They found Emilienne standing amidst the remnants of a number of explosions.
Burn marks scored the walls and low ceiling and the thick carpet of sawdust was blackened in a ring around the, surprisingly intact, workbench. Chisels and hammers littered the work surface, spread out in a haphazard array in an arc around the wand laying in the center. It stood out against the darker color of the workbench, the suggestion of detail visible even from across the room.
Emilienne simply grinned at them as they approached, a smile full of teeth and satisfaction. She had her hands on her hips, and Harry was almost positive her apron was another shade darker.
" Tricky little devil," she said, nodding down at the wand. "I'd forgotten how obstinate Veela hair can be. Your grandmother's was a chore to get to behave, your sister's…well, perhaps there is something to be said for the energy of youth."
Fleur took a hesitant step forward, the movement disturbing the discolored sawdust around her feet.
"But…it worked?"
The wandmaker let out a grunt.
"I'd be insulted if it didn't look so horrible in here. Of course it worked. I've been doing this for half a century. You think one little hair is going to stop me?"
Fleur blanched but took another step forward.
"Go on then. It's ready."
Her hand darted out and snatched the wand, as though it were going to flee from her. The moment she had it in her hand though, she stilled, her eyes going wide as she held it in front of her.
"It's warm," she whispered.
Emilienne rolled her eyes then looked pointedly at the scorch marks on the ceiling.
"Shocking."
After another moment of admiration, Fleur held it aloft, her expression focused.
"Lumos."
A near blinding flash of light answered her call that quickly dimmed to a more comfortable level.
"It is eager to please and has plenty of power. It'll take some getting used to, especially considering the less capricious nature of your previous wand."
Fleur nodded absently before pocketing the wand and digging out a small handful of coins.
"Thank you for crafting this on such short notice."
"It was my absolute pleasure," said Emilienne, her smile still broad and excited. "Making furniture is interesting enough, but it is not my passion. Challenging wands doubly so."
Her grin faded slightly, then shifted.
"Though, if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer it if I didn't see you in here again any time soon. At least a decade. Maybe two. But it's your life, do as you will."
Harry frowned at the two women, the quick conversation having left him far behind. Fleur simply stared, puzzled, before blushing all the way to her roots and casting him a frantic glance.
"Ah. Yes. I understand."
Before Harry could ask, Fleur turned and led him up the stairs and through the front room at a pace only just shy of fleeing. When they made it outside, she drew her wand and cast a disillusionment charm on herself, which took perfectly.
He heard her breathe a long sigh of relief and couldn't help but smile.
"Feel better?"
"Much. I feel as though I am whole again."
"I'll bet." He paused, then allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. "What was she saying in there? I could keep up earlier, but she got so quick there at the end that I just lost the words."
"It is not important," Fleur answered, a shimmering in the air revealing sudden movement from her. "Or rather, it is, but we will discuss it later. Much later. Maybe."
"Fleur?"
"We had better get back. Sirius seemed reluctant to let you out of his sight and we would not want to worry him."
When they apparated back to Grimmauld Place, they found not only Sirius anxiously waiting for them, but Fleur's father standing at his side. Immediately, Harry felt his back tense at the somber expressions on their faces. A tightening grip on his hand told him that Fleur felt the same, and he quickly ran through the things he'd done the last few days that could have elicited such a response.
Aside from…
Well, it had been self-defense.
Again.
Aside from that, he came up empty.
"You two should…sit down," Sebastian said, dragging a hand through already messy hair. "We've got news."
"News?" Fleur echoed, accepting a chair that Sirius summoned for her with a flick of his wand. "That sounds ominous."
"As it should," Sirius ground out, that haunted, hollow look still deep-set in his features, though Harry saw the spark of anger behind the dull eyes, and found it oddly comforting.
Harry took a seat in his own chair, casting a worried glance over to Fleur, who shrugged imperceptibly before turning towards her father.
"Well?"
Sirius drew in a breath and blew it out, then scratched at the stubble of a handful of days without shaving.
"Voldemort has broken into Azkaban."
His words rang through the room like a quiet gong, their meaning reverberating inside Harry's bones.
"The…the other day was the first step into war," he continued, grimacing when he faltered. "But this is where it really starts."
"What does that mean?" Fleur asked, her brow furrowed.
It was Sebastian who answered.
"We're going to start seeing raids again, most likely. They're likely to attack places such as apothecaries and herbalists first, to limit our access to potions. St. Mungo's has a healthy store of them, but it's not an indefinite supply. This is where the involvement of the ICW will be extremely valuable."
His expression grew grim as he spoke further.
"It's no big secret that the Ministry is struggling following the major attack. Loss of life was kept to a minimum due to the time they chose to act, but valuable information was lost when the DMLE and Transportation offices were destroyed. We'll be feeling the loss of the Transportation department when it comes time to transfer supplies en-masse."
"This attack was…expected," Sirius said, his mouth drawn into a line. He turned to Harry. "When you go back to school on Monday, you'll see some extra precautions. Hogwarts is pretty much the safest place you can be, but there's nothing wrong with making it a little…extra safe."
Harry nodded woodenly, his stomach twisting into knots.
"Because he's after me."
At his words, Sirius's face turned an unhealthy shade of gray, while Sebastian fumbled the composure Harry had seen the man hold so well.
"Yeah," Sirius said, his voice barely more than a rasp.
"But…why Harry?" Fleur asked, shooting up to her feet. "That monster was fixated on him ever since we ended up in that graveyard. Since before then, according to the stories Harry has told me. There has to be more to it than just simple vanity that a child was the one who defeated him the first time!"
Harry stared up at her, his eyes wide at the spark of fury burning in Fleur's gaze. Or rather…it had been a spark he'd seen that first time after his name came out of the Goblet.
This was a wildfire.
"We don't know," her father said, his hands bobbing in a placating gesture. "We can only specu-"
Sirius stood from his chair, cutting off Sebastian with a sudden motion. He cast a long, almost pleading look towards the kitchen, before turning back to the small group.
"Dumbledore wants to meet with us. Today, if possible."
Sebastian's mouth hung open, paused mid-word before he closed it with a snap.
"What is this?" he asked. "I thought Dumbledore was keeping us all up to date as he gained new information about what happened."
"This…isn't new information," Sirius said, each word sounding as though they had been dredged up from the depths. He stared at Harry for an overlong moment, then turned to Fleur as well. "He needs to see all of us, I think."
"You think?" Sebastian echoed, placing a hand on Sirius's shoulder. "Are you okay? Have you…?" he trailed off, holding Sirius's gaze.
"No. Somehow. But…we should go. You're going to have to trust me, for now. If I tried to tell you…I'd just butcher it."
Sebastian's arm flexed as he squeezed Sirius's shoulder, then let it drop to his side.
"All right then." He turned to regard both Harry and Fleur with a steady gaze. "Are you two ready then?"
They shared a look, Fleur's anger replaced by something approaching terror. It was gone just as quickly, her features stubborn and head held high.
"Answers would be nice," she said icily, turning towards the fireplace. "Let us go."
Sirius nodded and grabbed some floo powder from the mantle.
Harry was about to grab his own handful when Fleur caught his arm and pulled him to the side. She smiled weakly at her father, who glanced over as Sirius vanished in a whirl of green flames.
"We will be right behind you," she said, waiting until he too had vanished before speaking again. "'Arry…I am worried."
"I'm sure it's just-"
"I am worried about you." She searched him as she spoke, her eyes darting back and forth as she scanned his face before her eyes narrowed and her head tilted. "You are not worried at all?"
He shrugged in response, already seeing the shape of the conversation. It wasn't that he didn't care. He'd enjoyed having a normal year, but…
But the naked panic in her eyes meant he needed to try to explain.
"It's not that I'm not worried," he said, after taking a moment to consider his words. "It's just…all this is sorta…normal. I guess. I wasn't hoping for something like what happened at the Ministry to happen, especially after…" he nodded towards the faint pink outline still encircling Fleur's neck, "but usually it's nice to not have to wonder anymore."
She furrowed her brow and drew her lips into a frustrated line.
"I always believed the stories you told me. But to see their effects…you know that this is horrendously unfair, do you not?"
He nodded, a tiny pleasant thrill of pleasure spiking through him at her continued vehemence on his behalf.
"We can talk about this later. For now, let us not keep them waiting."
XxX
"All of them, Sirius?"
Dumbledore was bent over at the waist when they stepped out of the floo, his hands perched on the edge of an ornate stone basin.
The man that Fleur had seen during the Triwizard Tournament, and even far more recently while working at the Ministry, had been replaced by a gaunt, skinny old man. Books and parchment littered the room, scattered about in no discernable pattern or order. Even the walls were in disarray, with what appeared to be a multitude of portraits pulled down and stacked in a corner. Shelves lined the office, various glimmering contraptions sitting stagnant and unused, most of them surrounded by yet more papers. Only one shelf appeared clean, or at least clean compared to the rest. A reflective silver sword sat next to a pile of dingy cloth.
To her left, Sirius nodded his answer, taking wide steps that mimicked her father's in an effort to avoid toppling any of Dumbledore's books.
"What is all this, Dumbledore?" her father asked, stopping in front of the cluttered desk. "And, what is this strange, roundabout way of getting me here? We had agreed to complete dissemination of information if it relates to the war effort. How am I supposed to liaison if I don't have all the facts?"
"You will understand in a moment," Dumbledore answered, crossing the room and lowering himself into his chair with a soft grunt. Four chairs sprang into existence behind them, and Fleur took the one on the end and grabbed Harry's hand when he sat next to her.
The tired, penetrative gaze Dumbledore fixed them with made her stomach clench. Something was wrong. Very wrong, if both Sirius and Dumbledore's appearance was anything to go by. Yet somehow, the sense that rolled from Harry was nervous but controlled.
Couldn't he see what was in front of him?
Or had his years affected him so deeply that none of this was new?
She swallowed down the surge of panic that either thought spawned and tried to affect the same calm air he did.
"Now then," Dumbledore said, spreading his hands in front of him. "Let us begin this unfortunate and perhaps overdue conversation."
Something akin to a groan issued from Sirius and he dropped his head into his hands.
Her father, on the other hand, grew angry, the telltale veins in his neck throbbing, even while he kept his features placid and relatively polite.
"Is this about Azkaban? Do you have information about why it was taken so easily?"
"I do," Dumbledore said, "but that is a conversation for another time. We have more pressing concerns."
"More pres-"
A single, commanding hand stalled her father's protests.
For a moment, the veil of exhaustion lifted to reveal the fearsome wizard beneath, stripped bare of the trappings of his grandfatherly airs and schoolteacher affectations. Steel glinted in ancient blue eyes to be suddenly banished beneath congeniality once more.
"Tell me," Dumbledore continued, letting his hand drop. "Sebastian, Miss Delacour, Harry. What do you know of prophecy?"
Fleur almost let her mouth drop. Prophecy? The so-called magic of tea leaves and visions?
"I know that it's a dodgy practice, at best," her father answered, far more politely than she would have.
Her courses in Divination had been little more than a sham and it had been one class she had dropped happily as she moved into her higher years at Beauxbatons.
"I don't disagree," Dumbledore said, bobbing his head once as he spoke. "However, I gather you are aware of the Hall of Prophecy within the Ministry?"
Fleur's blood ran so cold that one corner of her brain, the corner not occupied with silent screaming, wondered how frost hadn't formed between hers and Harry's hand.
A soft grunt and a shift from next to her drew her attention momentarily, and she found she was crushing his fingers with her grip. She relaxed it as much as she was able, but couldn't let go.
"I'm liking this less by the second," her father said, darting a glance towards them. Towards Harry, who still sat stoically, his sense…curious.
Curious?!
Her very core raged against her growing fear that he was magically tied to the most powerful madman in recent history, and he was curious?
What had they done to him?
"Indeed. Then, to be as swift and painless as possible, I shall be blunt." Dumbledore shifted in his chair to focus on Harry, his aged blue eyes sunken with deep, dark bags hanging beneath them.
"There is a prophecy regarding you and Voldemort, Harry. We discovered, upon learning of Barty Crouch's infiltration, that Voldemort has taken it."
Silence reigned for a long moment, Harry's sense shifting to a maddening wave of resignation.
"What's it say, Sir?" he asked when Dumbledore didn't continue.
A heavy sigh from the headmaster blew out his whiskers and his shoulders slumped. When he finally spoke, his words carried a strange, almost musical cadence to them, though any melody held within rang discordant in her soul.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches
Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies
And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will cultivate power the Dark Lord will not
A power as fickle and old as time, a bridge across expansive divides
And either must fall at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…
The words rang through the room, echoing in her ears and trampling across her admittedly small hope that Harry would be left out of the rest of the oncoming war.
Unbidden, her mind began to work to decipher the words, refusing her heart the time it needed to recover.
"Well." Harry's voice pierced her cloud like a beacon, steady and sure.
Did she feel…relief?
He shifted in his seat and squeezed her hand.
"I guess it's nice to finally know why."
Her father let out a rather impressive string of swears in their native tongue; all of which she whole-heartedly agreed with.
Drawing strength from Harry's calm, she lifted her head and did her best to project the calm, controlled persona she hadn't needed to draw upon for what felt like ages.
"So what do we do?" she asked.
Dumbledore's answering smile was wan and fragile, floating away on an ominous wind.
"That is…regrettably, not all."
At that, she felt the spike of worry from Harry she had expected much sooner.
"Get it over with, Dumbledore," Sirius growled. "Theatrics are unnecessary."
"I assure you, I am a man like any other. To be the bearer of bad news is a burden, and one I, however unintentionally, delay."
Dumbledore's gaze swept across them, his thick brows furrowing.
"I would extract an oath from you. That what you are about to hear does not leave this room without my consent." That steel flashed again behind his eyes, though it softened as his gaze settled on Harry. "While I ask that you consult me first, Harry, it is, in the end, your choice who knows. I trust your judgment, and can guess the few people you would inform."
Harry's sense overwhelmed her, nearly drowning her own frantic panic. The finality hiding behind his polite words…
Instinct told her to take Harry and flee. To fly from the castle and hide him away from this secret.
"You must permit me the smallest of magical lessons, in order to provide context. I am happy to answer questions in the almost certain event that you have them, after I am done speaking."
Three of them nodded, while Sirius just stared at Dumbledore, his face an impassive mask.
What followed clenched her heart in an invisible fist until it shattered into pieces. Descriptions of foul magics and rituals laid a nightmarish backdrop to the dread that sat in her stomach, weighing her down in the chair until her shoulders slumped. Her grip on Harry's hand was the only thing keeping her from being unmoored as her world bucked beneath her.
Harry's sense shifted throughout. A nervous, staccato vibration as Dumbledore began talking that melted down into that deep, bass rumble.
The undercurrent that tickled the edge of her sense. So close to anger and hatred, yet distinct and horrible.
It was gone as Dumbledore finished, her senses blinded against the living nightmare that had been painted before her. Sound vanished, leaving only the words to repeat in her mind. She couldn't see the clutter around her, the wet, tired eyes of the Headmaster, or the immobile form of her father and Sirius. Only hers and Harry's hands filled her vision as she stared down at them.
Thought sparked and faltered in her mind. She reeled against the revelation, her instinctual urge to deny it forcing her head from side to side.
Dimly, she became aware of Dumbledore speaking. The words were nonsense, her ears refusing to hear anything more, lest the tattered remnants of her heart be blown away.
Only one sensation lingered. A singular guiding light. True and pure.
Anger flared inside her and she recoiled against the wave of pinpricks that foretold a change. Even so, she refused to let go of the inferno churning inside her, allowing it to be the tether to thought and life.
With the anger came feeling and sense. Her father, shouting, gesturing towards Harry, who sat stoic, quiet…unmoving.
His sense was muted. A tiny noise against the cacophony inside her thoughts.
She held onto her temper as tight as she could manage and tried to focus on him. It wouldn't do for everyone to come apart at the horrendous revelation that affected only him.
Only him, directly.
Further forcing the anger down, she gave his hand what she hoped was a gentle squeeze.
It went unanswered.
"I'm…one of these…Horcruxes?"
His voice cut through the shouts more effectively than any silencing charm, leaving her father gaping at Harry's deceptively calm expression.
"I am as positive as I can be without a test," Dumbledore answered, his voice gentle. "I am working to devise one, but as yet, I have had no luck."
"What do we do about it?" she asked, unable to fully keep the bite from her words. She could hear her accent coloring her speech, her poorly-contained anger muddying her thoughts.
The ghost of a smile touched Dumbledore's lips.
She wanted to slap it off of him.
"That is where we come to the good news."
To her surprise, that aged gaze of his met hers, his eyes pleading.
"Your fire affected his scar when it affected nothing else. Not his wand, his clothes, his glasses, none of it. Only his scar. Why?"
She had to blink away the horror that was the image of his scar glowing with that same ethereal blue light. The image that had been her truest fears brought to life.
She clutched at the dwindling wisps of her anger, feeling nothing but emptiness take its place.
"I…do not know," she finally answered. "I knew he would not be hurt when I…when…"
At her falter and sudden shudder, Harry's hand shifted, squeezing hers with soft, momentary pressure, though there was little shift in his sense.
"How did you know?" Dumbledore pressed. "I apologize for the interrogation, but I have yet to come upon anything that affects a Horcrux that isn't deadly. This might be our best hope for safe removal."
"Safe?!" she almost shrieked. "Look at his scar! It is burned!"
"Yes, it is, and he appears none the worse for wear for it. Please, how did you know he would not be hurt?"
She felt her stomach flip and her mouth run dry.
"In the moment, I knew."
Dumbledore steepled his fingers and considered her. "Your fire changes when you do, correct?"
She nodded.
"Would he be similarly unaffected by the fire you can summon now?"
Her stomach lurched violently and a cold sweat dampened her skin at the image his words conjured. She saw a flash of his scar pulsing with orange light, its new cracks widening to encompass the rest of his forehead, his face, and the rest of him, until he was nothing more than pungent ash in her hand.
She clenched her jaw and her vision swam.
Dumbledore frowned down at her.
"Miss Delacour. If you don't mind me asking, what have you spent these last few days doing?"
Fleur shrugged, unable to banish the heat that was determined to live on her cheeks.
"Sleep, mostly, and take my potions. I still have about a week to go." She touched her fingertips to her neck, which stung in response.
"And you, Harry?"
She glanced over in time to see him shrug almost identically before he spoke, his voice just shy of monotonous.
"There's…not a lot to do around the house. I've been reading when I can't sleep."
Dumbledore nodded slowly, his eyes flashing momentarily over to Sirius and Sebastian.
"I hope you accept my apologies," he said. "I know that you two are still recovering and that what we have discussed today will only make that endeavor more difficult. We can discuss particulars in the upcoming days. You two should get some rest. I will send Sirius and Sebastian along shortly."
She nodded, grateful to be out of the office that had become darker and more claustrophobic when she wasn't looking. Shockingly, her legs supported her when she stood, though her stomach had yet to decide if it had finished its expression of revulsion.
Harry stood at her soft tug on his hand and followed her to the floo. Her father stopped them with a gentle hand atop the both of theirs, squeezing once with his large hand before letting go. Sirius eyed them, then plastered on the most pathetic excuse for a smile she had ever seen.
She was impressed he could manage even that.
Moments later, they stood in the empty living room at Grimmauld Place, the flames fading to embers behind them.
Harry stared ahead for a moment, his unblinking gaze unseeing. Slowly, she felt a bare twitch of confusion through his muted sense and he glanced around the room.
"I thought…you'd want to go to your flat."
"I am staying with my parents right now. Maman and Gabrielle are there and I…wanted to be alone right now."
At that, he glanced at her and she understood the unspoken question.
"Rather…alone, together. I suppose."
He nodded his understanding and nodded towards the chairs in front of them. Belatedly, she realized they hadn't moved in front of the floo and were in prime position to get bowled over should Sirius and her father come through.
"If it is okay…I think I would like to lie down."
Harry stepped forward and led her up the stairs, each one of their steps reverberating through the darkened halls. He stopped in front of one of the last door on the left and pulled her inside.
His room smelled of him, she realized, the thought pushing through the haze that clouded her mind. A brush of shampoo and cleanliness.
It was also spotless. Where her bedroom at her apartment had been left in near ruin—though considering her state at the time, she wasn't too hard on herself—his appeared almost unlived in, save for a collection of cards decorating his dresser and the picture she had gifted him resting on his nightstand, their notepaper sitting beside it.
When she realized she was gaping, she closed her mouth, then pulled Harry over to the bed and sat down, watching as he mechanically followed suit.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
The barest ghost of a smile touched the corners of his lips.
"You can't tell?"
A long sigh escaped her and she shook her head.
"Barely. And that is part of what concerns me."
He shrugged, his eyes still locked at some point beyond the walls of the room; beyond her and the feeling of their hands clasped together.
Everything inside her wanted to collapse. To cry and rage until the knots inside her unraveled and left her spent enough to sleep for days. She could barely think of what happened at the Ministry without getting nauseous. Now…all this? It broke her heart to think of what he must be wrestling with.
He'd stood so sturdy in the face of oncoming adversity. Time and again he'd proven that he could get up and face the next impossibly high hurdle thrown at him. Dragon's fire, saving her life, being tortured, those horrible people, and now this. Her throat prickled with painful tears.
It didn't feel like he was standing any longer. Just…immobilized. Like a child that freezes on the tracks as a train barrels down upon them.
Beyond the slow rise and fall of his chest, only his eyes moved. An occasional blink, while the vibrant green searched that far-off distance for the answer to whatever it was that churned in his mind.
"I'm…tied to him," he said after a long moment.
The slow nod of her head squeezed her heart with each bob.
His free hand reached slowly to graze the nearly-healed cracks along his scar.
"In a couple of ways…"
"There is always the chance Dumbledore is wrong," she said, cursing herself even as the words left her lips.
He didn't need to be burdened with her petulant hopes. For Dumbledore to have felt the need to share such devastating information…he'd have been absolutely certain.
Harry shrugged his reply, barely a ripple rolling through the low, indefinable undercurrent that pulsed like a slow, furious heartbeat.
She squeezed his hand and scooted closer so their legs were touching, the contact just as much for her as it was to comfort him.
"Tell me what you are thinking. I want to help."
He didn't answer right away. His jaw flexed while the rest of him remained rigid; taut and immobile. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a ragged whisper, a bizarre dichotomy to his blank, unemotional stare.
"He's not going to stop coming for me. Not if he thinks I'm the only one who can beat him."
A million replies danced on her tongue. Platitudes and comfort that she knew would, at best, offer little comfort. At worst, they would ring insincere. Instead, she squeezed his hand.
"That is why you have all of us. My family and I are not the threat that Dumbledore is, but we will support you. Hermione and Ron too. Ron's family, from what you have told me, adores you. Just because you are the only one in the prophecy, does not mean you will be doing it alone."
Her considered words garnered the flicker of emotion she had hoped for, but instead of relief, anxiety buzzed through his sense as he glanced over at her, a frown pulling at his mouth. He disentangled his hand from hers and ran it through his hair.
"The idea of you all being in danger because of me makes me sick," he said, his voice stronger. Stubborn. "I hate it. Nobody should get hurt because of me."
Fear pulsed through her veins, a blistering warning of treacherous ground that had her pulse racing in her ears.
"If it were to happen, it would not be because of you." She reached a hand out and turned his head towards her with the gentle touch of fingers on his chin. "Do you think what happened the other day was your fault?"
The flash of guilt in his green eyes that mirrored the one in his sense was enough of an answer, but she waited for him to speak.
"You wouldn't have been there if it weren't for me."
"I work there. Had I not been with you, I would have been inside my department when it was attacked. My desk is in one of the rooms that were set on fire."
The barest twitch of his shoulders denoted a shrug and he looked away.
"But you're resistant to fire. It wouldn't have been like with the...with what happened."
She swallowed, feeling the conversation slip through her fingers and begin down a path she had no interest in treading.
"You wouldn't have been tortured, if he hadn't needed me," Harry said before she could come up with a suitable answer. "It's...dangerous, to be around me."
Anger flashed to life inside her chest. It coursed through her, no matter how hard she tried to tamp it down. He needed her to be stable, not some shouting, frightened harpy. All the same, she was unable to keep all the heat from her words.
"It is about to be dangerous everywhere."
He nodded slowly and lifted his glasses to rub the heels of his hands into his eyes.
"I suppose…" he said, his voice catching momentarily. "But maybe we shouldn't…I don't want…"
Where his faltering, vulnerable voice would have normally inspired compassion in her, it was only tinder for her burgeoning anger. She clamped down on it, lest it truly run away with her and combust the sheets beneath them.
"I detest roundabout conversation," she found herself saying, startling them both. "Are you suggesting that you wish to end this relationship in order to protect me?"
He flinched, guilt cutting a swath through his muted sense. It subsided as his head bobbed jerkily, his shoulders slumped.
Her pulse hammered a frantic rhythm against her chest as she tried to carefully consider her words. Needling hurt and her stoked anger made proper thought all but impossible.
"If you think for a second that I would not continue to stand by you, even if we were not together, then you are grossly mistaken."
His head whirled to face her but she was too incensed to pay any heed to the emotions tumbling around him.
"If we were to split up, would you be able to cut off your feelings so that my capture would have no value to the enemy?"
Wide, green eyes stared at her as he shook his head.
"And if I foolishly decided that I did not want to be with you, would you still do your best to come to my aid if I were in trouble?"
He nodded, unblinking.
She poked him in the chest, a poor substitute for the way she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and either shake him or kiss him until he came to his senses.
"I have said it before, there is more to our relationship than a simple romantic partnership. You became one of the most important people in my life long before Christmas Eve."
With one final poke, she let her hand fall.
"If you want to break up with me, that is your choice. But make that choice knowing that I am not going anywhere either way."
Her heart hammered as though she had been sprinting, adrenaline coursing hot fire through her veins. Too many emotions clashed in her mind, further obscured by the roiling sense that came off Harry in waves.
She clenched and unclenched her hands while waiting for him to speak, fighting the urge to get up and pace.
He drew in a long breath through his teeth and let it out slowly.
"I guess…there's no point then."
"Good answer."
Tension fled from her muscles and she sagged. His hand found hers and held tight, resting at the point where their legs met.
Bit by bit, she felt him relax. His thigh loosened where it touched hers and his shoulders lowered. His steely grip on her hand faded as she brushed her thumb across his.
Slowly, eventually, his head tilted to rest on her shoulder and she pressed her cheek into his hair. His thick hair tickled her cheek, even as she lay her head against his.
In the exhausted silence of his bedroom, she began to hum. The slow, lilting melody filled the room with her memories of childhood. Of the terrors of the unknown night being comforted away by her mother's soft, beautiful song. Of whispering it to her fussy baby sister, swaddled and held tight in her small arms.
She hummed the precious song to him until he finally relaxed fully against her, his breath becoming the slow, rhythmic pulse of sleep.