Existing in Radiance

Chapter Nineteen| The Burrow, December 1994

“You’re wrong there Hazel,” Molly shook her head, unable to fight the sorrow she felt for her friend “Hoping is everything, otherwise we would have no other way to go on.”

“I’ve decided to give up on hope,” standing, Hazel peeked outside “It’s getting late, I should really go home to the twins. Winston is incapable of making supper.”

“Stay a while longer love, the twins and Winston will be fine. Charlie will be coming by!”

Just then the door was thrown open, revealing the freckled of Charlie Weasley. “Hello Mum!”

“Charlie, look who’s here!” Molly jumped up to hug her son, squishing him to her bosom and beaming “Sit for a moment with Hazel before she leaves while I get the scissors.”

Groaning, Charlie fell into the seat beside Hazel “Mum, I’m not cutting my hair.”

Hazel chuckled and reached over to give Charlie a hug “How are your dragons Charlie?”

“They’re good – you have to come up some time Hazel, honest. Stop putting it of and have a vacation!”

“I have duties that lay here Charlie,” she reminded him softly “Including the twins’ education.”

He grinned “Bring them on a field trip.”

Standing, Hazel placed a kiss to the top of his head “I’ll think about it, but I’m not making any promises.”

“Let me walk you home?”

Hazel smiled and accepted his arm “Thank you, Charlie.”

Bowing, he let her walk out the door first “Ladies first.”

            In the dieing light Charlie was able to see Sonia in her mother. They had the same curved lips, small ears and wiry frame; not very curvy, but more flat chested and with less of those usual crevices and hips. Sonia had the same kind of curls as hazel, identical dark eyes and pale skin – and the anger. They were both so angry, except Hazel bottled it up and Sonia took it out on the wrong person.

“How’re the twins?” he asked.

Hazel sighed “Andrew is perfect, as usual, and Sonia…I don’t know what to do about Sonia.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“She can barely stand to be in the same room as me, and we can’t seem to talk without her accusing me of keeping them hostage, that I’m as bad as my father – that I’m a terrible mother.”

“She can’t mean it.” Charlie felt anger towards the ignorant girl; sometimes it was easy to forget Sonia was only fourteen. “She’s just…restless.”

“She’s always been restless,” stopping to pick some winter berries, Hazel tried to hide her disappointment – not in Sonia, but in herself “I don’t blame her though, for any of it. For being this way, for hating me. I deserve this, and they deserve a better life.”

Charlie shook his head “Maybe they deserve a life not lived in the shadow of your fear, but you don’t deserve Sonia’s treatment. It’s not fair.”

They reached Hester House, and Hazel gave him a hug goodbye “I had to learn at a very young age that life was fair, Charlie. I didn’t want that for my children.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” He thought of Sonia, of the fake cigarette and how soft her skin was. Then he remembered the eight year gap between them.

Smiling sadly, Hazel thought back to days she had thought the very same “I’m afraid it does Charlie…that’s just how my life is, and I’m afraid it’s very unlikely that it will ever change.”

A/N: Oh boo hoo. Poor Hazel. Poor Sonia and Andrew. Poor everybody. I forgot for a second how sad this flippen book is. Oh well.

Question: Do you think Hazel knows that she never really loved Joseph, and is what she says true? Will her life ever change? And Charlie! What is going on with Charlie?

Rose<3