Four Weddings and a Dragon - Charlie Weasley

Chapter 6

Things were quiet on the opal-eye dragon paddock when Hermione and Charlie arrived. Gabriela was still nosing her breakfast, eating, but not with a dragon's usual voracious appetite. This morning, she was docile even by her own standards. It meant that closing off her access to the woods and venturing in to repair the broken wards would be easy -- or at least, not likely to end in anyone being burned to death

As they'd walked from the Ukrainian Iron-belly dragon's enclosure to Ela's, Hermione had fussed over the arm Charlie had skidded across the grass on as he jumped from a burning broom.

"I've told you, it's not hurt," Charlie said as she dabbed at the green stain on his arm with a damp cloth. "And there's no point in washing it until I'm finished work anyway."

"First of all," she said, continuing with the process of delicately removing the green mark without aggravating the skin underneath it, "I'm not sure you understand how most people would define being hurt. This is a rather nasty abrasion, and it needs tending."

He rolled his eyes as she doused the cloth in dittany. She didn't hide her look of satisfaction when he hissed as she pressed it to his skin. That means it's working.

"And second," she went on, "everyone here acknowledges you as my husband. Therefore, you are my responsibility, and I can't have you carrying on, dirty and damaged, while I do nothing about it. I do have my pride, Charles Prewett Weasley."

At the sound of his name, Charlie gave a low growl and lunged, his face bowing into Hermione's neck as she worked over his arm. His mouth was hot and sweet and she tipped her head back to receive it in spite of herself, even as she scolded him. "Enough. You may have been half-killed, but you're still at work."

"Well, you watch your mouth then," he said against her skin.

She was laughing and shoving at him. "Get off me, darling. Here's Bogdan."

While Charlie and Bogdan worked in the trees, out of sight, Hermione sat outside the paddock fence, her Ministry notebook open in her lap, jotting notes for the white paper she had come here to research. It was hard to stay focused on the page with the dragon so near. Ela wasn't nearly as exuberant as she'd been yesterday. It wouldn't be long now before she laid the egg. Charlie or another dragonologist with his skills would need to be there when she did, prepared to perform a risky intervention if the egg started to turn her inside out. Hermione shuddered at the thought. Poor Ela, suffering for love -- or at least, the screaming, biting dragon version of it.

Her meal finished, her scales groomed, Ela readied herself for a nap on the grass as the sun grew warmer. Instead of curling up, cat-like, in the way dragons usually favour, she stretched herself out in a long line, as if trying to expand herself to better contain the egg. As Charlie said, dragons are about as clever as birds, not capable of expressing emotions on their faces beyond sleepy and terrifying. But Hermione almost believed Ela looked sad, blinking her iridescent, milky eyes as she drifted off to sleep. Was she scared about the changes in her body? Or did she just miss that big, awful Malfoy-the-iron-belly consort of hers?

Hermione shook her head, laughing quietly at herself. All this playing house with Charlie must be making her sentimental. If she didn't know better, she'd believe Ela remembered her from that escape from Gringott's, and that was why she chose to settle for her nap so close to where Hermione sat. Sisters in arms.

When Charlie came back, the sun was as high as it was going to get. He opened his pack, handed Hermione a sandwich for lunch, and crashed down beside her to eat his own. "Well, romantic as it might have been, the iron-belly didn't break through the wards between the enclosures to get to Ela himself," he said. "Not unless he's learned how to use a wand."