Author's Note
Thank you so much to all my beloved readers, as you know fan fiction is a place where we can play in someone else's world so nothing here really belongs to me despite it coming from my heart.
You may recognise a bit later on in here that's not from J K Rowling's wonderful world of magic but from another fan of the Harry Potter universe, I hope that if that person is reading this that you don't mind that for one of the scenes in this chapter I was inspired by a post once done by someone called fourandahalfgiraffes that I saw on pinterest.
I hope you all enjoy this chapter as we near the ending of our story but may the characters always live on in our hearts.
Love to each and everyone one of you,
Wishin' Girl x x x
...
"How many baby books did you buy? Are they even any left in the bookshops?" Chuckled Ashlynn as she pushed herself up to sitting in their king sized bed brought over from Romania, having just woken up from a mid afternoon nap the day after finding out they were expecting their first child together to see Charlie sat at the foot of the bed surrounded by several shopping bags full of parenting and baby books.
So far they had only told Ashlynn's parents the delightful revelation as they were waiting for the muggle baby scan next week before sharing it too widely. They wouldn't have planned to tell any family members yet but as they had been planning to stay with her parents over the whole weekend they decided to cut the stay short, share the excitement with the soon to be grandparents and then come back home to celebrate the life changing news alone in their own home together.
"Well your Mum took me to all of the muggle shops in Cardiff and then I took her to Hogsmeade for the magical ones." Replied Charlie as he kissed Ashlynn's lips and very slightly bulging stomach in greeting "Turns out your Grandma used to give your Mum Honeydukes treats as a child and she was super excited to taste them again and work out where they were from, so I got her an enormous bag full to take home."
Charlie picked up the shopping bags and Ashlynn's hand leading the way down a level of their home and in to the snug. This was a medium sized but very cosy room with a magnificent view of the lake over the top of the forest trees, a long window seat long enough for even his tallest brothers to lie down on and stretch out without reaching the ends sat below the wide window and was topped with an array of gold and midnight blue cushions, three reclining armchairs sat in the middle of the room in pastel blue, mint green and lilac super soft velvet that was a delight to touch, a stone fireplace large enough for floo travel sat along one wall and floor to ceiling bookcases covered the remaining two walls. The bookcases were already half filled with a range of books about healing, magical creatures, dragons and European travel as well as the couple's photo albums, all of which they had brought with them from their home in Romania or collected from their childhood bedrooms, but there was still plenty of space for more. Dropping his shopping bags into the nearest armchair, while Ashlynn settled herself comfortably on the window seat, Charlie began to show her his purchases.
"I got fourteen muggle parenting books but 'The New Dad's Survival Guide' and 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' look like they'll be the best of those so I'll start reading them first" Charlie emptied three of the brown paper bags with 'Waterstones' written across them in large white letters to the sound of Ashlynn's giggles "I only bought five wizarding ones though, seems like there's not such a good selection of those, and I restrained myself!" Ashlynn raised her eyebrows at this comment in clear disbelief as she eyed the many thick tomes he was holding up, Charlie had never been very good at self control when he was excited about something "I only bought one children's book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I thought you might like to be there when we choose those but I had already started reading 'Before the Magic of Childbirth' while your mum chose her chocolates at Honeydukes and it says that the baby can hear me through your belly already so I thought maybe I could read it a few bedtime stories?"
Ashlynn would have laughed if her husband's eyes didn't look quite so vulnerable as he made the request, so instead she beckoned him towards her and hugged him tightly.
"I love you. I love you. I love you, you great big book nerd" she whispered into his ear sweetly.
The already loved up newlyweds were even more excruciatingly adorable over the next few days and the baby dragons that hatched were doted on even more than usual by Charlie, even though as director he didn't have to do as much hands on work as he used to he truly loved working directly with his dragons so would keep doing so as much as he possibly could. As the reserve hospital's head healer Ashlynn easily arranged the work of her healer team so that she wasn't needed near any potentially dangerous potions or high stress situations that could cause any harm to her or the baby. Although choosing to wait before sharing the news with family and other friends they felt it was only right and fair to be very open about the situation with their staff straight away so that they understood what was happening and why, and all of the staff were completely thrilled for the kind couple running the reserve.
Sofia, Tyrese and Hondo had accompanied Charlie and Ashlynn from the Romanian reserve, accepting sizeable promotions each, and now worked alongside a variety of experienced dragon keepers who had transferred from reserves around the world for the chance to work more intimately with the young creatures. While the tradition of 'girls and Tyrese' nights had stopped when they moved to the new reserve, a new tradition was started of weekly games nights held in the reserve's common room, Dai's Den, which had been named after the ex Caerphilly Catapults quidditch player who was eaten by a Chimera in the same mountains the reserve now occupied.
"We've got a new game to play tonight" A very excited Charlie announced as he held up a gold box emblazoned with an image of a pile of adorable baby nifflers and the name of the game 'Nifflemania!' "It's a trial game for my twin brothers' new range of children's games, you know the ones who own Weasleys Wizard Wheezes."
The den's inhabitants cheered enthusiastically, they had all loved testing out the range of WWW games and products that Charlie's twin brothers had regularly sent over since the welsh reserve had been set up and Charlie had come back to the UK. The games had always gone down well at games nights so far, the wonder witch range of bath products for relaxing aching muscles were loved by both witches and wizards across the reserve after a long day's work and the new lavender scented range of products that had been designed to soothe baby Victoire to a more restful sleep worked wonders on Antipodean Opaleye, Welsh Green and Peruvian Vipertooth hatchlings too. Out of the gold box Charlie pulled a disk that was about the same size of a muggle CD and covered in fake grass which he tapped eight times, signalling to the game that there would be eight players. This caused the disk to expand before it settled on the table between them. He then pulled out of the box a hefty red velvet bag with an embroidered Galleon sign and a furry black box. Opening the black box Charlie picked up eight tiny plush niffler toys in a variety of fur colours, from jet black to speckled browns and greys, and handed them around, one to each player gathered at the table.
"The box says its inspired by a muggle game called hungry hippos" Ashlynn read in excitement, she had loved playing that game with her brothers as a child and was eager to see how it worked with magic and such adorable little animals.
"Nifflers at the ready?" Charlie asked once all the players had set their niffler toys in front of them around the edge of the grassy board.
At the affirmative cheer Charlie upended and emptied the red velvet bag into the middle of the green circle. Immediately the eight niffler toys became animated and started to slowly grab towards the fake gold, each looking exceedingly lethargic as they aimed to shovel as much gold back into their pouches as possible. As soon as their player began to encourage and cheer them on however they sped up drastically and soon eight black, grey, brown and speckled miniature nifflers were darting out across the board and scooping up the fake treasure at high speed. If Charlie hadn't been so thoroughly absorbed in enthusiastically praising his niffler he would have marvelled at the wonderful magic his least academically awarded brothers had managed to design and produce.
The nifflers all scampered back to their player once the last piece of game gold had been extracted from the long grass and every single one was welcomed back with tickles and cuddles of praise.
"You tip up first Sofia" Tyrese nudged the olive skinned woman at his side to go first.
"Twelve pieces" Sofia announced, tipping her niffler up and shaking out its pouch gently before counting the imitation coins.
"Nine for me" Tyrese spoke next.
"Only five" Liam, Sofia's husband, said next, he had applied for and been granted a transfer to the portkey office in London when she had accepted a job from Charlie so that they could continue to live together, not that the spouse of a dragon keeper needed to work for the sake of money but he loved his job working with hundreds of different people every day.
"Seven here" the players continued to call out their scores around the table.
"Sixteen" Charlie announced proudly to a chorus of 'ooh's and 'aah's, and one joking call of 'Weasley favouritism' from Hondo.
"Thirteen"
"Thirteen as well"
"Twenty five!" Ashlynn exclaimed excitedly, double checking her small heap of fake gold pieces.
The group played a few more rounds, at they end of each of which they switched up nifflers to see if they were evenly matched and discovered that the key to success in this particular game was in finding a niffler you bonded well with, before moving on to play a few rounds of Trembling Tower, Wingardium and Knowing Your Witch or Wizard, all WWW games previously provided by Fred and George for testing. They were now building up quite a collection of WWW board games in the den's corner cupboard and Charlie planned to buy a few muggle games to add to the collection too when he was next in Cardiff shopping with his mother in law.
"Is it time for bed now love?" Charlie murmured his question to a sleepy Ashlynn who was curled on a nearby armchair surveying the board game chaos with drooping eyelids.
"No I want to stay here" Ashlynn yawned in response "but maybe we could all watch a movie?"
Ashlynn had rigged a muggle projector up to an old DVD player on the first day the den had been open and spent several evenings messing with them after her shifts until they finally worked in the highly magical environment.
"Ooh I loved watching 101 Dalmatians last weekend, is there another one with animals and maybe some songs?" Juliet, a pureblood young keeper trainee and recent graduate of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, requested with perfected puppy eyes from her place on the floor around the games table.
With a smile and affirmative nod Ashlynn waved her wand and the projector started up, while everyone else began dragging around armchairs for a better view of the lit up wall and throwing cushions down to those still on the floor.
"Nox" whispered Tyrese as the starting credits for The Aristocats appeared and music filled the air.
…
"Is this really the best idea Charlie?" Ashlynn queried as she watched her husband wrestle two Welsh Green hatchlings into snitch and quaffle covered baby onesies.
"Yes, it's a brilliant idea!" Came her husband's enthusiastic response.
"Well I'm dressed and ready to go and we're" she checked the clock on the wall "yep, we're now officially late."
"Mum knows we're always late, plus this way we can make an even bigger entrance." Charlie had managed to get one of the dragons into his onesie, who looked very comfortable and snugly now that he was comfortably inside the soft fabric, and caught the other from the air where he was lazily circling above their heads. "Have you got the photo from the muggle ultrasound and the recording from the magical check up?"
Ashlynn nodded and picked up her small bag, they had gone for their twelve week scan with the muggle midwife a couple of weeks ago but waited until the fifteen week recording that the magical healers performed before telling Charlie's family the good news, they would know more from this recording too like the baby's gender.
"Both in here, now can we go? Please?" She requested waving her bag in front of Charlie.
"Almost" he teased the baby Welsh Green's second wing through the specially made slits in the back of the onesie and sighed in relief as the tiny dragon flew up to join his brother, circling their heads and blowing small puffs of light green smoke.
"If your mother murders you I'm marrying Tyrese" Ashlynn stated flatly, handing Charlie their pot of floo powder as from this point in pregnancy onwards it was much safer to floo than to apparate.
Charlie wrapped a burly arm around each hatchling and stepped into the flaring green flames calling out clearly for the burrow. Ashlynn shook her head and smiled at her husband's antics, she had to admit the little green dragons did look exceptionally cute in their quidditch themed onesies.
She arrived in the burrow's lounge to see Charlie had got his timing perfect, they could just see the rest of the family sat around the fully laden kitchen table patiently, or impatiently in Teddy's case, waiting on their arrival before digging into the delicious smelling meal. Holding hands the couple stepped through the kitchen doorway with the baby dragons perched on Charlie's broad shoulders.
"Hi Mum, sorry we're late, but we did bring the grandkids." Charlie greeted loudly with a smirk, all eyes turned to him immediately and everyone went silent.
Teddy's small hands reached out for the hatchlings, he loved playing with them during his regular visits to the reserve, Ginny and Arthur snorted as they tried to contain their laughter while Harry and Ron coughed to cover their own. Fred and George gave impressed nods and Bill's eyes lit up, he and Fleur were the only Weasleys to know about the pregnancy so far since Fleur had helped Ashlynn choose today's floaty top and skinny jeans to hide the baby bump until they had a chance to announce the news.
Molly, however, erupted.
"CHARLIE WEASLEY THOSE ARE NOT GRANDKIDS. THEY ARE TINY DRAGONS IN ONESIES!" She bellowed from the other end of the table, her fiery hair flung back over her shoulders and her palms slammed down onto the strong kitchen table.
"Oh those, yeah they're some new hatchlings. I thought it might be fun to bring them along." Charlie stepped behind his wife with an unfazed shrug and pulled the floaty top tight across her small, soft bump "But these are your grandchildren."
His mother's anger immediately dissipated and she broke down in delighted tears. Everyone scooted their chairs quickly out of her way as she bustled around the table to reach her son and daughter-in-law hugging them tightly and sobbing into their shoulders.
"Wait. You said grandchildren Charlie, not grandchild! Come sit, tell me everything" she instructed once slightly more in control of her emotions again and the family rearranged themselves to make room for the soon to be parents between the family matriarch and Teddy who was enthralled by there being dragons flying around his 'Grandma' Molly's kitchen.
"This is the muggle photograph" Ashlynn patiently pointed out the shapes, explaining what they were to the pureblood witch once dinner was over "and this is the magical recording, I'm due on the first of September."
She popped open a small ball, about the same size as a snitch but frosty white in colour and lacking the snitch's trademark wings, which projected a three dimensional image of her womb from the previous week as Charlie pulled Teddy into his lap for a better look.
"Those are two babies, they'll be twins just like Uncles Fred and George or Uncles Ben and Harry, and they're boys just like you are Teddy." Ashlynn explained slowly and patiently to the toddler "They're inside my tummy right now but when they're bigger and stronger they'll come out so you can all play together."
The family celebrated all afternoon with a celebratory cake quickly whipped up by Molly while Teddy and Victoire played with the baby dragons, chasing each other around the ground floor of the house and trying to catch the little puffs and rings of smoke the dragons blew in excitement. It was a truly perfect, family day.
...
Ashlynn loved being pregnant once her second trimester arrived and her morning sickness made way for a feeling if being utterly invincible.
Summer arrived on the reserve with a heat wave that caused every healer, keeper and dragon to become lethargic in their actions. Each morning began with a communal dip in the lake as the healers stretched out ready for the day, particularly useful for Ashlynn as the weight of carrying twins was starting to take its toll on her lower back and the weightlessness she felt in the water was freeing, the larger dragons wallowed in the deeper, coolest waters in the middle of the lake and the keepers brought down the hatchlings to splash and play in the lake's shallows. Laughter and squeals of delight were frequent additions to the morning bird chorus as the young scaled creatures drenched their keepers by leaping through the water in an attempt to catch the fish which swim nearby in teasing shoals. It was rare for the smallest dragons to catch any fish to begin with but the laughter increased tenfold one day when a month old Swedish Short Snout surfaced with a full sized rainbow trout in her jaws and an utterly confused expression on her face as her eyes searched the crowd for her keeper clearly asking 'well what do I do now?' in panic.
The heat wave also brought the reserve staff even closer together through daily barbecues outside the den and shared stories around the night time fire pits toasting marshmallows and drinking butterbeer under star speckled indigo skies.
The community were baby crazy, in love with their tiny dragons and infants from all species as the forest deer gave birth and ducklings grew up loosing their soft yellow feathers in favour of brown glistening coats for summer. Teddy was welcomed with joy by all around the reserve every time he came to visit and could regularly be found joining in with early morning swims on the back of his faithful Antipodean Opaleye, no one wanted to break the news to the blue haired boy that this hatchling was quickly growing up and a decision would soon have to be made on whether to keep the dragon here as a role model to help raise the younger ones or send it to another colony for reintroduction to the wild.
...
One morning in late July Ashlynn woke up to an empty section of bed beside her. Both she and Charlie had the day off from work as they had had Teddy and Victoire over for a sleep over the night before so, in confusion, Ashlynn waddled out of bed, stretched and wandered the house in search of her husband. Descending one level of the house she padded down the thickly carpeted stairs and immediately spotted the hunky dragon keeper she loved leaning in the doorway of Teddy's bedroom, his face peaking through the small gap in the door. Hearing her gentle footsteps Charlie turned and pressed a finger to his lips signalling to his wife to remain quiet as she approached and then beckoned to her to come and look at the vision he had been watching.
Stepping up the narrow gap in the doorway Ashlynn watching with a beaming smile as Victoire crawled back and forth along the bedroom wall chasing a painted bunny rabbit who was hopping in and out of the undergrowth to play with the infant while Teddy dashed back and forth across the room, regularly stumbling but each time he fell just jumping back up and carrying on with a delighted giggle. The little boy's hair and eyes were a kaleidoscope of pastel colours matching those of the eyes and scales of the young dragon hovering outside the large window. At the wall at one end of his running pattern Teddy's eyes turned amber and hair to a floppy caramel brown and he rubbed his nose against the painted nose of a caramel furred, amber eyed wolf frolicking between the trees of the mural forest, before Teddy ran back the other way with his hair and eyes changing back to a swirl of pastel blues, yellows and greens as he flapped his arms in front of the hovering dragon and twirled in time with dragon performing a loop the loop for her small human.
"I don't think there's a decision left to be made" Charlie muttered in Ashlynn's ear, stifling his laughter at the playtime antics "that dragon's heart will break if they're separated by too much distance. Looks like we've got one more permanent resident for the reserve."
...
An urgent note came in via floo post on the first day of August causing Charlie to pale as he ate his breakfast of pork and apple sausages and scrambled eggs.
"There's been a raid on a suspected trafficking cave in Colombia. Sixty assorted dragons eggs were seized." Charlie choked out and Ashlynn rushed to his side in comfort, nesting mother dragons were fiercely strong and the only way someone could get that many eggs from them would be through mass murder. The sorrow and heartbreak of the unnatural loss of life hit the couple hard, as did the fact that there would be so many more orphaned dragons who would never know the love of their birth parents.
"Do we have space for sixty?" Ashlynn asked, sure they could make the space if they didn't have it already but wanting to remind Charlie that there was something he could do to help in this situation.
Shaking his head Charlie continued.
"We have fifty spaces right now but we don't need sixty anyway..." Charlie broke down further at this point and Ashlynn patiently rubbed his back in solidarity and comfort as he wept "only forty eight of the eggs still held life when they were found."
A shell shocked Charlie shared the devastating news with his fellows keepers at an emergency briefing that morning and the community was soon toasting the lost dragons with a moment of silence and a shot of fire whisky each.
"We have been asked to collect and raise four dozen eggs which have been seized in South America, they were liberated from a trafficking ring raided by the local aurors last night." Charlie explained after holding a moment of silence "They are all sorts of different breeds and it will be the largest clutch of eggs all hatching in one place ever recorded so we need all hands on deck. Hondo and Tyrese choose a team for preparations, you'll be leading the hatchery while I take Sofia and a small team to South America by portkey to collect the eggs. The aurors who have custody of the eggs aren't clear on the breeds of the eggs just that they look different from each other, so we'll get a message to you as soon as we arrive of what incubators and pens will need preparing. We're keen to get the eggs back here to safety in as short a time frame as possible so the next forty eight hours will be full of hard graft. I know you're all as keen as I am to see these little ones safe and well but they need you to be healthy and well too, so please check up on each other and make sure everyone is getting enough food, water and rest. We're still in a heat wave and I'm sure my gorgeous wife won't thank us for filling her hospital with dehydrated and over exhausted keepers!"
The egg collection started off well and Charlie and Sophia took a team of six via portkey to the Colombian magical military base that evening at dusk. The aurors had commandeered a warehouse for storing the eggs and had done their best to follow Charlie's written instructions on how to care for the eggs before the team's arrival. It was clear that the South American auror team on guard were relieved at the keepers arrival and Santiago, I recent trainee transfer from the Peruvian dragon reserve, proved himself to be a perfect choice by Charlie and Sophia as he had grown up in Colombia so also acted as translator for the group. The Peruvian dragon reserve had been on high alert since the trafficking news had broken and were heart broken to not be able to take the local eggs but they only had one incubator and no specialist skill in hatchlings. They had committed to taking all of the hatchlings who would thrive in their climate once they were old enough to return though and were already setting plans in motion to build the future dragons a foster family each.
Sleeping in the corrugated steel roofed warehouse with the aurors who had stayed to continue their guard and the eggs snuggled in magically imbued heated blankets knitted by local women Charlie noticed a greenish rash on one of the nearby auror's cheeks. An unsettling feeling stirred in his stomach as he inched closer to investigate before his fears were confirmed when a flash came from another one of the aurors. He had just sneezed sparks.
Dragon Pox.