Chapter 4

"You're a fucking idiot, Charlie Weasley," Charlie muttered to himself as he knocked on the door to Old Mrs Fawcett's place. His mother had seemed a little disappointed when she and his father had come home to find Zinnia long gone and Charlie brooding by the fireplace.

"She's a nice girl Charlie, I really thought you two might find something in common," his mother had said, her eyes looking all hurt when Charlie had complained to her that he could do without being surprised with strange women in his family home.

Charlie had winced, both at the expression on his mother's face, and the fact that after all, his mother hadn't been completely wrong. For once, her scattershot approach of introducing him to all and sundry of her acquaintance who were female, roughly his age, and Molly liked personally had actually introduced him to someone he could see himself getting on with.

Zinnia actually seemed…

Well. A bit lonely, and there was something a little… off about the way she reacted to some topics of conversation, but that could be just down to cultural differences. Zinnia was Australian after all.

Living in Romania at the Dragon Reserve had proven to Charlie again and again that even if there was a shared language, it didn't mean that every word or topic would make sense to everyone in a conversation. There had been a few hilarious misunderstandings with two of the American wizards before this had been mutually figured out. (The conversation had been about "chips" and had gotten completely out of hand, ending in one of the Americans sprouting potatoes from his ears.)

Also she had been very forward, in a way he wasn't quite used to seeing from anyone who wasn't Yelena, one of the senior dragon handlers who had run out of patience with anything that wasn't firebreathing decades ago, and whose idea of social niceties was sharing the rotgut she brewed in her laundry… that had been admittedly surprised him a little, and for Zinnia's sake he was never going to mention that one to his parents – his Dad would probably cope, but Morgana knew Molly Weasley had zero capacity for being gracious to so-called "scarlet women".

But even with all that, the enduring impression that Zinnia had left behind her was that she was nothing but… genuinely nice.

She had been extremely understanding, both of his mother's… everything, from the breakdown to the attempted set-up, and of him channelling Alastor Moody in a way that had scared off more than one person in the last year.

And if he was honest with himself, with her soft-looking dark olive skin, her sparkling brown eyes and her long, toned legs that had been showcased in those tight leggings she wore under those red muggle boots, Zinnia was hardly what you would call hard on the eyes. The wicked grin she had worn when propositioning him was going to haunt him in the best of ways.

But on the other hand… Charlie was still hurting from the last casual entanglement he had involved himself in, and just really didn't feel like getting into any sort of relationship right now. He had not been exaggerating when he told Zinnia that.

The thing with Eulalie had never meant to be serious, and had always come with an expiration date. Eulalie had been honest about that from the start, and at the time Charlie had hardly minded. Eulalie was gorgeous and high maintenance, and her deciding that their relationship was just going to be a longer than usual fling had taken a lot of the pressure off.

Also, Charlie was hardly blind to the commentary surrounding Bill's marriage to Fleur from various family members, and he wondered how much of the tension was caused by Fleur having an actually caustic personality as advertised, and how much of it was actually based on his mother and sister feeling insecure around a quarter-Veela Frenchwoman who was from a respectable old family. (His mother had apparently asked a few pointed questions about ex-boyfriends and had been shocked to hear that apparently Bill had been Fleur's first serious relationship, because she had not dated at all in school where she could avoid it due to the boys all turning into drooling morons around her.

Considering Charlie himself had needed to firmly reinforce his occlumency barriers around Fleur to ensure that he didn't say anything stupid to his brother's fiancée before the wedding, and he had watched the ludicrous actions of a number of random males there completely fail at doing the same thing, he thought he could see what she meant.) Eulalie was all human as far as he was aware, but she had remembered Fleur from Beauxbatons, (the Delacour girl had been a few years behind her, but rather distinctive), and he could tell that Eulalie considered the younger girl to be a decent sort.

Also, he suspected that Fleur must have an absolutely iron control of her temper, because he could not imagine that she would be oblivious to the undercurrents – Weasleys were many things, but subtle was not one of them. He'd told off Ginny for calling the woman "Phlegm" behind her back less because it was beneath her (although he stood by this belief and his decision to tell her that it absolutely was) and more because he for one remembered what had happened at the Quidditch World Cup when the full-blooded Veela got upset, and fireballs would be his little sister's absolute least problem if a witch who could make it into the Triwizard Tournament decided to let loose with her spell repertoire.

Considering that Eulalie had no intentions of staying with him past the year, Charlie had been more than happy to avoid getting drawn further into that sort of drama by keeping their entire relationship quiet from his family.

Between the fact that Eulalie had dumped him in April and it had hurt more than expected, and the guilt for not being there when Fred died, Charlie knew he was a complete mess.

The sort of complete mess that should absolutely not be inflicting himself on anyone in a romantic capacity.

And yet here he was, knocking on Zinnia's door three days after their somewhat awkward parting, because his mother had run out of preserved plums and had "just so happened" to remember that Zinnia had mentioned having a ridiculously huge pantry of inherited pickles and preserves that she wouldn't be able to get through herself.

("Honestly Charlie I don't see what you're dragging your heels about, she said that she had more than she knew what to do with, I'm sure she'll be pleased to both pass some on and see you, it must get so lonely in that draughty old house…")

He really needed to remember that he was completely capable of telling his mother "no" even if there wasn't half of Europe between them.

Just as he was wondering if he shouldn't just turn on his heel and disapparate away, he heard a bang, and loud swearing coming from somewhere in the back.

Before he consciously knew what was doing, wartime instincts kicked in, and Charlie was through the (luckily unlocked) door, and halfway into the house, wand drawn.

Charlie blinked.

"Are you alright?" he blurted out to the completely paint-covered figure standing in front of him.

Zinnia impatiently rubbed at the paint covering her face.

"That you Charlie?" she grumbled, eyes squinched shut. "Excuse me for a moment, I need to wash this off my face before it gets properly into my eyes."

Charlie lowered his wand and looked around, as Zinnia felt blindly for the sink.

Going by the description that his mother had given him of the interior of the place four days ago, Charlie could see that Zinnia had made a lot of headway. There was a pile of boxes neatly stacked in one corner of the sitting room, and the layer of dust that his mother had assured him was there seemed to have been vanished.

Unfortunately, there was a great big puddle of paint on the kitchen floor, which judging by the state of Zinnia and her expression, had not been deliberate.

"…What happened?" Charlie wondered.

Zinnia growled in frustration. "Just before you knocked on the door, Ichabod decided to see if he could squeeze between the paint tin and the wall behind the counter. As you can see," she complained, "Ichabod was not skinny enough to do this thing."

Charlie bit his lip.

Zinnia glowered at him. "Go on, laugh," she grumbled, swiping at a paint-covered lock of hair.

Charlie managed to hold it in until a querulous meow came from the open kitchen door, and they both looked over to see Ichabod looking distinctly ruffled and irritated, as though they were the ones who had just caused the mess in the kitchen. The cat – Ichawhat? – looked as though he was judging them, and finding them distinctly wanting.

Charlie couldn't help it then, he chortled. "Merlin, Zinnia. That cat has it out for you. Why don't you go clean up, and I'll set this to rights?" he suggested.

Zinnia sighed loudly. "Fine. I'll be back." She turned to glare right back at her cat. "And then you and I will be having words mister," she growled, leaning down to point her finger at her cat.

Ichabod attempted to bite the finger, which probably said all that needed to be said about how he felt about that.

Zinnia threw up her hands at that, and stomped out of the kitchen, presumably to shower and change.

Charlie, still snickering, racked his brains for the best spell to remove all the paint, and remembered something that his mother had always referred to as the "spilt milk" charm, that he had at least once seen one of his colleagues at the Reserve use successfully when there had been an accident involving a particularly clumsy Chinese ex-pat who had only lasted a few months, and ten vials of dragon's blood.

He righted the paint tin and then muttered the incantation, swishing his wand over the paint, and was satisfied to see that the vast majority of it slide back into the tin like a reversed waterfall.

The smaller flecks of paint about the place were a little more resistant though, and so Charlie pulled an Eazikleen Self-propelling Scourer from beneath the sink (all witches and all sensible wizards in his experience kept a stock of them there) and set it to cleaning up the rest of the mess.

He was just picking up the last of the mess when Zinnia came back in, barefoot, scrubbing a towel over unruly curls, and wearing a light-blue summer dress with a large owl embroidered on the skirt.

Charlie was man enough to admit that the sight nearly knocked him right on his arse.

"Ugh I am so sorry about – oh wow," Zinnia paused. "You cleaned it all up. All of it. Wow. Thank you."

Charlie shrugged. "It was nothing. You didn't get hurt when the paint can hit you did you?"

Zinnia grimaced. "I'll probably have a bump on the head later, but it was mostly just my pride," she demurred. She surveyed the nine-tenths painted kitchen wall, and picked up an apron from a hook on the wall, clearly intending to finish the painting.

Charlie immediately protested. "Oh no you don't. You sit down for a moment, and I'll finish this up."

Zinnia raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, because you came over here to clean up after my disaster cat and paint walls," she said sceptically.

Charlie scoffed. "It'll take me five minutes, and you could obviously use a break. Go on, sit down, I'll put the kettle on."

Zinnia stared at him for a moment, before throwing up her hands again. "Ugh fine, be a total gentleman, see if I care," she mock-complained, her smile taking the bite out of her words.

Charlie snorted. "Out," he insisted. "Go corral that cat of yours in case he gets any more ideas."

Zinnia winced. "You do make a good point."

She stalked off in the last direction that her cat had been seen, and Charlie picked up Zinnia's discarded paint roller and applied it to the wall.

Sure enough, it only took a few minutes, and he was done with the usual evening out spells and the quick-drying spells before she got back, balefully-resentful cat and all.

Zinnia eyed the job he had done on her kitchen wall, and whistled in appreciation.

"Are you appreciated over in that Preserve job?" she asked rhetorically, "because if you get the boot from that there's always professional painting, and I feel pretty confident in saying that you would be very appreciated."

Charlie chuckled. "Well if I ever get too burned out working for the Reserve," he said, employing the normal black humour of those who worked with dragons, "I might keep your suggestion in mind."

Zinnia frowned slightly. "Is that a big risk?" she asked, walking over to put the kettle on.

Charlie shrugged. "Is anything worth doing without risk?" he countered. He shrugged uncomfortably. It was an old argument he had had with his mother on and off over the years, and he had no particular wish to rehash it.

Zinnia seemed to pick this up and just smiled easily. "Fair enough. Sorry, don't mind me. I've got a bad habit of finding sore spots. It's what makes me a good nurse," she joked.

Charlie smiled back despite himself. "How did you get into that anyway?" he asked.

Zinnia sighed, and put Ichabod on the ground. "It seemed like a good idea at the time?" she hazarded.

Charlie raised an eyebrow, and Zinnia looked away and grumbled. "Okay fine, I had this girlfriend who said I couldn't do it, so I applied out of spite, got in, decided to stick with it, ended up loving it, so here I am, plus the nursing qualifications, and minus the girlfriend who thought she could tell me what I wasn't capable of."

"Wow," said Charlie.

Zinnia covered her face with one hand.

"No, honestly," said Charlie, stepping forward. "Want to hear something funny?"

Zinnia dropped her hand and looked at him quizzically.

"That's roughly how I ended up in Romania, minus the ex-girlfriend part. I mean," he shrugged, "I'd always loved Creatures, but it wasn't until this annoying snot Hyperion Mallory told me that I'd never be able to make a career out of my best subject that I decided to look seriously into my options."

Zinnia opened her mouth to comment on that, but then the kettle whistled, distracting the both of them from the conversation at hand.

"Tea?" she offered.

"I would love some," Charlie replied.

They then spent the next fifteen minutes just sitting quietly together, until Charlie remembered what it was that he had originally come for and asked Zinnia if it was really alright for him to take preserved plums from the pantry.

Zinnia laughed at his awkwardness.

"Oh good, your Mum picked up on my hint," she said. "Honestly, I swear there's enough there to keep a small family going for the better part of three years. Take whatever catches your fancy, and tell your Mum if she knows anyone else who could do with some preserves or pickles they're more than welcome to them."

Charlie insisted on only taking five jars, but could tell that Zinnia had a point. He told her that he would pass the suggestion on.

"Do you know what sort of stasis charm your great aunt would have used?" he asked her. "Because it'll give us an indication of how long the pickles will be good for."

Zinnia looked at him oddly for a moment, and then shrugged. "Can't say I know a thing about pickling, so who knows. Aunty Rose did put dates on the jars though, in case that's helpful…" she picked one up and blinked.

"Now that can't be right," she muttered.

"What?" asked Charlie.

"This jar of cumquat brandy has allegedly been brewing for ten years," Zinnia said, tilting the jar to show him the label.

"Morgana save us," breathed Charlie.

"I know right?" said Zinnia, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Want to see if it's any good?"

Charlie grinned. "Can we do that tomorrow evening? Mum allegedly actually did need these preserves this afternoon, but if I come back, I'm sure she'll have backed some thankyou food."

Zinnia grinned right back. "Sold," she replied.

Charlie picked up the string bag that Zinnia had loaned him for the preserves ("but I'm sure I can fit them in my pockets…" "don't be ridiculous, here,") and left out the front door.

Behind him, Zinnia frowned as she heard a loud crack! The door had already shut before the noise happened, so it wasn't from Charlie slamming it.

Where on earth was that sound coming from?

Ichabod twined himself around her ankles and yowled at her. She looked down, and then looked at the clock on the mantel, which seemed to tell phases of the moon and planetary positions as well as the time (who knew that Aunty Rose had been such an astrology nut?).

Yes, she realised, peering at the overly complicated clock, Ichabod was right, it was his feeding time.

Zinnia would have to ask if Charlie was hearing that noise too later.

...

A/N: so much for making this a oneshot...