For how thin and well-worn it was, Charlie's bed was rather comfortable. Thank Merlin for that, because Katie hardly left it apart from two brief meal breaks and an ill-fated jaunt to meet Charlie's favourite Antipodean Opaleye. The one time he had to leave to do his job – he had convinced Lechner, the blond wizard, to take over most of his duties as penance for harassing her, but the Austrian refused to subject himself to padding an adolescent Horntail's spikes – she napped. It was a lovely experience overall.

There were about twenty minutes left before the cracked inkwell sitting on Charlie's nightstand would take her back to London. Katie was doing her best not to look at it, instead focusing all of her attention on a particularly distinct trio of freckles just below his left collarbone. His chest rose and fell beneath her head with each deep, even breath he took. Their limbs were so tangled that it was hard to tell who ended where.

"What are you thinking about?" he mumbled into her hair.

"Leaving," she answered. "And how I don't really want to."

"You can always come back," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "No promises that I'll be able to skive off next time, but I've a few free days a week. I'll owl you my schedule. Maybe we can visit Bucharest. I haven't been in years, but from what I remember the wizarding bits are pretty nice. I hear they've put in a new pub right next to the post office."

The suggestion of a future between them, of whatever capacity, put a pit in Katie's stomach. There was a question inside her that had been fighting to get out since she first saw him in the mess hall. She had managed to keep it down thus far, helped by the many pleasant distractions Charlie had provided. But her departure was looming, and she wasn't sure that she would ever ask if she didn't then. "Why me?"

He peered down his broad nose at her. "What's that?"

"What I mean is…" She struggled with phrasing for a moment before deciding to just let the words spill out as they came. No matter what his reaction, the inkwell would be taking her home. "Every time someone mentions you, they always make sure to bring up that you've never been one for girls. Not how lovely a person you are, not how amazing it is that you're here taming dragons – it's always something about how you've never brought anyone round. It's like your trademark at this point: Charlie flies solo. And Rolf mentioned when I met him that you had all kinds of admirers at Hogwarts. So I guess– I dunno, I just don't know why I'm any different from anyone who's tried before. I'm not that great. Why the… why me, why now?"

"My biological clock is ticking," he said, solemnity betrayed by the laugh that followed.

The pit grew. "Charlie, I'm serious."

He sat up slightly. "So am I. It seems like every time I come home, the Weasley clan is hitting a new relationship milestone. Girlfriends, engagements, marriages. Any day now, the wildly world-famous Harry Potter will announce he's officially joining the family like he's been threatening to for years. Percy's tricked another girl into thinking he's tolerable. Hell, Bill and Fleur had a baby. I'm her godfather, did you know that?" The silvery-haired infant had been present at both George and Angelina's wedding and the coming-home party, but Katie hadn't seen much of her. She generally tried to stay away from children. "I like being alone, but it gets a bit rough when you're the only one who is."

"Yeah," Katie said softly. "I know what you mean."

"So there I was, sitting in the garden at the Burrow, woe is me." A smile tugged at the corner of Charlie's mouth. "And along comes a beautiful girl, just my type. I would have been an idiot not to try my luck. As it turns out, I quite like spending time with you. Sex on its own is fine, I guess, but I dunno, I was never really moved before to keep trying after it was done. Being with you isn't like that. It's nice. Not saying I'm changing my ways or anything, but I do want to keep seeing you. Maybe we can finance a vacation with all the gold changing hands over the revelation that I'm not gay."

"I'm your type?" Katie asked. It was probably the least important part of his little speech, but she had never heard that before. Her self esteem was fine; people had told her she was pretty plenty of times. No one, however, had ever explicitly told her that she was what they looked for. Alicia – little, blonde, and busty – was much more in keeping with what she imagined men wanted. "What's your type, loud girls with poor foresight and slight overbites?"

Charlie laughed. He counted on his fingers as he listed off attributes. "Taller than average. Long, brown hair. Athletic, but still soft – you can tell she's done sport, but it's not the main focus of her life, at least not anymore. Hazel eyes... maybe a bit more on the green side, now I'm thinking."

"Is that your type, or are you describing me?"

"Yes," he answered with another laugh. The fingers of his free hand laced through hers. "This strictly hypothetical ideal girl has a job, but doesn't take it too seriously. Nothing she's afraid to leave. Her friends, on the other hand, she takes extremely seriously. No wonder they love her; they'd be stupid not to. She's got a sense of humour. She's smart. Brilliant, sometimes. She doesn't think much of herself, but she's wrong."

Emotions flooded through Katie, too many at once to effectively parse. Part of her wanted to cry. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her. Or, about her, she supposed. George loved to shower her with flowery compliments, but it was always clear that he was at least partially joking. Charlie seemed completely sincere. "Wow," she managed. "Now I really don't want to leave."

"You know where to find me," he said. "Maybe next time just skip over Rolf. It's best not to encourage him."

"How much time do I have left?" she asked.

Charlie glanced at the carriage clock on the nightstand. "Seven minutes. Want to go look at dragons until you disappear?"

Somewhat to her own surprise, Katie agreed. They made their way to the paddock closest to the clearing: three Norwegian Ridgebacks, a mother and two hatchlings. The mother paid them no mind, too busy keeping her children from ripping each other's wings off to notice when they sidled up to the fence surrounding their enclosure. This was much preferable to the Opaleye, which had levelled her with its odd, pupil-less glare when she was still a good half a kilometer away. Katie and Charlie stood side-by-side leaning against the fence, as close as they could be without touching. It would not have been good if the portkey clutched in Katie's hand were to drag Charlie back to England with her.

Just loud enough to be heard over the hatchling Ridgebacks' rumbling, he said, "I'll miss you when you go."

Katie opened her mouth to answer, but never got the chance. Romania went runny. It was noon.

She rammed head-first into the front door of her flat. It was against Ministry policy to create a portkey intended to transport someone into a private dwelling, so it appeared that Percy's idea of compromise had been to direct her return trip to the second-floor corridor of her building. Clutching at her pounding forehead, she released a stream of oaths that was interrupted only by the panicked noises coming from behind the door. Normally, she would have ignored Alicia's hysteria, but it was joined by a male voice that was clearly trying not to be heard.

"Alohomora," she choked out, and pushed inside.

For not the first time in her life, she was face-to-face with a nearly naked Lee Jordan. There were cartoon owls on his pants. Alicia was nowhere to be found. Moving much more quickly than Katie was used to, he clutched a flowery throw pillow from the loveseat and used it to cover himself.

"It's nothing I haven't seen before," Katie said, still nursing her head. The full absurdity of the situation took a moment to sink in, not at all helped by the splitting pain just above her right eye. "Also, what the fuck?"

A high, false laugh erupted from Lee. He jumped at the sound. Backing slowly away from her, eyes darting from the still-open door to the windows and back, he said, "What? Can't a bloke visit his friend whose flatmate is out of town?"

"You're in your underwear," Katie felt the need to point out. Her mind was having trouble wrapping around that fact. "Why are you in your underwear?"

"Well it's a bit hot, isn't it?"

It was not. There was a cooling charm over the residence that kept it at a breezy 22° during the summer. Lee seemed to be able to tell that his excuse had fallen flat, as he visibly scrambled for another one. Katie decided to put him out of his mercy. "Just, please, for the love of Merlin, Lee, tell me the truth. Have you shagged Alicia?"

Lee scoffed in mock derision. "I would never."

With a bang, Alicia came bursting out of her bedroom. While she had managed to get herself fully dressed, none of it matched. She appeared to be wearing a backwards men's vest. Eyes blazing, she screeched at Lee, "Beg pardon?"

He wheeled around to face her, presenting Katie with a great view of both the very large and realistic spider tattooed on his shoulder blade and his rather nice arse. His headband, a relatively muted mauve that day, dangled precariously from his dreads.

"Leesh," he said, suddenly cajoling. "I didn't mean it. You know I didn't mean it."

"Oh, you didn't mean it." Alicia's Lee impression was surprisingly accurate for a girl who was completely incapable of accents. Katie wondered what she sounded like when she was doing her. "You didn't mean that you find the thought of sleeping with me repulsive? Because it sure sounded like you did. Which is funny, because I seem to recall you saying earlier that you've been wanking over me for years! Not to mention–"

"That is enough!" Katie shouted.

Sporting identical sheepish expressions, her two friends fell silent and turned to face her. She took a deep breath that failed to calm her, then asked, "Can someone please explain to me what's going on here?"

Without a trace of embarrassment, Alicia said, "I'm getting over Oliver. Sorry you walked in on it, but it needed doing."

"Getting over him with Lee?"

"Alright!" Lee protested. "Watch the tone, there."

Alicia cleared her throat. "He was available. And we've all already seen his todger, so I knew–"

"No," Katie cut her off. "Do not talk to me about Lee's penis."

"I've listened attentively to detailed descriptions of every one you've come into contact with, so I don't understand why we're drawing the line here."

Heat spread across Katie's cheeks, made worse by the grin Lee was trying to stifle. "Alicia! First of all, you asked about those. Second of all… I don't have a second of all. But please don't talk to me about Lee's."

"There's nothing wrong with it," said Lee, one eyebrow arched. "It's rather nice, if I do say so myself. Yeah, Alicia?"

Alicia gave him a brief look of appraisal, then nodded and said, "Yeah."

A distressed noise, not unlike that of a wounded animal, came from what felt like Katie's very soul. "Stop! Please. Stop. I don't want to talk about this ever again."

"I'll make you a deal," said Lee. The pillow was still held firmly in place.

"Anything," said Katie.

"We promise to drop this," he started, only to be interrupted by Alicia huffing. It was unlike her to drop anything, for any reason. She did, however, let him continue. "We promise to drop it on the condition that you go and work things out with George."

Immediately, Katie said, "Deal."

Lee raised a finger. "Like, right now."

She had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason for the time limit was that he wanted to finish what he had started, but she pushed it away. There was little that she wouldn't do to pretend that the whole thing had never happened. Alicia and Lee's sex lives had always been distant, nebulous things. She knew they existed, and she knew they were fairly active, but she'd never put much thought into them. She would have liked to keep things that way. With as much conviction as she could muster, she said again, "Deal. Soon as I change."