Professor Potter Ch. 41 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: Next chapter will be the end of this fic, though I'll be treating it as the end of Book One even if we never get to come back for Book Two.

Also make sure to check out the Vibe Check immediately proceeding this post!

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In the end, the potential of getting a whole clan of Veela on Harry’s side was too much to pass up. Even if he still wasn’t entirely sure what would happen when he came face to face with the true Matriarch of the Delacour Clan, Harry knew he needed to try. They weren’t just potential allies; they were potential enemies. If he left them alone, they would probably end up on the side of the Lodge of Sorceresses. But if he could turn them to his side, he would be in a much better position.

And so he bid his time until the weekend finally arrived and Apolline Delacour could lead him to the Delacour Clan’s ancestral grounds. Harry isn’t sure what he’s expecting when they arrive, but the pressure of dozens of Veela Allures probably should have been obvious. And yet, while he does stiffen at the feeling at first, wondering briefly if this was a trap after all… it’s not as difficult as he’s imagining it to be.

It’s as though all of the differing allures are warring with each other. They’re certainly not working together. Instead, he’s merely caught in the middle of all of them, and it’s making the individual allures weaker than they otherwise would be. If they were capable of cooperation, then perhaps he would be brought to his knees. But after that first moment, Harry is able to stand tall, his shoulders squared and his jaw set.

Apolline merely nods her approval at this before leading him further in. Of course, his own presence does not go unnoticed it seems, because soon enough Harry lays eyes on some of the Veela the aforementioned allures belong to. They peek out from around corners and cracks in doorways, their attention zeroing in on him even as he follows after Apolline.

He’s a little surprised none of them make a move to be honest. He can see the hunger in their eyes. He can practically feel their desire in the air. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. And yet, not a single Veela tries to waylay them. Instead, they’re left unmolested as he and Apolline eventually reach a pair of large doors.

“You must go on without me from ‘ere, ‘Arry. The Matriarch awaits you within.”

Harry eyes Apolline for a second before slowly nodding.

“Thank you for arranging this meeting.”

Apolline flushes and averts her gaze.

“… Thank me afterwards, Lord Potter.”

Then, she steps back. Harry resists the urge to chuckle. This really isn’t the time for laughter. Still, Apolline’s farewell is laced with warning. This won’t be a simple negotiation. But then, Harry already figured as much. Girding himself, he pushes open the double doors and steps inside.

Once again, he’s not sure what he’s expecting. Perhaps an arena of some sort? Perhaps dozens of Delacour Veela all seated in a circle around the edge of the room, there to put him in his place. Or maybe he HAD expected exactly what he gets… just one woman waiting for him in a grandiose study.

Of course, even if he’d expected the latter, he never could have expected the Delacour Matriarch’s appearance. In fact, the moment he lays eyes on her, he finds himself wondering if she even IS the Delacour Matriarch. The room he finds her in would certainly speak to that, but is this some kind of trick? A prank, perhaps?

Seated in a high-back chair next to a fire is a seemingly young woman no older than Gabrielle Delacour in appearance. Silver-blonde hair and an ethereal, ephemeral beauty to her marks her undeniably as a Veela, however he feels no allure coming from her. In fact, as the doors close shut behind him of their own accord, Harry no longer feels an ounce of allure at all. Something about the room is shutting it out. They truly are alone in here.

Deciding to tread cautiously, Harry slowly moves forward, though he refrains from getting too close.

“Greetings…”

Looking up from her book, the young beauty blinks inhumanly large blue eyes, and smiles a wide smile.

“Ah. Harry Potter. At long last you stand before me. What a delight.”

Harry blinks right back, not sure how to take her words or her tone. She sounds both happy to see him, and like she couldn’t care less. More and more, he becomes sure that this is the correct woman. Despite Apolline’s assertion that the Delacour Matriarch was centuries old, Harry is confident that he stands before her all the same.

And so he bows his head but not his body, showing her respect but not deference.

“Matriarch Delacour. I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

“Oh? Have you now? Come closer.”

Before Harry can second guess the order, he finds his feet moving on their own. He takes several steps forward before he’s able to arrest his motion. What… no. That wasn’t all him. He didn’t do that entirely of his own accord. Green eyes narrow as he looks down into the wide, seemingly guileless blue eyes of the woman seated before him. In turn, the Delacour Matriarch looks up at him, batting her lashes with a strange smile on her lips.

Harry’s gaze slides lower, his attention caught by something else. Not the beautiful creature’s breasts, however. That’s not to say the Matriarch’s breasts aren’t quite gorgeous, because they are. Perfectly sculpted and shaped, and currently tantalizingly revealed by the low-cut nature of her dress combined with his position looming over her. And yet, they are not what catches Harry’s eye.

No, what catches Harry’s eye is the fact that the tome the Matriarch was making a show of reading… was upside down.

He blinks at that, as the absurdity of that realization breaks the trance. The Matriarch’s eyes flicker down to where his gaze has gone and she gasps as she realizes her mistake.

“Oh phooey!”

As she rises from her seat, Harry has already taken a step back. He takes another a moment later however, and then another. These steps, just like the ones who brought him closer to her, are not entirely voluntary. However, this time around he’s not retreating because of a command, but because his instincts are finally managing to get through the fog in his brain. He’s in the presence of a natural predator of not just men but wizards. He’s walked right into her parlor, and now he’s in the spider’s web.

“Ugh, that’s what I get for trying to look cool. Books are sooo boring~”

Harry can only watch, bewildered, as she tosses the ancient-looking tome to the side without a care in the world. Then, she smiles at him and it’s as if his entire life up until this moment has been in black and white. He’s barely able to push through the sensation, his hands curling into fists so tight that his nails are digging into the flesh of his palms.

Belatedly, Harry realizes that it’s not the room itself that keeps the allures of the other Veela in the compound at bay. It’s this woman’s presence. Her allure is so much more powerful than all of theirs that Harry couldn’t even sense it at first. Even now, he can barely get a grasp on it. He’s in the middle of a hurricane and he’s barely even realized it because there’s also a fog so thick he can’t see right in front of himself.

He-

“Calm down.”

Harry goes still as she suddenly appears right in front of him. Her hand is on his chest, and his heartbeat, which had been getting faster and faster, finally stops going a mile a minute. His mind even clears up a little bit… enough that he’s able to get his wand into his hand and bring it between them, pointing it unwaveringly at the Matriarch’s face.

Or rather, he wishes it was unwavering. His arm is shaking. His wand is very much wavering. Grimacing, Harry nevertheless tries to keep the point on her, even as he tries to get a handle on what’s happening.

He thought he was ready. He thought he could handle this. Only now is he starting to realize how ill-prepared he was for-

“No. None of that Harry. Honestly, that self-doubt is your biggest weakness.”

Startling, Harry jolts back. Had she just read his mind? Was she-

“Oh, it’s simple Legilimency. Nothing to throw a fit over, darling.”

That was not simple Legilimency! He couldn’t even feel her! At least with Jean Grey, he’d quickly adapted to be able to sense when the girl was peering past his Occlumency Shield or not. But with the Delacour Matriarch he’s completely blind.

“My name is Vivienne, by the by. Just in case you wanted to stop calling me ‘Matriarch’ in your head.”

Harry grits his teeth as the Matri- as Vivienne gives him another guileless smile. He narrows his eyes and refocuses himself, firming up his grip on the wand he’s pointing at her.

“Get out of my head.”

Her smile warps into something wicked and she lets out a soft laugh.

“Make me.”

He shoots off a stunner right then and there, wordlessly casting it at point blank range. And yet, that doesn’t stop Vivienne from swiping the red pulse out of the air with a lightning fast swat of her hand, deflecting the magic into the ground with seemingly no effect.

Harry’s heart drops. Shit. There’s nothing he can do to her, is there? There’s-

“Stop that. I told you already, none of that now. You’re better than that, Harry.”

It takes him a moment to realize she’s talking about his self-doubt. Harry grits his teeth, angry beyond measure but struggling with the feeling of hopelessness pervading this encounter. What the fuck did that mean, he was better than that? She had him dead to rights!”

Stepping forward, into his personal space and past his outstretched arm, Vivienne brings her hands up and caresses his face with her palms.

“You’ve been hiding from yourself, Harry Potter. You think this is the full breadth of your power? You’ve managed to fool yourself so well that you’ve fooled all the others as well. Not even the Lodge knows your true potential.”

Her lips curl into a satisfied smirk. And suddenly, her nails are digging into his flesh, not quite piercing his skin but certainly not massaging it either.

“But I do. And if you don’t make me stop, I’ll just have to gobble you up and make you mine. Is that what you want, Harry? To be my latest pet. So… disappointing.”

Belatedly, he notices that she has no accent. Even Gabrielle had had a minor accent, while Fleur and Apolline had harsher accents. But Vivienne Delacour’s English is proper and posh, incredibly refined.

His heart is starting to beat rapidly again. He doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Hiding from himself? Fooling himself? What does she even mean? But she wasn’t giving him time to think. Her nails were threatening to draw blood, but they were the worst of his problems. Her allure, her sheer presence… it was threatening to dig into him from all angles. Like a million knives all slowly pressing in on him from all sides.

He can’t think. He can’t breathe. But… he refuses to give in here. He refuses to be Vivienne Delacour’s latest pet. Deep within himself, Harry feels something… crack. Desperation filling his every movement at this point, he reaches for that something with all of his might. As Vivienne Delacour’s overwhelming presence bears down upon him, Harry retreats inward.

A look of disappointment flickers across the Delacour Matriarch’s face at that.

“So be it. I suppose-!”

Whatever she ‘supposed’ never gets said, because in the next moment, she’s flung away from Harry as he… well, for lack of a better word, explodes. Magic rushes out of him, ripping through the air around him. It tears apart his clothes and swirls in a circle. It flings Vivienne Delacour away from him, causing her nails to catch in his flesh and rip large furrows of skin out of his face. However, before the pain from those scratches can even register, something warm and fizzling fills the furrows, and Harry knows without even having to check that he’s healing up.

Magic… magic has never felt this easy. It’s never felt this good either. Harry’s breaths come out in gasps and pants as he looks down at himself. His wand… hadn’t survived the explosion either. It’d quite literally come apart, just as his clothing had. Unlike his clothing however, Harry can SEE the magical components of his wand still floating in the air, reduced to mere particles. And yet… mere particles was all Harry needed.

His Holly Wand with Phoenix Feather had quite a lot of sentimental value to it. Reaching out, Harry pulls on those particles, and in an instant his wand has reformed into a tattoo that crawls up his skin, sliding along his flesh before settling on his shoulder. A representation of Fawkes the Phoenix throwing his head back and cawing rests there now, and Harry knows his wand will always be with him, always be a part of him.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Harry looks down at himself again. Then, his head snaps up as Vivienne Delacour finally pulls herself off the floor.

“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

The Veela Matriarch’s inhumanly large blue eyes twinkle with excitement. Her silver-blonde hair defies gravity as it floats in the air around her like a halo. Harry looks upon her with a clear mind for the first time and recognizes how beautiful she is… but also how deadly and dangerous she is. This right here before him is the most powerful opponent he’s ever faced. Even more powerful than Lord Voldemort. In fact, Harry doesn’t have a doubt in his mind that Vivienne would wipe the floor with dear old Tom.

But then, as Harry is now… he thinks he could do so just as easily. Hell, as he is now, he feels like he could have grabbed Voldemort by the face, used his fragmented soul to track down all of his Horcruxes, and then destroyed both the Dark Lord and his soul shards all at once through that connection.

“I can’t read your thoughts anymore, Harry. So you’re going to have to tell me how we’re doing this. Are you ready to talk?”

Emerald eyes twitch as he looks to Vivienne. On the one hand, the ancient being had helped him unlock his true magic. What that meant, Harry didn’t know… but it felt amazing. On the other hand, she’d done it in a way that still pissed him off even now.

Not even her allure could touch him now. He was free to make his own decisions. And so… Harry chooses.