I.

This club Harry's solicitors insisted on as a neutral ground is, of course, not neutral. It is in London, and the very air of the place feels old and wizarding and male.

Bellona sits across the table from Harry, who looks very out of place in his typically shabby clothes. Of course Mrs. Weasley is with him, and his solicitors - two of them, women, with elegant haircuts and beautifully cut robes. According to Daphne, they're the latest in a long line of very, very talented solicitors, and Shacklebolt & Selwyn represent just about everyone who's anyone in wizarding England.

Belle might be a little more intimidated if not for Monsieur Camenzind, but it is hard to find even two such women as Mademoiselle Léonie and Mademoiselle Ariel Shacklebolt frightening when Monsieur Camenzind is sipping from a dark-tinted glass and smiling with his very sharp teeth.

"The issue is not precedent," he says, balancing his pen between the tips of his index fingers. "The issue is direct inheritance. My client is the natural heir of the deceased, and in his original will-"

" Our client is named as inheritor," Mademoiselle Léonie cuts in. She speaks, and Mademoiselle Ariel watches and takes notes, and Belle thinks it likely that Mademoiselle Ariel is by far the more dangerous. "In the deceased's original and only will, he named Mr. Harry James Potter as his inheritor. Therefore, Mr. Potter is his heir."

"When your office eventually sent me a copy of the deceased's will, Ms. Shacklebolt, I noticed a clause-"

"A clause rendered invalid by your client's illegitimacy-"

"I'm sure your English courts would love to have the old debate over "legal heirs" versus "heirs of the body" rehashed. Again."

Maman wraps her arm over Belle's shoulders and squeezes tight as the solicitors bicker back and forth. Harry looks almost queasy on his side of the table, and Mrs. Weasley is frowning - but for once, not at Belle.

Instead, she's frowning at Harry's solicitors. Unexpected.

Harry is also frowning now, looking between all the solicitors and then down to the table, all covered in forms and letters.

They are drawing looks from other patrons - Monsieur Camenzind and Mademoiselle Léonie are truly arguing now, and Belle would be a little embarrassed, if she cared about the opinions of such horrible old men as are gathered here.

Mademoiselle Ariel makes a note and pushes it across the table to Monsieur Camenzind. It makes him laugh, whatever it is, and he and Mademoiselle Léonie are rising from their seats in temper when Harry clears his throat.

"I don't know if it matters," he says. "But I think Sirius would have wanted everything to go to Bellona, and it isn't as if I need the money."

He turns to Belle then, shrugging.

"Apparently, I have a house in Cornwall. My grandparents' house."

"I hear Cornwall is very lovely," Belle offers, wondering how in the world Harry could be unaware of his family's holdings. Belle has always known that, despite being Jeanne's elder, despite being the sole heir to Grand-mère's heir, she will never inherit the duchy, but she knows the ins and outs of it all the same. Harry is the only Potter left - surely someone thought to make him aware of his wealth?

"I've never been. I didn't even know where my family's money came from until yesterday. It's all been very surprising - I can't wait to tell Aunt Petunia that my dad was rich. She'll be furious."

Both sisters Shacklebolt round on him in shock, and Mrs. Weasley looks equal parts pained and proud. Belle does not know any specifics, but she understands that the Weasleys are not wealthy - Ron's several-decades out-of-style dress robes for the Yule Ball had drawn derision from Draco for weeks, so much so that Belle still remembers them well - and so she understands why Mrs. Weasley would not be pleased to see Harry signing away such wealth as Papa inherited from his parents.

The pride is probably that he is doing the right thing.

"So really, Mr. Camenzind," Harry says, butchering the pronunciation but bravely making the attempt, "we don't need to fight over this - Belle can have it. I don't want it."

Monsieur Camenzind looks a little disappointed that it isn't going to court, but he disappears off with the Mademoiselles Shacklebolt to finalise the transfer all the same.

"If I'd known, I'd never have accepted it," Harry says, when it's just him and Belle and Mrs. Weasley and Maman. "But Professor Dumbledore came to visit me over the summer, and he had all these forms, and he told me that you'd signed off on the house. It made sense that you wouldn't want it - I know how much Sirius hated the house. I didn't even think about the money, Belle, I really didn't, and then when all the lawyers appeared they started telling me about the company my grandfather founded-"

"So you are a Sleakeazy Potter," Maman says. "I had wondered."

"I didn't even know that I should be wondering," Harry says, shrugging. "But it's all sorted now, isn't it? We're all alright now, aren't we?"

Are they? Belle isn't sure, but for Hermione's sake, for Ron's and Remus', and for the sake of Papa's memory, she supposes they have to be.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, we are."

The solicitors, from the little room where they've sequestered themselves, erupt into another shouting match. Maman and Mrs. Weasley sigh in concert, and then share a tired sort of look.

"All the same, regardless of species," Maman says archly, which makes Mrs. Weasley laugh. That alone makes Belle feel a great deal more hopeful.

They all stop outside the horrible club, Maman's arm locked tight with Belle's and Mrs. Weasley's arm looped neatly through Harry's. The solicitors are still arguing, but Monsieur Camenzind assured Maman that it is mostly just for show at this stage.

"We are bringing family to London for Christmas," Maman says. "To Bellona's house. If you are not already invited elsewhere, we should be glad to have you."

It is a great effort for Maman to say this, not only because Mrs. Weasley has been unwelcoming to Bellona but because Madame Appoline wrote to Maman and told her how the Weasleys behaved toward the Delacours over the summer. Belle has had letters from Fleur as well, and is amazed that she didn't lose her temper with the Weasleys. Belle doesn't think she could have tolerated being called Phlegm , no matter how much she loved someone. the best thing that ever happened to any of these people, and they should be keenly aware of it.

"You can meet my grandmother," Belle offers to Harry. "And my cousin Jeanne, and my grandfather as well - my family are all coming. They're going to help me cleanse the house."

"We cleaned the house quite well last year," Mrs. Weasley says, just a little snippy, and Maman laughs.

"I am sure you did, Madame Weasley," she says, "but there is cleaning, and there is cleansing - Veela fire can cut through curses. We have been testing things since last Christmas, when Bellona's fire burned the wall at her father's house."

"If you can remove that horrific portrait of Sirius' mother, I'll buy you a whole case of Firewhiskey," Mrs. Weasley says. "Anything that can do that is a miracle."

II.

Christmas Day dawns dull and a little rainy, but Belle doesn't mind the weather. The house is bright with noise, and Grand-mère and Ukki are already arguing somewhere upstairs. Aleksi and Anatole are laughing together as they arrange the final few decorations, strings of tiny golden bells that chime softly with Vive le Vent and Douce Nuit. Maman and the aunts are singing brightly as they arrange the gifts under and around the tree in the parlour, and the twins are whispering secrets to one another on their perch on the counter at the far end of the kitchen.

Jeanne has all her perfect starlight hair gathered up into an enormous twist on top of her head, and her sleeves are rolled back to her elbows. Even she cannot wear a festive apron without looking absurd, however, and there is something comforting in that.

The knot of Belle's hair atop her own head is bigger and much messier than Jeanne's, and her apron even more ridiculous - Jeanne's is as tasteful as a vinyl Mrs. Claus can be, but Belle purposely chose the ugliest pattern of dancing snowmen and elves she could find. Only Jeanne seems to find it as funny as she does.

"I've spelled the door to keep Anatole and Amand out," she says, to which Jeanne nods sharply. Then, turning to the twins, "and if you two lazy bitches don't help, I'll throw you out as well."

Apollonia rolls her eyes and sighs dramatically, but Artemisia's poisonous silence is much more worrisome. Oh well. Even if Artemisia entirely loses her temper, Jeanne is stronger and a much, much better fighter than her, and Belle's gotten very good at all kinds of useful spells and hexes, thanks to Harry's clever lessons last year, and her own careful study, hidden in whispers with Blaise and Daphne.

"I won't tolerate you getting in the way," she warns them, because Tante Metis insisted on their helping Belle and Jeanne prepare dinner despite their strident disinterest. "So either you help, or you get out and face your mother. The decision is yours."

"They want to wait here until Blaise arrives," Jeanne says. "It is more fancying him than fear of their mother than keeps them here."

"Blaise finds you both insufferable," Belle says, both because it is true and because it will infuriate them. "He likes me best, and then Jeanne, and then Amand."

"I don't see how you could be anyone's favourite, Bellona," Artemisia says, in her nasty little way. "A silly thing like you-"

"Says the girl who thought it best to fly directly into an oncoming fireball as a means of defence," Jeanne says. "That's quite enough of you, Artemisia. Get over here and start peeling potatoes."

Artemisia settles deeper into her hunch atop the counter until Jeanne singes the ends of her hair, and then she and Apollonia dive for the sink to avoid Jeanne's continuing wrath.

Their visitors are due to arrive sometime around one o'clock, and Belle and Jeanne have everything planned down to the last moment, so they can lay out their amuses-bouches. They have a few minutes planned to dress one another's hair and change into their dresses, and Maman and Tante Leto will probably do something over-the-top to try and outdo Tante Metis and whatever absurd gift she will give to the twins. Belle just hopes Maman gets it out of her system before everyone else arrives.

Dora and Dromeda arrive first, Dromeda in the most fantastic bright green velvet and Dora in subtle, elegant charcoal grey, plain and sombre and completely unlike her. Dromeda gives Belle a significant look over Dora's shoulder, and scowls with superb venom at Remus when he pokes his head around the door not ten minutes later.

Ted Tonks, who ambled in just before Remus, smelling more than a little of pipe smoke, greets Belle with a hug and an absent-minded kiss on the cheek, and a very large bottle of whiskey.

"I know you're a little young," he says, eyeing Dromeda warningly, "but you might need it by the end of the day."

Jeanne loops her arm through Remus' and guides him away from Dora and Dromeda. She and Bellona had the same lessons in hosting from Grand-mère as girls, but they've never really had a chance to put them into practice until now. Belle isn't sure which one of them is more excited, but she is certain that they are equally determined to prove themselves worthy students.

"I could kill Artemisia for wearing that," Jeanne hisses as she passes with a tray of delicate little Laguiole and sweet onion tarts. Artemisia's hideous frilly blouse is a scandal of ugly Italian fashion, and even Tante Metis is making no attempt to defend it - a true sign that it is unforgivable. "How dare she!"

"At least Apollonia's pride wouldn't allow her to match it," Belle comforts her, passing a platter of blinis to Anatole - she needs her hands free to answer the door, after all. "Take comfort in that, J - and everyone else looks well enough to distract from her."

"The end of the world itself could not distract from that, " Aleksi says, taking Jeanne's tray and kissing her brow. "Go, pupu, drag her upstairs before you make yourself sick with worry, go."

Jeanne very literally drags Artemisia along with her when she charges for the stairs, and Belle kisses Aleksi's cheek before running to the door.

Madam Sofia is glorious in red damask, and Blaise his usual elegant self in his preferred blue-and-black. Belle's pocket is heavier once Madam Sofia releases her, and Blaise arches a knowing eyebrow when she rolls her eyes.

"You're glowing, Belle," he says, leaning down to kiss her cheek. "Mama bought me a new camera for Christmas, so I'll take as many photos as I can to prove to Daph that you've remembered how to smile."

She thumps him in the arm for that, but locks her elbow with his as well and pulls him down toward the kitchen. Kreacher is grumbling somewhere under the sink, and her grandmother's portrait raves intermittently, silenced only by whispered threats from Dromeda and the sudden spark of fire in a passing de Poitiers' hand.

The kitchen is heavy with steam and smell, and Belle is quick to put Blaise to work - he has such a deft hand with pastry that she sets him up with the desserts. The buche de Noël is already done, of course, and the heavy English fruitcake, but there are religieuses to be made, and a profiterole tower, and Belle has to arrange and garnish the tuilles, and Jeanne will scream if anything happens to her beautifully shiny little macarons in all their rainbow of colours. There are pipparkakku made to Aleksi's recipe, and joulotorttu made to Ukki's. Blaise sent her his aunt's recipe for syrniki, and brought with him a jar of splendid looking raspberry coulis, and the carefully balanced tin under his arm reveals the most scrumptious smelling medovik.

"Is that honey cake?" Jeanne asks, breathless from her efforts to right Artemisia's sartorial wrongs. "Oh, Blaise, I could kiss you!"

Dessert is well in hand, then, and so Jeanne and Belle return their efforts to the starters - two choices of soup, a salade Niçoise for those so inclined, more of Jeanne's sublime little tarts, scallops awaiting searing, smoked salmon and crusty bread, and hearty stuffed potato skins for the hungrier among them - and the main. They have a turkey, because heaven forbid the English not have their turkey on Christmas day, but also quail stuffed with foie-gras, a venison loin, rich chestnut stuffing, potatoes cooked three ways, and as many kinds of vegetables as they could find fresh and to their particular standards when Anatole and Amand brought them shopping the day before Christmas Eve.

"How many are there for dinner?" Blaise asks, surveying their feast with a slightly sceptical air. "You've enough to feed half of London here, Belle."

"Well, there is all of us, which is twelve," Jeanne says. "Yourself and your maman, which is fourteen."

"Dromeda's family makes seventeen, and Remus eighteen," Belle adds. "And then the Weasleys - so another six - and Harry and Hermione is two more, which means twenty-six."

"And possibly Fleur," Jeanne reminds her.

"Oh, and maybe Fleur and her fiance, who is another Weasley, so either twenty-six or twenty-eight."

"Where are you going to put them?" Blaise asks, which until yesterday had been something of a conundrum.

"Hermione helped me play a little trick on the house," Belle assures him. "Worry not, Blaise, there will be plenty of room for all of us."

There is room for all of them, and more than enough food - even Ron Weasley's unconquerable appetite is defeated, and even Ginny Weasley scrounges up a compliment or two for Belle and Jeanne's cooking.

They all settle into the parlour after dinner - tricked, just as the dining room was, by one of worryingly-absent Hermione's clever spells, and three times as big as it was this time last year - and everyone shares out their gifts. Belle receives a huge amount of jewellery, from the dark sapphire bracelet Madam Sofia slipped into her pocket at the door to beautiful diamond-headed hair pins from Jeanne, and an array of scarves and socks from Tante Metis.

Bellona cannot remember when last she had a gift of any sort from Tante Metis, and decides that she will accept this in the spirit of the season.

From Maman there is a new set of dress robes - brilliant bright silver silk, which makes the aunts gasp.

"Juno!" Leto exclaims. "However did you source that? They said they'd never sell to us again, after the incident in Zagreb!"

Maman smiles, smug in a way Belle recognises more than she'd like from the mirror, and leans back into her chair.

"Those merfolk are not the only ones who farm pen shells," she says. "I found an alternate source. That is all you need know, little sister."

Sea-silk! Grand-mère has a gown of sea-silk, a filmy thing of purest white that Ukki gave her a very long time ago, when they were courting, but she keeps it tucked away in a sealed box for fear of the moths, and for greater fear of it being stolen. They have better access to sea-silk than the Muggles, of course, but it is still rare and highly prized simply for how difficult it is to produce.

Maman went not only to great trouble but to enormous expense to source this cloth, and that she did that - and brought it to Mademoiselle Lelong, too, because there is her card in the box! - has Belle almost in tears.

"I cannot accept this, Maman," she says, barely daring to touch the beautiful, beautiful robes. "It is too much!"

"Well, it won't fit anyone else, chouette," Anatole says, looping his arms over her shoulders from behind. "And no one else would look so striking as you in that colour, so I suppose you must suffer through receiving such a lovely gift, no?"

"Do you know, there are some sapphires in the Black vault that would set that silver off just beautifully," Dromeda says. "A choker and earrings at least, and I think a headpiece of some sort as well. I remember my mother wearing them, before your grandmother stopped letting the rest of the family access the vault."

"Like you would've worn anything like that, Mum," Dora says, perching on the arm of the couch with a little smile. "I don't think you've worn anything expensive since before I was born."

"Probably would've sold them," Dromeda agrees, completely without shame. Belle admires that about her - it isn't arrogance, or the Black haughtiness she keeps hearing about. It's a simple assurance of who she is that keeps Dromeda's head high and her smile warm, and Belle thinks there is a great deal herself and Dora could learn from that.

"It would be nice for you to have something of your grandmother's to wear, Bellona," Maman says, drawing her back. "Even if she does seem to have been a horrid old bitch."

c)

Belle's family are the noisiest bunch of people Harry's ever encountered.

Maybe it wouldn't be so striking if they weren't all talking in different languages, but her mother and aunts are laughing together in French, her cousins are playing cards and arguing in what might be Latin, because it sounds like spells, and her grandparents are dancing over on the other side of the fireplace and talking quietly to one another in - where did Belle say her grandfather was from? Scandinavian something or other.

Her uncles, at least, are sitting with Tonks and her father, and they're speaking English. Harry decides they should be safe enough to sit with, since the Weasleys are all a bit glum about Percy, and Belle's been in the most suspicious mood Harry's ever seen since they arrived without Hermione in tow.

"Wotcher," Tonks says, her eyes narrowed across the chessboard at the smaller of Belle's uncles - Amand, the one who isn't her mother's brother. "Don't say a word, Harry, I've got him right where I want him."

"Bah!" Amand says, winking up at Harry. "She 'as no idea what she is doing."

"She is better than me," the other uncle, Anatole, says. Harry's seen him half a dozen times before, but this is the first time he hasn't been wearing all black-and-white - Belle's convinced as many people as possible into hideously ugly jumpers, and Anatole's is blue and red, with little flashing lights on it. It makes him a good deal less intimidating than he was in Hogsmeade, before Christmas. "But then, I am bad at chess. Bellona has been able to triumph over me since she was a little baby."

Ted Tonks is a plain little man with the friendliest smile Harry's ever seen, and he nods very slightly to the glass of wine in Anatole's hand.

"Sit here with me," he says, patting the end of the couch. "Dromeda'll be back from wherever she's gone soon, and she'll have to make friends if you're sitting with me. Good lad."

Harry has a vague idea that this might be what it's like to have a grandfather, and reckons he could probably do worse than Ted Tonks.

Belle comes thundering down the stairs with the oldest of her cousins - Jean? No, Jeanne - and Andromeda in tow, trailed by a smell of burning paper.

"We stripped the walls in the horrible room," she says cheerfully when her mother looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "Dromeda told us 'oo they were as we burned them away."

The other man who looks identical to Belle's grandfather sweeps her away to dance alongside her grandparents, and soon all of Belle's family are dancing.

"Oh, Arthur," Mrs. Weasley says, looking teary but better than she had before. "Do you remember dancing to this?"

"I don't see why we shouldn't dance to it again," Mr. Weasley says cheerfully, and they're followed onto the sudden dancefloor by Andromeda and Ted, and then Tonks and one of the twins, and then Blaise Zabini's mother and the other twin - George, now Harry can get a look at him.

Harry slips away to the kitchen. The Yule Ball put a fear of dancing in him that he hasn't quite gotten over.

Kreacher is grumbling away under the sink, and Harry settles in by the fire with a bottle of Butterbeer. It isn't often that he gets time alone, so he makes himself comfortable. It's easy enough to ignore Kreacher, and the kitchen still smells of baking and roast meat - Belle and her cousin put on a feast the house elves would be proud of, and they'd both beamed when even Mrs. Weasley had to admit that it was brilliant.

Harry's never really sat in a kitchen without feeling like he should be doing something, but Belle's grandmother had declared that the younger two cousins would be doing the washing up, and Belle and Jeanne seem to be the tidiest cooks he's ever seen, because the place already seems clean and tidy. The fire is still burning, crackling quietly every so often, and it's the most at ease Harry has been in a long time.

Especially because he doesn't have to deal with Ron and Hermione, just for a few minutes.

He's so comfortable that he dozes off a little, and he wakes up to find that he's no longer alone in the kitchen. There's a set of Slytherin Quidditch robes thrown over the chair at the end of the table, and the quiet murmur of Belle's lilting accent is just audible over the fire.

He listens a little closer.

"There is no one else left who would know him as well as you, Kreacher," she's saying. "The only one left who can tell me about my uncle. Will you, Kreacher? Please? I know you don't like me because of what my mother is, but I am a Black as well as a de Poitiers. I would like to know what that means."

She pulls herself up with one hand on the back of the chair, the silver of all her rings and her pale fingers very bright against the green of the Quidditch robes, and she smiles at Harry when she sees that he's awake.

"Even if you will not speak to me, Kreacher," she says, "I would like you to sort these robes, please - they were my uncle's, and I would have them cleaned and stored as you see fit."

Belle comes to sit beside Harry, taking his mostly-full bottle of Butterbeer from his hand and sipping from it.

Kreacher pulls the robes from the chair and disappears - out of the kitchen, because his grumbling goes with him.

"I did not mean to wake you," Belle says. "I am sorry, 'Arry."

"I didn't mean to intrude," he says. "Where did you find those robes?"

"Would you believe that they've been in a trunk in our changing rooms since my uncle was at school?" she says, shaking her head. "I outgrew mine, and they fit. It's been horrible, having to wear them."

She passes back the bottle of Butterbeer. He takes a sip.

"I know that I have been… Unkind, in all of this," she says, folding her hands together before her. She has very long, thin fingers, and she wears a lot of heavy silver rings - one or two Harry recognises as Sirius', but the rest look like antiques. He's never really noticed them before now, but then, he thinks that he and Belle have never been alone like this for him to notice something like that before. "I am sorry for that. I did not intend it."

"I've not been as nice as I could have been," he admits. Even now, that horrible fury that made him wreck Dumbledore's office turns his stomach when he thinks about Sirius, and his throat feels tight with it. "I should have- I should have written, Belle. I know Hermione did, and Ron said he did as well."

"I didn't even reply to Blaise's letters over the summer," she confesses. "I barely did anything. Jeanne was all that kept me going, truthfully. We were never close growing up, but I cannot imagine being without her now. Isn't that strange?"

He suspects she feels the same way about having lost Sirius, because that's just how Harry feels. Sirius had been one of the best, most unexpected parts of being a wizard, and now that he's gone, well. Harry doesn't know what he feels, but it's horrible.

He passes the bottle back to Belle. She raises it in a toast before taking a sip.

"I know that Papa was not only mine," she says. "It is only that- well, everyone seemed to forget that he was mine at all, sometimes. Everyone here in England, I mean. Remus and Dora and Dromeda, they have done their best, but it is still- do you know how I found out about Papa's death?"

He shakes his head. He assumed McGonagall told her, but has a sinking feeling that that was a stupid thing to do.

"Professor Snape threw me into a classroom to protect me from Professor Umbridge and her gang," she says. "I was there all night - I think I had more plumage than hair by morning, when he came to let me out. He told me that all my friends were fine, but that Papa had- that he was-"

She hiccups, and then she's crying. Harry's never known what to do when a girl cries, but he's crying a little bit as well so it isn't as bad this time. He throws his arm over Belle's shoulders and pulls her close, patting her arm as comfortingly as he can.

"I'm all that's left of him," she says, sniffling. "He couldn't leave a legacy, thanks to Pettigrew, so there's just me. And I don't know what to do with it! I don't know who I'm supposed to be, here in England!"

"I don't really know either," Harry offers. "I felt like a right prat when Miss Shacklebolt told me I owned Sleakeazy. First I ever heard of it was when Hermione used it for the Yule Ball."

Belle starts to laugh then, and it's a little watery, but it's genuine.

"Shall we be friends, then?" she asks, pressing the bottle back into his hand. "It's what Papa would have wanted."

"It is," Harry agrees. "And I think we're doing alright, but maybe we can talk a little more often."

"You'll have to tell me all your favourite sweets," Belle says, smiling up at him from under her eyelashes. "Because once Maman and Anatole find out that we have made up, they'll start sending special orders for you, just like they do for everyone else."

"I think I'll survive," he says, because even the sweets he doesn't like out of Belle's magical basket of food are delicious.

Belle's mother takes Harry aside when everyone is saying their goodbyes that night, a paper hat askew on her head. Madam de Poitiers - Madam Juno, since all of them answer to Madam de Poitiers - is very beautiful, but she isn't as intimidating as she should be, just because he can see an awful lot of Belle in her face.

"So, Monsieur Potter," she says, tipping his chin up so he's looking her in the eye. She and both of Belle's aunts have spent the day walking around in spindly high heels as if they were slippers, and even if they weren't already tall women they'd be towering over everyone except maybe Ron and the twins. "You spoke with my Bellona."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, for want of anything else. "In the kitchen," he adds, just to fill in a little of the silence he's afraid she might let drag on.

"Good boy," she says, surprising him. "Sirius would not have been so very fond of you if you were as stupid as you've seemed so far this year."

She kisses him first on his right cheek and then on the left, and Harry ponders this in great confusion even as he spins back to the Burrow via Floo. He thinks Belle's mother just gave him her blessing, but he isn't sure what for.

III.

The morning after Christmas involves a great deal of the adults complaining, and Belle has no pity for them - Jeanne and the twins set themselves to cleaning the sitting room, cheerfully making as much noise as they can.

Belle, armed only with a mercifully well Remus, decides to tackle her father's bedroom.

"I've never been in here," she admits. "Papa was very… Private."

"Always," Remus agrees. His French accent is somehow even worse than Harry's, but he's trying very sincerely. Even so, he doesn't miss the way her nose wrinkles, and so he switches back to English. "And disorganised - that's why I appointed myself your godfather. You needed at least one sensible grown up to handle Sirius' side of things."

"I did wonder," she says, unlocking Papa's door, "how you ended up as my godfather, since Papa did not know about me when I was born."

"James would have been, if he had known," Remus says, and does not sound disappointed by that. "They were closer than brothers."

Her father's room smells musty, and the curtains are drawn. Belle does her best not to look around until she's thrown the curtains back and opened the window, and when she does-

"Why are there so many ladies in underwear?" she asks. "No, do not answer. I would rather not know."

Remus sniggers, but he takes down the posters of the nearly-naked women. Then he takes down the faded Quidditch posters, then the Muggle photographs of motorbikes. Once Belle has stripped the bed, he lays them in neat stacks on the bare mattress, and for a sickly moment, this feels like another funeral.

Belle looks to the moving photos.

Most are of her father as a young man. The first is a stiff, formal portrait with a boy who looks enough like Belle to startle her, and with the old bitch in the portrait in the hallway, and a severe looking man who can only be Belle's grandfather. She has seen portraits and photographs of herself as a little girl, and it is disquieting to see so much of her own face in her dead uncle's. Next there is another portrait, this just of Papa and his brother on what must be Uncle Regulus' first day at Hogwarts. Papa's tie is red-and-gold, the trim on his robes scarlet, but Uncle Regulus' are all plain black, and he looks hardly older than he did in the other portrait.

"Did you have to change into your robes before you got on the train for school?" she asks, breaking into whatever Remus is laughing about on the other side of the room.

"Nah," he says. "A lot of the Purebloods did, though - I think it was to mark themselves apart from the likes of me."

The photographs from school make Belle's heart twist - Papa carrying a boy who simply must be Harry's father across his shoulder, Papa with a boy who can only be Remus pulling faces behind him, Papa with another boy who must, therefore, be Peter Pettigrew, sitting together by the fire in what she assumes to be the Gryffindor common room.

She has photos of herself and Blaise and Daphne that are similar. Her favourite is of Blaise hanging upside-down over a low branch of her favourite tree, with Daphne curled elegantly into a neat little notch in the trunk. Bellona herself is sitting higher up, above Blaise, bending down so that she can be seen through the leaves. Theo Nott took it, back before he remembered what his father expected of him.

She pulls a ribbon from her pocket to tie around all the photos of Papa at school. There are some with a girl with long red hair who she suspects to be Harry's maman, based on those sharp green eyes, and even one with a pink-faced boy who is Neville Longbottom's papa. Belle wonders if she might give that one to Neville, and decides to ask Hermione if that would be appropriate - she likes Neville, and thinks that he likes her as well, but she does not know if they are friends.

"Remus?"

"Hmm?"

"What happened to all of these people?"

Because of all the people in Papa's school photos, Belle has met only Remus. That terrifies her, in the shadow of Dolores Umbridge's reign at Hogwarts, with the English War beckoning so closely again, because what is she to do if she loses any of her few friends?

Remus looks very tired when he looks her in the eye, and she is the one to look away. She knows what happened - all the gaps and missing pieces in the stories she heard while part of Dumbledore's Army, from Susan Bones and Neville Longbottom and all the rest, they are because of the war. Because of people like her uncle, her grandparents, the madwoman whose face she shares.

"Oh," she says, and they move on.

Her father has more photos of Remus and of James and Lily Potter and of Peter Pettigrew, tucked into boxes and hidden between socks in his drawers, and even in the pocket of a long-unworn set of dress robes. Everywhere they look, there are more photographs and letters, and even a pair of tiny painted miniatures of himself and Uncle Regulus.

"Here, Belle," Remus says, waving a stack of photos tied with a bright red ribbon at her - a dusty ribbon, but bright despite its age under the dust. "You might like this."

More photos, but this time… Why, that is Maman!

Belle has never truly seen it before, but she really does look as much like Maman as she did like Papa. That comforts her very much, in this house with so many echoes of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Maman always spoke well of Papa, even when he was still in Azkaban, before Belle went to Hogwarts, and Papa… Well, Belle thought that perhaps Papa was still a little in love with Maman, but even the softness that flourished between them after their reunion is nothing compared with these photos.

"They loved one another," Remus says, very gently. "We all laughed when Sirius said he'd started going out with a French girl, because everyone else he'd ever introduced to us had been awful - he had terrible taste, until he met your mum."

"She once told me the same thing," Belle says, wishing she didn't sound quite so close to tears. "She said she was the making of him, until she came home to Valence."

"She was," Remus agrees, surprising her. "Don't get me wrong, Sirius was always going to be… Impressive, but your mum made him do things he never expected of himself, I think. She made him cut his hair after James and Lily's wedding, if nothing else. Didn't think anything could make him do that, but Juno did."

There are thirty photographs or more of just Maman and Papa in this bundle, and there is another bundle in Remus' hand - letters! Letters in Maman's handwriting!

"These I'm going to give to your mother first," Remus says, flushing pink when Belle reaches for them. "So she can, ah, censor them."

Oh!

"There's still more," Belle says, diving away for the photos pinned above Papa's bed - Harry's parents' wedding day, Harry and his parents, Harry on a toy broom-

And Belle. Photos of her as a baby, as a little girl, the day she left for Hogwarts. Photos of her and Blaise eating ice-cream in Monsieur Fortescue's, of them walking arm-in-arm through St. Petersburg, of them sitting in the sunshine in Amand's garden in Rennes. Photos of her and Maman in the gardens in Valence, or sitting by the river in Taivolkovski, or of Maman doing Belle's hair in front of Grand-mère's dressing table.

Photos of Belle and Papa, taken last Christmas. Belle is asleep in one of them, curled against Papa's side with his arm over her shoulders. She has never seen that one before.

"Come on," Remus says, tugging on her elbow. "I think we've done enough for one morning, don't you?"

Maman weeps when Belle shows her the photos. Belle has known that Maman has been grieving for Papa since the summer, but this is the first time she's seen it.

It makes her own burden feel a little lighter, to share it.

"I wish I could take it back," she says, words choking between sobs. "Oh, chouette, I wish- I was so frightened when his brother disappeared, and I knew that we would be such targets because of what I am. I couldn't! I could not take that risk!"

Grand-mère is frowning at Maman's shoulder, her jaw set and her eyes hard, and Belle wonders if this explains it all - that it was not her being half-human that caused them all to hold her in such low regard compared with Jeanne, but that she was the reason Maman walked away from someone she loved.

It is easier for Ukki and Aleksi to love her as they always have. Taivolkovski is not central to all Veela in western Europe as Valence is, and there is no great and glorious history behind that side of the family, not as there is shadowing over the de Poitiers - from La Belle Diane herself, down through fair Louise Borgia, who had the blood by her father's mother, all the way to proud, haughty Europa, with her three daughters and three full-blooded granddaughters.

Belle was jealous of that legacy, of the weight of it, when she was a girl. Now she is glad not to bear it, even if having no true share of it means she will always stand a little on the outside of her family, just as Anatole does.

That maybe explains it, but it does not excuse it. Belle has come too far, thanks to Blaise and Daphne and their refusal to ever bow to Grand-mère's expectation of disdain, and she will not be cowed again. Not even by Maman's grief.

"We never made plans," Maman says, leaning into Grand-mère's touch. "It was always so exciting, to say that it was too dangerous to plan for the future, but then there was you, and I had no choice but to think ahead, and Sirius was too headstrong and too foolhardy-"

"Enough, Juno," Anatole says, his hands on Belle's shoulders. "Don't you think this is hard enough for Bellona?"

"It is hard for your sister as well, Anatole," Grand-mère says warningly, but Anatole, alone of her children, fails to heed her warnings. It is that talent that allowed him to be Belle's champion, all those years in Valence.

It has not escaped her that he moved to Rennes as soon as she left for school. She just doesn't know how to thank him for it.

"Belle has little enough of her father without you bad-mouthing him," Anatole scolds Maman, and Belle cannot help but cover his hands with her own. "Of all the things Juno, why must you be selfish about this? Bad enough you behaved as you did when she was small, but this! If you love her at all, surely you can see that she deserves better?"

"How dare you-"

Aleksi tugs Belle out of the way as Maman and Anatole begin to fight - Grand-mère, of course, sides with Maman, and the aunts as well, and Ukki comes to stand with his hand on Anatole's back. It always ends this way, when there is a row, and Belle understands better than she might like.

Anatole came home to Valence when Belle was a little girl, so small she hardly remembers being without him. He was not a de Poitiers of Valence until he forced himself into Grand-mère's home as a permanent fixture - he lived in Taivolkovski, was raised by Ukki, grew up in Aleksi's kitchen.. Male Veela are prized for their beauty, true, but they are also held a little apart for not being normal. Anatole alone knows what it is to be on the edge of Grand-mère's heart, and that is why Belle cannot allow him to keep fighting for her.

Belle understands Anatole. She understands why he and Ukki always stand with her. But she understands Grand-mère as well, and knows why having a half-human granddaughter who looked more human than Veela even as a little girl has always been so difficult for her.

Anatole has always been angry for her, so she did not have to be. He has always been angry for her because he has never allowed himself to be angry for his own sake. She cannot allow that to continue.

"Anatole," she says, sliding between him and Maman, "Anatole, wait, please wait."

He stops entirely, pink-faced and hawk-eyed and more dangerous than he has ever seemed.

"I am sorry, ma petite," he says, ducking down to kiss her brow. "Forgive me - I should not have raised my voice so."

"Maman is allowed to mourn as well, Anatole," she says. "I have spent all year being angry that others seemed to be laying claim to my grief - it would not be fair of me to do the same now. It would not be permissible. Please?"

He sighs.

"Very well. I will finish my… discussion with your mother some other day."

He retreats then, sitting by the fire with Amand on the arm of his chair, and Belle takes a deep breath before turning to Maman.

Grand-mère still looks mutinous, but Leto and Metis look only worried. Maman, of course, is still crying.

"I know what kind of man he was, Maman," Belle says. "I understand why you fled. But perhaps… Not today?"

"Not at Christmas, Juno," Leto says, linking her arm through Maman's. "And not this soon, hmm?"

Metis peels off to whisper furiously at Anatole, who whispers furiously back. Of course it is Grand-mère's general who seeks to punish Anatole, and of course it is Leto who takes Belle by the hand and draws her close to Maman.

The twins are so very much like their mother. Increasingly, as she comes to know them, Belle is seeing that the same is true of Jeanne and Leto.

Maman cries into Belle's hair. Belle cries onto Maman's shoulder. They still have a great deal of talking to do, more than Belle realised, but not today. Today they will halt an argument before it can truly begin, and they will mourn together. That will do for now.

Belle suspects that if Anatole loved her even a hair less, he would fight with Metis and Grand-mère now. He loves her more than she knows, though, and so instead he strokes her hair and Maman's, and that is enough of an apology to be getting on with.