On Teenagers and Love

a story by anamatics

part three - the fog

Chapter 26 - On Mothers


Fleur's family home is north of Paris, tucked into the rolling hills and farmland that Hermione remembers driving as a child with her parents after taking the ferry at Dover. After landing in Le Havre, they'd driven south, and Hermione was lost in the rolling yellow hills of rapeseed flowers flying by so quickly that they came to resemble the paintings they later saw in Paris. She knows, intellectually, that travelling there by floo will be different. Hermione hates travelling by floo. She ends up sprawled on a heart rug in a very homey-looking living room, covered in ash. Coughing, she sits up, blinking in the winter sunlight that streams through the large bay window that dominated the wall opposite the fireplace.

There's a flash of pale blonde hair at the set of double doors and a trample of feet on what sounds like stairs. "FLEUR!"

Gabrielle, evidently, is also home for the holiday.

Hermione gets to her feet and casts a cleaning charm on her dusty clothing and shakes as much of the ash off of her bag as she can before picking up the hearthrug and gingerly shaking it into the fireplace. She's setting it back down when Fleur appears in the doorway, Gabrielle, a good six inches taller than she was when Hermione last saw her in fourth year, is half a step behind her. Fleur's hair is gathered in a messy bun at the back of her head and she's got a pair of thick rimmed glasses perched on top of her head. They're for reading ancient runes, Hermione has a pair herself.

"Hermione," Fleur says, and gathers Hermione into a tight hug. She presses a kiss on Hermione's neck as she does so and Hermione feels more at peace than she has since she last saw Fleur in Hogsmeade a month ago. "I've missed you."

"You too," Hermione answers.

They pull apart, but their fingers are still tangled together. The ring on Fleur's finger feels warm to Hermione's touch.

"Hello Gabrielle," Hermione says. Her French is a little shaky, having really only practiced it with Fleur, but she wants to work at it over these next two weeks as much as she can. She isn't sure if this will impress Fleur's family, but she's only had one chance to make an impression at this point and Fleur wasn't conscious for most of it.

Gabrielle starts to speak in rapid French and Hermione quickly loses the thread of what she's saying.

"Gabu! Slower!" Fleur admonished. There's just a hint of a smile in her voice.

Hermione leans against her and watches as Gabrielle pauses, and then says in clear English, "I did not think she'd ever bring you here 'ermione. She and maman, well, they have been fighting."

"Fighting?" She asks, raising an eyebrow and looking at Fleur.

Fleur, for her part, looks sheepish. She tugs Hermione out of the sitting room. Gabrielle is hot on her heels. "Maman, ah – is still not happy with me – us – for what we've done."

"She wants Fleur to work here, or in Paris." Gabrielle chimes in. "She doesn't want Fleur involved with the war, and thinks you're involved."

She'd said as much in her letter to Hermione. Hermione bites her lip. She doesn't want to be a problem, and she hadn't realized that this fight was still ongoing between Fleur and her mother. Fleur hadn't mentioned it.

"Tais-toi, Gabu," Fleur hisses. She drops Hermione's hand and moves so she's in front of the pair of them. "She's exaggerating," Fleur explains. "Given that Gabrielle just got home yesterday, she's only witnessed the most recent conversations between maman and I."

Gabrielle glares. "You are fighting," she says flatly. "Don't lie."

"She doesn't want me in those vaults either," Fleur rubs her cheek and dugs her glasses from her forehead. "Strictly above-ground banking. The boring kind."

"Less risky though," Hermione teases. "Less… curses. And spiders. And damp."

Fleur leans in and kisses Hermione then, in front of her sister and in the middle of her parent's foyer. When she pulls away to Gabrielle protesting and gagging noises, Fleur is smiling softly. "Let's go to my room. My parents are both still working. They'll return later tonight. We are meant to have dinner." Hermione nods her agreement and Fleur jerks her chin at Gabrielle, "Tu as des devoirs."

"Mais-"

"Non, Gabu, a plus tard." Fleur is firm, and when Gabrielle pouts, Fleur adds, "You have exams in two months."

All the color seems to drain from Gabrielle's face and she's up the nearby staircase almost faster than Hermione thinks possible. "Is the age restriction on apparition lower in France?" she asks mildly.

Fleur grins. "No, but Gabrielle holds herself to very high standards as a second child. She's determined to beat my marks every year."

"Has she?"

"She's come close," Fleur answers with a conspiratorial wink. "Come with me."

They follow Gabrielle up the stairs, and Hermione catches herself wondering about what it's like to have siblings. Sure, she's grown up around the Weasleys, with all their competitiveness and forever feeling as though they will not measure up to the legacy Bill and Charlie started. The twins, at least, didn't seem to care that much, but Percy certainly did, and Ron, despite being the next-to-youngest, had his hang ups around Charms and Transfiguration. Hermione knows that they're because Bill is so good at them, same as Fleur.

Gabrielle though, at thirteen, has only Fleur to draw comparisons with, and only Fleur to differentiate herself from with it comes to her parents. "Does Beauxbatons have major exams every year? Like the OWLs."

Fleur nods. "There are technically five wizarding schools in France, though one could be in Switzerland, they're not very forthright as to where it is. The government thinks it wise to standardize the educational standards across the country to ensure that children do not become so specialized that they cannot branch out beyond their expertise." She leads Hermione down a hallway at the top of the stairs to a door at the very end that's half ajar. "This is the problem with the English system, I think."

"Quite," Hermione answers. She's seen the flaws with the system as well third year – she'd taken too many classes then and had nearly died of exhaustion.

Beyond the door is Fleur's messy childhood bedroom. There are two bookshelves crammed full of textbooks and novels that Hermione longs to go through against the far wall on either side of a desk underneath a window. Beyond, Hermione sees the yellow fields of flowers she remembers from when she was younger.

Against one of the walls, Fleur's bed is unmade. There's an armchair with clothes draped over it, Fleur's battered old leather overnight bag that Hermione's come so accustomed to seeing during their visits to Grimmauld Place and the Burrow these past few years is unzipped and resting beside it. Hermione slings her school bag from her shoulder and sets it down next to Fleur's bag.

"I did something," she says, bending and retrieving the beaded bag from where she's tucked it in between her potions and herbology textbooks. "And I feel like you should get part of the credit for it. Given how much of a help you were."

Holding the bag out to Fleur, Hermione feels a surge of something that she can only compare to pride. Fleur takes the bag and looks it over. "This is a masterwork, Hermione," Fleur says at length. She pulls her glasses out of her pocket and puts them on, fiddling with the lenses for a moment before pulling them down at looking at Hermione with wide eyes. "It is untraceable?"

"Completely," Hermione answers. "I used the longitudinal constant variance to account for the weakening of the charm over time. If you sub it over Omega instead of Lamda, you can negate some of the deterioration without sacrificing power."

Fleur's stepped forward then, one step, two, until she's right in front of Hermione and is kissing her soundly, deeply, with a love that makes Hermione's heart ache as she feels her own respond in kind. Fleur pulls her toward the bed, lowering her gently and kissing her passionately. Her hands slip between them and Fleur's got Hermione's jeans undone and her fingers against Hermione's clit almost before Hermione process the kiss.

"You," Fleur whispers, as she pulls away, biting at Hermione's lower lip. "Are the most brilliant witch I have ever known." She stays there, Hermione's hands clutching at her back, tracing slow circles until Hermione cries out, Fleur pulling her head back and pressing her lips to Hermione's pulse point as she comes.


Over the course of the afternoon, once Hermione recovers and rolls Fleur onto her back to have her as well, they talk. Fleur explains what she's doing for work. She was granted leave to work remotely for the day, allowing for her to make sure to be at home when Hermione arrived but also freeing her from any potential magical interference while she translated the runes and ran a series of diagnostic tests on whatever spells they might contain before they attempted to progress further into the tomb they'd found. Hermione, sitting curled up in the comfortable armchair that Fleur's using as a closet, does her arithmancy proofs for Slughorn's latest potions assignment and watches Fleur work.

There's a fluidity about how she moves in this space, papers spread out before her, typewriter jammed into the corner of her desk so as to properly transcribe her observations after she's written them out by hand. She floats from rune to run, casting for their meaning and pondering translations. Three times now, she's gone to the bookshelf to pull down books of runic poetry to compare language notes.

"These are fragments," she says, passing Hermione one book. One side of the page is runic, the other is translation. "Sometimes it is useful to look at the combinations of runes together in verse to understand how they may be arranged for curses." When Hermione boggles at her, Fleur grins cheekily at her. "That is, after all, how I got so good at them."

They settle into a comfortable silence of scratching quills and whispered translation for what feels like hours until there's a quiet knock on the door. Fleur's head whips around and Hermione looks up from the equation for object substation she's working on for her potion antidote alternatives paper to see a tall woman in formal work robes standing in the doorway.

"I've just gotten home," Fleur's mother says in French, her gaze fixed on Fleur alone. Her smile, as Hermione remembers it to have been, is kind, but her tone is all business. "Your grandmother is coming. See to it that you do not disappoint her."

Fleur nods. "Hermione arrived," she says, tilting her head in Hermione's direction. "Hermione I know you have met my mother already, but…"

"Apolline Delacour," she holds out a hand. It strikes Hermione that this is not, generally, how the French she knows seem to greet each other.

Hurriedly, Hermione sets her notes and Advanced Potions Making aside and gets to her feet. She takes Fleur's mother's hand and shakes it, smiling as best she can. "Hermione Granger," she says. "It's nice to meet you – again. I mean, er—"

She frankly isn't sure what to say.

Fleur's mother, who's cut her hair short in the time since their last meeting, brushes some of her fringe out of her eyes, and smiles wanly at Hermione. "It is nice to finally lay eyes on the one Fleur made a promise to over a year ago." She's looking at her daughter as she says the last bit.

Fleur, for her part, looks proper chastised.

"However uncertain I am of this union, you are welcome in my home," Apolline continues. "Phillipe – Fleur's father – is cooking tonight. And Fleur's grandmother is coming for dinner. You are both of age now, you will join us for apéritifs before the meal." She glances at her watch. "It is four now, I think your grandmother said five?"

"Yes, around then." Fleur bites her lip. Hermione doesn't think she's ever seen Fleur look so uncomfortable. She gestures to her work and her half-completed translation. "I have yet to finish, do you mind if I…"

"Hermione will come and keep me company then." She tilts her head to Hermione. "You are on holiday, non? Far more time to complete your work than my daughter."

Unsure of what to say, Hermione looks between Fleur and her mother before nodding. "I've done a great deal already; I can stop for the day."

Fleur's mother claps her hands together. "Excellent then. Come, Hermione."


"Relax girl, I'm not trying to intimidate you." Fleur's mother snaps as soon as they're downstairs. She leads Hermione back into the sitting room where Hermione arrived and crosses to the window with a purposeful stride. "Come, I'd like to catch the light if I can."

Hermione follows, unsure of what to do with her hands. Once she's situated in the dying afternoon sunlight, Apolline raises a hand, pausing. "May I?" she asks, gesturing at the necklace clearly visible at Hermione's neck.

Nodding, Hermione steps closer.

Apolline's fingers are warm and gentle as she lifts the necklace from where it sits, close to Hermione's heart and contemplates the blue stone. "You have done very well, with what you gave to her." She tilts the stone so that it catches the sunlight and makes a sound deep in her throat that sounds so much like a dove's coo that Hermione is unnerved. "Now I am finally able to see what she has given to you to warrant such a promise from one so young as yourself."

Her words find her then. "I thought you did not approve."

"It is not my place to approve or disapprove over matters of my daughter's heart, Hermione." Apolline gently sets the stone back down and politely steps back, out of Hermione's personal space. The air feels degrees warmer. "I am her mother, yes, but I am not the matriarch of this family. It is my duty to love and support my daughter, but I worry for her. For you, too. I am in government; I know what is happening in your country. I know what evil lurks at the corners of the now, biding its time before it strikes and all of Britain descends into war." She turns her head and stares out the window. Her arms are crossed and she's fiddling with the diamond on her wedding band, twisting the stone around and around in circles as she speaks.

"I wish it wasn't this way," Hermione says. "I wish there was a way where this…" she doesn't know what the acceptable word for the relationship she has with Fleur is, and hedges, "courtship, could continue in the proper way." She lowers her head and adds, "I'm sorry if I overstepped by returning the gesture."

"Goodness, child, no. You did no such thing. You were right to return the gesture. I do not know what might have happened to Fleur if you hadn't. There are parts of her nature – our nature – that are volatile as our blood is not pure. It can be hard to predict, but we are proud to a fault. It could have been seen as rejection, had you gone much longer without returning the gesture."

Hermione nods. Swallowing, because she knows she has to ask. "Has she told you about her magic? What it's doing right now?"

"Yes." Apolline's eyes are slate gray. She looks at Hermione hard before sighing. "I am worried yours will start to do the same."

Hermione thinks back to the fight she had with Pansy – to the burn that would not heal despite her best efforts. "It already has."

"Then, Mlle. Granger, you must promise me one thing."

"Anything," Hermione says quickly.

"You must never take that necklace off. It is a symbol of the bond, but it also grounds your magic until the bond is formalized."