When Charlie regained consciousness he decided to never complain about traveling by floo powder again. The trip through the mirror had been the most disorienting and nausea inducing trip of his life. Not to mention the splitting headache he was now sporting. Then again, the stone ledge his head had come into contact with the moment he had landed could have caused that.
As Charlie sat up a wave of dizziness overtook him and he probably would have toppled over on his own if Tonks hadn't tried to catch him and caused both of them to fall to the ground together. He found himself practically lying on top of her but he didn't feel too inclined to get up. She made a great pillow; especially compared to the cold stone floor he had had previously been lying on. However, he was forced to sit up when a very embarrassed Tonks had asked him none too politely to get the hell off of her.
Once in a sitting position Charlie was able to really take in their surroundings. His attention was immediately drawn to the mirror standing to the right of him, which looked exactly like the one in the attic of Grimmauld place, but all he could see was his reflection. Sadly they weren't going to be traveling back through that anytime soon.
They were in a big stone cavern, which reminded him in size and shape of the caves back on the dragon preserve in Romania. He doubted, that they were lucky enough to have been transported to Romania. For one, the drawings on the cave walls and the benches carved into the cave sides made him believe that humans, not dragons, had once resided there. In fact, it looked like no animals; not even insects had taken up residence in the cave since it had been abandoned. That thought and its implications were quite disturbing and made Charlie want to get out of the cave as soon as possible.
That would have to wait though, since Ron was still passed out next to him. The huge bruise forming on one side of his face gave testament to the fact that he was four inches taller than Charlie. The ledge that had knocked both men out had sure done more damage to Ron. Charlie figured the only reason it had been able to knock him out was because the trip through the mirror had been tough on his body's sense of equilibrium, so he doubted he had been out for very long.
"Were you two hurt?" he asked the girls who were fussing over Ron.
"Nah," replied Tonks, "luckily we're shorter than the two of you so all we experienced was a bit of dizziness. But you guys had a nasty encounter with that ledge. The mirror actually stayed all translucent and shimmery or whatever for a few minutes after we came through…"
"What! We had a chance to go back and you guys didn't take it," Charlie practically yelled.
"Yeah, I wanted to just toss you guys back through and go home too but Hermione wouldn't go."
Charlie furiously rounded on Hermione who was examining the large bump on Ron's head, "What were you thinking? We don't know where we are or how dangerous this place is. That was our chance to get back home!"
Charlie regretted his words when he saw the expression on Hermione's face, which he didn't doubt was what he had once heard Ron refer to simply as 'the look' with a mixture of fear and awe in his voice.
"So what did you want us to do, huh, mister? Did you want us to just toss you guys back through the mirror as Tonks put it even though Ron already has a concussion and whatever we just went through seems to have a destabilizing effect on the human body!" Hermione had a crazed look in her eye as she steadily advanced on him until their faces were just inches apart, "Do you know what that could have done to him?"
Charlie decided it would be safer to look at his feet rather than in the eyes of the five foot four fifteen year old in front of him. Ron was right, she was pretty damn scary when she was mad. Apparently Hermione took his uneasiness as a no.
"I don't know either, but I do know there was no way I was taking the chance that that could have harmed Ron. Not to mention that we don't even know if that mirror would have taken us back to Grimmauld Place." She was defiantly on a role, "For all we know there could be a hundred of those mirrors all hooked up together and we could have ended up anywhere. So next time, since you seem to think it was the way to go, I'll let Tonks toss you through and I'll stay here with Ron. Even though he's your brother which, by the way, you haven't even shown any concern for yet!"
"Now, do you know how to fix concussions?"
The total switch in topics threw Charlie for a loop but rather than dwell on just how right Hermione was, or just how much he doesn't think he decided to gratefully take Hermione up on her method of redeeming himself.
"Of course, you have to working with dragons every day. Accidents are bound to happen."
"Good," Hermione replied matter of factly, "because Tonks isn't very good at healing spells and I've never actually tried to perform the concussion healing spell so I didn't want to chance it."
"What, Hermione Granger, the smartest witch at Hogwarts is afraid she'll mess up a spell?"
Charlie had to admit Tonks was pretty brave, even he wouldn't say something like that to Hermione and he liked to pride himself on telling it like it is.
Surprisingly, Hermione didn't seem offended but merely looked down at Ron, who looked white as a sheet and responded softly, "Not when a friend's health is at stake."
As Charlie performed the spell on Ron he had to wonder if Hermione was telling the whole truth. He knew he certainly didn't look at friends the way Hermione had looked at Ron.
Once he had revived a very woozy Ron Charlie turned his attention to other matters. Like, what in the world were they going to do now?
Molly Weasley wondered what was taking so long to clean the attic. At lunch time Hermione had made it sound like it would only take three or four more hours to finish up the attic but that had been six hours ago. Even more peculiar, it was dinnertime and she was sure either Ron or Charlie would have been down to eat by now.
Arthur, Remus, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Ginny were already at the table. Rather than wait for everyone up in the attic to realize it was time for dinner she decided to send Ginny to fetch them.
"Ginny, run up to the attic and tell everyone it's time for dinner."
Molly was starting to wonder weather everyone were playing some joke on her when Ginny finally returned five minutes later. The look on Ginny's face erased all thoughts of pranks from her mind, however.
"I can't find them anywhere. I checked the attic, all their rooms, and even Buckbeak's room. They're not here."
Molly felt the panic begin to rise in her chest as all the men stood up from the table.
"Are you sure they didn't go anywhere, Molly?" Remus asked.
"Yes, they know not to leave the house," Molly could fell herself start to hyperventilate, what if one of her babies were hurt?
"Everyone just calm down," Arthur instructed, "Kingsley, Remus, you two search the house for them, any intruders, or signs of a scuffle."
"Right," Kingsley replied, "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to contact Dumbledore."
"But what if they're truly gone?" Molly asked no one in particular.
"Don't worry, Mum," Ginny piped up, "They can take care of themselves."
"I hope," was all Molly could reply, "I hope."