fraternity
by Pares
Charlie was napping in the inflatable raft his dad had lashed to two trees and rigged up as a hammock. The summer air was thick with heat, but it was comfortable enough in the shade. As there was no breeze, Charlie had charmed the raft to rock gently, and dozed, dreaming of the baking heat of dragon-breath and the rhythmic beat of leathery wings.
He roused when he heard voices and blinked awake to find his three youngest brothers peering at him curiously.
"That's a ruddy great scar you've got there," said Ron admiringly, pointing at the fresh, shiny place on his forearm.
George slapped him in the back of the head. When Ron said something spectacularly foul, Fred shook a finger at him with his nose squinched up like Percy's and George slapped him in the back of the head a second time.
Ron suffered the second blow with more patience, merely rubbing his hair and frowning at Charlie.
"You could say something," he groused.
"It's your job to suffer. And mine is to recline in glory."
"And it falls to us to disillusion you," sighed George.
Fred tipped Charlie out of the canoe and he and George scrambled into it, pointed their wands to loose its moorings and then sailed the raft away, still suspended three feet off the ground. Fred blew them extravagant kisses and George conjured flowered leis to toss at them.
"They're something, those two," said Ron, and Charlie could hear that he was just a bit wistful. For a moment, Charlie wondered what it must be like not to have a brother-- the way he'd had Bill, the way Fred and George had each other. Might Percy and Ron have been closer had the twins been next eldest after him?
"True enough. What do you say to a game of chess, then?"END
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