A/N: This fic is basically entirely written, so the updates will keep coming as long as the reviews continue and thank you for the feedback! When i ended the last chapter they were still in a flashback to the burrow, this is a continuation of that...

please read and review!

thanks again!


Ron didn't want to lie to her, so he didn't, "Yeah know, I always thought we were meant to be, but I think that somewhere along the way we just changed. I just don't think we're it anymore."

Hermione smiled, glad that Ron felt the same way. She stood up and gave him a huge hug, "I am so glad to hear you say that."

A few minutes later they wandered downstairs, giving each other one last glance before he went to the living room and she went to the kitchen.

End of Flashback

It was shortly after that night when Hermione realized that she didn't want to do the job she had been doing anymore. She started spending less time doing the paperwork and more time doing research about animals. She also moved back into her old muggle house with her parents because her and Ron were back to their disagreeing ways which actually came as a strange relief to Hermione, it meant that they could go back to their friendship. After a few months of doing a rather poor job, Hermione quit working for the ministry and threw herself into studying magical creatures which eventually grew into a focus on dragons. The passion for them grew and shortly after she had started training to be a dragon keeper at a small reserve just outside of London.

After a year or so of training, she started working with some baby dragons all by herself, getting scars and burns that she had to use a glamour on when she had performed her maid of honour duties at Ginny's wedding that following Christmas.

Flashback

Harry and Ginny's wedding was set for December 26nd; the entire Weasley clan and their significant others were due for arrival at the Burrow by the 23rd. Once they all arrived the Christmas and wedding celebrations began.

The same intimate crowd from the Christmas before was there, although George and Angelina were now engaged, Fleur was pregnant again, and Percy and Audrey had eloped. Hermione couldn't help but get excited when she thought about the prospect of talking to Charlie about dragons, now that she shared the passion he did.

At the wedding reception Charlie and Hermione were both sitting at the family table alone while every other Weasley was off dancing with their dates for the occasion. The last year had been a bit awkward between Ron and Hermione, especially when he had moved on to a nice girl from the Department of Mysteries, but Hermione was more relieved than upset that he had found happiness. As they sat in silence for a second, Charlie smiled at Hermione and a mark on her arm caught his eye.

"Hermione, if I didn't know any better I'd say that the burn on your arm came from a dragon," Charlie looked up at her eyes, and added, "I'd say a baby Chinese Fireball in fact."

"Well you'd be right Charlie," Hermione smiled at his surprised expression, and almost thought she'd wait for him to ask before explaining, but then couldn't resist telling the whole story. "Remember how I wasn't happy last year?"

Charlie nodded in response.

"Well I'm guessing that living in Romania has kept you a tad out of the loop. After Ron and I broke up, I moved out of the house and in with my parents, quit my job at the Ministry and started playing with the dragons in the area."

Charlie grinned. "My my, Hermione Granger, you pulled a Charlie Weasley."

Hermione raised her eyebrows so Charlie explained.

"Well you see, I had so many opportunities after I finished Hogwarts; I could've played professional Quidditch for god sakes, but I blew them all off to chase the beasts."

Hermione laughed, "Yeah, I guess so."

"So how far along are you in your training?"

After giving Charlie a detailed encounter of a few of her excursions, she smiled and said, "You know, we can talk about this just as easily on the dance floor."

Charlie returned her smile and took her hand and led her over to dance next to Mr. Weasley who was trying to console Mrs. Weasley because her youngest child and only daughter had just gotten married.

A few hours later, after a series of dances and many drinks, Charlie and Hermione were over by the bar. Many of guests had left and Charlie cleared his throat and said, "You know Hermione, I'm not sure if there are any spots open right now, but I bet I could find you a job on the reserve in Romania. You'll never find all the dragons we have there in London, and I'm sure we could use someone with your brains on site."

Hermione grinned, and assumed it was the alcohol talking, after all, Charlie barely knew her, "Well keep in touch Charlie, I'd love to come out there sometime even if it was just for a visit. I bet I could learn a lot from an experienced man like yourself." She hadn't meant what she said that way, but it sounded very suggestive. She blamed it on the alcohol in her system and shrugged it off when Ron came over to ask her to dance. She accepted and he took her hand and lead her out to the dance floor, leaving Charlie alone at the bar.

"So you're moving onto my big brother?" Ron said, in a playful but serious tone.

Hermione smiled and said, "Well you and Amanda looked pretty good out there on the floor all night Ronald. I think if you're moving on then I should be able to too." Realizing that she had basically just told Ron she was into Charlie, which she wasn't, she clarified, "But no, I'm not into Charlie, we've just been talking about the work I've been doing the past year or so."

Ron smiled back and told her that when she does move on he wants approval on whoever the guy is, as her best friend, not as her ex-boyfriend. Hermione smiled at the sentiment.

"Ron I barely gave you approval on things when we were together, what makes you think I'm going to give you that kind of authority now?" She joked.

Ron chuckled, "I want you to be happy Hermione."

Hermione looked him in the eye and told him honestly, "I am happy Ron."

The rest of the night was a blur of dancing, laughter, tears and singing. When Harry and Ginny finally took off the rest of the family called it a night and two days later Hermione went home to her parents house and back to work, while Charlie went back to Romania.

End of Flashback

A few months after Harry and Ginny's wedding, Hermione was still hard at work with the dragons and although she loved the camp in London, it was starting to get a little boring working with the same creatures all the time. Fortunately a foreign owl tapped on her glass window one night in the March of that year holding an invitation from Charlie to come and join their team at the reserve, and that's how she ended up where she was now, almost three years later.

That particular morning was a warm one in the eastern area of Romania, near Oradea, where the reserve was. Hermione smiled a bit as she could feel the sun through her tent and realized that if her and Charlie wanted to make it on time to the Burrow for Christmas that they had better hurry up.

Rushing out of her tent and down the trail a few sites she unzipped Charlie's tent and looked inside for him.

"Looking for me?" A voice said from outside behind her

"Man you have got to stop doing that," Hermione said after she jumped a little, and turned to see that Charlie had already been up. "Are you ready to go? We can't be late for Christmas; your mother would have a fit."

Charlie just laughed, loving that although Hermione was a sexy dragon tamer now, she was also still the same Hermione.

"Yup, the portkey is in 10 minutes so I just have to grab my rucksack then we can get yours and go."

At the Burrow, Christmas festivities were well on their way. Bill and Fleur with their two young daughters, Victoire and Dominique; Percy and Audrey; George and his fiancé Angelina; Ron and his now fiancé Mandy; Harry and a pregnant Ginny; Andromeda and Teddy; and of course Arthur and Molly were all waiting for Charlie and Hermione to arrive.

Christmas was the same as always, although this year Hermione and Charlie had gotten each other more significant gifts than past years as they had grown close over the past three months. For the first two and a half years in Romania Hermione had worked with four other keepers who were also relatively new while Charlie basically ran the camp. He hadn't ever told his parents, or anyone else in the family that he was actually running the camp in Romania so it was a surprise to Hermione when she had arrived.

Three months ago Charlie had recruited Hermione onto his team when he saw that her progress was beyond the rest. Since then they'd worked together everyday and had grown to be very close friends. Plus the added fact that every other guest in attendance was coupled off made them the only two single people around with no one else to worry about so they paid more attention to each other.

Everyone at the Burrow noticed the subtle change in Hermione and Charlie's relationship, noting the amount of inside jokes and stolen glances, but no one said anything. Christmas day the whole lot of them were eating a fancy dinner when they started talking about Ron's upcoming nuptials in March of the next year.

Hermione shifted a tad uncomfortably, not because of left over feelings for Ron, but simply because of the fact that out of all her best friends and people closest to her, Harry, Ron and Ginny, she would be the only single person in just a few months. She knew that she was being silly, 24 is not an old age by any stretch, but sometimes she did wonder what would've happened if things had turned out differently.

Not hearing the question Molly had asked because she had been lost in her thoughts, Charlie leaned over, poked her arm and said, "Mi," he smiled having got her attention, while the others noted his nickname for her, and teased, "get out of that head of yours, my mum's trying to ask you something!"

Hermione went a bit red and grinned at Charlie then turned her attention to Molly, "Sorry Mrs. Weasley, what were you saying?"

The family loved watching the interaction between the two who were so clearly oblivious of the chemistry they shared. At the clear connection Ron shifted awkwardly in his seat and reminded himself that he was getting married, and that Hermione and him were a long time ago.

"Oh I was just asking if you two were for sure coming to the wedding."

"Of course, I wouldn't miss it," Hermione smiled and then glanced at Ron who shook off his thoughts and smiled happily back.

"And should I make room for a date for you? Or are you and Charlie going together?" Molly said, way to casually with a hint of curiosity.

Charlie choked on his drink and Hermione laughed.

"Mum you can just sit us together," Charlie answered for them both once he recovered then realized what he'd implied, "Right Mi?"

"Yup," Hermione smiled again and took a slow drink, loving the reaction on everyone's faces and avoiding Ron's gaze.

"SHUT-UP," Ginny started, louder than necessary, "Are you two seeing each other?"

This got everyone's attention and Charlie and Hermione just smiled uncomfortably.

"No Gin," Hermione replied with a chuckle, and then added, "But neither of us is seeing anyone in Romania seriously enough to bring them to a wedding, so instead of having to sit between a bunch of couples we'd rather just sit with each other."

It seemed as if the entire family let out a breath at once, as if they'd been waiting in suspense for an answer for two days. Charlie laughed to himself at the thought, and then realized that she had only said they weren't seeing anyone, SERIOUSLY, enough to bring to a wedding. Did this mean that Hermione was seeing someone he didn't know about?

Hermione seemed to read his mind and whispered in his ear once the attention had turned back to Ron's wedding plans, "No Charlie, I haven't been seeing anyone since last year when Julian and I broke up."

Hermione had started seeing a fellow dragon trainee the year before, after her second year landmark in Romania had been celebrated by a night of partying at the local bar and had loosened her up enough to make a mistake. The mistake wasn't too large- although she had lead Julian on fairly badly- and they'd only gone on a few dates before she realized that just because she had been single for a couple years wasn't a good reason to start dating someone she wasn't attracted to.

Charlie felt strangely relieved. Then he realized how much he cared if she was going to see another guy. When she and Julian had gone on their few dates it didn't really bother him because he knew them both and knew they'd never work, plus him and Hermione hadn't been as close then as they'd gotten in the past few months. He thought for a second and then asked himself seriously if he had developed feelings for the young Miss Granger.

Throughout the rest of dinner and dessert Charlie was quiet, stuck in his own thoughts. Fortunately, Hermione was being distracted well by Ginny, Mandy and Fleur's attempts at trying to get her to date. He only heard bits of the conversation.

"Oh so you know a lot of guys in Romania then?" Hermione said sarcastically.

Ginny's eyes lit up, "Well what if we find you a nice guy here, then you could come back!"

"Yeah Gin I'm going to change my entire life for a guy, that sounds exactly like me." Hermione was smiling so everyone knew she was taking their suggestions light-heartedly, and Charlie was glad that she had made it clear she didn't want to leave Romania.

Towards the end of the evening hugs were given out and goodbyes were said to those who were leaving- Percy and Audrey, Andromeda and Teddy, and Bill and Fleur with their daughters. Charlie and Hermione were staying another day and were happy to have a break.

That night everyone had gone to bed and Hermione and Charlie sat up, wide awake in his room. They were sitting on different beds, where they had slept, and were having a strangely intense conversation for most people but a pretty regular occurrence for them. Somehow they related to each other in a way that was hard to describe to another person without that person making assumptions.

"Mi," Charlie glanced over at her, "how do you really feel about Ron getting married?" He saw her hesitance to answer and added, "It just seemed like at dinner you weren't as stoked as you might have liked others to believe."

Hermione loved that Charlie could read her so well but hated it at the same time; she could never hide anything from him.

"No one else could tell right?" She smiled sadly.

Charlie reached over and took her hand, "No I think I may have been the only one at the table that can read you like that."

'And in the world,' Hermione thought to herself before answering. "Well it's not that I'm not happy for Ron, I am. It's more like, my three best friends growing up, the three people who used to be the most important people in my life will now all be married and here I am totally single without any prospects."

"You're 24 Mi; you could still get married within the next six years and have sixty years with whomever you marry. Just because they got married young doesn't mean you have to," Charlie smiled, "I mean look at me! I'm 32 and I'm still single and it doesn't upset me." 'Or at least it didn't until now,' Charlie added silently to himself.

"Yeah I know and that's great for you but I think it's different for-"

Charlie cut Hermione off, "a girl?"

Hermione nodded.

"It's only different if you want it to be Mi. You have already paved a different road for your life than anyone saw coming. You've done extraordinary things in the years you have lived and you're always going to do more, it's just in your nature. It doesn't matter if you're single now while everyone around is getting married because you are an absolutely amazing, beautiful, intelligent, sexy, and dangerous woman and you will one day be totally happy."

Hermione blushed a little at Charlie's compliments then bit her lip and looked up at him and barely whispered, "Promise?"

Charlie laughed and leaned over to kiss her cheek, "promise."

There was a strange tension in the air after this when they both decided it was time for bed. They said good night somewhat awkwardly and shared a quick hug before getting into their beds and turning out the light.