Enjoy.
&
The first few days were hectic on the encampment, especially when the dragons didn't turn up as expected. Charlie merely said it was fortunate, as it gave him more of a chance to introduce Hermione to his world, teaching her everything from the way to approach a dragon to how to heal burns and other injuries after a hasty retreat. The most important lesson, he continued to stress, was to remember that dragons were natural-born legilimens, though they never interacted with humans. What that meant was that whatever one dragon could see, they could all see, meaning that sneaking up on a dragon was not only spectacularly stupid but also absolutely pointless.
Hermione nodded and asked intelligent questions but she couldn't help feeling out of her depth. And this whole married thing was too surreal to even consider. Half the time she couldn't even believe it, and there was nothing more than a ring to support it. They slept in different beds, didn't exchange customary endearments (except when he called her a harpy, though that hardly counted), and their relationship remained purely platonic. It was weird. But what was weirder was when they were forced to act married, like when the other arrived, it didn't seem as strange. A complex Hermione assumed was inherited with the ring.
But then the dragons arrived and she forgot all about it.
The dragons arrived just as the sun was rising, tinging the dark world grey with its first tentative rays. Charlie dragged Hermione out of bed without a word and she followed, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Outside it was cold, and she shivered in her pyjamas. Charlie wordlessly wrapped a cloak around her.
"Watch." He whispered. At first Hermione couldn't see anything, and then suddenly the air was filled with the noise of bugling and then there they were. There weren't that many of them, but they were all so big that they filled the skies. They were all colours of the rainbows and some colours Hermione hadn't even known existed. They were alighting all up and down the mountain, clinging with giant talons to crevices in the rock and calling out to the others.
"Oh my god." Hermione whispered. "They're amazing."
"Shh." Charlie replied, eyes on the dragons, already counting and cataloging fiercely. Hermione tried to focus, but her mind was whirling, and she suddenly realised the dragons were in her head. She put up the strongest barriers she could and they were all simply knocked down. So Hermione, breathing a prayer, opened her mind.
The things she could see.
It was all a spinning blur of images, of fields and lakes and forests, all the places they had been. Then she felt the vertigo of flying and she wavered, and far away she heard Charlie talking to her, felt him lowering her to ground. Flying with the dragons she listened to their calls back and forth, unable to make out their conversation but somehow understanding all the same, yet incapable of putting it into words. It was about eggs and how long it would take before the youngsters were old enough to start learning to fly, and the new humans on the nursery mountain. Hermione started when she realised the dragons were talking about them, but then she was back into the eddying current, unable to control it.
And suddenly it was gone, and her mind was flung into pitch black. She hung suspended in the darkness, empty quietness filling her brain. She struggled to catch her breath, and just as she did, she saw her.
She was a great black dragon, suspended in front of her. Bigger than all the others, the dragon watched her from swirling eyes that reflected starscapes in the deepest night sky. Her scales were black, but shimmered pink and silver.
I am the Matriarch. The dragon said, her voice booming and deafening. Hermione didn't answer, her ears ringing. Why are you here?
We want to study you. Hermione said tentatively, her voice quiet in the gaping darkness. We're curious.
Study? Do you mean learn the secrets of Dragon Lore? The Matriarch boomed.
No. I mean yes. I mean," Hermione paused, trying to collect her thoughts. We've never seen you before, we want to know who you are, where you're from. That kind of thing.
Not the deep magic. The Matriarch said, sounding mollified.
I don't believe we could understand it anyway. Hermione said. Animal magic was usually linked to the nature of the brain of the animal in question, making it anatomically impossible for different animals to perform animal magic from a different creature. The dragon laughed, a great huffing sound like strong gusts of wind.
Dragons are not kneazles, we can understand your magic, and you can understand ours. The Matriarch corrected. Hermione stared.
We could learn your magic? She asked incredulously.
We choose not to teach. the dragon sniffed, Too many of your race would use it for control, and that is not its' purpose. the Matriarch tilted her head. You I may consider. And with that, Hermione dropped out of the blackness back into her body, and she found herself lying on her bed, Charlie sitting by her side.
"Charlie?" She asked, confused, trying to sit up. He pushed her back down.
"Slowly, Hermione. You collapsed at the site, when the dragons arrived. Do you remember?" Hermione nodded slowly, trying to remember and achieving a crashing headache for her trouble.
"They were in my head." She said quietly. "So many dragons, I couldn't keep them out. So many thoughts and memories and then…" Hermione closed her eyes, willing the headache to fade, it made it hard to think. "Then She was there, and She made the others go."
"Who's She?" Charlie asked, taking Hermione's hand.
"The Matriarch." Hermione said quietly, Charlie frowned.
"Which one is the Matriarch? They're usually very easy to identify."
"She's huge and black, with silver and pink in her scales. She has eyes that swirl with the night sky." Hermione said, her voice becoming dreamy as she slowly lost consciousness again.
"Hermione, there wasn't a dragon like that." Charlie said, completely bewildered.
"Charlie!" Diane burst into the tent. "You have to see this. The Matriarch just arrived, and she's utterly amazing." Charlie glanced at Hermione, then followed Diane outside. There, just as Hermione had described, was the Matriarch, sitting in the middle of the circle of tents, watching Charlie and Diane emerge from the tent.
"God." Charlie gasped, pushing Diane behind him. The dragon simply looked at him, the starscape eyes looking from him to Diane, and then past her to the tent. Then she flapped her wings and took off, the wind produced knocking over all the tents except the one behind Charlie and Diane.
"Why didn't you say she was that close?" Charlie demanded furiously to Diane.
"Because she wasn't." Diane retorted. "Or I never would have pulled you out, I would have told you to leave through the back." She paused. "How's the little wife?"
"She's fine." Charlie retorted, protective in response to Diane's venemous enquiry. "Thank you." He turned and headed back inside, where he found Hermione sleeping peacefully.
"What have you been doing?" He asked her sleeping form, settling into the chair beside her and waiting for her to wake up.
&
She dreamt of dragons, flying around her in a circle so quickly they were blurs, and through the blur she could see Lucius, watching her and behind him Draco. On the other side of her was Charlie, watching her carefully. When she looked down she could see her stomach swollen with pregnancy, and the baby kicked. Hermione frowned, and when she looked up everything was gone and she was suspended in darkness, and then she saw the eyes of the Matriarch, swirling stars that surrounded her until she was falling through space. She landed with a thump in her own bed and she jerked, waking up.
Her hand went immediately to her stomach and found it as flat as it had been before, only now she had a feeling that a pregnancy spell would be in order, if only to reassure herself that the dream was just that, a dream.
But between everything that had happened, especially the incident with the dragons, she wasn't so sure.
She slipped from her bed, noting that outside it was quite dark: she must have slept all day. In the main area of the tent Charlie was crashed on the couch, he must have been waiting for her. She smiled at him as she walked past, heading for the toilet. She locked the door behind her and did the pregnancy charm that would give her her answer, and stared at the result, not really surprised.
She was pregnant, and a fair way on too. Too far on, in fact, for it not to be showing. Hermione was utterly confused. Seven months pregnant. So where the hell was her bump? How the hell was she going to tell Charlie? Hermione's mind was whirling, and not because there were dragons in it. She headed outside for some fresh air, and saw the Matriarch on the ledge above the camping plateau, illuminated by the torches scattered around the camping plateau.
So you know. The Matriarch said.
How is it I'm that pregnant and don't know? Hermione demanded. I should be showing. A lot.
The baby is upside down, with it's back to your spine. It's essentially standing on your lower internal organs, which is why there's no bump. When it comes time to give birth it will right itself. Hermione sat down, looking at the ground. The child is not its father.
That was a point. Seven months ago she slept with both father and son. Which one was her baby's father?
The baby's father is not the issue. The baby and you are the only two that will be affected, and the man who protects you will be the baby's father, regardless of blood. The Matriarch reprimanded. Hermione sighed. The father did make a difference. If it was Lucius', she was tempted to drown it. If it was Draco's…that was different, not that there was anything she could do about it.
The baby is not the father.
"Hermione?" Charlie emerged from the tent and rushed to her side when he saw her sitting on the crash in the middle of the encampment. "Are you alright? What are you doing?"
"Talking to the Matriarch." Hermione replied, pointing up at the ledge where the giant dragon sat. Charlie jumped when he saw her.
"Merlin." He swore. "Hermione, she isn't safe, she's a dragon."
"I know." Hermione said, her voice distant. "But she won't hurt me."
"Yeah. We talked about this, Hermione." Charlie said, hauling her to her feet irritably and dragging her towards the tent. "They will hurt you, no matter how docile they initially seem."
"Docile?" Hermione shook her head. "If you think I believe the Matriarch is docile, you've got me way wrong." Charlie pulled her inside and pushed her down onto the couch.
"So what the bleeding hell were you doing out there?" Charlie demanded, angry. "She would kill you as soon as look at you!"
"But she won't!" Hermione retorted, "I know she won't."
"Oh yeah?" Charlie challenged. "How?"
"She told me." Hermione replied. Charlie looked at her, skeptical. Hermione sighed. "I'm an legilimens, Charlie. I can hear them talking. At first to each other, but its been filtered out loads."
"What the heck are you talking about?" Charlie asked, confused. Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"I'm a legilimens, Charlie, I've told you. I can hear the dragons talking to each other, because that's how they communicate. When they first arrived I heard them all, which is why I passed out: total brain overload. But the Matriarch filtered it out, so now I can only speak to her and she can speak to me. That's how I know she won't hurt me."
"So what were you two talking about when I came out?" Charlie tested, folding his arms across his chest. Hermione bit her lip and looked down. This was not how she wanted him to find out. She wanted to broach the subject slowly, give him a chance to acclimatise to the idea. But she had a feeling he wasn't going to let this go. And he did ask.
"I'm pregnant, Charlie." She said quietly. Charlie stared. "From when I was at the Manor."
"That bastard." Charlie hissed. "That scum-sucking, black-hearted bastard!"
"Yeah. Well." Hermione shrugged. "That's what we were talking about, and the Matriarch was actually telling me that the father didn't matter, since the baby wasn't connected to him in any other way but genetics. That you'd be the baby's father."
"The father doesn't matter? Don't you mean Lucius?" Charlie asked, questionning how she didn't refer to the baby's paternal father as Lucius.
"Yeah." Hermione said vaguely. Charlie sighed, sitting down next to her on the couch.
"Are you okay?" He asked gently. Hermione raised her eyebrows.
"You mean with the fact that I've been pregnant for the last seven months and didn't know, so now I'm going to give birth to a baby with a father I despised on a dragon reserve? Sure I'm okay." She answered sarcastically. Charlie pulled her into a one armed hug.
"Well if you need anything…"
"I need you to trust me." Hermione said flatly. "I'm not trying to commit suicide, strangely enough. If I didn't know she wouldn't hurt me, I wouldn't be sitting there like a ready-meal." Charlie looked slightly bewildered by the muggle reference and Hermione clarified. "I wouldn't be sitting there waiting for her to eat me if I didn't know she wouldn't." He nodded.
"I'm sorry, and I guess I know that. It's just when I saw you I just panicked. Especially when I saw her. I don't want you getting hurt." Hermione smiled, kissing him on the cheek.
"Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it." She smiled, then bounced off the couch. "I'm gonna go to bed, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" He nodded, watching her head off to bed before tilting his head back against the backrest of the couch.
She had scared the living daylights out of him. Firstly when he woke up and she was gone, then when he saw the dragon sitting there, as bold as you please. Sudden images of her being eaten or at the very least maimed or burned flashed through his head and he panicked, hence his little outburst. Usually he was a very calm person, you had to be around so many dangerous animals that picked up on emotions. But Hermione…Hermione had the ability to wind him up and watch him spin off.
Hell, even the twins couldn't do that.
&
Hermione hadn't admitted it to anyone, but she was having trouble coming to terms with her pregnancy. First off, she couldn't actually see it. There was nothing to indicate that she was in fact seven months pregnant and that in two months give or take a few days she would be a mother. Secondly, she didn't know who the father was, and as much as the Matriarch said it didn't actually matter, to Hermione it did. A lot.
Was the baby Lucius'? Conceived in the process of making it's mother a thrall, Lucius' most devoted servant? Or was it Draco's, conceived in the process of him saving her life?
It did matter. A lot.
And there was the whole business of being here. While Hermione was loving every second; dragons were thousands of times more fascinating than she had imagined and she was learning new things every day, it wasn't necessarily the best place for a birth.
The lack of an OBGYN and medical facilities was what had Hermione worried, she'd heard all the horror stories.
She wasn't sure how Charlie felt about the baby, either. She was his wife and chances were the baby wouldn't look anything like him. With any luck it would look like her and thus despel any suspicion, but if it looked like its father, whether Lucius or Draco, there might be problems. She could call it a throwback, to her mother perhaps, lie and say her mother was very pale. But chances were it'd be a weak lie. Hermione wanted to talk about it but couldn't make herself bring it up: it wasn't exactly something you talked about over dinner. And in the meantime, time passed.
She forced herself to face it nearly a month after she'd found out about it, reasoning that at eight months it was possible the baby could come early and that she had to be prepared. And that meant not only broaching the subject with Charlie but facing up to it herself. She'd been avoiding even thinking about it as possible, and without a giant belly to remind her constantly she had been able to forget to some extent. But, she told herself sternly, in three or four weeks the baby would be there and then she couldn't forget it even if she wanted to. May as well get used to that concept now.
"Charlie?" Hermione stood in the doorway to the living room, looking on as Charlie lay stretched out on the couch, reading. His leg had been quite badly burnt that morning so he'd had the rest of the day off while the magic healed it back to normal.
He was already bored stupid, Hermione knew. She recognised the signs, they were the same ones she saw in Ron.
"Yeah?" He tossed the book aside and sat up, looking at her. She'd been fairly absent recently, Charlie mused, looking at her. She didn't look that great either: pale with dark circles under her eyes. Maybe they'd been working her too hard. But she'd never complained.
"We need to talk." She said, coming hesitantly to sit down next to him, beside his wrapped up leg. He frowned.
"What about?" He asked. Hermione smiled a little.
"The baby." Charlie felt guilty, he'd forgotten entirely about it. She never mentioned it, and there wasn't a physical sign of her pregnancy due to the baby's position. She smiled when she saw how he looked away and reached for his hand. "It's alright, Charlie. I've spent the last month between forgetting and trying to. But a fact's a fact, and we need to face it." Charlie snorted gently.
"You have such a way with words." He muttered. She nodded with a shrug.
"I know." There was a long pause and Charlie shifted awkwardly. "What are we going to do?" She asked finally in a tiny voice. Charlie looked at her and immediately pulled her onto his lap and into a tight hug, recognising for what might have been the first time ever fear in her eyes. "I don't know what to do." She whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck, close to tears. Charlie kissed the crown of her head and stroked her hair. He was thinking hard. Now that she brought it up, there was the complication of the birth itself, though magic could make it safer and cleaner than it would be in the Muggle world. But still. She was alone on a mountain with no one but her best friend's brother and a few people she met a month ago. And a lot of dragons that made her pass out whenever they spoke to her at once.
It had never occurred to him to wonder if she was lonely up here, but he realised she must be.
"I'm not." She said quietly. He looked down at her and met her gaze. "Lonely. I'm not. I've got more company here then I did at the Manor, plus you're here so I have someone I know up here."
"You read my mind?" He asked, a little bit suspicious. He had been, since he had found out she was a legimens. She shook her head.
"It was a loud thought. I don't have to be looking at your mind to hear it." He nodded. He had a working knowledge of what legimency and occlumency was, but he wasn't any good at it. He preferred to keep things in the open: telepathy seemed too secret, too sneaky. He wasn't surprised that Lucius could do it.
"We're not allowed to leave the mountain." Charlie mused, "Because we might be traced. But up here, we have magic plus Susie's a midwife, among other things."
"She is?" Hermione frowned. "Why is there a midwife on the team?"
"She started out as a midwife, but now she's a specialist on dragon eggs and hatchlings." Hermione nodded in understanding. "So she can take care of you," Charlie continued, "And I'll be here, I'm not leaving you." Hermione smiled and kissed his jaw.
"Thank you." She said quietly, resting her head on his shoulder. "How's the leg?" she asked.
"Alternating between stinging and numb." Charlie answered, shifting her slight weight a little. He was surprised by how little she weighed, she had always looked more substantial than she felt. And she was pregnant. "Hermione?"
"Yeah?" She sounded tired, her voice muffled from his neck.
"Are you alright?" He asked. "You're very light for someone seven months pregnant. For someone at all, actually." Hermione smiled.
"It's a charm." Hermione said. "I'd forgotten all about it since I can't actually feel it."
"What is it?" Charlie asked curiously. "And why would you cast a charm that makes you lighter?" Hermione giggled.
"I'm not really lighter, it just feels that way to anyone who picks me up." She shrugged. "Basically, Ron or Harry, or maybe both I can't remember, used to pick me up a lot in fifth year, usually to annoy me. But they used to whinge about how heavy I was, so I cast a charm to make me seem lighter. It nearly gave them a heart attack the first time they noticed." Charlie raised an eyebrow.
"You mean they noticed?" He asked with a grin. She giggled again.
"I'm quite a lot heavier than I feel." She said. "Lots more probably, thanks to the baby. I don't even want to know how much I weigh, seriously. But anyway, that's why I feel light. I can't believe I forgot about that." Charlie rolled his eyes. After a moment she shifted in his arms again. "I'm still not sure about giving birth on a mountain in a dragon reserve." She said. Charlie looked her in the eye.
"Hermione, it'll be as safe as we can make it." He said reassuringly. "And if you leave the mountain you'll be in more danger. You think the deatheaters won't think to search for Hermione Weasley?" He shook his head. "You're safer up here." She nodded slowly.
"You're probably right." She said eventually. "I hadn't thought about that." He nodded, resting his chin on her head and stroking her hair. "The Matriarch's been teaching me, you know." She said quietly. Charlie paused in stroking her hair.
"What?" Why would a dragon teach a human anything? What would a dragon teach a human?
"The Matriarch. She's been teaching me." Hermione repeated.
"Teaching you what?" Charlie asked, intrigued. In all his study of dragons, he'd heard of maybe two people, including his wife, who actually talked to dragons. He'd heard of none who'd been taught by the creatures.
"Stuff." Hermione shrugged. "Physics of flight, properties that they have…what they can do…why babies hatch backwards and come out of their shell bum first. I didn't know they did that." She lifted her head and met Charlie's astonished gaze. "Do they really do that?" He nodded, speechless. "Weird." She decided. She hadn't moved her arms from his neck and her fingers twisted idly in his long ponytail. "She's teaching me their history too, but it's very long as she wants it to be perfect so it takes us ages." She sighed.
"I can't believe she's teaching you all that." Charlie said, awestruck. "It's unheard of." Hermione smiled.
"I'm special." Charlie laughed.
"Yes, you are." He agreed.