Fleur:
"Trust me," she had said.
"It'll be different," she had said.
The Shod Pony was indeed…different. Tonks often found a nice middling location that sat pleasantly between their individual sensibilities. Their most recent double-date had been far more to Tonks's preferences. It had taken a dozen spells and half as many runs through the wash before she'd gotten the stench of the underground music…thing, out of her hair and clothes.
The pub was another of her friend's preferred date spots. A ramshackle building leaning as far as it could without collapsing felt hopelessly Tonks, and as Fleur stepped through the door to a room of welcoming chatter and warmth, she couldn't help but smile. The patrons bustled around her as she passed through, none getting too close or familiar in their hellos. Which was nice, even if she had come because of the promise of getting plenty familiar with someone.
Tonks had parked herself in the back of the pub, around a corner and out of sight of the bar, giving the modest four-person table a modicum of privacy in the busy space. It was only Tonks's waving arm and bright blue hair that caught Fleur's attention over the heads of the crowd around her.
"Took you long enough," Tonks said, thrusting a small glass of beer towards Fleur as she sat down. "Did you walk or what?"
"I didn't realize you could apparate from another country in a single trip." Fleur tasted the beer and set it down with a grimace, sliding it back over to Tonks. "Keep it. Even a cheap wine is better than this."
An electric blue eyebrow raised in a question.
"One isn't going to hurt anybody," Fleur answered.
"Not going to start going on and on and on and-?"
"I do not," she snapped. "It only happened once."
Tonks laughed and finished off the beer she had been working on when Fleur arrived. "Every single time you get sloppy wine-drunk, you refuse to shut up about how you and Harry would've been so good together if he'd just given you a chance."
"Not every time."
"Almost every time."
A waitress stepped around the corner, her arrival saving Fleur the embarrassment of needing to lie. Not much later, she was far more relaxed with a glass of wine in hand and a few drinks resting comfortably in her belly.
"So who've you picked for us this time?" she asked, leaning over to peek around the corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of their dates walking up.
"You'll see," Tonks said, trying and badly failing to hide a grin that straightened Fleur's spine.
"It better not be a pair of twins again."
"It's not," Tonks said with a laugh. "I learned my lesson."
"Then who?"
"Don't you trust me to know your taste by now?"
Fleur narrowed her eyes but Tonks matched her, glare for playful glare.
"Taller than you," she said, grinning when Fleur reflexively nodded. "Fit but not made of muscle."
"I don't like it when I can't squeeze," Fleur muttered into her wine.
"Handsome," Tonks continued, ticking off each point on her fingers. "I have it on good authority that he's an excellent kisser and very attentive-"
"Okay, okay," Fleur said, reaching over to stop Tonks from unfolding another finger. "I get it. I haven't had so many that we need to get into detail like that."
"It's been long enough that I wouldn't expect you'd need any at all to get into that sort of mood."
This time Fleur's glare was less playful and did little to cover the sting of truth. Two years it'd been. Two years since she had split up with Bill, and two years since she had another in her bed.
Perhaps Tonks had a point. One she liked to make whenever Fleur didn't invite her date home for the evening, or even for an hour. It would be a simple matter to end her drought, self-imposed as it was.
She just preferred to have some sort of connection, was all. It wasn't her fault all the people Tonks had brought on their double-dates had not been up to the task.
But two years was a long time, long enough for even the sting of Harry's rejection only a year ago to fade, no matter how she might occasionally complain after having a few too many.
Perhaps…
She finished off her wine and signaled for another, meeting Tonks's grin with a glare.
"I'm not going to get all weepy about Harry," she said after the second glass arrived. "It's in the past. We just…were never single at the right times."
"So I've heard."
Fleur took a sip, ignoring the barb. "Perhaps fate is against us, no matter what I had led myself to believe."
Tonks leaned over, her arm shooting out as her face lit up. "I wouldn't be too sure about that," she muttered as two figures darkened their little corner.
Fleur turned, noticing at a glance that Tonks had found herself someone perfectly in line with her tastes; all height and limbs with a face that made many women swoon.
It was the other man who caught her eye, a shy, careful smile on his handsome face.
"Harry?"
He blinked at her question and only too late did she realize it came out as part shout of surprise, part squeal of delight.
"I told you he was your type," Tonks said, sliding out of her seat and taking her date by the arm. "Come on, let's leave these two some space and get some privacy of our own."
Harry gave Tonks a quick hug as she passed, then flagged down the waitress for a drink as he took the seat opposite Fleur.
"I'm surprised to see you here," she said, pushing her wine to the side for a moment in favor of keeping her wits. "I thought you were seeing…"
"Daphne? We split a little while back."
"I didn't know."
One broad shoulder lifted and fell in a simple shrug and he took a long drink of his beer before answering.
"I haven't seen you around much lately," he said.
A half-smile lifted the corner of his lips and her heart gave an aching twang at the ghost in front of her. Once, his smile had been enough to set her grinning alongside him, no matter how dour her mood. Even back when they had first met, in those unguarded moments when he managed to forget about the tournament, he could lift her burdens with one glowing smile and make life easier, if only for a time.
Then he had grown into Helen reincarnate and people would die for it.
But not her. At least, not anymore.
She tore her eyes away from the memory and focused on the rest of his face, which did little to deter her wandering thoughts. Even with a few new lines across his square-jawed handsome face, his was a face worth getting lost in.
No, she had to focus. Be delicate.
"Work has been running me all over the globe," she finally answered, breaking her staring contest with his face in favor of searching out her glass of wine.
"Still with the Department of Magical Transport there in France?"
She tried not to choke on the wine. Had it really been so long since they had spoken?
It had been nearly a year since she had been left an utter fool standing in the middle of Diagon Alley, but…she had seen him more recently than that, hadn't she? Once?
She swallowed the wine and shook her head. So much for the friendship they had cultivated while young, though the feelings she had nurtured…well, perhaps not enough time had passed.
"No, I've actually been working here in England at the Department of International Cooperation. I bought a house in the country just a few months ago."
He whistled through his teeth, eyes widening. "They pay that well do they?"
She couldn't help but straighten a little in pride. It had taken no small amount of saving to be able to afford her lovely little home.
"Being a Triwizard Champion helped me with negotiations," she said with a smile.
"Put in a good word for me?"
"Of course."
The silence that followed fell heavy and quick, lingering as they both took long drinks. She suppressed the urge to drum her fingers across the table or the stem of her glass and instead focused on Harry, searching for something to say to someone she had once been so open with.
"So what do you do?" she asked.
Fantastic. How generic. Might as well segue into her real question and ask if he had broken any hearts these days.
Besides Daphne's, anyway.
"I've been…keeping busy," he said, "since the breakup."
She schooled her features before her eyes could widen.
"It was recent? I'm sorry to hear that."
This time he shrugged with both shoulders and leaned back into his chair.
"She said my mind always seemed to be somewhere else," he said, frowning. "Guess we just weren't very compatible, in the end."
"Still," Fleur said, "compatible or not, that's never easy."
"No," he said, shiftinging in his seat and trying to smile. "But to be honest with you, I've had much worse. Compared to that, this just stings a little."
"Ginevra?"
He laughed and nodded. "Yeah. I had always wondered why you called her that."
Fleur fought the temptation to wrinkle her nose and hid her face behind a sip from her wine glass.
"At best she was indifferent to me," she said. "Most often, especially when you weren't around, she was outright hostile. It didn't stop with mean little nicknames."
His frown pinged against something lingering in her heart that made her want to joke and laugh until he joined her. Instead, she simply took another drink and waited.
"I…didn't know. I'm sorry."
"I know you didn't." She let out a sigh that expelled what little resentment remained. The Weasley daughter had simply been jealous, like so many others.
Others who never had any cause to be jealous, whereas Ginevra-
"I don't know if I ever really got the opportunity to say sorry that things didn't work out with Bill."
Her spine straightened and she strained to keep a glare from her features. She could approach this carefully. Rationally. Without sobbing or shouting at all. Her pride was not so fragile as to still be wounded after an entire year.
"Yes," she said, instead of the things she wished to say instead, "it was…unfortunate."
"Unfortunate?" he echoed, waving down another pair of drinks for them.
She drew in a breath through her nose and let it out on a slow exhale.
"Sometimes," she said, drawing out the word, "people just grow apart. He wanted his own little Weasley family and I did not."
Harry's eyebrows shot up. "You don't want kids?"
"That's hardly first date talk, Harry."
A blush crept up his neck that did odd little things to her belly.
"Sorry," he mumbled, gratefully taking the drinks from the waitress and gulping down half of his in one go.
She finished her glass of wine and grabbed the new one, letting her fingers drum across the stem.
"But no, I did not. I want to live a life together before settling down, and he wanted them right away." She felt the alcohol rising to her cheeks and she frowned. "And I just want one or two. I am not a broodmare."
Harry choked on his beer, spraying a few droplets onto the table before he recovered.
"He wanted that many kids?" he asked once he cleaned himself off with a napkin.
"He comes from a big family," she said with a shrug. "It didn't seem abnormal to him."
"Still…sounds like you two also weren't compatible," he said with an awkward smile. "Sorry to hear it."
Fleur stared at him, a desire to make him smile that full, incredible smile she missed so much at war with the desire to finally know why. Why he had left her standing naked in the street. Emotionally anyway. It was as good as.
"Why did you run from me?"
The words left her lips long before she had given them leave to do so and she glared down at the red liquid in the glass.
"Why did I…what?"
Even through the pleasant warmth of the wine, her hackles rose while a muscle in her face tried to twitch.
"In Diagon. A year ago? You slammed the door of that clothing shop in my face and apparated away."
His blank stare evaporated the lingering fondness for his smile and anger pooled in her chest like fire, burning through the alcohol.
"You don't remember?" she hissed, her vehemence pushing him back in his chair for a moment.
He rallied and leaned forward, his thick eyebrows drawing together. "I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped, "but what about the time at Hermione's party when you completely ignored me?"
"I ignored you because you ran away!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
Through her anger, her ears picked up the distinct dimming of nearby conversation that meant their whispered disagreement had, at some point, devolved into shouting. Harry sat across from her, eyes hard and mouth pulled down into a frown.
They had been having a decent time before. Almost like before.
Perhaps…perhaps he had taken one too many spells during his lectures at the Auror Office. Or, well anything really.
She had missed him. Missed his laugh and dry, sharp sense of humor. Missed watching him as he talked and grew more excited, more open, until he was grinning and gesturing like mad, just to tell a story.
And the smile.
She missed that more than anything.
But not this frown that creased his face, adding years to his handsome features. She didn't want to tense his shoulders or be regarded with confusion and hurt swimming in his green eyes.
Maybe she could…let it go.
Or try, anyway.
The glass of wine was half empty by the time she finished her drink and she set it down with a smile.
"Tell you what," she said. "Why don't we have a do-over. That little hiccup aside, I've been having a good time."
He relaxed back into his chair, though not quite as much as she had hoped. Even so, it was a good sign.
He was quiet for a few seconds, then took a long drink of his beer and nodded.
"Deal."
"So, tell me about Daphne."
His cute, spluttering answer made her laugh a little before she took pity on him and asked how they met.
She cradled her wine as he talked of a professional gathering not long after Hermione's party where the two of them bonded over a mutual irritation with such functions. Daphne had apparently been the one to approach him, striking up a conversation and breaking through the minor animosity that lingered from their schooldays with ease. While he spoke, she watched his face and hands tell a different story. Both were still, resting as he told of the first days of their relationship when they had been at their most excited, going out on dates and exploring one another, as he so delicately put it.
"Exploring one another?" she repeated, taking a long sip to hide her smile. The heat of the wine traveled down from her belly, all the way to her toes, keeping her from hiding the smile completely as she set the wineglass back down.
"Well," he said, a small smile lifting the corners of his lips, "I don't want to be impolite."
She could feel her own smile curl into something hotter, fueled by being ever so slightly tipsy. Not drunk. Not yet.
"To me," she asked, "or to her? You did say you were…what was the word…incompatible?"
The healthy color in his cheeks from his own slightly inebriated state deepened and rather than fire back, as she expected, he shrugged.
"Maybe she also wanted a litter of kids in the first few years."
Fleur quirked an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair. "Did she?"
"No."
With a slow, fluid motion, she moved from her seat to the empty one that was sitting between them. He watched her move, his enthralling green eyes locked on her, making her feel as though the entire world was watching her move, rather than just sometimes dense, sweet, handsome, Harry.
She scooted to the edge of her chair to press her leg against his, their thighs barely touching.
Reaching out, she grabbed the corner of his glasses and resettled them on his nose, straightening them.
"Have you ever been with someone…compatible?" she murmured, eyes on his lips as he drew in closer to hear.
"I'd…like to think so."
She let her smile grow and her voice come out in nothing more than a breathy whisper.
"You'd know."
The lingering scent of a shower clung to him as surely as his nice clothes, which she hoped to divest him of, after a little bit more fun, anyway.
"I can show you compatibility," she said, reaching out a hand to brush at his shoulder. "I can show you how it feels to have someone want you more than anything."
His eyes went wide and he licked his lips.
"I'll show you how it feels to have your bodies pressed together and want even more."
His breath was hot as she leaned in close and brushed her cheek against the coarse skin of his face.
"I'll show you how it tastes."
He sucked in a breath that made her grin and she leaned back, glancing meaningfully at their mostly empty glasses.
"One more before we leave?"
The chair beneath him squeaked against the floor as he stood and nodded.
"I'll go to the bar. No sense in waiting for the waitress to come back around," he said, slightly breathless.
As he vanished around the corner, Fleur pressed a hand to her chest in an effort to still her thundering heart. Before, she had wanted so much more from him when she had sought him out after returning to England. True, finally finding out what lay beneath the often taut seams of his shirts and trousers had been pretty high on her list of wants, but…
But nothing.
Tonight would be a much needed evening of the best kinds of exertion as she finally answered a few of her questions with roaming hands. And her tongue. He'd probably like that.
She shook her head and tried to get her wild thoughts under control. There would be time for all that soon.
Instead of fantasizing, she drew her hair over one shoulder and readjusted her top to give him a slight preview of what was to come. Nothing indecent, but almost.
When Tonks's head popped around the corner, Fleur did her best not to shoo her friend away with a wave of her hand.
"Did you run him off already?" Tonks asked, frowning at the empty seat next to Fleur.
"Quite the opposite," Fleur snapped. "He's gone to the bar to get us more drinks before we leave. You know, together."
"Fleur…" Tonks's voice was careful and rang alarms through the lingering tipsy haze in Fleur's head. "Harry isn't at the bar. I was just there closing out our tab."
Fleur blinked. "He's…what?"
Tonks's face went from dismayed to furious in a flash. "I'm going to strangle the bastard," she hissed. "I'd thought you might've been exaggerating the whole…vanishing on you thing."
"He left?"
Tonks grimaced and looked over her shoulder. "Maybe he went to the toilet?"
Fleur stood, her blood a confusing, whirling mix of ice and fire. Once had been bad enough: left standing a fool for all the world to see, having bared her heart in public.
To be forgotten and then walked out on…
Tonks wouldn't even get the chance to stretch.
Fleur sped into the pub and over to the bar, snatching the bartender's attention with a few folded bills of muggle money.
"Where'd the guy with black hair go: glasses, scar on his forehead?"
The barman stared at her, eyebrows drawn together in naked confusion, but when she added another few bills to the pile, he pocketed the money and nodded to a door at the end of the bar, a dirty white sign designating it 'Employees Only' hanging below a small window.
She pushed through the crowd surrounding the bar, not bothering to apologize and certainly not bothering to pay any attention at all to Tonks's shouts of 'wait' and 'prison'.
The back kitchens were busy, but thankfully uncrowded. A handful of people sped around the small space, shifting from pot to pan to oven in an intricate dance and she trod on every foot on her way to the back door.
Through the shouts of outrage now filling the kitchen, she couldn't hear what lay beyond, and through the filthy windows she saw nothing but a brown, indistinct alley as she approached.
She burst through the door, only to hear the distinct—impossible to miss—crack of disapparition.
The alley rang with it. Almost as much as her bones did. It echoed in her ears long after it had faded from the resonant metal trash bins.
She drew in a breath.
At least there were only a few angry kitchen staff to see her humiliation, even if they didn't understand.
Tonks soon appeared around the edge of the building and hurried down the alley toward her.
"Fleur," she said, the fight as gone from her as if she'd been the one stood up. Again. "I'm really sorry."
"It's his fault," Fleur said, gesturing for Tonks to follow her out of the alley, "not yours."
"I know, I just-"
Fleur stopped walking before they exited the alley and put her hand on Tonks's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I'm going to go home, finish getting really drunk, finish what I started but by myself, and go to bed. Then, having allowed myself one night to be sad, I won't think about it ever again."
"Just don't go overboard," Tonks said, frowning. "Floo call if you need a drunk buddy."
"I will."
"Promise me."
"I promise. I'll even let you know when I wake up, so you know I survived."
"Good."
Tonks stepped forward and wrapped Fleur in a hug, her arms squeezing so tight she felt a rib pop.
"I really am sorry."
"I know, thanks. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
With a sad smile, Tonks stepped back into the alley until she was out of sight of the street and vanished with a crack.
Fleur took a long, calming breath, doing her best to find some serenity in the lungful of smoke and stagnant rubbish water of the alley.
No sense in dallying. She knew just the bottle of wine to end the night with.
She followed Tonks's lead and stepped backward into the alley.
Before she could disapparate, an odd shape caught the corner of her eye, something blacker than the darkness of the alley.
Atop one of the bins next to her, sat a small velvet case, the fabric almost absorbing the light. Curious, she stepped over and grabbed the box, shocked at its heft. With her other hand, she pulled it open and pulled out what sat inside.
Metal rings at myriad angles surrounded a glass sphere so clear only the feel of it vibrating on her fingers told her it was there. Inside the sphere, suspended in the middle by nothing she could see, was an hourglass the size of her palm whose grains were lifting from the bottom, one by one.
On reflex, she glanced around the alley, hoping to see its owner.
This wasn't like any time-turner she had ever read about. They were small little things meant to conceal and be unobtrusive. Not this intricate, delicate ball.
With slow, purposeful motions, she put the turner back in the case and closed it.
No need to figure out what was going on in a wet, stinking alley.
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure nobody was watching and apparated home.
Lonely silence awaited her return; a messy living room with papers and clothes strewn about with the promises to clean tomorrow piled up alongside them.
She pushed through the ache of solitude and set the case on the coffee table as gently as she could manage. Where the dark velvet would have blended into the mahogany, the layer of work-related papers made it stand out, even in the relative darkness.
With a wave of her wand, the lights flicked on, bathing the room in warm yellow light. She rounded the corner into the hall and went down to her bedroom, where she could finally change out of her wasted dress and into her huge, comfortable pajamas.
Restrictive clothing discarded for loose, soft comfort, she stopped off at her pantry and grabbed the bottle of wine that had been sitting at the bottom of her modest collection for years.
Grabbing a glass, she made her way back into the living room and dropped down onto the couch and sent some of the work papers flying over to her equally disorganized desk with a flick of her wand. She set the glass down in the newly empty space and popped the cork on the wine with a spell and poured.
The smell hit her first, memories of laughter and party climbing to the surface of her muddy thoughts.
Letting it aerate, she set her wand down on the table and sat for a time, staring at the box.
She picked up the glass, brought it to her lips, and drank.
It was one of her favorites.
It had been a gift from Harry when he had heard about her engagement to Bill.
She had been planning to invite him to drink it if their first date had gone well when she found him in Diagon Alley.
She finished the glass and poured another.
When she finished she would apparate…or maybe floo…over to Harry's house and shake him until he confessed that he had lied about forgetting and had run because he was embarrassed. He had certainly seemed interested enough when she was making her invitations.
But no, she knew what a Harry lie looked like.
He had simply forgotten breaking her heart.
Even now, when they were both finally single at the same time—again—he'd ruined it. Again slammed the proverbial clothing store door in her face and apparated away.
She shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable as she finished her glass and poured another.
The idiot didn't know what he was missing out on. Too dense to realize she had been prepared to spell it out for him.
She slammed the bottle back down on the table, causing the little box to rattle.
She stared at it a moment, glass lifted halfway to her lips.
No. She could drop it off in the morning to the Ministry. Maybe the next day if she was too hung over. Or she could make Tonks do it when she called.
She took a drink, choosing to focus on the dwindling bottle.
Jerk couldn't even have sprung for two bottles. Two bottles was a proper wallowing amount.
But she wasn't wallowing, and if she was, it was fine just this once. It wasn't usually permitted, but…
She finished the glass and emptied the bottle into it, looking everywhere but at the bag.
Life would continue if she didn't know where he went instead of coming back from the bar. He had made his choice as loud as if he had laughed in her face at her suggestions.
One night of being sad was all he was worth.
The room rolled beneath her and she sank further into the safety of the couch, putting her now empty glass on the floor as she laid down.
Would he forget tonight by this time next year?
Maybe she could.
But why…
Violent light brought her struggling back to consciousness. It thrummed through her eyelids in time with her pulse, bouncing around in her skull with painful force.
She shifted to sit up, grunting when something heavy rolled off her chest and thudded against her thigh. Through cracked eyelids, she peered down at the object.
The velvet box lay in her lap, lid open. Inside, the time turner hummed away, the sand held within rising from the bottom to the top, grain by grain. The rings sat at various angles, but in a vastly different position than she remembered from the night before.
She stared, uncomprehending, until a noise to her left made her jerk in surprise.
A child stood at the entry to her kitchen, her eyes wide and mouth open. Before Fleur could speak, the little girl shrieked.
"Mum, Dad!"
The thud of feet and shouts of panic came from her bedroom.
Frantic and now very much awake, she grabbed the box and sprinted for the door, leaving the screaming child and her parents in her wake.
AN:
Welcome back to those of you who have read my stuff before and a fresh welcome to those who haven't. A bunch of you already know that I'd like to write romance books one of these days, but something I really need to work on is my spicier scenes. So, this is the first of...oh man...9 short fic ideas and 1 multi-chap (the resurrection of a work I orphaned a while back called Runes and Withered Bonds). Over the years I was writing Hope and Healing, and in the year following, I've been absorbing writing information at a crazy rate, thanks to my strange job that lets me listen to podcasts and books while working. I love talking writing and I love working with people who have a similar approach as I do and helping them understand the stuff I've learned.
To that end, my friend and I have been working on creating a space where you can come and learn with peers, or directly from us, if you so desire. You can check my profile for more information and a discord link. You can get early access to the next chapter (already available once this one goes live) and even a once a month live workshop with me, generally with a focus on said spicier scenes. One of the more frustrating things I came across during the years learning and researching is that it's really really hard to find quality instruction in those scenes. There's a lot of emotion in those scenes, and everybody likes to focus on that, but there's also a technical aspect that I find fascinating.
Come check us out if that sounds interesting.
If not, no worries. A new chapter will be posted every two weeks for the foreseeable future! (I'm already a month and a half ahead)