Hi, so here is another chapter, i do apologise for the inanely long wait and i hope you enjoy this chapter. I will update around Christmas and hopefully have a double update for you then so i hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just this plot.

Please Read and Review.

And as always, cannon divergence, time jump and anything in italics is supposed to be fluent French.

Swan Song

Chapter 7-It's For The Greater Good.

As Christmas is upon them Bill is greeted by a visit from his brother. Fleur meanwhile makes a decision as her pregnancy progresses but forgets perhaps about the all encompassing power of her mother. Some cannon divergence from book in response to the timeline.

The move to Shell Cottage was an easy one. Bill had been eying it for months even before…well…even before but the move was practical rather than emotional thought that Bill had thought it was. The Order of the Phoenix, scattered to the wind had begun the hard task of fighting an enemy that still remained unseen this time with the whole world under his fingertips or at least the country. Bill had only been ten the last time he had rose to power but he could remember the looks on both of his parents faces, the tightening restrictions that were placed on their everyday lives, the world that seemed to get smaller and smaller and the death toll that seemed to get bigger and bigger.

And the truth of the matter remained. Voldemort had not gotten the Ministry before, he had not gotten Hogwarts, this time he had both and the only two men who could stand against him were gone, one to death and the other to the wind where he had not been seen for months.

He knew little of what Harry and by association Ron and Hermione had been up to but in September they got wind they were hiding out at Grimmauld Place and that Harry had broken into the Ministry of Magic, attacked Dolores Umbridge (as George had said 'Good') and had freed a collection of muggle borns almost certainly on their way to Azkaban.

What they were trying to achieve Bill did not know nor would he understand why they were going after Umbridge in the first place but he had not asked. The look on his father's face when he had realised Ron had been in the Ministry and he had not known had been rather difficult to contemplate.

Since then they had fled to the wind and it was clear that they were not at Grimmauld Place anymore. The house elf that Sirius had once owned had apparated to Hogwarts and then had told McGonagall enough to know the house was unsafe for the Order to use. That had created problems, half of them were scattered, half of them under suspicion, almost always being watched and then there was the added stress to his parents that came with Ron being on the run, Ginny now back at school (and causing hell by the sound of it) and Percy and Charlie were hardly ever at home. Bill moving out did not help but even his mother could understand that there was a practical reason behind it and not for the reason that he knew it was for.

In truth he was sick of the memories that his flat was bringing in him. He was sick of catching himself looking at the door and wondering if Fleur when Fleur would come home. He was sick of the dull thudding pain that he had come to live with but didn't want to. He was sick of the quiet hints his mother made when she thought that he didn't notice about finding another girl. He did not want another girl, he wanted the girl he had fallen in love with. He had turned her away to protect her and now he felt like the biggest hypercritic in history. Because as the snow had stuck to the ground and from the cottage that he knew could have easily been their start for a family Bill had seen his life stretch out before him and it was not a pretty fucking picture.

More and more as the days went by he found himself wondering if he had made the right decision. Granted Fleur was safe, and when the nights grew long and dark that was what he clung to, but he missed her. He missed her beyond recognition. This war was dark and dangerous and the more he fought it, the more he fought the war in the world and the war in his mind the more he suspected that it was not so easy to shake it off as he would have believed it previously. The man he had once been was gone, dead and buried despite what his mother would have had believed and he sat watching the snow fall and stick to the ground one morning in December and found that he had made his bed and now he had to lie in it.

The world it seemed had got a little darker. The goblins were this close to open rebellion and Bill found it difficult to explain at the meetings as few and far between as they had them, that this was not a good thing. Granted the goblins on their side was an outcome that Bill had never thought would come to pass this time last year but he knew the goblins and he knew the mindset of many. They would not just rebel against the Death Eaters they would rebel against wizards full stop. Some, indeed most of the goblins especially the ones guarding Gringotts did not see or care about the difference and Bill could see the headaches coming. Already several goblins had gone on the run disappearing into the dead of night and many at Gringotts were being as decidedly unhelpful as best they could be. How long they would get away with it was another story but Bill knew the goblins had powerful magic that the Death Eaters never considered. Holding the money hostage might seem unlikely but Bill personally thought it was only a matter of time before the impenetrable walls of Gringotts came falling down.

And he personally couldn't wait.

But he was glad to take time off for Christmas even though his mind was not the best place to be. He didn't know what was worse, the darkness that seemed to coat the world, the country, Diagon Ally like a thick blanket or the darkness that kept him awake at night drinking until the early hours of the morning or staring at the flickering embers of the fire.

He had told his parents he wanted this Christmas on his own but he knew his mother too well. Unless Voldemort was storming the gates to his cottage she would expect him to take his place at the dinner table at two with presents or she would simply come and get him. The fact that this Christmas Bill knew it would be painful to even act like he was enjoying himself was he suspected irrelevant. There would be jumpers and mince pies and his mother's turkey and the stuffing that Fleur last year had ate, had worried about making her fat, the jumpers that had been passed around the everyone but her and she had smiled and tried to pretend even to him that she was totally unbothered by it. He had loved her a little bit more fort that alone. It was hard to believe that here he was, that nearly six months ago he had told the woman he loved that he did not love her back and that she was better off without him.

The more he thought about it the more he wondered weather or not George was right, that he would regret it. He did not regret the act of keeping Fleur safe. After all fighter or not the thought of her dying for him…because of him…for now he was surely marked by both the Death Eaters and by Greyback but he knew that he was strong enough to fight for whatever it was that she wanted. And she had not fought for him.

The whole thing made his head spin and his heart ache and his stomach retch and the easiest thing to do was to reach for the bottle and lie there in his bed cold as the sheets surrounding him and sink into self pity and self loathing not put on clothes and pretend that he was cheerful in front of a family where there was very little cheer anyway.

Fortunately he did not have to try hard as he entered Christmas Day to the Burrow to a blazing row. Ginny had been active in that resistance movement thing called Dumbledore's Army and had apparently been creating all sorts of havoc for Snape. She seemed proud of her actions and determined to continue them though what they were Bill didn't know and certainly did not want to think about. His mother on the other hand was screaming that she refused to have Ginny in what she called a 'Teenager's Gang' and Bill accustomed (as was every Weasley man or boy) to the sounds of his mother and sister's tempers exploding when in close quarters with each other took a seat at the table and pulled the prophet towards him noticing with a rare flicker of amusement George and Fred were working on an order list with almost silent precision and his father was nose deep in a book—clearly nobody had felt brave enough to try and stop the row and Bill was certainly not going to do so.

"Hey Bill" George began but the words were out of his mouth before Bill could stop them.

"Not a fucking chance George I have enough scars on my face as it is"

It did not detract from the screaming Weasley women but it shut the men up and Bill saw out of the corner of his eye his father's hands tighten on the book before he put it down and moved to deflect the row as he had always done before and would probably always will.

Bill said nothing. There was nothing to say anyway.

Nobody commented on the absence of Ron, Harry and Hermione. Comments of concern were just another thing that could get you into trouble these days.

It had been later that night when he had finally gone home exhausted and feeling constantly close to tears that it happened.

The charm that made him secret keeper of this place gave a soft flutter as if someone had breached the protection. Or at the very least was getting close to. Bill felt it, feeling magic was as Professor Flitwick said always very temperamental.

He stood up wand in his hand and paused thinking hard even though every bone in his body was screaming and thrumming for blood in a way he had not felt before even that infamous night at Hogwarts where his world had been forever changed.

Anyone from his family would Patronus first or at the very least attempt to said some form of communication with him as would the Order. Remus had been strict in teaching them how to not only conjure one but also to communicate with them. There was a pause where he stood there and then the chiming noise that indicated the charm was on the edge of being breeched happened again and he leapt away from his chair and despite the darkness and the cold and the harsh wind he plunged himself outside the charm wrapping around him like an cloak.

Bill slipped around the side of his house seeing the figure in the shadows who seemed to be peering in the darkness the wind coming from the sea making him shiver uncontrollably. He did not look like a Death Eater but Bill had learnt the hard way that just because someone didn't look a threat that didn't mean they weren't.

The figure looked so impossibly young for a second and then he turned and by the light from the stars and from Bill's wand he got a look at his face.

Ron.

Ron. What the fuck was Ron—

It was the surprise that made Bill show himself and then the terror that seemed to seep into his very being. If Ron was here then something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. If Ron was here absent Harry and Hermione then something had happened.

Bill wanted to go to him, this was his little brother, this was his baby brother who had crawled to him on chubby little legs when he had been scared of spiders, but he had known that there was something else he had to do before he could pull his brother into his arms.

"What was the one thing that my little brother was always afraid off?" he asked rising his wand.

"Spiders" Ron said through chattering teeth his whole body trembling. "It was always spiders Bill…I fucked up…"

Bill didn't wait to here more, he opened his arms and his brother half stepped, half fell into them.

Fleur had spent Christmas with her family her belly finally showing over the red dress that she had worn. Her parents had been most accommodating and while they did not give many presents she was gifted with things for the baby, Gabrielle had knitted a blanket that was slightly lopsided and fraying but Fleur found herself genuinely touched with the thought and preparation and love that her family had for this baby.

But she couldn't shake her mind of the fact that she thought she had to tell Bill. Weather or not he loved her, weather or not he wanted anything to do with her or this baby he had a right to know that there was one on the way. It might make no difference or he might want to be a part of it's life (and Fleur honestly could not think which one was worse for her and her broken heart) but the more she thought about the more she knew that she had to do it. A new year and perhaps a new age was on the horizon and she was a firm believer that everything had to be clean on her conscious if she was to sleep at night.

Her mother smiled at her and asked her once over dinner what she was thinking about. Fleur had said the baby and the conversation had turned and she had looked down at her plate and ate the delicate salmon mouse her mother had made and that her baby seemed to be curious about given how she was eating it but not with gusto like she usually did.

She did not mention that she was thinking of Bill or what he was doing or that she suspected she might fall into his arms if he walked through the door right now.

She did not have to tell her mother that though. Had she looked into Apolline Delacour's eyes she would have seen that her mother had known (in the way that mothers often do) exactly what her daughter was thinking and more to the point that she did not like.

No. Apolline did not like it one bit.

And there you are, as i always say this story will have a happy ever after eventually.

Next Chapter-Ron stays and then goes, the months continue as the war gets worse, Fleur makes a decision but ultimately underestimates her mother.