Of Dogs and Dragons

Charlie Weasley sat alone in a desk in the corner of the dusty shack that his boss so carelessly arranged for him to live in. He had at least four books opened, while he munched on a handful of pretzels, trying to get some food into his system, as he worked tirelessly to find out what was going on with the Gringott's dragon.

He just couldn't figure it out. There was nothing in any of the textbooks that said that a female dragon could lay an egg, without the presence of a male around. And there was no male dragon around - at least not another Hungarian Horntail. Charlie was sure of that. Because none of it seemed to make sense, Charlie was stuck in a mystery that was going to be hard to solve without all the evidence.

The man heard his stomach grumble, and instinctively lodged another pretzel in his mouth. There was no time for him to eat a real meal seeing as he had yet to figure everything out. For when that egg hatched, a time he couldn't truly estimate, she would become even more dangerous.

Charlie let out a heavy sigh, frustrated and feeling extremely alone in his efforts. He had owled his boss with updates, yet he had never elaborated about the obvious frustrations that the assignment entailed. He knew he could figure it out, and did not want to give his boss any reason to think that he was weak. One of these days Charlie hoped to rise up in the ranks of his company, and weakness was not going to get him there.

He fiercely closed his Dragon Encyclopedia, as even after hours of coming up empty, Charlie still hadn't the slightest clue as to how this dragon ended up with an egg. And ironically, the book was no help either. It didn't tell him anything about dragon eggs other than what a dragon trainer of his advanced years should already know. So that in itself had been aggravating seeing as there was no male even close to their proximity.

He proceeded to close the three other books that he had dispersed out on the table. He then grew even more upset, as he swept his arm across the table, which caused the books to fall down to the ground finally prompting a loud bang.

Charlie stood up from his seat, circling around the room attempting to think. His eyes focused on the dark outside scenery, as he suddenly realized that someone or something had just landed itself outside of his door. That was enough to disrupt his thoughts.

He took another look, trying to see what it was, but his eyes failed him. Whatever it was was approaching quickly, and with disturbing confidence. When he heard a knock on the door, he felt somewhat relieved, knowing that a potential threat would not willingly knock. If he was lucky, it could possibly even be Talia, ready to apologize from their previous conversation.

He opened the door quickly, which came to reveal a bushy haired girl standing with a rather large set of books in her hands. "How did you find me?" Charlie asked.

"Your parents told me," Hermione Granger revealed, walking into the shack without hesitation. Charlie opened his mouth to tell her that she was not welcomed, but he soon closed it, realizing that she probably could help. He was not having much luck on his own.

"I told you not to help." Charlie still had to try to stop her. She was still inexperienced with dragons.

"I know," Hermione answered as she walked in, putting the books down on the table that Charlie had just previously been at, frustrated by his rather useless studying results. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about the dragon since you left. I couldn't understand what happened, but I think I know now."

Charlie opened up eagerly in anticipation for what she was going to say. She had an answer? He had to listen.

"The dragon came from a reserve - right?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah," Charlie answered. "Let me make sure."

For the first time since the night before his first day of work in the Muggle town, he took a look at the protocol that his boss handed him. Charlie opened up to the page where it had the dragon's past information, and saw that the dragon had in fact come from a reserve - the very reserve that he worked at in Romania.

Charlie's eyes glanced further down the sheet, realizing that his own boss, Dragos Vasile, had been the one to sign her over to the bank. It was making sense. He never thought his boss cared about dragons as much as the other dragon people did. It must not have been a problem for him to give the orders to allow a dragon to live such a terrible life.

"Right from Romania," Charlie finally answered.

"Okay," Hermione then started to explain. She opened two of the books that she brought with her and she found a certain page that she had marked as important using a simple Page-Marking spell. "Jerome Lackluster found that sometimes when witches who are powerful enough, are depressed when they are pregnant, they can suppress memories, which causes them to delay the growth of the child, sometimes stopping it permanently or sometimes pausing it enough until they are over their depression."

Charlie was not sure where her explanation was headed. He looked to see the title of the book as Lackluster's Discoveries of Wizard Kind, which had nothing to do with dragons.

She then grabbed the other open book and Charlie noticed the title being, Lackluster Junior's Discoveries of Magical Creatures. "Lackluster's son was more interested in magical creatures and he researched to see if any of his father's studies could relate to them. He briefly discussed the topic of suppressed memories, stating that he believed he witnessed a Unicorn, delaying a birth, until her mate came back for her. He says that he's not sure if this happens in all creatures, especially egg-laying creatures, but he says it's quite possible."

"So you're telling me that the dragon suppressed her memories, keeping her egg from hatching, until she was free from Gringotts?" Charlie was not sure if he understood her correctly. It could be possible, but that would mean that a lot of assumptions would have to be true.

"Yeah," Hermione answered. "If you can talk to the people from Romania, you can see if they noticed if she was pregnant before she left. Or if there was a male dragon that she'd been around a lot. At least that could prove the assumption."

"Thank you." Charlie was grateful. At least he had one explanation, and it was something that he could look into with an easy owl to his boss.

"You're welcome," Hermione answered.

"But what about the green?" Charlie then mentioned, remembering the green on several of the dogs at the Animal Hospital.

"What green?" Hermione asked.

"The dragon has this greenish slob around his mouth. The victims have it too. I don't know exactly where it's coming from," Charlie said, keeping his eyes focused on Hermione.

"I'm not sure," Hermione answered, with a bit of confusion. "I'll do some more research in a bit, but for now don't you think I deserve a chance to meet the dragon after what I've found?"

"What?" Charlie was not expecting that. Harry was the adventurous one. Hermione was the reasonable one. He was not sure where that came from. "I don't think so. I told you, it's too dangerous."

"But I have an Invisibility Cloak," Hermione said, as she lifted up the cloak, showing Charlie, as much as one could show another an Invisible Cloak. "There's no danger in that. Come on."

"Where's your entourage?" Charlie asked, realizing that Harry and Ron were missing from the picture.

That was unusual.

"You said all of us would be too many responsibilities for you, so I didn't tell them that I was coming. Or that I was even working on a way to figure this out."

"Why do you want to see the dragon?" Charlie was amused with the cloak, though he still did not get why Hermione was so adamant on coming.

"I'm not exactly sure. I guess when I heard some of your experiences with dragons I became interested. I'm still not exactly sure what I want to do with my life, and maybe working with dragons would be sort of interesting. I mean figuring out what happened to this one was kind of... fun."

Charlie laughed. "You? Working with dragons?" He couldn't imagine it at all. Maybe she was not as sensible as he thought her to be.

But Hermione did not respond. Instead, she put the cloak over her and Charlie, squishing herself next to him to make it fit. "Let's just go," she said enthusiastically.

---

Emilia Reynolds could not sleep.

She had heard some unusual sound in the middle of the night, and kept her eyes opened since then, wondering where the sound was coming from. She was scared. And what made it even worse was that she couldn't find her beloved Taffy.

Usually at night, Taffy slept on a bed that was right next to Emilia's own bed. Taffy kept her company and Taffy gave her companionship, which was something she unfortunately lacked. When Emilia woke up to the distance sound of harm, she found that Taffy's bed was empty. In fact, Taffy wasn't even in the room and that terrified Emilia.

She slipped on some shoes and grabbed a jacket, thinking that under the autumn moon it was going to be somewhat cold. She walked outside revealing that was indeed the case, and she stared her eyes out into the bleakness and darkness of the night.

The moon was shining bright, halfway towards fullness. The street lamps were shining heavily as well making the neighborhood seem friendly, even in the darkest of nights. She usually was afraid to walk alone under the night's skies, but now she did not think about her fear. She wanted to find Taffy and that was all that mattered.

She walked further towards the forest because that's where she always heard the noise. That's where some type of chilling sensation surged through her body to warn her that there was danger. She was not the type of person that searched for danger, but if it meant saving Taffy's life, than it was an ample sacrifice.

Emilia did not want to drive because she knew that if Taffy somehow escaped, she would more likely run into her on foot. Driving would only cause the poor canine to be confused, and that is not what she wanted.

The woman continued to walk past the residential streets, and more towards the dark forest. Lights started to die down and she did not even think about the possible dangers she could be walking towards. The town was relatively safe, except for the unknown creature. And so far the unknown creature had not attacked humans... at least none that she had heard of.

At the edge of the woods, right before the steep hill started, Emilia heard a bristling of leaves. She thought she even saw a shoe pass her by, but that couldn't be possible - could it? Unless the creature was extremely unusual and rare, she must not have actually seen a shoe walking itself in the briskness of the night.

But she did hear a crackling sound, like someone was walking along the path, rustling along the autumn leaves. And the sound was coming right from the direction that she saw the shoe.

Then she saw Taffy. Her yellow fur was almost unnoticeable because it was completely covered in red streaks of blood. She was walking with a limp, and Emilia realized that each step was a struggle for her to walk. Taffy whimpered as she flopped along, giving Emilia the interpretation that she was near death.

Emilia ran to her as soon as she noticed her, so that Taffy did not have to take another painful step. She scooped her large dog up in her arms, trying to protect her from the evil that just attacked.

As soon as Taffy was in her arms the dog grew limp, not able to move. Tears poured down Emilia's face, but she carried on knowing that she had to take her to the hospital as quickly as possible. She could not wipe the tears away, so it made it her vision more difficult, but Emilia ran, trying to save her best friend's life.

She heard a noise coming from behind her, but she did not stop. Emilia knew it could be the creature and she did not want to give it a chance to attack, even though curiosity was pounding at her body to turn back to see what it was.

Then she heard his voice.

It was Charlie that was following her, and she took a moment to pause to look at him. She turned around to see a girl next time him, who had to be about ten years younger than him. "Good going with your job," Emilia ruthlessly shouted. "You've done a wonderful job!" She could not stop the tears as she declared her anger against him.

"I'm sorry." Charlie looked somewhat frightened from Emilia's intense stare.

"You haven't even been working, have you?" she asked. "Fooling around with a kid? I should have known. You don't really care."

"Hey!" the girl shouted.

"Quiet, Hermione." Charlie stopped her from saying anymore. "Hermione's my brother's girlfriend," Charlie then explained, but he wasn't certain why. The tears streaming down Emilia's face compelled him to want to make the pain go away for her, but he didn't know how.

"You're a terrible person." Emilia felt even more anger towards him, with a hint of annoyance. She did not care about giving him time to explain himself.

"Shut up!" Charlie yelled, frustrated and concerned at the same time. He moved closer to Emilia, in attempt to examine Taffy's wounds. "She came to help me and she did. We were just going to check out the creature again when I saw you and Taffy is it?"

That did make a little bit of sense to Emilia. She had not thought about how Charlie and the girl named Hermione came to found her. Still, she didn't trust him, and she needed to get going. Taffy was weakening. "I have to go," Emilia said. "I need to do my job. I need to save her."

She started to walk once more, increasing her pace as she went along. "Wait," she soon heard Charlie say. He ran up to her, trying to stop her from continuing on. However, Emilia did not have enough patience. She needed to keep walking; to get Taffy to the hospital.

"I think I can help," he said. "You haven't been successful thus far in saving any of them. I know someone who I think can help. Please, just trust me."

Emilia thought about his offer, as she continued to walk, or rather jog. He was correct about her record. She had not been successful in saving one dog's life since the attacks had started, and even though she knew she would work tirelessly to save her own dog's life, it probably would not turn out well. If he had a solution, she should at least try it. Anything to save her dog.

"And how long will it take for this person to get here?" Emilia asked.

"Not very long at all," Charlie quickly responded, relieved that she was starting to give him something to work with. "If you take Taffy back to my place, I can get him here pretty quickly."

Emilia considered the offer again. She did not like stepping aside from doing her job, but it seemed reasonable and it seemed like her only real option to save her dog's life.

"Okay," she finally decided. "Let's go."