Beauxbatons [Charlie Weasley]

Proposal

"How was it?" Elena asks as soon as Isabelle arrives back in Romania.

"Wonderful, actually," Isabelle smiles, walking along with the dark-haired girl towards their hut, Elena helping with her bags. "It was so nice to see Olympe again and I do not mind teaching all that much, if I am being honest."

"Ooh," Elena nudges her, grinning. "You reckon you might do teaching for a couple of years, then?"

Isabelle shrugs. "Who knows? Probably not unless Dumbledore asks me to step in again. If he does then I will of course help at Hogwarts, and I have told him as much, but otherwise, I do not think my primary interests lie in teaching."

"That's fair enough," Elena nods, opening the door to their hut for Isabelle, where the golden haired girl dumps her trunk on the ground. "Here, let me help you unpack."

And so the two girls while away the afternoon, Isabelle telling Elena all about the lessons she taught and the conversations she had with Olympe, even how she met Fleur, the Beauxbatons Champion in the Triwizard Tournament. Elena, on the other hand, talks to her all about the two new dragons they had shipped in whilst Isabelle was away — one female Romanian Longhorn and one male Norwegian Ridgeback. Apparently they're rescues from dragon trappings, which are becoming increasingly more common and more dangerous for wild dragons.

"But who would want to trap a dragon?" Isabelle asks, astonished and horrified.

"Many people, unfortunately," Elena shakes her head. "There's a new group of Dragon Hunters that have recently started up, and they're all for killing dragons simply for sport. We suspect it's mainly them that have put the traps up in different areas around the world. They kill the dragons for fun — the more dangerous the dragon, the more highly respected the Dragon Hunter is within their society — and then they cut off the dragon's claws and scales and even gut them, selling their organs and different parts of the dragon in the Dark Market that springs up randomly in new locations each time."

Isabelle just sits there, listening to Elena speak, her eyes widening more and more at every sentence. She always knew there were Dragon Hunters out there, but she didn't think they were this prominent, and causing this much damage.

"But we must have tried to catch them, right?" she asks, still horrified.

"Course we have," Elena sighs. "But no luck. We started off by trying to track them from their trap locations, but it turns out humans are a lot different to track than dragons. And then we tried to track their Dark Market locations, but because they're so completely and utterly random, we had no idea where to start."

"Far out," Isabelle says softly, shaking her head. "This is awful, Elena. I hope we can find a way to catch them before they hurt any more dragons."

"Me too, Isabelle, me too," the dark-haired girl says sadly.

There's a pause.

"Anyway," Elena says, forcing her tone to be more cheerful, "go have a shower and get changed — I'll finish up here for you."

Isabelle smiles her thanks and does what she's told, getting into her nightdress and letting her golden hair fall down her back in waves after taking it out of her braid. She exits the bathroom to find Elena stowing her trunk away under her bed, finished with the unpacking.

"Thanks," Isabelle smiles. But then she frowns. "Where is everyone else? They have not come to say hello."

Elena just shrugs. "They're probably still out trying to get the two new dragons used to the place. Come on, I'll take you to them."

Isabelle follows Elena out of the hut and through the Sanctuary, towards a couple of twinkling lights in the distance. When they arrive, there's just a bunch of empty tables, dimly lit by several strings of fairy lights above.