For Sophie, for Secret Santa. Happy birthday as well, hope you have a lovely day!
Charlie/Fleur, soothing a nightmare
Note: Since I am not good at imitating accents in writing, Fleur's words won't use the style of French dialogue that Rowling uses.
Translations:
Bien fait = Well done
Sois prudent = Be careful
Warning for PTSD, character death, and sexual content (nothing too explicit, but there are some...moments, so rated M just to be safe).
AU where Bill dies.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Fleur's heart pulses with the heat of battle, and her enemies are nothing more than chess pieces to be knocked over. But she aims to subdue, not kill — she is not a murderer. "Accio!" The Death Eater's wand shoots out of his frozen fist and she catches it, deftly snapping it in half.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Fleur throws herself to one side, and the curse hits something to her left. Leaping to her feet, she responds with a "Stupefy!" and another cloaked one falls. Another pawn felled.
Further to her left, her husband grins wolfishly at her. His scarlet scars are stark against his pale skin, but he is every bit the Weasley man she married. Like his brothers. Like his maman and papa.
"Bien fait, mon amour," he shouts over the cries of battle and Fleur's roaring blood. She smiles; Bill had taken it upon himself to learn French after meeting her, knowing that she preferred her native tongue. No Englishman had ever done that for her before.
Fleur truly had been fortunate in finding her soulmate.
"Sois prudent, chérie —"
So occupied with gazing at her, Bill doesn't hear the whistle of the spell, nor does he see the jet of green light hurtling at his back until it connects with his spine.
A dreadful, heart-wrenching scream tears out of Fleur's throat as Bill's expression freezes in place, as his body folds beneath him, and crumples to the ground with a sickening thump that seemed to echo forever.
Fleur doesn't see anything, hears anything as the wind rushes past her face. For a moment, the battle halts around her and she is standing in the center of a tempest, or flailing in an ocean as it threatens to push her under because Bill is — is —
Fleur breaks the stillness as she lunges forward and the chaos resumes. She shoves through a pair of Death Eaters with brute force, Stuns anyway who dares stand in her way because she is the storm, wild, uncontrollable, and unstoppable.
The tsunami surges forward, and then it retreats, just as Fleur's rage behaves. With the retreat comes the overwhelming grief, agony, and regret as she lays over her husband's cold body and sobs into his soot-stained jacket. Bill's eyes are blank and unseeing, but Fleur vividly recalls the last expression painted on his face — it's some consolation that he had died while remembering that he loved her.
Loved.
The other Weasleys crowd around her, first Arthur and Molly, who have given and lost too much to this war, and then Harry and Ron and Hermione, and then the rest of the Weasleys, after mourning Fred, surround Fleur just outside her broken bubble.
It is the smallest Weasley who penetrates the bubble first; she has been a brave, beautiful girl, and so much like Bill. Ginny kneels next to her, and at that moment, they are not begrudging, jealous friends — they are family, sisters, who both have lost someone important to them. Yet Ginny, who has known Bill all her life, is the one comforting Fleur.
Ginny doesn't say much — she just holds Fleur, and the two women shake like pillars on the verge of toppling, and yet Ginny is still supporting her.
Fleur hates using the Weasleys as a crutch after the war after they'd lost so much and needed their own space to heal, and she's afraid that now that Bill is dead, she'd lost her ties to that family.
Instead, they welcome Fleur with open arms and invite her to spend time at the Burrow because she cannot return to Shell Cottage just yet.
One morning, there's a letter.
"Charlie's coming home!" Ginny cries gleefully, restored to exuberance in a matter of moments, and suddenly the Burrow erupts into noise. Harry and Ron come thundering down the stairs, with Percy not far behind, and the rest who were crowded in the kitchen rejoicing for the first bit of good news.
Fleur's not sure how this affects her, but she joins in anyway — however halfheartedly — and George pulls her up out of her seat and twirls her around, and soon Fleur is laughing too.
It feels...good.
The second eldest Weasley child arrives just before the solstice. Fleur can't help but compare him to Bill. While Bill was all thin and tall and sleek, Charlie is rough and stocky and tanned from the sunlight. But his smile is exactly like Bill's, and his eyes sparkle in a way that reminds of her of another time, of moonlit walks on the beach and the sea breeze ruffling her hair.
The memory makes her heart throb.
He'd been the best man at her wedding, and he'd been present at the battle, but he'd become one of those nameless faces that Fleur never thought of, until she'd met him at her wedding, and even then he had not stood out to her — just another Weasley.
But now there is a new set to his shoulders like he's imagining carrying the burden of his family, of being the new eldest sibling, and ready to shoulder his new duties as an heir.
The moment Charlie Weasley walks into the house, he's mobbed. Fleur stands back; she's hardly a member of this family, only through marriage. Harry and Hermione stand with her in silent solidarity as the outsiders, although they are more Weasley than she is. Fleur wordlessly voices her gratitude with swift nod to each.
Once a path clears for Charlie, his eyes settle on her. His eyes don't light up with interest, like any man's would, but he looks at her with gentleness, just like Bill had.
"Fleur," he says, and there's a note in his voice that forces Fleur to swallow a lump in her throat. "How are you?"
It takes her a moment to reply. "I'm fine," she says hoarsely, wincing at the scratchiness. Once, her voice had been silky and attractive.
He's not looking at her with sympathy or pity. "I'm glad to hear that," he says, and then Molly breaks the awkward silence by bursting into tears.
Fleur retreats upstairs.
Charlie finds her later curled up in her bed, a blue blanket wrapped around her body, staring listlessly at the peeling, chipped wall. "I'd wondered where you'd disappeared," he half-joked, and when Fleur fails to respond, he tries a different approach.
"Whenever you feel like talking," he says solemnly, seriously, "I'll be here."
Fleur feels like she's being rude, but she doesn't care (much) and after a while, she hears the door close behind him and the sound of his footsteps drawing away.
Fleur finds the courage to return to Shell Cottage in the summer.
Everything is how she left it before departing for Hogwarts, hand in hand with Bill. The room she'd shared with Bill is untouched. Her fingers skate over the dusty ornate mirror, the jewelry box lined with seashells from the beach, and her eyes well up with tears.
Everything hurts to look at. Even the walls — the walls, which they'd so painstakingly painted a light, eggshell blue, and the mixed Hogwarts and Beauxbatons decorations hanging on them. Her heart aches as she runs her fingers over the cream-colored sheets and the satin pillowcases.
They had meant to build a life here, but how could they build a life for two when only one remained?
The nightmares start to break her mind. She'd gone back to the Burrow because she couldn't stand the silence. The Burrow was...teeming with life, and Fleur found that she much preferred the noise to the silence. There was never a quiet day when the Weasleys were there.
Only at night is there silence, and it is shattered by Fleur's screams.
"Fleur?!" Charlie is the first to burst into the bedroom, in which she sleeps alone, now that there are fewer Weasleys. The rest of them come pouring in the room, bleary-eyed yet alert. Charlie and Arthur have their wands out.
"Non, I'm fine," she tells them, though she is clearly not fine; her face is moist with sweat and tears trickle down her cheeks. Bill's body flashes before her eyes and she was too late. His face, forever carved in stone.
"You're not," Ron points out astutely, and Hermione elbows him.
Molly approaches her, kneeling next to her and placing a hand on her forehead. "You're burning up, dear," she says gently, her face kind. At that moment, she doesn't seem like the woman who'd killed a dangerous Death Eater to defend her true daughter. At that moment, Fleur is her daughter.
Fleur just stares mutely at her lap, humbled and feeling more helpless than she has in her entire life.
"Would it be wise to let her sleep alone?" Molly asks one morning at breakfast while Fleur is still reeling from the throes of another nightmare. Smoky black vines are snaking along and around her heart, holding it in a vice. She's almost given up on fighting.
All of the brothers exchange awkward looks — almost all of them are involved with other girls, and it would be uncomfortable — when Hermione opens her mouth. "I can sleep with her," she offers kindly, looking at Fleur with something like pity.
Ron looks surprised and disconcerted. Molly looks all set to agree when Fleur interrupts her. "With all due respect, Madame Weasley and Hermione," she says, her voice scratchy, "I would prefer it if I remained alone. My nightmares can be rather…intense. I don't want anyone to be hurt if I were to...lash out."
"I assure you, I can defend myself," Hermione says with an edge to her tone. "If you...lash out...I won't be hurt."
Fleur looks at Ron, who has been quiet so far, but is Fleur's only chance at discouraging Hermione. "I don't know, Hermione," he says slowly. "You're still dealing with your own nightmares. We all are. Everyone sitting at this table is dealing with some kind of...trauma." The bluntness of his words shocks those sitting around Fleur, but Fleur thinks that that was an accurate way of putting it.
"He's right," she agrees. "I do not wish to inconvenience anyone."
"You're not inconveniencing anyone, dear," Molly says absently, visibly mulling over Ron's words. Her fingers tighten around her butter knife. "But...but Ron isn't wrong. She's not the only one of us who's been a little…out of sorts."
Fleur hates the tiptoeing around. She hates how cautious everyone is, how they're being cautious around an obvious, unmistakable truth.
"I'm not," pipes up another voice. All heads swivel towards Charlie. "I wasn't involved in this war." A guilty expression crosses his face briefly before it hardens again. "I can help you all."
This is him shouldering an older sibling duty, Fleur realizes, and few others seem to realize it too. Arthur gives him a nod. Molly's eyes glisten with emotion.
"You-Know-Who affected all of you, but he couldn't reach me, or perhaps he forgot about me. Whatever the case, he doesn't give me nightmares." His eyes rest on Fleur. "I'll sleep with you," he offers.
Someone snickers at the connotation, but Charlie keeps his brown eyes firmly fixed on Fleur. Fleur finds that she cannot look away. Before she can answer, however, Molly steals the words out of her mouth and twists them slightly. "That's a good idea," she says, and then glances at Fleur awkwardly. "I mean, if Fleur agrees —"
"I agree," Fleur interjects hastily. "It is not a problem."
"It's settled then." Molly takes over the conversation entirely. "Charlie will share a room with Fleur, and everyone else will remain where they are."
"Wait, Mum, are you sure that Charlie should be with Fleur? A boy and a girl?" Ron's eyes flick meaningfully to Charlie.
(Ron and Hermione share a room. Harry and Ginny share a room. Audrey sometimes sleeps in Percy's room. Fleur doesn't see his point.)
"Don't be childish, Ronald," Hermione snaps. "They're both grown adults. Bill just…" She trailed off tactfully. "Fleur's not that sort of girl, and Charlie's not that sort of bloke." Fleur flashes her a look of gratitude.
"R-Right," Ron says, eyes not meeting his brother's or Fleur's now. "Sorry."
"B-Bill," she sobs. This time, they're on the beach and she's ankle-deep in red sand, stained by his blood. He's convulsing, his mouth opens in a soundless wail, and his hands are scrabbling at unseen wounds.
Fleur tries to move through the sand, but it holds her fast, trapping her. "Bill!" she wails, falling to her knees because that's all she can do. Play the heartbroken wife.
Useless.
Since when had her personal experiences bled into her sleep? Since when did dreams viciously and cruelly mold her dreams into a different version of events? She didn't remember Bill bleeding. Bill had fallen soundlessly, yet the hands of nightmares were ruthless and twisted her memories into something else entirely. It never ceased to be paralyzing.
The hands of Charlie Weasley were gentler, softer, though his hands were callused. They temporarily stripped her of a cage of memories. His mattress started at the opposite end, but then with each passing night, it edged closer, until he was so near she could hold his hand. And she did. It felt good. Not right, but good. Her hand dangled over the edge of the bed, and he always took it, and she fell asleep like that. It presented her some inexplicable comfort. Something solid to grasp onto.
One night, after a particularly terrifying nightmare, Charlie brushed the tears away with his rough thumbs and pulled her onto the mattress. She tucked her head into his shoulder and wept. He held her shaking body like they were lovers, and it didn't bother Fleur one bit. He was holding her together.
During the daytime, his eyes seldom left hers, and when he entered a room, he sought her. It wasn't just him, though. Fleur found herself craving his presence, and even though she tried to immerse herself in the life of the Burrow, her thoughts kept wandering to him. Where he was. What he was doing.
It felt wrong, but it also felt good.
She ran to Bill's body — except it wasn't Bill.
It was Charlie.
The moment Bill's face changed to Charlie's, she knows that she doesn't love Bill anymore. Or she still does, but it's melting quickly like frost in spring.
It's hard to love a man who's dead, and a man — a man who is stitching her back together, gluing her broken fragments back together with tender, loving hands — is much easier to love.
"Charlie," she whispers, pulling away from his chest and meeting his eyes uncertainly. "Thank you."
In the darkness, his eyes blaze, and Fleur's body fills with warmth.
Both of them become a little...curious.
Charlie runs his hands up and down her arms, Fleur's hands guide him closer, and she presses her chest to his naked one. (He sleeps shirtless.) His hands pause just above her rear and she pushes her hips into his. Both of them elicit a sharp gasp.
Fleur moves, her fingers crawling up to his hair, and that's where they both stop. Fleur's head is spinning, she hadn't let anyone touch her like this since — since —
She hears Charlie's breath hitch. She feels something hard against her thigh. These tentative explorations under the cover of darkness — these feel dangerous, and yet Fleur feels drunk and almost giddy. Mindless. Heady.
But Charlie pulls away first, turns himself around, and something sinks in Fleur's body. Disappointment, almost immediately overrun by guilt. A wedding band, a promise still weighs down her finger.
She can't do this.
Following that night, Charlie's mattress moves itself to the other side of the room again, and Fleur can guess why. There is an unspoken tension between them — one that pulses in Fleur's chest, makes her feel like she can't breathe, and a spark that stems from the tension and travels down to her stomach, between her thighs.
It feels like she's cheating on her husband, but her husband is dead, but Fleur isn't that sort of girl. She'd buried her husband barely a month ago. Every time she looks at Charlie, she can see the fleeting guilt and agony on his face. He's thinking about Bill too, about how wrong this is.
Something breaks between them. Between Fleur and Charlie, and between Fleur, Charlie, and the ghost of Bill.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Fleur wakes up screaming again. She's sick of these nightmares, she can't have one night of sleep without being tormented by death. The others have let go of their demons by now, yet she's caught up in the web of the past. She's so weak, so useless, and so fragile.
Why is she so weak?
Charlie is awake, she can hear him shifting around as though he is going to get up, but he doesn't. Fleur waits for him to come to her, but he doesn't get up.
So she goes to him.
"Charlie," she asks in a bare whisper, "did I wake you?" Yes, I did.
"Yes," he says curtly, his back to her. He wants to touch her, she can tell by the way his body trembles. She kneels next to him. Her hand — her wedding band glinting in the moonlight streaming in through the single window — hovers over his bare arm.
With the gentlest of touches, she traces the line of a red scar. It reminds her of Bill, but all thoughts of Bill flee her mind when she hears a slow, tortured intake of breath.
"Why didn't you come?" she inquiries softly.
He has no answer for her, and Fleur replaces her finger with her lips, kissing her way up his arm. Charlie audibly gulps. She reaches his shoulder, and when she receives no sign to halt, she continues her way up. Her lips follow the line of his shoulder, his collarbone, and when she starts her ascent up his neck, Charlie's hand stops her.
"Fleur, no," he says, his palm flat on her forehead. They're in an odd position — Fleur's lips attached to his jaw, his hand gently pushing her back. "This is wrong, and you know it."
She does know. Fleur moves away, holds her hand up (the hand with the wedding ring), and confidently slides it off her finger. Charlie's eyes track the movement but she can't see his expression in the dark. If she had to wager…
"Holy Hungarian Horntail."
...he'd be in awe.
"Are...are you sure?" he whispers, but even as he's asking the questions, he's rolling over in bed and tugging her into his arms. "Bill...us…"
"He would want me to move on." She's numb to every feeling, only aware of her heart roaring in her chest, not unlike the thrill of battle. "He...he told me so."
"I want you to make me a promise, and I'll make you one in return. If something happens to me —"
"Nothing is going to happen to you, mon amour, we will survive."
"But we might not." He meets her eyes, cupping her cheeks, and the breeze jostles his hair. "I don't want you to linger over me. I want you to move on from me if you feel like it is the right decision, if you find someone else to love."
Those words echo over the space of a few months, and those are the words that shred the last of Charlie's resolve. She doesn't need to tell him about the conversation, because he believes her.
Charlie's lips sear into her skin, his hands tear away her clothes like they're made of paper, and he's not gentle at all — but they are both tempests waiting to be unleashed, and when they collide, they're a hurricane.
And when his hand slips between her legs, Fleur sinks into him and swears she sees stars.
He thrusts into her, and she rides the dizzying waves farther away from the shore.
"Je t'aime," she gasps as she ascends into the highest realm of pleasure possible.
She almost misses his reply, echoed in English.
"What drew you to me?" he asks, his fingers combing through her hair. They have their clothes on again, but Fleur can't find it in herself to extricate herself from him. Looking at his face, he looks so much like Bill, but his scars are different — they aren't born from human nature, and they're easy to forget.
"I'm not him," he says. "I'm not handsome, I'm not as...charming, or —"
Fleur silences him with a kiss. Charlie is quick to arch into her, and they almost lose control before Fleur remembers where they are. She peels herself off of him, rolling to one side and sitting up.
"You are not him," she says, her voice clearer than it has been for a long time, "but you are you and that is enough for me."
Fleur doesn't feel ready to tell anyone yet about their relationship, so their trysts continue in darkness. They ride the waves all night, choppy or smooth, needy or tender, and Fleur returns to her bed in the morning feeling like she has been set ablaze. Bill never made her feel like that.
During the day, it's all lingering touches and longing looks, and she seeks comfort in secret embraces few and far between. Each touch is scalding and leaves a burning trail down her throat; she's sure that there's a heat imprint on her lips. His name is always on her tongue and she has to bite her cheek to withhold it.
At night, she's a little more than putty in his arms.
They're running out of time. At some point, someone's going to find out. A couple of the observant ones are already suspicious.
"I think Hermione knows," Fleur breathes into Charlie's ear. She's on her side, facing him, and both of them are unclothed and panting. Charlie is rearing for another round, his hand on her stomach and sliding down, but it stops just above her navel.
"What?" His voice is husky, and Fleur feels shivers travel down her spine.
"Hermione," she whispers, "knows about this. Us." She can't think with Charlie's close proximity to her, so she scoots off the mattress and sits on the floor, her figure bathed in moonlight. Charlie's breath catches and Fleur knows he's looking at her hair, silvery-blonde in the light, and she clears her throat softly.
"What do we do?" she asks.
"Nothing," he replies, snapping to attention. "Hermione won't rat us out."
"Are you sure?" That girl is...she's very responsible.
"No, she won't," Charlie reassures her. "If she's as intuitive as everyone says, she'll realize how happy we make each other."
Happy. Fleur hadn't put a word to how she feels around Charlie, but she supposes it could be labeled as happy. He makes her feel happy — not just sexually, but her heart feels light and unburdened around him.
Bill...she'd only been married to him for less than a year, and she'd not connected with him as quickly as Charlie — hell, she'd told him I love you only a handful of times. Charlie had coaxed it out of her many more times, and she'd meant it wholly, fully, and with her love bleeding into each and every confession. And while Charlie looks at her with awe, like she's a goddess, his words, his actions, the look in his eyes every time he even glances in her direction, expresses that he feels so much more than lust.
"I love you," Charlie says reverently, and she believes him.
Hermione does find out first, and she looks at Fleur first like she's scandalized, but as she watches Fleur touch his arm, or how easily Charlie loops an arm around her waist, and how they look at each other, it doesn't take her long to be persuaded. If anything else, she's astonished at how easy they make it look.
"Ron is a good bloke," says Hermione wistfully, "but he's got all the tact of a lumbering elephant and the emotional range of a teaspoon. You're a lucky girl, Fleur."
Yes, lucky indeed.
"We're seeing each other."
Molly is the last person they tell, right after Arthur, and for this reason — Molly looks upset, her hands trembling.
"What about — him?"
Fleur flinches and Charlie squeezes her hand. "Bill's okay with it, Mum," he says quickly. "He — he gave her his blessing before he...passed on."
"Charlie, are you sure —"
"With all due respect, Mrs. Weasley," says Fleur loudly, having recovered her composure, "I love your son, and he loves me too. He has been a great source of comfort for me since the death of my husband, and time has helped us become closer. I cannot...I cannot live my life without him."
As soon as the words leave her lips, Molly's eyes well up. "Fleur," she says tremulously, "I had my doubts about — about your character once, but what I'm seeing — you truly are capable of loving my sons, as flawed as they are."
Fleur doesn't know whether it's meant to be a compliment or an insult, but she chooses the former as Molly reaches for her. The Weasley matriarch's hands are callused like her son's and fit into Fleur's, and for a moment, they're mother and daughter — just like the time when Fleur had had her first nightmare.
Fleur has a mother of her own, but she thinks she wouldn't mind having another.
The nightmares stop, but Fleur and Charlie don't. Fleur can't believe how quickly everything can change — one moment, she was mourning her husband's death, and now she's in love with another man. It doesn't matter to her that those men are brothers — she knows, but it hardly bothers her because she loves them both.
The absence of the nightmares means that she can spend an uninterrupted night with the man she loves. She doesn't wake up with a scream caught in her throat and her forehead matted with sweat. She feels pretty again, but she doesn't care.
Because Charlie doesn't care either. He loves her.
4389 words
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