Four Weddings and a Dragon - Charlie Weasley

Chapter 20

Charlie stood in a cloud of stone dust smoothing the inner bowl of his handmade Pensieve for what he hoped would be the final time. During his most recent test of it, he'd seen a slight wobble in the image. No one would notice but him. He wanted it perfect anyway, and he was determined to right it before Hermione got home from work.

He had to accomplish something after sleeping in so uncharacteristically late this morning. Malfoy had kept him out the night before, drinking and playing billiards in some posh club with the gits Ronnie used to scrap with back in school. The one called Goyle seemed particularly keen for an excuse to start brawling even when he was still sober. Well past being scared of anything that didn't breathe fire, Charlie was certain he could have managed him, but Draco called the brute off every time Goyle's blood started to get up.

Whatever their manners were like, the rich lads had good liquor, strong hard expensive stuff, and lots of it. The whole thing felt like a test, a contest where the rest of them were trying to prove to Draco how unworthy Charlie was to be in their company while Draco tried equally hard to prove them wrong. It wasn't just snobbery but jealousy. Charlie, however, had the benefit of having learned to drink in eastern Europe and he was not about to be outdone by lightweight high society boys. In fact, it had been him who'd been clear-headed enough to ferry Draco home at the end of the night.

Draco had been so grateful, lolling against Charlie's shoulder as they came through the manor's Floo.

"Your parents," he'd bawled, "the Weasleys, they're show offs. They helped themselves to five goes at making the perfect ginger male specimen - "

"You mean, six goes," Charlie had smirked.

"NO!" Draco had maintained, much too loudly for the dim, quiet manor library. "I mean five. Those rangy doppelgangers only count as one go."

Charlie hadn't argued, using his strength to heft Draco onto his feet on the rug, wondering when this celebrated old house would step in and take over magically conveying its master up to bed.

"And Potter's flunky," Draco had gone on, his knees getting less loose and fluid, "that youngest brother of yours - well, he's a specimen that hardly bears mentioning."

"Come on then, Malfoy," Charlie had said, dragging him to the door. "I thought we had all agreed to forgive and forget."

"Yes, everything else, but not that," he'd slurred. "I keep remembering that so Granger can forget. That's the deal. For Granger."

"It's Weasley," Charlie had said.

"Of course you are," Draco had said, patting both of Charlie's rosier-than-usual, ever-so-freckled cheeks. "Charles Lucius Weasley."

"No, I reckon Lucius is your middle name," Charlie had protested.

Draco hadn't acknowledged the correction. "Charlie Weasley - his Mum and Dad's best attempt at the perfect ginger male specimen."

Charlie had laughed at this, his voice ringing through the vaulted main hall of the manor, drunk enough not to notice how inappropriately loud it was. "No, that would be big brother Bill."

"Bill," Draco had sneered. "The troublemaker werewolf banker?"

"He's a curse-breaker, not strictly a banker, and not a werewolf - "

"That's not what I heard," Draco had said, scoffing and reaching for the bannister with his free hand, mistakenly believing it was his own power, not Charlie's, that was moving him up the grand staircase. "They say he's got a beard down to his chest every full moon."

Charlie had laughed more softly. "True enough, Malfoy."

"Nah, not him. Bankers were never my type," Draco had said. "That Percy though - the authoritarian prig, Head Boy while we were at school - always rather liked him. What's he like? I mean, really like?"