We find ourselves some way off of the Cote d'Azur, at a distance just beyond where a car trip becomes tediously long for your average European and, accordingly, the number of holiday homes and associated infrastructure drops to nothing. The air is empty of the smells and sounds of humanity and a single, lone road wraps its way around one mountainside like a terrace, with a view out onto kilometers of scraggly green foliage.
Further up the mountain, connected to the road by a path few would be able to find, sprawls a rather peculiar house.
Let us not lose ourselves in details, for you and I both know why it must be that this house is peculiar. First and foremost are two of its inhabitants: One Harry James Potter, and one Fleur Delacour. This brings with it all manner of strange things that wizards and witches like themselves might have in, or as, a home, and that is without going into details of these two examples in particular.
The third member of their household is Claire Potter. She is four and three quarters, a number that always brings a secretive smile to Harry's face when Claire insists that the last part not be left out, and in this the house and its going ons are very much like those of any other young couple.
Chaos, in a word.
Add to that Claire's not-so-budding-any-more magical powers, which she had quickly learned to manipulate just like she did every other person but her parents.
Havoc.
Tactical havoc, Harry sometimes suspected. "You are always so suspicious," Fleur lilted when he voiced the thought, "sometimes it can maybe be chance, no? Look at her," she pointed after their child who chose that moment to run past them with a high pitched squeal of joy, "she is so innocent!"
"She's playing catch with a pack of garden gnomes."
"Yes, she will play happily even with those angry creatures."
"What did she do to get them to chase her?" Harry craned his neck to get a better glimpse as Claire sprinted past again. "I think I saw her holding a bottle of wine."
Fleur snapped around to face him in one of those quick, oddly graceful movements of her kind. "What? No," she turned back to see for herself, "oh, oh no! That's the Chartreuse, it's the last bottle. Claire!"
The garden gnome squad - squat, angry, and in countenance much like freshly unearthed potatoes - were joined by Harry's beautiful wife, who resorted to her native French in her panic, shouting after Claire to stop running and hand her the precious bottle.
For all Claire's cheerful energy, it was ever just that, and Harry didn't bother suppressing the flash of pride he felt when their daughter listened and obediently stopped, holding out the bottle for Fleur with a decent measure of contrition but never a hint of fear.
Not nearly so well behaved the garden gnomes, who had not stopped running, seized the chance - or bottle, as it were. The amorphous blob of misanthropes cackled and giggled as it held the prize high, taunting Fleur with their success and an array of gnome-sized crude gestures.
His wife's shout turned enraged, and her skin rippled and prickled. Harry thought the air might have smelled of fire, for all he knew that couldn't be the case. At least, not yet. Sensing disaster, he palmed his wand and in the same movement summoned the bottle.
A few of the gnomes clung on, desperately, unwilling to let go of the delicious nectar so nearly in their grasp. The bottle's path to Harry's hand described a sharp parabola, casually flicking the lumpy limpets high, high into the sky and away over the treeline. Harry found himself smiling again, as he often did these past few years, this time at the familiar sight.
"Is the bottle alright?" Fleur called.
"Yes, it's fine," he called back. Then, loudly so that the words would cross the distance, grumbled "It's always 'is the bottle alright.' Never 'is Harry alright' or 'thank you.' Why one might almost think you're an alcoholic."
"I can't be," Fleur sniffed, and somehow did so loudly enough for the sound to cross the distance while still seeming dignified. "I am French. And you," she sighed, turning to Claire.
"I'm sorry, Maman, I didn't expect the gnomes to continue the game," Claire said and looked down to her feet in shame.
"None of that, sweet," Fleur reassured her, "they are simply very rude. But next time, perhaps find a cheaper alcohol to lure them with."
"You don't have any cheap alcohol," Claire said with exasperation at her Mother's silliness.
"You are a very skilled flatterer," Fleur laughed, hugging claire and pressing a kiss onto her brow. "I suppose we will have to buy some, but only for bribing the gnomes."
Meanwhile, Harry was distracted from his family's budding plan to become bootleggers for a pack of gnomes by the sight of said pack advancing threateningly on him. He calmly held the beady black eyes of the lead gnome, but kept his wand ready. The man-who-lived hadn't been bested so far, and he wasn't about to let a pack of upstart garden decoration break his streak.
Perhaps deserving of more credit than he gave them, the gnomes showed more sense than many a wizard did, and fled.
o-o-o-o-o
"I could have done that," Fleur murmured that night. Her voice, smoky and silky and deep in a way that could only partially be attributed to tiredness, lost itself in the dark woodwork ceiling of their bedroom, not making it far from the lone light of the candle at her bedside.
Scented, never shortening, with wards against insects and other pests as well as ones to keep out both cold and heat, Fleur had made the candle herself shortly after they'd moved in. It could have been an incredibly frivolous show of skill, binding so much magic into something so small and made of wax besides. Harry knew Fleur had chosen a candle because she liked fire.
"Done what?" Harry asked sleepily, head muddled with a potent mix of exhaustion, a stomach full of dinner, and the warmth of his wife at his side.
"Taken the wine back from those..." here Fleur growled a rather amusing curse in French, "gnomes."
"Oh?" Harry asked, laughing gently "but you looked so good running after them."
"I always look good."
"Very, very good," Harry agreed in French, letting his voice sink to something warmer than teasing. Fleur stilled in response, then twisted, and suddenly she was stretched out over him, arms bracketing his shoulders and silver hair curtaining off the edges of his vision and framing her face right above his.
"That," Fleur said, as if tasting the word on her tongue, her accent growing heavy, "is a very dangerous thing to say to me in bed."
"I know," Harry continued in French, not missing how her eyes hooded in reaction, "but I do so love flirting with danger." But Fleur's eyes narrowed at his growing grin, and then widened with realization.
"You are trying to distract me," she accused, and sharpened at his still growing grin. "It will not work."
They stared at each other for a moment, and as with every other time, Harry felt himself fall in love with her all over again. His expression was mirrored secretly on Fleur's face, both hidden as they were from the sight of the world by her hair.
"So carelessly summoning it, what if you had missed it and the bottle had broken?" She smiled. "I would not have been happy with you then."
"I wouldn't have," Harry stated.
"Oh?" Fleur echoed his earlier laugh, "and what makes you so sure?"
One of Harry's hands reached up to glide across her side, over the soft bump of her hip and upwards, upwards and under her loose shirt. "I'm a seeker, I have very quick hands."
Fleur smirked, and drew one leg up slowly, drawing the front of her ankle along the inside of his leg. "And why do you believe," she drew up her other leg so that she was kneeled in a cross above his thighs, "I should take your word for that?"
"If you don't believe me, I guess I'll just have to prove it," Harry said, still speaking French.
Fleur leaned in. "Did I not just warn you about saying such dangerous things, Harry?" Her voice tickled as it slid into his ear, warm and wet and underlaid with the sounds of her lips parting, her tongue rubbing against teeth.
"That was a warning? It sounded a lot like an invitation to me," Harry spoke into her hair. Fleur licked her lips, which he knew both from the sound and because she was so close that the tip of her tongue brushed across the shell of his ear. Her arms bent, and threaded under him so as to cradle his head.
"For such a recluse, you accepted rather quickly."
"Have you seen the host? I don't know if I already mentioned it, but she's gorgeous."
"Yes, she is," Fleur agreed, the haughty tone she attempted blunted by its shivering, barely-controlled edge, "and she does so love it when you come." And with those last coherent words, Fleur pressed herself against him.
o-o-o-o-o
A chime sounded. Ethereal, light, its echo joined the more physical sounds that had filled the air of their bedroom, and silenced them. Like a bucket of water, or a suddenly opening door. Harry and Fleur quickly pulled disentangled from each other, with a speed born from regrettable experience.
Quickly, quickly, Harry reached for his wand and spun it in a quick circle. Pyjamas and bedsheets jerked alive and crawled their way back into place.
"Too much enthusiasm, cherie," Fleur winced as she was assaulted by her clothing. Her wand was moving hurriedly, but steadily, through the air and over the bedsheets.
Just in time. A door slammed, small feet pattered across wooden floorboards, and then the air gently whispered a moments' warning before a small body landed knees first on Harry's stomach and crawled its way between the parents.
"Maman, dad! There's something shaking the house!" Claire shouted.
"There is?" Harry gasped.
Fleur was already cradling their daughter, her arms forming a gentle net. Harry took a moment to ponder his life choices and the curling pain in his gut. Once assured that none of his organs had ruptured, he shifted the blanket to cover Claire, before adding his own arms to the weft.
"Shh," Fleur was cooing, whispering reassurances in French. That it was alright, that she was safe, that she was the best, most beautiful, the bravest.
"What happened, what's wrong?" He asked gently, to no response. "It's alright, you're safe," he added his voice to Fleur's, and eventually tried asking again.
"The whole house was shaking," Claire whispered, "and the couloir was dark."
"Did we forget to turn on the light?" Fleur asked. Claire nodded miserably into her shirt.
"I'm so sorry, sweet. You were very brave to come here and warn us."
Claire tightened her clutch on the shirt. "Are we going to be attacked?"
Fleur and Harry shared a look over Claire's head. 'This is your responsibility,' it said to him, in a way that spoke of sympathy and not of blame. 'This is your legacy, the legacy of your war,' it said, and it held all the pain, all the horror of that word carried, but held it away from him. Harry moved his chin down to rest against the form between them. The one person who stood, more than any other thing could, in defiance of everything the war had been.
"No," he promised.
Perhaps it was the conviction of that word, or perhaps it was Claire's faith in her parents who were, after all, completely amazing and perfect, great and powerful. Either way, she calmed.
The minutes passed in warm silence, but Harry could tell from her shifting that Claire wasn't falling asleep. Fleur asked first.
"What is it, cherie?"
They waited, and Harry knew that, in the dark, Claire's face would be scrunching up in concentration as she tried to think of how to phrase a question just so that it would be understood. "What caused the shaking, and why would something shake the house if it isn't attacking?"
"Well," Harry cleared his throat, "Earthquakes can shake houses."
"Dad," Claire replied obstinately. He sighed.
"You're right, it wasn't an earthquake. It was... a ghost!"
"A ghost?" Claire gasped.
Determinedly ignoring the unimpressed look his wife was currently aiming his way, Harry continued with the authority of assured certainty. "Yes, a ghost. They haunt places sometimes, and some ghosts can move things around,"
Claire stilled, then twisted suddenly in their arms, turning around to face him. Her wide eyes were glittering with stars. "Is our house haunted?"
"Yes, that's it exactly. Just a ghost."
She spent a quiet moment digesting this news.
"Can I talk to it?"
"Er, sure lo- where are you going?" He asked as Claire started to get up.
Not that the answer was anything less than obvious, as Claire's tone of voice suggested. "To find the ghost!"
"No, no, go to sleep now. We can talk to the ghost tomorrow."
"But what if it's not there tomorrow?" Claire asked, as if that were tantamount to the world ending. Or missing cooking pancakes on a Saturday morning.
"It'll be there," Harry reassured. She'd forget about it by then, he was sure. Claire didn't seem convinced.
"You can't talk to it now, it's busy," he tried. "Like a job. It's haunting our house, can't talk on the job, you know. Its, uh, ghostly supervisor would fire it, and then we wouldn't have a ghost haunting our house anymore!"
"We can't do that!" Claire said, horrified. "Promise you won't try to talk to it, dad!"
"I promise," Harry sighed.
"Pinky promise?" Clasped in the confines of their arms, Claire moved her hand out for him to reach, smallest finger outstretched.
"Pinky promise," Harry agreed, "now go to sleep. The sooner you sleep, the sooner you can talk to the ghost."
A coat of magic settled gently into his skin, binding him to the agreement. "Oh bugger off," Harry muttered to himself.
o-o-o-o-o
The terms of the agreement were not forgotten by the next morning. In fact, they woke him up.
"Dad, maman!" Claire shouted, hopping on the bed.
Harry blinked awake, dazed. "When did she wake up?" he mouthed to Fleur, who was looking equally dazed but pulling off the look quite well.
Fleur slumped back into her pillow after answering his question with an irritated expression. Harry couldn't blame her. They'd both gotten much less sleep than he would have liked, not that that was unusual, and Fleur's feathers were incredibly soft. And they smelled good...
He ran a hand over his face, turning his thoughts around before they got to what else he hadn't gotten enough of last night.
"Can we talk to it, now? Please? Please please? Triple please?" Claire was asking excitedly.
"No, Claire, I'm sorry," Harry said. Claire immediately stopped jumping about and pouted at him, weapons-grade doggy-eyes staring into their twins in his own face. He pulled away to look pleadingly at his wife. Fleur had her eyes closed and was trying to glare her way into five more minutes of sleep.
"I can't?" Claire asked in a small voice, near-empty of life. Harry opened his mouth to say that, yes, she couldn't because poltergeists were dangerous, or the ghost had left, or some other excuse, when he felt a twinge across his skin, like a magical promise tightening its bonds.
Tactical chaos. There was absolutely no way this was unintentional. He hadn't even promised she'd get to see a ghost! At best it had been implied. Dubiously implied! How could a pinky promise of all things form a magical contract the likes of which his lawyer had taken a week's worth of work, and close to a thousand galleons, to draft?
Harry took a steadying breath, just enough time to think. "Because," he tried, "you aren't ready to meet anyone yet."
Somehow, impossibly, Claire's eyes widened even further. "Oh no!"
"Oh no," he agreed earnestly, "you need to brush your teeth! And get dressed! And, uh, have breakfast! You wouldn't want your talk with the ghost to be interrupted by a growling stomach!"
She was gone before Harry was done talking. He turned again to Fleur, who was looking at him through (beautiful, but now was not the time) lidded eyes.
"Watch her for a bit, slow her down if you can?" He asked her.
"Then what?"
"Don't worry," he said, reaching for the wand at his bedside, "I've got this." And with a pop, he was gone.
o-o-o-o-o
Ten years ago, Harry had become a man.
Legally, at age seventeen, every wizard and witch became an adult. That was more formality than anything else, as wizards, especially with their long lifespans, weren't considered mature until they were much older or incredibly wealthy. But at the time he'd been smack in the middle of the war, and Harry had been out there, fighting and killing and running for his life and, pertinently, doing a lot of growing up very quickly all at once.
So he could safely say that he had absolutely no reason to be cowed by the look Minerva McGonagall was favoring him with over her spectacles. None at all.
How in the world did she manage to look both nonplussed and disappointed at the same time?
"When I gave you emergency access to my office, Potter," the headmaster said in her usual stern, neutral, and entirely not intimidating no-sir not at all manner, "I did say that it was for emergency use only, did I not?"
"This is an emergency, Pro-" Harry nearly interrupted the word before deciding that, damn it, he might as well commit, "-fessor McGonagall. Really."
"Whatever kind of emergency could you need a ghost for?" She asked, intrigued despite herself.
"I'll explain later, in a rush. Could you direct me to the nearest one - er, the nearest friendly one?"
McGonagall gave him another calculating look, taking in her former student's appearance. His hair was disheveled, nothing new there, glasses slightly askew, green eyes shone brightly, as per usual. His pyjamas were an interesting striped affair, spelled or enchanted somehow so that the eye couldn't quite follow the lines for all they looked straighter than even lines had any right to be.
"Alright," she smiled genially. "Sir Mimsey-Porpington is currently at the Gryffindor breakfast table. Try not to cause a scene."
"Thank you, ma'am!" Harry said.
"And make sure to bring him back in one piece," she shouted after him through the closing office door.
He was back barely a minute later, a wisp of ethereal light suspended just beyond the tip of his wand. McGonagall wondered how he'd made it so quickly. A secret passage, perhaps? She'd have to ask, the long walks to the great hall for breakfast on early mornings were killer on her toes.
Before she could, however, Harry had already helped himself to a pinch of floo powder, and was stepping into the fireplace with a shout of "Potter house, France!"
She could only shake her head and go back to the paperwork on her desk. Balance sheets, funding, new testing standards, a complaint about the third-floor toilets again, funding again. McGonagall idly tapped a fingernail on the stem of her quill. What were the going rates for renting a ghost, she wondered?
She was startled out of her work some time later when the fireplace flared green again. A glance at the hourglass showed it was already almost noon. What irony, that the more time one had already spent the faster it passed one by.
The familiar and expected figure of the savior of wizarding Britain stepped out of her office fireplace, wand surreptitiously held against his chest. He dropped it with a shudder, pulling the same ball of condensed ghost that he'd left with just this morning out of his chest.
For a moment Harry simply stood there, staring at the ectoplasmic orb and snowing ash onto her polished wooden floorboards.
"That," he said, with another shiver of half cold half revulsion, "was a terrible idea." He shook himself, and flicked the orb out into the air like a glob of goo where it unfurled into the familiar shape of the Gryffindor ghost, if upside down. Nicholas righted himself, then pulled at his ear and righted his head with a spectral squelch.
"I do say, my dear fellow," Nicholas said, "you do have a lovely home. Why, it reminds me of my time alive if I do say so myself. My dear, lovely Lady - "
"Yes, thank you Nicholas. That was a huge favor. I owe you one," Harry grinned weakly.
"Anything for an old Gryffindor, anything at all. It was my pleasure, I assure you! And I do so look forward to seeing your daughter in our house when the time comes. I mean in this school, of course, one wouldn't want to assume."
"Yes, definitely not. I mean, we'll see when we see." More quietly, he muttered "she'll be looking forward to seeing you here, that's for sure."
"What joy, I do say," Nicholas enthused, and with a smile, a sniff, and a happy shake of his head, he left through the floor.
"Right, well," Harry rubbed his hands and surveyed the room, eyes not alighting on the old witch observing the show. He reached for the floo powder above the fireplace, only to hesitate when the pot of green powder was nowhere to be found.
Harry slowly turned back to face the smiling Professor McGonagall.
"Sit down, mister Potter. I believe you owe me an explanation."
o-o-o-o-o
And that's it! Checked for Grammar, I don't own anything but the clothes on my back, so on and so forth. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to share. I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you want to know where this came from, or want more, check out the Harry/Fleur discord server over at discord. gg / Np2zjAH