Chapter 4

Ginny ran with Hermione the next morning as she was trying to keep in shape for quidditch, but she was much more talkative than Charlie ever was. She kept going on about Harry and how happy they were together and that he was sorry he couldn't get away from his auror training to see her, how excited she was to finally try out for the Holyhead Harpies, and how amazed she was at the reserve.

It was a good thing Hermione had two loo's because she had to shower and get to work while Ginny also wanted to shower and meet up with her brothers.

"I'll see you this afternoon." Hermione yelled as she ran out of the house and to the main building to meet with her team.

"There you are Granger, thought we were going to have to send out a search party. You'll be working with the Chinese Fireball today with Weasley."

Jogging over to the enclosure to meet up with her small team for the day Hermione grinned. Charlie tossed a broom over towards her and filled her in. "We're making sure he's getting used to his surroundings and hasn't hurt himself or found a way out."

The four tamers mounted their brooms and flew into the enclosure. The Fireball had made a circle over by the edge of its pen where it looked like it cooked the food the tamers dropped in. After a thorough check it looked as if the dragon was acclimating just fine in its new home which made Hermione very happy.

By the end of the check the dragon itself came out of the cave and took flight. Something like this put even the most experienced tamers on edge and suddenly the wands were out. But they were all surprised to see that the Fireball merely flew over to one of the tamers, Samantha who had only been there for a few months and she backed away. Next he went to visit Charlie who patted him on the head and sent him towards Hermione.

When the dragon approached he met Hermione's eyes and saw that she meant no harm. She reached out and rubbed the dragon's head and snout watching the steam rise from its nostrils in happiness.

"Hi there buddy." After a moment Hermione had a wonderful idea and looked over at Charlie. "Buddy!"

"It's a wonderful name."

Hermione took a few more minutes and flew around with Buddy, before saying good bye and leaving with the other tamers.

"That must've been a dream come true." Charlie greeted when she met him at the broom building. "He seems very loveable."

"I couldn't even believe it. He just wants to play!"

They left to go meet Ron, Ginny, and George for lunch and a tour around the reserve. They were found playing exploding snap outside the houses, Ginny and George each throwing their cards near Ron's feet to explode.

"Who wants lunch?" Charlie yelled catching Ron's attention as several cards exploded.

Clearing the mess they all went to the pub for chips and some hamburgers, and then to see the dragons.

"Hermione made a new friend today." Charlie announced as they ordered. "That new Chinese Fireball just flew right up to us and nuzzled with her."

Everyone else was amazed, the only time they had seen dragons was at the Triwizard Tournament where they tried to kill the champions. To see that one of them was friendly enough to cuddle with.

After lunch they went around looking at all the enclosures trying to get a look at the dragons. It was feeding time for some of them so it wasn't difficult. When they got to the Fireball enclosure he was flying around but George wanted to see more.

"Show us how he acted earlier Mione." Charlie nodded and she ran off to get brooms for them.

"No one ever goes into the enclosures alone, we'll go in and see if we can get him playful again but only for a few moments."

Again, Buddy came right now towards them and flew around before coming to have his head rubbed. Hermione whispered soothing words to him as he played.

After five minutes Charlie said it was time to get back and so she hugged Buddy around the neck and said good night.

"That's amazing!" Ginny screamed as they dismounted the brooms.

The rest of the tour wasn't as exciting as Buddy had been, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. The three were only in town for a few days and wanted to see as much of the reserve as possible, Charlie and Hermione had off the next day in their rotation and had planned a whole day with them showing the surrounding area.

A day was spent at the lake nearby (but not the one Charlie had taken Hermione to on their date) to swim, and to the nearby village for trinkets, and then to the hatchery.

There were a few eggs in the hatchery sitting on top of simulated dragon fire so they could hatch. Most of the time the reserve got eggs from wild dragons who had died and wouldn't hatch without intervention, there was only a few times that the eggs had come from dragons actually at the reserve. Of course it was illegal to tamper with the eggs in Romania, so they were overseen by specialists handpicked by the Romanian Ministry.

Each egg was different taking after the breed. There was a Hungarian Horntail egg that was black and had what could have been spines, Rodesian Ridgeback egg that was brown and had ridges along it, and a Swedish Shortsnout that was bright green among the others.

Ron didn't seem too interested in the eggs but the others loved them, so they stayed as long as they could.

The next morning was when they left to go home, and although it had been a lovely time, George was anxious to get back to the shop.
"Mione, can I talk to you for a minute?" Ron asked pulling her away from the sitting room outside. "Listen, I know that we've been through so much together and I really think that we made a mistake not giving it a chance."

"Ron, we talked about this and agreed that not being a couple was the best thing we could have done. You're right, we went through a lot together, but that doesn't mean we would be good at being boyfriend and girlfriend. We fought so much and I don't want that to keep going and ruining our chances of finding the person we're meant to be with." Ron remained silent, thinking of what was being said. "I know that your mum wants me in your family but this isn't the way to do it. We would be absolutely miserable being a couple."

"Are you seeing anyone else? Is that what this is about?"

"Yes and no. I am seeing someone but it's not someone that can replace you as a friend or mean as much as you do to me, he's not what's standing in the way of you and me becoming us."

Hugging Ron conceded that it was for the best and that he would just have to tell his mum to shove off the next time she mentioned it.

Rejoining the group Hermione met Charlie's eyes and smiled quickly before looking at Ginny and nodding. The rest of the night went off great as the group got ready to say their good byes.

The next morning was bittersweet as everyone said good bye. George was excited to have seen them, but was worried about the store and what had happened since he and Ron were gone. Ginny was excited to get back to Harry and her try outs. As the three grasped onto the old soda can and waved good bye, Charlie leaned over to Hermione.

"You know, we have the rest of the day off. And I have been dying to give you a proper snog these last few days."

Charlie carried Hermione on his back to his house and up the stairs where he pinned her against the wall to kiss up and down her neck until she was pulling at his trousers.

Hermione wasn't inexperienced, but Charlie was rather strong and when he got into it, she felt it. But, unlikely the rest he spent a good amount of time getting her warmed up and she most definitely enjoyed that.

They spent the day in bed together talking, then shagging, and even napping before deciding they needed to eat food.

"So what happened with Ron last night?"

"That's the first question you want to ask after we've just shagged? Is about your brother?" Charlie shrugged, he obviously didn't think it was weird. "He told me how he felt and I explained to him that not only would we be a terrible couple but that I was seeing someone presently."

"You told him?"

"I didn't tell him it was you, I just said that I was seeing someone." Hermione pulled on one of Charlie's large shirts and followed him to the kitchen. "Ginny doesn't know either, and I think we were conspicuous enough while they were here for them to not suspect."

"Alright, I just don't want everyone going round a twist about it."

Summer turned into fall, the Opaleye egg hatched which meant the tamers had to get the male out of the enclosure for everyone's safety. During the move one of the more inexperienced tamers got nervous and moved out of formation causing the male to take the opportunity and spit fire at them. Unfortunately Charlie got hit with some of the fire and fell from his broom.

"ARESTO MOMENTUM!" Hermione yelled, she kept in formation knowing that Charlie would be furious if she broke to go get him and endanger everyone else. There were others on the ground that would retrieve him and take him to the infirmary, he was in good hands.

After the move, Hermione made sure everything was done that needed to be before bolting over to the large white building.

"Where is he?" Hermione called to Greg, one of the healers. "Where's Charlie?"

"Hermione, I'll take you to him in a moment but you need to know the burns were quite severe. He's going to be in here for a few days at least."

"Will he be scarred? His mum will kill me if he's disfigured."

"We will do everything we can to make sure there's as little scarring as possible but to do that we need to work on him right away. You can be in the room but stay at the door for now, please?"

Agreeing to the terms she was brought into the room to see healers bustling over Charlie with burn salve and feeding him dreamless sleep potion. His left arm was completely burned with most of his side and some of his leg, his head and neck were red from the heat but nothing more. An hour went by and they were still putting more salve on his wounds until they were all satisfied.

The black skin started knitting together to make red skin, and then pink. Finally, Greg walked over with another jar. "This is cooling salve, to make the burning sensation go away. There's a jar of burn salve on the table just in case but for now he should just need this every couple of hours. I'll let you do it and give you some time."

Thanking all of them, Hermione walked over tentatively to the sleeping form of her boyfriend and uncapped the jar. The cream was cool to the touch, and when she started smearing it on Charlie's arm tears formed in her eyes.

He was burning up, just touching his skin lightly was making Hermione sweat. She used half the jar on his affected areas before she sat down. She couldn't even hold his hand it had been burned so badly.

"Hermione," Being shaken awake, Hermione realized she had fallen asleep. "Hermione why don't you go home and get some rest, I promise I will let you know as soon as something happens." Greg stood over her with a worried look on his face.

Hermione nodded and left taking one long look at Charlie before walking out of the building. She was accosted by the rest of the team outside.

"What's going on?"

"Is Charlie alright?"

"What happened?"

"Hush you lot! Let her speak."

"Charlie will be fine, he was burned pretty badly but the healers spent the last few hours making sure they got all of the burned areas, he's sleeping now but I'm not sure when he'll be able to wake up. They gave him a good amount of sleepless dream potion."

"You look tired love, let's get you to bed."

Mr. Tucker, the reserve director approached Hermione and Tessa as they were walking towards the houses. "Miss Granger, may I have a word?"

"Let me know if you need anything," Tessa murmured leaving her friend's side.

"Miss Granger, I understand that Mr. Weasley was badly injured this afternoon is that correct?"

"Yes sir,"

"And how is he?"

"He'll be fine sir, just resting."

"That's good, very good. Miss Granger I know you are aware of our protocol requiring all staff involved in an assignment where there is an injury to write a report. No one will be reprimanded unless it was something they did deliberately so I would like for you to use the truth of what you saw and please include Mr. Weasley's condition as you were the only one in to see him."

"I will sir, I'll make sure it's on your desk by tonight."

"Go home and get some sleep first Miss Granger, one of my best tamers is in the infirmary, I don't need one of the others in there as well because of sleep deprivation. You can have it to me whenever it is finished."

"Thank you Mr. Tucker."

Each house and building on the reserve was connected by the floo network that superseded any other floo calls. So if someone was floo chatting with their mum and got a call from another building they would be cut off. As the houses didn't have fireplaces in the bedrooms, Hermione nested on her couch dragging her comforter and a pillow down to wait for Greg's call.

When the floo call finally came it was dark out, the fire blazed green and Genevive, another healers face appeared.

"Charlie's awake Hermione, he wants to see you."

Without a second word Hermione bolted out her door towards the infirmary. When she arrived Genevive was waiting for her and took her back to Charlie's room. He was sitting up, his skin was still pink and he looked like he was in some paid but he didn't have any other mark on him from earlier.

"Mem," Hermione raced over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "I'm alright, I promise."

"I thought I'd lost you!" She cried into his shoulder. "Do you know what your mum would do to me if that happened? Or what it would do to me?"

Luckily, Genevive had left the room and hadn't witnessed the moment of intimacy between the two. Charlie leaned forward and gave her a kiss.

"You know I didn't want to get hurt, stupid git gave that dragon an opportunity to spit at us. We've taught them better haven't we?"

"Yes, we have. But theory and practice are two different things Charlie."

They held hands for a long while in silence, Hermione had been very scared when she watched Charlie go down, but her war instincts kicked in and she reacted so he wouldn't be more hurt when he reached the ground.

"You didn't tell my mum did you?"

"Merlin no, I wouldn't worry her like that."

"Then why is she standing outside my room right now?"

A/N: Poor Charlie.