Harry tossed in the too-large bed, shifting to a new, cooler spot. He had kicked the soft, heavy covers down by the footboard and lay almost diagonally across the massive mattress. Sleep fled from him, ignoring the fact that he was more drained than he remembered ever feeling before.
He lifted his once-broken appendage in front of his face, flexing blurry fingers in the near darkness of his bedroom. An almost full-moon rested above the horizon outside his drawn curtains, its silver light peeking through the small gaps in bright white slashes across the carpet.
He rolled over again. And again.
Giving up, he slipped off the bed, grabbing his glasses from the nightstand as he made his way over to the window. He pulled the curtain aside, squinting at the moonlight shining through a clear night sky. It bathed the twilight-green treetops in its glow, besieged in one small part by a yellow light spilling out of the window to his left. Flashes of color lit the air outside Fleur's window in sporadic bursts, painting the grass and forest-edge below.
He stared at that light, watching as a shadow wandered across it; a phantom winding through the sleeping forest. With a sigh, he let the curtain fall and shuffled back to his bed, dropping his glasses back onto the side table..
A quiet moonlit night, with his friend practicing magic right next door. A meal that could have rivaled Hogwarts cooking and a bed that he could roll around in five and a half times before almost falling to the floor. He had been told he would never have to see his relatives again and the potions had healed his body in a sliver of the time it would have taken otherwise.
The day had started with the promise of painful discipline and ended in paradise.
Why did it feel so…wrong?
He rolled over, sinking into the too-thick duvet he had piled at the end of the bed then sat up, turning to stare at the veritable mountain of pillows opposite him. It was just…too soft. Even the beds at Hogwarts, while well-maintained, had never been quite as mushy as this.
And so many pillows. He could have slept atop them with enough left over to still rest his head upon. One was plenty.
He grabbed the thinner, flat sheet from where it tangled beneath the duvet and pulled it free from its confines beneath the mattress. He tossed it over the end of the footboard and slid off the bed, leaning over to grab a pillow from the top.
In time, he was sure he'd learn to enjoy such a luxurious bed. It wasn't something many people got to enjoy and was something he had dreamed of for years. He stared at the vacant mattress, hesitating as he stopped at the end of the footboard. Once, he had thought his mattress on the floor of Dudley's second bedroom had been an extravagant gift.
Well, now he knew what a true extravagance looked like.
He slid onto his trunk, pulling the blanket over himself as he rolled to face the wooden footboard that rested in front of his face. He smashed the fluffy pillow down with the side of his head and let his eyes close, finally succumbing to the sleep he had been searching for.
In the welcome darkness of sleep, he dreamt of Fleur and her mother, blue fire spilling from human hands. They hurled the churning fireballs into the darkness, the heat around him fading with each throw. Warm air buffeted their clothes and hair, the azure light falling upon a purple ribbon braided into Fleur's hair.
When he awoke, he found he had kicked his blanket to the ground and was sleeping on an entirely numb arm. He pushed himself up and blinked, his thoughts trudging through the sludge of half-consciousness. Sunlight poured around the openings in the curtains in front of him and a panic built in his chest.
How long had he been asleep? How late was it?
He rolled off his trunk and popped the latch, fishing out a pair of trousers and a shirt from on top that he had left inside at the end of the last school year. A faint musty smell dropped around him as he pulled the shirt on but he ignored it and stepped out of his pajama bottoms and into his trousers. He tugged on a pair of socks as he hopped over to his nightstand, grabbing his glasses and wand.
He pulled open his door and turned to head downstairs to the kitchen, only to find Fleur's mother stepping onto the second floor. She turned to him as he came to a halt outside his door.
"Good morning, Harry. Perfect timing," she said with a smile. "I've just finished making breakfast and was about to come to wake you and Fleur." Her smile widened. "I am glad to see I will only have to rouse one cranky person. Despite my best efforts, Fleur is not an early riser. She could stand to learn a thing or two from her younger sister."
"Good morning, Ma'am," he answered, the fog of his odd sleep refusing to lift. Even though he had his glasses on, it was as though the massive house around him refused to come into focus. "I was, er…coming down to help make breakfast."
"That is very kind, but unnecessary. It is something I do every morning anyway. It is a small thing to set one more plate at the table."
"Yes, Ma'am," he said, fidgeting on the spot.
Everything felt wrong…but this was where he was supposed to be, wasn't it? Even his clothes felt more uncomfortable than usual. He glanced down to find he had put his shirt on backward, the frayed tag tickling his neck, and felt his ears heat.
"Apolline or Mrs. Delacour is fine," she reminded him, though her tone was soft. "Gabrielle is already at the table. Head on down and pick your place while I wake Fleur."
He shifted his shirt around the right way as he descended the stairs to find Gabrielle waiting for him at the table. She offered him a smile and presumably a greeting in French.
"I'm sorry," he said, pulling out the chair opposite her and sitting down. "I don't really know French."
She pursed her lips in thought for a moment before speaking again, her words accented though recognizable.
"Good morning," she said, testing each word before saying it aloud.
He racked his brain.
"Er…Bonjour?"
She nodded, grinning, and he relaxed.
Apolline and Fleur joined them a few minutes later, the latter rather bleary-eyed, though somehow, paradoxically, still flawless. He felt like a lumpy rock sitting between them while they ate, doubly so without Mr. Delacour at the table with them.
"I can show you around after we are done," Fleur said, taking a bite of melon.
Breakfast was rather…less than he was accustomed to seeing, though the fruit and bread with jam were far more enjoyable than the single egg he was usually allowed. He nodded in response to Fleur's offer and made a mental note to try not to gawk too much at the extravagant home.
Following breakfast, she led him through the house, lingering in the modest ballroom to show him a beautiful ebony piano. She pressed on a few of the keys experimentally, creating a horrid off-tone to which she shrugged, mentioning that Gabrielle had been the one born with a talent for instruments.
Their tour ended at a back door that opened into a small garden. Flowers bloomed in the bright noonday sun, reaching toward the sky. It was small, and as the treeline began only a few dozen paces from the house.
Fleur stepped lightly through the garden, padding across a small stone path in bare feet. She ignored the flowers, instead making a beeline directly for the edge of the woods.
"I spend most of my summers out here," she said, reaching out to brush a hand across the leaves of a low-hanging branch. "I find the trees calming."
He peered into the shadowed darkness. A breeze rolled through the trees, sending shimmering light scattering across the ground as it peeked through the shifting branches above.
"Don't you get lost?"
She followed his gaze, a nervous smile flitting across her features.
"I have a good sense of direction," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Especially in these woods. I have roamed them since I was a little girl."
She faltered, her gaze wandering off to her right, blue eyes focused on something unseen.
"Follow me."
She turned, shifting their aimless wandering into the trees. Twigs and leaves crunched beneath his shoes while his feet caught on the occasional reaching root peeking through the fallen detritus of the canopy above.
Fleur, however, glided through the trees undisturbed, the only sound that of a formless tune resonating from her throat. The sunlight peeking through the trees above danced across her shoulders and long swaying hair, leaving her radiant in even such sparse light.
Fairy ancestry indeed.
They twisted and turned, following whatever unseen path Fleur wandered to pull them deeper into the forest. He trailed a hand across the rough bark as they walked, breathing deeply the earthy scent of the forest.
Her humming stopped and a breeze blew around them, bringing with it the smell of open air. Ahead, the shade lifted, allowing light to spill across a grassy clearing. She beckoned him forward with a wave of her hand, stepping over roots and fallen branches as she strode towards the open space. He followed behind, if a bit less graceful than his friend.
Trees ringed the open area with long-reaching branches shading the periphery. The grass was thick, though not tall, only reaching up to the tops of his trainers. Gray rounded mushroom caps dotted the clearing, peeking out from the grass at random points.
In the center sat a ring of rocks, placed just far enough apart for Fleur to leap from stone to stone. She leapt to another before turning to him, splaying her arms wide to encompass the clearing. Her dark baggy shirt hung off her arms, billowing in the light wind as she spun around. Long loose trousers clung to her legs through the breeze, falling down below her ankles.
"This is my favorite spot in all the woods," she said, completing her revolution and letting her hands fall. Her loose hair continued with its momentum, some of it swinging over her shoulder to her front.
"It is where I come to…" she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. "I do not know the words. To be the most of myself."
"I understand."
He let his gaze slide from her, no matter how the sunlight shining across her hair drew his eye.
Oaken guards stood sentry around the perimeter of the tranquil clearing, the very forest itself enveloping them, protecting them, and watching over them.
They were the only two people in this world.
Voldemort. His family. Sirius's trial. An upcoming war.
It all faded beneath the warm summer sun and the breeze through the trees. It wasn't all gone, not really, but made mundane—muted—before the vibrancy of her sanctuary.
It thrilled and terrified him.
In a space of such purity and isolation, he found himself thin; transparent.
Who was Harry Potter, stripped of the trappings of his monikers and horrible pseudonyms?
When the worthless freak and the Boy-Who-Lived faded away, what was left?
That unknown answer gnawed at him, a hole somewhere deeper than the center of his chest that yearned to be filled. He looked to the perfect blue sky and the sun shining above and felt no more substantial than one of its glimmering sunbeams.
Fleur let out a faint grunt as she hopped from stone to stone, her arms held out for balance. He blinked at the sight, the oddity of it wrenching him from such frightfully dominant thoughts. Her loose hair bounced with each jump and she would occasionally slip on one particularly mossy stone, only to continue her path around the circle.
He sat down, running an idle hand through the tall grass. He plucked one from the ground and rolled it between his fingers. The sunlight warmed him from its perch high above, and it wasn't long before he laid down. He closed his eyes and listened to the quiet song of the forest, punctuated by an occasional quiet curse from Fleur when she slipped. How odd that a scant year after first seeing her—being captivated by her—in the top box at the world cup, he would be watching as she hopped barefoot from rock to rock in a private clearing on her family's estate.
At some unknown point, he fell asleep.
XxX
She dragged him back to the clearing each day, and each day he found that the same peace that lent such ambiance to the clearing only served to amplify his discordant thoughts when they were back at the house.
The other Delacours were wonderful. There was no denying that.
Even Sebastian, on the rare occasion that he was home, made time to include Harry as much as he was able. Mrs. Delacour, while slightly more…intense than her eldest daughter, made sure to check on him from time to time to ensure he was okay. He had discovered rather quickly that she did not entertain even the slightest notion that he needed to help around the house.
It left him feeling oddly without purpose.
He followed Fleur out to the woods for the fifth day. It was one of the rare days when her father had been home for breakfast, his presence interjecting a surprising amount of tension into Harry. He bid the older man goodbye following the meal as Fleur all but dragged him outside amidst complaints from Gabrielle.
Light clouds obscured the sun he had grown to enjoy, though none threatened rain. She led him on a new path to the clearing, her hair tied with a simple yellow ribbon. She had started tying it their second day out in the woods, each day with a piece of different brightly-colored fabric. She slipped into a long-sleeved shirt when she had seen the cloudy sky, citing a slight chill whenever the sun wasn't shining directly on her.
They made a small detour when Fleur pointed off to her left then slid effortlessly through the trees and underbrush towards some unseen goal. By the time he reached her, she had squatted down and had her fingers buried in the earth, uncovering a large, mostly buried, stone.
"Couldn't you levitate it out?" he asked.
"I could," she said, trying to wiggle the large stone free of its confines. "But that is not the point. Nor is it as much fun."
With a heave, it came free, flopping out onto the leaf-strewn ground. She grinned.
"After all, this was how I got all the others."
Grunting, she hefted the stone with two hands and turned to continue their trek back to her clearing.
Fortunately for her arms, they weren't far, and she deposited the stone at the edge of the circle. She went around widening it by hand, taking care to pluck a mushroom that was in the way of one of her stepping stones.
He watched in silence, fighting a frown at the tension that lingered in his shoulders. There was no reason to feel upset when in Fleur's idyllic forest clearing. It had been a normal morning, despite Mr. Delacour's presence. He had even managed to suppress the flinch when the older man had been gesturing during an irritated retelling of a recent meeting with Fudge.
Why couldn't he stop thinking about each impulse that danced across his spine in an attempt to pull him back from the gesturing man? Why couldn't he sleep in the most luxurious bed he had ever laid eyes on? And why did he feel useless every time Mrs. Delacour politely rebuffed his offers of help?
He was living a life so good that his dreams from before paled in comparison. So why was he so ashamed, instead of gratified?
The sting of welts crept over his shoulders; a multitude of burning fingers snaking their way around his neck. He looked up into the sky, the clouds above a dismal match for the fog rolling through his thoughts. Even through the protective tree line surrounding the clearing, his uncle's voice echoed in the shadowy darkness, much as it did while he tossed and turned atop his trunk each night.
A corrosive mix of shame and bitter hatred rose from his stomach, coalescing somewhere in his throat. He tried to force it back.
Fleur was hopping across her rocks. The sun shone down on her, even through the clouds.
He shouldn't be thinking about such things. They had no use.
They came anyway.
XxX
"Fleur?"
His voice burst out as though it had tumbled from him, rather than actual directed speech. The oddity of it made her misstep her landing on the next rock, almost spilling her onto the grass. She looked over to him and found not the slight smile she had come to enjoy seeing on him during their time in her secret home but a face twisted into the most intense display of emotion she had ever seen from her stoic friend.
She took a careful step closer. The thunder of her pulse echoed in her ears. He was meant to find peace with her in this special place, not more turmoil.
"Yes?" she asked, taking another step closer.
His shadowed green eyes roamed the ground between them, looking everywhere but at her.
"I keep-" he tried, jerking slightly as he spoke. "It's incredible here. Your house is amazing, and so is your family."
He waved a weak arm across the clearing.
"And this place…It's all so perfect."
She clamped down on a platitude before it could pass her lips, instead opting for another tentative step forward.
How could someone she had watched be so strong in the face of death look as though he was about to blow away?
He let out a hollow, heartbreaking laugh and rested his gaze somewhere around her feet.
"So if it's all so perfect, then why can't I get him out of my head?"
His voice cracked across the mention of who she presumed to be his uncle, but he barreled on, oblivious.
"I dream about him. About all of them. I spend my days in this place and then go back to nightmares that I'm back at their house. Where you've all sent me back and they're as terrible as ever."
He clasped his right arm with his left hand, his lips drawn into a tight, thin line.
There had been no doubt the phrase 'They hurt me' had done little to encapsulate the reality of his situation, and as she watched cracks spiderweb their way across his glass facade, her heart broke along with him.
"I know you wouldn't do that," he continued, shrugging tense shoulders. "Even so, every single night and every day, I can't get away from it."
His gaze traveled up to hers, slow and trepidatious. She was met with wet green eyes and the thin line of his lips finally broke into a shaking frown.
"What's wrong with me?"
Her answer was lost among the wave of feeling that poured from him, blanketing her other senses in a tempest that stunned her into temporary silence.
Waves of high buzzing anxiety, so close to happy excitement, churned around him like a living fog. The hollow muted ringing of fear mingled in, setting her own stomach to doing nervous flips. And deep below it all, a fierce vibrating thrum. A black and red vibration so close to hatred, yet so horrible and unique that she couldn't place it.
She drew in a reflexive breath, packaging the sense away as she had learned to do, though such intense varied emotions struggled against her control; a far cry from the basic minor joy and prickly jealous anger she felt while attending Beauxbatons.
She fought for a reply of sufficient magnitude. One that could match his admission and quell the turbulent sense that boiled out of him in waves.
What on earth could she say to comfort someone who stood before her, so open and raw?
Her sense of him began to flicker, a guttering flame fighting to stay alight. He was pulling away. She had to say something.
"It is them," she said, her voice desperate and weak. "They are the monsters, not you."
"But why-"
"There is no 'but,' 'Arry," she interrupted as gently as she could manage. "Maman said it could be a challenge to acclimate to a new lifestyle such as this. It is so different from what you have known. You lived a lifetime with those horrible people. Less than a week outside of such a nightmare is not sufficient time to heal. A broken bone does not heal in a day."
"So I'm…broken?"
A new swell of anxious fear accompanied wide eyes.
Violent curses rebounded inside in her head at her slip.
"No. I misspoke and I apologize. It is more akin to being injured. You will get better."
"But how?" His shoulders slumped with the weight of his question.
"I…I do not know. I am sorry. I am sure there are people who do, and I will help you if I can. That is, if you want me to." She tried to offer him a reassuring smile as he focused on her. No small amount of awe peppered her sense of him.
"You're not…disgusted, by all this?"
"Disgusted?" she echoed, fighting against the fiery anger that threatened to rise on his behalf. What had they done to him? "I am not disgusted by you, 'Arry," she said, holding his gaze with her own. "Anybody who is, is not worth your time."
Miraculously, his tumultuous emotions settled at her words and he wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, his cheeks tinting pink. She chewed at her lip, afraid that she would push him away in his vulnerable state…
But she had promised.
"'Arry?" she asked, trying to ignore the sudden spike of fear pulsing from him. "I made you a promise." Hints of curiosity. "I am able to sense you again. It has not gone away like last time."
She braced herself against the sudden loss of sensation, but it never came. Instead, the fear abated, mixing with mild embarrassment.
"I-I see," he said, running a hand through his messy hair. "What... er, what do you feel… from me?"
She tried a comforting smile. "There is no reason to be embarrassed," she said, opting away from his prevailing sense of anxiety. "Your emotions are safe with me. I will never tell anyone what you are feeling, nor will I use them against you. Please, trust me."
He nodded, his sense fading to a more tame vague unease. "I do," he said. "It's just… odd. And I wish I wasn't so all over the place."
"That is understandable but you cannot control every little thing you feel. To expect you to do so is to ask the impossible."
The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile before fading. She let out a slow breath of relief.
"Thanks," he muttered. "I feel a bit better."
"I can tell," she said, her voice gentle to soften the blow. He stared at her a moment before the realization settled on him.
"That'll take some getting used to."
"Is it okay?" she asked, masking the nervous butterflies spinning in her stomach. "I know the idea made you uncomfortable before. I am sure we could find somewhere else for you to stay if you would prefer."
"No!" he almost shouted, an instant sense of panic and urgency following his outburst. "It's fun at the Weasley's but it's busy and loud. I like the calm here better, I think."
He glanced at her and a jolt of embarrassment lanced through his sense before fading.
"I am glad," she said, smiling.
The conversation died away and she was gratified to find his sense stable, contemplative. She searched for something to divert them from such painful topics, and a slow grin pulled at her lips.
"I have something for you," she said, nodding in the direction of the house.
"You do?"
She nodded, grabbed his hand, and pulled him into the trees.
XxX
She led him up the stairs, unable to stop the compulsion to check to make sure he was still behind her. He still radiated a nervous yet curious sense, but it helped to see him. Each time she looked back, he offered her a wooden smile that broke her heart just a little further. She had pushed so hard in her efforts to help him to be free of his monstrous relatives, and yet they had followed him all the way to France. There was going to be so much more to helping him than she had expected.
But that didn't matter.
She stopped in front of her bedroom door, hand lingering above the knob. The flowers on her golden name-plate bloomed in a continuous loop around the calligraphy of her name, the same as the musical notes spun around Gabrielle's to her left.
She set her jaw and pushed open her door, inviting him inside.
The bed was unmade, though far less of a mess than she usually left it, and for that she was grateful. She hadn't planned to give him his gift so soon, nor had she expected to do so in her bedroom, but she had needed a distraction.
"Sit there," she commanded, pointing to her cushioned reading chair situated in a corner next to her bookshelf. "And close your eyes."
"Why?" he asked, dropping down into the chair and dutifully closing his eyes.
She leaned down to make sure his eyes were properly closed, then moved over to her desk.
"For your surprise!" she said, rummaging through her topmost desk drawer. Had she really buried the thing?
"Why do I have to close my eyes for a surprise?" he asked, his sense twisting into faint confusion.
She glanced over to where he sat, back straight, eyes closed. She ruthlessly pushed the burning anger back down and returned to her search. He had experienced enough anger in his life. There was no need for him to experience hers as well, even if directed elsewhere.
Those…horrible people.
"It was something Maman always had me do when giving me a birthday present," she explained, pulling a slightly flattened box from beneath her well-used hair brush. She squeezed the sides, restoring it to near its original height.
Shock traveled through his sense and she saw him shift out of the corner of her eye to stare at her.
"My birthday was-"
She tutted, affecting a gentle frown. "Eyes closed, please."
He didn't comply right away, the sudden intensity of his gaze matched by a singular focus spinning through her sense of him.
The focus faded back into nerves and he nodded slowly, closing his eyes.
She stepped back over to him, the box held in front of her.
"Hold out your hands."
She set the wrapped, barely squashed gift into his waiting palms.
"Happy birthday!"
He opened his eyes to find the small green box resting in his open hands. Wide, green eyes stared up at her, the shock dancing through his sense only increasing.
"My birthday was at the end of July," he said, his voice a fragile whisper. "It wasn't important enough for you to have to get me something."
"Birthdays are very important, 'Arry," she said with a smile, then nodded to the gift. "Open it."
Her hands found their way to the end of her ribbon, tugging on the end of its yellow length while he carefully peeled apart the wrapping paper. Once finished, he lifted the lid from the small box to expose the folded piece of parchment. He pulled it out and unfolded it, confusion seeping into his sense as he looked up at her.
"I know," she said, unable to stop the grin. "It looks like a blank piece of parchment, but it is not." She rushed over to her desk where the twin lay on top. "Or rather, it is, but not for long."
She inked her quill and scratched a short message onto her paper.
"Oh…wow," he breathed.
She turned to him, reveling in the awe she felt in his sense.
"You can write your reply on the other side and it will appear on mine. You tap it with your wand to clear off the old message."
He flipped it over to the blank side, allowing her a glimpse of the 'Happy Birthday' scrawled across the front in a perfect replica of her handwriting.
"It's amazing," he said, flipping it back to admire the front. "Where did you get it?"
She beamed. "I made it." He gawked at her and she preened. "I had a lot of extra study time at school, and was drawn particularly to charms and enchantments." She paused, playfully narrowing her eyes at him. "I was chosen as the Beauxbatons Champion for a reason, you know."
"You were the Triwizard Champion for a reason," he corrected, smiling.
"We were the Triwizard Champions. We grabbed the cup together."
The lighthearted air she had dragged him up here for faded beneath the oppressive shadow of what followed their so-called victory. Between blinks, she could see his writhing form on the ground in front of her, and the horrible cackling laughter that wove between his screams echoed in her ears. Her bones ached with the memory of barbed molten pain.
She blinked again and found him staring up at her, his sense calm and concerned. It baffled her. Did that night not bother him?
"Are you okay?" he asked before a wry smile twisted his lips and he slumped back into the chair. "I'm the last person who should be allowed to ask that."
"I am fine," she replied, causing a swirl of doubt to form in his sense.
"That's what I would say too, if I weren't."
A tiny laugh burst from her, though it felt perilously close to a sob.
After everything she had witnessed him grapple with just a short time before, he was still concerned about how she felt?
It made no sense, and yet…it warmed her, pushing away the still-vivid nightmares.
"I appreciate the concern," she said, moving to sit at the end of her bed. "But…"
She shook her head, unable to bring forth the words. She wanted to talk about it, especially to the only other person who would understand, but maybe not just yet. Not until she could quell the fear and pain that lingered in the memories.
She refocused on him.
"I expect it was much worse for you that night. I was a mere inconvenience to him, while he possessed such hatred for you. Are you okay?"
He shifted slightly in his seat, an unreadable expression flickering across his features; one that was mirrored in his sense. After a silent moment, he sat up and smiled at her. Not the wooden half-smiles she had seen from him during his time in their home but the shy quirk of lips and squint of his eyes that made her want to grin along with him.
"Can't you tell?"
She didn't trust herself to speak. Such a taciturn acceptance of the side effect of her allure…
She clenched her teeth together. He wasn't here for the summer to make her feel better about herself. She needed to try harder. To be the kind of friend that he so effortlessly was for her.
"We need rules," she said after a silent moment.
"R-rules?" He blinked at her, a similar confusion radiating out from him.
She nodded.
"I cannot help what my allure does, and I am aware that it is essentially an invasion of privacy."
"It isn't."
She smiled in appreciation but shook her head.
"You are kind, but it is. It is also unfair. You cannot tell how I am feeling right now, can you?"
He shook his head, though a smile pulled at his lips.
"What?" she asked.
"You are…" he shrugged apologetically, "sort of...easy to read?"
She narrowed her eyes and found herself fighting a smile.
"My mother says the same thing."
That time he did smile but it faded quickly.
"But what rules do we need?"
"I…I do not know," she admitted, twisting a lock of smooth hair between her fingers. "I have never done this before. You are the first resistant person I have known for any length of time."
She thought for a quiet moment before speaking again.
"I could…pretend that I do not sense you. It would be as it was before."
"Could you even do that?"
To her surprise, his sense wasn't hopeful, simply curious.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Perhaps? I have learned to ignore the emotions of the large crowds around me when I go out in public. It might not be any different."
"I think it'll be okay...like you said, you won't go telling people what you can feel from me. So when it's just us, it's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Can't you tell?" he repeated, offering her a small smile.
She had to try very hard not to burst into grateful tears.
She was spared the embarrassment by a sharp knock at the door. She strode over and opened it to reveal her mother, chin held high and oozing affected calm.
Her shoulders tensed. Something was wrong.
"Here you two are," her mother said, stepping into the room and favoring Harry with a quick smile. "Sebastian has come home with some news that I think you will want to hear, Harry."
"About…my hearing?" he echoed, his sense ratcheting into the high whine of anxiety.
"And your godfather, apparently. Sebastian wouldn't tell me any more than that. He said to tell you, 'It's up to you'."
Harry nodded, his face going stoic, though warmth radiated through his sense.
"My godfather is Sirius Black."
Apolline nodded slowly.
"That makes sense, considering all the hoops Sebastian has had to hop through to get the Ministry to bow to ICW demands regarding a retrial."
Fleur stared at him, eyes wide.
"He is who you were writing to that very first night, and he was the one in the graveyard too."
"He's innocent. They caught the real culprit that night." Hope bloomed its fierce steady light in him for a brief moment before fading. "I doubt they've gone through a trial so quickly. Dumbledore said it probably wouldn't even happen until late summer."
"You won't find out in here," her mother said, smiling. "Sebastian is in his office. It's the door opposite the kitchen."
"Thank you, Ma'am…er, Mrs. Delacour."
"Of course. I will begin dinner and let you both know when it's ready."
He nodded, stood, and with a quick smile to Fleur, headed down the stairs.