Written for the M&MWP Drabble Tag!
for mew-tsubaki
Fleur Delacour & Marcus Flint | Party Time
* prompt was very loosely used. whoops.
No one is ever prepared to enter the Tri-Wizard Tournament. They're taken under the wing of a mentor and trained. They read the books and learn the spells, but they're never truly prepared for it. Fleur had hoped that she'd be the exception—that she'd be ready for whatever the tournament threw at her. She realises now that when she'd thought that, she'd been incredibly naïve. But in her defense, she'd never imagined that the tournament would take her sister. She'd never once considered that the tournament would take her sister in such a way that she'd be left completely and utterly incapable of saving her.
Fleur sits in a hidden cove of the unfamiliar castle, wiping her tears as she damns the stupid tournament to hell.
"Well, this is pathetic."
She looks up, frowning as she's greeted by the sight of a boy most unseemly. He's as wide as he is tall with a less than attractive face. He's not the sort of boy that Fleur would typically approach. But even with his lack of good looks, Fleur thinks that the worst thing about him is the sneer that stretches across face and cruel eyes, squinting down at her.
"Excuse me?"
He rolls his eyes and with that, Fleur hates him just a little a bit. "You're pathetic."
Fleur doesn't reply. She's a proper girl. She doesn't have to justify her tears to swine like him. Instead, she gathers her jacket and tightens her grip on her wand. She stands tall as she pushes past him and storms (in the most lady-like manner she manage while still looking infuriated) away.
She's furious. She's not pathetic. She's a Beauxbatons girl. She's French, for goodness sake. She's clever and beautiful and everything that her mother ever wanted for her. How dare he call her pathetic? How dare he?
She's being whisked around the dance floor by Roger Davies (furthering her assertion that she is not pathetic because Roger isn't the sort of guy who would settle for a pathetic girl), when she sees him again. He's slouched against a pillar pretending to listen as an almost pretty girl chats to him. It's all Fleur can do not to hex him on the spot.
Merlin, she hates him.
It's when she's fighting her way through the maze when she realises why she's trying so hard. It's not because she wants the glory and fame that the tournament supposedly offers. She's trying, using complicated spells she's only practised a handful of times and racking her brain for defenses (better defenses), because she wants to prove that she's not pathetic. She desperately wants to prove to that horrid toad that she is not pathetic. She wants to impress him.
It's a horrifying realisation and it catches her off guard. But she continues to battle her way through the maze and sure, she gets captured soon enough. But she doesn't die and she's sure that if she hadn't fought so hard, she probably would've.
She's lost the game, but that's okay because she's alive and in the end, that's all that counts.
Gabrielle's hugging her, sobbing into her chest as Fleur wraps her arms around her little sister. Over her shoulder, she spots the boy. He's looking back at her and she doesn't even know his name, but she can't shake the feeling that she owes him her life.
He's still disgusting and rude. She still hates him. But she curtly nods her thanks anyway, because although he's probably just as awful as she imagines he is, she can't help but like him a little bit. She supposes that's what happens when someone saves your life in the most backwards way possible.