Freedom

A/N: So sorry for this taking so long to get up. Moving to another country takes a lot out of you. :/ I will be writing more often now though that I'm all settled in. Please review. :)


Hermione was sitting at one end of the table, and Harry was sitting at the other. Between them were Draco, Jessica, and Ginny on one side, and Charlie, Kelly, and Kelly’s boyfriend, Daniel, on the other.

Hermione had just finished her story of how the three of them had gotten together and they were all smiling and laughing. It was great to finally get everything out into the open with the people that were most important in her life. She took a sip of her milk and ripped another flaky piece off her roll.

“Okay,” Ginny said. “That explains how the three of you got together. But I’ve never actually heard how Charlie and Draco got together.”

Draco smiled. “Actually, I think Hermione is the only person who’s actually asked, until now.”

Charlie grinned. “Yeah, most people just ask how long we’ve been together or politely nod their heads and pretend like they didn’t just hear that I was in a relationship with another wizard.”

“Well, I want to know how it started between the two of you,” Ginny said with a smile. “I know you two were together for two years before Hermione joined the two of you, so how did you get together?”

“Well, it sounds incredibly cliché, of course, but we met at a pub.”

“A pub?”

“Well, you all know that I dated Astoria Greengrass before I was with Charlie, right?” Draco asked. Ginny and Harry nodded, but the others looked confused. “Well, I dated her for a year and a half after the war. We were engaged and everything, because I actually did think that I was in love with her…apparently, I was wrong. When I found her in bed with that prat, Terry Boot, I called everything off. She thought I knew that she didn’t really love me, that it was just a marriage of convenience, but I didn’t want that.”

Ginny snorted. Draco raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just that everyone still makes fun of her, because she’s married to what’s-his-face now, and everyone says that she turned you a poof.”

They laughed. Draco smiled. “Well, she sort of did,” he said. “I was so angry with her that I felt like I just needed to be as far away from everything as possible. I was working in the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures then and when someone said something about a nine-month internship in Romania, I jumped at the chance.”

They all nodded in understanding.

“I had moved into my flat, which was far too small for my standards, and then immediately went off to the pub to get pissed. After I had a few drinks in me, I went up to the bar to get another, and there was this handsome redhead standing next to me…”

“Drowning your sorrows?” Charlie asked.

“I guess you could say that,” Draco laughed sourly. “Just got out of a terrible relationship. I think it’s high time to get properly pissed.”

“Sounds good,” Charlie said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” Draco said, waiting for their drinks and then leading him back to the booth where he had been sitting in the corner.

“So what’s on your mind?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to make a woman fall in love with you,” Draco said. “I mean, I thought I knew, but then I didn’t.”

“Well, that’s easy,” Charlie said with a laugh. “You just have to know how to kiss them properly.”

“Kiss them properly?” Draco asked, offended. “I’m sure I know how to snog properly.”

“Do you?” Charlie asked. “Let’s see it, then?”

“What, with you?” Draco asked, slightly hysterical.

“No, pick someone,” Charlie laughed…

“So I looked around the pub until I saw a bird that caught my eye. I walked over to her, but when I looked back at Charlie here to see what he was doing, he had stood up and he had this intense look on his face.” Draco smiled. “It looked almost jealous.”

“A little bit,” Charlie said.

“So instead, I turned around, walked right back to Charlie and kissed him…”

“You call that a kiss?” Charlie asked as he pulled away. Charlie put one of his hands behind Draco’s head, cradling his head while at the same time maneuvering them against the wall. “This is how to properly snog someone,” Charlie said, descending his lips on Draco’s. His other hand groped Draco’s bum as he pushed the sexy blonde against the wall, lips and tongues fighting each other: brutal, yet loving.

“Merlin,” Draco murmured as Charlie pulled away.

“No,” Charlie said and grinned. “Charlie.”

Draco smirked. “I’m Draco...”

“And you lived happily ever after?” Ginny asked with a sigh, her head in her hand.

Charlie laughed. “Not at all.”

Jessica now also had her chin in her hand and was staring at the two with rapt attention. “So what happened then?”

“Well, we went back to my flat,” Charlie grinned. “You can guess what happened there.”

Ginny and Jessica grinned.

“It wasn’t until the next day that things went downhill. Charlie had left early for work, and left me a note saying that I was welcome to come back that night. It was my first day on the reserve though, and I didn’t know at all that Charlie even worked there. So when my supervisor was showing me around and said ‘And this is the guy you go to if you need to know anything. Draco Malfoy, meet Charlie Weasley.’ That’s when it got bad.”

“Because you realised Charlie was a Weasely?” Ginny asked.

“No,” Charlie said. “Because I realised that he was Draco Malfoy. I was angry at him because of what happened to Bill.”

“So, Charlie punished me. He made me do all the shit work at the reservation. Cleaning up sick and shit and everything like that. It was over a month before I finally got sick of it and confronted him about it.”

“And he was right, as always,” Charlie said. “I knew I was being harsh, and after talking to Bill, I felt like a prick doing that to Draco. I knew that Draco only did that to save his family and himself. I couldn’t really blame him, but I was still a right shit for doing that to him.”

“So we argued for a few hours, and then we shagged for a few hours…” He trailed off.

“And you lived happily ever after?” Jessica asked.

“Nope,” Draco said.

“What else happened?” Kelly asked, now also completely enraptured in the conversation.

“Well, the internship was for only nine months,” Draco said. “And though I loved being with Charlie, I wasn’t really into dragon keeping at all. I was more interested in the laws behind the reserve and how those worked. So when I went back to the Ministry, I requested to be transferred into the Law division.”

“Which is when I first saw Draco since the war had ended,” Hermione now put into the conversation. “I was the one doing the hiring.” She smiled.

“Cheeky wench, she was,” Draco said. “She says: ‘You know that Harry will be your boss if you work in this department, right?’ I told her that I didn’t really care, but really I was more interested in seeing her more often. I had been absolutely besotted by her since school anyway.”

“And I got jealous,” Charlie put in. “When Draco moved back to London, I suspected that he was cheating on me, because I could only make it back to London on the weekends, since it was too taxing on my magic to apparate more often than that.”

“So we broke up for a time,” Draco said. “I really didn’t like that, since I was besotted by him as well. I still couldn’t say that to his face though, since I wasn’t used to being in a relationship with a bloke, and I wasn’t sure how sharing of feelings were handled in that kind of relationship.”

“And I didn’t know it at the time, but it wasn’t until after Hermione and Ron’s wedding two months later that Draco came crawling back to me,” Charlie said.

“I was holding out for a hope that she might notice me instead,” Draco said with a shrug. “I loved Charlie, but I wasn’t going to pass up on a chance with the woman I had been in love with for far longer.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said with standoffish shrug.

“I’m sort of glad though, that they got married, because if Hermione had noticed me sooner, I probably would have given up Charlie to be with her. I mean, it’s terrible what happened to Hermione, and I know it’s terrible of me to say that I would have left Charlie, but I was still a bigoted arse back then, and was still trying to get used to the idea that I was with a guy. I didn’t even want to think about what my father would have said…which proved to be good instinct, since he practically disowned me,” Draco said with a chuckle.

“So, Draco came crawling back to me, whining about how he wouldn’t ever want to be with anyone else and all that rot. So I just said, ‘If you’re serious about that, then let’s get married.’”

“Which I still don’t understand!” Kelly said. “Same sex marriages are not legal.”

Charlie and Draco grinned at each other. “That’s the same thing I said,” Draco smiled.

“But it is legal. In Romania, at least. They condone a lot more there than they do in Britain,” Charlie said. “So same sex is legal there if one of the wizards is a Romanian citizen. Mind you, I’d already been there for ten years, and was planning on staying, so I had my citizenship.”

“So we made a date for a couple of months later. Charlie asked Bill to be his witness and I asked Hermione to be mine.”

“You asked Hermione?” Jessica asked.

“Well, we were friends by then. It had been a few months and we talked fairly often. I didn’t think it would be too bad for her to be at my wedding. Even though I wasn’t invited to hers…” He left the statement hanging in mock accusation.

Hermione ignored him. “When I got to the chapel in Romania, I was completely shocked to find Bill at the church. Whenever Draco talked about his lover, he always said ‘Charlie’ and never ‘he or she,’ so I always assumed he was talking about a girl. But when I met up with Bill and he said Charlie was getting married, I was completely shocked that Draco was getting married to not only a guy, but a Weasley.”

“So you two got married, and lived happily ever after?” Kelly asked with adoration in her eyes.

“Well, we did have the problem of Charlie still living far away, but he solved that by moving to Scotland a year later. That was after Hermione joined us though. And that was a problem in itself. Fighting about whether we should just take the Weasel out, or if we should really spend the time writing the law. It killed us to know that Hermione was being hurt, but to do anything about it would only cause her more pain.” Draco held her hand as he said this.

“And that brings us full circle,” Charlie said.

Ginny, Jessica and Kelly were all just staring at them and smiling dreamily. Harry looked at his watch, though, and groaned. “Gin, Fiona’s going to kill us if we’re home late again.”

Ginny pulled herself from her reverie. “Oh, all right. I suppose we should be going.”

“Us as well,” Daniel, Kelly’s boyfriend, said.

They all stood up and helped put everything in the kitchen to put away. Hermione did the dishes while the others cleaned up the dining room. They all said their goodbyes until it was just Hermione, Draco, Charlie, and Jessica left.

“Well, have you kept your end of the bargain?” Draco asked Jessica.

“I haven’t told a soul,” she promised.

“Then I guess it’s time we keep ours,” he said. He pointed into the bedroom. “Bedroom’s that way.”