Yours truly ; Charlie Weasley

Fifty-three

Charlie

Ember had cooked us shakshuka with veggies and as always, it tasted great.

As we were eating, none of us said anything. I was watching her, observing her to see if she was okay, and she was just sitting there in deep thoughts while eating.

She looks so beautiful.

Her hair was a slight mess. It wasn't completely brushed through but it wasn't crazy either. It was parted on the side though normally she had a middle part and then the way her hair would flow around her face, making her look like a princess, just made me love her so much more.

I love the many freckles on her face. She's got more than I do and sometimes when she's asleep, I try and count them.

Once, she woke up while I was counting them, and when she noticed, she just smiled widely and kissed me.

"What are you thinking about?" I decided her to ask, tilting my head.

Ember looked up at me, our eyes meeting for a short second before she looked down again.

"Do you remember our holiday to Namibia when we were nineteen?"

I hummed.

"We went for a walk in the desert." I said and chuckled over how ridiculous that sounded. "And when you got tired of walking, you apparated back to our hotel room."

The chuckle that escaped her lips made me smile as my heart filled with warmth.

"I was thinking that one day we could go back there." I said. "Once the babies are born and can walk. It was beautiful in Namibia, don't you think?"

She hummed.

"What was the city  we stayed in?" I asked, looking at the table. "I don't quite remember."

"Swakopmund." She responded softly as she moved her fork around in the food instead of actually eating it. "The beach was my favourite place. Apart from when we got those bad sunburn."

I smiled at the memory of how red our skin was after the day at the beach.

"That's what you get for being gingers." I chuckled. "We get burned way too easily."

She looked at me from under her eyelashes and that was the first time in a while that she had looked at me with so much love in her eyes.

It felt like having her back.

I knew that she'd go back to how she was before dinner and that was okay. She was traumatised from what happened and needed time, help and support to get through it.

I was just happy to see her smile a little and see her face light up when we talked about our memories together.

"I used to be insecure about being a red-head." She told me and sat up straight, looking at her food again. "I never told you that. I dunno why. Before Hogwarts, the other kids would pick at me in school for having a temper or for being pale. They'd call me a witch because apparently according to Muggle history, a witch is something evil and they used to burn women they believed to be witches. Mostly, that woman had red hair. It's pretty ironic that I was a witch, just not the kind they were talking about. They just didn't know that."

She looked up again to see my expression.

"Then I met you." She said with a small smile. "Another ginger. The only red-heads I had ever been around was my family so when I met you and we became friends — I was happy."

I smiled.

"Do you remember how Tonks always changed her hair colour to match mine?" She added and I nodded. "She did that because she knew I was insecure about it. She said we were in it together and then we'd laugh about it."