Fleur still had trouble believing the fact that she was engaged now.
She had seen the parchment. She had watched Madame Rosier and her father sign it. She had worn the amulet Corvus made for her ever since. None of that fully settled the matter in her mind.
After Azkaban, her mother's warnings about him being dangerous felt almost cute in hindsight. Dangerous had been too soft a word. Dangerous suited duelists, cursed objects, jealous girls with family backing, and the occasional dragon with a bad handler.
Corvus stood in a category that made language work harder.
Her father had not said much after their return from the frigate, but Fleur had eyes. She had watched the stiffness in his shoulders, the care in his tone, the way his questions grew shorter after seeing Corvus float among Dementors as if they were trained hounds asking for attention.
That had frightened her as well, though the feeling soon changed shape.
Fear became something steadier when it attached itself to a person who was now meant to stand beside her. The idea that such power might turn toward her defence instead of her destruction altered the sensation in ways Fleur had not expected.
Her hand went to the pendant at her throat as she walked toward breakfast. The tiny veela of fire remained warm behind the glass, never hot, never cold. She wondered, not for the first time, whether Corvus felt anything through it. If he could sense her moods. If he knew how often her thoughts turned toward him.
She inhaled, straightened, and entered the Great Hall.
The first thing she noticed was the sudden drop in noise. Every eye that mattered turned toward her. Fleur did not falter.
She went to the Ravenclaw table with the same measured grace she would have used if no one had been staring. She sat, unfolded her napkin, and reached for tea as if becoming the future Lady Rosier happened every day before the first lesson.
One of her Beauxbatons classmates leaned toward her and nudged a newspaper across the table.
The girl's mouth twitched with poorly concealed excitement.
Fleur took the paper with care and unfolded it.
She read quickly.
The headline irritated her first, and the article managed to make the feeling worse.
By the time she reached the lines involving Portugal and Japan, her eyes narrowed over the page. Rita Skeeter, that shameless carrion bird in female form, had managed to congratulate her, flatter House Rosier, insult the progressives, mock half the marriage market of Europe, and wink at two other ministries in the same article.
Fleur scoffed inwardly.
A harlot with a sharp quill was still a harlot.
Across from her, one of the Ravenclaws tried to look as though he was not reading the article upside down from memory.
At least the stares made sense now. She folded the paper and placed it neatly by her plate.
A shadow fell across the table.
Draco Malfoy had paused in the aisle beside her bench. He stood with the same polished control his mother had carved into him by force, repetition, and social terror.
He inclined his head.
"Please accept the congratulations of House Malfoy, Mademoiselle Delacour."
Fleur rose at once and returned the greeting with proper courtesy.
"Merci, Heir Malfoy."
Draco seemed satisfied that she understood how these things worked.
"My mother and my aunt, Narcissa and Bellatrix Black, invite you and your esteemed family to Malfoy Manor at your earliest convenience."
He delivered the invitation as though reading a decree from a throne that currently existed only in his imagination but might one day become useful.
Fleur inclined her head again.
"I am honoured. I shall convey it to my family."
Draco accepted that and moved on to his own table without wasting another word.
He was the first, and the congratulations continued well beyond him.
Before breakfast ended, nearly every Slytherin of consequence had offered congratulations, followed by most of Durmstrang and a very respectable portion of Ravenclaw and other houses. Some were sincere, some were calculating, some simply understood that one did not ignore the newly engaged future wife of Corvus Black unless one wished to make stupidity a habit.
Even the Bastion Guards in the corridors adjusted.
Not in obvious ways.
Doors opened a fraction sooner. Greetings gained a degree of formality. Eyes that had once passed over her now registered and held the correct amount of respect.
The pattern only deepened over the next few days.
By the end of the week, Fleur understood that she was no longer being treated merely as Beauxbatons champion or minister's daughter. Her engagement had shifted the ground under her feet without asking whether she wanted it or not.
She rose each morning to the same routine, dressing carefully, arranging her hair, renewing the small charms she preferred, composing her expression, and then walking to breakfast.
And always, from some careful distance, two Bastion Guards.
They were never intrusive in the ordinary sense. They did not crowd her. They did not speak unless addressed. They simply existed in the same way walls existed, as a reminder that the world around her had changed shape and now intended to remain that way.
When she crossed corridors, they followed.
When she entered the Great Hall, they took positions at the edge of the movement.
It should have felt suffocating. Instead, it felt like a statement. One that everyone around her could read. Most people read it correctly.
Ronald Weasley did not.
Or perhaps he did and simply lacked the brain structure required to retain and process that knowledge.
By that point, the faculty had already intervened more than once.
Professor Flitwick had warned him in language so clear that even a badly trained troll might have understood it. Madame Rosier had warned him more coldly. His brothers had done their own part, which mostly consisted of grabbing him by the collar in side corridors and explaining, with increasing desperation, that trying to flirt with Fleur Delacour after her engagement was not romance, bravery, or even normal teenage idiocy. It was a direct invitation to be crushed under social and possibly physical machinery too large for him to imagine.
Fred had threatened to transfigure his shoes into concrete if he kept going.
George had promised to write to their mother first so she could bury the body in advance.
Neither attempt worked.
Whether Ronald understood the danger and believed himself tragic enough to pursue it anyway, or whether Fleur's veela allure had burned away whatever little judgment he once possessed, the result remained the same.
He kept trying.
He lingered in the corridors too long. He smiled in ways that someone convinced him to be charming. He practised lines that sounded as though they had been copied from a bad romance written by someone who hated women.
On the morning it ended, Fleur was on her way to Charms.
The corridor outside the classroom was already busy with students sorting themselves by house. The two Bastion Guards followed her at their usual distance, silent and visible enough that any sane person would have adjusted course immediately.
Ronald Weasley stood by the classroom door with flowers in his hand.
Fleur saw him at once and felt a cold, exhausted irritation move through her. The sort of contempt one reserves for a stain that keeps reappearing after repeated washing.
He smiled when he saw her.
One of the guards moved before Ronald could speak.
The tower shield hit him with a sound like furniture colliding with a wall.
Ronald left the floor and became part of the stone for one humiliating instant, flattened there like a badly pinned specimen. The flowers burst between him and the corridor wall, scattering stems and petals in all directions, creating a dramatic effect.
By the time the second guard joined the first, Professor Flitwick was already there.
The Charms Master moved faster than most people gave him credit for. His wand was in his hand, voice sharp, eyes furious in the particular way teachers became when children forced them to solve problems that should never have existed.
"That is enough."
The first guard brought the shield closer to his body but did not step back.
Ronald slid down the wall and collapsed onto the floor in a tangle of red hair, limbs, and destroyed floral ambition.
Flitwick did not waste time.
One Patronus shot from his wand to summon the Headmistress.
A second streaked away to fetch the twins.
He had already told Fred and George more than once to keep their brother away from Miss Delacour for reasons any person with a functioning survival instinct should have grasped.
Apparently, this one had failed the requirement.
Students froze in the corridor.
Fleur stood very still while the guards positioned themselves between her and the idiot on the ground. She was aware, dimly, that this had gone far beyond embarrassment.
Vinda arrived first.
The corridor became colder the moment she stepped into it.
Fred and George followed nearly at the same time, breathless from running and already looking as though they knew exactly which disaster had finally matured.
Vinda took in the scene once.
Ronald on the floor and flower petals everywhere.
At least her daughter-in-law was unharmed.
Two Bastion Guards radiating the sort of stillness that usually came immediately before someone's week improved dramatically while someone else's life was ruined.
Her face barely changed, yet the anger beneath it settled into something colder and far more dangerous.
"This is not the first warning, Mr Weasley," she said.
Ronald tried to sit straighter and failed. "I only wanted to give her flowers."
Fred made a sound of such sincere despair that several nearby students looked at him with pity.
George closed his eyes briefly like a man listening to the crack of his own patience.
Vinda's gaze remained on Ronald.
"You were warned by your professors. You were warned by your brothers. You were warned by the visible presence of Bastion Guards, which should have managed the task even if your family and faculty had somehow failed you. Miss Delacour has given no encouragement. On the contrary, she has made her dislike of your attentions sufficiently clear."
Ronald swallowed.
Vinda continued.
"She is the daughter of the French Minister for Magic. She is the betrothed of Corvus Black, heir to one house and lord of another. In one act of public idiocy, you have insulted her, her family, her future house, and the man to whom she is contracted."
Ronald looked as though he still did not fully understand the shape of the hole he had dug.
That, more than anything, offended Vinda.
Before she could continue, the guard who had used the shield lifted one hand.
An eagle Patronus burst from his wand and flew down the corridor.
Vinda turned sharply.
The message was not for her.
That made the next minute shorter and far worse.
More Bastion Guards arrived in hard, efficient steps.
They did not ask permission.
They took Ronald Weasley into custody.
Fred and George moved instinctively, not to fight, because they were not suicidal, but to reason with the remaining guards before the situation became terminal.
"He's an idiot," Fred said.
"A complete one," George added immediately. "This is not malice. This is a medical condition."
"He is literally a moron," Fred continued, hands open in appeal. "You cannot hold a man fully responsible for charging into a dragon pen if he has the brain of a concussed goose."
George nodded earnestly. "This one barely ties his own boots. We keep checking."
The guards did not laugh.
That worried the twins more.
Vinda exhaled through her nose and turned to the guard who had sent the Patronus.
"What will happen to my student?" she asked.
The question was formal. She was still Headmistress.
The guard answered without hesitation.
"He has spat at the honour of the Lord for the last time. He will have an honour duel with the Lord himself."
The corridor froze around the words.
Fleur felt the weight of the sentence even before the logic reached her. Ronald had not merely overstepped school boundaries. He had challenged a structure older and harsher than school discipline.
Fred and George stared.
Then both twins turned the exact colour of men who had just realised their little brother had reached the end of every warning available to him.
Vinda understood the situation at once.
Ronald Weasley had done this knowingly or with such severe incompetence that the difference no longer mattered. Either way, the machine had moved.
She did decide to send a letter to Corvus requesting that he spare the idiot's life at the very least until she expels him.
A second letter would go to Arthur Weasley, because if a son insisted on becoming a public disgrace, his parents at least deserved the courtesy of advance notice.
Fleur looked at the petals still crushed across the corridor stones and thought, not for the first time, that there were forms of stupidity strong enough to become a kind of magic in their own right.