Topgallant : HP : Homecoming

Fleur/Bill for

lessien, who requested post-HBP. 505 words. Homecoming.

Ginny Weasley fancied herself funny, and Fleur hardly knew which was more pathetic�that she considered calling her �Phlegm� to be a sign of her scathing wit, or that she honestly believed she was clever enough to keep Fleur from finding out. Bill had routinely told Fleur while they were dating that she would love his family, and it was purely and solely for his sake that she had duly refrained from smacking his little sister and telling his mother just what she thought of her manners.

It was funny how quickly and irrevocably people you hated could become people you loved. When she had seen Molly after the battle, after they had gotten the call about Bill, all they had wanted to do was hold each other. And whatever Ginny�s opinion of her might have been, Fleur found she could no longer feel anything but gratitude for her in the days of his recovery.

He had recovered enough to be removed to the Burrow, which at one point had seemed to her the most stifling place on earth. She had started to think of it as home.

She lay beside him in bed, stretched out on top of the covers, tracing the curvature of his face with delicate fingers. Occasionally he reached up and kissed them. His scars had grown less jarring, less abrupt underneath her touch. She found that kissing him still felt the same, though�with her eyes closed and his mouth against hers he was familiar and warm, and it was easier to forget the horror, forget the war, forget the nervousness that was always in the back of Bill�s eyes now.

�Hey,� he said after a moment, fingers closing around hers. �You look like you�re imagining how hairy our kids will be.�

�Oh, you,� she chided, swatting him, her voice deliberately light to make up for the hollow note in his. This wasn�t easy, she thought, but under the circumstances she was grateful. If he had not survived; if there were no Wolfsbane potion; if every moonlit night spent with him were to be veiled behind a cloud of distrust�

�I was thinking of all there is to look forward to,� she said, sinking down and pillowing her head against his shoulder

He wound his fingers in her hair, and she knew that she was soft and warm, comforting against his body.

Ginny found them, sometime later, bearing a plate of cookies. �I brought you some�oh,� she said, stopping abruptly in the doorway at the sight of the two of them curled together, resting quietly. For a long moment she looked at them without saying anything, and Fleur thought of what they must look like: half under covers, sunlight falling through the grayed filter of old curtains; her blond hair fanning over his chest, his beard brushing her forehead, strokes of auburn and alabaster. How still, how pale.

She wondered if it was charming. She wondered if it was sad.

She wondered if it was just what it was.