Chapter 7: Transylvania
"If I had known she was coming," says Slovadan, "I could have aired out one of the bedrooms. If I had known she was coming, Antonja could have washed some sheets. If you had sent me an owl."
"She can stay at the Hermitage," says Charlie.
Slovadan rolls his eyes, wryly amused.
When the war ended, when the Order of the Phoenix was dissolved, Charlie needed a new project. The new project became the Hermitage. It was once a tumble-down Muggle peasants' hovel, on the edge of the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility's main compound. Charlie took it in hand, rebuilt the walls, repaired the roof, painted it inside and out, and converted it to magic. The last of these tasks was simplified by the fact that the Hermitage had never had running water or eckeltricity in the first place. Only the ground floor is done, a single bedroom and a parlor with a kitchen running behind them in what was originally a lean-to. The cobwebbed first floor, Charlie has scarcely touched. But the Hermitage's sloping, chalet-like roof is removable, just like the Burrow's roof, facilitating the addition of more floors whenever it should become necessary or convenient to do so. The Director thinks the Hermitage is charming, and he often borrows it for a night or two to house distinguished visitors.
Slovadan and Fergal, on the other hand, know exactly what the Hermitage is about. It has been the source of a great deal of teasing. Fergal calls it "the Dollhouse." Marina Vasik toured the Hermitage one blustery autumn afternoon and said, hands on her hips, "Well, at least you're planning ahead. Slovadan isn't going to get married ever." And Slovadan said, "No, absolutely not, not while I have my baby sister to look after." Upon which Marina pointed out that she was twenty-three years old and was earning more than Slovadan was, at least on paper. (The Romanian Ministry of Magic is bankrupt at the moment, so it is not actually, literally, paying her.) So it's hardly a secret, the Hermitage.
To Charlie, it is patently obvious that Katie must be lodged in the Hermitage. He walks her over there and shows her around. She thanks him, but on the whole she seems more interested in touring the reservation.
"You can fly?" asks Charlie.
"I can fly."
Slovadan looks skeptical, remembering the Hungarian Horntail that knocked Marina off her broom. But Katie sounds like a woman who knows what she's doing, and Charlie takes her at her word. He hands her a broom. They kick off.
They fly. They skirt the Romanian Longhorns, skim over the Ukrainian Ironbellies, dodge Charlie's beloved Hungarian Horntails. They dip between the peaks and fly fleetly through the foothills. To the south they see the ragged industrial rooftops of Bucharest. She chases him; he chases her. They loop and whirl around each other, playing in mid-air among the vast skies east of Mount Moldoveanu. The air is so crisp it burns. As the sun begins to move down the horizon, they cuts into beautiful nosedives, bring themselves up short, and zoom back towards the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility.
Before dinner, he takes her around the mountain to meet Minnie. Minnie stands in the grassy courtyard abutting her favorite cave, the sunlight glinting off her metallic gray scales, deep red eyes glowing in the evening sun, chewing up a deer carcass that Slovadan dropped off earlier. Minnie is ambivalent about people; she loves her caretakers but fears strangers. Still, she stands her ground, eying Katie with anxious curiosity, crushing deer bones in her teeth.
Charlie is holding Katie's right hand in his left and two dead rabbits in his right. He nudges her and hands her a dead rabbit. Katie accepts it happily. She waits patiently until she catches Minnie's eye. She tosses it to her and Minnie catches the rabbit's ears in her teeth. Minnie loves rabbits. She sniffs appreciatively, chewing and burping. Katie reaches out gently, gently, and strokes her metallic gray scales.
They dine with Slovadan in the mess hall. In spite of its undignified name, the mess hall is the finest room on the reservation. The sloping, high-pitched ceiling and the abundance of raw wood give it an Alpine feel. The long walls, north and south, are lined with windows. At the west end, a gorgeous litter of Chinese Fireballs romp on a mottled canvas. At the east end, a Romanian Longhorn snoozes in its frame.
The mess hall can seat 120, but tonight there are fewer than ten. One class of interns just graduated; the other has departed for a brief vacation. Fergal and the Director are both away, and Slovadan has been left to hold the fort with a mere handful of staff. Under the Romanian Longhorn portrait, the ubiquitous and incompetent handyman and the tattooed, sweaty cook swear at each other in Romanian. Two Tibetan wizards, young and newly qualified, here for a stint of vacation work, laugh raucously, shoveling goulash into their mouths. Antonja sits by herself and reads a paperback romance novel that she got from a Muggle book club.
At the head table that night, Slovadan does most of the talking. He warns Katie, in correct and courtly English, that not all dragons are as nice as Minnie. He warns her that the Ministry is corrupt, and the Minister still has not signed the International Ban on Dueling. He warns her that the Floo Network is unreliable. He warns her that Romania is a country where children of wealthy families go to Durmstrang, which is academically excellent but morally dubious, and other children, like Slovadan and Marina, are educated at home or not at all. It is a country where English-speaking families send eleven-year-olds 1500 miles away to Scotland, because there's nothing else to do.
Katie listens attentively but appears unfazed.
After dinner they take their coffee back to the Hermitage. They sit in the summer twilight, with the windows open and the lamps unkindled, and they talk about dragons and Quidditch. They talk about living after the war. They talk about living in Romania. It is already late when he kisses her, and she relaxes into his arms. He kisses her again, with the fierce yearning that he has always tried so hard to obscure, and she pulls him down onto the thick rag rug on the floor. She flicks her wand at the fireplace, and flames shoot up. They nestle against each other in the glow. He trails kisses down the length of her scar, from the wounded eye that won't quite open to the dimple in her chin.
She is the answer. She is the missing piece, the piece that, when found, causes every other piece of the vast complicated puzzle of Charlie's life to fall into place. She is the woman that he had almost ceased to believe existed, the one who likes dragons and Quidditch, the one who can fly.
And Ron knew her all along. The twins must have, too, in all those long years of beating for Gryffindor. His parents knew her, as did Minerva McGonagall, as did Tonks, as too did the Director, who accepted her early, on the strength of a quickly quilled letter of recommendation from Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. But not one of them said a word. Were George and Ron really so occupied with their loves and their losses and their zany business ventures that they couldn't ever, not once, pen a line to say, Charlie, Charlie, there's a girl named Katie Bell, who's in Gryffindor House and plays Chaser, who was just a little too young to be in the war, who was supposed to go to Romania and study dragons but got Imperiused and ended up in hippogriffs instead? A girl who is scarred but stocky and strong. A girl who can fly.
She says huskily, interrupting his reverie, "Charlie. Charlie, maybe we should just elope."