Team: Wigtown Wanderers
Position: Beater 2
Prompt: Write a story that takes place in the sky or somewhere that houses broom equipment (such as Quality Quidditch Supplies, the Quidditch pitch, Battle of the Seven Potters, etc.)
Additional Prompts: 4. (colour) turquoise, 9. (colour) light grey, 14. (character) Charlie Weasley
Words: 1804
Thank you to Aya for betaing!
It wasn't that Charlie didn't love his mother. He did—she was his mother!—but there were times when it all got a little too much.
It wasn't quite so bad when Bill was visiting, too: she always got more hung up on Bill's long hair and rogue earring instead of Charlie's nonexistent relationships. The moment she'd understand that the dragons were all he needed would be a fine moment indeed.
It would also never come.
Molly Weasley was the most stubborn person he'd ever met, and in a house full of Weasleys, that was saying something.
He'd left the Burrow after a final "But if you just come back to England, you'd be able to research dragons without putting yourself in danger or losing out on love!" He'd be back for dinner; it was time to visit Percy, anyway.
Percy worked in Diagon Alley at Fortescue's. It was apparently common to work over the summer, not that Charlie had ever done so: his siblings had been younger, then, and once his mother had realized he wanted to work abroad, she'd kept him home as much as possible.
The hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley immediately shuffled Charlie to the side when he Apparated into the busy street. He plastered himself to the wall of the shop and took a deep breath. He was losing his touch! Only an idiot would Apparate onto the central street!
Charlie shook his head and dusted off his robes, then took a quick look around. It had been several years since he'd last been to Diagon Alley, but everything looked in place: Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor was right across the street from Quality Quidditch Supplies, next door to the Second-Hand Bookshop, and a perfect reprieve from the Burrow.
Charlie joined the crowd and followed it until he entered the Parlor, bypassing the outside tables to approach the counter. Florean Fortescue, tall and broad-shouldered, was filling ice-cream cones and chattering to his customers: filling in school-age witches and wizards on wizarding history for summer homework, and reminiscing with their parents about summers past.
Charlie waved him a quick hello—he'd had homework help, too, years ago—and joined the queue, which quickly progressed until Charlie himself was choosing an ice-cream.
"You always liked the vanilla." Fortescue grinned.
Charlie nodded. "I like the simple things."
"If I remember correctly, you're busy wrangling dragons nowadays," Fortescue said. "That hardly qualifies as simple."
"And yet I'll still take the vanilla." Charlie laughed. Fortescue was always trying to get him to sample the crazier flavors, but he had never even been interested in Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans. He paid for his cone. "Where's Percy?"
"Your brother?" Fortescue rolled his eyes. "Quality Quidditch Supplies, where else?"
"Any number of places," Charlie said, barely believing what he'd just heard. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. He always goes there when he's on a break."
Charlie gaped until an elderly witch behind him poked him with what he hoped wasn't her wand. "We've all got places to be, dear."
He waved a vague goodbye to Fortescue and left, once again bypassing the outside tables, neatly arranged to provide both privacy and a sense of community to the customers. He'd let the ice-cream drip over the sides of the cone in the hot summer sun; he needed to get to Percy.
Had Fortescue not been so calm, Charlie would have suspected an Imperius Curse. Not that Percy wasn't interested in Quidditch. It was hard not to be in a house full of Weasleys. But he never played unless forced to, and preferred to spend his time with a book rather than a broom; his knack for strategy was Percy's only leaning towards Quidditch Charlie had ever noticed.
Muttering a quick spell to clean up the melting ice-cream, Charlie approached Quality Quidditch Supplies. The window was bright and stocked with brooms, posters, and robes. There was an autographed Quaffle and a new edition of Gordon Horton's Quidditch: A Must-Have for Keepers. Inside, he saw the unmistakable bright red hair of his errant brother.
Part of Charlie still expected Fortescue to have been mistaken: it was far more feasible for Percy to be in the Second-Hand Bookshop. He entered and approached Percy as the bell over the door continued ringing.
"I never knew you liked Quidditch this much, Percy."
Percy did an elaborate little dance as he turned around, looking down at Charlie, his face red with embarrassment. "What are you doing here?"
"I thought I'd visit my little brother at work." Charlie laughed. "I expected to find you at work, though. Thinking of joining the team next year?"
Percy crossed his arms and pursed his lips. "No."
Charlie laughed again. No matter how tall and authoritative he was—and he wasn't that authoritative now, lacking a robe and a Prefect badge, dressed in the light grey trousers that were part of his work uniform—Percy was still the little brother he teased him as.
Percy sighed and uncrossed his arms. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were at home."
Charlie shrugged. "Just taking a break for a bit. Mum's trying to set me up again—"
"And you only have eyes for your dragons?"
"Something like that." It was exactly like that, if Charlie was being honest; as far as his mother was concerned, he just wasn't ready for a relationship.
They shuffled closer to a bookshelf to allow a family of three blondes, a harried-looking father and two daughters, to pass through to display of toy brooms. Charlie noticed the look Percy threw down the aisle before he ducked his head.
"How's the ice-cream?"
"Very good."
"Good."
Though he marvelled at Percy's interest in the shop, Quality Quidditch Supplies had always been Charlie's favorite in Diagon Alley. There was something about the hustle and bustle, the enthusiastic children and slightly reluctant parents, the wistful but broke students and cheerful workers, that created a sense of community. It was the same in Romania, with their dragons and researchers, everyone interested in the same thing and excited to share their passion.
His eyes followed the blonde family to the brooms. The shorter girl, probably younger, was trying to take one of the brooms off the display; her sister yanked on her hair; their father dropped the bags he was carrying to separate the two.
Charlie hid a smile. He remembered when the three of them—Bill, Percy, and himself—had acted like that: argued and made up within minutes, took turns racing around the Burrow's yard on their toy broomstick, and complained together when they had to join their parents on errands.
The worst part about the errands had been their inability to ask for presents. They learned early on not to: a single toy broom for the three of them was enough, really, and small disagreements about sharing were worth it to avoid their parents tormented decisions about money.
That was why Percy's trousers, now, were already hanging slightly over his ankle. That explained the socks—were they emblazoned with Snitches?—that poked out underneath them, their rich blue matching Percy's button-down shirt.
His brother wasn't the only one wearing the trousers. Perhaps they were a Diagon Alley dress code. He hadn't remembered it being in place the last time he visited, but Charlie had never been one for details beyond the Quidditch pitch or his Care of Magical Creatures class.
His gaze fell on the table they were standing next to, pushed close to the bookshelf but still slightly in the way. It would definitely be knocked over if someone ran by it in a rush, overloaded as it was with Gwenog Jones's autobiography, a blue and gold hardcover that likely cost more than he made in a year.
He would never be able to afford it. He didn't have the time to read it. And yet Charlie couldn't resist.
The top book had already been opened: the pages were ruffled, the spine bent. The golden gleam remained the same, however, and the blue accentuated the thin patterns decorating the cover.
Charlie tilted his head. What he'd mistaken for blue—he'd thought it to be the rich, shimmering color of the Swedish Short-Snout—was a deep turquoise. Much more like the scales of the Australian Long-Tail's underbelly, the only impervious part of its body. Gwenog Jones had spent some time in Australia, Charlie recalled, training with the Thundelarra Thunderers on her off-season.
The last time he'd seen an Australian Long-Tail, he'd been visiting the Australian Dragon Reserve as a representative from Romania. It was an unnaturally mild-mannered breed, often on the brink of extinction due to their reluctance to fight for food or territory. It was a good thing the thick turquoise scales protected their underbellies: dragons were hard to kill, but a direct hit to the internal organs was bound to do it.
Perhaps the book's cover had been inspired by the Long-Tail; Charlie, in Gweong's shoes, would certainly had been. There was something incredible about the breed, the only kind that directly returned Charlie's warm sentiments of love, and he looked up to share the thought with Percy, who had, no doubt, been looking at the books, too.
But Percy wasn't there.
That was already strange. Charlie had never known Percy to walk past a bookshelf, and certainly never past a new book. He was rethinking his theory about the Imperius Curse when he noticed Percy at the other end of the store.
Charlie tilted his head again. Alright, so it wasn't exactly Percy that he noticed: it was Percy's red curls moving outside of the shop. Attached to the curls was Percy himself, and attached to Percy—Charlie let out a short "Huh."
He'd always known Oliver Wood wasn't interested in girls.
But he'd always thought that the Keeper's true love was Quidditch, and Quidditch alone; his true love was dragons, and it wasn't that hard to think Wood's disinterest a similar quality.
If the way Wood was attached to Percy was anything to go by—by the hand; the brown-haired Scot almost a head shorter than Percy, their identical light grey trousers passing the window as they walked by—he certainly had an interest in something other than Quidditch.
Charlie looked down at the book again. That was enough love for the day—although, with any luck, his mother would torment Percy next about starting his own family.
The heavy book, its gold enticingly shining up at Charlie and its turquoise reaching out a welcoming hand, seemed an enjoyable pastime until Percy and Wood returned to their respective jobs—Wood worked at Quality Quidditch Supplies, Charlie supposed, which explained Percy's sudden interest in the sport—and he hoped that the shop wouldn't mind his brief using of it as a library.