Dragons Enough and Time
A/N: Written as part of the Chocolate Box Exchange on AO3 as a treat for merle_p, for their prompt wanting a story where Charlie invites George to live at the dragon sanctuary after Fred's death.
In the first few days after the Battle of Hogwarts, everything blends together in a strange haze of grief and post-adrenaline letdown. There's altogether too much to do in the aftermath, both at Hogwarts and beyond, and the effort of doing it requires pushing past all the hurt. It is a special kind of exhausting.
Charlie ends up volunteering to be on the team searching through the parts of the castle that have become little more than rubble to find bodies. He hopes that the hard physical work – something he's no stranger to thanks to his time at the dragon reserve – will maybe help keep him from thinking too much. Still, once it's done and he's bone tired, it's a relief to head back to join the rest of the family at Aunt Muriel's. He hopes that it will get easier to try and move forward to a point where they can actually celebrate the war is finally over.
That's not as easy as it sounds. Realistically, Charlie knows with as big of a family as he has and as involved in the war as they were, they were incredibly lucky not to have lost so much more than they did. It doesn't help the hurt in his heart though, and it doesn't help him figure out how to make it hurt less for the rest of his family, either. Still, Fred and the others who gave their lives made it possible for the rest of them to have time and hope to recover – Voldemort is gone. That's got to count for something. Eventually, he's sure it has to. Getting to that point is the hard part.
Although the hardest part of it all is watching George fall apart. Charlie can't honestly say which is worse, when George starts a sentence with "we" and realizes the error immediately to become silent or when he just keeps going on normally until he hits the point when Fred would normally chime in to complete the thought. Ultimately it doesn't matter much, because it always results in his face crumbling with grief and shutting them all out. As the days go by, Charlie's normally boisterous brother simply goes quieter and quieter. It's hard to get him to talk about anything at all, or to show more interest than a blank stare when anyone tries to draw him out.
It's the last straw when George starts disappearing for hours or whole days and claims he's going off to work putting the joke shop back together and Charlie stops by to see him during a trip to Diagon Alley to find the shop unchanged. Broken down and dark as it's been since the twins abandoned it to go into hiding. Ultimately finding George sitting in the fields behind Muriel's house, staring off into nothing, Charlie sees nothing for it but to confront him. "I thought you were going to the shop? I looked for you there. What are you doing out here, anyway?"
Charlie half-expects George to startle as he comes up behind him, but he doesn't. A morbid little voice whispers that George would have to care about anything to be startled. Finally, after Charlie has almost given up on actually getting a response, his brother speaks.
"I can't do it," George answers in a toneless voice.
He's pretty sure he knows what his brother means, but Charlie needs to find a way to get him to talk, so he pretends ignorance. "Can't do what? We're all hurting here. I know it's hard but, you just -"
"How?" His brother's voice breaks on the word at first, and George pauses to swallow hard before continuing on in a rush, "How am I supposed to get past losing my twin? Everywhere I go, wherever I am, whoever I'm with, whatever I'm doing - there is always this big empty space next to me! The room at the cottage, my place at the table, the shop - our shop … even this stupid field where we practiced quidditch! There isn't anywhere I can go where I don't remember him there. Where I can constantly feel that he's not there anymore. Tell me, Charlie, how exactly do I get past that?"
He's standing just behind and to the left of where George is sitting, and as his brother's voice has grown louder, tears have spilled down his cheeks. George doesn't turn to look away from where he's staring out across the field though, and Charlie thinks that's the only thing that keeps his own wet eyes in check and allows him to speak past the lump in his throat. Of course, he doesn't realize what he's about to say until the words have already made it out. "Come back to Romania with me."
Part of him wants to snatch the words back out of the air – the idea of pranksters like Fre- the idea of a prankster like George around dragons? Well, it's a bad idea. Still, the way George finally turns to look at him, and really looks at him in a way that he hasn't truly paid attention to anything in days? He can't take it back if there's even a chance it might help his brother.
Charlie's not surprised it turns into a bit of a battle when he brings up the idea to their mum. He's already been putting off the idea of returning home himself just because he knows she wants them all in her sight for a little longer. Still, he can't sit and watch George fade any further away. Especially after she suggests going out to the Burrow soon to start talking about rebuilding at dinner that night and George goes absolutely white. In the end, it's a battle fought in whispers after the rest of the household has gone to sleep, won by his father who sides with Charlie, to his wife's distress.
You can't just walk onto a dragon reserve and neither of the twins had ever shown any particular interest in magical creatures - aside from how they could be used in pranks. Still, just packing up and then unpacking in Charlie's slightly too-small-for-guests apartment takes a fair amount of time and concentration. There are sights to see and people to meet, and if George is still far more reserved than he's used to, he's at least returning more interest than a blank stare to the distractions Charlie does his best to provide. Then once the most basic paperwork is done, there are plenty of tasks around the reserve that don't involve direct interaction with the dragons.
George is still overly quiet for a long time after the move, but there's no longer that hanging sense of desperation. He still starts sentences only to trail off, but it gradually becomes a less and less frequent occurrence. There's still no sign of the prankster spirit that had characterized the boy since the twins were old enough to understand trickery, but George is responsive and doesn't look like he's in a constant state of drowning. It's not all better, but it may never be, and as his father reassures him by owl, it's going to take time.
Unfortunately, it's not all smooth sailing. The day there's an accident with one of the Horntails and Charlie comes home with a giant plaster covering most of his leg, George completely flips out. The two of them, who haven't fought in years, have a giant row about how his job is too dangerous of all things. If anyone had told him he'd ever have a conversation like that with the twins – with George - well, he'd have been sure they were having him on.
Somehow that argument and the aftermath where they discuss it turns out to be the moment things start to truly turn around. With everything that's changed, once his temper cools down, Charlie does get it. Even the slightest potential of more loss is too much for his brother right now. It doesn't keep Charlie away from the dragons, but it does clear the air a bit and get them actually started talking about more than inconsequential day to day matters. George still isn't up to talking about Fred directly again, but they do begin to talk more often about the rebuilding going on back home.
Charlie is as careful as he can be not to push too hard, to let George determine how ready he is for anything. George starts offering to come out with his friends, instead of having to be cajoled into it. There are still awkward pauses where George stops to wait for someone else that's never going to speak in sync with him again and days where he retreats back into himself, but slowly, things get better and that spark of fun and mischief starts to return a little bit.
It's all Charlie can do not to laugh himself sick when George pranks his neighbor by jinxing the ugly rug in front of his door, and it's not even that funny. It's just the relief being near overwhelming.
Ultimately, the day George sends off a letter to ask Ron how the business at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes is going in his absence is the day Charlie starts to really believe that someday George will be okay.