Here Right Now | Charlie Weasley

Chapter 27 : Trouble is a-brewing

"WELL, well, well if it isn't Charlotte Jet!" The exclamation made her head fly around and a huge smile erupt on her face.

"Hunter! Merry Christmas! And a Happy New Year." She stood up and gave her tall friend a hug.

"Wasn't quite a merry one but it never is around Terrence." His grimace made her give him a light pat on the arm around her waist.

The two sat down and she cuddled into her friend, sighing. He held her and they sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying being together as friends again. The common room wasn't busy, as most of the students were taking the Hogwarts Express into school. The train only arrives during the evening. It was now early afternoon and Charlotte was trying to stay warm.

"Why are you back? The rest of the school hasn't arrived yet. Did you not take the train?"

"Terrence just freaked out on me and my aunt so it was a mutual decision between us all to stay in Hogsmeade before school started. I just had to walk in through the gate." He shrugged nonchalantly.

"I'm sorry Hunt." He smiled at her kindness but then a serious expression stole over his face.

"I have to ask you something Char. Terrence did something over the holidays that I think I should tell you about, especially because of your parents and your love for animals. Especially these ones." She rested her head on the couch they were sharing, as she listened to her friend explain what he had discovered.

He pulled on the necklace around her neck, rubbing the Hippogriff. The flying charm had long worn off, so it was easier to touch the golden charm. It was rubbed smooth with nervous hands over the years and it was warm in his fingers. He let go after she gave him a curious look.

"Terrence likes hunting during the holidays and I know you're aware of the gruesome hunts he prefers. He probably does it to get away from me." Her face pulled into a scowl. 

"So he's away for the first week of holidays, it's great. I'm alone with my aunt and her husband and we're having a grand time together." His hands were flying around as he spoke.

"He's back the Monday before Christmas and I found him lugging a beautiful ebony Hippogriff behind him. He's always insisted that he wants to lug around the poor corpses of the various creatures by not using any magic. The bloody idiot, magic is there to help us, not make things harder for us. Anyway, going away from that tangent, a bloody Hippogriff. Aren't they endangered or illegal to hunt?" He said, rubbing his face. 

She nodded, her face white with an anger simmering underneath her shocked exterior.

"It's very illegal. The department at the Ministry doesn't even give licenses out for anyone to hunt them. Not even the wealthiest of pure-blood families. How the hell did he do that without being thrown into Azkaban?" Charlotte asked, her hands rubbing her legs nervously.

"See that's the thing. He said he acquired it through the department, through one of his so called friends there. Of course, Terrence only has people he uses for his own purposes, but anyway. I knew you would want to know who the source was so I snooped around in his study."

She nodded, a small smile playing on her face at his familiarity with her personality. He rubbed his face and sighed. He didn't have an easy way to tell her but it needed to be said. He had a strong feeling it involved Charlotte, but he didn't know it went so deep. Sometimes his 'visions' really were confusing.

"Look I found out who the source was. It's your mum." He breathed out and she inhaled a sharp breath.

"What?! You're lying." She couldn't help but try and deny it.

Her mother loved animals and plants', she would never do this.

"I don't know Charlotte; I can only tell you what I saw. Look, I actually took a picture of it." 

He grabbed the picture out of his pocket, giving her the magical picture. When he took the picture she could tell his hands were shaking the camera, since the picture was shuddering slightly.

"I was taking pictures of my family for Christmas, that's why I had a camera on me. Just in case you were going to ask." He chuckled nervously. 

She was silent as she stared at the photo. It was an old parchment, with many scribbles and doodles. The most striking thing was the list that was scrawled on the parchment included her mothers name, a high up minister in the Ministry and a familiar muggle President in South Africa. 

"Do you think I should ask my mum?" She looked at him, a pleading look on her face.

"I don't know. I honestly think you should talk to one of your brothers before you talk to your mum about it. Maybe she was just on a list, I don't know. Her name was on the top of his hunt files and I can't think of any other way he would know about your mum. He doesn't have friends, just people he uses and abuses."

"Yeah, maybe he just saw her name in the newspaper. They did an article on my parents work with the department. I don't know.  It's a whole list of names anyway, maybe it doesn't even involve anything bad. I'll talk to J and see what he says." She nodded.

Hunter smiled but he knew that this wasn't the case. He knew that she didn't really think he had a seer gift, she was way too logical for that. He didn't want to be the git that proves her wrong, especially this time.

"Let's wait on Leah and maybe when we have dinner tonight you can corner your brother, okay?"

She nodded in agreement and the two settled back into a heavy but amicable silence.

"Why are you back so early?" Hunter asked her a few minutes later.

"Hmm. Oh, Charlie told me he fancies me." She said it so casually that Hunter almost choked on his spit.

"Merlin's beard, I didn't expect that from Mr. Weasley. Isn't that a good thing though? I thought you guys went over this already. I know you don't want to tell anyone, but you fancy him, Char."

Charlotte went red.

"I like him so much but I couldn't tell him when he told me how he felt. I froze up and he just assumed I didn't like him that way." She sounded frustrated now, her casualness gone.

"Why did you freeze? That doesn't sound like you at all." He frowned at her and she shrugged hopelessly.

"I don't know why. I've asked myself that ever since Christmas Eve and I just cannot come up with a good enough answer. I want to go out with him, I want to bloody kiss him but he didn't even look at me after that. To make matters worse, Bill decided to tell me to sod off a couple of days ago, he called me selfish." She sighed, rubbing her eyes with her hands.

She was leaning on her knees, her head and shoulder slumped almost in between her legs. Hunter rubbed her back in comfort.

"You probably think I'm so full of drama. I promise I'm not." Her voice sounded far away but Hunter heard every word.

Hunter laughed. 

"I don't think that. I think Charlie is a git and a ginger and he should have given you a chance to tell him how you felt. Instead of running off like a child. I remember Bill, he was always a self-righteous Gryffindor git." Hunter sneered. 

He hadn't ever met Bill and didn't know him from a bar of soap but he wanted to make her feel better.

Charlotte laughed but it wasn't for very long. 

"Bill is a decent bloke, he just acted like an asshole. Maybe I should just not bother anymore with Charlie. It's too much drama for me and in all honesty, I need to figure out what's happening with this leak in the department. I can't allow the wizard community to hunt Hippogriff's. They're too beautiful and misunderstood for that. They need my help." Her voice held a steadfast note, as her eyes burned with anger and a new direction.

Hunter nodded in agreement, but secretly he knew that Charlotte was already hooked to the stoic redhead from Gryffindor. He wasn't going to just go out of her life and he felt that way ever since he saw the two together in Potions.