- CHAPTER 03-
He saw her on the battle field when he arrived there with Horace Slughorn and a long needed back up battalion, people he had recruited for the Order from Romania. She was a true Gryffindor lioness in her spirit. She threw off hexes and curses left, right and centre. She saved innumerable lives that day and after Harry had killed Voldemort, he saw her grieving innumerable losses as well. He just wanted to pick her up and hug her tight when he saw her quietly sniffling beside a young fair boy with a camera sticking out of his pocket.
Back at the Burrow, he saw her sit resolutely looking out the big window by her spot without a book in her hands for the first time. It was that absence of the book that twisted in his heart. A few days later he saw her coaxing George out of his melancholy state. George, his brother, who had lost his twin, his other half and retreated inside a shell of his own. A week flew by, the papers were still agog with news of the golden trio, but the golden girl was helping build up Hogwarts in the day and trying to get George to set up the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes by the evening. In the midst of it all, she found time to help Harry with Teddy, and Ginny with re-doing the Grimmauld Place. How she managed it all, he had no idea. She was truly a force to reckon. In all this though, he had no chance to talk to her. Her days were way too full and the little time she slept, he hadn't the heart to disturb her.
One night, he sat alone in the kitchen of his childhood home, thinking of how to proceed from there. He heard footsteps and looked up expectantly. It was Ron. Ha! How he wished it was his little brunette witch coming down for a hot chocolate! But that was not to be.
"Hey Charlie! What are you doing up so late?" questioned Ron.
"Couldn't sleep. Too many thoughts running around my head. What about you?"
"Yeah. Me too. I mean, I couldn't sleep too. Got hungry again!" he harrumphed and started rummaging around, looking for something to nibble on. "Anyway, I'm happy I caught you. We need to talk."
"Really now," Charlie was instantly aware.
"Yeah. I do hope your intentions towards my best friend are honourable. I know it wasn't a love match but she'd be devastated to be put through an annulment on top of everything else."
Careful, to neither enquire about how he knew that it would devastate Hermione, nor to let him know that annulment was not really a choice any more, he asked, putting on a casual demeanour, "what other things?"
"Oh I won't tell you that. Hermione would kill me. And trust you me, we'd rather fight Voldemort again than be on her wrong side when she's angry. She's scary, that one. But…she is one of my best friends and there's very little I won't do for her happiness. And I think you can make her happy. Oh thank Merlin! I thought I'd have to starve until breakfast…" Ron completely switched gears after finding a tub of chocolate ice cream in their ice box. He picked up two spoons and took the tub and set it on the kitchen table, handing a spoon to Charlie. Without further ado, he scooped out a spoonful of ice-cream and hummed his appreciation while eating it. "Hmm…so what was I saying, oh yeah… look Charlie, the war, our year on the run, it changed us a little. I won't give you any details for they are Hermione's to share should she want to, but she has lost touch with her parents, at least for the foreseeable future, so all she has is us and Harry, no family of her own. When we were on the run, we were captured once and she was brutally tortured." Charlie's hackles raised at that. "In fact, she still has not spoken to us about it. Then of course there was the war. And now she is trying to piece back her life together. She wants Hogwarts to be ready soon so that she can go back for her final year. She is forcing Harry and me too. We really don't want to specially since Kingsley has permitted us to join the auror program without our NEWTs. In spite of this though, we are considering going back just for her, to not abandon her. Knowing her, she'd probably find peace studying! Mental that one I tell you! Anyway, I digress, so yeah… If you wish to move out of her life, she will let you, easily, but please just choose a path soon. Don't let her invest her time and energy in you and then have you disappear. I know the circumstances of your wedding were not appropriate but I know you two and feel you both complement each other well. She'll keep you in line while you could get her to loosen up. It will require a lot of investment from your side and it definitely won't be a smooth ride, but hey, you do enjoy adventures, don't you?" saying that, Ron got up and washed up his spoon and left it on the kitchen counter. "Think about it mate," was his parting shot and he left, taking the steps two at a time, carefully avoiding the creaky step at the late hour.
Charlie smiled to himself, realising that somewhere along the way, his little brother had grown up. And he had somehow given him permission to move ahead in life with his best friend. Times truly had changed! Laughing a little at his own joke, Charlie indulged in some more ice-cream, washed up his spoon, replaced the tub in the ice box and jumped up the stairs towards his room, much like Ron had just a few minutes earlier.
!
Early in the morning the next day, Charlie wrote a small note for Hermione explaining how he was called back to the reserve in Romania immediately. He however promised to come back soon, stating that when he did, they would have to talk. Trying not to sound too ominous he added a note asking her to take care of herself and to know that he would constantly be thinking of her while he was away.
He neatly folded the letter and sealed it in an envelope, slipped the envelope into her room from beneath the door and charmed it to fly to her pillow, to ensure she received it. He did not want her to feel that he had left without a goodbye. He knew from personal experience how bad that felt, even in a relationship as strange as theirs.
Taking his leave from his parents, he flooed to the Ministry to take the first portkey out to Romania.
