flinched with the physical contact, proving that Fleur’s suspicions were true since the flinching meant that he was beaten with something like a belt or a paddle or anything along the lines. Harry felt himself relaxing because Fleur’s hug was so warm and gentle, unlike Hermione’s (who always charged at him) and Molly’s (who’s hugs felt so smothering that it made Harry feel as though his spine would snap in two any time). Slowly, Harry returned Fleur’s hug since she was being patient, whereas Hermione would always nag him relentlessly.
“The hug was also an apology for referring to you as a little boy, Harry,” Fleur told him in a shameful voice, after she pulled away to make sure that Harry was taking it one step at a time. “Since actions speak louder than words.”
“Your apology is accepted, Fleur!” Harry replied. “I can understand why you thought of me as such, since your school and Durmstrang haven’t been around me enough to know about my misadventures. It’s quite a long story, though.”
“Well, okay,” said Fleur. “But I’m not in any hurry. If you keep all that emotional baggage on your shoulders, it’ll continue to weigh you down. You go ahead and speak when you feel ready.”
Taking a deep breath, Harry began telling Fleur the whole story, realizing that she was right in that keeping his emotions bottled up and allowing the emotional baggage to pile up was extremely unhealthy. Fleur patiently sat there listening to Harry’s story: how Harry lived with relatives who abused and neglected him; how he was ordered to do an unreasonably long list of chores while Dudley was free to rule the house; how he was forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs; how he was hardly given decent meals while Dudley got to eat excessive amounts of junk food and drink huge quantities of soft drinks; how he was given overly-large rags while Dudley was given the best clothes money could buy; how he had to dumb himself down in primary school, or else get smacked across the face if he got better or much worse grades than Dudley; how he was given almost nothing in return while Dudley got all sorts of presents, sweets, and pocket money for being lazy and lacking a work ethic; how he was bullied by Dudley and his gang; how he had no friends before Hogwarts due to Dudley and his gang making sure of that; and how he was terrorized by Uncle Vernon’s sister’s dog Ripper on a few occasions where she visited.
Harry even proceeded to tell Fleur about how he was hoping to escape the past when he entered Hogwarts, but that it very quickly became something of a virtual repeat of his primary school days; where he was exposed to his fame in the form of whispers and stares aimed at him; how he was treated like the Heir of Slytherin in the second year when his parseltongue abilities got exposed; how he had to deal with dementors last year; and then deal with his name coming out of the goblet of fire and how most of Hogwarts (especially his supposed best friends) turned against him while being declared an attention seeker and a cheater, while his arch-nemesis Draco Malfoy distributed degrading buttons about Harry and nothing was done about it. Fleur felt tears welling up in her bright-blue eyes and streaming down her face, realizing that all of the stories about the Boy-Who-Lived were false. So she hugged Harry again to let him know in some way that he was in safe hands, with Harry hugging her back a little quicker.
“I’m so sorry, Harry!” Fleur whispered into his ear soothingly. “You really deserve better than the treatment you get.”
“But someone like me is just destined for rotten luck,” said Harry in a forlorn voice. “It seems like no matter what I do, trouble has a tendency to be lurking around the corner and jumping out at me.”
“No one is destined for rotten luck, Harry,” assured Fleur. “You just need to find friends who are willing to be good role models for you.”
“Now that you mention it,” stated Harry. “I do have some supporters in my house, which you heard by now is Gryffindor. I did get some supporters from Hufflepuff, including Cedric. Only two Ravenclaw students so far have expressed their support for me. But I’ve never counted on anybody in Slytherin supporting me, mainly because my arch-nemesis Draco Malfoy is in that house and it seems like most of his housemates are in his family’s pocket. As I mentioned just now, Malfoy distributed those buttons that support Cedric and when they’re pushed, they’ll degrade me by saying ‘Potter stinks,’ and yet I haven’t seen any of the teachers putting a stop to it. Even my head of house Professor McGonagall hasn’t done anything about it as if she gets kicks out of watching me suffer, same with Dumbledore because even he ignores that.”
“Why would they just do that?” asked Fleur, her eyes widening in shock.
“I don’t know for certain,” Harry replied. “But I think it has to do with Dumbledore’s policies of giving second chances and avoiding violent retaliations, which explains why the victims get punished while the bullies and other wrongdoers get away with their actions scot-free. Dumbledore even keeps going on and on about equality, but he sure does a really lousy job at it because all this strongly hints that he favours the wrong people. He and McGonagall even favour my former best female friend, Hermione Granger, above all and it’s outrageous. Hermione sided with my former best mate, Ronald Weasley, despite him labelling me as a cheater and a liar determined to look for more fame and glory. They should know me better than that after all we went through, but they proved themselves to be fake friends, especially when Granger just defends the wrong person whenever they antagonize me while never showing me any sympathy.”
“This Hermione must be a bully herself if she keeps defending them over you,” said Fleur in a matter-of-fact voice. “Especially after I heard countless students discussing how she is a teacher’s pet and an insufferable know-it-all.”
“Yeah, that does describe Hermione,” Harry replied. “Since anytime she informs McGonagall of danger, she always takes action. With me, McGonagall just dismisses my suspicions and sends me back to Gryffindor Tower. Even when I was proven right about danger lurking around the corner, she never apologizes and tries to make it up to me, same with Hermione. It’s like I’m considered the teacher’s pest.”
“Well, why don’t we head to my school’s carriage,” Fleur suggested. “You’ll need all the help you can get since you were forced into this tournament without consent. If Madam Maxime is alright with it, we can head over to my school’s library and find some books and look up spells that may be useful for whichever tasks may be used.”
Harry felt a smile forming on his face, figuring that practicing spells that were taught at Beauxbatons would be an excellent way of teaching the majority of Hogwarts the hard way of what making assumptions about him was bound to do. When Fleur pulled away, Harry got onto his feet and offered a hand for her. Fleur grabbed it and Harry pulled her up onto her feet. Then the two began heading for the Beauxbatons carriage. Fleur refrained from putting her arms around Harry’s shoulder this time, concerned that it would’ve been too fast, so they just walked beside each other. At the same time, Harry realized that this was an excellent moment to start promoting inter-school friendships.
The End!