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When his brother brought this girl home from school for the first time Charlie was interested. Not in a romantic way, it was pure curiosity. She was everything he wasn’t. Bookish, constantly talking and willing to follow every rule. Charlie watched her from afar, studied her as if she was one of the magical creatures he loved so much and he had to categorize her. She was polite but didn’t pay him much attention.
Charlie went back to the reservat and mostly forgot about her, until he saw her again at the Triwizard Tournament. He was busy with work and didn’t spend a lot of time around his brother and his friends and yet he noticed that something was different. There was this energy coming from her that hadn’t been there before. It was loud but not in a bad way, strong, determined and it felt like she was yearning for understandment. It was an energy Charlie recognized and it left him intrigued.
She didn’t completely leave his mind as he went back to Romania this time. He struggled to piece the two glimpses, he got into who Hermione Granger was, together and failed. From the first day they met Charlie was convinced she was nothing like him, but maybe they had more in common after all.
When he saw her next at Bill’s wedding he had to look twice to make sure it was really her. She wasn’t the girl Ron brought home from school anymore. She’d grown up to be the most beautiful woman Charlie had ever seen. That they were in the midst of chaos, a war didn’t matter and Charlie realised he’d most likely had known that Hermione Granger was something special from the moment he heard her talk about house elf rights and felt that familiar energy emitting from her whole person.
These new, almost magnetic feelings drowned in the heaviness of the following months, but they were never truly lost. Charlie remembered the way Hermione made him feel the first time he saw her again, after they made it out of this mess, but it was dulled, stained by past events. He could see how the flame of her fire flickered, as they stood together in a half circle at Fred’s burial. Want to comfort her, to help her find her passion again and ignite the spark that was struggling within her once more was overcast by his own need to heal and Ron’s hand on her shoulder. Charlie flet to Romania again.
His entire world was turned upside down as one day a letter from the ministry arrived, announcing Hermione Granger would land by portkey tomorrow, with a mission from the Department of Magical Creatures. She would be staying for three weeks. Charlie suddenly felt as if he was sixteen again.
They were awkward around each other at first. After all they hadn’t spoken much in the past and as far as Charlie was concerned she was his little brother’s girl. Although there wasn’t a ring on her finger and the way Charlie knew Ron he would have absolutely proposed by now.
They fell into some kind of routine. Hermione worked on her mission, Charlie did his usual job and in the evenings they met at his place, had dinner together before exhaustion took over. Hermione had nightmares, regularly, Charlie could hear her at night and one day he just couldn’t take it anymore. He went to the small separate area of his cabin where Hermione was sleeping, picked her up and tucked her in next to him. She was confused when she woke the next morning, but she also looked more rested than she had since she arrived at the reservat.
It became a thing, sleeping next to each other and after a while talking became a thing as well. She wasn’t exactly sure if she really wanted to work at the ministry, She’d chosen Magical Creatures because she wanted to change something. No, she and Ron weren’t engaged, they split up, decided they worked better as friends. From that moment things became difficult for Charlie, because now his desire wasn’t off limits anymore. He just wasn’t entirely sure what the witch in question thought about all of this.
Today Charlie sat next to the summit cross of one of the many mountains surrounding the reservat, replaying the events of the past months. His breath was shallow and his shirt clung to his torso, damp with sweat. The sun didn’t hold it’s midday heat yet, but you could already feel that it was going to be a hot day.
Knees drawn to his chest, his forearms resting atop, Charlie let his gaze wander. Romania's entire beauty stretched in front of him. High mountains to his left and right, the deep green valley that was the home of his little cabin and his whole heart, dotted with bright, colorful flowers. Lines of blue rivers streaked the scenery and and in the far a lake could be seen as a huge turquoise patch.
Sometimes coming up here was the only way Charlie had to remind himself that everything was real. He’d always been someone to act, theorizing didn’t bring him much joy. Thoughts were fleeting but actions brought results. The physical effort of climbing a mountain without magic calmed him in a way and the possibility to have the kind of overview you had from the top reminded him that what he had was true. That he was really living the life he’d dreamed of for a long time.
With one last deep breath Charlie got up to make his way back to his wife.