Work Text:
Weasley: Charlie
Winter Theme: Sleigh Ride
Trope: Secret Admirer
A shocked silence fell on the Weasley kitchen, leaving only the sound of the knives chopping vegetables and the pots bubbling away over the fire.
The faces around them - in any other context - would have been hilarious. Ron's face was redder than his hair, Ginny's eyes were so wide they looked ready to fall out of their head, and mum's jaw was practically on the floor.
No one moved or spoke for what felt like an age, and his partner's hand began to twitch in his, belying their nerves despite their perfect poker face.
In the end, it was dad who broke the silence.
"So," he said, "when did this start, then?"
Charlie opened his mouth to say "last year" at the same time as his partner said, "fourth year".
Charlie's mouth dropped open as he, too, was stunned into silence.
Fourth year?
Charlie turned sharply to look at them. A bright red blush was creeping down their neck and up into their hairline, and their panicked eyes met his. They clearly hadn't meant to say that.
Charlie smirked down at them, momentarily forgetting their increasingly shocked audience. "Fourth year, hm?"
Draco flushed a deeper red, and Charlie was helpless but to reach up and cup their heated cheek in his rough palm. "You been admirin' me that long, sweet?"
They shrugged. "Guess you made an impression," Draco mumbled shyly.
Charlie's grin softened into something much less smug and far more adoring, and Draco's eyes dropped to their feet, embarrassed by the attention.
"Oi, lovebirds!" Fred called, breaking the moment. "We're still here, y'know."
"Fourth year, Charlie?" George chimed in, miming clutching his non-existent pearls. "You've been dating mini-Malfoy since Fourth Year?"
Draco's head snapped up, and they drew themselves up to their full height.
"It's Black," they snapped. "Draco Black. I walked away from the Malfoy name when I joined your little Order of the Chicken and saved your arse, if you remember?"
George, to his credit, looked suitably ashamed, and stepped forward to offer Draco his hand.
"Sorry, Mini-Black. Welcome to the family."
Draco glanced up at Charlie, who nodded reassuringly, before taking George's hand and shaking it sharply once.
George grinned. "So, you been bumping uglies with my big brother since Fourth year, eh?"
A wooden spoon flew across the kitchen and whacked the back of George's head with a resounding *crack*. Charlie could've sworn it was his mother, though he never saw her move.
George flinched and rubbed his sore scalp, but didn't back down, leering playfully at Draco as he waited for their reply.
Charlie was ready to defend Draco's honor, but they didn't need his help.
They flicked their soft blonde hair over one shoulder and rolled their eyes. "Merlin, Thing Two, I'm not that easy. It took him years before he was allowed to," their nose scrunched delicately, "as you say, 'bump my ugly'. As if there is anything ugly about me, please."
Charlie conveyed his pride with smile and a meaning-laden glance at Draco as the tension in the room broke, and everyone burst into giggles - even mum, though she turned around on the pretext of checking the stew to hide it.
He saw some of the tension bleed out of their shoulders, and even more ebb away as his hand found the small of their back.
"So," Ginny piped up, eyes full of mischief, "how did ickle fourteen year old Draco end up falling in love with my big, tattooed, dragon-tamer brother?"
Draco's blush returned full-force, but Charlie was just as interested as the rest of his family to hear this story.
"As you said," they replied cheekily, "he was a big, tattooed dragon tamer... and I am, after all, a dragon."
*~*
It was snowing in Hogsmeade. What had started as a light, festive flurry had progressed to thick snowfall, obscuring both ends of the High Street from view, and making it increasingly difficult to trudge through the snowdrifts.
There was no way Charlie was going to walk all the way back to the castle, especially not with his coat weighed down with Christmas gifts for every member of his massive family, plus Harry Potter, a few friends from the reserve, and the Tonks'.
The thestrals had been put away - likely in an effort not to completely terrify the visiting students - and instead the school was providing horse drawn sleighs to ferry the students and other visitors to and from the castle. It was all a bit too cutesy and festive for Charlie, whose idea of Yultide joy was a firewhiskey and a mince pie, but he couldn’t deny he appreciated their practicality. Back turned to the heavily falling snow and bitter wind, Charlie held out a hand to a passing sleigh which slid to a stop beside him.
Grateful for the shelter from the cold, Scottish winter, Charlie slid into the warm cabin and -
*~*
"Landed right on top of me, the oaf!" Draco declared, full of mock offence. "Just let himself right into my sleigh, no manners at all, and sat right on top of me!"
Charlie chuckled at his little dragon's rather elaborate style of storytelling, but didn't make any move to correct them. Let them have their dramatic flair; it was one of the things he loved about them.
*~*
-collided with a much smaller, softer body. Before he could apologise, a high, haughty tone cracked through the carriage like a whip.
"Excuse you, this is my carriage, if you don't mind."
Charlie shifted so he was no longer pressed up against the student, and looked exaggeratedly around the dimly lit sleigh. "Huh. Don't see your name on it," he said, "guess we'll have to share."
The kid was barely knee high to a garden gnome and looked like a stiff breeze could break him in half, but he still somehow managed to look down his nose at Charlie.
"I don't share with commoners."
Charlie chuckled. "Good thing I'm not one, eh?"
He wasn't surprised at all to note the student was in traditional wizarding robes - a pureblood, clearly, and from the look of him...
"Draco Malfoy, I assume?"
The kid's chin jutted out further. "Obviously," he drawled, in a fair imitation of the Hogwarts' potions master, and Charlie bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Oh, yes, this little firecracker was every bit as precocious as his mother described him, and while his hair was Lucius', his face and mannerisms were all Narcissa.
Not that Charlie would breathe a word of that to him. The fact that Lady Malfoy was a frequent visitor to the Tonks home was a closely guarded secret. But if he used some of the information he'd gleaned on her son, well...
Charlie held out his hand. "Charles," he said, "dragon keeper."
Draco's eyes lit up, though his facial expression didn't change. He took Charlie's hand, shaking it sharply once. His hands were tiny, completely engulfed by Charlie's large, work-worn ones, and a soft blush stole across his high cheekbones.
Adorable, Charlie's mind supplied. This kid is adorable.
"Are you here for the Tournament?" Draco enquired, his tone politely disinterested, and Charlie didn't buy it for a moment.
"I am. I brought the dragons over from Romania, and now I'm helping out with handling the other magical creatures for the tasks." Working alongside Hagrid, while nowhere near as thrilling as dragon-wrangling, was proving to be both enjoyable and fulfilling. Perhaps, when his body was no longer quite as young and resilient, he'd consider taking on a Groundskeeper job himself.
Draco couldn't hide the gleam in his eyes at the mention of dragons, and Charlie let a small smile break through his calm facade.
"Do you enjoy working with dragons?" the boy asked, and Charlie grinned.
"Wouldn't'a done it this long if I didn't," he said, "and with a name like Draco, I'm guessing you know a fair bit about dragons, yourself?" It was a bit of a risk, tipping his hand like that; he knew full well Draco loved dragons almost as much as he did himself.
The boy's mask cracked for the first time, a tiny smile stealing across his face. "I know a thing or two," he admitted, coolly. "Enough to know that pitting teenagers against a Hungarian Horntail is a terrible idea."
Charlie chuckled and tipped his head in agreement -
*~*
"And then, on top of bringing up my favorite magical creatures, and sitting there, all charming and muscled and tattooed, do you know what he calls me?" Draco asked, arms flailing angrily towards Charlie to accentuate his point.
Charlie grinned back unashamedly. It was the first time he'd ever called Draco that, but it certainly wasn't the last.
*~*
"I told them the exact same thing, little dragon," Charlie agreed, delighted to have an ally. Even his fellow dragon handlers had talked down his misgivings.
The boy blushed bright red from his neck to his hairline before Charlie realised what he had said.
He'd spent too long hearing Narcissa call him that. Shit.
Before Charlie could come up with a half-assed excuse, the sleigh slid to a stop and the door opened.
Charlie wasn't proud of what he did, not at all, but he was a terrible liar.
So he winked at the adorably confused boy, grinned, and whispered, "bye, little dragon".
*~*
"-and then he just... disappeared." Draco turned to Charlie, all kitten-soft fury, and jabbed their finger into his chest. Charlie pretended to flinch. "I was fourteen, Charles! Do you know what a wink and a nickname from a dragon tamer did to a fourteen year old Draco?!"
Charlie shrugged, unabashed. He'd not been flirting with fourteen year old Draco; at the time, he'd just seen him as an adorable potential protégé. But... "I know what they do to a twenty-four year old Draco." And then he winked.
The smack on the arm he got for his efforts was worth it.
The laughter and wolf-whistles from his family, even more so.
And if that serendipitous sleigh ride ten years ago was what had brought him to where he was now, standing in his parents' kitchen, surrounded by family, with a ring in his pocket... Well, every bit of it was worth it.