Nothing is mine.

All the chapters that start with cake are good chapters! (unless there are crepes)

The Illustrated Mum

A pair of small fruit tarts sat opposite each other on the table upon the small white plates, gleaming cake forks tucked onto the side against the pastry. Clusters of bright red raspberries and strawberries rose from the soft yellow filling and thin slices of kiwi.

Where are you, baby bird? Fleur twisted her plate around, leaving the strawberries at the front. It's been more than twenty minutes; have you got all caught up in your book or your drawing again?

She drifted toward the stairs, straining her ears and smoothing her dark grey dress out across her stomach. 'Katie!?'

Silence hung through the château.

A little worry twisted in Fleur's breast as she climbed the stairs and hurried along to Katie's room. 'Katie?' She tapped on the door. 'Are you okay?'

'Go away, maman.'

A little pang tore through Fleur. 'Are you okay, baby bird?'

'I'm not a baby, maman.' Her daughter huffed. 'Leave me alone. My room is fine; it's tidy.'

'We were going to have our cake now, remember?'

'I don't want cake.'

'That is not like you,' Fleur murmured. 'Usually you are the only person who wants cake more than I do. Are you feeling okay?'

Katie's footsteps stomped across the floor and the door flew open. 'Maman, leave me alone!' She glowered at Fleur with pitch-black irises, small white feathers prickling from her skin.

'Katrina…' Fleur narrowed her eyes. 'What did we agree about tantrums now you are a big girl?'

'Only maman is allowed to have them,' her daughter retorted.

A sharp twist of guilt stabbed at Fleur. 'I do not think that was quite it, little chick.' She pointed at the heap of silver blankets atop Katie's bed. 'Do you want me to come in so you can tell me what is wrong?'

Katie shook her head. 'Non.'

'Then do you want to come and eat your cake with me?'

'Non.' She folded her arms over her chest, the small white feathers bristling from her skin.

'Are you just going to say non to everything I say now?'

Katie opened her mouth, glowered at Fleur, and snapped it shut.

Fleur reached out and tucked her silver hair back behind her ear. 'What has ruffled all your feathers, baby bird?'

'You know what,' her daughter muttered, brushing Fleur's hand away. 'I am ten. I want—'

'Je sais.' A soft sigh escaped Fleur. 'I know what you want, mon poussin.'

'Then why won't you let me?!' Katie's fledgling allure tugged at Fleur. 'I want to go!'

Your magic is starting to blossom, baby bird. And already it is strong. Those little girls at Beauxbatons will not know how to cope with it. And the boys will be even worse.

'I want you to be safe,' Fleur murmured. 'And I want you to be happy. I know you want to go off and make loads of friends, learn lots of new things and explore new places.' Her heart trembled at the thought. 'You were always a curious little chick, crawling and tottering about every inch of our home and making a huge mess of whatever you found.'

'Not every inch, maman,' her daughter snapped.

'The roses in the glasshouse are very special to me. Not quite as special as you, mon petit ange, but I do not want them to get hurt either. Not even by accident.'

'I wouldn't hurt them!'

'Not on purpose, I know. But I would not let you go anywhere you might get hurt by accident; it is the same with them.'

'But I want—'

'It will not be what you are hoping for, little chick.' Fleur sighed. 'I know you are going to be very cross with me for a little while, but it is better this way; and I will teach you everything you want to know. Je te le promets.'

Katie balled her fists. 'You just don't want me to find anything out!'

'I want you to be safe and to be happy. It is all I want. And when you are old enough to understand, I will tell you everything.' Fleur smothered a small trickle of fire through her bones as her daughter turned her nose up at her. 'I have always told you this, Katrina. It has not changed.'

'I am ten.'

'Baby bird, ten is not that old.'

'How old is old enough then?' Katie demanded. 'Eleven?'

'I do not know, little chick,' Fleur murmured. 'Just… enjoy your books, your drawing; be happy. I will tell you one day.' She held out her hand. 'Come on. Our cake is waiting for us.'

'Non.' Katie scowled. 'I don't believe you. You're just trying to keep me here with you! You don't want me to meet my godmothers, or make any friends, or know anything about my papa! You're probably why he's not here anymore!'

Fleur's heart wrenched, ripped apart by guilt's sharp cold teeth.

'You probably tried to keep him here all to yourself as well and so he left!' Her daughter's ink-black eyes brimmed with anger. 'Well I'm going to leave one day too!'

Heat bubbled in Fleur's bones and the tips of white feathers prickled across her skin. 'Katrina, enough.' She wrestled with the shift of her molten hot bones. 'Go water your tree and calm down. And then come back and eat your cake. I have explained this to you a hundred times and it is not going to change.'

Katie's lips quivered. 'I hate you, maman.' She stormed past, stomping barefoot all down the stairs.

Fleur's heart trembled. 'Make sure you remember your shoes; if you stomp like that outside, you'll hurt your feet.'

The backdoor slammed shut.

She is so much like me, mon amour. She apparated into the glasshouse, breathing in the soft sweet fragrance of the red roses; the raw pang of her daughter's words eased. You would adore her, but if she goes off to Beauxbatons, she will do everything that I did, and bit by bit, come back just as much a monster.

She sat down on the smooth, worn patch of floor beneath the fragile crimson flowers and wrapped her arms around herself. 'Tu me manques, mon amour. You should be here, non? Even now, she is still her papa's little girl. I am sure if it was you who asked her, she would do it with a smile.'

She was a curious little chick, but mostly I think she was looking for you. She still is. Fleur released a long sigh. And I cannot tell her yet. She will not understand.

'But she will hate me for not telling her, of course.' A soft wry pang of sadness tugged at her. 'The next ten years are going to hurt, non?'

A little bitterness crept in. But the more it hurts to get…

'I shall start to teach her about being veela,' Fleur murmured. 'She needs to know. And, maybe, if she feels like she can come to me, she will grow up into you, Gabby, and not me.'

I think that would be much better, mon amour. She took a deep breath of the sweet scent of the red roses and swallowed a small hot lump in the back of her throat. You would disagree with me, but I am right. Fleur touched her fingers to the wisteria flower in its crystal tear drop at her right ear. You chose the wrong bird-girl; Gabby would have been a far kinder sun to light up your life.

Fleur glanced up at the clouds of pale pink cherry blossom fluttering above the glasshouse and the grass. 'Time to go back, before our baby bird somehow skips through several years of maturation and gets right to the setting fire to things part—' she stood up and brushed the back of her dress off '—au revoir, mon coeur.'

Picturing the kitchen, she disapparated, stepping across the cool tiles and sinking into her chair before the fridge. And now to wait. You cannot resist cake for long, little chick, especially not your favourite.

A small drop of water clung to the tip of the tap, trembling as it grew, and fell into the sink with a soft plunk. Fleur watched a second swell, quivering.

The back door slammed shut and the droplet fell.

Her daughter stomped in, her eyes dark as pine needles and a huge scowl across her face.

'Cake?' Fleur motioned to it.

Katie dragged her chair back and thudded onto the seat.

'Gently, baby bird.'

'Maman, you enchanted all the château.'

'I know, but one day you will be using things I have not enchanted to survive you, little chick.' A fond little smile crept across Fleur's lips as her daughter snatched her fork up and stabbed it into a fat glossy red strawberry. 'I bought more cherries, too. Since you somehow managed to eat the entire big bowl already.'

The tips of Katie's ears turned pink. 'Pardon,' she muttered.

'You can just tell me if we run out. I can always buy more.'

Her daughter nodded, her irises lightening a few hues. 'Merci, maman.'

'When you were cross earlier—'

'Mamaaan.'

'Non, listen, little chick.' Fleur picked her own fork up and waved it at her. 'When you were cross, I felt your magic tugging at me.'

Katie blinked. 'My magic? Like your special magic?'

'Our magic. My maman was veela and all the daughters of veela are veela. You might read some nonsense about part-veela, or how we are not fully human, but that is all made up.' Fleur paused. 'Those adventures of Aimée stories you love, they are not very accurate when it comes to things like this either. Actually—' she laughed '—they might be the most innaccurate thing I have ever read.'

'But I like them,' her daughter protested.

'I know, baby bird. They were my favourites too when I was your age and for a few years afterward. Just remember they are not actually true. Especially in a few years when you are old enough to read the rest.' Fleur sliced through the pastry crust of her tart, cutting out a raspberry. 'Now, do you want to learn about our magic?'

Katie nodded so hard Fleur winced.

'C'est bon.' Fleur ate her slice of cake, enjoying the sweetness of the fruit, filling, and light crumbling pastry on her tongue. 'Well, let us start with a bit of background about us. Veela can, fairly reliably, trace their ancestry back to Mesopotamia and Media, which are regions in the east of the Ottoman Magical Caliphate. At the time, it was in the heart of the Achaemenid Empire, long before the Statute of Secrecy.'

'What's that?'

'The Statute?'

Her daughter nodded.

'A long long time ago, the people without magic lost faith that magic came from the divine, and, as people are, they were afraid of other people who could use it to hurt them. The Romans had a policy of concealing dangerous magical places from the muggles in their empire to keep them safe and happy, and, eventually, they chose to hide completely from the muggles. At first it was done bit by bit for safety, but eventually, a lot later, the International Cabal of Wychfolke was formed to make it official and enforce it across the world. It was a very complex situation and a lot of bad things have been done because of it.'

But soon it will be gone. Fierce hot hate flashed through Fleur. Because of him. Mithras.

Katie shivered. 'Maman?'

'Pardon, baby bird,' Fleur whispered. 'One day, I will tell you a lot about that statute, but not today. Today is our magic. And our magic, according to myth, comes from a sacred pact made between witches who were priestesses guarding the sacred flame of truth and the anzu, great magical eagles who could breathe fire. I am not sure that is true, more likely, perhaps, that the priestesses worked some magic upon themselves to create the veela, no doubt at a very high cost.'

The dark drained from Katie's eyes and she ooched her chair closer across the floor. 'And?'

'And at some point they were driven from their homeland, probably in the turmoil around the time of the Roman collapse and the earliest versions of the Statute of Secrecy. They went north, across the mountains, and then came west. For many years, they lived in the forests of Eastern Europe, and those places still hold great value to those veela that are left—'

'But then how did we end up here in France?' Katie asked.

Fleur hummed. 'I am not sure. I never asked my maman for the details, but I think my grand-mère, your arrière-grand-mère, came to France during a big war against someone called Grindelwald. But we are here now and that is what matters.'

Her daughter shovelled a huge piece of cake into her mouth, spilling crumbs down her front.

'Katrina, you are making a huge mess.'

Katie pouted and picked the crumbs off her dress. 'What about our magic?'

'It is what lets you sense how I feel when I cast spells, but our magic is… soft and very good for some kinds of magic—' Fleur paused '—this is quite complicated, little chick, so do not worry if you do not perfectly understand right away.'

Her daughter screwed her face up. 'I will.'

Fleur laughed. 'You are so very much like your maman.'

Katie's lower lip crept out a little further and she turned her nose up. 'I am not.'

You are just like me, silly little chick. Je t'adore.

'Well, there are some physical changes, non? I told you about those when you were smaller because you have those from quite young.' Fleur patted her bare arm with the handle of her fork. 'Soon your little fluffy white feathers will be big adult ones. That will be annoying for you, because they will itch and it stings the first few times they come through.'

'Am I old enough when I get those?' Katie demanded. 'They're adult feathers.'

'Katrina…'

Her daughter's eyes darkened a few shades of green. 'Maman…'

Fleur sighed. 'What you are getting now is the other side. There is an enchantment upon you to compel those who see you to do what you want. It is called the allure.'

'But you never do what I want,' Katie whined.

'I am very resistant to it, little chick, because I have my own. You will find there are those out there who have very little resistance to it at all. Usually, this is not a problem. My maman, your grand-mère, was not very powerful, so the passive effect of her magic on those who saw her was small. She would have to deliberately pour magic into it to really affect anyone.' Fleur cut herself another piece of cake. 'But my magic and my sister's magic were very strong. Mine in particular. You will be more like us, I think.'

'C'est bon.' Katie beamed. 'Then everyone will do what I want.'

No, little chick, everyone will try to be what you want one person to be. Even if you do not change as I changed, you will still struggle with that.

'Listen, little chick,' Fleur murmured. 'Your allure is just starting to come through. If you can, start to practise controlling it. Push your magic into it, pull your magic back from it, do it however you want to imagine it. You do not want everyone who meets or sees you to be affected by it, no matter how wonderful it might seem to have everyone always trying to give you what you want.'

Katie nodded. 'Okay, maman.' She curled her left hand into a fist. 'When can I throw fire like you?'

A soft laugh escaped Fleur. 'Not for another four or five years, my little veela fledgling. Adult feathers first.'

'So when I can throw fire, I'm definitely old enough?' her daughter asked.

'Sometime soon, I will start to teach you the basics of spellcraft, enchanting, and things like that,' Fleur promised. 'My wand will be a good fit for you, I think, so you can borrow my wand so long as you are careful and follow the rules. We do not want you to set fire to the château. It has been set on fire enough times.'

'It has been set on fire before?'

'Mostly by me and your auntie Gabby when we were younger.'

And once by Mithras. Fleur smothered the hot swell of hate. But he is gone and our daughter is safe, mon amour. I made sure.

'What will I learn first?' Katie asked, bouncing in her seat.

'A list of spells that all girls your age and older should know. There is one that counters the effect of cramps, and you will grow very fond of this spell in a few years.'

Her daughter wrinkled her nose. 'Period stuff. Urgh. Not again, maman.'

Fleur smiled. 'Okay, little chick, not today. But you will be very grateful for those spells, I promise.'

'When can I have my own wand?'

A trickle of cold dread pooled in the pit of Fleur's stomach and her heart trembled. We will have to go to a wandmaker for that. In Britain. I cannot make you one as good as Ollivander made for your papa, and the better your wand, the safer you will be.

'It will not be too long now,' she said. 'Maybe when you are doing well with my wand and I know you will not be silly with your own.'

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