The Flight Of The Vulture

Chapter 12: The Last Time

July 29th, 1997

Belle looked at Fleur Delacour as she stood wearing her wedding dress in Belle's living room. It was a simple design, one of the simplest Belle had ever made. Whenever she did wedding dresses, she put aside some of her own personal style, a bride should look exactly how they wanted. 

This dress complimented Fleur's exceptional beauty perfectly. The silky material and glistening overlay was exactly what Fleur wanted. 

"Oh Madame Belle." Fleur exclaimed with a wide smile. "It is quite my vision. I do quite feel like a bride now. It will look lovely with the Goblin tiara Bill's aunt is allowing me to borrow."

"Well, this is the least I can do for you." Belle looked the dress over. She'd insisted on making Fleur her wedding dress, even though she had shuttered her shop.

She and Ed were going into hiding soon. They would go and see an old friend who had helped her many years before. They wouldn't leave the country, in case Jack resurfaced.

"You look very elegant." Samantha observed from the sofa. She was healed, physically, from her ordeal. She looked over Fleur with a deep admiration. Belle couldn't help noticing that Samantha's eyes lingered on Fleur's open back, unscathed, unscarred and silky smooth. Samantha's scars had healed like canyons on her skin. She had taken to wearing bulkier clothing and leaving her hair very long in the three weeks since the attack.

"Thank you!" Fleur smiled kindly at Samantha. "Your mother has more talent than any designer I've known."

Belle felt like maybe Fleur was just being kind, she had every French designer at her fingertips. Belle wasn't refined like a Parisian artists, or classically trained.

Fleur turned to Samantha, "You are very blessed to have such an artist for a mother. Someday, you will be a vision at your wedding."

Samantha threw her head back in laughter, "Yeah, only an idiot would marry me."

Belle rolled her eyes before she knelt down to pin the hem of Fleur's gown. "Oh hey, before I forget, I did have time to make that card. It's on the kitchen table."

"Thanks mum." Samantha went to the kitchen and came back with the little white card in her hand.

"Is it alright?" Belle asked. It was a very nice card. A bold seventeen written in calligraphy surrounded by green vines with a tiny black flower near the top. 

Belle had added the little flower, knowing her daughter's new affection for the herb. She had seen a large bouquet of Moly on her bedside table at the hospital wing that had mysteriously appeared. She also noticed pressed sprigs on the writing desk in Samantha's bedroom. 

"Yeah, it's perfect." Samantha took the card and smiled at it.

 Bell had a suspicion about another new place of Sammy's affection.

"Who is so lucky to get a card like that?" Fleur asked peering down at it.

Samantha looked at the card in her hand. "Just my classmate, Neville." Samantha's cheeks turned slightly pink. "It's his birthday tomorrow."

"He's a nice young man." Belle nodded with an off putting sense of approval.

"Oh, the quiet boy. You two seemed very close." Fleur said while fixing her hair.

Samantha smiled more than Belle had seen in a while, "Yeah, I guess so."

"Yet, I hear you are coming to the wedding with Mr. Jordan, the twins' friend."

Samantha's nose wrinkled briefly at the sound of Lee's name and she dropped her smile.

"She and Lee aren't together, just friends." Belle laughed at Samantha's reeling.