Fleur had always felt that everything in her life was unsteady. No matter how perfect things might have appeared from the outside, she'd been unable to escape the belief that it was all seconds from crumbling away.
She could trace the exact moment that had led to that belief:
As a young girl at Beauxbatons she'd been betrayed by the people she had thought were her best friends, all because they'd believed that someone like her couldn't be trusted. They'd said terrible things and insisted they were true.
Fleur's mother had said they were only jealous of her beauty, that their own insecurities had led them to prey on her to make themselves feel better, but Fleur hadn't come to see the truth in her mother's words until she was an adult. For most of her young life, she had believed her mother was simply being nice and trying to placate her.
The experience had left her with the unhealthy belief that anyone she let in was more likely to betray her than not. Even if her former friends' motivation had been jealousy, who was to say someone else wouldn't get just as jealous and turn on her too?
So, Fleur tried to be kind to everyone, but she was careful about letting anyone too close. Boys, while they didn't tend to get jealous, could be cruel in their own ways after all, and Fleur had become used to keeping her distance from them as well.
Bill Weasley had been the first man she had been able to trust.
It had taken time, but she'd eventually been able to believe with her full heart that he wasn't only dating her because of her looks. The thrill of it left her with a new enjoyment for life, and though some would have argued it was too quick or that she was too young, she would never regret marrying him.
It had been during their engagement that she had first met Tonks.
Whereas Fleur had done her best to act demure to try to counteract the pernicious belief that she must desire attention if she looked the way she did, Tonks was loud and had commanded Fleur's attention from the moment they'd first met.
The woman oozed confidence that Fleur couldn't have hoped to achieve, and the fact she was a metamorphmagus made her even more fascinating.
Fleur would have given anything for the ability to make herself less conventionally attractive, and at first, her curiosity had primarily been jealousy, though she hadn't let the emotion sour her blossoming friendship with the woman like it had done to her previous relationships.
It had quickly became clear to her that she had nothing to fear when it came to Tonks envying her looks. Tonks, after all, could look however she wanted, yet she had never tried to fashion herself into what the world wanted from her.
Fleur's fascination with the other woman had proven to be a distraction when she was meant to be planning a wedding, and when Bill had first asked her about it, she had felt guilty, like she had something to hide. She had been surprised when Bill had smiled gently at her and admitted that he couldn't blame her because he, too, found Tonks rather mesmerizing.
It hadn't been a secret between them after that, and it soon became clear that both of them felt more for the woman than friendship.
Five years later, Fleur couldn't believe there had ever been a time when she had believed Bill might resent her feelings for Tonks. She smiled at them from the couch as they sat in a circle on the floor with Teddy and Victoire.
The children were getting bigger, and their parents had determined it was time for them to learn the rules of Exploding Snap. Well, two of their parents had decided it. Fleur wasn't as convinced that giving the children any game that exploded was a good idea. She found the whole idea of Exploding Snap rather off putting, but, of course, the Curse Breaker and Auror didn't have the same reservations.
Teddy and Victoire were already taking after the thrill-seeking part of the family. The Fleur of the past might have been worried that she'd feel isolated and different, but her family always made it abundantly clear that such a thing would never happen.
Even now, as she sat on the couch, outside of their little group, she felt entirely as if she belonged. Tonks was sitting at her feet, leaning in to her between turns, and Bill sat across from her, making eye contact frequently as they smirked at a shared joke.
Teddy and Victoire were too concentrated on the game to pay much attention to anything that wasn't the cards, but it was her they ran to each time a card exploded in their face, soaking in her calm reassurances while Tonks and Bill tried to quell their laughter.
No, she didn't feel unsteady anymore. It was hard to believe she ever had.
A/N: Written for Moresome May prompt 20: (word) unsteady.
Word count: 840
