Archive of Our Own ^beta

GABRIELLE.

ON THE SUMMER OF HER SIXTH YEAR IN BEAUXBATONS, GABRIELLE DELACOUR DYES HER HAIR BLACK. It’s not even dark brown, or any other variant of brown. She dyes it jet black that not even the sunlight could bring out any other color in it. It took sneaking out to Muggle Paris and looking at several products on the shelf of a drugstore before she settled for jet black. It’s the opposite of white, and the farthest thing from the color of her older sister’s shiny, radiant blonde hair. 

She stares at her reflection in the mirror of her Beauxbatons dorm room for thirty minutes, her face, neck, and shoulders stained with splotches of hair dye that she couldn’t bring herself to wash off. The dye is still on her hair, but she already knows that she does not look the same. She swears she will never look the same. Her sister could appear beside her in this moment, a phantom behind her, the reminder of all her insecurities and everything she will never be, the ghost she will always try to outrun, and they would look nowhere identical to each other. 

Gabrielle thinks about getting brown contacts for the sake of trying to be someone else, but she has always loved her eyes. They are not soft or icy like her sister’s. They are deeper, much darker — almost like the ocean if you look at them for longer than Gabrielle would allow. Perhaps it is the only thing that’s reminiscent of the sea that Gabrielle loves. 

Sometimes she still thinks of the water back in the Black Lake. She thinks of how, at nine years old, she was left in the Black Lake as a test for her sister. Nevermind the fact that she had her own future to forge ahead of her, or the fact that she is also a promising witch for her age. She is merely tossed into that lake as if she was an object, a token in which Fleur must obtain in order to prove herself to the rest of the world. 

See, Gabrielle wouldn’t feel the need to dye her hair jet black, or to think about getting contacts if Fleur wasn’t her older sister. Maybe if she had an older sister who wasn’t a war hero, who wasn’t a triwizard champion, who wasn’t a Weasley… then maybe she would have a bearable life — or maybe a life she could say she enjoys. If Fleur didn’t get the chance to experience glory at the expense of Gabrielle, then maybe Gabrielle would be much more inclined to treat Fleur in a warmer way. 

She looks at herself in the mirror once more before she turns on the tap, flinching at the first contact of cold water against her skin. (Try as she might to get over it, Gabrielle still thinks of the Black Lake every time she sees water. Her fear of it is not so paralyzing that she couldn’t find herself within a bathroom, or a swimming pool. However, she also would very much prefer to stay as far away as possible from deep waters. It’s mainly the reason why she barely returns to their residence in Nice, settling for life in the Pyrenees within the safe confines of the Beauxbatons chateau.) She scrubs off the dye on her hands and fingers first, rubbing them raw with a bath sponge, and then she works on her face and her neck. 

By the time she finishes, she is not the sister of the clever, beautiful, perfect, and alluring war hero Fleur Delacour. She is just Gabrielle. 

HER MOTHER GASPS WHEN SHE TURNS UP IN HOGWARTS FOR THE MEMORIAL BARELY RECOGNIZABLE. Gabrielle hates this place because she knows she could have died here. She could have been a body whose flesh had been eaten clean by the fishes, her bones the only reminder that someone had been helpless within those waters. There’s guilt along with this. Everyone thinks of Hogwarts as a battleground. The place where their loved ones had died. To Gabrielle, Hogwarts is nothing more than the Black Lake. The school is the Lake, the Lake is the school. She wouldn’t have gone here if it weren’t for her family’s insistence to pay their respects to their in-laws. 

As if their in-laws would even appreciate it. Fleur’s mother-in-law doesn’t even like her. Gabrielle holds the thought inside her head the way children would keep a piece of candy hidden from the prying eyes of their parents. She lets these thoughts fester inside her head like a decaying wound that has never received proper care. 

Her disdain for the United Kingdom in all its entirety is almost enough to get her mind off the fact that her mother is berating her through a hushed voice. 

“Gabrielle! Why would you do that? Do you fancy yourself a… disgraceful person?” Gabrielle silently thanks the crowd. If she were alone with her mother, then she would have had to endure minutes and minutes of yelling and humiliation. 

She’d perfected the art of tuning things out. She had tuned out her mother’s harsh comparisons between her and her older sister; how Gabrielle could never live up to what Fleur had accomplished in her lifetime: a war hero, a triwizard champion, a beautiful witch. Sometimes Gabrielle would listen and think of multiple snide comments in her head, but most of the time she just drifts off in her own little world. She’s doing that right now. Tuning out her mother and visualizing herself in a noisy, indie music festival in France. She wishes for the feeling of the crowd to come closer to her, bodies against bodies against bodies. She wants to disappear into the crowd, wants to be something else, anything else but the sister of Fleur Delacour. 

In the midst of her mother’s expression of disappointment, she locks eyes with him. Same mousy brown hair and wide gray eyes. She’d seen him before during her short stint in Hogwarts, when she went along with her family to watch her older sister fight for her life in an otherwise meaningless pursuit for glory that would fade as time goes on, and then only in passing through the years when she finds him solemnly looking at the memorial every year. He looked more lively back then, before the war that took away his older brother. He seemed to be a victim of time’s erosion now. One of the people whose youth had withered away in the passage of time and trauma. 

He must be out of Hogwarts by now, if Gabrielle’s calculations are correct. She gives him a curt nod and a small smile. Much to her surprise, Dennis reacts with a seemingly genuine smile. One that does not look as though he’d been struck by a veela charm, or one of admiration purely earned through association with Fleur. 

Gabrielle spends a few more seconds staring at him. She watches him look at his brother’s name in the memorial and feels something aching from deep inside her. It’s a dull ache at first, and then there’s an excruciating pain that follows. Sure she hates living beneath Fleur’s shadow, but she could not imagine a life without her sister. 

For all that it's worth, Fleur is a good sister in the sense that she does try her best to be present for Gabrielle. She tries her best to let Gabrielle know that she is important, that she has her own place in this world. It is merely through their circumstances and their upbringing that Gabrielle finds herself cold and distant towards Fleur who only ever tried to reach out. 

The ceremony finishes and everyone disperses to talk to familiar people in the crowd. Her parents seek out Fleur and the Weasleys, but Gabrielle chooses to move towards Dennis. He would have disappeared in the crowd had she not chased after him, panting as she weaved through the crowd all because he’s so hard to catch up to with those long goddamn legs of his. 

He wasn’t this tall back when she saw him for the first time. She thinks that he’s only a few inches taller than her back when she was nine. He’d grown into himself now, not quite a man, but not a boy either. 

“Dennis, wait!” She calls out. She’s grateful that he turned around when she did because she isn’t so sure she can continue weaving through the crowd like she’d done a while ago. 

The world stills around them. The people pass, some of them bumping their shoulder against her back on occasion, but it didn’t matter. For some reason, time seems to stay still whenever Gabrielle is looking at Dennis. She’s not sure if this is what admiration feels like, or if it’s merely curiosity. She would have to think about it more when she goes back to France. 

“Oh, Gabrielle.” He looks taken aback, almost shocked that she’d sought him out in a sea of people who are all dressed in mourning black. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” A remark that she probably should have saved for later when they’re not in front of the Hogwarts memorial commemorating the deaths of everyone who fought for the Wizarding World. 

Dennis laughs and runs his fingers through his hair, a sight Gabrielle didn’t realize she’d be happy to see. “You look different. I almost didn’t recognize you if it weren’t for your… eyes.” His remark is followed by an awkward cough which Gabrielle finds all too endearing. 

“Do I not look like a Delacour anymore?” Gabrielle teases, but a small part of her hopes that he’d say yes. She wants him to look at her and not see a Delacour. She wants him to look at her and not think that she’s Fleur’s younger sister.

“Well… yeah,” He trails off, but his eyes widen not long after. “Not in a bad way, of course! I’m just… It’s just… Black hair looks good on you.” He is a mess of rose-tinted cheeks and sweaty palms. 

She could see him visibly wiping his hands on the fabric of his pants and there’s this part of Gabrielle that finds all this attention flattering. Somehow it doesn’t feel fake with Dennis, despite her knowledge that her veela charm works on everyone. It’s not certainty afforded by verbal assurance, but it’s certainty provided by a gut feeling, almost like a lightning strike that tells her there’s something here worth her time. Coup de foudre, as they call it in France. 

“Thanks, Dennis.” Her smile is more genuine now, devoid of the initial annoyance and bitterness that stemmed from her mother’s incessant remarks about how Gabrielle just loves doing things that are not very pristine and perfect of her. There’s something about the calm existence of Dennis that puts her into place, sets things back in perspective — or makes things less jarring as they are. 

“You wanted to say something a while ago?” He asks, fidgeting with the hem of his black sweater. 

“Oh, I just didn’t think I properly expressed my condolences. I’m sorry about Colin.” She’s aware that this is not the right time to do this, not when it had been three years after the war. She could have said this to him during the first anniversary, or even the first memorial a few weeks after the darned castle had been cleaned up. Still, she feels the need to ally herself or to put herself in Dennis’ sights for some reason. 

Somehow, she thinks that there’s some semblance of shared feeling or understanding with Colin. They are both younger siblings to war heroes. Perhaps he would understand what it’s like to live in the constant shadow of his older sibling. While Gabrielle is aware that perhaps the relationship between Colin and Dennis aren’t sour through circumstance, there must be a parallel somewhere in there to begin with, right? 

Or perhaps she is just so lonely that she gravitates to the next lonely person she could find who has the potential to look at her and not see her older sister. 

She is surprised to see that Dennis only smiles and waves her off. “He did the right thing. It’s just too bad that the Death Eaters were better fighters than he was.” 

“You were here back then, right?” She couldn’t help but to ask. Gabrielle had been in France at the time, hiding in the comforts of the Beauxbatons chateau while the rest of Europe was fighting their own battles against the dark forces of Voldemort. She wouldn’t know what it’s like to be stuck in a battlefield, helpless with nothing to do. 

“Yeah. It wasn’t a pretty experience. I wanted to fight… but I couldn’t do much. I don’t regret it, though. The way things turned out, I’m just glad our parents still had one son left.” She sees it now, the haunted look on his face and the exhaustion masked in small smiles that don’t quite reach his eyes. 

“If you could go back in time… would you do something differently?” She wants to dive into his head, bathe into the pool of his thoughts and ingrain herself and familiarize herself with the cogs and meshes that bring his brain together. 

“That would mean going back to a time before I existed. Me alone? I don’t think there’s much I can do on my own.” Dennis answers her questions without hesitation. 

It baffles Gabrielle how he could think about all of these, or how he could process all of these thoughts. They seem so… unselfish in nature. His ability to think about things that are beyond him is something Gabrielle couldn’t see herself doing. Their answers vary in ways she can barely comprehend. If it were up to her, she’d change the past in a way that would make sure she would never have to be thrown into the Black Lake. Dennis, on the other hand, only wanted a world that would prove to be better for all of them. 

This is where they are different people, Gabrielle deduces. Her existence is rooted in self-preservation: to live as Gabrielle Delacour and not as Fleur Delacour’s sister, to get away from her mother’s idea of perfection, to be unaffected by the passiveness of her father who only bends his will to his wife and not his youngest who’d been the victim of endless emotional blows. Her perception greatly limits her ability to comprehend things that are beyond her. After all, her world is collapsing internally within the four walls of her own home. How can she think of things beyond all of that when she couldn’t even wash her hands without flinching upon the first contact of water against her skin? 

“I like how you’re better than me at these things.” She shakes her head, laughing in both amusement and disappointment. 

“Am I?” He’s so clueless about it and Gabrielle gets it. He doesn’t know what goes on inside her head, nor is he trying to pry within it (which she hopes he would). He doesn’t know about the dark spiral staircase that only leads nowhere inside her mind. 

“You are.” 

“I guess I just want to make him proud… by being someone wise or something. I don’t know.” Dennis shrugs now and Gabrielle understands that this conversation is over. 

She gives him another smile before standing on the tips of her toes to press a quick kiss on his cheek. She did it out of attraction with the hopes that they will see each other again in a place that isn’t so depressing. If he ever asks her why she did that, though, she will only say that it’s how French people greet other people goodbye. 

“Oi! She’s only sixteen!” She could hear Ron Weasley from behind her and Gabrielle giggled. 

“Don’t mind him. I’ll be seventeen in a few months. If my knowledge serves me right, you’re only a year and a few months older than me.” She turns on her heels and moves toward the flock of red hair mixed with a couple of blondes. 

There’s a height she feels after she talks to Dennis despite them being somewhat strangers. She looks for him in the crowd after saying goodbye only to be met with the sight of a brown haired girl with bright eyes that seem to have dulled down who takes enough space beside Dennis to make herself noticeable. 

Gabrielle scowls and looks blankly at Fred Weasley’s name on the memorial instead. 

Back to reality, Gabrielle. 

DENNIS. 

DENNIS CREEVEY LIVES ON AUTOPILOT. Sure it looks as if he is a young man who holds himself together very well. One who does not struggle with keeping himself sane day by day, but really he finds that he is mostly floating. He is chasing after something that will never come to fruition, a dream that will never become a reality. He wishes for things that will never be real because the existence of magic to someone who grew up in a world where such a thing is deemed the object of fairytales and fantasy stories only meant that somehow the impossible could be undone. 

He looks at the camera on the top of his nightstand and curses to himself. Magic may prove that impossible things indeed happen, but it can never change the flow of time, or the strings between life and death. Halfheartedly, he takes the camera in his hands and thinks about the last photo it had taken. The fountain in Hogwarts’ courtyard in all its rottenness, void of any life, obviously taken over by something much more sinister than the forces of evil: decay and loneliness. He didn’t know how he was able to withstand months in that castle being taught by Death Eaters. If anything, he doesn’t remember much of it anymore. A muggle psychologist told him that it is a trauma response and Dennis believes her. 

His parents are on a vacation somewhere in Southeast Asia. They had friends that they wanted to reconnect with, and Dennis is quick to send them away under the false pretense of being okay on his own. He loves his mother and father, truly, but they can be suffocating in the sense that they seem to think he will follow his brother to the grave if they don't watch him closely. It took Dennis a year after his Hogwarts graduation to finally convince them that great evil does not lurk in the broad daylights and shadows of the Wizarding World anymore. While he understands that they are still mourning the loss of their eldest, they would eventually have to let him go and stop acting as if he will die the moment he disappears from their peripheral view. 

Admittedly, it is much easier with them around. He’d moved out now to a small flat in France. He took on a job at a magazine company in France whose focus tends to deviate from their main travel content. He couldn’t speak a lick of French, the food here is prepared differently from the way they do in England, and some nights, he thinks of his older brother. He is a photographer, the very passion his brother had always practiced. It is rare for Colin to be without his camera back in their youth. He carried one with him all the time because memories are meant to be preserved. 

Dennis thinks that it sucks how Colin only exists as a memory now. That the memory he would have to preserve now is that of his older brother. 

And so he decides that he will live the way his brother would have. It isn’t fulfilling Colin’s unfinished business, but more so Dennis wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of surviving a war that claimed the lives of many. He’d told a black-haired Gabrielle Delacour a year ago that he’s just glad his parents still have one son left, but he didn’t tell her that he just wishes it wasn’t him. 

He was never good at grieving. When he was seven, he took the loss of their family dog so deeply that he spent days crying and not eating in his room. When he was eight, his hamster died after being extremely startled and he’d blamed himself endlessly. On both occasions, he was inconsolable and barely functioning. His maturity does not mean that he wouldn’t react the same way to his older brother’s death. If anything, Dennis’ grief had gone deeper and so much worse that he couldn’t find it within himself to do anything that Colin didn’t want to do. 

Living like this… the way Colin would have, it would seem like Colin is still in here somewhere. That he didn’t really die. It makes him feel better that way, to pretend as if nothing changed even if the world had changed completely. 

Dennis spends another day without eating, afraid to even try to order in French because apparently, French people can get really nasty about foreigners trying to speak their language. He finds it jarring and annoying, and so he settles for just drinking out of the tap to satiate the growling in his stomach. 

DENNIS HAD SPENT ALL BUT THREE DAYS HOLED UP IN HIS APARTMENT BEFORE HE IS FORCED TO GO OUTSIDE. He is a photographer, and his photos would not exist if he does not venture beyond the comfort of his apartment. A thought crosses his mind that perhaps he had overestimated his ability to exist solely by himself. Prior to Colin’s death, he’d always looked to his older brother for guidance and stability. He’d been a clumsy child back then, smaller and even more unsure of himself. It had been his older brother who helped him get over it, the childhood insecurities, the awkwardness, the social anxiety. He didn’t think he would have to exist so soon alone without the presence of any family, but then again, this is his own undoing. 

There is a bakery down the street that’s famous for their cream puffs. He already had a cup of coffee in his hand and had been planning on buying cream puffs to balance out the bitter taste when he saw a flash of black hair and familiar laughter in his peripheral vision. 

Gabrielle Delacour is an enigma to him. A puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. She is beautiful in her own right, but there is something sharp to that beauty that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Whenever they’d lock eyes during those memorials in Hogwarts, he thinks that if he stares at her for too long, he’d end up with a cut somewhere on his body. There is something off-putting about the way Gabrielle carries herself in public. It’s like he does not see who she really is. It feels like smoke and mirrors whenever he sees her with other people. 

He would have entertained the thought that Gabrielle Delacour is merely made up of falsities had she not approached him during the memorial last year. She asked him questions and declared that he is a good person — or at least, that’s what it sounded like to him. The feeling of her soft, pink lips still lingers on his cheek as if it happened yesterday. Dennis thinks to himself: Is that who she really is? Or is it just another trick made with smoke and mirrors? Then again, she looks at him differently than how she looks at other people. He knows when curiosity is genuine because he’s seen it on his older brother so many times. When Gabrielle asked him if he wanted to change something in the past, he knows that it’s not a question she only said out of pity. 

He keeps his gaze on her, observing her in her natural state without the predetermined sadness and grief whenever they visit the Hogwarts memorial. She seems much more comfortable in her own skin here, more assured and vibrant. If he were to talk in terms of photography, Dennis would claim that the Gabrielle he saw with her family in Hogwarts is grayscale — not even monochromatic with retention and balancing of colors, it’s grayscale in the completely desaturated sense — while the Gabrielle he’s looking at right now is a photo filled with color, there is life everywhere in here. 

It would be a lie if Dennis were to say that he does not wish to look at this version of Gabrielle forever. 

It takes her a total of twenty five seconds before she notices him on the sidewalk. Her eyes widen and it comes to a surprise to Dennis when she runs straight to him, wrapping her arms around him. He tips over backwards, but he manages to recover in time to put one arm around her waist. Her lips meet his cheek one more time, staining it with the mauve lipstick she’s wearing. He could feel her breath on his neck when she tightened her hug on him one more time. 

“You’re in Paris!” She all but exclaims, pulling away only to look at him and run her fingers through his hair before making a home out of his arms once more. “I’m so glad to see you.” 

Her hair is still black. She hardly changed, but has changed everything about her at the same time. Dennis looks deep into her ocean blue eyes and thinks that it’s cruel that her eyes mirror the exact image of the deepest waters in the ocean when she herself fears it. Regardless, Dennis finds her eyes beautiful and mesmerizing. He just hopes that it doesn’t remind her of water. 

She looks back at him and Dennis has to remind himself that this is a verbal conversation. She will not gain anything if he continues staring. He clears his throat and brings his hand to his nape, looking at Gabrielle sheepishly. 

“I got a job here for a wizarding travel magazine.” He hopes she wouldn’t think that he came here for her. He’d been careful enough not to divulge his job prospects back when Gabrielle started sending him messages last year. He doesn’t even know how she found his contact number, or that she’s capable of using a muggle phone. 

“It’s very nice that you chose Paris. Isn’t it lovely here?” Gabrielle asks, opening her arms wide as if she’s a little kid presenting the place to him. 

Dennis doesn’t want to lie. He’s a very horrible liar and feels that falsities and made-up things are only a waste of time, but he feels like he should lie to her right now and pretend that he’s all too enthusiastic about the place. He doesn’t want to be the foreigner shitting on someone’s home country to a resident. 

Gabrielle reads him easily, though. He came to that realization a few months ago when she’d perfectly laid out his own feelings to him, ones he couldn’t even explain all by himself. He isn’t surprised when she laughs and places a hand on his shoulder. 

“I know you don’t like new places. Here, I’ll show you around.” She looks over her shoulder and yells something in French to the rest of her friends. She bids them goodbye and suddenly Dennis feels all too conscious of himself. There is an extremely beautiful girl with him, offering to take him around Paris. 

Dennis only knows about Parisiennes from stereotypical muggle media he’d consumed during his off days (which he had more of than days where he actually had proper work done). They wear bold red lips, have blonde hair, and smoke several cigarettes a day. By the looks of it, Gabrielle only seems to fit one of the three criteria, but only until a rose gold lighter slips out from her coat pocket. 

She’d been talking animatedly for a few seconds, oblivious to the little thing that has slipped out from the crevices of her coat. Dennis bends over to pick it up, jogs after Gabrielle, and hands it to her. 

“Oh, thanks! I wouldn’t know what to do without this.” She gives him a sheepish smile, almost embarrassed to be caught that she’s in the possession of something considered to be contraband in Hogwarts. Dennis isn’t sure if it’s the same in Beauxbatons, but he wouldn’t be too surprised if it were any different. The French are more liberated than the English. 

“Wait… isn’t it in the middle of the term, right now?” Dennis asks when he realizes that Gabrielle is two years younger than him. She’s still in her seventh year if his memory serves him right. It’s easy to forget the small amount of time in which he existed before she had mostly because Gabrielle always talks to him as if she’s larger than life, an intoxicating creature that transcends both time and space. Dennis doesn’t feel like he’s older, if anything he feels like he’s a little kid, always in awe of everything she has to say. 

“We’re allowed little weekday getaways like this every now and then.” There’s a mischievous glint in her eyes and it looks so natural and charming on her. 

Dennis’ mother is from Japan, she used to tell Dennis all about these fox spirits who are charming and mischievous. It makes Dennis think that Gabrielle could be a kitsune if she wishes to be. She could be the alluring, mischievous girl that haunts people even when they are awake. 

Her contrast to her sister is very evident in this. Fleur is elegant, almost regal. When she appears, it’s like you have to look at her. Gabrielle on the other hand is haunting. You don’t have to look at her to know that she’s beautiful. You’ll know it even from the first sound of her laughter. 

Dennis has to stop his train of thought right here. Gabrielle hates it when people put her side by side against her sister. If God has the ten commandments, Gabrielle only has two: Do not talk to her about her mother unless she initiates it, and never compare her to her sister. 

“I didn’t know you’re the type to sneak out.” Dennis raises an eyebrow and pretends he doesn’t notice how Gabrielle had already wrapped her arm around his bicep. 

“Well it’s a good thing you live here now. You can know everything there is about me. I can tell you everything that goes on inside my head.” Her smile is addicting, but the promise of finding out what’s happening inside her own brain draws Dennis in more than what she looks like when she’s looking up at him with the brightest of smiles. 

Dennis doesn’t tell her this, but part of the reason why he moved here is because he knows they would exist near each other. There is comfort in proximity, even if it’s not necessarily the kind that makes the other person more accessible, easier to look  at, easier to touch. Plus, here in France, he doesn’t think people would tell him that he’s doing a horrible job at being Colin simply because they do not know Colin here. 

Gabrielle takes him to the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre and uses her veela charm on an unsuspecting stranger just so they’d agree to take a photo of the two of them. 

“I had to use the veela charm. He might steal my phone if I don’t.” She whispers apologetically in his ear once the phone had been returned to her and she had already thanked the stranger with a honeyed merci beaucoup. 

She does not let go of his arm, not even when she’s knocking on the door of a friend’s art studio, or introducing him to her favorite barista in one of the coffee shops that she frequents. Dennis finds his heart beating loudly inside his chest for the first time in years. He doesn’t feel the excruciating guilt and grief anymore. Everything is just Gabrielle, Gabrielle, Gabrielle. 

When she kisses him on the cheek, Dennis blushes the same way he did last year, and Gabrielle only giggles. She is different from how they had been back when they were younger. He’s used to seeing Gabrielle during memorials a bit more timid, almost as if she lets herself exist within the background of things, never to take the forefront. Now that she’s here with him in Paris, he feels as though she is different, a new person entirely. 

He thinks about that kiss on the cheek for the next few weeks, and probably the next ones after that as well. 

GABRIELLE.

HER GRADUATION IS A MESSY AFFAIR. Gabrielle didn’t even want to celebrate, or do anything about it — not even a simple dinner back at home. Her milestones are all somewhat normal milestones for people. They do not entail complete achievements that she had made all on her own. To Gabrielle, graduations are just like birthdays. They come into your life inevitably so it’s only a matter of when they will come. However, her sister insists that this is something worth celebrating, and thus invites Gabrielle and the rest of their family to the Shell Cottage. 

She hates the whole thing for three reasons — the very same reasons why Gabrielle would sometimes swear she would rather disappear off the face of the earth: her perfect sister (plus her perfect family of part-veela children and war-hero husband), her toxic mother, and the sea. Gabrielle likes to think that she’d grown out of blaming her sister for everything, but this celebration just feels insensitive instead of congratulatory. She would rather drink in a dingy, dirty club in Knockturn Alley than spend her graduation here. 

If we’re celebrating, then I can at least bring a friend with me, non? She had raised an eyebrow at her perfect, insensitive older sister who tries so hard that she ends up failing from doing so. 

If that’s what you want to do. Fleur responded, but it didn't feel wholehearted. If anything, Gabrielle thinks that Fleur wanted this whole thing to comprise only their family. Her better judgment tells her that Fleur is merely trying to fix whatever broke between their family, but Gabrielle didn’t have the heart to tell her sister that some things just cannot be fixed. 

Gabrielle’s abhorrence for humiliation brings her to desperate measures that she didn’t think she would ever do. She’d asked Dennis to go with her to the graduation dinner in Shell Cottage. If he were there, her mother would be less inclined to humiliate her. After all, they would be in the presence of a complete stranger. No one in the Delacour family properly knew who Dennis was. Fleur is aware of his existence, but he is still a stranger. Bill does not know him the way his younger brothers do. It was a genius plan on Gabrielle’s part. There would be someone whose existence merits the best behavior of her mother, and someone who could at least ease the anxieties in Gabrielle’s head. 

Although, whatever it was that was building up between the two of them had reached an impasse the moment Gabrielle decided that perhaps she should start taking her seventh year a bit more seriously. She would take every opportunity she could get to start living on her own without the need for her parents’ money. Dreams and aspirations be damned, she wants to make money so she could finally subtract herself from the toxic idea that they should exist to achieve perfection. Gabrielle wants to be flawed, desperately flawed that she would trade her dreams in for something that would guarantee her independence. 

Her correspondence to Dennis had significantly decreased to the point that it had been reduced to greetings over the holidays. She’d stopped sending him random photos that made her think of him, and stopped sneaking out in the middle of the night to visit him in Paris. Prior to the invitation to her graduation dinner, she had no idea how he was doing. 

Which explains the surprise on her face when she sees just how Dennis Creevey had grown over the past few months where they do not talk. He’d grown taller, towering over her now. She thinks that if she has to look up at him for longer than she usually does, her neck would strain. Gabrielle knows that people think a male’s growth spurt ends only when they turn twenty one, but she didn’t think such a thing would actually apply for someone like Dennis. He wasn’t this tall the last time she saw him. Perhaps he’d grown two extra inches over the last few months they’d seen each other? 

“You’ve grown taller.” Gabrielle does not bother with pleasantries. Their conversations back then had allowed Dennis to know how much she hates being in her family. While she never talked about it in detail, she knows that Dennis is observant enough to understand the implications of her words. 

“I’ll be right beside you the whole time.” He forgoes responding to Gabrielle’s comment about his height. Gabrielle likes that about him, he is strangely direct about this despite his general avoidance for things that would constitute a confrontation. She regrets the lull in the build-up of their friendship, or whatever it is that was going on between them. His directness made her realize how much she missed someone like him who does not speak in circles around her. 

“Merci. ” She smiles at him and wraps her arms around his bicep. She feels him tense ever so slightly before he properly relaxes into her touch. Gabrielle counts to five before apparating the both of them to Shell Cottage. 

When they arrived, Gabrielle had to hold tightly on Dennis’ arm, feeling overwhelmed by the smell of the ocean breeze. It’s not unpleasant for the way it smells. Gabrielle only hates it because of its relation to deep water. The Shell Cottage had been their property for years even before Fleur and Gabrielle were born. It was transferred to Fleur given the financial situation of Bill’s family and the lack of a proper salary given to her in her London desk job. Before the Black Lake, Gabrielle loved going here. She loved smelling the ocean breeze and the feeling of sand between her toes. Nowadays, Shell Cottage just makes her want to throw up. 

“Do you want to stay here for a while?” Dennis asks, his forehead creased. 

Gabrielle runs her fingers through her jet black hair and looks at the sea, then the Shell Cottage. “No. The sooner we get this over with, the better.” 

DENNIS HOLDS HER HAND UNDERNEATH THE TABLE WHEN GABRIELLE’S MOTHER STARTS TALKING TO DENNIS ABOUT FLEUR’S TIME IN BEAUXBATONS. Personally, it didn’t matter to Gabrielle if her mother was talking about Fleur in a dinner that’s supposedly done to celebrate her graduation. It keeps her mother happy, and it keeps her attention away from Gabrielle. She picks on her food and ignores her mother’s constant need for validation on perfection, the soft babbles of baby Dominique, and the endless stories of Victoire. 

No one in the room seems to be paying attention to Gabrielle other than Dennis, just the way she wants it to be. For someone who’s not as academically-gifted, Gabrielle sure knows how to manipulate situations in her favor. Her mother may think she’s not as smart as Fleur, but at least her mother will never recognize how they have been manipulated and played into behaving by their youngest daughter. It gives Gabrielle some twisted kind of satisfaction knowing that she could still bend others to her will without the use of the veela charm. 

She is taken aback when she feels someone tapping her arm. She looks beside her to see little Victoire, all bug-eyed with the same ice blue eyes like her mother. Sometimes, Gabrielle hates looking at the eyes of Fleur’s children, only because it reminds her so much of her sister’s. However, her maturity and better judgment dictates that these children are not Fleur. She tries to like them, so far it’s working for Victoire. 

“Is he your boyfriend?” Little Victoire asks in a hushed tone, her genuine curiosity allowing Gabrielle to breathe a little as she laughs. 

“ Non, ma cherie.” Gabrielle whispers in French. She knows that Fleur speaks mainly in English now, hence Gabrielle’s insistence to at least create a barrier between herself and her sister in Victoire’s mind. Sometimes it’s exhausting to try to make herself as different from Fleur as possible, but Gabrielle thinks it’s all worth it when people ask her if she has siblings. 

“Are you going to make him your boyfriend?” Victoire comes up with another question for Gabrielle to ponder on. 

“C'est à voir,” She smiles to herself and fails to notice Victoire’s confusion. Her niece’s lack of French skills will not be a problem for her tonight. 

Her mother’s attention turns to her. There’s a smile on her face, but Gabrielle knows that there’s hesitance in that smile, that it’s not something she’s willing to give to her youngest daughter. Gabrielle tries her best not to roll her eyes and be on her best behavior tonight. Sure she’d told Dennis about the gist of things with her family, but he never witnessed Gabrielle when her brain is driven with rage and bitterness. He never heard her wish horrible things on her mother, or the circumstances she’d been born with. Despite her nonchalance towards her own ruination, she does care deeply about what Dennis would think of her. 

“Well, let’s toast to Gabrielle for graduating! We all know you could have been at the top of your class if you tried, but you did well, cherie. ” Gabrielle’s mother raises the champagne flute with a tight-lipped smile. Her father’s face is as stoic as ever. Fleur gives her a concerned look and so does Bill, but Gabrielle pays them no mind. She feels Dennis tighten his hold on her hand, but everything seems to be so far away right now. 

The sound of the wine glasses clinking together do not sound like glasses at all, but rather the muffled sound of being underwater. Gabrielle hates drowning and deep water, but she hates being in the same room with her entire family. She would rather go back to the Black Lake than stay here. 

Right now, it feels like she’s shackled underwater, unable to leave no matter how hard she tries to swim away, to find a current that would take her back to shore. Her mother’s hand is holding her under the water and she doesn't know how long before she stops being able to breathe. 

“Perhaps try to get a good job like your sister did after this, yes?” Her mother adds and Gabrielle just loses herself. 

She’s back in the Black Lake, sinking this time with all of the weight pressing heavily on her chest. It’s like she’d been tied to the bottom of a boulder before she’s thrown into the deep water. There are fishes all around her pecking at her flesh. She tries to scream, but green, murky bubbles come out of her mouth in place of air. She couldn’t breathe, it feels like her lungs have given out. 

Her mother appears in the water, she’s shaking her head. I taught you how to swim, Gabrielle. Why couldn’t you swim? She tries to answer, but the boulder is heavy on her chest and water fills her mouth and lungs. 

There’s Fleur behind her mother, grindylows all over her body. She does not move. She continues to stand there, a cold stare fixed upon Gabrielle. She continues staring, not even when Gabrielle is desperately trying to reach for her, to reach for the last sliver of hope she has left in her older sister who tries so hard but never gets it right. 

She feels a hand on her foot, pulling her deeper into the abyss of murky water that descends deeper into darkness. She tries to kick whoever is pulling her downward, refusing to go deeper than she already is, but the hand is strong. Gabrielle looks down only to find her mother as a mermaid, smiling as she pulls her downward into the darkness of the Black Lake. 

She doesn’t know what happens next. Gabrielle thinks she already drowned.  

DENNIS.

“I’M RIGHT HERE, GABRIELLE. PLEASE TALK TO ME.” He all but begs as soon as they apparate back in front of his Paris apartment. She’d stopped talking in the middle of dinner and picked at her food until it’s time for dessert. Dennis had to relinquish her plate for her all because Gabrielle had refused to look, or even speak to anyone. Her fingers had gone limp in his hand and he couldn’t bring her back in the room with him no matter how hard he squeezed her hand. 

“This isn’t Shell Cottage anymore, you’re with me now. Please, Gabrielle, come back to me.” He says into her ear as he takes her in his arms. He doesn’t let go, not even when it starts to rain and they’re both drenched. Gabrielle doesn’t flinch from the water, but soon enough he notices that she’s started crying. 

“I’m so sorry, Dennis.” It’s the first thing she says after hours and hours of excruciating silence. Dennis knows what it’s like to be overcome with so much pain and resentment. He knows what it’s like to shut down and leave the world in favor of living in your own head. He also knows that it’s dark and it feels helpless in there which is why he does his best to bring her back. 

“No, no. It’s okay. I’m right here, Gabrielle. I’m right here.” He holds her tightly now and welcomes the feeling of her arms wrapping around his torso. 

SHE’S QUIET EVEN WHEN THEY ENTER HIS PLACE. She doesn’t say anything even when she’s shivering from the cold spring rain and Dennis could only do so much by casting drying charms on the both of them. He sits down on his couch and pulls her to his lap. 

“I shouldn’t have put you through that. I’m so sorry.” She whispers, but Dennis only shakes his head and tells her it’s okay. He does not understand why Gabrielle wishes to keep him away from this when all he wants is for her to know that she can lean on someone, that she can bare all of her darkness to him — family included — and he would only stay here and tell her that he will be here. 

“Gabrielle, I do not care whether you put me through hell and back. I thought that it was long established that we would understand each other when it comes to these?” Dennis asks, hoping that their conversations from the past year that slowly dwindled into holiday and birthday greetings meant anything to Gabrielle. 

“You’re too… you’re too pure for them. There is no way that I will let them taint you the way they have tainted me. I do not want you to see how they have made a mess out of me, how they tore me apart piece by piece and left the pieces scattered elsewhere for me to locate.” Even in despondency, Gabrielle talks so beautifully. Dennis recalls the messages she would send him in the middle of the night and think that she would make a great writer. 

Once, Gabrielle briefly mentioned that she wanted to write — not for any form of job, or anything in particular. Gabrielle only said that she wanted to write because it’s what feels most natural for her. Dennis never said it outright, but he hoped that he would get to read more of her writing. Words do not sound or feel the same way they do with other people than with Gabrielle. She speaks as if she could take him to vast universes that could paint him pictures better than what he or his brother could have captured on camera. 

“Listen, Gabrielle, I will never hurt you the way they do. If you feel trapped or suffocated because of them, I am right here. I can be your refuge from all the shit they put you through. I cannot promise you that it will not hurt, but I will do my best to shield you from it.” There is a certain weight to Dennis’ words that could cause whatever they have to collapse if he does not fulfill it in any way. He does not take them back, though. He will be here, regardless if Gabrielle thinks she needs him or not. He will stay. 

There is a smile on her face, albeit still forlorn. “Do not talk to me like that, Dennis. I might think that you’re in love with me.” 

He does not answer, but he thinks about it. He thinks about it long and hard that even when she’s asleep on his bed, he still could not find the conclusion to her inquiry. Is this love? To swear that you will understand someone no matter what? To shield them from all the things that haunt them even in their waking hours? Is love the sense of empathy and understanding borne out of shared trauma and guilt between the two of them? 

He thinks about it even when he’s lying in the dark on the floor next to his bed. Gabrielle had consented to him sleeping beside her, but her question had driven him to put some semblance of distance between the two of them, even if it is merely physical. Will Dennis lie in the bed next to her if he loved her? 

See, Dennis has to think about these things more so than usual. His decision to live life on behalf of his dead older brother had made him so lost and confused about his own undoings. Gabrielle is a fleeting presence in his life, but she lives at the back of his head constantly. He would think about what Colin would do in a certain situation, and then there is Gabrielle, with her jet black hair and her warm, red-lipped smile. There are nights where he thinks that he is only there for Gabrielle in the presence of his brother. Gabrielle is a part of Harry’s life, even if only through association. Dennis thinks that Colin would at least want to be there for her. 

In the same vein, Dennis also just wants to be as brave a person as his brother is. Colin, who was never a great duelist, had charged into the fray with his wand, ready to free the Wizarding World from the shackles of Voldemort. Dennis just wants to become a good person in the way Colin was, and the only measure for it would be the validation he would get from the people who were around Colin at some point. 

The sun rises, and Dennis still doesn’t know if he’s in love with Gabrielle, or if he’s just trying so hard to become a good person. 

GABRIELLE.

GABRIELLE OUTGROWS HER JET BLACK HAIR AS SOON AS SHE MOVES FROM THEIR HOUSE IN NICE TO PARIS. Gone is her jet black hair that has made her the farthest person from Fleur. It is now replaced by a dark red hair, not like the Weasleys’ red hair, but a darker cherry red that gets people’s attention more than her black hair ever did. She walks along the Seine with a cigarette between her fingers, a calm yet dangerous look on her face. 

There is a significant amount of change that occurred to Gabrielle within the time frame between her graduation and where she is now. It had only been a few months, but to her it felt like years and years. While this is not necessarily freedom (she could still feel her mother’s cold stares when she looks at herself in the mirror), she does feel like she has less things to prove. The notion of perfection is not something she feels like she should chase now. If anything, Gabrielle strives to be as flawed as possible. She wants all the vices, all the horrible things to her name. If Fleur is the saint, then Gabrielle will gladly be the sinner. 

Gabrielle had been working as a translator these days for the French Ministry of Magic’s archives. Sometimes she would translate things from ancient runes to French, and sometimes she would have to translate things from French to English. The job pays well, and it keeps Gabrielle entertained enough that she doesn’t feel like she needs a change of scenery. Her boss had been generous enough to let her work from home most of the week, with her outputs being sent through owl post. If they were extremely confidential, then that would be the only time Gabrielle would personally deliver the documents herself. 

This particular set up with her job leaves her more time to explore places she’s always wished to see. She’d been to two countries within the past four months and had stayed in one for about three weeks before she returned to Paris to deliver another confidential document she had translated. Perhaps her free spirit had been unleashed to the world. An exorcism in a good way, or at least that’s how she would like to describe things these days. During her free time, she would spend her days reading a book in her favorite coffee shops in Montmartre, looking at the Sacre Coeur in awe. 

She has not talked to any of her family members in months. She would like to think that she had cut ties with them completely, yet Gabrielle still sends them greeting cards out of courtesy whenever one of them would celebrate a birthday, or a holiday. Other than that, she can rarely be found in Nice. Sometimes she would apparate to the Shell Cottage only to give presents to Victoire who was starting to grow older and more talkative, and to Dominique who started walking recently. That’s as far as she could go for her family. 

Fleur tries sometimes to mend their relationship, but Gabrielle couldn’t stand to look at her sister’s face without thinking of the Black Lake, her mother’s gaze that equals that of ruination, and the constant comparison that now lives in her head. No one calls her “Fleur’s sister” anymore, but it has been so ingrained into her own self-consciousness that Gabrielle still actively tries to not be like Fleur every chance she gets. She appreciates that Fleur tries, but the bonds of family had been broken the moment their mother tried to raise them to be perfect daughters with only one of them successful at it. 

“Sometimes I wish you’d stop smoking those.” A familiar voice. The sound of goodness and purity combined. 

She looks to her side and finds Dennis with his hands tucked within his coat pockets. He dresses like a Frenchman now despite his personality being that of a complete Englishman. Gabrielle adores it, but she never says it to his face. While Gabrielle gives Dennis her fair share of compliments, she never tells him how she adores him in fear of breaking the fragile balance of their friendship. 

They never talked about what she told him back in his apartment after her graduation. She fell asleep crying on his bed while he sits on the floor, his back against the side of the frame — ever the proper gentleman. Gabrielle wanted to kiss him then, just to confirm if her suspicions about her own feelings are true, but she’d never gotten a friendship quite like hers and Dennis’. She doesn’t want to ruin it for something fleeting such as love. 

“You know what they say, Dennis, joie de vivre. I am here for a good time, not a long time.” She laughs before taking another drag from her cigarette, exhaling smoke into the cold November air. From her peripheral vision, she could see Dennis staring at her lips. 

This is where Fleur and Gabrielle are different. Had this moment happened in Fleur’s stead, she would have quickly turned Dennis down, knowing that those affections would not be returned. In Gabrielle’s case, she does not say anything in favor of preserving what little is left of their platonic relationship. She has ruined a lot of things for herself and for the people around her, which is why she swears that she will never do the same for whatever it is she and Dennis have. 

“I’ll make sure to put an ashtray on your grave when they bury you somewhere.” He shakes his head in resignation. 

“As long as they do not bury me near any body of water,” She shrugs before linking her arms with his, leading him to the usual commute way to get to the cobbled streets of Montmartre. 

This has become quite a thing between the two of them. Their weekends would be spent in each other’s company walking along Montmartre and interacting with the people they have made acquaintances out of. Come nighttime, they will either go back to Gabrielle’s place, or Dennis’ and watch muggle films on the CD players they bought. Her favorite recently had been Before Sunrise, preferring the lengthy dialogues and introspection between two characters. Dennis claims not to have a favorite, but Gabrielle had taken note of how much he talked about Notting Hill after they watched it. 

“How’s work?” She asks. Dennis rarely talks about work these days, and Gabrielle suspects that he might be burnt out. Gabrielle hates assumptions, but these days, she is convinced that Dennis has started hating photography. He’d always been a better painter than he is a photographer, but the memory of his older brother seems to dictate every single path he takes. 

She would have commented on that if she isn’t doing the same thing he is. Her older sister dictates every single thing Gabrielle would do, even if it isn’t direct. Gabrielle would just put herself in Fleur’s shoes and then do the opposite of what she would do every single time. Over the years, she had gotten quite good at disappointing her mother. 

There is a long period of silence in which they find themselves stopping in front of the Louvre, their eyes fixed on the entrance of the museum with no words shared between them. Gabrielle moves closer to Dennis, hoping that the closer proximity would give him enough comfort to say what’s lingering in his mind. 

“I do not know where my older brother starts, and where I end.” Dennis says in a hushed voice that it’s almost a whisper. Gabrielle had only been lucky that her ears were within inches of Dennis’ lips when she stood next to him; it didn’t take much effort for her to clearly hear what he’d said. 

“What do you mean?” She tilts her head and faces him, brushing a stray lock of hair that made its way to his forehead. 

“Harry called me Colin the other day.” There is a certain heaviness in the air. Gabrielle did not even know that Dennis had been in touch with the Boy Who Lived. Sure they spend a lot of time with each other, but she is aware that there are certain pieces of themselves that they both keep… hidden from the other’s view. 

In Gabrielle’s case, it had been the part of her that wishes to still be a completely different person from her sister — an exact opposite. 

“You keep in touch with Harry Potter?” She tilts her head, her hands slowly drifting from his arm to lace her fingers with his. 

“I suppose it’s what my brother would have wanted to do.” It explains everything then, how Colin and Gabrielle had reached this certain form of understanding, or how they just seem to get each other. 

“I don’t feel like going to Montmartre today, or doing anything else for that matter. Sorry, Gabrielle, but I wish to be alone for today.” Dennis gives her an apologetic smile and pulls his hand away from hers. Gabrielle’s hand suddenly felt a bit too cold and she thinks that she wants to follow him wherever it is he’s going to. If he wants to be alone, well, they can be alone together. 

“Besides, I think your boyfriend has been angry with you for weeks. Shouldn’t you be fixing that?” Now Gabrielle had never thought Dennis to be so cruel with his words, yet here he is reminding her that she does in fact have a boyfriend, and that Gabrielle hadn’t exactly been acting as if she’s a proper girlfriend. 

You are one cruel man when you do not wish to be your brother. Gabrielle thinks. She does not voice this out loud, but instead just turns on her heels with a huff and lights a cigarette as she walks along the Seine into some dark alleyway where she could apparate safely into her apartment. 

HER BOYFRIEND IS WAITING FOR HER IN HER APARTMENT. He doesn’t have flowers in his hands, or the box of chocolates he would usually give Gabrielle whenever they are hitting a rough patch. This time, he is just there, sitting on her dining chair with a forlorn and frustrated look on his face. 

Pierre Delacroix is a boy six years her senior. He’d been in Beauxbatons when she was a first year, but he didn’t know about her existence until she started working for the ministry. Gabrielle knows that she should steer clear of men with an obvious penchant for women who had just gotten out of their teenage years. Nevertheless, eighteen and twenty-four do not seem weird to her when she thinks about her sister and Bill Weasley. 

She remembers Dennis giving her disapproving looks when she introduced him to Pierre. It doesn’t take a genius to know that he does not like the difference in age between the two of them. Regardless, he’d kept his mouth shut and smiled a tight-lipped smile when he shook Pierre’s hand. 

“Where have you been?” Pierre’s voice is grating her ears. Gabrielle wants to apparate away, but the etiquette her mother had drilled into her brain is the only thing preventing her from doing so. 

“Seine. Why do you ask?” Gabrielle is nonchalant about the whole thing, but she dreads confrontations, preferring to shut herself off from the world when it happens. 

“The last time you saw me had been two weeks ago, and the last time you sent me an owl had been a week and three days ago. Pray tell, Gabrielle, am I not enough for you now?” He sounds angry, and Gabrielle wishes that he does not come near her.

“You say that when you didn’t talk to me for a month in favor of fucking your boss’ new secretary, who, by the way is apparently married with child.” Gabrielle rolls her eyes. This is a dangerous game she is playing, trying to diffuse fire with fire, but she is not Fleur Delacour. Her weapons are her words and her beauty, and she does not wish to become a diplomat the way her sister is. 

“That is not what we’re going to talk about here, Gabi.” His voice is shaking. She must have made him that angry. 

“It’s Gabrielle. If you wish to talk to me about my recent behavior, then maybe evaluate yours first?” Gabrielle takes a seat on the window sill, welcoming the cold November air on her back as she inspects her newly-painted nails. “I had started to think that you did not want to continue this relationship with you fucking around with married women and girls you met in clubs, yet you came back to me and told me you’re in love with me.” 

“And I am! Do you not believe me?” He all but yells, but Gabrielle only holds an index finger to her lips. 

“The neighbors will hear you, Pierre. This room is not enchanted.” She crosses her legs and stares straight into his eyes. She sees him quiver under her gaze, and that makes her smile. “I would believe you if I did not find some other girl’s underwear in your apartment.” 

She waits for him to deny it, but Pierre only sighs. It seems both sides have gone tired of this entire charade. 

“You wish for me to stay loyal when you go around every weekend in Montmartre with that Englishman. It is only fair, no? That I regard you in the same way you do me.” His response does not sound different at all to Gabrielle. Their arguments always reach the same conclusion: that Dennis is responsible for the crumbling of their superficially-charged relationship. 

He only likes her because she’s young. Gabrielle does not even like him. She only dated him in order to disappoint her family even more, and thus resulted in her own ruin. They have used each other in their different ways, but not as much as Gabrielle has used him in order to ruin what is left of her family’s respect for her. She does not want him in the way he wants her, which is why this whole ordeal is easier for her to deal with. 

“I do not love Dennis, if that’s what you want to know. He is a friend.” Gabrielle has reiterated this for how many times, yet Pierre still refuses to listen. 

“You are a very bad liar, Gabrielle.” He moves towards her, one of his hands placed on her thighs currently exposed by the short skirt she’d worn earlier in the day. “I’m not a very unreasonable person, you know. If you want this to be devoid of emotions, I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Satisfies your need to fuck around, huh? More younger women you could sink your teeth into?” Gabrielle does not know why she chooses to provoke him this way. His hand feels heavy on her thigh and she wishes that it had been Dennis’ hand instead. 

She lets him fuck her before they properly break up, and Gabrielle knows that he will keep sending her owls after this, but she does not care. Losing Pierre means nothing to her. He is nothing but a deadweight who does not understand her in the cosmic way that Dennis Creevey does. Gabrielle had done enough of thinking about Dennis whenever she kissed Pierre. She’d done it so much that it gets tiring eventually. 

She picks up her mobile phone and immediately sends a text to Dennis. He is the only contact in her phone after all: I’ve sorted things out with Pierre. Can you stop being cruel to me now? 

DENNIS. 

IT DOES NOT SURPRISE HIM — NOT IN THE LEAST BIT — WHEN GABRIELLE BREAKS UP WITH PIERRE. He had thought about this multiple times, especially when Gabrielle had introduced Pierre to him face-to-face. She looked bored of him back then, even when she tries her best to keep a pretty smile on her face as she introduces Pierre to Dennis. There were times when Gabrielle would space out, her mind drifting off into another world, while Pierre spoke. Dennis would take it upon himself to entertain, or at least, chime into the conversation that Pierre has created for himself. Pierre is older than them, but even more older than Gabrielle. The times Dennis had spent third-wheeling for the two of them made him attuned to the fact that Pierre seemed to think they are not capable of any complex thoughts, simply because they are younger than he is. 

He never said this to Gabrielle, but he hated Pierre for her. It’s not even hatred in a way that evokes jealousy. He just doesn’t like the guy. He’s stuck-up, and Dennis never missed the times when Pierre would stare at some waitress’ ass while they’re all having dinner. He wouldn’t be surprised if Pierre is fucking some other woman behind Gabrielle’s back and Gabrielle doesn’t know. 

Is he glad that they broke up? Yes. However, there’s this nagging feeling in the back of his head that isn’t quite too happy about this situation, especially when Gabrielle had just called him cruel. How is he cruel for telling her to fix her troubled relationship with her boyfriend when all he wants is for Gabrielle to find resolution in her current issues? Dennis knows that Colin would have done the same thing. 

“I did the right thing, didn’t I?” He asks The Boy Who Lived who looks reasonably guilty in front of him in a pub in Ireland. 

How Dennis found himself face-to-face with Harry here is something he doesn’t know. All he knows is that he needs an adult — a proper one, someone who could tell him that he’s doing things properly. However, Harry seems to be looking at Dennis as if he’d done something… weird, or perhaps even disappointing. 

“Look, Dennis, one of the things I swear I would never do is to refuse help when I need it. Gabrielle only wanted to be there for you and you pushed her away by reminding her of a problem she needs to solve.” There it is, the adult advice that Dennis had been looking for. He just didn’t expect it to be so… harsh. 

“I just wanted her to look out for herself.” It’s a boldfaced lie and they both know it. Yet Dennis loves to convince himself that the reason for his behavior towards Gabrielle is that he only wants what’s best for her, not because he hates how he’s been here all this time yet she still refuses to cross the line she has long toed in. 

“If that’s what you wanted, then shouldn’t you have approached the topic with more tact? Listen, I’m not the best guy to talk to when it comes to women because all the things I know, Ginny had to force them into my head so I could retain it. However, I am fairly certain that Gabrielle only means well, and you shouldn’t respond to kindness by reminding them of a looming problem.” 

Dennis looks at the glass of whiskey on the table solemnly. Of course Harry would be logical about this. It’s just that Dennis hates how he’d fucked it all up and may have risked losing Gabrielle in the process. Sure she’d sent him a text telling him to not be so cruel, but does that guarantee that things will always be the same for them? Absolutely not. He knows he’s not slick and that she’s able to notice the way he seems to glare at Pierre every time the guy looks away. 

“Do you think he’d have done what you told me I should have done?” He doesn’t need to say his name out loud for Harry to know that he’s talking about Colin. 

“Well, that’s a question I can’t answer. Listen, Dennis, I know you miss him, but you can’t live life doing the things your brother would have done or wanted to do. He gave his life up so you could have your own, you know. Not so you could try to replace him.” Harry sighs and downs his glass of whiskey all in one go. 

“I better get going. I told Ginny I wouldn’t be out late tonight. Her pregnancy cravings have been going on twenty-four seven and I need to be there in case she needs something right away.” Harry smiles and gently pats Dennis on the shoulder. “I know it’s hard without your brother, but it doesn’t mean that you should try to revolve your life around trying to do things for him.” 

He watches The Chosen One disappear past the wooden doors of this Irish pub before he orders another glass of whiskey. Harry means well, but Dennis never really took too well with being psychoanalyzed like this. He’d preferred it when he’s left to his own thoughts in the darkness of his own room. 

WHEN HE GETS BACK TO HIS APARTMENT, HE FINDS GABRIELLE SLEEPING ON HIS CARPET BESIDE THE BED. She looks like a cat, curled up in a ball while snoring lightly. This would have been an adorable, and peaceful moment if he wasn’t shitfaced drunk. Dennis is only glad he didn’t mess up the apparition and splinched himself in the process, though it did take him two tries before he got to his own apartment. The first place he’d gone to was his parents’ place in England, it’s late enough that they didn’t wake up from their sleep. Dennis didn’t feel like talking to his family after that meeting with Harry so he apparated away once more only to find himself in front of Gabrielle’s apartment. Well, third time’s a charm, they say. 

He stubs his toe on the foot of one of his drawers and he ends up groaning loud enough to wake the part-veela on the floor. 

“Oh, you’re here.” Gabrielle sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she looks up at him. Dennis pretends that his eyes do not catch the way her skirt is running up her thigh, exposing her tanned skin. 

“Sorry, please go back to bed. You can sleep on the bed, I’ll take the couch.” Dennis tries his hardest not to slur his words, but he knows that they probably sounded that way, so he gives it up. Gabrielle is observant, anyway, it doesn’t matter if he pretends that he’s not drunk. She will notice it right away. 

“ Non, you are drunk. Please sit down and wait for me to fetch some water for you.” He could hear the grogginess in Gabrielle’s voice, the same raspy tune that woke him up for morning coffee during unexpected sleepovers. 

He wants to refuse, but then he remembers Harry from a while ago, and decides against it. If Gabrielle wishes to take care of him, then maybe he should take it. It’s not all the time that he could get the person he’s half-certain he’s in love with to fuss over him. 

She quickly summons a filled tumbler and hands it over to Dennis with a sleepy look on her face, eyes half-lidded as she tries to make his figure out from the darkness of the room. Dennis wants to kiss her. He finds that he likes this version of Gabrielle the most, the one that doesn’t seem to care about whether she’s being the complete opposite of Fleur Delacour or not. The one who cares about him more than anyone he’s ever met. The one who falls asleep on the floor of his flat just to wait for him. 

Dennis takes the water and drinks half of it before he asks Gabrielle if they could just sleep. She nods and Dennis puts his arm around her waist. He waits for her to flinch, but Gabrielle only scoots over to close the remaining distance between them. 

“ Bonne nuit, Dennis.” She yawns, but not before intertwining her fingers with his. 

“I’m so sorry, Gabrielle.” He finally musters up the courage to apologize to her after the behavior he’d shown her. “I was out of line.” 

“It’s fine. You were right, but don’t do it that way next time.” There’s a rasp in her voice from having been woken up from her previous sleep. It’s Dennis’ favorite sound, he realizes. 

GABRIELLE.

SHE TURNS TWENTY IN A SMALL CABIN IN A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE SOMEWHERE IN SWITZERLAND. Her family is nowhere to be found, there are no sounds of crying kids, or mothers trying to discipline their children. There is just silence and tranquility. This has been the most peaceful Gabrielle has been in a few years. Even the storms in her head have calmed down for a moment. This is the first time in a while that she feels as though she can finally breathe without something huge lodged in her throat. It’s quite an addicting feeling that would have hindered her return to Paris if she had it her way. 

Initially, Gabrielle had wanted to go alone. She’d done her fair share of traveling alone before she finally got that job in the French Ministry of Magic. It proves that she’s more than capable of going to foreign places alone without any companions. She doesn’t need anyone to mind her, or anyone to continuously take care of her. 

However, she finds that she doesn’t mind when Dennis tells her that he wants to go with her — that he wants to take a breather from his current job and that it wouldn’t be so bad to go somewhere cold with her. Gabrielle finds the notion completely weird. Dennis in a cold place is something so wrong when all he’s ever done is exude warmth and radiate light. 

Gabrielle still allows him to join her on her “hiding trip” as she’d like to call it. She doesn’t mind that they’re sharing the same bed all because the cabin she’d booked only has one. She doesn’t mind it when he snuggles closer to her for warmth even with the fireplace functioning with enough firewood to last them the night. She also doesn’t mind it when Dennis pulls her closer to him in the mornings before they fully wake up. 

If this is what peace feels like, then Gabrielle wishes that she never leaves this place, that she would never have to go back to Paris or London and be confronted with the people who only see her as an extension of her family, or people who expect perfection from her. 

DENNIS LOOKS AT HER WITH A PUZZLED LOOK WHEN SHE TELLS HIM THAT SHE WANTS TO QUIT HER JOB AND JUST WRITE THINGS INSTEAD. He is no stranger to Gabrielle’s passion for writing. Gabrielle has received several compliments about her eloquence and how she could string words so beautifully that it almost forms rhythms in people’s heads. The only thing that makes things confusing for Dennis is the sudden shift in Gabrielle’s decisions. Initially, before she found a job in the French Ministry of Magic, Gabrielle had claimed that she didn’t want to pursue writing as a profession, that it would only take the fun out of it. However, she had lived a life without fulfillment. She spent her entire life trying to create an image of her that’s barely authentic because she wanted to be different from her sister. 

Gabrielle doesn’t tell him this. Instead, she goes back to reading and ignores how Dennis is looking at her like she’s some kind of alien, a stranger to him and to this world. Even if he is Dennis Creevey, he is no exception to Gabrielle’s refusal to provide an explanation to anyone. It doesn’t matter if he’s the person she doesn’t mind seeing through her soul completely. She doesn’t want to provide an explanation. He’ll find out soon enough why she’s doing this anyway. 

DENNIS. 

AN ACCLAIMED PHOTOGRAPHER CALLS HIS WORK “SOULLESS”. While she was nice enough to pull him to the end of the hallway when she told him that, it doesn’t make the whole thing feel good. She told Dennis that his photographs feel like she could barely reach the photographer on the other end of the photo she’s holding. It’s like he’s trying to distance himself from the world, or he’s trying to be someone else. 

Dennis thanks the photographer for her honest critique and he goes straight to the rundown film theater he would break in with Gabrielle. He takes the pack of Marlboro Blues from his coat pocket and lights one up, not caring if the ash is falling on the carpeted floors of the old cinema. 

That’s so indie, Gabrielle would say when she saw him smoking in the abandoned film theater for the very first time. It’s hot, though. It’s the only thing that keeps Dennis going for the entire day. 

He’d never received such a critique from his work before and it bothers him that they called his work soulless to the point of seeking out his dead elder brother’s ex-girlfriend — or perhaps, ex-best-friend. 

“I’m a bit annoyed that you took this place as your own. You bring your girls here?” Isabelle Ciudad, twenty-three, another photographer who might as well be chasing after Colin Creevey’s ghost. They’d been inseparable the moment they set foot within Hogwarts. Where there is Colin, there is Isa. Even to thirteen-year-old Dennis, it was obvious that the two have been falling for each other even with Isa’s numerous crushes and one boyfriend. 

Too bad Colin died right after the confession they’d both been waiting for. 

“Colin brought you here when you two were fifteen. What’s wrong with me bringing someone else?” He blows another cloud of smoke, unflinching when some of it goes straight to Isa’s face. 

“Fair enough. Also, when’d you start smoking? Didn’t you berate me for teaching your brother how to smoke?” Her eyes are fixed on the cigarette, and Dennis hates that she sounds like she’s lecturing him. 

“Picked it up from a frenchwoman.” It’s the truth. He doesn’t know when it happened, but at some point, he took a Marlboro Blue from Gabrielle’s vintage cigarette holder and started smoking. 

“Why’d you call me here? The last time we saw each other, you made it clear that you didn’t want to see me.” There’s a pointed look on Isa’s face, arms crossed as she scrutinizes Dennis to the core. 

Truth be told, he doesn’t like seeing Isa. Her existence is the biggest reminder of Colin Creevey’s unfinished businesses, the dreams he never got to accomplish. Being a photographer was Colin’s dream, then it became Isa’s, then somehow… it became Dennis’. 

Seeing Isa is like a glaring reflection of him in shards of broken glass. 

“Has anyone ever called your photos soulless?” He spits it out like it’s poison. 

“No.” Isa responds monotonously, but Dennis can hear the pity in her voice. 

“Do you want the truth?” She adds as if it’s an afterthought, but Dennis has known her long enough to know that nothing is ever an afterthought with Isabelle Ciudad. He hated that about her — how everything seems to always be premeditated, like everything she ever does has purpose. 

“Out with it, Ciudad.” His tone is irritated, yet she does not react. He has long tormented Isa to know that these kinds of things do not affect her out in the open. 

“You need to stop taking pictures like Colin. You asked me to look at your portfolio when you were eighteen and you asked me why I looked so repulsed by it, remember? It’s because you shoot photos the way he does. The technique, the composition, the style… It’s all Colin.” He can see her trying her best not to frown, masking the painful subject matter with a halfhearted smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. 

“You hate seeing me because I remind you of Colin and that I ended up becoming the one thing he couldn’t be, that’s fair — but isn’t it hypocritical of you to hate someone like me when you’re also doing the same thing?” The truth is always so painful when it comes from the person closest to his older brother that isn’t family in any way. How can someone be so small yet remind Dennis of the greatest loss known to mankind? 

He hates looking at Isa. He hates interacting with her. He would have shut her out of his life completely if it weren’t for his parents’ insistence to keep inviting her over during Colin’s birthday, or Colin’s death anniversary. She’s like a thorn in his side that he can’t really dig out. 

Perhaps it’s that way because he knows how alike they are; both chasing after Colin, both trying to live Colin’s dream on his behalf. 

“I still hate you.” It’s the first time he’s said it, but he knows that she’s smart enough to figure that out ages ago. 

“Believe me, I know. You always make sure to show it.” She rolls her eyes, lighting up a cigarette for herself now. 

It annoys Dennis that she’s acting as if she’s going to stay here for longer. He wants her gone. He wants the ghost of his brother staring right at him gone. 

“Why show up now, then?” He’s at his wits’ end trying to wonder how Isa can still manage to look at him when he knows full well that every single day she spends with his family only reminds her of the chances she never took. 

“The same reason you called me here. Sometimes I need to be reminded that I regress whenever I try to look for him in people or places that could never be fully him.” Her shoulders are stiff now, but she shrugs anyway. 

“You’re the worst. I don’t know what he sees in you.” 

“You got what you wanted out of me. Can I leave now? I don’t think there’s any point in prolonging this.” 

“Whatever.” His childish response only elicits another eye roll from her. 

“See you in three months.” She turns her back to walk away, but stops when Dennis calls out her name begrudgingly. 

“You still love him, right?” It’s a question they both know the answer to. 

“I don’t think I could ever stop.” Isa doesn’t turn around, but the crack in her voice tells Dennis everything he needs to know. 

As much as he hates seeing Isa, it’s good to know that he’s not the only one trying to scramble for every single reminder there is left of Colin in this world after the war. 

HE APPARATES STRAIGHT INTO GABRIELLE’S APARTMENT WITHOUT ANY WARNING. She’s on the couch watching a Korean drama without subtitles, unbothered even with the crack of his apparition. 

“Take your shoes off by the door.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the TV when she speaks. She seems to be completely engrossed in this romantic drama, a genre she swears she hates. 

Dennis tries to be quiet about it, but his grief is rushing from the depths of his head out into the open. His hands are shaking as he tries to unlace his shoes, the strength leaving them when he tries to pull them off his feet. He ends up accidentally sending the left one straight into the door and it’s enough to get Gabrielle’s attention. 

He has his back to her and he’s desperately trying not to cry. Grief always comes to him in tsunamis rather than in small waves. He’d been trying to suppress it all these years, believing that he has to be strong for his family, but what’s the use of being strong for his parents when he’s all alone now? He doesn’t even live with them anymore. It’s just him these days. 

Besides, he thinks that they’ve grown with their grief. It’s just him who’s always stuck in phase one. 

“It’s okay. I’m here.” The warmth of Gabrielle’s embrace and her whisper so close to his ear grounds him back to reality. He sobs into her shoulder, grateful that she’s here and that she’s the only thing untouched by Colin’s existence. The one person who can see Dennis and not the boy who tries to live under the shadow of his older brother to process grief. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks him when the dust has settled. They’re both on the floor in front of her door, his right shoe still on his feet. 

“I’ve been chasing my brother’s shadow for so long… I don’t know how to do anything else.” 

“Oh, Dennis. You’re still young. You have all your life to figure that out.” 

“Will you stay with me while I do?” 

“Is the Earth round?” 

For the first time in the day, Dennis smiles. 

GABRIELLE

THEY ARE STILL RUNNING AWAY FROM GHOSTS, that much is certain. Some days, Gabrielle still feels like she’s drowning, and some days, Dennis couldn’t shake off the feeling that the photos he took were photos taken by the ghost of Colin living inside his head. 

Still, it gets better day by day. Dennis moved to Scotland, Edinburgh to be precise, and Gabrielle came with him. Fleur and Bill helped them out with the things they needed and did not stay for too long after that, preferring to take the reconnection with Gabrielle little by little. During their second night in their new apartment, Dennis brings home a black cat that Gabrielle named Fae. 

Former colleagues of Gabrielle had told her that she needs to stop playing house with the Englishman, but she doesn’t think it’s playing house. If anything, it feels more like finally coming home after years and years of wandering about. 

Dennis is still a photographer, but he’d long deviated from travel photography. He does portraits now, and she finds that the best photos he took are ones that he took of her. Gabrielle still writes, but she writes under her Korean name that she’s never really used back in France: Woo Hyeonju. 

She’s busy making tea when Dennis walks in the kitchen from their shared bedroom. “It’s Colin’s birthday tomorrow. My parents will be expecting us at around four in the afternoon.” 

“Alright. The five of us, still?” Gabrielle asks, just so she knows how much wine she should bring for dinner. 

“Nah. Isa’s bringing her boyfriend.” There’s a light scowl on Dennis’ face now, but Gabrielle knows it’s not that serious. 

“Took her long enough. Didn’t you say she never dated anyone after your brother died?” 

“Her boyfriend is insufferable.” Dennis groans. 

“And I’m insufferable. Seriously. You two need to stop making the same life decisions. It’s getting predictable.” Gabrielle rolls her eyes, but walks toward Dennis, placing her hands on his shoulders. 

“You need to stop being so honest every now and then.” Dennis sighs, but smiles anyway. “I love you, you know that?”

“And I love you right back.” Gabrielle smiles, feeling the synchronicity of their breaths when she pulls him in for a hug.