AN Sooooo im back, and working on KoA for those that are reading that as well, this oneshot has been mostly written for like a year and I wanted to wrap it up with while the motivation to write was present. It is sadboi summer after all. On that note, this ones sad, you've been warned. If you care for context, this was written around a song called Two Minutes by The Amazing Devil, I don't think most people trust links in fics, so i'll just say if you wanna look into it before/after reading, just look it up on youtube/spotify, its a great song.
As always, massive thanks to my betas Palkey and Gamer0890 special thanks in this one goes to Palkey who introduced me to the band that inspired this song. One could even say he's to blame for whats to come :)
Two Minutes
"Fleur?"
The wallpaper… that fucking wallpaper.
"Fleur?" The voice was closer.
"Just a minute!" She called as she moved toward the corner. The peeling was the worst in the corner, it always had been.
"Fleur? What are you-"
"Just give me two damn minutes," she snapped, and she felt bad about it immediately, but she carried on with her task.
Stretched up on her toes she tried to smooth the hanging paper back to the wall. It stuck for only a moment before it sloughed off again pathetically. She could see the ancient paper beneath, permanently plastered by sticking charms, as everything in this blasted house seemed to be.
-o-o-o-
"What are you doing?" Fleur laughed, rounding the corner at the top of the landing to find her husband burdened with multiple buckets, a slew of muggle tools, and what looked like giant sheefs of dragon vellum.
It couldn't be, because she knew the going rate for dragon vellum, and if her husband had bought that much of it she was soon to be a widow.
"Getting-" he tripped as he made it to the threshold of little Arianne's room.
He dropped most of his utensils in the process, spilling great long brushes, plastic trays, and jars across the floorboards. He stumbled into the room a few steps, to avoid joining the objects on the floor, and she rushed to see if he was alright.
"Getting the room ready!"
He caught himself on the crib, and quickly lounged against it to cover his blunder. He sent her a grin, so charming and casual that she could almost believe he hadn't just thrown painting supplies across the room.
Almost.
"What is all this stuff?" She asked with a laugh. The jars on the floor looked too small to be paint. If it was magical paint, maybe, but the labels were far too dull and stationary to be magical in origin.
"Wallpaper!"
There was more of the 'dragon vellum' she had seen him carrying, three more rolls that floated in behind them. She blinked, and cast around the room taking it in. It was papered already, some turn of the century design that she wasn't quite sure was from the turn of this century.
"Why in Merlin's name would we put up more wallpaper?" She asked in utter confusion, he smiled at her English colloquialism and shrugged off the crib.
"Because," he said, adopting a smug air, "there are great designs."
He unrolled his bundle with a flourish, the only thing he'd maintained grip on when he stumbled, to reveal a pattern in light blue with little golden snitches flitting about it. They were stylized, with intricate wings, and the images flapped in slow motion. Light glinted from nothing on the highlights of the wings, and then the little balls disappeared, flitting away only to reappear randomly elsewhere on the paper to continue their slow motion flight.
She watched the snitches dance for a few seconds, her eyebrows climbing ever higher as her husband's smile drifted closer and closer toward a grimace.
"You want this?" She asked, reserving her judgment for a moment, if only to let him sweat a bit.
"I mean," he said, immediately self-conscious, and it almost broke her facade. "I thought it was cute?"
"Little Arianne will not want all these snitches everywhere!" Fleur countered, her lips tugging up a bit to soften the words.
"Little James will love to look at them," he countered, regaining some confidence.
"Hmm," she hummed, unimpressed.
She knew that her baby was another daughter, even if he insisted on hoping for a son.
"And why would we want more ugly wallpaper?" She asked, gesturing around the almost-child-ready room.
The current wallpaper was somehow threadbare, the installer's preference for permanent sticking charms made what should've been impossible possible. The old design was so faded and worn that in places it was only the faintest hint of fibers stuck to the wall. The fuzzy almost-paper left in patches around the neglected space gave the walls a molding appearance.
Now, the room was beautiful. The dark wood floors brought to a shine, and the space much better lit by the windows previously hidden behind tapestries. Devoid of the furniture and gaudy art of the Blacks, some of which required replacing entire sections of the wall to remove, the space was open and ready for their second daughter.
Apart from the decrepit wallpaper.
"I was thinking paint." She really had no preference, and she was okay with this quidditch wallpaper, she was just teasing her husband.
He deflated a little, and that took the fun out of the teasing. She smiled and moved over to him.
"It is cute, mon amour," she assured him.
He perked back up as he opened his arms to accept her. She had to angle her body to fit into his chest around her belly, but he wrapped her up easily.
"Why are you doing it the muggle way though?"
-o-o-o-
"Do you need help?" She turned, and finally identified the intruder as Hermione. She had been too distracted earlier to recognize from the voice alone.
"Oh," she laughed, and Hermione joined her near the corner of the room. "No."
She smoothed the fading blue paper up into place yet again, "it's a lost cause, I think."
She laughed again, and Hermione smiled, which was better than her friend's look of gentle concern from before.
"Surely not," Hermione insisted, a dubious sort of resolve in her voice. "A quick spell would sort it right out."
Fleur nodded, stepping back from the wall, and that fucking wallpaper.
"It would," she agreed, "but Harry insisted on doing it the muggle way."
Hermione's brow furrowed, head tilting to the side, not unlike a cat's.
"Whatever for?" She asked.
"I think it was a Dobby thing," Fleur confided, and Hermione's eyes went wide as understanding overtook her. "Anyway, I always hated the damn stuff in the first place."
She reached out and swatted her friend's shoulder as she said it, trying to erase her friend's concerned look with a grin. "Should've been robin's egg blue from the beginning."
-o-o-o-
"MAMAN! PAPA!"
Fleur jerked upright, her afternoon nap ended brutally by the shrill, panicked scream of her daughter. She was on her feet in a moment, Liliane wailing from the kitchen, and her heart was in her throat as she staggerd half-asleep in that direction.
Harry appeared at the kitchen's entryway with a crack before she could clear the hall, his back was to her, and he was sprinting the the moment he apparated. She berated herself for not thinking of apparition as she dashed in behind him.
Much of her fear was immediately relieved upon arrival.
Her mind had conjured images of Liliane, fingerless in a pool of blood next to a kitchen knife, or horribly burnt and curled on the floor near the mantel. What she found was her husband, kneeling by the sink over their daughter, who knelt on the ground sobbing and screaming over the still form of Hedwig.
A different feeling seized her heart, the panic fading with each beat to be replaced by a dull ache.
Hedwig had not been well.
She was Harry's fiercest friend, a constant companion through six years of school, a year of war, and seven more of peace. At seventeen years old, her declining health was an impending tragedy on the family these last few months; it seemed the moment had finally come. Fleur loved the crotchety old snowy owl, though nowhere near as much as her husband did, so it was actually a wonderto see him so composed.
Liliane was heartbroken, and that made it easier to put on a brave face she figured.
He was concerned, brushing her hair off tear soaked cheeks and rubbing soothing hands on her back as she hugged the limp body of their feathered family member. Fleur joined them for a moment, kneeling on the other side of Liliane to wrap her and their family owl in an embrace from both sides.
It was only a moment before Arianne's cries reached them, no doubt disturbed from her nap by the same commotion that woke Fleur. She pulled back, seeing Liliane turning away from Hedwig toward her father, she left them with a kiss to her daughter's head to go settle the baby down.
They gave Hedwig a proper burial at the Burrow that same day, Harry dug the grave, much like he had for Dobby at Bill's cottage during the war. Fleur stood by his side, not helping, but paying witness to his act as she had done all those years ago.
Molly played the perfect host, immediately seizing both the children's attention as soon as they arrived, pulling them away so Harry and Fleur could have this moment together. Molly and Fleur had their differences, mostly early on, but she loved their kids like her own grandchildren and Fleur was grateful to have the Weasley matriarch at a time like this.
Dinner with the Weasley's further served to distract Liliane.
Molly sent the word out throughout the family. As Arthur poured tumblers of amber liquor for them, to toast the passing of a true friend, Ron and Hermione floo'd in. They were the first to arrive, their young son in tow. A year younger than Liliane, Hugo and she were fast friends, every bit the cousins they should be, even if Harry wasn't technically a Weasley.
It was clear, that afternoon, how well-loved Harry was and it warmed Fleur's heart. She was at his side, as she always had been, and near every member of his family showed up to join her. The family that mattered at least. The one that he had picked, and that picked him. George and Angelina were next, followed closely by Ginny and Dean. Molly listened to the winds and started up a massive dinner as the rest of her kids and grandkids started popping in.
That night, after a boisterous full-family dinner that exceeded the limits of the Burrow and spilled out onto the back lawn, Liliane almost managed to forget her beloved owl's passing.
"Sweet dreams little chick," she told her little angel as she tucked her into bed, pecking her twice on the forehead with staccato kisses, like a chicken after feed. The little nightly ritual usually got a laugh out of her, tonight it was just a watery smile, and Fleur smiled sadly at her brave little girl. Trying not to look sad for maman. She smoothed her bangs away and leaned down to peck at her daughter's nose with her own.
"Are you okay, mon petit bout de chou?" Her daughter's smile got a little less watery and a little more genuine, whether from the little pecking or the French endearment, which her daughter always delighted in.
"Maman, Papa said I'd see Hedwig again one day." Liliane switched to French, something Fleur encouraged when it was just them, because she didn't want her kids to lose her heritage wholly.
"Oh?" She asked, following her into her own native tongue. "Well, your father is very smart, my love."
Liliane pursed her lips, mulling it over.
"If we're really good, do you think she could come back sooner?"Fleur's heart broke, not so much at the words she said but the hopeful lift to their tone.
"No baby," Fleur whispered, not wanting to shatter the little girl's hope.
"Listen," she said as her little angel's face fell. "Papa is right, you will see Hedwig again one day, but not until it's time. She can't come back to you, you've got to meet her, when you're ready."
"I'm ready now!" Liliane insisted, and Fleur smiled.
"Non, little chick, you are not." Liliane looked mutinous, Fleur simply continued. "Not until you are old and gray, little chick."
Liliane furrowed her brow and pouted. Fleur poked the little crease between her eyes and wiggled her finger around until the frown broke apart.
"Like granny?" she asked, and Fleur laughed aloud at the question.
Granny, to Molly's horror, was her grandkids' name for her. It started with Teddy, in fact, the first of that generation's youth to reach speaking age. As a sort of combination of Harry and Andromeda's child-rearing, he viewed Molly as a grandmother, his only real grandmother was more mother to him. Remus' mother being long gone.
So Teddy had established Molly's grand-matronly title as Granny, a title Molly vehemently protested, but nevertheless stuck as Harry and George followed up with more children to solidify the title.
"Oui, like Granny," she agreed, "but even older." She whispered the last bit, imparting a sort of gravity to the utterance. Liliane took this with wonder, pondering such an old existence, and Fleur could tell sleep was claiming her.
"I don't wanna wait that long." the little girl complained, getting to the heart of the matter as her eyelids drooped.
"It is okay little chick," Fleur assured, "you will have lots of stories to tell when you see her again, because you spent so long having fun." Liliane was nodding, eyes all but closed, and Fleur kissed her daughter once more before leaving her to rest.
-o-o-o-
"I imagine it was Harry's choice," Hermione said wistfully, smiling, and she rolled her eyes when Fleur gave her a look that said: obviously
"Of course it was, but 'e was spot on, Arianne took right to brooms." Fleur turned away from the sad wallpaper job, and surveyed the room once more.
Arianne's nursery was largely abandoned these days. The ancestral Black family house was quite large, after magical expansion was taken into account, and when their toddler daughter really started taking to flying she wanted a room higher up.
For reasons Fleur chose not to think about, she wanted to be on the top floor. In the room Sirius had stayed in after returning to the country, the room Harry and she had stayed in when they were on the run from Voldemort's ministry with Ron and Hermione.
So the little room, with its bright white curtains and badly-applied baby-blue snitch wallpaper, was retired when Arianne outgrew her crib.
Now it was her little piece of quiet.
"How are-"
"I just need a couple minutes, 'Ermione."
-o-o-o-
Fleur tapped the tip of her shoe on the ground, wedging her toes deeper into the infernal things, and placed her weight on the fine point of the heel. She released Harry's shoulder and stepped back to better appreciate herself in the mirror as he moved away. They were stunning, though. Her discomfort in the heels was mitigated slightly by the overall effect of her ensemble.
Harry was in their closet, and when he came out Fleur rolled her eyes to see his choice of watch. That old busted up one Molly had given him on his seventeenth birthday, right before the ministry fell and they had been forced into hiding to hunt for horcruxes.
It was a beautiful gesture, one of adoption, to pass on a family heirloom to Harry in that manner. Fleur understood that, and loved it, loved that he had it and had them but … nostalgia was all well and good but the watch was better in its loving home in their closet. In the drawer with the gryffindor red velvet interior, next to the other far more … better watches he had acquired over the years.
This was incredibly superficial, a product of higher taste, as she would teasingly tell her husband if she brought up his watch choice. She didn't though, because there was a difference between having higher taste and forcing that taste on others.
"I can read you like a book," he told her. She was just finishing a last retouch of her lipstick before they went downstairs.
"Can not," she said hotly, blushing slightly under the light dusting of foundation across her cheeks as she met his eyes in the mirror.
"Yup," he said confidently. He approached and adjusted his tie in the reflection over her shoulder. "You just saw my watch, and you thought it was ugly, and then you congratulated yourself for keeping that thought to yourself."
Fleur's jaw dropped, cheeks going full red, and she adopted outrage immediately.
"Zhat is not true!" Her accent came on thick in her vehemence, and she reached back to swat his chest with the back of her hand for good measure.
"I was wondering if Gabrielle might bring that boy from last summer," she lied quickly, and when she turned to face him she knew immediately that he wasn't buying it for a second.
"Uh-huh." He was all smug, eyebrow raised, clearly unimpressed with her clever deceptions and she felt a swell of love for the man.
The man he had become. The boy he was. The father he would be.
She had been by his side from the moment Dumbledore died, been tied to him by fate since they teleported into that graveyard together. For every high and every low. When she thought she lost him in the Battle of Hogwarts, when he came back to them to end the war. She had been there, loving him.
She straightened his collar, avoiding his gloating eyes.
It was sweet victory to be here now, with their friends and family downstairs, gathered for Christmas eve at Grimmauld Place so that the Potter's could visit Fleur's parents on Christmas Day. He was dashing in his suit, and she was radiant in her dress, and if she could forgive him his ugly watch he could forgive her her superficial joy at looking elegant for dinner.
"Well," she said in clipped tones, done with his collar and now refixing his tie. His own efforts to do so had just mangled it. "I didn't say anything."
He laughed.
"No, you didn't," he agreed, "which makes you the bigger person."
"But of course," she dismissed, taking the victory and out-doing his own smug facade with ease. "This is not news, mon amour."
He rolled his eyes, and leaned in for a kiss. She planted her hand into his forehead to halt his approach.
"You will ruin my lips," she pulled her hand back, but brandished a finger in his face when he looked ready to deliver some lewd innuendo in response to that. "Do not."
She blew a kiss his way and he wisely remained quiet.
They descended the stairs, side by side, with Harry's crooked arm supporting her own, and somewhere deep inside a childhood fantasy was fulfilled. The Weasley's, Andromeda with Teddy, half the Auror department, and most of the London branch of Gringotts curse breakers played pageantry to Princess Fleur escorted by the handsome prince Harry down the grand stairs to the ball.
She would sooner die than admit this thought as they descended the creaky stairs to the entry hall.
"We should lighten this place up," she said at the bottom instead, and Harry joined her in inspecting the landing.
They had removed Sirius' mother's painting. After much strategizing, and a few botched attempts, it had been Ron's suggestion that proved most fruitful: cut out the whole wall, burn it out back, and rebuild it anew. They had moved on after that though, because after life with Walburga Black the simple act of the painting's removal felt like the ultimate accomplishment. The peak of any restoration or redesign that could possibly be done to the place.
Then they'd found out Fleur was pregnant with Liliane, and that had sparked a whole wave of renovations. First a spare room into a nursery, and then a far more thorough cleaning and denaturing than had been necessary for the Order's purposes. Somewhere along the way the entryway had fallen off the priority list.
Until the squeaky stairs and lackluster presentation of her grand fantasy entrance was marred by its mediocrity.
"Yeah," Harry agreed, eyes bright at the prospect. "We should."
He loved his little projects. Loved to undergo them the muggle way, and really make his own life difficult before Fleur could convince him to give himself a break and do it with magic. Really, that sort of crafty handiness was universal to dads, and Harry delighted in fulfilling that stereotypic role. It was as endearing as it was heartbreaking, and Fleur loved his little home reno passions because she knew what they meant to him. That he was a dad, and this was his house, his family.
Fleur was also rather fond of a well maintained nest.
She kept up with the fashions, and she delighted in the ever shifting nature of their house. The new curtains warranted a new color on the kitchen walls, and a new paint job meant pulling out the cupboards. Harry had been wanting to change the sink, so this was the perfect time to do so…
On and on it went. Hermione and Ron would joke about how hectic their place had become since they had kids, not because of the kids, but because of the construction. She loved it though, her house was everything she'd always wanted it to be: beautiful, and it changed with the times.
"The island is amazing, I'm so jealous." Fleur smiled in victory, and she raised her glass in salute to her friend.
"Arry fought me on it," she confided, and Hermione raised her own flute to clink it against Fleur's.
"But 'e uses it more than anyone," they shared an exasperated eye roll as they moved away from the array of bottles set up on said island.
"Excited to see France again?" Hermione asked with a grin and Fleur beamed at her.
"It 'as been too long."
"Two whole weeks," Harry agreed, popping up beside them from between two older Aurors.
"Two weeks to what?" Ron asked, squeezing through behind Harry and completing the quartet. The Horcrux Hunters Four.
"Two weeks since we were in Paris." Harry filled him in but Fleur was already dismissing that.
"That was Paris," she gave him a look like he was being intentionally obtuse. "That is different from going home to Maman's house."
"Speaking of, the girls already over there?" Ron asked, his own children were upstairs with Teddy and their cousins.
"Yeah they went over last week when Richard got his leave, we would've joined but-"
"Work, yeah," Ron grunted.
The Auror office was in a buzz.
Harry had just been appointed head of the Aurors, working alongside Hermione as deputy-head of the DMLE, and the whole department was a hornets nest that had just been kicked. Lestrange was spotted in England, and that brought with it a fresh wave of witch hunts and investigations. Traces were run to the best of their abilities, magical tracking and the like. Every time one of Voldemort's few were spotted again they had to make the rounds. Visit families like the Malfoys, the ones that had stayed and tried to conform to the new order. The gambit had to be done all over again on those old haunts and contacts, it was exhausting and frustrating for everyone involved.
Fleur's frustration at the delayed holiday was largely tempered by the severity of the situation. She may be the only one of the Voldemort hunting group that wasn't still working law enforcement, but she suffered Lestrange's sick antics in Malfoy manor too. She knew better than most the kind of monsters her loved ones hunted, and she could not begrudge them their preoccupation when things like this came up.
"Uh oh, incoming," Hermione said quickly, and Fleur followed her gaze and found the young Malfoy patriarch coming their way. Ron glanced that way and turned back quickly to make mock-gagging faces, Harry turned and did the little nod men used for greetings out on the streets.
Fleur never went to school with the man, she still had dreams occasionally about her time in his house, but she also remembered more readily than Ron that Draco Malfoy had resisted identifying Harry.
"You know, I've seen pictures of this place my whole life," he said, shaking Harry's hand followed by Ron's. "It looks nothing like them."
"Thank you," Fleur said haughtily, and he tipped his head in a bow to the two women.
Harry sparked up a conversation, playing host, but Fleur wasn't listening. She'd been looking Hermione's way, to see how she was fairing faced with this old school adversary, when the fireplace flared green. She couldn't see who exited, but the mystery came to an end a moment later, along with the night's festivities.
The harbinger of ill tidings came in the unexpected form of Neville Longbottom, who strode towards Harry and Ron with an uncharacteristically grim face.
"Lestrange is in Scotland."
-o-o-o-
"Why don't we just rip it down?"
Fleur blinked at Hermione, her brow furrowing slightly on instinct, the destruction of this room offended her. Her immediate reaction was short lived though, Hermione continued:
"Just take it all off and start something new."
"... It has been a while since we made any changes around here," she mused, "work, and everything…"
"Exactly!" Hermione agreed emphatically, "start there!"
She gestured to the very same corner that had always proved troublesome. Fleur hesitated for a moment, eyes searching her friend's earnest face, and then with a grin slowly forming she reached up and tugged on the sagging paper.
The result was anticlimactic, she pulled and it quickly tapered off where the adhesive still stood. The rip was satisfying in volume, but the spoils were a patch of patterned paper no bigger than a throw pillow.
She laughed nevertheless, a misplaced giddiness growing in her as the first stone was turned on a new project. Hermione matched her good mood and took it one step further, she flicked her wand at the wall and a gash appeared across it, no deeper than the offending design, and she reached over and tore a strip off herself.
In no time they were tearing at it in a frenzy, doing a terrible job of actually stripping it away but laughing as they threw fistfuls of the stuff over their shoulders.
-o-o-o-
Fleur burst into the dimly lit hospital room in a fury, looking for her husband's form among the beds. It was not hard to find him, the room had but two occupants, both of whom's wives had just forced entry.
She split off from Hermione toward the mop of black hair on the right and stormed over to him even as her eyes roved his face for injury. He was not asleep, and struggled into a seated position as she found his bedside.
"Ma princesse," he said, weakly, but with a familiar grin.
She pursed her lips, but found and extracted his hand from the blankets to grip tightly. "You are okay?"
The question was tense, and formal, her constant query every time he hurt himself in pursuit of fixing the world.
"Of course," he said easily, but the effect was ruined when he winced after attempting a casual shrug. "Really though, I'm okay, mon amour."
He was sincere, and she deflated. All the pent up fear and anxiety finally fled. Everything she'd held in and used as fuel from the moment he and Ron had been pulled away from their christmas party.
"You must stop this," she insisted, but without as much conviction as she would like.
They had had this conversation before, plenty of times. He was aware of her desire for him to leave his dangerous job, just as she was aware that this was the man she married, and his need to do this work was why she loved him.
He didn't answer, not directly, just squeezed her hand and said: "We got her."
She pulled in a deep breath, her eyes closed, and squeezed his hand back as the words washed over her. Old traumas and persistent worries put to rest with three words.
She would never have to fear Bellatrix Lestrange again.
"Is Ronald-" her quest was cut off as the door opened once more and their collective children gained entry. She sighed, her moment alone with him ended, and he brushed his thumb across the back of her hand in consultation even as he mustered a smile for his daughters. The youngest of which, at three years old, was still capable of leaping into the air and clamoring onto his bed. Ever her father's daughter.
Her elbow found purchase in Harry's midsection as she scrambled to poke at her father and make sure he was okay. The pressure, light as it was, had him doubling over with a pained gasp and as quick as she was on the bed she was plucked up and held in Fleur's arms.
"You must be careful, Ari," she scolded gently, and her youngest looked close to tears at Harry's reaction, but he recovered enough to reach out and stroke her hair in no time flat. Liliane, older and taller and more reserved by nature, perched on her father's bedside with a sad, worried look, and he reached out to comfort her too.
With all of them together Fleur could be at ease. She did not like his job, but it was a job that must be done, and as long as they were together she could accept that.
-o-o-o-
The last of the paper scraps were still drifting to the floor as they left the room. The walls were not clear, not by any stretch of the definition, but they had tired themselves mutilating it and laughing at the mess they made.
At the landing Hermione gave her a look and Fleur turned her gaze up the stairs.
"Just a second," she said, and Hermione didn't question her, "I just want to check on the girls."
Hermione nodded, and Fleur left her on the landing to go up to the top level. Arianne's room was the only occupied room on that level, and the door was closed when she reached the top of the stairs.
Small voices drifted through the wood, muffled, and she stopped to listen before opening it.
"We'll see him again, one day," Liliane, the older, the wiser, sounding so strong for her sister. "Just like Hedwig."
"When?" Arianne, so young, her voice trembling in confusion and sadness.
"One day, when we're old and gray," Fleur couldn't listen to this, and couldn't turn away.
"If I'm good, will he come back?" The tiny question, delivered so uncertainly she could barely hear it through the door, destroyed Fleur.
She collapsed to the floor, deaf to the rest of her daughters' conversation, but aware of everything they would say.
She was a crumpled heap at the door, tears streaming out of the corners of eyes squeezed shut so tightly she saw spots behind her lids. Her clenched fist, bit into so hard she drew blood, was the only thing keeping her sobs silent. She was paralyzed, falling ever deeper into a black pit, and she stayed there for long minutes until Hermione found her and pulled her back.
-o-o-o-
Spring was coming.
The light from the freshly cleaned windows above the door lit the entryway delightfully.
Fleur was just wrapping up the dusting, her hair pulled back and tied up fruitlessly and escaping all the same, when the doorbell rang. She rolled her shoulder with a huff, her cleaning complete and a well deserved break just ready to start. A break that began with seeing who was at the door and pivoted hard into a nice glass of wine if she had any say in the matter.
She wiped the light sheen of sweat from her brow quickly before pulling the heavy door open and her eyes lit up at the sight of Neville on the other side.
Immediately, with a rapidity that shattered her world, her stomach dropped at the look on his face.
"Fleur-" he began, and she stepped back, mind going blank. She shoved the door shut, blocking herself from that look. From those sad, red, heartbroken eyes and those damned Auror's robes.
-o-o-o-
Fleur clung to Hermione, her carefully constructed hair and face a mess.
She was composed, she was capable of that at least, and she stood tall at the top of the landing.
Hermione had an arm over her shoulder, no small feat considering the difference in their height, and her other arm crossed over to grip Fleur's hand. She was all that held Fleur together in that moment as they descended the stairs.
There would be a public service. Harry was a hero, a public figure, a national fucking treasure.
Fleur would not be going to that, and neither would their daughters.
At the bottom of the stairs, Ron stood, his eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. There were no other onlookers, those that she cared to have with her this day were in the dining room, but Ron was here.
These three, who had saved the world and now gathered to grieve the loss of their fourth for its sake as well, deserved their moment of solitary anguish.
Fleur clenched her jaw as they reached the bottom of the stairs and all three hugged. Both wrapping her in their arms simultaneously. She gripped them back for a minute, maybe two, and then gently pushed back to be freed.
She straightened herself, inside and out, and took a deep breath.
And then she strode down the hall toward the waiting mourners, a princess, arriving at the ball.
AN join us in the Flowerpot discord server! discord . gg/ flowerpot
