Three Hallows, Two Weasleys and One Broken Girl

Chapter 42: Inventory

Last update before winter holidays! Hope everyone finds themselves warm and safe, and that the new year brings us all unforeseen and dearly welcome opportunities.

———

Three days after the golden trio and Griphook left, Olivander's wand making supplies arrived with his owl, allowing him to find his own comfort in his craft. The kind man started by making her a new wand, her own having been snapped by Yaxley who hit her with it until she bled and it broke.

The new wand was rowan wood, with both thestral and unicorn hairs. Life and death unified in the core was incredibly rare according to the wandmaker, and he warned her to treat it with great care, and though she couldn't see his expression his hands did shake as he handed it to her.
At first her spells were inconsistent, unable to rely on seeing the wand movement, and the result even if most of the casting was well past habit. The wand was definitely an improvement on her last, though she'll forever miss it.

Whilst she practiced, Fred and George filled those early days making a wheelchair for Dobby. The elf had woken just a few hours after Harry had left because Merlin forbid the poor kid has one less thing to angst over. But his spinal cord was severed by a cursed dagger and could not be healed leaving his legs unusable.
He wasn't brought down by the disability however, and came up with truly unholy colour schemes for the wheelchair/biplane/hovercraft the twins were designing.
The completed chair had snitch designs on the wheels and was as asymmetrical and mismatched as Dobby's socks. The elf loved it, and it was good to have her twins' inventive spirit reignited.
She determinately didn't think about how she'd stopped a death and there'd been no immediate consequences. She didn't have it in her to agonise over such well trodden ground. She didn't have it in her to think of Cedric, of Fred, of Pandora Lovegood and a voice from a realm beyond warning of balance.

Her favourite place to become the beach and the duo rigged up an outdoor workshop of sorts, a pagoda like structure that shielded them from the rain. So many of her other senses were overwhelmed - with the salt in the air, the grit of the sand, the playful water curling around her bare feet - that she could almost forget her blindness out there, and they could be themselves. A parody of what they once were before she was taken, but a good parody.

It was there that the twins chased further ideas. At first it was simply prosthetics, spurred on by their wheelchair design and with the war ever present on their minds.
Then they made her an enchanted lamp that could be rigged onto her Horklump Aggi. When switched on and directed at an open book, it would read it aloud in the voice of the author.
It would have been the best gift she'd ever received but six weeks after their arrival in shell cottage, Fred and George presented her with something that blew it out the water.

She'd been listening to the nasal tones of Mericious Bogsdon discussing the present applications of East African Runes when the clear footsteps of her favourite people sounded further up the beach.
The two had made an art out of footsteps, loud enough she could hear them coming but quiet enough not to be disruptive or frustrating.

"Delph we have something for you." George told her, apprehensive.
"Is it a honeydukes chocolate bar?"
"No, that's mine." She could hear his scowl as something plastic crinkled as it was shoved in a back pocket. Fred snickered.
"We were thinking about Mad-Eye Moody..."
Delphi nodded.
"Then we actually thought about Mad-Eye Moody."
Oh.

Hands cool from the sea air grasped her own folded on her lap, and lifted them gently until she could feel smooth glass beneath her fingers. She took the object in hand and examined it with the pads of her fingers.
It felt like a the kind of glasses used by quidditch players, with an elastic strap but lenses were set in
"Goggles...?" She guessed.
"Ding ding ding!" Fred sounded positively euphoric. "She scores!"
"The glass is tinted and you can change the colour at will." Declared George smugly. "Try them on."
Delphi had taken to braiding her hair in a thick plait and wrapping it over her eyes to cover the scar. She had to pull that loose first, but then she put on the hat, strapping it under her chin, and feeling the warming runes woven into the material. Then she raised her hands to grip the goggles, and put them over where her eyes once were.

Immediately the world was there. In more detail than she'd ever seen it before.
But first and foremost, were the faces she'd missed the most.
She'd felt the grease in their hair, the length of it, heard the roughness of their voices, the heaviness of their steps.
But to see is different.

"Oh my boys.." she managed to whisper, taking in the dark smudges beneath their eyes, the hints of grey in their hair, and the haggard edges their flushed excitement failed to completely erase. Her scars itched strangely as her throat tightened, hands reaching out, grasping, gasping, reaching and rasping. Because her absence had harmed them far more than she could have ever imagined.
It was a long time before they could return to the house.

———

On the first of April, it was the twins' birthday.
No one came to celebrate, it was mid war and far too dangerous, but Fleur did make a cake.
Delphi however had something else in mind. That night, after a relatively happy dinner, they returned to their room and she made her move.

The trio had made tentative forays sexually during the previous summer, but since her return neither man had touched her in that way once, never going beyond chaste kisses. Respecting someone's boundaries however...is the sexiest thing another person can do, and Delphi was about done waiting.

When both guys made their way toward the bathroom to prep for bed and give her privacy to change, Delphi steeled her nerves.
"Stay."
Their footsteps halted and they turned back so slow their cogs could be rusted.
"Delphi?" Came Fred's tentative voice.
Delphi stood facing them, and very calmly unbuttoned her cardigan, she heard George shift his weight from foot to foot nervously. "Stay." She repeated as the cardigan fell to the floor and she slowly lifted her vest top up to pull it over her head.
She doubted she was much of a sight, still a bit bony despite George's nutrient potions, and not exactly sexy in mismatched bra, briefs not to mention the goggles. But she wanted to do this, and if the audible gulp that came from George was anything to go by, her second guessing was unnecessary.

"Delphi...what do you have in mind?"
"Hopefully exactly what you do." She replied, as she pulled off her jeans to stand before them in only her underwear. She watched them gazing at her as they undoubtedly over thought things.
"If you panic much louder I'll hear it." She added dryly.
"Sod it." Growled Fred and crossed the distance between them, pulling her against his chest and kissing her fiercely.
Feeling George's hands on her bare waist felt wonderful and she leant back against him as Fred explored her jaw with his lips.
"Happy birthday..." she whispered breathily.
It was the last intelligible thing she managed to say that night.

———

"No." Said Fred firmly. "No way on Earth."
"Yes." Replied Delphi firmly. "Yes way under Space."
"Delphi, please..." said George, hands shaking, though she could tell he knew he didn't have a foot to stand on.
She'd also bet both men were cursing their invention that certainly silenced the rest of the Order's objections.
Unleashing her wand, Delphi shot a stinging hex at the forehead of each of them and Bill who was making a face, with pin point accuracy, ducking the spell Fred shot back in return.
"I am coming with you."

She would be there.
She had to be there.
It would be better for George if she didn't risk it, but she couldn't bear the thought of not being close by for every moment that Fred had left.