I.
They go to Paris.
Paris, because it's safe there. Hermione speaks a smattering of French, and will keep Ron and Harry from getting too terribly lost - and if they do manage it, despite her care and nagging, Ginny is with them. She'll keep them safe, even if she seems not to have any better a sense of direction than Ron.
Paris, because that is where Maman has bought a house, and so they are all staying with her. Daphne's grandmother is coming up from Toulouse, and Anatole has promised that Amand is coming from Rennes, and Tante Leto is coming from Valence. Not Grand-mère, certainly not the twins and Metis, but Maman and Anatole and Jeanne are with her already, and Leto sent a wonderful letter and sweet lavender balm with Jeanne, when they came to Hogwarts.
Paris, because that is where Aurelia Lelong and Guillaume Blanchard have their shops. Belle has suffered through six years of having to look at Harry's hideous idea of style, and she will not suffer it a moment longer. If Ron and Hermione and, yes, even Ginny get something approaching a modernly tailored uniform into the bargain, well, Belle's just feeling generous.
Paris, because the finest optical healers in Europe have only five shops, and the only one outside of Italy is in Paris.
If Belle has to suffer the indignity of new glasses, then Harry does too.
The Rue du Moulin is not Belle's favourite street in le 21ième. It is a street of healers and doctors and even a soothsayer, at the corner where it meets Place des Chansons. Grand-mère insisted on her being brought here when she was small, after they had exhausted the resources of Valence and Toulouse and Lyon and everywhere else north of Occitainia.
Belle was never sure what the healers and doctors and learned people were trying to do. Even when Maman was at her worst, she fought against the visits, but Grand-mère's word was law.
The Rue du Moulin hosts every esteemed healer in Paris. That means, unfortunately, that it is here Belle must come for her glasses.
Signora di Spina's shop seems made entirely of glass - fitting, since the di Spinas started out as lens-grinders and expanded their trade until even Tiffany of New York could not match the beauty of their work. The light shifts in opalescent sprays across the gold-shining-white porcelain of the floor, and catches on the glasses and sun-glasses arrayed on narrow white shelves against the wall of pale cypress-panelled wall behind the counter.
"Bit of an improvement over Specsavers," Harry says, and Belle supposes that that must be a Muggle thing - he has a few of those, things that make Hermione and Seamus and Dean laugh that the rest of them don't understand. "Have you been here before?"
"I bought your sun-glasses here," she says idly, queasy until Amand's hand slips into hers. Maman and Leto shouted at Anatole when he tried to insist on coming along, and Amand herded her and Harry out of the house while the fight was ongoing. Belle loves Anatole, but he gets so nervous whenever there's something wrong with her that he's of no use. Amand is always calm and steady, and he's not said a word about her not wanting to wear glasses. Everyone else has scolded her for being vain. "And Ukki's been ordering sun-glasses from di Spina's for years - Maman always collects them for him."
Amand squeezes her fingers, and she braces herself against it.
"Anyway," she says, reaching over to thump Harry hard in the shoulder. "You've saved the world, Harry Potter. I think that it is time to save yourself."
"From what?"
"Going blind," she says bluntly, annoyed at how hard it is to adjust to the shifting light in the shop after the bright sunshine outside. It was so easy to manage in the Room, when it adjusted the light so well that she didn't even notice the damage until they were long gone from their haven. There had been so many others in need of more immediate care than her, and during battle it hadn't mattered if her hexes went a little to the side because they always hit some Death Eater.
She remembers, vaguely, that her eyesocket broke under Cousin Bella's tender care, but she does not remember any of the other damage. Perhaps it is a mercy. She remembers very little detail of those dark hours, beyond Bellatrix's laughter and the whips cracking through the air. Everything else is just… Pain.
But not today - no, today is a far cry from that. In Signora di Spina's beautiful shop, with Amand's warm hand curled into hers and Harry rubbing his shoulder indignantly, this is not like that.
Harry ruffles his hair thoughtfully, looking at the wall of glasses before them, and it is immediately a mess. She bullied him into using a little pomade this morning - just a tiny touch! - and now it is ruined. She despairs of him, she really does. She wishes Amand might despair of him a little more. They get on like a house on fire, which is wonderful, but Amand is as forgiving of Harry's scruffiness as he is of Belle's own vanity, and that cannot be allowed to continue.
"Anatole will never forgive me if you don't get your eye looked at properly, petite," Amand reminds her, nudging her toward the wall of glasses. "Come now, you can't make Harry do it if you won't do it yourself."
She sighs. That's not untrue. It is for her own good, but she doesn't have to like it. If Anatole were here, he would be bullying her just as hard as she is bullying Harry.
"What if I look stupid, Amand? I've never had to wear glasses before."
"You never look stupid," Harry says, holding up a pair of frames that look almost identical to the ones he's wearing. "You know about clothes and things. You'll pick something that suits you, I expect."
"And," Signora di Spina says, appearing through the pale blue curtains behind the counter with her own glasses firmly in place, "I would never allow you out the door in glasses that made you look stupid, mademoiselle."
Belle bobs a hint of a curtsy out of habit, spared any embarrassment when Amand bows just a little. Signora di Spina returns both, and Harry, an Englishman, seems not to notice any of it.
"You are one of les Valentinoises, if I am not mistaken?" Signora di Spina says. "You have your mother's smile, mademoiselle. And your friend? He speaks no French?"
"No, I'm afraid," Belle says. "But his name is Harry, and he needs your craft more than I, I think."
Signore di Spina leans a little closer. She is an ageless sort of woman, with strong arms bared by her sleeveless tunic, and her hair is dyed a pale pastel shade of the green she uses in her sun-glasses, like the ones Belle sent Harry last summer. Belle feels more intensely scrutinized than she has been since… Well, since she hurt her eye.
"We shall see," is all she says, before spinning away to Harry.
Amand's hand is warm and feather-light on Belle's shoulder.
"Come, chouette," he says. "Let's look at the frames."
Belle's still whinging about her glasses when they get back to where everyone else is having lunch, and Harry can't see why. They're nice enough, as far as he's any judge, and she looks very dramatic. For anyone else that might be an insult, but Belle likes looking dramatic. Doesn't she?
"I look so old, Blaise!" she cries, throwing herself down into the empty chair between Blaise and Daphne and hiding her face behind her hands. "Daphne, look at me! Like a grandmother!"
"Don't be so silly," Daphne says, patting her knee, sharing a fond look with Blaise over Belle's head. "Here, have some tea and calm down. I'm sure they're fine, if you'd let us see."
Ron has his arm around Hermione's shoulders, which is still taking a bit of getting used to, but Harry can handle it. Ron's being very gracious about him and Ginny being back on, after all.
Speaking of.
"Hello to you too," Gin says, grinning up at him when he lets her up for air. "How bad was it?"
"Well," he says. "Did you know that you have freckles, Gin?"
"You're a complete disaster," she says gravely, but he can see her so much more clearly now that there's no hiding the glint in her eyes. "Sit down before you get too excited. Did you know that Ron has freckles, too? And wait until we get you a newspaper."
Blaise passes a menu across the table, moving on with lunch because Belle's still being dramatic.
"You know," Harry says. "It's no wonder I needed you to help so much, Hermione. Have the letters always been this big?"
Blaise and Daphne are trying to tug Belle's hands away from her face - carefully, in Blaise's case, because she probably should still be wearing her sling - and she's making all these ridiculous, mournful noises. It isn't even that she's vain of being pretty, so far as he can tell. It's mostly that she's never looked stupid in her life, and she's afraid to start now.
"Aha!" Daphne shouts. "They're black, Blaise!"
"Of course they're black," Blaise says. "Black goes with everything. Come on, Belle, you're just being silly now-"
"Excuse me-"
Belle drops her hands in indignation, and her glasses really do just look like glasses.
II.
"Tante Invidia is wondering when you will visit Valence, ma chére," Maman says while they prepare dinner that evening - a light summer salad, perfect for the warm night, with grilled chicken and sweet vinaigrette, and there is watermelon in the ice-box and sweet strawberry and lime cordial and sparkling wine, too. "She has something planned, I think, and she wishes very much to see you. She would have come with Leto, but someone needed to coordinate the return of our guests across the Channel."
"And Grand-mère?" Belle asks, not really wanting the answer. She already knows that Grand-mère does not miss her, does not wish to see her. Grand-mère struggled enough with Belle when she was unblemished, but now? With a Nurmengard brand?
"Leto and I are working on it," Maman says, sounding miserable. "I am sorry, Bellona. I wish… Well. There are many things I wish. None of them are of any use to you."
Belle leans against Maman's shoulder for a moment - she is taller than her mother, just slightly, but when Maman is wearing her neat little wedges that click like chess pieces on the patio overlooking the garden, the difference is in her favour. They leave the dinner alone for a few minutes, Belle's head on Maman's shoulder and Maman's head leaning against Belle's crown, and then Maman sighs.
"I am trying to be better," Maman says at last. "I thought it might bring something good out of your grandmother, to see me trying, but I seem to have been wrong. I am sorry, ma belle."
Belle lifts her head and kisses Maman's cheek, and they carry dinner out onto the patio where everyone is waiting for them. Amand reveals a little cask of chouchen, and a tin of kouginoù-amann, and perfect pistachio-heavy nougat to come after the sweet, fresh watermelon.
She settles in at the table, with Anatole's arm around the back of her chair and the light of the pale blue lanterns shining silver on his hair. Maman and Madam Sofia are laughing together, quietly, and Leto and Harry are somehow getting along famously despite Leto's rusty English and Harry's being Harry.
Jeanne, sitting between Belle and Blaise, leans close for a moment.
"Are you well?" she asks, soft under the ruckus Blaise and Daphne are causing with Hermione and the Weasleys, leaving poor Amand to make peace. "Your glasses really are very nice, you know."
She would think Jeanne stupid, if not for the disappointment in her eyes. Jeanne knows their grandmother as well as Belle does - better, probably, because Grand-mère has always wanted Jeanne.
There are clothes to be bought and books to be bought and new boots to be bought, all in Paris, but there's also an important appointment in London the following evening. Perhaps the most important appointment of all.
"Monsieur Camenzind is here to help us negotiate a fair contract for you, Kreacher," Belle says. "Do you understand? Your pay, your quarters, your retirement-"
"Kreacher will not retire, Mistress," he says, looking scandalized at the very notion. Belle can still remember Papa mocking Kreacher for wanting to be mounted on the wall beside his mother, and she feels sick. No. That will not be his fate. "Kreacher-"
"If I may, Monsieur Kreacher," Monsieur Camenzind says, cutting in smoothly - he has a reputation for unimpeachable honesty, something hard won as a vampire, and so Belle trusts that it is simply his commanding manner rather than any sort of compulsion that makes Kreacher stop and listen. "You are not a young elf. Perhaps Mademoiselle Black's offer of retirement is something you might enjoy, if she gives you a reasonable pension - and I am here to make certain that she does."
"But who will do Kreacher's duties if Kreacher retires?"
Belle has the good sense and good manners not to point out that the residents of the house have done most of Kreacher's duties since it passed into her hands, and Papa's before her, because that would hurt Kreacher's feelings. She still remembers how Papa treated Kreacher, and it was in that more than anything else that he seemed a traditional Black.
She will not say a true Black. She has grand plans for the reclamation of the Black name, and thinks perhaps Theo, who has the ugly legacy of the House of Nott to contend with, might understand. No one else will. No one else has a name to be ashamed of.
"I would look after you, Kreacher," she says instead, "as you have so long cared for my family."
He agrees to a pension that sounds reasonable even to Belle, who would admit to having no real understanding of how money works for people who are not as wealthy as she is. He also agrees to allow her to turn what was once the butler's quarters into a small apartment for him, so that he might move out of the lower cupboards in the kitchen.
"What about Winky?" he asks suddenly, right as Belle thinks Monsieur Camenzind is finished. "Kreacher must watch her!"
Belle had forgotten about Winky, in truth. Harry told her about digging a grave for his friend, Dobby, who had also been Winky's friend, and Bornog had asked her if it was true, when she visited Gringotts to remove the curses guarding her vault. They expect the respect of an equal from Belle, the goblins of Gringotts, but Harry's grief for a house-elf was so rare as to be remarkable from a wizard. Perhaps Belle, who is not so wholly a witch that she cannot understand why the goblins should be so shocked, can continue his good work.
"If Winky would accept it," Belle hazards, completely unsure, "I could make arrangements for her retirement, too?"
Kreacher's ugly little face folds into a smile. Belle has only ever seen such a thing once before, when she gave him Uncle Regulus' Quidditch robes - that must mean that she has made the right choice.
III.
Fred Weasley's funeral comes first.
The crowd gathered is vast - much bigger than Belle anticipated, but then, she has only ever attended a memorial. Perhaps funerals are different. From what Dromeda has told her, Arthur Weasley is well-liked, and the Weasleys have done many favours for many people over the years. Fred himself was popular, and there is a huge showing of familiar faces from school, from Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson all the way to Roman Urquhart, who smiles thinly when Belle catches his eye. There are other traders and business owners from Diagon Alley, too, and a small army of people with red hair or bright freckles or pale blue eyes who simply must be cousins to the Weasleys, on one side or the other.
Belle cannot help but compare it to her father's funeral, and resent Peter Pettigrew and his lies all the more. She hopes he died badly.
Fred Weasley died well, died bravely, with a smile on his face and his wand in his hand. So Harry tells Belle, when she links her arm through his on the walk from the Weasleys' strange, warm house to the simple, cold graveyard over the hill. Hermione is with Ron, and Ginny is with George, who seems somehow grey.
Belle cannot imagine how he must feel. The closest idea she has is the thought of losing Blaise, and that must be nothing compared to the loss of a twin. If she liked Artemisia or Appollonia even a little, she might ask them, but she does not, and so she can only ponder.
"It was good of you to come," Arthur Weasley says, much later, while he and Ted are sipping on short glasses of strong whiskey, and Teddy is asleep in his little bassinette at Ted's side. They're never far apart, and Belle felt it best to seek sanctuary with Ted, who is unparalleled at easy silences.
She did not expect Arthur Weasley, although she should have. She did not expect his thanks, and does not want them.
"Your family has always been good to me," she says, shrugging a little and gladly accepting the glass Ted holds out to her. She still does not really like firewhiskey, but Ted knows this, and he always cuts it with a dash of soda water for her.
"No, we haven't," Arthur Weasley says easily, shrugging right back at her. "It was hard for us to look past your being a Slytherin, although we're starting to learn the error of our ways."
"Well," she says, "you've always been good to Harry, and to Remus. That is more important."
The past year has made Belle think long and hard about her family, about who is most important to her, and she is not yet satisfied with what she's decided. Harry is important, though. And Hermione, and Ron. That means that she must make her peace with Ron's family, even if she does not think that she will ever like Ginny.
Belle cried when Maman told her Monsieur Fortescue was alive.
"So," he says, tipping back his neat little straw hat, with the red-and-white ribbon. Dressed all in white, he seems absurdly clean and cheerful in the mess of his shop. Belle and Blaise and Daphne have been here three days in a row, trying to help him clean up and prepare to reopen, and they have made some progress - but not enough. "Tell me, my dears, how many of your friends are returning to school?"
"Oh, all of them," Blaise says, holding the base of the ladder from which Daph is fixing the gutters. "Belle's going to gather them all into a net and lock them into her trunk if they try to resist."
"Education is of vital importance," Belle protests, much to Monsieur Fortescue's amusement. "Monsieur Florean! You mock me!"
"He knows you, Belle," Daph calls, hanging one handed from the gutter pipe so she can grin down at them from her great height. Her sun-glasses have garish neon pink frames, and she looks almost Muggleish, between those and her short, artfully untidy hair. "You just want to have all of us where you can see us."
"I am no longer talking to you, Greengrass. I am being slandered, Monsieur," she says, laying her hand beseechingly on Monsieur Fortescue's arm. He pats it with every ounce of condescension he can manage - no small amount, in a Frenchman. "But they are all coming back to school. There are two doubts, but I will talk them around."
"Mr. Potter, I presume?" Monsieur Fortescue asks. "And his friend, the youngest Weasley boy?"
"Of course," Belle says. "I am determined that Mrs. Weasley should like me, though, so Ron will come back to school."
"And Mr. Potter?"
"Harry has never had anyone take an active interest in his future before," Belle says. "Everyone has always been nosy about my plans, though, so I know precisely how to encourage him to follow the correct path."
"Here's a deal, ma chérie," Monsieur Florean says. "If you can convince Mr. Potter to return to school, after the time he has had there, I will never charge you for a sundae ever again."
Belle takes her wand from her hair.
"Bellona?"
"Well," she says. "We have such a great deal of work to get done, and I am not one for manual labour, especially not with this shoulder."
"And what of Mr. Potter?"
"Well," Belle says. "He is entitled to his holidays before returning to school, is he not? And you need an ice-cream parlour so you can serve me all this free ice-cream."
IV.
"Here's the thing," Harry says, fidgeting while she fixes his tie. There are enough things for everyone to worry about without anyone else fussing at Harry's clothes. "I don't really know what we're supposed to do. As godparents, I mean."
"Well," Belle says, "given Ted and Dromeda are doing the hard work, I think we're mostly just aunt and uncle. Papa's situation was different, with you, and Remus did not need to worry about me particularly because I have Maman-"
"As if that stopped him."
Harry looks worried, and Belle regrets comparing them to an aunt and an uncle. Was it not Harry's aunt and uncle who did such harm to him, all those long years?
"Think more my uncles than yours," she says, "and more Tante Leto than your mother's sister."
Leto followed Jeanne to London the day before yesterday, when she and Maman and Anatole and Amand all came from Paris for the funeral. She and Harry have been getting on well enough that even Jeanne is suspicious of it, but Anatole is not concerned and so Belle is trying not to fret.
Belle has been getting along better with Leto, too. She did not expect Jeanne's mother to hail her as fulsomely as Anatole did, but Leto has called her brave and has made sure she knows that the marks on her back signify nothing more than that. That she is brave. That she is strong.
Still there is no word from Grand-mère. She has tried mostly not to think about that.
"We are going to be excellent godparents to Teddy," she says firmly. "Now, please do not ruin your hair."
Harry's hair is untidy mostly because he constantly runs his hands through it, but Belle plans on leaving him on Teddy-holding duty as much as possible today. That way he cannot ruin her good work, and Ted and Dromeda do not need to worry that Teddy is in danger.
"You want a hand with your sling?" he asks, and Belle breathes sharply through her nose. It is herself that she is annoyed with, not Harry - he is not the one who strained her shoulder in the garden yesterday evening - but she is annoyed all the same. "I can't promise it'll be neat-"
"I can," Jeanne says, sticking her head around the door with a smile. "Go out to Anatole, Harry, he has pomade for your hair. For the sake of Belle's nerves. And Maman says that your Porty-Key is almost ready, Belle - here, let me."
Jeanne's hands are steady in a way that Belle's simply are not, and she makes quick work of the black damask they agreed on for Belle's sling today. She's mostly recovered from all the difficulty with her shoulder, but of course it is today that she needs a sling. She and Daphne and Blaise are making excellent progress on the garden, with Neville's advisory letters a welcome aid, but some of the weeds just do not want to leave their beds, and they fight back. Hard.
Jeanne touches her cheek with gentle fingers, just barely enough to clear Belle's head.
"The Porty-Key, Belle," she reminds her. "Will you not come now?"
She comes. She nearly loses her breakfast in the whirl of the Portkey, but Maman's hand is firm on her back, and that is enough.
They walk to the house. Ted keeps roses in the garden, and they are in full, insulting bloom.
Dromeda's face is icy-pale, her hair pinned back so severely that she will soon have a headache. She ignores Maman and Harry and everyone else to come straight to Belle, crushing her close.
"Do you know, Belley," she says, her voice thick and low with the tears she refuses to shed, "you and Ted and our Teddy are the only family I have left. All I have in the world!"
Belle holds on tight in return, and is disappointed once again to have her arm in a sling because it means she has no hand to spare for Ted. He does not mind, and patiently shakes hands with everyone until Dromeda lets her go to seize Harry around the waist.
"Hello, Belley," he says. He has pale green eyes, but they're bright red now, and swollen. "Miserable day, isn't it?"
It's cool and damp today, with rain promising. Teddy, when Dromeda relents and lets Harry lift him from his bassinet, is bundled up in a beautiful blanket of yellow crochet.
"It was Dora's," Ted says, squeezing Belle's arm tight before turning to Dromeda. "Suits him, doesn't it?"
Teddy sleeps through it all, snoring in Harry's lap as his hair shifts from one dream colour to another. They and Belle sit right behind Ted and Dromeda, passing forward tissues as needed, and it is all very simple.
Except the music. The music is appalling, but Ginny Weasley assures them that it is precisely what Dora would have wanted. That means the simple ceremony and terrible music are a perfect balance for Remus and Dora.
Ted's face is pink and shining as he and Dromeda scatter handfuls of clay and rose petals into the grave, and Dromeda's, somehow, is still pale as bone.
Teddy wakes as they're walking back into Dromeda's beautiful dining room, and he immediately reaches for his grandfather. Belle has not cried all day, but that breaks her.
"C'mere," Harry says, once he's settled Ted and Teddy together with tea for Ted and a bottle for Teddy. "Come on."
Blaise and Daphne and Susan are waiting for her, with half the Weasleys and Hermione. There is tea, and sharing grief with Ginny. Teddy is returned to them when the bottle of Firewhiskey comes out, and then Teddy is left in Harry's care when Belle moves with Blaise and Daphne to join in the drinking because Anatole has revealed a bottle of cognac from Valence and a bottle of vodka from Taivolkovski to add to the fun.
Eventually, there is singing, and more crying, but mostly Belle remembers the terrible, terrible music that would have made Dora smile and Remus laugh.
Everyone stays in Grimmauld Place after Remus and Dora's funeral, and so Belle gets Harry alone in the kitchen the next morning.
Well, mostly alone. Kreacher is wheezing his way through organising the bizarre accumulation of jam jars that have gathered in every single one of the lower cupboards, but otherwise everyone has been scared out into the dining room so that she might corner Harry.
"So," she says. "School."
"Not you too!"
" Yes me too," she says, waving her spatula at him. Harry is quite able in the kitchen, but he does not enjoy it, and so Belle never lets him near the cooker. She plays it up as fussiness for everyone else's benefit, but she thinks that Harry understands. Cooking breakfast, locked doors, small spaces - she avoids them on his behalf as best she can.
"There are too many things to do," Harry says. "Important things! Things that I can do-"
"What you can do," she says, slamming shut the oven door behind a plate piled high with sausages. The pans are free for the rashers of bacon now, and Harry passes them over, neatly wrapped in wax paper. "What you can do," she repeats, above the sizzle of fat on the pan, "is your NEWTs. You think defeating Voldemort qualifies you for any job in the world?"
"Auror, maybe?"
"Oh, shut up," she snaps. "Do you want to be an Auror? Have you not spent the last seven years doing the Aurors' work for them? Yes, you have. So you are retired. Do something you enjoy."
"I can't just-"
"Of all people, Harry! Of course you can! Have you not earned some rest?"
"I owe-"
"No one anything."
"Belle!"
"You are the stupidest," she tells him, once again making expressive use of her spatula. "The very stupidest. You have given more than anyone to solve this all, and you do not owe us anything. Come back to school. Play Quidditch and kiss Ginny and try, for once, to avoid detention."
"How can I do nothing?" he asks. "I- I've never done nothing."
"It's what Remus would have wanted for you," she says, playing her last and most ruthless card. "It's what Papa would have wanted."
He scowls as hard as he can, which is not very hard at all. Harry is not made for anger, not really, and she knows that he loved Remus and Papa as well as she did.
The rashers go into the oven. Belle puts the eggs on the pan to fry, and then she takes Harry's hands.
"It's what I want," she says. "If you will not do it for your own sake, then consider doing it for mine."
"This isn't fair," he complains, but without much heat. "Let me think about it?"
She smiles.
"I've already ordered robes for you from Lelong's," she admits. "Now come - help me serve breakfast."
V.
There is one more funeral before Belle must leave for Valence.
Well, there are many funerals, but this is the third and last that she can bear. It is in a Muggle church, with the burial in a Muggle churchyard. Belle purposefully dressed plainly today - but well, always well, if only because Colin Creevey deserves as much respect as Fred Weasley or Nymphadora Tonks or Remus Lupin.
Dennis is wearing a neat suit, in the Muggle style. He looks very grown up, and Belle wishes more than anything that he did not yet understand grief.
They hang back, in the churchyard. Seamus' suit is Muggleish too, and Neville's is a little more formal than is strictly required for a funeral - but that is better than being underdressed. He has a huge umbrella, too, big enough for all three of them, and Belle clutches his right arm while Seamus huddles close against his left when the rain begins in earnest.
"This is shite," Seamus says, and Belle cannot disagree. Mrs. Creevey is a pretty little woman in a wheelchair, and no one seems to shake her hand. "This is just… shite."
The crowd thins, and they move forward. They will be the final mourners, which is just as well - they do not want to cause a scene.
"Hello, Dennis Creevey," Belle says, bending all the way down to kiss him on both cheeks. "I am so, so sorry, Dennis."
He sniffles, and then he shrugs.
"You didn't kill him," he says. "But thank you."
Mr. Creevey manages a thin, watery smile, and gladly accepts their hands to shake - he doesn't make anything of it when Belle offers her left hand instead of her right, once more back in her sling. He even remembers Belle's name, offering a hoarse "Nice to see you again, Miss Black," in return for her sympathies.
Mrs. Creevey, in her wheelchair, smiles. She looks very tired, but she has Dennis' bright eyes all the same. Belle offers her hand, and recoils, and feels guilty for it.
"I'm not one for shaking hands," she says. "Denny tells me you don't have anything like this in your magic world - don't fret. Thank you for coming. It means a lot to him."
"Dennis helped save my life," Belle says, her voice clinging thick in her throat. Neville's hand settles firm against her dip of her spine, and she leans into him. "That is a debt I will never repay."
They decline the invitation to come to the parish hall for tea and sandwiches, and return to the quiet stretch of road where they might signal the Knight Bus.
"It's called multiple sclerosis," Seamus says. "What Mrs. Creevey has. Dennis told me, once - he heard about Dad, wanted to know if he knew anyone who could help."
"Seamus' dad is a doctor," Neville clarifies, seeing Belle's confusion. "A Muggle healer."
"Yeah, exactly," Seamus says. "Dennis had done his reading - I wrote to Dad, asked him. He said he was surprised at some of the questions Dennis thought to ask. Dennis didn't think it was fair if their mum got healed magically when everyone else can't be, that's why he wanted me to talk to Dad about specialists, but Colin- he wanted to be a healer. Try to find a magical cure for their mum. He used to sit in the Hospital Wing and annoy Madam Pomfrey's head a couple of afternoons a week."
"I think that's why he was so much more excited even than the other Muggleborns," Neville says, his hand still heavy on Belle's back. "He knew magic could offer the kind of help Muggle medicine can't."
Not even magic can bring Colin Creevey back to find a cure for his mother's illness. Nothing can give George Weasley back his twin, or let Remus and Dora see Teddy's first steps.
Belle would know. She thought of every possibility when Papa died.
She summons the bus.
VI.
The flight to Valence is uneventful.
The weather is cool and bright when they set out, with a little rain as they are crossing the Channel, but Daphne put Belle's hair into three thick plaits tight to her scalp, joining into one heavy plait that is hidden under her light waterproof cloak, so she does not mind the rain. Daphne's hair is spiky with the wet. Blaise's hair, which he has grown out a little bit, catches the raindrops like diamonds.
Tante Invidia is waiting for them on the front lawn when they arrive. It is evening, and warm, and Belle shucks her cloak as soon as her feet are on the ground.
"How proud of you I am," Invidia cries by way of hello. "I've known hardened warriors driven mad by the brand, but not you! A true daughter of Valence, chérie. Welcome home, Bellona. Valour in war indeed!"
She takes Belle's face in her care-worn, battle-worn hands, the silk of her shirt shushing over the featherweight goblin-made chainmail she wears even now, so far away from the war. She wears her hair in plaits all of the time, usually war-braids with silver rings and chains woven through them, and Belle thinks - hopes - that she can see some small hint of her own face in Invidia's.
Certainly the twins will compare the shadow of Belle's glasses and the barely-there uneveness of her nose and eyesocket to the curse-scar splashed across Invidia's jaw and cheek.
"I am glad of some welcome," Belle admits, wrapping her hands around Invidia's wrists. She has worked very hard not to think of Grand-mère's continuing absence, her enduring silence, but there is no ignoring it now. "None of you were harmed?"
"Some fool wizards tried," Invidia says, grinning like a razorblade. "They were no match for us, though! Come, child - and your friends! Welcome, welcome, Valence is open to you!"
Invidia does not release her, even as she greets the others - she keeps a firm hold of Belle's hand all the while, which is strange. Invidia is fierce and brilliant but she is not affectionate, not even with Grand-mère. She loves them all, of that Belle has always been certain, and Anatole's deep regard for her has always elevated her in Belle's esteem, but Invidia is the vigilant eye watching the Veela of Europe. She never settles anywhere for long, so she never gets truly attached. Belle has always assumed that it was because of Feronia, as so many things in Valence are.
The long pale gravel path to the kitchen door crunches pleasantly under their feet, and Belle is grateful when Blaise takes her rucksack and Daphne takes her broom. She has not felt so anxious in Valence since before she left for Hogwarts. She has not seen her grandmother in well over a year. Her shoulder is aching fit to fall off, but she refuses to see the twins and Metis and Grand-mère for the first time in so long while looking weak.
She has too much pride. Even Cousin Bella could not beat that out of her.
Artemisia and Appollonia are standing to the fore, dressed unusually simply, in plain white blouses and slim-cut black trousers. Even their hair is simpler than Belle would have expected, loose across their narrow shoulders, and she comes to an unexpected halt when they bow their heads to her, in perfect unison.
"I've taken them under my wing," Invidia whispers, loud enough to carry and more. "They have seen the error of their ways, somewhat."
"Well," Belle says, feeling a little ill. Invidia to greet her and welcome her, the twins offering an apology and a welcome - is this the home she knew at all? How can it be, when it is all turned over on its head? "Well," she says again, because she can think of nothing else.
"Perhaps you might share lunch with your cousins tomorrow, chouette," Maman says, glaring sharp enough to cut at Invidia. "Come, chérie, come inside."
Metis, in a shocking show of affection, kisses Belle's cheek as easily as she might Jeanne's.
Grand-mère stands. Grand-mère looks.
Grand-mère sighs.
"You are welcome, little one," she says. And then she disappears into the depths of the pantry.
Belle is surprised, in a dim sort of way, that she does not cry. Perhaps Grand-mère simply does not deserve her tears.
"Whatever I was expecting," Daphne says, while they are setting up her and Blaise's trestle beds in Belle's room, where the Pleiades are still picked out in gold and silver against the midnight vault of her ceiling, "it wasn't that."
Blaise snorts, throwing open the windows to tease in some of the late evening breeze. It is still warm, the air heavy and languid, and Belle has not moved from her bed since they came up to dump their bags. Since Grand-mère so completely dismissed her.
"She'll be better tomorrow," she says, forcing herself to sit up - and making the mistake of wincing at the pain in her shoulder. Daphne will insist on her wearing a sling now. "Ukki and Aleksi are due in the morning, and she is always better when Ukki is around."
That is true, but it still leaves the excruciating prospect of tonight's formal dinner to be endured. Belle has her dress robes chosen, deep emerald green damask that shines just a little peacock-blue in the correct light, and it is only here, now, that she realises that she has chosen something much more witch than Veela in style. She wonders how Grand-mère will take that. She wonders how Maman will take that.
"You don't like to hear it," Blaise says, "but she's completely in the wrong here, Belle. I know she opened the estate to half-blood families across France-"
"Half- breed," Belle corrects. "I was reminded of that just as much here as at school. But yes, she did. She allowed wizards and witches into her home even though she has hated everyone who carries a wand since they murdered their way through our people in the forties."
" Belle. "
"She's my grandmother," Belle says, shrugging helplessly. "What am I to say, Blaise? That I hate her for not loving me as she does Jeanne and the twins? That I wish I could speak my mind before her, so she might understand how much hurt she has caused?"
"Exactly that!" Daphne says, dropping to her knees beside Belle's bed. "She has hurt you over and over-"
"And this is my home," Belle says. "Or it- it should be! And causing a fight will not do anyone any good."
They leave it, but she knows that there is more to come. Daphne's wand is strapped to her thigh under the filmy, layered skirts of her dress, accessible through her pocket, and Blaise's is tucked into the neat holster he wears under his arm, concealed but always at hand.
Her own is tucked into her hair. Up there, even her sling cannot get in her way.
"You look ready for war, mon coeur," Maman says, radiant in stark half-black-half-white. She is smiling, though, and she cups Belle's face in her hands and draws her down to kiss her brow. "How beautiful this green is on you! It makes me wish your school uniform was not so grey. "
"Us as well, Juno," Daphne says, tipping up her cheek to accept her own kisses, before Blaise bows his head for his turn. "Everyone is gathered?"
Grand-mère is already sitting. Belle would have had her books taken away had she sat before the guests, as a child, but perhaps the rules are different for la Duchesse. Perhaps la Valentinoise is above such things. She has always held herself thus, after all.
Jeanne is watching the twins through narrowed eyes while she chats with Anatole and with some of the cousins - Ceres and Vesta are Grand-mère and Invidia's cousins, but since Invidia has no children and Feronia never had the chance for them, no one makes any distinction. Les Valentinoises are the least populous of all the Veela clans nowadays, which makes Grand-mère's stupid denials of Belle even stupider.
The twins, though, they seem aware of Jeanne's gaze, and they smile as sweetly as they are able to at Leto and Sofia. Belle knows that smile well - it usually accompanied cruelty, when they were children.
Was I even happy here? she wonders, taking Maman's arm and moving to the table. Invidia and Metis and Amand are in charge of the food for tonight, and Belle is glad of it. It means that Maman and Jeanne and Anatole and Leto are all here, in case Grand-mère tries to be unusually unkind, or the twins really are attempting to make a fool of her somehow.
The twins behave immaculately. Shockingly so.
Grand-mère gets quietly, profoundly drunk. Belle pretends not to be disappointed.
VII.
The next morning it is beautiful, because of course it is. This is Valence, where everything is beautiful, but especially in sunshine.
True to Maman's suggestion, the twins invite Jeanne and Belle to share a late breakfast with them on the south lawn, spread out on a patchwork of blankets.
"If there are ants in my eggs I will set your hair on fire," she warns Artemisia, who squirms. "What? It is not as though you have not done similar things before. What do you expect me to do? Assume the best? You could not even behave when you were in my house, Artemisia."
"Your forgave Jeanne readily enough," Appollonia protests mulishly, arranging what looks very like Ukki's black bread and cloudberry jam on a pretty willowpattern plate. "Why not us?"
"I apologised ," Jeanne points out, pouring coffee into the hodgepodge of polka dot cups the twins have arranged. "And I did it before Belle was a war hero."
"Well, we were stupid," Appollonia says. "And we didn't have our other grandparents or our father to counter Maman and Grand-mère, did we?"
Belle never really considered that, but it's true. The twins have always lived in Valence, without any sort of escape. Grand-mère has always had control of them in a way she simply hasn't of Jeanne, who has spent at least half the year in Athens with her father's family since she was ten, or even of Belle, before Hogwarts.
Belle has no other grandparents, but she spent every summer in Taivolkovski and Rennes with Anatole. Because Grand-mère was always so hot and cold, Belle never thought it possible to earn her true approval, which had been an escape of its own - she just hadn't realised it at the time. Jeanne never needed that approval, not with her family in Greece falling over themselves to love her, with Leto's unwavering love, and so Grand-mère had never really gotten under her skin.
And, most importantly, they left. At eleven years old, even if she had not seen it as such at the time, Belle chose to be a witch. There have been difficulties, of course there have, but she has always belonged more in her father's world than her mother's - coming here, coming to what was her home, has made her realise that there is a reason that she no longer flinches when everyone calls her Belle Black, instead of Belle de Poitiers.
But the twins have never had that. Grand-mère does not get on with their grandmother in Armenia, and Metis has never hidden that she chased Sufjan Eruandid not because she loved him, as Maman did Papa, or because he was a good friend she trusted to also be a good father, as Leto did with Antonios, Jeanne's papa. Metis chose her stud specifically to annoy Grand-mère, before she grew into the ferocious right hand of Valence that she is today.
That must be strange. Perhaps Blaise's teasing that the twins were jealous of her ever-expanding circle of friends, of the family she found across the Channel, is more accurate than Belle ever wanted to admit.
"Forgiveness is a little beyond us, I think," she admits, sitting beside Jeanne - close beside Jeanne, because even considering her sudden pity for the twins she does not trust them. "But conversation - we might manage that."
Perhaps, if the conversation goes well, Belle might send them to Kapan for their birthday.
Ukki and Aleksi arrive a little after lunchtime, and Belle is lounging on the front lawn with Blaise and Daphne and Jeanne when they spiral in to land.
She has never paid much mind to Aleksi's wings before. She knew he was injured in the war, of course, but he has never seemed much hindered by the damage done to his wings.
Will Belle be hindered by the brand? Not much. Will she always be conscious of the scarring nonetheless? Probably. She cannot imagine being otherwise. She wonders if Aleksi would mind her asking how he manages to never seem embarrassed by his own scarring.
Ukki has her in his arms before he has lowered his wings - just like Maman, when she arrived at Hogwarts - and he does not speak. Not a single word. Belle is glad of it, because it seems as though there has been nothing but chatter since Voldemort fell.
Well, except for one pointed silence.
Ukki's quiet is different, though, because in that quiet he rocks her very gently, holding her so tight that she feels almost bruised. She holds him back as hard as she can, which is not as hard as she'd like - she is back in her sling today.
"Hello, krippu," Aleksi says, kissing her pinfeathery temple. "How glad we are to see you."
Jeanne herds them all inside, once hellos have been shared, and Grand-mère is waiting for them in the front hall.
They don't generally use the main door - it is a grand affair, double doors of matte-finished juniper wood all trimmed in polished brass, and it takes two of them to each door to open them fully. There is a sallyport, though, which is usually locked, but Jeanne has the key.
Which is a question for another day. That Jeanne has any keys is fascinating, in a way that feels more distant to Belle than it should - the duchess herself is the only one who carries keys, usually. How strange.
But the front hall behind the main door is familiar, once Jeanne has the door unlocked and everyone gathered inside. They learned to dance here, Bellona and Jeanne and the twins, on the crisp marble chessboard floor. The face of each step on the great staircase sweeping up the eastern wall is enamelled, first black and then white, all the way up to the glossy black ebony railings of the mezzanine above. Here, more than anywhere else, is where les Valentinoises have shown their power. Here, more than anywhere else, is where la belle Diane's stamp is still felt.
The duchess has always tried to emulate Diane, their foundress. Diane, whose name no woman of Valence has borne since as a mark of honour. She had the love of a King and forged a haven for her people with that powerful fire, and the Veela of Europe have long benefited from the sanctuary and wealth offered by the vaults of Valence. The House of de Poitiers has been both helpmeet and executioner, as called for, as black and white as their colours, and Belle was so desperate to live up to that legacy as a child.
There have been a number of remarkable women born of Diane's line, and Belle wonders how it must feel for her grandmother to know that she is not one of them.
Belle once told Blaise that Grand-mère spent time in Gascony, during the war. This is true. Grand-mère fled to Gascony when her sister died, putting her own grief ahead of what was required of her as la Valentinoise and leaving the rest of the war in Invidia's hands. Belle never once scorned her grandmother for her grief, but she has lived through war too, now. She has known grief and loss, and she has suffered.
She never fled. Who is Europa the Coward to scorn her?
She watches from a thousand miles away as Grand-mère and Ukki give their hellos. Aleksi sketches the barest of bows and is mostly ignored, as is the usual between he and Grand-mère. Jeanne shepherds everyone inward, toward the reception room that faces out across the sloping flower gardens. She chatters about biscuits and tea, laughing at something Ukki says in response to some quiet comment from Blaise, and then they are gone.
Belle sits down in the corner of the westward window, which takes up the whole wall and catches the sunset like a painting in a frame. She sits there. And she sits there. And she sits there.
Daphne comes looking for her. Daphne sits, too.
"I think," Belle says, very quietly, "that I may hate my grandmother."
Daphne sighs.
" Finally," she says, and wraps Belle in her arms.
VIII.
Belle dreams.
Her dreams are often indistinct things, filled with snatches of ideas, one of Daphne's lilting little Welsh songs or some joke Blaise's sister sent to him in a letter, a joke that is not funny when translated to English from Finnish. Sometimes it is Maman brushing her hair, or Anatole spinning her around and around by their clasped hands so that she might know something of flying, before she had her Firebolt.
Tonight it is different. Tonight it is the front hall of the house in Valence, the white tiles silvered by moonlight pouring through the westward window. A chessboard. Grand-mère a pale queen in the shadow of the staircase, and it feels like a truth. Grand-mère never wears plain white, always augmenting with jet or blackened steel, but not here in the dream-house.
Belle is all in black, save the red soles of her shoes. A Black knight, with Neville waiting for her in the waking world as her maiden fair.
"You do not scare me anymore," Belle says, dressed in silver-edged black, with red soles on her shoes and her wand tucked into her hair.
"I have never wanted to scare you, little one," Grand-mère sighs, in the same way she used sigh over Belle's black hair and broad shoulders and big feet. Belle has grown into her shoulders, her feet, her strong spine, and she is not afraid. If she can survive Bellatrix in the dungeons, she can survive Europa in the space under the stairs.
"You don't," Belle says, crossing the board - stepping on black, then white, then black again - until she is one up, one over, from her grandmother. "You did, though. And I won't ever forget it."
She steps forward, level with her grandmother. She wonders if she is this much taller than Grand-mère in reality, or if she only feels it.
She wakes up feeling settled, to the chorus of Daphne talking in her sleep and Blaise's quiet, even snoring.
She also wakes feeling a little guilty. Should Ernie not be her maiden fair? He has been returning her letters unopened, so she has not yet broken up with him, after all.
Ah well. Perhaps it is just as well - it might be kinder to do it in person.
IX.
At lunchtime the following day, while Aleksi is hatching a plot with the twins to bring them and their father all to Taivolkovski in the autumn, Invidia knocks on the door of the sitting room Jeanne and the twins have claimed in Belle's absence.
They all are here - Maman and Leto, Belle and her cousins, Ukki and Aleksi, Blaise and Daphne. Metis and Grand-mère are off attending to business, and so everyone has settled in to this pretty room, decorated to Jeanne's exacting, elegant taste, with the glass doors onto the balcony thrown open to coax the breeze in.
Belle has letters - one from Dromeda, all about Teddy, one from Hermione, detailing the retrieval of the parents she spelled away to safety at the risk of losing them forever, and one from Neville. He asks about her garden, and her shoulder, and her family, and tells her about his grandmother kicking his Great-Uncle Algie out of the house.
But then Invidia knocks, and beckons, and the letters and plots and games of Exploding Snap must be set aside, because this must be the surprise Invidia promised if Belle visited Valence.
In Invidia's sitting room, which faces south across the lavender, there is a woman waiting. She has the same snowy white hair as Grand-mère and Invidia, but even her perfect Veela's face is showing some signs of age - delicate, subtle on a human, but there nonetheless. There are only a handful of Veela who have survived to such an age in Europe, and Belle would be honoured to meet any of them.
Carmen Ionescu, leader of the Danube Conclave, accepts Belle's rapid curtsy with a smile and a tilted head.
"How much like you she is, Balder," she says, and Ukki laughs. Belle is so surprised that she cannot say a word, but Ukki comes forward and helps her up with a hand to her elbow. "Well, not now, because you are old and ugly, but when you were a handsome boy? She is your image, under all that lovely hair."
The idea of Ukki being ugly is so funny as to surprise Belle out of her shock. She almost slips back under, to hear a Veela of such pure blood and wide renown calling her very human black hair lovely.
"How wonderful to see you, Carmen," Ukki says, bending down to kiss her on both cheeks. She touches his face when he withdraws, giving him the same prideful look Ukki gives Belle when he thinks she isn't looking. "As unbearable as ever, I see."
"You would hate if I changed, brat," she says warmly. "Come, come, introduce me to your granddaughters - you speak of them so often in your letters that I already feel as though I know them. Is that one the next eldest? She has her grandfather's nose."
Jeanne squeaks, hands coming up to cover her nose, and Blue Carmen laughs.
"My granddaughter," she says, leaning toward Belle as if to share a secret, "is fourteen, and a nightmare. But I am no more able to deny her than your grandparents might deny you, pretty girl."
Belle blushes.
"Now, Balder," she says, sweeping her hands wide. "Bring everyone else away. Your eldest granddaughter and I have business."
Belle cannot imagine what Blue Carmen might have to say to her, but she obediently takes the seat Invidia indicates.
"My great-granddaughter," Blue Carmen says, "is as much a witch as you are, Bellona. And I have scars just the same as yours. Do you see now why I should like to speak with you alone?"
"But- but a Veela with the brand can't fly-"
"And what is a Veela who cannot fly," Invidia says, venomous. "Oh, I've heard that one a hundred times if I've heard it once. That was always a favourite of Europa's. Even the brandings didn't stop her."
"Even Feronia's death didn't stop her," Carmen agrees. "But am I any less a Veela for having my wings hidden away under scars, Invidia?"
"The only person I know who's more a Veela than you is me," Invidia says. "And only then because I am a daughter of both Valence and les Melusines."
"Quite," Carmen says, rolling her eyes. They are a bright, striking hazel, and remind Belle somehow of the flash of Professor McGonagall's glasses in a boisterous classroom. "Do you know how many of us suffered the brand during the war, Bellona?"
"I- No. We never talked of it. Grand-mère would not allow it."
"No, I dare say she would not. Shall I tell you, child? Eszter Báthory and me, we saved all we could so that your grandfather could stitch them back together. We think it was over one hundred."
Belle knew that the brand was the most feared punishment possible, for a Veela brought to Nurmengard. She did not realise it was so common.
"And now, child. Ask me how many lived beyond it with their minds intact."
"When I said I knew hardened warriors driven mad by it, I meant it." Invidia's face is set and hard, all angles - pained. It is the most open Belle has ever known her to be, and she seizes her grandaunt's hand to try and offer some comfort. "Feronia was not the only one to choose the grave rather than the ground."
"But I am not Veela," Belle says, "and so it does not matter as much that I survived it."
Blue Carmen's eyes narrow.
"My hideous brat of a great-granddaughter," she says, "who I love more than my children, most days, and who makes sure everyone knows that she is my favourite. Is she any less a Veela simply because she attends Durmstrang? Of course she is not. That is the point, child. Wings do not a Veela make."
Belle starts to cry. She does not mean to, but she does it all the same.
X.
Grand-mère and Invidia are arguing when Belle and Blaise and Daphne come down for dinner that evening. This is not unusual, when Invidia is in residence, but it is unusual that it is not happening behind the tightly closed door of Grand-mère's reception room.
"- that woman into my home!"
"It is not just your home, Europa!"
Maman is standing with the aunts and Anatole, even Metis looking mortified. Ukki and Aleksi are behind Belle, both pink with temper, and Amand is behind them again, fretting.
And Blue Carmen, along with two women who can only be her daughters or granddaughters, is sitting at the dinner table. She is smiling, but only because she is a guest and good behaviour is expected of a guest, and Belle-
She has always had a bad temper. She has just never dared to loose it on Grand-mère.
"That is enough ," she snaps, stepping between Grand-mère and Invidia as though this is a silly argument between the Creevey brothers. That makes her feel sick, which makes her feel twice as angry. "You shame us all by behaving so in front of guests."
"That woman-"
"Is an honoured guest," Belle hisses. "To have Lady Carmen in our house is an honour. You are allowing your personal feelings to overtake your sense, as usual."
"This is not your house, Bellona," Grand-mère hisses right back.
"Oh," Belle says, holding up a hand to stall whatever bile her grandmother might spew. "I know. You've spent years making sure that I know. But I still will not allow you to sully the good name of this family, even if I am not truly part of it."
The soles of her shoes are red. French witches wear shoes with red soles, but no Veela has ever worn red-soled shoes. Not until now. Not until Belle.
"You are my granddaughter, for good or for ill," Grand-mère says, and it seems that Belle is just as much taller than her as her dream suggested. How strange. Grand-mère has loomed like a colossus over Belle's life from the day of her birth, but she is not a tall woman, not compared with her daughters and granddaughters. "And you will stand down. I will tolerate no such disrespect, Bellona."
"Nor will I, any longer," Belle says, shrugging. She is gone beyond anger now. She realises suddenly that she does not hate Grand-mère - she is disgusted by her. That is worse, somehow, because it means that she still loves her enough to want her to improve. "But you should apologise to Lady Carmen and her companions. This house has always been open to guests. Do not ruin centuries of good grace simply because you cannot look past whatever grievance you imagine you bear against Lady Carmen."
Grand-mère's perfect pale face is red. The same ugly, blotchy red Belle's face goes in the very height of her temper. She wonders, hysterically, if this will be the first time they have ever matched.
"You," Grand-mère says, "are the most ungrateful girl in all of Europe."
"No," Belle disagrees. "I am an adult even by French standards now, Grand-mère. You cannot threaten to confine me to my bedroom for eating too many macarons now."
Invidia's hand lands on the worst of the whipping scars, the one that is still tender and a little raw.
"Chouette," she says. "Perhaps we will dine apart tonight."
Anatole and Maman, behind Grand-mère, look stricken. Has she overstepped? Has she shamed them all? She did not mean to, but her temper overtook her.
"Go to your mother, Bellona," Invidia says quietly. "I will see to Carmen and the girls. I believe Balder has a few words for your grandmother, if you are done with her."
Anatole and Maman reach out for her together, and Blaise and Daphne crowd close and protective against her back. Belle alone seems unafraid, and that is perhaps because she feels the same maddened clarity in this moment as she did when Bellatrix poured saltwater over the ruin of her back.
"Oh, no," she gasps, once they've tucked her safely into Anatole's rooms, with Blaise and Daphne shut out. Even Amand has stayed away for this, which means it must be truly terrible. "Oh, no, Maman! What have I done?!"
"Something we should have done many years ago, my darling," Maman says, sliding to the floor with Belle when her knees give way beneath her. "But- you know that you are a part of this family, don't you? As much as I am, or Anatole is?"
She isn't, really. But she has Maman and Anatole and Ukki and Aleksi and Jeanne and even Leto, and maybe the twins, so what does it matter if she has lost Grand-mère? It is not as though she ever really had her in the first place.
Belle has never gotten drunk before, but she does that night. She sits on the roof with Blaise and Daphne, as she did the Christmas Eve before she lost Papa, and they drink their way through whatever bottles they brought up with them. Belle tastes very little of it, and wakes with the sun and a pounding headache in the morning.
"Let's go home," she croaks, pulling her cloak over her head. "As soon as I can open my eyes, let's go home."
When eventually they shamble downstairs, Maman and Anatole are in Belle's room. They have packed Belle and Blaise and Daphne's rucksacks, and left out changes of clothes and bathing things, and look miserable.
"Carmen is gone," Anatole says, "and we assumed that you would follow."
Blaise makes a grimly determined path for the bathroom, and Daphne lies face down on Belle's bed with a pillow over her head. Belle, somehow, remains upright.
"I'm going home," she says. There is nothing more to say, really. Maman seems to understand, and Anatole will quickly enough - he always does. He always has. "You should stay, Maman, to make sure she does not explode much further than she already has. And you, Anatole - make sure Aleksi does not kill her."
There is a letter waiting for Belle on her bed. It takes another hour and a long, hot shower for her eyes to focus enough to read the letter, and it is of course from Grand-mère.
Your behaviour last night was unacceptable. I expect a full apology once you are finished acting out.
Your training is arranged to start in September. Your mother mentioned some nonsense about your returning to that school, but you are needed in the bank.
"What rot," Daph says, her sunglasses hiding half her face and a glass of orange juice sweating down her fingers. "Let's go home. I think only a Fortescue sundae will cure this stomach of mine, but at least if I vomit over the Channel that won't inconvenience anyone but the fish."