Joie de Vivre
A HariPo oneshot
by mew-tsubaki
Note: The Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. My fav magical family…ever expanding. :3c Read, review, and enjoy!
- ^-^3
Fleur sat down heavily at the kitchen counter, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that matched her husband's own. "…what on Earth are zey up to so eairly in ze morning…?" she bemoaned of the din upstairs.
Bill half laughed, half sighed, weary same as Fleur. Before he even got a word out, Victoire's heavy footfall filled the parents' brief silence. He shook his head. "Really, it's just Vic. I've not seen Dominique toddle after her unless we're around, Fleur, so I wouldn't worry too much." He sipped the warm brew in his cup and grinned over the rim as he lowered it. "All this week, I've caught Victoire reading aloud to Dominique nearly everything she can get her hands on. She's worked her way through all of Edelworthy Stump's Charmed Chapbooks, you know."
Fleur's ears rang with the memory. "Yes, I've over'eard, William—some volumes Victoire 'as recited aloud twice."
His blue eyes popped as he gaped at his wife. "Oh, dear." He rubbed the back of his neck, brushing his ponytail back and eyeing the upstairs. "Sorry for the repetition, luv. There are dozens of Stump's work from my childhood alone, and I don't think he ever stopped publishing. I'll see if Mum and Dad kept collecting for my siblings and if there are current ones…"
"Pleez do. She eez 'alfway through your Bard Beedle's tales, and I am not certain a nearly two-yeair-old or even a seven-yeair-old needs such dark bedtime stories…!"
He laughed again, but the sound was softer this time, more of a chuckle, and Fleur sighed and settled him with an expression that she meant it. "Well then, what stories did you and Gabrielle grow up with?"
She straightened on the kitchen stool and sifted through her childhood memories. "In France, we 'ave our fairytales, mostly of ze fairies and of ze Merpeople. Zere are many common ghost stories, as well, but—" She dismissed the mention of them with her hand.
"Your parents not big on sharing them?"
"Not in ze fantastical sense, no. And my grandmuzzer and Maman made eet critical zat Gabrielle and I understood zat, being part-Veela, we were not…" Her words trailed off, and Fleur huffed, the rest of her thought coming out in French.
"Mythe," Bill echoed in his practiced accent. "Oh. Myths," he realized, seizing upon the cognate. The humor left his features. "Of course. That makes sense." He frowned. "You've never mentioned before, but was your family treated differently, back home? It came out so early on in the Triwizard Tournament here about your lineage, but I've never known it to bother you, Fleur."
"Because eet does not," she assured him. Fleur got to her feet, her drink cold and uninteresting, and met him on the other side of the counter, leaning back against the cool stovetop and into his right side. "Let people say what zey will and theenk what zey theenk. I 'ad my sistair and my parents and grandparents—and I 'ave you and yours now, too."
Slowly, his smile returned. "That you do." Bill set down his mug beside hers and pressed a soft kiss into her hair. When he pulled away, it was to scrutinize their staircase. "Fleur, luv, isn't it a little quiet?"
They exchanged a look, but they left the kitchen in a heartbeat, Fleur leading the way up to the girls' room on the second floor. The door sat open at the landing, in the middle of the hall, the halfway point between Bill and Fleur's room and the bathroom.
Alas, they had nothing to worry about. Dominique cooed softly in her sleep behind the cream-colored spokes of her pen. Beside her on the floor, curled up like a cat atop a mini mountain of books and with a plush dragon underneath her head, was Victoire, also asleep. Except where their fair-haired baby cooed, tiny snores escaped redheaded Victoire, her breath skittering up her crossed arms to tousle her curled locks.
Fleur pressed a relieved hand against her chest while Bill slumped against their daughters' door. "After all the noise—silence, finally," he remarked dryly in undertones.
Fleur smiled. "What did you expect, William? Eet eez eairly February; zey cannot play outside, so eventually zey will tire inside." She withdrew her wand from the sleeve of her sweater and dimmed the lighting in the room, pulling the door partly behind them as they backed up into the hallway.
"I know you're right, but." He ran his hands up and down her upper arms, but Fleur sensed the gesture was more for him, given how his hands shook. "Who on Earth ever thought having more than one child was a good idea? Even in a peaceful, post-You-Know-Who world." Bill's eyebrows rose in to his fringe. "I'll never understand how my parents managed more than me, let alone more than me and Charlie. Seven! Seven of us, Fleur!"
"I did not forget," she said, amusement in her tone as she walked past him to their room. "I may 'ave only evair known sisterhood, but eet eez nice, I theenk, not to grow up alone."
Bill had followed her and lingered in the doorway, resting against the doorjamb. "…that's a fair point."
"And you 'ave nevair imagined 'aving your own Weasley Quidditch team?" she teased.
The apples of his cheeks burned bright. That said it all.
Still, Fleur faced him. She sat on the edge of their bed and wondered if this turn in their conversation could wait another week or not, since Valentine's was coming up so soon. But, since they'd already arrived here… "So two are enough or you truly want more, as your parents 'ave?"
Bill blinked. "I s'pose…two are more than enough, plus you and me, luv."
Fleur smiled, knowing the expression would reach her eyes, certainly the longer she stared at Bill.
This time—after two children, one surprise announcement and the other a shared feeling—he caught on after thirty seconds. "Oh." It was his third "oh" of the morning.
But Fleur nodded. "I am certain of it, William. I 'aven't checked officially yet, but…" So funny, she thought. One minute, she was drawing her wand to turn the lights down for Victoire and Dominique. Now, that same hand rested in a familiar fashion on her growing abdomen the way it'd done for months on end, twice before.
Bill's steps to her were slow and cautious, and he sank beside her on the mattress. "…three," he breathed.
"Troi," she confirmed. She tucked her head into the crook of his neck and kissed his shoulder.
"Victoire and Dominique will both be big sisters," he stated while the news still whirred freshly in his mind. "Dominique might have a little sister of her own. Another witch in the family."
"Or a wizard," Fleur chided him. She loved Gabrielle dearly, but she wouldn't mind Victoire and Dominique having some of their father's experience, growing up with a brother.
Bill chuckled gently and rubbed the tip of his nose, bashful. "Yes, of course. …it would be nice if the girls could enjoy what I do, having younger brothers. What?" he asked, catching Fleur's look of pleasant surprise. "Something I said?"
Fleur laughed and kissed him in reply. It was nice to know that, after all these years (drawing closer to ten with each passing day!), she and Bill still were on the same wavelength.
- ^-^3
:3c Am I done writing about Fleur's various pregnancies? Prolly not. X'D While a little similar in the vein of "Another Autumn," and—I confess—I have another idea (…or two…) tied to Fleur being pregnant with Victoire, this story did take on a slight life of its own, tho originally my notes were to focus more on them musing having a 3rd child and perhaps secretly wishing for a boy to one day balance out all the estrogen in Shell Cottage. But I quite like the hcs that cropped up here, regarding Vic's and Dom's early closeness as wee little things, and the differences in Bill's and Fleur's upbringings, esp given Fleur's part-creature bkgd. I just. I love the Delacour–Weasleys a lot, okay? And I kinda crave writing every last detail about them which appeals to me, *LOL*. (Also, the softness that is Billeur. It's perf to me. -w- Whenever a couple has the same thought in the same moment—I LIVE for that.) Lastly, timeline info here for this Maydayverse (MDV) fic: Feb 2008, meaning Victoire is nearly 8, and, based on my personal hc bdays for the other two, Dominique will be 2 in August, the same month Louis will be born. ;) [And isn't wonderful, revisiting fic ideas from, say, three yrs ago and finally finishing them? TTwTT]
Thanks for reading, and please review! Available to reblog on my tumblr (camelliacats), too~
-mew-tsubaki c: