Tough As Dragon Skin

"Someone was looking for you last night concerning Romania. What did you do that you didn’t bother to tell me this time?"

Sam froze at the sound of Nat's voice, still cold and angry. He'd been hoping she'd gotten wrapped up in something Jurassic and had forgotten by now. Obviously he'd been mistaken.

"Natty!" He turned around and gestured expansively. "I honestly thought you'd like the little joke. Of course, I have all the information you want -"

"And you're a liar." Nat was standing next to the gate of his condo's courtyard. "I can't believe you, Mr. Anal Accountant, not only wasted money on such a 'prank' but also didn't consider how it would affect me."

Something in her voice gave Sam pause. "What do you mean?"

"It turns out that your little prank backfired on both of us. I'm fired. My tenure was rejected, as was my grant for that dig in Antartica. They told me I had a week to pack my office and be gone. They've hired Hucksley to finish teaching my classes. Hucksley, the looney bin nutcase with the theory about global warming being the reason the evolution of man developed!"

He gaped at her; he couldn't help it.

"I don't know what you stumbled into but it involves the British government. I reported you, Sam, because it looked like you'd gotten incriminating evidence of some unethical animal treatments. Instead of reporting it to the proper authorities you turned it into a joke on me."

"How do they get off sacking you for it?" he wanted to know, his mind going numb. He had fudged things in a big way and, for the life of him, Sam had no idea how it had happened.

Nat approached him, gripping her heavy black bag like she was going to swing it at him. "Because I authorized them to pay all your bills and begged them to let you go in my place. I vouched for you and you screwed it up, Sam. In a very, very big way. I do so hope you're happy."

Sam swallowed and closed his eyes. It had gone wrong. "Maybe I should have sold them to the ‘National Enquirer’," he muttered to himself. "I'd have gotten more out of it."

"Excuse me?" Nat's voice was sharp and his eyes flew open guiltily. "I had a British official crawling all over my office last night, Sam. To save your hide, I purposefully couldn't find those photos you gave me and this is what I get in return." She bashed him with her purse and he could see tears welling in her blue eyes. "I know I'm not the person with common sense and yes, I forget to do things like eat and no, I have no idea where the milk aisle is at the grocery store, but you know what, I thought I engendered some respect from you. Obviously I was mistaken! We're finished. I'll just have to muddle through life without you."

She stalked away and Sam saw his dreams trickling away with her every step. "Nat! Wait! I didn't know..."

"Get stuffed, Samuel Hill."

Charlie watched the exchange between Nat Greene and Sam Hill rather guiltily. Some of the blame for her circumstances fell on him as well. If the dragon hadn't gotten away -

He shook himself. It was done. He had to get those pictures, wipe their memories and get back before Fudge sent the Ministry in. He was loathe to have Ministry representatives in on this, though he didn't know why.

Nat got into her little baby blue car and started the engine. It roared to life, making Charlie smile a bit. It sounded like a baby Chinese Fireball. Wrong color, but same sound. Sam was bleating platitudes at her window but a burst of music suddenly blared from within her vehicle. She must have turned on the radio loud enough to drown him out.

In a sudden burst of anger, Hill kicked one of her tires and stalked to his own car. Charlie took this moment to step from his hiding place and approach.

"Mr. Samuel Hill?" he asked in his most officious tone. Hill slowed his angry pace to his own black vehicle. "Are you Mr. Samuel Hill?"

"Yes," said Hill slowly, warily.

"I'm Charles Weasley, I work for the British Ministry." He smiled sternly at Hill. "I'd like to ask you a few questions..." His voice trailed off and he pulled his wand quickly and pointed it at Hill. "OBLIVIATE!"

The wand shot forth red sparks and a beam of red light headed right for the American. Hill, already wary, managed to barely leap out of the way and ran screaming toward his former fiancee's car. Charlie, cursing his really bad luck so far, gave chase. He caught up with Hill, who was now pounding on the window.

"Did you see that?" demanded Hill as Nat rolled down her window in exasperation. "He tried to shoot me with his wand!"

"If I had a gun, I'd shoot you if I knew how," snapped Nat. "Hello, Charlie."

"You're on first name basis with him?" squeaked Hill in horror. 'I'm sunk,' he thought to himself. 'No doubt this wizard guy has cast some spell on her. Any chance I have of living off her is shot to hell. I'm outta here.'

Sam pulled up the manual lock and opened the door in one fluid motion, pulling a startled Natalie from her driver's seat. He held her in front of him like a shield. "Stay back, Weasel, or I'll..."

"You'll do what?" snapped Natalie and she suddenly found herself flying at the Englishman.

Charlie caught an armful of hellcat, astonished by the change that came over the scatterbrained young woman. She tried to turn in his arms and go after her former fiancé but he pulled her out of the way as Hill put the car in reverse and sped out of the parking lot.

"Come on!" Charlie told her, dragging her to Hill's car. "He dropped his keys when I tried to talk to him. Can you drive his car?"

Nat's lips thinned and her eyes sparked behind her glasses. "You better believe it, buster!" she growled and unlocked the other car. She scrambled into the sports car and hit the unlock button on the driver's side door. "This used to be my car but he wanted the sporty model so I took the practical little thing he just drove off in."

Charlie slid in and slammed the door just as she threw the car in reverse and peeled out of the parking lot as well. He fought a sense of unease and instead scanned the cars in front of them for her vehicle. "Where's he going?"

Nat grinned. "He's got to go to his office. The only place he has the equipment for his digital camera is at work. That's where he would have stored his own copies. He muttered something about the ‘National Enquirer’."

"Isn't that a scandal rag newspaper?" asked Charlie, recalling the name from somewhere in the deep recess of his memory.

"Yeah, but it's called garbage over here. My sister-in-law thinks it's an amusing read." Nat grimaced. "I never liked her much but my brother thinks the sun rises and sets on her."

"Okay, he's going to his office to get more copies of the pictures, I got that," elaborated Charlie. "Then what will he do?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. I already feel like I'm in a James Bond flick, except, no offense, Sean Connery is cuter."

Charlie hadn't the faintest idea who Sean Connery was so he couldn't argue the point. He was startled to discover he felt slightly jealous of this Connery guy, though, whoever he was. "No offense taken," he assured her all the same. "One step at a time then. His office and we'll see if he's there, okay?"

"Sure." She made several turns and then screeched to a halt next to the baby blue car. "Aha!" she cried.

Charlie didn't bother with the exclamations but fell out of the car and scrambled to his feet. He followed Nat into the building they'd parked in front of just as she careened right into Hill as he came barreling out. In his hands were some file folders and several disks.

"Ah!" yelled Hill as his armful of evidence went all over the place.

Saying to hell with keeping secrets for the time being, Charlie began blasting the evidence where it lay or floated, sizzling them to nothingness with several well-aimed Incendio charms. Both Nat and Sam gaped a moment before Nat had the presence of mind to turn around and sucker punch Sam in the jaw. He went down like a sack of rocks and Nat turned a self-satisfied grin to Charlie.

Charlie smiled back, wishing he didn't have to do what he was going to do next. He pointed his wand at her and her eyes showed surprise and fright right before he obliviated away her memory. Charlie led her to her car and placed her in it.

He then picked Hill up and slapped him back to consciousness, repeating the memory charm on the groggy man. He then placed Hill in his car.

And with a final sigh of regret, Charlie Apparated back to his hotel room.

Nat ruffled through her pantry looking for a spare tissue box but there wasn't one. She resorted to blowing her nose with toilet paper instead. For the past three days she'd been a nervous wreck. She had no memory of being fired, but according to the Board of Trustees for the University, that was exactly what she was. Something about Sam and something he did in Romania. She was still fuzzy on the details.

She was fuzzy on a lot of details from the preceding week in fact. She spent most of the first evening bawling on the phone first with her brother in Peru and then with her mother, who was currently in Paris, helping restore some musty painting of some artist that Nat currently couldn't remember.

Not that it mattered anyway. Mother never did have much sympathy for her daughter's troubles. Daddy was appropriately outraged at the treatment of his daughter and he was worried too. Hell, so was Natalie. She couldn't remember a thing that had happened in the past week before she suddenly seemed to come from a fog in her car, which was parked next to the car belonging to her equally fuzzy fiancé.

One thing stuck in her head from that missing week that she couldn't shake. It was a name.

Charlie Weasley.

She was certain she'd never heard the name Weasley in her entire life. Surely the name had to mean something or she would have forgotten it by now.

Resolutely, Nat pulled on a pair of sandals and trudged out the door. She had two more days to clean out her office and be off campus. Despite the fiasco of Romania (whatever had happened there), she already had two more teaching offers and one offer from a private institute. Finding employment wouldn't be a problem but it irked her that she had no idea why she'd lost this position in the first place.

It was time for some old-fashioned detective work. She was a scientist, after all, and logic had a place everywhere. It was time she did her own thinking beyond dead reptiles and mammals.

This Charlie Weasley guy was going to get an earful when she found him.

Charlie was having a very lousy day. He'd turned in the photographs and the camera but the Ministry wanted proof that he'd gotten all of them. The idea of a camera without film was more than any of them could handle and they were positive dragon pictures were going to be springing up all over the Muggle news at any moment. So here he was back at Sam Hill's condominium parking lot, waiting in the shadows again for the man to reappear.

Three hours of waiting and there wasn't a sign of him.

"Maybe Natalie got rid of him after all," Charlie murmured to himself and then grinned. She deserved better than that louse, that was for certain.

Thinking of Natalie Greene made him feel guilty, knowing that he was an indirect reason for the loss of her job. Deciding to abandoned waiting on Hill, Charlie began to walk toward the bus stop to get transportation to the university in the hopes that she might be in her office for some reason. If he remembered right, she'd said something to Hill about having a week to clean out her office. With an office that messy, it was going to take her awhile. His chances of catching her were good. Besides, it would be a new meeting for her, so he could start it on the right foot this time.

The bus trip to the university was spent creating an alter ego. She wouldn't recognize his name so he'd pretend to be a prospective employer...no, an old student of hers...no, she was his age. He couldn't be a peer in the science of paleontology so perhaps a perspective employer would be best. Or a representative of an employer...yes...that sounded better and would explain his lack of knowledge on the subject of dinosaurs.

Pleased with his decision, even though he knew it wasn't very imaginative, Charlie walked into the Anthropology building and stopped at the receptionist, who's fingernails were still dagger-length and now a blinding shade of lime green. "Is Dr. Greene in?" he asked politely.

"She's busy cleaning out her office. I'll call back and see if she's available." The receptionist sounded even less enthusiastic than the first time he'd met her.

"Thank you. Tell her Charles Weasley is here to speak to her," Charlie said politely and sat down to wait.

He didn't have to wait long.

Natalie came down the corridor, a smile on her face. Charlie realized a few hours later that the smile should have tipped him off that something was afoot, but it didn't.

"Mr. Weasley?" she said, holding out a slightly dusty hand. "Mr. Charles Weasley?"

"Um, yes," Charlie said, standing up quickly and shaking her hand. He winced slightly when she squeezed hard. She was stronger than she looked, that was for certain. "I represent -"

"The British government, I know. You visited here before, my receptionist said, but I'm afraid you must have talked with one of my colleagues, as I don't recall meeting you before. Won't you come this way?"

He frowned. Something wasn't right, but there was no way that she could remember him and he'd listened to the receptionist tell Nat, er, Dr. Greene on the phone who he was just now. Had the receptionist mentioned his previous visit before after all? He groaned silently. How many people was he going to have to obliviate to get this thing resolved?

Her office was much different this time around. Packing boxes and packing accessories were everywhere and most of the skulls, bones and statues of beast long since dead were already stored away. All that was left, it seemed, was her mountains of books and papers.

He stood awkwardly as she went to sit on her desk. Charlie had a sudden flash of Professor McGonagall, the Transfigurations teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in place of Natalie Green. It was obvious that Nat was very comfortable with intimidation techniques despite her absent-mindedness and lack of common sense. It had to be a teaching thing.

"So, you're here why, Mr. Weasley?" she asked him pleasantly but with an edge of steel in her voice.

He swallowed and tried regain his equilibrium. The glasses perched on her nose and the neat bun of her hair in contrast to her slim, tiny figure made her seem like a little girl playing grown up. She looked adorable. Mentally he shook himself, knowing that if he slipped up once more he was in more than a world of trouble.

"Dr. Greene, I need to know where your fiancé, Mr. Samuel Hill, can be located," he began, but stopped short when her eyes narrowed at him.

"I see." She considered him for several long moments. It was all Charlie could do to not squirm where he stood. She finally reached over to her huge bag purse and pulled out a huge yellow envelope. "So these aren't what you're looking for?"

She pulled out several sheets of stiff paper and flipped through them. She took one and held it up so he could see it.

Charlie made a grab for them but she was too quick. Nat darted around to the other side of her desk. "Accio!" he cried, jerking his wand from his sleeve and pointing it at the photographs in her hand. She maintained a tight grip but he got the photographs...and her as well. The two of them landed in a heap on the floor of her office, papers of all kinds fluttering to the floor to mix with the photographs.

Before he could say or do anything else, he felt her knee collide with his groin and he bit back a scream of pain. Nat shoved herself off of him, photographs still in hand and towered over him like an avenging angel.

"I don't know exactly what's going on, Mister Weasley, but I do know that you're involved in getting me fired, along with possibly fraud, extortion, theft and harassment. That leaves you with a choice. You either tell me everything or I call university security, who in turn will contact the police department, who in turn will contact the FBI, who in turn will contact -"

"Okay, okay," moaned Charlie, gingerly levering himself off the floor. "You win, and you're right. You deserve better than this. In my defense, I can only say I was under orders."

Nat smirked. "That what all the peons say, buddy."