Hermione told herself that the worst part of breaking up with Ronald Weasley was losing a big, family Christmas. But she had gained a different Christmas, one of her own, with her own timetable and whatever traditions she liked. It was inexpensive, mess-free, and she could do whatever she wanted, such as going to a Muggle green grocer for a real Christmas tree early in December.
When she was little, her parents had a plastic tree they stored in pieces in the garden shed and assembled inside every year. The Weasley tree had become a lush, twinkling illusion ever since the grandbabies arrived with their grabbing hands, threatening to pull a real, tangible Christmas tree down on their heads. No, Hermione hadn't had a home that smelled of fresh cut fir since - she couldn't remember how long. It might have been since she was at school.
Charlie made no complaints about the early appearance of a Christmas tree in the tiny flat. He stepped through the Floo, breathing deeply and grinning broadly. "Nice. It smells like Christmas in here," he said.
"Yes, I think I've just about got it charmed to stand upright," she said, tentatively lowering her wand. "How does that look?"
Charlie closed one eye and sighted down his raised thumb. "Straight as an arrow."
"Good, But I'm afraid all my fussing with the tree means I haven't got tea on yet," she said. "It's not very wifely of me, but can you run out for some take away?"
"Sounds plenty wifely to me," Charlie said. "And anyways, all this cooking for me every night - it's unholy, like you're waiting on me."
"Because I am," she said. "I'm being deliberately overly traditional, matching this filthy backward De-bliviator. I think I can stomach it long enough to get the thing to work. Especially in light of the sacrifices you're making for this project."
Charlie scoffed but one hand came up to rub his shoulder. "None of that. No, I am delighted to treat you to a meal for a change."
Now Hermione was scoffing. "A change? Hardly. You've brought lunch to the Ministry for me every day this week and sat and flirted with me while I ate it. In fact, you might have great-aunt kissed me goodbye in front of half my department staff yesterday if I hadn't managed to stuff a biscuit in your mouth."
"Yeah, the tender goodbyes - they're becoming something of a habit," he said, not apologizing.
She tossed her head. "Yes, well you might not have convinced the De-bliviator we're an item, but I think some of my colleagues are on the verge of jumping to a conclusion or two about us."
Charlie's grin was slightly sheepish. But he said, "All for a noble cause."
She dropped a hand on his forearm - something that was becoming a habit of hers, difficult to resist as Charlie's lovely arms were. "I suppose as long as they're not professional paparazzi or your overly involved siblings, I shouldn't fuss about who sees us eating sandwiches at my desk together."
"That's the spirit," he said, giving her hand a squeeze before re-buttoning his coat and pivoting back toward the door.
When he was gone, Hermione turned back to the tree. She restored a reducio-ed box of ornaments to its usual size and set about unpacking it. The ornaments had been collecting in the box for years, but by now, she hardly remembered what was inside it. Opening it was rather like Christmas itself.
There were sets of shiny red and gold balls and spindles, crystal snowflakes, and silver stars. But it was the special, one-of-a-kind ornaments that were most interesting. Bittersweetness was what she felt when she found the little brass plaque her parents had engraved with "Hermione Jean's First Christmas, 1979."
A moment of nostalgic pride flared in her heart at the sight of a small, wicker wreath Professor McGonagall had given her, marked with a parchment banner reading "Hogwarts Head Girl." There was also the replica of a snitch Harry had given her after she remarked that they looked rather like Christmas ornaments.
Rumbling at the bottom of the box was the painted ceramic figure of a cat in memory of dear old Crookshanks who had passed on two years ago. She held it to her ear, remembering she'd sealed a lock of his fur inside, and charmed it with the sound of his purr. The dear old thing. Crookshanks had been the last living being to share this flat with her - well, except for Charlie, her current ginger companion.
To her surprise, there was one more ornament left in the box, one she'd forgotten she had, and had never hung anywhere before. It was still wrapped in tissue paper, a pink enamel heart with the words "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley" painted on a banner held on each end by fat cherubs. It was from Madam Puddifoot's Christmas decor line, and Hermione had bought it at the end of season sale the year she was supposed to marry Ron. It had been packed away for safekeeping all that year, all through the season she didn't decorate, and it had re-emerged only now. It was even engraved with their wasted wedding date.
The miserable thing dangled from her fingertip until her arm sagged, going limp. The heart fell with a gentle rustle back into the tissue paper. After the reminders of her parents and Crookshanks, the wedding ornament pushed her over the edge, and Hermione was slumped over the box, crying into it when Charlie came through the door with a bag of kebabs.
"My dear, what's happened?" he said, setting the food on the coffee table and dropping to his knees on the rug beside her. "Our tree's turned out so lovely. Look at that. You've even got a snitch on it. Don't tell me you don't like it."
"It's not the tree," she hiccoughed. "It's…"
"What?" Charlie said when her voice faltered, summoning a tissue and easing wayward curls behind her ear.
"I'm nobody's person, Charlie," she said, her voice noisy with her tears. "Not even a cat's. Not anymore. I have been in the past, but it's all over. And there's - there's no way of knowing if I will ever be someone's person again. But I want to be. I want to be so badly..."
Charlie was speechless, casting about the room for what could have brought this on. He noticed the heap of tissue paper in her lap. "Nobody's person. What a thing to say to the man who's just gone out in the cold to make sure you had something nice to eat," he joked as he reached for the pink ribbon among the paper.
She didn't rise to his flirting but sobbed harder into the tissue he'd given her.
Charlie held the heart ornament in front of himself, squinting at the expired date without his specs. "Right," he said, feeling for his wand. "If I'm reading correctly, then this date on the Mr. and Mrs. Weasley heart needs fixing. It's all wrong, but not for long."
She lowered her hands from her face to see his final flourish as the date changed from her wasted wedding date's to this year's.
"There," he said. "Now this tacky beast of a knickknack commemorates this Christmas. It's the year you were my person, my very own Mrs. Weasley."
Hermione was speechless now, sliding the ornament off the end of Charlie's fingers, reading the new inscription.
"You know what we've done?" he said. "We've upgraded my status from paper husband to - to whatever cheap tinny metal this is made of." He clicked the blunt end of his fingernail against the heart. "Though I'm not sure the pink enamel suits me. It's more of a George colour. Maybe we can re-tint it - "
The rest of what he might have said was muffled as Hermione threw her arms around his neck and held him tight. "Thank you, my dear," she said. "I know this arrangement is inconvenient for you but - sometimes it means so much to me to have someone here, De-bliviator or not. If I can just survive this holiday..."
"You can," he said, his arms closing around her in return. "You're a genius at survival. The entire country knows it."
With a gentle sway, he rocked her where they sat on the rug, soothing her with his movement, his closeness, and his warmth until her tears quieted. Charlie waited as Hermione's tension unclenched itself, and she let body settle against his. Somehow, it was softer, more yielding than every other time he'd hugged her. He shifted to see if it was just some tricky misperception, some romantic sentimentality brought on by the sight and smell of Christmas. But the feeling stayed, and let himself sink further into it, smoothing her hair with his scruffy face, her cheek radiating heat against his neck.
"Don't ever think it isn't nice for me to be here too," he said, earnestly enough that he felt the need to take the serious edge off, downgrade it to flirting before he scared her. "Your broom cupboard leaves a bit to be desired. But as for you yourself, you're nice company, pleasant to hug and..." he sniffed hard at her neck, snuffling to deliberately tickle her with his breath and whiskers.
There it was, her laugh overriding her tears, high as a squeal as the tiny hairs on her neck rose into goosebumps.
He smirked as he finished the rest. "And you smell good. Too good. You need to dry your eyes and eat that greasy, garlic-y kebab I've brought you before it gets any soggier."
She was still laughing, leaning back to get free of his tickling. He drew his face away from her neck. But all at once, he wasn't as ready to lose contact with the rest of her as he thought, and he kept his arms clasped around her, looking down into her face. She didn't seem scared, blinking at him, slow and deep through her still-wet eyelashes. Her irises were their darkest brown in the dim golden light of the Christmas tree.
Her lips had parted slightly and something about this tiny motion made Charlie's heart give a thud. Maybe he should have been, but he wasn't scared either as his head nodded toward her upturned face. She really did smell lovely, and her mouth...
...was speaking to him. "Why haven't you got married, like everyone else in your family?" she dared to ask. "It's not that you don't like company. And you aren't exactly repulsive."
"Erm, thank you." he said, sitting up and releasing Hermione to sit on her own on the rug beside him.
"Right," she said. "So what happened to get you to your thirtieth year without a partner?"
His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath and let it out. "Well, I fancy women, and there aren't many of them at our sanctuary way up in the Carpathians. I'm not sure why. It's like a monastic order up there."
"Or the dwarves from Snow White," Hermione mused.
"What?"
"More Muggle folklore," she said. "Groups of men living in isolation, working merrily away in the mountains."
Charlie shook his head. "Well, I'm neither a dwarf nor a monk," he said. "And there were plenty of women at the dragonology academy in Bucharest. I did date when I had the chance. Rather seriously, in one case. Jelena was her name. Outstanding woman from Ukraine. Quite traditional though, and her parents didn't like me."
Hermione scoffed. "How could they not like you?"
Charlie gave a bitter laugh. "Easy. You've never heard me speak Ukrainian. I can use it well enough to know they kept telling Jelena I was hopelessly stupid."
"Oh no."
"Yes, and they wouldn't stop matching her up with local men with superb Ukrainian every time she went home for a visit. Eventually, she took to one of them. That was the end of it," he said.
"I'm sorry, Charlie."
"Don't be. It was ages ago, and I saw it coming miles away." He stood up and extended his hand to raise her to her feet.
"And in all that time you haven't been lonely?" she said, standing, holding onto his hand. "That's been the worst thing for me since I've been single. The loneliness."
Charlie's gaze shifted over the tree, his hand still holding hers as he considered Hermione's question. "Lonely," he repeated. "Lonely for who?"
"For no one in particular," she rushed to say. "I mean, my loneliness has nothing to do with Ronald himself. Not anymore. It isn't personal, but generalized. It's just," she waved her arm at the Christmas tree. "I miss having someone."
He was frowning, puzzled. "And it doesn't matter who?"
"No, no," she said. "It matters very much. Maybe nothing else matters more, but - honestly, Charlie, you don't get it? Loneliness?"
He shrugged, letting go of her hand. "No, I guess I don't."
She was nodding, her face intent, as if solving a puzzle. "That must be how you've survived on your own so happily all this time. And maybe if you ever do find yourself feeling lonely for someone, missing them, that's how you'll know you've found - "
She didn't finish, interrupted by a loud growl from Charlie's stomach. He clamped his hands over the noise, laughing at himself. "Come on then," he said. "All I'm missing right now is my dinner."