My Eldest Weasley

Arthur Weasley

BILL

The snow crunches beneath my boots as I made my way to the Burrow. Walking always helped calmed me, helped me think clearly. And I needed it as clear as possible for the conversation I was about to have.

It's been nearly four months since Fleur and I had been together. And while it had been the most beautiful time I have ever had, the secrets I kept from her weighted heavy on my heart.

While Fleur knew almost everything there was to know about me, she also knew there were some secrets she still wasn't privy of.

At first, I was worried that she might think I was a part of some dark, shady business, or worse, was one of the death eaters. But her continuous support and faith in me soon made me realise that she was just patiently waiting for me to include her in my secret, even though patience wasn't generally in her virtue.

I knew it bothered her that I was hiding a huge part of my life from her, and so wanted this secret to be over with. Even though we had only met few months ago, I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend my life with.

She was everything I had ever wanted, and so much more. Even though she seem like a delicate flower, in reality possessed an iron strong will and heart of a lioness. Brutally honest, there was never any guessing games with her. She said it like she saw it, instead of saying things just to please others. There really was never a dull moment with her.

That was the reason I was going home today. I wanted to let my parents know about the amazing girl I had in my life and I had to let Fleur know everything about me. Keeping secrets from her killed me everytime I looked into her trusting eyes.

With front door in sight, I walked around the yard, towards the garage that dad used as his mini-experiment lab. While mom was the one who ran the Weasley household with an iron fist, it was always our dad we went to with our problems. He was the calm and rational one, always understanding and supporting us in every difficult situations we had ever found ourselves in.

Over the years, dad and I had developed a comfortable friendship that strengthened our bond more so than others. I had always looked upon him as my role model. It was a given that if there was a problem that I cannot solve, dad was sure to have an answer to it.

Taking a deep breathe, I knocked on the open garage door and my father's slightly balding head jumped up from behind a pile of ancient looking radios, startled. "Oh! You scared me there, William. For a moment I thought it was your mum."

I chuckled lightly, taking in the red and green wires strewn on his working table. "Don't you have the guard duty tonight? It's an exhausting work even with Harry's invisibility cloak on, isn't it? Maybe you should rest a bit instead of breaking your own department laws here."

He loved all things muggle. He'd get whatever muggle gadget he could get his hands on, bring it to his den and take it apart to see how it worked. It was lucky he worked at the ministry or his own department would arrest him for tinkering with muggle articles.

Ignoring my comment, he eyed me and bowed his back to his latest project, and asked, "something on your mind, Billy?" Even though we considered our mother as someone who never missed a trick when it came to her children, our father was the subtly observant one, who could easily read us, even though he preferred to act ignorant.

Taking a seat next to him, I fiddled with a small screw that was laying close to me, and said, "I... I met someone."

He gave me a sidelong glance that said, "just met?" Taking a deep breathe, I continued, "her name is Fleur. Fleur Delacour. You might have heard of her from tri-wizard tournament? She works part-time with me at gringotts."