Written for QLFC, Round 6: Month by Month
Arrows, Chaser 1.
Prompt: December [Charlie Weasley]
Additional prompts: 4) (word) refreshed
7) (object) soccer ball
12) (word) Barbarian
Word Count (without A/N): 1033
all your scars won't heal (until you let go)
Sometimes you never know the value of the moment until it becomes a memory. Life goes on, and on and you flow away with it. Worried about the most trivial matters and never taking a minute to cherish what you have. You never realize that in the blink of an eye everything can change, and it changes so drastically that you lose your footing, the meaning of life is no longer the same and you struggle each day. It seems crazy when you look back a year ago and suddenly feel grateful yet surprised from what you have. The people that entered and walked away from your life. The people who stayed. Memories that you cherish and some that are better left forgotten, the moments you wish you did forget but remain clear and vivid in your head. The reality kicks a soccer ball hard in your gut, and no matter how much you scream, look for ways or cry, you can never change it back. And this realization changes you in ways that you can never go back to become the person you were before.
Charlie was too young to understand the first wizarding war. Too naive to carry the brunt of the destruction it caused but not blind enough to ignore the despair it caused. The brief headings of newspaper articles from the daily prophet, the worried evenings his mother spent waiting for his father to get back home from work, the funerals of his uncles' where he saw his mother weep so much for the first time. Those few years for him felt like a never ending chain of horror. And then abruptly one night everything changed. His mum cried of joy instead of grief, family members bombarded the house in celebration, the lady on the radio no longer sounded scared or tired and the daily prophet articles sang praises of their savior. In a blink of an eye everything changed and suddenly everything was settling back in its place once again. Those few years in war felt like as if each heartbreaking news, death and fights threw mud on you, left you dirty. But that night, on October 1981, Charlie felt refreshed.
Life is amazing. Life is awful. And then it is amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful lies the mundane and ordinary. Sometimes you forget to slow down in life, chasing after the amazing and running away from the awful and lose the chance of cherishing the absolute serenity of the mundane and ordinary. Charlie has always been more of a practical man, never the one to mope around and think about such things, but there is always a moment in the person's lifetime where everything comes to an abrupt stand still and you eventually ponder on thoughts that make you regret and feel uncomfortable.
Charlie feels the terror wash over him as soon the news of You-Know-Who's return reaches his ears in Romania. The fear is much stronger than last time and he actually faces the brunt of the war. It's like history repeating itself all over again. Disappearances, attacks on Muggles, the Daily Prophet articles, the familiar itch in your body as you read all these news and can do nothing. Life rushes by again, days spent worrying over your family, never knowing what would happen each passing day. Fearing for your own life and your family gets so tiring that you wish for the mundane days again, regretting of not cherishing them enough because you know that there is a slight probability that you could die tomorrow.
Percy leaves the family and Charlie wishes to be there to knock some senses into him, few months later he gets an invite to join the Order of the Phoenix. Then months later his father is attacked during the Order mission. Weeks later the ministry is wrecked and finally admits You-Know-Who's return. More disappearances, deaths and attacks. You try your best to catch up with the pace life is running, try reaching out to your family wishing that you had done it sooner and regretting even the death of an unknown person. You start feeling filthy once again. The war wiping its dirty hands on you.
Maybe it is because you never think that whatever you are doing could be the last time your do it, or maybe we take everything for granted that we forget to be grateful of our daily days. Amidst the war, hearing about Dumbledore's death, the rescue mission going wrong and hearing about George losing one of his ear, seeing the hollow hole on the side of his face makes Charlie's skin crawl with fear. He could have died, Charlie reminds himself and feels a little gratitude for seeing his brother alive.
The day of the final battle still feels unreal and like a dream. He feels tired, grim and sweaty but worst of all he feels empty. His brother is dead, one of his friend is dead and there are just so many bodies lying down in the Great Hall. He finds his family gathered around Fred's body and something in Charlie wants to run away from the hall, dreading to see Fred's lifeless body, the broken face of his mother, the glassiness in his father's eyes and the hollowness on George's face. His is probably looking like a barbarian standing in the middle of the Great Hall, eyes wide and breaths coming in heavy gasps to control the scream he wants to let out so desperately.
Life seems suddenly on the stand still again, slowing down and the days become long and agonizing to cope with. Where there was joy at the end of the first wizarding war, the second one only brings more grief. The guilt that you survived and they didn't. It's a long process, to recover from something that was happening for years. Its like starting new all over again, finding your footing on the ground, dealing with the changes, remembering Tonk's childishness instead of her dead body lying side by side with Remus, remembering Fred's jokes and pranks instead of his dying laughter and remembering the people that left with the ones that stayed.
Fin.