Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
New chapter! The last from Harry's fifth year too.
Additionally here's a potentially interesting piece of trivia for those who don't already know. A cadmean victory and a pyrrhic victory are actually subtly different from one another. Thermopylae, for example, was a cadmean victory for Sparta and its allies, but a pyrrhic victory for Persia.
Chapter 71
'Did you sleep well?' Fleur's arms were still around him, his cheek still pressed against her thigh. She had not moved all night save to pull their feet up onto the sofa and conjure a blanket to cover them.
'No,' Harry answered honestly. He had not dreamt of dark things, no nightmares had plagued him, but the restless feeling of loss, and the sensation that something had been stolen away had not faded even when he slept. Harry knew that if he had not had Fleur to wake up to the ache would be considerably worse.
'Will you tell me?' She asked softly, tracing what were doubtlessly deep bruises beneath his eyes. 'Will that help?'
'I don't know,' his mouth was dry, and speaking into her lap muffled his words, 'has it ever helped you?'
'Sometimes,' she reassured him gently, running her fingers through his hair, 'it seems to help Gabrielle when she gets upset.'
'I had to seal the Chamber of Secrets,' Harry told her quietly. 'All of the wards bound to Slytherin's blood had to be altered so that I and those of my bloodline can still enter, but Voldemort can't.'
Fleur didn't understand blood magic and its intricacies, so he wouldn't try to explain the details of why to her, only that it had been necessary, and that it still hurt.
'I had to sacrifice someone invaluable to demonstrate intent strong enough to create such an incredible piece of magic.'
'Someone?' She whispered, horrified. Her hands froze in his hair, and the gentle swell of her chest against shoulder stopped dead.
'Salazar,' Harry mumbled into her leg. 'He said there was no other way.'
'I'm sure that he was right,' Fleur comforted him, breathing again. 'Losing him must have been necessary for him to advise it himself.'
'I needed him,' Harry admitted, reaching over his head to hold her hands in his own. 'Without him I would still be blind, stumbling along the path that Dumbledore intends for me, and now he is gone and I don't know how I will know which way to go.'
'You still have me,' Fleur told him, pulling him upright from her lap and shifting her legs. 'You will always have me.' She kissed him softly on the cheek, turning his head to face her with two, slender fingers.
'It hurts,' Harry responded, pressing his fingers to the point in his chest where the ache was almost tangible.
'You'll get used to it,' she told him not unkindly. 'It is not the same, but when I was younger and my differences to the other girls became apparent they gradually stopped spending time with me. They wanted to do other things now they were no longer children, but I remained… immature. It hurt when they left me to play alone, and for a long time I was very upset over it, but eventually I realised that there was nothing I could do. Time passed, the ache faded and I grew used to how things were.'
Harry had seen how that had affected her. The face Fleur Delacour had first presented to him and still showed most of the rest of the world was apathetic and distant. She sought refuge from others' cruel words in her pride, and cared little what happened to those who had not proved their love for her.
'There is something I can do,' Harry remembered, recalling Salazar's story with an upwelling of hope.
'Harry,' Fleur frowned worriedly, 'if he is gone, then he cannot be brought back.'
'There is a stone,' Harry told her, 'an artefact that can raise an imprint of the dead.'
'I know the story,' Fleur sighed, standing up. 'The three brothers, the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and Death's Cloak. It is a myth, and we do not have time for you to try and convince me otherwise.'
'My relatives,' Harry recalled, springing to his feet. 'The guards from the Order will be coming today. I have to go now.'
'I am coming,' Fleur decided, leading him into the kitchen, 'and you are eating something first.'
'There isn't time,' Harry banished thoughts of Salazar, 'and if the members of the Order are there then they cannot see you.'
'Why not?' She demanded, tossing her hair indignantly. 'I do not care if they know we are together, in fact,' she tilted her chin defiantly, 'I would prefer it if they did.'
'You would be a target,' Harry gritted. This was a continuation of their old argument. Fleur was proud. She would not consent to hide when she thought she should be standing alongside him, and Harry knew that he would agree were he in her position.
But I promised Gabrielle I would make sure she came back to France.
'I will be under the Fidelius,' she retorted, turning to rummage through cupboards for anything edible and easy, 'safe as can be.'
'And Gabby?' Harry asked. 'What about when Voldemort goes looking for our secret keeper knowing of your link to me. Will your family be safe then?'
Fleur whirled on him, abandoning her search to stare at him angrily. 'He will never reach my sister when she is behind the walls of Beauxbatons,' she answered coolly. 'It would take all his strength to break the wards there, and Voldemort would not dare risk provoking France's enmity while he still struggles in Britain. I would have never even considered Gabrielle as secret keeper if I thought there was any great risk to her at any point.'
'It's not worth risking her or you,' Harry retorted. Her stubbornness was as infuriating as it was inexplicable. Logically he knew he was right. Her presence was an unnecessary risk when the longer they were a secret the safer she was.
'I did not come to Britain to hide, Harry Potter. I will fight, or I may as well return to France.' His stomach twisted at the idea of forcing her away.
Low blow, Fleur.
'This is not fighting,' Harry tried a little desperately. 'Once Dumbledore and the Order are aware of you, then, in all likelihood, Snape and Voldemort will be too.'
'They will find out eventually anyway either when I fight alongside you or sooner,' she shrugged. 'Do you think they will not be looking for you over the summer? We attended the Yule Ball together, you went to great lengths to protect me in the tournament, and it is no secret that I am in Britain for flimsy reasons. My English is already perfect. Someone will see or guess the truth.'
'But they might not,' Harry protested. 'Not yet.'
'Are you ashamed to be seen with me?' Fleur demanded fiercely, changing tack so fast Harry was momentarily disorientated.
'Of course not,' Harry replied fervently, confused why she would even have to ask.
'Then why should I hide?' Fleur asked, more calmly this time. She returned to rummaging through cupboards, eventually passing him a rather flat, battered looking croissant. 'It was under the jam,' she apologised. Harry accepted it gratefully, peeling layers of the pastry off while trying to think of a way to convince her without repeating himself.
'I don't want you to hide-'
'Good,' Fleur interrupted, 'then we should leave once you've finished.' She eyed him proudly, daring him to disagree again.
Harry caved. The rest of his sentence, a plea for her to wait, died on his lips. She wasn't going to take no for an answer and would probably just grab him if he tried to apparate alone anyway.
'Fine,' he sighed. 'I just hope nothing happens to you because of it.'
He did not need to guess what would happen if he lost Fleur. Revenge first, anyone remotely responsible would pay the price for his pain, then he would search for the Resurrection Stone until he found it and saw her again. It would not be a pretty path to walk. Salazar had warned him of it.
'I can take care of myself,' she reminded him pointedly. 'I work within Gringotts, it's one of the best protected places in Britain, and I live here, under the Fidelius Charm. I will be safer than you!'
'That will not stop me worrying,' Harry confessed, hurriedly finishing his croissant. It wasn't the easiest thing to eat wth a dry mouth and he choked several times on the dry flakes of pastry.
'I like that you worry,' Fleur smiled, 'but once the war begins I will be in danger, and you will have to simply accept it. I had to accept it when you went off to the Department of Mysteries, it is unavoidable, even if it seems unbearable.'
'I suppose,' Harry grimaced, stifling another fit of coughing.
'You should transfigure your clothes again,' she instructed, 'the magic is unravelling.'
'Thanks.' Harry redid the transfiguration, restyling the pyjamas he'd altered into plain school robes into more casual, wizard's robes. Apparating in wearing pyjamas would rather ruin any of the drama to his final farewell to the Dursleys.
'Now let's go,' she smirked, 'I want to meet your family. You did get to meet mine a while ago.'
'Well if you get attached to any of them I'm prepared to trade for Gabrielle,' Harry said dryly.
'That bad?' Fleur raised an eyebrow daintily.
'Gabrielle at her most mischievous is a thousand times preferable to any of my relatives,' Harry chuckled, 'let alone all of them together.'
'I can hardly wait,' she decided.
'They loathe magic almost as much as they hate me,' Harry warned. 'Don't expect a warm welcome, and don't listen to anything they say. I've been away long enough for them to forget I can use magic at will now.'
'I'm sure you'll remind them,' Fleur smiled, 'and I do not care what anyone else says about us.'
'Except for Gabby,' Harry reminded her wryly.
'She says completely inappropriate things,' Fleur blushed faintly. 'I told her that we'd, well, you know, and now I can't say anything about you to her without getting suggestive looks and cheeky remarks.'
Harry reluctantly extended an arm for Fleur to hold so that he might apparate her to Privet Drive. She draped his arm across her shoulders rather than hold it, and wrapped her own arm around his waist instead, pressing them tightly together.
'Shall we go? It's time for Harry to fly the nest.'
'Bird references?' Harry raised an eyebrow and looked down at her pointedly. 'You're making bird references about me?'
'Hush,' Fleur admonished, squeezing him lightly around the waist.
Harry laughed, and shifted their weight forwards, apparating them both straight into the back garden of Number Four, Privet Drive.
'Homenum revelio,' Fleur whispered, pulling her wand from her waist. 'Only three people close enough to the house to see us,' she told him.
'Perhaps my intended baby-sitter is not yet here,' Harry grinned. He certainly hoped so. That would be the best possible scenario. Fleur would be happy since she came with him, and he would be happy because nobody knew about her yet. It was safest that way.
'You should get your things first,' Fleur reminded him. She had not stepped away after apparating alongside.
'It might be easier,' Harry agreed.
With a soft snap he apparated them both upstairs to his room.
'You don't have very many things,' Fleur commented, gazing around curiously.
'My relatives are not overly zealous about spending money on me,' Harry shrugged, not particularly desiring to discuss the eleven years of emptiness that had preceded his escape to another world.
'So I can see.' Fleur's tone was icy. She had connected the dots on her own. It did not surprise him, she was the first to see how he disliked being in the proximity of others, and the first to really understand him. Fleur could not have done that without having some idea of how he had been treated.
Harry drew his wand, levitating neat piles of muggle clothes onto the bed. It was only when he realised that there was nothing else in the room that he was at all attached to did he realise just how little he cared for this place and his relatives. Eleven years of living and he was leaving with a handful of clothes he had bought himself last summer.
'Are we going downstairs?' Fleur asked. Her tone was deliberately even and enough to concern Harry.
'Will you promise not to do anything drastic?'
'What are you going to do to them?' Fleur countered.
'I'm going to give them the same safety and security from the magical world as they gave me,' Harry smirked cruelly.
She regarded him carefully, leaning her head to one side to study his expression, then a small, satisfied smile crept onto her lips and she nodded. 'I promise.'
He shrunk the clothes, sweeping them off the bed into a plastic bag and took one last look around.
I will not miss one thing about this place.
The stairs creaked loudly under his feet. The days he spent creeping across the landing and hallway out of fear of his uncle's temper were long passed.
'I think he's back,' Aunt Petunia sniffed from the living room.
'I am indeed back,' Harry announced, entering the room with Fleur still on his arm.
The Dursleys were sitting around the television that, though muted, still played the news, showing pictures of unusual weather and inexplicable accidents across the country. The living room hadn't changed in eleven years. Neat, prim and carefully designed to give the impression of a normal suburban family room.
'Well things aren't going to be the same as last summer,' Vernon blustered, but he ground to a halt upon catching sight of Fleur.
'Who is this?' Petunia asked, oddly politely. Harry bit back a sneer. No doubt his aunt would change her tune once she was sure that Fleur was a witch and not nice, normal decent folk.
'Fleur Delacour,' the silver-haired witch introduced herself. Her tone left the Dursleys under no illusions as to what she thought of them. 'I am with Harry.'
'With Harry?' Dudley was the only one with confidence to ask the question Fleur had deliberately left hanging, though Harry suspected it might be because he was the only one in the room stupid enough to need to ask it in the first place.
'When a boy and a girl love each other very much,' Harry began, adopting a babyish voice that sounded uncomfortably like Bellatrix Lestrange, 'they become… partners.' Girlfriend still seemed too childish a word for what Fleur was to him.
'You're married?' Petunia gasped, her gimlet eyes searching Fleur's fingers for a ring. That had not been the response he had been expecting, and he flushed slightly at the idea. Fleur chuckled softly next to him, displaying her unadorned hands for all to see.
'I'm fifteen,' Harry said dryly, recovering his composure.
'Lily married young,' Petunia defended, 'your kind have all sorts of strange ways.'
'Why're you going out with Harry?' Dudley demanded. 'You're, like, a model.'
'You think I'm attractive?' Fleur asked, with deceptive innocence.
'Yeah,' Dudley gaped.
Fleur relinquished Harry's arm, shifting her facial structure suddenly to stare down at his relatives with huge, dark avian eyes and a cruel, hooked beak.
'How about now?' She hissed, amused by Dudley's look of pure terror.
Vernon swore loudly rocking back in his chair, and Petunia let out an odd little shriek, covering her mouth with both hands. Dudley, uncharacteristically wise for once, said nothing.
'That's it,' his uncle shouted, lumbering to his feet and turning an interesting shade of puce. 'I won't have this anymore.'
'Oh?' Harry regarded him curiously. 'What do you intend to do, Uncle Vernon?'
'I'll- I'll,' the bluster faded very swiftly, deflating when Petunia shot him a warning glare.
'It's nice to meet you, Fleur,' she simpered, somehow conveying a crisp, veneer of politeness despite her strained expression.
'A pleasure,' the witch smirked playfully, allowing her face to return to its usual form and taking Harry's hand again. 'However brief a meeting it will be.'
'You're not staying?' Dudley looked a little disappointed, and Harry took a deep breath to control the urge to do something horrible to him for staring at Fleur like he was. As a muggle Dudley had no feeling for magic, so her allure had no affect upon him, but he stared just like those who were under its thrall.
'I came back to say goodbye,' Harry grinned. 'I'm leaving.' He raised his hands when his aunt opened mouth. 'I know it's sooner than you expected, and I'm sure you'll all miss me terribly, but we've got our own house now and I promised Albus Dumbledore I would stay where I was safest.'
It took a moment for it to sink in.
Vernon bristled at the sarcasm, but drew himself up in triumph when the idea that Harry would be gone finally reached his brain.
'But the protections,' Petunia burst out shrilly, surprising Harry with her knowledge. 'If you're gone then there's nothing keeping us safe from your kind.' Vernon gaped at his wife, paling from puce to white. Dudley just looked confused, squinting between his parents, Harry and Fleur.
'Don't fret, Aunt Petunia,' Harry assured her with a smile. 'I'm going to make sure you're every bit as prepared for the magical world as I was.'
Vernon exhaled loudly with relief and Dudley's face brightened upon hearing his father's sigh, but Petunia, ever the sharper of the two, shivered with fright.
'What are you going to do?' She quavered.
'You know what they say, Aunt Petunia,' Harry grinned, 'ignorance is bliss.'
'Obliviate,' he smirked, erasing every memory of his existence from first his uncle, then his cousin and watching with some amusement as they collapsed heavily, one after the other, onto the floor.
'What did you do?' Petunia demanded, backing away from him and shaking the shoulders of her husband who had passed out.
'I modified their memories,' Harry answered honestly. 'They have no memory of me, or anyone connected to me, and in a moment neither will you.'
'What about Lily?' Petunia whimpered. 'Will I still remember my little sister?'
'No.' Harry gazed down at her, unconcerned. 'You'll never even know you had one.'
'But our childhood together, all the happy times I have from before she left me, they'd be gone.' Petunia looked genuinely distraught, the careful, precise lines of her eyeshadow and mascara smeared by sudden tears. 'I loved my perfect, baby sister.'
'It never sounded like it to me,' Harry said, as apathetic to her distress as they had always been to his. 'Obliviate.'
Petunia slumped limply over the top of her spouse.
'What now?' Fleur asked, watching as Harry levitated them back into their usual chairs.
'We walk away,' he answered simply, holstering his wand. 'Dumbledore or someone from the Order will come here when they realise I am gone, and my memory charm may be affected by their enquiry, but I doubt it. I put a great of power into it.'
'And what if Voldemort comes?'
'Then they have every protection from him that they afforded me,' Harry stated coldly, 'and I suspect he won't bother saying more than a very specific couple of words to mere muggles.'
He didn't care what happened to his relatives. Looking at them lying limply in their chairs brought no feeling of pity or satisfaction. It had been a long time since he had deigned them worthy of hating. Fleur didn't seem overly concerned by his response either, if anything she looked like she wanted to take a pound of flesh for herself before they left.
'Good,' she decided. 'They are as unaware of the threat to them as you were when they denied you the knowledge of your family,' her face shifted slightly, 'and I hope they are not so lucky as you have been.'
'I should thank them really,' Harry smiled, kissing Fleur gently on the nose.
'Why?' She demanded, looking at him as if he had just volunteered to be permanently transferred to the same ward as Gilderoy Lockhart in St Mungo's.
'If they had not raised me like they had I might have not been fortunate enough to end up with you,' Harry explained, wrapping his arms around her in preparation to apparate as she preferred.
'You would have loved me anyway,' Fleur disagreed softly, 'I am perfect for you, no?'
'In every way,' Harry agreed, kissing her more ardently.
Fleur apparated them straight back to their home, catching Harry by surprise and spilling them onto the floor of the empty hall when he subsequently lost his balance.
'You did that deliberately,' he accused, narrowing an eye up at her as she cheerfully straddled him.
'Of course,' she smirked, sliding off him teasingly. 'Shall I show you the house?'
'Is there anything to see?' Harry asked.
'I have chosen a bedroom,' Fleur told him as he rose to his feet, rubbing his back where he had hit the floor, 'but apart from that, the old sofa, and the kitchen nothing has been decided and all the rooms are empty.'
'And outside?'
'We have a lot of land,' Fleur laughed softly, 'I did not realise when I first looked at the house how much of the surroundings belong to us.'
'The Meadow,' Harry nodded.
'Meadows, actually,' Fleur corrected. 'There are three. The one behind the house, then two more the other side of the copse of elm trees and either side of the stream.'
'We need to buy some furniture,' Harry remarked, peering into the three, unused rooms on the ground floor. They were all empty save for the thick, dark, old wooden beams that held the ceiling up.
'Furniture shopping,' Fleur looked rather excited at the prospect. Harry groaned. 'It's probably not a good idea to try and buy everything at once,' she decided, 'so we'll just get the essentials. A table and some chairs for the kitchen would be a good start.'
'I can probably convince Sirius to give us some of the things from where he's staying,' Harry suggested, slightly uncomfortable with the idea of creating a home with Fleur. 'I imagine, knowing his family, that it's all quite expensive and stylish, at least once it's been cleaned,' Harry added.
'We shall buy our own,' Fleur asserted, pausing a few steps from him to put an end to that idea before he got attached to it. 'Our home will not be filled with the product of begging.' The uneasiness grew a little with our home. It sounded awfully committed. The sort of step Harry would expect to take in a decade's time, not when he was still in school.
'I wish we'd bought a smaller house,' Harry complained, swallowing the feeling as best he could for the time being. 'It will take all summer to fill the rooms, and that's just the downstairs.'
'If you are hoping for me to tell you that the upstairs is better furnished you will be disappointed,' Fleur laughed. 'I will buy a piece from Diagon Alley whenever I can and bring it back, slowly we will have a home rather than a house.'
'So you don't want me to come with you?' Harry inquired cautiously. He sort of hoped she didn't. It would less permanent if they didn't go together.
'Our first trip will be together,' Fleur smirked, 'we need to decide on a few things before I start buying alone, decisions of decor and the like.'
'That sounds awfully,' he searched for the right word, 'mature.'
Fleur stared at him for a long moment, her nose wrinkled in dainty disappointment, then she smiled softly and shook her head. 'I forget sometimes that you are younger.'
Have I disappointed her?
'Is it a bad thing?' His voice wavered. 'I don't want to live with my relatives, I want to be here with you, but this just seems…' he trailed off at her light laughter, confused.
'It is too early in our lives for this,' she agreed, crossing the few steps between them, to embrace him warmly. 'It is not a bad a thing to be unsure,' she kissed him again, gently on the cheek, 'anyone would be. I am. This is only temporary,' she reminded him, 'we're not living here together permanently. The British weather is terrible,' she finished lightly, 'and I do not want to spend the rest of my life in the rain.'
Harry was both relieved and a little disappointed that Fleur did not want to spend the rest of her life living here with him. Relieved because he was only fifteen, and that was simply far too young to make such a huge decision. Disappointed because maybe, in the not too distant future, he might want to make the choice that would lead him here. A resolution that might eventually see him standing with Fleur, holding the silver-haired, green-eyed girl from the mirror.
He shivered, suddenly cold, and clutched her slightly closer, seized by an irrational desire to make sure she never left his side, so the Mirror of Erised's promising vision of a family might eventually be truth.
'What's wrong?' Fleur murmured, feeling him tense.
'I am torn,' he admitted. 'Part of me wants nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you, but the other…'
'The other?'
'It urges me to run away screaming I'm too young,' Harry smiled.
'I am the same,' Fleur responded simply, switching to french to better convey her feelings without misconception. 'You are very mature for someone who is nearly sixteen, and I am fairly mature for someone who is eighteen, we are both of us too young to be living together like this.'
'You're closer to nineteen,' Harry reminded her. Fleur's birthday was the third day of October, so for a couple of months at the end of every summer their ages were only two years apart and Harry felt less like a child when the age gap was mentioned.
'Nineteen is not much older than eighteen,' Fleur shrugged. 'Don't worry about it. This is not the same thing, think of it as practise,' she laughed softly again. 'We have plenty of time to get used to the idea and wait until we are both ready.'
It sounded, despite Fleur's effort to remain casual, that she had already made up her mind. They might be too young now to really take such a serious step, but, in the future, she expected them to make it, and every implied step that followed. A rush of warmth followed the realisation that in essence she had decided to stay with him.
'Thank you,' he whispered. Fleur didn't reply, but her arms tightened around him, and he felt her heart speed up against his chest.
AN: Please read and review, thank you to everyone does, especially those of you who take the time to review each and every chapter. Hopefully this chapter is less depressing than the last!
