AN: Posting this before my day gets crazy. Thank you for reading! DDD
Morning, and the woman who would call herself Hermione Granger Weasley from now on was waking up exactly as she wanted. She was on her side with her husband's body at her back, folded into every angle she formed, his arm dropped over her waist, his breath slow and steady as he slept with his face almost in her hair.
She was warm and adored and happier than she'd been in years, so happy she giggled into her hand. Then lacing her fingers through his, she raised his hand to her lips and kissed it, one kiss between each of his rough knuckles, and one more in the centre.
Charlie stirred, nestling closer, tightening his arm around her, and imprinting his morning kiss on her neck.
She shivered and sank further into his embrace. But what she said was, "Go back to sleep, my dear. I didn't mean to wake you. I'm content to lie here and admire you."
He hummed. "No, I'm glad to be awake. I was missing you in my sleep."
"Missing me?"
"Yeah, so lonely for you," he said. "I suppose that's how I wound up crowding you like this. Sorry."
"Don't be sorry," she said, rolling onto her other side, facing him and hooking her leg around his, her heel holding him before he could shift away to un-crowd her. "This is right where I want you."
"Is it?" Charlie said, combing hopelessly at her hair with gentle fingers. "I thought - I mean, I heard…"
"What?" she said, pulling back, pretending to be stern. "Was it Ronald? Did he tell you I didn't like to be touched while I'm sleeping?"
"Erm, well, maybe years ago he might have mentioned…"
"That's only because the man is all knees and elbows, especially when he's unconscious," she said, nuzzling her face into Charlie's not at all scrawny chest. "Honestly, it was like sleeping tied up in a bag full of gardening tools."
"Yes, I know all about it," Charlie said, patting her back in an oddly friendly way.
"You've been tied up in a bag of gardening tools? I would have thought maybe you'd tied someone else up, but – "
"No, I mean I've slept with him too, all of us jumbled together before Dad built the extension on the house. "
She covered his mouth with her hand. "No."
"It's true though."
"You have to stop," she laughed as he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him.
"All I'm saying is I was told you liked gangly men just fine," he teased.
"I would if you were gangly," she said, her head resting on his chest, her hair covering them.
"Aren't you lovely," Charlie said, both his arms around her, rocking side to side.
"More like lucky."
"Why not both?" he said.
She allowed it, grinning into his chest. "Say, why haven't you been snoring? Ron and Harry led me to believe you snore."
Charlie laughed, the low smug laugh of someone who'd fooled someone younger than themself. It could only be called a chuckle. "I'll tell you one of my big brother secrets. If you make a racket snoring in crowded sleeping arrangements, you're more likely to be given some space to yourself."
"You faked snoring so you'd be left in peace?" she said, dropping her face into the crook of his neck to tickle him with her laughter.
"I might have," he said, his hands on her hips. "Just until everyone else fell asleep."
"That's it," she said, propping herself on her hands, grinning down at him. "Every Weasley is a sneak. How am I supposed to deal with that?"
"So says Hermione Granger, one of the nation's most notoriously sneaky heroes," Charlie said, smoothing her hair from her face and cradling her jawline. "You were made to be one of us. Or at least, mine."
She let him bring her face forward to kiss him. As she did, the morning's playful affection became heated, the intensity of the night before returning.
"Well," she said, pulling back with a click before it was too late to talk anymore, "now that my favourite Christmas ever is in the books, should we make our first outing as true newlyweds to your parents' and tell them how it's turned out? They'll be so pleased."
Charlie growled, kneading her back with his fingers. "Too pleased. I'm beyond happy with their results but, really, their meddling has to stop here. Can you imagine if this just encourages them, and they start trying to solve the problems of everyone they know with magical tricks? No, I say we let them fret over it for a day or two."
"Oh, but they'll be so worried, thinking I might be angry enough to storm off and leave everyone," Hermione protested. "That's what I can't bear. It will only make me feel worse about the past. Let's go see them tonight."
Charlie huffed. But she hovered over his face, big brown eyes full of concern for his parents' feelings, for peace among her new in-laws. "Alright," he said, leaning up to kiss the look of entreaty from her face. "I'll go with you tonight. But for now, I don't feel much like seeking out anyone's company."
She sang a sigh as his mouth met her throat. "And so begins my favourite Boxing Day ever."
Charlie made no answer, rolling onto her, a dreamy crush she was rising into. No, they would not speak again for some time.
Late on Boxing Day morning, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Weasley's flat was quiet, the atmosphere languid and lazy. Hours before, in the middle of the night, Charlie had gone to the kitchen for drinks and had double-checked to make sure the Floo was locked against the impromptu morning visits of any more of his concerned family members. He was still convinced it would do them good to fret behind a locked door.
But his was no ordinary family, and this morning, after a few jets of sparks, the lock was breached. Molly, Arthur, and the family's designated lock-picker George now stood on the hearth, fanning the smoke and squinting about for signs of life.
"Hermione? Are you here, dear girl?" Arthur called into the quiet.
"Hush, Arthur," Molly scolded. "She may still be sleeping."
"Right," George agreed in a low voice. "So we've got a few moments to get some intell. We can figure out whether she let Charlie come back here yesterday in spite of the shenanigans the two of you - "
"Ah, well here's a man's coat," Arthur interrupted, using the end of his wand to lift Charlie's coat from where he'd thrown it the night before. "Black, heavy, nondescript, not unlike Charlie's."
Molly snatched it out of the air, sniffing at it. "There's the faintest whiff of something slightly burnt. Yes, that's our Charlie's," she said.
George frowned. "Can you do that for all of us? Identify us by our smells?"
Molly blinked at him. "Unfortunately, yes."
"Oh look, a second coat dropped on the floor," Arthur said. "Someone came back here in a great hurry." He gave a grunt when Molly elbowed him in the ribs.
"Yes, it looks as if they're both here," she agreed more pleasantly. "But where, exactly?"
The three of them turned at once to peer down the hallway where the doors to a bathroom and what appeared to be a broom cupboard stood open, and where one other door, a bedroom door, was shut.
"Nope," George said. "Not me. I'm not picking any more locks here today."
Arthur fidgeted as he draped Hermione's coat over the back of a chair. "I'd rather not go knocking either, my dear."
Before anything else could be negotiated, the Floo was sparking again. The three of them leapt out of the way to make room for Harry and Ginny.
As usual, Ginny arrived mid-conversation. "At last, Hermione. You've finally opened your Floo for the day. I was starting to worry - Mum?"
"Where's the baby?" Molly started, searching Harry's arms for James.
"Keep your hair on, Mum. He's at Duddy-kin's for the morning," Ginny said, stretching and waving her free hands at everyone.
"That'd be my cousin. Remember?" Harry said. "What can I say? He and his wife love freakish little babies."
Everyone was nodding and humming.
"Are Hermione and Charlie really not here? Escaped us all to go on a honeymoon, have they?" Ginny asked in a low tone.
Molly scoffed. "Escaped us? Why ever would they feel the need to escape us?"
Ginny folded her arms over her middle. "Oh, I don't know. Does utter-lack-of-boundaries ring a bell, Mum? You know very well you haven't been exactly…"
But the Floo was sparking, interrupting again, this time with the arrival of Percy and Bill.
"So, is Charlie alright, or did she hex him to bits when she found out what happened?" Bill smirked, nudging Charlie's empty leather shoes with his toe.
"Dunno. His coat's over here," George said, easing it out of Molly's hands and tossing it at Bill. "We reckon if there's anything left of him it's down there, behind that door. You've come just in time to knock."
Bill laughed. "I'm not touching it. Perce?"
"Absolutely not," he said. "I'm only here because you dragged me."
"And if we're all here," George said, holding up his fingers. "Then that means in 3, 2, 1…"
Sure enough the Floo flashed again and Ron burst into the room. "I knew it," he said. "Look, if Charlie's gone and married Hermione, and she's not too mad at us to keep him, it doesn't mean the rest of you can ditch me."
"Enough, Ronald. We haven't ditched anyone. Quite the contrary," Molly said, throwing her handbag onto the sofa and thrusting both of her arms into it. In one hand, she pulled out a carton of eggs in the other, a pound of bacon. "Now come help in the kitchen. The most polite way to get people out of bed is to start frying up a breakfast."
No one complained about a second breakfast, all of them beginning to bang noisily through the kitchen and lounge, crammed together in the small space.
"No coffee in the house, not a speck of it," Molly was muttering. "Good thing I've brought tea enough."
Everyone was still a little concerned about the state of things behind the closed bedroom door, but no one willing to intrude that far - yet.
George stood at the sink beside Ron, leaning over him to whisper to Bill, as if Ron wasn't there. "Hey, Bill. Honestly, what do you reckon the brightest witch has done to him back there? Did he even survive once he told her everything?"
Ron groaned, dropping the apple he was washing and covering his ears.
"Grow up, Ronald," Percy said, patting him on the back with more than a little affection.
"I will," he said, picking up the dropped fruit. "Maybe it won't be this morning, but if she lets Charlie stay married to her in spite of the rest of us, then there'll be nothing for it but for me to get over it. And I will do."
Molly had overheard and she turned away from supervising a perfectly competent Ginny at the stove to pat Ron on the back herself. "There's a good lad," she spun away from him, quickly caught up in conducting the activity in the kitchen. "Now rinse these tins for the bin, will you, Charlie dear? CHARLIE!"
Yes, in all the cooking commotion no one had noticed Charlie himself slipping into the kitchen among the tangle of his brothers. He stood before his mother, all eyes on him, his cheeks ruddy with fresh air, fully dressed and wearing trainers and an old quidditch practice jacket he sometimes trotted out on weekends.
"Charlie," Molly said again as the rest of the family fell speechless. "Where have you come from?"
For a moment, he said nothing, staring down into his mother's face, his expression serious, straining the quiet long enough for a shadow of worry to cross Molly's face. "Hermione," she said, "where is she? She isn't throwing you out, is she? Or leaving on her own? She isn't so angry with us that she's - is she?"
The room stayed quiet as Charlie dropped his eyes, shaking his head. Even Ginny began to look concerned.
"Hermione, she's…" he couldn't seem to go on.
"She's right here!"
A noisy collective sigh went up as Hermione darted through the kitchen doorway, ducking beneath Charlie's arm, her coat open far enough for everyone to read the large, hand-stitched "C" on the front of her jumper - the Christmas jumper they'd all seen Charlie wearing last night. They could also see Charlie's true-love-amber hanging around her neck.
"What a lovely surprise," she was saying. "To find you've all broken into our house this morning. We were going to be cross with you. Really we were, and you would have deserved a bit of that. But it's just too wonderful to come back from getting a morning mint latte to find all of you here, as my official family."
"So that's it then?" Arthur beamed. "The marriage is on?"
"Most certainly on," Charlie said, speaking into Hermione's upturned face. "You got away with it this time, Dad. But no more scheming, and for stars' sake knock at the Floo. This is a newlywed house and I can't be held responsible – "
"Of course, my boy. Of course," Arthur said.
Molly smoothed her apron. "Yes, I do hope you'll beg our pardon for slowing down the recovery of your parents, Hermione. The whole aim of this project was your happiness, and we saw no need to go with the half-measure of just restoring your parents when we could supply you with the full-measure of a husband too."
"Enough, Mother," Bill said, steering her away from Charlie. "She's forgiven you so don't make a mess of it. And you've cooked quite enough this holiday too. Get out of the kitchen while we finish up. Take her away, Harry. She listens to you."
The meal was a glorious, greasy feast, and Hermione's first true holiday meal that year. Once it was eaten and cleared away, everyone knew not to stay too long in what was, truly, a honeymoon suite.
When the Floo was finally clear of all visitors, Charlie and Hermione sat on the sofa, his head in her lap and her hand on his chest. She summoned the tin heart ornament from the tree and tapped it with her wand so the wings on the cherubs fluttered.
Charlie sniffed a laugh at it as it dangled over his head. "I suppose that ghastly thing is forever part of our love story."
"It could be worse," she said, the ornament turning at the end of her wand. "I could have ordered the one personalized with Ronald's face blowing kisses at us."
Charlie laughed as he sat up, dropping a kiss of his own on her face. "Why didn't you?"
She sent the ornament flying back to the tree. "I dunno. Sometimes I feel like something inside me knew all along how it would go."
He raised his eyebrows. "What, like a bit of divination at work? In you?"
She shrugged. "Anything's possible."
He ducked his head, stifling a yawn.
"Look at you. Knackered. Up all night," she said, raking her fingers through his hair. "My parents always used to say that Boxing Day afternoons were best spent in bed."
Charlie's eyebrows rose again.
"In bed napping!" she rushed to say. "You know what I mean! Catching up on missed sleep. Oh, I've done it again with the innuendos."
Charlie's hand was on her chin, drawing it forward, bringing her mouth to his. She was opening to kiss him when he spoke. "I reckon I have an awful lot to thank my in-laws for."
She laughed into his mouth, crawling into his lap as his arms enfolded her. "I think someday soon they'll be telling you the same. Now, it's still my honeymoon so even though you're tired, I will need to be carried to bed for a nap. Or something like it."
"Something like it indeed." Charlie's voice was a whisper, and then a kiss as he rose to take his wife, his person away.