War in a time of peace

by SecondStarOnTheLeft

Bellona de Poitiers begins her time at Hogwarts as an interloper for her French accent, for her Veela's blood, for the absence of her father. Then, just as she's about to return for third year, her father escapes from prison, and everything goes to hell. OC centric.

13. Eighth Year

(i.

"Given we now have two weeks to spare in London," Blaise says, stepping as delicately as he can around the crater left by Bellona's departure from Valence. "How will we fill our time?"

Daphne will probably receive an invitation to join Susan's family within the day, of course, because Susan loves Daphne almost as much as she deserves and her family have been so welcoming as to ease Daph's pain at the rejection of the Greengrasses. Mama and Juno are remaining in Paris, though, and so he and Belle are something of a pair of free agents. They have no obligations binding them to anything now, and Blaise…

Well, he'd quite like to visit his sisters. He has not been to Helsinki in years, and while he and Inka particularly are as keen of penpals as Belle and her entire family, it is not the same as seeing them in person. It has been easy to justify his absence - war, safety in numbers, Mama's desire to see him in familiar settings - but all of that is done now. Even just last summer, such excuses were wearing thin, and the children had written him agonising letters begging him to visit. Had Blaise not spent three happy, happy years of his childhood in Helsinki, sometimes with Mama and Elias but just as often with Anna and Inka in their fashionably plain apartment in the centre of the city? Was it not more familiar than London, where Blaise and Mama had only spent perhaps half the year after Father's death, and later after Elias'?

"I think I will have to spend more of my time with lawyers," Bellona says, face-down in one of the deep, comfortable couches Juno and Mama picked out for the upstairs drawing room to which they've retreated. "Apparently the war put on hold very much paperwork, and now - ha!"

"Will Monsieur Camenzind come from Zurich?" Daph asks, lifting Bellona's feet so she can take the end seat on the couch. Blaise has claimed the other, sprawling comfortably as he so rarely can in company. His mother has always encouraged him to stand to his full height, to sit comfortably and assert himself in whatever space he occupies, but he does not always feel able to do so. He is too tall, takes up too much space, except in certain quarters.

"Or will you need an English solicitor?" Daph is asking, snapping the elastic of Belle's socks against her ankles. "Given that this is specifically English matter."

"You will laugh," Belle warns them. "Apparently, there is a solicitor on retainer for the family. Do you know who it is?"

Blaise can guess, and is already laughing a moment before Daphne understands. There's no one else it can possibly be, but of course Belle already has an uneven history with her newest allies - she always seems to have prior business with everyone she meets.

"Oh, bollocks!" Daph laughs when lightning strikes. "Surely not?"

"Shacklebolt & Selwyn have represented everyone who's everyone in British wizarding society for centuries, according to the very fine letter I received," Belle says, wrestling herself free of the duck egg blue throw cushions. "So I will be sitting down with them, to sort out Papa's estate, and I must also go to the bank so that Monsieur Bornog and I can set my vault to rights after Cousin Bella's attempts at breaking in."

Belle's very determined use of Bellatrix Lestrange's name worries Blaise, in the same way his letters from Hector that refer to the Carrows directly make him anxious or his pointedly cheerful little notes from the little ones are concerning. He remained relatively unscathed during Snape's time at Hogwarts' helm, and used everyone's uncertain fear of Mama's Russianness to the best effect he could. He is sure, though, that everyone who did suffer directly is not reacting normally. Perhaps, when they are all back together for school, it will be different.

Perhaps then Theo might grieve for his father, to whom he was so devoted until just last year. Blaise barely remembers his father, thinks first of Elias in many moments when others think of their papas, but he still misses the relationship he might have had with Afonso Zabini, and still aches a little for all that they might have shared. He saw Belle's terrible grief for her papa, knows that Daphne misses her father just as much as she does her mother… He knows how completely unbearable it would be to lose Mama, who has been as dominant a force in his life as Nott, père, was in Theo's.

Or Daphne might express relief that Astoria was unhurt in the fighting, even though she broke ranks with their other housemates near the end of the day and took to the air. Fred Weasley's funeral was bad enough, and Blaise does not even like the Weasleys, aside from Ginny and sometimes Ron. He had braced himself, when they went to search for the bodies, to find Astoria's long silver-blonde hair spilling across the bloody flagstones. He had braced himself to suffer Daph'e pain with her, just as he had tried to bear some of Belle's burden when her father died. Daphne would deny it, but she does still love Astoria just as much as she did before the great betrayal. If he could return even a fraction of that closeness to Daph, he would. Maybe he could approach Astoria on her behalf?

Perhaps sweet Hannah will stop fussing over everyone else for a moment, just long enough to catch her breath. Perhaps gentle Tony will do the same. They were not as loud and as open about it as Belle and Neville were, but they are just as fiercely protective of the little ones, and are just as worn out by it all - they should rest. Perhaps they even will, if encouraged.

Or perhaps not. He knows his classmates, his friends, better than to assume that they will consider their own wellbeing when this year will be so busy with others needing care.

Perhaps, continuing along that train of thought, he should go to Helsinki. He worries about leaving Bellona to herself for two weeks, but he does miss his sisters, and he does miss things being simpler. Before school and the war, when there were just his sisters and Mama and Mama's strange friends, things were easy. He went everywhere with Mama, unless he was with Anna and Inka, and everywhere they went, there were friends. There was laughter. Laughter has been in short supply these recent dark years.

He could ask his sisters anything that came to his mind, but Mama's friends were to be loved and feared in equal measure - especially Ljuba. They would tell stories, of course they would, nothing delighted them more than to tell stories, but by the time Blaise was four he knew what questions were forbidden. Questions have been forbidden everywhere he turned lately, and he is sick of that. So not St. Petersburg. Not London, nor Mama's retreat in the Ob Valley. Helsinki, and Anna and Inka and their boring but adoring husbands, and his three nephews and two nieces.

"Well," Belle says, in response to some comment of Daphne's, "I want to put Papa's memorial in the crypt. I don't know- well."

Bellona doesn't do well with talking about her father, so maybe it is doubly for the best that Blaise leaves her to her own devices. They each have learned to speak around absent parents, and Belle is better at it than anyone Blaise knows because she manages, mostly, to not even speak about her own missing parent.

"So Daph will be in Suffolk," Belle says, "and I will be doing all kinds of miserable, serious things - what of you, Blaise? Will you stay here, or has Sofia Nikolaevna plans for sunnier climes?"

How dependent they have become on one another. On their mothers, on just the three of them, on their tiny circle of friends.

"Sunnier? Maybe. But not with Mama."

Bellona and Daphne both look at him in confusion for a moment, and then both clearly understand in the same instant.

"Helsinki," Daphne says. "Oh, take as many photos as you can, Blaise! And I'll take absolutely none, because all of Su's little cousins are horrible and snotty."

I.

Blaise comes home from Helsinki on the last day of August, laden down with a vast portfolio of beautiful paintings and drawings in the Finnish Youth style. Belle recognises it immediately, because Ukki and Aleksi and Anatole still have several of her finer works in the style on display in Taivolkovski and Rennes.

"I did not realise how much I missed them," he admits, slapping Daphne's hands away from his bags so that he can take the time to dig out what gifts and surprises he brought from Helsinki for them. "And I don't think Mama realises how much they miss her."

"Well then," Daph says, throwing her arms around both their shoulders - carefully, around Belle - and dragging them close. "We'll just have to have them visit for Christmas, won't we?"

---

They are late, sort of, arriving at the platform. Belle is usually very particular about timekeeping, but she could not find her glasses until Kreacher admitted to taking them for cleaning.

She had to wash them, but he meant well. She is sure of that. She thumped Anatole to keep him from saying anything rude.

As such, the train is fully loaded and the platform all but empty when they crash through the gate, Blanchefleur squawking her displeasure at the rude rush of the morning. Anatole, damn him, is laughing, and so is Maman, behind her hand. Sofia at least looks sympathetic in her mirth, but even that is slim comfort against the tight-stressed set of Daphne's jaw or Blaise's anxious frown - they hate being late as much as she does.

And they, like her, wanted to have a chance to see who had come back before boarding the train.

"What we can do," Blaise says as Daphne heaves their trunks into the luggage car with the truly terrifying muscles she revealed to them in June, earned by the hard year she put in as a people smuggler, "is board at the very top of the train, and work our way back. You're Head Girl now, we can use that as the excuse to be nosy."

And so that is exactly what they do, once harried goodbyes have been exchanged and Belle has retrieved her badge from the depths of her satchel. The trolley witch in her little compartment waves hello from behind Witch Weekly, and Blaise and Daphne inspect Belle quickly to make sure that she is presentable as the train takes off. Blaise even takes off his fetching dove grey neckerchief for her to tie around her ponytail.

"Alright," she says. "Well. I suppose I am Head Girl now. Let us go."

She pops her head into every compartment, making a quick and uncertain inventory of the students behind each door. By the time they are halfway along, she thinks they're missing only a scant handful, and most of those absent were among the dead. A sickening thought, but also something of a relief - better they are all together, where they can help one another, than off alone with parents who do not understand.

As they progress further along, there are more absences - even expectant first year Slytherins tend to sit in the back half of the train, and there are fewer of Belle's housemates present than usual. Perhaps that is not entirely unexpected, but it still angers her. How can they improve, if they retreat into their bunkers and stew in their defeat? Better to face their fall and embrace the coming changes, surely?

But there are few missing in the lower years. She counts most of the fourth and fifth years, a great many of the sixth years, and almost all of the seventh years. Ginny Weasley gives her a curt thumbs up from where she's bent over a chessboard opposite Loony Luna, and that alone is a great improvement from their previous association - perhaps the funerals did them good. They could not have done any greater harm in the aftermath than they did in the moment, at least.

There are also a great many eighth years, such as they are. Lavender Brown's scars are fascinating, already the same silver-pink as Belle's wings against the dark brown of her jaw and neck and framed by a new bobbed haircut. She is more defiant than confident, but Belle knows how that feels and hopes that Lavender comes to feel as comfortable in her own self as Belle has.

Neville smiles at her over Seamus and Dean's heads, where they are bent over a game of Gobstones. Hermione is leaning against Ron, she reading and he watching Seamus and Dean, and Parvati is winding a skein of silk thread around her fingers. It is bright Gryffindor red, and she grins when she catches Belle's eye.

Harry is asleep. Of course he is asleep. She kicks him affectionately before closing the door.

The Ravenclaws are fretful over the chances of really catching up on everything they missed last year, especially Michael and Lisa who both look on the verge of panic, while Mandy and Terry seem to have slipped clean through panic into the sort of hopeless calm that allows them to play Exploding Snap without flinching even once. Tony and Padma are going through a roster of their little ones, which Belle did last week but ought to do again, and offer their cheeks up for kisses without looking away from their work.

The Hufflepuffs are apologetic that Ernie has disappeared out to the loo just a minute ago, they really thought he'd be back by now, haha! Hannah and Justin look embarrassed, Susan sympathetic, but Zach simply arches a brow at her. That, at least, feels honest.

The Slytherins-

Well. It is just Theo and Tracey, stretched out across opposite benches and reading the paper.

"Oh, good," Theo says, sitting up to free some space for them. "Trace, wake up, we won't have the run of the house, it seems."

"Heavens," Tracey says, lowering her paper and raising her knees so that one of them might sit at her feet. "Pansy will be absolutely fuming that you're replacing her as Head Girl, Black. How'd you swing that?"

"Don't be horrible, Trace," Daphne says, sitting on Tracey's trunk, which for some reason is under the window. "I know that's a big ask, but try. "

Belle sits at Tracey's feet, leaving the bigger space for Blaise, and sighs.

"I wondered if she was coming back," she admits. "Pansy, I mean. Obviously she is not."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to assume such a thing," Tracey says, drawing an elaborate box of chocolates from under the bench and offering it to the compartment at large. "She's not on the train, true enough, but she wouldn't say whether or which about coming back when I was talking to her in July. More's the pity if she does - the two of you won't be able to help fighting, and we could all do with a year off."

"How was your summer?" Theo asks, cutting across Belle with a knowing smile. "You were in France?"

From everything Jeanne has said in her letters, Valence has been a war zone since Belle's departure. Maman has been in and out, arranging things with the bank and with Leto, and Anatole apparently had a blazing row with Grand-mère and then retreated with Amand to Rennes. It is strange, though, that even Ukki will share no details of anything Grand-mère has said in the three weeks since Belle resigned from the family.

"For a few days," Belle says. Daph's hand is warm on her knee, and Belle manages a smile.

"I was in Suffolk," Daph says, distracting from Tracey's curiosity - her nosiness, to give it its right name. "With Su. I suspect you knew that already though, Trace. You usually do."

"Of course I do," Tracey says. "I know how all of you spent your summers, aside from darling Blaise - I only know that you were out of the country, dear."

Blaise smiles, crossing his knees and drawing a book from his satchel.

"My stepsisters are very private," he says. "You'd hate them, Tracey. They're extremely Nordic."

"Excuse me!" Belle says. "I am one quarter Finnish, I'd have you remember - what do you mean by that?"

---

Ernie walks past the door without stopping, and Belle scowls at him as he goes. She will pin him down later in the week, when she is not feeling quite so off-kilter, and she will have it out with him. She is uncertain what shape that conversation will take, but she knows how it will end.

Neville, just after they've all changed into their robes, knocks on the door and sticks his head in to say hello.

"Evening, all," he says cheerfully, and Belle is relieved to see that even just a short summer has been enough to fill out some of the hollows of his face. There is some scarring, of course there is, but her stitches were neat enough that it is not terrible, and it does nothing to tarnish his smile. "Can I borrow you for a second, Bellona?"

He isn't wearing his badge, and Belle holds out an expectant hand as soon as she slides the compartment door shut behind her. He rolls his eyes but hands it over without protest, digging it out his trouser pocket as though he expected her to request it.

"Professor McGonagall asked that we come up to her office when we get to the school," he says, tipping his head back so she can fix his collar and arrange his lapels to hold his badge - did he get new robes? These don't feel like the horrible, stiff old things that Malkin inflicts on everyone. "She wasn't sure if you got the letter or not, asked me to make certain."

"I have had so many letters these past weeks that I have missed many things," Belle admits. "All this quarrelling over Papa's estate, and-"

She stops, his badge heavy in her palm and his lapel soft between her fingers.

"I walked out on Grand-mère," she says. "That's why I was back in London. You didn't ask."

"I knew you'd tell me when you were ready," he says easily, watching her hands as she attaches his badge, settling it at the edge of his lapel so it's half pinned to his robes proper, so it won't droop. "I understand how difficult grandmothers can be."

"Yours does not think you some kind of monster," Belle points out, smoothing his lapels and straightening the shoulders of his robes. "Between her and Ernie-"

She lets her hands drop. It feels wrong to touch Neville while talking about Ernie.

"He's still avoiding you?" Neville asks, folding his arms. She'd barely noticed his hands on her hips, but now that they're gone she can feel the ghost of their warmth. She shivers, and notices him notice it. "That's not very nice."

She laughs, even though she is overcome with his genuine displeasure at Ernie's rudeness. Everyone else has been angry on her behalf, but Neville seems as disappointed in Ernie as she is.

"I think he knows what's coming, and his pride is making him defer it."

"Oh? And what's coming?"

His hair, cleaner than it ever was in all their time in the Room and bleached by a summer spent digging and replanting the garden at his grandmother's house in Guernsey, seems very blonde. It makes the pretty flush in his cheeks seem pinker, and she curls her fingers tight to stop herself from touching that flush. He notices, and smiles.

"So what does Professor McGonagall want with us?" Belle asks, folding her arms and ignoring the way his smile grows. "Probably to take my badge and give it to Hermione."

"Don't be silly," he says. "It's probably normal procedure at the start of the school year, and you're just being ridiculous."

She would be annoyed if he wasn't smiling. She should be annoyed anyway, but he always speaks so quietly and warmly when it is just the two of them that it is hard to be annoyed at anything at all.

"Thank you, by the way. I know I said it in a letter, but even so."

"Whatever for?"

"Percival, of course."

Now it is her turn to blush - that Neville needed an owl not shared with Madam Augusta had been obvious, and so Belle had arranged delivery of a handsome long-eared owl by courier, just in time for Neville's birthday. That she had given that owl a name that paired so neatly, so obviously with Blanchefleur's, well - Daph hadn't been long about teasing her for it.

"He is serving you well, I trust?" she asks, cheeks scalding hot. "I hope I did not overstep."

She is, of course, wearing Madam Augusta's watch. She put it back onto its own plain silver chain, and it is just precisely the right length to sit outside her shirt, below her neckerchief. Neville unfolds his arms and almost, almost touches it. Almost.

"I don't think you could, all things considered," he says, and then Blaise is knocking on the compartment door with a raised eyebrow, and they are pulling into the station at Hogsmeade.

Belle's cheeks are so hot they sting in the cool air on the platform, and neither Blaise nor Daphne nor even Theo or Tracey comment as they clamber into one of the waiting carriages.

Perhaps they are all too preoccupied by the Thestrals. Belle is, a little - she wonders how it is that she has come this far without ever before seeing someone die.

II.

Professor McGonagall has done a great deal of work in the headmaster's office. The beautiful ceiling is still there, the huge high windows are still beautiful, but now it is warm and welcoming, the very light changed by the transition from headmaster to headmistress.

It truly feels hers, lit by great brass-based lamps and a roaring fire, with the high windows glistening in the clash of firelight and dusk. There is a wall hanging of what must be some Scottish vista of significance where before there was an array of strange silver instruments on glass shelves, and Belle does not mourn the absence of all Professor Dumbledore's accoutrements.

"They're in storage," Professor McGonagall says, obviously noticing Belle's curiosity. She's pouring tea into sturdy white glazed mugs, from a sensible and well-cozied squat brown teapot, and it feels surreal in how normal it all is. "Help yourselves to milk and sugar, sit down, come along now."

Belle pauses a moment at Fawkes' empty perch, lamenting his absence more than Professor Dumbledore's, but then she takes the seat beside Neville's. Fawkes will find his way home, and she will meet him again - there are only so many phoenixes left in the world, and they are as drawn to Veela as Veela are to them.

Professor McGonagall sits. They each doctor their own tea. They drink.

"Now," she says, shaking out the expansive tartan-lined sleeves of her robes with a smart snap of her wrists. "I've talked to Horace and Pomona, and they've agreed that you'll need extra classes to give you the proper grounding so-"

"All of us, Professor?" Neville asks. "I don't know that there'll be time enough for that, with the teachers already having an extra year's worth of people to look after, and there's more of us doing Charms than Herbology or Potions-"

"You might be a war hero, Mr. Longbottom," Professor McGonagall says, looking over the top of her glasses in a way that terrifies first years but really means that she's very fond of her current victim - Belle has been discovering her own version of that look, since her visit to di Spina's. "But please do not think that you can interrupt me."

Belle hides her face in her mug. Her glasses steam up annoyingly, but at least Neville can't accuse her of laughing at him.

"I mean that you and Miss Black here will need extra lessons," the professor says, "given both of you have been approached about returning, at some point, as teachers."

This time, Belle allows her eye to be caught. Neville looks as surprised as she feels - but then, wouldn't he be a wonderful teacher? He is already so good with the little ones, so patient and kind.

"You've never seen a teacher recruited along traditional lines, because Albus was not a traditional man," McGonagall says. "But traditionally, just as with Healers, there's an element of apprenticing in learning to teach. Normally, that would start once you've left school, but given the two of you are in your almost unique position, we've decided to start a little early."

"Why Professors Sprout and Slughorn specifically, Professor?" Belle asks. "Professor Slughorn is my head of house, that I understand, but- oh! But of course Neville will have extra classes with Professor Sprout. Forgive me, of course it is Herbology."

While he never talks about it because he is not given to bragging, Ernie told her that Neville used outdo everyone in their OWL Herbology class in every test, once he stopped fainting. He is just as gifted in his field as she is in hers, or Harry, if he can be talked out of the early grave of joining the Aurors.

"Quite so, Miss Black. Herbology for Mr. Longbottom with Pomona, Transfiguration for you with me, and general education for both of you with your heads of house - which is still me, Mr. Longbottom, until everyone stops fussing over silly things and I can see about hiring."

Belle wants desperately to slow all of this down, and struggles to think of some tactful way to do so.

Instead, she says "But I can't be responsible for students as soon as next year!"

"Well," Professor McGonagall says, plainly having a marvelous time. "Why not?"

"I can't imagine any of the current sixth years taking us very seriously if we tried giving them detention, Professor," Neville says, clinging to the arms of his chair like a liferaft. "Ah, I can't imagine sitting in the staff room, either."

"I don't even know where the staff room is ," Belle agrees. "Did you start teaching directly out of school, Professor?"

"Of course not! And I'm very glad that the two of you don't think you'd be able for it, either. I can't abide arrogance in a coworker."

Belle catches Phineas Nigellus Black's eye, where he's lolling against a harassed-looking Armando Dippet's frame, and he looks absolutely delighted by all of this. What a despicable little man! She has become so fond of him, despite her best efforts.

"You are going to take extra lessons," Professor McGonagall says, pushing a plate of ginger newts across the table toward them. "But we'll be setting you loose into the world with everyone else at the end of the year, and you won't be called back for a while yet. Pomona has no intention of retiring, after all, not for some time, and I've already arranged for a new Transfiguration teacher on a fixed contract, starting next month - they'll be apprenticing in the old-fashioned way."

"Is that unusual?" Neville asks, sounding ever so slightly less panicked. "The contract, I mean?"

"These are unusual times! And this way I can kick them out when Miss Black is ready to come back to school."

Professor McGonagall is giving Belle a stern look over her glasses, and Belle gives her one right back. The professor smiles, and out the corner of her eye, Belle can see Neville's hands ease their grip on his chair.

Well. Perhaps some promise of a place in the school is not to be sniffed at, even if it does mean one more thing to fit in around Quidditch training and Duelling Club.

---

The first years who sit clustered at the top of the table keep glancing back nervously to where Belle is sitting with Daph and Blaise, and she wonders if it is because they are not wearing proper uniform as laid down in the acceptance letters.

"Sometimes," Daphne says, patting Belle's shoulder with fond condescension when she shares her theory, "you're the stupidest person I know, Bellona."

Belle has no idea what that means, even if the others all seem to understand - if Theo thinks he is hiding his snigger at all effectively around a mouthful of pumpkin pie, he is an even bigger idiot than she apparently is - but she is happy enough to be back that she makes no more of it.

"I am surprised that McGonagall didn't haul you up on all of that," Tracey says, waving her strawberries-and-cream laden fork in the general direction of Belle's ear. "Can't see that that's uniform, Belle."

Belle touches her ear self-consciously - she has never before worn all of her piercings to school before, but given how little attention she has paid to the uniform rules this year she thought, why not? She has had what is apparently an unusual amount of piercings for a witch since she was a child, but they are not abnormal for a Veela. Jeanne has more than her, the twins too, she thinks, and it is not so many really - is it?

She put a hoop or a stud in every single one as soon as she got home from Valence, styling herself fully as a Veela as she has not since before she started school just to spite Grand-mère, and has hardly taken them out since. There are only five of them, but no one else seems to wear many piercings at all.

"Are they very garish?" she asks. She knows that she apparently wears too many rings, although she cannot see that it is so, and she wears at least one necklace and a handful of bracelets as well as her watch, too, which does seem a great deal in comparison to Daphne's plain silver watch on its black leather strap, or Blaise's sleek burnished steel rings and his watch on its bright chain across his waistcoat. "I do not think that they are, but I am not English."

"Nor am I, thank you very much," Daphne says indignantly. "Nor is Tracey."

"Welsh pride is all well and good," Tracey says, rolling her eyes. No one can roll their eyes like Tracey - her eyes are huge, and a startling shade of pale green, and she is so expressive. "But I'm wondering if a little British restraint might not serve. You're Head Girl now, Belle - what if some horrible little first year starts crying and they catch themselves on your earrings when you inevitably start hugging them? Then you'll both be crying."

Theo gives up on hiding his laughter, leaning back on one hand and covering his mouth with the other. Blaise, the traitor, joins in.

"Tracey's being ridiculous, obviously," Daph says. "But you will have to take at least those out for Duelling Club, Belle, and for Quidditch. And possibly for Potions - you know how Slug gets about your rings, what's he going to do about those?"

Ernie still avoids her eye, but there is tomorrow. He will not be able to avoid her after Charms.

III.

Belle is up unusually early the next morning, but only because Daphne is intent on bullying her. They do not fight often, if at all, but a battle has been raging between them on this one front for several months now, and Daph is determined to win.

"You are going to wear your hair down," Daph says, warming something that smells sweet and artificial between her fingers, "and you are going to like it."

Tracey has been in on this betrayal from the start, apparently, because she has a whole array of admittedly very beautiful pins and clips for Belle to choose from. Some of the brown glass bottles Daph has arranged at her side are Tracey's as well, hair tonics and oils and conditioners such as Belle has never wanted or needed to use.

"I do wear my hair down," Belle protests. "When it's practical."

"Hair like yours is never practical, Black," Tracey says, sitting down opposite Belle, looking absolutely tickled. "If you wanted practical, you'd cut it."

Veela don't cut their hair, as a rule, which is why Belle's hair is to her waist. She has her father's hair, thick and black and loosely curling, but it has a Veela's shine and lustre, and is better behaved than Papa's ever seemed to be. That still leaves it very long and very large for school, and so Belle has eagerly taken advantage of Daphne's skill with plaiting and braiding all these years, and her own knack for securing all of her hair atop her head with only four pins and a ribbon.

"It's all in the product," Daphne assures her. "Trust me, Belle. I know what I'm doing."

Belle closes her eyes. If it all goes horribly wrong, there will still be time to plait it. Won't there?

---

Belle has given over her first breakfast back in the castle to the first years, to answer their questions. She had Blaise help her clear a seat on the table, the better to sit above the little ones and hold court - Neville and Hannah and Tony are doing the same thing at their own tables, and Belle is unsurprised to see some of the second years edging in at the fringes of the group. In many ways, this is their first real school year.

How miserable. She must ensure that they have a wonderful time.

"I would not say that the school itself is dangerous," she says, in response to a doubtful question from a long-nosed girl who introduced herself as Maya, and Maya only. "There have been dangerous things and dangerous people in the school over the years, but is that not true of the world?"

The first years look doubtful, so Belle sets aside her porridge. They deserve to be taken seriously, and perhaps they feel as though she is dismissing their concerns by picking the berries from her breakfast while they worry. She never had anyone pay her concerns the slightest bit of attention before Remus, aside from Blaise, and she wants to make sure that these children never feel as neglected as they did in those first troubled years.

"I have done seven years in this place," she says. "This will be my eighth. We have seen terrible things, I will not pretend otherwise. No doubt I have done terrible things, depending on your point of view. But! We have all done what we can to protect one another. We have worked very hard to keep each other safe, but it has never been from the school itself. Does that help?"

"Sort of," Miss Maya says, shredding her toast. "How do we know that everyone in the school shares your good intentions?"

Such a cynical little thing. Belle can remember feeling the same, and can't help but wonder why this new girl is already so firmly on guard.

"Well," she says. "We cannot. But those of us who were here last year have seen what comes of allowing bad intentions to run unchecked. We are not of a mind to allow it to happen again."

Tony is giving her the most agonised look over the heads of all their gathered first years, and Belle is sure that he is being interrogated just as fiercely. Hannah and Neville are probably handling it with more poise, if only because they're used to being warm in a way Belle simply isn't, save perhaps with Teddy, and with Anatole and Maman.

"How about this," she tries, because it's always worked before. "If someone gives you trouble, you send them to me."

"Because you're Head Girl?"

"Oh, no," Belle says, absolutely overjoyed to have convinced them even just that she is on their side. Oh, how wonderful it might have been to have the Head Girl declare herself on Belle's side in first year! She cannot even remember who the Head Girl then was . "No, I have very little authority. You are going to send any troublemakers to me because I'm mean."

---

Charms was the biggest class in the year, because it was the one that had the broadest applications. Professor Flitwick was also less demanding of his students than some of the other teachers, and so even Pansy had legitimately earned her way into his class.

Belle is deeply, deeply glad that she went without her sling this morning. Her shoulder is only a little sore, but Blaise has been clucking at her to be mindful of it all the same - well. She can do that without showing any weakness before this last idiot remnant of what they faced last year.

Belle had half expected to return to school and find that there would only be five of her housemates left for eighth year - herself and Blaise and Daphne, Theo and Tracey. Everyone else had aligned with the Carrows, if not outright taken the Dark Mark, and she hadn't expected any of them to brave the backlash. According to Dromeda, Draco has been hidden away at some private academy in Belgium to finish his schooling, and per Theo, Millicent and Goyle are gone to similar if less prestigious establishments.

Pansy, though, is sitting in the very back corner of the Charms classroom, behind Theo and Tracey. She looks somehow both smug and uncertain, and Belle has an immediate urge to thump her square in the nose. She quashes it, takes her seat beside Blaise and takes out her notebooks and the fountain pen Maman sent with her and her ink. Blaise's elbow nudges Belle's, and he nods toward Daph and Susan, sitting in front of them, Susan's hand firmly on Daphne's thigh.

"We're all adults here," Daph says breezily, when they start to laugh.

Ernie alone of the arrayed Hufflepuffs does not turn to join the conversation. Belle watches the back of his head, feeling Pansy's eyes on her own all the while.

Pansy, before Umbridge and before the Carrows, was nothing. Pansy is, once more, nothing, especially in the absence of Millicent and Draco and the goons. She was a bully when she had the support to be such, but Professor Slughorn will not allow such things of them - the letter he sent out to all returning Slytherins made that quite clear - and Professor McGonagall is somewhat more proactive than the late Dumbledore. If Pansy cannot strongarm and insult her way into influence, then she is lost, for she has no charm and wealth only goes so far at school, where they operate in something of a closed system.

Belle cannot truly understand Pansy's return, unless the rumours she heard while working with Monsieur Bornog are true, and the end of the war has proved ruinous for certain families. Why else would she be here, rather than in one of the continental academies? Surely her family could have scraped together enough to match whatever the Bulstrodes are spending!

It matters not. The Gryffindors arrive, causing absolute havoc as is their wont, and are herded into place fairly quickly only because the Ravenclaws push in close behind them.

"Goodness me," Professor Flitwick says, once he has toddled in and boarded his high chair behind his high desk. "That really is all of you, isn't it?"

Twenty-five of them left, including Pansy. Somehow, they have survived close to intact. It seems absurd. It seems insulting, almost, that their year, with its Death Eaters and its collaborators, should have escaped unscathed. It seems wrong that Pansy should be here, but Colin Creevey is not.

"Well," he says, his voice gentling just a little. "Welcome back, all of you. I am very glad to see you."

He pauses his headcount when he comes to Harry, and Belle wonders which teacher has earned money off him - no one seemed to really believe that Harry could be convinced to return, but she is used to being underestimated.

"We have a great deal of catching up to do," Professor Flitwick says, chalk shushing smoothly across the board behind him. "I can't imagine any of you learned anything in the Ministry-approved fashion last year, despite my best efforts, so perhaps something of a refresher is in order these first few lessons. Ah, yes, Miss Granger?"

Belle settles comfortably into her seat, blushing when she glances sideways and accidentally catches Neville's eye, and wonders - is it possible that they might, maybe, be back to normal?

Ernie's determined ignorance and Pansy's lingering presence say otherwise, but Belle will deal with both of those things. First one, then the other.

---

Ernie makes dealing with his stupidness inescapable almost as soon as they're out of class. Belle has Transfiguration next - a class of considerably fewer than twenty-five, because some people are not made for Minverva McGonagall at a higher level of intensity than she exerts at OWL level - but she is about to be late, because Ernie.

Dear Ernie.

Is causing a scene.

Belle does not approve of scenes not of her making. She understands that they are sometimes unavoidable, but this furore of Ernie's is completely manufactured.

She tries very hard not to listen to what he's saying as he pushes at Neville's chest, snapping and snarling like a child in a temper, but it is difficult. She has always liked to know what is being said about her.

"No matter what you've convinced her to do," he is saying, "she is still my girlfriend!"

"I haven't convinced Belle of anything," Neville says, low and quiet and plainly furious, but much more restrained. Were someone attacking Belle as Ernie is attacking him, she would've put them on the floor by now, but Neville has not her propensity for meanness. "There's nothing going on, Ernie, I told you that-"

"Oh, I'm sure-"

"You are sure that you are behaving like a fool?" Belle whispers, pushing between them with both hands on Ernie's chest. "Stop this at once! What are you doing? Get- get in there!"

Professor Sinistra looks up in surprise when Belle shoves Ernie bodily through her classroom door, and goes pink enough that Belle can guess what she thinks is going on.

"I am preventing a fight, Professor," Belle assures her. "Might I borrow your classroom for a moment? I promise it will not take long - I have double Transfiguration now."

"And I have nothing," Professor Sinistra says, "so take as long as you dare, Miss Black. Mr Macmillan."

"Professor," Ernie says, smile strained. It falls as soon as the door closes in her elegantly perfumed wake, and he jerks away from Belle as though she stinks. Well then! If he is going to be rude, she will be twice as rude in return!

"You are behaving like a child," she informs him. "What are you thinking? It is the first day of term, Ernie! Do you not think the little ones saw enough fighting in the halls last year?"

"Oh, it's hardly the same-"

"It will seem the same to them!"

That gives him pause, mercifully.

"Longbottom and I have been due a row," he says at last. "I should have saved it for Duelling Club. I'm sorry for that, at least."

"Saved it for- Ernie! What nonsense!"

He looks sulky, but underneath that, he looks hurt.

"Neville and I aren't having an affair," she says, because Ernie's always preferred blunt honesty. "We are not- what was it Daphne called it? Carrying on. I would not disrespect you like that. But things are different now, compared to this time last year."

She does not mention how close she came to kissing Neville, under the tree. It would serve no purpose.

"I did try to talk to you about it," she points out. "But you returned all my letters unopened! I hardly had time to turn around all summer or else I would have come to Cromarty to find out why that was. Poor Blanchfleur had a wasted visit almost every week until the middle of August!"

"I didn't get a single letter from you," he says, sitting down on the edge of Sinistra's desk with a thud. "Not a single one, Bellona."

"I sent one every week, Ernie! Why would I lie! I still have them at home, if you need the proof!"

"Damn it all, Belle! I wasn't raised in a slum, I would never return a letter unopened - especially not one from you! I keep a bag of those heinous treats Blanchefleur likes because she hates me without them just so I can get your letters off her damned leg!"

"Then why, Ernie!" she cries, throwing up her hands - goodness, her bracelets do make an awful lot of noise, perhaps Tracey and Daph were right. "Why did every single letter come back to me, seal unbroken and stamped RETURN TO SENDER - I have never had anyone dare return a letter to me unread, not even Papa when he was on the run and it could take weeks for Blanchefleur to find him!"

She has never really spoken about her father to Ernie before, and this feels like the very stupidest first foray - but here they are.

"Well bugger this all," Ernie says. "I can only think of one person who might bother with the damned stamp. I fear Mother might have interfered a little. She's a bit less, ah. Liberal than the rest of the family."

"Your mother? You're afraid of your mother?"

"You're afraid of your grandmother!"

"Not anymore," Belle says. "And that is not the point. Why- why would your mother interfere? After the fighting, when you were avoiding me, I assumed that it was your grandfather you were hiding me from, but your mother? "

"Not all of us have strange and unfortunate relationships with our grandparents, Belle," Ernie scolds, but mildly. "Nah, Granddad's mad as a brush but he's a good sort. Mother's a Rowle, though. Not main line, but near as makes no difference. She's a filthy bigot when she's not being bullied out of it."

"I don't see what this has to do with you ignoring my letters. They were addressed to you directly, Ernie, and Blanchefleur is not the sort of owl to accept someone else taking her letters."

"Mother trained as a postmistress, before she married Dad. Handles all our post personally, to keep her hand in. I dare say she interfered. You know I would never ignore a letter - I'm many things, Bellona, but I'm not rude. "

"But how would she know to return my letters? Why not Zach's or Justin's? Why not Justin's, if she's a Rowle?"

"Justin's rich and openly gay, Belle," Ernie points out. "He's not a threat to my marrying a nice pureblood girl. As to her knowing, well, she's good friends with Su's mum. They went to finishing school in Vienna together. Damn good chance Dagmar let something slip about me seeing a French girl, and Mother figured it out - she knows that there's only one French girl in our year."

"So where does that leave us?"

Ernie shoots her a look that cuts right through her.

"Even if Mother hadn't interfered," he says, "you'd be dumping me for Neville Longbottom's sake right now. Because you're in love with him."

"Ernie-"

"I'm mad at Longbottom," he assures her. "Not at you. I saw him follow you out to that tree you like to sit under. After the battle."

"You should be mad at me," Belle says. "Neville was not your girlfriend."

"Thankfully," Ernie says. "Friendly blondes are your type. I prefer darker hair and meaner."

"Oh, Ernie," she sighs. "I am mean! I should have done more when your letters came back, but with the funerals and then all the unpleasantness with Grand-mère- well, I suppose I have been distracted. But I owed it to you to be honest."

"About being in love with Neville, and not me."

"About trying to kiss Neville before ending things with you."

Ernie's jaw drops. She's never seen him speechless before.

"Neville stopped me," she says, as much miserable to have hurt him as embarrassed at the way he keeps saying she's in love with Neville. "That's why it is not him you should be angry with, Ernie, it's me. It's me."

He folds his arms.

"You kissed him?"

"No. Almost." She bites her lip, ashamed. "I wanted to. He said it wouldn't be fair to you to- and he was right! I was just overwhelmed, and I was angry with you so I wasn't thinking straight-"

"I can't imagine that I've ever left you overwhelmed," he said coolly. "What a mess. I had my suspicions that we might not last beyond the war even had Mother not interfered, but I rather thought you'd tell me that we were done before moving on."

"I wanted to," she says. "But even when I was in London for the end of the holidays, when I could have just flown up to Cromarty, I put it off. I've been a coward, Ernie. I'm sorry. You deserved better of me."

"Did you know how he felt? When you accepted that watch?"

Belle touches Madame Augusta's watch, blushing anew.

"Blaise and Daphne told me that it could be significant later on," she says. "It isn't the custom in France, though. We use cloak pins the way you use watches. I truly didn't realise it was significant."

"That isn't what I asked, Belle."

"No. No, I didn't know. You know how stupid I am about these things - it took months of teasing for me to realise that he had feelings for me."

"And a perfect moment to realise you returned those feelings, I suppose?"

No. Belle knows when she realised how she feels about Neville, even if she had not understood it in the moment. She feels sick to remember the chill of the dungeon broken only by the heat of her own blood on her skin, but it was in that darkness that Neville came to her. She had been waiting for him. She knew he would come. She sees that now. Poor Ernie could never compete with something like that, and she hopes that he understands that it is not his fault.

"When he and Seamus came to rescue me," she says, haltingly. "Neville carried me out of the dungeons over his shoulder, and I felt completely safe. As soon as I saw him, I knew that it was over. That he would not let Bellatrix hurt me anymore."

Ernie's face twists, and then he sighs.

"Well, I find you very difficult to be angry with," he says. "This is all a big pile of shit, isn't it? I suppose this means we're broken up, then."

"I suppose so. What do- do we have to fight now?"

"I've never had a real break up before. Eh. I can't see what fighting would achieve, really." He smiles half-heartedly. "Us old heads should present a united front for the little ones, shouldn't we? And I really do find it difficult to be angry with you, Belle. What a nuisance ."

"I'm sorry, if that helps," she says. "I didn't- I never anticipated any of this. Any of- I never saw it coming."

"Everyone else did. Neville's never been a subtle sort. I suppose I just decided to try my hand while you were catching up to him."

"I'm glad you did," she admits. "Oh, Ernie! This really is horrible!"

"I solemnly swear not to thump Neville in the teeth," Ernie says. "How's that?"

"And I solemnly swear to pay more attention to things," she agrees. "How I ever thought that you'd be so obtuse as to use a stamp when a letter telling me to fuck off would be so much more effective I will never know."

He holds out his hand. They shake.

"Now go," he says. "We can talk later, if McGonagall lets you survive being late for the first class of the year."

She leans up, thinking to kiss his cheek, and thinks better of it at the last moment.

"Apologise to Professor Sprout on my behalf," she says. " And to Neville."

"I'm going to be an usher at your wedding," Ernie tells her, pushing up off the edge of the desk. "I expect your firstborn son's middle name to be Ernest."

---

After dinner, when they're all sitting on the steps for a hugely conspicuous smoke, Belle throws her feet into Ernie's lap.

"Uh?" Zach asks eloquently, gesturing between them with the pipe he took up over the summer in an attempt to stop smoking cigarettes.

"Belle dumped me," Ernie says, "and Neville and I have made our peace, and I would like a quiet smoke before having to go back into the common room."

"You're a shit prefect," Hannah says. "You should be enthusiastic and excited about dealing with first years who miss their mums."

"I'd honestly rather die," Tony says, sliding his sunglasses up his nose while Padma sighs in exhausted agreement.

Ernie tips Belle a smile around the side of his own sunglasses, and she returns it. Neville stirs against her back, and she settles her weight more firmly against his.

Blaise and Daphne are sitting outside the circle of smokers, Blaise sharing his immaculate Charms notes with Ron Weasley. But Daphne-

Oh, she just looks so smug.

IV.

Belle didn't know what to expect when Professors McGonagall and Slug asked her and Neville to take over Pansy and Draco's positions as Head Girl and Boy. She understood that they were to do the opposite to Pansy and Draco in all regards, of course, but she was not sure what that meant.

Mostly, they agreed to pay attention to the little ones. Belle thought that if they just listened, a great deal of difficulty could be cut off at the pass. Neville agreed, and they had decided - yes, they would use Dueling Club and Charms Club and whatever else they could fit into their schedules to listen to as many of the little ones as possible, and they would ask Hannah and Ernie and Tony and Padma and Ron and Hermione and Blaise and Tracey to do the same, and to pass the message down to the younger prefects.

That was before Pansy's return. Pansy is back, though, and must be handled.

---

She keeps her head down for the first week, which is just as well - the first week, for Belle, is spent trying to pin down a free evening for Quidditch training between Duelling Club, extra class with Professor McGonagall, and what Professor Slug has dubbed "Cake Night."

"If you're going to be doing extra classes, dear girl," he says, once they've finally agreed to Friday evenings at seven o'clock for their extra classes, "then you may as well get some little treat to sweeten the pot, what do you say?"

"I've already put in an order for caramel cake with my uncle for next week," she assures him, forcing a smile - she offered to take the stack of books he'd been shuffling around his belly so that he could lock his office door, and she regrets it now. Her shoulder has been troubling her all day, and Slug likes heavy books as much as he loves heavy cream. "Uh, sir-"

He turns from the door, and she bites back a genuine smile. He's holding out his silly honeycomb print silk scarf with one hand and holding the other out for his books.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he says gently. "I did not think."

He ties it with a neat knot and drops it over her head, somehow not getting it caught on her wand where it's sticking out of her hair, and holds it out in a figure-of-eight until she swaps the books to her left arm and takes all the weight off her right.

"Have you asked Poppy for help?" he asks, taking all the books and balancing them on his hip. "I understand she directed you to some healers that you were supposed to visit over the summer."

"I had- I intended on it," she says. "But then I had- there were the funerals, sir. And I had to go to France, and my grandmother- ah. Well."

"I understand that your grandmother is often ah, well," he says, nudging her toward dinner. "But that does not mean that you are excused from looking after your health, Bellona. How are you going to outplay young Harry if you can't hold your broom?"

"I have two fully functional legs, sir," she says, deeply insulted. "As if I need two hands as well to stay in the air!"

"One for the Snitch, and one for the broom," he teases. "I played Quidditch myself, you know - I know it's difficult to believe, but I was once more streamlined."

"I'm fine, sir," she assures him. "It is a little sore, nothing more."

The look he gives her indicates that he does not believe her one bit, but he says no more until they're standing in the door of the great hall and his belly is rumbling for the smell of beef and ale pie.

"A word of advice, my dear," he says. "I understand that you care very much for a great many people. Perhaps you should consider that those same people care very much for you in return, hmm?"

Belle knows that her family cares for her very much, but she knows too that that is not what Slug means. He means himself, and he means her friends, and she suspects he even means all the little ones she tried to keep from harm last year.

"Maybe," she concedes, "I could go to Madam Pomfrey. Just as a consultation, mind!"

Slug's smile has all the warmth of a merrily crackling hearth.

"That's the spirit," he says. "Now, off you go, enjoy your dinner - and don't forget about Friday! I shall remind you on Tuesday if you remind me on Thursday."

"I'll try to remember, sir," she says, rolling her eyes. "And, well - thank you, sir."

"What sort of mentor would I be if I didn't keep a good eye on you, Miss Black?" he says, patting her good shoulder. "Go, go, before Miss Greengrass and Mr Zabini begin to worry. Go on now."

Tracey gives an airy wave as Belle approaches, nudging some poor unsuspecting third year hard with her hip to clear space for Belle at the table - the girl, who Belle knows only as a sort of Pansy-in-the-making with some horrid name like Greer, she thinks, looks as though she might snarl, but instead cowers and sneers when she realises that it is Belle for whom the space is being made.

Pansy-in-the-making indeed. She even has Lucille Crabbe and her jaw like an icebreaker hovering at her shoulder.

"Have a seat, Black," Tracey says, patting the newly empty bench. "Bad day?"

"Busy day," Belle admits, cringing a little under Blaise and Daphne and Theo's disapproving frowns. "It has been a busy week! I have many things to balance!"

"Use the other shoulder," Daphne suggests, taking the plate that's filling in front of Belle and cutting it up into small pieces - Belle is not even sure what is on the plate, but she will be able to manage it one-handed now, at least. "Why didn't you tell us you were sore? Whose scarf is that?"

"It's Slug's," Blaise says, pouring a glass of apple juice and putting it in front of her without a word - how embarrassing, to be so dependent on others! "It must have been really bad, if even Slug noticed. Belle."

"I'll see if I can't get someone to come have a look at you the first Hogsmeade weekend," Theo says, eyes narrowed at her above his Muggle Studies textbook. "Aunt Dotty isn't so bad, she'll be able to recommend someone if I ask."

Theo's Aunt Dotty probably wouldn't recommend a fellow Healer if she knew it was for Belle's benefit, given that Belle is more emblematic of everything people like Theo's family hate than anyone else short of Harry. It is good of Theo to offer, though, because he is working very hard to be everything his father was not.

Belle still does not know if she wielded the wand that ended the life of Nott, père. She supposes that she will never know, and wonders how it is that Theo has made his peace with that when she cannot.

"It's just sore," she says firmly, ignoring the scoffing that echoes her words. "It is! It was a severe injury, but it is healed now, and is sore because I must rebuild it."

"Oh, yes," Tracey says, leaning back on one hand and looking really very elegant. "That's what the Healers told you - but wait! You haven't let any Healer look at it save the minute and a half you conceded to Madam Pomfrey. In May."

"I think Hannah did exemplary work on it," Belle sniffs, which at least raises a little laughter and diffuses the disapproving tension. "Class with Slug is on Fridays, by the way. So that means I have Thursday evenings free."

"I think I'd go insane," Theo says, with considerable feeling. "When do you intend on studying, Belle?"

"Weekends, of course," she says. "And Thursdays. It will be fine."

"So McGonagall on Mondays, Duelling Club Tuesdays, Quidditch Wednesdays," Blaise says. "You'll have to spend Thursdays icing your shoulder, Belle. You've Potions first thing Friday morning."

"So? I am hardly going to strain myself during Potions. That's what Levitation Charms are for."

"And will you have the wherewithal to manage a Levitation Charm on some miserable Friday morning in January, when you've a stuffy old headcold because it rained during Quidditch on Wednesday, and a headache from all the first years' screeching dismay during Duelling Club on Tuesday, and a sore ear from a bollocking Professor McGonagall gave you on Monday night because you're so tired that even you, prodigy of prodigies, cocked up some artsy little Transfiguring?" Tracey asks archly, tipping a little something into Belle's cup from a pretty flask - gold, with some enamel detailing. Even sitting back, Belle can smell the raw itch of alcohol, and is surprised when neither Blaise nor Daph nor even sensible Theo seem to disapprove. "Be reasonable, darling. How are you going to be well enough to study, eh?"

"I am made of sterner stuff than you seem to think!" Belle says, wishing she could fold her arms, but her shoulder really is aching now. "I will be-"

"What we're trying to say, Belle," Theo says, "is that you've gone quite potty if you think you'll be able to handle all of this without taking an occasional break. Ask Slug to make your classes a fortnightly thing - you'll probably have detention at least a half a dozen times between now and Christmas, so he can nab you for that and do a crash course each night."

"I have already promised-"

"And you're Slug's favourite," Daphne says. "He'll let you off for your health, Belle, you know that he will."

She hesitates. Her schedule is looking very full, and it would be nice to have even a single evening to herself every week - because Blaise probably is right. Thursdays probably will be spent recuperating from Wednesday night Quidditch.

"I'll talk to him tomorrow," she says, and mostly means it.

---

Of course, Pansy takes the choice out of her hands.

She's waiting for them, when they go to bed, with the front of her hair in rollers and a new, familiarly hideous pink satin robe frilling and frothing around her as she stomps up and down beside her bed. Even she has grown worn, strained and tired from the misadventures of the previous year in a way that a single sad summer could not quite heal. Belle might feel sorry for her, if she was not so horrible.

"You seem most disturbed, Pansy," Belle says, reaching behind her neck to tug loose the careful knot Slug used on his scarf. Her shoulder feels a little better for having been rested, and she is mostly up to date on her homework, and she feels completely unthreatened by Pansy.

Pansy's team, after all, lost. A shame that Pansy does not seem to realise that Harry felling Voldemort was the final whistle, the Snitch snatched from the air.

The earrings she is wearing are copies of Cousin Bella's. Copies of the earrings Bellatrix wore while Belle hung in chains. There is no way that that is accidental.

" And you're Slug's favourite ," Pansy sneers, in a truly awful imitation of Daphne's voice. Daphne, to her credit, only laughs. She rubs some kind of sweet-smelling conditioner into her hair, so it sticks up like an uneven halo, and holds out her hands to Belle while Pansy prattles on. "Do you think that changes anything, you stupid half-breed? Some fat old man who's half-senile giving you sweets doesn't mean you're worth the same as me!"

"Ah," Daph says, helping Belle out of her robes. "This is about Belle being made Head Girl, then?

"Don't be so stupid," Pansy whines. "Everyone knows that that means nothing, not so long as I'm here-"

"I daresay most of the little ones would disagree," Belle says quietly, trying very hard not to become angry. Half-senile! Slug! How dare she slander him so! "Not all of us have such selective memories as yours, Pansy. We cannot all pretend to play victim this year, not when so many of us were made victim last year."

"Let it go, Pansy," Tracey advises, remaining mostly neutral. Belle can't blame her for it, not with what tidbits Daph has heard about Tracey's parents, and is glad that she is not, at least, siding with Pansy. "The Dark Lord lost, and so did you. Being unkind to Bellona won't make Draco fancy you."

"The Dark Lord did not lose," Pansy snaps, her hand clapping around her forearm as if to shield her Dark Mark from Tracey's calumny. "He returned once, and he may-"

"Go to bed, Pansy," Belle says. "Before you embarrass yourself."

" Me!" she shrieks. "Me embarrass myself, as though you aren't just a filthy mongrel playing dress-up, pretending to be a real witch!"

Pansy has always been the only person who can really draw a physical fight out of Belle. Tante Invidia trained Belle and Jeanne to throw a punch when they were small, and they fenced and ran and climbed complicated obstacle courses, and she impressed upon them the importance of trying to avoid physical conflict. Invidia might fly about Europe in chainmail and a sword belt, but growing up in Grand-mère's shadow made a diplomat of her - even if it took her until middle-age to realise it. She used to write letters to Anatole, telling him to work with Belle on her temper.

Pansy usually waits for Belle to throw the first punch so that she can run crying to Professor Snape. Shame that he is dead, then, because his absence has driven Pansy to some kind of desperation, and she gives Belle a good, hard shove.

Belle lands on her bad shoulder, badly.

She shrieks so loudly that even Pansy goes pale. Daphne does not wait for Belle to rally. She has become protective, since she arrived in the Room while Belle was laid up, and she swings a beautiful right hook at Pansy that is stopped only by Tracey's timely intervention.

"That can be dealt with later," Tracey says, arms locked tight around Daph's. "I think we'd best get Belle to the Hospital Wing first, don't you?"

Daphne hesitates, but she makes another aborted attempt on Pansy's life, prompting Tracey to loose an unearthly scream that echoes sharply against the bare stone of their ceiling.

Belle witnesses all of this from a curious distance, and passes out in what feels like relief when Blaise and Theo slam through the door.

---

"The good news," Madam Pomfrey says, "is that I can fix it here."

"And the bad news?" Bellona asks, cringing a little. She has been given something for the pain, and can only sort of feel the right hand side of her body. It is a nice numbness, cloud-like and far away, and she finds herself giggling every time she tries to lift her right hand to adjust her glasses.

Blaise and Daphne are sitting to her left, looking equally concerned and amused. Before, when there was work to be done on her arm, they had not the luxury of numbing it, and she finds that she quite likes it.

"The bad news," Madam Pomfrey says, "is that it will hurt an awful lot."

"Will I be fit for Quidditch training next week?" Belle asks, which makes Blaise laugh aloud - she so likes hearing him laugh. "I must have trials, Madam P, and I must be well enough to fly for them!"

"Considering I've seen you keep your seat with your arm hanging loose in the socket, Miss Black, I don't think that that will be a concern," Madam Pomfrey says, rolling her eyes. "But yes, you will be back in the air by next week - by Sunday, if you do as you're told for the next day or so."

"We'll make sure she does, Madam Pomfrey," Blaise promises. "What do you need her to do?"

"Rest," Madam Pomfrey says. "Once I'm done with her, she won't need to do anything else."

"What do you need to do? " Daphne asks, which is good, because Belle thinks she might have lost possession of her mouth or she would have asked that herself. "To Belle's arm, I mean."

"I don't mean to suggest that Miss Abbot didn't do a bang-up job. I'm not sure I could have done as good a job in such circumstances, truth be told! But there is damage that can't be undone, so I'll just be fixing what can be set to rights."

"Meaning?"

Belle tries very hard to listen, but she slips into pink-edged unconsciousness before Madam Pomfrey can say another word.

---

She wakes, briefly, with her arm bound up tight against her chest.

She chooses to slip back into unconsciousness. It seems easier, and she can't taste the Skele-Gro on the back of her tongue if she's asleep.

V.

"Pansy has detention," Daphne tells her, helping with her hair the following morning. Her arm is still sore, but it is a different kind of sore - no doubt Madam Pomfrey could explain it, but Belle still feels a little groggy and doesn't trust that she would be able to follow along. "She doesn't understand why Slug isn't getting her out of it the way Snape would have, of course."

"Of course," Belle agrees, flexing her hand. She's left handed, but can feel the difference in her right hand all the same - it feels like it did before her little soirée with Cousin Bella, without the tremor she's been trying to hide all summer. Daph and Blaise going off to visit with Susan and in Helsinki helped her hide it, because the sisters Shacklebolt were not looking for it and Monsieur Bornog had the good manners to overlook it unless it interfered with her spellwork. "Did you get in trouble for hitting her?"

"I would never," Daphne says, grinning around a mouthful of hairpins. "And even if I did, Slug would get me out of detention for it."

Belle laughs, and Daphne notices that it's a little uneven.

"Come on, you," she says, pulling Belle up by her left arm. "Let's get you some breakfast."

"I should thank Madam Pomfrey-"

"I've never had such a quiet night after putting someone on Skele-Gro, Miss Black," Madam Pomfrey says, peering around the curtains with a smile. "That is all the thanks I need. Rest plenty, and if it's still paining you at the end of next week, come back to me."

Belle waits until they're well clear of the hospital wing to finally ask just what Madam Pomfrey did.

"Oh, she rebroke the bone in the top of your arm," Daph says breezily, her arm hovering around Belle's back when she wobbles a little on the stairs. "She said that it was a strange sort of fracture, and that while Hannah did a very good job of fixing it, no Healer alive could have done it under those conditions and done it right. So she broke it again and set it properly, and now it should be fine."

"Oh."

"She said that some of the damage is lasting, because of you dislocating it more than once before it was properly healed, so it might still be stiff and tender, but it shouldn't pain you as it's been paining you all summer- Belle? Oh, Belle!"

Belle is sitting on the stairs, looking down and down into the Great Hall and not really remembering getting this far. She certainly does not remember sitting, but she does remember the pain of the manacles cutting into her wrists and the chains jerking her arms up, her shoulder out-

"You, little one, you know Blaise? Run and fetch Blaise!"

Daphne is very warm against her left, and the familiar soft thud of Blaise's thick soled boots bounding up the stairs heralds his warm arrival at her right. She should feel very safe, held firm between the two people she loves best in the whole world, but she thinks she might be sick with the burning itch of her back, raw with branding and beating and cold saltwater poured across her torn-apart skin.

"Come here," Blaise says, tucking her head under his chin. His aftershave is different, a gift from one of his sisters in Helsinki, something bright and clean and a little floral, and the warmth of his skin smells the same underneath it. Daphne folds around her from the other side. The sweet almond oil she's taken to using in her hair smells just like the perfume she used to use, but not nearly as cloying - she had only used that because her mother insisted.

She should feel safe. She should feel calm. She should not be sitting on the stairs, noisily crying and unable to stop herself, and probably scaring the little ones.

Blaise says nothing. He rocks her very slightly, and Daphne begins to hum.

More footsteps. Tracey's hard-soled T-bar shoes, Theo's clip-clopping little ankle boots. Thud, thud - now she has drawn a crowd. Absolutely mortifying.

"Oh, I'm going to slap Pansy silly for this," Tracey says. "Buck up, Black - we've brought breakfast."

"Nothing hot, I'm afraid," Theo says, plates and cups clicking onto the steps around his words. "But we did take a full jug of that awful sweet apple juice you like, and some of that horrible jam the house elves get in just for you."

"Cloudberry jam," Blaise says, his voice rumbling under Belle's ear, "is a delicacy that you would love if you'd only try it."

They sit around her, Blaise and Daphne wrapped neatly around her, Tracey holding tight to her ankle, and Theo leaning against her shin. They talk as though they are sitting at the table in the great hall, not on the stairs, as though this is all completely normal, and eventually, Belle lifts her head enough to start eating.

---

In the common room, after Daph and Tracey have pushed Belle into the girls' bathroom and made her wash her face and let them fix her hair, Pansy is there. She is sitting in the best chair by the fire, wearing her Head Girl badge.

Belle ignores her. Instead, she sits down opposite Otto Vaisey across a chessboard.

"Eventful first week, Black," he says, resetting the board - one of his white rooks objects, and he flicks it firmly into place. "I hear you've already patronised Madam Pomfrey's services."

"You need not think that I will be handing over my captain's armband," she says, waving him ahead to play white. "I can expect to see you at trials?"

"Of course," he assures her. "Addison Rowle was looking for you, by the way - you know him?"

"Of course," she returns. Addison Rowle is now a sixth year, extremely shy and extremely rich and extremely pure-blooded, and so there is not a dynastically minded girl who does not know who he is. Belle couldn't give a damn about continuing her grandparents' legacy, but Tracey keeps an eye on all the gossip purely for entertainment purposes. She makes certain that Belle and Daphne are kept just as well informed as, say, Astoria.

Or Pansy.

"Any particular reason?"

"Some people are trying to recruit loyalists," Vaisey says, watching Belle down his narrow nose. He's got bright, sharp eyes, and they flick around toward the crowd that's condensing around them - but not for long. He's too competitive for that. "Some people think the war is not over."

Belle played an awful lot of chess over the final few weeks of her summer holidays. With Dromeda, by letter and twice in person, which had been difficult and would have been impossible had it not been for Teddy's presence and Ted's heavily doctored mugs of tea, and with Phineas Nigellus Black, who had seemed oddly subdued by the reveal of her branding. She moved the pieces according to his direction, and he accused her of cheating - it had been a welcome distraction in the evenings.

She asked him if there happened to be a portrait of Papa, anywhere in the house. He had been quiet for a long while, made stupid errors so she won their game in eight moves, and the following evening reluctantly admitted that, having perused what of the Black family archives he had access to, he could find no trace of her father.

They had not played for two nights after that.

Even with that break, she played many games, and she has gotten quite good. She thinks she might even beat Looney Luna, who plays rings around everyone except Ron Weasley simply because she plays like a madwoman.

She plays her first piece.

"The war," she says, pitching her voice much louder than she ever would have before, in the common room. Bellona is a Slytherin to her bones, but she has never wielded that comfort and confidence in the spirit of their house before. It would never have been permitted.

Belle knows who she is. She knows what a Slytherin can be. Those two things are more closely aligned than a stuck-up, blood-purist bitch like Pansy Parkinson could ever understand.

"The war is done," she says, and even when Pansy trills a high, mean laugh, she does not turn her head. Offering acknowledgement is the same as surrendering, and Belle has never been one to give in. "The war ended with Voldemort's life. Anyone who cannot accept that is doomed to disappointment."

"Oh?" calls Burnley, now a fourth year and lamentably not growing into that brow ridge. He is a cousin of the Crabbes, with Lucille's shiny ash-brown hair and Vincent's brutish everything else. "What does that mean, Black?"

Burnley was a favourite of Amycus Carrow's. A brute, and a brazen one.

"It means, Burnley," Belle says, weighing up Otto Vaisey's answering volley with a critical eye, reaching up to take one of Daphne's hands where she's leaning, draped across the back of Belle's chair, "that the war is done. No one in this house will attempt to continue it. That is all."

The first years, who seem not to have broken into any more specific groups than "boys'' and "girls" just yet, are watching. Belle's Head Girl badge is holding some of her hair back, fashioned into a sort of heavy ornament by some clever pinwork on Tracey's part, and it is already grubbier than Pansy's. Pansy's shines as though newly enamelled, flashing in the firelight.

Belle thinks of Grand-mère, so beautiful and flawless, but so spineless and petty. She thinks of Blue Carmen, small with age and branded, far worse than Belle is, but still so strong. So respected.

Belle knows which of them she admires more. Belle knows which of them she should emulate.

"Who's going to stop us?" some hideous newt of a third year asks, under a fringe of dark hair badly in need of a trim. A Flint, a cousin of poor Marcus', but with much better teeth. "The war isn't over just because you say it is, Black. There are still battles to be fought."

"My dear Aldous," Belle says, not really caring if that is his name or not. "Think about this very carefully. You may wish to fight those battles, I cannot change that - but do you wish to fight me?"

Pansy slinks lower in her chair. Belle returns to her game, and Otto checkmates her in ten moves.

The first years, split into boys and girls , gather a little closer around Belle.

"I heard that there's a Chess Club," the bravest of the boys says, a pointy-featured child that Belle thinks might be a cousin of the Patils. "Do you take part, Bellona?"

---

"Tell you what, Black," Zoe Accrington says, nudging Belle with her hip and a smile at breakfast the next morning. "Slap Pansy next time, eh? It would hurt less."

Miss Maya, who it transpires is a Vaisey cousin, with the same long nose as Otto, is watching Belle curiously. Belle remembers watching Flora Carrow the same way, aeons ago. If she's right - and she has started to trust that she is, more often than not - then she might stand a chance of making her house realise their mistakes. If she can just keep the little ones from bad influence-

Pansy sits at the end of the long table. She is not wearing her badge.

VI.

Halloween sees Belle mostly on top of her homework, with an extremely promising Quidditch team and a very quiet Pansy. All in all, the first two months of the school year have been quite good, that first weekend excepted.

She finds herself a little wrongfooted on Halloween morning, though. They are all bound for Hogsmeade, and she thought Neville might ask her to go with him. He's been nothing but his usual lovely self, though, with no new intimations or double meanings, so much so that she wonders if she should have asked him.

"Well, it's a bit late to wonder that now," Daphne says, adjusting her broad-brimmed hat so it sits at a jaunty angle. It's a shocking shade of pink, the same as her thick-rimmed sun-glasses, and she has it paired with a trailing white silk scarf that might have come from her grandmother's wardrobe.

She looks beautiful. She looks so very much herself , so at her ease, and only the way she lights up at Susan's approach could possibly improve on her loveliness.

"Daph's right," Blaise says. He picks some fluff off the sharp shoulder of Daph's strawberry bonbon pink cloak, grinning at Belle below the mirrored lenses of his sun-glasses. They both look so incredibly thrilled by Belle's discomposure that she's tempted to end their friendship, she really is. "If you wanted him to ask you out, you should have made that clearer-"

"Belle? Can I borrow you for a moment?"

Neville's cardigan is a very dark blue, and his shirt is very crisp and white. With his sleeves rolled up over his strong, freckled forearms, and his hands in his pockets, he looks so English Belle might just die. If he wasn't Neville, she'd be embarrassed to find him so attractive.

"Do you know, Longbottom, we were just -"

"They were just about ready to go!" Belle blurts out, shoving Blaise's shoulder. "Yes, Neville, of course, of course, just over here-"

His cloak, thrown over one shoulder, is slate grey. Belle's cloak is dove grey, a late addition to the wardrobe she chose in Paris, delivered from Lelong's in a velvet-lined box carried by four snowy owls. They would look well, walking together, she just knows it. If only Neville would ask! He's probably pulling her aside to talk about some of the little ones, and while she does admire that he matches her worry for the little ones she would like one day-

"Spend the day with me," she says, cringing a little at how eager she sounds. "Do, though, Neville, do! I thought you were going to ask me out-"

"Well," Neville says, "I was just about to, but you stole my thunder."

"Oh!"

" Oh. You're a hard woman to pin down, Belle. So? Walk down into the village with me?"

Daph and Blaise are leering at her over Neville's shoulder, and she ignores them. Instead of giving them an ounce of satisfaction, she takes Neville's hand. He wears no jewellery other than a very simple gold bracelet watch, a very classic, understated design, and Belle's bangles click against it a little when their arms settle together.

"Oh!" he says, going bright pink. "Well, alright then."

People turn to look when they walk out of the great hall together. Belle feels flushed and a little self-conscious, but neither seems like a bad thing. Neville squeezes her hand when a gang of third year Hufflepuff girls go quiet at their passing, and the pink in his cheeks seems to soften, but not to fade.

"You'll need your cloak," she says, and it's true - the sky is overcast, the breeze cutting - but she is reluctant to let go of his hand long enough to let him dress. "I think."

He lets go - slowly, almost as though he wishes he did not have to, and she thrills to see it - and swings his cloak over his shoulders. He lifts his chin, as if expecting her to fuss at the neat steel clasps, which of course she does as soon as he has them fastened.

Then he takes her hand again. His grip is strong and firm, and their strides are well matched. They amble easily toward the gate and then toward the village, mingling with the crowd pouring toward Hogsmeade, and no one makes much of their doing so together.

Well, except Harry, who nudges Ron and points at them extremely obviously.

They don't say much. Belle feels almost as easy in quiet shared with Neville as she would with Blaise or Daph, and she is happy to enjoy the heat of his palm against hers, the solid warmth of him so close by her side, the quiet step of his sensible walking boots echoing her own.

"I know Madam Puddifoot's is traditional," he says, when they're almost in the village, "but I think we're a bit beyond bone china and frou-frou lace."

"We will go to Honeydukes," she says, "and to the Post Office, because they stock the treats Blanchefleur likes best, and then we are going to sit in the Three Broomsticks and ignore whatever lewd things Blaise and Daph say to us from the next table over."

"I should warn you that Seamus set up a betting pool," he says, nudging his hip to hers. "While we were on the train - so if you see Dean collecting winnings off everyone else, that's why. I tipped him off because he's the only one who hasn't been a total twat about me asking you out."

"What do you mean?"

"Harry tried to give me a stern talking to, Belle. As if killing Voldemort means I've forgotten all the nonsense we've gotten up to over the years. I can't take him seriously at all - and besides, if I hurt you, I'd be afraid of Daphne, not of Harry."

"As you should be," she says, touched that Harry would feel the need to offer a defence of her honour, even if the idea is hilarious. " Ugh. How embarrassing for Harry - whyever would he think to protect me? As though I cannot do it myself! And why would you be afraid of Daph but not Blaise?"

"Blaise is one of the finest duelists I've ever seen," Neville says, and while it sounds absurd to say such a thing at eighteen, Belle understands - it means a great deal more coming from their cohort than it would coming from most. "But outside of a combat situation, I can't imagine anyone less frightening. He's probably the nicest person I know, Belle. He'd at least give me a fair hearing before throwing me off a cliff."

She considers this, swinging their hands between them, and shrugs.

"True," she admits. "Daphne will kill you, though."

---

Honeydukes takes them almost two hours, because everyone below seventh year seems shocked to see the Head Boy and Girl holding hands, and many of them demand answers - such nosy brats! If Belle was not so fond of so many of them, she would tell them where to go!

Neville laughs when she tells him so, arms full of fudge and caramels and Pepper Imps, which are Professor McGonagall's favourites and the only means they have of bribing her when they're late to their extra classes.

"If they weren't so fond of you then they wouldn't ask," he points out. "And me, I suppose - there's a horrible thought. Do you think McGonagall and Slughorn gave us the badges because they thought we were popular?"

"Tony and Hannah would have gotten them in that case," Belle says firmly, which feels true. She and Neville might have rather fierce reputations, but they are no more exciting than anyone else in their year - and Tony and Hannah are much gentler and kinder with the little ones, no matter Tony's despair and complaints. They're both friends with absolutely everyone, too, and all of the teachers like them - the more Belle thinks about it, the more convinced she is that they should have been Head Boy and Girl.

"Too late now," Neville says cheerfully, heaving the whole lot of their shared shopping onto the counter, where a harried looking woman with pale pink hair offers them a panicked approximation of a smile. "You've gotten attached to the badge - don't think I don't know how much you enjoy it when the kids come to you for help."

"Pah! As though you can talk!"

Coins flash in Neville's hands, and she might have objected to his paying for everything. She might have.

But he kisses her quiet.

It's not a lingering kiss, or anything particularly salacious - a chorus of oooh!s rises from a knot of fifth years behind them, in the brief moment it takes for Neville to lean in and kiss her and lean away - but Belle can feel herself blushing red and blotchy all down her neck, and Neville's ears turn quite as pink as his face. She's so distracted by that that she forgets to be annoyed at his paying for their sweets, and they are halfway to the Post Office by the time she remembers.

"Well," he says, dropping her hand so he can slide his arm around her waist and pull her in close, ending her objections in one smooth move. "I know one way you could pay me back without putting your hand in your pocket."

"You are quite terrible," she informs him, and kisses him right there in the street, for all the world to see.

Belle has kissed Ernie dozens of times, but she realises now that he was right when he said that he never left her overwhelmed - kissing Neville is something else altogether, like shrugging into a new Lelong robe after wearing Malkin for a full week.

When they part, Neville is pinker than she has ever witnessed, but he looks as thrilled and giddy as she feels.

"We should do that again," she says.

"Didn't McGonagall mention that there's an office for the Head Boy and Girl?"

She kisses him again, his lovely face round and warm between her hands, and that done, they go to the Post Office, to source treats for Blanchefleur and her bold Percival.

---

Blaise and Daphne are in the Three Broomsticks by the time they arrive, and have fallen into company with Harry, Hermione, and two Weasleys.

"I don't trust any one of you," Belle warns them when Neville nudges her into the two empty seats waiting for them at the table. "Do not forget that I can make fire with my bare hands, Ron Weasley."

"I didn't say a single word," Ron complains, looking beseechingly to Hermione. "Did I? Did I say a single word?"

Belle's Butterbeer is spiked with a shot of Firewhiskey, which she thinks may well be yet another apology from someone who believed ill of Papa, in light of his recently-announced posthumous pardon. Madam Rosmerta had made it quite clear, even just last year, that she had little time for a murderer's daughter, and Belle is finding more and more that she does not care. What do these people who did not know her father matter? Less even than those people who think so ill of her and know her so little.

But enough of that. The Butterbeer is warm and the Firewhiskey burns sweet in her throat, and Neville is solid at her side.

---

"Personally I find the whole thing revolting," Tracey says while they're getting ready for dinner - the feast calls for a little effort, and so Belle is wearing her hair down. She does not remember when she stopped wearing it down, knows only that she did not even realise that she had stopped until Daphne pointed it out, but she is making a conscious effort to wear it down more often.

She looks very much like her father, with her hair down.

"Don't be terrible, Trace," Daph laughs, slicking on lipgloss. "They're very sweet!"

"I don't doubt it," Tracey agrees, pausing behind Belle at the mirror to adjust an errant curl. "But I find the production of it all so very overwrought. Just climb on top of him and have done with it, I say."

" Tracey!"

"Oh, please! As though you haven't thought about it!"

Of course Belle has thought about it. She thought about it with Ernie, too, albeit not so much or so intensely. That does not mean that she is going to be so gauche about it, though!

"Leave her alone," Daphne says, tugging the end of Tracey's ponytail. "They'll get to that when they get to it - they haven't even had a real date yet!"

"If you think you need to have dinner before taking your clothes off, I don't know what to tell you," Tracey says. "You girls in your boring, settled romances - where's the fun in that? I had a marvelous time in Cannes over the summer, and let me tell you, I rarely shared dinner with anyone."

"Slut," Daphne says, ducking when Tracey hurls a hairbrush at her. "I mean it as a compliment! You've had more men in a single summer than Belle and I will have in our lifetimes combined!"

Tracey pauses, and decides to accept this. She even looks a little smug.

d.)

Belle was up at the crack of dawn to go down and check the pitch, but Daphne allows herself a luxurious lie-on until half past nine. Tracey has to be dragged out of bed by her bedsocked feet, and Pansy is already gone - hanging around in the shadows somewhere, trying to find more fool dregs of the Death Eaters to rally around her already-failed cause.

But that's not a worry for today. All she has to worry about today is keeping Justin from going for Belle if she does harm to Zach, because it's Slytherin's first match of the year and they're about to beat Hufflepuff into the ground.

"Morning, dear," she says, leaning up to kiss Blaise's cheek for luck. "Feeling fired up?"

"Not nearly as much as she is," he says, "or Otto - I think they've both gone a little mad, truth be told."

Blaise's Firebolt has no ornament or adornment save a discreet gold compass and a single good luck charm on a long leather string wrapped around the head, and makes a lovely contrast to Belle's - her compass matches her silver-and-blue watch, and she has a tiny astrolabe, and an eye-wateringly expensive charm that would keep the rain off her while flying, if she ever used it, as well as half a dozen dangling dainties that are just for decoration.

Daphne's Firebolt is extremely plain, because she uses it to get from place to place. She'll leave the flying for fun to Belle and Blaise and Stori.

Stori is just ahead of them, when they leave the common room and turn for the entrance hall. She flashes a smile over her shoulder, and Daphne returns it half-heartedly. She had been proud to see Stori turn on the Death Eaters, relieved to see her unharmed and unMarked in the aftermath of the battle, but Daphne still has nightmares about that Howler, and can't quite part the letter's arrival from Stori's betrayal.

Someday. Maybe. Blaise has facilitated an exchange of notes, ferrying them back and forth so that no one might intercept. Daphne has been struggling with finding anything to say, but Stori has been full of stories - she's always loved telling tales.

It's sunny but bitterly cold out, and Daphne huddles into her cloak and Blaise's side as they cross the entrance hall. There are an awful lot more Hufflepuff scarves than there are Hufflepuffs in the great hall, but that's to be expected.

"Belle did what she could when she handed the Ravenclaw match to Tony," Blaise murmurs, his broom over his shoulder - he hates being the centre of attention, but people are staring. People often stare at them when they're all together, but they're generally staring at Belle. She draws the gaze, even if she doesn't seem to realise it.

"But we are still the Slytherin that grew up under Professor Snape," Daphne agrees. "The Slytherin that bred a new generation of Death Eaters."

They also bred a number of what their more traditionally minded housemates would call traitors, of course, but people don't want to accept that. Belle, Blaise, Hector - they're well-liked and well-regarded because of what they did last year, despite being Slytherins. Despite.

"Fuck them," Theo says, with surprising heat. "Not all of us are murdering bastards-"

"Fresh air," Tracey says firmly, looping her arm over Theo's shoulders and steering him directly outside. "Right now."

Poor Theo. His father was a brute, a monster, one of Voldemort's original favourites, but he was still Theo's father. The Death Eater who flung Daphne from the window, who would have killed her if it hadn't been for Belle's skill in the air, had the same cleft chin as Theo's - Daphne can remember the shadow of it in the flash of Belle's Killing Curse. She hasn't dared say such a thing to Belle or to Theo, but she's talked to Blaise and he said that Theo found his father right where she and Belle left him.

Someday, they'll all be free of nightmares. But that won't be soon.

For now, there's a sea of bumble-bee scarves and jumpers to contend with. Su rises from the buzzing masses to say good morning, and Daphne greets her with a scowl.

"We're mortal enemies this morning," she reminds her, accepting a kiss. "Go away, you."

"You're lucky I'm not slapping a Hufflepuff patch on your back," Su teases. "Zach's convinced that this is his year, you know. Thinks he's going to captain us to great glory, unseen since we lost Ced."

"Not to rain on his parade," Blaise says, leaning down to kiss Su's cheek, "but I've never seen Belle fly like this - Zach's toast."

"Our only real competition this year is Gryffindor, Bones," Vaisey says, slapping a high-five to Blaise as he passes. "And that's only because they have both a Seeker, and a spare Seeker playing as a Chaser. I'd say next year, but…"

"I hate him," Su announces, smacking Vaisey's backside as he passes. He blows her a kiss as thanks, and Daphne doesn't miss the way some of the watching little ones ease up to see them all laughing together. "Go, eat - you'll need your strength to support this one and Belle when we fly you into the ground."

"Tell Zach he has my sympathies," Blaise says as she leaves. "Come on, let's eat - I need something in my stomach before I get into the air."

Graham Pritchard pushes three fourth years down the bench with the sole of his boot and waves them into place.

"I suppose Bellona's gone down to check the pitch?" he asks, chewing unattractively on a slice of black pudding. "Absolute psychopath. Truly Wood-like levels of madness. What a wonderful captain. She'll lead us to victory or kill Zacharias Smith trying."

Tracey drags Theo back in after ten minutes, and they both look calmer. Theo's wearing a white shirt with a starched collar under his jersey, because that's who Theo is, but Tracey has sourced a truly magnificent panelled silver-and-green dress that, if paired with the bottle green top hat she thinks is hidden under her bed, will outdo even Luna Lovegood's animated hats.

"Any sign of Belle?" Tracey asks, setting to work on a dish of chopped fruit with one hand and ladling yoghurt into her bowl with the other. "Not like her to risk missing breakfast."

"She's having a bite of something else this morning, I think," Theo says, nodding toward the doors - because who but Belle could dramatically frame even this most innocuous of moments?

They really do look lovely together, Belle and Neville Longbottom - Neville dresses neatly and unimaginatively, which Belle will doubtless improve on, and Belle is so dramatic that they balance one another nicely. This morning, of course, she's wearing absolutely no jewellery, and has her hair scraped back into a tightly-pinned bun - ready to break Zach's heart, heaven help him - and has already greened the knees of her white trousers. Belle has her broom over her shoulders, arms resting over it lazily. She looks like a Quidditch poster, or a broom catalogue.

But Neville? Neville has one hand on Belle's hip, and the other is clutching a long scarf striped diagonally in green-and-grey. Belle really does have him wrapped around her little finger - it would be annoying if she wasn't just as smitten in return.

"The kiddies all think it's very romantic," Pritchard says, having moved on to some kind of pink sausage. Daphne knows it's pink because he chews with his mouth open even when he is not talking and eating simultaneously. "Everyone knows he came to her rescue last year. It's all very nice. They're a handsome sort of a couple."

"I've never heard you express an opinion on anything before, Graham," Blaise says. "And now I've heard two, about Belle. Are you in love with her?"

"Aren't we all, at least a little?" Pritchard says cheerfully. "Did you think any of us liked Parkinson, Blaise?"

---

Neville sits with them, the red lining of his hood standing out a mile in their small, determined sea of green-and-grey. He's also the only one who seems to have any doubts, of course, even when they're 130-80 up and it's starting to rain.

"The thing you need to remember, Longbottom," Tracey says, "is that it doesn't matter that every other Seeker in this school has a better tactical brain for Quidditch than Belle. It doesn't matter that she's been idling a hundred feet above the action for the whole match while Smith patrols. It doesn't even matter that they're both flying Firebolts, or that Belle's is what, four years older than Smith's?"

"About that," Daphne agrees, patting Neville's knee. "Trace's right. None of it matters."

"I don't see why not," Neville says, watching Zach through a pair of clearly antique binoculars. "The newer the broom, the faster the flight, I thought."

"Even that doesn't matter," Tracey says. "You see, Longbottom, love has blinded you to the fact that Belle's really quite insane."

"Only in the air, mind," Daphne says, as loyally as she can manage. "She's a little mad on the ground, but you put her on a broom and she loses her entire mind."

"Potter, Ginny Weasley, even Zach - they are better Seekers than Belle," Tracey says. "But there's no one in the school who's Belle's equal in the air. Trust us. You've never really seen her fly, have you? She played Keeper for years, and last year she threw every game we played - just wait. It'll be worth it."

Tracey's only seen Belle fly in training, because she was always so careful before, when she was Keeper, and Blaise said that they kept the team on a short leash last year to try and combat all the harm the Death Eaters were doing.

Half the house comes down to the pitch during training because it's one place they always get away with smoking, though, and Belle's shown off just enough so far this year to set tongues wagging. Seeing her fly for fun is something else, and seeing her fly competitively - well, Daphne's been on the broom with her while she was flying in battle, and Belle is just as determined to outfly Zach as she was to see the Death Eaters fall.

"Oh, look," Tracey says. "Smith has seen something."

The something is too small for Daphne to spot without the gleam of sunlight on gold, but given Belle hasn't yet made a move she doesn't think it's much of anything.

"Didn't we beat Hufflepuff last year?" Daphne asks, leaning back on one hand and tossing a handful of cheerful green and silver sparks into the air as Blaise zips past with the Quaffle under his arm. "You know how Belle and Zach are, Tracey. She's going to embarrass him."

"I still don't see how Belle's going to win this one," Neville says. "Zach's right on top of the Snitch-"

Belle stretches her arms over her head, and then rolls lazily into a dive. It really does look like she might be too late, if you don't know that she doesn't move in the air like anyone else Daphne's ever seen.

She pulls out of her dive right above Zach. He doesn't even know she's there until she spins upside down and reaches out, her arm just that little bit longer than his, and snags the Snitch from the air like a bonbon from one of Slug's ornamental tins.

"Ah," Neville says. "Insane. I see it now."

VII.

"Unless you come bearing gifts," Slug bellows when Belle knocks on his door, "you can go away and get on that train home!"

"Well that I have gifts, then!" Belle calls back, kicking the door open ahead of her. "Sir! You are not even dressed!"

"Well, my dear," he says, launching forward to take some of her burdens, wrapped in a truly magnificent dressing gown of fuschia pink and bronze satin, "I am not bound to the whims of the Hogsmeade station master - unlike you! Should you not be on your way down to the village? Canoodling with young Longbottom as you go?"

"I have ample time, sir," Belle chides him. "And besides! I could not leave without delivering your Christmas present!"

It is only a small thing - one of the caramel cakes he likes so much, a sample tray of unusual bon bon flavours that he has not yet shared with her that she thinks he will either like very much or hate enough to find amusing, a few other treats more specific to the season - and looks more than it is because she is also handing over the gifts she and Neville agreed on for Professor McGonagall.

She deserves a great deal more than just Pepper Imps and Ginger Newts for tolerating their increasingly whiny presence in her office for their extra classes. Neville chose her gifts, though, and Belle only wrapped them.

"The ones in the green paper are for you," Belle says, "but the red are for-"

"Minerva, of course," he says, laying the whole lot on his desk. Slug is a man given to great shows of emotion even on his best days, but Belle has never seen him quite so misty-eyed before. "My dearest girl."

"They are from Neville as well," Belle says, blushing a little. "He is delivering some to Professor Sprout, too-"

"You are a fiend," he says. "Take the thanks and the credit. Come, sit a moment, I was going to have stupid Bo-Bo deliver this to your house but this works just as well - come, dear, come and sit down!"

"Oh, sir-"

"It's mostly useful books," he warns her, "but there is a treat or two in the mix as well, so sit down a moment."

---

It is mostly useful books. There is also a set of hair pins with emerald and diamond heads, and a dainty ouroboros ring sized to fit her little finger with a tiny, tiny pearl in the snake's eye. Poor Bo-Bo - Boreas, Slug's spoiled and much maligned owl - would never have managed the whole lot in one journey.

---

"Hello, sweetheart," Neville says, handing her up into the carriage and stealing a kiss on the way. "Slug gave you extra reading too, I see?"

"Some of it is from McGonagall," Belle says loyally. "But yes, he did - Sprout?"

"Beautiful illustrations and very dense text," he says. "I'm going to get blind drunk for three days, work through the hangover by cooking dinner with Gran on Christmas Day, throw Uncle Algie out of the house, and then get through at least the prologue between Boxing Day and New Year's."

"I am going to ignore it all and then speed-read some of it on the train back to school so Professor McGonagall cannot accuse me of totally neglecting my work."

Neville settles in beside her, and is immediately rewarded for his efforts by Daph throwing her bootless feet into his lap.

"We have limited space and four sets of long legs," she says, leaning into Susan. "Objections?"

"None at all," Neville says, tilting so Belle can stretch her legs out alongside his and Susan can put hers straight. "Is this some kind of intimidation tactic, Daphne? Are you trying to make sure I know that you're stronger than me?"

"Is it working?"

"Perfectly."

"Don't be so mean," Susan says. "Belle and Blaise were quite lovely when you and I came out, you know."

"That was so dramatic that they had to be lovely," Daphne says. "No, no - Neville's going to suffer. We were lovely to Ernie and he turned out to be a huge idiot."

"Hey!"

"Ernie's been very gracious about how quickly I moved on," Belle says, glad to have gotten past the urge to cringe every time Ernie is mentioned. "Why are you being so rude, Daphne?"

"It's because I'm a Gryffindor," Neville says, not breaking Daph's stare - a brave man. Belle hasn't been on Daphne's bad side in… Well, ever, but she's seen teachers quail under that stare. "And because I shouted at Voldemort. She thinks I'm a loose cannon."

"Aren't you?"

"I'm extremely boring," Neville says cheerfully. "Ask anyone."

Belle opens one of Slug's books just to hide her smile. It's going to be a truly fascinating ride back to London.

VIII.

Anatole and Amand are waiting on the platform - Maman is obviously in London already, because Anatole is dressed elegantly but not ostentatiously, and he only tones his wardrobe down when she is there to scold him.

"This is a different blonde boy than the one Blaise showed us in the photograph," he stage-whispers as soon as Belle is within earshot - she crosses the space at a run to ram him with her trolley. " Ow! Chouette, I did nothing!"

"I dumped Ernie," she says, "as you well know, because I wrote you a letter about it! Amand, control him!"

"That is a fight I conceded many years ago, petite," Amand says, leaning up to kiss her cheeks. "Would you like to introduce us, Bellona?"

"Neville Longbottom," she says, taking Neville's hand and pushing Anatole away when he tries to kiss her. "Go away! This is Neville Longbottom. He is my boyfriend. Neville, these are my uncles, Anatole and Amand de Poitiers-Le Besco. Anatole has no manners, but Amand is perfect."

"You're the one who makes the caramel cakes," Neville says, shaking Amand's hand. "And you're the one who asked if I was fat in your last letter to Blaise."

"Aha! A traitor! Monsieur Zabini, I expected better!"

"I'm sure you did, Anatole," Blaise laughs, "but Belle likes Neville better than you, so my loyalty currently lies with him, I'm afraid."

Anatole still kisses Blaise on both cheeks, before seizing on Daphne with a great oh! of delight. Neville and Amand are talking in quick, quiet French, and Belle soaks it in with Neville's hand secure in hers.

"Well, well, come along," Anatole announces. "Come, before Juno comes hunting for us - everyone home."

"I'm going to say hello to Madam Augusta," Belle says, finally letting Anatole kiss her cheeks. "You, bring my trolley, I will catch you up."

"You are only Head Girl at school, darling," Anatole reminds her, smiling all the while. "Go, be back quickly, your mother really will come looking for you if we are late."

Maman has been writing increasingly worried letters since Halloween, as though she does not believe that Belle is better now than she was during the summer.

"I really hope your mother likes me more than your uncle does," Neville murmurs. "At least Amand doesn't seem to hate me."

"No one in your family but your grandmother will like me," Belle whispers back. "You said it yourself, I am hardly the kind of girlfriend they wish you to have."

"Well, maybe," he admits. "But everyone else is so scared of her that they won't dare say a word about it."

Madam Augusta has forgone her hat and fox fur in favour of a sleek ermine combination with a dark purple coat - Neville finally confessed to her that he hated the stuffed bird and the fox fur, and she looks much the better for it - and she grins as they approach.

"Good stuff," she says. "He was pining all summer - I'm glad to see you've put him out of his misery, Miss Black!"

---

Maman has been busy in the kitchen, apparently, because the house smells of bread and roasting chicken when they walk in the door. There are thick garlands of holly and ivy hanging from the ceiling, heavy with berries and threaded with fine golden ribbons. There are music boxes somewhere, tinkling pretty little festive tunes in the reception room, and the radio is playing in the kitchen - Celestina Warbeck, who Molly Weasley loves so much, crooning along to some of the hammy American Christmas songs.

Belle changed the torn wallpaper above the stairs when she had the house to herself. She could not find a perfect match, and so the beautiful alternating stripes are gone, steamed carefully off the wall and replaced with sky-blue paper with a fine, widely-spaced brass pinstripe. It is not as beautiful as Maman's choices, but it was the best she could do with the limited time she had in August.

"Go, petite," Amand says, nudging her gently ahead. "We will take your things upstairs."

Maman's hair is gathered up into an identical tangle to Belle's, held in place with two gold combs and a great deal of luck. She is wearing the horrible, tacky apron Papa bought for Belle, that last Christmas they were here together, a shiny yellow thing with baby pink frills, and leggings and a black blouse with the sleeves rolled back, and chunky brown walking boots.

Belle did not realise quite how much she missed her.

Sofia is with her - of course - and sees Belle and Blaise and Daph before Maman does, because she does not have her head stuck in the oven. She hops down off the counter to greet them, sharing kisses all around, and Belle feels guilty that she has only a passing interest in saying hello to Blaise's mama.

Maman spins suddenly, a tray of scones in hand. She has flour smeared on her face, and a smile Belle is still getting used to.

"Oh, my girl," she says, putting down her baking and holding out her arms. "Come here, darling. Come here."

Belle holds on tight. She has been missing Maman since the middle of last year, and Grand-mère's dancing on the last of Belle's nerves spoiled any good of her time in Valence.

"Welcome home, Bellona," Maman whispers, and it feels true.

---

Christmas morning comes, and Belle sneaks down to the kitchen very early so that she can give Kreacher his gift.

"Now," she says, sitting cross-legged on the floor with him in the remodelled butler's pantry, which is really very cosy and comfortable, and it has its own little green-painted front door, leading out into the garden. "I did not know what to get for you, so I thought perhaps you would like some new clothes."

"Miss Dromeda says Madam Malkin is a bush for not making clothes for Kreacher," he agrees. "Kreacher's suit is still good, mistress!"

Belle makes a mental note to warn Dromeda off calling valued members of the wizarding communities bitches in front of Kreacher, who soaks up new words like a sponge now that he is not afraid of being punished for repeating them. Even if Madam Malkin is a bitch.

"But it is not suitable for winter," she says. "So, new clothes!"

There are three shirts in fine white cotton, and a small selection of thick, warm jumpers and three pairs of trousers - she was not sure what he would like, so she also sourced a set of robes, just in case he would prefer those.

"I did not know if you would want shoes," she says. "I have never seen you wearing any before - if that is something you would like, I can speak to my cobbler and have him size you. I did get wellington boots for you, and they are in the mud room."

Kreacher is gently pawing through his new little wardrobe, and Belle leaves him to it. He has so little - she will not steal more of his time from him than she must, not when her family has already taken so much.

---

The tree is magnificent, a true triumph of Maman's exquisite taste and Sofia's flair, with a star that shines with a pretty twinkling charm at its peak.

What sits beneath it, though, is much better.

Belle does not know whether she starts it or Jeanne does, but they are both screaming in delight when they collide before the fire.

It seems so strange to find such joy in Jeanne's presence, even now. They made their peace years ago now, and have been close from the moment they agreed to be friends, but part of this happiness and comfort in seeing Jeanne comes from being in Belle's home. She feels safe here, in this place she controls, where Grand-mère cannot interfere, and so she can be close to Jeanne.

Oh, who cares!

"How are you here?" she asks, holding tight to Jeanne even once they've calmed down into laughter. "I thought- I assumed-!"

"Grand-mère and I had a row," Jeanne says cheerfully. "And she and Invidia had a row, and the twins are planning on making another break for Kapan tomorrow, and I did not wish to be caught in the middle of such a nightmare."

"I am so glad you're here," Belle says, meaning it with everything in her. "Oh, how happy I am to have you here! And you, Leto, of course you as well!"

"I know, chère, I know," Leto says, laughing just a little. She kisses Belle on the cheek without interfering with her hold on Jeanne. "Happy Christmas, girls."

"The prettiest de Poitiers," Blaise says, one hand firm on Belle's back even as he leans in to kiss Jeanne hello - Daphne mirrors him on her other side, their hands bracketing the worst of her scars. "And Jeanne! How lovely to see you!"

"You are a terrible man, Blaise Zabini," Jeanne says, scowling playfully before turning to greet Daph. "And here I am, gifting you all with my presence for this festive season-"

"We are delighted to have you," Daph says, sliding her arm fully around Belle's waist. "But I do hope you brought more than just yourself, Jeanne."

IX.

In the evening, they are all sitting in Belle's favourite drawing room, with the soft blues and greys and rusty browns, sleepy with overeating and more than a little fine French wine. Maman and Leto have bullied Anatole and Amand into dancing with them, Blaise and Jeanne have commandeered Belle's good grey-and-pink chessboard, and Daphne is reading a new book with her feet in Belle's lap. It is very close to a perfect evening - if only Ukki and Aleksi were here, and Dromeda and Ted and Teddy, and Harry and Hermione and whatever Weasleys are in the country, and Tracey and Theo.

And Neville, of course.

As if her silly, tipsy wistfulness has summoned him, Percival knocks sharply on the window behind her. He really is such a handsome owl, and no doubt he and Blanchefleur passed one another on their travels - Belle sent her off to Guernsey just before they sat down to eat, with an abundance of tiny treats for Madam Augusta and a real gift for Neville.

Percival is similarly laden, when Belle opens the window to let him in - there are small parcels wrapped in bright paper in his basket, addressed to Les Valentinoises et leurs amis, and another two addressed just to Belle.

"What a good boy you are, brave sir," she cooes, guiding Percival onto her shoulder and closing the window behind him without ousting Daph's feet from her lap. "How clever you are, to get here in this cold weather! We shall find you treats, and perhaps a nice vole, hmm?"

Percival picks at Belle's hair while she unfastens the basket from his legs, chirruping quietly to himself - he really is Blanchfleur's opposite in so many ways. So mannerly!

"I may have to move you, Daph," she says, scritching at Percival's neck. "This fine boy needs his reward, and there are treats here for sharing."

"Are there really," Blaise says, not looking away from Jeanne's swaggering chess pieces. "Just treats for sharing?"

"Don't tease her, Blaise," Daph says, letting her book fall down onto her face and throwing her feet onto the floor. "She'll go that horrible pink colour and start stammering at us."

"I am not going to dignify that with a response," Belle says, painfully aware that her neck has gone pink. "Come, Sir Percival, let us away to the kitchen to find you your reward."

She brings the two gifts wrapped in plain silver paper with her, ignoring the wolf-whistles that follow her out the door and down the stairs. Neville is far too private to have asked for help in wrapping them, so she can see the dull shine of leather around the paper in places. Two leather boxes. Two jewellery boxes.

Percival takes Blanchefleur's perch with a pleased murmur, and Belle levitates a dead vole up for him to chew on - or to swallow, which he does with noisy rapidity.

"Disgusting," Belle tells him. "Worse than Blanchefleur, sir."

She opens the wrapping paper first, smooths it out and sets it aside. The ribbons she winds around her finger, trying to calm herself down a little before opening the two boxes. One is longer than the other, navy leather stamped with silver, but the other, a little bigger than the flat of her hand, is green stamped with gold.

"Well," she says, mostly to herself but a little to Percival. "I suppose I had best open them before Anatole comes down and does it for me, no?"

There is a letter as well. She will save that, and savour it.

The long box holds a chain - an antique silver chain, impossibly fine Byzantine links that feel strong as steel between Belle's fingers.

For your small watch - N. the tiny scrap of a note reads, and Belle touches Madam Augusta's watch around her neck. This new chain is far longer than its current one, and will allow her to hide it safely under her clothes.

The thought of wearing a gift from Neville under her clothes gives Belle a strange, warm thrill, and she takes a moment to think about the now-familiar heat of Neville's hands under her clothes. No one has yet called them out for taking advantage of their badges to get around curfew, but if Neville leaves her with another lovebite no power in the world will keep Tracey from pointing it out.

The second box-

"Oh," she says, overwhelmed. "Oh, Neville."

It is a cloak pin. A beautiful enamelled cloak pin, the Black family crest laid over a chessboard background in crisp de Poitiers black-and-white, with the outer loop in alternating emerald green and tourmaline blue. It's heavy, thick silver under the enamel, and the pin itself is pure silver with a head shaped like a Grim.

A French-style brooch, loop and long pin, totally different to the more basic clasps the British wizards seem to prefer. It is also French-style purely because it contains her arms - heraldry seems to mean very little to the English, but Belle would never walk through Paris without some sort of mark of her house. She has never had anything with Papa's crest aside from her signet ring before, and mentioned that in passing to Neville in November. In passing .

He ordered this from a French jeweller - the enamelwork is different, more delicate - and went to a huge deal of effort. Belle knows all the best jewellers in Paris and knows how reluctant they are to work to written order - some refuse altogether, others accept orders by letter only from recognised and liked clients. That Neville managed this… He must have been wheedling at them almost since she first mentioned wishing for some token or other with the Black arms.

Belle can only hope that her gift to Neville is as warmly received.

She rubs her thumb over the little Grim, and wishes that Guernsey was not quite so far away. If Neville were closer, she might pop over to see him and be home before anyone missed her, but she hates Apparating over any distance longer than a mile and even she could not fly quickly enough to be there and back before Blaise and Jeanne would notice.

Daphne, at least, is probably asleep by now, and the others are drunk.

I know you're using your father's name now, the note reads, but you're still your mother's daughter - N.

There is also the letter. She will save that until later, and savour it.

---

"That," Leto says, while they are making breakfast the following morning, "is a very pretty chain, Bellona."

Belle touches the chain where it's peeping out above the neckline of her dress, and smiles.

Leto is smiling too. She wears a gold bracelet with links of Greek key, and Belle wonders how it is that she has never guessed before that it was a gift from Jeanne's papa, so-very-beautiful Antonios. A mark of enduring affection, even if it is not the sort of love Belle hopes will grow between herself and Neville.

Does Maman have anything of Papa's? Perhaps Belle ought to give her some of the many, many rings and bracelets he left behind. She wears a number of them alongside the watch he had made for her, mixed in with some of the jewellery Maman has given her over the years, but she is not sure she will have time to wear all of it in her whole life.

That is for later. For now, there is only breakfast to be made and the new weight of Neville's gifts around her neck and against her breastbone.

"Thank you," she says, which causes Leto to give her a sidelong smile. "It was a gift from my boyfriend."

---

Boxing Day and the days after are quiet, mostly in preparation - Blaise is throwing a party in Belgravia for New Year, and everyone is invited. It will be the party of the season, according to Tracey, who knows about these things.

"Aurelie Lelong is starting to like you more than me," Maman says, sweeping into Belle's bedroom with a box in her hands. "You order so many beautiful things from her - perhaps I will start doing the same, now that I am under no obligation to wear my ceremonial robes."

That gives Belle pause. She and her mother have not spoken about what happened in the summer even in their letters, but Belle knows that it must have been terrible for Maman after her departure. Grand-mère is not a forgiving woman, and especially after Anatole's apparently explosive departure she would have had no hesitation in turning her wrath on Maman. She still sees Belle as a child to be bossed around, after all, and so must have assumed that her choice to stand against La Valentinoise herself must have come with encouragement from Maman or Anatole - or Aleksi, maybe, who has written more letters to Belle since July than Ukki has.

Oh, Ukki. Belle relied so much on his love to make up for the lack of it from Grand-mère, but she understands better now. He loves her, she knows that, but so much of the extra warmth and favour he had for her was to try and keep her from dwelling on Grand-mère's cruelty and neglect. Balder Gadolin has, Belle now realises, spent decades covering for Europa de Poitiers' heartlessness.

Anatole did the same for Maman, when Belle was small. The only difference was that Anatole never pretended that Maman was free of blame.

"Maman," she says, "about Grand-mère."

"You did the right thing, mon coeur," Maman says, setting the box on the bed and taking Belle's hands. "The thing I should have done long ago. It was my duty, as eldest and heir, but I left it to Invidia and Aleksi to fight with her, and I left it to you to finally stand up to her. It was very brave - nothing out of the ordinary for you, of course."

" Maman-"

"Listen to me, Bellona," she says firmly. "Listen well, my darling. You have shown great bravery during all this war, but I think that standing against your grandmother, after all the years of my letting her treat you so badly, was braver even than that."

"And it caused you all to suffer," Belle points out. "Fighting and feuueding over me - I do not like it, Maman. What will conclave say, when you and Grand-mère arrive and are arguing? And besides - now that Jeanne and I are adults, there is no escaping the question of your heir! Grand-mère was never going to let me attend conclave anyway- "

"That might have been an issue," Maman says, "had I not abdicated my place as heir to the duchy in the aftermath of your departure from Valence."

---

Dearest one,

We have talked through a great many things since you left Valence in the summer. We understand now, we think, and if we do not then we will listen. We ask only that you come to visit at Taivolkovski in June, as you have so many times before.

We will wait for you.

With all our love,

Ukki and Grand-mère

(j.

Belle's house is exactly what he expected - in the painfully normal area she complained about, and sticking out like a sore thumb. The front door is a sunshine yellow colour, with a shiny brass knocker shaped like a phoenix rising in flight. There are more bay windows than there should be room for, and even the slate on the roof gleams in the thin sunlight.

Neville knocks. Then he leans back against the beautiful wrought-iron railings with their polished wooden handrails, and he waits. There are half a dozen voices shouting over one another, mostly in French, but Neville doesn't mind waiting. It's cool out, but he's well wrapped up so it won't trouble him.

The door springs open. Neville was fairly sure Belle wouldn't be allowed to open the door, but he was also fairly sure that Blaise might win out. Instead, he's greeted by the taller of Belle's uncles, her mother's brother, who does a truly excellent job of peering down his long nose from a height only a couple of inches above Neville's own.

"Do you speak French?" he demands, in French.

"Of course," Neville says, in French, because Neville might not speak as many languages as Belle does but he does speak two, fluently. What sort of Guernseyman would he be if not?. "But you have to promise not to mock my accent. I know how you mainlanders feel about Channel Islands French."

"My husband's accent is much worse than yours," Anatole says. "He is Breton - truly, it was terrible before my good influence. Come, come in - we are all either some degree of French or born of a Francophile nation, so you had best be able to keep up."

"It's lovely to see you again too, sir," Neville says, closing the door behind himself when Belle's uncle strides off. Belle warned him that some of her family might be odd, so he doesn't mind much. He's used to being ignored, and does what he's always done when he's being ignored on purpose - he rambles. "I hope you had a pleasant Christmas. I spent mine with my grandmother, and I kicked my grandfather's brother out of the house because he tried to tell me I shouldn't be going out with a half-Veela girl-"

"I do not disapprove of you, Neville Longbottom," Anatole says, rounding on Neville. "Bellona adores you, and both Blaise and Daphne have vouched for you, so of course I do not disapprove of you. You do not need to prove yourself worthy of her - I trust her judgement, mostly."

"Oh. Well. Thank you?"

"All I will say, though," he says, "is that if you hurt her, Juno and I will turn whatever Jeanne leaves of you to ash."

"I have no intention of hurting her, you can be sure of that."

"I have spent her whole life as her guardian," Anatole says. "I approve of you, but it will be some time before I trust you."

Neville can understand that.

"Now! Come! We are all in the kitchen, come - Jeanne has made macarons. Her macarons are without equal."

Well, he can't say fairer than that. Neville follows on when Anatole skips down the four flagstone steps into the kitchen. It smells incredible - Neville can cook, and Gran's the best baker on the Islands, but whatever's bubbling on the hob is beyond his better-than-average skill.

The kitchen is occupied, but not full. There are three women sitting at a long, scrubbed wooden table, and Anatole takes a seat alongside them.

"We all cook in this family," a very beautiful woman who must be Belle's aunt says, slowly turning a page of her newspaper - she has the same long nose that every other de Poitiers Neville has met has, but her eyes are hazel where the rest have dark blue. "Do you cook, Monsieur Longbottom?"

"Some," he says. "Well enough - not as well as whoever is in control of that pot."

He bows slightly when Belle's mother lifts her head from the crossword she and another, not-a-Veela woman with white-blonde hair and familiar, straight eyebrows, are puzzling over.

"Madame de Poitiers," he says, and bows slightly again. "Madame Zabini."

"Welcome to Grimmauld Place, Monsieur Longbottom," Madame Juno says. "Come, sit - Bellona and the others are in the garden. They will be with us in a moment. Oh, and of course! Allow me to introduce my sister, Leto - you have met my niece, Jeanne? Leto is her mother."

"A pleasure, madame," Neville says, and when Leto smiles he smiles back. Belle wouldn't let them do him harm, but it can't hurt to keep on their good sides regardless. "You said Bellona and the others are in the garden, Madame Juno?"

"They are," she says. "But I think it would be best if you waited here. With us."

A narrow door in the far corner of the room opens, revealing Belle's other uncle - Amand, who makes the caramel cakes that everyone loses their minds over. He at least looks pleased by Neville's arrival, while everyone else is clearly reserving judgment.

"Whatever they are saying," he says, leaning up on his toes to kiss Neville's cheek as he passes with his arms full of flour and sugar. "Whatever it is, ignore it - Juno is not so scary as she thinks, nor is Leto, but they want to intimidate you."

"I don't know what you mean," Belle's mother says, working very hard not to smile. "You make it sound as though we were terrible to you!"

"You were," Anatole says, crossing his ankles on the edge of the table just the same way Belle does. "But Metis was worse, and Invidia was more embarrassing."

Neville knows Metis and Invidia as aunts - he's never been entirely sure which is Belle's aunt and which is her mother's aunt - but the face Madame Zabini pulls is the same one Blaise makes whenever Pansy Parkinson speaks in class.

"They mean well," Madame Zabini says, leaning toward him conspiratorially, "but they are completely overbearing."

There's obviously a mudroom beyond the green door Neville assumed led into the garden, because he can hear chatter and laughter beyond it. Please be Belle, he thinks, because her mother is staring at him and he's starting to sweat, just a little.

Blaise comes in first, in a jumper that is almost identical to several that Neville owns but, on Blaise, completely different. Neville's not unaware of how plain he is compared to the Slytherins, and he's made his peace with that, but Blaise might be the only person in Hogwarts who wears clothes better than Belle does, and Neville is a little jealous.

Daphne is next, with Belle's cousin who came to Hogwarts in May - Jeanne, the one who's the same age as Belle. They're both wrapped up warm against the weather, Jeanne warmer than Daphne-

And then there's Belle.

"Hello, sweetheart," he says, automatically looping his arm around her waist and automatically kissing her.

Her uncle harrumphs. Her mother, thankfully, laughs.

Belle scowls.

"Whatever they have told you," she says, "ignore every word of it. Only Amand and Sofia are to be trusted."

"I'm appalled, frankly," Blaise says mildly, leaning over the delicious-smelling pot and pulling a teaspoon from the drawer next to the cooker so he can have a taste. "Daph and Jeanne and I have done nothing at all to warrant such slander."

"Daphne threatened me on the way to the train," Neville says, keeping his arm around Belle's waist just because. And maybe a little so she's between him and her aunt and uncle. "I'm reserving judgment on you and Jeanne."

Jeanne is watching him with narrowed eyes. She and Belle don't look at all alike, aside from that long nose and the scowl.

"I did not think you spoke French," she says. "You English are usually too stupid."

Blaise and his mother shoot upright, and Blaise dives for the door into the hall.

"Well," Madame Zabini says brightly, "we must go and finish preparing for tonight - please, my love, do not kill Bellona's young man before the party. Please."

"I should be insulted," Madame Juno says, and Neville wonders why Belle didn't think to mention that her mother and Blaise's mother are seeing one another - he would have brought a bigger box of chocolates if he'd known they were for sharing. "Go, go, I promise to commit no murders before your party."

"I make no such promise," Anatole says, and Belle curls closer to Neville - but she's smiling. She complains about Anatole all the time, but always with a smile and the affectionate roll of her eyes that's otherwise reserved for Blaise and Daphne. "But Amand will make one on my behalf, I know. He is always spoiling my fun."

Belle's arm slinks around Neville's back and she squeezes - what an interesting evening this is going to be.

"I hope you brought your dancing shoes," she whispers, pressing just close enough that Neville can feel himself going pink. "Blaise's ballroom is gorgeous."

(ii.

The party is a roaring success.

Everyone from their year at school - except Pansy, the dear fool - is here, with siblings and family, dates and plus ones, whatever they desire. There are some of Mama's strange friends, all wearing their brilliant red sashes pinned with their diamond badges of Saint Andrew the Apostle the First-Called (Blaise once asked why they wore Soviet sashes with an Imperial insignia. Once.).

There is half of all of les Valentinoises, too, in sharp black and white, with the silver of their hair shining underneath the chandeliers. Mama looks so at home among them, with her arm linked easily with Juno's, laughing at whatever outrageous thing Anatole is saying to Ljuba, who seems delighted by him - Ljuba loves melodrama, so long as it is not at Russia's expense, and Anatole is always happy to provide.

Ljuba's Sarafan is brilliant scarlet, the borders stitched with gold and tiny, glimmering sapphires, and must seem an odd choice to everyone who does not know Ljuba and her loathing for Peter the Great's reforms and Europhilia. He has heard a whisper of peasant-clothes already, which made him laugh - Ljuba's wardrobe would make Belle's look cheap and scanty.

Anna and Inka are here with their boring husbands. Astonishing. He truly never thought to see his sisters outside Helsinki.

Calling their husbands boring may be a little unfair, given how warmly Kris and Floke welcomed Blaise into their homes during the summer, but their being pleasant does not make them interesting. Floke is wearing the pink bowtie that Blaise helped Eljas and Linnea choose, but he guided the children toward it mostly just to see what his brother-in-law would do - delight in it, of course, as he does in every tiny gift his children present him with. Kris is just as overjoyed by everything the children say and do, and Blaise supposes that he must like his brothers-in-law simply because they love his sisters and their children so much.

Anna waves as he passes, Inka blows a kiss, and Kris and Floke raise their glasses. Truly astonishing.

Tony and Hannah are leaning against the bar, their heads bent close together. Tony's hair is a perfect glossy chestnut brown, falling over his eyes, and Hannah's hair is gathered up to reveal the freckled sweep of her neck. Blaise has no particular interest in sex or kissing, but he would like to have the right to tuck Tony's hair behind his ear, to adjust Hannah's collar against her throat. He's meant to ask Belle about it, or Daph, to know if that's how it felt for them when they first noticed Neville and Susan, but he keeps talking himself out of it at the last moment.

Tony's hand is over Hannah's. How lovely they look together. He'd almost prefer to be jealous, if only because he knows Belle and Daph would be some help if he were.

"Belle wasn't joking when she said you threw a hell of a party," Neville says, appearing at Blaise's elbow with two glasses of what's probably scotch on the rocks. He offers one to Blaise, and they clink their glasses together. "Thank you for having me."

Blaise laughs at that. He likes Neville, he does, but it's in moments like this that he truly understands why Neville and Bellona are so well suited. He's just as oblivious to incredibly obvious things as she is.

"Belle has laid claim to you, Neville," Blaise points out. "That makes you one of ours, old man. You're trapped in here with us until she gets rid of you, I'm afraid."

"It's no trial to be stuck in such fine surroundings," Neville says, with that cheerful lack of guile that makes him so impossible to read. Neville wears everything on his sleeve, and none of it except his very sincere regard for Belle seems to be entirely truthful - Blaise considers himself extremely talented at hiding his true feelings, but he's never seen anything like Neville's tactics. He favours cool neutrality himself, knows well that Belle and Daph and Mama can see straight through him, but he never even considered that being cheerful and seemingly transparent could be so effective.

"She loves you very much," Blaise says, quietly, to avoid Tracey's nose for news as she passes. "I hope I'm not overstepping when I say so - Belle talks an awful lot but says very little, and I just want to be sure that you understand her."

"She speaks more languages than anyone else I know," Neville says thoughtfully, swirling the ice in his glass and smiling a little. "And she does talk a lot, that's true. I've never had any real trouble understanding her, though. Probably comes from also being a native French speaker."

Blaise looks at him sidelong, and finds that Neville is watching him, too.

"I know how much you love her," Neville says. "I'm glad of it. I have no intention of hurting her, but there's no guarantees. I'm glad she'll have you and Daphne and her family if anything happens."

"You think something will happen?"

"My parents never thought anything would happen to them," Neville says, touching the ring Belle had made for him as a Christmas present. It's a simple thing, a smallish gold signet with the Longbottom arms inlaid in rose gold, and it pairs beautifully with his watch.

Neville touches that ring with the same small smile Belle saves just for touching Neville's grandmother's watch on its new long chain around her neck. That feels like the kind of promise that Neville, with the spectre of his parents' agony hanging over him, will never make.

Belle pointedly did not tell Blaise why Neville needed a signet, but Blaise has his suspicions. Such things tend to be passed from father to son - Blaise wears his father's signet on a chain around his neck, under his shirt, and has done since he was a small child. Belle has her father's signet, because she is his only heir and truly a pride for the House of Black, but Neville's father is not dead - it would not do to take his ring, even if Neville is the head of the Longbottom family in all but minor legalities.

"I'm going to dance," Neville says, knocking back the rest of his drink in one smooth swallow. "You should, too. Ask Tony and Hannah. They'll say yes. They've been watching you all evening, too."

Blaise stands and watches Neville go, speechless. So much for being difficult to read.

(c.

It's a bit like the Yule Ball, but not terrifying because Harry's not the centre of attention and he's only had to dance with Ginny so far. Gin doesn't mind that he can't dance for toffee because it gives her a chance to laugh at him. Gin loves laughing, and Harry thinks they're all overdue a good laugh. They've done little enough of it the past few years.

Belle made him get new dress robes for tonight - she took his measurements and sent them off to her tailor in Paris, and Blaise did the same thing for Ginny just because Blaise is somehow even more generous than Belle.

Tonight's his doing - the ballroom in his house is about the same size as the Great Hall at Hogwarts, and it's full of people in interesting dress robes and half of everyone they know from school. Luna and Blaise are dancing Luna-style right in the middle of the icy-blue dancefloor, and it should look ridiculous but it somehow doesn't. Luna's wearing one of her very Luna outfits, this one strawberry red with green ribbons in her hair, and Blaise is dressed in very dark blue, the same sort of style Belle prefers - Hermione calls it elegant, and Harry supposes it is.

Belle is dancing with Neville. Neville learned to dance for the Yule Ball, and surprised them all by being good at it - this is something else, though. Harry's seen Belle dance before because she can't have a party without dancing, but never like this. Probably because he's only ever seen her dance with family before now.

She certainly wouldn't dance like that with her grandfather.

"She looks well, I'll give her that much," Seamus says, stretching up to prop his elbow on Harry's shoulder. "I wouldn't have the balls to show that much skin in front of my mother, but my mother isn't as much fun as de Poitiers'."

"She's not showing skin, you absolute relic," Parvati says, knocking against Harry's other shoulder. "She's showing off her battle scars, obviously."

Ginny commented on that, too - Belle's robes are pearly grey, sleeveless and softly draped, but the back is open in a big, deep vee, from shoulder to hip, showing off the spreading wings Bellatrix Lestrange cut into her skin. It's daring, but it's also not exactly surprising. Belle's always more dramatically dressed than anyone else in any given room.

The scars are already fading from the livid red she first showed him and Ron in the Room of Requirement to marshmallow pink. Harry's scar is fading too, just a bit, and he isn't quite sure how he feels about that.

"You alright?" Seamus asks, not looking at Harry. Parvati, without saying a word, presses a little closer. "See Gin's put a smile on your face."

"You're disgusting," Parvati tells him, but she's smiling when Harry looks down at her. "Even if you're right."

"But we aren't here to discuss Harry's sex life," Seamus says. He has his bowtie loose around his neck and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, and he'd probably look very elegant if he weren't Seamus. "We're here to celebrate being fucking normal. "

"We're not normal, Seamus," Parvati points out. "We're rich."

Sometimes Harry forgets what the difference is between Gryffindors and Slytherins.

X.

By the time it is time to go home, Belle is drunk.

Blaise is sitting with Hannah and Tony, glowing with tiredness and a quiet joy, and Daphne is upright only because she and Susan are leaning against one another so heavily - they are staying in the Bonses' London apartment tonight. Harry and Hermione and all the Weasleys are gone home - Fleur with an invitation to have tea at Grimmauld Place, with baby Victoire who shares Belle and Jeanne's birthday - and it is quiet, mostly.

"We should think about going home as well," Jeanne says, kissing Belle's cheek as she spins past with Amand. "Don't you think?"

Belle is curled into Neville's arms, the safest place in the entire world, swaying to the quiet music he's humming for just the two of them. He's warm, and the smell of his aftershave is warm too, woodsy and autumnal just below his ear. He laughs when Belle nuzzles against his neck, the hand splayed on her back pressing a little firmer.

She loves him. She does. And he loves her, too.

"Let's go home," she says, leaning away from him just enough to wave a hazy farewell to Blaise, who blows her a kiss in return. Daphne and Susan have disappeared while Belle was mussing Neville's hair, and Anatole and Amand must have already left, too, and Jeanne along with them.

Maman is staying here tonight, with Sofia. But she promised to come home for breakfast in the morning, and to bring Blaise and Sofia and Daph, if she can be found, along with her.

"My bedroom," Belle says, leaning over just slightly to whisper in his ear, just close enough that her lips brush against his skin. "It has the double doors, yes? Just so you don't get lost."

His hands tighten on her back once more, and his neck flushes hot under her cheek.

"I don't trust you to Apparate," Neville murmurs, voice a little strained. "We'll have to use the Floo. C'mon. Let's go home."

Belle hums, lifting her head to look him in the eye.

"Home," she agrees, and they go.