The Osiris Song

Fleur dwelt in an island of misery, while Bill kissed the toes of her shoes and murmured prayers to her beauty. Her pristine white suit - white as ice and the hottest flame of any fire - was smeared with red earth and centuries old dust, but no amount of soil could tarnish her in his eyes.

Her Bill - the real Bill - would have laughed and called her a raggedy princess.

This Bill moaned and called her his goddess.

She wept. The tears, which had come hot and fast minutes ago, were now slow and painful, each one lodging in her throat like a stone. It was ridiculous; selfish, and she knew it. Bill was back with her, and who else in life had that gift? How many women would give everything they had to have their husbands back in their arms again, regardless of their condition? How many lovers, parents, children, friends…

"Oh, Bill," she croaked, running slender, pearly fingers through his soft ginger mane. "Iz zis really 'ow we are meant to be?"

"Mama?"

Fleur's head jerked up, and her eyes widened.

Two young girls stood before her. They looked to be no older than ten years of age, and the similarities of their faces could only mean they were twins. The one to the right had soft strawberry blonde hair that fell in an opalescent cascade to her tailbone. The other child had hair as white as lily petals against snow, and a faint speckling of freckles across her otherwise perfect complexion. Both had pixie faces, with perfect bow mouths, and long feathery lashes that framed blue-black charcoal eyes.

"'Oo are you?" Fleur gasped, unconsciously scrambling away from the girls, until her back pressed against the sarcophagus. "What are you doing 'ere!"

The paler girl held out a calming hand toward the veela. "Please don't be afraid, Mama," she said, a small smile tugging at her rosebud lips. "This is what we wanted."

Fleur's eyes narrowed in confusion. "What you wan…? What are you talking about? 'Oo are you!" she demanded, fixing them with her most piercing veela stare.

They weren't even phased.

"I'm Aurora," the freckled one with the white, white hair replied.

"And I'm Autumn," the other - with the shimmering hair like fine pink silk against her alabaster skin - added.

"Don't you know us?" they asked in unison, their blue-black eyes deep as trenches in the darkest sea.

Fleur stared, realization dawning slowly across her face. "No," she whispered, shaking her head faintly, one hand stealing up to cover her mouth. "No, eet eez not possible…"

Aurora knelt in front of her, and Fleur's eyes followed her with shocked disbelief. "It's going to be all right now, Mama," she said, reaching out to pat the veela's knee. "We can all go home."

"She said so," Autumn agreed.

"She… Who?" Fleur felt as though she were floundering against an irrepressible tide. "How…"

"Your daughters made their wishes known to me, Fleur Delacour-Weasley." The ageless voice of Isis surrounded the family like a blanket, and then the goddess was there, standing behind Autumn like a fairy godmother, one hand on the little girl's shoulder. "I agreed."

"My… My children?" This was all too much. Fleur's eyes kept switching between the twins, unable to settle, unwilling to believe. "But… But 'ow iz zis possible? Zey are not born yet!" Her hand flew to her stomach.

Her hand. A normal hand. The shimmering skin was gone, replaced by the soft ivory she'd known all her life.

Terror filled her eyes, and she stared in horror up at Isis. "What 'ave you done to my babies!" she demanded.

A cool hand on her cheek drew her attention back to the young girl in front of her. "Don’t be angry with us, Mama," Aurora murmured, and now there were tears on her lashes and she was biting her lip. "But we wanted you to be happy. And we wanted daddy to be happy. And it's not really so bad, when you think about it. We still get to be your little girls."

"Please be happy," Autumn pleaded, pulling away from Isis and scrambling to cuddle up next to Fleur against the sarcophagus. "We want you to be happy."

"Your children have each elected to give up ten years of their life for their father," Isis intoned gently. "In exchange, for that time, all shall be as it was. You and Bill shall be as you were. It is their wish, and I have granted it." She bowed her graceful head. "Your family is whole."

Fleur couldn't speak. The room was spinning, but whether that was from confusion, or from some element of the powerful magics at work here, she couldn't be sure. Autumn and Aurora curled up next to her, each snuggling under an arm, and she held onto them for dear life.

"You're not mad at us, are you, Mama?" Autumn murmured, peering up at her mother with nervous eyes.

Fleur gazed down at her, still unable to believe who they were and what had happened. "Mad at you?" she whispered, feeling fresh tears burning in her throat. "My babies… 'Ow could I ever be mad at you?" Lowering her face, she nuzzled Autumn's rosy tresses, then turned to the other side to kiss Aurora's smooth brow. Tears pooled around her lips, and she pulled away quickly, reaching up to wipe the spot dry with her sleeve.

"My sweetlings, you should never have made zis choice," she murmured, closing her eyes and resting her head against the sarcophagus. "It iz too much for you to give."

"Fleur?"

Her eyes snapped open.

Bill was sitting up, straightening out of his penitent position at her feet. One long-fingered hand was pressed to his temple, as if he were trying to still an earthquake in his skull. "What happened?" he asked, squinting at her. "Last I remember…"

His eyes widened, and he dragged himself towards her. "Go!" he exclaimed. "Go! You've got to get out! He's here!"

Fleur held out her hand to him, trying to calm his outburst, but the soothing hand of Isis reached him first, resting on his shoulder and stemming his cries. "There is no need for fear, Bill Weasley," the goddess said with a smile, black eyes shining. "Your family is safe. All here are safe, under my protection."

Bill gazed over his shoulder at the goddess. "Ex…cuse me, but who are you?" he asked carefully.

Isis laughed. Never in her life had Fleur heard anything so beautiful.

Except, perhaps what she heard next.

"Daddy."

"Daddy!"

The two little girls encircled in her arms burrowed their way out of her embrace and barreled into their father, almost knocking him over. "Daddy!" they squealed in joy, hugging him tightly.

Bill looked at the little girls in utter confusion, before looking up at Fleur once more. "Fleur…?" he inquired softly. "What's going on?"

Fleur couldn't answer. All she could do was throw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him as though her very life depended on it.

"Bill…," she whispered, her hands frantically seeking purchase all over his back as she tried to feel all of him at once. "Bill, Bill, my Bill… mon coeur… I 'ave been so lost wizout you…!"

"The twenty years are final," Isis explained to Hermione as they watched the happy reunion between Ron and his brother, with Harry standing on the sidelines, beaming like a proud father himself. "Sundown on this day, twenty years from now, Bill Weasley will die. He will move on to the next world, and he will not come back."

Hermione nodded. "I understand." She looked up at the goddess. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked. "Shouldn't you tell Fleur?"

Isis shook her head and met her eyes. "There is no need," she replied. "Fleur already knows. In her heart she knows. Just as her children know. Just as you yourself knew, even before I told you." The goddess looked back to the joyous scene beside the sarcophagus. "And once they leave here, they will forget. This day will seem like nothing more than a dream, and when they rejoin the world above, it will seem as though this has always been. Bill has always lived, and the children have always been there."

Hermione looked down, and focused on the dusty toes of her shoes. "You say they," she murmured. "Why?"

"Why do you ask questions, child, when you know the answer?" The goddess smiled down on her, though it was a smile touched with sadness. "History cannot be rewritten. It can only be fooled. But to do so, there must be one who knows the truth. Truth cannot be denied."

"That's the secret, isn't it?" Hermione said with a nod to the room around her. "How you were able to keep this place a myth for so long. The enchantment you cast, to make people lose interest, to make them walk away. Because you were the only one who knew it was true. You were it's Secret Keeper."

"No, child."

Hermione frowned. "But…"

Isis stroked Hermione's hair. "There was always destined to be one who found this place, who sang the song. THAT person was the Secret Keeper of the Song of Osiris." She looked back to where Fleur was settled in Bill's lap, hugging him as tightly as she had from the start. "Mortals know only the here and now. Gods walk through time like a curtain. Whether a person exists today or will not exist for ten thousand years, that person WILL exist, and they are just as real as the earth on which we stand."

Hermione let that sink in. "Am I to be the Secret Keeper of this then?" she asked quietly. "Am I the Secret Keeper of the Singing?"

Isis nodded.

"Why me?"

"Because, child, it was always meant to be you."

Hermione closed her eyes and sighed. "That's very interesting to know," she said, opening her eyes to look back at the goddess. "But I'd rather like to know WHY me."

Isis laughed softly. "I apologize, child," she said, and gestured once more to the group across the room.

"A Wife, a Husband, their Children, a Brother, and an Orphan," Isis narrated, her fingers moving to each figure in turn as she named them. "Each one has gone through horrors and pain to reach this point, some worse than others, all tied together by their griefs. Were any of them to know the status of things as they truly were, and what had to be done to make them what they will become…"

Isis trailed off, allowing Hermione to finish the thought. It was not difficult to do. She pictured Fleur, silently counting down the seconds until her husband died again; crippling herself with sorrow. She pictured Bill, struggling to repay the gifts that had been given him, and falling into depression when he decided no feat could ever equal the sacrifices that had been made on his behalf. Autumn and Aurora, growing up without a childhood. Knowing there were no baby pictures because they had never been babies. Ron, scared to death of losing his brother again; terrified of what that loss would do to his family, since he had already seen it once before. And Harry, who had seen a man brought back to life, but who could never do the same for his own parents.

"I guess it has to be me," Hermione finally admitted, nodding faintly.

"Do you know why?"

She nodded again, stronger this time. "Because I'm the only one who's seeing this," she said, pointing to the sarcophagus again. Bill had his family wrapped in a huge bear hug. Autumn and Aurora were squealing with delight, while Fleur laughed like a chime and dropped feathery kisses all over her husband's face. Ron was laughing, tickling his nieces and making them laugh even harder, and Harry watched it all with the satisfied eyes of a man who knew he'd done the right thing.

"It'll be hard," she murmured, lowering her hand. "I don't want to remember, but at least, seeing this - seeing all of them - I can know that it was worth it." She smiled, and tears that she hadn't known were there spilled down her cheeks. "If it wasn't worth it, I don't think I'd feel this happy."

They were quiet for a minute, watching the scene unfold before them.

"Isis?"

"Yes, child?"

"What about Voldemort? Won't he come after Bill again?"

The deity shook her dark head. "He, like the others - like all those in the world above - will forget." Her wise eyes shifted to Hermione's face. "As much as he may style himself one, the Dark Wizard is not a god."

Hermione nodded, satisfied. "They'll be safe, then?"

"They will all be safe."

"And what will happen to this place now that the Song has been sung?"

"There are as many Songs as there are souls, Hermione Granger. Someday the Song will again have cause to be sung, when another Secret Keeper discovers its hiding place. Until then, it will again fade to legend."

"What if I can't keep myself from telling someone, Isis? What if I break the spell? I don't…want to cause anyone any pain."

"My child." The goddess bent down and placed a kiss on Hermione's forehead. "Tell the story as often as you wish. You cannot break the spell. But you will never make believers of your audience. They will hear only shadows and smoke. The Secret Keepers of the gods are not bound by the same laws as the Secret Keepers of your mortal world."

"Oh…" Hermione bit her lip. "May I… join them now?" she asked. "Before we go up and they all forget? I want to remember this as vividly as…as I remember everything else."

Isis inclined her head in ascent. Not sure what else to do when saying goodbye to an immortal, Hermione bobbed a little curtsey in respect, then hurried over to the pile of reunited Weasleys (plus one Harry Potter).

Ron grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down into his lap to sit on the ground by the sarcophagus, making her squeal. "Ron!" she exclaimed, slapping him on the arm even as she laughed. "Don't be rude!"

He was beaming at her, ignoring her protests. "He's back, 'Mione," he said, hugging her tightly and burying his face in her shoulder. "Mum's going to be so happy to see him."

Hermione smiled and stroked his hair. "I know," she murmured, kissing behind his ear and resting her cheek against his head. "I know."

She caught Harry's eye, and he nodded at her. Something in his eyes made her believe he knew what would happen when the throne room melted away, and they each found themselves back in the Burrow, or in a small home outside of Thebes, or scouring the hills of Transylvania on the trail of a madman. She smiled and held out her hand to him, which he took without a word. She squeezed his fingers.

"I'll see you later," she mouthed.

He smiled, nodded, and the room disappeared in a swirl of eternity.

To be concluded…