'I am beginning to believe he would rather make a martyr of me than anything else,' Harry answered calmly, hiding the anger he still harboured towards the old wizard.
Fleur's reaction was rather more dramatic.
Her face shifted completely, her chin and lips lengthening into a cruelly curved beak and her eyes darkening, widening and gleaming with anger. Feathers had thrust themselves through her skin, and her fingernails had lengthened into short, sharp talons. Harry swallowed hard. He'd never seen an enraged veela quite so close before, but he didn't move away. Fleur didn't need to think he was scared or repulsed by her, nothing could be further from the truth. Oddly he still found her quite beautiful, just as he had the dancing veela at the World Cup.
She hissed angrily, sending white-hot sparks dancing over her hands, and all the feathers stood up along her neck. The air shivered away from the white fire, and the heat washing over him from it was enough to make Harry consider moving her hand slightly further away, but then Fleur took several long deep breaths and slowly shifted back.
He watched in abject fascination as her facial structure rearranged itself back into the countenance of Fleur's beautiful human form.
'Sorry,' she murmured in disconsolate French. 'I hope you do not find my other form too unattractive.'
'I actually still found you quite attractive,' he admitted, flushing at confessing something that must certainly be strange.
Fleur stared at him for a long moment, her summer sky eyes unblinking, then she crushed her lips and self against him, knocking him back onto the bed and straddling him.
'You are staying mine,' she whispered furiously between and into kisses.
'I think,' Harry replied breathlessly, 'that I could learn to live with that.'
'You will have to,' she responded archly. 'I am not letting you go.' She took another deep breath and smiled at him, eyes blazing in a manner that sent butterflies exploding across his stomach. 'It's a shame we still need to talk,' she commented, still straddling his waist.
'We do?' Harry asked plaintively.
'Yes,' Fleur nodded. 'You are not living with your relatives, not if if I have to give this up.' She shifted her hips back a little and he had to seriously fight the urge to push up against her.
'Agreed,' he grinned, losing the battle, and enjoying the way she bit her lip to keep control of herself.
'So you will leave your relatives, remove their memories to protect your secrets if you have to, and come to me. I will master the Fidelius Charm, make Gabby our secret keeper and then we can live together there for as long as we please.' Fleur smiled coyly. 'We just need to choose a place, and buy it,' she decided. 'I have a trust fund,' Harry told her, sitting up to kiss her. The friction from the change of position rather interrupted his train of thought and he had to think for a moment to remember exactly what he had been intending to say. 'It's around fifty thousand galleons, from memory.'
'That's some trust fund,' Fleur smiled, 'enough for us to discretely find a small place for ourselves if I help.'
'From what Nagnok said I suspect that the Potter family fortune is around six times that,' he grinned. 'Though I can't access any of it except that trust fund until I'm seventeen.'
'Your fund tops up every year, doesn't it?' Fleur asked, shifting herself off his lap, much to Harry's disappointment.
'Yes.' 'Good,' Fleur sighed. 'That means we won't have to get a loan to buy somewhere, only combine what we have.'
'Have looked at anywhere?' Harry queried.
'A few places that seemed like they might be affordable,' she admitted. 'I saw a nice apartment I liked, but having muggle neighbours can cause problems. There was a small house in one of the magical villages in Dorset, and a nice little place in Godric's Hollow…' she trailed off at the slightly bitter smile Harry was now wearing. 'You don't like Godric's Hollow?'
'I don't think I want to live in the village my parents were killed in,' he told her gently, aware that she would not really understand what it might be like for him. 'Maybe the other small house?'
'It's in Budleigh Baberton,' Fleur told him, 'a charming place. It's in the West Country. I could happily choose there.'
'I leave it up to you,' Harry smiled, spreading his fingers to run them playfully through her hair. 'Just not Godric's Hollow, or Ottery St Catchpole, the Weasley's live there, and they would alert Dumbledore.'
'You're going?' Fleur had heard the implicit goodbye in his tone.
'I have to,' he sighed, 'though I would very much prefer to stay, especially now we no longer have to keep talking.'
'Why do you have to?' Fleur complained.
'Now I have this,' he pulled the vial out of his robes and waved it cheerfully, 'I can get rid of Umbridge before she hurts anyone else.' His expression darkened. 'She's growing disturbingly malignant of late, and I fear what she might resort to if left in power for too long.'
'Go on then,' Fleur grouched, scowling. 'You come and visit me as soon as you can,' she ordered.
'I will,' Harry promised, 'you know I will.'
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