Chapter 1
First Days
In which the Potter's drop off a flower, and Harry meets Fleur.
Big watery tears brimmed up and fell from sorrow filled leaf-green eyes. The car lurched forward and then accelerated smoothly, crunching gravel as it moved down the long drive away from the school. As they set off the little girl gave in to her tears and threw herself back across the seat wailing.
"I want to go to Beauxbatons too!" She flailed wildly, beating tiny fists into expensive leather upholstery. Her sobs were too much for her mother, who was already struggling to hold back her own grief, and she burst into tears as well.
"Do not say that little chick, you'll break your mother's heart." Her father said, not bothering to hide his laugh at the two hysterical witches. Said mother reached over and swatted his shoulder with the back of her hand. The motion was so practiced she did not even need to look up or stifle her tears. It was also so familiar that when he caught her hand and held it, sending a wink at his daughter, it had the effect of calming her down.
"Come sit here, and hug your mother, and I'll tell you about my first day at Beauxbatons." He patted the seat beside him, sliding over to make room in-between him and his wife. His daughter lit up at the prospect and jumped across the small car's space to cuddle into her sniffling mother's side.
-o-o-o-
Harry Potter had never seen such elegance.
Aunt Petunia, in his narrow world view, had to be the most stuffy aristocratic person he had ever met. She would be red with rage trying to stuff down her jealousy if she could see this place. That thought brought him some joy, but not enough to overpower the swelling feeling of ineptitude that was growing within him. He stood with a trunk too heavy to carry, and an irritated snowy owl who wouldn't stop beaking at the lock to her cage. He was wearing a brand new silk and Egyptian cotton three piece suit that was more expensive than everything he'd ever owned several times over. Most importantly though, he was going to learn to be a wizard at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.
The thought still brought a giddy smile to his face, even though it had been almost two months since the ministry witch had shown up at the Dursleys and told him. That of course, would not last.
But the school! He'd never seen a building so large, and the whole thing was made of rich red brick that showed like an ember in the sun. All down the full length of the building marble columns ran two stories up to support an outdoor patio on the third level that overlooked the gardens and down the valley beyond. The windows were all accented by marble arches and the window panels were framed in gilded iron.
Margot, his ministry messiah, used magic to make his truck float beside them and smiled down at him.
"Let's go and get you settled then, yeah?" He could only nod.
The magic of, well, magic wore off within the first week though. He was an awkward kid, without much experience talking to people other than his family, and little incentive to do even that most days. He wanted to interject, interact with his roommates, but it was hard. They moved through conversations too quickly, he would get the courage to weigh in only for the topic to change drastically.
To make matters worse it only took a few days for someone to realize he was the Harry Potter. That spread like wildfire around the first Wednesday of term.
Margot had warned him this would happen eventually, and after realizing he did not understand the significance, explained what being Harry Potter meant. The news did not however have the effect she seemed to assume it would, he did not face uncomfortable questions about his parents or Voldemort. No, the fact that he was the orphan vanquisher of a British Dark Lord had the singular effect of reminding his classmates that he was in fact English.
The only way it could have possibly been worse is if he were American, and even then maybe not, as the only two Americans in attendance with him were a set of twins on one of the school Quidditch teams. They were fifth years and they were by all accounts well loved. So-
-o-o-o-
"You make it sound so awful papa."
"Do not listen to him Arianne, he just wants you to feel bad for him." Fleur told her daughter, smoothing the little girl's hair out from its tantrum induced tussle. She was calm again, the grief of dropping their first born off for her first school year briefly abated. "He made the most of his school years and enjoyed every one of them." His wife gave him a challenging look over their daughter's head. "He is just about to get to the part where he meets me."
Arianne Potter lit up like a light bulb and turned fully to face her father, leaning back into her mother's side. Fleur continued to preen her perfect silvery blonde hair, looking at her husband expectantly.
"Right, well …" He paused to recollect his narrative flow. "So-"
-o-o-o-
By the end of his first week the glimmer of his new world had faded. It was still an amazing world of course, he was learning magic and no amount of snotty rich snobbery could take that away. It was just that for the remainder of the summer he'd started to imagine going to wizard school as a sort of fresh start. It was more akin to a reset button really, and things settled into a new- but not too new- normal.
This new normal included all the amazing food he could manage to eat, and the most comfortable bed he'd ever felt. He got to spend his free time reading about giant wars and practicing charms, instead of doing dishes and weeding flower beds. But he had plenty of free time, because it contained all the isolation and social difficulty of the old world too.
By his first Friday, he was taking his lunch in the banquet hall, alone at a table for two, as was to be expected. He didn't mind much, he would have a book out on the table, or work on a homework assignment while he ate. This day though, this day would be different.
He was scratching out the title of his first real piece of homework, an essay on the fundamental theory of transfiguration, when a shadow fell over him. It was more like a shadow fell over the room really. Everyone went quiet and it was that that brought Harry's attention up from his parchment.
The most beautiful person he had ever seen was standing in front of him. She had long, unnaturally straight hair, like sheets of silver hanging around her face and spilling onto her shoulders. And her eyes… so big and so deep and so blue they put the ocean to shame. And he was dumbfounded, she just looked down at him and he just looked up at her, ink dripping off his quill and ruining the title of his essay.
"You are 'arry Potter, yes?" She asked in English. Somehow so horridly accented and yet so beautiful, and it took him a second to remember how to swallow.
"Oui, je suis Harry Potter."
"Come with me." Somehow, her voice was even more beautiful in French. She turned on her heel, hair fanning out behind her only to fall back to perfection, and stalked off. He crammed his things into his bag so fast he left the stopper to his ink pot on the table and found out later that the whole pot was draining into his books. It didn't matter though, not at all.
-o-o-o-
Fleur laughed, interrupting his story, because his head always went a little blank when she laughed like that. "I had forgotten how horrible your accent was." She said, not deigning to address his poke at her own accent. Arianne, who was very into the story, came in defense of her father.
"What's wrong with papa's voice?" She sent pouty eyes up at her mother who was supremely unaffected by her efforts.
"Nothing now, little chick, but when I met him he was just a little English boy who spoke French better than English, with a horrible accent on both." She squished her daughter's cheeks until the girl broke her pout and giggled.
"Okay then what papa?"
"So you saw that big balcony on the third floor?" His daughter nodded excitedly.
-o-o-o-
The third floor balcony had many functions at Beauxbatons, both social and academic. The south end acted as the launching pad for the broom racing clubs, and as such was the official hangout for all flyers in the school. On the north end there were a few tables that older students would take their meals at when the weather was nice. The middle housed the dueling strips, students would set up here to paint the views of the valley or conjure lounges and fire pits in the evenings. If you were below fifth year, the entire balcony was unofficially off limits. Some of the younger racers or quidditch kids got in by virtue of skill, more rare was a younger dueler, but it happened.
That is where this blue eyed french goddess took him. Straight up to the balcony and to another table for two. She sat with her back to the view, and when he moved to sit across from her she stopped him with a quick admonishment.
"Unbutton your coat before you sit," She snapped, Harry blinked at her.
"I'm… Sorry?"
"Your suit jacket, you have been sitting with it buttoned all week. You are going to lose a button, and it creases the material." She gestured to the chair across from her, not quite impatient, but with a haughty aire he was beginning to associate with all of magical Europe as a whole.
He unbuttoned his coat and sat across from her and immediately felt the difference it made. He had never owned anything tailored before, let alone a three piece suit, and he marveled at how uncomfortable he'd been the last week. She nodded approvingly and ordered two teas.
"Drink tea or coffee at meals-" she began, lifting her cup.
"I don't really like tea." He interjected, but lifted his own, mirroring her.
"That is good, because I was going to say not to drink it too fast, and don't interrupt me." She sipped her drink prettily and returned it to the table. "You may read, like so-" She held her hand out to her side, not much higher than the table, and mimed looking down her nose at a book.
"Do not put the book on the table, do not read a book that requires both hands, and definitely do not write your essays on the table."
He blushed pink and slumped a little in his chair, realizing what this was.
"Sit up." She corrected, but it was an altogether different tone. She said it softly, so that no one else could possibly hear, even though the deck was sparsely populated and no one paid them much mind. She also put her hand out and set it down in the middle of the table, and it felt to Harry like that was her way of placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She carried on in that gentler way:
"This is why they make fun of you, because you do not know how to act." He started to say something but she just talked over him "but it is okay! I will teach you." She sat back, lifting her dainty cup for another sip. He straightened and did the same.
"I- Thanks… I think. Why are you telling me all this?"
"Why does that matter?" He furrowed his brow, but really had no idea what to say to that. Why did it matter? He supposed it didn't, but now he didn't know what to say in response. She seemed content to let the silence hang, but she was also staring at him the whole time, like she was weighing him up with her eyes.
"Er, what's your name?" He asked lamely, still flushed with embarrassment. Her eyebrows came together in a cute crease in the center of her forehead and she tossed her hair over her shoulder.
"Fleur Delacour, do not pretend you don't know who I am, little boy." He didn't, but he was intuitive enough not to admit that.
-o-o-o-
"I was never so stuck up as you make me sound." The forced acid of her tone was muted by the fact that she was whispering to him over the head of their dozing daughter. The combined effect of a day in the car, her emotional outburst, and fifteen minutes of her father's story were kickstarting a nap.
"You so were." He chuckled, trying his best to mute himself as well. "I don't think you said a word to me the first month of term that wasn't a critique of my etiquette."
"And what is this about my cute brow creases, you're the reason I have wrinkles now." She swatted him again, in the chest this time, but he just grinned at her in a way that always made her head go blank for a second.
"How do you remember it then, ma petite princesse?"
"I remember the truth," She said haughtily, "a kind and selfless girl, going out of her way to help a classless English boy survive." His laugh was enough to stir their daughter, but she just unfurled to lay her head in her mom's lap and her feet in dad's. "Well, go on then-"
"With the story?"
"Of course, I have just said goodbye to my daughter for months and months, I am just as upset as she." She placed a hand on her younger daughter's back, rubbing circles into it until he captured it and pressed a kiss to the backs of her fingers.
"Right where was I-"
"You were just about to talk about our homework dates."
"No, no-"
-o-o-o-
The bell chimed and Harry was out of his seat before the echo had faded.
"Leave your bottom button undone, never button it, ever." Harry groaned as she stood, retrieving her satchel at a much more dignified rate. Her eyes flared at his uncouth protestations. "And do not make that noise."
"What buttons should I button then?" Harry had rather liked the uniform until now. Sitting with a buttoned jacket aside, the silk and fine cotton were comfortable, and he felt like James Bond. Twenty minutes with Fleur Delcour though, and he was beginning to see it for the faux pas death trap that it was.
"Always the middle, the top is up to you." If she detected his frustration in his tone it was ignored primly. She caught his arm like a viper striking and held it up to look at his sleeves. "And do not go out in just your vest until you have cuff links."
"Right," Harry said, letting his arm fall limply back to his side when she released it. "Well, this has been fun Fleur, but I have to get to Charms." She simply nodded and turned to walk in front of him. When they reached the top of the grand staircase she stopped and turned to him.
"Meet me here after classes are finished," She told him.
""Wha- I- Why?" He blustered.
"For dinner?" She frowned at him in a distinctly amused manner. "Don't be late." The amusement was gone, and she turned on her heel and marched down the hall, whipping him in the face with her hair in the process. Harry, dazed and confused and feeling light headed, drifted down stairs for charms.
-o-o-o-
Fleur was slightly pink in the cheeks and decidedly not looking at her husband. Harry was not sure which bit of his story had embarrassed her, but he maintained a sly smile for whenever she managed to look back his way.
"I really did that with my hair didn't I?" She met his mischievous grin with a rare shy smile that made her look fourteen again.
"Constantly." He confirmed.
She got a playful glint in her own eye. "Better than you, always running your fingers through it, pushing it back like you just stepped off your broom whenever girls walked by."
"Hey- hey- I'm not complaining, getting slapped by your hair was the highlight of my first two years at Beauxbatons." She gave him a dubious look. "It was! Like getting bludgered over the head in the best possible way." He leaned away from her swat with the practiced ease of a seeker.
"Well neither am I." She confessed, reaching up to ruffle his hair. "It was very dashing."
They stopped for food on the way, and Arianne woke from her nap just long enough to eat. She was back out before the little pub was out of sight. The car pulled to a stop outside a quaint little cottage in the southern French countryside. Harry tried to lift his daughter out without waking her, but it was a doomed effort, she stirred as Fleur took his hand and stepped out. "Can we go flying, papa?" She asked sleepily, head resting on his shoulder and whole body ragdolled in his arm.
He laughed, not even entertaining the idea of seeking his wife's permission. "No little chick, it's teeth and straight to bed for you." She tried to muster a complaint but only managed a few wordless grumbles before they were cut off by a yawn. Harry carried his daughter inside as the car pulled away to park itself.
"Put her down with us," Fleur told her husband, pressing a kiss to his cheek and trailing a hand across his shoulders as he turned down the hall. She went to the kitchen and poured them two glasses of her family's sweet elf-made wine and sipped hers as she listened to Harry cajole their daughter into brushing her teeth. She was on her second glass by the time the door to their room clicked closed and he joined her in the kitchen. She went immediately into his arms, cradling her glass and fitting under his chin with her ear press to his chest.
"My baby…" She whined, and it might've been intended as a joke, but her voice broke and ruined it with sincerity.
"I know." He scratched zig zags across her back and sighed. "But she had to go eventually. We still have Arianne…" He tried for a brightside, but it backfired.
"Only for a few more years, then she'll be gone too!" A single sob slipped free, she washed it away with another 'sip' of wine.
He laughed and squeezed her a little tighter. "Five years is not a few, my love."
"It is not enough!"
"Non, but Liliane will be back for winter break before you know it." Harry finally got to his wine, and his sips were not of Fleur's gulping variety. He looked down at his wife and saw a most dangerous look in her eye. It was the look she got when she was about to try something clever, history showed that this tip off only weakened the effectiveness of her schemes marginally at best.
"You are right my love," She placed her glass down to free up both hands. One of them snaked under his arm to cling to his back, the other cupped his face. She stretched up on her toes to press the sweetest kiss to his lips, sweeter than perhaps any she'd ever given him. "Or, we could-'' He stole another kiss, because he knew where that was going.
"Non, ma princesse, I think not."
"I have a feeling it would be a boy this time," She offered, purred, clinging to him and bathing him in her undiluted allure. "Little James, maybe? Or I've always loved the name Sebastian."
"Sebastian is cute, but we are not having another baby princesse." She stamped her foot and hmphf'd, but settled back into his arms easily.
"We shall see how you feel once our last chick has left the nest." She warned confidently, and he was privately concerned for that moment as well.
"Speaking of-" He said, and downed the last sip of his wine as a little voice called from across the house:
"Maman, Papa!"
"Go, I will clean up." So Fleur finished her glass and moved down the hall while he cleaned the glasses and put them away.
"What is it little chick?" She asked as she slipped into the darkened room. Her daughter lay in the center of their bed, swallowed by the thick comforter and pillows.
"I want to hear what happens next."
"Okay little chick, do not fall asleep then, we will get ready for bed and then papa will tell you more." She was taking out earrings and removing her necklace as she said it. Harry joined them as she was exiting the closet in one of his overly large French National Team shirts the players wore over their uniforms for the press conferences after games. He pressed a kiss to her temple as they passed before disappearing to redress.
"Your daughter wants to hear more of your story," She called to him as she climbed into bed, she pulled Arianne against her and squeezed her last remaining child desperately. "No matter how inaccurate it is." She added as he joined them.
She flipped over, still cradling her daughter who giggled at the move, and sidled back into his chest. She finally felt a little better about Liliane being gone now, sandwiched between her two loves.
"I want maman to tell me."
"I want maman to tell it too," Harry said with a grin, extending an arm across both of them and hugging them tight.
"But of course, such a beautiful story deserves to be told right. So, I was determined to save this lost English boy from himself…"
-o-o-o-
Harry Potter was her masterpiece. Four months ago this little boy was slumped over his table in a wrinkled suit, dropping pastry crumbs on the ground while he got ink spots on the tablecloths. He did not know suspenders from a tie clip, or how to wear his jacket nor when not to wear it.
Now though, as he read from his notebook and snacked on a tart the Sunday before term started, he looked every bit the Beauxbatons socialite that mocked him before.
"What? Have I got mousse on my face?" He wiped at his chin hurriedly and she just laughed.
"Non, take off your coat, I have something for you." He did as instructed, standing to shrug out of it and drape it over the back of his chair, she was so proud.
"Now," She said, stepping over to him and removing the tie clip from his shirt. "Bars only, no clips, you would not wear a clip on tie would you?" He knew better than to answer, when Fleur was teaching all questions were rhetorical. "Exactly, so why wear a clip on your tie." She replaced the simple metal clip with a much nicer silver and sapphire piece that slid over the tie and into his shirt. Next she pulled at his sleeves until he raised his hands and she swapped out the standard cuff links bearing Beauxbatons' crossed wands with a matching set of sapphires.
"C'est parfait! You are ready for spring now, Merry Christmas." He was inspecting the two bits of silver and sapphire around his wrists in awe, the way he always responded to any kindness towards him.
"Fleur I-" He went deep red and dropped his hands, suddenly looking anywhere but at her.
"What is it?" She teased, because she could never resist provoking him once he started blushing. "Did you forget to get me a present? That would be very rude."
"No! I- I got you one, it just-" He trailed off, and when she sat he returned to his seat, fingering one of the cuff links and staring determinedly off the balcony's edge at the winter's night beyond.
"It seems stupid now," he finally confessed shamefully, "I should've asked to go into town-" He started to make excuses, she just cut him off.
"I will be the judge of that." She held out her hand expectantly, but with a little smile. He was at war with himself for a second, then ducked down to rummage in his bag. When he sat back up he was red again and hiding something under the table. She wiggled her fingers expectantly.
"I put a preserving charm on it, I'm not sure how long it'll last, but a while at least and-" He presented a pink peony in full bloom, magically still drops of dew glittering on its petals like crystal beads. He did not place it in her hand but rather held it upright just off the table and released it, it floated there rotating slowly as if on display. "It floats." He finished weakly, still not looking at her.
Her heart skipped a beat, she reached out and cupped the flower and it floated weightlessly toward her. "It's beautiful Harry... Your gift is much better than mine."
"It isn't," he insisted, but the ghost of a smile was tugging at his lips. "I just nicked it from the green houses and looked up the spells in the library over break." She reached out with the hand not cradling the flower and caught his off the table.
"And I just bought you some shirt accessories for your school uniform." She countered, her tone brokering no argument. "Thank you, it is beautiful." He was grinning now, sitting a little straighter and chancing glances her way again. He looked so cute basking in her praise, all shy and hopeful, and before she thought about it fully she was half standing to press a kiss to his cheek.
He went scarlet, and his mouth opened and closed twice before he gave it up for a bad job. For the first time ever he got that glassy eyed look boys got around her, and to her own surprise she found she didn't hate it on him like she did the others. She laughed, feeling emboldened, and said in her best attempt at the sultry tone her mother used to get her way with her father:
"When is your birthday? I'll have to do much better to beat this."
He stammered a bit trying to get out " th-thirty-first, July. B-but you don't-" She simply patted his hand on the table and stood.
"Oui, I must." She contradicted, "Goodnight Harry." She held his hand as she stepped away, so that it would drag through hers and drop heavily when she took her next step.
She was off the balcony and inside before he managed a soft "goodnight, Fleur."
-o-o-o-
"You were a cruel tease, even as children," Harry said in disbelief, as if just remembering the torture of his first year.
"I was no such thing," Fleur dismissed airily. "And even if I was, it is your fault for being so cute."
"My blood pressure must've been through the roof for two solid years." Their daughter was fast asleep, Fleur deftly disentangled herself enough to twist and kiss her husband.
"I'm so glad you survived the little evil Veela." She whispered sardonically.
"Only just," he confided, "Jury's still out, to be honest."
She swatted his arm. "You don't want to start comparing blood pressures, Mr. 'Potter passover' Mr. 'Wronski feint'."
He laughed.
AN Welcome all, to my new idea, I have a fair amount written, and a pretty good idea where I want to take it, so finger's crossed I will actually finish this one! Leave a review if you feel like it, or don't, I'm not your boss and I can't make you.