Grin and Bear It.
"Dad, look at this!" his seven-year-old second son yelled. He showed a firework in his hands. The firework looked like a tiny dragon made of flames.
Arthur, who was going to reprimand him, changed his mind. It was the first sign of his magic. "My son, it's terrific! How did you do that?"
The Burrow had been remodeled repeatedly as the family grew. Arthur and Molly were having another baby very soon. The Healer assured them that the baby would be a girl. The center pillar of the Burrow was shored up with oak timbers and cast propping spell he mastered from his works on Muggle objects. Still the roof Charles was sitting was not perfect. It had been being under construction. The protecting charm must have been broken the most easily by an attack from the outside. He looked up at the night sky. An eerie black whirlwind was leaving from the Burrow. Arthur kept squinting at it till it turned to be a small dot and vanished completely. He turned to Charles and urged him to leave there, "Dinner is ready. Let's go down to the kitchen."
Radiantly he smiled. His smiling face was too bright for her. She couldn't blend pumpkin juice with Love Potion. She couldn't do the cheap trick. Shoving the flask back into the pocket of her school robes, she sighed and handed a goblet to him. "Then when will Professor Kettleburn come back?" She asked him and glanced back to the long table of Hufflepuff. Her friend, Stacey, who had advised her to put Love Potion into the goblet, shook her head.
"Next week. I have tons of questions. I hope his class will be focused on Dragons." Charlie Weasley kept talking earnestly without knowing what emotions were whirling in her mind right now. He gulped down the goblet of pumpkin juice. "I like Professor Grubbly-Plank. But she won't teach me Dragons at all. Wizards can't touch Unicorns. Teachers should teach us about Dragons more. Oops, the morning practice will begin. I'll eat this toast on my way to the pitch. Thank you for pumpkin juice, Tonks. Nice hair." Grabbing the toast, he stood up and hurried to the entrance door.
Her hand touched her ginger red hair which was going back to her original color, chestnut brown. She wanted to be brave enough to confess her real feeling towards him. She determined to tell him her true feeling without Love Potion. "Wait, Charlie! I'm coming!" She tried to follow him passing by the Slytherin table but Marcus Flint's leg tripped her, she rolled down clumsily on the stone floor. She stood up instantly and glared at Flint. "Flint! You'll pay for this!" She was going to pull out her wand.
Flint sneered, "What can you do in front of professors, Mudblood?"
His scornful words ignited her combative spirit. "What did you say?" Her hair tuned to crimson color.
Flint kept unpleasant smirking and stood up. But he couldn't say the insulting remark any more. Charlie was locking Flint in a full Nelson, "I'll listen to your words in the pitch, Marcus boy, alright?"
Flint barely spoke, "Get off me."
"No, you come with me to the pitch. We'll train you how to play Quidditch. Your captain will be grateful to us." Charles dragged Flint out of the Great Hall.
Stacey dashed to the spot and talked to Nymphadora excited, "How chivalrous he is! He has some feelings for you, Tonks!"
"No, I don't think so. He has lots of feelings for his dragons." She said discreetly but couldn't hide her pleasing feeling on her face.
A substitute Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Grubbly-Plank hugged Kettleburn. "I worry about you, Silvanus. I like teaching here but when I have to teach here, that means you're incapable of teaching."
Kettleburn chuckled, "No worries, Mina. I promise I won't do reckless things this year." He pointed at his left wooden leg.
Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank nodded smiling and she said farewell to him and walked to the gate. Kettleburn limped along to the castle. Cool air wrapped him. The massive building was waiting for him. Hogwarts is the place where young wizards and witches brighten their eyes with hope for the future. He loved to teach them more than anything. The entrance hall were illuminated in torches, the students walked to the Great Hall for dinner time, so there were full of blithe laughter and joyous chattering. He smiled imagining how he would tell them his adventure with dragons. Though he lost his right leg, a close encounter with a Japanese dragon above the shrine near the west coast became a life time treasure. After poignant reunion with the other fellow teachers, including Dumbledore's sparkling speech with wit and humor, it was time for him to speak to the students. He stood up, and gazed at his students. Most of them saw him with much expectation but a few sneers were heard from the table of Slytherin.
He spoke, "You know, I lost my right leg during the excursion to the Far East. I experienced an awesome adventure there. I'll talk about it in the class. Happy to see you again."
Dumbledore grinned and said, "Professor Kettleburn. Hogwarts house-elves made a special cup cake for you. Welcome back."
Yellow frosting popped in front of Kettleburn. He smiled tasting the richness of lemon juice flavored buttermilk. Merlin, he loved the cupcakes. Though he could have tasted Japanese red bean jam, and he liked the taste but he thought Hogwarts cupcakes were the best in the world. When he finished eating it, he heard the girl student's voice,
"Charlie, you can ask him at his class!" The vivid silver haired witch in Hufflepuff robes grabbed the arm of a Gryffindor boy.
Kettleburn smiled to notice the boy was Charles Weasley, his favorite student. He spoke in his loud voice, "Charlie! Future Dragon tamer, my boy!"
"Professor Kettleburn. I've wanted to see you again. I'm very glad that you came back before I graduate Hogwarts." Charlie broke into a broad smile and turned to Tonks, "See? He's okay."
"I'm happy to see you again, m'boy! Do you come to my office? I have lots of stories to talk with you."
"Sure. I'm a prefect so I can discuss about the dragons all through the night. Can't I, Professor Dumbledore?" Charlie asked Dumbledore with a pleading voice.
Dumbledore smiled at him and said, "I'll give you a special permission that you'll be able to talk about your future career with Professor Kettleburn."
Ganders and geese flew away from the Chinese Fireball. The fierce magical creature could almost catch one of them. She knew the perfect time to attack her preys. Two or three of them were better for her child which had been waiting in the nest. She snarled and flaring flames came out from her nostril that burned wings of the rear geese and gander. The poor birds stalled and started falling. She opened her big mouth and caught them with her strong jaw on their way to the ground, diving and gliding in the air. Satisfied, she returned to the nest. It was located in the bottom of the valley between the steep mountains. The north wind were flinging up yellow sands. Behind the big rock, her child was supposed to be waiting for her. But she got angry to see the human beings near the rock. The intruders tied up her child with large ropes from every quarter.
"Weasley, watch out!" the senior dragon tamer warned the young.
Flaring fire was almost going to burn the ropes and intruders, who nearly escaped from the fire.
"Sir, we could have caught him. If we could, it must have been the first Chinese Fireball in our sanctuary in the history." Charlie breathed hard hiding behind the rock. His face was covered with black soot and his red hair was crisp by heat.
"Don't rush it. We'll have a chance again. If we die here, who cares our dragons in Romania?"
They watched the mother dragon feed her child. The child dragon was covered with crimson scales, and the remaining rope was twined around the leg.
"Next time, I'll catch you." Charlie muttered.
Obliquely, Charlie descended the air on his broom when a wounded dragon tried to spread his broken wings. His glaring eyes were saying the harm was done by the barbaric conduct by the wizards.
"I know, I know, Big John," making his way around heat and a gush of flare from the Swedish Short-Snout, Big John was hit by an anesthetic spell, and soon he fell into a deep sleep. Charlie landed on the bottom of a limestone cave. "My job is done. Now wait for the team. They'll bring in the enormous cage for him." He put his hands on the hip and looked up to a canopy which let a ray of light come into the depths of the earth.
"That's an amazing accomplishment, Charlie!" Nymphadora said excitely. Her hair was turning to raven black like the sleeping dragon.
"Nice hair, Tonks." Charlie took a step closer and brushed her hair with his chapped hand.
Feeling the roughness of his hand on her forehead brought her relief that she had missed for years. She almost confessed her feeling when she found his radiant smile that didn't change from his school days. She coughed lightly and said, "When we discovered the Short-Snout, five goblins had been already dead. Someone tried to break into Black's vault."
"Black's vault? What for?" His smile turned to a serious look.
"I don't know." She shrugged. "The culprit must have used Dark Magic to prevent the poor dragon from attacking the intruder. Even Dumbledore can't do Legilimens on the dragon to see who attacked him.
"Death Eaters?"
"I suppose so. Or Voldemort himself." Nymphadora said brightly, as if she tried wiping out gloomy mood caused by the ominous words.
Charlie gazed at her and suddenly he pulled her into his arms. Her heart beat faster expecting his next move. She felt like she could melt into his warm embrace. But he didn't kiss her.
"Take care. I always worry about you. Your job involves a grave risk."
"The same words to you, Charlie." Her knuckles poked him on the chest. "Dumbledore is going to organize the Order of the Phoenix again. To my regret, our head doesn't believe what Dumbledore and Harry said. There are two parties inside the D.M.L.E."
"It must be a heavy blow to the Headquarters that Mad-Eye Moody was abducted and Barty Couch Jr. disguised himself as Moody."
Hearing noise from above, they looked up to the canopy of the Gringotts. The team was going to open it to put the enormous cage inside.
"Well, we'll carry him to our sanctuary to treat him. So…"
"Good-bye, Charlie," said Nymphadora.
"Yeah. See you later." He nodded and flashed a smile at her.
Next time, I'll tell her my feeling.
Charlie would regret that he didn't tell her that he loved her in the next year but who knew their destiny? He was an optimist at that time.
Nothing seemed to be left after Nymphadora had gone with Lupin. He hadn't been back to England from Romania for years. Looking back half his life, the knowledge about dragons was his intangible property. He had seen many dragons die and given birth. He had witnessed so many wizards and witches die in the Battle of Hogwarts. Remembering them was hard, but he had hope when he saw his nephews and nieces grow vigorously. Lives would be continued and he could still see some lights in the rest of his life.
Changing hair color from chestnut brown to turquoise green, Teddy Lupin asked Charlie with his twinkling eyes, "Uncle Charlie, it's brilliant! This is the book I've longed for years." He was holding a thick book covered with leather on which a Common Welsh Green was spreading his wings in the picture. The warm fire in the hearth of the sitting room of the Burrow was crackling. "Will you take me to the Wales to watch them?" Teddy sat down on the lap of Charlie with the book in his hands.
"Sure. Why don't we camp in Wales next summer?" He winked at his nephew.
Fin.
Author's Note: Many thanks to my beta, Stefi.