Three Hallows, Two Weasleys and One Broken Girl

Chapter 30: A Matter Most Sirius

Here's an update while I still have decent signal!
For those readers who don't follow me, I'm in South Africa, and currently (literally) in the bush with Giraffes and Leopards (among awesome others), and more or less will be, 10 hours a day, six days a week until September 16th recording and studying the dwarf mongooses here.

As such, signal is very patchy, and I haven't the time or energy at least so far to return to regular updates like I promised after exams. And I definitely won't be replying to messages like I've always tried to.

Apologies all, if I completely ghost from here on in, assume a leopard got me, though considering how many times I've almost walked into them, a giraffe hoof to the head is more likely. Alternatively, I murdered the incredibly sexist and creepy reserve owner for reasons I currently dread discovering. Pick and choose.

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The next few weeks saw many changes to the Weasley Twin's flat.
The living room became a cozy, well furnished room, with dark green walls and a large sofa. The window in there was big and south facing, and the space around it became an area for a small botany collection, and the modified bird box, Aggi the Horklump called home.
The kitchen became a light airy room in pale blue, clean and neat. The only oddity being the two fridges, one for normal food, and an expanded walk in one for the twin's edible inventions.
The bedroom was largely unchanged, though the bed earned an expansion charm since the realisation that Fred really couldn't 'sleep like this'. George was a cuddler and Delphi loved it, but Fred tended to spell out runic arrays with his full body when asleep.

Pictures slowly started appearing on the shelves too. Them dancing outside of the Yule ball (taken via memory extraction), Fred proudly demonstrating a canary cream, Delphi (finally) falling for a prank potion which turned every thing she touched Delores Umbridge pink - for a week (she made sure they ended up regretting that one). There were more too, George looking a great deal like Seamus Finnegan after blowing up a potion, Fred and George freaking out on the London eye after Delphi brought them to muggle London (they tried to get rid of that one but no matter which window they threw it through, or spell they used it always reappeared).

It was a surreal sort of paradise. But no matter how aware and grateful you are for fleeting pleasures, that will never change the fact that they are fleeting. The war was coming, and it was not the type of thing to leave happy teenagers be.

Delphi wasn't a member of the order, partially because she didn't trust Dumbledore not to manipulate her into giving away information he shouldn't know, and partly because the status of Lovegoods was not exactly defined as reliable.
When the fire call came for the twins to go to the ministry, she let them go with a kiss each, and read until they returned. She didn't take in a word of the book of course, but mindlessly worrying was pointless. This was the end for Sirius, and though she loved the man dearly, she couldn't stop it. At least he'd be united with his sworn brother.

The billowing of the fireplace brought her out of her reverie and she watched with sad eyes as her twins stumbled out one at a time, looking shaken and tired.

"Sirius is dead." Muttered Fred distantly.
"The war was coming. Now it has arrived." Delphi said sadly, getting up and leading the way to the kitchen to put on the kettle. "He was one of the marauders who made that map of yours."
"Oh really?" Asked George weakly, making them all some coffee as Fred settled on the sofa opposite her.
She nodded, throat tight, "Padfoot. Prongs was Harry's father, and Professor Lupin is Moony. Wormtail...he was the betrayer of the Potters, Pettigrew. Named for their animagus forms."
"Even greater bloke than we thought..." Fred hesitated, "Harry was really torn up about it."
She sent him a sharp look, clearly guessing what he was driving at.
"Trying to change things never goes well." She murmured as she poured the tea, pressing mugs into their hands.
George gritted his teeth, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the mug. He'd watched someone die today. He'd fought for his life today. "You say that but-"

"My mother died because of me."

The pair froze, turning to stare, but Delphi only poured her own cup before returning to the living room and settling in her reading chair, she didn't meet their eyes. "I was ten at the time. My father was due to die that day. He went on a trip to Norway and was to find an Erumpant horn and mistake it for a Snorkack horn. He was to be blown to bits by it."
She paused, still not looking at them.
"My sight has been around a long time, and I was only ten, and I didn't want to lose my dad."

She pulled her knees up and held them to her chest as she gazed at the fire, feeling suddenly like a stranger to the twins. "I told him, made him swear to leave any horns he found on the trip, snorkack or not. And he did, already knowing by then what requests like that meant."
She laced her fingers together and sighed.
"The very minute he was supposed to die but didn't, my mother was with me and Luna. She was showing us the wand movements for the lumos charm, explaining how it was based off of a light rune." Delphi's hands trembled. "That was when he came.  I didn't see him, only heard his voice as my mother's wand exploded, obliterating her with it. 'You tried to take a life from me seer,' was what the voice told me. 'Do it again and the world you cherish will burn'."

The living room was dead silent, the tea cooling in the twins' frozen hands as they stared at her. She still didn't look up.
"My father is a wonderful man, was a wonderful man...without him though, our family could have held together. Without my mother, what little sanity he still had became so deeply buried I sometimes wonder if he'll ever come back. And Luna...Luna will never heal and neither will I."
She turned to look at them steadily, "the path we're following is fragile enough without me testing fate again. So never ask it of me."

"Sorry..." said George, and she could see he meant it. "It's just..."
"I know..." she cut him off. "I've seen exactly what you went through, and I saw it long before Harry even learnt Sirius' name...I really do get it, more than anyone."

They finished their tea in silence, but just as she was seriously questioning whether being with the twins was really as good of a terrible idea as she'd hoped, Fred spoke up.
"Though getting through a lot of that terrible stuff was important, we better finish on a happy point."
George nodded seriously, "don't want the place infested in nargles before we even open."
They turned to her and she set down her mug, raising her eyebrows.

In answer to her unspoken question, Fred produced the radio he'd had back at the Yule ball from nowhere. In minutes they'd broken out of the confines of the shop and were dancing on the deserted cobbles of Diagon Alley.
Gringotts Bank stared down at them distainfully as the trio twirled and bounced in circles to the warbling tones of Celestina Warbeck.

It was a more intimate dance than their first. Delphi twirled and spun between the twins, their hands on her waist a constant warmth against the cool night air and the pain of an inevitable future.
She shared smiles and kisses under the light of the moon, their laughter making the vacant street as welcoming as a warm hearth. And another photograph was added to the collection.