Title: But Drowning
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Fleur Delacour/Cedric Diggory, (Cedric/Cho implied), Madame Maxime
Prompt: 051 - Water
Word Count: 2,159
Rating: R for sexual themes.
Author's Notes: Angst. Standalone.
Disclaimer:Characters are the property of J K Rowling.
Cedric's never seen anyone so frightened in his life.
He wishes he didn't have to see it now.
He watches her from the sidelines, watches her heave and thrash and curse, desperate to pull out of Madame Maxime's grip, desperate to get back to the water.
"Gabrielle!" she shouts, "Gabrielle!" over and over and over again and it's almost like a mantra; a frantic gut-wrenching mantra that might sound like music if they were all underwater.
Cedric wants to do something, anything; doesn't Fleur know? Doesn't she know it's going to be okay? Doesn't she understand it isn't real? He wants to run to her; he wants to grab her and shake her and make her see.
Everything's going to be fine, he wants to shout, it's a spell, Fleur, it's just a spell, but Cho's fingernails dig anxiously into his palm and he can't move. Fleur probably wouldn't believe him considering the state she's in, anyway.
She probably wouldn't even hear him.
But then, just when Cedric thinks Fleur's going to cry her throat bloody raw, just when he thinks she's going to collapse from the effort, there's a splash; a great splashand three heads break the surface of the lake.
One dark, one red, one silver.
Cedric's attention shoots back to Fleur as she tears free of Madame Maxime's grasp.
He's never seen anyone so relieved in his life
Cedric doesn't see much of Fleur throughout the rest of the day. She disappears into the large powder-blue carriage as soon as the task is over and doesn't emerge again until dinner.
She still looks positively traumatised when he sees her; a pallid and almost withered version of the Fleur he's come to know over the past few months. He waves to her from the Hufflepuff table but she doesn't see him. She doesn't really see anybody, and for the first time since she arrived at Hogwarts, when she leaves, nobody really notices.
Nobody but Cedric.
He suspects Fleur might never go near deep water again.
He wouldn't blame her in the slightest if she didn't.
They cross paths briefly just once the following day, late morning in the Entrance Hall.
Fleur still looks slightly worse for wear, still a shadow of the proud Beauxbatons student who entered her name into the Goblet of Fire. The cuts on her face and arms glare angrily upon her pale skin and Cedric wonders if they'll scar. It doesn't matter if they do, he thinks, because she'll still be beautiful. She'll always be beautiful.
"Are you okay?" He asks, his voice soft and careful, and he reaches out to touch her arm.
Fleur steps backward and her tone, when she speaks, is curt. "Oui," she says, and she walks away without another word.
Cedric doesn't follow.
It's been days since they've spoken, nearly a week since they've spoken properly, and Cedric misses her.
Being a Champion is lonelier than he expected it to be. He has so many people cheering him on and supporting him but none of them know what it's like. And it surprises him as much as it would surprise most people, but Fleur's the only one he can really talk to about it.
He tells Cho this when they're alone and lying together on the front lawn on Sunday afternoon. She suggests he try talking with Krum, or Harry, but Cedric knows it's not the same. Krum isn't big on conversation and Harry, well, Harry's just not Fleur, is he?
"I'm worried about her, Cho." He says, gazing up at the grim March overcast.
"Fleur's more than capable of taking care of herself," Cho assures him, resting her head on his chest. "Why else would she be a Champion?"
She has a point, Cedric thinks. But he's not so sure he believes it.
Halfway through March, Cedric finds Fleur staring out at the lake.
She's on her own at the time, standing at a window on one of the higher floors of the castle, and she's just…staring.
Cedric wants to go over to her, put his hand on her shoulder or-or something, but his feet are rooted to the ground. He can't move, just like the day of the second task, that horrible harrowing day at the lake, except this is now and now is different. It doesn't matter that he can still feel Cho's fingernails sinking into his skin as if she were right there, clutching his hand. Now is not then.
"She's been there nearly an hour," whispers Nearly-Headless Nick when he drifts by five minutes later, "these French students have too much free time on their hands if you ask me."
Cedric nods, if only to appease Nick with some kind of a response, and watches him disappear through a wall before looking back to Fleur.
He stays only for another five minutes before heading down late to Potions.
Something tells him Fleur will be staying much longer.
Madame Maxime corners Cedric in the Entrance Hall one evening after dinner, a hand on her chest and breathing hard.
"She will not listen to me," she says, throwing her hands up in despair. "She 'as always been stubborn, but zis time…I do not know."
"What are you talking about, Madame?" Cedric asks, furrowed brow, racing heart.
"I do not know what is going through 'er 'ead, Monsieur Diggory. She is obsessed!" Madame Maxime sighs heavily. "She is at ze lake. Please, will you talk into 'er some sense?"
Cedric's running for the doors before he can ask why.
Dusk begins seeping into darkness sometime between Cedric leaving the castle and arriving at the lake. A bleak, ashy hue envelops the grounds and Cedric trips and stumbles over small rocks and into trees in his hurry to find Fleur.
When he finds her, it's hardly a scene that inspires panic, at least not the panic Madame Maxime displayed up at the castle; quite the opposite in fact.
She's standing alone on the bank, twenty feet away with her back to him as she stares out onto the inky surface. Remembering, thinks Cedric, and he wonders how many hours she's spent doing this. Too many, he thinks, just one would be too many.
Cautiously, he opens his mouth to call out to her, but Fleur's voice stops him.
"What if it 'ad been real, hm?" she says, though she doesn't turn around "What if ze mermaids really did keep ze 'ostages and 'Arry 'ad not rescued Gabrielle?"
"It doesn't matter, does it?" Cedric says, "They didn't keep them and Harry did rescue her. Everybody's alive, everybody's safe."
Fleur scoffs, "But it might not 'ave 'appened zat way! You would 'ave saved yours; Viktor – 'is and 'Arry – 'is. But moi?"
"You have to stop beating yourself up about this." Cedric sighs, moving a little closer. "It's over." But Fleur didn't seem to be listening.
"If it 'ad not been for ze Grindylow…" she murmurs bitterly, and then there's a pause, a long drawn out pause until finally, she nods her head once, confidently, as if confirming something. "I will do it now," she announces, pacing along the waters edge "I will do it now. And you," she turns around, pinning Cedric with her large glacial eyes, "you will time me."
Cedric frowns at her. Time?
"What? Fleur?"
But she's already wading out into the lake.
"An hour," she says, brandishing her wand near her head, "I will swim down to ze bottom and come back up and - "
"Fleur, no!"
Cedric rushes forward, stumbling awkwardly before splashing loudly into the stabbing cold water. His robes tangle about his legs, hindering his movement but he's close, so close, hip deep already – and then he grabsher. He seizes Fleur by the waist, hooking one arm around her and starts hauling her backwards. She yells and she kicks and she struggles, and water flies everywhere, but Cedric doesn't let go.
He drags her back onto dry land, falling hard with her on top of him, and he keeps his arms bound so tightly around her, he thinks surely he must be hurting her. He can't see for the thick, wet ropes of silver hair plastered across his face and Fleur claws at his hands, awkward and slippery, trying to pry back his fingers, but she's just not strong enough. Or she's not trying hard enough.
Soon though, finally, she gives up the fight. She swears in exasperation and falls back limp against Cedric, her head tipping back to rest on his shoulder.
He keeps hold of her, a little easier now – she's not going anywhere - and his arms move in time with the gradually slowing rise and fall of Fleur's chest. Cedric can feel the anger slipping away from her, filtering down through him and into the cold, pebbly ground beneath. The night becomes so very, very still.
Fleur shoves Cedric's arms away from her suddenly and rolls off his body to lay on the ground next to him. Her head rests uncomfortably upon Cedric's outstretched forearm, but Cedric doesn't attempt to move it. He stares up – up, up, up – up into the milky criss-cross of cloud that interweaves with the stars, and his body, he realises, swathed in the bitter chill of his soaking wet robes, is almost painfully numb. Some of Madame Pomfrey's Pepper-Up Potion wouldn't go amiss.
There's another long silence, but then Fleur moves again, shifting closer to Cedric once more, leaning into him, and her breath is unmistakeably hot against his ear even though she's shivering uncontrollably.
"'Old me," she pleads, she pleads with him, burying her face against Cedric's neck, and he can only comply, wrapping her in his arms.
They lay, quiet, undisturbed, and Cedric loses track of time.
Fleur's mouth on his cheek surprises him. And again, and again and before he even realises what Fleur's doing, Cedric turns his head to meet her mouth with his own.
No, he thinks, no no no, and thoughts of Cho smoulder at the back of his mind. He can't do this, not to Cho, not to himself, but how can he deny Fleur this - this comfort. She needs him, he's the only one here, the only one who gives a damn and they both know it. Madame Maxime knows it! Why else would she go to him for help, Cedric, of everybody in the entire school, and no one else? Because she knows, that's why, she knows.
They all do.
So how can this be wrong when it's all for Fleur?
She's soft, so much softer than Cho, so much braver but so much weaker and it's impossible to figure her out. Her fingers fumble with Cedric's robes and his fumble with hers and her hand is cool but firm around his solid heat.
He groans and she laughs and then he's lying on top of her, his trousers around his ankles, her legs around his hips, and there's an awkward moment of tension, of resistance, and then he's inside. He's inside her and its hot and wet and tight, and like nothing Cedric's ever felt before.
Fleur guides him with her hips, her hands everywhere – his waist, his shoulders, his hair - pushing and pulling as he thrusts and grinds, and he's so dizzy; he's spinning and tumbling and then he's soaring; he soars and he takes Fleur with him, hot rippling pulsations encompassing him and he's back amongst the clouds and the stars but the cold is long gone and faraway and it's never, ever coming back. He'll die before he lets it touch Fleur again.
Time passes over them again; over and around and in between, and he holds her close. Or she holds him. Or they hold each other, Cedric really can't tell. The Giant Squid splashes somewhere in the distance and Fleur startles.
They avoid each others eyes when they finally untangle themselves from the embrace. Cedric straightens his clothing and flattens his hair with his hands, watching Fleur do the same sidelong. He wordlessly takes her hand to assist her up the bank, letting go just as wordlessly when they're back on simple ground.
She smiles at him appreciatively, speaking volumes with her eyes: between us, she says, and Cedric nods. Lingering back as Fleur walks on ahead with her head held high in the moonlight, Cedric recognises her instantly.
He helped her tonight, he thinks. Hell, he probably even rescued her.
Cedric still sees her staring at the lake, sometimes. He'll walk past her in the corridors or see her standing out on the lawn, but he won't go near her. He doesn't need to.
It's different now.
She's not remembering her failure at the task; she's not thinking how and why and what if. Not anymore.
When Cedric sees Fleur stare out at the lake, he knows she's remembering something else entirely.
He knows she's remembering him.
END