Notes:
a) If anyone is interested in trying their hand with writing stories in this structure, pick chapter headings that are both verbs and nouns!
b) This work is also on AO3 if you'd rather read in that format. /works/41315190/chapters/103594698
c) Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by J.K. Rowling. I do not claim ownership over the characters or details of the world she created. While I attempted to make my writing canon-compliant, it is not purported or believed to be part of J.K. Rowling's story canon.
Burn I.
Most kids' dreams of adventure fizzled out as they grew up. But it was not so for the two eldest Weasley boys. Maybe it was growing up in a peaceful, rural area without much glamor. Maybe it was perceiving their parents' lives as boring. Maybe it was something innate. Whatever the case, they both continued to dream, and even their concepts of "adventure" stayed relatively constant over time. Since they were little, Bill had fantasized about going on quests to find hidden treasure, using complicated magic and competing with other wizards. After Hogwarts, he pursued curse-breaking for Gringotts. Charlie understood his older brother's path, but personally was always enthralled by magical creatures. Specifically, the bigger, more intelligent, and more deadly ones. When he was offered a post-NEWT position studying dragons in Romania, he leapt at the opportunity.
...
Charlie had expected to spend nearly all of his time outside. He had anticipated being tired at the end of each day from a combination of physically-demanding activities. He had prepared himself for the occasional life-threatening situation. He had been correct about all of these things. What he had not imagined was that the cutting edge of dragon research required training in the mind arts. In school, Charlie had never been particularly adept at thinking-intensive activities. He wasn't lacking in intelligence, he just was constantly full of energy and liked subjects that were more hands-on. Thus, it took him a lot of effort to be able to sit still and clear his mind.
The purpose of this meditation training was to set the foundation for passive Legilimency. Traditional wizarding Legilimency involved invading another person's mind to find information. By contrast, passive Legilimency simply brushed against the surface of another's mind to sample their active thoughts and emotions. Fully-grown dragons' minds were absolutely impermeable to any kind of human Legilimency (passive or active) - they were simply too well-shielded and strong. But what some researchers had realized a decade or so ago was that this was not true for young dragons: infants had almost no mental shielding, which offered a unique opportunity for study. However, this discovery was kept very hush-hush because of the opportunity for abuse. Among mages, it was well-known that performing active Legilimency on a prepubescent child could irreparably harm their mental development, and dragon researchers didn't yet know if the same was true for young dragons. To be safe, they stuck to passive Legilimency, which already offered rich insights.
Once he had become sufficiently practiced at calming his mind, it turned out that Charlie actually had a talent for passive Legilimency, specifically for this kind of research. The challenge for many people was not letting their own judgements color their observations, often in the form of over-personifying the dragons' surface emotions. But Charlie's mind didn't automatically jump to conclusions. He was content to wait and let the young dragons' emotions flow over him, taking in the nuance without yet identifying it.
Part of what made this research challenging was that they mostly had to do it at a distance. The younger the dragon, the more supervision the mother gave it. The situation was salvageable because the younger dragons' emotions were also mentally louder and less complex than the older dragons'. The first time he studied an adolescent dragon, Charlie felt sure that he was misunderstanding, because the primary emotion he was picking up felt like extreme annoyance but he couldn't see anything bothering the young dragon as it was soaring over the valley. Then, all of a sudden, the dragon sneezed and a snort of flame set alight the forested hillside he was watching from. Later, he would be amused at how everyone assumed he'd gotten the burn on his arm from a dragon intentionally lighting him on fire.
...
A few years into his dragon research, his parents prodded him to apply for a dragon-related job that Arthur had heard about from a friend at the Ministry. Charlie knew that his parents really just wanted an excuse to bring him home for a bit. He agreed that it would be nice to see his family, including his younger siblings who were quickly growing up, but what really tipped him over the edge was the promise of getting to attend the Quidditch World Cup while he was there. He arranged for six months of leave from his research team, and signed a contract to work for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures as a dragon expert.
It wasn't until he heard the plan for the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament that Charlie began to regret taking the job. Putting several nests of dragon eggs in harm's way just so a few kids could compete with each other was horrible enough, without even considering the emotional trauma to the mothers. Charlie had spent so long around people who respected dragons that he'd forgotten how thoughtlessly cruel most wizards could be. After further consideration and correspondence with his team in Romania, however, Charlie decided to stick it out and see what safety measures he could implement from the inside.
Ultimately, there wasn't much he could do to protect the mother dragons from either emotional or physical harm, without the Tournament organizers shutting him down. Thankfully, he didn't think individual teenagers would be able to do much physical damage to a fully-grown dragon. However, he was able to get his Department to promise that if he could create sufficiently realistic substitute eggs that the mother dragons themselves would believe were real (so they would still be extremely protective), then they would use those instead of the real eggs during the Task.
...
Transfiguring objects that matched the appearance and heft of dragon eggs went alright. Making sure they could withstand some dragon fire (which the mothers used routinely to help their offspring prepare for hatching) was much more challenging, but eventually doable. The fake eggs wouldn't hold up to an extended bout of dragon fire, but Charlie knew that mothers would hold off on their full routine while facing a threat, as they would during the Task. The true headache was developing spells to mimic the growing life inside of the eggs, which the incredibly-acute senses of the dragon mothers would most likely pick up.
In Romania, Charlie had spent almost no time observing eggs - his team was always observing the mothers, and then the hatchlings. Over the months leading up to the Tournament, he required countless hours of study. There was the heat signature, the occasional soft thumping sounds, and, hardest of all, the mental/emotional projection. Passively monitoring real eggs, Charlie was entranced by the nebulous mental activity of the tiny dragons. He was awed by the pure contentment that sprung up when they felt their mother's flame (or a dragon fire spell) bathing their shells. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to convincingly recreate the subtle differences among the dragon species' mental activity, which he was only able to detect because of his obsession.
...
By the time the First Task rolled around, Charlie knew with a sinking feeling that his "dragon eggs" wouldn't stand up to close inspection by the mothers. Dragons were too perceptive. But would they be good enough while the mothers were distracted by all the humans? He had to try. They swapped the eggs early on the morning of the Task while the mother dragons were stunned (it always took at least six adult wizards to cast stunning spells simultaneously). One of Charlie's older coworkers who respected his efforts volunteered to look after the real nests so Charlie could go watch his youngest brother's best friend. Charlie promised to relay the details of the Task.
It turned out that the Horntail was the only one to even give her "eggs" a second glance before turning back to snarl at her captors. Charlie's work was also justified by the Durmstrang champion tormenting the Fireball into crushing her "nest". But his feeling of success was still tempered by guilt for the pain the mother had felt while she believed her nest was destroyed, as evidenced by her guttural shrieking. He felt a little better when he was able to comfort a sobbing Hagrid with the news that the real eggs were safe.
Burn II.
September 1st:
Everyone looks so much older than they did in third year. And I feel so much more self-conscious. But also obsessed with watching everyone else. Are other people paying this much attention to me?!
September 26th:
My mind is going haywire. The mild crush I had on Sam last year has ballooned into obsession. Subconsciously, I can pinpoint those dark brown curls, that leather book bag, and that hearty laugh in any crowd of students. And when our eyes meet, in the Great Hall or in the greenhouses for Hogwarts Garden Club, I often lose track of what I'm doing. I've even found myself coming up with excuses to be in the hallways between Sam's classes, just to feel that zing of excitement at seeing and being seen.
October 12th:
What is wrong with me?! Teenagers aren't supposed to have issues with accidental magic. And everyone can probably tell that it's me, because my face always heats up and it takes ages for the pinkness to subside. A week ago, Sam smiled at me in Potions and the flames at my station and those nearby flared, nearly sabotaging our classwork. Yesterday in Garden Club, I felt like Sam was ignoring me, and the leaves of the mandrakes I was tending withered, earning me a scolding from Professor Sprout when I couldn't figure out how to save them.
October 30th:
My accidental magic is getting worse. Today I heard that Sam is going to Hogsmeade with a fifth-year Gryffindor next weekend, and the windows in the hallway cracked. Everyone thought it was a funny pre-Halloween prank, but I was mortified. Now I'm using my knowledge of Sam's schedule and habits to minimize our encounters.
November 25th:
Distractions are good. I've been focusing on friends and classes, and had a fun time at the Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw game, waving badger banners for our team and cheering madly.
December 8th:
Success! Sam laughed at a bubotuber joke I made, and I didn't mess anything up! Christmas break will probably also help me clear my head.
February 27th:
This winter has gone by in a blur. Jordan's dad losing his job really affected my friend, and I've been playing the roles of therapist, tutor, and jester as needed. Our housemates help out when they can, but often wait to follow my lead.
March 19th:
I feel like Sam's been extra nice to me recently, but I have to stop letting it go to my head. We're just friendly members of Garden Club. Period.
March 31st:
What does it mean if the person you like playfully bumps you with their shoulder?! Thankfully, I don't think anyone noticed that the sprinkle of water coming from my wand turned slightly pink, and it didn't seem to affect the plants.
April 13th:
Should I ask Sam out?!
April 16th:
Sam asked me out! We were walking back from the greenhouses, and I'm so glad there weren't many other people around, because clovers and other small flowers started bursting through the grass around our feet. Thankfully, Sam just laughed that warm laugh and told me it was sweet. Please, let nothing too embarrassing happen on our first date…
Author's note: out of curiosity, what genders did you assume the different characters in this story were? If you're comfortable sharing, please comment!
Burn III.
"I wonder how long he's been alive?"
Fawkes has determined that there are at least two types of people in the world: people who wonder about the experiences of phoenixes and other magical creatures, and those who consider them simply accessories to the lives of humans. Even among those who wonder, Fawkes has encountered very few who perceive that this question is flawed, actually in two ways.
Firstly, as even Dumbledore (who Fawkes considers a relatively wise human) has mistaken, phoenixes are genderless. Although Fawkes recognizes the fact that most brightly-plumed avians are male and understands the human need to personify other creatures, the asexual nature of phoenix rebirth seems difficult to overlook. If anything, most organisms that reproduce asexually are considered female.
More generally, Fawkes finds it interesting that magical humans and other scholarly races do not discuss the origin of magical species, beyond the centaurs' retelling of their astronomy-based creation story. Magical theorists and magizoologists tend to focus on the way things currently are, not so much on how they came to be. This is, of course, with the exception of pureblood wizarding genealogy records spanning the last few centuries, which are zealously studied. Granted, even if some researchers did unearth the mechanisms of magical evolution, the appearance of phoenixes would likely remain a mystery. Even Fawkes is unsure of exactly what conditions sparked their existence. Extensive searching has not revealed any other species with similar magical signatures and rebirth capabilities. The closest option is the hydra, which has the ability to regenerate from small tissue fragments. However, it is hard to imagine a common ancestor with such regenerative abilities (if indeed there was one) passing away… Instead, could there have been some unique acquaintance of potent magical substances that brought phoenixes into the world? Unfortunately, Fawkes has never been able to consult another phoenix on this matter because the frequencies of their magical signatures are so high that it is painful to be within 500 kilometers of another phoenix.
The second flaw of the question is that the meaning of "alive" is very different depending on whether your existence consists of one birth-growth-death cycle, or of infinite cycles. Fawkes' average cycle length is 237 days. But between each cycle, a phoenix isn't really "dead". The process of renewal-by-flame is as natural and expected by Fawkes as the sun rising each morning and setting each evening. At the same time, Fawkes also doesn't think it makes sense to speak of phoenixes being fully "alive" for millenia. So much of other creatures' lives are dedicated to evading death; Fawkes cannot identify with this.
This distinction is important because the nature of one's existence can have profound effects on one's moral framework. Fawkes has considered the possibility that other phoenixes might not care about the experiences of other creatures as a result of being isolated and not needing assistance for anything. For Fawkes, however, the conviction that renewal is good is so strong that they cannot help but seek it out and help it flourish in other organisms. It is not that they prioritize renewal to keep things the same - instead, they focus on fresh starts with the potential for learning.
Fawkes enjoys spending time with people in part because of humans' conflicted morality. Being in their company stimulates interesting thoughts. Especially when said humans are unusually powerful and/or faced with challenging circumstances. (Hence, Fawkes' adoption of Dumbledore and subsequent acceptance of the name 'Fawkes' for this century.)
Fawkes' working theory is that most humans are caught between two warring instincts: to dominate and to belong. They consistently strive to demonstrate their power over others while simultaneously craving similarity and closeness with other people, and often end up with a mix of comedy and tragedy. Fawkes observes the tension between these motivations in the behavior of magical children and adults, but suspects that non-magical humans are similarly afflicted. After all, both instincts likely arose from the desire to evade death - domination increasing opportunities for reproduction and legacy, and belonging increasing safety through collaboration and division of labor.
Sometimes, Fawkes ponders whether the humans who wonder about the solitary life of phoenixes consider their existence to be a blessing or a curse.