Nothing is mine.
Sorry for this being a day late everyone, I messed up and thought I was meant to be posting a chapter of my original web serial instead of a chapter of this, so good news for people who like that, as they get it early, but bad news for everyone else. And me, my perfect posting streak is finally broken after two years.
Ah well, on with the story and this chapter that I also don't particularly like to read. It does do what I want, but, well, you'll see what I mean!
The Ever-After Bird
The fading autumn sunlight slipped through the kitchen window, falling in faint bars over the bare wooden surface of the kitchen table and across the tiled floor.
All your alchemy books are gone, Gabby. Fleur's stomach twisted into a tight hot knot. Has Harry finished with them? Faint hope trembled through that taut tangle of anxiety. Has he realised we already have our sunset? That we just have to wait for our little chick to be reborn?
'I suppose I will see.' She pulled the cupboard open, cupping the wisteria earring in the palm of her free hand. 'Tarte aux cerises, ma petite sœur. Not your favourite, but still cherries, non?' Fleur slid it onto a small plate and dug a fork out of the drawer.
I think we are close now, Gabby. She took a seat and sliced off a small square from the tart's edge. Your magic cannot last too much longer now.
Fleur let the sweet taste of almonds wash across her tongue, but her heart hung heavy and still, a lump of lead in her breast. She swallowed, cutting the tart into neat forkfuls piece by piece.
Heat flashed through her thumb; black ink spread beneath her thumbnail, curling into the branches and roots of the willow tree.
That is where you are, Mon Amour. Are you visiting our little angel? Fleur dropped her fork and stood up, shoving her chair back. Or have you forgotten us for this new plan again?
She apparated down, stepping barefoot onto the cold white pebbles as warmth flared in her thumb.
Harry paced the edge of the pensieve; a wild spark burnt in his green eyes as he spun his wand in his fingers and twisted on his heel, chopping and changing direction as he prowled back and forth along the curve of warped silver.
Fleur's stomach coiled into a tight tangle of knots. 'Harry,' she murmured.
His head snapped up and he stopped dead; the light in his eyes faded, his expression smoothing out like wrinkles being swept from silk. 'Fleur.'
Not mon Amour? Not mon Trésor? The knots in her tummy trembled. Not mon Rêve?
'Qu'est-ce que tu fais?' Fleur murmured.
'Alchemy.'
She watched the wall go up in his green eyes and caught the faint twitch of a sad little smile as it brightened and broadened into shining false cheer.
It has been years since I saw that smile. Fleur's stomach churned with guilt. Not since you were so afraid I would leave you for some cursebreaker that you started waiting for it to happen. A horrible thought bubbled up, bursting in a gush of cold sickness as Harry's gaze dropped to his wand and his pacing resumed. Have you not told me something again? You kept everything a secret from me before too. But this time you promised. You promised no more secrets. Fleur watched him prowl back and forth, twisting and turning in abrupt jerks, his fingers twitching and tapping against his thigh. Something is wrong. You never needed anything like this but us and our dream before. Why do you need it? I do not understand. We are right here.
'What's the alchemy for?' she asked, stepping forward.
Harry froze. 'For keeping promises.'
'Your plan.'
He nodded. 'I need to speed it up, make it happen faster, but first I have to find a way to make it work, and I just can't wrap my head around how to change the intent of someone else. It's impossible.'
'Speed it up.' A bitter heat coiled on Fleur's tongue. 'Why?'
'To stop Grindelwald, I have to convince him there's a better way. I can't beat him. I just can't. But I spoke to the portrait of Dumbledore—'
'Dumbledore?' Fleur narrowed her eyes.
So you were keeping secrets, but not like before. The heat simmered in her bones and feathers prickled beneath her skin. You were not afraid of me leaving if you said anything, you just did not want to tell me.
'He didn't defeat Grindelwald,' Harry said. 'Not in a duel. He lost the duel, but he convinced Grindelwald to try things his way and Grindelwald surrendered rather than kill his friend. They worked together the whole time he was in Nurmengard but it didn't succeed, so when I killed Dumbledore, Grindelwald went back to his first plan…' He clenched his fist around his wand, his knuckles turning white as the wood creaked in his hand; the bright, mad light smouldered in his green eyes as he stared off into the distance. 'I have to convince him too. But I can't do that if this doesn't work.'
And you need it. The heat of Fleur's anger guttered out and she turned away to blink back tears. Like you used to only need me.
Harry stiffened in the corner of her eye. 'Maybe Salazar had some books in his library that might help. He loved abstract magic.' He vanished with a soft snap.
Fleur stared down into the silver pensieve. Browning rose petals pooled in the base, fluttering in the faint cool autumn breeze. Her stomach shrank, knotting itself into a ball of brittle, tight barbs.
'Fleur Delacour does not fail...' Her fingers crept to the wisteria earring. 'You were wrong Gabby. I do. I did. I have.'
He is gone. Gone to play at being a hero, like Dumbledore and all those selfish little people wanted. A jagged ache twisted between her ribs, sweet hot sharpness slicing through her heart. But it burnt out to bitter ashes in her breast. Maybe he has been gone this whole time. Maybe I just confused things with all those memories.
She slipped to one knee, brushing her shaking fingertips along the warped, ruined silver of the pensieve. 'Did you escape at all?' Fleur whispered. 'Did I leave you trapped in there forever, mon Cœur? Did you sacrifice the one last wish of a boy whose wishes never came true to save our baby bird's sunset and get left behind?'
But someone came back. I put someone through all those memories. Fleur's tummy churned. Cold fear and sick thick revulsion bubbled through the trembling tangle of taut knots. And if Harry did not come back, then you are Voldemort. The other one of two. And we… I… The memory of their breathless desperate need, his thumb on her tongue, the feel of his warm skin on hers and the taste of him on her lips swam through her thoughts. I swallowed… I…
Fleur's stomach surged and she gagged, retching and heaving, hurling acrid vomit down the ruined silver pensieve.
The sick trickled down into the rotting rose petals as she wiped her lips and smothered a gag.
Non. He was Harry then. He did not know. He needed me. He loved me. It is only now that he must be becoming Voldemort. Because I failed and what he needs is not our dream; it is something important. Like when he first came back to me before.
Fleur pushed herself to her feet and pulled her wand out, vanishing the rose petals and her vomit with a flick of her wrist. 'What now, ma petite sœur? How can there be no more hurting now?'
Black silk fluttered in the corner of her eye and the bare brown willow fronds swayed.
Our baby bird. Fleur swallowed a stab of bittersweet agony. You will be coming back for certain now, non? Your papa did what he promised you he would. It was your maman who failed.
She tucked her wand away and froze. 'But Voldemort, Voldemort chased something great. And that required sacrifice…'
Panic lanced through Fleur. What will Voldemort do to our little angel to complete his plan? To me? Leave us behind? Or…?
Her mind raced, caught in a tangle of jagged bittersweet memories and flashes of cold fear. 'Harry beat me duelling aged fifteen. If he is gone… who can stop Voldemort now?'
Fleur's heart hammered against her ribs and she snatched her wand back out, darting around the willow tree, slicing a slim branch from its boughs and shrinking it down. She conjured a small glass jar and crammed it in, jamming the tip of her wand in.
'Aguamenti.'
Cold water splashed down Fleur's front and flooded the jar, splattering across her bare feet and the white stones as she sprinted back to the pensieve.
Somewhere safe. She scrawled runes within the circles on the side with her wand and pressed the jar of willow branch against the silver.
It vanished with a quiet pop.
There. If it all goes wrong. I can come here, destroy the willow and take this. Then Katie will be reborn wherever I go.
Fleur sucked in a deep breath and straightened up, clutching the smooth warm rose wood tight. 'Just in case.'
Her gaze strayed to the dark silk hanging over the Mirror of Erised as the panic ebbed. Your papa would be a fretting mess even if I had succeeded, mon Poussin. Fleur took another deep breath, drawing in the cool autumn air and releasing a long sigh, letting her heart calm and the cold, sick, bubbling dread dissipate. And he has not gone off to play hero yet. He just cannot wait and hope for you.
'Come back soon, baby bird,' Fleur whispered. 'Let go. You have to die. You must.'
You cannot be reborn before you die, mon Poussin. And you have to die soon. Before your papa gets any worse. The nausea bubbled in her belly. If there is anything left of your papa anymore.
Fleur bent and picked up a single cold white pebble. 'Just do it,' she whispered. 'It will hurt so much, but afterward everything will be perfect again.'
As long as I did not fail.
She pulled out her wand and stepped around the pensieve, whipping the dark silk away.
Katie wriggled in Harry's arms, one striped sock falling off as she grabbed for the long silver hair of Fleur's reflection with her small fingers.
Fleur's heart squirmed at the grin on Harry's face and their beaming daughter.
It will all be like this again soon.
Fleur's reflection scooped Katie from Harry's embrace and held her out with a soft warm smile. Fleur swallowed hard and extended her shaking arms.
Katie's weight fell into them.
'Hello, my baby bird.' Fleur brushed the limp silver curls back off Katie's pale, black-veined cheek with the back of her hand. 'This is the only way.' She lay Katie down on the white pebbles and transfigured the one in her fist into a short, gleaming steel knife. 'It will be our little secret, non? Your papa must never know.'
Katie's wide green eyes stared up at her through the shimmer of Gabby's magic, brimming with fearful tears.
But I promised. I promised no more secrets. Fleur stared at the blurred reflection of her face in the steel blade, bitter self-loathing bubbled beside the lingering nausea. And no more hurting. But here I am…
She set her wand down and pressed the tip of the blade to Katie's chest, resting it on the thick web of pitch black veins above her heart. Before the eye of her mind, red welled up, rising like Sophonissa from the depths of the Tophet; bright as blood, it pulsed from pale skin and poured over the pebbles, gushing from the deep gash gaping open from elbow to wrist in Katie's small arm and trickling away through the stones like sand draining through an hourglass. Fleur's skin crawled and the nausea in her stomach writhed and thrashed like a rotting pit of fat wriggling maggots.
Do not think about it. Fleur squeezed her eyes shut and clutched the knife tight in her hands, sucking in a deep breath. The more it hurts, the more perfect it will be when she is reborn.
The blade slipped from her shaking fingers and slid down Katie's side onto the stones beside her arm.
You were right, Gabby. I am breaking all my promises to you, but I can't see another way. Hot tears blurred on Fleur's lashes. Je suis désolée, ma petite sœur.
Fleur pushed Katie's sleeve up and pressed the tip of the shining steel blade against the crook of her elbow. 'Je suis désolée, baby bird,' she whispered, wrapping her fingers tight around the hilt of the knife. 'Heroes save little girls… and then they die. Your papa saved you and maybe he died too. But I cannot do it that way.'
She twisted the tip of the knife, pushing it into Katie's soft pale skin.
Bright red blood welled up into a trembling bead; it burst and crept down Katie's arm, leaving a shining trail of crimson over the web of ink-black veins to her wrist.
Bile surged up from the writhing mass of rotting maggots in Fleur's belly and the blade fell from her fingers.
I cannot do it.
A scream clawed its way up from melting crimson blossom and the deep red gash down Gabby's arm; it stuck at the back of Fleur's throat, trapped in a little fluttering bubble, held back by the faintest whisper of Gabby's voice as she trickled away beneath cherry trees. We promised. We promised and it was supposed to be perfect now.
She flicked the blade away into the river with her toes and scooped Katie up, cradling her close and pressing soft kisses to her cheeks and forehead. 'Je suis désolée, petit ange,' Fleur murmured. 'Je suis désolée.'
It hurt so much to get here. Why isn't it perfect? Why does it always have to hurt more?
Fleur squeezed her eyes shut against the wet warmth of tears and held her daughter close; a little shiver ran down her spine at the faint tickle of Katie's breaths on her neck.
But if I cannot hurt her to make everything perfect, then Harry will not be able to hurt her either. She passed Katie back into Mirror of Erised and the arms of Fleur's smiling reflection and swiped her tears away on the back of her hand.
Beneath the shining silver surface, Harry wiggled a finger into Katie's small fists and waved her hands around in the air until their daughter beamed and giggled, her bright green eyes brimming with joy.
A sharp, bitter pang tore through Fleur's chest.
If he cannot hurt her, then that is a good sign it is Harry. But if he can… She swept the black silk veil back over the Mirror of Erised and picked her wand back up off the cold white stones.
If he can, then I failed. And he never came back after all.
AN: All the links are on my profile or at the end of this linktree.
linktr . ee / mjbradley