Not just veela Chapter One, Pt. 3

Instructions

Chapter One: The Goblet's Call That night, the dormitory was loud with excitement. My roommates had transformed our sitting room into something between a strategy council and a fashion disaster. Trunks lay open across the floor. Robes had been pulled from hangers and flung over chairs. Someone had conjured a tiny replica of Hogwarts Castle that marched across the carpet on chicken legs, though no one admitted responsibility. Célestine sat cross-legged before the fire, painting her fingernails blue. “You must enter,” she told me as soon as I came in. “I must do nothing.” “You are precisely the sort of person they choose for these things.” “That is not reassuring.” “You are brilliant, composed, and frightening when angry.” “I am not frightening.” Every person in the room looked at me. I folded my arms. “Fine. Perhaps a little.” Amélie perched on the arm of a chair, reading a letter from her cousin’s father. “Apparently, Hogwarts is hosting a delegation from both schools. There will be a welcoming feast, formal introductions, and—listen to this—students under seventeen will be prevented from entering.” “How?” asked Lucie. “An Age Line, perhaps,” I said automatically. Amélie looked at me. “You have decided to enter.” “No.” The word came too quickly. Célestine’s smile became unbearable. “You have.” “I said no.” “You did, but you did it in the voice you use when you are lying.” “I do not have a voice for lying.” “You absolutely do.” I turned toward my bed, pulling the curtains aside with more force than necessary. “Fleur,” Amélie said gently. I paused. “Why would you not enter?” There were many answers. Because the Tournament was dangerous. Because I did not want to fail in front of two entire schools and half of Europe. Because I knew what people would say if I tried. They would call me vain. They would say I expected the Goblet to choose me because people had always looked at me. They would reduce every achievement to the blood in my veins and every mistake to the arrogance in my heart. Because some small, secret part of me feared that the Goblet would not choose me at all. Instead, I said, “Because there are other students who may be better suited.” Célestine stopped painting her nails. “That is not like you,” she said. “No?” “No. You are not cruel about it, but you know you are good.” The room quieted. I looked down at my wand, lying on the bedside table. Rosewood, nine and a half inches, with a Veela hair core. My mother had cried when I bought it. Not because she was sad—Maman rarely cried from sadness—but because she said it had chosen me so decisively. My wand had never hesitated in my hand. Perhaps I should not, either. “I do not know whether I am good enough,” I said. It was the most honest thing I had said all day. Célestine’s expression changed. She set aside the nail polish. “You do not have to be certain you will win,” she said. “You only have to be certain that you will not regret trying.” A simple thought. Almost obvious. Still, it stayed with me after the lamps were extinguished, after the other girls fell asleep, after moonlight spread across the floor in long pale bars. I lay awake beneath my curtains, listening to the castle settle around us. In two weeks, we would leave France. We would cross the sea or fly over it—I had heard several versions of Madame Maxime’s travel plans, each more dramatic than the last. We would arrive at Hogwarts, meet the Durmstrang students, stand before the Goblet of Fire, and wait to learn whose futures had changed. I imagined walking into the Great Hall. I imagined the blue flames. I imagined writing my name on a scrap of parchment. Fleur Delacour. For a while, I saw only what might be waiting: danger, humiliation, failure. Then I saw something else. A chance to be chosen not for my face, not for my name, not for the magic in my blood, but for what I could do when it mattered. At last, sometime before dawn, I made my decision. I would enter the Triwizard Tournament. And if the Goblet chose me, I would make Beauxbatons remember my name.