.this is love.
[ for ellie ]

He knows there is something different about her. It is strange and unknown and electrifying, like bungee-jumping for the first time. He wants to dive in head first—he always has—but this time, there's something holding him back.

He knows it's different; she's different. He knows there will be plenty who'll see it as wrong, as immoral, but when was love safe? When did love play by the rules? When did love ever have limits? Yes, it is wrong in a way, but this is different.

When he sees her long hair, reflecting the weak winter sunlight as she dances into their house in the morning, he can't help but smile. When he catches her brilliant silver eyes as they stare at him speculatively, he glows inside. And when she smiles at him, he is blinded, and he can feel his insides burning.

But he notices that her stares are longer when those eyes land on Harry Potter. He notices that the smiles are wider, and the long hair seem to dance whenever she sees the Boy Who Lived.

And all of a sudden, he feels envious of the Chosen One.

He's used to having the girls after him. He was tipped to become the next Seeker for England while he was at Hogwarts; he knew the appeal of being a top Quidditch player attracted plenty of girls. There had been the fans, the adoration, the banners of proclamations of love, but he'd never been distracted by them, never paid more than necessary attention to them. He knew that they were only after one thing, and if Gryffindor ever lost the match, they'd turn against him.

When he'd graduated, and went on to Romania to study and work on dragons, again, his appeal to the women was strong. They all liked the idea of a dragon-tamer in their bed—the raw power in his muscles, the way fire seemed to burn in his eyes, the burns that sexily tattooed his body.

But again, he had ignored them. When he grew old and lost the force he carried within him, they would desert him, searching for someone new, never satisfied with what they had. So he carried on with his work, convinced that he'd die with the dragons, not with a loving and beloved wife crying over his dead body.

It's an incredibly strange feeling for him, to be jealous of someone else. He's learned from a very young age to be satisfied with what he has. He's lived like that for all thirty-three years of his life. And then one person changed him, changed the way he lived his life.

Suddenly, he isn't satisfied anymore. He wants to impress her, he wants to be the one she smiles at the most, he wants to be the one her eyes would search for. He wants her.

So he does what he can to move Harry Potter out of the picture. He encourages the Boy Who Lived to propose to his younger sister, because he knows they are truly in love with one another, and besides, they'd been together for six years already. He tells Harry that the wizarding world would be safe for now—relax a little, stop working so hard, build a family.

And when Harry and Ginny marry, he moves closer to her, hoping that now Harry is married, she'd turn her affections to him. What he doesn't expect is for her to run away, using the excuse of Yvellines to escape the humiliation she feels for liking a man she was well aware of being beyond her reach.

And when he says goodbye to her that cold, windy morning, she has tears in her eyes and loneliness in the set of her mouth, and he knows there must be something she's feeling for him, too. But before he can say a word, she hugs him goodbye, and touches the Portkey.

Exactly four seconds later, she disappears, and he says goodbye to his heart.

He doesn't see her for four years, but when she comes back, there is celebration and joy and he can escape out of the shell he's been living in, haunted by her smile and her eyes, because the real thing is in front of him now.

She looks just like she did when she left him four years ago, just more mature, and there is a certain aged look in her eyes, as if her years at Yvellines were more than just the fun and games. And he realises he likes the change, he likes her even better as she is now.

Maybe now they can work, because she is past her teenage years, and he is convinced that she is the one for him. Maybe if he tries hard enough this time, she won't slip past his fingers ever again.

So he spends his summer with her, entertaining her and being by her side. And slowly, slowly, he gets through the walls she's built for herself. He learns her stories of failed relationships and broken hearts at Yvellines, and he learns she's not willing to let anyone in anymore. He promises to himself that he will try, because he knows she's worth it.

And he can see it, the sadness flickering in her eyes as she says goodbye to him again at the end of the summer. This time, he's absolutely sure that he's worn her walls down, at least a little bit. And when she promises to come back next summer, his heart flies with joy, because maybe, just maybe, he'd finally get his own happy ending.

When he receives the first letter, carried by a large grey owl and contained in a powder-blue envelope with the Yvellines logo at the top left corner, he feels as though he is about to be sick. His heart is pounding wildly in his chest, and he curses himself for being so excitable. He is thirty-seven, for goodness' sake, and yet he's treating the letter as though it is the first he's ever received in his life.

When he reads the elegant handwriting within, saying she misses him already, and Yvellines just isn't the same anymore, the smile on his face widens.

When he learns that she is pining for England, which she now considers home, his heart drives a strong warm feeling through his veins.

When he sits down to reply to her letter, the warm feeling coursing within him grows stronger, engulfing him, threatening to drown him under its weight and power and sheer force.

When he lovingly prints out 'Gabrielle Delacour' on the back of the envelope containing his reply, he knows this is it.

This is what Charlie Weasley has been waiting for.

This is love.

an. Charlie is fifteen years older than Gabrielle. Harry is six years older than Gabrielle. Bill married when he was twenty-seven; seventeen years older than Gabrielle. Gabrielle was there at his wedding she was eleven.