Written for QLFC: Season 9, Round 4

Team: Kenmare Kestrels (Captain)

Prompt: 1984

Note on prompt: Originally, I was going to use the prompt to be the year 1984, aka Charlie and Tonks' first year at Hogwarts, aka the start of the friendship, but roughly 100 words into writing this, I decided to change that and challenge myself to write their story in exactly 1984 words (according to Gdocs word counter). Enjoy

Summary: Charlie had always been quiet, and rarely cried. He just didn't see use for tears, and by the time he was an adult, he could count the amount of times he cried on one hand. And each memory of his tears was associated with a certain somebody.

Warnings: There's a bit of war at the end (the Battle of Hogwarts) and major character death, though technically off screen.

Word count (excluding AN): 1984

Oi, You Okay?

Charlie had always been quiet. He cried at first, like a healthy baby would at birth, but his tears tapered off the moment he was pressed into his mother's arms and shown a small, knitted dragon. It was roughly the size of Charlie's head and made with the softest red yarn. When Arthur held it before the newborn, enchanting it to let out a puff of fire made out of orange yarn, Charlie's bright blue eyes positively shone.

The dragon had originally been Bill's, but the eldest son hadn't taken much of a liking to it. Charlie, on the other hand, was immediately enamored. He didn't have the motor skills to actually hold the toy, but that didn't matter much to him. As long as he could see the toy dragon, he was happy.

Really, as babies go, Charlie was easy. Never very loud. Never demanding. He would just stare at the toy, whether it be on the floor in front of him, or up on a shelf or the table. Every once in a while, he would let out a huff as a way of asking whichever parent was nearby to charm the dragon to breathe it's fuzzy fire.

And he almost never cried. Really, it only happened if he was in pain, and not always then. He was rather stoic in the face of daily afflictions and hurts for a baby. And he never sniffled when he needed to be changed or was hungry or tired. If he wanted something, he grunted or huffed, raising his tiny hands to get the attention of the grown-ups until he was old enough to vocalize his needs.

When he became old enough to talk, he stopped crying about pain as well. It wasn't necessary to cry about something when he could just explain what hurt to his mum, and she would charm it away. Sometimes, though, he wouldn't even bother going to his mum. He would just lift his chin and shake his discomfort off.

Really… crying just didn't make sense to him.

By the time he was an adult, he could count the amount of times he cried on a single hand.

And all of those memories included one specific person.

.

When he was eleven, stalking down the corridors of Hogwarts, it wasn't pain that brought tears to Charlie's eyes. It was an entirely different form of suffering.

He was lost. It was embarrassing. He would be late to Professor McGonagall's class for the third time that week, and the thought was almost too much to bear. He didn't like the thought of disappointing the Deputy Headmistress

He gritted his teeth, trying to blink the moisture in his eyes away. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. Crying was pointless. It wouldn't get him to class. It wouldn't help him figure out the castle with its twisted corridors and ever-changing staircases.

But he couldn't stop the burning in his eyes—the pressure building up and eventually… spilling over.

"Oi, you okay?" It was a girl's voice that spoke, startling Charlie out of his thoughts. He stopped walking, turning to face her, his cheeks damp and his jaw slack. He vaguely recognized that his shoulders were heaving slightly—just how hard had he been crying?

The girl was sitting in an alcove, a window behind her. She was young and small, but that wasn't particularly shocking. No, her surprising qualities resided in the bright blue color of her hair and the pig's snout that sat squarely in the middle of her face where her nose should be.

Charlie couldn't help it. He bursted out laughing. "You're Nymphadora, right?" he asked, dragging the palms of his hands over his wet cheeks. He remembered seeing her in both Transfiguration and Herbology, both classes that the Gryffindors shared with the Hufflepuffs.

Nymphadora grimaced, squishing her face until her pig's snout receded into a slightly upturned, though normal-shaped nose. "Don't call me that," she said, waving her hand. "I prefer Tonks."

"Alright then. You're Tonks, right?" Charlie amended, his smile softening slightly, though it still looked goofy and lopsided on his face, like he wasn't quite used to smiling in front of others.

Tonks huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, I'm Tonks. Are you lost too?"

The smile quickly dropped from Charlie's face, replaced with an embarrassed blush that spanned from ear to ear. He looked away, biting his lower lip. "Maybe." He was painfully aware of the fact that his eyelashes were still clumped together, beaded with tears.

"Well, then. We can be lost together," Tonks said, pulling Charlie in with the brightness in her voice. "Wanna see me turn my mouth into a bird's beak?"

Charlie couldn't help himself. He really wanted to see that.

.

The next time he cried wasn't until fifth year.

And it was for a stupid reason.

"Wait up for me, yeah?" Tonks asked with a grin. He was sitting on her bed in the Hufflepuff dormitory as she got ready for her date with Kirley Duke McCormack. It wasn't very often that Hogwarts would let a boy into a girls' dormitory, but the castle had never barred Charlie from the Hufflepuff girls' room. Maybe it was because he didn't have impure intentions.

Charlie hugged one of Tonks' bright throw pillows to his chest, watching her. He supposed he would have to leave this room when she did and go back to his own dormitory.

At his silence, Tonks turned to look at him. "I mean it. I'm sure I'll want to tell you all about it."

Charlie hardly recognized the burn behind his eyes, it had been so long. He cleared his throat and nodded. "Yeah. I'll be in the Gryffindor common room," he said, forcing a smile.

She returned his smile with a grin, then began prattling on about Kirley—where they were going, how much she wished he would kiss her—and it was all Charlie could do to keep his expression neutral.

It wasn't until he was back in his own dormitory that the first tear actually fell. He was forced to realize that he was crying because his best friend was out on a date.

And he wasn't the one by her side.

.

Throughout his time at Hogwarts, Charlie didn't really have any other reason to cry. Even when things became overwhelming, like getting lost in his first year or the pressures of being the Quidditch Captain while having to worry about his N.E.W.T.s and being a Prefect in his seventh year, he always had Tonks to lean on. Even if they weren't together in the way he had wanted.

She was always there to make silly faces and distract him from his worries, making the pressure in his throat transform from anguish to laughter in a matter of seconds. She understood him in a way that no one else, barring maybe his mum, had.

So maybe that was why he stood on Graduation Day, clutching Tonks to him in a tight hug, with tears building up in his eyes.

"Hey," Tonks said, pushing back just enough to look up at him. After all their years at Hogwarts, she was still small. Or, at least, small compared to Charlie, who towered above most people. "Just because you're going to Romania doesn't mean we aren't going to still be best friends, yeah?"

Charlie grimaced, though he tried to keep the expression from Tonks. After a moment, he pushed a smile onto his lips, just as lopsided and awkward as it had been during his first year at Hogwarts. "Of course. You won't be able to get rid of me that easily."

"Oi, you okay?" Tonks asked, her voice soft as she brushed her thumb over his cheek. He wasn't sure when the first tear had streaked past his freckles, but did it truly matter?

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just gonna miss you."

It didn't matter if they were dating or not, as long as Charlie had her in his life. It was going to be hard living so far away from her.

.

The dragons made things easier.

It was almost like being a child all over again. Whenever he would feel himself getting too wrapped up in his thoughts, he would turn his gaze over to the magnificent creatures, watching as their muscles rippled under their thick hides, powerful lungs working to expel jets of fire so hot it made Charlie sweat in his protective vest, despite being on the other side of their enclosures.

They calmed him with the simplicity of their power.

So when he got the wedding invitation, written not on fancy stationery, but plain parchment in Tonks' messy scrawl, he didn't cry. Instead, he climbed and sat high on the fence of the Swedish Short-Snout enclosure, their blue coloring reflecting in his eyes.

He wasn't surprised. He had known she would get married to someone. To someone that wasn't him. So maybe that was another reason why he didn't cry.

Until the wedding itself.

It was a tiny affair. Only three people were in attendance, and that included the happy couple. It was hard to keep himself from looking at Tonks and Remus' interlaced fingers, or the way Tonks curled into her soon-to-be husband, her hair a bubble-gum pink.

It was always bubble-gum pink when she was the happiest.

Charlie wished he was with his dragons as he brought out his wand and started the ceremony. Tonks had begged him in her letter to be the one to perform the bonding spells. Because of the anti-werewolf legislation, they couldn't get an official from the Ministry to perform it, and she trusted him more than anyone else.

He didn't want to let her down.

So he pushed down his emotions as best he could, and watched as a gentle light wove its way around his best friend and the love of her life. But his best wasn't good enough.

At least he wasn't the only. All three of them had tears wetting their skin.

Strangely, though, Charlie felt that he wasn't crying because the woman he secretly loved was getting married to another man, but because with this union, maybe his best friend would have a proper chance at happiness, despite the bleakness of the world they lived in.

.

Charlie came to the Battle of Hogwarts late, bringing in reinforcements from Romania. From what he had heard, this was the second wave of the battle. Just thirty or so minutes prior, a break had been called to collect their dead and injured, and Harry Potter had been summoned to sacrifice himself in the Forbidden Forest.

At least, that's what he had heard. As he stormed the front steps, though, everything was chaos. Hogwarts itself was practically in ruins, and the stench of blood and burned flesh was overwhelming.

The fight itself was exhausting, but not impossible. By the time the chaos started to die down, Charlie was bleeding, but breathing. Voldemort was dead. This would bring an era of peace and safety. Charlie felt relief flow through his veins.

Then he laid his eyes on his brother—pale and strangely small in death.

Charlie's world tilted, his right shooting out to his side, where Tonks always was every time he had walked into the Great Hall. It was a habit of his, searching for her whenever he needed support.

When she wasn't there, Charlie's breath quickened. He needed her. Fred was gone, and he felt himself crumbling, knowing he wouldn't be able to stay together for much longer.

He could feel his tears carving through the dirt and grime on his cheeks as he searched the Great Hall for his best friend, and it wasn't long before he found her, laid out just beside his brother, hand entwined with her husband's.

With a raw scream, Charlie broke.