OS written for the Harry Potter Hunger Games Competition, round two (Word: Oak, Genre: Mystery, Dialogue: "There's something I've always wanted to ask…", Character: Gabrielle Delacour, Class: Potions, Word Count: 1210), the It's All In The Meaning Competition (Rosebud(white)=Girlhood.), the Wand Wood Competition (Rowen: Write about a parent and their child).
About the title: I know that word doesn't exist, don't worry.
Please review!
Word count:1210
Treecky Question
"Mum… Can I ask you a question? Because there's something I've always wanted to ask you."
"Of course you can honey. What do you want to know?"
"Well, you know that oak tree in our garden; you know the one where you and father engraved your initials in?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I wondered… Where does it come from?"
Madeleine looked at her daughter, and when she saw the pleading blue eyes she knew she couldn't resist. She gestured at her daughter to come closer, and the ten year-old blonde girl inched closer to her mother, nearly sitting on her instead of on the sofa.
"My dear Gabrielle, that is a story with should wait your father for. After all, it involves him too."
"But muuum! I want to know now. Please, please, please, I beg of you, can't you tell me now?"
"Hmm, I suppose I indeed could. Where should I begin?"
"Dad says the beginning's where we begin every story."
"It's because it's a great advice. And in that case, suppose everything began in our Potion class… You see, your father and I, we were in the same class, but only for that lesson. He studied Defense and I had preferred to specialize in Charms, which meant the only common class we had was Potion."
"How has your Potion class anything to do with that tree getting in our garden?" Gabrielle asked, puzzled. And she had a good reason to be. After all, that tree was the only one standing in that corner of the backyard, because anything else planted there always died in the following year. Every time, whatever had been planted there didn't survive the year.
"Be patient, I'm getting there. So what you must know is that at the time Antoine and I didn't especially know each other. But that all changed when our teacher decided to pair us together for the end of the year project…"
"You fell in love." Gabrielle stated very matter-of-factly, and Madeleine couldn't help but chuckle at that.
"Actually I hated him as soon as I met him."
"But you don't hate him now, right? I know you tell dad you love him all the time and you're always kissing him when you think we're not looking."
The disgusted face the young witch made was enough to make Madeleine laugh again, but this time she also blushed a little. It seemed Gabrielle had inherited her grandfather's, Alexandre Delacour, famous reproaching look, the one that always had had the gift to make her feel repentant when she was a younger girl and sneaking out with his son. Of all the things to inherit from her father's side, it had to be this one.
"Of course I don't. We wouldn't be here today if I didn't. It was all because of a misunderstanding you see. I thought he was the same Antoine who had broken your aunt Alice's heart, when in fact he didn't even know her. I think I may have confused quite a bit with how cold I acted at that time for no apparent reason."
Gabrielle looked entranced by the story, and it reminded her of how Fleur had also been oh so interested in knowing how her parents met for the first time. It had actually been around that age too…
"Don't stop mum, I still want to know where the tree came from!"
"Right, the tree. It's actually quite funny. As I said, we had been put on the same project by our Potion teacher, and the subject we drew was to try and find a way to recreate one of the fertilizers we had already studied earlier in the year."
The goal of that assignment had been to teach them how to research and show them the way progress was made in that field. They had access to the end result, but they had to try to find it again on their own, working as a team and somehow finding the steps the Potion maker had had to go through in the first place to create that particular Potion.
"That's a bit lame for a project…"
"Well, we weren't the most skilled students in Potion, so I think it was for the best we didn't get a more difficult subject. And it actually was very interesting."
Madeleine's story was interrupted by the sound of someone entering the room.
"Daddy!" A blonde rocket launched herself into the arms of the man who just had the time to greet his wife, signaling to Madeleine that, yes, when one talked about the devil, he appeared.
"What are my two favorite women doing by this fine day?"
"Aha! I will tell Fleur you told me you preferred me to her!"
Gabrielle's remark was however ignored by her two parents who by now were used to her antics, as Madeleine brought Antoine's up to date on the story she had been telling their daughter. She then excused herself and let her husband finish the story, because she had promised Alice she'd spring by for a small 'goûter'.
"So I've heard you were trying to figure out where our tree came from, hn?"
Gabrielle nodded vigorously and turned her bright hopeful eyes to her father.
"Yes. I mean the whole space around is dead but then there's this tree in the middle of it and you graved a heart with mum there, so that have to mean something and please could you continue the story?"
"Of course I can."
"Great!"
"So from what I understand you just learned about our little project, right?"
"Yep. But mum told me she didn't like you then. That's true?"
"I'm afraid it was. But don't worry, she never could resist your father for long." He winked at her and smiled at the giggle the action provoked.
"Really? What happened to make her like you then?"
He leaned toward her, like he was about to share some big secret with her.
"I invited her to a Ball."
His stage-whisper was completely ruined by the high-pitched squeal Gabrielle let out at those words, but he didn't care. It had been his goal after all.
"She accepted?"
"Well I like to think we had already become kind of friends by then, so she was a bit reticent at first, but yes she accepted. It was only a few weeks before the end of the year, so I knew I had to try then or I'd probably never get another chance."
"But the tree daddy, how did all of that led to that tree in our garden?"
"That tree was the only thing that came out of our project. We needed a place to practice and test our Potions, and there was this one time we thought it would work so we snuck out of our dormitories and came here. I had told her about this place and the fact that nothing seemed to be able to grow up on that soil. It was only a few weeks later we knew it worked and that tree just appeared out of nowhere."
"Oh… And then you put your initials in there because it's romantic."
"Exactly. Happy now?"
"Yes. But I have another question."
"Anything you want."
"Where do babies come from?"