Golden Haze, Act Three, Scene Five
AN: This story's limited POV has really come back to bit me in the ass. I consider writing a third person omniscient to be lazy writing, because there's no mystery and confusion. I think that sometimes, especially in this story, people have found that to be annoying because there is a clear lack of information that Fleur, as the only person whose POV we see, doesn't know everything. That's the point, but now I really wish that I had opened up the POV a little bit because there is so much I would rather have done with the content of this chapter. Oh well, you live and you learn, I guess.
Music of the Story: The Leverage Soundtrack – Joseph LoDuca
She couldn't calm down. She was worried, biting her lip, pulling at her hair and her jacket. Fleur had found small chair in the corner of the Weasley's living room and had perched, precariously, on its edge. She was not staying, and certainly was not trying to get comfortable. The chair was hard under her and uncomfortable as she leaned forward on it, teetering on the edge of control and once again having none of it. She was trying, desperation coloring her usually collected and calm voice, to convince Harry and the others that it was time to leave once again.
Fleur knew that she was not the picture of calm that veela usually presented themselves as. No, she was nothing even remotely close to that. She was a wreck, completely agitated and obviously showing it. She had to get away from this place. Hermione needed her and they were not doing anything worthwhile here. To sit here and wait for something that probably was not going to happen was a fool's venture. Her eyes narrowed and she bit back cruel words that had no place here. She could not alienate herself now.
Her fingernail was in her mouth, she was worrying on it, eyes flicking from Harry to Ronald to William and back once again. She wanted to just leave, but Harry insisted that they wait until dawn. He had insisted that they come back that night too, after a day of fruitless searching for Hermione. There was nothing more to do outside, and William had been able to get the information that they needed about the safe house from his contacts. They had come back to speak with him, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, but Fleur had been unaware of that at the time.
Now she wanted out of the place and its false-happy memories. She could see William's hand on Mrs. Weasley's clock, pointed somewhere between 'danger' and 'about to do something completely stupid'. Had she ever been given a hand as a member of the family, her hand would probably already be on the second option. She gave it a withering glare and turned her attention back to the other people in the room. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning and she was not in the least bit tired. One by one, they had fallen, going back to their rooms to sleep, but not Fleur. Not with Hermione missing. The veela would not let her rest, she would sit vigil until she was able to go out and find Hermione.
"Fleur, you have to be calm," William's voice broke the silence.
Fleur turned to stare at him disbelievingly. He, of all the people here, should understand. Why was no one letting her go? She knew she could leave, but there was something that held her back, a fear, a carry-over from before when she had been unable to truly be free of William, should she want to be. No, something was foolishly holding her back. Fleur wondered if it was the fact that she was still human and the veela had not fully taken control.
She was resisting to remain rational, but even then her control was slipping.
Fleur bit back a harsh retort and responded in as calm and even a voice as she could manage. She still sounded panicked and stressed, but at least she didn't sound potentially homicidal. That was what she was holding back from them, they could not know that her control was so close to slipping away. She was libel to do something foolish if she could not go out and search for Hermione soon. "I cannot be calm when she is away from me. I 'ave to find 'er, get 'er back."
Harry, from the armchair across from her, looked up at her all green-eyed and disgustingly earnest from behind his glasses and said, "Fleur, it's okay, we'll find her." He had been reviewing the case notes that Kingsley Shacklebolt himself had sent over for them to look through. He thought that there might be a link between Park's home and where they were holding Hermione.
Once an auror, always an auror, William had laughed as he had presented the file to Harry and Ron for perusal. Fleur had thought him insane then, but it seemed as though the Minister for Magic had the right idea, as they looked more closely at the file.
All of a sudden Fleur felt a pang of fear and loneliness that she knew was not her own. The veela pushed hard against her tight control and Fleur inhaled quickly, afraid of what she might say now. Her control was so tenuous. The words forced their way out of her hazy mind and Fleur heard her voice then, low and threatening, "Right now."
She sounded like the monster that she pretended she was not.
At that moment, all of the inner peace that Fleur had so carefully cultivated within herself vanished and the self-loathing returned once again. It was because of the creature inside of her that they would not let her go. They worried she was going to be irrational, that she would act without consequence and that she would be a fool. The veela would be all of those things and more. It would kill anyone and everyone who stood in the way of her reuniting with Hermione.
Fleur did not want them to know that though, she did not want them to be aware of how dangerously close to that edge she was.
If the opportunity presented itself, she would take it and vanish without a trace if it meant saving Hermione. She was not afraid of running off and taking control of the situation. She would kill, maim, and destroy anyone who got in the way of her mate – be they friend or foe. This was why she was here, she did not trust herself alone. Her control was so thin, at any moment, the wrong word could set her off and she would be gone. She trusted them, trusted in the savior of the wizarding world, to keep her from killing.
Harry looked up from over his glasses, his green eyes narrowed and disbelieving in the way that Fleur was acting. He didn't understand, he was still just a little boy.
(You are not much older.)
"Bill was able to figure out why they took her. They want her letters out of the paper for a while." He pushed a sheet of paper towards her with what appeared to a flow chart on it. Fleur wanted to scream, she had no time for graphs and charts, now was the time for action. She had to act like she wasn't going insane resisting the pull of the bond and of the veela, so she leaned forward and picked up the paper. "They won't harm her," Harry continued.
Fleur blinked, staring at the paper in her hands and yet not really seeing it. Someone had scrawled a sequential pattern of events that probably made sense to a human brain; the veela was less than enthused by it. Fleur set the paper down before she tore it up. Her voice shook as she spoke, the words coming out, bubbling forth from deep within her. "She is mine," her bangs had fallen into her eyes, obscuring how harsh and angry they looked. "They cannot take what does not belong to them," Fleur trailed off with a hiss, glaring around the room, daring them to disagree with her.
Ronald Weasley, uncharacteristically silent in this exchange, leaned forward from next to Harry and placed his hand on the papers in front of his friend. "Now see here Fleur, Hermione is her own person, she doesn't belong to you." His eyes were just as angry as she felt.
Fleur shook her head, smiling sadly at Hermione's young friend. He did not understand, none of them did, really. There was so little that she could actually come out and say about this without potentially breaking some tenant of veela tradition. She would not be the one to tell them about the bonding, that was Hermione's secret to reveal. "Vous ne comprenez pas," Fleur looked down at her hands. She chose her words carefully, knowing that she had to make her point very clear or else she was going to end up doing something that she was going to regret. "The veela does not care, and I can only be rational for so long before I will lose control completely. And then you will 'ave to deal with the veela."
Ronald thought about what she'd said for a minute, before leaning back on the couch and looking suddenly more weary than before. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled, and Harry, in his infinite wisdom, pointed out: "Still, she isn't a possession."
Fleur threw up her hands, she had no idea how to even begin to talk about this. She had been able to explain it to Hermione fairly well, mostly because Hermione read and paid attention in class. "'arry," she began, her hands coming down to rest on her knees, "écoutez moi, you 'ave never 'ad a professeur who taught about 'ow different species love. You do not know what you are talking about. At least, not in the context of 'ermione and myself." She looked up then, eyes pleading with those bright green ones across the coffee table from her for understanding that she did not think he could possess. He was too ignorant, he didn't know he was playing with fire. "We must save 'er. I cannot stay calm much longer."
"We wait until morning." William said, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. She flinched and pulled away from him.
"Non!" Fleur hissed, eyes narrowing and fingernails lengthening. She inhaled slowly, drawing on what little control she had left. Her nails did not shorten, her control was getting thinner. "We must go now."
"Fleur, seriously, she's not going to get hurt." Harry put his hands down on the table before him, trying to look like a picture of calm. Fleur could see it in his eyes, though, the uneasiness and worry. She'd seen him look that way before, back when they were all hidden away in Shell Cottage waiting for Hermione to recover. "She's not a treat to them. They don't know her connection to you."
Ronald nodded enthusiastically, pulling a galleon out of his pocket and flipping it to Fleur, who caught it, overly long fingers and all. As she stared down at it, eyes disbelieving, Ron pointed out what Fleur had always considered to be an obvious fact about Hermione Granger. "Besides, Hermione's ace at getting herself out of situations like this," Indicating that Fleur should flip the galleon over; she saw what he had been talking about. Along the edging was a clever bit of spell work that Fleur recognized easily as having Hermione's magical signature all over it. Fleur read the message quickly and frowned, not sure she understood the code used. "We sent her a message on the galleons we used to use for the DA. She got it, the spell went through. She knows we're lookin' for her."
Fleur set the galleon on the table. "You are all … what is the word… bête… stupid, but brilliant." She sighed, not knowing how much she could actually reveal of her worries for Hermione. How much control it would take to say the words out and how likely she was to lose control upon speaking them. The veela was a creature of simple wants and needs, denying what it wanted was easy enough, you just had to emphatically avoid thinking about it. To speak on it, and to be so worried, was fraying Fleur's nerves.
She spoke, her voice shaking as she kept her eyes downwards, watching her hands for any signs of further loss of control. Golden Haze filled her vision and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out as the veela's rage took her. Inhale, exhale. It was so easy to pretend she was not about to fly off and do something utterly stupid. "I am worried for 'ermione's mental well-being. Physically, she is likely to be unharmed as long as she does not resist. In 'er head… I cannot be so sure."
Hermione would be trapped within her head, it was what Bellatrix had left her with, nightmares and terror. Fleur hoped she would be okay, hoped and desperately longed to leave and to go out there once again. The idea of waiting sickened her, but it was the waiting that was keeping her in check. She would not succumb to the golden haze so long as she was here, and until the morning that was her only line of defense.
"Bellatrix…" Ron breathed.
"Exactly." Fleur clapped her hands together, the veela pushing her to speak even more, despite her desperate attempts to control the creature. "Which is why we must leave now." Her voice was a dull hiss, but she knew that they heard it.
William fell back into his chair. "The sun rises in two hours. Try and rest until then." He threw a hand over his eyes and added, "Even villains sleep Fleur. Hermione probably is to."
Fleur could not argue, her control back once again.
x
At dawn, Draco Malfoy arrived at The Burrow with two aurors in two. Apparently, they had picked him up at Malfoy Manor (something that he was none too pleased about) and they'd all come to collect Fleur and William. Fleur had been out the door and heading to where their research had indicated the safe house was even before Mrs. Weasley could attempt to feed them breakfast. Eating could wait until Hermione was rescued.
She apparated to an alleyway near the house and stood there, staring at it in the dim light, her fingers flexing. She'd never been able to fully calm down enough for them to completely shift back to those of a human, the haze was still ever present on her vision. With the partial shift, the veela had so much more control, so when Draco Malfoy appeared a second later with a sharp crack, Fleur was not at all surprised.
"Your control is terrible," He said, forcing a thermos full of coffee into her hands. "Weasley sent this along. He's getting breakfast with the aurors from his mother." He spat out the last work like a curse and Fleur raised an eyebrow.
"Do you not like Madame Weasley?" She asked, trying to get the conversation away from her (lamentable) lack of control. "She 'as always been kind to me."
"She does not like me," Draco said, folding his arms tightly across his chest and scowling. He squinted at the house across the busy muggle road from them. "Can you sense her?"
Fleur shook her head. The thread of consciousness that she'd been picking up on in spurts ever since Hermione had been taken was oddly silent. She wondered if they'd added more wards to the house. "Non, I do not sense anything." She hung her head, fearful that they'd moved Hermione to a different location during the night.
Draco Malfoy frowned and picked his way down the alleyway. He looked out of place in muggle jeans and jacket, a slytherin scarf wrapped tightly around his neck against the cold. They were pretending to be tourists; he was trying to look the part. It was so jarring to see one of her pureblood students attempting to blend into muggle London, and the thought of it drew Fleur's consciousness along a strangled and thin line back to something that could be labeled control. Her fingers shifted and became softer, once more looking like fingers rather than claws. She sighed gratefully, and turned her attention back to the street.
"They'll be along in a few minutes," He said a few moments later, still staring at the house.
She nodded and took up next to him, standing silent vigil and waiting for something, anything, to happen.
Twenty minutes later there was a sharp crack and she and Draco turned to see the two aurors as well as William and Harry. Fleur could not bring herself to look enthused as they arrived, but soon they were standing in a small circle speaking quickly and assessing their options.
The two aurors' names were Robert Butler and Clyde McKenzie, both were from London proper and knew quite a bit about the neighborhood where Jones and his group had decided to set up their headquarters. As they were sharing their knowledge, Fleur felt her control start to slip once more. She tried to focus her attention on what was being said, but she found her concentration slipping away more and more quickly with every passing moment.
The circle broke and Fleur exhaled quietly. Soon they would be moving and she'd be able to fight and claw her way thought the evil, murderous people who had taken Hermione away from her. She would spare them so that they could go on trial, for kidnapping one so close to Harry Potter was sure to ensure a very public trial. Attacking a rich man's son, even one convicted of being a death eater, was another crime they'd have to pay for.
"Qu'est-ce que je pense?" Fleur muttered, her long overcoat billowing out around her knees as she walked closer to the street to get a better view of the house they were watching. What was she thinking indeed? There was no reason for pity, no reason for mercy. She would kill them for what they did.
"'ow is your man so sure they'll be there?" Butler asked, standing just off her right shoulder and chewing on a toothpick. He was staring across the street at the unlikely row house. They were in the very heart of London. The tube rattled in its tracks just beneath their feet and an aboveground train whistle could be heard just up the road from where they stood.
Fleur didn't know if Butler was talking to her or to William, who was grim-faced and silent against the alley wall, a folded map of London open in his hands.
"'e 'as 'is ways," Fleur said with a glance over to William. The veela pushed and she continued, despite the fact that she was lying through her teeth, "Can we not go inside? I think I can sense her presence."
He shook his head. "We must wait." The plan was to wait until one of Jones' group either came in or out of the house and then use that circumstantial evidence to seek entry to the house by any means necessary. Harry had trotted off down the road a few minutes before to set some wards that the aurors had suggested that repelled muggles at the first sign of magical conflict. That way, at least, no innocent bystanders would get hurt. Fleur supposed that she was glad of that, but the veela simply wanted to lash out and hurt anything and everything that stood between it and Hermione – its mate.
There was only so little she could do to maintain that control right now, Draco was watching her closely for that very reason. He knew spells that would work on a veela, should they need to stop her from murdering someone. Or at least, she hoped he did, given his heritage.
Butler frowened at William and pulled his toothpick from his mouth. "Bill, what the bloody hell were you doing going undercover with them? You're not a trained auror or information gatherer." He spat on the ground and Fleur looked away, revolted, "And you certainly don't blend in well."
"I was the best man for the job." William shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the ground. Fleur could tell by his body language that he did not want to talk about it further, but that he probably was going to have to anyway. McKenzie and Butler were both trained investigators, they knew about information gathering and William really was in no position to hide the fact that the reason he was doing this was because of marital problems that were entirely of his (and Fleur's) own creations.
McKenzie closed his notebook with a snap and tucked his pencil behind his ear, "I find that rather hard to believe, you're still just a kid."
William sighed, loudly and as dramatically as possible. Fleur had heard that sigh before, it usually meant that he was about to go off and speak his mind as thoroughly as possible. She felt for him, really she did, there was no reason to have to out himself to these people, but if it made this any easier for him to explain to them, she supposed that he was welcome to do it. "McKenzie, I'm gay. I'm married to a woman, who – no offense Fleur – who is part magical creature and it is pretty obvious if you read the gossip column in the Prophet that we're not exactly fawning all over each other."
"Oh." Butler said at the same time McKenzie's pencil was removed from behind his ear and the notebook was hurriedly reopened. Fleur hoped he wasn't writing down anything disparaging, but she did know that aurors, at least in comparison to their muggle counterparts, were considerably less prone to abusing their power.
"It gave me the perfect in, Jones listened to my story and bought it." William continued, blowing into his hands to warm them. They were standing near a subway vent, but the wind had a harsh edge to it that made Fleur shiver slightly as William spoke. "He's a pretty shrewd bloke, honestly. I was surprised he didn't question my motivations more."
"Maybe he's just a fool then. I mean, considering what he's been up to, it seems entirely plausible." Fleur watched as McKenzie glanced over to Draco's still-bandaged fingers and back to William. She had to agree with his assessment, there was literally no reason for them to do what they were doing unless they were completely stupid. They'd managed to anger a veela that Fleur was just barely managing to keep under control, not to mention kidnapping one of their savior's closest friends and confidents. It just seemed as though the whole thing was not at all well-thought-out.
(The best laid plans do sometimes seem that way), the veela purred in her mind while pushing harshly against her mental barriers. Haze filled Fleur's vision and suddenly the dreary day seemed bright and sun-filled. She shook her head to clear her vision. It was only an illusion, just like her outward calm.
She hoped that aurors would not stun her when she did finally lose control.
William made an affirmative noise. "I think that that's why they took Hermione, because she was the one writing all those letters to the editor of the Daily Prophet. They knew it was her from the first one she wrote but they couldn't figure out why she was writing them. They thought that she of all people would be on their side."
Harry Potter came around the corner just as Draco raised his hands to look at the bandages. They glanced warily at each other as Draco muttered angrily, "There's nothing to be on their side for, they're crazy."
With a gesture that was almost certainly for show, William folded his arms sullenly across his chest and stared moodily at all of them. The map that had been in his hands was now crumpled and crushed against his chest. "I know. I mean, honestly – they're obsessed with this idea of beastiality but have somehow missed the point that we're wizards. We are not constrained by the same principles that muggles are."
"They are not 'aving any of it," Fleur muttered, "They want us gone because we are different and are inhuman to them."
This was the crux of it. The very thought that she could not stomach. Wasn't this taught in British schools? At Beauxbatons it had been made clear from the beginning of their first year that there would be little tolerance for intolerance. While there had been the usual pureblood-versus-muggleborn conflict, it had never been drawn out to the same level that it had been at Hogwarts the year that she was there, not how it was like during the war. It tested her control to the very limits as she tried to imagine how someone could miss the point so completely.
Butler threw his toothpick on the ground and rubbed his hands together. Funny, they were all so cold. Fleur did not feel a thing. The cold did very little to her skin it seemed, and her coat was thin as it was. She supposed that it was the rage of the veela, coursing through her veins, that kept her from feeling her body's fatigue and the cold of the wintry morning.
Looking Fleur up and down, Butler's eyes narrowed, "But why?" With another look, he continued, "You look human enough to me."
"Exactement." Fleur nodded. She was human, in every respect save one; and most veela didn't even have that problem. She was still working towards that feeling of completeness but she knew that it was only being hurt by having to constantly question her own personal identity. Why was it that when she was finally able to start to accept herself for who she was that something came once again and drove a wedge in between the veela and her own subconscious?
These were questions that Fleur knew full-well that she would never have the answer to. Because that veela was also a part of herself that she had to become comfortable with if she was ever to live her life fully. It was a hard thing to even start to think about tackling, let alone contemplate actually doing it. She exhaled angrily and tried to clear her head. There was no help for her now, and something had better happen or else she was literally going to lose control and start to lash out at people.
No one wanted to see that.
"Then why do it?" Harry demanded, pulling the crumpled map away from William and unfolding it carefully. Fleur watched as he smoothed the edges and carefully folded it down so only the small section of it that contained the neighborhood they were currently observing was showing.
"Fear of the unknown, probably. They also don't want the legislation that Hermione and Malfoy over there are working on to pass." William said with an off-handed shrug.
"But it gives them rights! It helps them!" Harry nearly dropped the map as Draco's voice cut across their quiet conversation. He was annoyed, clearly, by his tone. Fleur's eyes narrowed, wondering just how close he was to losing control.
"Ils sont des imbéciles." Fleur agreed, eyes trained on the house. She could sense Hermione there, if she could only just go. The thread of consciousness through the bond was awake once more, and Fleur could sense Hermione pulling at it.
She's figured it out then, Fleur thought grimly, and allowed her walls to fall just enough to send positive thoughts and the promise of rescue in Hermione's direction.
One step, two steps, the street was silent on this strange British holiday where many people were still with their families, celebrating Christmas. She could get Hermione home and still have it be Christmas, yes, yes she could.
"Fleur, wait." William said, stepping forward and grabbing her arm. She could feel his warm hand through her thin jacket and suddenly Fleur realized just how very cold she was.
Her eyes narrowed and she hissed at him, threatening and completely alien on her tongue. The veela had pushed, and it would push again. She was going to lose control, it was only a matter of minutes if something did not happen to change the course of how their luck seemed to be going. "I 'ave to get 'er out. Before she is killed or worse because of what I did."
"You being a veela does not mean anything in this!" Harry protested, "They just want her to stop working on that law."
"The law helps everyone, Potter, but people don't see it that way." Draco stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. His mouth was obscured by his scarf, but his voice rang out clearly through the alleyway. "Think about the laws the Dark Lord passed, that actually restricted the movements of many of his following, people still blindly supported it because they supported the man behind it even if it took away their own rights to even be considered a person."
"Then why oppose it?" Harry wanted to know. Fleur didn't blame him, he was not very good at this politics thing. It had been evidenced in the summer, when he had suddenly become the most desirable wizard in the world, having vanquished Voldemort. He had not known how to interact with the press, with government officials, with anyone other than his yearmates at Hogwarts.
"Jones doesn't want "nonhumans" or creations of "rape" – animals can't consent, you know – to be afforded the same rights by the government." William supplied. Fleur flinched at the idea, there was something so very wrong about even bringing up rape in a conversation about veela. It was the one thing that their species could not do. "At least that was the talk around their headquarters. He hasn't said as much in as many words."
"Honestly, a veela or a banshee or a vampire is no more an animal than you or I." Draco folded his arms over his chest and scowled.
The thought came again, unbidden as before, about the poor education system in the country. Muggleborn students were expected to know far more and comprehend a good deal about a society that they had never been exposed to – it was not a stretch to learn about a creature in Defense or Care of Magical Creatures and just assume inhumanity. Most wizards, unless they were part-veela or banshee, were probably not going to mention the fact that they possessed creature blood. "I 'ave been thinking," She said, tapping her finger on her chin and wondering if forcing herself to think critically about things was actually helping her to stay in control. "What if it is because they never learned in school and just know that a lot of old families 'ave magical creature 'eritage? So this is their revenge…"
There was a crack behind them and they all turned as one. The tall and skinny form of Misses Park stood on the street corner, looking shocked. They had been disguised as tourists, Harry was holding a map, but Fleur knew right away that it was too late. Harry was too recognizable, even with a skullcap pulled down low over his glasses. They had been spotted, her chance was now. Park's wand arm shot into the air and a silvery mist erupted from it before she apparated away.
Fleur ran forward, one step, two steps, before she found the thread of Hermione's consciousness carefully buried within her heart and tugged on it. She could get there. She closed her eyes and cleared her head, destination clearly in mind.
She vanished with a crack like a whip, not caring that she had left behind her back up and she was not nearly a skilled enough duelist to take down this entire organization. She didn't care. She had to save Hermione.