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Chapter 19 -Take Three: Duelling with Veela

Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 31st July 2001 AD
Country: France - The French Riviera - Marseeleveyre Mountains
Location: Chateau Delacour
Time: After Midnight

For some reason Harry awoke early the next morning, glancing at the clock he discovered that it was about three am.

He rolled over and saw Fleur lying with the covers pooled around her waste, still wearing her exercise gear from the previous day.

Harry had to overt his eyes to stop himself staring at the rise and fall of her chest.

He moved his eyes to her face, an expression of peace clearly visible on her beautiful features.

He reached down and pulled the thin sheet up and under her chin, before slipping quietly out of the bed.

He knew well enough that once he had woken up he would never drop off again, at least not until he tired himself out.

He moved to one of the chairs by the table where they ate dinner and began practising his Occlumency.

After his next Exercise Lesson with Viktor he would continue to learn Occlumency from the Bulgarian Seeker and he thought it best to prepare as best he could.

He spent several minutes relaxing and clearing his mind as he was supposed to have done when Snape was teaching him.

After running through the process of raising and lowering what shields he had several times he opened his eyes and stared at the door on that side of the room.

The door that led to the requirements room.

As he continued to look an idea entered his mind.

He got up and walked to the door, grasping the handle he concentrated on what he wanted.

Opening the door, he saw a fully equipped gymnasium, complete with a running track around the outside.

Smiling he walked back to the bed and picked up the Time Turner before returning to the door.

There was a clear path straight down the middle of the equipment to the other end of the room, leaving the door open he closed his eyes and walked into the room, counting to thirty he turned and looked back at the door, walking back to it he pulled it closed without looking into the bedroom.

Hoping his plan had actually worked he picked up the Time Turner and wound it back six hours.

When he re-materialised the room was completely bare, closing his eyes again he focused on what he wanted, opening them again he was confronted with a view of the room as it would be in six hours.

Withdrawing his wand he cast a Silencing Charm on the door.

The Delacour's had had a wand specialist remove the tracking spell on his wand that traced magic performed outside of school.

He then placed both in his pockets before moving to the closest piece of equipment.
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Five hours and fifty nine minutes later he stood a couple of metres from the door with his back pressed against the wall, while his body recovered from the workout it had just been put through.

Hearing the door open he made an effort not to make any noise, a few seconds later he saw himself walk into the room with his eyes shut, just as he had done six hours before, he carefully walked to the door and through it before pressing his body up against the wall on the other side, he did not move until he heard the door close behind him.

Harry had to congratulate himself on the brilliance of the plan, even Hermione would be impressed. He had entered the room with the knowledge that he would already be in there, but as he had not seen or heard himself, he didn't know if he actually had or had not been there and so the encounter was perfectly safe.

Smiling he walked back to the bed and laid back down next to Fleur, he would have to a make this a regular occurrence, every night possibly, within seconds he was asleep.
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The next morning they went down to have their first meal with Dimitri and Delphine both of whom were quite content to sit and listen while their eldest described the last forty eight hours.

Harry was also quite content to just sit and eat, the late night training session had tired him out a bit and he wanted to rest as much as possible before today's training session.

The duelling room was similar to that of Physical Defence, except larger and with heavier padding. The teachers were a brother and sister, they were about the same height at around five foot ten, both had light brown hair, Jenny's hair hung around her face but did not reach her shoulders while John's hair resembled Harry's wild style.

"Good morning," greeted Jennifer "I am Jennifer, call me Jenny and this is my brother John, we will be teaching you duelling over the coming weeks."

"We would first like the pair of you to duel so we can asses your skill level." explained John "You can use any magic you want as long as it is not restricted and will not cause permanent or severe damage."

Moving to the centre of the room they each drew their wands and bowed to each other.

Harry was going to find this impossible, having never seen her duel and after seeing how weak she could seem (when her sister was brought out of the lake) he automatically assumed that she would be an amateur whereas he had been teaching others how to duel.

Boy was he wrong.

The second the duel started she fired of a hail of stunner's in his direction, causing him to dive out of the way, spinning around he fired of a disarmer before rapidly raising a shield just in time to catch another spell coming his way.

He rapidly fired a cluster of three spells, finishing with Rictusempra.

She managed to raise a shield to the first, which it shattered, dodge the second only to get hit by the third which had been aimed with her dodging in mind.

She hit the ground laughing, not expecting the particular charm it caught her by surprise enabling him to summon her wand to his hand, just as she finished cancelling his charm.

Bringing both wands to bear he was about to fire of two sets of ropes to restrain her when he was suddenly overcome.

His eyes locked onto her eyes and he couldn't move them away, he stared into them and sighed at the beautiful sight.

The next thing he new Fleur's wand went flying out of his hand only just giving him enough time to grab his own as it to began to jump from his grip.

The spell had been powerful enough to pull him off his feet only stopping when he (his wand in hand) hit the floor.

He instinctively rolled to the side as a curse impacted the mats where he had just been.

Jumping to his feet he found a hail of flowers come flying at him.

They circled him and collided painfully with his arm, lightly grazing and cutting at his skin every time he tried to raise it to curse her, not that he could see her through the storm.

Before he could cancel the spell, his wand flew from his hand and he found himself in a body bind, leaving him wobbling dangerously.

After several seconds the flowers disappeared as the bind was released, as soon as the flowers fell to the floor he could see Fleur walking towards him, both wands in her hand wearing a smile of triumph.

"I may ave a pritty face Arry, but vat does not mean I do not no ow to fight." she said smugly handing his wand back.

There attention was turned back to the Wrights when they heard hands clapping.

"Very good, you both seem to have a good grasp of how to duel." congratulated John.

"Have either of you had any tutelage on the subject?" asked Jenny.

"I vas the under aighteens dulling champion at Beauxbatons." Fleur said proudly.

Harry turned to her.

"I didn't know that."

"You never asked," she explained with a smile "I did say I'm not just a pritty face."

"What about you Harry?" asked John.

"I haven't been in any tournaments or anything except for one single duel in my second year but that didn't get very far, other than that it's just been against Death Eaters and Voldemort."

Harry was pleased to see that none of them flinched, from what Fleur had told him Voldemort wasn't that dangerous to mainland Europe during the first war.

"I seriously doubt that fighting with You-Know-Who and his followers should be passed over so lightly," said Jenny "Many of them are experienced duellists, did I not also here somewhere that you had been teaching others how to duel, in the....DA."

"Dumbledore's Army yeah, I taught a few friends how to duel that's all."

"A few friendz that managed to fight a battle in the Department of Myzteriez, against Death Eaters" added Fleur giving the full facts, refusing to let Harry understate everything "All of whom came out alive."

"Barely." he muttered looking down, he felt Fleur's hand snake its way into his, giving him a comforting squeeze.

"None the less," began John "It proves that you have the ability to teach what you have learned, from your duelling style it was obvious that you have had no formal training, as almost all your moves were standard duelling tactics, with the exception of the well planned tickling charm distraction, trained duellist often add flare to their duelling style as Fleur did where as you are currently a very to-the-point dueller with a fairly limited spell base to draw from."

Jenny continued where her brother had left of.

"Fleur on the other hand, as well as using normal duelling tactics, adds flare to her attacks, as the wandless summoning charm and hail of flowers proved, she also uses every weapon at her disposal to win like she did when she used her Veela powers to temporarily distract you, not to mention my brother."

John and Harry blushed at the comment, causing Fleur to smile widely.

"The use of the Flowers also shows that she has a relaxed attitude to duelling, as she was calm enough to add some irony to the duel, as her name translates as...."

"Flower of the Court." finished Harry surprising all three of them.

"I'm not just a pretty face," he returned earning badly hidden snickers from the Wrights "I looked it up."

Fleur sent him a smile, happy that he had been researching her though she wasn't sure exactly why.

"Anyway," continued Jenny, attempting to hide her smile "Over the next few weeks will be teaching you everything we know about duelling, by the time we finish we want each of you to be able to beat both of us at once in a duel."

Harry gulped at the thought.

For the rest of the lesson they were introduced to a variety of exotic spells that they had not come across before and the concept of wordless magic, Fleur having already left school had already studied the art but was not very good at it and was in definite need of a refresher course.

At the end of the lesson they bid goodbye to the siblings and proceeded to today's sleeping quarters, thoughts of the day's lesson running through their minds.