He Remembers
By: Weaselle7
"Charlie Weasley is mourning over the death of his old school friend, Nymphadora Tonks."
He now believes that grief can cause more pain than a Chinese Fireball's fire-breath.
He now feels how much it hurts more to feel shattered than to suffer from a Swedish Short-Snout's burn.
He now suffers from pain that even the venom from a Peruvian Vipertooth cannot compare.
He can now see the scar that is deeper than a slay from a Hungarian Horntail's spikes.
He bows and runs his finger through the tombstone, reading the name with his skin, letting the texture of the marble makes his fingertips go numb as numb as his heart. He run his finger to the first letter again after he reached the last letter; his eyes closed, hoping to no end that she will be standing there, in front of him, probably with her bubble gum hair that matches her rosy cheeks, when he opens his eyes.
But there is no use, is there? He has no tears left, no hope to put faith, no chance, no time. His tears has been all spilled above the grave of his own brother and his throat has gone sore after choking his name to no result. But here he is, kneeling beside the grave of the woman he hopes he hadn't left. And then, for the first time after years, her full name slips through his lips in a desperate moan.
"Nymphadora."
The echo of her voice telling people not to call her 'Nymphadora' rings painfully inside his mind, scarring the inner side of his skull and deepening the wound of his heart. It is so real that he thinks Tonks is standing behind him.
He remembers the first time they met. They were standing in a tiny shop, both with their mothers, their fingers itching to hold the wooden stick they would be using to do magic. He remembers the look on her face when she held her wand for the first time, the wand that chose her. He was stealing glances towards her, afraid of getting caught, whilst he waited for Mr. Ollivander to get his wand. He remembers how he shouted in surprise, cursed himself inwardly, when he saw her dark copper hair bloomed into bubble gum pink.
"How did you do that?" he blurted after she laughed at him upon witnessing her metamorphic transformation.
"I'm a metamorhmagus, I can change my look if I want it," she said in a friendly tone. She extended her hands doubtlessly; there were no sign that indicated she was shy. "My name is Nymphadora Tonks."
"Charles Weasley," he shook her hands.
"Nice to meet you, Charles," she smiled at him as her mother was putting the golds on the table.
"You can call me Charlie." He remembers how his ears turned red. Bill always called him 'Charles' to tease him.
She was now standing in the doorway with her mother when she stopped to listen to his addition. A kind smile curved on her lips, "You can call me Dora."
He remembers how her blonde hair bloomed into her cheery bubble gum hair, adding a wave of admiring gasps around the Great Hall as the Hat exclaimed "HUFFLEPUFF!" He remembers how warm she was to her friend, how lovable she appeared to her peers, before she started to show her knack of clumsiness that gave her Slytherin classmate to bully her.
"Nymphadora Tonks," one of the Slytherin girls said, loud enough for him who sat on the corner of Gryffindor table in the Great Hall to hear it, with a clear hint of superiority in her tone. "The freak girl who seeks for attention by changing her hairstyle every minute and of course... tripping to see any of the boys will help her."
He remembers how a loud girlish giggle, a piercing sound of a fork against the china, and a faint sound of sob happened in the same time. He saw her rose from her seat noisily, adding the fun to the Slytherins, and stormed out of the Great Hall; her hair turned mousy brown. He remembers how daring and courage came from nowhere seized him, bringing him to mock back the Slytherins snappishly.
He greeted her in their History of Magic classroom the following day, her hair was still mousy brown. He remembers exactly how quick and sharp the look she gave him, and he shut his mouth quickly after remembering how she had said to her friends to call her 'Tonks' from now.
"Hi Dora- I'm sorry, I mean-"
"You can still call me Dora."
He can still recall pieces of moments they shared through their years in Hogwarts. He even remembers how they laid down one summer under a beech tree by the Black Lake when they were fifteen, talking about their future like two innocents five years-olds.
"I'd like to be an Auror, honestly," she said, her eyes closed against the glaring ray of summer sunlight above her eyelids. "Who knows I'll nudge down a can that'll bring a Death Eater to a knock out."
The two of them laughed. He caught the Snitch miniature that flew around them, moving and hovering in an impressive agility. "I'd be glad to help Hagrid with his post. He's not young anymore."
"What?!" she blurted and rose to a sitting position, eyeing him with a shocked look. He let go of the snitch accidentally, feeling utterly surprised. "You can't just spend your future teaching students about creatures while you can catch a snitch better than some famous Seekers!"
"I love Quidditch too, don't get me wrong," said Charlie defensively. "I just don't like to draw attention," he added, his ears turned deep pink in shade.
"That's good, though. They might put me in Hogwarts after my three years of Auror school, you know, with The-Boy-Who-Lived will probably go to school here and all," she said lightly. "And we can visit each other."
He remembers they grew up. Maturity drew them apart; neither of them ever admitted to each other how much one of them meant to the other, not even to themselves. They were just friends.
And then the day came.
"Dora, you aren't going to believe this!" he said cheerfully. He found her sitting alone in a compartment; her blonde hair seemed to shine as if with a halo on it. He almost slammed the compartment door open and gave her a heart attack in the process. They had completed their Hogwarts education and were in their train back to Platform 9 3/4.
"What? You managed to hatch a dragon egg?" she asked teasingly after she covered her shock.
"Even better! I'm going to study dragons in Rumania!"
The approving smile, or even the friendly envious smirk, he had been expecting didn't reach her lips. She, however, got her jaw slightly dropped and the twinkle in her eyes vanished.
"In Rumania?" she asked for a confirmation, her lips bitten anxiously.
"Yes," he said carefully.
"But that means we won't be meeting again," said Tonks ruefully.
"We can floo each other," he said comfortingly.
"Yeah, we can floo," she said after a long moment deciding what to say. "Well Congratulation, Charlie! I can't wait to floo to your place in Rumania! Have you told Percy?"
He remembers how the hopeful twinkle in her eyes had left her for the rest of the day. He remembers how warm it was to hug their goodbye; the goodbye he thought would last in months... when it was finally the time for them to meet again... talking like silly five years olds about their days.
But the odds were against them. She was busy with her Auror training, as written on her letter, and she nearly failed some subjects except Stealth and Tracking. He was also busy, with gigantic wild dragons he got to deal. They hadn't met each other for years, before the news that the final of 422nd Quidditch Cup would be held in England.
He hadn't met her all day during the Quidditch Cup. She had owled him, telling him that she would be coming to the big day. But it was quite impossible for two people (with one of them could change appearance at will) to meet in the sea of thousands of wizards and witches from all over the world. And then, all of the sudden, Death Eaters were invading. Everywhere were screams of names and curses coming out from the mouth of children and adults. After evacuating all of his younger siblings (except Percy) to the wood, he fought valiantly against the Death Eaters. He was thinking several things at the same time; his siblings, how was Bill and Percy going, how was Dad, what spell he would be using next, Tonks...
And then he saw her in the midst of battle in her favorite bubble gum pink.
"Dora?"
Emotions of happiness, thankfulness, yearning, worry, and shock were all mixed and packed within the call of her name.
The girl, the young woman, turned her head, ever so gracefully to him. The stressed bite of her lips relaxed into a brief smile as she shouted back, as if of two hearts that finally reunited.
"Wotcher, Charlie!"
He remembers when he cornered her behind a tent, begging her to flee to the woods for her own sake. She refused to do so, saying that she was an Auror, and that she wouldn't mind if she died there, saying that at least she died to be a hero. He remembers how thankful he was when he saw her left unhurt, though he sensed some mental shock from her first real battle.
He remembers the leap his heart made when he saw a bubble gum-haired witch sitting with her back on the door, talking enthusiastically with his Dad. He pushed on the door of the hospital ward, bringing all the attention of Arthur Weasley, Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin drawn towards him.
"Charlie!" Dad called out from his bed, grinning ear to ear.
"Hi, Charlie!" Dora called out, rising to her feet to bring out the other chair for him. Naturally, she tripped on her shoelace and he caught her just in time. "Oh, oops, sorry."
"Hey Dora." he said and laughed, bringing her to her feet again.
He remembers how uncomfortable he got after his accident with Tonks, how the leap his heart made seemed to haunt him days and nights, how the twinkle in her eyes stayed shining in the back of his mind. He remembers how he was clueless about all of it, before he received her owl.
The thunderous thump of his heart turned into an unfamiliar hollowness.
Dora was marrying.
He didn't know what was wrong of him. He was supposed to feel happy for her, wasn't he? But the emptiness in his heart wasn't a sign of relief, wasn't a sign to happiness. It was jealousy, -no, envy. He was just envy Remus would be there for her, would distract her from him. Why would he be jealous, anyway? They were friends, what could be better than... friends?
He remembers how he thought he was seeing an angel as she graciously walked, without tripping, through the aisle. Her hair was blonde shining, her smile was radiating pure happiness, her dress emanated out her true beauty, even for a moment, he forgot he was feeling slightly envy. There was a ray of chaste bliss as she said her vow; he remembered seeing her like that when she got her first wand.
He was happy for her.
He remembers how awkward it was for him that his heart didn't leap at the sight of her bubble gum hair at Harry's seventeen birthday, how bizarre it turned out to him that his heart dove to an uneven depth of... longing.
Longing for them to talk like five years olds, longing for her funny pig snout joke, longing for the loud laughter they would make after seeing her goblin-ear.
"Happy birthday, Harry," she said, hugging the birthday boy.
She caught him watching the two, and he let out a sad smile. A familiar radiating smile bloomed on her face above Harry's shoulder.
"Wotcher, Charlie!" she called, walking towards him and punched him friendly on the arm. Her eyes examined him before a naughty smirk replaced her kind smile. "Nice haircut."
He ran his hand quickly to his hair, suddenly got struck by a sudden realization. His hair was somehow felt shorter than how it supposed to seem and it sent a faint shade of blood rushing under the skin of his cheeks. He grinned at her sheepishly.
He remembers how much the thought annoyed him; a thought that he would be asking her to dance that day on his brother's wedding. The sight of her dancing with Remus seemed to have found a way to penetrate his reverie after some good minutes, it was like he was watching himself dancing with her before she ran her fingers through Remus' thin hair and he realized it wasn't him. Wasn't he supposed to be happy for her?
He remembers how painful it was to recall that she wanted to die as a hero. He remembers how miserable it was to see her laying down on the cold marble stone, unhurt, unscathed, peaceful, as if she was about to wake up from a long hibernation, probably with her suppressed giggle she always made when he was about to tickle her.
"Voldemort," Mum started with a daring tone she put on her sob. "He retreated his forces, challenging Harry to surrender himself to him, to confront his fate, as people would say. That's when Percy said Fred-"
She broke into tears and he hugged his mother tightly, putting everything they found no strength to say into the hug. It was when his heart the most numb, the most dead, the most hollow, the most broken. If he had arrived earlier...
Fred wouldn't have to die.
George wouldn't have to be left.
Dora wouldn't have to die. Remus wouldn't have to die too. And they would live with their son happily ever after.
Everything seemed to find its end, yet everything was just about to start a new beginning.
He is sitting on the chair he should've occupied years and years before. The candles float under the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall. The magic embraces him as if he is still eleven and the atmosphere stays the same way he first laid his eyes on the castle. It feels as if everything is the same...
Yet, of course, everything doesn't stay the same way.
Horace Slughorn is calling the names of the yet-to-be sorted students, holding the Sorting hat by the top of it. Charlie is clapping every time the Hat shouts "GRYFFINDOR!" Yes, he is now the Head of Gryffindor house after teaching at Hogwarts for ten years.
And then he can feel the warm, familiar, as if it is the part of him, current inside his chest. The whole Great Hall is filled with a huge wave of admiration and surprise from the students, the ebb of the magical memory echoed inside his mind he thinks the candles are waving.
"Oooh!" Pomona squeals next to him, her eyes seem to glisten in tears. "I know his mother, Nymphadora, from my house. Isn't she from your year, Charlie? He inherits his mother's metamorphic ability, look! She married someone named Lupin, I heard from the Headmistress. That must be her son, Teddy Lupin."
Charlie smiles as he sees Teddy Lupin's hair turns into bright ginger upon the placement of the Hat on the top of his head, making him looks like a fountain of orange squash. Charlie doesn't realize the moist suddenly becomes so dense around his eyes.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
And the tears finally fall from his eyes.
Fin.