A/N: Harry doesn't get enough love. Simple as. He doesn't realise that he's the symbol of hope in the war because he's too busy sacrificing himself for everybody else and being the hero he never wanted to be and I'm not crying it's just the stupid English rain on my face.
Ironically, I wrote this while on holiday in sunny France and I don't really like the ending but see what you think. I just realised this is my first non-Marauder era fic. Crazy.
Disclaimer: Malheureusement, je ne suis pas Jo Rowling et je ne possède pas Harry Potter.
Never Dawn Day
or
Bleak
Have you ever flown over the sea? It's an expanse of wondrous shades of blue - sapphire, cobalt, navy, turquoise, teal - in pictures and books and on the telly and in our imagination.
In Britain, it's grey. It's a churning khaki; a dirty brown; almost devoid of colour. On a dull day (when the rain clouds loom and there's a chill in the air and everyone scurries inside to avoid the drizzle), if you were to look out along the shore you would find it almost impossible to distinguish where the sea stops and the sky begins. The horizon blurs as if someone has taken a rubber and erased the pencil line dividing the two - leaving the shavings to cascade from the sky in harsh droplets.
Fleur tries to empty her thoughts as she watches the sea from Shell Cottage's porch, and she succeeds. Only one word is granted access to her mind: grey. She stands a little longer, tugging her shawl tighter around her shoulders to avoid the biting British chill in the April air, and sinks onto the swinging bench when another word joins it:
Bleak.
She rocks slowly back and forth, and for the first time she acknowledges that the future is bleak.
Her husband; her wonderful, brave, beautiful husband has been left a physical wreck by a psychopathic werewolf - not that she cares, not one bit; he shone like the wretched full moon at their wedding - and their whole world is at war. Bill's on the front line of the Order and although she trusts him with her life, she doesn't trust him with his: he's as reckless and bold now as he was when they first met and the war was only a whisper, the battle only bubbling. Now it's screaming down at them from the rooftops and boiling over, washing them away into the murky sea (she's not fond of the water, not since the grindylows and Gabrielle).
There's a crack and suddenly she's brought out of her reverie; figures have arrived on their beach and they stumble forward. The tall and blonde ones of the three support the oldest; she vaguely recognises them all from the time she spent at Hogwarts during the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
"Dean Thomas," the young man says. "I would extend a hand, but -"
Bill rushes out of the house, wand in hand.
"I heard Apparition!" he shouts. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"Dean Thomas," repeats Dean.
"Luna Lovegood, Mr Weasley," introduces the girl. "Ron sent us."
Dean steps forward, and between them they pull the old man into the house.
"This is -"
"Mr Ollivander," Bill finishes, shocked.
Fleur summons towels and water while the others take him upstairs and as she hurries about the kitchen there's the sound of Apparition again and she rushes to see who it is, already drawing her wand -
"Help!" someone's shouting. Fleur nearly drops her wand.
Ron's back at Shell Cottage, supporting that girl - Hermione - who never seemed to like her but whom Viktor seemed to like, and...
Harry Potter.
Harry's holding a limp body, yelling for help, and the others - she lets out a little shriek; there's a goblin on their land - watch helplessly as he kneels, pained.
She looks on, a spectator in her own home, shocked to the core of the brutality of their lives. All three - five - of the teenagers in her house at the moment are war torn and bleeding: war torn and bleeding, but determined to end this.
She believes in Harry, though, and knows that she'll help him in any way she can. She'll shoulder some of his burden, because he's their only beacon while it's bleak.
Reviews are Tom Daley.