A Simple Offer

It had been a long day for Harry Potter. The bespectacled fourteen year old boy with messy black hair and bright green eyes sat down heavily at the Gryffindor table with his friends. It was October thirtieth, the day before Halloween, a day that all the students of Hogwarts had been waiting for all year. The day the Triwizard tournament would begin.

"It's not that cold," said Hermione defensively as she motioned to the table where the Beauxbatons students had taken seats at the Ravenclaw table.. "Why didn't they bring cloaks?"

Ron, of course was ignoring her. He only had eyes for the Durmstrang students and his hero Victor Krum.

"Over here! Come and sit over here!" Ron hissed. "Over here! Hermione, budge up, make a space -"

"What?"

"Too late," said Ron bitterly as he watched the Durmstrang students walk past and settle at the Slytherin table.

Harry glanced that way and could see the smug look on Malfoy's and his cronies' faces. He tried to ignore Malfoy leaning over to speak to Krum, but Ron couldn't ignore it.

"Yeah, that's right, smarm up to him, Malfoy," said Ron scathingly. "I bet Krum can see right through him, though. . . bet he gets people fawning over him all the time.. . . Where d'you reckon they're going to sleep? We could offer him a space in our dormitory, Harry. . . I wouldn't mind giving him my bed, I could kip on a camp bed."

Hermione snorted at Ron's antics.

"They look a lot happier than the Beauxbatons lot," Harry said as he looked back at the blue robed students.

Ron was paying attention as he kept his eyes on Krum. "Eh.." was his only opinion.

Finally all had been seated and the staff took their seats. Dumbledore preceded the dinner with a welcoming speech to their guest and finally bid everyone to start the feast.

Harry looked at the table and noticed the house-elves had outdid themselves. There were a greater variety of dishes in front of them than Harry had ever seen, including several that were definitely foreign.

"What's that?" said Ron, pointing at a large dish of some sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak-and-kidney pudding.

"Bouillabaisse," said Hermione.

"Bless you," said Ron.

"It's French," said Hermione, "I had it on holiday summer before last. It's very nice."

"I'll take your word for it," said Ron, helping himself to black pudding.

Twenty minutes later, Harry saw Hagrid enter the Great Hall and called to him. After a verbal exchange about the skrewts, he turned back to his food. It wasn't long afterwards a female voice spoke up.

"Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?"

Harry looked toward the voice and found it belonged to a blue robed Beauxbatons student. She had long silvery-blonde hair that fell almost to her waist. Her eyes were deep blue and her even teeth were brilliant white.

Harry saw she was interested in the bowl of stew Hermione had described earlier. It was full and no one was interested in it. "Yeah, have it," said Harry, pushing the dish toward the girl.

As Harry's eyes quickly left the blonde girl, they found the dark hair of Cho Chang not realizing with that simple offer of stew, he'd set in motion events that would change his life.

Fleur sighed as she looked at the empty bowl of bouillabaisse that Marie had just handed to her. She knew Marie, a fellow Beauxbatons student, had taken the rest of it because she knew it was one of Fleur's favorite dishes; one that reminded her of home. Several of her fellow students had purposely put many of the overly heavy English food directly in front of her. "IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" she mentally screamed at the young women. "I don't ask that your boyfriends stare at me. Do you really think I like being looked at like a piece of meat? Do you think I like those idiots drooling because they can't handle my allure."

Fleur's eyes wandered the Great Hall of Hogwarts. She didn't pay much attention to the crowd of young teens at the table next to them but she did notice the full bowl of bouillabaisse that sat beside them. She rose from her seat and made her way to that table.

"Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?" Fleur asked the students.

Her eyes almost rolled in disgust as a red-haired boy did what most boys did when caught in her natural allure. She watched as his mouth dropped open and his face turned purple. She looked away when she saw the food he'd just shoveled into his mouth was now clearly visible. As she turned, the boy next to the red-head also turned and for the first time Fleur found herself mesmerized.

The boy had messy black hair, but it was his eyes, eyes of deep emerald green, that almost called to the young Veela. It took a second for her to realize the young man also wasn't acting as most boys did around her allure. He didn't even seem to notice her beauty at all. He just pushed the bowl of bouillabaisse toward her as he said. "Yeah, have it," before he turned back away.

She smirked at the other Beauxbatons students as she sat her claimed culinary treasure in front of her plate and started dishing it into a bowl. As she dipped her spoon into her stew she couldn't help but look back over at the young man with the green eyes. All through the meal, she found her eyes wandering back in his direction.

"If he were just a couple of years older," She mused and then stopped herself. But though she tried to shake those thoughts out of her mind, they kept returning as his green eyes reflected in her mind. "Those eyes are almost magical," She thought.

Finally curiosity got the better of her and she turned to a black cloaked Hogwarts' student. "Excusez-moi, but I wish to thank zat young man for giving me zis stew, can you tell me who 'e ees?" She pointed toward the green-eyed boy.

"Who? Oh the one with black hair?"

"Oui."

"That's Harry Potter. You know The-Boy-Who-Lived."

"Zat's 'Arry Potter?" Fleur gasped in amazement. She should have known of course. Her younger sister, Gabrielle, had a huge crush on the boy. Her room was littered with posters and newspaper clippings of the boy and even owned every book ever written about him.

Fleur had often teased her about it, but Gabrielle was unashamed of her fantasies she had built about the young man. Fleur only teased her lightly because she knew it was something to help Gabrielle get though the period in her life that was so difficult for a Veela. One Fleur remembered all too well.

The Ravenclaw shrugged and nodded.

"Thank you," Fleur replied. "Gabrielle won't believe me," Fleur thought with a chuckle. "I'll have to write her and tell her I spoke with her fantasy beau."