September 3rd, 1910.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Scotland, United Kingdom.

  Amélie found herself at the Great Hall doing some reading for her following class, Defence Against the Dark Arts. That's one of her best rated subjects. She was drinking some orange juice as she practiced the wand movement needed for the spell she was reading. Without words, simply the movement.

  When she was done with her juice, the bell chimed and she had to start her way to class. She kept her things in her bag and fixed her blazer when she got up, then, she walked out of the room to make her way to the classroom. The problem was that she didn't know where it was. The Headmaster welcomed them, but the foreigners weren't given a tour around the huge castle, instead, they were told to enjoy this school year.

  As she walked near the stairs, she looked around. Her eyes landed quickly on the boy she met here two days ago.

"Theseus." She called and stepped closer. He looked at her and barely smiled, not like the first time they interacted. "Bonjour." He gave her a head nod. "Savez-vous où se trouve la salle de classe des arts sombres par hasard?" He blinked. She asked if he knew where the classroom was.

"What?" He asked. She knew how to speak English, she understood it, but she wasn't that fluent. In her household they speack French most of the time, they rarely speak her mother's native language. She sighed.

"Dumbledore. His class." She spoke carefully.

"Oh, you're headed to Dark Arts now?"

"Oui."

"Oh, yeah. His classroom is at the end of the fifth floor." He smiled and she nodded.

"Merci."

"Oui." She smiled at him and walked away towards the stairs. When she was out of sight, Theseus looked at his two companions and they busted into laughter. Theseus, believe it or not, was a bit of a prankster whenever he felt like it. And picking on the outsider that had bruised his ego seemed like the perfect excuse.

  Amélie made her way to the stairs while the three boys made their way to the third floor to find classroom 3C. She walked down the halls, waited patiently for the stairs to stop moving and eventually found the fifth floor. She walked fast as the second chime of the bell started echoing around, telling everyone that the second it stopped they'd be late for their class.

  As she walked, she seemed to find herself confused. She didn't see boys and girls her year, let alone anyone from her mates. Instead, she found kids much younger entering the classroom. She frowned as she approached the last two who were about to walk in.

"Excusez-moi, quel cours suivez-vous ici?" She asked what class were they about to take. The boy simply looked at her while the girl approached her.

"Muggle Studies." She said.

"Donc ce n'est pas la classe d'art dar?" She shook her head, indeed, that wasn't the Dark Arts classroom. Amélie sighed as she closed her eyes. Angry. "Je suppose que vous pourriez me dire où il se trouve?"

"Oui." The girl smiled at the Beauxbatons student and agreed on telling her where it was located. Third floor.

"Merci." The girl nodded and Amélie made her way back the stairs as fast as she could as she heard them talking behind her.

"Leta..." Said the boy.

"Yes?" The girl replied.

"Since when do you speak french?"

"Always. I'm french as well, why wouldn't I speak it Newt?" Amélie smiled to herself.

  She rushed down the halls and eventually found the classroom. It was at the end of the corridor as Theseus had told her, only that it's actually located two floors below. She knocked the opened door and felt her cheeks turning red when every student looked at her.

"Yes?" Asked the Professor as he stoped the lesson to aid the girl. "How can I help you?"

"I'm sorry, Professor." She spoke with a thick french accent, sweetly. "I was told your class was elsewhere and got a bit lost."

"Oh. You must be Miss Rosier." She nodded. "Not to worry, come in and sit over there." He smiled at her and she smiled back before entering the room and make her way to the left front corner. When she looked at her desk partner, she sighed while he smiled.

  "Bonjour, Amélie." Said Theseus in a whisper as she sat, took off her hat and focused on the class, that Dumbledore had resumed. "Why are you so late?"

"You know why." She whispered back.

"Do I?" She breathed in and out slowly, smiled sarcastically and just focused on what was in front of her. She didn't even look at him.

"Tu es le garçon le plus grossier que j'ai jamais rencontré." She whispered.

"I'm sorry? I didn't quite catch that."

"I said that you're the rudest boy I have ever met." Rosier finally faced Theseus.

"I thought you didn't know how to speak English."

"Wrong assumption to make."

"Quiet." Said Dumbledore before he continued the lesson. "Now, you're fifth years. You now know a great deal of spells and you know how to duel. May I ask, who wants to be an Auror in this room?" Not many people raised their hands, it was ten of them at least, less than the half of the entire group. "Very well." He focused on the two students that were right in front of him. "You two, up here." Theseus and Amélie exchanged looks but stood up anyways and walked up to the professor. "I want to see the speed in which you can throw defensive and soft-attacking spells."

"What?" Asked Theseus. "You're asking us to fight each other?"

"Effrayé?" Dumbledore and the girls from Beauxbatons chuckled softly. Theseus looked coldly at Rosier. Even if he didn't know what she had said, he knew she was teasing him given the look on her face and her tone of voice.

"I don't even know what you're saying."

"That's what makes it more amusing for those who do."

"Alright, both of you." Said Dumbledore to ease things up. "I do want you to duel. As Aurors, you'll have to be fast and you'll have to make sure you catch the one who's across from you without harming them in case you'd like to interrogate them later on. I want to see if these five years you've spent learning how to defend yourselves and charms are paying off." Amélie nodded while Theseus sighed through his nose.

"Alright." Said the boy before he took off his robe. "This should be easy."

"First mistake. You're underestimating your opponent. Don't expect them to do less, expect them to do more. That's how you can plan a step ahead of them."

"Right. Sorry." Amélie simply fixed her coat once more. A second later, they lifted their wands to aim at each other.

"Kids, manners. This is still a school duel." The students looked at the Professor before they looked at each other and lowered their wands. They walked up to the centre of the podium they were standing on and, once they were face to face, they bowed to each other.

"What did you ask earlier?" Asked Theseus with a low tone of voice as his blue eyes met her green orbs.

"If you were scared." She answered.

"Oh, no. Not one bit." They incorporated and placed their wands before their faces. "And you?"

"Why would I be?" They moved their hands down and turned around to walk back to their starting point. When they were there, they turned around and got ready for the duel to begin.

"Remember, soft-attack. I don't want either of you to be with Madame Pomfrey all day. That's our Nurse, for those who don't know her." Dumbledore said the last bit looking at the rest of the students —who chuckled—, then, he turned back at the two on the podium. "Duel ends when one of you is trapped." They frowned as they looked at the teacher, not understanding what exactly did he mean by 'trapped'. Dumbledore grabbed his pocket watch and suddenly he said..."Go." Catching them off-guard and making both students focus quickly. 

  Theseus was the first one to throw a stunning spell, but Amélie blocked it with a protection spell. He threw a couple more before she started to attack. Theseus defended himself and started throwing more tricky spells, ones that would make her vision blurry if she didn't block properly.

  When the fog cleared out, she threw more stunning spells that he blocked. That's when Theseus pointed at her shoe laces and did a spiral movement with his wand in an ascending motion. The shoe laces worked as a rope that tied themselves around her body, that trapped her completely. She groaned as the Hufflepuff boys chuckled.

"Beat you." He said.

"Did you?" She replied.

  It took her a second to make a decision, she tapped the laces with the tip of her wand and they burned to ashes, that's when she threw a spell at Theseus that sent him backwards to the wall behind him. He was trapped behind the brick, as if he was a painting. He was alright, he could breathe and all, but he was, literally, trapped in the wall. The chuckles stopped and the clapping of her classmates echoed around instead.

"Impressive. Two and a half minutes." Said Dumbledore as he stopped applauding and kept his watch into its pocket again. Then, he looked at Amélie. "That's advanced magic for a witch your age, where did you learn that?"

"I like reading, Professor."

"I see." He looked at Theseus, who was hitting the wall to call the attention. "Get him out of there, would you?" He asked with an amused smirk. She nodded, aimed at the wall and in a second, Theseus fell on the ground, to his knees. She made another movement and the wall was good as new. "I suppose we have a winner." Theseus got up and nodded at her while she smiled. "Take your seats." They sat down, far from each other. "That was a good and fast duel, guys. Congratulations. Three points to Hufflepuff for Theseus' efforts, and five points to your house, Amélie. I'll speak your Headmistress to sort that out." He turned at the rest of the class. "Now, let's go through what your classmates just did before the next two come up here."

  While Dumbledore said what both of them had done right and made sure to point out what they had done wrong in order to give feedback, Theseus and Amélie didn't even look at each other, instead, they shared a slightly awkward silence until the class was dismissed.

  And here is where the problems started. They started to be very competitive between one another, and we all know competition takes out the worse in people.

Whenever they had flying lessons, they made sure to be faster than the other one. And let's say, Theseus happened to be faster than her —because he was faster, indeed— she'd try to beat him in the following class. This was because they found out they shared schedule from Wednesday to Friday, how lucky! And if she was better, then he'd try the next class and so on, and on and on. He'd pick on her during and after class, causing Rosier to make sure to tie the laces of his shoes together as he walked down the corridors or underneath their desk at the end of the class for him to trip down and fall.

  They'd also do anything to get the other one in trouble, but, end up hanging out in detention together. They'd also bother each other there until Professor McGonagall broke them apart. The next day, he'd embarrass her and, let me tell you, he loved to do so. This only made her furious and she'd embarrass him just the same. This happened since day one. And this caused them to find each other annoying as hell.

  ∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

November 10th, 1910.

Fast forward to the almost ending of the year 1905. Theseus, James, and Thomas found themselves in their dormitory, getting ready for the day. They were talking about the recent announcement: The Yule Ball. Takes place in December and it was a ball, so, they were trying to sort out who would they invite to such dance.

"I think it's your perfect excuse to ask Emma out." Tom told James.

"I've been thinking exactly the same thing. The question is if she'd say yes." Said James.

"I believe she will. She's gone to Hogsmeade with you before, why would a ball be any different?"

"He has a point." Theseus jumped into the conversation as he placed the tie around his neck and started doing a knot. "I assume Angela is going with you, Tommy boy?"

"Indeed." Said Tom as he tied his shoe laces. "The question is, who are you inviting, Thes?" Scamander was silent for a moment. He raised his eyebrows and exhaled as he shrugged.

"I wouldn't know."

"It would be fun if you asked Amélie out." Said James and Tom chuckled.

"Why? Because she'd reject me in front of everyone? Yeah, incredibly funny." Tom laughed louder.

"Maybe, but what if she's secretly in love with you?" The three of them looked at each other through the mirror. Theseus turned around as he placed his sweater on after sending James a 'you're delusional' look.

"And if she's not, she would totally fall for you." Said Tom.

"What are you suggesting? Because I don't think any of that is true." What is true is that Thes may or may not be falling for the girl. He doesn't want to admit it, and he knew that she may not feel the same.

"I don't know, just...maybe you could invite her." The two friends walked out of the room when they were all ready, but Theseus stayed behind thinking. He sort of liked the girl, because, how could you not like or desire what seems to be so out of reach? He breathed in and out, grabbed his bag and walked out of the room. The three of them walked down the Common Room and made their way to the Great Hall once they were outside of Hufflepuff's grounds.

  When they arrived, he saw her. Sitting on her usual spot beside his usual spot on the benches, stirring the spoon into her tea with a single and very elegant finger movement —without touching the spoon— while she read, her eyes never leaving the page they were reading. He walked to sit alongside his friends. The moment he was sat beside her, he looked at her but she didn't even eyed him. He cleared his throat, as to make his presence more notable.

"Morning." She moved on to the following page.

"Bonjour." She said coldly before taking a sip of her tea.

"How are you?" She frowned but continued her read.

"I'm alright." She said.

"Good. I'm alright too." She looked at him with a smile. A confused smile.

"Glad to hear that, I suppose." He smiled back and started having breakfast.

"What are you reading?"

"A book."

"Obviously." She chuckled. "But what book?"

"Potions." He nodded.

"For class?"

"Yes. We're preparing the Draught of Living Death. That's a bit too advanced for us, but it's something they want all of the years to do this year. I don't know why." Theseus looked at his plate. "You forgot?"

"Seems like it." She laughed and he smiled at her. She stopped laughing when their eyes met, that's because she realised he has never looked at her that way. Not since the first time they met when the year started. She sighed.

"I guess we'll be working together."

"Me? Work with you? Why?"

"Because it is in pairs. You forgot and certainly don't have a partner, and I didn't partner up with anyone because I was too focused doing...other things." He breathed in and out as he smiled.

"You mean you forgot as well?"

"Won't admit that."

"You don't have to, I can assume it. It makes more sense."

"Oh, shut up." He chuckled and she simply smiled. "We'll have to team up this one time."

"Seems like it." He said again. From that moment on, no words were exchanged; instead, there was only a comfortable silence. For once a comfortable silence. When breakfast time was over and the bell chimed, they walked side by side to get to the dungeons where the Potions classroom was.

  For Amélie, every step got colder and colder. It didn't matter if she had been here for months, she couldn't get used to Scotland's weather. Plus, her uniform wasn't meant for this cold. Theseus smiled softly. He had thought of that since he saw her shivering almost every day, and he'd make fun of her because of it. Recently though, he has found it cute.

  When they arrived and after a briefing from the professor on what they were doing today, the two of them went for the ingredients and started working on the potion. They struggled because, even if they were working as a team, sometimes one of them would want to do the same task than the other, they'd argue in a whisper, stop working and, eventually, one of the parts would give in to get the task done. If Roiser was the one to give in, she'd whisper annoyed in french but he would not care. He stopped caring about it that much a while ago.

  Eventually, they finished. Now, they had to sit and wait. The whole time Amélie was shivering and her hands were cold, that's when Theseus thought about a bold move. He laughed as he took off his robe and placed it over her shoulders.

"There you go. So that you stop looking like a Grindylow out of water." He said.

"How kind." She said. "Compaing me to a Grindylow...you know how to flirt."

"Well, what can I say? I'm a natural." She scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Merci." He nodded. They were silent for a moment before he tried to grab her hands. She frowned and pulled away immediately. "What are you doing?"

"Could you just-" He grabbed her hands and wrapped his around them, then, he brought them close to his mouth to blow his warm breath on them to warm her up. "See? I'm not doing anything bad."

"What do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're being oddly kind out of the blue, you must want something."

"I don't want anything. I just believe that...we started roughly. Now, don't get me wrong, I've been having a blast annoying the living hell out of you, but after two months, I've a) ran out of ideas, and b) I'm tired." She chuckled. "I'd like us to...get along instead of fight and compete all the time." She narrowed her eyes and that made him chuckle. "Seriously."

"Hmm." She pulled her hands away from his. It surprised her how warm Theseus' hands were because, the second they were not around hers, she felt everything cold. She crossed her arms. "Maybe. That depends, are you going to be rude just because?"

"I was never rude just because."

"Yes. You were."

"How so?"

"Well, when we first met, I said it was a pleasure to meet you too and, from that moment on, you have been rude." He frowned. "I was never mean to you until you started being mean to me."

"No, no, no. That day you were making fun of me. You and your friend."

"What friend?"

"The blonde one who sat across from you."

"Monique?"

"I suppose." She chuckled. "What?"

"We weren't making fun of you. She thought you were handsome, I agreed and then you showed interest. We were nervous. But your face when you didn't understand what I had said...that was funny. So, maybe I was making a little fun of you, but not because I wanted to be mean."

"Wait, you think I'm handsome?" She scoffed.

"Don't let that get to your head."

"A bit too late." Their eyes met for a moment before their teacher showed up to check is they had done a good job. Turns out it was a perfect potion. They smiled at each other. "You know...I've always thought you're pretty."

"You have?"

"Don't let that get to your head."

"Hm. Too late." They chuckled.

"Would you...would you like to go to the Hollow with me? We can have some butterbeer or go to Honeydukes." She smiled.

"Ça a l'air bien." He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. She laughed. "Sounds lovely."

  They walked out of their class when it was over and talked vividly as they walked towards their next class, getting to know each other better like they would've done hadn't they fail months ago.

Theseus invited Amélie to Hogsmeade constantly but neither of them would call it a date. They'd hang out in the library to study or simply work at a silent place, eat some snacks on the Courtyard and talk, sit at the edge of the lake, stand at the Hogwarts bridge ad look at the landscape, perhaps walk near the non-forbidden area of the woods, etcetera. They simply enjoyed each other's company, now. But neither of them would admit anything.

  One day, when the Ball was getting closer, Theseus finally asked the French girl to be his date for said event. She agreed to go with him, obviously. Yet, neither of them would admit they felt butterflies when he asked or when she responded. Instead, they'd walk back from the Hollow to the castle to get warm from the snowy weather.