Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition:
Position: Beater 1 for the Holyhead Harpies
Prompts:
Write about the ship S.S. Pyro Studies (Charlie Weasley/Hermione Granger)
9. (dialogue) "You're crazy!" / "Were you ever under the impression that I was normal?"
13. (setting) Prefect's Bathroom
14. (dialogue) "This isn't safe… or legal for that matter."
15. (word) scarf

Word Count: 1,931

Thanks to Lizzie and Ever for beta'ing!

Spirals of lilac steam swirled from the water, filling Hermione's nose with scents of lavender and honeysuckle. She sighed in contentment as she immersed her aching muscles in the hot water, the pain seemingly dissolving into her concoction of balms and oils.

Having been a prefect since her fifth year, Hermione had long since mastered the art of running the perfect bath. In the beginning, she had run as many taps as she could turn on before the marble tub had filled, and the room had been awash with rainbows of bubbles and oceans of essential oils. It had taken her six months to discover and refine the combination she had today, the one which would begin to run as soon as she spoke her password to the heavy oak door. It was as if the bathroom knew what she liked, and knew it was never going to change.

Hermione tilted her head back, letting her wild curls float on the surface. Taking a deep breath, she submerged her head, revelling in the absolute quiet beneath the water. Since coming back for her eighth year, these were the only moments of quiet that she got. Everything else was meetings, screaming first years, whispers from behind bookshelves and the never-ending wails of the friends who were long dead, which filled her mind whether she was awake or asleep.

Sometimes she was jealous of Harry's decision not to come back to school. He got to escape to his flat at the end of a long day of work, but going home wasn't an option for Hermione. Neither was the Burrow, now that she and Ron had decided they weren't suited for each other. No, she was trapped here. Trapped: there was a word she'd never expected to apply to Hogwarts.

It was so silent that she didn't hear the click of the door, or the footsteps on the hard, tiled floor. The first Hermione was aware of her company was the gurgle beneath her as the plug opened and the water began to drain out. Her heart began to pound. Images of Snatchers and Death Eaters raced through her mind as forced her head above the water, right hand already stretched toward the lip of the tub where she knew she had placed her wand. She grabbed it on her first attempt, spinning so it pointed at the blurred shape by the doorway. "Don't move!"

The figure merely chuckled, a throaty laugh which Hermione swore was familiar. As she rubbed the water from her eyes with her left hand, it became apparent that her intruder was a very ginger, and very shirtless, Professor Charlie Weasley.

"It's specified on the perfect rota that on Thursday nights this bathroom is reserved for the use of the Head Boy and Head Girl." Hermione used most authoritative voice, but she feared her tone was undermined by her constant blinking as she tried to rid her eyes of the last of the water. She silently thanked Merlin that she'd decided to wear a bathing suit in her bath.

"Well, there's your problem. I'm not a prefect, am I?" Charlie bent down and started unlacing his mud-caked boots.

"Then you shouldn't be in the Prefect's Bathroom!" Her heart was finally slowing.

Charlie tossed one boot to the side and began working on the other. "Oh, come on, Hermione. I used to be a prefect. Doesn't that count for something?"

Hermione watched the last of her bath disappear down the drain. "How did you even get the password?"

"You might want to have a word with that Ravenclaw prefect of yours." As he spoke he began twisting taps, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It didn't take long for me to persuade her to give it up." The water began to rise again, creating a bath with a combination of scents and bubbles that Hermione had never seen but that Charlie had apparently painstakingly selected. "Although I fear I may have disrupted her patrol. If there are any hooligans running wild on the fifth floor, feel free to blame me."

She was still staring at the floor of the tub, but she felt sure by the tone of this voice that if she'd given him the satisfaction of looking at him, she would have been on the receiving end of a wink that, by the sounds of it, could make any girl give up her secrets. "So you thought you'd just come and interrupt my bath, with no consideration for the fact that I might just want to be alone?"

"In my defence, Hermione, it's not like I knew you'd be here."

She finally looked up. There was a glint in his eye that made her doubt his supposed innocence.

He met her eyes. "Besides, if you knew you were going to be alone, why are you wearing that?" He gestured to her black bikini.

"Just in case some people can't respect others' privacy." Hermione did her best to cover herself as she climbed out and wrapped her towel around herself. She was standing on the opposite side of the room to him, which fortunately put the whole of the oversized pool between them, and unfortunately meant she was just the right distance to see his entire chest in perfect detail—the faded scars, red burn marks, and the Hungarian Horntail tattoo that snaked its way across his shoulder and down a muscular arm.

Charlie laughed again, and her cheeks reddened with anger—or at least, she told herself it was anger. She refused to entertain the idea that her blush might be related to Charlie removing his dirt-stained trousers. "Very wise. I should have expected nothing less from you." He stuck a toe in the water and then turned off all of the taps, apparently satisfied with his bath. "Alas, I haven't got as much foresight as you, so if you wouldn't mind averting your eyes. . . ."

Hermione turned so fast she nearly slipped, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she willed the burning sensation in her cheeks to fade. She waited until she heard him enter the water and counted to ten before speaking.

"Can I turn around yet?"

"You could have turned around at any point, Hermione. I wouldn't have minded."

She jumped at how close his voice was, cursing herself for giving him time to swim across the water towards her. "You know what I mean."

"Yes, you can turn around."

She turned and ducked so that he couldn't see her blushing, and began to bundle up her clothes. For once she didn't care how crumpled they were, only about grabbing them as quickly as possible while still keeping hold of her towel.

"Aren't you coming in?"

Hermione, who had nearly reached the door, looked at him to find his bottom lip stuck out in a pout, and his eyes wide with disappointment. "You drained my bath." She wrinkled her nose. "Is that peppermint?"

"I didn't want to sit in your flowery bath. I do have some sort of a reputation to uphold. Besides, maybe mine is better."

She snorted loudly. "It took me three years to perfect mine. I don't think yours is better."

Charlie tilted his head to the side. "You've never tried it. Change is good for you. Besides, I know I interrupted you, and I feel bad. Let me make it up to you?"

She sighed and put her clothes down. As she submerged herself to the neck in the water, she pressed her back into the tiles of the tub's wall, putting as much distance as she could between herself and Charlie.

Not sensing her discomfort, he advanced towards her. "It is peppermint. You were right. Not many people think to use it."

"That's because it's not a relaxing scent at all. You're crazy." She considered edging away but something about his gaze made her want to step closer.

"Were you ever under the impression that I was normal?" He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. "Besides, maybe I don't want you to relax."

Hermione shivered in spite of the warm water and Charlie's body so close to hers.

"Professor Weasley, anyone could walk in on us. This isn't safe… or legal for that matter."

He grinned at her. "Breaking a school rule isn't the same as breaking the law."

"But you're a teacher—"

"I am not a teacher. I'm doing McGonagall a favour by looking after the creatures until they can find someone to take over from Hagrid." He twisted one of her wet curls around his finger. "We're not doing anything wrong."

He trailed is finger down her arms, running them along the scars left by Bellatrix. Hermione felt frozen to the spot as he traced the words etched into her arm.

"It's a much more impressive scar than any of mine." Charlie's voice was low and full of admiration. He drew away, and Hermione mourned the loss of contact.

Charlie picked up her hand and pulled it to his chest, running it over the long scar that ran parallel to his collarbone. "This one was a Welsh Green. I came too close to her baby." He dragged her hand to his upper arm. "And this one was thanks to a Chinese Fireball."

She slowly moved her hand across to his other arm, pausing at each scar.

A tiny nick by his neck.

"Fight with a dragon dealer."

A thin mark across his abs.

"A particularly nasty Peruvian Vipertooth."

An old, dark mark by his hip.

He laughed. "That was Norberta."

She smiled up at him. "What about these?" She stroked the three parallel marks down his forearm.

"That was a particularly enthusiastic Veela girl." He grinned.

Hermione felt her jaw drop, and he laughed again.

"I should go," she said after a moment. "I've got to see about that Ravenclaw prefect." She tried to elegantly push herself out of the pool, but her hand slipped and she fell down with a crash, a cut hand, and a scarlet face.

Charlie pushed himself out with ease, and she tried not to look at the rippling muscles in his arms. He wrapped a towel around his waist, and before she had fully registered what had happened, he had lifted her out of the water.

Once Hermione had regained her balance she unwrapped herself from his arms, dressing as quickly as she could. She turned back to find him in a worn out pair of jeans a faded grey t-shirt that stuck to his body where he hadn't bothered to dry himself properly.

He reached out and fingered the hem of her heavy outdoor cloak. "Going somewhere cold?"

"I'd planned to do a sweep of the dungeons before bed." Hermione cast a drying spell over her hair, trying in vain to push it flat. "It's Luna Lovegood and Rolf Scamander on patrol down there, and they're not always the most observant pair."

"In that case, I think you'll need this." Charlie bent down to the pile of clothes he'd taken off, retrieving his threadbare Gryffindor scarf from the pile. He wrapped it around her neck, tugging it gently and causing her to take a clumsy step towards him. He bent down to her ear, whispering in spite of the fact that they were alone in the room. "So you'll be here next Thursday, then?"

Without waiting for an answer he turned and swept through the doors, leaving Hermione stunned, wrapped in the scarf of Charlie Weasley, and with the scent of peppermint lingering in her mind.