Nothing is mine.

This one's a very short one, unlike some of the last few, this is because a chunk of it is only on my website, and by now we all know what that means!

Pro Patria Mori

Dappled golden and auburn forest stretched away down the steep valley, flanking the narrow river gushing down the mountainside. Its leaves rustled in the breeze sweeping up the worn track to the square tower and fluttering through Fleur's hair.

She dangled her feet off the crenellated tower top, swinging them back and forth in a faint shimmering blur as the weight of fatigue eased bit by bit. 'Soon this will all be over, Gabby,' she murmured. 'Our little angel will be reborn and we will be happy. And if we are happy, you are happy, non?'

The breeze rustled through the orange, red and golden leaves, stirring little eddies of dust along the thin track following the river up through the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Fleur watched the mismatched white and red-robed wizards and witches fire spells across the river through her disillusioned feet. 'I hope you are happy,' she whispered.

Voices drifted up through the tower beneath her and footsteps thudded up the stairs and out across the balcony below.

Harry will be fretting. Fleur stared out across the autumn forest at the scatter of white clouds hovering beside the sun. I should go back. The more he frets, the more he will want to remember what happened in the instant of the ritual.

She frowned down at the backs of the two wizards on the balcony, cupping the acorn pendant in her cleavage. 'But he cannot remember, Gabby,' she whispered into the breeze. 'If he remembers the ritual, he will remember giving up, and then it will never be the same again.'

Fleur smothered the niggle of doubt. He will not remember. I erased the ritual from his mind the moment he woke.

'You would be cross with me, Gabby,' Fleur murmured. 'But it was the only way. If he did not give up, he would not come back. And if he came back and could remember giving up, he would despair and do something stupid.'

And it worked. He needs me. He loves me. He frets the moment I am gone. The corner of her mouth curved up into a small smirk. I won. As long as Katie is reborn soon and he sees there is no reason to doubt or any need to remember, we win.

'Harry Potter?' The white-jacketed wizard below asked in a strong American accent. 'Who the hell is Harry Potter, Cedric?'

Fleur tensed, straining her ears.

'You don't know who that is?' Cedric laughed. 'You've heard of Voldemort, right, Grant?'

'Of course.' Grant leant over the balcony. 'He started the civil war, didn't he?'

'He started one a few decades ago, but before he really got going, he tried to kill the Potters for some reason. He nearly died when his Killing Curse reflected back off baby Harry Potter.'

'Dark magic.' Grant shook his head. 'That's what you get for messing with things like that.'

'Yeah, well, he didn't die, but everyone thought he did. When Harry Potter rocked up at school eleven years later, Voldemort was trying to return. Harry stopped him a few times, saved some people's lives. They were… they were all pretty rotten to him, actually. Nobody wanted to believe Voldemort was back so they tried to believe the very worst of him to avoid it. In the end, the civil war kicked off and Voldemort was winning, but Harry cast some kind of blood magic and when Voldemort killed him, he caught fire.'

'Blood magic…?' Grant's voice darkened.

'It worked.' Cedric shrugged. 'And then Amelia Bones cleaned up the other Death Eaters and we all thought it'd get better.' A derisive snort burst from him. 'Except we all just ended up in another huge war over nothing until Grindelwald escaped. I sat behind a desk and worked twenty hour days for a country run by people that murdered my father and a lot of other innocent people. My fiancée died fighting for it somewhere they won't even tell me and her body will never come back home.'

Grant ran a hand through his hair. 'At least you're here, finally fighting for something that really matters.'

'Does it?' Cedric sighed. 'We'll stop De Mendoza and maybe someone like Harry will appear to stop Grindelwald, but then we'll go right back to the same stupid fighting. You know it.'

'Probably.' Grant watched the other aurors apparating back and forth along the track, stumbling and sprawling through the dirt in small clouds of dust. 'But at least we did our bit right. Tarbeck's dead, but she was a piece of work, and that slimeball Lee is gone; Cetanawuaka told me one of your unspeakables ripped his spine out…'

'Lemon Sorbet,' Cedric replied. 'Never met them. Also dead, apparently.'

'Maybe whoever replaces them will be better.'

'I doubt it,' he said. 'It's always more of the same. There'll be another Lee. Another Tarbeck. Ginny fucking Weasley is still out there and she's the one Amelia sent to do a lot of unforgivable stuff.'

'But there are good people too,' Grant said. 'Cetanawuaka is a good man.'

'We have Neville and his Order of the Gryphon, but while Ginny was pretending to be one of us while massacring innocents, he wasted his time chasing a dead man instead of facing reality. And now he's stuck in Britain because most of Amelia Bones's die-hard supporters don't trust him an inch.'

Nothing we don't already know.

Fleur pushed herself to her feet and lifted the silver acorn from her cleavage. 'Argent.'

She appeared in the willow's shade, heat flashing across her thumbnail.

The breeze sent the black silk rippling over the Mirror of Erised and the browning willow leaves rustling above her. Her wedding ring swung back and forth on its slim silver chain; it clinked against the vial of phoenix tears as she caught it in her palm and held it tight, pressing her fist to her heart.

The steady beat of Harry's heart thrummed against hers.

A small, warm smile spread across her face. Je t'aime, mon Amour. Je t'aime.

Fleur skirted the edge of the warped, ruined pensieve. 'Come back soon, petit ange,' she whispered, pressing one hand to the mirror. 'Your papa is still not quite okay and the longer he frets, the more he will need to know what happened to feel in control; the more he will need to feel he has not been left waiting and wishing for things that will never come.'

She apparated into the hall, ignoring the flash of heat across her thumb. Tugging off her dragonhide boots, Fleur dropped them into the heap of shoes at the door with a sharp pang. 'Mon Amour?' She drifted down the hall into the kitchen.

Harry paced back and forth before the window in short, sharp steps, his fingers drumming against his thighs in a swift frenetic rhythm.

'Mon Amour…?'

He twisted around and froze still as stone. 'Fleur,' he breathed, a wild mad light burning in his green eyes. 'You were gone again…'

'To Spain,' Fleur murmured, cupping his face in her hand. 'To maintain the wards there.' She stroked her thumb across his cheek and watched the smouldering gleam fade. 'What were you fretting over, mon Coeur?'

'Keeping my promises,' Harry whispered. 'If you don't keep the promises you make to those you love, then you don't really love them, do you?'

'Promises…' Fleur pressed a kiss to his jaw. 'And the ritual, non?'

'I don't know how it can have worked.' A little shiver swept through him and his fingers resumed their tapping. 'I don't see how the sacrifice was made. But if it wasn't made, I couldn't have returned. And here I am…'

You made it, mon Amour. You just don't remember. And you can't.

'It worked.' Fleur took his hands in her warm ones. 'And soon you will know for sure, because our baby bird will come back to us.'

'Why are you so sure?' Harry stared at their entwined fingers. 'How?'

'Because we gave up everything for it,' she whispered. 'We deserve it. We just have to keep our promise to Gabby.'

'Our promises.' Harry stilled. 'No more hurting. No more crucible for Katie.'

No more crucible. A little shiver of unease prickled down Fleur's spine. A better world?

'Still fretting?' she murmured.

'No.' He took a deep breath. 'You are right, mon Rêve. We just have to keep our promises.'

'And enjoy all the time Gabby gave us.' Fleur tilted her chin up, pushing her lower lip out a little. 'If we are happy, Gabby is happy.'

Harry's eyes dipped to her lips and the corner of his mouth twitched. 'Sneaky bird-wife,' he murmured, pulling her into a long soft kiss. 'That was an I want you to kiss me pout.'

'C'est vrai.' Fleur kissed him, her lips lingering on his as she flicked the tip of her tongue into his mouth. 'I am here,' she whispered between kisses. 'I did not disappear.'

'I know… it's just… I can't help it.'

She arched herself into him, catching his lips in soft, swift, hungry kisses. 'I know a good way to make sure I am definitely here, mon Amour…'

A spark of desire welled up in his eyes. 'Oh? Is this the second part of the veela maturation ritual, my beautiful bird-wife?'

'It can be,' Fleur murmured. 'Or it can be whatever you want…'

Harry smiled into her kisses, his hands sliding to her waist.

AN: Check out my profile for links to my other stories, original stuff, Discord for early access chapters, or how to support me if you like what I do and want more!