A/N: I know I said in the last chapter that I was continuing with Ron's story, but I couldn't help writing Draco's first. Enjoy!
Draco: Day 1
Draco looked around, taking in his surroundings. Everywhere he looked were vast expanses of land with green fields and forests. He had taken a portkey from Hogwarts a few minutes ago, and now here he was, in Romania. There were plenty of people moving around, none of them paying any attention to him. A roar echoed through the place from a distance. He was at the largest and most important dragon reserve in the world, but he was hardly impressed. In fact, he was a bit apprehensive.
He would never admit it to anyone, but he wasn't very fond of dragons. He knew that they were incredibly magical creatures and all that, but it was common knowledge that they were ferocious. He had no idea why people would actually want to go near them at all.
"So you're Draco Malfoy." Said a deep voice behind Draco.
Draco whipped around and found himself facing a very freckly redhead. "Yes." He replied tersely.
"My brother Ron's told me a lot about you. As you might've guessed, I'm Charlie Weasley." Charlie commented, holding out his hand.
Draco stared at the outstretched hand and decided to shake it. After all, it would be rude not to. But most of all, Draco wanted to do well on Career Week. It was a big part of his grade, and offending the one doing the grading was not an option.
"Come on, I'll show you around." Charlie said.
Draco gave a bored sigh, and followed Charlie.
Flying was the best way to get around in that place so Draco found himself on a broom a few minutes later. He was a good flier, but the broom he was riding was a joke compared to the Nimbus Two-thousand-and-One he had back at Hogwarts. Feeling incensed at the slowness of his broom, Draco ended up in an even worse mood than he was before. He followed Charlie as the latter flew northeast, toward some trees.
Draco got his first look at the dragons he was supposed to "work with" the next moment. Charlie had stopped in midair, and Draco did the same. He looked around, spotting some dragons in the distance. It was too far to tell what kind, but they looked like Romanian Longhorns. He had borrowed a book from the library and spent the weekend reading up on dragons. After all, he didn't want to look like an idiot in front of these dragon handlers.
"Aren't they beautiful?" Charlie commented wistfully.
"Positively stunning." Draco said. Charlie didn't seem to catch the sarcasm in Draco's voice because he nodded in agreement. This man's as bloody thick as his brother! Draco thought with exasperation.
They flew around for half an hour, and in that time, Draco had spotted more Romanian Longhorns, several Welsh Greens, and even one Norwegian Ridgeback, which he strongly suspected was the same dragon he had seen in his first year.
After Charlie's tour, they went back to the place where Draco first got to Romania by portkey. It was actually where the dragon researches and handlers had set up camp. Draco followed Charlie to a tent.
"This will be your tent. You have to share it with two others, though. They're not here but I'm sure they'll be along quite soon." Charlie said, opening the flap so Draco could look inside.
Draco peered intot he tent and wrinkled his nose. In his opinion, the tent wasn't much bigger than a broom cupboard. If he had known what the accommodations were like, he would have brought along his family's five-room luxury tent.
"Not much you're going to do today, just some shoveling." Charlie said, oddly enough, with a slight grin. He led Draco to the left, past a small forest.
"Shoveling?! Shoveling what?!" Draco said loudly. He got his answer in a few moments. They had reached a giant paddock that was mostly concealed by the trees. To Draco's horror, it was heaped with dragon dung. He knew what it looked (and smelled) like as it was Professor Sprout's preferred brand of fertilizer, and he had to use it loads of times at Herbology. Not much?! If this was not much work, Draco hated to see a lot.
"Why can't I use magic?" Draco asked, his eyes widening at what he knew he was supposed to do.
"Dragon dung is magical stuff." Charlie explained, "Using magic on it will diminish its potency by half. So we have to do it by hand." He pointed to some large wagons beside the huge mound of dung. "Just shovel them into the wagons so that they can be transported as fertilizer." He said, fighting the urge to snigger at Draco's expression. He would be sure to write to Ron about it, might give his brother a laugh.
"Aren't there people for this job?" Draco asked desperately.
"We want our new handlers to experience all aspects of the trade." Charlie said, a twinkle in his eye.
Draco realized that he had no way of getting out of shoveling dung. Grumbling, he stomped toward the paddock and picked up the shovel waiting for him. He shoveled dung until lunchtime. After he was done eating, he resumed his task. Charlie checked up on him every now and then, telling him to take some breaks. Draco wouldn't, though. The sooner he got this done the better. It wasn't usual to see Draco Malfoy working so hard, but the reason for all this was because he didn't want Charlie blabbing to Potty Head and Weasel Boy about him slacking off. He wouldn't give those two the satisfaction of knowing that he gave up. That would show them.
By late afternoon, Draco had piled all the dung into the wagons. Despite the fact that he was in good shape, his whole body ached from the arduous chore. He collapsed against the side of the paddock, completely drained. Suddenly, he heard hoots and catcalls around him. He opened his eyes blearily and looked around. All the dragon handlers were there, including Charlie, applauding.
"Here," Charlie said cheerfully, striding over and helping Draco up. "I hope you didn't mind our little joke. It's a prank we play on all the new handlers, sort of an initiation. I made up the thing about the dragon dung."
Anger and resentment flared inside Draco. He had been duped! Unfortunately, he was so tired that all he managed to do was glare menacingly at Charlie. There would be time for payback later…
A/N: So, how was it? Did you like it? Review! Hermione's next…