Of Dogs and Dragons

Emilia Reynolds thought about the bed she was sitting on. It was small, hard, and much like that of a not-so-pleasant motel. She never imagined that she'd ever be back in that dump of a room. It was the place that Emilia and Charlie argued once again. It was the exact bed that Taffy fought for her life on.

But Taffy was no longer there. She was safely sleeping in a crate at the Newberry Animal Hospital, happy to be alive and without any injury whatsoever.

Emilia realized as she sat upon the bed, Charlie had helped her again, this time saving her own life from what appeared to be a dragon.

Charlie did not explain everything right away. They flew on the broom to his shack, and he promised that he would tell her everything there. She was currently waiting for that explanation.

She could hear Hermione and Charlie in the kitchen, discussing matters in what started as a whisper, but grew louder as they began to fight more. They seemed to be arguing intently, and Emilia tried to eavesdrop, so she could understand more about the crazy events that had taken place. At that moment, she was having trouble coming up with a plausible explanation for anything that had just happened.

"How far back should we go?" Charlie asked Hermione.

"What do you mean?" Hermione did not seem to understand.

"Using the Obliviate Spell, how much should we take away?"

Obliviate Spell? Broomsticks? Dragons? Emilia was ready to wake up from an obscure dream. It was getting close to Halloween time. Maybe she had been watching too many Halloween movies.

"I don't think you need to use it at all," Hermione said.

Emilia tried to wake herself from the dream that was going on for too long. She knew it was a child's tale about pinching herself, but she tried it anyways with failed attempts. Somehow she was stuck there, unable to wake up.

"What do you mean?" Charlie then asked. Emilia decided to keep listening. At least it was somewhat interesting. If she listened, she would have more facts to recall to Talia, when telling of the unusual dream.

"You can just reveal what you are," Hermione suggested. "Tell her everything - or mostly everything. She could help. You two can work together. At least that will help the dogs that are dying and she can be assured that you are working on the dragon problem."

So it was a dragon. Err... no - it was just a dream! Emilia was starting to think that it was not a dream. But there was no other explanation.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Charlie said. "How am I supposed to explain it?"

"I can help you there," Hermione cheerfully replied. "I am a Muggle born. I know how weird it sounds."

Did she just say Muggeborn? What were they talking about?

"I don't know." Charlie still seemed hesitant to agree with Hermione.

"If it doesn't work out, we can use the Charm from there," Hermione spoke once again. "We should at least try it. She could be understanding and helpful."

"Fine," Charlie said. "But be prepared to fight if she tries to storm out of here. We can't have someone walking around, telling the town that there's a dragon here."

Hermione agreed.

At that, Emilia tried once again to wake up from the dream. They were going to talk to her and to fight if possible. They were seemingly crazy and she did not want to have a conversation about dragons and broomsticks.

Hermione entered the room first and sat on the bed next to Emilia. Charlie sat next to Hermione, apparently afraid of being too close to Emilia. Emilia was fine with that. She didn't want to be near Charlie either.

Hermione was the first one to speak. Emilia stayed quiet, wondering how they were going to break the news to her and what exactly they were going to say. "I know this is going to sound crazy," Hermione started.

That was an excellent start. "Please don't tell me that you're a Witch," Emilia interrupted.

"You know?" Charlie excitedly answered. "Are you a Squib or something? Or do you know someone else that's a Witch? Is Talia a Witch?"

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" Emilia grew confused. "I just heard you guys talking about dragons and charms in the kitchen, so I suspected something. It's okay though because I'm going to wake up from this dream soon."

Charlie grew disappointed and Hermione answered, "This isn't a dream, Emilia. This is real. Magic is real."

"Okay," Emilia sarcastically responded, "Because that makes a lot of sense."

"I know it's difficult to make sense of it." Hermione cast her eyes upon Emilia's skeptical brow. "I didn't accept it right away when I first found out, but it's the only thing that makes sense if you think about it. We were talking about dragons and charms. We flew you back on a broomstick. You were almost killed by a dragon. Didn't you feel that flame? This isn't a dream. This is real, Emilia."

"Can't we just Obliviate her?" Charlie asked impatiently. "I don't think this is working."

"No!" Hermione refused.

"What's Oblevate or whatever anyways?" Emilia asked.

"It's the memory charm," Hermione explained. "If we use it we can make you forget about what all has happened."

"Go ahead." Emilia liked the sound of the charm. "Please take this dreadful day out of my memory. This is too weird." Emilia almost told them to take her childhood memories away as well. She would have liked it if she couldn't remember her father.

"You heard her." Charlie grew anxious. "It's not a terribly difficult spell. Let's just do it."

"No," Hermione repeated. "Don't you want to help save the lives of the dogs you take care of? We can help. If you keep your memory, we can help."

Emilia suddenly remembered the dogs. And she remembered the dragon. It did make sense that a dragon was attacking, however absurd that sounded. That's why the dogs were scorched and that's why no one could figure out what was wrong. For the second time, she had an inkling of a suspicion that it wasn't a dream. "Yes," Emilia replied. "I do want to save the dogs, but I'm still can't accept your theory of magic as being the cause."

"Can I at least explain it a little more?" Hermione then asked.

"Fine," Emilia answered. It couldn't hurt.

"The magic world is quite different from the non-magical world," Hermione started. "Our Minister tries to keep what we do secret from non-magical people, which we call Muggles."

Emilia sighed heavily and kept her lips closed, trying not to laugh at the explanation.

"Most magic comes down to bloodlines, but there are some exceptions, like Squibs and Muggle borns, like me. Right before we turn of age, if we have the ability to use magic, we get a letter of acceptance into a wizarding school. People from this area, at least, go to Hogwarts, but there are different schools in different countries. We go to school for seven years and then we go off to find our careers. Charlie left to Romania to become a dragon keeper. That's why he's here now."

A dragon keeper? That was ridiculous. "Okay, very funny guys. How'd you do it? That broomstick thing was pretty realistic and the dragon looked pretty good too."

"If I wanted to pull a prank," Charlie started, "I would have brought Fred and George along."

At that, Emilia noticed sadness on Charlie's face. Hermione seemed upset or sad as well sand Emilia realized that it probably wasn't a good time to speak. Not that she wanted to anyways.

"I mean..." Charlie's speech drifted off and he seemed to have tears forming in his eyes and difficulty speaking.

"It's okay," Hermione said, grabbing a hold of Charlie's hand, as if to comfort him. That was the first time that Emilia saw Charlie so vulnerable, though she could not figure out why. He did not say anything particularly disturbing.

"What's wrong?" Emilia finally asked, curiosity taking over. She was terribly confused, but still not buying the 'we're wizards' thing.

"Fred and George are two of Charlie's brothers. They're twins, and..." Hermione started to explain, but paused. She seemed to be having trouble saying it as well.

"Fred died in June," Charlie finally spat out, even more tears fogging up his eyes. His expression was unlike Emilia had ever seen before from him - he was having trouble keeping up his composure.

"I'm so sorry," Emilia immediately replied. Charlie was tearful, distracted, and quieter. It was evident to Emilia that he missed his brother and that at least this aspect of his life was real. "I didn't mean to...-"

"It's okay," Charlie interrupted, sniffling as he did so. "I didn't think before speaking."

"Fred was killed by the darkest wizard," Hermione continued to explain. "Voldemort killed and tortured much of the wizard population and Fred died in the final battle. We won the war that day."

"A war?" Emilia asked, shocked. She couldn't believe that was a war going on, without anyone noticing. She was a bit more accepting of the wizarding world, but she held back her reaction. The way Charlie cried for his brother made her realize that he couldn't be making it up. Fred's death was at least real.

"Voldemort came into power once again," Charlie said, yet he seemed to have trouble saying the Voldemort bloke's name. "And the only one who could stop him was the infant who was the only one to survive his attack. There's a long story about him, but basically Harry set off to destroy him, along with two of his friends, my youngest brother, Ron, and Hermione."

A million more questions opened up for Emilia. She asked the one at the top of her mind. "Hermione? But she's just a kid."

"A rather mature one that is," Charlie answered. "Harry's the same age, and so is Ron. They were given a difficult task to destroy him, but they succeeded in the end. If you really want to read more, I think my brother, Percy, is writing a book that should be due out soon. That's not really the important part. The wizarding world is just getting back to normal again."

"Just how many brothers do you have?" Emilia seemed intrigued by the mention of so many relatives.

"Just five, er... four now. And one sister. Ginny's the youngest, but she's quite tough, after growing up with six brothers."

Emilia laughed. She couldn't imagine having such a large family. And they all seemed close. She always wanted a family like that.

More questions sorted through Emilia's mind, but she stayed relatively quiet. Thinking of family hurt her, and she withdrew back to her quiet, shy self. She was fearful to say much more. And she was in shock about the opening up of a new world. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to react, but she tried to stay calm.

Lately, whenever she was around Charlie, her thoughts just seemed to pour out. She should not have opened up so much to him before when she told him about Taffy's story. She did not want to reveal anymore about her past, so suddenly she tried to stay quiet.

"Basically we wanted to tell you this," Hermione broke the silence. "To show you that we're trying. Charlie's been studying about this dragon for quite awhile, trying to figure out what's going on. I came here to help because it is partially my fault that the dragon is here."

Emilia again wanted to know more, but she continued to withdraw from the conversation. She was nervous to let out any more details about her life. As long as it was not directly related to her work, she didn't need to say anything.

"It's not easy," Charlie started to speak again, looking towards Emilia. Emilia's eyes wandered off of Charlie's, as soon as he made contact. "But letting you know helps. At least you know what's truly going on."

Emilia suddenly thought of another question that she knew related to the dogs, so she felt the need to ask it. "That friend of yours, he's a wizard isn't he?"

"Yeah," Charlie replied. "He's a dragon healer from my work. I would love for him to come heal all of the dogs, but that's not possible. If he comes, then all of the Muggles would be suspicious. And we'd prefer not to have to take away anyone's memory."

"But isn't there something you can do?" Emilia still had hope. There was a way that the dogs that were already injured could be saved, but they were hiding it. She was going to fight to get them safe if there was a way to help.

"I know a little about healing," Charlie answered. "But not like Damon does. I guess I could try my best to help, but you'd have to hide it. We'd need to come up with a solution that is possible in Muggle ways and we can't cure them all at once."

"That's fine." Emilia was overjoyed. She wanted to believe in the wizarding world just if it meant that the dogs would be healed. That was the most important thing to her.

"Okay," Charlie answered. "But if I help, you have to promise to keep this a secret. You can't tell anyone, not even Talia."

Emilia realized that might be a difficult thing to do, but she wouldn't let it stop her from healing the poor animals. If that meant keeping a secret from her best friend, she was willing to do it. She was willing to do anything, so long as they were safe. "Okay," Emilia agreed. "Let's do it."