Nothing is mine.
The penultimate chapter of this part! And Discord does roll one chapter ahead of here, so I'll leave the linktree here as these seems like a moment people might want to get to another chapter! linktr . ee / mjbradley
Bird in the Storm
The crimson petals of the red rose trembled in her cupped palms, fluttering in tune to the beat of her heart.
Did I leave you in there forever, mon Amour? Fleur swallowed a fierce bitter pang of loss. An eternity without your bird-wife. Without the one perfect wish that came true.
'I miss when you gave me roses, mon Cœur,' she whispered, grappling with a sharp twist of pain beneath her breast. 'I miss how you used to hold me. How you kissed me. How you needed me so much.'
I have to know. If he cannot hurt Katie like I cannot, then maybe it is not Voldemort. Maybe he is just fretting.
She tucked the stem into the glass vase. The wysteria earring hung off the side, swaying back and forth on its short silver chain. Gabby beamed and waved back from the silver photo frame on her desk; the crimson swirl on Cramoisi's ring beneath it gleamed in the window's reflection.
Je te manque, petite sœur. Fleur slipped the hook of the wisteria earring through her ear. I miss you, Gabby.
She took a deep breath and picked her wand up off the desk, apparating down to the willow tree.
Heat flashed across her thumbnail as Fleur stepped onto the white pebbles.
Harry paced an erratic series of lines back and forth between the pensieve and the Mirror of Erised, staring down at the stones beneath his feet.
I know you felt me arrive. Does it not even matter that I am here anymore?
A gleaming silver and blue butterfly sprang from the tip of Harry's wand, spiralling around him and bursting into a shower of shining sparks. Roses sprouted from the ground where the sparks fell, putting forth glossy green leaves and bright crimson flowers.
'You are getting better,' Fleur said.
'I know how to change things and create things, but I don't have the deftness Gabby had.' Harry cut one of the roses free with a flick of his wand and stared down into the red petals. 'I can only do things like this when I feel it.' The corner of his mouth twitched and the flowers faded, crumbling into shining silver sparks. 'That which issues from the heart alone…'
'Have you seen your daughter today?' Fleur asked.
Harry's gaze drifted to the dark silk whispering against the Mirror of Erised. 'Not yet.'
She swept across the pebbles, her stomach tangling itself into a taut knot, and pulled the black veil away. 'What do you see?'
Harry stared into the shining silver, a wild light burning in his green eyes. 'Something important. Something perfect.'
Something great. Something important. The knot in Fleur's stomach trembled, twisting tighter, and the cold sick feeling bubbled beneath it. That was the dream of the one of two that was not Harry.
'You can still take her out of the mirror if you want to see her,' Fleur murmured, measuring the gleam in his green eyes.
'I don't want to take her out,' Harry said, turning away from the Mirror of Erised.
You do not want to see her at all? Feathers prickled through her skin and a soft liquid heat simmered in her bones. You are so different now. In all your memories, our baby bird was everything to you.
'Do you not want her back? When she dies, she will be reborn, non?' Fleur held her breath as his forehead creased, smothering the cold sickness rising and writhing in her stomach. 'We could have her back now. You must have thought about it. If we could just manage the pain, we could have that perfect moment at last.'
Harry stared at her, frozen still as stone. All the blood drained from his face. 'We — we —' his wand slipped from his fingers and bounced across the white pebbles '—we can't.' He shuddered and swayed. 'I could never,' he whispered. 'I never even—'
Thought of it? Fleur winced from the horror rising in his green eyes. Not even once? Faint hope fluttered in her heart. Then maybe…
'What do you see?' She pointed at the mirror. 'Who do you see?'
'You,' Harry whispered. 'Katie sitting on your shoulders beneath a beautiful bright sun. Everything looks so perfect bathed in its golden light. The willow, the river, even the world, is quiet and gentle and our baby bird is always so happy.' He took a step toward her across the cold white stones. 'It's a world where all her dreams can come true. No Grindelwalds. No Voldemorts. No more hurting.'
Our promise. Fleur's heart trembled. Is it still you after all?
'Mon—'
Guilt ripped the words from her lips.
Mon Amour, have you just been lost waiting and hoping, wanting to make this world for our little angel? Is it really all for us?
'It isn't perfectly perfect, but it's perfect enough for us.' Harry's green eyes burnt with a wild mad light, his fingers tapping an erratic, frenetic staccato against his thigh as he crept a few steps closer. 'Something so much greater than scrabbling around with everyone else for dreams we cannot keep, so much more than clawing at each other for just one desperate wish to come true.'
Or is this just the last lingering effect of the memories I showed you? Fleur's skin crawled. Are you Voldemort seeking something great, but not quite done shedding Harry's skin?
'Fleur,' he breathed, reaching both hands toward her. Beneath the bright light in Harry's green eyes, a brittle glint shone and his shoulders tensed. 'Je… Je t'aime.'
'I am here.' Fleur took his hands as Harry drew her close and bent to kiss her.
If it really is you, mon Cœur. Her stomach surged, churning with cold waves of sick revulsion, and she turned away, taking a deep breath in through her nose. How do I tell for sure? Is that something important us? Or is it something great?
Fleur steadied herself. 'Je…'
The light died in Harry's eyes, fading away like the last rays of the sun sinking over the edge of the world, and his hands slipped from hers.
Oh merde.
Fleur's heart leapt into her mouth. 'I did not…'
Harry stepped back, a dazed distance crept into his eyes as he stared through her toward the willow tree.
'Non.' Fleur snatched her wand out and thrust it at him, wrapping him in a shimmering bubble of wards. 'Harry—'
He pressed his fingertips into his ribs until they turned white, blinking fast as he swayed.
'Breathe,' Fleur said. 'I—'
His magic hammered into hers, wrenching at her wards.
'Non,' she snapped, pouring magic through the weave of her enchantment. 'You cannot run away! Not now.'
'There's nowhere to go,' Harry whispered. 'And everything is—' he clawed at the wards with his hands '—it's too close.' His wand flashed from the pebbles into his fingers. 'I hate this!'
Crimson flames burst from the tip billowing against the shimmering wards surrounding him.
Fleur flinched from the searing heat of the hungry red tongues of Fiendfyre and Harry's magic tore through her wards, his silhouette vanishing with a loud crack.
'Merde,' Fleur hissed, extinguishing the Fiendfyre with a slash of her wand. 'Merde. Merde. Merde.' She vanished the marred, scorched white pebbles one by one in angry jabs of her wand. 'Why do you always run away, mon Amour?! I am going nowhere!' White feathers burst through her skin and heat haze shivered around her hands. Her fury bubbled deep in her bones, simmering liquid pools of roiling rage. 'Every time, you cannot just trust, you have to panic and run, you—' the fire froze and the feathers slid back beneath her skin '—you ran. You panicked. You ran.' Fleur's heart fluttered and the corner of her mouth curved up. 'Just like you always do.'
Voldemort would not run. Voldemort would not panic. Voldemort would not care. She tucked her wand away, letting the trembling hope swell. You are right, Gabby. There can be no more secrets. One way or another, I have to know. And he needs to know. Before it is too late.
Fleur's gaze strayed to Katie's chocolate-smeared smile in the Mirror of Erised. 'But no risks. Right, baby bird?'
Either I succeeded, or I failed and Harry no longer loves us, or Voldemort has returned.
She bent and retrieved the small jar of willow sprig from within the pensieve, dropping it into her pocket.
But in all threes cases, La Victoire Finale succeeded and our baby bird will be reborn at the nearest piece of the willow tree.
Fleur strode toward the mirror.
Katie waved a fistful of squished chocolate cake at her from beneath the shining silver surface and babbled from atop Harry's shoulders, showering him in crumbs as she wiggled her icing-smeared fingers.
Or the ritual failed. Fleur froze before the Mirror of Erised. But it could not fail if the price was paid. And if it was not paid, he could not have returned at all. It must have worked.
Fleur's reflection smiled and lifted a squirming, pouting Katie from Harry's shoulders and held her out.
'Merci,' Fleur murmured as Katie's weight settled in her arms. 'Come on, mon Poussin—' she cradled Katie to her chest and raised her wand summoning a small white pebble into her hand '—we are going somewhere safe. Somewhere your papa cannot ever visit. Just in case it is not your papa after all.'
Fleur's gaze fell on the willow roots. Merde. Harry's failsafe wards. She clenched her fist around the pebble and stepped across, touching her wand to the bark. The first one does not matter, both of us leaving will feel the same as me leaving, but the other one is tied to Katie.
A storm of searing yearning and razor sharp fear swirled at the tip of her wand; at its eye hung a ray of warm gentle light, a calm stillness full of soft sweet adoration.
I cannot break that. And Katie is the tether. Our combined blood in her veins has to remain inside the blood wards. A stab of fear lanced through Fleur. But I cannot just take Katie's blood, it is still hers. She will still be the tether and the wards will still be triggered if she crosses them. I need something else. She glanced around. But I only have my blood. I do not have…
Her crimson-threaded wedding band hung on the willow trunk, clinking against the vial of phoenix tears.
'Mon Amour,' she whispered, a bittersweet pang tearing through her heart. 'Je suis désolée.'
If I do have to leave because it is Voldemort who remains, I will have to leave the ring you gave me here, mon Cœur. But you will understand, non? Katie first.
Fleur cradled Katie to her chest and sliced the ball of her thumb, watching a bead of crimson swell from the cut. She lifted it off her skin in a red ribbon as thin and fine as a hair and threaded it into the wedding band, slipping her magic through the gaps in the weave of Harry's enchantments.
That will work.
Fleur bent to the willow roots and took the still eye of the storm, tugging it with her on the tip of her wand and touching it to the wedding band; it whirled and raged around, the stillness settling around the soft throb of Harry's heart within the ring.
'Voilà, petit ange,' she whispered, tapping the pebble in her hand with her wand and picturing the domed hall of Kart Hadasht. 'Portus.' Fleur pressed a soft kiss to Katie's black-veined forehead through her silver curls. 'Ba'alat Tanit.'
The bare brown willow branches and the river lurched left, blurring away.
Fleur stepped out under the stone stare of Ba'al Hamun's titanic statue into the cool damp air of Kart Hadasht, lowering Katie onto the mosaic beside the small square hole at its centre. 'I will make you something more comfortable, mon Poussin,' she murmured. 'Just hold on for a moment.'
A single red spark flickered into life, floating above the open palm of Katie's small right hand and the missing stone tesserae popped back into being, creeping across the mosaic and sliding into the gap. Golden flames flared in the vast statue's spread hands and red fires rose in the deep shadowed hollow of his belly.
Ice flooded Fleur's veins; her breath caught.
The crimson mote bounced off the faint shimmer of Gabby's magic; it drifted in slow small circles around Katie's little pale fingers, splitting into several dozen shining ruby sparks.
Gabby. Fleur's heart trembled. Je t'aime, petite sœur.
Ba'al Hamun's statue rose to its feet with a dull rumble, brushing the top of the dome with its head, and the hall shook. The belly of red fire sagged to the ground, opening a dark passage deeper into Kart Hadasht.
Fleur stared into it, Sophonissa's words welling up from Harry's memories. The sons of Ba'alat Tanit are not so easily slain here in the Tophet. She lifted Katie back into her arms, ignoring the red motes swirling around them as she strode toward the fires. Let us hope that is true for daughters, too.
Fleur held her breath and leapt through the scorching heat, following the broad, lop-sided marble steps spiralling down to a low, arched room surrounding a pit of crimson flames. The flickering shadows of the columns ringing the room danced across the bright red and blue patterns painted over the pale marble walls and hovered over the tall marble thrones standing across the pit of the Tophet.
A small crumpled blanket lay on the rightmost seat beneath the face of Ba'al Hamun.
Sophonissa's son. Fleur edged around the pit over the vivid geometric patterns of the mosaic floor and sat Katie down on the marble throne beneath Ba'alat Tanit's proud visage. You can sit here, baby bird. I think you will be safe here. Kart Hadasht will protect its children. Only you and your papa can come down here, his bloodline controls the Tophet now, and he swore not to return.
She cocooned her daughter in wards, weaving the strongest ones she knew around her until numb exhaustion crept into her arms and legs, fogging her thoughts.
Just in case it all goes wrong. Fleur leant on the throne and set the little jar of willow sprig down beside Katie, letting the worst of the tiredness fade. That way when you're reborn, you'll come back right here where the last piece of our willow tree is. Safe either way.
The crimson motes whirled around Katie, bouncing off the faint shimmer of Gabby's magic and floating about her in a shroud of drifting ruby lights.
Fleur bent and pressed a kiss to her daughter's cool, dark-veined, pale forehead. 'Au revoir, petit ange. I will be back soon.'
And now, Gabby, I will keep my promise. Her heart fluttered, her stomach shrinking into a tight tangle of taut trembling knots. No more secrets.
AN: A little thank you from me to everyone who's been keeping it polite in the reviews. I don't mind if you review to tell me you hate the story, it's not your thing, the characters give you acid reflux, Fleur's frustrating inablity to tell the difference between Harry actually finally learning some small amount of maturity and Voldemort is driving you insane, or anything like that - that's what reviews are for - but I do appreciate everyone choosing to be polite, so thank you!