AN: Written for HedwigBlack's Weekly Challenge, using the quote from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak:
"He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry."
Seeing it now, I believe I have strayed from the quote...
Oh and this picks up from my one-shot: Changes.
Enjoy!
After Charlie left, Katie couldn't stop thinking about the days when she had been with him. The memories were bittersweet. In the beginning everything was perfect, they were both busy and in love with their work.
Her with playing Quidditch and he with his Dragons.
They had liberty, they had love for each other and when they needed someone, a reminder of the cloudy and rainy England he was there for her and she for him.
But after the years passed she had been wanting more.
Live together.
Charlie had agreed but she could tell he still missed having his space, his privacy.
Then she wanted marriage.
That's where he had put his foot down. Their relationship was different then the rest and like he liked to say. He didn't need a parchment saying they loved each other.
But she had wanted a family.
He wasn't ready for children.
And she had heard that the Puddlemere United were giving out tryouts and she knew that it was a sign that she had to go even more so when he had told her that he wasn't stopping her.
Her tremors intensified, her arms wrapped around her middle, regretting in thinking about Charlie, it just hurt more. It just made her believe that he never really loved her like she had.
So why had he come?
Why had she wrote a letter to him asking him to visit for lunch?
She laid her forehead on the cold glass window of her twins' nursery, eyes closing as she tried to make the pain go away, wanting the rain that was hitting the windows to wash over her, to clean her, she felt like she had just cheated on her husband.
She loved Cormac. She loved her babies. She loved being a mother. She loved her life.
Then why did she feel happy and weightless when she had seen Charlie standing in the entrance hall of her huge, fancy and old manor that she detested so much?
When she had hugged him, she felt like she could finally breath without feeling something stopping her.
Katie didn't want to admit, because admitting it would make it real and that would hurt Cormac.
A sudden cry made her come back from those bittersweet memories and too hard revelations she wanted to kept buried.
Walking towards Natalie's crib she picked up her daughter, gently rocking her against her chest. The pain and the tremors subdued for a moment.
...
Cormac didn't come for dinner.
He had sent an owl telling her to eat dinner without him and to not wait up for him, that he was going to be busy with practice, the Appleby Arrows were up against the Wimbourne Wasps, their fierce rivalry. They couldn't loose.
It was lonely being in the Manor that Cormac's uncle Tiberius had inherited to him, it was just the twins, Cormac and her but mostly it was the twins and her along with the elves for company.
And it would be even more lonely when it would rain.
As she sat on the rocking chair, looking over her sleeping children, a smile escaped her lips, she was happy. Maybe no one believed or agreed on her happiness.
Her dad although loved his grandchildren, she knew that he hadn't approve of her retiring from Quidditch. He hadn't said it but she knew that he thought Cormac had forced her to quiet from playing Puddlemere.
But Cormac had said that it would be wise to retire when she was great, it wasn't wise to retire when you were a failure and everyone talked about the good days when one was a excellent Quidditch player and then Maximilian and Natalie had come and the most important thing was her family.
Things had placed accordingly.
But she sometimes felt that rush of longing that would make her tremors intensify when Cormac talked about practices, when she would see him in games, she couldn't stop that feeling of wanting to be there, to fly, to play, to feel the wind against her skin.
Even though it had been a year since she had retired completely from Quidditch, she still missed it terribly. And she couldn't confess it to no one, not to her dad, not to Cormac, not to Charlie when he had visited and least of all to herself.
It would make her feel guilty and a horrible mother and wife.
And that was the last thing she wanted. Because that was why she had left Romania, why she had left Charlie. Because she had longed to be a mother and wife. A place in Puddlemere United was just luck, a reason to leave without showing him that she had been hurt that he didn't love her that much to marry and have children with her.
Taking a deep breath she stood up and walked towards her bedroom, she needed to forget about Charlie, he was in the past, her present was more important for her now. It did no good to think of the past even more so if she sometimes dreamed about it.
...
It was still raining when Cormac came late into the night.
His hand grazed up her back, causing her to open her brown eyes as a smile appeared on her lips.
She leaned against his chest as arms wrapped around her. He smelled of soap, his curly hair was damp.
Cormac had been a surprise in her life and as much as she had tried to keep him away, he somehow appeared when she had needed someone, she loved Charlie but he was in the past and he hadn't gone after her and Cormac had given her everything she wanted and more.
He had become what she needed, what she had yearned, what she wanted and desired.
Katie pushed the nagging feeling that she had changed completely for Cormac to be able to have the things that she had wanted.
No. She hadn't changed, she had matured.
And she didn't regret falling for Cormac but she did regret sending a letter to Charlie.
Even more so when she felt Cormac's lips upon hers.
Why had she sent that letter anyway?
Charlie only caused her pain and heartbreak, made her question her life, made her feel guilt and regret and that was the last thing she wanted now. Made her feel that all those years of trying to be the best, of trying to show Britain-especially Puddlemere that she could be an excellent player, that the tremors she suffered did not stop her but made her better, that all those tears and sweat and days of practice were for nothing-a waste.
Katie kissed Cormac reverently, her hands smoothing down his arms as she tried to push those thoughts away and lose herself in him.
She was happy. In love. A Mother and a wife.
And whatever feeling Charlie Weasley made her feel she would bury them and leave that awful grave of hurt and disappointment and not turn back.
...
As he sat on the counter of his kitchen, he couldn't stop replaying what had transpired in the day.
It was like Katie had become into a trophy wife of that bloke Cormac McLaggen. He had changed her and it looked like she hadn't put on a fight and it angered him, that she given up on her dreams.
But he couldn't do anything now.
She wasn't his.
Katie wasn't his girlfriend, he had lost that right when he let her leave that day, four years ago.
Just to think that he could have given her what she had wanted, marriage and children, maybe, just maybe she wouldn't had to quiet playing Quidditch nor changed her appearance. He would have done anything for her but his fear of not giving Katie the life she deserved, to have his children live with hand me down clothes, used books had been the wall to stop him to make her be happy.
And he hadn't been able to tear down that wall and she had left and searched for what he didn't give her and found it with another person.
His anger wasn't as much as this fear he had. He couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the Katie he had known and fallen in love with, it was like she was a completely different person and it scared him.
She still had that gentle smile, those tremors, and warm brown eyes. But the elegant clothes, long blonde hair and that old, huge and fancy manor of hers and she had retired from her passion was what made him think that people had to grow up sooner or later.
Gulping he shook his head, but she hadn't grown up, she had lied to herself. Or just forgotten how she had been just so she could have the things she wanted.
Standing up and stretching he walked to his room, wanting to forget about Katie, wanting so much to take this pain and regret away from his system. This anger and sadness from him, have someone, anyone to save him from feeling as if he were drowning, he had no right to think of her and no right to have fancied the idea of wanting to be with her.
It was obvious she had moved on and so would he.
Burying his face into his pillow, he couldn't help but feel the cold and empty space next to him.
It was hard to know that she had moved on and he still couldn't, when she had left his flat that rainy day, four years ago, she had left with his heart and he couldn't move on without it.
Visiting her made him realize this, made him come to terms that he still loved her even if she was changed. And that no one would save him from drowning himself from the feelings he had, least of all Katie.
Even though he couldn't get over Katie he would go on with his life and be happy and change for no one.
AN: A big thank you to Sara Darkotter for finding the mistakes I make.