Four Weddings and a Dragon - Charlie Weasley

Chapter 13

Hermione insisted Charlie spend the evening after the Hogwarts Alumni Charity Benefit Quidditch Match unwinding in the bath.

"There's no need," he said as she engorgio-ed the bathtub in her parents' house to something closer to the size of a luxury hot tub.

"Nonsense," she said as she gripped the sweaty T-shirt he had worn under his quidditch robes and peeled it off of him. "Especially after that nasty fall you and Malfoy took at the end."

Hermione caught Charlie's arm to examine the green streak over the bruise forming in the usual place. She was beginning to know where and how he was most likely to injure himself on a broom.

"No matter what his parents called him," Charlie said, "that Draco is not a dragon. He's not nearly as fearsome as the creatures I typically fly against."

"Of course he isn't," Hermione said, working at his belt buckle now. "But physical strain isn't the only stress you've had today. What with Astoria turning out to be - "

"Listen," Charlie interrupted. "I'll soak in a bathtub like some effete pretty boy IF you come along with me."

She scoffed through a smile as his trousers hit the floor and she linked her arms around his neck. "Charles Prewett Weasley, you are very pretty. And have you ever got into a bathtub alone? And I don't mean to stand in one having a shower."

"You know, I don't think I have," he said, swaying with her in his arms and faking a frown as he tried to remember, his bare arms around her waist. "And I don't mean it in a sexy way. I'm the second born of a large family that lived in a country house with a small well, so Mum did tend to double and triple us up for baths."

She laughed.

"It isn't funny, Princess Only Child. That's large family life for you. It's not all big parties and full quidditch squads. There's hand-me-down clothes, communal bathwater, we share everything."

At this, she gasped and batted at his chest.

Charlie realized his mistake, stammering. "No, not - I didn't mean to say - it's different with you, of course - Ronnie and I, we never think of it as - "

"Enough," she said, still smirking as she stepped out of his arms. "Stop jabbering and get into the bath. I'll be back in a minute."

"To join me," Charlie insisted.

"I'll make no promises."

She also hadn't refused. Charlie noted it as he eased himself into the water.

Hermione came back to find him looking very comfortably lost in soap bubbles up to his chest, his arms stretched out along the edges of the tub, his hair slicked away from his forehead and curling over his ears and his neck. She had brought back a steaming dish of a dodgy noodle casserole he would be happy to eat, and she sat down to spoon feed his portion to him as he soaked.

"You know," she began when they had finished eating and she was scrubbing at his grass-stained arm, "you've known me almost all of my life. And I think it may be fair to say you already know all the trivia about me you may ever care to know."

Charlie raised his eyebrows and rubbed his face with his wet palm. "I wouldn't say that."

"Well, alright," she said, handing back his stain-free arm. "But what I mean is, sometimes I feel so close to you, I forget there are things - little stories and facts mostly - that I don't actually know about you."

Charlie rumbled a laugh and reached for her hand, dragging it beneath the water, holding it against his stomach. "What do you want to ask, Hermione? Say it."