Sinking Ships

Charlie Weasley learned to kiss by Bill teaching him. They’d lock themselves away with the ghoul in the attic and kiss for hours, experimenting with where they should put their hands (and Merlin, wasn’t that awkward at first, with Bill slapping Charlie’s hand away and hissing ‘That’s not my wand, git’, and Charlie going red enough that you couldn’t see his freckles any more) and where they should put their tongues and how exactly it was done best. Bill would grin and tell Charlie that his lips were rough from windburn, and that’d definitely scare the girls away.

Charlie Weasley had wanted to say, right then, that it wasn’t the girls he was worried about scaring away, but the words died in his throat.

When he went back to school, Charlie watched as Bill charmed the girls - and a fair amount of the boys, too, although Bill never seemed to notice it - and grinned as Bill jokingly introduced him as his ‘kid brother’; even when they both knew they were too close in age for it to be true. Charlie took the Gryffindor team to winning the Quidditch Cup, and it was worth it just for how proud Bill was.

“So,” Bill had said, on the train home after his seventh year, grinning and digging Charlie in the ribs. “How many girls did you scare away this year?”

Charlie had laughed, and reddened. “Lost count somewhere along the line,” he muttered, grinning a little. It wasn’t true, exactly - it wasn’t hard to keep count when the number was zero.

After Bill had left school, and gone off to train as a curse breaker, and then to work as one, it was easier. Out of sight was out of mind, and Charlie finished school pretty happily himself, still without having scared any girls by the roughness of his mouth. He went to Romania and forgot all about anything to do with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and an earring in one ear, because his brother was a long way away, and his brother wouldn’t ever know what was going on in his head.

He didn’t forget, though. He couldn’t. There were owls, of course, long owls with details of the girls Bill met (but never did anything with, it seemed, and Charlie only wished that it was because Bill was searching for something that he couldn’t find with any girl). And they would go home to visit with reasonable regularity - but then the attention of the family was divided between the two of them, and he rarely got to be alone with Bill.

Oddly, Bill never seemed to mind quite so much.

It came as a surprise, to Charlie Weasley, when Bill wrote to say he’d taken a desk job in London. It didn’t seem quite right that his brother, who lived for the danger and risk and everything else associated with breaking curses here, there and everywhere, suddenly wanted to settle down.

They talked only a month after that - Charlie Apparated in and they had lunch in a mostly-deserted restaurant off Diagon Alley. The fact Bill was settling was, of course, not without reason.

It was for a girl.

Charlie had blinked, and barely listened as Bill explained. Her name was Fleur Delacour, she was French - in the Triwizard Tournament with Harry, remember? Part Veela. He had grinned when he said that part.

Of course, Charlie told himself, why choose your brother over a beautiful Veela?

Bill was happy, and it was rather obvious. Charlie almost hated himself for wishing it otherwise. In his head, he was asking ‘But what does she have that I don’t?’

A long silence followed, and it wasn’t until Bill spoke that Charlie realised he must have spoken aloud.

“She’s not my brother, Charlie,” Bill said quietly, and put a Galleon on the table before he got up to leave.