Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

The golden egg sat obstinately on the floor of the bathroom. Nothing Fleur did seemed to affect it. The horrible screeching persisted every time she opened the egg, no matter what enchantment she cast. She had come to quite hate the thing.

Moodily she poked it with the tip of her wand. It rocked a little then returned to its spot on the floor. She hoped that the other champions were having as little success as she was. The clue was not easy to decipher and Fleur was tempted to try and find out how far the other champions had progressed again. Over the last few days, as her hope at succeeding with the egg began to diminish, she had kept an ear out when she snuck around the school under her disillusionment charm. Specifically she had been listening out for hints that any of the others had met with success.

Fleur had not been met with great success. She'd learned a lot of interesting things, but few had been about the Triwizard tournament. Ludo Bagman, someone who in her opinion should not have been anywhere near the organising process for the tournament, had been talking about how fascinating the Black Lake was and all the creatures it contained with a two quidditch playing girls dressed in the red and gold of Gryffindor house. The man was not particularly intelligent and she had read, in one of Rita Skeeter's articles, that he had owed a lot of money to the goblins until very recently.

Madame Maxime had suggested that Karkaroff was assisting Krum with his strategies, but she was not sure if that extended to figuring out the egg and as her rival kept mainly to himself she had no clues as to how he had progressed.

Fleur had seen him and many of the other Durmstrang students diving into the Black Lake, but it seemed only to be for recreation and Fleur had better things to do than ogle them with the rest of the Beauxbatons' students.

Cedric Diggory on the other hand seemed to already know the answer. She had heard a group of Ravenclaw girls gossiping about how smart he was when she had joined the table for lunch. The three girls had seemed more taken with his looks than his intellect, but it was concerning that another champion might have figured it out. There was always the possibility that Diggory was lying and judging by his performance in the first task Fleur refused to discount that. Her pride might have had a little do with it as well.

The most interesting thing she had learned had been about Harry Potter. His progress towards the second task still remained a mystery to her, but in one of her frequent library visits she had over heard Hermione, the bushy-haired girl who was often in the library, and Ron, her red-headed friend, discussing her rival.

They seemed to be under the impression he might be under the influence of another wizard because of his sudden behaviour change. Fleur found their wild theories of love potions, Imperius curses and enslavement to Bulgarian veela laughable. Harry Potter's behaviour was not something that had just suddenly manifested, if they had not noticed it or he had hidden it then it might seem new, but it was obviously the result of something chronic.

The pair had held many wild speculations about what he was doing, but Fleur ignored most of them. The fact that they thought a simple thing like an invisibility cloak was capable of tricking an age line or the goblet was evidence enough that they really didn't know what they were talking about when it came to enchantments or enchanted items. Invisibility cloaks were expensive, but little more than disillusioned apparel, and the disillusionment charm that both she and Harry were familiar with, was not capable of tricking a age line. Fleur had almost stopped listening to them when she finally overhears something much more interesting. Harry Potter's first wand had been broken by Hermione when she tried to use a spell she was not adept at to stop him reaching it in the middle of a fight between him and Ron. It had been the last time Hermione had spoken to him, though she still professed to be his friend, unlike Ron, because he never came to either the common room or the dormitories of Gryffindor Tower.

The idea that Harry Potter now had his own room, just as Fleur did, intrigued her. They were not dissimilar, Fleur had seen more than enough similarities between them to make her pity the boy, but they had always acted differently. Harry vanished where she decided to stand out. That they both had made the same choice in the same situation at roughly the same made Fleur wonder if by the time he was seventeen he would be even more like her. He would be powerful and talented enough to rival her properly at that age and would not doubt stand out as one of Hogwarts' best students.

The longer she thought about it the more parallels she was able to draw between the two of them and the greater her regret became at having been rude to him. It was possible, had they not gotten off on the wrong foot, that he might have been able to understand her and see more than just the veela, or the champion.

It would be nice to have someone to share my thoughts with.

Gabrielle was her little sister and there was nobody that Fleur loved more, but she was too young to understand some things, or to truly empathise with her older sibling. In a few years, once she had endured everything her elder sister had, she could be the perfect friend for Fleur, but four years was a long time.

Perhaps I should be more polite to him.

It would hardly require much effort on her part to test the waters and see if he was potentially more than just an acquaintance. If he was like her then the moment he realised their similarity he would, just as she had, be hopeful of finding a real friend that understood. It was a surprisingly attractive idea and the longer she imagined it the more attached to her hope she became.

An image of the two of them welled up from some corner of Fleur's mind that still retained some of the naive, wishful girl that she thought had long since been tempered into something stronger. It was a simple scene. Two friends, smiling, trusting and achieving great things together. There was no bright, blinding, empty charm radiating from his lips and no small, sham of aloof politeness fixed on hers. Fleur was shocked by how much she wanted the company of an equal, someone to stand who understood. Whether it was Harry or another hardly mattered, if he was capable of becoming half of her envisioning, she would endeavour to treat him as an equal in the making. Harry Potter would have to show that he knew she wasn't so beneath him first, though. Fleur would not deign to spend time with somebody who thought she was below their notice, famous or not, that was not how equals behaved towards one another.

There were many things that she had to deal with first. The Yule Ball was approaching and she needed to find a suitable date. A wizard who was not going to be lost in her allure all night and capable of paying attention to her. Fleur wasn't particularly hopeful of finding anyone and intended only to stay as long as had to or as long as she was enjoying herself. The former was likely to be much longer than the latter. Primarily, of course, her attention needed to be focused on the golden egg in front of her. How she hated the thing. If Fleur was allowed to keep it after the task she was half-tempted to destroy the frustrating object.

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