Dragon Man
Chapter 6 – confessions
"So how was dinner with the scary matron then boss?" Nelly asked as they all assembled bright and early on Monday morning ready for the working week.
"None of your business" Charlie replied, not looking up from the sheet of paper he held "and please don't be telling people I had dinner with the matron, make sure you stress that it was the assistant matron"
"You shagged her didn't you?" Callie piped up.
"I refer you to my earlier statement" Charlie replied in a flat voice.
"That means yes" Oz chimed in "Was she all fire underneath that cool exterior?"
"I bet she was" Nelly mused "Women like that always are"
"You going to see her again?" Finn asked, his Irish drawl finally getting Charlie to raise his head.
"Why are we discussing my sex life instead of work?" he asked politely, but there was a note of impatience in his tone.
"See told you" said Oz, completely ignoring Charlie's question "He said sex life, if he hadn't shagged her then he'd have said love life"
"Enough!" Charlie said suddenly, a little rougher than usual "Come on, Finn and Oz you can go on a perimeter run please, and actually make sure you go, don't just check the corners and then hide for an hour skiving" he ignored their groans, a perimeter run meant flying to the very edge of the reserve and checking the fencing was intact and the wards and charms that kept the dragons in and the public out were in place and working, a tedious job.
"Callie, you can come with me and Nelly you can go on watch" he finished.
He stalked away in the direction of the dragons enclosure's with Callie and the others wildly waving hands, having a silent conversation behind Charlie's back.
"Now Callie!" he shouted.
"Coming boss!" she replied with a shrug of her shoulders to the others.
"Sorry Charlie" Callie said quietly as she caught up with him "We shouldn't have done that"
"It's ok" he conceded "It's just I'm a bit…..bothered about it all"
"Why? What happened?" she asked genuine concern on her face.
"Nothing" he stopped and faced her "Well, something, but well nothing bad anyway"
"You old dog!" she shoved him playfully "I knew it, she fell for the famous Weasley charm then!"
"Not like that Cal" he chuckled "And you can quote me on this, no we didn't have sex"
"So that's why you're in a mood then"
"No, that's the strange thing, it didn't really cross my mind that we didn't, we talked for ages and when I left I think I actually felt better than if we had"
"Seriously?" she asked a look of disbelief on her face "It didn't cross your mind, not once?"
"Well, obviously I thought about it, at certain points during the evening" he frowned at her wide eyed expression "but it wasn't the end of the world, I enjoyed the day just the way it was"
"Sounds like you are the one falling for her charms there boss" Callie mused "Very strange"
"I like her, a lot" he said simply "I want to get to know her properly, not just bed her and move on"
"Don't tell me that the great romancer Charles Weasley has fallen for one woman?" she teased.
"Not quite" he laughed at her "But I'm liking it at the moment"
"But you don't want to sleep with her?" she asked.
Charlie looked at Callie as if she had sprouted another head "Of course I do! She's gorgeous, and yeah I really fancy her, but I'm more than willing to put the time and effort in to see where else it could go"
"You go for it boss" Callie encouraged "You deserve a good woman for a change"
"Thanks Cal" he said, starting to walk again "And don't say anything to the others will you?"
"My lips are sealed, I won't let the guys know that you have gone all soft over a woman, where we going anyway?"
"Arcy needs bloods doing, mating season starts after Christmas and he's been a bit quiet lately, don't want him passing anything onto the cows" he informed.
"Great" she rolled her eyes "Testing the moodiest dragon on the reserve for an STD, oh joy is me"
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A few evenings later Juliet sat on the porch of her cabin, swinging gently to and fro on the swing seat she had 'acquired'. She sipped at a glass of wine as she curled her legs under the blanket for warmth, the warming spell she had cast was working well but she liked the comfort of a blanket. Being brought up by muggle parents, she still found wonder in the fact she could sit on the porch, on a starry and cold night in Romania and with a twitch of her wand, be warm. She rested her head back onto the seat, thinking about Charlie and the way they had been spending so much time together recently. She really liked him and he made her laugh, which was always attractive. Of course, she had a few misgivings, who doesn't in her situation? She worried that Charlie was just having fun, that he was enjoying the casual aspect at the moment, that they had fun and that he didn't think of her as someone that he could be with. They hadn't slept together, although he was tender towards her when they were together, she worried that he just didn't want to sleep with her, and that's why things hadn't progressed. Maybe he just liked spending time with someone his own age, who had similar interests. Where as she had started to develop something dangerously like feelings for him. They had kissed, rather passionately at some points, and he held her hand, or offered his arm whenever they went anywhere, and they had been spending almost every evening together since their first date, in fact this was the first evening they had spent apart since that day.
Juliet gasped quietly as Charlie appeared on the porch steps, smiling at her. For a few moments she entertained the fanciful notion that somehow her mind had conjured him up.
"Hello" she said, returning the smile "I wasn't expecting you"
"Sorry" he apologised "I just thought…" and held up a bottle of wine by way of explanation.
"Lovely" she said, moving across on the seat, making room for him next to her "There's a glass in the kitchen"
Charlie stood in the cabin doorway, he could see the glass in the kitchen "Accio glass" he commanded, neatly catching the glass as it winged his way to him. He opened the wine, poured himself a glass and some into Juliet's now empty glass, and sat down.
"You know, I never think to do that" she said.
"What?" he frowned slightly.
"Use magic like that, I mean I know all the spells but I suppose it's still not second nature to me"
"Yeah, you said your parents are muggles, didn't you go to a magical school then?" he asked.
"Yes, I went to Beauxbatons" she replied "But that was only at thirteen, there wasn't really anything to indicate I was a witch until then, nothing that my parents noticed anyway" "But surely there must have been something?" Charlie quizzed "That you can look back on now and think 'oh that's why that happened'" "There was, yes" she sighed "But my parents thought I was just playing up, and then when my mum started to look for answers, she took me to everyone from a psychiatrist to a priest. Of course after that I just tried to suppress and hide it, it wasn't until my dad's sister visited us from France that it all fit together, she's a witch, with muggle parents""So she realised what was going on?" he asked "Must have been confusing, I mean teenage years are hard enough, without thinking you are weird into the bargain!"
Juliet laughed "Yes, it wasn't pleasant but my Aunt had apparently been banished from the family for her 'strange behaviour' and now I was doing exactly the same. My dad grovelled a bit and she came to visit, I went back to France with her and entered Beauxbatons"
"Your parents disowned you?" Charlie felt a strange mix of anger and sorrow.
"Oh no!" Juliet's eyes opened wide with a need to make him understand "They did everything they could, paid the tuition fees, and I came home in the holidays, but they didn't understand, nor did they pretend to. They just got on with it, and gladly let me do the same"
"So you have contact with them?" he asked.
"Yup, we speak quite often, but we're just not a close family, never have been" she smiled at him "Not like yours"
"That'd be weird" he spoke quietly "I can't imagine not being nagged by my mum about not eating the right food, or tormented by my older brother, Bill. He's great, well he is now I'm bigger than him and I can take him on!"
Juliet laughed "You're always talking about them; you must miss them a lot"
"I do, especially my mum, because she spoils me" he laughed "And my sister because I spoil her"
"Who wouldn't spoil you?" she asked, and suddenly the atmosphere became thick between them, Charlie leaned towards her, getting closer.
"I'd spoil you rotten" he said, and without the look in his eyes and the intensity of the atmosphere, it would have been a very bad and corny chat up line "I've been wanting to say, well ask, well….I don't know, I wanted to talk…." He flustered through the sentence, realising he couldn't actually put into words what he wanted to say, and gave up. He cupped her chin and kissed her, very gently, but there was a wealth of emotion behind it. Juliet moved closer and the kiss deepened, her hands caressed his shoulders as he pulled her closer. They had kissed before, probably more passionately on the surface, but this was just different. He broke away first and rested his forehead against hers gently.
"And that's really what I wanted to say" he whispered.
"Keep talking" she said smiling, initiating another kiss.
Charlie left early the next morning, before it got light, with a spring in his step that would have given it away to his team immediately. He smiled all the way back to his cabin, and grinned at his own reflection in the mirror as he shaved.
"Well, Weasley, looks like you got yourself a rather hot girlfriend!" he said with more than a trace of smugness.
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