Seven stories from the long, tense week between Harry’s departure from Little Whinging and Bill and Fleur’s fateful wedding night.
Or: The Weasleys prepare to go to war.
Charlie has been back in England for precisely one day and, selfish though he knows it is, he’s already itching to leave. Every time he returns to the Burrow, it feels a little different than he remembers—he feels like a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit, the curves and angles slightly off. And this time, with the house shrouded in a fog of constant fear and anxiety, everything feels even more off-kilter than usual. His mother is wound up tighter than the ropes that cordon off the boundaries of the dragon reserve, his father is tired and unsettled and thin, and—most unnervingly—his siblings all take it in stride. Even today, the day of his brother’s wedding—amid the lush, sunlit orchard that sparkles with music, laughter, and a gleaming gold dance floor—everything feels precarious, suspended at the edge of something awful.
He does feel guilty, sometimes, that he didn’t come home to join the war effort on the ground like Bill. But as the second-born—though he’d certainly done his fair share of babysitting and reading practice and maths tutoring—he isn’t driven by that fierce, unquestioning pull of family duty that seems to steer all of Bill’s decisions. Nor is he like the twins, ready to rush headlong into battle at a moment’s notice. He thinks it’s for the best, really, that he hasn’t come home—he’s never been like Tonks either, a Chaser, thriving in the heat of the fray. He’s always worked better from the sidelines—it’s why he was a bloody good Seeker. And after all, at least he can take a grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that, unlike Percy—who’s chosen his own interests over the family’s entirely—he continues to do anything he can for the Order from abroad. Especially now that he’s heard the whispers on the reserve that You-Know-Who’s making his way east, that he’s been sighted in Germany…
If he’s honest, the pace of life on the reserve has always just worked for him, in a way that England never did. He doesn’t stay away on purpose—it’s just that the days blur together, the weeks bleed into months, and all of a sudden, he’s opening a letter from Mum lamenting that it’s been years since she last saw him, and he’ll be shocked to discover that she’s right. And then he’ll return to the Burrow to find that Ron’s grown another foot, Ginny’s funnier than he remembers, and everyone’s lives have moved on without him.
Read the full chapter on AO3.
Read from the beginning on AO3.
origamiaround
areudirty
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
kianamaiart
baratheonpilled
