And again...
Spent half a day playing on the internet, and couldn't remember to post. Foolish me.
Fic Info
Title: Tangled Webs
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: 14-A (profanity, violence, sexual themes)
Era: After the Battle of Hogwarts and post-epilogue
Compliance: Epilogue and books, none of JKR's subsequently released notes
Pairing(s): Ginny/Harry, Ron/Hermione, Draco/OC, Draco/Ginny, Harry/Cho
Chapter Info
Chapter: Four (In which there is cause for celebration
Series: Random separate time-scheme thing
Chapter Length: 3150 words
Betas: Jenn and Lynn - thank you, as always.
Chapter Four
In which there is cause for celebration
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
People were screaming when Ginny woke up. Someone hadn't been quick enough to feed Rosie, and the baby was proving to the entire household that she had inherited her father's lungs. Her angry wailing had set Harry off, as screams of distress always did and now he was on a rampage, hexing any nefarious-looking potted plant or throw pillow to kingdom-come. She could hear Ron barrelling through the corridors - likely just in his under-shorts - after his best mate, trying to calm Harry down. Somewhere downstairs Hermione seemed to be having a break-down, probably to the same old tune of being a bad mother who couldn't even remember to feed her own child.
Ginny glanced at the clock. Five in the morning, and the Weasley family was eager to get started on another day of mayhem. The irony was that Ginny would have slept right through it if not for a tiny pair of hands tugging at the sleeve of her nightdress. Jimmy's wide, North Sea-coloured eyes met hers with a seriousness that could not be normal in a two year old.
"Good morning, love," she said, pulling her son into bed with her with the intention of going right back to sleep. The tot was probably just distressed by all the fuss, and would let her sleep once he knew he was safe from it.
Jimmy suffered this docilely for a few minutes, then wiggled impatiently. "Unc'l George wan'sa see you, Mummy," he said, his speech remarkably clear as always. It had always seemed like Jimmy found any sort of baby-speech to be, well, childish. Anyone who tried speaking to him that way was treated with all the disdain possible for someone just over two feet tall.
Oh. Bugger. It looked like she was going to have to get up after all. Sighing, she threw off the covers and grabbed her housecoat, shoving her feet into slippers as she headed out the door. It wasn't cold out, but it never hurt to wear extra layers when venturing into George's workshop, just in case something nasty went off. Jimmy toddled behind her in the bright orange Cannons pyjamas that had been a birthday gift from Ron a few days before. Ginny didn't think he was very impressed with the colour, but he seemed to like the embroidered Snitches that tried to hide at the backs of his knees and under the collar.
She met Fleur in the kitchen, waddling with the weight of her pregnancy as she made breakfast for her impatient three year old son. Jimmy was handed off, with strict instructions that this time he wasn't to put jam in Fabian's hair "t'make it like ours", and Ginny let herself into George's workshop.
Her brother was sitting in a heavy wicker chair with faded blue cushion, which looked out of place in the cluttered industry of the room. He was feeding baby Fred from a bottle of formula, humming tunelessly. On a counter nearby, something green was bubbling ominously, occasionally shooting up gold sparks. "Alright, George?"
He looked up and met her gaze. His eyes were filled with surprising warmth and love, especially considering the hollow shell he'd been since Fred... since the final battle. "Fred said his first word." He looked down at the baby, who stared back at him with dark eyes. "Say it again, Fred." He made a few strange clicking and popping noises, and said something in gibberish.
Ginny watched them both carefully. As a Healer, she didn't expect Fred to start talking for at least another month; she was also concerned about what this display said about George's mental state. Baby Fred gurgled happily, then said, "Bok!" Ginny found herself returning the smile. It wasn't a word, exactly, but apparently she had nothing to worry about.
George looked at her, his face positively glowing. "See?" He murmured a few more nonsense words to the baby, punctuated by the popping noises. Suddenly, Ginny understood.
"George." He looked up at her inquisitively. "Did you and Fred use twin speak?" That the two communicated between each other effortlessly had been a fact of life for so long that she'd never questioned it before, but it would make sense that they had.
He gave her a lopsided grin. "I would have thought you knew. We used it almost constantly until we were seven." Ginny didn't point out that when the twins had been seven, she'd only been four, and therefore not inclined to notice much of anything. "Percy used to call us savages because of it."
"Percy used to call you savages because you made his stuffed toys attack each other with the good silver," Ginny retorted dryly. George shrugged one shoulder, the other staying perfectly still to support Fred. "So what does 'bok' mean?"
That foolish, happy grin came back full force. "George." Ginny's return smile was genuine.
It was only later, when Harry was calmly eating his eggs and Ron had convinced Hermione that she was a wonderful mother, that it occurred to Ginny that most of the twins' language sounded like explosions. Somehow, she wasn't terribly surprised.
-----
Someone was crying when Draco woke up. He wondered, as he did every day, if ignoring it and going back to sleep would make him an insensitive husband; decided he didn't care, and got up anyway. "Sabine," he said. Her shoulders stopped shaking immediately and her breathing stilled; he had to admire her self-control.
"Yes Draco?" Her voice was rock-steady and perfectly calm.
"Is everything alright?" Obviously it wasn't, but what else was he supposed to say? The Healer claimed it was nothing to be too concerned about, and that postpartum depression was almost to be expected in a woman of Sabine's disposition, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with her constant crying. Draco had never seen Narcissa cry (and Lucius went without saying), and as far back as he could remember Draco himself had never cried. Crying was simply not something Malfoys did. Except, apparently, for Sabine.
"Of course."
"That's good," he said, a little awkwardly. Circe, over two years of marriage to this woman and he still didn't know what to say to her. She was everything he needed in a wife - beautiful, intelligent, well-mannered and from a good family - and they shared many interests, but somehow they'd never connected the way Draco might have wished. He respected Sabine a great deal, and liked her, but... if he'd loved her, he thought he might have known what to do to help her.
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the enormous bed that Sabine had insisted on for their bedroom. He was all for having space to sleep in, but the thing was nearly as big as the rooms where the servants lived. That was another thing - the servants. Draco had been waited on by house elves his entire life, but he was still getting used to having human servants. France's wizarding nobility found house elves crude, apparently. Draco wasn't fond of the little buggers himself - they tended to be a bit fanatical - but something about the servility of the wizards and witches Sabine employed disturbed him deeply. He'd never said anything to Sabine about it, and probably never would. Instead, he'd just made it clear to the servants that he expected the same quick, invisible service he'd come to expect from house elves. Most of them probably thought him a right bastard; he just didn't want to see them bowing to him.
"I'll check in on Nurse before I leave, shall I?" Nurse he could deal with. She was a large, no-nonsense Belgian woman whose very presence reeked of respectability and practicality. She took care of the baby, which was a very proper and dignified profession for a witch, to Draco's way of thinking. He'd taken to her within the first week, when she'd threatened to box his ears for making too much noise while the baby was trying to sleep. He'd have to let her go sooner or later, though, because what he liked most about her was the way she reminded him of a witch back in England, whom he desperately needed to forget.
"Have a good day, Draco," Sabine said. He muttered something in acknowledgement, and went to get dressed. Perhaps he ought to start running Malfoy Enterprises personally: he needed a hobby to take his mind off his home life.
-----
Harry Potter Day had been declared a national wizarding holiday five years before. In celebration, the Ministry held an annual parade through wizarding London from Gringott's to the Memorial Garden that opened off Diagon Alley. Speeches were made by members of the Ministry and civic dignitaries, and this year there was a concert by Wyvern, the well-known cello and horn quintet. Special cakes, filled with raisins and seeds, were baked for the children, and it was considered lucky to give a shiny new sickle to an orphan. Witches and wizards in their twenties - the generation that had gone to Hogwarts with Harry and grown up knowing the terror of repeated, secret attacks - used the day off to get piss drunk and forget that anyone named Harry Potter had ever existed.
Sitting on the stone step of Flourish and Blotts, sipping his chilled white-needle tea, Neville reflected on the ironies of the holiday. For one thing, no one who actually knew Harry was involved in the entire thing - many, in fact, had tried to put an end to the holiday. The Ministry had rejected those petitions, saying that if Harry himself asked, they'd consider it. They didn't know that Harry never would because Harry, alone of all the wizards in England, didn't know the day existed.
Probably only Ginny - England's leading authority on almancy despite her retirement as a Healer - knew exactly what had happened to Harry, but Neville understood well enough what it had done to his friend. Harry had never moved past the day of the final battle, and remained somehow trapped in that dark, dangerous day. He could do his job as an Auror because he saw it as part of the battle, and had Ron at his side every single moment to help him deal with anything that didn't make sense in that context. He seemed perfectly normal until he perceived a threat to someone he cared about; then he lost himself completely, madness overtaking him as he tried to protect them.
And no one but the Weasleys and a few close friends knew. The outcry in the wizarding world if it was ever discovered... Well, Neville thought to himself, taking another sip of his tea, just look at Harry Potter Day. If the public ever found out Harry Potter actually was mentally ill (ignoring all those articles in the Prophet from when they were at school) the fall-out would be enormous.
There was hope, though. Neville smiled and accepted the seed cake a stooped, mostly-blind old witch offered him. Ron said that things had improved for Harry since his marriage to Ginny, which had stabilized his home life. Neville just hoped his friend recovered soon.
-----
They were halfway through cake and presents when it all went to hell. Fleur would have given the bitch such a slap she'd have scars to rival Bill's, but her husband's firm hands and soothing words about taking care of the baby kept her in her seat - barely. She was incensed that no one else in the family made any move to tell the slag that she was unwelcome: Hermione and Ron sat there and looked deeply troubled, Molly fluttered around, Arthur stuttered, and poor Ginny just sat there quietly as though she had known all along. George she would forgive, because he was too busy clucking to Frederick to realize the bitch was there. But the rest of them... Ginny, Fleur told Bill later, was far too good for the people she called her family. And she was far, far too good for Harry.
"Hi Harry," Cho Chang said, a little shyly, and smiled. Fleur wanted to rip the professionally-styled black hair right off the woman's thick skull. Just wait until she wasn't eight months pregnant: she'd beat the woman to death with a broom.
Harry blushed pink, and even knowing he wasn't right in the head, Fleur wanted to strangle him. "Hi Cho." He looked like a silly, besotted fourteen year old at his first ball, instead of a married man celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday at home with his family.
"I... I... Happy birthday, Harry." Fleur wondered if Charlie would let her borrow a dragon, so she could roast this woman alive and have it eat out her entrails.
"Teddy, Victoire, Fabian... your mother's going to take you upstairs, and..."
"Non," Fleur snapped, irritated. "They are going to go upstairs with you, Bill. I am going to be with Ginny, because it seems her family will not!" He looked at her, a bit shocked. "Go!" He took James from Ginny's arms, gave his sister a kiss on the cheek, and went, taking the older children with him. When he had gone, Fleur turned to face their uninvited guest, glaring fiercely.
"I just..." The young woman was trembling. "I promised I would..." There was a soft cry from the swaddled bundle in her arms. Harry was across the room in an instant, carefully taking it from her and cradling the child as he never had with James.
"Albus? Severus?" he crooned. "Professor? You're here now. Oh thank god." He sank to his knees and held the child close, tears trickling down his cheeks.
Cho looked helplessly around the room. "When I told Harry I was pregnant, he said... he said I should bring his son to him. He wanted to name him Albus Severus, so I did, and..." She trailed off, staring at them beseechingly. Fleur, for her part, could not believe that no one had said anything yet.
"You slut!" she declared, standing and looking as fiercely haughty and angry as a very pregnant woman could. Ginny was at her side in an instant, gently taking Fleur's arm and urging her not to over-exert herself. As always, Fleur thought sadly, her first thought was for someone else's well-being, even though her own life was falling down around her ears. She pulled her hand roughly out of Ginny's grasp and levelled her wand at the shaking witch. "You have until the count of three to get out of my sight," she informed her, well aware that it took several times that to get beyond the Apparation wards, even at a dead run. "Un... deux..."
Cho started backing away. Fleur didn't bother finishing her count, and sent a flurry of curses flying at the woman. Now Cho did turn and run, and Fleur waddled after her, screaming curses in Latin, French and Romanian, until Cho passed the ward boundaries and Disapparated. "Hmph," Fleur declared emphatically, waddling back to her seat with a round of scorching glares for everyone who had done nothing to help poor Ginny.
"Thank you," Ginny whispered as she helped Fleur sit back down. Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes, but didn't fall. Fleur didn't think Ginny had shed a tear since the night before her wedding, when Fleur had found her sobbing as though her heart had broken and would never mend.
Fleur patted her hand. "It is what sisters do for each other." With a cut-off cry, the younger woman threw her arms around Fleur and buried her face in her shoulder. Over Ginny's quivering shoulder, Fleur fixed each of the dumbfounded Weasley's with a glare. "Get out of my sight," she snapped. "And take the bastard with you."
Hermione opened her mouth to protest - just typical - and Fleur raised her wand threateningly. Hermione's mouth closed with a click of teeth, and she turned and marched out of the room. Ron followed her, leading Harry, who still clutched his bastard son. Molly hesitated only a second before hurrying after Harry, no doubt to fuss over him and the baby.
Arthur came to stand just behind Ginny. Fleur looked into her father-in-law's eyes, and saw in them a terrible sorrow. He placed a gentle hand on his daughter's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. Fleur nodded sharply to him, and he left.
Fleur continued to hold her shaking sister-in-law, rocking back and forth and crooning a lullaby her mother had once sung. Though her breathing was ragged and she clutched at Fleur, never once did the young witch shed a single tear. In the corner, Frederick said "Bok!" and George cried out in delight.
-----
Lucius Malfoy, ex-pat, ex-millionaire, ex-Death Eater, scowled as he pretended to read the paper. What in blue blazes had his fool son got into his head this time? Narcissa had called on Devant Manor, where Draco and his wife now lived, in the hopes of taking tea with him, and been told that her son was at work. Draco Malfoy, working a nine-to-five job like some common flub! It really was beyond comprehension.
And now, of all times, at that. They boy was still young - not two months passed his twenty-seventh birthday - was married to a pretty, accomplished witch from a noted family, had a six month old son... in short, the boy should be enjoying what blessings they still had in this life, after so much had been taken away from them. Not toiling away in some airless box.
He'd swear, in the past eight years his son had turned into someone he didn't know at all. What it had been, Lucius decided, was Draco's last year at that blasted school. He should have sent the boy away to Durmstrang like he'd wanted, where he'd be surrounded by his own kind instead of muggle-loving fools... or at the very least, where he wouldn't have been among those who so openly hated him. Narcissa had agreed with him, and they'd been all set to sign the paperwork when, unexpectedly, Draco himself had kicked up a fuss. It had been so unusual to see him truly desire something in those days that they'd folded easily, although not without many misgivings. So they'd let him go, and as the months passed there had been nothing in his letters that indicated anything was wrong, but when he came home, Draco had been... different. Lucius didn't trust it.
He rattled his paper, then decided he didn't care what it said and threw it aside. He'd call Monsieur Destrier for a round of golf. Yes, that would do: the world would be a much better place after Lucius soundly trounced his long-time rival.
References:
*Post-partum depression: Carla from 'Scrubs' - both the particular symptoms Sabine displays (there's lots, and they vary), and her desire to hide them. Obviously, it's a real disease, and a very severe one, but I admit my knowledge of it is limited to what TV and the internet have told me.
Fic Info
Title: Tangled Webs
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: 14-A (profanity, violence, sexual themes)
Era: After the Battle of Hogwarts and post-epilogue
Compliance: Epilogue and books, none of JKR's subsequently released notes
Pairing(s): Ginny/Harry, Ron/Hermione, Draco/OC, Draco/Ginny, Harry/Cho
Chapter Info
Chapter: Four (In which there is cause for celebration
Series: Random separate time-scheme thing
Chapter Length: 3150 words
Betas: Jenn and Lynn - thank you, as always.
Chapter Four
In which there is cause for celebration
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
People were screaming when Ginny woke up. Someone hadn't been quick enough to feed Rosie, and the baby was proving to the entire household that she had inherited her father's lungs. Her angry wailing had set Harry off, as screams of distress always did and now he was on a rampage, hexing any nefarious-looking potted plant or throw pillow to kingdom-come. She could hear Ron barrelling through the corridors - likely just in his under-shorts - after his best mate, trying to calm Harry down. Somewhere downstairs Hermione seemed to be having a break-down, probably to the same old tune of being a bad mother who couldn't even remember to feed her own child.
Ginny glanced at the clock. Five in the morning, and the Weasley family was eager to get started on another day of mayhem. The irony was that Ginny would have slept right through it if not for a tiny pair of hands tugging at the sleeve of her nightdress. Jimmy's wide, North Sea-coloured eyes met hers with a seriousness that could not be normal in a two year old.
"Good morning, love," she said, pulling her son into bed with her with the intention of going right back to sleep. The tot was probably just distressed by all the fuss, and would let her sleep once he knew he was safe from it.
Jimmy suffered this docilely for a few minutes, then wiggled impatiently. "Unc'l George wan'sa see you, Mummy," he said, his speech remarkably clear as always. It had always seemed like Jimmy found any sort of baby-speech to be, well, childish. Anyone who tried speaking to him that way was treated with all the disdain possible for someone just over two feet tall.
Oh. Bugger. It looked like she was going to have to get up after all. Sighing, she threw off the covers and grabbed her housecoat, shoving her feet into slippers as she headed out the door. It wasn't cold out, but it never hurt to wear extra layers when venturing into George's workshop, just in case something nasty went off. Jimmy toddled behind her in the bright orange Cannons pyjamas that had been a birthday gift from Ron a few days before. Ginny didn't think he was very impressed with the colour, but he seemed to like the embroidered Snitches that tried to hide at the backs of his knees and under the collar.
She met Fleur in the kitchen, waddling with the weight of her pregnancy as she made breakfast for her impatient three year old son. Jimmy was handed off, with strict instructions that this time he wasn't to put jam in Fabian's hair "t'make it like ours", and Ginny let herself into George's workshop.
Her brother was sitting in a heavy wicker chair with faded blue cushion, which looked out of place in the cluttered industry of the room. He was feeding baby Fred from a bottle of formula, humming tunelessly. On a counter nearby, something green was bubbling ominously, occasionally shooting up gold sparks. "Alright, George?"
He looked up and met her gaze. His eyes were filled with surprising warmth and love, especially considering the hollow shell he'd been since Fred... since the final battle. "Fred said his first word." He looked down at the baby, who stared back at him with dark eyes. "Say it again, Fred." He made a few strange clicking and popping noises, and said something in gibberish.
Ginny watched them both carefully. As a Healer, she didn't expect Fred to start talking for at least another month; she was also concerned about what this display said about George's mental state. Baby Fred gurgled happily, then said, "Bok!" Ginny found herself returning the smile. It wasn't a word, exactly, but apparently she had nothing to worry about.
George looked at her, his face positively glowing. "See?" He murmured a few more nonsense words to the baby, punctuated by the popping noises. Suddenly, Ginny understood.
"George." He looked up at her inquisitively. "Did you and Fred use twin speak?" That the two communicated between each other effortlessly had been a fact of life for so long that she'd never questioned it before, but it would make sense that they had.
He gave her a lopsided grin. "I would have thought you knew. We used it almost constantly until we were seven." Ginny didn't point out that when the twins had been seven, she'd only been four, and therefore not inclined to notice much of anything. "Percy used to call us savages because of it."
"Percy used to call you savages because you made his stuffed toys attack each other with the good silver," Ginny retorted dryly. George shrugged one shoulder, the other staying perfectly still to support Fred. "So what does 'bok' mean?"
That foolish, happy grin came back full force. "George." Ginny's return smile was genuine.
It was only later, when Harry was calmly eating his eggs and Ron had convinced Hermione that she was a wonderful mother, that it occurred to Ginny that most of the twins' language sounded like explosions. Somehow, she wasn't terribly surprised.
-----
Someone was crying when Draco woke up. He wondered, as he did every day, if ignoring it and going back to sleep would make him an insensitive husband; decided he didn't care, and got up anyway. "Sabine," he said. Her shoulders stopped shaking immediately and her breathing stilled; he had to admire her self-control.
"Yes Draco?" Her voice was rock-steady and perfectly calm.
"Is everything alright?" Obviously it wasn't, but what else was he supposed to say? The Healer claimed it was nothing to be too concerned about, and that postpartum depression was almost to be expected in a woman of Sabine's disposition, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with her constant crying. Draco had never seen Narcissa cry (and Lucius went without saying), and as far back as he could remember Draco himself had never cried. Crying was simply not something Malfoys did. Except, apparently, for Sabine.
"Of course."
"That's good," he said, a little awkwardly. Circe, over two years of marriage to this woman and he still didn't know what to say to her. She was everything he needed in a wife - beautiful, intelligent, well-mannered and from a good family - and they shared many interests, but somehow they'd never connected the way Draco might have wished. He respected Sabine a great deal, and liked her, but... if he'd loved her, he thought he might have known what to do to help her.
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the enormous bed that Sabine had insisted on for their bedroom. He was all for having space to sleep in, but the thing was nearly as big as the rooms where the servants lived. That was another thing - the servants. Draco had been waited on by house elves his entire life, but he was still getting used to having human servants. France's wizarding nobility found house elves crude, apparently. Draco wasn't fond of the little buggers himself - they tended to be a bit fanatical - but something about the servility of the wizards and witches Sabine employed disturbed him deeply. He'd never said anything to Sabine about it, and probably never would. Instead, he'd just made it clear to the servants that he expected the same quick, invisible service he'd come to expect from house elves. Most of them probably thought him a right bastard; he just didn't want to see them bowing to him.
"I'll check in on Nurse before I leave, shall I?" Nurse he could deal with. She was a large, no-nonsense Belgian woman whose very presence reeked of respectability and practicality. She took care of the baby, which was a very proper and dignified profession for a witch, to Draco's way of thinking. He'd taken to her within the first week, when she'd threatened to box his ears for making too much noise while the baby was trying to sleep. He'd have to let her go sooner or later, though, because what he liked most about her was the way she reminded him of a witch back in England, whom he desperately needed to forget.
"Have a good day, Draco," Sabine said. He muttered something in acknowledgement, and went to get dressed. Perhaps he ought to start running Malfoy Enterprises personally: he needed a hobby to take his mind off his home life.
-----
Harry Potter Day had been declared a national wizarding holiday five years before. In celebration, the Ministry held an annual parade through wizarding London from Gringott's to the Memorial Garden that opened off Diagon Alley. Speeches were made by members of the Ministry and civic dignitaries, and this year there was a concert by Wyvern, the well-known cello and horn quintet. Special cakes, filled with raisins and seeds, were baked for the children, and it was considered lucky to give a shiny new sickle to an orphan. Witches and wizards in their twenties - the generation that had gone to Hogwarts with Harry and grown up knowing the terror of repeated, secret attacks - used the day off to get piss drunk and forget that anyone named Harry Potter had ever existed.
Sitting on the stone step of Flourish and Blotts, sipping his chilled white-needle tea, Neville reflected on the ironies of the holiday. For one thing, no one who actually knew Harry was involved in the entire thing - many, in fact, had tried to put an end to the holiday. The Ministry had rejected those petitions, saying that if Harry himself asked, they'd consider it. They didn't know that Harry never would because Harry, alone of all the wizards in England, didn't know the day existed.
Probably only Ginny - England's leading authority on almancy despite her retirement as a Healer - knew exactly what had happened to Harry, but Neville understood well enough what it had done to his friend. Harry had never moved past the day of the final battle, and remained somehow trapped in that dark, dangerous day. He could do his job as an Auror because he saw it as part of the battle, and had Ron at his side every single moment to help him deal with anything that didn't make sense in that context. He seemed perfectly normal until he perceived a threat to someone he cared about; then he lost himself completely, madness overtaking him as he tried to protect them.
And no one but the Weasleys and a few close friends knew. The outcry in the wizarding world if it was ever discovered... Well, Neville thought to himself, taking another sip of his tea, just look at Harry Potter Day. If the public ever found out Harry Potter actually was mentally ill (ignoring all those articles in the Prophet from when they were at school) the fall-out would be enormous.
There was hope, though. Neville smiled and accepted the seed cake a stooped, mostly-blind old witch offered him. Ron said that things had improved for Harry since his marriage to Ginny, which had stabilized his home life. Neville just hoped his friend recovered soon.
-----
They were halfway through cake and presents when it all went to hell. Fleur would have given the bitch such a slap she'd have scars to rival Bill's, but her husband's firm hands and soothing words about taking care of the baby kept her in her seat - barely. She was incensed that no one else in the family made any move to tell the slag that she was unwelcome: Hermione and Ron sat there and looked deeply troubled, Molly fluttered around, Arthur stuttered, and poor Ginny just sat there quietly as though she had known all along. George she would forgive, because he was too busy clucking to Frederick to realize the bitch was there. But the rest of them... Ginny, Fleur told Bill later, was far too good for the people she called her family. And she was far, far too good for Harry.
"Hi Harry," Cho Chang said, a little shyly, and smiled. Fleur wanted to rip the professionally-styled black hair right off the woman's thick skull. Just wait until she wasn't eight months pregnant: she'd beat the woman to death with a broom.
Harry blushed pink, and even knowing he wasn't right in the head, Fleur wanted to strangle him. "Hi Cho." He looked like a silly, besotted fourteen year old at his first ball, instead of a married man celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday at home with his family.
"I... I... Happy birthday, Harry." Fleur wondered if Charlie would let her borrow a dragon, so she could roast this woman alive and have it eat out her entrails.
"Teddy, Victoire, Fabian... your mother's going to take you upstairs, and..."
"Non," Fleur snapped, irritated. "They are going to go upstairs with you, Bill. I am going to be with Ginny, because it seems her family will not!" He looked at her, a bit shocked. "Go!" He took James from Ginny's arms, gave his sister a kiss on the cheek, and went, taking the older children with him. When he had gone, Fleur turned to face their uninvited guest, glaring fiercely.
"I just..." The young woman was trembling. "I promised I would..." There was a soft cry from the swaddled bundle in her arms. Harry was across the room in an instant, carefully taking it from her and cradling the child as he never had with James.
"Albus? Severus?" he crooned. "Professor? You're here now. Oh thank god." He sank to his knees and held the child close, tears trickling down his cheeks.
Cho looked helplessly around the room. "When I told Harry I was pregnant, he said... he said I should bring his son to him. He wanted to name him Albus Severus, so I did, and..." She trailed off, staring at them beseechingly. Fleur, for her part, could not believe that no one had said anything yet.
"You slut!" she declared, standing and looking as fiercely haughty and angry as a very pregnant woman could. Ginny was at her side in an instant, gently taking Fleur's arm and urging her not to over-exert herself. As always, Fleur thought sadly, her first thought was for someone else's well-being, even though her own life was falling down around her ears. She pulled her hand roughly out of Ginny's grasp and levelled her wand at the shaking witch. "You have until the count of three to get out of my sight," she informed her, well aware that it took several times that to get beyond the Apparation wards, even at a dead run. "Un... deux..."
Cho started backing away. Fleur didn't bother finishing her count, and sent a flurry of curses flying at the woman. Now Cho did turn and run, and Fleur waddled after her, screaming curses in Latin, French and Romanian, until Cho passed the ward boundaries and Disapparated. "Hmph," Fleur declared emphatically, waddling back to her seat with a round of scorching glares for everyone who had done nothing to help poor Ginny.
"Thank you," Ginny whispered as she helped Fleur sit back down. Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes, but didn't fall. Fleur didn't think Ginny had shed a tear since the night before her wedding, when Fleur had found her sobbing as though her heart had broken and would never mend.
Fleur patted her hand. "It is what sisters do for each other." With a cut-off cry, the younger woman threw her arms around Fleur and buried her face in her shoulder. Over Ginny's quivering shoulder, Fleur fixed each of the dumbfounded Weasley's with a glare. "Get out of my sight," she snapped. "And take the bastard with you."
Hermione opened her mouth to protest - just typical - and Fleur raised her wand threateningly. Hermione's mouth closed with a click of teeth, and she turned and marched out of the room. Ron followed her, leading Harry, who still clutched his bastard son. Molly hesitated only a second before hurrying after Harry, no doubt to fuss over him and the baby.
Arthur came to stand just behind Ginny. Fleur looked into her father-in-law's eyes, and saw in them a terrible sorrow. He placed a gentle hand on his daughter's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. Fleur nodded sharply to him, and he left.
Fleur continued to hold her shaking sister-in-law, rocking back and forth and crooning a lullaby her mother had once sung. Though her breathing was ragged and she clutched at Fleur, never once did the young witch shed a single tear. In the corner, Frederick said "Bok!" and George cried out in delight.
-----
Lucius Malfoy, ex-pat, ex-millionaire, ex-Death Eater, scowled as he pretended to read the paper. What in blue blazes had his fool son got into his head this time? Narcissa had called on Devant Manor, where Draco and his wife now lived, in the hopes of taking tea with him, and been told that her son was at work. Draco Malfoy, working a nine-to-five job like some common flub! It really was beyond comprehension.
And now, of all times, at that. They boy was still young - not two months passed his twenty-seventh birthday - was married to a pretty, accomplished witch from a noted family, had a six month old son... in short, the boy should be enjoying what blessings they still had in this life, after so much had been taken away from them. Not toiling away in some airless box.
He'd swear, in the past eight years his son had turned into someone he didn't know at all. What it had been, Lucius decided, was Draco's last year at that blasted school. He should have sent the boy away to Durmstrang like he'd wanted, where he'd be surrounded by his own kind instead of muggle-loving fools... or at the very least, where he wouldn't have been among those who so openly hated him. Narcissa had agreed with him, and they'd been all set to sign the paperwork when, unexpectedly, Draco himself had kicked up a fuss. It had been so unusual to see him truly desire something in those days that they'd folded easily, although not without many misgivings. So they'd let him go, and as the months passed there had been nothing in his letters that indicated anything was wrong, but when he came home, Draco had been... different. Lucius didn't trust it.
He rattled his paper, then decided he didn't care what it said and threw it aside. He'd call Monsieur Destrier for a round of golf. Yes, that would do: the world would be a much better place after Lucius soundly trounced his long-time rival.
References:
*Post-partum depression: Carla from 'Scrubs' - both the particular symptoms Sabine displays (there's lots, and they vary), and her desire to hide them. Obviously, it's a real disease, and a very severe one, but I admit my knowledge of it is limited to what TV and the internet have told me.