Nothing is mine.

Happy Christmas to everyone who's celebrating it, enjoy this fairly wholesome chapter!

The Sunset That Eclipses the World

A spiral of stacked parchment fluttered beneath the white pebbles pinning them to the ground; small purple runes sprawled in interwoven patterns of circles and webs over the pages. The breeze rustled through them, whispering through the brown willow leaves, sending a handful drifting down onto the river's surface.

Harry watched the fronds sway, drumming his wand against his thigh.

Fleur's wedding band tapped against the willow trunk; it clinked against the vial of tears as the slim silver chain scraped back and forth across the rough bark.

Gone again. The storm stirred, a soft hungry murmur of yearning deep in the darkest part of his heart; its winds tugged at his thoughts, bending them back to the crimson-threaded clear ring upon the tree.

Harry yanked his gaze away. 'But not really gone.' He took a deep breath and swallowed the storm. 'Fleur will be back soon.'

And I have promises to keep, right, baby bird?

Katie beamed back from beneath the Mirror of Erised, clutching for him with her small hands. The sky shone behind her in oranges and pinks and yellows, the sun framing her silver curls and smiling face in a circle of glowing golden light.

'When you come back, you'll be able to chase all the dreams you might ever have, Katie,' Harry whispered. 'They all will. Everyone like Roxie was. Like I was. Like your maman and Gabby and you.'

No more hurting. No more secrets. A small smile crept onto Harry's lips. No magical world secret from the muggle one. A little less hurting to keep it safe.

'But only if I keep my promise.' He frowned down at the gaps in the spiral. 'Only if I fill in these holes with something certain.'

Harry sat down in the centre of the spiral and spun his wand in his fingers, watching it twirl around and around. How? How can you turn shared purpose into a collective soul? How can you give magic to those that don't have it? How do you even target them to do it and make sure in the end it will be everyone?

Heat flashed across his thumb and the pebbles grated behind him.

He twisted around and the yearning surged, swallowing the words on his tongue.

Fleur's blue eyes caught his. 'You've been busy these last few days, mon Amour.' Her gaze swept across the stacks of parchment. 'You've turned all those single pages into piles.'

'It's too great a ritual for a two-dimensional design,' Harry replied. 'There's too many pieces of intent that have to be interlinked, I have to make it three-dimensional.' He grinned. 'Want to see?'

'I cannot tempt you to come take a break with me?' She shot him a coy look and small smirk. 'There could be cake and maybe one other cream-filled thing…'

He laughed. 'My sex-crazed bird-girl is only just awake and already she's trying to seduce me with her sneaky veela wiles.'

'Is it working?' Fleur slid a finger under the shoulder strap of her dress. 'Non?'

'Right now, I think I probably need your help with this,' Harry replied.

'You seem to be making good progress by yourself,' she murmured, stepping through the gaps toward him. 'Faster than I was expecting for such a big project.'

'You're standing in the snags in the plan.' Harry pushed himself to his feet and slid his wand from his sleeve. 'Let me show you.' He flicked his wand.

The purple runes rose from the pages in small spheres, squares and pyramids, floating together into a giant spiral over their heads; three large holes gaped open near the centre.

'It reminds me of the start of the ritual for La Victoire Finale.' Fleur's warm arm slipped through his. 'But I see there are parts that are still missing.'

'It's greater than La Victoire Finale,' Harry replied. 'That was just for us. This needs some much trickier magic in places.'

Her midnight blue eyes followed the slow spin of the runes. 'Greater,' she whispered. 'How so, mon Amour?'

'The magic is more powerful.' Harry glanced at the Mirror of Erised and Katie's sunbathed smile. 'For La Victoire Finale, we changed us, our dreams, ourselves, things that we can control and have the power to change alone. This… this is the whole world, and nobody has the power to change the world alone, or someone like Grindelwald or Dumbledore would have already done it.' He swept the runes back down onto the pages of parchment. 'And the soul magic… La Victoire Finale is a lot simpler than trying to meld all the shared purpose of every magical soul living and yet to be born into a single collective to cast a piece of magic like this ritual.'

Fleur hummed. 'I see.' She slipped her arm out of his to straighten the strap of her dress and dropped it to her side. 'So you're going to help everyone change the world. How… heroic, mon Amour.'

Heroes don't really get to walk off into the sunset. Harry found Fleur's words hovering on his tongue. They die.

'They'll never know I had anything to do with it,' he said. 'I find a way to fill in those holes, I set it up, and that's it.'

It just leaves the amber-masked figure. Grindelwald. But maybe… maybe like Dumbledore said, he can be convinced to try doing it this way. Maybe that's the only way he can be stopped, if he wants to change things the same way we do.

'It?' Fleur asked.

'Over time, all the sacrifices spent to make the world a better place will feed the ritual until, eventually, it works.' Harry shrugged. 'As long as I can stick it somewhere secret so nobody can tamper with it, it'll all be done.'

'The chamber?'

Harry nodded. 'Maybe, but I'm not sure how the wards there will affect it. I think I might just hide it deep in the Forbidden Forest or somewhere like that. Kart Hadasht would have been perfect, but…'

'You can never go back.'

'I don't really want to,' he said, tasting the truth of it as the words left his lips. 'The magic of the Tophet, that screaming storm of sacrificed firstborn children and Ba'alat Tanit's demands…' He shuddered. 'But maybe that's the oath talking…'

'It doesn't matter either way,' Fleur said. 'You are meant to be here. With us. Not anywhere else.'

'Je sais,' Harry whispered. 'I want to get it finished before our baby bird wakes up, so I can then spend all the time I have with the two of you and not have to worry about anyone stealing our dream or her future away again.'

When it's done, there'll be nothing to fear. No crucible. No amber-masked figure. Nothing.

Fleur's eyes flashed black as pitch; heat haze shivered around her hands as little white feathers burst through her skin.

'It's okay,' Harry said. 'I won't let anyone take our little angel away from us. Not like I lost my Katie or we lost Gabby.' he frowned at the gaps in the spiral around their feet. 'I just… have to find a way to do some things first.'

'Like?' Fleur demanded.

'A way to get the magic to target all the muggles. I thought about going after those who were dreaming of something more, but then, what if that's not everyone?'

'Make it less specific?' A sharp gleam flickered through Fleur's dark blue eyes. 'How specific did you make the trigger for the ritual of La Victoire Finale?'

'Very. I had to be absolutely certain going in, or it wouldn't work. I gave it all up or I stayed inside.' He smothered a niggle of unease. 'I don't know how I escaped giving it all up… but it doesn't matter as long as I have Katie and you and this ritual works.'

If it works, then I've kept my promise, no matter how I paid the price for La Victoire Finale.

'What are the others?' Fleur asked.

'Finding a way to give magic to those who don't have it,' Harry replied. 'I think, maybe, for that one, I can just write out the runes and let the ritual do the rest, like with La Victoire Finale. I only had a specific trigger and the rest… whatever it was…'

'So really, there are only two holes,' she murmured. 'How you will find the ones to give magic to and…?'

'The collective soul. That's the most important one. This ritual can't be cast by me. It has to be cast by everyone altogether, like La Victoire Finale had to be cast by all three of us. Only, I can't use blood as the medium this time.'

And I don't even know where to start with that.

Fleur hummed. 'That might not be possible.'

The faintest whisper of the storm winds tugged at Harry's heart. 'I will find a way or make one,' he whispered.

I have to keep my promises. Unease nibbled at his gut like a worm chewing through an apple. If I don't, it might all fall apart. And everyone deserves the chance to dream of something more than concrete and privet hedges. That's what magic is, the ability to wish.

He mustered a smile and glanced up.

The crimson-threaded clear glass of Fleur's wedding band swayed back and forth against the willow bark.

'You could put your ring back on now,' Harry said.

She shook her head. 'I still have to go out for the wards. I do not want to risk the ring you gave me, not when it has your blood in it…'

The niggle of anxiety gnawed deeper. I would wear it. Just to have something important to hold when you're gone again. Harry crushed the doubt down into the dark empty place under his heart. But that's why I lost mine.

'It's safest here,' Fleur murmured. 'Behind the blood wards with our daughter, the Mirror of Erised and your little enchanted toy.'

'And the pensieve.' He glanced at the warped metal. 'Although it has seen better days.'

'It is ruined.' Her fingers crept to the wisteria earring. 'Perhaps I should just get rid of it, but even though it cannot be fixed, it is something Gabby and I made together…'

Harry swept the pages of parchment into a stack and shrunk them down to a small square the size of his palm, binding them together with a conjured purple ribbon. 'We're going to keep our promise to her,' he whispered, stepping across and slipping an arm around Fleur's waist. 'It won't be for nothing. I won't let it be.'

Fleur leant her head on his shoulder, her silver hair cascading over his shoulder and down his chest. 'I hope Gabby's magic fades soon. I want our baby bird back, mon Amour. When she is reborn, all of this fretting and waiting and hoping will end for both of us. We will finally be free to enjoy the sunset with her.'

'Je sais, Fleur. Je sais.' Harry drew her close. 'I'll finish this ritual. And she'll come back to a world that's just a bit better. One that won't try so hard to snatch all her dreams away. She won't ever be left wishing like we were.'

Fleur stepped away and bent down, picking up his small stack of parchment. 'Your sisters were hurt, I heard.'

'Hurt?' Ice trickled through Harry's veins. 'Are they okay?'

Fleur weighed the rune designs in her hand. 'The British aurors I overheard while fixing the wards this morning said they were attacked by Grindelwald's elite auror squad. The Greengrasses are part of it; the aurors mentioned seeing the magic they learnt from Julien Aguillard.'

Grindelwald. Little daggers of cold fear stabbed at his stomach. I have to be quick, or he'll plunge the whole world into war and create an even worse crucible for our little girl than either of us knew.

'I heard they are fine.' Fleur swept the black silk back over the Mirror of Erised with a small longing smile. 'Another miracle, I think.'

'While one of us lives…' Harry murmured. 'Someone will have to stop Grindelwald soon.'

'Suleiman.' She shot him a sharp look, her blue irises darkening. 'Or even your sisters. But not you, mon Amour. You promised.'

'I know,' he whispered, 'but—' the words snagged on the sharp guilt, caught on them like his thin shirt sleeves on the thorns of Petunia's roses '—I don't want to leave them to fight alone. Everyone left me to fight alone for such a long time…'

'Not everyone.' Fleur cupped his face in her hands. 'Non?'

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched. 'Not everyone. No. But if they were here and I was there, they wouldn't let me fight alone. And so few people have ever cared about my dreams, most didn't even think I should have any beyond dying to save them… I never had any sisters when I was younger, but I used to wish...'

She held his gaze. 'No. Risks.'

'I know…'

'Maybe,' Fleur murmured, 'maybe when our baby bird has come back to us and is no longer scared and needing her papa, you can go to help them, but not for long, mon Coeur. There will be no more little girls with silver hair and green eyes for us; the moments we miss with her, we will not get back.'

AN: My profile has all the links if you like the story, want to read the shorter, faster-paced stuff I write (or the happier stuff xD), but if you're feeling lazy, like I am right now, here it is.

linktr . ee / mjbradley