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Fleur Weasley (nee Delacourt)'s Greatest Secrets

When she was born, on the day she entered the world, a small lily plant was planted in the family garden at Chateau Delacourt, her father's ancestral home, built by her family. It was their tradition to plant a lily bush every time a daughter was born or a son was married. Hers was the last lily planted at the chateau before their castle was raided and her father's maniacal younger brother looted his childhood palace, her only home, forcing her father to make his own way in Paris with her and her mother Appoline. Her uncle burned all the lilies, destroyed the ancient stone castle, worn by years of use, threatened to kill them all if they didn't leave, didn't run to the security of a modern city. He killed everything before burning himself in the fire of his hatred of the inferno. She was so young when they were forced to flee. She was so young, and yet, she was haunted by the memory of Chateau Delacourt for the rest of her life.

She was ten years old when Gabrielle was born, old enough to understand what was happening, old enough to know why there was a new little baby and old enough not to be jealous, old enough to love Gabrielle with all her heart. She was old enough to think of Gabrielle as her own, her own little perfect white angel, pristine, and want to protect her for the rest of her life. But she wasn't old enough to understand why Gabrielle made her mother so ill. She wasn't old enough to understand why her mother was forced to stay in bed for weeks before Gabrielle was born. She wasn't old enough to understand why her father forced her to stay home with that horrible Madame Matinent when her mother was getting ready to deliver and why he looked so worried, or even why he thought for a second that something was going to happen to her mother. Her mother's ashen white face clung to her memory, and when she first found out that she was pregnant, it was her mother's face that appeared in her mind.

She loved France and she loved Beaubatons, more than she could ever love any other place. The school wasn't a large, clunky gothic castle like Hogwarts or a palace of heavy stone meant for cold and wind like Durmstrang. Beaubatons was a sprawling chateau built by Louis XIV in the height of fashion, meant for beauty and grace and enchantment, a place where all those who came discovered the beauty and elegance of magic. To her, Beaubatons deserved its name, deserved its beauty, deserved its place, nestled and safe in the heart of the French countryside, surrounded by an elegant wizard village. But something about her school was cold to her. In France, it wasn't just power or wealth or prestige that mattered. It was her ability to talk, to make allies out of enemies, to be beautiful and charming no matter what that were judged, and she was thrust among the most beautiful girls of her age to compete and fight, claws out, for her place among the top. She never thought it was wrong. She never through of it as anything but a way of life, a way of thinking, the only thing she'd ever known. And then, she went to Hogwarts.

Hogwarts may not have been as beautiful as Beaubatons, but its gothic air gave her a sense of security, of complete confidence, a sense she'd never felt before in her life. In Hogwarts, in the middle of the Scottish bluffs, she was safe from the bribery, the tricks, the nasty politics that had haunted her life in Beaubatons, that had made her a quintessential French witch. In Hogwarts, suddenly, none of that mattered. It didn't matter that she could enchant any boy with the turn of her head. It didn't matter that she could win any girl as a friend as easily as she could toss her golden hair. It didn't matter that she knew how to be aloof and dark and mysterious and powerful. None of that mattered, because the girls looked down their nose at the sawn among their midst. The boys all shied away from her for fear of upsetting their girlfriends or for fear of her. Everyone called her cold, mysterious, aloof, but all of a sudden, it wasn't a good thing anymore. She was alone, and Hogwarts made her realize it. She had lost her friendships and it wasn't until she saw a true friendship break and reform that she understood what she could never have.

When she arrived for the Triwizard tournament, she didn't intend to make friends. She didn't intend to find a soft spot in her heart for the group of misfits that inhabited Hogwarts' halls. She didn't expect to like her competitors. Cedric Diggory became one of her best friends. He was the only one who tried to get to know her, who wanted to know her, who wanted to understand who she was and why. She empathized with Victor Krum. He was the only one who understood the need she felt to be hidden from the world, to be lost to anyone but her closest friends. She fell in love, she fell completely in love with Harry Potter's innocence and purity, despite the fact that he was so heavily exploited by that vicious woman, Rita Skeeter. She loved him like she loved her little sister, Gabrielle. She wanted to protect him from the horrors of the world, to keep him safe. And when he saved her little sister, when he took her from the recess of the Black Lake and brought her back to her, whole and safe, she knew that he was her brother, her famous, troubled, dark little brother who she would guard forever.

After the Triwizard tournament, it was hard going back to France. It was torture to go back to the cold atmosphere that she found in the middle of their brilliant Chateau Beaubatons. A part of her longed for the chilly, warm air of Britain, where the people held their hearts on their sleeves and where a boy who barely knew her and had never before seen her sister saved her Gabrielle instead of letting her drown just to win a competition designed to test them in a way that was almost cruel. She missed the place where a boy who was supposed to be her competition got to know her so well, got her to admit that she was lonely and took her under his wing. She missed the great hall, where everyone, regardless of race or creed, came together and saluted a higher power, the feeling of friendship and acceptance that she could never find in the halls of their beautiful romantic palace in the middle of the French countryside. And she knew that Britain had captured her heart and she couldn't stay away for long.

When she returned, in the middle of a war, in the middle of a world turning its face from the boy she knew was kind and honest and brave, she wasn't sure she wanted to stay. She wasn't sure that she wanted to go on. She longed for the warmth of France, for an air untouched by the horrors of Lord Voldemort. She wanted to go home. But then……then she met Bill. And he reminded her of why she loved Britain. He reminded her of the warmth and the kindness and unconditional trust that she had found the last time she'd come. He reminded her of everything she found wonderful and kind about the world she'd entered the year before. Bill was the only person who made the move worthwhile, the only person who trusted her, who would take her under his wing and who would keep her distracted enough to not cry for her family. And she fell in love with him, unconditionally in love with him, in a way that she'd never fallen in love before, for everything that he was to her.

She stayed in Britain. How could she not stay in Britain after Bill was attacked and the second war started? The battle in Hogwarts, right after Dumbledore died, made everything personal. Voldemort had attacked her husband, the love of her life, and all of a sudden, she wanted his blood on her hands. She wanted to do anything and everything she could to ensure that that her family was safe, even if it meant battling the entire Weasley family to protect Bill. And suddenly, she was caught in the middle of a battle she wasn't meant to be a part of. Suddenly, she was caught in the middle of a giant war that never touched her home in Paris, that was never meant to touch the Delacourt family, that was never meant to be a part of her life. And she was caught in an endless twist of sorrow and pain. But finally, finally, the Weasley family trusted her with their eldest son's life.

When she joined the Order, when she started risking her life and retiring to Shell Cottage in fear, when she transformed into Harry to lure Voldemort after her rather than the real one, when she housed Harry, Ron, Hermione, Olivanders, and all of the others who had escaped from Malfoy Manor, when she saw Harry bury Dobby near her precious white rose bushes, she wanted to run, to go home, to go back to her family home in Paris. She knew Bill would let her. She knew Bill wanted her to go back to Paris to stay safe until the war was over, one way or another. She knew he wanted her to run but she knew she couldn't. He helped her, he showed her everything wonderful and kind in the world. He gave her a house and home of her own. He gave her a garden where she could go and sit and escape, a garden that rivaled the one at Chateau Delacourt. He gave her everything and she couldn't leave him. She couldn't just leave. She loved him. She belonged with him. And no matter how frightened or anxious or scared she was, she could never go back. She could never be the Fleur she was in Paris. She could never go back to France. She could never be the person she once was……..and she could never decide if that was a good thing.

After the war was over, after everything that had happened, after losing her brother and watching her husband suffer every time he looked at George, after finding a world harsher and more cruel than she could ever imagine, she finally found happiness. She loved her life. She loved her family and her friends in a circle that was wider and more inclusive than she could ever have imagined. And she had children of her own, her own lights, running in and out of Shell Cottage, her family, her babies. And every time a child was born, she planted a white lily in the garden. Every time the Weasley family got a daughter, she planted a lily, in memory of her past in France, in memory of Chateau Delacourt. And she was happy. At long last, Fleur Delacourt Weasley had found a home.

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Just a note. My family and I will be traveling through June and July. I'll update as often as I can get to a computer with internet that actually works.

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