HoH, Ravenclaw, Standard, Charlie and Sirius, WC: 880
In a world that is AU, and voldy-pants doesn't exist.
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I spot the crazy, lovesick fool from a million miles away.
Well, I say that. It was really only about four foot, while he was staring vacantly into space. Immediately, I recognise the look. I understand his failed jokes at the dinner table, and I understand why he sits now with a clearly untouched book in his lap.
Amused, I shake my head. Because fuck if I understand exactly what the poor sucker is going through. Being in love with a bookworm is tough when you've never been someone who reads a whole lot. Like myself, I just managed to understand what we were taught at school, without needing to read. Like Charlie, who doesn't need to understand the particulars within books because he's interested in other things - magical beasts, dragons, danger. He never needed academia, except in trying to prove his worth to Hermione Granger.
He looks around, briefly, as if only just realising he was absently staring in one direction for longer than ten minutes. Lo and behold, he notices me grinning at him, understanding exactly what he is going through. Charlie blinks a few times, as if trying to shake himself from the daze that had settled over him.
"Right, I cannot keep my eyes open any longer," Hermione murmurs into the near-silence, her voice the only sound other than the crackling fire. "Bedtime for me."
With those words, and a glance in Charlie's direction, she turns to the stairs and walks up towards her room.
She obviously feels something for him too.
Her seat now empty, I make the move to sit beside Charlie. He doesn't look in my direction, but instead searches for meaning in his whiskey. Something else I can understand. But drinking isn't going to be helpful to him in this situation - he needs advice, and someone to tell him that he's either doing well or is a complete shit. Perhaps I can fill that role. At the very least, we can talk about it while everyone else has gone up to bed.
"Listen, mate," I start, attempting tact. "What's going on with you and Hermione?"
"Why does it matter?" he parries. I falter. It doesn't matter, I guess, not really. "It's nothing, nothing worth saying anything about." He watches the flickering flames before us. "It's just all very... Confusing. I don't know where we stand, and I want to know. Jesus." Charlie sighs heavily, rubbing a hand over his face. Then he shakes his head in amusement.
I grin, too. "Sounds like there's plenty to say."
"Yeah," he laughs. "Bloody women."
"What's the problem?"
"I don't know. I just wish she would acknowledge that there's something between us - that we could get to somewhere that's not the limbo between friends and... Not just friends, you know?" I nod in agreement. "Wherever the hell we are, I want us to be somewhere. Fuck, it's hard to explain."
The fire crackles and pops loudly in the hearth. Its red-orange glow fills the room, stretching out past us, flickering.
"Have you actually spoken to her?" I ask. It's so hard to know what to say. Women do seem confusing, but I've been in love with the same man my whole adult life. I wouldn't know how to woo a woman with a wand to my head. "She definitely seems to like you."
Charlie laughs to himself again, as though a sarcastic remark had crossed his mind. "We've spoken, but we haven't exactly gotten anywhere. We talked about it once, but that was it. Maybe she's trying to ignore me - make her life easier."
"Easier, but still painful." I pause to take a sip of my whiskey. "Have you spent any time together, just the two of you?"
"Not as much as I would like," he admits.
Charlie takes a breath, thinking about his next words. I see it, resting in his eyes. The want to say something more, to try and understand. I know the look too well to even try to ignore it. For months, even years, I had tried to comprehend why I was in love with my friend, and why I couldn't bring myself to ask that Marlene on a date when I knew she liked me - why I couldn't stop laughing at Remus' strange jokes and odd haircut. I tried to figure out why I was in love with him, and how to get him to feel the same.
"What do you think, Sirius?" Charlie asks, finally. "What should I be doing?"
I smile.
"First thing you gotta do is make sure you know what you want. Then, my friend, you need to talk to her. Tell her how you feel - all that mushy crap." He nods in response. "If it's meant to be, it'll happen. Trust me."
He thanks me, already sinking back into a place of thought.
I wander up to bed, considering exactly where Remus is right now, with his wife and his child, without me.
Just because love conquers all, it doesn't mean that one type of love will always conquer another. I have always loved Remus, and I always will, in so many different ways. He loves me too, just not in the way that I had always hoped for. Maybe Charlie will be more successful.
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Thanks for reading!
