2 – The Darkness
Charlie awoke, panting and sweating in the middle of the night. It used to be common for him to have night terrors in the years following his father’s death, but this was his first in over two months. The dreams always recalled the events of that fateful day, as Charlie witnessed the tragedy first-hand:
His father, David Foster, had been assigned to go into Diagon Alley to find broomstick carver, John Giddeon. David was having problems with his students’ new “Nimbus Speedsnitch’s” as they were too hard to control on the Quidditch field. A number of complaints had come in, and Headmaster Brivaria Windlesseg asked if Charlie’s father could take time off his coaching schedule to travel in town to fix the new kink in the brooms. David surprised eight-year old Charlie by bringing him along for the trip since Charlie had never left their countryside home unless to walk in to Hogsmeade for a day trip.
David took his son to the fireplace, enlarged its mouth, and stepped in with a handful of Floo Powder. He told his son to say “Diagon Alley” then throw the powder at the logs. David disappeared in a cloud of smoke and Charlie stepped in making sure he said everything exactly right. When he said the place and threw the powder, he teleported to the Alley square outside Gringott’s Wizarding Bank. Charlie’s high hopes then quickly turned into horrifying nightmares when he realized the place was abandoned. His father already had his wand out and began to walk forward. Charlie hid behind his fathers back as they winded their way down the streets, no sign of life anywhere to be seen. As they tiptoed down a darker alley, Charlie had noticed the lights flickering and shutting off.
Suddenly a spell was cast and his father darted forward. “HIDE!” he yelled back at Charlie. Panicking, Charlie jumped behind a wooden barrel and poked his head out the side to see what was happening. In the distance he could make out flashes of light coming from down the alleyway. A blue bolt here, a few green ones there, until lastly a bright right bolt blasted out of someone’s wand with a loud crack and everything else went silent. Several footsteps grew louder and Charlie ducked back down out of sight as three men dressed in dark green clocks walked by, whispering something. Charlie waited until the men had turned the corner down another road before braving whatever waited in the dark. Where was his father? He began to pant, fearing the worst and darted down the alley. But he can never find anything. The alleyway just continues to grow darker and darker, narrower with every step. Charlie yells for his father but the world becomes mute and he gets lost in the darkness.
That was how they always ended. The only escape was either heading further into the darkness or back into the light, back into the alley where the clocked figures reside. But Charlie can never bring himself to decide and wakes up from the terrifying recollection unable to fall back asleep. He hopped out of bed and went into the living room. The crackling of the logs burning on the fire soothed him as he rested on the dusty couch, attempting think of happy thoughts. That’s what his mother had always told him to do after a nightmare. But he couldn’t take his mind off of his very eventful life ever since that night, and he began to reminisce.
Arlene Foster had not taken the murder well. When she answered the door and found Charlie on the front porch of the old house standing in front of two Aurors, she knew something had happened. The officers explained to his mother that there had been several attacks around the wizarding world in which three cloaked men had rampaged the streets killing anyone that decided to come into contact with them. David had just happened to be in Diagon Alley at the wrong place and time. The Aurours had found Charlie curled up near David’s body rocking back and forth crying. They shared their condolences with Arlene telling her they will find and punish the murderers for all their crimes. They left house to continue their investigation and Charlie’s mom fell into a deep and long mourning phase. It took weeks for her to even step outside of the house. Charlie had personally taken on the role to feed himself, teach himself, and go out for weekly grocery pick-ups. Arlene was never the happy-go-lucky housewife ever again.
When two Ministry of Magic officers came to their front door a few months later, the only news they brought was not good. Due to neither of them having a job, they had no income and in turn had their house repossessed. Arlene quickly found a job in Hogsmeade working as a maid at the Wendelling Inn. Charlie offered to mop the floors of the Three Broomsticks, a little sweets and coffee shop down the main road and got a little extra money so they could afford to stay in a bedroom at the Inn. Charlie quickly became friends with all the staff, including Alex and Granny, a server and the head barista. Alex Huffington was Granny’s granddaughter and the two lived in a little home above the shop. Only two years apart, Charlie and Alex became close friends and did everything together. The two of them both had the same, dark brown colored hair, hers braided down the back, and Charlie’s short and messy. A year later Alex was accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Since her only real close friend was with someone two years younger, Alex asked Granny if she could live in the dorms at school so she could make more friends her own age. Realizing she would need more workers, Granny asked Charlie if his mother would become a server at the shop. She offered to Arlene, Alex’s old bedroom and a split rent, so Charlie’s mother jumped at the chance. Arlene and Granny became the best of friends while Charlie and Alex did the opposite. Alex came home every now and then on a school trip, but her visits with Charlie had disintegrated immensely over time until she avoided him when her new friends found him to be a momma’s boy.
When Charlie turned ten in the following summer, Granny passed away in her sleep. In the months following her death, the Three Broomsticks was handed over to Arlene who became head barista, with Charlie and a few Hogwarts students working as servers. Granny left in her will, the store-top home to Arlene and Charlie.
Charlie began to drift off on the couch and decided he was ready to return to his bed and sleep until tomorrow. Just another day at Hogwarts he would have to try and get through without getting sent back to the Headmaster. Brivaria wasn’t the kindest headmaster to grace the castle. Not at all.
