A/N: This one is for VAVikingGirl who asked me to write quicker. She's actually be asking me to write quicker since I was writing This Mortal Life all those years ago, so I'm used to her nagging by now. I still love hearing it though!
Christmas was, as it had always been, the most hectic and mad and wonderful time to be part of the Weasley family. Even if he wasn't technically one of the family. And he couldn't deny that it was nice to be out of the same house he'd been imprisoned in for the past few months.
However, the drawbacks were severe.
When he was with Charlie, Harry had got to a point where sometimes, for brief moments, he forgot all about his disability. They had their routine and their moments of spontaneity, but here, he was reminded of it with every sympathetic glance, every offer of help that he didn't need, whilst being treated like an invalid or worse, a child.
He'd been left with a child, Bill's son, to be precise. Louis had blown spit bubbles at him for twenty minutes then had fallen asleep and was now snoring in his arms. Harry didn't mind all that much. There were worse things he could have been given. Like Great Aunt Muriel, who insisted on referring to him as 'the cripple' even when he was within full hearing distance. Miserable old hag.
In an ironic twist, he and Charlie were sharing a bedroom (and therefore, a bed). The house was full almost to bursting point and there just wasn't room for him to have a bed of his own, Molly had explained with wringing hands and an apologetic expression. It was a small bed so they slept close every night. Charlie didn't mind at all.
The kitchen was full of swirling steam and copper pots, the scents and sounds of one woman preparing a feast.
"Mum," Charlie said, catching his mother by the wrist as she added salt to a boiling pot.
"Oh, Charlie dear, would you grab the pancetta from the fridge for me please?"
He found a small dish of bacon and decided he wasn't going to ask where it was going. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Right now? I'm sort of busy."
"Okay." He turned to leave.
"Charlie, wait." She was frowning, a spatula gripped in her hand, which was bunched on her hip. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
Molly frowned for another moment, then cast a stasis spell over everything in her kitchen. Water stopped mid boil, simmering liquids stilled and the crackling meat froze, one piece hovering just over the surface of the pan.
"Come on outside for a moment," she told him.
"But the food-"
"Can wait. Come on."
They sat on the kitchen step in the frigid December air, a cushioning charm beneath them and a weak warming charm working hard to keep the chill away. For a few minutes neither spoke.
"I've already asked you if something was wrong," Molly started. "So I won't again."
"There really isn't anything wrong."
"Okay. Is there a reason why I'm sat outside in the cold in my advanced years?"
"Because you wouldn't leave it alone?" Charlie muttered, picking at the knee of his jeans.
Molly hit him around the back of his head. "Not too old…" she warned him with a disapproving spatula.
"Ow, Mum, okay," he grumbled.
"Just tell me, Charlie," she said gently, her voice completely at odds with her fit of violence.
"Harry and I are in a relationship."
Silence.
"Well," Molly said eventually. "Well. Oh, Charlie."
"What?"
"I thought you were going to tell me you'd met someone. But not this. Not this, Charlie."
"Is there something wrong with Harry?"
"Of course there is!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry but I just can't condone you taking advantage of him... He's not himself, Charlie, it's not right, he's ill…"
"Mum, we've been together for ten years."
Molly surveyed her son with an expression that suggested to Charlie that he may, indeed, have grown a second head. "What?"
"We've been together for a long time. That's why I came to get him when he got hurt."
"I don't understand."
Charlie sighed. It was harder than he'd anticipated. It was time for full disclosure.
"Harry and I… we don't get to see each other all the time. Before the accident we'd never lived together. We weren't exclusive."
"You mean you were unfaithful?"
"No," Charlie said, trying desperately to remain calm. "We both dated other people by mutual agreement." Molly didn't say anything else, so he continued. "Harry wants to be more open about our relationship now, you know, now that we've decided to be more committed to each other. It was important to us both that you know."
"So you're… what? Lovers? Boyfriends?"
"He's my… he's my partner, Mum."
"Your partner."
"Yes."
She nodded. "Partners. Okay." She was silent for a few moments, then sighed heavily. "Will you give me some time? A few days?"
"Of course. And you should probably know that I have a tattoo."
Molly closed her eyes and shook her head "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."
"Okay."
Molly stood then, pressed a kiss to the top of his head and went back in to her kitchen. Charlie stayed outside, recasting his warming charm and sending funny little spells across the lawn, wondering what they'd hit and affect.
When the air around him sizzled and popped, he only just reacted in time to catch Harry as he Apparated out onto the step.
"What the fuck are you doing!" Charlie exclaimed. Harry grabbed at Charlie's shoulders and shuddered against the cold, then let Charlie lower him down to sit on the step too.
"I couldn't get out here without coming through the kitchen."
"What if I'd moved? You could kill yourself Apparating, you should know that."
Charlie was shaken, wanting to simultaneously smack and kiss the impetuous, ridiculous man.
"I knew you'd catch me," Harry said in a soft voice. "So what happened with mother?"
"She needs some time."
"We can give her that," Harry said. Charlie still looked as if something was terribly wrong, somehow. Knowing only one way that that could be fixed, Harry lifted his fingers to angle Charlie's jaw and pressed warm lips against cold ones. Charlie sighed into the kiss, licking at Harry's tongue and, while being deliciously distracted, didn't notice the twitch of a gingham curtain at the window.