More from The Muggle Girl

[girlyswot]

This ends up where I thought the first instalment was originally going.  It's still very much in the Mary Sue spirit...

It was surprisingly nice having Rosie’s little hand to clasp and squeeze in his own as they walked back to the common room. Charlie paused when they reached the portrait hole. Rosie tilted her head questioningly.

‘Do you want to go in together?’

She frowned. ‘Um…’

‘Sorry. What I mean is, do you want people to know that…’ He was blushing as well now. Damn.

‘Oh.’ Her cheeks had turned a gorgeous shade of pink and Charlie wanted to kiss her again. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘Okay, then.’ He bent down and pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, just enough to feel her respond. ‘Come on.’

Rosie didn’t hang around for long in the common room but it was enough for everyone to notice that something had changed between them. When she went up to bed, she turned at the corner of the stairs to give him a shy wave. He smiled back, with just a hint of a wink, then sank happily down into the squashy cushions of the red sofa.

‘How was practice?’ Charlie blinked up at the towering figure of his elder brother, leaning over him meaningfully.

‘Okay.’ With some effort, Charlie cast his mind back to before Rosie. ‘Wood’s shaping up well. I should think we have a fair chance on Saturday.’

‘Hmm.’ Bill folded his long limbs into the space nect to Charlie on the sofa. ‘You heard from Mum lately?’

Charlie shook his head. They’d had a family letter a few days earlier but Bill knew about that.

‘The Ministry want to extend the exchange programme.’

‘Oh.’ So what, Charlie wanted to ask.

‘They want the Muggles to spend some time in real wizarding homes.’

Charlie began to see where this was going.

‘She’s a nice girl,’ Bill observed calmly.

‘Yes,’ Charlie agreed.

‘Though she seems to like you, so perhaps…’ Charlie jabbed his brother neatly in the stomach. ‘The home weekend’s in about a month,’ continued Bill, more seriously. ‘You want me to assign Rosie to us?’

A month. It didn’t sound long. And Rosie wasn’t the type for drama and angst. But Charlie had seen enough short-lived romances among his friends to know why Bill was asking.

‘Yes,’ he decided, trying to sound confident.

Bill eyed him steadily for a few moments. ‘Okay, then.’

There was an uneasy pause. Bill was looking intently into the fire but Charlie got the impression he was really just trying to work out how to say something.

‘Are we about to have the chat?’ he asked, with a grin.

Bill nudged him in the shoulder. ‘No, I suppose not. Only… you will be good to her, Charlie?’

Charlie pressed his lips together tightly and looked away. He really didn’t think Bill needed to come over all big brother about girls. Everyone knew what had happened with him and Wendy Shapley after all.

Bill was shaking his head. ‘Sorry. Not my business. Just… girls are different, Charlie.’

‘Yes. Mum explained all that when Ginny was born and the twins wanted to know where her willy was.’

They grinned in shared memory and both instinctively looked round to make sure the twins weren’t causing too much chaos anywhere nearby.

‘Not that. It’s more… well, girls like to talk about things.’ Charlie grimaced and thanked Merlin that Rosie hadn’t seemed to want to talk earlier that evening. ‘And they like it when you give them things, make them feel special, you know. And don’t worry if sometimes she’s grumpy for no reason at all. She’ll probably blame you but you shouldn’t take it personally.’

‘Bill.’ Charlie had had enough of this.

‘What?’

‘I’m not about to start going out with Wendy Shapley.’ Charlie shuddered at the thought. Bill didn’t seem like he wanted to be reminded of her either. Rosie had nothing in common with the manicured, made-up, highly demanding witch who was generally acknowledged to be the sexiest girl in the seventh year.

Bill acknowledged the point with a rueful shrug. ‘No. Well. Still.’

It turned out that Bill wasn’t the only one offering advice or wanting information. From Keith’s obnoxious, ‘Do Muggles kiss differently then?’, which Charlie wasn’t admitting he wasn’t actually qualified to judge, to Tony’s chortling remarks about being under the thumb, Charlie was very glad to finally be in bed with the lights off and an opportunity to think about things himself.

The lightheadedness that had resulted from a combination of Quidditch and kissing seemed to be wearing off. He remembered the huge pile of homework he was supposed to have done and reached to set his alarm early. Charlie didn’t much like doing homework in the morning – all those couple with pre-breakfast assignations. At least Rosie hadn’t suggested that. Unless… oh no! What if she’d been expecting him to arrange it? Charlie began to suspect that this was going to be a lot more difficult than he’d first thought. She might have Ideas about boyfriends that he’d have to Live Up To. Would she want to spend all her free time (of which she had a lot more than him) with him? She wouldn’t expect him to give up Quidditch, would she? Well, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t doing that for any girl, no matter how brown her eyes were or how nice she felt when he cuddled against his chest. No indeed.

But perhaps, since he was getting up early to do his homework anyway, he might wait for her in the common room. They could go down to breakfast together. No harm in that.


At six o’clock, the sun was starting to creep through the mist in the Scottish hills and inside Gryffindor Tower, a bleary eyed Charlie Weasley was opening the first of the Transfiguration textbooks he had to get through before breakfast. Words and letters seemed to run together in a tangle of nonsense. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate.

‘Hi.’

Charlie looked up from his books in surprise. He could feel the grin spreading across his face. Rosie was standing at the other end of the table, nervously twisting her hands.

‘Hi.’

‘I won’t disturb you,’ she told him hurriedly. ‘It just seemed rude not to say hello on my way past.’

‘Where are you going?’

She shrugged. ‘Anywhere. Out for a walk. I woke up early and it seemed a shame to stay inside on such a nice day.’

‘Yes.’ Charlie glanced down at his books.

‘Well. Um. Will I see you later sometime?’

She was chewing her lip again as she looked at him with an adorable uncertainty. Charlie suddenly realised what she was wondering. He pushed back his chair and strode around the table to take her hands in his, then he bent to kiss her gently.

‘Good morning.’

‘Oh.’ Rosie sighed in palpable relief. ‘You too.’

‘I’d come with you now, only McGonagall will have me in detention for the rest of the month if I don’t have some more inches to hand in this morning.’

‘It’s all right,’ she told him, squeezing his hands earnestly. ‘What’s it about?’

‘Oh. Theoretical investigations into the most effective ways of securing permanent and semi-permanent transfigurations.’

‘Transfiguration? That’s changing one thing into another?’

‘Right. Look, I’ll show you.’ Charlie grabbed a pencil and pulled out his wand. A moment later he handed a pink and cream rose to Rosie.

She smiled and brought it to her nose. ‘It doesn’t smell,’ she pointed out.

‘That’s NEWT level,’ he told her, with a twinkle in his eye.

‘I love it.’ Rosie tucked the flower into her pocket. ‘How long will it take you to finish the essay?’

Charlie sighed and looked at the daunting pile of reading. ‘I don’t know. Longer than I’ve got, I expect.’

‘Can I help at all? I mean, I could read things and tell you what they say, if you like.’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘I’d like to. I haven’t really read many proper magical books. Not with actual spells and things.’

Charlie laughed. ‘Well, you can read one if you want but stop as soon as you’re bored. It’s a nice day for a walk, you know.’

‘I’d rather stay here with you,’ she told him. Charlie felt his heart – or was it his stomach – do that strange thing again as she looked at him so honestly with such obvious pleasure in his company.

Ten minutes later, she’d skimmed through the first book, found the relevant section and summarised it for him in five clear bullet points. He stared at her in amazement. He was still half way through the first page of Terence Teejus on Transcendental Transfiguration. And he was sure he hadn’t spelt that right in his essay.

Rosie picked up a second book and carried on as though she was enjoying it. In less time than Charlie would have believed possible, she’d helped him finish what he thought was probably the best essay he’d ever handed in. McGonagall wouldn’t believe her eyes.

‘You’re amazing,’ he told Rosie. ‘Will you do all my homework for me forever?’

She grinned. ‘No. But it’s interesting for me. I don’t mind helping you sometimes.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’ He’d packed his books and parchment away and held his hand out to her. They might get a short walk after all.

‘Charlie?’

‘Hmm?’ He opened the portrait hole and waited for her to climb through.

‘Do you know what dyslexia is?’

‘Dis-what?’

‘Dyslexia. I don’t know if it exists among wizards.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a kind of problem in the mind. It makes it harder for people to read and write. Lots of very clever Muggles have it.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything like that.’ They jumped together over the trick step and landed on the moving staircase with perfect timing.

‘I think you might have it.’

What?! She thought he was mental? Brilliant.

‘When you try and read, do the letters get mixed up sometimes?’

How did she know that?

‘Or when you learned to write, did you find that you wrote letters back to front?’

Rosie was a Muggle. She couldn’t possibly be a Legilimens.

‘Because you’re obviously intelligent, Charlie. You’re brilliant at Quidditch strategy and remembering things about the magical creatures.’

He found his voice again. ‘Those are easy. Not like school’

‘Easy for you. But reading and writing are harder?’

He shrugged, not much liking where this was going.

‘Look.’ She was pulling a book out of her pocket. Oh hell, she was going to make him read it. ‘Will you try something for me?’

Charlie nodded cautiously.

‘Can you charm the page green?’

He reached for his wand. At least he knew he could do that.

‘Now see if it’s easier to read.’

Charlie took the book and turned away. He didn’t need her to know how much he hated being put on the spot like this. Still, he’d told Bill a month, and he was damned if he’d let her see that he couldn’t do it. He took a deep breath and looked down at the page.

He shook his head, unable to believe it. The words were all lined up, in order. He didn’t have to fight to catch glimpses of the right letters. He could read it without even trying.

Slowly he turned round. Rosie was waiting anxiously. ‘That’s incredible,’ he told her. ‘How did you know to do that?’

She smiled and reached for her book. ‘My best friend at school is dyslexic. She’s in all the top sets and everything. She wears glasses with coloured lenses and the school print green copies of everything for her. I just thought it was worth a try.’

Charlie nodded. ‘So you think if I do everything on green, it’ll be like that?’ He gestured towards the book he’d just read.

‘Maybe. And it’s easier for you because you can just charm things and then put them back like normal.’

‘Can’t charm library books,’ he told her. ‘Madam Pince has protective spells on them all.’

‘Oh. Well, I’m sure you’ll find a way. But there are other things, too, Charlie. How are you at exams?’

He grimaced. He just couldn’t seem to learn things like the others in his class. However long he spent with his notes, it all disappeared as soon as he was in the exam. She was going on talking, maps and charts and strategies and systems. Charlie put a hand on her arm.

‘Rosie, look.’ She stopped, looking a bit put out, but turned obediently to follow his gaze.

‘Oh.’

A cloud of mirrorflies, shimmering every colour of the rainbow was rising over the lake. Charlie put his arm round Rosie’s shoulders and pulled her against him so that her head was tucked comfortably on his shoulder. Her hair smelled of shampoo. He wondered if she’d washed it specially. She shifted round, so that she was looking at him, not the mirrorflies.

'Your flower's gone,' he noticed.

Rosie looked down at her pocket, where the chewed tip of a pencil was now poking out. 

'It doesn't matter,' she said.  'I like the pencil just as much.'

‘Can I kiss you?’ he asked softly.

Rosie nodded and he bent his head to reach her mouth. He still didn’t know if Muggles kissed differently but right now he didn’t mind if he never found out.