Key

It has been a horrible day. It is June, but you would not know it. It is teeming with rain, and cold enough that Fleur is shivering at her desk as she works under Miss Payne's exacting eye. The Payne has told her off for so-called errors three times already today, although Fleur is certain there is nothing really wrong with the reports she has been writing up and filing. Gladys and her cronies are smirking and giggling, and the only thing stopping Fleur from leaving her desk in tears is the thought of what they would say if she did. She does not even have Gisela's support. She left last week to prepare for her wedding in Vienna next month, and Fleur misses her dreadfully.

Worse than all of this, she has not seen Bill since yesterday morning. He was out on Gringotts business all the previous day in Hull (wherever that is – Fleur still thinks most English place names very odd) dealing with some old lady's treasures that had been cursed by a jealous cousin who thought they had gone to the wrong branch of the family. Then Mad-Eye Moody (whom Fleur could happily murder right now) left a coded message for him at Gringotts that sent him off with several other Order members to Yorkshire immediately upon his return. Fleur was taking dictation from Delloran Gumble at the time, and she escaped to find a scribbled note on her desk saying Bill would go home with his father to The Burrow overnight as they would be back late, and that he would see her tomorrow.

But she has not seen him at all. Miss Payne collared her the minute she set foot through the door this morning with some complaint over a missing file, and Bill came in to work twenty minutes late while she was still in The Payne's office, so she did not even have the comfort of him smiling and winking at her on his way past the secretaries' room. And he has been trapped in a meeting all day, so they could not meet for lunch as they often do.

And her back hurts and her head aches and she is sick of thinking in French and having to translate it into English instead of just saying what she wants to, and she hates the English weather, and she is homesick for France for the first time since she and Bill started going out.

And the wedding is less than six weeks away, and they still haven't found anywhere to live, and Fleur really, really does not want to start her married life in the cramped and dingy Muggle flat they are living in now.

A shadow falls across her desk and she looks up to see Bill smiling down at her. He perches on the edge of her desk, apparently oblivious to the glare Miss Payne is giving him. Bill Weasley has gone down in Miss Payne's estimation since his relationship with Fleur became public knowledge.

"Are you nearly done?" Bill asks Fleur. "We need to go somewhere."

"Where?" Fleur demands. Right now, all she wants is a cup of tea and a hot bath.

"You'll see," Bill tells her, ignoring her obvious bad mood.

Fleur scowls at him. "I do not want to go anywhere," she insists. "I want to go 'ome." She is not sure if she means the Muggle flat or her home in France, and when she thinks about it she realises that she means the latter. She finds her eyes filling with tears, despite the inquisitive glances from Gladys and her allies, and she blinks rapidly.

Bill sees, and shifts his position on the edge of her desk to block her from the other girls' view.

"Hey," he says gently, taking the quill from her hand and standing up. "Come on, love. It's way after five. You can finish this tomorrow." He walks round to her side of the desk, and pulls her chair out for her. Miss Payne is glaring, but says nothing. Bill puts his arm round Fleur's shoulders and shepherds her out of the room. She is crying properly by the time they are outside on the steps of the bank, but he says nothing, merely putting his arms round her and Apparating the pair of them to a cold and wet cliff top, noisy with the sound of the sea and the wind.

"Bill!" Fleur protests. "Where are we? I said zat I wanted to go 'ome."

Bill smiles and turns her around. "We are home, love," he says. "Look!"

In front of them is a tiny whitewashed cottage, covered in shells. It is beautiful. Fleur gapes at it, and then at Bill. He slips a tiny silver key into her hand.

"It's ours," he tells her. "If you like it. I have to let them know one way or the other by tomorrow morning."

He takes her hand and leads her down the path to the front door of the cottage. Fleur is smiling. She knows already that they have come home.