Work Text:
December 2004
Charlie blew out a breath, the sudden gust ruffling a rebellious crimson curl that had freed itself from his smoothing charm and fallen into his face. Frustration snaked up his spine, sinking into the spaces between his vertebrae as his calloused fingers struggled to mimic the motions pictured in the not-so-helpful diagram tucked into the armoire mirror. Next to him, the pendulum clock continued issuing a series of sharp clicks in his direction, each staccato sound tightening the tendrils wrapped around his lungs. He glanced at the clock face, momentarily debilitated as he distractedly registered the time.
His Seeker hands fumbled over each other with increasing urgency as that tick, tick, tick from the swinging pendulum continued to gnaw at him. He glowered at himself through the mirror, eyes glowing like fiendfyre. A strangled sound crawled up his throat, and in one, fluid motion he tore the thin strip of black silk from his collar and slammed it on the flat of the wardrobe. Taking a staggered step backward, Charlie sank onto the bed, aged mattress coils groaning beneath him. He raked his hand roughly through his locks—further upsetting the smoothing charm—before pressing the heel of his palm into his forehead with bruising pressure. His gaze traitorously slid back toward that crumpled piece of fabric, fingers sparking as he bit back the urge to confringo the singular slip of material that shredded the edges of his frayed sanity.
Charlie could tie knots that restrained dragons, but a simple Muggle bowtie deftly evaded his grasp. He ground his teeth, shame soaking through his skin. He had insisted on this, on weaving as much of her Muggle upbringing into their otherwise Magical ceremony. But while subduing rogue dragons came as second nature to Charlie, Muggle formalwear proved an entirely different beast.
A commotion erupted outside, drawing him back to full height as his feet instinctually carried him toward the window that hung at a charmingly crooked angle on an adjacent wall. Eyes narrowed and jaw tensed, Charlie peered through the glass, expecting to catch Fred and George debuting the latest Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes product and upending the ceremony before it even started. But the scene before him was blessedly bereft of any twins-induced chaos.
Instead, the knots previously coiled in Charlie’s chest loosened as his gaze drifted over the cobblestone courtyard. It had always been his favorite part of their Lochcarron cottage and—despite his frequent complaints regarding her needling nature during the ceremony planning—his mother had transformed the admittedly cramped courtyard to a truly heavenly sight. Something so devastatingly them, an airy laugh slipped from Charlie’s lips as his indignation over that bastardly bowtie fell to the furthest recesses of his consciousness.
Enchanted fairy lights crisscrossed the courtyard, twinkling against a heavy curtain of silver clouds hanging low in the Scottish sky. Vibrant bushels of heather and thistle were magically tethered to the chairs lining the aisle. Charmed origami dragons and otters swooped and dove through the air in a flurry of sparks and bubbles, respectively. Friends and family had already begun to gather in the yard, chattering excitedly over mulled wine and hot toddies while casting warming spells to ward off the biting winter chill.
But they started to quiet as he watched them, their gazes shifting from each other to the courtyard entrance, mouths rounding into broad smiles and eyes growing wide. Charlie traced their stares with his own, wondering if his heart might burst from his chest as its thunderous beats began to threaten the integrity of his ribcage.
His Atlantic eyes washed over her; those wild, chestnut curls that he loved to wind his fingers through; those delicate, freckled shoulders that he laid kisses to every morning; those warm, bourbon eyes that intoxicated him with a single glance.
Even through the imperfections of the window’s crown glass, the image of Hermione Granger striding into their courtyard in a white gown while Charlie’s baby sister fanned the train of her dress out behind her nearly felled him as he went boneless against the cottage wall.
She was the Wizarding world’s Golden Girl, and up until this moment—this pitiful, ragged breath as he desperately clung to the few remaining ounces of oxygen in his lungs—Charlie would’ve sworn Hermione was most beautiful when swathed in scarlet; those lazy Sunday mornings when he would find her draped in nothing more than his old Quidditch jersey while she made pancakes and hummed and swayed to non-existent music.
But Merlin, if the sight of her in white didn’t bring him to his knees.
A stumbling set of footsteps fractured his reverie, the corners of Charlie’s lips contracting with the sound. He turned on the point of his heel, and his eyes locked on a matching set of quarrelsome copper curls and amber freckles.
“Willy,” he breathed, dropping to one knee as his four-year-old son sprinted the distance between them and hurtled into him with such force that he nearly knocked the remaining air from Charlie’s constricted chest. Despite Hermione’s protestations to the contrary, Charlie was convinced that William Arthur Weasley Jr. was an athlete; destined to become a Quidditch player of equal acclaim as his father.
The third youngest of the newest generations of Weasleys stepped back, cheeks flush with excitement. Charlie brushed the pad of his thumb against Willy’s cheek as he stared into his son’s emerald eyes—the same striking shade of green that belonged to a woman who had long ago become a stranger to them both.
“Uncle Percy says it’s almost time,” he trilled, reaching forward to rest his small, soft hand against Charlie’s stubbled cheek. Charlie hummed in agreement, the oxygen in his body replaced by helium as he floated to stand, hoisting Willy onto his hip. He turned, father and son both peering out the latticed window and caught in the orbit of the breathtaking woman laughing with their friends and family just outside of it.
“Doesn’t mummy look gorgeous, Willy?” Charlie asked, words clawing against the thick swell of emotion bubbling in his throat. He wasn’t even sure if he had given the sentence sound until Willy leaned forward; toddler hands flat against the globed glass as he craned his head forward.
“She’s the prettiest mummy in the whole world.”
Charlie swallowed a sob, unshed tears burning at the back of his eyes. “You know what, Wills?” he rasped as Willy turned to face him. Puzzlement painting his features, the young redhead struggled to grasp the drowning depth of this moment. “I think mummy would love to hear that.” An intrepid tear slid from the corner of Charlie’s eye, and his tender-hearted son brushed it away with his tiny fingers.
Quickly clearing himself of any concern for his father’s unusually emotive display, Willy cracked a rather crooked, toothy grin as he vigorously nodded. Charlie gently lowered him to the floor and the toddler thundered from the room without a look back.
Chest seizing, he watched as Willy burst into the courtyard moments later. Hermione’s face broke into a devastating smile that glowed with such intensity it rivaled the summer sun. Her mouth rounded over his name as she crouched, Willy barreling into her with the same unbridled enthusiasm as he did to Charlie minutes earlier, nearly toppling them. Next to her, Ginny’s face furrowed with emotion.
Hermione stood, crushing their son against her as she nuzzled their noses and peppered kisses to his laughing cheeks. Charlie rested his head against the window, tears freely spilling from his eyes as he reminded himself that Hermione Granger now cradled not just one but two of their children.
It was early; they hadn’t even told their family yet. He wiped roughly at the moisture soaking his freckled cheeks as his eyes swept over the slight swell under Hermione’s gown, so subtle he doubted anyone would notice. But it was there.
She was there.
Excitement coursing through every inch of her being, Hermione had insisted on taking a Muggle blood test that determined the sex of the child weeks before most technology or magic could do so. And while it wasn’t an exact science, she had explained, there was a greater than not chance that they were having a daughter.
Charlie had laid awake every night since, consumed by thoughts of her; praying to any gods that might be listening that she would inherit her mother’s untamable curls and her soulful eyes and, Godric, her magnificent courage.
A soft knock at the door once again shattered Charlie’s focus. He dipped his head over his shoulder, unsurprised to find Bill standing at the threshold of the bedroom. He wore a matching tuxedo, albeit with an infuriatingly perfect bowtie nestled against his collar. His long, crimson hair was pulled into a low bun, his trademark fang earring substituted for a delicate silver chain that dangled just below his earlobe.
“I know you were never much for rules, Charlie, but you really can’t be late for your own soul-bonding ceremony.”
A warmth bloomed under his skin, heart fluttering as his attention drifted back toward his center of gravity. Toward her.
In truth, Charlie thought an official soul-bonding ceremony was a superfluous exercise; his soul was hers already, as tethered to her as the moon was to the earth. He did not need a millennia-old ritual to know that there existed no galaxy in which he wouldn’t find her, love her, cherish her. But while Charlie was guided by his heart, his brilliant witch was guided by her mind. And so, every time Charlie assured her that their souls had found each other infinite times before and would do so infinite times after, the striking swot would shove some ancient text in his face stating that such a boundless connection could only be forged through an official bonding ceremony.
And if that’s what she needed to be every inch as certain as he was that his soul would find hers, no matter circumstance, lifetime, or universe, Charlie was happy to oblige.
“Charlie.”
It was a gentle, patient sound—one Bill had perfected over years of wrangling a rebellious Charlie into submission before the younger Weasley found himself on the receiving end of a Howler from their mother or detention from Professor McGonagall.
Slowly—reluctantly—Charlie forced his focus from Hermione, his sapphire eyes meeting a near-matching pair on the opposite side of the room. Bill bore a tender expression but slowly raised his right wrist, tapping his watch with his left index finger.
“We were supposed to be downstairs five minutes ago, Char.”
Charlie nodded once, offering his best man a small, lovesick smile before a peal of Willy’s laughter drew his head back over his shoulder. Expelling a resigned sigh and a muffled gods-fucking-damnit under his breath, Bill shuffled across the room until he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Charlie at the window. Next to him, Charlie could hear Bill’s breath catch as he surveyed the courtyard.
Willy popped into the air as Hermione gingerly tossed him, both throwing their heads back in laughter when she caught him under the arms. She pulled him closer, twirling as a plume of white silk billowed around them. Leaning forward as if to set him down, her motion stilled when an impassioned again! appeared to tumble from Willy’s lips. Without so much as a whisper of fatigue or frustration, Hermione tossed the toddler into the air again, curls falling loose from her braided bun with the exercise.
“I know neither of us gave much credence to Divination,” Bill murmured, voice low and soft, “but it’s like she was fated to be his mum.”
“She was,” Charlie replied, the conviction laced in his voice so severe it could break bone. Because just as there existed no universe in which Charlie and Hermione were not meant to spend eternity at each other’s sides, there existed no reality in which Hermione Granger was not the woman destined to love and raise his son as her own. As if spooled toward them by the Red Thread of Fate, Hermione had drifted into their lives at that singular moment that they needed her most; that foggy afternoon in late April over three-and-a-half-years ago.
Charlie had just moved them back to the United Kingdom upon realizing that he would, in fact, be embarking on single fatherhood. Willy was barely five months old; he woke Charlie during the quiet hours between the middle of the night and first thing in the morning with a series of desperate sobs having suddenly spiked a ferocious fever.
Clad in nothing more than the shirt and trunks he slept in, Charlie rushed him to St. Mungo’s, completely wrecked as his infant son wailed at a spine-splitting pitch, his skin scorching and every bit as crimson as his soft locks. Charlie hadn’t even noticed that Hermione was the on-call healer until she was crouched on the floor next to him, fingers fanned across either side of his face and tangling in his auburn locks. She pressed her forehead to his, noses touching, as she instructed him to breathe in for six and out for three. They repeated the exercise four times before Charlie could finally right himself.
It’s just a flu, she had calmly explained as she administered a cooling charm and bottled various potions to combat Willy’s symptoms. It will pass in a few days.
Even now, his throat bobbed at the memory of Hermione scooping a soothed Willy into her arms, whispering to him in a lilting voice that was so soft it felt like silk against Charlie’s skin.
He’s gorgeous, Charlie, she had murmured, her eyes unmoving from the cooing infant in her arms as she continued to rock him. Looks just like his dad. Stare shifting to Charlie, her honeyed gaze cradled him with a warmth that he still carried in his bones.
When she had leaned over the exam table to deposit Charlie’s son back into his arms, she wrapped a delicate hand around his. It was the briefest of embraces, a squeeze so gentle he barely felt it. But her hold on him was permanent; that fleeting touch binding Charlie’s future to hers.
Charlie fell for her instantly and unyieldingly, and to date, it was the best desire he had ever succumbed to. Six months after their frantic reunion at St. Mungo’s, Hermione applied for, and handedly received, the position of lead healer at the Scottish dragon reserve. She swept through the wintry highlands like a spring breeze—warm and effortless—as her nurturing nature soothed more than just the physical ailments she encountered.
She rose without grimace or grumblings for midnight feedings, excitedly whipped up sugary Saturday morning breakfasts, and spoiled Willy with Muggle bedtime stories and fairytales that rivaled their Magical counterparts. Ever taking after his father, Willy also wasted no time in falling under her spell. When someone else held him, he reached for her. When she left for work, he sobbed without abandon. When she tickled his ribs, he shrieked with such laughter that magic sparked through thin air.
She didn’t just turn their Lochcarron cottage into a home; she molded it into their own slice of heaven near the northernmost edge of Europe.
“She’s miraculous,” Charlie gasped, wiping at the drops clinging to his scarlet lashes as his mind reflexively recycled through three-and-a-half years of memories. Moments stretching into minutes, into hours, into days. Weeks, months, and years of lazy kisses, slow mornings, shared secrets, gentle cries, and soft affirmations, all nudging them toward this breathtaking moment on the edge of forever.
“You’re a lucky man, Charles Prewett Weasley.” Charlie turned toward his brother, releasing a gentle exhale. Bill blinked once, then twice, before shifting his cerulean stare from the window. His eyes matched Charlie’s in more than just color, watery and welling. “Heaven would be jealous merely to look fair against her.”
They cast their gazes back out into the courtyard, reverent silence stretching between them as more and more wedding guests huddled around the bride, mouths formed over congratulations and compliments. Still straddling her hip, Willy appeared to whine at having to share Hermione’s attention.
“Alright,” Bill finally sighed, warm breath fogging the chilled glass. “We really do need to get you down there now or mum will have both our necks.”
Low laughter rumbled against Charlie’s ribs. Sighing, he felt his previous malaise burrow back into his bones, posture wilting. Bill tilted his head, lifting a questioning brow as Charlie scrubbed the side of his face with his hand.
“I can’t get the bleeding bowtie on.” His stare once again slid to that seditious strip of silk, still laying in a crumpled heap on the armoire. Bill traced Charlie’s gaze with his own.
“What?”
Something between incredulity and confusion colored his brother’s features as his brows bunched. His eyes slowly tracked between the bowtie and Charlie’s resigned expression several times before he broke into a fit of bone-rattling guffaws. “Char, it’s a bowtie—not advanced Runes.”
“Which I received an Outstanding in!” Charlie snapped as Bill continued to cackle beside him. He stormed toward the wardrobe, roughly grabbing the bit of black fabric and tucking it beneath his collar. “But this sodding tie is impossible!”
Fingers twisting against each other, Charlie released an exasperated exhale as his efforts were once again met with crippling failure. He wondered if he might have better luck strangling himself with the gods-damned thing.
His hearty laughter slowly subsiding into soft, airy snickers, Bill strode toward him and swiftly swatted Charlie’s hands from his collar. “Oh, little brother,” he smirked as his lithe fingers worked at the tie. “How did you manage all of those years in Romania without me?”
Charlie rolled his eyes and opened his mouth in biting retort, but before he could give sound to the pointed words at the tip of his tongue, Bill stepped back, arms crossed and a smug grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Limbs leaden and unfamiliar, Charlie took a stumbling step forward, breathless as he surveyed the perfectly mended bowtie tucked under his collar. It was such a simple thing, really; a silken knot at the base of his throat. Even so, Charlie could feel his pulse in his throat and a whispered whooshing past his ears, mind melting as it registered the groom standing before him.
A stifled sound scratched against every muscle in his throat, vision swimming in tears as he became an amalgamation of crimson and cream in the mirror. The tips of his fingers dusted the edges of the delicate fabric. “How did you —”
Bill blew out a laugh-like breath, the small rush of air unfurling against Charlie’s cheek. He reached forward again, pulling Charlie’s hands away from his collar. “Because unlike you,” Bill mused, lips drawing further into a smile, “I’m not shaking like a First Year waiting to go before the Sorting Hat.”
“I—what?” Charlie gasped, the disbelief barely billowing from his lips before he glanced down at his hands, frantically trembling in Bill’s steady ones. Heat bloomed at the base of his neck, curling over his ears, and fanning across his cheeks as the rest of him ran cold with confusion.
“But I’m not nervous.”
Bill hummed—a noncommittal noise. Charlie quirked an eyebrow and drew his lips into a thin line, a practiced gesture informing his brother that his aggravating habit of subtly nudging others toward a conclusion that Bill had already reached was not appreciated during their current compressed timeline.
“You can be certain and still be scared.”
Before Charlie could respond in protest; assure Bill that he was not at all anxious at the idea of pledging an endless number of forevers to Hermione Granger, thank you very much—a sharp clink echoed against the crown glass. Their attention tracked to the sound, and then back to each other before a second pebble pinged the window. Forehead knitting, Charlie cautiously ambled toward the window, eyes scanning through the blown glass.
Hermione stood just below it, chestnut freckles glowing against winter-flushed cheeks as she turned a handful of pebbles over in her tender palm. Her honey eyes blazed with that familiar warmth, the simple sight of them slackening his shoulders and loosening his spine while his pulse slowed with each beat of his brimming heart.
And then she smiled, mooring him to the moment; this moment where he stood mere blinks from the rest of their infinite lives.
I love you, she mouthed as she tossed another pebble that landed with a stout cling against the window.
Hand steady, he brought his thumb to his lips and laid a kiss to it moments before pressing his thumb to the frosted glass. He blinked, low and slow, forcing himself to break eye contact as a wild smile cracked across his cheeks.
Bill was right, he thought as he turned on the point of his heel and drove toward the courtyard. Heaven would be jealous.