Okay, but do you know how LOUD dragons are??? And maybe sometime in the future, there’s more regulation on protecting your ears, but its too late for Charlie and so many of his coworkers.
He starts losing his hearing around his 30s, and once it starts going, it starts going fast. It’s not long until muggles would legally declare him deaf.
And Charlie doesn’t so much personally mind it because DRAGONS and being deaf isn’t going to stop him from doing the job he utterly loves. But it’s... isolating. Like, he doesn’t really realize how much at first because dragons are so loud that the dragontamers have their own little set of hand gestures (it’s not quite a language, more of a code) while working and they’ve developed some social ones (a mix of sign languages from a lot of the worker’s native countries). They’re also all used to yelling at each other for the sake of those who are hoh and they write a lot to each other.
Then Charlie goes home. Everything at The Burrow (especially when his sibs start having kids) just moves so fast. There’s a lot of shouting, and it’s all directed across rooms and everybody is looking at everybody when they talk and there’s too much going on - and Charlie just doesn’t understand a damn thing. Half the time, he can’t even tell who is speaking or if it’s just one of them. He ends up back in his room just staring at his wall, soaking up the solitude and freaking out.
It’s Bill who comes looking for him and gets the broken, tear-ridden confession from Charlie that he can’t understand any of them. Bill tries to comfort him, but it’s a hard visit home and Charlie’s spirits can’t be raised. He ends up going home early, Molly’s pleas falling on deaf ears (literally).
His coworkers and friends in Romania understand. Many of them have gone through the same. It’s a coworker who Charlie doesn’t really consider a friend, a rough man who tends towards the blunt, who pulls Charlie close - putting an arm around his neck, and does one of their dragontamer’s codes/signs, then hits his palm on his forehead and draws the letters BSL with his wand.
Charlie sulks. He just wants to wallow in his hurt for a wallow, pretend nothing has changed. But eventually an owl for Bill prompts him to stop feeling sorry for himself, accept what’s happened, and move forward. He finds a class and even though it’s a lot of apparating, he begins learning his new language. British Sign Language.Â
It doesn’t really solve his problem, though. If none of his family can sign, he still can’t understand wth is going on around him when he visits. So he puts off visiting, even though he’s close enough with his classes that he easily could (probably should). He doesn’t visit again until next Christmas, when his signing has far improved - enough that he’s started to make some Deaf friends from his classes (Merlin, he’s still so slow, how is that possible!?) and learn more about Deaf culture.
They don’t even consider it a present, but it’s the best gift Charlie’s ever gotten when he goes home and everyone is slowly fumbling along with some BSL to talk with him, awkwardly speaking out loud while trying to also translate for him. It slows things down but Charlie wants to cry from joy. He’s heard so many stories from Deaf friends of family who never learned any sign or approved abusive techniques to get their kids to learn to lipread and speak. Even though Molly, who’s particularly struggled to pick it up and embarrassed at being unable to talk to her own son, often quits and makes Ginny or Bill (who both seem to have a knack for it and too far behind Charlie’s own progress) translate for her, Charlie still appreciates it. Turns out, Fleur (who understands language barriers better than any of them) convinced Bill to start learning shortly after Charlie’s last disastrous visit and together, they convinced the rest of the family to at least learn the basics.
And even though Charlie’s skill continues to get better and better and his family starts to seem slower and slower compared to Charlie’s Deaf friends, they keep practicing, keeping making sure they can include Charlie. And the many Weasley-Potter/Granger/Johnson/Delacour/etc. kids end up speaking two to three languages (English, BSL, French) at home. And don’t think they don’t use that around Hogwarts to their advantage! Starting younger, they also tend to be speedier than their parents when signing, so Charlie will always consider Bill his best friend, but he’s got a special connection to so many of his niblings due to their communication skills, and that’s ultimately what helps Charlie look at his deafness fondly. He may still consider himself more of an outsider to Deaf culture (at least for now), but he’s not an outsider in his own family. And that means everything to a Weasley.
