Hi, so here is another chapter. There will be a significant time jump after chapter fifteen of this story so please be aware of that and i will be making some original leaps about the education of both the French wizarding education and the British one before Hogwarts so please do keep that in mind as well.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just this chapter and the OC characters.

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

Swan Song

Chapter 12-Pushback

Fleur spends the first few weeks with her baby and with her family. Bill spends time with two grieving fourteen year olds with nowhere to go—and is relieved for the distraction. Tonks and Lupin survive and the world is anew once more.

She marvelled every morning that she had given birth to this creature. To this baby. To this girl.

Victoire.

Of course there were times (mostly around three, six and nine o clock in the morning—when she had been up until midnight the night before) when she did wonder just what the hell she had thought she was doing. There were times between the bleeding and the feeding where her breasts felt like they were fighting their own private army, and when Victoire was being sick on her that made her wonder just strain of either confidence or insanity had given her the idea that she could do this alone.

There were good moments too though. Victoire had developed over the course of the two weeks since she'd been born. The tuft of hair was almost golden, buttery blonde now. Three shades darker than Fleur's and four shades darker than her mother and her sister. Her little hands would reach out and grab Fleur's own hair and the grip was strong. Indeed Victoire would grab anything though she seemed to prefer hair to fingers. Sometimes she would giggle or guggle or make a sound in between the two and Fleur would find that it didn't matter that her hair was lank and greasy, that she was in loose jogging pants and a t-shirt that was covered in baby sick and that her breasts were leaking milk. That it didn't matter that she ached all over or that she was a mess emotionally and physically.

Because she had her daughter.

Of course on the days it got to much her mother was there.

For the first time in her life Fleur found herself actively encouraging her mother to take an interest in her life. Apolline Delacour had fallen on her first grandchild like a miser might fall upon gold and she delighted in spending time with Victoire. Fleur for those first weeks lived back at home in her old house because if she was being honest it was the only way that she could get some sleep. As she got those precious few hours of slumber she thought that she was coping quite well. The old saying she had heard around Hogwarts was true. It did take a village to raise a child and Fleur thought that her village was doing very well.

Her father too doted on his granddaughter and so did Gabrielle. Despite everything within seconds of being born Victoire had managed to charm everyone in her family. They had all fallen in love with her and Fleur most of all. She thought once that it was perhaps almost greedy to love this much and yet she couldn't stop herself. When Victoire was not in her arms it seemed as if her arms ached, her eyes ached when she couldn't see her and the best part of their day was when they were together mother and daughter and Victoire looked up at her and her eyes were very, very blue.

For the first few weeks she had been so caught up in her new baby, in her new life as a mother that she had not cared about the news. The world where Voldemort had tried to take Hogwarts seemed distant and remote when she woke up and saw that Victoire was batting at her little stuffed rabbit toy and Fleur felt her heart thud a little more in love. Each and every day she seemed to fall in love a little more with her daughter despite the fact that she was tired, that she was aching and so beyond anything and everything she was still utterly adoring.

But eventually the news started trickling in.

It had been Harry that had killed Voldemort finally and Fleur upon hearing that somewhere between giving her daughter her first bath and finally being able to crawl into the shower herself had managed a small but exhausted smile. She had been glad. Voldemort had dogged Harry for so long encroaching on whatever happiness he had managed to snatch and now the man who had never really been a child now finally had a chance to live a long and happy life in peace.

He had saved her sister when she had been unable to and had been a friend for a long time and Fleur had, had to blink back tears that she knew were not just hormones when it came to thinking about the war that had come to an end.

In France the country was ecstatic. Voldemort had threatened them too when he had taken England for surely the next step would have been to expand his power over the Channel. The French council had called for a week of jubilation for the overthrowing of such a tyrant and the bells in Paris were rung (what the Muggles were told Fleur didn't know) Gabrielle had gone to parties with friends and her parents in full flood of celebration due to the birth of their first grandchild into a new, more peaceful world had cracked open a bottle of two hundred year old champagne and then a bottle of firewhiskey and had much to Fleur's exhausted amusement had then started dancing to the old tunes that apparently they had danced to 'on the night they fell in love' and they had gone to bed giggling in a highly suspicious way that made Fleur determined to go back to her own house.

The day she moved back was the day the death toll from the Battle of Hogwarts was realised to the international media. The war had been over for a month and Fleur who had been feeding Victoire while overlooking the names suddenly stopped and then as she detached her daughter burst into tears that she could explain but yet couldn't all at the same time.

Frederick Gideon Weasley, commonly known as Fred died in an explosion at the Battle of Hogwarts in the early hours of the morning. He was twenty years old. He is survived by his mother and father, five brothers and one sister.

Fred was dead.

Fleur sat down on her dining room chair and started sobbing uncontrollably and Victoire picking up on her Mama's change of emotion started wailing too her thin little voice mixing in so that the noise was almost overwhelming. It took Fleur a moment to calm down and then she rocked her baby back and forth the length of her downstairs rooms trying to control her emotions.

Fred was dead.

The twins had always been the nicest of the Weasley's after Bill and probably Arthur. They had accepted her without any hesitation and while teasing their brother they had come to accept her in a way that she had never seen before. With the twins it didn't matter that she was beautiful, that she was a part veela or that she was French as Molly had put it once her lip curling with distain. It had not mattered to the twins that she had been different. They had genuinely cared for their brother, had genuinely wanted him to be happy and were more than welcoming to her. Indeed just before—well—Fred had been asking her how many single veela family members she had and had winked in a way that had, had Fleur snorting with laughter.

The loss of Fred Weasley was something that Fleur was not sure if she would ever accept. How could someone that young, that vibrant, that full of love and life ever be dead? She shifted Victoire a little who snuffed against her neck and calmed down a bit and Fleur tried to make sure that she was calm so that she didn't set her off again.

She tried not to think of George because she knew that would set her off again. George who had lost his brother, his twin, his best friend, his other half. George who had a business to run on his own, who had a life to live on his own now without his brother. And Molly and Arthur who had lost one of their babies. Holding her own baby Fleur did not even want to think about that agony.

And then there was Bill. Bill who had lost his brother, who had gained a daughter on the same night. Bill who had—

But no. She had written to him and his silence had made it very clear that he was not interested in her or his child.

Fleur kept hold of Victoire for most of the day wondering how her baby girl could only be in this world for fourteen days and yet have lost an uncle in that time to the heartbreaking violence that was war.

For two endless weeks he had not stopped and Bill found that he liked it that way because If he had time to dwell on anything before he tumbled into bed then he would never get to sleep. As of right now when his head did hit the pillow he was so tired that he didn't even have to think of anything before a dreamless sleep came to him. It was as such that after the first week he didn't even need a potion he was so tired.

Rebuilding the world did that to you he supposed.

That first night he had crawled up to the dormitory. Tommy was a Gryffindor to and after two calming potions had finally calmed down but Bill for a reason he did not want to think off had not wanted to leave him alone and had followed him up to the dormitory. He had not gone to the fourth years one but to one of his brother's beds and had curled up in the sheets and Bill too tired to do much but take his clothes off had collapsed into another bed and had slept for most of the night and a good chunk of the morning. His clothes (the house elf's carried on working despite the fact that there had been a war they had participated in the night before) had been washed and ironed and though Tommy was not out of bed yet. He had not gone far to see Grace in jeans and a t-shirt clutching what smelt like a mountain of buttered toast and some bacon and he moved aside. Whatever it was between the two of them she at least seemed to know how to deal with him and Bill went downstairs and towards the well worn path from the Common Room to the Great Hall and found himself something to eat.

He did not know where his brother's body was and he did not go looking for it. Neither of his parents or George were there and he did not ask where they were. Bill didn't want to know. He didn't think he would ever want to know where Fred's body was. Once he found out he didn't think the grief in his body would stomach it. Instead he forced himself to eat scrambled eggs on toast in silence.

"Bill" came a voice as he stared into his coffee. He turned to see Ron stood there, a little battered but clean and Bill suddenly launched himself into his brother's arms and Ron was gripping him back and it was hard to tell who was the eldest and who was the youngest. Hermione was next to him and Bill hugged her back, her eyes filled with tears but she controlled them.

"Where's Harry?"

"Still in bed" Ron said finally. "I think he's half dead on his feet. Also…I think he's avoiding coming down because—" he shrugged and Bill rolled his eyes because it was so Harry.

"Tell him Mum and Dad…George…Fred was an adult he knew what he was getting into and…and he knew what he was dying for. So did everyone else"

"Yeah" Ron said running a hand through his hair. "Lupin said much the same thing. Think he was heading up there anyway to see him. Tonks isn't out of the woods yet but she doesn't need to go to St Mungo's and she's talking—well swearing that she wants to see her son. But…well…" he ran a hand through his hair again and Bill nodded because the events of the last twenty four hours had been beyond anything that they had experienced and imagined.

There was not much more to say.

That had been the first day. Within a week most students were home and Bill still at Hogwarts had dragged himself up to the dormitory to see Grace sat on the stairs running a hand through her hair.

"You ok?" he asked. Grace had kept her head throughout the week and if she had grieved she had grieved with her boyfriend or in private.

"Tommy's family…there's an aunt…but…she's made it clear he's not welcome. I don't have anyone and Arthur he was…well he was getting a place and…and I don't know how to tell him" she said finally pulling at the blonde strands and Bill looked at her and felt only sympathy for the girl who was carrying two people's grief through no fault of her own and was far, far too young for it.

He sat down next to her.

"Why did you come back?" he asked after a second. She shrugged.

"Tom and I…we were together, it was chaos and we'd been well we were together and then his brother Arthur comes down the Hog's Head tunnel and says he's going back, Colin Creevey is stood on the bar bawling about doing our bit and how we have to go back and then…and then we had to. Because it's our school, it's our world and it's our lives and we had to go and fight for them. Besides most of us had been fighting this past year and the teachers never told us to go. We did what we had to do only…only I never expected so many of us to die" she said finally wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

Bill stared at his hands for a second and somehow by the grace of god didn't say what he was thinking which was that he too, had not expected so many of them to die either.

"So where do you go?"

"Well" Grace said finally "That's what they call the million galleon question"

Bill thought about it and then came to the conclusion that was mad and slightly insane and he turned to her and told her what could happen. Grace to her credit did not look at him as if he was mad.

And that was how they both came to live with him.

It had actually been easy. The week following the return with two teenagers to Shell Cottage had been hard. Funerals were planned. Fred's three days after the bodies were released. Bill did not remember much of it but he did remember Grace and Tommy both in black clothes they had spruced up from somewhere, his mother sobbing onto his father's shoulder. George oddly blank as Angelina Johnson gripped his hand tears in her eyes. Harry in the back with Ginny and Ron with Hermione and Charlie and Percy with a woman who introduced herself as Audrey. Lee Jordan wiping his face, Harry and Ron's dorm mates and McGonagall sniffing into a handkerchief and Lupin and Tonks…

Then there had been the funerals of Tommy's three brothers, Colin Creevey, Emma Grey, Bonnie Andrews, Lyle Thomas, Richard Walters, and the others who had died fighting for them. And then finally by the time the second week was out they could put their clothes away and Bill got to uncork a bottle of firewhiskey and finally learn more about the two teenagers one in the spare room and one kipping on his couch.

Grace was muggleborn whose family had freaked apparently when they had found out what she was and whom had thrown her out. She had spent summers at her friends houses and then met Tommy. Tommy had been one of four brothers who had all come from a wizarding family. His father was non existent and his mother had died and from what Grace had said with a slight sneer his aunt was…complicated. Bill took that to mean something else but he didn't comment on it.

Neither one of them said anything else but Grace slowly took over cooking and Tommy eventually with the look of a boy beyond exhaustion began to come down to the table to eat. Bill said nothing about the company. In truth he rather liked like it. It felt like he was pushing back, like they were pushing back, like there was a pushback against all the bad finally. And…and it felt good. It felt normal.

It was not perfect, but it was something better than what his life had been.

And Bill was certainly not going to throw away that.

And there you go, i hope you enjoy this chapter and i will do my best to bring you the next one soon.

Next Chapter-Fleur continues to adjust to her life in France with her daughter though thoughts of Bill plague her mind. Bill attempts to help his family in their grief (especially his mother) as well as deal with the two teenagers who seem to have nowhere to go.