Warning: Fleur's dialogue is deliberately misspelled at some parts to try to sound like her French accent
Written for: [Fairytales Assignment #6: Rapunzel; Task #3: Write about a love that has to be kept a secret; Prompts: (object) a bow for the hair; (word) blame] [50 different prompts: #8 Purple] [Fleur Delacour Appreciation Challenge. Prompts: iridescent, caress, fog, frost, migrate, quote] [Writing club September: Love Note Day (26th September): Write about someone sending a love-note.] [Fanfiction world adventures: Paris, the Louvre; Prompts: (word) Confiscated; (object) Mona Lisa painting; (word) Antique; (dialogue) "You are like art to me. Beautiful to look at, but I worry that's all there is to you."; (scenario) Someone has a large collection of expensive paintings and/or sculptures] [Chapter titles challenge: #56 Sadly Beautiful]
~o~
Counterfeit
Fleur/Hermione
~o~
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"Fleur, I know I shouldn't say this,
but I think about you everyday. I think I might be in love with you.
-Anon."
Fleur looked up and batted her long eyelashes, before rubbing at her pinkened cheeks as she re-read the note. This crumpled little note, written on a piece of torn scroll paper, that someone had dared to owl her.
She'd gotten many love letters over the years, because she was a part Veela. Because she was used to being admired on a superficial level, and sometimes on a not-so superficial level.
But something stood out to her about this letter.
It felt familiar. The ink writing looked familiar.
And she thought she'd seen the handwriting once somewhere, scribbled by a particularly messy and ink covered hand; she didn't blame herself for being a bit curious.
And they say, it was curiosity that killed the cat.
.
.
She walked beside Bill Weasley, as he escorted her along the Hogwarts grounds. They were visiting Hogwarts and Scotland only briefly so that he could continue his healing from the werewolf bite he acquired years ago. His work as a curse-breaker still took him abroad, but now there were only so many hours Bill Weasley could work before either his condition or his exhaustion (after the full moon) meant he had to take a few sick days off every month.
They usually spent that time in France or by the fresh sea air, in their Cornwall shell cottage. The place they'd spent their honeymoon oh-so-many moons ago. (Why did she measure everything by moons now? Was life cyclical? Or, as a wife of a part-werewolf, did she simply measure everything by the strokes of her husband's illness? Sometimes she thought she was suffocating in taking care of her husband's illness, while neglecting her own little desires and dreams. What were her dreams anymore? She wasn't sure.)
.
Bill grabbed her hand as they rounded a corner of Hogwarts. "I'd like to go in alone, there's a new healer-professor who has developed potions and balms to get rid of some of the scarring. I'd rather go in alone." He smiled apologetically. "I hope you don't mind."
"I don't." She took her hand and returned a terse smile of her own. "I'll just keep my zelf buzee on the grounds for a zee little while, hmm?"
Bill's relieved expression cut her more than his apprehension would; it was like he was trying to separate himself from her too.
Perhaps they were both lying to each other that they needed each other.
Bill needed her. Fleur...? Did she need anybody? She'd always been an independent spirit, except when the French young woman felt she had to help someone.
She crossed her arms as Bill planted an almost brotherly kiss on her cheek, a chaste kiss. "I'll see you in a bit."
"Go." She waved him off and affected an encouraging smile.
Bill turned around to go towards the Hogwarts dungeons, before whipping his head back once more. He smiled and said, "Hey, Hermione is actually returning as an apprentice in Monsieur's lab class, if you want to visit her." He whipped his dark red hair out of his eyes (and briefly Fleur wondered if he suspected the same thing she did). "She speaks of you all the time. Visit her."
(You barely have time to catch your breath as he walks off, leaving that tidbit of information to sink slowly in.)
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It's a difficult thing to admit you love somebody.
A much more difficult thing to admit you love that somebody and name them.
Much more when they were your sister-in-law.
.
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Hermione shifted papers and potions ingredients on her desk before plopping down in the chair with a distressed groan that came from being an apprentice with too many research papers to write and not enough time for herself or her marriage. She leaned her head back against the headrest of her chair and sighed, letting out a slow long exhale of breath until there was nearly no air left in her lungs.
She was practically choking on air—or rather the lack thereof—when somebody knocked at her door.
She expected it to be Professor Quill. Or some of the other apprentices who shared the small oak-wood office with her. So, she really had no expectations ,and her hair was a frizzy mess and her cardigan an embarrassingly bad one Molly had knit her, when she swung open the door...and there stood a vision, Fleur Delacour Weasley.
A vision because this woman looked drop-dead gorgeous no matter the day or context. (She was Veela after all. And dressed in some ridiculously pretty matching steel grey skirt and jacket with a pearl purse.)
Hermione never felt so woefully under-dressed and un-pretty standing next to her. Then again she always felt like a slob compared to this French woman with her effortless, inherited charm.
"Fleur." She breathed out in defeat.
In embarrassment, she tugged at her wretched mass of curly hair and wondered if she could cast a quick Sleekeazy or glamour charm on herself without being noticed by Fleur. Probably unlikely. Because Fleur was very observant. (for all that dumb blonde stereotype, Fleur was quite laser sharp and proud.) and if she'd suddenly looked like she had a makeup-glamour on, Fleur would notice.
"Bill told me z'you would be here," Fleur coughed politely and her iridescent blue eyes traveled across Hermione's small desk and office with curiousity.
Hermione cleared her throat and tried to dignifiedly tuck back some of her messy curly hair behind her ears.
She smiled widely, deciding to forget about her self-consciousness. (This was Fleur; she didn't get to see her often.) "I'm glad you came."
Fleur beamed back at her, returning her smile with a mega-watt smile 10,000 times lovelier than her own. Yet with true joy—or was it amusement?— in her eyes.
Probably amusement at my utter lack of grace and fashion homeliness, Hermione thought bitterly.
Of course, Fleur was so lenient to begin with; her fashion sense (or lack thereof of any beauty charms or spells) had never been criticized or pointed out by Fleur. The blonde, who herself had impeccable taste, seemed to enjoy how messy and un-put-together Hermione was. She never criticized her, but she smiled gently—in amusement.
She noticed Hermione's discomfort without having to say anything.
"Here let me feex zur hair, 'Ermionee."
And then Fleur's hands were on her hair pushing it back from her forehead as she sat down in a chair, and Fleur sat on the armrests of the chair, braiding her long brown hair with her fingers, and Hermione realized she felt a strange tingle whenever Fleur touched her. As if her whole existence weighed nothing to the fearie-like dust that seemed to fall out of Fleur's fingertips wherever she brushed against her skin or against her scalp; Hermione realized she was shivering.
Perhaps it was the Veela thing. Except Veela charm wasn't supposed to affect you unless you were a man; and she'd never cared for Fleur before. There had even been a time when she hated her as a fourth year who felt outshined by Fleur's great beauty. So why did she just feel nervous and grateful around her now? Was it just because of the great things Fleur had done to prove her worth during the war?
Fleur smiled at her as she turned Hermione around and made her stare in the mirror.
She'd put a dark purple bow around the perfect french braids she made of her tangly, unruly hair.
Her hair had never looked this good, or so delicately pretty. "Thank you."
"It is no problem," she replied smoothly in her thick French accent and smiled.
.
.
There were dimples in her smile whenever Fleur smiled.
You think, what's so special about dimples?
But you keep thinking of the dimples in her smile, long after she left your office. Her smiles stay in your head long after her visit is over. She's beautiful in almost sad way.
You think, what is it? And then you place your own fingertips upon your forehead and wonder why it felt so good when Fleur brushed her fingers across your face. You wonder if it was just your face that would feel so good to be caressed by her...
.
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There was a sound of earth shaking and being parted as a silver spade was stabbed, repeatedly, into the earth's belly. Over the garden and sweat dripping down his brow, was the once-handsome face of Bill Weasley as he clutched to the spade and avoided the house.
"Zhat are you deeging?" Fleur asked, her bathrobe clinging to her svelte form as she stood over her husband in the cold early morning. Frost and fog still clung to the grass and she could feel the ground under her slippered feet was nearly frozen. It was late September.
"Gardening," Bill replied good-naturedly, sturdily avoiding her gaze as he kept his eyes on the ground and on their little plot of land in front of their house.
"It zis much too late to be gardening." In another month, the whole garden would be covered in snow.
Bill continued digging. "You're telling me this."
"Bill?"
"What?"
"I'm zorry for anything I have done, please come inside."
Bill met her eyes over his sweep of dark red hair. "You haven't done anything, Fleur. You've always been faithful."
Fleur gulped unsteadily. Because it was true that she'd always been faithful and yet that was not what he was implying.
She placed her hand over his hand that clutched the spade. She pressed lightly, keeping him still. And then her eyes noticed the bag of flower bulbs he'd been making holes in their garden for.
"Zhat are those?" she said, pointing at the bag.
Bill grimaced and he was both handsome again and bitter; the seed of doubts in his dark blue eyes marring their otherwise spectacular beauty.
"Fleur-de-lys," he enunciated the French flower with bitter civility, and studied her face. "You do know what they mean?"
"Of course," her lips pressed into a firm almost unhappy line. "In France, zhey represent zey blood drops wherever zhey fell and formed on a field. They represent the blood drops of a fallen French king; at eveery'z drop zhere grew zhe fleur-de-lys."
"Slayed by dragons, of course?" Bill raised his brow and her cheeks flushed.
.
.
You think back to that day. That day that Hermione invited you over to your brother-in-law's house and then you made that foolish decision of asking Hermione if she wanted to take a tour of the Gringott's art gallery. Because it's something that no one outside of Gringotts and those who work there ever see. But you and Bill both work there and you know Hermione is dying of curiosity to see some of the artifacts and confiscated goblin antiques that are housed there.
So you use your access to the goblin establishment, where you and Bill are so trusted (Bill is their best curse breaker after all), to sneak Hermione in. Because you want to delight your sister-in-law with something. You want to see her eyes light up.
And a little too late, you realize, as you both walk the gloomy passageways of the ancient gallery, that you just wanted to see her eyes to look at you with that same wonder, as if you're something incredible and rare.
.
.
"You took her to our spot." Bill said. And he's not even angry. More confused.
That was one of the things in life. The longer you lived, the more likely you would go on to support the insufferable, but it didn't stop the confusion you felt at the odd things life kept throwing at you. Things you never could have expected or curve-balled.
.
.
She showed Hermione the painting of the Mona Lisa. It was one of the rarer and most valuable pieces the bank of Gringotts had acquired, for a lofty fortune. The muggles in Paris, France, still had no idea that the original had been bought by a wizard billionaire and temporarily housed at Gringotts while protective spells were placed over it.
"It is worth countless galleons," Fleur whispered.
"It is worth as much in the muggle world." Hermione smiled and leaned back against one of her legs, as she stared at the small, priceless painting. "They really have no idea in the Louvre that it's been purchased have they?"
"No," Fleur met her eyes and stared at her rather than the Mona Lisa. "Zey still think they're looking at ze real thing."
Hermione reached out her hand to grab hers without looking directly at her. "It reminds me of my own life, you think you have the real thing, but really you're looking at a counterfeit day after day."
She could feel Hermione's hand tremble in her own, and she knew immediately, for one second in this universe, she was wanted something completely.
.
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"You are like art to me. Beautiful to look at, but I worry that's all there is to you."
She pressed Hermione against the wall and placed her cherubic pink lips against hers. Hermione struggled for a second before she started kissing her back frantically in greedy gaps in between throwing off her shirt and pushing up Fleur's skirt.
Neither had a clue what they were doing; they'd never kissed or been with another woman before. They only knew that they had this moment, this brief glimpse of truth and reality within the heavily padded and warded domain of Gringotts.
They had no idea that some of Bill's wards on Gringott's gallery would detect the sounds they made, the words they said, so that Bill would discover everything when he replayed the recordings on the wards.
.
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A tear fell down Fleur's eyes as she continued to look at the Mona Lisa's mysterious smile long after Hermione left, and Bill had confronted her while they were both at work, at what Gringott's best curse-breaker had found.
"I don't want you to see her again."
"I can't do zhat, Bill."
.
"She's the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think of at night."
.
Why do I keep thinking of her? Why do I keep thinking of her?
She's back in her messy office and sitting atop her desk as she takes out a piece of scroll and sets down with a messy, nervous quill exactly what she's feeling.
"Fleur, I know I shouldn't say this," she writes with a messy quill and ink covered hand, "but - I think about you everyday. I think I might be in love with you.
-Hermione."
She debates with herself over sending it. Then finally, crossing out her name heavily, she sends it and her heart flutters and is racing as she watches her snowy white owl migrate into the sky with the letter.
.
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"I am a flower among the field, and the lily of the valleys". -Canticle of Canticles 2:1
A/N: Any thoughts? :) I've never written femmeslash before but I hope this treated the f/f pairing respectfully xx I'm not sure they could have made it work though with Ron and Bill still their husbands and still very attached to the life they have together
thanks for reading