AN: Sorry we've been dormant for a while. School. You know how it is…or if you don't, you can imagine...and if you can't…

It might have never happened if Bill had not slighted Fred and George's design for their joke shop after he had moved in (briefly) with the family upon his return from Egypt. Their mum and dad were in the next room, talking quietly about the where Dumbledore had decided to set up Headquarters, Ginny was upstairs reading, Ron was flipping through a Which Broomstick?, and Fred and George were leaning over the kitchen table, carefully drawing on a piece of parchment.

"What's that?" asked Bill as he came into the room and poured himself a Butterbeer.

"Our Logo for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," whispered Fred, casting a wary eye towards the door.

Bill examined it slightly more thoroughly.

"What is that supposed to be?" he demanded, pointing at something that resembled an oversized starfish.

"It's a hat," said George.

"Ahh. I see it now. You two might want to work a bit on your drawing skills before you put this on all your products. It looks like some of the finger-paintings that Ginny used to send me at school."

"Thanks, Bill," said Fred.

"Yeah. We hadn't thought of that one," grimaced George.

Oh, no. It might never have happened if Fred and George had not been grievously insulted by their eldest brother.

That night, when Bill was asleep in Percy's old room, Fred and George snuck in.

"Morning, Weasley," said the goblin Ragnok the next morning.

"Good morning, Ragnok," said Bill.

"You might want to get yourself set up over there. We have placed you in the Muggle Liaison Department."

"Yes, sir," said Bill, moving off to the designated section. He sighed. There weren't very many wizards who worked for Gringotts in London. Most of them worked abroad as curse breakers or researchers or branch inspectors. The wizards who worked at the London Branch and who were not at the very highest levels of Gringotts employees, had one of two career choices: Working in Customer's Service or working in the Muggle Liaison Department. Bill, who had very little patience when it came to stupid people, chose the second option, and was verily dreading how boring this work would be in comparison with his old one. There really was no comparison. One job involved him breaking into old tombs and dealing with carcasses that had sprouted extra heads and handling treasure that had not seen the light of day in well over two-thousand years; the other involved putting Muggle currency back into the Muggle economic system—a job that was, admittedly, much more complicated than it seemed. It was also, most unfortunately, a job that was mind numbing.

But mind numbing was better than nothing, thought Bill as he sat himself down at his new desk. It meant that he could spend as much time as he needed thinking about the Order while he was at work.

"You must be Weasley." A rather portly fellow with bushy black mutton-chops was extending a hand. "I am Conrad Bungo, your boss."

Bill stood and took Mr. Bungo's hand. "Hello, Mr. Bungo."

Bungo's eyes swept over Bill's appearance, taking in everything from his dragonhide boots to the fang dangling from his ear and, unmistakably, his long hair.

"Welcome to the Muggle Liaison Department, Weasley. If there is anything you need help with, just let me know."

The morning was uneventful. The MLD workers seemed a cheery lot. He heard a lot of laughter coming from other cubicles, but did his best to ignore it. He wanted to get a good reputation as a worker as soon as possible, so that when inevitably he would have to skip work to do something for Dumbledore, no one would worry too much about it.

"'Scuse me there, love," came a woman's voice behind him. Bill whipped around. "Where do you get your hair done? It looks lovely…" her voice fell into laughter.

Bill's hand flew to his hair. Then he transfigured a ledger on his desk into a mirror. His hair looked rather like Marie-Antoinette's. But it definitely hadn't this morning when he had left for work…

Or had it?

Only Fred and George had been awake to see him off.

Only Fred and George….

He began waving his wand desperately, trying to get his hair back to normal. Nothing was working. The witch behind him was laughing.

"Girlfriend mad at you, love?" she asked.

"No. My idiot brothers pulling a prank," he grumbled. He refused to give up. But his hair resembled an afro at the moment, and he was starting to get really hacked off. He would murder them when he got home.

"What did you do?" asked the witch.

"I made fun of their logo."

"Logo?"

"They are starting a joke shop."

"Is this one of their products?"

"I'd imagine so."

"Well, it's quite fabulous. What's the shop called?" asked a wizard who was leaning out of his cubicle, a broad grin on his face.

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," growled Bill. His hair was now straight, but standing completely on end, and given that he had rather a lot of hair…well…I'm sure you can imagine…

"That's brilliant. I'll have to check them out when they get started," he winked, and returned to work.

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?" came another female voice. "But zey were ze ones 'oo developed ze Canary Creams last year."

Bill glanced around. His eyes fell on a young woman—barely more than eighteen or nineteen—whom Bill recognized instantly. He had seen Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons Champion during the Triwizard Tournament, less than a month previously. She was just as pretty then as she was now.

He would blast Fred and George into smithereens when he got home. They would not know what hit them. He was contemplating using the spell Egyptian mummifiers used to extract the inner organs of corpses.

"Yeah," he whispered, feeling his ears turn bright red (luckily they were hidden by his voluminous hair).

"Zey were very funny," she smiled.

"They have an excellent sense of humor, Fred and George," he growled.

"Zey are your bruzzers?"

"Yes."

"Zat means zat your uzzer bruzzer 'elped to save my sister from ze lake?"

"What? Oh…yeah…I guess…that would be Ron…yeah…"

She beamed at him.

"'Ave you been working 'ere long?" she asked.

"No. First day. I've been working in Egypt for the past few years." His ears were feeling slightly less red now.

"Working for Gringotts?"

"Yeah. Curse breaker." It was hard to brag about his job with a giant, ginger globe surrounding his head, but he couldn't resist it. She was so pretty.

"'Ow long?"

"Seven-odd years."

"Was it 'ard to be away from 'ome?" He had no idea why she was still talking to him. The other witch had drifted back to work and a few of his male colleagues were sending him evil looks, as though they wished he would shut up and stop chatting up this beautiful French girl.

"Yeah…at first, anyway. It got loads better once I learned Arabic though. Helped me communicate with the locals and all that…"

"So you speak more zan just English?" she asked.

"Yeah…"

He had no idea why she had asked. But he was about to find out.

"Good evening, Bill," sang Fred.

"How was work?" grinned George.

"Blimey, what happened to your hair?" demanded Ron.

"You really should let me cut it dear. If you are going to try styling it…I mean…just look at yourself…" said Mrs. Weasley.

"Leave it be, mum. I'm fine. I expect it will just wash off," he said, looking pointedly at Fred.

"Let's hope," grinned Fred.

"You mean you aren't sure?" hissed Bill.

"No, we are. We just wanted to see what would happen when used on a test subject with more bountiful locks," grinned George. Mrs. Weasley went into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner.

"Horrifying Hair Solution," chuckled Fred. "Just dab a little in your friend's hair and it will go mad. Responds poorly to spells though…as I see you have noticed."

"You two must have jinxed my mirror so that I wouldn't notice in the morning," said Bill.

"Yep. Granted, you are pretty useless before your morning cup of coffee, so I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't noticed under your own steam," said George.

"True," smiled Bill.

Both twins looked at that smile. They weren't sure they liked it. There was something very sinister about it. Percy would have ratted them out already. Ron would have swore at them. Ginny would have used her Bat-Bogey Hex on them. Charlie would have put them in a headlock. The response they had expected from Bill a stern talking to, perhaps a well placed, subtle jinx. But not a smile. What was he smiling about?

"Well, I must say it has been a very interesting first day at work," he grinned.

"Oh?" they both looked uneasily at each other.

"Yep. I suppose I have you two to thank for it."

"Why?" asked Fred, nervously.

"Well, if you hadn't put your stuff in my hair, I would never have become Fleur Delacour's private English tutor. Cheers, mates. I'm off for a shower."

Fred and George stared after him. They had been hoping to punish him, not reward him. But then again, Bill had always been very lucky with girls…