"Is this some sort of joke, or something?" Charlie spluttered, glaring at the twins. They looked at each other and shrugged before looking back.
"Or something," they chorused making Charlie groan.
"You guys aren't both supposed to go bad cop on my ass. There's supposed to be one good cop and one bad cop."
"Bad… huh?"
"Good… what?"
Charlie squinted at his brothers in the dim light of the kitchen, wondering if they were having him on. It must have been about three o'clock in the morning so it was still dark outside, and the lamp George had turned on wasn't the brightest. Groaning, he rubbed his eyes and then opened them again to see that, yes, this was all happening and, no, it wasn't a dream. His brothers really were in the kitchen, lecturing him and locking him into the house.
"It's a Muggle thing," he replied, not bothered to explain. "Remind me why you're doing this?"
"Charlie, we're just worried about you."
"Like hell you are, stop talking shit and tell me the truth."
The twins looked at each other, blue into blue as they had one of their psychic twin conversations. Charlie had always been one of the only people able to tell the two apart - if you looked closely you would notice Fred's eyes were always brighter than George's and George had a tiny birthmark the shape of a star below his left ear but where barely anyone noticed it due to the hair that partially covered it. Most people just gave them passive glances and didn't bother attempting to tell them apart, some tried to, failed miserably and gave up and a rare couple of people actually bothered to learn the few tiny differences between the twins. Having been quite close to the twins growing up, Charlie was one of those people.
"Charlie? Charlie? Stop staring at me, it's creeping me out," George complained.
"You asked us to tell you the truth and we're giving it to you, you just aren't listening," Fred grumbled, frowning at his older brother.
"Right, sorry. What were you saying?"
"We actually are worried about you. Luna's insane, she might slip you something or push you off the top of that weird house she lives in. Come on Charlie, the girl thinks Crumple Horned Snorkacks exist and she wears a vegetable around her neck."
"Wow, and here was me thinking you were the good brothers, who didn't judge people on their appearance or what they believed in. You guys might want to remember her mother died. And might I remind you that you used to play with her quite happily when you were younger?" Charlie stood up scowling. "Luna may appear to be a bit odd but you and I both know she's more sane than most of the other people that age we know. She sees things. She has such a clear view of the world that I wonder how she doesn't constantly have breakdowns due to the horrible things she sees that nobody else notices. You two should be ashamed of yourselves for even criticising her in the first place."
Without realising it Charlie had walked over to the backdoor and was pulling on his shoes.
"What's the point Charlie? You won't be able to open the door." The twins had appeared either side of him and he swallowed slightly as he saw how tall they were compared to him. But he was stronger and had more experience.
"And we've chained your broom up so you won't be able to fly."
Charlie pulled out his wand.
"You wouldn't."
"Try me," he growled. The faint light reflected off the dark wood of his mahogany wand and he couldn't help but smile as he remembered buying it a couple of years before. He'd waved pretty much every wand in the shop and his arm had been completely exhausted. He remembered the feeling of his stomach dropping as Ollivander told him there were no wands left to wave, then the small feeling of hope as his father had pointed out a small black box which was stuck between shelves.
"Ah yes, mahogany, unusually long for a wand at sixteen inches, the core is Chimaera scale which is very, very rare. Pleasantly springy," Ollivander had commented in his distant voice, handing it over for Charlie to wave. Immediately a warmth had filled him, something he had never felt with his first wand. He waved it while thinking 'Orchideous' and a bunch of beautiful flowers had flown from the tip, all strange colours he had never seen in flowers before.
"Charlie, put your wand down." Wands had appeared in both of the twins' hands now but Charlie didn't back down.
"We both know I'm better than you at hexing," he challenged. "Unlock the door or I will stick you together with a Permanent Sticking Charm - then you'd have to do everything together."
"Charlie, we're your brothers."
"Are you honestly choosing a girl over us?"
"After what you said about her, yes. Open the door," Charlie ordered, glaring at them both and not lowering his wand an inch. Fred back towards the door slowly, not taking his eyes off Charlie's wand. He reached the door and turned nervously, muttering a small spell and whirling back round as the lock clicked.
"Good boy, you can follow a simple order," Charlie muttered, scowling as Fred's eyes narrowed and he raised his wand again. "Incarcerous." Charlie said quickly, whipping his wand at Fred and then behind him to George.
"What? Hey, no fair!" George protested, struggling against the ropes that had appeared from Charlie's wand to bind him. "We unlocked the door, didn't we?"
"Yes, but knowing you two, the second I'd gone you would have cast some sort of spell to prevent me from going." Charlie turned to leave, then thought twice and picked up their wands, pocketing them.
"Oi!"
"Give those back!"
"Don't worry guys, I'll be back before dawn to untie you and give them back before anyone finds you like this. I am sorry, I hate having to do this to my own brothers… but no-one gets away with insulting Luna." With that, Charlie turned and walked out the door.
"You've forgotten something," Fred yelled and Charlie stopped.
"And what would that be?"
"We chained up your broom, remember? It's not even in the shed anymore."
Charlie scoffed, turned fully to face his brothers.
"I may have landed on some 'poor old dear doing her shopping' the first time, but I passed my Apparition test with full marks the second time."
There was a quiet crack and Charlie disappeared, chuckling at the image of the twins hopping towards each other with identical scowls on their faces as they attempted to untie each other.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
After about half an hour Luna picked herself and dried her tears on the sleeve of her cardigan. She pulled out her wand and waved it in the same complicated pattern to unfreeze both her paints and her feet. Another tear ran down her face before she could stop it, freezing before it could reach the palette in her hand. It stayed there, mingling with the colours to make a watery blue instead of the strong blue she wanted. Cursing, she reached for a tissue then stopped and picked up a brush instead. She took her current painting down and picked up a fresh canvas, glad she had thought to keep a spare up here. Had she gone down to get one she probably never would have come out again.
Gingerly she dipped her brush into the watery blue and made a tentative stroke on the canvas, frowning as it came out much bolder than she had expected. The tissue swept across the canvas, more water was added and she made another stroke, smiling at the results. Within a few moments she was completely absorbed in her work, adding more water here, wiping with the tissue there and adding a few bold streaks of red in the middle. Soon enough, the rough shape of a face had appeared.