Disclaimer: Nope. Absolutely no changes on the owning front.
Author's note: Gah – I forgot writing date on the last chapter! To make it up I will tell you now – it was the 13th and it wasn't a Friday.
Now – new chapter – yay – and there will be some filler and some fluffiness and again some slight SLASHiness, but it's really not something that should keep you away – it is totally one-sided and mostly just crying...
And then – cliffie!
Now enjoy!
The Ridgebit Dragon Sanctuary, Romania. August 1st, 2002.
"This is not what I agreed to when I signed up here," Max muttered outside the window of his office and Tatiana smiled at his complaints, which were so very disagreeing with the care he showed the newly hatched Antipodean Opaleye.
"After all of your time here, Max, I thought you would have realized that what you agree to and what you actually do is two very different matters. I figured that out within a week, I believe." She tried to quell her smile but the gruffed look she received from the wizard peeking in through the window made it grow instead. "Don't look at me that way! At least I didn't call you Mother Max like Dem and Damian do!"
"You're right," the middle-aged wizard admitted with a distinctively tired look sliding onto his face. "They just won't stop using that dreadful nickname. How do you reckon I can make them stop?" He disappeared from the window, but Tatiana knew he still wanted her to reply.
"I suppose they will grow tired from it eventually," she suggested and flipped through the pile of parchment sheets.
"Really?"
She smiled and realized some names just stuck. "Nah," she admitted, "I don't think that'll ever happen."
"Didn't think so either."
Hermione sorted some of the mess Max had left on his desk from last time the baby-dragon had burst through the window in search of his adopted mother. After it had hatched Max had found it impossible to be alone without it appearing sooner or later. Sooner rather than later lately. It had resulted in Tatiana doing the majority of the paperwork, as she still couldn't make a broomstick levitate and now didn't have any eggs to watch since the other had appeared not to want to hatch.
Charlie had been very disappointed about that.
So she had comforted him.
Tatiana felt her face heat as she remembered some of the evenings they had spent on his bed talking about dragons, the dragon keepers, and plain old nothing and just enjoyed being together. And the kisses.
She couldn't remember ever kissing anyone like that. Of course she had kissed Irina on the cheek as greeting and show of affection, but living in the mountains with an old married couple hadn't left much chance of romance for her. She guess she should just praise her luck that she had eventually found someone who wanted to be with her in the romantic sense.
She sighed happily with a faint blush colouring her cheeks.
"Why are you sighing?" the German wizard asked from outside.
"No reason," she replied and smiled at the wildly swinging dragon tail she could make out in the top of the open window. "What do you reckon we should call him? Her? What sex is it really, I don't think anyone have told me and it certainly won't let me come near enough to let me inspect it myself!" Max chuckled darkly at her question.
"It's a he. And I doubt he'll let anyone beside me come that close willingly. Which is why Charlie got that burn on his forearm."
"Oh," Tatiana said quietly. "He wouldn't tell me how he got that," she continued loud enough for Max to hear. She started drawing slow circles with her quill on the bottom of a messily written report. She suspected Terence was the culprit, maybe Paolo.
"I think Charlie was a bit embarrassed about it – he's typically the one the hatchlings prefer. I think it's the hair!"
"Sure," she commented with a snigger and wrote behind her ear that she ought to tease Charlie about it when she saw him next. "But what about a name, Max? Have you thought about something, because I have no ideas, whatsoever!"
"I was thinking," Max started slowly, with a clear note of hesitance, "Oliver."
"Oliver?"
"Yeah, what do you think about Oliver?"
Tatiana smiled and wrote Oliver, the Antipodean Opaleye next to her doodles. "I like it. Oliver, the Antipodean Opaleye has quite a ring to it!"
Max hummed his agreement and Tatiana vanished the doodles and writing in the bottom of Terence's report and went back to her sorting job. She could hear the older wizard talk softly to the dragon and smiled at her papers.
xXx
Tatiana smiled at Charlie's back as she entered his room and closed his door with a soft click. He turned in his chair and smiled when he saw her and put his quill down so he could turn his chair around and hold his arms open at her. She slid into his lap with a slightly embarrassed smile and accepted the soft kiss.
"And for what reason do I deserve a visit from the very popular, but extremely elusive Tatiana?" he asked with a teasing grin that only grew when she smacked his arm with a mock offended look.
"Are you accusing me of neglecting you?"
"Why yes I am," he grinned. "Always spending time with that bloody Max and his baby dragon."
"Did you know he decided on a name? Oliver – I think it's nice."
"Oliver the Antipodean Opaleye? That does have quite a ring to it."
"That's what I said!" Charlie removed the strap that contained Tatiana's hair and weaved his fingers through it.
"How can hair be this unruly? If you didn't tie it up you'd never be able to control it – you'd probably have to cut it off!" He smirked at here and leaned in to smell the her personal odour of parchment, clean sheets, and some thing flowery.
"Will you please stop teasing me and just kiss me already?" she groaned. Charlie chuckled and pulled her face close to his, brushing his lips softly against hers and she sighed as she leaned in and deepened the kiss.
Charlie had been in his share of snogging-sessions and he had been spectator to even more, which really wasn't surprising when you considered his four brothers and dear younger sister, who had probably done more snogging during the Christmas break last year than he'd ever participate in in his entire life. He had practically walked in on her and Harry in every room at one point of his two weeks off and had asked George if he would hurry up and finish with his memory altering gum or what ever it would turn out to be as quickly as possible.
He had picked up the term "brain bleach" somewhere and had been quite fond of the idea.
One did not appreciate seeing his baby sister half-naked in a broom-closet with her fiancé, no matter how much you like the bloke.
When he and Tatiana snogged it was very different from what he was used to though. She kept the pace slow and she didn't grope as much as she ran her arms appreciatively over his arms and across chest and abs – when they moved that low on occasion – but it didn't make Charlie impatient. He hadn't expected a romantic opportunity to practically walk into his work-place and even if he hadn't had sex in a lot longer than he'd like to acknowledge he wasn't desperate or starved for some action.
The close proximity was having a effect on his lower half though and he slowly pulled away from Tatiana's insisting mouth and probing tongue before his appreciation became too obvious.
"Anyway," she said, picking up on some conversation he didn't know they were having, and fanned some sheets of paper he honestly hadn't noticed either under his nose. "I did some work."
"Well, that's certainly a surprise – you never do anything but slack around lately," he sad with a smirk and winked at her tired look and rolling eyes.
"Will you stop joking around so much, it is very unbecoming, Mr. I'm-The-Boss-Around-Here-So-I-Never-Joke. I did some extra work – no funny comments," she added when he opened his mouth and she smiled proudly when he closed it again, "about the dragons Konstantin observed." The Russian had flooed Charlie the night before and talked for a whole hour about what he suspected was "an entirely undiscovered or suspected extinct dragon breed", and it had teased Tatiana's curiosity so much she had spent the entire afternoon looking through some of the old books in the library. She had been somewhat traumatized by the discovery of an actual bookworm body in a small collection of notes that had fallen back behind the bookcase. Now she unfolded the big piece of parchment where she had made a brain-storm on what sort of dragon it could possibly be."I've discovered four breeds which are considered to be extinct and five possible cross-breeds where I consider the characteristics Konstantin listed and the breeds that live close by – why are you looking at me like that?"
Charlie blinked at the woman in his lap. "When did you say you did this?" he asked secretly very impressed about her work and huge sheet of parchment filled with her tidy minuscule writing and a very neat drawing of some of the things the old wizard had told him about.
"This afternoon," Tatiana told him with a small shrug. "I had some time to spare after I tidied up Max's office. I don't think it's wise for him to be in there when Oliver can show up any minute and mess up an entire day's work."
"You researched and wrote this in one afternoon?"
"That's what I told you," she replied dryly and rolled her eyes again at his daftness.
"I'm impressed. If you weren't so surprisingly handy around here I would consider selling you as a slave cleric to the Ministry of Magic!" The horrified look on Tatiana's face wiped his grin of. "That was a joke! We don't have slaves, calm down!" He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek and smiled when a flattering blush rose to her cheeks. "I'm looking forward to reading this more thoroughly," he added with a look on the tiny writing. "You did a great job."
"It was easy work," Tatiana insisted and shook her head. "Anyone could have done it."
"But we didn't. I've been telling myself to do this for months now – if it really were that easy I would have done it long ago!"
"I guess, but you could probably add a lot of you own exp-" Tatiana was rudely interrupted when Charlie's door burst opened and a loudly sobbing healer rushed into the room and threw his arms around her neck. "Elias," she started and locked eyes with the just as shocked Charlie over the crying wizards shoulder. "What's wrong?" He sobbed something unintelligible and sobbed even harder into her hair.
Charlie shrugged and tried to move out from under Tatiana when Elias moved a bit and settled on her lap. The redhead gave a huff when an elbow hit his solar plexus and emptied his lungs.
"Try one more time," Tatiana whispered softly and gave Charlie an apologetic smile. "I didn't quite get it the first time."
"H-he said," the blond started and stopped to sniff and dry his eyes with his sleeve. "He said that he really liked spending time with me..."
"And?" Tatiana asked, waiting for the cause of the water sports. "What more?"
"A-a-and then..." Elias was on the edge of more tears and had a strained look on his face as he fought to keep them back a moment longer. "And then he said that never had a friend like me before," and he burst into another angry fit of crying and sobbing and hiccuping. Charlie watched his healer clearly uncomfortable with the situation and Tatiana fought the urge to snicker at his shocked face and wide eyes.
"Isn't it good that he considers you friends?" she asked the man who was working his hardest on soaking her shirt with his tears and Tatiana wondered for a brief moment when she last had cried like this. She didn't remember but it was some time ago she realized and smiled brightly at Charlie.
"No," Elias's broken voice interrupted her line of though. "I don't wanna be friends." And he was crying even harder than he did a moment ago and Tatiana absent-mindedly patted his shoulder as she contemplated her options.
"Listen up Elias – we're going to go into my room, so Charlie can continue his important boss-work, and the two of us will go into my room and I'll explain just exactly why it's good that Terence counts you as his friend." She rolled her eyes at her boyfriend as he mouthed Terence with a facial expression that looked very much like a big question mark.
"Okay," the crying wizard sniffed and left Tatiana's lap and quickly shuffled out the door without looking once at his terrified boss.
"Higgs?" the boss in question asked and watched as the witch left his lap.
"Who else?" she asked back and pecked him quickly on the cheek before following her friend to the door. "I'll probably talk with Elias for a while and then get some more work done. I'll see you in the morning." She waved at him and left him to smile after her as she closed the door softly.
"Higgs?" he whispered to himself as he pulled the chair back to his desk and stared at the parchment rolls for a while. He then pulled himself together and closely inspected Tatiana's research.
He dearly hoped it wasn't the Finnish Double Toothed Hawk Eye, which even he felt happy had been extinct for nearly a century.
It sounded absolutely terrifying.
The sound of something pecking on his window made him look up and smile at the figure of a windblown Pigwidgeon, his brother Ron's owl. He quickly let in the bird and untied the letter from its leg and pulled an old biscuit from his pocket which he crumbled for the owl as he wondered why his little brother would write to him.
It wasn't like he had written him.
Less than a month ago.
Charlie dropped the last pieces of biscuit onto Pig's head and looked at the letter for a moment with big eyes not noticing the indignant look the small owl sent him.
Then he tore the letter open.
I did cliffie! *evil laugh* I enjoy my life! It's deliciously entertaining!
