Dark circles hung under Caradoc’s stormy blue eyes. The sleeping draught he’d brewed wasn’t working. At first, he’d managed to sleep a few hours, but it wore off and he was torn so harshly back into his sleepless reality. He was exhausted, and felt like he was really really caffeinated or something. He was barely eating, he wasn’t sleeping, he wasn’t taking care of himself at all. That’s mainly his biggest problem: he is too busy worrying about who out there is going to take care of him, he doesn’t realize he needed to be taking care of himself.
He walked into the front lobby of St. Mungo’s Hospital, and slapped his hand down on the counter to get the receptionist’s attention while she was obviously busy talking to another person. That got him a fairly nasty side glare. He slapped his hand down again, wearing a smirk when she finally turned her head toward him. “I need to see Evie Nott. The Mediwitch.” The woman rolled her eyes at the urgency of his request, telling him he’d have to wait. He slapped his hand on the counter a third time. “Right now, please.” he wore a grin that made him look a bit unhinged. But who wouldn’t be a bit unhinged after barely sleeping all week?
The receptionist turned away to continue her conversation, but Caradoc began to ding the little bell on the counter. That’s when the receptionist snatched the bell away, and led the other person further away to talk. When they were engaged in conversation several feet away, Caradoc just walked right past the desk and into the hospital hallways, looking for Evie.
On occasion, he’d been brought in by friends to the hospital, and Evie just happened to be the mediwitch unlucky enough to get him for a patient most of those times. He’d been in fights and she had to heal his wounds, he’d been unconscious from drink and she had to administer various potions to wake him back up, and he’d talk sometimes during those visits about his own bullshit and to her amazement she listened. And if she didn’t then she had perfected the act of faking it well. Although it was her job to take care of him as a patient, he hated to think it was only out of duty that she seemed sympathetic and kind. She was one of the only mediwitches he felt comfortable seeking help from.
Eventually, Caradoc came across her in a corridor. She looked busy in conversation with a colleague, but Caradoc felt like his sleep issue was a dire emergency. He walked towards her briskly, “Mediwitch Nott, I’m afraid I need your expertise.”
It had been four days since Uncle Dafydd gave Caradoc an ultimatum, five days since Caradoc had been home from the hospital, and six days since he had momentarily stopped breathing.
His uncle had become accustomed to checking on his nephew at night to make sure he wasn’t passed out face-up. Dafydd had found Caradoc laying in bed on his stomach and breathed a small sigh of relief, knowing he’d drank a lot that night. ‘It’s Da’s fucking birthday, and I’m going to drink to him being another year closer to death.’
He had turned to leave his nephew to sleep but a cold creeping feeling of unease came over him. Everything felt too quiet. He went inside, turned on the lamp, and tried to rouse him to no avail. He smacked his face a few times and yelled into his ear to wake up. No answer. Dafydd finally checked for a pulse…. Oh, thank god! It was weak, but there. He scooped him up, ignoring the pain in his back from a long day working at the docks and the fact his nephew was fairly heavy. He put Caradoc in the backseat of his car and sped to the nearest hospital, where doctors immediately set to work on saving his life. There was hardly a moment that Dafydd wasn’t with Caradoc, and when he couldn’t be with him he argued with the doctors until he was let back in. ‘He’s too young… Please…. I’m responsible for him…. He has to be okay…. He has to….’
When Caradoc blinked his eyes open groggily late the next afternoon, he felt like he’d been hit by the Knight Bus. His head was pounding, his eyes throbbed the moment light hit them, and his entire body just felt wrong. He felt like he wanted to be sick but there was nothing to bring up. Dafydd heard him stirring and rushed to his bed side. When Caradoc finally managed a decent look at him he could’ve sworn Dafydd had aged twenty years in only a night. He should have bloody apologized for what he put his uncle through, but it’s like the words in his head just couldn’t connect to his mouth. He stayed quiet, while his uncle sobbed from relief and fear. It would be too much for Caradoc to let himself feel the shame at that moment. He was too vulnerable, so his mind put up walls. They’d however be temporary and soon enough the guilt would seep in anyway. It always did.
Caradoc was sent home the next day. Like a zombie he shuffled into his room, where he paid no mind to the empty bottles strewn across the carpet as he made his way into bed. Sleep claimed him for hours, but when he awoke he wasn’t alone. Dafydd was at the foot of his bed, watching him with a worried expression. It seemed he had been there a while. Caradoc was about to ask what was the matter when Dafydd burst into tears. He begged Caradoc to go get help, offering to assist any way he could. But as usual, Caradoc insisted he had things under control and that he didn’t need any help. Why bother? He felt he was beyond help anyway at this point, although that’s certainly not what his uncle would want to hear. ‘Caradoc, damn it! You’ve got to take this seriously! Serious as the bloody grave you nearly put yourself in!’ Dafydd shouted, desperate to get through to his nephew. ‘I can’t keep watching you slowly kill yourself without it breaking my soul more than any man could bear. You’re not just taking yourself down, but the people around you too. Caradoc, you need to get help. You need to stop drinking. Or else, I can’t let you stay here. It’s just too much…’
Self-loathing filled Caradoc’s mind. He had caused his uncle so much pain, when the man had done so much for him the past few years. How could he be such a selfish jackass? He found himself wishing his uncle hadn’t found him the night before. A dark thought that seemed to ache his entire soul because it was so heavy and so painfully real. Dafydd was right. He was killing himself with the drinking. Maybe that was subconsciously his goal the whole time. Looking at his uncle’s haggard face, he simply nodded and said ‘Okay, Dav’. I’ll try.’ He just didn’t have much (or rather any) hope that he’d succeed.
Caradoc stood outside the apothecary in Diagon Alley, finishing up his cigarette before going inside to get supplies needed to brew a couple potions he needed. He wasn’t much of a potioneer, but could manage simple recipes. Herbology had been more his thing, so he at least knew which plants could likely help him. He had been having trouble staying asleep ever since he woke up from that initial several hours of sleep after he got home from the hospital. Anxieties plagued him and he needed something to knock him out and quell the dreams. He was also hoping to brew up something to stop the headaches and the shaky hands he’d been experiencing. It’d been days since he’d had a drink, and he knew he was probably going to fall off the wagon soon but his uncle’s worrying kept him fighting for now. He didn’t want to let him down, even though it felt inevitable to him that he would. He always seemed to let everybody down eventually.
He looked down at his cigarette held between his twitchy fingers, and sighed at his inability to control the shakiness and knowing he probably looked half mad. He lost himself in thought for a moment, remembering the past few days as if he’d witnessed it from outside his body. He’d hardly noticed somebody speak to him. “Wait, what’d you want?” he asked, leaning in a bit to hear them repeat their words.
Sun is up, I’m a mess
Gotta get out now, gotta run from this
Here comes the shame, here comes the shame
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, drink
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, drink
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, drink
Throw ‘em back 'til I lose count
“So, Caradoc…. What made you decide to seek out a therapist?”
“My uncle, Dafydd, said he’d toss me out on my ass if I didn’t see a shrink. He says I’ve gone mental.”
“Have you?”
“Oh, without a doubt.”
Caradoc sat on the uncomfortable leather couch several feet across from a therapist whose concerned expression seemed perfected over years of talking to useless tossers like him. The woman didn’t seem that old, though the fine lines around her eyes and the few grey hairs that stood out among the brunette ones told him she’d listened to plenty worse troubles than he could possibly have to share. His sob story was pathetic, and everything about it was all his own fault. His Hell was of his own making, and he couldn’t stand the guilt. He bore the weight of his transgressions at all times, and only became heavier as he grew up.
“Let’s start from the beginning. Your childhood. Your parents. Your home life. Did you always live with your uncle?” The therapist sat back in her chair, pen at the ready.
“Nah, that’s a more recent development. Moved in with Dafydd ‘bout two years ago. He’s my da’s younger brother. My dad, Ifan, is… How to put this nicely…. The biggest fuckhead I’ve ever had the misfortune to know and I wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire, unless I could somehow piss butane.” He looked at the therapist’s widened eyes with satisfaction. “He’s always been the problem.”
“The problem?” She questioned, looking for him to elaborate on that. “How so?”
Caradoc was quiet for a moment before he began to answer plainly, “My mom left when I was four. She’d had enough of my da, but the final straw came from me.” He blew air from his nostrils as it seemed almost comical how shit befell him since he was only a boy. “Da liked to drink, and one afternoon I kept badgering him about spending time with me. So what does he do but take me down the pub. And here I am thinking ‘this is great, I’m gonna spend time with Da and the guys’, but when we got there he stuck me in the corner and told me to keep my mouth shut while he drank with his buddies at the bar. Eventually, his girlfriend, or whatever the fuck she was, shows up and I saw them kiss. Da was drunk already and didn’t think about anything I might be seeing. Well, I was stupid… When mom asked me what I’d been up to that day, I told my mom some shit like ‘I saw Da kissing a lady’, and that went about as well as you’d expect. She left soon after, saying she’d come visit me… She never did. Went on to start a new family.” The hurt of not only his mother’s abandonment, but to basically be replaced by her new children… It cut Caradoc deep, and just thinking about it, he was already itching for a drink. He was, afterall, his father’s son.
The therapist’s concerned face seemed almost genuine now. Caradoc didn’t like the pity in her eyes, so he looked down at his hands laying in his lap. He’d hardly noticed he was picking his cuticles bloody until now.
“Was it just you and your dad after your mom left?”
“No, I’ve got a brother, Owain. He’s two years behind me. In age and in my life… We haven’t spoken since I moved in with Dafydd. But we were really close as children. Well, young children. As soon as I turned eleven, things sort of changed in the house.”
“How so?”
He wasn’t sure if he could tell her about anything magical. It had to break some sort of statutes, but it was also therapy and wasn’t she mandated to keep quiet? He considered how to explain, and decided it was best to steer away from mentioning magic if he could. If anything slipped out, she’d probably just chalk it up to him being a nutter.
“I got selected to go to a special school. For nerds, you know.” The therapist couldn’t even hold back her look of disbelief that he was academically gifted. He knew that’d be a tough sell, but so is ‘I’m a wizard’. “Owain became very gifted in sports. Especially football. We used to play in the alley by our house all the time before everything. Our da was his number one fan… And my number one enemy. I never regained his favor, and he always blamed me for mom leaving. He treated Owain better and revelled in shoving it in my face. The golden son and the fuck-up… No matter what I did at my school, da didn’t care. I was never good enough, and that made it hard to want to try. I wish I could only blame my da for my failings, but it’s me too. I didn’t do that great at school, especially the last year or two when I started to skip classes occasionally and sold muggle weed to my classmates.” He wasn’t called Doc for nothing, always ready to prescribe to his friends.
“Muggle weed?”
“Oh, uh, it’s a street term. You know, slang and such.”
She nodded, making another note. Her notepad already seemed filled and he felt like he’d hardly scratched the surface of his pitifully shit life.
“What have you been doing since school?”
Fighting a fucking war…. “Working down the docks with Uncle Dafydd.” That too. “I actually got a good job after graduation. I was working with a professional qui- lacrosse team as a coach. I was a bit of an athlete myself in school.” He hoped she didn’t know anything about lacrosse because neither did he. He just couldn’t begin to tell her about his years as a keeper for Hufflepuff, or how he’d landed a job assisting the coaching team of a professional Quidditch team (although it turned out he was more of an errand boy for them). He hadn’t been good enough to make the team, but was seen as somebody with passion and promising ideas. It seems he had made an impression that got him hired. Shortly after, as was normal for Caradoc, he screwed it all up. “I started to drink heavily the summer after graduation, at the start of my job. And I started to drink on the job. Long story short, it was noticed and I was asked to leave.” He remembered many sloppy moments, many slurred words, and ultimately passing out in the team laundry room after a day of sipping gin from a flask.
“Why did you begin to drink so heavily after graduation?”
Caradoc leaned back and shut his eyes for several long moments. “I uh… paralyzed someone.”
“Excuse me?” The therapist tilted her head, not understanding he meant it literally.
It had been two years ago on a night in July when Caradoc made a stupid mistake. In only a split second his life irreparably fell away and crash landed. He’d come home that evening from hanging with mates to see his brother Owain had stolen his second pack of cigarettes from his room. He’d keep one on him, and one in his room to ensure he always had one ready. Caradoc was annoyed, but Owain was playful, just wanting to mess with his weird older brother. As Owain ran up the stairs with the pack clenched in his hand, Caradoc apparated to meet him at the top. He didn’t plan on Owain being so spooked by Caradoc’s sudden appearance that he’d lose his footing at the top step. It seemed almost like slow motion as Owain fell backwards, rolled down the stairs, and landed in a tangle at the bottom where he screamed in agony. Their father came running, and he didn’t want to hear a single word from Caradoc.
Later in the hospital, it became clear that Owain had been paralyzed and would be wheelchair bound for life. He’d never walk again. He’d never play professional football like he dreamed. He’d never get to have sex, or kids. It felt like he’d lost everything. Ifan felt like he’d lost everything when Owain fell, and he couldn’t forgive Caradoc a second time (if he ever really forgave him the first time) for taking away the things he claimed to love. He yelled at his eldest son that he was jealous that Owain was talented and would have been somebody, while Caradoc was just a freak on a broomstick. Ifan threw him out of the house and told him to never return, for it was no longer his home and he was no longer his father.
After a few nights spent homeless on the streets of Cardiff, Caradoc contacted his Uncle Dafydd who his father rarely spoke with anymore. He was happy to take him in, but was helpless when it came to his nephew’s pain. He could only watch in horror as Caradoc drank. He managed to get him a job at the docks, where of course Caradoc still drank. He kept Caradoc still breathing a night he’d overindulged. That incident had been what pushed Dafydd to issue him an ultimatum: seek help or leave. It angered Caradoc, and he felt like his uncle was turning his back on him, but really Dafydd was just scared for his nephew.
The urge to drink was much stronger now. He couldn’t take thinking about it all, yet here he was laying it all out in the open, except about Owain. He wasn’t even able to talk about the war he was part of, and knew he couldn’t manage that story without telling the therapist about the magical world.
The therapist just watched him sadly as he stayed silent, head tilted back and eyes shut tightly. “What are you thinking about?” She asked after a time.
Caradoc rubbed his hands down his face, blinking his reddened eyes. “I think… I think I need a drink.” He stood up and left abruptly, telling himself he didn’t need help and that he wouldn’t be seeking someone to talk to again no matter how much his alcoholism spiraled out of control and no matter how heavy were the burdens which weighed him down. He would be wrong on both accounts.
