In the morning, we awoke to the voice of the mother of the house. Mrs Weasley screamed through the house for everyone to wake up. I managed to get out of bed after fighting my need for sleep, and Ginny and I reached the kitchen, where Charlie was helping his mother.
"Did you sleep well dears?" Mrs Weasley asked.
"Great!" Ginny answered, cheerful.
"Alright," I said in a low voice.
Ginny and I sat and had breakfast. I was so tired I barely ate, and Ginny had to elbow me in order to "move" me a bit. Once done, we took our plates to the kitchen, and I could feel Charlie's eyes on me, like he was expecting me to drop something again. Mrs Weasley asked Ginny to take something to the garden, which she did, leaving me with her brother in the kitchen.
"Didn't sleep much?" He asked.
"How did you guess?"
He smiled and remained silent.
"How long did you sleep? You don't seem to lack sleep," I asked.
"Six hours, I'm used to not sleeping a lot. How about you?"
"About... two, or maybe three hours... I don't really know."
"You should take a nap or something, you won't last long."
"I'm more resilient than you'd think," I defied.
"I'm sure you are," He said, gently laughing.
However, he was right, I needed to take a nap. I spent the day struggling to stay awake, and eventually went to bed around 6pm. I did not wake up until 6 in the morning. I got up and could hear nothing but silence in the house, everyone was still asleep. I silently walked down the stairs, when I saw someone sleeping on the couch. I recognised Charlie, still dressed, with a quill in his hand and an opened bottle of ink on the table. I approached and saw he was working on something when he must have fallen asleep. I took the top of the bottle and closed it and put a blanket on Charlie. I then left to the kitchen and prepared breakfast for the whole house.
About an hour later, everything was ready on the table, and I sat, rather proud of myself. I started eating when I heard footsteps. After a few seconds, Charlie appeared at the door, still sleepy. His hair was messy, and he hardly managed to open his eyes. He seemed quite surprised to see me up already.
"Hi," he said in a raspy sleepy voice.
"Hey. I assumed you had a room in this house, but apparently I was wrong."
He had a small smile and sat in front of me, looking at the table.
"You did all this? You're a perfect housewife," he said.
"I had time, and your mother always does everything, I thought I could help a bit," I explained.
"I wasn't mocking, it's very nice of you. It's actually the smell that woke me up."
He took a plate and prepared his breakfast. We finished eating together when Mrs Weasley arrived. She was very surprised to see us, but more, to see the table already full of food.
"Merlin! You did this, dears? This is lovely!"
"Nora did it, not me," Charlie said, smiling at his mother.
"It is so sweet of you dear, thank you," she said before sitting around the table.
Mr Weasley arrived, and I left the kitchen, followed by Charlie.
"Are you coming with us this afternoon?" he inquired.
"Coming where?" I asked, confused.
"Diagon Alley, we're Christmas shopping."
"Does Ginny know about this?"
"I think she does, she didn't tell you?" he wondered.
"No, I suppose she forgot. But I guess I'm coming along."
"Great, we're leaving after lunch."
I looked at the paper Charlie fell asleep on, and noticed I could not understand any of it. It was probably in Romanian. Charlie sat back and read a couple of sentences out loud. We talked a little about the languages we both could speak. Turned out he was also able to speak a bit of Russian.
"You'll have to learn Romanian if you ever consider visiting me there."
"Is this a dare? Because you have no idea who you are talking to."
"Really? Who is it I am talking to, then?" he asked, smiling.
"I'll never learn enough languages," I said after a pause, "I love to learn languages."
"You love to learn full stop, right?"
I smiled and looked further at the letter. Eventually, everyone in the house was awake and ready to go to London. We gathered outside the Burrow to disapparate, which did not seem to please Charlie so much. While Mrs Weasley talked to her sons, Ginny discreetly said Charlie had his licence, but he did not like and use it a lot.
We arrived at a corner of the street and waited in front of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Is everything alright?" I asked Charlie.
"Yeah," he said in a breath, "why are you asking?".
"You look pale. You look like me when flying on a broom."
"I'm good, don't worry," he said, forcing a smile.
Harry eventually arrived with a pretty girl. Charlie told me she was Hermione, Ron's girlfriend. Ginny introduced us to each other and talked together for a little while. I came to the conclusion that she was very sweet.
We managed to stay all together until we walked past the Quality Quidditch Supply, where everyone got very excited, except for Hermione and myself. We decided to go to Flourish and Botts, looking for books. We talked a lot about books, magic, and I could tell Charlie was right, Hermione was really clever. We finished shopping and eventually met the other part of the group back in front of the wand shop. Everyone seemed to have found everything they needed. Ginny showed me what she bought for Harry and seemed quite please.
When we decided to leave, I could tell Charlie wasn't willing to dissaparate again. He noticed I looked at him, and he smiled at me.
"Stop worrying, it's embarrassing," he mocked.
"I'm not worried, I just wouldn't like you to throw up on me, that's all."
"You'd be my first target if something like this ever had to happen," he answered winking at me.
We walked a little bit, and I heard Charlie sigh half a dozen times. Charlie and Ginny disapparated together. Then went Hermione and Ron. Charlie sighed yet another time
"We could concentrate our magic to disapparate," I suggested.
"I don't need help, Nora."
I rose an eyebrow and sighed, annoyed. I told him it was his call, and after sighing for the millionth time, he took my hand. I had a small shiver, and we disapparated.
We violently crashed on the floor of the living room. I had planned on arriving in front of the door, this had to be Charlie's idea, but it didn't seem very effective.
I tried to get up, but my vision became white and my head felt like it was going to explode. Things seemed to be moving all around me. Ginny helped me sitting on the couch. I felt really bad. And nauseous. I had a side look at Charlie, he was pale but seemed better than me. Ginny left to get me a glass of water.
"Is this how you feel every time you disapparate?" I asked, trying to lame my breathe.
"Pretty much. This time it wasn't as bad as it usually is."
"Not for everyone," I said, closing my eyes, breathing heavily.
Charlie sat next to me and took my hands.
"Nora, you have to breathe calmly, try to breathe calmly, ok?"
"Easy to say."
I tried to, taking big breaths exhaling slowly, and eventually opened my eyes. Ginny gave me the water. I felt slightly better after drinking.
"Why does it happen?" I asked Charlie.
"I don't know, I've never been really good at it. Are you okay? I'm sorry, I never apparate when I can do otherwise."
"It's fine. You really should practice though. This can't be good for your health. You'll risk to splinch and leave an arm or a leg behind."
We remained silent for a little while and Charlie took me outside, for fresh air. We lied on the grass and Charlie cast some enchantments to entertain me.
"How would you feel about this: you help me get good at flying on a broom, and I help you apparate without being sick."
Charlie looked like he did not understand my reasoning.
"I saw you on a broom. You're really good. And I more or less suck. On the other hand, I'm good at disapparating, and, well you're not necessarily bad, but I can help you improve."
"I don't think it's a good idea."
"Come on, Charlie. Please?"
I heard him laugh a little.
"Oh, Merlin. Okay, fine, let's do this," he said standing up.
"What, now?"
"Yes now, let's catch brooms," he added, offering me a hand.