Charlie Weasley stood inside his front door, his head bent, his nose touching Hermione Granger's as she agonized over whether or not to leave him there, cross the courtyard, and go cry alone in a strange bunkhouse. But he held her by one wrist and the back of her head, pulling her up and into the balmy, fragrant warmth around his freshly showered self, his hair still dark and damp. His lips were soft but rimmed with rough red stubble as they spoke her name against her mouth.

"Hermione."

Her heart was crashing inside her, her skin electrified, everything in her straining toward him. Still, she held back, waiting for him this time, answering with nothing more than a word, her incantation.

"Charlie."

As her mouth opened to speak it, he was there, kissing her. It was impossible not to, even for Charlie, a man who may have never deliberately made a first move on a witch before, no matter how seduced she might have felt. His name, only half-spoken in her throat became a high, sweet sigh, calling him closer. He released her wrist just to take her by the waist instead.

He had no plan, hardly a thought, but knew he didn't want her to leave. They needed to move away from the door. He stepped backward, pulling her against him as they went, their mouths still connected. She followed without resistance, her eyes closed, mouth open, her hands gripping his shoulders. Even through the thick, soft layer of his dressing gown, his shoulders felt massive, hard, too big from her hands to cover completely. He felt more like Viktor Krum than Ronald Weasley beneath her hands. But of course he was neither. He was Charlie, something like the best of both of them, only just himself.

Doomed - she was doomed to fall for him.

Then all at once she was falling. In their blind walk backwards, she had stepped in a spot of the greasy balm that had dripped from her hands and onto the smooth wooden floor. She lost her footing and grabbed at Charlie's clothes, pulling his dressing gown completely off one shoulder. He scrambled to keep her upright, but as he adjusted his footing, he stepped into the low stool he had left in front of the bed while applying the balm to her hands. He was tripping as well, breaking the kiss and bracing for impact as they fell onto the bed.

They landed on their sides, facing each other on the soft mattress. Neither of them spoke. Hermione's hand had moved from Charlie's shoulder to the crook of his elbow as she'd pulled at his dressing gown. She moved her head, still cradled in Charlie's palm, to look at her hand on his freckled, brown arm. With her eyes, she followed a line up to his shoulder and down to his bare chest before sucking in a breath and forcing her stare back to his face.

He was watching her with that alluring curiosity of his, and though she knew he wasn't sure what to do with her, she also knew she would accept whatever he offered, here in his bed. She sensed the quick rise and fall of her own chest between them. Self-conscious, she tipped slightly away from him, onto her back.

He followed, hovering over her, not covering up his exposed skin. She bit back his name, aching to say it again, but aware it might sound too much like begging. And she would not beg anyone for anything. Not even him.

He was still exploring, though not quite scientifically. He lowered his face to hers, grazing her cheek with his lips. She dragged her fingertips from his elbow, to his shoulder, up his throat and to his jaw, delicate pressure keeping him close.

He decided, and trailed his lips toward her mouth -

And then the door crashed open. There was a rush of cold evening mountain air and a barrage of high, frantic shouting. Charlie's posture snapped to attention, his dressing gown whipped back in place, both of his feet on the floor. In the doorway stood a tiny, grisled woman, waving her arms and ranting. Her face and limbs were skeletally thin, her head bound with a red and blue kerchief.

Hermione didn't understand the woman's language, but she could tell she was using it to shame and reprimand them for being in bed together. Some things need no translation.

Charlie had placed himself to keep the woman from seeing Hermione completely, shielding her from any embarrassment she might be feeling. When he could, he stood up, nodding and saying the same five or six words over and over again in gentle, agreeable tones, walking towards the woman, taking her hands and stacking them between his, nodding furiously, almost bowing. Finally, she let him turn her out the door. Something he'd done had placated her, though Hermione had no idea what.

"I'd better go," she said as Charlie closed the door behind the old witch and leaned his back against it.

He nodded, his eyes closed, lips still parted, chest heaving. "Yeah."

"What exactly was she yelling about?" Hermione asked as she rose from the bed. "That was Marius's mother, I assume."

He nodded "Yes, that's her. As for what she was on about. I don't know. Your chastity, I reckon? We've never had a woman as a guest here, so I wasn't prepared for what Doamna Marius might think of you - visiting my quarters."

For many reasons, Hermione frowned. "You don't understand her?"

"No. This is a border region and not everyone speaks Romanian here. Doamna Marius among them." He was fidgeting, fanning his fingers through his damp hair. "And no, that's not her name. It makes no sense, but that's what they call her all the same - like her real name is unspeakable, or something."

He was joking, but Hermione didn't laugh. "Whoever she is, she's not speaking Romanian?"

"No, she's not," Charlie confirmed. "She speaks nothing but Hungarian. I can handle Romanian. It's like the craziest French ever, but not impossible for me to pick up. But Hungarian - they say only children can learn Hungarian. It didn't take me long to give it up."

Hermione hummed. "Well, I still feel like we owe it to her to find out what she said to us. It might be important. Didn't you say this place was originally built as a convent? What if there's some sort of ancient curse on people who try to kiss each other here?"

This time she was joking, but Charlie didn't laugh. He shifted on his feet and said, "If I ask Marius to interpret that scene for me, then I'll have to tell him - and he'll know that we were…"

She scoffed. "I'm not stupid, Charlie. No one here is. I can tell they already suspect."

Charlie looked at his feet without answering. Hermione felt her high, pink colour blanching away. This was a mistake. He had made a mistake and didn't want anyone to know what he'd done with her, minor as it might seem to other people.

She let out her breath in a quick huff, "Right." She took one quick step toward the door, and he was in front of her again, his hands on her arms, holding her in place.

"I don't care what anyone else thinks of - this," he said. "Not even my own family. You know I'm a bit notorious in my family for doing whatever I like, especially since prodigal Percy stopped sending his Christmas jumpers back."

She smirked and leaned ever so slightly against him as he explained himself.

"But I do want to make sure this thing has the space it needs to - to sort itself out," Charlie went on. "I don't want to start something with you and then cram it between everyone's expectations and opinions, like a dragon in a cage in a black market carnival. It's too precious, too marvelous."

He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers, "I can't get this wrong. And as a perfectionist, I don't want anyone else touching it. I know you understand that, Hermione. I'll tolerate no interference. Not even Doamna Marius's iron-fisted grip on this odd little mountain settlement."

She turned her face until her closed mouth was pressed against his fingers. In the dim light coming through the window from where the street lamps had been lit outside, she blinked her brown eyes at him.

He smudged her lips with his thumb. After so little time, how was it that there was nearly nothing he wouldn't do for her? It was mad infatuation, and he knew enough to know it had to be tempered, slowed, before it consumed anything with the potential to last. Still, he agreed. "Alright, then. I'll ask Marius what she said. But only so we can avoid more of her most aggravating interference in the future. After dinner and the meeting, I'll find out what I agreed to just now."

Hermione stood back. "Agreed to?"

Charlie dropped his hand from her face, nodding. "Yeah. I answered her with the only Hungarian I know: 'I'm sorry, yes, thank you.' I said it over and over to get her to leave."

"I'm sorry, yes, thank you," Hermione repeated.

"It's the best I could do," Charlie argued. "I literally can't say anything else to her. Well, I suppose I could have used the rest of my Hungarian vocabulary. Numbers up to ten, can you repeat that, careful, dragon, very big dragon, angry dragon - "

She was laughing. "Right then. Get dressed, Weasley. I'll see you at dinner, and then we'll talk about - about us as sensible adults. But with you properly clothed and nowhere near your bed."

At the dragon sanctuary, dinner was served in a mess hall with an ambiance not unlike the Great Hall at Hogwarts: stone walls and floors, firelight from sconces burning along the walls and overhead, long wooden tables lined with benches. The food was mostly turnips and sausages which, Hermione noted as she glanced around the room and found she was indeed the only woman there besides Doamna Marius, was fitting.

From the bits of interpretation she got from Charlie, she could tell that everyone was talking about Gabriela, the opal-eye dragon rescued from Gringott's and now gravid by the Ukrainian iron-belly. Charlie was making sure to tell everyone that Hermione had led Ela's liberation from the bank, news met with noisy gasps of awe and a few heartfelt bows. No one needed to translate those for her either.

Among the dragonologists and their assistants, there was talk of concern for the opal-eye's health, and a bit of admiration for the iron-belly for wearing down her unreceptiveness. In more hushed tones, there was speculation about who had tampered with the wards between their enclosures to bring them into contact with each other.

Yes, dragons are wily and it wasn't entirely impossible for the randy Iron-belly to have broken them down himself, but it was unlikely. Far more plausible was the theory that one of the wizards had done it. Or, Bogdan whispered only to Charlie, that old Doamna Marius had done it herself. Marius himself was a squib, educated in a Muggle university in economics and finance, working here to do the math to keep international markets supplied with legal dragon goods to take the teeth out of the black market. He lived here with his mother because their family had always lived here. Whatever she set her mind to, there was nothing magical Marius could do to stop her.

Bogdan's fear of old Doamna Marius verged on superstitious. It was the same for most of the men at the sanctuary. This was why Bogdan sat close to Charlie, trying to convince him to be the one to raise the possibility of her tampering with the wards at the meeting. None of the local people would be so foolhardy, but Weasley did what he wanted around here and seemed to get away with it most of the time, his missteps waved off as foreigner ignorance and insolence. Still, Charlie groaned and pulled at his own hair at the suggestion. Eventually, he agreed to do it, but not until after everyone had their fill of sausages.

The food was mostly cleared away, and the wizards were settled back in their chairs, sipping at their tea, when Doamna Marius herself climbed rather nimbly onto a chair at the head of the room. She raised her arms to call for quiet, and began to speak in a language only a handful of those listening could understand.

At first, everyone listened with polite attention, whether they understood her or not. Before long there were a few guffaws of laughter from the Hungarian speakers in the room. They began whispering to their tablemates and as they did, Doamna Marius, still speaking as if nothing had changed, was stepping off the table, almost flying, drifting toward where Hermione sat next to Charlie.

Marius was on his feet, as if to head his mother off, arguing in a whisper in Hungarian as she ignored him, her hand raised to hide his face from hers. The men from the other tables were following after her as she moved past them, gathering in a crowd around Charlie's table.

When she was close enough, Doamna Marius clasped Hermione by the hand. A jolt ran the length of Hermione's arm as the old witch closed her fingers around hers. The Hungarian speakers were mouthing to her over Domna Marius's shoulder, waving their hands as if trying to hail cabs. Beside her, Marius was whispering frantically in Charlie's ear in Romanian. And while Charlie listened, eyes wide, Doamna Marius spoke a single sentence in a clear, ringing voice as she stood eye to eye with Hermione.

Hermoine could tell the old witch was addressing her, demanding an answer for something. She shook her head, smiling apologetically. Doamna Marius stood a little taller, repeating herself, louder and slower, as if it helped. Hermione had studied foreign languages before, and one of her strategies for understanding unfamiliar foreign speech had always been to repeat back what she had just heard the other speaker say. It bought her time, and helped her internalize the words to find something familiar in them.

So that is what she did. She repeated back to Doamna Marius the last two Hungarian syllables she had said.

A cheer went up from the crowd. Doamna Marius smiled almost sweetly, and tapped the top of Hermione's hand with her wand in parting. She let go, and reached for Charlie. As he let her take his hand, Charlie's face was paler than Hermione had ever seen it, every freckle starkly visible. The old witch was chattering at him now. She ended by asking him a question as well, but Hermiome couldn't be sure if it was different from what she'd been asked.

Hermione's mind was working, clicking and ticking through possibilities, intent on decoding this strange exchange. It must be some kind of mortification spell, something to reverse whatever negative influence they'd brought to the sanctuary with a bit of snogging and an accidental trip into bed.

Fine then, Hermione thought. Have your ridiculous, ancient ceremony. Go on and try to embarrass us in front of everyone, if it will make you feel better. What does it matter?

Hermione watched bemused as Charlie swallowed hard enough for his entire head to bob and said the same words she had said to Doamna Marius. He hadn't quite finished when the entire room was ringing with cheers and singing. Doamna Marius held him a moment longer, tapping his hand with her wand. A blue spiral of light sprung up from it, bending as it reached the ceiling, splitting into dozens of fine, falling strands, showering the men below.

They turned in the falling sparks, as if celebrating long-awaited rain. Their cheering reached a crescendo and Charlie was lifted onto their shoulders and carried around the room, the crowd bouncing and singing beneath him.

They pawed at Hermione as if to do the same with her, but Doamna Marius batted their hands away. But she did squeeze Hermione's face between her gnarled hands, like the boughs of an enchanted willow bush, and kissed her wetly on each cheek.

The men were letting Charlie stand on his own feet again, and the crowd was surging from behind Hermione, pushing her toward the door of the mess hall. The mass of people jammed themselves through the door and outside into the cool night. They bore her all the way across the courtyard and through another door. It slammed shut with Hermione on one side, and the singing, laughing, hooting voices on the other. They were fading away, leaving her behind the door.

The room she'd been shut in was dark, and she was reaching for her wand as she heard Charlie cast a Lumos spell from somewhere closeby. In the light, she saw they were back in the small building where he lived. He tended the lamps, and once the room was lit with a warm orange glow, he sat down heavily at a small table.

"Well," he began. "My plan to keep anyone else from interfering between you and me could not have failed any more spectacularly than it has."

She sighed and stepped further into the room. "Oh, come on, Charlie. Yes, that was embarrassing. But at least it's over. The old crone seemed satisfied. And she doesn't seem to mind us spending time alone together anymore."

Charlie looked up from where he'd been staring at the tabletop, lifting his head from between his hands. "Hermione, you don't - " He broke off, laughing mirthlessly. "I am so sorry. It was the language barrier at first, but then - I panicked, froze. Even after Marius - he explained, but by then you'd already said "yes" - "

"Is that what I said?"

"It was," he was nodding, wiping sweaty palms on his thighs. "And Doamna Marius took it as if you meant it. You pronounced it so nicely, confidently, as if you knew. And - and everyone was waiting and I couldn't very well show you up by saying 'no' in front of all of them and so - now - "

"Now what, Charlie?" she said, her voice rising. "What did I say 'yes' to?"

He was standing up, pacing as he spoke, quickly, as if thinking aloud. "I'm sure we can sort it out later. You can't enter into an agreement without understanding it. That can't be right. Not even in the Carpathians."

"What agreement?"

"And what kind of authority does Doamna Marius actually have? It might be good for one outpost in the Carpathians, but anywhere else, certainly back home we wouldn't be considered - "

"Charlie," Hermione said, almost shouting as she stood in front of him, her hands braced against his shoulders to stop his pacing.

He wouldn't look at her, and seemed hardly able to feel her hands on him. "But on the bright side, I think it's pretty clear now who sneaked into the opal-eye's enclosure and got her hooked up with the Iron-belly. Just another bit of life-changing, fate-altering, relationship meddling from a not-at-all harmless old woman of the mountain."

Hermione threw her hands up. "What have the dragons got to do with what happened in the mess hall just now? Clearly I've missed something."

Charlie took in a huge breath, as if he was about to blow fire to rival all the dragons sleeping in the woods over the rise. Instead, he blew it slowly out his nose as he took both her hands in his. "You know I fancy you, Hermione. But even more than that, I like you. So much. Even so, you have to believe this is no trick of mine. I didn't mean for this to happen. Certainly not like it did tonight. And whatever you decide to do about it, I'll support you completely. If you want me to send you back to London tonight and never see me again - I will hate that, but I will do that."

She stepped into him, her face upturned, her hands still held in his. "Tell me, Charlie. Are we vampires now? Did we sell our souls to an up-and-coming Dark Lord?"

He stepped back, releasing her hands. "We did sell our souls. We sold them to each other. Hermione, you and I are married."