Arianne wasn't so sure anymore.
She craned her neck to look up at the underside of the balcony, as she'd done from the car window everytime she picked up or dropped off her sister. It felt different now, outside the car, and different wasn't necessarily good.
Her father came around the back of the car, floating her truck with him and she looked up at him with big watery eyes, suddenly on the verge of tears as anxiety consumed her. He smiled and knelt beside her and a single tear fell as she heard her mother break out into fresh sobs behind her.
Her father swiped it away with a thumb and leaned in conspiratorially.
"Don't do that little chick," he whispered, and tapped her nose gently with a finger, he was smiling but his own eyes looked misty. "Your mother will never let you go then."
Arianne laughed even as another tear escaped. "I don't wanna go, papa," she said quietly, in defeat, finally admitting it.
"I know baby girl, but guess what?"
She didn't, but he carried on nonetheless.
"You sister didn't want to either," her eyebrows rose in surprise, Liliane had never said a bad thing about her time at Beauxbatons. She had filled Arianne's head with endless visions of how great it was. "The night before, she asked maman if she could stay, and look how fast she fell in love with it."
Arianne could hear Liliane telling her maman it would be okay, the older woman absolutely being consoled by the teen. It made her feel a bit better about it all, and her momentary fear began to lose ground in the wake of the excitement that had dominated the summer.
"Besides," her father said, and he lowered his voice even further. "I've shrunk your broom and stashed it in your trunk, so you have to go, so you can figure out how to unshrink it."
Arianne's eyes lit up, and the last of her anxiety faded.
"Now, go say bye to maman little chick," she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and gave her papa a proper smile.
He stood and ruffled her hair, and she protested on principle, though she was far from upset, and too soon he moved to his eldest daughter. Arianne caught sight of her mother's distraught face as she realized it was time to say goodbye to her little baby.
With a resolve to calm her down just as Liliane had, she marched over and hugged her mom around the middle. Fleur laughed and ran smoothing hands down her head, rectifying the mess her father had just made.
"It's okay maman," Arianne said, proud that she'd kept a waver out of her voice.
"I know little chick," Fleur said, and she sounded reassured, not as weapy as she usually was when dropping Liliane off. "Because you're the strongest little chick on the planet."
As if to prove her point, Arianne squeezed her mother's legs and refused to let go until Liliane pulled her focus asking if she was ready. Her pounding heart spread a new feeling through her veins now, excitement. The two Potter girls turned at the doors to wave, their parents held each other by the car, and waved back, and they turned and disappeared from sight.
A tear fell from Harry's eye as he watched his youngest daughter, his little broom prodigy, his chaotic little spitfire, disappear into the school that had changed his life forever.
"You big softy," his wife teased, and he shook his head, forcing a chuckle to purge out the shakiness in his voice.
"You're one to talk," he quipped, and she rolled her eyes and reached up to dry his cheek.
"Come mon coeur, we still have one little chick, let's go rescue him from papa," she climbed into the car and he followed, off to get their last little chick from the Delacours.
"Rescue papa more like," he chuckled as he followed her.
"I don't ever want to hear another joke about my teary goodbyes," she said as gravel crunched in the car pulled away. "I will rat you out so fast."
He laughed, a real one this time. "But of course mon coeur, now come here."
He opened his arms, and she crawled across the armrest to sit in his lap and resume her lifelong task of sorting out his hair. The familiar action was so ingrained in both of them that it acted as instant soothing for both sides.
Their daughters were off to school, one for the first time, but it would not be so long till the first holiday. And besides, there were houses in the village, maybe it was time to reach out to his realtor.
These thoughts, and Fleur's nimble fingers, helped bridge the gap that Arianne's first semester of school created, and they headed home to collect their son.