Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the idea for this fic; it was requested (anonymously) on tumblr for last week's hpshipweeks. I'm basically indebted to everyone for this, then. But I hope you enjoy anyway :)
It's become a running joke between them that every red-haired person they see is one of his family members. She, who for so long was an only child, cannot imagine what it must be like to have grown up in such a large, sprawling mess of siblings; then one day he tells her about all his cousins and aunts and uncles, in-laws and outlaws, and it just gets ridiculous. He seems to be related to every redhead in Britain. He protests this but she won't let him, pointing out every ginger from the tiniest baby with only a few wisps of faintly red hair, to the old man with a hunchback and a stick who had about the same amount of hair as the baby.
"Ah yes," he'll say, nodding at the old man, "that is my brother Charlie. Very active, our Charlie." And Fleur, who remembers the dragon-wrangler from Hogwarts, nods and agrees.
"The baby?" he'll ask. "Well, I'm not sure. You see, I have eight hundred cousins, and at any one time, about sixty percent of them are pregnant—even the men, it's true—so it is quite possible that I am indeed a cousin again, I've just lost track." And Fleur, who has three second cousins who are twenty years older than she, laughs along. (Her father is an only child, and Veela families work differently, and that's hard to explain to this Englishman with his ridiculous clan.)
One evening, they're both leaving the bank late, hurrying down Diagon Alley in the rain, when they bump, almost literally, into a redhead who looks strangely familiar. After a moment, Fleur realises where she knows him from, and is so delighted by her recognition that she doesn't register the tension in the air. "You are Percy!" she exclaims. "Bill, it ees your bruzzer!"
"Yes," he says shortly, trying to steer her past him.
"It ees so nice to see you again," she says, beaming at Percy. He takes a step backwards, but for once it doesn't seem to be her Veela charms that have floored him. "'Ow are you?" she adds, with a touch less enthusiasm, beginning to pick up on the fact that something isn't right.
"Fine, fine," Percy mutters, trying to squeeze past her. She feels like there's something she's not getting, and she glances back at Bill who is watching his brother with such an expression of disgust on his face she actually feels afraid. She turns back to Percy, picking out the bits of him that look like Bill, and her heart aches at what she sees on his face: anger, and resentment, and desperation and hope, but Bill is still all but pushing her down the road.
She stands her ground. "Zhis weather, it ees terrible, non?" she asks desperately, trying anything to prolong the encounter but not the awkwardness. It's what she's learnt about being in Britain: when in doubt, talk about the weather. It usually works.
But not this time.
"Er—awful," Percy says, with supreme effort.
At the same time, Bill begins to walk off, taking her hand and pulling her after him. "Come along, Fleur," he says in the most patronising voice she's ever heard from him, and she feels a wave of anger.
"Don't treat me like I am a child!" she snaps, trying to wrench her hand from his grasp. "Stop pushing me around!" He clings on, and says something else, and she realises that in her anger, she's started speaking French. In the confusion, she hears a pop, and when she twists around, Percy is gone.
Bill immediately lets her go, and she staggers slightly, no longer needing to pull against him. He makes no move to catch her, and she, who normally hates chivalry, feels outraged. "I could 'ave fallen!" she snaps, barely resisting the urge to stamp her foot on the rain soaked cobbles.
"You wouldn't have," Bill says shortly. He's staring off into the space Percy has just apparated from, still with that horrible look on his face.
"What ees your problem?" Fleur presses angrily. Something inside her tells her to back off, that this is not her fight, but she's tired and wet and it's been a long day and now Bill is treating her like she's an idiot, and it makes her temper flare.
"Nothing. Come on," he says, beginning down the Alley again.
"No!" she says, and she really does stamp her foot this time. She knows she is behaving like a sulky child, but she's angry now, and she wants him to apologise and make her feel better, instead of continuing to act like he knows so much more than she does. They've yet to properly argue, but she knows that if he continues to patronise her, this will change.
"Fleur," he says, and it sounds like the sort of reprimand you give to a misbehaving puppy.
"No!" she says again. "I wanted to 'ave a conversations with your bruzzer, and you stop me! Why? Are you ashamed of me?" This is so far off the mark and she knows it, but she's spoiling for a fight and it looks like this is all it will take for him to blow up at her.
"For God's sake, don't be an idiot!" he snaps.
"Don't call me zhat!" she shrieks back.
"Then don't act like one! What goes on between me and my brother is none of your business, so stay out of it!"
"Maybe I will stay out of your everyzhing, eef zhat ees 'ow you feel!" Her accent gets so much stronger when she's emotional, and she can see him struggling to understand her. She feels a wave of resentment towards him.
"Well, fine, if that's what you want," he snaps back after a beat of translation, and she flings her head back haughtily. People are beginning to stare at them.
"I theenk it ees," she says, and she turns, flouncing down the road.
He hears him mutter something less than complimentary at her, then start stomping down Diagon Alley in the opposite direction. She wants to turn and yell don't you swear at me, but she won't give him the satisfaction of looking back, not even if he runs after her, begging for forgiveness.
He doesn't.
Instead, she watches his reflection in the shop windows until he turns round a bend out of sight, and tries to pretend she doesn't. She's too upset to apparate home without splinching herself, and so she walks the half mile back to her flat in the pouring rain, and tries not to cry.
She hopes that things would start to look better once she gets home, but that doesn't happen. She tries to light a fire in the grate, but it keeps going out. She throws her work robes in a heap on the floor, knowing even as she does so that she'll curse herself for it in the morning, and yanks on an old pair of pyjamas. Her tiny flat is above a fish and chip shop, and the smell of frying is so strong tonight that it makes her feel greasy. Tonight, it looks even worse than usual, the few feminine trinkets she's added around the place stand out even more against the hideous décor and old furniture with accompanying suspicious stains, making the place look like it was decorated by Gabrielle when she was five and going through a princess phase, not a grown woman.
It's only five steps from the bedroom to the kitchen—really just a patch of linoleum in the living area, where there is not enough room to swing the proverbial cat—but she makes sure to stomp every one of them. She flings open the cupboard, bypassing even the wine tonight and pulls out the box of chocolate she has stashed for emergencies. With a sigh, she turns and slides down the wall, so she's sat on the floor, leaning against the sink with the chocolate box on her lap.
She tears into three Chocolate Frogs, shoving them in her mouth one after the other so she can barely taste them. Without really noticing what she's doing, breaks open a bar of fancy French chocolate her best friend gave her for Christmas, which she carried home with the reverence of a parent and a newborn. She bites into it and it tastes at once so delicious and familiar that she has to put it back, a tear rolling down her cheek.
She doesn't even really know what she's crying for: homesickness, or him.
"I hate him," she says, mostly to hear how it sounds. There's no way she can make it sound convincing.
She sighs and mopes, picking up a less coveted bar of English chocolate and breaks off pieces more slowly. She hates this weakness, hates that when she's upset she craves chocolate. It's so typically girly, such a cliché, and more than anything she hates to be average and normal. She considers writing to her mother, or floo-calling her friend Annie, but she registers that she shouldn't really be inflicting herself on anyone else tonight, and eats another square of chocolate.
It's half-chewed when the doorbell rings, and out of habit she opens it. She's not thinking at all, but when she sees Bill standing there, her mouth dries up and the chocolate suddenly becomes hard to swallow, tasting horrible in her mouth. She doesn't invite him in, or open the door wider than the few inches it is already. For a long moment, he doesn't say anything either.
A detached part of herself notes that it's not her he's angry at, it's his brother, and he's just transferring that anger to her. That he's probably come to apologise, and she should let him in. But she's in no mood to be logical or mature, and wants him to beg on bended knee, prostrate before her, before she'll allow that.
He places a hand on the door, asking the question with his eyes. She shrugs, but takes her hands off her side of the door, stepping backwards. She drops the chocolate bar in the box as he comes in, shoving it out of sight under the counter.
He takes a seat on the tiny sofa that came with the place; it's already smaller than average to fit in the miniscule room but looks even more comically so with him squashing his height down to its level. He looks ridiculous: damp and harassed and far too masculine to be pushed next to her pink, glittery cushions. But she's hardly a picture, either—she knows she's far too beautiful ever to be considered ugly, but in her old pyjamas, with chocolate smeared around her mouth and her wet hair drying in all directions, she's probably as close as to it as she'll ever get.
"Fleur…" he says, drifting off like he wants her to finish his sentences. She won't. He sighs. "You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?"
She remains silent, shrugging. She's standing against the kitchen cupboard, as far away from him as she can get whilst still being in the same room, and she could still probably reach out and touch him if she wanted to. Not that she wants to.
Much.
"I know I haven't told you much about Percy, compared to my other siblings," he says. That's an understatement: she's incredibly curious about her family and he often regales her with tales from when they were growing up, so much so she feels capable of writing biographies on all of them—except Percy.
"It's because for the past…nine months or so, he hasn't been on speaking terms with the rest of the family." Despite herself, her eyes shoot up at this and she meets his gaze. He looks strained, hurt, but she holds off, knowing he needs to continue without interruption. "He said some…pretty awful things to Dad. To Mum. To all of us, really. And he's made it clear that he doesn't want anything to do with us. That was only the third time I've seen him since last June. You remember Christmastime, when Dad was injured? He didn't say anything, didn't get in touch at all, even though I wrote to him and told him Dad might die."
Fleur tries to imagine something her parents might do that would leave her unable to care whether they lived or died, and can't come up with anything. Her heart aches. "So it was quite a shock to see him today. I wasn't expecting it. He makes me angry, and hurt but…I took that out on you, and that was wrong. I shouldn't have. And I'm sorry," he finishes.
Her chin had started to tremble when he began to speak again, but when he apologises, she lets out a sob and buries her face in her hands.
He leaps out of the sofa at once, wrapping his arms around her and stroking her hair. She sobs into his chest and he soothes her, crooning nonsense until her tears subside. A distant part of her registers the fact that she should be comforting him, but she's too mixed up inside to feel capable of doing or saying anything to make it better.
"I thought," she hiccups after a moment, finally able to put the fear she's been avoiding into words, "zhat you wanted to break up with me. I thought you did not want me anymore."
"No," he says, so fast and forcefully that the words settles in her heart like an anchor, rooting her down. He tilts her chin up with his hand so he's looking directly into her eyes. "Never," he promises.
She blinks once or twice, then nods. "You…" she says, her voice sore from all the crying. "You're all wet!"
"It's you, weeping all over me!" he teases.
She gives a shaky sort of laugh, and summons a towel from the bathroom. "It ees the rain," she says, and begins wringing out his damn ponytail with the towel. She loves his hair with an ardour she's not sure is entirely healthy, and she'll take any chance she can get to touch it.
"'Ow did you get so wet?" she asks, noting the wetness of his cloak as she eases it off his shoulders. It's fully soaked; if she squeezes it, it will leave puddles on her floor.
"I stood in the rain for far too long, trying to decide whether I wanted to run after you or Percy," he says. "I nearly went after him, wanker that he is. But I figured he's ruined enough things, and I didn't want to let him ruin what we have, so I came here."
She smiles. "I am glad," she says, and it's selfish, but at least it's honest. She wants to help him repair his relationship with his brother, because she can see how much the fight has hurt him, but she wants him to be with her more. And she's too far gone to give him up.
"Hey," he says, taking the towel from her hands and dumping it on the side. "Me, too," he says, kissing her. It's soft and slow and sweet and she melts into him, pulling him further and further in until they're melded into one. She can't believe how close she came to letting all of this go, and she sighs as he kisses her more, and more, and more.
He's being a perfect gentleman, going no further, and its she who tugs him towards the sofa, pulling him down even though she, at five eight, can barely lie across it herself, let alone with his six two frame added. He grins as her hands start to roam, unbuttoning his work robes, and kissing her neck, her ears, anywhere he can reach. He kisses the side of her cheek and moans softly as she reaches her hands onto his bare chest.
"Mmm…you taste of chocolate…"
She stops short, giggling, and he refocuses. "Wait…you really taste of chocolate. What's that about?" he asks.
"I like chocolate," she says. "A lot."
"I like it when you taste of chocolate a lot," he replies. "But you've never tasted of it before."
"Maybe you 'aven't been kissing me enough," she retorts, trying and failing to look haughty.
He snorts. "I know that's not true," he says. "Come on, tell me," he wheedles. "What's the big chocolate secret?"
"Zhere's no secret," she says crossly, and he laughs, tugging at her hair. "I just…like chocolate. Especially when I am upset. Only when I am upset. If I eat it all the time, I will get fat and spotty and ugly and it will be terrible."
He laughs aloud at this. "My silly, silly idiot," he says, and this time she doesn't mind him calling her names. "You think I wouldn't love you if you were all of those things? I'll buy you all the chocolate in the world."
It's an empty, silly promise, but she doesn't care. She would eat all the chocolate he bought her, but she doesn't need it—not now she has him.