1999
It seemed as though Charlie was always waiting.
Waiting to return back to Romania, to his dragons. Waiting for his next vacation time, time off to see his mum. He's always been waiting, and for what he doesn't exactly know.
He was also waiting for a brother who would never come back.
Charlie started Hogwarts when the twins were five years old, and from that point on, they weren't really all that close. Sure, they teased him and played pranks on him just as they did with Bill and Percy and Ron, but he didn't know them too well. They were kind of like... well, cousins.
He was just finishing up Hogwarts when the twins started school, and with Quidditch, homework and friends, did he really have time for his eleven-year-old trickster brothers? Not really.
After that, he graduated and applied to a dragon reserve in Romania - a rash decision prompted by feeling the need to live his own life, not his family's shadow.
He comes home every Christmas and the occasional summer, and at most, he sees his brothers, his sister and his parents twice a year, and only for around a week at a time.
Charlie was waiting for the inevitable to come; a war. Everyone who knew anything knew it was coming.
And then he's waiting, sucking in a breath as he walks into the Great Hall with most of his family - there's only seven, two are missing - and something doesn't feel too right. Ron runs in, and there's only one gone and George is sobbing -
When Charlie's grieving, he's not grieving over someone who he knew like the back of his hand. He's grieving over someone who he didn't know, someone who he wanted to know - his own brother. He's waiting to get to know him - his dead brother. And for that, he'll always be waiting.