Chapter 11
Fall For You
In which it is finally revealed that this whole story has been one long songfic for Secondhand Serenade...
Fleur went by the manor house at the start of October to look for some old Halloween decorations Harry had insisted they'd thrown out. The cottage was too small for storing odds and ends, and with the ability to pop over at will the larger place served as storage more than anything these days.
Despite the attic's frequent use, the dust was still thick on boxes and old art pieces. She picked through old furniture and memorabilia from Harry's quidditch days and selected a box at random. It contained silver table settings, she pushed it aside, the second held old newspapers.
France's Krum Killer?
Young seeker Potter leads Chomelix to first ever league victory!
The top paper read and the still images of Harry, once animated but now too old, stared up at her. She almost pushed this box aside too but caught her name on a swatch of parchment showing through the old editions of the Oracle. She pushed one aside and found a flattened letter addressed simply: Fleur
She gasped and lifted it out of the mess, she knew immediately from the addressing alone what this letter was. She thought these letters had been lost when they moved out of the Paris apartment.
-o-o-o-
The summer after Harry's fateful last year of Beauxbatons was uniquely bittersweet. It was an odd time to look back on in their lives, they spent it apart but proved that even across borders and steeped in anger and resentment they were still circling each other. They hadn't spoken since after his last match, and yet Fleur was far from worried about their relationship. Not after seeing the hag he tried to replace her with.
Fleur led the family down to the locker rooms and the vapid little twit that was currently leaching off her seeker had the sense to hang back and allow his real loved ones their time. She just hugged him, and congratulated his victory, because their relationship was too strained presently to properly abuse him for the way he'd won. Her mother saw to that well enough though, and he accepted all their praise with a shy smile before he was pulled away by a man in a sharp suit that was decidedly not a member of the school staff.
She went back to England, and she buried herself in her work because she needed something to distract her from Harry's new girlfriend. The foul vulture that had managed to swoop through the one hole in her shield. It was fine, she knew that it was temporary, but it still infuriated her.
She had an easy routine in London, and weather aside she thoroughly enjoyed this first taste of adulthood. The work with Gringotts was compelling and she developed great friendships with her coworkers. They were always good for a weekend trip to the pub, and she loved getting the Clairmont's drunk when Bill and Ted were abroad working on location.
It was only a few weeks into summer when Fleur came home to find Hedwig at her window. The owl was perched in the shadowed overhang of her sill and seemed content to be napping there. Fleur threw open the little window, disturbing her sleep but unapologetic in her excitement.
They exchanged happy chirps. Hedwig delighted to see her after an entire semester without letters passing, Fleur equally excited and returning her noises to her in loving bemusement. She did have a letter though, a single roll of parchment with nothing more than her first name scrawled on the front. It was neater than his script usually was, she got the impression he'd taken his time writing it.
Fleur,
I hope this letter finds you well, I've signed a deal with Chomelix for my first season of quidditch in the French leagues! I'm going to Paris the weekend after next to find an apartment. I was hoping you might accompany me… just to help me pick one out? I'll arrange the portkey if you're willing, just send Hedwig back to let me know.
Yours,
Harry
She looked over the letter twice, lingering on the signature at the bottom. There were a few brown dots under the body of the text that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Hedwig hooted and pecked at the spots as if to say:
It's much too short. I tried to get more out of him.
She stroked the owl's feathers as she reread the letter. No apologies, no acknowledgment of wrongdoing, no mention of other boys or girls. It was not the end of their war, it was an armistice, the duration of which they could determine in person.
She held onto Hedwig for the better part of a week, partially for the company and partially to make Harry sweat, and what she sent back was a terse 'yes' and nothing more.
The portkey was a little river stone, worn smooth by generations of gentle currents. Hedwig brought it back with just enough time to read the short note and grab a purse. It was largely her fault, for being petty and waiting so long to send a reply, but she chose to assign blame at her discretion. She was therefore a little peeved when she appeared in her parents' entryway. Hedwig screeched and flapped off, indignant at the magical transport, even if it saved her a flight back from England.
"What are you doing here?" Gabrielle queried, strolling in from the kitchen with a handful of sweets. Fleur scowled at her less than warm greeting, wondering where her sweet little sister had gone.
"I'm going into Paris with Harry." She informed her and Gabby brightened up at that.
"Are you two done fighting then?" She sounded hopeful, and she didn't even fight it when Fleur snagged one of the little macarons from her open hand.
"He has not apologized," Fleur told her haughtily, "but I am now willing to accept it." Gabby rolled her eyes.
"Okay~" She said doubtfully and moved toward the sitting room off the foyer. Fleur followed her, finding an abandoned mess of magazines and books on display there. Her sister settled into the middle of the mess, munching on a cookie and casting a gaze about the collected texts for one to catch her eye.
"Where is he?" She asked, a bit put off that she'd been summoned and then denied a proper greeting.
Gabby was already falling back into a book, a romance novel she was far too young to be reading at ten if the cover art was any indication. She only managed to pull her focus off the page partially to say: "With maman, she's healing him."
"What- Why?" She demanded, momentarily torn between storming off to find him and waiting for answers.
"He fell off his broom and broke his arm." She said, disinterested in such a trivial and benal injury.
Fleur huffed indignantly and spun around to track them down. She found them in the kitchen, her mother had him stuffed into a chair so she could run her wand down his left arm. He looked up as the door opened and sent her a shy grin that might've been because he had hurt himself or because of their temporary truce. She did not return it, but only because he'd gone and hurt himself again. She bustled up to her mother's side demanding answers.
"I'm fine-" He said, even as Elise said:
"He's fine."
He shot her another grin when her mother agreed with him, and this one was less shy, and more playful. She still didn't return it, this time because she was a little baffled at his behavior. He seemed content to pretend the last six months of hostility hadn't occurred. She was equally pleased to put it behind them, but she wasn't quite sure she could just let him off the hook wholesale.
He waved off Elise's attempts to do another pass of diagnostic spells and stood to move to Fleur's side.
"You ready?" He asked, and he barely contained his bubbling excitement. It was somewhat infectious, as much as she wanted to punish him for his horrid behaviour she finally gave him a little smile.
"If you are." She offered, extending a hand to apparate them into the city. Her mother was ramping up to interrupt and Fleur recognized the watery look in her eye. If she let her start in on them they'd be here for another hour. She seized Harry's hand and turned on the spot with a quick "Love you maman!"
They appeared on the corner of one of Paris' magical streets. Unlike England Paris had three across the city, but none of them had side streets branching off like Diagon Alley did. France was also more inclined to hide magical shops throughout the city, similar to the Leaky Cauldron. She released Harry's hand as soon as they were safely situated in their new destination.
The silence yawned between them for half a heartbeat and Fleur decided she would remain steadfastly quiet and imposing until he chose to break it. He didn't wait long.
"Thanks for this… I didn't want to bring maman, she would've been impossible."
She would have. Every apartment would've almost certainly been entirely unacceptable and she would conclude the day by bullying Harry into staying home. What caught Fleur's attention though was his referring to her mother as maman, he'd never done that before. It was always 'your maman' or 'Elise', even 'Mrs. Delacour' at times, though those times were in the distant past.
She cocked her head slightly as she studied him. He was studying the street steadfastly, too much so, it was clear that however casual he was trying to be, he felt the awkwardness of their ceasefire at least enough to avoid looking at her now. She noted morosely that her eyes came up to his chin now, his irksome growth spurt apparently still going strong.
"Why are you getting an apartment anyway?" She asked, it was one of the questions she'd had at receiving his letter but had not asked in favor of sending him a monosyllabic response.
"The team has a training gym here, I'll be in the city most of the season and the ministry denied me an early apparition test." He chuckled slightly and finally chanced a glance her way, his smile died a little under her smooth emotionless gaze and he turned back toward the street with pink cheeks. "You should've seen her going off when your papa told us." So papa was still hers it seemed.
She felt a little bad at wilting his good mood, and she was painfully relieved to see him without the dark cloud of anger hanging over them, so she took his hand and tugged him down the street.
Harry, as a boy, was completely useless in matters like picking out an apartment. He wanted to accept the first one they visited, without even really looking at it, just to be done with the whole thing.
"It's called being decisive." He informed her after she shot down their first viewing because there was water damage in the ceiling and she suspected roaches though she never saw them.
"No, it's called being foolish." She corrected primly as they walked down the street together. "Honestly, if I left you to your own devices you'd be living in a cardboard box on the quidditch pitch." He chuckled in response, not denying it, and she smiled fully for the first time as she nudged him with her shoulder and pulled him across the street.
They looked at three other apartments before she found his future home for him. It was an amazing little flat with a view over the biggest magical district in the city and the tower in the distance. It was owned by a witch so it had a lot of the more practical enchantments and protections already in place, and it wasn't far from the ministry so she could pop in easily with the excuse of visiting her father.
"C'est parfait!" She told him as she turned in the open living area, imagining how it could look filled with furniture.
"It's the furthest one from the gym…" He said dubiously, inspecting a gold and crystal doorknob with a bemused smile.
"C'est parfait." She told him again, sterner this time, and he shot her a grin and an eyeroll. "You can get your morning runs in on the way to the gym."
"Well, that decides that then." He said to the landlady, who was a little uncertain about signing a lease with a sixteen year old. That changed when his paperwork was filled out and she'd received verification of his employment with a professional quidditch team and his deposit transfer.
Fleur was suddenly a little sad as he signed the last spot on the scroll and it rolled and sealed itself. They had passed the few hours in the city with casual conversation, falling easily back into each other's company, but she couldn't help but feel the time had been wasted now that it was coming to a close. He must've felt the same, or otherwise had never intended to end the afternoon there, because as they exited onto the street he turned to her and said:
"So, where should we go to eat?"
-o-o-o-
"Mon coeur?" Fleur looked up. She was sitting on the attic floor, surrounded by newspapers and old letters, a little misty eyed. Harry had just stuck his head up into the attic, looking around a little concerned, he spotted her and furrowed his brow. "What's wrong?" He was up the last steps and into the cramped space in no time.
She must have been sitting there reading old letters for an hour, he'd undoubtedly gotten worried. He saw what she was looking at before she could muster up an answer and understanding flit across his face before his own wonder took over.
"You found them!" He sat beside her, a tender look in his eyes as he inspected a few of the discarded letters she'd already read. "Aww, our first date." He said sweetly, looking at that first letter she'd found inviting her to go apartment shopping.
"Where is Arianne?" She questioned immediately, sobering a little, the warm fuzzy feeling fading to the background in her concern.
"She is in the yard," he was flipping through old papers, grazing headlines. Something he'd just said jumped out at her now that she was no longer worried he'd left their daughter back at the cottage.
"... Date?" She asked at length, only speaking when she was sure she could master herself enough to not be weepy.
He laughed. "Yeah," he lifted the invitation "My brilliant way of getting you to talk to me again." That helped her control her emotions a bit, suddenly the events of that summer began clicking into place.
"You-" she struggled for the right words "You sneaky little… cheat!" She accused and he cracked a grin, looking at the newspapers now, most of them were from his first season in the professional leagues. When winning games and making the National Team was still an exciting new occurrence, as his win streak grew they stopped collecting his media praises.
"Well, I couldn't very well admit I was being stupid could I?" He asked, and indignation boiled up in her at her husband's frustrating pigheadedness two decades gone. He seized a second letter at random and laughed, trying to distract her.
"That is exactly what you were supposed to do." She told him bluntly, but he was supremely unconcerned.
"Well… I do now at least." He said lamely, and gave her a quick grin. He did, so she had to forgive him for his foolish youth.
"I miss that apartment," She confessed as he looked over the first letter she'd read.
"Yeah, it was a great apartment." He conceded and she puffed up, still proud of it. She'd picked that apartment for herself, and filled it accordingly.
-o-o-o-
They picked out furniture together the next day, before she had to portkey back to England for the coming work week.
They never talked about their fights, never agreed to terms of surrender, and never apologized nor demanded apologies from each other. The confusion and tension at the dinner table that night could've been cut with a knife, though none of it originated from them.
They sat beside each other during the meal, and early into it he'd shifted so that his knee brushed up against hers and stayed there, and she smiled as she ate because it felt good to not be mad at him anymore. Richard looked wearily between the two, and then back at his wife who maintained a smug regality throughout the night and did nothing to help fill in her husband. Gabby looked exasperated and annoyed by their anticlimactic recoupling. Harry chatted happily about his apartment, and the furniture, with Fleur weighing in to correct him when he glossed over his own ineptitude at choosing lodging and furnishing.
So she returned to England feeling lighter and happier about things in general. She still enjoyed her work, and her friends, and she was still frustrated and annoyed by the damnable broom she tried to learn to ride at least a couple times a week. It was all just a little better now.
He wrote to her a week later, and it was longer than his invitation to come apartment hunting if still far short of the correspondence they'd shared during the previous year. He had begun training and he lamented the easy workouts of his school days in the face of this new brutal practice they put him to, but it was all peppered with a cheer that she only really saw in him when he talked of quidditch.
She told him of her latest assignments at work and insisted he come to England one weekend when he could escape his team so she could show him around now that she was a true and proper resident. It was a mistake not to mention Bill in any of her letters to him the previous year, she knew that shortly after jealousy had driven him to the point of cruelty. She never assuaged his fears though, never explained that they were groundless, because he had been cruel to her and a wholly immature part of her delighted in punishing him. Then he'd gone and let that vulture swoop down on him and erased any guilt she felt over her pettiness.
So as the summer faded into autumn and his first game approached she told him casually in one of her letters that she'd need a second ticket to his first game of the season so her friend Bill could come. His response was to send the two tickets with his next letter, which detailed the team's plans for the game, and his own delight at finding a little patisserie near his apartment that had the best tiramisu outside of Italy. There was not a mention of Bill, or her insistence that he was coming to the game, and she smirked as she stroked Hedwig and read his letter.
-o-o-o-
Fleur gasped.
Harry grinned.
"You were dating me and I didnt even realize it." She accused; looking at that summer in a whole new light.
He shook his head, amused, and rifled through the various letters. Deeper in the box were the far larger older ones from the Triwizard Tournament and her first autumn in England. He traced old names lovingly as he sorted them.
"Well you never really had much interest in dating did you?" He teased. "You wanted to skip straight to the boring old married couple, I had to sneak the dates in, didn't I?"
She swatted his arm with a sniffle and a little laugh, and he was looking at the shorter letters.
"Tiramisu…" He read off one, "Cafe Americano…"
-o-o-o-
He was smarter than she sometimes gave him credit for.
His letters were always light and happy, and more often than not contained some such claim to have found the best cake, or the best latte, or the best cordon bleu, always with insistence that she come experience it. He was quick to follow up with a portkey if she so much as acknowledged the invitation, and looking back on it it was very obvious that he was tricking her into dates under the guise of simply visiting. If it weren't for their childhood spent wandering the streets of Paris together it would've perhaps been a bit more obvious, but Fleur was spoiled by her frequent time in one of the most romantic cities in the world.
Most importantly though he always signed his letters the same.
Yours,
Harry
It was a subtle little detail that was not at all lost on Fleur, and she silently applauded her little eagle for his common sense. She may have started mentioning Bill in passing to him, but he knew better than to mention his own little mistake. She assumed he'd since put her away for good, hoped for his sake he had, but he at least knew that it was not something wise to discuss.
He sent a portkey for them to come see the game, courtesy of the team, but she passed it off to Bill telling him when it would activate and that she'd be there to meet him. He was exploding with excitement, complaints of the French aside, an excuse to go abroad and take in a quidditch match was well appreciated.
She already had her own portkey, because she knew Harry, and sure enough when she arrived just before dinner Friday night it was to find her family gathered around the table for a meal and Harry nowhere to be seen. She ate with them, and got a feel for the situation; they were all unfamiliar with his pregame routines and were thus quite worried about him. She dismissed their fears and ensured them that he was always like this before important games. The first and last of the season usually saw him a mess, sulky and sick to his stomach as he receded into himself and stressed over the coming match. She took the plate her mother prepared for her, wrapped in a tea towel to secure it as she apparated into paris.
She had a key, but she'd been keyed into the wards the day he signed his lease, so she appeared in his living room directly. It was immaculate, she looked around in mild shock and appreciation, half expecting a pigsty. Her tasteful furniture and art selection looked as good as it had when she'd picked it for him, and he was again nowhere to be seen.
She deposited the dinner in the kitchen and moved off down the hall to find him in his room. The door was not locked, and she let herself in after a single warning knock. He was in bed, facing the wall and half curled up under the blankets. She rolled her eyes, but her smile was fond as she crossed to sit on the edge of the bed behind him. The sun was just setting, if his school days were anything to go by he'd be awake and fully dressed for the coming game, laying in bed torturing himself with nerves.
Her guess was not wrong.
When she pulled back the covers she caught her first look at his professional uniform though and it was an impressive sight, impressive enough to give her pause.
"Must you?" He deadpanned, not stirring from his angsty contemplation of the wallpaper.
"Oui, I must." She said cheerfully.
He sighed but she ignored him and scooted back on the bed until she could lean back on him, disturbing his sulking with an elbow to the ribs as she reclined on him.
"You okay little eagle?" She asked, and he didn't answer, instead trying to shift to make her slump off him. "I said are you okay?" She reiterated a little more aggressively, and she dug her elbow in deeper, though not too hard.
"I'm fine," He grumbled, and she took it as a good sign because sometimes pregame jitters made him snappy.
"Delightful!" She said cheerily, "Then come eat the dinner maman prepared."
"I'm not hungry."
"Then you are not fine."
He twisted around to glare at her, but it was the faintest shadow of the looks he'd yielded against her last winter, she just smirked.
"Come on little eagle." She stood, but tugged on his hand, and with that little bit of contact she pierced through the anxiety and manic nervous excitement that was raging in his mind. She penetrated deep through that swirling cloud of uncomfortable sensations and tethered herself there with a calm presence that soothed his thoughts. She used this to get him out of the bed.
"I guess I'm a little shark now, huh?" He mused idly as she pulled him from his room.
She laughed. "Non, you are still my little eagle." She corrected, "a shark is a silly name for one who belongs in the sky."
He snorted at that, "maybe that's why they can't win a championship."
She sat on the counter next to his plate, and he stood by her and ate their mother's coq au vin, and she allowed him to do so off his kitchen counter only because he was a nervous wreck and she was half distracted picking at those nerves. Untangling them.
She had intended to get him to eat and then convince him to come back to their parent's house, but she never quite got around to the latter portion of the plan. After he was done, she hopped off the counter, but a few steps out of the kitchen she caught sight of his broom propped up carefully in the armchair in his living room.
The sight of it reminded her of her own, sitting in a kitchen chair in her flat, and she thought then that it was perhaps the most effective thing she could do to calm his panicking mind.
"Let's go for a fly."
She had not been on his broom in almost five years. It was June of his first year, when she rode with him for the first and last time up to the Gate. As far as he knew it was the last time she'd even been on a broom.
"What?" He asked dumbly, because the suggestion was so far out of left field it failed to really process.
"Take me flying, big quidditch star." He blinked at her, so she crossed to retrieve his broom and tossed it at him. He caught it easily enough on instinct and finally followed her out of the kitchen.
"Are you feeling okay?" He asked, only half joking, but it was good to see the roots of a grin spreading on his face so she smirked at him.
"Come on Potter, show me what you got." He laughed finally.
"You don't want to see half of one tenth of what I've got," He said smugly, "but I can show you a thing or two."
"Take off your robes first." She said before he could make it to the door. He was in the orange and blue robes of Chomelix, with thick leather padding around the ribs and shoulders to offer some defense against the murderous metal monsters beaters knocked around.
He did quickly, returning to her in the hall in simple comfortable clothes.
"It might be cold," he warned her, "do you want a cloak or some robes?"
"I will be alright," she assured him.
They departed his apartment but took the stairs up a level rather than down the street. He was on the third floor, and at the top of the stairwell was the door to the roof. The night was not exactly chilly, but it was cool and nice, with a little speed and a little altitude it would be a touch on the cold side.
She settled on the broom behind him and clung tightly to his torso, and it was comical how different this was to that time all those years ago. Now he was wide enough around the shoulders for her to squeeze him and fist the shirt over his chest. Then she could wrap her arms all the way around his slim frame and hold her own elbows. His back loomed in front of her, where before she'd stooped over to hide her face from the reality of flight, and she didn't burrow so thoroughly because she was ever so marginally more comfortable on a broom from her own practice.
He was hesitant to do much more than putter around the roof of his apartment building, and she let him for a few minutes because she appreciated the consideration.
"I'm okay," she told him after her own little anxieties had eased. She returned to her efforts in the kitchen, clearing her mind and reaching back out to touch his mind, his feelings splashed against the blank slate of her thoughts and they were very different now. She'd never experienced anything like it, it was like intoxication, it was the thrill of flight felt by someone who was made to soar.
Unaware of her meddling, he simply asked: "You sure?"
She couldn't not be sure, cradling his mind as she was, she'd never wanted to fly so badly in her life. It was a completely novel concept.
"Yeah, show me what you got, Potter."
He did not, thankfully, and wisely.
They sailed off past the edge of the roof, and he climbed a few dozen meters to get well over the tops of the surrounding buildings and blend into the night better as they flew over Paris. She felt none of her own fear, and in truth her tether to him was wholly unnecessary. Now that she'd chipped away at his fear and dragged him into the skies he was completely at peace. She kept it though, because it was amazing to feel how he felt as he flew, she would never experience this on her own, so she eavesdropped on his own delight a while longer.
They did not do any impressive aerial stunts or thrilling acrobatic feats. They drifted around the city, climbing slowly ever higher until she could see the lights at large and trace the dark path of the river. Conversely to common sense, the higher they drifted the looser her grasp became, she sat back more to crane around and take in the twinkling city below.
He noticed her growing confidence, and he leveled out and stopped them high in the air over the river. He threw one of his legs over the edge of the broom, so that he was sitting sideways in front of her, and the sight made her throat close in fear. She felt suddenly unsteady, reminded that she should be terrified, and one hand gripped the broom before her while the other seized his shoulder.
"Its fine." He assured her, and he must've felt her spike of fear as an alien sensation in his mind because he said it while forcing calm back down that bond to crash against her in a way that had to be intentional. He was the only person who'd ever used her allure back on her, intentionally projecting his feelings in an attempt to affect her own.
She felt like it was fine, oddly enough, as he looked over at her and seemed so utterly calm in the air. She loosened her grip on his shoulder but did not release it, because she was not confident enough to sit up there without grabbing something. He may be fine balancing on the thin beam with just his hamstrings, or under his boots as she'd often seen, but she certainly was not.
"Thank you," he said, not looking at her. He was gazing out on the streets below, he took a deep breath of cool air and let it out in a content sigh that tugged a smile onto his lips. "For pulling me out of my room," he clarified.
She nodded and scooted up the broom until she could get her arm fully around his shoulders. It was an awkward sort of hug with him sitting sideways and her facing him, but she was growing more nervous now that she could not squeeze herself into his full-back and hold on tight. He laughed, and without so much as jostling her, he swung that leg back around the broom and pivoted so that he was back in a normal riding position. She glued herself to him gratefully.
"You want to do a loop?" He asked hopefully, and her answer was a nervous laugh that slipped out somewhat wildly.
"No, next time I think." She would probably not be willing next time either, but he just nodded and she could feel the little smile he wore even if she could not see it.
He took them back to his little rooftop, somehow able to find it among the sea of roofs, like a bird to the nest. She was relieved to be back on solid ground, but for the first time, there was a little wistful edge to the feeling, a slight sadness at the end of the flight.
She knew what would happen next.
She was still touching his mind, and through his contentment and that longing for flight there suddenly pulsed a flair of colour. Like red, swelling up and dropping off again like a beating heart. She turned, and he was standing there looking at her. It was similar to the hungry looks she'd seen on his face in recent years, but softer now than it had ever been. Without the predatory glean, the hunger turned to earnest longing. She felt it swell again as she turned to look at him, and this time she pushed back against it, returning it with her own brand of interest as she took a step toward him.
He caught her face in both hands and leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. It was gentle and exploratory, so much softer than the fiery kisses they'd shared, fueled by external forces like potions and spirits. She snaked her arms around his side to cling to his back and pressed into him.
He gasped and broke the kiss, he had questions burning in his eyes as he opened them and tried to pull away. She slid her arms off his back to grip his face now, as his hands fell away, because she did not want to answer any questions just yet.
This kiss was different.
They were not kids anymore, they were not in school. They did not live in dorms across the hall, or bedrooms two doors down. They were not going to pretend this one didn't happen, or mutually agree to let it go for now to keep things normal and casual. They were all grown up, and she wanted to solidify this moment as the first in a new chapter. She stretched up and kissed him this time, and she was a bit more direct. Once she got his lips against her she let her fingers slip up into his hair and she opened her mouth against his as his hands came to her hips. He shivered against her and the effect she had on him brought a smile to her lips.
-o-o-o-
Harry packed up all the letters and papers and shrunk the already small box to take back to the cottage with them. He helped his wife to her feet, she was struggling to contain her emotion at finding the treasure trove of old love letters, and then he set about finding the decorations she'd originally come seeking.
With the desired boxes retrieved they made the trek down from the attic to the entryway, and out onto the drive to call down their little bird. She came unwillingly, but the afternoon was wearing on. Her parent's had spent far too much time lost in memories, so she'd had plenty of time in the air. Being allowed to fly without her father glued to her side was a new enough thing that she didn't fight them much on landing and they floo'd back home in time to start dinner at a normal hour.
Harry cooked, and Fleur looked through more letters at the kitchen table. She tried to get their youngest interested in them, but Arianne had eyes for quidditch headlines only. Fleur sighed, but she knew Liliane would enjoy them, and the Potters ate over a table crowded with scrolls and newsprint.
AN I've said it once, I'll say it again, thank you to x102redragon, Wish, Eric, and everyone over on the flowerpot server. I'm getting ready to wrap this story up, which came with its own slew of crises, mental and emotional, and it was to them I turned for guidance and feedback. thx bbs!