Chapter 14
Special Delivery
In which the Delacours lend a helping hand and the Potters grow.
Richard took his youngest granddaughter's hand and trotted across the street with her. The magic streets in Paris didn't have much traffic, they were largely dominated by pedestrians, but it was still best to be quick. His son led the way, Liliane with him, into France's premier broom shop; Stargent's only brick and mortar store.
Some habits die hard, and after nearly 20 years of sponsorship, he could go nowhere else for a new broom.
Richard remembered buying the man his first broom, when he was just a little beaten boy, what a chain of events that set off. Arianne's hand was out of his the moment they were across the threshold. They were here for racing brooms, and that section of the store held little merit in her eyes. She was in the quidditch section and he followed because the store was a bit too crowded to keep an eye on her from a distance.
"What's the best broom?" He asked the little girl to get her talking so she wouldn't feel slighted by her father's focus on Liliane.
"Pépé," she admonished with false patience, "you should know this," and she dragged him over to the broom her father had helped develop.
"Is it just the best because papa made it?" He asked her, bemused.
"It's not just the best because he made it, it is the best because he made it." She informed him sardonically. He made a show of rolling his eyes so she could see it.
"If you could see your papa when I met him," he said with a laugh and she squinted up at him, unsure if she should begin abusing her grandfather for besmirching Harry's name.
-o-o-o-
"Can I speak to you for a moment Mr. Delacour?"
Harry stood awkwardly in the doorway to the sitting room. Richard's second whiskey of the night was halfway to his lips but he stalled, surprised. In the few weeks of summer following that first day, meeting his relatives and taking him shopping, they'd had little interaction to be completely honest. His time was dominated by Fleur, and what little time wasn't spent blushing furiously around his daughter was usually taken by Elise.
His wife was head over heels for the boy, despite Harry's early misgivings it was she who took him shopping for a new wardrobe, and Richard was privately glad for it. He fit in easily enough in their family, he was quiet and accommodating. He would play little kid's games with Gabrielle if she caught him before Fleur could plan their day out, and sit for hours and read with his eldest if she called for it.
"Yeah!" Richard cleared his throat and recovered quickly from his shock. "What is it, my boy?" He looked a little uncomfortable, his hands were toying with the hem of his shirt.
"Uh- I was wondering if you could take me to get my haircut?" Richard blinked at him, not expecting that.
"Of course," he paused, "you sure you don't want Elise to take you?" He seemed generally most comfortable around Richard's wife, barring Fleur of course.
"Yeah- I mean, we already went clothes shopping and she-" he trailed off, and Richard smiled warmly at the boy because he was a sweet child.
"We can go into Paris tomorrow," he reassured him, "I could do with a trim myself." He stroked his goatee as Elise approached the sitting room with a glass of wine.
"Oh?" She asked and she noticed, as did Richard, the way Harry jumped at being snuck up on. He whirled to face her but seemed relaxed enough in their home that he could master his emotions quickly enough. He smiled slightly, and it warmed Richard's heart to see his fondness for her, she loved him like a son already.
"Yes, Harry and I are going to visit the barbers tomorrow." He told her, she slipped into the room past the boy, smoothing a hand across his head as she went.
"Unless you needed to do something-" Harry trailed off, offering Richard an out, or Elise an objection.
"Non, I think I have a few chores I can give you," Elise said to her husband as she sat in his chair with him, half in his lap.
"Okay," Harry grinned shyly at them, and then turned and darted off. He had a twitchy sort of way of flitting around the house, staying out of people's way and being quiet in the background. It broke their hearts, but it was endlessly amusing to watch their daughter bluntly refuse to allow him those comforts.
She pulled him out of corners and shadows to stick to her side and he looked equal parts confused and overwhelmed, but he didn't seem to mind her constant fussing so they didn't reprimand her. It seemed to help either way.
"I need more potion supplies, it might be best to just get a household kit," she told him while sipping her wine and Richard laughed.
"You actually have chores for me?" He asked incredulously, kissing his lazy Sunday goodbye.
"Of course," she said impatiently, "but it is good you are getting haircuts, maybe it will make that bird's nest manageable."
It did not.
He felt bad for laughing, especially with how mortified Harry was, it was hard not to though. Everything looked fine in the barber's shop, slicked with water and product, it was the neatest Richard had ever seen the boy. They'd done their light shopping, just topping off Elise's ingredient stock and picking up a few books for Fleur. They took lunch at a little diner and it was around then Richard began noticing the boy's hair was drying.
As it did it began to rise, defying gravity as the now shortened strands stood away from his head in every direction. He didn't think much of it until they apparated back home.
Fleur was awaiting their return in the entryway; she might have pulled off her casual just-passing-through look if it weren't for the book abandoned on the bottom step of the stair across from the door. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, his smile died, and then his brow furrowed as she stared at him in horror. Her gaze snapped up to her father and she was glaring and it was the first sign of trouble Richard had caught on to.
"What have you done?" She demanded of her father, she leaned forward and jerked Harry over to her- away from him. He stumbled to her side, too preoccupied to be embarrassed as he usually was in such proximity to Fleur.
"What's wrong?" He demanded, full of dread. Fleur didn't answer, she raised a hand and tried to flatten out a section of his wild hair. It stood straight back up, she ran fingertips through it, trying to find and tease out sections that were interwoven, it was to no avail. The feather-light strands simply stood, there was no correcting it to lay flat, this was its shape.
Richard could only laugh, and he did feel bad about it later but watching the horror of his haircut war with the flush from Fleur's attention was too much. Elise had her own bone to pick with Richard after seeing the boy, but no one was rushing to regrow it magically. Complain as they might, the two Veela took no small pleasure in toying with his head when it came into range, and the boy himself didn't seem to mind either over the next few weeks.
-o-o-o-
Arianne was prattling on about broom care, and the way to pick a good broom out on the shelves by the tail twigs. Richard 'hmm'ed and nodded at the right moments, but mostly he was lost in thought. He caught his son's eye, across the store, and they shared a conspiratorial look of suffering. Neither man really minded the time they spent with the little chicks.
"You're not listening," Arianne complained as if he'd asked for tips on pruning inner twigs.
"Course I am," he lied, and pulled out the last few words she'd said, "pry back in a clockwise pattern..." She narrowed her eyes up at him but seemed to buy it.
-o-o-o-
"Can I speak to you for a moment Richard?"
Richard looked up from his desk, he was taking work home with him presently, the Triwizard was back and being held in France next year. Harry was in the doorway, and his son was uncharacteristically nervous; he was suddenly reminded of how the boy had been years ago when they'd first met.
"Of course my boy," he pushed aside a few scrolls on his desk, a symbolic gesture of clearing his slate. Harry crossed the threshold and then closed the door behind him. Richard's brows went up and he sat up in his chair a bit. "Everything okay?"
At sixteen, Harry was in a sort of shape Richard could never boast. It filled him with intense pride, that Harry was such an amazing quidditch player, but he could claim no credit in that department. A fire lived inside that boy, it burned away a lot of the trappings that consumed normal teens and left him with a steely determination.
He put himself through more physical training throughout a year than most people did in a decade. Anyone that thought quidditch was just a lot of sitting around on brooms needs only shadow him for a day to be disavowed of that notion.
Richard took this in wistfully and resigned himself to living vicariously through the boy. In his fifties now and showing the signs of a desk job and a French cook for a wife, they were like night and day.
Harry didn't exactly answer his question, he crossed to the chairs before Richard's desk and sat with a jerky nod, his jaw was clenched and he looked a little sick. Richard stood and moved around the desk, he never liked to talk to his kids from across the desk, it brought back memories of his own father. His father wasn't bad, but Richard wanted a different sort of relationship with his family, so he sat next to Harry in the other chair.
"What's wrong son?" He brought out the big guns, trying to disarm his tension with the title. Harry swallowed a lump of something and it seemed to relieve some of his stress in the process.
"IwanttomarryFleur-" He spat it out in a rush, but Richard understood him. He understood, but he didn't want to, so he stalled by saying:
"What's that Harry?" He forced cheery casualness as if he really hadn't understood him.
"I-" his resolve was weakened, having to say it a second time. "I was hoping- that is-" he gulped again, and then he fished out a little ring box and just looked down in defeat, presenting the box.
Richard took it, and then he whistled lowly as he took in the large square-cut diamond.
"How much did this cost then?" He asked instead of addressing what Harry had actually come for.
"Most of my salary," he said with a roguish grin, he forgot for a second to be nervous as he recalled the trip into Paris. "Gabby helped me find it- err, well she let me look around before she took me to the jeweler to have it made." Richard laughed.
"Yes well, I don't know if Elise would've been any better, to be honest, not when it comes to custom jewelry." Richard stood, and he poured Harry a glass of fire whiskey too, though a smaller one than his own. If he was old enough to buy an engagement ring he was old enough to drink in Richard's book.
"I thought you two weren't speaking." He mused idly, returning to their chairs and passing over the second tumbler. Harry took a practiced sip of the burning liquid and swallowed it down without issue, Richard smirked but didn't comment on it.
He knew that they'd had some kind of reconciliation while apartment hunting, but they weren't sharing details with the family. Gabby was going crazy trying to keep track of them. Had Fleur come home for the weekend? What did she do around Harry? He didn't come home this weekend, did he go to England? The questions were endless, and Elise was only marginally better. She couldn't express her frustration because she had to maintain a smug air around either of them every time they came for a visit.
"We've been on a handful of dates-" Harry said noncommittally, looking down at the ring in his lap, Richard was being cruel keeping him in the hot seat but he was the father of the would-be bride. "I just- I think I always knew it was coming, and it kind of feels like time."
"You're young," Richard observed, "really young to be talking about marriage." What he was saying was everything Elise and Richard had always known though.
Harry looked up at that, and he looked nervous, this conversation wasn't going like he'd expected it to. There was a surety in his eyes though, not defiant, not even resigned, just certain. He knew that this was the right thing to do, just as Elise and Richard knew years ago that this day would come eventually.
"I want to marry Fleur," he said resolutely, "and I was I hoping to get your blessing, but if I can't well…" He smirked over at Richard in a playful way, reminding him that he wasn't still that timid little boy, not wholly. "You can explain to her why not."
The gall.
Richard laughed and raised his glass toward the boy who looked relieved that his cheek had been well received. They clinked glasses, and Richard took a big swig in honor of their engagement before he answered his son.
"Of course you have my blessing Harry, I wish you'd wait, but I don't imagine she'd thank either of us if you did."
-o-o-o-
The broom was taller than Liliane and sleek. Racing brooms were massive compared to quidditch brooms, they were almost twice the length but streamlined, with smaller more groomed tails. They were designed for speed and acceleration, whereas quidditch sacrificed much of the former in favor of more maneuverability.
Harry, who was still that little boy wandering Paris with pockets full of money, bought three of them. So she could race with any friends she brought home, or otherwise just Arianne and him.
Richard watched nearly six thousand galleons pass to a delighted shop employee, likely already calculating his commission on the purchase. Arianne was explaining the broom maintenance kit they'd picked out for her, Liliane actually listened with rapt attention, and Richard knew he'd failed as a father. He had tried, really tried, to teach his children the value of a galleon. He had made some progress with Fleur, his eldest had made it into her teens before Harry really started trying to spoil her and she'd been resistant at first.
Gabrielle had been a lost cause from a young age, the combined might of his family saw to that. Harry may have been determined to empty his bank accounts on her, but it was Elise and Fleur both who babied her well into her adult life.
Looking at the Potter family now, he knew that none of his lessons had sunk in. Harry may have been nearing bankruptcy by the time he signed with Chomelix, but he never really knew it. Richard was the only one attempting to keep track of his spending in those days. It was a quick enough climb to the highest-paid quidditch player in the world though, his kids would never need to work a day in their lives off his salary alone.
The real money came from sponsorships though, Lili and Ari's grandkids wouldn't need to work. The Potters were disgustingly wealthy. Richard sighed, but could not begrudge Harry his successes, and he could at least rest easy knowing they would never struggle financially.
Harry and his daughters spent the afternoon testing the new brooms, and for all her disdain Arianne certainly put hers to the test. She was the fastest, by virtue of fearlessness and a lax father who'd long since left behind his hellion side. Liliane was not put out by her younger sister's victory, because Arianne was not a normal standard to measure one's self against in the matters of brooms and flight.
-o-o-o-
Elise could not wait for little Sebastian to arrive.
She prayed that he took after his father. A little green-eyed raven with flyaway hair she could tame. She was so thrilled for Fleur, boys were such a rarity, and she'd always wanted a little mini Richard but they hadn't been so lucky.
Sebastian James Potter was born mid-August, just a few weeks before Liliane had to return to school. He had a tuft of black hair and in the following weeks it was shown that he wasn't quite the clone of his father Elise had hoped for. His enchanting ocean blue eyes were just as well though, and Elise knew this little boy would break hearts. Starting with hers and his mother's most likely.
The Delacours stuck around for a month or so, not really needed, but appreciated. Harry was beside himself, as he always was after Fleur gave birth, if he could breathe and blink for her he would have. Richard's entire purpose in the manor house was to force Harry into armchairs, ply him with a drink, and make him sit and relax. It was all a well-practiced procedure at this point.
It didn't matter how many children they had nor how loving a family was around. Somewhere deep down in Elise's son the little orphan boy still lived, and he was always like this after a new child.
Arianne was particularly put out, she was still a little chick who had enjoyed prime seats in her mother's lap and the undivided attention of both parents almost year-round. She was doing her best to be a good sport about it all, but Elise could see her out in the yard sulking. She was just sitting on her broom, legs crossed and head down, not flying.
"You need to go fly," She told her son, he was in the kitchen preparing lunch.
"Hmm?" He was distracted, probably only paying minimal attention to the dancing knives chopping vegetables, he was probably fretting over his wife and son in the other room.
"Fly, now." She commanded, stilling the varied kitchen utensils with a wave of her own wand and nudging him away from the stove with a bump of her hip. "I will do the cooking."
He seemed to be struggling to form protests, but he went silently after a few seconds of deliberation.
"Harry? Oh-" Fleur ducked her head into the kitchen not a minute later and failed to fully contain her disappointment at finding her mother.
"I sent him out to cheer up Arianne," she told her "my poor heart couldn't take sitting in that room watching her be sad out there." Fleur stuck around now that she knew her husband was busy.
"What are you making?" She asked, and Elise was honestly not completely sure, she'd taken over the prep from her son but she had taught him everything he knew so she was confident she could work it out.
-o-o-o-
Elise loved Harry Potter.
From the first few weeks of knowing him, sooner than Fleur could even claim it, though that was a different sort of love to be fair. When he came into her house he was skittish and sweet in equal measure. The morning following his arrival she ran into him in the kitchen. She had not yet observed him enough to begin fully developing opinions on his home life, but it started there. She shuffled into the dim room, lit only by the rising sun through the curtains, and found him standing there looking panicked.
She did not really know what to expect at that moment, he was still a strange boy in her house, even if Fleur would immolate her for putting it like that. He looked like he might have been pacing when she arrived, he was dressed in the same clothes he had been yesterday and looked as if he hadn't slept a wink.
"Oh-"
She was startled by his presence, but it was nothing to the jump he gave. As a mother of two, one of which was already proving to be mischievous on the best of days, she was immediately suspicious at the fear in his reaction. He had the unmistakable air of someone caught in something.
"Did you need something dear?" She asked casually though, observing carefully.
He was flushed and shrinking into himself, and that was the first oddity to catch her interest. He seemed to want nothing more than to fold in on himself until he vanished, it went beyond sneaking sweets from the pantry, and despite this, he was forcing himself to speak.
"I- I was just going to h-help with breakfast, Madame Delacour." Her eyebrows shot up. It was a summer Sunday at dawn, her husband wouldn't be up for another hour and the girls wouldn't be liable to make an appearance until around noon.
"Well that's sweet of you," she said, still playing her cards close to her vest. "Do you like cooking?"
He shrugged noncommittally, and she resisted frowning. He was proving unintentionally mysterious and she was driven to figure him out.
They cooked a grand breakfast, one that had Richard frozen in the doorway just under an hour later when he arrived. She kept adding to it, to keep him distracted as she puzzled over his odd behaviors. She showed him how to make a good latte for her husband, who took it with thanks and bemused befuddlement.
If he didn't like cooking before, he at least had some training in it, but she could still teach him a thing or two about proper French artistry. He seemed to like it by the end of their work, and he wasn't even blushing anymore as they started eggs, finally done with the spread of sweet breakfasts that would hold better for her daughters. It was time for savory, the real prize in Richard's eyes, when Fleur exploded into the small space with a frantic:
"Maman! Harr-" She froze in place, much like her father had, and those blushes Elise had managed to soothe away were back on his face.
"Yes, little chick?" She asked, with a smile that was more amused than welcoming.
Fleur's jaw snapped shut, rectifying her agape mouth that Elise had just been about to tease her for. She had impressive mastery of herself, but she couldn't fully banish the embarrassment of her obvious panic.
"Nothing," she said cooly, visibly straightening herself and crossing to her friend.
She flitted around the boy for a second, checking in on him and probably noticing his disheveled and tired state as her mother had. She smoothed some of the wrinkles in his shirt and Elise took it all in, a little less wary of the actions now that she'd spent some alone time with the boy.
Fleur didn't even notice the fruits of two hours of cooking, not for far too long, and only after Harry made her a latte to match her father's. Coffee was a new thing for Fleur that Elise allowed now that she was older, and she drank it with the grownups and lauded it over the younger kids in a way that she would vehemently deny if called on it.
Harry cooked breakfast with her most days that summer, he didn't seem to sleep much as he was always there in the mornings before her. She got the impression he was more interested in the time spent than the cooking itself, but she taught him nonetheless, so he'd have a reason to come down in the mornings. Fleur and Gabrielle dominated his time for the rest of the day, but the mornings were all hers while her lazy chicks slept.
-o-o-o-
Fleur waddled over to the island clutching a little shoebox lovingly.
This was the fabled letterbox, a treasure of old love letters thought lost for twenty years, Elise watched her pick through it with a smile. She reset the knives to chopping as her daughter selected the appropriate letter to share with her mother.
-o-o-o-
Fleur was 'studying' when Elise came by her room.
The effect was diminished by her open text being on the table of contents and her quill jabbing holes in the paper as she tapped out a furious rhythm and wrote nothing. She was also fully grown and out of school. She crossed to the bed and sat, staring at the beautiful sheet of silver hair falling down Fleur's back, unwoven and untied.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked her eldest daughter, who so rarely needed emotional support and seemed all the more lost now because of it.
"I can't believe him!" She raged, not really addressing the question, too lost in ire.
"Can't you?" She tried, but Fleur was deaf to her implications.
"No! I have never- he just-"
She devolved into a wordless growl of rage and threw the quill down. It was ruined from her rough handling but she just crumpled up the abused paper into a little ball. She did not throw it away, she ignited it in her hand and let it burn to ash and it was hard for Elise to keep a grin off her face. Her little chick was all ruffled feathers, twittering madly as her love swooped away to fly out his frustrations. It was so obvious to her, the third party, that they were circling each other, but if she knew her little chicks they would not make it easy on themselves, nor the rest of the family.
"You should speak with him-"
"No!" Fleur cut off her mother's suggestion, still possessed with self-righteous flame. "He was awful maman." She was masking pain with anger, and that was good as far as Elise was concerned, Fleur knew how to handle anger better than pain.
"So what, you will just never speak again?" She asked her daughter dubiously, and Fleur glowered at her.
"I will accept his apology," Fleur declared haughtily, and Elise rolled her eyes, this would take a while.
"Yes well, don't hold your breath dear." She warned her daughter and stood, Fleur huffed but said nothing as her mother made her retreat. Elise ventured down the hall to the room the boy had stayed in since his first visit home years ago. Her daughter would be fine, Fleur was strong and confident in her path, she would have no trouble landing that one to the nest when the time came. Her son though… he would need help. So she went to his room and posted up at his desk to await his return.
-o-o-o-
He'd been prepping for lobster bisque because she'd made a little chef out of him throughout his time at the Delacour house.
Elise deduced his plans and carried them out as she'd taught him years ago, while he flew with his daughter for the first time in too long. The two of them were beaming when they answered her shouted summons, and in a rare moment of kismet little Sebastian stayed down for his nap long enough for all of them to eat together as one.
She was thankful at least one of her chicks had stepped up to the plate of apprenticing under her. She would never tell Fleur to her face, but she was a lackluster cook at best. Gathered together, eating and laughing at Arianne and Lilinane's bickering, Elise was overcome with the love she and Richard had managed to create. Now if only Gabrielle would stop messing around and get serious about starting a family all would be well.
AN ittttssss filler, but I needed to advance the B plot and I wanted to try and get another Richard and Elise chapter in before the end. There are only 3 more chapters left guys! but they're shaping up to be pretty long I think. Leave a review! Or don't!