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Charlie didn’t dare grumble as he humored his mum. Yes, it was winter, but that was no excuse to go out in a blood red knitted cape — a rather girlish one to boot — to run an errand to his great aunt’s house. Nor even to search for his missing brother, though she did at least have the excuse there that, with a blood red cape on, he’d be impossible to miss.
Of course, his bright Weasley red hair was plenty hard to miss on its own.
“Now, I know you’re worried about Bill,” Mum said, “but you should wait until Hermione gets here. She’s going to help you look for him.”
“Mum,” Charlie whined — not that he would admit he was whining, “I’m not sitting around while some girl powders her nose.”
“Charles Septimus,” his mum scolded. “Hermione is a very capable girl, not the nose-powdering sort at all, and you know perfectly well that with people disappearing left and right and apparition not working, none of you are going out alone anymore.”
Rolling his eyes, Charlie bit back several colorful replies. “How about I just run the basket of bread over to Auntie Muriel’s and back while I wait for Hermione?”
“I would really rather you—” His face must have communicated his frustration, because his mother stopped mid word and nodded. She sighed heavily before saying, “Straight to Prewett House and back. Don’t get distracted by any creatures in the woods. I know how you are.”
Ever since he had returned home from dragon wrangling, Charlie had to admit he’d been putting together a bit of a magical menagerie on the Burrow’s land. It wasn’t his fault the protective runes he had learned at the Reserve and put on the barn he built actually worked as a beacon for magical creatures. He hadn’t known when he created them.
To cover for his mistake, Charlie had told his mother that he was finding the creatures and bringing them to the barn. She had reprimanded him so many times since he moved back. He sighed at the thought. He was a grown man — in a little red cape his mind helpfully reminded him — and hardly needed to be scolded like a schoolboy.
“Here’s the bread and some cakes,” Mum told him, indicating an overflowing sideboard.
“Can I get a basket?” Charlie asked.
“Of course, dear,” she answered, indicating one and letting him fill it himself. There were fresh warm biscuits amongst the other goodies and Charlie made a mental note to have one or two when he got on the path. Auntie Muriel didn’t need all those sweets anyway.
He had almost escaped the house when his twin brothers appeared in the kitchen.
“Well, well, well,” Fred began.
“What do we have here?” asked George. Their eyes met one another’s as identical smirks appeared on their faces.
“Is our big brother going out for a stroll in the woods in his little red cape?” Fred cooed.
“Boys, leave Charlie alone,” Mum huffed. “Unless you two would like to run this basket of bread over to Auntie Muriel?”
The twins grimaced and fell over each other apologizing about how terribly busy they were. It was only after Mum had calmed down and they were waving goodbye to Charlie that one of them snickered and said, “Skip along through the woods now, dear.”
As if he would be skipping on his way to their mean old aunt’s house. Why his mum still put up with her aunt, much less made her baked goods, he had no idea. Charlie only hoped she would be in a good mood for once. She had practically snarled at him last time she visited.
Of course, it had been a rather odd visit, Charlie reflected as he walked down the lane. If there was a tiny skip in his step, there was no one to see it, so it hardly mattered. But the visit — Auntie Muriel had insisted on seeing each of the Weasleys and inspecting them, hearing their accomplishments and flaws. Charlie suspected it was part of his mother’s newest ploy to marry off all her children. It had been months since the war ended and still, only Bill was married.
If he was still alive, Charlie thought grimly. It had been weeks since anyone had seen him. Fleur was beside herself.
The whole Weasley family was shaken. In a way he had been glad for the twins to tease him — at least they were playing at being their usual selves. The family hadn’t been this distraught since those days right after the war when they weren’t sure if Fred would make it or not.
Lost in thought along the familiar path, Charlie missed the fact that he wasn’t alone until the beautiful woman was almost beside him. His eyes widened at the sight of her.
She was beautiful, but entirely too familiar. He had always enjoyed a woman who was a bit mad, but Bellatrix Lestrange was taking it too far.
“You’re supposed to be dead!” he accused as his eyes ran over her. She looked the same except covered in scratches like… Bill.
There was a chuckle from behind him and two more figures emerged — his brother— and Fenrir Greyback. Bill’s movements were smooth, but his eyes were vacant.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked, staring at his best friend with worry.
“Our pack has found some new prey,” Greyback said with a feral grin. “I was hoping for someone a bit younger, more girlish with a cape like that, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“Your pack?” Charlie repeated. Fenrir may have partially turned his brother, but Bill never would have agreed to be packmates with the creature.
“Yes,” the werewolf said, savoring the word. “I saved Bella by turning her before she was completely dead. And on the full moon, I’ll finish what I started with your dear big brother here.”
“We should add this one,” Bellatrix said, giggling and bouncing up and down on her toes like a small child. “I like the look of him.”
Fenrir snarled, first at Bellatrix, who cringed backward, and then at Charlie. Charlie did not cringe away, holding his ground even though every instinct he had was telling him to run. Working with dragons, he was used to ignoring those urges.
“Look at him,” Bellatrix purred. “He’s not even going to try to get away. He wants to be here.”
“I want my brother back,” Charlie stated clearly, eyes flicking between Fenrir and Bellatrix, ignoring Bill. He needed to focus on the threats.
Which is why Charlie didn’t see it coming when Bill charged at him. Charlie let himself be taken to the ground rather than fight back, rolling out of the way and popping back up on his feet as he had done a thousand times with dragons. Bill was still in the dirt.
Not wasting anymore time, Charlie shot an overpowered stunning spell at Greyback, dropping the wolf to the ground. Behind him, Bill began to get up, but Charlie didn’t have time to find out if he had broken the Imperio or not.
Bellatrix looked angry, but never stopped her incessant giggling. It was getting on his nerves. He raised his wand to silence her, but was interrupted by Bill’s strangled yelp. “Charlie!” he cried.
To the side, Fenrir was already shaking his head like a dog, shaking off the spell. But it was Bellatrix who had commanded the forest itself to rise up against Charlie. The trees were thrashing at him while vines snatched at his legs and arms.
Thank Merlin he had a tight grip on his wand or an errant sprout would have torn it away from him. Charlie didn’t let the plant completely distract him, however. While Bellatrix laughed, he shot her with a dragon-level stunner. She went down like a sack of rocks and did not get back up.
With her loss of consciousness, the flora let go of him, lying harmlessly by the path once more. As he turned to see about Bill, Charlie wanted to howl in frustration. Greyback had his brother again — this time with a dagger-sharp claw at his neck.
“I would enjoy tasting his blood,” Greyback snarled with excitement. “But you can save him… you can turn yourself into our alpha.”
That stopped Charlie. “I thought you were the alpha.”
Baring his teeth, Fenrir pressed his claw into Bill’s skin, letting a small rivulet of blood trail down his neck. “That’s not your business until you’re pack, boy.”
Charlie considered standing there arguing, but he didn’t want to do anything that would hurt Bill more. His brother wasn’t looking so good. Instead of opening his mouth, he shot another dragon stunner, this time aiming for Greyback’s ankle.
Just like dragons often did, he hadn’t thought to protect his feet, and Bill was still able to move his feet out of the way, making him an ineffective shield. The werewolf went down, taking Bill with him.
Quickly, Charlie moved to untangle his older brother from the wolf. Unfortunately, it seemed Bill had lost consciousness, too. Cursing under his breath, Charlie hauled him up and tossed him over his shoulder, rushing from the clearing as fast as he could. He would revive Bill when they got to Aunt Muriel’s.
********
Hermione stomped along the path into the woods. She didn’t know Charlie Weasley well, but she knew enough to know the man was infuriating. He couldn’t wait to go traipsing off into the woods, was well overdue to be back — probably playing with some creature he had found — and now she had to travel alone.
It wasn’t far, of course, but there was no telling what might be out there. The Ministry’s official position was that they had no idea what was causing all the disappearances lately, but Harry and Ron had warned her to be careful — that there was a good possibility of werewolves being involved.
In general, Hermione considered werewolves—like Remus—to be perfectly safe except for one night. She was aware, however, that Fenrir Greyback had never been found and he was an entirely different sort of werewolf. She shuddered at the very thought of him.
A twig snapped off to the side of the path and she jumped. Pulling her wand, Hermione called out, “Is someone there?” though she felt silly doing so.
Silly, that is, until something moved onto the path in front of her. Hermione gasped at the sight of a witch straight from the fairytales of her muggle childhood.
Dressed in what could only be considered black rags, the woman — or man, who could tell — had an enormous hunched back. Beneath the brim of a comically large witch’s hat, there was a face that made Hermione want to draw back in horror. Wart-covered and with a large, hooked nose that reminded her of the late Professor Snape, the witch — she was relatively certain — was staring at her with black, beady eyes.
A rasping voice said, “What are you doing alone, Hermione Granger?”
She startled when she heard her name in that grating tone. Brandishing her wand, Hermione said, “I don’t see how that’s anyone’s business but my own.”
Was this witch somehow responsible for all the disappearances?
“It is dangerous alone in these woods,” the witch replied.
“You’re alone,” Hermione pointed out.
The witch cleared her throat and her voice completely changed. The dreamy, ethereal voice that came out now was one Hermione was quite familiar with. “I am never alone, Hermione. The woods are here with me. And my companion Blimfiddlers.”
Hermione blinked as the witch before her began to contort, her horrific features melting away until the witch before her appeared as her dear friend Luna.
“Luna?” she asked incredulously, wondering if this were some sort of trick.
“Of course,” the girl agreed.
“How do I know you’re really you?” Hermione asked, looking nervously around the path. There was no one here with the two of them.
“How do any of us know we’re really ourselves?” Luna asked in return. Hermione had no idea how to respond to that, but Luna continued. “You must be careful here alone. There are those who will try to ensnare you, and you must pierce three hearts of stone today. This will take care of the first two,” she said, handing Hermione a bow and a single silver-tipped arrow that she seemed to have conjured from thin air.
“I don’t know how to shoot a bow,” was all Hermione could think to say.
“You will know when you have to,” Luna replied cryptically with a shrug.
This witch certainly acted like Luna.
“The last heart will require something different,” the blonde witch mused. From inside her black rag robes, she pulled a vial. “To return him to the living, you will need this. But without his heart, it will do no good.”
What kind of advice was that? Hermione wondered as she took the vial in a shaky hand. Of course a person needed their heart to live. “Him who?” she asked, wondering if it might be her missing partner in the hunt for Bill. Or Bill himself, come to think of it.
“You’ll know,” Luna said with a soft smile.
Before Hermione could ask anything else, a bubble suddenly surrounded Luna, and she began to float away like Glinda in the Wizard of Oz. Hermione stared open-mouthed in shock, nearly dropping the vial of potion as her friend — if it was really her — waved goodbye from inside.
Suddenly, the bubble winked out of existence and Hermione gasped again. What in Merlin’s name was that whole thing? Absentmindedly, she tucked the bow, arrow, and potion away in her little beaded bag before shaking her head to clear it.
With nothing else to do, she started off along the path again. She considered calling for Charlie, but that would probably scare away his creatures and make him irritable. The last thing she needed was to spend the rest of her bloody day with an irritable, sulky Weasley.
Then again, better any sort of Weasley than a werewolf. To her absolute horror, as she walked into a small clearing, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback appeared before her. They both looked worse for wear and angry about it, as though they had just lost a fight. Did they have Charlie? Or was he why they looked so haggard?
“What do we have here?” Bellatrix asked, looking far too delighted to see her.
“You’re dead,” Hermione stated. Were they some kind of illusion like Luna had been wearing at first?
“You think that housewife could finish me?” the crazed witch asked, laughing hysterically.
Greyback rolled his eyes. “I saved her by biting her,” he explained with a possessive smile Bellatrix’s way. “She’s pack now.”
Bellatrix sneered at him, but then smiled cruelly at Hermione. “Pack, but still very much a witch. And one that’s looking forward to finishing what I started with you. Let’s start with taking back what’s mine. Expelliarmus!”
Hermione was caught off guard and her wand went sailing to Bellatrix’s outstretched hand. The two advanced on her and Hermione had no idea what she was going to do. Backing up as the two boxed her in against a rather large tree, she suddenly remembered the bow and arrow in her bag.
Not that it would do her any good. She barely knew how to point and shoot such a thing. She certainly couldn’t aim appropriately.
“Use your magic,” an ethereal voice came to her. But she had no wand. All she could do, Hermione realized as she pulled them from the bag and prepared to shoot, trying to ignore their laughter, was wish it would find its mark. Childish, muggle, but wishing was its own kind of magic, wasn’t it?
She pulled back the arrow just as the two lined up in front of her. Hermione’s hands trembled and she felt certain she was about to be taken and tortured, but as she loosed the arrow, it not only caught Bellatrix in the heart, but went right through her to pierce Fenrir’s heart as well.
Hermione stared at the two in shock as they fell to their knees and then to the ground. “Silver,” Greyback cursed, trying — and failing — to pull the arrow from his chest before it could kill him completely. “Alpha…will…kill you.”
******
Charlie was a panting, exhausted mess when he arrived at Aunt Muriel’s. “Help!” he called out, but no one came.
He stumbled to the front door, gently lowering Bill to the ground before he pulled his wand and approached the door to Prewett House. His aunt often pretended to be a bit hard of hearing, but his instincts, honed over the years by dragon wrangling, told him something was off.
“Aunt Muriel?” he called after finding the door standing open somewhat. His feeling that something was amiss increased.
“Right in here, dear,” she called from somewhere further in the house.
“Bill’s outside,” he said as he walked into the sitting room she occupied. “He needs help.”
Aunt Muriel smiled at him and Charlie blinked. “Auntie Muriel, what big teeth you have!” he exclaimed, taking a step back. Unfortunately, he ran into someone. Jumping forward, Charlie swung around to find that a number of burly men were pouring into the room. Between two of them was Bill, his head sagging as he had clearly not regained consciousness.
Charlie darted toward his brother, but suddenly found himself being wrestled to the ground, his wand knocked uselessly out of his hand. “Aunt Muriel!” he cried. “What’s going on?”
“You, my dear great-nephew, will make a wonderful new werewolf for my pack. Bill, too, of course, since we’ll finally be able to finish Fenrir’s botched attempt,” Aunt Muriel said with a smile. “I suspect you are both alpha material, though of course less so than myself. I will turn each of you personally so that you are subordinate to me, but don’t worry, you’ll still hold positions of power within our ranks.”
Charlie struggled against four of the men he now knew to be werewolves. He hated that he couldn’t break free of them, but at least they couldn’t pin him down completely.
Aunt Muriel laughed. “Such a fighter,” she noted. “I believe the best way forward will be to hold the two of them in the tower until the full moon.”
“Bill needs medical attention,” Charlie cried, worried for his older brother.
With a sigh, Aunt Muriel indicated to one of her werewolves, “Patch him up, and just give him Dreamless Sleep. We do want him to wake eventually. This one,” she looked at Charlie speculatively, “will need a little something extra, I believe.”
“Will you use the potion you’ve developed?” asked a particularly devious looking man.
“I believe I will,” Aunt Muriel cackled. “Don’t worry, dear boy. It’s just a variation on a Draught of Living Death. You won’t feel a thing until we wake you with a werewolf’s bite. Until then, the only other way would be true love’s kiss. And we all know you’ve hardened your heart to that!”
Charlie stared at her in horror. He had no desire to be a werewolf, but true love’s kiss was bollocks. There was to be no way out of this, he realized as a potion bottle was forced to his mouth.
“Drink up, nephew, or I’ll spell it into your stomach,” Aunt Muriel said. In the end, she had to do just that. Charlie refused to participate in his own demise.
********
Hermione rushed through the woods the moment she had downed the two werewolves, her hands clinging to the bow, even as her body shook with disbelief — and perhaps the drop that comes after a surge of adrenaline.
Something told her this wasn’t the end of her need, though, so she pushed herself toward Prewett House. She didn’t dare call out for Charlie now. There was no sense in drawing the werewolves’ attention to her.
Suddenly, the castle-like old mansion appeared before her. Hermione wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but the eerie silence of the front garden wasn’t it.
She started purposefully toward the front door when she caught movement high above. Leaning out of the topmost window of the tower was an old woman she would recognize anywhere.
“Aunt Muriel!” she called up. “Is Charlie here?” She had so many other questions, but that seemed most important to begin.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Aunt Muriel snapped, peering down at her with a sharp smile.
The hair on the back of Hermione’s neck stood up. Something was wrong.
“I would like to know,” she ventured.
“If you’re searching for sleeping beauty, you’ll find he’s a little beyond your reach,” she cackled, practically howling with laughter. For some reason, the miserable old woman was flapping a little red cape out the window of the tower like it was supposed to mean something.
Before Hermione could think of what to say, the old witch waved her wand and spoke a spell Hermione had never heard before. All around, great big vines began growing out of the ground, high enough to obscure the door to the house from her vision. Thorns began to sprout from the vines and Hermione had to jump back to keep from being impaled. They were enormous.
It would be very difficult to navigate through them to get to the door, but Hermione pushed up her sleeves, determined to do so. She was only through the first few branches, her arm already scratched, when Aunt Muriel sent up a bone-chilling howl.
To Hermione’s horror, several werewolves appeared from the path she herself had taken through the woods. Between them, they were dragging a very angry looking dragon. It was a young Welsh Green, so not enormous, but that didn’t change the fact that it was old enough to breathe fire.
Proving that point, it took out a section of the brambles to her left, burning them to a crisp and catching several vines deeper in on fire. Hermione quickly scrambled back out of the vines, though that took her closer to the dragon.
Its werewolf handlers had disappeared, as had Aunt Muriel from the window, so Hermione found herself alone with him. She had a feeling it was a male based on the bright coloring of its chest and the scale patterns on its legs.
As she fell back to avoid another stream of fire, Hermione tried to focus on anything from a book she’d once read that might help her. For some reason, the most absurd detail occurred to her. Dragons in general, but particular Welsh Greens, enjoyed singing. They were highly intelligent and would listen to words that were sung to them.
Gulping in as large a breath of air as she could manage, she began to sing a wordless tune, using simple “la”s to give her notes form. Hermione had never been much of a singer. She wasn’t terribly off key, but every now and then she would hit a sour note. She couldn’t afford that right now.
Her voice rose with her terror as the dragon turned to look at her with inquisitive eyes. Curiosity was good, she reasoned. He wasn’t trying to kill her at the moment, though having his attention was terrifying.
Words. She needed to tell the dragon what was going on and beg for his help before Aunt Muriel reappeared and found something else terrible to throw at her.
“I mean you no harm. I wasn’t the one to bring you here,” she sang, hoping none of the werewolves heard her words and figured out what she was doing. “I am trying to help my friend Charlie. He’s trapped, too, just like you have been.” For her own dignity, she hoped Charlie wasn’t listening to her pitiful song, either.
The dragon cocked his head to the side, seemingly listening to her words. Hermione noticed that he perked up considerably on the name “Charlie” as though he knew exactly who that referred to. Of course, she doubted this dragon could possibly know him. But it was a rather strange coincidence that there was a dragon in this area so near Charlie’s home.
Looking around as though he hoped to find something — or someone — the dragon came closer to her. Hermione felt a sudden urge to be nearer him as well. As her hand found one of the thorns on the giant brambles beside her, she realized they were big enough that she could climb.
So she did, still singing as she went. “I must get through to the door. I must get to the tower and save that stubborn Charlie!”
As her face came up level with the dragon’s, he gave a mighty roar, mighty enough to shake the nearby tower, and the whole mansion it was attached to. For such a small dragon, Hermione could tell he was quite fierce. And she told him so, in song.
Preening, the dragon came even closer to her, stretching his neck next to her. Shocked, she put her hand out, touching his warm scales, but that didn’t seem to be what he wanted. The dragon huffed and made an odd trilling sound that seemed to repeat the last words she had sang, talking about Charlie again.
“You know Charlie?” Hermione sang.
The dragon nodded. He actually nodded at her.
“Do you want to help rescue him?” she asked as melodically as she could while gasping in excitement.
If a dragon could roll its eyes, she was sure he would. He looked entirely unimpressed as he stretched his neck to her again. Suddenly, Hermione realized what he meant as he trilled again expectantly.
“You want me to ride?” she sang, her voice trembling. She hated riding flying creatures. Flying anything, really.
The dragon nodded again, its eye glued to her. Hermione took a deep breath and slid her arms around it, settling her body against the dragon’s neck and letting herself slide down until she was nestled in the crook where neck connected to body. She continued to sing about the tower and how they needed to go to the tower — and the dragon listened.
Avoiding the tangled vines below them, Hermione and the dragon rose up to the window of the tower. The moment she could see inside, she was surprised to see not one, but two sleeping redheads inside. Charlie had somehow found Bill, too!
Hovering by the window, the dragon held its neck just right so that Hermione was able to slip in the window, singing her thanks. She landed hard on the stone floor of the medieval looking room. She had always wondered what the Prewett House towers held, but it appeared this one at least was merely filled with antique bedroom furniture, in this case several small beds — filled by Bill and Charlie’s large frames.
Hermione didn’t hesitate, racing to the two men and shaking to wake them. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. Biting her lip, she tried to think how she might get them up. They didn’t have time to dally, but she couldn’t carry them out of here.
Outside, she heard the dragon roar, and even up here she could feel the heat of his flames. She wondered where he had aimed at this time.
She didn’t have to wonder for long. There were screams below her, further down the stairs and someone shouted, “The whole bloody house is going to go up!” For a moment, she feared they were going to have company, but from the sounds of the footsteps, they were running away.
Overcome with a rage of her own — they were just going to leave the Weasley brothers here to die — Hermione stomped around the room, making as much noise as she could, but nothing would wake them.
Finally, she remembered her odd encounter with Luna earlier, and the potion she had been given. Merlin, how could she have been so foolish to forget it?
It took her only a moment to rummage through her beaded bag and produce the small vial. The problem was, she wasn’t sure it was enough to wake both brothers. Did she try to divide it between them? Or pick which one to wake? She needed them both functional immediately if they were going to escape the fire.
With a sigh and a tiny prayer to any gods who might be listening, she uncorked the bottle and tipped exactly half of it into Bill’s mouth. He immediately groaned as his eyes blinked open.
“Thank Merlin!” Hermione sang then, realizing she wasn’t talking to the dragon any longer, she blushed and said it again in a normal voice.
She didn’t take the time to say anything to Bill, not yet, not when she had to wake Charlie. Instead, she moved to the arse who had started all this by going off on his own. His half of the potion slipped through his lips and she watched his throat as he swallowed it reflexively, but he didn’t move or make a sound.
“What’s wrong with him?” Bill asked, already up and beside her, looking worriedly at his younger brother.
“I don’t know,” Hermione responded, trying not to snap at him. “Your Aunt Muriel must have given him something.”
“It was just Draught of Living Death, I believe,” Bill said.
“How do you know?”
“My mouth tasted like it when I woke. It’s gross, believe me,” Bill explained.
She did believe him. “Then why won’t Charlie wake if he had the same thing you did?”
“I don’t know,” Bill admitted.
“Because he hasn’t been kissed by his true love,” came a cackling voice at the top of the stairs. Aunt Muriel had joined the tower party.
“No one kissed Bill,” Hermione pointed out.
“But he has had true love’s kiss previously,” the old witch explained. “The idea of Charlie Weasley with a true love is laughable.”
Hermione immediately felt herself moving, fury fueling her as she stomped over to Charlie’s bedside.
“What are you doing?” Bill asked.
“Well you’re certainly not your brother’s true love, so I’m giving it a try myself,” Hermione announced.
The kiss she gave him was angry, not really filled with the kind of sweet adoration that such a kiss probably required. Hermione just didn’t know what else to do and she wasn’t going to allow him to burn up here in the tower, even if he was a prat.
To her utter shock, the man coughed and sputtered, his eyes fluttering open to stare up at her with just as much shock as she felt. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Saving you, you ungrateful arse!” she told him.
Bill chuckled behind them. “This will be the funniest love story of all.”
Hermione and Charlie both glared at him, making Bill laugh harder. There was one person watching them without laughing, though. Auntie Muriel started howling, yelling for her werewolves to come and take them away.
Unfortunately for her, the only creature’s attention that she managed to bring her way was the dragon’s. The Welsh Green looked furious as he spied her with them.
Swallowing her pride, Hermione sang, “We need to escape her!”
Blinking, Charlie’s head swung around to the window, “Davy!”
The dragon looked excited even as Hermione questioned, “You named a dragon Davy?”
Bill shook his head and pushed past them to mount Davy. Hermione went next, followed by Charlie. As they pulled away from the crumbling tower, Aunt Muriel clung to Charlie’s trouser leg, letting herself be dragged out. Unfortunately for her, they were still up quite high, with a bed of burning, thorny vines beneath them; she lost her grip and fell.
Davy rose higher and higher, then began flapping over the woods, making a beeline for the Burrow.
“How does he know where to go?” Hermione asked.
Charlie had the grace to look a bit sheepish. “Well… I might have been keeping a few more creatures in the barn than I’ve let on to Mum.”
“A dragon? You’ve been hiding a dragon from your mum?”
“Well I certainly wasn’t going to show him to her,” Charlie said.
Despite herself, Hermione started to laugh. Perhaps it was the ridiculousness of what he had said. Or just the hysteria of knowing they were all going to live after all. Or maybe the idea that she had shared true love’s kiss with someone she didn’t really know — someone she might not even like.
When she looked back up, she found Charlie staring at her, bemused. “You’re beautiful when you laugh,” he said, the words seeming to slip out without his permission.
“I’m beautiful all the time, thank you,” Hermione retorted with irritation, though she knew at the moment her hair was frizzy, she was covered in scratches and soot, and she was glaring at him now that her laughter had stopped.
“My apologies, your Highness,” Charlie quipped as Bill snickered at him.
“Accepted, I suppose,” she responded with a smile.
***********
Sitting at the family table for dinner felt surreal after what they had been through. Charlie couldn’t believe that just hours ago he had set off through the woods and so much had happened since then.
Mum had been so pleased to have them all back, healthy and in one piece, that she had even taken the dragon well. Davy was young, after all, and highly intelligent. He had agreed to move on to a Reserve when he got a bit older, as long as Charlie took him there.
She had been horrified to hear that her own miserable old aunt had been the alpha werewolf responsible for so many disappearances. To Charlie’s surprise, she seemed quite glad for the woman’s demise. Apparently, trying to turn her two eldest sons had been far more than she could forgive the old witch.
“All this talk of flying on dragons and being rescued from towers,” Fred led.
“But not one word so far about the fate of your little red cape,” George finished with a devious grin. The twins were clearly not ever going to let him live that down.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “I think it got lost somewhere while fighting werewolves.”
“Oh, don’t worry dear,” Mum said. “I’ll make you another!”
“That’s okay, Mum,” Charlie said at the same moment Hermione said, “Oh, Molly, that will be so sweet of you!”
“I could make a matching one for you, if you’d like, dear,” his mother told Hermione. Charlie felt his cheeks heating at the very idea.
He still didn’t know what to do about this ‘true love’s kiss’ business. They were incredibly fortunate it had worked, but Hermione was a stranger to him. There was only one thing to be done about that, he supposed.
“If we’re to have matching capes,” Charlie said, “we should really get to know one another better. Would you do me the honor of a walk in the orchard?”
“As long as we can visit Davy while we’re out there,” Hermione agreed with a smile, taking his offered hand.
They walked together out into the back garden and through the orchard, talking as they moved toward the barn. It was when they reached the wishing gate that Charlie stopped her.
“I think you have an unfair advantage over me,” he said seriously.
“Because I look cuter in a red cape?” she snickered.
“Well, that too,” he agreed, “but I meant that you have kissed me, but I didn’t get to kiss you. I barely even participated.”
“Your performance did leave a bit to be desired,” Hermione agreed.
He glared at her. “You are impossible," Charlie declared.
With an innocent grin, Hermione asked, “Are you trying to ask for a kiss?”
He didn’t stop glaring as he answered, “Well I was…”
“Then my answer is yes,” she confirmed.
Charlie blinked. “It is?”
“Might as well explore this true love thing,” Hermione said with a shrug. “And your abilities can only improve from being mostly dead.”
He was still glaring as he bent down, brushing his lips to hers. Charlie had a lot to prove, so he set about doing so. And if the feel of her made him want to skip merrily along a path in the woods, that was his business alone.