Changes

Three days after Raven's arrival at the Sanctuary, Sergei and Alexi were watching Raven and Charlie. The two were sitting with the two clutching horntails, that in itself was enough to make Sergei look twice, but Raven seemed totally fearless and was sitting on the ground resting back against the neck of the alpha horntail. Charlie, at least was sitting on a log a few feet away from the jaws of the alpha.

They were chattering away in parseltongue with the horntails, a Ukrainian Ironbelly, two Romanian Longhorns, a Norwegian Ridgeback and all three of the Sanctuary's Opal-eyes.

And they were gossiping like a bunch of old ladies.

"My pardon, ladies. Raven? There is a letter for you." Sergei gave a shallow bow as he spoke. "It is marked 'Urgent', so I thought it best to bring it to your attention, immediately."

Raven had been encouraging the handlers to use more formal manners when dealing with the dragons, at least until the dragons gave permission for a somewhat more relaxed behaviour and for the most part it was working. Even the unpredictable horntails had responded positively, if Raven or Charlie were involved. Something to do with parseltongue, it was assumed.

The Ironbelly raised her head and while she hissed, she did bow her head, fractionally. Charlie rose to his feet and left the circle of dragons, he joined Sergei and Alexi as they stood at the edge of the clearing.

"Hey, boss." Charlie grinned.

"Charlie." Sergei handed Charlie the letter. "Anything I should know about?"

"Hmm.. well, Sissel, the ridgeback says that she will mate this coming winter, to clutch in summer. Assana, the Ironbelly has said she will wait, that none of the males here are worth her time, they're too young. Raven knows where there is an older Ironbelly and he's sent a letter to see if he can start negotiations for it's release."

"There's a captive Ironbelly? Where?"

"He won't say, but those that have it, state that it came into their possession through unusual circumstances as an egg, that they contacted the appropriate Ministerial departments and were brushed aside. They have done the best they can for it, but their knowledge is limited. They have said that they are prepared to talk with Raven, but… Negotiations are slow, boss. Raven thinks we can visit them in person towards the end of autumn."

"God." Sergei groaned.

"Raven won't stop, boss, not until it's freed, but like I said, it's a slow process."

"Anything else?" Alexi asked.

"The Opal-eyes are requesting one of the males be transferred away, he's aggressive and has no respect for boundaries. If a female is in heat, he'll try and breed her, with or without her consent."

"That would be Oskar?"

"Yes, boss."

"I thought so. You can tell the ladies that a team from the New Zealand Rehabilitation Centre will be here to collect Oskar on Monday."

"Good, Seiarna will be pleased, she ready to mate next month, to clutch late winter. She wants to know will there be a heated area for her eggs?"

"If you and Raven can get some details on what she needs, we'll do the best we can." Sergei assured Charlie.

"Great. There's a stack more, but if we can meet with you both tomorrow or the next day, Raven will have a report for us. Some of what they say is just beyond me, boss. I can catch the basics, but… when they get going? I've no hope of keeping up."

"Well anything is better than nothing, Snitch. You better give that to Raven, I've a funny feeling it might be a howler." Sergei warned.

"A howler?" He held the letter at arms length. "Oh, bollocks."

"Yeah. Off you go, now" Sergei grinned and retreated, quickly.

Charlie approached and bowed to the dragons.

"Raven? You might want to warn the ladies. Sergei thinks this is a howler."

"Howler? That'll be from 'mione, then." Raven turned to the horntail and a hissed discussion was hastily held.

"Right. Stay there." Raven got to his feet and gave the horntail a scratch above an eye-ridge. He gracefully crossed the clearing and joined Charlie.

He took the letter and watched it begin to smoke.

"Yep. It's from her." He opened the letter and let magic do it's thing.

The letter floated in front of him.

"Raven Rowan-ash! You ass. You complete and utter bullocking, great pillock." Hermione's voice changed from English to parseltongue.

How bloody dare you! I helped you! I lied for you! Do you have any idea how many timess I've lied? In my whole life? Three! And they were all becausse of you, you idiot! We planned thiss from the very beginning and you cut me out! I should come out there and sstring you up by your toess! You idiot! Her voice began to calm.

Yess, I know thiss iss in parsseltongue, oh and thankss for the warning that I might be able to sspeak it, now, I sscared the blazsess out of Fred and George. I ssent the memory of ssummoning the Cherry dragon, ass well ass the written the charm, by vanishing box. I spoke to Professsor Flitwick and ssaid that a friend wanted to know how to modify that type of charm, but he had no idea. I ssuggest that you ssit down and look at what I ussed, what happened and what you need to happen and write your own charm. Well… What are you waiting for? Get to it! Sstupid brat!≈ The howler began to fade.

Charlie had started to laugh as Hermione called Raven a pillock and didn't stop, not even when the howler ended. There were also the draconic version of laughter, too, a horntail and the two longhorns were shaking with it.

Raven just sighed.

"That is so Hermione. Giving me a clue, but making me do it myself. I had hoped that now she wasn't at school, she would give it up. Obviously not."

"Did you really expect her to?" Charlie grinned.

"No, not really, I suppose. Oh, well… at least she sent the memory."

"And how is that going to help, the sanctuary doesn't have a pensieve?"

"But I do." Raven smirked.

"So, let me guess, we have homework?"

"Yep." Raven turned to the dragons. ≈Ladiess pleasse excusse uss, it sseamss that Ssnitch and I have much ressearch to do. I are hoping to recover the lasst of the Cherry Blosssom Dragonss before they die out. Opal tellss me there were only a few thoussand to them left.≈ Raven explained.

A worthy tassk, young Sspeaker. You will tell uss if might be of assistancse.≈ Assana replied.

We sshall, my ladiess. Thank you.≈ Raven said.

Yess, thank you, I hope it will not take long. I long to ssee my nesstmatess.≈ Opal added.

The two wizards bowed to the dragons and made their way back to Charlie's cabin. Opal flitted across the room to check her eggs, there was still some days before they would hatch, but she wasn't comfortable leaving them, now was she comfortable being apart from Raven. So, compromises had to happen. During the day, they would return to the nest every hour for a ten minute visit and a long lunch.

Charlie opened the Post cabinet and withdrew a small phial and a letter. He handed both to Raven, who disappeared into his room, while Charlie set about making their evening meal. Raven may be the better cook, but Charlie was no slouch when it came to tasty food, tonight they were having lamb hotpot, courtesy of Seiarna's last hunting trip.

Three hours later Raven emerged from his room.

"I think I've got it. Charlie, will you check this?" Raven handed Charlie a piece of parchment and dished himself a bowl of stew.

Charlie read through the scribbled notes, his eyes getting bigger and bigger the further he went.

"Bloody Nora, Raven. I… I can't see anything, but have Alexi check this. Um… Are you interested in…? This could get you a charms Mastery. Maybe."

"Not too worried about a Mastery at this point, mate. More concerned in getting the Cherries safe."

"Yeah, but keep in mind? If it does work, it's one of only two works needed to claim a Mastery. Tell Alexi, please. Before you try it, you should think about signing on as apprentice with him. That way, you're half way to a Mastery. Please?"

Raven studied Charlie. It made sense and he had thought about working towards a Mastery. He'd just assumed that it would be DADA.

"Okay. I'll head down and see him in a bit. After I've eaten. Opal? How are the eggs? All alright?"

Yess, my Raven, they are good. Ssafe and sstrong.≈

"That is good. Every book I could find about Cherries says, about a three week pregnancy and six weeks for incubation. So, going from when you laid them, we have up to two weeks before hatching."

"Okay, so… if you're going to go ahead and summon the other Cherries, about then, we have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it in." Charlie hummed.

"Yep, that sounds about right."

"Why do we go see Alexi, we might be able to have a couple of work-days, where we get the families involved."

"Brilliant, mate. Let's go." Raven extended an arm and Opal fluttered across from her perch near the fire.

The three headed down to the Keeper's Office, hoping to find Alexi and Sergei there.

"Alexi? Sergei? Anyone around?" Raven called.

"Here!" Alexi's voice came from the staff common room, the big room that nearly everyone used as a gathering area, come evening.

Raven entered, strode over to where Alexi was cuddled up to an oblivious Sergei and thrust the parchment at him.

"Read this." Raven demanded.

"Okay?" Alexi blinked.

He began to read, suddenly he sat upright, his jaw fell and he gripped the parchment hard. Sergei, realising that his husband was no longer leaning on him looked around. When he saw the expression on Alexi's face his eyebrows rose and worry lit his eyes.

"Alexi?" He asked.

"Shush." Alexi said absently.

Sergei blinked, Alexi never shushed him, never. It took Alexi three reads of Raven's notes before he commented.

"This could get a Masters, by itself… if it works. And I can't see any reason why it shouldn't, everything seems to add up."

"That's what Charlie said." Raven added.

"When do you want to try this?"

"I'm thinking… if we can get the Cherry enclosure done by the time Opal's eggs hatch, I'd like try it about then."

"Okay, what are we talking about?" Sergei cut in.

"Raven seems to have written a multiple summoning charm, one that we can, possibly, use to summon the last of the Cherries."

Sergei just looked from Alexi to Raven with a look something similar to being offered a dream become reality.

"Really? Well, we've got a lot of work to do then. I'll call all the staff in, in the morning and Raven can lay out what needs to be done and where."

"Assana did ask if they could help, maybe the dragons may be of help with clearing land?" Raven added.

"I'll leave the entire Cherry situation in your hands, Raven. I'll keep the Sanctuary ticking over while you get the Cherry enclosure up and going." Sergei stated.

Two weeks of back breaking physical labour, along with core-draining magic, the Cherry Blossom enclosure was finished. On a south facing slope, the enclosure was a suntrap that the larger dragons had taken great pleasure in creating, pulling out trees and digging holes for new ones, for cherry trees, as well as persimmon, plum and peach. The Wizards had to help, supervise, direct and at times, restrain the dragons, as well as setting up the magical boundaries, a charm that was created by dragon handlers, specifically to keep dragons in a certain space. In the case of the Cherries, they had to create the boundary and a weather-sheltered area, for even though parts Romania and parts of Japan shared the same latitude, Romania's winters were considerably harsher. And the enclosure was huge, given the size of the dragons, that is. They would have a space of roughly 200 acres, there were large forested areas with fruit tress, there were rocky areas for nesting and to top it off there were even a couple of deep streams that ran through it. A few large pools for swimming and a small cliff area for mating displays.

And not a minute too soon, as Opal's eggs were showing signs of hatching. With not-quite steady hands Raven carried the silver nest into the enclosure. The little dragon was crooning anxiously at her eggs as they trembled in their nest.

Raven placed the nest up against the massive rock with it's holes gouged out, exactly the right size for a Cherry dragon to hide her hatchlings in, for the three weeks they needed before their scales firmed. Once the scaled hardened the hatchlings emerged and were able to fly and feed for themselves. The parent-dragon still nurtured her youngling, but that was more a teaching role than a dependency issue.

The next thing to do, would be to summon the rest of the Cherry Blossom dragons and for this Alexi had invited a pair of charms Masters, his Masters in fact. Both men thought they had been invited to see the practical uses for charms in a large animal environment. The subject would be raised and they would witness the attempt, if it worked they would submit pensieve memories to the ICW on Raven's behalf. If it didn't work…? Well, Raven's other idea was to summon a Cherry, one morning, one noon and another each night. Between he, Charlie, Alexi, Sergei and Minik? 15 Cherries each day? It might take a while but they'd get keep going until there were no new ones responding to the summoning, especially as Raven had worked out a way to put a proximity barrier on the charm, meaning a Cherry Blossom dragon that had already been summoned couldn't be summoned again. The only real concern with doing things the using the second option would be eggs. They would have to wait until the breeding season was completely over before they could start or they risked having a clutch left abandoned, if they summoned a nesting female.

But right now he was more concerned with Opal's babies.

Go away!≈ She growled. ≈There'ss nothing you can do, here and there'ss big beasstiess to inform. Come back at dark. Then you can see my hatchlingss.≈ She hissed.

Raven and Charlie were back minutes before full dark, Raven holding a Lumos ball in a stasis jar, to light their path.

Opal? Opal, my ssweet?≈ Raven called softly. ≈I brought ssome mealwormss for your hatchlingss.≈

He could hear her chirping and whistling reassuringly to her babies… and then there they were. Oh, they were darling. Tiny. Not one of them was as long as his thumb. Fully formed, just really, really tiny. Raven put his hand down slowly, the palm filled with the wriggling worms, suddenly glad he'd opted for the mini-mealworms and not the larger ones. Opal took hold of his thumb and held his hand still and then there were dragon hatchlings crawling over his hands, their miniscule claws prickling like pins, but not breaking the skin, they were too soft yet. Their colour ranged from almost ivory through a carnation pink to a blush pink to a soft rose to a cotton candy pink to something that was almost the same colour as Tonks' hair, a bright bubblegum/purply pink.

Oh, they are sstunning, Opal. Sso beautiful. Will you give all them namess?≈ Raven whispered in awe.

No, Raven. Each has a ssound that will be ussed jusst for it, but no namess… It iss not unlesss we become familiarss that we gain namess.≈

Oh, I didn't know that.≈

Why would you? I have not told you of thiss, before. It was not necesssary for you to know, now it iss.≈

Thank you dearesst. Will you sstay with them tonight?≈ He asked, already missing the warmth of her presence.

I will sstay with them tonight, only… if you will casst a warming charm on the rock that would be nicse.≈ She nuzzled his thumb. ≈And do you have ssome more of thosse wormss. My hatchlingss will have to eat many timess during the night.≈

I do. I brought a container, if I leave it where the nesst wass, can you manage, or would you like Charlie and I to sstay with you?≈

No you go home, ssleep, the next few days will be tiring for you, my Raven. Charlie?≈ Opal called.

Yess, Opal?≈

Sstay with him. Do not let him ssleep alone, he will have bad dreamss if he iss alone.≈

I'll keep him company, Opal.≈ Charlie assured her.

Good, with the bouncsy one's friendss coming you will be bussy. Come back tomorrow night. The hatchlingss do not leave the nesst during the day and if it weren't ssafe here, they wouldn't leave it at all, until their sscaless are hard.≈

Alright, dear one. This is a buzzer, if you need me during the night, just push the buzzer… pleasse?≈

I will. Now go, go home.≈

Charlie was forced to toss Raven over his shoulder and carry him home, as the younger wizard kept finding excuses to stay with his familiar and her young.

Anton and Luciano spent two glorious days, surrounded by gently rolling hills, they talked to the handlers and, with Raven and Charlie to translate, to a pair of Antipodean Opal-eyes. The wizards visited all the different areas of the Sanctuary… all but the Cherry enclosure. Sergei and Alexi were keeping that for last. After visiting it, they would have another two days to relax and just be visitors instead of official guests.

"This way Anton, no Lu, I will not tell you why. Shut up and hurry up!" Alexi snarled.

The two men followed Alexi and Sergei, they wound their way along a path that neither man had noticed before, ending up in a beautiful grove of fruit trees. Plum, peach, cherry, persimmon and citrus. The air was redolent in the scent of flowers.

On the far side of a clearing were two young men one standing, looking at them, the other sat on a rock, with his back to them.

"Here, Anton, Lu. Read this." Alexi handed Anton a piece of parchment and leant against a tree.

Anton raised his brows at the brusque demands, but took the paper and began to read, his jaw fell slack and his eyes widened comically, but he forced himself to continue. Finishing he handed the parchment to Lu, who's curiosity was quickly sated.

"Oh my lord." Lu sighed.

"I can't see any reason that won't work. Anton? Can you? Lu? You?" Alexi asked.

When both wizards shook their heads, Alexi looked across the clearing to young men, one of them looking at him, Alexi nodded and the redheaded man grinned. He leaned down and spoke to the dark haired man, a short conversation and the redhead left him and headed their way.

"Hi, I'm Charlie. Alexi? Raven says we should put an exclusion bubble around us, if we're staying. If we're not, we need to apparate out now, he's going to start in 30 seconds."

"We're staying, Charlie." Alexi stated. "I'll do the exclusion." Alexi pulled out his wand and with a few swift swishes there was a green-ish shimmer in the air around the four men.

"Raven? We're staying and the exclusion is up." Charlie called.

Across the clearing the other man just waved.

"Going to start what?" Lu asked.

Charlie nodded towards the parchment.

"That." He replied.

"But that's… that's going to take a whole team of casters. The amount of power needed to cast that large a charm? It's mind-boggling."

"Nah." Charlie corrected. "It's difficult, but Raven's plenty strong enough, between him and his familiar? They got the power, it's just that Raven has to do this in three steps, one for the adult dragons, a second for the immature hatchlings and sub-adults and a third for eggs and nest-bound hatchlings."

"Eggs?" Lu asked.

"Hatchlings?" Anton asked.

"Well, yeah… breeding season is over and clutching is in full swing. Or it should be. So the first step should bring every adult, every fully mature dragon. The second should bring all the immature hatchlings and sub-adult dragons. And the third step should bring all the nest-rocks and their contents."

"Nest-rocks?" Alexi asked.

"Long story, but Opal says all the nest are hollowed into rocks to protect the eggs and hatchlings."

"How the hell can a dragon hollow out a rock?" Anton wondered.

A buzz of magic pulled their attention from the conversation to Raven. His hands moved, one with a wand and one with a focus-crystal, while in front of him hovered an animal from legend, a tiny dragon. It moved in concert with the wizard, wings dipping and lifting it's slender body. The press of magic rose, pushing in on them, but their eyes never left the wizard as he conducted his magic.

Suddenly there were pops of light, dots, flashes, like tiny burst of Lumos charms. When the lights faded there were dragons, tiny dragons, dozens upon dozens of dragons, hundreds maybe thousands of them, their wings flaring and flapping in shock.

The wizard hissed and kept hissing. The longer he hissed, the less frantic the little dragons became.

Then the pressure rose again. The wizard's hands began to move again and shortly there were more flashes of light. The wizard stopped and hissed some more and most of the dragons took to the air, settling in trees, making each tree look like it was breathing as they jostled and wriggled to keep their balance.

The little dragons that didn't take to the wing settled down on a pockmarked rock, one dragon to one rock. And the pressure began again, again with the waving of the hands and each rock flashed brightly, much more brightly than earlier. As the flash died, each dragon on a rock thrust it's head into a hole in the rock and began to croon.

Charlie sucked in a breath as Raven seemed to fold up on himself and collapse to the ground.

"Whoops. 'Scuse me." He said, even as he left the exclusion bubble. He hissed and while there were a few dragons that reacted to his presence, most ignored him.

"Well… that seemed to work." Alexi said.

Anton and Lu looked at each other, their eyes wide.

"What… what did we just see?" Anton whispered.

"You…? You just witnessed the first mass summoning of a living creature. Raven submitted the summoning charm to me and I, in turn requested your presence to witness and verify the even." He said calmly, but his eyes betrayed how excited he really was. They glistened with moisture. "He has just singlehandedly saved an entire species of dragon, that was already thought to be extinct. Gentlemen, this enclosure is solely for Cherry Blossom Dragons." He grinned.

"Oh good grief." Anton breathed.

"Do you think that would work on Kamchatkan Water Dragons?" Lu mused.

Sissel, (Sis-sell)ridgeback female

Assana, (ass-arna) Ironbelly female

Seiarna (Say-arna) Opal-eye female

Oskar, Opal-eye male

Longhorn

Longhorn

Opal-eye

Opal-eye

Hungarian horntail

fiara magică = Magical Beast

Dumnezeule = my god

El are un dragon de floare de cireș pentru un cunoscut = he has a cherry blossom dragon for a familiar.

Dedushka = grandpa

familia sanguine =family bloodline (rough trans)

ad iungere sanguine = join the bloodline

Cerasus flores =cherry blossoms

Prohibitos autem ibis ad silvam =to the forbidden forest you go.

mentem quatiunt = shuttered mind

obsessa mens = blocked mind

cogitations clausa =closed thoughts

incantatum finite = end incantation(spell)

Howler from Hermione is in parseltongue