Nothing is mine.
The final chapter of this part! The next part is called Cocytus's Cruelty, let's all just hope there's going to be lot less irrational relationship dynamics xD
Phlegethon's Fury
'Was this how it was for you?' Harry whispered. 'Was it just all out of reach in the end after all?'
The hovering orb of light cast the empty square silhouette on the wall of Salazar's study in a pale glow.
I sacrificed the Resurrection Stone for our sunset, so I can't even ask the ghost of a ghost. Harry stared into the smooth ebony of his wand through tired eyes. I sacrificed everything. And it didn't happen.
'You said that the only limits we had were the ones we imposed on ourselves,' he murmured, 'but she's leaving, I can feel it coming—' Harry shoved the sprawl of alchemy books away over the desk '—none of this is helping. There's no perfect moment coming after the pain. It just hurts.' His voice shrank to a whisper. 'It just hurts. I hate it. And I wish it would just stop.'
But it never does. Bitter humour twisted the corner of his mouth up. You only get one wish in this world. You sacrifice everything for it. And it doesn't even last.
Harry's gaze strayed to the frozen hands of the clock. 'The clock died again.' Faint humour tugged at his lips. 'I don't want to go back, Salazar. I know what will happen.' Little stabs of panic ripped and tore at his gut. 'She'll leave,' he whispered. 'I'll go back and then she'll just… disappear.'
But I can't stay here. I've read all these books now. I have to go back and finish the plan for Katie. Harry pushed the chair back inch by inch across the stone with stiff arms and legs and hauled himself to his feet. A deep creeping numbness clung to him, the fatigue dragging from his aching limbs like a thick, damp cold cloak.
He picked his wand from the desk and stuck Lemon Sorbet's ring on his finger, apparating across the windswept towers to the Normandy beach, stepping out before the bare brown willow branches and into the autumn morning sun.
Heat flashed across his thumb.
She knows I'm back now. Harry's heart sank as he watched the crimson-threaded wedding band clink against the vial of phoenix tears. And the next time I see her might be the moment she disappears.
'I'm sorry, baby bird,' he whispered, drifting across the white pebbles to rest his hand on the black silk. 'Your maman is going to disappear on us soon. She gave up on our sunset. She's leaving.'
But it should have been me. You're going to need your maman so much more than your papa, baby bird. The emptiness sunk countless cold teeth into his heart, ripping little pieces away. I'm sorry.
Harry pressed his forehead against the cold glass, clenching his fists in the black silk. 'I'll make sure you wake up to a world where you can have all your other dreams, little chick. Je te le promets.'
He clawed a bit more magic up through the fog of exhaustion and spun the world back past him, stepping into the kitchen and leaning over the sink. Harry's breath misted on the window over the faint frost spiralling across the clear panes.
Cold. He pressed his hand to the cool glass and pulled it back, watching the condensation run through his handprint to the base of the frame. Fleur will be under her blanket still.
A fierce stab of yearning wrenched at him and the storm stirred; a whirl of quiet moments tore through his tired thoughts, snatches of Fleur's sleepy morning smiles as she snuggled into him and the memory of the heat of her skin against his fed the surging, burning need.
I wish I could just go join and hold her. Anxiety writhed in his gut, thrashing like a thousand silver serpents caught in a cauldron and he slid his wand from his sleeve, spinning it in his fingers as he sucked in a long deep breath. But she doesn't want me there. A raw jagged ache tore through him like steel nails scoring through glass and he twisted away from the window over the table. She didn't even want to kiss me.
Fleur appeared in the doorway, untwisting the straps of her crumpled blue dress and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Fleur. Harry's wand slipped through his fingers and bounced across the table, rolling to a teeter on the far edge; his breath stuck in the back of his throat and the despair clawed for his heart, dragging it down toward the dark. Is this it?
'Where did you go?' she murmured as she drifted to the far side of the table.
'Away,' Harry whispered.
The space hung between them: thick, silent, still; all the world bled into it, fading away like wisps of red through the plughole of Petunia's stainless steel sink. He fought the stirring storm, wrestled with its winds and the searing, sharp yearning to tear through that distance.
I just want to touch you. But if I do, then the moment I let go, you'll disappear.
'What were you doing?' Fleur asked.
'Reading.'
'Alchemy books.' Her bright blue eyes darkened to a midnight hue. 'For two days? You made me wait for two days while you read books?!'
Two days? The trembling knot in the pit of Harry's stomach twisted itself tighter. Was it really that long?
'You don't look like you even slept,' she said. 'When I was searching for a way to save Katie, you still made sure I slept.' Fleur's irises shifted a few shades darker. 'We made a promise to Gabby—' her fingers drifted to the small hole in her earlobe '—that we would enjoy our dream. No more hurting and no more secrets. Do you remember?'
'I remember.'
How could I forget?
'Do you still dream of our sunset?' Fleur murmured. 'Do you still love us at all?'
'I—' the words stuck on a sharp pang, snagged on the tip of his tongue like the loose, grey sleeves of Dudley's cast-off clothes on the thorns of Petunia's roses. 'You know I do.'
Her pitch black eyes narrowed. 'I know? How do I know? All the time you spend away from us down here?'
'You know that I'm not the one who gave up,' Harry whispered. 'I know why you're so sure it worked. I know why I came back without paying the price. You paid it.' His gaze drifted down to Fleur's hip, the triangle of crimson runes glowing bright as blood in the eye of his mind. 'If you were the same, you would never have thought of hurting our daughter. Not even to bring her back.'
Fleur flinched. 'I thought of it because you could not wait!' Little white feathers bristled along her arms and the air around her balled fists shivered with heat. 'Because if you did not have some certain proof it had worked, you would fret and ruin everything!'
Faint hope fluttered in Harry's breast. No. The hope crumbled into the cold dark empty place beneath his heart. That's not how it works. One of us has to have given up. And it wasn't me. It's never me who leaves. I'm always left behind.
The small sad knowing smile welled up; he felt it creep across his face as the kitchen yawned open between them, tasting the bittersweet wrench of despair as the world drowned in that distance.
'Non,' Fleur hissed. 'There is nowhere to run, Harry. Not even away inside your head. You think I do not love you? I am here. I have not disappeared.'
'Not yet,' Harry whispered. 'But—'
'Not yet?!' Wisps of smoke curled from the sides of Fleur's dress and the bones of her face shifted. 'I have never left and still you cannot trust me! If you are so sure I am going to leave, maybe I should, non?! I will go find some shallow boy who only cares about what I look like on my back with my legs spread. I can kiss him. Fuck him.' She cupped her hip with one hand; the silk smouldered beneath her fingers, baring the bright red thorns and petals of the rose tattoo on her pale skin. 'Maybe this magic will only stop the children of ours I thought about when I cast it, so I will be able to make another little girl with that boy instead! Is that what you want? Me in their bed? With them? Having their children.'
Cold panic stabbed through Harry's gut; its icy coils curled around his heart and clamped tight, freezing the air in his lungs.
'No, I—' he swallowed the dread, shoved it down and fed it to the emptiness '—but you didn't want to kiss me. You never wear your ring. And you don't want to be here, you're always disappearing to do wards, but what if it's not wards? And you wanted to…' Revulsion snatched the words from his lips and his skin crawled.
Hurt our baby bird.
'You do not even remember to visit her!' Fleur snapped. 'She has to die before she is reborn! She has to die.' The shape of her chin sharpened. 'And you, you are so obsessed with your something great that you would not even notice if she did disappear!
'I would—'
'You would notice?' Fleur cocked her head, her eyes huge and dark and full of fury. 'But you have not. I already took her.'
The world froze.
Little dark spots danced before Harry's eyes. 'No—' he clawed for magic, picturing the willow '—you're just— you didn't—'
'Non.' Fleur snatched her wand from her waist in one heat-haze wreathed hand and slashed it through the air, throwing a shimmering veil of wards over them both. 'Neither of us are going anywhere until we keep our promise to Gabby!' She grabbed his wand off the table and threw them both over her shoulder down the hall. 'Voilà!'
Harry hurled his magic at the wards, dragging up every drop and wrenching at them, but they held firm, closing in around him, thick and still and smothering as the dark beneath the stairs; they pressed down on him like Vernon's weight on the steps above his head, heavy as the terse, tense terrified silence, and loud as the pounding of Harry's heart in his ears. Fleur's lips moved, but the sound of her words drowned in the distance between them.
I can't breathe.
The dark spots flickered and whirled across the kitchen, Fleur blurred and swayed beyond the table, a vivid smear of blue and silver and black swimming before the door. Ice crushed the breath from his lungs, coiled tight about his hammering heart
It hurts. Harry dug his fingertips into his chest. It hurts. And I wish it would just stop. But it never does. And I hate it.
'I hate this,' he whispered, thrusting out a hand for his wand and yanking with his magic; it slapped into his palm. 'Out. I have to— I need to breathe.' Harry lashed his wand at the shimmering wards.
Blazing crimson flames burst from the tip, billowing over the table. Fleur recoiled as they ate through the wood in a rush of hungry whispering red tongues, grabbing at her empty waist with her right hand.
No. Fear clawed at him and he groped for Katie's happy smile and cheerful babbling as the Fiendfyre swallowed the table and ate into the tiles. But she took Katie away. I couldn't make a single wish come true. They never last for me. Someone always takes them away and it just hurts. The tight coils of ice settled into a small ball of cold upon his heart; something cruel stirred beneath its shell; thin lips curled back from countless needle-like teeth and dark gimlet eyes sharpened within. Harry clenched his hand upon his wand, tasting old words whispered into the midnight silence beneath the stairs. I hate it.
The ice burst free.
Searing heat tore at his face in a flash of crimson and he flinched back, throwing his arms up before his face.
Fleur.
Dread stripped the world bare, left it silent and still.
The blazing red coils of a Fiendfyre basilisk guttered out like a candle in the rain. Tears of molten mortar wept from crumbling, scorched stone walls; pale flecks of ash drifted down onto the smoking charred tiles and floated away over the ruined wall into the grass beneath the bare branches of the cherry trees.
Where is Fleur?
Their bed and Fleur's desk crashed through the collapsing blackened ceiling in an avalanche of plaster, smashing into the fridge and sliding through the ruined wall into the lounge.
Harry stared down at the wisteria earring and red rose lying beside the toppled vase and the spinning cogs of Fleur's floating clock, his arms tingling. 'Fleur?' he whispered.
Did she just… disappear? Cold dread pooled in the pit of his stomach as Gabby grinned and waved from inside the dust-carpeted silver photo frame. But she said neither of us… And I couldn't apparate…
'Fleur?' Harry grappled with the cold fist of fear clenched around his heart and sucked in a gulp of hot, ash-laced air. 'Fleur?' he called.
Silence hung across the house as the plaster dust and ash floated down to the floor.
I couldn't have…
Harry's heart wrenched. 'She didn't have her wand,' he whispered. 'She threw them both away and I…'
Fleur's soft warm smile shone up at him from within the photograph; the world crumbled away from that gleaming silver square, sinking into her smile like red rose petals dwindling into the dark.
I did.
His fingers shook as he bent down to wipe the dust off the glass.
I did.
A fierce hot tingle spread through his hands.
The willow wards. Harry clutched at his burnt, raw thumb, but the scorched nail remained smooth and pink. La Victoire Finale. He wrenched the world back past him and staggered out onto the white pebbles.
The ruined, warped pensieve sat beneath the bare brown branches of the willow; black silk fluttered over the Mirror of Erised and against the white pebbles.
Harry's heart sank. No. He clawed it back up. She's just not been reborn yet. She can't have crossed the wards without them alerting me.
Harry stumbled across the stones past the pensieve and snatched the crimson-threaded wedding band from the tree, holding it tight to his heart. 'Please have worked,' he whispered into the rustle of the willow branches. 'I gave everything. I'll give anything.' Hot tears prickled against his lashes, blurring Fleur's wedding band in his palm. 'I'm sorry.' The words tumbled from his tongue, caught in a thick bubbling flood of guilt as he sank down onto the cold white stones. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'
Please don't take her away. I need her. I need them both.
The tingle in his arms swelled, flaring into fierce agony; it curled into him like hot hooks burning through to the bone.
Good. Harry twisted his wrist over to stare at the raw, red flesh. You deserve it. He let the pain eat through his skin, let the searing, tingling sting rip into him. You should burn the rest of you too. A twist of temptation seized him and his fingers curled tight around his wand. Would it help? He took a gulp of cool air. No. The ritual is done. It's too late to sacrifice anything else now.
'It won't be long,' he murmured. 'She'll be reborn soon. She has to be.'
He pressed Fleur's wedding band to his heart and waited, watching the slow creep of the willow's shadow as the sun sank toward the edge of the world beyond the wildflower meadows and the river.
The numb weight of fatigue tugged at his thoughts, dragging his eyelids down.
No. You can't sleep. You have to wait. Harry dug his nails into the raw, weeping burn on his arm; pain lanced through his forearm and a flash of cold adrenaline tore through him. You have to wait and hope and wish.
'It can't be long now,' he muttered. 'We made it work. I went in. And I came out. It has to have worked.'
It has to. A desperate yearning bubbled up in his breast like molten gold, thick and smooth and searing hot. It just has to. It hurt too much not to work.
He clung to the pain as the sun crept over the edge of the world and the shadows lengthened, ripping his nails through the burn each time the skin crept back until they were slick and sticky with warm red.
Where is Fleur? Harry's heart wavered. Why hasn't she come back?
That small sad knowing smile waited with welcoming arms somewhere in the emptiness; it crept across Harry's face as the clouds caught fire in the sky above the sinking sun, bleeding pink and red and orange and yellow.
'Perfect wishes don't come true,' he whispered. 'Not for me.'
There is no La Victoire Finale. Of course there's not. Nothing ever works for me.
The emptiness sank cold hollow teeth deep into Harry's heart and ripped it free; the numb creeping hunger of the abyss swallowed it whole.
Katie. Harry dragged himself up on the willow trunk, smearing blood across the bare bark. Katie first. If it failed, it can't save our baby bird. He clawed at fogged thoughts, dragging jagged panicked tatters into line. Where would Fleur take her? Somewhere safe.
He spun the world past him, stumbling through the Chamber of Secrets.
No. This is where I was. She can't have taken her here.
Harry pictured the Meadow, dragging his magic up from the depths and wrenching the world back past him.
He sprinted through empty rooms, thudding into door frames in little flashes of pain as he scoured their old home; stumbling through the long cold damp grass of the fields as he apparated across.
Dead leaves and dirt lay beneath the copse of elms.
She's not here. This place isn't even ours anymore. Harry clawed his way back across the bleak Normandy beach to the dust-veiled rubble of the kitchen.
The silver cogs of Fleur's clock turned alone amidst the white plaster dust veiling the smoking floor, spinning slower and slower and tumbling apart into the pale ashes.
'I'm sorry,' he whispered, blinking back hot tears. 'Where did you take our daughter? I have to find her. If I don't, she'll die.'
You didn't come back. She can't come back. And it was the only way.
Panic tore through Harry in sharp icy stabs. He apparated into each remaining room, forcing his magic into the air and sweeping it across every surface, dragging the world back past him and staggering through the garden, the cherry trees in the orchard and through the wildflower fields until he stumbled to his knees before the Mirror of Erised.
They're gone. He pulled the dark silk aside with trembling fingers. And without them, there's nothing left.
A single soft shadow swirled in the shining silver surface, faint as summer shade and silent as winter snow; it writhed far beneath the shimmering mirror and desperate need clawed its way up Harry's throat like a fistful of razors; his heart seized beneath his ribs and a fierce heat stung at his eyes.
You ruined it.
The black silk slipped through his fingers onto the stones and his tears trickled free, sliding down his cheeks in little hot trails as countless cold hollow teeth sank into his heart, their icy fury burning through his veins.
You ruined everything.
Harry picked Fleur's wedding band from his palm in two trembling fingers and hurled it into the river. The ring bounced along beneath the ripples and stuck fast between two pebbles at the shore.
You deserve nothing. You deserve to be nothing.
He slashed his wand at the willow, sweeping a curtain of crimson flame across its branches. Hungry red tongues danced along the slim dead brown fronds, whispering as they spread across the boughs and down the trunk. The wards melted beneath the Fiendfyre, his blood magic unravelling like loose threads.
'Useless,' he hissed. 'All your magic is useless. Like you!'
They're gone.
Raw, agonising despair clawed the cold rage from his veins, drank its sharp clarity and swallowed the bitter hate burning on his tongue. Harry watched fresh pink skin creep across his arm until the burn healed and pressed the tip of his wand into the crook of his elbow; the emptiness gnawed at him, tearing little pieces of his heart apart in the dark place beneath and devouring them one by one.
There are no dreams left now. The incantation hovered on his tongue as he pressed the tip of his wand deeper into his skin. And if there are no dreams left, what's the point?
A flash of silver caught his eye and his heart leapt.
'Fleur,' he breathed, twisting around, his wand slipping through his fingers.
Through the white pebbles, the orange and red clouds shone in Ba'alat Tanit's Looking Glass like rippling fire; the willow tree burnt beyond it in a shroud of flickering crimson.
Two for the flames. The words stuck in his throat, caught in a hot tangle of bitter thorns. And one to eclipse the legacy of Rome.
'Gabby was right,' Harry whispered, staring into the red hot glowing embers of the willow. 'Nobody could have ruined this but me.'
It was always me. He squeezed his eyes shut. I just wanted it all to be perfect for you both. Just this one perfect thing when nothing else ever lasted. And I ruined everything. Revulsion bubbled in his gut, a churning pit of bitter loathing. But it can't just all disappear. It can't be for nothing. I won't let it be. Not you. Not our baby bird. You're not meant to just disappear like you were never real.
The storm stirred; beneath the swirling searing razor sharp agony of its winds, the emptiness crumbled away.
I won't let you just disappear. Not because of me.
'No more hoping for wishes to be granted.' He bent down and lifted his wand from the cold white pebbles, thrusting it at the willow tree. 'No more hurting. I'll turn the dust of our sunset into a dawn so bright it's blinding.'
I'll grant the wishes of all those empty children out there hoping and give them a chance to dream. I'll find a way or make one. And the world I leave them will never ever be able to steal what they dreamt of away. It will be everything I promised, baby bird.
A single spark swelled at the tip of his wand, bright and clear as the sun soaring over the horizon. The glowing mote of gold floated forward into the crimson flames and the willow shivered; the crumbling, burning bark and the hungry whisper of the Fiendfyre melted into the razor sharp swirl of the hurricane in Harry's heart, twisting together in the air into a whirl of molten amber fire and curling into a familiar featureless face of dawn-bright light as the tempest screamed beneath his ribs.
Harry sucked in a deep breath and let everything sink into the eye of the storm.
And in its stillness hung a small sad knowing smile.
'Nothing lasts forever.' A wry raw bitterness twisted the corner of his mouth up as the mask of burning amber floated into his hands; dawn-bright flames flickered in its smooth golden visage, whirling like the stirring storm in searing sharp swirls. 'Not wishes. Not dreams. Not hope. Not for me.'
I always knew.
The last light of the sunset slipped over the edge of the world and faded away.
AN: Ah, the consequences of our actions. Don't they just suck. But good news for those who don't like the character-work based around Fleur and Harry being so irrational about each other, I suppose... xD
You all know the self-promo bit by now, check out the profile, the linktree if you want to find more of what I do. The ideal chapter to try and suggest people should read more of what I write after, this one XD