A/N: Sorry, not sorry about that cliff hanger last week. I'm preparing myself for a Twilight marathon to celebrate Labor Day, so only fitting that some not so friendly vampires get thrown in here.

I'll tell you about how I met my husband, because it's a pretty good laugh.

I was working for a retail store in security during my senior year of college. Due to the nature of the position, I didn't really meet anyone outside of my department while I was training for the first few weeks. They were teaching me how to review video footage and that was the first time I saw my hubs.

I took one look at him and decided that I was going to meet that man and I was going to have my way with him. The next day, I went out onto the sales floor and practically skipped into his department because I was so excited to meet him. Once I was there, I floated over to him, and in his customer service voice he asked if there was anything he could help me with. I wore jeans and t-shirts to work so I would blend in with the customers, so obviously he didn't know that I worked there.

I was laughing internally at how adorable he was in person, so without saying a word to him I had to flutter off. Now that I've met him, I'm even more determined that I'm going to get this man. I had to sit in a store meeting, and while I was in the conference room, I saw all the names of the different department heads on a white board. Now I have his last name, and I'm on Facebook looking him up before I even leave my seat.

Find him, find out he's single and he has a lot of the same interests that I have. I send him a quick message telling him 'hi' and then I wait. And I wait. And I wait. Three days, I wait for this man to message me back, and now I'm just irritated with him. How dare he be so adorable and perfect and ignore me.

We finally have a shift together and as soon as I'm done with what I had to get done, I marched straight out to his department and demanded to know why he was ignoring my Facebook messages. Looking terrified, he cannot stop apologizing. And yes, these are the first words I ever speak to him. After he goes on break, he calls me and explained that he never saw my message because it got sent to his 'other' folder. After scolding him, again, for not checking that folder, I let him know that we'll need to go on a date so he can make it up to me for causing me so much stress for three days.

He agreed, and 8 years later here we are.

Just from that story alone, guess what house I belong to. I'll leave that answer in the authors notes in the next update.

I guess you'd like to know what happened after that vampire attack? Alright, alright, here it is.

Week Seven

"Screw you, Charlie Weasley. You know that I wouldn't have gone out there with her if I'd had another option or if I'd have thought it were going to be dangerous! You saw the tip we got; you wouldn't have even blinked going alone!"

Hermione could hear a female voice, but it felt like it was so far away, yet close at the same time.

"Damnit Casey, you had other options! I can't believe you'd be so reckless!"

An angry male voice broke through Hermione's fog. She felt like she was missing something, but the sleep felt so heavy on her head. She kept her eyes closed, as she began to feel her body.

Everything hurt, her right shoulder felt like a dull burn. Breathing was hard to do too. No, those voices. She knew what this argument was about and she needed to listen.

"You can't just leave in the middle of a transfer and you fucking know it better than anyone. What, were you just going to leave the team to deal with transferring new mothers? Don't make me laugh, that wasn't even an option on the table."

All this yelling was starting to bring back flashes of memories. Grey skin and black eyes came into Hermione's mind. Vampires. That's right, she'd been attacked by two vampires. Shit, they had bitten her, and she knew that she had certainly lost a lot of blood from the wounds that she's sustained.

"Charlie, Casey?" She croaked out, her voice must not have been used in a while. It hurt to breath, so she assumed when the vampire had punctured her shoulder that it might have done some damage to her lung as well.

"Hermione? Love, you're awake!" Squinting her eyes open, she could see the faint glow of Charlie's red hair in front of her at the foot of her bed. He grasped her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips and planted a firm kiss on them.

"Hey, good to see you awake." Blue hair, standing off away from her bed on the other side. Opening her eyes, a bit more, she could see that Casey was standing near her with her arm in a sling.

"Casey, your arm! Are you okay?" Hermione attempted to sit up, but the sudden movement caused her to start coughing. When she pulled her hand back, she noted that there was a little blood.

"Drink this" Charlie thrust a potion into Hermione's hand as he noticed the blood that she'd coughed up. "Your lung was punctured by a fang and it's going to take a while for it to completely repair thanks to the vampire venom. Damnit Hermione, what were you thinking going into the field?"

"We had to get the egg Charlie; we couldn't leave it there. Is the egg, okay?" Hermione scooted back in her bed and settled herself in a seated position so's that she could look at her two visitors.

"Yeah, we have it set up with a surrogate mother that had lost her egg." Casey answered, making a point to avoid Charlie's angry gaze.

Actually, angry wasn't the word Hermione would use to describe Charlie's demeanor. He was furious and frightening. There was an underline of worry in his eye, but if you didn't know those eyes the way Hermione did, the only thing you would see was fire.

"Casey, go." Charlie didn't break eye contact with Hermione as he muttered this order to his friend. Hermione gave one last pleading look towards Casey, but she was already shuffling her way out of the infirmary. "What the hell were you thinking, Hermione?"

"I, well, I, I didn't think it would be dangerous. I figured that we could go in, grab the egg and leave." Hermione supplied and looked down to her hands that she folded in her lap. She rolled the small wooden ring that adorn her pointer finger to distract herself from Charlie's rage.

"You didn't think it would be dangerous. Going after a bloody Longhorn egg. You were standing there; you saw that a Longhorn is capable of doing. Now why would you think, walking into a potential dragon's nest, wouldn't be dangerous." Charlie had moved his way so that he was sitting closer to Hermione's face. She still focused on the ring and spun it more.

"Damnit Hermione, you almost died. You and Casey both almost died. I don't know how I can make either of you see how serious this is." Charlie ran his fingers through his hair in a frustrated manner and let out a loud sigh.

"What's today?" Hermione now realizing that she didn't even know how long she'd been unconscious.

"The twelfth, you've been out for five days." Charlie's eyes seemed to be melting from the furry a little bit now.

"I'm sorry, Charlie. I really am." Hermione whispered, hopeful that he could hear he remorse in her words.

"You are never to do something so stupid and irresponsible again. I cannot lose you; you mean too much to me." Charlie now reached over and gently took Hermione's hands into his, forcing tears to start to spill from Hermione's eyes.

"Oh Merlin, Casey isn't in trouble, is she? For taking me? She asked me if Ivo had approved me going with her and he never specifically said that I could or couldn't." Hermione used her left arm to wipe the tears from her face.

"Casey is on desk duty for two months. Ivo agreed with Casey that the tip was innocent enough that there was no way to foresee any attack coming. Damn Vampires, I know they aren't all bad, but fuck can they do some real damage with those fangs." Charlie brushed his hand lightly along Hermione's jaw line. She could feel the pull of sleep coming again, but was fighting it. She wanted to stay with Charlie longer.

"Have you heard from Amos?" Hermione realized that her boss was going to have to be informed about this.

"Yes, Ivo contacted him. After he made sure that you weren't dying, he just went back to business as usual and said that he'll expect a full report to be sent out by the end of next week. I'm not sure how you plan on writing anything out though since you won't be able to use your right arm for at least a month."

"Did Casey tell you about the attack?" Hermione asked looking down at her heavily bandaged shoulder.

"She didn't really see too much of what happened because she was flying, but she did say that when one latched onto her forearm that you blasted it off with a spell. Damnit Hermione, do you know how much blood the two of you lost?" Charlie looked like he was in pain watching her again.

"They just came out of nowhere Charlie, I'm sorry."

It seemed Charlie had realized how exhausted she was. He helped her laid back down, then hoovered over her face, gently running his fingers along her jaw line. "You silly witch, rest. I'll talk to you more when you wake."

Sleep washed over her before she even felt the pillow.

Hermione's dreams were filled with imagines of her and Charlie. Standing in an open meadow, watching the sun rise in this mist of a new day. Hand in hand, his freckled arms exposed to the cool morning air. She lingered right at the edge, ready to leave a trail of kissed up to his chin.

"Hermione?"

She was kissing her way towards his jaw. The warmth of his skin under her lips.

"Hermione, can you hear me?"

She reached her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him in closer.

"Hermione. Wake up." Hermione's eyes snapped open and she saw a grinning Casey standing over her. "Damn you're impossible to wake, but come on. You're going to want to see this."

Hermione's attempted to get out of bed, but without the use of her right arm and her left leg, the task was fairly impossible.

"Damn, I'm so sorry. Those bastards really did a number on you." Casey summoned a wheelchair over and quickly got Hermione situated. With a flick of her wand, Hermione could feel the chair begin to roll on its own.

"Uh, Casey. Where are we going?"

"Our egg is hatching. Hush." Casey peeked her head out into the corridor of the infirmary and checked to see if anyone was watching for them. "Lucky for us, it's three in the morning. The healers are pretty strict and not above violence to keep us put. Can't imagine why, we're only dragon keepers, clearly we have our health at the top most priority." Casey gave a wink to Hermione who in turn had to keep her laughing down.

Casey led Hermione out of the hospital ward and outside into a courtyard that Hermione didn't recognize. Wordless, Casey led Hermione's wheelchair around the back of the building and towards where some of the dragon enclosures were. It was about a twenty-minuet jog (roll for Hermione), but they settled themselves in the shadows so that they could see.

It was the same enclosure that she and Charlie had gone to and done the evaluation a few weeks prior. No longer was the massive Longhorn Lachlan being held within the wards, but a much smaller Longhorn with a greyer green scale. Even with the limited light, Hermione could perfectly see what was happening.

Not the enraged flames that Lachlan had sent shooting towards the wards, but instead this mother Longhorn was gently breath soft flames onto the egg that Hermione recognized. It didn't take long for Hermione to also recognize the red hair of the dragon keeper who was standing fifteen feet or so from the mother dragon.

She felt a fear rush up her being, Casey must have realized and placed a gentle hand on Hermione's arm. "This is what Charlie has been doing for the last ten years, trust me. He'll be okay." She whispered, looking back towards the sight of the hatching dragon.

Hermione looked back down and saw that the mother's flames had turned into a blue, purple, and green mix. The dark cracks were running up the egg and she could see the silhouette of a tiny dragon within the egg. When finally, a piece of the egg fell away. The mother dragon stopped her fiery breaths, but kept her nose close to the cracking egg.

Charlie slowly started to move in closer now, she could feel the tension in the atmosphere. This abandoned egg was hatching. It had been without a mother for the last parts of its incubation period. The potentials that something was to go wrong were there.

Another piece of the egg dropped and a slime covered tail slowly began to stretch out and emerge from the egg, but then lifelessly dropped. The mother dragon reared her head back and let out an ear-piercing roar of agony. A sob escaped from Hermione's chest, even though this was only the second time she'd seen a dragon hatching, she knew this wasn't right.

Charlie was there, pealing back the layers of the egg and exposing a tiny limp grey dragon. The mother must have sensed that Charlie was there to help because her cries subsided for a moment as she watched intently as Charlie waved his wand masterfully over the tiny dragon.

Skilled hands ran along the spine of the infant and wand work like Hermione had never seen, shooting gold ribbons around the dragon. At last, Charlie lifted the dragon into his arms and rubbed the underside of the dragon's throat.

With a cough, the tiny creature shot out a tiny flame to match.

Setting the infant back on the ground near its mother, Hermione saw as he threw a few small dead rats in the area and slowly backed away.

The infant dragon stumbled against its mother's leg and began to suck and chew on the rat nearest it. With a hiccup, it shot out another smile fire against the mother's scaly leg.

The mother wrapped her body, blocking out the view of the infant any longer. Hermione looked to see Charlie still backing away slowly until he was near where Lucian and Nelu from, his quidditch team, stood.

"That was the most incredible thing I've ever witness. Thank you, Casey." She looked down at the witch, who had seated herself on a rock on Hermione's right side.

"It's a bit different when it's your eggs that you saved. We better get going, before those nosey healers realize that you're missing. They already said they aren't releasing you back to your quarters until next week. It's almost as if they don't trust us to follow their instructions or something if we're not right where they can see us." Casey sent a mischievous smile towards Hermione.

"Oh yeah, you'd think they almost expected injured people to be broken out of the infirmary at three in the morning." Hermione chuckled back at her, causing her to grimace from the pain it caused in her chest.

With one last look over her shoulder as her wheelchair took off on its own, Hermione could have sworn she saw Charlie notice her and Casey retreating back down the path. As she soon as she saw it though, he was back to talking to his comrades, as if he hadn't seen them at all.

Week Eight

Ginny,
Hey, so just a quick update on life in Romania. Nothing to crazy. Just spending some time with Casey lately. We went on a bit of an adventure and I understand her a lot better now.

Charlie found me one of the self-writing quills that George had sent him as a gift a few years ago, that's why my writing looks a bit off. No need to worry, everything here is fine. Charlie's injuries that he had at Ron's wedding are now totally healed and he's back to working with in the field with the dragons, so he's been ecstatic about that.

Don't tell your parents yet, but Charlie has agreed to coming to Scotland to help with getting the sanctuary going. I know he's going to be sending your parents a letter here in the next few weeks after all the details get ironed out. I'm actually meeting with Vlad and Ivo next week to discuss his transfer. Amos should be excited since he tried asking Charlie twice, again don't tell your parents I don't want them feeling bad that Charlie declined moving closer to home.

Anyway, things are good. Amos has my portkey set up to leave the morning of the twentieth of September, he wants me to work the full Friday before so, I am coming home on a Saturday. However, I should be able to make it to The Burrow for mine and Louis' birthday celebrations still! Not much longer here, and before you know it, we'll have a little baby Potter to spoil!

Charlie knock it off, you know whatever I say the quill is going to write. Yes, yes, I'll make sure that I tell Ginny you say hi. See it already wrote it down. Well, leave me alone while I'm writing a letter to your sister. Well, bugger off for just a second and let me finish this. See it added that into the letter too.

I'll write you soon.

With love,
Hermione

Hermione spun around in her seat to place a glare right at Charlie who was doubled over laughing. She knew that Ginny would find his interruption hilarious, and even though she found it slightly amusing she didn't want to encourage Charlie to continue to mess with her when she was in the middle of penning a letter. Especially since right now she was having to use one of Weasley Wizard Wheezes self-writing quills that Fred and George had invented so long ago.

"I'll drop this off at the owlery on my way to the Fireball enclosure. I'm helping get the last two transfers on their way to China this afternoon." Charlie turned her wheelchair around to plant a kiss on her lips.

Hermione was still unable to put weight on her left leg, and because her right arm was so damaged, she still couldn't use anything to help support her. Even though it had been two weeks since she was attacked, the venom from the vampire's bite delayed magical healing. The healers had told her, by three weeks out she'll be able to walk with a can and hopefully by four weeks out she'll be able to walk without any aid again.

"Will you please take me so that I can see how the transfers are set up and executed?" Hermione ran her fingers along Charlie's jaw, causing him to turn slightly flustered.

"You're still in a wheelchair Hermione, how do you propose you get to a dragon enclosure that we have to ride a broom to get to."

"Oh please, you could get me on a broom. I just can't stand. Just shrink the blasted chair down and I'll toss it in my bag. When we get there, I can enlarge it again and everything will work out perfectly fine." Hermione tried batting her eye lashes. She'd already missed the other Fireball transfers that had taken place and was really needing to see how they prepared for such a long journey.

"You are positively one of the most infuriating women I've ever met, and you've met my mother, sister, and best friend." Charlie shook his head as he grabbed her bad from off her bed and tossed it in her lap. He pushed her wheelchair towards the door and walked them out into the courtyard.

"I think you are just built to handle difficult women Charlie Weasley, why else would you be such an excellent dragon keeper?" Hermione chuckled as he stopped next to a bench and lifted her out of the wheelchair and sat her down.

Charlie raised his wand and shrunk her wheelchair into a toy size, then tossed it into the open bag sitting in her lap. Setting his broom so that it was hoovering the ground, he walked back to where Hermione was seated and lifted her easily into his arms.

Hermione's body tensed when she realized she wouldn't be able to grip onto him with both arms, but apparently Charlie had already thought of that. He placed her at the front of the broom and settled himself behind her, just as a parent would ride with their small child.

Wrapping his arms around her, Charlie kicked off from the ground and flew at a much slower speed than they usually flew at. Being forced to sit on the front of the broom, Hermione was, for the first time, really looking at the reserve from the air. It was an incredibly terrifying sight.

The thick forests made it impossible to see most of the ground, but the cliffs sides had jagged rocks that she hadn't gotten a good look at before. The while the rocks were mostly grey, when the sunlight caught them, there were what looked like gold specks sparkling in them.

Looking down, they were suddenly soaring over a sparking lake, and Hermione recognized it as the one that Charlie had taken her to when they had gone on their date. She could see under the surface of the water as what she suspected were merpeople swimming just below the surface of the water. Their shadow waved over the water and before she knew it, they were thrown back into looking at the tops of thick trees again.

Regardless of the beautiful landscape, Hermione's fear of heights and flying started to take hold of her. She closed her eyes and just let the breeze cool her face in the warm August sun. As she started to recite the twelve uses of dragon blood to herself, she felt Charlie touch down before she'd finished reciting the eighth use.

Before she could even get her eyes open, she felt herself being swung off the broom and held close to Charlie's chest. Looking up into his chocolate eyes, Charlie smirked down at her and kept carrying her towards the Fireball enclosure.

"You can set me down on the ground while you enlarge the wheelchair again, you know?" Hermione could feel the heat rising in her face as she realized that Charlie was still walking with a purpose towards the enclosure.

"The ground is too rough; your wheelchair couldn't make it through this." Hermione glanced down and just saw a dirt path. It looked to be in that same pristine shape that every other dirt path was around the reserve. Hermione had been rolling around all week without any issues, but then again, she had been working with Casey this week and not Charlie.

Letting Charlie have his way for now she settled her face against his chest and let him continue to carry her. It didn't take long until they were in front of the Fireball enclosure and Hermione could see a team of wizards shooting stunning spells.

The mushroom shaped flames rolling out of its nostrils was keep the wizards at bay. "Weasley!" The shout caused both Hermione and Charlie to look over and see a dragon keeper she didn't recognize waving his hand over his head.

Without waiting for a response, the keeper jumped back into attempting to stun the dragon in front of them. Charlie gently set Hermione on a large rock that wasn't too far, before he took off towards the struggling keepers, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

Hermione watched as the dragon keepers began to work as a strong team and began to subdue the Fireball in front of them. She pulled out her self-writing quill and parchment and sent the quill to work. She noted how they didn't all shoot their stunning spells at once, but that it was a coordinated effort. She noted that this particular red and gold colored Fireball was about twenty-five feel long and that it was missing the golden spikes that should have been around it's snout.

This Fireball let out on last shot of flame from its nostrils and then began to sway until it rested. With quick movements the team round around and put up the cage that it would be transported to China in. Then the wards were applied to the outside of the cage, so that when the dragon woke up that it wouldn't be able to harm anyone mid transport.

Six Abraxan flew in and landed around the cage the dragon was currently sleeping in. With expert movements, the cage was attached and a dragon keeper climbed onto the back of each one of the Abraxans. Before anymore time could pass, the Abraxan spread their large wings and took off into the sky as a team.

Hermione noted that she will need to make a contract with Hogwarts and the Malfoys that she'll need to be able to use the Abraxans for any dragon transports. She assumed that it wouldn't pose as a problem, but she was glad that they had those relationships already well established where the Abraxans were concerned.

Hermione was sorting through all the notes she had made when she felt strong hands rest on either side of her shoulders. "Did you find something else that you hadn't thought of in that brilliant brain of yours."

Turning to kiss the corner of his mouth, "I hadn't even started to tackle the problem of transporting dragons out after they are ready to be released. There's just so much more that goes into a reserve and this big issue somehow completely slipped."

"Well, to be fair you have been a bit, busy, the last few weeks." Charlie was helping Hermione gather up all her belongings and putting them back into her bag. Once he was done, he swung the bag back over her arm and easily lifted Hermione into his arms.

"You know, I do have a wheelchair." Hermione gave a protest, knowing that it wouldn't make any difference in the end.

Charlie acted like he hadn't heard her and softly carried her back over to where the broom was waiting for them. He settled her onto the front of the broom like he had done on their way here.

"Next week I'll be able to start using a cane. What are you going to do then?" Hermione laughed looking over her shoulder.

"I'll carry you as long as you let me." Charlie whispered so softly into her ear that she thought she must have misheard him.