Nothing is mine.

Just a short one. Not a sweet one.

Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun

Pale pink blossom trembled in the fading light; the long, dusk shadows of the cherry trees' branches stretched out across the cold grass like groping fingers.

Our little orchard. Fleur stumbled forward over the roots.

'Fleur…' Gabby's voice drifted from beneath those branches. 'Fleur…'

The bottom plummeted out of Fleur's stomach and she darted forward, clawing the cherry blossom aside, scattering pale pink petals across the grass.

Gabby sat against the trunk, her face pale as when they'd put her in the ground. 'Fleur…' She lifted her left arm; crimson poured from the deep gash stretching from the crook of her elbow to her wrist, running down through her fingers and trickling into the grass.

'Gabby,' Fleur whispered, grabbing her hand between both of hers.

Warm red stained her fingers.

'Ma sœur, who took every second and everything I had to give her—' Gabby's grey eyes bled black '—but couldn't share even the smallest part of what she knew I wanted. It must be easier now I'm gone, non?'

Guilt tore at Fleur, ripping bits from her heart like the ravens plucking meat from carrion at the riverside. 'I — I am sorry, Gabby, I could not stand it; it would never have worked. He is mine. And I am his. But I — I tried. And even when it was really me, he would not; he could not. We love you. Both of us. But not like that, Gabby. Je te le promets, ma petite sœur.'

You always just wanted to be loved. And I loved you so much. You were always there.

'You promised me no more secrets and no more hurting,' Gabby murmured. 'But you lied. You broke your promise. You break it every day. Poor Harry, he would've been happier with me, non? I would've been a much kinder sun to light up his world. It should've been you here trickling away into nothingness.'

Fleur's heart wrenched. Gabby…

'I won't break my promise,' Fleur whispered, clutching Gabby's hands tight. 'I won't. It's just until your magic fades and our little angel is reborn. I have to keep him from doing anything stupid until he sees for certain. Then there'll be no more secrets and no more hurting just like I said.' She blinked back the heat of tears. 'You saved our sunset, Gabby, we won't ever break our promise to you.'

'Heroes don't really get to walk off into the sunset. They save little girls—' Gabby twisted her arm in Fleur's grip, spilling fresh warm blood across Fleur's fingers as she stared up at the cherry blossom overhead '—and then they die, non?'

Red soaked through the pale pink petals like blood through white cotton; it trickled down the slim branches and ran through the bark of the tree trunks into the grass, pooling into small puddles between the roots.

A hot drop struck Fleur's forehead, spattering across her skin and streaking down her cheek. Red dripped into Gabby's silver hair, staining the strands bright crimson; it ran down her face like tears, soaking into her clothes and pooling in the pale hollow of her collarbone.

Gabby leant her head back against the trunk and closed her eyes; the stream of red from her fingers ebbed to a trickle and above her, the blood-soaked cherry blossom melted, falling like vermillion rain.

'Don't go, Gabby,' Fleur whispered, smearing the crimson from her eyes. 'S'il te plaît, ma petite sœur.'

Red splashed into her eyes and she jerked awake.

Fleur pressed her face into the warm dampth of her tear-stained pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. 'Mon amour,' she mumbled into the soft cotton, stretching a hand out under the sheets and fumbling for Harry.

Come here, mon Amour. Fleur slid her feet across his side of their bed. Where are you?

She raised her head, smearing the tears from her cheeks.

Empty sheets lay crumpled beside her and beyond them, beside her floating clock and the red rose in its glass vase, Gabby smiled and waved from within her silver photo frame.

A lump swelled in Fleur's throat. I am sorry. You were meant to be here too. Guilt chewed at her. We wanted you to be. I promise.

Her eyes strayed to the rose and the wisteria earring dangling from the edge of the vase, a little heat flaring in her bones. 'You left me to wake up alone, mon Amour.' Fleur snatched her underwear from the drawer and dragged the dark blue silk up to her hips. 'Off doing your stupid project instead of being with your wife.'

I made it work. I removed the memory of you giving up in the ritual. I trapped you in another loop in the pensieve to let you relive returning to me and recovering. I made it all work. The heat simmered within; feathers prickled beneath her skin as she slipped on a matching bra. We just have to wait, but you just cannot do it.

Gabby smiled and waved from the photo frame, but her parting words echoed through Fleur's thoughts.

'Heroes don't really get to walk off into the sunset,' she whispered, lifting the photo up in both hands. 'They save little girls… and then they die…'

The crimson spiral of Cramoisi's ring gleamed where the sun fell across the faint dust shadow of the photo frame.

Is this the price? Doubt crept in, caught up in the fading, hazy memory of melting cherry blossom and Gabby's crimson-stained silver hair. He saves our little girl, but our sunset dies? Fleur set the photo frame back down atop the ring, liquid heat bubbling and roiling in her bones. He talks about his stupid project for all of them, as if it were so important…

Fleur dragged on a charcoal grey dress and tossed her hair back over her shoulder, small white tufts poking through her skin as she glanced through the window into the rain. 'I would've felt you go to the willow, you must be downstairs.'

She apparated down into the kitchen. Harry frowned at a small spread of parchment pages, spinning his wand in his fingers.

'Mon Amour…' Fleur tasted the fire on her tongue as she narrowed her eyes at his runes. 'You were gone...'

Harry's gaze slipped to the white feathers on her arms. 'Bonjour, my beautiful bird-girl, you look… feathery?'

'Bird-wife,' Fleur hissed. 'Bird-wife, whom you left in bed alone to come down here and play with your rune patterns. I dreamt of Gabby dying and when I woke up you were gone.'

Harry winced. 'I'm sorry, mon Rêve. It's just…'

'Just what?' Fleur turned her nose up. 'Just nothing.' The fire trembled in the bones of her face, reshaping them like hot wax. 'You think this is more important than us, mon Amour?'

'No.' He shook his head, pushing the pages of parchment across the table toward her. 'It's the same. It is us.'

'It's—' Fleur's jaw shifted, twisting her words into a sharp hiss.

It is not for us. It is for them. We already have everything we hurt for.

'I'm sorry, mon Rêve,' Harry whispered. 'I didn't want to wake you up. You looked so peaceful sleeping and I couldn't just lie there and wait. I had to—'

'Je sais.' She forced the words out through her distorted jaw, heat haze shivering around her fists. 'I know you hate waiting and hoping, mon Amour. But this… this is not our sunset.'

His brow creased. 'It's not perfect, I know.' A wild fierce light rose in his green eyes. 'But it's so bright, Fleur. I can see it, like when I first came here that summer after the tournament and found the sun streaming through the fronds of our willow tree and suddenly everything I had always hoped for had come true after all. It will change the whole world, save so many little girls like Katie and Roxie from being swallowed up by the flames of the crucible. If I can make it work, it will be the greatest piece of magic ever cast. We'll change so much. The things that shaped the world to take our dreams from us will be gone. It will be so much better than before. And Katie will have it all.'

We owe the world nothing. Fleur wrestled with the liquid flame tugging and twisting at her lips. We have our sunset. We have our dream. This is not for us.

'When—' she closed her eyes and took a long deep breath, letting the shape of her face shift back '—when Katie comes back. This ends, mon Amour. When our daughter comes back, we will have our sunset and we promised Gabby we would enjoy it.'

Harry opened his mouth.

'Non.' Fleur swept forward and caught his face in her hands. 'You promise me. Promets-moi. When she comes back, we live our dream. We promised Gabby. She died to save our dream.'

Like a hero. She bit the words back off the tip of her tongue.

'I want to give them all the chance to dream,' Harry whispered. 'I'll try and finish before our baby bird is reborn—'

Boiling heat flashed through Fleur's bones. 'You know what happens to heroes, mon Amour!'

They don't get to see the sunset, they die. Little wisps of smoke curled from the sides of her dress, scorch marks spreading across the charcoal grey cotton. If you want to sneak off by yourself, you can be by yourself.

She disapparated, ignoring the stab of warmth beneath her thumbnail as she stepped out onto the lip of the warped, ruined pensieve. The brown willow leaves rustled in the wind, falling into the river and drifting away downstream.

'Your papa is being stupid, mon poussin.' Fleur stared at the rippling black silk hanging over the Mirror of Erised. 'And I cannot just tell him why he is being stupid, because then he will be even more stupid.' The flames in her bones guttered out and the white feathers slipped back beneath her skin. 'It is not fair. I made it all work. If he just knew, it would all be fine, but that's the one thing he cannot know for it to work.'

No more secrets… She snatched the dark veil away.

Beneath the cold glass, Katie squirmed in Harry's arms, stuck to his robes with childish magic as she grabbed at the untidy tufts of hair sticking from the crown of his head with one small hand. Harry bent his head down into her reach with a small smile, wincing as their daughter beamed and tugged, babbling away to herself.

'Come back soon, baby bird,' Fleur murmured. 'S'il te plaît, Katie. You have to come back soon.'

The longer he spends on his stupid project, the worse he is getting. Cold fear trembled in the pit of her stomach. And all it would take is one step into the light and everyone will come to snatch him away to be their hero once again.

She watched their daughter wrap her arms around Harry's neck and bury her face in his chest; he smoothed her silver curls down with one hand, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

'Your magic has to fade soon, Gabby,' Fleur whispered, an icy pang ripping through her. 'It has to fade and you—' the words caught in the back of her throat '—you have to die soon, mon poussin. So you come back before it's too late. So Harry knows it has all worked and we can keep our promise.'

The guilt tore at her, chewing away with cold teeth as she drew the dark silk back over the mirror. Je suis désolée, Gabby. You are right. I am breaking my promise. She let it bite deep, embraced the raw sharp pang and envisioned Katie smiling in Harry's arms until its sting turned sweet. But it's only for a little longer now. And the more it hurts to get, the more perfect it will be when our little angel comes back.

AN: My profile's the place to go to find all my other fanfics, and all the links that will take you to Discord, my own website where you can read my original works, or support me as an artist!