Chapter 47: The French Letter and the Game of Jealousy
The Great Hall was noisy that Friday morning, but Hermione wasn't participating in the din. She felt singularly isolated, an island of frustration amidst the sea of the Gryffindor table.
To her left, Ron was massacring a kipper, complaining with his mouth full about how his brother Percy's rat, Scabbers, looked "even balder than usual". To her right, Harry was nodding along, his thoughts clearly a million miles away, probably on the upcoming Quidditch match against Hufflepuff or the Grim he thought he had seen. And Crookshanks, her brilliant new cat, was wisely asleep on her lap, safe from Ron's resentment.
Hermione sighed, stabbing her scrambled eggs. Her summer had been an intellectual rollercoaster. Timothy's letter on "conceptual physics" had opened her up to a world of theory that had left her dizzy and hungry for more. She had spent August in Muggle libraries, frantically trying to catch up, excited by the idea of returning to Hogwarts and resuming her debates with the only person on the planet who seemed to operate on her level.
But the Timothy who had returned from France was... different.
Her gaze drifted toward the end of the Ravenclaw table. He was there, sitting alone as usual, but near the edge where the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tables almost touched. He wasn't eating. He wasn't reading. He was, as always, working. He had a spare piece of parchment next to his plate, and his quill was flying over it, drawing complex runic matrices and equations.
He was lost in his own world. And that world, which she had once felt invited into, now seemed to have closed again. He was more... distracted this year. His eyes held a new intensity, an obsession that unsettled her. When she spoke to him, he sometimes looked at her, but she had the strange feeling that he was looking through her. And then there was Luna Lovegood. She had seen him talking to Luna last week, and he listened to her with a passionate attention he rarely gave her lately.
An irrational pang of jealousy shot through her, and she hated it.
She was about to return to her eggs when the familiar roar of hundreds of wings filled the air. The morning post. A swarm of common owls descended upon the tables, but then, something broke the pattern.
A single owl, snowy white and incredibly regal looking, separated from the swarm. It wasn't a Hogwarts owl. It glided through the air with aristocratic grace and landed with a soft click of talons directly in front of Timothy Hunter.
Hermione's heart lurched. It was a Beauxbatons owl.
Timothy didn't even look up from his parchment. He simply reached out, distractedly stroked the owl's chest, and untied the letter. The envelope was of a thick material, pale blue, and sealed with an elegant silver wax crest.
As Timothy broke the seal, the owl shook its magnificent wings. A gust of air crossed the space between the tables. And it hit Hermione.
It was a smell. It wasn't the smell of ink or owl feather. It was perfume. An expensive, complex, and overwhelmingly feminine perfume. It smelled of lavender, vanilla, and something else... something electric, like ozone right before a storm.
Hermione froze. Ron and Harry were still arguing about Scabbers. Timothy had put down his quill and was now reading the letter, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. The jealousy, which before had been a pang, was now a cold fire in her stomach.
Who was it? A teacher? No, that perfume was too intimate. A... student? From France?
Her analytical mind tried to calm her down, telling her it was irrelevant, but her heart felt betrayed. She couldn't help it. She stood up.
"I'm going to... I'm going to ask him if he's seen my Arithmancy book", she lied to Ron and Harry.
She straightened her robes and walked with deliberately calm steps toward the Ravenclaw table, her heart beating with a jealous fury that made her feel like an idiot.
Timothy felt the tension in her as she approached, but remained focused on the pale blue parchment. Fleur's letter was fascinating; an intellectual debate disguised as courtesy about "passion" as a magical component.
"Good morning, Tim".
Hermione's voice pulled him from his reading. He looked up. She was standing next to his table, her books clutched to her chest, her eyes fixed not on him, but on the letter.
"Interesting mail?", she asked, her voice casual, too casual. Her nose wrinkled slightly. "Smells... strong. Is it perfume?".
The smell. Of course. He had noticed it the moment he opened the envelope: lavender and magical ozone, Fleur's unique signature. For him, it was just another sensory datum, but for Hermione, it was clearly a red flag.
'Oh', thought Timothy, his mind instantly switching from magical theory to the social game. 'This is... new'.
"Good morning, Hermione", he said, without looking away from the letter, feigning casual distraction. "Yes, it seems so. From a friend I made in France this summer".
His words had the desired effect. He could see her posture tense.
"A friend?", Ron Weasley's voice rumbled behind her. He had lumbered over, probably attracted by the elegant owl. "French?".
"Mm-hm", murmured Timothy, turning to the second page of the letter. "Her name is Fleur. A quite brilliant witch, actually. Almost as stubborn as you, Hermione".
The ambiguous compliment was a masterstroke. It compared Hermione favorably to this mysterious "Fleur", but also confirmed that "Fleur" was on her same intellectual level.
Hermione pressed her lips together. "Fleur. How pretty. And is she... nice?".
Timothy finally looked up, folding the letter slowly. Hermione's curiosity and jealousy were as clear to him as an equation on his blackboard. And it was... amusing.
"I suppose 'nice' isn't the word I would use", he reflected. "She is... intense. Very passionate about her beliefs, even when they are wrong". He paused and then, as if it were an afterthought, added: "She is a Veela, so I suppose that is to be expected".
The word "Veela" hung suspended in the air between them.
Timothy watched, fascinated, how the word affected his two friends in completely opposite ways.
Hermione frowned, her analytical mind instantly reviewing her own mental library. "A Veela?", she repeated, her tone one of pure academic inquiry. "I don't remember reading about them in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Is it a subspecies of Harpy? Or are they related to Sirens?".
Before Timothy could answer, Ron choked. He dropped his fork with a metallic clatter, his eyes went wide, and a deep red color rose up his neck.
"A VEELA?!", he shouted, his voice cracking into a high-pitched squeak.
The outburst was so loud that several students turned to look at them. Harry jumped.
"Ron, what the hell...?", started Harry.
"A Veela!", repeated Ron, his voice now a reverent whisper. He ignored Harry and Hermione, his eyes fixed on Timothy with a new and deep admiration. "Mate. Are you joking? A Veela?".
Hermione was stunned. "What is a Veela, Ron? Why are you shouting?".
Ron turned to her as if she had just asked what a broomstick was. "They aren't... well, they aren't human! They are... they are incredible women! With beauty out of this world, a beauty that drives men crazy! My brother Bill told me about them! He was on an exchange in Bulgaria and said he almost threw himself off a cliff just because one of them smiled at him".
Ron's eyes unfocused, lost in a second-hand fantasy. "They say their hair shines, and that when they get angry... well, it's better not to be near. But before that... they say that just by looking at them you forget your own name". He turned his gaze back to Timothy. "And you... have a Veela friend?".
Timothy, who had been observing this hormonal outburst with fascination, smiled. "Something like that", he said, deciding to throw a little fuel on the fire. "And yes, Ron, their attraction magic is conceptually fascinating. A very potent psionic pheromone emission. Although, honestly, it is a bit rudimentary".
Ron didn't hear the analytical part. "Fascinating! Is she pretty?"
"She is... objectively pleasing to the eye", admitted Timothy.
"I'm jealous!", declared Ron with conviction. "I'm very jealous!". With that, it seemed his attention span ran out, and he returned to his plate, muttering happily.
Timothy smiled. Ron's reaction had been a perfect social experiment. But then, his smile faded slightly as he turned to look at Hermione.
Ron was distracted. Hermione was not.
She had gone completely silent. Her face, which before had been flushed with curiosity, was now pale. Her knuckles were white where she clutched her copy of Advanced Arithmancy.
The gears in Timothy's mind turned. Ron's description had just transformed "Fleur" from a simple intellectual rival into a mythical and insurmountable threat. Hermione's logical mind could compete with any student, but how could it compete with literal biological magic?
She was visibly, painfully, jealous. And Timothy, to his own surprise, found that reaction... absolutely delightful.
He put down Fleur's letter, his voice now full of a mocking smile. "So...", said Hermione, her voice tense, in a failed attempt to hide her emotion. "What exactly did you do with her in France? Besides 'investigating'?".
He didn't even try to hide his amusement. "Oh, you know", he said casually. "We went to Paris. Visited the Louvre, the magical and the Muggle one. She complained about the tourists. I archived the palace's architecture".
"Sounds... fascinating", she said through gritted teeth.
"It was", he continued, his mocking smile widening. "Then we had a very... passionate... debate about the thermodynamics of emotion-based fire spells in a small café. She believes British magic is 'rough'. I told her French magic was 'inefficient'. She is incredibly stubborn".
He was stoking the fire deliberately, comparing his debates with Fleur to the ones he had with her. And it worked.
"Sounds... fascinating!", repeated Hermione, her voice now an octave higher. She stood up abruptly, her books hitting the table. "I hope your... research was productive!".
Timothy looked at her, his smile now openly playful. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Wait, Hermione... Are you jealous?".
That was the last straw.
Hermione's face turned a bright red. "Don't be ridiculous, Timothy!", she snapped, shaking with suppressed indignation. "You are the most arrogant, insufferable, and exasperating know-it-all I have ever met! I'm going to the library, where people actually study instead of bragging about their... French girlfriends!".
She grabbed her bag so hard her books knocked against each other, turned around, and marched out of the Great Hall, her bushy hair vibrating with indignation.
Ron looked up from his plate, confused. "What's wrong with her?".
Timothy watched her go, chuckling softly to himself. 'Definitely jealous', he thought. He returned to Fleur's letter, feeling immensely satisfied. The year had just become much more interesting.
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