School: Ilvermorny

Year: 5

Theme: Humility - Write about a big-headed character being taught humility.

Main Prompt: [Emotion] Disgust;

Additional Prompt: [Quote] "Don't become captivated by captivity. There is no beauty in stolen freedom." [Explanation of use in A/N at end of fic]

WC: 2066
TW: Coming out

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She meant well. That was the worst part.

Cool air brushed across Charlie's forehead like a caress the moment he stepped into the house, ducking to avoid banging his head on the sagging, dented door frame.

Glancing around the room, he took in the familiar trappings of his childhood. Darned cushions layered the creaking sofa, spilling over the arms and back like oozing frogspawn, and the heavy clock sat on the wall, uncaring and impassive. His hand, the picture worn and faded with his gap-toothed grin and unscarred skin, pointed towards 'Home'. He couldn't stop the shudder.

Would that still be true by the end of today?

Scorched logs lay in the fire, cherry red embers glowing at their heart. A trail of ash stumbled past him and through the door into the blazing sunshine where the rest of his family had gathered along with one other person.

Revulsion hit him like a blow, bile burning up the back of his throat as his lip curled, his teeth bared.

He couldn't do this.

He wouldn't do this, not again.

His mum loved him. Charlie knew she did. He knew it by every hug she gave him when they were reunited — warm as if that would be enough to keep away every worry in the world — and in her good-natured insistence that she knew how he should live his life.

Diana Adams had been introduced to him in a thousand fragments, carefully layered into his mum's many letters like dried flowers as he tried to keep his horror from his increasingly shorter replies. He knew that she liked dragons and that she was staying at the Leaky Cauldron while she searched for steadier employment than her part-time job at the Apothecary. He knew that she was, on paper, the sort of woman he could fall in love with, just like his mother hoped.

But he couldn't.

He had tried once, and only once.

Thinking back, none of it had felt real, as if he were an actor working from a script that everyone else already knew by heart.

The girl, a fellow student whom he had tried desperately to forget afterwards, had been sweet, warm, and always quick with a joke that never failed to startle a laugh from him. She hadn't been able to keep her disappointment from her face when he ended it, an instinctive question dying on her lips before she left.

Charlie had lied to her. He knew to do that much, but he wondered if she had felt his disconnect when they kissed. He felt nothing but confusion, which had grown until it threatened to wipe out everything.

Drawing him from the sour memory, a rumble of laughter echoed from outside. Stumbling forwards, he sought sanctuary in the curved walls of the kitchen, which bowed beneath the weight of the house above. The stain of memory was harder to ignore here, as was his mum's influence.

Charlie collapsed onto his chair, pressing his head into the sun-warmed wood of the table. Pitted indentations along the edge of the seat met his curious fingertips — a thousand half-moons forming a permanent reminder to bite his tongue. She couldn't stay like this forever. But she had.

He raised his head, his shoulders protesting the movement and the edge of the table pressed against the hollow of his throat. It would leave a mark, a brand of his own creation, not unlike the bruises and bites he saw decorating his fellow keepers' necks. They wore them like badges of honour, and Charlie had bitten his tongue every time, the corners of his mouth curling down as his stomach twisted in protest.

He didn't understand why, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

A book of recipes caught his eye — the edges feathered with countless additions — and he summoned it with a half-formed thought. It was heavier than he expected, similar to the weight of a dragon chick, but the book didn't nestle in his hands or attempt to spit fire at him just because it could.

Flicking through, the soft edges of the paper brushing against his fingers, laden with ink that had faded to a gentle green, Charlie paused at a recipe that seemed newer than the others.

It was Mum's handwriting — the familiar block print that Charlie could still read on the fading labels of his trousers and shirts even now — but the recipe was different, detailing a Greek dish that was a far cry from Mum's traditional English fare.

"Feeling domestic, Charlie, love?"

Charlie jumped, slamming the book shut as guilt curled in his chest. He watched his mum shuffle into the kitchen, a warm, caring smile on her face, and he felt sick from the sight of her. He could barely breathe, every muscle tense, although whether to fight or flee, he couldn't say.

"You know, Diana gave me that recipe." She couldn't quite keep the note of satisfaction out of her voice, an insidious timbre that soured everything. Charlie bit his tongue, the taste of iron barely registering as his fingers curled to dig into the edge of the seat. "She's really looking forward to meeting you. Can't you just come outside?"

"No."

The word came out harsher than he intended, a snarl that hung in the air between them before it shattered.

Mum drew herself back, fire in her eyes, her nostrils flared as colour bloomed in her cheeks. When he had been younger, the action had always reminded him of the chickens in their garden. They would rear back with their feathers a deceptively soft explosion around their necks before they charged, but now, he had had enough.

"Stop trying to tell me how to live my life." Charlie shoved the recipe book away, rising to his feet. The thought of having to go out there with everyone, to pretend again, was impossible. He turned away, unable to keep looking at her.

"How dare you! I am your mother, Charles Julian Weasley. I am only trying to do what is best for you—"

"And that's the problem!" Charlie knew he was yelling and knew that the argument would draw his family members back inside, but he couldn't help it. He had spent so long biting his tongue through every comment and casual remark — all well-meant but infuriating regardless — that he couldn't any longer. "You don't know anything about my life even though you think you do. Every time I come home, you try to force me into this box that you've made for me, without thinking about all the other options."

"Everything I do, everything I am doing, is because I want the best for you," Mum repeated, slower.

She reached across the table as Charlie shifted backwards, unwilling to get any closer to her. She stopped, their eyes meeting for a second before Charlie jerked away, dropping his chin to his chest, his shoulders curling forwards.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mum pick up the book, wrapping her arms around it for a moment before she set it back in place amongst the others. They had half-fallen over in its absence, but she worked it back into place before turning back to him.

Charlie studied the embroidery on her apron as he waited for her to speak. The silence was heavy, settling over his shoulders and threatening to crush him into the ground.

"It's not healthy for you to be alone like this. It was acceptable when you were younger, but now you're comfortable, why not settle down with a nice girl?"

He couldn't stop the gag, the reflexive heave that rumbled through him like an earthquake set to topple cities. She said it so casually as if it were nothing, and it was as simple as that. What his mum wanted for him would kill him, slowly but surely.

"Don't be dramatic," Mum continued.

When Charlie glanced up at her, unable to keep staring at the warped wood of the table for a second longer, she turned away. Shards of ice lodged in his heart, and he swallowed past the lump in his chest, tears pricking at his eyes.

"You always do this." Charlie forced himself to breathe out, pushing everything else down inside his chest. The revulsion wouldn't leave him, but he had to focus. "You can't even imagine that your plan for me is not something I want."

"Charlie—"

"No, Mum. I don't want to settle down. I can't. I am happy as I am, and that's not going to change. Can you please just accept that?"

Charlie could almost see the thoughts curling through her head as he waited, but he couldn't meet her gaze. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms.

Mum prided herself on wanting the best for her children, but her plans for him were a cage.

"Your brothers are happy with their families. How can you be happy on your own?" Her face softened, and her hands twisted into the edge of her apron, the embroidery bunching into bleeding lines beneath her grip.

"Bill is constantly exhausted, as is Percy. George has thrown himself into a relationship so that he doesn't have to think about losing Fred. Ron is a nervous wreck, and Harry is, well, Harry. They've followed your plans of what would make them happy, and I love them all, but that life isn't for me, Mum. I'm not built that way."

"I'm only saying what I think is best. You're my son. Why wouldn't I try to help?"

"Because you've never stopped criticizing my choices," Charlie spat. "My entire life has been spent trying to convince you that I am happy as I am, and you have never been able to see that. You have never considered that your way of doing things isn't right for everyone, and isn't right for me. Just for once, can you consider that you are wrong about this?"

Mum opened her mouth, colour reigning high on her cheeks, but Charlie cut her off. He couldn't stop speaking, every bitten-back comment seeming to explode out of the festering remains of his chest.

"Every question about settling down, every new person you drag into my life to try and force me into what you think happiness is, it's not fair for anyone. I know that you think it's the only way to be happy. But I can't, not like that."

Charlie could barely breathe, the world seemed to swim around him, and he felt disconnected from everything. As if from a distance, he heard himself speak. "I can't love anyone in a romantic way, and sex is disgusting to me. I can't fashion my life in the way you want me to."

Mum froze, an eerie stillness descending on them both. Charlie's teeth were clenched so tight that his jaw ached with the force of it, but he couldn't move, didn't dare to breathe.

"Mum?" The word hung suspended, a whisper that worked its way out from between Charlie's teeth, weak and begging for something, anything—

"That's truly how you feel?" Her tone was flat, as expressionless as a worn away gravestone, and Charlie nodded once.

"I'm—" She broke off, drawing in a deep, trembling breath before she spoke again. "I'm going to need some time, love, to think this over. I— I was wrong. The position I kept putting you in and the pressure I put on you, I was wrong. I can see that now."

"I have to go." Charlie was mere moments from falling to pieces, everything spilling out like stuffing from a torn open doll. He was already walking towards the fireplace before he finished speaking. His footsteps echoed through his empty mind like a heartbeat, something to focus on, and he clung to it.

"It's a lot to take in—"

"Mum." Charlie turned to face her, took in the wrinkles gathering at the corners of her eyes, the grey threaded through her hair and the red staining the whites of her eyes. "Just try, please? For me."

Moving back out into the sitting room, Charlie glanced at the open door, taking in the bright blue of the sky before he turned to the fireplace, flames leaping up to devour him before he was gone into the uncertain future.

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A/N: Additional prompt use was Molly trying to dictate Charlie's life and the feeling of being caged by that, as well as Charlie originally trying to live his life that way before realising it was impossible