Handler
In his time at Hogwarts Charlie had been good friends with Hagrid, and there were good reasons for that. They were both fascinated by wild magical creatures; Charlie understood Hagrid's love of ugly, vicious creatures, and did not in himself think of them as such at any rate.
Remus Lupin was not a magical creature and would have been insulted (though politely so) to be called that, but the similarity in Charlie's mind was all too clear. Most people who loved Remus loved him in spite of the wolf; Charlie sometimes felt that he nearly loved Remus because of it.
He'd seen it, once; he'd blackmailed Bill into breaking the lock on Remus' door and crept into the room where the wolf lay sleeping, and he'd thought the glint of moonlight on werewolf fur was beautiful, though it patently wasn't. The wolf had whined softly, like a dog in pain, and Charlie had lost his heart to a man who thought of him as Ron's older brother, or Arthur's second son, or the one that liked dragons -- nothing more, nothing less.
But every full moon Charlie listened for the howl that he wished was for him.
***
For the longest time, and to Remus' complete bafflement, he couldn't tell Bill and Charlie apart.
Part of it was that he'd never actually met the older Weasley brothers. He had no trouble discerning the rest, but he'd only heard of the older boys in theory, and so could never recall which lived in Egypt and which was a dragon handler -- or was the one who lived in Egypt the dragon handler? And if so, which one?
When he'd met Charlie, though, he'd known instantly. The wolf had sat up and begged.
Charlie was good with animals, it was clear, and the animal which Remus tried hard to hide knew it. Charlie had a firm grip, a nice smile, and the unmistakeable air of Master.
Remus had a lot of time to think about Charlie, in the quiet days before and after the full moon, when he spent most of his time in bed, reading and writing. Molly made sure nobody bothered him, which he was questionably grateful for. He had a lot of time to wonder whether Charlie would mind a bloke making a pass at him, especially an older bloke, and if his lycanthropy might give him a leg up (to get a leg over, hah) in this case.
By the time he was up and around and in any kind of condition to try, however, his good sense usually returned, and he chalked up the rest to remnants of the wolf.
And that was all.
After all, Charlie was the one who was good with animals.
***
The thing was, Remus was really smart. Really smart. Professor Snape type of smart, only without Professor Snape's bad habit of vocally flaying the skin from a person's body. Charlie had never really been book smart, except when it came to Magical Creatures. The words just came more easily then, and the dragon handlers had their own language that Charlie slipped into more comfortably than the stiff Latin and big words of magical academia.
But he really liked book smart, in other people, especially nice book smart. It made him want to hang about that sort of person just to see what he could learn. Which usually led to him doing stupid things, but that was what being young was for. It was a built-in excuse for stupid, Youth.
"I'll take that up, Mum," he said, deftly lifting the tray of food good for a recuperating werewolf out of her hands. Molly had actually come to him, to Charlie, to find out what werewolves ought to eat, and Charlie had nearly burst with pride and gone off to find out. He felt it was only fair that at least just this once, he get to take it up to Remus.
He liked the way Remus looked even after a change, cheekbones sharp and eyes unusually bright, a hint of animal still lurking under the surface. It soothed him to know how to handle the animal, and so he knew that instead of fussing as his mother did, he ought to set the tray down and let Remus smell it, and then perhaps he might be allowed to scoot closer and eat a few scraps of the food in cameraderie. Sharing food was a good way to bond with an animal as long as you understood that it had first dibs and you were just an interloper.
They ate in companionable silence, Charlie strangling for something to say to make Remus say something smart he could listen to. Finally Remus sipped the last of the chicken broth and turned to him and said "Charlie, you fancy blokes, don't you."
There was a gasp from the doorway and Charlie turned to see his mum staring, a forgotten glass of juice for Remus in one hand. They both stared at her for a minute, until finally she walked in and set the juice silently on Remus' tray. Charlie, flushing red from embarrassment, had no idea what to say until Remus caught Molly's wrist and smiled at her, gently.
"Ten percent of the population, seven children -- the odds favoured at least one," he said. "Be glad it's the smartest one."
Molly looked at him, and looked at Charlie, and then nodded slowly. After she left Charlie sat in thought for a few minutes, wondering how Remus knew and why he'd said Charlie was the smartest when that was so obviously not the case.
And then he decided flight was a pretty good option, and took it.
***
Thanks to the Wolfsbane, brewed as bitterly by Snape as it tasted, Remus was usually walking around again by the day after the full moon; he didn't handle stairs very well, but he had his cane and as long as there was no hurry, sooner or later he got where he was trying to go.
He had intended to search Grimmauld Place to see if Charlie was still there, but he made it to the kitchen and decided that was victory enough for one morning. Clearly Charlie had to eat, and where did one go to get food? The kitchen. He would do the intelligent thing and lie in wait. He tried not to think about how he'd seen dogs waiting for their humans by the door. He was being efficient, not canine.
Besides, there was tea in the kitchen and, ever prepared, Remus had left books in every room in the house for just such an emergency as this.
He was reading, or at any rate pretending to read while actually focusing on beating out perfect 4/4 time on the sides of his teacup with his spoon, when Charlie did indeed arrive. Neither of them spoke; Charlie moved slowly and smoothly, and Remus decided he was employing a technique Remus himself had often used while trying to feed stray cats. He continued to sip his tea.
"I'm gay," Charlie said finally. Remus glanced up. "I was planning on telling mum as soon as things settled down a little. I didn't want to make a fuss. Bill knows. Did he tell you?"
"No," Remus said, levering himself up with his cane, unsettled by having to look up at a man he was normally four inches taller than. "I actually had no idea, but I thought if I said it like I did, you might be more likely to say yes. Stupid, really, but it appears to have worked, so three cheers for sympathetic magic."
Charlie turned to face him in a kitchen that was suddenly very small. He was still moving slowly, almost cautiously. Remus didn't blame him. In fact it made it easier, since Remus didn't have much choice about moving slowly, for the older man to move two clumsy steps forward and press Charlie against the kitchen sink and kiss him breathless.
Charlie let him, and kissed back just enough to taunt him into deepening it; he whimpered a little, and touched Remus' face as their bodies made contact and oh --
"Oh," said a deep voice, behind them, and Remus pulled back. Charlie leaned over his shoulder to see who it was, but both of them already knew; Remus resolutely refused to turn around.
"Dad," Charlie said. "Hi. Um. You probably want a sandwich. Has, have you spoken with mum recently?"
"I'll just -- there's a shop right down the street -- " Arthur's voice said, vaguely panicked. "It's just your mum said you had something to tell me -- but I think that's all right -- hallo Remus..."
"Hi, Arthur," Remus said, trying not to laugh.
"I'll just be...off then. We'll, er, speak at dinner," Arthur said, and they heard his hurried footsteps up the stairs. Charlie rested both hands on the sink, and looked down.
"I'm sorry, Charlie, I generally don't go from asking if a fellow fancies men to kissing them without a few more intervening questions," Remus said, aware that he was babbling and unable to stop. "I didn't ask if you were involved with anyone or if perhaps you'd rather a man ten years older than you didn't kiss you in the middle of the kitchen in front of your father and all creation..."
"Remus," Charlie said, and there it was again. Remus lapsed into expectant silence. Charlie smiled.
"Good," he said, and nibbled on Remus' lower lip a little. Remus waited, still, until Charlie kissed it, and then until he kissed him properly, before he responded again. He made a little whining noise in his throat that seemed to be the reason Charlie suddenly had his arms around Remus' waist and was definitely the reason Charlie had his tongue in Remus' mouth.
"Good," Charlie said again, as he broke the kiss, pressing their foreheads together. "That's very good."
***
Callused, freckle palms, a little red still here and there with dragonfire burns, the tips of the fingers soft still for working with the young ones, sensitive and clever. Remus moaned as a single finger slipped down from clavicle over ribcage and paused just above the last button on his threadbare white shirt.
Charlie's lips were slightly chapped, rough from outdoor weather, but his smile was broad and perfect, and Remus felt he could probably live on kissing Charlie instead of food; he went hungry without the flick of tongue across them and the way Charlie always told him how good it was.
Narrow hips pinned him against the wall in Charlie's room in the creaking old house, the tight hard bulge against his thigh moving slowly as Charlie moaned into his neck, fingers still dancing across his chest and holding his shoulders down gently when he tried to move. Charlie had a body that was all muscle and sleek skin, and Remus loved to feel it against his own scar-ridged back when they were in bed, when Charlie held him close and pushed inside him and stroked with those clever, clever hands.
But he liked it just as well when he pulled Charlie up against him and they kissed and slid against each other and there was something wonderfully animal about the way Charlie made him feel. As if he was allowed to be the wolf just for once, just for a little while, just with this man who wasn't afraid of the wolf, who respected it instead. Shirt half-off and belt unbuckled and his hands in Charlie's thick red hair, hips bucking together, he could let the world go, and when Charlie moved his hips like that and growled his name and told him it was good he was almost --
Charlie froze, suddenly, and Remus gasped desperately for air. He could feel his pulse thud in every nerve in his body, and he was about to ask why Charlie had stopped and please could they continue when he saw Charlie had turned to look at something somewhere off to their left, back in the real world. He turned too.
Ron, crimson-cheeked, was sprawled on the floor in the hallway outside Charlie's bedroom door, where he had, apparently, tripped over the bottom of the doorframe in his hurry to retreat. Charlie shifted and Remus bit down on his lip, turning away as he came because the last thing Ron now needed to be traumatised with was seeing his former professor have an intense orgasm with his older brother.
He watched and caught his breath as Charlie helped his younger brother to his feet and quite calmly steered him down the hallway and closed his door. When he had thoroughly locked it, he leaned against it and began to laugh, and Remus laughed too, sinking slowly to his knees, leaning against Charlie's thigh. Charlie's hand smoothed his hair, and when Remus pressed his face to Charlie's groin and nuzzled there, Charlie sucked in a breath and bucked his hips as he came, too.
Remus caught him as he slid raggedly down the wall, and they kissed like that, curled together on his floor, and it was just as good as Charlie said.