Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.

Note: I originally posted this under another account a couple of years ago. I lost interest in the story and knew I would never update, so I deleted it. I recently decided to bring it back so that people could enjoy it again, so here it is. However, I still have no plans to continue this story. I'm simply reposting it and will not be updating, so please don't ask me to update.

Pardon My French

Part One

Victoire Weasley's third birthday party was supposed to be a lighthearted, joyous celebration filled with family bonding, relaxation, and obscene amounts of cake consumption. And it was, for Victoire Weasley, at least. For Harry Potter, on the other hand, attending the birthday party of his three-year-old niece was turning into something that belonged on the Most Unpleasant Experiences Scale. If listening to old Mrs. Figg drone on about her cats was a one and encountering Lord Voldemort was a ten, then this party was about a four-and-a-half rapidly approaching five. Emphasis on rapidly.

"Harry, she kissed you on the cheek. She sat so close to you, she might as well have been sitting on you."

"She had too much champagne, Ginny."

"She's sixteen."

"And she's French. She's probably been drinking champagne since she was two."

"No, I mean she's sixteen, which is six years younger than you."

Harry was supposed to be eating cake and chuckling over Arthur Weasley's latest antics involving the ever-so-extraordinary "eckeltricity," but instead he stood by the punch table in plain sight of all his in-laws and argued with his fiancee over Gabrielle Delacour. Teenaged Gabrielle Delacour, who Harry found to be more annoying than alluring, though Ginny was convinced otherwise.

"We've only been engaged for a month," Ginny was saying. "I can't believe it's only taken you a month to become the bored future husband with the wandering eye. I've seen the way that baby harlot looks at you every time we have a family get-together, so don't think I've been blind."

Harry had picked the wrong day to leave his invisibility cloak behind. And he called himself an Auror?

"Ginny, I did not encourage Gabrielle. The last thing I want is a headline like 'Boy-Who-Lived Abandons Fiancee For Teen Mistress' all over the Daily Prophet tomorrow."

Ginny looked ready to conjure up a glass of punch and splash it all over his face. Perhaps "mistress" was the wrong choice of word. "I'm going to go talk to George and Angelina," she said stiffly, reminding him so much of her brother Percy that he would have laughed under normal circumstances. Instead he felt like drowning himself in the punch bowl.

Ginny stalked across Bill and Fleur's front yard, which had been decorated with two gazebos, one pavilion, and enough streamers to strangle a full-grown giant, and found George so she could distract herself from the unpleasant debacle hanging over Harry's head. Why oh why did he allow himself to sit with Gabrielle, of all people? Ginny hated Gabrielle. She wasn't fond of Fleur either, especially when Fleur was the one who threw this party in the first place, but she hated Gabrielle and called her a worthless little tart, among other names. Like baby harlot and empty-headed trollop.

And now she wouldn't speak to Harry because Gabrielle had been stupid enough to snuggle against his shoulder and kiss him on the cheek. Three times. And Harry, in a fit of idiocy worthy of an Idiot of the Year Award, let her do it within Ginny's line of vision. Mainly because he didn't want to be rude to Gabrielle, but sometimes being polite was not the answer.

It looked like he had bought himself a ticket to Sleeping-on-the-Couch-Ville. Bloody hell.

After tearing his eyes away from the innocent sight of Victoire chasing after an enchanted firework, Harry decided to quit moping outdoors so he could mope indoors instead, where fewer people could see him. Besides, Gabrielle had caught his eye from several feet away, no doubt hoping he would carry her off to an over-sized closet to have a passionate, illegal affair with her underaged self. Why couldn't she be like normal sixteen-year-old girls and chase after single wizards her own age?

Harry entered the house hoping to find some of Bill's strongest firewhisky, but instead found Fleur sitting alone in the living room with a glass of wine. "Er, I didn't mean to both—"

"No, no, have a seat," Fleur said airily, gesturing at an empty chair with her wineglass. After living in England for several years, she had lost most of her accent, though it made reappearances whenever she was stressed or angry. "It is too hot to stand out there all day, don't you think?"

Harry may have gotten used to Fleur's overall veela-ness over the last few years, but he still couldn't deny her anything and took the offered seat.

"Have some wine," Fleur insisted.

"Er—"

Too late. With a dainty flick of her wand, Fleur summoned an extra wineglass and filled it to the brim for Harry. Harry murmured his thanks and sipped at the wine, which turned out to be a nice substitute for the firewhisky he had been seeking. As he and Fleur drank and made small talk about Victoire, who had inherited Fleur's silvery hair and slim figure, Harry was hit with an idea that might solve all of his current Ginny problems. Emphasis on might.

"...we have not decided if she will go to Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, but of course we do not have to worry about that for another—"

"Fleur?" Harry interrupted. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Harry," said Fleur, giving him an indulgent smile.

"Well, it's about Gabrielle. I don't really know how to say this, and I'm not sure if you've noticed it, but your sister's crush on me is becoming, well, less than appropriate. And it's starting to really upset Ginny, who won't even talk to me after..."

Harry trailed off, realizing that Fleur's eyes had become bright and glossy while he was talking. Oh Merlin, was she crying? If he had known she was so sensitive about Gabrielle, he would have never opened his big, stupid mouth.

"Of course," Fleur said shakily. "At anyone else's party, the guests would have all been happy, but at my party it makes perfect sense for somebody to get upset. After all, I am silly and French and can do nothing right. What do I know?" She refilled her wineglass, drank down half of it, and refilled it again.

Harry felt like he was missing something. "Um, Fleur? Are you all right?"

"Bill's darling maman does not think I am all right. I invite her to ze party to be polite and she cannot be 'appy with anything." As Fleur became more upset, her accent crept into her speech and she continued to refill her wineglass. "And Bill does not defend me because she is his muzzer and of course she is always right and I cannot stand either of zem right now. 'Aven't I been a part of zis family for more than five years now? 'Aven't I?"

"Yes," Harry said uncomfortably, wondering if he should just get up and let Fleur cry privately.

"Oh, but 'Arry, why are you not drinking? I do not like to drink alone." She promptly refilled his wineglass and Harry had no choice but to drink from it, which seemed to pacify Fleur somewhat.

They were both rather tipsy by the time Fleur had dried her eyes and she blinked at Harry from her sofa, looking like a much less predatory, much more tolerable version of Gabrielle. In fact, she looked terribly appealing as she sat on the sofa with glassy eyes, the stem of her empty wineglass clutched between her fingers.

"Do you remember when we first met, and I called you a little boy?" she asked, perfectly calm now that she had finished her outburst.

"Yeah," said Harry. "I remember how it got on my nerves."

"You are not a little boy at all anymore."

"Thank you?"

"Come and sit by me," said Fleur, patting the empty spot on her sofa. "I feel like you are my only friend right now. These Weasleys will be the death of us both, won't they?"

Harry agreed and sat next to her on the sofa, not caring if their legs happened to touch. He doubted that Ginny would go looking for him in her current state of annoyance, and what was the harm in spending time with the party's hostess? If Harry was going to be part of Ginny's family, then he might as well start bonding with all of the in-laws, which included Fleur.

"Harry," said Fleur, looking into his face. "Your eyes are very green."

"That's what everyone tells me," said Harry.

"They are very green."

Harry couldn't help but notice that her eyes were very blue, and that suddenly they were closer and closer until he couldn't see them at all, because he was too busy kissing her in a wine-induced haze.

If he had been thinking clearly, he would have realized that they were at a party, which meant there were people everywhere, which meant that somebody could walk in and see them, which meant that Ginny could find out and hex them both into oblivion, but how could he worry about getting hexed when he was already in oblivion? Fleur, unsurprisingly enough, was an excellent kisser and seemed to have no problem turning their slightly drunk lip collision into full-out snogging, like they were a couple of deprived teenagers. Harry could have sworn Fleur broke one of the wineglasses when she leaned back against the sofa cushions so he could straddle her properly, but what did some broken glass matter?

Only Merlin knew how long they spent in that position, but after a while Harry came to his senses (either that or he ran out of air) and realized what exactly he was doing.

He was on Bill and Fleur's living room sofa, straddling Fleur and kissing her like she was a full-course dinner and he was a starving man. If Ginny happened to walk in and discover him, she probably wouldn't bother with a hex or a curse. She would conjure up a giant axe and hurl it at his head, then proceed to dismember all of his body parts and bury them in the yard right next to Victoire's birthday pavilion. Then she would magically brand the word "HARLOT" upon Fleur's forehead and Fleur would have to live with it for the rest of her life, enduring her badge of shame while all of wizarding society shunned her.

Wait, wasn't there some Muggle novel about something like that?

He pulled his lips away from Fleur's, realized his glasses were askew, and hurriedly fixed them so he could see properly. "Um," he said, feeling clever and articulate.

"Oh," said Fleur.

He crawled off of her and nearly sprawled onto the floor in the process, because he felt hopelessly awkward and was still quite tipsy. If he thought that letting Gabrielle kiss him on the cheek was bad, then he was obviously a very poor judge of what constituted bad behavior and needed to redefine his moral code, because he had rapidly crossed over from mildly inappropriate into the realm of horrible and depraved.

On the bright side, at least this was better than having a tawdry affair with a schoolgirl.

"I don't know what came over me," said Fleur, straightening her clothes and putting her hair in order.

Harry cast a nervous glance around the room, but was soon relieved to find that nobody had entered the house. "We'll just forget this happened. Blame it on the wine and forget that it happened."

"Yes, that is a wonderful idea."

"So I'll just... go back outside now and have a piece of cake. I heard that it's delicious."

Fleur nodded her head. "It is delicious, no matter what Bill's maman says."

"Excellent." Harry made no effort to get off the sofa.

"Yes."

"Anyway..."

And then somehow, because the fates were obviously against him, Harry ended up kissing Fleur on the sofa for another three minutes. And what enjoyable minutes they were. Thoroughly hating himself for enjoying it so much, Harry managed to pull away from Fleur and made up some excuse about needing to use the toilet, hoping that whatever magnetic force kept pulling them together would go away and leave him alone already.

He stumbled his way to the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat for a good five minutes, contemplating his life and his highly debauched moral state. He was The-Boy-Who-Lived, defeater of Lord Voldemort and savior of the entire wizarding world. He wasn't supposed to go around snogging other people's wives at a toddler's birthday party, or anywhere at all for that matter.

And good Godric, he cheated on Ginny. After listening to her make false accusations about wandering eyes, he went ahead and did the exact thing she accused him of.

He was the worst boyfriend ever. He and Ginny had been engaged for a month and he couldn't keep his hands off another woman, who happened to be his fiancee's sister-in-law, which meant that she was Harry's future sister-in-law as well. Cheating on his fiancee was bad enough, but cheating on his fiancee with her part-veela sister-in-law was ten times worse, and on top of that Fleur was three years older than Harry, which he had completely forgotten about while his lips were busy being unfaithful.

He supposed he did have a habit of liking older girls. Cho Chang had been a year older than him, after all, and Fleur was only two years older than Cho, so it wasn't that bad. And besides, he was twenty-two years old now. Age would have mattered a whole lot more if he was still a teenager, but that sort of thing didn't matter anymore once he hit twenty-two.

No, the one thing that did matter was that he and Fleur were both in a relationship. With other people.

As Harry sat on the highly polished toilet seat and wondered what would happen if he and Fleur ever encountered each other again, he knew that he was in trouble. He was in more trouble than the time he cost Gryffindor a hundred and fifty house points in his first year. He was in more trouble than the time the Goblet of Fire spat his name out in front of the whole school, but of course that only made him think of Fleur and the time they first met.

Harry Potter was in big, big trouble.

Knock knock.

"Is anyone in there?"

Holy hippogriffs with a bloody hell on top. Why in the name of Merlin's pointy hat did Bill bloody Weasley, of all people, have to knock on the bathroom door?

"Er, yes," said Harry, hoping that his voice sounded perfectly normal instead of guilty in a just-snogged-your-wife kind of way.

"That you, Harry?"

"...Yes?"

"Ginny's wondering where you are. Should I tell her you're in here?"

And allow her to conjure up an axe so she could mutilate him into a thousand pieces? Go right ahead. "Um, sure. I'm almost out."

Harry took a deep breath, then flushed the toilet and washed his hands just in case anyone else was wondering if the bathroom was occupied. It hadn't occurred to him that Bill would be standing right outside waiting for him to finish, so the moment he swung the door open he immediately wished he could retreat back inside and lock the door.

What if Fleur regretted kissing him? What if she regretted it so much that she told Bill and ordered him to massacre Harry the moment he left the bathroom?

"Bathroom's all yours," Harry told Bill, when in reality he wanted to tell him that he was too young to be massacred.

Bill actually smiled at him. Not a fake, creepy I'm-luring-you-into-a-false-sense-of-security-because-I'm-planning-to-kill-you kind of smile, but a genuine I'm-so-glad-we're-going-to-be-brothers-in-law kind of smile. "Thanks," said Bill, and he disappeared behind the door.

Harry realized how very lucky he was. If Bill had decided to use the bathroom several minutes earlier, he probably would have seen Harry kissing his wife senseless on the sofa, and Victoire's party would be ruined because her stupid uncle's body parts would be raining all over the yard instead of birthday confetti. Harry may have been the worst boyfriend ever, but at least he had good timing.

He half-expected to encounter Fleur on his way out of the house, which would have set off his problems all over again, but she had conveniently disappeared long enough for him to get out of the house without being sidetracked by temptation. Ron and Hermione, who had missed every bit of his descent towards immorality because they had arrived late, now greeted him with hugs and smiles while Ginny stood nearby and looked like she might forgive him if he was willing to lie down and let her walk all over him.

Then Gabrielle had the audacity to walk by with a couple of her giggling friends and wink at Harry, like she was trying to signal him to their secret affair hideaway that didn't actually exist. The problem was that Ginny didn't know that such a hideaway did not actually exist, and she turned her back on Harry to go talk to her parents.

"Something wrong with Ginny?" asked Ron.

"It's a long story," said Harry. A long story that was bound to get longer, the way his luck was running lately.