Chapter Text
“Harry! I’m glad you could make it!” Molly smiled as she enveloped him into a hearty hug.
“Of course, thank you for inviting me, Molly,” Harry smiled at her and stepped into the homey living room of the burrow, shedding his cloak in the process. He had a standing invitation to the Weasleys family dinners, and he tried to join them at least every two months. Last week Arthur had Floo-called him to remind him that they would like to see him again soon as it had been several weeks since he had been over.
The couches and armchairs were occupied by several redheads already. Bill and Fleur were sitting on a loveseat near the fireplace; Arthur was standing to the side talking animatedly with Hermione, holding a … Harry strained his eyes trying to identify the object. Was that a hand crank eggbeater? Shaking his head, he tried to walk around the sofa to see who was sitting on it but was ambushed by a blond menace who crashed into his legs with force.
“Uncle Harry! Uncle Harry!” Victoire cheered, reaching up with her small arms.
“Hello, my little princess,” Harry greeted the girl, picking her up and twirling her around. Her bell-like giggles filled the whole room, the adults smiling as they watched them.
--
All the Weasley children called him Uncle Harry even though he was not – and would probably never be – a real uncle to them. He had tried several times to correct Molly when he had overheard her telling her grandchildren about their Uncle Harry; but the Weasley matriarch had simply smiled at him and told him in no uncertain terms that she had already lost one son and did not want to lose another simply because of semantics.
Harry hadn’t been able to hold back his tears then. After his breakup with Ginny, he had feared to lose more than only a girlfriend. Every time he visited the Burrow something inside him had been alert, waiting for the inevitable question of why he was even there, for someone to tell him that he didn’t belong to the family after all. For years he had been on edge, dreading the loss that seemed only a matter of time.
It had been one of the reasons why he had opted to spend his apprenticeship travelling around Europe, learning the craft from masters all over the continent. After the war he had tried to find his place in this new world, had tried to find his way. It hadn’t been easy. His reputation had preceded him wherever he went. People looked to him for guidance, for assistance.
After his role in the war, after the last stand, after the story of his sacrifice had reached the population at large, his already burdened life in the public eye had only become worse. And with the hero worship came the expectations. The expectations for him to keep on saving them, for him to lead them, for him to make things right.
Nobody seemed to see that he was a mere child of 18 years. They didn’t see the young man who hadn’t even finished school and who knew just as little about life and what to do with it as his peers. No, they only saw their saviour, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Conquered.
So, Harry had decided to leave England and hoped to find out not only what he wanted to do for the next few years but what he wanted to do with his life. That he didn’t have a girlfriend to complicate matters was a bonus at the time.
His wanderings had taken him to Italy, and it was there, in the beautiful cobblestone streets of a small village in the mountains, that he had first come in contact with woodworking.
He had always thought it one of his weaknesses that he wasn’t good at sitting still and working through a problem patiently. He had berated himself often for how a little more foresight might have changed the outcome of the war, but of course that had not been fruitful. It had taken him some time to appreciate it as one of his strengths.
“Ahh, piccolo, but why sit still when you can let your body and mind work together?” Emilio, his first teacher, had asked him one day and had promptly taken him under his wing. He had spent a wonderful summer in the small village, Emilio teaching him all he knew about wood, manual labour, and the art of sculpture carving.
After that he had resumed his travels, this time with a goal in mind: he wanted to learn all he could about the delicate art of woodworking.
--
“Uncle, me, me, meeee!” Dominique whined as he spun her older sister around. Harry chuckled, picking her up, too and walking over to the sofa with his charges.
“Don’t harass your uncle!” Bill chided, smiling, “he hasn’t even had time to greet anybody.”
The oldest Weasley brother met Harry halfway through the room, giving him a hug and relieving him of his oldest daughter.
“Good to see, you!” he said. Harry could only return the sentiment. It was good to see them all again, it had been too long.
Harry hugged Arthur and Hermione before stepping up to the loveseat. Fleur looked striking, a tiny baby in her arms, the recent addition to the Weasley family. She beamed at him as he met his nephew for the first time.
“And this has to be little Louis. He is beautiful!” he praised the tiny human, who slept calmly in his mother’s arms despite the commotion his older sisters were making.
“He is!” a voice bellowed from behind him just as a strong hand hit Harry on his back, “A perfect, little Weasley boy! Look at the red hair.”
Ron had snuck up on him and slung an arm over his shoulders, Fleur beamed, pressing a gentle kiss onto the small head.
“Good to see you, mate! It has been too long, you should really come over more often,” Ron cheered; Harry grinned and hugged his best friend. It was good to be back.
“Sorry, had to set up the new shop and then I made a quick stop in Italy to visit Emilio and you know how it goes,” he tried to explain himself.
“Yeah, yeah, I know… bunch of excuses, the lot of you,” Ron said, “Ginny on tour with the Harpies, Charlie in Romania, Bill and Fleur off to France, George is so busy with his shop, he could very well live on the other end of the world. Oh! And have you heard? Hannah and Neville are travelling South America. I thought when you came back to England that we would see you more often again?”
Yes, Harry knew what Ron had hoped. At first, he had hoped that Harry would marry Ginny, then he had hoped they would join the Aurors together, then he had hoped they would at least live together. Harry had disappointed him time and time again. He was glad his best friend couldn’t hold a grudge for too long, but he would have to make time to see him more often.
“Sorry mate, I’ll try to be better, ok?” And Harry meant it, he would try at least.
Harry set Dominique down, who was immediately off to join her older sister in whatever shenanigans she was up to. Turning around he wanted to take a seat on the nearest sofa only to stop short as soon as he laid eyes on it.
“What the hell?”
Charlie Weasley grinned up at him. Or at least he thought it was Charlie. The whole left half of the man’s body seemed to be bandaged or layered with charms and balms.
“Hello, Uncle Harry,” the man waved, and Harry hoped that the heat that rose to his face was not too visible.
“Hi….” Harry croaked, his capacity to form coherent sentences leaving him as his heart picked up its pace and began hammering inside his chest. V ery eloquent Harry, you will definitely not give yourself away.
Clearing his throat, he tried to play it cool. Don’t let the other man notice that anything was amiss. This was just one of Ron’s brothers, as simple as that, nothing special. Act normal, smile, don’t let them notice. It didn’t matter that his stupid little heart had decided that this man was far from ‘just a normal man’ for him.
“What happened? Aren’t you supposed to be transferring dragons from China or something?” Harry asked, shaking his head to get over the shock of seeing the man today, he had not expected him.
“Yeah, well. It seems not everybody is as good at riding Hungarian Horntails as a certain 14-year-old,” Charlie answered, teasing.
Harry blushed even more, unsure what to say to that. His adventures as a teenager were often the subject of friendly teasing between him and the Weasley brothers, not least because they all knew how bad he was at taking a compliment and how uncomfortable it made him to be reminded of his ‘achievements’. But the way Charlie had said it, the way he had winked at him and then smiled this most beautiful and endearing smile ... Harry couldn’t ...
“At least he had the Potter luck to help him!” Ron piped in, coming to his rescue, and Harry had never been so glad that his best friend had ‘the emotional range of a teaspoon’ and didn’t comment on the obvious discomfort he was in.
“That he did. Tell me, is there a place I can get some of it? It seems I am in need of a lucky charm.”
Harry laughed, but it was strained. How should he survive a whole evening of this?
--
Before Harry had been to Italy and met Emilio and found his guidance and the path he wanted to walk, he had visited Charlie in Romania. The dragon reservation had sounded like a good starting point, a place far away from England, with manual labour, culture, and magic he didn’t know and, nonetheless, he would still have somebody to turn to.
Charlie and his co-workers had invited him years ago, after the Triwizard Tournament, to visit them at the reservation and see the dragons and their work. Now he had taken them up on that offer.
The weeks spent at the reservation would forever be some of the best of Harry’s life. He had enjoyed the hard manual labour needed to care for the majestic beasts. It gave him time to think and, at the same time, to turn off his own mind and simply be.
Charlie and his team had welcomed him with open arms and taken him in like he was already one of their own. Harry understood quickly that the friendship between them was not only real and deep but also vital for their work. You had to trust your colleagues intimately if your life depended on them day after day.
All in all, it had been a wonderful experience and Harry had toyed with the idea of staying and becoming a dragon tamer himself.
But of course, things couldn’t be so easy for him. Just as he had settled into a routine and had, for the first time in his life, nothing more to think of than what the next day would bring and what chores he would have to finish by when, his mind and heart had betrayed him.
Until this point, he had not had the time and mental capacity to think about things like love and attraction; it had been natural that Ginny and he would end up together. He liked her, he loved her whole family, why not? But it hadn’t been that easy and they had broken up.
And now? Now he was surrounded by very fit and attractive people all day long. He had expected to be attracted to one of the witches, of course he had. They were everything he liked – well built, brave, strong, fierce – they were everything he had liked about Ginny.
What he hadn’t expected though was to be attracted to the wizards around him too. Or maybe, just maybe, even more than to the witches? Harry was confused and way out of his depth.
And worst of all his eyes lingered on one particular wizard time and time again: watching how he moved, how the muscles on his arms strained when he lifted a heavy sack of meat or how he shook his hair out of his eyes and how strong his legs looked in the form-fitting dragon-hide trousers.
No, Harry couldn’t deny that he was attracted to men. But did it have to be another Weasley?
After this revelation, Harry fled quite abruptly, leaving the dragons and his newfound friends behind, and ended up in Italy.
--
Harry was still smiling when he unlocked the door to his shop later that night; he threw his keys down into the bowl behind the counter and lit the lights with a wave of his hands.
The evening had turned out to be quite pleasant. Charlie’s injury and of course Ron and Hermione’s pregnancy announcement were the main topic of the evening and Harry managed to take a back seat easily.
He threw his cloak over the counter and made his way through to the small kitchen in the back of the shop, putting the kettle to a boil before he went to his workshop which was located at the back of the house.
The house in the middle of a muggle shopping area was his pride and joy. The small shop in the front had a big window front overlooking the street outside. It was plenty of room to show off a few pieces and sunlight streamed into the room. Behind the small counter a single door led to a small hallway.
Originally the hallway had been small and cramped but Harry had expanded it magically, adding a small kitchen area and suite as well as a fireplace to receive visitors. Three doors were located to the right, one leading to a small bathroom, one to the workshop and one hiding the stairs that led up into his small flat.
Harry loved the little realm he had built for himself. His workshop was lined with huge floor-to-ceiling windows. A backdoor led to a small courtyard in which he not only stored his wood and supplies but where he loved to work outside, letting the rays of sunshine warm his skin and the breeze of the autumn wind ruffle through his hair.
He walked through the terrace door, the crisp night air in his face a herald of the pending winter months. It was a nice, clear night and all the positive emotions and love had his hands itching with need to work, to create. He knew exactly what he would make tonight, how he would store away the energy and craft what he had wanted to finish weeks ago.
Whistling, he set to work.
~-~-~-~
It was two days later, and Harry was cleaning his workshop, utilising the quietness of a grey autumn Sunday to do the small things he usually didn’t find time during a busy week, when a knock sounded on his entrance door. Harry ignored it; his shop was closed on Sundays, a big sign in his shop window stating as much.
The knock sounded again, and Harry sighed. Was it that hard to read a ‘closed’ sign? He cleaned his hands on the apron he wore and made his way through the sitting room into the shop. Pulling out his wand, he lifted the charm that gave the room the appearance of being empty. He had learned it from a shopkeeper in Greece who didn’t have a workshop but hated it when tourists would knock on his windows on his days off because they could see him through the display windows.
The person in front of his shop was wearing a heavy cloak, the hood pulled over their face to ward off the unpleasant drizzling rain the cold wind whipped about today. Harry unlocked the door and pulled it open just wide enough to stick out his head.
“We are closed today,” he explained, trying to get a glimpse under the hood. His wand was still in his hand, ready to throw up a shield if need be. He wasn’t an idiot after all.
“Oh, that’s sad, and here I was hoping to gain refuge for the day,” a familiar voice said before he was met with warm brown eyes.
“Charlie!” Harry exclaimed and immediately stepped aside, gesturing for the man to step inside. “Sorry, I didn’t expect company today. What are you doing here?”
Charlie hobbled through the door, awkwardly leaning onto a crutch to keep as much weight off his left leg as possible. Pushing back the heavy hood of his cloak he shook his head, trying to keep the wet strands plastered to his face out of his eyes. Harry watched, fascinated.
“Sorry for dropping in like this,” Charlie said, “but you know Mom… I had to escape for a while. You know I love her, but wow … How did you do it?”
Harry chuckled, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
He helped the other man out of the wet cloak and set it to dry on a coat rack near the door, then he turned and led the man through to his little kitchen.
“Come on through, I was about to have lunch anyways. Care to join me?” Gesturing towards an armchair Harry busied himself with putting the kettle to a boil.
“No, Harry, I am serious. How do you do it?” Charlie sat down slowly, shifting a little bit and summoning a stool to prop his injured leg up onto.
“Why do you ask me? She is your mother; shouldn’t you know the secret recipe of keeping her happy?”
“Oooh, she is happy; in fact, that is the problem. With all of us out of the house she is so glad to finally have someone to mother again…”
Harry couldn’t help but laugh at Charlie’s pained expression. He brewed a pot of tea and fetched the leftovers from last night, heating them up with a simple wave of his hand before putting them onto two plates
“She loves you,” he said, floating the meal over to the coffee table and settling into the other armchair.
“Yes, yes, of course she does. She doesn’t have to pretend I’m five years old though,” Charlie grumbled lovingly, adding a splash of milk to his tea.
“So, you are only here to avoid the overbearing love of your mother, then?” Harry tried to keep his voice calm. He couldn’t let Charlie see the small hope in him that the man had come over to see him, too.
“No. I also wanted to see for myself how you are doing, all grown up, back in England, business-owner, shopkeeper, famous woodworker Potter.” Harry wasn’t quite sure if the darker tone accompanying the teasing quality to Charlie’s statements was only a part of his imagination, a small part of him hoped not.
They talked about Harry’s travels, his business, how he came to buy the shop and decided he wanted to spend his life creating.
“I would give you the grand tour, but I fear it will have to wait until your leg is better. But the workshop is down here, if you want to see it,” Harry offered, standing up and spelling their plates away.
“I’d love to,” Charlie said, picking himself up out of the chair and hobbling over to him, “but I don’t want to intrude; it is your day off after all.”
Harry knew that even if he had had anything planned for today, he would have overthrown all his plans to keep Charlie here longer. “I’m self-employed, there are no days off for me.”
They walked into the workshop, Harry using the slight head start he had to clear away the worst mess. He felt like a child again, trying to hide evidence of his misdeeds which was even more embarrassing now that Charlie was here to witness them.
“Business’s good I gather?” Charlie asked, looking around, wandering over to the shelf holding Harry’s latest wood carvings.
“It is. Almost too good actually, I’m still looking for someone to help out with sales during business hours to give me more time to actually finish some orders. It seems like being ‘Harry Potter’ helps a lot when you start a business, a lot of people are placing their Christmas orders at the moment,” Harry explained, setting to clear his workbench; he needed to do something to occupy his hands to keep the nervousness away.
Harry didn’t receive an answer, turning around he was startled at the pensive expression on the other man’s face.
“I could help out, if you want me to,” Charlie said tentatively, as if he was afraid to overstep.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to offer, you should rest and get better, not work,” Harry responded, declining the offer immediately. He was taken aback by the heart wrenching flicker of sadness on the other man’s face, his easy grin washed away in an instant.
“I mean, of course I would be thrilled to get some help,” he backpedalled, “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to offer. I can manage on my own.”
Charlie laughed, “You should have seen your face! Sorry, but it was too adorable.”
Harry felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “You are evil!”
“And you are blushing.”
“I am not!”
“You tell yourself that, rosy boy,” Charlie chuckled, “but back to business, I’d owe you big time if you provided me with an opportunity to get out of the house while I’m here.”
“Why are you asking me and not George?” Harry asked, actually curious.
“Do you want me to ask him instead?”
“No, that is not what I was saying! Stop twisting my every word!”
Charlie laughed again; Harry had to resist the urge to stick out his tongue.
“I stick with it, you are evil!” he retorted instead, “I was just curious, why not ask your brother but instead a friend of the family?”
“You are far more than a simple friend of the family,” Charlie winked at him. “But to answer your question: a wise man told me I should rest and regain my strength and I don’t think a crying baby would be helpful with that.”
Harry’s heart skipped a beat at the implication of Charlie’s words, but he tried to reign in his stupid emotions. The other man was just teasing, teasing like one would a brother, as Charlie would see Harry, best friend of his youngest brother and all.
Harry tried to keep his voice level as he replied, to not give his emotions away and make everything awkward. “A wise man, eh? Well, if you really want to, I’d be honoured if you would come by and help out in the front.”
Charlie beamed.