Reconciliation

[Fleur Bigote-Lepetit]

Fleur could hardly remember the last time that she had spoken with her father. All she did remember was how they had departed with one another and gone their separate ways. How she had blamed her father for everything that had happened with her mother. Blamed him for her walking out on them. Blamed him for her obsession with dark magic. Blamed him for almost everything.
For things he had never been to blame for in the first place.

If she had been honest with herself, Fleur knew what she had done had been wrong. There could be no denying that. But she felt too proud to say those two words. The two words that could right all the wrong she had done by the man that had raised her and nurtured her better than any father she had ever heard of. Despite how good he had been to her, she just couldn't admit her faults. Because having someone to blame for her mothers cold-heartedness seemed easier to bear than having to admit that she had chosen cruelty and darkness in the form of a cult over her own child.

She felt the tears falling down her cheeks before realising where she was. Her feet were planted firm on the ground at the front door of Knowhall Cottage; her fathers home stay.
She hadn't even noticed it, but deep in her thought, she had already clanked the door knocker. She knew as much as she could hear her fathers footsteps growing closer and closer to the door she'd been waiting at.

With a hurried hand, she used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe away the tears, wiping away any streaked eye-liner.
Then he was right there, standing before her; door pulled open wide.

Her father's welcome and loving features looked back at her. His thick moustache covered his upper lip like a big caterpillar and one of his usual knitted jumpers was pulled over his favourite button up shirt. She could tell he'd been eagerly awaiting her just by the fact that he had arrived at the door so quickly. Then there had also been the fact that the smell from within told her he'd already prepared them dinner.

She did her best to muster a smile - as fake as it may have been - before greeting him, allowing her voice to stabilise to it's normal tone, despite all the emotions rushing inside.
"Hey Pop." she bit her lower lip. "Can I come in?" she needn't have asked. She knew well enough what his answer was going to be.

Stepping inside, she felt warm from the chilliness of outside, and as the door shut behind her - so to did any feeling of backing out of speaking to her father.
She would finally have to confront the way she had treated him. Finally make right the wrongs she had done to him.
"It smells good in here. You makin' that famous roast of yours again? I love that thing so much. It reminds me of when I was at Hogwarts, coming home for the Holiday season." she took a moment to realise that she had broken into a genuine smile when she had been reminiscing.
"I'll carve up. You set the table, dad." she moved to the roast which had been sitting on the kitchen bench with a carving knife beside it.

She took the knife in hand and began rationing out slices and setting vegetables out onto the two plates that weren't far by. Taking them both in hand, she set one down in front of the seat that had always been hers and then her fathers plate at the head of the table, before sliding in to her place.
"Dad...." she began, feeling her voice beginning to waver.

The way she had treated him? It had been so damn wrong.​

 

[Bob Bigote]

Bob had hardly expected anything from the letter he'd sent by owl earlier that day. He had sent owl upon owl to his daughters last known address and she had never written him back, nor had she bothered to come and visit him to tell him to stop sending his words her way. She'd made it painfully clear to him the last time that they had been in the same room together what she thought of him. How he had ruined their family life, and how he had been responsible for the way her mother turned out. Despite knowing that he'd done everything in his power to bring Naomi back from his dark path, he couldn't help but feel like maybe he had failed Fleur. Maybe by some peculiar chance, he had been the cause of Naomi's spiral into what he could now only describe as insanity.

It mattered little if he expected Fleur to accept his invitation over to try and resolve their differences. He would do what he did every day that he sent an owl her way. He would buy her favourite meat, put together his famous glaze and put together his freshly roasted vegetable assortment which Fleur had loved so much as a child. Just in case, by some miracle - his daughter decided to see him.
And so when the sound of his doorknocker rang through the house, he felt chills run through his body. He raced hurriedly to the front door, just as he had set the roast out on the bench to cool.

The door swung open as fast as he had reached it, and his eyes levelled on his daughter. How the relief rushed him in that very moment. How he felt so at peace knowing that she was safe and whole; that she hadn't fallen astray in her time estranged from him.
When she had greeted him, he had just smiled at her; so thrilled to hear her voice.
"Honey, you are always welcome inside my home." he reinforced upon her request to enter.

He allowed her in before closing the door behind her. He followed close behind Fleur as she made her way into the kitchen, his hands pocketed. He gave her attentive ears as she spoke about the beautiful smells filling the house. His lips pulled into a tight smile when she reminded him of the days when they had been best friends. When she had been in school and he had been her ever-present guardian from anything that made her feel scared or angry.
"I know it's your favourite thing in the world. I've been making it for the passed few days. The roast that is, honey. Every time I wrote you, I'd make it. Just in case you did want to come around and see me. Just in case, Fee." his voice had broken a little when he had announced that fact, but he managed to collect himself when Fleur had advised he set the table while she dished up.

He nodded his head and set off to placing the cutlery at the table. Setting himself down in his own seat, he offered Fleur a whispered 'Thanks' as she set his plate down. Take his knife and fork in hand, he cut a piece and took a bite, going about chewing and savouring the flavour; swishing them about his mouth.

Then he heard her voice.
'Dad....'

He put his hand up and stopped her.
"Baby, no. You don't go apologising now. Please. Let's just be a family for a second. Let's eat up. Pretend nothings wrong for just a second. Let's pretend you're my little Princess Fee and I'm your loyal guardsman again." he smiled sadly back at her, knowing full well that such a reality had vanished from them long ago. He sniffled a little, tilting his bed back to fight back the tears of realising how long he and his daughter had been at odds with one another before he looked back up at her.
"I love you, Fleur. Don't you ever doubt that, y'hear?" ​

 

[Fleur Bigote-Lepetit]

How she had ever even fathomed the idea of blaming her father for what her mother had done to them seemed like anything but a sane proposition at this very moment. He had done nothing but right by her from the day she had been born to the moment she found herself in today. And even still, when she had wronged him so, he had held on to the very last essence of hope that she - his only daughter and the one he loved unconditionally - would come back to him; to share her favourite meal over their long talks once more.

When he had stopped her from elaborating on her apology, she felt her eyes swell even more with tears. Because she knew she had been so wrong about everything. And because even still, her father would not hold her accountable for those actions. Because he would never leave her to believe she had hurt him, in fears that perhaps, she would be hurt by that very reality. The way he had remarked on their past; how he had been her protector and she his princess only forced the tears to roll down her cheeks. And then those three words. Those three words that she simply had to reciprocate to the one person in this world that had always been there for her. That had always supported her.

"I love you so much, pups. And want it or not, I've gotta relieve that weight. I'm so sorry." She felt the words leave her mouth and the agonising weight that had come with withholding them from her dad for so long.

She noted the tears running down her fathers face, but the smile that had spread from ear to ear on him had been enough to bring a genuine smile to her face as well.
How much those words must have meant to him deep-down. She could hardly imagine.

For what seemed long the next hour, the two of them simply talked and talked over their meal. They spoke of what they had been doing in the months that they had been estranged. Spoke of all the adventures and good times that they had. Spoke of all the bad times and the constant missing of one another that seemed to go on forever and a day.

They were father and daughter again.

It felt like nothing could change that. Like nothing could ever get between them again.

Fleur felt genuinely happy for the first time in a long time. At ease with the fact that she had done right by her father, and he had been willing and selfless enough to accept that.

He truly had been the person she wished to be when she was fully grown. How she wished she could be half the wizard he had grown to be. To be selfless and caring and nurturing; loving. And while she may have been quite a distance from getting to that point, slowly but surely, she was allowing life to teach her just what it would take to get there.

And for that, despite all of this, she was, if just a little bit - thankful.​