Author's Note: Had a bit of a hard time with this one, it just didn't want to translate from my brain to the page, but it turned out alright in the end. As always, the places and foods are real, though I can't be certain that they were open at the specific times and dates described, and especially not if the food I take from the restaurant menus of today was on the menu ten years ago. Regardless, it adds a touch of authenticity that I think is well worth the effort of finding the restaurants and translating their menus.

That said, I never would have gotten even this far if it were not for the support of many people over on the Harry/Fleur Discord server, the link to which will be at the end along with a fanfic recommendation. Thanks to DaveAthenai, Charlennette, and x102reddragon in particular for inspiring me and encouraging me to write these stories. If you enjoy the story please leave a comment telling me what you think worked and what didn't, your feedback is crucial in helping me to get better as an author.

The Angel of the Sea:

Chapter Four

For the first time in the past few days, they did not eat out for breakfast. Harry made freshly buttered toast with sliced radishes and salt, a light breakfast fare that her mother had often made when she was young, and then they set out to sea.

Fleur leaned back on the side of the console, toast in hand, watching the city of Pensicola fade over the horizon behind the expanse of green waters.

"We did not see much of the actual city this time," said Fleur, seeing the last peak of the coastal city disappear, "we stayed on the peninsula with the castle for the entire day."

Harry shrugged, turning around and leaning against the console as well, his toast levitating beside him to free his hands.

"We didn't, but we had a late start and there was plenty to see around the castle anyway."

"Perhaps we could come back someday."

Harry looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. "And here I was thinking you were opposed to the extravagance of the whole thing."

She smiled and shrugged. "It is growing on me," she said simply. "Besides, since you bought the boat we do not have to go through the ministry."

Harry's face went pensive. "I hadn't thought of that but you're right, it would get rid of the risk of reporters waiting for us wherever we go at the very least."

She grimaced, remembering the few times when someone in the International Portkey Office had sold their arrival and departure times to reporters and they had been accosted immediately upon appearing at their destination.

"It'll make travelling easier, maybe we can go on vacation more often. How about India, would that be good for next year's anniversary?"

She blinked, then stared at Harry. "How fast is this ship?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure, Mr. Botero said we could make it back home in one day though, so pretty fast."

"That is more than four hundred miles…"

He shrugged again. "It's a fast boat."

"Harry, if this boat is that fast then why do we spend so much time on the water each day?"

"I reckon it's part of the experience. I put a destination and a time into the globe, the boat sets sail to get us there when we want, and then we relax on the water."

"What time will we arrive today?"

"Around eleven. It's not quite precise enough to mark the exact minute we'll arrive," said Harry. "I thought that we could do a bit more today, see the sights, that sort of thing. There's a hiking trail that I think you'll like, it leads up to a scenic vista overlooking the city, among other things."

She ate the last bite of her toast, nodding thoughtfully. Hiking was one of the pastimes she enjoyed more than others, though she had not engaged in the activity very often over the last few years.

"And what is after that?"

"Dinner, of course, I've got the third date all planned out," said Harry. "I found a nice place in Barcelona, and then we go on a walk through the city at night, ending in the Plaça de Catalunya where we'll have a romantic moment by the fountains," he finished, grinning.

She chuckled, amused and endeared by his enthusiasm. "Very well, I shall try not to disappoint you since you put so much effort into today."

He scoffed, waving her off. "As if you could."

She leaned into his side and laid her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and feeling the sunlight and breeze on her face, smelling the salt and spray on the air. Harry finished his toast as well, and they stayed like that for another minute, Harry wrapping an arm around her and the two of them leaning back and closing their eyes, basking in the aura of contentment that seemed to permeate the morning hour.

"How long until we arrive?" mumbled Fleur.

She could feel Harry shift under her and she imagined him checking his watch, perfectly picturing the way his eyebrows knit together and his eyes sharpened as he read the circling stars on the face of the battered old watch he always wore.

"Three and a half hours, give or take a bit."

"Hmmm."

"What are you thinking?"

"Back to bed?"

"Hmmmmmm…"

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"HmmN'nhh."

Fleur lifted her head and looked at him, finding him smiling faintly over at her. She yawned, stretching her back like a cat after it had gone stiff from leaning against the console, then she leaned over and laid a quick peck on Harry's cheek, taking his hand and leading him back below decks to their cabin where the siren song of soft pillows awaited them.

~0~

The city of Barcelona was, in a word, grand. It, and the smaller cities surrounding it, formed a vibrant sprawl along the Spanish coast. It reminded Fleur of Paris, after a fashion, and by extension of the people who lived there. Of Gabi in her tiny apartment, of Aimeé, and of her parents. It was not the same of course. Barcelona was unique, the city filled with a life of its own, the countless souls living there day by day forming the heartbeat of a city, its great lungs inhaling in the morning and breathing out at night, filled with a kind of magic all its own. For the first time since embarking on their voyage, they did not walk from the boat to their destination. Rather, Harry tied off the craft at the dock, they paid the fee, and then he apparated them at once to their destination, the start of the Mount Tibidabo walking route, a trail that would take them west up across the mountain slopes until they stood above the city and could look out over all the world.

"Come on, Fleur, you can't stay grumpy all day."

She crossed her arms and huffed at him.

"It was a joke."

"It was slander."

"Well, technically speaking it can't be slander if it was true."

She very deliberately turned away from him and began to closely study a bush. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry smile and gesture to the trail, wordlessly inviting her to begin.

"I do not burn water," she hissed at him, setting off along the trail and leaving him behind.

"Well, there was that one time when you and the kids tried to give me breakfast in bed for Father's Day the first time," said Harry, striding up beside her.

She sniffed haughtily. "I did not burn the water, I merely boiled it away."

"I seem to recall that there was a slight amount of mineral deposit left in the pot after the water was gone."

She glared at him.

"I also seem to recall that it turned black in the bottom of the pot."

She glared at him more.

"And was smoking."

"I can conjure more pillows to throw at you," she said threateningly.

He raised an eyebrow. "Out here, for all to see?"

"Of course not, I have many methods of concealment. The ward I placed over us at Pensicola castle, for instance."

His eyes widened and his step faltered for an instant before he caught his stride.

"Well, best not to dwell on the past," he said winningly, flashing a broad smile that lit up his eyes and, to her eternal annoyance, never failed to make her want to kiss him. "Besides, we wouldn't want to get too caught up on the trail, then we'd miss out on what's waiting at the top."

"Oh, and what is that?" she asked in a drawl.

"A surprise, one you'll like."

"And what would that be, an amusement park with all my favourite rides?"

He laughed, and she felt the urge to laugh with him. "You'll see."

The conversation waned as they walked, the two of them settling into familiar patterns. Fleur walked in front, the palm of her hand sliding back to brush against her wand and her senses primed, ready to call a halt and dismantle any wards or traps that they might come across. Harry walked behind her and to the left, in her blindspot, poised to cover her under fire as she did her task for the mission. A scholar turned soldier, ready to act. A child turned leader, ready to serve. They headed southeast at first, towards the sea as they navigated around a large spur on the mountainside, then turned west again as they began to climb up toward the first switchback.

Fleur's mind began to wander even as her senses remained honed on every bush, tree trunk, and blind corner. Harry was with her, and she was with him, so her thoughts were free to stray. It was a clear day, bright but not burning, and the sea breeze lent a freshness to the air that brought out the scents of the earth and leaves even as it broke against the mountainside.

'Grandperé would have loved it here.'

Maximilien Laurent's face swam hazily in her mind's eye, his face a curious mixture of young and old, cast in the monochrome of an old photo, his voice that of her grandmother's, bent to an imitation of the true voice that she had never had a chance to hear.

"What are you thinking about?"

She shrugged slightly, tilting her head and leaning forward to get a peek around the switchback before walking into open view.

"My Grandfather on my mother's side."

"Maximilien?"

"Oui, he used to take Elena hiking and on camping trips before he was killed. He loved to spend time in the natural world."

"You miss him?" asked Harry, glancing at her briefly with understanding before returning to his scan of their surroundings.

'Constant vigilance.'

"I do. Even though I never met him, even though all I have are stories…"

"You can see what he was like through the memory he left with the people around him, and you know the world is a poorer place without him in it."

She twisted to face him fully, momentarily forgetting to scan the undergrowth for the signs of an attack, and Harry turned to her as well.

"Every person who claimed we could not grieve for that which we never had was a liar."

"Yes, they were."

They lingered in silence for a moment, then Fleur smiled.

"I remember, when I was seven, our family went to visit a Veela enclave surrounded by a forest. I got lost in the woods, and when my Maman and Elena found me I thought they would be furious."

"What did they do instead?"

She laughed as they set off along the path again.

"They hugged me first, told me not to run off like that again second, and then, for the third, Elena told me a story about a time shortly after she had gotten married to Maximilien when they went camping in the forest and got lost. My grandfather insisted they find their way back the muggle way, and they were lost in the woods for days. They had to use magic to stretch their food supply and eventually they apparated out when they ran so low that not even magic could extend it any further," she said, smiling broadly.

"What did Elena do?"

"She locked him in a room with a box of maps and a book on orienteering for a week and told him not to leave until he knew what he was doing."

Harry snorted, choking on a sip of water he had just taken from one of the bottles they had conjured and filled at the start of the hike. "That-" he said between gasps for breath, "that doesn't sound like something she would normally do."

Fleur laughed. "It is not. But then, staying willfully lost in a forest for a week with only two days of food is not something she would normally endure either."

"I suppose so," said Harry. "At least she only made sure it wouldn't happen again."

"Yes," Fleur agreed, "I would be much less understanding."

Harry chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure, just as I'm sure you could adapt to a life without toasted prosciutto sandwiches for lunch."

She glared at him sulkily.

He smiled back beatifically.

"Do you have any more stories of Maximilien's adventures?"

She snorted. "Of course. The way Elena tells it, in the outdoors my Grandfather was rather similar to Mr Weasley with his muggle appliances."

"So naturally you have an endless supply," Harry finished for her.

She laughed and nodded, about to launch into another tale when her foot caught on a large loose stone in the path, almost sending her keeling forward until she caught herself and straightened up. Harry lurched towards her, his arms poised to catch her, but stilled when she caught herself instead.

"You alright?"

"Yes," she said, rolling her ankle experimentally, "I did not look where I was going, that is all." She sent him a faux glare, "I was distracted."

Harry gave a mock offended expression. "Me? You were the one telling the story."

"Ah, but you are the one who was asking for me to tell it," she said sagely, putting her weight back on her ankle and testing it, then striding forwards once more.

She could hear him sigh as he drew up behind her to the left and she smiled, knowing that he was shaking his head.

"You were saying?" asked Harry, brushing over his latest defeat in their occasional bouts of verbal sparring.

"Oh, I was just saying that you were the one asking me to tell-"

"About the story," said Harry, cutting her off.

She smirked at him over her shoulder, then she cast her mind back to years ago. Autumn, over the Christmas holiday in her third year at Beauxbatons, her Grandmother telling her the story by the fireplace in her childhood home.

'It was on the Autumn equinox, three years after we married."

"It was on the Autumn equinox," she said, telling it just as it had been told to her, "three years after they married. They had just found out that Elena was pregnant and Maximilien started making plans for the nursery right away, but he did not have enough wood for everything he wanted to make and he was so excited that he forgot he was a wizard at all, so he went out at once into the countryside and…"

~0~

The sky turned gold as they walked, the air settling into the bone-deep warmth of a dreaming summer's day, and the sun turned in its place overhead. She spoke stories and Harry listened, and for a moment Maximilien Laurent, adventurer, explorer, and father most of all, lived again. In her mind, his face was an old photograph, his voice an imitation from her Grandmother's lips, his love a fairy tale with power to repair the broken, and restore long severed ties. For Harry, his face was in the trees, the rocks, the fluttering birds. It was not a face of flesh, nor old and faded photographs or dimmed eyes, but the face of an idea, the idea of him, inextricably linked the place in which his story was told. His voice became Fleur's voice, his words became her words, his love became her love, the love that she had learned from her mother, who had learned it from him in turn.

"…and when they reached the peak," Fleur was saying, "he shaped the snow into a castle with parapets and towers, and he charmed it not to melt or fall while they were there."

"Did she go in?"

"Of course, my mother forgot the cold at once and ran inside. She climbed up to the top and called for him to join her in her castle, or else be banished from the kingdom."

Harry shook his head in amusement, slowing to a stop as they reached a bend in the path and looking out through a gap in the trees towards the east where they could see the Mediterranean gleaming in the distance. She slowed with him, the two of them slipping off to the side of the trail as another hiker passed them by going in the other direction.

"He sounds incredible."

"I am sure he had his flaws as well," she responded.

"Not any worth remembering."

She glanced at him, marking the bittersweet tone of his voice. He shrugged in reply to her quizzical look.

"Some people's are, sometimes that's all that we remember of them, and sometimes their flaws are worth remembering and no one does."

"Are you thinking of anyone in particular?" she asked curiously.

"My father. Once upon a time he was loved and hated by a select few in equal measure, and he deserved both. Then he changed, he grew and became a man worthy of respect and admiration, and he was loved by many, but even then he still had flaws. Then he died, and his flaws were forgotten, along with all his struggles to overcome them. Even those who knew him romanticized him, and by the time they told me their stories he had become a character and not a man."

He looked at her, and she saw a strange irony in him.

"It's been nearly thirty years and nearly all the people who knew him are gone, he's back to being remembered by a few."

"And how do they remember him?"

"I'm not sure they do, not really, they remember his story more than anything."

They started moving again, up the path and towards the nearing peak, Fleur on the right and Harry to her left, slightly behind.

"Maybe…" she paused, "Maybe that is because his story is what is worth remembering about him."

He arched an eyebrow in her direction.

"It is as you said, he had his flaws, but it is also as you said, he grew beyond many of them."

Harry grunted noncommittally and she changed tack.

"Would you want to be remembered as you are, or as you were?"

He mulled it over for a while, weighing what she knew to be an unfairly heavy legacy in his mind.

"As I am," he said eventually.

"Then your story will leave behind all the people that you once were," she responded.

"Then why tell the stories of people throughout their lives," Harry retorted. "Why tell stories of your grandfather when he was young and when he was old if all that matters is the end."

"Because the person we are is rooted in the person we were," Fleur rejoined, "Maximilien the young boy was not the same as Maximilien the father, but the best parts of him, the parts we remember, stayed the same."

He was quiet for a while, the two of them walking in silence under the boughs of the trees, and then he looked up at a distant sound from farther ahead.

"Perhaps you're right," he said with a growing smile, "and I hope that this is one of those times worth remembering."

She looked at him in confusion, then followed his eyes forwards. She was not sure what she was seeing at first, the metal shape being so out of place on the mountaintop, but it rapidly became clear as another car full of people came hurtling along the track and flew around the bend out of sight.

"Is that…"

"It is."

She looked over at him again in astonishment only to find pure mischief on his face.

"You were a bit more right about what we'd find at the top than you realized."

She felt a smile begin to spread on her face as she doubled her pace forward, Harry lagging slightly behind as he hurried to catch up. All at once, her mind was catapulted into the past, years ago.

"Where are we going, Harry?"

He smiled distractedly, leading her down the street further towards the beach. She sighed and crossed her arms. Running out of patience for his strange behaviour, she slowed to a halt and waited for him to notice.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry, his eyes flitting quickly over their surroundings and his gaze momentarily sharpening back into that of the warrior and general that she had become so used to seeing. Her gaze followed his, the constant awareness that had been drilled into them by Moody a greater comfort than ever now that the war was over. It helped immensely to be sure that shadows held nothing in them, even if it made one feel particularly foolish for jumping at them.

"What are we doing here Harry? We are in the middle of a muggle city, I have no idea which one-"

"Brighton-"

"It is cold, it just rained, and to top it all we have not even had dinner. It is eight o'clock. Harry, why are we…" she trailed off, seeing the defeated expression on his face and suddenly regretting what she had said, he was under enough pressure as it was. She was supposed to be making him smile, not… this.

They both started talking at once.

"I just wanted to-" said Harry.

"Forget I said any-'' said Fleur.

They chuckled, and she gestured for Harry to speak first. He sighed, seeming to crumple slightly, the sight of it so utterly alien on the strongest man she had ever known that it almost made her panic, though she had no clue what to do.

"I wanted to take you on a date, a real one, not a dinner in a secluded corner of the castle with a few candles for atmosphere, and since I can't so much as poke my head out of my own door in the magical world right now…"

"So you took me to the muggle world."

"Yeah."

She wanted to go back in time and hold her own tongue, or kick herself at the very least. Instead, she responded saying, "Well, there is still time in the day, where did you want to take me?"

He blushed, another rare sight though not nearly so disturbing.

"Well, I don't have much experience planning for this sort of thing, most of my experience consists of…"

"Dinners in a secluded corner of the castle with a few candles for atmosphere?" she teased nervously, smiling in relief when he grinned.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his head nervously, "So, since I couldn't really think of anything better, I thought I might… take you to an amusement park?"

They rounded the final switchback, now walking along a fully paved road, the towering tracks of a rollercoaster to their left and the city of Barcelona in the distance to their right. Her smile felt near permanently etched on her face now. Harry was grinning at her excitement in the same way that Fleur could not repress her smile whenever they took Isabelle to the park, not that she minded.

'Brighton Palace Pier,' Fleur read off the facade of the gateway. She glanced over at Harry dubiously, he glanced back and shrugged, only slightly more familiar with the concept of the place than she was.

She had a brief flash of a conversation they had had only a week prior, she had idly commented that they deserved a long holiday, after everything. Harry had idly commented back, saying he had never been on before. It was simple, so mundane, and that made it all the worse. She knew that the Dursleys had been on holiday, Harry had told her, which meant that he had always been left behind. The image of a young Harry sitting all alone in an empty house, never his home, had hit her so powerfully and so suddenly that it had made her want to cry.

Harry shrugged, joining the throng of muggles pressing forward through the gates and onto the pier. Fleur followed.

Plaça del Tibidabo was a much smaller park than Brighton Palace Pier, but that hardly mattered. She took Harry's hand and dragged him everywhere, holding his arm on the roller coaster and cuddling into his side on the Ferris wheel, laughing in unashamed delight as they rode on the only double-decker carousel she had ever seen, and gazing off in wander as they reached the peak of Talaia, the watchtower ride the raised them above everything else around them.

Fleur smiled, holding a hand to her mouth and staring in astonished wonder at a little girl currently laughing like a madwoman as she was sent hurtling upside down around a loop in one of the muggle "roller coasters", a man that was probably her father looking queasy in the seat beside her. It looked insane, "utterly mad" as Ron would put it, and, surprisingly, more than a little tempting...

'It is not so bad,' she thought. 'Well, except for the food.'

She glanced over at Harry expecting to see him still staring forlornly at his "American Classic Hot Dog", only to find him leaning against a trash can looking depressed.

"What is it, what is wrong?" she asked him, hoping she had not done something to cause it this time.

He shrugged. "I dunno, I guess I just thought it would be better." He hesitated, staring forlornly around the pier, looking defeated, "We can go anytime you want. Maybe we can find a restaurant nearby that serves something not drowning in oil."

For a brief instant, the moment of joy she had felt seeing the little girl with her father began to fade, then it was bolstered by a swell of desire to make Harry feel it too. It filled her with determination. She reached out and grasped Harry's chin, pulling him around to look at her.

"It is strange to me," she began gently, "to both of us, and it is unfamiliar, but that does not mean it is bad."

She smiled warmly, glad to find that she fully meant what she was about to say, "Let us explore, have fun, maybe ride the "Turbo Coaster" over there, the day is not over yet, and I believe we can make it a happy one by the time it is through."

He stared into her eyes for a long moment, and then the corners of his mouth lifted as he smiled in return.

"Okay."

Night had fallen by the time they finished funding the Spanish tourist industry. They stood on a scenic overlook, a platform built at the edge of the main attraction area overlooking the city and the sea. They looked out over the vast sprawl of Barcelona, a city of the ages, and saw its splendour. There were parks, densely packed city squares, forums and distant promenades, places of learning and thousands of quiet homes. Basilicas and more than one Cathedral rose out of the city too, marvels of architecture that she could not fathom creating even through magic, let alone without its aid. And above it all, the endless heavens. There were fewer stars visible here, the golden light of tens of thousands of lanterns washing out much of their glory, but the stars that made it through shone bright and clear.

"Thank you, Harry."

He smiled. "This was the first place I found when I was looking for somewhere special to take you, I thought you might like it."

Fleur looked up at the stars, remembering a different set of constellations viewed from a different seaside and lit up just as brightly by the multicoloured lights of the pier, the two of them eating ice cream on the beach and smiling, a perfect bright spot in times that were otherwise filled with darkness.

"You were right, I do."

"The day isn't over just yet though."

"Oh?" she turned to face him, curious.

"If you recall our itinerary from this morning, I still have to take you out to dinner, then we go for a stroll through the city and end at the plaza by the fountains where, if you follow the schedule, we should have a suitably romantic moment to finish the evening off," said Harry, grinning widely.

"Ah, of course, how could I forget the itinerary," she said teasingly, "We would not want your masterful planning to go to waste."

"Exactly," Harry agreed immediately, causing Fleur to sigh with mixed exasperation and amusement.

He stepped away from the railing and offered her his arm, surreptitiously revealing the tip of his wand from his sleeve as he did so and casting a muggle repelling charm on their immediate vicinity. Fleur stealthily cast another charm to complement Harry's, and in mere moments the small section of the overlook they were standing on had emptied, the few people still there shifting organically away from them until no one even knew they were there. The spells would last for an hour at most and then fade, but that was fine. She silenced the area around them to conceal the sound of their apparition, took a last look at the sky and the view of the city, grasped Harry's arm, and an instant later they were gone.

~0~

The restaurant they went to, La Taverna del Bisbe, was a fairly metropolitan establishment. It was nominally art deco in style and would not have been out of place in an American city like New York or San Francisco, and the food reflected its appearance being a mixture of the eclectic array of multicultural cuisines found in such cities and classic Spanish dishes. It was neither the high culture of Giardino del Carmen nor the relaxed homeliness of La Lanterna, it was vibrant, filled with life and the lives of people, the stories of all of Barcelona's visitors told through the food they brought with them. Harry had a Pappardelle di Mare, Fleur had Blood Sausage with Choricitos Brochette, and they shared a Crema Catalana for dessert.

"It is not what I expected," Fleur said as they walked out, Harry letting go of the door to close behind them.

"I'll admit," said Harry, "When I searched for it I didn't get too many details."

"Oh, did your master plan not account for the fact that we might find German food in a Spanish restaurant?" she teased.

Harry shrugged, turning left and setting off southwest past the Barcelona Cathedral, saying, "I can't anticipate everything. Besides, I got the important things right."

"Such as?"

"The locale, the date leading up to it, the time of year, and, of course, the company." He smiled at her winningly and she shook her head, the slight corniness of his humour an endless source of both fondness and exasperation.

They settled back into their familiar patterns, Fleur in front and Harry behind her to the left, walking and talking through the streets of Barcelona. First was the broad avenue of the cathedral itself, then a narrow lane that threaded through the tall stone buildings ubiquitous to Barcelona's gothic quarter under which shelter shops and corner stores, open only to those who wandered away from the roads and into the maze of buildings. They turned north again onto a broad road composed of two lanes separated by a central thoroughfare of brick, lined with trees.

It was nearing midnight when they arrived at Plaça de Catalunya, arm in arm to end their evening. They walked beside the fountains and stood in the shadow of the statues, and though they were not alone there, she could not help but feel as though they were the only two people in the world.

She was standing by one of the statues, leaning against the railing separating the raised area of the fountains from the more open plaza below. She was staring up at the city around her with a smile of light-hearted joy on her face when a brief flash of light to her right took her off guard. She spun to face it only to find Harry standing there, an amused grin on his face and a boxy device in his hands. It whirred briefly, and a piece of paper slid out a slit in its base. He took the paper and began shaking it in his off-hand, a look of excitement dawning on his features as he examined it closely.

"What is that?" she asked, striding beside him and settling back into curiosity now that the shock of the moment was gone.

"A polaroid," Harry declared proudly, "A muggle camera that I had stocked on the boat with everything else, I brought it with me today and couldn't resist taking a picture of you just now."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. She was not very familiar with muggle technology, but she knew that magical cameras took some effort to develop their film, yet Harry seemed to already have a finished photograph mere moments after it was taken. She drew up beside him, tilting her head and staring down at the photo curiously. It took a few seconds for the picture to resolve in the film, but when it did it took her breath away.

It was her, mere seconds previously as she was standing by the fountain, just as she was in that moment, smiling and looking at the city around her. She was just smiling. It shouldn't have been special, it shouldn't have been unique, but it was. It didn't move, it didn't so much as twitch but, in that instant, she realized that muggles had been right about the power of photography and wizards had been wrong. She was smiling, an instant of pure joy and contentment captured and crystalized, she was happy, free as if the world could never touch her even as she moved through it, and all that was on full display in this one, single image. She looked up at Harry, astonished, and found him smiling, and she only wished that he could be in the picture too. That way she could see this moment forever, but then, why remember the moment when it was still here for her to live?

She stepped in closer to him, pushed the camera and photograph off to either of his sides and wrapped her arms around his neck. Leaning in, she breathed against his lips, feeling him return her embrace, and feeling a giddy mirth as the camera still clutched in his hand bumped awkwardly against the small of her back. He grunted, a brief moment of confused indecision flashing across his features as he tried to find something to do with the objects preventing him from properly embracing her that didn't involve dropping them outright. She laughed softly, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.

She kissed him, pressing forward to meet him as he accepted the facts of his situation and gently lodged the polaroid between her shoulder blades, at once pulling him down and pushing upward, they twisted slowly into each other's lips and embrace, twirling on the spot as if in slow motion.

Eventually, they had to breathe. She pulled back from his lips, her own parting in sorrow as they separated, and she leaned her forehead against his while they caught their breath, then switched to resting it in the crook of his neck, conforming her body to his in their continued, standing embrace, content to stay in that instant for eternity.

"So," Harry said after a few seconds had passed, "I guess you like the photo."

She snorted into his shoulder, almost choking on her laughter and bringing tears to her eyes as she pulled back, holding a hand to her mouth to stifle her giggles.

"Yes, Harry," she said after she had regained control of voice a few seconds later, "yes I do."

The smile he gave her outshone the stars.

AN: Thank you for reading. If you liked the story then please leave a comment telling me what you think worked and what didn't, your feedback is crucial to helping me improve as an author and is always appreciated. Also, I am experimenting with yet another method of evading ffn's embargo on links in stories. Please be patient with the strange formatting, but I refuse to not advertise the server as the people there are the only reason I am writing at all.

Harry/Fleur Discord Server: https semicolon slash slash double-U double-U double-U dot discord dot gg slash 6EdQrSUjTB

Fanfic Recommendation: Sod it, I'm in, by Hephaestus Builds. A delightful short story, roughly 20k words of Flowerpot goodness. Post War, road trip, romance, what's there not to love?