I watched her read to our daughter from her favorite storybook. It was a Muggle one her parents had given her when Charlotte was born.
Although she had heard the story at least a dozen times before, she still gazed up at her mother with rapt attention in her bright blue eyes—my eyes. Although she had read the story to her daughter at least a dozen times, she still told it with the same excitement she always had.
I smiled; I couldn’t help it. They were perfect, and I was the luckiest man in the world to call them mine.
“Tell me the part about the dragon again, Mummy!” Charlotte pleaded.
“I’ve read that part to you three times now!” Hermione could barely hide her exasperated amusement.
“But it’s my favorite!” Charlotte insisted.
“What about the rest of the story? What about the princess and her prince?”
“They’re boring,” she said, frowning.
I smothered a chuckle from a doorway. If we weren’t careful, Charlotte would end up chasing dragons just like her father.
“Very well,” she conceded. “The beast was nearly thirty-feet tall and hissed flames bright as the sun should anyone disturb it. It lived on a high hill, chained to an ancient stone for eternity.” She read up until the dragon’s defeat and then looked back up at her six-year-old daughter. “Mind if I continue now?” she asked.
Charlotte giggled and nodded.
If dragon taming had taught me one thing, it was that if you worked hard enough, you could achieve anything. I had seen a twenty-foot Hebridean Black trained out of its instinct to bite anything within fifty-feet of its nest; and even a two-week old Swedish Short-Snout raised without its mother become the biggest of the pack.
I remembered telling myself to apply the very same philosophy to our relationship; reminding myself to be patient when we fought and to relish the small victories. We worked hard. I might have even called it impossible at times. We had fought, constantly it seemed, in the beginning, and I had found myself wondering more than once if it was really worth it.
“I’m not Ron!” I had once whispered the very same words to her softly, praying she would love me despite it; but yelling them at her now, I felt guilty for it.
“This has nothing with who you are!” she insisted, stamping her foot.
“It doesn’t?” I replied scathingly.
“No, it doesn’t!”
“It does!” The volume and force of my words scared me, but I was powerless to lower my voice. “You wish I were! You wish he was still here, still alive, and that you were with him!” Months of feeling second-best had poured out into angry words.
“Of course I wish Ron were still alive!” she had shouted back. She sat down at the small table, the only one we could afford. Pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, her elbows resting on the table, she whispered, “I love you, Charlie. But until you have enough strength to believe that, I can’t prove it to you.” Her words were softer now, more tender. She rose and walked towards the door.
“Where are you going?” My words were softer as well. I had never been one for apologizing, and I hoped she would hear it in my voice.
She sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead. “For a walk,” she said, grabbing her coat from a peg near the door and leaving.
I stood rooted on the spot, unsure of what to do. Then suddenly I ran out of house after her.
“Wait!” I called.
She stopped and turned to face me. When I reached her, I took her hand in my own. She protested, trying to pull it away, but I held onto it firmly.
“I want to,” I said breathlessly. “I want to believe you love me.”
“Then, why can’t you?” Her voice was flat ant tired. She looked up at me with beautiful brown eyes. The eyes I had fallen in love with.
“I will,” I promised. “And someday, I’ll marry you and we’ll live in a big house on a hill and tell our children stories about dragons and our time in Romania.”
She smiled softly at this. “Very well,” she said. “Charlie Weasley, love me.”
“I do.” I kissed her tenderly; trying to put all the things I loved her for into a single kiss.
“Daddy, did you really chase after dragons when you were young?” Charlotte asked. It seemed my hiding place had been discovered.
Hermione looked up, surprised. “Charlie, how long have you been there?”
I shrugged and walked into the room. “I like that story.”
Tamed by whomovedmyquil
Chapter Notes: Thanks so much to my wonderful beta, Lyratearsx, for her helpful comments and corrections!