Discaimer: I own nothing. This is just for fun
Renaissance of a dream
They had named him Mond, or better Anna had. Mond, moon in English, the strange young man with the silvery blonde hair and the angry grey eyes. Charlie finds that there is something familiar about him but he can't place it. He hasn't spoken a single word since they found him in the dragon stables eight months ago but he does good work. It's like there is a connection between him and the dragons and Charlie thinks that is the reason why he could hide who-knows-how-long in the stables.
Beside the not-speaking and wearing long-sleeved shirts all the time, Mond is not stranger than the rest of them. It requires a certain kind of character to live in the wilderness, far away from civilisation and with no one for company except a herd of dragons and your fellow madmen.
Mond has that kind of character. He may never speak and seems to be angry all the time but h gets along with them. He plays football with the rest of them, looses at chess against Elmira and Altero( but they all loose at chess against those two so it's nothing dramatic). He can neither cook nor is he very apt at housecleaning but he learns from Aki and Rong and Charlie. He also shares the room with Charlie( simply because they have neither the time, the space or the energy to extent the house, so everyone has a roommate).
Charlie knows that Mond wakes up at the slightest noise and that he has nightmares, that he wakes up during the night, harshly breathing and sweating. The look he has in his eyes then is the same he wore when Charlie found him the stables eight months ago: more animal than human, torn clothes, mere rags, snarled hair, cuts and bruises still visible under all the dirt that covered his body and his eyes: terror-filled, despair, fear and most of all anger. He was wilder than mot of the dragons and in the first weeks everyone treated him like one.
They all wondered how Mond could make the dragons to accept him, but when they saw what he could do, they decided to keep him with them.
'Hey, Mond. Come on, let's call it a night.' Charlie says when he sees Mond in front of the stable doors. He still spends a lot of time there, maybe he feels safe there, and Charlie wonders if tonight is another night where Mond will sleep there with the dragons.
They are the last ones outside. It's December, bloody cold and snow begins to fall as he waits.
Mond nods and joins Charlie on the path that leads to the house.
'You're a lucky guy, you know that?' Charlie laughs when Mond cocks his head at him questioningly.
'Kirill is back, so you're relived of cooking and we're relived of your food.' Mond swats at him, playfully angry and then they're rolling in the dirt, the exhaustion of the day bleeding from their bones. Charlie has strength on his side but Mond fights harder, wilder.
'Haven't had enough, boys?' The female voice with the Arabian accent breaks through their brawl effortlessly. Merjem stands in front of the house, her hands in her hips. She's the oldest of them and rough like sandpaper but they all look for her approval.
'Kirill is already setting the table, so you two better hurry up.'
Charlie helps Mond up, but sees the grin too late and is suddenly facing a handful of fresh snow. He can see Merjem roll her eyes as he chases after Mond.
They barely make it in time, because Charlie caught Mond in their room and tickled him until tears streamed down Mond's cheeks. He doesn't speak but his laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds Charlie has ever heard.
During dinner( which is delicious) Kirill tells them about his sister's wedding( and rants about her husband because no man on earth could ever be good enough for his little sister).
Mond still eats like it could be his last meal but it doesn't disturb the rest anymore. It's still like he expects to be kicked out any minute.
Kirill's description makes Charlie think of the Burrow, which he hasn't seen in three years because they can't afford to have more than two people absent and everyone would like to go home for Christmas. He turns his head and looks at Mond. He wonders briefly if Mond would come with him if he asked but then he shakes his head internally. Mond never leaves the ground, not even for the nearest village.
'Do you have decided when you want to leave for home?' Elmira asks him.
'Morning of the 24th.' Charlie answers: 'I already have the presents, so I think I'll go straight home.'
'And you, Anna?'
'23rd. I still need to buy presents for my family and since in my home country we get our presents on the evening of the 24th and I'm lousy at this presents thing I'll go earlier. What?' She asks the widely grinning Altero.
'Oh, nothing. I'm just adding 'buying presents' to the ever-growing list of thing you're lousy at. You know like chess or – 'At that moment Anna flicks a spoonful of her desert at Altero and hits him square in the face.
'How nice that we have volunteers for the dishes.' Merjem smiles. Anna and Altero protest and blame each other which lead to a bickering that makes Kirill roll his eyes, Merjem smile, Rong staring, Aki ignoring them in favour of his desert and Charlie laughing along with Elmira and Mireille.
Later in the evening, Charlie plays Mensch-Ärger-dich-nicht a board game from Anna with Mireille, Rong and Merjem, while Elmira and Aki are hunched over a chess board and Anna's and Altero's voices are clearly audible from the kitchen. Mond reads a book, curled up in a thick blanket in a corner of the room.
The firelight from the fireplace pronounces the scars on his face and hands. Charlie doesn't notice that he's staring until Mireille kicks him in the shin and says with a smug smile: 'Your turn.'
When they played the third round, Mond passed them.
'You're going to bed?' Charlie asks and Mond nods before he makes a circle with his hands which means 'good night'.
After he lost the third round, Charlie gets up, too. He bids them all good night and pointedly ignores Mireille's smile and Rong's encouraging looks. When you live in close quarters as he does you can't keep secrets, it's simply impossible.
Their room is the last one on the right side of the hallway. It took months but by now, Charlie is able to open the door, change his clothes and slip into bed without waking Mond.
He predicted that Mond would sleeping the stable tonight but he's here, in his bed and he's having a nightmare again. Charlie can easily tell that from the way Mond lays in bed: still, rigid, every muscle of his body is tense.
Charlie lights a candle. He used his wand once for making light and Mond hadn't been able to look at him for the rest of the week.
Mond snaps awake, his eyes open suddenly and he lets out a sharp breath. He is shaking. Charlie is used to this by now. He takes a blanket from his bed and wraps it carefully around Mond, whose inhaling and exhaling in a quick pace. Charlie softly strokes his back and his arms but only where the blanket covers him. He lies down with Mond in his arms and feels the other's body slowly relaxing against his. It's painful for him, because he wants but he knows that he can't, that Mond can't, isn't ready yet, probably will never be able to bear another one's touch during the night, but he can wait.
Charlie loves being home in the Burrows but every time he visits it, it feels strange and stranger to him, despite his family's best efforts. He thinks about Rumania, about the dragons, sunsets over the mountains, the four graves beside the house, Aki's garden. Every time he left that he missed Anna's and Altero's bickering, Aki's indifference, Merjem's harshness, Rong's curiousness, Elmira's calm, Mireille's joy and Kirill's grief stained care. And this year he misses Mond, too.
He has never had a serious relationship in his life. Of course he has gotten his share of sexual experiences in Hogwarts and afterwards, but the desire to be with one person is something new.
He wishes that Mond had come with him but Charlie sees how Mond is barely able to lead his life in the small valley. He just isn't ready for a life outside it. They all are not really made for the lie outside the valley anymore, especially now, after the war that had merely touched them. They lived another life than their families.
The war has ended six months ago but it still rules their lives. You can't bring back the dead and some injuries can never be healed.
Charlie still feels ashamed when he thinks about the war, how he followed Dumbledore's orders and stayed away, made contacts from the outside. Bill hadn't. Bill had went back to England and fought and lost his life.
Before they eat they have a minute of silence for the fallen and Charlie uses the time to look at his family.
His parents look older, much older than they should but they had not only lost Bill, they had lost Ginny, too, the sister he hardly knew.
Fleur sits where Bill used to sit, her little daughter in her arms. It's not Bill's child but since they were closed friends, she spends Christmas with them.
Ginny's seat is empty and they all try so hard not to stare at it. Next to it sits Harry with Luna and Charlie can't help but marvel at her unfazed expression.
The most disturbing image however is Hermione. Charlie can still remember her eyes from when he saw her years ago. They burned with determination then, a torch that could give one the right direction, and that fire is still there but it burns lower now, as if the fire that has killed her parents and marred her face, was fuelled by her principles and belief in goodness.
Charlie misses Rumania even more when he sees how tenderly Krum watches her and holds her hand in his.
Ron and the Twins are grieving Ginny's death, more than Bill's because they spent more time with Ginny than with Bill who was as often home as Charlie.
Later when they sit and talk and even laughter is heard occasionally, Charlie's eyes are caught by an old newspaper that lays on a counter. On the front were photos of people that have vanished after or shortly before the end of the war and are searched by the government.
Next to Frazier (death eater highly dangerous) is a photo of Mond. A younger and sneering Mond with longer hair and no scars but it's definitely Mond.
Draco Malfoy wanted for examination
'I thought you have newspapers in Rumania.' Ron says and Charlie turns, still shocked by his discovery. Should the man that has come to mean so much to him, really be Lucius Malfoy's son?
'Didn't he go to school with you?' Charlie asks and points at Mond's photo.
'Yeah, bloody git. Death Eater like his daddy first and then suddenly he grew a backbone and helped the Order. Ginny was his contact but even she didn't knew why he suddenly vanished four months before the end, but she liked him for whatever reason, defended him all the time. He didn't even came for the funeral but I think he couldn't. Someone got him. Probably lies somewhere and rots.'
Charlie goes to bed early this night but he can't sleep. Draco Malfoy, the son of the man that was responsible for so many deaths can't be Mond. It is impossible and yet he knows that is the truth.
But how should he react to it once he's back in the valley? Ignore it? No he couldn't do that, he isn't a good liar and if he tried to cover what he knows, it could easily destroy the trust that has begin to build between him and Mond.
He would have liked to ask someone for advice but he knows he can't. Too many complications that an arise, too many questions that are not his to answer.
When Charlie comes back to Rumania and the valley, he feels like something should be different but nothing is except him. His world has been taken apart but for the others it simply has been a Christmas like so many before. But Anna and Altero still bicker, Mireille still laughs and shows off with her golden curls, Elmira still plays chess, Rong still cooks deliciously, Merjem chases everyone around, Aki hides in his garden and Kirill still visits the graveyard everyday. And Mond still doesn't speak and still spends most of his time in the stables.
He waits for Charlie in their room. He hands Charlie a small package that is wrapped in newspaper and contains a mug with an animal carved in it that ought to be a dragon but looks more like a kangaroo with wings.
Charlie takes a deep breath:
'Ginny is dead.'
It takes a lot but Mond wins the fight and looks at him questioningly.
'Why did you come here of all places you could go, Draco? Because of her?'
And Mond turns away from him, but Charlie catches his expression: disappointed because the dream ended and angry at himself because he believed that the dream could be the reality. Charlie grabs him at the shoulders and spins him around. Mond tries to fight him off, desperate, angry, wild but Charlie knows how Mond fights and after a brief struggle he pins him to the bed.
'Talk to me. Talk tome, Mond. I'll listen, no matter what you say I will listen.'
But Mond still struggles underneath him, fighting hard to get free, so Charlie kisses him, briefly but long enough to make clear that it's not an accidental kiss.
'I just want to know. Nothing else. The others, they don't need to know if you don't want to tell them, just tell me, okay. Just me.' He whispers urging, his face still very close to Mond's (and he will always be Mond to Charlie and never Draco because Charlie never knew Draco, he only knew Mond, the boy he found with the dragons).
Mond nods and Charlie lets go of him.
He takes a dirt-stained, many times folded letter from the slit between mattress and frame and gives it to Charlie.
Charlie recognizes the handwriting immediately. Only one person in his family has a handwriting as neat as this:
The letter is from Bill and it is a love letter.
'He told me that Rumania was beautiful.' Mond's voice is hoarse from being unused for so long.
'He told me that this here would be the right place for someone with my talents.' Mond stares at his hands for a long time but Charlie gives him time. He promised that he would.
'They tortured him. I came back on the third day after they captured him. I watched. I watched as they killed him. And then I ran. They found me. Of course they found me. Ginny freed me. She knew everything. I didn't even say thank you, I just ran. He had told me where to find you. I had nothing else in mind. I thought that when I would reach this place he would come back from the dead or something like that. Maybe I went crazy out there. Maybe I'm dying and this is a delirium.'
Charlie puts his hands over Mond's and says: This is real.'
And when Mond looks up with only the tiniest spark of hope in his eyes, Charlie knows that it is.
Epilogue
'Before all this I did everything to make your little brother's life miserable. And look at me no. Isn't it ironic how much my life is bound to the Weaslys? First Ron, then you two and now him.'
Mond puts down a bunch of violets on Ginny's grave and whispers:
'Thank you.'
On Bill's grave he lays forget-me-not:
'You were right.' He says and looks over his shoulder to Charlie, who stands at the entrance of the graveyard:
'Rumania is beautiful.'