So here's a bit about Charlie. It was hard to write about him, since there are not many things we know about him. He doesn't appear very often in the books, does he? This probably isn't my best work and I'm not entirely happy with it, but I don't see what I could've done better, so... Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it.

Charlie was ashamed of himself. He was a coward, he knew as much. Someone who flees from his desperate and grieving family was a coward and a traitor, there was no other word for it.

Charlie had grown up being called a traitor and he had been proud of it. To be called a traitor by Slytherins with Death Eater families was a fact that Charlie bragged with. Traitor was in his opinion a honourable term, but now for the first he called himself a traitor and for the first time he was ashamed of it. But Charlie just couldn't stay with his family any more. He just couldn't see those grieving sunken eyes any more. He just couldn't stand the fact that he could do nothing against it. So he fled to Romania, threw himself into work again and tried not to listen to that guilty voice in the back of his mind. That guilty voice, which called him a traitor and which told him that he should take care of his family and go back England. But sometimes late at night it was hard to ignore it, that's when the tears came and nothing could stop them.

Charlie's colleagues noticed that something was off with him, but they let him be. Charlie didn't tell them of his brother's death and they didn't ask, but he could still feel their glances and hear their whispers.

Charlie's parents sent him dozens of letters demanding if he was all right or if he would want to visit them, but Charlie couldn't. There were just too many memories in England and so many reminders that he had not been there to save his little brother Fred or to talk some sense into his other little brother Percy or to help his other little brother Ron or to save his little sister Ginny from the horrors of war or that he didn't even have the guts to help his other little brother George heal.

Only the dragons didn't remind Charlie of anything and didn't judge him.

Weeks passed without anything changing. Charlie stood up every day, went to work, fed the dragons, took care of them, went home and cried, sometimes he got drunk, but most of the time he just lay in bed and cried, unable to move. And then his favourite dragon, a wonderful Romanian Longhorn started to breed. Charlie was astonished he hadn't expected that, nobody had. They had thought she was unable to breed especially now, since she was very old.

Charlie hovered over the dragon lady for months, refused to leave her side, even slept beside her cage, until the baby dragon emerged from his egg.

"Wow", a colleague of Charlie, Nick, said standing behind him. "He is beautiful."

Charlie looked at the little dragon and nodded. "Yes, he is."

"It's a wonder that this old dragon lady even got children", Nick continued. "But I guess there a still things between heaven and earth nobody understands."

"Yeah."

The old dragon lady grunted and started to clean her baby. There was just one, which was unusual. Dragons had normally more children at once, but it was a wonder still.

"You took great care of them", Nick said and placed a hand on Charlie's shoulder.

His hands were weathered and old, like the man himself.

"This little dragon has a very good guardian in you", Nick told him. "He'll never be alone. Just don't forget to take care of yourself, sometimes it's how you can help him best."

"What do you mean?", Charlie asked confused.

"I mean that you won't be any help for this dragon if you are broken yourself. I mean that sometimes it's okay to put yourself first, as long as you remember to return to your little friend when you've healed."

With that Nick left. Charlie never found out if he knew about his family and his brother's death, but the next day he went back to England and visited his family and they greeted him as if he had never been gone. And from then on Charlie stopped to call himself a traitor or a coward if he needed time for himself.