A/N: This is a gift to SophyWald for her (very, very, belated) birthday. Happy birthday (better late than never)! I used the prompt 'once upon a time'. Enjoy!
)O(
Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was pretty, very pretty, prettier than most of the girls other people who met her had ever seen.
She came from a good home. She had loving parents and a kind sister who protected her from the cruel ways of the world.
She did well at school. Her teachers had only praise to give her.
She spoke French, her native language, so sweetly and fluently that any boy her age was sure to fall in love as soon as he heard it. She had won prizes for it when she had participated in poem recitals.
She was lovely, absolutely lovely. One might even go so far as to call her perfect.
Gabrielle's life was as pleasant as it could be for a ten year-old. For most of the time, she was happy.
When she was wrenched out of her perfect little world and into the depths of the Black Lake in the middle of no-where in a cold, unfamiliar country however, her perception of reality was shattered.
It must have come as no surprise, then, that the first person she saw when she was rescued from this unfamiliarity she took to instantly.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the saviour of the Wizarding World, suddenly became Gabrielle's entire world. He was her knight in shining armour and he had saved her and she loved him for it. Simple enough, no? She had heard this kind of love story often enough, and saw no reason why they couldn't be married in a few days' time. It had worked for all the princesses in her books, so why shouldn't it work for her?
Wasn't she worthy? All the people fawning over her told her she could have the world if only she asked for it. The love of a boy was no-where near as precious as the world. The way Gabrielle saw it, she wasn't asking for anything. She was allowing Harry Potter to marry her. She knew that there were many others who would have cut off their right hands to have the honour of marrying her.
Imagine her surprise, then, when she walked up to Harry after the Second Task, her clothes dried by her sister's attentive hands and Madam Pomfrey's warm towels, and tried to tell him about their wedding.
"Harry Potter? Si vous demandez à mon père pour ma main en mariage et il accepte, alors on peut se marier à l'été with this: Si vous demandez ma main à mon père et qu'il accepte, on pourra alors se marier cet été," she said, puckering her lips.
Harry, who had turned around to look at the little girl, was naturally confused. He looked around, seeking help. Seeing that Fleur was busy talking to Cedric, he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to try communicating with this girl on his own. He crouched down so that his head was a little lower than hers.
"Err, listen Gabrielle; that is your name, isn't it?" he asked. She didn't reply, but instead looked at him with her impossibly large blue eyes.
"Right…well, I can't really understand you. I think it would be better if you got your sister to translate. Er." He looked around again, panicking. He had never been in this kind of a situation before and couldn't for the life of him think of a good way to deal with it. What did she want?
Gabrielle sighed. Harry was just like all the other boys: unsure of himself and awkward when talking to her. It was obvious she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.
Glad that he was already on a level just right for what she wanted to do, Gabrielle took a deep breath and allowed her face to relax and slide on a pretty smile. She pulled a few loose tendrils of blonde hair out of her face and straightened her robes.
Now that everything was perfect, Gabrielle leaned down to cup Harry's face with both hands. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. When she pulled away, she smiled again and straightened herself.
Harry, who was crouching, didn't have quite the same collected response to the kiss. After she let go of him, he promptly fell back onto the dirty grass. This single moment had shocked him more than the realisation that his friends were at the bottom of the Black Lake. When Gabrielle offered him a gloved hand to help him up, he could only stare at her, speechless.
The kiss had been chaste enough, but the feelings he now associated with it were strange, very strange. Gabrielle may have looked like a little girl to him before, but when he had kissed her he had seen a vision of who she would become, and Merlin, if that vision was true, her father would have to keep her locked up to keep the boys away from her.
Harry found that if he looked at her, all he could see was the Gabrielle of the future. However hard he tried, he couldn't dispel that vision of her in a beautiful white wedding dress, smiling primly, lifting her veil to allow him to kiss her.
Harry growled, and closed his eyes tight, hoping to see the vision dissolve when he opened them again. But no. It persisted, pasted over the Gabrielle of the present. There was nothing he could do.
He was cursed, or enchanted, or something. He couldn't decide whether this was a good or a bad thing.
While Harry pondered his future, lying there on the grass, Gabrielle looked down at him in displeasure. He wasn't being the person she wanted him to be at all, the person the kiss would have made him if he really had been worthy. It looked like she would have to try again with someone else again.
In her mind, Gabrielle drew an X over Harry Potter's face. The wall of crossed-out faces now had, what was it…sixteen boys? That was getting to be a lot. Oh well. There was nothing wrong with trying again.
She would try, and try, and try, until she found a boy who was strong enough to hold his own against her magic. It might take a while, but then again, she had a while.
She had hoped that Harry Potter, whose power was known of all over the land, would be good enough for her, but…no. She wouldn't accept second-best.
She was Gabrielle Delacour, and she deserved the very best. Nothing short of perfect would do.
If she could manage to achieve perfection, then there was surely someone else in the world who could do the same.
She wouldn't stop until she found them.
)O(
Fin
Reviews would help me a lot, since I'm really unsure about this fic. Hope you enjoyed!
Translation of Gabrielle's French (translated to French by google translate, so it's probably very ungrammatical): "I have something to tell you. If you ask my father for my hand in marriage and he accepts, then we can be married in the summer. You may now kiss me."