Waking up in an unfamiliar bed was a startling affair; one filled with desperate confusion.
At least for a moment.
The blurry room that he blinked into consciousness inside wasn't his own. It was dark and small, with a mirror off to his left. There was no curtain that allowed the first stirrings of light to wake him and there was no lingering smell of permanent antiques.
The warmth and comfort and the heady smell of cinnamon that clung to him as surely as the blankets around him were what finally settled his morning disorientation into reality.
Fleur was tangled in the sheets next to him, her arm peeking out from beneath a battered pillow. She was still wearing the long-sleeved shirt she'd had on the night before, but even in traveling clothes, she had pulled the mound of blankets up to her chin, leaving only the splay of her silver hair and her passive, resting face visible.
Even in such dim light, she seemed near to luminescence; so bright and clear, even without his glasses.
As he stared at her, his hands twitched, wanting nothing more than to run their fingers through her hair and to brush her cheek with even a fraction of the tenderness she'd shown him last night.
When his thoughts had organized and his impulses were temporarily mastered, he was still unable to tear his eyes away from her. Why would he ever want to look away from this unbelievable woman who…
Who loved him?
A part of him had hoped, had dreamed. It had dreamed quieter and deeper dreams than the illicit fantasies he kept locked away. They lived on the edge of wakefulness and inside their makeshift cottage in Hogwarts, curled up on a couch and listening to her slow, deep breathing as she descended into sleep.
Secrets so deep and impossible that he'd barely spared them a thought.
Like a child who spends an afternoon grasping at the sun, to hold the golden burning coin in their hand, who instead loses something stumbling through those first steps into growing up. A secret wish that, devoid of the silliness of youth, is both wonderful and impossible.
But his impossible wish was, somehow, a reality.
She glowed without the sunlight in her sleep, her lips parted. The blankets surrounding her rose and fell almost imperceptibly with her breath. Eyelids fluttered and she burrowed into her pillow, relaxing deeper into the bed before stilling.
Her hair was every bit the silk he had imagined from the slight brushes and touches over the many months they had been together. It slid around his fingers like liquid, offering no more resistance than the air and like everything else about her, it was warm. Just like her eyes and wide, welcoming smile, her embrace, and her kisses, it took him in without complaint.
She stirred beneath his touch and her eyes fluttered open, blearily tracking his hand as he pulled away.
" Don't stop, " she whispered, her sleepy French almost too muffled to understand. " Just be careful."
She scooted closer to allow him easier access, her blue eyes locked on his while he watched his hand slide through her hair.
Her eyes had been closed for long, blissful minutes when his fingers caught on a slight snag, sending her body jerking in response. She hissed in a breath as he snatched his hand away and her eyes shot open.
"Sorry," he said, cursing the sudden shatter of their idyllic bubble. "I should've-"
Warmth bled through his shirt as she placed a hand on his chest, a soft smile in place.
"Any other day, it would not have been a problem," she said, nodding over towards the mirror. "Most nights I brush my hair before bed. I was busy last night."
An apology bubbled up from his chest but the brush of her hand up his chest and to his cheek helped him push it back down.
She shifted and perched herself up on her elbow, looking over the top of him with an oddly unreadable expression on her normally open features. He almost rolled over to see what she was looking at, no matter the futility of doing so without his glasses. When her attention finally returned to him, a nervous smile played across her lips.
"Would…would you help me?"
Somewhere deep down, he knew that even if she'd asked him to leap from the Astronomy Tower or give up flying forever, he'd have said yes just as fast.
As it was, his instantaneous reply left his cheeks burning, though he was slightly mollified when she giggled and rolled over and out of bed.
He snagged his glasses from her side table and slid them on his face, bringing the room into a clear, if still mostly dark, view.
She walked around the front of the bed and pulled open the door as she passed, allowing morning light to cascade in from the living room window. Satisfied that he'd be able to see, she nodded and completed her partial circuit, ending at the short vanity whose seat almost touched the side of the bed.
How had he not noticed it the night before?
Well…he'd been a little busy too.
She plucked an ivory brush from its place at the base of the mirror, studying it for a long moment as though checking for imperfections.
"I bought this with my tournament money," she said, staring down at the thick, rigid bristles. "What was left over after first and last month's rent, anyway."
"It's pretty," he said, trying to ignore the heat in his ears.
True though it was, he felt foolish saying something so simple.
She smiled down at it, then over at him.
"It is, is it not?"
After she pushed the small bench underneath the vanity, she set the brush in his hand, then turned and lowered herself onto the floor. Once seated, she snaked her hands around to the nape of her neck and drew them up, spilling her hair across his lap with the motion. She rested her head against the bed between his knees and he saw her eyes close in her reflection.
" Small strokes near the bottom at first, " she murmured. " If you feel a snag, pinch the hair so it doesn't tug at my scalp. "
" Got it ," he answered, the words coming to him after a long moment of consideration.
Though he was eager to begin, he tempered himself, taking care to focus on a single, small section at a time, the brush rustling through with each careful stroke. The sound of it filled his ears and each motion drew out a mix of cinnamon and the myriad earthy scents of the forest.
His arm learned the movement and his free hand shifted in concert, the small strokes becoming long and luxuriant. She purred when the bristles slid across her scalp and she shuddered when he drew his hand along her neck to catch wandering hairs.
In the slowest of meditative arcs, he made his way around her head, drawing her brush toward him in careful pulls, his eyes lidded as he focused himself on the feel of the brush and the vibration of uninterrupted movement.
He'd gone around again before he came back to himself and realized Fleur had stopped her slight vocal cues and appreciations, having slid into sleep.
Free of the lingering tangles his meticulous attention cleared, he set the brush down and drew his hands through the length, reveling in the warm and sliding weight as it fell through his fingers.
She stirred when he did so again, the contented hum in her throat the only indication she'd awakened.
" I'd be very happy to let you do this all day, " she murmured, blue flashing in the mirror as she blinked her eyes open to focus on the reflection of his face.
"I wouldn't mind, " he said, smiling. " I've wanted to do it for a while. "
" You should have said so, " she said with a slight tilt of a whine to her voice that made his smile grow wider.
Reluctantly, her hands reached up to capture his and she halted his motions.
"Though I would be happy to let you do so all day," she repeated, "I cannot. I made a promise that I would take you home once we awoke."
"When?" he asked, perfectly content to let her sit between his knees and hold his hands against the warmth of her head.
"After you fell asleep," Fleur said, squeezing his hands and setting them on his knees.
"I did not tell Sirius when we left," she said, her contented smile fading a little. "He was…cross, but he understood. Especially when I told him you had already fallen asleep."
Reality peeked through the edges of their intimate bubble, threatening to burst the moment they'd managed to carve out for each other. Unwilling to let it in, he focused instead on one of the moments from the night before that still filled him with warmth to the point of bursting.
"You…sang to me," he said, easily drifting back to the soft caress of her melody that had cradled him into sleep.
"I did," she agreed, a brush of pink across her cheeks.
"It's that song you hum. And…the one Gabrielle played at Christmas."
She nodded, the motion pulling at the hair still splayed across his lap.
"It is a lullaby Maman sang to us," she said, her blush creeping across her cheeks and down her neck. "She learned it from my grandmother, and her from her mother. It is the only real, tangible thing that has survived the entirety of my family's history."
She hesitated, her eyes darting up to his reflection.
"And…Maman sings it to Papa…from time to time."
Which led him to his other question.
He wanted to ask if he had misheard or misunderstood what she'd said with his face held in her hands. Where he wanted to beg her to say it again and never ever stop.
"Y-you said…" he trailed off, the awkward embarrassment at such a leading question stealing the energy from his voice.
Though her blush didn't subside, her shy smile spread across her face and she turned to face him, rising up onto her knees to be closer to eye-level.
"I did," she repeated, "and I do."
Blistering heat coursed through his chest and threatened to burst out as an amalgamation of tears and unabated laughter. The moment replayed in his mind, brilliant and burning through the fog of his breakdown.
The memory of fingers on his lips drew him back.
"And you didn't want me to…er…respond?" He grimaced inwardly at the awkward question, but let it hang in the air.
She shook her head.
"Not like that. I want it to be genuine and undeniable, not simply said in reply."
"And romantic," he added, grinning as she nodded quickly.
"Extremely so, if you can manage it." Her humor faded and she stood, grabbing his hand. "We really do need to go. I promised I would have you home, and I do not look forward to Sirius Black charging through my fireplace to find you."
For all the world a petulant child, he rooted himself on the bed, her gentle tug on his hand a futile jerk when he didn't move.
"I…"
The words caught in his mouth.
When had his selfish desires become so hard to manage?
But…if she really did love him. Then…it was maybe okay.
Probably.
And still, she waited for him. Through what he was sure was a bombardment of confusion and anxiety in his sense, she just watched patiently. Smiling.
"I don't want you to go," he forced out, the effort of it cracking his voice.
One perfect eyebrow raised in response and she bent to the vanity to grab her ribbon, which spilled into lavender as she lifted it to her hair.
"Go? I am not going anywhere. We are going back to Grimmauld Place."
XxX
As he had predicted, Sirius was a tight ball of unrealized energy when they stepped through and into the living room. What he hadn't expected, however, was to find an audience. Fleur's mother and father sat side by side on the couch and had been talking with Andromeda. In direct contrast to their easy conversation, Sirius was pacing the wide living room, his mouth set into a line.
His grim visage broke apart when he spotted Harry, relief washing the anxiety from his face and stealing the tension from his posture.
"I'm sorry," he said, stepping forward without an ounce of his usual joviality. "I really bollocksed that up last night."
"It's…fine," Harry said, trying to ignore Fleur's expression at his oft used phrase. "Really. I'm not sure there's a good way that could've gone."
Sirius studied him, his gray eyes darting back and forth.
"You doing alright?" he asked.
Harry nodded.
"She…helped me out. A lot. Thanks for letting me stay."
Sirius nodded and turned his attention to Fleur, who smiled at him.
In a rush of motion, Sirius pulled her into a fierce squeeze, then let her go just as fast.
"Thank you," he said, squeezing her shoulders then letting his hands drop. "But please…next time you abduct my godson, I'd like a little heads up."
Frazzled, she nodded, then grinned.
"That is fair."
Apolline and Sebastian rose and greeted them with a hug from Apolline and a pat on the shoulder from Sebastian. They didn't linger and left moments later when Andromeda rose as well, a tight smile across her face.
"A note next time, at least," she said, shifting her stern gaze between the two of them. "He was an absolute mess when he flooed me."
Rather than disagree, Sirius just shrugged.
"Sorry," Harry said, trying not to wilt in front of her stern gaze.
She blew out a breath and shook her head.
"So long as you're doing okay, that's what really matters. I'm going to head home. Take care, you three."
Almost as suddenly as they had arrived, half the people had left, leaving the three of them alone.
"Have you eaten?" Sirius asked, jerking a thumb towards the kitchen.
Harry shook his head and realized he was starving.
"I can make us something," he said, stepping around Sirius and towards the kitchen before either he or Fleur had a chance to object.
He needn't have worried about Fleur, who joined him moments later in her assistant role, starting a kettle and pulling some tea from a cabinet, as well as some coffee she had stashed away a few weeks before.
Harry tried to incorporate the lighter breakfasts Fleur was used to in France into the much hardier ones he and Sirius tended to enjoy, but gave up when it was pointed out to him that it was almost two in the afternoon, and they had slept clean past breakfast.
The food came out as he had hoped, earning him compliments from both Fleur and Sirius. They chatted as they ate, exchanging stories of idle schooldays and childhood. At Sirius's prompting, Fleur described her first view of Beauxbatons as a little girl, sitting on her knees with her nose pressed against the window inside the magical carriage that carried the first years to school.
While the picture she painted was stunning, Harry preferred the first view of Hogwarts, mirrored in the still water, disturbed by only the slow movement of their boats.
The rest of the day passed similarly, with relaxed conversation that deftly skirted the avenues into topics best left alone for a time. Once finally satisfied that Harry wasn't about to implode, or maybe that Fleur wasn't going to run off with him, Sirius excused himself, citing a pressing need for a nap, no matter how close to dinner it was.
It was with extreme reluctance that Harry bid Fleur goodbye that night, his side freezing as the warmth of her dissipated, having just risen from their own lethargic nap.
He'd risen from his bed to follow her, but stopped when she abruptly halted, halfway to the door. He could see the hesitation in her step, then the slight nervous frown across her face as she turned to look at him.
"I have been thinking," she said, twirling her wand through her fingers. "I can sense what you are feeling."
When she didn't continue, he nodded, unsure what he was meant to contribute.
"Well…that does not seem very fair to you."
He stared at her puzzled. She wasn't exactly a stone wall. The twitch of her free hand towards her hair and the darting eyes meant she was extremely nervous, but about what, he couldn't figure out.
"So…" she continued, then let the word trail away as she brandished her wand and tapped it to one of the lavender tips of her ribbon. The color shifted, darkening into a deep green. "I thought that this might give you a little of what I have."
The ribbon didn't shift again, and it took a few silent moments for him to understand.
He felt his eyes go wide and the color shimmered to pink before sliding back to green.
"You don't have to," he said. "It's not like you can sense me on purpose."
"I know," she said, lifting the ribbon and checking its color. "But it feels like the right thing to do."
He didn't have an answer to that and instead tried to think of all the colors he had seen. He knew what lavender meant, of course.
"Then…what's green mean?" he asked.
"It is nervousness…I think," she said, pursing her lips. "It is certainly what I am feeling right now."
"Why?" he asked, letting a small smile play across his face. "It's not so bad, once you get used to it."
"I know," she shot back, a touch defensively. "All the same…it makes me feel…vulnerable."
"Would it help if I promise never to use your feelings against you? Or to tell other people what you're feeling?"
She nodded and smiled, a bubbling of lavender speeding across its length.
He considered for a moment.
"But…what's red mean?"
The lavender faded to a pink that nearly matched her cheeks and she arched an eyebrow. The one she always did when she fell into being snarky as a defense.
"I had to work to understand my abilities, so you must discover what my colors mean."
Harry laughed through the sudden quickening of his heart and made a mental note to pay extra attention the next time he saw the splash of crimson.
XxX
Fleur rolled over in her bed and immediately regretted the move as the cold mattress dragged her the rest of the way out of sleep. Petulant crankiness swelled in her chest, bursting in an irritated sigh.
Her sleep had been less than ideal. She'd known it was going to be. Especially with that heart-wrenching look Harry had given her when she finally acquiesced to Sirius's less-than-subtle hints that it was much too late for visitors.
He'd known she couldn't stay. Which made his dewy-eyed disappointment all the crueler.
Her protective thoughts refused to settle into the evening, leaving her with a lingering sense of dissatisfaction as she had gotten ready for bed. Rituals that had become so routine, slightly rusty after her trip out of the country, had imparted little of the calm she'd come to rely upon to find restful sleep.
Charming her pajamas to be warm had been cozy, but fleeting. A goodnight on their notepaper had been unfulfilling, especially since she'd decided to leave off what she had so desperately wanted to write.
How was he even meant to respond to a declaration of love, even on parchment, without dodging it entirely or responding in precisely the way she didn't want him to?
So she'd simply promised to visit the following day and had bid him goodnight.
Even her oldest ritual, of long, steady strokes through her hair had been lacking. Simple innate bristles could never hope to spark electric pleasure across her skin the way the brush of his fingertips had done. No matter the very real danger presented, she never wanted him to stop.
She forced herself out of bed before she warmed it back to a comfortable temperature and padded across the hall to her tiny bathroom, wand in hand. The sooner she got cleaned up, the sooner she could be back at Harry's, where she was needed.
While she got ready, she made it a point to tuck away the thoughts that nagged at her, trying to worm their way into her single-minded focus. Though her trip had been informative, it had been an utter failure in reaching her goal. She knew that there were different types of Veela with different strengths, but had found nothing that touched on the fire Harry so desperately needed. She hadn't even been in Norway for an entire week before she'd found out there weren't any of her people living there, and had taken to wandering the woodlands, letting her instincts guide her.
That too had been a failure, though she'd expected as much. The Fair Folk weren't the type you just happened upon, they only liked to make it seem that way. Though she wasn't sure what sort of answers they'd have had either, or even what questions she could have asked.
Where do Veela come from?
She would probably have gotten an uncomfortable, in-depth lecture on reproduction.
Or maybe handed a stolen baby.
By the time she was ready to head over to Harry's, she had managed to work out a deal with the long-term planning part of her brain. Letters to Mariika for more information and extra practice with her wand, and she could spend the rest of her free time with Harry. At least until Gabrielle's birthday.
And his birthday.
Panic flooded into her chest along with the realization. His birthday was less than a week after Gabrielle's and she'd completely forgotten it was so close.
She began to pace her living room, treading a well-worn path around the small perimeter.
She had forgotten his birthday.
His. Birthday.
His naming day.
She was the worst.
Unfit to be his friend, let alone his girlfriend. Who was she to claim a wellspring of undeniable love—at least in the privacy of her mind—when she couldn't be bothered to remember such a simple thing.
Not only was it going to be his birthday soon, but it would be his very first without those monsters who had just escaped proper justice, as well as her own more personal sort.
She forced herself to still and pocket her wand, which had been growing warm in sympathy with her volatile emotions. She dearly loved her new wand, infinitely more so due to a piece of her sister residing inside, but a more finicky wand she had never met.
Not that she'd had the opportunity to try very many.
With a deep breath and a stern shake of her head, she double-checked that her ribbon was visible over her shoulder, green flecked with light pink, and stepped through the floo and into Harry's living room.
A feminine voice greeted her, the slight spinning disorientation making it difficult to place for a fraction of a moment. When a head surrounded by a cloud of bushy brown hair popped around the corner to the kitchen, she grinned.
"Fleur!" Hermione said. "Harry's just finishing breakfast."
Fleur smiled in return, tamping down the returning swell of petulance that made her want to grab Harry by the collar and insist that he cook only for her. It would be nice to eat with his friends…with her friends. They had done nothing to deserve her jealousy.
As expected, Ron was seated at the table as well and gave her a groggy wave, his blue eyes fogged with tiredness, but entirely clear of her influence. His sense was slow and passive, a mirror to the yawn that stretched his cheeks and forced Fleur to follow suit, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Oh, not you too," Hermione said, frowning. "I was hoping I had someone else who was an early riser."
"Harry wakes up plenty early," Ron grumbled, lacing his fingers around a still-steaming cup of tea. "You don't need us."
"A bit too early," Fleur agreed, taking her seat next to where Harry usually sat and gratefully accepting a cup of coffee from Sirius.
Harry set a small plate in front of her, filled with the smaller, more reasonable breakfast she preferred, rather than the ordeal the English subjected themselves to.
"Not as early as I used to," he said, returning to the stove to tend to the greasy food. "I've even slept in once or twice."
Fleur tried not to jerk guiltily, her thoughts sliding back to the caress of fingers through her hair in the wee hours of the afternoon.
With effort, she steadied herself and returned her attention to breakfast, which was somehow more idyllic than she'd ever have expected. Even with…well…extra people, she found the time slipping by while she pestered Hermione and Ron for stories about her wonderful boyfriend.
Too caught up in the sheer normalcy of the day, it wasn't until mid-afternoon that her senses reasserted themselves and she managed to pull Hermione away from Ron and Harry without being too obvious about it.
"What is it?" she asked, her sense radiating concern and confusion.
"Harry's birthday."
Hermione's eyes went wide.
"You have something in mind? I had wondered."
"No!" Fleur all but hissed in an attempt to keep her voice down. "Everything has been so…so…utterly insane, that I have not had the opportunity to plan. I only have two weeks left!"
Hermione nodded, her hand going to her chin as she thought.
"I think it goes without saying that you could probably throw a party in a box and he'd be thrilled, so long as you were the one doing it."
A similar thought had occurred to her but hearing it said aloud by someone else helped to settle the panic. Just a little.
"We cannot go out anywhere," she said, glancing over at where Harry and Ron were fiddling with the wrappers on some chocolate frogs.
Right after breakfast.
"Something at your parent's house?" Hermione suggested. "He's always spoken highly of it. Or maybe here? We all know Sirius throws decent parties."
A sly smile stole across Hermione's face and Fleur felt the pointed question before she even heard it.
"Speaking of…"
"My parent's house is a good idea," she said over Hermione's words. She had no desire to try to rationalize her decision to wear such a…revealing dress to the last party. Especially when they both knew she'd gotten precisely the reaction she'd wanted. "The question is, what do we do?"
Her friend graciously let the question drop and reapplied herself to the task at hand. "He'd be happy with this, you know. Even if you don't have anything fancy." She lowered her voice another fraction, just to be safe. "To be perfectly honest, I think he'd be most excited if everybody showed up and he got to cook for them. I've been around Harry for almost five years now, and I have never seen him grin like he does when he's cooking. Not once."
"I am a terrible cook, so it is fortunate that he enjoys it so much," Fleur said with a smile. "Though I am getting better with his help," she added, feeling her cheeks warm and saw her ribbon shift out of the corner of her eye.
Damn. She'd forgotten to lock it to a single color when she'd noticed there were guests. It was fine if Harry knew her underlying moods, but that didn't mean the whole world needed to know.
"It was like trying to pull teeth but I managed to get a, I assume, very truncated version of your date on Christmas Eve," Hermione said. "It sounded sweet."
"Gabrielle would say it was gross," Fleur said.
"Regardless, that doesn't help your situation with Harry. I'll be honest, I think he'd probably hate a huge party just for him. He'd probably be uncomfortable and overwhelmed."
"I think so too. Fortunately, my family does not put much stock in the spectacle, instead simply taking the day to celebrate the person and let them do as they wish, for the most part. But…I know that our ways are not quite how things are done here."
"I'll think about it," Hermione said, mouth drawn into a thoughtful frown. "But what you've just described sounds like something he'd love."
"It is what we will be doing for Gabrielle's birthday next week," Fleur said. "I suspect she will want to go swimming, as she does every year."
Hermione's eyes danced with excitement by the time Fleur had finished speaking.
"Harry told me about that," she said. "How is it warmed? How hot does it get? Does the spell need to be recharged or is it done using a runic array?"
Fleur let herself get dragged off into a surprisingly engaging discussion about the application of such comfort-based magic, content to ignore the worries her own words had planted in her mind.
How it was such anxiety-ridden thoughts could mix with such shallow ones was beyond her, but while her throat closed against the thought of getting back into the water for the first time since drowning, some little idiot part of herself took note that her simple one-piece swimsuit wouldn't quite serve her purposes any longer.
Maybe she could work some swimming practice into her wand practice time. She'd be at her parent's house for that anyway.
If she was lucky, maybe she'd discover some self-control while she was there too. Sprinting up to Harry for affection in her swimwear was a surefire way to undo all the significant, hard-earned progress they'd managed in recent days. No matter how sure she was that he paid that kind of attention to her, too much too fast would send him running.
Yes. She'd get Gabrielle's help for swimming, and maybe bounce some birthday gift ideas off her while they floated across the surface of the lake.
Besides, the lake was shallow enough that she could touch the bottom at almost every point.
She thanked Hermione, taking care to keep her voice steady, and returned to Harry's side, her ribbon an obnoxious mix of green and pale blue.
XxX
Narcissa dropped the letter onto Lucius's writing desk with a long, irritated sigh. Nearly a year of mending relationships and still such doubt and obvious scorn lingered. It was painfully obvious which questions had been thought up by Andromeda, and which few had been Sirius's contribution. Half of Andy's questions she wouldn't be able to answer.
How many reiterations did it take before she understood, the unmarked aren't trusted with the inner circle's names, let alone the finer points of You-Know-Who's plans?
All she was good for was her late husband's money and the considerable wards behind which plans were hatched and carried out, prisoners sequestered and tortured, and sycophantic nonsense ran rampant.
A brush against her ankles pulled her from her thoughts, the soft hair of her Birman cat tickling at her skin. The faint rumble of her purr resonated through her, settling Narcissa's worries ever so slightly. There would be time to lament her situation and her elder sister's madness later, for now, she needed to go through the pageantry that was approving her Veritaserum questions.
As though she had a choice.
The irony of her entrapment stung, even as she penned her polite approval. She had desperately reached out to the tattered remains of her family to find freedom from the pit her husband had maneuvered her into, only to be trapped yet again by the very people she sought help from.
And now she had to work around the very real vulnerability that was her son. She had no doubt Draco thought himself safe in Hogwarts over the summer holiday, free to connive and network with the others staying over. But she'd heard Lucius, usually so stoic and proud, shaken by the depravity of the elders Crabbe and Goyle. Their hulking sons were a noose around Draco's neck as sure as her son had become yet another expendable piece in this stupid war.
A warm weight settled onto her lap and she allowed herself to stroke Aider's silken fur. It had been a hellish experience to smuggle the animal into the house without Bellatrix finding out. No doubt her sister would find it an amusing plaything, rather than the stalwart companion Narcissa found so necessary.
Hunching over so as not to disturb Aider's new resting spot on her lap, she finished her letter with every last bit of congeniality she possessed. If this didn't convince them…
Maybe the Dark Lord wouldn't try to find them in America…or Australia. She didn't know how she'd manage a portkey out of the country with the Department of Transportation in shambles…but she'd figure it out if she had to.
But she'd seen the cracks in Andromeda's wounded exterior and every minute spent in Bellatrix's presence solidified the piercing loneliness that Andy's continued distance fed. Once, a simple conversation over tea wasn't so unattainable. In the face of Andromeda's stubbornness though?
Perhaps she'd get lucky and some of Sirius's bleeding heart would infect Andy as well. Merlin knew she hadn't even thought it an option until she'd heard Sirius call her Cissy again.
What she wouldn't give to hear the same from Andy.