Year 6, Chapter 3 – Holiday in France

From the Journal of Hermione Granger – August 12

What an amazing three days that was! We spent two days and one night in Paris, the next night at Fleur’s estate in southern France, and then a day at Beauxbatons, which is near the Mediterranean coast. Now we’re back here at the villa my parents have rented for the month of August, and Harry will be staying with us for two weeks !

Paris was wonderful. We didn’t really have the time to visit any museums properly, so we stuck to the major tourist sights – the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées, the site of the Bastille, and Versailles. The evening we stayed there Harry and I took a walk along the banks of the Seine. It was every bit as romantic as I’d hoped it would be. We both promised each other that we’d come back some day when the war was over. I do have all those museums to show him after all. We also visited the Paris equivalent of Diagon Alley, Rue de Magique. Harry was under his invisibility cloak, since no one is supposed to know he is in France and we didn’t want to take the chance of him being recognized. We didn’t stay too long – just enough to get an idea of what it was like.

Accommodations turned out to not be a problem. Fleur brought along a magical tent that her family owns. It is very similar to the ones we stayed in at the Quidditch World cup, but more versatile. It has two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room, but the dimensions of each room are variable. Like all magical tents, it’s bigger on the inside than on the outside, but within the expanded inner space the other four rooms can be resized as desired. For example, you can make the kitchen bigger and the living room smaller, if you want to eat your meals in the kitchen, or you can make the living area larger at the expense of the kitchen if you want a more formal dining space.

In our case, we made one bedroom small (for Harry) and the other one large enough to sleep 3 comfortably, and kept the kitchen and living room smaller. We didn’t use the kitchen much at all, and just used the other space as a sitting room.

One of the results of that arrangement was that I got to know Tonks and Fleur better, as we talked a bit at night before we fell asleep. Tonks is a Black on her mother’s side. Her mum, Andromeda, was Sirius’s cousin, and her sisters are Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy. I sympathized with her about having those two for aunts, but she pointed out that she’d never had any contact with them while growing up, since the Blacks had disowned her mother when she married her father, who was a muggleborn named Ted Tonks. She’s perfectly fine with that, since she can’t stand the Black family anyway and would rather forget that she’s related to them. And having a muggleborn father enabled her to learn about the muggle world as well as the magical, which is useful to her as an Auror. That’s why she is able to dress and act normally (as a muggle that is) when she needs to, which is difficult for pureblood witches and wizards.

I expressed my condolences to her on Sirius’s death, which she accepted graciously. She’s sad about it, as one would expect, but not as devastated as I’d been led to believe. There’s something else that’s upsetting her as well, which she’s shared with Fleur but not me. She did mention being very glad that the Black estate, such as it was, went to Harry instead of to Bellatrix or Narcissa. Draco is certain to be quite angry about that, since he assumed that he would eventually inherit it. Harry will have to keep an eye on him this year in case he tries to retaliate. But then, when hasn’t Draco had it in for Harry?

Fleur’s family readily welcomed us to their home, which is a large manor house on an estate in the wine country, with lots of vineyards. It’s nothing like the Burrow, or Grimmauld Place for that matter. I can see now why Fleur was bored at Bill’s house before Harry arrived. Her mother is a strikingly beautiful woman, so it is obvious which side of the family Fleur gets her looks and her Veela heritage from. I’m not certain whether Mrs. Delacour is a full or half Veela.

The Delacours, of course, had heard all about Harry Potter, even before the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and became even more familiar with him as a result of that event. Young Gabrielle is completely smitten with him, considering him to be her personal hero for rescuing her from the lake in the Second Task, and collects every bit of news about him that she can find. It was quite embarrassing for him – he said that it was like an eleven year old Ginny all over again. It turns out that she just turned eleven and will be attending Beauxbatons in the fall. When I told her I was considering transferring there, she immediately promised to do everything she could to help me out. She’s absolutely adorable, and the cutest little girl I’ve ever seen. She’ll be a real heartbreaker when she’s older, especially being a part Veela like Fleur.

The Delacour family has several house elves that tend their vineyards and produce the wine. It was a real struggle for me to be a polite guest and keep my mouth shut about the exploitation of these poor creatures. They treat them well, at least, and the elves seem to be genuinely happy with what they’re doing. I still think it’s no different than slave labor, which all civilized countries renounced more than a hundred years ago.

Beauxbatons is very different than Hogwarts, but no less impressive. It’s absolutely breathtaking in how beautiful it is. It’s not an old stone castle, but a more modern looking structure that strongly resembles the palace at Versailles. We later learned that this is not a coincidence – the people who built Versailles included some wizards, and it was actually modeled after Beauxbatons.

It was established as an alternative to Hogwarts about 200 years after Hogwarts was founded, as the population of Europe began to increase as it came out of the Dark Ages. It’s structurally smaller than Hogwarts, but its student population is larger, since it serves a larger geographic area. We learned that although Hogwarts draws its students exclusively from the British Isles, Beauxbatons students come from France and several surrounding countries, including Spain and Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Durmstrang, which is located on the Baltic coast of Germany, or rather Prussia, in what used to be Germany but is now part of Poland, serves Germany and Austria, the Scandinavian countries, The Balkan countries, and western Russia.

The building itself is much easier to navigate through than Hogwarts, with long straight corridors and lots of large windows. It is divided into an instructional section and a residential section. There are no houses; the students are divided by year, with a separate floor for each year. The upper years have the higher floors, which have the better views. The girls’ wings are separated from the boys’ wings by a large common room on each floor, and there are smaller common rooms scattered here and there. While it is possible for students to enter the corridors of the opposite sex during certain hours, they can’t go into the bedrooms. That is, boys can’t enter the girls’ rooms and girls can’t enter the boys’ rooms, unlike Hogwarts, where only the girls’ stairway is charmed to keep boys out.

Instruction is in French, and the robes they wear are considerably lighter in weight, made of fine silk, and are more form fitting than at Hogwarts. Fleur informs me that the Beauxbatons girls are pleased with this, and were generally horrified at how ugly the Hogwarts robes were. I have to agree that the unisex robes at Hogwarts did little for our figures. My parents were somewhat concerned about the expense of buying a whole new set of silk robes, while I was worried that my French wouldn’t be good enough. I learned to speak French in primary school, but I haven’t used it in ages, other than on our holiday here 3 years ago. Fleur came to the rescue on both of these counts. She said I could use some of her old robes if I wanted, and that she would help me with my French. Passing down school robes is apparently common, as the silk fabric is quite durable. Gabrielle will wear the same ones that Fleur did when she was a first year, and I’ll return the ones I borrow when I’m finished with them so that she can wear them as well when she’s older.

Madame Maxime was very enthusiastic to have me as a student. She told me she had a letter from Professor McGonagall that went on and on about what a fine student I was, claiming that I was the brightest witch they’d had at Hogwarts in the past 20 years. (I later figured out that she meant since Harry’s mother, Lily.) Of course I was very embarrassed when she said this, but I could see how proud Harry was of me and that made me feel good inside.

Their system is different than ours, in that they take OWLs after their sixth year, not their fifth. At first I thought that meant that I would have to do them all over again, but when she saw my scores she said that meant that I would be put in seventh year instead of sixth year. That helped persuade my parents, since the idea of me being advanced a year appealed to their sense of pride. I liked the idea since it meant I’d graduate a year sooner and would definitely only be spending a year here before I could come back to Harry. It does mean that I will be the youngest in my class instead of the oldest, as I am now.

We had a long, serious discussion of the idea last night when we arrived back here in Cap d’Antibes. Harry brought up the idea of both of us transferring to Beauxbatons, but we discarded it rather quickly. Having him there would make me less safe from my parents’ point of view, and he needs the special training Dumbledore is going to give him. Finally everyone agreed that this was the way to go. So, I am now a Beauxbatons student.

Even though it’s the best solution, I couldn’t help crying a bit afterward. Harry hugged me as we sat out on the balcony. Neither of us could really think of anything to say, but that was OK. I just needed him to hold me.

-0x0x0-

From the Journal of Hermione Granger – August 14

We’ve settled into something of a routine. We spend several hours a day studying – I study French with Fleur and Harry works out with Tonks. Tonks used her Auror connections to locate a place not too far from here for them to train. Part of his training is conditioning, and Tonks is making us run/walk on the beach in the morning. I join Harry for this part. I have discovered that I really need to get in shape. I also discovered that my new bikini tops don’t support me well enough to jog on the beach. I’m sure Harry didn’t mind the sight, but the bouncing made me really uncomfortable. I bought a sports bra after the first morning. Harry acted disappointed, but he still gets to see quite a bit of me.

We spend the rest of the day out on the beach. Harry is enjoying the series of books I brought for him – The Chronicles of Narnia. He can’t sit back and read for hours like I can, though. He’s too restless and needs to get up and do things. He does spend a fair bit of the time enjoying the scenery. That brings us to the issue of swimwear.

This is the French Riveria, of course, and the suits are very brief, both for men and for women. Mum and I discussed the whole topless thing before he arrived, and I warned him about it before we went to the beach the first day. He’s adjusted to the concept rather well – a bit too well from my point of view. To be fair, he only stubbed his toe the one time, and only tripped over the lounge chair twice, and those were all on the first day. Of course, Mum and I both keep our tops on.

I’m not sure, but I think my mum would go topless if it were just her and my dad. I didn’t ask and she didn’t tell. There are some things you just don’t want to know about what your parents do. Of course, I’m much too self-conscious about my body to do that – it took all of my Gryffindor courage to wear these bikinis. The more revealing one hardly covers me at all. I haven’t worn that one yet, but I will after Harry gets used to me in this one. I have to admit that he does spend more time looking at me than at the other girls – even the topless ones. That gives me a pretty good feeling about myself. I think maybe in a few years, if Harry and I come back here, ( without my parents) I might be brave enough to give it a try.

Tonks and Fleur were pretty funny. Fleur started out in a one-piece suit that’s more conservative than anything even my mother would wear. Mum says it’s like what her mother wore when she was a girl. Tonks had on a normal one-piece like Mum and I wear back home. Fleur’s suit didn’t even make it out of the room. As soon as she saw what the rest of us were wearing she transfigured hers to look like Tonks’s. By the end of the first morning they both decided to switch to two piece suits. Now they look more like the other women on the beach, and Fleur is seriously considering something even smaller. I hope she doesn’t decide to go topless. I don’t think Harry would be able to take his eyes off her. My dad would like it, though, if my mum didn’t kill him.

Fleur, of course, has a perfect figure. Her bust is considerably more impressive than mine, and her waist is smaller. Not fair! And Tonks can have any figure she wants. Oddly enough, though, she says she’s using her normal body now because she’s having trouble morphing lately. It has to do with her being so depressed. It turns out that it’s because there’s a guy she’s interested in, but who’s putting her off. When we figured out that it was a romantic thing, Harry and I first thought she might have fallen for Sirius. Sure, they were cousins, but apparently that’s not uncommon with purebloods. But now we realize that’s not it; there’s another man involved. She talks to Fleur about it and Fleur offers her advice, which makes sense since she understands a lot more about that sort of thing.

So anyway, Harry and I are getting to see a lot of each other, so to speak. I’m enjoying looking at him almost as much as he’s enjoying looking at me. I made him get one of those tight little suits the French and Italian guys wear. It’s only fair that I get to ogle his nice firm bum too! And putting sunscreen on each other’s backs is a real treat. I love rubbing my hands on his bare skin, and I get a tingle every time he does the same for me. The look on his face the first time I unhooked the back of my bikini so he could do my back was just priceless. I think he thought for a second that I was going to take it off completely. In your dreams, Potter!

Everyone is getting along OK. It’s a bit cramped in the villa, but we worked it out. It’s a two-bedroom, with my parents in one and me in the other. Harry sleeps on the sofa out in the living room. Fleur and Tonks put the tent up at night in the living room, and sleep in it. That also keeps them close to Harry, since they are his bodyguards after all.

I reminded Harry that gillyweed is native to the Mediterranean. We might try to find some and go skin diving using it. Mostly, though, we’re just being together, trying to build up enough closeness to last us during the year we’ll be apart. It won’t be enough, but we’ll do the best we can.

-0x0x0-

From the Journal of Hermione Granger – August 20

This is absolutely the best vacation I’ve ever had! I think Harry and I are even closer now than we were before. I’m certain I’ve found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. Unfortunately, it’s going to be even harder being apart after he leaves next week.

The French is coming along nicely. I can read it just fine, but conversing is more of a challenge. Having Fleur talk with me in French every day is a godsend. Tonks is teaching Harry about spellcasting combinations in fighting. The way we did it in the DA, casting one spell at a time, is completely inadequate in a battle. She’s also been telling us about what’s happening in the fight against Voldemort.

Supposedly, Dumbledore has told her to keep Harry completely informed. I say ‘supposedly’, because I don’t think he even tells the Order everything. But at least Tonks is telling us what she knows. The current theory is that Voldemort took a major hit with the loss of almost his entire inner circle of Death Eaters, and needs some time to build up his forces. The dementor attacks are a diversion while he does this. The Ministry Aurors are spending nearly all their time responding to these attacks, and consequently he has free reign to make his other plans. The Aurors are making progress, but it will take some time before the dementors are completely eliminated as a threat. They’re also concerned about giants.

No one is really sure what Dumbledore has been doing, but he’s been away a lot. Harry recalled that he noticed when Dumbledore picked him up from the Dursley’s that he had injured his wand hand. Tonks says it looks pretty serious, but no one knows what caused it or how to treat it. Harry vowed to find out more about this when he gets back to Hogwarts.

As far as the Ministry is concerned, Scrimgeour is really shaking things up. There’s no question now that we’re in a war. They’ve put out several communications to the wizarding public about what to do in case of attack, and general security precautions. Tonks says that Scrimgeour and Dumbledore are at odds, though. He wants more vocal support from him, but the Headmaster is taking a wait and see attitude. She confirmed that Scrimgeour is also anxious to meet with Harry.

Amelia Bones is on a tear, rooting out Voldemort supporters at the Ministry. It’s an extension of her investigation about what happened at the Department of Mysteries. She’s already got rid of several highly placed employees, including Marietta Edgecombe’s mother. As we suspected, she was responsible for the floo network being shut down that night. According to Tonks, Madame Bones has been by far the most effective individual so far in the fight against Voldemort.

On a lighter note, we found a place to get gillyweed and the four of us are going diving today. Today will also be the first time I wear my more revealing bikini. I can’t wait to see Harry’s reaction. I may have to remind him to breathe. Along those lines, Fleur has progressed to some pretty brief bikinis of her own, but has assured me that she won’t wear anything less than I do. So I don’t have to worry about her going topless, or coming out in one of those thong bottoms that some of the other girls here wear. I can’t imagine wearing something like that in public, although I’m sure that Harry would enjoy it if I did.

I asked Fleur about her choice of bathing costumes the first day, and she said she’d never been to a muggle beach before, so she consulted her old Muggle Studies book to find out what women wore. Apparently Beauxbatons’ course is about 50 years out of date. I suppose that’s at least better than Hogwarts’ course which is even more antiquated. At any rate, she told me Veelas normally avoid going out in public in this little clothing because of the attention they get. I can understand that, based on the reaction of all the males here to her when she’s at the beach. I think I could lay out starkers right next to her and no one would notice. Well, except for Harry, of course, the dear. Fleur also said that French witches usually wear two piece suits like most of the girls here, except they keep their tops on.

-0x0x0-

From the Journal of Hermione Granger – August 27

Today was Harry’s last day here. I can’t believe how I can feel so happy and so sad at the same time. Happy because we just spent the two most wonderful weeks of our lives together. Sad, of course, because now I won’t see him for 4 months. I’m also still tingling from what we did before he left, and the gifts we exchanged.

Harry looked over at Hermione for the sixth time in the last quarter hour. He had finished the last book of the Narnia series yesterday, and didn’t have anything to do now but enjoy the scenery on the beach. And she was looking especially good today. She was wearing the smaller of her two bikinis, the one that had made his mouth go dry when he had first seen her in it the previous week. Her father had practically had a fit about it, but her mother had somehow calmed him down. He didn’t think he wanted to know what she had whispered in his ear that made him choke like that, but he hadn’t seen either of them on the beach the rest of the day.

This particular suit was a red string bikini with string tie sides. The bottom had a small triangle in the front that barely covered the essentials, and had what Hermione told him was a Rio cut back, meaning that about half of her bum was exposed. That seemed to be about the same fraction of her breasts that the tiny triangles of the top left visible. Even after a week his jaw still dropped when he saw her walking toward him wearing it. Right now, she was lying on her stomach reading a book in French, and her mouth was moving as she worked on her pronunciation. The strings of her top were untied in back and were dangling in the sand alongside the lounge chair on either side of her. They were driving him crazy. So was the barely covered flesh at the top of her legs.

“Is there something I can help you with or are you just enjoying the view?” Harry’s gaze snapped away from where it was fixed on her behind and shifted to look at the smirk that had crept onto her face as she looked away from her book at him.

“Well, I’m certainly enjoying the view, but if you can tear yourself away from your reading for a while I wouldn’t mind going for a walk,” he suggested.

“OK. My head is about as full of French verb forms as it can get right now,” she agreed. “Tie me up.” Harry arched his eyebrows at her at the innuendo in her request, but she just cocked her head and grinned saucily at him. He reached over and stroked his hands up and down her back, taking his time with the strings, and managing to graze his fingertips over her partially covered shapely bottom once before he finished. She made no protest at his dalliance, indeed it was all she could do to keep from moaning in pleasure.

She felt his eyes lovingly caress her figure as she rolled to a sitting position, then stood to face him and smiled as he reached to take her hand helping her to her feet. Hand in hand they headed off down the shoreline one last time.

“Ready for a dip?” Harry asked about twenty minutes later. They had left the more crowded section of the beach behind and by now they were both sweltering in the hot Mediterranean sun. Hermione nodded and they turned into the water and waded out, picking their way carefully around the occasional rock. Soon they were covered up to their shoulders.

“I’m really going to miss you,” Hermione whispered as she moved closer to him, pressing her body to his and linking her arms around his neck. Harry’s acknowledgement was cut short by her lips and for the next few minutes they lost themselves in each other.

Once more Harry’s hands drifted down to her swimsuit bottom and again Hermione made no protest. Instead, she followed his example and dropped her own hands to the back of his suit. She gasped as his fingers crossed the fabric/skin boundary and began to stroke the bare part of her bum, and she elicited a moan from him as she squeezed his nicely toned gluteus muscles in turn.

If Harry thought he had died and gone to heaven, he was not prepared for what happened next. After a thorough massage he relaxed as Hermione’s hands released him and moved back to untangle his own hands from her bunched up suit bottom. To his shock she moved them up to place them over the two small triangles of the other half of her swimsuit, while she attacked his mouth again.

Curling his fingers gently over what she had offered him as if they were a rare treasure, he rubbed his thumbs timidly over the hard nubs that appeared in the thin fabric. This time Hermione did not try to suppress her moans, and both their hearts were pounding enough to make their chests ache. Harry was having difficulty controlling his breathing as Hermione returned her own hands to their previous location on his bum and pulled him against her hips, which also had the effect of letting her feel just how excited he was about the activity they were engaging in.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, they were rudely interrupted from their increasingly frenzied activity when a large wave crashed over them, breaking them apart and leaving them sputtering for breath. Since the water had been completely calm just seconds before, they were not surprised when they brushed their dripping hair out of their eyes and spotted a pair of witches giggling on the shore.

“Wotcher, you two!” called Tonks. “Your parents sent us to tell you it was time to come in and get ready for dinner. You about finished out there?”

Both teens blushed bright red as they turned to each other, then burst out laughing. Hermione quickly adjusted her suit to make sure everything was in place, and Harry pulled his own down in the back where it had ridden up as a result of Hermione’s exertions. Then he reached his arm around her and pulled her in close, and she leaned her head against his chest as they picked their way back to the beach and joined their smirking friends. Even though they managed to keep up a friendly conversation on the walk back, they continually exchanged knowing glances and neither of them lost the bright smiles that filled their faces, both very contentwith this new aspect of their relationship.

Oh, how I’d wanted to do that so much. I’d been thinking about it all week. It will certainly give me more to dream about while we’re apart. Whenever I close my eyes I can remember the feel of him touching me.

Another thing that will help is the presents we exchanged later. He said he had an early birthday present for me, and I told him I had a late birthday present for him. Neither of us knew the other was doing it, but it turns out Fleur knew and had helped us each pick out the other’s present. She’s such a romantic! It turned out that we both got the other a pendant that will remind us of each other. Mine is a golden snitch on a lovely gold chain. The one I got him was a miniature book on a leather cord (very masculine of course). The best part was that Fleur enchanted them – they respond to our thoughts. So when I think of how much I love Harry, the book will get warm and he’ll be able to feel it, and the same for me with the snitch. We’re going to try to take some time each night before we go to sleep to share our feelings with each other.

I tried not to cry when they left, but I couldn’t stop a few tears. We stood there and hugged each other until Tonks said it was time to go. She’s taking him back to the Burrow while Fleur is going with us to help me get my things to Beauxbatons next week. I made him promise that he’d write at least every week, and he grinned and said that Hedwig was going to get a real workout this year.

I miss him already. But the nice thing is that my snitch has been warm ever since he left.

I love you Harry.

-oooOOOooo-

Rose, of course, had a question. “OK, I understand that she changed the story, but why in the sixth book did she make you act like, um …”

“Like an empty-headed, boy-crazed, self-absorbed brat who turned her back on her best friend when he needed her most?” Hermione offered with an amused look on her face. Her daughter grinned back at her and nodded.

“Well, for one thing, she wasn’t very happy with me at the time,” Hermione explained. “When she was writing that book it had only been a short while since we’d had that big dispute about her taking the story in a different direction and changing the ending so drastically. It may have been her way of getting back at me for the trouble I’d caused.”

“Not only that, but it was probably an overreaction to what was termed the ‘shipping wars’. As I told you before, there was a lot of speculation by readers about whether I’d end up with Harry or Ron. The ones who thought I should be with Harry tended to be the more mature readers who understood relationships better, and that annoyed her since she intended for Harry to end up with Ginny, and me to end up with Ron.” She paused to chuckle when her daughter made a face, wrinkling up her nose in disgust with that idea.

“So I think she went out of her way to make it look like Harry and I weren’t as close as everyone thought we were. Since I wasn’t even there that year, she could pretty much make my character do anything she wanted me to. I must say that I was furious when I saw the book, and she and I stopped communicating with each other entirely after that. At least she brought us back together for the last book, though. There were certain things that happened that she just couldn’t leave out, and in those scenes you can see how close we had become.”

Rose settled back on the sofa in thought, and eventually nodded her understanding, so Hermione retrieved the next letter.

-xox-XOX-XOX-xox-