Chapter Text
Part One- The Kissing Gate
1st August 1997
The young wizard’s chest swelled with pride as he watched his one older brother marry his exquisite bride. Charlie Weasley wasn’t what he would consider an emotional being, but as he watched the couple’s soul bonding ritual be completed, saw the devotion between them, he held no shame in the few tears of happiness he didn’t think to hide. He felt a brief, wholesome envy for Bill, and not for the first time he considered what his life might look like had he not chosen the seclusion of the Romanian wilderness over a life where he might have already met the other half of his own soul.
No, he thought. He had found the other half of himself, had found it in the freedom of the wind blowing through his hair as he flew on his broom past the mountains and forests of a place unspoiled by humans, working with the most magnificent creatures that magic had ever manifested. Every time he encountered a new fire breathing beast in the wild, the regret for what his life could have been became less. Except those times he was unable to dodge the heat of the dragon's molten breath quite fast enough, and won a new scar to show for it.
Sure, Charlie felt envy for his brother, but at twenty-four years old, the life he led more than made up for it.
Later, after an obligatory dance with his mother and then baby sister, who had grown far too much for his liking in the two years since he had seen her last, Charlie managed to make his escape, finally, to the open air.
***
Hermione was dizzy. She was certain that Ron was attempting to make up for some past grievance towards her by being so attentive and dancing with her so enthusiastically, but if she didn’t take her shoes off and clear her head soon, her poor friend would be scraping her off of the dance floor.
Making her way through the heavy curtain of the marquee, she gulped down the fresh air of the warm summer night, breathing in the scent of the grass, freshly mown for the party.
Taking off her shoes and wriggling her toes in the soft turf, Hermione wandered away from the noise, desperate for a small moment of solitude. She was about to enter the small yard at the back of the burrow, full of blooming wildflowers and magical herbs carefully cultivated by Molly, when she halted. A man, obviously belonging to the Weasley clan, stood with his back to her, leaning against the fence near the gate she was planning on going through. Squinting, she could see that his flame red hair fell in shaggy waves almost to his shoulders. Ah, Charlie, she thought. She felt at ease. At least it wasn’t Fred with a sample of his new firewhisky that he was sneaking out to guests under Mrs Weasley’s nose that would make real flames billow from her ears.
Hermione padded slowly towards him, her bare feet almost silent in the damp grass. Charlie had a thickset build, shorter than Ron but it wasn’t as if that was much competition, the younger Weasley so long and lanky as he was.
Charlie was all broad shoulders and toned muscle, hardened from years of flying on a broom and the physical labour it took in his line of work.
The striations in his exposed forearm, stretched out on the top of the fence and marred as it was from countless burns and scarring, tensed as he registered her presence.
“Sorry,” Hermione mumbled as he looked around at her with a lop-sided smile, and she felt a warm tinge spreading over her cheeks, already flushed from the dancing and beer. She was used to being surrounded by the Weasley men, whom she had always considered brother type figures in her life, constant and familiar. Charlie, in his absence over the years, was less so. There was a different air about him, a wildness that was foreign to her, and she had nothing if not a raging curiosity about the unknown.
“Hermione,” Charlie greeted her, turning around to cross his elbows on the gate. “That’s alright. Just taking a breather before heading back in.” He nodded towards the giant tent, aglow with fairy lights and alive with music. “Not quite so many people where I usually spend my time.”
“I suppose it would be quite overwhelming,” she replied tentatively. “I tend to spend more time in the quiet myself.”
“In the library?” Charlie grinned at her, releasing a good natured chuckle when Hermione blushed further and smiled down at her bare feet. “Ah don’t be embarrassed. Practically lived in there when I was at Hogwarts. When I wasn't on the quidditch pitch, that is. I always knew what I wanted to do after school, and soaked up all the knowledge I could.”
“I wish I soaked up more while I had the time,” Hermione said, trying to keep the solemnness that she felt from her tone.
Charlie squinted at her, his head tilted and eyebrows knitted together as if in thought. “It’s true then?” he asked finally with a sigh, looking down at his hands hanging over the gate. “You three aren’t planning on going back to school? I know mum has been in a tiz about it, but I know how she gets.”
Hermione let out the breath she felt she had been holding for weeks and turned so she was leaning back against the gate beside Charlie. There was much uncertainty in her immediate future, but of one thing she was sure.
“No,” she said simply, looking out as the party seemed to have spilled out of the marquee, glowing guests dancing merrily in the temporary break in the heavy cloud over them all. “No, we’re not going back. And how could we, really? Who knows what is waiting for students? I couldn’t go back, I’m muggleborn. Harry certainly couldn’t, Hogwarts wasn’t safe for him even before Vol- he returned. Besides, we have a job to do. And Ron… you know there isn’t a place in the world that Harry could go that Ron wouldn’t follow. Harry needs us, we belong wherever he is. And to tell you the truth, where he is going… None of us know for sure where that might be.”
Silence followed her small speech, with just the comforting sound of Charlie’s steady breathing beside her. After a minute or two, she turned her head to realise she was standing closer to him than she’d first thought.
“It sounds like it’s going to be quite a journey,” he said finally, looking up at her with a wry smile. She nodded, turning to place her hands on the gate beside his as shifted to face her.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” she whispered, the truth of it weighing down on her heavier than ever.
Charlie folded his warm, broad hands over her considerably smaller ones where they rested, giving them a gentle squeeze. He was smiling sadly at her when she met his gaze, and she bit down on her lip, barely covered anymore by her pink lipstick, to stop it from trembling.
“How old are you Hermione?” Charlie asked softly. “Seventeen?” He let out a sigh when she nodded, muttering a quiet “almost eighteen.”.
“So young. All of you. So much on your shoulders. You’re all incredibly brave, and strong. Remember that when things seem like you just can’t win, whatever it is you’re heading out to do. Look after them? Both of them?”
She swallowed down the sob that rose as his words turned into a plea. With tears threatening to escape her lashes, she nodded silently. Always, she thought.
“Do you think you’re okay to go back to the party? Would you like a minute?” Charlie asked, smoothing away a tear from under her eye.
The intimacy of the gesture surprised Hermione, though it certainly wasn’t unwelcome. Clearing her throat, she smiled up at him. “No, I’m okay,” she said honestly, gesturing behind her. “And really, we should make the most of all this. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?”
She moved to turn and head back, when she stopped suddenly, frowning down at her hand on the gate. “It’s stuck,” she muttered, more to herself than Charlie.
Charlie shifted his own hand with a grunt. “Mine too,” he replied before glancing around them with a suspicious expression. Looking up, his eyes narrowed. “Those two gits,” he groaned, rubbing his face in exasperation with his free hand.
“Fred and George,” Hermione growled. Of course. “What have they done? How do we get free?”
Charlie, not usually the bashful type, turned beet-red. “Well, they were talking about a new spell, and I didn't think they’d do it because mum told them she would hex them if they dared try it at the wedding, and mum is pretty good at hexes. It’s where Ginny gets it from- “
“Charlie!” Hermione laughed, both at the peculiar situation and his obvious avoidance of telling her the spell.
“Okay,” Charlie breathed. “So they charmed the gate, and made a potion that they’ve smeared into the wood.”
“So?” Hermione asked, suddenly concerned that her hand would be turned into a squid of some other bizarre creature.
“It’s a potion made from Mistletoe ointment.”
“Mistletoe,” she repeated, cocking her head. What spell could possibly be made from- “Oh,” she said, looking at Charlie with a stricken expression which only seemed to make the older Weasley brother blush harder. “ Oh. ”
“Don’t worry,” he said quickly, “I can get them to come out here, shout for them or something.”
“It’s okay,” Hermione said with a small smile, her inner Gryffindor lion rearing its head slightly.
“Yeah, they’ll probably not hear me anyway,” Charlie said nervously. “I’m sorry, you’re probably really uncomfortable- “
“I’m not,” she said, cutting him off. Her smile was gone now, replaced with a serious expression as she looked up at him and met his eyes, drawing herself closer to the charmed gate. “I’m not uncomfortable, Charlie.”
Charlie stood straight, searching her face as he nodded slowly, and bringing himself closer too.
“Okay?” he murmured, bringing his free hand to her face to tilt her chin up lightly.
“Okay,” Hermione whispered, her eyes flickering shut.
Charlie’s lips were soft, barely a feather’s touch at first. He smelled of musk, like a book opened for the first time after being freshly bound. Holding on to the gate, she pushed herself up on her toes, meeting his mouth fully with hers, and nearly moaned at the taste of spearmint on his breath.
Without breaking his hold on her, Charlie moved her around the edge of the kissing gate, pulling her softly into the garden. When Hermione parted her lips slightly, he groaned into her mouth, and she felt the need to lose herself in the moment completely. Feeling his hand hovering over her waist, she pulled it around her, melting into his chest when he grasped her torso tightly. She felt feverish, hungry. Neither of them noticed they had been released from the twins’ feindish spell. It was as though they were under another enchantment entirely.
“Hermione,” Charlie groaned as she knotted her fists in his dress shirt, crowding her back against the vast hedgerow where no one could hope to catch them.
Hermione only answered with crashing her mouth back to his, mewling when his tongue begged entrance by running along her swollen lower lip.
At that moment, there wasn’t a wedding, there wasn’t a war, or a battle to be fought, or a Dark Lord to be vanquished; there was only Charlie.
Charlie, whose hands were running fervently up her back, over her waist, down her thighs. When his calloused hand reached the back of her knee, Hermione keened, helping him hitch her leg up to his waist, whimpering into his mouth as he pressed his hardness against her core, throbbing and needy. He had lifted her up from the ground, propped up against the foliage that was far softer than it should have been against her back.
She breathed him in, inhaled his kisses as she rubbed herself against him unashamedly, with Charlie holding her in place with a broad hand spread over her arse, his long fingers curved under just missing the spot she was desperate for him to touch.
“Charlie,” she cried almost silently against his lips. “I want- I want to- “
She was lost for words, something that rarely happened to her, so she moved her hand down to his hard length that was rubbing relentlessly against her, gripping the outline of it. She didn’t have a care in the moment that she was a virgin, or that they were in his parents' garden. Hermione wanted to feel human, feel him, before she left for her destiny.
Charlie’s eyes widened as she gripped him firmly, letting out a whimper as he rutted against her hand before he could stop himself.
“Fuck- Hermione, are you sure- here?“
“Yes,” she said. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life. Secure in his arms, she moved her hands down to his belt, pulling his shirt from the waist of his trousers while he muttered a silencing charm around them as he watched her fingers moving deftly.
When, finally, Hermione wrapped her hand around his throbbing cock, he let his head fall into her bare shoulder, baring his teeth against her neck as she pumped him at a tortuously slow pace. Coming back to his senses a little, he moved his hand from where it held firm on her deliciously round arse and slipped his fingers over her centre, nearly losing himself completely when he came into contact with her silky wetness. He felt her tense a little when he glided over her slit and drew back just enough to catch her eye.
“Okay?” he breathed as he fixed her steadily against the hedgerow and brought his hand between them to graze the front of her already-soaked knickers with his knuckle, holding in a groan as she rolled her thumb over the weeping head of his cock.
His chest swelled when her eyes widened and breathing quickened at the contact, and pressed his thick finger slowly into her, his thumb swirling moisture over her swollen clit. He fastened his arm around her waist firmly as she shuddered around him, and he quickened the pace of his finger, swallowing her whimpering plea as he added another.
“Charlie!” Hermione wailed into his mouth. “I’m going to- fuck, Charlie, I want you inside me when I come!”
“All of me?” he said, unsure but desperate to please her, to be the one, if only this once, to be the one to fall with her over the edge. He would have done anything she asked at that moment, with her slender fingers wrapped around him.
Hermione closed her eyes and nodded against his forehead, her breath sweet and laboured. Charlie didn’t need more encouragement than that. Dragging her ruined underwear aside, he propped her up so he was positioned perfectly at her entrance and with one final permitting whimper, he let her impale herself onto him with one smooth thrust.
Hermione let out a muffled shriek into his neck while he did everything he could not to bite down into hers, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to keep a hold of himself.
They stayed that way for several minutes gasping for air and each growing used to the fit of the other.
“Feel- fucking perfect,” Charlie choked into her hair. He groaned as she tensed around him at his words and caught her lips with his. Slowly, slowly, he rolled his hips, letting her get accustomed to the fullness of having him inside her. Carefully, when he felt her body relax into him and her breathing steady, he sped up, bottoming out over and over. His ruts became erratic as her walls clenched around him, tightening on his throbbing length.
“Hermione,” he begged. He was past being careful now, slamming into her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her arse.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she rasped, eyes watering and taking a mouthful of his shirt to muffle her screaming his name.
“Fuck- Fucking- “ Charlie felt her lose herself on him, wailing into his shoulder, her cum coating his cock as he spilled himself inside her spasming cunt, coming to a halt only when he couldn’t bear the overwhelming sensation anymore. He felt wetness on his back and shoulders where her nails had cut into his taut skin deep enough to draw blood, felt the sting as she released him.
He placed hot, wet kisses along her shoulder and up her neck, across her cheeks as he cupped her face with the hand that wasn’t holding up her boneless body.
Finally, Charlie kissed her swollen lips, tasting her breath that was slowly returning to a normal pace.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, noting how positively limp she was.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Hermione replied, laughing shakily before returning his kisses, barely able to hold herself against him.
Slowly, Charlie lifted her off of him, setting her gingerly on the ground as she straightened her stiff legs, their mixed fluids dripping down between her legs. After folding himself back into his trousers, leaning down to help her straighten her underwear and dress, Charlie’s eyes widened at the red tinge to the mixture and swept her to him, kissing every inch of her face as he realised the gravity of what had occurred between them, what she had given him, whatever her reasons. He certainly knew he would hold on to the moment forever.
He smiled as she laughed softly against his lips, and he carefully waved his wand over them both, performing a quick contraceptive charm on her and cleansing away the sweat and cum that was all over them both.
“Thank you,” Hermione said, her shy smile returning once all evidence of their tryst had gone.
Charlie replaced his wand in the holster on his belt, and took her face in his hand once more. He searched her expression, looking for any inkling of regret. Relief coursed through him when he found none. There was only a giddy elation there, a drunkenness not found in a bottle. Her beautiful face.
Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead on hers. Tomorrow, her world would revolve around two other men. Tonight at least, she was his. And by Merlin, was he hers.
His lips just brushed against hers when jovial voices close by interrupted them, and they pulled apart, still holding fast onto each other's hands.
“We’re probably being missed,” Hermione said, nibbling her lip and drawing her eyebrows together as she glanced away from Charlie and towards the din of the party. Her voice was full of regret when she added, “we should probably go back.”
Charlie wanted more than ever to say, ‘no, don’t go back. Don’t leave tomorrow. Stay safe, stay here.’
But he didn’t.
Instead, he nodded, sighed, and gave her one last fleeting kiss.
No one noticed them walking together back to the party. He held on to her hand until they had almost reached the thick canvas of the marquee curtain, and turned to her, pulling her as close as he dared without raising suspicion.
“I know you can’t stay,” he told her, his eyes low. “I’d never ask it of you. But promise me, because I bet no one else has told you to, don’t forget to look after yourself while you’re busy looking after them.”
Hermione’s eyes welled up a little, and she nodded. With a last kiss pressed to her hand, Charlie let her walk through the curtain alone.
Finding Harry across the room, she started to make her way to him when a bright silver light radiated around them all, and a glowing lynx bounded past her.
A voice she recognised immediately as Kingsley's echoed over the panicking guests.
“ The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”