The French summer sun blazed high in the bright blue sky, casting no shadow, but beating down on Tristan's back with relentless vigor as he jogged along the shoreline, his trainers sinking into soft, wet sand with every step. A faint sea breeze swept landwards across the lapping waves, playing in his damp hair like cool fingers and flattening his soaked shirt against his chest.
'Almost there.' Tristan wiped the sweat from his brows with the back of his hand and turned left, picking his way through the rocky ravine up the cliff.
Beyond the wide green grass fields blossoming with flowers and buzzing with bees, the Delacour Château rose from within lush hedges, its white marble bricks flashing in the sun.
'Last bit now.'
Tristan ignored the faint burn in his legs and kept the pace down the field, jogging through towering hawthorn and blackthorn, past the pool and outdoor shower, and trotting to a stop before the patio.
Appoline, Gabby and Fleur lounged on white-cushioned chaises in the shade of the blue-striped awnings.
Appoline glanced up from her book. "Where did you leave my husband, Tristan?"
Labored wheezes rang from the garden; Philippe rounded the corner of the hedge and skidded to a halt, clutching his side with one hand as he chased his breath in huge gulps of air.
"What happened to you, Papa?" Gabby giggled. "Did you get lost on the route you've been running every other morning for the past ten years?"
Philippe shot her a small scowl, his cheeks flushed pink. "How about you join us for a run tomorrow morning, Gabrielle? I'd like to see you keep up with Tristan." He keeled over to rest his hands on his knees. "Didn't you say you don't usually exercise?"
"I only really practice spellwork and dueling." Tristan chuckled. "Fleur's swimming lessons must've helped build some stamina."
'And I don't tire as quickly thanks to the rituals.'
He stole a few sips of ice-cooled water from Fleur's glass and crouched down beside her, watching her brush the tip of her wand over a checkered sheet of parchment. "What are you working on?"
"My timetable for university," she murmured. "They let us pick the courses ourselves."
The azure summer dress clung to her figure as she stretched on the chaise and a few blonde curls escaped the confines of the chignon baring her delicate neck and the smooth arch of her throat, tumbling over her fair shoulders past the slim line of her collarbone.
Tristan brushed an escaped lock back behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "How many courses can you take?"
"Four at a time," Fleur hummed, rearranging a small square labeled Aramaic to a different column. "Should I pick Celtic Sorcery or Mesopotamian Magicks first?"
"That tall druid girl I faced in Stockholm used Celtic magic," Tristan recalled the flock of screeching ravens attacking him. "Although her talking to birds and insects didn't end up being all that useful." He leaned in closer with a chuckle. "Are there any other interesting subjects?"
A single pearl of sweat dropped from his chin onto Fleur's parchment.
Her bright blue eyes flickered up. "Mon Coeur..."
"Yes...?"
"Either go jump into the pool or take a shower, but stop sweating all over my coursework, s'il te plaît."
"Pool it is." Tristan hauled off his soaked shirt and kicked off his trainers, rotating his arms at the shoulder. "Yeah, definitely still feeling those swimming lessons."
The gazes of the Delacours prickled on his bare skin.
Tristan blinked. "Is something wrong...?"
"Oh no, nothing's wrong here." Gabby giggled, her eyes drifting down his stomach. "Do your shorts next."
Fleur flicked her sister against the forehead.
"Oww!" Gabby rubbed the spot. "What was that for?"
"For ogling my fiancé."
"You're ogling him, too!"
"Oui, because he is my fiancé." A little gleam smoldered in Fleur's bright blue eyes and she bit her lower lip, twisting the soft pink beneath her neat white teeth. "And he looks very good all sweaty. Perhaps I should pick classes later and join him in the pool."
Philippe wrinkled his nose. "Fleur, my little flower, there are certain things fathers don't really want to hear their daughters say." He helped himself to one of the towels on the table and spared Tristan a brief glance. "Admittedly, you're in pretty good shape, but I probably looked similar back when I was that age, right, mon Trésor?"
Appoline hid a small smile behind her book. "Of course you did, mon Amour."
"Maître Philippe!" One of the Delacour elves bustled out of the entrance to the manor. "Maître Philippe, Monsieur Albon wishes to see you. Should Keesy tell him to wait in the foyer until Maître has changed?"
Philippe wiped the sweat off his arms and face with the towel. "No, it's fine, Sebastian has seen me in worse states. Send him out here, please, Keesy."
'What's he here for?' Tristan caught Fleur's eye but was met with a helpless shrug of her shoulders.
Monsieur Albon stepped out onto the patio in fine maroon robes. "Bonjour everyone." His gray eyes swept over each of them, lingering on Tristan's bare chest and Philippe's sweat-soaked hair. "Pardon the unannounced visit. I hope I am not... interrupting?"
"Just some light exercise to get the day started." Philippe hung the towel about his neck. "What can I do for you, my friend?"
"Rather little, I'm afraid." Albon chuckled. "I only wished to stop by on my way back to Switzerland to give something to Tristan." He produced a small, red-ribboned scroll sealed with a waxen crest from within his robes. "The ICW has verified the NEWT results you sent me, hence things are official now; starting October, you'll be an associate in the Department for Special International Operations."
'Fancy name considering the horrible stuff I'll probably end up doing.'
Tristan accepted the scroll and broke the seal, skimming its contents and stumbling over the number highlighted in bold at the bottom of the page. Hand in this letter at any Gringotts branch to transfer an amount of two thousand galleons to any vault of your choosing.
'Damn, that's double my winnings from the Triwizard Tournament.' He handed the scroll to Fleur.
Gabby's jaw dropped over Fleur's shoulder. "Quoi?! Two thousand—"
Fleur clapped a hand over her sister's mouth and leveled a long, cool stare at Albon. "This is more than two years' salary for most people."
"True, but Tristan is not most people, and I wanted to express how much I value our collaboration." Albon smiled at Tristan. "The muggles call it a sign-up bonus. Hopefully, it will help you get settled in Switzerland; it is more expensive to live there than in the rest of the continent, Muggle and Wizarding world alike."
'If that's true, the gold might actually come in handy.'
"Thank you, Monsieur," Tristan said.
"Please, call me Sebastian. All my friends do." Sebastian studied him from head to toe and puffed out his lip in a low whistle. "You seem to be taking good care of yourself; being in peak physical shape will come in handy for your line of work."
"Careful, or you'll get flicked in the head next." Gabby giggled through Fleur's fingers. "Only my possessive sister gets to ogle her fiancé."
"Ah, I shall bid a hasty retreat then." Sebastian's smile sharpened. "But my heartfelt congratulations to you two for your engagement. I am sure we will hear from each other again this summer."
Tristan didn't bother concealing a snort. "I can't seem to escape from your watch, so I don't doubt it."
"Until next time, then." Sebastian dipped his head and stepped back inside the château, his footsteps fading away.
Fleur rose from the chaise and smoothed the faint wrinkles in her azure dress. "We needed to visit Gringotts either way, mon Coeur, to find a suitable place for us to live together in Switzerland." She rolled the scroll back up with nimble fingers and slipped it down her décolleté. "I shall keep this while you take a shower and get dressed."
"Don't run off with it, please," Tristan jibed. "I'll need the gold to finance your sugar addiction." He wrenched the world back past him, stepping out onto the tiles of Fleur's ensuite bathroom and slipping into the shower.
Tristan squirted a generous amount from some random bottle onto his hands and scrubbed himself under the spray of cool water. 'This should do.'
He dried himself off and hauled on the first clean shirt and trousers he found in the lowest drawer of Fleur's wardrobes, where he stored a few spare sets of clothes, then apparated back out onto the patio.
"What kind of job pays two thousand—" Gabby fell silent and shot her sister a long look.
Fleur took Tristan's hand. "Do not worry about it, Gabrielle." She brushed a few damp locks off his forehead and sniffed his neck. "Did you use my conditioner as bodywash, mon Coeur?"
"Uhm... sorry?"
"C'est rien." She curled her arms around his neck and took a deep breath. "I like it when you smell like me, mon Coeur. It means you are mine."
Tristan exchanged a long, awkward look with her parents. "Perhaps it's best we get going." He pictured the winding cobblestone road of Diagon Alley and forced the world back past with a soft snap.
The shopping arcade brimmed with wizards, witches and families bustling from store to store, and every last small table in the sparse shade of the blue umbrellas scattered about Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour was crowded with patrons seeking relief from the stubborn summer sun.
Tristan led Fleur through the throng of people towards the Gringotts' white-bricked front, joining the short queue waiting on the marble steps at the entrance.
Fleur's eyes lingered on the dripping ice cream cone of a little boy in front of them; a small, delicate pout curved her rose-pink lips.
"Nuh hu, petite Fleur." Tristan snaked an arm around her slim waist and drew her close. "Gringotts first, remember?"
"What if they do not have any ice cream left by the time we are done?"
He laughed. "I'm sure Fortescue has prepared for days like these; I'll buy you as much ice cream as you want if the goblins leave me any gold left."
"Careful, Peverell, or your veela will lose the only redeeming quality she has."
Tristan spun on his heel.
Abraxas Malfoy, Casper Crouch, and Brutus and Diana Lestrange sneered up at him from a few steps below.
"Just ignore them, mon Coeur," Fleur murmured. "Jealous little people always run their mouths."
"Jealous?" Casper snorted. "What's there to be jealous about? Half-breeds like you are easy on the eye and perhaps entertaining at times, but I'd never go so low as to soil centuries of prestigious magical blood by openly courting one."
Rage rose in Tristan's heart, slim and cold and sharp as shards of ice, but Fleur held him back with a firm, warm hand on his chest.
A faint haze of brilliant silver rose from her shoulders, unfurling like petals of a flower and bathing her in a soft halo. "See this, little boy?" Fleur murmured. "There is more magic in me than your inbred families have produced in the last dozen offspring combined."
Diana snatched a short, gleaming dagger from within her black dress. "Let's see if you're as pretty once I've carved you inside-out, veela bitch."
Abraxas barred her with one arm, his cold gray eyes sweeping Fleur up and down. "You should go back to France, veela, before it's too late for you."
Fleur drew back her magic and scoffed. "Perhaps you could make me another portkey, non? Like you did for the tournament."
Abraxas's smirk widened. "I have no idea what you're talking about, veela."
"If we remember, then so do you." Tristan descended a step, eye to eye with Abraxas. "And I have not forgotten all the petty cruelty you subjected me to throughout those six years at Hogwarts either—" some of that rage bubbled over in a whisper of ink-black magic swirling about his wrist, "—nor have I forgotten what you did to my little brother."
"You should be thanking us for sending the little bastard home early." Casper snickered. "He only fell off a broom; far worse things have happened to children close to your family."
"My siblings will return to Hogwarts soon enough."
"You're delusional if you think they can continue as if nothing ever happened," Abraxus sneered. "Get this through your thick skull, Peverell; your family will never be accepted here. You're so rotten to the core that even your closest friends are betraying you now."
"What are you talking about?" Tristan frowned.
"Look at that; he doesn't fucking know," Casper drawled. "Have you been living under a bloody rock these last few weeks?"
"Probably just hiding away in France breeding his veela whore," Brutus spat.
Fleur shot him a pitiful glance down her nose. "I understand you seek a change from sleeping with your sister, but I am not interested."
Brutus fumbled for his wand and charged up the steps with a growl.
"As we speak, Peverell—," Abraxas said, holding back his friend by the collar,"—James Potter, your family's last ally in the Wizengamot, is actively undermining your father and gathering support to start an investigation into what happened at the Hogwarts graduation."
"You're lying," Tristan muttered, but James' furious hazel eyes blazed from the back of his mind. 'No, he wouldn't do that. Surely he wouldn't stoop as low.'
"Keep an eye on the papers," Casper cackled. "The Department for Magical Law Enforcement will charge you two any day now; my father will come knocking at your door with every fucking auror in this country, and once we have your family in custody deep down in the Ministry—"
Abraxas nudged him in the side.
'They know something.'
"Do go on, please." Tristan caught Abraxas' eye, piercing through cold, cruel gray irises into a circular room built from black stone polished smooth as water and lined with unmarked, handle-less black doors in the gloom of flickering blue candles.
Abraxas' furious expression swam back into focus as he tore their thoughts apart.
"Legilimency." He winced, catching a trickle of crimson from his nose. "You'll fucking pay for that, Peverell." Abraxas flicked his wand into his hand.
Casper and the Lestrange twins mirrored him.
"Go ahead, give me a reason," Tristan whispered, tasting that familiar sweet thrill whispering through his veins. "I'm going to enjoy wiping you all away."
A goblin in a sharp black suit ambled down the steps. "How dare you quarrel on Gringotts' grounds?! Remove yourself at once or prepare to face the consequences."
The two security trolls flanking him grimaced and swung their huge clubs.
Abraxas slipped his wand back up his sleeve with a snort. "It hardly matters what you glimpsed, Peverell; your family will get what's coming for them soon enough, and even you won't be able to stop it."
He whirled on his heel and marched off.
'I will stop it.' Tristan watched them vanish amidst the crowd of shoppers. 'And you're wrong about my siblings; they'll have the childhood they deserve once you're all gone.'
"Mr. Peverell—"
"I didn't draw a wand." Tristan turned and held up his empty hands. "I just wish to go on about my business with Gringotts."
The goblin flared his nostrils. "Follow me then."
He swept inside and led Tristan and Fleur past the tellers in the bank's cool marble atrium down a long corridor into a familiar oval-shaped office.
"Director Raknok will see you shortly."
Something stirred at the name. "Why him? Isn't he the overseer of the Black vaults?"
"Yes, wizard." The goblin offered him a sharp-toothed grin and closed the door shut.
Fleur slipped into a chair behind the wide desk and crossed one slim leg over the other. "What did you see when you entered Malfoy's mind, mon Coeur?"
Tristan took the second chair. "The same room that Unspeakable from my graduation showed me, the one somewhere in the Department of Mysteries."
Her slim blonde brows drew together. "Unless he was recruited by the Unspeakables, there is no reason why he should know about that room."
"The Musketeers might've led him there; Malfoy, Crouch and the Lestranges could've been working together with them this entire time." Tristan considered it. "It all makes sense, too; Teddy's ability alone can't have been enough to infiltrate so many layers of our society within barely a single year. There must've been someone with a lot of gold backing them, too."
Firm determination settled in Fleur's unwavering gaze. "The metamorphmagus could hide anywhere, but we know where Malfoy and the others live, mon Coeur. We should deal with them soon."
"But how soon." Tristan murmured. "Malfoy seemed certain my family would be dealt with soon, too, as did Neville." A grim suspicion rose from the back of Tristan's skull. "And I think I'm starting to know why..."
"Mon Coeur...?"
"The day I had my NEWT examination, Trelawney made another prophecy."
Fleur froze stiff as ice and stared at him. "What did it say?"
"It will happen as the seventh month dies," Tristan recited the words he knew by heart, holding Fleur's wide eyes and smothering the image from his nightmares where those same words spilled from her blood-stained lips, whispered in one last dying breath. "Both bred in bitterness, both reaped in resentment. Both grown in grief, both forged in fear. Both terrible in power, both destined to consume, both willing to sacrifice, both welcome of doom. As the seventh month dies, so does either of them at the hand of the other. A final victory, a total defeat. A burning sunset, as equals they meet."
Silence held the office.
"Why now?" Something guarded rose in the beautiful blue of Fleur's eyes. "Why not tell me sooner?"
Tristan shrugged. "I swear I thought it was a bunch of Hogwash; even McGonagall thought so, too, but now, somehow, everyone who hasn't heard it believes things will come to an end soon."
Her lips moved in a silent replay of the words. "Who do you think it refers to?"
"It's similar to Trelawney's previous prophecy, and even to the one from... from the first time around, and those were both about Voldemort and my Father." Tristan drew his wand and rolled it between his fingertips in a faint haze of ink-black magic. "But Voldemort's gone; it can't be him."
"Do you think it might be you?"
He swallowed hard. "Some of it fits, but I don't have a reason to kill my own father, do I?" Tristan clawed for some speck of humor, but the laughter felt dry and foul as ash on his tongue. "And I'd hope he doesn't either."
Fleur hummed. "When the seventh month dies... That will be your father's birthday, non?"
"Yes," he replied, poking his wand back up his sleeve. "Usually the Blacks, McKinnons, and Potters all show up, but if what Abraxas said about James is true, it'll be one lonely birthday party this year."
"I will be there, mon Coeur." Fleur leaned her head onto his shoulder in a wash of sweet vanilla. "And I will ask mes parents if they can make it, too." She threaded their fingers together. "Our families will soon be joined; they should get to know each other beforehand."
'Right, we're going to actually get married.' Tristan swallowed a little flutter of nerves. 'I still need a ring for that.'
"Do not fret, mon Coeur." Fleur kissed his cheek with a small smirk. "I already said yes, remember? I am all yours."
"I'm not nervous." He lied. "I just don't think it's a good idea to let Valeria and Gabby join forces."
The door opened and Director Raknok bustled inside. "Mister Peverell and Miss Delacour." His small black eyes flickered between them as he took the seat behind his desk and swept a few loose parchments into a neat stack. "How may Gringotts be of service to you today?"
"I'd like to redeem my sign-up bonus from the ICW," Tristan said, shooting Fleur a grin.
A touch of pink rose on her fair cheeks as she fished the scroll out of her decollete and placed it on the desk.
Curling his lips, Raknok picked up the scroll between two long, sharp-nailed fingers and unfolded it. "This seems to be in order. Do you wish to split up the sum among your three vaults or transfer it to a single one?"
Tristan blinked. "Three vaults?"
"Yes, Mister Peverell; you could either deposit the gold in your family's vault, the trust vault your parents set up in your name, or the vault of the Black heir, which — as the name suggests — was not transferred to your father with Sirius Black's death, but instead passed down straight to you; you are after all the heir to the Black family as it has been stated in the will of the late Arcturus Black."
'Right.' Tristan smothered a niggle of guilt at the thought of Sirius. "I'd like you to take my Triwizard winnings of one thousand galleons from my trust vault and deposit them together with these two thousand galleons in a new vault."
Raknok scribbled along on some parchment. "Under which name shall I open the new vault?"
"Tristan Peverell and Fleur Delacour."
Fleur's fingers twitched in his and she shifted on her chair. "Mon Coeur, I... I cannot match that much gold."
"I don't mind," Tristan murmured. "If I'm yours, then so is everything I own."
"Consider it done, Mister Peverell," Raknok said. "Do you have any plans regarding your trust vault and the Black heir vault?"
"Yes. Any gold left in my trust vault rightfully belongs to my parents. I'll keep the vault itself if possible, but you can transfer the contents back to my family's vault. As for the Black heir one... how much gold is held there?"
Raknok drew a thick ledger from his drawer and flipped a couple of pages. "The Black heir vault contains approximately seven thousand and five hundred galleons—"
Tristan let out a low whistle. 'Damn.'
"—however, the value of the various assets other than gold far exceeds that amount. If you wish, Mister Peverell, I can arrange for you to visit the vault."
"Sure," he said. "But before we do so, we'd also like to know if there are any accommodations in Switzerland listed for sale currently?"
Raknok pulled out a different ledger from under his desk. "The housing market in Switzerland is a lot more competitive than here in Britain, not to mention the galleon has less purchasing power there. If you seek to buy a property instead of renting, then there are currently three houses listed; however, for a fee that appropriately compensates our services, our Swiss branch can always reach out to their real estate contacts in the Muggle world for you."
"What kind of houses are listed?" Fleur asked.
"A townhouse in Vienna but allow me to say that the asking price is far out of your budget. Then there is a modest flat in Zürich, likely too small for the two of you, but there is also an alpine hut in the city of Thun—" Ragnok's black eyes flickered up at them as he closed the ledger shut and offered them a sharp-teethed grin, "—which coincidentally sits right between Bern and where the headquarters for the ICW are located."
"Why is it being sold?"
"It served as a vacation home for an American family, but after not visiting for almost two decades, they eventually decided to sell the property; expect the cabin to reflect some of that... negligence."
'Can't be that bad.' Before the eye of Tristan's mind, Fleur led him hand in hand across deep green grass fields towards the porch of a small log cabin, laughing and dancing and basking in the summer sun beneath a crisp blue sky and white-capped mountain peaks. 'A hut in the Alps doesn't sound bad at all.'
He gave Fleur's fingers a little squeeze and shared a small fond smile with her. "How soon could we take a look at it?"
Raknok pushed a button on his desk and muttered something in a harsh tongue.
A goblin stepped into the office and bowed to the director.
"You'll be taken there via portkey by Griphook after you've been shown to your vault," Ragnok said. "Have a pleasant day, Miss Delacour and Mister Peverell."
"Follow me, humans." Griphook led them back out into the hall and on towards a queue of carts sitting on a rail. "Step inside."
Tristan hopped in behind Fleur. "Ready?"
She wrapped herself up in his arms and snuggled back against his chest. "Toujours avec toi."
Griphook climbed in at the front. "Keep your limbs inside if you don't want to lose them," he snarled, pushing a lever.
The cart jerked forward, plunging down into the dark, twisting through gleaming stalagmites and stalactites and thundering deeper and deeper around sharp bends past sets of vaults and a slumbering pale-scaled, tattered-winged dragon.
'I still can't believe Father and his friends were dumb enough to climb on such a thing.'
Griphook yanked at the lever, and the cart ground to a halt before a great, circular iron door gleaming between an arch of shining obsidian. Three ebony ravens were carved into the metal beneath a sword-wielding, mailed fist raised at a black skull.
Tristan and Fleur stepped out of the cart after Griphook.
"Your blood is needed to open the vault, wizard." The goblin pointed a long finger to where an iron spike protruded from the eye of the raven at the center. "For your sake, I hope you are indeed Tristan Peverell."
Tristan walked across the platform and pressed his palm to the door, smothering the stab of pain. The needle sank back into the metal, and the whole door shivered, shimmered, then melted away into a thin veil of magic.
He watched fresh pink skin creep across the small wound and took Fleur's hand, stepping through.
Shallow mounds of galleons, sickles and knuts piled between small plinths bearing chests, mirrors, and vases. Tall cabinets, elegant wardrobes and empty bookshelves all carved from smooth black wood, and vibrant tapestries engraved with the Black family crest lined the walls.
Tristan drifted deeper through the vault, stopping before a large plinth hollowed out at the top like a pensieve; within the pitch-black liquid it was filled with, shifting constellations of stars glowed in faint silver magic.
"What's this?"
"A star chart." Griphook prowled up beside him. "The Black family has used it in their celestial naming tradition for over a thousand years."
Fleur wrinkled her pretty nose and floated on. "Some traditions are better off dying, mon Coeur."
"I wholeheartedly agree." Tristan chuckled, studying the various chests filled to the brim with sparkling brooches, rings, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks worked in iron, silver, and gold. "At least I won't ever have to go jewelry shopping for you."
Fleur's soft laughter echoed from the other side of the vault.
He dug up a small wooden casket from beneath an avalanche of necklaces and flipped open the lid. Within it, two gleaming rings rested against smooth red velvet.
'Wow, those are beautiful.'
"An Etruscan design—" Griphook stared at the rings with a dark gleam in his black eyes, "but goblin-forged like many of the artifacts in here."
Tristan admired the slim wreaths of laurel curving around each band and the tiny diamonds etched alongside them like ripe fruits. 'Maybe these are the ones?' A warm lump formed in this throat. "How come they're still down here and haven't been used?"
"The rings are cursed." The goblin cackled. "Read the inscription on the inside and you will find out how."
"Find out what, mon Coeur?" Fleur drifted back through the plinths.
"Nothing." Tristan flipped the casket shut and turned about, summoning into his pocket with a little tug of magic. "Did you find anything interesting?"
Fleur nodded and slipped her arm back through his. "Oui, but we can always come back later to take a closer look; some of the furniture in here might be useful—," she looked at Griphook, "—depending on the state of the cabin..."
Griphook produced a small wooden stick from within his suit. "This portkey will allow us to go straight there. Hold on to it, humans."
Tristan grabbed one end and Fleur seized the other.
The vault vanished in a storm of colors.
A slim path ran parallel to a clear bubbling spring through a rich green grass field past clusters of blue and red and purple blossoms. The cabin sat low in the small valley before them like it had grown from earth itself, nestled in a cradle of small, wild green hills that rose and fell like calm breaths within the jagged alpine peaks tearing into the clear blue summer sky.
The first floor of the cabin, formed of huge, square gray stones, was half-built into the hillside, and the timbers of the second floor, darkened to the color of wet bark, stretched out into several smaller balconies, and were topped in a jumble of mismatched, slate-tiled roofs pierced by several chimneys.
"The entire estate measures five hectares," Griphook said. "The cabin itself has four bedrooms, each equipped with its own bathroom and balcony. There is a rather large cellar, but due to the danger of collapse, it can not be toured right now."
Tristan drew Fleur closer with one arm around her slender waist as he drank in all the serene beauty around them. "What do you think?"
She rested her head on his shoulder with a small sigh, warm and sweet and soft from her blonde hair tickling his neck to where her fingers squeezed his and her vanilla fragrance laced his breath. "I think this is it, mon Coeur."
'I think so, too.'
"It'll need some work." Tristan studied the cracks in the stones near the entrance, the missing railings on some of the balconies, and the few broken windows. "Maybe even a lot of work."
"We will make it work together," Fleur murmured. "What is the asking price, Griphook?"
"The current owner seeks nine thousand Galleons from the sale," the goblin said. "Gringotts offers to complete all the necessary repairs, the reattachment to the floo-network, as well as the warding of the entire premises for an additional five thousand galleons."
"We shall do the repairs ourselves—" Fleur tilted her chain up, "—and also the warding."
"Ridiculous," Griphook hissed. "You have yet to see the inside of the cabin, witch; the entire plumbing needs—"
"There could be nothing but ashes inside of it for all I care, goblin," Fleur declared. "Our decision is final."
Griphook cursed something under his breath. "Subtracting the three thousand galleons already transferred to your joined vault, the remaining gold needed for the purchase will be taken from the Black Heir vault."
"No." Tristan shook his head. "Take the three thousand galleons from our vault as a down payment and finance the rest with a loan."
"The goblins will charge interest on that, mon Coeur," Fleur whispered into his ear.
"I know, but I've seen my father's returns on his investment in Muggle companies, they're much higher than Gringotts's interest rate; we're better off borrowing the gold and investing our own." He turned back to the goblin. "Can you set up all the paperwork with Director Raknok while we spend a few more minutes here by ourselves?"
Griphook shot him a dark glower and activated his portkey.
Fleur crossed her arms behind his neck, fingers combing through his hair. "Merci, mon Coeur." She pressed herself against him and caught his lips in a long, soft kiss. "I promise to pay you back half of the down payment as soon as I can."
"I really don't mind, Fleur."
"I know, but I still do not like being in your debt." A small pout hovered on her rose-pink lips, but her blue eyes shone warm and light.
Tristan pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Everything I own, you own too, be it what's down in my vaults or this cabin up here. Everything—," he fished the small casket out of his pocket, his heart leaping to the tip of his tongue, "—including this."
Fleur's eyes dipped and went very wide and soft.
Tristan tipped the lid back and wrestled with his nerves, swallowing hard. "What do you think?"
"They are beautiful, mon Coeur," Fleur breathed, picking up one ring between trembling fingers and holding it before her eye. "There is something written in Latin on the inside."
"Griphook said so." Tristan murmured. "He also said the rings are Etruscan, and that they are cursed."
Fleur's slim brows drew together as she studied the inside of the first ring. "Two flames, once wandering, found their light—" she picked up the second ring, "—bound as one, through day and night."
"Any idea what kind of curse that could be?"
Fleur sealed her fingers about the rings and closed her eyes. "There is a vow embedded in the metal, not a curse."
"A vow?"
"I have heard old stories about similar rings," she whispered. "Each time you put them on, you swear to love the person who wears the counterpart; stray from your vow, and you die."
"Bound as one, through day and night," Tristan recited with a low chuckle. "No wonder the Blacks hid them in the vault; they only held arranged marriages and I doubt most of them were faithful."
Fleur caught his eye and cocked her head. "I can remove the vow, mon Coeur. If you want me to..."
The humor trickled from his lips like cheap paint, replaced by certainty as bright and clear as the unwavering determination Tristan found in her blue eyes, and the warmth bursting through him like sunshine spread into a small smile across his face. "No," he whispered, swallowing hard. "I think I'd rather keep the vow."
Fleur placed one ring onto his open palm. "Go ahead then."
Holding her eye, Tristan slipped the band of silver up her ring finger. "Two flames, once wandering, found their light."
Fleur placed the other ring onto his finger. "Bound as one, through day and night."
A faint ripple of magic swept through him, settling in a soft glow about the ring and pulsing in a steady rhythm, just out of touch with his own heartbeat.
"Oui, mon Coeur." She cupped his cheek and tilted his head back up, rising onto her tiptoes and angling her lips up at him. "I feel it, too."
Tristan kissed her, soft and slow at first, then wild as the vibrant flowers blossoming around them, free as the bubbling spring and fey as the wide green hills and towering mountains arching into the endless summer sky.
Fleur drew back and brushed their noses together. "Now, you will also have a small piece of me with you for when you are gone."
"I'll always come back to you," he vowed, hugging her tight. "Nothing will keep us apart. Nothing and no one."