"Just don't touch me! Better yet Charlie do not talk to me or look in my direction unless it is vital to the survival of the human race!" She stormed out ahead of him and apparated off, Charlie was close on her heels still pulling on his coat as he followed her.

"This is ridiculous Hermione; you can't expect us to go the whole night without talking to each other."

"Look I wouldn't even be here if I didn't want to see Ari and James. If I had it my way I wouldn't be close enough to you to even see you." Hermione walked into the restaurant not bothering to see if the door stayed open long enough for Charlie to walk through and moved straight over to Arianna, who was pretending that she hadn't just been watching the couple through the large front window. Ari wrapped Hermione in a large hug before glaring at Charlie.

"What happened?" she whispered into Hermione's ear.

"I don't want to talk about it now. I just want to have a nice evening with the two of you."

Ari could have cut the tension at the table with a knife; instead she sawed into her steak. A week ago when Arianna and Hermione had lunch everything had been fine with her the couple sitting across for them. Tonight was a completely different story. Hermione sat rigid in her chair, as far away from Charlie as possible, and hadn't looked in his direction at all in the past thirty minutes. Charlie however kept glancing over at Hermione, as if trying to see if she was crumbling at all in her resolve. She wasn't.

The two couples stood to put on their coats to leave the restaurant; Charlie picked up Hermione's coat and held it out to help her put it on. She snatched it from his hands and tried, unsuccessfully, to put it on for herself. He snatched it out of her hand and held it out for her again. "Just put your arms in and let's get out of here."

Charlie curtly said goodbye to James and Ari and before Hermione could protest he pulled her to him and apparated the two of them back to his house. He marched into the house, his grip on her arm unrelenting as she struggled to keep up with his pace. She stumbled as he let go of her arm and whirled around to face her. "What is wrong with you?"

That did it. "What's wrong with me? What do you mean what's wrong with me?" Hermione was fuming, "You're what's wrong with me!"

"I am! What the hell did I do?"

Hermione balled her hands up into fists, "I'm not playing this game with you Charlie! If you don't know what you did then you're so ridiculous that I can't stand the thought of even being in the same room with you!" She grabbed a handful of floo powder and threw it in the fireplace, "You figure out what happened and you let me know. I want to see how long it takes the great Charlie Weasley to figure it out."

Hermione flooed back to her empty house, it was cold and lonely, even the house elf that normally greeted her had the night off. She stepped back into fire and reappeared a few minutes later as she stumbled out of the fire in Ari's kitchen.

"Did you hear that?"

"Sounded like someone flooed into the kitchen." She said not looking up from her book until she heard another sound. Her head jerked up, "Is that someone crying?" Ari unfolded her legs from under her and stood from the chair. "I'll go."

James stood up and grabbed her arm. "You really think I'm letting you go in there to confront a stranger?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

Ari laughed, "Of course not, dear, however, unless I'm greatly mistaken the woman sobbing in my kitchen is Hermione." She kissed James, "I'm going to take care of her; you might want to go check on Charlie."

James knocked on the front door of Charlie's. There was no answer. He tried the door, it was open. "Charlie?" Still nothing. The lights were all on and there was a fire going strong in the fireplace. Someone had been there recently. "Weasley, where are you mate?" There was no answer. James searched through the rooms on both floors and still couldn't find anyone. Returning to the living room he grabbed a handful of powder and flooed to the next place he could think of. He banged on the door of Hermione's house. He barged in when the door was opened, scaring the house elf who had opened it.

"How can I help you sir?"

"I'm looking for Charlie Weasley. Is he here?"

"No sirs. He's not here. Ms. Hermione came and left and he was not here with my missus."

James turned to leave but was stopped by a small hand on his pant leg. "My missus was crying, he hurt her and I will not be happy."

James smiled down at the house elf, "I understand Tippy. You don't need to worry though Hermione is just fine."

James finally found him at this next stop, the pub downtown; it's where they went when they'd had a hard day at work, when they had something to celebrate. It was also where Charlie had taken Hermione on their first night out. "He's halfway through a second bottle." The bartender said when he noticed James. "That's not like him at all."

"Thanks," James said, ignoring the barkeep. The man spent too much time meddling in other people's business for James's taste. He walked over and slid into the booth seat across from Charlie. He conjured himself a glass and poured himself some firewhiskey. They sat there in silence while Charlie finished off his glass; no one spoke as he laid his head back against the booth and sighed. No one spoke as they gathered coats and James apparated them back to Charlie's house.

"Drink this." James said, handing Charlie a glass of potion. "Then you're going to tell me why Hermione is crying in my kitchen causing my wife to ban me from the house and why you drank more tonight than you have in the last six months."

Charlie downed the potion and apparated out.

He was banging on the front door when a very angry Arianna answered the door. "What. Do. You. Want." She forced out, trying to keep her calm.

"I want to talk to Hermione."

"And what if she doesn't want to talk to you?"

"She doesn't" Charlie and Arianna both looked in the direction the voice had come from. Hermione was standing in the hall, her eyes red rimmed and puffy,

"I'm sorry."

"For what Charlie?" She sighed when he didn't answer. "That's what I thought." She turned and walked out of sight.

Before Ari shut the door she whispered to Charlie, "Look, This may all be a misunderstanding I don't know but just try and figure it out alright."

James was sitting on the couch flipping through Quidditch Monthly when Charlie stepped out of the fireplace. "What'd they say?"

Charlie flopped down on the couch and put his feet up on his coffee table. Hermione would have told him to take his shoes off. "I apologized and she asked what for. I didn't know. Then she walked away and Ari told me to think about it. This was much easier when I was a carefree bachelor laughing at your problems."

James laughed, "Welcome to my life, mate."

Charlie staggered in from work and collapsed on the couch. One of the regular trainers was on vacation with his family and Charlie had volunteered to step in during his absence. His muscles ached in a familiar and welcome way; he'd been behind a desk far too long. His body longed to stretch out across his couch but he needed to have the burn on his arm checked. He groaned, it was a Wednesday; Ari wouldn't be at the clinic today, and turned to head towards her house.

"It's been almost a week Ari. He either has no clue or he doesn't care enough to figure it out."

"I highly doubt it's the second option. He's crazy about you."

Charlie stopped outside of the back door. He knew he shouldn't eavesdrop but he'd exhausted every reason he could think of that Hermione would be this upset with him. He'd remember her birthday, hell he'd thrown her a party and flown in her parents, he'd accompanied her to the National Day Ball, and he'd taken her out for their anniversary. Wait. He had done that, right? Last week.

He knocked and stepped in the back door. Hermione and Ari looked up at him from the table as he came in. "Could you take a look at this burn for me? I knew you weren't at the clinic today, Ari. It's not bad but there's a higher chance of infection from the…" he trailed off as he watched Hermione, her eyes taking in the burns on his arm. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Hermione sat down her tea and walked over to where he leaned against the counter. Ari was rummaging in the cabinets for something when there was a knock on the front door. "Here Hermione cover the burn with this I need to see who that is." She said and walked from the room. Ari smiled at the man on her doorstep. "You know you don't have to knock on the door."

"I saw Charlie coming this way and thought maybe if there was someone at the door you could get them alone."

"That's why I love you." Ari said leaning in to kiss her husband.

Hermione opened the lid on the bottle as Charlie pushed up his sleeve. "What happened?"

"Dragon." He knew she rolled her eyes at that even though all he could see was the top of her head. Her fingers were gentle as she worked the ointment onto the burn.

She could feel the heat radiating off him she was standing so close. She had to get away or her resolve was going to break. She snapped the lid back on and moved to wash her hands. "Just don't look at him" was the mantra rolling through her head as she dried her hands on the towel. That was working fine until he pulled on the other end of the towel, bringing her close again.

"I didn't realize."

She looked up.

"I didn't realize that I had forgotten. I had made plans, they were good too."

"I wasn't mad that you forgot." It came out so quiet he almost missed it. He didn't speak, afraid she would leave. "I was angry because you didn't realize anything was wrong. You just kept going like everything was fine."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Hermione pushed back from him. "Maybe not to you!" she crossed her arms over her chest, "When you didn't come when you said you would I thought okay well he has to work late. I went to your house to wait for you. That way we could just go together when you were ready. Then an hour passed and another and then another. Next thing I know it's eleven and there I am on your couch wearing a new dress and starving." She paused. "When you finally came in, you walked right past me, you jerk, straight into the kitchen to make yourself something to eat."

He reached his arm out for her, but she held up her hand to stop him. "I'm not some ridiculous girl Charlie; I don't get angry because you look in the direction of another girl. I don't bother you when you have to work late or leave for extended periods of time for your job. In fact I enjoy that you're so dedicated to the things that you love; however, Charlie, I refuse to go unnoticed."

He crossed the room to her in two strides. "You're right I didn't see you there. Hermione, it was late and I was exhausted. I barely remember even coming in off the field that night. Life with me is going to be like that at times. It's been just me for a long time now and I'm used to that. It doesn't mean I love you any less or that I don't want to be with you. It's just me."

Hermione leaned her head against his chest as Charlie slowly wrapped his arms around her. "I'm still mad at you."

"You're talking to me. You have to be less mad than you were." He tipped her chin up so that she was looking at him. "How about I make it up to you tonight?"

"You can try." She smirked, a handy habit Draco had taught her, before leaning up on her tiptoes and kissing him.