Three Hallows, Two Weasleys and One Broken Girl

Chapter 52: Sin of Greed

Enter stranger,
But take heed.

———

Bane narrowed his eyes. "You followed an orb of light here? You expected us to believe that. An orb guided you to the centre of our secret village?"
"Weren't you expecting us?" Asked Fred before he can stop himself.
A larger centaur than Bain snarled and cantered toward them, lifting his bow.
George stifled a snicker.

"No, we were not. Though Pluto has been moving strangely." Bane acknowledged.
Pluto was definitely death related last Fred checked.

"They came to find me." Declared a familiar voice, and Fred saw Firenze approach with relief.
"They did not say so." Commented Bane, at the same time as the violent one spat "lies!"
"They did not know." Replied Firenze. "Twas Ara."
"Ara." Echoed Bane in an odd voice. "How...strange."
There were nearly twenty centaur surrounding the pair, and at Bane's comment they all turned sharp gazes in Fred and George.
"Our lady's understanding goes far beyond our own." Firenze added, and though it was in the usually whimsical monotone, a well honed instinct of Fred's pinged, telling him he should be offended somehow, though at what exactly he wasn't sure.
He felt like his worth was being measured and he was falling short, again.

"Very well." Said Bane after a scrutiny so long Fred was sure he'd gone grey in the interim. "Learn to tread lighter in future sons of Heracles. The gods are rarely so lenient twice."
Fred only managed an awkward nod before all but one of the centaurs turned away and disappeared back into the undergrowth.
Firenze looked between them with slight annoyance before letting out a tired sigh of irritation Fred didn't think they'd earned, and he and George had earned plenty enough to know.

"You're lucky the racket you were making didn't wake the foals or Bane would have let Ronan at you."
The centaur turned back when he realised they weren't following him, and did the mature equivalent of an eye roll. "Come, I have what you seek. I am a friend of Delphi's."
George opened his mouth, no doubt seeking more information, but Fred remembered seeing the pair together once before and stepped forward with confidence.
As usual George read everything he needed to know from his body language and fell into step with him as they trailed after the centaur through the dark forest.

They moved for some time in silence before Fred couldn't take it and spoke.
"Did she talk about us?"
"Who?" Was the disinterested reply.
"Delphi of course."
George gave him a bemused look, but Fred kept up his showman's smile in spite of Firenze's annoyed glance back.
"Rarely." Was the one word reply his charm earned.
"Rarely means you did sometimes!"
Firenze stopped and turned to look at him with dark grey eyes. "She came to me when her gift became too much. Our gifts work differently but share some of the difficulties and true empathy is a something no one else had the means to grant her."
Fred opened his mouth but Firenze spoke again. "As such we did speak about you two. More accurately, she spoke about George. She cried about you."
And thus ended his showman's smile and the walk to Firenze's house...stable...hut? was concluded in silence.

———

The...hut, was more like a pavilion, with a roof and some walls made by weaving the branches of the surrounding trees together to create a living shield from the elements. It had to be a form of magic that caused the trees to produce so many branches to begin with, but regardless the effect was rather lovely even in the weak light of the moon Fred was slowly becoming accustomed to.

"You met our lady." Stated Firenze softly, as he moved toward a table woven much like the house.
"Lady Fate? Yes." Answered George.
It made sense that he answer, Fred doesn't recall much of that meeting, he wasn't exactly mentally with it.
"She thought well of you?"
"I couldn't say." Was George's reluctant reply.
Firenze didn't answer that, instead, he reached out and picked something up, gripping it in his hand, and gazing at his white knuckles.

"I presume you are familiar with Gringotts."
"Yes..." Fred spoke this time, confused.
"Then you know that verse upon their doors. I urge you both to take heed, neither Fate nor Death are kind to those who take more than they should. I will give you the stone, but I urge you both, do not use it."
He opened his palm and held out a small black stone, with the hallows mark inscribed upon it.

George held out his hand then hesitated, and turned to Fred instead. Fred recalled his brother's posture when he'd gripped the wand.
Gathering his Gryffindor courage, he reached out and gathered the cool stone from the centaur's worn hand.

The moment he did, he almost buckled, as he felt her. A phantom touch on his cheek, a waft of woodland scents, and a light echo of laughter.
He only needed to turn the stone three times.
It turned once almost on accident. Really.
The second admittedly less so, but the stone had momentum now and what did centaurs know anyway?

———

Delphi was picking out another book when she smelt fireworks.
Death had brought her to his own home temporarily whilst her twins sought the Hallows. The library was near endless and filled with the biographies of every person to have ever lived.
She would find it fascinating, had she not felt so very useless. Like a princess in a castle, whilst the twins were forced to play knights in shining armour. Roles none of them were ever suited to, however dashing Fred and George may be.
But the veil was rather difficult to cross, well, cross that way at any rate leaving her with very few options. As such, she was reading. Reading anything and everything she could find that might be relevant and trying not to sulk like a helpless princess, she was a witch after all, and those were always agents of their own fate, in muggle and wixen tales alike.

As such, when she did smell fireworks, she knew exactly who held the most dangerous hallow of all. And once she could feel a warm palm on her back, and cooling of the air, she knew just what danger lay ahead, and knew what to do.

She summoned all the magic she had access to in the land of the dead, and funnelled it into one spell.
"Sonorous!"

———

"Fredrick Gideon Weasley!" Called a fierce and familiar woman's voice, that rang through the hut. "You finish turning that stone and I'll make sure your afterlife is a misery!"
Fred yelped and dropped the stone, the voice cutting off unnaturally the moment his skin lost contact.

There a moment of stunned silence, then Firenze burst out with a braying cackle, Fred took an embarrassing length of time to recognise as laughter.