Fleur shuffled through her apartment, gathering the precious items she had convinced her mother she couldn't live without. It had been a tough argument to win, especially considering her own weak voice turned traitor on her, faltering midway through their disagreement. She had been forced to drink the incidental potion that tasted of so many handfuls of wet soil mixed into a bottle, with the consistency to match. How it was her throat was meant to heal when the potions made her retch, she'd never know.
In the end, it had been a quick angry note, scrawled on the edge of a Daily Prophet that had convinced her mother. The haunting photograph of the cracked and barren Wizengamot chamber taunted her as she scrawled the words in the margins, resorting to the childish tactic of promising utter non-compliance and as much hell-raising as she could manage in her weakened state.
So she had been…allowed to return to her apartment for her essentials.
No matter that she had just wanted somewhere quiet to finally let free the tears. For all her tiny apartment's reticence at feeling like a home, like her home, it afforded her the quiet, non-judgmental privacy to sob into her hands. Where each shuddering breath and wracking heave sent tendrils of pain coursing through what remained of her wounds.
Much later, she wandered the rooms as a husk, tired and dried out, with a face so wan and pale that a near-stranger stared out of her mirror as she grabbed her ornate hairbrush from its resting place. She grabbed the notepaper resting next to it with her other hand and carried them into the living room, where she had begun a small pile atop her folded red blanket.
A few sets of clothes—all loose, comfortable clothing, as it had been made perfectly clear that she wouldn't need any work attire while the investigation into what happened was underway—, her brush, the notepaper, and her ribbon all lay in a neat row. The sum total of her prized possessions despite over half a year of living on her own.
With deliberate, careful movement, she reached down and grabbed her ribbon, then hesitated when it shifted to a deep, oppressive blue. Her free hand was halfway to her pocket before she remembered, and let the length of silk slip from her fingers to fall into a messy, white pile. She gritted her teeth at the tears that formed from reserves she had thought spent. The sight of the silver hair, her grandmother's hair, fading to mundane, lifeless gray flashed across her vision, stealing her breath.
Even as tears traced renewed paths down her cheeks, she bent and bundled her things carefully into her arms, ignoring the way her hair spilled over her shoulders and across the blanket. With an awkward reach for the floo powder and a hoarse shout, green flames whisked her away to her childhood home and hopefully, finally, some rest.
She stepped out of the floo and into the familiar sitting room, afternoon light spilling through the massive windows to either side of the fireplace. With a small grunt, she let her things slip from her hands and onto a nearby chair, just in time for Gabrielle to round the corner into the room, their mother following close on her heels.
She stumbled back at an impact to her sternum, the top of Gabrielle's shining silver hair filling her vision as she looked down in surprise, even as her arms reciprocated the enthusiastic hug.
"You've got to be more gentle," she said, the sting of the impact pulsing through her skin in time with her heartbeat. "Pretty soon you'll break my nose with your forehead if you keep running into me like that after you've grown some more."
"I'm sorry," Gabrielle said, her voice muffled in Fleur's shirt.
Their mother joined them, stepping up and placing a hand on Gabrielle's shoulder and pulling her back with a grimace.
"Be careful," she said, frowning. "That's where she was hurt."
Gabrielle leapt back as though she'd been burned, an analogy that sent Fleur's stomach to churning uncomfortably.
"Sorry," Gabrielle mumbled before her lips turned down into a thoughtful frown and she quirked her head to the side. "You hurt your boobs?"
"Gabrielle Delacour!" their mother hissed, though the near-lethal scolding was lost behind Fleur's raspy laugh that swiftly turned into a ragged cough. She covered her mouth until the fit finally subsided, hiding her red-flecked palm from her sister.
"No, thankfully," she said, grinning. "I can tell you about it later if you want. For now, I'm heading up for a nap. Those hospital beds are as comfortable as a rock."
"Don't forget your potion before you go to sleep!" her mother said, wringing her hands in front of her stomach.
Fleur nodded her understanding and all but fled the room, leaving her sister to whatever uncomfortable conversation she had earned herself.
She'd tell Gabrielle what happened later.
When she was more alert and rested, and felt a bit more like herself, rather than some brain-dead inferius.
The hospital beds hadn't been all that bad.
It was the echoing masculine scream as he burned to nothingness in her hands that had kept her from proper sleep.
She rolled over in her bed an indeterminate number of hours later, the uncomfortable tug of new skin dragging her from much-needed rest. The slivers of light that peeked around the edges of her curtains were the only indication as to the time. It was either dawn or dusk of the following day, though the persistent call of her bed told her it was most likely early morning.
A noise from the darkness beside her launched her upright in the bed, her hand slapping her nightstand to grab for her wand. The smack of it turned the snore into a yelp of surprise and Gabrielle sat bolt upright, her features barely visible in the paltry light.
"W-what? Go away!" she nearly shouted, her sleep-thickened voice a raspy bark.
Fleur placed a hand on her sister's shoulder and gently shook her to wakefulness.
"Gabrielle?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"
The owlish blinks her sister leveled in her direction sent the flutter of nostalgia dancing across her heart. She never thought she'd miss the days when a much smaller Gabrielle had climbed into bed with her protective older sister after a nightmare just to usher in the morning with deafening snores.
"I'm…I-" Gabrielle muttered, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hand.
Clarity returned to her features and they turned downcast.
"Maman told me what happened…after yelling at me for what I said."
Fleur pulled her into a one-armed hug.
" I thought it was funny."
Her words earned her a fledgling smile in return, but it quickly vanished.
"I knew something big was wrong when she came to get me from school," Gabrielle said. "She's pretty bad about hiding stuff."
Fleur nodded her head in the receding darkness, the light behind the curtain growing brighter as the sun rose ever higher.
"Did they really…" Gabrielle swallowed, her eyes flitting down to Fleur's neck, where the new skin was still red and tender, with small angry cracks stubbornly lingering around the edges of her burn.
"They did."
Silence.
"Again?"
The single word told Fleur was she had expected but hoped wouldn't appear. Though, she supposed there was little point in keeping Gabrielle in the dark about what had happened at the Louvre when Fleur had just survived something so oddly similar, yet so different.
"Again."
A loud sniff heralded potential tears, though her younger sister was a far more silent crier than she was. A careful touch of her knuckles to Gabrielle's cheek found moisture, and she brushed it away.
"And they broke your wand?"
This time Fleur could only nod, the loss too fresh to be spoken aloud. Her burns had been agony, but they had been a stepping stone to protecting someone she cared about.
Her wand…
Without it, her only power lay with the dormant beast inside her.
She forced her voice to obey and tried to smile for her sister, whose soft blue eyes shimmered in the morning light.
"I'm going to pick up another one in a day or two. I'm going to ask Harry to come with me. You're welcome to come too."
Gabrielle didn't reply right away, instead settling back into the bed and pulling the covers around herself in a cocoon with a visible shiver. Only her eyes and a swath of silver hair stuck out the top.
Her mumbled, "I'll think about it," was almost inaudible.
XxX
Harry's return to Grimmauld Place had come at the end of a torturous stay at St. Mungos. He'd spent days feeling well enough to go home, just to be kept in place by a mix of overcautious doctors and taciturn investigators for the Ministry. By the end of the third day, he'd begged Sirius to let him go back to school to take the OWLs, not minding that he had saved the bulk of his studying for those final days leading up to the tests. The hollow, gaunt expression Sirius had given him put to rest any other requests he'd had.
Their first evening back had been awkward, though Harry had never been quite able to discern the source of the strange air that had fallen over them in the usually empty, but homey building. If anything, he found he was restless; wishing, not for the first time, that he was back at school, so he might be able to sneak away and hop on his broom. Maybe some time in the air could clear away the mess of thoughts that boiled in his head.
Instead, Sirius had sent him up to bed early, stone-walling Harry's protests with a crooked finger and stern look that all but drove him from the room. He'd hated the way his pulse thundered beneath Sirius's glare. It hadn't been anger simmering behind his steely gray eyes.
Or maybe it had been. But its fury didn't fall on him.
He'd spent the evening staring at his notepaper, a single line written on the other side. When they'd left the hospital, Fleur had been in interviews with the investigators and hadn't been able to get away to say goodbye. His chest tightened with the need to see her again. To see that her injuries were healing and her voice had grown stronger. To see her hair shine alongside her eyes and smile.
He wanted things to go back to normal.
But she hadn't replied.
And his room was so damn small .
He paced around his bed, lingering for a moment by his dresser to sift through the Christmas cards that still sat where he'd placed them so many months ago. When he lifted Luna's, the pressed flower fell from the bottom, the petals shriveled and brown. The sight of it brought a pointed sting to the back of his throat and he lifted it with a careful hand, though it broke apart beneath his touch.
Typical.
He cleaned the mess with a quick spell and returned to his notepaper, the sheet still frustratingly empty.
Maybe a book would settle him? He could write a letter. He was positive Hedwig would show up now that he was back at Grimmauld, but…who would he write?
Ron,
Hey, mate. Just wanted to let you know we were almost captured by Voldemort and ended up in the hospital. Barty Crouch was polyjuiced as the Minister and Karkaroff was the head of the DMLE. I killed him, by the way.
Your pal,
-Harry
Harry stopped his frenetic pacing, suddenly aware that he'd been doing it at all. His palm ached with the grip he had on his wand and he tossed it on his bed before resuming a slightly more sedate pace.
What was Ron going to think? The only other person he had ever…well…Quirrell had been mostly Voldemort at that point anyway.
A singular thought froze him in place, a rush of dread stealing the energy from his limbs and cooling his blood to ice.
Hermione.
What did she think about him?
His thoughts traveled the path they'd been down what felt like hourly since his time confined within the hospital.
He'd been in a duel. It was self-defense.
He'd cast a dozen stunners just moments before, why hadn't he chosen that spell? What if he'd made a mistake? What if she'd been Imperiused? Why hadn't he thought of that? Did he not care?
He found his breath ragged and his skin clammy from sweat as the thoughts raced through their ever-circling questions. The single point of light that so often drew him from such a spiral had been Fleur. She'd had to do the same, though her predicament had been far more dire and justified.
His feet slapped against the floor as he rushed back over to the notepaper, finding it still maddeningly blank.
By the time the sun shone through his windows, he'd found fitful sleep at the end of a night of a mixture of pacing and heavy, frantic panting as his thoughts ran far faster than his legs could carry him. At one point, long past midnight, he'd nearly left his room to see if Sirius was still awake, to ask for something, anything to quiet his mind and let him rest.
But trailing the thought was the image of his godfather's shadowed eyes and haunted expression, and he decided not to bother him. He probably needed his rest.
When he arose, not nearly as close to dawn as was his usual, he rolled over to check his notepaper, finding it still obnoxiously empty. He had to stifle a slight twinge of anxiety as he pulled on his glasses and slipped from the bed. She had been severely injured, and though she was getting better, probably needed some extra rest.
Hopefully.
He padded down the hall, careful to walk silently in front of Sirius's door. If his godfather's face the night before had been anything to go by, Fleur wasn't the only one who needed some extra sleep.
He'd learned early on in his time at Grimmauld Place that Sirius was a light sleeper and would rise with Harry if awoken, no matter the hour. So, Harry had made it a habit to be as quiet as possible in the mornings, at least for a few hours, to give his godfather some time to sleep. He avoided the few noisy steps and had almost turned into the living room when hushed voices drifted around the corner.
In their muted tone, Harry couldn't make out the words. Suddenly tense, he crept forward, taking care to walk toe to heel.
"-okay," a voice soothed, quiet, but firm. "This is exactly why we set this up." Andromeda.
Inaudible mutters barely crossed the distance, though the others in the room seemed to hear them just fine.
"Nonsense," another voice said.
Male, and decisive. Fleur's father?
"I've got nowhere more important to be."
Another quiet mumble.
"She is sleeping and will be fine for the time being."
Apolline?
"Now I'm here to make sure you are as well."
"It's perfectly normal," a third person said, his voice light and kind. A bit…too-kind. "You'll remember I said that it wasn't going to be easy? Everybody has days like these. Perhaps not with the specific events, but they have low points. We all do. All the work we did was to equip you with the tools and foresight to make the right decision, and you did."
"And we couldn't be happier," Andromeda said. "No matter the hour."
Perplexed, but unable to hide the growing shame of eavesdropping on a clearly private moment, Harry crept back upstairs to his room. He slipped back into bed, though he didn't really expect to get any more sleep, especially with the curiosity gnawing at his gut.
When he awoke again, he cursed himself for falling asleep in his glasses, the hard frame digging into the side of his face. He rolled over to habitually check his notepaper, no matter that it had been blank the last what felt like fifty times he had checked.
To his utter, blissful relief, looping letters were written across the top, the usually perfect calligraphic strokes shaky and uneven, but there.
Harry. I am sorry if you were waiting long on my reply. I slept through almost the entire day yesterday, and am only now feeling alert enough to write anything, though I suspect I shall fall back to sleep soon enougb.
Tomorrow I will be going to get a new wand. If you are able to come, I would very much appreciate your company.
XxX
Fleur smoothed her shirt with steady hands. Well…mostly steady hands. Whether that was due to the fluttering in her stomach or the lingering weakness in her wrists, she couldn't say.
What she could say was that she was growing impatient while waiting for her sister to make up her mind. She had spent the better part of the day before trying to wheedle an answer out of Gabrielle, only to be met with evasiveness and shrugs, when she wasn't outright ignored. In an effort to alleviate as much pressure from the, supposedly simple, decision, Fleur had told Gabrielle she wouldn't leave until the very last chime of the clock that signaled ten o'clock.
With five minutes left, no sign of her sister, and a message from Harry that said he was waiting for her at Grimmauld, she was doing her best to convince herself that the last five minutes were indeed important, since they were part of her promise.
No matter that she was only holding off on getting her wand. The singular tool she had to perform any sort of magic. She'd felt remarkably…less than normal without it, unable to do such a simple thing as a privacy charm or lock a door from across the room.
When the chimes began to sound, she sighed and grabbed a fistful of floo powder.
She wished she knew whatever it was that had tied Gabrielle into so many knots. Her usually quiet but cheerful sister had somehow turned into a reclusive, snappy, frightened girl, and she wanted to know why.
Another chime rang, and she was forced to admit…she knew why. Maybe if she hadn't been as reticent to share the details of her capture so many years ago…Gabrielle would have been more prepared.
"Fleur?"
Gabrielle's voice was nearly lost beneath the tolling of the clock, but the single word had Fleur spinning to find her sister standing in the doorway. Gabrielle chewed on her lower lip until the clock stopped, then clasped her hands in front of her.
"I'm…not coming," she said after a long silence that nearly prompted Fleur to begin the conversation herself. "It feels like my allure is a little stronger today."
Fleur tried to school the widening of her eyes into a simple, curious tilt of her head.
"It may be, but at your age, it is unlikely to be stronger than mine, even on my weakest days."
Days such as these.
Gabrielle shrugged, the spot on her lip growing red with her continued nervous habit.
"Still…I'm not ready for so much attention."
This time Fleur wasn't able to suppress her surprise. It was so easy to forget that her sister had indeed taken those initial, painful steps into the world of being an adult Veela. Years of learning to suppress her abilities awaited her; work made more difficult by the infrequent power of her abilities as they grew.
She sat down on one of the nearby love-seats and motioned for Gabrielle to join her. Her request earned her a quick shake of the head, though Gabrielle did step into the room to stand across from Fleur.
"Is something the matter?" she asked, peering up into her sister's gray-blue eyes.
The still too-tight skin of her neck protested the angle, but she ignored the sensation. It would need stretching out at some point. Might as well be while she had more important things to focus on.
"What sort of wand do you think you'll get?"
"I…I don't know," Fleur answered, searching Gabrielle's nervous face with little success. How come she was the only easy one to read? "You know it's more complex than just choosing one, even if we got ours custom made. It'll depend on the core most of all."
She couldn't fully suppress the shudder that crawled up her spine.
"I don't think I'd want dragon heartstring anymore. Unicorn hair is supposed to be rather versatile."
"And…you can't get one of grandmother's anymore," Gabrielle continued, her voice whisper-quiet.
"Posthumously gathered hairs hold no power," Fleur agreed, her eyes narrowing. "You know this. What is going on with y-?"
Her only warning was the sudden set to Gabrielle's jaw and a flicker of motion as she drew her arm down towards the ground. A deafening shriek of pain, tinged at the edges with an ethereal echo, filled the room. A flash of glowing blue lit behind Gabrielle's eyes in the moment before she squeezed them shut and her legs gave out.
" Gabrielle !" Fleur shouted, rising and catching her sister in one smooth motion.
The skin on her wrists stung but she set aside the pain as she lowered her sister to the ground.
"What in the hell are you doing?" she hissed, using the back of her hand to wipe away the sheen of sweat that beaded Gabrielle's forehead then down to wipe a tear from the corner of clenched-shut eyes.
After a long moment, Gabrielle blinked rapidly to clear her vision and smiled sheepishly up at Fleur.
"That hurt a lot more than I thought it would," she grumbled, reaching her free hand up to test the tender spot on her scalp.
"Of course it did! What were you thinking?"
Gabrielle sat up and turned to face Fleur fully before speaking.
"I was thinking…that you should still have a Veela hair as your wand core."
Stunned into momentary silence, Fleur latched onto the dwindling sparks of her anger and fear.
"And I think you shouldn't risk making yourself weaker just so I can have a certain wand," she shot back.
What a stupid, risky, unnecessary, touching idea.
"Then it's probably all the more important that you have a strong wand so I can have a strong, protective big sister."
As sappy as the sentiment was, it spread warmth through her limbs as she smiled down at her younger sister.
"That might be the grossest thing you've ever said to me," she teased, gently lifting the shining silvery hair from Gabrielle's hand.
It was heavy, just as she remembered her grandmother's being all those years ago.
And so warm.
"Thank you," she said, rising and holding out her other hand to help Gabrielle up.
"You're welcome." Gabrielle rubbed at the side of her head, wincing as she did so. "It really stings."
"Maman is going to have a fit when she finds out what you did."
Gabrielle's hand slowed to a stop, then she shrugged.
"Well, it's too late now. Can't exactly stick it back in." She brightened and grinned up at Fleur. "And now it's kind of like I'm going with you anyway."
"I suppose it is," Fleur said with a small smile. "I'll be right back. I need to find something to carry this in so I don't lose it."
"You're not getting another one, so you'd better not."
XxX
Harry walked through the busy Parisian street, the late spring sun creating glares off windows to dance across his vision and shadows beneath the trees lining the streets. Children darted across the sidewalk, a small girl squealing with delight as she chased an older boy, whose shorts were scuffed and dirty. Almost as dirty as his grinning face.
The somehow quiet hum of the city pulsed through the streets. Conversations as they passed storefronts and cafes lending their voices to the noise; a persistent, omnipresent din that made Harry either want to join in with the sea of people or cover his ears and hide.
He followed a gentle tap on his arm and turned left at a small, corner cafe with a garish orange awning reflecting the worst of the noonday sun.
"We are nearly there," Fleur whispered, her voice strained. "We should hurry. The spell will likely not last much longer."
They passed a sign proclaiming the narrow, dead-end street 'Villa Niel,' and wound their way through parked cars towards the back. Where the alley ended at the back of a building, a thick, purple door sat recessed into the stone building with two intricate stained glass sidelights on each side.
"This is it," Fleur said, the spell shimmering away and revealing her nervous expression. She shook herself and glanced down at her now-visible body. "We had better get inside before someone sees me."
"Ollivander's is a little more…intimidating," Harry said as he pulled open the surprisingly heavy door.
"Yes, he did seem the sort."
For a moment, Harry was sure Fleur had mistaken their destination. Ollivander's shop had held row upon row of narrow boxes stacked three-dozen high and the air smelled of the tang of alchemic ingredients and the utter, unmistakable scent of vast, unyielding age.
This shop?
The only thing that tied the two together was a thick layer of dust that coated every visible surface. Instead of a high-topped desk and various displays, two chairs sat side by side in front of a small wooden coffee table. More than a place to buy a wand, it looked as though they had wandered into somebody's living room.
The main interest in the room, however, wasn't the dust or the lack of wands, but the thick wooden boards of various thicknesses and colors that were stacked in almost every available inch of floor-space with spacers resting between every single massive piece of wood. The room was massive, almost comically so. To a point that Harry expected an expansion charm of some sort. He supposed if it could be done to a tent, there was no reason it couldn't be done to a room.
A fair few of the piles were stacked even taller than him, with narrow paths leading between them. The effect created was something akin to the hedge maze that had preceded…well…
The wooden stacks were less ominous, to be sure.
A few boards on the left, standing upright against the banister to a set of stairs that led up to an unseen second floor, shifted, followed by a muffled voice.
" It's not the start of the school year, so you must be here for replacements, " a boisterous female voice called from somewhere behind the stacks of wood.
" Oui ," Harry replied before Fleur could answer, drawing a wide grin from his girlfriend.
He hardly thought that a simple 'yes' should be enough to impress her but he wasn't about to complain.
One particularly crooked board that was leaning against the banister toppled over and landed on the ground with a thud, scattering a burst of dust and wood shavings up into the air.
"A foreigner, eh?" the woman said, her posterior appearing before the rest of her as she shuffled backwards from between two stacks of boards on hands and knees.
She put a hand on her knee and pushed herself upright, fixing them with a squinting glare. A leather apron of a deep, matte black with small tarnished rivets around the perimeters of two large pockets at the front hung loosely across her front. Her wild mane of snow-white hair was drawn back into something that may have approximated a bun and had a pair of thick glasses resting on top.
Belatedly, the woman snatched the glasses from her head and set them on her nose.
"An Englishman if I had to guess," she said, stepping across the room to get a better look. "Maybe an American."
Her calculating gaze traveled across his face to rest on his…slightly different scar.
"English, then. My name is Emilienne. I somehow doubt Garrick is unable to provide you with a suitable wand, Mr. Potter, so I would have to assume that it is Miss Delacour who needs a replacement?"
Fleur twitched as the woman's unblinking gaze turned to her, giving her a similar once-over.
"You remember me?"
The woman snorted.
"You Delacour girls are the only Veela I've ever made wands for. The rest of your kin tend to work with Gregorovich on account of his proximity...when they want wands at all."
She stepped around them, weaving through the stacks of wood and motioning for them to follow her through a small archway to a back room. They heard the jingle of keys before they saw her fiddling with an ancient doorknob, three different keys stuck into the keyhole.
"Mind your step," she said as the door groaned open, revealing a narrow stone stairwell down into a cellar.
When they joined her at the bottom of the stairs, she was rifling through an open-faced cabinet with a number of long, narrow pieces of wood held inside. Behind her, taking up the majority of the available floor space in the middle of the room, was a massive workbench, its surface pocked and stained from what seemed like centuries of constant use.
" These just got done drying, " she said absently, slipping back into her native French as Fleur approached. " I'm sure you remember the procedure. Do you have a preference?"
Fleur scanned the rows of various woods, each one marked with a symbol on their square base.
"I think I will choose as I did last time," she said, plucking a black piece from the pile and inspecting it.
" I somehow doubt ebony wood will be a good match for you ," the wandmaker said, both hands almost full of options.
Once satisfied, she dumped her handfuls onto her workbench and plucked one seemingly at random.
" Mahogany, " she said as Fleur lifted the piece of dark wood, inspecting it. " Sturdy stuff. Makes nice tables. "
Fleur set the blank aside with a shake of her head.
" Cherry. Very tight grain. The wand will be beautiful and hardy. Can be a bit finicky though. Smells nice."
" Red Oak. Strong and reliable, though somewhat…mundane, as far as wands go."
"Rosewood."
Fleur hesitated, frowning down at the length of wood in her hand. Harry almost asked if everything was okay when she finally shook her head and set it aside in the discard pile.
Another five variants were discarded, though Harry had found himself partial to the same, pretty wood that had been fashioned into her front door. Purple Heart, if he remembered right.
The final piece of wood finally earned Fleur's approval and a broad smile from the older woman.
"That does not surprise me. You are not as inflexible as I remember you being." She took the piece of wood and twirled it through her fingers. "It's unusual for a witch or wizard to change wand woods, but it is not unheard of."
She held it up to the light to check the symbol on the end, then let out a quick, barking laugh.
"Back to your roots with this one, eh?"
"What is it?" Harry asked, privately reveling in the impressed glance the wandmaker sent his way.
"Yew," Fleur said without turning, her gaze instead lingering on the discarded piece of rosewood.
Emilienne moved to the far wall, where a set of apothecary's chests lined the entire space from floor to ceiling. She began shuffling through the drawers at stomach height, peering down into its unseen contents.
"Have you given any thought to your core or would you like to test this as well?"
"I have one already," Fleur said, fishing around in the pockets of her trousers. She produced a small ivory box and handed it to the older woman.
Emilienne pushed open the lid with a finger and nodded.
"I should have expected as much," she said, pulling a strand of silvery hair from inside with two delicate fingers. "Not your grandmother's this time and longer than I remember your mother wearing hers, though it has been a few years."
"My sister's."
"And she is well?"
Fleur nodded, allowing herself a small perturbed sigh.
"She didn't offer as much as she forced it upon me, but I am glad to have it."
"A sibling bond is a strong one and such things can be very powerful when it comes to the esoteric nature of wands." Emilienne made a small humming noise in her throat as she inspected the hair. "Especially in regards to your kind."
She turned and dug through another handful of drawers before producing a small yellow tape-measure.
"Arms up," she said, tossing the little yellow spool into the air.
Fleur dutifully raised her arms to the side and Harry tried not to stare as the little yellow strip began to measure every last curve Fleur possessed. His dazed expression faded as the tape-measure crossed the length of her arm, ending on the discolored wrap of skin around her wrists.
Once finished, it floated back to Emilienne who set it down on the workbench.
"A bit more length this time, I think," she said. "You're a bit taller and a bit more powerful than we'd anticipated originally. Your wand will probably be longer than your old one by less than an inch."
"When will I be able to pick it up?"
Emilienne waved a dismissive hand as she plucked a thin pencil from a pocket of her apron and began marking the wood.
"It shouldn't take too long. The first time you were here, school was starting and I was backed up. This should only take a few hours." She paused in her work, then glanced over at Harry before smiling up at Fleur. "There's a sitting room on the second floor. It's a bit dusty, but it should do you fine since you can't spend the time on a date."
Fleur's mouth opened a fraction in surprise before clicking shut.
"How did you know we're…?"
The wandmaker's hazel eyes wrinkled behind her glasses as she grinned.
"He's been eying you since you walked in. For one, he's not making a fool of himself while doing so, and for two…you hardly seem to mind. Since you don't seem hopelessly vain, there was only one answer."
Fleur nodded, then held out a hand to Harry and guided him up the ancient stone steps and back through the wood-stacked maze. Her face blazed when they had to detour around a pair of stacks that were taller than they were, the gap between them too narrow at one end for her to slip through.
The room was sparse and simple, and though dusty, appeared much more lived-in than the storage space downstairs. A high, wide window looked out onto a narrow residential street with old stonework buildings blocking some of the bright sunlight. A single bookshelf sat below the window, its shelves sparse but well used. A large couch sat in the middle of the room atop a faded rectangular rug with a cold fireplace sitting on the opposite wall.
Fleur stepped into the room and dropped down onto the couch, letting out a muffled yelp as a thud sounded from beneath her.
"It is not as cushioned as it appears," she said, grimacing.
Harry joined her, shifting to find the most comfortable position he could manage.
"So," Fleur asked, turning him to him with a smile. "That was probably more French all at once than you have heard before. Were you able to keep up?"
"Sorta," he admitted. It had felt as though he were always a sentence or two behind, the translation coming far slower than the spoken words. "It felt like I understood the point of what she was saying, if not all the words."
"That is impressive, you are a quick study."
He shrugged and gladly accepted her hand as she intertwined her fingers with his.
"Are you excited?" he asked, prompting a confused stare from his girlfriend. "About your wand, I mean."
"I am," she answered slowly. "But…I am nervous as well."
"I…guess I would be too. I'd never thought about it."
"Nor had I. It will take some getting used to. I suspect using Gabrielle's hair will make that process either far easier or far more difficult. I am not sure which."
Harry paused at that, a needling of curiosity burrowing its way through his thoughts. When he'd seen the shimmering hair in the basement, he'd been too caught up in trying to understand what was being said to wonder too much about it.
"I wonder if you could use one of my hairs," he said.
"I doubt it."
She reached up slowly to pat down the messy fringe at the back of his head, her hand warm against his scalp. He had the urge to lean into the pressure, but it vanished as she let her hand drop.
"Our hair is more…precious than normal hair. There is an element of our power contained within. When we pull it by the root, it can weaken us."
He frowned, considering.
"But…what if someone ran up and just yanked out a fistful of hair. That seems dangerous."
She smiled and shook her head, pushing a few strands of the hair in question back behind her ear, having come loose from her currently yellow ribbon.
"It is…complicated. There is a measure of Intent to the action. If some random person on the street were to pull my hair, it would only hurt as much as getting your hair pulled normally hurts."
His eyes were drawn to her silvery hair, as they often were, and a singular, odd thought drifted through his thoughts.
He wasn't some random person on the street. Was he, even inadvertently, a danger to her?
"What if…" he trailed off, clamping down on the sudden words before they had a chance to escape.
"What if you were to pull out a hair?" she asked for him, an unreadable smile crossing her lips.
He nodded.
"Well…I suspect it would hurt quite a lot"
A particularly loud string of swears drifted up the stairwell a few moments later had Fleur laughing and Harry puzzling through what he'd heard.
"I only knew two of those words," he said once her laughter had subsided.
"She is rather…creative."
He laughed and tried to file a few of the words away for later research.
"Do you think you have to be off your rocker to be a wandmaker, or do you think making them just turns you a bit crazy?" he wondered aloud after a wall-rattling bang sounded from beneath them.
"It must be a calling," she said. "Like teaching, or working with magical animals."
She paused, then turned to him, eyes serious, but bright.
"Have you given any more thought to what you want to do after you leave school?"
"Not really," he answered, hoping she wouldn't be able to feel her way through his half-truth.
He hadn't given much thought to his career, in fact. Hermione had suggested becoming a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, though his inability to help a single one of his friends manage a non-verbal stunner or the Patronus had him doubting that particular course.
But…he'd lain in bed more than a few nights, in the middle of good weeks filled with high, exciting days, and wondered
Wondered what life would be like once the war was over. During such highs, he was almost certain Voldemort would be defeated again. How could he not be, with the support of so many other countries backing the war effort?
Occasionally, on the rarest of evenings when he'd been close to sleep with a smile on his face and contentment swimming in his chest, he let free the reigns on his imagination and let himself dream.
In truth, his career wasn't what shone so clearly in his future.
He hoped she couldn't feel that either.