This is for Tatoe (heading for a huge collision) as my Secret Santa on the P R O M P T S Forum, and also because she is utterly brilliant and i love her.
CREYS I KNOW THIS IS AWFUL, BUT IT'S THE BEST I COULD DO WITH A TONKS/CHARLIE AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT ANYWAYS, TATOE DARLING!
also, lol, I borrowed Adam for this (and ruined his personality), hope you don't mind, love!
i own nothing except this unfortunate piece of un-beta'd work and not even the charries involved.
king of anything
/ She can be pretty philosophical if she wants to be, he muses later. Her face catches the light as she throws her head back and laughs and while he stares at her, he decide he can as well.
. . .
AND NOW IT IS -
His smile is heartbreaking; cracked lips, dazzlingly white teeth, and the slightest hint of sadness in his eye. The bride's stunning, her hair bright pink and her joy radiating. The groom's well-worn smile is lopsided and his dress robes are secondhand. He's sitting in this tiny church, his hands clasped together so tight, he almost believes they're not shaking. He's watching, always watching, and when the bride's lips meet the groom's, he pretends she looks at him for the barest of a second.
He pretends that (nonexistent) glance means something (anything, anything), something more than he should allow himself to think. He's always been very good at pretending, Charlie Weasley has. Nymphadora Lupin floats past him and he pretends her name is Nymphadora Weasley instead. And maybe, pretending will be enough.
. . .
BUT BEFORE IT WAS -
Their first kiss is a dare – frenzied laughter follows it and she wipes her lips with a smirk and a, "Don't fall in love with me, yeah?" He rolls his eyes because they're thirteen and loves for seventh years that snog in the Common Room after hours, or lean against one another by the lake without a care in the world, but for each other. He returns to his spot in the circle and pretends that his heartbeat is finally slowing down and the way her eyes don't even stray in his direction doesn't sting slightly.
When everyone's decided they've had enough, faithfully trooping out of the Hufflepuff Boy's dormitory they've met in, he grabs her hand, locking his calloused fingers around her thin, delicate wrist. He's somewhat stunned by how soft her skin is when her eyes meet his, sparkling in the dim lights, and he's been a goner from the start.
"W-We should hang out sometime," He manages to stumble out, cursing his nervousness inwardly. She regards him affably before nodding with a slight smile that's almost shy of all things, "Sure." He nods feverishly and she giggles into her hand, and this tumbling feeling in his stomach is making is head delirious, but oh, he loves it.
. . .
They run around the grounds like they own the world, their laughter mixing with the chirps of the birds and soon they're holed up in trees trying to reach for the sky. He's knelt on a low branch of an Oak they're exploring, looking up at her. Her hair is soft, long, and dirty blond today, tangling against the thick branches and leaves in her hair, she looks like a Forest Nymph or a Tree Goddess or something (anything, anything). The sun makes her hair like gold and if he hadn't been lost before he would be now.
"Tonks," He says quite suddenly, almost surprising her enough to topple from her place among the branches, "Why don't we use our brooms, if we really want to touch the sky?"
She shakes her head, her smile the slightest hint of mock condescending, "Oh, Charlie, my young student, what's life without a little chase, eh? If we really want this, we're going to have to work for it young one." She can be pretty philosophical if she wants to be, he muses later. Her face catches the light as she throws her head back and laughs and while he stares at her, he decide he can as well.
She's like the Queen and he pretends as hard as he can that he's her King too.
. . .
All of a sudden, he's fifteen and they've been best friends for two years. His voice has stopped cracking and he's gotten muscle from practicing Quidditch all summer and when he shows up looking for her in compartments on the train, girls blush and smile at him. He smiles confusedly back at them; nicely returning their greetings with a grin he doesn't know is charming.
He finds her in the last compartment of the train and she barely even looks at him, instead staring at Adam Webb, laughing with his friends on the other side of the compartment. He tries to pretend the sinking in feeling in his stomach isn't there, but it doesn't work very well.
"How's your summer been," He asks, finally drawing her attention.
"Alright," she says too loudly, her eyes straying toward Adam for a quick second before back to his, "Great actually, had LOADS of fun this summer, I did." Adam's eyes stray over to her and his gaze is appreciative as he takes in her appearance – top three blouse buttons opened, skirt shortened and, Hufflepuff tie sloppily hung around her neck like a scarf. Charlie feels abruptly sick and furious at the same time and instead of making the difficult decision of whether to begin crying on the floor or break Webb's nose, he mutters a quick, "See you later," and runs out of the compartment as fast as he can.
He finds Bill six compartments down – Bill takes one look at Charlie's bitten lips and frenzied eyes and curtly excuses himself from the compartment.
"Charlie, what's wrong," He asks, steadily staring into his little brother's eyes and pointedly ignoring the noise around them from passing students.
"I- I, He splutters out, "I'm i-in love w-w-with To-Tonks!"
Bill looks deep into Charlie's horrified eyes and sighs, nodding. He wraps his brother in a hug, still ignoring the whispers that follow.
"It'll be alright, little brother," Bill says, because maybe if they both pretend hard enough it'll come true.
. . .
He's got a headache when she finds him in the library a week later and he's so tired of arguing when she meekly settles in the seat across from him asking him softly if she had done something wrong and why he was avoiding her that he simply nods his head at her and promises that they'll hang out some more. He begs her off with the excuse that he has to finish his Charms essay and she flounces out, satisfied, while he pretends he's going to get any of this work done now that she's sent his head fluttering.
. . .
Percy finds him sometimes when he's just sitting in the Common Room watching her flirt with Webb when she'd come to Gryffindor Tower to spend time with him. Ickle Percy, already gunning for his Prefect badge three years early and always telling off someone (especially first years Fred&George), sidles up to him, burrowing unashamedly into his brother's side and muttering a quick, "I'm sorry it isn't easy," and the only people there to make fun of him for cuddling with his brother don't even bother, eying him sympathetically from across the room. He thanks Merlin for brothers like them.
He begins spending less time in the Common Room as she begins to spend more and more and less of the time using the excuse of talking to him, instead wandering the ground again and retracing the path of clambering up trees and staring at the sky. Professor Kettleburn finds him that way one afternoon, as the sun is dipping low on the horizon and it's almost about to be past curfew, but isn't.
The Professor takes one look at his blood-shot eyes and invites him into his little cabin, a little ways away from Hagrid's hut. He offers him some of the dinner he had skipped and they sit in silence as he chews slowly.
"Do you like dragons," The Professor asks suddenly, eyes bright and wide. Charlie nearly chokes on the irony of discovering a new way to the sky and simply nods. Why not, he thinks.
"Yeah, they're, they're, – Charlie thinks of trees and something (anything, anything) and pretending and Queen Tonks with golden hair and all of this together with touching the sky - , beautiful."
. . .
He runs off with dragons when he graduates and it turns out she broke off the engagement with Webb anyways because he didn't want her going into the Auror program. He climbs a tree the next day and remembers and remembers, and then he abruptly decides that dragons are more beautiful anyways and it's past time for him to stop pretending.
. . .
It doesn't work, because he dreams of her blond hair and bright laugh every night and her smile haunts his every waking minute and all he ever wanted was something (ANYTHING) to pretend for, but all he ended up was with dragons and a mangled heart and some great brothers and no, it wasn't supposed to end like this.
He wakes up on her wedding day and he pretends because that was how fairytales happened right? Pretending.
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Always,
Summer