Chapter 16
Wedding Bells
In which the Potter's go to Iceland, and stay home.
"We have to go…" Fleur shot her husband a nasty look as she put her earring in. He stood by the door checking his watch impatiently.
"Then make sure the diaper bag is ready, don't just stand there!" She snapped and got the other one in. He gave her an exasperated look that did nothing to calm her irritation.
"I did, your father has it, everything's ready to go."
"I just need to check-"
"You do not need to check anything," his tone was suffering, but it must've been clear that such an attitude was not going to get him far because he carried on much more patiently now. "Mon coeur, Sebastian and Arianne will be fine. We must go now or we will miss our portkey."
She glared at him but he just smiled at her, "Are we ready for goodbyes?" She was, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction so she didn't answer, just slipped by him and down the hall to find her children.
Baby Sebastian, at three months old, was not too bothered by his mother's departure. Arianne, at ten years, was hardly aware of it.
She made her goodbyes nonetheless and then bothered her father about baby care techniques until her mother reminded her they were veteran parents at this point. Her husband stood idly by, and because he'd rushed her in getting ready in order to give her this time, he did so quietly.
"Ready mon amour?" He asked when she returned to his side, children kissed, and parents lectured.
"Oui mon coeur." She said, and the arm around his side was meant to be an apology for her bad temper earlier. She assumed he knew that because after decades of marriage he never seemed to hold her little flair-ups against her. He turned, and pulled them into Paris, guiding her onto the street outside a little pub.
"We should come here again," She mused, looking first at the old familiar bar, then across the street to the alley that led to their old Paris apartment. Harry, who was busy looking for Gabby and Luc, snorted and blinked at her.
"You hated this bar." He laughed.
"Did not." She denied hotly, if not entirely truthfully.
"If memory serves you-" He tapped his chin, pretending to be lost in memory. "Said that the food was worse than that English bar. Wine selection was either the wrong vineyard or the wrong year, or both and…" He trailed off, and she gave him a warning look that stopped his recounting in its tracks.
"That they had the aesthetic intuitiveness of a troll's cave." Luc finished for him, not helping matters.
"You're late," Harry observed dryly, and Fleur turned her glare on their old friend.
"Well, it did not have so many good memories then." She dismissed unconcernedly, and Gabby shared a look with her that confirmed the boys were being intentionally obtuse.
"Come on then," Luc said after a glance at his watch, and he held out a little length of rope that they all grabbed on to.
Portkey travel could be disorienting, but these four were old pros. Globetrotting quidditch stars and their wives and family were wont to develop certain skills.
Why they were portkeying to Iceland in the heart of winter was another matter. Why anyone would want to come here this time of year let alone throw a wedding here was beyond her. Victor Krum had taken one too many bludgers to the head because it couldn't have been her cousin's choice. No Veela would willingly subject themselves to these conditions, and that was immediately evidenced by the masterwork of warming charms cloying the air. Independent from the network of enchantments woven into the canvas of the pavilion itself.
It made her own spellwork on her dress a bit redundant, but it was better to be safe than sorry, judging by the relieved look on Gabby's face she had been less thorough in her preparations.
"Happy to be spectating this time?" She asked her husband as they moved out of the arrivals area. They were at the front of a veritable palace of tents, connected and enchanted to give them the impression of large halls and cathedrals. The vaulted ceilings and massive windows overlooking a beautiful snowy night were breathtaking and could be fully enjoyed thanks to the warmth.
"Should I be offended?" He asked the group, Luc was already nodding.
"Confront him, better yet, give a speech." He egged his friend on and Gabby swatted her fiance's chest in admonishment.
"One day, we will be able to sit and suffer through a wedding together," Harry vowed, and Fleur patted his cheek in consolation.
"You keep hoping, love."
Harry had been in Krum's first wedding, not the best man, but the next groomsman in line. It was an odd friendship that baffled Fleur from the audience, given their very public and very intense rivalry that dominated the quidditch world. Now, with Fleur's cousin the bride, she was in the wedding, but he was not because the two friends had naturally grown up and apart as they both left professional sports to start families. Soon, Gabby and Luc would be married, and they would suffer the wedding standing and staring at each other beside the bride and groom.
"Well, there's our cue," Gabby said, as a flustered Veela exploded into the entryway to drag the Delacour girls away.
Now Harry and Luc were left standing in the mostly empty space- having been dates to bridesmaids- they were rather early.
"Let's find the bar," Luc suggested.
"You think it's that way?" They set off to the left and down the hall.
There were people bustling about in the halls, staff rushing to stations in the last half an hour before the bulk of the guests would be arriving. Ice sculptures were being carted, fairies being herded, it was a sort of organized chaos that made Harry extremely relieved he got his wedding out of the way so early.
"You going this big?" He asked Luc as they walked the hall, they peaked into doors to look for drinks as they went but they were not exactly rushed.
"Not if I can help it." They had to stop to allow a team of people to wheel a massive tank containing what looked like an entire brightly colored coral reef. "Gabby keeps upping the guest count though, I think she wants all this but doesn't want to admit it." He laughed, and it was clear to Harry that Luc didn't really care how big and ridiculous his wedding got.
"Put your foot down if she starts inviting the press."
"Not a chance." Luc laughed. "What's the point of the whole thing if she doesn't get the kiss in the papers?" Harry rolled his eyes but he suspected Luc was right.
"Well, I did try to warn you." Harry offered and Luc nodded, but he was not at all upset by his rapidly evolving celebrity wedding.
"I'm just glad old and retired was enough."
Harry clapped his hand on Luc's shoulder. "That-" He said as Luc pushed open a door and they found what must be the reception area "Is the right answer."
Drinks in hand, delivered by a surly bartender who only served them early for a few galleons extra, they wandered off toward the pavilion the actual ceremony would take place in.
"How'd you get away with a private wedding anyway?" Luc wondered aloud after they caught sight of, and avoided, the first photographer of the night.
"You don't remember when I got married do you?"
-o-o-o-
Fleur wasn't really the type for a big grand wedding.
Gabby had that gene, she'd half planned her fairytale wedding already, down to tablecloth thread count, the groom was a formality really. Not Fleur though, she'd put little thought to marriage, to be honest. Little thought to romance in general actually, not since she realized what being a Veela meant in her second year of Beauxbatons.
Then Harry had come along, and by the time she realized he would be her future it was too late to back out.
She wished she could right now.
It was late winter, she'd been back in France full time for a couple of months. Harry's first World Cup season was going spectacularly. His name was beginning to rise to global recognition, whispers were beginning of a France vs. Bulgaria final. She had been published just before the holidays, her enchanting thesis gaining traction, and already once verified independently.
It was some of the best days of Fleur's life. The golden shining period of her life with her husband where everything was good and they were young and unbothered. She had few reasons to be in a foul mood, but the woman behind the desk was one of them.
Aimee Porte.
She was a publicist. A ridiculous profession in Fleur's mind, but apparently a necessary one for things like the World Cup. Harry was more than a seeker, more than a French citizen, he was a representative of the country, and so someone was paying this woman what was almost certainly an exorbitant amount of money to manage his public image for the year.
She loved him. She loved Fleur too. They were a publicist's dream, both young and attractive, with a romanticized and very public love, complete with front-page proposals. They'd blundered their way through half the hard work for her, now she just had to guide them into an ostentatious and well-documented wedding, and then she assured them they could get at least a book deal each.
The vultures were already circling Harry. He was the spokesperson for Argent Brooms, who'd won his loyalty by hiring him before he'd left school. They were developing their professional tier to compete against England's Firebolt which currently dominated the leagues. That was all fine and good, he was making shocking amounts of money to wear these boots and those gloves and so on, but their new reality didn't set in for Fleur until she was approached by Cartier.
She was chauffeured to their Paris headquarters and sweet-talked into an ad campaign for diamonds, and so began her modelling career. It was never quite her focus but, years later after she left Gringotts, she took occasional jobs. She was getting them because she was Veela as much as because she was wife to Harry Potter and that didn't fully sit well with her. Making a year's salary to wear a necklace out to dinner in Paris with her husband and be photographed doing so was hardly worth passing up though.
Aimee Porte was currently laying out Fleur's wedding plan for her and she had an annoying habit of agreeing with Fleur when she didn't mean it.
"Less than 100 people," Fleur tried, as she did every visit, to limit the count.
"Yeah!" The woman, maybe only a few years older than her, said brightly. "We'll see!" That was her way to disagree, a cheery affirmative with a quick 'we'll see'. It annoyed Fleur because she knew she was being mollified, and she suspected the woman had no intention of listening to her input on her wedding.
They wrapped up the visit, Fleur resolving to take matters into her own hands, by which she meant Gabby's.
-o-o-o-
This Icelandic wedding was a bit much.
Gabby looked over at her sister, who seemed equally over the whole affair, and they hadn't even made it out of the dressing room yet. In Fleur's defense, she had a three-month-old at home, and Veela instinct went as deep as maternal instinct. At least from what Gabby understood, she didn't have any little chicks of her own.
Fleur's head was turned by the hairdresser so that she was looking at Gabby now, and she rolled her eyes conspiratorially, Gabby grinned.
"Looking forward to doing it all again?" She asked and Fleur sighed.
"Set a date yet?"
"Sometime in the spring, I think, Luc's too old for a long engagement."
Fleur snorted out a laugh. "I'm going to tell him you said that."
Gabby shrugged, unconcerned, and the man working on her own hair tsked in irritation at her movement.
"Tell him." She challenged, "He knows it, I wouldn't even bother with the wedding if it weren't for his sensibilities." Fleur gave her a puzzled look and she pressed on "He won't put a baby in me until we're married, something about my honor-"
"Gabrielle!" Fleur cut her sister off, horrified, Gabby just rolled her eyes.
"What? I'm thirty-four Fleur, even if I've been content to ignore my biological clock so far, maman isn't." Fleur still looked aghast, but it just made Gabby smirk at her so she did not press the propriety of the statement.
"Since when has the wedding been such a low priority?" She asked her younger sister instead, not believing it for a second.
"Well, you stole all my ideas didn't you?" Gabby teased and Fleur glared.
"I did no such thing," She dismissed haughtily, "you planned my wedding, if you gave your own ideas to me that can hardly be considered my fault can it?"
-o-o-o-
Fleur sought out her little sister after that meeting with their publicist. Gabby was midway through her first year at Beauxbatons, but Fleur had a good relationship with the headmistress, having brought the Triwizard cup home to France.
Gabby could go down to the village in the valley, like all Beauxbatons students, pretty much as often as desired outside of classes. Fleur leveraged her good standing to come and pick her sister up though, for trips into Paris to plot their deception. This weekend though, they were going out strictly for pleasure, with a side of terror on Fleur's part. It was the first home game for the French National team so she took Gabby.
It was hands down the most enjoyable game Fleur had ever attended. If she'd been watching some of that levity would've died, but Gabrielle's interest in the game only went so far before the matter of a secret wedding won out. They planned their move while Harry swooped players and got pelted with bludgers, and an hour and a half later they had hatched the majority of their plans when the stands around them exploded in cheers.
France beat Canada by 30 points, a game closer than anyone was comfortable with, especially on their home field. The Canadian team was already the reigning champions of North America though, and this victory eliminated the continent in the running for the cup.
Gabrielle was a bit big now to be carried around, but that didn't stop her from throwing herself on Harry as he left the press conference. This excited the photographers into a frenzy as they retreated quickly toward the apparition point but the younger Delacour didn't care. She'd always had less qualms with being in the papers, perhaps just because she was still so young and unbothered with trivialities like privacy. They went back to their apartment, and they had food brought to them to avoid the crowds, and the Delacour girls filled a bemused Harry in on their coming plans.
-o-o-o-
"Harry?"
He turned, and for a second he could only blink at the beautiful woman beaming at him. She had wavy platinum hair and pale blue eyes, he almost took her for a distant cousin before recognition clicked into place.
"Madeleine?" Luc was laughing quietly at his side, but Harry was completely blown away as they went in for a perfunctory hug. There was a tall lanky redhead at her side who looked like he was half sick with nerves. Harry recognized the signs of a shy fan and gave the man a smile as he extended his hand.
"Ron Weasley!" The man said. He appeared around Harry's age and suddenly his hair and tall build made sense, his smile warmed.
"Any relation to Bill Weasley?" He asked, knowing there was at least some relation.
"Older brother!" Ron explained, still shaking Harry's hand and beaming. "Big fan, saw you go up against my sister in 06!" Harry introduced him to Luc, who had managed to contain his amusement at running into Madeleine.
"Where is Fleur?" She asked in French, apparently momentarily forgetting her date was English, and he had to respect the girl for being so unaffected. His beloved wife, the love of his life and reason for being, had a vindictive streak a mile wide. She would not be able to maintain this level of neutrality.
"She's in the wedding, so likely somewhere being attacked by stylists." He explained, and the four of them moved together into the altar area to find their seats.
The main ceremony was held in a massive pavilion housing the near 300 guests. It was a beautiful concoction of white and gold, with soft fluttering drapes and little folded chairs in a light-colored wood that were magically more comfortable than they ought to be.
Music, soft and lilting from a quartet seated out of sight cued the arrival of the wedding party in pairs. Fleur walked third in the procession, and her eyes found Harry in the crowd and he smiled for her. He was near the front, just behind family, with the rest of the world's top quidditch players past and present who'd been invited. She winked as she passed him, and sent him a little smile that made his cheeks go pink after all these years.
Across the aisle and at the very back Aimee Porte sat with her husband. Gone were the days of front row seats and press passes, her clients were all old and retired now as was she. She'd made her fair share off her generation of quidditch elite, and did it so well she still got invites to their weddings, thank you very much. It was fitting that they were all together here, for the wedding of a French Veela to a quidditch sensation.
She bought her second house off Krum's book deal. Got Ginny Weasley into Stargent and secured a French Polynesian vacation home in turn. Not to mention Luc Bennet and the Potters. She couldn't have planned this wedding better herself, and it was nothing like the wedding that had brought them together all those years ago...
-o-o-o-
The Delacour house was not nearly as stately as the Potter manor, but to be fair the Potter manor wasn't the Potter's yet.
Aimee Porte was flabbergasted, she clutched a little slip of parchment, inviting her to a party Harry was throwing for the semifinals. Micheal, her favored photographer, stood beside her fiddling with his camera and unaware of her confusion. She'd just seen Viktor Krum, of all people, apparate onto the drive and stroll up past her toward the house as if it were a standard occurrence.
Party for semifinals at the Delacour's, bring a photographer if you want
The note read, and nothing more. Another guest appeared, this one a stunningly beautiful woman who must be a relative of Fleur's, she wore an elegant dress and that fact had her recalling Krum's formal dress robes. She felt suddenly shabby in her pantsuit.
"What is going on?" She demanded of Micheal, who of course had no answers.
"Shall we get inside?" He asked instead of answering, and Natalie Blanchett, one of the Chomelix chasers, popped onto the country lane and set off after orienting herself.
"Start taking pictures!" She ordered but they did move toward the house, and Aimee slowly began to piece together the discordant clues around her. She was not surprised when they made it into Delacour home and found not a party but the bustling controlled chaos of an organized event. She could've perhaps lied to herself and believed it some sort of fundraiser but she knew when she'd been had.
A beautiful older woman directed her and Micheal to seats in the backyard and any doubts she had were gone. She made up for her unpreparedness by directing Micheal into comprehensive sweeps of the milling guests and the tasteful if simplistic altar set up. She would make up for lack of numbers with forced thoroughness.
Eventually, though, there was nothing to be done about it. The yard filled with guests, she was suddenly trapped in her seat, second from the front and pinned in by beautiful silver-haired girls both in their teens and both so obviously Veela. Micheal, bless him, was at the back getting photos of the procession.
It was not a long one. A little girl, who to Aimee's eye was perhaps just at school age, skipped down the row spreading a mix of flower petals. She was beautiful, even in her youth, and had to be Fleur's sister from the shape of her features. They had identical eyes and noses and Aimee got a good look at them because the girl was giving her the most smugly victorious smirk Aimee had ever seen. She privately suspected it was this little girl who'd somehow stolen the wedding of the century from under her nose.
It was also far from traditional. The flower girl, having reached the end of the aisle, took up a post at the end on the right side of their little impromptu altar. Then came the groom, walking with brotherly arms across the shoulders of his best man. The two aspiring quidditch players looked like they'd just shared a joke around the corner and couldn't be bothered to contain their laughter for the crowd. They found their place at the altar across from Gabby, and if Harry's anticipation for what came next dimmed his mirth it didn't quite extinguish it.
She walked down the aisle to Canon in D, the most traditional thing about this pop-up ceremony, and she was stunning in lace and silks. Her beauty radiated into the crowd and left the onlookers dazed and stupid. Not even Aimee was immune to it, and she teared up a bit because she was a sucker for a good romance, and watching Fleur make her slow walk toward her husband-to-be certainly qualified. To Aimee's delight, she stopped at the back to allow Micheal to snap a few photos of her and her father before they continued down the line, and then they were together.
They held hands, both reaching out to claim each other, and words spilled forth from the officiator and splashed ineffectually against them as they stared at one another. They must've been listening, at least somewhat, because after a short proclamation of love and marriage they were prompted to give their vows.
Harry straightened, and Fleur's grip tightened on his hands as he suddenly felt the collective pressure of the audience's gaze. Softly, ever so subtly, he could feel her in his mind. Soothing anxieties and calming, and he smiled at her as the rest of the yard fell away.
"My dearest Fleur, I never thought it would be so hard to write down what I wanted to say today. I felt like it should've been easy, I've been writing it since I was eleven years old, and yet when you told me you and Gabby were hijacking our wedding and I had three months to prepare I was suddenly at a loss."
There was a smattering of laughter, shared by the bride despite the tears that had begun to fall.
"I spent a lot of time thinking about everything that's happened since we met, about where I would be if you'd never taken pity on the little English boy in first year.
"And I realized that that day was the start of it all, nothing that came before matters, and everything that came after was touched in some way by you. Everything I have, everything I am, I owe to you and your family.
"I was born the day I met you, and I was born to tell you that I love you."
-o-o-o-
AN So life happened, and I disappeared for a few months, whoops. I had most of this written this entire time, and I knew where I wanted to end it, but I couldn't get it on the page, even now I'm not completely happy with it, but I wanted this story to be complete. So this isn't the ending it deserves, but it's the ending I could write currently. I couldn't resist another cheeky Secondhand Serenade reference at the end there, and I wanted the story to end with THE FIRST (1st) time either of them actually said I love you out loud. Obviously not the first time they did, but the first time we see it in writing. I have ideas for an epilogue, but for the time being we're going to mark this one complete, the things in my life that delayed this so much are still present, and I would like to explore some other ideas I have without feeling guilty about owas not being done. Thank you to everyone who favorited, followed, or reviewed, and well as everyone on the Flowerpot discord server, this story wouldn't be here without all of you, and in the ways that matter that makes it yours just as much as mine. When I opened a fresh Google Doc and started the first chapter I never thought this would turn into what it did, and I can't express how much it means to me to have this written, and for that I thank you all.