Title: Scattered

Author: Lady Dissent

Rating: R

Warnings: Character death, bad language, thematic elements, typos and occasional writer's block

Pairing: Bill/OFC, Bill/Fleur (not at the same time, though. lol)

Disclaimer: I'm just funnin' ya! Damn near everything is JKR's.

A/N: This starts out sometime around the beginning of HBP, with Fleur and Bill being engaged. It then switches over to shortly after Bill leaves Hogwarts.

Also, go easy on me! This is my first HP fic, even though I write a lot of other things (mostly LOTR and original stuff). I'm not quite used to this fandom yet . . . :-)

It's named for the Green Day song on their Nimrod album that starts, "I've got some scattered pictures lying on my bedroom floor/reminds me of the times we've shared . . . "

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Bill Weasley thought the floor was the largest shelf in his house.

Fleur Delacour thought that was disgusting.

'Oh honestly!' Fleur cursed in French. She had been going to get Bill's leather jacket from his closet, and had just found a very sticky something else. Her mind spun with adjectives to describe what was now stuck to her bare foot, the kindest of which was "nauseating."

Quickly, Fleur found a shirt and wiped her foot off. She forced herself not to think about what it was she'd stepped in as she threw the now-soiled shirt into the hamper in the hall. Her search for Bill's jacket resumed, but was soon sidetracked by an open drawer of the nightstand.

Curious. She'd never seen this drawer open. She'd assumed it was broken, but had never asked. It hadn't seemed very important to know what was inside, not that she had ever cared.

Fleur dropped the pair of dirty jeans she'd just extracted from under the bed, and peered inside the drawer. Inside was a mix of seemingly worthless junk: a pile of pictures, a small velvet box, and a brown paper bag. She decided her walk with Bill could wait a minute while she examined this. Sitting on his bed, she picked up the scattered pile of pictures. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

These were Muggle pictures of another girl!

The foremost one was a slightly fuzzy Polaroid showing a skinny, brown haired girl wearing green pajama pants, a black shirt, and, to Fleur's horror, what looked like Bill's jacket! The girl didn't look very old. Maybe 17. She had obviously been taken by surprise, not expecting to have her picture taken. She wasn't wearing any make-up, and her hair was in a messy bun. It looked mousy and greasy, Fleur thought meanly. She turned the picture over, but couldn't decipher the curvy, messy handwriting on the back. Her lip curled viciously at the fading lipstick mark, though.

The rest of the pictures were of the same girl, but they were very different. They were all staged. The girl was always looking at the camera with a faraway look, while simultaneously managing a terrific pout. Her make-up and hair had obviously done with great care by someone professional. The background was foggy, and apparently not meant to detract from the girl.

Fleur thought she looked like a bit of a whore.

"What's taking you so long?" Bill called from the doorway. "Did you get lost?"

He walked nimbly through the muddle of clothes and junk to the bed and sat next to Fleur, wrapping his arms around her in an apologetic hug.

"Sorry about the . . . " he began with a quirky smile, but his voiced trailed away as he saw what she was holding; which drawer had been opened. Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed, and the smile fell from his face, replaced by a hard glare.

"What are you doing with that?" he demanded, and held his hand out expectantly.

"I would ask you ze same thing," Fleur said airily. She snatched the photos out of his reach.

"Give them to me," Bill ordered, reaching for them again. Fleur pulled them away further, and glared at him. "You don't know what those are," Bill said. "Give them to me. Now."

"No," Fleur said. "I know what zey are. Zey are pictures of some whore you were not going to tell me about."

Something mean flashed across Bill's face, and he grabbed Fleur by the shoulders and pulled her within an inch of his face, standing up quickly as he did so. He also managed to knock over the bedside lamp with a loud crash.

"She was not a whore," Bill breathed through gritted teeth.

"No?" Fleur began. She waved the glossy, staged shots in Bill's face. "Zen what are zees? Just photographs you 'appened to come across? And what is zis?" She shoved the lipstick-covered side of the messy photo in front of her. "'Ow do you explain zis?"

Bill snatched all the photos out of her hand and carefully put them back into the drawer.

"She was not a whore," he repeated, quieter this time. He sank onto his bed and the phrase became his mantra as he buried his head in his hands. Fleur didn't quite know what to do.

"What's going on up here?"

It was Bill's younger sister Ginny. She was standing in the doorway, peering in at her brother and his fiancée cautiously, as though she was expecting something disturbingly risqué. Once she saw it wasn't, though, she immediately braved her brother's messy room and ran over to him.

"What did you do to him?" Ginny barked accusingly at Fleur as she put a comforting arm around her brother.

"No-zing," Fleur said indignantly. "I simply asked 'im what zees were." She pointed to the still-open drawer and the photographs within. "Eet iz rude to keep secrets."

Ginny, however, didn't quite agree.

"Why were you looking through his things?" She demanded loudly. "You shouldn't do that!"

"Ginny," Bill said weakly. "Be quiet. She deserves an explanation."

"Oui!" Fleur said heartily. "That I do!"

Ginny pouted but nodded.

"She wasn't a whore," Bill said.

"I understand, oui," Fleur said, clearly annoyed, but then her face softened a little. "Wait, 'wasn't'? Don't you still see 'er?"

Bill was still and silent. His eyes, Fleur noticed, were glassy with unshed tears.

"Did she leave you?" Fleur asked quietly. Bill still didn't say anything.

"She died," Ginny finally said.

Fleur promptly felt like an ass. She sat beside Bill and put her arms around him.

"Oh Bill, I am sorry! I did not know zat-"

"Then you shouldn't have said anything," he said pointedly. His voice was hollow, though, and there was no tone to it. "You shouldn't have looked at them in the first place."

With that, he stuck his foot out and shoved the drawer closed with it, and then stood to leave. Ginny rose also. The two were nearly at the door when Fleur asked,

"What was she like?"

Ginny made to keep going, but Bill paused. He turned around slowly and looked thoughtfully at Fleur.

"She was smart, funny, and very passionate," he said quietly. Fleur nodded. Obviously, Bill had liked this dead girl. As he sat down next to her again, a small smile spread across his face. "She was also vain, short-tempered, and judgmental."

"Oh," Fleur said. "What was 'er name?"

There was a long silence. Bill sat with his eyes closed and hands clasped in his lap. Ginny watched her older brother as though fearful he might start crying again. Finally, Bill opened his eyes and gestured towards the nightstand.

"Ginny, get me her picture please," he said, and his sister leapt up to obey. To Fleur, he said, "Would you like to know about her?"

"I suppose I do not 'ave a choice, do I?" Fleur said quietly. Bill frowned at her, and she said quickly, "Oui, I would."

Ginny put the Polaroid in her brother's open hand, and he brought it closer to Fleur. She looked expectantly at him as he stared fondly at the old photo, a faraway look sneaking halfheartedly onto his face.

"Well?" Fleur prompted.

"Don't rush him!" Ginny barked. She didn't like Fleur very much, and knew that this was going to be excruciating for Bill. In fact, she really didn't think this was any of Fleur's business.

"Her name was Pippa Marie Fitzpatrick," Bill said slowly, pronouncing the words carefully and slowly, as though they were something beautiful that he wanted to hold on to forever. "And she was my first love."