Bringing Arthur to Heathrow had been a fantastic idea. He was like a kid in a candy store, turning in circles to look closer at the travellers, the guards, the trolleys, and most importantly the planes. He had been overjoyed to accompany her to meet Charlie at the airport and she was happy to be able to bring someone so much joy with so little effort.
"Hermione, where does all the luggage go?" Arthur asked, bewildered. "I can see that the passengers have luggage when they go up to the desk there but then they walk away with all the big pieces of luggage gone, where do they go?"
"I'm not entirely sure what the exact process is but I assume that the luggage is moved to a more central location behind the desk where it is sorted based on it's destination and loaded onto the planes. The people who work at the desk attach a sticker to each piece of luggage that you check-in that states where you are going and the number of the flight you are on. Does that make sense?"
"Yes, thank you! I'm not sure what I was imaging but what you explained makes much more sense. But how do you get your luggage back when you reach your destination?"
Hermione smiled at how intrigued he looked. "Well, when a plane lands at an airport it's guided towards a specific spot to stop at, these spots are each assigned something called a baggage carousel. Once the airport personnel start unloading the plane, they move the luggage from the plane onto a moving belt that is connected with the building and the baggage carousel inside. A baggage carousel is essentially a moving belt in the shape of an oval that allows travellers to come near it and grab their respective pieces."
"Ingenious, these muggles," Arthur said with a smile. "Would you mind if I moved over to the windows to see the planes moving outside? It never stops being fascinating and you mentioned we still had some time before Charlie's flight arrives."
"Of course not, Arthur, please enjoy yourself!" Maybe in that time she could collect her thoughts and figure out how not to blush as soon as she saw Charlie. She was here with Arthur, after all, and in the middle of a public place where some decorum was certainly called for, no matter how much she wanted to whisk him away.
Hermione,
I don't know what to say. Whatever surprise I expected it certainly wasn't the one I received and I'm at a loss for a way to thank you. That you would trust me enough to send me something like this (and I know there's an aspect of trust to this surprise, I'm not naïve enough to think that you sent this away without any trepidation or second thoughts) warms my heart and is very validating - I must be doing something right if you were convinced to send me such photos. I'm not usually one for being obscene but I think I lost my head for a few days here and there are so many things I'd like to say and do to you. You look dazzling in both the black and red sets, love, but it's your expression that absolutely kills me. So open and wanting, it's a miracle I've gotten through the week without getting seriously injured. I want to kiss you, touch you, fuck you, have all my senses know nothing but you. I'll be back in England on Friday night and believe me when I say that I'll do my best to show you my gratitude in person.
Yours,
Charlie
She'd kept the letter in her purse for the rest of the week, counting down the hours until she could see Charlie again like a lovesick fool. Both Ginny and Angelina had written to let her know that their surprises were similarly well received and that they'd loved the experience and wanted to go again. They'd both told some friends about it and now they had a whole group who wanted to participate, loving the concept of getting pampered and having fantastic gifts for their significant others in one fell swoop.
Breaking out of her inner ramblings she realized that Charlie's plane was landing momentarily and that they should move towards the arrivals area in time to catch him on his way out. "Arthur, we really should be going to arrivals, we wouldn't want to be late and miss surprising him," she said guiding the man towards the staircase that led towards the lower level and arrivals.
"Quite right, Hermione, is he going to be coming down one of those moving staircases?"
"Could be, let's go check the board and see which area he'll be coming out of."
"Do you mind I try to find the information this time? You gave me the numbers I need to work it out and I'd like to see if I can follow," Arthur asked with a smile, brandishing her little post-it with Charlie's flight information on it.
"Be my guest, Arthur," she replied, laughing. She watched in amusement as he walked up towards the giant arrivals board and moved systematically from one side to the other, glancing down at the post-it to make sure he got the information correct.
"Alright, I think I've understood the information and gotten it correct but I'm not sure," he said with a worried look on his face. "Charlie's plane is landed and he should be coming out of gate D3."
Glancing at the board to double check the information she grinned when she realized that he got it. "Arthur, that's exactly right, well done! Now all we have to do is wait for the plane to unload which normally takes about 15-20 minutes."
"Is that the same unloading that you were talking about earlier, with the bags?"
"Yes, but I also mean that the passengers have to unload which does take a while. See, each plane has assigned seating which means that when the plane lands, passengers get off in a specific order as there is only one door to leave through at the front of the plane. That means that anyone seated at the front of the plane gets to leave first and then whoever was seated behind them and so on."
"Ah, I didn't realize that there was only one door, that makes sense, "he replied, nodding his head. Leaning up against a pillar not far from the gate entrance, they waited until they could see Charlie's unmistakable hair on the escalator and watched as his face split into a grin as he noticed them. Walking over he clapped his father on the back before grabbing her in a hug and lifting her off of her feet in a twirl.
"Merlin, it's good to see you, Granger," he said into her ear, kissing her on the cheek before tightening his arms around her and reluctantly setting her down.
"I've missed you too, Charlie," she said, blushing at the look on his face. Arthur quietly cleared his throat beside them and Charlie let her go before turning to his dad with an apology.
"No need to apologize to me, son, I didn't magically have seven children, I'm well aware of what being in love entails. I just figured you'd like to get to the apparition point so that you two can carry on with your evening."
"Thanks, Dad," Charlie replied laughing and raking a hand through his hair. "The apparition point is this way, hidden in plain sight as it were. I do want to thank you for coming to greet me today, it's a much nicer reception than just arriving by myself."
"Ah, you have Hermione to thank for that, she wanted to surprise you and thought it was a perfect time to bring me along to show me the airport," Arthur replied. "And I enjoyed it immensely, so thank you, my dear."
"No worries, Arthur," she said, "I'm glad you liked it. We'll stop by for tea sometime this weekend, if that's alright?"
"Absolutely, you're both welcome anytime. Now, on with you lovebirds, enjoy your night!"
"The apparition point is just this windowless meeting room?" Hermione wondered, turning to face Charlie after saying goodbye to Arthur.
"What else would it be, love? This is all that's necessary, only people who carry a special license from the ministry can get through the door and none of the muggles see what's going on inside," Charlie responded, stepping closer to her again. "Is it alright if I come home with you? You're all I've thought of for days, I'd like to make good on my promise to show my gratitude, both for the last surprise and this one today."
"There's nowhere I'd rather you be, Charles Weasley." Taking his hand in hers she turned on the spot and landed in her living room again. She'd cleaned up in preparation for his visit, put out some whisky glasses, more blankets on the couch, but those thoughts all flew out of her head as Charlie immediately reached for her and claimed her lips in his. One hand moved to the back of her neck, his favourite spot, and the other curled around her waist as he deepened the kiss. His hand moved to tug on her hair as his mouth left hers to nip at her earlobe and suck a spot right behind it that made her go weak in the knees.
"Can I taste you?" he asked hoarsely, "I want to make you cum so badly."
"As if I'd ever say no to that," she responded, breathless and yearning for him to continue touching her. "Let's go to the bedroom and get comfortable." Though it normally took only a few steps to get to her room, it was a full five minutes before they made it to the bed as Charlie had pushed her up against her hallway wall to snog her senseless, his body pressing into hers.
"I've wanked every night since you sent those damned pictures, Granger," he told her as he took off his shirt at her insistent tugging.
"I've touched myself every night since you sent that letter so I guess we're even," she replied, tugging off her jeans and socks.
Charlie groaned as he picked her up and set her down onto his lap on the side of the bed. "Of course, you did, you're fucking magnificent. I'd love to watch you one day, it'd be an amazing sight."
The position they were in did wonders for Charlie's ability to focus on her neck and chest and she took the opportunity to grind on his lap, feeling his cock harden beneath her. His hands landed on her hips, helping her move back and forth and she moaned as she felt herself soaking through her panties.
"I love feeling your hands on me, Charlie," she told him as they continued to move with each other.
"It's narcotic how strongly you respond to me, I never want to stop touching you," he replied, groaning into her shoulder as she ground down again. Standing up with her legs wrapped around his waist, Charlie grabbed her lips in a searing kiss as he laid her down onto the bed, breaking the kiss only to tug her shirt over her head and take his own jeans off while he got the chance. His erection tented his briefs, pushing on the material and causing a wet to spot appear on the front and she almost salivated at the sight. He'd lick her and then she'd insist on licking him in return, she'd missed doing that the first time around.
Charlie kissed down her body, focusing on her breasts and nipples before moving down and slipping off her soaked panties. "You are so fucking beautiful and I am a lucky, lucky, man," he said before leaning down and spreading her legs. He started slowly, savouring the taste of her before pushing her legs further open and tonguing her as deep as he could – she was coming in mere minutes, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Before she'd truly had time to recover, Charlie had moved closer again and inserted one finger into her as she was still quivering.
"You know, I have this funny feeling that you're one of those lovely women who can orgasm multiple times in one session. And since making you cum is my new favourite hobby, I figured we'd give it a shot. What do you think?"
He inserted a second finger as she was trying to respond and she ended up gasping out her words. "Whatever you want, just keep going, please. Please!" She bucked to try to get his fingers in deeper but he threw his other arm across her torso, pinning her to the bed. He inserted a third finger slowly before increasing his pace with measured strokes. She's pretty sure she screamed as she came, squirting for the first time in her life, body practically humming from being so oversensitive. "You… you can feel free to do that anytime," she said, breathing heavily.
"I promise I will, that was the sexiest thing I've seen in recent memory. I don't even mind my arm and chest getting soaked," he said, looking at her with wide eyes, a grin tugging his lips.
"Can I lick you now? I missed out last time and I really like doing it."
"Are you kidding? Yeah, I'd totally be up for that."
She asked him to switch places with her on the bed, giving his lips a quick kiss as they rearranged themselves. He groaned the moment she put her hand and mouth around him, threading his hands into her hair. She looked up to watch him eagerly watching her - moving her head to the side she kissed and licked her way down both sides of his cock, gripping him at the base the whole time before taking him in fully and feeling him hit the back of her throat.
"Fuuck… Hermione," Charlie said, eyes closing and head falling back. "Did not think you'd be doing that, you absolute godsend."
She moved up and down a few more times before he gently eased her off, "if you keep doing that I'm going to cum and I'd still like to fuck you tonight. Pick the position, love, I just want to feel you."
"On all fours, Charlie, I want you to grab my hips and fuck me as hard as you can," she said, arranging herself on the sheets.
"Perfect, I love looking at your back and arse," he replied, stroking her back and pushing into her to accentuate his point. He quickly grabbed her hair to pull her front half off the bed, and reached forward to tweak her nipples as he slammed into her with increasing intensity. The resulting orgasm left her shaking from aftershocks, grateful that he wrapped her into his arms and lay down in bed to recover.
"That was a pretty fantastic thank you," she said breathing a laugh.
"It was," he replied, kissing the top of her head, "and you deserved every bit of it. I missed you. It's great to be able to touch you again and show my affection through more than just letters."
"Surprising you works really well for me, I think I'll have to keep up the habit."
"Merlin help me, in that case. You'll have killed me either from exertion or heart attack before I actually turn 30," he responded, laughing.
"Any plans for your birthday, old man?" She asked, turning to snuggle closer into him. "The big one is next year, is it not?"
"Not sure yet, I'm hoping you and I could go somewhere special. I'm sure mum has an appropriately big extravaganza planned but a vacation somewhere nice would be lovely," he said, threading their fingers together.
"Still want me around a year later?"
"Of course, Hermione," Charlie said, looking at her seriously. "As new as this is, it's not a fling for me. Besides, the sex is too good to give up."
She laughed and swatted him on the arm with her free hand. "Too true, I'm not too keen to go back to the previous state of things either. Come on, Romeo, we should get in the shower and get dinner going."
She decided a few minutes later that languid kisses with the shower beating down on them were her new favourite, as was the sight of Charlie dripping wet. Changing into some leggings and a big sweater she followed Charlie to the kitchen to get started on the chicken tikka masala she'd bought ingredients for after work.
"I'm sorry I didn't respond to your entire, letter, by the way, I was a little preoccupied at the time. I wanted to say that I understand why you're simultaneously excited and upset to work on such a big project for the ministry. Realizing that your experiences may differ greatly from other people's experiences requires a lot of strength and is not an easy thing to do. The majority of the population were not at school under the reign of Dolores Umbridge, weren't present during Harry's struggles during the Triwizard tournament – their only knowledge of the situation was from warring newspapers trying to discredit the word of a 15-year-old kid who swore that the darkest wizard of all time had returned. Being on the outside must also have been hard."
"I know that, Charlie. That's the only reasonable conclusion to come to but sometimes when I think back on everything we went through it's hard not to be upset," she said, smiling sadly.
"Understandably so, love," Charlie replied, hugging her from behind. "One of my biggest problems during the war and even after it was the way the Order was run. Rationally I understand that everyone was worried about secrecy and safety but the way Dumbledore carried on was ridiculous. How many situations do you think could have been improved had more people just been able to help? Dumbledore strongly suspected that Voldemort was using Harry through their connection, right? Wouldn't it have been great to have that explained, to anyone, to have Harry understand what the prophecy was and why it was imperative he not go after it? What good did leaving the poor kid in the dark do apart from cause him more pain?"
"I'm not sure," she said shaking her head. "There are many things I'm angry about – sometimes I think that Dumbledore must have considered all these solutions and just figured that his way was still better while at other times I just know that he could have done things differently. Why leave Harry alone for 11 years with no interaction with the magical world, what good did that do? Of course, everyone was initially worried that Voldemort would come back but after it became apparent that he wasn't, why not get to know the child? Maintain some contact, check on him to make sure he was doing okay. But no, the best option was surely to leave him in the hands of unknown muggle relatives with only a card instructing them to take care of him. Absolute rubbish. And here's another, why did no one insist that Sirius get a trail? Forget a fair trial, just any trial at all would have done the job. There are multiple ways to magically be able to tell if someone is telling the truth, why were none of them used? Veritaserum, Priori Incantatem, even extracting his goddamn memories and viewing those. It's so hard to work on making the world a better place and spouting all of these ideals when some of the people I'm most angry at are the ones that were on our side."
"I think the only way to move forward is to just accept that the people we knew and know are flawed and that we're all trying our best," Charlie replied quietly. "If you were able to, what would be some of the things you'd change?"
"I think I'd start at Hogwarts, try to abolish the house rivalries that I believe help perpetuate some of this violence. Try to start more interhouse activities, more ways for students to interact. I also think some of the curriculums need to change, or at least be updated. And a much stronger vetting for teachers, that much is for certain."
"Hermione, I've just had a thought," he said, looking over at her, face full of excitement. "What if you were to create your own department within the ministry? One whose sole purpose was to liaison with various institutions such as Hogwarts, St. Mungo's, and other ministry departments and assist them with changing and updating their policies and procedures? I'm sure that if you were to show Kingsley such a proposal he'd be completely on board – your current project regarding werewolf legislation could fall under that department's purview. That way you could spend your days researching these policies and do your best to enact real change as well as achieving a level of distance from day to day ministry that I think you'd enjoy. Part of your proposal could assure Kingsley that each of your projects would include extensive research and collaborations with any respected experts that you could find. He'd have final sway over your decisions, of course."
"The idea of being an auditor of sorts is certainly tempting but do you honestly think Kingsley would go for something like that? I think it would make him a bit of a political pariah, to appoint someone to oversee basically everyone, it would put a lot of people on edge."
"I'm not saying you'd have free reign on what you'd like to look into, I think it would require a vetting process of sorts, you'd have to put together proposals of things you'd like to work on that could be voted on by Kingsley and a specially appointed committee. You'd also need to arrange some good press, but yes, I think it's doable."
"Do you really think I could do that, Charlie? That would be a dream job, to say the least, but I'm not sure I could pull it off," she said, suddenly feeling very nervous.
"I think you could pull it off, Hermione," Charlie said, turning her around to cup her face in his hands. "If you'd like to, give it some serious thought and see what you could come up with. Hell, you could see if Percy'd be willing to join you, he lives for policy and procedure."
"Alright, I will. Thank you, Charlie. You've been so attentive to my work and career, I feel I should thank you," she said, kissing his cheek as she plated their plates for dinner.
"How could I not be? We're partners, yeah?"
"Yeah," she responded with a smile, "we are. So, have you visited the secret site yet?"
"Just yesterday, actually," he said, nodding along. "It was amazing, Hermione, absolutely amazing. To actually go there, knowing that this is where I'm going to be building something new was unreal. I've submitted my report and suggested that the more dangerous breeds be held in Romania and the new reserve take on five different breeds to start, the Norwegian ridgeback, Hebridean black, Swedish shortsnout, Antipodean opaleye, and Welsh green. I would tell you about the atmospheric charms but that would be a dead giveaway on the location and so I can't yet."
"Do you know when you'll be able to talk about it?"
"Yeah, I spoke to the organizing committee and they agreed that I could tell family at mum's party next weekend. The official announcement will be made in the week following with interviews starting the week after that."
"Would you still like help coming up with interview questions?"
"Yes! Definitely, yes," Charlie said, nodding. "None of my job duties and experience have revolved around human resources before, it's what I'm most worried about. What would you look for in a candidate for a job like this?"
"Well, I'm not too sure about the dragon keeping experience side of things, but from what you've told me about your work, I would suggest you keep away from applicants like those two Americans who have something to prove. Look for people who are there because they love the dragons, and not because they're looking for a risky and cool career. I'd start by asking why they applied for a position at the new reserve, that's usually a good way to suss that out."
"Okay, that's a good start. Another problem I have is that some keepers from the Romanian reserve are bound to apply – I don't think I'd make a good boss if I just filled the positions with my friends but how am I supposed to tell them no at the same time? We already work well together, that would be helpful on a new reserve."
"Good point," she responded, thinking. "You could talk to your boss and the head of your current reserve. Tell them that you're worried about picking friends for positions at the new reserve and ask their honest opinions on who would be the best choice to move forward. That way, not only is there input from their actual boss, but you have back-up in the face of any blowback from other applicants or the organizing committee."
"Fantastic, Hermione," he told her, smiling, "I'm so glad I asked you."
"I'm happy to help, Charlie!"
"I did have another question for you," Charlie asked, hesitatingly sweet. "The weekend following mum's party, would you like to join me in Romania for a few days? I'd love to show you around the reserve, show you my home, the country I've grown to like quite a bit."
"Charlie, you don't have to be nervous, I'd love to join you in Romania."
"Brilliant," he said, reaching over the table to kiss her soundly. "Now, why not a movie as a way to spend our evening? I've noticed your tv and movie collection, I'd love to see your favourite."
"It's a film called Reservoir Dogs, you sure you're ready for this Weasley?"
"Let's do it, Granger," Charlie said, kissing her again.