Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 6:24:56 GMT
CHARLES SEPTIMUS WEASLEY
** 32 -- COMC PROFESSOR -- BRITISH -- SINGLE **
"I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me"
And I pass on these things
my family's given to me,
Just love and understanding,
positivity
my family's given to me,
Just love and understanding,
positivity
Charlie's the second oldest of seven, second of six boys, second of seven born in wartime. The biggest gap between any two consecutive siblings is the one between him and Percy, for he was four when he was given a little brother - and, well, Charlie didn't exactly like the idea. He was used to it being him and Bill and Mum, and Dad when he could be around, and the occasional stranger sat at the kitchen table when he woke up in the early hours wanting a drink.
A baby? That was no fun at all.
Yes, it was safe to say that Charlie definitely wasn't a fan of being a big brother, and for several years he would be a right brat about it, too. Matters weren't helped by the rapid arrival of the twins, Ron and Ginny, by which point his parents had impressed upon him the importance of being a role model and someone for his younger siblings to follow.
That message was made all the more important by the war raging outside the sturdy walls of the Burrow. His father was often absent, hand on the clock pointed to mortal peril. Strangers passed through, sat at the kitchen table for Mum to patch them up and send them on their way with a hot meal warming their bellies. Sometimes, Charlies would see them near on every week, and then they'd vanish. Sometimes, he saw them once or twice, only to later meet them as adults. All of them carried the burdens of war heavy on their backs.
There's a hauntedness to them that Charlie grows used to seeing in his own parents' faces when they think he isn't looking.
The war wages on and Charlie plays with his stuffed dragon even when Bill teases him for it, and helps the twins get away with their tricks and wonders how on Earth Percy's actually related to them. Mum always has dinner on the table and a tea towel to flick at the back of their knees when they're being naughty, and Dad's there more often than not to tuck them in at night with a kiss and a story about something or other from work.
Charlie knows that he often leaves again, though, once they're all in bed. That he goes off to do Charlie-doesn't-know-what, but it makes his hand on the clock change and his mother's face pinch in fear.
Scant months after Ginny's born - and well, that's different in itself, for she's a girl, and smaller but no less loud than her brothers, and Charlie doesn't mind being an older brother to her and everything that comes with it - Charlie's favourite uncles die and the war ends, only weeks apart. His mother cries after they've all gone to bed, and on Hallowe'en, Charlie's woken up by the fireworks outside and his father raising a toast to Harry Potter.
He knows Harry, vaguely, a small baby who'd been around with his parents once or twice, the same size as Ron. He's not sure why they're toasting a baby, so he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.
It's quieter, after that. There aren't strangers at the kitchen table in the night anymore. His father stands a little taller, and whilst Mum grieves, there's a weight lifted off her shoulders.
Charlie doesn't really get it, though he will one day, and he goes back to playing with his siblings and helping the twins wind Percy up.
Bill goes off to Hogwarts, and Charlie chafes against the sudden expectation for him to behave better now that he's the oldest at home. He doesn't like it, doesn't want to, some part of him still the four-year-old boy that liked being the youngest and didn't want anyone to steal his thunder.
Looking back now, though, Charlie realises that his parents did a bloody good job to bring him up safe, and happy and loved, the times being what they were. He was a brat and oh does he know it, but he's endlessly grateful for his parents' patience and their undying love for him and his siblings.
A baby? That was no fun at all.
Yes, it was safe to say that Charlie definitely wasn't a fan of being a big brother, and for several years he would be a right brat about it, too. Matters weren't helped by the rapid arrival of the twins, Ron and Ginny, by which point his parents had impressed upon him the importance of being a role model and someone for his younger siblings to follow.
That message was made all the more important by the war raging outside the sturdy walls of the Burrow. His father was often absent, hand on the clock pointed to mortal peril. Strangers passed through, sat at the kitchen table for Mum to patch them up and send them on their way with a hot meal warming their bellies. Sometimes, Charlies would see them near on every week, and then they'd vanish. Sometimes, he saw them once or twice, only to later meet them as adults. All of them carried the burdens of war heavy on their backs.
There's a hauntedness to them that Charlie grows used to seeing in his own parents' faces when they think he isn't looking.
The war wages on and Charlie plays with his stuffed dragon even when Bill teases him for it, and helps the twins get away with their tricks and wonders how on Earth Percy's actually related to them. Mum always has dinner on the table and a tea towel to flick at the back of their knees when they're being naughty, and Dad's there more often than not to tuck them in at night with a kiss and a story about something or other from work.
Charlie knows that he often leaves again, though, once they're all in bed. That he goes off to do Charlie-doesn't-know-what, but it makes his hand on the clock change and his mother's face pinch in fear.
Scant months after Ginny's born - and well, that's different in itself, for she's a girl, and smaller but no less loud than her brothers, and Charlie doesn't mind being an older brother to her and everything that comes with it - Charlie's favourite uncles die and the war ends, only weeks apart. His mother cries after they've all gone to bed, and on Hallowe'en, Charlie's woken up by the fireworks outside and his father raising a toast to Harry Potter.
He knows Harry, vaguely, a small baby who'd been around with his parents once or twice, the same size as Ron. He's not sure why they're toasting a baby, so he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.
It's quieter, after that. There aren't strangers at the kitchen table in the night anymore. His father stands a little taller, and whilst Mum grieves, there's a weight lifted off her shoulders.
Charlie doesn't really get it, though he will one day, and he goes back to playing with his siblings and helping the twins wind Percy up.
Bill goes off to Hogwarts, and Charlie chafes against the sudden expectation for him to behave better now that he's the oldest at home. He doesn't like it, doesn't want to, some part of him still the four-year-old boy that liked being the youngest and didn't want anyone to steal his thunder.
Looking back now, though, Charlie realises that his parents did a bloody good job to bring him up safe, and happy and loved, the times being what they were. He was a brat and oh does he know it, but he's endlessly grateful for his parents' patience and their undying love for him and his siblings.
I've been known to give my all
And jumping in harder than
10,000 rocks on the lake
And jumping in harder than
10,000 rocks on the lake
Charlie starts Hogwarts two years after Bill. Like him, and Mum, and Dad, and Uncle Gideon and Uncle Fabian and Grandpa and every Weasley in history, he's sorted into Gryffindor with the Hat taking nary a second to consider it. Really, there's never been another option for Charlie. He's a loud, boisterous, reckless little kid who likes adventure and doesn't like rules and wants to fly dragons someday.
He settles into Gryffindor easily, comforted by the fact that Bill's there, if he needs him. He quickly gains a reputation for being a class clown, something that makes him quietly snicker - oh, if only they knew what the twins are like. They haven't seen anything yet.
Charlie's not - well, he's not a bad student, but he isn't the best of them, either. He gets his homework done on time, mostly, and he has decent enough grades. He trundles along through first and second year, occasionally hassling Bill for a game of gobstones or chess, he doesn't fail any of his end of year exams, and he has plenty of friends. He's a happy enough kid, all in all.
Of course, then second year happens and he makes the Quidditch team. Quidditch is the closest he gets to what he really wants, which is flying dragons - has been since he was tiny. He joins the team as Seeker, a little bigger than your average player but no less fast. His parents are proud of him, but they can't really afford to buy him a new broom - so he winds up offering tutoring in Transfig, which he's pretty good at, in exchange for a few galleons here and there, and he saves up for something better than a Comet. They win the Cup, his first season, and he's immeasurably proud.
They don't win again whilst he's playing for them, but he still puts in a good performance. Third year he picks up COMC, and Bill also becomes a prefect, which is not so fun because now Bill has to actually tell him off for things - although it's always with a smile and a fond shake of his head, so it isn't all bad. Charlie knows he doesn't really mean it - he sounds like Mum, when he does, and that's enough for Charlie to shut the hell up and behave.
Percy joins the school in Charlie's fourth year, and Charlie raises an eyebrow whenever Percy tries to tag along with him. It's not because he doesn't want his kid brother hanging around - but Charlie and his mates spend their free time hanging out of trees and wrestling on the grass down by the lake, and that's just not Percy. Gently, Charlie steers his baby brother towards a couple of kids he knows are like-minded, and Percy seems to do okay with that.
His roommate, though - completely different question. Percy and Oliver have a weird sort of friendship, but Wood's completely Quidditch obsessed and tags along to all their practices, despite not being old enough for the team. They jokingly call him their mascot, but he seems to take it seriously. Charlie laughs and ruffles his hair, and occasionally listens to his ideas about tactics and formations. He's not quite got the hang of it - but he's got an eye for it, truthfully, and Charlie wonders.
His fifth year, Charlie makes Prefect and Bill makes Head Boy. He's not sure why he's been made prefect when he's got a history of rule-breaking, but he shrugs and takes it, and keeps an eye out for the younger years. It's weird, having to actually report to Bill and take orders from him; weirder than Bill telling him off for being a cheeky bugger, but they get on with it. Percy seems to be settling in okay, so Charlie stops worrying about him, and starts hassling Bill to eat and sleep properly during exams.
Merlin, he feels like his mother.
Bill graduates, and so does the team's bloody Keeper. That summer, along with the twins' Hogwarts letter - that school isn't going to know what's hit it - comes an extra letter for Charlie, one with a Captain's badge.
Well fuck. Looks like he's in charge of finding a new Keeper, then.
In between trying to make sure the twins don't get caught by Snape - look, he's not asking for a miracle that they'll behave, just that they don't lose house points - Charlie starts planning tryouts. He knows full well that Oliver's going to show up - but the kid's in his third year, and he's not sure he's ready for playing in matches.
Charlie has never been happier to be proved wrong. The kid flies like a dream.
Well, he gets knocked out two minutes into his first game, and when he wakes up after he asks Charlie if he's going to be replaced - but Charlie knows he's a better flyer than that. He tells him he gets one more chance, and Oliver nods eagerly.
Charlie's pretty sure he'd keep the kid on even if he screwed up again, because he's that good - just unlucky.
They don't win the cup that year, and Charlie's not exactly happy about it - in fact, he's flaming mad and his dormmates can only attest to that. He drilled his team hard, and whilst second is respectable, he'd thought that the amount of work they'd put in would have been enough.
It doesn't help that two of his chasers and his beaters are graduating.
He thinks that might have been part of the problem, in all honesty, that the seventh years didn't really want a younger student bossing them about.
Well. Tough.
Seventh year, Charlie has to hold tryouts for half the team. He's had his eye on some of the now fourth and fifth years - but, well, there's no denying that his kid brothers are the best Beaters he's ever seen. Fred and George play together like nobody else ever has, and Charlie doesn't think he's ever seen that kind of connection between players in the professional leagues. The sheer grit and determination shown by Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson is enough to convince him, too, and they work well with their original chaser, but for now he's happy to have them as reserves, let them ease into it.
He gets accused of favouritism for putting his brothers on the team, and McGonagall takes him aside to have a word. He tells her, in all seriousness, just to watch them play and then tell him he was wrong to put them on the team.
She nods, and after their first match tells him he was right.
He rides that high right up until he winds up handing in a piece of homework late and she gives him that look.
In between drilling his team even harder than the previous year - and he's slightly concerned about how much Oliver relishes that - Charlie works hard at his exams. Well, mostly Transfig, DADA and COMC, in all honesty, he's not really fussed about anything else. Professor Kettleburn brings Newt Scamander in for a talk about career options, and Charlie sits there, enthralled. He'd been thinking about pursuing Quidditch - there's been a couple of team scouts at matches, watching him - but that talk makes him realise that he could actually work with dragons. He's got the right skills for it, after all, and a love for them that never really faded.
He does not mention this plan to his mother under any circumstances. He does not mention it to his siblings, in case they mention it to his mother.
The finish the year in second place for the Quidditch Cup, again, and Charlie - well, he's okay with it. More than he was last year, at any rate. It's good, and his team are young, and he doubts they'll be giving up their spots anytime soon. At his graduation ceremony, he takes McGonagall aside, and recommends that Oliver be given the Captaincy - and advises that she makes sure he doesn't wind the whole team up in the Hospital Wing with exhaustion.
She laughs, which is odd in itself, and wishes him luck.
Mum cries when he graduates, and Dad hugs him, and Bill shows up, long hair and all, and Charlie laughs in delight and throws himself at his older brother for a hug.
Honestly? His seven years at Hogwarts were pretty good going.
When Charlie got on the train for Hogwarts for the very first time, Bill told him to go make friends with the other first years, else he'd always be Bill's kid brother. At the time, Charlie thought he was mean to do so, but - well, he's done the same thing with Percy and the twins, so he's hardly one to talk.
He wound up sat in a compartment with a girl with bubblegum pink hair and he's never been more grateful to Bill than he has been for that.
He and Dora - that's how she introduces herself, when she's eleven, and he never grows out of the habit - talk the whole way to Hogwarts, and he's sad when she gets sorted into Hufflepuff. He quickly gets over that when she plops down next to him at breakfast the next morning.
Over the course of their time at Hogwarts, they grow as thick as thieves. Well, really by Christmas of first year they're like that, and it only gets worse as time goes on. They're outspoken little sods in class and always cracking jokes and generally being a nuisance, and he laughs at her clumsiness and helps her pick up her books and she watches his practices and tells anyone who accuses her of spying to go screw themselves with a smile on her face.
Charlie loves her endlessly.
They date for a while in fifth year, but it really feels like they're dating because they're expected to by their friends, and eventually, they go right back to how they were. Charlie's not all that fussed about kissing girls, in all honesty, and Dora shrugs and tells him he's nice to look at, but she'd rather be teasing him about his ridiculous obsession with dragons that falling into bed with him.
She's his best friend, and he doesn't know what he'd do without her.
Ever since he can remember, Charlie's loved dragons. When he was little, they used to make him think of his mum - still do, kind of, fire-breathing angry things that'll flatten everything in a hundred mile radius to protect their young. He used to want to be able to fly them, though by the time he left school he realised that probably wasn't going to happen. They don't take too kindly to people, in all honesty.
His seventh year, though, he starts seriously looking into working with dragons. There's a reserve in Wales and one in Scotland, and several in Europe. There's plenty farther afield, but he's not willing to go quite that far from home. He sends out applications and he Floos to interviews from McGonagall's office, and it pays off. He gets offered a job at the Welsh and Romanian reservations - the Welsh is better pay and a slightly higher starting position, but his mother loses her mind when he tells her after graduation. She tells him that Bill curse-breaking is bad enough and she can't allow it for any child living under her roof.
He takes the job in Romania instead.
It's hard, starting in Romania, in all honesty. He's thrown in at the deep end along with a couple of other trainees, and doesn't speak a word of the language. He picks it up though, out of sheer necessity, and he gets on with things. It's effectively a grad program; he gets his qualifications whilst he's working - but, well, he doesn't seem to be doing much related to actual dragons and it drives him a bit mad that he's having to write essays on dragons when he's not allowed near them. He's stuck with a lot of manual labour for months, and very little actual dragon interaction, but he grits his teeth and pays his dues. One of the other trainees drops out two weeks in, and another a month later - six months in, Charlie's the only one left.
He's filled out, shoulders broad and sturdy, hands burned and callused. When his parents and Ginny come out for Christmas, his father jokes that he only recognises Charlie by virtue of the hair - which Mum tries to cut short again, not that Charlie lets her - and Ginny swings herself up onto his shoulders with a delighted laugh. He's almost fluent by that point, able to crack jokes with his colleagues and shout warnings to them. He starts making his way up, moved up from manual labour and admin to working in the nursery. Baby dragons are a lot less dangerous than full grown ones, after all, and he's curious about the breeding program.
Of course, for that he has to study more.
He's having a laugh and a drink with some of the other trainees who'd come in a few months before him and revising his third draft of an essay on the proper care of short-snouts when he gets the letter from Ron. The thud of Errol flying into the window makes Ali cry out in despair that Mooten's come to do them in, and Charlie laughs him off. Whilst he's reading the letter, Ali and Ysabelle start bickering about what's going to be on their exams and Lissa starts debating aloud the merits of walking straight into a dragon's mouth rather than take it.
He asks them if they'd rather go on a midnight flight to go rescue an illegal dragon from Hogwarts instead.
The unanimous decision is hell yes.
When they get back with Norbert - soon to be found to be Norberta - they get into a world of trouble for it, and suddenly Charlie's got a promotion and his training sped up and he's in charge of a baby dragon. So. That's a thing.
It's hard work and he loves his job, and he rises through the ranks quickly over the years, after the Norberta situation, but he still misses home. He misses his mum's cooking and his dad's experiments out in the shed and the twins' pranks and Percy's Perciness and being able to swing Ginny around and playing chess with Ron. Every time he sees them, they're bigger and louder and brighter and getting on with their lives and he's missing so much. He sees Bill more often; it's easier for the two of them to grab a drink, and he writes a lot, but they're all so busy with their own lives that he rarely gets a reply.
Of course, when they wind up in Egypt at the end of Ginny's first year and he finds out what happened with that Charlie promptly loses his temper on the lot of them, doing a wonderful impression of his mother, and lambasts his siblings for not looking out for her or even noticing that something was up.
Then he hugs Ginny for a solid twenty minutes and doesn't let her out of his sight for the rest of the holiday.
He wonders, sometimes, if going to Romania was the right thing. He has to get by on letters from Dora, full of stories from Auror training. He can't keep an eye on Ginny or Percy, the two he worries about most from Romania - but then he remembers that living anywhere near the Burrow would open him up to his mother's overprotectiveness and he just can't deal with that. He's a twenty-something year old bloke who works with dragons; he needs the chance to do his own thing.
So he deals with the loneliness and the homesickness, and when things are especially bad he tugs on a Weasley sweater and Floo calls home, and he makes do.
Living in Romania with a bunch of other twenty-somethings means there's a lot of going out drinking. Either sitting around in the bar in the local village near the reserve, or heading into the wizarding district of Bucharest - either way, there's a lot of it. Pubs and bars and clubs alike, it's all pretty much the same. They frequent magical places just because it's easier not to have to censor themselves all the time, and Charlie learns quickly that people like dragon wranglers.
Like. A lot.
Charlie doesn't really know how to feel about it, in all honesty. He likes flirting, likes sweet-talking people, but he's not really fussed about it going beyond that. He never really has been. Occasionally, he hooks up with Ali or Ysabelle, but it's different - he knows them, and he trusts them, and those instances are few and far between besides.
He dances with pretty girls and he looks at handsome boys and he doesn't feel any particular desire or need to go to bed with them - he's happy just dancing and talking and sometimes snogging, but no more than that. Lissa teases him for it, but he shrugs it off. It's just....he doesn't care, not really.
Sometimes he wonders if that does make him wrong, or broken, or damaged - but then there's inevitably a dragon that needs dealing with, so his thoughts never linger for long. He writes to Dora about it, and her response is the letter equivalent of a shrug and to tell him to just keep doing his thing.
It starts with a Quidditch match.
Charlie's been due some holiday for a while, and when his dad gets tickets for the sodding World Cup final - well, of course he's going to be there. He doesn't tell his siblings he's coming, just shows up with a duffel bag and open arms. They play Quidditch in the back garden and he's quietly impressed with how much better they all are, even more so that Ron seems to have a knack for keeping. He gives Ron some pointers, makes Ginny swap with him as Seeker - he's too bloody big to be fast any more - and overall, he's proud of them.
He gets wrangled into a haircut by his mother, and rolls his eyes and takes it. It'll grow back out quick enough, and he doesn't fancy fighting with her right now, in all honesty. Bill shows up, and they duck out to head down the local pub for a drink and to commiserate over how being home kind of sucks sometimes. They've always been the two that needed out the most; who'd been ready to walk away and not come back.
He's beginning to understand why their mother is the way she is, though.
The match itself is great; Charlie gets as in to it as the rest of his siblings. He finally gets to meet Ron's friends - he'd kind of been set on hating them, in all honesty, because they keep dragging Ron into trouble and then Ginny got hurt - but Ron loves them so much that he can't, and it's clear the feeling's reciprocated.
Also Harry's so small and scruffy that Charlie feels the intense need to feed him up and wrap him in blankets and keep him safe, and he wonders if that's what being his mother is like.
It's after the match that things go to hell in a handcart. He only needs to share a look with Bill to know that they'll be charging into the fray - Ginny's here, there's no sodding way they're not, and on a more logisitical level, so is the bloody Boy-Who-Lived, and Charlie's pretty sure the fuckshites starting this would love to get their hands on him.
Dad gets the kids outside, and Charlie pulls on actual pants and grabs his wand and tears off, Bill on one side, Percy the other.
It's hellish, in all honesty, trying to subdue fully grown Death Eaters. Charlie's pretty sure he does some serious damage to some of them, used to throwing much more force behind his spells for the dragons he works with every day.
And then the cowards start disapparating as soon as they see the Dark Mark, and Charlie punches a tree in frustration.
It calms down and the Muggle family are sorted out by Ministry officials, and they make their way back to the tent. Fred and George and Ginny show up not long after, and Charlie crushes his little sister into a hug, but - they've been separated from Ron and his friends, and Bill and Charlie both turn the air blue.
Dad brings them back though, and tells them everything, and Charlie has no bloody clue what to think.
When they get home, Dad has to go off and handle crap at the Ministry, and Charlie and Bill have another very long conversation at the pub about what the hell they should do. Things are clearly shifting, if old Death Eaters feel safe enough to attack Muggles so publicly, and not for the better.
There's not much they can do, though, and Charlie's fed up and tired.
They play more Quidditch, this time with Harry involved, and Charlie's floored by how good the kid is. How in Merlin's name did they not win the last three years straight? He'll have to have words with Oliver, clearly Harry wasn't being utilised well enough. He and Bill take turns with Ginny, the three of them shifting around so she gets a chance to play Seeker and Chaser both, and Charlie shoots Ron a Look when he tries to protest.
He catches up with Dora, and it's like they've never been apart. He tells her about the dragons and his co-workers, and she tells him about her escapades at work. They talk and laugh well into the night, and Charlie winds up having to take a public portkey back to Ottery St Catchpole and walk from there because he's too pissed to apparate.
The summer comes to an end, Charlie gets an owl early one morning from work telling him he'll be needed to transport bloody dragons to Hogwarts - he faceplants into the mattress and hands it to Bill, who immediately starts laughing - and they see the kids off to Hogwarts. He and Bill can't resist winding them up about the Tournament; it's just too funny watching Ron and the twins get increasingly frustrated at not being in on the joke.
He goes back to work, and starts planning which dragons they're taking. The Short Snout, the Fireball and the Welsh Green should be alright; enough to be a challenge without any serious concern of death.
Of course, then they get the letter that a fourth will be needed, and Charlie despairs, because of course Harry bloody Potter wound up getting sucked into this. Charlie wonders if the scar on his forehead still has a curse attached to it, because the kid has seriously bad luck.
They bring the dragons over, and privately Charlie thinks they could do with having more of them around to corral the beasts, because they're really not happy about it. Especially the Horntail - and Merlin, that had bene a fight and a half; he'd been adamant that they shouldn't be taking her, especially after they were asked for nesting mothers, but she was the only one they really could take, other dragons injured, ill, or dealing with babies.
He meets up with Hagrid to catch him up on Norberta - who's now massive and likes having her nose scratched - and Hagrid, naturally, brings Harry along. He's kind of glad of it when he finds out, after the fact, glad that Harry gets a chance to know what the bloody hell he's getting into - and screw the rules, he's fourteen, he needs a head's up.
He does not tell his mother. She's already stressed to high heaven, and Charlie's doing enough worrying for the both of them over the fact that he's facing a massive dragon.
He's also worried about the dragons - they're beautiful, majestic creatures, not to be gawped at like they're in a zoo, or poked and prodded to make them aggressive, it's like training dogs to fight, it's wrong - but mostly he's worried about Harry.
He checks in on Harry before owling Mum, and then he goes to sooth the dragons and take them home and write a strongly worded letter to the Ministry about the fact that eggs vital to breeding programmes were destroyed, and they're all a bunch of idiots for agreeing to this.
He tries to get time off for the Third Task, so he can make sure Harry bloody survives it, but he's used up all his holiday, and has to hear about events secondhand, from the Prophet and letters from home.
Dread settles into the pit of his stomach when he hears from his Dad, and on his next day off he goes home for a flying stopover and signs up for the Order. Dumbledore wants him to recruit in Europe - and he's both frustrated that he doesn't get to do more and relieved that he doesn't have to leave the dragons.
The months drag on, and Charlie spends the next two years worried sick about his family back home. He writes more than he ever has, trying to keep up, and he feels a little bit sick every time Ginny tells him what's going on at Hogwarts. That bitch, torturing students - and screwing with their Cup chances! Mum tells him pretty much nothing, Ron hardly ever replies, and Percy - he doesn't even want to touch that issue with a ten footbargepole, because he's disappointed and angry and wants to hit his brother with a sledgehammer. Bill and Dad and the twins and Ginny are honest and frank with him though, and whilst he's out of his mind with worry, he's glad to know what the hell is going on. He begs the twins to be careful, but of course they don't listen - and when Ginny tells them about how they quit school, he's actually kind of impressed. He sends them some money for the business - Circe knows Mum would never take anything from him - and he and Bill invent their own code.
He also teases Bill mercilessly about Fleur.
He sticks out two years, and then Dumbledore dies and Bill's wedding rolls around and Charlie goes home to pay his respects and stand up as Bill's best man. Bill comes out to ask him, and Charlie looks at him, unimpressed. As if he'd let anyone else do it. Honestly.
The wedding's good, even if he does spend half of it poking fun at Bill for the lovestruck expression on his face.
Fleur gives him the dragon figurine she had from the Triwizard Tournament, and Charlie looks like a three year old as it curls up in his hands. It's a pretty little Welsh Green, and he names it Eirian, and it takes up semi-permanent residence on his shoulder.
It's nice to see Hary again too, honestly, though there's a part of him that rages at the resigned, haunted look in his eyes. He's seen that look, seen it in his parents' faces, and Harry's too sodding young, and so are Ron and Hermione.
It goes to hell again, of bloody course it does, and the second Shacklebolt's patronus arrives Charlie's out of his seat casting shield charms and wards in an effort to keep them safe. He shoves people out the way so Hermione can get to Ron, and when the Death Eaters arrive he makes damn well sure that he's shielding Ginny at all times. She's a bloody good dueller, and it makes Charlie's heart break to know that, because she shouldn't have to be - but she's still his baby sister, and Mum would kill him if he didn't try to keep her safe.
They get questioned, and the whole time Charlie's chomping at the bit to rip their heads off. Or set a dragon on them, Norberta probably would if he asked nicely. It's his suggestion to use the ghoul as a cover for Ron, and the twins suggest spattergroit, and he's never been so bloody relieved as he is when it works.
He argues with Mum when the Death Eaters finally leave. She wants him to go back to Romania, where it's safe - but he can't, not like this, not when Ron's on the run and Dad and Percy are in the Ministry and Ginny's going back to Hogwarts. He can't just leave when his family's got a target on their backs; he'd never forgive himself.
He bounces back and forth instead, handling some admin things and consulting in Romania, but spending most of his time in England, keeping in touch with Bill and Fleur and taking the injured to them. He helps Mum around the house and attends the war meetings and helps out with bloody Potterwatch and good Merlin, he bloody loves the twins sometimes.
They find out that Ron and his friends are with Bill just after they leave on some suicide mission to Gringotts, and Charlie growls in frustration and punches a wall. He's had no contact with his baby brother since the wedding, when he watched Hermione disapparate them out, hasn't known if he was in one piece or not. He'd been in Romania when Ron had shown up at Shell Cottage on his own, and good thing too, else Charlie would've thwacked him for ditching Harry and Hermione. Had he learned nothing from Percy?
He's flying out to Romania when the call for aid at Hogwarts comes, and Charlie swears and turns back as quick as he can. He lands in Hogsmeade amidst a tangled mess of people who want to help but clearly have no idea what they're doing, and with a roll of his eyes he calls for order.
He winds up leading them into the battle, wands drawn. They push back the Death Eaters, falling in for the exhausted students, and this time Charlie knows he's killed, knows there's blood on his hands that he'll never be able to wash away.
He wishes it had been the man who'd killed Fred, though.
When the battle's said and done, Charlie bloodied and wearing, he finds Bill in the courtyard, and they clap each other on the shoulder before heading into the Great Hall.
They hear Mum's crying before they see their family, and they know.
Charlie takes off at a run, skidding to a halt and - no. No, not Fred. He's still in shock when arms wrap around his waist, and on instinct he wraps her up in a bear hug so tight it's a surprise she can still breathe.
There's a shock of pink hair two rows down, and Charlie crumples.
Bill has to hold him up, and Charlie cries for the first time in years.
He stays with Mum and Dad and his siblings for a while, but then Bill shoves him away, and he sits with Dora for - he doesn't know how long. He hadn't seen her since the wedding - she'd owled, told him about getting married, about Teddy, apologised for not asking him to be godfather, but Remus had insisted on Harry. He chokes out sobs for her, his best friend, the woman who he'd once wondered if she was his soulmate, the platonic love of his life. He cries for her, for the son she's left behind, for the fact that he never got to say goodbye, didn't get one more chance to remind her how fucking brilliant she is - was. Was.
At some point, someone leads him away - he thinks it's Bill - and takes him home. He doesn't remember much of the next few days; they pass in a haze of endless cups of tea and everything he eats turning to cardboard in his mouth and sleeping the hours away.
He snaps out of it when he gets a letter from Andromeda, with a photo of Teddy attached. He's curled up sleeping, clutching the stuffed dragon Charlie sent when he was born - and he smiles.
It ends with death and destruction and pain and grief and suffering. It ends with blood on his hands and tears in his eyes and his old school falling down around him; it ends with one brother dead and two others irrevocably scarred.
It ends.
Charlie stays at the Burrow for four months. He helps Mum around the house, helps her cook and clean and tidy and hassle his siblings. He helps Bill finish fixing up Shell Cottage for him and Fleur. He helps out at the shop when George can't handle it and he quietly accepts Ron's leaving and he goes to Andromeda's for tea to play with Teddy.
He grieves, and he learns to live with it.
They bury Fred, and Charlie gets his first tattoo; two Romanian Longhorns playfighting on his right arm curving up his shoulder, one of them missing a horn. They bury Dora and Remus, and Charlie dyes a stripe of his hair pink until he can get an Antipodean Opaleye inked on his left side, curled up around her baby. Except she's more pink than pearlescent, and the baby's similarly blue.
It's a collection that grows; a Peruvian Vipertooth wrapped around his right wrist for Ginny, a Hebridean Black for Bill on his left shoulder, a Swedish Short-Snout for Percy climbing up his left calf. He gets a Norwegian Ridgeback for Ron on his left forearm, and a Welsh Green and a Horntail covering most of his back for his parents. He gets silhouettes of flying dragons on the inside of his right arm for Ysa and Ali and Lissa and himself, and he gets the whole lot activated with magic so they move.
Mum despairs every time he comes home with something new; thinks they're ridiculous and tells him to go back to Romania if he misses the dragons that much. It isn't until he sits her down and explains what they mean and who they're for that she gets it. He's worked on all the designs himself; there's love and passion and loyalty poured into every molecule of ink that graces his skin. They're a commemoration and a dedication and a tribute, and they're art.
He has a better relationship with Mum now, he thinks, even if it is clouded by grief. She sees him as an adult, not her little boy anymore and she's calmed down a lot.
He wishes it hadn't taken losing a child for her to stop being so overprotective, though.
He sits up with her and Dad in the evenings and listens to their stories. They tell him about the first war, about the people they loved and lost. He finally learns the names of the people who used to sit at their kitchen table in the middle of the night, and what happened to them. They tell him stories of their Hogwarts years and the trouble they got into, or how they wound up rushing into their wedding because there was a war on and Bill was on the way. They tell him stories of himself as a child, and his siblings - ones he missed because he was at Hogwarts, or things they did as teenagers when he was in Romania.
He stays up until Ginny's due to go back to Hogwarts. With Bill and Fleur in Shell Cottage, George in the apartment above the shop, Percy living on his own and Ron figuring things out for himself, he thinks it'll be okay if he leaves. He waves his sister off from the platform, and leaves for Romania after tea.
He spends six months in Romania, tying up loose ends. He knows now that he doesn't want to stay; he wants to go home. He doesn't feel the need to put entire countries between himself and his mother; he wants to be there for her, and for Dad and Bill and George and Ginny and Percy and Ron, when he comes home. For Teddy, his best friend's legacy and the most precious thing in his life. For Andromeda, who always welcomed him with open arms during the summer holidays and sent chocolates and books about dragons at Christmas. For his old Quidditch team and for Fleur, who's been thrown into the Weasley madness and handled with grace, and for Harry and Hermione.
He applies to the Welsh reserve again, and has a job lined up starting in February. Until then, he works with the dragons and says goodbye to them one by one, handing them off to someone else.
Norberta doesn't take it well. In fact, she tries to set anyone else who comes near her on fire and on one memorable occasion she breaks out and flies to his house.
She's been almost entirely hand-reared; imprinting on Hagrid at birth made it difficult for them to get her to adjust to living with other dragons - and, well, eventually they kind of gave up. She likes Charlie, and he's not sure if she sees him as parent or child, but his bosses sigh and get in touch with the Welsh sanctuary to ask what they can do.
His friends throw him a leaving party and they all get rip-roaringly drunk and in all honesty, Charlie doesn't remember most of it. He's pretty sure Ali brought out the țuică and it's all a blur after that.
He packs up and flies out with Norberta two days later (he needs the time to recover).
Charlie's never been as excited to come home as he is at the start of February, even if he is also transporting a bloody Ridgeback. She doesn't cause too much trouble though, and he gets her settled into the Welsh reserve with few problems. She's quite happy to settle down once she gets fed and nose scritches. He's got a flat set up in the tiny village that's walking distance from the reserve, but really what he wants is to go home for his tea, so he does.
He settles into living and working in Wales pretty quickly. He drops by the Burrow once or twice a week for his dinner, and he tries to see Andromeda and Teddy at least every other weekend. He's still working up to asking her if he can take the toddler to see the dragons, but for now he regales him with tales about dragon riders of old and how Norberta's kind of a weirdo.
He knows his parents are happy to have him home. He's happy to be back, too - he writes to his old work mates a lot, hassling them for updates about the dragons he's left behind, but he likes being able to meet up with Bill and Fleur for a pint whenever they feel like it or being able to drop in on Percy or George just because. He finally feels like he has a good relationship with his Mum, and like this is where he needs to be. This is what feels right, now.
He writes to Hagrid, too, brings himi down to see Norberta. She lets him scratch her nose and makes the same weird purring noise she does for Charlie, and Hagrid cries.
And then he tells Charlie he's not sure he wants to stick with teaching but only if Charlie'll take the job. So. That's a thing.
Mum's delighted, of course; it's a proper, steady, nondangerous job - so she thinks, she hasn't seen the Blast-Ended Skrewts herd living in the Forest he'll have to deal with - and she doesn't shut up about him taking for it for a good month.
He goes to talk to McGonagall to get her opinion. She pretty much offers him the job on a platter, and Charlie balks. He's not qualified to teach, not in the slightest.
They come to a compromise; for the first year he'll assist Hagrid in classes and work his way up to taking over, so that he has the experience. McGonagall herself will also be keeping an eye on them both - he expected nothing less, honestly - and they'll start with a year and see how it goes.
He agrees, and hands his notice in at the dragon reservation.
He still has every intention of seeing Norberta at weekends though, and she knows it.
When the year is up, he takes up the position full-time. He's been there for five years now, four years as the professor himself, and he's getting used to it. Norberta is as demanding of affection as ever, and Teddy is growing bigger every time he sees him, and his mother ever more calm and settled.
He settles into Gryffindor easily, comforted by the fact that Bill's there, if he needs him. He quickly gains a reputation for being a class clown, something that makes him quietly snicker - oh, if only they knew what the twins are like. They haven't seen anything yet.
Charlie's not - well, he's not a bad student, but he isn't the best of them, either. He gets his homework done on time, mostly, and he has decent enough grades. He trundles along through first and second year, occasionally hassling Bill for a game of gobstones or chess, he doesn't fail any of his end of year exams, and he has plenty of friends. He's a happy enough kid, all in all.
Of course, then second year happens and he makes the Quidditch team. Quidditch is the closest he gets to what he really wants, which is flying dragons - has been since he was tiny. He joins the team as Seeker, a little bigger than your average player but no less fast. His parents are proud of him, but they can't really afford to buy him a new broom - so he winds up offering tutoring in Transfig, which he's pretty good at, in exchange for a few galleons here and there, and he saves up for something better than a Comet. They win the Cup, his first season, and he's immeasurably proud.
They don't win again whilst he's playing for them, but he still puts in a good performance. Third year he picks up COMC, and Bill also becomes a prefect, which is not so fun because now Bill has to actually tell him off for things - although it's always with a smile and a fond shake of his head, so it isn't all bad. Charlie knows he doesn't really mean it - he sounds like Mum, when he does, and that's enough for Charlie to shut the hell up and behave.
Percy joins the school in Charlie's fourth year, and Charlie raises an eyebrow whenever Percy tries to tag along with him. It's not because he doesn't want his kid brother hanging around - but Charlie and his mates spend their free time hanging out of trees and wrestling on the grass down by the lake, and that's just not Percy. Gently, Charlie steers his baby brother towards a couple of kids he knows are like-minded, and Percy seems to do okay with that.
His roommate, though - completely different question. Percy and Oliver have a weird sort of friendship, but Wood's completely Quidditch obsessed and tags along to all their practices, despite not being old enough for the team. They jokingly call him their mascot, but he seems to take it seriously. Charlie laughs and ruffles his hair, and occasionally listens to his ideas about tactics and formations. He's not quite got the hang of it - but he's got an eye for it, truthfully, and Charlie wonders.
His fifth year, Charlie makes Prefect and Bill makes Head Boy. He's not sure why he's been made prefect when he's got a history of rule-breaking, but he shrugs and takes it, and keeps an eye out for the younger years. It's weird, having to actually report to Bill and take orders from him; weirder than Bill telling him off for being a cheeky bugger, but they get on with it. Percy seems to be settling in okay, so Charlie stops worrying about him, and starts hassling Bill to eat and sleep properly during exams.
Merlin, he feels like his mother.
Bill graduates, and so does the team's bloody Keeper. That summer, along with the twins' Hogwarts letter - that school isn't going to know what's hit it - comes an extra letter for Charlie, one with a Captain's badge.
Well fuck. Looks like he's in charge of finding a new Keeper, then.
In between trying to make sure the twins don't get caught by Snape - look, he's not asking for a miracle that they'll behave, just that they don't lose house points - Charlie starts planning tryouts. He knows full well that Oliver's going to show up - but the kid's in his third year, and he's not sure he's ready for playing in matches.
Charlie has never been happier to be proved wrong. The kid flies like a dream.
Well, he gets knocked out two minutes into his first game, and when he wakes up after he asks Charlie if he's going to be replaced - but Charlie knows he's a better flyer than that. He tells him he gets one more chance, and Oliver nods eagerly.
Charlie's pretty sure he'd keep the kid on even if he screwed up again, because he's that good - just unlucky.
They don't win the cup that year, and Charlie's not exactly happy about it - in fact, he's flaming mad and his dormmates can only attest to that. He drilled his team hard, and whilst second is respectable, he'd thought that the amount of work they'd put in would have been enough.
It doesn't help that two of his chasers and his beaters are graduating.
He thinks that might have been part of the problem, in all honesty, that the seventh years didn't really want a younger student bossing them about.
Well. Tough.
Seventh year, Charlie has to hold tryouts for half the team. He's had his eye on some of the now fourth and fifth years - but, well, there's no denying that his kid brothers are the best Beaters he's ever seen. Fred and George play together like nobody else ever has, and Charlie doesn't think he's ever seen that kind of connection between players in the professional leagues. The sheer grit and determination shown by Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson is enough to convince him, too, and they work well with their original chaser, but for now he's happy to have them as reserves, let them ease into it.
He gets accused of favouritism for putting his brothers on the team, and McGonagall takes him aside to have a word. He tells her, in all seriousness, just to watch them play and then tell him he was wrong to put them on the team.
She nods, and after their first match tells him he was right.
He rides that high right up until he winds up handing in a piece of homework late and she gives him that look.
In between drilling his team even harder than the previous year - and he's slightly concerned about how much Oliver relishes that - Charlie works hard at his exams. Well, mostly Transfig, DADA and COMC, in all honesty, he's not really fussed about anything else. Professor Kettleburn brings Newt Scamander in for a talk about career options, and Charlie sits there, enthralled. He'd been thinking about pursuing Quidditch - there's been a couple of team scouts at matches, watching him - but that talk makes him realise that he could actually work with dragons. He's got the right skills for it, after all, and a love for them that never really faded.
He does not mention this plan to his mother under any circumstances. He does not mention it to his siblings, in case they mention it to his mother.
The finish the year in second place for the Quidditch Cup, again, and Charlie - well, he's okay with it. More than he was last year, at any rate. It's good, and his team are young, and he doubts they'll be giving up their spots anytime soon. At his graduation ceremony, he takes McGonagall aside, and recommends that Oliver be given the Captaincy - and advises that she makes sure he doesn't wind the whole team up in the Hospital Wing with exhaustion.
She laughs, which is odd in itself, and wishes him luck.
Mum cries when he graduates, and Dad hugs him, and Bill shows up, long hair and all, and Charlie laughs in delight and throws himself at his older brother for a hug.
Honestly? His seven years at Hogwarts were pretty good going.
Cause we were just kids
when we fell in love
when we fell in love
When Charlie got on the train for Hogwarts for the very first time, Bill told him to go make friends with the other first years, else he'd always be Bill's kid brother. At the time, Charlie thought he was mean to do so, but - well, he's done the same thing with Percy and the twins, so he's hardly one to talk.
He wound up sat in a compartment with a girl with bubblegum pink hair and he's never been more grateful to Bill than he has been for that.
He and Dora - that's how she introduces herself, when she's eleven, and he never grows out of the habit - talk the whole way to Hogwarts, and he's sad when she gets sorted into Hufflepuff. He quickly gets over that when she plops down next to him at breakfast the next morning.
Over the course of their time at Hogwarts, they grow as thick as thieves. Well, really by Christmas of first year they're like that, and it only gets worse as time goes on. They're outspoken little sods in class and always cracking jokes and generally being a nuisance, and he laughs at her clumsiness and helps her pick up her books and she watches his practices and tells anyone who accuses her of spying to go screw themselves with a smile on her face.
Charlie loves her endlessly.
They date for a while in fifth year, but it really feels like they're dating because they're expected to by their friends, and eventually, they go right back to how they were. Charlie's not all that fussed about kissing girls, in all honesty, and Dora shrugs and tells him he's nice to look at, but she'd rather be teasing him about his ridiculous obsession with dragons that falling into bed with him.
She's his best friend, and he doesn't know what he'd do without her.
Oh I'm here again,
between the devil
and the danger
between the devil
and the danger
Ever since he can remember, Charlie's loved dragons. When he was little, they used to make him think of his mum - still do, kind of, fire-breathing angry things that'll flatten everything in a hundred mile radius to protect their young. He used to want to be able to fly them, though by the time he left school he realised that probably wasn't going to happen. They don't take too kindly to people, in all honesty.
His seventh year, though, he starts seriously looking into working with dragons. There's a reserve in Wales and one in Scotland, and several in Europe. There's plenty farther afield, but he's not willing to go quite that far from home. He sends out applications and he Floos to interviews from McGonagall's office, and it pays off. He gets offered a job at the Welsh and Romanian reservations - the Welsh is better pay and a slightly higher starting position, but his mother loses her mind when he tells her after graduation. She tells him that Bill curse-breaking is bad enough and she can't allow it for any child living under her roof.
He takes the job in Romania instead.
And I am only,
being honest with you,
I get lonely
being honest with you,
I get lonely
It's hard, starting in Romania, in all honesty. He's thrown in at the deep end along with a couple of other trainees, and doesn't speak a word of the language. He picks it up though, out of sheer necessity, and he gets on with things. It's effectively a grad program; he gets his qualifications whilst he's working - but, well, he doesn't seem to be doing much related to actual dragons and it drives him a bit mad that he's having to write essays on dragons when he's not allowed near them. He's stuck with a lot of manual labour for months, and very little actual dragon interaction, but he grits his teeth and pays his dues. One of the other trainees drops out two weeks in, and another a month later - six months in, Charlie's the only one left.
He's filled out, shoulders broad and sturdy, hands burned and callused. When his parents and Ginny come out for Christmas, his father jokes that he only recognises Charlie by virtue of the hair - which Mum tries to cut short again, not that Charlie lets her - and Ginny swings herself up onto his shoulders with a delighted laugh. He's almost fluent by that point, able to crack jokes with his colleagues and shout warnings to them. He starts making his way up, moved up from manual labour and admin to working in the nursery. Baby dragons are a lot less dangerous than full grown ones, after all, and he's curious about the breeding program.
Of course, for that he has to study more.
He's having a laugh and a drink with some of the other trainees who'd come in a few months before him and revising his third draft of an essay on the proper care of short-snouts when he gets the letter from Ron. The thud of Errol flying into the window makes Ali cry out in despair that Mooten's come to do them in, and Charlie laughs him off. Whilst he's reading the letter, Ali and Ysabelle start bickering about what's going to be on their exams and Lissa starts debating aloud the merits of walking straight into a dragon's mouth rather than take it.
He asks them if they'd rather go on a midnight flight to go rescue an illegal dragon from Hogwarts instead.
The unanimous decision is hell yes.
When they get back with Norbert - soon to be found to be Norberta - they get into a world of trouble for it, and suddenly Charlie's got a promotion and his training sped up and he's in charge of a baby dragon. So. That's a thing.
It's hard work and he loves his job, and he rises through the ranks quickly over the years, after the Norberta situation, but he still misses home. He misses his mum's cooking and his dad's experiments out in the shed and the twins' pranks and Percy's Perciness and being able to swing Ginny around and playing chess with Ron. Every time he sees them, they're bigger and louder and brighter and getting on with their lives and he's missing so much. He sees Bill more often; it's easier for the two of them to grab a drink, and he writes a lot, but they're all so busy with their own lives that he rarely gets a reply.
Of course, when they wind up in Egypt at the end of Ginny's first year and he finds out what happened with that Charlie promptly loses his temper on the lot of them, doing a wonderful impression of his mother, and lambasts his siblings for not looking out for her or even noticing that something was up.
Then he hugs Ginny for a solid twenty minutes and doesn't let her out of his sight for the rest of the holiday.
He wonders, sometimes, if going to Romania was the right thing. He has to get by on letters from Dora, full of stories from Auror training. He can't keep an eye on Ginny or Percy, the two he worries about most from Romania - but then he remembers that living anywhere near the Burrow would open him up to his mother's overprotectiveness and he just can't deal with that. He's a twenty-something year old bloke who works with dragons; he needs the chance to do his own thing.
So he deals with the loneliness and the homesickness, and when things are especially bad he tugs on a Weasley sweater and Floo calls home, and he makes do.
Grab on my waist and
Put that body on me
Put that body on me
Living in Romania with a bunch of other twenty-somethings means there's a lot of going out drinking. Either sitting around in the bar in the local village near the reserve, or heading into the wizarding district of Bucharest - either way, there's a lot of it. Pubs and bars and clubs alike, it's all pretty much the same. They frequent magical places just because it's easier not to have to censor themselves all the time, and Charlie learns quickly that people like dragon wranglers.
Like. A lot.
Charlie doesn't really know how to feel about it, in all honesty. He likes flirting, likes sweet-talking people, but he's not really fussed about it going beyond that. He never really has been. Occasionally, he hooks up with Ali or Ysabelle, but it's different - he knows them, and he trusts them, and those instances are few and far between besides.
He dances with pretty girls and he looks at handsome boys and he doesn't feel any particular desire or need to go to bed with them - he's happy just dancing and talking and sometimes snogging, but no more than that. Lissa teases him for it, but he shrugs it off. It's just....he doesn't care, not really.
Sometimes he wonders if that does make him wrong, or broken, or damaged - but then there's inevitably a dragon that needs dealing with, so his thoughts never linger for long. He writes to Dora about it, and her response is the letter equivalent of a shrug and to tell him to just keep doing his thing.
You know that I've got
whisky with white lies,
and smoke in my lungs
whisky with white lies,
and smoke in my lungs
It starts with a Quidditch match.
Charlie's been due some holiday for a while, and when his dad gets tickets for the sodding World Cup final - well, of course he's going to be there. He doesn't tell his siblings he's coming, just shows up with a duffel bag and open arms. They play Quidditch in the back garden and he's quietly impressed with how much better they all are, even more so that Ron seems to have a knack for keeping. He gives Ron some pointers, makes Ginny swap with him as Seeker - he's too bloody big to be fast any more - and overall, he's proud of them.
He gets wrangled into a haircut by his mother, and rolls his eyes and takes it. It'll grow back out quick enough, and he doesn't fancy fighting with her right now, in all honesty. Bill shows up, and they duck out to head down the local pub for a drink and to commiserate over how being home kind of sucks sometimes. They've always been the two that needed out the most; who'd been ready to walk away and not come back.
He's beginning to understand why their mother is the way she is, though.
The match itself is great; Charlie gets as in to it as the rest of his siblings. He finally gets to meet Ron's friends - he'd kind of been set on hating them, in all honesty, because they keep dragging Ron into trouble and then Ginny got hurt - but Ron loves them so much that he can't, and it's clear the feeling's reciprocated.
Also Harry's so small and scruffy that Charlie feels the intense need to feed him up and wrap him in blankets and keep him safe, and he wonders if that's what being his mother is like.
It's after the match that things go to hell in a handcart. He only needs to share a look with Bill to know that they'll be charging into the fray - Ginny's here, there's no sodding way they're not, and on a more logisitical level, so is the bloody Boy-Who-Lived, and Charlie's pretty sure the fuckshites starting this would love to get their hands on him.
Dad gets the kids outside, and Charlie pulls on actual pants and grabs his wand and tears off, Bill on one side, Percy the other.
It's hellish, in all honesty, trying to subdue fully grown Death Eaters. Charlie's pretty sure he does some serious damage to some of them, used to throwing much more force behind his spells for the dragons he works with every day.
And then the cowards start disapparating as soon as they see the Dark Mark, and Charlie punches a tree in frustration.
It calms down and the Muggle family are sorted out by Ministry officials, and they make their way back to the tent. Fred and George and Ginny show up not long after, and Charlie crushes his little sister into a hug, but - they've been separated from Ron and his friends, and Bill and Charlie both turn the air blue.
Dad brings them back though, and tells them everything, and Charlie has no bloody clue what to think.
When they get home, Dad has to go off and handle crap at the Ministry, and Charlie and Bill have another very long conversation at the pub about what the hell they should do. Things are clearly shifting, if old Death Eaters feel safe enough to attack Muggles so publicly, and not for the better.
There's not much they can do, though, and Charlie's fed up and tired.
They play more Quidditch, this time with Harry involved, and Charlie's floored by how good the kid is. How in Merlin's name did they not win the last three years straight? He'll have to have words with Oliver, clearly Harry wasn't being utilised well enough. He and Bill take turns with Ginny, the three of them shifting around so she gets a chance to play Seeker and Chaser both, and Charlie shoots Ron a Look when he tries to protest.
He catches up with Dora, and it's like they've never been apart. He tells her about the dragons and his co-workers, and she tells him about her escapades at work. They talk and laugh well into the night, and Charlie winds up having to take a public portkey back to Ottery St Catchpole and walk from there because he's too pissed to apparate.
The summer comes to an end, Charlie gets an owl early one morning from work telling him he'll be needed to transport bloody dragons to Hogwarts - he faceplants into the mattress and hands it to Bill, who immediately starts laughing - and they see the kids off to Hogwarts. He and Bill can't resist winding them up about the Tournament; it's just too funny watching Ron and the twins get increasingly frustrated at not being in on the joke.
He goes back to work, and starts planning which dragons they're taking. The Short Snout, the Fireball and the Welsh Green should be alright; enough to be a challenge without any serious concern of death.
Of course, then they get the letter that a fourth will be needed, and Charlie despairs, because of course Harry bloody Potter wound up getting sucked into this. Charlie wonders if the scar on his forehead still has a curse attached to it, because the kid has seriously bad luck.
They bring the dragons over, and privately Charlie thinks they could do with having more of them around to corral the beasts, because they're really not happy about it. Especially the Horntail - and Merlin, that had bene a fight and a half; he'd been adamant that they shouldn't be taking her, especially after they were asked for nesting mothers, but she was the only one they really could take, other dragons injured, ill, or dealing with babies.
He meets up with Hagrid to catch him up on Norberta - who's now massive and likes having her nose scratched - and Hagrid, naturally, brings Harry along. He's kind of glad of it when he finds out, after the fact, glad that Harry gets a chance to know what the bloody hell he's getting into - and screw the rules, he's fourteen, he needs a head's up.
He does not tell his mother. She's already stressed to high heaven, and Charlie's doing enough worrying for the both of them over the fact that he's facing a massive dragon.
He's also worried about the dragons - they're beautiful, majestic creatures, not to be gawped at like they're in a zoo, or poked and prodded to make them aggressive, it's like training dogs to fight, it's wrong - but mostly he's worried about Harry.
He checks in on Harry before owling Mum, and then he goes to sooth the dragons and take them home and write a strongly worded letter to the Ministry about the fact that eggs vital to breeding programmes were destroyed, and they're all a bunch of idiots for agreeing to this.
He tries to get time off for the Third Task, so he can make sure Harry bloody survives it, but he's used up all his holiday, and has to hear about events secondhand, from the Prophet and letters from home.
Dread settles into the pit of his stomach when he hears from his Dad, and on his next day off he goes home for a flying stopover and signs up for the Order. Dumbledore wants him to recruit in Europe - and he's both frustrated that he doesn't get to do more and relieved that he doesn't have to leave the dragons.
The months drag on, and Charlie spends the next two years worried sick about his family back home. He writes more than he ever has, trying to keep up, and he feels a little bit sick every time Ginny tells him what's going on at Hogwarts. That bitch, torturing students - and screwing with their Cup chances! Mum tells him pretty much nothing, Ron hardly ever replies, and Percy - he doesn't even want to touch that issue with a ten footbargepole, because he's disappointed and angry and wants to hit his brother with a sledgehammer. Bill and Dad and the twins and Ginny are honest and frank with him though, and whilst he's out of his mind with worry, he's glad to know what the hell is going on. He begs the twins to be careful, but of course they don't listen - and when Ginny tells them about how they quit school, he's actually kind of impressed. He sends them some money for the business - Circe knows Mum would never take anything from him - and he and Bill invent their own code.
He also teases Bill mercilessly about Fleur.
He sticks out two years, and then Dumbledore dies and Bill's wedding rolls around and Charlie goes home to pay his respects and stand up as Bill's best man. Bill comes out to ask him, and Charlie looks at him, unimpressed. As if he'd let anyone else do it. Honestly.
The wedding's good, even if he does spend half of it poking fun at Bill for the lovestruck expression on his face.
Fleur gives him the dragon figurine she had from the Triwizard Tournament, and Charlie looks like a three year old as it curls up in his hands. It's a pretty little Welsh Green, and he names it Eirian, and it takes up semi-permanent residence on his shoulder.
It's nice to see Hary again too, honestly, though there's a part of him that rages at the resigned, haunted look in his eyes. He's seen that look, seen it in his parents' faces, and Harry's too sodding young, and so are Ron and Hermione.
It goes to hell again, of bloody course it does, and the second Shacklebolt's patronus arrives Charlie's out of his seat casting shield charms and wards in an effort to keep them safe. He shoves people out the way so Hermione can get to Ron, and when the Death Eaters arrive he makes damn well sure that he's shielding Ginny at all times. She's a bloody good dueller, and it makes Charlie's heart break to know that, because she shouldn't have to be - but she's still his baby sister, and Mum would kill him if he didn't try to keep her safe.
They get questioned, and the whole time Charlie's chomping at the bit to rip their heads off. Or set a dragon on them, Norberta probably would if he asked nicely. It's his suggestion to use the ghoul as a cover for Ron, and the twins suggest spattergroit, and he's never been so bloody relieved as he is when it works.
He argues with Mum when the Death Eaters finally leave. She wants him to go back to Romania, where it's safe - but he can't, not like this, not when Ron's on the run and Dad and Percy are in the Ministry and Ginny's going back to Hogwarts. He can't just leave when his family's got a target on their backs; he'd never forgive himself.
He bounces back and forth instead, handling some admin things and consulting in Romania, but spending most of his time in England, keeping in touch with Bill and Fleur and taking the injured to them. He helps Mum around the house and attends the war meetings and helps out with bloody Potterwatch and good Merlin, he bloody loves the twins sometimes.
They find out that Ron and his friends are with Bill just after they leave on some suicide mission to Gringotts, and Charlie growls in frustration and punches a wall. He's had no contact with his baby brother since the wedding, when he watched Hermione disapparate them out, hasn't known if he was in one piece or not. He'd been in Romania when Ron had shown up at Shell Cottage on his own, and good thing too, else Charlie would've thwacked him for ditching Harry and Hermione. Had he learned nothing from Percy?
He's flying out to Romania when the call for aid at Hogwarts comes, and Charlie swears and turns back as quick as he can. He lands in Hogsmeade amidst a tangled mess of people who want to help but clearly have no idea what they're doing, and with a roll of his eyes he calls for order.
He winds up leading them into the battle, wands drawn. They push back the Death Eaters, falling in for the exhausted students, and this time Charlie knows he's killed, knows there's blood on his hands that he'll never be able to wash away.
He wishes it had been the man who'd killed Fred, though.
When the battle's said and done, Charlie bloodied and wearing, he finds Bill in the courtyard, and they clap each other on the shoulder before heading into the Great Hall.
They hear Mum's crying before they see their family, and they know.
Charlie takes off at a run, skidding to a halt and - no. No, not Fred. He's still in shock when arms wrap around his waist, and on instinct he wraps her up in a bear hug so tight it's a surprise she can still breathe.
There's a shock of pink hair two rows down, and Charlie crumples.
Bill has to hold him up, and Charlie cries for the first time in years.
He stays with Mum and Dad and his siblings for a while, but then Bill shoves him away, and he sits with Dora for - he doesn't know how long. He hadn't seen her since the wedding - she'd owled, told him about getting married, about Teddy, apologised for not asking him to be godfather, but Remus had insisted on Harry. He chokes out sobs for her, his best friend, the woman who he'd once wondered if she was his soulmate, the platonic love of his life. He cries for her, for the son she's left behind, for the fact that he never got to say goodbye, didn't get one more chance to remind her how fucking brilliant she is - was. Was.
At some point, someone leads him away - he thinks it's Bill - and takes him home. He doesn't remember much of the next few days; they pass in a haze of endless cups of tea and everything he eats turning to cardboard in his mouth and sleeping the hours away.
He snaps out of it when he gets a letter from Andromeda, with a photo of Teddy attached. He's curled up sleeping, clutching the stuffed dragon Charlie sent when he was born - and he smiles.
It ends with death and destruction and pain and grief and suffering. It ends with blood on his hands and tears in his eyes and his old school falling down around him; it ends with one brother dead and two others irrevocably scarred.
It ends.
A life with love
is a life that's been lived
is a life that's been lived
Charlie stays at the Burrow for four months. He helps Mum around the house, helps her cook and clean and tidy and hassle his siblings. He helps Bill finish fixing up Shell Cottage for him and Fleur. He helps out at the shop when George can't handle it and he quietly accepts Ron's leaving and he goes to Andromeda's for tea to play with Teddy.
He grieves, and he learns to live with it.
They bury Fred, and Charlie gets his first tattoo; two Romanian Longhorns playfighting on his right arm curving up his shoulder, one of them missing a horn. They bury Dora and Remus, and Charlie dyes a stripe of his hair pink until he can get an Antipodean Opaleye inked on his left side, curled up around her baby. Except she's more pink than pearlescent, and the baby's similarly blue.
It's a collection that grows; a Peruvian Vipertooth wrapped around his right wrist for Ginny, a Hebridean Black for Bill on his left shoulder, a Swedish Short-Snout for Percy climbing up his left calf. He gets a Norwegian Ridgeback for Ron on his left forearm, and a Welsh Green and a Horntail covering most of his back for his parents. He gets silhouettes of flying dragons on the inside of his right arm for Ysa and Ali and Lissa and himself, and he gets the whole lot activated with magic so they move.
Mum despairs every time he comes home with something new; thinks they're ridiculous and tells him to go back to Romania if he misses the dragons that much. It isn't until he sits her down and explains what they mean and who they're for that she gets it. He's worked on all the designs himself; there's love and passion and loyalty poured into every molecule of ink that graces his skin. They're a commemoration and a dedication and a tribute, and they're art.
He has a better relationship with Mum now, he thinks, even if it is clouded by grief. She sees him as an adult, not her little boy anymore and she's calmed down a lot.
He wishes it hadn't taken losing a child for her to stop being so overprotective, though.
He sits up with her and Dad in the evenings and listens to their stories. They tell him about the first war, about the people they loved and lost. He finally learns the names of the people who used to sit at their kitchen table in the middle of the night, and what happened to them. They tell him stories of their Hogwarts years and the trouble they got into, or how they wound up rushing into their wedding because there was a war on and Bill was on the way. They tell him stories of himself as a child, and his siblings - ones he missed because he was at Hogwarts, or things they did as teenagers when he was in Romania.
He stays up until Ginny's due to go back to Hogwarts. With Bill and Fleur in Shell Cottage, George in the apartment above the shop, Percy living on his own and Ron figuring things out for himself, he thinks it'll be okay if he leaves. He waves his sister off from the platform, and leaves for Romania after tea.
We're going somewhere
where the sun is
shining bright
where the sun is
shining bright
He spends six months in Romania, tying up loose ends. He knows now that he doesn't want to stay; he wants to go home. He doesn't feel the need to put entire countries between himself and his mother; he wants to be there for her, and for Dad and Bill and George and Ginny and Percy and Ron, when he comes home. For Teddy, his best friend's legacy and the most precious thing in his life. For Andromeda, who always welcomed him with open arms during the summer holidays and sent chocolates and books about dragons at Christmas. For his old Quidditch team and for Fleur, who's been thrown into the Weasley madness and handled with grace, and for Harry and Hermione.
He applies to the Welsh reserve again, and has a job lined up starting in February. Until then, he works with the dragons and says goodbye to them one by one, handing them off to someone else.
Norberta doesn't take it well. In fact, she tries to set anyone else who comes near her on fire and on one memorable occasion she breaks out and flies to his house.
She's been almost entirely hand-reared; imprinting on Hagrid at birth made it difficult for them to get her to adjust to living with other dragons - and, well, eventually they kind of gave up. She likes Charlie, and he's not sure if she sees him as parent or child, but his bosses sigh and get in touch with the Welsh sanctuary to ask what they can do.
His friends throw him a leaving party and they all get rip-roaringly drunk and in all honesty, Charlie doesn't remember most of it. He's pretty sure Ali brought out the țuică and it's all a blur after that.
He packs up and flies out with Norberta two days later (he needs the time to recover).
I'm on my way
i still remember
these old country lanes
these old country lanes
Charlie's never been as excited to come home as he is at the start of February, even if he is also transporting a bloody Ridgeback. She doesn't cause too much trouble though, and he gets her settled into the Welsh reserve with few problems. She's quite happy to settle down once she gets fed and nose scritches. He's got a flat set up in the tiny village that's walking distance from the reserve, but really what he wants is to go home for his tea, so he does.
He settles into living and working in Wales pretty quickly. He drops by the Burrow once or twice a week for his dinner, and he tries to see Andromeda and Teddy at least every other weekend. He's still working up to asking her if he can take the toddler to see the dragons, but for now he regales him with tales about dragon riders of old and how Norberta's kind of a weirdo.
He knows his parents are happy to have him home. He's happy to be back, too - he writes to his old work mates a lot, hassling them for updates about the dragons he's left behind, but he likes being able to meet up with Bill and Fleur for a pint whenever they feel like it or being able to drop in on Percy or George just because. He finally feels like he has a good relationship with his Mum, and like this is where he needs to be. This is what feels right, now.
He writes to Hagrid, too, brings himi down to see Norberta. She lets him scratch her nose and makes the same weird purring noise she does for Charlie, and Hagrid cries.
And then he tells Charlie he's not sure he wants to stick with teaching but only if Charlie'll take the job. So. That's a thing.
Mum's delighted, of course; it's a proper, steady, nondangerous job - so she thinks, she hasn't seen the Blast-Ended Skrewts herd living in the Forest he'll have to deal with - and she doesn't shut up about him taking for it for a good month.
He goes to talk to McGonagall to get her opinion. She pretty much offers him the job on a platter, and Charlie balks. He's not qualified to teach, not in the slightest.
They come to a compromise; for the first year he'll assist Hagrid in classes and work his way up to taking over, so that he has the experience. McGonagall herself will also be keeping an eye on them both - he expected nothing less, honestly - and they'll start with a year and see how it goes.
He agrees, and hands his notice in at the dragon reservation.
He still has every intention of seeing Norberta at weekends though, and she knows it.
When the year is up, he takes up the position full-time. He's been there for five years now, four years as the professor himself, and he's getting used to it. Norberta is as demanding of affection as ever, and Teddy is growing bigger every time he sees him, and his mother ever more calm and settled.
Life is good. And for the first time in years, Charlie believes that.
OOC NAME: bea
