"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."
"Ah, the makes sense."
"So, make temporary adjustments that can stand for the entire year and yet can be easily removed," then he continued with a juicy piece of information, "the third task is going to be a magical maze. As such, this stadium is going to be broken down to make space for the said maze. My tournament is set to end before the third and final task with ample time to grow the maze."
"A magical maze, you say.. . well, it's not going to be a problem to build the stadium," she said.
"I've already sent you the design briefs. I'm not an architect, so you can make the necessary adjustments, but I want the stadium to look something close to my image. The banners and all will be designed to maximize the real estate I will have in the new stadium."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of everything," said Lia, "you just need to make sure that our construction firm gets enough exposure in terms of ."
"That will be taken care of, no problem."
"Good, let's shake on it," she said, and the siblings exchanged a handshake to seal the deal.
"Now that we're done, I wanted to ask," said Lia, "why are you doing all of this? Professor Maxime told me that the justification you gave for starting this tournament was international relations, but do tell me the real reason behind all of this."
"Who says there is another motive except for international relations," grinned Quinn, "we of all know how vital international relations are. Almost all of our business abroad is built on positive interaction with the ministries and local people."
"Okay, and?" said Lia, not buying it.
".. . I wanted to do something different this year," answered Quinn, "the regular AID work had gotten repetitive, same people with same problems year after year, all year long. So when the headmaster announced the Tri-wizard tournament and with it the cancellation of the quidditch cup, I decided to work on it. At first, it wasn't going to be this big, but it had reached this stage by the time I pitched it to my professor. Other than that, Eddie had been training very hard for the quidditch season this year, so I had to do something that won't waste his year. I'm sure if this wasn't happening, he would've dropped quidditch and moved onto doing something else without getting a closure of sorts about what he had trained for an entire year."
"Aren't you a nice friend," said Lia poking Quinn's cheek with a cheeky smile, "just don't overwork yourself, okay?"
"Yes, mum," replied Quinn rolling his eyes.
"Don't take that tone with me, young man," returned Lia, playing on with it.
- (Scene Break) -
After a couple of hours in Hogwarts, it was time for Lia to leave the premises. Both she and Quinn were busy people with their own commitments and needed to get on with their day.
As they moved towards the castle entrance, Quinn heard a voice call out to him,
"Mr. West."
The pair of siblings paused and turned their heads to look towards the source of the voice to see the headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.
He was tall, thin, and old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He wore long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles sitting on his nose.
"Headmaster," greeted Quinn.
Dumbledore walked to them with a smile on his face. "I heard that your sister was coming by today, so I had to take this chance to meet the family of the smartest student in the castle. I went to the assigned room, but it seemed you didn't use it today."
"The smartest student; Headmaster, you flatter me," said Quinn continuing the conversation while inside thinking what Dumbledore meant.
"You must be Lia West," said Dumbledore observing the elder child of the Wests.
"Yes, and you're Albus Dumbledore," said Lia, engaging in conversation with the widely famous man. "I've heard a lot about you, Headmaster Dumbledore."
"All good, I hope," smiled Dumbledore beneath his beard.
"Indeed, your reputation precedes you," said Lia putting on a smile. She knew the most famous man in all of magical Britain, along with magical communities all around Europe.
While Lia hadn't been given the talk about being vigilant of Albus Dumbledore as Quinn had gotten, but Lia knew an anomaly when she saw one. For a person of his position, Albus Dumbledore had too much of a positive image. Except for the occasional scathing article from Rita Skeeter, Dumbledore was as clean as a whistle. Even the businesses owned by Wests weren't as clean as Dumbledore.
"Were you leaving?" asked Dumbledore, seeing that they were towards the gate.
"Yes, I came here to see the construction site for the quidditch tournament," replied Lia, "from the looks of it, it's going to be an exciting year at Hogwarts; first Tri-wizard and now this. A lot of eyes on the school."
Dumbledore glanced at Quinn, who stood beside his sister with a small smile on his face, the same smile that he had seen in his office, "With how things are proceeding, it's going to be bigger than I expected."
"The moment you read out Harry Potter's name as champion, the attention that the Tri-wizard tournament gained rose to another level, headmaster," commented Quinn.
"That's an understatement, Mr. West," sighed Dumbledore. Then he smiled as he spoke towards Quinn, "I was surprised by your initiative, Mr. West. In all my years at Hogwarts, I haven't seen a student initiative of this magnitude. This is going to be the first of its kind."
"You can't take quidditch out of Hogwarts," laughed Quinn, "I just made things more interesting. This year's theme is international relations, after all."
Dumbledore nodded. "I was skeptical at first, but when you started to send me those detailed progress documents, I couldn't say anything, could I?"
"The need to report the progress arose when Professor McGonagall started to look anxious every time we met. I had to do something to ease her worries."
"Mr. West, if you pull this off, you'll get a unanimous vote Special Award for Service from the Board of Governors," said Dumbledore smiling.
"Isn't that great, Quinn," beamed Lia, happy for the recognition of her brother's hard work.
"It is," nodded Quinn humbly.
Three people had gotten the reward in the history of Hogwarts. Tom Riddle for his alleged capture of the student (Hagrid) who had opened the Chamber of Secrets. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley for defeating Tom Riddle and the Serpent of Slytherin in the Chamber of Secrets; the information about Tom Riddle was omitted from the record.
Dumbledore faced Lia and asked, "Would you be coming to the games, Ms. West?"
"If I'm free, I would definitely be here," answered Lia with a smile, "it's my baby brother's big project, after all."
Quinn just smiled in response.
"What about your grandfather?" asked Dumbledore, getting to the point, "Will he come? I would love to meet him. I haven't met him in a long time and would like to catch up."
"I can't comment on his behalf," answered Lia, "if he's free, our grandfather will definitely come to every game. Unfortunately, he has been busy lately," George was busy working on Quinn's latest products, "though I will relay your desire to meet him to grandfather."
"That would be much appreciated."
"It was nice talking to you, headmaster Dumbledore, but I must take my leave," said Lia ending the conversation.
"Of course, of course," said Dumbledore and then spoke to Quinn, "Mr. West, please escort your sister out."
"Yes, of course," said Quinn, and the Wests exited the castle, leaving behind Dumbledore alone.
When they reached the boundary, Lia asked. "Why do you think he wants to meet grandfather?"
"Probably about some political agenda; looking for his support," replied Quinn, "tell grandfather, he will decide if he wants to meet Dumbledore. Though if he does come to the games, I'm sure Dumbledore will corner him for a talk."
"Well, I'm sure grandfather will handle himself," shrugged Lia.
"No doubt, no doubt."
.. .
As Quinn returned to the castle, he thought about going to the Room of Requirements to get in a workout. When he entered the castle, he was surprised and came to a stop.
"Headmaster?"
Dumbledore turned his gaze away from the ceiling to Quinn, and with a twinkle in his eyes, he spoke.
"Walk with me, Mr. West."
Quinn West - MC - Aren't we meeting too many people today?
Lia West - Elder sister - She still has that protectiveness for Quinn.
Fleur Delacour - Poor control over Allure - Wants Quinn to meet her grandmother.
Olympe Maxime - Headmistress - Beauxbatons is better.
Albus Dumbledore - Headmaster - Spotted two Wests in the wild.
