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Sometimes family is six siblings, two parents, a rat, an owl, a ghoul, and garden gnomes. (The gnomes absolutely count).
Sometimes family is one older brother, four younger brothers, a baby sister, a rat, an owl, a ghoul, garden gnomes, a mum, and a dad. (If the garden gnomes count then surely the ghoul counts too).
On holidays, family is one older brother, two young brothers, one set of younger twins (he doesn’t get why everyone treats them like they are interchangeable), one baby sister, his parents, two dead uncles, and one very alive great-aunt. Luckily, this definition only happens every other Christmas.
Family is a funny word. The old, falling apart tome in the school library, the one that has mice that the librarian doesn’t know about living in the back corner where the lamps flicker, says that family is defined as thus: a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head. (It defines it as a lot of other things too, but this is currently the one that matters).
Charlie and Tonks wrestle for the right to be the head. Charlie wins.
“You’re not the boss of me!” Tonks cries, filled with life and laughing.
“Go to bed, young lady,” Charlie makes his voice as deep as it can go, which still isn’t very deep and tries to look stern.
Tonks morphs, her face thinning in some spots and thickening in others. “There are no young ladies here!”
They roar with laughter, Tonk’s fluttering back into her own body, and get told to move along from the hall.
When they are old enough to play on teams, they let their Quidditch games decide the head.
Sometimes family is six siblings, two parents, a rat, an owl, a ghoul, garden gnomes, and tense silence.
“I think it looks nice,” Ginny offers, still so young. Her hair is long and shiny under the early morning sun. Charlie’s looks like that when it’s allowed to grow.
The short hairs on the back of his neck prickle. “Thanks, Gin.”
They go find the gnomes together.
Sometimes family is a son on one side, a mother on the other, and six siblings, one father, and the neighbour girl in no man’s land. (The neighbour girl doesn’t seem to realize she’s standing in a canyon. Or maybe she’s always standing in a canyon).
“I don’t see why you won’t settle down nearby. Or if you want to go, go! Go somewhere with floo access. Go somewhere safe! Somewhere you could meet a nice girl and have a family when it’s that time.”
Charlie grimaces and hides the way his skin roils with an expectation he knows he’s never going to meet. His hair is short. Surely that is enough.
Charlie graduates with both his families around him. For an instant, there is contentment and peace. A sense of belonging. (It doesn’t hurt that Tonks’s hair matches his currently).
“Fred!” Smoke fills the air, Ginny is laughing a big belly laugh that she still hasn’t grown into.
“There’s a new job opening at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures,” his mother is eyeing his long hair, the earring he isn’t bothering to hide, all the while beaming. He’s graduating with 6 NEWTs. Surely that is enough.
“I can’t go back on my word, I leave next week,” Charlie says, the words don’t sound like words anymore, they feel like ash on his tongue.
Not real ash. Not yet.
His dad distracts his mum. The air continues to fill with smoke. His big brother has a hand on his shoulder. The sense of belonging doesn’t leave.
Sometimes family is a boy (a man, my baby boy is all grown up, his mother’s voice whispers) and his rucksack. (And the three packed sandwiches, four letters, one drawing, a new earring, and a mysteriously wrapped present he’s not supposed to open until he’s in an enclosed space but don’t set it down too hard nightmare of a graduation gift that he’s spelling a bubble around first before opening). Charlie takes a deep breath, smelling dragon’s dung and burnt, dry grass and mountain wind. A tense muscle in between his shoulder blades relaxes when the ground shakes with a dragon’s roar.
Sometimes family is three burly men (Charlie is catching up, filling out his seeker’s build), two scary women, six dragons dark against the night sky, one goat that was supposed to be eaten six moons ago, and the endless solitude of the reserve. (The reserve is aware, there is wild magic here, and Charlie can feel it in his bones. The reserve makes or breaks a day. Respect it.)
Charlie has never, ever, ever wanted kids but something in him breaks and cracks open along with the hatchlings breaking free of their eggs. This is what life is. Watching life come into the world and leave. Watching glimmering shimmering beasts taming the wind on gigantic, shining wings and breathing flames into being.
Sometimes family is one sibling in Egypt, five siblings at school, and two parents and a sister stand at the edge of bitter winter’s plain staring in awe. Ginny flinches into Charlie as the roars shake the ground. He lifts his sister onto his shoulders and tells his family about each of the dragons.
“You raised them?” Ginny whispers to the wind.
“Not all of them,” Charlie points to shimmering green and spikes. “Just those ones.”
His mum doesn’t ask when he’s coming home. She’s never going to get it but sitting in his cabin with his parents and his sister, eating his mother’s cooking while listening to dragons banter, it is enough.
His father sits down with a glass of whiskey he usually never drinks. “Tell me about them.”
Charlie talks and talks, explains egg care and feeding schedules. He’s been sipping whiskey too so the warmth curling in his gut doesn’t register until he looks up at his father and sees what can only be pride.
He is enough. This is enough. It’s all he’s ever wanted.