Part III – Bill Tries to Live Up to the Dragonhide Boots. He Really Tries. Eventually the Womenfolk Begin to Wear Away at Him, but We Needn't Worry, Bill Makes a Quick Recovery.

In his wildest dreams – and even for a twentysomething man of good looks and easy competence Bill was not shy about dreaming – he had never even bothered to hope for such an enthusiastic response. Oh, a pretty enthusiastic response – but this reaction hadn't crossed his mind somehow.

She had squealed – actually squealed – and leapt into his arms. He was actually carrying her, a full-grown and gleefully writhing woman.

"Oomph! That's a yes, I take it?" Though he was struggling a little with it, Bill still loved her warm weight.

Now, Bill had never made so much headway in French as she had in English – she was the one in an immersion setting and all – and he was surprised (when the moment passed; while still in it he was too distracted) to find that he understood her torrent of French. It was something like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, you silly wonderful man!"… which sounded a bit odd in translation…

Nah. Bill wasn't one for false modesty. It sounded great in any language.

---

At odd that summer hours the Burrow seemed to relax, unwind. There were no scowls or forced smiles (always hard to say which is worse), no aside mutterings, none of the kids skulking in their rooms (outside was no good, since Mum and Dad were "paranoid" about them getting too far out of sight just then). To be sure Mum let loose a lot of complaints that she didn't normally, but she obviously got such relief out of them that it really bothered nobody. And to be sure Order business was discussed a great deal more, and that was certainly solemn and everything, but all in all it was part of the general exhale. Hot chocolate and odd bits of pie were pulled out from wherever they were hidden, and everyone began to act a little more like themselves.

It just so happened that Fleur worked those odd hours, on call.

Bill, who had been up all the night before (on said Order business) thought he might get in a nap that shadowy late evening when the whole house seemed at its most casual and comforting. He tossed off the dragonhide boots (Fleur hated when he had his boots on the bed), laid back, and closed his eyes.

This peace lasted about three minutes, on par for the Weasley household. Bill was pretty used to this.

Ginny stomped through the door. Her brown eyes were narrowed and she was a collective tornado of red-haired temper. Bill knew he could most get a rise out of her by doing nothing, and so he didn't stir or open his eyes even as he spoke. "Thanks for knocking."

"Bill, I need to have a talk with you."

Dreadful words. Fleur and Mum seemed to be taking those words in turn, and now Ginny was in on the fun.

"Sure. About summer homework?"

Even though Bill's eyes were still provokingly closed he could feel her glare. And it was possibly boring a small but fatal hole through his skull.

"No. About her."

"Why, what's Hermione done?"

Okay, so he really was a bit of a bastard. But he was tired, and he wasn't acting half so childishly as everyone else in the house.

"Today while you were out she called me and Ron 'not very bright.'"

"Oh?"

"Yes."

A pause for five long seconds. "That's it?"

"Bill, look at me!" She smacked him on the shoulder. Smacking her back (very lightly), he sat up and did so.

"All right, all right," he said agreeably. Best to let the womenfolk have their rants. Only way a sensible bloke could have a peaceful life. "Now what exactly happened?"

"What she said – and I quote – 'Ah, yes, I forgot zat you two are not very bright. I will use smaller words.'" Her eyes went nearly narrower. "That's not funny."

"Did I laugh?" asked Bill, stifling a grin. "Well, what brought this on?"

"What do you mean?" Eyes still narrowed – she would get a headache or a lined forehead that way – Ginny made each word taut.

"I mean what were you all talking about before she agreed to use smaller words?"

She tried to punch him. For Ginny this action was always more serious than for the run-of-the-mill younger sister, but Bill wasn't worried; he stood, caught her fists mid-air, pretended to send one into his gut – "Ooh! You got a hold of me there!" – and then enjoyed holding her arms securely in the air and laughing at her attempts to stomp on his foot. Then, by some miracle, she did manage the stomp, and Bill hastily let her go.

He should have kept the boots on. No doubt about it.

"Ouch," he said reprovingly.

Ginny looked fiercely up at him with a sort of pitying glare that said, more clearly than words, You've gone utterly soft and dippy, Bilius Weasley, and have lost all the respect I ever had for you as my cool older brother. I am now writing Percy to see if I can adopt him as my new role model to fill your vacancy.

"Look, the way I see it, when one of us brings somebody home, that person is then family. Did I ever treat Hermione a fraction so badly as you treat Fleur? Of course not."

"But Hermione's not annoying."

Bill just looked at her until she reconsidered.

"Well, she doesn't go around acting like she's better than us all."

"Look, Gin, Hermione's a great girl and all, but that first summer she was here she spent the first half of her stay correcting my grammar and the second half ranting about me being part of an evil society that enabled the slavery and exploitation of house-elves. That does get a little annoying. But did I let on?" Bill said proudly. "Nope. I just looked out for her good qualities."

"Fleur doesn't have any good qualities."

"Easy!" said Bill, with something of a growl. "She does so. Just because you refuse to see them – she's a wonderful woman. Very unique."

She glared up at him, balled-up fists on her hips. Bill wanted to laugh at her and muss up her hair, but he had a feeling that it would just prolong this conversation, and he really was rather tired. "You know," Ginny said, words dripping in scorn, "you used to be cool. Now you're just – "

Bill waited in amusement. "Yes?"

"Just – just – I don't even think they've found a word for it yet! But whatever it is, you are. To the last degree."

"Ouch," he said indifferently. "That hurts, Gin, that really hurts."

"It's the opposite of cool. Somewhere between 'girly' and 'disgusting'."

"Now you're getting somewhere. I'm approaching real pain. Continue with the insult; I'm sure once you work it out it'll be simply devastating."

"I can't stand this," said Ginny, tugging hard on her own hair. "Fleur keeps criticising Mum's cooking. Mum keeps 'forgetting' to set her place at the table. And Hermione's going to go kill herself because Ron keeps following her around like a drunk dog."

"Yeah, it's kind of funny, isn't it?"

"It is not." Ginny glared up at him. Bill shrugged; Ginny was guilty of exaggeration, anyway, and he hadn't even the remotest fear of Hermione killing herself, and if she did eventually get a little too jealous – well, it might speed the two of them along. "You weren't here the day Elphias What's-His-Face tried to Floo us to tell us that Vance woman was killed, and Fleur wouldn't get out from underfoot, and Mum was going spare – "

"Already heard about it," said Bill tiredly. "Been through it all with Mum."

"Well, it was very bad. If I get myself killed I hope it doesn't cause such a commotion here."

"Well, do try to not get yourself killed, wouldn't you?" asked Bill, perhaps with a note of edginess.

"What about you, gallivanting about with the Order, if you get hurt you'd just better hope Fleur isn't – "

The sleepy dragon was thus rouseth. He lifted his head to gaze at her and said pointedly, "I told Fleur last year about what was going on – not all of it, just an idea so she could get the hell out of here if she wanted. I don't know how much she understood then, but with all the coverage lately she can't possibly have missed it, and she still said 'yes' to be anyway, so give her a little credit, it's not like she ran back home when the going got rough."

"I'm not giving her credit until she gives me some," said Ginny flatly. "I haven't run off even though I knew all along what's going on, and neither did Ron, and both of us fought off actual Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries last month, and I'm not trying to brag about it, but it's pretty rich of her to call us 'not very bright'."

"English isn't her first language. She probably didn't mean for it to sound – like that."

"So what? She got across what she meant. If she had said it more nicely it still comes out to the same thing, doesn't it?"

Which was the Ginny Weasley philosophy to life: Sugar is worse than what it coats. Still, although unconvinced she did appear satisfied, as if she had been bursting to get it out of her system and now pretty well did. Bill mussed her hair; she punched him on the arm; she pranced out of the room with an affected little walk that was obviously supposed to ape Fleur. Bill laid back again and closed his eyes.

He fell asleep within minutes.

---

"Bill."

There was a dim light, causing Fleur's dim silhouette of loose silvery hair and long nightgown as she knelt by his bed and said his name insistently. It was just hours after Ginny had left him in peace.

"Bill…Bill. What does 'phlegm' mean?"

Bill might have worried about her voice, which was strangely vulnerable and childish, but mostly he was too tired to be anything more than relieved that Fleur did not intend to give him the counterpart to Ginny's complaints just then – and so honestly didn't notice that anything was wrong. Fleur often asked him the meanings of odd words she overheard that weren't in her French-English dictionary that had been printed a more genteel century ago.

So he laughed weakly. "How'd that word pop up among the tellers today?"

"Nobody said it to me, I only…" Fleur spoke slowly, as if perhaps her English was failing her. "… I overheard it today. I thought… I thought it sounded per'aps like one of ze characters een zat comic your littlest brozzer likes, Martin Miggs…"

"Oh… no, that's the dog Flimflam, I doubt that's what you heard. 'Phlegm' is… well, you know the stuff old Lepwink coughs up every time he gets too near an owl?"

---

And this was just Fleur and the Weasleys. Members of the Order kept dropping by the Burrow and Fleur was meeting them all one by one during the day while Bill was out. She regaled him almost every night with a running commentary on their moonlit strolls. Bill had nothing against anyone in the Order, but her refusal to approve of any of them was entertaining.

By the time Fleur first met Tonks the latter was a mess. Fleur took it personally. Then Bill snogged her a little and she was moved instead to a more charitable pity.

The next night Fleur insisted that Hestia Jones had been laughing at her accent – while flirting with 'er homme. After having shared enough guard-duty shifts with Hestia the past year, Bill seriously doubted it, but soon found himself too busy to consider saying so.

But she literally kept him at arm's length the evening after meeting Mad-Eye.

"Can 'e use zat eye to see zroo clozing?" she demanded in outrage, while Bill laughed and wheedled and placated her.

Kingsley had given her a fright, having startled her from behind quite by accident, and afterwards being tall and tough and appropriately Aurorish. "I felt as if I was doing somezing wrong," Fleur complained.

"Sure you were," said Bill, hands roving.

But Fleur's opinion of Kingsley improved drastically after meeting Dung Fletcher. "'e eez zee filziest, smelliest, foulest – "

"Well then," Bill said in satisfaction, "at last you and Mum agree on something."

And even Dung was tolerable in Fleur's eyes after encountering Sturgis Podmore a few days later. That really had been an unfortunate incident, and it wasn't only Fleur who would have complained afterwards.

"'e – 'e – "

Bill did not even wait for the string of French synonyms. "He tried to grope you, I know, I heard. You weren't using any charm, were you?"

"Non!" said Fleur, angrily. Fetchingly angry, really.

"I'm really sorry, but we're all trying to cut him some slack, he spent six months in Azkaban, you know, back when the dementors were still there and everything, and he never did quite recover, we don't really let him in on too much now, but Mum feels bad enough to bake cakes and such for him…"

Fleur was not in a forgiving mood, and the next night she said rather grimly that she had met zat Remus Lupin person.

"Oh, well, he didn't offend you, did he?" Bill asked. If he had to pick someone on whose shoulders to lay Britain's last shot at proving its civility it would have been Remus. He couldn't imagine anyone being able to find fault with his conduct in the first ten minutes.

"'e was polite enough," said Fleur, pouting. "But 'is mind was clearly elsewhere. 'e did not pay me any attention."

"Well – good!" exploded Bill, laughing incredulously at the extraordinary whims of women. "Damn straight he didn't pay you any attention!"

Fleur refused to be satisfied. And "'e or she ignored me" was her standard complaint when she could find no other fault; quite a few other visitors got the same condemnation. Fleur's was a complex relationship with attention, and while she frowned upon too much she pouted at none at all.

One day, wandering from the outskirts of the village and slowly at that, for to walk lip-locked requires considerable coordination, Fleur broke away and asked out of the blue but as though this were quite congruous with the conversation they had just then not been having:

"And eez zis Order – somezing I could join?"

Bill looked at her seriously. He had thought this would come up sometime. "They might have some resistance to you joining. You've only been out of school for two years now."

"At what age do zey allow recruits to join?"

"Well, you have to be seventeen – I know you're older than that, it's just that anything beyond that is not really cast in stone. It's really sort of subjective."

"Subjective meaning what they think of the person."

"Well – yes, basically."

She stared at herself hard in the mirror. "Well, perhaps zey are wise in zat. I am not sure, myself, if I had ze courage to do zat – maybe – one day – do you remember how I lost my head in ze Triwizard Tournament?"

"Fleur, you faced down – what was it? – there was a dragon, and underneath the lake, and that maze I saw wasn't a piece of cake either."

"Yes, and I made a 'orrible mess of zings. Zat eez what makes me unsure of myself now. In a way I sort of hate doing nozzing while ze rest of you are fighting, but I am not – what do you call it? –

Bill frowned at her puzzedly. "A warrior? Rash? Idiot?" He spun a very broad and bad accent to try making the last word French.

" – a Gryffindor, and I know what I can do and cannot do," she finished, placidly. "And so I will not let anyone here make me feel less about zat."

"Fleur – that's really pretty incredible, to consider yourself like that." Bill couldn't quite articulate what 'that' was, but it was something pretty novel to his experience, and he trusted Fleur enough to believe anything new she showed him in her must by her very nature be both good and admirable.

"Eet eez called contemplation, I believe. Somebody should teach you Gryffindors about it."

---

But with Molly Fleur was unmoved and implacable, and vice versa most especially. There was nothing for it. They antagonised each other half to death. Fleur went around airily saying "cooking and chickens!" fifteen times a day and always comparing everything to how it was done in France, to her host country's disadvantage. Molly hid all the things Fleur most especially liked to eat. Visitors learned to handle the atmosphere with gloves, and especially to never but ever show any signs of appreciating Fleur's occasional singing. Her vague wordless tunes were unfortunately very appreciable, but to show any sign of said appreciation drew Molly's snarls.

One night shortly before Bill and Fleur thankfully ended their home-stay is a good illustration of these tensions. Fleur had come back from quite a late shift at work. Molly's greeting was less than rapturous upon seeing her on the other side of the door. At the very first syllable Molly sank into ill temper. "Hello," she said, carelessly, as she unlocked the door. Molly had not deigned to bother with security for Fleur. It was true that someone might impersonate her – she had brought up this weakness in their security often – but Molly had no faith Fleur wouldn't blab the question far and wide,at the first threat of a hooded figure that might muss her hair. Or so she put it, in vociferous hisses to whatever unfortunate ear was around to hear these rants. "Did work go well?" she asked, in a rather nasty tone that suggested that she rather Fleur had found it quite enchanting enough to stay there indefinitely.

Fleur was not the least ruffled. "Yes, it eez always an enjoyable break," she said, with perfect complacence. "It was quite busy, we 'ad in what seemed the 'ole of ze Society for 'erbologists – "

"Lovely," said Molly coldly. "If you'll excuse me, I have something on the stove."

And that provoking, idiotic girl followed her. (Molly's adjectives, not mine. Bill, in fact, had already had a tiff with her about these adjectives, that had ended with his clincher, sternly delivered: "Mum, do not call my fiancée 'that idiot girl'.")

"Oh, eez that fresh bread? I must say zere eez really no one like you for baking, even back 'ome – "

For Fleur, you see, had not quite escaped the instinct to flatter Molly in order to wrangle favourite items from the kitchen! Quite a testament to Molly's cooking, but somehow the implicit compliment did not move her.

"Don't touch it," Molly said, nearly snarling. "It's for Professor Lupin. Surely you picked up something after work?"

Fleur shrugged indifferently. "Yes, I did. It eez a good thing I did, really, your cooking is quite fattening."

On and on this has gone. And will go.

"Well then," said Molly, with an ugly sort of triumph that was rather marred by Fleur calmly shaking off a long pale sea-green scarf and sitting at the table. "Excuse me, Fleur."

"Do not bark so," said Fleur, having learned that interesting phrase from Bill just a week ago. "I am not going to eat anyzing, I want only to sit and read some papers from work and wait."

"I was not aware you were so fond of Professor Lupin's company."

"Any company eez somezing out here, don't you think? It 'as been ever so dull since ze children left for Frogwarts – "

"Hogwarts." Molly nearly choked.

" – ah, yes, zat eez ze name. I knew eet was somezing along zose ugly lines. And anyway, your professor seems a gentleman, which eez such a novelty in zis country."

The forgotten name of the school she had stayed at for some six months and the dig at all of her host country were not sincere so much as a good chance to infuriate Molly further. The following twenty minutes were both very silent, save for Fleur humming, and Molly banging things around with rather more noise than was strictly necessary.

Once Remus arrived, to entrust his wand to the Burrow before going off to Greyback's lot, Fleur proved unshooable. Molly issued about five smashingly broad hints before Fleur teasingly suggested that Arthur might appreciate her chaperoning ze two of zem. Molly, then currently holding a wand in either hand, had been on the verge of doubly cursing her, until Fleur wisely saw this and retreated.

"Ah. Ah, yes," said Fleur, rising lazily. "Your little Order. Well, I'll leave you to it zen."

Remus, tired and distracted and far-off as he was, had yet a sense of humour that had not gone entirely untouched at this parting shot, and Molly had eyed his smile with dangerous flashes.

"Very amusing, I'm sure," said Molly coldly. "Between you and me, she's really rather a – "

"Molly – "

" – priggish little – "

"Molly!"

" – flat-out – "

"Molly, don't, come on now – "

She looked at him pleadingly. "It would be such a relief to say it."

"No it wouldn't," Remus said hastily, "trust me, you won't feel a bit better for saying it, and probably worse."

Molly considered it with a certain amount of huffing, and then said, grudgingly, "Well, I suppose if you can put up with Fenrir Greyback, I can put up with Fleur Delacour, but I still think by Christmas at least I'll be willing to swap."

At any rate, Remus was not there to appeal to her better side all of the time, and there was oneinstance when Molly had muttered the word. She had thought herself quite out of earshot of anyone – certainly it was not a word she would ever permit her children to say and go unhexed – but nevertheless she had felt a certain guilty flip-flop in her stomach when she passed Percy's old room in which Fleur was just then stationed. Fleur didn't always remain stationed in this room – but Bill was out that night on Order business, and so it was only Molly alone that kenw Fleur was, from the sound of it, sobbing into her pillow. Molly paused uneasily by the door awhile, as deeply conflicted as one can be when tired and worn-out and with an armload of bedsheets that comes up so high you can rest your chin on them. Maternal instincts called to her from this new source.

But then she shook herself, and shuffled on with catlike silence and eyes hard. Cooking and chickens! She was not to be softened Phlegm-wards.

---

All in all, quite a relief to everyone's nerves, and probably the saving of several relationships, for Bill and Fleur's stay to end.

But Bill had to admit it wasn't all that great a solution. Ottery St Catchpole was sunlit and green and wild-wooded and peaceful. London was… London. Dirty skyscrapers loomed, germs flew thick on the air, dementors bred all about them until the foggy air was thick with palpable depression. Diagon Alley was for all intents and purposes dead, and from the papers and news it seemed more and more that the same fate awaited anyone fool enough to go there.

They did no more partying at the Wobbly Goblin; apart from Gringotts and Order business they stayed well holed up in their shared flat, which was bright and lovely with each other's company, but undeniably confining. Especially when month after month passed. Pillows were always scattered everywhere, Fleur had glossy bridal magazines littering the floor, and their two owls and any visitors hooted incessantly, vying with the droning noises of their Muggle neighbors that permeated the walls.

Whenever he was out – whenever, for example, Dumbledore called on him to patrol Hogwarts while he was out on his mysterious jaunts – then Bill would have to discuss the war in tiresome and repetitive detail with everyone. Even at work the goblins were often to be found discussing it in low Gobbledegook. But 'at home' Fleur barely ever mentioned it. Fleur thought a much greater worry was the domestic situation: "I really 'ope your muzzer will not be so disagreeable to my family as she 'as been to me so far!"

To be honest, Bill, man-like, had managed to more or less forget she had a family. Oh, very well, he knew she had one, she brought them up frequently and carried on profuse correspondences with some of her relatives and friends, but he had managed to avoid realising that he would one day meet them, that they would be his in-laws. Engagements aren't what they used to be.

"How long d'you suppose they'll stay here?" he asked, stretching out on the couch – plenty of room alongside for her to join him, when she was ready, but there was no hurry, only a domesticated certainty that sooner or later she would be, and again and again afterwards.

"We are still working zat out," said Fleur, busily scribbling away and frowning over her mother's letter, and she went on in a careless sort of French about her father not being able to take more than a fortnight from work. Bill could understand her in French by now, though when he tried to speak it himself the usual result was only to make Fleur laugh heartily at him. She went on, something about the old family flammeum. Bill brought his glass to his lips, drank, and closed his eyes, feeling quite at peace in the word.

Then Fleur started talking about some sort of family tradition.

"I'm not following you, love, what's this about whose approval?"

Fleur switched to English. "Oh, you know, just a test by my parents to see eef you are worthy enough a husband for me to wear ze flammeum."

"What about the potion I thought you were saying was involved?"

"Oh, eet eez a very mild truth serum," Fleur said lightly.

Bill was sitting upright now. What on earth sort of things would they ask him? They were rather… traditionalists, weren't they?

"Good lord," said Bill, voice soft in an awe so great that it eschewed his more typical 'bloody hell!'. He had to admit that things were getting just a bit over his head now. Just a bit, of course. He could swim back to the surface very easily, any time he wanted. But – !

Fleur laughed.

"You sound like your fazzer. He says zat."

Very well, so perhaps he was just doomed. It's really very bad to have your love live with your family, even if they get along much better than Fleur and the Weasleys. Because now Fleur had an idea of what he would be like in a couple of decades. He sighed. All the sudden things were getting to him.

She looked over her shoulder and rushed over to him in all concern. "Oh, I did not mean zat badly, you silly man! I like your fazzer very much – even if 'e eez just a touch eccentric – "

Bill grinned. Partly because she was giving him an earrub. "So long as it's in all affection, you can call him 'daft' like all the rest of us do."

"'e eez not daft, 'e eez ze only one 'ere 'oo is kind to me, apart from you. Even zough he cannot stand up to your muzzer."

"Ah. You noticed, did you?"

TBC (only one more part to go now!)