Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Additionally, there is referenced character death and anti-vax rhetoric (and the cost of it). Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: …this ended up a lot more sad that I intended. Please just vaccinate, people.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Ministry (Winter Year 1); RAVEN (2023); MC4A (Winter Year 5)
Individual Challenges: Old Shoes (Y); Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); The 3rd Rule; Ship Sails; Setting Sail; Shipwreck; Zed Era; In a Flash; Small Fry
Ministry Challenges: FSF [Day 17] (Fleur/Luna)
RAVEN Challenges: Settings [68](Funeral); Items [121](Stuffed Toy); Colors [75](Juniper)
Other Challenges: Zee Monthly [Day 21](Thank)
Other MC4A Challenges: Ship (Ship)[FaMed1 (Single Parent)]; Chim [Rick]("Louder than Words" – Tick, Tick, Boom; Life/Death; Race Bend);Fire [x3](Baby Needs a Hug); Hang [Phrase 4] (n/a); Soup [L](Lavender); Swap [Outerwear (Fringe Denim Jacket); Bedding (Skull Pattern Knitted Blanket); Toys (Stuffed Dragon)]
Representation(s): Past Bill Weasley/Fleur Delacour; Fleur Delacour/Luna Lovegood; Baby Victoire Weasley
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Sweetest Burn; Second Verse (Clio's Conclusion); Chorus (Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: SHoE (Sorority; Terse); FIN (Ensanguine; Brae); SS (Schooner; Sanctuary); AD (Association)
Word Count: 936 words

(^^)
In Death
(^^)

Fleur slowly walked around the gathering with Victoire nestled in her arms. Her cornflower blue eyes took in each person in the room and taking in their conversations. As expected given who the funeral was for, there was an alarming amount of redheads present. No matter how Fleur was feeling about Molly at the moment, it was good to see the family turn out to say goodbye to Bill.

She paused in her circuit to press her forehead against Victoire's strawberry blond curls. The scent of her lavender shampoo soothed the ache Fleur had been trying to ignore for the better part of the afternoon. It was harder than she had thought it would be, even if they had a bit of warning that this was inevitable.

Thank the gods that they had gotten Victoire all of her inoculations or she would have been just as vulnerable the Dragon Pox that had stolen away her Bill. They had just not thought to verify that Bill had gotten all of his, operating under the assumption that vaccination was just the thing that good parents would do. Since everyone always raved about how great a mother Molly Weasley was, they hadn't thought to check until Bill had already been showing symptoms.

That Molly had opted to get none of her children vaccinated, despite inoculations being a free service, was something that shocked all of the younger generation. Her reasoning made no sense to any of them. She had just expected them all to be fine. Harry had hesitantly pointed out that Molly had done the same thing concerning the war. She had just declared that they weren't going to be involved and would hear no arguments otherwise.

That all of her surviving children weren't talking to her was a cold comfort in the weeks it had taken for the Dragon Pox to eat away at the otherwise healthy man. It might have been even faster if Bill hadn't had a tiny variation of lycanthropy enhancing his immune system. It was never enough to make his transform, but it had bought them time.

Fleur swayed where she was. She felt numb inside, like she had been hollowed out. Victoire shifted in her arms, somewhere between awake and asleep. The eighteen-month-old would likely not remember her father as anything but someone in photographs and stories. The thought of that hurt. Fleur blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears threatening to overwhelm her.

Once the blurriness cleared, she could see Luna standing a few feet away, looking beautiful and mysterious in her long, black dress. In her arms was a stuffed dragon the exact color of the juniper trees near Shell Cottage. It looked incredibly soft and squeezable. Luna caught Fleur's gaze and smiled slightly. Fleur felt a spark of attraction and quickly turned away.

Luna edged closer, as if she wanted to start a conversation or maybe give Victoire the stuffy. Fleur felt her heart flutter wildly in her chest. It took effort but she managed to smile back. It had been more than a year since they had seen each other, and Fleur found that she had missed the other blonde. Idly, she wondered if she was still interested in her.

Fleur cleared his throat and forced herself to say something. "Hi, Luna. It's been a while."

Luna smiled and leaned in closer. "It has. I've been in Greece. My mother's homeland has a preserve with a sizable population of snorlacks that I've been studying. They're spiral-horned, unfortunately, but I did hear of evidence being found of a possible herd of crumple-horned in the Andes."

"That sounds fascinating," Fleur said, her voice a bit too loud as she heard Molly give an agonized wail from the far side of the room. The smile stayed on her face but it suddenly felt as brittle and fragile as Fleur herself did. Luna's gray eyes stayed fixated on her face as she gave the tiniest of nods. She gestured towards the French doors that led out to the patio.

"You should step outside," Luna suggested, as she slipped her wand out of the holster on her arm. A very pointed summoning charm had a denim jacket with fringe and a pale lavender knitted blanket with a repeating skull pattern flying through the air towards them. With great care, Luna wrapped the blanket around Victoire before ushering Fleur out into the February cold. Only once they were outside did Luna drape the denim jacket over Fleur's shoulders before casting a warming charm over all of them.

For a few moments, the two just stood there, awkwardly trying to not to look at each other. Suddenly, Luna broke the silence.

"It's not fair," she said. "I know you know that, but I wanted you to know that you weren't alone in knowing. It's not fair that this happened, and it's not fair that Molly still doesn't think that she did anything wrong."

Fleur nodded. Her lips trembled from the grief and rage that threatened to overcome her. "It is just so infuriating. All of this could have been prevented if she had just listened to the healers instead of thinking she always knew better. My Bill would still be alive if she hadn't been so proud."

Luna nodded and rubbed absently over Fleur's arm. Her breath hitched once, then twice. On the third time she lost the fight against the tears and broke down crying. Like the lover that Fleur and Bill had given an open-ended invitation to during those hard weeks following the final battle, Luna simply held her through the storm.