It’s summer when Rosie first meets Fitzwilliam Eckhart. He is Aberforth’s new charge. Kids of a different variety are to be trusted in his care, apparently. He is very skinny, with wispy blonde hair and a smile that she knows will cause her trouble. His hands aren’t very quick, either. Not like they need to be to steal anything under her watch.
As you may already know, it starts with his attempt to steal a butterbeer.
Rosie allows him to make it a few steps before she sends him back her way. She waits for him with her hands on her hips and a list prepared of tasks she does not feel the need to complete. Gramps nearly scolds her for passing off her chores but when he sees how positively chuffed Aberforth is for the fact the scrawny boy with wispy blonde hair is out of his grays the old men allow it. From this point on, Rosmerta Desmond becomes Fitzwilliam Eckhart’s task master.
They sit outside enjoying his earned butterbeer for he day. Rosmerta squints under the sun but Fitz remains wide-eyed, taking in every bit of the going-ons of the town. She has found him to be inexhaustible, and this is coming from someone who has been noted for a high level of energy herself.
There aren’t many children in the town of Hogsmeade, not in the off season. Some go on vacations, most have other things to occupy their time than to help their families run the shoppes. Fitz and Rosie have no where else they could be, but more importantly no where else they would rather be. So they sit together. Quiet moments are interrupted by nudges and elbows to stomachs, but for the most part they are able to relax shoulders beside another set and stare out into the street before them. She marvels at the way he can stare through the sun and not squint and he comments on how she is able to remember every story of every nook and cranny in the street.
Somehow the conversation turns to family.
It is not normally a subject Rosmerta delves into much detail on, but she tells Fitz. Every horrible moment and every injury that had been inflicted upon her in time spent with her mother.
He tells her of being in an orphanage. They find their shoulders falling more closely together with each secret exchanged and the conversation turns to a discussion of family. What it means and who they are.
"Reckon you have any siblings out where somewhere?" Rosie asks as she takes a swig from the bottle.
His answer comes with such assurance she begins to picture a life away from the street she knows every story behind every nook and cranny of, “I have a sister.”
Rosie tells herself it is unwise to feel jealousy over someone she hasn’t met, but the burn only intensifies as he lays his hands over her own.
A sister ought to be here for him, she thinks.
Not because she made any impression on him in the time she spent living under his roof. No, Ro’s time was spent in darkened corners of closets she can manage to squeeze her way into. This man recognizes her from the similar facial structures. From the way she has managed to mature faster than most girls in her close, from the tone of her voice.
"I don’t know!" she cries helplessly as she claws her way up a tree on the outskirts on the forest.
The man roars, “I want my money you little -“
When his hand wraps around her ankle he still can not remember her other than a vague, hazy memory. Rosie remembers everything about him. It causes her to grip desperately to the unstable branch of the tree and let out a small shriek, After all, she is supposed to be safe in Hogsmeade. She is supposed to be secure and at home. Away from men like this, safe from men like this.
The assumption is at least somewhat right.
A scrawny little body with wispy blonde hair comes darting towards them before the man can finish his insult. It takes a moment but Rosmerta realizes he is swinging the skillet she had earlier tasked him to clean. “Get. Off. My. Sister,” Fitz hollers with each swing.
The body falls, a hand extends. The same which had held her own, the same which she had felt unrest about. Now shoeless, Rosmerta releases her grip on the tree to reach him.
He comes in bruised and battered but somehow looking more like a man than Rosmerta has ever seen him look.
It doesn’t matter much to her, though, because her wand is at the ready for something more than the ice she summons.
"Who?" she asks sternly. The war is a given but she has told everyone that has inquired that he is, in fact, her brother. For once her mother’s promiscuity and abandonment has worked in her favor. With the hint of magical blood they should have known to stay away. "Fitz, who did this?" she asks again.
The room spins and tilts as he smiles somewhat bashfully. “The thing about it is - well - you gotta know,” and then his smile isn’t bashful at all. It is big and bright and proud when he declares, “I joined the Order, Smerts!” The room then goes dark.
When she comes to her hands are around Fitz’s neck and he is calling for Archie. “Your hands are so small,” Fitz tells her, Rosmerta tries to compensate. “You’re actually going to try - Arch - Archo - Ar.” She finds familiar arms encircling her waist and though it takes being hoisted into the air, Rosmerta is separated from her brother finally. She is not, however, anywhere near then end of her anger.
"Of all the idiotic things you have ever done, this one takes the cake," she growls.
It’s only by change Aberforth picks this time to walk through the door. Considering her history with getting along with the man more than most people could ever manage explains how she is able to get to him unencumbered. But as soon as her fist connects with his nose she is hoisted up into the air once more and placed in her corner. Somewhere along the way she kicks two chairs over. So a bruised boy with wispy blonde hair and a man with a straggly beard and now an even more crooked nose make up the decor of the Three Broomsticks along with two turned over chairs.
"He’s a grown man," Abertforth tells her. Normally she would say it is hard to take him seriously when he has a napkin to his bloody nose but right now she only glares.
"That’s right I am!" Fitz affirms, Rosie’s eyes turn to him next a flicker of fire for just a moment before she focuses back on Aberforth.
"No he isn’t. He’s a moron. A childish moron!" She feels like Henny Penny, shouting that the sky is falling and having it land in deaf ears. The sky, however, is absolutely falling in this instance. "It’s your job to protect him,” she snarls. When Aberforth begins to scoff, it takes the now awake Gramps and Archie to hold her back from swinging his way again.
She isn’t hysterical, she is the only one thinking rationally about this idiotic decision. She can’t look at Fitz for anything longer than a passing glare, and when she hears some murmur exchanged between Archie and Fitz indicating a prior knowledge she decides she can’t look much at him either. Her eyes merely flicker.
"I made him promise not to tell," Fitz explains quickly in a way he does whenever he breaks something in the Inn. "I wanted to tell you myself." Her lips part, she looks to Archie for confirmation and then she snaps her gaze away, back to Aberforth. "What am I going to hide from the war for?"
"His kind are the ones being threatened to be wiped off the board," the man tells her. The man who isn’t part of her family, she decides. His kind. Rosmerta fumes over the words. He isn’t all muggleborns. He is Fitz. She can keep two out of the lot of them safe if they didn’t run off pulling stunts like this. "It’s their war. They have a right to fight if they want."
No. The Order will tote them around as such but really they don’t care whose war it is. They just want more bodies. More people to fight for what they want. It’s never going to change. Minds of the bigoted are going to remain as such and Fitz will end up running head first into a situation he can’t stumble out of.
Rosmerta’s wand shook loose somewhere in the struggle to strangle Fitz and punch Aberforth so she turns to something else to cause an equal amount of damage. “You’re just like him. I bet your sister would be cowering in fear of you right now.”
It’s Gramps’ sharp voice, not his usual honey-smooth tone which causes her to look away from her glare. ”Rosmerta.” That’s enough, it says. Her eyes seem to agree, they glaze over in a rush of sudden tears.
It’s either Fitz or Archie who move to her to wipe at tears and wrap her up in a hug. She takes a step in the opposite direction before she can discern who. “Don’t. No one in this room touches me right now. No one in this room has anything to say to me right now.” With furious, hard swipes at her cheek she shakes her head. Now she can discern something, her eyes finds Fitz. “He’s lead you by the hand to your death. You aren’t fighting for anything, you’re just fighting, they don’t care about you - they don’t,” air leaves her in a wheeze. “They’ll kill you. They’re going to kill my,” she can’t say it. Brother. The word traps itself in her throat. It’s so pointless, nothing compared to something he’s found to be bigger than a few summers spent in Hogsmeade together.
Rosie stiffens with a sniffle (an impressive feat if you were to ask her), “Not my problem, I s’pose. It’s not like we’re actually - whatever. But I’ll be damned if you put a target on my back. Forget about me for all I care just don’t bring any of this into my Inn ever again. I want nothing to do with that group.”
The war even ruins her chances at a proper storm out.
He comes into her room after she has cried so hard her voice is hoarse.
Or maybe that is just when her charms locking all entrances has worn off.
Quietly the boy (now a man) lays on the ground beside her. When he settles she quickly grips his hand. Tight, fiercely pulling it closer toward her. “Don’t forget about me,” she asks after a moment, finding she does indeed have more tears to shed.
The answer is simple and resounding, “Never.” They pass the time in silence, staring up at stars projected onto her bedroom ceiling. “Hate me still?” he asks and she almost laughs.
"Never," she murmurs. "I just don’t like the person who tries to take my job of looking after my brother away from me very much."
After all, she thinks, a sister ought to be here for him.
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