No Means to Use the Stove

Truth Makes a Brutal Friend

Charlie watched the large man sitting across the table taking yet another swallow of beer and sighing. Or rather, he watched the smooth surface of the wooden kitchen table and listened to the man drinking and sighing. He waited for him to speak, to explain the reasons for his deep sighs and the way he slowly shook his head and looked at him. He felt nervous and timid and he didn't like how he felt. No, he didn't like it at all.

It brought back Potions lessons at Hogwarts and the memories of being found lacking and incompetent. Because he hadn't hated Potions for Snape's unpleasant teaching methods or the shivery cold of the dungeon classroom. He had detested the subject because of his own incompetence at it, because no matter how hard he studied or with how much effort he tried to understand, he just couldn't comprehend even the basics. He had made stupid, elementary mistakes and succeeded occasionally only with dumb luck, not realizing why or how.

He felt the same way now. Only a few questions by Seamus Finnigan's Muggle father had brought down his confidence and he found himself anticipating his next words with fear. What else had he done wrong? How was it possible to make so many mistakes without even realizing it? He had truly, sincerely thought that all had been fine between Anna and himself. He obviously couldn't handle even the concept of a relationship any better than he had handled Potions.

Charlie Weasley was frightened. Frightened and intimidated by mere words. But that wouldn't do now! This wasn't Potions, a school subject with no real importance to him personally. This was his life and Anna, who was, or at least had been, of very great importance to him. He was a dragon tamer, for Merlin's sake! He was an adult man, he had fought a war, he had faced horrors of many kinds. He could face his own mistakes. And so Charles Weasley lifted his head and fixed his eyes to meet Sean Finnigan's gaze.

"So," Sean's voice boomed, slow and almost kind. "You're beginning to understand, eh?" Charlie didn't need to answer; the other man knew his answer already and carried on: "Imagine yourself, Charles Weasley, going to the Muggle world for the first time in your life with a woman you love, and learning about...let's say light switches." Sean got up and went to the nearest light switch. He clicked it off and then on again. "She would show you how they worked and you'd find it exhilarating and exiting - until you'd realize that you couldn't use the switches and without help you'd have to stay in the dark."

Sean switched the lights off and continued talking in the dark, his voice echoing in the twilight of the kitchen: "And there'd be animals, like your dragons, but you wouldn't know them at all and you couldn't even go near them to learn about them and everybody working with them would patronizingly, but in a kind manner, ask you to move out of the way and tell you that you shouldn't strain yourself with such a hard work. And instead of brooms and Floo-powder, people would move around with cars and you'd know that you could never, no matter how hard you tried, learn to drive one. And you couldn't talk about it with your friends or your family, because it all was to be a great bloody secret!"

He had been talking softly and calmly until the last words, which he hissed vehemently at Charlie. Charlie winced in the dark and then had to blink when Sean abruptly switched the lights on again and returned to his chair. Suddenly the large man looked tired. Avoiding Charlie's eyes he let the last words heavily drop out of his mouth: "Imagine then, that you were to live the rest of your life in that world, a world where you could never learn even the basics, no matter how hard you tried. Would your love be enough? Should it be enough?"

It wasn't an overwhelming, sudden realization. No, it had been creeping in for a while now. Charlie felt little pieces of truth knocking on all the doors of his awareness and gaining entrance, and he was too drained to even try to fight them. Eventually, they would win anyhow. They always did.

Most of all, he felt guilt. Sean had confessed he had felt the need to be in charge and to help Una in their relationship, and Charlie couldn't deny anymore that he had behaved in the same way with Anna. Taking her to the wizarding world had been wonderful to him, as amongst Muggles he couldn't have shown his real talents; he had been forced to be less than he was. Anna had been stronger than him; he had needed Anna's help - and he hadn't enjoyed it. Not at all.

So, in the wizarding world, he had taken it all back. He had savoured the magic, he had wanted to leave everything Muggle behind. He had taken revenge on Anna, revenge for his own incompetence in the Muggle world, and he hadn't even seen what he had been doing.

He felt guilty, but from the guilt he sensed the burst of anger rising. Logically he knew it should have been directed at himself, but instead, he pushed it away and blamed other people. He was angry with Anna for not saying anything; he was angry with Hermione, because as a Muggleborn she should have seen it coming and warned him; and he was angry with Sean Finnigan, mainly because he was there, in front of him and hence deserved his anger.

"So I've messed it up," he snapped bitterly. "How did you manage, oh you almighty one, if it's so fucking hard?"

It irritated Charlie even more when Sean smiled at him like a parent smiles at a moping child. He must have seen his irritation but it only widened his grin. "Well, we fought a lot," he said then, in a lovingly reminiscent manner, "and it was bloody hard, no question about that. But then we learned to cope, to make compromises, to respect the other's way of doing things. And most of all..." he lowered his voice and glanced around the kitchen as if waiting for some enemy to materialize from the plain wall, "we learned to fool the Ministry." His eyes were full of mischief and the atmosphere shifted suddenly.

Not for the first time during the conversation, Sean's abrupt change of mood met Charlie unprepared: "What?" was all he was able to utter.

"Those blokes at the Ministry, they did anything in their power to make it difficult for us. Big Secret...Absolutely Prohibited to tell the Muggles...Obliviate! Obliviate! " Sean was obviously trying to mockingly imitate some shriveled Ministry official, but his booming voice didn't really bend to the purpose and the result sounded very weird. His meaning was clear, however, and Charlie found himself almost giggling. Sean looked like a schoolboy rejoicing his success after a particularly delicious prank and Charlie was generously pulled into the prank and into the sweet haze of victory over authority.

"They monitor everything, as you know, but through what?" Sean asked and answered himself, full of triumph: "Through bloody MAGIC! People without magic, us, the Muggles, we aren't so easy to monitor. Certainly they can see if a wizard is using magic around us, but they can't distinguish which of us or even how many of us for sure! Just think about it, Charlie!" Sean jumped up and practically danced around the table to heavily slap Charlie on the shoulder. "Think about it!"

And he thought about it. He thought and slowly, the implications starting to appear to him. The idea was new; he had never - well, never since Fudge - really thought about misleading the Ministry or bending the major rules. Mainly, he had to admit, because it couldn't be done without getting caught. But now Seamus Finnigan's father said it could be done, that he had done it, and had been doing it for years.

"Do you mean that you were able to tell your family without the Ministry's permission?" Charlie asked at last. When Sean had earlier listed the reasons for Anna's possible discomfort in the wizarding world, the idea of her having to keep it all secret from her relatives and friends had hit Charlie the hardest. He couldn't even imagine the situation where he'd have to keep major secrets from his family and still he had taken it granted that Anna would.

"Exactly, Charlie, my lad, exactly. We tried it first with my brother. Una did some small spell in front of both of us and then he bolted. They rushed in a couple of times, with their wands ready, only to find just me and my missus, all in perfect legality. After a while, they didn't bother anymore. To them, it only confirmed that all of us Muggles look the same in the magical monitoring. We could make our own choices, after that. Naturally, we didn't tell all my relatives, only the trustworthy and open-minded ones. But..." he grinned the prankish smile again, "my Una knows some bloody dazzling party tricks."

"What!?" Charlie's vocabulary seemed to be stuck on the same word.

"Una, she's in show-business," Sean winked, "she knows all kind of special effects. Gives a hell of an entertainment. Nobody asks any questions. We're thought to be a bit eccentric, thanks to her line of work, but luckily, I'm a mere carpenter and our son works, decently enough, for the administration, so we are accepted in the neighbourhood. All you weird buggers with your weird habits and clothes and all, you're naturally Una's friends from work. I could easily introduce you as a dragon tamer and it wouldn't raise any suspicion. Your Ministry's people are bloody idiots. The aftereffect of an Obliviate is much more revealing than seeing a few minor spells here and there and believing they're just tricks."

This was really hard to comprehend. Sean sat there, grinning, and explained that half of their neighbourhood saw magic on a regular basis and the Ministry didn't notice. And the Muggles themselves didn't notice. Anna had once claimed that she could let Fred and George loose among her friends and just tell them they were really good at hypno...hypno-something. It just was so hard to grasp.

Sean interpreted Charlie's troubled expression as one of disapproval and hurried to defend himself: "Charlie, my mate, don't take it so seriously. We have earned the right to mess with them a bit. You don't know how much they've messed with our life. Bloody hell, in the beginning I was Obbed every other day! Any time I saw one of Una's relatives Apparating or flying a broom, some overenthusiastic Ministry official would rush there to wave his wand. I started to carry a darn tape recorder with me and tape everything so I wouldn't keep missing bits of my life. It's a disgusting business, Obbing. You feel like you've lost half of your head...along with all of your self-respect. Should be illegal." He made a face as if he was going to spit on the table, but voted for a sip of beer instead.

Charlie couldn't help wincing. He hastily took a sip from his own beer hoping Sean didn't see his discomfort. He really didn't want the other man to know what he had done. It had been necessary, the Ministry had demanded it, it was a normal procedure, he repeated in his mind, but in vain. It had seemed like the only option at the time, but after listening to Sean's labourous schemes for misleading the Ministry and getting to act like he himself had seen it right, Charlie couldn't help feeling weak and cowardly about his own actions.

"So, the first step is to learn to fool the Ministry," Sean continued in an expertly manner and clearly enjoyed his role as an advisor. "Then you can concentrate on the everyday problems. Because there'll be those, mark my words, Charlie, mark my words. You'll better get a place in a Muggle area but near some other wizarding families, that's only fair, ain't it? And you'll have to learn to use some Muggle gadgets, my lad, things like cell phones, even though those don't work when there's a lot of magic around. And you'll have to create some kind of an alarm system for your missus to use, so she'll be able to contact you wizards when in any kind of magical trouble. And you should learn to do something with your hands without it being a punishment, to understand her better - I could teach you some carpentry..."

Sean carried on, faster and faster. His accent got heavier and he drew messy diagrams on the tabletop with a piece of chalk he had dug up from his pocket. He was obviously very enthusiastic and eager to help and the solutions he offered made sense and didn't seem too impossible or hard to comply. Which only made Charlie more miserable. Minute by minute it became clearer and clearer how badly he had botched it all up. Obliviating Anna hadn't been his only option; it had been a hasty, cowardly action and a terrible, uncorrectable mistake. He couldn't listen to Sean's happy rattle and tried to shut it out along with his own thoughts. He didn't succeed.

"We'll be happy to help you, me and Una. I know she'll love to. You must come to visit us together, you and your Anna, eh?"

Charlie froze. Damn it, he should have anticipated that. "Um...I don't know. See...she isn't talking to me at the moment..."

"Bollocks! You've been together for months; it isn't all over in a few weeks! You tell her you've been a bloody prat and you're ready to compromise and you've been getting some advice from the expert." Sean leaned back in his chair and grinned, satisfied with his own contribution in getting two lovers back together. Then he looked at Charlie more closely and his expression changed. He sat straight again in his chair and his eyes narrowed. He studied the redhead in front of him for a long time.

"Damn it, Charlie," he said at last, pleadingly, "don't you dare to say you..." He didn't finish his question as Charlie swallowed and avoided his eyes. Sean's shoulders sagged. For a moment they were both silent, Charlie waiting for the eruption of Sean's wrath feeling he had deserved it. When Sean finally opened his mouth, it wasn't to bellow, though.

"And I liked you. I bloody liked you!" he whispered, more sad and desperate than angry, and suddenly, Charlie hoped he would have been angry. He hoped he would have jumped up and yelled at him and hit him instead of what he did. "You'd better leave my house now," Sean said softly and there was a sound of finality in his voice. He didn't look at Charlie, but Charlie could see the older man swallowing as if trying to stop himself from crying. For the first time since they had met, he looked old in Charlie's eyes and out of nowhere he remembered that Sean was probably going to die years before a wizard would, years before his wife would.

Without a word, he stood up, walked to the door, out of it and out of the decorated wooden gate in the yard. He hadn't got anything to say, after all. Nothing in his defense.