"And that bit of moralistic turmoil is exactly why your tongue's tied up with a non-disclosure agreement," Bill said. "Just be glad yours is temporary, mine's for however long it needs to be."
"Then how could you say what you just did?" his brother asked with a curious look on his face.
"Because everyone knows what a curse-breaker does, even if they don't realize what it is we actually do," he explained. "And I never said my N.D.A. was about that."
"But what are we going to tell Mum and Dad?" he asked. "I can't tell them fibbidy fumpt pipi-pumpkins. They'd never understand," Charlie said morosely.
Bill chuckled, "I'm sitting right here and I didn't understand."
"Ugh!" his brother cried, burying his head in his hands again.
"Look, if you keep trying to talk about it it's going to keep happening and they'll know something's up, press you about it, and it'll never stop happening," Bill warned. "Just try not to think about it; but if it's the money that's worrying you… ," Bill teased as he inched his hand across the table towards the bags, "I'll gladly take it from you."
That got his brother to move.
"Like hell you will," Charlie declared, clutching his sacks of currency like they were eggs and he was a nesting dragon. "This money's going to something good."
"Swanky new robes and a flat of your own?" he suggested.
"I'm thinking of donating it to the Preserve," Charlie said, looking at him like he was mad.
"Don't be mental," he replied, looking at his brother like he'd been Confunded. "Are they going to make you a manager or team leader or something for that?"
"People can do things without an ulterior motive you know," his brother scolded.
"Name one."
"Me," Charlie said stubbornly.
"Really?" Bill said shrewdly. "Then why are you in the country: because Fred and George wrote you, you want to do something nice for our little brother, McGonagall called about the Hopefuls, you like spending time with Dad, or because you know you really should put a bit more effort in with Mum?"
"Having multiple reasons to do something isn't the same as having ulterior motives," Charlie said after a moment.
"And yet you're not donating that money because it's the right thing to do," Bill pointed out. "You're doing it to clear your conscience, and that's an ulterior motive."
With that his brother looked like a puppy who'd just been kicked. How Charlie could be both rugged and outdoorsy and yet namby-pamby at the same time he would never know. His brother was like a walking, talking teddy bear who probably hugged the dragons to sleep instead of subduing them; a veritable plush bundle of doom.
"You don't realize what that money is, do you?" Bill asked his brother.
"Proof I can be bought?" Charlie offered as he shrunk the sacks down to fit into his robes.
"Anyone can be bought," he told his brother bracingly. "All they have to do is keep throwing money at you until you go from 'no' to 'maybe' and they've got you. And you wouldn't have gotten half as much if you hadn't said 'no' quite a bit from the off, so whatever they needed you for they needed you pretty bad, but that's not what I meant. That money is a new future for you."
Bill continued as his brother looked thoughtful.
"I may look like I mint my own galleons," he said with a cocky grin and a flip of his ponytail, "but that's only because I live well below my means and work my ass off for it. Believe me, I wish I had haggled before I signed my work agreement with them; I was young and dumb enough to say, 'Oh, whatever you think is fair,' when it came to how much I take home. Applied correctly, this money is a house, a wife, kids, and a good start on their lives, and I know how much you've always wanted that."
The pointed look on Charlie's face made him realize that particular sore spot was still quite sore for him.
'Damn, still not thinking before I speak, ' he scolded himself.
"Look, Charlie," Bill said more softly. "I know you loved Shawna - you two went out for longer than I can remember, and it tore me up to see you after you two split - but you've got to move on when things don't work out. You're not even twenty yet. Going out with someone else won't lessen what she meant to you, and staying single for the rest of your life won't bring her back."
"It's still easier to live that way though," Charlie said with a swig of his butterbeer, looking as if he wished it was firewhiskey instead. "She was the only thing I ever wanted. I didn't care what happened - if we lived in a hut like Hagrid's for the rest of our lives, I'd be fine - as long as she was there, it'd be home."
Bill didn't know how many times he'd heard his brother say that but it was the first time something had ticked in the back of his mind.
"You don't run off to the other side of the continent if you had hopes of getting back with an ex-girlfriend," he observed.
His brother brooded silently for a moment.
"You know what it's like having class with an ex for a year?" Charlie asked, hunching his shoulders protectively.
"Many times over," Bill said with a lopsided grin. "Several girls played Seeker when it came to me but this Snitch never stayed caught for long."
"Then you have no idea what I'm talking about," his brother said dismissively. "When you actually loved someone, you can never think about that person any other way."
"A girl you snogged is never going to be a girl you didn't," he said with a sagely nod.
"Something like that only much, much worse," Charlie agreed. "It's like I can sense her when I'm here - like she's in the next room or if I turn around she'd be there. And going down that street earlier," he said, pointing to the entry to Diagon Alley. "It was like she was right there next to me. Every shop, every window, everything connected back to her - it was a nightmare."
"So as soon as you could you run off to Romania just to get away from her?"
"Why not?" his brother asked, "The entire last year I was there, there were parts of Hogwarts I wouldn't go to because I knew she'd be there."
"Must've made eating difficult," Bill observed.
"Who said I ate much? There's a reason I got so skinny back then," his brother explained. "And when I did eat it was in the kitchens."
"Damn, Charlie, you should've said something," he said honestly. He had known it was bad but he hadn't known it'd been that bad.
"You would've just said then what you just said now, 'move on,'" Charlie said, dismissing his concern with a wave.
"The me I was then probably would've told the you you were then that, sure," Bill agreed. "But not if you had added the last part; I wouldn't have known what to say. I stick with it now because it's been more than two years," he explained. "The me I am now though would tell the you you were then that what you were going through is a good thing," he said pointedly.
"How?" his brother asked, seemingly at a loss for any other word.
.....
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