The Lewis House 86 страница

"Please, Bill," she whispered. She glanced up at him and then down again immediately. They were standing very close.

"I'd rather not let go," he said hoarsely. He slowly rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.

Fleur kept her head inclined. Her hair shone silvery white in the weak sunlight and fell softly in curtains on either side of her face. The slope of her nose was slim and noble, strong and graceful, like the rest of her. Bill wanted to run a fingertip down it.

"Please," she repeated, sounding slightly panicked. She pulled her hand from his.

Bill let it go. There was nothing else for it. She would decide when she was ready to move forward with him, and he could only keep making opportunities available. Beside her, without her hand in his, he walked with her back to the Burrow. Fleur didn't speak, and he could tell that something was truly troubling her, so he stayed quiet too and let her have her sadness. Some things, he knew, were only made worse by trying to make them better.

"What did you mean, it's solid?" Hermione asked immediately, when Bill and Fleur walked into the house. She stood in front of the fireplace, half a sandwich in her hand, looking thrilled. "Do you mean it's finished? Does it work? Are you saying you can't break it - it's really complete and we can start to put it up at Culparrat? Can we start to plan how many other Charmers we're going to need? Who should we write to? Should we tell Moody and your dad right away? I think we should."

Bill wasn't sure how she said so much so fast, without breathing. "It's finished," he said. "I'd say it's time to start planning the particulars."

Hermione gave a little squeal of joy, and Penelope looked equally excited. Fleur went to the far end of the room and sat in the big, tattered armchair that Bill's father had sat in every morning for years, with his Daily Prophet in one hand and his tea in the other. She looked very small and pale in the big brown chair, and didn't seem to hear anything that Hermione was saying. She turned her face to the window and stared at nothing.

Bill put a plate of lunch on the little table beside her. Fleur glanced at it, and then at him. "Thank you." But when she looked back at the window without touching the food, Bill felt a stab of real concern. She never ate much, but she wasn't the kind of girl who skipped meals either. Either she was ill or it was a particularly bad day. He knew what she must be thinking about; he knew how grief could sneak up on a person out of nowhere, and he wished he had the right to help her.

"We'll have to think about guards," Penelope was saying. "Once the spell is in place, the Aurors will be free to do something else."

"Yes, they need to concentrate on Azkaban," Hermione said, and her expression changed from excitement to worry. "I think it's high time the dragon riders had a break."

Bill only half listened. He was worried about the situation at Azkaban, but more worried about the girl in his dad's chair.

Fleur picked at a loose bit of leather on the arm of the chair, then smoothed it down again with her fingers. She winced for no reason. Bill stopped thinking about Aurors and Dementors and went to get her some tea.

"Bill!" Adam sat at the kitchen table with three boys around his age, all of whom looked much less healthy than he did. But at least they were clean and sheltered, Bill thought, looking around at all of them. And if his mother had anything to do with it, they'd be filled out in no time. The plates in front of them were piled high.

"Adam, how's it going?" Bill rapped his knuckles lightly on Adam's head and greeted the other boys. "Hullo Matthew. David. Oi, Ralph, where'd that bruise come from?"

Ralph, who was wiry and given to picking friendly wrestling matches, sported a nasty black eye. "Him!" he said vehemently, elbowing Matthew. "Doesn't know how to play Keeper!"

"I didn't want to play Keeper," said Matthew darkly, and tucked back into his stew. "I'm a Beater."

Bill checked a smile and flicked his wand, bringing a teacup out of the cupboard. He flicked his wand again and filled the cup with steaming tea. David watched enviously.

"I want a wand," he said, and sighed. He had never had one, Bill knew. He hadn't yet begun his first year, but all four of them would start at Hogwarts again in September: Adam in his third year, Ralph and Matthew in their second. There had been a fifth child, a little girl who Adam called Ella, who was supposed to begin her third year as well. But she had run away the very day she had been brought to the Burrow, and no one could tell where she had gone. Bill had never even met her. St. Mungo's Children's Home had sworn up and down that they had charmed her hair the same way they'd charmed the other children's, but Bill knew it couldn't have been a thorough job. His mother still blamed herself. And for all they knew, Ella might have made her way back to London by now, or she might have fallen into Muggle care. Muggle orphanages were being checked one by one, but so far there had been no news.

"Hungry?" Bill asked, watching Adam stuff an extra sandwich and a couple of rolls into the pockets of his robes. He had taken to wearing Bill's very old robes around the house on lesson days. He said it made him think better.

"I will be later," said Adam defensively, and added an apple to his bulging cargo. "I'm going for a walk, all right? Be right back." Overstuffed pockets clapping against his hips, he ran out of the kitchen. Bill heard the front door slam, and a moment later he could see Adam through the window, racing down the hill to the west of the Burrow. He disappeared into the woods.

"Insane," Bill said under his breath, and went back into the front room.

"Elves, of course!" Hermione was saying. "They're the obvious choice, aren't they? Not only are many of them unemployed at the moment because they were flushed out of Dark wizards' houses and left to fend for themselves, but they've got powerful magic of their own - they'd be able to navigate the prison without splinching, because they're not affected by Apparition borders! And they're terribly loyal, and their natural inclination - at least, in the majority of cases - is to provide domestic care. They'd be perfect!"

"What, inside Culparrat?" Bill asked, offering the teacup to Fleur. She curled both her hands around it as if to warm them, though it wasn't a bit cold. Bill watched her face, but she didn't look up. He sat in the chair nearest hers, and returned his attention to the conversation.

"Yes. Not as exterior guards - although they're excellent protectors, and we might use some of them at interior posts within the prison - but to keep the prison running smoothly. To keep the prisoners in meals, and clean sheets, and humane conditions."

"Not a bad idea at all," Bill agreed.

"And at exterior posts?" Penelope said. "I admit the house-elf idea is -"

"They're not house-elves, Penny, they're just elves."

Penelope gave a short, exasperated sigh. "Yes, all right. The elves are an excellent idea, and I think we should contact Hogwarts -"

"We can just contact the elvish union," Hermione said happily. "They have one now, you know."

Bill looked over at her, and wasn't sure whether to laugh or congratulate her on a job well done - or just to roll his eyes. He had heard from Ron about Hermione's enthusiasm for activism, and had assumed that the stories had been exaggerations. But she was even more earnest than Ron had described.

"All right, we'll contact their union." Penelope shook her head. "I'm asking who we should consider for the outside posts. The Aurors will have other things to attend to, once the Ministry is back in full session, and the M.L.E.S. is overtaxed as it is. The Dementors are obviously out."

Bill shrugged. "You'll have to advertise. There are plenty of unemployed wizards."

"But we can't have just anyone," Penelope said. "We need trustworthy… they'd have to be…"

"Well I'll tell you what I think," Hermione said. "I've been thinking about this."

"Shocking," Penelope said dryly. But she was smiling.

"I think it's time the Ministry stopped being stupid about their Dark creature classifications - no offense to Mr. Weasley, because I know he'll change it if he gets to stay in office, but I worry about what will happen if he doesn't, and perhaps we ought to press him to do this now." Hermione took a deep breath. "Werewolves should be employed. If we employed the werewolves, especially in Ministry positions, we'd have a group of truly loyal guards. They've been waiting centuries for someone to recognize their worth as what they are ninety nine percent of the time - human beings - and whoever gives them that recognition is sure to have their allegiance." She looked from Bill to Penelope. "Don't you agree?" She looked at Fleur. "Fleur, what do you think?"

Fleur started. She fixed glassy eyes on Hermione. "I am sorry," she said, and her voice was very dry. "What did you say?"

Hermione glanced at Penelope. "Fleur, are you all right?"

Fleur nodded. She put her teacup on the table with a shaking hand and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. She shut her eyes. Her mouth opened and her breath became irregular; she seemed to have forgotten that anyone was watching. She sat still for nearly a minute, and the clock ticked in the silence.

"Fleur?" Penelope's voice was full of concern. "Are you ill?"

Bill knew she wasn't. He turned his chair towards her and leaned forward. "Can I do anything?" he asked, as quietly as he could.

Fleur's chest hitched. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, covered her eyes with her fingers, and shook her head.

Bill realized with a jolt of anxiety that she was about to cry.

Seconds later, Fleur flung her other arm across her face and sobbed into the silent room. It was a sob unlike any Bill had ever heard - an empty, broken, abandoned sound that seemed to come from another body. It did not end, but stretched into a long, keening moan, too low to be Fleur's voice but too heartbroken to be anyone else's. Bill had never heard her like this - but he had felt her. Just like this. He sat rooted to the spot, terrified of the explanation for that sound.

The permanent crease between Penelope's eyebrows deepened. She came to crouch beside Fleur's chair and put a hand on her knee.

"Oh, my dear -" Mrs. Weasley raced in from the garden with Leo on her hip and Adam on her heels. At the sight of Fleur, her free hand flew to her mouth. "Poor thing," she murmured to Hermione, who was staring at Fleur with a face full of pity. "It must be very bad."

It is. Bill knew that there was only one reason for Fleur to cry like that. But he didn't want to name it and make it true.

"Ma -" Fleur gasped behind her arms, making everyone in the room jump including Leo, who screwed up his face and hid it in Mrs. Weasley's shoulder. "Ma -"

"You don't have to talk," Penelope said gently, keeping her hand on Fleur's knee. "Take your time."

"Gabrielle -"

Bill's insides turned to ice.

Fleur crumpled, dignity forgotten, pulling her legs close to her body and sobbing into the rounded side of Mr. Weasley's worn out chair.

"Her little sister," Hermione said faintly to Mrs. Weasley, who turned white and pulled Leo closer to her apron front.

Adam watched without flinching, his face unreadable.

"Gabrielle…"

Penelope knelt and kept her contact; Hermione stayed still and Mrs. Weasley hovered, twin expressions of sickened understanding on their faces. Bill could only sit beside Fleur and watch, his fingers clenched, his chest tight and his heart thudding so hard that it echoed in his head and sent blood rushing to pound in his eardrums. He wanted to be sick. It was Percy all over again.

Several minutes later, Fleur's sobs subsided and she ceased to repeat her sister's name. Her feet slid back to the floor and her arms came down and lolled like dead weights on her thighs. Bill was struck by her appearance. She made no move to wipe her face, which hung slack, blotched, wet and unbeautiful. The light in her eyes had gone out.

"What happened?" Penelope asked quietly. "Or is it too soon?"

Fleur hiccoughed wetly and fumbled to pull a strand of her long hair away from her mouth. Penelope reached up and took over, kneeling up to smooth the plastered bits of hair back from her face so that Fleur could drop her hands again and sit dully, staring at nothing.

"Would you like some water?" Penelope was saying now, tucking the last of the silvery hair behind Fleur's hunched shoulders. "Would you like to have a lie down? There's an empty room upstairs, I'll take you there if you like."

Fleur stirred. She stared around the room at nothing, then fixed her eyes on Penelope. With the blank face and cracking voice of a person hardly half awake, she began to speak.

"Ma… ma soeur… she was… it was last year when…" But there Fleur stopped. She was already trembling head to toe and her eyes were full of tears again. She opened her mouth, shut it, and turned her eyes to Bill. "Please." She stretched a hand towards him.

Bill took her hand in both of his. He saw his mother, Penelope, Hermione and Adam turn their faces to him, questioning.

"Fleur's sister - " Bill's voice cracked, but he continued, making no effort to hide his emotion. She should know how much he hurt for her sake. "Gabrielle was one of the children at Mont Ste. Mireille."

Hermione winced, Mrs. Weasley gasped, and Penelope gave a low cry. She replaced her hand on Fleur's knee. Adam's eyes narrowed slightly.

"She's missing now," Bill went on. "Presumed -"

Fleur's chin trembled at the word and she shook her head. It was enough.

"Not presumed," Bill rasped, his voice so dry that it hurt coming out. "She's - dead. Fleur, how do you know?"

Fleur spoke after several failed attempts. "They 'av discovered a - grave-"

Mrs. Weasley drew a hissing breath and Penelope bowed her head.

"Where many bodies were discarded. They cannot identify the bones because the curses… there were burns." Fleur whimpered. "But they found wands. They found the wand with my - my grandmother's 'air in the core - it is no mistake…" Fleur dissolved again into sobs.

Bill heard a raw, furious sound of sorrow and realized that it had torn from him. Fleur gripped his hand and reached toward him with her other arm, shaking all over. He stood and bent down to let her take hold of his neck, then pulled her out of the chair with one arm beneath her knees and the other across her back, to cradle her.

"I'm so sorry," he managed into her hair. "I'm so sorry." And he meant it in every way. He was sorry about Gabrielle, sorry for the way he had behaved, sorry he hadn't trusted her, sorry that he hadn't been with her to get that news. "I'm sorry, Fleur." She wept jerkily, clutching at his shoulders, and he headed for the stairs.

"My mother will not - 'ave a funeral she - thinks it is best to 'ave faith but, Bill - Bill -"

He hardly saw his mother's look of astonishment as he carried Fleur away to his old bedroom; he hardly noticed that Hermione raced ahead of him to get the door and spare him the trouble. Only Fleur mattered. He brought her into the shuttered, dim blue room, lay her in the little bed, and curled up beside her when she groped for him. They couldn't lie side by side on the small mattress, so he rolled onto his back and pulled her to him. She sprawled half on top of him with her face into his

shoulder, and he put his hand on the back of her head, wanting, somehow, to give her comfort. She wept into him, channeling unearthly sobs, and Bill fumbled for words.

"I'm right here," he said, stroking her hair with one hand and her back with the other, feeling her sobs rise and fall. The shoulder of his robes was already wet through. "I've got you."

She gave him no answer except a thick snuffle that didn't sound at all feminine, let alone as if it had come from a quarter-veela.

Bill kissed her head, reached for the tissues on the bedside table and handed her several. He moved the weight of her hair to the far side of her neck and moved his fingers gently back and forth on the exposed half of her throat. "Shh." He kissed her hair again, and continued to shush her as she cried.

Eventually, Fleur graduated to quieter floods of tears and her chest stopped heaving. She'd stuck the tissues under her face without bothering to use them and their corners fluttered between her hidden profile and Bill's chest with every breath she took. It would have been a funny picture, if she had not been so grieved. Bill brushed the backs of his fingers along her hairline, and down the only part of her face he could see - the little strip of skin between her temple and the side of her jaw, next to her ear. "I'm so sorry," he whispered again. "I'm so sorry."

She braced her forearm on his chest and lifted her head. A few of the tissues came with her, stuck to her face. Bill reached up, peeled the tissues away, and threw them towards the waste bin. "Need another one?"

Fleur blinked at him, her face sticky with tears, and shook her head. "Thank you," she mumbled. She hiccoughed again, and sniffed. "I want my sister." Tears jumped into her eyes. "Distract me," she pleaded, blinking away the tears. They fell onto Bill's vest. "Make me forget."

He touched her face. It was soft and cold and wet. "I can't do that," he said quietly.

"Did I - not distract - you once?" Fleur asked, still through hiccoughs.

"No." Bill rubbed his thumb back and forth along her cheekbone. "You made it so I didn't need to be distracted. You made it all right."

She nodded, and fell down again with her face in the side of Bill's neck. He traced the dip of her spine all the way up to her neck and back down again, over and over, not sure what good it would do. But her breathing stayed regular and she relaxed a little further every time he touched her.

"Gabrielle was a better witch than I am," Fleur said abruptly, after several minutes had passed in silence. "She was calm, and she was not vain. She 'ad my father's nose. It 'ad a little bump and two freckles, and my grandmother was 'orrified." Fleur drew a deep breath and let it out again. Bill shut his eyes and felt it through his robes. "Grandmama wanted to use a potion to take them right off. But my mother refused to let 'er alter a thing. She said that Gabrielle was more beautiful for her differences."

Bill thought how true that was. He loved Fleur best when she had come unraveled and was free from enchantments.

"And she was so strong-minded, my sister. When she got 'er wand - she did not get to choose 'er wand, you should 'ave seen that tantrum - she told me she did not approve of Grandmama's decision, and she was not going to use it for very long. She said she wanted something more reliable than an old veela 'air in the center." Fleur laughed, then sobered. "And she did not use it for very long," she said quietly. "She was a little Seer, per'aps."

Bill smoothed her hair, giving her what comfort he could.

"Tomorrow, Bill, if… I would like it if you would come to my flat and look at pictures. I want to show her to you. Please."

"We can go now if you like -- I've always tried to picture her," Bill said truthfully. "In my head she looks like a smaller version of you."

Fleur raised her head again and looked into Bill's face. Some of the light had returned to her eyes. "Non. She was 'erself. She was so beautiful."

Bill used his thumb to dry the wet circles beneath Fleur's eyes. "Would you like to go now?" he asked again. "I want to see her."

Fleur nodded and sat up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked around the room for the first time. "Is this your room from when you were a boy?"

Bill looked around, registering where he was. "Yes," he said slowly. "Charlie's too, after Fred and George were born. It was Percy's room after we left. It's Adam's now - isn't he a great kid? He hasn't touched a thing."

The room bore the traces of all three Weasley boys who had lived in it. The walls themselves seemed to breathe with adolescent secrets and school holidays, mishaps and accomplishments. In lieu of wallpaper, every surface was plastered over with exam papers, O.W.L. results, letters from Hogwarts, pictures from the paper – all of it hanging precariously with the aid of many different spells. Percy’s hangings were the tidiest; Charlie's the most haphazard. On the emptiest wall, Adam had begun to hang his pictures and assignments, while Bill's own things, he noted wryly, were yellowed with age - except for the awards. On the far wall, there hung six academic medals that gave off flecks of light even in the growing darkness. Two were his; four were Percy’s. Below them, scattered on a shelf, were golden trophies with scarlet plates, duplicates of the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup that Charlie and his team had won more than once.

"Are these your medals?" Fleur stood and went to look at them. She traced careful fingers across the metal discs and trophies and Bill watched her, rather amazed that she was here, in the room where he'd first begun to dream about girls. Never in his wildest dreams had he given himself a girl like Fleur

"Er, one or two," he said. "The trophies are all Charlie's - he was a great Quidditch player in school, they said he could've played for England. And most of those awards are Percy's."

"Your mother leaves them up."

"Yes, well, she gets a bit proud. Can't imagine why, as you can see we were all completely useless."

Fleur glanced over her shoulder and smiled, then returned to her inspection, running her fingertips over the badges that were stuck into a corkboard. Their mother had always been proudest of the badges. The three metal plates still shone: his own Prefect and Head Boy badges alongside Percy’s Head Boy badge. Percy’s badge seemed to give off a strange light, Bill thought, though he knew that he was probably imagining things. He looked at the empty space on the strip of cork where Percy's Prefect badge had used to hang. Penelope still kept it with her, all the time. She’d taken the pin off so that Leo could hold it, and he clutched it in his little hand very often, when he fell asleep.

Bill got up and went to stand with Fleur. Like her, he traced his fingers over Percy's badge, and as he did it, something painful swelled in his chest. He missed his brother. Percy had been so different from the rest of them, but he’d been a strongheart. He’d been a Gryffindor. And like everyone else who’d got lost in the war, he wasn’t supposed to be dead. It still didn’t seem quite real to Bill that he wasn’t going to have a chance to see Percy again. Talk to him. Tell him he’d never really meant any of the wisecracks. Watch him hold his own son. Leo had been born to a wonderful father, and he was never going to know it.

They were going to have to make him know it. It was their responsibility to remember every shred of the life that had been Percy’s, and pass it on.

"I am so glad I met your brother," Fleur said quietly. She took Bill's hand and rested her head on his shoulder. "It is important to me. I am so glad I knew 'im, even a little."

Bill relaxed. The painful thing that had been twisting inside him died down. "So am I."

"My sister would 'av liked you very much." Fleur laced her fingers between his and breathed out. "She liked people to 'ave strength. And passion."

Bill let the profound compliment sink into him, then turned his head and kissed Fleur's temple. She took a shallow breath and shut her eyes. Her skin was cool. He breathed in the rain smell of her hair and left his mouth on her skin for a long time, incapable of moving away until she lifted his hand in hers and inclined her head. Bill's mouth slipped from her temple and he bent his head. He watched in awe as Fleur touched her lips to the back of his hand, then turned it over and kissed his palm.

"Thank you," she murmured, and looked up at him.

Bill cupped her upturned face with the hand she'd just kissed. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin was pale, and the tip of her nose was little bit pink. She was flawed… flawless…

She was real. She shut her eyes and tilted up her chin, and her mouth fell slightly open.

Bill's heart pounded; he knew it was her invitation - knew that he could kiss her now, for the first time in more than a year. For a moment he hesitated, unsure if it was all right or if he would be taking advantage of her grief. But then, they had shared their only kiss just after he had got news of Percy's murder, when he had been at his most vulnerable. And kissing her had soothed his heart more than he had believed anything could.

Fleur opened her eyes and in them Bill could read confusion. Hurt. She pulled back, color rising in her face. "Is this not…" she began slowly.

"Shh," he whispered, and brushed his hand back through her hair. "Close your eyes, Fleur."

She did. Bill bent his head.

Her lips were slightly chapped; that was the first thing he noticed. Soft but imperfect, so that brushing his mouth across hers sent shocks into his brain. The texture of her. The texture and the first, slow, responsive movement. The wonderful sound of her broken breathing. And her fingertips. She touched the sides of his neck, making him shiver, then touched his hair. His shoulders. And all the while their mouths brushed, gently mapping territory that had been discovered and lost, but not forgotten. There was still the same strange familiarity, as if this was the only right choice and the reasons would come later.

Bill almost didn't want to deepen the kiss. There was something heavenly about it, as if she were a ghost or an angel, something he couldn't quite hold. Something fragile that might vanish into smoke or dissolve under the weight of a breath. He ran his hands down her arms and slipped them around her back.

Fleur whispered his name and opened her mouth to his. Kissed him fully, tangled her fingers in his hair. And suddenly she wasn't fragile at all, she was flesh and blood and her body was pressed to his, and it had been a year. For a little while, in the dim, blue light of his childhood bedroom, Bill forgot to be gentle.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04