Other Lives

V.

"All right there, Scorpius?"

"All right. How are you, Mr. Weasley?" asked Scorpius, offering a timid smile at the redheaded man clad in thick, black leather. Charlie had a scar on his left brow that Scorpius knew came from a wild Hungarian Horntail he had tried to reel into a cage to save from poachers, but there were a few more thin, red marks across his face he did not have the last time Scorpius saw him.

Charlie snorted loudly. "Charlie, please. Merlin, kid. Don't get all shy on me. I'm not gonna tear your bits off because you're engaged to my niece now."

Scorpius couldn't help his smile withering away. "Everyone seemed rather hacked off about it. Can you blame me?"

Charlie stuck his hand into the mid-sized cage he had been working on getting open. Although nowhere near its full size, the Peruvian Vipertooth inside launched at Charlie's arm, sinking claws into the leather. "Come on now, Toothless," he said to the dragon, "you know the drill. Stop fighting me."

Toothless—who had cleverly gotten her nickname for having exactly zero viper-like teeth in its mouth, mostly because she kept fighting other dragons twice her size and because her last owner had taken to pulling them out to sell—snapped its tail across Charlie's knuckles, refusing to leave her cage.

"You have to bribe her, remember?" said Scorpius. "She likes steak."

With a reluctant huff, Charlie nodded toward the sink inside his lab. Scorpius set his wand on the metal table at the center of the room, walking over to the heaps of raw meat in white buckets. He rolled up his sleeves before reaching into one. Beside the sinks, there were a few other cages hosting smaller, younger dragons. They all were suddenly awake, squawking at Scorpius and the food in his hands.

"She does whatever she wants. You know that, don't you?"

"I'm not the one who bribes her—"

"Rose," Charlie corrected, taking the chunk of meat Scorpius was now handing to him. "Ever since she was a little girl. She's brilliant, terrifyingly so, just like 'Mione, but headstrong. The Weasley in her, I reckon. While Rose has always been the most sensible out of the lot, you know she always does what seems right to her. We hardly were hacked off because she wants to marry you. We like you, kid, don't get me wrong, but if she asked you for your hand, then we can all at least agree that Rose knows you're the one."

"You just don't agree it's the right time."

Toothless whacked her tail across Charlie's hand again, demanding another piece of meat Charlie had to shred to help her eat it. Toothless let him run a thumb over her head for a second before extending the food to her.

"I'd say we're more surprised than anything," said Charlie finally, looking over his shoulder to give Scorpius a grin. "We never thought Rose would be the traditional one. You know, marry, have a baby, start a home—"

"No one said anything about a baby!" Scorpius input at once, his pale cheeks growing pink at the incredulous insinuation. He grabbed at his robes, fingers still wet with the blood of raw meat, and said, "I've just started Auror Training! And Ro' will be attending the Healer Institute in September!"

Charlie was laughing now. Even Toothless squawked in a manner that made Scorpius glare at her.

The sound attracted the last person Scorpius wanted to see. Which is why when his father appeared at the doors of Charlie's lab, Scorpius instantly turned to the cages beside the sink. Expertly, he opened the middle one and effortlessly managed to pull out a small, glittering Antipodean Opaleye.

"Oi," Charlie started when he clocked in on Draco, narrowing brown eyes at him as Toothless now climbed lazily up his leather-covered arm. "You're not inspecting me again, are you? I told you, mate. It was one fire. Norbert didn't mean it."