Rebirth

There are certain things you must understand, and they are these: first, that history appreciates ratios. For every miracle there is a tragedy; for every heartbreak there is a happily ever after. It is the celestial balance; without these things, the universe would be chaos. While it may be moving in an ever-burgeoning cloud toward entropy, the universe nonetheless prefers order over random chance. Believe that every extraterrestrial collision was planned at the outset through precise calculus; this is the truth.

Second, that events which seem identical are not. There will always be differences, no matter how minute. Indeed, some of the differences will be tremendous. It is these particulars which keep the timeline progressing.

Third, that no emotion on Earth is as powerful as a mother's love for her child.

It is this third which accounted for the scream that woke Bill Weasley at 6:00am on a Saturday. The morning promised to dawn clear and breezy; a perfect summer day. They'd planned a special after-birthday picnic if the weather cooperated; Fleur had packed the basket last night while Bill hunted through the linen cupboard for the checked blanket they'd bought especially for days like today. He'd found it eventually, crushed beneath piles of wedding shower bedding; apparently every member of their combined families had thought they'd spend most of their time in bed after getting married. They didn't go on picnics often; today was going to be special.

Yes it was. But not in a good way. Not at all.

"Fleur?" Bill leapt out of bed, wide awake and sprinting for the door. He flung it open and stormed into the hall, head was swiveling frantically, trying to pinpoint the piercing screams. "FLEUR!"

The nursery. They were coming from the nursery.

Running so fast his feet seemed to skim over the floor rather than touch it, he threw open the nursery door.

And froze.

Fleur sat in a crumpled heap on the floor, clutching Snuffles the stuffed puppy to her stomach. She stopped screaming and looked up as he flung open the door. She looked utterly broken, made all the more agonizing by the fact that her hair still looked radiant. Even in the depths of grief, a part-veela could never escape her heritage. "Fleur?" Bill murmured, glancing at the empty crib then back to his wife, not wanting her to say what she was about to say.

His wife's cheeks were tear-streaked, her eyes bloodshot and her lips red and puffy. The words slurred over them as she spoke. "She is gone, mon Bill," she croaked, rocking back and forth in agony. "Someone 'as taken our Renee!"

"You're sure she isn't just hiding somewhere in the house?"

"Yes of course we're sure! Do you think we didn't check? Do you think we didn't scour every bloody inch of the house? Gods dammit, why are we sitting here! Our daughter has been taken! We should be out there looking for her!"

Remus Lupin was, on the surface, a gentle, intellectual man. Internally, however, he was a furnace. Animal emotions and instincts surged constantly in direct opposition with his humanity. The wolf that infected his blood wanted to hunt; it wanted to lay low over the trail of its prey and track through the night until it had the weaker creature cornered in a narrow canyon; then the feeding would begin. But the human blood that carried the infection demanded rationality; the part of Remus Lupin that had existed from birth and would continue till death understood things like thought and patience. Regrettably, it also understood the concept of hopelessness.

"Bill," Lupin murmured, laying a hand on the younger man's arm; he could feel the muscles trembling with compressed rage. "We don't have any idea where she's been taken. We don't even know who took her."

"Don't give me that, Remus!" Bill snapped, shaking off Lupin's hand and glaring at him with such animal rage, Remus wondered for a moment if he was the only werewolf in the room. "You know damn well who took her! Voldemort!"

Every person in the room cringed at the use of that name. Bill and Fleur's living room was small, but everyone had managed to crowd in somehow: Molly and Arthur, of course; the twins; Ron and Hermione, looking a mutual shade of green from shock and confusion. Remus had come straight from Grimmauld Place, with assurances that Dumbledore and McGonagall would be along soon. He wished they'd get here fast; things were going to get out of hand quickly.

Fleur was huddled on the couch, still in her nightclothes, looking so frail it made Remus' heart ache. She held Snuffles tight against her stomach and was stroking her fingers repetitively between the puppy's ears as her eyes stared at the carpet, into the middle distance, unseeing. Bill, on the other hand, was as focused as a sunbeam through a magnifying glass; his eyes burned.

"Bill," Remus murmured again, though he resisted the urge to reach out to the other man again. "We don't know anything. We can't leap to conclusions."

"Muggles couldn't have gotten through those wards, Remus. Neither could your average wizard. These people were trained. They were sent for my daughter and they took her; took her right from under my nose!" Bill looked ready to tear something to shreds; Lupin was uncomfortably aware that he was the nearest thing within arm's reach. "I'm going to kill them! All of them!"

"Bill, sweetheart, please," Molly spoke up from her position nearby, in the room's only other chair. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and Arthur's hand squeezed her shoulder reassuringly as she spoke. "We're going to find her, but you have to calm down. Let Remus and the others do this for you -- Fleur needs you."

Bill directed his gaze towards his mother and Remus saw the older woman sit back as if she'd been struck. "What Fleur and I need is our daughter back," he said, in a voice so cold it made the hairs on the back of Lupin's neck stand straight up.

"Easy, Bill," George warned from his position near the fireplace.

"Easy!" Bill swung around to face the twins, eyes blazing. "Easy! My daughter is GONE! Every second we sit here talking she's getting farther and farther away from me! Who knows what that bastard has planned for her. I don't intend to find out! He doesn't get to touch her, do you understand? He doesn't get to come near my little girl!"

"You're not yourself right now, Bill," Hermione ventured gently.

Bill rounded on her, ebbing such fury that Ron stepped in front of her protectively. "I'm being a father!" he snarled. "And if none of you are going to do anything, I'll do it myself!"

"Stop."

The voice was so unexpected, it seemed to even take Bill by surprise. All eyes turned to the young woman huddled on the couch. "Jus' stop," Fleur whispered hoarsely, not looking up from her distracted study of the carpet. "Fighting does nuzzing. It jus' wastes time. Zere is no time."

"Fleur-" Bill began, voice almost contrite; but he broke off when she raised her eyes and looked at him.

They weren't Fleur's eyes; not these piercing eyes of avian yellow.

"I said stop," she hissed. "You are as bad as ze rest! You bicker and fight, and all zis time our little Renee is crying, wanting 'er mama and papa! You are pathetique!" Remus watched her clutch the puppy tighter; saw the nails on her fingers visibly lengthen.

She hasn't been just sitting there, he realized with a surge of sudden panic. She's been changing.

"Fleur," he tried to soothe. "Calm down. You have to calm down."

"NON!" She leapt up from the couch, staring him down with that chilling gaze. "NON! You are all inutile! Mon petit, my bebe, she is taken from me! From 'er mama! NON! I will find- AHHHHH!" She collapsed to the floor as a sudden inhuman scream of pain tore past her lips, the puppy tumbling from her fingers.

"Fleur!" Bill exclaimed, dropping to his knees and reaching out to her. She pushed him away, her hand hitting his chest like a crowbar, sending him flying backward to crash against the fire grate.

"Fleur!" Remus cried out as he watched her shake and convulse on the floor. "Fleur, please! You have to calm down!" He was aware of the others in the room staring in shocked bewilderment. They had no idea what was happening; no idea at all.

"Oh God... " he heard Hermione whisper behind him. She knew; she was a very clever witch.

"Everyone stand back," Lupin commanded, taking several steps back, spreading his arms out protectively in front of Ron and Hermione. He was dimly aware that Bill wasn't moving; the impact must have knocked him unconscious.

"What's happening!" Ron yelped as Fleur screamed again, curling in on herself in pain.

"She's transforming!" Hermione answered before Remus could.

"Into what?"

"A veela!"

That was all the answer Ron was able to get before Fleur reared up on her knees, talon-like nails ripping away her robe and clawing down her own arms as her skin seemed to bubble, going from silky white to a pearly iridescence that made her change color as she writhed. Her long, silvery hair grew in volume and flew around her face like a living cloud of white; feathers, Remus discerned.

"She's turning into a bird!" Ron cried out.

"A harpy, Ron," Hermione corrected, though there was no power behind the words; only shock. "Don't you remember the Quidditch Cup?"

"She's reverting," Remus added through gritted teeth, wincing as Fleur let out another bone-shaking scream; only this time it sounded more like an eagle's shriek.

"But... but... HOW?" Ron stammered

"It's always been there. It's just been dormant. It needed a powerful catalyst to shake it loose." Remus felt his palms sweating. He'd never had call to do battle with a vengeful veela; he didn't even know where to begin.

"But... if she's turning into a harpy, where are her wi-"

With a sound like ripping velvet, two powerful wings exploded from Fleur's shoulders, shredding the back of her negligee as she howled with pain. Blood dewed on the white feathers, running in rivulets onto the carpet. They weren't angel wings, or fairy wings; these were hawk wings. Eagle wings.

She was a bird of prey.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Fleur stopped screaming and slumped forward on the floor, sucking air into her lungs in deep, panting gasps. Blood soaked her back and stained some of her feathery hair a brilliant crimson red.

For a moment, all other breathing in the room seemed to stop. Eventually, Remus managed to murmur, "Fleur?"

There was no answer.

"Fleur? Can you hear me?"

There was a sensation of being in a wind tunnel and Lupin squinted into the rush of air. The wings were flapping now, beating against the still air of the living room. With one mighty beat Fleur raised up off the floor, wings balancing her as she settled on her feet. All signs of distress were gone from her face; she was a mask of clinical rage.

"Fleur," Remus managed, careful to keep his tone modulated. He saw her flexing her talon-like fingers against her pearlescent thigh as her eyes fixated on him. She was still beautiful; not a full harpy, then. There was still human in her, though it was buried deep. "Are you listening to me? You need to calm down. You're not yourself."

"Wrong," she said, in a voice like cold mountain aeries. "Zis is me."

She stormed past them, heading to the front door, broad wings knocking a lamp from a side table as she went. No one followed her -- there would have been no point. They heard the door open; heard the rhythmic thumping of her wings beating as she lifted off the ground and into the sky; then silence.

"Where has she gone?" Fred asked eventually, his voice betraying the same shaky disbelief everyone was feeling.

"To find Renee," Remus murmured.

"How?" Molly whispered. She was staring at the bloodstains on the carpet.

"I don't know." Remus sighed, dropping his arms finally and rubbing his face with exhaustion. "I just don't know."

"Professor Lupin?"

"Mm? Yes, Hermione?"

"What about Bill?"

Remus froze. Very slowly, he lowered his hands and turned his head to look at the man who was slowly regaining consciousness beside the fireplace. "Fred? George?" he said firmly.

"Professor?"

"Hold him down."

"Why, Professor?"

"Just do i-!"

Then the world exploded.

"Is that the child, Bellatrix?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"She is quiet. Good."

"I ensured she would be, Lord."

"And the ones who took her?"

"Disposed of."

"Excellent. They would have been distractions otherwise. I hope they left a good trail for our falcon to follow?"

"Yes, Lord. She will need eagle eyes to follow it."

"Lucky for us that is precisely what she'll have. Not so lucky, perhaps, for her. Do we have confirmation of her transformation?"

"Our agents confirm seeing her, Master."

"Following the trail?"

"Like a hawk, Lord."

"And the husband? Has he made use of that handy little incantation I placed in his brain?"

"I... do not know, my Lord. Our agents did not mention any events at the house."

"Then perhaps you should seek them out and ask, Bellatrix. That would be wise."

"Yes, Master."

"Leave the child here."

"Lord?"

"Do you question me, Bella?"

"No, Lord. Never, Lord."

"Then leave the child and go. And do not return unless you bring me fire and brimstone about the Weasley boy."

"Understood, Master."

"And Bella?"

"Lord?"

"Never forget, you could easily become a distraction, too, if you fail me."

"Yes, Lord."

"Leave."

She left.

To be continued...