II
Second Glances.

-x- Fleur Delacour & Bill Weasley –x-

'She dances
Footsteps like raindrops patter across the stage
Second glances
She pirouettes and slowly fades away
Lost my chances
Who holds the broom that will sweep her off her feet
Hopeless romantic
When the lights on the stage fade and just our eyes meet
And I wonder what would it be
If for once she was dancing with me
She seems content to be dancing alone
So I'll sit and sigh from my seat.'

He was breathless.

Dizzy and disorientated, Bill didn't know what had come over him; all he knew was that the sight in front of him was the single most exquisite sight he'd ever seen in his life. He was afraid to blink, afraid to miss the tiniest portion of beauty, in case he never saw anything so delicate, so fragile and yet so untouchable ever again.

The Gringotts Christmas party had taken place earlier that evening, and Bill, along with all his other human colleagues had been invited to a small get-together in the Leaky Cauldron, the dining part of which had been magically changed to become more like a function room and less like a drab old bar. The floor had been cleared of tables and chairs, leaving an ample dance-floor for the people to dance on.

The party, however, had long since disbanded and he was the only one left, sitting in a chair in the dark, with only the dregs of a butterbeer on the table beside him for company. He'd been just about to leave when the door had opened and Fleur Delacour, Gringott's newest French interpreter, had slipped back in from the bathroom, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks tear-stained.

Even so, she was still the single-most intoxicating thing he'd ever seen… in fact, her vulnerability seemed to make her, if possible, even lovelier than usual.

However, there was no denying that although looking devastatingly lovely, there was something upsetting her dreadfully, and worried, Bill had opened his mouth to ask her if she was alright. But before he'd managed to get the words out, she'd dropped her sequinned little purse on the ground next to the door, and once having decided that she was quite alone, began to spin around in circles in the middle of the cleared floor space.

Her golden hair fanned out around her as she spun around and around on her tip-toes, at first only in circles, but soon after in delicate, graceful pirouettes and leaps. Her actions were highly-refined, as though she'd been dancing from a very young age, though after a while she seemed to tire of these repetitive, though incredible actions, and soon she was just dancing… just dancing…

Bill's jaw had dropped open, and there was very little he could do to make it close again. She was so free and uninhibited – so very far away from her usual graces and impeccable manners, and he loved her this way. There was nothing timed or measured in the way she moved, it was beautifully wild.

His fixation on her was disrupted, some ten minutes – or was it ten years? or ten lifetimes? – later, when by chance, her eyes fluttered open and landed directly on the corner in which he was sitting, his jaw dropped open in a most undignified manner.

Stopping short mid-twirl, she tumbled backwards onto the floor, in what he felt must have been the first time she'd ever stumbled over her own feet, so graceful was she, and so audible the gasp when she landed. Her own jaw drifted downwards and her gaze met his for the second time that night, though this time the power and intensity of that gaze was so much that they both had to look away, both sets of blue eyes alight with some kind of flame that had only just been kindled.

'I-I…' she started, her musical voice unsure and timid, unnaturally so, for her voice, though light, was always full of some promise of confidence, 'I… vat are you steel doing here?'

'Ju-just, uh, just f-finishing my um, drink,' Bill stammered in reply, shamefully holding up the dregs of his butterbeer for her to see, though he doubted very much whether she could see it due to the lack of light.

'Oh,' she said quietly, looking down at the floor and then seemingly remembering that she was indeed sitting sprawled on the floor, the material of the silvery-grey of her dress lying haphazardly high across her thighs.

'A-are you alright?' he asked, wincing as his voice came out in a sort of squeak, before clearing his throat and trying again, 'It's just… you looked as if you'd been crying.'

'Oh, eet is nuzzing,' she replied, looking infinitely embarrassed now, 'I am just a leetle homesick is all.'

'Ah,' he said, nodding dumbly, seemingly unable to find anything to say.

'I must 'ave looked so seely, dancing around like a leetle girl here,' she said shamefully, hanging her lovely platinum head.

'No!' he blurted out, cringing at the volume of it, 'No, you looked amazing.'

Her pale cheeks flushed slightly and she smiled at him briefly.
'Do you really theenk so?'

'Yes,' he said firmly, thanking the gods that he'd finally managed to regain some of that self-confidence he was notorious for, 'I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life… you looked so free… so alive.'

She nodded slightly, still smiling at him.
'I felt so alone, but not in ze bad way… but as if I could stop time and just feel nuzzing but the energy zat comes from dancing… such a beautiful feeling.'

He felt his face split into a smile, and all of a sudden he felt as if he would like nothing more on the planet than to kiss her… but not in the normal, hormonal way, but the desire to kiss her and make her feel loved… he wanted to kiss her in the same way dancing made her feel.

Getting down onto the floor beside her, maintaining a safe distance of a metre or so away so that the urge to kiss her wouldn't overpower him, he offered her his hand.

'My name is Bill Weasley,' he said with a genuine smile, 'pleased to meet you.'

'Fleur Delacour,' she replied with a smile that seemed to reflect his own, 'eet is also a pleasure.'

They sat there for a moment, their hands still clasped together, and there was so much electricity in the air that Bill felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up, but it wasn't the bad kind – it wasn't tension. It was a companionable… intoxicating… surreal kind of electricity, and it was all that he could take to stop himself from pulling her to him and kissing her.

'Vould it be rude of me,' she said suddenly, breaking the silence with a hesitant note to her voice, 'eef I vere to keess you?'

Exhaling a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, Bill began to laugh.

Unsure whether he was laughing at her or not, she smiled weakly, but her uncertainty quickly vanished when he stopped laughing all of a sudden and pulled her to him with the slender hand he still had in his grasp. Her body slid gracefully over the dusty floorboards and into his lap, where he gently placed his lips upon hers and kissed her tenderly, in the most exquisitely beautiful way imaginable.

When they pulled apart, it was her and not him that gasped for air, her eyes alight with shock. Staring at him, she breathed in deeply, inhaling oxygen so fast he thought she would hyperventilate as she fell backwards out of his lap so that she was lying with her back on the floor but her slender, lithe legs still entwined with his.

'W-was it okay?' he asked hesitantly, worried.

'Vas eet okay?' she echoed wildly, with a hollow laugh, 'Eet has never been like zat before… eet vas… eet vas… eet vas like ven I am dancing! So vild and passionate, yet delicate and gentle… so free… you are a vonderful keeser.'

His cheeks flushed red with pleasure, Bill grinned, immensely proud of himself. He was just about to ask her to kiss him this time so he could tell her how amazing she was, but she beat him to it, yanking him down to her level by the lapels of his jacket.

It was indescribable.

The world around him instantly vanished and all he could feel was her lips moving against his, her fingertips grazing the back of his neck… and all he could see was her moving across the floorboards in the rippled midnight darkness of the abandoned room, her platinum hair fanned out around her and her feet dancing across the dusty wooden floor, her smile joyful and child-like in its naïveté.

A/N: lyrics - "Song For A Dancer" by Stephen Speaks

Hey there!
Well, thanks for the reviews everyone, I'm glad you like it so far Giddy! yay.
i hope you liked this one too - its probably my favourite out of all of them..

Ash x