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Tweak says, "Fifty points from Gryffindor!"

Nope (

nope) wrote,
@ 2007-09-18 22:49:00

20 Facts About Gabrielle Delacour (HP, 851 words, PG)
Title: 20 Random Facts About Gabrielle Delacour
Rating: PG
Word Count: 851 words
A/N: Written for the Harry Potter Random Facts Fest.

Gabrielle was born on a Tuesday, three weeks early and consequently on a train somewhere between Gaillardin and La Plaine. Her mother insisted her daughter was born in France. The guards insisted they were in Switzerland. Her father wisely hid in the luggage carriage until the shouting stopped.
By the time she was eight, she spoke fluent French, German, Italian, and English; by twelve she'd added Russian, Mermish, and Gobbledegook.
Though she pretended she hadn't, because she liked listening to what people said when they didn't think she'd understand.
After that stupid Task, she'd promptly demanded proper swimming lessons. It was fabulous fun, though Mama always made a fuss of her hair afterwards. Appolline had grown up in the strict French tradition and taught her children impeccable manners from the moment they could talk, and a proper, well behaved child was always properly groomed, no matter if she had just swum a few hundred yards or not.
She swam at least a half-mile a day whenever possible for the rest of her life.
When they fled the Weasleys' after Death Eaters attacked her sister's wedding, her mother took her to Geneva to keep her safe and she promptly fell in love with the city where she would buy her first house and where, some hundred years, four daughters, two sons and three houses later, she would die. She slipped off into the Muggle parts as often as she could get away with and swam in the lake every day.
Which is where she met her first boyfriend, a boy from Durmstrang with a stupid name she forgot years and years before his gold-flecked eyes and shy little smile and the way he held her when they kissed.
Gabrielle took Arithmancy solely to learn how to hide secret messages in their letters to each other -- Appoline would insist on reading them, after all -- and was rather surprised to find she was a natural at it. Long after the Durmstrang boy had been dumped and forgotten, she kept at it, making numbers dance and probabilities twist.
Which was almost as much fun as real dancing, the formal structured paces of balls, the wild intuitive motion of the Muggle clubs, all life and rhythm without restriction, her hair tied up, her top cut down, shimmering silver and gold.
Gringotts loved her, of course. She was polite and demure and just seductive enough, softness and steel. As one of their international liaisons, she travelled widely, raking in the profits, taking what she liked from each place and discarding the rest; an equable, mutually pleasurable arrangement, like all the best deals.
Once, while rather extremely drunk, seduced and slept with a man she thought was Harry Potter and felt horribly guilty about it for the first few moments after she woke up before she realised it was actually Victor Krum, which worked out nicely.
Once, she forgot to go home for four years. When she finally did, her mother complained that she'd cut her hair too short -- it now hung in silver curls to the middle of her back -- and Fleur kissed both her cheeks and introduced little Victoire who curtseyed and said "Bonjour, tante Gabrielle". The Weasleys seemed rather bemused by this for the most part, but then, they were not French.
Gabrielle - who was, and considered herself so to the last - had a brief but torrid affair with one of her brothers-in-law.
She named her first son Fred and taught him impeccable manners from the moment he could talk, and also that rules could be broken and one should always find time to swim and to dance.
Little Victoire sent Gabrielle letters even after Victoire was no longer little. They wrote in French and English, Italian and Greek and Latin, and in a secret arithmatical code they devised between them because Fleur would insist on reading the letters. Gabrielle was maid of honour at Victoire's wedding, where she kissed Harry's cheek and smiled when Ginny couldn't quite hide her annoyance fast enough.
Victor came, and she did too, quite often. It was an equable, mutually pleasurable arrangement, like all the best deals.
She married twice and outlived them both.
Heartbreak just made the joy sweeter. And at the funerals she pretended to only speak French and smiled a little, inside, at the things they said about her.
And she swam and she danced and she travelled, the world turning under her feet, and this too was dancing, this life, partners coming in and out of her life to some half-heard melody, to the slowing rhythms of beating hearts. Bankers and poets, Aurors and architects, men of plants and of potions, teachers and students, painters and singers and, once, an actress with gold flecked eyes and a soft, shy smile. She took what she liked from each and discarded the rest, always beautiful, never cruel -- but never still, always moving on.
Gabrielle grew old disgracefully and mostly without regrets, laughing and loving to the last.

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