A/N: This is Beater 2 of the Chudley Cannons checking in for Season 5 Round 11 of the QLFC
BEATER 2: Write about growing old on a winter day(s) OR youthfulness on a spring night(s).
Prompts: 5. (word) asleep, 9. (word) muffle, 12. (color) yellow
Word Count (before A/N): 2,917 words
Super big thanks to Ned and Mary for beta'ing for me!
On a mountain sat a cabin.
The sun began to rise over the precipice, a golden beacon across the white ground like a blanket, warming the earth, welcoming a new day.
There were faded footprints leading to and from the cabin door, a small stream of dying smoke rose from the chimney, quiet and unaware of the world.
A cold wind swept through, rattling the window panes like a snoring dragon. It was a comforting sound for Charlie, one that reminded him of his younger days wrestling the beasts.
It began to howl.
Charlie opened his eyes, woken by the sound of the shuddering glass. His cabin, one he built with his own hands—not magic but his hands—was a relic in a sea of modern mayhem.
So many young people chose to live in town, with their Muggle heating and their electric cars. But Charlie didn't want that, not anymore. He wanted solitude. He wanted to live off the land. He wanted to feel like he earned his keep.
He barely used magic anymore.
Unfortunately, he was still learning how to do things the old Muggle way, which meant his fire had gone out again. He breathed out, watching his breath dance in front of him like a miniature snowstorm.
Charlie pushed deeper into his bed, not wanting to leave the warmth but knowing he had to. Sure, he could use a spell, but ever since he retired from tending dragons, Charlie's desire to use magic dipped. He thought that if he didn't get to use his hands, he wouldn't have much to live for. He had to keep doing.
He sighed and heaved his body out of bed, his joints clicking like loose change in his pockets. Charlie swung his feet out of bed. The fading yellow blanket fell off him and to the floor.
"Damn," he sighed. He bent over to grab the blanket, but a twinge in his back had him sitting still, waiting until the lightening-bolt of pain dulled from a roar to a muffled hum.
Was it Quidditch or the dragons that gave him that injury? He couldn't remember.
Once he was able to throw the blanket back on the bed, Charlie stumbled into his routine, pulling on his woolly socks, winter pants, and boots. He had just finished pulling his cotton shirt over his head before he needed to sit and catch his breath.
A few weeks ago, the Romanian Healer told him he needed to slow down. The gasses he was breathing in while working with the dragons—the gasses the beasts would spew each time they breathed fire—were starting to destroy his lungs.
"It's like black lung, like the coal miners got. Too much exposure to a strong toxin," she had said. The Healer was a young thing, maybe in her mid-thirties, bright-eyed and smiling. He hated her for her youth, and he hated her for telling him to retire. All he had were the dragons. He never had the chance to build a life outside of them.
Charlie, the Charlie sitting in his bedroom catching his breath, scowled at the memory. He wanted to build a life but—well, that just wasn't something he wanted to think about again.
Ignoring the pain in his chest, Charlie stood and made his way downstairs, his lungs burning with each step.
He didn't care. He needed to stoke the fire, get warm. Heat his home and cast out the shadows of the past before he spent another day raging in his sorrow.
One person could only handle so much.
Charlie slipped into his jacket and pushed open the front door. The wind hit his face with such force that he was briefly reminded of the time he came face to face with an Icelandic white dragon.
They breathed fire so cold, it felt like ice was growing from their inside out. He had gone to Iceland with a crew of dragon keepers after hearing the species was spotted. Many thought it extinct until a family of seven was found nestled at the bottom of a ravine.
Alas, no Icelandic dragons were in Romania, and it was only the winter winds howling once again.
Charlie trudged through the snow while he wrapped his scarf around his face—he stored the winter essentials in his coat pockets—pulled on his gloves next, then his knitted hat. Mum had made it over forty years before, but it still fit, and he'd be damned if he ever chucked it.
Then he grabbed his axe and walked up to the woodpile.
Standing still, Charlie had to catch his breath again. Gods, he hated it; it made him feel weak.
The woodpile reminded him of a day during his training. His leader was explaining how easily a dragon's fire could turn deadly.
"It'll burn you up like a dehydrated log in a drought," he had said.
Max nudged Charlie.
"And he means it," Max whispered. "I saw this guy last year get in the way of a really mean one, and he lit up like a birthday candle."
Then Max had smiled his crooked grin, and Charlie felt his heart skip a beat.
Max… Charlie shook his head. No need for that, he was chopping wood.
Charlie swung down on the logs, his split woodpile growing and growing, his lungs protesting his every movement all the way down to the capillaries. If he didn't stop, he'd be in trouble. He knew it in his heart, but he had to keep going, if only to drown out the sound of his memories.
So he swung and he swung until the axe slipped from his hands. He grabbed his chest and stumbled back.
"Damn," he grimaced, letting the crisp air fill his body like a cooling charm. Instead of grabbing the wood he had just split, Charlie made his way back to the cabin empty handed. Once inside, he pulled off his hat, scarf, gloves, and boots. He sat at his kitchen table and listened to the wind shake the house as it passed through, counting to three hundred before he felt normal again.
"Come on, man, you're not twenty-eight anymore," he chastised himself. Oh, he thought, if he were only twenty-eight again. He could run around and jump and bend and not feel like his entire body was fading underneath him.
It wasn't even so much the pain that scared him anymore either; it was what came afterwards.
Most wizards lived well into their early hundreds. Charlie was seventy-five and even he knew he wasn't making it to eighty. He was too hard on his body from day one, always going full bore, never quitting.
"You'll break every bone in your body," Max sat down next to Charlie. They lived together with three other dragon keepers in a tiny flat a few blocks away from their base. "Maybe not all at once, but I guarantee you, you will break every bone in your body at some point."
Charlie smiled; his latest injury was a shattered pelvis after a Romanian Longhorn had crushed the Weasley under her tail. The Healers had done their best to put him together again, but a shattered pelvis was still a shattered pelvis. Magic or not. He'd have a few more weeks of recovery before he'd be back in business.
"I hope not," Charlie leaned into the sofa cushions. "This is more painful than it looks."
He didn't have a cast but a brace on his lower half. Max smiled again, his hand resting softly on Charlie's knee.
"I'm glad you're okay. I was, well, worried. It sounded so, so…"
Charlie had taken his hand, "I know."
He shook his head. His breathing had calmed, and he needed wood. It was too cold not to overwork himself.
But, because there was a little prickle of worry in the back of his mind, Charlie pulled out his wand, opened the door, and Accio'd the split pieces. He didn't like admitting he needed shortcuts, but there it was.
Charlie placed a few logs to start in his fireplace, and soon the whole cabin was comfortable enough to walk around again. Charlie no longer saw his breath and the wind seemed less threatening each time it battered against the windows.
He sighed.
"Could be worse," he said to the room. "Could've lost a limb. Breathing problems are small next to that."
He scrunched his eyebrows together, knowing that he didn't really mean those words. He'd have rather lost all his limbs than fight with his lungs day in and day out. They were like an unending reminder of his age. A lost limb was an unending reminder of doing something worthwhile.
He sat back in his armchair, a flimsy brown thing with holes everywhere. He'd never get rid of it, though. Never. Even if it turned out to be the Minister of Magic's great uncle's chair of magical healing—no. It was his.
Max sat in the light brown chair, slowing rocking it back and forth using his heels.
"It's pretty comfy."
"It's pretty ugly."
"You're just saying that because you haven't seen its potential yet," Max said.
"Forgive me for not knowing a chair's potential," Charlie smirked and started to walk away.
"Not so fast!" Max was up. "Since you think we desperately need a welcome mat, then I get this chair."
They had decided to move into a smaller flat. Just the two of them. It would be less expensive and they could be away from their crazy co-workers who wanted to party their lives away. Max and Charlie were getting older, and they valued sleep over late nights.
"A floor mat and a chair are hardly in the same category."
"Fine, then sit in it first," Max grabbed Charlie by his sleeve, pulling him toward the chair. Charlie attempted to move away, not really wanting to sit down in a chair they didn't need, but Max was stronger than him and was able to get Charlie into the chair. In retaliation, Charlie latched onto Max's forearms, intent on using him as leverage to get back up. Instead, he brought Max down on top of him.
There they were, in that ugly chair, their faces inches apart. Charlie felt his face heat up, but he couldn't look away. Max looked so determined. Then he kissed him.
They were kicked out after that, Charlie remembered. Indecent misconduct.
"Muggles," Charlie scoffed. But quickly he pushed the thought away, not wanting to get wrapped up in the past again. It kept happening more and more often, and he hated it. He didn't want to be reminded of Max.
He sighed. Again. That seemed to be what his life was now, a series of struggled breaths and defeated sighs. He could have had more than that once before, but everything changed. War took his brother, time took his parents, and love only left heartbreak in its wake.
"I love you," Max whispered against Charlie's neck, his face snuggled up into him. They were lying in their flat months after they had moved in. Months after they first kissed. Max was almost asleep, his breathing slow and even, his bare skin warm and smooth. "I love you, Charlie Weasley."
Charlie wanted to say it back, but he choked on the words. Instead, he pulled the yellow blanket tighter around them and looked around at their home. Their clothes were strewn about the room, his own pants hanging off that ghastly brown chair.
He loved Max. He felt it every day, and now in this most intimate moment, he loved him more than he loved himself. But he couldn't say it back. Not yet.
Charlie wanted to do it right. He wanted to look into Max's eyes and spill his heart to him.
Max snored lightly, and Charlie smiled to himself, letting the rising and falling of Max's chest lull him to sleep.
Charlie coughed. He knew it was coming after he had overworked himself outside by the woodpile. He shouldn't have let his anger get the better of him; even the Healer said getting frustrated would only aggravate his condition.
Now he would have to wait till his lungs rested before carrying on with his life. He coughed his way into the living room, where he sat again in the brown chair. He used his wand to place a few more logs on the fire, the room growing warm enough to sleep in.
Charlie's head nodded, once, twice. His coughing lessened until he was only clearing his throat of the tickle left behind. He watched the flames dance then blur as his eyes finally closed.
Max kissed him goodbye the morning after. They barely let go of each other all night, but in the morning light, they knew they had to move. Max and his team were caring for a dragon with a barbed hook latched into the side of its face. Someone had tried to hunt it down, and it was up to Max to help it heal again.
Charlie would head in later to check in on his own dragons, some too sick and others too aggressive to be released into the wild.
"I love you," he practiced as he picked up his clothes from the night before. He smiled at the fabric in his hands, his heart filled with a happiness he just could not describe. His family lost a lot in the war, and now, four years later, he was building his back up. Finally.
"I love you, too."
Something snapped. Charlie's eyes flew open, only to be greeted with a roaring fire. Except it was outside the fireplace.
Charlie jumped up, patting down the flames growing up the sides of the fireplace. When that didn't work, he grabbed for his wand and yelled, "Aguamenti!"
Slowly, he brought the fire back down, taming it to be only in the fireplace. His heart raced and he could feel his lungs swelling from overuse.
He sank onto the couch, his eyes still stinging, his mind racing from one thought to another. The fire. Max. The fire. Max.
Fire, Max. Fire.
There was chaos, and the panic was palpable when Charlie arrived at the camp. Charlie pushed through the crowd toward the center of it all, where Max should have been.
There, in the middle of the throng of people, was the dragon with the hook in its face.
It was dead.
Charlie felt his breath hitch in his throat, his eyes scanning the crowd for one person in particular, but he wasn't there. Why wasn't he there?
Then they parted and Max came into view. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his mouth open, his clothes were singed, his skin raw from the burns. On the other side, blood. He'd been attacked.
Charlie ran to him and dropped down next to his body. Because that was what Max was now, a body.
"I love you," he whimpered, gingerly touching the other man's face. Somehow, it remained intact while the rest of Max was…
"I love you," Charlie said again. But it meant nothing.
And so he cried, letting the pain overtake him again.
Every day, Charlie's demons came out to play, reminding him of what could have been. What should have been. Though try as he might to stop the never-ending sadness, it crept up on him over and over again. A raging sorrow.
He never found a way to love someone after Max. He tried, but it was too painful.
He never told his family about him either, and he never gave his mum a clear answer as to why he didn't want to get married.
He never even told his family he was gay.
And the absolute worst part of it all was when his bloody lungs took dragons away from him. The last thing keeping Charlie going, the last thing linking him to Max and the life they were meant to have, gone. All because he couldn't breathe.
He wasn't even doing much; his body was tired, so they put him in the office shuffling papers around.
Then they shut him out.
Charlie sighed again, his tears finally slowing down. The sun was starting to set, and if he was being honest with himself, he felt grateful that another day was over. He was stumbling through his life, and one more day over meant one less to worry about.
He climbed into his bed, the thoughts of Max still running through his mind as his head hit the pillow. The wind hit against his windows again, whistling and whistling. He closed his eyes and let out a deep, slow breath, the pain in his lungs subsiding.
Max was in front of him, like he had been before the accident-unharmed and whole. Alive. There was a glow around him, a warmth that Charlie missed desperately. Max smiled and held out his hand. Charlie didn't even hesitate; he grasped Max's hand, and suddenly it was like he was twenty-eight again. Charlie felt free.
Somewhere, off in the distance, he could hear the wind still whistling. But it started to fade away like a bad memory. Outside, Charlie's footprints to and from the woodpile were still fresh in the snow.
The sun began to sink behind the precipice of the mountain, a shadow growing across the white ground like the quiet hand of night, tucking the world in, saying good night.