Deserved:
"Kreacher! The Doxies are nesting in the draperies again!" Harry shouted, while leaning precariously over the 3rd floor bannister.
There was no answer.
"Bloody useless elf," he grumbled under his breath as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. For the umpteenth time in however long he could remember, Harry had been woken up to the sound of the pests tussling somewhere in the room above his bed. "Kreacher, I swear if I have to ask you one more time, I'll give you a sock—Oh! Hermione?"
Harry froze at the bottom of the stairs, caught off guard by the unannounced visit of his best friend, who stood with a quizzical look on her face next to the front door.
"Where did she go?" Hermione asked, pointing at a blank stretch of the wall where the plaster was noticeably lighter in color as compared to the rest.
Harry grinned. "Up in the attic. I finally managed to convince Kreacher to help me unstick old Walburga," he answered, puffing out his chest. It was quite the accomplishment in his opinion. "Speaking of which, have you seen him around since you came in?"
"I asked him to go make us some tea," said Hermione, before setting her hands on her hips and sending him a disapproving look. "And I did it without threatening him with freedom. Honestly Harry, do you not remember anything from S.P.E.W.?"
Harry grimaced. He had certainly not forgotten about Hermione's crusade.
"Why are you here?" he asked as he led her through to the kitchen, thinking it would be best to change subjects. "Has something happened?"
Hermione shook her head as she sipped from one of the gently steaming cups of tea waiting for them on the table. "Nothing, I just thought I'd stop by and say hello."
There was something about the look in her eye that tipped him off.
"Really?" he said with some suspicion. "Without Ron?"
Color rapidly rose over Hermione's cheeks as she swallowed her tea awkwardly. "Ron is busy at the Auror office, and—well, I do happen to have a message to pass on…"
"From who?"
"Professor McGonagall."
Harry felt himself frown. "She couldn't have sent an owl?"
Hermione looked at him knowingly. "And would you have answered?" she returned.
Harry shrugged. "Depends on what it's about."
She rolled her eyes in response. "It's an offer for a job."
"I don't need—"
"You need to get out, Harry," Hermione interrupted. She was much more serious all of a sudden, and she gestured around the dark, gloomy walls of Grimmauld Place. "Shutting yourself up in here isn't healthy."
"I'm fixing up Sirius' house!"
"A house he hated," she said flatly.
He made a face. "It keeps me busy," Harry grumbled.
"Busy from what?" she asked, without answer. Sighing, she reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope and set it down squarely at the center of the table. "We're worried about you, Harry," she added softly. "You don't have to take it if you don't want to, but it's not the sort of celebrity job the Ministry would ask you."
Harry ran a tired hand down his face. There weren't many things he willingly left his house for anymore. "What is it?" he asked, simply to entertain her visit.
"A teaching position," she replied, that look from before returning to her face. "You once spent the summer at Beauxbatons, right?"
Harry nodded, but not without caution. She knew he had.
"You enjoyed it, didn't you?" Hermione continued to press.
"It was alright, yeah," Harry dismissed, not wishing to dwell on old memories.
Hermione shook her head at his laconic speech.
"Well, this year the summer program is at Beauxbatons again, and someone has asked Professor McGonagall to see if you'd be willing to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts," she explained, placing her fingers flatly atop the envelope and pushing it towards him. "Like I said, you don't need to accept…"
Harry considered the envelope for a moment.
He then looked up to Hermione, who watched him keenly. "They want me to teach?" he asked, pointing to himself.
Hermione picked up her cup, and her lips pulled into a smile over its edge.
With that proving to be enough of an answer, Harry hesitantly reached forward and took the letter in hand, feeling the creaminess of the parchment between his fingers. It looked identical to the one Dumbledore had once given him, with a pale blue stamp depicting crossed golden wands at its center and everything.
He fiddled with the wax.
A summer abroad couldn't hurt, could it?
Someone needed to turn down the heat. He'd been standing in the cramped confines of some dingy office buried in a forgotten corner of the Department of Magical Transportation for nearly half an hour. Madam Edgecombe had told him it would only be a few minutes.
Feeling another hot flash coming, he pulled at his collar trying to let what little cool air remained in the room down the back of his shirt.
"Is there anything I can get you, Harry," a sickly-sweet voice called from behind him.
He turned to see the pretty young secretary pop her head into the office for what felt like the hundredth time. He thought he recognized her from somewhere but wasn't sure.
Working the muscles of his face into a strained smile, he answered the same as every time before, "Nope, m'fine thanks. I'll find you if I need something."
She stared at him hungrily and twisted a strand of her dark, curly hair. "Anything for you, Harry… all you need to do is ask," she replied huskily, just like every time before as well.
Breath came to him easier once she stopped undressing him with her eyes and turned back to her desk. The attention was something he'd never get used to. Hermione told him it wouldn't be half as bad if he quite hiding himself away from the public eye, but if this was what it was like, he'd much prefer to return to his shell.
A knock came at the door, and he exhaled heavily.
"I told you, I don't need anyth—"
He stopped in the middle of his rebuke at the sight of a rather flustered Madam Edgecombe.
"Sorry," he apologized hastily. "I thought you were… Never mind."
The middle-aged witch brushed a hand through her fizzled hair. "No, no, it's quite alright Mr. Potter. I didn't expect quite so much of a delay," she replied. "The Ministry isn't the well-oiled machine it once was, despite the good work of Minister Shacklebolt. I hope Romilda took good care of you."
Romilda? Harry wondered, and then it hit him: the secretary. She'd told him her name when he first walked in.
"She's an… eager young woman. She still has a year left in Hogwarts, but a summer job is never a bad idea. My own Marietta benefitted from one in her Hogwarts days," Madam Edgecombe continued to prattle on as she scribbled away at some paperwork on her desk. "In any case, here we are."
She signed off on a final paper and removed a small tin can from her desk.
"Is it only one way?" Harry asked, taking the can in hand.
Madam Edgecombe nodded. "All Ministry approved Portkeys are."
"Where do I take it?"
"From here," she replied quickly, and stepped to the door. "I'll leave you to it then. The password is Beauxbatons. Please do enjoy your trip, Mr. Potter."
As the office door closed behind him, Harry triple-checked the letter Hermione had given him. With everything in order, he reached for his wand, tapped at the lip of the open can, and whispered, "Beauxbatons."
There was a sudden flash of blue that filled the office, and Harry felt as though he'd been hooked into the sky by his navel. Just as his feet had left the ground, they smashed back down again into solid earth.
The first thing he noticed besides the awful churning of his stomach, was the breeze. The oppressing heat of Madam Edgecombe's office vanished in a sweet summer air blown down from the mountains; the lush green of their slopes filled his mind with pleasant memories.
For the first time in however long he could remember, a burgeoning excitement swept through him.
"Ahem."
A man with a funny feathered hat, and an even funnier little moustache was standing in front of him.
"Monsieur Léon!"
"Er—oui…" He looked very confused at the way Harry called to him with such familiarity. "It eez Monsieur Potter, non?"
"The very same," said Harry, grinning foolishly, not caring that the man clearly didn't remember him from when he was a boy.
"Very well," said Monsieur Léon, clicking his tongue. He did not appear to be anywhere near as happy as Harry was. "You were expected some time ago."
Harry rubbed sheepishly at the back of his head. "There was a… uh, bureaucratic error at the British Ministry. My portkey wasn't made on time."
The man nodded briskly, and a part of Harry thought he hadn't even listened. "You may leave your belongings 'ere if you pleeze," he said, immediately returning to the business at hand. "Zey will be taken to your office at once."
Before he could so much as catch his breath, Harry was whisked away to the palace.
Monsieur Léon very much stuck to the script of his tour from years ago; the words, the intonation, and the casual dismissal of anything he viewed as trivial were near identical to how Harry remembered. His speech was rehearsed and refined to an art. They walked the same paths and passed the same sprawling gardens and spurting fountains; and to Harry, it was like visiting an old dream, one that had nearly faded, but its echoes, once relived, filled you with warmth.
At one point, despite the impatient tapping of Monsieur Léon, he stopped in the center of one of the halls, pausing to admire the painted ceiling with its lustrous silver women which had once caught his young eye.
"Your office eez at ze end of zis corridor," Monsieur Léon pointed out sometime later as they entered the East Wing of the palace. He spun on his heel and sent Harry a flat look. "Unfortunately, for reasons outside my control, we do not 'ave ze time to stop zer or at your quarters."
Harry did well to supress his laughter. If teaching wasn't enough, he would surely enjoy his summer just by finding new ways to wind him up.
"I'll search them out on my own time," said Harry pleasantly. "Thanks."
The man huffed and dragged him in front of the entrance to a large reception room. The doors, painted in a gold leaf, were shut; he could hear the faint rumble of voices on the other side.
"Ze faculty are meeting inside wiz Madam Maxime," said Monsieur Léon, who looked Harry up and down disapprovingly. "I imagine zey 'ave started wizzout you."
"It's alright," said Harry with a slight smirk. "Maxime is an old friend, I'm sure she won't mind."
The man made a face at the casual way he addressed the Headmistress. "In zat case, I wish you a good evening. Au revoir."
Harry stood in front of the doors a moment longer, listening to the fading clip of Léon's footsteps behind him. A strange feeling fluttered in his chest, but he shook his head, dismissed it as nothing, and pushed through.
"…ze students will be arriving on ze weekend and— Oh, Monsieur Potter! Come, 'ave a seat! It eez an honour to 'ave you 'ere."
Madame Maxime smiled at him with giant, pearly teeth, but Harry hardly noticed. He made it no more than a step inside, before he froze, dead.
Seated just beyond the giantess, was a girl with deep blue eyes as beautiful as he'd ever seen, and a mane of silver hair no painting could ever hope to capture.
Their gazes caught, and his heart seized.
What on earth have you gotten me into, Hermione…
Harry stomped through the golden halls, as though caught in the heart of a storm. He hated scheming; he'd been subject to enough of it under Dumbledore, and right now he could tell something clearly rotten was afoot.
He stopped in front of a door, raised his hand and knocked.
"Come in."
Realizing he was crushing the stack of papers in his hand, Harry sucked in what was meant to be a calming breath and slackened his grip.
Upon entering, blue eyes peered up at him from behind a simple desk.
Harry stared at Fleur, finding that his mouth didn't particularly want to work at the moment.
"Madam Maxime wanted me to give you these," he eventually forced out. "I—er—don't really know what they are…"
Fleur took the papers from him without word. She studied them for a moment, then set them down. "They are the records of the incoming students, so I know where to start with them."
"Oh."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "You did not receive your own?"
"I'm not sure," said Harry, instinctively reaching up to ruffle his hair. "They might be buried in the mountain of paperwork I haven't touched."
Fleur hummed in response and turned back to whatever it was she had been working on. Harry continued to stand in the center of the office, not sure whether to move forward or back, stay or leave. He'd been forced to come here, and now he didn't know what to do.
Likely sensing this, she flicked her gaze back up.
"Will you sit?"
"Yeah… uh, sure."
He took the stiff-backed chair across from Fleur and stared pointedly out the window as another empty silence fell over them.
"I didn't know you'd be here," he started, unsure as to why exactly he felt the need to say this.
"I know," said Fleur, not looking up from the parchment she wrote on. "I did not know you were coming here either. Madam Maxime did not reveal the new Defense professor until you arrived."
"Interesting…" breathed Harry, mostly to himself. It seemed Hermione wasn't alone in her meddling.
"What is?" Fleur stared at him with inquisitive eyes.
"Nothing," he dismissed, thinking it best to keep his conspiracy theories to himself.
There was another pause before Fleur set down her quill and let out a heavy sigh. "'Arry, you do not have to stay here if you do not want to," she said flatly.
"No!" he said, sharper than he'd intended. "No, I want to stay… I do have a lot of work I should get around to, but… I like you—I mean, I'd like to catch up with you."
He could feel the heat creeping up his cheeks, but the slight curl at the edge of Fleur's lip made up for any amount of embarrassment.
She folded her hands in front of herself, leaning in. "It has been sometime, non?"
Almost three years…
He'd seen her since then, from afar. He'd been keen to learn as much about her as he could over the war: moving to Britain, taking a job at Gringotts, meeting Bill…
That was supposed to be me.
He shook his head free of those thoughts. Three years was a long time, and though nothing had changed for him, it didn't mean life stood still for everyone else.
"I saw you at the battle," he said after a pause. "I'm glad you were there."
Fleur stared at him for a moment, before nodding slowly. "Some things are worth the danger."
He couldn't help but feel the sting of those words, and he swallowed a lump of guilt in his throat.
"I'm surprised you're working here, actually," he said, gazing about the room for a change in topic. It looked like any other office he'd been in. "It's not what I expected from you."
Fleur narrowed her eyes. "Why is that?" she asked sharply. "It is a prestigious position, and I am very fortunate Madam Maxime asked me to replace Monsieur Allard for the summer as a favour."
"I didn't mean it like that," said Harry, quickly raising his hands. He wished he was better at this, whatever this was. "It's great that you're here, really. I couldn't believe it either when they asked me to teach of all people. I just thought that with Bill—"
"Bill?" A strange frown clouded Fleur's expression. "What does this have to do with Bill?"
Everything, he wanted to say bitterly. "I only figured you'd have wanted to stay at Gringotts and work with him," he said instead.
There was a brief period where neither of them said anything, and then a crack appeared in Fleur's expression, trembling her lip before breaking into laughter.
Harry crossed his arms, not exactly seeing what she found so amusing.
"'Arry…" she said, trying, and failing, to supress her latest fit by covering her mouth with her hand. "I am not dating Bill."
It felt as though he'd been sitting in a dark room and someone had just thrown open the heavy, black curtains. He gaped at Fleur who continued to giggle.
"But—I… What?" So many emotions flooded through him he could hardly speak. "But Ron—"
She laughed some more. "I thought you would have known better than to trust Ronald Weasley with anything related to girls, 'Arry." Fleur's bright eyes swam with mirth.
Harry wanted nothing more in that moment than to fly over to Devon and curse his best mate silly.
"Then you are…"
"Just friends," said Fleur with a soft smile. "Perhaps not to his liking, but I could never feel more than that. I am, however, grateful for all he did in helping me join the Order."
Harry was smiling now too.
And perhaps, just this once, he could find it within himself to look past the meddling of his friends.
"Careful Pierre! They'll bite through your fingers as easy as they do the apple," Harry called as he hurried to the nervous looking boy who reached into the enclosure. "Here," he said, steadying his shaking hand, "just lay it flat—like this—and they'll pick it right off."
A hot puff of air blew against their skin as the large, white muzzle of an Abraxan leaned in. It sniffed once, then ate the gold apple straight from the boy's palm.
Pierre gasped. "Can I…" He reached out hesitantly to its snout.
"Go on," said Harry, with an encouraging nod. The Abraxan whinnied and happily shook out its snowy mane. "They're really quite friendly once you bribe them."
Turning from Pierre and back to the rest of his class, he gazed out over the sun-soaked lawn. A crowd of students chattered excitedly as they studied and sketched the great white horses which grazed nearby, while others read studiously beneath the welcome shade of flowering trees or simply closed their eyes and rested on the bed of green shining grass. He watched them all with a carefree smile; it had been a spontaneous idea to take his lesson outdoors today, and he was pleased it had turned out to be such a success.
A newcomer suddenly came into sight, approaching up the path, dressed in pastel blue teaching robes which shimmered in the summer light.
He waved to Fleur, who smiled and waved back.
"That's it for today!" He stuck his wand to his throat, amplifying his voice so everyone could hear. "No homework, but please remember to read ahead on curses since we start them next week."
A small cheer went up at 'no homework' and Harry was dead certain they hadn't listened to the rest.
"Ah," said Fleur, walking towards him once his class had dispersed. "So this is why I hear whispers of Monsieur Potter being the best… No homework."
Harry laughed. "You've found my secret."
"It is rather brilliant," she said, tossing a teasing look over her shoulder. "I cannot believe I did not think of it first."
Harry bent over to pick up one of the apples from the grass. "The rest of term will be tough on them, I thought they deserved the weekend off," he said, placing the abandoned fruit into a bucket. "Believe it or not, I do make them work from time to time."
"From the complaints I get from my students every time I dare assign them a measly little essay, I have my doubts." The cheeky grin she wore was doing all sorts of things to his heart.
"What's brought you out here?" he asked. "Besides the beautiful weather, and my wonderful company, of course."
"Madam Maxime asked me to come find you," she replied, causing Harry to stop as he reached for another apple.
"She did, did she?" he said with great interest.
Fleur crinkled her brow and bent over herself to help him.
"You still don't believe there's a conspiracy against us?" he continued, not letting her get off so easily. Not long ago he'd told Fleur of his theory, and she'd brushed it off completely.
"I am… perhaps, a bit more open to it now," she admitted, not quite catching his eye.
A swell of triumph filled his chest, and the feeling did not dissipate by the time they left their bucket next to the gamekeeper's shed and headed towards the palace.
"Abraxan horses are an interesting choice of lesson," Fleur said, cocking her head to the side to look at him.
"They're fascinating creatures," said Harry, as he led them down a hedge-lined path to one of the sprawling gardens at the back of Beauxbatons. He twisted his lips into a grin and added, "But they have terribly expensive tastes; it's no wonder you French seem to love them so much."
Fleur did not deign his comment with an answer, instead choosing to needle him in the side.
"Oof," Harry grunted, rubbing his ribs. "It was only a joke."
"Be serious for a moment, 'Arry," she chided, her eyes sparkling with laughter. "I am interested in what they have to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts."
At that, Harry tugged at her hand, causing Fleur to spin around, confused.
"Come on, then," he said, taking a seat at a stone bench nearby; he patted the spot next to him. "Have a seat and Professor Potter will start his next lesson."
She rolled her eyes but settled in quickly beside him, thankfully without any more jabs from her elbows.
"What do you see around you?" he asked.
Fleur gave him an unimpressed look.
"I'm being serious!" he said with a laugh. "What do you see?"
Making a show of examining every inch of the garden around them, she eventually turned back to him and said, "I see flowers."
"What kind of flowers?"
A slight wrinkle formed in her brow. There was another moment before she answered, closing her eyes as she did so. "The most beautiful ones in the entire world."
The soft smile spread over her lips matched Harry's own.
"That's right," he said. "And that's the lesson."
"That is the lesson?" she repeated dubiously. "Pfft! I expected better than that from the famous Professor Potter."
"Famous?" Harry barked a laugh.
Fleur nodded, something twinkling in the hidden depths of her eye. "Your reputation precedes you."
Harry let out an exaggerated sigh. "This is what I get for trying make it fun for my students," he complained good-naturedly.
He could see a burning curiosity in Fleur's crystalline gaze, and he stopped to collect his thoughts before continuing, breathing in the sweet scent of the air which wafted from the beds of flowers surrounding them.
"I wasn't kidding before, it really is that simple," he insisted. "The world is filled with beauty, and that's the most important thing when fighting the Dark Arts." He paused again. He really needed her to understand this. "When you use a Patronus, what is it that you do to bring it to life?" he asked suddenly.
"Happy memories," he could hear her reply in an instant.
"The happiest memories," he said, turning his eyes to the open blue of the sky. "The best that you've got. And it's their purity, their beauty, that arm you not just against dementors, but the darkness. Sure there's curses and charms, counterspells, and whatever else you can think of; but none of it really matters in the end. When you strip it all away, what you're left with is beauty in the face of evil."
Harry swallowed thickly under the burn of Fleur's hot gaze. He knew he couldn't look at her with what he was to say next.
"We fight for our memories, those beautiful moments that cannot be replaced. And during the war, knowing there was something like that out there… it helped me a lot. It kept me going through the worst of it. Even if it was something I'd lost, even if it was no longer my own, and even if I died without reaching it again, the fact that beauty existed made it all worth it in the end."
When Fleur did not respond, Harry paused and shrugged. "I guess that's why I took them out to the Abraxans today; to remind them that there's good and beauty in the world. I figured it might help before I start teaching them the darker stuff."
Unable to help himself, he looked back to her.
"'Arry…" she said, her lips parted. "I…"
Her eyes searched his, and there was an instant where words ceased to matter. He waited and waited, feeling a pressure build in his chest, a blooming hope that the meaning behind his words hadn't been lost.
"I think your students are lucky to have such a brilliant teacher."
He blinked.
"Thanks," he said, fighting the bleakness in his voice. It hadn't been what he wanted to hear, but still the words meant more to him than she could possibly realize.
He stared at Fleur for only a moment longer, before tearing his gaze away. He'd said too much already, and if he stayed another second longer, he knew everything would come crumbling down.
"I, uh, should probably go see Maxime." He stood from the bench and looked to the palace. "I reckon she's waited long enough for me already."
"Vampires."
"No."
"Snakes!"
"No."
"Werewolves?"
Harry cast a deadpan look across the room.
"Right, Remus. Never mind," said Fleur, who scrunched her face deeper in thought. Harry was very much enjoying this game, and the many cute faces of frustration it brought out of Fleur.
She tapped pensively at her lower lip, which jutted forward. "It wasn't Voldemort, was it?" she asked carefully.
Harry shook his head. "No," he said, smiling at her exasperated expression. "It's not a bad guess though. I just didn't really know all that much about him when I was in third year."
Fleur tossed her hands in the air, rippling her golden hair which cascaded off the edge of the chaise she lounged on. "I give up," she exclaimed, making a put-out face. "You win."
"Don't sound so happy about it, will you," he teased, before hastily having to dodge out the way of a hefty textbook thrown his way. "I told you, you wouldn't get it."
"Oh, yes, how very clever of you for making me try to guess your greatest fear when you were thirteen." Summoning the textbook back into her hand, she grumbled, "Knowing boys, it was probably some girl you had a crush on."
Harry laughed and took in a deep, satisfied breath at the joy of Fleur's company. It had been that way all afternoon, just the two of them, laughing, smiling, drinking wine, and bathing in the sunlight pouring in from the tossed open windows of Fleur's office.
"How did you find a Boggart anyway?" Fleur asked, drawing his attention back to her.
"They're not all that difficult to find if you know where to look," he said with a casual shrug. Bending over, he picked up another book from the floor and mindlessly flipped through its pages. "It's stuck in a trunk in my office right now. I want to the lesson to be just like how it was for me… Remus had a way of making everything so fun, even things that were meant to be scary."
He could feel the pull of Fleur's curious gaze. "Was it not?"
"It was," Harry said honestly. "But I think that was the point of it all. If you could face your worst fear in front of your entire class, then you had nothing to be afraid of on your own."
Fleur shifted in her seat so that she was better facing Harry; she smoothed out her summer skirt, crossed her legs, and looked to him expectantly.
"What?"
"Are you going to tell me what it was or not?"
Harry chuckled to himself. He'd nearly forgotten they were still playing this game. "Only because you've been so patient," he conceded. "It was a Dementor."
Fleur's eyebrows drew closely together in a weighty expression, and she leaned in closer. "Your greatest fear was… fear itself?"
"Er—Well, I guess," Harry rubbed his hand through his hair. "I just thought they were creepy when they escorted Sirius at his trial."
Her response was only a soft shake of the head. "'Arry, there is no one quite like you," she said.
He quickly shifted his eyes back to the book in his hands, not quite trusting himself to come up with a response to that. Instead, he started to flip through its pages again, not reading a single thing scribbled on them.
At the sound of shuffling papers, he glanced back up to see that Fleur had stood and moved behind her desk.
"You're doing work?" he asked, incredulously. The thought of actually doing something today had never crossed his mind.
"These quizzes will not mark themselves," she said, pointing to the tall stack in front of her. "Just because the students have the weekend off, does not mean we are afforded the same luxury."
"Why is that by the way?" he asked, crossing his hands behind his head and leaning further into his chair. "We only had one weekend trip when we were kids, and now they get two. It hardly seems fair."
Fleur did not look up from her marking. "Take it up with Madame Maxime," she replied distractedly.
"I think I will," said Harry, folding his arms across his chest as though ready to take a stand. "I could do with more days like this."
Even from here, with her head hunched forward, focused on whatever corrections she was jotting down, he could see the amused quirk to her lip. "I do not see why you are complaining. You are a Professor, you can go wherever you please," she said.
"We can?" he said, not knowing this.
Fleur nodded her head.
His next words spilled from his mouth before he could hope to stop them.
"Will you go with me?"
There was a pause, and then Fleur looked up at him with an inscrutable expression.
"Oui," she said slowly, and Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. She set the paper she'd been working on to the side and folded her hands atop her desk. "Do you have anything in mind?"
"It's uh… a surprise."
"Ah…" Fleur's eyes almost seemed to sparkle. "Well, I am quite fond of surprises."
Harry grinned, feeling as though he stood at the top of the world. "It's a date then?"
Fleur stared at him a moment longer, before the softest of smiles pulled at her lips.
"It's a date."
Harry watched over the midnight sky, were off in the distance the Eiffel Tower twinkled as though lit by a thousand tiny stars. Paris had fallen into a slumber, yet somewhere just below, the night was coming alive with wild, raucous cheers.
A melancholic smile touched his lips just as the soft clip of heels sounded behind him.
"Have you come here to hide?" a voice tickled against his ear. "There is no shame in watching your country lose."
"I'm just happy for Viktor," he said.
"Moi aussi," breathed Fleur as she settled behind him. He liked it when she slipped into French. It didn't happen often, but she'd been speaking quite a bit tonight.
"How has Ron taken it?" he asked.
"Terribly," said Fleur with a laugh. "Same as Arthur and Kingsley, but I sent Papa to cheer them up. Viktor also offered to get a picture of them holding the World Cup, which helped."
"Good. I'd rather Ron not reignite an old rivalry over nothing."
"Oui, crisis averted," she said, cleaning her hands of a job well done. "But little did I expect to come up here and find you being the broodiest of all."
"I was just catching some air," he said with a small shake of the head, still staring out into the velvety darkness. "How did you find me anyway?"
"Gabrielle saw you try to sneak away."
Harry laughed softly. "I'm surprised she managed to tear her eyes away from Viktor long enough to see."
He could feel her smile next to him, its warmth kissing his skin and setting it aflame. Unable to keep his gaze away any longer, he turned, and his throat suddenly went dry as it had been doing all night.
Fleur peered up at him, bathed in the pale brilliance of the moonlight. "She can be astute at times…" she said with a hint of a smirk, "For someone so obsessed with sport, that is."
"I never expected her to be such a Quidditch nut," said Harry, thinking fondly of how the young girl had sat on the edge of her seat chattering about every piece of action to anyone who would listen. "She really knows her stuff."
Fleur let out an exaggerated sigh. "To my great shame, yes."
"Oh, stop it," said Harry, playfully bumping into her side. "She had the time of her life tonight."
She watched Harry for a moment, her stare penetrating.
"Oui, she did."
Harry swallowed thickly and leaned against the railing at his back. The air was thin up here, atop the impossibly high stadium which had hosted the Quidditch World Cup; he could see the subtle rise and fall of Fleur's chest and feel his own breath come quicker.
"What about you?" he asked.
"Moi?"
"How did you like tonight?"
Fleur looked him up and down. "I suppose the evening has been tolerable enough," she admitted with the slightest curl to her lip.
Harry barked a laugh. "Tolerable, hey? After I've wined and dined you all night."
She sent him a coy look over her shoulder as she shrugged, then joined him along the railing. A gentle silence settled over them—a peace almost. It was a shame he felt none of this inside.
"'Arry…" Fleur said after a pause. Her eyes were focused on a point he could not place. "How did you manage this?"
It was a question he'd been hoping to avoid all night.
"I pulled a few strings, that's all," he said as casual as he could. She didn't need to know how he'd begged Kingsley for days to help set this up on such short notice. Or how more than just a few strings had to be pulled to get their dinner reservation this evening. Guy Savoy did not come cheaply.
He could feel the pressure of her gaze shift to him. "'Arry, my family and I just watched the World Cup with the French Minsiter," she said flatly.
Heat crept up his cheeks. "I knew just how much you missed them," he said, as if that was the only explanation he needed. "If I can't call in favours for people I care about, then what's the point."
He ducked his head then and stared at his hands, which gripped the railing in front of him far tighter than he'd realized. He needed to get away, needed time to clear his head and think clearly, but he couldn't do that with her standing so close to him. The storm brewing inside him grew all the more turbulent.
It had been easier to distract himself during the match, but even then, all he could think of was Fleur. She filled his mind and consumed his thoughts in an intoxicating rush that left him in a daze.
"I… I wanted tonight to be special," he added, unsure as to why he was admitting this.
You're playing a dangerous game, Potter, he warned himself. But right now, he found, he didn't particularly care.
It had been this way for weeks, stuck in this purgatory, where flashes of the past teased him mercilessly. It was torture, standing so close to what he'd once had, not being able to tell where he stood, or if he was the only one living with an ache where his heart should be.
He wasn't sure how much longer he could take it.
Fleur stared at him, her eyes bright and nebulous as the far-off stars.
"It was," she finally replied, so quiet he thought he'd mistaken it for the wind. "I never expected any of this…" Her brows were furrowed in a silent expression, and he couldn't tell whether it was a good or bad thing.
Had he tried too hard? Gone too far? Had he made his feelings too obvious?
"I just—I couldn't—I needed to know if…" He felt himself struggling, cracking, giving way. "If… If there was still…"
He stopped himself and closed his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by a deluge of emotions. He drowned beneath inky, bitter waves, and when he opened them again, he searched hopefully, desperately, for anything to grasp onto…
So when her lips parted in some unspoken response, he'd already leaned forward and touched his to hers in something so clumsy it could hardly be considered a kiss.
Her taste was bittersweet on his lips. He hadn't earned this. It felt wrong; nothing like he'd imagined all these years. He'd taken this in his fear, and the realization left him sick.
He could feel the slightest twitch of her mouth against his, but by then he'd already peeled away.
Fleur stared at him, and him back at her.
Unable to bear his shame any longer, Harry turned away and made to leave the roof, only stopping for a heartbeat to look over his shoulder to where Fleur had yet to move.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I… It was a mistake."
A lonely echo trailed down the length of a white marble floor. He'd been wandering for some time now, through each wing of the palace and it's slowly waking grounds. Sleep had not come easy, and troubled dreams drove him to the company of his steps.
And what dreaded company it was. The sound tore at him; the hollowness existing as it did when himself and Fleur parted last night. There had been a look in her eye, a heartbeat where she might speak, but he'd turned his back, too weak to endure what she might say.
A mistake. That was what he had called it. Not just the kiss, but everything… a mistake.
Staring at the wall of mirrors to his left, each pale as milk, their gilded edges gleaming in the stabs of early sunlight, he wondered for a moment which had been his first.
Perhaps it had been as a child, escaping to this foreign place, away from the cold reality of his father's death. Rather than face the unpleasant truth, he buried himself in a world not quite real and the childish fantasy of a girl at the center of it all. Older, prettier, and too much for a boy like him to even dream of, she was a salve to a freshly opened wound.
Though, the bigger mistake might have been made when returning home—pining after her for all those years. It had been so easy to fall for her, but could he not have moved on just as life did around him?
Without moving on, he hadn't a hope to stop himself from falling again. And he did, terribly, at that awful tournament: the best and worst year of his life. A cursed year. A year that screamed at him the warnings he already knew. But that hadn't stopped him in his foolishness, his hopelessness. Getting what he had always wanted and then losing it all…
A mistake.
He'd realized it then, despite what little good it did. It was too late. He'd dug himself too deep, entrenched himself to a point where when he pushed away, hoping to save them both, he only opened a wound that never truly healed. It ached and spoiled and wept tears he never dared to shed, the pain rising and falling like the changing tides, but never leaving. He'd been content to bury it all away, first through the gruelling demands of the war, and then in the silent depths of Grimmauld Place; and once Hermione appeared at his home with her offer, it seemed like another great escape. Another salve for another wound.
But how was he to account for her being here?
It had been a trick that led him take this job, but that did not mean it was beyond his power to leave. It would have been simple, really, no one would have blamed him. Only, the thought never occurred to him. He didn't want to go, and that had been his next mistake. History had a way in repeating itself, and one look into her eyes was too much for the broken man he was to help himself.
Just as he couldn't help himself last night.
A mistake.
Without knowing, Harry raised a hand to his lips. He'd fallen still at the center of a painted hall, swallowed in silence, only the soft sound of Monsieur Léon busying himself somewhere nearby breaking his peace. If any mistake had been made, he decided, it was giving into the dream of his father's story. What was it he had once said? There are three steps to love…
But was it a mistake? A voice inside him asked, as he turned his gaze to the ceiling.
Ignoring the throb of his heart, his eyes traced over the radiant figures high above him: their crystal eyes, their luminous hair, and sharp features which filled one with a mix of fear and awe. All he saw was Fleur, and the guilt once again began to eat away at his insides.
It certainly felt like a mistake.
But something did not sit right with him. It had kept him up all night and sent his mind into a storm. Maybe it was the words left on Fleur's lips that he hadn't taken the time to hear, or it could have been the fool inside him once again acting up, leading him further down this doomed path. Whatever it was, the voice inside him grew stronger, and he found his feet carrying him down the hall again.
It was instinctive; he didn't have to look to know where he was going. The urge propelling him forward came from the same part of himself as the voice did. Harry knew this was what he had been putting off with his aimless wandering around the palace. So, when the first trickling of water touched his ears, he wasn't surprised.
Neither was he when he stepped into a courtyard to find Fleur sat along the edge of a fountain, a book rested gently in her lap.
"Do you remember the first time we met?"
A moment passed as she flipped idly through worn pages, and he could tell she wasn't truly reading.
"Oui," she eventually said, focused still on where her fingers played along the edge of her book. "It was here."
Harry let out a short laugh. His gut was a mess of nerves. "I remember how I couldn't get over just how much you looked like those Veela in the Grand Hall."
"I am one of their descendants."
"I know…" he said softly. "I know."
There was a pause, and for a heartbeat Harry thought it might be best for him to leave.
"You were so small next to Monsieur Léon." Fleur's words stopped him. Her eyes peered up, guarded, yet so incredibly disarming. "I thought he might start dragging you around the palace to keep up."
Harry tried a smile but found it didn't fit right. "He never really was one for patience," he said, listening as his voice faded beneath the bubbling water.
Stilted silence descended over them again.
He hated it.
"Listen, Fleur…" he said, feeling the way his tongue stumbled over itself. "Last night—I… all of this… It was a—"
"Non!" she snapped; her eyes flashed dangerously. "I will not sit and hear you say this again."
"I… What?"
"Is that why you came here? Why you searched for me? To come insult me a second time." The heat in her voice caught Harry off-guard. He knew Fleur when she was angry, he had expected it; her cool detachment, condescension, and words chipped from ice. But this was none of it.
"A mistake," she spat the words like a curse.
"Fleur, I just wanted to apologize," he tried again, hoping the words wouldn't ignite her like the others had.
"Apologize?" She quirked her head and eyed him with fire. "Oui. An apology would be appropriate. But for what?"
Her words were a challenge, and he searched his mind for an answer only to find it in disarray. He was still thrown by her fierce reaction.
"For…" He felt his throat go dry. Words did not come to him, not the right ones at least. "I don't know."
Fleur shut her book and sat it on the stone lip of the fountain as she faced him fully. "Then nothing has changed," she said firmly.
Once again, Harry was overwhelmed by the feeling he was missing something. As he stared at her, he could see that locked just beyond the pale rosebud of her lips were words she would not say.
She sighed. "A mistake," she repeated, and it sounded so wrong in the air. Her gaze fell on his, vulnerable. "Is that truly what you think this is?"
And then he saw it. All of it, including his folly. This had not been her anger. This had been her defiance. Her fire. Just as it had been on that fateful day in the Hospital Wing. She was upset, and that little voice inside of him shouted triumphantly why.
"I've made a right mess of this, haven't I?"
There came no response, but he saw the way Fleur shifted as he spoke.
"May I?" He pointed to the spot next to her on the fountain, taking it.
There was an awareness about him now, the type of clarity like when first putting on his glasses upon waking up in the morning. He knew what he had to do—what he should have done a long time ago.
"The only mistake I made was letting you go," he said slowly, deliberately. The words poured from him with a truth he could no longer deny. "I could never admit it to myself. I think it was easier that way, to blame it on other things rather than a choice I made. A wrong choice."
Around them, ripe blades of grass swelled with morning dew and petals unfurled from their nightly embrace. A tranquility had come over the courtyard, one that seemed to separate them from the rest of the world.
Fleur watched him with a softness in her expression, but still there was something that held her at a distance. There was something else she waited on.
"An apology," said Harry with realization. He breathed in deeply feeling the tightness of his lungs. The words came to him before he even properly realized. "I'm sorry I forgot one of the first things you ever told me… That you never needed a saviour."
Fleur smiled; a pull of the lips so slight he might have missed it. "It took you long enough."
Harry laughed. The sound was washed with relief. "I've never thought you incapable, Fleur," he softly said. "I've always admired you, actually. Especially during the war when you came when you didn't have to. I thought you might have been trying to prove me wrong."
She shook her head. "I had nothing to prove, least of all to myself. I joined the war because it was the right thing to do." There was a pause where she took Harry's hand in her own. "And because I still cared for you, despite what you had put me through."
Harry swallowed thickly. "I'd just lost Sirius… I couldn't lose you too."
"But it wasn't your choice to make, 'Arry. You took that away from me," she said. "Danger would have befallen me either way. I would have sooner faced it by your side."
"I'm surprised you didn't hate me."
"Never." She took his other hand. "Not when I could see my own heartache reflected in you."
He thought of all his years of pain and felt it suddenly rush through him. "I tried to tell you," he said, hearing his voice waver. "That afternoon in the garden, after we left the Abraxons—I wanted you to know how I felt."
"I know," said Fleur. "I wanted desperately to tell you the same." She closed her eyes as the unmistakeable flicker of guilt crossed her features. "Just like how I wanted to last night."
Harry made a face. "I shouldn't have—"
"Stop that," said Fleur, cutting across him. "It was my fault. I lured you in, tempted you. I couldn't help myself. Last night had been so perfect. This whole summer has…"
Her voice trailed off, and not too far away Harry could hear the first stirrings of students in the palace.
"It felt like it used to," he said, knowing intimately what she had meant. "Like nothing had changed."
Fleur nodded, biting at the end of her lip. "But we are not children anymore." Her eyes flicked to their shared hands, back to his face. "I could not be sure, 'Arry. Not until…"
"I understood what I'd done," he finished for her. He felt a peace within himself which he hadn't experienced in some time.
"Oui," she smiled, larger this time and more free. Then she winked. "I will never have you forget that I am not a fragile little flower."
Harry teasingly rolled his eyes. "You are not a fragile little flower." He recited the words as a student did when asked to by their teacher.
She smacked him lightly on the arm, laughing.
"You know," said Harry, a cheeky grin coming over his face, "I've made a few new enemies over the years. You might get your wish sooner than you'd expect."
"Good," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "I would have it no other way."
A moment hung between them then, and Harry watched as Fleur dipped a finger into the pooling water beneath them. She looked almost a part of the fountain.
"So…" he drew out the word. "What now?"
"Now," said Fleur with a twinkling in her bright eyes, "I have a week left of classes to prepare for and an exam to write."
Harry chortled. "And what after?"
"Well," pondered Fleur, leaning closer... and closer, allowing the peachy sunlight to bounce off her golden hair. "I suppose I would have to mark them and fill out my reports."
There was a change in the air as though suddenly filled with static.
"And then?" Harry rasped, feeling his throat do a funny thing.
"Then," said Fleur, drawing her finger from the pool and placing it at his bottom lip, "I'd need to submit then to Madam Maxime and clean out my office."
A cool drop ran down his chin, but he could not tear himself away from her heavy-lidded eyes and gently parted lips.
"But before all that," she whispered to him. "I'd have you kiss me proper."
And Harry did not need to be told twice. The moment they touched, he felt what had been missing last night. He could taste her sweetness. This is what he had longed for, what he had dreamed of. He hadn't stolen this moment, it was earned.
It was deserved.
And pulling away for the barest moment to catch his breath, he caught the clear blue of Fleur's eyes and said, "I love you." They were the words he'd never had the chance to share.
"And I never stopped," she breathed, before joining their lips together again.
So lost in one another, and the years which had kept them apart, they didn't notice the bell which rang to start the day, or the sounds of bustling students nearby, or even the confused chatter which echoed down hallways asking where the school's favorite professors had gone. Neither did they notice the man who stumbled across them and their fountain sometime later…
"Madam Delacour et Monsieur Potter! QU'EST-CE QUE VOUS FAITES!?"
"Désolé Monsieur Léon…"
And as they fell into fitful laughter, Harry could hear in the back of his mind the crackle of fire as his father finished his story, and he wondered if his dad was watching over him now, laughing at how right he'd been all along.
AN:
I hope you all enjoyed this (relatively) short story. If you have any thoughts, comments or questions, constructive or otherwise, please do leave a review as they are much appreciated.
If you enjoy my writing and haven't read A Beautiful Lie, my other completed story, go check it out! And if you've finished both, then stay tuned, as I have another novel-length HP story I'm working on now and hope to release soon!
Until next time.