"Ok, but what did it look like?" Freddy asked for the fifth time. "Was it really big? Or was it not a really big dragon? I've never seen one in person."

George shook his head as he took another sip of his Butterbeer. Charlie had come in from Romania for the weekend sporting a new scar that ran from his hand to his elbow on his left side and several blisters on his fingers. Their mum had been ecstatic when he'd showed; so ecstatic in fact, that she'd insisted on cutting Charlie's hair properly since he'd let it grow out so much. Now, it was shorter than Percy's and still not nearly as neat. As usual, all the kids had flocked to Charlie to hear what new stories he'd brought with him, but only Freddy remained now, asking questions that he'd already asked five times over.

"I mean, it wasn't the biggest dragon I've worked with, but not the smallest either," Charlie said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Probably about average."

Good ol' Charlie. He was too nice to try and get out of answering Freddy's questions, and George found it too amusing to distract his son.

"Dad, why don't you open up a shop in Romania?" Freddy said, turning big eyes on him. "Then I could go stay with Uncle Charlie on the reserve."

George raised his eyebrows. "Don't know profitable that would be, seeing as the shop could be burned down at any minute."

"Not profitable at all," Charlie chuckled.

"Besides, I don't think your mum would be up to moving, Freddy."

Freddy crossed his arms looking unimpressed. "You could if you really wanted to. I heard you say you could convince Mummy of anything as long as your-"

George slapped a hand over his son's mouth while Charlie raised an eyebrow.

"He wasn't supposed to hear that."

"Clearly."

Freddy roughly shoved George's hand away from his mouth, still glaring. The kid could be downright wicked, more so than George had ever been. Sometimes, he'd forget that Freddy was in earshot and very likely to repeat whatever he heard George say. It had gotten him into a load of trouble with his mother already.

"What are you two doing in here?"

George and Charlie turned to see Angelina walking toward them, Roxanne settled against her hip. George couldn't fight off the grin that slid over his face. The Burrow and Angelina went together like gunpowder and sparks, which he loved. For the most part, they all got along, but she had her spats with his mother just like Fleur and Audrey did.

"Mummy, can we move to Romania?" Freddy asked her.

Angelina cut both of them a hard look. "And which one of you gave him that idea?"

"He came up with that one on his own," George said, taking a sip of his Butterbeer.

Roxanne reached for him then, and he easily snatched her up. Normally, she would gave giggled, but she was too busy hiding her face in George's neck as she snuck glances at Charlie. When Freddy was born, Charlie had visited a lot more often, but since Roxanne's birth, he'd only been back in the country three or four times.

"Hi there," he said. "Wanna come here?"

When Charlie held his hands out, Roxanne shrunk back into George even farther.

"She's a bit shy today," he said.

"What a baby," Freddy muttered.

Quick as a flash, Roxanne's boot was kicking out, barely missing Freddy's head by a centimeter.

"Roxanne Weasley!" Angelina shouted while Charlie tried to cover his laugh with a cough, and Freddy raged about almost being hit in the head by his sister's foot.

"Oops," she said, not sounding the least bit sorry.

"Roxie," George said softly jolting her a little in his arms.

"Sorry," she mumbled. George could hear the eye roll in her voice.

Freddy sent her a glare filled with knives before storming out of kitchen, no doubt to find one of his cousins and greatly exaggerate what had just happened.

Angelina grabbed Roxanne's chin and turned her to look at her. "I don't ever want to see you kick at your brother again, do you understand?"

"Yes, Momma," Roxanne said. Then she reached for Angelina, the sweetest expression in her big brown eyes. She scooped Roxanne up and turned to go find whoever was calling her name, Ron if he wasn't mistaken.

"She's a spitfire," Charlie said when they were out of earshot.

"Yeah, she gets that from her mum."

"Reminds me of Ginny."

"That too."

A pleasant silence fell over them. Charlie was one of the few people George never felt compelled to put on a front around. There was always a pressure to impress Bill, to have him look at you with a proud gleam in his eye, and Percy was, well, Percy with his high expectations and straight and narrow road to success. Ron and Ginny were younger than him, and despite all his jokes, he felt the need to protect them, to make sure the world didn't heap anymore trauma onto them than it already had. Charlie had always felt . . . safe. He was the only person who George felt comfortable enough around to express his grief to after Fred.

"How'd you know you wanted kids?"

The question caught George off guard. When he glanced at Charlie out of the corner of his eye, his older brother was staring at the doorway where Angelina and Roxanne had disappeared.

George shrugged. "Dunno. Angie and I just figured we were at a place in our lives where we could have kids if we wanted them. And we wanted them." He winced. "Roxanne was an accident, but I reckon we were past wondering if we wanted kids at that point."

The corner of Charlie's lip tugged upward. "Reckon you were." He scratched the arm with the new scar. "Suppose you didn't want kids. How'd you go about figuring that out?"

George took a moment to study Charlie. This wasn't something they'd ever talked about. As far as George could recall, Charlie hadn't ever talked about his lack of interest in starting a family of his own. He was always mildly uncomfortable when their mum brought up the fact, but other than that, he'd never really mentioned it. George wondered if seeing all his siblings with their kids had triggered some self-reflection.

He stroked his beard. "I reckon some people aren't meant to be parents." He didn't mean it in a bad way, and Charlie didn't seem to take it wrong either. Just raised his eyebrows slightly. "After all, there's a lot of bad parents in the world, and people who should have never been parents in the first place. If you know you're one of those people, I think it makes you pretty damn wise to recognize that about yourself."

Charlie nodded.

"And if you're worried about getting old and having no one to wipe your ass, I'm sure Ginny would be more than happy to make one of her kids do it for you."

Charlie shoved him then, a grin splitting his face. George wrapped an arm around his neck and strong-armed him into a bear hug. Moments like this made him miss the summers where all of his siblings were at the Burrow, but so glad he got to see most of them every Sunday.