“Allez, Marie, tu peut le faire!” The Frenchwoman’s screams had echoed around Tilda’s ears for the past few hours. She was holding the pregnant woman’s hand, assisting one of their former interns in a case as a favor to them, however it had proved to be a more difficult case than she’d anticipated. Finally it ended with a healthy, screaming babe, and Tilda having been dismissed from the room, being offered a bracing cup of tea as she left the new mother and the head midwife to clean up. She poured an extra cup for her friend before draining her own, not caring if the liquid near scalded her tongue.

Once her friend needed a reprieve, it was Tilda heading in to help with cleaning up. They continued like this for an hour or so and Tilda was free to leave after her friend felt the confidence to close the case. So it was with relief and fatigue that Tilda stumbled out into the crisp Parisian air, grateful to be on her way home. And just as she was able to get her bearings and took her wand out to apparate, she stumbled from someone colliding bodily with her. “Oof!” Before she could fall though, she felt his hand around her waist and was for once grateful for such proximity; a fall at this time, in her state, would not have ended well. “Pas de probleme,” she managed to gasp out as she clung to him, trying her best not to stumble in her tiredness.

“Do forgive me, my French is not that good.” She continued in English, her brain too muddled by the past 24 hours to realize she was speaking in English and that this man could potentially not speak it.