Hi all, here is the first of my xmas double update and i hope you all enjoy this chapter. This chapter does jump around with the time and so will the next one.

Anything as always that is in Italics is a conversation in French.

As always this story is Pro Bill/Fleur and will have a happy ending.

Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer-As nothing in this story is mine.

Swan Song

Chapter 8-Charm And Harm

Ron stays and then goes and then comes back again, the months continue, the war gets worse. Fleur makes a decision meanwhile but underestimates the power that is her mother. (New point of view for this chapter and very little dialogue—some jumping around with the timeline and with events taken from the book.)

It had taken some time to get Ron to start talking, he had cried on Bill's shoulder for a long time and then when Bill had forced him to drink a cup of tea (in which there was a substantial amount of firewhiskey slipped into it) and had forced Ron to wait until the shaking had died down before Ron was able to form words that sounded vaguely coherent. It took even longer to pull the whole story out of him but when he did Bill had to take several deep breaths. Ron was in no state to be shouted at (which had he turned up at the Burrow was no doubt what he would have been greeted with) and he seemed to deeply regret what he had done.

Bill could not judge him, not really. His littlest brother was only seventeen. This war was baffling and confusing and painful for him and he was a grown man. How it was for Ron he could not imagine.

A decent chunk of his bottle of firewhiskey later Bill helped his little brother to the guest bedroom, he helped strip him of his jeans and his shirt and tucked him into bed with a glass of water like he had done when he had been little he'd come into Bill's room desperate for comfort with a nightmare. It had been easier then Bill supposed, the world had been easier then or at least to them.

Ron fell asleep a little fitfully and Bill went to bed soon after. A thick rain came around three in the morning, what with it being winter it was so dark that it did not matter the time. Bill slipped beneath his covers after checking the charms around his house were still intact and for the first time since that day in the hospital wing he found himself falling asleep and sleeping through the night.

When he woke up he was stunned, tired but also desperate for more sleep.

He did not think that he would get it but he wanted it all the same. It had been so long since he'd had the luxury of an uninterrupted nights sleep then he was

Ron was still there in the morning that had to mean something though when he attacked his bacon and eggs with the gait of a starving man he had nearly choked when Bill had suggested letting their parents know that he was here, safe and sound. Bill had been sat drinking tea and watching with a certain degree of fondness that despite everything that was going on in the world his little brother could still eat as if it was his last meal.

"No" he said finally. "No because if Mum and Dad find out I'm here then there'll know I left—well they will know and you know that won't be the end of it. George and Fred…Ginny. And…and I don't want Dad to look at me like I am a disappointment" he muttered this his head held down and Bill was suddenly filled with pity and a sense of acknowledgement. It was easy when their mother was angry because with seven kids she got angry very often. Their father chose disappointment as his method of discipline and it had an effect in a way nothing else did. But Bill knew his father, he knew that he cared. He knew that he would not judge Ron. Ron was a kid fighting a man's war. His father of all people would respect that and though he longed to tell Ron that, he knew his little brother would not listen.

"So what's your plan?" he asked finally as Ron downed tea down his throat as if he wanted the scalding pain to hurt.

"Find them again" was all Ron said. "I know roughly Hermione's plan. It's to keep to the outskirts of forests and woods. We need to keep—they—we—they have a plan and she'll make sure Harry keeps to it." He didn't elaborate and Bill didn't push. He had long ago stopped. Whatever Harry, Ron and Hermione had been up to had been cast down long ago through Dumbledore, through Voldemort and through perhaps the very sands of time and fate.

That reminded him.

"If you go back get Harry and Hermione to stop saying the name. He's tabooed it"

"He's done what?"

Bill nodded chewing a slice of toast. It was remarkable how he could eat when he was with his brother. Ron took another slice of toast but didn't eat it. Instead he stared at it for a second and then turned his attention towards the teapot.

"Harry will hate that" Ron said finally. He seemed determined after his one slip up never to mention Hermione's name out loud again. Bill let him. After all he could barely have a go at Ron for deluding himself when he knew he was still doing the same thing. Ron carried on talking and Bill let him.

"He's been calling him by his full name since he was eleven. It's something he's always done. Something most of the Order's done. It'll be hard to stop."

Bill said nothing. Ron said nothing. It was both unnatural but companiable and Bill thought that there was little to say. Both of their minds were (though he would not admit it even to himself in this moment) on the woman that they loved and what they were doing right now.

It wasn't surprising that a few days after a new year was seen in by a fearful wizarding community that Ron left. Bill didn't understand where his little brother was going but he understood the why.

Come to think of it perhaps it had been a good idea not to tell his parents that Ron had been back for such a short time.

And despite it all Bill couldn't help but think that his brother would be alright.

Fleur winced.

As December had turned into January and then as the months had slipped by she was aware that she was getting bigger and that soon enough she would be giving birth to her baby.

The kicks had become harsh and unyielding on her bladder. The baby seemed to enjoy making her suffer every ten minutes or so by making her need the bathroom with an almost inhuman desire. Everything was ready for the baby's arrival. A room had been set up, a crib and a baby blanket and several clothes in neutral colours though when she went out to shops she noticed that she was spending more and more time looking at the pink clothes than she did the blue.

And then there was the thoughts that came to mind.

Mostly of Bill but of others as well.

Like when she looked at her baby's crib when she had gotten something new and the thought came to mind that Molly Weasley would have knitted hundreds upon hundreds of baby clothes, baby blankets and toys for this baby her first grandchild. That the Weasley boys all in their own way would have been great uncles, from jokes to homework to fighting off boys that came round the house. That Ginny for all her hatred of Fleur perhaps would have been a good aunt and that she would have done her best by this baby had anything happened to it's parents. That Arthur would have been a great grandfather in silence and his wisdom and the simple presence of being there.

The more she thought about the family as her pregnancy progressed the more Fleur thought about her baby. She thought about her child and what they would be missing. It was easier to think about them as a whole rather than single out them out individually. But she thought to herself that perhaps Molly and Arthur might want to know their grandchild. That the Weasley boys and the Weasley girls might want to be Aunts and Uncles. That perhaps Bill might want to be a father.

She thought more and more upon it as the news from England got steadily worse. Harry had not been caught which was something she prayed that he would avoid daily. There was no comment on the Order they seemed to be going underground but the girl who worked with her Aaliyah told her about a program called Potterwatch that was routinely providing secret details about the Order and what they were doing. It was nice sometimes to listen to Lupin, to Kingsley, to Fred and George and a boy she knew by name as Lee Jordan who had been the twins friend when she had been at Hogwarts and who (to his credit) had been one of the few who had not fallen head over backside at the sight of her.

She thought though as she listened to them, about Bill about the baby, about how despite her broken heart and the fact that she was sure the first time she would see him her heart would break even as her temper would rise, that the baby did not understand what had happened. All she would know was that her father had not wanted her. Or that her mother had not bothered to tell her father because she had been hurt.

And that Fleur would not have on her conscious.

She smiled ruefully at the kick to her stomach. There she was again calling the baby her.

She moved from the nursery and then sat down at her desk in the living room. It was past midnight but she had the day off and she knew she would sleep in that deliciously dreamless sleep for most of the day.

Slowly she reached for the quill and she dipped the nib in some ink thinking about how in the world she was going to frame this situation in a letter without coming across as furious or heartbroken both of which were emotions that she knew intimately by now and both because of this man she was writing too.

In the end she decided on the truth.

It was up to Bill if he decided to act on it.

If she heard no reply, then…then she supposed she knew what her answer would be.

And what she had meant to him.

Bill had been sleeping when the charm had gone off again. It had been months since Ron had been gone and yet somehow Bill had suspected that his brother had been back. Even hoped for as much.

He dragged himself out of bed, always aware that it could be someone else and down the stairs and out the house. It was dark and yet somehow the sky had illuminated the events of what was going on.

It was hell.

The first face he saw was Luna Lovegood crouched over the figure of a man and with a cry of shock Bill realised it was Ollivander the wand maker, who had been missing for over a year and a half. Luna who had been missing since Christmas was white to the lips her eyes huge in her head, her cheekbones prominent and seemed to be on the verge of sinking entirely into her own world. There was a staggering to the right as Bill whirled around as someone else stood up and then hit the ground. It was Dean Thomas.

Bill had known him through Ron and then through Ginny, he was shaking so violently Bill thought he would throw up but he had the sense of mind to turn to Bill and say very clearly.

"We came via house elf. Ron, Harry and Hermione are on their way. And Ginny has a scar on her left hip"

Deciding not to ask how he knew that (because he so did not need to deal with that right now) Bill said nothing but nodded and Dean scrabbled upwards grabbing Luna by the upper hand and Bill waved his wand and the wandmaker was in the house just as there was another pop in the darkness.

It was Ron with wild eyes and an expression on his face Bill could never name because it was too raw. He was carrying Hermione who was ashen faced and barely conscious into the house without a second glance or even a word in Bill's direction and then there was a shout and he and Dean went running only to see Harry Potter his eyes blown wide with grief cradling a dying house elf in his arms.

There were no words to explain this. Any of this.

She had been waiting for it really. She had seen it on her daughter's face at Christmas and she had been waiting for it. A part of her wondered weather or not she was doing the right thing but another part of her remembered that look on her daughter's face when she had arrived at the house and she thought that she was doing the right thing after all.

The Weasley family might have been good people. Apolline did not know. Bill Weasley might have even been a good man, if truth be told she did not begrudge the man who by callously breaking her daughter's heart had kept her safe from a war that even she was sure the good side, the better side was losing.

But more than that she wanted Fleur and that baby safe, not with a man in England who did not want her daughter but would no doubt want a bit of her grandchild. Whose mother and sister made snide comments about how French Fleur was (and she had heard about that even without Fleur commentating on how bad it had actually been) as if it was a disease but would want a part of this baby or who would perhaps not even want that but would make Apolline's grandchild feel like she was an outsider. Like he was not wanted.

Apolline was a mother, she was soon to be a grandmother and while she might not know Molly and Arthur Weasley and while she might admittedly be wrong she was certainly not going to take the chance.

Better that her daughter and her grandchild stay here. Her husband was right, this baby would lack for nothing with the two of them for grandparents. And Fleur being the beauty that she was would surely find no issue in taking another man to her heart, a better man that that Bill.

Ugh.

The owl she had given Fleur as a Christmas present was a small brown owl with a gentle hoot that could put anyone to sleep. It was also well trained and Apolline had known that her daughter would write to him because she knew her daughter intimately.

It was no hardship really to ensure that the owl would bring any letter addressed to Bill Weasley to her.

And so here she was feeding an owl that would wait a week or so before flying back. Here she was in the early hours of the morning watching the mist roll in as her husband and her daughters slept.

Here she was with the letter telling Bill Weasley that he was soon to be a father in her hand.

And here she was taking that letter and throwing it into the fire and watching it burn and curl up in the flames.

It would all turn out for the best.

Of that Apolline Delacour was sure of.

And there you go, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, the next one should be up straight after this.

Next Chapter-It's the beginning of May and the world is on the brink of collapse, Bill gets the call to fight, and Fleur finds her life changed forever. Part One of a Three Part Handler.