Merciless Flirt

“Oh! I can’t believe my boy is getting married!” Molly was bubbling over; a smile on her face. Her wand whisked through thick white icing as the oven timer dinged. “That’ll be the cake.” Upon hearing the news she rushed right into the kitchen to bake Percy’s favourite cake, red velvet with white whipped icing. In mere moments she’d frosted the cake and was calling everyone into the kitchen.

“Mum! You didn’t have to!” Percy blushed. Molly grabbed him into a tight hug. “Mum!”

“You’re the last one!” she sniffled. Tears of joy sprang forth from her eyes. “I can’t believe it! All my boys finally married!”

Ron was the first to speak up. “Not married yet.”

“Yes, yes but you’ve been married. So it counts.” She beamed and then wrapped Percy in another hug. “Who wants cake?”

Ginny cleared her throat as Molly began to dole out thick slices of the warm cake.

“Oh, yes dear, I know you’re married, but you’re hardly one of my boys, and let’s face it once Harry came along, I didn’t have to worry about you.” This made Harry blush.

“I meant Charlie, mum,” Ginny said and helped Lily bite into a fork full of cake that was much too big for her tiny mouth.

“What about— oh goodness!” she cried. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I forgot! My only bachelor left!” she cried and handed him a very large slice of cake.

“S’okay, mum,” he laughed as he took the cake and handed the plate to Hermione. “I’m the invisible Weasley. Naturally you forget what you can’t see.”

Molly wrapped him on the arm with a cake plate. “Maybe if you’d stop eating so many sweets so quickly you’d find yourself a nice girl.” She handed him a second slice of cake. “Maybe Hermione can introduce you to one of her friends.” Everyone laughed. Charlie rolled his eyes.

Laughter and banter filled the kitchen for what seemed like hours but eventually everyone began to head their separate ways. “Honestly, you should just stay the night, Ginny.” Molly chastised. “If you’re all coming back in the morning there’s no sense in putting the kids through that extra side-along apparation. And it’s not like we don’t have the room.”

“Yes, I know, but Harry has work in the morning, and he’ll need breakfast.”

“You sound just like your mother,” said Arthur. “He can apparate to the ministry from here, can’t he?” he chuckled. “Go into work with the minister as it were?”

“Yes, and I can fix up a nice big breakfast for anyone staying.”

“Yes, well that being the case, we’ll take breakfast for two,” said Percy. He smiled from the foot of the staircase; Thomas leaning his head on the boy’s shoulder. “We’re going to turn in.”

“Yes, you do that,” Molly said. “But breakfast will not be in bed, you’ll have to drag your lazy bones downstairs for it.” She chuckled.

“Yes, mum,” Percy shouted over his shoulder as he led his fiancée up the stairs.

“Alright, anyone else want cake? Let me…” she yawned. “…get this all put away if you’re all finished.”

“Oh, Mum, I’ll put things away for you, why don’t you and pop head upstairs, since you’re going to be making breakfast for everyone in the morning.” Hermione smiled and took the mostly empty cake plate from Molly’s hand.

“Oh, Hermione, you’re such a dear.” She smiled and kissed the girl’s cheek. “Thank you, love.” Molly took Arthur’s arm and headed toward the stairs. “Come on, Ginny, you and Harry can stay in Fred’s old room, we shifted it into a makeshift guest room. And we can put the kids in the room across the hall.”

“The linen closet?” Ginny gasped.

Arthur chuckled. “Hardly a closet anymore. We expanded it a few months ago it’s a proper room now.”

Harry yawned and nodded to his in-laws and his wife. “Up we go then.”

Hermione was left alone in the kitchen. The quiet was nice, she couldn’t deny it. She set the giant cake plate on the table and wrapped her wand around the top of it thrice, sealing it in a shiny foil. “There,” she said to herself with a smile. With another wave of her wand she banished the cake to a high shelf in the pantry. They could have the rest of it in the morning.

Cake plates littered the island and most of the counters. Little red crumbs made a trail across the floor from where Lily and James had had their cake and ate it too. With a wave of her wand she set a broom in motion and it began to sweep the floor. One by one each of the cake plates floated over to the rubbish bin and tipped their remaining crumbs into the bag and then floated into the sink, which had started to fill itself with hot soapy water.

Hermione flicked her wrist and a scrubby sponge began to wash each plate before dunking it into a basin of rinse water. The only thing left to clean up was the large wooden bowl coated in fluffy whipped frosting remnants. She dipped a finger into the bowl and scraped it around the edge. Thick white frosting covered her entire fingertip and she smirked a little. One of her guilty pleasures growing up had been frosting. As both her parents had been muggle dentists it left little room for sweets like cake icing.

Ever so slowly Hermione closed her eyes and brought the icing covered digit to her lips. She laved her tongue over the sweet white frosting and then sucked her finger into her mouth, savoring the flavour. Molly Weasley made the best frostings for cakes and sweets, almost good enough to groan over.

“You going to finish that?”

She was so startled that the bowl fell from her hands and clattered against the table. Her eyes flew open; her gaze landing upon Charlie. He stood in the archway of the kitchen slouched against the wooden frame, a lopsided grin on his lips. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” He said.

Her face was flushed. How did he always manage to sneak up on her? And why did she continue to let his presence have that effect on her? She opened her eyes once more and tried not to gawk. He’d appeared there wearing only a pair of long pajama bottoms. His chest was bare and it took every ounce of strength within her to not start panting like a dog in heat. What was he playing at?

His eyes met hers and she panicked. Had she been staring too long? But his muscles were so well outlined in the off-white lighting of the kitchen. His arms were crossed casually over his chest and she could see, just on the side of his ribs, the outline of the tail of his dragon tattoo; the one that covered his back. She quickly turned her gaze back down into the frosting.

“You can have some if you like.” Her finger scraped along the rim of the bowl and scooped out another dollop of the icing. It tasted sweeter, somehow, smooth against her tongue as she licked it from her skin.

Charlie moved toward her and stood just in front of her. “You’ve…” he chuckled.

She looked straight up at him, eyes wide. “What?”

“You’ve got some icing…just there…” he dragged his finger slowly forward and pressed it against the corner of her mouth. His touch lingered for a moment and Hermione’s heart skipped several beats. A shiver shot up her spine as he dragged the pad of his finger slowly away from her mouth and then off her face. A little smear of white icing coated his index digit.

She watched it happen almost in slow motion. He drew his finger to his mouth. She could hear the blood thundering in her ears. The icing met his lips. She dared not blink but she could feel her eyes starting to sting from the air. His eyes closed. Her heart raced. Charlie’s tiny pink tongue slipped out between his lips and swirled around the icing. Hermione swallowed hard trying not to shudder.

“Sweet,” he said with a smile.

Hermione stood there gaping in awe. The effect that man had on her body. It wasn’t the icing or the sensual way he’d licked it from his finger; it was the fact that he’d touched her lips. His touch made her body tense up like a rocket ready to explode. She shook her head and quickly gazed back down into the icing bowl.

“Something the matter?” Charlie asked.

“No.” she muttered. “Too sweet, I think. Gave me a bit of a dizzy spell.” She picked up the bowl and handed it to him. “You can have it,” she tried to smile.

“Thanks,” he said and took the bowl. “Oh, but you’ve still got…” he smirked and dipped his finger into the bowl of icing. “You’ve got a little icing just there.” Charlie dabbed his finger against her nose leaving a smudge of the sugary confection on her skin.

“Oh!” she cried. “Charlie!” Hermione went cross-eyed trying to stare at the spot of icing on her nose and then had to blink her eyes several times before she could see straight.

“What?” he laughed and then sucked his finger into his mouth before dipping it back into the bowl for another taste.

“Oh, nothing,” she said and stepped forward, dipping her finger into the bowl. “You’ve just got a little bit of icing just there…” she dabbed her finger, which had a much larger dollop of the frosting on it than before, against his cheek. She smirked a bit and turned back to the sink. The dishes had found their way up into the cabinet and all that was left to do was pull the drain.

“Pity,” he said.

“Pity what?” Hermione turned once more to face him. “Charlie!” she cried.

His palm, covered in frosting, smeared across her face. “Pity you’d missed a spot, just there,” he added, patting the remainder of his handful of icing against her forehead.

“You’re ridiculous!” she shouted. But she could hardly deny how his touch— even when covered in cake icing— made her tremble inside. “Give me that.” She reached for the bowl only to have him yank it away from her. “Charlie!”

“Oh, ho, ho, no.” he smirked, chuckling much like Saint Nicholas. “And have you dump the bowl on my head? I think not.”

Even his laugh had every hair on the back of her neck standing on end as she tried to keep her calm. He was Charlie Weasley, but oh did that man turn her on. Hermione rolled her eyes. “Unlike you, I’m not a child,” she smirked. “And I doubt that your head would fit anyway.” She snatched the bowl from him and turned toward the sink.

“Aw, come on, I was going to eat that.”

Hermione paused for a moment bowl hovered over the sink. “Oh, alright.” She said. “Let me get you a spoon.”

“Thanks.”

Hermione pulled open the draw next to the sink and dug around for a large silver spoon. She scraped it against the bottom of the bowl, circling it fully up the side so that the spoon was heaping high with icing. “Here you go, Charlie.” She turned around with the spoon in her left hand, and pulled the rounded tip back with her right.

A large blob of icing flew from the spoon and landed right in Charlie’s eye. “Oi!” he cried and stumbled back, leaning on the counter.

“Oh! I didn’t mean to get you in the eye!” she squeaked. Hermione rushed toward him, dropping the bowl of icing on the counter beside him. “Here let me see.”

“Oh, I think I’m alright,” he said. “Just can’t see your face.” He’d grabbed a large handful of icing from the bowl and smashed it against her nose, covering her whole face.

“Charlie!” she cried, and reached for the bowl, but his hands were quicker.

Snatching the spoon from where it had fallen, he loaded it up with icing and flung a gob straight into her hair. Hermione tried to skitter away behind the island but with ease akin to a horse jumping a fence, he slid over the countertop and grabbed her shoulder. She struggled against him but his hands were too strong as he pushed her face into the bowl.

“Charlie Weasley!” she cried, face and hair covered in icing. She wiped her hands over her eyes trying to clear the sweet cake topping from her sightline. With fists covered in frosting, she lunged toward him, palms wide and pressed her hands against his bare chest.

Charlie gasped. He could hardly believe the little minx before him. Calling him a child and then returning the childish favor. Hermione bent her head forward, trying to rub all the icing from her hair against his torso but found that she had been swept off her feet. She cried out, swinging her legs back and forth against the air and his torso.

“Put me down!” she cried.

Charlie laughed, holding her high above his head with one hand. Hermione was by no means heavy, he’d helped drag dragons across murky mires and not broken a sweat, but it seemed to amaze the girl. With his free hand he grabbed what little bit remained of the frosting and grabbed the back of her knee.

“You big buffoon!” she shrieked, trying not to shiver. She could feel her knickers soaking wet and prayed that with his hand so high up on her leg that she wouldn’t leak all over him. “Charlie put me down!”

He dropped her and she shrieked. Although he hadn’t had her that high up, had he not grabbed her hip it probably would have hurt had she fallen all the way back onto her feet. Her eyes were level with him and she narrowed her gaze. Hermione dragged her palms across her cheeks, scooping up icing and she mashed it into his hair. Charlie rubbed his palms across her hair and then all over her shoulders.

They were pressed against one another trying to frantically cover the other with icing that had accumulated on their bodies. Her shoulder dug against his pectoral, half up under his armpit, and she smeared icing down his torso, yanking her hand back when she touched the waist band of his pajama trousers. But Charlie didn’t notice. He grabbed her shoulders and held her still.

Leaning down, Charlie brushed his jaw against her bare shoulder. She squeaked and tried to slide out of his grasp as he wiped the icing that had been on his chin against her collar bone and up her neck. She giggled and shrieked as he blew a breath against her ear.

“Ticklish much?” he chuckled.

Hermione squirmed against him, trying to push his hands away as they began their ticklish assault. Icing was smeared everywhere as their bodies pressed together. His fingers still and her lips were but inches from his. Charlie gazed into her eyes, and she blushed, though you could hardly see it through all the icing.

She could feel her heart racing triple time in her chest, thudding so loud she was certain he could hear it. Her breath caught in her throat. Hermione was standing on her toes without meaning to, just to be level with him. He leaned his face closer to her, their lips almost touching.

“I think we should clean up.”

Hermione’s heart sank. She’d completely misread him. He hadn’t been flirting, just goofing off. How could she have been so blind?

But before her thoughts could dwell further on her embarrassing misread situation, she felt a spray of cold water across her face. “Charlie!” she shrieked.

He roared with laughter, having reached behind him into the sink and splashed some of the now cold rinse water at her. Hermione’s hands were quick but Charlie’s were quicker. She tried to splash him but was held back.

“Oh this is ridiculous!” she huffed.

“What?” he smirked and splashed her again.

“Accio water!” she shouted.

Being an accomplished witch, wandless magic came easily to Hermione. A bit too easily at times. The sink basin seemed to surge with life as a wave of water swept up and crashed over Charlie’s head. She took a step back and threw her head back in laughter.

He was soaking wet, hair matted to his head, water dripping down his face. It was a situation like the one he was in that made him glad to have a father who was obsessed with muggle inventions. Turning to the sink he grabbed the long metal cord that looked like a hose snake. Charlie gripped the nozzle as he’d seen his father do when experimenting with the contraption and he pointed it straight at Hermione.

“Hermione,” he said.

She was still laughing as she looked at him. “What?”

A powerful spray of water shot forth from the oddly shaped nozzle as Charlie gave it a squeeze. It was a contraption used to aide in washing the dishes in the muggle world, or so his father had told him. And at the moment it was working splendidly.

Hermione hadn’t seen it coming and by the time she had moved out of its way it was too late. She had practically put shower hoses out of her mind when her muggle world was left behind. But countless times when she was growing up she had seen her mother standing over the sink spraying particularly hard stains off dishes with the hose. And now she was soaked. Her dress was practically see-through.

She lunged at him, knocking the hose from his hand, slapping at him for getting her wet. “Have you lost your mind?” she shrieked.

The more she fussed the harder he laughed. “Well, we needed to clean up.”

The water from the hose had done little to clean the icing from them. Everything was now just sticky and wet. Again Charlie found his arms around the girl, trying to tickle her, and once more they found themselves pressed close together, his lips close to hers.

“That wasn’t funny,” she said, her voice dropped to a whisper.

“You’re right,” he smirked. “It was hilarious.” He leaned slightly closer.

Hermione closed her eyes. Again her heart was racing. She could hardly bare it. And before she could think on what she was doing she was up on her tiptoes again leaning with her lips puckered toward him.

“Hey is there any of that icing— oh, sorry.” Thomas said. He had walked into the kitchen wearing one of Percy’s bathrobes.

Hermione pulled away from Charlie, face flushing.

“Oi, um, sorry, washed it all after everyone headed up, but I’m sure there’s some ice cream in the um— what’s it called— that muggle thing…” he turned his eyes to Hermione for help.

“Freezer.” She muttered.

“Yes, freezer.” Charlie didn’t seem bothered at all. He stood, half naked and soaking wet, before his brother’s fiancée and smiled. “I think we’ve got vanilla, mint choc chip, and some of that fruity sorbet that mum keeps for when the kids come over.”

“Right,” Thomas tried not to stare.

“Here, let’s see…” Charlie said wandering over to the freezer.

The kitchen seemed very cold all the sudden, and she was very aware that her nipples could be seen through her wet dress. Wrapping her arms around her chest, Hermione fled from the kitchen as quickly and quietly as she could.

“Huh, guess there’s no more vanilla, but there does some to be some sort of buttered pecan…and chocolate.” Charlie smiled.

“Um, chocolate should be fine.” Thomas smiled nervously.

“Well, back up to bed then.”

“You staying tonight?” Thomas asked. He took the ice cream from Charlie and began to rustle in the draw for two spoons.

“Nah,” said Charlie. “Work in the morning.”

“Right then, well, goodnight.” He said and left the kitchen.

Charlie shook his head. “Bugger him,” he said and turned around. “Hermione?” But the kitchen was empty.
Charlie took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the third floor. After Ginny had married Harry and they’d moved to London her room had been turned into Hermione’s room. The door was shut. He smiled and ran right up to it about to pound on the wood. His fist stilled in the air just inches from the door.

Charlie closed his eyes and hung his head. If she’d fled from the kitchen perhaps she’d been looking for an excuse to flee from him. Maybe he had been misreading her. Every time he’d gotten close to making a move, to taking that first step, to giving her a kiss, something had interrupted them. Or he’d thought it had always been interruptions. Maybe it had been Hermione putting him off and he had just managed to misread the situation every time.

He knew girls played hard to get at times, but this seemed different somehow. Maybe Hermione was like Fred and George in the sense that they would play along with anything that seemed like fun and she was sending signals by mistake. Girls did that often, or so he had learned over the years, but he doubted that she was doing it on purpose like some girls who he had encountered. Charlie stepped back from her door. He’d misread her, again.

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