Freedom

A/N: I know that it has been a very, very long time since my last update...about two months, I think. I have had a lot of stuff going in the last few months and I just needed to get it done. I will try to finish up this story in the next month or so, since I only have a couple more chapters to write, and I hope that everyone is still enjoying the story.

~BooBoo

When Draco arrived at Charlie’s small flat in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, the first thing that he heard was a woman giggling softly and Charlie moaning, “Hermione.”

Draco sat against the wall. Hermione must have figured that Draco would procrastinate until tomorrow and had gone to see Charlie tonight, he thought. He sighed. He was about to apparate back to his flat, but then he heard the woman sigh, “Oh, Charlie.”

That was not Hermione’s voice.

What the hell was going on?

He walked into Charlie’s bedroom and saw him sprawled across a woman with dark brown hair who looked oddly like their Hermione. He was kissing her neck and trying to fumble with her shirt. “A lil help here, love.”

“What the fuck, Charlie!?” Draco said aloud, scaring the two on the bed. Charlie looked up and smiled a crooked smile.

“Look, Herms, Draco’s here.” Draco noticed with these words the slight slur in his husband’s voice. Charlie was drunk.

The woman looked up at Draco with a very confused expression. “Who?”

Charlie laughed softly. “Come on, Draco. We both missed you.” He slid off the woman and lay on his side next to her, patting the bed next to him.

The woman’s eyes were wide now. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “I’m not sleeping with both of you!”

Charlie looked confused for a moment, laying his head down on his pillow with a soft smile. “Oh, Hermione,” he chided in a childlike way.

She looked up at Draco. “Why does he keep calling me that?”

Draco looked coldly at the woman. “Because that is the name of our girlfriend,” he said angrily. “Our pregnant girlfriend who happens to have the same colour hair as you. Are you serious, Charlie? How many times has this fucking happened!?”

“Dunno what you mean,” Charlie said lazily.

“I swear to Salazar, if you slept with another woman during this stupid fight, I’m going to let Hermione hex your bollocks off.”

“No, no, this is the first time I’ve been with ‘Mione in over a month. I missed her so much,” he slurred. He turned to the woman. “Missed you so much, Herms.”

“Merlin, you idiot! That’s not Hermione! Hermione is at Potter’s house thinking up different curses and hexes to perform on us if we don’t make up by tomorrow.”

The woman once again looked at Draco in a confused way, but this time, Draco knew the look. “Yes. The Harry Potter,” he said in a sickened voice.

“Who?” the girl asked.

Draco stared wide-eyed at her. Then he looked at Charlie. “Holy fuck, Charlie. A Muggle!?”

“A what?” she asked, confirming Draco’s suspicions.

“Please just leave,” Draco said. “I need to talk to my husband alone.”

“Husband?” she asked loudly.

“Yes. My husband and I need to have a talk. If you please,” he said, showing her to the door. He cast a quick Obliviate on her before shoving her out the door and closing it behind her.

He walked back into the bedroom, muttering the whole way. “I swear, Charles Weasley, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d kill you.”

But his words fell on deaf ears since Charlie was snoring loudly, sprawled across the bed in a drunken state. At least Draco had the comfort of knowing that he probably wouldn’t have been able to get too far with the girl even if he had taken it further. But it annoyed him to no end to think that Charlie would touch someone besides their Hermione. He felt jealousy and anger wash through him. Charlie was his—and he was never going to touch anyone besides Draco and Hermione for the rest of his life if Draco had anything to say about it.

He pulled the duvet up and over Charlie’s half-naked body. He pulled off his own robes and stripped down to his boxers, crawling in bed beside his husband and holding him close to himself. Just having the comfort of his warm body next to his made Draco feel a hundred times better than he had felt in the last month and a half. They had to get over this fight, he decided, and he would do anything for it to be so.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Charlie woke up on the morning of his birthday with a pounding headache and the scent of pancakes in his nostrils.

He pulled his body out of the bed, noticing that he was still wearing the clothes that he had been wearing the night before. He had decided that it was a good idea to get piss drunk, since his birthday had been the next day and still neither Hermione nor Draco had talked to him in a long while.

He had had a huge row with Jessica about it. She couldn’t believe that he was giving up the two most important things in his life just because his husband was coming into some money. Who cared if Draco was going to start spending money superfluously on them? Who cared if he would be able to afford a bigger house? Charlie didn’t have to stop working just because Draco would be the main bread-winner. Hermione wouldn’t love him any less. Draco wouldn’t love him any less.

He had decided yesterday to go beg for their forgiveness today. Then he had run into Hermione at the pub. He shook his head as he remembered that part. Without the alcohol-induced fog covering his brain, he realised that that had not been Hermione. He had no idea how he had thought it was, since Hermione was nearly six-months pregnant and this woman had been skinny as a door-nail. What the fuck was wrong with him? Was he that desperate?

Oh, fuck.

Had he taken her home? He looked at the bed and it didn’t seem to be too ruffled. There was no random clothes lying around. There was no woman. Then he saw a pair of high-heeled shoes lying next to the bed. Black stilettos that Hermione would never, ever wear.

He held his head in his hands mentally castigated himself. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. How could he have done something like that? How could he have cheated on Draco and Hermione? Why had his brain, even with that amount of alcohol, let him do something like fuck someone that was not one of the loves of his life.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he murmured.

He heard the sound of someone frying bacon out in the kitchen. Was the bint making breakfast for him!? He had to get her away. Had to get rid of her. Then he had to sit down and try to figure out how the hell he was going tell Draco and Hermione about this.

He padded out into the kitchen, only to find his half-naked husband at the cooker rather than some Hermione look-alike. “Draco?” he asked.

Draco looked at him with a wry smile. “I’m making pancakes, sit down. We need to talk.”

Oh, those dreaded words. Did Draco already know about the girl? If Draco had been in his bedroom, then he would have seen the stilettos that were most definitely not Hermione’s. He sat down at the kitchen table.

Draco sat down a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of Charlie. He also sat down and put a plate in front of himself, devouring the food as if it was his last meal.

Charlie couldn’t eat. Even though Draco’s pancakes were the only thing that ever seemed to make him feel better when he was in a bad mood, he could only stare at the plate.

“Eat, Charlie,” Draco said, forking another bit of a pancake into his mouth.

“I cheated on you,” Charlie said. There was no other way, he just had to get it out there. He wouldn’t be able to tell him otherwise.

“No you didn’t,” Draco replied, drinking some orange juice.

“Yes, I did. I brought home a girl last night,” he hit his head against the table. “I cheated on you two…Merlin!” He looked up at Draco. “It was so stupid. I’m so…Godric, I know you can’t forgive me.” His stomach was churning. How could he have done something so incredibly stupid. He was about to lose the two most important people in his life, and his son, because of some stupid muggle bint that looked like Hermione.

Draco stopped eating and stared at him for a long time. “Was last night the only time?” he asked seriously.

“Of course,” Charlie said. “I was upset, but I wasn’t that upset.”

“Well, if last night was the only time, then no, you didn’t cheat on us. I got here before you could get too far with the slag, and kicked her out. Of course, you passed out before I even came back into the room, so I doubt you would have gotten too far with her anyways.”

Charlie stared blankly at his half-naked husband. “Wha—how—wh—Why?”

“Why what?” Draco asked.

“Why were you here?”

“Hermione sent me a letter saying that if we didn’t make up by today she would hex our bollocks off and would never want to see us again.”

“So is this making up?” Charlie asked.

“That depends on you, Charlie,” Draco said, a bit angrily now, sticking his fork out like he was going to stab Charlie with it. “You’re the one who started this whole thing. You’re the one who was whining and crying because I happened to not have a suck-arse job anymore. If you’re okay with the fact that I am starting my own business and I am not working at the Ministry and that we will actually be able to pay our bills from now on, then yes, this is us making up. If you can’t deal with that, then no, it’s not.”

Charlie looked across the table at the love of his life.

“So what do you say?” Draco asked bitterly.