The Burrow was never quiet for long— but sometimes, just sometimes, it slowed down enough to feel like the whole house exhaled.

It was a golden late afternoon, the kind that made the kitchen windows glow and the wood of the floorboards feel warm under your bare feet. Most of the Weasleys were outside, chasing gnomes or tossing a Quaffle around the orchard. Even Ron and Ginny had disappeared somewhere, dragging Hermione and Harry with them. Laughter echoed in the distance, voices rising and falling like birdsong.

But you?

You were curled up on the couch, a knitted blanket tangled around your legs, face pressed into the edge of a pillow that smelled faintly like cinnamon and old parchment.

The cramps weren’t terrible—but they were enough to make you want to do absolutely nothing. You’d planned to go outside. Really, you had. But the second you sat down in the living room… you just didn’t move. Couldn’t. You closed your eyes instead and let the distant hum of Weasley chaos melt into background noise.

At least until you heard the front door creak open.

You blinked one eye open.

Boots. A soft thud on the floor. And then—him.

Bill Weasley.

You’d heard the name a million times. Ron and Ginny talked about their older brothers constantly, and Charlie and Bill were the most legendary of them all—cool, distant, grown-up lives in faraway places. You’d never met either. Until a few days ago, when Bill walked through the door with sun-warmed skin, dragonhide boots, and the kind of face that made your stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with your cramps.

You hadn’t spoken to him much. Just polite hellos. Awkward glances. You were fourteen. He was—what? Twenty-four? Working with goblins, charming as hell, with his long red hair tied back in a leather strap and a scar across his cheek like a story waiting to be told.

He was the kind of handsome that made you forget how to breathe.

And now he was standing in the doorway, frowning just slightly as he looked at you.

“You alright there, love?” he asked.

The love made something shiver down your spine.

He tilted his head, then crossed the room in those big, slow steps like he wasn’t in any hurry. He dropped down into the armchair across from you and studied you with a quiet kind of gentleness that surprised you.