"Teach me about dragons, Charlie."

It was an old request, one Ron made frequently as a child when Bill was chatting with Percy, the twins were…exploding stuff, and Ginny was discussing the much shadowy girl talk with Molly.

Except this time, Ron had arrived in Romania on the back of a scarred and thoroughly malnourished dragon, and instead of answering with the usual "Where shall I start?" Charlie blurted out "Where the bloody hell did you find a dragon?"

Ron had slid off the beast, and shrugged.

"Didn't read the papers, then?" He asked, tonelessly, walking towards Charlie.

Charlie had hollered over his shoulder to his colleagues, screaming something along the lines of 'don't just stand there get the bloody thing inside the sanctuary yes now while we're still young" all the while feeling as though he had ruined some terribly dramatic moment. It wasn't everyday your youngest brother rode out to you on a flying giant - the clouds as his backdrop, creating an angelic, ginger halo - after all. 'Where the bloody hell did you find a dragon?' was not exactly a hero's greeting.

After shouting abuse at his fellow dragon-handlers, he finally swept his brother into a limb-shattering hug and said, "What?"

"I broke into Gringotts." Ron had replied mumblingly into Charlie's shoulder.

Charlie broke away and looked into his brother's eyes. He saw the truth look shyly back at him and shrugged, "Cool. Just because? You've got some serious thrill issues if so. And what's that got to do with the dragon?"

Ron slouched back into the embrace and shrugged as best as he could while smushed against Charlie's shoulder, "Nicked it. Seriously, you didn't hear about it?"

"I've been saving dragons, little one. Sorry to disappoint, but reading the Prophet wasn't exactly my top priority." It was true, during the lead-up to the War, the sanctuary had been warding off raids from extremist wizards attempting to release the creatures of myth on unsuspecting muggles. What the extremists hadn't bargained for were muscled men who were exceedingly (read: maternally) protective of the vicious beasts, and whose curses were Dragon Strength.

"'M not little," Ron said, stepping out of the warm hug, "And you can barely go on about thrill issues, Mr. I-Heart-Dragons. It doesn't matter anyway. Basically, the dragon was imprisoned at Gringotts and we freed it. Hermione had been worried about it, so…After, I tracked it down and brought it here."

"Shouldn't you be with, erm, Hermione, you know, healing?"

"She's in Australia. And I am healing. This is just the, um, plaster part. Seeing 'Mione again will be the prodding part."

"Prodding part?" Charlie repeated faintly.

"Yeah, after taking off a plaster, you always jab and pick to see if the hurt is healed over. You know?"

"Not particularly," Charlie had answered truthfully. He considered the possibility that Ron had gone mad – war did that to a person. That or take away the madness – just look at the shell of George. He had then shaken his head, and pointed Ron to his cabin. "This way, Ronnie."

Ron stared at him, a tad incredulously, "Aren't you even going to ask me how I am? You know, 'Hello Ron, good to see you, are you okay?'"

"Of course not. I'm your wosserface, plaster. Of course you're not okay."

"I never knew you had such a grasp on metaphor," Ron grumbled, but followed on anyway.

Charlie had grinned, thrown his arm over Ron's shoulders (which were higher up than his and thus awkward to throw his arm over) and led him to where Charlie lived, "Didn't even know you knew what 'metaphor' meant."

Ron had hit him.

And afterwards, when Charlie given Ron the tour ("Toilet. Settee. Fridge."), he sat his little, but no longer small, brother down on the worn, and therefore familiar, sofa and asked, "Where shall I start?"

And that was how, for a month, Ron came to live with Charlie and dragons.