A Late Night Christmas Visitor by Luvscharlie
Shell Cottage was dark when Charlie Apparated in. The house was quiet in the early morning hours, and he removed the plush dragon from his rucksack and started towards the mantle and his niece's stocking.
"Well, look who managed to show up after all." Hermione flicked her wand toward the fireplace and a fire came crackling to life.
"Mother-of-fucking-Merlin! Are you tryin' to make me piss myself, Hermione?" Charlie grasped his chest and sank down in the nearest chair to still his rapidly beating heart. "What are you doing here anyway?"
She ignored his question. "How long did you think you could avoid talking to me, Charlie?"
Shifting in his chair uncomfortably, Charlie ran his hand through his hair and tried to avoid eye contact. "What do you want me to say, Hermione?"
"Well, you might tell me that you didn't avoid coming home for Christmas because I'd be there and you'd have to see me."
"I—"
"Shut it, Charlie. I'm not finished yet." She held up a threatening finger, daring him to cross her.
He sat back in his chair somewhat amused. He'd say he had forgotten how much he missed that bossy tone, but it would have been a lie. He'd remembered… oh how he had remembered… every day since she had left, he had remembered… and it scared him more than any singular thing ever had.
She continued. "You might tell me that you were far too busy to owl me, but I spent a month at the Dragon Reserve, and we both know that's not true. You spend more time sitting on your arse feeling sorry for yourself than anything else, and that hardly makes for a full day's work."
"Oi! It's not my fault I took a jinx to the leg during the war. If I had my way about it, I'd be out there on the Reserve doing what I love and not trapped behind a desk filling out reports for the Ministry to keep our funding and you bloody well know it!" His injury had been the main reason he had ended things between them. He had undergone all of the treatments to heal the shattered kneecap and reverse the jinx, but nothing the Healers had tried had been successful. She deserved better than a crippled former Dragon Keeper.
Grasping the arms of his chair and leaning in ominously, Hermione's nose only inches from his, she spit the words, "I think I said shut it, Weasley."
He remembered this part of her too. The annoying, bushy-haired girl who could rile him faster than anyone and make him long to shake her… or shag her.
Again, she continued. "You might even try telling me that same tired tale of how I deserve better; that it's you not me; that we would never work out." Her voice cracked and he was rising from his chair to comfort her before he realised it. She could bring out the best in him as quickly as she brought out the worst.
"You know it's true, Hermione."
She whirled on him. "I'll tell you what I know. We might not work together, but we certainly do not work apart. You are an infuriating man, Charlie Weasley. You make me want to strangle you as often as I want to snog you. You're a hot-headed, egotistical, pigheaded git who—"
"Careful there. I feel my head beginning to swell from the compliments."
"—who I can't stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try."
Charlie sighed. "How did you know I'd come here tonight, Hermione?"
"I knew you would send something for Victoire's first Christmas. When Fleur said nothing had come by owl, I assumed you meant to bring it yourself."
She nodded her head at the plush dragon he'd forgotten he was holding. She knew him far too well. He crossed the room and placed the toy in Victoire's stocking. Hermione's arms went around his waist and her face pressed into his back, and he was reminded of what he had missed since she had been gone. "Stop shutting me out, Charlie."
"You deserve someone who's whole, Hermione."
"No argument there. I deserve far better than a broken, pigheaded, egotistical, pain in the arse. But the fact remains that whole or broken, I love you, you pigheaded pain in the arse."
"You forgot egotistical," he said with a chuckle.
She moved to face him, grabbing his face between her hands and kissing him full on the mouth. "I love you, you pigheaded, egotistical pain in the arse."
"Much better. I wouldn't want you leaving out any of my best qualities," he said, kissing her back.
She was right, they certainly did not work apart, and they may well not work together, but if she was willing to give up her freedom and try to make it work, who was he to stop her? The fact of the matter was attempting to stop Hermione Granger from doing something she had set her mind to a task destined to fail before it began.
Fin.
A/N: Advent Drabble 23/31 for the prompt of Christmas Stockings