Event: Rowing - Coxed 8
Prompt: (Word) Change
Character: Fleur Delacour
Chocolate Frog: Silver - Fleur Delacour - Challenge - Write about Fleur Delacour
Word Count: 1038
Notes: Slight AU where Bill never got maimed by Greyback. And a fairly OoC(ish) Molly
Mother-in-law In White
Fleur stared at herself in the floor length mirror and smoothed down her dress. It was her wedding day to her dear William and rather than it being a happy occasion surrounded by her bridesmaids as she always imagined, she was in the room alone.
Her little sister Gabrielle and her mother had already left the room to go down to the marque.
She glanced at the time on the clock and noted that it was almost time for her to descend the stairs and prepare to make her entrance. The only person missing now was her father.
There was a quiet knock on the door and Fleur smiled at her reflection.
This is it! she thought to herself.
"Come in," Fleur called, thinking that it would be her father arriving to inform her that the guests were ready for her.
As the door creaked open, she noticed that the figure reflected in the mirror was not that of her father, but a woman wearing a pure white wedding dress.
"Mrs Weasley," Fleur said, turning around to look at her future mother-in-law. "What are you wearing?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Molly asked, turning around to give Fleur a good look at her dress.
"Why aren't you wearing your beautiful bridesmaid dress?" she questioned, furrowing her eyebrows.
"Oh that, I gave it to Luna," Molly answered with a broad fake smile. "She took quite the shine to it earlier and well it was a little—snug on me, so I thought she might get better use out of it. Besides don't you think this looks a lot better on me?"
"No, no I do not, I think it makes you look—desperate," Fleur answered with a frown. "I must insist you change out of that—that monstrosity and wear the dress I chose for you. Mrs Weasley, I know that you have never liked me, but I will not have you upstaging me on my own wedding day. I love William and want to make him as happy as he makes me, but you—you refuse to let that happen. Why?"
"Why?" Molly shrieked. "I thought that would be perfectly obvious to you. You are not good enough for my son—for my Bill. You could never make him happy."
"Like it or not, William and I love each other and will be man and wife," Fleur argued back, taking a step closer to Molly. "Now, take that dress off now, before I take it off you myself."
"How dare you tell me what to do?" Molly asked, narrowing her eyes at Fleur and stepping towards her.
"How dare you try to ruin mine and William's wedding day?"
"How—?"
"Ladies, ladies, calm down," boomed the jovial voice of Fleur's father from the doorway. "What seems to be the problem?"
"Papa," Fleur greeted, smiling at him. "Look, look at this. Look at her dress."
Monsieur Delacour nodded his head and surveyed the situation, giving Molly a disapproving look.
"She won't change, will she father?" Fleur asked tearfully. "Today it's the dress, but tomorrow there'll be something else."
Fleur glanced at her Molly and then at her own reflection in the mirror, and sighed. She knew what she had to do, but that didn't make it any easier to vocalise her decision.
"I can't do this," she whispered, blinking back her tears. "You win, Mrs Weasley. As much as I love William and want us to be happy together, I can see that will never happen—not whilst you are your whole family aside from Ronald and Arthur disapprove so much. I must go and see William, now."
Fleur accepted a supportive hug from her father before leaving the bedroom, ready to inform her beloved William of the biggest and hardest decision she had ever had to make.
~o~o~o~
"Do you truly hate my daughter that much?" Monsieur Delacour asked as he watched his daughter depart the bedroom on the brink of tears. "Do you care nothing for your son's happiness? Or have you not stopped for one second to think about him in all of this?"
"I am thinking about my son, Monsieur," Molly retorted. "All I want is for him to be as happy as Arthur and I have been all these years."
"What makes you think that he isn't already?" Monsieur Delacour asked, furrowing his eyebrows at her. "Has he ever given you a reason to think that he's unhappy?"
"No," Molly admitted.
"Then stop going out of your way to ruin our children's special day and apologise to her," Monsieur Delacour ordered. "And then change out of that ridiculous dress."
Molly nodded her head and hastily walked out of the bedroom, following Fleur down the flight of stairs as she realised that she had become a version of her own mother-in-law—someone who she had vowed she would never become.
~o~o~o~
She had made it halfway down the stairs before the sound of Molly voice calling, "Wait," stopped her in her tracks.
"What do you want, Mrs Weasley?" she asked, turning around on the the spot.
"Don't call off the wedding, please," Molly begged.
"Why not?" Fleur asked. "I thought you would be happy? Isn't this what you wanted all along, for me not to marry your precious William?"
"I thought it was, but—I was wrong," Molly stated, offering Fleur a small smile
"I'm sorry, you were what?"
"I was wrong. You make my son happy and that is all I have ever wanted," Molly told her. "You may not be the one I would have chosen for him, but if my son loves you then I accept you. I'm just sorry it took me so long to realise."
Fleur took a step back, almost falling down the stairs as the words left Molly's lips.
"Oh, Mrs Weasley that is all I've ever wanted," Fleur answered with a smile, tears of joy trickling down her cheeks.
"Now, you make your way down to the marque and I shall join you shortly," Molly instructed as Monsieur Delacour joined them on the stairs. "I have a bridesmaid dress to change into."
"Thank you, Mrs Weasley," Fleur whispered, walking up the few steps that separated them and giving her a hug.
