Spiritus aduro
Part XVI

Ria stirred in her sleep, and snuggled closer to her companion, not caring about their identity in her unconscious state. If she had been fully cognisant of her actions, the chances of such an action occurring were next to nil. But her surroundings were cold, and somewhere, a subconscious part of her relished in the comfort of an embrace. It had been a long time since she had been held so intimately, and in truth, she had missed the security that such a display of affection bred. Muttering a little, she pressed cold feet against her companion's thighs, and allowed the warmth to seep into her extremities.

When she awoke, several hours later, Ria was at a loss as to how she had come to find herself in Charlie's arms. Still slightly dopey from the night, she did not immediately remove herself from them, but rather savoured his very solid presence beside her. Then reality caught up with her, and she moved away as fast as was possible. Charlie was a wonderful friend, and Ria could easily accept that he was desirable as a member of the opposite sex, but she was not yet willing to let go of the past. Trust and intimacy went hand in hand, and whilst Ria could trust Charlie as a friend, she was unable to trust anyone as more than that. To allow Charlie past her carefully constructed façade meant allowing him to breach her defences, and behind the mask of ease and confidence, Ria was still hurting. She looked towards the bed wistfully, remembering a time when such an embrace would not have scared her. But such thoughts did her no good, and so, with a resigned shrug, she left her companion to sleep, and filled the kettle with water. A cup of tea would warm her just as effectively as Charlie could, even if a cup of tea did not offer the same level of protection from the wear and tear of every day life.

The time that they had spent in Siberia had seemed to fly by and yet to have lasted for an eternity. It seemed like only yesterday that she and Charlie had been summoned to Jon's office, but Ria envisaged that it would not be much longer before they packed their bags and returned to the Reserve. She viewed their departure with mixed feelings; she longed to return home, but she was not looking forward to the awkwardness that her return would inevitably provoke. The meeting with Jon, and her subsequent actions still played on her mind...

They had travelled through Bulgaria to the Ukraine, and were now sitting at Customs, waiting for a Portkey to take them to Siberia. For the first time since their departure, they had the opportunity to talk. It was only a matter of time before Charlie brought up the inevitable topic of Ria's change of heart. She doubted that she would be able to explain her motives to him, but she knew him too well to hope that he wouldn't ask. Sure enough, they had been sitting in the dingy lounge for all of five minutes when Charlie began to speak.

"You know, I still don't understand what changed your mind."

"I don't expect you would," she told him, stalling.

"Try me," was Charlie's simple response.

"My father," Ria replied, knowing that he wouldn't be fobbed off with that, either.

"What about him?" Charlie looked confused. Ria would warrant that whatever answers he had contemplated, paternal intervention did not feature.

"I talked to Daddy," she explained.

"What's his secret?" Charlie joked, earning himself a glare. Her father was one of the few people that Ria would defer to, regardless of her temper. He had brought his family up to respect their elders, and he still commanded the authority that he had wielded so effectively when she was a small girl.

"He's my father, Charlie. Your mother would probably be able to get you to do your washing if she wanted to, and that's well nigh on impossible."

"Fair point," Charlie admitted, and he seemed to be prepared to leave it there. Ria, however, began to feel guilty. He had undoubtedly returned to the flat with the idea of talking her into accepting Jon's strictures, and had instead found her packing her suitcase. If she didn't explain her change of heart fully now he would only weasel it out of her at a later date.

"Dad was always in charge of discipline in our house," she began. "I'm not saying that Mums was a pushover; she most definitely was not, but if my father told you to do something you did it. He wasn't at home very often when we were little – he was an Auror – so we grew up holding him up on a pedestal. When we did see him, we wanted him to be proud of us. So, if Mums told us off for something, of course we'd feel guilty, but it wasn't a big deal. If Daddy was involved, then we would be heartbroken. He never raised his voice, and he never used any kind of corporal punishment. He was disappointed with us, and that was harder to deal with than any harsh words or actions.

I've always been close to Daddy; I suppose I'm a Daddy's girl to a greater extent than any of the others. Lucy and Becca tended to turn to each other for advice, and Gemma is and has always been Mums' little girl. But Daddy always made the effort with me, perhaps because he was worried about how I'd cope with being adopted. Anyway, when I have problems, Dad is the one I turn to. After talking to Jon, I went home and spoke to him. I ranted and raved, and was generally self-righteous, and he let me get on with it. And then I asked him what he thought.

'You're an adult Ria,' he said to me. 'I can't tell you that you have to do your maths, or that I'll be disappointed if you don't do your handwriting. This is your life, and you have to make your own mistakes. But I brought you up to do what was right. Remember that.' That was all he said, but that was all it took. The right thing was to do as Jon wanted. I still don't agree with his methods, but I accept that I have to do this."

Charlie didn't say anything then, he just looked at her with a respect she hadn't noticed before. She was so used to perceiving her friend as the frivolous one that she tended to forget that Charlie had a serious side. Nevertheless, behind his sense of humour there was a steely determination to make the best of life, and he respected those who had a similar mindset. Ria knew that he cared deeply for her, but until then she hadn't fully understood just how deep his regard for her was. She was more than a friend or colleague. She was a kindred spirit.

Six weeks had passed since their arrival in Siberia, and Ria and Charlie were now almost used to the constant gibberish that surrounded them. At least, it sounded like gibberish, although they knew that it must have been some kind of Russian dialect. On top of that, there were Keepers from the other nations involved in the Romanian Reserve, and Ria had once rather aptly stated that they appeared to be living in the Tower of Babel!

The dragon experts had all been assigned to a small hamlet consisting of half a dozen cottages and not much else. Each country had sent two experts, and each team was allotted a ramshackle hut to serve as their base. Ria could not forget her horror when she viewed her Spartan surroundings for the first time. The hut was about twelve square feet, and it was dominated by a single bed. There was a hole in the roof in one corner, where there was a makeshift kitchen area. Washing facilities comprised of a bowl and pitcher. It was like stepping back in time, only without the charm that the old paintings implied. She wondered how people survived living in such squalor. Later she had discovered that the wizarding populace lived in real houses with proper amenities; the huts had been abandoned decades ago when the more modern complex was built.

Sighing, Ria set the kettle to boil and set off with the pitcher to the fresh water trough at the side of the house. She missed her shower, but she had come to terms with the limited hygiene provisions. Having got her quarry, she returned to the hut and watched as Charlie began to stir. Resisting the temptation to pounce on him, she set to pouring hot and cold water into the bowl. Pulling the dilapidated screen around herself, she stripped off and splashed the warm water over her body, enjoying the freshness that it imparted.

"What time is it?" Charlie's sleepy voice interrupted her ablutions.

"About seven, I think," she told him, towelling herself off.

"Too early..." came the mumbled reply. Ria smirked knowingly.

"You know, Charlie, if you will while the night away talking to beautiful women then you deserve to feel like something the cat brought in the next morning. I only hope it was worth it."

"The only beautiful woman I whiled the night away with was you, Miss Rutherford," Charlie said smugly, as she emerged from behind the screen.

"Oh, so Elise and Maria were just figments of my imagination then, were they," she responded tartly. "Face it, Charlie, you are a stud."

"I am not!" he complained, gingerly sitting up in bed. "I can't help it if women throw themselves at me. It's not my fault that the only woman I'm interested in has no interest in doing anything other than sleeping when she's in bed with me."

Ria looked at him sharply, and blushed as her brain processed the implication of his words.

"Do be serious," she chastised him.

"Anyway," Charlie began, in a tone that did not bode well for her, "I'm not the only one with admirers. Alexei seemed pretty taken with you, if I recall..."

"Alexei is three, Charlie," she pointed out, scathingly. "I don't think he admired me in quite the same way as those hussies admire you!"

"Jealous, are we?" Charlie asked, smirking.

"No," Ria responded tartly. "I'd rather spend my evenings with Alexei than listen to you whisper sweet nothings in my ear, but then I'm immune to your charms...must come from living with them."

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Charlie mocked, as he began his own ablutions.

"You go on thinking that if it makes you feel good," Ria told him. "I'm going for a walk." The last thing she heard before leaving the hut was Charlie's mocking taunt.

"Temper temper..."

"You know, your friend is rather good looking," Maria Garibaldi told Ria as the two of them sat down in the building that served as headquarters for their current operations. "Is he seeing anyone?"

"Well, he went to see the Reserve psychiatrist a while ago," Ria told her, "but she told him that there wasn't much he could do about his stunning looks and personality, and offered him her own brand of medicine. He hasn't seen anyone since then – I think he was traumatised." The Italian woman was very good at her job, but Ria was not fond of her lascivious nature, hence her retort. Maria had been romantically linked with just about every man in the area in the course of the six weeks they'd been there, and whether the rumours were true or not, Ria found the way Maria was ogling her friend to be rather disturbing.

"You're quite the comedian," Maria said, although her tone implied otherwise. "I'll take it that I'm free to have a stab at him, then."

"Sure, any time," Ria said, her voice deceptively sweet. "Just remember who he shares a bed with..." With that threat, she left the tall woman to her own devices, and headed for the local dragon expert, Dmitri Ivanovich Petrov and his partner, Tatiana Sergeevna.

"Dobroe utroe!" Tanya greeted her. Ria smiled. She had grown very fond of the diminutive Russian over the course of their stay, and would be sad to lose her company.

"Good morning, Tanya, Dima," she nodded to them both. "How are you both today?"

"We are well, I think," Dima responded.

"That's good to hear."

"How are you?" Tanya asked, politely.

"I'm ok," Ria sighed. "I think just about every woman in the area has their sights set on Charlie though. I beginning to tire of saving him from their claws."

"Perhaps he does not want to be saved," Tanya suggested.

"I don't doubt it," Ria told her. "But Charlie often wants things that aren't good for him. Trust me, those women would do nothing but use him and abuse him."

"I think they're very nice," Dima said, innocently, earning him a glare from Ria and an amused smile from Tanya.

"Well, you're a man," Ria said, disparagingly. "You have no intuition. What do you think, Tanya?"

"I think that you are in love with Charlie yourself, my friend."

"Sure, and pigs might fly," Ria retorted, instinctively. "I've heard the whole 'you're in love' spiel before, my dear. It doesn't cut any ice."

"So you have a partner at home?" There was genuine curiosity in Dima's tone. Ria conceded that she had been less than forthcoming about her personal life. She supposed she would have to remedy that now.

"No. I have no need of a partner," she informed him. "Charlie is my best friend. I do love him, in a very platonic fashion, of course I do. But it's nothing more than that."

"Why not?" Tanya demanded. Ria looked at her curiously.

"What do you mean, 'why not'?"

"Why is it not more than friendship? Charlie is a very attractive man, you are a beautiful woman, you appear to be happily married, whether you believe it or not. What is stopping you from being together?"

"You can't force love, Tanya," Ria replied, patiently. "Not that kind of love. We'd only hurt each other if we tried."

"You have to excuse her," Dima said, heeding the note of warning in Ria's tone. "Since we have become...how do you say it...affianced...she wants everyone to have a happy ending." He wrapped his arm around Tanya's waist as he spoke, and Ria watched them with a mixture of joy and envy. Joy because they had found each other, and envy because she was still very much alone. She left them to their own devices, and wandered to the corner of the room, away from the crowd.

"You were very quiet at tea today," Charlie observed as the two of them subjected a Ukrainian Ironbelly to a health check. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Ria told him, running her hand over the dragon's scales. "I just wanted to think, that's all."

"Are you sure?" Charlie sounded concerned.

"I'm fine," she said, not entirely sure if she meant it. The various romances that had emerged were beginning to grate on her nerves. She didn't expect most of them to last; they were flirtations aimed at relieving the monotony of being in a place where the most exciting form of entertainment was Scrabble, but she envied people like Tanya and Dima who were quite clearly head over heels in love. She wondered if she would ever feel like that about someone. She doubted it. She was too wary of getting hurt again.

"You're an awful liar, Ri," Charlie told her. "Tell Uncle Charlie what the problem is."

"There is no problem," she insisted. Charlie studied her appraisingly.

"I don't believe you," he said, simply, as he checked the dragon's nostrils for any sign of ill health. "You've been quiet and wistful all day. Talking about it might help, as my old ma used to say."

"Your mother is not old, Charlie Weasley," Ria told him. "She is a very lovely woman."

"You wouldn't say that if you were on the receiving end of one of her lectures," Charlie informed her.

"Now who's the liar," Ria asked, provocatively. "You worship the ground your mother walks on."

"That doesn't mean that she's always lovely," Charlie told her. "And don't try and change the subject."

"You wouldn't understand," Ria told him, realising that he wasn't going to accept anything other than an admission of unease.

"Try me."

"No," she said firmly. "Look, Charlie, I appreciate you trying to help, I really do. Right now, though, perhaps I want to revel in my own depression. That does happen, you know."

"It doesn't sound all that healthy to me," Charlie responded. "You know I'll only worry about you if you don't tell me, right?"

"Stop trying to blackmail me," she warned him.

"Who said anything about blackmail?" Charlie asked, in a hurt tone.

"You're trying to guilt me. Well it ain't gonna work, Mister."

"You're cute when you do that."

"What?"

"Wrinkle your nose up. Sort of like a rabbit."

"I am not a rabbit," Ria protested, swatting him.

"No, you're a very beautiful, talented, caring, friendly - did I mention beautiful – lady," Charlie agreed. "Who right now looks like a wet weekend in Dorset."

"Gee, thanks, hon," Ria replied, feeling better in spite of herself. There was something about bantering with Charlie that brought out her good spirits.

"My pleasure," Charlie told her, as he patted the patient dragon (who had, admittedly, been thoroughly doped up prior to the check-up). "I think we're done."

Arriving back at the hut that evening, Ria's thoughts turned once again to her relationship with Charlie. It was difficult for that not to happen when all around her were reminders of his presence. She firmly believed what she had told Tanya; she and Charlie were most definitely platonic, but she would be a fool if she didn't notice that he was attractive. Perhaps, in another lifetime, she might even have been interested in him. But instinctively, she knew that any romantic entanglement with Charlie would place her heart at risk, and for her the old idiom remained true. Once bitten, twice shy. Chewing her lip thoughtfully, she lowered herself on to the bed.

She wished that she could turn back the clock. There were many men of her acquaintance whom she knew she could have a healthy relationship with. But Ria was someone who felt things deeply, and the passage of time had done little to assuage the pain of betrayal. It was a bitter pill to swallow. She was by nature an affectionate person, but ghosts of the past had rendered her withdrawn and fearful. She watched her sisters and their husbands as they married and had children, and she delighted in the accomplishments of her nieces and nephews, who in turn doted on her. But the day that she had been betrayed, she had vowed never to put her heart on the line again. She resigned herself to the eternal position of maiden aunt.

It wasn't what she had wanted from life, though. She adored children, always had done, and had longed to have a family of her own to fuss over and to love. She craved the security that such a situation offered her. Although she knew that the Rutherfords were her family, and that she would always be welcome there, she was an adult, and she wanted to create her own life away from that of her siblings and parents. But Aiden's betrayal had meant that her siblings and parents had become her life, along with a few precious friends.

Like Charlie.

She remembered their first meeting as if it were yesterday. She had arrived at the reserve, tired and hungry, still in the grips of a pain she had yet to come to terms with. Then her red headed saviour had seen her, and from that moment on, she had felt safe. Charlie had seen to everything, reintroduced her to Jon, found her room, offered her the friendly face that she so desperately needed. Well... that wasn't entirely true...

"What are you laughing at?" the object of her thoughts broke into them.

"I was just remembering our first meeting," she told Charlie, chuckling again.

"Ah, yes, the infamous Rutherford!" Charlie smirked. "You were one stroppy chick, Ri!"

Ria thought back to her arrival at the Reserve and laughed. Charlie was right, she had been rather grumpy. But that didn't mean that she was going to let him get away with saying it. Retribution was called for.

"Well, you would be pretty 'stroppy', as you put it, if on arrival at your new place of work you were greeted by the words 'Good God, it's Becca Rutherford's baby sister. What the hell are you doing here?'"

"Okay, so maybe I was a little...incredulous," Charlie admitted.

"Becca's little sister? Charlie, I travelled across the damn continent to get away from that stigma, and there I was, bone weary, greeted with the past I was running away from!"

"So you admit you were running away?" Charlie asked, his tone suddenly serious. Ria could have kicked herself. One slip of the tongue and he was back to his protective psycho-babble.

"Yes, I was running away. Do you blame me?"

"It's not usually a great ploy, Ri," Charlie chastised her.

"You're a bit late with that admonition," Ria said, a touch defensively.

"I know," Charlie told her. "But then, I've never really known what you were running away fromHe's. I've met your family, and they're wonderful. I've heard rumours, but nothing that I'd credit, and you've never seen fit to share that particular problem with me."

"Give me a break, Charlie," Ria snorted. "Yes, my family is wonderful. But you don't know as much as you'd like to know, and I'm not likely to tell you. It's not the fact that I ran away that bothers you, it's the fact that you don't know why!" She could feel her temper rising, even as the words came out. And, if she was honest, she regretted them as soon as they left her lips.

"That's not true," Charlie said, simply. "Sure, it would be nice if you trusted me enough to tell me this big bad secret of yours, but I'm more concerned about the fact that you still haven't faced your demons. That stuff with the Kettleworths, that was one of them, and kudos to you for making the decision to deal with that, but that's not all of it, is it?"

"So what if it isn't?"

"Don't play games with me, Ria. I care about you. I've always cared about you, even when you were just someone else's kid sister. You're much more than that now, and if you weren't so damn stubborn you would-" he broke off abruptly.

"I would what?"

"You'd work out just how special you are," Charlie said, so quietly that she wasn't even sure she heard him properly.

"I'm just a girl, Charlie."

"You're a girl with a past."

"Everyone has a past. I gave someone my heart. They walked all over it. How hard is that to comprehend."

"There's more to it than that." It wasn't a question. Charlie was no fool, and having started on this, Ria knew that he wouldn't let it drop until she had finished with her tale of woe.

"Yes." She said, still not entirely sure that she wanted to relive moments she had been trying for forget for so long.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice, Ri," Charlie said, joining her on the bed. "I would never force you to do anything. I hope you know that."

"You see, that's why it's so damned hard," Ria snapped, her nerves getting the better of her.

"What?" Charlie was clearly confused.

"You're so bloody nice all the time, I can't even tell myself that you're out to use and abuse me, because you're clearly not. For goodness' sake, Charlie, you know more about me than anyone else in this world! Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself!"

"I care about you," he told her. "I want to help you. But you have to let me first."

"I suppose," Ria sighed. "It's a long story," she added, hoping to dissuade him whilst hoping that he would not be dissuaded.

"I've got time."

Ria took a deep breath. She hadn't spoken about this to anyone since the event, and she wondered why she wanted to let it out now. "I've always been a bit of a tomboy, never had a problem with getting my hands dirty, as you know. And after leaving Hogwarts, I hooked up with Pecus. You know that too. But what I didn't mention was how I met Aiden. He was a Quidditch player, a friend of Becca's. I'd gone home to see the family, and Becca invited me to one of his matches. Well, who was I to turn down free Quidditch tickets? So I went. And it was incredible. He was amazing. I'll admit, I was a bit starstruck. And after the match – which Aiden's team won, by the way – Becca introduced us. And he was incredibly charming, flattering. He called me beautiful, and he looked at me in that way, as if he'd never seen a woman until he saw me. Before I knew it, we were dating. It was blissful. I've always had something of an inferiority complex, being adopted and everything. It got pretty serious pretty quickly." Here she paused, a slightly wistful look on her face, not noticing the murderous look in Charlie's eyes. Shaking herself out of the memory, she returned to her tale. "But I had my work and he had his. And working with Pecus was unpredictable. I wasn't like most girls, home by five every evening, always available for a date. We had to take what we could. Well, Pecus had flu, and went home. Gave me a fortnight off, so Aiden whisked me off to Scotland and proposed. The most romantic thing you could possibly imagine. And I said yes. It was stupid; I shouldn't have done it. I hardly knew him. But I accepted. So there we were, engaged." Once again her face took on a distant look.

"How old were you?" Charlie asked, jerking her back to reality.

"Eighteen. Stupid, wasn't it, getting engaged at that age. I was practically a child. My parents tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn't have any of it. It was my life to do as I pleased with, and Aiden was what I wanted. Anyway, once the two weeks were over, things went back to the way they used to be. I was away, he was training, we kept in contact through letters, and our relationship was kind of non-existent. But I was oblivious to all that. He loved me, and that made me happy. We set a date, and everything. We were going to get married in May, a fairytale wedding. I went home unexpectedly for Valentine's Day. Have you ever wondered why I hate it?" Charlie nodded. "I hate it because it's the day that my world fell to pieces. I wanted to surprise Aiden. And surprise him I did. But it wasn't quite the surprise I had hoped for. I found him in bed with Gemma. My own sister. If he had just been unfaithful, that wouldn't have been so bad. But unfaithful with Gemma? That was too much. I didn't know what to do. I ran." She could feel the tears welling up as she spoke. "I ran as fast as I could, I just wanted to get away. I didn't know how they could do that to me. I... I..." At this point words failed her, and Charlie pulled her into his arms, whispering sweet nothings into her ear, rubbing her back, soothing her. Eventually she calmed down enough to finish her story. "They got married. He left me for my sister, and he married her, and she has the life that I was supposed to have. And it hurts, Charlie. It's a constant reminder of betrayal. That's why I came here. To get away from it all. Yes, I ran away. Do you blame me?"

"No," Charlie said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "I could never blame you."

"I've never had a boyfriend since, not really. Oh, I know you were worried about Jacques, but the womaniser thing is a pose. He's about as gay as they come, and good for him. I just wanted to get away from everything that night. A Valentine's Ball. Hah, what was there to celebrate?"

"You should have told me," Charlie said, playing with her hair.

"Maybe. I wasn't ready to tell you then, though. And I didn't want pity. I hate pity. Do you think I didn't have enough of it when everyone found out. 'Oh look, poor Ria, her fiancé left her for her sister.' I was every gossip's dream! No one knew anything at the Reserve, and I wanted to keep it that way. I didn't want pity, and I didn't want to feel like a freak. I left the country as soon as Gem and Aiden got married. I had to go to the wedding, Charlie. I couldn't not. I went for my parents' sake, and I hated every minute of it. And as soon as it was over, I left for Romania. Pecus had never like Ade. Said I deserved better. He would have hung him up by his...well, let's just say he wasn't impressed. He arranged the job at the Reserve. He tried to talk me out of it, he wanted me to stay with him. But at the time, I thought it was my work that was the problem. I know differently now. One day, perhaps I'll do some more work with Pecus, but at the moment, I'm happy in Romania."

"Did you forgive them?" Charlie asked the question Ria had been dreading.

"Yes. No. I don't know. On some levels, yes. I forgave them for loving each other. They love each other far more than Aiden ever loved me. I suppose I forgave them for most things. But they hurt me. I don't hate them for it. They did the wrong thing, but ultimately things worked out for the best. But I feel bad. Jessie hardly knows me, and the new baby won't really. I can't look at them with out wondering about what might have been, you see. But it was for the best. It hurts, but they're happy. Everyone is happy. As long as I'm away from the happy family, I can deal with it."

They sat up for a long time that night, discussing her past, Charlie keeping a protective hold on her at all times, helping her to deal with the pain that she had lived with for so long. She knew that she didn't love Aiden, she had come to terms with that months ago. But now was a time for moving on. Until she dealt with the past, she could not move into the future.