WRITTEN FOR QLFC SEASON 9, ROUND 4

TEAM: Holyhead Harpies, Chaser 2

PROMPT: It's a Horror Story Out There! – Freak Show

2. (word) Collateral

6. (character) Fleur Delacour

8. (au) Twisted Fairytale

WORD COUNT: 2420

Title source: Natural by Imagine Dragons

Fairy tale source: adapted by yours truly from The Frog King by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker (and a bit of Disney's The Princess and the Frog because the others are too dark)

AN: The written out phonetics of Fleur's French accent physically pain me. Just imagine she has it. Please. For both of our sakes.

CW: Implied suicide

Leave Behind Your Heart and Cast Away

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess and a humble frog.

Harry's breath caught in his throat as she stepped out of the carriage like an angel descending to Earth. Yet, it was not the wondrous aura surrounding her that caught Harry's attention, like it did so many of his classmates. Nor was it her shiny silver hair, which shone brilliantly even in the dim moonlight. She was beautiful, certainly, but beauty was never something that held his attention for long.

No, what enraptured Harry was the expression on her face, or lack thereof. Her empty visage, combined with her pearly white skin, gave her the appearance of a porcelain doll. It was not an expression that Harry was unfamiliar with. In fact, it was one that he himself had donned many times before he had come to Hogwarts. Through all of his beatings, he'd eventually learned that it was better to lie still and take it, and not give Vernon the satisfaction of a reaction. Harry knew that his eyes would go completely dead, and looking in the mirror while cleaning the blood off his face was like looking at a zombie.

This was not the case with the enchanting creature before him. No, her face may have shown nothing at all, but her cerulean eyes blazed with emotion. He had never seen such passionate eyes in his life, and was easily able to discern anger, disdain, loneliness, and a small amount of excitement in the brief glimpse he got as her gaze roved over his section of the crowd.

The diametric opposition was like fire and ice, and it was the fire inside her that had him utterly captivated.

The frog tried to approach the princess, but he was immediately dismissed. The princess thought to herself, 'What is this stupid frog trying to say? He just sits here in the water with his own kind and croaks. He cannot be a companion to a human.'

Fleur's words rang in Harry's ears long after he'd departed from the Great Hall's antechamber. She'd dispassionately called him a 'little boy' without so much as giving him a second glance. Logically, he knew that her words were spoken thoughtlessly in her anger and her frustration at having an additional competitor. And, technically, he was both younger and shorter than she was.

Still, her unintentionally cruel words and her harsh tone triggered something in Harry. It was a feeling that had started to become less and less persistent since he'd learned that he was a wizard, but now it came crashing back in full force.

After all, it was only when he was a little boy that he could fit in his cupboard. Only freaks belong in cupboards, and thus, when he was a little boy, Harry was a freak. Perhaps, he thought, he still was.

One day, the frog saw the princess crying and asked her what was wrong. She told him that her prized golden ball had fallen into the well, so he offered to retrieve it for her. She was delighted and promised him anything in return if he could do this for her.

"Fleur?" Harry called out, approaching the French witch cautiously. "Are you all right?"

She was far from the composed, seemingly emotionless statue that Harry had observed her to be since the Beauxbatons students had arrived at Hogwarts. She was jittery, her hands were shaking slightly, and her forehead was visibly clammy. On anyone less graceful and angelic, her expression could have been called 'a nervous wreck.'

Fleur barely acknowledged his attempt to catch her attention.

"Non, Harry. They took my sister," she told him quietly, her eyes never leaving the eerily still surface of the Black Lake. "Gabrielle is down there."

Harry winced. "I am sorry. She should not have been involved in this farce of a tournament."

At this, Fleur's head shot up, seeming to only just realize that he was a fellow competitor. She held his gaze and gave him a sharp, searching look. She bit her lip as she studied him, and Harry couldn't help but stare at it.

"I know I have no right to ask this of you," she began in her lilting French accent, "but I hope you will consider my request. If, for whatever reason, I cannot get to Gabrielle, will you rescue her as well?"

There was never a chance that Harry would deny her this, so he offered her a resolute nod and a shy smile.

Fleur smiled nervously in return, and the world suddenly brightened around him.

In return for his favor, the princess offered the frog her clothes, her pearls and precious stones, and even her golden crown. The frog denied her offerings, declaring that he merely wanted to be loved and accepted as a companion and playmate, to sit at her table and eat from her plate and drink from her cup.

"You saved her," Fleur said to him breathlessly after watching Gabrielle disappear with Madam Pomfrey into the medical tent. "Even though you did not have to."

"Yeah," Harry replied, not giving a single thought to the penalty he would no doubt incur for wasting so much time at the bottom of the lake waiting for her.

She bent down and kissed him twice on each cheek, and Harry could've sworn that his soul had left his body for that brief, glorious moment.

"How can I ever repay you?" Fleur demanded almost aggressively, pulling away to look him in the eyes.

Harry shrugged awkwardly. "I just did what was right."

He was lying through his teeth and he knew it. After all, none of the other hostages had factored into his decision to stay and wait – not even a little bit.

"Non, Harry," Fleur shook her head, sending droplets of water flying from her silver-blonde hair. "I insist. Anything."

Harry chewed his lip as he considered for a moment, smiling tentatively once he came to a decision. "I could always use another friend."

Fleur nodded decisively. "A friend it is."

She smiled at him radiantly, and Harry never heard the judges announce his scores.

The frog joined the princess in her castle, ate from her plate, and drank from her cup. He became her companion and playmate. They discovered that the frog was actually a prince who was cursed by a witch, so the princess kissed him to turn him back. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and the princess turned into a frog as well.

Harry had come to cherish these meetings with Fleur. Winter slowly bled into Spring, and he had started spending more time with her than even Ron and Hermione. They were currently in the kitchens, which had become their usual spot after he'd made the mistake of making a bird joke when she kept asking to meet in the Owlery.

"What is so great about England?" Fleur laughed teasingly. "Surely not the company."

Harry felt the need to defend his friends, even if they'd been slowly drifting apart that year. "Well, it's not so bad. I have Ron and Hermione and…"

Fleur gave him a look that could've been mistaken as pitying, but he knew better. She, more than anyone, was sympathetic to the loneliness of being in the spotlight.

Harry shrugged, trying to center himself. "Fine, I don't have many friends. I guess I've been a larger-than-life character to most of them since their childhoods, so it's hard for them not to either put me on a pedestal or parade me around like a…"

"Freak?" Fleur guessed, causing him to flinch.

He nodded slowly, and she pulled his chin up to meet her eyes.

"You are not a freak, Harry, and neither am I," she declared solemnly. "We are different, yes, but being different is not a bad thing, comprenez vous?"

The Durselys seemed to think so, but then again, when were they ever right about anything?

"Sure," he said, rather unsurely.

Fleur shook her head. "So they think you are Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, and sorcier extraordinaire. They think I am Fleur Delacour, the Veela whore who can spread her legs and get whatever she wants. They are stupide, and what they think cannot change who we are."

Harry smiled, heartened by her words, and only just realizing that their faces were rather close together. Her pupils were dilated, and her face was slightly flushed – from her rant or for some other reason, Harry did not know.

"It's still rather lonely being different, isn't it?"

Fleur leaned toward him, closing the remainder of the short distance between them. "Then we will be lonely together, non?"

Her lips met his, and Harry was in heaven.

The frog princess kissed the prince and broke the spell, and she changed back to her human form once more. The prince and princess fell in love, and eventually, they married.

Harry stared blankly at the embroidered parchment in his hands. It couldn't be real, could it? She said she'd wait. She'd promised 'forever.' Did their whispered vows mean nothing to her?

He shook his head violently. He had to believe that he'd meant something to her, something more than a plaything to pass the time. She'd been there for him when he needed a shoulder to lean on, and he…

Maybe that was it. Maybe she was tired of picking him up when he fell. Maybe she just wanted someone who could stand beside her, instead of constantly dragging her down.

Harry knew he was still the crazy, broken freak that he'd always been. Now more than ever, since he no longer had the fight against Voldemort to keep him focused and driven. For the past few years, Fleur had held him together. She'd been the anchor to his sanity and reason, but it seemed that was no longer the case.

He had to make one last effort. If she accepted, he would hold on to her and never let go. If she spurned him, then he would not begrudge Fleur her happiness.

He took one last look at the invitation on the table before him before he Apparated away.

Fleur Delacour and William Weasley request the honor of your presence…

"Fleur," he choked out.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him, seemingly oblivious to the pain in his heart that her smile caused. "Harry!"

She pulled him into a hug, but Harry didn't return it with his usual enthusiasm, and she immediately knew that something was wrong.

"Harry?"

"Fleur, I…" he faltered, opening and closing his mouth in his search for the right words. "Don't marry Bill."

Her expression darkened, her displeasure easily visible on her face. It was so different from the closed-off mask that she wore when they'd met, and Harry's heart simultaneously soared and plummeted.

"Harry…"

"Wait, Fleur, please. Let me say my piece," Harry interrupted. "I love you. I have loved you for years. I don't know when it started, but I know that I loved you long before the night that you first kissed me in the Hogwarts kitchens. You understand me like no one else, and you were always there for me. You are the most complex and passionate person I have ever met, and I've admired you for it since before we even spoke a single word. I've made mistakes, I know, and I have no idea who I am anymore, but what I do know is that I love you and I need you. Please. Please, just give me another chance."

By this point, Fleur had pulled completely away from him, her eyes slightly moist as she slowly shook her head. "You left me, Harry. You did not trust me to come with you, and instead left me without any word of whether you were even still alive."

Harry's desperate expression became defiant. "You could have died out there, Fleur. Hell, I could have died, too. I couldn't drag you into danger like that."

Her glare only hardened. "I could have died just as easily back here, as meaningless collateral. At least that way, we would have died together, non?"

Harry couldn't suppress a flinch at the echo of her declaration on their first night as a couple.

Fleur approached him and jabbed a finger hard into his chest. "I was not the one to break our promise, Harry."

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. They were stained red around the rims when he opened them to offer Fleur a sad smile. "I had to try, at least. I wish you all the happiness in the world, Fleur."

Her expression finally softened. "And I you, Harry."

His eyes were bloodshot as he approached his parents' grave, but the tears had long since run dry.

"Hey Mum, Dad. It's been a… long week." Harry sighed, slumping to the ground before their shared headstone. "I made a mistake. With Fleur. You know, the girl – no, woman – that I told you about last time? I was so determined to keep her safe that it was our relationship that suffered in the process. And now she's lost to me forever.

"I don't know what to do anymore. I've always had one thing to live for, and that was to avenge you and end Voldemort. Now that's done, and I have nothing. I had hoped I would have her, but…" Harry ran an agitated hand through his messy hair.

He stared intently at the tombstone, the message at the bottom catching his eye. "I've always found it curious. 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.'"

Harry hummed as he stewed in his thoughts. "Why must it be an enemy? What meaning would life have if not for death? Would it not be so much nicer to greet death as an old friend, once you were done with everything that kept you among the living? I think it's a nice thought, you know, that there's something waiting for you with a welcoming embrace at the end of the line. Does that make me crazy?"

He did not know how much time passed as he sat silently in the empty graveyard, but by the time he came back to his senses, the moon was already high in the sky. He knew it must be terribly cold, but he could not feel a thing.

"I think I'm ready, Mum. Dad. I can't wait to meet you guys for real."

And they lived happily ever after.

AN: Thank you to my lovely teammate, MissyAndTheDocs for the beta.