The Anti-Heroine || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter XLVII

This chapter is dedicated to Jewell_Oreo for motivating me to write when I was struggling with writer's block and a major lack of motivation <3 Seriously, thank you so much! And happy reading, everyone! xoxo

CHAPTER XLVII:

Fleur's POV:

... and I miss you, Fleur! Home is so much more lonely with you gone, and the whole of France feels emptier without you. Mamman and papa say we will be coming to see you for the Second Task, though, which is so exciting! Will you be coming home for Noël? I've asked for a pet this year, after you wrote to me about those beautiful abraxans that pull the Beauxbatons carriage. Mamman has been letting me have horse riding lessons and papa has hinted that they are going to build a stables on the grounds of the chateaux in Rochefort-en-Terre, but do you think they are preparing for a horse or an abraxan? I would love either, Fleur, I really would, but can you imagine how much fun it would be to fly? I'd love wings; is there a spell that lets you grow them? I would grow wings and I would fly every day for hours—

Fleur gently traced the loopy, babbling script on the scented parchment with a single fingertip. Letters from Gabrielle were always a balm on her soul, filling her with warmth and love. Her classmates had teased her in the past for being so wildly protective over her baby sister, but they were all clueless– they had no idea of the paralysing grief and fear she had suffered on that awful day when Gabrielle was only five years old, herself a tender eleven, and she'd thought she'd never see her sweet baby sister again.

Even thinking about that day made fire burn under her skin, made her perfectly manicured nails itch with the urge to form into talons while her face tingled like it had a bad case of pins and needles. Fleur wasn't capable of a full change, her Veela blood was too diluted for that, but she'd inherited enough of her grand-mère's nature to grow claws and for the beautiful features of her face to twist and sharpen to something far more bird-like, unnerving in the extreme. She didn't particularly care about either of those, other then to appreciate the 'hidden' weapons her talons could be utilised for.

No, it was the fire she loved. Veela were creatures of fire, and the dilution of her blood meant nothing in the face of this. Fleur didn't have her mother's ability to burn an attacker to ashes without lifting a wand or saying a word, but fire would never burn her and she could create spheres of flame from nothing but her will, a gift of the blood that burned in her veins, an instinct thousands of years old that sang in her heart.

From a very young age Fleur had adored playing with fire, but she'd always had good control over her abilities. She hadn't actually burned another living being with her flames until age eleven, when a slaving group that went by the moniker 'White Lilies', who were known for their work in the illegal sex trade– specifically in trafficking Veela and part-Veela to be sold to illegal brothels– had snatched up her sister and tried to snatch her too. Fleur had escaped, giving the man who'd dared to put his hands on her third degree burns on his face and hands in the process, but sweet, little Gabrielle who caught spiders in cups to carry outside, who cried over a butterfly with a torn wing and an ant she'd trodden on; her dear, darling Gabrielle who couldn't even bring herself to squash a fly, had not been so lucky.

The following forty-eight hours had been the worst two days of her life. All young Veela and part-Veela were given a sex education when they were young– sex and sexuality were both very important to their kind– and they'd heard enough horror stories of young Veela being kidnapped and never seen again for it to be at the forefront of the minds of everybody involved. The agony of thinking about what could be happening to her little sister as she waited and prayed for Gabrielle to be found had been petrifying and utterly heartbreaking. When Fleur finally learned Gabrielle had been located, alive, she hadn't been able to stop her hysterical crying until she saw her baby sister again.