A/N Alright, got a small case of writer's block so I'm doing a short one-shot that popped into my head. Harry/Fleur cause I love that pairing, hope you like this.
Harry Potter was in a word; nervous.
He was currently walking through Parc National de la Forêt Enchantée; an unplottable piece of land 50,000 acres in size in southern France. There were plenty of different places in the park; including safaris to see animals such as unicorns and several main hiking trials with many different colors of trees but that evening he was walking through the shorter and flatter sentier du soir with his fiancé Fleur Delacour, crimson and gold trees glowing on either side of them.
His relationship with the women he called the love of his life didn't start so romantically. The first time they had a real conversation was the night Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire. She had insulted him and he had responded. Yes, he was to young to be the the tournament, and yes it wasn't his fault. But that didn't mean he wasn't still offended and had insulted Fleur back. Just a few months later neither could remember exactly what had been said but it had sparked a fierce rivalry. Several duels had almost broken out in the halls between them (which wasn't a great look for international co-operation) during the month of November that had culminated with the First Task.
Both rivals had been studying feverishly to top the other's score for a month. It helped that through Maxime and Hagrid both knew that Task involved dragons. On November twenty-fourth, as Fleur walked out of the tent she flipped Harry off.
Walking into the arena Fleur took a deep breath. On top of putting a cheater in his place she had her heritage to live up to. Veela were an ancient race, despite even the oldest having no clue where they actually came from. Some said they were related to mermaids and sirens, some said the first were cursed women, still others theorized they were the result of genetic tampering by aliens. Even the wizarding world had it's conspiracy theorists. But despite where they came from veela were a proud and powerful race often dumbed down to sex toys by idiot men. Fleur's goal was to prove them wrong. And beat Harry, of course.
She used enchanting to trick the dragon into thinking she was levitating the whole nest over to the side of the arena when in reality it was just an illusion before putting the dragon to sleep. She then canceled the illusion and ran to get the golden egg and get out of the arena.
After the judges gave her a thirty-eight out of fifty everything was looking good - until it was Harry's turn that is.
He enlarged some boulders to create a barrier between himself and the dragon before summoning his Firebolt. Once it arrived and he hopped on the contest was over. He outflew the dragon, enlarging a few more boulders as he did to keep the Horntail off-guard and give himself a bit more cover. Once he had the egg and was back with no injuries, he stood next to a pissed-off Fleur as they waited for his score. Ron waited off to the side, looking like he wanted to approach Harry but not willing to do it with Fleur right next to him.
"What do you get?" Harry asked.
"Thirty-eight," she answered shortly.
When Harry was given a thirty-nine, he started laughing his head off and walked away to see what Ron wanted, leaving a fuming Fleur behind. It was then that she realized something. His eyes weren't even the slightest bit glazed over.
While most every male could resist her passive allure, almost all got at least a little bit glazed over in her presence. But Harry didn't even have that problem a little bit.
After the First Task there was an unspoken truce between the two, a result of a grudging respect and want to end the slightly childish rivalry. They didn't have much contact up until the Second Task.
Fleur was a highly capable witch, but veela were creates of fire and air. The opposite of water. Which meant that a horde of grindylows were able to force her to return to the surface.
As Fleur was having a panic attack on the shore with her parents trying their best to comfort her while staying calm themselves, Harry was already at the hostages, waiting for everyone to arrive. When an hour was almost up and Fleur hadn't arrived, he cut the little girl that looked like her sister free (injuring a few mermaids that tried to get in the way) and started carrying her and Ron back up to the surface. After all, while he had some issues with Fleur, he had nothing against her sister. Suffice to say that the Delacours were very surprised when Harry got Gabrielle on shore before walking away without a word.
A week later Fleur finally swallowed her pride and gave Harry a thank-you, as well as apologizing for all her insults and words. Harry apologized as well and that was effectively the end of their little rivalry. It wasn't the start of a friendship, but they started doing little things like saying "hello" in the hallways, or once Fleur told Malfoy to piss off when he was antagonizing Harry. Eventually they started having little conversations, usually over homework in the library. Hermione loved this, as Fleur would always give her tips on where to focus to succeed in later years. Then Fleur would start telling Harry how Gabrielle would pester her for details about him through letters and they would get a good laugh. Then Harry learned he could do a better Patronus Charm than her and offered to give her a few lessons to help. After two weeks when Fleur was able to improve from a large shield of mist to a corporeal Patronus; a large eagle, she surprised Harry by giving him a hug as a thank you, and he surprised her even more by hugging back.
By the time of the Third Task they were nowhere near romance, but Harry would confidently say he had three friends. Fleur was injured in the maze, and so they both spent the night in beds pushed right next to each other. He had saved her life from an imperioused Krum so she felt she owed him. When she told Harry that if he ever needed something he just needed to ask, he said he needed a shoulder to cry on. She scooted a few inches closer and he broke down.
The last day of school was hard. Fleur had to go back to France and the only way to stay in touch was through owls, which wasn't exactly the quickest form of communication wizards could have thought of. That summer Ron and Hermione barely wrote, while Fleur made sure to send a letter every day. Harry found he started looking forward to her accounts about trying to find her first job and apartment much more than his British friend's reminders to stay at the Dursleys. Fleur for her part was less than pleased by Harry's accounts of his summer life. She vowed to look into a way to get him away from the Dursleys as soon as possible and keep him away.
When the dementors attacked and Harry's trial was scheduled, Fleur managed to convince Dumbledore to give her the address to Grimmauld Place to visit Harry for a night. During dinner Sirius kept having fun at Harry's expense, saying how proud he was and giving random (and probably useless) pieces of advice that had Harry avoiding Fleur's eyes for half the night. Fleur just laughed along with most of the table.
That night she was also introduced to Bill Weasley. When he learned she was interested in working for Gringotts he promised to put in a good word for her at the London branch, and by the end of the summer she had a job there.
Harry's fifth year was hard. If something wasn't go wrong for him Umbridge made sure to change that as soon as she could. His only solace from outside the castle was Sirius; who wasn't able to write much despite his continued best efforts, and Fleur. When Harry rushed into the Department of Mysteries to save Sirius with a band of his friends and the Order had to go in after him, Fleur was with them. She was with everyone else when Sirius fell through the Veil and watched Harry go absolutely ballistic. She knew the entire year had just been one long train wreck of suffering for him and losing his Godfather was to much. Bellatrix lost her left hand and Malfoy suffered a mild concussion as the Death Eaters were pushed back. When Voldemort arrived and tried to possess Harry as a last resort Fleur was one of the people by his side reminding him who he was.
For the second night in just over a year Harry broke down into Fleur's shoulder. By then Harry knew he had romantic feelings for her, but wasn't brave enough to ask. Fleur knew she felt the same way for him but with Harry in school and his life difficult enough as it was figured he didn't want a relationship. If Sirius still had a body he would have turned over in his grave when the parted that night with only a hug.
Harry's sixth year was both better and worse. The entire year wasn't one hellscape of oppression but Voldemort started making big moves in the daylight. Muggle massacres, giant stampedes, leaders like Amelia Bones being strategically picked off. To make it worse, he could only see Fleur on the rare Hogsmeade weekends and even those were bitter sweet. Sure he got to see her, but we wanted nothing more than to be able to kiss her when the said hello and wasn't able to. Hermione said she clearly liked him back, but he wasn't sure. Ron as always had no clue.
Fleur had the same pangs. Whenever she let Harry walk away from her back to the school she felt like she was making the biggest mistake of her life all over again. She wanted nothing more than to wrap him up in her arms and take him somewhere safe where nobody would hurt him but knew he had a destiny to fulfill.
The night Dumbledore fell from the top of the Astronomy Tower during the Death Eater attack was almost harder than the night Sirius died, because Fleur wasn't there to comfort him. Sure, he had Ron and Hermione, but it wasn't the same. So he did nothing but stand stony-faced holding the tears in as Dumbledore's body was taken away and people tried to come to grips with what had happened.
After Dumbledore's funeral, Harry ended up alone with Fleur under a tree by the Black Lake leaning on her shoulder. When Harry had to leave, he mustered up all his courage and gave Fleur a swift peck on the lips. As she sat frozen in shock he walked away, sure he had permanently scarred his friendship with his greatest comfort in the current life.
When Fleur recovered Harry was already gone and walking as swiftly as he could to his dorm to hide. After thirty minutes of looking returned to the same tree and started sobbing. She had made her greatest mistake yet again.
Harry never returned to the Dursleys. His account was quietly drained and nobody heard head or tails from him except for some attacks against Death Eaters by a man that fit his description. Despite her family's urgings, and Fleur refused to flee to France, instead stubbornly insisting she stay in England. Eventually the Order get Neville Longbottom out of Hogwarts and sent him and Fleur to the ICW Headquarters in Geneva where she insisted that the rumors that magical England had been swiftly and silently conquered by a Dark Lord were true and that the ICW needed to sent troops in before he crossed the channel and became another Grindewald. Neville spoke of the conditions at Hogwarts under Veratiserum, and most of the support against staying out was broken. Three battalions of ICW battle-mages stormed the Ministry where everyone in the complex was tested for the Imperious Curse or arrested for possession of the Dark Mark; which had been declared illegal by the ICW twelve hours prior. All those that resisted were either subdued or killed and Voldemort's puppet government collapsed.
The war continued for another two months as Dead Eaters fought bravely but were pushed out of cities and into the countryside. Within weeks crowds of students cheered at Hogwarts as the Carrows were dragged off to be excecuted for torture of minors. Snape was found dead in his office with a shattered vial of poison on the ground next to him. In his other hand was a picture of an eleven-year-old Lily Evans.
In the end the remaining Death Eaters were forced to make a last stand in northern Scotland around Voldemort himself when Harry Potter emerged, challenging Voldemort to a duel and saying something about how "they are all gone." At the end of a new duel of the century Voldemort's body froze, a spear of rock jutting up from the ground going clear through his chest.
When Fleur tracked Harry down in the hours after the battle the first thing she did was punch Harry the face so hard it broke his nose and told him that if he ever walked away from her again it would be the last thing he ever did. Then she pulled him as close to her body as she could and kissed him.
Four years later a promising young romance had evolved into two young adults head-over-heals for each other. Fleur had been promoted several times at Gringotts and Harry had just been hired as an Auror after completing basic had fallen in love, moved in together, had sex for the first time, he had gotten to know her family, and they both had stable jobs. The last step for Harry to take was to propose. Hence why he had suggested a vacation to the most magical forest in the world to propose to his nature-loving girlfriend.
It was sunset and the trees had started to glow. Each trunk was either brown with gold streaks or brown with crimson ones and the leaves reminded Harry of the Gryffindor Common Room. They all emitted glowing particles as well, so the very air seemed to be alive. There were lots of other colors in other parts of the park as well. Black, blue, and purple, orange and yellow, silver and white.
Harry was nervously holding the ring in his right pocket with his left was around Fleur's shoulder as he tried to pluck up the courage to ask her. They were alone for the moment so Harry finally stopped. Fleur looked at him curiously.
"Is something the matter?"
Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Fleur, I want you to answer a question for me. I know I'm not the best boyfriend. I leave my dirty clothes in the bathroom, I nearly get myself killed a lot, and despite your best efforts my taste in wine is terrible. But you are also all that's kept me sane for what seems like half my life, and I can't imagine it without you do. Will you marry me?" He knelt down and pulled the ring out of his pocket and held it out to Fleur. For a second she just stared at it in shock and Harry's heart almost broke, but then she tackled him to the ground and glued her lips to his. When they finally broke apart she started jabbering in her native French.
"Yes, yes, yes! I've been waiting forever for you to ask! Yes, of course I will!" She grabbed the ring slipped it on as Harry laughed in relief. Suddenly a pair of voices interrupted them.
"Pretty good. I've seen worse proposals than those in an enchanted forest," a male voice said.
"Better than yours," a musical female voice said, though the tone clearly said she was just messing around.
Both Harry and Fleur looked away from each other in surprise. They must have somehow missed a couple walking behind them. Both almost did a double take. There was something about the pair that seemed so... familiar. Both seemed to be about thirty. The women had silvery-blonde hair that was almost the exact same that Fleur's was when it was wet, and seemed to almost be a distant cousin of her. The man bore faint resemblances as well. Harry could have swore he had the exact same nose that Fleur, her mother and sister all head, and the general facial structure seemed familiar as well.
The newly engaged couple hastily got off the group as the older couple smirked at them. "I'm sorry about that," Harry stammered. "We didn't see you."
The man waved his apology away with a good-natured grin. "No need. Perfectly normal reaction."
"I don't mean to be rude," Fleur said, looking at the women. "But are you a veela?" Harry had been wondering the same thing.
She chuckled. "No, but you aren't the first person to ask me that. I thank you for the compliment though."
Fleur found herself doubting this. Some looks were hereditary with all veela. Silver-blonde hair and blue eyes, though the shades varied. They were also all around just under six feet (1.8 meters) and shared some basic facial structures. Minus the facial structure, this women checked off all the boxes. Suddenly Fleur shivered. The sun was still going down and the air was getting chilly.
Harry moved to get his wand out. "I'll cast a warming charm for you."
"Don't worry," the man said. "I got this." He wandlessly Conjured a fireball in his hand and tossed it over to Fleur. Being a veela, she was able to catch and hold it with no issues.
"You were able to do that wandlessly," the veela said in amazement. Veela could Conjure fireballs if they wanted to and pyromagics came naturally to them. But a feat like that would be near impossible for a non-veela; which every male certainly was.
He chuckled. "Yes, fire has always been... a bit of a specialty of mine."
"Well thank's," Harry said.
"Yes, but I think that my new fiancé need to get going," Fleur said a bit impatiently.
"You mean get going to the hotel room," the women said with a twinkle in her eye. Harry and Fleur blushed but didn't deny her words.
The older couple started walking again. "Well don't let us stop you," the man said. "Your parents were the exact same way."
Harry and Fleur turned around. "You were there when my parents proposed?" she asked.
The man answered. "Sure we were. In Rome I believe it was." He looked to his wife for confirmation and she nodded.
"But... how old are you?" Harry asked, not believing it despite the fact that Rome was indeed the place Fleur's parents had gotten engaged.
"Oh we lost track of that a long time ago," the women said. She winked. "Now don't let us keep you from tonight's activities."
As Fleur and Harry were quickly walking back to the hotel room they turned around, still confused by the conversation. Silhouetted by the sun, they saw what both swore looked like a veela in flight.
There were two major thoughts running through Fleur's mind. Why Harry could have waited until they were so far from the hotel until he proposed, and that maybe the origin of her race wasn't so big a secret after all.
A/N Alright, I hope you liked that. It was just a quick idea that popped into my head I decided to write.
In case you can't figure it out, the man and women were the immortal mother and father of veela. They inherit his fire abilities and her; umm, avian ones. Who and what exactly they are isn't important to the story (meaning I didn't bother to figure that part out because I don't need to). Just in case somebody got really confused.
Leave a review if you want, I always enjoy those, even if it is constructed criticism.
Peace!