Bathed in the warm rays of a late morning spring sun, the breakfast table ached beneath towers of honey-glazed crêpes, heaps of sugar-powdered croissants, and eggs en Cocotte. Tristan inhaled the rich, sweet aroma of steaming carafes of café au lait and mugs of hot chocolate, his mouth watering at the sight of all the dishes.
Surrounding the table, three blonde veela dressed in matching blue pyjamas munched away in delight, spilling crumbs over their stuffed porcelain plates and licking their sugar-smeared lips.
"You should tuck in too, Tristan," Philippe suggested from behind his newspaper. "There won't be much left in a few minutes."
Tristan stacked his plate with a few croissants. "How do veela stay so slim when this is their average breakfast?"
Gabby grinned with a mouthful of crêpe and cupped her right boob over her pyjamas. "The sugar goes to all the right places." She poked Fleur in the hip with the butt of her fork. "Although… Fleur's getting a little chubby right here."
Fleur slapped the fork away. "I am not getting chubby!" She turned her nose up. "Just because you are still flat as a cutting board..."
"Fleur." Appoline shot her daughter a reproachful look.
"It's okay, Maman, Fleur is just a bit sensitive this morning." Gabby's gray eyes held nothing but mischief as they dipped back to Fleur's tummy and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Still feeling sore from last night, yes, big sister?"
'Go ahead, mon Coeur, be a little rough with me.'
Heat crept up Tristan's neck at the memory of Fleur's soft, throaty moans. He buried all images of last night's breathless passion and busied himself with his croissants, concentrating very hard on cutting them into two neat halves.
Fleur glowered at her little sister over the steaming brink of her hot chocolate with huge dark eyes, her cheeks flushed pink. "You are dead, Gabrielle," she hissed.
"Aww, now you almost look like last night when you and Tristan finally rejoined the party," Gabby chirped. "Thanks to your blush and funny walk, the guests no longer mixed us up."
Philippe choked on his coffee, coughing behind his newspaper. Appoline patted him on the back and leveled her daughter with a pointed look. "Ça suffit, Gabrielle! Remember what you promised us?"
"Pardon, Maman," she slapped her hands over her mouth. "I'll be good. Je te le promets."
Tristan fought his flush back down, holding Fleur's scalding hot fingers beneath the table as breakfast resumed in clatter of cutlery, munches of croissants, and slurps of hot chocolate.
Philippe cleared his throat. "So, Tristan-," he flipped the top half of his newspaper, "-what do you think about Sebastian's offer from last night? Is it something you could imagine yourself doing once you graduated?"
Monsieur Albon's words seeped through Tristan's thoughts like ink through parchment, breathing life into that low murmur of ambition stirring somewhere below his heart. 'Someone with a little more... drive.' The idea bloomed in his chest like a flame, warm and bright as the marvel shining in countless eyes of all those spectators staring down at him from the tall stands of the dueling circle. 'Am I not meant to be the best... to be great?'
But Fleur's gaze prickled in the nape of his neck and that faint wrinkle between her slim blonde brows sent a niggle of guilt wriggling through the sweet thrill, smothering it like a candle in the storm. "I think I'll probably stick to interning in the Department of Mysteries," Tristan said.
Philippe quirked an eyebrow. "You have secured a spot for yourself then?" He folded the newspaper and offered an appraising nod. "Congratulations; that is no small feat."
"Well… I've not been accepted, yet," Tristan admitted, swallowing the last bites of his croissant. "But my potions professor, Horace Slughorn, is well connected and promised to introduce me to his contacts in the Department soon." He cast a swift glance at his wristwatch and wriggled his fingers out of Fleur's. "Talking about professors... I should get going; I still need to run some errands in Diagon Alley before returning to Hogwarts."
"Let us run them together, mon Coeur," Fleur murmured. "Beauxbatons does not expect me back until tomorrow morning."
Tristan stood and grinned down her pyjamas. "I don't think you're dressed for Diagon Alley, petite Fleur."
She rose to her feet and drew her wand from her cleavage, transfiguring her pyjamas into a simple blue dress and brushing a few stubborn crumbs from her chest as she slipped her bare feet into a pair of flats. "Now I am."
'I didn't plan on taking her with me to St. Mungo's.' He weighed it up, measuring that faint, sharp edge in her bright blue eyes. 'But if she sees me securing that internship and catching up on the Musketeers instead of thinking about Monsieur Albon's offer, it might put her at ease.'
"Mon Coeur...?"
"Sure." Tristan smiled. "You won't ever hear me complain about your company."
"Of course not." Fleur leaned against his side and slipped her warm fingers through his. "Au revoir, Maman et Papa." She leveled an aloof glance at her sister. "Gabrielle..."
"Wait!" Gabby scrambled to her feet. "I want to kiss Tristan goodbye!"
Fleur's grip tightened and the dining room vanished.
Tristan stepped out onto the sunlit cobbles of Diagon Alley amidst throngs of clamorous witches, wizards and their children bustling from shop to shop. "That was a narrow escape," he chuckled.
"Where to, mon Coeur?"
"This way." Taking her hand, Tristan led them towards the Leaky Cauldron and out into muggle London, winding down one narrow, store-lined street after the next.
Fleur raised a slim blonde brow as they waited at a cross light. "What kind of errands- " she pursed her lips at a bunch of automobiles revving their engines and cat-calling after her as they raced by, "-are we running in the muggle world, mon Coeur?"
"We're going to St. Mungo's."
"To visit your godfather?"
'Sirius...' Guilt clenched tight in Tristan's stomach. "While we're at it, we might as well." He led her across the street. "But primarily because Slughorn's former contact with the Unspeakables, the one who secured the internships for my parents, is hospitalized there."
Fleur's brows furred. "How are they meant to help secure your internship from within a hospital?"
"He isn't." Tristan drew her to a stop in front of a red brick department store. "But Croaker is the only Unspeakable who survived the accident during my parents' internship twenty years ago; it was all swept under the carpet by the Ministry."
"You think he knows something that will help us defeat the Musketeers?"
"If anyone other than Dumbledore had the resources to learn all there is about Father it would've been the Unspeakables." He cast a quick ward to repel the passing shoppers and studied the chipped dummies with their wigs askew, modeling muggle fashions years out of date.
"What are we looking for?" Fleur murmured.
"Her." Tristan pointed at a female dummy in a green nylon pinafore dress whose fake eyelashes barely clung on. "But since you mentioned Sirius..." He raised his wand and stared at his reflection in the dust-stained windowpane, threading gray into his irises until they flashed sharp as a blank steel, smoothening and lengthening his dark hair. "How do I look?"
Fleur cupped his jaw and peered up into his eyes. "Like someone very closely related to your godfather."
"Sirius' brother, Regulus. He'll raise fewer concerns wandering the wards."
"Does he have a wife?"
"Yeah. I can-"
"Oh non, mon Coeur." Fleur's hand came resting on his wand, lowering the pale elder. "Just show me what she looks like."
Tristan frowned. "Are you sure?"
"For you, I am an open book." Her smile sharpened a tad. "But I will always know what pages you flip through, mon Coeur."
"Alright then." He caught her bright blue eyes and pictured Regulus' wife clinging to his arm at the reading of Arcturus' will, pushing the image to the forefront of his mind.
Fleur blinked and wrinkled her pretty nose. "It could be worse, I suppose," she darkened all her blonde hair to brunette, binding it in a tight updo with a slim black ribbon, then altered her cheekbones, nose and eyes, and transfigured her short blue dress into tight dark robes.
"I like the new look." Tristan grinned and pinched her cheek. "But you're still missing some fa-"
She seized his fingers in a tight, searing-hot grip, her eyes flashing black as night. "I have already been called chubby once today, mon Coeur, and unlike Gabby, you will heal just fine from being set on fire..."
"Nope, I learned my fiery lesson last year already," he retrieved his hand, massaging some feeling back into it. "And don't listen to your sister's teasing; to me, you'll always be the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Fleur rolled her eyes. "You only say that because the bits you care most about have not changed." She examined her outfit in the window's reflection, fiddling where her robes stretched taut across her breasts. "Now, if my boobs suddenly shrank-"
"You'd still have an amazing butt." Tristan gave it a playful slap and a good squeeze.
Fleur whirled, a dangerous glint in her brown eyes.
He grinned and leaned in for a kiss.
"Non." She tilted her chin away, folding her arms. "You do not get to kiss me. Especially not when I look like this; it is like you are kissing a different girl."
Tristan chuckled. "Fine. No kiss for either of us then." He turned back toward the dummy. "Regulus and Merinda Black, here to visit Sirius Black."
The dummy scrutinized them and gave a tiny nod, beckoning its jointed fingers.
Taking Fleur's hand, Tristan stepped through the window. Beyond the glass, rows of witches and wizards sporting injuries of various degrees or perusing out-of-date copies of Witch Weekly sat upon rickety wooden chairs along the white-bricked walls.
Healers in lime-green robes depicting emblems of a crossed wand and bone bustled up and down the rows, asking questions and taking notes on clipboards like Umbridge's.
Behind the reception, a plump blonde witch argued with an elderly wizard carrying a huge pot of some strange plant with swaying tentacles. Tristan side-stepped the small queue and found the floor guide beneath the portrait of a half-familiar witch.
'Dilys Derwent. That's how she knew of Galahad's transfer to St. Mungo's.' A brief flare of hatred stirred at the memory. 'I still owe Malfoy, Crouch, and the Lestranges for attacking him during flying lessons.'
"Fourth floor, mon Coeur," Fleur whispered into his ear. "Spell damage and long-term wards."
"That's where Sirius is treated." Tristan glanced about. "I'd like to make sure Croaker's up there too."
A young healer burst through a set of swing doors, hunched deep over a stack of parchment and muttering to herself.
'Perhaps she can help.' He took a small step backward into her path.
The healer struck his shoulder and yelped, scattering all her parchments across the tiles.
"I'm so sorry, sir." She crouched to retrieve them. "I wasn't looking where-"
Tristan summoned the parchment with a flick of his wand and handed them over. "Here you go."
The healer smacked her forehead with a groan. "Morgana, I've been working such long hours, I've forgotten I'm a witch. Thank you, sir." She swept the parchments together in her arms and glanced up.
"Legilimens," Tristan whispered, catching her eye. 'Unspeakable Croaker.' He slipped the words through a web of stress and fatigue, whispering them again and again, gentle as summer rain, soft as settling snow.
A long corridor lit by crystal bubbles full of candles flashed before his mind's eye; portraits of Healers lined the walls from the sign depicting the Roman numeral four at its front to the furthest door and the plain, white-bricked room beyond.
'Got it.' Tristan wiped his mind as blank as an empty canvas. "You're welcome, Miss."
The healer blinked, rubbing her forehead. "Shouldn't have hit myself that hard. Sorry again, sir." She bustled off.
"He's on the fourth floo-,"
"Do not turn around, mon Coeur." Fleur murmured, tugging him through the double doors and into the corridor the healer had come from. "Sirius' wife and children just arrived."
'Fuck.' Through the small window in the doors, he caught a glance of Aunt Isolde, Alphard, and Violetta joining the queue before the reception. "We need to hurry."
They climbed a flight of stairs lined with portraits of brutal-looking healers suggesting strange remedies to their own diagnosis, and strode down a long corridor to the next flight of stairs, trailed by distant, muffled wailing.
A pair of Aurors in scarlet robes stood on the final stair to the fourth floor, wands drawn. Tristan released Fleur's hand and let the smooth length of his wand slide down the inside of his sleeve. 'Time to test our camouflage.'
"Mr. Black." The left one greeted and stepped aside.
"Thank you." Dipping his head, Tristan took Fleur's again and strode past them through the handful of healers bustling in and out of the wards. He glanced over his shoulder as they reached the last door, catching the Aurors still facing away, and twisted the handle.
It stuck firm.
"Alohomora," Tristan whispered, slipping inside and locking the door after Fleur with a charm of his own.
The ward was taller than it was wide, purged of any furniture but the single bed and small bedside cabinet, bathed in the cool blue light of the crystal bubbles hanging from the ceiling. A slim, curtainless window sat opposite the bed, high up in the white-bricked wall, showing a plain blue spring sky.
"Visitors." A white-haired man dressed in a plain hospital gown rose from the bed, shackled to the frame by both wrists. "It's been such a long time since I had visitors." His gray eyes shone with childlike curiosity. "Who could it be?"
Tristan repealed his transfiguration.
"You." Croaker breathed, staring at him, his pupils growing round as galleons on his thin, worn face. "It's really you."
"You recognize me?"
"P.E.V.E.R.E.L.L." He drew the letters in the air with his finger, laughing to himself. "Harry Peverell." Pale lips twisted into a wide, wild smile. "One of us. Three drops would have been enough. You promised you'd visit me. And now you did."
'He thinks I'm Father.' Tristan stepped closer to the bed. "Why are you here? What happened in the Department of Mysteries?"
Croaker's face fell and he froze dead still. "Terrible things," he whispered. "Terrible, terrible things happened there." His voice rose to a light, carefree tune. "Terrible things... terrible things... terrible, terrible things."
Fleur flipped open the thick file on the cabinet. "He was originally treated on the first floor, then he was moved up here to a permanent ward since his condition didn't improve."
"The first floor is the Misuse of Magical Artifacts ward." Tristan skimmed the entries she showed him. "What kind of artifact caused him to go mad?"
"I wanted to touch it. But I also didn't. But then I really wanted to again; it was so shiny," Croaker murmured. "So very shiny. What did it say?" He stared up at Tristan with wide eyes. "Will you tell me what it said?"
"It says here he touched a prophecy," Fleur murmured, tapping the entry with her crimson-painted nail. "And because he was not the intended recipient, the magic on it refired." A slim wrinkle creased her brows. "Perhaps it was the prophecy about your father; the one Trelawney made and Dumbledore told you about, non?"
'The Dark Lord has chosen his equal.'
"No, there has to be more to it." Tristan frowned. "That prophecy was spoken towards the end of Father's final year at Hogwarts. They did the internship before that; the timing doesn't match."
"How could it match when it doesn't flow properly?" Croaker whispered, grinning at his lap. "And that is our job; to make sure it flows properly." His smile fell and he stared back up at Tristan, bright rage brimming in his gray eyes, trembling beneath the thin white sheets. "But you – you swept all of it under the carpet!"
"I don't have time for your mad rambling." Tristan flicked his wand in his palm. "Legilimens."
His thoughts washed into towering brick walls as cold and white as the ward, shattering on them as they held firm and closed in around him like a cage, still and suffocating, burying him beneath the cackle of Croaker's mad laughter. He reached for the slim window opposite, watching it shrink smaller and smaller as the blue of the spring sky bled black as ink, and cold panic rose in his heart.
'Out.' Tristan squeezed his eyes shut and wrenched at the world. 'Get out!'
"Mon Coeur." Fleur's warm hand cupped his cheek. "Stop it, s'il te plaît." Her thumb brushed across his upper lips; bright crimson clung to its edge. "Do not drown in his madness."
"I mustn't stop," he whispered, drawing huge, ragged breaths and wiping the sweat from his brows. "I have to see it."
"Terrible things... terrible, terrible things." Croaker laughed, full of bright cheer, bumping his shackled hands against the bed frame to his tune and whipping from side to side. "Come, Peverell, let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings."
'No.' Tristan caught his eye, drowning in gray. 'Let's see what terrible things you actually know.'
White walls rose like an avalanche but shattered as his will smashed against them, clawing and tearing them down to the last brick.
And through the dust and rubble he dived into a scattered mind, full of thick shadows chasing each other in still, terse silence. But within those shadows, lit by countless glowing glass orbs stacked on towering shelves, loomed a tall, slim blonde girl brandishing her wand as she weaved through spellfire in tattered robes.
'Mother...'
"Don't be foolish, Ms. McKinnon." Croaker's whisper spilled from Tristan's lips. "We simply want the truth." In his palm, he cupped a small vial filled to the brim with clear liquid. "No one person should ever hold that much power, it cannot go well; you must realize that yourself."
"You will learn nothing from me." Fierce defiance flashed through his mother's cool blue eyes and she slashed her wand. "I will hold you off until Harry gets here."
"There is no more sand within your hourglass." Croaker's cold laughter echoed across the black tiles as he parried her spells. "And as for you boyfriend… you will find that terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time."
The shadows spat him out; dread stripped the world bare, bare and blank as the white-bricked ward he found himself standing in. 'Time...'
All of it fell in order like dominos in the back of Tristan's mind. 'Time...'
With each stone that fell, some small part within him shattered like glass, and an icy sick feeling churned in his stomach.
'You've been given too much time already, Marlene McKinnon.' D'Artagnan's words rang in his ears and dark spots danced before his vision as the room swam. 'A future you were never meant to see.'
"What did you see, mon Coeur?" Fleur's wide blue eyes hovered a finger's length before his face, full of worry, and her breath ghosted across his skin as she held him by the shoulders. "What did you see?"
"The truth," Tristan whispered, staring past her at the still, wide-open, bloodshot eyes of Croaker and the trickle of crimson dripping from his nose onto his lips, soaking into the white hospital gown.
"What do you mean the truth?" She gave him a gentle shake. "Talk to me, Tristan. S'il te plaît!"
The blood curdling cry of a woman rang from outside.
A jolt of ice flashed through him, shaking him from his stupor. "We need to leave. Now." He transfigured his face and tugged Fleur back out.
The fourth floor was barren save for a clutter of healers bustling in disarray about a single ward.
'What the hell is going on?' He followed the terrible cries and peaked inside the ward.
"Sirius! No, Sirius!" Aunt Isolde screamed, kicking at the pair of Aurors holding her back as she crawled over the tiles. "Let me go. Let me gooo!"
In the broad bed before her, Sirius cuddled Violetta and Alphard in one arm each; their faces were purple, gray eyes staring wide open, and crimson-speckled foam dripped from their burst lips.
The slim green tendrils of the plant on his bedside table stretched from the pot over the white sheets, wrapping themselves across their ribcages and limbs, coiling tight around each of their necks like serpents.
'No.' Tristan's heart seized, tearing the breath from his lunges. 'No, it can't be.' The magic trickled off his face like cheap paint. 'Not Sirius...'
"Why didn't you protect him?!" Isolde cried, charging at the healers. "You were meant to protect-" her eyes found Tristan and she froze, gaping at him through tear-streaked lashes. "You – you…"
The Aurors exchanged a look and reached into their scarlet robes. "Mr. Black, stay where you are!"
Tristan thrust out his hand, sending them sprawling down the ward, and shattered the window with a slash of his wand. Seizing Fleur by her waist, he wrapped his magic about them, leaping off the edge and wrenching the world back past him.
They smacked into cold, hard tiles, pain lancing through his chest.
Tristan turned onto his back and stared up into the clear spring sky. 'He's gone.' Liquid heat prickled in his eyes as the adrenaline faded. 'Sirius is gone.'
"Mon Coeur." Fleur's face blurred with the dark spots dancing in his vision, her hair lightening back to blonde. "I need to know what you saw."
Two sharp snaps echoed through the air.
"Tristan?" His parents crouched above them. "What happened to you? And why are you wearing such odd clothes, Fleur?"
"He's dead," Tristan whispered. "Sirius is dead."
"No." His father breathed. "How?"
Tristan opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat, caught in a knot of bitter guilt.
"Someone placed a Devil's Snare on his bedside table," Fleur murmured. "It strangled him and his children to death."
"A Devil's Snare…" All the blood left his father's face and he sagged against his wife. "No…" he shook his head. "No, it can't be..."
White hot rage boiled in Tristan's blood, drowning the despair. "You know something." He pushed himself off the tiles and glared at his father. "It was them, wasn't it? The Musketeers."
"Tristan, I-"
Tristan caught those bright green eyes and released the fury in his magic.
His father winced, crimson dribbling from his nostrils.
"Stop it, you two!" His mother stepped between them. "Why were you at St. Mungo's in the first place, Tristan?" Her eyes flickered to Fleur and her voice dropped. "Why were you there in disguise?"
"We went to find the truth," Tristan spat through clenched teeth, shaking from head to toe. "And Croaker showed it to me."
His parents' faces lost all remaining color.
"Croaker?!" His mother gaped. "Tristan, Saul Croaker has been insane ever since his accident. You cannot take anything he says at face-value. Let us all calm down and-"
"He must have recovered since the last time you visited him, because today, he recalled some fascinating things despite all your efforts to prevent it."
"We have never-"
"I know you forced Croaker to touch a prophecy to silence him," Tristan snapped. "The only prophecy he could ever be interested in was spoken half a year after his accident."
His father's brows drew into a deep vee. "What are you talking about?"
"Stop playing dumb with me; I'm talking about the prophecy Trelawney made about you and-" Tristan held his tongue, caught by some strange, cold shiver creeping down his spine that left all the hairs prickling on his arms and neck.
He turned to Fleur.
She cocked her head. "Mon Coeur…?"
"I never told you Trelawney made the Prophecy," Tristan whispered. "How did you know it was her?"
"She is the Divination Professor, mon Coeur." Fleur's eyes flickered between his. "I just assumed-"
"You're lying." He caught no hint of the truth in those deep blue depths and his heart seized. "Why are you lying to me, Fleur?"
She swallowed hard, biting her lip. "I swear it is not what you think, mon Coeur."
His father brushed past. "You're not Fleur Delacour." A pale wand sprang into his palm. "I knew you weren't when I saw you during the first task. I always knew."
"C'est ridicule; if I were anyone else your wards would have-" Fleur clamped up. "Tristan…" she clutched her throat, choking, staring at him with wide, pleading blue eyes. "Tristan, please…"
Something snapped inside of him.
Tristan wrung his wrist, tugging with his magic; his father staggered and smacked to his knees, his pale wand bouncing across the tiles of the balcony.
"Never lay your hand on her again." Swallowing the cold ball of rage, Tristan stepped around him and pointed the trembling tip of his wand at Fleur's heart. "Who are you?"
Fleur gasped for breath. "I am Fleur Delacour, je te le promets." She coughed and rubbed her throat. "The summer before I came to England for the Triwizard Tournament, I was visited by a woman; she said her name was Victoire."
Tristan's gut flashed hot and cold as a strange suspicion rose from the back of his skull. "What woman?"
"Don't," his father wheezed from behind. "Please, don't."
"He has to know the truth," Fleur whispered, shaking like a leaf. "You had countless chances to tell him; I only have this one, and I will not risk it by lying." She reached out with one hand. "I will show you where it happened, mon Coeur, and I will tell you."
"Don't go with her, Tristan."
'She could lead me straight into a trap.' Tristan considered it as he watched the faint spark of hope dimming in her soft blue eyes. 'If it's a trap, I will wipe them all away like I promised. Including her...'
He slipped his fingers through Fleur's. "You promise to tell me everything?"
"Everything." She squeezed his hand and apparated them with a faint snap.
The lone oak tree rose amidst a field of waist-high grass. Along its intertwining branches, all the blossoming green fonds and Fleur's simple swing swayed in the gentle breeze that swept from the sea.
Fleur slid down the bark with a soft sigh and patted the spot next to her. "Sit down, mon Coeur, and hold me, s'il te plaît."
Tristan dropped to the ground, slipping one arm around her slim waist to draw her close.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "It happened here, right at the beginning of summer; she said her name was Victoire. And she said she was my daughter."
Dread coiled in the pit of his stomach, clenching tight as a fist as he forced the words through numb lips. "And her father?"
"William Weasley."
'Of course it's him.' Behind closed eyelids, Fleur danced and laughed and kissed Weasley in her ivory dress beneath the sweeping white marquise, and Tristan's heart seized, sinking into a cold, numb place.
"It's true then." He wrapped his arms around his chest, sinking his fingers deep into his ribs to ease the pain. "All of it. All of it is true..."
"I killed her."
His head snapped up. "What?"
"She told me she was here to secure her future." Fleur spat, her fingers growing scalding hot. "Then she tried to kill me so she could take my place in the Triwizard Tournament and get close to your family."
Tristan stared at her.
"It was a short fight." A fierce flash of pride lit up her eyes. "But I secured my own future, and while I watched the life trickle out of her, I gathered everything useful."
"You knew," he murmured. "All this time, you knew, and you never told me." Bitter disappointment colored his tone. "What happened to no secrets, Fleur? What happened to being an open book? I tried so hard to let you into my life and all this time you've kept me out of yours."
Fleur shot him a long look. "If I had told you before everything you know right now, before all the pieces of the puzzle you gathered yourself, would you have believed me?"
'Visited by your own daughter.' Tristan shook his head, running a hand through his hair. 'It does sound insane.'
"Once we were together…"
"I wanted to tell you, mon Coeur." She slipped into his lap, warm even through their clothes. "I wanted nothing more. But we both know our relationship was… very different before Stockholm. If I had brought up a daughter I have with William Weasley, you would have doubted me even more."
"Not just doubted," he whispered, seized by absolute certainty. "I would've ruined everything."
'There is nothing to ruin now.' D'Artagnan whispered in his ear as Fleur tugged Weasley from beneath the grand white marquise onto a bed scattered with white rose petals. 'Neither wife nor children were ever yours to have.'
Tristan blinked back tears.
"I am still here, mon Coeur." Fleur cradled his head against her chest, brushing her fingers through his hair as he listened to the smooth, steady drum of her heart and let the tears spill free onto her dress. "It does not change anything."
"How can you say that?" Revulsion churned in the pit of Tristan's stomach. "You're meant to have a daughter with-"
"I am not meant to have anything." Fleur cupped his jaw with both hands and tilted his head up until he met her eye. "Whoever that woman was, she was no daughter of mine; I do not have a daughter with William Weasley, and I never will. But someday soon, mon Coeur, I will have a daughter with you. And we need not stop at just one; we can have as many daughters as we wish."
The unwavering certainty in her bright blue eyes breathed life into that little spark of hope blossoming in his breast. "Do you really think so? Does it really mean nothing?"
"Oui, mon Coeur, it means nothing to me," she breathed. "Our future is not written in stone. Look how much your Father has changed. Look how much you have changed already; I will never marry William Weasley; I will never carry his children." Fleur caught his lips in a soft, long kiss. "I am here with you; I am still your Fleur; the girl you fell in love with at the Yule Ball, the girl who came back for you in the Forbidden Forest, the girl who stood at your side ever since." She hooked her arms behind his neck and deepened the kiss, slipping her tongue into his mouth, rolling her hips on his lap. "The girl who will spend her life with you."
Tristan smothered the sweet thrill of kissing her. "The girl who manipulates me with sex to get her way." He heaved her out of his lap and set her down on her feet as he rose.
Guilt flickered through Fleur's eyes. "Désolée, mon Coeur. For everything." She offered him a helpless little shrug. "Would you love me if I were any different?"
"No, I wouldn't," Tristan murmured. "You're perfect for me." He took a deep breath and hardened his heart. "But I need some time for myself now."
"I will wait," Fleur promised, her heart shining in her soft blue eyes as she blew him a kiss. "I will wait for however long you need me to."