Charlie woke up the next morning feeling like one of the luckiest men alive. He couldn't believe that he'd just spent a good part of the previous night snogging Jessica Sloan. He couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that she liked him back. Charlie enjoyed being in like with someone who liked him back. It felt amazing.
His bubble of happiness quickly dissipated upon entering the cafeteria for breakfast. One look around the room and Charlie could tell that something was definitely not right. Jake and Lea were not sitting at their usual table. The two of them were having a rather serious discussion with Schmidt. Chase, Rob, and Jess were nowhere to be seen. Charlie spotted Reese out of the corner of his eye and he practically ran over to her.
"Do you have any idea what's going on?" he asked as Reese saw him.
"Yeah one of the reps left late last night and Schmidt is having a minor freak out," Reese informed Charlie. Charlie's heart began to race. What if Jessica had left? What if last night had been too much for her and she'd gone and left? His heart was thumping against his chest. Charlie could barely find his voice to ask the necessary question.
"Who was it?"
"Chase Roland," Reese said sitting down to her breakfast. Charlie quickly sat down opposite from her. He was incredibly relieved to hear that name come out of her mouth.
"Do you know why?" Charlie pushed for more information. He wanted to know as much as possible about the current situation.
"You probably know a lot more than I do Weasley," Reese sighed. Charlie felt bad. She was clearly trying to enjoy her breakfast and he was pestering her.
"Alright, well thanks. See you later," Charlie said before getting up and walking over to where Jake and Lea were conversing with Schmidt.
"…punched him?" Schmidt was exclaiming as Charlie approached them.
"I just couldn't take his bullshit anymore," Jake said shrugging his shoulders.
"Merlin Henderson you couldn't have waited another month?" Schmidt sighed. He looked incredibly stressed up.
"The guy was unbearable," Lea defended Jake instantly. Despite all the chaos Jake couldn't help but smile at her.
"Could somebody please fill me in?" Charlie asked.
"Chase left last night," Lea told him.
"Said something to Rob about being fed up with the reserve and everyone on it," Jake added.
"Apparently he's been writing rotten reviews ever since he got here," Lea continued the flood of information.
"And now he's trying to get the two month review period allotted to our reserve pushed back. He wants to shut our reserve down," Jake finished.
"Do you think he's capable of doing something like that?" Charlie asked Schmidt. Russel Schmidt just sighed in frustration.
"I don't know to be honest," Schmidt sighed. "I mean it depends on what the other two reps have been saying in their reviews. If Chase is the only one who wrote negative reports he might not be able to do much."
"What are we going to do now?" Charlie asked.
"What do you mean?" Schmidt raised his eyebrows at Charlie.
"Well we have to try and stop Chase from destroying our reserve," Charlie said. He would have thought that would be obvious.
"There's only so much we can do," Schmidt said shaking his head. "We have to wait and see if we hear anything from the Department about this. We're only going on what Jessica Sloan told us this morning. Apparently Chase went to see her brother last night before leaving." Charlie immediately began scanning the cafeteria for a sign of Robert and Jessica. They were still absent. Then suddenly Charlie spotted Jessica by the door. Their eyes made contact and she came rushing over to him. Charlie's heart started racing again but this time for an entirely different reason. Even though the reserve was in crisis mode just the idea of being in the same room as Jess made his heart beat faster.
"Robert's gone," was the first thing out of her mouth.
"What?" Charlie, Schmidt, Jake, and Lea all said at once.
"He went after Chase. He's going to try and stop him. If Chase tells the Department that the reserve should be shut down Rob's going to tell them that the reserve should stay open. He's going to try and fight whatever Chase does," Jessica explained hastily.
"Oh thank Merlin!" Lea let out a huge sigh of relief.
"He's going to keep me updated," Jessica told them. The entire group seemed to relax upon hearing that Rob was going to fight for them. Schmidt still looked incredibly uneasy. Jessica seemed to notice this so she addressed him directly. "Mr. Schmidt my brother and I really like this reserve. We don't want to see it shut down any more than you do."
"Thank you Miss Sloan. This is just all so much more dramatic than I expected," Schmidt admitted.
"Ah yes, well Chase is quite the drama queen," Jess shrugged her shoulders. Jake and Lea burst out laughing. Charlie chuckled under his breath.
"Just carry on the day like it's any other day," Schmidt told his keepers. Jake, Lea, Charlie, and Jess all began to walk back to their usual table.
"Robert left last night," Jess told the group. "Chase came to see him around midnight. Rob ran right over to my room and told me everything before he left too. I wonder if he's had time to send an update."
"If he did we'll probably get it around lunchtime," Jake mused.
"I'm not going to be able to work like this," Lea sighed. "I'm all flustered and anxious. I don't like this."
"Either do I," Jake agreed, "but there's not a whole lot we can do about it."
Charlie and Jess headed out to the fields with a giant weight on their shoulders. Charlie wouldn't feel completely relieved until they heard from Rob. Even working with the dragons wasn't enough to distract Charlie from the potential destruction of the reserve. Jess seemed rather worried as well.
"I can't believe Chase would do something so childish," Jessica said was they watched one of the interns, Stephen Miller, feed Jamaya her daily lettuce.
"I can," Charlie said. "Chase was so disagreeable and immature. Don't you remember how he acted after he lost that Quidditch game?"
"I suppose so," Jess nodded her head in agreement. "I just don't know why he would do something like that. I mean obviously he wasn't happy here. And there was that fight with Jake but that feels like it happened days ago. I wonder what prompted him to leave and to go with such a vendetta."
"Who knows?" Charlie shrugged. "We may never know. As long as we don't let him get away with anything it doesn't matter. Although, if I'd known he would pull a stunt like this I would have let Jake punch him a few more times." Jessica laughed lightly.
"Are you okay?" Jess asked him warily.
"Yeah, of course…why?" Charlie wondered what made her ask that question.
"Well it's just the reserve is your way of life…and now it's being threatened by Chase and his never-ending stupidity. If I were you I would be pretty pissed off," Jessica explained. Charlie took all of this into consideration.
"I guess I just don't really see Chase and his grudge as a big threat. I can't really wrap my mind around the possibility that the reserve could get shut down," Charlie tried to explain his thought pattern. Jess nodded contemplatively.
"I don't mean to bring you down or anything but Chase is a very big threat," she warned.
"I just wanna hear what Rob's got to say about all of this," Charlie sighed.
"Me too," Jessica agreed, "Lunch can't come soon enough."
With all things considered Charlie didn't feel too guilty about bringing his team down for lunch a bit early. Everyone was rather anxious and a bit on edge. No one could really put out their best effort in terms of work that day. News travelled fast on the reserve and bad news travelled at the speed of light. By midmorning almost everyone had heard about the departure of chase.
When Jessica finally received her much-anticipated owl during lunch one could practically cut the tension in the air with a knife. Every eye was on her as she opened the envelope with trembling fingers. Jessica quickly scanned the contents of the letter and looked up at Charlie after two minutes or so. She seemed to be speechless. Charlie wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. Without a word she handed him the letter and Charlie began to read.
Jess,
Sorry I took off in such a rush last night but I'm sure you understand. Anyway I don't have a lot of time to write. We're back in London now…at the ministry actually. Roland went straight to the Department head, Augers, with his bloody awful reports and demanded that they shut down the reserve. Obviously they told him the reserve still had a month left on the review charts but Roland didn't care. He was going on and on about how awful it was when I showed up. He was surprised to see me but I talked with Augers and told him not to listen to Chase. He didn't like that much. The committee brought out all of our reports and started reviewing everything we'd written. The committee was confused because obviously there were mixed reviews. Chase's reports were ridiculously negative; mine rather enthusiastic, and they thought yours were probably the closest to the truth. That is until they got to this past week's. They seemed to think your reports had taken a positive turn. Chase explained this by saying something that shocked even me. Chase said the only reason your wrote such a good report was because of Charlie. He said that you two were involved and that's why you wrote what you did. I denied this of course, not knowing otherwise, and then Chase produced a memory in which he saw the two of you kissing. (Honestly Jess you couldn't have given me a bit of a heads up?) I ignored this naturally, and told the committee that the only reason Chase hated the reserve was because of his feelings for Lea and her relationship with Jake. The whole scene was a bit chaotic to say the least. It could have easily gotten out of hand but thankfully Augers put a stop to all the talking. She's coming down herself because she doesn't trust all the mixed reviews she's been getting. So the three of us are returning sometime tonight. I wrote to Schmidt telling him to expect our arrival around dinnertime. If you are having some sort of relationship with Charlie could you keep it under wraps when Augers is around? I'm only saying this with the interest of the reserve in mind. I personally think the idea of you and Weasley is bloody brilliant. I'll see you soon.
Rob
Charlie finished the letter and looked back up at Jess. There was so much to register—so much information in one letter. First things first, the reserve wasn't getting shut down…not yet at least. The head of the Department was coming to their reserve! That was going to be interesting to say the least. And Chase saw him and Jessica kissing! Charlie could have sworn Chase was nowhere to be seen last night. And the fact that Charlie and Jess had kissed could possibly jeopardize the reserve…that was just too much to bear.
Jessica was looking at Charlie expectantly. She was clearly waiting for his reaction. Charlie didn't know what to say. There was just too much information to register everything. One thing was for sure, there was no way they could have a proper conversation in the cafeteria. Everyone seemed to be watching them, waiting for their reactions to the letter.
"Do you wanna take a walk?" he asked her. "We can talk better outside."
"Yeah, good idea," Jessica said getting up.
"Wait!" Lea said grabbing Jessica's arm before Jess and Charlie could leave. "Could you at least tell us whether we're all about to lose our jobs or not?"
"The head of the Department is coming to see the reserve," Charlie told her and with that he and Jess hurried quickly out of the cafeteria.
"That was a lot to take in," Charlie said as soon as they were out of the suffocating room.
"Tell me about it," Jess sighed in agreement. "I can't believe Augers is really coming here."
"Have you met her?" Charlie asked curiously.
"Only once," Jess sighed. "Maria Augers is rather unique. Granted, I only met her once but she didn't seem like the nicest person but she wasn't cruel either. I can't really explain it. I got the impression she's rather good at her job though. Something tells me she'll be fair in her judgment of the reserve."
"That's a relief," Charlie grinned.
"That's just my personal opinion," Jessica reminded him. She looked a little worried but Charlie wasn't.
"I trust your opinion. It's generally a good one," he told her smiling. Jess smiled back but it wasn't her natural smile. There was something on her mind, Charlie could tell.
"Charlie I—" Jess started to talk but then broke off seemingly at a loss for words.
"Are we going to talk about what happened last night?" Charlie blurted out. He couldn't help it. It was practically all he'd been able to think about.
"Yeah, sure, alright yeah," Jess agreed hesitantly. "But before you go and get yourself all mad at me I just want to warn you that I'm complete rubbish at this whole 'let's talk about our feelings thing'."
"S'alright. I'm not that great at the whole 'let's talk about our feelings thing' either," Charlie assured her with a small smile. "I think I made it pretty clear how I feel about you last night," Charlie began. "But just in case there's any confusion, I like you Jess. I really like you. And I care about you, probably a bit more than I should but I can't help that."
"I like you too Charlie…it's just what kind of future could we possibly have? I was only supposed to be here for two months originally. And now it's looking like my stay here will be even shorter. I care for you, don't think that I don't. It's just I don't see how we could possibly move forward from here," Jessica told him.
Hearing her say that was a bit bittersweet for Charlie. He was elated to hear that Jess had feelings for him. He'd been hoping that she would for quite some time now. But the fact that she couldn't envision a future for them was problematic.
"I don't know what to tell you. To be quite honest I don't think we can ever be sure of the future. Right now I don't really know what's going to happen to the reserve from here on out. If the reserve goes down I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know much of anything right now," Charlie said with a laugh. "What I do know is that I want to be with you."
Charlie hadn't really considered having a relationship with Jess until he said it just then. He didn't even know that was what he wanted until he was saying it out loud. But there was no denying it. Charlie wanted to be with Jessica. She was just so bloody irresistible. She was smart, sexy, fun, independent. He'd never met any one like her. Charlie looked over at Jess.
She seemed to be very deep in thought. Although, Charlie wasn't sure what she could possibly have to think about. As far as feelings were concerned Charlie didn't see any decision that had to be made. Either she liked him or she didn't. Either she wanted to be with him or she didn't.
"I do want to be with you," Jess began. "I haven't felt this way about anyone else…ever really. And I don't want to pass this up I just don't know how things could work out."
"Jess," Charlie said taking her hands. "Do yourself a favor and stop over thinking everything. Just take a step back, give your brain a rest, and let your heart do the talking alright?" Jessica nodded and moved closer to him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Charlie wondered if when she opened her eyes she would have her mind made up. He decided he didn't really want to wait to find out. He let go of her hands and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.
"Charlie, I'm thinking," Jessica warned him, her eyes still closed.
"What did I just say about thinking?" Charlie exclaimed with a laugh.
"I've never been any good at listening when people tell me what to do," Jess laughed.
"Well if you're insistent on this thinking thing then at least let me try and persuade you," Charlie suggested. He placed a light kiss on her lips. Jess laughed and allowed him to deepen the kiss. Charlie felt himself relax into her and for a few minutes everything else seemed to melt away. The drama at the reserve, Chase and his stupidity, none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was Jess.
When they broke apart Jessica took another deep breath before opening her eyes. She made no motion to move out of his arms and Charlie took that as a good sign. She looked up at him.
"So how's the thinking going?" he asked jokingly. Jess leaned back so she could look him in the eyes.
"When I'm with you it just feels," Jess paused, waiting for the word to fill the gap. Charlie wondered what she was going to say. It feels…nice, weird, different, boring…the possibilities were endless. "When I'm with you it just feels right." Jessica finally said. Charlie couldn't help the huge grin that spread on his face. "Now that I'm here it finally feels like I'm doing things right," Jessica continued. "I just hope that Chase doesn't go and screw it up."
"Me too," Charlie agreed. "So where do we go from here?" Charlie asked.
"I'm not sure," Jess admitted with a small smile. "I just know that wherever I go—I want to go there with you." Charlie smiled. "Oh my god! That was so cheesy, I take it back!" Jessica exclaimed sounding rather horrified. Charlie laughed.
"Nope you already said it. You can't take it back now!"
"I hate you," Jessica muttered with a frown. Charlie couldn't help laughing.
"Nah, you could never hate me," Charlie said with a confident grin. He suddenly remembered one of the lines from Robert's letter and the grin fell off his face. "You have no idea how badly I want to run around the reserve telling everyone that I get to be with you but I don't think we should tell anyone yet." Jessica nodded her head in agreement.
"It would probably be best if we acted like the past couple of hours didn't happen," she agreed. Charlie's face seemed to fall even more. He didn't want to pretend like the past few hours didn't happen. The past few hours had been some of his happiest. "When other people are around," Jess added upon seeing the look on Charlie's face.
"I'm so glad you added that last bit in," he said with a laugh. "Now at least I still get to kiss you—I just have to make sure no one's around."
"Yeah, and make sure Chase isn't lurking anywhere in the corner," Jess added jokingly.
"Yeah what was that about?" Charlie exclaimed. "Clearly he was being weird and watching us."
"He's a creep," Jess agreed.
"Well at least we're in agreement on his creep status," Charlie said. He was enjoying their happy banter.
"We should probably get back inside," Jessica said finally.
"Must we?" Charlie groaned.
"We must," Jess sighed. She leaned up and kissed him quickly before wriggling out of his arms and running back to the cafeteria. Charlie laughed and raced after her.
The rest of the day seemed to go by in blur. Jess and Charlie watched over the team of interns as they worked with Jamaya. She was much more tame now that she was eating her daily dosage of lettuce. Charlie and Jessica were on their way back to dinner when Eric Wentworth intercepted their path.
"Weasley!" he called out to them. Eric was running over from one of the office buildings. "Schmidt wants to see us in OB1."
"Now?" Charlie asked as his stomach gave a growl. He was really hungry. Charlie hated missing meals.
"Yes now. Maria Augers is here. She wants to talk to you and Jess about everything," Eric explained. Jess looked over at Charlie upon hearing her name.
"I suppose we don't have much of a choice then," Charlie sighed. He motioned for the group of interns to keep walking on to dinner. He turned to Jess who just shrugged her shoulders as they began walking to the office buildings. Eric led them to where Schmidt, Chase, Lea, Jake, Rob, and Maria Augers were all gathered. Jake and Lea smiled over at them when Charlie and Jess entered the room.
"Ah, Weasley, Sloan there you are," Schmidt acknowledged their arrival. Eric shuffled into the room behind them.
"I take it you're Charlie Weasley and Jessica Sloan then," Maria Augers said to the pair of them.
"Yes M'am," Charlie said remembering the manners his mother had instilled in him.
"Yes," Jessica said firmly fixing Augers with a firm look.
"Excellent, I was just telling the others I want to speak with each of you individually for at least ten minutes before the night is over. Tomorrow I will be here on the reserve trying to determine what to make of this situation," Augers explained. She glanced over at Schmidt who nodded. "Alright then seeing as I've already heard from Sloan and Roland I'll take the other Sloan next." Jessica nodded her approval. "Follow me," Augers said as she walked into one of the rooms down the hall. Jessica did just that.
The pair of them was only gone for about twenty minutes but to Charlie it felt like an eternity. He wondered what they could possibly be talking about in there. What could Augers ask Jess that would take twenty minutes to explain. He was getting anxious by the time Augers and Jess finally reappeared.
"Mr. Wentworth if you please?" Augers said as Jess walked wordlessly over to where Charlie was sitting down. She sat down next to him as Eric and Augers disappeared. Charlie looked over at Jess expectantly.
"What did she ask you about?" Charlie wanted to know. Jessica laughed.
"You sound so worried," she said, "It's not like it was an interrogation. She just asked me about my reports and about the fight between Jake and Chase."
"That's it?" Charlie asked in surprise.
"That and some other things. Let's not get into it now though alright," Jess said shooting Charlie a pointed look. He'd forgotten that they were in a room full of people. Whenever he talked to Jessica it was as if they were the only two people in the room. She was that entrancing. Charlie looked around the room. Jake and Lea were sitting back in their chairs, seemingly quite relaxed. Schmidt was sitting at the desk in the corner of the room reading through some paperwork. Rob was talking to Jake and Chase sulked off in the corner as usual.
"I haven't seen my family all day," Charlie mused. "I hope they don't think I've abandoned them."
"They probably found some way to occupy themselves," Jess said shrugging her shoulders. Charlie still felt guilty for not spending a lot of time with his family when they came all the way to Romania to visit him. As he was getting lost in his thoughts Wentworth came back and told Lea to go talk to Augers.
"What did you guys talk about?" Rob asked Eric. Eric just shrugged his shoulders. He'd only been with Augers for ten minutes, maybe even less.
"She just asked me what kind of work I did here, whether I enjoyed my job, and about the fight but nothing else," Eric explained. Everyone nodded talking all the information in.
"Honestly, this is ridiculous," Jake said to no one in particular. The entire room was essentially in agreement. They couldn't believe the nerve of Chase to go running off to the ministry with the sole intention of taking down the reserve. Lea was gone for a little bit longer than Eric was. When she came back she was almost laughing. Charlie was surprised. She motioned for Jake to go in the room next.
"What's so funny?" Jessica asked as Lea sat down next to her.
"Augers was bloody hilarious," Lea said. Jess raised an eyebrow at her. Clearly they had not gotten the same impressions of the head of the department.
"What did she ask you about?" Charlie asked for what felt like the hundredth time that evening.
"My job, Chase, the fight, Jake, you, Jess. We mostly just talked though. I'm not too worried about the reserve getting shut down anymore," Lea informed the group. This was rather surprising to everyone in the room.
"Maybe she was just using a different questioning tactic?" Eric suggested.
"Maybe," Lea said shrugging her shoulders. She seemed rather indifferent. It unnerved Charlie. He could tell that Jess was bothered too. Jake came back after about ten minutes and finally it was Charlie's turn to get questioned. He walked down the hallway to the only room with its door open. Maria Augers was sitting down in a chair, waiting for him.
"Have a seat Mr. Weasley," she said motioning for him to sit down in the chair across from hers. Charlie sat down in the uncomfortable looking chair.
"You can call me Charlie," he told her. He hated when people called him Mr. Weasley. To Charlie, Mr. Weasley would always be his dad.
"Very well," Augers said. "So tell me about your job here on the reserve." Judging from what the others had said she'd asked them all the same question.
"Well, I'm a dragon keeper," Charlie said feeling rather stupid. It was obvious to him what a dragon keeper did. And Augers must have heard the same explanation several times. "We tend to the dragons. Feed them, take care of them, study them, watch over them, play with them. You name it."
"Play with them?" Augers asked raising an eyebrow.
"Er well, yeah," Charlie muttered recognizing his mistake. The keepers weren't really supposed to play with the dragons. But occasionally there would be a really well behaved dragon that just bonded with the keepers. Charlie and some of the more daring keepers would play with them. "I mean not everyone does. I do…just cause if I were a dragon I would hate to be stuck sitting around all day. I'd want to er, have some fun."
"Interesting," Augers said scribbling something down on a pad of paper in her lap. She reminded Charlie of Jessica when Jess had first gotten to the reserve. She was always making comments and then scribbling things down in her notepad. "Do you like working here?"
"I love it," Charlie replied without hesitation. Augers nodded her head and kept the questions coming.
"Did you witness the fight between Chase Roland and Jake Henderson?" Charlie nodded. "Could you please describe what happened?"
"Chase was treating Lea like rubbish. We were at dinner and he was talking to her in such a degrading manner. He'd been acting off all week and it was getting on everyone's nerves. Jake, he's been in love with Lea for centuries, well he couldn't stand watching Chase treat Lea so poorly. So he just sort of snapped. First they argued verbally and then Jake punched Chase. Chase punched him back. They had it out for a bit and then I pulled Jake off of Chase. That was the end of that."
As Charlie gave his version of the story Augers wrote everything he said down. Charlie supposed that she was trying to get an accurate account of what really happened that night.
"Ever since then Chase has been rotten. He's had a grudge. He wanted to hurt us. That's why he hates the reserve so much," Charlie couldn't help adding.
"Thank you for your opinion Mr. Weasley," she said.
"Charlie," he corrected without thinking.
"Right Charlie, I have one more question for you before you go," Augers told him. Charlie nodded and waited for her to ask. He had a feeling what she was going to ask him about before she even opened her mouth. "What is the nature of your relationship with Jessica Sloan?" Even though he'd been prepared for Augers to ask him about Jess he had no idea what to say to such a question. In all honesty Charlie had no idea how to describe his relationship with Jess.
"I'm not sure," Charlie admitted. "I mean we hated each other at the beginning of this," he said with a laugh. "I thought she was awful and she couldn't stand to look at me for more then five seconds. But I dunno, somewhere down the line we got to be friends. I care about her a great deal. I'll admit that we, er, kissed but that's it really," Charlie concluded.
"Did you ever try to manipulate Miss Sloan into writing good reviews of the reserve?" Augers asked. That question had caught him off guard.
"What? No, of course not!" Charlie exclaimed. He hoped Augers could tell that his response was genuine. "I think that's what the guys had wanted me to do but I couldn't manipulate Jess even if I tried. She's not the kind of person who lets other people tell her what to do. I just did my job M'am. Schmidt asked me to show Jess how great the reserve was and I did just that."
"Well thank you that will be all," Augers said. Charlie took that to be a dismissal and he got up and practically ran out of the room. He decided Jess was right. Augers wasn't nice or cruel she was just…objective. She'd asked all the right questions and she didn't appear to be leaning one way or the other. He hoped that Augers would evaluate the reserve fairly. His way of life depended on it.
Charlie walked back into the lobby area where his friends were waiting for him. Schmidt was still doing paperwork. Rob and Eric were talking, laughing, and probably joking about something. Charlie didn't know how they could be so lighthearted when the reserve was near collapse. As per usual, Chase was sitting off to the corner reading something and not talking to anyone. Jess and Lea were talking while Jake listened in earnest.
Suddenly Maria Augers appeared in the doorway to the lobby. Schmidt looked up from his work to see her and everyone spun around to see what he was looking at. Maria Augers took in the scene before here. Eight faces were looking at her expectantly. They were all watching her with baited breath as if they were waiting for her next move.
Author's Note: There's only one chapter left in the story guys! Chapter 8 will the the last one. I have a question for those of you who have read my other Charlie story, Love Smells Like Strawberries. Do you guys like Charlie better with Rachael or Jessica? I'm curious to know. It was rather hard for me to imagine writing Charlie with someone besides Rachael haha but now I find that I quite like him and Jess. I wanna know what you guys think.
Siriusly-a-princess: I'm so glad you're enjoying the story :)
yellow 14: Chase does seem to be the jealous type. I enjoyed writing Ginny in this story. I'd always thought of young Ginny as mad awkward because of how she was portrayed in the books whenever Harry was around. But then it occurred to me that young Ginny was probably just as great as older Ginny when Harry wasn't there.
MXlover5: Thanks. I'm so glad you like the story. It's almost done!
invisible-gurl: You have excellent instincts ahaha. Naturally the kiss would wind up biting them in the arse.
Evisawesome: I love writing about the Weasley family. They're my favorite characters in the books. I love Bill's relationship with Charlie. I kind of stressed it in my other story and I just wanted to show a happier Bill and Charlie relationship in this one.