The truth was, Fleur had had enough of dragons for an entire lifetime when she pulled the little Welsh Green out of the bag in the champion’s tent those six years ago, to say nothing of leaving the stadium after her battle. “Battle” may have been a strong word, but burns were not something to be treated lightly and she had come awfully close to serious damage when her skirt caught fire. If Fleur knew of anywhere else she could have taken Bill, anywhere where there were not dragons, she would have gone.
Fleur had known that something was wrong with Bill after Fred’s funeral. Immediately after Fred’s death, Bill was instrumental in holding the Weasley family together. He comforted his mother, he helped George with the store’s bookkeeping while George decided what to do, he did chores around Shell Cottage for Fleur. When he wasn’t trying to take care of his family, however, Bill did nothing. He sat on the cliff outside Shell Cottage staring out at the sea. A month after his brother was buried, Bill showed no signs of being ready to go back to his job at Gringotts, or even any extraneous Order work. Fleur suggested they take a trip in lieu of the honeymoon they hadn’t managed to take the previous summer. She told Bill she needed the trip and he went with her willingly. On the night before they were supposed to return to Shell Cottage, Bill broke down.
“I can’t go back,” he muttered, his fists clenched in Fleur’s dress, his face buried in her chest. “I can’t take care of everyone. I can’t do it.”
“You don’t ‘ave to,” Fleur whispered as she stroked his hair.
They went to Romania instead.
Bill seemed to enjoy working with his hands and working with Charlie. Fleur could see the former curse-breaker in her husband as he faced the dangerous dragons without so much as a second thought. Charlie had offered Fleur a spot on the same crew. She so wanted to be near Bill that she considered for a moment.
Then the memory of her flaming skirt flashed through her mind.
Fleur’s head was filled with her new motto for living at the dragon reservation. When she had written to her family to let them know of her new address and plans, her papa had written an encouraging note back, which had arrived the previous night. He had finished with a quote from one of his numerous favorite books, this one by a British writer, J.R.R Tolkien. The quote was meant to be teasing, taken from a novel widely-considered to be a children’s book, but Fleur took it to heart as a warning. “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
She would live here with Bill as long as he needed to stay here. She would straighten out the reservation’s books and lead the tours of children that came on occasion to catch a glimpse of Romanian Longhorns through the trees. She did not for one moment forget the danger, however, and she hated it. Her mind raced with a hundred contingency plans every day. What to do if she were hurt, what to do if Bill were hurt again.
She wrote the quote on a piece of paper and stuck it above the bed she shared with Bill. Her husband came home, looked at the quote and sighed. “I know,” he whispered, cradling Fleur’s head to his chest. “I don’t forget.”
By 9:15, however, Bill seemed to have forgotten to include Fleur in his dragon calculations. He and Charlie walked into the ranger station with what Fleur thought was a bundle of blankets.
Then the bundle quivered.
“No,” Fleur said.
“Fleur, sweetie,” Bill pleaded as Charlie set an empty cauldron over the station’s fire, oblivious to the tension, “The mother was in a fight with another Ridgeback. You know how much they fight each other. The egg has to go somewhere.”
“Not ‘ere,” Fleur insisted.
“Fleur,” Bill said, as though if he kept repeating her name, she’d change her mind. “Fleur, it’s the only egg that survived the other Ridgeback’s attack. Apparently, this is the only fire in a constantly-occupied building. It’s better here than in our cabin.” Bill squeezed Fleur’s hand before carefully depositing the egg into the cauldron on the fire.
Charlie gave Fleur a sympathetic smile. “It won’t hatch for a week or so, probably next Tuesday if we have the math right. You’ll have plenty of time to get one of us and get out of the dragon’s way.”
“I ‘ave faced a dragon before!” Fleur hissed, gathering up the ledger she had been working on and slamming it shut. “I want nuzzing else to do wit’ dragons.” She shoved past Bill as he tried to reach out for her hand.
“You know that we’re here to take care of the dragons,” Bill called after her as she stalked away to finish her day’s work somewhere else.
No, she thought, tears springing to her eyes. I am here to take care of you.
The next day, Fleur was back in the ranger station. She rearranged her desk so that her back was no longer to the fireplace. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. It took a bit of maneuvering to be sure that she could see both the dragon egg and the door, but she did it.
For a week, she sat in the ranger station. Sometimes she sat with one eye on the egg and sometimes she forgot about it, jumping when the egg gave a rattle. After those times, she would sometimes stare at the dragon egg for an hour, just thinking about it. What was life going to be like for the baby dragon inside? Was it ever scared about the world outside of its shell? Could it remember the death of its brothers and sisters? Of its mother? Did it care? It was a dragon, after all. Did death matter to a dragonet the way it mattered to Bill? To Fleur?
On Thursday, she found herself crying, and went home early, telling one of the passing rangers to look after the egg. Bill was pleasantly surprised when he arrived after work to find a full steak dinner. He didn’t ask any questions, but rewarded his wife’s culinary skills with a back massage.
On Monday, one day earlier than Charlie predicted, the dragon egg hatched. Fleur awoke from a reverie to hear a piece of shell come zinging out of the cauldron. She shrieked in shock.
One of the rangers came rushing in excitedly while Fleur contacted Charlie. The ranger quickly took the cauldron off of the fire and gently tipped the egg out onto Fleur’s desk, right on top of her paperwork. Both Weasley men came jogging in, followed by half of their crew, just in time to see the rest of the shell come loose. The dragonet went skittering onto the wooden floor of the ranger station, eager to get away from the unfamiliar settings and back to the warmth of the fire.
Charlie caught up the dragon in a blanket, which he handed to Bill so he could examine the infant. Fleur stared at the two of them, her husband and the dragon, for a moment. What was life going to be like for the baby dragon? Did death matter to it?
The dragon snorted, tiny sparks flying from his nostrils. It darted its head forward, attempting to bite Bill’s hand.
“I have enough scars already, thanks,” Bill laughed. “Can we get this little guy some lunch? Maybe a name, too?”
Charlie laughed with his brother. “I think Fleur’s got the naming honors. Know what you want to name the dragon?”
“No,” Fleur snapped. The dragon was a dragon, after all. “I ‘ave a desk to clean up. Take the beast somewhere else.” The ranger station cleared out in the wake of the dragon. Fleur began to pick up the shattered egg shell and wondered whether the paperwork would be salvageable when it dried. The mess did not bother her too much. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. This part of her day was to be expected.
The argument Fleur had with Bill the next day perhaps should have been expected as well, though perhaps not from Bill’s perspective. Fleur had just sighed when she walked into the ranger station at 8:57 to find Charlie stooped over the fire, dropping live rats into the baby dragon’s open mouth. “Sorry she’s still here,” Charlie apologized. “We just have nowhere else really to put her for the moment. In a week, we ought to be able to trick another Ridgeback into taking care of her, but she needs to grow a little bit first.”
“Zis reservation really needs a dragon daycare centre,” Fleur said, raising her eyebrows at Charlie’s sheepish expression.
“We plan on building a hatching and infant care facility over in that clearing as soon as we get the grant,” Charlie told her. “Really, the concept of studying dragons and taking care of them rather than just keeping them away from Muggles is still pretty new. Dragon deaths and squashed eggs used to be considered almost a blessing.”
“Imagine zat!” Fleur teased, rolling her eyes. “Zere are people who do not want to live wit’ dragons.”
It wasn’t until Charlie left that Fleur registered that the dragon was apparently female. It was a fact Fleur incorporated into her scolding the few times the dragonet tried to make a break for it, knowing instinctively where the door was. As Fleur was positioned to view both the fire and the door, however, she could also see the entire escape path, and after being deterred twice in the first hour, the “bad girl” mostly gave up on the idea of freedom. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.... or her.
Charlie came back to feed the baby dragon a mid-morning snack and lunch, getting Fleur to help him, but Bill came to feed her just before Fleur was supposed to leave at 5:00. “Ah, good,” Fleur said when her husband walked in. “You can feed ‘er and zen you can take me away from ze little beast.”
Bill chuckled. “After everything you’ve been through, I still can’t believe that you’re afraid of a little baby dragon. I’m pretty sure even you could handle her at this point.”
“E’scuse me?” Fleur asked, all traces of mirth gone. “You theenk zat I am afraid of zat leetle theeng? You theenk that maybe I cannot ‘andle it? And who do you theenk scoops ‘er back up every time she tries to eescape? Eh? Who do you theenk ‘elped Charlie ‘old ‘er for ze examination? A ghost?”
Bill backpedaled furiously, overwhelmed by how strong his wife’s accent became when she was angry. “No, no, Fleur, I know you’re a strong woman. I know how very brave you are!”
Fleur was beyond placating. “Oh, so now you patronize me? ‘Oh, ‘ow very brave Bill’s leetle woman ees!’ Bah!”
Bill shook his head wordlessly, his mouth open and searching for words, but he was saved by Charlie bursting into the station. “All right, I can hear you fighting, sorry, awkward moment, bad timing, all of that, but there’s a dragon loose. It’s Betty, the same Norwegian Ridgeback that took out the other dragon and her nest. We do not want her off this reservation very long.”
Bill hastily took the escape offered and sprinted out the door, yelling for directions from those already searching. “I’ll come too,” Fleur told Charlie, pausing only to close her ledger and lock the door behind her. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him/her. One escaped dragon was enough.
Fleur was actually the one who first spotted the dragon. “Up zere!” she called, pointing. “She’s up zere on ze rocks!” The Ridgeback was on the very top and very edge of a pile of rocks next to the steep drop into the huge lake by the reservation. She made a very impressive picture with the clouds gathering behind her.
Charlie swore loudly when he saw how close the dragon was to the edge of the rocky cliff. “That’s going to make it bloody difficult to stun her safely. We need her away from that edge.”
“Some sort of lure?” Bill asked.
“More like something to spook her back this way,” Charlie answered. Some sort of noise behind her. We only need her to spin a little so if she falls, she won’t fall off.”
“So one of us needs to get behind her somehow?” Dave, another one of Charlie’s crew asked.
Charlie nodded. “But how do we do that safely?”
“I ‘ave an idea,” Fleur told Charlie. “Remember zat dog Diggory charmed at ze Tournament? To distract ‘is dragon? We need somezing to get ze dragon’s attention while someone runs behind ‘er.”
“Perfect!” Charlie said. “All right, Dave, enchant some rocks and wave your arms or something, drawing her attention.”
“I’ll get behind her to make some noise,” Bill volunteered before Charlie could assign someone.
Fleur’s eyes flashed, and Charlie looked about to argue, but nodded. “Okay. I’ll help Dave. Everyone else, look alert in case something unexpected happens. Michael, keep an eye out for Muggles. We’ve been lucky so far, but I don’t want to risk this a moment longer. On three.”
Fleur barely heard the countdown, and suddenly all was in motion. Dave and Charlie had sent some bouncing rocks to play about ten feet from the dragon’s feet. The dragon was captivated, weaving her head as she followed the rocks’ criss-crossing movements, but she hunkered down defensively. Bill, on the left of the group, started edging forward, but before he was halfway there, the Ridgeback saw him. Fire seemed to erupt from the very air, the dragon aimed so suddenly at Bill. He dove, hitting the ground and edging back from the dragon, but her attention was divided between Bill and the rocks now. Anytime Bill inched forward at all, the dragon caught him and aimed another spurt of fire.
Fleur, considerably lighter than her husband and on the right edge of the group, suddenly saw her option. Drawing her wand, she sprinted up the rocks. She ran in quiet leaps and bounds, praying she wouldn’t land poorly and roll an ankle or worse. The dragon was too busy trying to keep track of Bill, Charlie and Dave to see Fleur too. She ended up just past the dragon when she skidded to a stop to avoid falling off the cliff herself. She pointed her wand at a pile of loose rocks just behind the dragon and they exploded upward with a much larger bang than even Fleur had anticipated.
The dragon whipped around, taking a few steps back from the edge of the cliff in the process. She roared as she turned, spitting fire. Fleur shot up a shield spell, but it was too late. Once again, her skirt was aflame. She cursed under her breath as she drenched herself with an Aquamenti spell.
The dragon went down in the dust as all of the dragon-keepers shot carefully-timed stunning spells.
Fleur collapsed, panting, and peeled back the smoking tatters of her skirt. Some considered the long skirt impractical, but Fleur shuddered to think what would have happened if she were wearing pants. There might not have been a difference, but maybe the skirt had saved her legs, just like last time. Before she could run her motto through her head, Bill was kneeling at her side, examining her legs. Luckily, they had mostly escaped damage. They were a bright deep red, however, and Charlie gently pushed a shaking Bill aside so he could cast the healing spell.
“That was pretty close, Fleur,” Charlie murmured as he re-examined her healed legs. “Good call on coming from the right, though. We’d have been caught up there forever otherwise.”
“That was really brave of you,” Dave said, laughing. “You’re exactly the kind of accountant we need around here.”
This comment seemed to remind Bill, Fleur and Charlie about the argument in the ranger station. Fleur’s eyes narrowed. Bill opened his mouth, still shaking a little. Charlie looked at the two of them nervously. “Bill,” he muttered. “You’re not going to lecture her or anything now, are you?”
“ ‘E won’t have ze chance!” Fleur exclaimed as she pushed herself to her feet, adjusting what was left of her skirt. “Bill is bunking wit’ you tonight.” With that, she walked forward a few determined steps, turned on her heel and Apparated home. She magically packed an overnight bag, shoved it out the door and burst into angry tears.
Fleur showed up to the ranger station the next morning at 9:06am, hoping the small delay would keep her from seeing anyone she didn’t want to see. However, her plans were dashed. Charlie was sitting on the station’s front steps, blocking the door.
“Charlie, ‘ello!” Fleur said, attempting to bluff her way into her office.
“Fleur,” Charlie nodded. “Go talk to him.”
“I ‘ave nuzzing to say,” Fleur replied stubbornly.
“Yeah, okay,” Charlie answered. He looked into the horizon, squinting. Fleur could see the two dragons circling each other in the distance and watched Charlie to see what he would do. He turned his attention back to her. “Then go to him and say nothing.”
Fleur’s temper flared again. “And what do you theenk zat will do, Charlie Weasley? ‘E will not listen to me if I talk! ‘E will not see what I do if I say nuzzing.” Fleur found her temper could not be sustained after its release the previous night. Instead, despair filled her voice. “I don’t know what I can do anymore.”
Charlie appeared unimpressed by Fleur’s outburst. He looked at her very sharply for a moment while she looked at the dragons in the distance that appeared to be repeatedly darting in to engage each other in battle and then breaking off and circling.
“You know,” Charlie began. “I know Bill really well. He’s been there my whole life, but if there’s one person who knows him better than I do, I’d have thought it was you. So I bet you recognized what a mess he was last night after your impressive dragon-spooking act. I talked to him, obviously, but Bill’s a really hands-on guy. I think you know how important it’ll be for him to actually see you and hear the words from your mouth.”
Fleur did not respond. She was fighting tears, and she didn’t quite know why. Anger, frustration, shame, exhaustion? Those stupid dragons in the sky weren’t helping either, shrieking uproariously as they darted in and out, circling each other. “Can’t you do somezing about zose dragons fighting?” Fleur muttered at Charlie.
Charlie laughed out loud. “They’re not fighting, Fleur. They’re mating.” He shook his head. “Go talk to Bill, please. Don’t make him suffer anymore than he already has.”
Fleur nodded, turning away and starting to trudge toward Charlie’s cabin. She still had no idea what she would say.
“Hey, Fleur,” Charlie called softly after her. She turned to look at him. “I know you don’t want to be here. Dragons are my life, but I know there’s a reason I don’t have a girlfriend. Bill will understand.”
The tears finally spilled down Fleur’s cheeks as she gave Charlie a shaky smile and made her way to talk to her husband.
When Bill opened the door to let her in, he appeared to be speechless.
“Hi,” Fleur said, carefully articulating.
Without a word, Bill wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to his chest. Fleur stood there hugging her husband for a few moments before pulling back gently. “We need to talk,” she told him.
“I am so sorry,” Bill told her.
“I know,” Fleur said, smiling shakily. “I am too, but zat is not what we really need to discuss.” She led her husband to Charlie’s kitchen table and sat down across from him, still holding his hand.
“I am not a coward,” she began.
“No, you are most certainly not,” Bill answered, flashing a shaky smile of his own.
She nodded in recognition of the sentiment, but continued to speak as though Bill hadn’t. “I came ‘ere with you because you needed to do somezing different for a while, because you needed your brozzer. I understand zis, but I don’t want to be ‘ere any longer than we ‘ave to.”
Bill squeezed Fleur’s hand. “You’re my wife. I should be taking care of you, not dragging you off to make dragon bait out of you.”
“Bill!” Fleur exclaimed. “You are still missing ze point! I don’t need you to take care of me!”
“All right!” Bill yelled right back at her. “So I’ll back off, but Fleur, I was so scared yesterday. I know there are certain risks associated with working here, but watching you go through them is different. It was so terrifying, you have no idea.”
“Don’t I?” she asked frostily. “You chase danger. That’s why we are ‘ere, no? So you can find more danger?”
“Fleur,” Bill protested. “I’m not doing anything that I can’t handle. I just have to adjust to the fact that you’re tough too.”
Fleur shook her head insistently. “Bill, I have proven by now zat I can ‘andle dragons. I can work around zem; I can survive attack. If I need to, I can live ‘ere for ze rest of my life.” Fleur looked her husband straight in the eye. “None of zat means I want to.”
“What do you want?”
Fleur laughed. “I want peace! I don’t want to worry anymore zat when I kiss my ‘usband goodbye in ze morning, eet will be ze last time. I want to live in my own home, the home zat you and I made togezzer in Shell Cottage. I want to have babies!”
Bill let out a strangled gurgle, shocked but unable to keep a dazed smile off of his face. “Y-you want to have babies? With everything that just happened?”
“Yes!” Fleur cried. "Ze war is over, Bill. We could be safe now if we stop chasing dragons, and eet’s all right to be safe. I am so tired of all ze dragons, Bill. I ‘ave fought Death Eaters. I ‘ave nursed goblins, ‘ad my wedding invaded, buried friends. I ‘ave been tortured myself! Is it too much to ask to get to be normal now?” Fleur angrily swiped at her tears, irritated that this conversation was so hard, irritated that it had to happen at all, and irritated that she was trying to prove that she was tough but she was crying. Again. Somewhere outside, hopefully farther away than it sounded, a dragon roared. Bill and Fleur both flinched at the sound. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. Fleur wished she could get the motto out of her head. “I just wish you would calculate your risks, you know?” she muttered, sniffling. “How important is the outcome compared to the potential loss?”
The dragon roar seemed to have affected Bill. “Fleur,” he murmured. Lost for words, he stood up and wrapped his arms around her again. “I- are you- I don’t know if I remember how to be normal. I don’t know how to calculate if something is too dangerous anymore. I’ve lived through it all so far.”
Fleur gave a watery chuckle. “You ‘ave always been a smart man, Bill Weasley. I should theenk you can learn how to calculate your dragons.”
“Then learn I shall.”
On Christmas morning, Fleur awoke to a gentle kiss from Bill and a steaming mug of hot cocoa.
“Happy Christmas,” he whispered.
Fleur rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Bill, ‘appy Christmas to you too. ‘Ow early is eet?”
“Just before sunrise, but sweetheart, you have to come outside with me. It’s snowing!”
Fleur laughed, and threw back the covers, stretching before she tumbled out of bed. Bill had her warm winter cloak ready. He carefully slipped it on over her pajamas, stopping to run a hand over his wife’s growing belly. “We have to keep that bump warm, after all.”
Fleur was almost five months pregnant, and she and Bill had used this as an excuse to have the Delacours travel to England for Christmas rather than the other way around. Everyone would be going to a large Christmas dinner at the Burrow, but Fleur’s family and Charlie were staying with the young couple at Shell Cottage. True to form, Charlie, Gabrielle and Fleur’s father awoke at the noise Bill and Fleur were making outside, and they eagerly joined in the creation of snow angels and the beginnings of a snow man. When Bill, Charlie and Gabrielle began a snowball fight just after sunrise, however, Fleur took cover indoors. Her papa kept her company as she made enough cocoa and cinnamon rolls for the whole family. Fleur had taken her dragon preserve motto and posted it above her stove. She had a hazy idea of one day painting a dragon on the oven and stovetop and using it to deter little children from potential burns. Teach them their calculations early.
“Everything is wonderful now,” Fleur told her father in French, pulling the cinnamon rolls from the oven. “I was so worried last summer, but time passed and life moves forward... and away from dragons!” Fleur banged the oven door shut for emphasis.
Her papa laughed. “‘So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.’” At Fleur’s questioning glance, he smiled. “Tolkien again. The man knew a thing or two.”
Fleur leaned out the front door to wave her family indoors. She grinned and squirmed as her husband rubbed his snowy face against hers. “Wait until you see what Charlie has to give you for Christmas,” Bill teased his wife.
Fleur raised her eyebrows at her brother-in-law. “It’s harmless, I promise,” Charlie reassured her. “Well, on your end of things anything, it’s harmless. I suppose I’m in a little danger.”
“Don’t keep ‘er in suspense!” Apolline Delacour had been routed from her bed by the noisy celebrations. “Now zat I am awake and breakfast is served, we may as well exchange gifts.”
Charlie laughed. “All right then. Please take this in the spirit it was meant,” he pleaded as he handed Fleur an envelope.
Fleur took the envelope and opened it. It was a picture of Bill and herself with the baby dragon that had hatched in her office.
“I am not sure that I understand. Eet is just a picture, no?”
“Not quite,” Charlie grinned. “You waived the naming rights, but we were so inspired at your bravery and your care of the egg that we named the dragon Fleur. Congratulations!” He winked. “Infer what you will about similarities in temperament and personality.”
Bill chuckled. “I personally think people should calculate carefully going up against either Fleur.”
Fleur Weasley rolled her eyes.