“Hillarious. Maple or honey?”

“Honey.” He places the plate and the bottle in front of her before sitting down with his on stack double the size of hers.

On the side of her pancakes, a little bunch of unevenly chopped banana slices. “I feel like a child when you do this.”

“I like doing something special for you.”

“You’ve already done enough. I won’t say I’m fine, I’m not naive, but… you don’t have to do so much.”

“Cutting a banana is not too much. Besides, I’m not doing it out of pity, Junie. I’m doing it because I like you and I take pleasure in taking care of you. Mom says it’s second nature to want to take care. Of kids, dragons, friends, plants.”

“Plants… maybe not.” She thinks for a second. “Yeah. I loved taking care of Marwa.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t want you to step on eggs around me, Charlie.” She takes a forkful of bananas to keep the teary sting from her eyes. “I also don’t wanna forget her, I don’t want her to be forgotten.”

“She won’t be. Especially considering her love will outlive her. Well, it’s too early for tears.” He points to her pancakes with his fork, smiling from ear to ear. “Come on, take a bite, tell me if they’re worth anything.”

.

“Should we take a walk?” Juniper asks, looking out the small window.

“Uhm… if you want to.” Charlie closes the book he was reading and gets up from his armchair to look out the window with her. “But isn’t too cold for you?”

“I can throw another layer on. I need to keep my muscles from atrophying. Winter soon will come and then I certainly won’t be in shape for any walks outdoors.” She smiles weakly. “Besides, in all the chaos I didn’t have a chance to enjoy the Autumn view.”

“You right, I’ll just fetch you something to keep warm.”

Juniper puts on her old loyal boots, tying them slowly. Any precise movement was still difficult — tying shoes, writing, folding clothes, cutting her own food, braiding her hair, even certain spells that required a more delicate hand movement —, suffering from her weak and stiff hands. Hands that are in such a state thanks to the torture she endured.

She watches her trembling hands and can recall the cold of the room she was held captive at, the foul smell, the cold, the hard ground, the magical ropes that bind her wrists behind her back, the bone crumbling muscle tearing pains, so cold. If she hadn’t resisted, if she had died soon, Marwa wouldn’t have come to her rescue, she’d be safe, she be alive. If only she had—

“I got something nice for you here,” Charlie exclaims from the other room bringing her back to her senses.

She takes a deep breath trying to steady her mind. Juniper believes herself to be strong, she knows she’s strong, but even she understands the limits of her body. She once thought cruciatus played only with the mind, simulating pain, but in doing so it also hurt the body, the soul. But Charlie, he’s an anchor, a strong and steady one. She focus on his existence and the world doesn’t seem as horrible.

“How is the tying?” He steps into the living room, soon placing a shawl over her shoulders.

She takes the gloves he’s handed and begins putting them on. “It’s fine.”

He gives a look. “It’s not, you’ll trip. Here, let me help.” He undoes her sloppy tying and reties it perfectly. “I told you a hundred times, ask when you need help.”

She gets up and he follows. “I can tie my own boots. It’s embarrassing enough that you had to cut my nails and cut my steak and brush my hair.”

“I love the way your hair feels.” She rolls her eyes and he laughs. “Stop complaining. Nobody’s forcing me to do this.”

She gets up. “I am. Indirectly I am.”

“Just say thank you and I’ll be the happiest guy.”

“Thank you, Charles. It’s a braw shawl,” she says, wrapping the thick tartan shawl tighter around herself as they walk out the door, wind hitting them first thing.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“I’m going with or without you.” She clears her throat at the harshness of her tone. “But I’d appreciate if you stay, I promise this is nothing.”

He simply shakes his head. “Indigo sent me it on my birthday, the shawl. I haven’t worn it yet.”

“She has good taste, I’ll give her that.”

“Kinda biassed coming from another Scot.”

She chuckles. “Have you seen her lately?” He shakes his head with a frown. “Me neither, it’s been quite about a year when we bumped into each other at the Ministry. Last I heard was that Barnaby’s parents escaped Azkaban.”

Charlie’s eyes darken in a frown. “They religiously write to me once or twice a month. I haven’t received any letter in three from neither. And if what I think it happened, happened, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Juniper feels a shiver run down her spine. “These are dark times we’re living in.”

“I just hope they’re well and together. Going through all this alone is hell.” He gives Juniper a pained smile. “I hate the circumstances but I’m glad you’re here with me. What happened to George, Bill… thank goodness it wasn’t fatal, but that did a number on me and even when your life was going into a spiral, you supported me.” He waits until she’s looking at him to continue. “That’s why I don’t mind doing what I’m doing for you, I know you’d do the same for me.”

Juniper can barely speak nor face him, nodding with undistinguishable sounds boiling in the back of her throat, words she’s refrained herself from muttering for years, now daring to emerge. A volcano, words hot and glowing like lava daring to erupt from her blazing heart, they’d burn her, they’d burn him as well. Of course she’d do the same for him, the same and much much more, whatever Charlie asked of her.

He touches her arm and she nearly jumps. “Are you alright, June?”

She nods roughly. “Yeah, I just— Let’s keep walking.”

Their walk is quiet from there on, taking in the red, orange, and green of the landscape, a much-needed sun shining down on them even if it didn’t offer much heat along with the light. Her feet ache but nothing her inner turmoil couldn’t distract her from. They walk for about twenty minutes before reaching the limits of the plateau where Charlie’s cabin house is located with an overview of a small muggle village below.

The view is, in fact, very beautiful, especially with the way the sun shines down at the landscape before them, the river running alongside the village glistening with the light. But all the while, her chest’s on fire from his words, smoke clouding up her mind, the sparks coming off of his mere presence not helping her case.

“I wanna take you there once you get better. There’s a little shop… not really a shop, an old lady’s house where she sells all types of cheese and sweets, you’ll love it.”

Again the lump returns, but she offers a weak smile. “I’d love that. But, uhm, can we go back?”

He takes a step towards her. “I can apparate us there if you’re not feeling well.”

“I’m well, I’m just… cold. I’ll get warmer on the walk back.”

It didn’t make sense considering the long walk they had to get there, but he wasn’t going to refute it. He offers her an arm and they make their way back in half the time, the warmth of the house like a sweet embrace once they walk in, the honeysuckle and cinnamon scent intoxicating her every sense, wrapping around her heart like Devil’s Snare.

She turns to him, his countenance visibly worried, and just watches him drunk in a semi-conscious haze, despite the blur of her vision, she can see him clear enough — his beautiful copper oranger amber hair falling over the most beautiful eyes she has ever seen, freckles over skin like a starry sky. And as her eyes slowly move down his body, she feels herself lose balance and he’s close enough to hold her up.

Her cheeks are flushed which drives him to touch her them with the back of his fingers. “You’re burning.”

He unwraps the scarf and the shawl from her, all the while knowing she’s out of herself. It had happened before, short lapses in consciousness and thought, yet another side effect from the extensive torture she went through, but nothing this aggravating.

Juniper herself can’t tell, brain glowing and quiet like a flame. He then takes her face in his hands to try and bring her back to herself but it works against his wishes and she practically melts. His face so close, his chocolatey eyes. It’s love, so solid and heavy and palpable, emanating from her, weighing her down down down down—

.

In her sinking, his voice, calling her name. It’s glorious.

.

Juniper first hears heaving, centimetres away from her face, then the overwhelming heat from fire irradiating so incredibly close. She blinks her eyes open, a little lightheaded still. She’s being embraced, if not that, held.

Charlie’s pupils almost overtake the honey brown, face pale like snow. He holds her face with one hand. “Junie? Juniper? How are you feeling? Merlin! I knew that walk wasn’t a good idea!”

She takes his wrist to stop him from shaking her. “Charlie, calm down. What happened?”

“You fainted. You were burning up then you went cold again in a minute.” Explaining why were they on the rug by the fireplace. He finally stabilizes himself, trying to breath normally. “Scared the shit outta me.”

“Fainted? I’m so dramatic,” she tries laughing it off, distracting herself from the fact she’s in his arms. “I bet it was just the… the exertion.”

“Dramatic!? You didn’t faint on purpose.”

“I know, but I’m better now, don’t worry. See? No fever.”

“We gotta take you to a hospital, June. There’s a decent one in Bucharest.”

White hot panic takes over her and she pulls away from him, suddenly is harder to breath. “I don’t need to.”

“Bucharest is not that far, you clearly need help—”

“I’d rather die.” She curls against the sofa’s base. “I am not going, Charlie. I refuse.”

She can already picture it, the prying eyes, the antiseptic smell, the cold, healer’s assuming this and that about her condition while she knows very well what’s going on. Paired with her lapses in consciousness and thought she hadn’t experienced when she was first rescued, her stay would certainly be long and definetly a not so pleasent one. They had brought her back to life back then, when she was found burned, bloody, starved, and so terribly weak, but she’s also aware that if it weren’t for Bill and Charlie’s beggin for them to save her, she wouldn’t have survived. She had decided since then to be careful, to never again be at their mercy.

He gets up, pacing in circle. “And you expect me to just watch you fall ill and do nothing about it? I brought you here so I could help you get better and care for you, if you don’t—”

Perhaps it was the gut wrenching panic, perhaps the sickness still left in her, perhaps his wide and glistening eyes shinning at her, but the words just spill. “Because it was you… who made me sick. And no healer can cure that.”

He looks at her as if she had spoken in another language. “Wh-What? How– Me?”

“Yes, you. You’ve been driving me mad. You treat me so well, you keep me close, you allow me in your little world, and it’s driving me over the edge, Charles. It’s too much for me.”

His tone becomes serious. “What do you mean, June?”

Juniper wants to get up, to run, to jump off a cliff and go underwater, to release the building adrenaline in any other way but through her words. But she’s too weak, too exposed. She has lost the most important thing in her life, yet there’s still so much to be lost, but now the feeling has become familiar, the feeling of letting go. 

She lays down on the carpet, exhausted, releasing tears long held back. “I love you, Charlie!”

He freezes where he stands, loosening up his hands and shoulders.

She wipes a few tears away. “I’m sorry.”

The word seems so big, his mouth can barely hold it. “You lo-” He lowers himself back to the ground with her. “How long?”

“For almost as long as I’ve known you. Really known you.”

He can’t drive himself to talk any comprehensive words, he lowers even more to lay right beside her. A few minutes pass before he can speak. “Why didn't you tell me earlier?”

“Many reasons.”

“Examples?”

She sighs. “I was afraid, you weren't… emotionally available, I was a walking hurricane. So much I can't even put into words.”

“What about Talbott?”

It’s almost a slap to hear his name alone in Charlie’s presence. “I did love him, but… I never forgot you. There was always the shadow of what I felt for you looming over us until it wasn’t sustainable anymore.”

His breath trembles. “Bloody hell, Junie. Isn't even ten am yet.”

She chuckles. “I'm sorry for dropping this bomb on you like this.” Her voice is monotonous again, trying hard to swallow her feelings. “I'll leave if you-”

“I don't want you to leave.”

She turns to him. “But I don't know if I can stay.”

“Why couldn't you?”

“I can't stop this. These feelings, they're tenacious, like a little creature that'll only grow the longer I stay close to you.”

He turns his body her way. “What if I want it to grow?”

“It might consume me. You.”

“I'm used to it. To creatures that might consume me. Including you.”

She can’t help a smile. “What are you impling Charles?”

“That neither can I hold back what I feel for you. I didn’t have a word for it before but now I do.”

And just like that, things aren’t as heavy as Juniper had predicted for years. It is significant, but not heavy. She loves him, a fact like that of the grass being green or that of fire burning.  (How many times had Marwa told her to stop cowarding away and just confess her feelings? If Juniper had only known it’d be this liberating, this soft.) And just as light, Charlie’s reciprocating affection.

He's staring directly at her, glancing at her lips indiscreetly — never feeling as seen as she does right now, even if she’s sure she definitely doesn’t look her best, having lost too much weight in the past months, distressed, and loss of her sunkissed glow, but it doesn’t matter, not when his eyes tell her otherwise. He then draws his hand up, slowly, to touch her cheek, palm hot against her cold skin.

“Juniper.”

“Charlie.”

His caloused thumb brushes its way to her lips, glancing at them as if asking for permission. She reaches out, fingers in his hair, streaks reflecting the firelight in colours she hasn't seen anywhere else.

“You don't have to do this alone,” he whispers.

She nods and he finally allows himself, leaning in a soft press of lips, slow and sure, the faintest flavour of honey in their mouths, the back of his fingers caressing her cheekbones. The house engulfed in the scent of cinnamon and burning logs, but to Juniper it smells like desire mixed with Autumn. She reaches out and wraps her weak arms around him to bring him closer, she feels comfortable to do so — he’s the most important thing she has, equating only to her own life, she has to hold him the tightest she can.

Yet his lips remain soft and slow, savouring this moment of fresh blossom of love. Their first kiss together, therefore it has to be long and sweet and loving. She loves him and isn’t that enough? To know that across the table there’s someone who wants you, with her warm eyes like coffee in the morning and her french-blue hair, to know that throughout all those years most times her eyes had laid upon him with love, desire, affection.

He keeps their foreheads touching as he pulls away. “I’m not going anywhere, Junie. And I’m not letting you go either.”

“I know.”

“We’ll get through this.”

“We have to get through it.”

“And I’ll be with you on the other side. Marwa would be proud of you for living.”

She’s crying even before he’s done speaking. “Thank you.”

“No, no thank yous.” He brushes a strand of her hair back. “I love you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I love you, Juniper. I do.” He begins laughing — a weight immediately lifting from his chest as the words have finally been freed. He kisses her again and neither can help smiling against the other’s lips.