Familiar Rooms (PG-13)
Here is a story that has been in the works for a long time.
For
dragon_animagus , I hope you will enjoy it, dearest. The last part of this story is what I should have written instead of what I did for 'Ready'.
The beta reading was done by dear
queenb23more.
Familiar Rooms
Characters: Charlie (MC), Bill (MC), Ginny (SC)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It was a deceptively normal room in a quirky house, complete with an imaginary and hotly debated frontier that dug a trench at the heart of it.
They lived in that room, and the room lived within them.
Familiar Rooms
In a house of such improbable shape, the brothers’ bedroom was an oddity, a set of lines unusual in their straightness.
The wainscot had been repainted in crisp white by one of its occupants. The dark wood flooring shone when days were sunny and bright. Scratches were discernable to the naked eye on the surface of the furnishing; polished slants attested their multigenerational (mis) usage.
The two single beds might have looked Spartan if colourful quilts had not puffed them up. A wobbly table separated them and was host to a charmed lamp, several battered books, and a set of natural curiosities, one of which appearing to be a desiccated toad.
Sunlight pushed the shadows back, deep into the corners of the narrow bedroom. From the window, one had an incomparable view on the neighbouring hills behind which a pond offered relief on summer days. Oncoming thunderstorms were monitored from there.
Storms seemed more menacing and spectacular without a tree line to narrow the sky into a thin rectangle of grey. The brothers often pulled up their kid sister so she could sit on the table and join them in their observation. The little girl shivered with a mix of fright and excitement as they listened to the ominous rumbling in the distance.
The wall behind their respective bedposts was covered in posters, newspapers clippings, pictures: here, the five members of famed wizard rock, Minotaur’s Wrath, slouching for the camera; there, pictures of redheaded teens flashing smiles. A miniature flag to the colours of Brazil flapped as if a breeze blew incessantly in its direction. Three clippings from The Daily Prophet mentioned teenage Quidditch exploits and teased readers by suggesting that young and promising Charles Weasley could be the spectacular rookie player England had been hoping for since teen prodigy Montague Fellowworth in 1967. Another clipping trumpeted the attribution of the annual elite scholarship sponsored by The International Curse Breaking Federation and Gringotts Wizarding Bank to outstanding student and current Hogwarts Head Boy, William Weasley.
A poster of Mona Young, the popular captain and all-star Beater for the Tutshill Tornadoes, had been pinned on the back of the bedroom door. Neither brother was a fan of the Tornadoes, but the appeal of curvaceous Young straddling her Nimbus as she weighed her club with suggestive dexterity had them agreeing in silence about her rightful place in their room.
“She’s the best Beater in the league,” red-faced Bill had explained to their inquiring mother as they both pretended not to hear Charlie making kissing noises in the back of the room.
It was a deceptively normal room in a quirky house, complete with an imaginary and hotly debated frontier that dug a trench at the heart of it. Both sides were symmetrical in their mess: on Bill’s side, books, violently coloured albums, handwritten notes, quills and ink were approximately piled. On Charlie’s side, clothing and scribbled diagrams of Quidditch strategies littered the floor while a meticulously assembled and full size Moontrimmer broom collectible was displayed on the wall.
While studious Bill tolerated an overflow of Charlie’s Quidditch magazines on his side, critters in any shape and size, might they be safely tucked away in glass jars, had him pointing fingers. Charlie was more adamant to push back Bill’s mess. He touted that every inch of his side was of his jurisdiction, and he was determined into making it so.
One early morning of August, Charlie stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. Bill’s side of the room was immaculate against his pigsty. It was already deserted: his brother’s bed was stripped from its sheets while his gleaming new trunk was opened at the foot of the bed. Clothing and personal effects were waiting to be packed in.
Charlie pulled a green shirt from a pile. Bill would have to leave for Egypt without his favourite tee. He rummaged through the clothing, pestering between his teeth when he extirpated from it a pair of beige trousers.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” Bill exclaimed as he stepped into the room, dumping an armful of fresh laundry on the bed. “I had it all organized!”
“I reckon it’s a good thing I checked.” Charlie unfolded the green tee and waved it at Bill as an accusation. The gold letters shimmered its mocking message, So long, Seeker! “Well, well, fancy that… this tee’s mine.”
“I must have put it in the pile by mistake. Sorry.” Bill scoffed as he pointed at the beige trousers, now crumpled on the floor. “Those don’t fit you…don’t tell me they’re your favourites too.”
Charlie frowned as he picked them up. “They do fit when I roll up the hems.”
The fabric slipped from Charlie’s hands to Bill’s trunk. “Yeah, rolling up the hems…smashing. That’ll make you dapper. Let it go. Mum decided I should take them, so… mine.”
Charlie kneeled next to the bed as he went through the piles of clothing Bill had neatly folded. “Did Mum tell you could bring these too?” he said indignantly. He brandished a pair of well-worn blue socks. “These are my lucky socks!”
Those were lucky socks in more than one way. He had them on when he caught the Snitch to help Gryffindor win the last two Quidditch Cups at Hogwarts. He was also wearing them when defeated Ravenclaw Chaser Jennifer Hopkirk came to the Gryffindor common room to pull him out from the celebration under the pretext she wanted to congratulate him, only to find himself backed against a wall as she consciously proceeded into snogging him. After they dissolved their yearlong competitive bickering in saliva, Charlie appreciated the wonder of that day.
The Quidditch Cup and Jennifer Hopkirk. He had pined after both all season.
He would have preferred to be Stupefied than to admit to his brother that he had a girlfriend. To think of it, he would have preferred to be Stupefied than to admit to Bill that he somehow believed his socks had something to do with it.
Bill glanced at the precious garments over his shoulder. “Nah, these are mine.”
“No way. I’d leave them to you, but I need them. Ravenclaws claim they’ll kick our arses next year. Can’t let that happen.” Charlie slipped on the socks, and he wiggled his toes in an act of defiance. “Look, they fit perfectly.”
“Bugger it.” Bill sighed with irritation. “They’re mine. You have an identical pair in your drawer.”
“Well, take the ones in the drawer.” Charlie waved with majesty as he leaned back on his bed, clasping his hands behind his head. “I’m not parting with my lucky socks.”
Bill retrieved the twin pair of socks in the drawer, shaking his head. “Prat… just how can you tell the difference between them? They’re the same frigging colour!”
“See this here?” Charlie slipped the tip of his finger in a tiny hole near the big toe. “Mine.”
Bill waved the socks with disgust. “There’s a hole in one of those too. And what if you’re wearing only one lucky sock? What will happen? You’ll get half the luck?”
Charlie whistled between his teeth, singularly enjoying the sight of Bill getting himself worked up over a pair of socks. “Okay, geek. How do you know the ones I’m wearing are yours?”
“Because they didn’t bloody stink before you slipped them on, for one.” Bill scowled as he threw the socks on top of the pile. “You’re such a kid. It’s just a pair of socks.”
You’re such a kid was Bill’s most stinging insult, and Charlie confidently believed that he had the upper hand. “And you’re so mature, arguing over socks…wool socks you want to bring to the desert.”
Bill moved briskly towards the trunk, his back to him. “So you know, nights are cold. Keep your lucky socks. I’ve got no time for your rubbish. I’m leaving you Mona so you should thank me. ”
Everyone had been fawning over Bill’s scholarship in the last weeks, and Charlie was tired, if not dead bored, that his brother, who usually did not indulge into giddy excitement, had blabbed non-stop about Egypt and about how he would be taking residence in a single room flat, and how he would be exploring ancient hideouts with top curse breakers for his training - ad nauseam.
“Independence and privacy, finally!” Bill had exulted one night as they were lying on their beds in the darkness.
All that privacy talk had an enticing charm to it. Charlie pursed his lips as he watched his brother smooth a jumper with the flat of his hand. His brother seemed nervous about his freshly gained independence. “Cool. But Mona’s always been your type of girl.”
“I won’t be putting up a poster of a female Quidditch player in my room,” Bill said tersely, placing books at the bottom of the trunk.
“Why’s that?”
Bill sneered, recovering his aura of smugness in a second. “You have to ask? What d’you think a girl would say if she visited a bloke’s flat and came face to face with a giant poster of a woman clad in tight Quidditch gear?”
As Charlie raked his brains to figure how a picture of a star Beater could offend a girl, Bill clicked his tongue with superiority. “Listen and learn, mate. Not a smooth move.”
“But it’s a poster! It’s not a giant picture of your, say, ex-girlfriend.”
Bill stared at him with mocking despair. “Won’t make that big a difference to a girl when she’s staring down Mona’s cleavage, y’know.”
Charlie was tempted to point and laugh. The word ‘cleavage’ was ridiculous in Bill’s mouth, especially because this brother had won three years in a row the highly confidential breast synonym contest that went on each year in the boys’ dormitory.
But titillating information had been laid on a silver platter, and Charlie took it as an opportunity to research.
“So you’re planning to bring a girl to your place?” he said as he sat straight on the bed, all ears.
“It might happen…why not?” Bill folded the last pair of trousers and laid it in the trunk, now filled to the rim. Charlie pouted in appreciation as he watched how his brother skilfully avoided the subject. Bill was a master at deflecting. “Trunk’s full and there’s still a couple of things I wanted to bring - blimey. I’ll have to ask Mum to send them by owl.”
Bill straightened up as he passed his shirt over his head. Charlie stared at him as his brother slipped into a linen tunic, what Charlie had understood was a traditional gift from the man who would be Bill’s instructor for the next year. Bill then rummaged in his travel cloak’s pocket and retrieved an engraved silver band.
Charlie watched him slip it on his middle finger with curiosity. He had been lavishly informed that curse breaking was a ritualized occupation, full of superstition and details that would have him bored in less than a week, but Bill was obviously taking it all into stride, yapping incessantly about how fascinating it was to enter a culture where magic and non-magic worlds were so deeply intertwined for millenaries.
“All set,” Bill said after a quick look to his wristwatch.
Charlie pointed at the band with his chin. “You don’t believe in that stuff.”
“I don’t, but they do.” Bill clipped on his travel cloak as he shrugged. “I reckon I’ll come to understand why, right?”
Something heavy plopped on Charlie’s stomach when it became obvious that Bill had come into the room as his bickering older brother and was leaving it as an apprentice curse-breaker. He did not even look like his tee-stealing, champion breast synonym-naming brother anymore. Bill was now one of those adventurers he’d shown him pictures of in his books: bright and smart, confident in himself and in his magic, a young man who would be making a life on his own, working in the uttermost ancient sites of magic to find treasures.
Free. Independent. And Bill has also confided in him something he had managed to keep from their mother, about how he would be getting a Mark, a protective and complicated magical tattoo that was mandatory to get into death chambers.
Bill was getting a tattoo.
And a smallish flat where he might bring a girl.
Bill truly has it all, Charlie thought, envious, wishing that he was the one leaving for an adventurous world and getting a fancy Mark, instead of going back to Hogwarts for the next two years.
“Bill!” Their mother called for him from the kitchen, her voice rising in characteristic agitation when departures were imminent. “Are you ready, dear? It’s almost time! We don’t want your father to be waiting for you at the Ministry. Percy, Ron, come say goodbye to your brother! Ginny, darling, you know you can’t go with him... put that travel bag away, dearest.”
The trunk shut in a rattle, and Bill weighted his wand. “Coming down, mate?”
“Nah.” Charlie stepped back, fiddling with the tee. “Got stuff to do.”
“Stuff to do?” Bill asked, startled.
“Mmm,” Charlie said equivocally.
Was Bill serious? Was he expecting a princely send-off where he, Charlie, would witness him go with tears in his eyes and tremors in his voice as he waved his handkerchief?
Bollocks. Charlie clutched the tee tighter. King Bill, he cursed inwardly, always seeing himself as royalty.
“Oh, okay. Bye then.” Bill pushed back his travel cloak and took a step his way, offering his hand to shake. “Just kick Ravenclaw’s arse, will you? I know Jenny Hopkirk’s your girl, but I hope you’ll be ruthless when you’re playing for the Cup. I’ve got an ongoing bet with her brother and you’re making me rich.”
Charlie let his brother shake his hand with vigour, his face igniting from embarrassment. He shrugged as he pretended to ignore his beet-red cheeks. “Good luck, mate. I’m sure you’ll wow the mummies. But no need to talk about the Cup that right now…keep the wishes for Christmas break.”
Bill moved back as he waved his wand, and his trunk effortlessly lifted from the floor. “I told you, Charlie. I’m not coming back for Christmas. I have classes during holidays.”
Charlie frowned, his mind going into overdrive as he tried to recall that particular conversation. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I did tell you. When I got the schedule two weeks ago. I’ll be back for a month next summer. But I’ll write.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Charlie repeated, adamant. His mind was blank on that issue. He would have never missed a detail like that.
Bill clicked his tongue as he moved towards the door, his trunk floating in front of him. “I did tell you, but perhaps you didn’t hear me. You’ve been too busy locking yourself in the loo to read your girlfriend’s letters to listen to what I was telling you, I reckon.”
Charlie saw red as childish anger burned his throat. He’d have shoved Bill if their mother’s voice had not insinuated itself between them and defused his impulse. “BILL!”
They stared at each other. “I didn’t know,” Charlie mumbled, defeated. “See you next summer then.”
Bill nodded with a half-hearted smile, and he left the room.
Charlie sat on Bill’s bed. Seeing his brother prepare himself to leave all summer had been annoying; he did not believe the fuss around it, as they all knew that Bill would be back home, like they all would, around Christmas time. His mother’s anxiety made sense all of a sudden.
“Charlie!” she called from downstairs. “Your brother is about to leave!”
“It’s okay, Mum. We spoke upstairs,” Bill hushed.
Charlie kicked the bedpost, slightly humiliated. His brother was covering for him.
Of course. The noble prat.
He walked to the stairs, listening intently as Bill said his goodbyes in the kitchen. “That’s smashing, Ginny-Gin, I’ll put it on my wall. Don’t kill yourself studying, Perce…sure, I’ll write. Gred, Forge… well, mates, that’s very generous of you both, but how can you be sure it won’t explode on my way there? Bye, Ronnie…. ah, Mum, please… please don’t cry.”
“Charlie, I want you down here right now! Bill dear, you must promise that you’ll be careful and that you’ll -”
“Mum!” Bill vehemently protested. “I’ll be fine!”
“CHARLIE!”
Charlie obeyed. He thundered his way down, stopping halfway on the staircase. Bill was glancing over their mother’s head, already somewhere else.
Charlie faced his brother’s slow, enigmatic tight-lipped smile before he kissed their mother goodbye. He did not wait for the whoosh indicating Bill’s departure. He had already turned away and climbed up the stairs two by two. In the silence of the bedroom that was now all his, he mechanically stretched sheets over Bill’s mattress, spreading the quilt over it, attempting to alleviate the gaping difference between his side of the frontier and this newly deserted land.
He stared at his handiwork with a frown. After a short hesitation, he threw his green tee on Bill’s side, kicked his shoes under his brother’s bed, spread his Quidditch magazines on Bill’s side of the table. It did not satisfy him as much as he thought it would.
Charlie plopped down on his bed.
Boundaries were irrelevant when territory was abandoned.
: : :
The room was a void.
Charlie did his very best to avoid the bedroom that was now his alone during the last days before his departure for Hogwarts. It was small for two teenage boys. Since Bill had left, its narrowness drove him restless.
He roamed The Burrow’s surroundings upside down on his broomstick to his mother’s ire and avoided being sent to his room by agreeing to Ron’s plea of showing him flying techniques. He was genuinely surprised to have such a good time, and he taught dirty tricks to the twins, who appreciated the lesson even more when he encouraged them to play them against him.
The afternoon before leaving for Hogwarts, he lounged on his bed, morose, unwilling to pack his things.
“You miss him, do you?”
His mother came in with a pile of carefully folded trousers, and she placed them on the chest of drawers.
Charlie shrugged. “Mmmyeah.”
“I miss him too.” She sat on the edge of his bed, flattening on her lap a piece of parchment covered with Bill’s square and regular handwriting. “But he says he’s fine and that he’s eating well. I trust him.”
Charlie squirmed. Please, please, please, not one of these conversations.
“Are these the socks I’ve knitted for him last Christmas?” Her mother lightly tapped on his toes. “I’ve looked for them everywhere…I hoped to have time to mend them before he left. I’ll send them by owl, then. Have you found your lucky socks, dear? We wouldn’t want you taking any chance of parting with them, would we?”
“I gave Bill my lucky socks.” Charlie sheepishly grinned as his mother stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You did?” He looked down to his magazine when his mother stroked his knee with affection. “What did he say?”
“Nothing.” As they were alone, Charlie allowed himself to be comforted by his mother’s loving gesture, and his cheeks prickled. “I didn’t tell him. Bill wouldn’t believe in superstitions even if they bit him in the b -“
“Enough, young man.” Her smile contradicted her scolding as she turned away on her way out of the room. “He would have appreciated knowing what you did. You should tell him. Ginny, come with me, dear. Let’s leave Charlie alone, he has lots to do before tomorrow.”
“But I want to watch the storm from his room,” pleaded Ginny in a quiet voice. She stood on the doorstep, her shiny hair plaited in a crown.
Charlie shrugged. “Sure, Ginny-Gin. I don’t mind.”
Ginny dumped the content of the table on Bill’s bed before Charlie seized her up so she could perch on it. He slouched back on the mattress, and they watched in silence the clouds glide in the sky as they formed a steely-looking wall that darkened the room.
“You’re not going away, are you?” Ginny asked. Thunder rolled at the distance, and they both shivered as a cool breeze ruffled the curtains.
“Of course I am. I’m leaving for Hogwarts tomorrow,” Charlie said. “Like every year.”
“But you’re not leaving forever like Bill.”
“Bill’s not left forever,” he objected with a snort. What was it with girls and heavy, dark-clouded words? “He’ll be back next summer.”
“But he’s not coming back to live here,” she argued. “He lives in Egypt now.”
Charlie felt daft to be brought back to reality by his eight-year old sister. She was looking at him curiously. “Are you going to be a Quidditch player after you’ve finished at Hogwarts?”
“Dunno yet. I might try out for a team. I’d fancy that, playing Quidditch every day and getting paid for it.”
And he would be living elsewhere, and Ginny would be pestering Percy and asking when he’d leave forever.
“Oh.” Ginny nodded with enthusiasm. “You’d be smashing.”
He stared at her with surprise, and then he chuckled heartily, amused at how she used Bill’s words, even mimicking his intonation and smile.
“You don’t ask me what I’m going to be?” she added with a frown.
He sighed, nudging her with his foot. “Okay…so what are you going to be?”
“A Quidditch player…a Seeker, like you.”
Charlie laughed. “Sure, flower.”
She turned to him, eyes fiery from indignation. “I will! And you will ask for my optograph one day!”
The girl never even flew since their mother did not allow her to. “Don’t let me forget about that.”
“And you should write me more Owls when you’re in school,” Ginny said, examining him from the corner of her eye. Rain was now falling in sheets, and Charlie stretched himself. There was something about the smell of earth and rain that made him feel full. “Bill used to write me every month, but you never write me anything. Send me something when you get there, okay?”
“What do you want me to send you?” he teased. “My school work? That would be brilliant, my baby sister writing my History of Magic essays.”
Perhaps Binns wouldn’t notice, especially after flunking his O.W.L.
“Not your homework, silly.”
She had an endearing way of giggling, crinkling her nose and eyes like a real charmer, and Charlie wondered how she’d fit in Hogwarts in a few years from then. Ginny could be as silent as a mouse, but she could tantrum with the loudest of them. “What, then?”
“Send me something - but not socks. You gave your lucky socks to Bill, uh? I would have never worn them if you’d gave them to me.”
“You listen to doors, snitch.” He stretched his arm to tickle her, and she slapped his hand. “These are genuine lucky socks.”
“Your feet stink.”
“They sure don’t,” he protested as she pinched her nose.
“They sure do.” A smile quivered at the corner of her lips. “Charlie Weasley is the Gryffindor Seeker with the amazing stinking feet!”
“So if this is the truth…”
Ginny screamed as he pulled off his sock, and he captured her quickly, striking with efficiency so she wouldn’t have time to squirm out of reach. He dropped her on the mattress, and he fought light-heartedly with her until he succeeded into rubbing the offending sock under her nose.
“AAAH! CHARLIE! YOU’RE DISGUSTING!”
Charlie slipped to the floor, laughing, under Ginny’s outraged gaze and hissing.
The sock trick was priceless. How many times did he play it on Bill, even cunningly waiting for him to be asleep before shoving the sock under his nose, only to move away as fast as he could to avoid a wallop?
He rubbed the tears of laughter from his eyes and when she fell into his arms, she almost choked him in her embrace.
“Wha-?” he uttered, but Ginny squeezed him harder. Something wet found its way under his ear, and he sighed, wondering how to extricate himself from her steely grip. “You’re sad Bill’s gone, uh?”
“Yes.” She hiccupped a sob in his ear. “And everyone misses him too - makes me sad.”
After some time, Charlie filled his trunk in the dark. Ginny was sound asleep, tears still wet on her cheeks, curled on Bill’s bed. He cautiously balanced the desiccated toad on her head, just to get a kick out of it.
He feared waking her if he tried to carry her to her room, so he draped a quilt over her. At least she did not snore like Bill did. Her breathing was curiously appeasing. He slept well that night.
: : :
Over time, the room felt more and more like an ill-adjusted but enduring garment. Their mother seemed to take great care in keeping it intact, as if to make sure they’d constantly remember that they had been children. They weren’t sharing the room anymore. They were borrowing it from earlier years.
Charlie yawned as he dropped his haversack on the floor only to fling himself on the narrow mattress after a long journey back from Romania. The bed gave out a whopping metallic crunch, and Charlie winced as he felt the springs through the mattress.
He’d take care of that tomorrow. It was nice to be home, but he was used to a little more leg space and comfort.
A sleepy groan came deep from Bill’s bed. “Blimey, Charlie….can you possibly make more noise?”
Charlie snorted as he slipped under the sheets after quickly shedding his trousers and tee and kicking them to the ground. “Ah, I missed you too.”
Bill emerged from under his quilt, his pale and sleep-deprived face against the blue fabric, and Charlie sniggered before fluffing his pillow. “Don’t move…you got something crawling up your neck.”
“What?” Bill looked around idly, before he closed his fingers on the fang dangling from his earlobe. “Ha, ha. Very funny.”
“What’s with the earring?” said Charlie in a yawn. “I have to agree with Skeeter, mate…what’s with the hair?”
Bill rubbed his eyes vigorously. “What time is it?”
“Four in the morning.”
Bill sat straight up in the bed, and Charlie had a glimpse of him stretching his neck and shoulders. “I got in from Egypt last night and went for some pints with a couple of friends. That’s like … two hours of sleep, thanks to you.”
“Hey, why don’t you shut up and go back to sleep?” muttered Charlie. “No one’s keeping you from it.”
There was something to be said about slapping pillows, but Charlie merely smiled. “Keep to your side of the room, prat.”
He had a couple of days to get even.
: : :
The room had ripped from time passing. Years had smoothed the angles and paled the wood.
Memory played tricks on him when he’d come home. Charlie half-expected mess and clutter to reign in their old bedroom, just a second before he set foot in a clean-scented space. Bare walls, dustless furnishings, and the smell of soft wax welcomed him and brushed away his reminiscence. The wainscot had started to peel, and Charlie scratched off a scale with his nail before brushing it off.
His travel bag was wide open on the floor, and his dress robes were carefully set on a chair. The room had been redecorated, the lamp leaving its place to a double daisies-filled vase. The worn and simple white cotton curtains had been replaced with flowery ones, and Charlie smiled inwardly, imagining the indignant outcry if their mother had decided to introduce flimsy fabric and flowers in the room while he and Bill were still living at home.
A hand smacked him right between the shoulder blades. “I hadn’t seen you escape the dinner table!” Bill exclaimed. “Merlin, I have to say - mum did a brutal job on you.”
“I’ll regrow it later.” Charlie turned on himself only to swallow nervously at the sight of Bill.
As soon as he’d set foot in the house, he had been prompted by his mother to act normally around Bill and George as if he had been a wide-eyed child, prone to mindless babbling. He had replied rather testily, that he had seen blokes burned so badly their mother hadn’t been able to identify them in the dispensary, and that nothing could ever shock him again.
He regretted his bravado a second later. He noticed the dark circles under his mother’s eyes and how her skin had an unusual sallow colour. “Don’t you mock me. You all think I’m a mad woman for worrying about you children…we almost lost Bill twice in the last few months.” She had wringed her hands, worry etched on her eyebrows, in the small lines around her eyes. “He’s…he’s so different now. Like he’s got nothing to lose… Please tell him to be careful, dear. You know how he listens to you.”
It had made him open his mouth in a stupor of what she just said, and he understood her being worried about the present and about not all those hypothetical scenarios she usually created about what she feared was to come. “Of course, Mum, I will. And I forbid you to worry about me,” he had said with faked cheerfulness and a powerful hug. She had mollified a second in his arms, only to pat his cheeks and to run away from him to organize one of a thousand details still to be worked out for the next day.
Yet, it was hard not to stare at his brother’s features. Charlie had been doing his best to keep the conversation light until the arrival of the Minister and its cold-shower effect on the crowd. It now felt surreal to look for what was salvaged from his features.
“Stop looking at me like that, prat. You know I’m fine. I was much worse when you first saw me.” Bill gave out a twisted smile, and he waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not painful anymore. How’s Romania?”
“Busy. New members, but you know how it is…hard to get them into action.” Charlie welcomed the change of subject with relief. “There’s a new recruit, a bloke who’s a Vampire Watcher. He could give us access to Jan Popescu’s doings.” As Bill furrowed his brows, Charlie shrugged. “This lad’s to be watched closely - he’s pretty much the big wig of interlope trading. You told me to keep on the lookout for a sudden rise in smuggling. Popescu has been trying to put his hands on dragon blood from all over Europe, including Romania. Rather worrying.”
“How d’you know that?”
“Through Dimitri, a workmate. He’s been offered lots Galleons to provide blood from a Chinese Fireball. As soon as he reported the attempted the bribe to the Minister de Magie, his parents’ cowshed was burned down with all their livestock. Giant salamanders all over the place. His parents barely escaped.”
Bill whistled softly. “Sorry to hear about that. D’you think the fire’s related to the Death Eaters?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Charlie sighed. “That’s why we need access to Popescu and to find out for whom he’s smuggling it.”
Bill nodded. “Good…great, Charlie. You’re doing great.”
They stared at each other with gravity, and Charlie scrambled for words, wondering what to say, how to word his relief to recognize his brother in the slant of his smile. “You look…You look better. It healed more than I thought it would.”
“Never looked better,” Bill said in a breath, an eyebrow cocked at him.
Their hands clasped, and Charlie pulled him closer for a short embrace before patting his back forcefully. “You’re alive and on your feet, are you? And you will be getting married in spiffing dress robes, according to Fred and George, of all people. That’s good-looking in my book.”
Bill shook his head, his face scrunched in an undecipherable expression. He seemed miles away. “Yeah. Sure. We don’t have much time to dwell on anything these days, and perhaps that’s the best way to go through this war… y’know, focus on the next day and try not to look back too often.”
Charlie shuffled from one foot to the other as Bill sat on his bed, hands joined. He had seen chirpier grooms. “There’s something I never want Fleur to know,” Bill said in a sour voice.
He did not feel he was in a position to refuse his brother anything, as uncomfortable it sounded. “Oh?”
“I’ve thought about postponing it. The wedding.” The corners of Bill’s lips sagged. “When I’d realized that I’d be in front of all these people showing that I couldn’t protect myself.”
Merlin.
“No. No. No one in their right mind would think that of you.” Charlie shook his head decisively as he sat in front of him. That was ludicrous. “You can’t give into that thought.”
“I’m not.” Bill shifted on the bed, still looking to his hands. “I’m not proud of saying it, Charlie. I never wanted so much for something to happen and raking my brains wondering about its consequences altogether.”
“Ah, wedding jitters,” Charlie said lightly. “Fleur’s not going anywhere- you haven’t deterred her one bit with your snoring.”
“You make her sound like a vacuous tart.”
Charlie winced under his brother’s scathing look. “What’s with you? I certainly have not said that.”
But Bill had not heard a word he was saying. “All that shit I’ve been given about how trials make a marriage stronger… I can’t swallow anymore of this.”
“Reckon I’m going to shut up, like others should have done. I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to say, mate.” Charlie twisted his neck to look outside the window. The sky was deep blue, and he wished for a storm, a violent downpour that would distract him from his discomfort. “I find it hard to believe that you care about what others think. Doesn’t sound much like you.”
“That’s the mad part,” Bill cut in with unusual bitterness. “I don’t care about what they say. If I were you, I’d told them to fuck off, and I’d be over it. But, blimey, I care about what I think.” He rubbed his face with both hands, subtracting himself from Charlie’s scrutiny. “Fleur almost slipped from the Thestral when we were under attack, the night we lost Moody.”
Ginny erupted in the room that had been stunned from the brothers’ silence, her arms outstretched in front of her, brandishing a pair of socks. “Mum says you’ve gone mad if you think she’ll let you wear these socks. She was talking about burning them, so I hurried to bring them up.” She stopped dead as she glanced at them both. “Oh, I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“You aren’t.” Bill’s voice had regained his easygoing warmth, and Charlie numbly nodded at his pointed look as he stretched his arm. “My lucky socks. I can’t get married without my lucky socks. Thanks, Ginny.”
“My lucky socks,” uttered Charlie. “You’re still wearing these? These were mine. I gave them to you, when you left for Egypt.”
“I know, Mum told me.” Bill laid them on the table. “These are genuine lucky socks, mate, I should have believed you. But since you gave them to me, they’re mine, no?”
“I remember when I used to sneak up to your room to watch the storms with you boys. No clouds on the horizon tonight, though,” Ginny dreamily said. She walked to the window and yawned, her face shining softly from the moonlight that cut into the room. “We should have perfect weather for a perfect wedding.”
Charlie cleared his throat when Ginny turned to him. “D’you remember the time you tried to haul me up the table, and I slipped off my nightgown?”
“You remember that? Crikey…I think you were three or four, this tiny little lass,” he said while Bill laughed briefly.
Ginny stared out the window, and soon, Bill joined her in her contemplation.
“Beautiful… is the sky ever that beautiful in Romania?” Ginny whispered as she twisted her neck to have a better look out.
Charlie did not bother with an answer as he leaned on the windowsill to locate Centaurus as he would seek the approval of an old friend. He did not want to disappoint her.
The feeling struck him as odd, both rousing and sad, when the room seemed to close around their proximity, isolating the three of them in a transient haven from war and worry.
Life will never be simple again, Charlie thought as he detailed Bill’s mangled profile. It stopped being simple ages ago.
The infamous invisible frontier they had built and argued over to the point of silliness during their childhood and teenage years still existed, after all. While it did affirm their strength to hold their own towards the other, they had built the acceptable boundaries of what could be tolerated from one another as they lived side by side.
But he had never seen it as preparing them for what was to come. Bill was getting married in a few short hours, and his silence was filled with thoughts that Charlie was sure he would never speak of again. The sting of loss surprised him, and he found himself reaching for Ginny, who laid her head on his shoulder after a short hesitation.
“Congrats for the Quidditch Cup,” he said hoarsely, taking a pause before impishly smacking a kiss on her forehead. “Maybe you’d fancy a flight after the wedding, so I can see for myself the star player in action.”
“Sure.” She looked up to him, and Charlie was relieved when she resumed her observation of the night, a slow smile taking over her lips.
I’m still a kid, he thought with disappointment. Bill was lying on his bed, head on the pillow, looking at the sky from there. He was holding himself together by hiding his anger and determination behind his relaxed ways; George was downstairs making god-awful jokes about his missing ear; his sister had sadness and longing in her eyes, and he - he - was mumbling about Quidditch.
I’m still a bloody kid. How else could he understand this feeling of losing a brother to worlds that spoke to him in ways he could not understand? Bill seemed to be flowing through life and love with disconcerting will and wisdom, even when wavering at the edge of life.
Charlie predicted that another frontier would probably grow between them after tomorrow, that time not prompted by space and need for ownership but by reserve and respect for their way of living. It would be strengthened by distance.
“Thank you for agreeing to be my best man. Means a lot to me, ” Bill said quietly.
Charlie was met with his brother’s enigmatic tight-lipped smile. Bill, the master of deflection, was going against character.
“I’m happy to do this for you, mate.”
“Good. I reckon you’re the only one qualified for the job.”
The vivid impression of moving back into a space he had left many years ago floored him, and Charlie fidgeted, leading Ginny to slip away from him.
Perhaps shaping that frontier all these years prepared them to live as brothers should - side by side in a too small and sometimes uncomfortable room.
Even at a distance.
The end.
For
dragon_animagus , I hope you will enjoy it, dearest. The last part of this story is what I should have written instead of what I did for 'Ready'.
The beta reading was done by dear
queenb23more.
Familiar Rooms
Characters: Charlie (MC), Bill (MC), Ginny (SC)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It was a deceptively normal room in a quirky house, complete with an imaginary and hotly debated frontier that dug a trench at the heart of it.
They lived in that room, and the room lived within them.
Familiar Rooms
In a house of such improbable shape, the brothers’ bedroom was an oddity, a set of lines unusual in their straightness.
The wainscot had been repainted in crisp white by one of its occupants. The dark wood flooring shone when days were sunny and bright. Scratches were discernable to the naked eye on the surface of the furnishing; polished slants attested their multigenerational (mis) usage.
The two single beds might have looked Spartan if colourful quilts had not puffed them up. A wobbly table separated them and was host to a charmed lamp, several battered books, and a set of natural curiosities, one of which appearing to be a desiccated toad.
Sunlight pushed the shadows back, deep into the corners of the narrow bedroom. From the window, one had an incomparable view on the neighbouring hills behind which a pond offered relief on summer days. Oncoming thunderstorms were monitored from there.
Storms seemed more menacing and spectacular without a tree line to narrow the sky into a thin rectangle of grey. The brothers often pulled up their kid sister so she could sit on the table and join them in their observation. The little girl shivered with a mix of fright and excitement as they listened to the ominous rumbling in the distance.
The wall behind their respective bedposts was covered in posters, newspapers clippings, pictures: here, the five members of famed wizard rock, Minotaur’s Wrath, slouching for the camera; there, pictures of redheaded teens flashing smiles. A miniature flag to the colours of Brazil flapped as if a breeze blew incessantly in its direction. Three clippings from The Daily Prophet mentioned teenage Quidditch exploits and teased readers by suggesting that young and promising Charles Weasley could be the spectacular rookie player England had been hoping for since teen prodigy Montague Fellowworth in 1967. Another clipping trumpeted the attribution of the annual elite scholarship sponsored by The International Curse Breaking Federation and Gringotts Wizarding Bank to outstanding student and current Hogwarts Head Boy, William Weasley.
A poster of Mona Young, the popular captain and all-star Beater for the Tutshill Tornadoes, had been pinned on the back of the bedroom door. Neither brother was a fan of the Tornadoes, but the appeal of curvaceous Young straddling her Nimbus as she weighed her club with suggestive dexterity had them agreeing in silence about her rightful place in their room.
“She’s the best Beater in the league,” red-faced Bill had explained to their inquiring mother as they both pretended not to hear Charlie making kissing noises in the back of the room.
It was a deceptively normal room in a quirky house, complete with an imaginary and hotly debated frontier that dug a trench at the heart of it. Both sides were symmetrical in their mess: on Bill’s side, books, violently coloured albums, handwritten notes, quills and ink were approximately piled. On Charlie’s side, clothing and scribbled diagrams of Quidditch strategies littered the floor while a meticulously assembled and full size Moontrimmer broom collectible was displayed on the wall.
While studious Bill tolerated an overflow of Charlie’s Quidditch magazines on his side, critters in any shape and size, might they be safely tucked away in glass jars, had him pointing fingers. Charlie was more adamant to push back Bill’s mess. He touted that every inch of his side was of his jurisdiction, and he was determined into making it so.
One early morning of August, Charlie stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. Bill’s side of the room was immaculate against his pigsty. It was already deserted: his brother’s bed was stripped from its sheets while his gleaming new trunk was opened at the foot of the bed. Clothing and personal effects were waiting to be packed in.
Charlie pulled a green shirt from a pile. Bill would have to leave for Egypt without his favourite tee. He rummaged through the clothing, pestering between his teeth when he extirpated from it a pair of beige trousers.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” Bill exclaimed as he stepped into the room, dumping an armful of fresh laundry on the bed. “I had it all organized!”
“I reckon it’s a good thing I checked.” Charlie unfolded the green tee and waved it at Bill as an accusation. The gold letters shimmered its mocking message, So long, Seeker! “Well, well, fancy that… this tee’s mine.”
“I must have put it in the pile by mistake. Sorry.” Bill scoffed as he pointed at the beige trousers, now crumpled on the floor. “Those don’t fit you…don’t tell me they’re your favourites too.”
Charlie frowned as he picked them up. “They do fit when I roll up the hems.”
The fabric slipped from Charlie’s hands to Bill’s trunk. “Yeah, rolling up the hems…smashing. That’ll make you dapper. Let it go. Mum decided I should take them, so… mine.”
Charlie kneeled next to the bed as he went through the piles of clothing Bill had neatly folded. “Did Mum tell you could bring these too?” he said indignantly. He brandished a pair of well-worn blue socks. “These are my lucky socks!”
Those were lucky socks in more than one way. He had them on when he caught the Snitch to help Gryffindor win the last two Quidditch Cups at Hogwarts. He was also wearing them when defeated Ravenclaw Chaser Jennifer Hopkirk came to the Gryffindor common room to pull him out from the celebration under the pretext she wanted to congratulate him, only to find himself backed against a wall as she consciously proceeded into snogging him. After they dissolved their yearlong competitive bickering in saliva, Charlie appreciated the wonder of that day.
The Quidditch Cup and Jennifer Hopkirk. He had pined after both all season.
He would have preferred to be Stupefied than to admit to his brother that he had a girlfriend. To think of it, he would have preferred to be Stupefied than to admit to Bill that he somehow believed his socks had something to do with it.
Bill glanced at the precious garments over his shoulder. “Nah, these are mine.”
“No way. I’d leave them to you, but I need them. Ravenclaws claim they’ll kick our arses next year. Can’t let that happen.” Charlie slipped on the socks, and he wiggled his toes in an act of defiance. “Look, they fit perfectly.”
“Bugger it.” Bill sighed with irritation. “They’re mine. You have an identical pair in your drawer.”
“Well, take the ones in the drawer.” Charlie waved with majesty as he leaned back on his bed, clasping his hands behind his head. “I’m not parting with my lucky socks.”
Bill retrieved the twin pair of socks in the drawer, shaking his head. “Prat… just how can you tell the difference between them? They’re the same frigging colour!”
“See this here?” Charlie slipped the tip of his finger in a tiny hole near the big toe. “Mine.”
Bill waved the socks with disgust. “There’s a hole in one of those too. And what if you’re wearing only one lucky sock? What will happen? You’ll get half the luck?”
Charlie whistled between his teeth, singularly enjoying the sight of Bill getting himself worked up over a pair of socks. “Okay, geek. How do you know the ones I’m wearing are yours?”
“Because they didn’t bloody stink before you slipped them on, for one.” Bill scowled as he threw the socks on top of the pile. “You’re such a kid. It’s just a pair of socks.”
You’re such a kid was Bill’s most stinging insult, and Charlie confidently believed that he had the upper hand. “And you’re so mature, arguing over socks…wool socks you want to bring to the desert.”
Bill moved briskly towards the trunk, his back to him. “So you know, nights are cold. Keep your lucky socks. I’ve got no time for your rubbish. I’m leaving you Mona so you should thank me. ”
Everyone had been fawning over Bill’s scholarship in the last weeks, and Charlie was tired, if not dead bored, that his brother, who usually did not indulge into giddy excitement, had blabbed non-stop about Egypt and about how he would be taking residence in a single room flat, and how he would be exploring ancient hideouts with top curse breakers for his training - ad nauseam.
“Independence and privacy, finally!” Bill had exulted one night as they were lying on their beds in the darkness.
All that privacy talk had an enticing charm to it. Charlie pursed his lips as he watched his brother smooth a jumper with the flat of his hand. His brother seemed nervous about his freshly gained independence. “Cool. But Mona’s always been your type of girl.”
“I won’t be putting up a poster of a female Quidditch player in my room,” Bill said tersely, placing books at the bottom of the trunk.
“Why’s that?”
Bill sneered, recovering his aura of smugness in a second. “You have to ask? What d’you think a girl would say if she visited a bloke’s flat and came face to face with a giant poster of a woman clad in tight Quidditch gear?”
As Charlie raked his brains to figure how a picture of a star Beater could offend a girl, Bill clicked his tongue with superiority. “Listen and learn, mate. Not a smooth move.”
“But it’s a poster! It’s not a giant picture of your, say, ex-girlfriend.”
Bill stared at him with mocking despair. “Won’t make that big a difference to a girl when she’s staring down Mona’s cleavage, y’know.”
Charlie was tempted to point and laugh. The word ‘cleavage’ was ridiculous in Bill’s mouth, especially because this brother had won three years in a row the highly confidential breast synonym contest that went on each year in the boys’ dormitory.
But titillating information had been laid on a silver platter, and Charlie took it as an opportunity to research.
“So you’re planning to bring a girl to your place?” he said as he sat straight on the bed, all ears.
“It might happen…why not?” Bill folded the last pair of trousers and laid it in the trunk, now filled to the rim. Charlie pouted in appreciation as he watched how his brother skilfully avoided the subject. Bill was a master at deflecting. “Trunk’s full and there’s still a couple of things I wanted to bring - blimey. I’ll have to ask Mum to send them by owl.”
Bill straightened up as he passed his shirt over his head. Charlie stared at him as his brother slipped into a linen tunic, what Charlie had understood was a traditional gift from the man who would be Bill’s instructor for the next year. Bill then rummaged in his travel cloak’s pocket and retrieved an engraved silver band.
Charlie watched him slip it on his middle finger with curiosity. He had been lavishly informed that curse breaking was a ritualized occupation, full of superstition and details that would have him bored in less than a week, but Bill was obviously taking it all into stride, yapping incessantly about how fascinating it was to enter a culture where magic and non-magic worlds were so deeply intertwined for millenaries.
“All set,” Bill said after a quick look to his wristwatch.
Charlie pointed at the band with his chin. “You don’t believe in that stuff.”
“I don’t, but they do.” Bill clipped on his travel cloak as he shrugged. “I reckon I’ll come to understand why, right?”
Something heavy plopped on Charlie’s stomach when it became obvious that Bill had come into the room as his bickering older brother and was leaving it as an apprentice curse-breaker. He did not even look like his tee-stealing, champion breast synonym-naming brother anymore. Bill was now one of those adventurers he’d shown him pictures of in his books: bright and smart, confident in himself and in his magic, a young man who would be making a life on his own, working in the uttermost ancient sites of magic to find treasures.
Free. Independent. And Bill has also confided in him something he had managed to keep from their mother, about how he would be getting a Mark, a protective and complicated magical tattoo that was mandatory to get into death chambers.
Bill was getting a tattoo.
And a smallish flat where he might bring a girl.
Bill truly has it all, Charlie thought, envious, wishing that he was the one leaving for an adventurous world and getting a fancy Mark, instead of going back to Hogwarts for the next two years.
“Bill!” Their mother called for him from the kitchen, her voice rising in characteristic agitation when departures were imminent. “Are you ready, dear? It’s almost time! We don’t want your father to be waiting for you at the Ministry. Percy, Ron, come say goodbye to your brother! Ginny, darling, you know you can’t go with him... put that travel bag away, dearest.”
The trunk shut in a rattle, and Bill weighted his wand. “Coming down, mate?”
“Nah.” Charlie stepped back, fiddling with the tee. “Got stuff to do.”
“Stuff to do?” Bill asked, startled.
“Mmm,” Charlie said equivocally.
Was Bill serious? Was he expecting a princely send-off where he, Charlie, would witness him go with tears in his eyes and tremors in his voice as he waved his handkerchief?
Bollocks. Charlie clutched the tee tighter. King Bill, he cursed inwardly, always seeing himself as royalty.
“Oh, okay. Bye then.” Bill pushed back his travel cloak and took a step his way, offering his hand to shake. “Just kick Ravenclaw’s arse, will you? I know Jenny Hopkirk’s your girl, but I hope you’ll be ruthless when you’re playing for the Cup. I’ve got an ongoing bet with her brother and you’re making me rich.”
Charlie let his brother shake his hand with vigour, his face igniting from embarrassment. He shrugged as he pretended to ignore his beet-red cheeks. “Good luck, mate. I’m sure you’ll wow the mummies. But no need to talk about the Cup that right now…keep the wishes for Christmas break.”
Bill moved back as he waved his wand, and his trunk effortlessly lifted from the floor. “I told you, Charlie. I’m not coming back for Christmas. I have classes during holidays.”
Charlie frowned, his mind going into overdrive as he tried to recall that particular conversation. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I did tell you. When I got the schedule two weeks ago. I’ll be back for a month next summer. But I’ll write.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Charlie repeated, adamant. His mind was blank on that issue. He would have never missed a detail like that.
Bill clicked his tongue as he moved towards the door, his trunk floating in front of him. “I did tell you, but perhaps you didn’t hear me. You’ve been too busy locking yourself in the loo to read your girlfriend’s letters to listen to what I was telling you, I reckon.”
Charlie saw red as childish anger burned his throat. He’d have shoved Bill if their mother’s voice had not insinuated itself between them and defused his impulse. “BILL!”
They stared at each other. “I didn’t know,” Charlie mumbled, defeated. “See you next summer then.”
Bill nodded with a half-hearted smile, and he left the room.
Charlie sat on Bill’s bed. Seeing his brother prepare himself to leave all summer had been annoying; he did not believe the fuss around it, as they all knew that Bill would be back home, like they all would, around Christmas time. His mother’s anxiety made sense all of a sudden.
“Charlie!” she called from downstairs. “Your brother is about to leave!”
“It’s okay, Mum. We spoke upstairs,” Bill hushed.
Charlie kicked the bedpost, slightly humiliated. His brother was covering for him.
Of course. The noble prat.
He walked to the stairs, listening intently as Bill said his goodbyes in the kitchen. “That’s smashing, Ginny-Gin, I’ll put it on my wall. Don’t kill yourself studying, Perce…sure, I’ll write. Gred, Forge… well, mates, that’s very generous of you both, but how can you be sure it won’t explode on my way there? Bye, Ronnie…. ah, Mum, please… please don’t cry.”
“Charlie, I want you down here right now! Bill dear, you must promise that you’ll be careful and that you’ll -”
“Mum!” Bill vehemently protested. “I’ll be fine!”
“CHARLIE!”
Charlie obeyed. He thundered his way down, stopping halfway on the staircase. Bill was glancing over their mother’s head, already somewhere else.
Charlie faced his brother’s slow, enigmatic tight-lipped smile before he kissed their mother goodbye. He did not wait for the whoosh indicating Bill’s departure. He had already turned away and climbed up the stairs two by two. In the silence of the bedroom that was now all his, he mechanically stretched sheets over Bill’s mattress, spreading the quilt over it, attempting to alleviate the gaping difference between his side of the frontier and this newly deserted land.
He stared at his handiwork with a frown. After a short hesitation, he threw his green tee on Bill’s side, kicked his shoes under his brother’s bed, spread his Quidditch magazines on Bill’s side of the table. It did not satisfy him as much as he thought it would.
Charlie plopped down on his bed.
Boundaries were irrelevant when territory was abandoned.
: : :
The room was a void.
Charlie did his very best to avoid the bedroom that was now his alone during the last days before his departure for Hogwarts. It was small for two teenage boys. Since Bill had left, its narrowness drove him restless.
He roamed The Burrow’s surroundings upside down on his broomstick to his mother’s ire and avoided being sent to his room by agreeing to Ron’s plea of showing him flying techniques. He was genuinely surprised to have such a good time, and he taught dirty tricks to the twins, who appreciated the lesson even more when he encouraged them to play them against him.
The afternoon before leaving for Hogwarts, he lounged on his bed, morose, unwilling to pack his things.
“You miss him, do you?”
His mother came in with a pile of carefully folded trousers, and she placed them on the chest of drawers.
Charlie shrugged. “Mmmyeah.”
“I miss him too.” She sat on the edge of his bed, flattening on her lap a piece of parchment covered with Bill’s square and regular handwriting. “But he says he’s fine and that he’s eating well. I trust him.”
Charlie squirmed. Please, please, please, not one of these conversations.
“Are these the socks I’ve knitted for him last Christmas?” Her mother lightly tapped on his toes. “I’ve looked for them everywhere…I hoped to have time to mend them before he left. I’ll send them by owl, then. Have you found your lucky socks, dear? We wouldn’t want you taking any chance of parting with them, would we?”
“I gave Bill my lucky socks.” Charlie sheepishly grinned as his mother stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You did?” He looked down to his magazine when his mother stroked his knee with affection. “What did he say?”
“Nothing.” As they were alone, Charlie allowed himself to be comforted by his mother’s loving gesture, and his cheeks prickled. “I didn’t tell him. Bill wouldn’t believe in superstitions even if they bit him in the b -“
“Enough, young man.” Her smile contradicted her scolding as she turned away on her way out of the room. “He would have appreciated knowing what you did. You should tell him. Ginny, come with me, dear. Let’s leave Charlie alone, he has lots to do before tomorrow.”
“But I want to watch the storm from his room,” pleaded Ginny in a quiet voice. She stood on the doorstep, her shiny hair plaited in a crown.
Charlie shrugged. “Sure, Ginny-Gin. I don’t mind.”
Ginny dumped the content of the table on Bill’s bed before Charlie seized her up so she could perch on it. He slouched back on the mattress, and they watched in silence the clouds glide in the sky as they formed a steely-looking wall that darkened the room.
“You’re not going away, are you?” Ginny asked. Thunder rolled at the distance, and they both shivered as a cool breeze ruffled the curtains.
“Of course I am. I’m leaving for Hogwarts tomorrow,” Charlie said. “Like every year.”
“But you’re not leaving forever like Bill.”
“Bill’s not left forever,” he objected with a snort. What was it with girls and heavy, dark-clouded words? “He’ll be back next summer.”
“But he’s not coming back to live here,” she argued. “He lives in Egypt now.”
Charlie felt daft to be brought back to reality by his eight-year old sister. She was looking at him curiously. “Are you going to be a Quidditch player after you’ve finished at Hogwarts?”
“Dunno yet. I might try out for a team. I’d fancy that, playing Quidditch every day and getting paid for it.”
And he would be living elsewhere, and Ginny would be pestering Percy and asking when he’d leave forever.
“Oh.” Ginny nodded with enthusiasm. “You’d be smashing.”
He stared at her with surprise, and then he chuckled heartily, amused at how she used Bill’s words, even mimicking his intonation and smile.
“You don’t ask me what I’m going to be?” she added with a frown.
He sighed, nudging her with his foot. “Okay…so what are you going to be?”
“A Quidditch player…a Seeker, like you.”
Charlie laughed. “Sure, flower.”
She turned to him, eyes fiery from indignation. “I will! And you will ask for my optograph one day!”
The girl never even flew since their mother did not allow her to. “Don’t let me forget about that.”
“And you should write me more Owls when you’re in school,” Ginny said, examining him from the corner of her eye. Rain was now falling in sheets, and Charlie stretched himself. There was something about the smell of earth and rain that made him feel full. “Bill used to write me every month, but you never write me anything. Send me something when you get there, okay?”
“What do you want me to send you?” he teased. “My school work? That would be brilliant, my baby sister writing my History of Magic essays.”
Perhaps Binns wouldn’t notice, especially after flunking his O.W.L.
“Not your homework, silly.”
She had an endearing way of giggling, crinkling her nose and eyes like a real charmer, and Charlie wondered how she’d fit in Hogwarts in a few years from then. Ginny could be as silent as a mouse, but she could tantrum with the loudest of them. “What, then?”
“Send me something - but not socks. You gave your lucky socks to Bill, uh? I would have never worn them if you’d gave them to me.”
“You listen to doors, snitch.” He stretched his arm to tickle her, and she slapped his hand. “These are genuine lucky socks.”
“Your feet stink.”
“They sure don’t,” he protested as she pinched her nose.
“They sure do.” A smile quivered at the corner of her lips. “Charlie Weasley is the Gryffindor Seeker with the amazing stinking feet!”
“So if this is the truth…”
Ginny screamed as he pulled off his sock, and he captured her quickly, striking with efficiency so she wouldn’t have time to squirm out of reach. He dropped her on the mattress, and he fought light-heartedly with her until he succeeded into rubbing the offending sock under her nose.
“AAAH! CHARLIE! YOU’RE DISGUSTING!”
Charlie slipped to the floor, laughing, under Ginny’s outraged gaze and hissing.
The sock trick was priceless. How many times did he play it on Bill, even cunningly waiting for him to be asleep before shoving the sock under his nose, only to move away as fast as he could to avoid a wallop?
He rubbed the tears of laughter from his eyes and when she fell into his arms, she almost choked him in her embrace.
“Wha-?” he uttered, but Ginny squeezed him harder. Something wet found its way under his ear, and he sighed, wondering how to extricate himself from her steely grip. “You’re sad Bill’s gone, uh?”
“Yes.” She hiccupped a sob in his ear. “And everyone misses him too - makes me sad.”
After some time, Charlie filled his trunk in the dark. Ginny was sound asleep, tears still wet on her cheeks, curled on Bill’s bed. He cautiously balanced the desiccated toad on her head, just to get a kick out of it.
He feared waking her if he tried to carry her to her room, so he draped a quilt over her. At least she did not snore like Bill did. Her breathing was curiously appeasing. He slept well that night.
: : :
Over time, the room felt more and more like an ill-adjusted but enduring garment. Their mother seemed to take great care in keeping it intact, as if to make sure they’d constantly remember that they had been children. They weren’t sharing the room anymore. They were borrowing it from earlier years.
Charlie yawned as he dropped his haversack on the floor only to fling himself on the narrow mattress after a long journey back from Romania. The bed gave out a whopping metallic crunch, and Charlie winced as he felt the springs through the mattress.
He’d take care of that tomorrow. It was nice to be home, but he was used to a little more leg space and comfort.
A sleepy groan came deep from Bill’s bed. “Blimey, Charlie….can you possibly make more noise?”
Charlie snorted as he slipped under the sheets after quickly shedding his trousers and tee and kicking them to the ground. “Ah, I missed you too.”
Bill emerged from under his quilt, his pale and sleep-deprived face against the blue fabric, and Charlie sniggered before fluffing his pillow. “Don’t move…you got something crawling up your neck.”
“What?” Bill looked around idly, before he closed his fingers on the fang dangling from his earlobe. “Ha, ha. Very funny.”
“What’s with the earring?” said Charlie in a yawn. “I have to agree with Skeeter, mate…what’s with the hair?”
Bill rubbed his eyes vigorously. “What time is it?”
“Four in the morning.”
Bill sat straight up in the bed, and Charlie had a glimpse of him stretching his neck and shoulders. “I got in from Egypt last night and went for some pints with a couple of friends. That’s like … two hours of sleep, thanks to you.”
“Hey, why don’t you shut up and go back to sleep?” muttered Charlie. “No one’s keeping you from it.”
There was something to be said about slapping pillows, but Charlie merely smiled. “Keep to your side of the room, prat.”
He had a couple of days to get even.
: : :
The room had ripped from time passing. Years had smoothed the angles and paled the wood.
Memory played tricks on him when he’d come home. Charlie half-expected mess and clutter to reign in their old bedroom, just a second before he set foot in a clean-scented space. Bare walls, dustless furnishings, and the smell of soft wax welcomed him and brushed away his reminiscence. The wainscot had started to peel, and Charlie scratched off a scale with his nail before brushing it off.
His travel bag was wide open on the floor, and his dress robes were carefully set on a chair. The room had been redecorated, the lamp leaving its place to a double daisies-filled vase. The worn and simple white cotton curtains had been replaced with flowery ones, and Charlie smiled inwardly, imagining the indignant outcry if their mother had decided to introduce flimsy fabric and flowers in the room while he and Bill were still living at home.
A hand smacked him right between the shoulder blades. “I hadn’t seen you escape the dinner table!” Bill exclaimed. “Merlin, I have to say - mum did a brutal job on you.”
“I’ll regrow it later.” Charlie turned on himself only to swallow nervously at the sight of Bill.
As soon as he’d set foot in the house, he had been prompted by his mother to act normally around Bill and George as if he had been a wide-eyed child, prone to mindless babbling. He had replied rather testily, that he had seen blokes burned so badly their mother hadn’t been able to identify them in the dispensary, and that nothing could ever shock him again.
He regretted his bravado a second later. He noticed the dark circles under his mother’s eyes and how her skin had an unusual sallow colour. “Don’t you mock me. You all think I’m a mad woman for worrying about you children…we almost lost Bill twice in the last few months.” She had wringed her hands, worry etched on her eyebrows, in the small lines around her eyes. “He’s…he’s so different now. Like he’s got nothing to lose… Please tell him to be careful, dear. You know how he listens to you.”
It had made him open his mouth in a stupor of what she just said, and he understood her being worried about the present and about not all those hypothetical scenarios she usually created about what she feared was to come. “Of course, Mum, I will. And I forbid you to worry about me,” he had said with faked cheerfulness and a powerful hug. She had mollified a second in his arms, only to pat his cheeks and to run away from him to organize one of a thousand details still to be worked out for the next day.
Yet, it was hard not to stare at his brother’s features. Charlie had been doing his best to keep the conversation light until the arrival of the Minister and its cold-shower effect on the crowd. It now felt surreal to look for what was salvaged from his features.
“Stop looking at me like that, prat. You know I’m fine. I was much worse when you first saw me.” Bill gave out a twisted smile, and he waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not painful anymore. How’s Romania?”
“Busy. New members, but you know how it is…hard to get them into action.” Charlie welcomed the change of subject with relief. “There’s a new recruit, a bloke who’s a Vampire Watcher. He could give us access to Jan Popescu’s doings.” As Bill furrowed his brows, Charlie shrugged. “This lad’s to be watched closely - he’s pretty much the big wig of interlope trading. You told me to keep on the lookout for a sudden rise in smuggling. Popescu has been trying to put his hands on dragon blood from all over Europe, including Romania. Rather worrying.”
“How d’you know that?”
“Through Dimitri, a workmate. He’s been offered lots Galleons to provide blood from a Chinese Fireball. As soon as he reported the attempted the bribe to the Minister de Magie, his parents’ cowshed was burned down with all their livestock. Giant salamanders all over the place. His parents barely escaped.”
Bill whistled softly. “Sorry to hear about that. D’you think the fire’s related to the Death Eaters?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Charlie sighed. “That’s why we need access to Popescu and to find out for whom he’s smuggling it.”
Bill nodded. “Good…great, Charlie. You’re doing great.”
They stared at each other with gravity, and Charlie scrambled for words, wondering what to say, how to word his relief to recognize his brother in the slant of his smile. “You look…You look better. It healed more than I thought it would.”
“Never looked better,” Bill said in a breath, an eyebrow cocked at him.
Their hands clasped, and Charlie pulled him closer for a short embrace before patting his back forcefully. “You’re alive and on your feet, are you? And you will be getting married in spiffing dress robes, according to Fred and George, of all people. That’s good-looking in my book.”
Bill shook his head, his face scrunched in an undecipherable expression. He seemed miles away. “Yeah. Sure. We don’t have much time to dwell on anything these days, and perhaps that’s the best way to go through this war… y’know, focus on the next day and try not to look back too often.”
Charlie shuffled from one foot to the other as Bill sat on his bed, hands joined. He had seen chirpier grooms. “There’s something I never want Fleur to know,” Bill said in a sour voice.
He did not feel he was in a position to refuse his brother anything, as uncomfortable it sounded. “Oh?”
“I’ve thought about postponing it. The wedding.” The corners of Bill’s lips sagged. “When I’d realized that I’d be in front of all these people showing that I couldn’t protect myself.”
Merlin.
“No. No. No one in their right mind would think that of you.” Charlie shook his head decisively as he sat in front of him. That was ludicrous. “You can’t give into that thought.”
“I’m not.” Bill shifted on the bed, still looking to his hands. “I’m not proud of saying it, Charlie. I never wanted so much for something to happen and raking my brains wondering about its consequences altogether.”
“Ah, wedding jitters,” Charlie said lightly. “Fleur’s not going anywhere- you haven’t deterred her one bit with your snoring.”
“You make her sound like a vacuous tart.”
Charlie winced under his brother’s scathing look. “What’s with you? I certainly have not said that.”
But Bill had not heard a word he was saying. “All that shit I’ve been given about how trials make a marriage stronger… I can’t swallow anymore of this.”
“Reckon I’m going to shut up, like others should have done. I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to say, mate.” Charlie twisted his neck to look outside the window. The sky was deep blue, and he wished for a storm, a violent downpour that would distract him from his discomfort. “I find it hard to believe that you care about what others think. Doesn’t sound much like you.”
“That’s the mad part,” Bill cut in with unusual bitterness. “I don’t care about what they say. If I were you, I’d told them to fuck off, and I’d be over it. But, blimey, I care about what I think.” He rubbed his face with both hands, subtracting himself from Charlie’s scrutiny. “Fleur almost slipped from the Thestral when we were under attack, the night we lost Moody.”
Ginny erupted in the room that had been stunned from the brothers’ silence, her arms outstretched in front of her, brandishing a pair of socks. “Mum says you’ve gone mad if you think she’ll let you wear these socks. She was talking about burning them, so I hurried to bring them up.” She stopped dead as she glanced at them both. “Oh, I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“You aren’t.” Bill’s voice had regained his easygoing warmth, and Charlie numbly nodded at his pointed look as he stretched his arm. “My lucky socks. I can’t get married without my lucky socks. Thanks, Ginny.”
“My lucky socks,” uttered Charlie. “You’re still wearing these? These were mine. I gave them to you, when you left for Egypt.”
“I know, Mum told me.” Bill laid them on the table. “These are genuine lucky socks, mate, I should have believed you. But since you gave them to me, they’re mine, no?”
“I remember when I used to sneak up to your room to watch the storms with you boys. No clouds on the horizon tonight, though,” Ginny dreamily said. She walked to the window and yawned, her face shining softly from the moonlight that cut into the room. “We should have perfect weather for a perfect wedding.”
Charlie cleared his throat when Ginny turned to him. “D’you remember the time you tried to haul me up the table, and I slipped off my nightgown?”
“You remember that? Crikey…I think you were three or four, this tiny little lass,” he said while Bill laughed briefly.
Ginny stared out the window, and soon, Bill joined her in her contemplation.
“Beautiful… is the sky ever that beautiful in Romania?” Ginny whispered as she twisted her neck to have a better look out.
Charlie did not bother with an answer as he leaned on the windowsill to locate Centaurus as he would seek the approval of an old friend. He did not want to disappoint her.
The feeling struck him as odd, both rousing and sad, when the room seemed to close around their proximity, isolating the three of them in a transient haven from war and worry.
Life will never be simple again, Charlie thought as he detailed Bill’s mangled profile. It stopped being simple ages ago.
The infamous invisible frontier they had built and argued over to the point of silliness during their childhood and teenage years still existed, after all. While it did affirm their strength to hold their own towards the other, they had built the acceptable boundaries of what could be tolerated from one another as they lived side by side.
But he had never seen it as preparing them for what was to come. Bill was getting married in a few short hours, and his silence was filled with thoughts that Charlie was sure he would never speak of again. The sting of loss surprised him, and he found himself reaching for Ginny, who laid her head on his shoulder after a short hesitation.
“Congrats for the Quidditch Cup,” he said hoarsely, taking a pause before impishly smacking a kiss on her forehead. “Maybe you’d fancy a flight after the wedding, so I can see for myself the star player in action.”
“Sure.” She looked up to him, and Charlie was relieved when she resumed her observation of the night, a slow smile taking over her lips.
I’m still a kid, he thought with disappointment. Bill was lying on his bed, head on the pillow, looking at the sky from there. He was holding himself together by hiding his anger and determination behind his relaxed ways; George was downstairs making god-awful jokes about his missing ear; his sister had sadness and longing in her eyes, and he - he - was mumbling about Quidditch.
I’m still a bloody kid. How else could he understand this feeling of losing a brother to worlds that spoke to him in ways he could not understand? Bill seemed to be flowing through life and love with disconcerting will and wisdom, even when wavering at the edge of life.
Charlie predicted that another frontier would probably grow between them after tomorrow, that time not prompted by space and need for ownership but by reserve and respect for their way of living. It would be strengthened by distance.
“Thank you for agreeing to be my best man. Means a lot to me, ” Bill said quietly.
Charlie was met with his brother’s enigmatic tight-lipped smile. Bill, the master of deflection, was going against character.
“I’m happy to do this for you, mate.”
“Good. I reckon you’re the only one qualified for the job.”
The vivid impression of moving back into a space he had left many years ago floored him, and Charlie fidgeted, leading Ginny to slip away from him.
Perhaps shaping that frontier all these years prepared them to live as brothers should - side by side in a too small and sometimes uncomfortable room.
Even at a distance.
The end.