Author's Note: Welcome to my first fanfiction ever. I do not tell you this to ask that you be gentle, but rather to let you know that this story was created on a very spur of the moment basis. There was very little forethought, and it was actually inspired by what was essentially a dare on the Harry/Fleur Discord server. Since that dare, I have taken this small, ill-planned oneshot, and used it as a launching point for an entire series. That said, I never would have gotten even this far if it were not for the support of many people over on the Harry/Fleur Discord server, the link to which will be at the end along with a fanfic recommendation. Thanks to DaveAthenai, Charlennette, and x102reddragon in particular for inspiring me and encouraging me to write these stories. If you enjoy the story please leave a comment telling me what you think worked and what didn't. Your feedback is crucial in helping me to get better as an author.

A Home By The Sea

Fleur Potter clenched her teeth. Outwardly there was no sign of her profound frustration, but inside she was fuming. She worked in the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France, in the Department of Experimental Magics and Artifacts. Normally, she quite loved her job. It was fulfilling, intellectually, and academically stimulating, and it paid very well. But regrettably, she was not the only person in her department. Most were likable enough to be sure, and one of the charms specialists, Aimée Beaucourt, had become a good friend. No, most of her coworkers were perfectly nice.

"Delacour, are you listening?"

But, Fleur continued to muse. There was one man that drove her to no end of lividity. Charles Bassett had been a scourge on her working existence ever since she came back to France to live with Harry after the fallout from the war drove them from England. He was insufferable, in every sense of the word. The man seemed to live for the sole purpose of depriving whatever room he was in of the oxygen other people needed to be able to speak long enough to tell him to leave. Unfortunately, he was also an accomplished master of arithmancy, with all the years of hard work that entailed. It truly was unfortunate that such a brilliant mind was wasted on such an asinine man.

"Yes, thank you, Aimée,"

She was walking away, and Charles had a folder in his hand. She must have delivered something to him while Fleur was busily daydreaming about stuffing Charles' head up the rear end of a pheasant.

"As I was saying Delacour, you really must come to me with these sorts of things. The project you are working on is incredibly valuable, and we wouldn't want to risk it going awry or being lost due to an accident because you were not willing to share your ideas before trying them."

Disregarding the bold-faced hypocrisy, the man worked on projects without telling anyone on a regular basis and had informed them of such by way of explosion more than once. Fleur was not working alone, she just wasn't working with Charles. Jean Claude Fournier was an accomplished potions master of thirty years, and more than qualified to assist her, if not the other way around. But to Charles, anyone that didn't immediately come running to him with their problems and projects, listening wide-eyed and adoringly as he explained in terms condescending to even a five-year-old about all the ways they were wrong and should do it differently could not be anything but incompetent. Charles didn't even know what Fleur was working on. He only heard that she hadn't involved him and that was enough to raise the alarm, even for a topic completely outside his field of expertise.

"So really Delacour, you know you can always come to m-"

"It is Mrs. Potter, actually," Fleur interjected, having finally had enough. "And I did not ask you, Charles, because I am investigating the possibility of enhancing potion effectiveness with the application of runic arrays, neither of which you have any expertise in." Left unsaid was that she would not ask him for assistance even if she were working in his field of expertise.

With that Fleur walked away, leaving Charles sputtering. As she passed Aimée's desk, her friend looked up and Fleur slowed to greet her.

"Heading out early, Mrs. Potter?" said Aimée, with forceful brightness.

"I am Ms. Beaucort, or at least I was trying to," Fleur responded with a strained smile, then with a subtle glance back, "And good luck."

Aimée grimaced, also taking a peek at the still sputtering Charles. "I know he's a connard, but did you have to get him so worked up? He'll be awful."

"He still refuses to call me by my married name," Fleur said stiffly.

Aimée frowned incredulously, "What's he playing at? It's not like he has a chance, even if you hadn't been married to him for eight years you'd be insane to trade Harry Potter for Him?"

"I don't know Aimée," Fleur said with a sigh, "I really don't know."

With that end to the exchange, Fleur kept walking and passed out the office doors. The clicking of her slight heels resounded off the dark wooden floor and echoed down the pale corridor. The hallway leading to the Department of Experimental Magics and Artifacts was largely abandoned, but as she approached the atrium the sound of people grew. As Fleur stepped out into the atrium, sunlight streaming in from the glass-domed roof, she joined a small throng of people heading for the apparition point. She waited her turn in the queue and in moments she was watching the bald head of a man from the Department of Games and Sports disappear from sight. Fleur took a step forward and, without breaking stride, twisted her heel and vanished into thin air.

The noise and chatter of the Ministry disappeared in an instant, and with a small pop, Fleur reappeared on the path up to their home. For a moment she stood there, tilted her head back, took in the evening sun, and basked in the scene. Their house wasn't visible from where she stood, the path winding forward around a grove of olive trees and reaching down to her feet. A small smile grew on Fleur's face as the faint sound of the sea just over the hill seemed to wash over her and wipe away the weight of her day. With that, Fleur began to walk forward. Slowly at first, but then more briskly as she grew more excited at the thought of seeing Harry, James, and little Isabelle.

A smile grew on her face as she rounded the olive grove and took in the sight of her home. Leading up to the house on either side of the worn path were trellises of vines weighed down with tomatoes, grapes, and all other manners of fruits and vegetables. Beyond those were garlic, herbs, and all manner of fragrant plants for use in cooking. Surrounding them all on the scant two acres of land she and Harry had purchased along the seaside cliff seven years ago were fruit trees and berry bushes that Harry had cultivated over the years. As Fleur reached the midpoint of the path she slowed and spent a moment taking in the home she had made. Simple whitewashed walls, painted with murals of grapevines and other plants, sunbaked clay tiles on the roof, wood beam framing, and wrought iron windows.

As Fleur continued toward the door, the memory of the day she and Harry had found this place floated across her mind. It had been nearly two years since the war had ended, a year since they had been married. It had just rained, the southern sun shining down on the area from the horizon as the emptied clouds moved northward overhead. Harry and Fleur had apparated onto the property with the real estate agent, Harry had been tired, seemingly disinterested, but as he stood there taking in the sun, the sky, the smell of rain, and the sound of the sea, something in his eyes seemed to come alive. He had stood straighter, leaned forward, and became present in a way that Fleur hadn't seen in months. After that one instant Fleur had known this was the place to build their home.

She strode up the steps onto the front porch and opened the door inside. As she stepped in the evening sunlight streamed down the center hallway from the door out to the rear terrace overhanging the cliffside and looking over the sea. She hung her light coat on the wrought iron stand by the door and sent Isabelle's stuffed unicorn flying from the floor and back to its place with a flick of her wand as she stepped over the place it had lain in the middle of the hallway. As she strode down the hall, the parlor, dining room, and study branching off another short hall to her right, the bedrooms and bathrooms branching off the same to her left, she paused and listened, hearing nothing. She turned right and walked toward the dining room and the adjoining stairs down to the cellar and kitchen. She strode into the dining room placing her work case down on the table, pausing only to pick up one of James' toys that had been resting hazardously in front of the steps to the cellar. As she straightened, Fleur heard a faint sound coming from the cellar, like a book being dropped. Fleur set off down the steps and ran her fingers gently along the plaster wall, tracing the twists and curves of a painted grapevine as she did so.

Fleur reached the bottom of the steps and paused, a smile coming over her face as she took in the scent of baking bread. She stepped through the open arch leading into the kitchen and beheld a beautiful sight. There was James settling back into place at the rough wooden table, intently focused on the coloring book full of dragons that one of the Weasley's had given him for his birthday the previous month. Next to him was little Isabelle, atop her high wooden stool, her face screwed up in a look of absolute focus and concentration as she mouthed the words to Green Eggs and Ham, the thin cardboard backed book resting on the table in front of her. Behind them both, standing by an old fashioned wood-fired stove, Harry was toiling away at some new dish he had been talking about trying for weeks.

Fleur felt her eyes soften as she leaned against the archway into the kitchen, waiting to be noticed. While she stood there she let her eyes wander around the room, taking in the sunlight streaming in from five low arched windows along the cliffside wall, standing open to let in the sea breeze, the sturdy, foot thick timber beams holding up the ceiling and the terrace overhead, the glass and wrought iron door on the other end of the long kitchen leading outside to the steps up to the front porch, and the path down the cliffside to the beach. Her eyes wandered over the dim cellar carved into the stone opposite the cliffside wall, the long wooden shelves with enough ingredients to make every dish imaginable, all manner of dried vegetable from their own sprawling gardens hanging overhead.

Just then Harry turned to glance at the clock over the stairway, his eyes sliding over her still form, having checked the time he began to turn away for a moment before he halted, eyes widening slightly behind slim frameless glasses, he turned back towards her with speed, a smile coming over his face as he called out her name.

"Fleur." The name alone was enough to cause her slight smile to broaden fully when coming from his lips, though even that paled in comparison to the full-on laugh of mirth that escaped her when, having spun around at the sound of Fleur's name, James slammed into her at top speed with a yell of, "Maman!" Fleur took the six-year-old into her arms and lifted him up, spinning him around once then depositing him back on the floor. James took her hand and immediately began pulling her toward the broad, rough-hewn wooden work table, babbling about his day in a mixture of English and French as he did so. Once they arrived there, James sat down and began showing her his coloring of the cartoonish Ukrainian Ironbelly.

"And Papa said that it'll move once it's done!", James said excitedly, waving the coloring book around so much in his eagerness that Fleur could hardly see it.

A loud whining huff drew Fleur's attention then, and she turned to see little Isabelle, Green Eggs and Ham forgotten, pouting at being left out. Fleur was there in a single stride and lifted the five-year-old off of her stool, her little head of messy blonde waves level with Fleur's own, and soon nestled in the crook of Fleur's neck, concealed by her own straight locks. Neither of her children had inherited her blue eyes, but she didn't mind in the slightest. She had thought she had loved Harry's eyes long before they were ever married, but nothing compared to seeing them shining brightly from her children's faces, she knew Harry felt the same. Just then a loud and petulant whine came from behind her,

"You're not looking." pouted James.

"Then you shall just have to show me twice," Fleur said neatly, sweeping back towards him with little Isabelle resting against her side and supported by her hip.

Fleur sat down in James' abandoned chair and listened to him going on and on about the things they had done that day.

"And then Papa took us to the pumpkin patch Hagrid helped us plant in spring, and we found one the size of a house!" James leaned back then holding his arms as wide as could, about three and a quarter feet, to show her just how big the house-sized pumpkin was.

"It was a perfectly normal pumpkin James," Harry said from behind her with patient fondness, and as she twisted round to look at him he continued, "And it's almost dinner time, take your sister and go get washed up. You can tell Mama all about it while we eat." With a quick and cheerful assent, more than likely incentivized by the prospect of food, James took little Isabelle's hand from where Fleur had stood her on the floor next to her and dragged her up the stairs to get washed up. As the pattering feet faded Harry walked around and sat down opposite Fleur, speaking all the while.

"Dinner tonight is bread with a tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella spread, bean soup, and tea crusted Rockfish with lemon butter sauce." Harry finished with a flourish as he sat down, a wide smile on his face.

Fleur scoffed, "Tea crusted? And here I thought I had managed to cure you of your British palette."

"Hey," responded Harry, "Don't knock it till you try it." Then, more gently, "how was your day Fleur?"

Fleur sank into her chair with a groan by way of answer, her head flopping backward to dangle facing the ceiling.

"That bad eh, what was it this time? Experiment failed? Experiment worked too well? Higher-ups lecture the department?" Harry paused, seemingly summoning forth apocalyptic visions of disaster, "Or did someone give Charles an excuse to talk about himself?"

Fleur snorted at the comparison, "The latter I am afraid." Then, raising her head to meet his eyes, "I cannot stand him. He's so condescending and arrogant, and he treats everyone like children."

"What, did he call you a, Leetle girl", Harry said with a mischievous grin.

A faint blush adorned her features as Fleur swatted at him, the smile nevertheless restored on her face. "Honestly Harry, will you never let that go?" Fleur asked with an embarrassed whine.

"Of course not," answered Harry, "not when it lets me tease you so easily."

Fleur's only response was to drop her head onto the table with a groan, smile firmly in place. Then, lifting her head a moment to rest it on her arms, Fleur looked up at Harry, her smile softening and his eyes growing warm. As she sat there, content merely to look up at Harry from where her head rested on the table, she cast her mind back to when they had come here, to this magical place that would be their home. Harry had been weary and hounded at every turn. Ironically it seemed almost as if he had had more peace during when the war still raged than after it was over. The ghosts and nightmares that plagued him at every turn had almost been expected, and she had helped him through them just as he had helped her through her own, but the people that seemed to haunt his every step had been less anticipated.

As if it was yesterday Fleur remembered walking out of their Diagon apartment with Harry at her side only to be accosted by a journalist leaping like a deranged grasshopper from where they had been loitering near the entrance to their building. They had scarcely had time to realize what was happening before he had started bombarding Harry with questions about some new import regulation Minister Shacklebolt was enacting that apparently had significant and weighty ramifications for many old families' businesses. Harry had practically reeled back in shock, never having even heard about the Office for the Regulation and Standardization of Cauldron Thickness, and Fleur had politely, and firmly, asked the reporter to leave them be. Finally noticing her the man had turned with an initial look of annoyed disdain before going slack-jawed at the sight of her. Fleur and Harry had then taken the opportunity to escape while he was distracted, and had apparated to their scheduled lunch with Hermione and Ron at a muggle cafe near King's Cross.

In telling them about what had happened it had been Ron that had come with the idea to leave the country, something Fleur really should have thought of considering she was a French citizen living in Britain. Hermione, who had been busily examining Harry's tired face with concern up until that point, had immediately praised the idea and began listing off what seemed like a full encyclopedia of wizarding communities in Europe where they could stay, seemingly categorized according to their population, public works, and notable cultural events. Harry had interrupted her then with a single word, "France, just, somewhere in France."

"Fleur?" Harry's questioning voice brought her out of her reverie and she refocused her vision on him.

Seeing the concerned look on his face sparked a moment of emotion in her chest so warm it seemed to burn her. The smile that crossed her face then set Harry at ease and they spent a moment more, content to simply be in each other's company before she spoke again.

"I love you, Harry," Fleur spoke tenderly and unexpectedly.

"I love me too," replied Harry seriously.

With a snort Fleur sat back up again and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms as she looked imperiously over at Harry who had stood up to continue the final preparations for dinner, or at least those things that couldn't be automated by magic.

"You are supposed to say-" Started Fleur before Harry interrupted her by suddenly swooping forward and silenced her with a kiss.

"I love you too," Harry whispered lightly against her lips, resting his forehead against hers, "but it's dinner time." As he said this he pulled back and revealed the loaf of fresh bread in his hands, a very serious look on his face, "So no more kissing until after we eat." Fleur huffed in amusement as Harry backed up and began making his way to the stairs with the rest of the dinner floating behind him, passing by the wooden rack set into the wall and filled with wine bottles of every vintage imaginable. Fleur stood and, with a final glance around the warmly sunlit kitchen, followed.

As Fleur emerged from the kitchen stairs she saw Harry busily serving the dishes of fish and bowls of soup, hunks of bread, and dishes of spread already present on each plate. Taking a glance to check the location of her work case, it was leaning against the arched entryway, she took her seat by Harry's and took a moment to look at the tablecloth as Harry made his way round to his chair. It was a pale, warm green, with golden vines and flowers embroidered along with it. As Harry sat down and Fleur felt a small hand tug on her sleeve, James launching right back into his story about the mountain-sized pumpkin the moment she looked around, Fleur couldn't help but think to herself how incredibly grateful she was to be here, in their home by the sea.

AN: Thank you for reading. If you liked the story then please leave a comment telling me what you think worked and what didn't. Your feedback is crucial to helping me improve as an author and is always appreciated.

Harry/Fleur Discord Server: /6EdQrSUjTB

Fanfic Recommendation: The Purpose of Wings by Charlennette, s/13745570/1/The-Purpose-of-Wings