Nothing is mine.
Another short one as this part of the story starts to come together (or come apart, depends on how you look it, I suppose xD)
The Caged Bird
Bare willow fronds swayed in the cool wind rippling down the fields from the distant line of trees; the faint clamour of cawing ravens drifted from the small copse.
Fleur curled her fingers into the dark silk hanging from her fist, watching the black ink of the willow tree fade away beneath her thumbnail. Not coming, mon Amour? Little stabs of worry jabbed through her tummy. You used to run away or run back to me. Now, you do not run at all. The stabs of worry thickened, coiling into a tangled ball of thorns. Something is different. Something is wrong.
She dragged the dark silk away from the Mirror of Erised.
Katie sat on Harry's shoulders, clutching yellow and purple macarons in her small hands as she patted at his wild dark tufts and waved at Fleur's own reflection.
'You have to come back soon,' Fleur whispered. 'He is getting worse. He needs you to come back, mon Poussin. We need it. The longer he waits…'
How long can it be until you're reborn beneath the willow tree? She reached out and touched the cool glass with one fingertip. Gabby's magic could run out at this moment. Fleur held her breath, a taut trembling hope tightening in her tummy. Or this. Or the next.
Katie chomped on the yellow macaron in her left fist, dropping crumbs into Harry's hair and beaming back from behind the smooth silver mirror with wide, bright green eyes.
Fleur's heart trembled. I have to see. I have to know. She glanced away at the runes cut into the willow roots. My wards guard everything within the reach of the willow tree and Harry's blood wards prevent anyone without our blood entering, but nothing stops me taking our little chick out of the Mirror of Erised.
She turned back to the mirror.
Her reflection reached out with a small smile and lifted Katie off Harry's shoulders into her embrace; Katie squirmed and babbled, smushing the purple macaron in her little fingers.
A still warm weight fell into Fleur's arms and her breath caught. She took a deep breath and let her gaze slide down from the mirror.
Ink black veins spidered Katie's porcelain pale face, snaking across her scalp through the limp silver curls dangling from her head; deep purple bags hung beneath wide green eyes full of frozen tears.
Raw jagged agony twisted in Fleur's heart and hot tears sprang to her eyes; she blinked them back, bending down to Katie's pale lips.
Faint, shallow breaths whispered in Fleur's ear.
Still clinging on.
She lifted her wand, touching its tip to the bubble of Gabby's ward. A trembling wall of fierce, desperate guilt slapped the magic back at her.
'Of course—' the words stuck on the hot lump in her throat '—you knew we could not lose her, Gabby. No magic can touch her. I cannot even check.' Fleur cupped Katie's pale sunken cheek in her hand and pressed a kiss to her cool forehead. 'You are still clinging on, mon Poussin,' she whispered. 'Let go. You have to. You will come back to us, but first… first you have to die.'
You have to die before you can be reborn, mon petit ange.
She stroked Katie's cheek with her thumb, tracing the slim dark veins down to a thick, pitch black web over her heart.
Fleur blinked. 'But I can touch you.' She bent and picked a small white pebble from the ground and touched it to Katie's cheek. 'No magic can affect you while Gabby's time protects you, but we can still touch you.' An awful thought arose, curling up from a snarled thicket of sharp guilt and twisted desperate need like thick oily smoke. 'And if we can touch you…'
We could make sure you come back now. Fleur tapped the pebble with her wand, transfiguring it into a small steel knife; she touched the flat of the blade to Katie's chest, turning it until the sharp edge rested over her heart. We could make sure you come back right now. And then it will all be perfect again.
'You have to die to be reborn,' she murmured. 'It does not matter how you die, baby bird, you will still come back to us...'
Her thoughts swam with crimson; it spilt through a slim slit sliced into Katie's pale skin from elbow to wrist, pouring out like wine, trickling down Gabby's arm and through her fingers into the grass, soaking into Katie's small silver curls, staining them as crimson as the cherry blossom from Fleur's dream. Katie's frozen bright green eyes stared up at her, brimming with tears and Fleur's skin crawled, her stomach writhing and thrashing, surging up in a rush of bitter bile.
She thrust Katie back into the arms of her reflection and sank to one knee, retching and heaving over the small sharp knife in her fist.
I cannot. Fleur clapped her hand over her mouth and took a deep breath to quell the churning sickness. I cannot. It hurts too much. Her gaze snagged on the sharp tip of the small steel knife. But the more it hurts...
A soft snap and the crunch of pebbles sent a flood of ice through her veins. Heat washed across her thumb, the branches of the little dark willow spreading beneath the nail.
Fleur hid the small knife in her hand and rose, turning around. 'Mon Amour…'
A faint frown hovered on Harry's face as his gaze drifted from her to the mirror; it smoothed out into a small smile and a strange soft gleam rose in his green eyes.
Fleur's tummy twisted into a tight knot. 'What do you see?' A touch of sharpness slipped off her tongue. 'Something important?'
'Yes.' He slipped his wand from his sleeve and swept the black silk back over the Mirror of Erised with a flick of his wrist. 'Something perfect,' he whispered, stepping around the edge of the pensieve and reaching for her hand.
Non. She stepped back, tucking the small knife behind her back.
Harry froze.
Will you run, mon Coeur? Will you panic? A bittersweet little pain twisted beneath her breast as his fingers trembled in the air between them. Do you still love me like you did before? Am I still like the sun to you?
Harry's hand fell back to his side and he took a deep breath. 'I was hoping you'd help me with my project…'
Fleur's breath caught in the bittersweet little pang.
He raised his hands. 'I know you don't like it,' he murmured. 'But you'll see, je te le promets.'
'You promise?' she hissed. 'It is done. It worked. We just have to wait a little while for Katie to die. When she is reborn here beneath the willow, we will have our dream and we promised Gabby we would not let anything ruin it. No. More. Hurting.'
No more secrets. Fleur's stomach twisted itself into a tangle of sharp hot thorns; their fierce heat seeped into her bones. But here we are, because you just cannot trust me when I tell you that it worked and you just cannot wait to see that it has.
Harry stepped forward. 'Mon Rêve,' he whispered, holding out his hand.
'Mon Rêve?' Her bones simmered with fury and she snatched her arm out of his reach. 'Your dream is this new project!'
Harry stared back, a deep frown on his face.
And you are not hurt. Not like before. Little white feathers prickled beneath her skin and the liquid fire bubbled up onto her tongue. Why have you changed? It was finally going to be perfect.
'Fleur,' Harry whispered. 'This new piece of magic is our dream. It's important…'
A chill slid down Fleur's spine. Something important. Something missing. I told you that something was me, was us, but we're here and you are still chasing something else. She twisted away from him and pulled her wand. Well, if you have to be missing something important, mon Amour, you can miss me.
'Portus.' She tapped her wand against the small knife and pictured the faded wall-paintings and leaning marble columns of the huge domed hall surrounding Ba'al Hamun's marble behemoth from Harry's memories. 'Au revoir.'
The silk-veiled Mirror of Erised and the bare willow fronds whirled away and she alighted on a worn mosaic floor in cool damp air.
'Kart Hadasht,' Fleur murmured.
Ba'al Hamun's stern stone eyes stared down from the ceiling of the vast dome. Between Fleur's feet, the mosaic of the burning queen upon her pyre spread, driving the hilt of a bronze dagger into a single missing red tesserae.
I know what went in there. Fleur bent and ran her finger around the edge of the small square gap in the mosaic. Harry took it for La Victoire Finale.
A little chill slid down her spine at the thought of Harry's memories of Sophonissa's wings of red flame and Ba'alat Tanit's storm of whispers and screams. Ba'al Hamun's stone gaze bored into her, pinning her in place over the mosaic.
Fleur tore her eyes away and touched the tip of her wand to the floor, holding her breath.
A soft faint throb thrummed through the stone deep below, echoing up to Fleur's feet every few beats of her heart and shivering through her wand.
It is not dead. It is awake. And it is waiting. Cold fear trickled through her blood; its sharp edges stabbed through her stomach like little blades of ice. But Harry cannot come back here. So who is it waiting for?
The faintest whisper of the storm of screams drifted up from the dark, a swirl of burning red, sharp as the little knife in Fleur's fist.
'Ba'alat Tanit demands sacrifice.' Sophonissa's words seeped from Harry's memories and slipped from the tip of Fleur's tongue, full of soft hot fire. 'Eclipse them all.'
AN: There's another chapter waiting for those on Discord with the rest of us! And like 20 rough drafts you can read along with all my original stuff if you're supporting me as creator, but the Discord has parody Harry Potter Lego videos, so it's a clear winner if we're honest. Just follow the link tree!
linktr . ee / mjbradley