Of Dogs and Dragons

A five year old child ran along a battered brick pathway, trying to keep up with his older brother. He was panting heavily, but he didn't even take notice. He was filled with excitement, trying to urge himself forward, as fast as his adolescent legs would take him.

His brother looked back at him, grinning because of the excitement apparent on his brother's face. His chubby cheeks were raised up high and his eyes showed that he was thrilled to be walking along that path. "Dragons are scary, you know, Charlie," Bill told his younger brother. "And you might be too young to see them. Sometimes they don't let little kids in."

Charlie grew worried as he skipped along the path to the dragon reserve. His parents had promised him that he would be able to see a real live dragon, and he was not going to be amused if he was turned away.

"Kids, wait up!" the voice of Arthur Weasley rang through the boys' ears. Charlie did not want to slow down. He just wanted to see the dragon.

Bill stopped running, and as much as Charlie wanted to continue on, he followed his brother's example. Bill had seen the dragons before, and he knew were he was running towards. Charlie had never seen them, and he did not know where to go.

"You have to wait for me anyways," Arthur said as he caught up to his sons. "They're not going to let you two in by yourselves."

The three continued to walk along the pathway, though much slower this time, Charlie with impatient manners. "Come on dad. Hurry up," Charlie demanded.

"Charlie, the dragons aren't going anywhere," Arthur said, amused but a bit annoyed by his son's impatience. "We're not going to miss them no matter how slow we walk."

"But I want to see them now!" Charlie shouted, his body bouncing up and down with anticipation.

"Alright, alright," Arthur said. "We're almost there."

The three continued to walk for several more minutes until they finally reached the reserve, located in the higher peaks of the town's mountains. The three were visitors and therefore they could only observe from the safest building along the reserve's edge. The building had heavy security against dragon magic and dragons tended not to go near it because of that. However, with the use of Omnioculars, visitors could observe the dragons in relatively good detail.

Arthur entered the building first, knowing that there would be security points. He had a connection so that he could bring his curious sons; a co-worker's son worked at the reserve. Usually outsiders were not allowed to visit since it could be a dangerous place.

"Name?" a voice coming from a machine caused Arthur to pay attention to it.

"Arthur, Bill, and Charlie Weasley," Arthur answered. Charlie stood up tall as he could, afraid that the machine was going to discriminate against him. Was Bill really serious about young kids not being allowed in?

Of course, Bill was only teasing his younger brother. Out came three visitor's passes, one with each of their names on it on the top line, and Acquaintance of Martin Stein written underneath. Arthur handed the name tags to each of his sons and put his on his robes. Charlie did so as well, afterwards skipping along past the entrance, following his father into the main section of the building.

Charlie was expecting something magical when he made it to that section. He was expecting hundreds of people gathered around in a gigantic hall, observing the many dragons flying around right outside of the building. He expected great halls where people studied the magnificent creatures, but that's not what he saw. Instead, the visitor's building was relatively small and there were only two other people there. He decided experience would be even better because of that. It was more intimate. He was only one of few people that would be getting to see the dragons.

But then his eyes gazed outside the window, and he didn't see anything. The mountains were huge and victoriously tall, with large fields of grass and sunny cloudless skies, but there were not dragons... at least none that he saw. He was severely disappointed.

"I don't see anything, dad," Charlie said, lugubrious and upset. "I thought we'd be able to see dragons."

"And we are," Arthur answered. He took a pair of Omnioculars from his briefcase and he handed them to Charlie. "Just look out of these."

Charlie took the Omnioculars and pointed them in the direction of the clear, glass viewing center. He stared through them and shouted, "I still don't see anything!" He was impatient and he was annoyed. This was not what he expected from this outing.

Arthur took the Omnioculars from his son's hands and stared until he saw a small dot in the background. He positioned the Omnioculars on that small dot, and he stared through them, finally finding a dragon. He kept them pointed at the dragon and told Charlie to stare from that view.

Charlie stood on his tippy-toes in order to reach the position that his father was holding the Omnioculars at. He was not expecting to see anything because he had already been disappointed, but when he looked through he saw a large black dragon walking along the ground.

Charlie saw the magnificence of the creature right away. He had midnight black scales, and beautiful bronze horns, with matching black ridges along his back. His wings were the black of his body, and they looked like the wings of a bat, yet larger. And as Charlie continued to stare, he finally noticed the big brown eyes of the dragon, scrounging around for a meal.

"I wanna see!" Bill yelled while Charlie was captivated by just the one dragon.

"Charlie, it's Bill's turn," Arthur said, trying to break Charlie free of the Omnioculars.

"One more minute," Charlie answered. "I just want to see him fly. He's going to fly."

And sure enough, within seconds, the great horned creature took off into the air. Charlie pressed his hands against the Omnioculars so that he could follow the path.

The dragon flew slowly and swiftly through the air. He did not even seem to be making much effort to fly. He did not fly up too high and Charlie noted that particular behavior, wondering why he wouldn't want to fly up into the clouds. And as the dragon continued to fly, he eventually flew behind the mountain, so that he was hidden. Charlie could observe no more.

As soon as the dragon disappeared, Charlie took a hold of the Omnioculars again, trying to find another dragon. He spent several more hours, tracking down the dragons, observing their motions, while his brother tried to take a hold of the Omnioculars. But Charlie would not let go. After seeing his first dragon, he just wanted to see more.

---

"Charlie! Charlie!" Hermione shouted, causing Charlie to open up his eyes slowly. When he did, he needed to take a second to remember where he was.

He found himself on top of his broomstick, with Hermione only several feet away from him. She was holding a pair of Omnioculars and she seemed to be intrigued by what she saw.

The two were high up in the air, so that the dragon wouldn't spot them. Charlie was hidden by the Invisibility Cloak incase, but the dragon most likely wouldn't have seen him anyways. And they were not high enough for any of those Muggle planes to catch a glimpse of Hermione.

"Where are you, Charlie?" Hermione spoke, as she continued to hold the Omnioculars steadily in her two hands.

"Just to your right," Charlie answered in a yawn. He was embarrassed to have fallen asleep, but at least Hermione hadn't seen him asleep. The Invisibility Cloak was a good protection against that. "What do you see?"

"The egg's moving," Hermione said. "I think it's ready to hatch."

Charlie ripped off the Invisibility Cloak and dived in closer to Hermione. "Let me see those," he said, wanting the Omnioculars. Excitement began to crawl over his body.

Charlie took a hold of them and immediately found the position of Linnie and her egg. As Hermione had announced, its hard cement shell was starting to move and now it was even beginning to crack. Charlie had seen many births before, and he knew what was about to happen.

Charlie noticed that Linnie was completely focused on her egg. Her milkily pink eyes stared with great excitement at the hatching egg.

Charlie started to creep closer to her, urging Hermione to do the same. He knew with the baby's birth she would become more protective, but during the actually hatching she was not going to be paying attention to her surroundings.

The actually hatching process did not take too long. It never did... not in Charlie's experience. But it was an amazing experience. Charlie always tried to make it to see the birth of new dragons. The feeling that something new was coming into the world was magnificent, especially when it was a dragon. It would be one more baby that Charlie could watch grow up and adjust to the world. It was a new life that Charlie could witness, learning how to survive.

Hermione seemed to be just in awe as Charlie was, her eyes completely concentrated on the small black dragon baby. Horntails were especially cute when they were first born, their bronze horns tiny speckles on their delicate heads. The spikes on their tails were not fully formed yet either, so they did not even look that vicious. But next to their mothers, they were protected.

"Let's get going," Charlie warned Hermione as the baby adjusted its eyes to the brand new world. Their observation time was over. The dragon baby may have looked innocent and harmless, but he was not. And he was especially not with his mother near by.

Charlie started to pull upwards, hoping that Hermione would follow. She, however, did not take heed to his warning. She was too amused by the birth of the new dragon.

Charlie wanted to shout to get her attention, but shouting would also get the baby and the mother's attention. He was not sure what to do until the baby allowed the message to ring out by his own account.

He took two gentle steps to the right, more towards where Hermione was. He then took a glance up at her, as he raised his mouth and opened it, firing a tiny jet of fire for the first time in his short life.

The flame did not go very far and Hermione was not close enough to get a full blast of the fire, but it was enough to warn her to stay away, especially because Linnie was so close by, prepared to search out for any predictors, coming to harm her baby. She did not even care what they would be, her thoughts being, "Attack first, think later."

So Hermione sped up on her least favorite traveling device, heading towards Charlie. When she grew nearer, she noticed that Charlie had a smirk on his face. "You liked that, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yeah," Hermione answered reflectively. "Yeah, I did. Now what are we going to do next?"

"I'm not sure," Charlie answered calmly. "I guess we need to just keep watching her to make sure she's not doing any harm."

"But how're we going to keep hiding her, Charlie?" Hermione suddenly realized that Charlie's plan wasn't all too thought out. "The Ministry's going to figure it out soon enough and people will be searching for her. They're going to eventually find her."

"I don't know," Charlie was not prepared to give an in depth explanation. Hermione was right; he didn't really know what he could do. Moving her again was not going to be easy and surely someone would find out if they stayed in the new town for long enough. He would just have to try to stop anyone from finding out.

"Hey, I've got an idea," a strange voice announced and crept closer to the pair. Hermione noticed his curly dark hair, but she couldn't see too much more of his appearance under the darkened sky. He was riding along a broomstick as well, the model, unknown to Hermione, though Ron probably would've known. "You're going to come with me."

"And who would you be?" Hermione asked, already angered by this stranger. She turned to Charlie and saw that he was motionless as the man spoke to the pair. His eyes were tuned to the man, and he stared without even a blink for several seconds.

"I would be Dragos Vasile," the man answered. "And that is my dragon."