It was seven o'clock at Hogwarts, and Fleur had just come from her bedroom to find that her daughter had evidently been awake for some time.
"Come 'ere, Dominique. I will brush your 'air." Fleur spared a moment to wish that she could speak in French. Her children could all hold a conversation in the language, but Gabrielle had gently suggested that since the family was living in the United Kingdom, it might be better to attempt to accommodate their first language. When Fleur took her family to visit their aunt in France, Gabrielle insisted that her husband and son try to speak English to the visitors. Every time, Fleur told her this was unnecessary. Every time, Gabrielle shrugged and said (in French), "They need the practice, anyway."
Gabrielle's husband was German, and she had seen him ridiculed for his accent. She herself had had bad experiences in England. Fleur knew the feeling, but it was one of the few sorts of mockery that rolled off of her back, and she did not see that speaking French to children of French descent would do them so much harm. To please Gabrielle, and because she suspected Victoire appreciated it as well, Fleur tried.
Dominique stood in front of her mother's chair while Fleur ran a brush through the wavy locks. It was more a symbolic than a practical practice; Dominique had shyly asked, and Fleur had reluctantly given, permission to cut her hair short. It stopped immediately below her ears, giving her a fey appearance.
To be more accurate, it contributed to a previously existing impression. Dominique was a tiny child, with none of her parents' height, and was painfully thin. Her eyes were brown, like her father's, but one came to know this only after long acquaintance with the girl, who kept her face towards the ground as much as possible. A sharp nose and pointed chin contributed to the delicacy of her features.
This odd facial structure, as well as her habit of wearing all black in imitation of her mother, was one of the reasons she had had trouble with bullies.
Fleur set her brush down. "Zer. Now I am going to write a letter to Gabrielle and your brother and sister. Is zer anything you wish to tell zem?"
Dominique considered gravely. At last she answered, "If you will, tell Loius that if he comes to see us at Christmas, he will get to see a hippogriff." Her mother promised to record this faithfully. "Maman, may I go out?"
"Do not leave ze castle." Fleur bent her head to her letter, and Dominique slipped out of the portrait hole.
Hermione was strolling through the halls at a leisurely pace, on her way to the first class of the day. She had finished her research paper the night before, and she felt better than she had since that fateful day in Diagon Alley. She was perhaps more intent on self-gratulation than was wise, for she was not minding her surroundings as she ought, and bumped into someone.
Apologizing profusely, Hermione helped Dominique from the floor. She felt worse because the waif had always seemed to her likely to break if one looked at her the wrong way. A fall certainly wouldn't do her any good. "I really didn't hurt you? Is there anything I can do for you?"
Dominique nodded. Hermione waited for her orders. "May I speak to you after your first class?"
Surprised at the request, Hermione nodded.
"Professor Granger, can I ask you about that last example?"
"Of course, but I can only give you a minute today."
She explained the flaw in the boy's calculations and sent him off with a note to Professor Malfoy, begging his pardon for the tardiness. Unfortunately, it took longer than anticipated, and she had no time to speak with Dominique before the next class.
Mercifully, no one in that class needed her aid. Stepping into her office to set her book down before she went to lunch, Hermione found Dominique waiting. "What can I do for you?" She tried to sound upbeat, but her third years were exhausting, and it came out as discourteous. Dominique didn't seem to mind, but she had her mother's talent for hiding emotions.
"I want to show you something." From a pocket in her robes, which constantly swirled about her and had a tendency to make her look like a comic miniature Snape, Dominique produced a crimson bag containing things that rattled and clacked together. Hermione, who jingled incessantly if she walked around with two Knuts in her pocket, wondered how the girl could come and go so silently.
Dominique poured the contents of her bag onto Hermione's desk. Hermione, who had taken a Comparative Anatomy and Physiology course, among others, at a magical university in Belgium, recognized the gleaming white objects immediately. "Dragon bones?"
Dominique spread her hands over them in a way that communicated perfectly, obviously. Hermione gazed down at them in admiration. They were the largest set of fingerbones she'd ever encountered. Where had Fleur-for surely she would know if her daughter possessed something of the sort-gotten such beautiful specimens?
"My uncle gave them to me," came the soft answer to a question Hermione hadn't voiced.
"Your mother has a brother?"
Dominique looked at her as though she were a mildly interesting breed of crazy person. Hermione considered taking offense, but decided that anything was better than her previous inscrutability or her mother's disdain. "My mother has a sister. My father had five brothers."
Oh. But... "You...see your father's brothers often?"
The mingled sorrow and affection on Dominique's face pierced Hermione's heart. "Only one. He works with dragons."
Hermione's eyebrows climbed to her hairline and kept on going. "Charlie comes to see you?" Dominique assented.
I'll bet Molly Weasley doesn't know about that!
It made sense when she thought about it. Bill and Charlie had been close. If Fleur had stayed in touch with any member of the Weasley family, it would have been Charlie.
"I see. You were going to tell me something about these?"
"They told me something about you."
A chill crept down Hermione's spine. A sad, shy little girl, too easily injured to be away from her mother. A sad, shy little girl who carried dragon bones in her pocket.
The most brilliant witch of her age was connecting the mental dots, and she didn't like the picture that was forming. "About me?"
"Yes." Hermione waited, but Dominique seemed content not to speak. "And?" she prompted.
Dominique rearranged the bones with her fingertips. "You are wrong about the world." And she scooped her bones back into the bag and left the room without another word.
When Hermione went down to lunch, Fleur was there, but Dominique's spot was empty. She was glad of it. More interesting than Dominique's cryptic message was the fact that she had delivered it at all.
A seer.
Sybil Trelawney had her moments, but this was on a different level. Real, full time seers found it hard to live in society, because they were forever learning secrets and predicting futures that no one wanted known. No wonder I thought the poor kid was being abused. She was, but not by her mother. Fate had chewed her up and spat her out, and there was nothing she could do about it, save stay with her mother, who could shield her at least a little from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Hermione had new respect for both the child and Fleur. Bringing up three children alone had to be enough work without bringing fortunetelling into the mix.
In the grand tradition of teachers who have just taken an interest in a new subject, Hermione changed her lesson plan. She threw out the history passage she had been planning to make her Ancient Runes fifth years translate, giving them a passage on religious divination, instead. She hadn't read the text herself, and wouldn't have time unless she made it part of her school work.
Fleur greeted the students she would be tutoring. She had expanded from Arithmancy to Ancient Runes, and today there seemed to be a lot of fifth years. Scanning the passage they were reading, she was not so simple as to write off the topic as mere coincidence. After dinner that night, she called Dominique to her.
"Did you talk to anybody today, cherie? When you went out?"
Dominique nodded, but offered no further information. This had bemused Hermione, but Fleur was accustomed to her daughter's reticence.
"Who?"
"Professor Granger."
Fleur muttered something in French, lowering her voice so that her daughter could not hear. "I thought so."
Hermione might be lonely, she might be hurt, but she was also an unknown factor, and Fleur did not like those.
"What did you say to 'er?"
Dominique smiled enigmatically, and Fleur bit her lip until she tasted blood. There was nothing that could be done now, except stop it from happening again. And talk to Granger.
"Dominique..." She sighed. She could not forbid the child to say who she was. The damage that would do far outweighed the benefits, or she would have done it before. The last thing Dominique needed was yet another person telling her that she should not be herself.
The second objective, though...
Hermione was in her office grading papers when she heard a tap on the door. She went over and opened it, stepping back to allow Fleur entrance. "Hello. I didn't expect to see you tonight."
Fleur did not return the greeting. "If you 'urt my daughter, I will kill you."
Hermione froze for a minute, and then exhaled loudly. "I believe it. But I don't have any intention of hurting your daughter."
"What did she say to you?" Fleur demanded.
Hermione looked surprised. "She didn't tell you?"
"No."
Hermione shrugged. "It's not a secret. She told me I was wrong about everything."
Fleur's shoulders relaxed, and Hermione knew what she was thinking. Dominique's statement was rude, yes, but not incriminating, not something only a seer would say.
Hermione sighed. If she didn't disabuse Fleur now, the woman would be angrier later, when she realized that Hermione had known Dominique's secret for some time. "She showed me the dragon bones."
In the blink of an eye, Fleur was once again stretched tighter than a drum, but she didn't threaten Hermione. She simply said, "Merde," a word Hermione would have recognized even without her days at the Parisian Magical Institute.
That was enough. No need to mention Charlie.
"I promise you," Hermione said gently, "I will protect your daughter as I would my own. I promise you that."
She didn't know why she'd said it. It was melodramatic and arrogant. What right did she have to claim a share of the child? Still, she couldn't bring herself to regret it. She knew what it was like to be alone.
Fleur met her eyes, but there was none of the challenge usually present. "Thank you," she said, and the tenuous connection that had formed in the library stretched between them.
Hermione looked down and shuffled the papers on her desk. "You're welcome," she said.
