Four Weddings and a Dragon - Charlie Weasley

Chapter 8 - End of Part 1

The iron-belly dragon came rampaging through the dark woods on the night his little mate went to their nest to lay their egg. All of his instincts raged at him to break through the wards keeping him outside her enclosure, to protect her and their offspring. He was thrashing his body against the magical barrier, tearing at it with his teeth and claws, roaring fire at it. Either he would break through and wreak havoc on every human inside, or he would dash himself against the wards until he was unconscious, or maybe worse.

Charlie was on his feet in front of the tent where he and Hermione had camped for the night, his eyes darting between the pair of howling, flaming dragons, both of them furious but also in danger. If he could only save one, it would have to be Ela, the opal-eye. While she was still gravid, she was more like two dragons than one, and her egg might hold a creature that could restore the Grangers' charmed memories. He rushed to the nest of broken trees and roots, looking for footholds to climb into it to soothe Ela with a spell, to get her to stop straining so she wouldn't injure herself as she laid her egg.

Hermione understood and moved to run to the Iron-belly, not knowing how she could work a spell to soothe him without slashing open the wards and having him rush in on them with fury and destruction.

Without having to see her go, Charlie sensed her reaction to the Iron-belly's danger and stopped his climb, shouting back at her over his shoulder. "Hermione, no. You can't handle a raging Iron-belly on your own."

"I can't just stand here -- "

"You have to. You saw what he did to me this morning, and he wasn't even angry then. If it hadn't been for Bogdan -- "

"Then call him. Call Bogdan! Where's your coin?"

"Too unreliable," Charlie said, finishing his clambering up the side of the nest. "Just wait." From where he stood on the edge of the nest, and with a shout and a flourish, he produced a Patronus. It wasn't a weasel. It wasn't a dragon either but something mythic all the same, breathing cool white silvery fire as it bounded once around the nest and galloped off through the woods toward the settlement on four massive, feline legs.

It took a moment for Hermione to understand what she was seeing. "Chimera," she said, aloud but breathless.

Charlie's patronus had the body of a lion and three heads: the fire breathing lion's head, a goat's, and at the end of its tail, a snake's. Leave it to Charlie to not be able to settle on just one animal, even in his purest magic. His chimera was off to deliver a message to Bogdan, spoken in Romanian he could understand.

Hermione couldn't stand in place wondering at it for long. The Iron-belly still crashed and wailed, making the usually gossamer wards flash starkly visible with green light in the dark forest. She'd lost sight of Charlie as his head disappeared inside the nest. Ela's frantic, fiery howling had subsided, fading into loud, mournful cries that were pathetic as they were terrifying.

Hermione was all but alone -- for now. In a moment, the Iron-belly would be with them. The flashing in the wards had taken on a shaking, stuttering rhythm, like a fluorescent lightbulb about to burn out.

She clenched her wand, climbed onto a stump to make herself look bigger, and braced for the dragon's entrance. Somehow, she would fight to subdue it, to protect Charlie from it, perilously positioned as he was between the Iron-belly and its family.

Then there was shouting behind her. It was Bogdan arriving on a broom, calling to her in Romanian, repeating a single word over and over.

"Bogdan, slower. I don't understand -- "

He called the word out one more time, flinging his wand arm toward the Iron-belly. The flashing in the wards slowed its irregular stammer as a stream of red magic shot from his wand. He waved his free hand at Hermione. And she understood just as well as if he'd spoken in English: get your wand up and say the word, the incantation. This is the spell. She did as he said, joining her stream with his, hollering a spell in an old Dacian dialect no one but casting wizards used anymore. Bogdan cheered, his head thrown back.