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 4




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







March 30, 2010, Charlie stood on Glastonbury Tor, staring down at the town, which had burned to the ground over a month before. The wind was blowing around him, rustling his cropped hair atop his head. He had come from the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, the famed sanctuary of the Sisters of Ine. The magic that had hidden the Abbey for centuries was gone, and the Abbey itself was open to the elements making the corpses of the Sisterhood rot and stink. The faces were unrecognizable, but Charlie knew that Aurora Sinistra and a girl he had gone to school with were part of the Sisterhood.

In the sunlight, Charlie walked through the charred ruins of Glastonbury, through the fields and up the hillside to the Tor in the east. The fires had long gone, as had the Inferi. For over a week, he had been widening his survey of southwest England—Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Bristol—the number of Inferi he found in those counties was slowly diminishing, moving east.

During his travels through the southwest, Charlie found Muggle newspapers; he had even found a copy of the Daily Prophet in the empty Diggory house. Sitting at the kitchen table, Charlie began piecing the order of events together.

It had started in Cornwall and swept east. Next was Aberdeen, devastation and fear forcing Muggles south out of the Highlands. Charlie began to see a pattern, if it could be called a pattern. Something was driving Muggles out into the open. If the Muggles were not killed by some unnatural manner, the Inferi swept in to kill whoever was left.

Charlie had stared at the pieces of newspaper he had collected. The kitchen table was not quite cluttered with the papers since it was a table that fed nine family members. He walked around the table; his palms pressed together, the tips of his thumbs resting against his lips. The more he read, the more he knew he would have to go to London. The Ministry was the only place he could think to go for definitive answers.

However, Charlie knew he should check every magical place in southwest England. The Loe in Cornwall, Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, Maiden Castle in Dorset, and Grey Wethers less than hour from the Burrow were places of known concentrated magic, places that could act as gathering points for magical folk and creatures.

So, he stood on Glastonbury Tor, looking at what was left of the village and the sacred space it hid. The Loe had been barren of magic when it had been a sacred place of power. Maiden Castle’s wards that hid the reestablished walls were gone. For centuries, Muggles thought that Maiden Castle was ruins on the heath, but for magical folk, it was a tourist location, a natural place of magical power. Again, Maiden Castle was barren. Grey Wethers was devoid of the familiar hum of magic Charlie had known most of his life.

It was as if the magic had been sucked from the earth, sapped. Charlie walked toward St. Michael’s Tower and into the shadow. There were only bodies, and Charlie could not tell the difference between magical and Muggle. He had not found anything or anyone, and the silence of death began to deafen him. Charlie hummed to himself a discordant tune, passing under the roofless tower to look east.

The southwestern counties had been tapped dry of magical energy. His own magic suffered, every spell weakening him. Charlie knew he had to go to London. London would have the answers, surely.




April 12, 2010, Hermione stood upon Waterloo Bridge atop the cab of a lorry. Her amber eyes were narrowed as they gazed toward Covent Garden. The telephone box, the visitor’s entrance, was on Carting Lane, but Hermione did not move as the day wore on.

She sat down on the cab, her booted heels tapping back into the cracked windscreen, humming ‘London’s Burning.’ Shrugging off her pack, then her rifle, Hermione dug out a plastic bag and unwrapped a somewhat moldy chunk of bread and warm cheese. Picking off the mold, Hermione ate what she could before spitting out a few bits of bitter rot. Scavenging London, she knew, would be interesting.

London was a dead city for all Hermione knew. She had edged about the southern districts, finding nothing that shocked her any longer—dead Muggles and more dead Muggles.

Opening a half empty water bottle, Hermione washed down the last of the bread and cheese. She wiped her mouth with the back of her gloved hand; the fingers cut half way down the glove. In the back window of an old station wagon, Hermione could see her reflection.

Her long wavy hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, which made her gaunt face seem more severe. She still wore her combat clothes, the same boots, but as she sat atop the lorry, she knew she would have to resize her clothes smaller before long.

The Thames stank as it usually did to her, but the smell of death was stronger. She brushed crumbs from her clothes and climbed back up onto the cab. Stretching, Hermione gazed along the traffic blocking the bridge. In one hundred years, grass would grow between the automobiles, the bodies inside would be nothing but bone. In two hundred years, the elements, the stress and strain, would collapse Waterloo Bridge. In perhaps three hundred years, the Thames would not reek and aquatic vegetation would grow again.

Hermione slipped her muscular arms through the straps of her backpack, all her body fat having been burnt from her bones after two months. As she began to shoulder her rifle, Hermione heard the squawk of pigeons, a flock, and turned toward the west as hundreds of pigeons alit the air in the direction of Trafalgar Square.

Then, she felt it, a wave of magic that swept through her and past her.

Hermione’s wide eyes blinked, and suddenly she was running.

Magic meant life.

She had followed the strain of music to Brighton, to Viktor, and she had followed the music toward London. Of course, London was the logical place to go, but after Viktor, the music had compelled her to go to London.

Hermione ran down the Strand toward Trafalgar Square, her legs pumping as hard she could make them move. Her breath came out in deep exhales, and in with trembling inhales. She wondered as she passed Savoy and Southhampton Street if she had run so hard and fast in her life. Running for her life from Inferi was perhaps the only time, besides running from a fully transformed Remus Lupin, that she pushed her body so hard. Even with the weight lightening Charms on her pack and rifle, Hermione still felt weighed down.

Magic meant life, and Hermione Granger was running toward life.





“I vill go no further,” Viktor said, his dark eyes moving along the motorway outside of Pyecombe. “If I start back now, I vill be at the Pavilion before nightfall.”

Hermione did not look at Viktor as she sat on the old Indian 841 motorcycle, Viktor leaning against the hood of a grey Volvo in the northbound lane of London Road. They had stopped to siphon more petrol from the stranded cars to fill the small tank in the ancient motorcycle.

It had been a chore to convince Viktor to leave Brighton, and now Hermione knew that Viktor could not be convinced to go further.

“Take the motorbike,” she said softly, dismounting and kicking the stand to leave the bike upright.

“No. You vill need it to get to London.”

Viktor’s voice was strained. He had unsuccessfully tried to convince Hermione to stay in Brighton. Viktor did not hear the music as she had, he did not hear the magic beginning to fade as if being pulled northward like water being sucked toward a drain. She could not tell him that Brighton would soon not be safe. She could not tell him that soon the protection of the Royal Pavilion would wane.

“I have been travelling on foot longer than you have, besides, I am sure I can find another motorbike,” she said, finally turning to Viktor.

“It is suicide, Her-my-nee. Even this,” he said moving his arms about the clogged motorway.

Hermione sighed and adjusted her rifle. Only two days before, they had used it to snipe from the bell tower of St. Peter’s. Hermione had noticed how the Inferi were beginning to move north, but there was still a formidable number of undead in Brighton.

“You know that I won’t go back, Viktor, and I know that unless you take the bike, you won’t make it back to Brighton before sunset,” Hermione said calmly, evenly.

Viktor kicked at the dust on the motorway, irritated.

“I have to go, Viktor,” Hermione whispered, moving to Viktor’s side, clutching his blockish face between her gloved hands.

Viktor refused to look into her eyes. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and brooded.

“You can stay vith me. Ve can live…”

“No.”

Hermione’s stout response forced Viktor’s eyes to meet hers. Slowly, his face began to crumble.

“I…” he began, his voice thick with repressed emotion. “I vill be alone again.”

Hermione let her eyes close as she shook her head.

“You will not go, I cannot stay. Please, Viktor, just take the goddamn bike,” she whispered.

Viktor said nothing, but pulled his hands from his pockets to wrap his thick arms about her malnourished frame.

“Ve vill die, Her-my-nee. Ve should be dead,” he whispered back, pulling her against his body.

Hermione inhaled his scent from his shaggy hair. She knew Viktor was right, but her soul told her that she had to go on; she had to know why she had not died.

Viktor kissed her, the taste of his mouth stale. Hermione kissed him return, letting her weight push them back against the hood of the Volvo; dead eyes of the driver and the passenger watching them blankly.

“Vill you come back?” Viktor asked when their kiss ended for need of air.

“I don’t know,” Hermione said into his neck, his unshaven jaw brushing into her temple.

Hermione spoke the truth. She knew very well that that moment might be the last time she would see another living person. It was a bitter farewell, of a manner.

“I vill take the bike.”

Hermione kissed Viktor’s throat, imprinting the scent and taste of him into her memory.

They did not say goodbye, but kissed again, and soon Hermione listened to the high-pitched whine of the motor drift away south to her back. Hermione walked north, along the lane of abandoned automobiles. When she could no longer hear the rumble of the bike, Hermione glanced over her should to the south.

Viktor would be lost to her forever, she knew, but underneath the silence, Hermione heard the strain of music.





The music became clearer at Gatwick as Hermione walked along the end of airport. The strains had become chords, and Hermione could hear what she believed to be the sound of a brass instrument.

Shaking her head violently, the chords grew indistinct, wrong. She pushed her newly acquired motor scooter along the A23, seeing an automobile in the distance, hoping to refuel what she could and be on her way again.

Hermione knew she was going insane, hearing music, feeling the pull of magic to the north, pulling her north as well. She knew that she must be ill as the soul shifting pull kept her from sleeping at night in the few protected places she could find. The compulsion to go made Hermione risk her life to try to travel all day long. The Inferi were fewer, it seemed, but still could hear and chase her motor scooter if she drove at night.

It was maddening, following her compulsions.

Hermione felt like a zombie, a living zombie bound to follow a bit of mental music that she could not identify. She knew the music, she was sure, but how and from where, Hermione struggled to recall.

After refueling at Gatwick, she moved faster. Hermione knew that if the motorways were empty, she would be in London in little more than an hour. However, weaving between the cars took time.

In London, Hermione would go to the Ministry; she would search for an answer to her many questions.




Trafalgar Square was empty. It had surprised Hermione how few corpses were in London, and then she found a newspaper in an over turned rubbish bin in Lambeth.

Mandatory evacuation of all major cities, she read, but wondered where the millions of people in the Greater London area would go. The motorways in and out of the city were littered with automobiles; the trains out of the city had not gotten into the countryside before the Holokauston Curse was cast.

There had been no way out.

However, as Hermione stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square, sweat pouring off her brow, she knew that there was life somewhere near. Her amber eyes scanned the square. She saw the National Gallery to the north, and Whitehall to the south. To the west was Canada House and to the east was South Africa House.

No movement, no life, and Hermione bent down to rest her palms on her knees to catch her breath and still her pounding heart. She wondered if the magic had come from the Square, or further west.

Hermione sat down on the damp stone of Trafalgar Square, her hands still on her knees. She listened, her back to the National Gallery, and waited for another wave of magic. Closing her eyes, Hermione could hear the wind between the buildings, the tremulous coo of the pigeons flying overhead, and distantly—footsteps.

Hermione jumped to her feet, drawing her wand, but keeping it in the ready position.

The footsteps were not that of an Inferius, there was not scratching shuffle of dead feet. The footsteps were uniform, quick, and determined. As they neared, they slowed, and Hermione realized someone or something was approaching her from the northeast, from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

When the footsteps no longer echoed off the buildings around the Square, Hermione whirled about, wand pointed, and incantation half-formed in her mind.

“Merlin!” a male voice gasped and Hermione’s snarling face froze.

Standing just before her, wand pointed at her face, was a stocky male figure dressed in dark clothing with a travelling cloak over wide shoulders. Messily cropped crimson hair burned a bright red in the sunlight, and pale jade green eyes were wide with shock.

“Hermione?”

Hermione blinked rapidly. Had she known someone like this man?

He was dirty, his face smudged with dirt and soot making his fair skin paler in the direct sunlight. He was familiar.

“Hermione, luv?”

His voice was deep and gravelly, and again, familiar.

He took another step forward, lowering his wand. Hermione could see red stubble on his jaw, and smell his scent of body odour, smoke, and death. She knew she smelled similar, but under those scents, she smelled masculinity.

She blinked at the man. “Weasley,” she said softly as a means of identifying the man before her. It was not Bill; there were no scars on his face. It was not George, his eyes were blue, and he had only one ear. It was not Ron; he was taller.

“Yeah, it’s Charlie. Are you alright?”

Hermione lowered her wand slowly and swayed on her feet. Immediately, Charlie’s hands were holding her upright.

“Merlin, you’re like a skeleton,” she heard him say, helping her move to sit on the damp stone flags of the Square.

Hermione sat down, the rifle’s stock knocking into the ground. Charlie was kneeling before her, lifting her face to the sunlight to study her.

“You’re starving,” he stated, his rough paw like hands feeling her face, along her neck then her arms. “I think you might be sick…”

“No,” she said, shaking her head to clear her mind. “No, I’m fine. I just haven’t…” she trailed. She wanted to say ‘haven’t eaten properly,’ but as she looked at Charlie, she knew that he had dropped a couple stone. His face was not gaunt, and he seemed just as substantial and strong as Hermione remembered, but there was a lean quality about his face she did not remember.

“For weeks I’ve been casting that damn Charm…” he muttered, his hands moving to feel along Hermione’s muscular legs as if to see if she had broken a bone. “You’re the first person alive since February.”

Hermione frowned. “Where were you when it happened?”

Charlie pulled his hands away from her ankles and fell back to his haunches. “In February?”

Hermione nodded. She studied his clothing, which seemed to hang from him as her clothing hanged from her body. Under the traveling cloak, he wore a pack made of leather and across his sweater was a chest holster.

“I was in Wales, on the Reserve. Where were you?”

“Glastonbury.”

Charlie swore under his breath and turned his jade green eyes to the clear blue sky. “I was in Glastonbury a while back.”

“It’s gone,” Hermione whispered. “Burned.”

Charlie nodded, and then said: “I was looking for anyone alive. I tried The Loe, there’s a resort there, and a few other places in Devon and Dorset… All the places of concentrated magic are barren. There’s no one.”

“The Burrow?”

Charlie seemed to recoil onto himself at Hermione’s words. Hermione felt her heart palpitate.

“Mum and Dad are gone.”

Hermione listened to Charlie as he told her about the Burrow being burnt, the wards down when he came upon the place. She listened to Charlie’s words, believing that Bill was alive as he was outside of Britain. She listened when Charlie said that all the hands on the grandfather clock pointed to ‘Lost.’

“It would be different if there were bodies, something to tell me where Mum and Dad went, but there was nothing. I cannot imagine what or how the house burnt. There have been anti-blaze wards on the house since before dad was born…”

Hermione closed her eyes slowly as Charlie fell silent. When she opened her eyes again, it was to see how far the sun had moved across the sky.

“We need to get cover,” she stated and Charlie turned to gaze at the sun.

Hermione rose unsteadily, but shifted her rifle and began looking around the square.

“St. Martin-in-the-Fields is safe,” Charlie said softly, turning his eyes to the northeast.

Hermione turned slowly, looking across the desolate square. As she studied the corner of the small church, she heard a strain of sound, the music. Without prompting, she began walking to the northeast. Charlie said nothing, but followed.

The ‘Church of the Ever Open Door’ had its doors shut. Charlie ran ahead and opened the door for Hermione, and Hermione felt the change of the air pressure as she passed inside. Closing the door behind her, Charlie pulled his wand out and began levitating pews to barricade the door. Hermione moved down the nave of the white coloured interior, the sunlight casting everything in orange light.

It felt the same as the Royal Pavilion, safe, a bubble of protection. Hermione could feel the hum of magic under feet.

“I’ve found that some churches are safe,” Charlie voice echoed around her, startling Hermione.

Hermione turned to Charlie who was sitting in a pew behind her. She moved to sit in the pew before him, shrugging off her rifle and pack, setting them within reach.

“Not all,” Hermione mused.

Charlie shook his head. “Not all, I’m just glad there aren’t any bodies in this one.”

Hermione said nothing, her eyes moving to the large white coffers in the ceiling.

“Can you tell me what has happened?”

The question made Hermione tremble and carefully, she moved her eyes back to Charlie.

“You don’t know?” Hermione asked and shook her head. “Of course you wouldn’t, you haven’t…” she trailed, her eyes moving to her gloved hand resting on the back of the white pew.

Hermione began her tale with no elaboration. She explained about Glastonbury Abbey, Aurora Sinistra and her wish that Hermione go to Hogwarts, she explained everything up until Basingstoke and then paused.

“Have you been hearing it?”

Charlie’s pale brow furrowed, “Hearing what?”

Hermione bit her lip, feeling that it was chapped and rough. She had been worrying her lip ever since coming into the London area.

“But you’ve felt it. You said that The Loe and Grey Wethers felt barren.”

“As if the magic in those sacred places is being pulled toward the north?”

Hermione nodded. “The Inferi too, most of them.”

Charlie sighed. “Yeah. But there are still plenty in London.”

Hermione then asked how long Charlie had been in London.

“Two days. I just found this place last night. I had planned to try for the Ministry before dark, but then…”

“You found me,” Hermione finished.

“A lucky thing.”

“Viktor went back to Brighton.”

Charlie’s eyes widened and Hermione realized she had not mentioned Viktor yet.

“Viktor Krum?”

Hermione continued her tale, telling Charlie about Viktor and Viktor’s words. Charlie’s face moved from surprise to horror when Hermione retold Viktor’s words about Ludo Bagman. Horror made Charlie’s face impossibly whiter, and Hermione wondered as she spoke, if Charlie realized that maybe his own parents were victims just as Bagman had been. It was a terrible thought, Hermione knew, but the fact that they were missing made her mind move toward darker avenues of thought.

“It was really ‘that’ Curse?”

“You know it?”

Charlie nodded, “It is well known in Eastern Europe. A Romanian keeper told me about it when I was working for the Order during the War. The Wizarding communities in Eastern Europe feared the Curse, many of their grandparents were victims during Grindelwald’s reign.”

Hermione was silent again.

“So that’s how it started.”

She nodded. “I think it was small at first, starting in Cornwall and simultaneously in the north. Viktor and I think that who ever had Bagman under Imperius could not also be commanding the Inferi. It had to be at least two wizards, herding from the south and north, pushing everything toward the centre.”

Everything meant Muggles and magic. Whether it meant magical folk, Hermione did not know. She was certain the Ministry would hold the answers.

“For what purpose?”

Hermione did not know. It was one of the many questions she had.





The café in the Crypt was dark, but Charlie lit a few candles he had managed to find and used his lit wand to walk back into the kitchen and return with several tins of food. He did not speak as they ate, but Hermione could tell that he wanted to ask a question. Finally, as Hermione pushed away an empty tin of sardines, Charlie spoke.

“Viktor did not come with you?”

Hermione shook her head. “No amount of convincing would make him get far from Brighton. His wife is there…”

“But you said…”

“Buried there.”

Charlie said nothing more on the matter.

“My parents should be safe,” Hermione said suddenly, more to herself than to Charlie. “And Bill and Fleur and the kids…”

“Yeah…”

“But Ginny and Harry, George, Ron…”

Charlie took a breath. “I couldn’t get into Diagon Alley. I couldn’t find the Leaky Cauldron…”

Hermione was not surprised. The spells that kept the pub from attracting notice had waned. Even without the ‘do not notice’ ward, the Leaky Cauldron would be impossible to find. It should have been on Charing Cross Road, and Hermione believed she should have run by it on her way to Trafalgar Square, but she did not remember seeing the bookshop and record store, which acted as buffers on either side of the establishment. All the same, Hermione believed that Diagon Alley was surely abandoned, even Gringotts with its goblins.

“Let’s hope that we can get into the Ministry,” Hermione whispered.

Charlie seemed to stare at Hermione as if she had grown a second head. She ignored him and rose from the café table, moving toward the kitchen, lighting her way with her wand. Finding a large industrial sink, Hermione turned the tap. The waterworks were working, but the water smelled stale. She washed her face, setting her lit wand on the counter.

“There’s a hall, and beds…”

Charlie was standing in the door, his arms crossed before his wide chest.

“Is it safe?”

He shrugged, “It would be more comfortable than sleeping on the pews.”

Hermione swallowed her words. She would not forego certain safety for comfort. “Pews are fine.”

A London without electric lights was dark as pitch, but what startled Charlie more than the dark was the lack of sound. London was supposed to be alive, humming with life, but as he watched Hermione gaze out of the vent from the bell tower, Trafalgar Square was brimming with Inferi. Lifting her rifle to her shoulder, Charlie watched as she peered through the scope, after casting an intricate ‘night vision’ Charm on the scope.

Charlie imagined she saw hundreds of undead, moving like a disharmonious swarm. He wondered if they could sense that life was nearby.

“It makes one wonder, why won’t they come near the church?” he said aloud

Hermione nearly dropped her rifle at the sound of Charlie’s voice just next to her. She had been too concentrated on watching the Inferi that she had not heard him approach.

“It is the magic that runs under our feet,” Hermione whispered, hiding her irritation.

Charlie turned his face to her in the dark.

“I can hear it.”

He could just see her face smooth in the darkness. He thought she was mad.

“Some people believed that St. Martin-in-the-Fields was built upon an ancient pagan temple, like so many churches and cathedrals in Europe. A few years back, scientists found a Roman grave from the Fifth Century…”

Charlie made no motion or noise to acknowledge Hermione soft words. Instead, he was thinking. Shrewsbury Abbey was an ancient site, as had been all the other ‘safe’ places he had taken refuge. Did it have something to do with the ancient magicks performed on those sites? He quirked his lips in thought. Glastonbury, the Loe, all of those places were sacred places as well, and their power was gone. How could St. Martin-in-the-Fields be any different? Was it their Christian affiliation? Charlie thought not.

“As soon as the Square is empty in the morning, we should try for the Ministry,” Hermione said, moving from the slotted vent before the bells, slipping her arm under the strap of her rifle.

Charlie wanted to ask about the Muggle gun, but said nothing as Hermione walked past him to the ladder down.

That night the shrieks of the Inferi outside in the Square seemed less frightening to Charlie. Hermione slept in the padded pew in front of him. He could not see her, but he could hear her breathing change as she fell asleep.

He had not seen Hermione Granger in years. He knew that she and Ron had had a falling out not long after the War, but Charlie did not know over what or why. All he knew was Hermione was not at Christmas dinner as she usually was through the years. In fact, the last time he had seen her was in passing at the Ministry six years before. They had not greeted each other; there had not been time. Charlie was to meet Newt Scamander from the Department of the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He had passed her as she was leaving a lift. Charlie doubted she noticed him. To Charlie’s memory, Hermione Granger appeared very angry, her riotous waves of caramel hair seeming to stand on end and her amber eyes flashing malevolently. He could not remember her looking so much like a woman before.

Hermione Granger had always been Ron’s ‘smart girlfriend’ in Charlie’s mind, but when he found her in Trafalgar Square, she looked more like a warrior queen. Granted, she was thin and pale, but her eyes blazed like gold in her face. She had grown into an attractive woman, albeit too thin and filthy.

What bothered Charlie, however, was her distance. He was so elated to meet someone alive, but that someone was shell shocked, their normal personalities removed in lieu of survival. Charlie knew that he was much the same, and he knew that he probably seemed like a too eager idiot to Hermione. From her tale, he knew that she had had a rougher time than he had. She did not have a broom and had been walking or riding on a Muggle motorbike to get from place to place.

He wondered what had really happened with Viktor Krum. Was it so simple that Viktor would not leave Brighton because he was too attached to the fact that he had buried his wife there? Hermione did not seem too regretful that she had let Viktor go back to Brighton. The detachment Charlie sensed from the woman sleeping in the next pew was disconcerting. Charlie did not know Hermione well, but what he did now of her was that she was passionate, brilliant, and loud to voice her thoughts.

As he lay on his side, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, he wondered if he had also changed so much. Was he in shock?

He frowned. At least Hermione believed her parents alive. Charlie did not want to think about his parents now that he knew…

Charlie’s thoughts trailed as he heard Hermione make a noise, a sound that was like a whimper. The whimpering grew louder and Charlie sat up, leaning forward to look down in the pew. Hermione’s face was dimly light from the windows in the chancel, and Charlie could see that she was asleep. However, tears sparkled along her long lashes.

Charlie could see that she was dreaming.

When her whimpers turned to cries, Charlie crawled over the back of the pew and sat next her head. He stroked the strands of lank hair that had fallen loose from her hair tie. Hermione stirred, but did not wake, and wriggling in the pew, laid her head on Charlie’s left thigh.

Charlie stiffened as she wiped her face into his corduroy clad thigh. Her tears soaked into the fabric and her fingers dug under his leg for the warmth. Charlie relaxed and ran the back of his fingers along her gaunt cheek. She mumbled something indistinct and slept more peacefully.

He sighed, shifting a bit in the pew. Charlie was not ever close to anyone besides his family. He had had girlfriends, all short-lived romances. He had had occasional lovers, usually the female dragon keepers on the Reserve. However, Charlie had never really cared for anyone or anything besides his dragons. He knew that his preference for solitude and dangerous creatures was not the norm. Molly Weasley lamented the fact that Charlie had not ‘settled down and had children’ like his siblings. As things were, Charlie figured, it was just as well. Viktor had lost his wife, and Charlie could not imagine how painful it felt to lose the one you loved the most.

Hermione mumbled into Charlie’s thigh again, more words that was too muddled to understand. Charlie wondered if Hermione Granger had someone. She had not mentioned worrying about anyone but her parents. Perhaps she was like him, unattached, and better for it.

TBC...