AN I am usually one for adherence to cannon above all things. I don't like it when authors change things just for the sake of it HOWEVER you can forget that little cameo Fleur's parents made in DH, I certainly have.
Chapter 3
The nest
In which the Potters host Christmas, and the Delacours host Potter
Richard Delacour and his wife Elise arrived at their daughter's manor house the day before little Liliane was supposed to get home from her first term at school. In true, heart warming, Potter fashion they were greeted on the drive by the man himself. Landing in a jog off his broom with his youngest daughter climbing up his back to sit on his shoulders even as he flew.
"Pépé!" His little hummingbird called, leaping from her father's shoulders as he stooped to give Elise a hug. Richard caught his granddaughter and squeezed her tight.
"Papa taught me how to do barrel rolls, wanna see?"
"Don't let your mother hear you saying that." He warned, shooting a glance at his son-in-law who was grimacing at his daughter's back. Elise had the pursed lips of regal disapproval, but she'd already dealt with one of her children embracing the sin of quidditch in the form of Harry. She knew the losing battle their daughter fought.
They walked up the drive from the edge of the anti-apparition wards grilling Harry on Fleur's plans for the holiday.
"Just family, some of the Veela cousins, Luc and his lot, you know. Nothing big." There was no such thing as nothing big when it came to this house.
The Delacours were old for a French family, they could trace their name back almost five hundred years. In a country with a bloody revolution, two muggle wars, and one wizard war bleeding men into its soil that was most ancient and noble as they come. They had vineyards in France, producing some of the finest elf-made wine money could buy, vaults across the world full of gold, and more money than the Potter's by no small stack of Galleons. But the Delacours owned nothing so grand and ostentatious as this mansion. No, this was the kind of thing only a young man with more money that he could spend would buy. A young man who'd just won his first quidditch world cup and cashed in on a promise he'd made his wife when they were children.
"Maman, papa!" Fleur swept into the room hugging them and kissing their cheeks. At a few months shy of forty-two she was as stunning as she was twenty years ago. Moreso, her age and motherhood had softened her rough edges and given her a grace most women would die for.
"Is Gabrielle here yet?" Elise asked their daughter.
"She was, she took Nichole and Marguerite shopping in Paris." The madam Delacour rolled her eyes.
"Incorrigible girl." She muttered steering her daughter off toward the kitchen. Harry gave Richard a single brief look and then checked his watch.
"Not too early for a drink, you think?"
"It's Christmas son, lead the way." Harry grinned and pried his daughter off Richard.
"Go run and bug your mother," he said to a disgruntled daughter now old enough to know she was being dismissed. "Sing her that carol uncle Luc taught you, oui? And listen-" He caught the back of her shirt as she tried to break off on being reminded of the nasty song. "What do we say about barrel rolls?"
"What are bear owl rolls?"
"C'est parfait, now go." He kissed the top of her head and she tore off after her mother and grandmother screaming:
"Deck the halls with troll's old bogies!"
"You are a glutton for punishment," Richard chuckled under his breath as he followed his son into the study off the entrance hall.
"These Veela," Harry replied, "got to keep them on their toes, or they get restless and keep you on your toes." Richard fell into a comfortably stuffed leather armchair laughing hard at that one.
"Dangerous words," he warned as Harry took the one beside it rather than sit behind the desk. "To say aloud." A decanter and two crystal tumblers floated from a shelf to pour themselves.
"Yeah well, I never really knew when to speak up and when to shut up, did I?"
"What's this then?"
"American, single malt."
"Hmm, a speciality of theirs, I'll grant it."
Richard Delacour was a smart man by all accounts. He was born into wealth, but he grew it with smart business decisions. He knew when to leave the ministry to shore up his family's assets, and he knew when to go back to the ministry when they were better off left well enough alone. Most importantly, he knew the moment Elise threw her charm at him to drop everything and make himself hers. Richard Delacour was a smart man who got incredibly lucky sometimes, and made a habit of striking quickly when opportunity knocked. Sitting with his son like this, he was reminded of one such opportunity...
-o-o-o-
Fleur came home from her fourth year at Beauxbatons taller, more beautiful, and more a woman than she'd left after Christmas just six odd months prior. It broke his heart every term he sent her off, his little girl, and she came back less-little and less his girl. This summer, this dread summer, was the one he'd been fearing. This summer she came back talking about a boy.
He missed the opening of the conversation, just having floo'd in from work. His little girl, fifteen now, was at the kitchen table.
"... he gets on that broom maman," She growled, clenching and unclenching her fists over an invisible victim. "I want to throttle him." And Elise was giving their daughter a knowing look that told him everything he needed to know about what he'd missed.
"Who are we throttling?" He asked, giving his baby a hug. She did not hug him back as hard as she could, or exclaim her papa's return. No, she gave his arm a little squeeze and launched into a fresh tirade.
"Harry Potter! He is going to kill himself on that blasted twig, and all the other idiots just fawn and praise because he is more reckless than they dare to be!"
Harry Potter? By the gods, he remembered St. Pierre somehow confunding that British sop Fudge into sending the boy across the channel. Had it been ten years already?
"So we don't like Harry Potter?" He clarified, hopefully.
"No we like Harry Potter," Elise shot down his silver lining "We're to host him this summer."
"We… are?" Elise was shooting a pointed look at the back of Fleurs head. It was unnecessary, because his daughter was looking at him and driving the final nail in the coffin of his little baby girl. She turned her big blue doe eyes on him, and clutched at his arm, and pleaded with him. And if his daughter was doing this to him for a boy, then a chapter had just closed on his life.
-o-o-o-
"How's she holding up?" He asked his son, and then "Oh go on then, one more." He poured him another glass and sat back.
"Not well," Harry said grimly, but there was a humor in his eye that told him it was not nearly so bad. "I knew it would be bad when she insisted on moving down south when we started trying for kids. I think when Arianne's ready for school she'll be moving in with them."
Richard gave a bark of laughter at that. "Yeah, it'll get better, and worse, just you wait. Worst day of a Veela's life is the day her nest empties out. Worst day of her husband's is when the chicks start bringing home roosters." Harry groaned, scrubbing his face.
"I know I'm one of those roosters, but please spare me the harsh realities. It's too close." Richard cackled.
"Ohhh no, Fleur was never the problem on that front. She had you all picked out and wrapped up under the tree, and gave us plenty of time to accept it too. Gabby was the nightmare."
Harry snorted it "Don't I know it, well at least I can count on Fleur to crush a few leetle boys before we have to succumb to the tide."
Richard just shook his head with a pitying look for his son. "No my boy, they want the nest full of grandchildren again, it's you and you alone holding the beaches."
-o-o-o-
Richard groaned with his head in his hands sitting at his wife's vanity. She rubbed loving hands across his shoulders and kissed his cheek.
"She's fifteen mon coeur, we should be lucky it took this long."
"She just seemed so-" He flailed around for the right word, aloof? Focused? Frigid? There were words others would probably use to describe his daughter, but he would not.
"Disinterested. I know." Elise supplied and he nodded distractedly. "But it begs the question, why him?"
"I don't care about the little bugger," He grumbled, still put out that his daughter's first words home were demanding he go and pick up her new boyf- boy friend- friend, Harry Potter.
His wife swatted him in the chest and then wrapped arms around him.
"Unfortunately I think you have to, Fleur doesn't seem the type to bring home boys often, that makes them harder to chase off."
"Got chasing off duty then, do I?" She laughed, but her words were serious.
"Non, you have to go meet the boy… alone." He frowned, looking up into the mirror to meet her eyes finally.
"Alone?"
"Fleur is… very insistent that he come stay with us, she wishes you to go pick him up now. And to tell his family that we will take him to school next fall."
"What the- … merde! He's not- they haven't-"
"I do not think so mon coeur, Fleur is not the type, but she will not tell me why. Every time I try to bring up the issue she tells Gabby something new to try and get her riled up and begging for him to come too. If she's not careful she'll create a rival in her sister." He sighed again.
"Bloody Englishmen."
-o-o-o-
Harry blinked at him "No-" he said finally, horrorstruck.
"Oh yeah, it happened with you. Granted you weren't exactly kicking in bedroom doors when you turned up, but I don't think it took more than a week for Elise to sign off on you."
"She said she wants another one. That'd give me… another eighteen years or so yeah? Think she'd be happy locking Liliane up somewhere until she's thirty if we had another chick in the nest?" Richard laughed.
"That's just another rooster at the doors Harry, no avoiding it now."
-o-o-o-
Harry Potter was not what he expected.
He'd managed to hold off two weeks before coming round. The first few days were fine, Fleur was distracted by Gabrielle suddenly being old enough to fawn over and treat like a real little sister. But then the reminders started. Little things first like 'when Harry gets here' and 'remind me to show Harry'. Then those transformed into sullen looks and pointed glares while he drank his coffee in the morning. Finally she'd declared all out war. Going into fits the likes of which they hadn't seen in years from her, slamming every door in the house every time she walked by it and refusing to even look at him.
With his tail between his legs he ducked out of the house Saturday afternoon with a scrap of a letter delivered by a beautiful snowy owl. It was an address just outside Paris. The neighborhood was the kind of carefully cultivated history piece muggles fancied. Like a little hamlet straight out of some preindustrial picture book. He noticed one if the houses had even gone all out on a thatched roof, what that must cost a muggle to upkeep.
It was not a pleasant man that wrenched open the door after his knock. A head shorter than Richard and twice the weight by his guess and doing his best to emulate a walrus. "Whatever it is, we're not buying it." He snapped after giving Richard the once over. Richard had a long and decorated career in multiple branches of the French government. He knew how to dress muggle, and he knew how to deal with unpleasant ones as well.
He tried to close the door on him, but Richard stopped it with a hand against the wood.
"Pardon, my name is Richard Delacour, I'm the father of one of Harry's friends from school." He spoke in English because this man had, and because the Potters were an old English family.
"Oh, you are, are you? Well-" He seemed to be casting around for the appropriately disdainful remark. "Well- off you go then, we're certainly not buying any of that codswallop." He made to slam the door again, and Richard let him, before apparating into their kitchen. The woman screeched and the pig of a boy squealed. Both were trying to escape the room, but couldn't because the mother kept pulling the son toward her even as he tried to flee. The walrus entered from the entryway bellowing and blocking the path for them. This marshmallow of a boy couldn't be Harry Potter? Could he? He would have to reevaluate Fleur's taste in- everything- if this was the family he was truly sent to liaise with.
"Where is Harry Potter?" They all just bellowed their horrid sounds at him and he pulled out his wand ready to shut them up. The act alone strangled off the noise with a choke though. Noting the effect he murmured aloud, with some malic. "Homenum revelio." He turned on the spot as they cowered from his unseen attack and almost missed the light golden shimmer out in the back garden.
Harry potter was living in a tool shed out back in a tacky middle class suburb of Paris. He wrenched open the door to find the small space largely filled with a ratty old mattress, the rest with a silver and blue school trunk that had an empty owl cage sat atop it. The boy in question flinched away from the door, a schoolbook in his lap that he was reading by the light of a single overhead bulb.
"Harry Potter?!" He snapped and regretted it instantly. He was just starting to take in what he saw here, what it meant, and the boy was nodding but also trying to surreptitiously retreat from the open door.
"I'm Richard Delacour boy, Fleur's father-"
A myriad of emotions flicked across his face in a very short amount of time, but they were read easily enough for one living in a house full of witches. "Er, bonjour monsieur."
"Oh you speak French, delightful." He switched over to his native tongue as, without looking back, he pointed his wand at the man just now making his way into the garden. It had the desired effect of driving him back inside, and he felt like that action alone had won him back his points with the boy after his harsh entrance. "Yes Fleur's told us all about you, and she's sent me over to talk to your family about having you over for a few weeks. But-" He struggled with how to phrase it before deciding to go simple. "Listen my boy, I don't really care what your family thinks, why don't you come and stay over for a while?"
It took a surprising bit of convincing. Or really just letting him mull it over, he could tell the boy wanted to come but he was holding back for some reason. He had deduced that it was fear of retribution, from his family, whenever he did return. Right up until they were all packed up and ready to head out and then Harry broke down, apologizing profusely and begging his trunk unshrunk and a moment alone. When Harry stepped back out of the shed wearing a white shirt with his Beauxbatons vest and slacks on Richard finally took in the ratty thrice too big clothes he had been wearing and he felt maybe it was more shame than fear that was holding him back. The realization was enough to snuff out whatever last bits of fantasy he harbored about sitting the boy down and trying to bully him into fearing his daughters. Curse the poor little bugger.
"That's better, now I don't suppose you've ever apparated before." He expected the shake of the head. "Yeah, it's a nasty shock, not really any way of preparing you for it, take my arm and deep breath."
He turned and brought them to the corner of a busy street not too far from his family's house in Paris. Despite the short distance the boy convulsed and gasped for air upon arriving safely. Richard just patted his head lamely, suddenly a bit awkward, he had emotional whiplash from his internal monologue on the boy over the last few hours. It kept switching up on him.
"Look, Harry," He said once the boy had recovered a bit and was looking around the street in confusion. "I appreciate you wanting to get dressed up for my girls." The boy went red. "But if you show up in your school clothes in the middle of summer, that's just going to spark questions you see? So I thought we'd get you a fresh change here before carrying on." The blush was fading and a shy smile grew to replace it.
"Can we stop by Gringotts sir? I haven't got any money."
"Oh don't worry about that, you can pay me back when we get around to the bank, maybe later this week the girls can take you shopping-" the smile froze, distress blossomed behind his eyes "-or next weekend you and I can come back."
They shopped quickly, because Richard was already dreading facing Fleur after being gone this long. He loosened him up a bit, complimenting his French and his tie knot, because everyone liked compliments and he got him into some new jeans that fit and a tee shirt. They were simple clothes, positively drab by the other Delacours' standards, but Harry didn't seem the most up to making decisions in this new environment so Richard got them through the process quickly and painlessly.
He apparated them back to his house, but a little ways up the country lane, because he had the growing suspicion that Harry was trying to work up the courage to say something. He was not disappointed, a few steps down the way the boy stopped.
"Monsieur Delcour-"
"Yes, monsieur Potter?" He said, mimicking the boys formality in a teasing manner.
"Can you not tell- anyone… about my family." He got the distinct impression he was going to request Fleur specifically but then thought better of it.
"... I can't promise my wife won't find out, but I won't tell anyone." That seemed good enough.
-o-o-o-
Richard Delacour sat at the head of the table. He always did, his son always insisted, despite being the owner of the house. "It's your family, I'm just a part of it." He would say. With Liliane and Gabrielle home now it was complete, with a few additions to boot.
He stood, and raised his glass, and looked to his right, where his son and daughter sat.
"Family, food, friends." He toasted and watched Harry drink to his words as the food appeared. He turned to Fleur and whispered something in her ear, and she smiled with a blush and nudged him with her elbow and he laughed. It was such a normal, happy little moment of intimacy, and he was thankful all over again for that little boy that came and kept his daughter from being alone.
-o-o-o-
Fleur was … different around Harry Potter. He wasn't too different, he was pretty uniformly timid and shy from Richard's perspective. But his daughter certainly changed. It wasn't like he'd feared, like he'd almost expected. Fleur may be fifteen now but Harry was, as of today, twelve and there was nothing intimate about their relationship. Or perhaps that wasn't correct, but he didn't like to think of the word sexual. Their relationship was intimate, in an asexual way. They seemed stuck in each other's gravity, tugging at each other at all times. His field dragged her out to watch him ride a broom from the ground, hers kept him on the couch until he fell asleep while she read.
Listening to her explain what his presents were, how the enchantments worked, who they were from, just chirping away. He realized how long it had been since he'd seen her like this. His eldest daughter was perhaps never as vibrant as his youngest. She was calmer and more reserved, more like her mother, Gabby was all him when he was young. But once she started school, and her allure began to develop, she grew distant. Distant from everyone. Her response to the struggle unique to adolescent Veela was to embrace her isolation. She became better than other people, so that she didn't need them, didn't want them, and didn't miss them.
Somewhere during the last school year she'd picked this boy to be the one that she did need, want, and miss. He couldn't bring himself to care, because just seeing that there was still his little girl in her was good enough. The kid forgot how to breathe when she presented the broom Richard picked for him at her request. She had the most confusing grimace on her face as she gave it to him, it made him laugh. It was very clear from the moment he got the broom onward that all he wanted was to go outside and get on it. It was equally clear that Fleur was forestalling it to the best of her abilities. Richard was loyal to his daughter, so he let it go on for the better part of half an hour before he suggested the fly and opened the door for Harry to escape. Fleur was sending him the nastiest looks on her way out, but he couldn't bring himself to be upset about it.
-o-o-o-
The whole group to be spending Yule together officially convened at Harry and Fleur's stately manor the day before the day before Christmas. Elise stood at the door with her husband and children that morning, straightening Richard's lapel and smoothing his hair. He was looking over at Harry, and they were sharing a kindred look as Fleur adjusted his tie and collar.
Harry's oldest friend, discounting Fleur who was never really a friend, arrived with a flurry. The Bennet family, two young boys and Luc Bennet himself, surged in like the tide. The Bennet children had been around as often as the Veela cousins, and the Delacours knew Luc as far back as the triwizard tournament. Luc's wife Victoire had passed a few years prior to sickness, and they'd become a sure staple at the Potter Christmas ever since.
They moved toward the dining room and Elise blessed Harry Potter silently as he stood next to his wife's chair until she sat back in it before finding his own seat. Her son was the consummate gentleman.
-o-o-o-
Elise Delacour knew within an hour of meeting Harry Potter that her daughter would marry him. Some that saw them their first year together at school may try to claim they were the first person to know. But they didn't know, not like Elise did. To be completely fair, most Veela could have guessed it, her cousins would probably be as certain as she was knowing Fleur as they did. There were just certain things that gave away how much more than a friendship it was.
Idle Veela hands preen loved ones. Unconsciously, sadly, anxiously, boredly, it didn't matter, it was instinctual.
The very first thing that happened when Harry Potter stepped into her house was Fleur hugging him. She'd been by the door, standing so that when it swung open she was there as soon as the crack appeared. She tugged him in as soon as he would fit and hugged him.
The very second thing that happened when Harry Potter stepped into her house was Fleur reaching out and pinching the shoulders of his shirt and giving it the most miniscule adjustment back to center. She followed it up immediately by smoothing a chunk of hair that stood out around his ear.
It all happened in the time it took Richard to cross the threshold behind him. By the time the door closed she was turning to face her mother at his side. She stared defiantly up at her mother, as if to challenge her to disapprove of the skinny little boy. Elise was almost certain she was the only person in the universe that was aware of the little actions her daughter had just done to correct the boy's appearance. He'd held very still to allow her her one-second once over, and they were both blind to their little hello ritual.
She did not disapprove of him. He was a sweet and timid boy, she could see why Fleur had picked him. Her daughter could be most politely described as strong-willed, and Harry Potter seemed in most cases open to being led. He drifted around her happily, blushing furiously every time he actually noticed one of Fleur's Veela tendencies acting itself out. He did the same when Elise tugged him over on his second day and tried to sort out his mess of a head of hair. That bird's nest would keep her daughter distracted for the rest of her life.
No she did not disapprove of Harry Potter in the slightest. He was young, but not so young that it would matter in a couple years. She had no doubt it would take that long for Fleur to get around to sealing the deal anyway. If she felt like their relationship was growing faster than his age she would pump the brakes on it for them. In the meantime though, it was quite fun to tease her daughter about it.
-o-o-o-
After dinner that night, Elise watched Fleur and Harry sit and talk with their long time friends. Her daughter was in her husband's lap, chatting animatedly with one arm draped around his neck. Every time she took a sip of wine from the hand around his shoulders she would pull his head down onto her chest, cutting off any conversation he was having. Occasionally she would forget to let him up, just holding him there and playing with his hair until he struggled.
When he was free again, cheeks the palest pink, he would carry on talking with Richard or Luc as if nothing happened. They both took it in turn, as if it were expected, it was a perfectly regular occurrence after all. She stood and dismissed herself to bed, her husband falling in step with her, and she held his left arm as they left the night to the young couples.
-o-o-o-
Brooding. Not the human sulky emotional state. But the avian action of sitting upon your clutch of eggs. This was another big sign to Elise's practiced eye.
It was most pronounced in mothers, who found it very difficult to let go of their children. Emotionally sure, but more prominently physically as well. It was a sad day in a Veela's life when one of their chicks could no longer be held and carried around. For those that weren't mothers, they still did it with those closest, just a little differently. When Fleur hugged Harry, she seemed to be trying to pull him into her. She was shielding him from the world for a second. She would turn to face the nearest wall a bit as she did it, putting herself between him and the world.
They didn't hug often, and Fleur seemed to reserve them for moments when she didn't know what to do or say. If he caught her off guard with a smile, or said, or did something that made her blush and freeze up then she would pull him in for a hug and seize the power back. Each one was like a little aneurysm for him, it took him at least half a minute to reset all systems and functions afterwards. Nevertheless she found ways to drape herself over him that their young innocent minds could justify.
In public she had a tendency to pull him into her side and pin him there with an arm over his shoulder. Given how much he blushed at her hugs, this happened far more often, if his almost disregard for her arm there was any indication. In crowded places, like the few times they went into the city to shop for clothes or school lists, he seemed to prefer to be pinned under her arm. He would drift around her like a ship seeking access to port, and then she'd snap him into place unconsciously the first time he drifted too close to the curb or almost bumped another shopper.
In the evenings when they'd sit on the couch and read, she would turn and put her legs over his lap. Not in his lap, over, with her knees bent. And she would press her leg against his chest, keeping him seated and safe.
Elise noticed all of this in the first week he was there, and knew she was looking at her future son-in-law. By the end of the summer she'd fallen in love with the boy. It didn't take long to piece together his more jumpy behavior with his penchant for long sleeves and pants, or Richard's loud silence to some of her questions. She didn't know if her daughter knew, or suspected, what his home life was like, but it didn't really matter yet. He was letting her heal him, and Elise for the time being agreed with her husband's vow of silence. It was irrelevant, the first time she saw him in his Beauxbatons uniform she had no intention of returning him to his awful muggle family.
AN Ugh, I'm not the most happy with this one. I really embraced my If-you-don't-want-to-write-it-don't philosophy with Richard's visit to the Dursleys. It was necessary to the story but I was NOT feeling it, so I tried to make it entertaining as I BLEW through it. Fun fact, up until I wrote Elise's POV here these last 3 chapters were actually 6 chapters, but Elise's turned out so short I combined it into 1 summer chapter, then went back and combined all the chapters.