Whom the Gods Would Destroy...

Title: Whom the Gods Would Destroy…
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Angst, Horror, Mystery
Warnings: Character Death, Graphic Violence, Adult Situations, Dark!fic
Summary: DH-EWE: The end of the world has come. Millions dead, magic waning, Hermione Granger and Charlie Weasley are the last people left in Britain—left to pick up the pieces of their once great civilization. Why were they spared? Who is responsible for the death of a nation? These are the mysteries left as a legacy for two lost and lonely people.
Author's Notes: This is my first attempt at a Charlie/Hermione pairing, so please be gentle. This fic is very much inspired by my morbid obsession with ‘end of the world’ scenarios. There are few OCs in this fic, and I have tried to keep much in ‘canon’ as possible. WGWD is unbeta’d, so pardon the mistakes, please?




Whom the Gods Would Destroy…

Part 18




‘quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.’ –A Roman proverb






Hermione awoke with a start, sitting up in bed, unsure of where she was. When she realized she was in the Hospital Wing, Harry and Jaime sleeping peacefully in the next bed, she sighed. Charlie and George were gone, and Hermione could feel the hum of Silencing Charms around the niche. The lamp was out, but grey morning light lit the niche from the small window.

Slipping her legs out from under the blankets and donning her boots, Hermione located her wand and grasped it. Taking only a moment to look at Harry and Jaime, she moved to the screens and pushed through the Charms into screaming and crying from several places in the ward.

Hermione wondered how Jaime came to wake and seem to be on the mend. There was no change in the Seal, and the news that she had not killed Regulus Black haunted and frustrated her. Had the song…no…Hermione shook her head. All that mattered was Jaime was alive.

There was blood in the floor, Hermione saw after taking a few steps into the aisle, it having run from under one of the screened off areas and Hermione stepped over it, trying not to think whose it was or why there was so much. She strode down the aisle to the door, through a crack, and away from the noise.

Early morning still had many people moving around, all shell shocked, all apparently lost. Hermione wove through the crowd, trying to ignore the gaunt, trembling faces and the tears. Standing in the door to the grounds, she lifted her eyes to the overcast sky, cool wind blowing her filthy hair. The smell of fresh death assaulted her nose.

On the grounds, blackened craters and reopened graves marked where the balls of Fiendfyre had struck the hallowed ground of Hogwarts. Beyond and into the vale, there was heavy mist, but Hermione could still see movement of the walking dead.

Nothing had changed.

Hermione ground her teeth together, only succeeding in biting a sore place on the side of her tongue. Stepping out into the air, she shivered, eyes moving about the grounds to see several people burying more dead and recovering opened graves. Near the greenhouses, she spotted Charlie with Dennis Creevey, carrying what looked to be a Muggle body bag toward a fresh grave where Marcus Flint was manually digging.

Her eyes moved to the gates, and the pile of dead. It was there that Minerva McGonagall stood in her tartan dressing gown, arms crossed before her, wand sticking out from the base of the long plait of now blackened silver hair.

“I’ve spoken to Charlie Weasley this morning,” Minerva said, not bothering to greet Hermione or look at her. Hermione came to stand next to her old Head of House, her hands shoved in her pockets, her shoulders raised. “He’s informed me of what you both have learned since coming here.”

Hermione said nothing, peering out of the corner of her eyes to Minerva McGonagall, seeing that her face was impassive, stony, and serious.

“None of the portraits speak to me anymore, the enchantment sucked away, else I would have consulted Albus as to what to do…” McGonagall said distantly, her Scottish bristle almost absent from her voice. “I honestly do not know how long this can last before we are all killed.”

Hermione tried not to inhale too deeply. Even in the dewy morning, the stench of Inferi was strong below them at the gates.

“I keep trying to kill him—Regulus Black, stop the Inferi.”

McGonagall hummed oddly, “It is hard to believe that that boy is somehow alive…”

Hermione nodded.

“Boys…” she whispered. “There is a boy in the castle, one that we believe might know more about this situation than he should.”

It was then McGonagall regarded Hermione.

“A student?” she whispered.

Hermione shrugged and began telling her Head of House what she believed—the boy, Harry’s sudden awakening, the music, and Klemper’s words. All the while, McGonagall listened silently, her face only betraying small shocks.

“I know Klemper,” was McGonagall’s first words after Hermione finished. “He was a few years older than I, and a pioneer in defensive Charms and radical Transfigurations. Granted, he was stigmatized due to his affiliation with Grindelwald…

He said it was a boy? Are you certain?”

Hermione nodded again. “And then the boy singing over Harry…”

Minerva McGonagall frowned. “’Cheek to cheek,’ yes, I’ve been hearing it. I have heard it in the castle and before the portraits lost their enchantment, I was using them to track it…

I never found the source. I concur that it has something to do with those of us who are not losing our ability, but a boy… It would have to be a Muggle-born or Half-blood child who would know a Muggle song.”

Hermione blinked, she had not thought so far ahead.

“An old song, at that… I believe Astaire sang it in ‘Top Hat’ in 1934…”

McGonagall’s dark green eyes flashed as the sun began to rise. Hermione thought she saw a flicker of a realization in the older woman’s eyes, but it was gone suddenly.

“The boy… Of all those still wearing Hogwarts robes, or are in classes, the list would be short. With the physical description, there would only be possibly thr—”

“Hermione!”

The sound of Ron’s voice made Hermione jerk and turn quickly, as did McGonagall. Ron was jogging to them, his disfigured face still streaked with blood and ash. His eyes burned into her face, and she almost expected him to scold her in some fashion.

“You need to come with me…now.”

McGonagall seemed to snort and began to walk away. Hermione opened her mouth to call to her old Head of House; McGonagall was about to tell her…

A rough hand grasped her upper arm and was pulling her up the path to the castle. Hermione jerked away, stopping as Ron took a few steps ahead. Ron whirled about, his face twisted into a wince.

“He asked for you, Hermione. It’s the least you can do…”

Opening her mouth to protest, Ron’s words settled onto her brain.

Lucius.






He was not in the Hospital Wing, but in Snape’s old chambers, lying in bed while Astoria Malfoy sat on the edge of the large four-poster, wiping sweat from his brow. Hermione lingered in the doorway, hearing Ron slip out into the dungeons. In the candlelight by the bed, Malfoy looked like a ghost in his open ruffled shirt, blankets pulled up to his waist, his long silvery hair spilling about his shoulders.

Even dying, Lucius Malfoy was elegantly handsome.

Astoria was still in her fine green bustled gown, and as Lucius’ eyes moved to Hermione, the woman turned, folding the flannel she had been using and placing it over the rim of the basin on the bedside table. She rose, the taffeta of her gown whispering as she moved. Astoria glanced to Hermione once, and Hermione was not sure what to make of the woman’s expression.

“I did not think you would come.”

Astoria moved past Hermione and into the parlour while Hermione stepped into the darkened bedroom. She found herself sitting on the spot Astoria had vacated, regarding Malfoy coolly.

He was sweating as though he had a fever, but his skin was pale, his body seeming to have no substance. When he grasped her hand weakly, she allowed him.

“You owe me.”

His voice still had power, more substance than his body.

Hermione’s brow quirked and she pursed her lips.

“One might say a life debt since I used the last bit of myself to save your life, Hermione.”

Hermione sighed. She did owe the pale man.

“And what do you want from me now? You are in no state to ‘couple’ with me, old man.”

He grinned, but even that motion seemed to weaken him and he began to cough. Hermione glanced to the door, thinking Astoria would return, but she did not. Hermione waited as the lung jerking coughing subsided.

“You smell too much like a Weasley,” he muttered, his head falling back on the pillows. “Like poverty.”

She started to pull her hand away from his, but he held fast.

“No…that was unfair,” he whispered, his keen eyes growing heavy. “Not what I wanted to say to you.”

His fingers moved over her rough palm, tenderly stroking her healed hands.

“By eliminating Black and the Inferi, you will give us a chance. It will make it easier to bring down the Seal…”

Lucius’ eyes rolled, unconsciousness near, but the silver orbs settled upon her face again.

“The Dark Lord was not totally destroyed that day in May so many years ago…how else can my Mark still burn? Potter…he knows. He must have told you then what he knew and saw.”

Hermione licked her lips and nodded. “But I do not know what…” she trailed.

“You will. You will, Hermione. You are far too brilliant to not know what to do. The tenacity of life that you exude is too much for an old man like me…”

Lucius, Hermione assumed, was only in his mid-fifties.

“You appealed to me, to a part of me that finds such a tenacity attractive. That is why I tried to hamper you, just to bask in that power you had to overcome anything…”

Hermione felt something inside her shake loose, and her lips trembled.

“You wanted to destroy me,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he drawled. “But I never did, did I?”

She said nothing.

“My loveliest toy…my favourite plaything…you have to go to where it began, to Cornwall, to the Dark Lord’s cave. That will be part of my payment to your debt,” he whispered, his fingers moving to caress the underside of her wrist.

Hermione shuddered at his ghost like touch. “And the other part?”

Malfoy grinned, wolfishly. “Another kiss.”

She pulled her hand away, turning to rise from the bed and walk away, but she did not get far as Lucius began chuckling, the laughter turning into a coughing fit. Slipping her wand from her sleeve where she had tucked it on her way down into the dungeons, she Conjured a glass and the filled it with water, passing it to the pale man.

Lucius drank, with Hermione’s help and lay back into the pillows again.

“Why so resistant? It is a dying man’s wish. It is payment. Or are you afraid you might like it, or Weasley might find you out?”

Hermione pulled the glass away, setting it next to the basin. “I am resistant because you make my skin crawl. I did not like it last time, why would like I like it now when you are a step away from death?”

He grinned again. “I could have asked for something far more lewd, my dear, but as you pointed out, I am a step away from death. I doubt any ‘escapade’ would be pleasurable to either of us, and I do like pleasure…”

She rolled her eyes, even so close to death Lucius Malfoy was infuriating.

“A kiss to send me on my way to hell, that, and my plea that you save the world, will suffice to erase your debt.”

His grin had faded, his sweaty face serious. Hermione sighed, her eyes taking in the sight of the man who been a thorn in her side ever since the end of the War. If he were not such a bastard, she would almost find his manner arousing.

She had to crawl a bit closer to him, her shadow falling over his face. His heavy eyes followed the movement of her hands, one cupping his cheek; the other resting on is bare chest over his heart. Hermione could feel the wild tattoo against his ribs, and she wondered if it were only because he were dying or from her touch.

Kissing Lucius Malfoy was not something she ever wanted to do. So close to expiration, his lips were chapped, his mouth stale. She kissed him soundly, feeling his hands move to grasp her shoulders weakly. He had closed his eyes, but Hermione did not.

With a smacking of lips and tongue, she pulled away, his hands slipping from her shoulders to the bed again. Hermione pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, staring at Malfoy with narrowed eyes. He sighed and slowly opened his eyes.

“Even with the scent of him, and blood, and smoke, you taste like honey, my dear…”

She rubbed her nose and let her eyes move to his pale hand nearest her knee.

“You have seen and heard more than any of us, Hermione. You will need to go soon, and quickly. If our race stands a chance, you must go.”

Hermione found herself nodding, her hand falling to touch his.

“That will do it, I think,” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes shutting. “Don’t die.”







Charlie found her standing in the Entrance Hall, her hand over her mouth, her eyes distant. He was surprised she was up and about, considering how exhausted she was the night before. When he touched her, she blinked, letting her hand fall away from her lips.

Studying her face, he was struck at how clear her eyes were.

“I’m fine,” she said, but her voice was not convincing.

The morning light lit the hall, and in the light Charlie could see how filthy she was and how her back bowed out of what looked to be defeat. There was something different about her, something that had changed since the night before.

He steered her to the stairs leading up into the castle, away from the collective shock and depression that seemed to hang over them in the midst of people moving about the hall. He led her back to the DADA offices, sitting her on the edge of the bed, kneeling before her.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “The usual things. Death, dying, Malfoy trying to call in the life debt I owe him,” she sighed.

Charlie frowned. “What do you mean? What did he do?”

Anger coursed through him, jealousy, and it startled him as he rose to stand over her.

“Nothing important… We simply need to hasten our plans to go to Cornwall.”

He licked his chapped lips, unclenching his fists and turning to the cold fireplace. Cornwall, Charlie knew that they would have to go as long as it meant a possibility to end the madness outside the grounds of Hogwarts. The last sanctuary was being worn away bit by bit every time someone died from lack of magic or an Inferi attack.

“I…” he heard Hermione say softly, trailing. “I just want to rest a while.”

Turning back to her, he could not be angry with her for any thing. She had risked her life to stop the attack, and he had done nothing to save her. Charlie was angry with himself.

“A bath, food, sleep…” she murmured, toeing out of her boots and placing her wand on the bedside table. “I feel disgusting,” she whispered, her hand moving to her lips again, rubbing them roughly.

Charlie could only watch her, saying nothing as she began to undress, bloodstained shirt falling to the floor along with the rest of her clothing. There were bruises where there had been a wound on her shoulder, and Charlie bit his tongue from commenting upon it. Instead, as she rose and moved to the lavatory, his eyes were on her hips, the faint bruised finger marks he had placed there only hours before. Charlie mentally cursed himself.

He too was filthy, sweat, blood, and soot making him feel as if he had rolled in one of the opened graves on the grounds. At the sound of water running, Charlie began to undress, setting his wand next to Hermione’s, and letting his reeking jumper and denims slip off his body.

When Hermione saw him, standing in the doorway of the lavatory, she smiled softly, already engulfed in bubbles.

“There room?” he asked shortly, too tried to form a full sentence.

“Surely,” she whispered, her eyes lingering on the blood dried on his forearms and the dirt blackening his hands.

Charlie said nothing, his eyes moving to the bubbles as he slipped into the deliciously warm water, Hermione’s arms wrapping about his neck to pull him back against her. His hips rested between her thighs and slowly she began washing him. Charlie kept his eyes closed as she scrubbed his hair, cupping water in her hands to rinse the suds from his hair and face. With a flannel, she wiped his chest and arms clean.

Her hands pressed against his shoulders so that he pulled away from her so she could wipe his back and shoulders.

“Rest today, tomorrow night, we go,” she said softly. “We go alone, we go quickly.”

Charlie’s jade green eyes opened slowly to look at the bubbles. “On broom, at maximum speed, Tintagel would only take a few hours at most. And then considering we do not meet with a void of magic…”

Hermione dropped the flannel in the water, wringing it out. Charlie shifted, standing as bubbled trailed down his lean body. Hermione could only blink up at him, and when he knelt in the water again, facing her, he snatched the flannel from her and began wiping gently at the burn on her cheek.

“If this is Voldemort…” he began, but trailed, not sure how to phrase his words. “Harry… If we leave here, and if indeed the boy is here, Harry might be the only one to find him…”

Hermione sighed as Charlie moved to wipe at her bruised shoulder.

“The flayed baby…gods, Charlie, I do not even want to think about it,” she whispered, her hands moving to move her wet hair from her face. “I can only think of one possibility, how Voldemort might have a hold on this world again—possession. The boy I saw, Minerva was close to telling me of possibilities when Ron interrupted…”

Charlie frowned. “Shouldn’t we stay then?”

Hermione sighed. “No time,” she growled between clenched teeth. “The wards…who knows how long they will hold. No, Black comes first. He is the immediate threat. By disabling Black, disabling the Inferi, it might flush the true master out into the open…”

Charlie could see her logic, all the same, Voldemort, or Voldemort’s power was in the castle. No one was truly safe.

Once all the blood, soot, and sweat was washed away, Charlie felt somewhat rejuvenated. He lifted Hermione’s wet body into his arms when the exited the tub. She did not protest, simply wrapped her damp arms about his neck as he carried her into the bedroom, laying her on the bed. Still naked, Charlie shivered, taking his wand up and casting a Charm to light the fire. Hermione watched him from the bed as he cast extra wards into the office portion, fortifying the door. Then, with a complicated spell, Charlie blackened out the window so that only firelight lit the room.

Finally, Charlie Charmed the bed linens clean under Hermione, forcing the blankets to pull over her damp body. He climbed into the bed beside her even as her golden eyes began to close. Against her and under the blankets, Charlie felt warm. He placed his wand aside again, gathering Hermione against him. She curled her body over his naturally and yawned.

The shock of battle, of death, was still so fresh, yet Charlie could only think about being safe with Hermione Granger in his arms. Sleep took them both quickly, and Charlie had to trust that his magic and his wards would keep them safe enough to rest to battle another day.






Sometime in the early evening, they sat by the fire, eating. Instead of eating out of tins, however, they had awoken to find Kreacher at the foot of the bed, waiting to show them what he had brought. It was a hot and hearty meal, set upon a tray, hovering by the bed.

Charlie nearly hexed the elf when he realized that they were not alone in the room, but Kreacher only hissed at him until Hermione sat up, sheet pressed to her breasts.

“Master said Kreacher must bring the Mudblood and her mate good food. Kreacher has done so, now eat.”

Hermione only blinked as the elf disappeared with a pop, leaving Charlie with his wand trained on the space Kreacher had stood. Considering how the elf used to behave, Kreacher had mellowed, although he still called Hermione ‘Mudblood’ against Harry’s order.

They did not speak as they rose and dressed in clean clothes, moving the tray to the fire, and sitting on the rug to eat as if they were animals. Hermione was starving, and she ate her thick beef stew not with a spoon, but the fresh baked bread, wiping the contents of her deep bowl with a morsel into her mouth. Hermione wondered if it were made from the flour they had found.

She watched Charlie, amused, as he licked his bowl, smearing broth on his forehead. For the first time in a long time, she laughed, crawling to him to lick the broth from his skin.

Charlie caught her chin and kissed her gently, his hand moving to brush her unruly hair back from her face. Hermione pulled away slightly, staring into Charlie’s fire lit eyes.

“We must be mad…” she whispered. “People dying everyday… And besides thinking of how to get us both killed, all I want is to…” she whispered.

He smiled softly. “Fuck?”

Hermione felt a blush on her cheeks and sat back, legs tucked under her. She nodded slowly, her hand moving to her shoulder where her bruise still pained her. Wearing a thin blouse, one that Charlie had found for her in Leeds, Hermione felt too warm so close to the fire.

Charlie sat back against the front of one of the armchairs, one knee bent toward his tee shirt clad chest, the other leg out straight, his large, bare foot near to the side of Hermione’s thigh. Hermione studied his face, his now too long blood red hair, his jade green eyes, his handsome smirk, and the tiny burn scars on his face and arms.

“We were interrupted last night,” she started, and immediately felt guilty.

They were interrupted because the castle was under attack. People had died, others were terribly wounded, and she… And she was still trying to understand why she was killing Black to no success.

The touch of Charlie’s hand on her face, startled her, not noticing that he had moved to kneel before her, gazing down into her eyes. She swallowed, feeling the heat of his body against her breasts, through the blouse.

“This, us, it is not just a reaction to the madness?” he asked softly, still taller than her even on his knees.

Hermione turned her eyes away. “No,” she whispered, letting Charlie pet her hair back, stroking the painless burn scar on her cheek. “It’s not.”

She wanted him and no other. Of all the people left, Harry, Ron, and so many others, it was only Charlie that she wanted near her. It was only Charlie that she wanted to kiss, to touch, and to talk with. Hermione rose up to her knees to kiss him, grasping the shaggy strands of his soft hair. He needed to shave, but Hermione found the rasp of stubble incredibly erotic.

“I only ask…” he breathed between kisses, “…because we are about…”

Hermione’s hand slipped between his body and the waistband of his denims, grasping his cock, already hard.

Charlie grunted at her touch and began pulling her blouse up over her head. Her arms raised, the right arm stiffer than the left, and Charlie licked his lips, seeing that she had no brassiere to trap her round breasts.

“…about to either end this nightmare…” he whispered as Hermione’s hands undid the front of his denims to rub the tip of his cock into her belly.

“…or die.”

Hermione blinked slowly. The back of Charlie’s fingers brushed along the slope of her breast to gently squeeze her nipples.

She kissed him again, her hands moving from his cock to slide her hands under his grey tee shirt. Charlie helped her pull the cotton shirt away, letting it fall on the floor over the empty bowls of stew before the fire.

“All I want is you,” she whispered, her fingernails scoring the scarred skin over his pectoral muscles, down his ribs to his slim hips. “It just took an apocalypse to bring you to me.”

Charlie moaned softly. Hermione smiled softly as Charlie’s hands moved to undo the front of her khaki trousers.

They kissed again, this time with much more urgency. Charlie pulled her down to the rug, sliding out of his denims and pulling at her khakis. It was a good amount of limb twisting, but soon they lay on the rug, together, naked in the firelight.

“That is the only good thing that has come of this,” he whispered, leaning down to catch a nipple between his lips.

Hermione’s body burned, not just from the nearness of the fire, not just from Charlie’s touch, but his words.





Charlie knew that they should be sleeping, but his body moved from a natural instinct that could not be denied. They had moved from the hard floor, not quite making it to the bed before he sank into her again. Her hands grasped the sheets of the bed, trying to push up as he surged into her body, his hips slamming against her buttocks.

He wanted what he could not get the night before, the ecstatic sensation of emptying himself into the witch below him. With her feet scrambling on the floor, her upper body on the bed, Charlie stood firm, his legs, and hips flexing to bury himself deeper into her clutching pussy. It was heavenly, the closest thing to wonderful he had known even before February.

He gasped as Hermione raised her body from the bed, wriggling out of his hands to roll onto the bed, her face flushed, and her mouth open in a panting breath.

He pounced on her, grabbing her wrists and forcing her down onto the bed.

“No games,” he heard himself say, barely recognizing the sound of his own voice.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed even as he insinuated himself and his damp cock between her thighs. She whimpered, a beautiful sound to Charlie as his teeth nibbled about her breasts before sucking a puckered nipple into his mouth. He kept her wrists pinned to her sides before releasing his suction on her breasts with a soft pop to plunder her mouth next.

It was as he curled his tongue about hers that he slipped inside her slowly again. Hermione moaned into his mouth. She tasted like stew.

Releasing her wrists, Charlie shifted, kneeling between her thighs, his cock pushing deeper into her body. The firelight made her skin seem golden in his eyes, and he grasped her hips to thrust to the root of his cock, all the way inside her. He wondered how anything could be so warm without combusting.

She whispered his name, and he grinned. He began moving, slow at first, then harder, deeper, rougher. Falling toward her, he did not break his rhythm or motion, catching her mouth again. Their moans echoed in their mouths and Charlie was the first to break away to stretch his back as her body tightened around him, her legs going about his waist again.

“Oh gods…”

Charlie ground his teeth to keep from whimpering, Hermione clamping down around him while he tried to thrust in deeper. He wanted to do wicked things to her, things that were better suited to a time in which they were not so close to the edge of danger. As it was, his mind and body were running out of fuel, and the last hurrah of climax was upon him.

His body pulled taut as the whimper turned into a hoarse roar, his hips jerk involuntarily to fill her body with what felt like streams and streams of ejaculate. Charlie gasped as her hands touched his back, his shoulders, and face. He kissed her, albeit sloppily, and wearily.

The spike of arousal had passed, and when Charlie rolled away, Hermione still clung to him, straddling his hips. He let her kiss his face, her fingers in his hair. He felt as if his body was humming and every touch of her lips closed the circuit between them.

“I…” he started even as his spent cock slipped from her body.

Love you, he almost said. Instead, he closed his eyes when Hermione rolled bonelessly onto the bed next to him. They lay in silence, a silence induced by sheer satiation and exhaustion. It was as Hermione moved that Charlie opened his eyes to watch her use her wand to cast several Charms over her body, a cleansing Charm, and a contraception Charm. Charlie licked his lips and rolled to his side, staring at her back and the bruises.

They had slept the majority of the day, but Charlie felt as if he could sleep a bit longer. He said nothing to Hermione as she rose stiffly, moving to dress, to Vanish their dishes, and sit in the armchair by the fire. Charlie rolled onto his other side, just able to see the side of her face, and one golden eye staring into the fire.

As if a frost had fallen in the room, Charlie shivered. The weight of the world fell upon him, and all the satisfaction, and the high of climax, left him. Just looking at Hermione, he knew that her mind was far away from him and the room. It unnerved him, made him feel oddly jealous. He could not think of anything to say to her to make it all go away.





Hermione finally undressed again, lying next to Charlie where he had crawled under the covers with his arm thrown over his eyes. By his breathing, she knew he was still awake.

“Charlie?” she whispered, moving to press herself into his side.

He grunted, letting his arm fall over his forehead to the pillow under his head.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, letting her head rest on his chest.

“For?” he asked in a rough whisper, then clearing his throat.

In the firelight, his eyes looked sleepy, heavy, and Hermione let her fingers find his stubbly jaw. She said nothing for a moment, listening to the way he breathed.

“This… If things were different…” she trailed.

“If things were different, we both would not be so lost in our heads,” he finished.

Hermione nodded.

“The fact is, they aren’t.”

Hermione winced, but tilted her head to kiss the point of his chin. Charlie sighed, his arms moving to wrap about her body, holding her near.

“No real romance, there’s no time,” he whispered. “No chance to woo you, win you, love you…not now.”

She closed her eyes.

“I always took what I could get out of life, luv, and if it is this…all I can have for now, it is better than nothing at all.”

She bit her lower lip. It was not fair, for either of them.