"Hey Bill!' called Pillbudy from across the office, his voice loud and attempting to carry over to where Bill was signing off on some security spell paperwork. Pillbudy was far enough away that Bill just had to pretend he hadn't heard him, which was exactly what he was currently doing.
He really didn't have the time to stop and chat anyway, seeing as he was due underground and needed to take care of all of these documents before the bank closed in a few hour's time. This was always the issue with his vampire-like schedule of working all night and sleeping all day; it didn't allow him much time to get his paperwork done while those who needed to process it were still here. He could have come in early, but he'd worked especially late into the evening the night before and he hadn't got back to the Burrow until four in the morning. He'd slept like shit and felt as if he'd barely left. He wasn't exactly in the best of moods. He needed some strong tea or coffee.
"Hey, Bill!" Pillbudy called again.
Bill sighed and once again pretended he hadn't heard him as he finished signing his last memo. He was running out of excuses to give this guy as to why he didn't want to go out on one of his few evenings away from the bank, and he wished he would take a hint. He had so little free time as it were. When he did, the last thing he wanted to do was socialize with Gringotts' folk.
He set his papers aside and turned straight for the door, now thinking about that coffee he needed to get in his system before heading down into the faults. He yawned as he made his way to the tearoom, willing himself to stay awake.
It was Wednesday, which meant he had the day off tomorrow. That was a plus. But he also had an Order meeting that evening, which he found himself dreading, mostly because he didn't have anything of interest to bring to the table outside of some offhand comments the goblins made out of anger. There had been quite a bit of rumors and rumblings around the bank lately, mostly anti-Ministry rhetoric, but Bill hadn't picked up anything particularly substantial to make him think the goblins had any real plans to join with Voldemort. Even when they were huddled together and whispering rapid Gobbledegook, it was almost exclusively regular bank issues.
That or they were yelling at him because he was somehow responsible for breaking the curses they'd spent so much time forcing others to create.
"To be fair," Bill had said late the previous night, after three of the senior goblins were now fuming that he'd cracked their latest security measure. "That curse was truly exceptional magic. It took me six hours."
"Exceptional magic would have managed to keep out any and all wizards!" yelled the head of them all, one called Ragnok. His black eyes had narrowed on Bill. "You wizards all think you're above it all, but yet I only see shortcomings! Liars and thieves, your kind are..." He mumbled off something in Gobbledegook then that Bill didn't quite understand, which usually meant it was slang that he wasn't familiar with. It made the other two goblins chortle.
Bill fought the urge to roll his eyes. Ragnok was known for his theatrics. That and his strong anti-wizard views. This was nothing new, and Bill didn't even take it personally. If he didn't hear Ragnok call someone a "no good wizard" at least five times a week, then that meant Ragnok was probably away on holiday.
"I still say," said Bodrog, his face flashing with an amused sort of malice. "We get more dragons—not just for the old family vaults, but for several levels. We've yet to fail with the dragon."
"That's inhumane," Bill said, thinking immediately of Charlie and how he'd responded to the rumor that Gringotts kept a dragon chained up to protect the illustrious old family vaults—the old pureblood money. At the time, Bill had never seen it—he'd been in Egypt—and while he since had, he wouldn't dare confirm or deny this fact to his brother. Even at the just rumor, Charlie had gone completely mental and lambasted Bill for working for a company that would do such a thing.
He'd gone and taken every coin he had out of Gringotts and refused to ever bank with them again.
To this day, it was one of the few things Bill played dumb about when Charlie asked him about it. He knew his brother well enough to know he would be here tomorrow if he found out the truth. He would be leading a charge to free the creature and he'd probably be the first person in history to be sent to Azkaban for breaking into Gringotts in search of something other than money and treasures.
"Inhumane!" called Bodrog. "If you want to talk inhumane, we should talk about the atrocities that your kind has cast upon us! Now that is inhumane!"
Bill took a slow breath. He knew better than to say anything other than, "I don't disagree, but that still doesn't mean dragons should be imprisoned for the sake of security—"
"Bah!" Bogrod said dismissively, turning to walk away then as if he wasn't in the mood to listen to this. "Wizards always think they know best!"
Bill said nothing and glanced over at Rangok, who was smiling his rather creepy smile back at him. None of it bothered Bill—Bogrod knew that he was one of the "good" ones in their opinion; as good as a wizard could be, which honestly wasn't much—but he did grow tired of having to deal with this day in and day out. Many of them seemed to find it funny.
"These curses need to be unbreakable and impenetrable," Rangok said. "Perhaps we should be looking in...darker corners for a solution?"
Bill stared at him. They had always liked to do this—threaten the use of dark magic, which they weren't allowed to employ the use of. At least, they weren't under current Ministry regulations. However, if someone else were to be in charge...
"That's not necessary," Bill said quickly. "It can be figured out. I know it can. We'll work on it."
"Then do it!" barked Rangok, turning abruptly then to follow after Bogrod. "Because my patience is thin!"
"Got it," Bill said with a nod, watching as the third, silent goblin called Arnk turned to follow. After a beat pause, and in a far more cheeky way that he probably should have said, he asked, "I take it we're done for the night?"
"Bah!" yelled Bogrod from many paces ahead. "Lazy wizards! All of you!"
"Yes, we're done," Rangok called over his shoulder. "Good night, Weasley."
Bill tried his best not to chuckle because he knew better than to let a goblin catch you laugh at them, but sometimes it was hard. If he didn't let himself laugh a bit, he'd honestly go mad. It was a delicate balancing act.
And tonight would be more of the same. He almost felt he needed something stronger than coffee to get through it.
He walked into the tearoom and immediately let himself casually scan his surroundings, only to pause a bit once his eyes settled on the familiar sight of Fleur, the girl from the day before who'd burned her hand in this very room on a hot kettle. She wasn't facing him and was sitting with some bloke—or perhaps 'sitting with' was the wrong phrase since it was more that they were sharing a table. She seemed to be in her own world, absently reading the paper; the bloke was talking up a storm. He was clearly looking to get her attention, but she didn't seem to be biting.
Bill smirked a little, wondering how often she had to deal with that. It wasn't a question that she was gorgeous—-she absolutely was. She probably had blokes tripping over themselves to chat her up on any given occasion. Even just watching this guy right here in front of him, it was sort of embarrassing to see him not realizing how disinterested she was; how out of his league she was. She wasn't even humoring him like some girls would, but good for her for not wasting anyone's time—her own included. She'd probably never get anything done in her day if she had to play that game with blokes every time.
He still couldn't believe that he didn't recognize her from the Tournament straight away. That felt like an oversight, especially now that she was in front of him and very clearly was the same girl. In his defense, he'd really only got a good look at her on the day of the third task. He could remember seeing her and thinking how she was prettier than he'd previously thought, but the day had quickly gone to shit not long after. He didn't remember much else about her. It was still strange to see her here at Gringotts. If he was being honest, she seemed too posh to be here.
He walked over and picked up the coffee pot, charming it's old looking contents to vanish and setting about with his wand to charm a new pot to start brewing. He glanced back over to where she was sitting—still reading through the paper; still ignoring the bloke—and waited for the goofy little loverboy, who seemed to be finally taking the hint now as he quieted down, to halt his conversation.
"How's your hand?" Bill asked casually, attempting to give her a reason to disassociate herself if she wanted an escape. She seemed fine handling herself, but he'd learned through the years from female friends that even a lame distraction could be helpful when one really wanted to shake unwanted advances.
She looked up and over at him, and for a brief moment she seemed startled. That gave quickly away to a rather dazzling sort of smile that actually pulled an immediate grin out of him. He couldn't help it. Her smile was rather infectious.
"You," she said with a little laugh. shutting her paper.
"And you," he said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. "How are you?"
She turned her whole body in her chair then, facing him head on. "I am well." She held up her hand. "As iz my 'and. You do very good work."
"I try," he said, watching as she stood and approached the counter beside him. She let her smile linger on him for a moment before she started busying herself with the kettle in the attempt to make a cup of tea. It only further reminded him of yesterday—particularly the fall out.
It had been a mad sort of moment—certainly nothing like normal for this usually dull tearoom—but it had been rather satisfying to watch Fleur tell off Clea Barringer, who was always so far stuck up her own arse when it came to her beliefs that no one usually questioned her. Bill had learned to mostly ignore her when she ranted, but Fleur apparently wasn't having any of that. Between standing up for herself and hearing her unabashedly defend Harry, she'd certainly earned his respect. She'd piqued his interest.
"Did you just arrive to work?" she asked in a breezy way, clearly looking to make conversation.
"I did," he said, subtly letting himself check her out while she was busy reaching for a box of tea on a high shelf. She had her hair pulled back today and an outfit that, while professional, was also perfectly form-fitting as if it had been tailor made for her. For all he knew, it probably was. She seemed like the kind of girl who took the time to do that; she definitely knew how to pull herself together.
"I 'ear ze curse breakers work well into ze night."
"We do," he added absently, reaching up to scratch his nose before relaxing his stance. "During the summer we work what some may call 'vampire hours.'"
She laughed a little. "'Ow does zat work for you?"
"You get used to it," he lied, which wasn't true, but he wasn't about to get into it here at the moment. He instead joked, "Who needs fresh air and daylight anyway?"
"Everyone, I would zink," she said with a sly little smirk. She was giving him an appraising sort of look before she asked. "Do you 'ave to spend your entire evening down underground?"
He nodded lazily. "Yeah. I mean, I get a break for dinner and I come up. Sometimes I'll grab some food out in Diagon Alley, but most days I just go to the office or come here—" He gestured around the tearoom, "But those last two aren't really much different from being underground."
Her face turned curious, as if she wasn't following.
"Because the offices feel as tomblike as the vaults," he clarified. "At least they do to me. Compared to what I'm used to, all of this—" He gestured around the room again, "feels a bit restrictive."
She was still smiling as she held her tea mug. "I can imagine. Zis would be a change from what you are familiar wiz." She turned away to busy herself with her tea. "It was Egypt, correct?"
He nodded as he absently watched her, though her comment suddenly registered with him. She'd made a similar one the day before when she'd known he was a curse breaker before he'd mentioned it.
"It was," he said slowly. "How did you know?"
She shrugged, not looking bothered much by the question. "People talk."
He laughed a little. "About me?"
"Seems zat way," she said, looking back over at him. "Ozerwise 'ow would I know?" She smiled. "You must be interesting if people feel ze need to talk about you."
"Uh." He blinked a bit, not quite knowing how to answer that question. "Maybe at some point in my life, but these days not so much."
She pulled her long, shiny hair over one of her shoulders and absently began fiddling with the end while looking him directly in the eyes. "You seem interesting to me."
Well...that was...Alright, then. He again felt a little loss for words. He hadn't been prepared for this sort of back and forth, though he wished he had been. He immediately felt off his game—he was usually much quicker on his feet—but all he could manage to muster was a quick, but genuine smile. Where had she come from?
"More interesting zan ze ozer curse breakers for certain," she added after he never responded, pulling out her wand. "Zey...well, zey have zeir noses in ze air."
Again, straight to the point with this one, which made him laugh. It caused her to look at him and immediately add, "Did I use zat correctly? Nose in ze air? I am working to improve my Eenglish and I have only just learned zat phrase."
"I mean, if you are trying to say they think they're better than everyone…"
"Yes!" she said. "Zat iz exactly it! Zey have zere noses in ze air!" She smiled, clearly happy with herself. "I will need to remember zat one."
He grinned at her, finding her amusement rather adorable. He was certainly a sucker for a beautiful girl with a semblance of charm—-who wasn't?—but this one was really doing something for him. Add to that the fact that she hadn't been afraid to stand up for herself or Harry yesterday—and she'd hit the nail on the head with calling most of the curse breakers in this place haughty—and he definitely found himself thoroughly intrigued now.
"But," she said, turning to face him, "I did not mean you. Your nose iz where it should be."
"Well, that's a relief," he offered, turning his smile onto the ground. He physically had to tell himself to look at something else for a moment, otherwise he might have stood there staring at her like a bit of an idiot. It really was proving hard not to watch her.
She laughed to herself, tapping the kettle with her wand to make it boil. When she was done, she looked back at him and said, "'Owever, your friend—ze girl wiz ze attitude…" She pulled a face and clearly had no intention of finishing that sentence.
He knew she meant Clea, which prompted him to say, "We're not friends. We just work together."
He suddenly realized his coffee looked to have finished brewing ages ago, but he'd only now noticed. He turned to pour himself a cup, adding, "But I am sorry you had to deal with her. She's…"
"Why do you feel it iz your job to apologize for 'er?" she asked, turning from the kettle to look at him.
He shrugged, now wondering himself why he was doing it. "Because someone should."
She waved him off as if she couldn't be bothered. "Some people are impossible—" She'd slipped into the French pronunciation at the end. "Zey are not worz apologizing for."
He could concede to that, though he didn't even think he'd stop being the person who apologized for other's misgivings. He'd been like that since he was small. Between his brothers—Charlie for ignoring rules, Percy for being a know-it-all, and Fred and George being...well, Fred and George—there had been no shortage of things he'd had to apologize for on their behalf.
"Especially," Fleur added as she again absently played with ends of her hair, "if zese people want to go around claiming zat 'Arry Potter is a liar." She stopped and looked him dead in the eyes then; her voice dropping low so that no one else could hear them. "I know he iz close wiz your family. I saw you ze day of the zird task visiting 'im."
"Did you?" he asked, feeling genuinely surprised to hear that.
She nodded and looked away, waving her wand over the kettle once more. "You and your mozer. I had been afraid 'Arry would 'ave no support or family to visit, but…" She looked back and smiled at him. "Zere you were. I zought zat was very sweet."
He cracked a smile back, finding himself rather hypnotized by her gaze. Her eyes were gorgeous. Everything about her way, but there was something about her eyes that gave him pause. They were so expressive.
Her kettle whistled then, causing them to look apart as she turned to pick it up without burning herself this time. He realized then he needed to get down to the vaults; he had so much to do. He grabbed his coffee and pulled himself away from the counter to leave, though he really didn't want to. Before he set off, he couldn't help himself from leaning in toward her ear and saying, "No injuries this time." He gestured to the kettle. "You're learning."
She smiled, but didn't look at him. He could have sworn she blushed at that.
It wasn't until a few minutes later, as he approached the lifts, that he realized he was still smiling; his mind still very much back in that tearoom.
He closed his eyes and exhaled rather slowly. Shit. That was...inconvenient. The absolute last thing he had time for right now were girls, even if they were extremely pretty and witty and charming…
But despite knowing he didn't have time, it certainly didn't stop him from going back for more now that he realized she often took her break right as he was generally getting in.
Thus began their back and forth. Nearly everyday after he'd arrived at work, he found her sitting in the tearoom with a smile and the same playful greeting of kissing him on both cheeks and saying, "Bonjour Bill!" At first it felt like a coincidence they kept ending up here, but he quickly figured out that she seemed to be waiting for him as much as he found himself heading straight to the tearoom to find her.
He could acknowledge it was a work crush. Nothing more. He'd had a couple of those before. He could name off a few girls in Egypt who'd had this effect on him—one was another curse break, one was a girl who acted as a pyramid guide during a particular excavation, one worked in a nearby shop he frequented during a different excavation. They were all cute and funny and made the work day more bearable for various reasons; they were different from the women he'd meet through friends, or taken home from bars and clubs.
Every one of them was almost a mini-relationship in itself with the amount of time they spent shamelessly flirting for fun. That was actually part of the appeal. It was an ego boost for everyone; nothing more.
That was how he was approaching things with Fleur. She was fifteen minutes of smiling and laughing with a beautiful girl, and he enjoyed every bloody minute of it before he returned to real life. The life where goblins, and the Order, and curses ruled his every free minute.
They would chat about everything and anything, from the flavors or tea they stocked in the tearoom, to goblin habits, to books they liked, places they'd been, music they listened to, to a playful argument about why each of them felt their school was better. Fleur claimed the upper hand here since she'd actually experienced both; whereas he just blindly defended Hogwarts no matter what she came at him with, just to wind her up.
He only did it because she would get frustrated in this truly adorable sort of way, causing her to double down and re-explain to him about the splendor that was apparently Beauxbatons. She clearly meant business and was determined to convince him; he actually found her conviction attractive. So many people usually gave up and let him win when he played this game with them, but not her. She didn't like to give up.
He could tell that she felt similarly about him. He wasn't an idiot in sensing when a girl was flirting with him—he'd been experiencing it fairly regularly since he was twelve—and he picked it up with her early on. She wasn't exactly shy—the way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way she'd started innocently touching him—she was doing that much more often now. They were all dead giveaways.
It was always a thrill to be on the receiving end of smiles and gestures from a girl he'd love to get to know better. Even if she was younger than the girls he was used to, it wasn't as if she was that young...at least he kept telling himself that.
Sure, eighteen year-old girls weren't something he'd dealt with much since he was younger, but it wasn't as if she wouldn't be nineteen soon. She'd made a point of letting him know that after being ambushed by a still techy Clea one day in the tearoom. Clea had unfortunately decided to pop in for tea with him on a day before the pair needed to head into the vaults. Her presence immediately had felt like a rain cloud over the entire tearoom.
"How old are you again?" Clea had asked Fleur, evidently needing to be a pest.
Bill threw her a look to tell her she could knock that shit right off, knowing this had nothing to do with Fleur and everything to do with feeling the need to remind him that Fleur was young. Clea, however, ignored him and pressed right on.
"You're still a teenager, right?"
Fleur glanced at her as if she'd just bothered to notice she was there; she hadn't seemed the least bit fazed by the question. "Eighteen. But…" At this she looked back at him and smiled. "I will be nineteen in autumn."
"Oh yeah?" Bill asked, attempting to quickly change the subject and steer Clea away from this conversation. "I'm in autumn, too. At the end of November."
"I am at ze end of October," she said with a smile. "Ze twenty-ninz. I'll be nineteen on ze twenty-ninz."
"I'm the twenty-ninth, too," he said, noting the similarity. "Different month, same day."
"Oh, how cute," Clea muttered in a tone that said the opposite. She was smirking at him. "And how old are you turning on the twenty-ninth, Weasley? Twenty...five, is it? Six?"
He inhaled slowly, hoping to somehow make her disappear if he thought long and hard enough on a spell. "Five."
"Right. You'll be twenty-five." She continued to smirk, shaking her head before grabbing her drink and turning to exit. "Eighteen-years-old…"
"By zen I would obviously be nineteen," Fleur reiterated to no one in particular. "We established my birzday iz in October, which comes before November..."
Clea had left without another comment, and while Bill had wanted to tell her to fuck right off and mind her own business, he also hadn't wanted to make a bigger deal of things than necessary. He and Fleur literally just talked and flirted a bit on their break; there wasn't even anything to defend no matter how much Clea wanted to make it seem like there was. And even if something were to happen, there still wasn't anything to defend. She was an adult. He was an adult. There was a small age gap, so what?
Again, that's what he told himself.
It was harmless flirting. It was innocent fun. He enjoyed talking to her. Their conversations were always engaging—not just empty flirting and boring chit-chat that often went nowhere. It was actually nice, seeing as everything else in his life was so bloody stressful. Talking to her reminded him of a much different, far less anxious time.
But he knew it couldn't go any further. His insane schedule aside, he had far too much going on in his life right now that he couldn't begin to explain to her if they did get closer. His role in the Order had him leading a double life; he was swimming in secrets and late nights where he couldn't reveal where he was or what he was doing. That didn't exactly make for the best environment for breeding new friendships or relationships.
That meant that their unofficial tearoom dates were where things had to start and end.
Or so he thought.
"Bonsuir Bill!" came a voice he had not been expecting as he sat eating lukewarm beef stew at the bar at the Leaky Cauldron one evening. He'd been on his dinner break after an already long afternoon where he and Clea had been arguing over counter jinxes. It was why he'd separated himself and come to the Leaky tonight instead of sitting around the offices with the others. He had just needed to get out.
He knew exactly who it was before he turned to look, and he immediately reached for a napkin to preemptively wipe his face. Sure enough, standing just beside his stool was Fleur—in all her gorgeous, put together, practically glowing, currently-smiling-at-him glory.
Bloody hell, she looked good.
"Hi," he said, hastily swallowing and returning her smile. "Look at you. You're a sight for sore eyes."
She continued to smile as if that was the sort of compliment she got regularly and was a pro at receiving. She probably was. ""As it been a long afternoon at ze bank?"
"Always," he said, brushing that question since he didn't want to seem like he was complaining. "But what brings you here? You on your own?"
She shook her head and pointed across the room, where he noticed a small group of young women looking in their direction. Most of them looked away when he noticed, though one smiled.
"You're with some friends," he said, turning back to look at her.
She pulled a little face, as if she wasn't sure she agreed with that assessment. "Zey are some of ze people I work wiz. I come along for somezing to do." She shrugged. "I 'ave not made many friends of my own since moving 'ere. Everyone is very different from what I know."
He grinned. "And here I thought we were friends."
"We are. Or we can be." She smiled and let her hand rest on the empty seat beside him. "We can be anyzing you want."
He laughed a little to himself. This one didn't beat around the bush. He was suddenly regretting the fact that he had to be back to work in a few minutes because he was starting to wonder where he could take this with a bit more time to sit around with her.
But he didn't have a few extra minutes. He never had a few extra minutes.
"Can I sit?" she asked, gesturing to the stool beside him with the drink in her hand.
"Yeah, of course," he said, helping pull it backwards for her to sit. "Your friends aren't going to miss you over here?"
She shrugged as if to say they'd be fine and sat herself down to face him. With a sweet smile she asked, "'Ow often do you come 'ere?"
"Uh, probably twice a week," he said, deciding then he was done with his stew. He really didn't need to get those last few bites. "Sometimes more."
Her eyebrow rose a bit. "So, you eat zat," she gestured to his stew, which from where she was sitting did not look particularly appetizing, "many times a week?"
"I switch it up," he said, pushing the bowl away from him. "Not always the same thing. And it's honestly not half bad."
She hummed in a doubtful way and said, "I will take you at your word," with the aura of a posh and well-bred girl. He could tell by looking at her that this was not her usual scene; she was probably even slumming it. But she didn't seem bothered much by it. Clearly she had some boundaries about the food, but she was drinking so she wasn't completely put off by it.
He watched her for a moment, realizing that he didn't understand this one. She was beautiful. She was well-to-do. She was witty. She was clearly clever and talented—her selection in the Triwizard Tournament only cemented that. He had to assume she finished school at the top of her class, much like he had. If her experience was anything like his, that meant she probably had loads of options and opportunities after leaving school—people knocking down her door to persuade her to join with their organization.
What the hell was she doing file clerking at Gringotts? It was a decent entry level position for your average kid fresh out of school, but—and unless he had her all wrong—she seemed a bit too above it. File clerking by day; hanging out in the Leaky by night. It just seemed like a far drop off from what he pictured her life in France to be like.
"Can I ask you something?" he asked.
She smiled brightly and nodded. "Yes."
"What are you doing here?"
Her expression grew confused. She was staring at him as if they'd already been through this. "I told you I was 'aving a drink wiz people from work—"
"No. I know why you're here. I meant why here? Why Gringotts? Why England?"
"Oh," she said, reaching up and running a hand through her hair as she seemed to think on that. "I grew fond of it while I was at 'Ogwarts..." She trailed off into a rather blunt silence. He had to wonder if he was the first person to really ask her that question before. "I...wanted to see more. If I were to take a gap year, why not 'ere?"
He shrugged as if to say that was a fair enough answer. "I guess it's just surprising, seeing as if I'd gone through what you had at Hogwarts, I'd probably have taken off in the other direction and never looked back."
Now it was her turn to shrug. She looked him dead in the eye and said, "Zat iz where you and I differ. I face challenges 'ead on. It iz ze only way to 'andle zem."
He let her comment simmer for a moment. It was a bit presumptuous to assume he avoided challenges just because he would take time to properly deal with a traumatic life event, but he wasn't about to question how she chose to process her experiences. He instead simply asked, "And what challenge are you trying to face, exactly?"
She didn't look at him then, though her face grew a bit stony as it stared at the bartop. It was very different from the bubbly, flirty girl he'd been speaking to minutes earlier. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter, "I am not sure yet. But I know it iz 'ere for me to find."
He wasn't sure exactly what he should do with that comment, but he found the conviction in her words respectable. She clearly had some things going on in her life, and he—like everything else about her—found himself intrigued. She had some definite depth behind those pretty eyes.
She suddenly perked up a bit and turned back to smile at him. If he had to guess, she was ready to change the subject. "I also moved 'ere because I am looking to improve my Eenglish. I felt coming 'ere and getting a job would 'elp."
"Well, it's certainly working," he said, returning her smile. "Your English is great. I've never not understood you."
"Yes, but I do not always understand you." She gestured around the room. "Or ze others. Some of you talk very fast. And ze slang iz not always easy to follow. For example, what does it mean to 'take ze piss'?" Her face scrunched up in a rather adorable sort of way. "What iz ze piss and why do people want to take it so badly? It sounds awful."
He laughed—genuinely. "It's just a way people joke. It's mocking for the sake of being funny. You take the piss on your mates to get them wound up, you know? Just to have a laugh."
She stared at him. She actually looked more confused than she had been before.
"I probably made that worse, didn't I?" he asked. When she smiled and nodded, he explained it again without throwing in the extra slang to confuse her further. At the end, he was sure she had picked it up. She seemed like a quick learner.
"I will be sure to come to you if I have any more questions," she teased. "You are always so 'elpful."
"I try," he offered, standing then once he noticed the time. His break was over and he was due back at the bank; he needed to get a move on if he wanted to be on time and not find the wrath of goblin supervisors. "But I unfortunately need to get back to work."
She frowned, clearly disappointed to hear that.
"But this was great," he added, and he meant it. It was probably the most social he'd been with anyone outside of the Order, his family, or the pocket of curse breakers and goblins he worked with in ages. For a few brief moments, he'd almost felt as if he were properly out. There were even shades of a date energy in there, and he hadn't had one of those in months.
"You need to turn up here more often when I'm on my dinner breaks," he added. "It sadly is my only real source of free time lately."
"What do you do ozer zan work zat keeps you so busy?" she asked, also standing.
He couldn't answer that. Working with a secret, underground organization to help stop Voldemort from gaining strength and followers; assisting in tracking movements and gathering valuable information wasn't exactly information he could simply offer up to anyone.
"I keep busy," he offered, throwing her one last quick smile. "Let me know if you ever plan on being around here around dinner time again. Maybe we can plan to run into each other."
"Run into?" she asked curiously, and he realized she was taking him literally.
"Maybe I'll see you again if you're here," he corrected. It caused her face to brighten in a way that made something in his chest flip. That was a look. He already knew he'd be riding the high of that look to get through the next few hours in the vaults.
"We will have to work somezing out," she said, leaning in then to kiss him goodbye on both cheeks. "'I would like zat. 'Ave a good evening."
"You too…" he said, smirking as she turned away then, her blonde hair swishing behind her in her wake. His head felt a little funny then, as if he'd just had some sort of inexplicable headrush overcome him.
He blinked. Either he was getting ever closer to having a stroke, or she really was starting to have an incredibly powerful effect on him.