Fleur Delacour.
She stood alone, leaning against the window with her head slightly lowered, watching the gloomy sky outside. In the dappled light and shadow, her long silver hair looked like a handful of flowing moonlight.
An invisible wall seemed to surround her, and the other students passing by instinctively gave her a wide berth.
The instant Ron saw Fleur, his legs felt as though they had been hit with Petrificus Totalus, filled solid with lead.
He stopped where he was, unable to take another step no matter how hard he tried.
Harry felt the hand Ron had clasped around his own turn cold and stiff in an instant.
Gritting his teeth, he used almost all his strength to drag this hundred-plus-pound attachment toward Fleur.
Fleur heard the footsteps.
She raised her head, a trace of predictable irritation flashing through her deep blue eyes.
Oh, look.
Two more little boys drawn in by my damned Veela charm.
Wait...
Was the black-haired one Harry Potter?
Her gaze fell on their tightly clasped hands.
Fleur raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.
Good heavens, wizards in the United Kingdom... really were unusual.
She watched with interest.
Harry Potter's gaze was clear and resolute, without any of the infatuation that sickened her, only a kind of... determination to complete some arduous task.
The red-haired boy beside him, meanwhile, was like a rabbit cornered at a cliff's edge by a hunter, trembling so hard he was almost falling apart.
This was an interesting pair.
With Harry's physical and psychological support, comparable to a "Magical Shield," Ron's brain miraculously failed to turn into a pot of sticky slugs straight away.
He closed his eyes and, with the reckless abandon of someone reciting a Potions recipe in Snape's class, shouted the lines Hermione had written in one breath,