Nothing is mine.

Yes, random guest reviewer who appears to read ANs about as well as they do the stories, I said one of the parts would end at 100 chapters, I also said there were more parts, though. Still, you will be relieved to know that this story which I am in no way forcing you read or even pay the slightest bit of attention to only has two parts left after this one, so you can hate-read it for a bit longer, I don't know, whatever floats that boat, I guess!

Resplendent Revenge

The little crystal-encased wisteria bloom hung from the edge of the clear vase, wobbling beneath the fluttering red rose petals of Harry's gift. In their silver frame, her photo and Gabby's watched it swing with warm, soft smiles.

Heat simmered in her bones. Not long. Fleur watched her eyes bleed black in the window. We'll take any reason they have to smile away.

'Ready, mon Trésor?' Harry murmured.

The slim iron ring sat on his palm, dark against his skin.

'Ready.' Fleur pulled her wand from her waist.

'We'll appear in the Department of Mysteries.' He slipped the ring on and held out his arm. 'There're no aurors there, or there weren't before. We should be able to get the elevator up and snatch them all.'

Fleur took Harry's arm, curling her fingers around his wrist. 'Who first?'

A cold smile flickered across Harry's face. 'Dean Thomas. He was desperate to get out from under my shadow. And he wasn't above attacking you when your back was turned either.'

A soft snap echoed back from stark grey walls and Fleur stepped into still cool air, her boots ringing on smooth stone.

Worn, weathered stone benches enclosed a simple arch of carved rock in concentric circles. A rippling veil of silver mist hung in the arch, fluttering like spider silk caught on the wind; the faintest whispering emanated from it, soft as the murmuring of a distant crowd.

Fleur stepped up onto the plinth and ran her fingers across the arch. Thousands of tiny runes spiralled across the stone pillars in dizzying patterns beneath the familiar triangular mark of the Peverells and the whisper rose, swelling like a wave.

Gabby's sombre murmur cut through their quiet clamour and a sharp pain tore through Fleur's breast; she reached for the shimmering haze.

'Careful.' Harry stepped in front of her, catching her hand. 'I don't know what that doorway does. Salazar told me a story about it and the Hallows once, he said that it was a doorway to the dead.' He glanced over his shoulder. 'It looks a lot like the goblin archways that join Gringotts' surface branches to the Inverted Peak and all the vaults there, but I don't think stepping through it is a very good idea.'

'Non,' Fleur turned away from the arch. 'I just thought that I heard Gabby for a moment and…' The dull ache crept back in beneath her ribs. 'I miss her.'

'Je sais,' Harry whispered. 'But she's not on the other side of that. And even if she were… you know we can't. No risks.'

'Je sais.' Fleur took a deep breath and tossed her hair over her shoulder, soft heat welling up from deep in her bones. 'I am ready.'

Harry's face darkened. 'Maybe we should bring them back to another room. The archway is dangerous.'

'This room has nothing else in it and no wards at all, though,' Fleur said. 'Let us go find Dean Thomas. We can worry about the rest later.'

His ebony wand slipped from his sleeve and he held out his other hand. 'Follow me, mon Amour.'

She took his hand and disillusioned herself.

'Mine's still better,' Harry whispered, wavering out of sight. 'I win, my beautiful but not perfectly invisible bird-wife.'

A small pour crept onto her lips as he led her up the steps. 'I beat you to the top of the never-ending stair though, mon Cœur.'

'Only because you transformed into a proto-veela goddess queen thing and none of the scenarios affected you.' Harry snorted. 'You find yourself surrounded by dragons, but fortunately as a proto-veela goddess your allure is so strong they can only stare in wonder. You and Gabby messed with that game a lot, I know that wasn't originally part of it. And neither was the you reach the finish line, but you're so besotted with the proto-veela goddess you cast an esoteric spell to swap places with her one I got on the last square.'

Fleur smirked. 'Am I not worth staring at, mon Amour?'

'You are very much worth staring at,' he murmured, squeezing her fingers.

'Anything?' Fleur whispered, scanning the empty corridor and its flickering torch flames.

'None of it has changed,' Harry muttered, extinguishing the torches. 'Not since I last came here. There are no wards apart from that annoying torch trap and some on the entrance.'

'Good for us.' Liquid heat simmered within. 'Where is Dean Thomas?'

'The Department for Justice. He's Deputy Minister.' Harry led her along the corridor to a plain dark arch. 'I'll go first. If nothing happens, I'll pass you the ring and you can use it to cross as well.'

Fleur held her breath as he let go of her hand, straining her ears.

'Nothing.' Harry wavered back into view and slipped Lemon Sorbet's ring off, holding it out. 'Just put it on and step across and take it off.'

Fleur took the ring and slid it onto her forefinger, stepping through the arch and tugging it off.

'Easy,' Harry murmured, extending his hand.

'Do you, mon Cœur, belong to me?' she asked, holding out the ring.

He grinned and poked a finger through it. 'As always.'

Fleur took his arm as he vanished from sight, following him to the lift.

'I'll take us up to Dean Thomas's office and we can grab him from there,' Harry said. 'If there's anyone in the lift, we obliviate them so they don't remember coming down to this floor.'

'Can you not apparate?' she whispered as the button for the elevator lit up.

'I can, but I don't want to risk apparating in. We can apparate back from his office, but not in.'

The lift pinged and the doors rumbled open.

'Floor Thirteen. The Department of Mysteries,' a female voice announced.

A short wizard in spectacles peered out. 'Weird. Why did it come down here if there's nobody here?'

Harry tugged on her arm. Fleur slipped past the short wizard and leant back against Harry's chest in the corner.

The lift doors slid shut and it ascended with a quiet whir.

'Oh well,' the short wizard mumbled. 'Must have gotten confused or something.' He glanced at the buttons. 'Floor nine? I didn't press that one. Why is it taking me all the way down and back up to random floors?'

Fleur nudged Harry in the ribs.

'Not yet,' Harry whispered in her ear, his arms sliding around her waist. 'When we get out.'

The lift stopped and the doors rumbled open. 'Floor Nine. The Department of Justice.'

'Obliviate,' Harry whispered, pushing Fleur toward the doors.

She darted out, holding his arm tight in her left hand.

Neat rows of desks filled the rooms either side of the corridor; green lanterns glowed beside the working witches and wizards and through the windows of the offices further along.

Harry brushed past Fleur and strode along.

Undersecretaries' Office. First Undersecretary's Office. The heat in her bones bubbled and feathers prickled under her skin. Deputy Minister for Justice. Dean Thomas.

Thick blinds covered the windows either side of the thick mahogany door.

'Let's see if he's in,' Harry whispered. 'If not, we can wait or go after one of the other three.' He drew her a step closer to the door. 'It's locked.'

'Homenum revelio,' Fleur murmured.

Red figures of light sat at the desks through the walls of the offices back down the corridor.

'It's warded,' she said. 'I cannot see who is inside.'

'Then I guess we go in and find out,' he said.

She tugged his wrist back. 'Let me tamper with the wards, then we can open the door a bit and see first. No risks, mon Amour.'

'That is a much better idea,' Harry murmured.

Fleur pressed the tip of her wand to the door and closed her eyes. Thick bars of magic criss-crossed the door and walls like metal bars.

Crude. They just activate when the door is shut. She threaded her magic into them, bending them around the door. There we go.

'Did you do it?' Harry asked. 'What did you do?'

'I tampered with the wards,' she whispered. 'They activate when the door is closed, but now they do not actually cover the door even when active.'

'So we can…?'

'We can.' The fire inside her boiled, prickling feathers pushing through her skin, and she twisted the handle, inching the door open.

A dark-haired man thrust and grunted between the legs of a redheaded woman, pushing her back against the far wall as she gasped and clawed at his back.

'Two birds with one stone,' Harry murmured, pushing the door open and leading Fleur into the room.

Fleur eased the door shut behind them as Harry wavered back into view and summoned both their wands from their robes into his hand.

'What the fuck!?' the redhead shrieked, shoving at the dark-haired man's shoulders. 'Dean! Dean stop!'

'Ow. Maria.' Dean dropped her legs and stumbled back, smacking his head on the tall green-shaded lamp next to his desk. 'Fucking hell.'

'Don't worry, Marietta,' Harry said as she wrenched her robes down to cover the patch of red hair between her legs and clapped an arm across her breasts. 'We don't much care if you're fucking Dean in his office. Get dressed. Or don't. It doesn't make much difference.'

Dean froze, both hands clutching his head. 'I know that voice.'

'Of course you do,' Harry murmured, tucking their wands into his pocket. 'You heard it often enough when we were at school.'

'You're polyjuiced as fucking Harry Potter.' Dean stared at Harry and released a low whistle. 'Ballsy move. You know there's no way out, right? You're fucked. Longbottom has a whole squad of aurors in the atrium and only aurors can apparate in and out.'

'How did you even find Potter's hair? There was no body even left, no matter what Longbottom says.' Marietta glanced at Dean, pulling her robes back into place. 'Wait… you said we.'

Fleur let her disillusionment unravel with a small smirk. 'Bonjour.'

Dean gaped. 'You - you're—'

'She's a lot prettier than Marietta. But I'm afraid we're married, not that you would have had any chance anyway.' Harry conjured a gleaming bronze badge and held it up. 'No, I'm here because of this. Because of the Resplendent Sun.'

Dean folded his arms. 'And what of us?'

Fleur pointed one white-feathered arm at the badge. 'The Resplendent Sun attacked us,' she hissed. 'You killed my parents and my little sister. You thought you could just take her away and smile and laugh and nothing would happen?'

'Fleur Delacour,' Marietta whispered, her eyes fixed on the shimmering heat haze around Fleur's fingers. 'The Last Scions killed your family. We got you your justice. We slaughtered them all. To the last one of them.'

'Liar!' Liquid heat flooded Fleur's face and her bones melted and shifted, twisting the word into a fierce hiss.

Harry thrust his wand at the pair, cocooning them in a tangle of barbed wire. 'Let's head back down.' He held out his hand. 'Coming, my bird-wife?'

Fleur forced the boiling hot fury back, her beak changing back into a chin and lips as she grabbed Harry's hand.

They appeared beside the ancient archway with a soft snap. Dean and Marietta slumped against one of the pillars, little drops of blood trickling down their skin where the wire's barbs cut in.

Harry glanced at Fleur. 'You make sure these two don't go anywhere. I'll go find Zacharias Smith and Percy Weasley.'

'Weasley isn't even here, he's with his family,' Marietta spat. 'A personal day or something.'

'I'll get Smith then.' Harry squeezed Fleur's fingers. 'Mon Amour?'

'Go,' she whispered, blue flames bursting through the fingers of her left hand. 'I will stay and talk to these two.'

Marietta paled.

'Don't set fire to them.' A cold little smile crept onto Harry's face. 'Not before I get back, that is.' He vanished with a soft snap.

Fleur pointed her wand at Marietta's face. 'You tracked Neville Longbottom to France. To us.'

Dean snorted. 'We what? Neville went to France? When?!'

She reached forward and wrapped her blazing hand around his wrist.

He screamed and thrashed, the barbed wire shredding his skin.

'Stop. Stop! Please!' Marietta whimpered and sobbed as her bonds bit into her arms and back, ripping through her formal silk robes. 'We're not lying. We don't know what you're talking about!'

Fleur tightened her grip, watching the flesh melt beneath her fingers. 'Neville came to France to find Harry. You tracked him there. You thought he had betrayed Britain. You sent your aurors. They killed my family and cursed our daughter.'

'No,' Marietta whispered. 'I swear. We didn't. It wasn't us.'

A soft snap echoed through the room.

'Mon Amour?' Harry tossed Zacharias Smith onto the floor; Smith rolled across the stones, his long blonde hair covering his sharp, pale features.

'They deny it,' Fleur hissed, heat bubbling like roiling magma in her bones. 'They dare to deny it.'

He reached out and pulled her arm back. 'Let me, mon Rêve.'

Dean Thomas stared at the blistered, weeping raw handprint wrapped around his left wrist, tears in his eyes. 'My arm…' He curled his right hand into a fist and whimpered. 'Merlin, that fucking hurts...'

Harry flicked his wand at Zacharias, sweeping him onto the other pillar, and vanished the barbed wire. 'Enervate.'

Zacharias jerked upright.

'Don't move,' Harry murmured. 'Any of you.'

'Who are you really?' Marietta asked. 'What do you want?'

'Revenge,' Fleur hissed. 'You killed my sister. Cursed our daughter. Killed my parents. You could not just leave us alone…'

'There's always someone who comes to try to take things away from us.' Harry's cold green eyes pinned Dean in place. 'They're envious. Or bitter. They don't care how many times you nearly died helping them. They don't care about your dreams. They only care that they get what they want. Whether it's killing little girls to make Britain great again or ambushing former friends in the school corridors because Ginny preferred to date them over you.'

Dean clenched his right fist and grit his teeth. 'Who told you about that? I stopped fancying Ginny years ago.' His brow creased. 'Only Seamus, Ron and Hermione knew about that fight at school with Potter. And they all died in the war.'

The corner of Harry's mouth curved up.

'Dean,' Marietta whispered. 'I don't think he's polyjuiced. Delacour said Neville went to France looking for Harry. He's always claimed that Potter wasn't dead…'

'I'm not allowed to die.' Harry glanced between them. 'It's strangely appropriate that it's you three. Dean, you were there when I first realised I didn't need to miserably suffer what you all expected me to be. Marietta… I used you to betray the DA to Umbridge. A little legilimency and the Imperius Curse to send you running to tattle to her.'

She gasped. 'I knew, I knew something wasn't right. I wouldn't have done that! And they all didn't believe me and hated me. Cho and Cedric never even spoke to me again!'

'You spent your time daydreaming about seducing Cedric from Cho and proving you were better than her,' Harry replied. 'You didn't deserve to be their friend.'

Marietta twitched and hung her head, her red curls falling over her face.

'And me?' Zacharias drawled. 'Did I say a few bad things and hurt little Potter's feelings? Was it the badges? I bet it was the badges. Did they say mean things on them, Potter?'

'I don't remember any badges.' Harry turned his wand on Zacharias. 'I cast the Imperius Curse on you and impersonated you to lure Umbridge out into the Forbidden Forest and feed her to the acromantula colony there.'

'Fucking hell,' Dean muttered. 'That's fucking… sick.'

'She was torturing children.' The smile melted from Harry's face. 'And speaking of children reminds me of why you're all here.'

'Oh do stop going on.' Zacharias rolled his eyes. 'I don't care why you're doing this. Longbottom and his aurors will be down here soon enough. There's no way out past them. And you've confessed enough to us to put you in Azkaban forever if we want to and I'm pretty sure we'll want to.'

Marietta paled. 'Shut up,' she hissed. 'Shut the fuck up. You think he doesn't know that?!'

'Well obviously not,' Zacharias jibed. 'Or he wouldn't have been stupid enough to say it all, would he? Potter never was as smart or as brilliant as everyone said. He was just lucky.'

'What a silly shallow little boy,' Fleur murmured; fury simmered beneath her skin, hot as molten steel. 'No wonder they came to steal our sunset away and thought they would get away with it.'

'It's easy to find out the truth.' Harry stared Marietta dead in the eye. 'She's not lying.'

Marietta flinched and sagged. 'I said it wasn't us. Some of us were keeping tabs on Neville, but nobody told us he had gone to France or…'

'Or?'

'We would have tried to do something…' Her voice shrank to a whisper. 'But I didn't. I didn't do anything. I swear.'

Harry spun his wand in his fingers. 'Do you have something you dream of, Marietta?'

'Dream of?' Her pale blood-smeared face turned from Harry to Fleur and back. 'I don't understand. I work. I get paid. I have fun.'

'We saw you having fun.' Harry's lips twitched. 'But if there are no dreams, then what's the point?' He twisted his wrist.

Marietta's neck snapped, cracking like a thick dry branch.

Zacharias whimpered and the sour reek of urine filled the room. 'But we didn't do it!' The dark wet patch soaked across his crotch, a little pool spreading underneath him. 'It wasn't us! It must have been Amelia—'

'She was already dead,' Fleur hissed.

Dean clutched his seared wrist. 'It wasn't us.'

'We don't know anything,' Zacharias pleaded. 'Just let us go. We won't say anything. Obliviate us. Let us swear an oath. But it wasn't us. We don't know. Ask Slughorn. He knows way more.'

'Slughorn…' Harry's wand spun in his fingers, showering the floor with silver sparks. 'Tell me about the Resplendent Sun. From the beginning. And if you tell me something interesting, I will let you live.'

No you will not, mon Amour. The fire bubbled in Fleur's bones, sending waves of prickling white tufts across her skin. Or if you will, I will not.

Dean gulped. 'I—'

'I will know if you lie, Dean,' Harry murmured. 'And I do not have to kill you as quickly as I did Marietta…'

Dean shuddered. 'It started after you died. Or left, I guess. Amelia Bones massacred the Death Eaters at Hogwarts. Every one of them.'

'Good riddance,' Zacharias muttered. 'Awful rotters.'

Harry spared him a short look and Zacharias quailed.

Dean swallowed. 'I don't know everything. I know Amelia Bones was worried about Britain being weak after the civil war ended. She was worried about us being weak after the first time Voldemort lost but Fudge wouldn't give her the budget she needed. That's part of why she was so quick to oust him. She knew Slughorn, everyone knows the Slug—'

'He picked out people for her,' Zacharias said. 'She had roles to fill to rebuild and he gave her a list of names to fill them.'

Dean nodded. 'Longbottom to be the good auror captain everyone trusts and his squad to follow him, keeping order. Ginny to be the firebrand to raze anything in the way and her squad to do what had to be done to Britain's official internal enemies. The Unspeakables probably did more or worse than she did, but they worked directly under the Minister for Magic. Anyway, the Slug knew us all pretty well from his little gatherings and knew where we'd do well for her. Amelia told him what she needed where and he nudged us to accept or apply and that was that. And if someone didn't want to work for Amelia Bones… Well, the Carrows found out what happened if you said no to her.'

Harry's jaw clenched. 'Amelia Bones fed their parents to the dementors and forced them to work for her?'

Dean nodded. 'The Carrow and Burke families control the contacts for smuggling magical things in and out of the country, have done for ages. Apparently, it caused the aurors a lot of trouble before, but their hands were tied by the laws. Amelia Bones wanted her foot on the neck of them both and she got her way.'

'And the Greengrasses, too,' Harry said. 'She killed their parents and forced them into the Unspeakables. Slughorn knew they were very skilled duelists. He must have chosen them. They did mention him once or twice.'

Zacharias gaped. 'They were Unspeakables?'

'Not anymore,' Fleur said. 'They betrayed you.'

'They've been working for Grindelwald for a long time,' Harry murmured. 'They fooled everyone.'

Even you, mon Amour. You thought they were more Katies, but they were just shallow little girls in the end.

'I wondered why they were spared,' Dean said. 'Amelia Bones took their name off the execution lists when they came through my department.'

'You three know a lot less than I expected,' Harry murmured, glancing at Fleur. 'What came next, Dean?'

'We did our bit,' Dean said. 'With us in key places, Amelia could bend all the rules and make the laws she needed to force through her rebuild of British power. If someone was in our way, I made sure their sentence fitted our goals and got them out of the way. When their vaults were seized, Zach ensured the money went straight where we needed it most without any interference from elsewhere. The aurors. The Unspeakables. Whatever. Marietta kept her eye on the undersecretaries and listened for trouble or opposition or any kind of corruption. They know everything. They run everything that happens. I don't even have to do much more than sign things if I don't want to.'

'And when Amelia was forced out?'

'She went too far,' Zach muttered. 'At first we did what we had to. But all those werewolves? The pureblood families who didn't even fight? And she had an iron grip on everything by then. If she wasn't forced out by us, nobody would ever have been able to get her out. And Ginny still had to get Neville and his little group of do-gooders to help persuade Susan to drive the final nail into the coffin.'

'Yeah.' Dean nodded. 'Amos Diggory took over after that. Things calmed down with him. We just did our jobs. Even when the Last Scions caused trouble and started the war by attacking—' his gaze darted to Fleur and he winced '—your family…'

Fury blazed in Fleur's bones, a trembling, shivering flame, and the small pale tufts on her arms spread into full white feathers.

'It wasn't the Last Scions.' Harry tilted his head to one side and studied Dean with cool green eyes. 'Tracey and Angelina did it. They came on behalf of the Resplendent Sun to kill Neville's French ally because he was succeeding in bringing about an end to the war with Desrosiers. The Last Scions were just a scapegoat.'

Dean shook his head. 'That's impossible.'

'I tore the truth from Angelina's head before I killed her,' Harry replied. 'The Greengrasses kept the Last Scions ahead of Neville's pursuit because they were as politically useful to Amos as they were to Amelia.'

But did the Greengrass sisters do it for Amos Diggory? Fleur shot Harry a sharp look. Or for Grindelwald?

He shrugged. 'What about the rest of your little group? What did they do after Amelia resigned?'

'What Amos Diggory ordered,' Zacharias said. 'Amelia still ran the Resplendent Sun in private and tried to carry on doing things her way, but Amos kept too close an eye on all of us. Slughorn's still teaching and pulling strings for people. Percy Weasley did his job like the rest of us. Ginny carried on being auror captain with her squad.'

'And then Amelia Bones was murdered.'

'The Last Scions.' Zacharias scowled. 'Amelia's brutality came back to bite her. They got their revenge.'

'The Resplendent Sun did it. Someone in your group made a deal with the Last Scions to get rid of Amelia. The Greengrass sisters learnt about it, but the Last Scions had stopped trusting them by then so they never learnt who it was Gemma Farley struck a deal with.'

'Not me,' Dean said.

'Percy Weasley.' Zacharias sneered. 'That slimy sycophant. He fawned over Fudge. Over Amelia. Over Amos. He just wants to slither up the greasy pole. His elder brother's a traitor too, I heard.'

Dean nodded. 'He's the one you want. It has to be him.'

'So he kills Amelia to get more influence over the Resplendent Sun for his own ambitions,' Fleur murmured. 'And then, to ensure the war continues, he assassinates Amos Diggory. But why?'

'We can ask him.' A little ice crept into Harry's green eyes. 'Soon.'

'Amos Diggory had no clear political successor,' Zacharias said. 'When he died, we believed we could support Susan and people would choose her out of sympathy and the idea she was a kinder version of Amelia, but Percy Weasley put his own name forward first…'

'Tracey was there both times,' Harry said. 'At Copenhagen and the attack on us.'

'So Percy Weasley gets Tracey and Angelina to do his dirty work.' Fleur stared at the pair of wizards slumped against the arches. 'Where is he?'

'He took a personal day…' Dean shrugged.

'Could be anywhere,' Zacharias admitted.

'I guess we should go have a chat with him next,' Harry said, raising his wand. 'As for you two…'

'We told you plenty of interesting things,' Dean blurted.

'You did,' Harry said.

'But you know Harry's alive,' Fleur whispered. 'And if you know he's alive, someone will come to try and take away our dream again.'

Zacharias lunged forward.

A flash of purple tore his throat open, spraying great gouts of blood across the stone, and he crumpled, clutching at the spurting gash with both hands and thrashing in the spreading red pool.

Harry lowered his wand as Zacharias's kicking and spluttering died away. 'I made a promise to my daughter. She wouldn't have to grow up how I did, watching every last little thing she hoped for get snatched away. And you… your group tried to ruin our dream before; you just steal dreams for nothing. If I let you go now, you'll try again one day for one reason or another. It's just… inevitable.'

Fleur levelled her wand at Dean, picturing Gabby's mischievous grin, her cheerful, cheeky chirping jokes, and her gentle insightful touch; searing rage bubbled and boiled in her bones. 'Avada kedavra,' she hissed as the liquid fire reshaped her face.

A flash of green struck Dean and he sprawled onto his side, his blank eyes staring up at the ceiling of the room.

Harry dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the conjured bronze badge. 'I'm going to leave Neville a little breadcrumb. To make sure he's busy chasing Grindelwald's imaginary agent in the Resplendent Sun and not worrying about whether Harry Potter is still alive.' He transfigured the bronze sun into a gleaming copper crest etched with Grindelwald's sigil and bent, tucking it into the fingers of Dean's burnt arm and wrapping them tight around it. 'There—' Harry flicked his wand at the burn mark, stripping the flesh back to the bone '—nothing to suggest it was anyone but Grindelwald's agent in the Resplendent Sun.'

'Bon,' Fleur whispered, breathing out the scorching heat of her rage into the cool air; her white feathers slipped back under her skin. 'So now we find Percy Weasley.'

'And Slughorn,' Harry said. 'He probably knows the most about the Resplendent Sun out of anyone still alive from what they said. We can root the whole lot of them out and wipe them all away before our little veela hatchling wakes up.'

'We turn whoever ordered the attack on us to ash,' Fleur hissed.

He stepped across and cupped her cheek. 'And make sure they can never come back to hurt our baby bird again.'

'And then when they are gone, Gabby is avenged and I will stop thinking about them. Then there will be no more hurting,' Fleur whispered, her fury fading as she brushed her fingers against her left earlobe. 'Like we promised.'

'When our little angel comes back, there will be nothing left but to enjoy the sunset,' Harry murmured, taking her hands. 'A better world for Katie to wake up to.'

A better world. Something missing. Something important. A cold stab of worry bit deep into Fleur. Something great.

'There will always be those who try to take things away from us, mon Cœur,' she said. 'I just want to get rid of the ones who stole Gabby so we can forget about them and enjoy the time she gave us'

'We will,' Harry replied. 'We'll find Percy Weasley or whoever sent Tracey and Angelina and then that's that for the Resplendent Sun.' He glanced at the bodies. 'Let's leave those three here. They'll find them eventually. Hopefully they'll blame Daphne and Astoria—' a little ice crept into his gaze '—I owe them a betrayal, so a little trouble is nothing.'

'And when we have to come back?' she asked.

'If they put up new wards here, we can find another way in through the main entrance,' he replied. 'We've done harder things. I broke into this place when I was fifteen.'

Fleur turned her nose up. 'I remember, mon Amour. You did not tell me.'

'You were quite cross with me.' A small grin flashed across Harry's face. 'I got pecked by my bird-girl.'

'You deserved it.' Her lower lip crept out at his smile. 'You are not allowed to disappear off like that and leave me worrying that you might not come back.'

'I will always come back,' Harry said. 'Even with my horcrux gone.'

'We do not need that horcrux anymore.' Fleur took his face in her hands. 'We have La Victoire Finale.'

'Somehow,' he whispered. 'Something made it work.'

Something you can never remember, mon Amour.

She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. 'We said whatever it takes; it does not matter how it happened so long as it worked. And it has.'

'Pardon,' he murmured. 'I'll try not to fret about it.'

'Je t'aime, Harry.' Fleur dragged him close and held him tight. 'Let us go find something sweet to eat. I fancy something from the cake cupboard.'

A little shiver rippled through him and his fingers trembled on her waist. 'Whatever makes you happy, my beautiful bird-wife.'

AN: Self-promo stuff! Basically, just go to my profile if you want more chapters of this, more stories, Discord, or to know how to support me and read all the happy original stories I write!