So apparently there is more of this.

The song lyrics are from U2. The song title is actually "A Sort of Homecoming", but I've already used that for a fic.

"Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own."

Two

The cottage that had been too full for months, crowded with refugees, now seemed unnaturally empty. The first couple of weeks of Bill and Fleur's marriage (it really had been no longer than that) when they had rejoiced at having their own home, their own space, seemed to have happened in a different lifetime.

Over the months, they had lain in bed together and spoken in whispers, fantasising about what they would do when they had their home to themselves again.

"When everyone's gone, I'm going to make love to you in every room in the house."

"We will eat nothing but cake and fruit. And drink only wine."

"We'll picnic on the beach."

"I sink we should get a cat."

(Bill wasn't sure about that last one.)

And now – they had the house to themselves. As they had wanted. As they had dreamed of for so long. And it wasn't quite right.

They made love, in their own bedroom, and once or twice in the living room, but it was quick and desperate and needy, and more often than not it would end with one or both of them in tears.

Bill was barely eating, and Fleur made his favourite ginger cake. He ate some to please her, and was surprised that it still tasted good. In return, he bought lemon meringue pie and tartes au citron from the Muggle bakery in the village, and smiled when she clapped her hands like a child. They didn't manage the fruit or the wine, but they drank a lot of tea.

Neither of them really fancied a picnic. The beach still seemed too open, too exposed. They kept a hand on their wand whenever they left the house, and worried if the other was out for any reason.

Six days after Fred's funeral, Charlie turned up unannounced on their doorstep, something small and wriggling clasped under his jacket.

"I found a litter of kittens in a sack at the end of Mum and Dad's lane," he said without preamble as he dumped a small tabby kitten on the kitchen table.

Fleur, who had been pointing her wand at the kettle to boil water for tea, dropped it on the floor and came over to the table to scoop the tiny animal into her arms.

"'E is so cute" she gushed. "'Ow could anyone abandon 'im?"

Bill was looking at his brother with something approaching horror.

"Why the hell do we want a kitten, Charlie?"

Charlie nodded at Fleur, who was now sitting on one of the kitchen chairs with the kitten on her lap.

"Your wife clearly wants a kitten," he said drily. "Anyway, I can't take him to Romania with me. There were three in the bag. Count yourself lucky that Perce and Ginny claimed the other two."

For a day or two, the kitten was called simply "Cat", but that didn't work well in a bilingual household. Bill referred to him as an alley cat one day, which appealed to Fleur's sense of humour, and he became Monsieur Alley Cat, known as Ali. It felt like a nod to Mad Eye Moody.

The empty cottage felt less empty with Ali in it.