As much as Elphias may have been playing a game of disproportionate denial, so was Charlotte. After all, she was lying next to the man that had not only broken her heart just before she was to be married following graduation, but recently broken her down as a means to rid himself of his own pain at his father's death. Even with the rationale as clear as day to her being anywhere but beside him, doing anything but enjoying the touch of vague camraderie, she found herself with little to no desire to pull away from him.

He felt like home. Or that feeling of it she'd lost when she'd returned one Christmas in her sixth year and realized the common room at Hogwarts felt far more like such.

At the sound of his laughter, the warmth emitting from him in that moment enough to strip the chill from her frame, Charlotte couldn't help the smile tugging at her mouth.

"Your mum is a piece of work, Char - an absolutely wonderful one. She scared the daylights out of me when I first met her, though,"

"A piece of work, how.. diplomatic," she said dryly before giving a roll of her eyes. At his next remark, her brow was quirking as she turned to glance at him, "How did my mother manage to scare you the first time? I can't remember, was she devoted to you on first sight?"

"She's an awful lot to get used to. But she's a wonderful woman. And," he dropped his voice a notch, "she raised an even better daughter."

Her expression softened momentarily before, having rolled onto her stomach, she tapped her fingers to his mouth in playful protest, "No overblown compliments. Never in my room, remember?"