Disclaimer: Nope. Still not owning Harry Potter.

A/N: A bit of Fleur/Narcissa. Not a usual pairing, but one that could work if you tilt your head just so.
There will be slash. Don't say you haven't been warned.
And I forgot to thank my super fast beta, kickingdebater. So. Pretend this was always here.

Flocons de silence

(the law of hospitality)

When things were innocent, and the world was not yet in turmoil, they sent Fleur away from home.

The Rosiers were, after all, old friends of her father's. And no matter how much her pretty, pretty mother might deny it, all that glitters is not gold

She sat on her suitcase, legs dangling over it. (Even at fourteen, Fleur Delacour was a sight to behold.)

"You must be Fleur," the woman said, hair as blond as her own. Her French was rackety, long disused.

(Narcissa refuses to speak French to Lestrange ever since, drunk and besotted with himself, he once whispered into her ear, "Wouldn't you prefer a real man, 'Cissa?")

Fleur nodded.

Fleur's crime, of course, was unspoken, unspeakable.

Narcissa took Fleur with her when she went to pay calls (Mrs Goyle looked at her and laughed. That one will be a lot of trouble.), made her sit in the study when she wrote letters. Took her to the finest tailors and softly insisted that Fleur spend time with Draco when he came home for Christmas.

She didn't like him. Narcissa didn't ask why.

"Remember," Narcissa whispered. "No man will ever do you good. Smile, and don't let them notice, but keep away from them."

And Fleur tried not to stare at the purple bruise blooming on Narcissa's cheek, a bruise that had been hidden by charms mere minutes ago.

Fleur nodded mutely, and just for a moment, she was afraid, so very afraid.)

When Fleur returned home, she had learned a lot.

But then her mother won't let her return anymore. Something's changed. But she can't put her finger on it.

And in these days, the monsters are real.

But because they met before (in another life that seems like a dream now), Fleur followed her out into the back alley.

Because she did not remember how a friendly pair of lips tasted, she let Narcissa kiss her. And it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

When Narcissa, eyes as cold and empty as her own, dragged Fleur's robes out of the way, she let her. Because life, in the end, is about the choices we make, and because Fleur became dreadfully tired of deciding.

(And her husband dead and buried for a year - where are you now, pretty girl? What has your beauty bought you? Pain and tears... all it ever gave you.)

The girl, then, is reduced to babbling obscenities in French. Narcissa smiles and touches her just there.

"You will tell me."

Fleur would give her soul away just to not have this stop.

"Fleur?" Narcissa is patient. She has time. (And a fool's haste is no speed.)

And Fleur opens her mouth, but she shakes her head. No, no, no. "A mistake- " she gasps.

"Of course," Narcissa says, and she kisses her with a cruel kind mouth.

Fleur shakes her head, but Narcissa is patient, and Fleur's wand seems miles away. (What possessed her? But she knows. The affliction she always had - trust.)

And Fleur (because once you have fallen, there is no coming back) opens her mouth again, and whispers the secrets that Narcissa wants to hear (because something must save her).

And Narcissa nods and moves her hand just so; Fleur comes and weeps, having lost herself.

(They say, of course, that orgasm is the little death, but something more dies inside of her that night.)

And when Narcissa leaves, she might just be laughing.

Fleur smoothes down her robes and wishes, wishes she could regret this.