September 1975
Chapter 1 : September 1975
5 years later : “ With a Little Help From My Friends”, the Beatles
- What a year. The end of the Vietnam War. The film “Jaws” that Charlie went to see a hundred times with his sister during the summer.
Tori never got adopted, and that made Charlie very sad. She was a woman now though, and she had her life together, he thought she might be the strongest woman in the world.She even found a boyfriend somehow, called Michael. Charlie liked him pretty much, he seemed to make her happy after all she’d been through.
As for Charlie, the second he stepped foot into Hogwarts he already wanted to go back. His first year was terrible, he couldn’t fit in like Dumbledore said he would. He was sorted into Slytherin on top of all, everybody hated him, or so he thought. His comrades were all mean and rude to everyone, Charlie was very happy to witness all the pranks against them. Unfortunately, most of the pranks were falling upon the whole house, including him.
The second year didn’t get any better, the “Marauders”, they’d call themselves that, never stopped their bad jokes. Sometimes they were well deserved, Snape and his friends were bullies, even inside of his own house. Charlie learnt that the hard way, Snape made everyone’s lives a nightmare. Being muggleborn and socially awkward was not helping with Charlie making friends in his house, on the contrary, most of them found him disgusting. Except Isaac, he was as sociable as the curly haired boy was. He seemed to be the only one who didn’t despise him.
It started getting better in 3rd year when some Gryffindors stood out for Charlie when he was getting beat up in one of the corridors of Hogwarts. Tao, Elle, Tara, Darcy and Isaac, quickly became friends. Once they did, they spent all of their time together. People would whisper that we were trying to be the “Marauders” of their year but they could never top them. Nobody could be like Sirius Orion Black, or James Potter, or even Remus Lupin.
4th year became complicated, Charlie was lost with his sexuality. And when everyone started dating and snogging, it upset him so much he didn’t want to see anyone. Tara and Darcy came out that year, only to their friend group which was already a lot. They didn’t want anyone else to know and everyone respected that. Being queer in the 70s was still an issue for most people, this is why Charlie didn’t want to be one. But when he saw Remus Lupin, fag in mouth laying down on the wet grass of the school’s garden, his button up shirt half opened, that is when he realised he was gay. Deep down, he always knew. But he’ll always be grateful for Lupin who made him come to the realisation.
That was pretty much everything that happened during those four years : bullying, friends and finding out who he was.
September 1st 1975
The train station. All the noises, all these people. London got so overpopulated in the last few years, it became oppressive, and loud. Charlie was never at ease in the crowd. He could still picture his classmates laughing at him in the corridors, staring deeply in class. He never felt alone anywhere he went, not even here in London, surrounded by muggles.
Tori took a day off work to drop him off there, now that she was 18 she was finally able to stay with him the whole summer. And it was one of the most beautiful summers ever, except that Charlie missed his friends. He had been able to write letters to each of them, and they’ve been communicating this way for two months straight. Elle and Tao spent their summer together with their muggle parents, Tara stayed at Darcy’s for most of the time and went back to London to see Charlie every once in a while. Isaac was the only one Charlie hadn’t heard from, perhaps that was because his parents were super strict, and purebloods that hated Isaac’s muggle friends.
“There we are. Have you got everything ?” Tori asked, stopping in front of the wall leading to the 9 ¾ station.
Charlie looked at his carriage, then at his uniform. “All good, see ya.”
He started walking but Tori caught his shoulder. “Wait.”
“What is it ?”
“I bought you a little something.” She smiled timidly, she’d been smiling a lot more lately. That made him very happy, his sister deserved all the happiness in the world. She searched in her purse and a little box came out from it. “It’s just a silly thing…You can tell me if you don’t like it…Whatever.” She handed the object nervously to Charlie who took it really carefully.
When he opened it, his jaw dropped literally. Inside was a walkman, last of its generation. Tori must have earned a lot of money to buy it. With it, came a cassette with a compilation of the Beatles.
“It’s a gift from Micheal and me, I know how much you like listening to music. Don’t forget to socialise though, or I’m taking it back.”
Without a second thought, Charlie fell into her arms. He knew how much she hated physical contact, but for once she didn’t seem to be pushing him away. “I love it, thank you.” Charlie murmured.
“You’re welcome little brother. Now go, you’re gonna miss that bloody train.” She put an end to their embrace as Charlie urged himself with a last goodbye and passed through the wall.
Once at the good station, he noticed familiar faces from afar, they were all here. Even Isaac. Charlie smiled to himself and waved at them. You could hear them scream his name from metres away before they ran towards him and made a giant hug. He was reunited with his other family.
“Bloody hell Charlie we told you to be here at 10 !” Elle accused.
“It is 10:06.” Tao defended his friend.
“The train is leaving at 10:11, 5 more minutes and you’d be swimming to Hogwarts.” Darcy laughed, holding Tara’s hand without anyone having any doubts. Two men could never do that, Charlie thought.
“No love, it's leaving at 11:10.” Tara sighed showing her the schedule on her brochure.”
“I missed you guys so much.” Isaac smiled, bringing everyone for another hug.
“That means we still have 1 hour and 10 minutes in front of us. Who’s hungry ?”
“We are.” A voice outside of the group spoke. A voice that sent shivers down Charlie’s spine. Harry Greene. With his best mates, Ben Hope and Severus Snape. The trio that made Charlie’s life a nightmare for three years. Charlie slightly turned around to face them, Ben was not even looking at him in the eyes.
All of Charlie’s friends started forming a circle in front of him. He loved them but he hated being that much vulnerable, he was going to be 15 soon, it was time he stepped for himself.
“What do you want, Harry ?” Charlie asked, hiding his inner anxiety.
“Nothing bruv, we just heard your cute reunion with the band. How was your summer ? Any snogging yet ?” His laugh was the most horrible sound he had ever heard. Snape and Ben were behind Harry imitating snogging faces.
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask Ben ?” There, he’d said it. What’s done is done.
Harry and Severus both turned around to their friend, who was making big eyes to Charlie. The rest of the group was silent.
“What’s he saying ?” Snape asked, incredulously.
Ben stuttered as he felt the oppressive glance of his mates “I-I don’t know…He’s a weirdo. Completely bonkers.”
“We should go, we don’t want people seeing us with the freak show.” Severus wrapped his both arms around Ben and Harry and walked the opposite way.
“Hey Severus ! You forgot something !” Tao called all of a sudden, face full of rage.
The one turned around as Charlie whispered to his friend. “What are you doing? They were gone.”
Tao ignored him and walked quickly towards his target.
“What ? You wanker.” Snape sneered.
“It’s picture day tomorrow, innit ?”
“Yes. Why ? You can’t read a fucking calend-”
Before he’d seen it, Snape’s face met the acquaintance of Tao’s fist. Darcy and Tara dropped their jaws at the same time. Elle put her hand in front of her mouth to hide her shock as Isaac didn’t even look up his head from his book. Charlie contained a huge smile on his face.
“You’re going to pay for that, knob !” Severus threatened while dropping his baggage on the floor of the station. His nose was now bigger than it already was, and almost as reddish as his two friends seemed to be.
“Fight me.”
Tao hated injustice, he didn’t care if it had to come to a fight. He cared more about his pride than anything in the world. A quality that put them in many troubles in the last few years.
“You filthy little twat !” Severus shouted before jumping on him.
They both fell into the ground, the one on top would hit the other and that went on for long seconds before the gang realised what was happening and ran to separate them. Ben and Harry simply watched and encouraged Snape that despite his fragile body, was still able to fight back.
“Snivellus get off them !” A non-familiar voice yelled joining the circle.
What the gang had been struggling to do for long minutes now, that boy separated them in a second with the strength of his bare arms. He pointed an accusing finger at Snape.
“If you want to start a fight, try with someone your age, Snape.”
“I didn’t know Potter did charity for the 5th year now.” He smirked, wiping the blood out of his mouth. “See you in potions.”
With a last glance, Severus and his mates walked away. At the same time, three other Hogwarts elders joined the circle forming around Tao. Charlie soonly felt overwhelmed by the number of people, he was suffocating. Why ? He remembered that circles like that were made to mock him, a knot started to form in his stomach and he couldn’t breath. He quickly took the bottle of water in his backpack and drank almost all of the bottle without anyone noticing.
When he was back into consciousness, he recognised the others that came in the way : The Marauders themselves. The legends that never paid attention to them in the last five years. James stepped towards Tao, fixed him a few seconds that seemed to last hours and said. “Did you punch Snivellus in the face ?”
“Yes… S-Sir.” Tao swallowed audibly, clearly nervous to meet “the” Marauders.
James grinned suddenly. “That’s brilliant mate !” He rested his hand on Tao’s shoulder and Sirius Black, James' best friend, wrapped an arm around Tao and brought him closer to their group.
“We lost him to the cool kids.” Elle sighed in a half-joking tone.
“Can’t they adopt me, too ?” Darcy thought out loud, her girlfriend throwing a dark stare at her. “Adopt both of us of course.” She kissed her cheek discreetly.
Charlie turned around to see that Remus Lupin was staring at the two girls, did he have a crush on one of them? Why was he staring like that ? When he seemed to have noticed that Charlie was looking at him, the boy turned around and pretended that nothing happened.
Charlie walked closer to the Marauders in an attempt to prevent an embarrassment for Tao. They were the popular ones, why would they hang out with them ?
“One day before picture day ! You’re amazingly brilliant, Tao.” Peter complimented, jumping on the spot.
“I’m usually against physical violence but I must say that you got balls.” Sirius smirked to Tao.
“Aren’t you the one that said “violence can solve everything.” ?” Remus countered.
“I have grown since then.”
“You said it this morning when I stole your Mars chocolate bar and then hit me with your pillow.”
“It was the last chocolate bar and I was bloody hungry.”
Charlie couldn’t contain his laugh this time and they seemed to finally have noticed him.
James seemed to think for a minute “You’re Charlie Spring right ?”
The one nodded and shook the friendly hand James was leaning. “It’s nice to meet you guys.”
“I hope you’re not hungry because Moony won’t share his food with you.” The oldest Black rolled his eyes.
“Who’s Moony ? Is it your pet ?”
Sirius and the band snorted all at the same time, Charlie felt like an idiot.
“Kind of.” Sirius managed to say between two laughs before Remus or “Moony” slapped the back of his head with annoyance.
What a weird pack of lads.