Author's note: Enjoy!
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights
Content Warnings: Canon character death and trauma, survivor's guilt
Extra Long To Come Home
Charlie hadn't let the Dragonology Institute's Healer finish dressing the fresh burn on his arm before bolting when he heard the news. But even flying throughout the night, he only made it to Scotland after the Battle of Hogwarts was over. After it had been won, which was a strange thing to say since he walked into so much loss. All Charlie did after the battle was clean up and worry his mother, who fussed after the angry red skin on his forearm even if she had so much else to worry about and so many people who had been injured more badly. And not even accidentally, by a giant beast that didn't know its own strength or that Charlie hadn't approached the right way from the right angle: by people. By real people who should have known better than to hurt each other and yet… it was hard for Charlie to think about. It was just another reason to prefer dragons. The amount of rubble and destruction he saw even after the storm was enough to haunt his dreams for weeks.
He thought about that as the Order buried its dead and as his family put his little brother into the ground. It was hard to talk on that day, harder than usual. But there were really no words for what was going on, so nobody really noticed.
His supervisor, Professor Elbrena, told Charlie that she would switch around the schedule to make sure that all of his work was covered at the Institute. She told him to take as much time as he needed and stay in England a nice long while—so Charlie did, even if he felt about as useful as wheels on a broomstick. He did sleep in Fred's old bed though, so that George wouldn't be spending his nights alone. George wasn't much in the mood to talk either, but if Charlie kicked the top bunk like he'd used to kick Bill's bed, George would shake the beds so at least they had a game to play together. Bill and Fleur were sleeping in his old bedroom on the other side, since Death Eaters had torched Shell Cottage at some point after the battle, and every now and then they got a whack on the wall from their brother to indicate that he did not enjoy this game as much as they did.
Charlie had even less to say to Harry, Ron, and Hermione—who slept in the living room, piled up on a pile of blankets and pillows like draconian fledgelings did to keep warm, since everyone felt too guilty for kicking the ghoul out of Ron's old bedroom (and nobody really had the energy to deal with the smell it would inevitably leave behind anyways). They had lived in a world of their own during the last nine months, hunting Horcruxes and ducking Death Eaters, but Charlie was even more removed from that world since he hadn't even been in Britain under You Know Who's regime. Even when other countries had closed their borders to British witches and wizards, Charlie's study permit had allowed him to go back to Romania. It had always been far from home—roughly 2,557 kilometers, four connections via the Floo Network, or three hours and twenty minutes by Muggle airplane as his father had been delighted to inform him when he had first moved away to pursue his Dragonology studies. But it might as well have been on a different planet.
So when his family talked about the last year or about how different the world was now—like when the Ministry reopened its doors to the public, when Kingsley Shacklebolt abolished the Muggleborn registry, when the Death Eater trials started and people spoke openly of what had been done to them… Well, it was only one sentence or two at a time. Nobody could stomach much more. But Charlie felt like he was on a different planet whose orbit was drifting further and further, and definitely on a crooked axis too.
He realized that he wasn't the only wrong on the wrong loop during dinner one night, when Ron said something about how bloody much he'd missed Mum's cooking when she'd surprised him with a belated birthday dinner—and a giant pound cake shaped like a Chudley Canon's jersey, iced in orange buttercream that tasted like caramel. Hermione said something about how much he agreed, and Harry made a joke about how amazing he'd gotten at duplicating mushrooms without making them twice as rubbery as they used to be. Percy started gathering dishes then, and slipped off to the kitchen to start washing after batting away their mum's protests. Charlie took the opportunity to gather some other empty dishes, of which there was never a shortage in his house, and joined his little brother in the kitchen. He grabbed a tea towel and stood next to Percy, ready to dry even if the sink was still filling up with bubbles and hot water.
"Did your colleague send you another update on that flight of eggs that you hatched?" Percy asked. He'd always been the best at keeping track of Charlie's work.
"No, weigh-in day is only tomorrow for them," Charlie said.
"Oh. I thought you were sneaking off to owl them," Percy admitted.
"No, I'm here to do dishes."
"Really?" Percy asked skeptically. That was fair enough, Charlie had always hated the smell of dish soap and the texture of his pruned fingertips after he did dishes. His siblings were well aware that he would trade for any other chore in the house instead of doing dishes, which always made him quite popular.
"You needed a break too, didn't you?" Percy ended up guessing, arching an eyebrow behind his glasses. After Bill, who was the big brother to beat all brothers (and the reason the rest of them didn't try, frankly), Percy had always been the sibling who paid Charlie and his quirks and stims and habits the most attention. Charlie had always imagined it was because he'd had to learn to take care of a whole gaggle of kids when he'd become prefect. At any rate, it was the reason Charlie didn't try to lie to him.
"Yeah," Charlie admitted. "I really, really did."
"I get what you mean," Percy said. He dunked his hands in the soapy water, sending bubbles sloshing, and started scrubbing. "We missed so much. I mean—you had a good reason, I was just being an idiot. But so much happened and everyone has gone through so much that it's…"
"It's extra long to come home," Charlie said. It was hard to regret having stayed in Romania. Back after the wedding fiasco, they had all agreed that it would look too suspicious if Charlie stayed to help with the Order overtly—and that was the last thing any of them needed. And he loved his work. He felt guilty admitting it, feeling it, but he hadn't regretted missing the war when he had been incubating dragon eggs, watching them hatch, hand-feeding newborns, taking scale samples, attending anatomy classes, working on his never-ending thesis… He only regretted that he hadn't been there for his family. He regretted that it made him harder to be there for them now.
Percy pondered that as he handed Charlie a plate to rinse and dry.
"It is," he said. "Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's extra long to come home and I want to be there twice as badly."
Charlie nodded.
"So badly," he echoed.
Percy kept scrubbing and Charlie saw how hard he was biting his lip, like he always did when he was getting overwhelmed.
"Percy?" Charlie asked.
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you're home," he said simply. The tears fluttered up to Percy's eyes then.
"I'm glad you're home too," Percy said softly.
WC: 1304
