Chapter Text
Every morning, Fleur reached for the bedside table. It was a thoughtless action, a habit borne from the time of the second wizarding war, even though it had been won over a year ago. Sleeping with a wand had too much risk of snapping it, but for all her waking hours, it was in her hand. Fleur had been intent on living through the war, even though her chances of survival were lessened by being an Order member and her house a stop in a route of safe houses for muggleborns.
Now, she wondered if maybe, being less intent on surviving would have been for the better. Because when she opened her eyes and murmured Lumos, no ray of light erupted from her wand. The room continued to be as dark as ever; no Accio from her lips could shift the curtains.
Bill had asked her to stop, once. He'd tried to tell her there was no use in trying every day to do something she couldn't do. Fleur had pointed her wand at him—not a wand anymore, really, just a dead stick in her cold hands—and said the banishing charm in between her Lumos and Accio ritual. He never mentioned it again.
.
They came home a week after Victoire's birth, bringing home an air of defeat when there should only be victory. Like most newborns, Victoire was awake far too often while Fleur slept too much. It was hard to stay awake when grief plagued her every waking hour. It was only briefly dispelled by irritation: at herself for not being stronger, at her body for not rebounding quickly enough, at her magic for not fighting, at her child for being so loud and needy (like any normal child her age) when she'd already taken so much.
Fleur remembered her sister at her daughter's age; she'd been nine years old when Gabrielle was born. Their age difference hadn't been large enough for Fleur to have felt motherly toward Gabrielle, but she'd always tried to be the best older sister possible. Gabrielle had been beautiful. Fleur had cooed over her just as Gabrielle cooed over Victoire on her occasional visits, taking care to be shielded by dragon leather.
"She's so sweet," Gabrielle murmured, smiling at the child. "So much prettier than our cousin's children, yes?"
"Gabi," Fleur said reproachfully, though she had to admit, their snooty cousin's children had yet to grow into their looks. She rolled her eyes, and said, "Yes. She's beautiful."
There was something like pride in her heart, when she looked down at her child and consciously tried to forget the elephant in the room. Victoire had pale blue eyes and fine blonde hair. She was chubby, and her features would look different when her baby fat faded, but it was a given that she would be a heartbreaker. With Fleur's beauty, Bill's handsomeness, and a dash of veela blood, she would never have problems catching people's eyes. She was blessed, despite the curse inside her.
"And her magic," Gabrielle swooned. "Already having accidents. Even we weren't able to do anything until we were three." It was true; Victoire had only been days old when she realized she could get the softest blanket in the house to fly into her arms. They'd been worried about her hurting herself, but for now it seemed she was content with shifting blankets and toys with her mind and occasionally trying to get a bottle of formula to fly over. Those, Bill and Fleur carefully regulated and kept locked in the cold box, not trusting their precocious child to drink on her own.
Well, she does have enough magic for the both of us, Fleur thought. She didn't say it; it was hard enough to speak of it, and whenever she and Bill tried to talk it out, one of them ended up unable to continue. Gabrielle must've seen it on her face, because she added, "I'm sorry."
"What's done is done," Fleur replied.
But it wasn't that easy. Her magical core was completely destroyed, her magic now augmenting Victoire's. Her daughter was healthy and alive, but Victoire's victory was a loss for Fleur.
She tried to think of it as a gift. Mothers loved their children unconditionally; who was Fleur to resent her own child for something Victoire couldn't control?
(Human. She was blindingly, unfailingly, awfully human. And it hurt.)
.
In the back of her mind, she knew it was cruel.
It was awful, this feeling inside her, this hatred that wouldn't go away. Weeks ago, she could barely feel a thing; and now she was simply angry. She was tired of being angry and yet she couldn't stop.
She'd never cared that her husband was infected by a werewolf, or that her family carried veela blood, or that her third cousin was a squib. She'd always thought of herself as a kind, modern, accepting woman. She'd been wrong. There were some things she couldn't learn to deal with. She had voluminous books on forgiveness and St. Mungo's pamphlets on acceptance and a subscription to a wizarding radio channel about dealing with grief and nothing was going to help. Nothing was going to change the fact that her magic had been ripped out of her.
She was broken. She, who had competed in the first Triwizard Tournament in centuries, who had been chosen for it out of twenty extremely promising Beauxbatons witches. She, who had spent years finding balance between her pride in her heritage and her peers' wariness of her veela blood. Her veela charm had depended on her magic, and without it, no one would ever call her beauty ethereal or stare at her with a wide-eyed, star-struck gaze. Fleur hadn't always liked her veela powers—they were too wild, too uncontrollable—but they had been hers. She'd been young and bright and going places, and now she could only see the things she couldn't do.
She couldn't ingest magical potions; most used the drinker's innate magic to work, and now she was the same as any muggle or squib. She couldn't apparate, and now had to walk from room to room or house to store in order to get anywhere. Bill had suggested buying a car, but everything in Fleur's being balked at something so muggle. She was a pureblood of countless generations; how was she supposed to figure anything out about the muggle world?
She couldn't work at Gringotts, where goblins favored magical strength above all else. She couldn't work in the ministry, which was getting better about blood purity but still probably wouldn't accept a squib. She couldn't get a mastery in charms like she'd been idly planning to do after Victoire was old enough.
Her world had narrowed to Shell Cottage, and it was a prison with open doors.
There were some things she do now that she had magic. They all centered around Victoire: holding her, washing her, changing her clothes and soiled nappies, burping her, pressing a rare kiss to her soft cheek. Fleur and Bill made a great team in changing her diapers and cleaning her toys, all without Bill ever touching their daughter. But outside of satisfying Victoire's needs, Fleur couldn't bring herself to touch her daughter. Perfunctory gestures were one thing; forgiveness was another; and grief was present through it all. She had no enthusiasm for her child. She had enthusiasm for very little, these days.
Writing helped. During her pregnancy, Fleur had started a number of short stories and had ideas for longer works. She'd spent so much time off work, keeping her high-risk pregnancy from getting out of hand, that writing had become her eyes into the adventure-filled world outside. But now that she looked at it with new eyes, she knew she couldn't continue her old works. They were unmistakably magical; her heroines didn't spare a thought before lighting a Lumos or shouting a Cambiens. And although her characters had always been able to do what Fleur could not, their actions now inspired sadness instead of hurt.
She burned her words in the dark of night, escaping her marriage bed when Bill was deep asleep. He would've only worried, and Fleur was tired of the fragility in his expression whenever he looked at her. He would reveal it to the therapist whose sessions Fleur rarely consented to attend, and she would have to talk about her feelings once again.
She knew her feelings; they weren't the problem. The problem was the world outside her head, the one that wouldn't let everything go back to the way it was two years ago. If she'd known what she knew now... She would've left Bill in a heartbeat. Fleur loved her husband, but the loss of magic had left a whole in her life that couldn't be filled by family or love.
Their couples' therapist gave them each a journal and asks them to write. Bill didn't use his, but Fleur covered hers with words she couldn't share with Bill. Words that half alarmed her with their hatred and anger, but mostly just released some of the pain that lurked inside her.
Grief followed her into her dreams, but sometimes, she received a reprieve. Sometimes, she was just a girl of eleven, learning magic for the first time. Her wand would warm in her hand and her spells would fly and it would be alright for a very short time. On those days, Fleur woke up with tears in her eyes. (Bill wouldn't metion it. Bill didn't mention a lot. Bill, who had always been a steady presence, a calming force, had lost the ability to give her comfort.)
The characters who replaced the burned ones were animals, squibs, and children whose magic was unpredictable and uncontrollable and wouldn't respond on command. Bill never saw a single word.
She wrote more often now, and not just her stories. She wrote letters to her family and friends, musings on life, memoirs from better times. Those letters were never sent, but on occasion, she would submit an essay to the Daily Prophet's writing section (page sixty-five, with an average of ten readers per issue).
Gardening, too, was something she found some enjoyment in. It forced her out into the sunlight, kept her face from becoming as white as a ghost's. The Fleur of a few months ago would've gasped in horror at her looks: her hair was wild from being rarely brushed, her nails were unpainted and long, her eyes were often red from tears. Her old self wouldn't have left the bedroom like this, never mind go outside. And yet there was a freedom in telling her ideas of propriety to screw themselves.
In the evenings, Bill sat in bed and read about finance and gold and goblin history while Fleur wrote. Her hands were almost always stained with ink now, and Bill went around casting mild cleaning charms on Victoire after Fleur touched her. Fleur forbade Bill from doing the same on her, not wanting to come in contact with magic now that she couldn't cast it.
.
She wasn't alone. Her friends from Beauxbatons sent letters. Her sister was only a floo call away. Even Viktor visited twice, though Fleur hadn't asked that he come.
Her parents had offered to move in or find a cottage nearby, but Fleur had said no. Sometimes, she wished she hadn't been so stubborn. With another two pairs of hands, she would've had to see Victoire even less. But it tasted of failure, to let her parents see how far she'd fallen.
She even had Bill, if she could bear to let him close again. Sometimes, when Victoire had fallen asleep and she and Bill fell into bed, she thought of the constant space between them and wondered. Their relationship had been ruined, though not through anything she or Bill had done. It could be rebuilt.
But even when Fleur stopped hoping for cure, stopped taking up her wand with dead eyes, there was no escape.
Had fate run its course a different way, Victoire would've been the apple of her parents' eyes. She would've been loved in a way that wasn't tinged with guilt or sadness. But it didn't.
.
When the first representative from the Department of Mysteries visited, they sent him away, citing their need to recover from the ordeal. Victoire was too young, too fragile. Even then, they knew it wasn't the last time he'd come by the hungry look in his eyes. The excuse only worked for the first month of Victoire's life; afterwards, they were told it would be a matter of legality. If Victoire wanted to continue living in the wizarding world, the department of mysteries would first make sure she wouldn't destroy it. Who knew, as its head wrote in his frequent letters, if one day her powers would grow and devour the magic of those in her vicinity as well as those who touched her?
"Maybe we could live with muggles? She could touch them, I think," Bill said, throwing out the newest letter with a grimace.
Fleur shook her head. "What if she touches a muggleborn?"
"I know." With a sigh, he added, "And she's a magical child. She won't thrive, living as a muggle."
"It'll be alright," Fleur told him. "We'll be with her every step of the way."
Watching her, Fleur didn't add. Making sure what happened to me never happens again.
.
The next day, the first Unspeakable entered their home, forcing them to juggle care of a young daughter and the intense scrutiny of strangers. Soon, various Unspeakables came to visit and test and sample and try to understand their daughter. They had little care for what they interrupted and even less care for Bill and Fleur's sensibilities. They asked Fleur to help, of course, because wasn't she the only one who could touch the child? She could touch her daughter, unlike Bill, who sometimes stared at Victoire with a wistful expression and twitching fingers, she would not be harmed.
For the first couple months of Victoire's life, their home was an inn for a revolving stream of Unspeakables. Fleur couldn't tell them to leave when they claimed to have the safety of the wizarding world on their side, but after half a year of useless poking and prodding and taking notes with interchangeable inscrutable faces, she and Bill asked for a permanent placement. Just one competent person to do the job.
A couple weeks later, Unspeakable Pansy Parkinson knocked on the door, barging into Bill, Fleur, and Victoire's lives for the first time. On July 1, Bill opened the door, sighed at the Unspeakable robes, and ushered him into Victoire's room.
"A bit small, isn't it?" Pansy asked, referring to Victoire's crib. "She's not cramped?"
Fleur wondered at the size of Pansy's own former crib (and her ego), but only shook her head. She'd heard worse in the never-ending barrage of Unspeakables that flocked to her house like flies. "She's fine."
Pansy snorted. But later, when she saw the careful way their child had to be treated, she took them aside and said, "I'm going to find a way to help, alright?"
"Thank you," Fleur said, her tone perfunctory.
.
Pansy was a constant presence in their lives, practically a live-in nanny with how often she was there to keep an eye on Victoire and her powers. She was there when Victoire took her first steps, performing experiments in another room. She was there when they both needed a break, when they needed to leave the house, when the project was completed and Victoire was allowed to live in peace in the magical world. And she was there afterwards, because somehow, she'd become a friend instead of an intruder.
Pansy made Bill smile.
It was an irrational jealousy that took hold of her, and Victoire knew it. She and Bill hadn't had sex since a month before Victoire's birth, and yet he still cared for her, still continued to be faithful. He wouldn't destroy the future they'd built for lust, no matter how attractive and attentive the Unspeakable was. Fleur remembered the girl vaguely from the tournament; Pansy had been a constant, simpering shadow of the youngest Malfoy. Now, she'd grown up into her own person, and that person was everything Fleur wasn't. Magical, attractive, competent, able to go a week without breaking down in tears and hysterics.
Sometimes, she wondered if maybe, she should've just married Viktor when he'd asked. It would've spared her so much grief, even if she didn't love him. She'd never loved anyone like she loved Bill; she'd never hated anyone as much as she hated Bill, either. It was a misplaced hatred—Bill hadn't chosen to come home with a curse—but just as Bill bore guilt, Fleur carried anger in her heart.
She was only twenty-one years old, and she was tired of life. What was there to live for? What was there to want? How could something like this happen to her? It was unbearable, this thing that she'd have to bear for the rest of the life. How did people deal? How could muggles live without magic for all their lives and not grieve every day for how amazing they could be, if only they had been born different? How did they survive without having any kind of abilities? How did they live without starving, how did they warm their homes at night? And how could Fleur live as one, when she couldn't live as a witch? There were so many questions in her head, unanswerable ones. If only she could pull back time. If only, if only, if only. The world could burn (maybe, but maybe not). If only she could have her magic again. Victoire was beautiful and amazing and would grow up to be something more than Fleur's grief, but she no longer wanted to see it.
.
Fleur held on for four years.
2002 brought in a flurry of Weasley marriages, pregnancies, and births, all coming together around the time of Molly Weasley's birthday. Fleur had never liked her, all stemming from the fact that Molly hadn't liked her first, but sometimes she tried to have a good relationship with her mother-in-law.
And the birthday was a celebration to be remembered, as Molly's head in the fireplace told them, "I'll be happy to drag you three there myself!"
"It's not safe," Bill protested weakly, glancing at Fleur. But the excuse was weak, now that Victoire was old enough to know to never, ever touch anyone.
"Percy will be there with Molly and Lucy," Molly said. "Victoire and Molly will be in the same Hogwarts class. You might as well let them become friends now instead of having them meet in a couple of years."
"Victoire may not go to Hogwarts," Fleur tried.
"But isn't that Unspeakable of yours working on a shield for her? An invisible one to protect her from all angles? You told me so last week," she accused.
"It's not ready yet. It's still in its planning stages," Bill replied.
"Nevertheless, there's hope. Come, stay for a while. Give yourselves hope. I haven't seen you in months. You're like a ghost, Bill," Molly said, her voice the kind of soft and sad that hurt her husband the most. "And Fleur... please, come."
And with twin sighs of defeat, united temporarily, Fleur and Bill agreed.
.
She was happy that Bill was happy, Fleur told herself. It wasn't even that the Weasleys were bad; they were just loud and blunt and had so many children running around everywhere. Every Weasley (and almost Weasley, and Weasley-other-hyphenated-last-name) alive was there, celebrating the good year and the good years to come. Fleur tried very hard not to be a nundu.
She looked to the side, and noticed her daughter. Victoire was standing too close to another child, Molly Weasley, who was slowly reaching for a part of Victoire's uncovered face. Her face was the only part of her body that was uncovered, in fact, the rest in dragon hide.
"Stop!" yelled a voice, and for a moment Fleur thought it was hers, but it turned out to be Audrey's instead.
The two girls turned to the yelling. As they turned, a rubber ball hit Victoire in the side and she stumbled head-first into Molly.
Fleur's heart caught in her chest and she stumbled out of her chair and ran towards them, Percy, Audrey, and Bill at her side.
No, not again. Please.
"Are you alright," Bill asked Victoire, having reached her first.
"Yes, Daddy," she replied, standing upright again.
"Is she alright," Fleur asked, nodding towards Molly, who was being asked over and over again by her parents if she was touched. Percy was clutching his daughter to his chest.
"I didn't touch her," Victoire said. "I didn't. She just tried to touch me."
"Vic, you know it happens either way," Fleur said, softly, touching her daughter's shoulder. Her voice was hollow, eyes full of grief.
"I need to get her to St. Mungo's to check," Audrey said, taking Molly's hand. "It'll be fine, love." But her voice betrayed her fears. Soon, the two left.
"I'm sorry, I never meant for that to happen," Bill told his brother.
Percy glanced at them, pained. "Losing her magic… it would be the worst thing to ever happen to her. Bill… I can't. I can't. Please, just leave."
"Alright," Bill said. He apparated alone, while Fleur took Victoire in her arms.
Once they were home, Fleur put Victoire to bed, telling her a short bedtime story in hopes of getting her daughter to doze off. It had been a long day. Within half an hour, Victoire was asleep, clutching a stuffed animal to her chest. And so Fleur left her.
.
2002 also brought the first Weasley divorce in nearly a century.
"I'm leaving," Fleur told Bill that night, after they put Victoire to bed and received a floo call from Bill's mother, saying Molly was alright. "I can see the love in your eyes when you look at her and at me. You're a good man. But when I think about spending another moment in this house, with her, with you, without my magic, I want to cry. I can't let this be my future, Bill."
"Just stay for a little while more," Bill asked. "Maybe…"
But there were no maybe's left for them. There hadn't been ever since they returned from the hospital all those years ago. They had never talked about having another child; Fleur could count the number of times they'd had sex since Victoire's birth on the fingers of one hand.
They'd wanted so hard for things to get better. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly.
Fleur took his hand in hers. "Not as sorry as I am."
It was stupid pride that wouldn't allow her to live as a muggle, but now she knew she had to try. She had to swallow the shame and loss and build something of her life, because she wasn't going to die for decades, and she couldn't imagine spending the rest of her time in Shell Cottage.
She left the following morning after a series of quick goodbyes, to Bill, whose heart felt like it was breaking all over again, to Pansy, who was still an Unspeakable but half outsider, half family by now, to Victoire, who didn't truly understand but cried all the same. She took nothing but some clothes and her notebooks, throwing out her old wand as she left.
She'd go to France, Fleur decided. Not to her parents—it wouldn't be any different there—but to a city where no one had ever heard the Weasley name. Somehow, she'd figure out how to live without magic. It would have to be enough.