Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: Written for s i l v e r a u r o r a 's Challenge over at the Gringotts Thread of the Hogwarts Online Forum. The prompts given were "sunshine," "funeral," "calamity," and "outer space," with the lyrcis shown below. Also written for Tat1312's birthday, although it's a little late. Happy Birthday, Tat!

(It's also a prequel of sorts to my story, Awakening, but feel free to read it on its own.)

Breathless

"She can't relate to a world that only knows her by her face

Is there anyone still breathing?"

-Overrated, Thriving Ivory

They looked at her like she was from outer space, not even human, ethereal, breathtakingly beautiful. And maybe she was all that, but it didn't mean that there wasn't a person inside her (flawless) skin.

She just wanted to be real.

But whatever – she didn't care. Maybe once upon a time, she had, but that had been before, before she'd grown up, before she'd stopped believing in the idiocy they called love.

She certainly didn't believe in it anymore – not that kind, anyway, the kind that was supposed to sweep you off your feet into some prince's arms, the kind that drove girls to distractions, the kind that came easy to you as long as you were beautiful.

It was all lies. She should know – she was the princess in all the tales, the girl with the sweeping blond hair and the sparkling blue eyes and the perfect figure, but she had never in her life been truly loved by anyone. She waited for no princes – they had come, of course, in droves and hoards, bearing gifts and singing sonnets, but not one of them had ever had anything in his eyes but lust.

She hadn't always seen that, hadn't always known that. How could she? Her sister had always been good at picking the nice boys of the crowd, at waving at the bad ones, before driving away in her carriage, but Gabrielle was stupider, maybe, at things like that, and she hadn't known, hadn't understood.

And so once upon a time, she'd smiled (brighter than sunshine) and thrown down her hair, and they'd climbed up (fighting each other to be the first in line). For a while, it was fun to play princess, to be the belle of the ball, but in the end, she'd been disappointed again and again, when each of the princes left for some new conquest, when they let her down. Eventually, she realised that none of them knew who Gabrielle Delacour was at all, only the face she wore.

She knew better now – instead of crying when "her" princes left, she pushed them out of her tower before they had the chance and laughed like one of the villains. She learned exactly how long to string them along, exactly when to cut them loose, exactly when to kiss them and when to push them away. She'd gotten it down to an art, a science – perfection – careful to maximize their pain and have none of it herself. She never let any of them leave their mark on her, never let any stand out of the crowd of boys she had kissed. It was a countless number; she did not keep track, could not even remember most of their names.

It was like she was a freaking spider, spinning a beautiful web (of lies) and then sucking their blood. She threw them one (cold) smile, one flirtatious wink, one swaggering walk, and they were hooked (like she was some sort of dangerous drug). After that, when she lied to them, taunted them, even cheated on them – they came back, not always the same ones, but always eager for her approval, for that stupid thing she didn't believe it. And yeah, some of them called her a "bitch" now, but it was always in the same breath as "beautiful."

(It was messed-up; she was messed-up, but she couldn't help it.)

She was still incredibly popular, always surrounded by the lustful boys and the hangers-on girls, who gave her (fake) smiles when she looked their way and threw her jealous glances whenever they thought she wasn't. She knew they were only there to prey on the flies she trapped in her web.

(You could catch more flies with vinegar than with honey, as long as the vinegar looked sweeter.)

Gabrielle hated them all – all of her "friends", who both hated her for her beauty and went home every night to pimp and pose in front of a mirror and pray to Merlin that they'd wake up looking like her.

But really, it was all just the biggest pot of them all calling the kettle black because she was obsessed with appearances, obsessed with clothing and luxury, obsessed with her own beauty. Somewhere along the line, she had turned into the kind of girl who slammed doors and screamed when she didn't get her way, the kind of person who ran into people on purpose just to sneer, "Watch where you're going," before flouncing away, looking straight ahead, never into anyone's eyes.

Invariably, she left them all breathless, staring, gaping, behind her, not even breathing, like they were dead... They were not her equals, but sometimes, she wished they were, wished to have someone to talk to. (How could you talk to someone when you took their breath away?)

Sometimes, she wanted to scream, out in the middle of the dance floor of some club, or in the corridors of Beauxbatons where she felt more like a zoo exhibit than a girl, or else her bed at night, trying to block out the sounds of her parents' ferocious arguments. But she couldn't scream, so through it all, she smiled like hell and pretended like her life was real, when it was only some sort of horrifying dream, some sort of beautiful nightmare.

She didn't think her parents saw all of this, but she supposed they saw enough of it to be truly and utterly sick to death of her, which was why they had shipped her off to England the moment she graduated Beauxbatons. She didn't wanted to go, not really, because as much as she hated it all, hated everything about her life, sometimes, it was familiar, normal, routine. She needed it.

Her mum insisted that she go, and her dad said that he thought she should see Fleur too, but he wasn't going to force her, because she was legally an adult and any reasonable parent would respect that. Then they started a row, and she said, "Okay, okay, I'll go. You don't need to fight about it," and left the room. She went to pack her things, feeling miserable, wondering if they cared for her at all, if her mum had brought up the trip to give Gabrielle a break or to get rid of her, if she was just a pawn used to start another argument.

When she was little, Gabrielle used to think her family was perfect, infallible, that her parents loved each other, and maybe they had, once. But something - Fleur leaving, the war? - had driven a wedge between them. Now all four of them had been broken up, spread out on different, faraway islands. And Gabrielle was alone, cold, up north, screaming for help, but no one was stirring, breathing, moving to help her.

England was awful. The Weasleys were much too loud and much too colourful and Merlin, how was it possible that not one out of the whole of horde of them had any fashion sense? It was like the parade of the stripes-and-polka-dots, and that was for those who actually bothered to wear anything other than common black robes.

And the children – she had never been able to stand children, with their snotty noses and dirty hands and their annoying little voices, and their neediness.

At first, they were all much too nice. Molly asked Gabrielle what she wanted to eat a hundred times a day, washed her clothes the second she took them off, played the kind of music she wanted on the radio... After a few days, though, of snappy, snotty replies, of huffing and eye-rolling and never talking them when she didn't have to, of going out every night by herself, all of them began to leave her alone, to pretty much ignore her.

None of the Weasley men paid any attention to her either, even when they'd been being nice – and come on, they were nearly all married, but it wasn't as if they were saints, were so much above her. None of their wives even seemed to view her as a threat when she came around for breakfast or lunch or dinner – just a nothing, a doll, an annoyance, when she was, a million times more beautiful, more attractive.

Ginny Potter was the one who annoyed her the most, because she merely was cute at best, with those down-to-earth kind of looks that only worked because she was always laughing, and messy long red hair and a spattering of freckles across her nose – nothing to Gabrielle; she wasn't fit to hold a candle to her. But Harry would never look at Gabrielle the way he stared at his wife, even when she had baby spit-up all over her.

And maybe, really, that was what she hated the most about England, about her sister's house, about her in-laws' – the aura of love that permeated it, that was so thick she could hardly escape it. Her sister glowed in a way Gabrielle had never seen before, cursed with the same beauty, but happy in spite of it, surrounded by a scarred husband and bratty kids, and oh, how Gabrielle envied her for it.

In France, she could pretend love did not exist, in her parents' house, where they were always fighting, at Beauxbatons, among all the lustful, envious eyes. In England, she knew that love was real, knew that she was a failure.

She'd always liked Dennis Creevey, since she'd met him, the day his brother died (the tragedy, the calamity – it had been back when she'd still felt the awfulness of things like that).

She didn't recognize him instantly when she stepped into the bar. He was among too many other men (all gaping, all breathless). But his face was not like the others, with a man's shave but a boy's features… closing to her as she looked at it.

Gabrielle remembered how sad everyone had been at that funeral; how awful Dennis had looked with his father, standing over the coffin. She'd smiled at him then, but he hadn't smiled back. She wasn't sure if he'd seen her, but regardless, she could hardly blame him.

Someone had mentioned him the other day, in this very pub, the barmaid who was at this very moment taking orders. A broad-faced, dumpy woman with a too-cheerful face, the kind of person Gabrielle never liked on principle because she seemed not to care that she was ugly, but she'd perked up her ears when she'd heard the name Creevey.

"I just don't really think he's coping well, Nev," the dumpy women had said to an equally unattractive man. "It's a bit odd, I suppose, but sometimes I wonder if he's really ever gotten over losing Colin."

Gabrielle had actually contributed in the dinner conversation at the Burrow the next night, to ask about Dennis Creevey. Ginny had answered, sounding somewhat surprised, that they didn't see him very much, but as far as she knew, he was fine.

Dennis didn't look fine right now, though, as he stared as her, listlessly, limply, almost without emotion, so different from the others' gaping stares, their hungry eyes.

He'd always had this peculiar way of breathing – or maybe he only did it when he was upset. She didn't know. It was so loud; she could hear from across the pub, even as he sucked in all his feelings.

And she really didn't know what was going on behind that face, what he thought when he looked at her, except that she could hear his breathing, loud and fast, could hear that he wasn't breathless. When he ran out of the pub, into the streets, she followed him, not knowing why, not understanding why she cared about him, after years of not caring for anyone but herself, but caring all the same.

She just had this odd feeling - like if he was still breathing, then she could save him.

Like she wasn't alone anymore.