August 1997

Harry had hoped that half a year and all the events that had transpired in the interim would have dampened the… crush… he had developed on Ron's brother. When he arrived back at The Burrow, though, to prepare for Bill and Fleur's wedding, it became clear that the embers had not been extinguished, merely contained ready to flare again when they were reunited.

Charlie looked… fucking gorgeous. He arrived the night after Harry in a linen shirt rolled up to his elbows, tatty jeans, his hands sporting some rather spectacular cuts and scars as proof of his dangerous, exciting job. He had a sack slung over his shoulders like an out of season Father Christmas and rich, electric blue dragon hide boots on his feet.

At Harry's birthday supper they'd found themselves sat side by side on the long wooden bench and Harry had to grip his fork extra tight to contain his excitement that his knee, his fucking knee was pressed right up tight against Charlie's. It wasn't due to a lack of space. There was plenty of room at the table.

In the early hours of the morning, Harry couldn't sleep. There was too much on his mind, too much that he should be doing, preparing for his hunt for Horcruxes, but his mind was occupied with one dragon keeper sleeping just one floor away.

Or not, as he found out when he wandered through the house, helping himself to a glass of milk then going to sit outside on the back step to try and escape the stifling heat of the summer night.

"Hey," a voice said, startling him and causing him to slosh milk onto the stone.

He looked down into blue/ grey, smiling eyes.

"Hey," Harry choked out. "You made me jump."

"Sorry," Charlie whispered, patting the step next to him and clearing up the spilled milk with a wave of his wand. "So you couldn't sleep either?"

"No. It's too hot and Ron is snoring."

Charlie laughed softly. "Yeah, so is Bill."

Harry sipped his milk and searched for something appropriate to say. Finding nothing, he settled on something inappropriate. "I'm sorry about Christmas. I never meant to make things awkward for you."

When Charlie sighed deeply, as though he had been expecting (and dreading) this conversation, Harry felt the nerves in his belly dissolve into a sick feeling.

"It wasn't awkward because of anything you did, I. I just… shit. I hope you understand that this is hard for me. I'm eight years older than you, and you were underage. I couldn't…"

He couldn't. Not he didn't want to - he couldn't. Harry's heart leapt to his throat.

"I'm not underage any more," Harry whispered, daring to hope.

"No," Charlie said, chewing on his bottom lip. "You're not."

"It's okay if you don't like me like that, it's okay, I've kind of gotten used to the idea over the past year, it was just you were the first man that I felt that way about, so you're always going to be sort of special to me…"

Charlie broke of Harry's incoherent babbling by taking his chin and turning it into his kiss. Harry's first, soft, sweet, oh so real kiss.