Chapter 154: Big Sister Lia WEST (1/2)
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
.
”Ah, Fleur, dear. You remember Lia West, right” called Maxime, beckoning the champion Veela towards her.
”Yes, headmistress,” nodded Fleur. Looking at Lia, who she had only seen twice or thrice from a distance so closely made the Veela, for once, a little conscious of herself.
It wasn't beauty that made Fleur uncomfortable; she was a Veela, only other Veelas and those from the Succubus race could match her in terms of beauty. No, Fleur felt that, except for physical beauty, Lia West was someone superior to her. Her position, way of dressing, and even presence, seemed to be lacking in front of her. Even her latest accomplishment as a Triwizard champion seemed pale in the face of Lia West.
”Congratulations on making it a champion, Fleur,” said Lia in French. She didn't have her brother's habit of addressing others by their last name. ”I heard you've already become friends with my baby brother.”
Fleur had been so focused on Lia that she overlooked Quinn, who was standing at a distance, looking at the serene lake.
”Yes, Quinn has been most helpful,” said Fleur, ”recently, he has been taking time to show us around the castle.”
”What? So it wasn't special. I feel hurt, brother mine.”
”Oh, stop it,” sighed Quinn. He was used to this. This sister of his was adamant about quipping jokes whenever she saw an opening.
”Fleur, back me up, would you?” said Lia. ”At my home, all have attended Hogwarts. I alone went to Beauxbatons, and whenever I try to say that our school is better, they all shut me down, saying that Hogwarts is better. Don't you think that ours is better?”
”Beauxbatons is better, no doubt about it,” replied Fleur instantly.
”Of course, that was never even a question,” added Maxime.
The three ladies looked at Quinn, daring him to say anything against their school. Quinn read the room and didn't reply, though inside he did think, 'We have the Room of Requirements, Absolute Zero, a Sin vault, a Kraken, Water vault, Forbidden Forest.. .' he realized that only one(possibly two) of those things were safe, '.. . whatever it's better.'
”Yeah, take that,” smirked Lia, asserting her newly found dominance.
He just gave her an eye roll.
Lia and Maxime decided to catch up, and as they talked, Fleur walked beside Quinn.
”Good morning, Ms. Delacour,” greeted Quinn, ”May I ask why are you here alone with your schoolmates exploring the castle?”
”It's nothing,” she replied, and Quinn noticed the quick and short reply.
”Apologies if I'm wrong, but I did feel some tension between you and the rest of the group when we went on their castle tours.”
The French champion stayed silent for a brief moment before speaking up, ”I can't control my allure; it sometimes gets in the way.”
”Are you sure? It didn't seem like that when we first met,” commented Quinn giving her a side glance.
The girl didn't look abashed at all. ”Letting it out isn't difficult. Letting out our Allure is the easiest thing for a Veela. It's keeping the Allure hidden and restrained that gives me trouble.” She sighed before continuing, ”Veelas my age already have the allure completely under control, but I just can't seem to get it under control.”
The fact that the boy beside her could shrug of her Allure on full force made her comfortable enough to talk about her problem. She had tried to tell this problem to other people, but all of them just treated it like an excuse or turn into a blubbering fool.
”Hmm, what does your mother say?”
”She tells me that I should practice,” she sighed, ”it has been getting better, but I still have a long way to go.”
Fleur glanced at Quinn, and seeing that the other two were still talking, she asked a question that Quinn had evaded every time she had brought it up.
”Why can you ignore my Allure so well? Do you have someone you like so much that it doesn't affect you?”
There were two ways non-magical ways by which one could ignore the effects of Allure. The first was to have an iron will to brute force shake away the impact of Allure. The second was to be wholeheartedly in love with someone so that the Allure never attracted them.
”Love? I don't think so,” said Quinn nonchalantly, ”I just can, so I do. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Will and Love were to non-magical ways. Magical methods like occlumency were also effective against Allure. Quinn had used a mix of will and assimilation to become indifferent to Allure.
”Nothing much.. . most people wouldn't term it as nothing much,” said Fleur.
Quinn shrugged in response. He couldn't say that he had done some crazy stuff to get to this point.
”I wonder if you would be able to shrug off my mother and grandmother's Allure. Their Allure is much more potent than mine, especially my grandmothers',” wondered Fleur aloud.
”Yes, I have read about that. The older a Veela gets, the more potent their Allure gets,” said Quinn, ”Your grandmother's Allure must be quite strong for her hair to be able to be used in your wand. I would love to sit down with her to ask some questions.”
”Hmm, if you ever come to France, I will see if I can set up a meeting with her. She usually doesn't meet with people outside of the coven.”
”Heh,” a chuckle escaped Quinn, ”same with my grandfather. He also doesn't meet people out of a select group of people.”
As the two students talked, Lia and Maxime were gazing at them.
”Your brother is quite different from you,” commented Maxime.
”How so?” asked Lia.
”He's a little cold.”
”That doesn't sound right,” said Lia quirking her brow, ”my brother's entire thing here in Hogwarts is networking and communication.”
”Not like that; he networks just fine,” replied the headmistress, ”there is something about you that makes people warm up to you instantly. Unlike you, your brother keeps people at a distance. Do you know he didn't give his family name when meeting me?”
”My brother is wiser than me when I was his age,” claimed Lia, ”My identity was revealed pretty quickly while I was in school; you remember it, right?”
”I do,” nodded Maxime, ”you were swamped for an entire year before it somewhat died down.”
”Yeah, I was an idiot in those days,” she sighed, ”my brother, on the other hand, has somehow made sure that people don't know about our family. He has hidden that behind his AID service. People don't see beyond it. Ugh, I should've done something like that. Simply playing quidditch would've done the job.”
”From the looks of it, he is going to join the business when he graduates.”
”Oh no,” chuckled Lia, ”my brother is more interested in magic. Grandfather and all of us in the family already know about it. The higher-ups in the business know that they won't be seeing Quinn West as much as they see me.”
”A child of West not going into business? That's rare, isn't it?”
”Money, Wisdom, Magic,” stated Lia, the three qualities of the West house, ”the Wests along the ages have leaned towards the first two qualities, Quinn leans towards magic and wisdom. He takes money as if it's something fun and game.”
Lia stared at her brother, talking to Fleur, and asked, ”Fleur Delacour, what can you tell me about her?”
Maxime glanced at her former student and smiled, ”Asking for your brother? Worried that he will be charmed by a Veela?”
”While I'm confident in my brother's occlumency, there is nothing wrong about keeping tabs,” shrugged the big sister, ”He is still a kid. I'm just worried that he will be taken by her looks and let her guard down.”
”It's fine; she isn't like that,” assured Maxime, ”she can't control her Allure well. That makes it difficult for her to make friends. None of those few friends made it in the delegation. There are some friendlies, but they are acquaintances at best.”
”Hmm, that's sad,” but there wasn't a matching expression on Lia's face. A sad story wasn't enough to let down her worries. ”Well, whatever, he will probably be fine, but if something does happen, I can always give them a visit. Delacour, was it?”
Lia dove into her mindscape and searched for some information on the last name. ”Hmm, oh my, Bureau de la Justice Magique with a background in Bureau des Aurors. That's impressive. Her father is Pierre Delacour, correct?”
”.. . Yes,” sighed Maxime. She was slightly amazed Lia had that level of information filed in her mind.
”Great, I can work with that,” nodded Lia, making a mental note to find more information about the man.
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
Quinn and Lia felt behind the Beauxbatons camp and had made their way into the quidditch stadium. They sat in an upper deck of the stands, overlooking the green pitch untouched from flyers skidding and crashing down during a game.
In the silence of just the two of them being there, Li asked, ”So this is going to be the construction site?”
”Yeah, the stands are too small for my likings. I need you to make it bigger,” answered Quinn.
”How many people are you planning to invite to the games?”
”Let's see.. . at least six times the current capacity,” answered Quinn, ”I think that's just the right amount of people who will come down to Hogwarts. Of course, I added a healthy amount of error margin.”
”Hmm, I see, I see,” said Lia humming, ”well, reconstruction isn't going to be difficult. Given a week or two, I can turn it to your likings.”
”I don't want a complete remodel,” spoke Quinn in explanation, ”I want this stadium to return to this state after my tournament closes by the end of this year.”
”Really, why?” asked Lia. ”Isn't having a bigger stadium better for the school?”
”If we planned to invite people to the school, then it would've been better,” answered Quinn with a shake of his head, ”but Hogwarts quidditch house cup is for the students and no one else. Occasionally, parents show up, but other than that, the audience is just students. I don't want to blow up the seating capacity just to be stuck with a stadium that looks empty at every game. It's not good for morale.”