I haven't written fanfic for years. I haven't written a single thing for a couple of years (thanks Covid). But Fleur and Bill are back in my head and won't get out. This is bitty and scrappy and unpolished, but it's something. There might be more chapters. I'm not sure yet.
A Kind of Homecoming
"And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, 'desire' time
And your earth moves beneath your own dream landscape."
One
"What are you doing out here, chéri?"
Bill shook his head and looked out over the sea, avoiding her eyes. "I don't really know." He managed a faint smile, meeting her eyes briefly and then looking away again. "Sorry. It's stupid."
"Not stupide. Not stupide at all." She came and sat down next to him on the short grass at the top of the cliff, close but not touching. Now she was beside him, Fleur could see the marks of tears on Bill's cheeks.
After a minute or so, he said, "I suppose I thought – I thought once we were home, it would be easier."
Fleur raised her eyebrows at this. For her, being back at Shell Cottage for the first time since the Battle (they had come to think of it with a capital letter already) was infinitely preferable to The Burrow, crowded as it was with people and tears and guilt. She had longed to come home, to be alone with Bill for the first time in weeks, but so far it wasn't going as she had expected.
(As either of them had expected, to be fair.)
"And it ees not?" she asked gently. "Do you want to go back to ze Burrow? We can if you want to." It was the last thing, the very last thing, that she wanted, but she would if that was what Bill needed. He was the one who had lost his brother.
"Yes. No. I don't know!" Bill shook his head in frustration. "I just want…" His voice caught. "I want it to be different, to feel different." He swallowed hard. When he spoke again, it was hardly above a whisper. "I want it to feel as if we won."
She could point out that they had won whether it felt like it or not, but she knew that wouldn't help. Instead, she freed her hand from his and edged closer, putting her arms around him and pulling him to her, stroking his hair gently. She could feel him shaking, but he was no longer crying. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
"Chéri, it is not always going to feel zis bad," she said softly. "One day, per'aps not soon, but one day, eet is going to get better. One day, eet will not 'urt so much."
He gave a humourless bark of laughter at that, and freed himself from her arms, turning his back on her again.
"You know that, do you?" he demanded fiercely. "Because I can't imagine it. I don't even think I want to imagine it. I don't want…" His voice cracked, and when he spoke again, it was through tears. "I don't want to forget Fred. Or Tonks or Remus. Or any of the others who died."
"Now you are being stupide." Fleur had decided that sympathy was not working and she would try another tack. "You know as well as I do that you will not forget zem." She put a hand on his shoulder. "But it weell not always 'urt so badly. One day, you will be able to sink about Fred and ze ozzers and not be so un'appy. In ze meantime…" She gave a very Gallic shrug, which was lost on Bill because he was still avoiding looking at her. "In ze meantime, we 'ave to keep on. And it will be 'ard, and it will 'urt, but we 'ave no choice." She stopped and sighed deeply. "We won, Bill, even zo it may not feel as if we did. We 'ave 'ope now and a new life to build."
"I don't know how." He sounded defeated and utterly miserable.
"Bill. Bill chéri, you do not 'ave to know 'ow. I do not sink zat any of us know 'ow. We zhust 'ave to try. Sometimes trying 'as to be enough." She rubbed his back gently, wanting to be close to him but not wanting him to push her away again. She knew it wasn't her that he was angry with, but it still hurt.
But Bill turned to her then, his eyes wet, and with a look of desperation in them that brought tears to Fleur's own eyes.
"Help me?" he croaked. And she folded him her arms and whispered that she would.
It was a start.
