A/N – This chapter was not what I originally intended and no matter what I tried I just couldn't seem to get it how I wanted it. However after much beta working by the fabulous Mistymist and JackMyles it is finally ready to post. Once again I thank everyone who has been so patient with this story.

Tough Decisions

It was only a matter of minutes after Hermione had left that Charlie started pacing. The house felt odd, empty without her; which was bizarre because he had spent years on his own before she and his siblings had come to visit. It just went to show how quickly the witch had managed to get under his skin.

Cursing, he ran his fingers through his hair, looking about for something, anything to distract him. There on the table was the book on Dragon Husbandry he had lent her not the day before. She was already three quarters of the way through. Maybe, he thought, if he saved her page and re-read it himself while she was away, they could sit down when she got home and talk about it, get her mind off whatever happened back in England.

Heartened by this thought that he could do this one small thing, he headed to the table and dog-eared her page before turning the hard cover back to its beginning. It was under two hundred words later that he gave up on this endeavour, unable to concentrate and unwilling to sit still.

A load of dishes, a quick spell to clean the floors and the unpleasant task of locating all the dirty socks under the bed later and he was still feeling completely uneasy in his own home. Looking around once more he tried to make up his mind – did he go out to work or did he go against her wishes and follow her?

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and imagined her reaction if he showed up not an hour after her. She would feel betrayed, she would be angry and she would probably try to shut him out from family business. He didn't want that; he liked his Hermione open and happy and he wished to keep her that way. This thought in mind, a happy Hermione the deciding factor, he tugged on his heavy boots, slung his rucksack over his shoulder and shoved his way out the fly screen door into the steadily rising heat.

The sun was beginning to set when Charlie hammered in the last picket in the new holding pen. He stood back and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The head dragon keeper chose this moment to show up.

"Good work son, but you could have just used magic you know," Phillip said fondly, approaching the Dragon Tamer and inspecting his handy work. Despite the fact that there wasn't quite fifteen years between them Phillip still insisted on calling him 'son'.

"I know, but I just needed to …" Charlie began to explain, trailing off when he couldn't quite express into words just why he had been doing everything manually all day.

"Hit something?" Phillip supplied helpfully, squinting at the wire and post fence in the fading light.

"Yeah," he exhaled.

"You know how my house got built?" Phillip asked suddenly, looking up proudly at the largest house at the Reservation, made completely of local materials and looking as if the same spells his parents used to keep the Burrow up were being used here too.

"House elves?"

"Nope. My wife left me this land in her will, who got it from some great Aunt or something she had never met. Anyway, right after Lizzie's death I couldn't stand to be near our old house. Everything made me think of her, the furnishings, the garden – even the weather reminded me of something about her. Well, this damn near drove me crazy it did, so within a fortnight of her funeral I had packed the kids up and shipped us all here," Phillip explained, looking at the house with a strange mixture of pride and sadness now. "It took me eight months to build her by hand. Every brick, every tile, and every piece of timber I put in there. We lived in a tent that whole time and when we were done, well, I guess I just felt better about everything. She would have liked it here, my Lizzie." At this the man smiled fondly and his smile only grew wider when his tiny daughter pushed open the front door and came running toward them.

Charlie had never heard Phillip speak this much about anything that wasn't to do with Dragons, let alone speak about his wife. He felt both saddened and comforted by the tale, able to relate a small sliver of it back to his situation now. Currently everything, even down to his interaction with the young Dragons, reminded him of her. It made concentrating on anything requiring the smallest bit of mental exertion very hard.

Kathleen had reached them by now, her doll clutched to her chest. Phillip swung her up into his arms and she squealed with delight, "What are you up to Poppet?" he asked, tweaking her pony tail. Charlie smiled as she leant over and whispered something in her father's ear. Philip listened intently before turning to Charlie.

"It seems there is a head in my fireplace. Maybe we should go and see who it is," he said, a small grin playing on his weathered face as his daughter wriggled around, waiting to be on her feet so she could make it back to the house first.

"So that's the plan, Adrian and Mikhail will head off in the morning to help recapture the eight that got loose and the rest of us will stay behind and get these lodgings finished. I just wish they had told us sooner that they were ready to relocate a month early."

"It's not their fault we miscalculated the severity of the weather on the Carpathian Mountains, we should have known it would be too risky to ask them to cross so close to winter," Charlie sighed, sitting back in his chair and closing his eyes, sick of arguing with everyone else over whose fault things were and why.

The relocation specialist had flooed through several hours before from a small inn located deep in the Carpathian Mountains, a good seven hours from where they were. Under their own discretion and as a result of their own investigations, they had chosen to move the herd of Hungarian Horntails over a month early and had failed to tell them for the stupidest of reasons. Assuming that just three of the specialist could keep track of so many of the beasts was ludicrous at the best of times.

"They could have contacted Hermione months ago and we could have been better prepared – as is we have a pen to hold half a dozen while the other couple of hundred are just going to have to roam free," Adrian, one of the keepers who was setting out into the mountains complained.

"Yes, they could have, but they didn't. There is no use moaning about it now. I just want everyone to know they have to pull their weight for the next few weeks or this whole project will just wash down the drain," Phillip said, bringing an end to all arguments. "I'll see you boys off in the morning – everyone else, get a good night's rest and be prepared for a hard day tomorrow." With that, he stood up and left the meeting room.

Charlie opened his eyes and watched as everyone filed out of the small room, leaving only Adrian and Mikhail quietly talking to the side. "Say Charlie, why don't you come with us? You used to love this sort of thing," Mikhail asked in his thick German accent.

"I can't, I'm waiting for word from Hermione," he sighed, standing up too.

"Well, if you change your mind, we leave at dawn. It would be great to have a third person along," Adrian offered. Charlie just shrugged and walked out the door into the cool night.

Charlie walked slowly back to his house, he was in no rush to return and see the things that had left him so unsettled this morning. Hopefully the added workload would act much like his physical labour had today and would help keep his mind off her.

Dropping his rucksack just inside the door, he kicked off his boots in the direction of the coffee table. He was bending his neck to try and get the kink out when he heard his fireplace come to life and his name being called loudly.

"Charlie? Are you there?" Ginny's voice called loudly.

He walked around the couch quickly and dropped to his knees, "Yeah, what's happening Gin? Is Hermione okay?" he asked.

His sister looked at something behind her before turning back to him. "Nice to see you too," she grumbled sarcastically. She looked him carefully in the eye before announcing, "Her dad just passed away, she asked me to floo you."

"Okay, give me a second to pack some things and I will be there as soon as I can," he said quickly, already getting off the floor.

"Charlie, wait," she said sadly, stopping him in his tracks.

"What?"

"Well, the thing is," she started before taking a deep breath, "she asked me to tell you not to come. That she was fine."

"Is she sure? I can be there by morning," he argued, desperately wanting to fight what he was being told.

"I'm just passing on the message. She said to tell you that she will home in a few weeks, after everything has settled."

Charlie stared at his sister for a long minute feeling utterly useless. "Tell her … I miss her," he finally stuttered.

"I will. She's with Harry and Ron now, I better be getting back to them."

"Yeah, go. And Gin?"

"Yes?"

"You're a good friend to her, thanks for being there."

"No problem." His sister smiled before pulling back from the flames, allowing them to burn back to their usual fiery red.

Charlie sat back on his haunches, trying to process that his girlfriend didn't need him, didn't want him. It was a slight blow but then again she probably thought asking him to stay here was for his own good – for the good of the reservation.

He sat on the rug for another five minutes before making up his mind. Standing so abruptly he almost upended the coffee table he rushed to the door, pulled his boots back on and ran back out into the night.

Adrian and Mikhail were just leaving the main building that housed the conference room and the few office spaces available.

"I've changed my mind, I'm coming with you in the morning," he panted.

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