Chapter 129: You were quite wild last night
Chapter 129: You were quite wild last night
After fixing her appearance a bit, Fleur went downstairs, feeling like this was a walk of shame. She was embarrassed to face everyone after recalling the things she'd done yesterday. She was especially dreading the Chris's merciless teasing that was sure to come after he'd gotten so much ammunition.
'That villian simply won't let this chance slip, would he?'
Full of nervousness, apprehension, and resignation, Fleur walked into the dining room and found the Martin family sitting there. And, to Fleur's immense relief, Chris wasn't there!
Camille spotted Fleur first and stood up from her seat.
"How are you feeling, Fleur? Are you alright?"
Fleur nodded, a bit abashed. "I am absolutely fine, aunt Camille. And I'm sorry my actions yesterday..."
Camille smiled understandingly and patted Fleur's shoulders comfortingly. "It's alright, Fleur. And we're all family, so here's no need to be embarrassed about yesterday."
Fleur nodded, feeling a better and Camille smiled. "Now, your breakfast is ready. Eat it while it's still hot."
Fleur wanted to deny and just go home, lest the devil comes in and starts his teasing, but Camille was having none of it. Having no choice, Fleur sat herself beside Esme.
Though the little girl didn't even look her way. Her big greyish blue eyes were fixedly staring outside the window.
'Is it like this now?' thought Fleur bitterly. Just untill a year ago, she and Esme were very close since she used to be the older sibling to her along with Gabrielle. '
'
And now, she isn't even looking my way! Curse you, Chris.'
As Fleur began eating breakfast, she saw that Esme was still staring outside the window. Out of curiosity, she idly glanced out of the window as well, and her jaw dropped open.
Outside, Chris was shirtless, doing intense exercise like daily. His whole body, which was packed with lean and ripped muscles was glistening with sweat. Currently, he was doing rapid pull ups on a bar. Soon after, he changed it to Front Lever Pull-ups which is one of the most difficult exercise to do.
Beside him was Nyxie, who seemed to be flying around him, as if to cheer for him.
Looking at Chris's doing one exercise after another, Fleur muttered out aloud, "....Why and h-how is he doing this?"
Camille smiled, completely empathizing with Fleur's thoughts.
"He's been doing all this since he was six. He really works hard everyday." Camille couldn't hide the proudness in her voice.
After Chris had decided to workout in the open at Hogwarts, at weekends when he was staying at home, he'd started to show them a bit of his routine, so as to explain the reason behind his insane physical specs.
Fleur's eyes were back to Chris, who was now doing a Human Flag on the vertical bar, his expression set in that of concentration. While doing exercise, he also sends out pure magic to the flexing muscles, so that the magic automatically strengthens them and improves them to be the most optimal, pushing past the limits of a human body.
(According to Chris, the bodybuilders, fitness freaks, and steroids users would kill to have pure magic.)
Apparently, he was done now, since he working out and started coming back, still shirtless along with Nyxie and Fleur snapped out of it and looked back breakfast.
Chris being Chris, once again used the window to come in instead of the door. Only after he'd come in did he saw Fleur sitting at the table with her head down.
"Oh." Taking out his wand, Chris summoned back his t-shirt which was lying discarded from somewhere outside.
Throwing on his tear shirt casually, he waved while still panting slightly, "Morning~"
Durant nodded back his morning to Chris and Fleur couldn't meet his eyes. Little Esme got up from her seat and handed him a towel.
Amelia smiled, "Morning honey, morning Nyxie, breakfast is getting cold, go get washed up."
Chris first bent down to give the adorable Esme a kiss on both of her chubby cheeks for giving him a towel.
He perfunctorily wiped the sweat off his face and then just casted a Scouring charm on himself. Didn't really need the towel, but since Esme is giving it on her own initiative, he doesn't have the heart to tell her that.
"I'm starving mom, just give me breakfast first. I'll bathe later." Scouring charm is already enough, but his mom is somewhat of a clean freak.
Currently, he was famished. His last night was spent dismantling a 70 feet giant snake. Yes, the snake was longer than he'd imagined when he straightened it up and measured it. And, turns out, dismantling it is like a nightmare. The magic is not so useful, since the skin is pretty much magic resistant.
It can be cut with sharp objects manually, but there's no way in hell he's going to do it by hand.
So, he had to get creative. He dissected it inside out. Inside can be removed easily with magic. So, starting mouth well, it was somewhat of a messy affair, so let's not mention it.
Now, the question is, what is he going to do with it? The first thing he rejected was Selling it to the Goblins. No way he's going to do something as dumb as that. According to Chris, those fanfic MCs who did this are dumb suckers.
Firstly, fresh body parts of a 1000 year old Basilisk are practically priceless, if know how to correctly use them. There's no reason to put a price on it and get scammed by Goblins.
Secondly, since he's a bit aware of the uses of the Basilisk body parts and he'd rather not let anyone who knows more have it. The goblins might sell it to people of who can perform rituals with it.
And naturally, the Basilisk fangs and venon are already out of question. They can be used against his people if the goblins sold it to his enemies.
Thus, the best use of the corpse would be, to use it for himself and his people. The skin and scales can be used to make a lot of protective items, blood has multiple uses, and so do the organs (mainly for potions). So, he's just going to keep them in stasis for now.
While Chris was thinking about all this, Fleur was a bit perplexed. Chris hadn't given her a second glance after coming in, let alone teasing her. She didn't know whether she was happy or disappointed.
'The world doesn't revolve around you, daddy's Princess.' His words echoed in her mind, making her want to smack him for being... right.
At this moment, Chris finally realized that he was not being a good host and turned his attention to Fleur.
"So, how are you feeling today?" He asked casually while eating.
Fleur almost flinch when Chris suddenly addressed her. Is he not going to let her off the hook after all?
"I-I'm fine now." She answered, still feeling embarrassed about her actions last night.
Chris had just perfunctorily asked her, but her acting like this was asking to be teased.
Chris grinned at her, looking like a predator who had found his prey, "I have to say Fleur you were quite wild last night."
"Pffft!" Camille suppressed her laughter while Durnant suddenly choked on his drink.
Any grown adult would only take this sentence the wrong way when they hear it. Durant and Camille were not an exception. Though they weren't sure whether their son meant it in the naughty way or if he was saying that she was behaving literally like wild a wild animal.
On the other hand, Fleur couldn't understand the meaning of Chris's words. Afterall, there was no television or internet here and she didn't have this kind of conversations with her friends. So she took it literally.
Chris didn't want to make her too uncomfortable, so he changed the topic. "Actually, you don't need to feel embarrassed about it. You were a cute drunk. Anyways, what are your plans for the holidays?" He asked.
'Cute?!' Fleur couldn't take it anymore and used occlumency to stabilize her thoughts.
"I'm going to participate in the under 17 dueling tournament preliminaries in these holidays." She said expressionlessly.
"Hmm?" Chris got surprised, swallowing his food, he asked his dad, "What's that?"
"It's a basically a selection for contestants to represent France in the under 17 Dueling World Championship," said Durant. He would naturally know all about dueling. But after telling Chris that, he got an elbow to his ribs by Camille.
Chris rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Oh, it's that? Interesting... Should I participate?" He muttered.
Fleur got excited, "Actually, I was going to ask you to exactly that. You should totally participate." She wanted other people to also suffer the same humiliating defeat that she herself suffered. And she herself wasn't wasn't worry about losing, since there were two slots. If you exclude Chris, she was confident enough to take down anyone in France under 17.
Camille wasn't too happy with this. She wanted her son to be absolutely safe. And dueling on someone other than her husband's supervision made her nervous. This is the reason why she hadn't even mentioned this before to Chris, but now Fleur spilled it all.
She tentatively asked Chris, "Um... honey, aren't you too young for this right now?"
Chris rolled his eyes, "Mom, it's just under 17. If I waited a few more years, they'll be too weak to even entertain me." He said dismissively. The next one will be four years later.
"...."
Even though he sounded absolutely vain and arrogant, no one on the table could deny his words. He can already beat Fleur. And from the way they see him train everyday, he'll most likely be even more monstrous in a few years.
"Good."
Durant smiled at his son, feeling proud and happy. This attitude reminded him of himself back when he was young.
Chris was surprised. Durant's complements are as rare as him smiling. While the father son duo were happy, Camille sent out a low powered Stinging hex into Durant.
"Don't encourage him! You've made our son as arrogant as you," she muttered with a sigh.
Durant turned serious again, " *cough* Don't be arrogant, Chris."
"...."
Fleur was speechless. Teacher Durant also turned out to be a whipped husband? The great image she had of her teacher was slowly crumpling down.
"Sure thing, Dad." Chris gave a thumbs up in order to appease his mom. He was already being very humble though. Afterall, f he doesn't hold back, he can even defeat professional duelists. He just lacks juice which will only come with time.
Turning to Fleur, Chris asked, "When is the last day of registration? And when are the preliminaries?"
"Today's the last date. The tournament is between 27th to 2nd of January."
"Well, how do I register? And what's the venue?"
Fleur smiled, as if they were finally getting to the point. "Beauxbatons."
"Oh."
It's going to be the Chris's first time going to Beauxbatons. Not much is known about it in the Canon, so Chris was very curious. How will it compare to Hogwarts? Is it worth it to leave Hogwarts to study there for a while?
And on the other hand, Fleur was also curious. Chris is a unique creature. The guy handles everything uniquely. What would he do when he faces those students who've made life hell Fleur over these years? For whatever reason, Fleur couldn't picture Chris ever having to suffer under those people. It could only be the opposite way.
***
A.N.: The matches of international tournament would be held throughout his third year in different countries and we'd get to see new types of magics as well from the participants! The third year canon only has a rat as it's antagonist and I don't want to follow canon on that one. It's 'Riddikulus'.
Tell me your opinions about this dueling tournament thingy!
The selection tournament at Beauxbatons is going to be the trailer for what's to come in the international.
Don't forget to send me POWERSTONES!!! Each and every stone matters and gives me motivation to write even in my busy days.