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Charlie set down two brimming glasses of beer down on the table, which seemed to split momentarily into two as he resumed his seat. How many pints was that now? He’d lost count at least an hour ago. He blinked and tried to focus on Viktor’s face. His friend was watching the happy couple at the centre of the engagement party, with an expression that made him look a bit like a thoughtful, dreaming bird of prey. It was the beaky nose, Charlie decided, as his vision settled.
“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” the former Bulgarian seeker said, softly. “Have you ever thought of getting married, Charlie?”
It was an idle, throwaway question, although everything tended to sound serious in Viktor’s carefully-modulated English. Nevertheless, through a beery haze Charlie felt panic rise up and settle in his throat so that it was suddenly difficult to swallow. The feeling was a familiar one. It was the same panic he’d felt as a teenager when his friends had talked about the people they fancied. It was the same panic he felt every time he opened one of his mother’s letters, knowing that inside there would be some enquiry about when he was going to settle down or bring someone to meet the family. These days he always had to leave it a while before he replied.
He found it just as difficult to reply out loud now. “Nah,” he answered after a too-long silence. “Mum’s got enough weddings to plan over the next couple of years.” Charlie took another long swig of his drink and then, to his own surprise, found himself elaborating. “An’ it’s just… it’s just never been something I could ever imagine for myself.”
Viktor gave a curious sort of hum and leant forward, resting his chin in his hands. “Never?”
“Never,” Charlie repeated, uttering the word with painstaking deliberation. He didn’t think he was at the slurring stage yet but it was hard to be sure. “I dunno… I’m happy with my dragons and my friends. I’ve never felt like anything was missing.”
“So, there is no-one you’re interested in dating?”
“Why? You offering, mate?” Charlie raised an eyebrow and winked, before collapsing into a bout of raucous, helpless laughter. Maybe it was slightly hysterical too. Despite the mirth he could still feel the panic there, somewhere in the region of his Adam’s apple.
Viktor shook his head and reached across to punch him on the arm. “Seriously. I love dragons and my friends too, but I would also like to have a wife and children someday.”
“Okay, seriously?” Charlie sat up straighter, the effort making his head spin slightly. Half of his beer had now gone. When had that happened? He’d hardly noticed drinking it. “No, there’s no-one. Never has been. You know at school when there’d be all this fuss over who was dating who and… no, wait, maybe Durmstrang teenagers were different?”
“No, no, it was just the same.”
“Right. So, yeah, I never got what the big deal was. Still don’t. And before you ask it’s not that I’m into guys either. I just… prefer dragons.”
“I am quite sure that’s illegal.”
“Oh, fuck off! You know what I mean. Look, I get that it’s weird to not want… all this.” Charlie’s glance strayed for a moment over to the groom-to-be, a colleague of his who looked deliriously happy. “And maybe that means that I’m - I don’t know - broken somehow. But I can’t change it. It’s how I am.”
He let out a long breath of a sigh; brought his attention back to Viktor’s inscrutable face. “A longer answer than you were probably expecting, huh?”
Viktor didn’t reply and Charlie drained the remainder of his glass in one gulp, gripping it unnecessarily tight. He hadn’t planned on saying any of this. It wasn’t like explaining it to Bill, who always understood everything, or to Tonks, who took the quirks and differences of others in her stride with tough love and wholehearted acceptance. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. Whether he was nervous or only plain hot he wasn’t sure. The room was rather crowded.
Abruptly, he stood up. The legs of his chair scraped loudly across the flagstone floor, drawing a few mildly curious glances from across the room. “Another?” he asked, his eyes flicking away again - this time in the direction of the bar. Viktor nodded, his dark eyes enigmatic. Miraculously he didn’t appear anything other than stone-cold sober.
Charlie turned towards the bar but he’d only taken a few paces before an embarrassed-sounding cough made him look over his shoulder.
“I cannot say I understand,” Viktor began, his English sounding even more formal than usual. “But Charlie, you are not broken. You are different to most people, maybe, but that is not a bad thing.”
The tightness in Charlie’s throat loosened. He smiled. He couldn’t not smile. “Thanks, mate. Don’t think flattery gets you out of paying for the next round though.”
Viktor grinned back, a quick flash of teeth that was gone almost as soon as it appeared. “It never crossed my mind.”