A/N Don't worry, the next chapter of Harry Potter and the Conflicted Path will be out in a couple of days. I just hit a small mental block and decided to try a one-shot just to kind of pass the time.
I read a story a few months ago, forgot what it was called, where Fleur was going to be married to Bill but was sad because he wasn't her soul mate and she thought he died and then it turned out to be Harry (forgot why she didn't just realize it was him too) happy ending. You might recognize the plot, it was supper old. Anyways, I'm basically going to be doing that only I'll go further than the original did.
I'm not sure whether or not to expect more one-shots from me, I might just do them whenever I get writer's block, we'll see.
Also, just like in The Mind Within I'm not doing the French accent. I have better uses with my life than trying to figure that out.
Fleur sat at her vanity in her room brushing her hair.
The war was over, Voldemort had been killed and to avoid a repeat once again dozens of Death Eaters had been given the Kiss or sent through the Veil this time around. With the end of the war, Fleur had been able to set a new date for her delayed wedding, this time at her house in France instead of England. Bill hadn't been able to see it during the war but once he had afterwards he agreed it was the best place he could have their wedding. It was on the Mediterranean coast and while the house itself wasn't big the garden ended in a cliff with a magnificent view of the glorious tropical sea. When Bill saw it he said he understood why she insisted on Shell Cottage now. It reminded her of home.
Fleur thought about the wedding. It was a bittersweet moment for her and her family. Bill was a wonderful man. He clearly loved her and would treat her well. He was also honorable so when Fleur always said she didn't want to go to far he respected it, despite her being a veela. On top of that he had a good job and was quite handsome as well. She was very lucky to find a man who loved her, and not just her body. But he wasn't the one for her.
Veela were the epitome of beauty and desire. They could have almost any man they wanted, and thousands of years ago they did. But man grew to fear them so over the eons they evolved. By the time the Roman Empire fell, they had changed. To keep their own natures in check their magic made sure they only wanted one soul. One person; man or woman, that would be perfect for them, the only person they could ever truly love. According to her parents Fleur had been able to feel her mate when she was little. But when she was four she lost that connection. He was still there, but there was something in the way blocking him from her. It was extremely similar to what her great-aunt said she felt, and her mate had died just a year after they met.
Fleur had held out hope that he was somehow alive until she was sixteen. She finally had to come to grips with reality that he had actually died when she was a little kid and she was all alone in the world. When she did that just a few days after her sixteenth birthday she had spent four hours in her room crying while her mother held her. After that, she had never tried to look for him again and completely cut off the connection. It was just to painful.
She was extremely lucky to have found Bill, a man who wasn't her chosen and would still treat her well. She could be content. But she would never be truly happy with him. She always felt a little uncomfortable when they cuddled, and kissing him just felt wrong so they rarely did it. She hadn't told Bill why she didn't like much physical contact but was lucky enough that he understood. It wasn't his fault, it was just how she was.
She thought that her brushing her hair was very similar to her wedding to Bill on the whole. Brushing her hair was relaxing for her, just like it was on some level relaxing that she wouldn't go through life being alone. But at the same time it was also painful. One of her mother's favorite thing to do was let her dad brush her hair. That should have been her mate's role, so brushing her hair is also painful, just like the wedding will also be.
Fleur felt a tear being in well up in one eye. Why did you have to die! Why did you leave me alone! Most veela married young, by the time they were eighteen or twenty at the latest. All of her cousins were happily married. But Fleur was twenty-one and would never have their type of marriage.
It was late, everybody else was probably in bed. Usually her and Bill would sleep in the same bed; which also made her feel weird, but because of veela custom he wasn't allowed to see her until after they made their vows. Her veil would keep her face covered during the wedding before then.
However, she heard her door open and somebody walk in. She turned around and gasped. Instead of her mother or father like she expected it was Harry Potter. She quickly put her hair in a ponytail. Another old veela custom was that the one males that may see her with her hair down were her father, mate, or if she didn't have one husband. Brothers and sons would also be included in that but veela didn't have boys so that was impossible.
"You shouldn't be here!" she hissed. Why was he just walking into her bedroom when she might have been asleep! But at the same time, she found his presence strangely comforting. The last time she had been alone in the same room with Harry Potter was when he and his friends took refugee with her and Bill at Shell Cottage. She frowned. Something was different about him, but she couldn't place it.
He put his palms up. "I have a very good reason, just let me explain," he said. Fleur grabbed her wand from the vanity just in case but nodded for him to continue. Harry didn't seem concerned about her grabbing her wand.
"Only a few people know this, but I was hit by the Killing Curse again during the Battle of Hogwarts," he began.
Fleur gasped. "Then how are you still alive, you should be dead!" Her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion and she cocked her head a little. "And why are you telling me this?"
Harry took a second to figure out how to continue before talking again. "Voldemort... split his soul. That's what we were doing for almost a year, destroying all of his containers so when he died this time he would stay dead. It turns out one of those pieces was in me."
Fleur started to get an idea of where he would be going with this, but refused to believe it. She had come to grips with reality years ago and wasn't about to go opening old wounds with new false hope.
"Basically, the soul that was contained within my body wasn't mine from when Voldemort died the first time. But when he hit me with the Killing Curse this time, instead of my soul moving on the piece of Voldemort within me did. So for the first time since I was one my body contained only me. Only when I had my mind checked a few hours ago just to make sure of everything, they found something out of place. My magic was for some reason connected to somebody else's. They hadn't found it before because Voldemort's soul was repressing all magical connections I had except for with him, but pretty soon they figured out I was connected to you. After that it only took Hermione a few minutes to figure it out."
Fleur gasped yet again as she began to get hope for the first time in five years. "No, no, no," she said as tears started falling from her eyes. "He died. He died when we were little." She could easily confirm or deny what Harry was saying by checking her connection with her mate to see if anything had changed, but wouldn't be able to bear it if it turns out he was wrong.
Harry closed the remain distance to where Fleur was still sitting and put a hand on her check. Fleur couldn't help but lean into his touch a little bit. She felt both the loneliness in her shrink a little as her hope grew. "I've always felt a connection to you," he said. "It's why I helped you with those grindylows in the lake." Fleur remembered that. After all, how could she forget? During the Second Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament she had been attacked by grindylows and would have had to return to the surface if Harry hadn't shown up and helped her drive the water demons off. "Seeing you will Bill always just felt a little wrong on some primal level. I never told anybody, thought it was just my hormones." He smiled at her and Fleur felt her heart skip a beat. "Turns out it was just that bastard keeping me from you."
Fleur finally broke and opened her connection with her magic to her mates and started sobbing tears of joy. He was there. She could finally feel him completely, nothing in the way. There was no doubt about it, Harry was telling the truth. And he was here, right in front of her. She stood up and Harry wrapped her arms around him as she buried her hand in his chest and continued to cry.
"I'm here," he whispered in her ear. "I'm right here."
"Aren't you dating Ginny though?" Fleur asked. After so long, it was hard for her to just except that everything could be ok, that her mate would finally be with her.
"No," he reassured her, and Fleur felt a massive weight lift off her chest for the second time that night. "We tried again for a few weeks, but things just weren't the same. We agreed it wasn't going to work out and separated a few days ago."
Fleur finally stopped crying a stepped back a bit, out of his embrace. "You're here."
Harry gave her that beautiful smile again. "And I don't intend to leave."
Fleur was feeling happier than she could ever remember. She smiled back impishly. "Well, if you want me, you'll have to catch me." She suddenly raced past Harry and out of the room. She laughed as she heard Harry run after her.
She ran out of the house and into the moonlight garden. The venue for the wedding as already set up but Fleur ignored it and ran to the sizeable back garden. She heard Harry's breaths and steps as he tried to catch her.
Looking out of the window in the room she was sharing with Ginny before the wedding, Hermione shook her said fondly. She had never see Harry look truly carefree like he was then before. He had gone through so much pain in his life and deserved some kind of happiness and reward for his work and suffering. She turned around climbed into the bottom of the room's bunk bed. Ginny was already asleep up top. Hermione quickly followed suit.
Fleur finally slowed down just a tad so that Harry could catch her in a secluded grove on the back border of the Delacour property. As Harry grabbed her arm she fell down and pulled them both to the ground so that Harry was lying on top of her. Without another word she kissed him.
They both moaned a little. It just felt so right. Fleur almost wished Voldemort could come back again so she could slowly and painfully kill him over and over from keeping this from her. Fleur eagerly ran her tongue along Harry's lips and he acquiesced, opening his mouth to her. She ran her tongue along his teeth and the roof of his mouth, mapping him out. She felt one of his hands move from her waist and removed her hairband, letting her hair loose.
They eventually had to stop for breath, touching foreheads. He started kissing and suckling her neck while she ran her hands along his chest and stomach. "Harry," she breathed. "I need you."
Harry stopped lavishing his attention upon her neck for a second. "So do I Fleur."
Several hours later, they fell asleep in that grove, naked, holding each other, and happier than either had ever been.
The next morning as confusing. Pretty much everyone had been asleep with Harry had finished his appointment with the Mind Healer so beside him and Fleur, nobody except Ron and Hermione knew what had happened. And since nobody could find Harry or Fleur that left them the unenviable task of explaining everything. The Delacours would probably be very happy, but both knew the Weasley side of the family wouldn't be fun.
"Has anybody seen Fleur?" Apolline asked. "She needs to get ready but I can't find her."
Bill looked concerned. "She's not in her room?" Apolline shook her head.
"This isn't quite as important as the bride disappearing but Harry is missing too," Mr. Weasley interrupted.
Ron and Hermione knew what everyone was thinking. They hadn't had a last second affair right? Actually, those two knew that is probably exactly what they had done, but it was much worse than it sounded.
"Yeah uh," Hermione said to get everybody's attention.
"Funny story," Ron started.
By the time they had finished explaining, the Delacours looked delighted, most of the Weasleys looked furious, and Bill looked heartbroken. Ron and Hermione looked sorry for him. He had just realized the women he loved had basically been leading him on because it turns out she could only love one person and she thought he was dead. But it turns out he was actually Harry Potter, and now he had stolen that women from him the night before their wedding.
"So... this means the wedding is off?" he said in a small voice.
"Oui," Apolline said. "The wedding is off." Apolline was in a difficult spot. She was delighted for her eldest daughter, as this was the best thing that could ever happen to her. But at the same time she was sympathetic for Bill. He was a good, honest man that didn't deserve to have this happen to him.
"I need a drink." Bill stormed out of the room and everyone heard him Floo out. Nobody tried to stop him. They all would have been the same way.
"Are you sure there is nothing" Mrs. Weasley started but was cut off when Apolline, Gabrielle, and several of Fleur's cousins all shook their head.
For a few moments, everybody stood around, not really sure what to do.
As usual, Ron put his foot in his mouth. "It could have been worse. This happened before the wedding at least."
Hermione elbowed him in the stomach. "Stop talking," she hissed in his ear.
A few hours later, Harry and Fleur arrived back at the house, both positively glowing. The veela that were still present squealed and ran up to congratulate Fleur. Everybody stopped taking down the venue to come see the new couple.
Everything worked out alright in the end. Harry was able to get relations with the Weasleys patched over again. It took a few weeks but in the end everyone decided that Harry should have killed Voldemort sooner and leave it at that. Bill was never quite able to forgive Harry but he did say that he would move out of Shell Cottage so that Harry and Fleur could live there. It was always more Fleur's house anyways.
Fleur and Harry got married just three months later. Bill didn't come, but the rest of the Weasleys did and he sent a wedding gift.
A few years later, Bill ended up falling in love with a fellow curse-breaker and got married just two years later.
Harry and Fleur had a happy, Dark Lord free marriage. This wasn't to say they never had any problems. They still fought, but always made up soon afterwards.
Three years into their marriage their first daughter was born, whom they named Lily. Another three years and Sylvie followed.
When he was one hundred fifteen and she one hundred eighteen they lay side-by-side in bed. "I'll see you on the other side love," he promised.
"You better." They shared one last kiss in this life before falling asleep. Neither woke up.
Harry blinked and stood up, confused. He looked around and down at himself. He looked fourteen again and was standing outside Hogwarts. Looking around, he saw the carriage Beauxbatons used to travel to Hogwarts all those decades ago. He smiled as he saw Fleur walking up to him in her old school uniform and realized what this was. The first time they had seen each other.
When she reached him they wrapped each other in a hug. No words were needed. All that mattered was that they weren't alone and had each other.
Forever.
A/N Alright, short, sweet, a little cliché and to the point. Like I said, just have writer's block right now and needed something short to do.
Leave a review if you have feedback about my writing or this story or have an idea for a one-shot you want me to do next time I get writer's block.
Hope you liked this.