Dollhouse

When Charlie Weasley first came to Hogwarts he was inseparable from his brother. Short with a large set of ears that he’d have to grow into, and a dollop of unkempt wavy hair, he was in many ways an easy target for bullies. Minerva had taught long enough to recognize when a student was vulnerable to that sort of thing. She worried about his stick-charm-like clinginess to his brother; the way he waited outside, bouncing on his toes when her 3rd year Transfiguration class let out. It was endearing to her when she saw, or rather heard him speaking a mile a minute - waving his arms around to mimic whatever he was talking about - as soon as Bill came within earshot. But Minerva also saw the third years who nudged their friends as they too exited the classroom. She dug her fingernails into her desk when they looked at his gesturing and laughed. 

She knew that it wasn’t as easy as her peers liked to say it was to simply “be yourself” at Charlie's age. She heard the jibes made in earshot of Charlie, saw the way his shoulders rose up in response. A week before Halloween, she watched a Ravenclaw girl with a mean streak put out a leg to trip him. Her blood had boiled when she’d seen him crash to the floor, the inkwell he’d been balancing on a book splashing all over his face and robes. Incensed, she’d cast a charm to gather all of Charlie’s things together, then another to vanish the spilled ink. As he struggled to his feet, she’d confronted the girl, taking 30 points from her and her giggling friend, and condemning her to detention. That put a temporary end to any escalation in Minerva’s class, but she knew that other professors didn’t always keep such a close eye on these sorts of things. Filius, for instance, could be a bit oblivious and Minerva wasn't convinced that empathy came easily to Severus.

Bill, however, seemed to make up for her coworkers’ faults. Popular and respected among his peers, his presence near Charlie served as enough of a warning for some to leave the boy alone. The more oblivious or persistent bullies, however, got a clear message one crisp October morning when Bill had calmly depantsed and levitated two Slytherin boys in the Great Hall as live entertainment for early breakfasters. When Minerva, bewildered at the usually well-mannered boy’s flagrant abuse of the rules, had asked, he’d explained, without a trace of regret in his tone, that they’d been hexing Charlie for a week. He’d given no further clarification, but Minerva had understood and took pity on him. He lost Gryffindor a significant number of points, but she let him off without a detention. 

Bill and Charlie’s sibling dynamic was a rare one at Hogwarts. Usual sibling bickering and the embarrassment typical in older siblings wasn't present in their relationship. Bill showed no shame at spending time with Charlie. He listened attentively with a soft, genuine smile when his brother rambled on their walks from Bills transfiguration class. They ate together in the main halls, even when Bill’s friends seemed awkward and uncomfortable. After a few months, said friends either got the message or ate elsewhere, and slowly, they began to chat with Charlie like an equal rather than his older brothers' tagalong.

While a lot of the student body seemed to treat Charlie as a simple, possibly irritating, extension of Bill, Minerva found no shortage of differences between them. Academically, Bill was good at theory and physical spellcasting, but his love for books and analytical nature made him more adept at her essay and reading assignments than practical work. Charlie, however, was a largely visual learner. His brows furrowed at text explanations and he was often confused about a spell until it was demonstrated. He had troubles with the long, dry texts Transfiguration texts were plagued by. He was easily bored during her lectures, though he tried very hard, she could tell, to stay engaged. Things didn’t come as quickly to him as they did to Bill. His skills, she heard, laid mostly in Herbology, Flying, and the creature-specific aspects of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Despite this, his level of grit, focus, and optimism allowed him to try and try in the face of difficulty. 

His demeanour, also, was notably different from Bill’s. While Bill was popular, he was more reserved than Charlie turned out to be. The younger Weasley was a social butterfly, eager to befriend as many people as possible, even if not everybody wanted to be associated him. He was more open, in an odd way, than his brother. He was a ray of sunshine, Pomona had once gushed, always smiling. His smiles weren’t of the placating, courtesy type like Bills either - his were large and genuine. He was also louder, more vocally curious, and eager to learn in an outright way with big eyes and open expressions that made him a sweet, charming presence in class. He volunteered for demonstrations, asked if she ever ate cat food (completely genuinely, bless his heart), and was vociferous in class discussions, even when he, admittedly, didn’t understand the material very well. He seemed to have an endless supply of energy that Bill, more weary, hadn’t displayed. Where Bill walked, Charlie bounded. When Bill smiled, Charlie beamed.

There was still a lot of Bill in his younger brother, though. Charlie had a ceaseless drive to help those around him, just like his brother, but unlike Bill, he chatted with his peers even when he hadn't finished his own work. Charlie, unfortunately, could be a bit oblivious, even beyond the classroom. Personal hygiene was the most notable offense. His hair, perpetually messy, tended to stick up in the back. It was not taken care of the same way Bills finely combed mane was. He could go long enough without showering that she could smell it on him. Often, there could also be an amount of grease in his hair that rivalled Severus at his worst. Yet Charlie never seemed to notice these things himself. 

Sometimes she saw Bill tutting as they walked, fussing with his brothers hair and giving stern reminders about hygiene. Despite this, it wasn’t until one of the first years Charlie sat by on a regular basis very loudly proclaimed in that unfiltered way children did, that he smelled, that she saw a change. He turned red and stayed quiet for the rest of the lesson, and the next time she saw him his hair was nearly as neat as Bills. This behavior relaxed a bit over the next weeks, but he maintained a greater level of conscientiousness about his appearance than earlier. He was never the most put-together student in the room, but by the spring of his first year, he (usually) didn't smell.

Minerva watched Gryffindor’s Quidditch tryouts every year, and wasn’t at all surprised to see Charlie Weasley trying out in the fall of 1985. With the amount of energy he had, he needed some way to get it out. Bill had made the reserve team as a Chaser the previous year, so it wasn’t surprising that Charlie also played. Quidditch was something that tended to run in families. As Gryffindors captain gave her pre-tryouts speech, Minerva found herself remembering how many redheads Pandora had been babysitting all those years ago, and wondered if there were enough Weasley siblings to form a Quidditch team.

Charlie was in his ever-present position at Bill’s side, and both fiddled with their ratty school-issued brooms as Angelica Cole continued to pontificate. She’d heard complaints from members of the Quidditch team regarding Cole being a "windbag" and found she didn’t entirely disagree as the speech entered it’s fourth minute. Minerva noted, with some amusement, that Bills summer growth spurt had led to a rather comical height difference. The wisps of Charlies messy hair barely reached his brothers shoulder. 

When tryouts actually started, beginning with the standard warm up laps that always managed to turn into a race, Minerva found herself taken aback. Charlie Weasley was very, very good for a second year. Despite his broomstick being of the shoddy school shed variant, he came in second, beaten out only by Angelica herself, who seemed surprised and pleased at the competition. Bill, meanwhile, had come in fourth, and patted Charlie on the back with a proud smile while one of the team Chasers offered Charlie a high-five. Minerva was truly impressed by the brothers’ friendship, particularly Bills grace at being beat out by his younger brother. Older siblings who lost to younger ones usually came out of such incidents with jealousy and bruised-egos, even in adulthood. If her brother had shown her up like that during their school years she would almost certainly be scowling.

As tryouts went on, Minerva was struck by the ease with which Charlie flew through the air, seeming to take to the sky more naturally than he did the ground. His sudden swoops and dives brought her to the edge of a heart attack on several occasions, but earned him both Angelica’s approval and the position of seeker. Minerva wondered, as Bill ruffled his brother's hair, if Gryffindor finally had a chance at winning the Quidditch cup again. She might need to take Severus up on that bet after all.

When the Quidditch season began, Minerva saw a level of resilience and focus from Charlie that she never had before. In November, he jumped off his broomstick 20 feet above the ground in a daring leap to catch the snitch. His subsequent tumble to the ground, landing on his shoulder in a position that made her squirm, had left Minerva dry mouthed. She and Poppy exchanged a worried glance, but just as the Mediwitch began to move, he'd stood back up, pumping his fist in the air. He smiled triumphantly, snitch in hand. The crowd, of course, went wild.

He gave Minerva, and Poppy, for that matter, several headaches pulling off such stunts. When she spotted her first gray hairs in November of that year, she didn't half-blame Charlie Weasley. As the season progressed, the infirmary became a second home to the boy, who ended up there far too often after practices or games, usually dragged in by Bill as he squirmingly insisted that he was fine. As with all of her frequent ward-inhabitants, Poppy became fond of the younger Weasley, as well as his ever-present older brother, though she denied favoritism when Minerva teasingly asked.

She admitted to Minerva once, when they’d had a few too many butterbeers over a trip to Hogsmeade, that she was worried about them. She said, staring forlornly into her butterbeer, that Charlie had an unusual amount of scars. With how obviously reckless the boy was, it hadn’t been something of alarm to the mediwitch, but Bill had come in for a rare admittance three days ago, having been knocked unconscious by a bludger, and, Poppy said, voice tight and frail: “Minerva he’s covered in them.”

Minerva barely breathed. Her knuckles turned white around her butterbeer. She watched as Poppy, one of the most indomitable people she knew, sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “What?” she whispered.

“Scars” Poppy said, her voice growing angry, “Dark magic scars.”

Minerva felt as if her breathe had been knocked from her chest. "You mean…?”

Christmas 1976 weighed heavily in her mind.

Poppy seemed to catch what she was asking. "It’s not as bad as… Merlin what am I saying? It’s awful. But it’s not…”

“It’s not Sirius” Minerva said softly. The name made them both flinch. 

Poppy took another long sip of her butterbeer, put it down, contemplated, and finally said, so quietly that Minerva had to strain to hear, “No. It’s not Sirius.”

They were silent.

But then: “But it’s not just dark magic. There are physical scars too. He tried to say they were from Quidditch but you’ve seen Bill on a broom. He’s careful. He’s careful in everything he does. And you don’t get that many scars - and you don’t get those kinds of scars from falling off your broom.” Poppy was getting angry.

“And the… the dark magic scars?” Minerva asked tentatively, “What did he say about those?”

Poppy tightened her jaw, “He blames his great-aunt. He says he was a baby and doesn’t remember it but it was some kind of revenge for his grandmother marrying a blood traitor.”

Minerva sat back, let that explanation sit with her. "Do you believe him?” she asked. 

Poppy scoffed, and shook her head as she took another sip of butterbeer.

“Why not?” Minerva asked.

“Because diagnostic charms sort injuries by date of attainment, and the last scar is from this summer.”

Minerva clutched her drink even tighter. "Are you certain?"

"I treated him for a bat bogey hex three days before the end of term, and that was just below the..." Her mouth thinned before she distastefully said, "Darker spells."

Minerva squeezed her eyes shut as if to protect herself from the new information. It was possible that the dark magic had been performed on school grounds, but extremely unlikely. After Mary MacDonald had been imperiused in 1977, Minerva had berated Albus into installing very comprehensive wards and alerts against dark magic. Some had been relaxed since the wars end, but not the ones that would've allowed that kind of mark on a persons magical signature without Albus having being alerted.

“I filed a report with the Ministry straight away, of course.” Poppy muttered.

Minerva had too. She received a letter less than a day later saying the evidence was inconclusive and nothing could be done. But this. Merlin she hated it, but this was a smoking gun if she’d ever seen one. All they’d have to do was take Molly and Arthur Weasleys wands and perform a simple charm to see if the curses had come from them. It was easy. “Have you heard back?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh yes.” Poppy spat, her tone now caustic, “Yes I heard back. Do you know what they told me?”

“What?”

“That unless Bill or Charlie - because I’m certain he has some as well - admit outright that it was a parent, they can do nothing.”

“But-” Minerva found herself spluttering, “That’s-that’s-”

“And you know the rules. No veritasium on minors. And you know how lax the ministry can be with child ‘discipline’. Those old pureblood names don’t take kindly to being told what they can and cannot do with their children."

Minerva wanted to scream. She was going to scream. She was going to… she needed to calm down. Think. There had to be something.

“They said I could put in for an impromptu wellness check. Which I did.” Poppy said, “Though I doubt anything will come of that."

“I’m having a conversation with Bill.” Minerva decided, “This can’t go on.”

“Good luck” Poppy said, sounding defeated “I tried for nearly an hour. Nothing. He just… shutters.”

“Then I’ll try Charlie.”

“You tried Regulus Black for three hours, Barty Crouch for two, and Sirius over and over and over again. What makes you think this will be any different?”

“We have evidence, Poppy. We only had suspicion then. We know this is going on.”

“We knew it was going on then too.” Poppy said quietly.

“Why are you working against me on this?” Minerva asked frustratedly.

“I’m not. I’m only saying that historically, that path has not worked for us, and only served to drive the students further away from us so they didn’t come to us when they needed help.” Poppy said in that clinical Ravenclaw way of hers.

Minerva looked down at her butterbeer resolutely, “I have to try something.”

Minerva sat in a room with Charlie Weasley for nearly two hours before Dumbledore found his way to her classroom door. The boy scurried away before she even realized it had opened. Albus watched him go before closing it again and approaching her desk.

Exhausted, Minerva, sat back in her seat. He regarded her sternly.

“We have to do something, Albus” she pleaded, “Can’t you do something? Poppy told you. I know she did. We can’t just-”

“We cannot hold students hostage for hours at a time Minerva” Albus said gravely, but not harshly.

“Albus-”

“We’ve had this conversation before” he said gently, “You remember Cadmus Selwyn.”

“You bribed most of the Wizengamot to let me keep my job” Minerva muttered, “But the Weasleys aren’t Cadmus Selwyn or Bartemius Crouch Senior or Walburga and Orion Black-”

“Bill and Charlie will come to you if they choose to. You cannot force them to.”

Minerva closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands.

“This is not the way to earn their trust.”

In that moment she hated him.