Chapter 5

As ever, thanks to those of you reviewed. Always nice to hear from you, and I especially love getting your ideas for where this story is going. Hope that you all got your replies, please tell me if you didn't; it's possible that I could have accidentally left some of you out. Enough of the preamble, let's go...

Fleur's POV

"What can I do about it, maman?" I asked my mother's face, which flickered quietly in the fire. What had once been an unsettling method of communication had now become the norm, with my mother's head, something that had previously freaked me out a little, appearing in my fireplace on most days.

I had just poured by heart out, finally releasing the information that had been cooped up inside of me for so long. Hoping that mother would have the answer, she'd never failed me before, I'd at last told her that I didn't love Bill, that he didn't love me and that I was generally feeling life to be very bare and meaningless without the true love that I so desired.

"Did I not say that you shouldn't have rushed into that marriage?" Mother told me almost triumphantly. Smiling a little, I nodded and reassured her that she had been, of course, absolutely right; she loved the opportunity to have a little boast every once in a while.

It didn't like overly long for her playful smugness to wipe away. "This is an unfortunate situation. Of course, I want you to be happy and I know that as someone with Veela heritage, your life will not feel as full or meaningful without passion. But, what can I do right away? Have the poor Weasleys not suffered enough over the last months?"

I snorted selfishly. "Anyone would think that they were your daughters, not me."

"Don't be so self-centred." My mother's words whipped me with the fire that I'd know she was capable of using. I loved her dearly, but she could be a very strict parent on occasion. "There is no sense in hurting an already injured family if the time is not right for either of you. Once you have an idea of who you might want to pursue next, or where and what you want to do, then I suggest that we set the wheels turning. You don't have your eye on anyone at the moment, do you?"

"No, maman." I replied, blushing slightly. Relationship talks with my parents still embarrassed me at my ripe age, and I doubted that they would never not. "I have yet to meet a man who sees me for me, who actually tries to get to know me."

"Ah yes, the allure." My mother said with a mighty sigh, "How ironic that what most people think to be our greatest power is actually our greatest curse."

My eyes flickered up to the old clock above the hearth, gently ticking away as time passed into history. The others had been out for hours already, and it was likely that they would begin to return home soon. Needless to say, this conversation could not occur with Bill, or either of the other two for that matter, in the house.

"Are there men immune to the allure?" I asked, sensing that this answer could define the way that I chose to live for the rest of my life. If there was just one man on the entire planet who would see me for me, I would seek to hunt him down and to try to find true love. I would not become like any of my fellow Veela, who travelled around from city to city, town to town and attracted men to them. They would perhaps give these men a night of their time, a night that the men would never be able to forget for as long as they lived, but break their partners' hearts by leaving in the middle of the night, never to return.

Mother looked at me with sad eyes, weary eyes, as if she had known for a while that eventually I would have to find this out. Before the words left her mouth, I knew what they would be. "Fleur, my dear girl, please don't take this too badly... but the answer is no. No man is naturally immune to the allure."

My heart thumped defiantly in my chest, determined that it would find a true partner to bond with, but as the information sunk in, for the first time I actually considered that I would never find love. Perhaps, I supposed, Bill hadn't been the worst option after all. If I was destined to wed a man who I could never love, then a nice person like Bill would always have been high up on my choice list.
Suddenly, a realisation surged through me like adrenaline pumping through my veins. Hope? "But maman. What about papa? He loves you for who you are, doesn't he?"

"My dear Fleur." Mother started unenthusiastically, perhaps not wanting to raise my hopes. "I was the luckiest woman on the planet. When I met your father, he had just been hit with an incredibly strong stinging hex to the face. He couldn't see me and his senses were defunct, which meant that he could not sense my allure. He could talk to me before he could see what I looked like, meaning that he got to know me before falling for the allure. I was lucky because it turned out that I was in the right place at the right time, and that this man who had been hexed also just so happened to be someone who I could love."

"So there is hope for me after all?" I asked, almost pleading with her to fuel my dream.

Mother ground her teeth together, unwilling to either crush my hopes or let them rise. "Yes, theoretically. If you managed to find someone who you loved, but remember that you wouldn't be able to have any contact with them to find this out, then you could hex them as your father was. And then, even if this miracle did occur, then you would have to persuade him to love you before the hex's effects wore off."

A hope was a hope, however tiny its chances were, and I wasn't going to let anything change that.

Harry's POV

From after the first session, Malfoy's visits became a daily occurrence, and Voldemort stopped coming altogether. Perhaps I was no longer worth his time, and to think that once I had been the one person able to stop him, the one person who he had to regard as his equal. As usual, though, he had overcome the adversity and won and there I was, thoroughly beaten, broken and lying on a bed of my own dried blood under his total control.

Was it worse being tortured by Draco Malfoy or Voldemort himself? Of course, the latter's spells were more potent and infinitely more painful than anything I had ever experienced before this imprisonment, but the humiliation of being bent under Malfoy's control was unbearable.

"Wake up, Potter!" Malfoy noticed that I was no longer concentrating on his torture; that had been one of the definite side effects of the repeated exposure to the cruciatus curse, sectumsempra, cutting curses. My mind was turning to jelly at the perpetual pain, and that was shown by the fact that I could no longer concentrate for more than a few seconds.

Pouring from the end of his wand, biting cold icy water covered my face and a glimmer of hope realised itself in my, by this point, totally pessimistic mind. If he accidentally kept my face submerged for too long then I would drown, and finally I would be able to leave this cesspit.

Alas, my hopes were crushed as Malfoy removed the water as I started to struggle to breath; he was being careful, Voldemort's clear instructions were obviously that I had to stay alive.

"Like that, Potter?" Malfoy jeered, although his heart didn't seem entirely in it.

I managed to croak out a sarcastic reply. It was the only defiance that I could exercise. "Yeah. It's...like...Christmas... came early."

I couldn't tell whether the expression on his face was one of distaste, grudging admiration or disgust. He was unreadable these days; back in the early Hogwarts days I'd been able to read him like a picture book. From the first time I'd met him he'd made it clear that he was an arrogant, self-centred, bigoted individual who I would never be able to get on with. Noticeably, though, he had kept his cards much closer to his chest recently. His face didn't contort into emotion like it had used to, and the only thing that I could say for sure was that he was certainly stressed. His eyes were purple, his skin pale and his movement lethargic; I doubted that he got much sleep at night.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you, Potter?" He asked, his tone perhaps betraying a tiny glint of appreciation of my defiance.

I ignored him, fielding my own question. "Why do you serve him, Malfoy? Surely you can't enjoy yourself doing this, maiming and destroying to please a master who will never appreciate you in return. Aren't you lonely?"

Hoping that he had got the gist of what I was trying to say despite my croaky voice, I watched as his eyes clouded over ever so slightly. It was a good sign; perhaps he was even considering what I'd said! His eyelids suddenly squeezed tightly over his eyes and he shook slightly.

When he replied, I was astonished to see the barest traces of tears running down his cheeks. This was Malfoy, and never had I seen him turn into a waterworks. "Don't you get it, Potter? He'll kill my parents if I don't do this. I have to do it. And anyway, Daphne's been keeping me company recently, at least. She arrived a few weeks ago, and it has been nice to speak to someone of my own age."

If I wasn't misinterpreting his words, it seemed almost as if he actually didn't want to be doing this to me. That he truly was doing this only for the good of his parents, and thinking about that, I could certainly relate. If someone had told me that Sirius would die unless I tortured Malfoy, would I have given in? Scarily, I thought it possible that I would have.

We stayed silent for many moments, both of us recollecting ourselves after the rare moment of actual emotion between us. Malfoy turned around to stare at the wall, gathering his composure and breathing in slowly. When he turned back and looked at me again, he had returned to the state which I was used to him being in. His eyes were cold and malicious, and they were looking straight at me.

"It's time to continue." He told me, pacing up and down in front of where I sat. "The Dark Lord has commanded something different of me this time, something that we haven't done before."

He redrew his wand and flicked it quickly. "Legimens."

Quickly, I summoned up a wall to guard my mind. Drawing any happy memories that I could from the depths of my brain, I threw them all into the defence against Malfoy's invasion into my mind. There was nothing that I feared more than having my worst enemy, my nemesis, walking free in my brain. Soon, though, my wall tumbled down. Happy memories were few and far between in my psyche, so few that I simply could not fend off his attack.

My defences crumbled, and Malfoy was in my mind.

Hermione's POV

1 week later...

That week, the Saturday Order of the Phoenix meeting was a sight to be beholden. When the Burrow had been largely empty for all of our previous gatherings, familiar wizards and witches were popping up everywhere as the starting time for the meeting approached. Neville and Luna had done fantastically spreading the word, and the Burrow living room was almost as packed as it had used to be in the old days. I recognised Angelina Johnson sitting by George's side, patting his knee reassuringly, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Lee Jordan, the Patil sisters and Susan Bones, all former members of the DA who had decided to continue the fight against Voldemort.

There were also people who I didn't recognise: a few hefty looking men who Kingsley seemed to have recruited and some others who looked distinctively foreign standing next to Charlie, communicating in their native tongue.

Squashed into the kitchen and sitting room of the Burrow, everybody kept to their own groups. My generation (everybody who had attended DA meetings back at Hogwarts) occupied one corner, Kingley's trusty aurors occupied another, the older members of the first Order of the Phoenix had the third and finally, Charlie's rather odd looking group of foreigners sat in the last.

All in all, I guessed that about thirty people, all highly trained and weathered, had attended. Maybe not the biggest army ever to walk the earth, but a healthy improvement on the session of last week. It was, I constantly tried to persuade myself, only the same number of people who had been in the first Order in the first war, and they had won that time.

Kingsley, the leader by a unanimous vote, walked to the front and coughed loudly. Quickly, the noise died down and everybody turned to face him. Over 6ft 3' tall, Kingsley was an imposing figure and when he wanted to speak, you listened.

"Hello, and to those of you who have never attended a meeting before, welcome to the Order of the Phoenix." He said, the barest hint of a smile traced over his lips. "Before we can begin, everybody in here must make a vow on their magic that they will never willingly betray this organisation."

"What?" Seamus piped up in his Irish drawl, more than a hint of outrage in his tone. "Can't you trust us or something?"

"Well, Mr...?"

"Finnigan."

"Mr Finnigan, I'm sure that you will feel a great deal safer if you know that there aren't any spies in the room, won't you?"

Reluctantly, Seamus nodded his head and stepped back into the crowd. I suspected that his outburst hadn't been because he was truly umbrageous, more just so that he could get himself on the map and on a name basis with Kingsley.

The leader continued. "I'm afraid that this is compulsory, so anybody who refuses to do so will have to leave and be prepared to have their memories of what they have already witnessed wiped."

Fortunately, nobody made to go towards to door and I breathed a small sigh of relief. The last thing that we needed was anyone leaving.

Kingsley organised the group so that everybody could queue up to make their oath under a stern watch from one of the senior members. He wanted to be certain that every single person in the room made the oath, which meant that there had to be witnesses to prove it. People like myself, Ron, and the rest of the Weasleys who had already made our oaths stood back and watched the boring spectacle pass, all of us really wanting to get onto the actual reason for calling the meeting. Examining the room absent mindedly, I noticed Fleur standing alone in the kitchen, a long glass of pale white wine gripped lazily in her hand as she stared up into the sky. As usual, she and Bill seemed to be totally ignoring each other; they were lucky, it seemed to me, that Mrs Weasley was so busy organising everything. If she hadn't been, then surely she would have cottoned on to their apparent disregard for each other.

Surprisingly, Kingsley sidled up to me as I stood alone on the sidelines. Judging by the fact that he had moved over as soon as Ron had gone to talk to his brothers, I guessed that what he had to say was for me and me alone.

"What do you think?" He asked me, getting straight to the point.

"About the new members?" I checked, before replying at his nod. "I think that they're going to be a real help. All of them have experienced battle before, and they also want to defeat You-Know-Who as much as anyone. For the first time since Harry..., yeah, I actually think that we have a chance."

Kingsley shook his head; he never had been one for falsely reassuring people. "No. We don't have enough. We'd need probably more than double the number of fighters that we've got now."

"Double?" I gasped, scrunching my eyes together hopelessly. It had taken a supreme effort to drag these members together, and the chances of getting another thirty people together (at least) seemed like a mission impossible.

Kingsley nodded gravely. "Double. Our spy informs us that You-Know-Who has over one hundred death eaters, numerous giants, and ranks of werewolves at his disposal. And apparently, he can get more if he so desires."

One hundred Death Eaters, of course, did not seem like a massive amount considering that this was the most powerful wizard in the country, and even the world. But, if I knew anything about the Dark Lord, then I guessed that he would want only the most accomplished and dangerous witches and wizards in his ranks, not any old magical who felt that they sympathised with him. Still, it was seventy more fighters than we had, and most of them were probably better than the majority of ours. The odds, I knew, were certainly not on our side. But then again, when had they ever been?

Ron's POV

Seeing everyone, despite the grim circumstances, was undeniably nice. Luna had come dressed in an outfit that looked like an attempted cross between a mongoose and a flamingo, both involved in a rather nasty accident. Comically, when asked about her clothes, she would just look at whoever had questioned her blankly, as if there was nothing bizarre about wearing a bright pink top with a shining golden skirt, accompanied by her usual dirigible plum earrings.

Neville's face had been gleaming with excitement at the prospect of another Dumbledore's Army as he'd gone around greeting everybody who had fought with him against the Carrows the year before. We had all struggled to keep in touch over the last months, none of us knowing who could be reading our messages.

I'd smiled when Dean had seen Seamus again, the too having been inseparable for so many years and then torn apart by a war which kept everyone hiding fearfully. Dean had roared delightedly, sprinted over to see his friend and pulled him into a manly bear hug. Even Kingsley had smiled slightly at the spectacle.

When everybody was suitably under oath, Kingsley could finally continue his speech in front on his impatient audience. Nobody had come there that evening to dither; every single person in that room was there because they wanted to fight Voldemort.

"Thank you everybody for doing that," He boomed gratefully, "I'm sure that the time was worth it, because we can now be sure that everyone here will stay faithful to our cause. As I'm sure you are aware, You-Know-Who grows stronger by the day. More and more fighters are always joining his cause, and I believe that if we want to have any chance of beating him then we will have to do it as soon as possible and totally out of the blue; a surprise attack."

A relatively young voice sounded from the crowd. "Aren't we going to do any training?"

"I have been informed that every person in this room knows how to hold their own in a fight, so we are trusting to you practice spells at home. We cannot waste time doing so in the meetings, because I truly believe that if we give You-Know-Who enough time to prepare then he will be too strong to be defeated by anybody." Kingsley replied immediately, obviously having given this forethought.

"So when are we going to do it, you know, attack?" Seamus piped up again.

"Yeah, and where?" Somebody else shouted.

"We believe that You-Know-Who has a strong advantage in terms of numbers of fighters on his side," The leader of the Order told us. "We can overcome this by surprising them. I am suggesting that we invade his stronghold in exactly a month's time, in the dead of night, and catch him off guard."

A month. I was no tactical genius, but somehow a single month didn't seem like enough time to prepare as much as possible. By waiting, we could have got more information about the enemy, more fighters might have joined our cause, we might have been able to train more. Kingsley was, of course, the best man for thinking up the plan, but this short an amount of time seemed like suicide. The DA members were good fighters, but could they really be expected to go against the Dark Lord's most powerful witches and wizards, and survive?

Looking around at all of the friendly faces, the people who I had known for so many years, I realised how sad I would feel if even a single one of them died. My family would be at risk again; what would happen if I lost another sibling to this terrible war? Hermione would be putting herself in the firing line, and although it seemed to be me keeping her going most of the time, I knew that I would not be able to go on without her.

I'd wanted to fight for weeks, months, now. So why was I suddenly feeling so doubtful about this whole idea?

Phew, I really didn't know whether I was going to get this out for today so I'm glad that I managed to get it done. Don't see any major problems with what I wrote, and I'm glad that we're getting ever closer to the start of the Harry/Fleur pairing, so everything's shaping up pretty nicely right now.

As ever, massive thanks to my regular reviewers. I always see a comment from 'The Coruscant (did I spell that right?) Veela. Slytherin66, Tangolikeoak, Wolfman613, and Candygirl14. Those are the people who seemed to have reviewed every single chapter and I'm eternally grateful to them for it. I'm extremely sorry if I've missed anyone out.

Expect the next chapter on Saturday, probably. Maybe Sunday. Hopefully Saturday. Maybe.

Feel free to PM me if you need anything, or if you just want a chat!

Charlie