InsaneJournal

WHO. Gideon Prewett & Charlie Weasley
WHERE. Gideon's farm in Yorkshire
WHEN. Today, actually.
WHAT. Uncle-Nephew bonding.
RATING. TW for vague medical gore? >.>

***

Dressings were changed, injuries cleaned, ointment and tinctures carefully applied. This canvas had once been an angry site of torn flesh, deep gouges, and burned skin -- now, rivulets of scars, but Charlie would live, if not to tell the tale, to at least be always haunted by it.

“These are healing nicely. No infection. No permanent loss of movement, though you may have to fight for it.” Gideon pressed flat the last strip of tape and shooed the cat who had clambered into his lap while he had remained ever so briefly stationary. “Soon, you’ll be be as good as you’ll ever be. What will you do?”

It had been instinct which drove Charlie to Gideon’s farm for, he supposed, the solitude and the sanctuary enough to heal from his dragon attack. And he further understood that not only spatially but emotionally, Gideon understood the importance inherent in marking space for oneself. Beyond even Azkaban, Gideon built his own world in Yorkshire. And it was much like the life Charlie built in Romania.

One that might never again be open to him.

But curiously enough, Gideon’s hands -- Gideon, who travailed Azkaban and worked the land by the sweat of his own brow -- were feather soft and gentle. He would also marvel over that touch; perhaps it was the same afforded to a mare in foal, or a lamb caught in a thicket. Because Charlie was enough of a wounded animal when he arrived, that he supposed he hadn’t changed altogether much other than now I’ll make sentences for you, Uncle.

“Thanks to you,” he breathed. And then -- “I suppose I shall have to tell them I’m not in Romania.”

“To say the least,” he dryly agreed. Glass bottles and clay jars were piled high onto the tray and tidied away. Though secrets and lies by omission were seemingly nigh on unheard of among the Prewett and Weasley lot, it was hardly Gideon’s place to judge -- only that he knew very well what it was like in not wanting the world to one at his most vulnerable.

“I don’t say it to imply that you’ve worn out your welcome. Only that the others have made it their personal mission to come around here as often as possible, and it’s not a so large a property.”

The tactful way in which Gideon suggested his family might need to be made aware of his state brought him only the mildest revulsion. To know failure this thoroughly, and to have it writ large across him? This would never happen to Bill. He tested the breadth of his bandages, intent to bite his lip when the skin caught.

“They can’t know.”

Can’t was sometimes a challenge issued to the overly nosy. “Not by me, they won’t,” Gideon promised instead, even if he did very poorly in any outright lies.

In some ways, he had been here before, witnessing a family member see the fading star of a dream burn out, caught up in the crossroads of where to go next. It wasn’t any easier the second time around either, but his own wounds had long since dulled the fresh sharpness of any further incurred pain.

And Charlie followed it up with a short laugh -- bitter, he supposed -- as he rose and eased into a white linen shirt. When he had first come to Gideon, a lacerated and burnt mess, he’d wondered if his uncle would have simply turned him over to the hospital wholesale. But he strove with him, and he supposed now was no reason to simply up and quit. He turned.

“I’ll tell them I’m on leave, and I came directly to yours since you have the room.”

It certainly was technically true enough, Gideon appraised, watching Charlie undergo the painstaking tasks of merely dressing. News of his arrival would still have to be put up, at least until Charlie could move without betraying a flinch. “That would certainly buy you time.” At least, to figure out his next step. “Though what a time you’ve chosen.”

There’d been times that he wished that young buck would have simply finished him. He’d have been happy dragon food, and a warm spot in a pretty little belly would be better than … Godric, I don’t know. I know nothing in the world, about the world.

He turned back to his uncle, brow quirked.

“What a time?”

“Someone has it in their heads to begin targeting muggles, muggleborns, and blood traitors. As you can imagine, it’s causing quite a bit of a stir.” Gideon hesitated, then summoned the small pile of newspapers for Charlie to read now that he had at least well enough of a mind to do so. Better to find out now than later, given their unwitting proximity to the nexus of action.

A hard sigh; this meant, he supposed, that both his uncles would be either involved or implicated. And his family would be at risk from the likes of those Purebloods who labelled them blood traitors. This was also the wound that Charlie imagine was barely scabbed over for his uncle. He turned to him.

“Are you all right?”

“Me?” Gideon asked, somewhat taken aback by the inquiry -- he had expended so much effort in distancing himself from everything recent events aspired to, he sometimes nigh on forgot he ever had anything once to do with it at all. “Well enough. I do not make it my business, and in return, it does not seem to make me its business either.” For the most part, minus the occasional bored Ministry visit. “It’s not something your other uncle understands, though.”

This admission was not a surprise to Charlie; for as little as he knew of Fabian, and what tales his mother told him, the man wasn’t perfectly pleased unless he was in the middle of a tropical storm of everyone else’s bullocks. But the truth was, he didn’t know how long they could rest in their little sanctuary.

If this were starting back up, someone would have a go at the Burrow.

“How do you manage that and nobody else does?”

You whittle yourself down to nothing. You become too insignificant to be noticed. “At cost. But I…” Gideon shook his head and abruptly busied himself with gathering up the last of the things he had brought with him. “...I can’t afford more any other way.”

And in a stroke, Charlie understood. Step back in, and you have to acknowledge those years that were taken from you. If he couldn’t acknowledge the possibility of a dream deferred, how could Gideon face it head on? He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. Nobody really could.

“Tell me how to help.”

“Stay out of it as well.” He gave Charlie a sharp look, because he knew the interest glimmering in a young man’s eyes when he saw it, the earnestness to take action. “Don’t give your family something else to worry about.”

“ … I bloody well will stay out of it,” was his reply, though it came quite out of the corner of his mouth (to mask the hiss as he shrugged into a cardigan over the linen shirt). “There isn’t really much other choice. I can’t very well sketch out a defensive spell.”

Then: “But I’ll --” a swallow. “I think I’ll go out and visit the horses today.”

Not yet, at any rate -- but he would never be one to write Charlie off so quickly. “They’ve taken quite a shine to you. Just how many apples are you sneaking them?”

“Apples?” Charlie turned, grinning crookedly. “Just apples?” And he left it at that, suggesting with an arch of his brow that there was a special addition to apples that’d bring the horses round to him. Then -- “Your black mare, last I saw, started waxing up. She’ll drop her foal soon. I can get her ready, then set up a watch.”

“Don’t overextend yourself. Rest and recovery are your first priorities.” Still, it was nice to have another presence on the farm, even if the help was limited and he was used to going it alone. Charlie was hardly intrusive and seemed to genuinely appreciate the environment. He hoped, at least, it would provide him with a shred of peace he needed, however temporary it may be.