A/N: This is a rewrite of One Step Forward, which I started back in 2016. The basic premise still stands but there's just… more, in this version.

Canon Divergence = at the end of Chamber of Secrets. Knowledge of canon probably required. Harry/Fleur is rather slow-burn. Voldemort and Dumbledore won't be cackling evil doorknobs. Expect mature themes such as character death, torture, etc. I gave an attempt at some Britishisms, but let me know anything sounds jarringly American.

Thanks to theimmortalhp, The Moon Potato, Zombie, Seyllian, Zircon, and Halt for their betawork/input, and of course to the magnificent Hostiel for his singular edit.

Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

-xXx-

Chapter 1: Day One

Uncrinkling Aunt Petunia's shopping list, Harry gave it cursory once-over before wheeling a shopping cart brim with 'organic' and 'low-fat' into the cereal aisle. She must've really been desperate, trusting him with a whole fifty pounds. Rolling his eyes, he lobbed a box of Bran Flakes into the cart; he was only glad that with the Dursleys off to some fancy garden party this afternoon he could watch the news in peace for once. Not that he was expecting much. It seemed everything and everyone was conspiring to keep him in the dark, including his two closest friends: Ron and Hermione.

"We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously. . . ."

"We're quite busy but I can't give you details here. . . ."

"There's a fair amount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see you. . . ."

Harry slowed to a squeaky pause, fingers digging into the handle. What game was Dumbledore playing—sweeping the pair under his wing while leaving him to rot at the Dursleys? Why did the Headmaster even bother with Ron and Hermione? They would just tell Harry everything when they all joined at the Hogwarts Express anyway.

It had to be about timing. Something important must be happening over these summer months which Dumbledore didn't want him knowing about. And maybe Harry's naive friends were being kept hostage to ensure he didn't do anything stupid. No, that didn't seem like the old man's style. But what then?

"Well, look who it is! Back from criminal school, are you?"

Piers Polkiss picked a crisp from the bag he held and tossed it into his open smirk, adding it to the mush chewing around in his mouth. He tongued a chunk from his crooked front teeth, waiting, expecting Harry to startle and whimper and tremble worse than a frightened rabbit at his presence. Harry would've laughed if he weren't scraping at the dregs of his willpower to keep from vaulting over the shopping cart and punching in his smug face.

Grinning a sick-sweet grin, Harry said, "And I noticed you haven't yet graduated from your mum's bowl-cut."

Better judgement said to walk away.

"Least I've got a mum. How'd yours go off the hooks again? Some drunk driving thing, wasn't it? We learned in biology that loser runs in the family. S'called genetics. Do they even teach that in jail?"

Better judgement fell silent.

Harry itched for Piers to take a step closer, just close enough to grab by the neck; splatter brain up the wall. "You're awfully concerned for someone who won't ever breed. Girls don't go for morons."

Freckled hands balled to fists. "What did you call me?"

Taped to his calf, his wand warmed in eager preparation for a duel but he wouldn't use it. He wanted to hurt Piers the same way he used to hurt him. "I said you were a moron. Didn't you hear me? Or are your ears as defective as your brain?"

Harry felt himself still, blood cooling, zeroing in on the boy's reaction frame-by-frame. Waiting until the other made the first move—but only just, before he struck.

"Piers!" Dudley rounded the corner with an unopened pack of cigarettes in hand. "There you are—" The fat blond's words died at the sight of them. He grabbed Piers's arm. "Let's go," he urged lowly.

Rending loss swelled in Harry's chest.

This wasn't over. Dudley wouldn't steal this away from him.

Piers seemed a bit taller, broader. "C'mon, Big D! Let me have a go at him, we got to show him who's in charge. Nothing he's learned at that school of his can stand up against us."

"No, but we did learn loads of magic tricks. I can show you some if you'd like," Harry said, knowing it would further upset his cousin. He was past the point of caring.

Keeping whole and hale was meant for other people. He wanted bruised organs, he wanted blood. He wanted to wind up half-dead on a stretcher so Dumbledore, Ron, and Hermione would be forced to whisk him away from here. Stick it to them a little. Say, see what they've done to me? Don't you feel bad for leaving me? And then the quieter, hungrier, part of him yearned to shatter Piers's teeth. Pop out Dudley's dim piggy eyes.

"My parents just stuck him there to get rid of him. He's not worth it."

"You beat a ten-year-old into the ground last weekend." Harry's words came harsh and cruel. "Don't tell me you've got a soft spot for the weak and vulnerable."

"Scared? Of you? You wish." He watched Dudley cross and uncross his arms. Even with all that fat clogging his cousin's brain, when it came to Harry Potter, the wizard, it seemed a deviation from the norm—of mild, docile Harry—still managed to send sparking signals of wrong and bad in his head. "If you want a beating so bad, just wait until Mum's party's over. We can even have the funeral right after. Saves us from needing to put on those stuffy clothes again."

Piers laughed.

Harry leaned forward, the cart's handle pressing into his stomach. "Well done, Diddykins. Next time, try saying it without looking like you're about to piss yourself."

Red splotched Dudley's cheeks. Finally, some anger. "Shut it, freak!"

"I could beat you with both my legs tied and you know it. But why don't we have a go at it?" He turned his cheek. "I'll give you the first hit. Free."

'...If he didn't have that stick...' echoed hollowly in the back of Harry's mind, oil to the water of his own internal voice. In fact, it sounded very much like Dudley, whose face continued to darken.

Adrenaline raced in Harry's veins. He'd get his fight.

"I'll do it," Piers broke in with a brandished fist. "I'll sock him in the—"

Dudley shoved Piers hard into the metal racks. Packaged breakfast items thudded to the floor. "I said he wasn't worth it, didn't I? Come on, we're going!"

Piers gaped. "Dudley!" he cried at the blond's retreating figure, tripping after his leader like a lame duckling, their voices becoming distant down fluorescent morning halls. "Give me a smoke, then."

"Didn't I tell you not to go talking to my cousin?" Dudley growled.

Something popped in Harry's wrist. He looked down and eased the cart's handle from his vice-grip. The way he was feeling had no description. Like something larger than himself was crawling inside his body, tearing around; knowing Piers and Dudley had left from him unharmed ached like a heart attack.

Slowly, horrifyingly, the realization he nearly murdered Piers at a bloody grocer's set in. What was wrong with him? After everything, the thing which completely undid his composure had been none other than that worm. Pathetic.

He paid for the items and went about struggling home in the blistering summer heat with four thin-stretched plastic handles garroting each arm. Nine in the morning had no right to be this hot. Sweat turned his shirt into a wet rag.

There was a small, oppressive eternity between the shop and Privet Drive, where time meant nothing. Much too long later, and paradoxically, before Harry knew it, he collapsed into Number 4's unblemished kitchen, groceries banging to the granite tiles. Renewed circulation pulsed through his veins. He flung the skin-cling shirt from his back and twisted the kitchen sink, sticking his face into the freezing pour. He nearly moaned.

"You! We dress properly in this house!"

Aunt Petunia was already rifling through the plastic bags, a frilly sunhat tilted just so over her forehead. A regular suburban housewife. He darkly wondered how large her bulging eyes would go if a shepherd's crook crept from behind the counter, latched to the pearls fastened about her giraffe neck and yanked her somewhere never be seen again.

"Sorry, Aunt Petunia," Harry demurred, twisting off the water. What happened at the grocer's remained forefront in his thoughts—he didn't want to trigger… that, again. When he got angry, he said things he didn't mean, maybe threw a textbook, but this cold, calculating fury was new. It didn't belong in him. Piers was annoying, but Harry's aunt? His uncle? "I'll change right away."

She raised each shiny red apple up for inspection. "Hm," she said, which might as well have been a standing ovation where Harry Potter was concerned. "And pray tell, how will you behave while we are gone?"

"I'll be in my room, waiting for you to come back." Aunt Petunia nodded.

"And if the doorbell rings?

"I'll stay quiet and keep from the windows."

"That's right. You won't step outside this house for anything! Not even if your… peculiarities... fills it with locusts, or floods the attic..." she said, stricken.

"Yes, Auntie."

Plucking a cookbook off the kitchen counter, she dropped it into his unready hands. "Get on a shirt and make what's on page eighty-nine. We're leaving in two hours. I need the dish by then at the very latest."

Balancing the weight, he managed to find the page before Aunt Petunia could leave.

"Squid?" He looked up. "I can't cook squid!"

She looked at him from over her shoulder, painted lips pursed to a raisin intensity. "Then learn how! I hear Carolina Coppersmith is bringing some sort of disgusting liver terrine and Bethany Fontaine has a five-star chef baking her macaroons. I won't be stood up, I just won't! But I only have you. The creature's in the refrigerator. I bought one. Do. Not. Mess. Up." Stiletto heel clicks punctuated her departure.

In other words, the task was important but not enough to peel Aunt Petunia from fluffing on more eyeshadow or painting her nails. Did she secretly hope he'd conjure some wonderful, delicious squid dish with magic if left to his own devices?

Harry felt a soft buzz against his thigh—the compact mirror. Withdrawing it, hope, like a hummingbird doing the jitterbug, went knocking around his ribcage, and he dared to wonder if something in his life for once was going according to plan. A pair of dark glaring eyes shrivelled that notion.

"What's got you in a twist?" Harry sighed, hunching over the kitchen counter. The surface was dewy with disinfectant. "Didn't you say we'd only use this for—"

"You heard correctly." Theodore Nott's voice was a scythe through wind. "I have the book you wanted."

Harry paused. This was good news—great news. He offered the Slytherin a winning smile. "Brilliant! Would you mind holding onto—"

"I won't! You neglected to inform me, Potter, that this thing positively reeks to the high heavens with Dark magic! I didn't even have to touch it to know, but I had to, and now I'm… I'm stained. No, I won't keep this… it's 9:21 AM… meet me at Cobb & Webb's at eleven o'clock, or I'll burn this fucking thing to ash."

Nott's image cut, leaving Harry with his own reflection.

Fuck.

He braced his palms on the table, the unclosed little mirror skittering across it. Damn it. After the Chamber incident, Riddle's diary had the weight of a dead thing. Even Dumbledore let it go. But Nott didn't play games. Something must've changed. He needed that diary, he had to go, he owed Ron that much. Aunt Petunia could fry her own damn squid.

But how to get to get to Diagon Alley? Hail the Knight Bus? Harry could almost hear the splintering crunch of his wand being snapped in half.

Time to cash in some good boy points, then.

Yanking on a new shirt, he found Uncle Vernon on the driveway examining his beige company-issued sedan with a fist under his overflowing chin, looking for all the world like he was contemplating the deepest questions the universe had to offer. The suit he wore was solid black, the tie dark blue. A bit... malapropos for a garden party, but what did he know?

"Uncle Vernon, would you mind driving me to Diagon Alley? It's urgent. I'll do extra chores, anything, I've just got to be there right now."

It looked like it hurt, snapping back to reality. "Eh? Boy, what are you doing out here? Nevermind that, over there—" he pointed to one of the back headlights. "See it? Doesn't that look scratched to you?"

Harry didn't see anything. "Er—yeah, it looks a bit off. Say, Uncle Vernon…?"

His whale of an uncle tapped his foot thinkingly against the tarmac.

"Uncle Vernon!"

Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon, if he said the name once more his brain-meat would melt to gruel.

The man grunted.

"Could you please drop me off at the Leaky Cauldron?"

Uncle Vernon huffed a laugh. "Drive? Drive you anywhere? Forgotten that we're grounded, have we? You're not going anywhere, let alone some… some crackpot hangout! Get back in the house."

Harry's thoughts short-circuited. "But..."

"No!"

"I've—I've done all my chores—"

"Go! Go on! I won't hear anymore of it." The man shooed him towards the house. Harry lingered on the porch, half in disbelief. Grounded? He'd been the perfect nephew since Dobby magicked a cake on Mr. Mason's head! Uncle Vernon shot him a dirty look and plodded up the driveway, the car scrutinizing mood evidently ruined.

His nails bit into the heels of his palms, hellish impulse waxing in his veins. The frosty rage from earlier resurfaced. For far too long he let them push him around like a noxious pest. That was it. If they were going to treat him like old Harry then he might as well act like old Harry.

Before the man crossed the steel threshold (and being as fat as he was, that meant it took quite some time), Harry had gone upstairs, grabbed a pair of robes, shoved his summer homework under his bed, snatched the keys off the counter and weaved around his uncle.

"BOY!"

The car door thumped shut behind him, locks clacking into place. The interior was a matte black oven that smelt of sun-glare. Harry had driven before. Sort of. If a few minutes with Mr. Weasley's Ford Anglia counted. Wasting no more time, he purred the car to life.

Large fists pounded desperately at the sedan as Harry switched gears. "BOY!"

He clicked in his seat belt and slammed down the accelerator. Bellowing forward with a throaty gargle, the car shot past Uncle Vernon and crashed into the garage door. "Shit." Harry set the sedan into reverse and crawled the car back till it met street.

Dudley and Piers watched from the pavement, mouths agape.

"YOU GET BACK HERE AT ONCE!" Uncle Vernon roared after him. "STOP! STOP! DON'T YOU DRIVE OFF! STOP THIS! PETUNIA, CALL THE POLICE!"

Cracking down the window a sliver, he batted the compulsion to run his uncle over and instead settled for a few hissed words:

"I really do hope you have fun at the party."

Tires squealing against tarmac, he gained control of the vehicle just shy of it scraping against their neighbor's vintage porsche. An impish grin curled ear-to-ear. It felt a bit like flying, going this fast.

What were the Dursleys to do? They had only one car.

-xXx-

Police sirens echoed in Harry's ears as he swerved the car to a stop in front of the Leaky Cauldron, heart jackhammering in his chest. Blue lights flashed in the rear-view mirror. Grabbing his things, Harry flung open the sedan door—the metal slab unhinging with a creak and clattering loudly to the ground, drawing the attention of nearby Muggles—and vaulted out.

Glass bells rang when he burst through the Inn door.

The place was in mayhem. Tom the Bartender was shaking frogs from the pockets of a homeless boy, decanters dancing above them like seance candles. It was full of people, most brightly-robed, some with animal masks, a few drunkenly yelling out a party song; one stood on a table in priestly garments, a wand in each hand, flapping his arms like wings. It was loud as sin in here.

Realization struck him; today was Midsummer.

An old-timey holiday to Muggles who sometimes parlayed it as an excuse for garden parties, but to wizards it remained the biggest holiday of the year. And he'd just stumbled right on in. His lip curled. Nott could've reminded him.

Discreetly, Harry donned his plain black school robes and cast a disillusionment charm over himself, the feeling of magic like a raw egg cracking down his head. He checked his watch: 10:50 AM. Ten minutes. It wasn't much, but he didn't need much.

The Inn's back wall unstitched to reveal the official Midsummer Parade. Harry had never seen Diagon Alley so packed. Stark white robes flashed in his peripheral – an Auror. Damn. They brought Aurors out for this? He dived deeper into the fray, the momentum of the crush-press crowd jostling him forward faster than he could keep steady, apologies like a mantra on his tongue as he was shoved and stepped on.

There came a great peal of trumpets from somewhere beyond. Paper dragons rushed overhead, roaring the sky into a salvo of a thousand colors and a witch screamed excitedly into his face. Harry could feel his disillusionment charm fraying. No surprise. He'd hardly mastered the spell.

"Potions!" A hag wearing a sleep mask and her wheelbarrow were carving a path through the crowd. "Turn yer gnomes to newts! One sickle per bottle!"

Cobb & Webb's was a gloomy blight amongst the whimsical, spectacular shops of Diagon Alley which flaunted all manner of eye-catching widgets, bright signs, and interesting artifacts at their windows. Nott's chosen establishment resembled a giant decaying pumpkin coated in black resin and its one comely feature, a gilded door, helped its appearance as a much as a gold tooth did a pirate's. The store was ugly and Harry got the distinct sense it knew it.

He made his way there, producing the mirror from his pocket as he did. Flicking it open—nothing. Checked his watch: 10:58 AM. Nott better show.

Harry glanced up. And blinked.

The shop… was gone. Talbot's Broomsticks seamlessly met Magex Inc. without any trace of rotten gloom between them. 10:59 AM. Where did it go?!

Harry yelped when the hag's wheelbarrow rammed into his side. Fermented onion-stink burned the layer of mucosa off his eyes.

"Sorry, lad." Peeling up the sleep mask, her rheumy gaze shot to his forehead, mouth yawning into a blackened grin. "'Arry Potter! What an honor! What say you—buy a poor lady's wares? It'd be nothing to you after winning tha' Tournament and all." She said this as if it were an inside joke between them.

He brushed his fringe over his scar before fishing a few coins out of his pocket and slapping them onto her leathery palm. "Please. Where I can find Cobb & Webb's?" Nearby yelling drowned his question. It was two wizards. One burly and drunk; the other spindly and entirely bereft of a mouth.

"Whaa?" she asked.

Harry faltered back. Burly careened forward, shoving the hag aside. "How dare you? Samhain is for dead people, get your holidays right! Put your mouth back on and drink!"

A black sphere rolled out of Spindly's sleeve and into his palm. On instinct, Harry ducked—it arched over him, blue staccato bursting away with Burly's lips. Giving a muted hiss, the drunk charged after Spindly—the hag tripped him with her wheelbarrow.

"Cobb & Webb's," Harry repeated louder while straightening from his crouch. The two wizards had run out of sight. "Do you know where I can find it?"

She cocked her hip. "Tha' old Dark Arts shop?"

"Yes! Yes, that one. Where is it?"

"If you want some real Dark Arts curios, you're better off at Moribund's. Eh?" Watery eyeballs measured him for a moment longer before rolling upwards. "Oh, you Hogwarts kids don't know any real meaning o' fun, do ya? Everyone should have a few snapping moppets in my opinion. CW's a shy shop, tha' one. Shyer when it gets near to the hour. Take the first left at the Kisser and you'll find it."

She appraised one of the coins he'd given her. Grunting in satisfaction, she unhinged her jaw and slow swallowed the four glinting pieces down whole. They clinked hitting her stomach floor. Offering a final wink, she pulled the night mask back over her eyes and set off.

"...Thank you." Harry shook his head and he drew his robes tighter about him, crossing into a back-alley. Journeying to the Kiss, the area where Diagon met Knockturn, head-on was a death sentence—it would be the most chaotic section of the parade, where he'd find the overambitious sequel to the story of Burly and Spindly. The store could act as coy as it wanted. He knew a few short-cuts.

Feeling the mirror thrum, he unlatched it and was rewarded with an eyeful of Nott's pores. Carefully stepping over a red slug the size of a cat, he bit back the acidic things he wanted to say to him.

"Where are you?" his classmate whispered. "You're never late."

Harry exhaled. "The bloody shop moved on me, that's what. You could've—"

"That's your own fault." Nott held a thin, black-crusted book to the mirror. Harry's eyes widened. Riddle's diary. He had actually done it. "If you're not here in fifteen minutes, I'm leaving. I'll do a lot for you, Potter, but not if it gets me thrown into Azkaban."

He could get there in five.

"Just sit tight. I'm—"

Fuck.

—gut reeling, he managed to keep from splattering his skull across the ground. Of course it would be a copy of the Daily Prophet that nearly did him in. Tripping, what a way to die. A portly wizard on the front page mouthed 'sorry', the headline's aggressive typeface staring a hole into Harry.

"Potter?"

"Mockridge," he said. "Did you know he died?"

Harry hadn't a chance to get today's paper. The poor delivery owl must be quite miffed with him—he should give it some of the old owl treats he still had next time.

"Who the hell is Mockridge?"

Nott would know if he ever came to History class. "He's the Head of the Goblin Liaison Office. Binns is in love with him. Mockridge this, Mockridge that. They've even got the same first name."

"Cuthbert? How terrible. It's nearly as bad as Harry." On Nott's round, cherubic face, his smirk gave him the appearance of child who'd successfully secreted away a chocolate or two from his mother. Suddenly, his eyes shifted to the corner. "Bye," Nott hissed, closing his mirror.

Harry's eyes widened as the grooves and juts of information aligned in his head. A month ago a former Minister of Magic had passed, then a renowned potioneer, a big-name social advocate, and a wealthy merchant. Now Mockridge. Dead, all of them, by natural causes. But that was quite a lot of deaths in such a short period of time considering wizards didn't die quickly nor easily. This was the way Voldemort's first war had started. Influentials withering off one by one.

If he could see it, why couldn't anyone else? He hadn't even been alive during the beginning of the first war. It would've been funny, how hard the Wizarding World was trying to bury the Voldemort situation. If only people weren't—er—dying.

By habit, he checked his watch. The appearance of Borgin & Burke's announced he'd exited out to the left of the Kiss, so he walked straight, turned, and lo and behold stood the ugly visage of Cobb & Webb's.

It wasn't as busy around these parts. Actually, the street was barren.

Harry paused, feeling a heavy, ominous presence behind him. It couldn't be Nott. An Auror? With the diary so close this was the worse possible moment for a confrontation. If they saw it, Fudge would have the final nail to lock him up forever. Harry reached for his wand but hesitated when fingers met wood. Firing spells at an Auror would certainly see him in Azkaban—or worse.

Why was it when things were destined to go wrong, they went really, really wrong?

"'Arry!" a voice sang into his ear.

A terse grin split his lips as he swallowed down hair-trigger impulse.

Everything fell away until only she remained.

Somehow, he'd forgotten how beautiful Fleur was. Like a hazy, ethereal vision from a fever dream drawn to explicit detail, no artistry lost along the way. Tall, a bit taller than him, with delicate strength, cornflower blue eyes, and hair the color of sunlight on water, gently spilling past her ribs; hair which danced softly by a wind that wasn't there. Or perhaps it was? He couldn't quite tell; the Alley was starting to feel strangely airless.

"F-Fleur," he stammered, nerves pitching at her broadening, perfect smile. Great job, Potter, he told himself scathingly. "What are you doing here?"

He ignored Nott within the shop. There were a few minutes left, the Slytherin could wait. Besides, this might be Harry's last time ever seeing Fleur. Their paths weren't prone to crossing.

She embraced him, so close he caught the orange blossom perfume on her elegant neck. "Surprising you, no?" He managed, somehow, to force his arms to work and hug her back, face burning hotter with each passing second. Releasing him, she cupped his jaw and pressed warm kisses to his cheeks.

He wondered if girls found the slack-jawed idiot look attractive.

"I could not resist, you appeared so enraptured," she teased—her accent was less pronounced than he remembered it. "It is not so often I get small pleasures like zis."

Harry swallowed thickly. "I—I mean, here, in Dia- Knockturn Alley."

Stupid. The parade—everyone was here for the parade.

Fleur refined the imperious cant of her head, eyes half-lidded with conceit. "I am on my way to Gringotts, of course. I work there for zis summer, as you must be aware."

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. She sometimes caricatured herself for a laugh... which she did rather too well. At least he hoped she was joking. "I don't know much of anything, really. My uncle turns this unhealthy shade of purple anytime he spots an owl, and I hear housing prices are rising, so I'd rather not have to find somewhere else to live."

"Muggles?" Fleur's said with intrigue. "You come live with moi, I won't even tattle on you to your silly Ministry if I see you use magic." The disillusionment charm cloaking him now came to sharp attention. "Zat is, if you do not mind Aliénor and Vivien, my housemates. Zey enjoy baccarat and screaming at each other—oh, and throwing things. What flies faster do you think—a bird, or a lamp?"

"I'm a quidditch champion," he said with careless ego. "A lamp is nothing to bludgers." Pride soured to impending doom, his words catching up with him. Where was all his sang-froid when he needed it?

Instead of sneering at him she cocked her head and let out a small silver bell giggle. A stupid grin sprouted on his face like some kind of poisonous fungus, one he was painfully aware of and one he could not scrape off his mouth.

What was wrong with him? No girl had affected him like this before. Not Parvati, not Cho, and certainly not Fleur or any of the veelas at the Quidditch World Cup last year. It might've been frightening but Fleur was so pretty, her attention so rapt, the sentiment evaporated before he could grasp it.

"Unfortunately, ze French cannot be quelled so easily. Forget quidditch, what zey do not even my charms can 'elp!"

He found himself laughing, feeling lighter and more bubbly than he could ever remember feeling. Like the dark cloud over his head, the pressure, the memories, had taken wing and flown away.

A stray glance to an annoyed Nott summoned a rush of reality that hung wiry and tough in his throat. "Listen, I've got to—"

"Wait, please, 'Arry." Her stance, her face, her voice, said vulnerable, and of course he stopped—he'd have to have the heart of an inferi to ignore her. "May I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

She exhaled bracingly. "How well do you know ze Weasleys?"

His existence narrowed to a needle-point. He wondered if she knew.

"Ron's my best friend."

She paused. "What do you think of Bill?"

He gave her an oblique look. Beneath the surface, his gut stirred with some undefinable and not very pretty emotion as half-thoughts began connecting in the murkiest reaches of his mind.

"He's a good man."

Fleur nodded. "Zat is w—"

Ropes materialized from thin air and snapped Fleur within a deadly cocoon, the beginnings of her scream ringing along the Alley's sides. Harry's mind went blank. Fingers fumbled to release his wand, he managed a spell, maybe it was the disarming spell, and he heard a crashing thump—what just happened?

"Well done," came a drawling baritone. Harry whipped around. Reality rippled in a spot, and a man's head was revealed. Dark over-the-shoulder ponytail, angular cheekbones, and a dimple at each end of his smile. "But that's to be expected. I think I'll be more of a challenge."

The hair on Harry's neck raised at the singe in the air. Throwing up an arm, a weighty yellow bolt ricocheted off his hastily conjured shield just centimeters shy of his face. Dispelling his shield, Harry shot a silent severing hex after it, hoping the man would miss it while occupied with the rebounding bolt.

The cobblestone beneath Harry sank and clamped around him like a thick coffin. "Oh hoh, look at you," the man said, having cancelled both spells in one swooping gesture. "Reflectivity. Quite a rare slant for the shield charm to take. Maybe some of the admiration you've garnered is warranted." The earth closed its gaps and transformed into a tornado of winding rope, his world twisting dark and constricting. Head meeting ground—vision dancing with bright spots—

There came the waterfall-rush sound of the reviving spell.

A groan. "The Dark Lord w-will be pleased, won't he, Selwyn?"

"Quiet, you mewling lubberwort. Grab the veela. Macnair's birthday's coming up soon, isn't it?"

-xXx-

A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. The next 7 chapters (30k+) should be out reasonably quickly as they are, for the most part, already written. If you have the time, please leave any questions/comments in a review :) I respond back.

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