A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! I try to answer everybody personally as I so enjoy interacting with y'all. Big thanks to ShayaLonnie for being #100 on this fic. She's the author of another of my favorite fics, The Debt of Time. You should read it!

SIX

Quidditch World Cup, 1994

"Charlie!"

"Bill!"

The red-headed men all but collided in their brotherly enthusiasm in the midst of the camping area and all the colorful tents. Their family wasn't surrounded with either Irish shamrocks or the garish moving posters from Bulgaria that featured Viktor Krum, but Charlie was relieved more than otherwise. Much as he enjoyed the sport, he would as soon not be surrounded by fangirls.

Unless they wanted to meet a dragon tamer!

Thumping one another on the back, the men separated but walked as if joined at the arm. Bill was taller than his next-youngest brother but Charlie had a more obvious muscularity, encouraged by years of sport and dragons. They had always been close to one another, enjoying also the responsibility of helping raise their younger brothers and, more lately, giving advice to Sister Surprise—a.k.a. Ginevra. As they walked, they kept their gazes on the milling Quidditch fans, but their conversation flowed as if it were just the two of them over a pint of Butterbeer.

"So." Bill's lead in was not brilliant, but he wasn't sure how to begin.

Charlie was rather more fearless. "The twins said they've found her."

Rolling the tension from his shoulders, Bill nodded. "That's what I hear. Have you met her?"

"Don't think so. That's one reason Dad wanted us to put in an appearance here, though."

Anticipation surged through Charlie's entire body. The Hope. The one that he had been raised with. He was a child of a Bespoken One—his mother Molly had been Wife to four Weasley men at one point, and had had children by three of them—and he knew how greatly she was prized. He would, of course, expect to see his—their—Bespoken One with like honor.

And, of course, desire. He never doubted that.

Still, he tried to keep a rein on a sudden rush of fantasies. Fantasies that, if he and his brothers could Cast their Stake for their Bespoken One, might come true sooner rather than later. "Do we know who she is?"

"The twins and Percy do."

Some of Charlie's anticipation took a nosedive at Bill's careful response. "So, she's still at Hogwarts."

Bill sighed and kicked at a rock. It bounced away from them, only to hit the shin of a girl who had just come around a tent corner with two boys. "Yeah. And then there's the whole 'unanimous' thing."

"Who?" He didn't have to elaborate; he and Bill both knew if unanimity was a problem, then one of their brothers was refusing to acknowledge their Bespoke Witch. He hadn't even met her but already Charlie was getting hot like dragon fire in defense of their choice.

"Oi! Bill! Charlie!"

"Ron," Bill muttered in answer before stopping to greet their youngest brother and his friends. "Ron! Good to see you."

Charlie waited to see if Ron remembered his manners, but when the silence got too awkward, the dragon tamer decided to remember his. "Since Ron isn't going to do it, let me introduce myself," he said with half a smile. "I'm one of Ron's brothers, Charlie. This is Bill, the eldest of us all."

"I'm not that old," Bill retorted, stepping up to shake hands with the kids. "Who're you?" He eyed Ron, but Ron didn't even take the hint.

The girl huffed, looking quite put out. Charlie figured her irritation was directed at Ron, but she shook Bill's hand. "I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger. This is Harry Potter." She said this last with a defensive air about her, as if expecting an adverse reaction.

Bill still had her hand in his when he exclaimed, "Merlin!" Oddly enough, he wasn't looking at the boy with the scar on his forehead; his attention was all on the Granger girl and he appeared as if he'd been stunned. "Sorry. I didn't mean for that rock to hit you." She just rolled her eyes as if being hit by bouncing missiles was all in a day's work for her.

"Potter?" Charlie asked, trying to get Bill to refocus. "Really?" He extended his hand. "A pleasure to meet you. Heard a lot about you."

The boy scratched at his neck and didn't meet his eye. "Er, thanks. You, too." He looked up again and shook hands. "Dragons, yeah?"

It was his favorite topic and Charlie was prepared to enter into it with enthusiasm when he noted that Bill—his sensible, curse-breaking brother—was still staring at the girl. "Er, Bill?"

Bill's blue eyes were wild when they met his. "Yeah? Right. This is Hermione, Charlie." He stressed her name, pronouncing it as if it were as significant as Merlin's own.

"Hermione," Charlie repeated. "Got it. And that's Harry Potter."

"Harry. Good to meet you. Yeah." Bill was still clearly out of sorts as he tugged on the queue of hair at his neck. "I'm Bill," he said, turning to speak directly to the girl.

She smiled tolerantly at him for a moment before her expression lit up. "Bill! Of course! More O.W.L.s than anyone ever had at Hogwarts! I remember hearing about you!"

The tension which had seemed to be layering itself between Bill and the girl broke at that point and even Ron laughed. "Of course she's heard of you, Bill. If it's about school, she knows it."

The Granger girl blushed and slid her wand from her pocket to fiddle with it. The Potter boy wrapped one arm around her and pulled her in for half a hug. "She's smart, this one is. And you're cool, Bill, Charlie." He nodded and appeared more comfortable. "Curse breaker, yeah?"

"I work for Gringotts."

The Quidditch fans continued to walk to and fro, treating the Weasley-Potter-Granger group as if they were a stationary fixture in the midst of the camping grounds. All at once, Charlie felt exposed and cleared his throat to make sure he had Bill's attention. "All right, then. Mum's got you lot on some sort of timetable, I reckon, yeah?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah. Hermione's watch is pretty reliable, though, so we won't be late for supper. See you then?" He took off, mannerless as always.

Charlie offered the other two, who looked torn between following Ron and being polite to his older brothers, a smile. "Go on, you. See you later." He clapped Potter on his shoulder and went to do the same to the girl, but she shifted a bit and his hand brushed the skin of her throat, so that his fingers seemed to comb through the wild, sunlit curls that bounced on her shoulder. "Er, sorry," he managed to say, though his voice sounded strange to him.

"She's the one," he whispered as the young folk disappeared between chattering groups of people speaking a multiplicity of tongues. "Bill—that's her." Bill just nodded, staring after her. Nerves thrummed under Charlie's skin but he fought them down and made himself start to walk at a slow pace in the opposite direction. "So what do we do now?"

"What the bloody hell can we do, Charlie? She's only fourteen, yeah? Ron's age?"

"Shite."

"Yeah."

Charlie was unsurprised that he and four of his brothers were standing, fists clenched and eyes narrowed, as Hermione Granger returned from her harrowing experience of being hunted by Death Eaters. One by one, each of them managed to move their blankets and pillows to surround the girl, making a perimeter of wizards that were determined to let no harm come to the teenager with the wild hair and freckles in their midst.

Percy rubbed at the middle of his forehead as he sat up for his watch. "Charlie?" he whispered.

"Yeah, Perce?"

It was unusual to see their straitlaced, rule-mongering, middle brother so out of sorts. "Do you see it, too? With . . . with her?"

Charlie blew out a breath and dared to study the sleeping girl. He was not the only one doing so. George was awake, too, wand out and vigilant. "I do. Something else, yeah?"

"Yeah," Percy confessed with an uneasy chuckle. "But she has to be sixteen . . ." A Bespoke Witch could not be formally pursued until she was sixteen years of age. Of course Percy knew the rules and would make sure they all adhered to them.

Damn the man.

"When will that happen?" Charlie wondered, trying to find a comfortable spot to settle his spine.

"September of next year," his brother answered softly.

Optimism flared a bit within Charlie's chest. "Well then. We can work with that."