Fleur was more than a little surprised at herself. Sure, she had never been a horrible, nasty soul—or had tried not to be, and any actions during her teenage years should be forgotten. So she was a little snobbish. What true Frenchwoman wasn't? But she was also a kind and generous soul with a good heart. Was it so wrong for her to take a scared Nymphadora under her wing? Get her through a hard time? If Nymphadora, or Tonks, happened to be an interesting person, well, there wasn't very much Fleur could do about that.

Besides, it was nice to have another woman to talk to in this place. She loved Bill, but the simple fact was that Bill was a male and therefore an idiot. Bill didn't understand her need for her clothes or to do her hair. Bill couldn't talk for hours about nothing. Why, just the day before she and Tonks had spent four hours stabbing themselves with needles in attempt to cross-stitch (neither of them admitted to coming up with the idea for such a stupid thing) and discussing people at school. They were both done with school, both Hogwarts and Beauobaxtons, but goodness, did school not make a great source of discussion. If Fleur ever asked Bill about his Hogwarts days, he would talk about some stuff he did as Head Boy. He didn't care for the intricacies of all the weird students that never ceased to appear in school or the nature of the girls' bathrooms.

Bill had just left for work, and Fleur was in the middle of tidying up the place. Dust, dust, and more dust. Was this her punishment for her living in the country? Though it was beautiful. Tonks was probably doing the exact same thing. Cleaning. What a pain. All those Magical and Muggle women alike doing so much to encourage fairness between the sexes and women still found themselves drawn to cleaning. Why?

Because, she thought rather smugly, if the women did not do it, it would never get done. Why, Bill would be perfectly happy living with dirty laundry spilled over everything and dust clinging to every available surface like in a haunted house. It was true: men and women were simply different from each other and no silly modern notions would change that.

Besides, the cleaning gave her something to do, something to occupy by her time and her mind. She tossed her feather duster into the closet and pulled out some all-purpose cleaner. Muggle all-purpose cleaner. She had discovered that it worked just as well as the expensive magic stuff as long as potion spills were involved. Plus, it smelled like lemons. Lemons were a delightful smell. She began filling the sink with water and poured a generous amount of cleaner into the streaming water. Instantly bubbles began to appear.

Bubbles. Bubbles were also delightful. Unfortunate that too much use of the cleaner led to a disappearance in the bubbles. And she had no intention of cleaning the entire kitchen before…

Bill had left at 8:00. Ursula Penningport had arrived at 8:15. Ursula Penningport lived down in the Muggle village, where she worked as a midwife and only used the barest drop of magic in her work with the Muggles. Her fellow witches, however, got the full benefit of her skills.

And now it was 8:37. How long did these things take? Fleur plunged a sponge into the soapy, lemony water. Her heart was throwing itself against her ribs. She should have followed her prior thoughts and gone over to Tonks' for the remainder of this. All her thoughts of Tonks this morning and she hadn't even informed her of this. She pulled out the sponge, twisted it, and began to mop at the already clean counter. Oh, yes. She had already wiped that spot down. Silly her.

Then it came, the knock at the kitchen door. "Mrs. Weasley?"

Fleur gave a tiny cry and dropped the sponge to the floor, where it burst bubbles every which way. Oh, well. Mopping was on her list of things to do. "Yes?"

Mrs. Penningport opened the door wide. She was a tall and imposing woman, but with a smile to light up the room. "Congratulations, Mrs. Weasley, you're pregnant."

Fleur gave another cry, much louder, and threw her arms around the midwife.

Now how in the world was she going to tell Bill?