Based on characters created by J. K. Rowling

Cross Road

Charlie Weasley was back to work at the American Dragon Preserve by September first. He had recently returned from the World Quidditch Cup. Charlie was the seeker for the Flying American Red Dragons and they had defeated the Australian team to become world Quidditch champions. He had taken a longer vacation than planned, because he spent an extra week in Hamilton, Ontario with his new girlfriend, Minerva Kingsley. She was the sister of his best friend from Quidditch, Jordan Kingsley. Jordan and Charlie's other best friend, Joanna, who happened to be Jordan's wife, also a Quidditch player for the American Red Dragons, introduced them.

Charlie wasn't used to having a girlfriend. He told her that made a lousy boyfriend, and that was true. He always cheated; forgot important dates and his work always came first. He figured he'd have less opportunity to cheat while he lived in the Chihuahuan Desert, so he was optimistic that she would put up with his bull shit longer than most of the women he went out with.

There had been a couple of changes made to the operations at the preserve due to the increase muggle sightings and gunshot injuries to the dragons. There had been an actual photograph taken of an injured Flying Demon dragon being rescued by Mike and Charlie by a muggle using her cell phone and the photo had gotten on the Internet and in the tabloids. While the muggle who had taken the photo had been given a memory charm so she had no idea that she had even taken the picture, there was evidence that dragons really did exist and the muggle tabloid were paying thousands of muggle dollars for more proof. The tabloids were also interested in identifying the two grainy figures in the photo that happened to be Mike and Charlie. Fortunately, the picture didn't offer any significant indication exactly where the photograph was taken. Muggles were started to narrow the possible locations, and it was pretty obvious that the desert was the best location for a dragon (or whatever it was).

The watches had been stepped up and there were now three keepers patrolling at every shift instead of just one. Charlie was on night duty with Mike and the intern Genevieve. Mike would have rather taken days shift because he had a wife and two children and wanted to spend evenings with them. Mike's wife was a muggle, but his two children were both wizards, which was causing some problems at home.

Charlie liked the intern Genevieve. Of the three remaining interns, Genevieve was the only one who seemed to love magical creatures as much as Charlie did. She had the ideal temperament for a keeper, and she was very good at magic. Most American witches weren't necessarily very skilled in common spells and potion-making. They tended to rely on muggle conveniences.

Genevieve had graduated from Salem School for Young Witches and Wizards in Salem, Massachusetts, and went on to advance schooling in the Care and Healing of Magical Creatures. She hoped to get a full time job with the preserve in America or work at the Romanian facility where Charlie had interned. She had never been to Romania but had read about it in school.

The desert was alive at night with magical creatures. The dragons, not so much because of their cold-blooded nature, but giant arachnids scurried across the desert floor, looking for prey. The keepers at the preserve were forever rescuing hapless muggles who had gotten tangled in one of the 10 foot webs after wandering off the road to take a piss. The spiders grew to the size of small muggle automobiles, and their favorite food seemed to be muggles boracho.

Winged horses were another of the magical creatures that came out in the evening. The herd flew at sunset, and Charlie had only seen them one time. They made a beautiful, almost mystical sight; their white mane glowing orange-red from sun's waning glow. When they flew at night, they glowed from the light of the moon.

Once, several thousand millennia ago, the desert was the bottom of a vast ocean, which was the home of a number of magical sea creatures. One species of the creatures remained, evolving into an animal that was dormant until the desert rains came. The creatures appeared during the rain and frolicked like mischievous children. They were about 18 inches tall, long sleek bodies, and tuffs that looked like hair that stood up into a point. They resembled pixies, and had the unfortunate habit of dancing on the wet pavement of the muggle highway. While not usually hit by the on-coming cars, they were the cause of many accidents on the road. Muggles would see the playful little creatures in the slick roads, hit their brakes to avoid hitting them, skidding all over the roads, often running off a cliff. Charlie suspected that the little buggers actually enjoyed watching the cars skid all over the road and purposefully did their dance to cause as much damage as possible.

Then there were the spirits that walked the desert in the moon light. They weren't ghosts, but muggles believed them to be. They were never human and never alive but they took the form of ghostly sirens. They looked like beautiful women with long flowing hair and were dressed in white. Their pale bodies were iridescent and like the sirens of ancient lore, sang a mournful song. There were probably a half dozen of the sirens, but they always walked alone, usually following muggle roads.

One of the most active non-magical creatures was, of course, muggles. They usually drove out past the highway to drink, do drugs, or just for sex. Occasionally, muggles would try to dump their large appliances or furniture, even cars in the desert, but they were always stopped, jinxed with a very potent memory altering spell, and sent on their way with a vowed commitment not to dump garbage in the desert. Sometimes, members of various cults would come to the desert in large groups to dance naked around a huge bonfire or in the light of a full moon. The naked dancers usually ended up having sex, which Charlie figured was the point anyway.

There were always muggles with guns driving into the desert looking to shoot up a couple hundred rounds into the air, into the dunes, and into plants. Charlie was accidently shot in the upper chest by a muggle once. Shooters were the most common reason muggles showed up in the desert, but they were more likely to show up during the day, not at night.

There had been two incidents so far of dragons being shot. Charlie and Mike rescued the first one. It was a Flying Demon and had been shot at close range by a rifle using high caliber, armor piercing bullets. The dragon had survived, but the second one wasn't so lucky. A verdemalo was killed two weeks before Charlie returned from Quidditch. It was shot multiple times, again at close range, and it died before the keepers could get it to the infirmary.

So far the evening was quiet, but it was a weekend, and there was usually a lot of muggle activity. Mike was extremely quiet. He never talked much anyway, but he was reluctant to join in on their conversation and did not initiate any discussions.

Around three in the morning, the team spotted a car driving off the high way into preserve property. They hung back just in case the car was just going to turn around, but it pulled up and parked. The three of them surrounded the car, Mike stood in front of the car holding a very frightening looking rifle. He was the only one on the preserve that carried a muggle firearm, and that was mostly for show. His wand could do more damage faster than the firearm, but muggles didn't seem to be intimidated by short, polished sticks being waved around. Of course, once the muggles saw lights and stars shooting out from the end of the wands, they were usually impressed for the split second before their memories were erased.

Charlie knocked on the driver's side window. There were two couples in the car. The drivers nervously rolled down the window and Charlie caught the smell of alcohol and marijuana; a smell he was very familiar with.

"You need to leave, right now," he said in a very menacing voice. "You're trespassing on private property."

Mike chambered a round in the rifle. The girls in the car screamed. The driver held up his hands. "Wait, wait," he repeated. "We're not doing anything wrong. Please, don't shoot."

Charlie tried to keep the menacing look on his face, but he was amused by their reaction. It was the same every time. Genevieve had never been involved with the confrontation of muggles and wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She tried to look just as mean as Charlie, but she couldn't quite pull it off. She was less than five feet tall and probably weighed 90 lbs. But she had a purple streak in her hair that made her look scarier than she actually was.

"Get out of here," Charlie repeated. His face was set in an unsettling grimace. He leaned inside the car window. "Now."

"Yes, sir," the boy threw his car into gear. The car started to roll almost before Charlie could get his head out. He nodded to Genevieve, instructing her to produce the memory charm that she had been practicing. She was a little nervous, but managed to pull out her wand and produce the hex. Charlie had stopped the car with a freezing curse, paralyzing the inhabitants of the car, while Genevieve gave them a memory to replace the one they had.

Every few hours, they repeated the routine, until it started to get daylight. They spent as much time on the ground as they did in the air. By the time they were replaced with the morning shift, they had turned away thirty cars and rescued a couple in a car that had run off the road after meeting up with a siren.

Charlie told Mike he would turn in the report; to go on home. Genevieve was started to nod off, so Charlie told her to go to bed. He walked into the front office to turn in his report, and met up with Scott Benson, a fellow keeper. He greeted Charlie grimly.

"We found another one. There were over 100 bullet holes in his body. We never heard the shots being fired. I think he was shot in a totally different area and he flew out of range before he died. It was just a baby." Scott said, wiping his nose. "Who would do such a horrible thing?" He asked rhetorically, shaking his head.

"What kind of dragon?" Charlie asked, dreading the answer.

"It was an American Red." Scott answered.

"Oh, fuck," Charlie said. American Reds were Charlie's favorite dragon. The baby dragons were able to fly and he was the first wizard to observe an American Red in flight. Charlie promised himself that he would find out who was killing the dragons in the preserve and ensure that justice was served.