QLFC, S5 R11. CHASER 1: Write about losing someone/thing on a windy day(s) OR winning someone/thing on a rainy night(s).
(word) muffle
(phrase) walking down the road
(dialogue) "You can't start a new chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one."
Go Wanderers!
Beta(s): Aya Diefair, CUtopia. Thank you so much!
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AU in which Fred didn't die but was hit by a banishing spell and lost part of his memories.
The sea had never appealed Fred — for what little he could recall anyway.
In the few, blurred memories that bounced around in his too empty head, all he could see was green expanses mixing with the sunlight as a flowery smell filled his nostrils and laughs reverberated in his ears.
In his dreams, children cried and ran carelessly as something roared in the background. He never got to see what it was, but he was sure it was not the angry noise of the sea — if anything, he'd connect it to the flight, but that thought was almost ridiculous.
His most recent memories were clearer, taking form through a fog, but in those, too, the sea, despite being his sole source of income, held no attraction.
One dock, one port followed another in front of his eyes — all alike.
Children would festively run to see the big ships and their colorful sails as he'd perch on the bowsprit, once again trying to figure out how he had come to live the life of a sailor and wondering what was so interesting in traveling on a rocking piece of wood carried by capricious winds.
The light sweeping across the water might be poetic — as a girl had once put it — but why else would one love an endless puddle of simple, salty water was beyond him.
Now, four years passed since his first boarding, the children were still there at each dock, eager to wave at him and the other sailors, but the sea had become less endless and even less interesting to Fred.
No land was unknown or remote anymore — years and years spent traveling around the world had broken that enchantment — and it had now turned into yet another country engaged in trading.
Nothing poetic.
Nothing adventurous.
"Fred, you son of a cur, jump the darned halyard!"
Reluctantly leaving his favorite spot on the bowsprit, Fred followed the harsh order with a pleased smile — son of a cur must be the least crude title he had ever received — and reached his fellow sailors to raise the sail and prepare to board as the Captain planned to leave in about an hour, after the sunset. Yet another voyage, yet another place — new and yet so old.
His gaze wandering over the water, Fred sighed.
Not even the sea, endless and powerful as it was, had ever been able to answer his questions, fill in the void he felt in his chest, and he had no illusions that this time could be different.
§
When dark, massive clouds started clumping over their heads, unexpected and so heavy with rain that a few drops escaped early, Fred's hope that something might change suddenly sparked.
They wouldn't board with an ongoing storm.
He focused on that wish so much that he could almost feel the electricity crackling around him, originating from him, draining him. Alarmed, he jumped back, falling to his knees on the deck.
The wood was solid and familiar, and he instinctively knew it would be safe to channel whatever his body was releasing through it so he rested both his hands on it. The tip of the mast glowed for the briefest moment.
Fred closed his eyes and waited for the sun to set.
A few more drops escaped from the clouds above and landed on his nose tip and hair. When many others followed, unstoppable, twirling in the wind, a smile crept on his wet face that he had raised to scan the sky.
The night promised to be dark, too dark to distinguish the trail.
He slowly stood up, shaking his head.
"So Forge has actually become an old sea dog, I see." The voice was teasing, fond, and somehow even — if he let himself dare hope — familiar.
Any other, more seasoned sailor would ignore those obscure words spoken from the shadows and muffled by the rain, but not any sailor could relate to that name, Forge, the way Fred believed he could — now more than ever he felt like he had forgotten something — and certainly not any voice could adopt such a mocking tone on this ship like only Fred himself would dare.
Slowly and not without mistrust, he turned.
The man who had spoken stood in front of him, his face covered by a hood.
Fred narrowed his eyes, squinting to see through the rain that now fell thickly. "Do you know me?" he asked, well aware that this was the only possible question apart from the obvious one, "Do I know you?" But it was not his habit to show his weaknesses in plain sight.
When you're constantly travelling, you do not have enough time to befriend or trust anyone, and albeit spending a huge amount of time with the same few people on the ship, you do not get close to anyone — the favorite topic of conversation being payroll, women, taverns, more women, and unbecoming titles to bestow on the Captain behind his back.
"Presently, very little," was the cryptic answer. "But I did."
Fred had never been patient. "As you wish," he said as he took three giant steps towards the other man. As soon as he was close enough, he raised his arm and grabbing the other's hood, he pulled it back, finally catching the stranger's mischievous hazel eyes. His own eyes.
His fingers still around the fabric, Fred gasped, and all his bravado disappeared, as faded memories fought at the back of his mind to come to the surface. He could feel them pressing and pounding his head.
With a frown, he brought his free hand to his left temple.
It was neither the stranger's cheeky smile, nor his red hair, nor his freckles — it was not that impossible resemblance — to make Fred quiver. "That's —" Had it not been for his hold on the fabric, he wouldn't have believed his eyes.
"Hey, Fred, who the hell are you talking to?" The Captain's voice broke into his thoughts, followed by the noise of boots stomping on the deck.
Fred let the hood go and took a step back, still shocked.
"Sir, you must leave the ship. We're sailing as soon as the rain stops, and I won't tolerate a member of my crew being distracted from his work any longer," the Captain said to the stranger.
So he can see him too, Fred thought, somewhat relieved. But couldn't the Captain notice that the man in front of him was Fred in another life?
"I figured as much. That's why I'm here," the man answered. "Give me just a minute."
"No way! Leave my ship now. You're not allowed to stay here."
"Just. One. Minute." The stranger crossed his arms over his chest.
"I know how to deal with filthy stowaways like you." The Captain roughly grabbed the other man's arm, clearly planning to drag him off his ship.
The stranger, not at all alarmed, was ready and, in turn, closed his fingers around the Captain's wrist. He twisted it without effort and pushed his victim down.
When a few outraged sailors, alerted by the commotion, intervened and aimed their blades at the stranger, it was all it needed for Fred to draw his own dagger and instinctively brandish it against his fellows.
Backing away to put a safe distance between himself and the angry crew, George — the name flowed through Fred's mind from nowhere — let the Captain go and quickly reached the gangway, disappearing into the night.
Fred found himself facing the Captain's wrath alone.
"Fred! You bastard, you rat, were we offshore, nothing could save you from keelhauling. Get off my ship! NOW!"
Slowly putting his dagger back into his boot, Fred straightened and kept his hands up, just to be cautious. He smiled in a reassuring way. "Ah, yes. I… I'll be leaving now."
He turned and, his feigned serenity leaving him all at once, he hurried to disappear. The curses still followed him for a long trait.
"Brilliant job, Forge," a playful voice greeted him as soon as he turned a dark corner. "We did better than that, but —"
Fred didn't need to catch the glimpse of dark red — all too similar to fresh blood because of the rain and his shattered nerves — shining in the flash of a lightning bolt to recognize the man casually leaned against the wall. "Well, George, we don't see each other in I don't know how long — more than four years at least. However, you show up, and they kick me off the ship."
"You'll find another." George shrugged.
"This is not the point." Fred frowned. "The point is that I just lost my job."
"I wouldn't put it like that. I'd rather say you've just won your freedom back. Isn't it, Fred? I have it on good authority you never loved the sea. In fact, you hated it. And even less so in following orders. You... we have always been rebels."
"Give her hell from us, Peeves." In a flash, Fred knew that words had undoubtedly left his mouth at some point. Taking a few tentative steps towards the other man, he put a hand on George's shoulder, scanning his face one more time as if to truly convince himself. Despite the resemblance, despite the random memories, he still needed to pronounce his name and hear him say, "Yes, it's me."
"You may not realize it yet. You may even regret it now, but... You can't start a new chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one," George said instead, the wisdom behind his words sounding forced, almost painful. "And that job was never supposed to even be a chapter of your life."
"George," Fred murmured. He hadn't chosen it. The Captain had found him when he had woken up on a little beach, confused and with no memories apart from his own name.
"You must have shipwrecked," they had said. "Welcome aboard, sailor."
George turned, and in his eyes, Fred could read the same disorientation that had haunted him ever since.
"George, how —"
"How did I find you? I didn't, Fred. You just… happened. For some reason, I suddenly felt the need to see the sea, and the next thing I knew, I was walking down the road that leads to the dock in a foreign town."
Fred suppressed his urge to hug George. "But you got up on the ship."
"Of course I did. Wouldn't you have done the same if you had caught a glimpse of this awful shade of red?" George laughed as he picked a lock of Fred's long hair. "Look at you. Not even Harry's hair has ever been so tousled."
"Reckon I'm still better-looking than you." The words echoed in Fred's head and left his lips before he knew it. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean —"
George's eyes were shining with unshed tears — or rain, like he would later claim. "Welcome back, Fred."