a/n A present for Nanaho-hime on her birthday. Happy Birthday! Thanks to lily-rhiannon, who is a fantastic beta!

She's got a shine to her, a fabricated innocence, and she never stops watching. When he's around, she amps up the shine.

(She's actually kind of shameless, really, but she really doesn't care.)

She'll do anything to reel him in, to feel him.

She's guilty. He's older, more worldly. Hot. With a fire in his eyes, and scars on his hands, and a recklessness that both scares and thrills her.

(She wants, but can't have.)

She yearns, and pines, and takes any chance she gets. She visits Fleur, even though they haven't been close since she fell in love and moved away to help the Order. She visits Fleur, just in case.

A Veela, even a part-Veela, has one love that is all consuming. They don't back down, they don't give up, and anything that is to their advantage, they use. So it is with her.

But their beginning is innocuous, the middle is painful, and she doesn't know the end.

They start as almost-not-quite-strangers, when she is just so young, at her sister's wedding with a smile on her face and a blush on her cheeks.

He bows before her, like a gallant lord, and she feels her crush (so cliché anyway, everyone has a crush on the Boy-Who-Lived, and she's so much better than that) slip away. They spin on the dance floor, and she knows her sister would glare if she could see her now, but Fleur is still wrapped up with (in) Bill.

But she doesn't care. Doesn't spare a thought. 'Cause they're twirling, step, spin, twirl. Stop to pause for breath. Step, spin, twirl.

She knows they'll never be, but she's young, and he's there, and it's just a schoolgirl crush after all.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

Then they're here. She's in shock, but he spins her still, and she wonders why he hasn't noticed yet. And there's a bright green light, and everything's in slow motion, but she can't bring herself to care, even now, because, moments away from certain death, she feels safe in his arms.

(And that's a cliché in itself)

Flash!

There's still a bright green light, but it's tranquil, calm, sunlight dappling through green leaves, onto emerald grass stained with fresh blood.

Breathe. Breathe.

She drops to his side, eyes trailing down the thin line that stretches from elbow to fingertip. She checks the rest of him, but he seems otherwise unharmed.

But she can do nothing. She hasn't gone to school yet. She's only eleven, and she's in a dark forest with a dying man.

So she watches. With no other option but to stay put, she watches. Uses his wand (she hasn't got one yet, it was only summer, but Mama taught her a few simple spells) to produce water, the only thing keeping him alive so far. She rips her dress to bind his arm, but that's all she can do.

When it has been three days, she chances leaving him alone to explore where they are, hoping maybemaybemaybe, and pleasepleaseplease.

There's a roar in the distance, and she wants to run away, but this may be their only chance of survival. In the chaos, no-one would know where they were; she doesn't know where they are, after all.

She sprints towards the sound, following like it's a tangible thing, holding on to it like a lifeline.

A large, clear building rises of nowhere, a bustle of activity and loud noises. A dark-haired man rushes past, carrying a clipboard.

"Pleese, zir, I need your 'elp! Pleese stop!" she calls out desperately.

"Îmi pare rău, cine eşti?" the man says politely, though he seems unsure of what exactly she's doing here.

"Pleese zir!"

"Există o fată ciudat aici!" he yells out, and several people who were milling around rush over to see this "strange little girl".

She runs.

She doesn't know what they're saying, where she is or where her parents are.

"Mama," she whispers, and the words are fierce against her lips.

She runs faster and faster, but the trees shiver and shake behind her, and she's scared. She bursts into the clearing where Charlie lies unmoving. She kneels, and clutches his head to her chest, and fingers the wand in her pocket.

A woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes bursts into the clearing, a leash in one hand and a wand in the other.

"It's Charlie! You guys, este Charlie!" she calls out into the brush behind her.

Four other people rush into the clearing, toward where she is sitting with her arms curled around him.

"Stop, pleese! Don't 'urt 'im!" she cries, and the blonde woman stretches out a hand. As one, they stop.

At her cry, Charlie opens his eyes.

"Elle," he breathes. Then his eyes drift over to the woman crouching beside her. "Shay."

Through the hurt and jealousy she irrationally feels, she knows that she should trust her, for Charlie. The workers gather Charlie up, and walk away with him, and she follows.

(And that's what she always does, doesn't she?)

So they begin as not-quite-strangers, and in the middle they want to (need to) become something more, but she's harder now, and she's so close to giving up.

"We can't do this, Gabrielle. You're too young, I'm so much older than you, I live on a dragon reservation, for Merlin's sake! I can't provide for you. I can't give you anything," he says, with a passion in his voice, and she know he believes what he's saying, but with every word she feels less and less.

"Whatever." Her voice is cool and crisp, and she feels his astonishment as if it is her own.

So she turns and walks away, and with every step she throws her old self away. Because she's seventeen, and he's treating her like a child (but darling, she's so much better than that).

She Apparates to the nearest bar, and turns up the charm that she usually tries to hide away. They flock to her like birds (or sheep, she thinks; one, two, three: all the same) and she smiles like her heart isn't broken. Because it isn't. And that what scares her the most.

Fleur is worried, and brings Victoire over in an attempt to cheer her up, but she doesn't need it. She's having fun, not for the first time, but not for the last, and she uses people so they can't get too close.

She doesn't visit Fleur anymore. Her just in case turns into whatever, and innocence becomes a deadly game.

She eats fine, and sleeps well, and leaves the same lipstick marks on the rim of her favourite cup, and she doesn't understand why everyone wears permanent frowns when they see her.

So she forgets, lost in a world of dances and song, drinking till they almost kick her out of the bar. But when that happens, she turns up the charm and bats her lashes, and shealways gets her way.

She dates boys, and dumps them, and comes so close (but not quite) to losing every shred of innocence.

She's at her third bar of the night, a random guy's hand half-way up her leg, and they are looking at each other, and he's breathing heavily, but she isn't breathing at all. Or so it seems. She's perfectly still, an untouched glass of wine in her hand. A light flashes in her eyes, and she pushes him off, her red dress fluttering in the nonexistant breeze. She walks to the bar, grabs another drink, and repeats the process.

Then he's at the door, and cold blue eyes starestarestare and she turns, wanders up to him, and opens her own silver-blue eyes and says that he's kept her waiting.

And he frowns in disappointment and walks away.

So they begin as not-quite-strangers, and in the middle they want to (need to) become something more, but don't, and in the end...

She'd like to say it was a fairytale, that he saved her and swept her off her feet, and that they got married and had 2.5 children.

They didn't.

He found her again, but she didn't trust him. They kissed and he believed that maybe (almost, not-quite) they were fine.

She wasn't.

She withdrew, so he took it slow. He earned her trust eventually. He loved her still, for all his flaws, and her flaws, and every issue they had before just seemed to melt away. She was older than her age, he had been promoted and bought his own house, and he had given her his heart.

"I'm sorry," she says, and her voice resonates around the room. He is silent, and she is scared.

"I'm sorry too. I'm sorry that I left, that I hurt you, and I'm sorry that I can never be the man you need," he says, uncharacteristically eloquent, but his voice stirs something in her and she leans forward and presses her lips to his (as they've done so many times before). But this kiss is genuine, real, and afterwards, she laughs, and that too is real, and everything is so terrifyingly true that she revels in it, and laughs again, and they become something like a happy ever after.

So they begin as not-quite-strangers, and in the middle they want to (need to) become something more, and in the end they are more than happy.

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