A/N next chapter. I warn you: more sadness coming up. I'll try to have a happy chapter next. Just for future reference, thisll be a kind of dark story, but im pretty sure therell be a happy ending of some sort.
Chapter three: drowning in tears
The strange boy was over again. Victoire watched as the boy sat beside her and the door shut loudly. Fluer, this girl's mother, had been having Teddy over more often, lately. Victoire, young though she was, knew enough to understand that it was for her own benefit. It wasn't much help, at first. There were not many people her age in town, and she got lonely a lot, but now that she finally had someone to talk to, she found that she just wanted to be alone. You could hardly blame the girl. Just two months ago, her father had died, leaving her alone with an increasingly depressed mother.
"Victoire," said Teddy shyly. "Do you want me to show you how to play chess? Ron's been teaching me. It's very confusing, but you're smart, right?" Victoire nodded her blonde head vigorously, making sure there was no doubt about her almost-five-year-old intelligence.
Teddy took a box from his bag and set up a chess game, watching with interest as the queens and kings on either side switched places, catching his mistake. "I always forget where the queens go," he admitted, unable to hide his embarrassment as his hair turned a faint, pink color.
He sat there explaining the rules to Victoire for a while, before she interrupted as he was incorrectly explaining the ways in which knights moved. "Are you my cousin?" she asked, a blank look in her eyes.
"I dunno… I hope not," said Teddy. Victoire looked offended.
"Why not! I think I'm a good cousin! Just last week I went to visit the twins!" she huffed indignantly.
"Because some day I'm going to ask you to marry me!" Teddy announced proudly. "And that's un-legal if we're already in the family together!" Victoire looked shocked for a minute, and then giggled. "What? I am going to ask you! But we're not old enough!" she continued to giggle.
"Your eye's have turned pink with your hair!" she said, pointing at him as if he could see himself.
"Hey," said Teddy, after a few more moments of giggling. "Wanna go swimming?" asked Teddy. Victoire looked shocked. She had heard about swimming, and supposedly lived near the sea when she was very young. The thought to swim in their town where there were no pools seemed absurd, however.
"Where?"
"at the edge, of course!" said Teddy. "It's all water! We can go swimming! I've never gone before, but big kids talk about it! They go that way! There's an edge not too far from here." Victoire grinned at the prospect of a grand adventure, and followed willingly as Teddy stood.
They climbed out the window, ignoring the door right beside them, liking the idea of their boring days being filled with real adventure, and walked across the bare ground, covered with long-since dried out remnants of plants usually found in a lake. After a few minutes of general running, walking and skipping, they came to a halt. The thing that was before them was something they rarely saw, and hardly remembered.
"Wow!" said Victoire, reaching out to touch it. Her hand drew back a second later, wet, and she giggled nervously.
"yeah," said Teddy, quieter. Neither of them had seen the edge lately, and never alone. It was a flat wall of water that separated the land they knew from the mysterious depths beyond. "come on!" he said suddenly, not being able to concentrate on being in awe any longer. He didn't bother to take any clothes off or change. Never having swam before made it seem unnecessary. He just walked up to the water and walked in, slightly cautiously, but not stepping back. Once the small boy was completely immersed in water, he grinned, flapping his arms awkwardly to stay on the ground, away from the dangerous mystery of what lay above. Once he started floating upward, and running out of air, he managed to swim his way back in through the wall. He came in a few feet off the ground and fell roughly. He picked himself up and smiled at Victoire.
"Coming?" said Teddy. Victoire grinned and nodded. They both plunged, unhesitant this time, into the water head first. The pair swam, or, rather, flailed in the water for a minute or two, staying close to the ground. They poked their heads out, laughing as they took their breaths, and looking down at the ground a foot below them. Teddy went back into the water with a small, 'sploosh' sound, and Victoire followed immediately after. The two played in the water for a few minutes, going in and out and managing to get the hang of controlling where they went in the water. They went up and down and when they were getting too high, they would jump from where they were in the wall to the ground below them, landing with a thud. They eventually started venturing further out, laughing at the rare moment of adventure. They were children and they were excited.
Victoire started to feel dizzy. She was running out of air, but she just wanted to go out a bit farther before she did. When she ran out of air, she could go back. She went, beckoning for Teddy to follow, and they got out into deeper water, sinking again as she exhaled into the water, bubbles streaming to the surface. She made an unhappy face as she ran out of air, her lungs feeling tight all of a sudden. She kicked in the direction of the barrier, and Teddy tried to help her. Then, he too realized he was out of air, and the two tried desperately to get to the barrier. Never having learned how to swim, the two didn't get very far. They gasped, taking water into their lungs. They kicked and flailed madly.
Suddenly, a large figure plunged into water a few yards away, at the barrier. It was blurry to the struggling toddlers, but in their last seconds of conciousness they could see it growing closer. As everything faded, they felt the slight tug of hands on the back of their shirts, tugging. Then everything was black. Everything was gone.
"-just so tired. This was just so scary! George, they were drowning out there! I'm worried I've been neglecting Victoire since Bill… since…" the voice of Victoire's mother cracked and the small girl could hear her sobbing in the next room. She sat up, feeling nauseous, and looked at the next room. The door was slightly ajar, and light was drifting in along with the sounds of the crying. Victoire looked beside her to see Teddy in bed as well.
"Fluer, that's not true," said the voice of Victoire's uncle, George. She crawled out of bed and peered through the crack in the door. Fluer's face was buried in George's shoulder, and he was patting her head.
"I 'ave been bringeeng over Teddy to keep her busy so I could ignore them and wallow in my own self-pity and look what 'appened! I 'ave been eegnoring her! I 'ave barley bothered to check if she is okay! My daughter's father ees dead and all I 'ave done ees theenk about my self!" she could hear her mother sobbing. George, continued to embrace her reassuringly. He glanced up and caught his young niece's eye, nodding.
She cautiously moved forward, and though the door made a loud creaking noise as she pushed it open, her mother didn't look up until the small daughter rapped her arms around her knee. Fluer looked up with a start, hiccupping slightly. She gazed down into the teary eyes of her only child, the flow of tears from her own, red, puffy ones dying down a bit.
"I love you mommy. I'm sorry that I went into the water! I didn't know it was bad!" The girl was now fully crying, and she flung herself into her mother's now-vacant arms, sobbing into her chest.
"I know, mon petite, you just" sniff "scared me so much! Ze water ees dangerous and I was so worried!"
"I love you mamma… you haven't been being a bad mommy to me…" the girl said, clinging tighter and sobbing still harder.
"oh, mon petit chou, je vous aime aussi! Je serai une meilleure mère désormais, je promets! Je ne quitterai jamais votre côté de nouveau! vous êtes une si bonne, belle fille. J'ai la meilleure fille dans le monde. Je vous aime! Je vous aime! Je vous aime, mon ange..." said Fluer in rapid French. Victoire did not know much French herself, but from her rather small memory, she could pick out 'I love you,' and 'my little cabbage,' a phrase that always brought a smile to the girl's face. Victoire found the sound of her mother's native language soothing and beautiful. Once the girl had sobbed herself asleep, Fluer carried her back to bed with ease, and, in her sleep, Victoire snuggled closer to Teddy.
Fluer returned to the other room, smiling weakly at George. "You are an amazing mother," he said warmly. "And the best judge of that just confirmed it," he said, gesturing to the door. "I think you'll be okay, but you know you can call me for anything. I'm glad you called me today." George gave Fluer a hug and headed toward the front door, thinking that his sister in law seemed to be recovering. He reached for the door, but it opened before he could reach it. A man, several years younger than himself, stood in front of George, panting and soaked to the bone.
"Where's Fluer?" he asked, breathing heavily. "It's Gabriella… murdered… on a mission…"
George instantly found himself thrust aside by a hysteric Fluer who had come to see where the other voice was coming from.
"What!? NO! WHAT ARE YOU TALKEENG ABOUT!? THEES EES NO' TRUE! IT CANNOT BE TRUE! cela ne peut pas être vrai! cela ne peut pas être vrai! dites-moi s'il vous plaît que vous mentez! pourquoi me mentiriez-vous, Alex pourquoi? comment? pourquoi elle mourir!? Elle était ma soeur! ma seule soeur! pourquoi? comment? non ... non ... pourquoi?" the woman collapsed on the ground in hysterics. Not even a hug from her daughter could pull her back now. The other men looked at her, not saying anything, waiting for her to speak first. "How?" she said finally, in the most bitter, venomous voice they had ever heard.
"D-death eater," said Alex. He had been Gabriella's partner in the order for two years, and he looked as though he had cried as much as Fluer was now, and would still be had he not ran out of tears long ago.
"Who?" asked Fluer, in the same voice as before. Alex did not answer. "I said WHO!" repeated Fluer, hate and anger filling every fiber of her being, including her voice.
"D- Dolohov…" The reason he had not wanted to say was apparent. This death eater was the reason both the boy and the girl in the next room had lost parents. The reason Fluer had lost a husband. And now the reason Gabriella was gone.
Fluer screamed a scream that surely woke the neighbors. George wouldn't have been surprised if it immediately alerted Voldemort of their presence.
"I will KILL HIM! WE WILL SEE HOW HE LIKES IT WHEN SOMEBODY DESTROYS EVERYTHING IN LIFE THAT HE LIVES FOR! HE WILL FEEL WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE YOUR HEART RIPPED IN TWO! JE TUERAI CE BÂTARD BAISANT ET SA FAMILLE ENTIÈRE!" and with that, Fluer dissaperated before anyone could stop her. It was the last time anyone ever saw her, excepting, perhaps, Antonin Dolohov.
A/N yay. Another chapter. I'm sad. I originally was not planning on killing off Fluer. I like Fluer quite a lot. Same with bill, though. The French is basically 1) terms of endearment and love and stuff about how awesome Vicky is 2) why!? Why!? Noooo! And 3) swearing about killing… someone who she calls some names I shall not mention in English. (for fear of my mother reading my fanfics, which she does sometimes… love you mamma!) I thought she would use a bit of English and French, just to shake things up. I used a translator, so blame it for any grammatical errors. Not my fault. And sorry about the fail French accent. I've tried writing accents and I always fail .honestly, that was part of the reason I killed fluer. Too hard ot write her dialogue. Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaase review! XOXOXOXOXO!