Harry Potter was nervous.

It was ridiculous, of course, that he should be nervous of pretty much anything after having faced a dark wizard who had been dead set on taking over the world.

He'd spent years at war, and even more years on the streets. He should be immune to feeling nervous.

Add to that that he was nervous to face his lovely, petite french wife and... well, he could hear the boys laughing already.

Something about him being whipped.

He sniffed experimentally at the casserole he'd been slaving over for most of his day off- it smelled perfect. He had to remember to thank Severus for that recipe.

Ladling it over into a serving bowl (Fleur was insistent that things could simply not be served up in the pot, though Harry thought it was kind of homey and didn't really get the fuss) and moving it to the already set table with a flick of his wand, the young man nervously fiddled with the spoon for a bit longer.

Yes- he was nervous all right.

Felt rather like he had the first time he'd entered Hogwarts... or that first potions lesson...

The sound of porcelain shattering brought him back to the present with an unpleasant jolt. He rushed into the dining room.

"Oh no! No- get down from there you little...!"

This was the exact moment- wrestling with the source of his nerves- that the door decided to open and allow before mentioned wife into the house.

Fleur Delacour blinked.

"'Arry," she said with the dead calm that generally had people running in the opposite direction, "why iz zere a leopard in our house?"

And there was- or at least there was a baby wild cat in their house. Wrestling with her husband on the table. Still, she supposed it could be worse things wrestling with her husband.

"Erm, actually- it's a cheetah."

"I see. And zis cheetah, you are wrestling it off of our table to save our dinner? Are you a wizard or no?"

"Heh, well, you see... I don't want to hurt it. Or make it skittish..."

"..." Fleur Delacour knew that look. The one her husband was now gifting her with now- those wide green eyes looking at her from underneath his fringe. It was his version of the puppy dog look.

"You cannot be serious." She stated in a monotone.

"About what?" Faux innocence coloured his voice.

"You want to keep eet az ze pet!" Her accent was coming back in full swing now.

"Please?"

"No! Eet eez a wild animal! Eet weel eet us een our sleep!"

"No he won't! He's a cheetah- according to the vet who was going to put him down, they're suprisingly dog-like. So they make pretty good pets. It had to be made illegal in Namibia because people were domesticating them too much."

"No! We 'ave not even tried ze dog or ze cat! We are both very busy- you are not even finished wis your residency!"

"But... but... he can't live in the wild. He got hit by a car..." And with that her husband sat the cheetah so that she could see that his left back leg had been amputated. "Either we take him in or he gets put down..." Harry shot her another soulful look.

"... We live in a residential neighbourhood, 'Arry! Zere are laws against this sort of sing!"

"Actually," and here he brightened considerably, "there aren't any laws against it! Mark has a tiger."

Mark was his idiotic vetrinarian friend, Fleur recalled.

"No- no, no, no! Absolutely not!"

OS-HP-OS

Something was nuzzling at her sock-covered foot, slowly and surely moving the sock from its snug home over her foot... Something wet and sniffy.

"MERDE!" Fleur Delacour sat upright in her bed and glared at the offender.

The offender merely gave a cute little chirrup and turned its liquid eyes on her, but Fleur was not easily deterred, after all she'd had two years to get used to that look.

"Merde, get off of ze bed. And leave my sock!"

But it was too late- the cheetah had already hared off with the sock in his mouth. Fleur felt her mouth pull into a frown as she looked at the bedside tempus-charm. Six am. On her day off.

This was just far too early.

And she blamed her husband, she thought as she grudgingly got out of the bed and wrapped herself in her silk gown. If he hadn't brought home that monstrosity and somehow managed to convince her to let him keep it... she would have been able to have lie ins more often.

Said husband was calmly sitting on the sofa, perusing the latest medical journal and looking like he'd had another long shift at the hospital with his cheetah laid across his feet and looking incredibly guilty to her trained eye.

Harry looked up at her with a grin, before quailing under her fierce glare.

"Your pet woke me up again! 'E eez eentolerable when you are gone!"

Harry immediately reached out to pet Merde behind the ear again. "Awwwww... I miss you too boy!"

Fleur snorted, moving the large cat to the side and snuggling up to her husband on the couch. "Ze two of you drive me insane!"

Kissing the top of her head as he opened the journal at the beginning of the article he'd been reading, so that she could catch up, Harry merely smiled. "Please, I happen to know you were insane back when I met you!"

"Mmmmm." Fleur said as she inhaled his scent. "Sanity eez so overrated- sank you!"

"No, you weren't. That's why I noticed you."

"... Suddenly sanity seems like a good idea..."

This seemed to be the last straw as Harry promptly proceeded to corner her on the couch and tickle her mercilessly. This lead to some breathless kisses as the two realized that it had been two weeks of opposing shifts at the hospital and wow, hey there sex drive, I rather thought you'd gone off and died in a corner somewhere...

Harry slipped a hand under her tank top softly caressing her middle with his callused fingers as Fleur ran her hands down his back, reveling in the feel of hard muscle that met her hands on their path. They both groaned at the contact and it wasn't long before Harry was teasing one nipple with his fingers and gently rousing the other with his mouth.

Fleur was busy working his zipper down (why the man was so attatched to jeans, she didn't know. And considering how his ass looked in them, she didn't care.) and already panting in breathless anticipation...

WHUMP!

The couple on the couch both had the wind- and sex drive- knocked out of them by a large cat jumping on them, chirping in joy and nipping playfully (but considering its powerful jaws vs human skin- painfully) at the two of them.

"MERDE!" The two cried out in unison.

This was why they had to have sex behind locked doors. Merde could open closed ones, and he always seemed keen on a threesome.

By the time they had finally sorted themselves out and been given another dose of Merde's neediness, they both knew by joint experience that to leave the cheetah alone now would result in poor Mary next door losing quite a few of her rabbits... again.

So the odd threesome settled down to do some reading.

They fell asleep within minutes.

Merde chirping contentedly throughout their nap.

A/N: What inspired this piece of utterly useless schmoop? The Week From Hell, that's what. Well, that and the fact that there's a tiger living in the next city over... about ten kms from my house. I kid you not- there's no law against it either.

Then I figured that this could really raise awareness for cheetahs. The population is dwindling at a worrying rate, and pretty soon they'll be extinct. To find out how you can help, visit the wwf website- it's always a good start.

And then, just when you thought I was going to get frisky... I left you hanging. I'm sorry. But I'm nervous around sex scenes... Give me gore and violence any day.