Beauty and the Beetle

Chapter 1: In Which Questionable Substances Hit the Fan

When Fleur Weasley, formerly Fleur Delacour, walked past the small side bedroom at Shell cottage to stack fresh towels in the linen closet, she was surprised to hear noises emanating from within. After all, who could it be? Bill was not due home for hours; he had gone to have lunch with his younger brother, that Percy, whom Fleur was still not entirely sure she liked. Even after three years of seeing him at Weasley dinners and on every major holiday, she still remembered how he had rejected his family for a set of silly beliefs that didn't hold up under close scrutiny.

But that didn't change the fact that Bill had gone out with Percy and his boyfriend, Oliver Wood, and wasn't due back for hours. It had shocked everyone, Mrs. Weasley perhaps most of all, when it turned out her third son was gay, but Fleur had smiled to herself and later told Bill that she'd suspected it all along.

"After all," she'd said, nuzzling her way up Bill's arm to his collarbone. "With six boys, your muzzer should not be surprised that one of them turned out that way. Besides, I 'ave always thought that Percy seemed a bit, well, not to speak badly of ze family..."

Bill had laughed to hear her say such things, and Fleur had sighed with relief that it was Percy, and not "'er Bill" who liked, all romantic fluff aside, to have sex with men.

But now it appeared that Percy and Oliver were having problems, and Percy wanted his older brother's guidance. A natural enough thing to want, Fleur had thought, and so she had pushed Bill out the door, laughing at his protestations that Percy could work out his own issues and he'd really rather not go, never knowing that perhaps there was some deeper reason.

And now, pushing open the door to the bedroom that was not quite latched, towels still in hand, Fleur thought that perhaps she shouldn't have been so quick to assume that Percy was the only one of Mrs. Weasley's sons who liked men.

For there, tangled together in the bedsheets, arching under each other's hands as Fleur watched, mouth falling open, were Bill, her Bill, and none other than Oliver Wood himself.

Fleur let the towels fall to the floor, but it didn't make a very loud thud against the carpeted floor, and there wasn't anything nearby that she could throw, and really, wasn't there supposed to be some sort of loud, noise-making device around when one saw such things. Seeing nothing else for it, Fleur screamed as loudly as she could, and what she screamed was not "Why?" or ""Ow could you?" but rather nothing at all, a wordless roar that filled the room and sent the two men springing apart, clutching at blankets and pillows, as if they thought that could hide the evidence of their transgression.

Fleur had the one detached thought that she was happy Victoire was with her Grandmere Weasley this afternoon instead of in the house, as Fleur's screaming would really have set her off, and Fleur really couldn't deal with a crying baby right now.

Bill had finally caught up enough breath to stammer that immortal line used by cheating husbands everywhere: "Fleur, you're-you're not supposed to be here," and the scars on his face formed creases as he closed his eyes, squeezed them tightly shut, as though to shut out reality. But Fleur was not going to let him get away as easily as that.

And now she really did scream ""Ow could you?" and ran to beat her hands upon his chest, trying to ignore how sweaty it was, and how flushed his face. "We 'ave a baby, 'ow could you not think of our little Victoire before you went to do," she gestured silently toward the now shame-faced Oliver, who lifted his head and gave her a look she couldn't read, "this?"

Bill looked at her, and his face crumpled in on itself as if he were about to cry. But no, he was not allowed to cry when he had made his own bed and, quite literally, lain in it. Fleur began trembling and couldn't stop. But when she spoke, her voice was quite even.

"Out," she said. "I do not want you in my house anymore." She started to clap her hands in a gesture of finality, then changed her mind. "No, I will go." She turned, her hand on the door. "I am sure you two will be very happy together." Her lip curled, and she resisted the urge to spit.

But of course, it couldn't be nearly as dramatic as all that, or perhaps it was more so. Fleur still had to pack all of her things, and everything belonging to Victoire, and all the magic in the world couldn't make it happen in less than a few minutes. Enough time for Bill to come running after her, dragging on a pair of trousers, begging her forgiveness, and enough time for Oliver to slip quietly out the door.

But it didn't happen that way. After twenty minutes had passed and Fleur could no longer pretend to be folding Victoire's baby blankets and romper suits, she had to accept the fact that he was not going to kneel and ask her forgiveness. Not that she would have given it if he'd tried.

Next was the exhausting ordeal of Apparating to the Burrow and explaining all to Mrs. Weasley, who looked pinched and confused, and started to cry, and generally acted in all the ways Fleur wanted to act, but couldn't.

It seemed impossible, as Fleur sat on a rented bed at the Leaky Cauldron hours later, the dusk falling into her room and she with no will to stop it, that it had all happened so slowly, and yet had taken no time at all.

Bill would come to his senses, she thought as she rocked Victoire to sleep on a chair that wasn't a rocking chair. It might take him weeks, or even months, to summon the courage it would take to face her and beg for her forgiveness, but he would do it. For surely even now, he realized his mistake and would rectify it.

And Fleur knew that she would forgive him eventually, because he had been scared about a baby, worried about work and making ends meet, obviously confused, and because he was her Bill and he had only made a silly mistake. She would forgive him, and get her life back. She would.

But he never gave her the chance to try.