DISTANT GAME ━ charlie weasley

ii. rolling stone

     Avery places the two items down on a chest of drawers she hadn't noticed before — Goodness, does this room have everything in it? — and walked over to the oak door. Twisting the doorknob, she opens the door to reveal a smiling Charlie Weasley on the other side, leaning against the doorframe classically, and yet another revelation reprimands Avery's mind.

     Charlie Weasley was Head Boy. She was Head Girl. And they would be sharing a dormitory for the coming year. That's why he was here.

     Weasley must be an early bird. At seeing her fellow Head standing, beaming in front of her, it took Avery a couple of added moments to notice that he'd probably just been out of the shower. For one, his vivid red hair was dripping with minuscule droplets of water with a towel draped around his neck, and was wearing nothing but joggers. So, he was shirtless. Firm lines of definition were indebted into his chest and abdomen, similar lines replicated along his toned arms. By the looks of things, Avery saw yet another reason to knight him Mr Perfect.

     I mean, I knew Weasley did Quidditch but I didn't expect him to be this ripped.

     "Morning, Avery. Nice hair." He chimes with a wide grin, and Avery realises he was talking about the behemoth situated on her head as she tried to suppress the urge to drop her head into her hands. "Good sleep?"

     "Oh — uh, yeah. It was fine, Weasley." She replies, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "What's up?"

     "Your hair—" Charlie jokes, before piping down at seeing the way Avery's eyes narrow at him, "Okay, no, that wasn't funny. Erm, okay. I'm gonna be ready in a bit and was actually wondering if you wanted to walk with me to the Great Hall for breakfast?"

     The question took Avery by surprise, and she ended up blinking a couple of times to regain herself. Weasley wanted to walk me to breakfast? She then realised that she'd left him without an answer for far too long because he'd started furrowing his eyebrows at seeing her apprehension to answer.

Avery shook her head out of her trance-like state. "Uh — sorry." She apologises. "Um, sure. Yeah. That's fine."

Charlie smiles. "Great. I'll wait in the common room for you, just come when you're ready and then we'll go." And with that, he left the room, leaving Avery to stare at the space he'd previously occupied with a confused sort of airiness. Goodness, was her mind out of it this morning.

     With that on the cards, Avery went to do what she'd originally planned and started to clean herself up. She went for a shower, which was blissful in its entirety, afterwards discovering that there was a freaking hairdryer waiting in the bathroom cupboard for her — she was not expecting that, especially considering that electrical appliances don't mingle well with the magic at Hogwarts, but found out that it wasn't electric at all? It made no sense to Avery, but she wasn't complaining — she'd never had the luxury of using a working hairdryer at Hogwarts, and always had to settle for towel drying or warming charms, both of which didn't work as well as an actual hairdryer would. She fixed her hair, transforming it from the mammoth it was previously and neatly tying up half of it, letting the remainder of her strawberry blonde hair flow underneath the ponytail. After changing into her uniform, with the blue and bronze tie perfectly matching her gleaming Head Girl badge, she sorts out her bag for the day, swinging it onto her shoulders to head to breakfast.

However, throughout the duration of Avery's routine of getting herself prepped for the day, she couldn't push aside the thoughts wavering through the already busy mind of hers. Like, why on earth had Charlie Weasley offered to walk her to breakfast? She tried coming up with various solutions, like, maybe he wanted to discuss some Heads' business, or more simply, maybe he just wanted to be polite and give me a good impression? He's Charlie bloody Weasley, Quidditch Captain and Head Boy, you can't get as good an impression as that.