Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
So it's been a while, almost a week, but here's the next chapter!
You're all very suspicious people! Is it not at all plausible that a poor curse-breaker might give something he found, and was trivial enough that he was allowed to keep, as an apology rather than actually buying something? No? Ok, then. There are a lot of fics that have every single relationship Harry enters under constant threat of destruction by love potions, compulsion charms and worse, but, come on, all references to the Nibelungenlied aside, it's only a little ring...
Chapter 75
Light streamed into the room, thrusting a warm, orange glow through his eye-lids and bathing him in heat. Lying half-awake on his side Harry was content to quietly bask, but Fleur, as always, grew restless in the warm, shifting across the bed to slip an arm around his waist, and tuck herself under his chin to press light kisses along his collarbone.
Harry opened one eye to look down at her gently, and kissed the top of her head, the only part of Fleur he could easily reach to kiss.
'Sirius will be here soon,' Fleur murmured into his neck. Her breath tickled warm against his skin and he squirmed slightly, opening his other eye and abandoning all hope of remaining as they were.
All good things must come to an end.
'And you have to go to work,' Harry finished reluctantly.
'Yes,' Fleur's reply tickled him once more.
'I suppose we'll have to get up then,' Harry said, freeing an arm to wrap around her shoulders.
Neither of them moved towards the edge of the bed.
Eventually Fleur moaned, and slipped out from under his arm, discarding her nightdress with a coy look. Harry found himself suddenly much more awake than before, and shifted subtly towards his clothes to conceal his reaction.
Judging by the smirk on Fleur's face as she drifted, still naked, towards the bathroom, he hadn't been even remotely successful.
She found him downstairs once her frenetic morning ritual was complete, pausing in her habitual preparation to firmly place a decent-sized breakfast on the table in his usual spot, and eye him questioningly.
Harry knew better than to disagree, not that he minded to begin with, her single-minded determination to make sure he was always taken care of was as touching as it was unprecedented. Nobody else had ever seemed quite so dedicated to putting him first.
'So what will you be doing while I'm sitting at my desk reading through files on prominent families who may have connections to Voldemort?' Fleur asked, inhaling croissant and coffee, while simultaneously reading the Daily Prophet.
'Adding the final touches to the protections of our home,' he smiled, glad to see the corner of Fleur's mouth curve at his choice of words.
'Something sanguine?' She inquired, brushing crumbs daintily away from her lips.
'Yes,' Harry nodded, dragging his eyes away from Fleur's mouth to the back of the paper. In bold, black font, the Daily Prophet declared the last skirmish between Voldemort's followers and the hit wizards a victory for the Ministry, but the substantially longer list of dead or injured hit wizards suggested otherwise.
'Will you need some of my blood?' Fleur looked more than a little curious, and some part of Harry briefly entertained the fantasy of being able to teach her all about it in the future. The rest of him firmly proclaimed that it didn't like her doing something that often ended up being very dangerous.
'Yes,' Harry decided. The first part of the ward would require blood from both of them.
Fleur folded the paper gently in half and placed it on the table, then reached calmly for the knife at the side of her plate. Holding it with two fingers she dipped her thumb upon the gleaming, silver tip, and extended her hand towards him, a bright, crimson bubble welling upon the ball of the digit.
'Thanks,' Harry told her dryly, flicking his wand out to levitate the drop of blood over the table.
'Before I forget,' she explained, carefully wiping the tip of the knife clean.
'Do you want me to heal it?' Harry offered.
Fleur tilted her head at his question, conveying in her expression both her gratitude and her amusement at his suggestion. 'I am quite good with healing spells, Harry,' she assured him, 'even if I do not heal like you do.'
'Nobody heals like me naturally,' Harry shrugged. Fleur had not so much as batted an eyelash when Harry had cut himself accidentally and healed completely in the space of a few heartbeats. She'd been fascinated enough to demand a full explanation of the ability, which Harry had happily given once he realised she had not even the slightest aversion to the magic behind it.
'I am jealous,' Fleur sighed, blinking gratefully at him when he levitated their plates across the room and onto the unit beside the sink.
'You can wordlessly and wandlessly conjure fire hot enough to melt steel,' Harry reminded her. 'No ritual will gift me that.'
'I had a read through that book,' she told him, pointing in the direction of the tome he had taken from Salazar's library, 'none of the rituals within seem prudent considering my nature.'
'I told you that was likely,' Harry agreed. It was as close to I told you so as he could come without inviting a tart response.
'I know,' Fleur wrinkled her nose, 'maybe when we have more time we will be able to create some of our own and I will find a way to safely replicate that ability of yours for myself.'
'It'll be fun,' Harry grinned. He'd developed a bit of a taste for the rituals, the combination of blood magic, self improvement, and interesting magical ingredients was addictive and fascinatingly complex.
'Have you chosen?' Fleur asked him evenly. He shot her a wry smile. Harry should have known that she would have guessed his purpose straight away.
'Yes,' he admitted. 'Though I will have to design one myself,' he grinned, 'it'll be interesting to see if it works.'
Salazar would be proud, he thought. Will be proud, he remembered.
Harry would see him again.
'Will it be messy?' Fleur inquired softly.
'It won't be too bad,' Harry reassured her, 'especially when I have you around to nurse me back to health.'
'I will not be gentle on you just because you thought it was a good idea to empty your veins for a fractional advantage over others,' Fleur warned.
'A fractional reduction of my disadvantage you mean,' Harry corrected. 'Voldemort has likely done every ritual imaginable on himself, and even though his old body was destroyed it's likely many are still effective.'
'How many more do you intend to do?' Fleur asked apprehensively. 'I know you enjoy creating them, but they're dangerous.'
'Only two for now,' Harry decided, mentally scrapping plans for a third, extremely risky ritual in favour of not being immolated upon attempting it. He shouldn't make Fleur worry unnecessarily.
'One,' he continued, knowing she wanted details, 'will be to try and even things between Voldemort and myself. As it stands I can match him for speed, and likely for power, but I tire much faster than he does. This ritual will help me recover quicker, and ensure I last a bit longer in a prolonged duel.'
'And the other?'
'A precaution,' Harry shared with a small smile. 'Given that the potion's master at Hogwarts is likely a Death Eater, or, at the very least, influenced by them, it feels prudent to try create a ritualistic immunity to most poisons.'
'Is that actually possible?'
'I believe so,' Harry nodded. Salazar had managed a form of it. 'I still have to design parts of it myself, and buy the things I need from Diagon Alley.'
'I suppose that will give you something to do other than NEWT work,' Fleur smirked.
'And horcrux hunting,' Harry reminded her with a smile.
Fleur tossed her hair over her shoulder. 'I'm doing all the hunting at the moment,' she pointed out, 'days and days of reading through Gringotts files on out potential guardians while all my colleagues are entertaining themselves.'
'Well,' Harry grinned knowingly, 'if you want to go with them you can, leave the research to me and go spend all your time with your colleagues.'
'I prefer the research,' Fleur admitted. 'Gringotts' files do not stare, and ask me out for lunch every few minutes after being told that I am already seeing someone.'
There was a soft knock at the door.
'Sirius is here,' Fleur remarked, 'I'll need to leave in a few minutes.'
Harry rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then tucked the ritual book back out of sight. Sirius was many things, but it seemed unlikely he would approve of such magic. He did, despite his use of destructive and dark-dubbed magic in the Ministry, believe in the fallacy of light and dark, and while the occasional spell would be acceptable in his eyes, rituals were probably not.
He pulled himself up out of his chair to let Sirius in while Fleur cast a brief charm to animate the rather cheerful looking sponge and sent it towards their plates, trailing bubbles along the unit.
'Hi Sirius,' Harry greeted, pulling open the door. 'How is everybody?'
'Frantic,' he grinned, following Harry into the hall. 'But I bring good news.'
'Oh,' Harry eyed his godfather warily, there was an ominous mischievous edge to his tone.
'Is Fleur around?'
'I am,' she replied for herself, stepping out of the kitchen, and tucking her wand into her waist.
'Perfect,' Sirius chuckled. 'Harry you have a chance at the honour of being named the new head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.'
'I do?' Harry's suspicion of foul play was only growing.
'Yes,' a few more of Sirius' teeth became visible as smile spread, 'my dearest mother has decided that there is nobody more suitable to carry on our family name, though she refuses to tell my why.'
'There is a catch, isn't there?' Fleur realised.
'Oh yes,' Sirius laughed, 'to be the head of my illustrious family you must be able to produce pure-blooded, children directly descended from the Black family tree. You are related through Dorea Potter, but not directly enough to satisfy the tradition.'
'So I can't become the head of your family?' Harry asked confused. Fleur exhaled sharply though her nose, looking very unimpressed. Clearly she understood something that he did not.
'You can,' Sirius all but crowed, 'only you have to marry a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and there's only one available.'
'I thought you were the last member of your family?' Harry's eyebrows rose. 'If you're about to tell me you're secretly a girl and have been under a spell all this time I'm not going to believe you, and I'm certainly not going to be flattered by your interest.'
'No,' Sirius looked scandalised, 'I'm far too rugged and handsome to be a girl.'
'So there is a girl who fits the description?' Fleur's tone was completely even, and quite soft, but there was something about it that seemed to hint at fire, copious amounts of fire, and the permanent end of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
'Er, yes.' Sirius seemed to have understood the danger too, because his smile had abruptly vanished. 'She's a member of the Order actually, a disowned daughter, whom my mother will graciously allow to return to the family tree because her skill as witch is evidence that the Black blood has overcome any muggle taint.'
'Does she have a name?' Harry inquired.
'Nymphadora,' Sirius sniggered to himself, 'she hates it.'
'Well, Harry?' Fleur turned to look at him, a perilously gentle smile on her lips. 'Are you interested.'
'No,' Harry shook his head. For a moment he'd been tempted to joke, but his sense of danger, finely attuned after so many years at Hogwarts, had strongly advised against it.
'I shall convey your refusal, and my I told you so to my mother,' Sirius laughed, 'it will, of course, make no difference to her plans.'
'Wonderful,' Harry sighed.
'If you see Kreacher nearby, don't sign anything until you've read it, even if you think you've already read it,' Sirius warned.
'Isn't he your house elf?'
'He's much more fond of my mother than me. I was cruel to him as a child,' Sirius confessed. 'He sees me as a traitor to the family he's devoted his life to.'
'Can't you just order him to stay within the house?' Harry pleaded. He did not need to be entrapped into a marriage contract or anything so ridiculous archaic and contrived.
'Well I could,' Sirius grinned, 'but it's far funnier not to.'
'I'm glad you find it funny,' Harry grimaced. 'Does, er, Nymphadora know about this?'
'Oh yes,' Sirius' smile grew impossibly wide, 'my mother's portrait went into great depth and detail in explaining it to her before the last meeting of the Order. I've never seen her so flustered; I got away with calling her by her first name for almost an hour afterwards.'
'Well I'm glad someone got something out of the situation,' Fleur commented sharply, 'personally, I'd quite like to meet your mother.'
'The portrait's all but indestructible,' Sirius sighed. 'I've tried everything short of fiendfyre, and I would have tried that if there wasn't a risk it would consume the whole house when I lost control of it.'
'I'm willing to try again,' Fleur responded dryly.
'So what are the benefits of being the head of the family?' Harry asked innocently.
Sirius chuckled, and began to describe, in great detail, the many wonders of his family in a mostly sarcastic tone, but most of it was lost on Harry, who was all too aware of the slim, soft fingers that now encircled his wrist in a tight, possessive grip.
'Do you have any other living relatives?' Fleur cut in, interrupting Sirius' cheerful allusions to the upsides of marrying a metamorph.
'A few,' Sirius' face darkened. 'Harry got my cousin, Bella, in the Ministry, but her sisters are still alive, Narcissa, and Nymphadora's mother Andromeda. Apart from that we're tied through recent marriage to the Malfoys and the Lestranges.'
'A nice collection of relatives you have there,' Harry mused, realising Fleur's intent. She had likely learnt of the connections to their targeted members of Voldemort's elite through Gringotts. 'The Lestranges are a gregarious group.'
Sirius snorted. 'The only sociable events they ever partook of were muggle baiting, and balls held exclusively for pure blooded families. I've never even spoken to either of the brothers, not unless they were wearing masks in the last war.'
'A shame,' Harry quipped, 'you might have got on really well.'
'I have to go,' Fleur noted quietly, squeezing his wrist, and kissing him gently on the cheek.
'Have fun,' Harry smiled, keeping her close for a moment before she had to be away from him for most of the day. A faint, approving smile flickered across Sirius' face at their farewell, but for once he said nothing, not even when Fleur silently apparated away.
'So how's everything going?' Sirius asked calmly. 'You seem to have more furniture now, this place feels more like a home, and less like Grimmauld Place after Molly's been at it.'
'Fleur chose most of it,' Harry replied, 'I just arranged it.'
'Lily never let James arrange anything,' Sirius remembered quietly, 'she had this thing about having everything in straight lines or at perpendicular angles. We used to move things by a few inches just to tease her.'
'I didn't inherit that,' Harry smiled.
'Obviously,' Sirius cast an eye over the room, 'it's spacious, but Lily would've gone spare until she'd moved it all into line.'
Harry slumped into the nearest chair, and Sirius mirrored him, swinging his feet over the arm to lie across it.
'You mentioned everyone being frantic?' Harry asked, suppressing a yawn.
'Dumbledore's disappeared off for some reason,' Sirius shrugged, 'and he left Moody, and Tonks, that's Nymphadora by the way, in charge of finding you, but they've not even come close.'
'And they won't,' Harry grinned, 'not unless Moody's eye can see past the Fidelius Charm.'
'It's not foolproof, Harry,' Sirius warned, 'you should know that better than anyone.'
'I know,' Harry assured him, 'it's not the only ward placed over the Meadow.'
'Anti-apparition wards don't keep out dark wizards for very long,' Sirius pointed out calmly.
'The Fianto Duri will,' Harry smirked, 'Fleur's more than just a pretty face.'
'That can be broken too,' Sirius said, but he looked impressed.
'If it is,' Harry rubbed his chin, 'then they still have to get past the wards I'm setting up, and that's easier said than done. You can watch me create them if you want,' he offered lightly, 'I'll need your help for a moment anyway.' It would prove a good moment to show Sirius a little more of the magic he was capable of using that did not conform to the Ministry perpetuated fallacy.
'What sort of ward is it?' Sirius asked. 'I don't know much about them I'm afraid, only that they're never as impregnable as the casters claim.'
'The sort that requires blood,' Harry answered evenly, standing up and flicking his wand into his palm.
'Blood wards,' Sirius murmured. A brief conflict raged across his face before he nodded in acceptance, and followed a covertly smiling Harry back outside.
With a few elegant flourishes of his wand, Harry drew burning, purple runes along the walls and windows of the Meadow, leaving them inscribed in glowing, spiralling patterns across the stone. Sirius watched wide-eyed.
'What does it do?' He asked when Harry finished etching.
'To enter requires blood that the ward recognises,' Harry answered, summoning the drop of Fleur's blood from the kitchen and leaving it hovering in the air in front of the door.
'I assumed that was the help you needed,' Sirius grinned, biting the side of his thumb and letting the blood run down the side of his hand.
'Exactly,' Harry nodded, drawing a drop from the wound, combining it with Fleur's, and then slicing open his palm to add his own blood. He was confident that after having competed the ritual that had gifted him his speed and resilience that his blood was now different enough from that which Voldemort had stolen to prevent the Dark Lord being able to just walk in, but there was a contingency just in case.
'So I have to lose blood every time I visit?'
'No,' Harry frowned at the idea of such an inelegant solution. 'The ward will know when your ry to cross whether your blood is allowed entry or not.'
He neglected to mention the other part of the ward; the contingency. In case his blood was not quite so different he had disguised the ward, casting a second over the top of it. One that required a voluntary sacrifice of blood to bind the visitor to adhering to a specific magical oath, and then revealed the entrance. Voldemort himself could come and visit, should he bypass the other wards, but unless he broke the blood ward he would be unable to do anything that might lead to causing them harm while inside.
Of course, Harry reminded himself, he's much more likely just to break it.
The ward was simple,and fairly strong, but it could be overpowered by a sufficiently knowledgeable or puissant invader. Voldemort was likely both.
Harry guided the drops of blood onto the runes directly over the mantel of the door, closing his eyes to avoid being temporarily blinded when they flashed a brilliant, bright white.
His godfather yelped with surprise and swore, squinting irritatedly at Harry.
'Consider it payback for bringing up your mother's plan in front of Fleur,' he told him sweetly.
'I guess that's fair,' Sirius grinned, running his own wand over his thumb. 'Do you want me to heal you?'
'I already did,' Harry answered smoothly, extending his unmarked hand.
'That was subtle of you,' Sirius remarked, 'can we go back in? Or do we have to wait?'
'The ward is done,' Harry answered, 'anyone with our blood, or a combination of our blood may enter, unless someone with identical blood is already inside, but I feel like walking around a bit, maybe to the stream.'
'So the twins are going to have to split up if they ever visit?' Sirius laughed, walking alongside Harry towards the copse of elm trees and the stream.
'I don't know,' Harry mused, 'it'd be interesting to test though.'
'Now you sound like Lily,' his godfather remarked. 'She used to play with experimental charms in her spare time, tested more than a few on me without my consent too.'
'I'm sure you deserved it,' Harry grinned.
'I probably did.'
'How's the Order faring?' Harry inquired.
'Do you actually care?' Sirius asked. 'I'm not the best at it, Harry, but even I can see the difference in your eyes when you refer to Fleur, yourself, and the others.'
'I have no attachment to them,' Harry admitted, 'but that doesn't mean I think they should die if I can prevent it, nor that I shouldn't help them.'
The words sounded earnest, but they rang hollow in his heart, and the truth became horribly clear. Somehow he had stopped caring for anyone except those he held dear, and he was simply unwilling to risk himself and them for another who meant so little to him.
'The Order is torn between hunting for you and trying to help the Ministry counter the Death Eaters,' Sirius explained, moving swiftly onwards. 'Voldemort has many supporters, most of the more dangerous ones were fortunately expelled from the Ministry after that debacle with Rita Skeeter,' Harry managed to keep his face blank, 'but it's chaos.'
'The Ministry is trying to give the impression they're winning,' Harry noted.
'They are,' Sirius sighed, 'but at a terrible cost. Voldemort has learnt from his mistakes, instead of mindlessly attacking across the country like he did last time he has been directing his Death Eaters at important targets, and throwing his other supporters at the hit wizards to wear them down. The Ministry is suffering, but holding out, and in a war of attrition the larger party wins.'
'He can't have that many supporters,' Harry frowned, stopping under the branches of the elm trees on the bank of the stream. A few slim shadows darted in the deeper parts of the water, scattering under the bank when they noticed their arrival.
'You'd be surprised,' Sirius said bitterly, 'the Ministry has been influenced by his supporters, those like Lucius Malfoy, since he fell from power, and they have constantly ensured groups like werewolves, vampires and giants are oppressed and embittered.'
'And once they have turned them against the Ministry they offer them emancipation from Voldemort,' Harry realised.
'There are no flocks in Britain, vampires have never settled here in numbers, but the werewolf packs are united under Fenrir Greyback, and he follows Voldemort to take revenge against all wizards and witches who have oppressed them.' Sirius rubbed his eyes, looking awfully tired for a moment. 'And that says nothing of those he has swayed to his side in the hope of power, many minor pure-blood families hope for a share of the spoils once the Ministry is toppled.'
'So what can the Order do?'
'We pass information to the Ministry,' Sirius answered simply. 'Snape tells us what he can, and we pass that on to Amelia Bones, then we assist wherever we can, but there are relatively few of us, and so we are limited to protecting that which Dumbledore deems most important.'
'Me,' Harry smirked, 'his martyr.'
'Yes,' Azkaban's shadow carved deep trenches under his eyes, and for a moment something furious and feral gleamed there. 'Do you know what Dumbledore is off doing?'
'I have my suspicions,' Harry admitted. 'There are a number of objects that are very important to Voldemort, destroying them is crucial, and I suspect Dumbledore is searching for them as we speak.'
'What else do you know about them?' Sirius asked. 'I will not tell Dumbledore what I know, Harry,' he promised fervently, 'the senile, meddling, old man has sacrificed his last pawn if I can help it.'
'They are called horcruxes,' Harry began, 'they contain a fragment of Voldemort's soul. I believe there were three, but I have already destroyed two. Dumbledore is aware of one, the diary that possessed Ginny and opened the Chamber of Secrets was one.'
'What about the other?'
'Ravenclaw's Lost Diadem,' Harry smiled, 'I found it in the Room of Requirement and destroyed it once I realised what it was.'
It took far too long for me to realise, he added darkly.
Harry had come far too close to that horcrux.
'I don't know anything about the third,' he shrugged, 'but we're looking for it.'
'We?'
'I have no secrets from Fleur,' Harry explained. 'I hope that he has entrusted it to one of his followers, like he did the diary, and that we might be able to take it from them.'
'Is there anything I can do to help?' Sirius demanded. 'I feel useless at Grimmauld Place.'
'Dumbledore must not know that I am aware of horcruxes,' Harry warned seriously, 'the consequences would be dire.'
'That sounds like a no,' Sirius muttered, annoyed.
'You can keep a careful eye on Dumbledore,' Harry suggested. 'If you can learn anything about the Inner Circle, especially on of them being given something to guard by Voldemort then that would be useful.'
'These horcruxes are the priority then,' Sirius surmised.
'While they exist Voldemort cannot truly die,' Harry said calmly, 'they have to be destroyed, and he must not learn what we are doing until the very end if it can be avoided.'
'I understand,' Sirius nodded. 'I'll keep an eye open, and I'll have a look in the library for anything that might prove useful. There's plenty about all kinds of dark and dangerous magic in there.'
AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who does!
