It's been quite a while—this story suffered from some planning issues that, as of yet, are still to be rectified and a lot of real life issues in the interim. But, hopefully, the chapter more than makes up for it.
Have fun, stay safe, and enjoy!
The floo flared green with life, flames crackling with barely audible words as Fleur grabbed a handful and prepared to toss it into the fire. Before she let the grains fall from her hand into Madam Pomfrey's fireplace, she turned to him.
"You don't have to do this," she reminded him—he'd heard the same thing at least four times since the whole affair had been organised that morning. Harry had, at some point, assumed she was more nervous than he was. "They can be, well, a lot."
She'd been skittish all morning, another nightmare setting her on edge. Out of respect for what was supposed to be a happy day for her, he didn't pursue the topic as far as he should have or, at least, recommended her to see Madam Pomfrey. Harry was as aware as anyone on how a doctor's visit could ruin a happy day—these things could wait.
"I'm sure," Harry told her. "You met Ron and Hermione without any hassle, I reckon I'll be fine."
"Ron and Hermione are different though—"
"—I'd hope so."
"Let me finish, you idiot," she said affectionately. "They're older and… themselves, I guess. I told them what to expect in my letters but chances are they might say some things they shouldn't."
"I'll be fine, I promise," he said. "If they say something I don't like I'll just pull my head out of the floo, easy as that. You can tell them I had to do something, everything will be fine."
"If you're sure—"
Harry cut her off with a squeeze of her hand, "It'll be fine, I'm sure they're going to really enjoy seeing you."
"Alright," Fleur said and weighed the grains of floo powder in her hand, letting some fall to the wayside, bursting into puffs of emerald as they hit the fire. "See you soon?"
"Of course."
With that, Fleur threw her powder down and stuck her head in the fireplace, "Beauxbatons Palace, Versailles."
Waiting for a little while so they could talk amongst themselves after not seeing them for what was rapidly approaching a year—their last year of school together—Harry busied himself by putting the floo powder back, then ruffling his hair for good measure, trying to tame it some. That was until Fleur reached behind her, grabbing his calf and giving it a squeeze, signalling it was time to appear.
With a deep breath and a dose of courage, Harry stuck his head in after her. Green flames tickled his skin like a warm breath and the world beyond came into focus, sharp and sudden, with the bright saturation of the walls and foreign faces.
Blinking the world into focus, he was confronted with her friends—Odette, Margot and Madeleine.
From the brief descriptions Fleur gave him, he could make something of a guess as to who they were.
Madeleine, Fleur's best friend, wasn't so much conventionally attractive as she was kind-looking, her eyes, if he had to guess. While the others looked at him with something akin to piercing scrutiny, she looked at him as if she wanted to get to know him. When Harry smiled, it was at her first, she cocked her head, shoulder-length brown hair bobbing with her, and smiled back.
Odette was next, and between her and Margot, looked at him the most intently, though not unkindly, after all, Fleur regarded her for being kind above all. Just as if he was some enigma she was yet to figure out.
Margot fought with pushing strawberry-blonde hair out of her eyes to get a better look at him and, under such scrutiny Harry realised he probably should have brushed his hair better, or made his robes more presentable.
"So, you must be Harry," Madeleine said in a high-pitched voice. "It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you all too," he said. "Madeleine, right?"
"Correct," she nodded before gesturing to the other two. "And Margot and Odette."
Odette returned the greeting with a small smile, Margot, on the other hand, let her eyes flicker between the pair.
"Your eyes," Margot said. "They're different."
It was clear she was the blunt one.
Elbowing her in the ribs, Odette gave the girl a dirty look, Madeleine sought to change the subject immediately but the damage had been done already in four simple words. If, perhaps, they hadn't been the first out of their lips after he'd arrived, the impact might have been dulled some.
But, with it coming out of her mouth while she stared at him, he seemed to know what the problem was.
She doesn't like me very much, Harry thought.
I'm sorry about her, he heard her voice. I didn't really talk about their flaws, did I?
It's not your fault, Harry returned just at the right time to catch Odette's reply.
"We're sorry about that, it's been difficult not knowing much," Odette said. "So, Harry, we've heard a lot about you."
Harry shared a look with Fleur, "You have?" He asked.
Nothing you wouldn't want them to know, Fleur thought. Just how you were as a person, how we were getting along.
"We have," she said. "I'm sorry that everything has seemed to have taken a turn for the worse but thank you for helping Fleur when she needed it. She means the world to us and even if," Odette eyed Margot. "Some of us don't know how to really process it, we really mean it—thank you."
Fighting the urge to blush, "She helps me just as much—"
"—Fleur said you were modest," Madeleine interrupted. "Like Odette said, we've heard quite a bit. Helping her sneak out, showing her the castle, learning about Veela."
Fleur finally chose to butt in, "Don't tease him, Maddy."
"Fine," the girl huffed. "But really, tell us about yourself, Harry. I want to get the make of you myself."
When it was put like that, Harry thought it sounded precariously like some sort of test. He had no idea what they were assessing, or if he'd even pass but, when looking at three expectant faces, he supposed he didn't have much of a choice.
"I don't know that there's much to tell," he said. "I'm just Harry."
"There has to be something," Odette said. "What do you hope to do when you've finished school?"
He had to think for a second, "I wanted to be an Auror, originally," he said. "But seeing how much has changed in the past few months, I don't know that it's really on the table anymore with everything. What about you? We can't just talk about me."
"A gentleman?" Madeleine raised an eyebrow. "I see you could've done worse for yourself, Fleur."
"Maddy."
"I'm kidding. Well, I for one, want to be a Magizoologist.
"A Gastromagus," Odette said.
Margot seemed to debate the merits of answering for a little while before she spoke, "A Lawyer."
Big dreams, but they seemed the sort that could accomplish big dreams, if what Fleur had said about them was true.
"Now that we've gotten that out of the way," Madeleine said. "Tell us more about Hogwarts, your letters probably haven't done it justice."
With that, Fleur regaled them of all the things she'd seen since she'd arrived, of dragons and how she sang to them, of a birthday party soon on the horizon.
It hadn't been the most ideal of first meetings though he couldn't blame them, Margot in particular. When Fleur had left them, she'd likely made plans, discussed futures, and made lives with them. Suddenly, events had taken most of what had been crafted and torn it to shreds.
But while the first meeting hadn't gone to plan—not entirely, Fleur had still been happy. They spoke about things he didn't understand, talked about classes and teachers, students and their lives. She laughed at their jokes and, despite not understanding at all, Harry laughed too sometimes, with the right person, it was that easy.
Where along the line he'd decided she was the right person, he didn't know.
The Beauxbatons champion carriage had been bedecked in blue and white decoration, traipsing from each corner to another, coming together to spell a huge 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABRIELLE'. The room was even bigger than it was the last time, permission granted by Madame Maxime to extend the room's confines a little further to accommodate for the party.
Some small chatter took place between Fleur and her mother—where to sit presents, how to organise the final decorations. Harry busied himself, leaving them to their planning, by peeking through the curtains, waiting for Gabrielle and Jacques to appear and give the signal. The pair, having gone to Hogsmeade to give the girl a birthday breakfast, her aversion to the local cuisine nowhere near the level of her sister's.
"Are they coming yet?" Fleur snuck up behind him, Harry turned his head quickly to look at her.
Shedding her blue school robes, she'd opted for a blue sundress—clearly, she had a type. It was likely too cold to wear outside and lacking the one requirement—sun but, within the relative warmth of the carriage, it was more than ample.
If Harry was being truthful, he thought she looked quite beautiful.
When that thought crossed his mind, he looked away from her. How he could sleep with someone every night and still notice things about her, notice things about how he felt was anyone's guess.
"No, I told you I'd tell you when they did."
"I know," she wrung her hands. "Are you sure they're not going to come from the other direction?"
"Seeing as the other direction is the Forbidden Forest, I don't think they'll be coming that way."
"What if they took a different route?"
Harry turned to her and put his hands on her shoulders, "It will be fine, I promise. She's going to love it."
"And if she doesn't?" Fleur asked, peeking over his shoulder and out the window. "We're not at home, it's all cold and dreary, she can't see her friends or family or get their presents—"
"Yeah, but you're here," he said as if it explained it all, and it did. "You're usually at Beauxbatons and now you're not, that's all she's going to remember."
Fleur continued to wring her hands, eyes darting between the display of presents on the bed and the hill that led to the carriages. "You really think so?"
"I know so, you'll see."
"Maybe… maybe I should wait to tell her," she said. "Let her have a happy birthday, I don't want her upset today of all days."
"Do you want me to talk to her instead?" Harry asked.
"No, I need to be the one to talk to her, it'll be easier that way. I just… I don't know, it's hard."
She looked sad in a way that cut him to the core, forlorn like she'd played the event and its many conclusions in her head already. With some courage that didn't truly feel like his own, the hands on her shoulders slipped off them, just slightly and he stepped forward, bringing her into a light hug.
It took a second, perhaps at the surprise, before she melded into it and hugged him back. He'd never been a fan of hugging but, as most things tended to with her, it felt more right than it ever did.
"I know," Harry whispered. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to, there'll be other chances eventually. Just see how you feel about it."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
He wasn't exactly sure when to separate, not knowing how long they'd been standing there but knowing it was longer than normal. Thankfully, he was saved from the burden of figuring it out when Fleur, who had come to look over his shoulder and out the window during the hug leapt from him, stepped closer to the window before retreating to the middle of the room.
"She's here!"
Harry spared a glance past her and saw both Gabrielle and Jacques cresting the small hill that led to the incline the carriages were parked in. Heading to his position, his eyes inevitably crossed Apolline who had been, for some amount of time, staring at the pair. Harry hid his head from her stares and waited for the door to open.
Taking far longer than it should have—likely waylaid by Gabrielle—eventually, the burnished silver hand of the door jiggled before twisting, inviting the three inside occupants a view of what they'd been waiting for.
"Happy Birthday!"
Gabrielle stepped back in surprise and with a quickness only youth could muster, looking between all three of them, her father, and then rushed to Fleur, hugging her around the midriff.
"Thank you!" She cried. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
Fleur swung her up into her arms, heaving with the girl who was clearly heavier now than whenever she'd last done it, and gave a kiss on the cheek. Jacques and Apolline followed close behind, lavishing similar attention on the girl before her feet hit the ground again. When they did she bounded over to Harry next, wrapping her arms around him.
"Thank you!" Gabrielle said again. "Did you help Maman and Sissy?"
He nodded, "I did. I couldn't let our resident dragon expert go without having the best birthday, could I?"
She beamed and as quick as she came, bounded over to the assortment of presents on the bed and began to tear into them. Presents that had been wrapped with all but an artisan's hand were torn to shreds in an instant, a cyclone of paper forming around the girl.
First, it had been a set of robes for Chanceux, a tiny black set with little arm holes for his paws. Gabrielle became immediately sidetracked by attempting to find him, only to be brought back to her presents by her father.
Next had been clothes, things that not so subtly mirrored her sister's outfits. Smaller things came after, some quills, a drawing book, little pieces to adorn the carriage and make their home away from home—though not for much longer—feel like home.
Eventually, her eyes fell upon their present to her, wrapped in parchment paper and twine because Hogsmeade hadn't sold muggle wrapping paper. Gabrielle looked at it, knowing what it was already. The paper's death was a sudden thing, ravaged by eager hands until the first book came into them.
Barely looking at the cover before she pulled it open, letting a swarm of little dragons burst from the cover. She leapt off the bed before, once again, embracing them both, squealing a torrent of thanks.
With that, all the presents had been opened and with free reign returned to her, Gabrielle reignited the search for Chanceux, Fleur offering her help. Although the room was large, six people made it feel much smaller, especially when he stood alone. His loneliness didn't seem to want to last for long, however.
"Hello, Harry," Apolline said, somehow approaching from his blind spot as he watched the cat chase.
Dusting his hands off on his robe, unsure of what to do, "Uh, hello, Miss Delacour."
"Thank you for helping us with the party," she said. "I take it the books are what you and Fleur bought on your little outing to Hogsmeade?"
"They were, yeah."
"Well then, I apologise for being angry at the time, I'm glad you went," she said. "In fact, I think I owe you an apology for a lot of things I've done recently."
"You don't need to apologise."
Appoline looked across at him, when he first met her, she'd been taller and now, after all this time, they were of the same height. "You don't even know what I'm apologising for," she said softly. "But I'm sure you can imagine it, yes."
"It wasn't your fault," was all Harry could think to offer her.
She gave him a little smile, "I appreciate you saying so, but it is. I am an adult and, trying circumstances included, I should have treated you better."
"It's alright—"
"It isn't, please let me say my piece," Appoline insisted. "I was terrible to you and there's no excuse to be made for that. I said things I didn't mean, and did things I wish I hadn't. You saved my daughters, gave your own life for them and there's nothing you did to deserve my treatment of you."
Harry made to speak though he remembered her words and let her continue, his mouth falling closed as soon as it had opened.
"You see a little bit of yourself in your children, I hope you find that out one day. What I don't hope you find out is how much it hurts to see them in pain," Harry didn't dare look at her but, even in her voice, he could tell tears had fallen. "I remember when she was little and she'd tell me of all the things she wanted to do, all the things she wanted to see and, for a moment, I thought she'd lost all of that. It was hard for us and I know it was hard for you too. You had given her back and here I was, focusing on what you'd taken from her. It doesn't excuse what I did, but it's all I really have to give—an explanation."
Left unsure of what to say, unsure if there was anything to say, the pair let the ambience of the girl's laughter take the room. Apolline wiped at her tears but he still made no attempt to look at her, afraid his gaze might scare her off.
Harry just stood there and wondered.
It was hard to know what others went through, what they thought and if they thought they were right. Did she think she was as justified in her anger as he'd been when he'd done anything? Had she felt the same as when he'd ever been angry at Draco Malfoy, or Snape, or even Ron? Or the times when he broke school rules for one reason or another?
He didn't know what it was like to be a mother, didn't know what it was like to have his own daughter die and she didn't know what it was like to be him.
He did know one thing, however, hidden amidst the failed platitudes he thought to say and words he decided not to give life to.
"I forgive you."
And, finally, he looked at her.
Just as he'd seen that day in the Hospital Wing, she didn't look like any sort of terrible woman—she was just a mum.
Maybe, just maybe, like his would've been.
Without a word, she crossed the small gap that, over the course of the conversation, had closed further, and wrapped her arms around him. Apparently, it had become a day for hugs.
Harry wrapped his arms around her in return and, when she hugged him properly, it was a mother's embrace.
"Thank you," she whispered to him just as Fleur had done.
"You're welcome," he echoed back.
Over her shoulder, he spied Fleur looking at them, Gabrielle still under the bed. She smiled at him, he smiled back.
Apolline separated from him and wiped the last remnants of tears from red-rimmed eyes. "Well then," she said. "I best get back to our little party."
Nodding at her, she slipped back in and, with a single spell, roused Chanceux from wherever he'd chosen to hide next. In the vacuum left at his side by Apolline's leaving, Jacques soon stepped up to the plate, ensuring it was filled.
"I take it that went well?" The man asked, looking particularly proud of himself.
"Yeah," Harry said. "I think it did."
"I'm glad," Jacques returned. "Now that all this unpleasantness is dealt with, I imagine we can all get to know one another far better than we have."
"I think I'd like that."
"I imagine we'll get the chance soon enough, Fleur tells me we'd likely have to host you at our house once school is finished?"
Harry swallowed, "I think it's starting to look that way… I don't think my relatives would take too kindly to me bringing her over, I'm sorry."
"Think nothing of it," he said. "There might not be an end in sight but you're a good man, Harry Potter. You're welcome with us any time."
With the offer of his words came the offer of his hand, Harry seized it and the man gave it a good few shakes before letting go.
Things were really starting to look up.
Somehow, somewhere, she'd found the courage.
Harry had watched her for most of the party's waning hours, playing with her sister's new toys, and reading her books with her. Every moment felt like another rung in the latter, a step to be surmounted until, finally, she'd had the confidence to tell her.
Jacques and Apolline clearly had the same forewarning he did, feigning they needed to do something else and they'd be back soon. Soon, it was only the three of them in the room.
Should I go too?
No, he heard. Stay, please.
So he did.
It had taken some more time to find the right opportunity, the moment where she felt comfortable—or as comfortable as she possibly could—to start speaking.
The courage, as courage tended to do, came at an odd moment.
Gabrielle rolled along the floor with Chanceux the cat who had, against his will, been forced to wear his new robes. The girl giggled as the pet mounted her stomach, swatting at her hands.
"Gabby?' Fleur said, her indecision clear in her voice. "Can… Can I talk to you for a second?"
"We're already talking, silly," she giggled, continuing to play with the cat.
"Properly, Gabby, like face-to-face," she said. "Come on, please."
Whether it was her tone or her words, Harry didn't know, but Gabrielle lifted the cat off of her and walked over to where Fleur was sitting on the bed, returning to wringing her hands.
"I need to talk to you about something, Gabby," Fleur said. "And it's important too, so listen, please."
"It's not a pony, is it?"
Fleur smiled despite it all, "No, not a pony, I'm sorry."
She sighed, "Next year?"
"Next year," Fleur promised. "I… I do have something I need to tell you. You know how I said Harry only slept in a bed with me because he was scared?"
Gabrielle nodded.
"I was lying."
The girl looked scandalised, "You fibbed?"
"I fibbed," Fleur confirmed. "And for a good reason, I swear."
Crossing her arms, "What reason could be good enough for fibbing?"
Watching her pause in an attempt to compose herself, Fleur stood still and stared at her sister, wearing her anxiety like a chain around her neck.
"Do you remember what happened after the Second Task? The one where you were underwater?"
"Uh-huh," she said. "I woke up in the carriage and Maman and Papa weren't there even though they promised."
Harry scooted a little closer to Fleur, tentatively taking her hand into his own. Not out of necessity but comfort, he hoped.
He supposed he had an advantage over her—he'd told more people than she had, had more experiences in such regards than she did. Fleur had never told anyone outside of her friends, and that had been done with quill and parchment. Her parents had been there, he'd been a part of it and now, she'd been forced to tell Gabrielle—the person who meant the world to her, that the sister she got back from the lake wasn't the same that went in.
The differences may have been minuscule on the outside but to her, it was a divide never to be bridged.
She was scared.
By the looks of it, just as scared as any lake could ever make her.
"That's because they were with me," Fleur said. "Because Harry wasn't scared, he saved us and, down in the lake, we died."
All the little girl offered was a blink, and then another.
Gabrielle seemed confused, "But… you're not dead now?"
"Because they brought us back, that's why we are still staying in the Hospital Wing. It's not safe to let us go without being watched," she said. "The Fleur that went in died and… and someone else came out."
Silence for a moment, then two, then three. The gears that shifted in the girl's mind were audible, creaking with every unspoken word.
"Then… then you lied again!" Gabby took a step backwards, hurt crossing every inch of her face. "You told me you were still going to be my sister, how are you supposed to be my sister if you're not my Fleur?."
Some words could just cut someone to pieces as if you could hear the very sound of their heart breaking. As much as Harry wished they weren't, these were those sort of words.
"I am, Gabby," Fleur's voice cracked. "I will always be your sister."
Moving just out of arm's reach, Fleur had to take a shaky step forward to practically latch on to the smaller girl. A single sob wracked her form as she buried her face into the little girl's shoulder.
Harry could barely hear what they were saying though it wasn't hard for him to know.
Her voice was hoarse and soft, "I'm still me," she said. "And I'll always be your sister."
They stayed there for some time, repeating the words for as long as it took to sink in. Harry rubbed at Fleur's back, he wasn't sure why, it just felt right. When they separated, both girls were relegated to wiping at their eyes, desperate to not show they were doing so.
"How are you going to be different?" Gabrielle asked.
"It's hard to describe," Fleur admitted. "When we died, a little part of him came to me and a little part of me went to him, it's why our eyes are the way they are. I'll have to spend lots of time with him, but I'll always still have time for you. I'm still here, there's just some more of me now."
Gabrielle looked directly at Harry, glaring at him. "So he's like your…" She stepped forward to whisper in Fleur's ear.
Whatever she said, Fleur went beet red and tried to orient herself in a way so that Harry couldn't see her, "No! Gabby… No."
It seemed the little girl had decided her own answer though, marching over to cross her arms before him. "You won't hurt her?" Gabrielle asked. "You'll treat her like the very bestest?"
"Like the very bestest," Harry promised. "There's a good chance I'll be coming with you back to France so you'll be able to make sure I treat her well."
"You're coming to France? You'll take me to see real dragons?"
"Of course, how could I say no?"
Then she ran back to Fleur, the entire situation practically forgotten at the chance to see real dragons. Fleur smiled and nodded, adding in where she could in the girl's excited tirade. Everything, for the moment, seemed happy.
She had been scared of hurting the person that meant the most to her and yet, she did it still.
Fleur Delacour was as strong a woman as he'd ever known.
It had been a long time since he'd felt the embrace of another.
He'd debated taking the few hours to visit a brothel somewhere on his run, maybe to indulge, maybe just to be near another. Just to feel what it was like to be wanted—to feel anything, even if only for a handful of galleons. He hadn't, fearful that if he felt something, he'd feel everything.
So when Sirius Black came to be in the arms of a woman, he bristled at the foreign feeling but welcomed its warmth, a constant push and pull within him.
It had to be early in the morning still, the sun not yet rising over the waves. Without anything to do, Sirius busied himself with her body, planting scorching kisses across her breastbone, her eyes fluttering open.
"Haven't you had enough?" Kalasia whispered in a hoarse breath.
"Of you?" He said, planting a kiss at the top of her breast. "Never."
"You're insatiable."
"No, you're just gorgeous."
"I'm not," she retorted in a half moan as his lips danced a burning hot trail down her sternum.
"You are to me," Sirius said, muffled as his lips caught the object of his desire, caressing soft skin with his tongue, lavishing her with feather kisses and grazes of his teeth, fiddling with the hem of her hastily thrown-on underwear.
He'd been scared of feeling anything but with some—the right one—nothing had ever felt as good.
Closing his eyes when she began to return his eager ministrations, the world chose to intervene as it was, as it tended to be, wholly unkind to Sirius Black.
In the distance, the crack of apparition filled his ears like a gunshot, overrode senses lost in the violet hues of pleasure. When he heard it, war was on his mind.
Trouble had come to him enough that he could almost smell it on the wind.
And trouble had come.
Sirius pulled himself from her with some great difficulty, reaching for his wand on the bedside table and summoning his pants to him, trying to put them on so fast he nearly tripped in the process. His shirt was somewhere across the room, he didn't bother.
"Sirius?" Kalasia asked, sitting up, not bothering to cover herself.
He didn't answer her, buckling his belt with shaking hands, adrenaline and fear biting through his veins, gnawing at his hands.
Kalasia clearly wasn't one to be ignored, "Sirius Black," she demanded. "What is happening?"
"Stay here," was all he could offer. "If someone comes in that isn't me, tell them I forced the village to take me, that I forced myself on you."
Then he felt it, the wave of cool air washing over him even in the hot Pacific. They were here and they'd learned from their mistakes. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, he hadn't felt wards like these since his escape.
Years of bondage came back as he stepped outside to the shouts at his back, a man going to duty and death.
"Sirius Black!" He heard the minute his feet met the dirty sand, the Sonorous charm ringing through the village. "By the decree of the International Confederation of Wizards and the British Ministry of Magic, you are ordered to lay down all arms and artefacts and present yourself!"
Gripping his wand tighter, the truth had been confirmed. For a moment, he hoped it wasn't, that it could all be explained by some other coincidence. Now, it could not.
The doors of the village opened in haste, the village's warriors all rising in all states of dress, staffs in hand. They formed a circle in the centre, surrounding his foe. Just as they had danced, they raised their staffs like spears, chanting and yelling at the intruder.
When they saw him, they parted like waves and let him lay eyes upon her.
The woman was as old as he remembered—younger than him, and certainly wearing her years better. Dark blue robes were almost lost to the darkness if not for the large white cross that adorned both breasts. She looked at him, not with duty but with anger as if, somewhere along the chase, it had become more personal than professional.
Rather than attack him, she tried to appeal to the others, "The man you harbour is Sirius Black, a fugitive wanted for his service to the Dark Lord Voldemort and his betrayal of the Potter family. Relinquish your arms and artefacts, return to your homes and on the honour of the International Confederation of Wizards, you shall not be harmed. Resist and you shall be razed."
No one moved.
Then, she turned to him. "Is it not enough to leave a path of destruction across the world that you must bring innocents along with you?"
Sirius didn't rise to the bait.
"I will do you a final kindness, I will not kill you should you surrender yourself to me and face the justice you deserve."
"I am innocent," Sirius said. "I have committed no crime but loyalty, and I will not return to meet justice at the mouth of a Dementor."
She shrugged as if she was indifferent to it all, "Then you shall meet it at the end of my wand, you can run no further."
"Then I won't," he said. "I'll take my chances."
The tension in his shoulders almost reached breaking point, the harsh grip on his wand almost snapping it in two. Every muscle, every fibre of his being screeched in protest at the combat and yet, there was no other choice.
It had, as it was always destined to, come to do or die.
There were no more words, a curse barrelled towards him—a killing curse, authorised by the highest authority in the magical world, meant to end the duel before it began. He side-stepped it, bringing his wand down and around to blast her with a gout of sand.
A gust of wind blew it aside followed by a series of curses he didn't recognise, his shield of some old magic he'd learned somewhere at Grimmauld Place shattered them like glass, ethereal shards of magic shattered to the wind.
Before he could react to the next spell, a whip of flames wrapped around the side of his shield, taking his ankle and almost knocking him off balance. It burnt a black ring around the skin as the woman pulled and pulled, desperate to send him to his back.
Gritting his teeth through the pain, Sirius leapt forward with his other foot, burning the bottom of it as he stood atop it, when she pulled again, she strained too much and became immobile. He threw his arm like he was swinging a sword and knocked her to the ground, bouncing off the sand with a pained gasp.
She regained her bearings far quicker than he intended, rolling to her knees and placing a curse across his chest, earning him a long, thin slice from collar to waist. If she had been of the right mind, he'd be dead.
With her feet back beneath her, she advanced with a flurry of lesser curses, things quick to cast while he parried as many as he could with his wand, the occasional one slipping by to tear at his skin or send his nerves alight with pain.
When she got close enough, her plan came to fruition. She kicked out at him, her boot coming to catch him in the side hard enough that he was sure he felt a rib crack. Wrapping his arm around her leg quick enough to hold her there, Sirius threw his shoulder into her, taking them both to the ground.
The scuffle was bloody and brutal, she scratched at his face and in return, he bruised his knuckles against her jaw again and again until she slipped from him, her wand falling from her grasp in the melee.
Had combat not turned his mind into a single focus machine, he might have let her go, scurrying on her back for her wand. He did not and, in a single swipe, ended the struggle. A beam from one of the houses broke free, shattered and splintered, and fell upon her throat, running a red line from ear to ear.
As quick as she'd arrived and the struggle ensued, she'd fallen quiet.
Dead.
It wasn't clean and for a woman who had only done her duty, she deserved a better death than his hands.
But no death was clean.
Sounds of the warriors chanting and yelling fell to nothing more than silence, mourning the dead even if they'd been the instigator. In the wake of what he'd done, he fell to his knees, forgetting the pain that had burnt and bloodied him and vomited.
No matter how much you saw or how gruesome, killing always made you sick in the end. It was how they sorted the good from the bad.
With the fight ending, Kalasia approached him, stepping gently as if she might scare him enough that she'd be next. When she reached him, she said nothing and merely wrapped her arms around him, heedless of the blood that stained her skin, or the blood that stained his hands.
Recovering enough to take back to his feet, primal urges and survival instincts fading into guilt, he limped over to her corpse and sat beside her on the sand. The woman was younger than he first put her at, young enough that this might have been her first mission, her and many others—she was just the only successful one.
Success was relative, he supposed.
He closed her eyes, wiped the blood from her face, sealed her wounds and gave her all she deserved because he'd taken away the prospect of anything else. Sirius thought to bury her and give her peace though he was sure the family would want the body more than he'd want the closure of feeling like he'd done the right thing.
"Where will you go now?" Kalasia asked, eventually breaking the silence.
"I can't stay here," he said. "They'll find where I am, they'll bring more and I can't fight more."
"What she said, all those things, they weren't true, were they?"
Sirius just stared at the sand, "I didn't serve a Dark Lord, but I might as well have killed my mates, just about handed them over myself."
A soothing hand on his back appeared.
"You'll go to Australia now then?"
"I don't think so. I've got a godson back home, I think he needs me more now more than ever. It's time I go back to where I've been running from. Destiny will catch me, one way or another."
"Take me with you," she said. "I can help, whatever you might need."
"You've got no reason to."
"You're reason enough," she said, tracing the fresh scar across his chest with an idle finger, soft enough not to hurt the raw flesh. "I don't think you deserve to be alone. Not anymore."
All he could give her was a nod, exhaustion didn't allow for much else.
And when the sun rose, orange and scorching, Britain called him home.
Harry sat across from the man, some odd tension in the air, though he couldn't point to why. Professor Dumbledore just leaned forward on his hands and hung his head, he didn't need to be any master of emotions to know the man was ashamed.
"Did you have a reason for calling me here, sir?"
He was met with silence, entirely uncharacteristic for the man who always had some wisdom or rhetoric on hand to use at a whim. In fact, he didn't even bother to look at him.
"I did," he said eventually. "And I'm afraid you may come to hate me for it."
"I could never hate you, sir."
It was immediate, instinctual and unbeknownst to him, bordering on a lie.
The man found some amount of humour in that, "If that had truth to it, Harry, I would relish it. I've withheld things for you, things you had every right to know. I had thought to set you down a different path, I see now how wrong I was."
That piqued quiet, cautious curiosity in Harry, "What kind of path?"
"One that I had no right to."
Harry cleared his throat, averting his eyes from the man, "Oh."
"I cannot explain it in such simple terms," Dumbledore struggled with his words, something that looked horribly out of place on a man of his calibre. "I suppose it would be best to begin where the story began—with a prophecy."
"A… a prophecy?" Harry cocked his head at the man, wondering if anything would make sense. "Like… divination?"
A solemn nod met his words but the man chose not to follow it with anything, staring aimlessly through Harry, and perhaps through the door behind him.
"Prophecies are fickle things," he said. "It's easy to make meaning out of metaphors and misunderstandings, but there is power in believed truths, even false ones."
Dumbledore looked at him like he expected something, Harry just nodded, uncertain.
"I had heard it myself on the day of a moonless night," he continued, drumming his fingers on the table as he stared through him still. "They had spoke of a babe to be born as the seven month withered, to parents that had thrice defied Voldemort. A babe without equal, even fresh from the womb, given destiny before he took his first breath. A child who would match or surpass the Dark Lord, to death or defeat, that was the path they would know."
Breaths caught in Harry's throat with each word, a struggle to do something so simple as breathing when each word invited another terrible, inevitable reality into the world.
"I had tried my best," the man said. "Believe me, to protect that child I had given it all that I had, all that I was. But even I, a man who had fought and festered across battles uncounted, still believed the world might balance itself for the best. That if destiny had weighted the scales, it would keep them safe."
"It… it didn't, did it?"
"No, Harry," Dumbledore offered him the smallest, almost invisible smile. "It did not. I failed."
"Because it's me, isn't it? You don't have to dance around it, sir. I… I think part of me has always known that there was something more to this, somehow."
Silence again. It was becoming an uncomfortable companion.
"It was you," a whisper told him, croaking and hoarse. Voldemort had heard this prophecy and decided your family was the object of prophesied fate. A halfblood, the same stock as him. He sought your parents out through Petter Pettigrew. He slew them in cold blood and then he, across the corpse of your mother, attempted to fell the only true threat he'd known in decades."
"But he didn't," Harry pointed out. "The prophecy protected me?"
"Not the prophecy. No. Your mother had just as much of a hand in it as the Dark Lord. When she stood there, vigil above your crib, she gave her soul for yours. A situation not uncommon, but Voldemort had fractured himself twice that night with murder, then he sought you. He had experimented with things far forgotten, things best left forgotten. With you, I believe he had let a lifelong journey come to an end."
"A journey, sir?"
His hands fell away from the desk, then down to a drawer. Harry heard it open, then close, then open once more. From within, shaking hands procured a leatherbound book, dyed black, the edges fraying and revealing the colour beneath. It was red, horrible, and red, like blood.
The faded script across the front was hard to decipher, worked into the cover with silver that looked like it had seen more centuries than he had lived years.
MAGICK MOST EVILE.
"There are some magics so foul they leave a trace," the man continued, regaining some of the educational flair that must have characterised his teaching days. Tempered though, tempered with great sorrow. "They change the world to its core, leave it worse. These are things that can not be hidden, magic won't allow it. I had tracked Tom Riddle for years, only two steps behind. I found the artefacts he left in his wake, Helga Hufflepuff's great goblet cleaved in two, Salazar Slytherin's locket melted closed. He left the legacy of better men and women in his wake as he tried desperately to immortalise his own."
"What… what are you saying?"
"That…" If Harry felt poorly, Dumbledore looked it. The man, in all his age and wisdom, let a tear fall, meeting the crevices of his face, trying to wash away old wrinkles like sand upon a riverbed. "There is a reason you can speak to snakes, that you could hear him, that he turned to ash upon your touch. When he sought to kill you, he killed himself in turn. But when he came to you and cast that curse, on that day, he completed something he had struggled for, ached for his entire life. A quest that had left bodies in his wake—something that had evaded him until you, on an October night, under all the wrong circumstances."
He didn't have thoughts or words, only the notion that if the floor opened up and swallowed him, letting him fall forever, that wouldn't be so bad.
"A Horcrux," he said, letting the unfamiliar word fall upon his skin and watched as it made his student shiver. "Death is fundamental, the inexorable imperative of all life. But Voldemort had subverted it, had broken free from the bondage of death, and he had done it through you. He survived that night because when he slew himself, he left part of him in your skull, in the scar, to linger like a memory. Passage back to the waking world."
In truth, it was a baseless move, he couldn't help it though. A hand reached up to his scar and ran his fingers over it, hard. Forcing the ident of mismatched skin red, his fingers dared delve further, nails drawing blood like he might wrest Voldemort from within using hands alone.
Fruitless, but desperate. A phrase which had begun to encapsulate the life of Harry Potter with horrible accuracy.
Allowing him his attempt for a moment, Dumbledore raised a hand and swiped it gently, sending Harry's hand to his lap just as he'd drawn blood.
"You had it within you," the man said. "Had, no longer. When you died in that lake, he died instead of you. In his attempt to kill a child, he gave you life instead, thirteen years later. You survived because Voldemort could not look past himself, and the consequences, of what such an action might wreak. You were his first Horcrux, he could never perfect the ritual, never walk in the footsteps of the men he thought greater than him. You were the first, and the last."
A lump formed in his throat, one that refused to abate even when he swallowed until he could swallow no more. "So… so you're saying he saved me?" Harry sounded incredulous. "But Fleur survived too. Voldemort doesn't even know about her. If it saved me, what saved her?"
"You," the man urged, leaning forward in his chair. "You saved her, Harry. When Voldemort's soul left your body, it left a void, an abyss in which only another soul could fill. I had scoured Veela literature, thinking it was her magic that saved you, but it wasn't. When you both died, part of her soul went to you and your soul, damaged as it was, returned the favour. Two halves of a whole, perhaps lesser for it, but alive."
Harry, with two hands, pushed his chair back from the Headmaster's desk with one great shove, sending the wooden chair screeching across the floor.
"Say that again," Harry whispered, squinting his eyes hard, so hard that he thought he might be able to block the world out.
"That just as Voldemort saved you in his murderous, unintentional manner, you saved Fleur Delacour. The man had dealt you a death blow and from it, you granted life."
That lump in his throat threatened to choke him, like a hand around his throat, sharp and tight.
You're like Voldemort, a voice told him.
No, I'm not, he tried to tell it.
You are, it said, and squeezed tighter for it.
Noticing the turmoil in him—it couldn't have been difficult, Dumbledore's sad eyes took an edge on them, a glint of steel, anger. "You are not like Tom Riddle. Not in any way that has ever mattered. Your circumstances have aligned in more places than one, you are both born from my mistakes. But you are a boy, becoming a man, without equal. He lingered by taking a life, you survived by saving one, even at the cost of your own. There is no subtle difference, no sudden truth that would make you similar. No man is ever truly all good or all evil, but Tom Riddle is perhaps as close to evil as one might reach, and you as close to good."
"But he was in me, wasn't he?" Harry whispered. "You said it yourself, the reason I could talk to snakes, the reason I saw that man die. You said it yourself, you can't take it back. It's in my memory now, I'll just keep hearing it. He was in me, and no one could do anything. No one could do anything if I'm destined to be just like him."
Just. Like. Him.
"No," Albus whispered. "You'll be more, so much more and I have so much more you need to know. So much I need to apologise for. I…"
When Harry looked at Albus Dumbledore, he saw a hero in his own right, and he saw a broken man.
It had become apparent that you could be both.
Swallowing to try and wrench that hand from around his throat and pulling his chair back to its original position, Harry rested his hands upon the desk, only just realising they were shaking.
At the hands of the man who felt he had taken everything from the world, he learnt what truths were made of.
How he sorely wished he hadn't.
Fleur had waited for him as she always had, unable to fall asleep without his presence. She'd expected him back the same way that he'd left and, instead, he returned red-eyed and dishevelled, dried blood on his forehead. There wasn't even an opportunity to ask him what was wrong.
"If… If I cry, will it bother you?" Harry asked in a way that would break anyone's heart, even hers.
"Never," she swore. "I promised I'd listen."
Wordlessly, Harry kicked off his shoes and crawled into bed, Fleur moved over slightly, resting his head in her lap.
Then, he sobbed. He cried for all that had happened to them, what he'd unwittingly done and for all they'd lost and he cried for the future he could have had if things had been so very, very different.
"It was me," he whispered through the sobs. "It was all me."
She wouldn't ask just as he didn't, she didn't know if she ever would—some things deserved to be private and they'd had enough of their privacy taken away from them, stripping them bare. She wouldn't even try and think it, he deserved that much.
And, sometimes, just being with someone meant more than knowing.