Nothing is mine.

Harry's doing okay, absolutely nothing wrong with head, nothing at all xD

The Never-Ending Stairway

The crimson rose shone in the sun bursting through the window, its petals bright but soft and smooth as Fleur's pale skin beneath his fingers. Beside the clear vase, the silver cogs of Fleur's clock floated, spinning past one another in the numb quiet; the light flashed off its gleaming little teeth.

Harry squinted at it, measuring his steps back and forth past Fleur's desk one by one and tapping his fingers on his thighs. Ten past two? Or ten to twelve? When is Fleur meant to be back? He stared through the window at the distant trees; they sat still upon the horizon, fixed like paint on canvas; the wildflowers spreading down the slope from beneath their boughs hung silent and frozen as pressed flowers.

The quiet gnawed at his heart, chewing through it like a worm through an apple. Its still filled his thoughts with its weight, pressing down upon him like Vernon's weight thudding up the stairs above his head.

Where is Fleur?

'You're the worst clock,' Harry told Fleur's floating silver cogs. 'Worse than the one I bought for Salazar that kept dying.' He glanced at the rose, picturing its dark green leaves and red petals and drawing on his magic.

A lopsided, maroon rose curled together between his fingers, scattering petals onto the carpet.

The storm stirred within, tugging and twisting at his heart, wrenching at it like a kite whirling in a hurricane. 'Needs a lot more practice.'

I need Fleur here. Harry raised trembling fingers and sucked in a deep breath, but it snagged on the rising yearning, caught like a feather in a tangle of barbed wire. She's all there is.

The rose came together in his fist; bright red petals fluttering above his hand, bright red blood trickling through his fingers at the sharp sting of thorns.

What's so special about roses? The throb of pain in his palm eased the screaming storm, slicing through it to still calm like a blade of clear ice through a cloud of hot steam. They're something… The thought hung from the tip of that cold sharp like the bright crimson bead of blood from the tip of his finger. Something important.

Heat flashed across Harry's thumb.

A gasp slipped through his lips; he wrenched the world back past him and stepped out onto the white pebbles.

Bright summer sky blue eyes shone beneath a cascade of silver hair.

'Fleur,' he whispered.

Small wrinkles creased Fleur's forehead. 'Mon Cœur…' she murmured, stepping forward and easing his fingers apart. 'Did you conjure me another rose?'

'I promised you more roses, remember?' Harry said, opening his fist.

Fleur picked the rose from his hand with one finger and a thumb on the blood-smeared stem, lifting the flower to her nose. 'It does not smell, mon Amour.'

'Oh…' He frowned. 'I wasn't thinking about the smell...'

'I know what you were thinking about,' she murmured, tugging red-stained thorns from his palm and tossing them away. 'Me, non?'

'You were gone again.' The words tumbled from the tip of his tongue.

'I had to go to Belgium.' Fleur snapped the remaining thorns off the rose, wiping the blood from the slim green stem with the edge of her thumb. 'But now I am back.'

'Sorry,' he whispered. 'I can't help it. It all feels so unreal when you're away.'

'Unreal?'

'Like I'm trapped somewhere else. Lost in it. Dreaming. Waiting to hear your voice and wake up to find there's something important again.'

Fleur's lips pursed. 'It is all real, mon Amour.' She waved the rose at him. 'Hold this for me?'

Harry cupped it in his palms, watching as she swept half her hair back over her shoulders, splitting the first few locks into three streams of silver and weaving them into an elegant braid.

'I have not worn my hair like this for a long time,' Fleur said, hooking it over her ear with her little finger and busying her hands with the other side. 'What do you think, mon Cœur?' She shook the rest of her hair out and lifted the rose from his hands, tucking it through the braid above her ear.

The red rose petals fluttered above the spun silver of her hair and her bright summer sky blue eyes.

'You look perfect,' he whispered. 'As always.'

'Perfect for you,' Fleur murmured, cupping his cheek with her warm fingers. 'And definitely here, non?'

'Definitely here.' Harry drew her close, breathing in the scent of faint sweet cherry. 'I'll make you a rose that smells nice, next time. Je te le promets.'

'You have all the time in the world to give me roses.' Fleur's breath tickled his neck. 'But roses are not what we need right now...'

He took a deep lungful of air. 'Did you see Ginny? In Belgium?'

'I watched for a short while,' she said. 'Grindelwald's forces constantly test the wards and the response of her aurors when they cross, but it is Ansgar Fürstenburg's aurors now; Karsten Metternich and his aurors have moved elsewhere. Grindelwald is up to something.'

'But we still can't go after her without risking Grindelwald breaking through.' Harry nodded. 'The others, then.'

And then it's just him. The amber-masked figure. Grindelwald and his golden flames. He sucked in a long breath. I promised our daughter. No crucible.

'What are you thinking about?' Fleur murmured.

'Grindelwald.' Harry sighed. 'If he wins, our baby bird will grow up in a far worse world. I don't want her coming back to everyone killing each other over their dreams. I want her to be happy. To not have things taken away from her all the time…'

Perhaps I should just wipe them away. Once Grindelwald's allies are gone, he could be overcome. A trickle of dread slid down his spine. Except for those amber flames.

Fleur's blue eyes bled black. 'Non.'

Harry winced as her skin burnt against his and feathers brushed his fingers. 'I didn't say anything.'

'You will not go off to play hero for all those horrible little people,' she hissed. 'Let them fight for their own dreams. We have ours. No more hurting. We promised Gabby.'

'What about for our baby bird…?' he murmured. 'I don't want her waking up to Grindelwald's war, to grow up waiting and hoping for it to end so she can have what she wishes for—' Harry gestured at the flowers across the meadow and the small river '—I want her to wake up to this, to grow up here.'

Fleur's cheek bones shifted and her chin sharpened. 'She is already going to, mon Amour.'

'But he might take it away from her. Or try. Even with La Victoire Finale…'

She tugged her hands away. 'When our little chick wakes up she will be scared and upset and confused and she will want her papa!'

Harry flinched. 'I wasn't going to go off anywhere when she wakes.'

But maybe, before she wakes up, I could just wipe them all away. A faint smile crept across his face. Then it really would all be done the moment Katie comes back.

Fleur's eyes narrowed. 'Why are you smiling?'

'I was just thinking about her waking up.'

The dark drained from her irises and the feathers slipped back beneath her skin. 'It will be perfect,' Fleur whispered, cupping his face in her hot hands. 'But not if you are always vanishing and she wakes up here without us both.'

'When she wakes, we'll be here,' Harry promised.

'The Resplendent Sun will not be—' the bright blue of her eyes darkened to midnight '—they will be ashes.'

'We go to Britain and get rid of them. We can just blame Grindelwald.' Harry dipped his hand into his pocket and lifted Lemon Sorbet's ring. 'This will get us into the Department of Mysteries; we don't even need to go through any of the aurors.'

'You know where they are?'

'Yes. Zacharias Smith, Marietta Edgecombe, Dean Thomas and Percy Weasley. They all work in the Ministry.' A little ice crept through his veins, clenching into a freezing fist in his chest. 'We can just go in and find them and take them away. Like they did.'

Fleur's arms slid down around his neck. 'And once they are gone, we keep our promise to Gabby. Let everyone else fight Grindelwald. We deserve our sunset, we sacrificed everything else for it.'

A jolt of cold dread tore through him. My sisters. Will their magic even work against his golden flames? He glanced down at his sleeve. Will mine anymore? Guilt chewed at his heart, gnawing away like Ripper at a bone. But I can't leave them to fight that alone. They would stay for me. They did stay. In Kart Hadasht.

Fleur rested her forehead against his, brushing the tips of their noses together. 'What are you fretting about, mon Amour?' She sighed, her breath tickling his lips. 'You're hopeless. We just have to wait a little while, that's all, mon Cœur. By the time the Resplendent Sun are gone, our little angel might be awake.'

'And she will be safer with them gone,' Harry murmured.

Everyone will be.

'But not today…' Fleur's blue eyes swept over him and her fingers drifted to the red rose fluttering in her silver hair. 'Today I am going to teach you something very important to stop you from spending all your time fretting away.'

'Something important?' A soft thrill fluttered through Harry's veins. 'What is it?'

'A game Gabby and I used to play when we were much younger,' she murmured. 'When our baby is a bit older, we can teach her, too.'

'What's it called?'

Fleur's grip tightened and the willow fronds and white pebbles blurred into the blue blankets and cushions of Gabby's bedroom. Within their shining silver photo frame, Fleur and Gabrielle smiled and waved from beside Gabby's bed.

'It looks just the same,' she whispered. 'And this—' Fleur picked up the photo '—I think I'll take this back to our bedroom.'

Harry pulled Fleur close and wrapped his arms around her. 'I know…' He held her warm slim figure against his chest, stroking her silver hair. 'I know, mon Rêve.'

'I still expect her to come bursting in chirping sometimes.' Fleur twisted in his embrace and drew him to the book shelf, running her finger along the spines. 'The whole Aimée collection is here.'

'Delacour family heirlooms.'

A faint smile flitted across her lips and she bent to lift a slim box from the bottom shelf. 'Here it is.'

Harry glanced at the top of the wooden box. 'The Never-Ending Stairway?'

'It was Gabby's favourite before she came to Beauxbatons.'

He gave her a gentle squeeze. 'Do you want to play downstairs?'

Fleur shook her head, the wisteria blossom dangling from her ear swaying back and forth. 'We always played in here. Because it was Gabby's favourite and she kept it here.' She sat down and crossed her legs, her midnight blue dress pooling between her knees.

Harry dropped down beside her. 'Do we need anything else?'

'Non.' Fleur opened the box and lifted out the board. 'It is all here.'

It rose up into a spiralling ramp, twisting up around the faux marble column and its battling wizards and magical creatures. Double lines of tiny runes split the ramp into small squares.

'How do you play?' Harry asked.

Fleur lifted a pair of dice from the box. 'What magical creature do you want to be, mon Amour? We have a dragon without a head, a sphinx with no wings and a three-legged nundu.'

'I'll be the headless dragon,' he said. 'Unless you really want that one?'

'I shall be the wingless sphinx.'

'Still flightless.' Harry laughed. 'My poor bird-wife.'

Fleur's lower lip crept out. 'Roll the dice, mon Cœur—' she pushed them across with the tips of her fingers '—whoever gets the highest gets to go first.'

Harry swept them off the floor and rattled them in his hand, rolling them across the carpet into Fleur's knee.

She pulled her leg back. 'Three.'

'Not a very high number.'

A small smile crept onto Fleur's lips. 'Non, not very high, mon Amour.' She rolled the dice.

They tumbled across the carpet and came to rest at the edge of the spiralling stairs.

'Two.' Harry grinned. 'Ha.'

She turned her nose up. 'You get to go first then.'

'I assume I roll?'

'Yes. And then you go the number of squares. But first…' Fleur picked up the headless dragon and set it in the first square.

The little runes at the square's edge lit up with a soft white glow and the dragon spread its little wings and shook its tail and neck.

'It's working?'

'We will see.' She nudged the dice toward him and unbuckled her heels, slipping them off and laying them down on the carpet.

Harry rolled the dice. 'Six.'

The headless dragon stalked forward up the stairs to the seventh square.

'So it's whoever gets to the top first?' He counted the squares up the spiral. 'Okay.'

'Wait…' Fleur's little smirk widened. 'You will see.'

A little puff of white smoke rose from the top of the pillar and the battling magical creatures and wizards fell still. The pale fog curled into words.

'You set out upon the path to greatness, but you soon realise you have forgotten your custom-made, gem-encrusted, shadow-phoenix and thunderbird feather wand. Take a detour to go back and get it, or go on ahead without.'

A small pathway snaked out of the side of the sixth square, looping back to the start.

'Well, I can't go on without my apparently extremely expensive wand,' Harry said. 'How upsetting. Are all the squares like this?'

'They are different every time,' Fleur replied, picking up the dice. 'They are enchanted to have some scenario on all of them.'

'So how do I choose?'

'Say the number of the option.'

'One.'

The headless dragon turned to face the loop.

Fleur set the sphinx on the starting square and watched it flap its wing stubs. 'My turn.' She rolled the dice.

'Eleven.' Harry shook his head. 'And I'm already at minus six.'

The sphinx prowled over the squares, slinking past the dragon and sitting down upon the twelfth square. White smoke rose from the summit of the pillar.

'You are innocently minding your own business when a horde of boys sees you and, stricken by your amazing veela magicks, offer to do anything you want,' Fleur read. 'Go forward three squares. You have acquired the undying love of twenty-four young wizards.'

'This game is rigged,' Harry said, reaching out and wrapping an arm around Fleur's waist. 'What happened to my amazing veela magicks?'

Fleur laughed a soft laugh as the sphinx bounded forward. 'Maybe you forgot them as well.'

He snorted and rolled the dice. 'Nine.'

The dragon raised its headless neck and strode forward on its wingtips, following the loop back around to the fourth square.

'Veela enclave. Veela enclave.' Harry crossed his fingers. 'Don't be the horde of boys.'

White smoke curled into letters.

'As you rest in the sun, you suddenly discover a tattoo of the sun over your heart,' Fleur read. 'Shocked by the sudden appearance of the soul-mate mark nobody was expecting, you skip a go. You have acquired a soul-mate mark.'

Harry chuckled, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. 'I'm starting to suspect someone tampered with this game at some point, my sneaky bird-wife.'

Fleur smirked and picked up the dice. 'Not recently, mon Amour.'

'What does the soul-mate mark even do?'

'It tells you who your soul-mate is.'

'You have found your soul-mate, it turns out to be the hot girl you're always arguing with and she's not happy about it, go back twenty squares,' Harry said as she rolled. 'Four. Excellent, I might even catch up a bit.'

Fleur watched the smoke rush from the top of the game. 'Blocking your path is an angry manticore, do you attempt to sneak past, fight it, or go back?' She hummed. 'One.'

The smoke shifted.

'The manticore immediately spots you and attacks,' Harry read. 'Do you run back the way you came or defend yourself with something?'

'Two.'

'You grab the most recent thing you acquired. Unfortunately, the undying love of twenty-four boys does not stop the manticore and it severely injures you.' Fleur pouted. 'Go back ten squares.'

Harry cheered as the sphinx limped back to the sixth square. 'I am no longer miles behind. I might even… win. Do I get a shiny trophy for winning? Something I can let you read my name off when I've won?'

Fleur's lower lip crept out a little further and she stretched against his side, wiggling her toes. 'If you win, maybe I will do something exciting for you...' A small smirk hovered on her lips. 'I can think of a few things if you cannot, mon Amour.'

'You just want to try out more of those fantasies you made up while I wasn't here.' Harry grinned. 'What happens if you win?'

'You have to do something exciting for me.' A little spark of desire rose in her blue eyes and she cupped the red rose fluttering in her hair. 'I am sure I can think of something for that too…'

AN: All the fast-paced, happy-ending, fun stories can be found via my profile! Along with links to Discord and how to support me if you like my writing and want to read the original stuff or help make sure there's more coming!