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The instant Harry Potter kissed Charlie on the floor of Grimmauld Place, he knew he was, more or less, done for.
Not just because of the other wizard’s green eyes, or the curl of his hair, or that sharp, distinct look in his eye that might’ve been longing. Might’ve been loneliness.
No, it was the resounding shittiness of the fact that he didn’t even know if Harry even liked him much when he wasn’t absolutely sloshed. Charlie showed up to his birthday party on a whim, having shared maybe ten conversations with the bloke throughout their time knowing each other. But also dozens of quiet moments, in the back garden of his mum's house or the front steps of Bill and Fleur's, having both escaped from whatever festivities the night held for their own individual reasons. For Charlie, it was that he had a limited social battery, sure, but also that Harry Potter made him... curious. When he wasn't having a laugh with Charlie's brothers, he was sort of quiet and somber. Shy, almost. Sure, the bloke's face was splashed across every magazine in Wizarding London. But Charlie A) only used those for kindling when he did stumble across one and B) lived in Romania.
Well, he had lived in Romania. Previously.
You see, Charlie arrived at Harry’s twenty-third birthday party, carried on a cloud of apprehension, loneliness, and a deep realisation that he missed his family like a physical ache. It all hit him like tsunami the moment he landed on English soil. When he beelined straight from his portkey to a hip new pub in Diagon Alley, already knowing that was where they’d all be, the thoughts of what if were circling in his head, wild and all-consuming.
What if Romania was more seven years ago than it was right now? What if he saw his family more often than on Holidays? What if?
And then he’d stumbled right into Harry Potter’s whirlpool. He was still spinning around in it at this very moment, in fact.
Weeks later, he sat in his pretty little London flat, reading and rereading a scornful letter he’d received from his direct supervisor on the Dragon reserve with a sigh. Charlie had officially quit weeks ago, having sat down and written the words on a piece of parchment, hunched and cowardly at his mother’s kitchen table. The letter he held now had followed soon after and it was simply his supervisor, not so subtly, telling him that he needed to pack up his quarters as soon as possible. He’d done just that, having taken the next possible portkey out. Charlie put his face in his hand. Sometimes, it was hard to know if choices were actually the right thing to do—you know, moral and of objectively sound judgement—or just what you wanted to do, an impulse, a whim, destined to send you spinning out eventually.
He heard a knock on his door before he could stew on this matter for much longer.
He sighed, shoving the letter away, and got up to go get it. On the other side, Harry Potter stood, looking wind swept and dashing and maybe a little damp from the rain, but no less vibrant than usual.
“Oh! Hello,” Charlie said. He opened the door wider without a second thought, a warmth settling through his whole chest.
“Hi,” Harry said, smiling brightly. “How are you?”
“I, I’m…” Charlie glanced back at his dining table, where the letter still sat innocently.
“Is this a bad time?” Harry asked softly, as charismatic as usual.
Charlie melted.
“No. No, of course not. Come in. Thank you for coming. Er, is there any particular reason for the visit?”
Harry settled in his flat like it was home to him. He had this ease to him that Charlie found endlessly fascinating. Charlie didn’t dare to think that it was because Harry trusted him (although often he hoped that was the case).
“Sorry, I was going to owl or send you a Patronus, but last night you said this was around the time you wouldn’t be busy and well...” Harry trailed, fiddling with the end of his sleeve.
They’d been seeing each other… a lot. Whether it was Harry snuggling into Charlie's bed at night or Charlie packing a change of clothes and hightailing it to Grimmauld Place, it was a bit hard to stay away from each other. Last night, Charlie had run into Ron, his little brother answering the door to Harry's house like it was his own. And even though Charlie had gone over with the intention of getting Harry alone, they'd all hung out together. Even if it meant that Charlie went home at the end of the night to perform some kind of guise that he wasn't practically living at Harry's at the moment.
It was all rather nice, when Charlie didn’t think about how it factored into his deciding to stick around for a while. Then, a slimy ball of terror would just form in his throat, making it hard for him to swallow.
“Well, thank Godrick you've shown up when you did,” Charlie said, “I was probably only a moment away from eating my own hand.”
Harry didn't necessarily need to know that it was because he'd been agonising over his past, present, and future. For Charlie, these things often went unacknowledged for as long as they possibly could, the conflict swirling through his head until he could tamper it down, convince himself that he was being silly, and the like.
“Glad to be of service, then,” Harry was saying, leaning towards him with a smile.
And just like that first time in the hallway of Grimmauld Place, Charlie couldn’t quite believe his luck for a second. Just a split second, where the idea of Harry Potter trying to kiss him threw him for a loop. Like one of his siblings would pop out at any minute with a Charlie Is An Idiot sign. Tell him to stop simpering, that it wasn't real, snap out of it—
But then Harry Potter was kissing him, lips soft and breath warm and skin smelling like the beginning of autumn. And Harry had this way about him like the entire universe existed in his orbit. Who was Charlie, really, to resist barreling toward him at the speed of light?