The Return

14| Charlie Boy

Charlie POV

I had been sitting twenty feet up on my broom since class with Hagrid was dismissed. I couldn't get what he said out of my head. I knew my brother was a git when it came to Hermione, he was always underestimating her even when it truly counted. He lost her at the last moment. I don't want that to happen here. Apparently being a git runs in the family.

Maybe I acted too rash when Claudia asked me to be her fake boyfriend. I had the perfect idea for where I wanted that to go, and she hit it, exempt I didn't want it to be fake. It was like a blow to my gut, but I tried my best not to show it. I leaned back on my broom, laying flat across it. My balance wasn't always this good. It took my a long time to master this move. I laid there for a long time, basking in the silence.

All at once I felt a presence beside me. "I thought I might find you here." Claudia's voice nearly made me fall off of my broom. It's not because she scared me, I knew she was there. I just didn't know that it was her.

"How did you know where to find me?" I ask her. "I had a hunch." Then she smirks, "That, and, Hermione saw you out here." Claudia's laugh fills the air around us. "It's kind of creepy how that girl always seems know everything about everyone?"

"Creepy is one word for it." Sure it's a little alarming, but I'm not sure that I agree one hundred percent.

"What word would you use then?" I think on it for a bit. "Admirable, I guess. Think about how she knows things. Hermione isn't the type to stalk, so everyone must be close enough to tell her things. It's kind of admirable."

Claudia seems to think about this for a moment before speaking. "I never thought about it like that. But yeah, I guess your right." I place my hand around my ear, cupping it to a better sound. "I'm sorry, can you say that again. I have a feeling that statement doesn't come often." She rolls her eyes with a smile on her face and for a while, we just sit there, watching the horizon.

"I'm sorry." I said to her after a long time. "I didn't mean it to sound the way it did."

"I believe you." The words suprise me. They stand in such a contrast to the ones she said earlier. "What changed?" Claudia lowers her head with an amused expression. "Harry Potter changed actually. He gave me some sound advice."

I look at her amazed. "What did he say?" When Claudia looked at me, she had a twinkle in her eyes. "Your going to love this one." She told me, and I grew a tiny bit scared. "He pretty much told me that men screw up and not to be so hard on you."

"Well he's not lying." I answer honestly, and she throws her head back in laughter.

Movement catches my attention in the quidditch stands. "Looks like we have company." I tilt my head ever so slightly toward the Gryffindor section. I could just make out the heads of two of our friends. "Want to give them a show?" Claudia asked me with a mischievous smile on her face. I nod slightly and her broom draws closer to mine, our faces inches apart. "Don't fall in love with me Weasley." Was the last thing she said before closing the gap between our lips.

When Claudia's lips touch mine it isn't fireworks, but instead, it's a slow burn igniting every bone in my body. I drae her as close as our situation will let me, given that we are flouting twenty feet in the air.

Claudia runs her tounge along my bottom lip and I open my mouth, granting her access. Our tounges fight, in a battle that neither of us can win. Claudia's hands find my hair, and pull gently. I moan in her mouth, and pull her impossibly closer by her waist.

My thumbs rub circles into the black leather on her waist. "Charlie." She moans into my mouth, and we break apart foreheads resting against each other's. "That was a really good fake kiss." She says with a slight smile on her face, while I'm left thinking that there was nothing fake about that kiss. Nothing fake at all.

"CLAUDIA LILITH SNAPE, WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE DOING?!" All at once she sucks in a deep breath. "Please tell me that I'm imagining this." Claudia mumbles before pulling away and looking back at the stands. "Shit." She curses.

"What? Do you have a boyfriend that I should be worried about?" I laugh at my own joke, but yet again,, Claudia's face looks unreadable. "Worse." She says in a grave voice. "That is Cash. My twin brother. He's only three minutes older, but he is as overprotective as a brother years older than me. He thinks that innocent little me needs protection from the world."

"You Claudia are far from innocent." The words slip from my lips before I can take them back but she just smiles. "Try telling him that." She tosses her head in Cashes direction before sighing. "I guess we had better go, huh?" Her words and her voice said completely different things. While her words said that we had to go, her voice betrayed that she really didnt want to.

"After you, love." I repeat the same words from before we had entered the tunnel, and I follow her on my broom to the quidditch stands. When we reach the Gryffindor section, she demounts her broom and confidently walks toward her brothers. Behind him I see a smirking Fred.

Just great.

I wasn't aware that when we decided to put on a show, I would be teased about this moment for the rest of my life. "Looks like big brother has been having some fun while I've been away." Fred taunts and who I assume to be Cash turns his head toward Fred in under a second. "This is your brother?" He surveys me, while Fred answers him.

"Oh, yeah. This is Charlie boy." I cringe at the nickname while Claudia smirks. "Charlie boy, huh? I think Iike it." She rests her hands on my shoulder while Cash glares at me. "Are we going to talk about the elephant in the air?"

Claudia nods like she has been ready for this for a long time. She wags a finger between the two of us. "We are a thing. Your going to like it, or you can get over it." Then she smiles, and widens her arms. "Welcome back to Hogwarts, brother!"