The Sight Of Eternity With You

Dance With Me

"Which is why, when you demand to join the Order. Remember that he was beside himself with grief while you were taken. He's not going to take you wanting to join something so dangerous lightly."

"He has no leg to stand on. You're part of it and you have Bill, Tonks and Remus just got married! Molly and Arthur?!" Harper scoffed, "Freddie too! I'm sure Ange hates it and has been trying to join herself." Fleur nodded slowly as if to confirm the statement.

Harper bit her lower lip, "besides. The jury is still out on if I'd actually want to join, considering the circumstances of my boyfriend's mutilated ear....Feel as if I'd just waste my breath," Fleur gripped Harper's hand tightly in hers, "but I get it. We needed to get Harry outta there before some form of blood protection wore off, right?" The part Veela nodded, "so I get why it was carried out....but really? You put your trust in the worst person—"

"—that's why Alastor took him as his partner. I believe Alastor knew he would die, and he didn't trust that Fletcher character with anyone else."

"That's a poor excuse, Moody was said to be this amazing auror right? Then why-"

"-only a good auror would realize the character of someone and make the sacrifice that he did," Fleur interrupted.

"That's foolish," Harper scoffed, taking a long sip of her coffee, the beverage warming her esophagus as it traveled along. "I could've gone instead of him, maybe Moody would be alive. There was no reason he should've-"

"—Joy said you still have a long recovery," Fleur argued. "I'm certain had Joy not said you were unfit that possibly, maybe. You would've joined us. But then you are also a target. We had planned for an ambush, but one that involved him? No...we didn't expect that he would be out there himself looking for Harry. That was our biggest mistake, and if we had fathomed that possibility then maybe Alastor would be alive. If he'd seen you and recognized you, I think it would've been a darker fate- one where you get kidnapped again and George loses his life trying to save you...." Fleur repositioned herself in her chair, taking both of Harper's hands. "They're looking for you, Harper."

"How do you know that?" She tilted her head to the side.

"I'm certain you're unaware, but they are looking for you. There was an obituary put out on your parents in the Prophet, as if attempting to draw you out. He hasn't forgotten about you. They questioned Celeste about you as well, seemed Yaxley remembered her speaking with you," Fleur explained. Harper's heart picked up, she felt hot as her breathing became short.

"She's fine, just changed her hair with a quick charm, takes more days off-which no one felt was abnormal, Arthur says you can feel a charged tension around that place," Fleur tried to comfort her. "But your parents' obituaries being released in not a coincidence."

Harper looked at their hands and nodded, guilt tugging at her navel as her thoughts spiraled. She remembered the evening on the Astronomy tower, listening to one of the Death Eaters comment on murdering her parents. She hadn't had time to reflect on it then, and now? The guilt she felt for getting Celeste caught was amplified by the guilt of not mourning her parents properly.

"I have to get better faster then," Harper vowed.

"No, you need to do so slowly," Fleur shook her head.

"If I hadn't been sidelined, things could be very different!"

"Harper, you weren't sidelined. That's not what a year of torture is," with a shake of her head, the braid coming undone as the French girl scoffed. "Being sidelined is having a twisted ankle or broken wrist, losing your wand! Not having immense damage to your ribs, your legs-your tendons flayed apart-" Harper flinched at the reminder, her left leg giving a painful twitch at the memories.