War in a time of peace Chapter 8: Sixth Year - Second Term, a harry potter fanfic

The first meeting of Daphne's Duelling Club is on the first Wednesday evening back after Christmas. Because all four heads of house have sanctioned it but Professor Dumbledore has not, for some reason, they cannot hold it in the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall has given them permission to use her NEWT classroom, since it's one of the biggest rooms in the school, and Professor Sprout has given them free rein to use the area around the greenhouses, once the weather picks up.

"Let's see," Blaise says, settling the last of the benches onto the stack, and tapping the ropes on the floor with his wand. They snake their way around the benches, bright pink against the dark wood until the magic settles, and then the room is quiet. "What else does Daph need?"

"Members for her club," Belle says, perhaps a little more meanly than she should. "Oh, I only wish I could keep away anyone with ill intentions. I want so badly for this to go well for Daphne."

"It will. You'll see."

Daphne, of course, is quite popular outside of Slytherin, or even just outside of their own year within Slytherin. First through the door are Flora Carrow and Roman Urquhart and some of their friends, looking unflustered and laconic as only the rich and aloof can. Flora's had her hair chopped up to her ears over the holidays, and somehow, it suits her. It really should not.

Behind them is a cluster of little ones - first and second years in green ties and silver hair clips, huddling together and whispering nervously. There's a blue tie in there as well, and a bright yellow ribbon in dark hair, and Belle thinks that Daphne might have been onto something when she came up with this plan.

They come in stops and starts - a brace of giggly Ravenclaws led by Padma Patil, with her achingly lovely hair and her clever, watchful eyes, who Belle has gotten along well enough with since asking Fleur to send a pair of nice, sensible Beauxbatons boys to keep the Patils company in Harry and Ron's absence at the Yule Ball. They exchange almost-friendly nods of acknowledgement, and the tallest of the boys with her also nods at Blaise.

"My father and Anthony's did a great deal of business together," Blaise says quietly. "We still see one another socially from time to time because of it."

It is difficult for Blaise to speak about his father, who died when Blaise was only three and who stands half-remembered in Blaise's mind. Easier for him to speak of his mother's seventh and most recent husband, because with him came Blaise's beloved stepsisters, Anna and Inka. Belle wonders if that is why it has been so much easier to speak with him of Papa than with Daphne, who has always had both of her parents.

More interested parties arrive. Hufflepuffs, led by booming Ernie Macmillan and sharp-tongued Susan Bones, and another batch of Ravenclaws, these led by Luna Lovegood. More Slytherins, fifth and sixth years with a nervous, defiant Tracey Davis at their head, and then more Hufflepuffs that Belle doesn't know.

By the time Hermione arrives, promising that Ron and Harry are not far behind her, the room is a little over half full. Hermione is the only Gryffindor to have arrived so far, which is unsurprising if disappointing.

"I thought at least the Frobisher girl would come," Blaise murmurs. "She sponsored the damn club with Daph, it's the least she ought to do."

But they've spoken too soon, for Daphne is chased into the room by a herd of typically rowdy Gryffindors - all the rest of their own year, and a dozen or more from the years below, and yes, there's Vicky Frobisher and two others Belle assumes must be seventh years.

"Seems Potter underestimated how popular his little gang might have been, last year," Daphne says, breezing over to kiss Belle and Blaise on the cheeks. "We'll be very well behaved the first few weeks, to see if we can't turn Professor Dumbledore's head, and after that the weather should've picked up enough that we can go outside and go mad."

"Any particular plans, Professor Greengrass?" Blaise asks, passing a book from Belle to Daphne and a bag from Daphne to Belle - a bag spelled to hold a great many more biscuits than it otherwise could, by the whiff of ginger and sugar Belle gets when it opens very slightly. "Shall we ask Potter to show off his Disarming Charm, or perhaps whatever jolly little thing he did during the last Duelling Club, with the snake?"

"Leave Harry alone," Belle scolds mildly. "Disarming might be a good place to start, though, Daph - I know I'm a little wary of trying anything more exciting on the little ones."

"Oh, no," Daphne says. "Tonight isn't for spellwork - tonight is for me to lay down the ground rules all the teachers made me agree to, and a few little suggestions Professor Slughorn made."

"Good old Slug," Blaise says, so sincerely that he is obviously astonished at Daphne listening to a word from the old fart. "Has he told you to create alliances?"

"Yes, actually," Daphne says, and then she goes to stand at Professor McGonagall's blackboard and reveals the notes she's already made with a sharp tap of her wand.

Belle has never considered Daphne to be particularly intimidating before. Daphne is beautiful, the most beautiful girl Belle knows aside, perhaps, from Jeanne, and she is a remarkably talented witch - almost as good as Hermione, if a little quieter about it. She's kind and she's gentle and she's very, very forgiving, which Belle knows better than she'd like to, but she's never really considered what Daphne is like when she's away from Belle herself and Blaise.

When Daphne stands at the front of the classroom, everyone looks - and more importantly, when Daphne speaks, everyone listens.

"I think that went quite well," Ron says, adding an extra sugar to Hermione's tea without needing to be asked. "You weren't half bad, Greengrass."

"Yes, thank you, Weasley." Daphne's only being a little sardonic, which means she's really warmed up to Ron. "I agree, it could have gone much worse."

"Do you think everyone will agree to choosing a partner from a different house?" Hermione asks in that fretful way of hers. "I'm not sure who I ought to choose-"

"Well," comes a pompous voice from behind Belle. "It won't be de Poitiers."

Ernie Macmillan has an awful lot of chin and not much nose, and all Belle really knows of him is that his pomposity is inborn, and that he's very protective of the little Hufflepuffs. She remembers Daphne mentioning something about an earldom, and that when she and Blaise arrived in their Lelong robes, he demanded to know why he couldn't wear a kilt with his uniform.

"Macmillan," she says, spinning to face him. "Are you issuing me with a challenge?"

"If you're witch enough to accept it," he says cheerfully, immediately flushing pink when he realises what he's said. "Oh, bugger, didn't mean it like that, de Poitiers-"

"Call me Belle," she says, "and I shall call you Ernie when I'm helping you up from the floor every week. Fair?"

They shake on it, and Belle has her dueling partner. A joy in one sense, because she hadn't at all expected to be approached by anyone beyond Harry's friends, and a shame, too, because she'd been halfway hoping for Hermione or for Neville Longbottom.

"Ernie's not the worst," Harry says, returning from his very intense conversation with Blaise, looking a little winded. "He's rubbish at Shield Charms though, so don't go too hard on him."

"Belle?"

Daphne has put one of her elegant Silencing Charms on the curtains of Belle's fine bed, and they are curled together, cut off from their housemates. They've done this less often than they ought to have done, Belle thinks, but she has so little trust to give that she hadn't dared share secrets with Daphne at first.

She regrets that now. Daphne has always deserved her trust - Belle was just too wary to see it.

"Hmm?"

"Why in the world did you agree to be Macmillan's partner? I thought you'd partner with Potter."

"Harry needs to make more friends even more badly than I do," Belle says, shrugging and completely ignoring the blush rising in her cheeks She could have said no to Ernie Macmillan and partnered with Ron or Hermione, but she didn't. No one has ever sought her out so directly before, and that in itself was reason enough to say yes to Ernie. It might be nice to make a new friend. One that's just hers. That's the thing she wants most out of Daphne's club - to find people who can be her friends beyond Daph and Blaise and Harry and Hermione and Ron.

"And anyway - it won't do him any favours if he's seen consorting with me any more than he already does. He has enough to handle without having to shoulder some of my unlucky aura."

"I'm going to kill Pansy for that one," Daph says, valiantly not noticing how pink Belle has become. Instead, she rolls up onto her knees so she can start braiding her hair. "What a horrible rumour to spread!"

"Well, better people avoid any feathers I drop than they follow me around trying to collect them for good luck," Belle points out, spreading herself out in a long, slow stretch. "I think I'm more feathery this year than I was last, somehow, and I know there were a few enterprising Ravenclaws who used chase my shadows in search of feathers. I think they were using them in experimental potions."

"But that's horrible! And illegal, as far as I know."

Belle shrugs again. She's long become used to those outside her small social sphere not seeing her as entirely human - which she isn't, of course she is not, but it means something different to be half-Veela among her friends and family than it means to be half-witch among everyone else.

"I really will kill Pansy, one of these days," Daphne says, holding out a hand for Belle's hairbrush. It's handed over reluctantly, and Belle heaves herself up to sit with her back to Daph for braiding purposes. "She keeps… needling. I think it's mostly just that she's jealous that Blaise and I are in Professor Slughorn's good books and she isn't, but there's something else. Astoria's started hanging around them, even though they're older than her, and I don't dare imagine what kind of nasty little things she's telling Pansy."

"Let me kill her," Belle offers. "It's what people would expect, and I think I would enjoy it more."

"Oh, Belle," Daphne sighs, wrapping her arms around Belle's shoulders as Anatole often does. "Practice fighting Ernie Macmillan, and then we'll see about sending you up against Pansy."

II.

"Miss de Poitiers? A word?"

Professor McGonagall is watching Belle over her glasses, which generally means trouble. Harry gives her an encouraging thumbs-up as he passes, which McGonagall watches with withering disapproval.

"Have I done something wrong, Professor?"

"Oh, no, of course not. I wanted to talk about your future, de Poitiers."

"You can use Black, Professor. If it's more convenient for you."

This generous offer has nothing to do with how Professor McGonagall's thick Scottish accent strangles Belle's last name.

"If you'd prefer, Black. Come, sit here."

Belle sits in the suggested chair, nearest the professor's desk.

"I hear cursebreaking is where you're headed," she says, folding her arms and once again looking over her glasses. "May I ask why?"

"My family are bankers, Professor," Belle says, a little wrong-footed by this. "Having an in-house cursebreaker can only be a good thing."

"And do you actually wish to return to France, Black? After you've finished in Hogwarts?"

Belle settles narrowed eyes on McGonagall, and is relieved when they aren't immediately called out as a mark of disrespect.

"Has Remus written to you?" she asks. "He keeps telling me I have options. "

"Remus has written to me about you, yes," McGonagall says, and Belle thinks she might even be smiling - although it could just as easily be a trick of the light. "But even if he hadn't, I'd have wanted to speak to you. You're the finest student to come through my classroom in I can't say how long, Black. There are options for witches as singularly gifted in Transfiguration as you are."

McGonagall gestures to the high, vaulted ceilings above them, the immaculately dust-free blackboard behind her, and finally to the heavy, solid, comfortable desk on the edge of which she is perched.

"This might be one of them," she says. "Something to consider."

She waves Belle away with a nod, but calls to her when she's at the door.

"And Black - I'm sorry. For your father. Sirius was a good man."

Belle might have been less surprised had McGonagall slapped her.

"Oh," she says. "Thank you, Professor."

Another wave and nod of dismissal and she's gone, confused over the entirety of it, and late for Potions to boot.

Belle-

Before you set me on fire, think about it. Minerva's very rarely complimentary to anyone, so of course she meant what she said. I know you think she's never liked you, but that's just her face. She's very fond of me and I don't think I've ever seen her smile.

She's right about this, though. I know you really are interested in cursebreaking, but that isn't your only choice. You're only sixteen, and if you don't mind me saying, you're filthy rich - you don't have to decide before you leave school. Your mother will support you no matter what you decide, and I will as well, but no one minds if you don't make that decision right away.

You really should think about what Minerva said, Belle. I don't know of anyone else she's ever said something so nice to.

With love,

Remus.

III.

"I think you'd be ruddy good at it, is what I think!" Ernie booms, dodging a wayward splash of jinx while they pause for a drink. They're in one of the trophy halls this week, and the echo off all the silverwear is ear-melting, so for once, it's only Belle who can hear Ernie's… Ernie-ness. "Why, you're nowhere near as scary as you think you are, and you really do have a knack for it. How's your Charms?"

"Not as good as my Transfiguration."

"Well, there you have it," Ernie says. "I've a cousin - a second cousin, I think, being specific - who's a cursebreaker for the Greek Ministry. She says it's all charmwork and runes, so play to your strengths, girl!"

"I'm very good at Ancient Runes, thank you very much."

"Oh, I know you speak twenty languages and write six more," he says, waving a dismissive hand with a disarming smile. Ernie is always smiling, but Belle thinks that perhaps his smile is a little warmer for her than it is for anyone else. She's never had someone wink at her quite so much, either. "But do you enjoy that, or are you just good at it? I'm a damned fine Herbologist, but it bores me to tears. Couldn't stand to meddle in a greenhouse for the rest of my days, so I'm aiming for something in public relations."

"Oh!" Belle says, genuinely surprised, although she likely shouldn't be. "I think you'd be very good at that, actually."

"Meaning I'm enormously loud and over-confident," he agrees cheerfully. "Those are strengths of mine that I do enjoy. I'm very good with people, once the shock wears off, and I'm the most stubborn bugger I know. You are very good at Transfiguration, and given how damnably smug you get when your spells work first time, every time, I dare say you enjoy it."

"Well, I suppose I do."

"There, you see! McGonagall's a tough old bird, but she knows what she's about. From what I've heard, it's the teachers who choose their successors anyway, so might be that she's appointing her heir early, before some of the private spellworkers can snap you up."

"Do you know, Ernie Macmillan," Belle says, "you talk an awful lot more sense than I would ever have thought, before we partnered for this."

His laugh is even louder than his speaking voice, bright and careless, as though it does not matter who hears him.

"I had no intention whatsoever of charming you when I asked if you wanted to partner up," he says, confident in that direct way of his. "I had every intention of flirting, though."

"Mr. Macmillan!"

"Miss de Poitiers."

"What an absolute scoundrel you are," she scolds, but she can't stop smiling. "No one has ever flirted with me before!"

"You're just very unobservant, is the problem," Ernie says. "Every chap in our year has tried - and half of the poor fools on either side of us, for that matter. You're very pretty, you know. And people like that you don't get on with Parkinson. She's not very well liked."

"Have you flirted with me before, Ernie?"

"Shamelessly," he says. "But I stepped up my campaign this term. Thought it was about time."

He bids her farewell for the evening before she can respond to that, to go fuss over a third-year Hufflepuff, who's spouting a spectacular nosebleed and who is accompanied by a panicked looking Gryffindor second year.

Belle decides to let Blaise and Daphne finish up at their own pace, and sets off to wander down the hall. Most of the trophies in here are ancient things, polished only because students in detention must do something, and she's not really paying attention when something catches her eye.

Black. Betelgeuse, of all the unfortunate first names, with the year worn so smooth Belle can't quite read it. It's an award for Charms, because what else would it be after that chat with Ernie? Belle's always been good, but not exceptional at Charms, and she wonders what Papa was like. Perhaps she could ask Professor Flitwick.

How many Blacks would she find, if she poked through all the cups and shields and medals in the trophy halls of Hogwarts? There are Orders of Merlin by the fistful in Grimmauld Place, bought with illicit Galleons and awarded, sometimes, less for an open hand than a closed fist. They mean nothing. It may well be that these awards mean just as little, but it is interesting nonetheless to see something of Papa's family.

She knows nothing. She would like to know something.

"There are dozens of them, you know," comes an unfamiliar voice. "All over the school. We're a fecund and a felicitous bunch, dear girl."

There is a portrait of a pair of witches calmly mixing up what looks awfully like a love potion between two trophy cases, one which Belle noticed but did not much mind when she was helping Daph set up for this evening. She minded enough to know that the narrow-faced, narrow-eyed man in the ugly hat had not been there an hour and a half ago.

"There we go," he says, smiling a mean little smile that reminds her of someone - the pinch-lipped hello that is all she has ever received from Draco's maman, perhaps? "Recognise me, do you?"

"You've always been rude enough to ignore me," Belle says, folding her arms and scowling as fiercely as she knows how. "Can't you shut my grandmother up? She'd listen to you."

"So you do know who I am!" he says, sounding delighted. "Good girl, good girl - is that any way to speak to the head of the family?"

"I don't know, is it?"

He eyes her cautiously for a moment.

"Sharp as a tack, I see," he says at last. "Your father was just the same. Yes, I suppose you might claim to be head of the family, I suppose you might. Even if you are a bastard."

"Only by your fool laws," she points out. "And I have a very polite vampire in Zurich who is only too happy to, ah, poke holes in the English legal system."

"And yet for all your claims over the family, you don't even use our name," he says. "You forget where else I have portraits, my girl - I hear all kinds of useful things in dear Albus' office."

Belle cannot quite restrain the pfuit of disdain Professor Dumbledore's mention brings forth, but Phineas Nigellus Black seems not to mind. In fact, he laughs.

"Yes, I agree," he says, shaking his head. "Although I suspect we dislike him for different reasons."

"I do use the family name sometimes," she says, shrugging. "But I was not allowed it for long enough that it feels strange, sometimes."

"Well," he says, "I suppose at least your first name is leaning in the right direction. Some would say a goddess is above a star, even."

"And what of a Muse?" she asks. "Urania was keeper of the stars, and wore them as her robe."

"A fine name as well," he concedes. "Bellona Urania. Better than one might expect of an outsider, particularly one so… exotic as your mother."

"Tell me," Belle says. "What is to stop me burning all your portraits to a crisp, old man? Because speak ill of my mother one more time and you will suffer for it."

"And me your poor great-great-great-grandfather, trying to connect you to your family history," he sighs. "Let me tell you, my girl - the more of that you show, the closer you are to your ancestors. Do you understand?"

"Not all of them can have been as… As my grandparents were. Or my uncle."

"Those who were not were not permitted to call themselves Black, dear."

"And so by that token, you have no cause to berate me for not using my father's name. After all - would my grandparents have laid claim to me as their grandchild?"

"Even without your unfortunate blend of heritages, no. Your father had been kicked out at sixteen, my girl."

She scowls a little harder. His smile turns a shade or two more sardonic.

"I think even with your disadvantages, you might be just what the family needs," he says. "There's change coming, whether for good or for ill, and I dare say you'll shake things up a little. More than Cygnus' girls ever will, and certainly more than your father or his brother ever had the spine for."

"You really are a horrible little man, aren't you?"

"I'm flattered, I truly am."

Belle feels very little a Black, truth be told, when compared to Phineas Nigellus. She has the eyes, she has the hair, she has the green on her robes, but she is much more her mother's daughter in so many things - and she is something apart from her parents altogether, too. She is only just coming to understand that.

"I'll be nearby, if you'd like to talk," he says, sweeping off his hat as he bows. "If ever you want to know more of the family history - I know all the nastiest stories."

Blaise comes to stand beside her as Phineas Nigellus takes his leave, looking more amused than Belle thinks is really fair.

"Family," he says. "There's no escaping them, is there?"

"No," Belle says, "but it does seem that teaching might be in my blood."

In the trophy cabinet nearest the portrait her great-great-great-grandfather invaded, there is another award to another Black - Prosperina, this one - for services to the school as Professor of History of Magic.

"Oh," Blaise says, following her gaze. "How horribly boring."

IV.

Potions with Professor Slughorn is always, at the very least, interesting.

He has improved tenfold since the start of the year, spending at least two-thirds of each class teaching and only a third telling stories of his glorious past pupils, and Belle is relieved. Hermione alone seems to really dislike him as a teacher anymore, which is very strange indeed - Hermione is still working herself to the bone to come at the top of all her classes, and Professor Slughorn is never anything but beamingly complimentary of her.

Perhaps it's that the Slug Club was the trigger for whatever row Ron and Hermione were dealing with over Christmas. Who can say?

"Pass me the salamander skin, Blaise," Daphne says, glowing in a haze of pink-shimmering lilac steam. "Any updates on our funny problem, Belle?"

Across the room, the underlighting from his cauldron fire is making a corpse of Draco, leaving his always pale face frightening to behold.

"No," Belle says. "Nothing on that front, I'm afraid. I've had promises of further information once it becomes available, but nothing yet."

Andromeda has so little contact with her sisters that this is not surprising, but even Dora's strange and ephemeral network of contacts has turned up nothing - and given the rumours swirling around Draco since the start of the year, given the supposed reason he no longer rolls up his sleeves, Belle finds that to be particularly troubling.

"I've asked Mama to speak to her friends," Blaise says, stirring his cauldron with a dubious frown. It hasn't quite turned the perfect peony of Daphne's, nor does it have the shine of gold of Belle's, but it smells more appropriately of peach than either of theirs. "They tend to hear… Strange rumours. Perhaps it's a Russian thing. But even they have heard nothing, so I really don't know what we're to do."

"Plotting are we, Zabini?"

"Always, sir," Blaise says mildly. "What else are we to do?"

"Add a little more foxglove, for a start," Slughorn says, "and Miss Greengrass, I'd say a pinch of vervain might be no harm. Now, Miss de Poitiers…"

Professor Slughorn is always exactingly polite to Belle, demure in a way he is with no other pupils, and she can't help but resent it. Is it because of her titles? Is it because he is afraid of offending? She does not know, but at least whatever his discomfort of her is, it keeps him from being too chummy.

Ernie, whose potion must be absolutely neon by the way it's shining on his fair hair, winks at her from behind Professor Slughorn. Belle turns as peony as Daphne's potion and absolutely does not wink back.

"A shade more lacewing, my dear," Slughorn says, patting her shoulder. "That'll shift it enough for the smell, and if you try a tiny bit more heat, you'll get the colour."

Belle does both, and is rewarded with a potion as sweet-smelling as Blaise's and as prettily coloured as Daphne's.

"Back to plotting," Daph says as soon as Slughorn's moved out of earshot. "I think that the best thing we can do is to protect the little ones if this… whatever it is blows up in Draco's face."

Daphne means the first and second year Slytherins, but Belle is thinking of pretty Leandra from Ravenclaw, whose great-great-grandmother was a siren, and Toby in Hufflepuff whose eyes shine dryad-green in the sun, and yes, Isolde in Gryffindor who is Professor Sinistra's niece and has that same starry hair, and even Hector among their own third years, who does an admirable job of hiding the shimmer of bred-out gills behind his ears - Belle might not have noticed them, had she not spent so long trying to hide the feathers peeping through her hair.

And herself, of course. Belle knows that any secret mission that goes along with the brand on Draco's arm can only bode ill for her.

Ernie catches her by the elbow as they're leaving the classroom, grinning ear to ear.

"You must realise, de Poitiers," he says, "that your blushing like a China doll is rather belying your attempts to put me off."

"You're incorrigible, Macmillan."

"I'm persistent," he admits, and then falters. "If you'd rather, I'll back off, but-"

"Oh, no- I mean, I don't-"

His smile returns full-force.

"Marvelous," he says, lifting both her hands to kiss them and then disappearing off after Susan Bones.

"I'm going to slap him next time he does that," Belle says, watching him go.

"What, kiss you?" Blaise asks.

"Run away before I can shut him up, rather."

It's just Belle and Ron in the library, her lying along one of the narrow benches and Ron sitting at the end of the table with his feet on the arm of her bench, and that's rare enough that he decides this is as good a time as any.

"Saw you talking to Phineas Nigellus," he says, not quite looking up from his bloody Potions notes. "Nasty bugger."

"He's been hounding me since," Belle says, voice muffled by the weight of her Transfiguration book lying over her face. "Every time I'm walking anywhere alone, it's hello, dear girl, have you a moment? No! I have no moments! I am busy, always!"

"Ugh," Ron agrees. "Does that mean he likes you?"

She sits up suddenly, throwing aside her book and taking his out of his hands, frowning in a way that makes her look very like Sirius.

"I don't understand what he wants of me," she complains. "Everyone is always saying that my family legacy is important, that the Black legacy is a dark and terrible one, and here I am, everything my father's family hates - what am I to do? You're a pureblood, what do you think?"

"I think you aren't a pureblood," he says, "and that might not be a bad thing."

Because he has been thinking about it a bit. Belle's one of the richest people in England, so far as Ron can figure, but she's not like most of the other rich people. She's not as much of a Slytherin as she might be, all things considered, and it's not entirely because Malfoy and Pansy bully her.

"Explain."

"Well," he says, sitting up a bit straighter. "It's a bit like Hermione. She's a Muggleborn, which should mean she never does as well as someone like me would. But because she's Hermione, she's going to end up Minister someday. You could become like the Malfoys, or your grandparents, and just buy everything you want, but you won't. You don't like those people, and they don't like you, so maybe… I dunno. You could shake things up a bit, same as she will."

Belle looks at him the same way his mother does when he's done something unexpected. Usually, Mum follows it up with a sigh or by comparing him to the twins, but Belle smiles.

"You're very astute, Ron Weasley," she says. "I never noticed before, but you are."

"Thank you," he says, fairly sure she's done something even more unexpected than he did by paying him an out and out compliment. "Would you like some fudge? Mum sent some over yesterday."

Belle counters with little caramel biscuits, and they're halfway into their tins of sweets by the time any of the others get to the library.

Belle knocks, unsure if she will be welcome but determined to make the effort anyway.

Professor Hagrid answers the door with a pink apron over his black waistcoat and orange shirt. He is five times as big as Amand, but there is something about him that has always put Belle in mind of her little uncle - perhaps the softness of him, under all the bluster.

"Good evening, sir," she says brightly. "I was wondering if you had time for cake."

This cake is from Amand, as it happens, sweet and almondy and drizzled with syrupy caramel, something she's never had anywhere but in Amand's kitchen. Usually, he sends one for her birthday, but she requested one earlier this year - she cannot imagine anything better for making up for the neglect she has shown her budding friendship with Professor Hagrid.

"Well, I always have time for cake," he says, beaming as he steps back to let her in. "Don't mind Fang, I think he's having trouble with a tooth, have a seat, have a seat-"

She has a seat, setting her cake tin on his huge rough-hewn table, and feels a little like she's in Taivolkovski.

"I'm sorry I haven't been sooner," she says, taking the knife he offers with a smile. "But last year was, ah, unpleasant, and I have been unpleasant this year."

"Not a bit," he says easily, pouring two cups of tea from the massive pot hanging by the fire - he must keep a kettle constantly near the boil, for Belle has visited with him several times and is always greeted immediately with a cup of tea. "Two sugars, was it?"

"Just the one, please," she says, laying a huge wedge of Amand's cake on the pretty floral plate he laid out - something about the pattern is familiar, or the colour of the glaze, but Belle cannot quite put her finger on what. "But no, sir, I am sorry-"

"No sirs, thank you," he huffs, finally sitting down now that they both have their tea and their cake. "I've lost a dad as well, so don't you think I'm going to think ill of you for having a bad old time of it."

"Oh, but-"

"No buts, neither," he says firmly. "What's in this cake? Never had this one before - did you make this? It's lovely, I think it would be very nice after a bit of venison stew."

And it is as though she has not been absent from his little home for a year and a half.

Belley -

Well, Dora's still a wet blanket, but you seem to have cheered up a bit. I'm glad of it. Ted says he spied you and the Potter boy having a bit of a private chat at Christmas, and I'm happy for that, too. It's always better to have friends than enemies, and that boy has greater need of friends than just about anyone I know.

I've asked what few of my "old friends" still talk to me about your odd little trouble, and while none of them will tell me what exactly is going on, I've pieced together what I can. Be very careful, Belley. There's trouble coming, and it's coming from within your house. Few things are more dangerous.

Rook to C3.

Love,

Auntie Dromeda.

Belle's chessboard - the prettiest she's ever seen, in dove grey and rose pink marble, edged all with gold, a gift from Ukki and Grand-mère together and so particularly treasured - is set with Ron's much more aggressive pieces, scattered all over with sandwich crumbs as they all grouse their way through an unhappy Saturday of studying. Belle finally used Papa's instructions to enter the kitchen, and found the strangest house elf she's ever met there. Dobby introduced himself as Harry Potter's friend, and asked if she was Harry Potter's sister, and she supposed that she must be, based on the description he offered.

Dobby, who Harry later told her had once belonged to the Malfoys. Belle is repulsed at the notion of owning a house elf, even knowing what a hypocrite that makes her for Kreacher's sake. Her only consolation is that Kreacher would die instantly if she freed him, he's so completely obsessed with belonging to her family, but even that rings hollow as justification.

But Dobby, in all his hats and socks and his two neckties, had cheerfully produced a picnic basket of absolute delights, with the help of two other house elves who'd introduced themselves as Bepho and Lolle, and Belle had not been able to thank them enough. Her only fear is sneaking the basket back out past Madam Pince, once they've cleaned away all evidence of their feast.

"You're very good at this, Weasley," Blaise says thoughtfully, leaning over Belle's shoulder to watch their match in favour of his Arithmancy homework. "Didn't you win an award for chess?"

"House points," Ron says absently, nudging his most reluctant pawn in the back. "Helped us stop You-Know-Who back in first year. Great big set McGonagall set up - here, Belle, you should offer to play against her. She's scary on the other side of the chessboard, she really is."

"I think she's always a little scary," Belle says, taking out her dangling griffon claw earrings so she can think without them swinging against her neck. "But that is not a bad thing, I do not think."

"She's not as scary as she'd have you believe," Harry says, scratching his head with the tip of his wand. "She likes ginger newts, if you ever need to bribe her."

Hermione shushes them all around a mouthful of salmon and onion sandwich, waving a sheaf of notes in Harry's direction as a reprimand. She's really starting to show the strain of her workload, Belle thinks, although she'd never say as much aloud.

McGonagall might be scary, but Hermione is much scarier.

"Black? A word, if I may?"

Belle hasn't spoken more than half a dozen words altogether to Theo Nott since he stopped being their friend, but he's leaning against the nearest stack as though no time has passed at all.

"Of course, Theo," she says, dusting off her hands and her robes as she rises. "What can I help you with?"

"In private, perhaps?"

If Daphne were here, she'd shoo Theo away then and there. Blaise puts his hand on her arm as a caution, and she accepts it with a nod.

"Behind this shelf," she says. "No further. I know who you call friend these days, Theo."

He grimaces, but concedes with a stiff little bow. Once they are out of sight of the table, Belle stops and crosses her arms.

"Well?"

"You need to speak with Greengrass," he says flatly. "It's one thing to have… preferences like hers, but she can't flaunt them, and particularly not with the Bones girl. Rein her in, Black. I know what her family are like, and if Astoria gets word of this it won't go well for Daphne."

"Go away, Theo," Belle says, hiding her confusion under disdain. "You made it quite clear that we were no longer your concern-"

"This is serious, Bellona," Theo says, standing a little closer. "Daphne could be in danger if this goes badly - I had to choose between your friendship and my father, and I chose my father. That doesn't mean I wish ill on any of you. Please, Belle. Don't consider me in this at all, but at least speak to Daphne. Ask her to be a little more discreet, if she won't give it up altogether."

"I'll speak with her," Belle says. "But if I annoy her, I'm sending her to you, Theo."

"That's all I ask," he sighs, looking so relieved that Belle feels even more confused now. "Alright, I'll leave you be - just be careful, Bellona. I don't know what's coming, but I don't think it's good."

"Do you know what he meant?" she whispers to Blaise, later.

"I have an idea," he admits, "but tread carefully, Belle - whether I'm right or wrong, this could be a delicate matter for Daph. Be kind."

Daphne is already in Belle's bed, reading one of those saucy novels she sometimes dives into when Belle is writing her letters, and she Silences the curtains as soon as Belle is under the covers.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there today," she says lightly, holding her page with her finger. "Did I miss anything?"

"Theo came to visit," Belle says, leaning up on her elbow so she can look Daphne in the face. "He wants me to warn you. Something to do with Susan."

Daphne's lovely, pale face goes very pink.

"Well," she says. "Not how I wanted you to find out."

Oh. Belle feels very stupid indeed - Daphne has been her friend for all these years, and this never occurred to her. Has she been too caught up in her own head to notice such an important part of one of the most important people in her life? Shame on her if so.

"I had hoped to tell you and Blaise together," she says, still pink but now determined as well. "But- well, I'm very angry with Theo. He's spoiled it now, hasn't he?"

"Not unless we let him, Daph."

"Oh, alright, well- Susan and I are seeing one another. We have been since- since November."

"Daphne! Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm a lesbian, Bellona," Daphne says, rolling her eyes. "People don't just say that."

"Maybe not to the whole school," Belle concedes. "But to me. You know you can tell me anything at all, don't you?"

"Not this," Daphne says. "Oh, Belle, you really don't know, do you? I- this is dangerous. My parents are very old-fashioned. If they hear about this it could be… bad."

"That's what Theo said," Belle says. "I don't understand, though, what could your parents do? He said you need to be more discreet, so Astoria doesn't find out-"

All the pretty pink leaves Daphne's face, and Belle wonders how she could possibly have made such a mess of this.

"Daphne-"

"It's different for you, Belle," Daphne says, distress creeping in ahead of her determination. "You've got your uncle, but I- my parents can't know until I leave home. They can't."

"What about Susan's parents?"

"Oh, they know already," Daphne says, looking almost cross. "Because they're decent - my parents aren't- you've met my parents, Belle! You know how they are! They think Astoria and I need to marry nicely, and have nice children, and be nice. Su and I aren't nice, not the way they think, and-"

Belle gets her arms around Daphne because she can't think of anything else to do, and holds on until Daphne stops shaking.

"Well," she says, after a long time. "I am very happy for you, and I know that Blaise will be as well."

The next meeting of the Dueling Club, Susan Bones sidles up to where Belle and Blaise are having a cup of tea.

"Hello," she says, cheerfully but quietly. "I'm Susan, Daphne's girlfriend - lovely to officially meet you both."

VI.

Harry becomes more distant, after the disaster with Draco, and Pansy becomes somehow more insufferable.

Better she speaks out against Harry, who is well used to it, than she turns her nosy ire on Daphne, who would suffer for it. Now that Belle knows, she's noticed the patterns, and she knows that Theo is right. Astoria will hear the rumours about Daphne, and soon - there is no avoiding that - and while Belle thinks Daphne might be better facing her sister head on, it is not her decision to make.

Whatever Belle's personal feelings on it, she will stick by Daphne's choices in all things. She and Blaise do all they can to cover Daphne's unusual absences, and find allies in Ernie Macmillan and, by some peculiar miracle, Zacharias Smith in doing so.

"Zacharias has his reasons," says Blaise of his dueling partner. Blaise seems to know all sorts of tidbits he hasn't shared with Belle, and that is much, much more annoying than Daphne holding Susan as a secret. "Trust me, Belle - he's on Daphne's side. Well, on Susan's, which is the same thing just now."

Ernie continues to surprise Belle, because aside from his bombastic charm offensive, he's also remarkably discreet.

"Happened on them while I was coming back in from checking on the roses," he says quietly while they're sneaking a quick smoke behind the greenhouses during their first out-of-doors meeting of the Dueling Club. He means of course the roses Professor Sprout is nursing as a favour for his grandmother, and Belle wonders just what it must be like, to be a Hufflepuff. If it meant being close to Ernie more often, she might not mind it. "Su went red as a tomato, and your Daphne went white as a ghost - I think she'd've hexed me had Su not stayed her hand."

"She can be very vicious when she wants to be," Belle agrees, with no small measure of pride. The cigarettes Ernie produced are very tangy, and they smell revolting - Belle will write to Anatole and ask for something decent for next week, she thinks. "What of Zacharias?"

"Oh, he and Su are very close," Ernie says, sounding surprised that she doesn't already know this. "An odd pair, but there you go - personally I think it's because she tells him to fuck off when he gets high and mighty."

"You trust him?"

It is odd to ask such a question of someone so new to her little circle of friends, but she trusts Ernie. He's far too direct to ever lie about something important like this.

"Zach is only awful when it won't hurt one of us," Ernie says firmly. "I trust him, Belle. I'd have cursed him into a coma by now otherwise."

"Well," she says. "Good."

They smoke another terrible cigarette each, and then Belle shatters Ernie's Shield Charm. It's only the second she's broken this week, though, which is a marked improvement.

Anatole sends two boxes of menthol cigarettes, two of herbal, and two of actual tobacco. He also sends a small black glass bottle marked only with a neat red X on the label.

Belle thinks of that horrible page in Harry's Potions book. For enemies indeed.

But of course, there is only so much she and Ernie and Blaise and Zacharias can do, when Theo Nott also knows.

Theo slips. Pansy hears. Astoria is told.

The Howler arrives the next morning.

VII.

Belle considers the fortnight's detention for hexing Pansy Parkinson and Astoria Greengrass to be a small price for the distraction it caused at breakfast, allowing Blaise and Flora Carrow to get Daphne and the Howler out of the great hall.

Belle follows, teachers' voices echoing behind her, and hurls white-hot fire at the horrible red envelope. It disintegrates mid-word, mid-screech, and Daphne bursts into tears.

"Oh, Daph, no, please don't," Blaise says helplessly, shifting just enough for Belle to get her arms around Daphne as well. "Please, Daphne, we'll sort it, I promise, we'll make it right-"

"We can't," Daphne sobs, "no, we can't, because Astoria has won and now I don't- have- a home-"

"Of course you do," Belle says, kissing Daphne's hair and holding her tighter. "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Oh!" She hadn't meant to make Daphne cry harder! "Oh no, Daph, I'm sorry, come on-"

Flora Carrow has gone and returned with Susan Bones in tow, and it's only as Susan gathers Daphne up and releases Belle and Blaise from some of their duty that she realises they've been surrounded, somewhat. Not by Astoria's vile little friends, but by Flora, and Roman Urquhart, and by Harry and Ron and Hermione, and Ernie and Zacharias and Hannah and Justin.

"It won't always be this way," Susan is saying, guiding Daphne toward the stairs. "Come along, Daph, we'll get you upstairs and see if Madam Pomfrey has something that might help you catch your breath, come on."

Belle doesn't think she's ever seen anyone have a panic attack before, but that must be what's happening to Daphne.

"Good shout on roasting the Howler," Flora says, frowning in toward the great hall, where everyone is watching with wide eyes. "A little flamboyant for the occasion, but still - good shout."

"Thank you," Belle says. "For helping her."

"We aren't all like Parkinson, Black. You of all people should know that."

Normally, a student who's endured such a shock as Daphne's is given leave to go home for a day or two, or at least to absent themselves from class and remain in the common room or the dormitory.

Neither is an option for Daphne, and so Belle seeks alternative solutions.

"Good evening, sir!" she says, as cheerfully as she can when Blaise and Susan are supporting a still-weeping Daphne behind her. "I'm afraid we've had a bit of a rough day, and I don't have any more cake, but I was wondering if you had a moment?"

"I saw the kind of day you've had, Greengrass," Professor Hagrid says, ushering them in with a kind smile. "Come on then, come in, I've some nice game pie just crisped lovely, come on and we'll see if I've enough for us all."

Daphne curls up very small in a big chair, and Susan curls around her. Ernie and Zacharias had been reluctant to stand down their resolute guard, but Ernie at least had seen the sense of Belle's plan.

She only hopes Professor Hagrid is amenable.

"I was wondering, sir," she says, "and I know that it is a presumption on my part, but-"

"Of course she can stay here a day or two," he says, patting Belle's shoulder and nearly driving her to her knees. "So long as she's comfortable with it, I don't see why it should be a problem."

"I feel like I'm being cowardly," Daphne says, looking up with bleary eyes. "I should face them all down - that's what you'd do, Belle!"

"Yes," Belle says, "but I have no manners."

For some reason, that makes Daphne laugh.

"You're so Gallic sometimes," she says. "I'm sorry, Professor, I couldn't possibly impose like this-"

"You are not imposing," Hagrid says, surprisingly fierce. "I know as well as any of you how cruel that hall can be at dinnertime, so you're welcome to come here as much as you need. Now - pie?"

Daphne stays a single night with Professor Hagrid - long enough, she says, for the urge to murder Astoria to abate.

She accepts the change of clothes Belle brings with her with a small smile, her eyes still a little red but the desolate paleness gone from her face. Professor Hagrid steps outside with Belle to allow Daph a little privacy, and he seems at a loss for words for a moment.

"She's very brave," he says at last. "Braver'n I was, I think."

"Or me," Belle agrees. "I hid in the library and cried for a week when everyone found out about my papa."

"Very brave," Professor Hagrid says again. "Be sure she knows she's welcome here any time - don't think I've ever had such a polite guest."

"Huh!"

"You're far too direct to be as polite as she is," he says, smiling down at Bellona from his great height. "But there's a place for that too, so don't take it too hard."

Daphne enters the great hall with her chin up, and pauses only to lean down and kiss Susan good morning before taking the seat Blaise has saved for her.

"Pass the milk, please," she says, and Belle might not have noticed the tremor in her hand if she hadn't been looking so carefully. Professor Hagrid is right - Belle can't remember ever seeing someone behave as bravely as Daphne.

"What you were saying yesterday morning, Belle," Blaise says, passing a slice of toast thickly layered with gooseberry jam across the table to her in return for a bowl of porridge laced with raspberries and a good shake of sugar, "about your house - what do you think of that lovely big bedroom looking over the back garden for Daphne?"

Daphne goes very still, and Belle knows that if she treats this as anything but a casual conversation, she risks ruining it.

"I'll have to make something of the garden first," she says idly. "It's half a jungle now, which is not the most welcoming of views."

"You do Herbology, Daph," Blaise says, putting a plate of eggs and black pudding down in front of Daphne. "What plants would suit an urban garden? Oh, we could do a raised bed, for herbs! And maybe grow tomatoes - what do you think, hmm?"

Daphne's shoulders ease a little, and by the time they've eaten, she's smiling more-or-less normally.

It's a start. If anyone dares ruin it, Belle might just kill them.

VIII.

"We could always kill them," Ernie says in a reasonable tone, while they're waiting for everyone to arrive for the next Dueling Club meeting. It's very warm and sunny, and Daphne looks as at ease under Susan's arm as she's ever looked… Anywhere, really.

Belle is under Ernie's arm, too. No one has dared to say a word about that.

"We aren't killing anyone," Daphne says, with firm finality. They've been having this debate for the past half an hour, Blaise and Hannah and Justin shepherding the first few club members to arrive into some sort of normality so that Ernie and Zacharias can help Belle convince Daphne to allow harm to befall Astoria.

It's Astoria's fault that their parents have disowned Daph, after all. No matter that Maman and Madame Sofia both have already laid a claim to her, nor even that Daph's grandmother has sent a Howler to Astoria for being a dirty rat. That's all very nice, but it won't really sooth the hurt - Belle suspects only time will do that.

Vengeance might cheer her up a bit, though.

"All we're saying, Daph," Belle says, pausing to take a drag of her cigarette, "is that you needn't get your hands dirty. That's what we're for."

"No one would ever believe I'd committed a murder," Justin says with a mildly alarming eagerness, appearing at Zacharias' elbow without Belle seeing his approach. "Everyone thinks I'm some kind of silly idiot - I'd be clean away before they even knew there was a body."

Daphne is smiling, or very nearly.

"But if you'd rather we didn't commit grievous bodily harm," Zacharias says, in a way even more sardonic than Daphne at her most cutting. "There's always a smear campaign."

Daphne looks Zacharias dead in the eye.

"Tell me more," she says.

At the end of the meeting, there are half a dozen young ones gathered around Daphne, all of them looking a little shy and all of them blushing just as pink as she is - but none of them seem aggressive. None of them seem to bear her any ill will.

"It's like you, Belle," Blaise says. "Daph thought she was alone, but she is not. See?"

"I see," Belle says. "I'm so relieved. I was afraid-"

"I think she might even be less alone than you were," Blaise says gently, squeezing tight to Belle's hand. "And I think you're happier to see her safe than you were to find companions in your own fear."

She narrows her eyes up at him.

"You're far too intuitive for your own good, you know."

"No," he says. "I just know you very well."

IX.

Belle's birthday is the second of May - Jeanne's as well, which is why poor Blanchefleur was made even more a beast of burden last week than usual - and that is why she gets out of bed early, very early.

She is seventeen today. If the world were just, she would be receiving a watch from her papa for this birthday, but instead he is gone, and she has only a smooth marble memorial under a Judas tree in her grandmother's garden.

Neville Longbottom is sitting under the tree that is theirs, she supposes, overlooking the lake. She had not expected anyone else up at this time save perhaps Hermione, but somehow she is not surprised to find him there.

"Morning," he says. "Hermione told me. Happy birthday, Bellona."

He holds out a little parcel and a very big card. He has beautiful handwriting, as lovely as Belle's own, and she wonders that she has never seen it before in all this time of knowing him.

"Thank you, Neville," she says, accepting the parcel and the card with a smile, and taking her usual seat between the two high roots. "You did not need to do such a thing, but thank you all the same."

The card is simple, two dancing penguins in plainly drawn black tie, and Belle laughs. It's completely ridiculous, nothing she expected to receive today and treasured because of it.

"It's only a little something," he says, looking embarrassed now, "but I thought- well. I didn't know if your mother would know."

Inside the little parcel is a box, and inside the box is a dainty little pocket watch wrought in white and yellow gold, on a long, thin gold chain.

"Oh, Neville Longbottom," she says, ignoring how thick with tears her throat is. "I cannot possibly accept this-"

"It wasn't expensive," he rushes to assure her. "It wasn't my mother's, either, in case that's what you're afraid of."

"But Neville-"

"It was my grandmother's," he says. "She ah- she was kinder about it than usual when I wrote to ask."

"Will you put it on for me?"

He does. It hangs a beautiful length, the chain fitting neatly against the delicate chain of silver and pearls that was one Grand-mère's that she always wears.

"It is too much, Neville," she says, twining both chains between her fingers so the beautiful little watch rests in the palm of her hand.

He says nothing.

"Why are you always so kind to me, Neville Longbottom?" she asks, turning once more to face him. "It is- I have done nothing to deserve it."

"You asked me not to be afraid of you," he says. "Do you remember? Years ago. I remember. So I haven't been afraid of you, and that's let me see that you aren't scary at all, really. I think you're lonely, mostly. I thought this might make you a little less lonely."

His hands are very big and very warm when Bellona takes them, squeezing in a strange sort of thanks she cannot quite articulate. It is a bright, sunny sort of morning, and Belle feels less ill at ease now than she did when she slipped out of the dormitory.

"I do not deserve a friend as kind as you, Neville."

"You have me anyway," he says, and nothing more.

They sit until the sounds of the school stirring drift out on the breeze, and then they go into breakfast.

Blaise and Daphne have croissants.

"A very eager house elf appeared with them," Daph says, doing her very best not to laugh. "He said to wish Harry Potter's sister a happy birthday, and not to let people we don't like have any."

Blaise is already eating, but he pats a beautifully patterned cake tin with a meaningful wiggle of his eyebrows.

"I was a little worried when you were already gone," Daphne says, adding a sprinkle of cinnamon to her milk. "We weren't sure-"

"I wasn't either," Belle says, "but I went for a walk, and Neville found me. Or I found him. We talked, and he gave me my birthday present."

"You'll be inundated with presents today," Daphne says. "Your suitor arrived with something enormous, and I saw Granger with a little gift bag, and I think I saw Weasley's little owl arriving with something as well. Oh, and I know Su has something for you, and I suspect the sweets that Flora had delivered this morning aren't for her - you know how careful she has to be of sugar, what with her diabetes."

"I hardly expected something of you two, never mind anyone else! And I have no idea what you're talking about. Suitor indeed."

Ernie blows her a kiss from across the hall, which does absolutely nothing to help her case with Blaise and Daphne, who seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

"Yes, well," Blaise says, finally free of pastry. "You've an awful lot more friends than you realised, de Poitiers."

"Shut up, Zabini," she says, blushing and bumping her shoulder into his. "You'll embarrass me. I have a reputation to uphold."

"I don't know why you're so convinced that you're scary, Belle," Daphne says, putting chopped hazelnuts into Belle's porridge without looking away from her elegantly arrayed croissants and fruit. "No one except Pansy is afraid of you, not since you burned the blood quills."

"She's right," Blaise says, a moustache of milk bright on his upper lip, but not as bright as his smile. "Now, eat up, and then we can get to the first of your presents."

"Not the first," Daphne says. "You said Longbottom gave you a present already - what did he give you?"

"Oh!"

Belle tugs the pretty watch from under her blouse, letting it rest once again in the palm of her hand and clicking it open to show the pretty two-tone face, the dainty black hands, and the fine little sapphire at the 12.

"I'd hide this from Macmillan, if I were you," Daphne says, once they've oohed and aahed. "He might challenge poor Longbottom."

"I don't know what you mean," Belle says, tucking Neville's watch under her blouse with Grand-mère's chain and ignoring the heat in her cheeks. "Now come on, eat up, or we shall be late for class."

Blaise looks troubled, though.

"I didn't even think to get you a watch, Belle," he says. "I should have, with your father being- I had Mama order your present, but I never thought. I'm sorry."

"Don't be absurd," Belle scolds him, because truthfully she would never have expected such a thing from him - Blaise is her family. She does not need a watch to confirm it.

"I'll be just as absurd as I wish, you," he returns. "But you're right - we should get to class. Eat up."

Daphne's smiling her tiny, conspiratorial little smile, which means there's something strange ahead. A singing telegram is right at the top of Belle's list of fears, but there are other horrors that might be visited upon her for Daph's amusement.

"Wait," she says, Blaise linking her left arm and Daphne her right on the way to Potions. "You mentioned presents?"

Owls arrive for Bellona all through the day - Blanchefleur screes all the way down to the dungeons, clattering to a halt beside Belle's cauldron with a basket clasped in her talons.

"Oh, you silly girl, you," Belle coos, guiding Blanchefleur up onto her shoulder. "How rude of you to interrupt a lesson!"

"I'm not one for interruptions usually," Professor Slughorn agrees, "but for such a pretty owl I might make an exception. Special occasion, my dear?"

"My birthday, sir," Belle says, dipping her head a little. "My seventeenth - poor Blanchefleur has come all the way from Valence, and with such a burden!"

"Why! An adult already - I wouldn't have thought it of you, dear girl - I thought you were the youngest of us all."

"She's more mature than she seems, sir," Ron pipes up, much to Blaise and Daphne's amusement. Belle scowls as convincingly as she can at him, but she's in too good of humour to be truly annoyed.

"Well, a very happy birthday," he says, patting her shoulder. "And a dash more yarrow, I think, that'll bring up the colour beautifully, there you go."

At the end of class, he leaves a tiny little bottle wrapped in a scrap of blue silk in her basket.

"Just in case," he says, holding up a newly-fallen feather for her inspection. "I've done a little reading - thought this might help."

It's a balm, Daphne tells her upon close inspection on the way to Charms, for soothing her scalp - a strange, thoughtful little gift, and not one she expected. She's tried similar things for her temples, where the pinfeathers show strongest, but this feels softer and richer than anything she's managed to brew herself, and she wonders what she can give Professor Slughorn in thanks.

"He's warming to you," Blaise teases. "You'll be coming to Slug Club dinners yet, Belle."

The fabulous eagle owl, all sleek and massive, that Blaise's mother favours arrives during Charms - it is a beautiful creature, but deadly, just as Madame Sofia is, and Belle does her best not to flinch when it lands on her shoulder. Blanchefleur's talons are one thing, but Gamayun's are another entirely.

"I might have known," Blaise says, scowling right in Gamayun's great golden eyes. "Mama already sent a gift with mine, but of course she had to send something else to upstage me."

"I'm sure it's a trifle," Belle says, knowing that it will not be. Sofia Nikolaevna has never given a gift that is less than spectacular in all the time Belle has known her. Her own mother gifted Blaise with a combat harness for his birthday in February, with one of her very own feathers hidden in the leather - for luck, for lightness, and for fire resistance.

Veela are very close to firebirds, after all.

"Sofia Nikolaevna wouldn't know a trifle if it bit her on the behind," Daphne says, ducking away from Blaise's automatic slap with a laugh. "I'm right and you know it!"

"Well, into the basket it goes for now," Belle says, dodging under the book Daphne throws at Blaise in retaliation. "We can open everything after dinner, in the library. Even Madam Pince-"

"We have a special meeting of the Dueling Club tonight, actually," Daph says, blocking Blaise's pencil case with Belle's hardback notebook and pushing Belle down under the table by the top of her head. "You're coming along whether you like it or not, before you fight."

The special meeting is a birthday party. There are balloons.

"I'm going to smother you this evening," Belle says, squeezing Daph and Blaise's hands. "Both of you. I'm going to suffocate you."

"Don't be sour," Daphne says cheerfully. "It doesn't suit you one bit."

Frankly, she's amazed by how many people are here. Someone - Hermione and Blaise, almost certainly - has set up a long table and benches, like a house table in the great hall but laid with a blue-and-white gingham tablecloth and three huge vases of lilies. Fleur-de-lis. What else?

"Happy birthday, Belle," Blaise says, because the lilies are white, yes, but some of them are also blue - she's never known blue lilies to grow anywhere but in Grand-mère's cloister, off the Lady's chambers in Valence. "Mama brought them - good old Slug helped me get them in."

Belle has had one letter from Grand-mère since Christmas, and Jeanne says she has had only four, but these lilies - a peace offering. They already mean more than whatever bauble Grand-mère sent as a gift.

"Don't be saucy, either," Daphne says, like an afterthought. "You aren't nearly as funny as you think you are."

Belle knocks her hip into Daph's as they move toward the table, and is more curious than she would ever admit - here are Harry and Ron and Hermione, Ernie and Susan and Hannah and Zach and Justin, Flora and Roman, Loony Luna and Michael and Anthony, and others, too.

Leandra, who is one-sixteenth a siren. Toby, whose grandmother knows Ukki and Aleksi, who is among the keepers of the Finnish forests. Isolde, who hears the song of the stars. Hector, who speaks Merish because he learned it from his grandmother, whose father lived below the waves.

Most of Dueling Club has shown up at the promise of cake, Belle suspects, and because there is always some fun to be had in the midst of Daphne's firm, but not strict, lessons. There are more sweets and treats on the table than Belle could eat in a year, even with her bottomless appetite for such things, and her basket of gifts from home is there, too, with parcels from her friends.

"Mine is sweets," Flora Carrow says, while Roman Urquhart bends to kiss her cheek. "I've never seen anyone eat as many sweets as you, Black, so I thought I'd best keep you in sugar so you can keep an eye on the little ones when I'm gone, next year."

Roman gives her a black armband emblazoned with a bright silver C, and stuffs his fingers in his ears with a grin when she tries to object.

"Oh, but Roman - come back here! I cannot accept this, no one even likes me-"

"Half the House has been clamouring about trials for next year," Roman assures her. "Who else could it be, Black? I like Blaise probably a little more than I like you, but he has less an air of command than Flitwick. You, on the other hand, will have the Cup in hand by Christmas."

He makes her put the Quidditch captain's armband on over her normal robes, much to her absolute mortification, but she can't pretend that the flush in her cheeks isn't partly from delight. Captain! Her!

"Did you tell him you didn't want it?" she asks Blaise, who looks affronted, for some reason.

"You may not have realised it, Belle," he says, "but you're very literally the only reason we came second in the Quidditch Cup this year. You deserve this. Please attempt to enjoy it without justifying it."

"Similarly," Daphne says, adjusting the way the armband sits over Belle's sleeve, "please do try and enjoy your party - we've all worked very hard on it."

An hour into the party, Belle slips away to have a smoke.

Ernie follows her, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses her without preamble. It is just over half an hour before they make their way back to the table. Professor Sprout very nearly catches them on her way to tend to Ernie's grandmother's roses, which makes Belle laugh so hard that she almost forgets to hide her cigarettes.

Luckily, Professor Sprout likes menthols, and she doesn't comment on the smear of pink lipstick around Ernie's mouth.

Three hours later, when it's right about time for bed, Belle is warm under Ernie's arm and Daphne's sleepy under Susan's, Blaise is lying right down the middle of the table and leaning up on one elbow, impossibly elegant, and Harry is arguing at length with Ron about… Something, with Harry sitting on the table and Ron on the bench beside Hermione, who is leaning against Harry's legs and looking amused by it all. Zach and Justin are attempting to play Exploding Snap with Hannah somewhere near Blaise's feet, but she's so damnably quick that mostly, the boys are losing.

She hasn't opened half of her gifts. The ones from Grand-mère and the aunts are jewellery, the same from the twins, and most of it was probably taken from the vault - sentimental, but unsurprising. Ukki has sent her some kind of protective charm he made himself, she can feel the magic of it humming through the soft calfskin leather bag, and Aleksi has sent her the sort of flight leathers a Veela wears for long journeys, adjusted to suit sitting on a broom instead of soaring on wings. Jeanne's gift will be herself spending most of the summer in London, and Belle laughs every time she imagines telling her younger self that Jeanne presence could be something to be desired.

Maman sent her a key. Just a key. It matches the key to Grimmauld Place that Blaise had made into a bracelet for her, though, which seems strange. It looks like an older key than Belle's own, so unless it's… Unless it's Papa's…

"Still in there, de Poitiers?" Ernie asks gently, squeezing her shoulders a little. "Haven't lost you, have we?"

"I'm here," she promises, toying with her keys. "Just… thinking."

"Think more quietly," Zach calls. "We're trying to concentrate."

The cards on the table bang, much to Hannah's raucous delight, and Belle settles a little more into Ernie's warmth.

There's change on the cool, dewey air. Good or ill, it's coming, and Belle is wary of it either way.

But she has her friends, and some lovely birthday presents, and this evening.

Belle -

I'm sorry this is a little late, but Blanchefleur has been busy all week and I didn't trust another owl.

My part is the smaller of the two - I hope you find it useful! - but your dad's is the most important. Sirius had me order this last year, because he had very exacting standards. He knew it would take ages to make, and he wanted to be sure it was ready on time. I'm sure he's glad of that now.

I don't know what to say, except that he chose something very close to his own, and I hope he chose well.

Happy birthday, Belle.

With love,

Remus

"He ordered me a watch," she says, and Blaise settles her closer against his side while Daphne crowds in tight against her back. "How did he know?"

It has a dark blue face, dotted with stars, and a window to show the clockwork on one side and another to show the phases of the moon on the other. The hands shimmer, and Belle has a horrible feeling they're set with diamond.

It is exquisite. It is very nearly garish. It is like having a little piece of Papa to wear on her wrist.

Daph kisses her hair, Blaise kisses her temple, and they don't say a word about the tears running down her face. There's really nothing to say.

Belle and Daphne are just finished tucking the matryoshkas back together when the noise starts.

The matryoshkas a personalised set from Blaise, and while they are special, while they are beautiful, while she does not dare display them for fear of Pansy, she also knows Blaise well enough to know that there must be something under the beauty of them.

He won't tell her though, the brat.

Much as the armlets Daph gave her - good Welsh gold, twisted and woven into a pair of torc-style bracelets for her upper arms. Beautiful and valuable for their owns sakes, for the rarity of gold from the Clogau mines, but Belle had nearly fallen over in surprise when she'd cast a Shield Charm in Dueling Club and found herself surrounded by a spell that very much did not originate from her wand.

"Oh, silly me," Daphne had said, smiling fit to split her face. "Did I forget to mention that?"

The armlets are in a lockbox in the bottom of Belle's trunk, along with all her other jewellery save her two necklaces, her key-bracelet, and Papa's watch. She can't really look at that yet, but she wears it every day to accustom herself to it anyway.

"What a busy year this has been," Daph sighs, locking the dolls' case and tucking it into Belle's trunk. "I can hardly believe it's over, can you?"

"It does seem strange," Belle admits. "And I'm a little worried as to what Maman did to my house - do you think she decorated it? I hope she didn't, she has such boring taste."

"I'm sure it's fine, Belle."

And then, the noise.

It isn't that it's sudden, really, and it isn't even that it's late in the evening - they're only putting away their treasures because it's around the time Pansy tends to come in and start her ridiculous preparations for bed, which can take anything up to an hour and a half - but the noise builds to a level that they can hear it all the way down here, and that means something truly drastic is going on upstairs.

Belle leaves off her outer robe, but she pulls on her boots. Daphne's boots are heavier than Belle's, thick-soled things made for stomping, and Belle is unhappily sure that Daphne will need them before the night is out.

Blaise meets them in the common room, as do Flora and Roman.

"It sounds like a fight," Roman says. "No one gets in here. No one gets past us."

The little ones are all peeping around their dormitory doors, and it matters very little to Belle whose parents are branded with Voldemort's mark and whose are not - they are all children. Even the ones who've been in Daphne's club since Christmas are in no way prepared for anything like this.

Belle isn't sure that she is herself, but what choice do they have?

Flora's hair is braided into a crown, woven through with acid-green ribbons that catch what little light there is to be had in the dungeons.

"You three are better fighter than we are," she says of herself and Roman, when they're at the junction where the dungeons split - classrooms, storerooms, former torture chambers one way, common room down a turn you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. "I want you to stay here, just in case."

"Absolutely not," Daphne says. "We're the common room least likely to be attacked, Flo, and you know it - you and Roman are the best defensive duelers I've ever seen, and I won't have you wasting that upstairs when you're more use here."

Flora and Roman don't look even slightly surprised by Daph taking charge.

"Yes, General," Roman says, snapping off a sharp military salute. "And mind how you go, Black - you're needed next year, don't forget it."

"Why did he single me out?" Belle asks as Blaise and Daphne hurry her along. "I am no more reckless than either of you!"

"If you believe that, you'll believe anything," Blaise says, pushing her behind him as they mount the stairs to the entrance hall, and-

Belle has never been in battle before.

She did not expect this.

Ronald Weasley is probably the person Belle would least like to duel against. Harry has one direct, effective tactic, and Hermione is too technical, but Ron has an instinctive flow with his attacks that makes Belle wary of him, even now that they are friends.

She wonders if it comes of having so many brothers, and Ginny.

"'Lo, Belle!" he says cheerfully, throwing a hex at a man in a mask that knocks him into a wall so hard that he cracks, somewhere, and stays down. "Busy sort of an evening!"

There are others - Hermione and Ginny back-to-back, and there is Loony Luna with Neville Longbottom, Susan and Zach, a handful of Ravenclaws whose names Belle can't remember because she's gotten bad at names now that she has so many to remember-

"Protego!"

"Oh, that's handy," Ron says, stepping behind her Shield. "Try not to get killed, Belle, Ernie'll hang me by my toes if you do, and then Harry'll throw me off the Astronomy Tower."

And he's away.

Ernie takes down a Death Eater who was aiming at Belle with a shoulder to the gut, and some silly part of her that isn't terrified of the potential for death flutters at how sweet it is, that he is protective of her when she's so much better at fighting than he is.

"Hello, my dear," he says, ducking down to kiss her before leaping over a fallen statue to engage some other poor fool.

He's wearing his kilt. Only Ernie.

Belle spies a fool who looks remarkably like Marcus Flint aiming his wand at Susan Bones, and does the only thing that occurs to her.

She runs up behind him and kicks him as hard as she can between the legs.

"Nice catch, Belle!" Susan says, and Belle misses the rest of what she says because was that Fleur? And what can only be Ron's brother, based on that jaw?

"Wotcher, Belley," Dora says, pushing Belle behind a pillar, out of the way of a bolt of bright green magic. "Looking well - battle suits you."

"I think I might throw up," Belle offers, because she's lost one sleeve entirely and her hair has all fallen down save the sides, which Daphne braided for her. Dora, meanwhile, looks more alive than she has in a very long time, her hair shining dark and lucious, her eyes bright and fierce.

Battle suits one of them, and despite her name, it is not Bellona.

"That's the spirit!" Dora says, as if it is a small thing - which for her, it is, thanks to her being an Auror.

Belle wishes Remus were here, and regrets that a moment later when he runs past with a smile and a wave.

Fleur screams, and her hex hits the monster looming over her beau a moment before Belle's, a moment after Mrs Weasley's.

Belle doesn't see Blaise and Daphne until the dust is settling, and the Death Eaters are fleeing.

They follow. Professor Snape is among them, to no one's real surprise but to Belle's bitterest disappointment - how dare he live, when her father was dead?

Harry screams. Snape screams. Professor Dumbledore-

Belle never liked him, but even he did not deserve this.

Belle is permitted entry to the hospital wing only because she broke her wrist and did not realise it.

"Bird bones," she says wryly as Dora sets and splints it, and almost earns a smile. Now that the thrill of fighting is gone, now that Professor Dumbledore is laid in state in the great hall, Dora is once more as she was at Christmas - diminished.

"Running into action by kicking a chap in the fork seems more to blame," Remus scolds her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pointedly not looking at Dora. "Figure out what your watch does yet?"

Make a bloody great noise, as far as she can tell - Daphne understands these things better, and Blaise as well, but the damn thing screamed every time Belle hit the ground, even of her own volition.

"Give me a reason to kill you for sending it to me?" she suggests, but she reaches up to squeeze his hand all the same. "I'm sorry, Remus."

"I'm sorry for all of us," Dora says, looking anywhere but at Remus. "Dumbledore was the very last thing You-Know-Who was afraid of."

"We'll manage," Remus says, and Belle pretends not to notice how hard they both blush when their eyes meet for just a moment.

An argument three beds over draws their attention before things become any more awkward, so shrill that Belle can only understand the French.

French means Fleur. She pushes past Remus and Dora to go to Fleur's defence, if need be, and if not then at least Belle can try and hold her back.

The Weasley asleep in the bed, with bandages and score marks on his face, must be Bill - the source of the engagement ring on Fleur's hand, which is much smaller than Belle expected

"You!" Fleur cries, seizing Belle by the good hand and drawing her close. "Tell them! They think I am so vain and stupid that a few little scratches will stop me from loving him!"

Belle doesn't try to hide how her jaw drops.

"If you believe that," she says, mustering all the frostiness she can, doing her best to emulate Grand-mère, "then you do not deserve to have Fleur join your family."

"Belle," Remus says sharply. "Not the time."

"Oh, it's never the time with you, is it, Remus?" Dora says bitterly, turning to face him like a whirlwind. Her hair darkens from the mousy brown it's been since last summer to a black like Belle's own, like Dromeda's, and her face grows sharper and haughtier - also like Belle's, like Dromeda's - and she is once more as bright and fierce as she was in battle. "Everything can always be put off for another time, can't it?"

"Not now, Dora," he says. "Not here."

"Yes now! Yes, here! She doesn't know Bill half as long or as well as I know you, but they aren't letting this come between them!"

"It's different and you know it," Remus says, in a firm, gentle voice that Belle recognises and hates - it's the voice he uses when he's teaching. How dare he use it on Dora! How dare he make her so sad for so long! Belle is a little embarrassed to not have understood sooner, but now that she does, she's furious. "He'll probably never transform, and he isn't so much older, either-"

"If you're going to be so stupid about this," Belle says, still angry enough to be cold, even with Remus, "then I shall write to Anatole and have him find someone who sees Dora's worth. How dare you disrespect her so, Remus!"

"I've been saying that all along," Mrs Weasley pipes up, which softens Belle a tiny, tiny amount toward her - even is Mrs Weasley has been doing her best to sabotage Fleur's happiness, at least she has been working toward Dora's. "You're being very stubborn about this, Remus, considering you're wrong."

Harry looks very small, but Belle spares him only a glance - once she's finished being angry with Remus, she will go to him.

Belle knocks on Professor Hagrid's door, and throws herself on him as soon as he opens it.

"Oh, yes, well," he says, holding on tight with one arm while he uses the other hand to blow his nose on a very large yellow hankie. "I won't be much of a host, I'm afraid-"

"Sit down," she tells him, "and I will make the tea."

She is glad that she thought to bring him the new hankies she ordered, as a thank you for his kindness to Daphne.

"And what say you of our new Headmistress, my dear?"

"Hello, sir," Belle says, stopping for Phineas Nigellus only because she is tired, and any pause is welcome. "I hope you've been kinder to Professor McGonagall."

"She'd take it as an insult if I were, that one. Hard as nails."

"And you haven't a sympathetic bone in your body."

"That too," he confesses. "If I did, I might have worn it out for your sake before wasting it on that girl."

"What do you want, Grandfather?" she asks. "No games, no foolishness - just tell me."

"Grandfather," he says. "I quite like that. And as to what I want, girl, is that I want to address all this disappearing into dark corners that you've been doing with the Macmillan boy."

Belle thought Ukki finding out about Ernie would be embarrassing. She suspects that it will be nothing compared to her long-dead several-times great-grandfather addressing her from a painting of a Medusa and her handmaiden.

"Ladies?" she says, in Greek to make a point. "Would you be so kind as to hold him down so I can kill him? I promise I'll arrange for the repair of your portrait."

"You are the very first person to speak to us in sixty years," the Medusa says, ad her teeth are very sharp. "I'm sure we could kill him for you, my dear."

"I speak Greek, you know!" he huffs. "There's a talent for languages in the family, my girl - now be serious. Why couldn't you have taken up with that nice Nott boy? He doesn't have a Dark Mark, as far as I can tell. He'd be a better match."

"You're awful," Belle says. "Isn't he awful, ladies?"

"Revolting."

"Probably our least favourite guest, truthfully."

"And I don't see what you have against Ernie," Belle adds. "Not only is he a pureblood, he's heir to an earldom! It's Viscount Ness I've been disappearing into dark corners with!"

"And you, my dear, as head of the House of Black, have a title of your own," he says. "Has no one told you? You shouldn't have taken up with him just for to become a countess."

"My reasons for taking up with Ernie are none of your business, sir," she snaps. "And I expect you to be very helpful to Professor McGonagall, or I shall be very annoyed."

She curtsies to the ladies, and turns her shoulder to her great-times-several grandfather.

There is a funeral, and Belle feels sick. Albus Dumbledore has been honoured in every way imaginable, honoured in ways no witch or wizard has previously, with this tomb by the lake, and her father has only a smooth black stone under a Judas tree, thousands of miles from his home.

Why, truly, does Albus Dumbledore deserve so much more than Sirius Black did?

"Harry-"

He lets her draw him close, and his shoulders shake while she holds on tight. He does not cry for long, but he does cry hard, the kind of throbbing sobs that catch in the throat and offer no relief.

She wonders, for a brief, silly moment, if they do look like siblings, as Harry's house elf friend thinks. Harry is much darker than she is, of course, has what she's been told are his mother's green eyes where she has her father's dark, but maybe…

No. Aside from the hair, they will never look like brother and sister. That is what they are becoming all the same.

Getting everything to the train is a damned nightmare, and it's entirely Ernie's fault.

"Of course it doesn't fit in my trunk," she grumbles, adjusting the strap of the gorgeous lap desk he gave her for her birthday for the millionth time. "And don't you dare kiss me to distract me, Macmillan!"

"I'll kiss you, and then you can give out to me some more," he says, and that is exactly what he does. "Here, let me take the damned thing, then, if that will shut you up, de Poitiers-"

They tussle, but there's nothing to it - Belle is sad to be parting ways, sad to be losing her smoking partner as much as she is her… boyfriend.

It seems such a silly word, but she supposes that is what Ernie is.

"Up you go," she says, slapping his backside as he climbs into the carriage ahead of her. "Make room, I've got food to fit in here as well as people-"

"We won't have room for everyone-"

"You two are travelling alone," Blaise says, slamming the carriage door behind Belle.

There is a moment's silence before the carriage starts to move, and then Belle starts laughing, and then Ernie starts kissing her again.

"Who am I to smoke with over the summer, then?" he asks.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

They settle into comfortable quiet, Belle fussing with her basket of treats and Ernie fussing with her writing desk, and he takes both when they arrive at the station, and even offers her his hand to pass her down from the carriage.

"Now," he says, holding out his arm for her. "I've been doing a great deal of thinking."

"Always a dangerous way to spend your time."

"Quite. Letters?"

"Of course."

"And you're very welcome to visit me in Cromarty."

"Revolting. Come to London instead."

"Absolutely not," he says cheerfully. "Letters it is, then. Use the monogrammed paper. I'll use mine. It'll all look very elegant."

Along with the lap writing desk, Ernie stocked Belle with quills and ink and beautiful handmade paper stamped with BUdPB in the bottom corner enough to do several years, and she's far too embarrassed by it to use it to write to anyone but him.

"If you say so."

Ernie loves kissing her, and she quite likes kissing him, too, and so that's what they're doing by the time everyone catches up to them.

"Disgusting," Zacharias says, herding them toward a compartment. "Please hang curtains if you intend on doing that all the way to London, Ern."

"Shan't," Ernie says, but he does let go of Belle, at least until everyone has changed out of their robes and settled down to eat.

It's a relief of sorts, to be back in her black and white - Belle knows that she draws eyes in the street even without the distrust she earns for being a Slytherin at school, but she is used to people looking at her for the sake of Veela-glamour, and she can ignore that because it means nothing. She feels more herself in her black-and-white pinstripe sundress, with her hair loose over her shoulders, than she has all year at school.

"Very fetching," Ernie says, in kilt and plain white t-shirt. Belle is more interested in the thick cabled socks and sturdy boots he's wearing to finish the look than she'll ever admit, because she hates how much she likes the way he looks. It feels like admitting defeat, because this is not something she would find in the vingt-et-unième.

"So," Zach says, not looking up from his book when Justin lifts his legs and sits under them- oh. Well, perhaps that explains why Zacharias has been so wonderful to Susan and Daphne. "Plans for next year?"

"I'd rather talk about the summer," Blaise says, sitting back-to-back with Hannah on the floor, for some reason. Do they feel a little left out because everyone else is paired off? Belle hadn't thought of that. "Next year is… Not as interesting a prospect as I'd hoped."

"Here, here," Justin says. "So, summer?"

"London for us," Daphne says, stretching like a cat and slumping back against Susan's shoulder. "Belle and Blaise and me, I mean, although my granny has mentioned something about visiting. We'll see."

Belle's hackles raise at the slightest mention of Daphne's family, even her seemingly supportive grandmother. Perhaps that's just her natural reaction to grandmothers, though.

"I'm off home," Ernie says. "Plenty of golf and hillwalking for me."

"Disgusting," Zach says, to Belle's hearty agreement. "America, I think - my sister mentioned something about New York. We'll see. We have family over there."

"In the colonies," Justin teased. "Ah, probably much the same as Ern, only in more temperate climes - and a great deal more tennis, I think. My sister should be home from Oxford, and my brother'll be up from Eton in a couple of weeks. Nice to see them again."

"Lake Como," Hannah sighs, tipping her head back over Blaise's shoulder. "I can't wait."

"You're all terrible," Susan says. "I'll be stuck in the depths of Suffolk all summer-"

"Oh, stop it, Bones," Belle says, leaning further into Ernie's chest and closing her eyes to soak in as much of the sun spilling through the window as she can. "You know you're welcome to spend as much of it in London as you please."

Belle falls asleep against Ernie's chest, and wakes only because Blaise and Zach are having an argument about chess, each accusing the other of cheating.

How differently her year is ending, compared with how it began.

"'Arry! 'Arry!"

Belle looks very fancy, in a black and white dress with her hair down, and Harry can hear Dudley's attention snapping toward her.

"I am so glad I did not miss you, 'Arry," she says, beaming as she sweeps him into a hug. "Please say you will visit with me? Bring Ron and 'Ermione, you are all so welcome."

"I know, Belle," he assures her, hugging back as tight as he can. "Be safe, yeah?"

"I will try," she says, holding him at arm's length with her very brightest smile, "so long as you promise to write to me if you find yourself becoming as I was last summer, hmm?"

"I- I'll try. I'll see you in September?"

"August," Belle corrects him. "You do not think that I would miss Fleur's wedding, do you?"

She kisses him on both cheeks before releasing him - Blaise and Daphne are nearby with Belle's uncle, who is also wearing black and white stripes, and her other uncle, the one who does all the baking, waves when Harry watches Belle run back to them.

"Who," Aunt Petunia asks, sounding absolutely horrified, "was that?"

"That's my godfather's daughter," Harry says. "She can throw fireballs."

Dudley's interest snaps right back away from Belle, and Harry can't help but smile.