TBAY: Bill and Fleur

[erinellii]

No: HPFGUIDX 80951

TBAY:

It was a fine fall morning in Theory Bay. A breeze was blowing, gulls 
were circling, and Abigail was on the deck of the Imperius!Arthur 
trimaran, enjoying the beautiful weather. 

However, in spite of the sun shining brightly overhead, there was a 
bit of a nip in the air, and the water had felt decidedly cool to 
Abigail when she'd risked dipping her big toe into it earlier.  Which 
was why Abigail was so surprised when she spotted someone out there, 
swimming steadily towards the trimaran. 

As the person drew nearer, Abigail realized that the nut swimming 
through the chilly water was in fact a young red-haired woman whom 
she had never met before. She watched as the woman painstakingly 
hauled herself, huffing, over the railing and collapsed in a sodden 
heap on the deck.  After a few minutes, in which the young woman lay 
perfectly still, breathing heavily and letting the water pour off her 
into large puddles, Abigail approached her with some trepidation.  
The redhead might have had a bit less trouble swimming here, Abigail 
found herself thinking, if she hadn't been wearing a large brown 
trenchcoat atop her regular clothes.

"Um... Hello?" Abigail ventured tentatively.

The red-haired woman looked up slowly, and then, with a massive 
groan, pushed to her feet.  Once upright, she appeared to give 
herself a mental shake, and taking a step towards Abigail, the 
redhead stuck out her hand.

"Hi, I'm Erin," she said brightly. "I'm so glad to finally be here in 
TBAY!  I've been wanting to come for months and months, but I decided 
to wait until after the storm (no point in enlisting on a ship that's 
going to be smashed to pieces next week, right?) and then, well, I 
couldn't find you!  I had particularly wanted to join the crew of 
this trimaran, it just makes so much sense to me, the whole triple 
canon thing, you know, but I looked and asked around everywhere, and 
no one had seen it anywhere!  Then last week, the bartender at the 
Royal George- he really is just as cute as everyone says he is!- told 
me that he'd seen you (you are Abigail, aren't you?-pleased to meet 
you!) single-handedly rescue the trimaran from being lost out at sea! 
That was so brave of you! And so since then I've been keeping a 
lookout and when I saw the ship today I just dove in and swam right 
out to it." She said all this very fast, and taking a quick glance 
around the large deck, finished with a question. "Say, is Elkins 
here?"

"Elkins?" Abigail shook her head sadly. "You really are new here, 
aren't you? Elkins hasn't been around for months, since the end of 
February, at least."

"She hasn't?" Erin gasped in horror. "But,- but, she built this ship 
with her very own canon! Are you telling me she hasn't even come by 
to see how it weathered the storm?"

"Well, there were reports of a sighting back in August. But as far as 
I know, no, she hasn't been back to the ship."

"That's too bad," Erin replied, looking crestfallen. "I was really 
looking forward to meeting her.  I've read almost all of her TBAY 
posts back through '02, and I'm kind of a fan, I guess you might say."

"Nope, no Elkins," said Abigail, looking around at the empty 
deck.  "No Elkins at all.  In fact," and here she paused to give a 
dramatic sigh, "Sometimes I think I'm the only one left who cares 
about this ship."

"Not anymore!" Erin practically shouted, as she snapped into a crisp 
salute. "Crewmate Erin, reporting for duty! Aye, Aye Sir!"  A short 
pause.  "Was that corny? That was too corny, wasn't it? Sorry."

"Well," said Abigail, looking a bit happier, "I do appreciate your 
enthusiasm. And I *could* use some help with my patches."

"Your- patches?" Erin echoed.

"Yes, the ones on the side of the Auror!Arthur cabin.  I'm the head 
of the Auror!Arthur division of this trimaran, you know.  And, the 
thing is, I had to do some major renovation after OoP, and the 
patches- well, sometimes I worry that maybe they aren't as secure as 
I hope they are.  But with you helping me
"

But Erin was taking a step back, looking apologetic as she shook her 
head and held up one hand.  "I'm sorry, but Auror!Arthur isn't really 
my thing at all.  I've just never been able to make myself buy it.  
So I'm afraid I won't be able to help you with the patches."

"Well, then," said Abigail, her demeanor distinctly cooler, "what ARE 
you here for?  I think it's about time we got down to the point of 
this conversation, don't you?"

"It's just that I think I may have found some new canon for Imperio'd!
Arthur," Erin said proudly.  "George gave me a list of the OoP canon 
you've shown him."

"Yes?" Abigail said impatiently.

"Well, you mentioned the Percy being named for Dumbledore suggestion, 
which I like.  I prefer Dumbledore giving testimony in Arthur's 
favor, rather than helping to break the curse on him, because I like 
to think that Moody was the one who did that.  Just my personal 
preference there." A quick glance at Abigail's face prompts Erin to 
get back on track. "Erm, yes, and I believe you also brought up the 
fact that during the fight at the MoM, Ron was the only member of the 
group whose injury was mental rather than physical, which ties in to 
Elkins' idea that Arthur's weakness to the Imperius curse is genetic, 
and may have been passed to some of the Weasley children. You even 
mention the Veelas, so how you missed this bit of canon I'm about to 
bring up, I'll never know..." 

Erin waved her arms around over her head and declared loudly "Ron is 
not the only Weasley child to be mentally incapacitated in OoP!"

Abigail looked somewhat underwhelmed by this dramatic 
announcement.  "Are you talking about Percy?" she said with a slight 
sneer. "Because that's hardly new canon. People have been suggesting 
that ever since Goblet of Fire came out."

"No, no," said Erin, looking shocked. "I may be new, but I'm not that 
new.  I wouldn't waste your time with the old Imperio'd!Percy 
theory.  No, I'm talking about something much more obvious, and yet 
subtle.  Something right under everyone's nose, which is probably why 
it was so easy to overlook."

"I'm talking about Bill. Bill and Fleur Delacour.  Dating.  Or, as 
Fred put it, "Bill's been giving her a lot of private lessons."  It 
just doesn't seem right to me.

"I think I see what you're getting at," said Abigail, beginning to be 
interested despite Erin's slur on Auror!Arthur.  "You think she used 
her Veela powers on him?  I don't know
 JKR hinted that there might 
be a spark there in GoF, and this seems like a perfectly natural next 
step."

"Yes, but is it really, though?" Erin asked, pulling a waterproof 
plastic baggie containing a few typewritten notes out of one large 
trenchcoat pocket. "That `spark' in GoF, let's examine that scene:

------------------------------------------------------------------
        Fleur Delacour, Harry noticed, was eyeing Bill with great 
interest over her mother's shoulder.  Harry could tell that she had 
no objection whatsoever to long hair or earrings with fangs on them.
"This is really nice of you," Harry muttered to Mrs. Weasley. "I 
thought for a moment - the Dursleys-"
	"Hmm," said Mrs. Weasley, pursing her lips. She had always 
refrained from criticizing the Dursleys in front of Harry, but her 
eyes flashed every time they were mentioned.
        "It's great being back here," said Bill, looking around the 
chamber (Violet, the Fat Lady's friend, winked at him from her 
frame).  "Haven't seen this place for five years.  Is that picture of 
the mad knight still around?  Sir Cadogan?"
        "Oh yeah," said Harry, who had met Sir Cadogan the previous 
year.
        "And the Fat Lady?" said Bill.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mrs. Weasley proceeds to tell a story about the Fat Lady, and then 
Bill asks for a tour of the grounds, and they leave the room.  Never 
once does  Bill acknowledge Fleur eyeing him, and yet she's doing it 
so obviously that even Harry (who, as OoP shows us, is not the most 
adept at interpreting female signals) notices.  If Bill was 
interested, shouldn't he have made some sort of acknowledgement?  
Flirted back a little?  What he does is almost exactly the opposite.  
He makes an excuse to get out of the room as quickly as possible. 
People have wondered about Bill's seeming lack of enthusiasm before.  
Some of them have come up with some pretty wild theories to explain 
it.   Everything from Bill is gay-"

"Wait a minute!" Abigail protests. "I was the one who wrote that, and 
it was in the OT-chatter group.  I didn't mean it as a serious 
theory."

"Well, I've seen a lot of listies take it pretty seriously since I 
joined.  But check out this one from Errol, who argues that Bill's 
non-response shows him to be a powerful wizard in message 55257:

"...Or does it typify a stronger constitution that can resist 
Imperius with Impunity?  I'd say Bill is Strong, to...if Fleur was 
turning on the charm there, he was well up to not making a fool of 
himself, and I'm sure that intrigued Fleur more...come on, she's so 
used to those poor saps fawning around her.  Did she turn on a full 
blast of magic then? Maybe, `cause Harry not reacting is no clue - 
he's practically immune too."

"Anyway," Erin continued, "both you and Errol assume that Fleur used 
her Veela magic, and that Bill was able to resist it, either by being 
gay or by being strong.  I don't think that she did use it at all.  
Fleur's mother, her sister, and Bill's mother were all in the room.  
It's likely that one, if not all, of them would have caught on to 
what she was doing, and I don't think Fleur wanted that to happen.  
Not that I think there's anything wrong about using Veela Magic.  The 
Quidditch World Cup clearly demonstrates that it is both tolerated 
and legal in the WW. But I think I understand Fleur's reluctance as a 
seventeen-year-old about heavy flirting in front of her family, or 
the family of the guy she wants to flirt with.  The phrase "over her 
mother's shoulder" shows that she is trying to be surreptitious 
about  her interest in Bill.  So she wouldn't zap him with a dose of 
Veela charm right there.

"So Bill has a clear head.  He sees a girl at least six years younger 
than himself, possibly as many as 12 years younger, and of obvious 
Veela ancestry, eyeing him.  And he makes some hasty inane 
conversation and gets his group out of the room.  I think he's 
scared.  Maybe he just isn't into young girls (yes, I know 17 is "of 
age" in the WW, but over in the US she'd be jailbait.) but I'm pretty 
sure it's the fact that she's a part-Veela that makes him run.  To 
quote Elkins, from message 40168:  "
he is - or perhaps merely fears 
himself to be - even more vulnerable than ordinary men."  Elkins is 
talking about Arthur Weasley's reluctance to watch the Veela at the 
Quidditch World Cup, but it applies equally well here.  And it fits 
perfectly into her theory that the weakness is hereditary.  All the 
Weasley men run from Veelas.  I'm sure that Ron, if he ever gets the 
chance to see one again, will have learned his lesson and be just as 
quick to turn the other way as his father and brother are now.    

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Abigail reminded Erin. "Bill 
hasn't `turned the other way'.  He's with Fleur now."

"Ah, yes.  Poor Bill.  He was right to be afraid.  As soon as she 
could, Fleur got him alone and turned up the magic.  He didn't stand 
a chance."

"But she doesn't even make an appearance in OoP.  Bill is at 
Grimmauld Place without her.  Wouldn't he leave once he was away from 
Fleur and realized he was being manipulated? " Abigail protested.

"Not necessarily," said Erin. "We don't know exactly how Veela magic 
works.  It may grow stronger with more exposure to it or with more-er-
 intimacy with the Veela.  It may be like a drug - once you have so 
much of it, you have to have more.  I tend to compare Bill to someone 
with a family history of alcoholism.  He's tried very hard to stay 
away from the stuff because he knows that once he starts, it will be 
next to impossible to quit."

"So where does this leave Fleur?" Abigail asked. "According to you, 
she's taken away Bill's freedom of choice.  Does that make her evil?"

"Not at all," Erin replied. "In fact, she may not even know she's 
done it.  Take a look at  this canon from GoF:


--------------------------------------------------------------------
"She's part veela," said Harry. "You were right - her grandmother was 
one.  It wasn't your fault, I bet you just walked past when she was 
turning on the old charm for Diggory and got a blast of it - but she 
was wasting her time.  He's going with Cho Chang."
---------------------------------------------------------------------


"And in fact, Cedric does end up going with Cho.  So we know that, if 
they really wish to, ordinary men can resist Fleur's charm.  She 
doesn't make most guys (with the obvious exception of Ron Weasley) go 
absolutely nuts and start doing things they wouldn't normally do, the 
way that full-blooded Veelas can.  So it may not occur to her that 
Bill doesn't have the option of saying no.

"And also, I don't think at this point that Fleur is harming Bill in 
any way.  She may not be something that he would have chosen if left 
to his own devices, but that doesn't mean she's bad for him.  She 
probably has genuine feelings for him."  

"So to recap:  Fleur Delacour has diluted Veela magic. Most men are 
capable of resisting Fleur's magic.  Ron Weasley is not.  Bill 
Weasley, when unaffected by Fleur's magic, chooses not to respond to 
Fleur.  However, Bill Weasley is now dating Fleur Delacour.  
Conclusion?  Bill has been affected by Fleur's magic and, like his 
brother Ron, is unable to resist her.

"Well, it's an interesting theory, with some compelling ideas, I 
admit," said Abigail. "Let me think about it while we set you up with 
a hammock in the crews' quarters.  And then you can get to work 
mopping the deck.  It's still all wet from your swim." As Abigail 
turned to lead Erin below deck, she noticed a strange long lump under 
Erin's large brown trenchcoat, almost as if Erin were concealing a- 
Abigail's eyes widened.

"What is THAT?!!" Abigail screamed, pointing.  "Have you brought a 
weapon aboard this ship?  Are you an assassin?  Who sent you?!!"

"Wait, don't be scared!" Erin said.  "It's not heavy weaponry, only a 
little old disassembled BB GUN. I didn't show it at first because I 
wasn't sure how you'd feel about it."

"A BB GUN?" Abigail echoes. "But what-?"

"Bitter Bill Goes Undeniably Nefarious.  I need to work on it a 
little before I take it over to the safe house.  But it shouldn't be 
too much in your way here on the trimaran.  It's not at all 
incompatible. 


---Erin (with thanks to Abigail for letting me use her character)