The Osiris Song

For a moment, Fleur was so shocked, she couldn't speak. All she could do was stare into the goddess' radiant face and pray.

"The Song of Osiris is not to be used lightly," Isis explained, still kneeling before her on the floor. "It cannot be sung by any and all who grieve; the chosen few must pass the preordained tests. First, the Test of Purity - is their hope strong enough? Second, the Test of Self - do they know themselves? You answered that, child," she added, at Fleur's confused expression, "when you corrected my pronunciation of your name." She smiled and stroked Fleur's cheek. "Just as you've now completed this test, the third test. The Test of Truth - does the chosen One know the core of their need."

"I don't understand…"

"To sing the Song," Isis explained, as Fleur trailed off, "the Singer must be acting outside their own self interest. This does not mean they won't benefit immensely from singing the Song, but they will not be the only one to benefit. The true Chosen will gain back the loved one they lost, but in the purest of cases, it is the loved one himself - or herself - who will reap the greatest rewards. And so it is with you. While you will regain the love and companionship of your husband, your husband will be doubly richened. For he will be reunited with you, and he will live to meet his children. Likewise, your children will grow to know their father. It is a threefold prize." A benign smile lit her face. "It is a mirror of the Trinity: Mother, Father and Child. No sign could be clearer that you, Fleur Delacour-Weasley, are meant to sing the Song."

Fleur struggled to breathe. To have come so far, suffered so much, only to have everything falling into place… It was like a dream. A wonderful, horrible dream that would be gone like morning mist if she so much as blinked. Her eyes were beginning to burn as she fought to keep them open. "Zen… Zen I may 'ave it?" she murmured, hands clenching into fists on her lap.

Isis smiled benignly and nodded.

Fleur burst into fresh tears, falling forward to bury her face in the goddess' perfumed hair. "Merci…!" she gasped, leaning down to kiss the deity's hand and press it to her heart. "Merci, ma déesse! Je ne peux pas rembourser…!"

Isis stroked her hair kindly. "Shhh, young one. I have done nothing. It is YOU who have made this moment possible." The goddess' cool fingers tilted Fleur's chin up, and the veela could just make out the warm intensity of her coal black eyes despite her own haze of tears. "I believe this young man is the luckiest in a great many years, to have one who loves him so much."

"Non, ma déesse," Fleur disagreed, shaking her head and blinking away her tears. "I am ze lucky one."

Isis said nothing, but stroked Fleur's cheek and stood, pulling the tearful quarter-veela to her feet. "Are you ready?" she asked.

Fleur nodded. "Oui, my goddess." Her eyes cast about the sumptuous throne room. "Where iz ze melody?"

Isis shook her head. "It is not written, Fleur, nor is it scribed in stone." She touched her fingertips to Fleur's temple. "The Song rests here," her hand moved down to rest over Fleur's heart, "and here."

Fleur squinted in confusion. "I… I do not understand…"

"The Song of Osiris is LIFE, young one," Isis explained. "Life is not the same in all people. Every person who walks this world, who has walked it in the past, and who will walk it till eternity comes will lead a new and different life. For each person, the Song is written anew." She moved back a step, slender arms coming to rest at her sides, onyx eyes clear. "This is what you must do, Fleur. You must sing Bill's Song, note for note, to the last tremor of the chorus. You must have it right, or you will summon another being back from the dead, and you may only sing once." She bowed her head. "These are the rules, as set down by my husband, the Lord Osiris, when time was young."

Fleur stared at Isis, mouth agape.

"But… That's impossible!" she heard Hermione exclaim from the sidelines.

"No," Isis responded. "It is not."

"But how is anyone supposed to know anyone else's song?" Ron jumped in. "For that matter, how are we supposed to know our OWN?"

"To sing one's own Song would reinvigorate the spirit and soothe the soul," Isis explained. "It is a difficult skill to master, but not impossible. Yes, to sing another's Song is difficult, like damming the Nile with a single pebble. But if that pebble is placed in the proper position, it will catch silt, and that silt will slowly build into a natural dam. So what is thought impossible is revealed to be merely very, very difficult."

In the blink of an eye, the goddess was once again in front of Fleur, gazing into her eyes. "You have the kernel of the song inside you, Fleur." She placed a palm in the center of the quarter-veela's chest. "The pain you have carried since Bill left you. Have you never wondered what it was?"

Fleur shook her head faintly, enraptured by the goddess' face.

"It is HIS SONG," Isis explained, smile radiant in her luminous face. "When he died, he left a piece with you, to guard you and protect you. It is often so, with those who die prematurely. They fear so much for those they leave behind, they cannot bear to go away entirely. And so they linger, as memories, as smells, as snatches of half remembered verse." She pulled her hand away from Fleur's chest, and Fleur gasped to see a column of pure white light extending from the deity's palm to her own bosom.

"The Song pains you because it is not yours," Isis continued. "It is being played on the wrong instrument, and so it becomes discordant and crass. It wants to be released, so it may reunite with its soul." The column of light began to weave around Fleur's body, coiling first around her head and then down her body, until she was sheathed in its glow. "All you need to do is sing your pain, child, and you will not fail."

Warmth spread through Fleur's body, from head to foot, and she felt herself loosen underneath its gentle touch. The pain that had roosted in her chest for so long seemed to have disappeared, but she knew that wasn't the case. It was swirling around her like a light storm. Somehow, it was not so frightening now. It was beautiful. She was looking at Bill's Song, and it was pure white, like new driven snow.

"Know this, Fleur Delacour-Weasley," Isis suddenly said, interrupting Fleur's reverie. The goddess' voice had lost its lilting quality, and was now deathly serious. "It is not the place of ordinary mortals to return life where it has been removed. That is the realm of gods and demons. It is a heavy burden, not to be taken lightly. If you are to sing this man's Song, you must be prepared to shoulder the burden as a god must endure such a load. You must be ready for worship." She paused and fixed Fleur with a firm stare. "Are you willing to be worshipped, child?"

Fleur swallowed. She didn't entirely understand that speech, but was too afraid to say so. What if Isis believed her unwilling to sing? She couldn't come so far only to fail now. Willing to be worshipped…. That didn't sound so bad. She had been treated like a goddess - wrongly or rightfully - most of her life. She could endure it again, if it meant she would have her Bill back.

Slowly, she nodded. "Oui, my goddess," she murmured. "I am willing."

Isis nodded. "Then sing, child." Her familiar smile reappeared. "He is waiting."

Fleur could hardly breathe. How did she begin? Words and melodies jostled for dominance in her mind, but she knew none of them were correct. None of them sounded like Bill. She could only sing once - there were no second chances; no childish take backs. The Song had to be correct, from first note to last.

Raising a shaking hand, she pressed her palm over the center of her chest, in the same place Isis had touched earlier, so that her hand was bathed in the white light of Bill's Song. She felt a low ache reverberate in her bones as the familiar pain of his death returned, soaking into her marrow.

Tilting her head back, she opened her mouth and began to sing.

In later years, Hermione would be hard pressed to describe the heartbreaking purity of that first note. No other sound compared to it, except, perhaps, the sound of a drop of water crystallizing at the tip of an icicle. It was high and clear, like a perfect silver flute, but not so reedy. Like a crystal clarinet, but not so deep. Like a virginal soprano at the opera, but not so bold.

In the end, she would have to depend on similes that had nothing whatsoever to do with sound, because none applied. "It was like crystal," she'd say. "Pure Austrian crystal. Not the sound of crystal - it didn't ring like that. It sounded like crystal LOOKS. So clear you have to call it white, because no other color really fits. Do you understand?"

"Like a trickle of glacial water on a shady granite boulder," she'd continue, when the first symbol failed to register with her audience. "Not because it's cold, because it wasn't. It was warm. But so CLEAR. So fresh and pure, but earthy. Can't you hear it?"

When they couldn't, she'd shake her head with frustration. "No, no," she'd vent. "You're not listening close enough! It was like a fern uncurling in a sun dappled forest. Or an eagle coming to land on the highest eyrie. It was the sound of cirrus clouds melting and reforming, over and over and over again."

When the first note still eluded them, she'd throw her hands in the air and say, "You could never understand, then! You could never know!"

But the rest of the song! her audience would plead. Describe it to us. Please?

And she would. She'd tell them how it moved from that first breathtaking note, then plummeted down, like a mighty river falling over the precipice of a surging waterfall. But instead of crashing to an end in a boiling whirlpool, the song rose again, like fine spray at the base of Victoria Falls, that drenches even as it summons eternal rainbows. Slowly, the misty song settled, coursing with the river down deep granite canyons and through shady forest rills. It was a wild song, tamed only by the weight of the wilderness that surrounded it.

"It was a strange thing," Hermione would tell them, in a quietly awed voice as she relived the moment. "It sounded like Bill. Not like his voice - nothing so concrete as that. But as I listened to it… This will sound silly, but I swear it's true. When I heard it, I saw his eyes. Bill always had the most amazing eyes. They were brown, but not chocolate brown or coffee brown or some other stereotypical shade. They were faceted, so that in some lights they seemed green, or gold. When it was cold, they'd almost turn blue. I suppose you could call them hazel, but that doesn't describe them." She'd shake her head. "No, his eyes were indescribable. A little wild, adventurous. Like his spirit, I imagine. Like his soul. They were remarkably clear windows, if you ask me." She'd smile, lost in thought. "I'll always remember that, clearest of all. Standing there, surrounded by all this rich Egyptian glory, listening to Fleur sing her husband's eyes…"

They'd have to shake her to get her to continue. "What, more? Haven't you heard enough? I can't describe it, I tell you. It was something you had to experience. You had to be there to really KNOW." But she'd try anyway, if only to remind herself in the process.

Eventually, the river song spread out to become a mighty lake, deep and blue and cold, rimmed by mountains. And there the water was left behind, as the song picked up and began to soar, as though an eagle had taken that moment to sweep across the mirrored surface of that lake, glorious wings skimming the water, leaving chilly ripples in its wake.

"And up it climbed," Hermione would explain, "higher and higher, until you thought your heart would break, and then it would go even higher, until you thought your mind would shatter, and then higher, until you were certain nothing else had ever existed but that one… note." She'd shiver, remembering. "I don't know what that note was, but it must have been something brilliant. Or terrible." A pause. "I think it was his death." Another pause. "I can't be sure, of course. But if I had to guess, that's what I'd say."

But then, she'd continue, when you were sure the note would last forever, it began to drop, to circle downwards, downy feathers fluffing out until the eagle came to roost in its massive nest, high up near the roof of the world. "This was the easiest piece to understand," Hermione would say, unable to resist a grin. "The lonesome wail of that last note melted down into a melody of… hominess. It made you feel warm and protected, like the chicks in the nest, cuddling up to be fed." She'd laugh. "That was the children, you see. His little unborn children. He'd fathered them unknowingly, but they were just as much a part of him as he of them." Her eyes would go distant. "None of us wanted that part to end. It was so perfect. We wanted to live in that nest, surrounded by that song." A nod. "I understood why Fleur loved him so much, listening to that melody."

"After a while, the song grew up. The children faded into the background, and the nest disappeared, and it sounded like honey poured into a golden goblet, on a table laden with cream puff pastries and puddings and every kind of delicious thing you could think of. Ron told me he heard the smell of mince pie. I don't know if I heard that smell particularly, but I DID get essence of marmalade on scones, and I remember it made my stomach growl." She'd laugh. "We must have made a lovely sight - three young nothings drooling over the notes of a song. I'm sure Isis was secretly laughing at us."

What did that part of the song mean? her audience would ask, before she could get off track.

"Oh, haven't you guessed?" she'd say, feigning surprise. "That was love! And I'll tell you, you've never experienced love until you've heard it sung by a veela. It was so rich, so nourishing. It made you feel like you could live on love; as though the notes of the song could somehow give you all the sustenance you would ever need." She paused, then added in a quieter voice, "That was when we all noticed the sarcophagus."

What happened?

"It started to glow. This brilliant, streaming light, like sunbeams piercing through fog. It was dazzling. We couldn’t look at it directly, but at the same time we couldn't look away. Your eye was drawn to that light, and you wanted to dive in. It was so warm and inviting…"

She'd sigh, close her eyes, and continue. "His hand appeared first. It took us all by surprise; I think I screamed a bit. All of a sudden, these fingers just shot up out of the coffin and curled over the edge, white-knuckled and straining…"

She'd stop then, unable to describe the scene. How the hand had been joined by another on the other side of the coffin. How a head of long ginger hair slowly appeared over the rim of the sarcophagus, atop a neck that sloped into shoulders that were corded with the effort of climbing hand over hand out of the Underworld. Next came the chest, clothed in loose Egyptian linen, and the hips, in rugged khaki. The legs soon followed, and one swung over the side of the sarcophagus to set a bare, shaking foot on the solid ground of Isis' throne room. The other soon followed, and the lanky figure collapsed on the flagstones that surrounded the sarcophagus, breathing heavily, muscles twitching and moist from exertion.

"It was him," she'd whisper at last, still awed, even after so many years. "It was really him. I could tell, even without seeing his face. This man was Bill, and he was alive." A shaky smile. "It was a miracle."

What about Fleur? they'd ask. What did she say when she saw him!

Hermione's brow would furrow. She'd clench her hands on the arms of her chair, then fold them in her lap. She'd look out the window as if examining the weather, then her eyes would shift back to her audience.

"That was the worst bit," she'd murmur. "That was the bit that broke our hearts. You see, she didn't see him. Not yet." A swallow. "And then he looked at her."

Fleur had never felt so alive. Bill's Song poured over her lips like breath; how could Isis have said this would be difficult? This was the easiest thing she'd ever done. The light that surrounded her seeped into her skin, only to be recycled and turned into Song. It was as natural as rain, evaporated from a glacial lake and condensed into a sky full of clouds. She felt as though her very soul were being reborn.

She was only vaguely aware of movement near the sarcophagus; the Song was all encompassing. It filled her pores and flowed in and out of her like water through a sieve. She was certain she was glowing.

Then, the Song ended. It surprised her as much as anyone. The final note was a long one, and squeezed her lungs for their last ounce of breath. It tapered off slowly, and when she snuck a breath to continue, she realized that there was nothing more to sing. When she opened her eyes, she discovered the light which had surrounded her had disappeared entirely, reabsorbed into her body and then recycled into Song. The final vestiges of that last note trebled in the air, echoing off the ivory columns and ringing against the gold detailing of the walls, but there was nothing left to take their place when they faded.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was done.

"Fleur?"

Her eyes snapped open.

The figure crumpled beside the stone sarcophagus was thinner than she remembered, and paler than normal. His hair was loose and hung about his shoulders in a soft, terra cotta curtain. He was propped on one arm, his loose shirt hanging open at the throat and exposing most of his smooth, bare chest. He looked exhausted.

But those eyes….

She couldn't speak. She had just spent the last… She didn't even KNOW how long she'd been singing, and now that she was faced with the object of her quest, she couldn't even speak. Her jaw worked, but no sound came out.

The figure pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned against the coffin, panting, eyes focused on her with bone piercing intensity, as if seeing her in sunlight after spending hours in a dark tunnel. Fleur found herself shaking, not only from relief, but from fear; fear that he might find some imperfection with her and fling himself back into the Underworld rather than stay.

"Fleur, is that you?" he asked in breathless disbelief.

All she could do was nod.

"H…How…?" He looked around, then back to her. "Fleur, what happened…?"

The world turned blurry as tears sprang to her eyes. "Bill…!" she croaked, and threw herself at him, stumbling across the marble floor to collapse against his chest, sobbing. "Bill, Bill, my Bill! Mon coeur! Vous avez été allés tellement longtemps…!"

Strong arms curled around her waist, and they felt so good she almost lost her mind. The only thing keeping her sane was the knowledge that this was BILL. He was solid and he was real and he was ALIVE and BREATHING and oh GOD, she had missed him. Missed him so much…!

"Fleur…," he breathed against her shoulder, his long fingers combing through her hair. "Fleur, My God… You're so beautiful…"

Fleur laughed through her tears, holding him even tighter. "So are you," she whispered hoarsely, burying her face in his shoulder.

She felt him nuzzling her hair, kissing the space behind her ear. It all felt like a glorious dream. Gone were the nightmares that had plagued her for so long as she relived his death over and over. She never wanted to wake from this dream; never wanted the real world to touch them ever again.

"My Goddess…"

Fleur raised her head, and looked into Bill's eyes. His eyes… They were so gentle, so full of love. "I am not your goddess," she whispered, cupping his face between her palms and struggling to speak despite her beaming smile. "I am your wife. Oh Bill… I came zo far to find you…!"

She pressed her face into his throat, luxuriating in the movement of his Adam's apple as he swallowed, delighting in the rush of his breath against her hair. She opened her eyes to gaze at his shoulder, where her hand was resting, and marveled at the play of his muscles under her palm. He was radiant, infused with new life. She could almost see him glowing.

It took her fully a minute to realize Bill was not the one glowing. It was her.

Fleur sat back, pushing away from him with such force, he almost fell over. She stared at her hands, which were indeed glowing. They seemed to sparkle with an internal radiance, as though she was lit from within with starlight. A hand went to her hair and brought a few shimmering tresses over her shoulder. They were silky as gossamer and the color of molten silver, and flowed through her fingers like water. Swallowing, she raised her hands to her face. Skin that had been perfect was now absolutely flawless, and smooth as satin. Her lips were soft and moist. Even her teary eyes were immaculate; they didn't even feel hot.

A slow, creeping horror had begun to build in her stomach. "No…," she whispered, slowly backing away from Bill, her hands running all over her body, feeling where her few flaws had been smoothed away. "No, zis iz not possible. Zis iz not 'appening!"

She glanced fearfully to the side, searching out her friends for help, but they weren't there. "No!" she cried, scrambling to her feet. "No! Please!"

"You said you were willing to be worshipped, child."

The soft voice in her ear made Fleur spin around, eyes wild. Isis stood there, serene as ever, though there was a touch of sadness in her eyes. "Not zis!" Fleur begged, holding out her smooth arms as evidence. "Please, not zis! Do not make me a Veela!"

"You were already a Veela, child. Your blood was simply diluted. This is nothing that did not exist before, just below the surface."

"I DO NOT WANT IT!" Fleur wailed. "My Bill… He will not zee me like zis! He will not zee 'is Fleur. I will be a stranger to 'im!"

"He has already recognized you, young one. He has said your name."

"But he DOES NOT KNOW ME!" She was growing more and more hysterical by the moment. "Please! Anyzing! Anyzing but zis!"

Isis slowly shook her immaculate head. "I am sorry, child, but this is how it must be. No average mortal can sing the Song ; they must possess a quality that makes them superhuman." She touched a delicate hand to Fleur's tear-streaked cheek. "This is your quality, Fleur, and it has brought back the man you love. Be content."

A movement by her feet made Fleur look down. Blinking away her tears, she saw Bill pressing his forehead against the top of her foot, his long hair falling around his face. "My Goddess," she heard him murmur in awe. "My Goddess…."

A slow wail bubbled up in her throat, and she collapsed to the floor beside him. "Not zis…," she whispered, heartbroken, as she stroked his hair. "Oh, my Bill… Please… I am not a goddess. I am jus' your Fleur." She drew in a shaking breath, and leaned forward to bury her face between his shoulder blades. "I am jus' your Fleur…"

She knew from the way he kissed her ankle that he didn't hear a word.