Men and Their Dragons

“Good bye mum,” Charlie emphasized, wanting to get away from his mother and her nagging nature about her thoughts of his job, his loneliness, and his hair. Molly Weasley was never a fan of hair that went past her sons’ ears. Bill and Fleur were in the background, laughing at the annoyance evident in Charlie’s voice. He sent them a look, glad to finally be away from the Ministry’s court rooms and horrible tasting tea. They were worse than his mum.

“But Charlie, dear, I don’t want you to go out there! After that attack at the wedding, who knows what will happen!”

“Mum, it’s not like Death Eaters will come and try to recruit any Dragon Trainers in Romania. The farthest they’ll get near the reserve is Suceava before being scared off by one of the dragons,” the second oldest son of the Weasley children said, slipping out of the arms of his mother who was again starting to nag about his hair. (Shorter than Bill’s yet still long enough to pull back into a strap of tied leather.)

“You better write me more, Charles Septimus Weasley! I will not go another six months with no word from you!”

Before Molly could get all of your words out, Charlie disappeared out the door with a steady pop. He arrived in Muggle London, taking only a few seconds to take a deep breath, and Apparate again. This time, he arrived in Paris, France. Next, Florence, Italy took over his vision. The city was beautiful with the lights all lit and the sounds of another busy night starting. Charlie disappeared yet again right before a crowd of Muggle teenagers could turn the corner he appeared on.

The next, and last, place Charlie arrived at was a lone knee-high grass field somewhere in Serbia. The stars were brighter than he was used to, even at the reserve. Another pop, and Charlie arrived in the front lounge of the main office of the Romanian Dragon Reserve. Almost instantly, someone came rushing out of one of the offices. Charlie’s co-worker stopped just long enough to send him a sneer.

“Back already, Weasel?” Collin Redworth flipped his prince-charming, blonde hair from his eyes, not happy to see the redhead. He had hoped that Charlie wouldn’t show up until a very long time, if ever.

“Did you miss me, Reddie?” Charlie sneered back, pushing past him to go to his dorm and sleep. He still wasn’t used to the time change from Romania to Britain. Collin muttered under his breath something before disappearing down a different hall.

Why was Redworth going toward the nursery? He worked out in the field as a collector, not a nurse. The thought of that git in a skin tight white dress and stockings made Charlie start to question his sexuality.

“Charlie, there you are! I’d seen you show up, but you ran away before I could stop you.” Knowing the very familiar female baritone voice, Charlie turned around and threw the white blonde a smile, even though she could not see it. It was almost ironic how she was blind, yet a seer by birth.

“I’m sorry, Violetta. All I have on the mind right now is getting to my room and sleeping. Is it too much to ask to catch up with you tomorrow?”

Violetta’s lips smoothed into an upward curve, showing her white teeth and pink gums, “So I take it you haven’t heard of the new girl?”

Charlie’s red brows arched, he stepped closer to the blind seer. “New girl?”

“Oh yes, she showed up a few days after you left for your brother’s wedding. A very interesting add to our big dysfunctional family of dragon lovers.” Violetta winked one of her hazed over dark blue eyes, her smile uplifting to Charlie’s curiosity. “You’ll like her.”

And after that, Violetta turned a corner and disappeared down the halls that she knew like the back of her hand, humming a tune that Charlie hadn’t heard her hum before. Shaking his head, Charlie never understood Violetta’s ways. He knew she was needed more than him or Redworth or anyone else on the reserve. If it weren’t for her, many of his co-workers would not be here right now. She had saved many lives, but she could not say a word to anyone of what she saw. She would simply say, “Don’t go,” and they wouldn’t go.

Taking a few turns, exiting the main building, and then taking a quick shortcut to another, Charlie entered the small apartment like dorms and found his without trouble. Of course he would find it without trouble. Charlie Weasley had been living here since the day he left Hogwarts (not really, but it felt that way to him).

After his door was shut, and a light was flicked on above him, Charlie rubbed his finger tips over the short red stubble that was starting to grow on his chin. The thought of this ‘new girl’ entered his mind. He didn’t get much about her, other than the simple, “You’ll like her”, from Violetta. She was a new piece added to the puzzle of his mind’s thoughts.

It was a bit of a miracle that Charlie was able to fall into to bed and think, ’This is the first time I’ve fallen into this bed without a single new cut, or bruise since…’ He really didn’t know when.

--

“Redworth, get out of the way you bloody idiot!” Charlie Weasley shouted at the stunned dragon-egg collector, as he and a few other keepers tried to stop the angry female from killing the poor bastard. Collin wouldn’t move, the golden-brown egg pressed against his chest wrapped in a blanket and both of his arms. Charlie tackled the man to the ground, just in time before his head could be thrown off by a very big, spiky dragon tail.

When Charlie looked down at the man to yell at him, he found that Collin had most definitely fainted. What was his problem lately? Scowling to himself, Charlie pulled the egg from the man’s loose arms and then dragged him by his collar to lie against a large tree root. One of Charlie’s other co-workers, Maximus Parforth, came running over.

“We were able to stun her for a moment, but just a moment. We got to get out of here!”

Charlie nodded his head in Redworth’s direction, the blonde still out cold, and Apparated away with the egg tightly in his arms. He rushed to get the egg out of the cold hall and into the nursery where he first came face to face with the ‘new girl’ he had heard so much about over the past week he had been back home. He stared at her, as if in a trance.

“You must be the famous Charlie Weasley that everyone has been telling me about.”

From the t-shirt of an American Rock band to the beat up sneakers on her feet, she screamed Muggle. From the black frizzy, curls that were the archenemy to any comb or brush, to the deep caramel skin that was shown off modesty, she screamed beautiful. The way she talked, screamed genius. And she had an accent.

It sent shivers down his spine and caused a very uncomfortable tightness in his pants.

She raised one of her dark brows when not receiving an answer before noticing the dragon egg.

“Merlin, que é um ovo?!” She exclaimed, more than likely in her native language, as she quickly took the egg from his hands and hurried away into one of the rooms connecting with the main office of the nursery. He followed her, snapped out of his trance. When he found her, she was carefully setting the egg in a chamber, dialing a few knobs on the side before closing the see-throguh door. She rushed his way, pushing Charlie to get to one of the desks behind him. The woman grabbed a clipboard and hurried to jot something down on the paper she held before entering the incubator room and attaching the clipboard to a knotch on the side.

With her job done, she turned back to Charlie with a slight flush on her cheeks.

“Sorry, Nurse Towers comes out when I see an egg. I’m worse than a Dragão mãe,” she chuckled at her overprotectiveness of the baby dragon still in the egg, and held out her hand. “Darrien Towers. You must Charlie Weasley? There’s only one redhead as cute as you in the reserve, I’m told.” With a wink of one of her brown eyes, Charlie quickly took her hand and shook it.

“Right, yeah. I’m Charlie. Nice to meet you. I’ve been meaning to come welcome you to the reserve, but work has caught up with me since I was gone for about two weeks. Not to mention winter weather is supposed to hit a a few weeks earlier than last year.” Charlie made up an excuse. To tell the truth, he had completely forgotten about her after that night when Violetta had seen him come back. “We got to get all the eggs we can before a bunch of those mothers lose a child.”

Darien nodded, her frizzy black hair bouncing as she did. “Yeah, well next time you see a mommy without her egg, tell her her baby is in good hands.” Darien gave another wink and a laugh.

Charlie’s heart skipped a beat.