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Hermione pulled the collar of her jumper tightly around her neck. She'd forgotten to buy the bruise cream at the apothecary and now, she had to figure out another way to hide the sizable mark on her neck. She smiled thinking about how she'd gotten it. Charlie had taken her up on a dragon. It hadn't been nearly as scary as she'd expected. The dragon was a calm one, a pet apparently, that Charlie had rescued. It was too tame to release back into the wild.
“Knut for your thoughts?” Charlie asked, pulling Hermione back to the present. They were hanging around Charlie's flat before they headed to the Burrow for Christmas dinner. Hermione lived there most of the time, although she had kept her flat in London to be close to work, and to keep up appearances.
“Just thinking about last night, and how I'm going to hide this little love bite of yours,” she replied. “If it wasn't for the fact it's Christmas dinner with your family...I wouldn't bother, but-” she paused, thinking about how Mrs. Weasley had been trying to set her up with Ron, or George, or just about anyone.
“We could come clean, tell the world that we're in love?” Charlie suggested, giving her a look at what he thought about the idea. They'd been hiding their relationship for almost a year now.
“And have your mum start planning our wedding?” Hermione asked, rolling her eyes. That was one of the several reasons no one knew that she and Charlie were dating. Hermione didn't want the world knowing she was dating someone, that it was serious. Rita Skeeter was still writing horrid things about the Golden Trio and Hermione wasn't interested in having her name spread through the gossip mill that was once the Daily Prophet.
“True,” Charlie commented. “But if we tell her about us, she'll stop trying to set us up with other people. Not to mention, she'd stop asking me when I'm going to find a nice witch that doesn't ride dragons...”
“That is a good point,” Hermione agreed with a sigh.
“You know, if we were already married, she couldn't plan a wedding...” Charlie said, a shimmer of mischief in his eyes. Hermione looked at him before she burst out laughing.
“Is that a proposal, Charlie?” she asked, tilting her head.
“If you say 'yes', then it is. Think about it, Hermione, we go to dinner, pretend we're not together, then after we leave, we elope.”
“Or...,” Hermione said, a smile spreading across her face. “Or we use the few hours we have left before dinner to apparate to that little chapel in Romania, have your friend Lance marry us, and attend Christmas dinner as a married couple,” she countered, watching as Charlie's smile widened.
“I like your idea a lot better,” he stated.
“So that's a 'yes'?”
“Yes!” Charlie exclaimed, grabbing her hand and kissing her as they apparated to the chapel on the hill where Lance was more than thrilled to marry them with a small group of dragons watching from the rafters.