Luna certainly had a way with handling awkward situations. Had it not been for her, Fleur would have likely gone off the deep end after two minutes with Griphook.
He was as rude and demanding as ever, despite Bill's earlier warning. Fleur knew he was in pain, but she also knew that—while he had no patience for wizards—he especially had none for witches. Females in general were thought of as subordinates in goblin culture, as Bill once explained to her back in that tearoom where they'd had so many of their first unofficial dates.
"Most of them are so rude to me," she could remember whispering to him minutes after a particular goblin had raised his voice at her to get out of his way while making tea. She'd stood up for herself and told him not to speak to her like that, even Bill had told him to calm down, but the goblin had just snapped at her to be quiet and know her place.
"Palmuk is a nasty piece of work," Bill had mumbled back, checking over his shoulder as if to make sure the coast was clear. "He's one of the louder ones around here about wanting all non-goblin personnel to disappear."
Fleur frowned. "You would think with how much they do not want us here, they would not hire wizards."
"It's not all of them," Bill said. "And they need us since they're not allowed the ability to use wands. But obviously there's a dark history between us that can't be just forgiven and forgotten."
She was aware of that; she'd paid attention in history class. She could even understand that was why most goblins choose to be blunt and terse with her; that they clearly weren't looking to be friends. But it was the blatant rudeness and disrespect at the hands of many of them that she was struggling to comprehend.
It was like a game to them.
"And you have to remember," Bill continued, lowering his voice still, "In goblin culture, females are beneath males. They rarely even leave the house or go out in public—hence why you don't see any working here. The males work, the females cater to the males."
She made a face.
"The very few times I've seen a female goblin working," he continued, "it's usually got a stigma of shame attached. As if she had to because no male goblin would have her. Their jobs tend to be menial—cleaning, cooking, making sure the males have what they need."
He scratched his nose and sipped his tea. "And I've noticed that mentality tends to slip into the way some of the ones around here treat women. I've heard them talk about it. How ridiculous it is that they have to work with wizards at all, let alone witches. You should see the shit Clea deals with."
Clea. The female curse breaker who was also rude to her and frequently reminding her how young she was. The one who gave Bill a hard time for chatting with her. The one with the attitude problem.
"Not that it's an excuse for the shit she says," Bill continued, "but she's almost got to be cold and detached to get anything done around here with some of the goblins. They're cruel and demeaning."
He pointed to himself. "What's taken me weeks to get assigned to now that I'm home took her two years. She did the same amount of time out in the field as I did, doing much of the same things I did."
Fleur frowned. "That is unacceptable. How do they get away with it?"
Bill shrugged lamely. "I don't know, but not all of them are like that. Many are fine—usually the ones that work out front with the public. Sure, they subscribe to the whole 'males superior; females subordinate' thing because it's their culture, but I've talked to plenty to genuinely love their wives and want to do right by them."
"As long as they know their place?" Fleur said, still frowning.
Bill seemed to take an extra long sip of his tea before speaking. "Goblins are fiercely protective of their culture and ways. I don't agree with it, but they don't take kindly to wizards meddling in their affairs and trying to change how they do things. You know, since wizards have been doing that for ages. They see any questioning of them as oppressive interference. They don't trust us."
He leaned back in his chair and stared at her. "I've learned you don't tell a goblin how to do things unless you want a fight."
Back in her upstairs bedroom, Fleur now realized those words never rang more true for her than in the last half an hour.
Griphook had spit out the first dose of the Skele-gro quite dramatically—and right back at her. Had she been standing half a meter to the left, she likely would have been now covered in the potion.
"That is foul!" he snapped.
"It is what you asked for," she said, walking over to the door and pointing her wand toward the stairs. She summoned her apron from the kitchen and as soon as it reached her, she immediately put it on. She also pulled her hair back.
"That is not the potion I am familiar with," Griphook said, still making a disgusted face. "Perhaps it is bad? Have you served me an expired potion?"
"Non," Fleur said in a forced tone, walking over to the Skele-gro bottle to hand it to him. "You may see for yourself."
He pushed the bottle back at her. "You are capable of reading, are you not? Read it to me!"
Fleur was about to tell him exactly what he could do with that bottle when Luna's voice suddenly cut through the tension.
"Are you not capable of reading?" she asked Griphook, calm and curious; without a tinge of the sarcasm that Fleur would have mustered if she'd made that exact same comment. She was currently sitting on the bed on the opposite side of the room, watching rather blankly after having sang Mr. Ollivander a few songs to lull him to sleep.
Griphook turned his glare onto her. "Yes. Of course I can read."
"Then why would you need Fleur to read that for you?" she asked, sounding completely genuine in her concern. "Did you hurt your eyes as well as your legs?"
"No—"
"Do you struggle with reading small print?" she asked, standing from the bed to take the bottle of Skele-gro to examine it. "I do sometimes, though I always pass my vision exams. If it's not something you can do, you shouldn't be ashamed to admit it."
He snapped the bottle back from her hands. "I can do it!"
"Oh, that's wonderful," she said with a sincere smile. "It is good to overcome a shortcoming."
Griphook certainly wasn't amused by any of this, though Fleur was.
The potion hadn't expired, though it didn't stop Griphook from complaining endlessly about how it tasted foul and was nothing like what he'd had in the past. This, of course, prompted yet another disrespectful back and forth that—if Fleur understood him correctly—was supposed to end with her finding a cauldron and all the appropriate ingredients, in the middle of the night, while they were in hiding, and somehow brewing him a fresh batch.
"What is the point of having all these skills as wizards if you cannot brew a simple potion," he muttered.
"Oh, I don't believe it's very simple," Luna said. "It's probably very complicated, actually. If it was easy and anyone could do it, then the Skele-gro company would likely have gone out of business some time ago."
Fleur chuckled. Fair point.
Griphook glared at her as soon as she'd let the laugh escape her. "Is this funny to you?"
Never let a goblin catch you laughing at them, Bill had told her once. Well, as far as she was concerned, those were Gringotts' rules. This was her home and if something was funny—or someone was acting like a fool—she was going to react.
"Given everything that had occurred tonight, nothing should be funny," she said, narrowing her eyes on him. "Yet somehow your behavior is a joke."
She suddenly grabbed the Skele-gro bottle out of his hands and poured the second dose of the night. She then held it out for him.
"You have three choices for your legs. Drink this. Use a spell. Or uncomfortably lay here in pain and let them heal on their own."
He sneered and suddenly glanced out the window. In the distance, they could just make out Harry still busily digging the grave he'd set out to finish.
She continued to hold the cup. "When I leave this room, I take two of these options with me. You can then wait for Bill or one of the others to help you. I have a house full of people to care for and I will not stand here fighting with you any longer."
A brief stare down occurred between them, though he eventually took the cup out of her hand. He stared at it for a moment before forcing it down with much retching and complaint. It was soon gone, though he looked ill afterwards.
"Well done," Luna offered. "The worst is over."
"It is not," Fleur said rather unapologetically. "It will actually be very painful for you and your legs for several hours."
At that, she turned to leave the room, pocketing the Skele-gro in her apron as she did so. She could just make out Bill's voice downstairs, which meant he'd returned from checking in on the other Weasleys. He didn't seem alarmed or panicked. That felt like a good sign. The Weasleys were safe.
Bill had proceeded to ask Ron and the others to explain what had happened to them that night, and Luna was quick to volunteer her story first. She gave many details as she spoke—many of them not entirely relevant—but she included them all the same. She recollected how the Death Eaters had come to fetch her on the train that day, just as Ginny described, because she was to pay for her father causing trouble and printing his stories in the Quibbler. She'd been blindfolded and bound, feeling as if they'd kept her in the darkness for days before finally removing her restraints.
She learned quickly that she wasn't to be killed since they wanted to blackmail her father into doing their bidding. She'd eventually been placed in the cellar in December and, outside of a small window they'd had, she hadn't seen the outside in months. She made a point to emphasize how she still hadn't experienced daylight properly since her capture.
"But I couldn't ever feel too poorly about things because Mr. Ollivander had it far worse than I had," she said. "He'd been there for so long and they were so cruel. I tried to make the best of things down there. I took up making art in the dust and dirt; I told him many stories about the things I hoped to see again once I was released. There were many games I invented, many I hope to write down now I can use a quill again." She frowned. "They wouldn't let me have one."
She then glanced out the window. "I like to think it kept us both sane."
Dean went next, and his story had a different feel to it as it filled in many of the holes and questions they had from the night of Tonks' father's murder. He told them how he'd gone on the run roughly the same time Ron and the others had—just after the wedding and once he'd heard they were coming for Muggleborns.
"Ginny had written to me," he said. "Told me what happened at your wedding and that I wasn't safe. Mentioned what they'd done to a Muggleborn that night and how that was the plan for all of us. She wanted me to protect myself."
Bill was nodding. "We'd been told to warn all the Muggleborns we knew. Good that she did."
Fleur stared at Dean for a moment, his words suddenly triggering a memory in her mind. "You are the same Dean from the letters." She looked at Bill. "Do you remember? Last summer? Ginny was writing to someone called Dean."
"Yeah, that's me," Dean offered.
"That was when they were dating," Ron said, yawning. "We've got a collection of Ginny's exes here, don't we?"
"I'd hardly call two a collection, Ron," Hermione mumbled, having attempted to sit up and follow the conversation.
"I was only making an observation." He looked over at Bill. "Don't worry, though. Dean and Harry get on, so it won't be strange. That's all water under the bridge."
They all glanced over at Dean, who cleared his throat and awkwardly mumbled, "Right. Um, anyway, after I read her letter, I packed a bag…"
He proceeded to tell them that he'd left his Muggle mother and stepfather a goodbye letter, explaining everything to them and telling them to tell anyone who came to call for him that he was dead. He'd left in the middle of the night, not knowing where to go and wandering for a bit. He'd considered leaving the country, but he barely had any money and knew no one.
"Plus, I wanted to fight," he said. "I didn't want to run away. I wanted to help. But I didn't know what to do. None of my friends were Muggleborns, they all had to go back to Hogwarts. I communicated with them as best I could—always pretending to be someone's grandmother in my letters, but with how bad things were at Hogwarts, it didn't help me much. I couldn't get any information.
"I went to London first and blended in with their homeless population," he continued. "Sleeping on benches and in Muggle shelters. People assumed I was a runaway; they paid me little mind. Some felt sorry for me and gave me food or money. I'd use spells to take food or things I needed. I did that for months until I got a bad feeling one day that I was being watched. I could have been paranoid, but I started to think they were looking for people like me among the Muggles. That they'd snatch me up while I was sleeping.
"And then there came the day I saw a cloaked figure that didn't seem typical. And trust me, you see loads of shit out there, but this one seemed especially strange. I'm convinced it was a Death Eater or a Snatcher, but I'd been grabbed by the arm and pulled away before I had time to figure it out. That was when I met Ted."
"Tonks' father," Fleur said to no one in particular.
"Yeah, Tonks was his name," he said with a nod. "Ted Tonks. He'd been watching me for a day or two—" He smirked a little. "So see, I wasn't mental in thinking I was being watched. But he must have seen me do some magic—I thought I was careful to hide it—and afterwards he kept an eye on me. He wasn't trying to draw attention to himself either since he was also on the run, but he'd seen the same Death Eater type. He'd grabbed me and told me we had to go now. That 'they' were here and they would find us. When I asked him where, he took my arm and Apparated me to the forest."
Dean grew quiet for a moment before continuing to explain that he soon learned Ted was like him and in the same situation, so they agreed to stick together. Ted had some camping equipment and they made do in the woods for several days before running into Dirk Cresswell, Griphook, and Gornuk, all of whom were also in the same position and had collectively come together to help each other survive.
"We moved around loads," he explained. "Dirk, Ted, or I would always scout the location to make sure the coast was clear, then we'd transport the goblins with us when we knew it was safe."
His eyes focused on a lamp across the room, as if remembering something specific. "It was a lot of camping and nights spent sleeping on the ground. Loads of bathing in rivers, though every now and then we'd come into some money and find some real lodgings and have a proper shower. That was rare. It was mostly loads of fishing, hunting, stealing food. Whatever it took to survive, especially during the winter.
"For a long time, we were doing alright and things were decent. I got on really well with Ted and Dirk, though not so much the goblins. We stuck together, but they kept to themselves mostly. I sort of felt they were using us for magic, but they could always sense strange things before we could and kept us out of some trouble, so it was a two-way thing."
He sighed. "It worked until the day it didn't."
According to him, entirely by chance and bad luck, they'd run into a gang of Snatchers. They'd doubled back to an old location they'd all been keen on thanks to its proximity by a river, but apparently the Snatchers had uncovered it days prior and were monitoring it. The moment they'd arrived, they'd been ambushed; a fight had broken out. Dean said he knew that Ted and Dirk would die before being taken; they'd talked about it before.
He and Griphook had been immediately stunned and restrained, which he claimed saved their lives since the fight had gone from Stunning Spells to lethal spells entirely too quickly. Gornuk was hit by a Killing Curse while retreating. Dirk and Ted fought until their final breath, but they'd simply been outnumbered.
"The Snatchers were celebrating loudly that they'd taken out the rubbish," Dean mumbled. "Some were complaining that they wouldn't get as much money for dead Muggleborns as they did live ones."
"That is horrible," Fleur said, and the entire room quietly echoed her sentiments.
"Yeah, it was bad," Dean muttered. "I assume I was supposed to be taken to Azkaban, or somewhere to be processed or tried, but then the Snatchers caught wind of the taboo, and suddenly we were being dragged along to where they were," he gestured to Ron and Hermione. "And we all got taken to the Malfoys."
Bill and Fleur had turned to Ron then, as if waiting for him to take the reins and continue the story. However, his behavior now seemed strangely cagey. He seemed hesitant to recall what had happened.
His account of events had started well enough. Apparently, Harry had accidentally said You-Know-Who's name, thus triggering the taboo. Snatchers had turned up immediately to capture them and take their wands, thinking they were escaped Muggleborns, though Hermione had the good sense to disfigure Harry's face with a charm to make him unrecognizable. Unfortunately, it hadn't worked since they recognized Hermione and knew she was traveling with him. They'd put the pieces together and figured out it was Harry and—in the hopes of a big reward—turned them over to Death Eaters at the Malfoys.
Without wands, they were trapped. They'd locked up Ron and Harry in the cellar, and kept Hermione upstairs for questioning.
As soon as Ron had said the word "questioning", Hermione had mustered the strength to shoot him a silencing look.
"Questioning what?" Bill asked, prompting Ron for more. "What did they want to know? What did they ask?"
Ron glanced at Hermione; both looking hesitant to answer. Hermione quickly shut her eyes, as if she was in pain or suddenly exhausted. It left Ron to answer the question.
"Um, uh, to confirm that it was really Harry they'd locked in the cellar. They kept asking her if it was."
"You said they already knew it was Harry," Fleur said, feeling as though something was off. This was especially true once she noticed Dean and Luna's curious expressions appear—as if what Ron was saying was surprising them.
"Yeah, well, they wanted to sure." He seemed antsy. "You know, before they summoned You-Know-Who over. He'd be really angry to show up and it not be the real deal."
Fleur glanced at Bill who, given his expression, also seemed to sense something wasn't being said. When he spoke, his tone was almost accusatory.
"I thought you were locked in the cellar during all this?"
"I was." He gestured to Dean and Luna. "We all were, but we could hear it upstairs. They were loud."
Ron looked over at Dean and Luna, as if looking for confirmation. Neither of them immediately said anything. Dean did nothing more than nod slowly. Luna only said, "We could hear them speaking down there, yes."
Bill stared at Ron. Fleur half expected him to call his brother out on what was clearly some half truth, but he instead looked away. In an attempt to end the awkward silence, he finally asked, "And how exactly did you escape?"
"Dobby," Ron said obviously. "He could use his house elf magic to Apparate us out."
"Right, but how did you summon him?"
Ron shrugged. "Harry did it."
"How?"
"He just did," Ron muttered, acting as if the answer should have been obvious. "How does anyone summon a house elf?"
Bill blinked. "House elves can only be summoned by their masters. Are you telling me Dobby is Harry's elf? I thought Kreacher was his elf after he inherited Grimmauld Place? Where did Dobby come from?"
"Er…" Ron stammered, again looking at Hermione as if hoping for assistance. He wasn't being particularly subtle about it.
"Dobby is a free elf," Hermione managed to get out, though it sounded pained. "He belongs to no one, but he has always been very loyal to Harry."
"Right," Ron added. "He and Harry have a bond." He gestured toward the outside. "Which is why he's outside right now making sure he gets a proper burial. They were friends."
"I understand that," Bill said. "But without wands or the magical bond that links house elves to their masters, how did Harry get word to Dobby? That's what I'm asking."
"I don't…know," Ron muttered. "This is Harry weren't talking about. He figures things out, doesn't he?
"He figures things out…" Bill repeated, talking more to himself than Ron. He glanced over at Fleur; it was clear they were both thinking the same thing. Something wasn't making sense.
"You are saying Dobby helped Dean, Ollivander, and Luna get away," Fleur said. "Then returned to get the rest of you away?"
Ron nodded.
"But you Apparated here with Hermione," Bill said. "Dobby didn't bring you two."
"Right…?"
"So how did you get out of the cellar to get to Hermione? You said she was upstairs with the Death Eaters, so you would have had to escape the cellar to get upstairs. How did you do that?"
Ron didn't respond for a long moment. An awkwardly long moment. "Uh, Dobby, after he came back, brought Harry and I upstairs to help her escape."
"Just you and Harry?" Fleur asked.
"Yeah, everyone else had gone," Ron said.
"But wait," Bill said, "to Apparate away, you would have needed a wand. You said yours was taken by the Snatchers. Where did you get a wand? You would have had to have taken one or won it off someone."
Ron shifted in his seat. "I…found one."
"Where?"
"From one of the Death Eaters, I don't know…"
"They just leave their wands lying around?"
"They aren't known for being clever," Ron muttered.
"The ones You-Know-Who would keep around his home base likely would be," Bill said, staring at his brother. "Did you have to fight your way out?"
Ron looked at Hermione, who now seemed to again be far more sleepy than she had been a few minutes prior and offered him nothing more than a blank stare.
"I mean, a little, yeah. Obviously they weren't just going to let us walk right out the door."
"And where was Griphook during all of this?" Fleur asked, noticing they'd left him out of the story so far. "We know he came with Harry, but you said Dobby only brought you and Harry from the cellar. Does that mean he was already upstairs with Hermione?"
Ron opened his mouth, but quickly shut it. He didn't bother to respond now. In fact, it looked as if he was shutting down entirely.
"He had to have been upstairs," Bill said to her. "Because how else would Harry have been able to get him out of there to Apparate in the middle of a fight? And given the severity of his injuries, that leads me to believe he would have been in the thick of whatever fighting they did too."
"Only his injuries led you to believe he was fighting?" Fleur asked Bill. "Not the sword he still will not part with? What did he need a sword for if not to fight?"
The both look at Ron, but he averted his eyes. He said nothing.
"Yeah, what's with the sword?" Bill asked, as if just remembering its existence. "Where did that come from?"
"Look!" Ron snapped. "I…don't know what to tell you. I was so focused on helping Hermione and getting her to safety, I didn't pay attention to anything else, alright? I told you everything I can!"
Under his breath, he mumbled something to Hermione that sounded like, "...I'm on trial," but Fleur was still too hung up on the phrasing he'd just used. 'I told you everything I can…'
If that was what he could tell them, what couldn't he tell them?
Ron abruptly stood then, moving toward the front door while muttering, "I'm going to help Harry dig."
They watched him go rather gruffly from the room without another word. After a moment, Dean stood up too, saying, "I'll go help as well," before making a far less dramatic exit.
When the door shut behind Dean, Fleur crossed the sitting room and walked over to the front window to watch as the boys made their way over to Harry and the grave site. Bill had risen from his seat and done the same.
As soon he was beside her, she whispered, "Do you get the feeling that something is not being said?"
Bill quietly shushed her, glancing behind them. She did the same, finding that Hermione had her eyes closed and seemed to be resting; Luna—who was on the opposite end of the same sofa—looked as if she may have dozed off sitting upright.
"Not here," he whispered, and she took that to mean they'd speak when they were alone. She accepted that and reached up to rub her eyes. Up until that moment, she had barely registered that they'd been up all night, but now that the adrenaline of the evening was wearing off and the light of the morning was starting to become visible, she could feel the need for sleep creeping over her. She would have to fight it, though. There was still much to tend to.
Bill suddenly put his arm around her; she noticed then that he hadn't even removed his traveling cloak from when he'd left earlier. She still hadn't taken off her apron from before. Little things like that seemed to have slipped everyone's mind. Even upon realizing it, she didn't bother to do it. It seemed unimportant.
She wrapped her arms around his middle, just needing to feel the security and the warmth of him. He returned the hug without a word. She could feel him kissing the top of her head. They both looked out the window.
"Harry only looks to be halfway completed," she said quietly.
"He's digging a proper grave," Bill said, also quiet. "Not a shallow one or a half-arsed one. A legitimate one."
They watched for another moment before releasing each other and again glancing at the weary, sleeping girls on their sofa.
"They all knackered," Bill said. "We'll have to figure out where to put everyone." He paused and looked around. "We don't have the space. Some will have to go to Muriel's."
"Griphook will need a few hours for his legs, but he could move after that," Fleur said as the pair now excused themselves for the room and walked rather aimlessly toward the kitchen together.
Bill let a low, tired sounding chuckle escape him. Under his breath, he muttered, "Of all the goblins, it had to be him." He then sighed loudly before adding. "Ollivander's in bad shape, but after a bit of rest and potions, he'd likely appreciate the space and privacy of Muriel's to fully recover."
"What of the others?" she asked, stopping just before the kitchen.
He shrugged. "It depends on how long they'll need to stay. If it's a few days, we can make do, but if it's like when Ron last visited and it ends up being weeks—"
"We do not have the space for weeks," she said. "Not with this many people."
He nodded. "We don't. But I don't think we should risk moving Harry any time soon. It is too dangerous. They're all looking for him."
"I agree," she said. "He should stay."
"Which means Ron and Hermione will also stay," he said, moving further into the kitchen and over toward the window to look outside. He gestured for her to shut the kitchen door—which they never did—but she did as she was instructed.
As soon as it clicked shut, Bill said, "They're hiding something."
She nodded. "Ron was talking himself in circles and seemed very uneasy. He is certainly not telling us something."
"He's not," Bill muttered. "Which is frustrating because we're on the same side."
Fleur said nothing in response, despite agreeing with him. She walked over to where he stood and slowly started to rub his back.
He looked back at her. "Something happened at that house tonight. Too many things don't make sense."
She nodded. "Perhaps once things have calmed we will get a better story? Things must be very overwhelming right now."
"Yeah, perhaps…" he muttered.
They stood in comfortable silence for a long time. Fleur watched through the window, seeing that Ron and Dean had acquired spades and were now jumping into the hole Harry had dug to begin helping him with the little elf's grave.
"He must have been a very special elf," Bill finally said.
She nodded, turning away then. Through the quiet and calm, she sighed and said, "Where will we put all of these people?"
Bill shrugged, mumbling, "We'll set them up here tonight and worry about the future tomorrow."
She knew he hadn't meant anything by the phrasing of his comment, but she couldn't help get a knot in her stomach at his words. Worrying about the future at a later date truly was a luxury now. Something that was much easier said than done.
She wasn't sure she was capable of not worrying about the future anymore.
