Harry Potter Comment Fics
Okay, here's the rest of tonight's offerings at At The Close Comment Fic. I wonder if I got this out of my system yet or if I'll be back at it instead of working on things that are DUE! And now I should go to bed because that is where I need to be at this hour!
Title: Rapt Attention
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Marietta Edgecomb
Word Count: 395
Prompt:marietta edgecomb, [second war]
Comeback in broad day/To the same place, the same face, the same brute /Amused shout:
‘A miracle!’/That knocks me out. /There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
Author's Note: For Aster.
She watched the buildup from the sidelines. While Marietta may have been considered a traitor by some, she didn't back down from a fight. Besides, there wasn't anyone to go home to. No one cared if she lived or if she died. Mother had been dead for years and Father... well, he was crazy. Everyone said so. Said Lizabeth Edgecomb's death pushed him over the edge. Of course, they don't know that he was crazy before. Or that he was the one to kill her. He was allowed to live out the rest of his life locked in his house instead of Azkaban. That was the deal she'd made.
Everyone was buzzing that Harry Potter was back at the school but Marietta wasn't sure she cared. Everyone watched the unfolding drama with rapt attention but her eyes were on the others. On the ones who watched Harry defy authority yet again. They wanted her to think they were looking forward but she saw their eyes twitch to the side or the way they peered at her over their shoulders as if she wouldn't notice. She felt every glance these days, her hair kept straight as if it could keep them from seeing the past. These days, she'd given up the remedies and potions that lined the inside of her trunk. She was who she was. Best not to try to change that.
Besides, her scars were a testimony that kept harm away. The Carrows actually smiled when they passed her. Here is a girl who will fight on our side, their looks seemed to say. Wouldn't they be surprised when they discovered she wasn't on their side.
She wasn't on Harry Potter's side either. She was, and always had been, on her own side. While she lifted her wand to help defend the school that was her only home, she wasn't doing it for the same reason as everyone else. Or maybe she was. Her only goal was to see an end to this particular war. That meant there would be a future in which she could deal with every single one of these people who stared at her and whispered behind her back, calling her names and making faces as she passed. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But there would be a reckoning of the debts owed to her. She was a traitor. Not an idiot.
Title: A Way Around Forever
Fandom: Harry Potter - AU
Characters: Severus/Lily
Word Count: 684
Prompt:Severus/Lily; first war; and I'm ten years old and you're beautiful as you swing. for 10millionpeople
Death Eaters didn't scare Lily. Warped wizards bent on total destruction never gave her pause. She was prepared to laugh in the face of anyone walking toward her with a raised wand. Let them come! She was ready for them.
What kept her up nights, her body quaking with repressed sobs, was the thought of not sharing her life with Severus. He was treating this like it was all her fault, that her desire for a normal life was a betrayal of him somehow. When she'd thrown those words at him, she'd meant she wanted that with him, as if she could make him change who he was. Those Slytherin green robes had become everything to him these last few years. He wanted fame and power and Merlin knew what else.
All she wanted was him. Well, that wasn't exactly all she wanted. What she desired the most, above all else, was a family. A whole group of boys and girls with her eyes and his lovely, dark hair that curled ever so slightly at the ends because he was bound and determined to keep it long. Sometimes she saw the beautiful boy he'd once been still peering up through the strands, his loneliness still so evident after all the years of her friendship. He needed their future children just as much as she did. The only problem with having all those children was that they would need a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. He'd seemed unprepared to do more than stay hunched over that infernal potions book of his, lost in the exact ingredients and precise movements needed for these spells and potions that would make him famous.
Before she had a chance to say anything to him, he was gone. No one knew where he was, only that he'd been swept up into the coming conflict with everyone else. But what side, she wondered, making herself ill as she tried to piece together everything he'd said recently.
And then he was striding through the door. "They're coming for you," he panted but she didn't care that his face was ashen. Her kiss found it's mark, unerring for all the practice she'd had over the years. He fought at first but finally gave in, his lips consuming hers with a built up passion that outpaced hers, but not for long. Lily fought to get her hands free so that she could begin unbuttoning his robes. In a heartbeat, she was captured again.
"No. They're coming for you. They want my help but know that I won't give it to them unless I have a good reason. They want to hold you prisoner until I help them."
The truth was in his eyes but so was the passion, banked but still flaring to life on the edges of his awareness. That was all she needed. Taking his hand in hers, she smiled. "Then we run. They can't hurt either of us if they can't find us."
***
The laughter filtered in through the doorway. Three young boys played on a swing, battling each other for true supremacy of the toy. Only two had dark hair, worn short to keep the curls at bay. The third bound up his straight, reddish-brown hair to keep it out of his eyes, just like his Papa. Lily put down the dust cloth for a moment, watching her boys with hungry eyes. Her family. It had taken years of running just one step ahead of those that wanted Sev's secrets but they'd finally gained their freedom. Severus still laboured over his cauldron, mixing and muttering as he struggled to find just the right ingredients but he wasn't looking for power or prestige any longer. His sights were set a little lower, but still noble all the same. The terrible war had taken a toll on everyone and now the hospitals were full of the wounded that needed the potions that her husband concocted.
Patting her rounding stomach, putting out yet another wish for a little girl with snapping black eyes, Lily picked up her dust cloth and went back to work.
Title: Something Stupid
Fandom: Harry Potter - AU
Characters: Charlie/Tonks
Word Count: 2115
Prompt:Charlie/Tonks + Teddy - post war - You conquered me when you let me be/When you let me be by muir_wolf
Author's Note: Another one for Aster. She knows why.
They'd had a lifetime together before Remus had come along, inspiring her to be more than she was. The first time he walked into the Weasley kitchen, Tonks had decided then and there she wanted to learn the man's life story. He'd told her, but only after she'd pulled it from him, bit by painful bit. Their whole relationship had been like that, a series of painful talks piled up between painful silences. She had won him over to her way of thinking and it had been wonderful. Painful, but wonderful.
Charlie had been against the idea from the start but she'd talked him into it, too. He'd left her, after all. All she was doing was filling the void while he was off taking care of dragons. Her letters were full of the stories, all of them glorified and altered so that her life seemed something a bit better than anything she could have had as Mrs. Charlie Weasley. Molly kept her secrets instead of telling her son the truth, trying her best to talk Tonks out of her crazy ideas but she had a fondness for the fellow and wanted him to be happy. That she'd always figured that happiness would have come with Sirius Black was one of those things she pondered as she stirred the soup or kept up with the darning or rolled bandages. She wasn't often wrong about matters of the heart. When her son had come home with the ragged girl with the blue hair the summer after his first year of school, she'd accepted her into the family and assumed... but she'd been wrong. Twice.
For all the letters he sent to his friend, Charlie kept his distance. This was her life and her mistake to make. When he found out about the baby, he sent along a package of things he'd picked up on excursions around the country. That he'd always figured to use them for his own child only tore at his heart a little. Tonks deserved the best and he was going to make sure she got it, even if it was the last thing he ever did in this life.
"I thought there was something between the two of you," Bill muttered at his wedding, sizing up the crowd as he talked to his best man quietly. "You and she were inseparable."
"Time and distance." It was all he could say. He'd been wrong to leave so abruptly but it had felt right. And she'd promised to come visit and he'd figured he'd show her around and she'd fall in love with the place just as he had and he'd pop the question and that would be that. She'd never come. Nothing had worked out as it should have.
The rumours reached him with the speed of dragon's wings and he was just as quick to respond. The Order was in trouble and he was needed. The head of the organisation wanted nothing to do with his talk of insurrection and refused any offer of help. The old Charlie might have let the man talk him out of his plan but there was a Charlie buried down deep that was suddenly doing his talking and thinking. This new Charlie offered up his resignation and handed over his entire savings in the same breath. Down payment on the Baltic Blue that he was going to fly off the compound as if he had the right to her. No one stopped him but no one else was coming. His help would have to be enough.
The shower of sparks from the plethora of spells was his guide the last hour. Evidence of the battle was imprinted on the back of his eyelids when he blinked, imprinting on his memory so that he was shaking with anticipation by the time he got close enough to help. The castle looked in bad shape, flickering fires adding to the chaos of tumbling debris. While he should have stopped to help at the first sign of a struggle, he went looking for Tonks. She was the reason he was here and so he would make his stand with her. His fight had never been with Remus. Whatever made her happy was what he wanted for her. The least he could do was demonstrate that to her.
Above the rumble of the battle, he could make out, surprisingly, a familiar scream. Turning the dragon's head, he raced toward the sound. Reacting on instinct, he threw a spell at the dark-haired woman with her wand pointed at Tonks. When she crumpled, he landed the dragon and jumped from her back to join Tonks on the ground.
"'Bout time," she muttered, her smile so bright and bold that he couldn't help but send one back to her as full of mischief.
"Had to save you, now didn't I?"
They bantered back and forth as they cleared the area of Death Eaters, not bothering with topics like where her husband was or why she was fighting in this damned fight when she had a baby waiting for her at home. He almost preferred not to know the answer to either question. As always, he just let Tonks be Tonks and followed along beside her.
When he held her quivering form against his chest, the tears dampening his shirt, he had the answer to one of his questions. When he flew her back to their house and Mrs. Tonks greeted them at the door with a baby bouncing in her arms, he had his second answer. He meant to leave her as soon as he got her home safely but the dragon had discovered a thicket of trees that it had taken a liking to and Teddy seemed to enjoy having his around. As much as a baby could, that was. He stopped crying when Charlie came in the room and, considering how much the kid cried, that was a special power that everyone was happy he had.
Months went by and Tonks mourned. As Charlie watched her cheeks grow pale and her eyes lose their luster, he wondered if she'd regretted the fact that he'd come along and saved her when she could have very well ended up beside her husband on the floor of the Great Hall. He supplied a never-ending supply of dragon trivia to ease the silences, never following after her when she left the room even though he ached to ease some of her pain. Instead, he bunked out in a small bedroom at the end of the hall. It might have once been a broom closet but it was better than the lumpy couch and he could close the door and pretend he couldn't hear her crying.
And then one day, Tonks threaded her arm through his. "Take me up on that great beasty that keeps eating Mum's roses, will you?"
The blue was beside herself to be able to show off, gliding through the air as if there was nothing to flying. He thought he heard Tonks laugh but that could have been the roaring of his blood in his ears as he realized that he hadn't ever held onto Tonks quite this tightly, her backside fitting against him far more snuggly than was comfortable. When they landed, she thanked him for the ride and went about the rest of her day as if he'd been a traveling dragon rider looking for a quick customer before he rode back into the clouds.
It happened again three days later but this time he laid a kiss on her neck when the wind blew her hair out above her head. She didn't seem to notice so he didn't say anything. The next time she asked, he let her go up alone because he didn't think he could handle being that close to her and not being able to do anything about it. She'd demurred and nothing was said again about riding dragons. The blue went back to her thicket and grew fat on roses.
Charlie thought about packing up his stuff and riding her off into the sunset but he didn't have anywhere else to go. Mum and Dad would have taken him back but that smacked of being thirteen all over again. He'd grown accustomed to being his own man, even if he'd been tethered by a girl with hair that was beginning to change colour regularly again. Teddy needed him. There'd be no other man about the house if he left.
Then came the night when the door to his tiny room creaked open. "Charlie?"
"Yeah," he grunted, trying to figure out if talking to a dream made it evaporate into smoke.
"Would you mind... could I... that is, I was wondering-"
"Come on, if you're coming." He held the covers up and attempted to scoot over as much as he could on the narrow bed. "You're letting in all the cold air."
She snuggled up against him, all the parts of her body fitting perfectly against his so that any plans he had for sleeping evaporated into the chill of the night air. When she kissed the base of his neck and let out a contented sigh, he tried not to stiffen. Now his duties seemed to be bed comforter. If that's what she needed, that's what he'd give her. Try as he might, all the reminders that Tonks needed time to heal weren't helping his tense muscles unloosen. He was crazy for not tucking her in and sleeping on the rickety chair in the corner.
Just when he thought she was asleep, she stirred. "Charlie?"
He didn't bother with words, only grunting his answer to her question. If she didn't realize he was awake, she didn't understand men at all.
"Have I thanked you for... well, for being you?"
"Not lately. Don't suppose the right moment has come up for that sort of appreciation. I'm a fan of you, too."
She shook her head, the silken strands of her hair rubbing against his neck. "Not like that. You could have left me here and flew off, back to your life. Staying here with two old women and a baby can't have been easy."
"You're not old, Tonks."
Her sigh fanned the fire that threatened to consume his body from the inside out. "I feel like it sometimes. Do you remember when we were kids? We had such fun times, you and me. I've been remembering those times a lot lately."
"Teddy's getting to that age when you should have stories to tell him. Our exploits certainly make for entertaining bedtime stories."
"Not those times." Her voice was so soft he was afraid he was imagining it. "The other times. The... kisses."
He'd been young and foolish, thinking those kisses would garner him promises of a future together with the girl he fancied he was in love with. That hadn't been love back then, though. He wasn't sure if what he felt now was love. Stupid, was more like it. "Kissing you was always nice."
Tonks laid her lips against his neck. "Yes. I liked it very much. And then... I was afraid you didn't want me anymore. That the kisses had just been something that boys did. I let myself believe that you didn't love me. That you had abandoned me." He rumbled a reply but she laid a finger against his mouth, shutting him up quite effectively. "Let me finish. I let myself believe that I was in love with Remus. And I was. In a way. You never once fought me and I figured you agreed even though you did try, in your subtle way, to make me see reason. And now you're here, subtle once again. But I understand now. You were letting me be me. Everyone else always tried to change me, Remus included, but you always let me be exactly who I wanted to be."
He kissed her finger before pressing her hand against his chest. "You always let me be who I was meant to be. Figured I was just returning the favour. And I do, you know. Love you. But you don't have to worry that I'm going to do anything stupid."
"What if I want you to do something stupid?" Her knee pushed between legs. When he swallowed thickly, she laughed. "Please, Charlie. Do something stupid."
This time he didn't hesitate. This time, he was going to get the girl and the dragon. The whole package. House, baby, mother-in-law still in residence not thirty feet from where he was prepared to act very stupidly indeed. And several times if she would let him. This was exactly what he'd always wanted from his life, he just hadn't realized it before.
Title: Rapt Attention
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Marietta Edgecomb
Word Count: 395
Prompt:marietta edgecomb, [second war]
Comeback in broad day/To the same place, the same face, the same brute /Amused shout:
‘A miracle!’/That knocks me out. /There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
Author's Note: For Aster.
She watched the buildup from the sidelines. While Marietta may have been considered a traitor by some, she didn't back down from a fight. Besides, there wasn't anyone to go home to. No one cared if she lived or if she died. Mother had been dead for years and Father... well, he was crazy. Everyone said so. Said Lizabeth Edgecomb's death pushed him over the edge. Of course, they don't know that he was crazy before. Or that he was the one to kill her. He was allowed to live out the rest of his life locked in his house instead of Azkaban. That was the deal she'd made.
Everyone was buzzing that Harry Potter was back at the school but Marietta wasn't sure she cared. Everyone watched the unfolding drama with rapt attention but her eyes were on the others. On the ones who watched Harry defy authority yet again. They wanted her to think they were looking forward but she saw their eyes twitch to the side or the way they peered at her over their shoulders as if she wouldn't notice. She felt every glance these days, her hair kept straight as if it could keep them from seeing the past. These days, she'd given up the remedies and potions that lined the inside of her trunk. She was who she was. Best not to try to change that.
Besides, her scars were a testimony that kept harm away. The Carrows actually smiled when they passed her. Here is a girl who will fight on our side, their looks seemed to say. Wouldn't they be surprised when they discovered she wasn't on their side.
She wasn't on Harry Potter's side either. She was, and always had been, on her own side. While she lifted her wand to help defend the school that was her only home, she wasn't doing it for the same reason as everyone else. Or maybe she was. Her only goal was to see an end to this particular war. That meant there would be a future in which she could deal with every single one of these people who stared at her and whispered behind her back, calling her names and making faces as she passed. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But there would be a reckoning of the debts owed to her. She was a traitor. Not an idiot.
Title: A Way Around Forever
Fandom: Harry Potter - AU
Characters: Severus/Lily
Word Count: 684
Prompt:Severus/Lily; first war; and I'm ten years old and you're beautiful as you swing. for 10millionpeople
Death Eaters didn't scare Lily. Warped wizards bent on total destruction never gave her pause. She was prepared to laugh in the face of anyone walking toward her with a raised wand. Let them come! She was ready for them.
What kept her up nights, her body quaking with repressed sobs, was the thought of not sharing her life with Severus. He was treating this like it was all her fault, that her desire for a normal life was a betrayal of him somehow. When she'd thrown those words at him, she'd meant she wanted that with him, as if she could make him change who he was. Those Slytherin green robes had become everything to him these last few years. He wanted fame and power and Merlin knew what else.
All she wanted was him. Well, that wasn't exactly all she wanted. What she desired the most, above all else, was a family. A whole group of boys and girls with her eyes and his lovely, dark hair that curled ever so slightly at the ends because he was bound and determined to keep it long. Sometimes she saw the beautiful boy he'd once been still peering up through the strands, his loneliness still so evident after all the years of her friendship. He needed their future children just as much as she did. The only problem with having all those children was that they would need a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. He'd seemed unprepared to do more than stay hunched over that infernal potions book of his, lost in the exact ingredients and precise movements needed for these spells and potions that would make him famous.
Before she had a chance to say anything to him, he was gone. No one knew where he was, only that he'd been swept up into the coming conflict with everyone else. But what side, she wondered, making herself ill as she tried to piece together everything he'd said recently.
And then he was striding through the door. "They're coming for you," he panted but she didn't care that his face was ashen. Her kiss found it's mark, unerring for all the practice she'd had over the years. He fought at first but finally gave in, his lips consuming hers with a built up passion that outpaced hers, but not for long. Lily fought to get her hands free so that she could begin unbuttoning his robes. In a heartbeat, she was captured again.
"No. They're coming for you. They want my help but know that I won't give it to them unless I have a good reason. They want to hold you prisoner until I help them."
The truth was in his eyes but so was the passion, banked but still flaring to life on the edges of his awareness. That was all she needed. Taking his hand in hers, she smiled. "Then we run. They can't hurt either of us if they can't find us."
***
The laughter filtered in through the doorway. Three young boys played on a swing, battling each other for true supremacy of the toy. Only two had dark hair, worn short to keep the curls at bay. The third bound up his straight, reddish-brown hair to keep it out of his eyes, just like his Papa. Lily put down the dust cloth for a moment, watching her boys with hungry eyes. Her family. It had taken years of running just one step ahead of those that wanted Sev's secrets but they'd finally gained their freedom. Severus still laboured over his cauldron, mixing and muttering as he struggled to find just the right ingredients but he wasn't looking for power or prestige any longer. His sights were set a little lower, but still noble all the same. The terrible war had taken a toll on everyone and now the hospitals were full of the wounded that needed the potions that her husband concocted.
Patting her rounding stomach, putting out yet another wish for a little girl with snapping black eyes, Lily picked up her dust cloth and went back to work.
Title: Something Stupid
Fandom: Harry Potter - AU
Characters: Charlie/Tonks
Word Count: 2115
Prompt:Charlie/Tonks + Teddy - post war - You conquered me when you let me be/When you let me be by muir_wolf
Author's Note: Another one for Aster. She knows why.
They'd had a lifetime together before Remus had come along, inspiring her to be more than she was. The first time he walked into the Weasley kitchen, Tonks had decided then and there she wanted to learn the man's life story. He'd told her, but only after she'd pulled it from him, bit by painful bit. Their whole relationship had been like that, a series of painful talks piled up between painful silences. She had won him over to her way of thinking and it had been wonderful. Painful, but wonderful.
Charlie had been against the idea from the start but she'd talked him into it, too. He'd left her, after all. All she was doing was filling the void while he was off taking care of dragons. Her letters were full of the stories, all of them glorified and altered so that her life seemed something a bit better than anything she could have had as Mrs. Charlie Weasley. Molly kept her secrets instead of telling her son the truth, trying her best to talk Tonks out of her crazy ideas but she had a fondness for the fellow and wanted him to be happy. That she'd always figured that happiness would have come with Sirius Black was one of those things she pondered as she stirred the soup or kept up with the darning or rolled bandages. She wasn't often wrong about matters of the heart. When her son had come home with the ragged girl with the blue hair the summer after his first year of school, she'd accepted her into the family and assumed... but she'd been wrong. Twice.
For all the letters he sent to his friend, Charlie kept his distance. This was her life and her mistake to make. When he found out about the baby, he sent along a package of things he'd picked up on excursions around the country. That he'd always figured to use them for his own child only tore at his heart a little. Tonks deserved the best and he was going to make sure she got it, even if it was the last thing he ever did in this life.
"I thought there was something between the two of you," Bill muttered at his wedding, sizing up the crowd as he talked to his best man quietly. "You and she were inseparable."
"Time and distance." It was all he could say. He'd been wrong to leave so abruptly but it had felt right. And she'd promised to come visit and he'd figured he'd show her around and she'd fall in love with the place just as he had and he'd pop the question and that would be that. She'd never come. Nothing had worked out as it should have.
The rumours reached him with the speed of dragon's wings and he was just as quick to respond. The Order was in trouble and he was needed. The head of the organisation wanted nothing to do with his talk of insurrection and refused any offer of help. The old Charlie might have let the man talk him out of his plan but there was a Charlie buried down deep that was suddenly doing his talking and thinking. This new Charlie offered up his resignation and handed over his entire savings in the same breath. Down payment on the Baltic Blue that he was going to fly off the compound as if he had the right to her. No one stopped him but no one else was coming. His help would have to be enough.
The shower of sparks from the plethora of spells was his guide the last hour. Evidence of the battle was imprinted on the back of his eyelids when he blinked, imprinting on his memory so that he was shaking with anticipation by the time he got close enough to help. The castle looked in bad shape, flickering fires adding to the chaos of tumbling debris. While he should have stopped to help at the first sign of a struggle, he went looking for Tonks. She was the reason he was here and so he would make his stand with her. His fight had never been with Remus. Whatever made her happy was what he wanted for her. The least he could do was demonstrate that to her.
Above the rumble of the battle, he could make out, surprisingly, a familiar scream. Turning the dragon's head, he raced toward the sound. Reacting on instinct, he threw a spell at the dark-haired woman with her wand pointed at Tonks. When she crumpled, he landed the dragon and jumped from her back to join Tonks on the ground.
"'Bout time," she muttered, her smile so bright and bold that he couldn't help but send one back to her as full of mischief.
"Had to save you, now didn't I?"
They bantered back and forth as they cleared the area of Death Eaters, not bothering with topics like where her husband was or why she was fighting in this damned fight when she had a baby waiting for her at home. He almost preferred not to know the answer to either question. As always, he just let Tonks be Tonks and followed along beside her.
When he held her quivering form against his chest, the tears dampening his shirt, he had the answer to one of his questions. When he flew her back to their house and Mrs. Tonks greeted them at the door with a baby bouncing in her arms, he had his second answer. He meant to leave her as soon as he got her home safely but the dragon had discovered a thicket of trees that it had taken a liking to and Teddy seemed to enjoy having his around. As much as a baby could, that was. He stopped crying when Charlie came in the room and, considering how much the kid cried, that was a special power that everyone was happy he had.
Months went by and Tonks mourned. As Charlie watched her cheeks grow pale and her eyes lose their luster, he wondered if she'd regretted the fact that he'd come along and saved her when she could have very well ended up beside her husband on the floor of the Great Hall. He supplied a never-ending supply of dragon trivia to ease the silences, never following after her when she left the room even though he ached to ease some of her pain. Instead, he bunked out in a small bedroom at the end of the hall. It might have once been a broom closet but it was better than the lumpy couch and he could close the door and pretend he couldn't hear her crying.
And then one day, Tonks threaded her arm through his. "Take me up on that great beasty that keeps eating Mum's roses, will you?"
The blue was beside herself to be able to show off, gliding through the air as if there was nothing to flying. He thought he heard Tonks laugh but that could have been the roaring of his blood in his ears as he realized that he hadn't ever held onto Tonks quite this tightly, her backside fitting against him far more snuggly than was comfortable. When they landed, she thanked him for the ride and went about the rest of her day as if he'd been a traveling dragon rider looking for a quick customer before he rode back into the clouds.
It happened again three days later but this time he laid a kiss on her neck when the wind blew her hair out above her head. She didn't seem to notice so he didn't say anything. The next time she asked, he let her go up alone because he didn't think he could handle being that close to her and not being able to do anything about it. She'd demurred and nothing was said again about riding dragons. The blue went back to her thicket and grew fat on roses.
Charlie thought about packing up his stuff and riding her off into the sunset but he didn't have anywhere else to go. Mum and Dad would have taken him back but that smacked of being thirteen all over again. He'd grown accustomed to being his own man, even if he'd been tethered by a girl with hair that was beginning to change colour regularly again. Teddy needed him. There'd be no other man about the house if he left.
Then came the night when the door to his tiny room creaked open. "Charlie?"
"Yeah," he grunted, trying to figure out if talking to a dream made it evaporate into smoke.
"Would you mind... could I... that is, I was wondering-"
"Come on, if you're coming." He held the covers up and attempted to scoot over as much as he could on the narrow bed. "You're letting in all the cold air."
She snuggled up against him, all the parts of her body fitting perfectly against his so that any plans he had for sleeping evaporated into the chill of the night air. When she kissed the base of his neck and let out a contented sigh, he tried not to stiffen. Now his duties seemed to be bed comforter. If that's what she needed, that's what he'd give her. Try as he might, all the reminders that Tonks needed time to heal weren't helping his tense muscles unloosen. He was crazy for not tucking her in and sleeping on the rickety chair in the corner.
Just when he thought she was asleep, she stirred. "Charlie?"
He didn't bother with words, only grunting his answer to her question. If she didn't realize he was awake, she didn't understand men at all.
"Have I thanked you for... well, for being you?"
"Not lately. Don't suppose the right moment has come up for that sort of appreciation. I'm a fan of you, too."
She shook her head, the silken strands of her hair rubbing against his neck. "Not like that. You could have left me here and flew off, back to your life. Staying here with two old women and a baby can't have been easy."
"You're not old, Tonks."
Her sigh fanned the fire that threatened to consume his body from the inside out. "I feel like it sometimes. Do you remember when we were kids? We had such fun times, you and me. I've been remembering those times a lot lately."
"Teddy's getting to that age when you should have stories to tell him. Our exploits certainly make for entertaining bedtime stories."
"Not those times." Her voice was so soft he was afraid he was imagining it. "The other times. The... kisses."
He'd been young and foolish, thinking those kisses would garner him promises of a future together with the girl he fancied he was in love with. That hadn't been love back then, though. He wasn't sure if what he felt now was love. Stupid, was more like it. "Kissing you was always nice."
Tonks laid her lips against his neck. "Yes. I liked it very much. And then... I was afraid you didn't want me anymore. That the kisses had just been something that boys did. I let myself believe that you didn't love me. That you had abandoned me." He rumbled a reply but she laid a finger against his mouth, shutting him up quite effectively. "Let me finish. I let myself believe that I was in love with Remus. And I was. In a way. You never once fought me and I figured you agreed even though you did try, in your subtle way, to make me see reason. And now you're here, subtle once again. But I understand now. You were letting me be me. Everyone else always tried to change me, Remus included, but you always let me be exactly who I wanted to be."
He kissed her finger before pressing her hand against his chest. "You always let me be who I was meant to be. Figured I was just returning the favour. And I do, you know. Love you. But you don't have to worry that I'm going to do anything stupid."
"What if I want you to do something stupid?" Her knee pushed between legs. When he swallowed thickly, she laughed. "Please, Charlie. Do something stupid."
This time he didn't hesitate. This time, he was going to get the girl and the dragon. The whole package. House, baby, mother-in-law still in residence not thirty feet from where he was prepared to act very stupidly indeed. And several times if she would let him. This was exactly what he'd always wanted from his life, he just hadn't realized it before.