The shower of golden sparks descended again, and Fleur found herself in her parents’ house. Used to the process by now, she did not stumble or fall. She gazed around at the stone walls. This was a different house than the one she’d grown up in; even though she had not won the Triwizard Tournament, Beauxbatons had given her family a substantial compensation for her risk in participating.
The staircase in this house was much grander than the one in her first home. Instead of being tucked away in a corner, it was placed prominently in the hall. Either her parents or Gabrielle had strung garland along the banisters. Gabrielle, her braided hair turned almost completely to the signature Veela silver-blonde, knelt in front of a great pine tree set up at the base of the stairs. She took bulbs from a box next to her and hung them on the already sparkling and lit branches.
The door slammed open, a flurry of snow blowing in, and Fleur’s father stomped in, bearing a paper-wrapped package. He closed the door behind him. Gabrielle stood and took the package from her father. She unwrapped it, revealing a golden glittery star. “Oh, papa, c’est magnifique!” she exclaimed. She stood on her tiptoes and reached as far as she could, just barely managing to place the star on top of the tree.
“Mon cher, est que vous?” Fleur’s mother called. She appeared at the top of the stairs, beaming down at her husband.
“Oui, il est moi,” her father replied, still somewhat breathless. They continued to speak in French, Fleur murmuring translations to Moody.
After a minute or so of small talk, Apolline asked Monsieur Delacour, “Cheri, would you come upstairs, please? I’m having trouble lifting a box to the attic.”
“Evidemment!” Monsieur Delacour burst out. He strode up the stairs and took his wife’s hand. They disappeared down the hallway to the attic door.
Gabrielle continued to hang ornaments, blue and green and red and purple globes of glass that sparkled in the firelight and reflected distorted images of the room.
Suddenly, the fire blazed and turned emerald. Gabrielle jumped to her feet and turned toward it, whipping her wand out from its holster on her leg as she did so. Slowly, the fire regressed, and the tall, redheaded form of Bill Weasley stepped out. Fleur gasped. Moody gave her a steadying look with both his eyes. “You all right?” he murmured. Fleur nodded quickly.
Gabrielle lowered her wand slightly but did not entirely drop her guard. “What did you tell me ze morning you married my seester?” she asked. Her green eyes, the main difference between her and Fleur’s appearance, narrowed. For a moment, Fleur could almost imagine her baby sister as dangerous.
“I told you that I would never hurt your sister, and that if you ever needed a brother you could come to me,” Bill replied. He swung his arms forward and back, recovering himself from the long journey by Floo.
Gabrielle nodded and lowered her wand. She did not replace it in its sheath, but instead laid it on an end table between two chairs.
“Is Fleur here?” Bill asked without preamble.
“No,” Gabrielle replied. “Why? Should she be? What ‘as ‘appened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” Bill said in a tired voice. “She didn’t want to come to my parents’ house tonight, so I thought she might have come here.”
“No, I ‘ave not seen ‘er.” Gabrielle shook her head. “’Ave you checked your ‘ouse? Are you certain zat she ‘as not vanished?”
“No, I haven’t gone back to our house,” Bill stated. He smiled slightly. “I was a bit afraid to “ you know how she can be when you piss her off.”
Gabrielle chuckled ruefully. “Yes, I do know ‘ow she can be. ‘Ave you ever seen her when ze wait for ze bathroom is taking too long?”
Bill laughed. “No, I haven’t seen that. I have, however, seen her throw a fit over the organization of linens.”
Fleur scoffed, indignant. “I did not zrow a fit!” she protested. “And my temper is not zat bad!”
“It is from what I’ve seen, princess,” Moody retorted, laughing. Fleur glared at him. Moody kept laughing for a moment before pretending to compose himself.
Fleur turned back to Gabrielle and Bill, who were still speaking. “I cannot believe ‘e came all zis way just to see if I was ‘ere.”
“It’s because he loves you, princess,” Moody said quietly. “He loves you enough to come all this way to face your sister and make sure this is one place on the planet where you’re not, and you turned your back on him. You wouldn’t even go with him to his parents’.”
“Don’t,” Fleur snapped. “I would ‘ave only been an interloper. ‘Is parents do not want me zere.”
“Yes, they do,” Moody insisted. “They want you to be there more than you can even imagine. You are part of that family now, and they want you with them.”
“Prove it,” Fleur spat.
Moody shrugged. “As you wish.”
Suddenly, they were standing not in the front hall of Fleur’s parents’ home, but in the small, cramped kitchen of the Burrow. Molly was fussing about, cutting slices of chocolate cake. Ginny appeared in the kitchen behind Molly.
“Can I help you, Mum?” she asked. “Everyone’s starting to get worried.”
Molly flashed a grin over her shoulder at her daughter. “No, thank you, dear. I’m getting on fine. Why don’t you just go wait in the sitting room with the others.”
Ginny smiled. “Okay, Mum.” She turned to leave and even took a few steps before turning back to her mother. “It would be easier on you if Phlegm “ sorry “ Fleur was here, wouldn’t it?”
Molly shrugged, not looking up from the cake. “Yes, I suppose.”
“Bill’s gone to her parents’ house to see if she went there instead,” Ginny informed her mother.
“And what would he have done if she had been there?” Molly asked. She turned on the spot. “Begged her to come again? Well, he already tried that, and we all saw how well that worked out.”
Ginny’s eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t mean that, Mum,” she said. “You’re just stressed.”
“Why shouldn’t I be stressed?” Molly demanded. “When my only daughter-in-law suddenly decides that this house isn’t good enough to spend her Christmas in, and my son’s too sad about his brother to leave his flat ““
“She doesn’t think that, Mum,” Ginny protested. “And you can hardly blame George ““
“Mum?” Charlie “ the son right after Bill, Fleur remembered “ entered the kitchen, clutching a glass of eggnog. “Is everything all right?”
“We’re fine, Charlie,” Mrs. Weasley snapped, very clearly not fine.
Charlie slowly crossed the kitchen. He wrapped his long arms around his mother and hugged her tight. He spoke to her, his voice so low it was impossible for Ginny to hear. Fleur and Moody, however, were somehow able to catch his words.
“I know it’s hard for you, having Christmas without all of us here,” he murmured. “But I don’t think Fleur and George stayed behind because they wanted us to be miserable. They just couldn’t face a celebration right now. You’ve lost brothers, Mum. You know it’s hard to live, let alone celebrate. But right now, you and I need to pull ourselves together and go sit with the others and pretend that even though everything’s been blown to shite we can deal with it.”
Molly looked hopelessly at her son. Apparently she hadn’t even registered the swear word. “But I can’t, Charlie. I can’t fake a smile.”
Charlie smiled encouragingly at her. “Sure you can. Come on, let’s finish cutting the cake and then we’ll go talk with Dad and the others.”
With Charlie’s warm supportiveness behind her, Molly managed to finish cutting the cake. She, Ginny, and Charlie all took a plate in each hand and carried them out to the sitting room. Moody and Fleur followed them out. Fleur stopped short at the sight of the company there. Everyone was thinner and paler than they had been at her wedding to Bill, of course, but they had all recovered somewhat from the strain of the war. All of them looked much better than they had at the end of the war, save one.
Harry, always thin, now bordered on skeletal. As Ginny handed him a plate and then plopped down beside him, he murmured a word of thanks but otherwise didn’t respond. His eyes were circled by deep purple as though he had hardly slept for days.
“It looks like he’s having a rough time of Christmas too,” Moody remarked. “Probably thinking about all the people who won’t see this Christmas because they sacrificed themselves for him.”
Fleur nodded. Her concern for Harry’s situation far outweighed her irritation at Moody. She stared at Harry, her blue eyes wide as Galleons. She would have given a fortune for his bright green ones to meet hers and smile, through the distance and various dimensions between them.
Suddenly, the fireplace blazed green. Bill stepped out, mostly covered in soot, his mouth drawn in a thin line and his long hair mussed. “She’s not there,” he said without preamble.
Charlie shot a dark look at Ginny, then jerked his chin at their mother. She nodded, walked two steps, and hugged her mother. Mrs. Weasley sniffled, nodded once, then straightened her shoulders and looked around at them all. “Now,” she asked, “who’s going to help me bring in the rest of that cake?”
Ron, Charlie, Hermione, and Ginny volunteered at once. As they stood and walked into the kitchen, the others began their conversation once more.
“Why is George not ‘ere?” Fleur asked. “’E should be; look, zere is ‘Arry; it would be good for zem to be together.”
“I think that could be said about many people,” Moody said pointedly, staring directly at her with both his eyes.
“Why do you zink zat?” Fleur inquired. “Clearly, ze Weasleys do not mind zat I am not with zem. Zey are carrying on as if nozzing is ze matter.”
Moody’s composure, which he had been working to keep since the incident with Davies, began to crack. “Princess, can’t you see how they’re faking it? Look at them, not one of them is really happy.”
“Well, my presence would not make zem ‘appy,” Fleur retorted.
“Perhaps not,” Moody snapped, “but it would be one step closer.” He studied her a moment. “Do you want to see why George isn’t here?”
“Yes,” Fleur replied, not meeting his eyes.
“Well, then,” Moody said, and they were standing in a small, plain room. A brass bedstead stood in one corner. A mirror hung on the other wall, next to a chest of drawers. The door by the bed was closed; the other door, directly across, was slightly opened, revealing a white tile floor, a sink, and the edge of a shower curtain. A window in the wall above the bed provided the only light. A Gryffindor pennant between the doors provided a small splash of color.
Fleur walked across the creaky wooden floor to the window and gazed out. It took her a moment to place the street outside; then she realized that she was in Diagon Alley. That meant “
A door slammed below them. As footsteps pounded up the stairs, Moody drew Fleur into the corner with the mirror. Out of habit, Fleur looked over her shoulder at the mirror. She gasped when she saw nothing but the brass bed reflected. Moody rolled his eyes.
George slammed the door open and stomped in. He kicked the door shut behind him and set his rucksack on his bed. Fleur gasped at his appearance “ he was even thinner than Harry, and gaunter by at least half. He stared into Fleur and Moody’s corner for a moment, so intense in his look that Fleur could swear he saw them. It took a moment for her to realize he was glaring daggers at his own reflection. He stormed over to the chest of drawers, yanked out a cloak, and threw it over the mirror. He stood there for a moment, shaking “ Fleur thought she heard a sob. Then he fell onto his bed and pulled out a bottle. Fleur wasn’t sure, but she could bet it wasn’t Butterbeer.
“We’d best go,” Moody murmured. “I’m receiving a signal that he’s about to receive his own visitation.”
“What do you mean, a signal?” Fleur inquired.
Moody gestured over to the window. Fleur looked. Her eyes popped wide open, and her jaw dropped to her chest. Fred Weasley stood there, grinning cheekily and waving at her.
She stared for a moment, then slowly collected herself and nodded. “Yes, I suppose we ‘ad ought to go. Where next?”
Moody placed his hands on both her shoulders and said, “The future, princess.”
A Christmas Flower by Apollonious
Chapter Endnotes: Please review! I do rather love reviews.