The music from the castle spilled out in distant waves, dull thumps of rhythm, the faint echoes of laughter and spinning feet. Candles floated like drifting stars in the garden's air, casting golden flickers on the snowy grounds beyond. Everyone was there, drowning in silk and perfume and the illusion of warmth.
Everyone except Lucas.
He sat beneath the old sweet chestnut tree on the far shore of the Black Lake. A light dusting of snow clung to the bark and to the heavy cloak draped over his shoulders, though he didn't seem to mind the cold. His legs were folded beneath him, hands resting on his lap, eyes closed.
The two aurors stood a good distance away, lost in their own world, or whatever Lucas had fed them.
It was peaceful here.
The sight as always, comforting.
The lake stretched out before him like a sheet of dark glass, disturbed only occasionally by the ripple of something moving beneath its surface. The wind stirred gently through the branches overhead, carrying the smell of frost and pine.
He could have gone.
Dumbledore had made the suggestion, Ms Sprout had all but insisted.
He had said no.
He simply didn't feel like pretending.
He also needed to avoid Harry, lest he does something prematurely. It wasn't time yet. Lucas needed him to brew some more before proceeding.
Lucas exhaled slowly, his breath a ghost floating into the night air.
Behind him, footsteps crunched lightly over the frost-covered grass.
He didn't move.
"You are always hiding in odd places," came a voice, fluid, elegant, with the faintest trace of amusement.
Lucas opened his eyes, though he still didn't turn. "And yet you still find me."
Fleur stepped into view, wrapped in silver and blue. Her dress shimmered in the moonlight, her hair pinned back with crystal pins that sparkled like ice. The light of the floating candles from across the lake reflected faintly in her eyes.
She regarded him for a moment, then glanced around at the snow-covered hill, the lake, the sky. "You missed the ball."
"I didn't miss anything. I chose something better."
She arched a brow, lips quirking. "Solitude?"
"Silence," Lucas corrected. "They're not the same."
Fleur hesitated, then slowly lowered herself onto the snow-dusted roots beside him, careful not to stain her dress. "You know, most boys would have begged for a chance to dance with me."
Lucas turned his head and looked at her. She saw in his eyes that he wasn't in the mood for jokes right now.
They sat like that for a while. Not speaking. Just listening, to the music drifting from far away, to the lake splashing softly against the shore, to the steady rustle of the wind.
Finally, she broke the quiet.
"You don't like them, do you? The others."
Lucas's eyes drifted across the lake. "I don't dislike them to be honest. I just see them clearly."
Fleur tilted her head. "And what do you see?"
"Fear," he murmured.
Fleur was quiet, watching him closely.
Lucas's eyes were on the lake, but his voice came steady, like he had thought this through a hundred times and said it a thousand more in his head.
"They fear what I can do. What I might do. Not what I've done, though that's enough for most. The Ministry made sure of that. Their little campaign to keep the public nervous, to keep the story twisted just enough that no one would think differently."
He let out a breath, fogging into the cold air.
"I didn't ask to be here. They insist I be. For whatever goal they have. But let's not pretend I have a choice."
Fleur's expression softened slightly. "You think you are a prisoner."
"I am," Lucas said quietly, and now he looked at her. "I just don't wear shackles on my wrists. Forced by people I don't know to play in a game I didn't want to participate. I would love nothing more than to be home..."
Fleur watched his face thoughtfully. She wasn't used to silence that didn't need filling. To sitting beside someone who didn't try to impress her, flatter her, or peel her apart like a present waiting to be unwrapped.
Most didn't see beyond her face. Most didn't want to.
But Lucas… Lucas didn't care at all.
"You are not wrong," she said finally, her voice softer now, no longer dancing with its usual flirt. "About fear. About how people look at you."
Her daddy had instructed her to keep away from whoever it is that made Lucas come here. He would concern himself with that, other than that she was allowed to do as she saw fit. Which brought her here, now. She was curious about who Lucas Foster really was and her Veela side craved the power he wielded.
Lucas didn't reply.
Fleur's fingers touched the frozen edge of a root beside her. "They do the same to me," she said after a moment. "Not in the same way. Not the same emotion. But it is there."
Lucas tilted his head slightly.
She continued. "They see a Veela first. They think they understand me before I open my mouth. Some want to possess me. Others want to resist me. But none of them really see me. Not the me who trained, who studied, who earned every part of being a champion."
Lucas studied her for a long moment.
Her jaw tightened, just slightly. "I just hate that it makes me doubt myself. Every time I win, I wonder if they let me. Every time I fail, they say I was never serious."
She met his gaze directly.
"So yes. I understand something of what you feel. Different shape, same thing."
Lucas's mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but the edge of something. "Didn't expect that from you."
Fleur lifted her chin. "Because you think I am vain."
"I didn't expect you to be this open. I guess you are tired," he said simply. "Of playing the role you created to fit in, to not be outcast totally."
"Haha, you sound like an old man."
A pause.
Then she gave the faintest laugh. Not mocking, but genuine, surprised. "And what role do you think you are playing?"
Lucas leaned back against the tree, not hesitating. "The villain, of course. That's what they wanted and that's what they will get."
Fleur didn't argue. She looked back out across the lake, the surface catching slivers of moonlight now. The wind had slowed, just slightly.
"You're not dancing," she said.
He shook his head. "No. And neither are you."
She gave him a sidelong glance. "You think I came here by accident?"
Lucas raised a brow.
Fleur smiled, not sweetly, not seductively, but wryly, like she was finally letting something slip past her practiced facade. "I saw you leave. You weren't the only one who wanted to get away."
Lucas let the silence stretch again, but this time it felt warmer.
Fleur leaned forward a little, resting her arms on her knees. "You could take a peek if you wanted, you know. I wouldn't stop you."
Lucas studied her for a moment. "You're serious."
She nodded once. "I want you to."
His gaze sharpened and met her eyes.
The world narrowed. The wind fell silent. The lake seemed to vanish. All that remained was her. Fleur, opening the door.
He stepped through.
Warmth.
It flooded his senses first, like stepping into sunlight after weeks of cold. Fleur's mind didn't greet him with words or logic. It unfolded like a garden beneath sunlight, elegant, curated, but alive with wild undergrowth beneath the carefully trimmed hedges.
She was beautiful even here. Not in the shallow, surface way people always projected onto her, but in the structure of her thoughts, fluid and crystalline, silver threads weaving through memories lit like lanterns.
Yet there were two rivers.
One clear and calm. Her human self. Disciplined, proud, intelligent, fiercely independent. The girl who studied Arithmancy late into the night, who trained until her muscles screamed, who winced when her younger sister cried and whispered fiercely not to tell Maman that she'd been the one to break the vase. That part of Fleur burned with ambition, with a quiet ache to be seen beyond her face. She wore her beauty like armor, but it was heavy.
And beneath it...
Lucas saw the second current.
Hotter. Wilder. Coiled like smoke and flame. Her Veela side.
It wasn't monstrous, it was hunger curling beneath her human thoughts. It didn't speak in words but in feelings, vivid and primal. It craved attention, yes, but not out of vanity. Out of need. A desperate, aching urge to be claimed or resisted, not ignored. And it saw Lucas as neither prey nor puppet.
It saw him as a threat.
And it was thrilled.
That part of her burned like fire through the rest of her mind, sparks along memories of him. Glances exchanged. Words spoken. His magic, sharp and cold and powerful. The Veela side wanted him. Not with love or affection or longing, but with the possessive instinct of something older than language. He was danger, dominance and challenge. Her blood responded whether she approved or not.
Lucas felt the divide: Take him. Break him. Be broken in return.
She stood at the crossroads of both.
And she was terrified by neither.
Lucas lingered there, silent in her thoughts, and slowly drew back, not out of revulsion or concern, but out of respect. She had let him in, opened the door. He would not violate it. Not like he used to.
She was watching him, lips slightly parted, chest rising and falling with slow, careful breath.
"You saw it," she said softly. Not a question.
Lucas nodded.
She didn't look away.
"Does it disgust you?" she asked quietly.
Lucas was still for a moment and replied. "No. It explains a great deal."
Fleur's brow arched, elegant as ever. "And what did you learn?"
Lucas tilted his head. "That you're lonelier than you let on. And that your blood craves me."
Fleur's eyes darkened slightly, not from anger, but from the weight of being understood.
"I am tired of pretending," she murmured. "But I am not ashamed of what I am."
Lucas offered a rare, faint smile. "You shouldn't be."
She let out a slow breath, almost a sigh. "You could have gone deeper."
"I have done that already. Even played with it." Lucas said dryly, the regret seeping through. "I prefer honesty now."
Fleur wrapped her arms around her knees, tilting her head to rest lightly against them, her gaze drifting back to the lake. "Do you ever think about what it would be like… if we weren't born with these 'gifts'?"
Lucas didn't answer right away. The question wasn't rhetorical, but it didn't demand a reply either. It just floated there, like the music still trailing from the castle in delicate wisps.
He closed his eyes, letting the cold nip gently at his skin. "Sometimes," he said eventually.
A long silence stretched again, comfortable and still.
The wind rustled through the branches overhead, brushing snow from the tree like confetti. A few flakes landed landed on them, but neither minded.
For a moment, everything was quiet. The lake. The trees. The distant castle. All of it faded into the background. Just two people beneath the stars, far from the expectations and eyes that defined them.
"Do you want to dance?"