When Gabrielle and her parents turned up two days later Harry was actually thankful. Gabriele could pester him as much as she wanted as far as he was concerned – it would be worth it if it got him out of housework.
For all his bantering with Fleur, all the letters he'd been very kindly forced into writing and the afternoon he'd spent with a very energetic eight-year-old before the third task, now that Gabrielle was older he'd actually been expecting something like a younger Ginny. Someone who stuttered over her words every time she tried to speak to him and never quite lost that starstruck look on her face.
Instead, when he was sent to answer the door he got a little silver bullet that leapt at him before erupting in a stream of French so fast that he didn't catch even half of it. She didn't seem to notice the kitchen full of people behind him either, not even her own sister.
Mr and Mrs Delacour laughed at the expression on his face, and he might have been offended had he not met them twice before. The first was a brief meeting after the second task where they had thanked him for pulling Gabrielle out of the lake, despite the fact that she hadn't actually been in any danger, and the second was prior to the third task when Fleur had stalked across the room and quite literally dragged him over to them.
Harry wondered whether she realised that technically her first interaction with her eventual fiancé was a muttered hello before she dragged another boy away to meet her parents.
They looked much the same as they had then; Mrs Delacour looked like an older clone of Fleur, the only sign of age the laugh lines around her mouth, and Mr Delacour had his black hair pushed neatly to one side just like Harry remembered, though he could see a few flecks of grey starting to appear. On another man it might have given the impression of severity, but on Mr Delacour it hardly managed to take the edge off his boisterousness.
"Maman, Papa," Fleur beamed as she hurried across the room to greet them. "And bonjour to you too, Gabrielle."
Gabrielle gave her sister a mischievous smile without loosening her grip around Harry's torso.
"I think your sister is a little preoccupied at the moment Fleur," Mrs Delacour said with amusement dancing in her tone as she gathered Fleur in for a hug. "It's lovely to see you again, Harry."
"Good to see you too ma'am."
"Apolline," she corrected, "as I told you repeatedly last time I saw you. Though, if you're going to be pretending to be my nephew you might want to get used to calling me auntie."
She let out a tinkering laugh when a flush spread up Harry's neck.
"Leave the boy alone, Apolline," Mr Delacour smiled. "He's got his hands full enough with Gabrielle without you adding to it."
She gave him one last teasing look before she turned to Mrs Weasley and immediately started talking about wedding arrangements, pausing only to sweep Bill into a hug. Fleur made a face at the prospect of more wedding preparations as her mother and Mrs Weasley disappeared up the stairs with a reluctant Bill in tow.
"You can spend time with your sister later, flower," Mr Delacour said. "For now I think you would be second choice anyway."
Fleur looked back towards Gabrielle and smiled reluctantly. The little girl had finally let go but hadn't taken so much as a step back as she continued to beam up at Harry.
"I suppose you're right Papa," she admitted, still smiling. "I'm sure Harry will be able to keep Gabrielle entertained for the afternoon."
'Afternoon?' Harry thought to himself. 'It's still morning!'
"See you later you two," she sang before she mouthed, "I'll have a firewhiskey waiting."
The door shut behind her, leaving only Ron, Hermione and the twins staring at him. As he had very little idea how to entertain an eleven-year-old girl he gave them a pleading look that went utterly ignored; evidently returning to their assigned jobs was preferable to babysitting.
"Can we go flying?" Gabrielle asked brightly.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Flying he could do.
The next few hours ended up… well, flying by as he and Gabrielle flew around the Weasley's back garden, earning themselves several admonishments for coming too close to the marquee that Mr Weasley was valiantly trying to put up. Harry suspected that at this point he was regretting his decision to put the marquee up himself rather than have the hire company do it, security be damned.
Gabrielle was a good flier, having wanted to be a chaser from the time she was old enough to fly a broom until she abruptly decided she wanted to be a seeker instead, but instead of showing off that talent she spent nearly half the afternoon pressed into his back while he performed various feints and dives. A learning experience, she claimed. Harry found that it threw off his balance more than he'd like and so had to restrain himself from flying as wildly as he wanted to, but he was unfortunately as incapable of saying no to her as he was to Fleur.
By the time Gabrielle led him inside he felt dead on his feet while she continued to chatter away, pausing for neither breath nor the food that seemed to simply vanish each time she opened her mouth. It was like the most tiring traits of both Ron and Hermione had been combined into a single very energetic child. Harry was just thankful it was a child that he could give back.
A glass of firewhiskey lowered itself to the table in front of him as Fleur fell into the seat opposite with Bill an exhausted half-step behind. Harry took one look at her and pushed the glass back across.
"You need it more than I do I reckon."
Fleur snorted and shot a baleful look at her mother, who by some miracle had dragged Gabrielle's attention off of him.
"I will not turn it down," she mumbled before quickly knocking the drink back.
Mr Delacour had to cough to hide his snort, and Hermione gave her a concerned look before nonetheless pulling her into a conversation about warding that went straight over Harry's head.
"How have you been, sir?" Harry asked.
"My name is Thierry, Harry," Mr Delacour corrected with a smile, "as I told you before that dreadful task. But I have been well; work is busy and raising Gabrielle is busier, but that is how I like it."
"Did you get that promotion you wanted? Senior researcher of European runes, was it?"
Mr Delacour gave him a surprised look.
"You remember that? That was two years ago, and I only mentioned it in passing at a time when you surely had rather more important things on your mind."
The weight of the third task hung over him like a shroud that Harry stubbornly shook off.
"Fleur looked very proud when you said you were being considered for it."
That earned him a strange look from Mr Delacour. Amused, even pleased, Harry thought, yet also ever so slightly awkward and, when he looked at Fleur as she continued her conversation with Hermione, speculative.
"Yes, I got the promotion," he said eventually, his easy smile now back in place, "and I'm already up for another one. This is a promotion I don't want, however; who wants to be an administrator?"
"I don't know, it might be nice to not have to run about for a change."
Mr Delacour laughed.
"From the little I know about your escapades I have no doubt it sounds that way in your case. I sincerely doubt you would ever be able to sit still for very long though."
Harry smiled in reluctant agreement.
"It is your birthday tomorrow, is it not?" Mr Delacour asked, and Harry blinked in surprise.
"Yeah. I'm hoping for something small, but knowing Mrs Weasley…"
"Oh, Molly isn't the half of it," Mr Delacour grinned. "I'd be more worried about Fleur. Coming of age is an important milestone; if I know her she'll have a few tricks up her sleeve."
Harry turned narrowed eyes on Fleur, now free of Hermione's curiosity. She seemed to have totally forgotten he and her father were there, but he wasn't at all fooled by her disinterest.
"If she embarrasses me tomorrow I'll embarrass her at her wedding."
He was sure he saw Fleur's lips twitch.
The moment he woke the next morning Harry had his wand in hand and, as Ron was still fast asleep, he decided to give the room a makeover. By the time Ron woke up his walls were painted in stripes of green and silver, both of his hands were stuck to the opposite ankle and every single one of his Chudley Canon posters had been transfigured into posters of the Slytherin quidditch team, complete with Draco Malfoy's sneering face. Harry had felt vaguely disgusted himself for that, but it was more than worth it to see Ron's face drain of colour.
He left Ron there for a few minutes, and by the time he released him Ron looked more than a little bit sick.
"Stretching is good for you," Harry laughed as Ron pushed himself up from his now silver and green duvet.
"I'll stretch when I put my bloody foot up your arse, Potter."
The rug reached up and caught his foot, and Ron had just long enough to curse before it pulled his remaining foot out from under him.
"Bastard." Groaning, he threw his arm across his body to reach under the bed. "Happy birthday mate. This books bloody brilliant! I've got a copy myself."
He gave Harry a wink and a conspiratorial look, and Harry gave the thin book a brief flick through before he shoved it to the very bottom of his extended pocket, hopefully never to be seen again. He almost had to laugh; if Ron thought that Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches held the secret to how he was going to woo Hermione then he had another thing coming.
When he and Ron eventually wandered downstairs the kitchen was half full, and every one of them burst into cries of happy birthday when they saw him.
"Have you cast your first spell yet Harry?" Fred called out. "You should know that the engorgement charm shouldn't be used for-"
"That is quite enough!" Mrs Weasley cried as she bustled him into a seat and set a small mountain of bacon, sausages, eggs and toast in front of him.
Fred just winked.
"This one's from us, dear," Mrs Weasley said as she pulled a small box from the pile of gifts on the counter and handed it to him with nervousness and anticipation clashing on her face.
Carefully, he untied the ribbon and clicked the lid open to find an elegant wristwatch complete with a thin golden strap. The numbers and hands of a usual watch peered out from behind the metal disks that hung beneath the glass, following the movements of the planets.
"It's a wizard's watch," she explained nervously. "It's traditional, you know, to give a witch or wizard one on their seventeenth… it's not new, of course. It was my brother Fabian's. He wasn't very careful with his possessions, though, so there's a bit of a dent in the-"
"Thank you, Mrs Weasley," he said as he stood to hug her, effectively cutting off the rest of her speech. "It's perfect."
She beamed and raised her wrist shyly, showing the silver watch that he'd never seen her without. A more delicate band of flowers that chained around her wrist, a smaller face, but the planets and numerals were exactly the same. Tears threatened his throat and he pushed himself back into her arms.
Hermione hurried in a moment later and looked absolutely dismayed when she noticed both Harry and Ron were up before her. Instead of putting her gift on the pile she simply shoved the neatly wrapped box into his hands and, upon noticing said pile, blushed in embarrassment.
This time, Harry found himself very keen on making sure the wrapping paper remained intact, and he ignored Hermione's huffs until he eventually pulled back the paper to reveal a new sneakoscope. It immediately started going off, which allowed him and everyone else to catch George in the act of pouring a potion of some sort into his drink. George didn't look at all affected by Mrs Weasley's lecture until she poured it down the sink, at which point he started muttering about wasted ingredients.
"You could have at least let Ron drink it," he moaned.
"Why the bloody hell would I have done that?"
"You wouldn't have had much of a choice, Ronnie-kins. I'm something of a master of switching spells."
Other presents included a huge box of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes merchandise ("some of that stuff is a little more explosive than others," Fred whispered, "and there's some… uh, interesting magazines at the bottom"), an enchanted razor from Remus and Tonks, and a pair of gloves with snitches embroidered on the back from Gabrielle, who blushed crimson when he thanked her. The Delacours had got him a large box of chocolates and, to the surprise of all present, he had even got something from Mad-Eye.
The fact that it was also a sneakoscope surprised no one, and neither did the fact that the box shouted when he opened it.
He turned expectant eyes to Fleur, who was doing a good job of looking uninterested as she sipped at her coffee. She pretended not to notice him for several more seconds before she threw an envelope that slapped against his forehead.
Inside was a card with quidditch players flying around on the front with the number seventeen in place of the hoops. One side of the card as a cramped mess of writing that he couldn't wait to read, and on the other she'd written IOU: Two Weeks.
"When all this is over I'm taking you on vacation," she explained at his confused smile. "I know that those people never took you and that you've always wanted to, and so that is what we are going to do. You told me once that you'd love to go skiing, and then for the rest of the two weeks we can go wherever you want."
Harry couldn't have spoken if he wanted to. All those weeks he'd spent at Mrs Figg's while the Dursleys were in Tenerife or America or Portugal or wherever else middle-class families. Suddenly, it all didn't hurt so much. He was going to get to see the world. Not only was he going to see it, he was going to get to see it with one of his best friends. He wouldn't have been surprised if he broke one of Fleur's ribs with the force of his hug, and he honestly didn't care that Bill was glaring at them.
People didn't linger much longer in the crowded kitchen and, as it was his birthday, Harry was spared being put to work. In fact, when he tried to help Mrs Weasley appeared and frogmarched him to a deckchair, handed him a butterbeer and made it clear that he wasn't to move from that spot for anything less than Voldemort himself.
Meanwhile, Remus was finishing setting up the various enchantments and precast transformations on the marquee in preparation for the wedding while Ginny and Tonks set up the buffet table. Hermione was walking around the edge of the garden, conjuring colourful streamers and ribbons that draped from the trees and newly trimmed hedges. Ron on the other hand didn't seem to have any actual job and instead opted to linger by the table and taste each of the various dishes that had been put out until a scissor-wielding Mrs Weasley shouted at him. Each time she did so Charlie tried to sneak away but never quite managed it, not until Bill rushed in between them and insisted that he wanted his brothers to look like themselves at his wedding. That was just about enough to stop Mrs Weasley, though she continued to insist that Charlie would have to cover his tattoos for the ceremony. The look Bill and Charlie shared behind their mother's back made it clear that no such thing would be happening.
Eventually everything was set and everyone was herded towards the table, and Mrs Weasley was just lowering a beach-ball sized snitch-shaped cake to o the table when a silver weasel scampered through the air.
"Minister arriving with me," it said in Mr Weasley's voice, and Remus and Tonks were barely over the bush when twin cracks of apparition split the air.
The Minister had aged noticeably since Harry had last seen him; his limp looked slightly more pronounced, his mane of brown hair was now laden with streaks of grey, and the skin around his narrowed eyes dripped like melted wax. But he still cut an imposing figure as he approached, his gaze flitting over the guests and lingering on Kingsley until it eventually settled on Harry.
"I apologise for gatecrashing," he said, though he didn't seem sorry in the slightest, "but I require a private word with you, Mr Potter, as well as with Mr Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger."
"Us?" Ron exclaimed, "what could you possibly want with us?"
Scrimgeour ignored Ron's question as he turned to Mr Weasley.
"Is there a place for a private word, Arthur?" he demanded.
"Well, yes," Mr Weasley said, looking nervous, "the sitting room should do it."
"Excellent," Scrimgeour said as he turned back to Ron, "lead the way Mr Weasley. There will be no need for you to join us, Arthur."
Ron scowled and led the way into the house just slightly too quickly for Scrimgeour to comfortably keep up with his limp. Harry hid a smile; payback for Scrimgeour's rudeness towards Mr Weasley. Who said Ron couldn't be a little Slytherin when he wanted to be?
It was quite surprising that the meeting didn't erupt in hostilities, what with Hermione blatantly influencing Ron's answers – Ron had never once played chess with Dumbledore, and certainly not every fortnight – and questioning the legality of the Ministry sticking their nose into a private will while Harry ripped into Scrimgeour for his policy of claiming that everything was fine. Even as it was Harry ended up with a hole in his shirt where Scrimgeour had poked him with his wand, but the Minister had quickly backed off after that.
Harry wasn't sure if he did so with the realisation that he wasn't going to get whatever it was he came for or if his retreat was purely because of his glare, but he told himself it was surely the latter.
The three of them didn't get a chance to discuss Dumbledore's bequests before Mrs Weasley came in and hustled them out to the table, but throughout the party Harry could feel the snitch burning a hole in his pocket. Hermione, Ron, and the Minister had all been expecting something to happen when he touched it, but evidently they had forgotten his first quidditch game and the songs sung ever since about Potter eating snitches for breakfast. The snitch would respond when he pressed it to his lips, he was sure of it. He just didn't know what Dumbledore could possibly have hidden inside.
The sword was another matter entirely.
But even that was not enough to stop him from enjoying his birthday party. The food was wonderful and the company even better, with an impassioned discussion on why England was better than France and a constant stream of stories. Even the twins looked impressed when Tonks said she had impersonated McGonagall when Filch had her cornered after curfew, although they had insisted she was lying when she claimed that McGonagall went along with it.
Once the last rays of sunshine crept below the trees and the sky began to darken the twins hurried off for what they called their "big surprise". They insisted that it wasn't bad, but then the word bad was a fluid term when it came to the twins, and their parting words hadn't exactly helped.
"Fleur asked us to set it up," George had said, "had some ideas for it too. We've been working on it for ages; I reckon we might put them in the shop."
Fleur entirely ignored his looks so Harry, fearing the worst, reluctantly settled into his chair and waited. The longer he waited the worse his imagination became, and by the time a thin dot of red light rose slowly into the sky he had half-convinced himself that Charlie had brought a dragon.
The light continued to rise and rise until, finally, it exploded into a thousand sparks of red and gold that quickly clustered into two figures. On one side was a boy with a golden scar on his forehead and a comically large hammer in hand, and across from him stood a troll. It sniffed and lumbered across the sky until the boy jumped up, his legs coming out in front of him as he brought his hammer down on the troll's head. The troll was squished into the stars and then bounced back up, folded like an accordion with X's in place of eyes, and then both of them dissolved with a sound almost like applause.
The show continued with each firework showing a notable event in his Hogwarts career, and each and every one of them ended up getting squashed beneath his hammer. After the troll was a Cerberus and then a snarling man with a turban wrapped around his head, an Acromantula and then a basilisk, a dementor and then a werewolf. Remus laughed loudly at that, especially when the werewolf became a man and hurried to cover himself just a tad too slow.
Tonks whistled enthusiastically, but judging by the look of mortification on Mrs Weasley's face the twins were going to pay for that one.
The firework Harry even got to squash a pathetic looking Draco Malfoy beneath his hammer, presumably an indication of winning the quidditch cup in third year judging by the broom grasped in Malfoy's hand. Both Harry and Ron enjoyed that particular firework immensely.
Dragons, mermen, skrewts and Rita Skeeter followed after that. There was nothing from either his fifth or sixth year, but that was probably for the best. The events of those years weren't nearly as light-hearted as the rest of his near-death experiences.
The final act in the twins' display was for the carriage the Beauxbatons students had used during the tournament to come sweeping towards them and shudder to a halt a few feet away, sparks bursting from the ground where the red and gold abraxans pawed at the grass. The door of the carriage burst open and, somehow, the twins stepped out, beaming, before the carriage became golden roses at their feet.
Mr and Mrs Delacour broke out in applause and everyone else quickly followed. The twins bowed repeatedly, each one sweeping lower than the last.
"That was amazing!" Hermione cried. "However did you—"
"Thank you, my dear Miss Granger," Fred said, cutting off the undoubtedly academic question, "though we can't take all the credit. Almost all of it, yes, but it was Fleur's idea really. We just did literally everything else."
"It was fantastic, guys," Harry said. "Even better than what you did when you left school. I'd wait a bit to put them in the shop though."
"You're probably right," George said thoughtfully, "that way we can make one that shows you squishing snakeface."
The happy atmosphere that had engulfed them for the past few hours immediately darkened, and George took the slap Fred delivered to the back of his head without complaint.
All present took it as a sign to go to bed. Hermione and Mrs Weasley carried the leftovers back to the house while Remus vanished the decorations, and the table and chairs scuttled back inside with a wave of Mr Weasley's wand.
"I have to say that I was expecting worse from a collaboration between you and the twins," Harry said as he fell into step with Fleur.
"I can hardly be cruel to you now that you are free to use magic," she grinned. "Besides, your seventeenth birthday is the biggest in a witch or wizard's life. I didn't want to ruin it." A gleam appeared in her eye. "Your eighteenth birthday, however…"
"I'll be old enough to drink in a muggle bar then," he said, ignoring the little voice in his head that said he might not live long enough to reach it. "I think I'll have ruining it well in hand myself."
"You enjoyed it, though?"
He smiled at the slightly vulnerable expression on her face.
"Loved it. Thank you."
She beamed and, after a final brief hug, hurried upstairs. Harry gave Hermione a significant look as he and Ron followed up to their own room, and fifteen minutes later Hermione slipped inside.
"Muffliato," she muttered as she sat down on the floor between the two beds and then stared at the walls, as if only just noticing the Slytherin stripes.
"Harry won't tell me how to dispel them," Ron muttered glumly.
"I'll do it in the morning," Harry promised with a distinct lack of sincerity.
"You really want a picture of Malfoy staring down at you while you sleep?"
Harry grimaced before he waved his wand to restore the walls and posters. He couldn't quite work out what was worse: Slytherin green or Chudley Canon orange.
"So," Harry said as he withdrew the snitch from his pocket, "ready to see what Dumbledore left me?"
"We've already seen it, Harry," Hermione said, "I was convinced that something would happen when you touched it, but now that it hasn't I've no idea why Dumbledore left it for you."
"Of course nothing happened. Have you forgotten how I caught it?"
Hermione's expression remained confused, but Ron's lit up with understanding.
"You nearly swallowed it!"
Harry nodded as he pressed the snitch to his lips, and sure enough words spiralled across the metal in Dumbledore's semi-familiar handwriting.
"I open at the close," Ron muttered. "What the bloody hell does that mean? Why would Dumbledore go to all this trouble to tell you that?"
Harry had absolutely no idea. They spent nearly twenty minutes going over those five words but, try as they might, they couldn't think of a way they could mean anything. It was an oddly philosophical message for a time when they were on a world-saving mission. Typical Dumbledore – cryptic and useless.
"Fine," Hermione said eventually, "we'll put that to one side for now. If we think of something we can talk about it again – same thing for the book and the deluminator. I think we need to concentrate on the Sword of Gryffindor."
"Do you reckon it's a horcrux?" Ron asked.
Harry shook his head.
"No one had seen it in centuries until I pulled it out of the sorting hat," he pointed out. "When would Voldemort have had a chance to turn it into one? Besides, if it was a horcrux wouldn't Dumbledore have destroyed it ages ago?"
"That still doesn't explain why Dumbledore tried to leave it to us," Hermione said.
"There must something in your books that would explain it"
Hermione frowned in thought.
"Not that I can remember off the top of my head," she said slowly, "but that doesn't mean there isn't anything. We'll just have to go through them."
"Not now, Hermione," Ron hissed as she moved for her beaded bag. "It's nearly one in the morning and we're going to be up early tomorrow for the wedding."
"Fine," Hermione said in a voice that suggested she was agreeing to hand over her first born, "we'll do it tomorrow night then."
Harry somehow doubted they'd do it then either seeing as Ron was planning on being far too drunk by the time the reception finished to read his own name, never mind the assorted histories of Godric Gryffindor. He chose to remain quiet about that, however, seeing as it would only spur Hermione into a speech about how irresponsible being drunk was at a time like this, and he really couldn't be bothered to listen to her rant even if he did technically agree with her.
Silently, Hermione slipped out of the room and Harry climbed into bed, and it felt like he had barely fallen asleep before he was being shaken awake by Mrs Weasley. The commotion woke Ron up too but, to Harry's shock, Mrs Weasley told him to go back to sleep. Ron obliged before she had finished speaking.
"Apolline's sister arrived early to do your glamours," Mrs Weasley explained as she led him bleary-eyed down the stairs. "Tricky spells, glamours, and if you want them to last for long, never mind be convincing as well, it takes quite a bit of time. We're all rubbish at them but Apolline's sister Isabelle volunteered. As you'll be pretending to be Isabelle's son you should probably meet each other beforehand anyway. Don't want to be giving things away at the wedding by being awkward with your own mother."
Mrs Weasley paled and shot him an anxious look, as if only just realising what she had said, but Harry waved her off; after six years of Malfoy making comments about his "mudblood mother" it would take more than an unintentional reference to upset him.
Personally, Harry thought they were all taking this a bit seriously. He wasn't looking for an academy award here; he just needed to not obviously be Harry Potter. Voldemort wasn't going to be paying attention to the exact details of every attendee, never mind those who were speaking in a different language. His point fell on deaf ears, however. Mrs Weasley wasn't taking any chances with either his safety or the wedding at large so he supposed he could understand her insistence, even if being awake at this god-forsaken hour was a long way from his idea of fun.
Isabelle Delacour, he found, was like a more excitable version of Apolline. She had the same silvery blonde hair as her sister, the same friendly smile and even the same teasing sense of humour, only with less restraint – Harry very much doubted that Claude called her momie, and he certainly wasn't going to no matter how much she insisted it would be strange if he didn't.
Still, the differences between the two sisters were clear; Isabelle was taller, slighter and more angular in her features than either Apolline or Fleur, and she had dark brown eyes as opposed to their blue. Harry hoped that those differences had translated over to her son; he didn't much like the idea of looking like Fleur's twin.
"It's almost a crime to cover these up," she murmured as she started waving her wand over his eyes, having already turned his hair blond.
Harry blinked repeatedly as a thin brown haze crawled over his vision.
"Don't worry about that," she said, "you will adjust to see through the spell before too long. Glamours are really just illusions. Some are simple, like the ones people at school might use to cover the bags under their eyes, others are complex.
"All the ones we're using are complex; that one, for example, has to be thin enough that you can see through it, close enough to the eye that the eyelids move over it, else it would look like you never blink, and then it still has to be thick enough to hide the natural colour. On the plus side, glamours like this take repeated revelio's to counter. Unless it's you or me doing the casting, of course; it would be a problem if neither the caster nor the recipient could easily remove them!
"Thankfully we only have to do your face, and we best put some over the scars on your forearms and hand as well just in case you roll your sleeves up at the reception. It's fortunate that you and Claude are more or less the same height. You're a little more muscly than Claude" – Harry blinked at that word being used to describe him – "but not enough that anyone will notice. If I had to do anything to your height or weight we'd be here another hour and a half at least!"
Despite the fact that Isabelle's speech did sound rather show-offy, Harry suddenly understood how much effort they were going to just to make sure he could attend. He'd been here almost an hour and Isabelle had just barely finished altering his eyes and hair. They still had the rest of his face left to do; skin, cheekbones, jawline, lips, maybe even ears if Isabelle thought it necessary. Which, given the amount of time she'd spent making sure she had got every single hair, was likely.
"Why didn't we just use Polyjuice?"
"Because Claude is a quarter-veela," Isabelle answered as her wand danced across his cheeks, "and Polyjuice cannot be used by or against either non-humans or part-humans. You could no sooner polyjuice into Claude as you could a goblin." A grin appeared on her face. "You are quite lucky, Harry. You get to be a male veela for the day. Many men would kill for such an opportunity."
"Given that the only unattached women I won't be pretend-related to are Ginny, Hermione, and Ron's great aunt Muriel I wouldn't exactly call it an opportunity."
Isabelle laughed.
"Slim pickings, as one would say. My daughters were quite upset when they found out you were being disguised as their brother; with you out of the running all they have left are redheads."
"Was the attraction someone without red hair or Harry Potter?" he asked dryly.
"Don't sell yourself short, Harry," she admonished him. "You are a very good-looking young man, not simply a famous one. They begged Fleur to let them write to you, but she always refused to give them the code that would get their letter through whatever post protections you had."
Harry hadn't been aware there were any such protections, though it certainly explained the lack of fan and hate mail over the years. Dumbledore must have cast something over him and then given Fleur the code. Or maybe it was just a case of someone having to approve them first, that person probably being Dumbledore.
A school headmaster deciding who could talk to one of their students outside of school. That wasn't strange at all.
"Apolline said that the two of you were cycling between four different owls just to keep up in the first few weeks that Fleur was back in France after that dreadful tournament," Isabelle continued, ignorant to his thoughts on Dumbledore's actions and still-murky intentions as she gave a mischievous glance around the room. "When she left for Britain we were all convinced she was going to end up marrying an Englishman. We just got the wrong one."
She gave him a significant look, and it took him a long moment to understand what she was saying.
"Me?" he spluttered. The idea was preposterous! "Why would she- why… what?"
Isabelle roared with laughter.
"Calm down, Harry," she said through her gasps, "you look like you're about to faint! It was a joke. Even I can't get away with saying something like that on someone's wedding day."
'But why joke about it,' a little voice asked above the frantic beating of his heart in his ears, 'if there isn't at least a kernel of truth.'
Harry did his best to ignore the voice as he settled back into his chair, fiddling with his new watch while Isabelle returned to her work. The rest of their conversation was thankfully much safer; her work in both the muggle and magical fashion industries, the little café her husband owned in Paris and, to Harry's glee, embarrassing stories about Fleur's childhood.
He was already planning on bringing up the cat she had accidentally stolen as a child at the first available opportunity.
They were quickly running out of time to get to their seats by the time Isabelle was done, and they rushed for the back door with the baby blue robes he'd been forced into half-buttoned.
It was a very pretty scene, with the walls of the marquee rolled up to allow the sunset to bleed in from behind the altar and balls of golden light hovering above the seats to do the rest. He gave Hermione a significant look as he passed, winking as he let his eyes travel over her lilac dress. She blushed pink with a smile, an expression so very different from the furious expression Ron was wearing next to her, and Harry followed his angry gaze to the stocky form of Viktor Krum.
Ah, that explained that then.
The rest of Fleur's family turned and looked at him as he took his place near the edge of the second row, between Isabelle on the end and her daughter Marie on his other side. Marie was sat slightly closer to him than would normally be considered acceptable for siblings, the tips of her fingers resting on the outside of his thigh, but most gazes nonetheless drifted straight off him. The few who knew who he actually was took a second to laugh silently at his discomfort before they turned back to the front where Bill and Charlie stood, side by side with their hair in matching buns and matching flowers poking out of their buttonholes
Silence fell over the congregation as music swelled, and everyone swivelled in their seats to watch Gabrielle and Estelle appear in matching dresses of shimmering gold. They came to a stop just before the steps up to the altar, and then there was a great collective sigh as a tearful Mr Delacour lead Fleur down the aisle. She was beaming, her simple dress seeming to float as it gave off a soft silver glow. Harry could barely take his eyes off her, entranced by the beaming smile on her face, and when he glanced towards the altar Bill didn't look like he'd ever heard the name Fenrir Greyback.
And then, suddenly, Fenrir Greyback was next to him.
When Harry had thought of powerful wards falling he had always imagined that it would be obvious. That there would be a sound, like the crashing of waves against cliffs, or maybe a surge of power that washed over you. There was nothing like that. One second they were there and the next they weren't, and the second after that new wards sprung up around them, strong and pre-cast, keeping them all trapped inside.
Cracks echoed through the air as two dozen men in black robes and white masks appeared around the edge of the marquee. The violins continued to play as they stood there like sentries, and with a sick feeling in his gut Harry knew exactly what they were waiting for. Wind whispered through the aisle, and then Lord Voldemort was stood at the altar.
The familiar white wand flicked out and Harry felt a revealing spell roll out across the congregation. He froze, and his wand was halfway out of its holster before the Dark Lord's eyes ran straight across him. Relief flooded his veins even as fear and anger burned through them, and no one dared breathe as Voldemort glided down towards the bride. Harry focussed on keeping his face a mask of terrified shock until he had passed him, at which point he allowed the burning in his scar to bring a brief grimace to his face.
Something large and silver suddenly came zooming through the canopy, and even Voldemort looked surprised as the lynx skidded to a halt in the centre of the marquee.
"The Ministry has fallen," the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt said.Another voice, shouting something before the words were abruptly cut off. "Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
Harry saw horror wash over those present before his attention was yanked back to Voldemort as he, shockingly, began to laugh. To Harry's ears he seemed genuinely amused.
"Too late, Auror Shacklebolt," he said softly as continued up the aisle, "but the night is not yet done."
He came to a stop in front of Fleur, and when he spoke the amusement was gone.
"Where is Harry Potter?"
Silence, until Fleur straightened and glared at the Dark Lord.
"Harry is not here."
Voldemort laughed again, just as cold and high as before, but this time it was mocking instead of amused.
"Do not lie to me, girl. I know he was here, just as I know he has not left. Where is he?"
"Harry is not here," Fleur said again.
Even from behind Harry could imagine the rage that flashed across Voldemort's face.
"I am told you and Potter are very close," Voldemort said dangerously as he lifted his wand to Fleur's chest, "so maybe this will convince him to show himself. You have five seconds, Potter."
Harry was halfway out of his seat before a wand poked him in the side and he fell back into his chair, stiff and unable to move. He glared at Isabelle out of the corner of his eye but she didn't budge.
"Once he has you," she whispered, "he has no need for her."
"Interesting," Voldemort murmured a few seconds later, "maybe Potter really has left unnoticed. It would not be the first time my servants have failed me." A noticeable shudder ran through the death eaters as they continued to stand motionless at the sides. "In that case I need you alive; you are one of the few he may have told where he was going. There is a chance, however, that he might still remain… Fenrir?"
"Yes, My Lord?"
"Torture the groom."
Still petrified, all Harry saw before the screaming started was the flash of crimson that bled across the floor of the marquee, but he could very well imagine the glee on Greyback's face and the agony on Bill's. Fleur's face was a mask of anguish as she stood there, and even when the screaming stopped and she glanced at him for a split second she remained silent.
"Still silent?" Voldemort demanded, all traces of composure now gone. "You choose Potter over your husband-to-be? Fenrir, again!"
The screaming started anew and Harry sent a pleading glance at Isabelle but still his body remained locked in place, and he had resigned himself to being a helpless observer when suddenly the stiffness faded from his joints.
His eyes immediately sought out Ron and Hermione. Hermione's wand was peeking out from beneath her leg with her hard expression tinged with relief. Her eyes flicked down to Ron's clenched fist where the tip of the deluminator was just barely peeking out, and Harry nodded before his eyes skated along the rest of the Order members, noticing the way Tonks had her legs primed to move and Remus's right hand was already pointing towards the nearest death eater, just waiting for his wand to appear.
The screaming stopped again and Harry finally looked up at the altar. Greyback was stood grinning over Bill's trembling form while Charlie strained against the ropes that kept him tied to the altar. Hermione gave a significant look at Mr Weasley when Harry returned his gaze to her, already anticipating his question: who was going to deal with Greyback? Judging by the way Mr Weasley was practically frothing at the mouth Harry didn't think that the wolf had a chance in hell.
Hermione looked again at Voldemort and Fleur before she gave him a similar look to the one he had her. Harry inclined his head slightly – he would deal with it. Hermione nodded.
"Isabelle," he whispered, "the moment the lights go out I need you to summon Fleur by her dress."
He ignored the way she stiffened even further in her seat in favour of staring at the chair to Voldemort's immediate right, imagining the way golden wood would shift into golden fur. The way the muscles in its legs would squeeze as it pounced. The way its claws would rend flesh from bone and the way Voldemort's blood would drip from its mane.
Suddenly, the golden balls that had floated above their heads zipped through the air and vanished, and at the same moment the walls of the marquee unrolled, blocking out the waning sun and drowning them in near pitch darkness. Bolts of colour started shooting through the air and Harry twisted his wand.
A growl rumbled around the room before Voldemort screamed, the sound nearly drowning out the thump of flesh against flesh next to him, and Harry waved his wand again to blindly transfigure the chairs around him into crude stone walls. He felt chips of rock pepper his skin as stray spells struck it but didn't dare try to return fire. He might be able to tell roughly where the death eaters were thanks to the flashes of spells, but there was no telling who might be in between him and them.
Light flared as the golden balls zoomed back to their positions to reveal the carnage of the last ten seconds. It was clear immediately that the death eaters had come out worse off, with nearly half of them already lying limp on the floor while the rest struggled to keep up with the defenders' furious spells, but that did not mean that the wedding party had emerged unscathed.
Once fine robes of shining silk and elegant, bloodstained dresses joined the death eaters on the ground, and Harry watched with a strange sort of detachment as a brown-haired woman in a soft pink dress was cut down. Samantha Brookes, he thought from Fleur's descriptions. A coworker that she had invited purely so that she didn't appear rude, having clashed with her repeatedly during her time at Gringotts, and who was now dead simply because she had been caught up in a fight she would have otherwise had no part in.
He could barely imagine how guilty Fleur was going to feel.
The death eater suffered a similar fate a moment later thanks to Ron's great aunt Muriel. Her pale brown spell shot from her wand and smashed through his shield, sending him skidding across the grass and leaving a trail of red in his wake.
Voldemort hadn't brought his best, it seemed. He must have sent the likes of Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange to secure the Ministry, thinking the wedding an easy target. The dozen downed death eaters and the two pieces of Greyback on either side of the altar suggested differently.
Many were taking the opportunity to escape. Harry caught a glimpse of Luna's yellow dress as she and her father slipped through the now torn fabric of the marquee on the heels of one of Bill's schoolfriends. Harry locked eyes with Mr Delacour, smacking an errant spell away thoughtlessly. A second's eye contact and Mr Delacour nodded before he scooped Gabrielle into his arms and ran from the marquee with his wife at his side. Viktor put a piercing hex through a death eater's chest before he sprinted after them, flicking spells away from their backs as he did so.
Remus, Moody and Tonks were duelling an enraged Voldemort and even managing to land a few hits on the already injured Dark Lord. Long slashes had been clawed into his chest and a chunk had been bitten out of his collar but he fought on regardless, his shredded robes fluttering through the air, and Harry summoned a chair into the path of a curse just in time to stop Remus being torn apart.
Voldemort snarled and flicked a red ball of light up through the canopy, and a second later a dozen more death eaters appeared. These new arrivals were no more skilled than those that had come before them, but it did shift the numbers back into Voldemort's favour.
By the altar, Ron and Hermione were doing their best to defend Arthur, Molly, and Charlie while they dragged a moaning, twitching Bill out of the marquee, but the new death eaters seemed to have taken one look at the scene and then targeted them specifically. Whether they did so under orders or if they just recognised Ron and Hermione as dangerous Harry wasn't sure, but either way Ron and Hermione looked about to be overwhelmed behind their quickly crumbling wall.
A trio of curses left Harry's wand, striking one, two, three death eaters and exploding out of them in bloody bursts. Hermione poked up from behind their cover and transfigured wreckage into vicious looking cats while Ron glared at him, swiping an impatient hand through the air.
"Fuck off," he seemed to say. "Get yourself out you stupid bastard."
Harry glared right back and set another transfigured lion on the group before he forced himself to dip back down below his transfigured cover. Magic roiled beneath his skin and he forced it back into compliance, allowing it to bleed out of his wand and into the stone walls around him, pulling broken fragments back into place and making the crude stone gleam like granite in the sunset.
A breath and he forced his hand to unclench, noticing only now the sting of the crescent moons cut into the heel of his palm, and then another. Ron and Hermione were entirely capable of escape by themselves and he owed them the respect of trusting them. Him getting involved might only be a distraction and, his scepticism of prophecy aside, could mean a lot more than just getting caught. As much as he hated it, Ron and Hermione would have to get themselves out of it.
Marie was cowering beside him, eyes wide and fearful, while Isabelle traced her wand jerkily over Fleur's ribs. Gently Harry nudged her hand out of the way and cast the spell himself, knowing it had worked when Fleur winced. Not as good as Ron's, but it would do.
"Where is Gabrielle?" she asked.
"She's fine. She and your parents ran out a few seconds ago."
She immediately rose to follow but Harry pulled back down before she could even get to her feet. The green light of the killing curse shot harmlessly over her head.
"Be careful or you're going to get yourself killed," he snapped. "Viktor is with them; he'll keep them safe. I'm going to need your help to get us out of here."
He didn't wait for an answer before he peeked over at the small group of death eaters who had split off from the group attacking Ron and Hermione and were currently bombarding his hastily transfigured cover.
"Fleur, you shield and I'll curse them. Marie and Isabelle can use the opportunity to get out and then we'll follow."
A dozen curses and a summoning charm later all the attackers were dead. Harry forcefully pushed the image of a chair leg poking through a still gasping chest aside as he and Fleur hurried towards a rip in the marquee wall; he would think about his first deliberate kills later.
He couldn't help but allow himself to glance at Voldemort. Where before the combination of Remus, Tonks, and Moody had before seemed to be enough to halt him, now he was all but victorious. One of Tonks's arms was little more than mangled flesh but still she fought, her shield slowly fracturing under the onslaught as she tried to drag a broken, battered Remus from the tent. Only Moody still stood against the laughing Voldemort, who seemed to take delight in making him dance. Even in those brief seconds Harry had been watching he had seen two opportunities pass by for Voldemort to strike the final blow. He knew from experience how much Voldemort liked to play with his food but, barring an intervention, Moody was already dead.
His spell was a slim, bullet-like burst of orange, easily lost in the glare of the setting sun that bled through the slashed marquee. Once it struck that little pellet of magic would shift and deform like a hollow point bullet, slowing down so that instead of punching a nice clean hole all the way through Voldemort would be left with a gaping internal wound. Voldemort couldn't die – not yet – but he could damn well hurt.
There was no way he could have seen it, not with his back turned, and Harry didn't know how he could possibly sense it either. Not at the speed it moved and the curses that were being thrown around. But, somehow, his wand snapped around and spurted a great geyser of golden flame that swallowed his curse whole.
Absolute shock was written across Voldemort's face, and it was that that really made Harry's stomach sink. The shock quickly became mixed with realisation, though, and it was only Moody's spell smacking into Voldemort's unprotected side that gave Harry enough time to throw himself out of the way of his return spell.
Her soft gasp of pain should have been lost in the mayhem. It should have been lost in the thump of his body against the ground, lost beneath the screaming and laughing and ripping. But it wasn't. The crackle of spellfire, the pained groans and the snapping wood all fell away, like he was hearing it through a closed door, as the whole world narrowed to Fleur's falling form. She seemed to fall in slow motion as Harry leapt for her, grabbing hold before she could hit the floor and casting a banishing charm to throw them through the tattered marquee.
His back hit the ground with a thud and rolled, and Harry used that momentum to yank his wand to pull out the remaining supports in the marquee, collapsing the canopy down on top of Voldemort and his death eaters. It would trap the remaining guests too, but with him now the focus they should be able to escape.
Hopefully.
The scene he looked up to was utter mayhem. Death eaters flung curses with abandon towards defenceless backs, the few guests fighting back only doing so to buy themselves enough time to escape. The ground was scarred with grooves that rolled with rivers of red, seeping from the bodies of guest and death eater alike, while blue lights blared up from the village. The police were coming; muggles who had no place in this war and who would be slaughtered with a laugh and grin. Harry wished there was something he could do, but he was transfixed by the boneless form held in his arms and the blaze that was eating the Burrow whole.
Spells shot towards him but fizzled against the silver shield that sprouted from his wand, and a further flick turned every stem, leaf and vine of the Weasley garden against them. Marie and Isabelle were stood there, frozen and staring at Fleur's limp form, and Harry had to cast another shield to stop the curses that were heading for their backs.
"Run!"
They did so as his broom stretched out from his enchanted pocket. The moment it snapped into being he threw his leg over and dragged Fleur on in front of him, wrapping his arms around her so that he could still grip the handle. A sticking charm between her back and his chest would stop her from falling, and relief shot through him as her head flopped against his shoulder and he heard the sound of her laboured, wheezing breaths in his ear.
He shot into the air just as Voldemort apparated out of the collapsed marquee. Immediately he was forced to jerk out of the way of a crimson spell, and after that he switched directions at random, zigzagging through the air and making it near impossible for any of the death eaters on the ground below to curse him out of the sky. It was like a quidditch drill, and he fell into the instinctive mindset he had always felt when the twins were thumping bludgers at him.
It came as a surprise, then, when he felt a presence next to him, the same way he felt when an opposing seeker was closing in. Instead of a wizard on a broom, though, it was a thick cloud of smog. Voldemort's snakelike face snarled out of it, gleaming out of the blackness with wand raised in bony fingers.
He couldn't cast a shield. Not while he was flying with Fleur clutched desperately to his chest. And even if he could, he wouldn't be able to hold it. So he waited, waited waited waited until the familiar green swirled on the tip of the familiar wand and then put on a sudden burst of speed.
He wasn't quite fast enough. The curse caught the tail and the broom exploded beneath him, the once magnificent broom nothing more than splinters as he and Fleur were sent catapulting through the air.
'Too late too late too late—' Harry thought as he tucked himself around her and turned his back to the quickly approaching ground.
And then he felt magic wash over his skin. He twisted, and the burning Burrow was replaced by blackness.