Therapy [OPEN]

[charlie marie weekly]

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June 10th, 2028

Charlie rarely drank. There were numerous reasons why that was the case, beginning with the fact that she had been raised by a health nut of a mother and ending with not being of legal age in her own country. But she lived in London and worked in Hogsmeade and that meant that if she wanted to get a drink after work, she damn well could. Especially after an extremely grueling day at the rehabilitation center. One of the abraxan foals she had been tirelessly working with and trying to get to full strength over the last fourth months had passed suddenly in the night. It didn't come as a shock - she knew this one was really struggling the most since they were brought in. But she also thought that after this long, everything had to be better. Right? Charlie knew that attachment with the seriously injured and sick animals was a slippery slope. That much had been told to her by a number of the older researchers and caretakers at the center. This wasn't even the first animal that had died since she'd started working there. It still hurt all the same though.

A myriad of other emotions had spilled out following the news that morning. Maybe because it was coming up on two years since the burning of Hogwarts, and that working in such proximity to it (and with enough time since) had finally taken its toll on her. She had received some therapy while finishing up her seventh year back at Ilvermorny, but there were still unresolved issues that she felt hadn't been taken care of. Little whispers of thoughts that popped up now and again, or nightmares of roaring fires and screaming voices mixed together. The most horrifying of those night terrors were the ones where she ended up paralyzed, mouth gone and unable to scream. Despite that not happening to her, she had seen the fear in Monday's eyes as the two of them escaped. The death of the foal pushed her over the edge just enough that her supervisor sent her home for the day. Animals could feel that negative energy and it was best for both them and Charlie to get a break. She simply nodded her head and left, finding herself back in her apartment as if she'd never left that morning.

Of course, she still needed to eat. Making food for herself wasn't going to happen in her current state, and lunchtime was fast approaching. She knew she could either continue to be upset and stay in bed the rest of the day until Monday eventually dragged her out for dinner, or she could figure it out on her own and try to jumper herself out of the funk. There was nothing she could have done to save the foal, no matter how much she wanted to believe that it was possible. These things happened. That was life. And her stomach was telling her that she needed to eat, which was also part of the fun life game everyone was stuck in.

Rolling back out of her bed around one in the afternoon, Charlie apparated to Horizont Alley so that she could get lunch at the Violet Hound Pub. They had great sandwiches, and she really wanted a drink too. Something to take the edge off her sadness briefly. Finding her way to the pub and eventually up onto a bar stool, she ordered her desired meal and sat slouched over, quietly sipping a glass of beer that was bigger than her face. This would do for now. But she really wanted to eat too.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

June 10, 2028

Felix had enough time during his lunch break at the ice cream parlor that he was able to stop by the Violet Hound, his sister's pub, for a bite to eat. As was pretty typical, he imagined that he would probably end up conversing with Vas about something while he was there, though he obviously wouldn't be able to stick around forever. Both of them had work, and Felix knew how seriously Vas took hers.

It didn't take him long to get to Horizont Alley, and he saw that there was still an empty seat at the bar in spite of its being a Saturday. Vas did a good business, so he wasn't surprised that it was busy; he was more surprised that there was anywhere left to sit.

Seated beside where he was planning to sit, Felix noticed, was a teenager who looked barely old enough to be drinking the beer that was in front of her on the counter. It was more an indication of his age than it was anything else, in the same way that the previous year's Walpurgis Night celebrations had been an immediate reminder for him and Irina Krum that they really were firmly into adulthood, whether they liked it or not.

"Sorry," he began, not wanting to seem rude as he interrupted the teenager. "Is that seat taken?"

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[charlie marie weekly]

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Charlie didn't think of herself as an angry person. Sure, there had been the occasional outburst at a sibling or over a ridiculous outfit she'd been placed into by her mom for an event, but nothing truly malicious. But as she sat at the bar, fingernail picking away at a dried stain of something that looked like an errant splotch of mustard, she grew angry with how chipper the lunchtime crowd was around her. Did they not know that an innocent abraxan foal had just died? That magical creatures were constantly being bred and exploited for their parts? Charlie knew she was no saint when it came to a lot of things, but there was usually an ethical way to get what was needed for potions and the likes. This sucked. She let out another long sigh, a never ending chain it seemed, and took a tiny sip of her drink. Somehow the drawn out exhales kept her emotions even. She didn't want to be that person crying over a beer at the bar. That would be embarrassing.

Charlie's stomach growled audibly just as she felt the presence of another person walk up next to her. Lunch time was a lot more crowded here than she had anticipated. It didn't feel nearly as isolating sitting at the bar as it probably would have if she'd taken a seat in a booth or at a table. The man asked her if the seat was taken, and she shook her head side to side. "Its all yours," she answered gloomily. He looked familiar, but in her current state all her brain could come up with was that he worked somewhere in the shopping district. Enough time spent shopping between Diagon and Horizont and some of the faces started to blur together. "Do you work around here?" she added. Striking up a conversation seemed like the last thing she wanted to do right now, but it would take her mind off things. And kill time until her food arrived.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

June 10, 2028

"It's all yours," the teenager who was already seated at the bar answered him, clearly with an American accent. It wasn't an enthusiastic response, but Felix didn't really expect a stranger to be thrilled by his presence by default. Some people were probably so conceited, but it didn't really bother him. He hadn't done or said anything else, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong to do with him.

So, without any further ado, Felix gave the teen a quick and casual, "Cheers," and sat down at the bar. He wasn't yet sure what he was going to order but knowing that he really couldn't go wrong with anything on the menu. He knew he was biased towards the place ever since Vas had taken over, but it really was that good.

"Do you work around here?"

Felix turned his head when he realized he was being spoken to, and he adjusted how he was positioned while seated so that he was angled a bit more in the direction of the teenage patron beside him. "Yeah," he nodded. "My family run the ice cream parlor, and I work there," he explained. "And my sister owns this place." It wasn't really name-dropping when that information was essentially common knowledge, nor did it make Felix feel self-conscious. Anyone who had grown up or spent any length of time around Diagon Alley, which was most of the magical community in Britain and Ireland, knew the Fortescues on some level.

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[charlie marie weekly]

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How could people be happy? It was always the first thought that passed through her head whenever something horrible happened in her life. Whether it was following the attack at Hogwarts or this. Charlie knew that was an unreasonable ask since no one truly knew what was going on in her head, but it still frustrated her to no end. Poor Monday would get an earful later while she shoveled a pint of ice cream into her mouth. Still, passing off her bad vibes onto others was not cool of her in the slightest, so she did her best not to sound completely miserable while talking to the guy that sat down next to her. Once she had her food it would be easier to focus on eating instead of her negative thoughts.

Her eyebrows lifted slightly when he explained that he worked at the ice cream parlor, and then proceeded to go even higher when he added that his sister ran the pub. Basically she was in the presence of Diagon Alley royalty. ”Oh…I’ve been there a few times,” she mumbled unenthusiastically. Charlie didn’t recall him working there, as she was usually served by a girl there. That wasn’t the same sister that ran this place, was it? ”I like it here. Its always calm and the food is pretty good…I guess that runs in the family then?” she asked at the end. They were the Fortescue family; she was fairly certain. Assuming that wasn’t just a name that stayed attached to the ice cream shop between owners.

She turned back to her drink and stared into the amber liquid before taking a small sip. A deep, elongated sigh followed. This sucked. Even though she had changed locations, escaping her mind wasn’t exactly possible without the help of some sleeping potions. And she didn’t really want to rely on those. ”Does your work ever just…beat you down?” Charlie continued after pausing for a while. ”I guess probably not because its ice cream. Nothing can really go wrong with that…”

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[felix valentin fortescue]

June 10, 2028

The reaction that he received from the stranger upon his talking about his working at the ice cream parlor and his sister's owning the very pub at which they were sitting and conversing was not a reaction that Felix had gotten from other people very often. He got strange reactions from people for various other reasons, like when it was clear that someone was having a hard time knowing what pronouns to use in reference to him, for example. Having someone's eyebrows raise that skeptically at his family's being in the food service business, though, was different. He didn't really know how to take it, but he tried not to take offense to it.

Despite the unanticipated reaction he'd received, the teenager did mention having been to the ice cream parlor a few times. Again, it wasn't the most excited tone, but Felix wasn't totally sure that he was the problem. It was a little awkward for him because he didn't want to do or say anything that could make the situation worse without an understanding of what was going on.

The conversation got slightly more positive when the teen beside him complimented the Violet Hound for being calm and having good food. The teen also suggested that it ran in the family, and Felix nodded, smiling a bit. "Yeah," he said. At least, he hoped so.

Felix didn't mind not chatting if someone wasn't in the mood for it. It seemed like more of an American thing to chat with strangers for no real reason, and he wasn't going to force it. The teenager did speak again, though, after another sip of her beer—and a very long sigh. "Does your work ever just… beat you down?" he was asked, only for the teen to backtrack and comment aloud that it probably didn't because it was ice cream and nothing could really go wrong with that.

While it had been a long time since anything disastrous had happened at the ice cream parlor in terms of batches of ice cream melting or anything that would keep the shop from operating as normal, there were occasionally issues. Trying to keep the ice cream parlor running wasn't always easy, especially when his father's health had gone downhill prior to his death. There were a lot of jobs that were worse than making ice cream, though; Felix couldn't pretend for a second that there weren't.

It also sounded like his fellow pub patron had been beaten down by work. Felix wasn't sure that there was anything he could do to help, especially not when he had the time constraint of being on his lunch break, but he didn't want to ignore the obvious, either. "Rough day?" he questioned.

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[charlie marie weekly]

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Calling it a rough day was an understatement. More like months’ worth of hard work gone down the drain the second the foal passed. She knew this was possible when she took the job and that there was no way she or the Center could save every single creature that came to them. But to see a helpless animal that she had personally poured all of her time and effort into, and grown attached to, simply die as if none of it had mattered? That hurt. ”Something like that…” she said after another long pause. She knew life was cruel and unfair, a fact that became so much more apparent after the fire. Sometimes it really didn’t matter how much she did. If fate decided it was time, that meant it was time. A few of her coworkers had tried to explain this to her, also lightly adding that this wouldn’t be the last animal to die during her time there and that getting used to it was part of the job. Why did she have to do that though? Was it wrong to be sad over the death of an innocent creature?

Charlie, for whatever reason, felt obligated to tell him more about what had happened. ”I work at the creature rehab center in Hogsmeade? And I’ve been taking care of a sick Abraxan foal for a couple months now…” she had to stop to compose herself as she felt another wave sadness tried to take over. ”I had been taking care of one,” she corrected herself. ”And it passed in the night. So, yeah…I guess for all of the magic and potions we have available, we still can’t save everything.” And that sucked. She took a long sip of her drink as she sniffled a few times. Eventually she would have to go back to work and start helping the next suffering animal.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

June 10, 2028

The American teenager seated beside him didn't say that it had been a rough day outright but also didn't deny it. While it took a little while for Felix to get the full story, it definitely met the definition of a rough day. "I work at the creature rehab center in Hogsmeade? And I've been taking care of a sick Abraxan foal for a couple months now… I had been taking care of one, and it passed in the night. So, yeah… I guess for all of the magic and potions we have available, we still can't save everything."

Though Felix could have brought up his dead dad in conversation with a stranger about a magical foal, he thought better of it. He didn't want to guilt-trip someone who was already mourning by making it sound like the death of his father—which wasn't that recent anymore—was of greater importance. It was sad that a relatively helpless creature had died before it had gotten a chance to live its life the way it should have, and it was awful that even magic wasn't enough to keep everyone and everything from dying before their time. From that perspective, Felix nodded his head solemnly.

He had heard so many different words of condolence upon his father's death, yet trying to figure out the right balance to strike when it came to an Abraxan was harder than it sounded. It wasn't a human and it wasn't a pet, either. It also certainly wasn't the first creature not to make it through rehabilitation, but the blonde next to him was young enough that it was possibly their first real experience with death in that way.

Based on the teenager's accent, Felix could guess that they might have been an Ilvermorny student at some point, though that didn't necessarily mean that they had been at Hogwarts when Elaine Dupree had attacked it. He didn't want to assume what traumatic experiences anyone had (or hadn't) had. That wasn't his place.

"I'm sorry," he replied. "I'm sure you and your team there did everything you could for it."

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[charlie marie weekly]

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”That’s the problem. I don’t know if we did.” That was always the issue with rehabbing animals. There was never a guarantee that those they took in would come out the other side healthy and fully back to the way they should be. Charlie had simply not experienced this end of it yet. Especially not with how in-depth she had been with this particular foal’s treatment regimen. She supposed she was going to have to tell Monday all about it again when she got home too. ”But it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

Moving on was part of the job. She had been warned about that before starting, the older employees, while sympathetic towards her feelings, had told her for weeks that things were bleak despite the sudden burst of energy that the foal had the last few days. They knew and she hadn’t listened or guarded herself for it. She took another sip of her drink to avoid the crying she desperately wanted to do right now. Breaking down in the middle of the pub would definitely go over well. Not to mention being out of sorts was a recipe for disaster when it came to apparition. She was going to have to her emotions evened out before leaving.

”Maybe this was the wrong field to get into…” Charlie added with a sigh, before leaning heavily into the bar with her chin in her hands. She knew that this was only one foal in an unknown amount of future untimely deaths. Such a sobering thought really had her reconsidering her job entirely.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

June 10, 2028

Felix didn't have any more experience with creatures than the average magical person, so he really couldn't make any sort of judgment about what more the rehabilitation center could have done for an Abraxan foal under the circumstances of its being there. He just had to trust that the people who worked there were knowledgeable, which they seemed to be. The teen beside him, though obviously frustrated that the foal hadn't been saved, did mention that it had become too late to do anything about it.

There wasn't any real way to raise the dead and return them to how they had been in life. Most people were aware of that, even if they didn't want to believe it completely. Having been through the experience of his father's illness and eventual death, Felix did sometimes wonder how magic had yet to advance far enough to cure everything. Supposedly, the Healers on Hy-Brasil were more talented in that way, but Felix had never been there to know if those claims were exaggerated or not.

"Maybe this was the wrong field to get into…" The blonde beside him sighed.

"Er, I'm not an expert or anything, so take this with a pinch of salt," Felix started, "but it's your choice." He didn't have much in the way of career advice to share and hadn't been asked for his input, but it was the principle. Maybe it wasn't the right field. Maybe it was, and this was just a bad day. "If the good experiences outweigh the bad ones," he continued, "then maybe it's worth it. If you really don't think that job is something you want to do, then you shouldn't force yourself."

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

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There was very little in her life that could be considered ‘negative’. Charlie tried to keep things upbeat and happy, and why wouldn’t she after how her last few years of school went? All of the death and destruction from that made the loss of an animal seem trivial, and yet it hurt so much more for some reason. She knew it had to do with the closeness in which she had worked with the foal and how optimistic she had been about helping it fully recover. The others that had been rescued at the same time were almost fully healed, after all. Next came rehab before they were sent off to an Abraxan sanctuary to live out the rest of their lives. But not for the one that passed. Another twinge of guilt passed over her and she shoved it back down with another sip of her drink.

The man next to her responded by saying it was her choice, but that if the job was overall good, then it could still be worth it. Charlie knew all that. It just became hard to see through the cloud of negative emotions that was currently flooding her head. He wasn’t wrong though. Most days were filled with assisting creatures that needed to be rehabbed or raised, and their health progressed steadily. ”The silly part is,” she started, breaking her sentence in half with another drink, ”Is that its not even the first animal I’ve lost since I started. I get that this is how life is and that all of them would have died if we hadn’t intervened…but still.” She wouldn’t actually give up and change jobs. She loved it too much. Helping the helpless felt amazing. That was also the exact reason why she was grieving as much as she currently was. Charlie didn’t want to temper her emotions going forward because that wasn’t fair to her or the creatures she treated, but she knew she’d have to change something. Otherwise, this was going to happen every time an animal died in her care.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

June 10, 2028

The blonde told him that the "silly" part of working at the wildlife rehabilitation center was that the Abraxan foal hadn't been the first animal they'd lost since starting there. "I get that this is how life is and that all of them would have died if we hadn’t intervened… but still."

"It's not silly." At least, Felix didn't think it was. It was sad, and it was natural to feel that way. "If you didn't feel at least a bit of sadness at something dying, then it would be sort of…" "Creepy" wasn't exactly the word he was searching for, but there was something unsettling about the idea that some people could just overlook death completely and move right along as though nothing had happened. "It'd be sad in a different way, I think." He elaborated, "Like… I'm sure it's awful when a creature dies at your work, but feeling sad about it means you cared about it, you know? It's not just being reduced to a number or some abstract concept of success or failure. You're actually doing something that you feel matters, and that's sort of important when you're dealing with living things."

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[charlie marie weekly]

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Charlie listened intently as the man responded. He was putting words to the thoughts she had been having but was struggling to explain. Because that was exactly how she felt. A little part of her had hoped she would become desensitized. It would be easier that way, and she would still be able to perform her job without becoming too attached to every poor creature that entered her care. She knew that this was part of the difficulty in taking care of animals. No-maj vets had the same exact problem. Their love for helping only ended up dragging them down too, and it wasn’t fair. Becoming an emotionless drone sounded so much nicer, if only to protect herself.

”Th-That’s exactly how I feel,” Charlie sniffled, doing her best to hold back the flood of feelings she had been doing her best to bottle up all day. ”I wish it was easier. Most of these animals have never known happiness or what it’s like to be cared for until they show up to our center. I’m just glad that some of them are able to have that chance before they pass…” Life wasn’t fair. She knew that. Humans were lucky that they were at the top of the food chain, and, for the most part, cared about one another. She had seen the other side of that during her escape from Hogwarts but was immediately bombarded with the absolute greatest of humanity on the other side of it. Animals had very little in that way without any sort of intervention by a person. She did what little she could, and that meant it had to matter, right?

Charlie returned to her drink and took a long sip of it. The pacing and the fact that she almost never drank had started to make her eyes feel heavy. Or maybe that was still a leftover from all of the drying she had been doing earlier. Either way, everything was finally starting to feel a little numb. Exactly how she wanted to be right now. ”Life isn’t fair.”

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