Four Weddings and a Dragon - Charlie Weasley

Part 2 - Chapter 9

Author Note: By popular demand, more story! Thanks for asking.

Hermione and Charlie Weasley were going back to Britain for Ron's wedding. They were leaving their three-month mountaintop honeymoon among the dragons and the people who knew them as the only Weasleys in the world. They weren't the only Weasleys, not by a long shot. And they couldn't deny it any longer.

And besides the wedding, Hermione's research stay in Romania couldn't go on indefinitely. If she never went back to work at the British Ministry of Magic, she'd never get to file her report for the white paper on ethical care of dragons.

And finally, they needed help analyzing the baby opal-eye-iron-belly's tears. Occlumency was a dying art outside of the pureblooded and wealthy and sneaky. Not even the chosen one had put in the work to learn to do it well. They needed to get back to their old Order of the Phoenix network to find Occlumens to test the tears before they could investigate their effects on Muggle memory.

"But it's going to a different sort of visit," Hermione told Charlie as she trimmed his hair at their tiny table, combing it with her fingers, looking for any singed bits. She didn't want to row with Molly Weasley about the state of Charlie's hair for a family wedding. But she would not sit quietly if Molly tried to give her beautiful husband another Muggle military cut.

Charlie sat quietly hearing her out.

"I mean," she resumed, "if we were to turn up at the Burrow and slot ourselves right back into our old spots at the kitchen table, it might not make a strong enough point about what's changed in the family. And if the fact that we're sleeping in the same room now is the one thing that's obviously different, it will make you and me seem strange and perverse. And we're not. We're lovely."

"Yeah, we're destiny," Charlie agreed.

"Right," she said. "And everyone will be able to see that better if they see us somewhere they've never seen us before. Some place completely different: my parents' old house."

The "Wilkins" had forgotten their old identities so thoroughly that they hadn't remembered to sell their house when they left the country. The interior was ransacked by Death Eaters while Hermione was on the run. When the utilities went unpaid, they were soon shut off. But the taxes continued to be withdrawn automatically from the Grangers' old account, and by the time the money ran out, Hermione was old enough to take over the payments herself. Before she'd come to Romania, the house was where she'd been living in London.

They apparated to it from the London International Port Key Authority. While Hermione ran up and downstairs, opening windows to clear out three months of stuffy early summer air, Charlie stood in the centre of the lounge, looking about as if he was in a museum.

His hands were still jammed in his pockets when Hermione returned. "Are you alright, darling?" she asked. "Are you feeling woozy? Was my apparation poorly done?"

"No, not at all," he said, reaching for the one thing he felt confident in touching here -- her. "It just -- well, I've been in Muggle shops and businesses, in their train stations and that kind of thing. But never anyone's house."

Her shoulders fell, her posture sagging in Charlie's arms, letting him hold her up. "It's not much, is it."

"No, it's brilliant," Charlie said. "Authentic Muggle habitat. Dad's going to lose his mind for joy when he gets here. Ron must know his way around the place by now though. Harry too, I suppose."

She bowed her head. "No, actually. I kept them away. Somehow it hurt, the thought of having them here. No one's ever seen this place. Only you."

Charlie understood, pulled her into his chest, and kissed the top of her head. "Thanks for bringing me, love."