wl_mods (wl_mods) wrote in wizard_love, @ 2010-02-26 00:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | *fic, 2010, charlie, hermione |
Special Delivery for open_atclose
Title: What Hermione Wants
Author/Artist:
Recipient's LJ name: open_atclose
Pairing(s): Charlie/Hermione
Rating: PG-13/Light R
Summary Post-war, Hermione has no idea what to do next. Charlie might have an idea.
Word Count: 2,371
Warnings/Content: Not epilogue compliant.
Disclaimer: The universe and characters described herein are not mine, and do not belong to me. Please don’t sue me.
Author's/Artist's notes: I really hope you enjoy this, open_atclose!
Usually, she loved going to the Burrow. Not as much as Harry did, of course—she knew what it was to have a family that loved her. But there was something about being with the Weasleys that was just comfortable, something that made her want to be surrounded by them. She found Mrs. Weasley’s care stifling at times, but it was secondary to the fact that she knew that Mrs. Weasley treated her as her own daughter, a fact both remarkable (because she knew that she wasn’t necessarily an easy one to love) and obvious. And no matter what hell was occurring, there was always a bustle of activity and people and distraction, that unique kind of distraction that kindly didn’t make her forget there was a war on, but merely made her feel that all that mattered was right now, and right now they were all OK.
It was the last bit that was telling, maybe, about why she didn’t feel so comfortable heading to the Burrow today. The war was over, they had won, many months had passed. Enough time for the victory to be old news. Enough time for the losses to just start to sink in, for normal life to begin to return, if she knew what normal life should be. That was the problem. She thought that Harry would be the one with this void after he finished it—he’d lived his entire life with a purpose, a singular motive, and now it was over. But he managed to be fine. He had moved on with a strength that she supposed that she knew he had, but it was simply remarkable how well he’d adjusted to life post Boy-Who-Lived. Ron had moved on well also, though that surprised her less. He was resilient. Flighty, one might say. He knew what he wanted and knew what he had to do, and he knew it each moment and did exactly what he needed to for that time, whether that was finding himself a treacle tart or throwing an Unforgivable at a Death Eater.
The fact that they weren’t together didn’t factor into her discomfort at being at the Burrow today. It didn’t work out. They weren’t a good fit, something that they both really knew all along, but there was a war on, and fire meeting fire was the best way for them to feel alive. It ended amicably and they were friends, and even Mrs. Weasley had finally understood.
She walked down the path toward the Burrow from the Apparition point. Today, she just didn’t feel like taking the Floo directly in.
___
It wasn’t intended to be a party, but it turned into one as Bill and Fleur announced that she was pregnant. Hermione was happy for them, genuinely. She congratulated them and had a celebratory sparkling drink. In all the hubbub following, she slipped out the back door and began to walk toward the lake behind the house.
She had never gone through what might have been known as a rebellious period, except perhaps the running-off-to-fight-a-magical-war thing. But she’d never been sullen. It was a waste of time and energy. She worked hard and she did more than was required, and that left no time to be sullen. Success and sullenness are mutually exclusive. Today, though, she just felt… off.
Something tiny moved on the ground. She bent down.
“Picking grass, are you?”
She spun around, wand out. He didn’t flinch. He knew the importance of caution.
She exhaled. “No. Just found a frog, though.”
“Chocolate?” Charlie asked.
“You and your brothers are cut from the same cloth.”
He laughed. “Not really. I’m not hungry all the time. It’s just been a while since I saw a non-edible frog.”
“You need to be more specific. Most frogs are edible. This one almost certainly is,” she said, glancing down as it hopped away, presumably afraid of becoming a snack.
“I’m pretty adventurous, but I don’t think I’d really want to eat that particular frog. Unless it was battered and fried, or chocolate-dipped, and only then if it was the crunchy type. Chewy frogs are just unpleasant.”
She considered saying something, and decided against it.
“So what brings you out here, other than frogs, that is?” he asked.
“Just wanted to go away, I guess. You?”
“It’s such a beautiful day, it’s a pity not to be outside. What got you so tense?”
“I’m not tense,” she said, in a rather tense tone. “And actually, it’s a bit hot.”
“It’s a body language thing,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Your shoulders are higher than usual, you’re hunched a bit,” –he traced a hand from one shoulder to the other and she shivered despite the heat—“you’ve got a posture that says that something’s off. Working with dragons means you’ve got to read what posture says, because you don’t want to see what happens when you try approaching an unhappy Horntail.” He pulled up the hem of his shirt, revealing three ragged lines across the contours of his toned abdomen below a brightly colored tattoo of that particular Horntail. “They say dragon-keeping is a science, and in many ways it is, what with the feedings and the behavior patterns and all, but really in my mind it’s an art. A lot of what I do is just sensing what they’re feeling. They’re quite expressive if you know what to look for.” He paused. “So what’s eating you? I’m guessing it’s not an irritated scale.”
“How did you become a dragon-keeper?”
He shrugged. “I love wild beasts. I love the freedom, the regal nature of dragons. Some people think I’m drawn to the danger, but that’s not what it is to me. It’s not dangerous—of course it is, but what I mean is that I’m not looking for some kind of adrenaline high from near-death experiences. I don’t think any of us really get highs from that anymore, besides. As for how I ended up in Romania, I knew I was ready to leave the nest after Hogwarts, and I just decided to let my passion lead me.”
She sat down on the grassy edge of the pond and slipped off her sandals, sliding her feet into the warm water.
“I also needed to find a career where a ponytail and an earring were acceptable career wear,” he joked. “Non-negotiable.”
She smiled and kicked her feet under the water. “Needed to keep the bad boy image, eh?”
He joined her. “Not so much,” he said. “I guess it seems that way, with the way my brothers are all carbon copies—I just learned that term from Dad, so I’m guessing I used it wrong, and I apologize—of each other. But I don’t do it for that. I like my hair long, feeling wind in it. The earring, I don’t actually know—I did it to begin with to piss off Mum, and because Bill had one so I thought it was cool, but then it sort of just felt like a part of me.”
“I admire that about you,” she said, looking into the distance. “That passion. That’s really what I want. I don’t know—I just need to find what I should do with myself now.”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“That’s my problem. I don’t know. All that talk about the brightest witch of my age—I don’t want to seem ungrateful or annoying, though I know I’m being annoying right now… damn, I feel like some kind of whiny teenager. I am so sorry. I’m not usually like this.”
He laughed. “You didn’t really get to do the whiny-teenager thing, I suppose. I did. Hence the earring. What’s your rebellion of choice? Tattoo? Piercing in an inappropriate place? Dying your hair blue?”
“I don’t want to rebel,” she said. “I just want to have what you have.”
“Well then, you’ll have to stay away from the piercings in inappropriate places, as I don’t have any of those--”
“Not what I meant,” she laughed. “More that I want to do something meaningful.”
“Because saving the world isn’t meaningful.”
“Not like that.” She paused. “I mean, the war is over, and I’ve felt like a twelve-year-old boy for long enough. I need a mission, something to move toward to begin my life again now. I want to do something that people think I’m worth.”
“What’re you worth?”
“I don’t know. Something. I’ve always been the brains of the operation, and the one who was going to go far—academically, I mean. I’m supposed to be a Hogwarts headmaster, or the Minister of Magic, or something equally ridiculous. Or some kind of inventor that reforms the way that the Wizarding world works.”
She threw a rock into the water. He picked one up and skipped it.
“But what do you want to do?”
“I want to live up to what everyone thinks that I’m going to be.”
“Why?” he said. “Why do they matter?”
“People have always had so much faith in me, my abilities. I just… I don’t want to let down everyone who has taught me, who has made me who I am.”
“But what do you want to do? Not what your professors have wanted, or what Harry or Ron or your parents have wanted you to be, or what the Daily Prophet predicts of you, but what you want?”
She turned to look at him. “I really don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what my passion is.” His eyes were bright, icy blue, clashing beautifully with his bangs which were hanging sloppily across them.
By looks, Charlie wasn’t her type. More specifically, he certainly wasn’t her mother’s type. He was, she supposed, under it all—all the long hair and the tattoos, everything that her mother had told her to look out for—her type, if she had one. She hadn’t really given him much thought.
Not that she had done any dating, or thinking about it, in the past few years. It wasn’t the priority, or part of the plan. Now that she thought about it, though, she could certainly see why all the older girls at school spoke of Charlie’s legend. He was the epitome of the word sexy.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I sound like the whiniest, most obnoxious insolent child on the planet. I’d want to slap me.”
“Not slap you, exactly…” he said, in a way that sounded deliciously dirty. “Really, though, you just need to learn to stop thinking and do. Life is like dueling—or playing with dragons. You can’t stop and think about what’s coming at you, you just need to react, and do what needs to be done at that moment. What you want to do at that moment. What do you want to do, Hermione?”
A long moment passed, and she looked at him again—and hooked a hand behind his head, into his red hair just above the ponytail, and pulled him to her, and kissed him hard.
Her mind screamed at her that this was uncouth, too forward, not part of the plan.
She pulled away just as quickly. “Oh--” she said, breathless. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean--”
“Shut it,” he said, and pulled her body flush to his, kissing her thoroughly and digging his fingers into the back of her neck. “If you don’t want this,” he said between kisses, moving to her neck, “then stop me. But if you’re just afraid of letting yourself do what you do want, let go.”
“But--” she said, attempting to move herself away from his mouth, “what about what you want?”
He pulled back to look her in the eye. “I want you. I have for a while.” She looked at him in disbelief. “You have so much passion in you, you just don’t realize it. You’re your own person, independent but also protective, and you’re brilliant at what you choose to do. And you have a really hot arse.”
She laughed. “What about all of your other girlfriends?”
“What, the she-dragons? They’re the jealous type, definitely.” He kissed lower, to her collarbones, and began to toy with one of the straps of her sundress with one hand lazily. “Tell me to stop,” he said.
“We’re basically in your parents’ backyard,” she said shakily. “Anyone could come out here.”
“We’d probably hear them coming, assuming, that is, that you’re not too loud. You know, when you come.” He began to slide her straps down her arms, kissing her shoulders and arms as he went, smiling against her skin at his own pun.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this here. Actually, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“I didn’t hear you tell me to stop,” he said, just barely exposing her nipples over the neckline of the dress as he slid it downward, kissing them chastely before flicking out his tongue against one—dear God, that was sexy-- and pushing the dress down to her feet, where she kicked it off.
“That’s because I didn’t tell you to,” she responded, strangely feeling more sure than she had in a long time as she reached for his belt to pull his body to hers. She ran her hands up his smooth, muscled back, fingers trailing briefly over the scant scars she found there, and eased his shirt over his head. That feeling, him against her, chest to chest, hardness against softness and cotton and denim and cotton in the way, was the hottest thing she’d ever known, the most powerful feeling she’d felt in a long, long time. “It seems,” she said, cupping his arse through his denims and wrapping her bare leg around his clothed one, delighting in the feeling of him pressed, hard, against her, “that you are what I want right now.”
“Happy to oblige. Now, about those passions of yours…”