#but yay captain charlie weasley of the phoenix!

[carewyncromwell]

Next installation of the POTC AU, at long last! Sorry for the delay...RL has been a bit of a hindrance, and I also had to kind of restructure some things in the storyline to help with flow and such, and that resulted in me having to draw another drawing, and yeah, blah blah, Tory lost her sense of rhythm and pretty much daily update schedule in the process. XD; Mea culpa!

In this part, we’ll have focus on both sides of the “divide,” with both Carewyn and her new ally Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws and Charlie Weasley (pictured above in an even more pirate-y coat and hat than we saw last) and his sloop’s passenger Chiara Dalma. Will our pirate friends be able to reach Shipwreck Cove before they’re cut off by our non-pirate ones?

Interestingly enough, there was a pirate called Moody in the 1700s, though this one was Christopher Moody, not Alastor. Not much is known about him aside from his brutality (refusing to take prisoners), his unique Jolly Roger flag (which was red and gold rather than black), and his death by hanging in 1722. Pirate!Mad-Eye is going to be much more like his book/movie/game counterpart, but I just thought it was a fun coincidence. (Particularly his red/gold color scheme for his flag, which of course are Gryffindor colors!!)

Jules Farrier-Weasley belongs to @cursebreakerfarrier, last part is here, and whole tag is here! Hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

Carewyn knew there was no way she would be able to get Jones’s heart as long as her men were guarding the Chest -- yet, at the same time, she couldn’t just order them to abandon it without cause...and she’d need that time, if she wanted to unlock it without stealing the key from Rakepick. And so she’d need a proper diversion.

Davy Jones himself came up with a solution. If the Flying Dutchman was engaged in battle, then the soldiers might have to jump in to help defend it. All they’d have to make sure of was that the enemy they engaged in battle was one Cutler Beckett would approve of -- namely, one of the more wanted pirates in the Caribbean, and someone who could end up being one of the Pirate Lords.

“I do not know any of the pirates’ current list of so-called ‘Lords,’” said Jones, “but if I were to guess, I would say your brother’s a viable candidate.”

Carewyn shook her head. “Rakepick blew up the Tower Raven. Jacob managed to escape, but he only has one other person with him and he won’t have a ship.”

“Not his flagship, perhaps, but the rest of his fleet would have still survived,” pointed out Jones. “And the more ships there are, the most justification there would be for your Navy reinforcements. Once I have my heart returned, I can always call off the attack -- there’s no need for me to capture or kill them, aside from following Beckett’s direction.”

And so it was very reluctantly that Carewyn agreed to let Jones covertly seek out the remainder of the Tower Raven’s fleet while supposedly looking for Shipwreck Cove. Little did Carewyn know that the Tower Raven’s fleet was likewise headed for Shipwreck Cove, and that they were on a collision course with a tiny red sloop steered by Charlie Weasley.

When Charlie came upon the fleet of pirate ships, he initially wasn’t too worried. Yeah, naturally, they dwarfed his vessel easily, but he presumed that they were heading for Shipwreck Cove as well, and they didn’t have much reason to attack a small sloop like his. What Charlie hadn’t factored in was that the captain of one of those ships -- Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody -- had gone through his fair share of trauma when he used to be in the Navy and was something of a paranoid sort...and so within minutes, the little sloop Charlie and Chia Dalma were on was soon pursued by Moody’s much larger galleon, called the Phoenix.

Fortunately Charlie was more than talented enough of a sailor to keep his head. Using the advantage of his boat’s size, he weaved expertly through the remainder of the Tower Raven’s ships to evade the Phoenix’s cannon fire.

“Oi!” Charlie bellowed up at one of the ships he was hiding behind. “Tell your mate to bugger off! I’m not with the bloody Navy!”

Chia made no move to help Charlie: instead she stood on the other side of the sloop, watching the seas with a wary eye. There was something troubling on the wind -- something in the air...

A pirate from the Phoenix came up to the railing to look down at Charlie and Chia on their sloop as Charlie sailed it around his galleon. He was a broad-shouldered man about Charlie’s age with dark red hair under a black bandana and small emerald green eyes, and he was dressed in a burgundy-colored coat.

“Hey -- you!” the pirate bellowed down at him. “Down there! Shout up your name!”

Charlie hesitated at first. He knew it was unlikely that most pirates would recognize his name as being that of a pirate -- if anything, the name “Weasley” was associated more with the Navy, even if he, Jules, and Bill had recently been branded criminals.

‘Even so,’ he thought, ‘I’m never going to be able to build a reputation as anything other than a Navy veteran if I don’t use my name. And well, these guys answer to Carey’s brother -- it should be safe...’

“I’m Charlie Weasley!” he shouted back. “Quartermaster of the Revolution under Captain Jules Farrier-We -- ack!”

Before Charlie could even finish, both he and Chia had gotten a net thrown over them and they were hauled aboard the Phoenix.

As Charlie had feared, the name “Weasley” made everyone on the Phoenix tense up with suspicion. Charlie’s “twin,” it turned out, had been swept up by Cutler Beckett, who was now flaunting the fact that the famous, brilliant young Commodore Carey Weasley was answering to him and helping him with his new anti-piracy campaign. Charlie knew full well the only reason Carewyn could be associating with Beckett was to try to sabotage him, but the Phoenix’s Captain Moody seemed doubtful of that explanation. His First Mate, Barnaby Lee -- the young man who had first demanded Charlie’s name -- seemed noticeably less suspicious, but wasn’t half as assertive or articulate as Moody, so the Captain’s conclusion won out among the crew.

Charlie and Chia were soon hauled down to the brig with the thought that once the fleet arrived in Shipwreck Cove, Moody’s superior, Black Jack Roberts -- were he still alive -- would be able to discern how best to deal with them. Charlie hadn’t been too surprised that Jacob hadn’t told everyone in his fleet that “Carey Weasley” was really his sister, but he couldn’t help but curse the fact that Jacob had merely ordered that his men not “damage anyone with the name ‘Weasley’ and immediately bring them to him to deal with.” Even if he had to keep up a “tough guy” image, it would’ve been nice if Jacob had factored in the possibility that he wouldn’t be leading his fleet.

Unfortunately Moody’s suspicion had a real cost. Because of his focus on Charlie and Chia Dalma, he wasn’t focusing on the turbulence of the seas and skies that Chia picked up on -- and so had no warning whatsoever when the Flying Dutchman attacked. Soon the entire fleet of ships that once sailed under the Tower Raven was hotly engaged in battle with the infamous ship of the damned, pirates facing off against both cursed sailors and Navy officers.

While Davy Jones, his crew, and the Navy’s officers were fighting on the upper deck, Carewyn had stowed away below deck to where the Dead Man’s Chest had been left. After sending the remainder of the patrol above deck to help with the sea battle, Carewyn immediately got to work picking the lock on the Chest. Although it was a bit trickier to do it on her own than it had been with Percy, that hindrance was counteracted somewhat by her having unlocked the Chest once before. Within fifteen minutes, Carewyn had unlocked the two-sided lock and opened the Chest.

But when she opened it, she found it completely empty.

“It seems we truly are as alike as I thought.”

Carewyn whirled around.

Rakepick was leaning her shoulder against the door frame. She’d discarded her tricorn hat just as Carewyn had since they were no longer on deck, and her dark blue eyes were locked on the Commodore’s face as though it were a target.

Carewyn immediately pulled out her pistol, pointing it right at Rakepick.

“Where is the heart?” she said very coldly.

“I confiscated it,” said Rakepick simply, “back when I checked to make sure Jones’s key works.”

“On Beckett’s orders?” asked Carewyn.

Had she truly not fooled Beckett, after all? Had Rakepick been sent to watch her as well as Jones? Her face blanched at this thought.

“For my own benefit,” said Rakepick. “Just as I daresay your attempt to steal the heart also was.”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not stealing anything.”

”I don’t know what else you’d call picking the lock on a Chest that’s in the custody of the British Navy,” said Rakepick with a rather cool smile.

Carewyn clicked her pistol and pointed it right at Rakepick’s head.

“Hand over the heart,” she murmured, “now.”

Rather than looking the least bit intimidated, however, Rakepick almost looked more pleased. She eased herself off the door frame and took a few steps closer to Carewyn.

“You intend to kill me, Commodore?” she said.

“I would prefer not to,” Carewyn answered icily. “But I suggest you don’t push me -- I can still shoot you in plenty of places that would be extremely painful or deadly, if left untreated. And no one would come to help you with your wounds -- there’s more than enough noise above deck to muffle any gun shots that might come from down here.”

Rakepick’s lips spread into an even fuller, satisfied smile as she came to a halt just a foot from Carewyn. “I see. If I’m dead, you won’t learn where the heart is. Very astute, Miss Weasley.”

Carewyn stiffened sharply.

“I knew it as soon as I saw you,” said Rakepick softly. “I daresay because your family is poor, you didn’t have enough prospects to just marry into money. Probably were too independent and self-sufficient to settle for that, as well....so you joined your brothers in the Navy by dressing as another son. I suppose ‘Carey’ is just a play on your real name -- is it Cara? Or Carina?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carewyn whispered.

She tried to obscure her fear with anger, but it was proving difficult -- her face was as white as a sheet.

Rakepick couldn’t fight back a scoff. “Now, really, Commodore -- do you truly think you’re the only woman who realized how few opportunities there are, for us to get ahead in this world run by men? I dressed as a man and joined the Navy myself during the War, fighting the French off the coast of Africa as a privateer for his Majesty’s Navy.”

She started striding in a leisurely circle around Carewyn, even as the Commodore kept a beady eye on her.

“‘Patrick Rakepick,’ I was called then. I probably would’ve continued that way too, had privateering not been outlawed with the end of the War. Suddenly all of the skills I had learned -- just as with all privateers -- became illegal and therefore useless. I was at the bottom once again, even worse off than before, thanks to the time lost and the injuries suffered. So I did what many other privateers did -- I became a pirate, so I could continue using those skills the Crown had taught me to support myself -- ”

“By pillaging merchant ships and attacking innocent people,” Carewyn spat. She wished she’d been able to keep her temper, but the mental image of this woman shooting Jacob in the back and pushing him overboard had rippled through her mind and it was a knife to her heart she couldn’t bear.

“We all have to do things we’re not proud of in order to survive, Miss Weasley,” said Rakepick very quietly. “That’s the reason you’ve stayed in line with Beckett yourself, is it not?”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. Rakepick took her silence as an excuse to press further.

“I saw the way you treated the prisoners from Tortuga. You did not treat them as Jones would, or even as any other officer would. You insisted they be fed and watered consistently, despite their large numbers and their shortened lifespans. You gave one a Bible, on request. You even moved a woman into a different cell so she could be with her husband for the rest of the voyage back to Port Royal, without even being asked.”

Rakepick’s dark blue eyes surveyed Carewyn with something interested, almost admiring, as she came to a halt just behind the shorter young woman.

“You have the heart of a guardian, Miss Weasley. Something not frequently seen in any line of work I’ve ever been part of -- privateering, piracy, or pirate hunting...and something never found among men like Cutler Beckett. It makes you want to protect others as well as yourself. It makes you a natural leader -- one that anyone would be foolish to deny their proper place.”

“I don’t need your flattery, Rakepick,” Carewyn said coldly, turning on her heel to face the older woman once again.

“This is not flattery,” Rakepick answered just as coldly. “It’s advice from someone who has been in your shoes. It’s not easy for anyone without money and status to get ahead in this world, but it’s even harder for a woman. Even when she’s able to acquire those things, there’ll always be a man attempting to clip her wings, so as to make him feel more powerful -- more in control. Even the tale of the goddess Calypso herself proves this. She ruled the seas, until the Pirate King and his Brethren Court ‘bound her’ into human form and stole control for themselves. They were powerless in the face of the Crowns of Europe...and so they exerted power over someone they could hurt.”

“Yet Cutler Beckett hired you, regardless of your sex,” said Carewyn, raising her eyebrows.

Rakepick crossed her arms over his chest. “Cutler Beckett will clip anyone’s wings, female or otherwise, if it benefits himself. Hence why I need this leverage over him.”

“Seems like the leverage is much more over Jones, considering you hold his life in your hands,” Carewyn cut her off harshly. “Now enough stalling -- give me Jones’s heart.”

Rakepick gave a half-frustrated, half-exhausted sigh. “Miss Weasley, do you truly think I wouldn’t have handed the heart over to you already, if I could? I’ve already made it more than clear I trust Beckett as little as you do. I’m not in this fight for him. I have no more love for either the Navy or the pirates than you do. I assure you -- we’re on the same side in this.”

‘Doubtful,’ Carewyn thought spitefully.

Nonetheless she could tell that she’d been outmaneuvered. Rakepick wasn’t going to hand over Jones’s heart, whether because it wasn’t on the ship or Rakepick was just too brave to give in to any threats she might make. She’d lost the element of surprise completely...and if force wasn’t going to work, then a new strategy was clearly needed. She needed to find out the heart’s new location. So, very reluctantly, she tucked her pistol back into its holster.

“If you’re so out for yourself,” said Carewyn coldly, “and you believe me to be just as out for myself...then we can’t be on the same side, Rakepick.”

Rakepick’s eyebrows rose over her narrowing dark blue eyes.

“I never said you were out for yourself, Miss Weasley -- merely that we are alike.”

She swept past Carewyn and headed for the door. When she reached the door frame, however, she paused. Turning her head back toward Carewyn, she spoke a bit more seriously.

“The battle between the Navy and the Pirate Brethren Court is going to be a fierce one. It would truly be in your best interest to get and stay off the Dutchman, before that fight begins.”

Carewyn shot a suspicious look over her shoulder without turning around.

“What battle?” she asked lowly.

“The place where all pirates will have to make their final stand.”

“You’re so assured of that? We haven’t even found Shipwreck Cove,” Carewyn pointed out. “Come to think of it...shouldn’t you know where Shipwreck Cove is, since you were a pirate yourself?”

Rakepick’s eyes flashed.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, her voice noticeably icier than it had been previously.

The question seemed to have gotten under Rakepick’s skin, and Carewyn suspected she knew exactly why. Only pirate captains were generally told the the location of Shipwreck Cove -- since she hadn’t assumed captainship through “Code-sanctioned” means, Rakepick couldn’t have been told by anyone else on the crew of Howell Davis’s ship where Shipwreck Cove was.

‘Serves you right, for what you did to Jacob,’ Carewyn thought, and she couldn’t completely fight back a small smirk.

“Regardless,” said Rakepick, “it won’t take long to find it. You saw the map Beckett designed, in your office -- it’s been finished, since you last saw it. The world’s edges have been drawn and charted, and so too have all of the places pirates could’ve once hidden. Now that they’ve been fenced in and the British Crown has allocated its Navy to the East India Trading Company’s war on piracy...it’s only a matter of time before all pirates face extinction. Those in power will not surrender it peacefully...least of all to those they’ve decided to treat as inferiors...so they’ll use every bit of that power they’ve accrued to try to quash any resistance. Those remaining pirates will have to either adapt to this terrifying new world their rebellion has molded...or perish.”

Rakepick turned away.

“And you, Miss Weasley...should not remain on the Dutchman. You don’t belong on a ship like this.”

Even as Rakepick left, Carewyn remained where she was, standing straight-backed in the center of the room with her fists clenched. Then, after a long moment, she brought a hand up to the lid of the empty Dead Man’s Chest and shut it with a harsh SNAP.

The sea battle up above raged. Captain Moody, it seemed, was truly a force to be reckoned with, despite his age and wooden limbs. When Navy officers and Dutchman pirates found their way onto the Phoenix, he fought four of them off single-handed, even going so far as to yank a blunderbuss out of his pants and shoot one of them right in the head before smacking two of the others with it as if it were a club. It was just fortunate that Charlie -- newly escaped from the brig thanks to a charm of Chia Dalma’s -- was able to block the sword belonging to the last of them with his own dragon-hilted blade.

Despite this, the Phoenix and the rest of the Tower Raven’s old fleet was severely outmatched, since Jones’s crew couldn’t die. Many ships had already started to flee, only for the Flying Dutchman to cut them down with cannon fire. Even though the Dutchman was no larger than the pirate galleons, it seemed to have the supernatural ability to heal any damage dealt to it within the span of a few minutes -- an ability not shared by Captain Moody, when he swung over to the Dutchman and pursued Jones with singular, irrational focus, only to finally be overpowered and killed by Jones himself.

“NO!” bellowed Barnaby.

Charlie straightened up sharply, his eyes widening in horror, at the sight of Moody falling to his knees, Jones’s blade stuck right through his chest.

Jones regarded the old man with a grim expression.

“Alastor Moody,” he murmured, “do you fear death?”

Moody glared up at Jones with his one good eye, but was clearly too badly injured to speak. So instead he spat at his feet.

Jones looked almost jaded by the reaction -- the way any embodiment of Death would likely be, whenever anyone got mad at them for doing their job.

“Clearly not.”

With this, he rather callously tossed Moody back over onto the deck of the Phoenix and whirled back to his crew.

“Ready the cannons!”

Barnaby immediately rushed to his captain’s side to help him up.

“Captain -- Captain, are you -- ?”

Alas, Moody was still too injured to speak clearly. When he opened his mouth, all he could do was cough up blood. Charlie rushed over too.

“He’s hurt bad,” he muttered. He turned to Chia. “Is there anything you -- ?”

Chia shook her head, her gray eyes very solemn. “I’m sorry, Charles Weasley. There’s no more time I can give him.”

Charlie was startled by the sensation of someone grabbing the collar of his shirt. Moody pulled him down closer to him, trying to whisper into his ear.

"You -- ” he choked through the blood in his mouth, “ -- have the Pacific Ocean’s Piece of Eight -- ?”

Charlie blinked in surprise. He glanced down at the anchor-trimmed “S” button Chia gave him, which he’d pinned to his vest for safe keeping until he could properly sew it somewhere more secure.

“...Yeah,” said Charlie. “Chia Dalma gave it to me.”

Moody squinted up at Charlie.

“...Shipwreck Cove -- is due west, of here. Fifty miles -- through the D-Devil’s -- Throat. Take -- the crew there.”

Charlie was completely blind-sided. “What?”

“Lead them. Take them to -- Shipwreck Cove. To the rest of the Court. To -- Black Jack.”

Charlie’s brown eyes rippled with sadness, seeing how much difficulty Moody was having talking. He was out of time, as Chia had said -- and yet, here he was, putting his crew first.

‘For all of his faults,’ thought Charlie, ‘Mad-Eye Moody is a good captain.’

The second-eldest Weasley took Moody’s wizened hand in both of his and gave it a squeeze.

“I will,” he said firmly. “I promise.”

Blood streamed from Moody’s lips as they curled up in a pained smile. “That’s a good lad...”

He coughed, trying hard to take another breath. This time, however, the blood blocked his throat enough that no oxygen could reach him. And so Moody, in the last shreds of his life, bravely raised his eyes to the sky with a smile.

Barnaby had brought his two large fists up to obscure his face as he started to cry. Charlie hung his head respectfully over the fallen captain of the Phoenix. After a moment, he brought up a hand to close Moody’s eyes and then rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with determination.

“ALL HANDS, PREPARE THE CANNONS!” he bellowed. “We need all the explosives and smoke bombs we have -- we’re getting the Hell out of here!”

Charlie’s strategy was to assault the Flying Dutchman with two waves of attack. The first would be to damage the ship enough that it would need a few minutes to repair itself -- the second would be a smokescreen, so as to hopefully put enough distance between the Phoenix and the Flying Dutchman that the second couldn’t actively take down the first with its cannon fire. When Charlie ran to the edge of the Phoenix beside Chia Dalma to make the order to fire, he was startled momentarily by who he saw coming up onto the deck of the Dutchman.

It was Carewyn.

Jones confronted her immediately, his eyes narrowed sharply as he barked something to her -- Carewyn looked rather frustrated herself, but Charlie couldn’t make out what they were saying. Within seconds, however, both Jones and Carewyn turned their focus to the battle -- and they both caught sight of the two people at the railing.

Jones’s eyes flickered with shock, disbelief, and something oddly more vulnerable. He’d never seen the human woman on that ship’s railing in his life...but he knew those gray eyes...

“Ca...lypso...?”

Chia Dalma’s hands clutched the railing as her eyes filled with tears and a weak smile prickled at her features.

“Finn,” she breathed.

Carewyn, meanwhile, had met Charlie’s gaze straight on. Her eyes were very wide at the sight of him, just as much as Charlie’s was at the sight of her.

“Carey!” cried Charlie.

His heart felt like it was fit to burst, seeing his surrogate twin again. Part of him just wanted to throw himself over his ship’s railing over to her and pull her into the biggest hug, and yet --

She was on the Dutchman -- the Flying Dutchman, the ship of the damned --

Carewyn’s eyes flooded with fear as she shot her head around, taking in her soldiers fighting off pirates from the rest of the Tower Raven’s fleet on the deck of her ship and the Phoenix’s cannons being turned into the proper position.

Her gaze then shot back to Charlie’s face with urgency.

“BECKETT IS COMING!” she mouthed to him desperately. “BECKETT IS COMING! GO!”

She then yanked her pistol out of her belt and purposefully shot right over Charlie’s head, to make her point. Clenching his jaw, Charlie nonetheless nodded firmly, blinking back some traces of tears as he whirled on his crew.

“FIRST WAVE, FIRE ALL!” he roared.

With the Dutchman effectively hampered by both waves of attack, the Phoenix was able to successfully put a respectable distance between it and the Flying Dutchman. Carewyn tried to keep their focus on the rest of the fleet and on capturing prisoners from those vessels, but Rakepick contradicted her, ordering the Dutchman to shadow the Phoenix in case it was heading to Shipwreck Cove. What Carewyn did not expect was Jones agreeing with Rakepick.

“I want everyone on board the Phoenix locked in my brig,” said the captain of the damned icily, his gaze flaring with raw emotion as he glared at Carewyn. “I will not let them escape me.”

Carewyn knew she’d been outmaneuvered again. There was nothing more she could do, to protect everyone now. It was all up to Charlie now, to warn Bill, Jules, and Jacob...to warn Orion...

The memory of the pirate captain’s calm, dark eyes made Carewyn’s heart clench with longing and pain. He’d always made her feel so much stronger, whenever she felt most useless and hopeless...but right now, more than anything, she longed to have him at her side -- to feel his shoulder resting against hers and see his soft smile once more...

Rakepick was right -- the final battle was coming, sooner than anyone could’ve ever predicted. It was all up to Charlie to warn the Brethren Court now.

#potc au #au #pirates of the caribbean #my art #my writing #charlie weasley #carewyn cromwell #chiara lobosca #Mad-Eye Moody #barnaby lee #finn mcgarry #jules farrier #bill weasley #patricia rakepick #damn it rakepick! #sadly we couldn't afford to set finn free just yet though #gotta get closer to shipwreck cove and reunite him with chia :3 #but yay captain charlie weasley of the phoenix! #he may or may not change the name to something more dragon-like later XD #but yeah technically you gotta be a captain to be a pirate lord #one reason moody gave charlie captainship #and also because as great as barnaby is I think he makes a better First Mate than a Captain #just like bill does XDD #I love putting rakepick and carey in a room together #wonder if you guys can guess who the brethren court members are... #hint: two of them are mc's who have done content for the au #(another mc is the keeper of the code >:3) #four are hphm canon characters #(one of those is charlie of course) #and the last is one of my kiddos >:3