When Charlie arrived back at Hogwarts after the holidays the castle was freezing. It was the coldest winter on record for many years and snow covered the entire castle. Care for Magical Creatures was particularly unpleasant, with most of the classes being outside and Professor Kettleburn refusing to admit that it was too cold. Instead Professor Kettleburn told everyone that if he could deal with the ice and snow with only one leg they had no excuse.

While the snow made the castle feel cold and dark and the journey to the green house difficult it came with added benefits. The first of which was the lake being frozen over. On Saturday, after a long week back Ophelia produced a set of ice skates for each of the four of them. She had brought them from home after Christmas. Charlie had never ice skated before but as excited to attempt the sport for the first time.

He put on the ice skates with Amory having to help him lace them up properly. Charlie resembled a baby deer as he went on the ice for the first time. His stocky body seemed to work against him at every step and within seconds he was on his bum on the lice. Ophelia gracefully sweep over to him and put her hands out to help him up.

"I have never done this before," Charlie said.

"I know." Ophelia said, "I'll teach you." She beamed at him as she squeezed his hands with her gloved hands. With one of her hands still in his she started skating with him around the lake. His legs continued to wobble on the ice but when he went to fall she steadied him. After half an hour of being guided around the lake by Ophelia Charlie was able to skate a little by himself. Ophelia stayed close, sensing that Charlie still needed her.

That night, after ice skating, the four friends managed to grab the armchairs closest to the fire to warm themselves up. Amory went up to her dormitory for a short time before she emerged with some marshmallows for them to toast on the fire. The next day was spent much the same way, with ice skating on the lake after breakfast followed by hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows by the fire in the evening.

The snow lasted another few weeks. By the third weekend Charlie had dramatically improved his ice skating skills. While he doubted he would ever be good at it he was much steadier than he had been at the beginning.

As much as Charlie enjoyed ice skating with his friends he was excited to see the snow melt as it signalled time to return to the practice of his favour sport; Quidditch. Charlie had expected his team to be rusty during their first week back after an extended break but was pleasantly surprised to see the team flying very well. The first and second practices were some of the fun and productive practices Charlie had ever coached. At the end of the second one he was quietly confident that Gryffindor would win their next match against Hufflepuff.

The second term of the year seemed to fly by in a blur of studying, Quidditch, studying and hanging out with his friends. On the rare evenings that Charlie did not find his head buried into books or find himself giving orders at a Quidditch practice he would gather around the fires in the Gryffindor tower and play games or chat with his three best friends. His friendship with Ophelia was back to normal. Their relationship was aided by the fact that she rarely talked about Cato and Charlie tried not to think about that particular Durmstrang student's existence. Thinking about Cato only confused his thoughts about Ophelia.

The day after Charlie returned from the Easter holidays he noticed Ophelia was quieter than usual in transfiguration. He asked her if she was ok at lunch after watching her pick at her sandwich for a long time but she snapped at him that she was fine so he dropped the conversation quickly. During the free period after lunch they went to the library but Ophelia disappeared after half an hour. She wasn't at Herbology in the afternoon but when she didn't reappear at dinner Charlie got concerned.

Knowing he wasn't able to go into the girl's dormitories he tried to mask his concern by casually asking Amory if she had seen Ophelia. "Have you seen Ophelia? I haven't seen her since lunch."

Amory glanced shyly at the stairs to the girls dormitory before she answered, "She is not feeling very well."

Charlie wasn't sure if he believed Amory but had no reason to challenge her assertion. An hour and a half later when Dev stood up and stretched in front of the dying fire and asked Charlie if he was heading to bed Charlie could not think of a reason to say no. Charlie reluctantly followed Dev up the stairs and tossed and turned for a long time worrying about Ophelia before he went to bed.

The next morning Ophelia wasn't at breakfast and Charlie asked Amory again how Ophelia was. Amory simply replied that Ophelia still wasn't feeling well. Charlie asked if she had been to the hospital ward and Amory rolled her eyes and muttered "boys" under her breath.

Ophelia did not appear at any point that day and Charlie became more and more concerned. Dev seemed to be unbothered by Ophelia's absence. When Charlie brought it up Dev just shrugged and said "she is ill." She didn't come to Quidditch practice that evening and practice went differently than normal. Charlie felt her absence. Not only did the chasers play badly and the practice become frustrating and unproductive but it lacked some of the fun which Charlie was used to experiencing when he got on his broom to practice with the Gryffindor side.

The next morning Charlie was growing particularly concerned about his friend and was considering going to speak with Professor McGonagall to express to his concerns about how ill his friend seemed to be when Ophelia appeared at breakfast. She looked a bit pale but otherwise she looked healthy as ever.

"Are you feeling better?" Charlie asked as he made room for her next to him on the bench.

"Huh?" she responded.

"It is good that you have recovered from your stomach bug." Amory said loudly to Ophelia.

"Yeah… I am feeling much better. Thank you."

For the few days afterwards Ophelia was unusually quiet. Every morning she received an OWL from a familiar tawny owl Charlie knew to be Cato's. It was only after a few days of her receiving the letters with delight that Charlie realised that they had stopped for a few days before she was ill.

The term flew by with the sixth years spending much of their time in the library writing scrolls and scrolls of paper. The essays were long and the classes were intense and there was little time for anything else. Even calm Amory was beginning to get stressed about the situation. Gryffindor won again the house cup after an extremely tense match against a strong Ravenclaw side.

After the match Ophelia and Charlie once again put on another party, which were now becoming legendary. Bill had put on some of his records and Dev, Ophelia, Amory, Dev, Avery, Deia, Oliver Wood, Bill and his friends all cleared the furniture to the side of the room and started dancing. The party continued long into the night. Even when Professor McGonagall came up to the tower to shut the party down, it restarted twenty minutes later. At four in the morning Professor McGonagall returned and threated everyone in the tower to a year of detentions of they did not go to bed immediately. Charlie turned off the records Bill had put on and walked sheepishly past Professor McGonagall who was giving him and his older brother scathing looks.

Unfortunately for Charlie and his friends the victory of the house cup and the subsequent party was followed by the completion of final assignments and class tests to help them prepare for their NEWTs next year.

Charlie began looking forward to his last summer as a Hogwarts Student. This summer he was unable to spend any time with Newt and Tina as they were travelling the USA to spend the summer with their son and grandchildren. However he had arranged to spend two weeks at a dragon reserve on a tiny island off the coast of Norfolk which was hidden from muggles by a range of unplottable spells and muggle repelling charms. It was one of the only Dragon reserves in the UK. The island was well known in the magical research community, as it was on that island that Dumbledore had discovered two of the twelve uses of dragon blood.

Amory, Dev, Ophelia and Charlie had also made some plans. They intended to travel to the Highlands to go hill climbing. Amory's parents had moved from Shetland to a remote part of the highlands of Scotland just after Christmas. They invited Dev, Ophelia and Charlie to spend a week in their remote cottage in the highlands to keep Amory accompany while they were in China. Charlie had accepted the invitation with enthusiasm and was excited to have adventures with his friends outside the walls of Hogwarts.

There was one catch. Charlie had not told his parents that Ophelia was going to be staying at Amory's house as well. Mr and Mrs Weasley's concerns about Charlie's friendship with Ophelia had grown in recent weeks. Partly spurred by Percy revealing to Mr and Mrs Weasley that Ophelia was dating a boy from Durmstrang. Like many in the wizarding world Mr and Mrs Weasley associated Durmstrang with dark magic and this information only seemed to confirm their suspicions that Ophelia was just like her deatheater family. The second reason they were more opposed than ever to Charlie's friendship with Ophelia was her brother's re-arrest. Aurors had arrested Thorfinn Rowle once more, this time for using an unforgivable curse, specifically the cruciatus curse on a muggleborn wizard who worked at Gringrotts.

The whole incident came out two days after the Gryffindors won the house cup. It had caused quite a lot of controversy within the wizarding world. Not simply because of the heinous nature of the crime but because Ophelia's father, Mr Rowle, had been accused of using his influence in the department of magical law enforcement to bury evidence against his son. Mr Rowle had subsequently been suspended from the department and was facing criminal charges of his own.

In a letter Mr Weasley sent to Charlie a few days after the news broke he made his feelings abundantly clear. He had written that Charlie should do the sensible thing; distance himself from Ophelia Rowle and her evil family. To ensure compliance he also wrote to Bill and to Percy to share the news and ask them to encourage Charlie to stay away from one of his best friends. Percy obediently gave his older brother a lecture which Charlie promptly ignored. Bill showed Charlie the letter he received from his father and told his brother in no uncertain terms that he would support Charlie in ignoring their father on this matter. Like Charlie, Bill had gotten to know Ophelia well over the course of their time at Hogwarts and Bill knew that Ophelia could never do anything nearly as heinous or evil as what her brother had been accused of. He also know that she had been a loyal and kind friend, not only to Charlie but to many other Gryffindors, many of whom were muggleborns.

Charlie appreciated Bill's support. He did not want to cut one of his closest friends out of his life. He loved and respected his parents greatly and could not bear to have them be disappointed in him. Yet he could not imagine making it through the day at Hogwarts without Ophelia in his life. He enjoyed spending time with Dev, they spent much of their time discussing sports, playing exploding snap and making jokes. Amory was one of the funniest people he had ever met, she was also kind and loyal. Even though Amory hated Quidditch she showed up to every match. However, Ophelia was one of his best friends. She could talk Quidditch like Dev, was funny and kind like Amory and more. She made Charlie try things completely out of his comfort zone. She made him feel brave in a way his other friends just could not.

He knew he would never be able to give up her friendship. He didn't even try. A few days after Mr Weasley sent his letter Charlie responded to thank his father for his advice and reminded his father that he would be able to deal with his own friendship with Ophelia.

Ophelia knew nothing of the letters the Weasleys had sent to their sons. Charlie knew that she would be very upset if she found out their content. She had been devastated by the news of her brother's arrest and the allegations against her father. Mostly because she could not doubt both were guilty of what they were accused. For weeks after the news appeared in the daily prophet whispers followed her around the castle. She tried to ignore it but a week after the news broke Charlie walked in to an empty classroom to see Ophelia crying.

Charlie immediately went up to her, and inspite of her resistance put his arms around her. They stood there for quite some time. Ophelia sobbed into his shirt until it was wet with her tears. When she finally pulled her face away from his chest she looked down at his school shirt. "I'm sorry I soaked your shirt." Charlie chuckled, still holding her. She gave a sobbing laugh and hugged him closer.

"It is just all such a mess." Ophelia whispered.

"It isn't your fault." Charlie replied, he rubbed his hand up and down her back the way he did when Ginny used to cry when she was much younger.

"Everyone is talking about it, about me. I want to tell them to mind their own business, to defend myself but it will only add fuel to the fire."

"Ssssh, it will all be ok. It will soon be yesterday's news. Besides you will always have Amory, Dev and I." She looked up at him and for a moment all he could think was how blue Ophelia's eyes were.

Then they heard to door open and they jumped apart in an instant. On the other side was Tonks. She looked between the two of them. Ophelia was looking down at the floor, with her eyes red and puffy. Charlie leaned against a class room table, "Hi Tonks." He said somewhat sheepishly.

"Hi Charlie, Ophelia." Tonks said, "I left my Defence against the Dark Arts book in here." She walked passed them a desk near the back of the room which a large book was sitting on. Ophelia left the room without a word. Charlie opened his mouth to call after her but stopped himself.

"Is she ok?" Tonks asked.

"I'm not sure." Charlie asked honestly.

"You know my mother is from a family of pure blood fanatics." Tonks said, "She got disowned when she married my Dad."

Charlie looked up at her and she continued speaking. "Ophelia isn't anything like her brother and father, anyone who knows her knows that. Her true friends will always stick by her." Charlie nodded his head and Tonks left him to his thoughts.

Ophelia had escaped to the secret passageway she used to get into Hogsmeade. She lit her wand and sat and studied alone the in passageway. It was not easy studying by the light of her wand but at least she could escape the snide comments and the stares from her fellow Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws, or worse the jeering from Slytherins. She could occasionally hear the noise of other pupils passing by in the corridor, outside her hiding place but she was safe in her refuge. She managed to finish most of her charms essay sitting in the passageway. The charms essay kept her mind off of her parents, her brother, Cato and the fact that if Tonks had not walked into the classroom when she had Ophelia would have kissed Charlie Weasley.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed getting a small glimpse into Ophelia's thoughts and home life, I think it is pretty safe to say that the Rowle family are not the best bunch. Please, please review. I would love to hear your thoughts and a opinions (good and bad) on this chapter or your ideas as to what should happen next.