Rolf probably walked around with a permanently surprised look on his face these days. He forgot one small step, a small one, but an important one, for he enjoyed a carefree night he hardly remembered in Barcelona, and karma paid him back in kind. This must be what it must feel like to ride the old Muggle contraption called a roller coaster. Triplets. This meant three, a small army on its way, and his life was over. He and Luna went to see a doula yesterday afternoon, a gypsy in Romania, and they'd found out they'd lost one, although the other two were perfectly healthy. How could a person deliver death and life in the same statement?
"It happens," she'd said simply. Maria, their gypsy also trained to treat magical burns, severe dragon burns from Heartstrings Sanctuary, was one of the trusted healers. There weren't many women on the sanctuary, and in any case, these female researchers rarely had had one, or two, or three on the way. "It happens all the time."
Rolf couldn't sleep. He'd finished with Luna, and she rolled over and went right to sleep. Maria said Luna should act as though nothing changed and go on with her life as long as she felt up to it. Rolf took this as the expected line. Luna still traveled with Rolf, although they had restricted this to only Side-Along Apparition, and she wasn't allowed brooms or to go use the Floo. Maria placed her on bedrest without calling this confinement because she phrased it nicely, though Rolf and Luna had caught her meaning. Tired and wide awake, his mind racing, Rolf paced the kitchen in Charlie's large house and opened the windows. He still wore his Heartstrings Sanctuary shirt and jeans.
"Why are you up?" Charlie, coming downstairs, blinked at him wearily and checked the junk drawer for rent money.
He made the mortgage by renting his house out to dragon handlers and researchers while they were on assignment, and this system had worked well since Charlie had arrived in Deva when he was seventeen. Charlie purchased this place when he was twenty, and nobody had their own place at that age. Rolf had come with him the second he turned seventeen because they'd been best mates since their schooldays; he needed someone and Rolf's grandfather had insisted on friends.
Rolf refused to sign a contract because he did the majority of his grandfather's legwork nowadays for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and a handful of other promises.
"Ned will have me kill him," said Charlie, counting his Galleons twice and stowing the money away in the locked drawer. He ran a hand through his red locks, walked over to start coffee, and grumbled about getting his rent on time. "You don't look so good, Scamander."
"I'm fine," Rolf lied, handing him his and Luna's share without bothering to count it.
"You don't pay. You and Luna are here to save my skin, and you're only here for the summertime." Charlie threw the pouch back at him.
Charlie smiled ruefully. He lived with strangers who eventually warmed into friends; Rolf and Charlie were brothers from other mothers. True, Charlie had five of those, now four with Fred dead, but if you asked him on a good day, he answered he had six brothers and one sister. Rolf, stubborn, took out his cut and placed it on the counter. Charlie shrugged, not even closer to awake without three cups of coffee, and they left it there.
"Some of these walls are thin, Scamander," said Charlie. The carafe filled itself with a brew, poured coffee into large mugs, and these mugs soared over to Charlie and Rolf. They both took it with a little dry creamer. Charlie grinned, reminding Rolf of a schoolboy, and adopted a deeper tone. As a house rule, gentlemen kept their private lives out of Charlie's house; he didn't care what they did as long as he, Charlie, didn't reap the consequences. "Someone had a good night."
"I'm sorry," said Rolf, sipping his coffee and perching himself on the countertop. It had been a long time since he'd been alone with his wife. "I needed a distraction, and I miss things …"
"Get it while the getting's good, I say," said Charlie, snooping around for food stuffs. He shot Rolf a look. "Did you wear protection this time?"
"Charlie." Rolf rolled his eyes and scratched his beard. Weary of this commentary, Rolf thought he'd never live this down. When Charlie had found out they were expecting triplets back in June, he'd almost pissed himself and laughed all the way to the loo. Rolf needed him on his side and, like any brother, Charlie supported his friend half the time whenever it suited him. Rolf conveyed this piece by piece, sure he failed to deliver the owl here, and Charlie loved the uncomfortableness of the situation. "Just … I don't … drop it for the day, okay?"
"How's Luna?" Serious, Charlie lit a lantern and started knocking up a simple breakfast.
"Tired and keeping it together," said Rolf. It was late September, and Luna had made it through a hotter than usual summer, for it was still unseasonably warm. Rolf walked over to the dishtowel drawer, found a flannel, and ran it underneath the tap before he applied it to his neck. "Damn this heat."
"Rolf." Charlie rarely called Rolf by his first name, so he knew to listen up. Charlie turned fried eggs, sausages, and tomatoes onto plates and handed him one. "If anyone can handle dragons breathing down his neck, the Scamander Foundation, and two weirdos on the way, it's you. I say this with increasing love and affection for my big-nosed Jewish godchildren. You've got this."
"Yeah, that's nice to hear." Not taking this assessment at face value, Rolf stabbed a tomato moodily and devoured it. When he spotted the young Ned sneaking in at the dead of night, he waved the kid over, for he'd been ready to chew him out for a good minute. Ned, eighteen and fresh from Ilvermorny, lacked sense, common sense, and he came over with haunched shoulders. "You left my seven months pregnant wife in a Welsh Greens nest so you could go get a drink? Have you lost your senses?"
"I didn't … she agreed," said Ned, his speech slurred.
"Are you drunk? You had first shift! Why are you here? Come here." Charlie beckoned to him with a finger, throwing Rolf's dishtowel at him when he tried to walk away. Charlie's dragons were his children. "You stay."
"I will drag you back to your shack in old good Louisiana, Mr. Jean-Louis, and I will slap you so hard with a lawsuit," threatened Rolf, setting his breakfast aside. He approached the thick-armed young man and got in his face. "You want to play God? You … what do you know?"
Ned backed off and pointed an accusatory finger at Rolf. "What's with him?"
"Luna called out for you," said Rolf, speaking with a forced, controlled calm. Charle had to hold Rolf back when Ned said she shouldn't be here.
Luna, coming downstairs in her night things, took in the scene. Her silvery eyes got big, and she tied the strap of her dressing gown. Her long hair fell down her back, and she rested her hands on her belly. "There are three men sleeping! What is going on, Newton?"
"Giving assignments to children," said Rolf heatedly, shoving Charlie away and retreating to his spot on the counter as he scarfed down his food. Ned, passive-aggressive, claimed he was off to bed. Rolf, furious as the minutes passed by, held him back. "You're going to kill yourself carrying on like this! You're suspended from the sanctuary."
"Ned, think before you speak," Luna warned him, sitting at the breakfast table. She knew Rolf just as well as if not better than Charlie or old Newt Scamander; she read him well. Luna turned to Rolf, playing the mediator here. "Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Mr. Scamander. You're not heading the Scamander Foundation here, sir."
Rolf scoffed, only slightly surprised she put him in his place. She used to do this a lot, which is why he enjoyed the partnership with her. Newt Scamander specifically told him to pick a good wife, a strange one, a good one, and he should take his time, and he'd run into Luna Lovegood back in 2000 in Argentina. He was nine years her senior, which he used to seriously worry about, but the age difference didn't matter most of the time. They'd been married for a while.
"Ned, you've got a head on your shoulders, and I don't know if you've got a good one, but I insist you use it. Dragons are dangerous." Rolf got accepted into the sanctuary because he rode on his grandfather's name and fame, sure, yet he was brilliant in his own way; he knew what he talked about.
"Nobody gets left out. You're shadowing me, my friend, Ned, and you are not allowed you touch anything without my say. Are we clear? Sit. I'll knock you up some breakfast." Charlie, who had grown into a close friend of Luna's, treated her like a researcher at the sanctuary, even though she never stayed in Romania without Rolf. "What do you want, Mummy?"
Ned stayed, though he kept shooting Rolf dark, sinister glares. Charlie might strut around as a bachelor, yet he embraced a family of his dragons, his people, and his links, though it took a moment, sometimes a good minute, to get into his circle. Once you got his nod, things got easier. Charlie took a hard love stance because this was a difficult path as a career, and lots of people didn't make it. Charlie pushed, and he pushed hard, and he only extended a hand whenever they fell down.
"But it isn't easy," said Ned, still determinedly beating a dead horse. Rolf's grandmother phrased it this way whenever she said, "It's like blowing smoke up a dead horse's ass."
"It's too early for me to kill you," sighed Charlie, putting up his hands. He gave up on his new guy first thing in the day. His expression pained, he appealed to Rolf. "Throw me a save here, Scamander, because I am done."
Charlie stormed out of kitchen and slammed a door when he got upstairs. This wasn't the first incidence of Ned Erving acting like a complete idiot; Charlie always bent Rolf's ear whenever he needed to vent and have someone hear him out. He used Bill, too, but his elder brother had a wife and three kids, and other responsibilities besides pulling him into endless directions. Rolf clapped his hands together, readying himself to take control of the situation.
"The ice you're standing on, Ned? It's thin." Rolf picked at the leftover food on his plate and let Luna help herself when he walked over to the table.
"I don't care," said Ned, crossing his arms and not touching his food. Ned no doubt had his own ideas of grandeur and painted a not so pretty picture. "I can go to another reservation because I don't need some old man telling me anything. Brazil."
"Heartstrings Sanctuary is the top of the crop, Ned, who else would have you?" Rolf pinched his nose with his fingers and fought back laughter. Ned grumbled something along the lines of "Weasley, the worry wart". Rolf scoffed, not buying this for a heartbeat, and pointed towards the staircase. "That man? That man has given his life, his soul, to this place, and he's the reason it holds its standard! Brazil? No, sir, I think not."
Ned, desperate for an ally, any friend, sought Luna out. Luna studied him patiently. For the longest time, she did nothing more than stare at him, and Ned shuffled his feet and studied his dirty trainers.
"If you burn bridges, you won't find a way back. Charlie won't let you back." Luna approached this from angle, or what she thought was a different perspective, although they weren't going to get through to him today.
Ned half-shrugged, giving up. When he went upstairs, Charlie passed him going the other way. Armed with a rucksack and a pair of jeans in one hand pellmell, he gestured at Luna to get up. She tapped him as he started walking away, and Charlie, chuckling softly to himself, doubled back to help her to her feet.
"Scamander, we're leaving. I'm not staying here because something's going to go wrong. And I will lose my head and … I will do or say something I regret to this kid, so I need to go. Come on." Charlie looped Luna's arm through his and didn't catch that she was still in her night things. Delayed, he let her go into the bedroom with Rolf.
"I've never seen him like this." Luna stripped off her dressing gown and nightgown and changed into comfortable clothes.
"I have," sighed Rolf, who had met a heated Charlie Weasley more than on one occasion. Angry Charlie made rare appearances because it took a while to get to his breaking point but he definitely existed. Rolf grabbed a scarf off the headboard and handed it to her. Luna looked like a plump blueberry in her dress. He stared too long and dragged out an awkward moment. "You…you're pretty. No, really, you are. I think …"
"You think? Nice, Rolf!" Luna tied her hair back and slipped on plain heels.
"I think we should go visit Grandpa to enjoy the day," pressed Rolf gently, for he hadn't meant to insult her. He grinned, remembering how Newt Scamander, upon learning he was getting three great-grandchildren in one go, had warned Luna her figure would go to hell in a hurry, and he'd also said Rolf needed to figure out his life before time and life itself caught up with him. Rolf squeezed her a little. "Or there's this autumnal festival in the city for the equinox, and I'm sure Charlie wants to see the folks. Grandma used to make this blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. It's a goodbye to summer thing …"
"Now I remind you of dessert," said Luna, not skipping a beat.
"I'm a foodie, so that's a compliment?" Rolf shrugged, dodging her poorly aimed pillow. He ate food, lots of it, and probably for the only time, Luna outweighed him. Luna breathed sharply through her nose and managed to jab him sharply in the ribs. "Ouch."
It didn't hurt. Rolf used to be a pudge, in fact Nymphadora Tonks had referred to him as a Pudgy Badger once upon a long time ago, but he had worked off the poundage dealing with creatures like dragons, Erumpents and the like after leaving school. So it was like Luna hit a brick wall of lean muscle. She shook her hand, and he checked it out.
"You fuss over everything," said Luna, insisting she was fine. "Maybe we should stay here. In Deva. You're happier when you're with Charlie."
"And raise three babies in a house full of raucous guys? Yeah. No." Rolf pulled on a long-sleeved Heartstrings Sanctuary shirt. "No, thank you."
Luna nodded, wiping something from her eye. Rolf, too late, saw his mistake and he wiped his grin off like Stinksap. They stood there in silence and Luna took a deep, steady breath and shook her head when he asked if she was all right, although he knew she was not. They had sacrificed the one for two, and in the end they were better off, but she hadn't shown the slightest sign of grief.
"Luna."
"Newton. Please." Luna stopped him and rested a hand on the doorknob. Her voice shaking with emotion, Luna ignored Charle when he calling from downstairs. She'd already named them, although she hadn't yet shared their names because she kept a secret to herself. Luna wiped the wrinkles from her dress. "Landon is dead. Let's not suffer this because it does us no good. Baby B and C are still here. We're fine."
Baby A was gone. Rolf remained expressionless and asked the next question, knowing she used the labels for middle names. "What did you choose?"
"Landon Artemis." Luna spoke with an air of finality, clearly wishing to put this to rest. She smiled when they stepped onto the landing and greeted a blurry eyed dragon wrangler. When they got downstairs, she got comfy with Charlie again and strode outside with him. Rolf walked behind them. Forgetting her pain for the moment, Luna reminded Rolf of a happy child, a content child, free from punishment. "Where are we going?"
"Festival. Wait till you see the gypsy children," said Charlie. Most people went to the equinox festival in the evenings. Luna would be far too tired, and they really wished to get out of the house. "Scamander's letting you out of prison or confinement for good behavior?"
Luna's smile reached her eyes. "What do they call it? A lying-in?"
Charlie snorted, patting her arm. It wasn't Rolf's fault, not really. Rolf stuffed his hands in his pockets, thinking it took two to tango, and Luna, unlike Rolf, had been genuinely pleased at the news of the pregnancy. They walked a short distance and wandered down the streets. Rolf purchased this vegetables skewered on a stick thing and surrendered his pocket money to some of the orphans.
"You don't even know what this is," replied Charlie, shaking his head in dismay.
"Nope." Rolf couldn't care less.
"You like the Romani, Charlie," observed Luna, thanking Charlie for an ice cream cone. Trees filled with shades of reds, and oranges, and browns lined the place, and there was a slight chill in the air. She pointed out the mountains, for Deva was nestled within them. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yeah." Charlie conjured a traveling cloak and draped it over her shoulders after shaking it out. Luna coughed and waved him away. "We don't want you catching cold, do we?"
Rolf took Luna's other arm and whistled a tune he'd learned while in Romania. Luna, walking between them, really seemed to enjoy herself. It was a Muggle celebration, and Rolf bobbed for apples, bested by a fat boy, and Luna clapped her hands. His shirt soaked through, Rolf shook his dark, damp locks and smooched her on the cheek.
"A drowned rat." Luna stroked his face. Charlie and Rolf took up a challenge, tossing small balls at glass bottles. Rolf won because he possessed this flick of the wrist. Rolf bounced the last ball back and shattered the glass of the colorful bottle, and he won a prize.
"Pick one. That one." Rolf jabbed his finger at a collection of stuffed animals and pointed at a stuffed animal, a large panda.
Charlie bought a bag of red apples off a merchant and helped himself to two of them. Charlie, Rolf knew, spent more than half his life in Deva and its surrounding cities, so this was as good a home as any because his people were here. He smirked at Rolf carrying the panda under his arm and played Double Dutch with a gaggle of giggling girls. Charlie kept on messing up, making Luna giggle madly with the children. Relaxed for the first time in days, Rolf conquered a large turkey leg and couldn't resist sarmale, the cabbage rolls.
"He's amazing," said Luna, leaning against Rolf. Rolf frowned at her, setting the panda down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. She handed him a handkerchief. "You're an animal."
"Luna." Rolf, dropping the half-eaten salted turkey leg, pointed at the beast that blocked out the sun. It was a dragon, a beautiful Swedish Short Snout, and as it spread its wings, the creature deposited a smoky carcass in the distance.
"Oh, not good." Luna dropped the ice cream and got shoved aside by Charlie. Rolf started running. too, and picked up the pace. Luna couldn't really run, and the sight of her gait would've been funny if it didn't reveal the obvious changes in her body. "Rolf."
"Whoa, you stay," he said, backtracking and resting a hand on her belly. Rolf felt a quiver under his hand, and Luna, winded, heeded his advice instead of throwing herself headfirst into the fire. He spotted Charlie, tearing through the streets, his wand held aloft as he raced pointlessly against the dragon. "You can't see your feet."
"Charlie." Luna slowed to a dead halt and placed her hand on top of his. She stood still for a moment and followed Rolf to investigate the bones and charred flesh. She backed off apologetically, taking her handkerchief back. "Someone released the dragon!"
"Three guesses who," said Rolf darkly, kneeling onto the cobblestones. "So much for a holiday."
"We're in Deva, which basically means we're on holiday," said Luna, heading back the other way to head towards wherever Charlie went.
They abandoned the panda. As they approached, inching along, for whatever reason, the silvery-blue dragon, a Swedish Short Snout, came back, and the people scattered for cover when it dove like a spiraling missile towards its brunch, the smoldering remains of a good meal. Rolf got lifted off the ground and something tore in his shoulder. He couldn't see her because he got slammed into a derelict building and destroyed vendor stands, but Luna's screams, unnatural and deep, pierced the crisp air and sent chills down his spine. Rolf tasted the blood in his mouth and spat onto the ground; he'd bitten his tongue hard because it compared to nothing as it ripped into him.
"Run," he gasped, turning his head at an odd angle and reaching out to his wife.
Rolf shoved Luna away roughly. Rolf relied on the wrong thing, an assumption, a dangerous thing, for he knew the Swedish breed wouldn't attack humans, but this one already possessed a taste for blood, and it shot fire from its nostrils, playing with its prey. Rolf cried out as his arm got set aflame, and the dragon took off in broad daylight.
"I'm not leaving you," she said shakily, her voice going in and out as she conjured a fire blanket and wrapped it around him. "Shhhh, shhhh."
Charlie, a tank, cast spells and managed the scene poorly because it was simply too much to handle for one man. Ned, the nobody who knew nothing, stayed at his heels, white as a sheet.
"Damnit." Charlie shouted at Ned to gather any of the handlers and alert everyone. Frightened, hiding his emotions, he stuck a grin on his face and patted Rolf on the shoulder as Luna helped him get Rolf on level ground. Muggles surrounded them. "Luna, put him down, come on."
"He's …" Luna knelt awkwardly on the ground and burst into tears. Charlie told her to stop crying as she gulped for air. "I can't … I can't believe this! We were going out for fresh air."
"She can't stop once she gets going," said Rolf, staring at Charlie, smelling his own charred flesh. His nerves felt as though they got set on fire, too. "I love you."
"You shut the hell up! I'm not hearing that, Scamander! Luna. Your cloak!" Charlie, keeping it together, holding on by his fingertips, snapped at Luna. Charlie slid it onto the stained ground and moved Rolf onto it, careful with his man. Authorities Apparated in the distance and Charlie barked orders mingled with colored insults at Ned. "If he dies, I will kill you!"
"I…" Words failed Ned. He appealed to Luna, a train wreck, and Rolf heard her strike him.
"You've done enough today. No! You … you do not touch me." Luna, big, crawled on her hands and knees towards Rolf. "You keep your eyes on me."
"Look at your lady, Rolf," said Charlie, doing things Rolf couldn't see. "They're coming. Help is … it's on it's way."
"Charlie, it hurts," said Rolf. He understood how this worked, so they couldn't lie to him like an idiot. He wasn't sure of the breed, but he felt the venom coursing through him as his body warmed in the cool autumnal air.
"I know, I know," said Charlie, his tone faltering a little.
"Slow your heart rate," said Luna, stroking his face. Rolf wanted to go to sleep and close his eyes. "No, Newton, you look at me! Tell me about … tell me a story."
"What?" Rolf cried out when Charlie ripped off his clothes.
"Anything, Rolf, tell me anything," said Luna meekly, trying desperately to calm herself.
"The tavern wench with the uneven teeth," suggested Charlie, working fast. "We'll find that gypsy who tended you last time at clinic. What's her name?"
"Charlie." Rolf jerked his head at Luna.
Charlie snorted. "We're all friends here. You laid with Luna this morning. She got you in the end, at least for the next seventeen years, so it's all good, Pudgy Badger. Wouldn't Tonks be pleased you almost bedded a whore?"
Rolf laughed painfully, like a knife in the chest, as he recalled Nymphadora Tonks's heart-shaped face and violet locks. The gypsies from the nearby clinic and placed him on a stretcher, and Luna, her dress stained with his blood, let someone help her to her feet and stayed by his side. He stroked her face with his bloody fingers, raising his broken hand, stalling the transport for a moment.
"Charlie, you're the best thing that ever happened to me," he said, taking his two best friends' hands in his broken ones, desperate for Charlie to hear him out. Charlie told him to shut up, but there were tears in his warm brown eyes all the same. "Luna."
"I love you and we're fine." She kissed his broken hand and nodded at the gypsy. Luna took a deep breath when Rolf muttered incoherently about the living will and started slipping away. "Think of a name, and we'll get some ice cream and some of … blueberry stuff …"
"Blueberry cobbler," Rolf said.
He squeezed her hand, completely aware she had no idea what she talked about. Luna nodded, saying something to Charlie, and they shared a laugh. Rolf, slipping away and giving into the sweet relief of unconsciousness, sighed contently when Luna kissed him and did this thing where she ran his fingers through his dark locks. She knew he loved this gesture, and it calmed him, making him breath easier. He'd be just fine no matter what came down the road.