May 15th, 1993
The little red numbers mocked Charlie as he glared over at them again. 2:49 AM. It should be at least 6:00 AM he wanted to argue with the offending clock. It couldn't have been only half an hour he'd laid there worrying, stewing, looking for a way out.
"You think really loud you know," a sleepy voice said beside him.
The warmth next to him rolled with great difficulty to face him. Charlie felt her piercing blue eyes before he turned towards her. Gently, he brushed a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear running a thumb over her cheekbone.
"Never had an issue before. You're a bad influence." He attempted a smile but knew it fell flat when her eyes narrowed at him in reproach. Her ability to see through his bravado was one of many reasons why he loved her. He never had to be something he wasn't around her, except one thing. "Meredeth, babe...there's something I have to tell you."
"Whatever it is, we'll work it out."
Charlie ran a finger up and down her arm watching the goose flesh rise on her skin. After a year and a half, he had memorized every inch of her freckle splatted skin, loved the way she shifted into his touch no matter where they were pressing in to deepen their connection. He would miss these quiet moments in their bed cocooned away from the world, untouched and unbothered.
"I'm a wizard," he whispered, almost hoping she didn't hear him. But she did and laughed.
"Is this because I said last night was magical?" she teased, mirth lighting her face even in the dark room. "Because you're good with your tongue, but I'm not sure I'd call you a wizard."
Charlie breathed a laugh wishing that was the case, but he'd started this now. He couldn't keep ignoring the issue at hand. Reaching into the bedside drawer, he removed his wand carefully holding it out for her to see. Merideth shifted closer analyzing every inch of the polished wood in the dim moonlight. Hesitantly, she ran a finger over it expecting some kind of reaction if it was real.
"Let me show you," he whispered before casting a spell to send red sparks into the air that formed into the words I love you, a spell he'd wanted to show her for a year now.
Meredith squealed in delight and pressed her lips to his unresponsive ones.
"How come you never told me? This is incredible!" He took in the image of her, trying to memorize each inch of her. The way her eyes sparkled in excitement and amusement. How the red sparks reflected off her fair hair haloing her in a warm glow. The love and awe she looked at him with until she found the fear in his eyes. Her smile dropped as she gripped his wrists tightly, painfully.
"There's more, and it's not good."
"Always insightful, you are." He offered her a sad smile before pressing a kiss to her lips and running a hand over her swollen belly. "Something's coming, Mer. It's like a storm sitting on the horizon. My family says I'm just paranoid but I just. I know."
"You're gut instinct is usually spot on." Her own hands fell to her belly protective of the little life growing and developing. The baby was approximately the size of a grapefruit. The books said she would be developing hair by now. Her fingers, toes, and eyelids were forming as well. The last ultrasound gave them pictures of the baby sucking her thumb. Her baby. Their baby.
"What happened," she finally dared to ask knowing his gut instincts didn't come from nowhere.
"My sister was attacked." Charlie swallowed down the memory. A hasty letter scribbled then likely duplicated from his mother send out to all the family. Possessed. His sister had been possessed by a piece of Lord Voldemort himself, a feat Charlie had never even considered possible. "Gin's okay, but she was attacked, and my brother and his best friend were hurt too. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm terrified."
Something amiss was happening in the Wizarding World, something that stirred a long-buried fear. He remembered what the regime was like during the First Wizarding War. The hushed whispers around the kitchen table. Reports of friends and acquaintances never being seen again. Practicing escape routes in the event the house, his home, was attacked. Growing up with a constant fear of someone coming to hurt him or his family, he refused to subject Meredeth or their unborn child to that harsh reality.
"Charlie?" Meredith's voice brought him back to their dark bedroom. "Does this mean our baby may have magic?"
It was the question that plagued him since she surprised him with a positive pregnancy test. Not that it would matter to him either way, but now that Hogwarts had been breached twice, he desperately hoped she wouldn't have magic, hoped that they would be able to stay away from all the prejudices that came with a mixed-blood marriage. It was why he never submitted the paperwork to make them officially married in the magical world, choosing instead to take her last name and their marriage only legally binding in the muggle world.
"It's likely," he finally admitted tracing protection runes over her swollen belly. "There's always a possibility she won't, but we won't know until she starts displaying it, usually around six or seven. Either way, my world is dangerous for her right now."
"How do you mean dangerous? Surely they've captured whoever attacked your sister?"
"He has, but it's a bit more complicated than that." He couldn't even fathom explaining to her how Ginny had been possessed by a book. It still sounded mad even to him. "There are other things that could be a threat to her. There are lots of prejudice against mixed marriages in my world."
"Magic and nonmagic marriages, you mean?" A hollowness filled her chest as whispers of not good enough flitted through her head. Not only did she have no magic as he and possibly her child had, but the entire system was already against him. Was this why she had never met his family? Did they hold those sorts of prejudice against non-magical people? Would they not approve of her or their little girl? but he kissed the thoughts away, pulling her closer until her brain shut off the way he and only he always knew how to.
"I love you," he whispered against her lips running a hand through her tangled locks. "And I love our baby. More than anything in this world."
Her stomach clenched in a way that had nothing to do with morning sickness. Fear and panic flared through her as a million different scenarios flowed through her mind, each one worst than the last. "But?"
"No. No but." The earnest, honest look in his eyes settled her a fraction. "I am going to do everything I can to shield you both from all of that. No matter what it takes."
"I'm not sure I like the sound of that." She gripped his wrists so tightly as if she could keep him there forever as if she could anchor herself to them. Finally, she found the voice to ask the question that knotted her stomach most. "Are you leaving?"
"Not if I don't have to, but I don't know what's coming, Mer." Tears rolled down her cheeks as he shifted her closer, wrapping his arms as tightly around her as possible. "I can't guarantee anything, but I will do whatever I have to to keep you and little Lexie safe."
"Can we table it for now then? Finish this conversation when it becomes necessary?"
For several long thuds of her heart, he merely held her close so long she feared he'd fallen asleep. Until He pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered his agreement.
—
June 25th, 1995
Charlie sat back from the fireplace attempting to reign in the shock. He was back. Voldemort was back. The day he feared for years was finally coming.
"Darling? Everything okay?"
Another stone dropped in his stomach. How was he supposed to finish that conversation now? So close to her birthday. Right when things were settling into a comfortable routine. The squeal of his daughter warned him of her impending arrival just seconds before she stumbled into his lap giggling as she always did. How could he possibly leave all of this now? A single tear rolled down his cheek, landing on the top of her head.
"Daddy sad," the little girl burbled in her father's lap squirming until she was facing him. "I kiss, make daddy better!"
Sloppily, she pressed her lips to his cheek and squeezed her chubby arms around his neck. Charlie clutched her tighter to him, running his hand over the back of her blonde head.
"My Lexie hugs always make everything better," he whispered and wished her could hold on to that moment forever.
After a long-needed embrace, Charlie whispered an "I love you" to his daughter before sending her on to her room to get ready for bed. There was a conversation looming that he would not subject her to as he had been. Just to be sure, he raised a silencing ward around the living room once Meredith entered.
Nervously, she knelt next to her husband on the floor, the warmth from the fireplace doing nothing for the chill settling in her chest. She still didn't understand his fire calls, but she did know something was wrong if his family used that instead of the owl mail.
"What's happened?" she asked gently fingers threading through his hair as she spoke. "Is your family-"
"They're okay." Charlie closed his eyes as if just realizing for the first time his family was safe. A soft, relieved exhale rushed from him as he leaned into her shoulder. "They weren't involved, thank Merlin, but things have gotten worse. Remember the war I told you about? The dark wizard that was leading it?" She nodded against the top of his head. After their initial conversation about magic, Charlie explained as much as he could without being too stressful for her or the baby. There were significant gaps and things that were skimmed over, but her stomach dropped as much as Charlie's did when he whispered, "He's back."
Her hand faltered for a second before continuing their soothing movement through his hair. "Tell me what happened."
"It was the damn school again. You-Know-Who took Harry and another student from the school. The other student, Cedric. He's dead. They killed him. He was a boy-seventeen. And they killed him. This was an act of war, and I suspect it'll only get worse."
"They're openly attacking children?" she asked breathlessly. She fought to swallow the bile down wondering how a school could allow this to happen.
"They've been attacking children, infants even. This is the same man that attacked my sister two years ago. Harry was one when he lost his parents; murdered and they attempted to murder him too. They still don't understand how he survived. He was one, Mer."
The tears overtook her imagining her own child, attacked and orphaned. He pressed a hard kiss to her forehead clinging to her as if his very life depended on it, as if the same images flooded his mind. "They could hurt you and Lexie. I need you to be safe. I need to know no one can touch the two of you."
"Charlie, I know you're scared. I am too, but it was one incident. I think it's too early to start contingencies."
"This is exactly what we should be doing!" he shouted gripping her shoulders in fear. "He's back, Meredith! You-Know-Who is-"
"No! I don't know "You-Know-Who"! she snapped frustrated that an entire war, a whole world happened well beyond her comprehension. She wrenched herself away to pace the length of the living room needing to burn through the stress and anxiety. Charlie moved to the couch, watching her with haunted, unfocused eyes.
"Can we at least plan?" he asked in a small, broken voice. "I would feel a lot better knowing if we had a plan in place to use on a moment's notice."
With an indignant huff, Meredith dropped into the seat next to him. He was trying, and she knew he was, just as hard as she was trying to understand his world, war and all. But some days it was so damn hard to keep it all straight.
"Okay. I have family in-"
Her thought cut short as his hand clamped over her mouth, and he whispered apologies into her hair. Removing his hand, he placed an apologetic kiss to her lips and whispered, "I can't know. I'm so sorry, love, but I can't know."
"What can they read minds too?" she asked sardonically.
"Yes," he admitted. "And use truth serum."
She ashened realizing he was completely serious. Every day, she learned something new about his world, and every day, she thought she liked it a little less. Every day, it seemed his world came back to reclaim a little piece of him. War was coming for him, and there was nothing she could do about it.
—
December 22th, 1995
Charlie poured another hand of the amber liquid, losing himself in the swirling of his drink.
"Charlie, love?" Meredith's voice was soft as she entered the study. The low-lit office attested to his mood. She hated every time one of those damn owls tapped at her window.
"My father was attacked." The words were harsh and clipped. He threw the glass back draining the drink in one sharp gulp.
"What are you still doing here? You should be with him!"
"I will be, first thing in the morning. But we need to finish a conversation first."
A pit sank in her stomach. She knew what conversation they had to finish, one she'd told him to wait on two years ago after a different family member had been hurt. One she had skillfully sidestepped barely six months ago. One she could no longer outrun. Taking the bottle from him, she refilled his glass before pouring herself a one and settled into his lap needing to feel the comfort of him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and buried his face against her neck letting the tears finally slip past his defenses.
"It's time," he whispered against her throat.
She swallowed down her protests. Arguing wouldn't help either of them, only cut into the time they had left. And she sincerely hoped she would wake up tomorrow to find all of this a dreadful nightmare. But the nightmare was reality. The nightmare, the war had finally caught up with them. They would be separated. She would be on her own raising their child. He would have to likely fight in a war she knew nothing about. She wouldn't even know how the war progressed.
"How am I supposed to do this without you?" she whispered wishing she could scream it instead. Scream at the bastard that was taking him from her and their daughter. "What if Lex is a witch? Then what? How am I supposed to know what to do?"
Charlie set his drink on the table and clutched her to him, letting her sob into his shoulder. "Shh, hopefully, I'll be back before that happens."
The panic squeezed in her chest. Hopefully. Hopefully , he would be back by the time her magic appeared. Hopefully , he would be able to find them again once the war ended. Hopefully , he would still be alive.
"I won't know if anything happens to you," she sobbed tightening her hold around him, hoping she could keep him there forever by sheer willpower.
"You will," he assured her and reached for something on his desk. An envelope, sealed, with the words "For my girls" scribed on it. Even as her fingers closed around the heavy parchment, she wished to never touch them. It felt too final. "The seal will release if I die. There's one for you and one for Lexie."
"Charlie-"
"Hopefully-" He kissed her head and bit back the sob closing in his throat, taking in every second he could. "Hopefully, we never need them. But I want to be prepared just in case."
Her lips found his, furiously as if trying to remind him why he should stay. For her. For their daughter. For their future. But even as he threaded his fingers in her hair holding her close, salty tears seeped into the corner of their sealed lips. Or maybe it was her own tears.
"You listen to me," she said sternly barely pulling away from him. The letters crumpled in her fist as she hit his chest. "I will not need these damn letters because you will come back to me. You're going to come back, and we're going to raise our daughter together just like we planned, okay? I'm ordering you to come back to me."
"Merlin, I love you so much. I don't want you to underestimate that. I love you and little Lexie with every single fiber in me. And I will fight my way back to you."
"I know. I love you too, and we'll make it through this. We always do."
Charlie certainly hoped she was right.
