Author's Note: Alas, back to sensitive subject territory for me. There is a character death, although not a cannon one.
The characters do not belong to me, but to JK Rowling.
Prompt: Pain
Pairing: Charlie and OC
Pain
Sergei came to a stop just outside the door and looked at his red haired friend sympathetically. "I should warn you, Charlie, she's pretty gruesome."
Charlie nodded solemnly. "I reckoned as much."
"Do you want me to stay with you?"
"No." He knew he had to do this alone.
Sergei hesitated, then, "It could have been an accident."
It could have been, Charlie thought, but it probably wasn't.
He clapped his friend on the shoulder and walked into the room where Mary's body was being held until…well, until he could get here. She had waited until he and Pax were safely in England visiting the Burrow, then she took a nice broom ride into a restricted area on a Dragon Reserve. Now, she lay on a metal table in the Reserve's medical center, under a sheet. He'd already been told that she'd been burnt to a cinder.
"But the fall probably killed her first," Sergei had said by way of comfort.
Charlie pulled up a stool and sat next to her body. He didn't pull back the sheet, but he did uncover her hand. Her wedding ring was still on her finger. Not his ring, no. It was her dead husband's ring.
Now, Charlie thought grimly, you'll be reunited after all this time. I hope your pain is finally eased.
But what of his pain? What of Pax?
He had thought he loved her once, this beautiful, mournful Mary. Now, he wasn't so sure. They'd been lovers, lived like husband and wife in many ways, raised her son together. He had known all along that she did not love him the way that he loved her.
Or thought he did.
It seems obvious, in retrospect, that it had always been about the boy. Just like her suicide now seemed blatantly apparent. He had known she was depressed, of course he knew! But now all of the little clues, the little moments that led them to this place were easily readable.
Charlie wondered if he should take the ring, keep it for Pax. But Pax never knew his real father, the man had been killed by Snatchers the night Pax was born. No, the ring meant more to Mary than it had to Pax. She should keep it.
Meanwhile, Pax and Charlie had each other. Charlie was the only father the boy had known, he had been in Pax's life since he was a week old. And while Mary had never let Pax call Charlie "Dad," well in Charlie's heart that's who he was.
He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers, then set it back on the table and covered it once more. For the gift of her son, Charlie would always remember Mary fondly.
