Charlie had noticed over the years that there were fewer of his brothers who were single. Every Christmas there was one less of them drinking firewhisky around the fire and one more sitting in the kitchen with a wife or a girlfriend. But it wasn't until Ron finally plucked up the courage to propose to Hermione that it really hit home. He was the last one. Bill and Fleur had been married for several years and Percy married Penelope mere months after his dramatic return to the family. George and Angelina had been inseparable since Fred had been killed, and had helped each other until they could cope with their loss. But they now seemed quite content to stay together and they had settled on a quiet wedding, with just their families present. Although 'quiet' was a word that could never be used to describe that many Weasleys in one room.
And now, this family gathering, Ron had broken the news that he and Hermione were engaged. The mood was festive, but Charlie felt smothered by the noise and gaiety. He was glad for them, as he knew that they had gone through so much upheaval during their school years, and they had finally recovered enough to begin a new life together. But Charlie was in no mood to laugh and dance with the others. His restless legs took him out of the garden that had been decorated with flags and lanterns, as well as the hexed gnomes that had attacked George earlier and were now stiffly holding jars of fireflies and painted silver from head to toe. He wandered down an overgrown path, past the old Quidditch hoop, ending up beside the reed-filled lake. He walked idly along, his feet easily finding the almost lost path from years of practise. This is why you're the last one left he told himself sternly as he walked. In the years he had spent at the dragon reserve, he had come to enjoy his semi-secluded life. There were not many stationed on the reserve, and so Charlie, who had been surrounded by a large crowd of friends throughout his time at Hogwarts, had learned to be alone. It took him some minutes to realise that, for once, he was not alone. Standing quite still, he soon made out what it was that he had heard. The sound was faint, but there it was again. A light voice drifted on the breeze; a melodic, unusual voice. Intrigued, he followed the sound, coming to a halt beside a stout young tree. Something that he had at first taken to be another branch was in fact a slim, pale leg which swung to and fro, revealing a small bare foot dangling some six feet from the ground.
"Hello" a soft voice said. "Did you hear it too?"
Charlie's quick gaze darted up to meet wide eyes, framed by pale blond lashes. "Hear what?" he asked curiously, strangely drawn in by the girl's gentle tones.
"An Augurey? I have never seen one, but my father told me of them. Their cry foretells rain, you know. I wanted to distract it away from the party, so it would not spoil things. It seems to have gone now."
"I thought their cry was a death omen?" Charlie asked puzzled.
She looked brightly at him, as if she was not used to people understanding her. "Well, that was common thought, but then Daddy published the truth in an article in The Quibbler. Finally, his theory has been proven correct. The poor Augurey still suffers though from that original interpretation."
It was only then that Charlie realised he was enjoying this highly improbable conversation with a girl he did not know who was perched above his head in the branches of a tree. "I'm sorry, but I don't know your name" he said, after a short pause.
"Well, why should you?" she asked, quite reasonably. Her gaze drifted up along the treetops again, almost wistfully.
"We'll come looking for the bird tomorrow" Charlie told her, realising he was not going to get any other answer from the unusual girl. "It is getting too dark to find it now. The path is quite hard to make out even in the light, and Mum would not be happy with me if I let a guest fall into the lake and be attacked by the Grindylows."
"They are quite kind if you feed them freshwater plimpies" the girl told him matter-of-factly, giving the surroundings one last lingering look before she began to climb down the tree.
"I wish I had known that when I was six and they attacked me" Charlie told her, grinning as she gave a slight gasp of surprise.
"Were you hurt?" she asked him.
Charlie shrugged. "Well, yes. But luckily Dad pulled me out before anything too serious happened."
"They would have watched you" the girl told him seriously. "The second born child is always more prone to accidents" she added, seeing the frown cross his face.
"You know who I am?" Charlie asked, confused. He had no memory of this girl at all.
"You were Bill's best man" she said. "I was at the wedding. I was surprised that there were not more of us in yellow. I think that it is important to bring luck to a wedding, don't you?"
At last, Charlie knew who this eccentric, otherworldly girl was. "I do know you" he said. "It's Luna, isn't it? Ginny's friend?"
She jumped down off the last branch, landing lightly beside him. "Ginny told me about you" she said, as they started walking up the path. She said you work with dragons?"
"That's right" Charlie said. "I work at a reserve in Romania. We've got about 200 hundred dragons there at the moment."
Luna's eyes were big as she looked up at him. "Two hundred? That must be wonderful to see."
Charlie grinned. "Close" he said. "I would not exchange my job for any other." He stopped uncertainly as Luna gaze him a disconcerting stare.
"But you aren't happy" she said.
Charlie was a little taken aback, but saw that she did not mean it unkindly. Strange as it was for the one person he did not know to be the first to see it, he found that he wanted to talk. "I'm not unhappy exactly" he told her, holding a drooping patch of reeds back with his arm so that Luna could pass. "I just can't help wishing sometimes that I had chosen a more conventional path in life. Then I would not be the only one not to have brought someone home for the party."
"You are allowed to be a dragon handler and a husband at the same time" Luna told him earnestly, deftly avoiding the clawed swipe of a little green arm aiming for her bare ankle. "I wish I had brought some plimpies."
Charlie could not help but smile. This eccentric girl had brightened his mood far more than he would have believed possible. "I know that I could be" he said, ignoring the last sentence. "I have not found a girl who doesn't want to change me, and I would hate a wife to sit and worry about me when I'm at work. I don't have the safest of professions."
"Then you must find someone who shares your love of magical creatures" Luna told him, shaking her waist-length blond hair back from her eyes so she could look up at him.
Charlie looked down at her for a long moment, curiously distracted by the softness of her smile. "I think you have the answer to my problem" he said. "It's just that if, in nine years at the reserve, I haven't met this woman, I might never do so."
"Perhaps you have not looked in the right place" Luna told him. "Things generally turn up, when you least expect them."
Her last soft sentence had taken them back to the edge of the garden where the party was still in full swing. As Charlie turned back to her from his one swift glance at the gathering, she had vanished.
Charlie found himself strangely distracted as he poured himself a glass of firewhiskey and found a quiet spot to lean on the wall of the house. The softly-spoken words of the strange girl played in his head as he watched the antics of his noisy family and those wide blue eyes that looked up at him, so innocent but so knowing, floated before him. A sudden sharp nudge made him start and turn to see a flash of hair so long and bright red that it could only belong to one person. "Hey Bill" he said, the muscles that had tensed relaxing as they realised there was no danger.
There was a frown on the taller man's scarred face as he topped up Charlie's glass. "What is with you?" he asked, leaning on the wall beside him and sipping from his own firewhiskey.
Charlie shrugged. "It hit me tonight that I'm the last bachelor in the household" he admitted, suddenly a little less worried by the statement than he had been earlier that night.
"Now it bothers you?" Bill asked, sounding faintly amused. "What else did you think would happen when you went out to Romania on your boys' adventure?"
"How long did you spend it Egypt?" Charlie retorted, with a flicker of irritation.
"Ahh, well" Bill looked down at him, almost wistfully. "I had to make a choice about that, didn't I? You can't have both, Char. A family or a dangerous job; there's your decision."
Charlie frowned. "I can't change who I am" he said flatly. "You might have done it, but I'm not you. I can't give up my job."
"So there's your decision made" Bill told him. "Stop being miserable about it; you're doing what you want to do."
Charlie could not help thinking of the other whom he had shared his thoughts with that night. He preferred her answer, however eccentric, to the sensible one he had just heard. His thoughts must have shown in his expression as he looked up to see Bill shaking his head, a wry grin on his lips.
"You always had to find things out for yourself. I know you won't listen to me" he said, not sounding in the least annoyed. "You never know, I suppose. There may be a woman out there just as mad in the head as you are."
The image of a slender, blond girl popped unbidden into Charlie's head as Bill said this. He blinked it away, but smiled as he did so. "Maybe there is" he said.