Chapter 4: You Gotta Fight...for your right….TO HONEYMOON!
It wasn't yet full dark by the time Gabrielle materialized near the copse of trees where Bill was hiding with a sweeping noise like the sound of waves breaking on a beach. Momentarily amazed at how similar Fleur's sister looked with her glowing silver hair (which was brushed silky smooth and reached the back of her knees), Bill finally gave Gabrielle a terse smile and waved uncertainly.
"Where?!" Gabrielle hissed fiercely, fire burning in her icy eyes.
Though she was slightly taller than Fleur, Gabrielle was still very willowy and thin with narrow hips and somewhat knobby knees. At that moment, though, Bill was very certain that given the choice between fighting Gabrielle and a mountain troll, he'd choose the troll in a heartbeat.
"There are two of them. I would never forgive myself if I ran in there without back-up and got both Fleur and myself killed with my recklessness," Bill said, his tone leaving many things unspoken about that Final Battle at Hogwarts and the heartbreaking loss of Fred.
Gabrielle nodded and her expression softened a little. She crouched down to look out towards the cave opening before them. A faint light emanated from the crack in the rock that would have been difficult to notice had they not known where to look.
"I've heard them swearing on and off for the past couple of hours," Bill said somewhat smugly, "My Flagrante curse is very strong. Only a certified curse-breaker could break it. They can't Portkey or Apparate out of here if they can't touch her without being burned. What I'm more worried about is the fact that they seem to be keeping her unconscious with some unknown device."
"We shall need to...um...to make Fleur...how you zay...awake?"
"Précisément," Bill replied, grinning a little when Gabrielle gave him an amused look, "Hey, I've been practicing a little French, though I know I still sound like un idiot."
"Zen Bill, what eez ze plan?" Gabrielle asked, snorting a little at Bill's quip.
"How's your Total Body Bind?" Bill asked, his face serious.
"Bon," Gabrielle repled, pulling her wand out from the leather holster on her arm in one fluid movement and setting her jaw.
Bill Disillusioned himself again and Gabrielle followed his lead until they both reached the treeline and stepped out into the small clearing, their bodies refracting light so that the only indication that they were there was in the rippling motion in the air as they moved. They crept together as silently as they could towards the cave and as they approached, they could hear voices.
"-don't need to-"
"Ah, Tali, but I never give up once I've got my mark."
"Whatever you say, Boss."
"Ahh, a nice nap and a meal are just what I needed to pool my power so I can work on breaking this blasted spell. Who knew that Veela could cast spells of their own? I didn't even realize that they were allowed wands in Europe! She won't need it, though, not where she's going. This has honestly been one of my most difficult conquests!"
"What about me?" Tali sounded mildly offended.
"Well, to be fair, I obtained you when you were barely a fledgling, so though you gave me quite a lot of trouble in your own way, this is a different sort of challenge."
Bill felt his jaw tighten as he heard the lust in the other man's face and suppressed the urge to run in shouting "THAT'S MY WIFE YOU MONSTER!"
That would be more of a Ron sort of thing to do, anyway.
He saw Gabrielle's shimmering form move to the other side of the opening.
Wait for it. Wait for it.
Wait.
"I'm going back into the tent to do some reading. Tali, do watch our guest."
The man's voice retreated, along with the threat of his strange device.
They heard Tali snort derisively.
"Sure, whatever you say, Boss. Richie-rich cretin," she muttered, the tone of her voice sounding both bored and irritated.
Bill knew that tone. His goblin employers were quite fond of it indeed, especially when dealing with some of their more entitled Pure-blooded customers.
They both moved into the cave silently, both sliding with their backs against the stone walls on either side of the passageway. At the end of the narrow stone hall, they could see that the cave opened up into a gigantic room that had been carved from what looked like an underground river. They could see Fleur lying on a cot of some sort, a pendulum hanging over her with some kind of phial attached to a chain that swung back and forth over her body without touching it. Tali sat on a flat rock near Fleur's feet leafing through some American muggle magazine with muggle movie stars and sensationalist headlines on the front. An old canvas tent stood a ways away in the surprisingly large cavern near the far wall where a small bubbling spring of crystal clear water broke through the rock. Torches placed around in the vast area made everything look as though it was flickering with the flames as they spat and smoked in the dampness of the subterranean world around them.
"Now!" Bill hissed.
"Voix d'arrêt!" Gabrielle whispered fiercely, and a jet of blue light shot from her wand, hitting a very surprised-looking Tali in the throat. She grabbed at her face, obviously trying to scream, though no sound was coming out. Her clawed feet scraped wildly against the rock as she struggled to cry out in vain.
"Nice!" Bill whispered, holding his wand out as he watched the tent for movement.
"Corporelle totale rigide!" Gabrielle said determinedly, and Bill was reminded that to cast a truly brilliant spell, one must mean it.
Gabrielle meant it.
Once again, as he looked at the fierce determination on Fleur's little sister's face, he was thankful that her wand was not directed at him.
Tali went utterly rigid, her body looking almost as though it were comically at attention on the floor of the cave, save for the hands that still grasped at her throat and the wide, wild expression in her eyes.
A slight noise like the flapping of a flag made Bill turn back to look at the tent and he thought that he saw the door flap moving back and forth ever so slightly, but the flickering torches made it difficult to know if the movement was just his imagination. He stared for a long moment, but heard nothing else.
They would need to move fast.
"Let's go," Bill said, his Disillusionment spell beginning to dissipate.
He ran over to Fleur and bent down as Gabrielle's Disillusioned form followed him like a shadow, her wand pointing towards the tent as he knelt down like a prince come to kiss the sleeping Beauty.
"Finite Incantatem," he whispered, canceling the burning spell around Fleur's body and shaking her gently, "Come on, Fleur. Wake up."
But Fleur didn't seem to notice his soft entreaties and lay there unresponsive, her chest rising and falling somewhat shallowly as she breathed.
"Enervate. Enervate, god damn it!" Bill said, his voice nearly cracking as the spell didn't have any effect at all.
A soft thud against the side of his hand made him pause. The pendulum with the phial attached at its tip. Irritably, he backhanded the swinging pendulum so hard that the chain broke and the phial shattered loudly against the nearby cave wall.
"Merde!" exclaimed Gabrielle as the tent flap opened and a tall man in a suit stepped out, the strange, pistol-like device grasped in his hand.
"You will want to step away from my Veela. You and your invisible friend over there," the man said nastily, stroking his impressively bushy black moustache, "My Spellblaster here is quite dangerous and I must confess that it does have a bit of a hair-trigger."
"Your V-?!" Bill replied, outraged, standing to his full height in front of Fleur, "She is a person! She is my wife!"
The man snorted, "Not anymore. I have captured her, and by the international guidelines of Fair Magical Creature Gamesmanship, she is mine to do with as I wish."
"We are not full Veela!" shouted Gabrielle, her Disillusionment charm dropping so that she was fully visible once more.
"What's this?" the man said excitedly, his blue eyes glittering icily, "Another one? Why, it's my lucky day, then, isn't it? I was going to let you live if you left immediately, but now that I know there's another, I will require the set. Too bad. But what's mine is mine, and God help anyone who tries to take it from me."
He turned his weapon on Bill and pulled the trigger.
Bill tried to block the blast, but suddenly a light so bright that it burned his eyes filled the cave with a sound like chanting women's voices, and he was thrown backwards against the ground. He squinted and his body was pushed back against floor by a force like wind, though it made no sense. They were underground. There was no wind underground.
Or was there?
He blinked rapidly, wondering briefly if he was dead, but the aching in his head and arms and legs and lower back told him that he was not.
Someone was standing in front of him. Someone who glowed as though her body was made of light.
Fleur…
"Fl...e...ur…" he called weakly, holding out his hand before it became too heavy and he dropped it down to his side.
He couldn't lose her. No no no no no no.
But the darkness was rising up to meet him and he could feel his head throbbing painfully as something warm and wet dripped down over his right ear.
Fleur could hear the Veela's song, and she rolled over, trying to ignore it.
Only ten more minutes. Just ten more minutes of sleep.
"Come on, then, and sing with us" they sang to her in the Veela mother tongue, which was not French and was not English, but she understood it just the same, just as she understood the feeling of the magic that pulsed beneath her skin and through her heart.
Fleur blinked rapidly with bewilderment as she opened her eyes. She was surrounded by her ancestors, proud women who stood to welcome her into their ranks, who were more than women, who were powerful warriors, who flew on metallic wings that cut down their enemies, whose only crime was their beauty and their hunger.
But do we bemoan the death of the cow when we savor the steak?
She rose and looked down, noticing at once the light that emanated from her body. She was nude in this place outside of places, yet she felt no shame or fear in her condition. Her skin was nearly opaque and she felt a sense of pride swell in her belly as she watched the silvery veins of magic running through her body like infinite tattoos marking her power.
"Come, my child," a tall Veela wearing a delicately engraved silver headpiece said to her, and Fleur knew at once that she was kin, the original Veela whose line she was born of, a proud and beautiful being of light and power.
Two other Veela silently helped her into a dress of glittering mithril, buttoning up the back until she was fully covered with the radiant material. It did not constrict her movement, instead it felt like an extension of her body and she wondered at its divine softness.
"You are so special, my little one," the tall Veela crooned, her voice a song though she didn't seem to be singing, "So many of those who share our blood are forced to marry, pushed into the slavery of matrimony to men who want us but do not know us. Only one pure of heart and mind can see us without blindly desiring to possess us like livestock to be owned and bred. It is the Veela's curse, you see. It is only for those who truly wish to know us that benefit from our beauty. Those who cannot be bothered and behave like beasts themselves deserve the beast they get."
"I...I don't…" Fleur looked up at the beauty before her and wondered at how she could see her sister...herself...her mother...her grandmother in those eyes, that face.
"The American wants a monster, so give him the monster," the tall Veela said softly as she placed a soft hand on Fleur's shoulder, her grin widening to an almost impossibly inhuman width, and Fleur could see the serrated rows of teeth behind her perfect scarlet lips.
"How do I get back to him? My Bill, my love?" Fleur said, a tear of light trailing down her face.
"Be strong, little one," the tall Veela sang softly in reply, "Go to him now. Protect him, for he is your heart."
Fleur felt the voices of the Veela rise in pitch and volume until it was nearly a roar.
"My husband too, was pure of heart. You have chosen well, for a life filled with love is the only thing that matters in this world," the tall Veela sang, her voice merging with the others as Fleur felt heat and light pour from her back, and she was lifted upward on strong, wide bronze feathered wings.
Go to him.
Fleur's eyes snapped open and she felt her body burst and overflow with same ethereal light as in her dream. The bronze feathers sprouted across her chest and back like armor, and her hair shifted and sprouted into silver feathers until her face was covered with what seemed to be a jagged metallic war helmet. The wings, too, burst from her back just as they had in the dream. There was no pain, only heat and light as they broke free into the fetid air of the cave and she could feel the song of the Veela pouring from her very soul, through her veins, filling the room with the echoes of her ancestry as she opened her mouth and began to sing.
She was the wind.
She moved so quickly that no one could see her, and her song poured from her like a shockwave, canceling the magic in the space as she stood in front of the man she loved and refused to let him be taken from her again. The lethal spell fell to the earth and was absorbed by the stone as the American man in his impeccable suit cursed and pressed the trigger over and over with impotent rage.
Reaching behind her ear, Fleur plucked a silver feather and threw it like a dagger at the man. It shattered his Spellblaster and he grasped his hand and screamed as the metal bit into his skin and his blood hit the stone floor with a loud, wet slapping noise. Fleur opened her mouth once more and sang. The crackle of wild magic filled the air and she moved her hands as though she were weaving something between her fingers. A ball of silver light grew and twisted under her fingers, gathering size until it was nearly as large as Fleur herself.
"You want a Veela, you swine?" she bellowed in her best English, her voice cold as ice, for she wanted to be certain that he could understand her, "Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it!"
The ball of light seemed to flame brighter as it lifted off of her hand and sped towards him as though it had a mind of its own. At first, the man tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. It was then that he fell to his knees and looked into Fleur's eyes, pleading and looking for mercy.
He found none.
The ball engulfed his body and he seemed to shrink and glow for a moment before a loud CRACK filled the cave and he disappeared altogether, cutting his screams off abruptly.
"Ma sœur bien-aimée!" Gabrielle cried, running to her fierce, glowing sister with tears in her eyes, "I étais tellement inquiète pour toi!"
They threw their arms around one another, and as Fleur suppressed the urge to ask her sister why she was in this place, she could feel the metallic feathers sliding back into her body, the wings disappearing as though they had never been there. As Gabrielle pulled away, Fleur gasped and pointed.
Gabrielle had taken some of the glow from her sister and both girls pulsed with silver light.
In the silence and darkness that followed, this was quite useful, and Gabrielle relit the torches with her wand while Fleur turned and tended to Bill, who was unconscious but other than the small cut on the right side of his forehead, he seemed all right. And something told her what she needed to do next. Fleur bent down and kissed him, the bioluminescent glow of her lips pressing into his skin and spreading through his body until it pulsed from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Both of them seemed to glow together for a moment and then the light dimmed once again until the only light in the cave came from the sputtering torches. When Fleur opened her eyes, she noticed that the small cut had disappeared, even though Bill's cursed scars still stood out as they had before.
"Unghhhh," Bill groaned, his hand going to his forehead as he sat up and squinted with bewilderment, "I thought I saw...FLEUR!"
He practically tackled his wife around her waist and she giggled as she wrapped her arms around him tightly.
"Where is he? Did he hurt you? I'll-" Bill was silenced by a slightly glowing finger placed on his lips.
"I think that American has...how you say...bitten off the more than he can chew," Fleur said triumphantly and Bill was more thankful than ever to have such a formidable woman by his side.
They turned to see Gabrielle kneeling gently next to Tali, who still lay immobile across the rock. She undid the vocal paralysis spell first and then used her wand to create a focused beam of power and sliced very carefully through the metal servant's collar around Tali's neck. Finally, she removed the Total Body Bind and stepped back to a respectful distance to give the raven-woman some space.
Tali yelped and immediately shifted into her massive raven form. She flew up to the ceiling and grasped at a stalactite, looking down at all of them with guarded eyes.
"Eet is...okay," Gabrielle said slowly, tucking her wand into a small leather sheath that she kept attached to her forearm, "You are...libéré….free."
The raven flew down and landed a short distance away, shifting back into human form in one fluid motion. With a puzzled look, Tali grasped the line of somewhat lighter skin where her collar used to be.
"Why...why would you do this?" she said carefully, "After all I have done to you?"
"You were not acting of your own volition," Bill said as he stood up with a groan, "If I am not mistaken, that is a Command Collar. Goblin-made for the American Wizarding World during the Revolutionary War in exchange for safe passage and equal rights in the Americas."
Tali stared at her former mark of servitude and shook her head.
"I don't know what the damn thing is, I'm just glad it's off," she said, sneering at the collar, "I'm free. for the first time since I was a baby and my parents were killed by poachers...I'm free!"
Then she looked around nervously.
"Where...where is Bernie?" she asked in a frightened voice that made her sound like a child terrified of the closet monster.
"He is an issue no longer," Fleur said with a grin that was all Veela.
"Tali," said Bill kindly, "Do you have someone to...stay with?"
"You don't understand," Tali said, looking up at them with a fierce expression, "There are others. He has an entire menagerie under his sprawling manor in Georgia. His 'collection.' I have to go back. I have to free them."
Gabrielle looked horrified and turned to her sister, pulling Fleur aside.
After a hushed conversation, Fleur finally sighed and nodded her head, then they turned back to Tali and Bill, who both wore expressions of confusion.
"Gabrielle, my sister, wants to accompany you," Fleur said, "She is my flesh and blood, my sister...my bien-aimé, so if you harm her in any way…"
"I was frozen, not comatose!" Tali snapped, "I saw your big light display. How convenient that you don't have horns or taloned feet that stick around when you go all human-y. Believe it or not, but most people think I look weird, even though I'm better at speaking human than most of the others."
"We are only part Veela," Fleur shot back, "Which your American would have known if he had only spent a minute to listen!"
"What can I say?" Tali replied with a shrug, "In America, time is money and Mr. Magnificent Mustache Man didn't care enough to vet out his source. We were just told that a Veela would be here in the Parisian countryside, and that since Veela have hidden their existence so well that many debate over whether they still even exist, he jumped at the possibility.
"If you don't mind me asking, exactly what species are you?" Bill asked.
"Corvus-sapien Africanus," Tali replied as though she were reciting from a book, "That's what the information card says on my "habitat" at home. Don't be fooled by the pretty words, though. It's a cage. I'm what is referred to by the average person as a Ravenborn. We're a subset of harpies that mostly thrive on the Ivory Coast. Boss didn't realize I'd taught myself to read. He thought I was too stupid. Well, he underestimated you and you can see how that turned out. I guess he was worried about bringing his normal entourage of big burly hunters because of the particular effect that the Veela is known to have on men."
Tali threw back her head and laughed, the thick, smoky sound of her raven form evident in the sound of her voice.
"I can...go?" Gabrielle said slowly, trying to pronounce the English as best she could.
"Well, as I always say, the more the merrier," Tali replied with a grin, and Gabrielle seemed to sparkle slightly, letting out a shriek of excitement.
Fleur shot a knowing look at Bill.
"Someone is quite bitten," she said with a smirk.
Bill looked at her confusedly for a second.
"Do you mean...smitten?" he asked.
Fleur blushed.
"You know what I mean!" she said, slapping him playfully on the arm.
Tali went into the tent and brought out a large backpack full of supplies.
"Looks like the wards and stuff he put on this to keep me from getting at it have dropped," Tali said with a wicked grin, "Now I can go back!"
"Gabrielle must be back before the summer ends!" Fleur said, her hands on her hips, "You have the ability to do this, yes?"
"No sweat!" Tali said, pulling out a device with stones set inside, "This baby here coordinates where you are on the planet and pulls you to the destination you set in this here screen with the power of rune stones and ley lines and some such magic junk that would sound a whole lot more impressive if I actually knew how the damn thing worked."
She fiddled with it for a bit and then smirked triumphantly.
"There! All ready to go, princess?"
Gabrielle blushed and Fleur snickered as she gave her sister a knowing look. They hugged one last time before Gabrielle ran to Tali's side and they disappeared with a soft hum and a flash of light.
"Here you are, love," Bill said, handing Fleur the wand he'd found hidden in the long grass where she'd dropped it earlier when she'd been ambushed.
"Merci. I feel nearly naked without it," Fleur said, smiling gently until she nearly seemed to glow again.
Bill looked at her, his eyes full of such strong emotion that Fleur felt her heart pulse with her love for him.
"You are so, so beautiful. You do know that, right?" Bill said, sliding a strand of hair behind Fleur's ear as he tipped her chin up and kissed her, "Your spirit is like the sun, Fleur. You burn your enemies to ash, yet everything under the gentle rays of your light flourishes. You saved me yet again. I do not yet know what I have done to deserve such an amazing woman in my life, but it only makes me more thankful that you find me worthy of you...even with..all of this."
"Well obviously it is because apparently my husband is a poet in addition to a Curse Breaker incroyable!" Fleur said with a playful smirk, pulling him back against her lips and refusing to let him up for air until both of them were breathless.
They both seemed to realize that something had passed between them that had drawn them even closer than before, and even though there was no overt difference that either Fleur or Bill could see, they could feel it in beating of their hearts and the coursing of their blood.
They were bonded for life, and nothing could take that from them, not language kerfluffles, not the irritating Molly Weasleys of the world, not even the murderous intent of a madman bent on controlling the world or immoral wealthy Americans hellbent on amassing collections of sentient beings in his own personal zoo.
As the torches flickered around them and the sound of dripping water and the faraway squeaking of what was most likely a colony of irritated bats filled the stale air of the cavern, both Fleur and Bill held one another tightly, their hearts beating as one as they imagined the many adventures ahead.
And they both agreed that, so far, this had been an excellent honeymoon indeed.
The End
(let's give our honeymooners some privacy, eh?)
Author's Note: This was fun and different. I haven't written these characters before (and I have a very limited grasp on French, so thanks to Google Translate for helping me and also please blame Google for any language SNAFUs, lol).
Thanks again to Moka for giving me this prompt, and here's hoping that the rest of Bill and Fleur's honeymoon is excellent for more….pleasant reasons….
As always, I look forward to your reviews, thoughts and questions.
