Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or the Harry Potter Universe
A/N: Forgot to say this with the first chapter but the story's title comes from the Ed Sheeran song of the same name. 'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables' is the from the musical Les Miserables and 'I Will Wait' is a Mumford and Son song. Also this is unBeta'd and so all mistakes are mine.
I Will Wait
Charlie was cranky. Rather than being able to spend time with his new boyfriend, the guy he had spent the last two years pinning for, he had spent the day looking after injured animals all day. Normally this would be some kind of heaven for him but now not only was it cutting into his time with Harry but he had to conceal from Bill, and the rest of the family, that in about 4 months he would be getting a daughter. The unicorns had given it away. The Herd hadn't let him or Hagrid anywhere near them but had been all over Fleur and her baby bump. At least his mum would be overjoyed, a granddaughter to dote on would make her world complete with all her children coming through the war more or less unharmed and Percy reconciling with the family. Fred's broken spine would barely put a dent in their business as the twins had already got to work enchanting his wheelchair to do all sorts of things it definitely wasn't originally designed for. This was on top of being asked about how best to protect Hogwarts in the future from both pranksters and more dangerous foes. They had both grumbled for about half an hour about selling out future pranksters before jumping in with their usual enthusiasm
His day had been made worse by the large amount of damage the battle had caused to the forest, he had tripped over various bits of the battle's detritus as made his way through it. Although he couldn't, in all honesty, be that disappointed that the Acromantula herd had been thinned dramatically the most of the other species were similarly affected. In particular the Unicorns as there had been no surviving foals from this year because the large amount of dark magic being performed. He could only hope that none of the students had actually slain or even hurt one so that they could avoid the terrible half-life that would be imposed for their folly. Most of his day had been spent looking after Bowtruckles, of all things, and searching unsuccessfully for any injured Thestrals. It was unclear whether none had been injured or they were just hiding from any human at the moment. After all even the younger students would probably be able to see them now and didn't that thought just break his heart. He had gone through his entire Hogwarts career being unable to see them although he had studied them both at OWL and NEWT but for this generation there would be no such innocence.
As he stomped into the Great Hall with a deep scowl as he wondered how exactly Harry had filled his day. Probably playing with Teddy he decided, reminding him they needed to have a conversation about the boy and the rest of their future before too much time passed. They had never discussed it in any detail, Charlie now understood that his boyfriend had never truly expected to survive even before he knew of the Horcrux and hadn't wanted to think of the life he would never get to live. After his epiphany he had got a little panicked that Harry wouldn't want him now that he was free of Voldemort but he had been proven very pleasurably wrong on that count when they'd spent the evening making out in an empty classroom. They hadn't spent the whole night together Harry had returned to his dorm and Charlie to his sleeping bag in the great hall as it would have been far too conspicuous to do otherwise.
"Hey Charlie, good day? Fleur got back ages ago" Bill greeted him as he sat down at the Gryffindor table. His older brother seemed to be the only member of his family about although there were plenty of other people around and disconcertingly large number staring at him. He tried to pretend he hadn't noticed the various people batting their eyelashes at him. Apparently his preferences had made the gossip rounds as he was getting far more boys looking hopeful whereas the girls tended to look downhearted.
"Yeah it was fine. She stayed to the edges with the unicorn herd but Hagrid and I went much deeper they weren't too happy about any males being around them how'd your team get on." Now that Harry was better reconstruction work had started, it was odd after all most people hadn't been guarding him but apparently hadn't wanted to begin without knowing the saviour was okay. His brother was leading a team helping with the structural damage as he had done similar work in Egypt.
"Yeah good. We think that the castle's magic may be helping us to rebuild as it was much easier than it ever was in tombs."
"That's good more chance of it actually being ready for September. Where's everyone else?"
"Fleur's napping. Dad's acting as go between the ministry and Hogwarts so he's probably in a floo somewhere. Mum and Gin are helping to return everything to the correct families. The twins are god knows where doing gods know what. Perce has gone back to the ministry, so we probably won't see him for a while, to help them charge Umbridge and others for what they did for the last year. The other three were in the library but they said they'd be taking Teddy to the kitchen for something to eat to avoid the crowds."
"Thanks for the rundown." He said getting up
"Hey where are you going? you just sat down."
"I've changed my mind, think I'm going to shower first, I'm not smelling so pretty. It shouldn't be so crowded with most people here. I'll pick something up from the kitchens later"
"Fine but you're missing out on a truly excellent stew." Bill called after him before returning to his previous conversation.
xXx
After a quick shower, he really had needed one, he headed to the kitchens hoping to catch Harry. An ex, who happened to be a Hufflepuff, had once shown him the way to get in. After tickling the pear the painting swung open to show a completely adorable picture. Sitting in front of the fire was his man rocking a sleepy looking Teddy and singing 'Hush little baby' quietly to him. He hadn't grown up with it but one of the muggleborns at the reserve sang it to her kids and he'd had a soft spot for it ever since. When Harry looked up he gave Charlie a blinding smile but continued with his song and he made his way over after signaling to one of the elves that he'd like a bowl of stew.
"Hey micuţo, haven't gotten to see you all day." He said nuzzling his nose into the side of Harry's face.
"Yeah and whose fault is that, Lee? You were the one who ran off to look after the besties when you could have been having fun with us." Harry teased lightly before continuing "We even got Madame Pince to smile at us when we went to visit Auntie Hermione in the Library. You know know all about Quidditch don't you cub your Uncle Ron trying to get you started young, between you and me he doesn't want to be the only cannons fan in the family, and we found out you're going be a prankster just like your parents, aren't you?" Harry rubbed the now sleeping child's belly. "Bursting out crying like that when we caught that couple snogging. Nearly jumped out of their skin, poor things, hearing an invisible baby crying." Charlie laughed at the picture Harry created before asking,
"An eventful day then?"
"Yeah I guess so but it wasn't all good. Had to go to Madame Pomphrey as it seems my magic hasn't completely calmed down. I tried to summon his nappy bag only it came whizzing right at me and would have knocked me out if it wasn't for Ron's keeping skills. It still gave me a nosebleed on the swing. She said I shouldn't do anymore magic until I can see a magic specialist at Mungo's just in case I make it worse in some way. I have no idea how though. I mean I wouldn't have woken up if it still needed fixing. My wand probably just got a little over excited about being used again as it's been hanging around my neck for a few months when I was using Malfoy's"
"Your wand got broken?"
"Yeah didn't I tell you?" Charlie shook his head and Harry quickly recounted his and Hermione's adventure at Godric's Hollow and how he'd got the wand he'd been using.
"Yeah maybe but please be careful for my sake at least. I know it sucks but it's not like they're going to make 'the chosen one' wait around is it? Probably chuck out whoever they were seeing just to fix you a couple of minutes quicker."
"Ugh. I hate how true that is." Charlie's food arrived just then and he thanked Kreacher, who had brought it over although he hadn't been the original elf.
"This looks great, thank you Kreacher. Bill was telling me how good it was when he was eating in the hall.
"You didn't?"
"Obviously"
"Well...you are related to Ron."
"Oy! He told me you were in the kitchen so I headed to you. We have quite a lot to discuss."
"Yeah we do. Kreacher could you take Teddy to Ron or if you can't find him Mrs Weasley and ask them to look after him until I collect him"
"Of course, Master Harry"
"Thank you." Harry handed Teddy over and the elf popped away. He had been assured that it wouldn't damage Teddy in any way. "So where'd you want to start?"
"What happens next, I guess. I've got the rest of the summer away from the reserve no problem as I haven't had a proper holiday in a while. Then I'm not sure it depends on what your plans are. If you don't plan on coming back here then we could go back to Romania. Other tamers have kids so Teddy wouldn't grow up isolated there's even something of a school for when he's old enough. If you don't want to leave the UK then I could get a job in Control at the ministry so we'd able to meet at weekends. McGonagall said that 8th years would be able to leave at weekends…" He broke off when he noticed tears falling down Harry's cheeks.
"It's been less than a week and you thought of Teddy."
"Of course I did. I mean unless you don't want me to…" He trailed off again feeling and looking very uncertain.
"You utterly silly,beautiful man. These are tears of happiness, you dolt. You thought about Teddy. I didn't even have to say anything and you'd already thought about him. Not just thought about him but planned for his schooling!"
"Well yeah. He's part of you now so he's going to be a part of me too. I want all of you but I'm prepared to wait until for it. I don't just mean sex although that too but for moving in and bonding and potentially more kids if we want. You're so young I want you to get to have every dream you ever thought of."
"I used to think what would happen after I died, you in particular, but sometimes it was everyone at the Burrow or some other occasion. My nights used to be filled with you smiling at some other guy dressed like Bill was on his wedding day. You were so gorgeous and you were smiling at some other guy, never saw his face, like you do at me. Or sometimes you'd be at a playground you'd be swinging a little girl around and around. She'd be giggling like crazy then she'd hug you call you dad and you'd hold hands on the way home. So that's I want. It's all I've ever truly wanted a happy home filled with love like you grew up with. I'm not saying I'm ready right now in fact I'm clearly not but when it's right and you ask I want you to know that I'll say yes in less than a heartbeat."
"Good to know. Takes that stress away at least. You still haven't answered my question though"
"Romania. I need to get away if I didn't have you and the cub I'd be heading off to Australia with Ron and Hermione to locate her parents. I've never been outside the UK before. Will I need to learn Romanian? How are we going to tell everyone? She's going to kill us you know? Living together without being bonded and being so far away. She probably hoped that once you'd settled down you'd come home like Bill."
Charlie chuckled. "Slow down a little, you won't need to learn Romanian as the reserve uses English as its common language. As for Mum she'll be fine after she gets a good rant in. Then she'll calm down and try and lure us to stay with her cooking and if that fails there's always 'come home fudge'"
"It is very good fudge...maybe it'll work".
"mmmhmmm. No but seriously they'll be fine with it. They just want their children, including you, to be happy. Plus with having Teddy it'll be much easier to get home as he'll get us priority treatment in the Portkey queue."
"Huh?"
"Those with priority status get bumped to the front of the queue for international travel. It's part of the reason that I'm never home for Christmas. A single man is very low down the list and then even if I were allocated one they're horrendously expensive at that time of year."
"I'd wondered about that...but I didn't want to ask."
"It's fine with me, if I'd wanted money and fame then I would have taken up one of those scout offers for a Quidditch side."
"You were really scouted?"
"Yeah but never very seriously as I decided to concentrate on NEWTs rather than carry on as captain in my last year."
"Yeah I knew that you'd quit, I used to go and look at yours and my dad's names on the list of Gryffindor Captains when I was missing you."
"Well that's adorable" he lent in for a kiss which quickly became heated and Harry was moaning into his mouth and he could he feel their erections sliding against each other with their jeans in between. "micuţo, babe, fuck, we need to stop otherwise we're going to the elves one hell of a show."
"Come on then, let's go make out in a secret passageway. I've got my cloak with me, should cover both of us if you give me a piggyback."
"Wait, I need to grab the rest of my stew."
"See totally related Ron." Harry said laughingly before jumping on his back and draping the cloak over the two of them.
