Life Goes On.
Chapter Ten.
It couldn't be it; he decided firmly, yanking open the door that she had closed behind her Charlie chased Hermione up the path towards the front desk.
He called her name out three times before she stopped and turned to face him, wordlessly he approached her and took her face with both his hands, cupping her cheeks firmly in his palms and kissed her, hoping that the words that he couldn't think of to say to her to convince her to stay with him could be transferred through the kiss.
Resting his forehead against hers he remained silent for several minutes, his fingers coiling through her windswept curls.
"You can't leave like this; you have a week before you're due back so you don't need to. What you need is to be here, with me."
"But –" she began, but he cut her off with another kiss.
"No buts. Screw what Ron thinks about this, you've said it yourself enough times, he's a git. And are you really going to start taking advice from gits?"
Laughing despite herself Hermione offered a quiet "no" before she found Charlie's lips crashing down upon her own again.
"I suppose that I could stay until Friday." She grinned, "And seeing as you're the boy you can be the one to carry my bags back."
He did so obligingly; he would have done anything as long as he knew it resulted in being able to see Hermione for just a little while longer. They both knew that they were merely delaying the inevitable and that in three short days she really would have to leave and it really would have to be over, but in that moment neither cared, they had each other and that was all that mattered.
News that Hermione had officially finished her report was soon discovered by the rest of the workers and the atmosphere became significantly more relaxed and every evening Hermione and Charlie would join everybody in the pub to enjoy a drink.
It was the Thursday, Hermione's final night and there was a large group of them drinking themselves into a blissful oblivion and celebrating what Hermione assured them would be a glowing report.
"So how many of us will find ourselves without a job when you file all of them papers Hermione?" Jeremy, a young man, not dazzlingly bright, asked her after he'd had enough shots of firewhiskey to allow him to say whatever it was that popped into his head.
The other workers laughed, pretending not to care about the question, when really Hermione Hermione could tell they were all dying to know the answer.
"No one." Hermione laughed, "You've all been wonderful."
"Phew!" Jeremy exclaimed, "And you were worrying about losing your job over those spells on the eggs Charlie."
The room was in an instant completely silent, save for Jeremy who after several seconds of consideration as to what he had just said mutter "Oh bugger" and proceeded to pass out stone cold on the floor. No one made a move to help him.
Hermione pursed her lips, "What spells?" she asked quietly, staring into the bottom of the glass she was clutching in her hand.
No one answered.
"WHAT SPELLS?" She demanded, anger radiating off of her, causing several of the group to take a step backwards.
"Hermione, maybe this isn't the best place to discuss this." Charlie said quietly, taking her by the arm and attempting to steer her out of the door.
"No Charlie I think this is a bloody perfect place to discuss this." Hermione snapped, pulling her hand away from his grasp, firmly standing her ground. "So someone better start explaining this to me RIGHT NOW!"
Quickly, the others that had been gathered around them remembered stoves that had been left on, cats that needed feeding and letters that really couldn't wait until morning to be written and hastily made their exits leaving Hermione and Charlie alone.
"What spells?" She asked for the third time, her voice low and steady, but clearly ready to erupt at any given moment.
"You saw how many eggs there are in the hatching room!" Charlie started, "and you saw how small the enclosure for the baby dragons is, if we put in too many they fight and they kill each other and then there's no dragons at all, and really that would be a lot worse than what we're doing."
"And just what is it you're doing?"
"It's just a small spell to control how many are being born at a time, it doesn't hurt them at all, all it does is freeze time inside the egg until we know that we have the resources to deal with it."
"You're messing with time?" Hermione asked incredulously.
"Only slightly." Charlie mumbled.
"Not only is that completely and utterly against the law and could not only make you lose your current job but lose your dragon handling license all together, it
is also completely unethical!" Hermione screeched, blowing up in a fit of rage. "I cannot believe that you would do something so stupid, so dangerous Charlie Weasley. You cannot go around playing God just because it makes your working life a little bit easier."
"it's not that Hermione, it's not like that. If we didn't do it the dragons would die, the eggs would be left in the enclosure to hatch and for the baby to be attacked before it learnt to defend itself, or the enclosures would get too full and there'd be fights, illnesses and the dragons would be miserable. I know what we're doing is wrong, but the other option just seems a whole lot worse."
"And did you not think to inform the ministry of the overcrowding?" Hermione asked coldly, he had made a good point, but ever since being trusted with the responsibility of the time turner in her third year Hermione had understood the dangerous connected with altering time and could not take the subject lightly.
"We have! Nothing ever gets done, they say that they'll look into it but then its always a problem with funding or zoning, or a million other excuses." He slammed his fist down hard on the wooden table, causing Jeremy still sleeping on the floor to give an involuntary jolt let out a long belch and roll over.
"Are you going to report this?" Charlie asked quietly after several minutes of silence.
"I have to. If I don't and someone finds out I could lose my job."
"And if you report it I will lose mine!" Charlie pleaded, "Please Hermione, can't you please just leave it out? You said you love me -"
"Don't you dare bring love into this Charlie Weasley!" Hermione exploded once more, "how can you talk about love when you've been lying to me this whole time? You said you loved me, you convinced me to stay beyond my better judgement, was all this a game to you? See how stupid we can make Hermione look and laugh at her behind her back? Is that it?"
"Of course not" Charlie said, hurt "you mean everything to me Hermione."
"Well you've got a funny way of showing it, and to think you'd almost convinced me that even with your family, and the distance this might have been worth a shot, you made me think we had something special."
She left the pub before he had chance to saying anything else, he knew that she would be going home, this time he didn't stop her.
A/N - I know its been a very long time and that theres probably no one reading this and to be fair I don't blame you if you've given up. but i haven't i WILL finish this story it's just slightly difficult with it being the first year of my A levels. so be patient, im on study leave for the next 2 weeks and though I dont have access to a computer for the first week of that the second week should bring you a new chapter.
So please review! it makes me write faster!