Chapter 8: The Bedraggled Vampire, take 2

The moon spins around as the summer drags into the hot green lovely days of August. The rotation spins around, and Fergal is on weekend duty again. Minnie has a bad cold in the head, or possibly a mild case of dragon flu, and Katie is out in the barn helping him tend her. Charlie is trying to talk Slovadan into flying to Zagreb for the afternoon, where he and Katie are meeting Viktor Krum at the Bedraggled Vampire. Viktor Krum has had an idea about Quidditch. The Bulgarian National Team went down with the flood; half of them turned out to be Death Eaters. But things are at last starting to look up, here in the Carpathian mountains, here on the rim of the Black Sea, and with Katie, thinks Viktor, with Katie and some strategic shifting of certain players' positions, they might at last be able to field a decent team. So Charlie and Katie are going to meet him in Zagreb.

Slovadan objects that Marina is supposed to be dropping by, after her Saturday morning shift at the Ministry. Charlie tosses him a tin of Floo Powder. The Romanian Floo Network is unreliable, but Slovadan manages—to his own surprise—to reach his sister, and all is well. They have jolly good flight to Zagreb, swooping and weaving around one another, as if she's chasing a Quaffle, as if he's chasing a Snitch. Slovadan flies sedately, watching them, wryly amused.

They didn't actually elope, of course. There will be some sort of a wedding, somewhere in England, because that's where both of their families are. They have a date, but the remaining details are fuzzy. The truth is, they're pretty much leaving it to their mothers. Charlie is hard at work on the Hermitage. Katie, who has already moved to Romania, is making up for lost time with the dragons.

Charlie's lightning romance has occasioned a certain amount of ribbing over meals at the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility. That first Sunday night, after Fergal returned from his jaunt to the Black Sea, after Katie apparated back to England, Fergal and Slovadan and Charlie sat down to dinner. Slovadan said dryly, helping himself liberally to buttered noodles, "Well, this has been an interesting weekend."

"You didn't get stood up," said Fergal to Charlie.

"You didn't come in last night," said Slovadan pointedly.

"Hot times in the Dollhouse?" inquired Fergal, raising an eyebrow.

"Look, I didn't sleep with her, if that's what you want to know," muttered Charlie. "I mean—well—I did, but—you know—we slept." He summoned the blankets and pillows from the bed, and they slept in a heap on the rag rug in front of the fireplace. They woke up sore and sheepish, and he knew.

"Eh, and did you propose?" asked Fergal in his lilting Irish voice.

Charlie blushed.

"My God," said Fergal. "My God. This was what, your first date?"

"Well, it was actually sort of the second," pointed out Charlie.

"My God," laughed Fergal. "Charlie Weasley, you'll be the death of me. My God."

But Fergal liked Katie, and so did Slovadan, and so did the Director—and so, for that matter, did Minnie. None of them seemed terribly surprised when they announced their engagement a few weeks later.

From Hogsmeade he received a letter that read, in its entirety, "Couldn't you take the time to send me an owl saying that you're idiotically happy, or some other appropriate sentiment? Wasn't it clever of me to be twenty minutes late?"

He circled the words "idiotically happy" and sent it back by return of owl.

Viktor is waiting for them in the dusty barroom of the Bedraggled Vampire, which is still the best, worst, and only wizarding pub in the bombed-out city of Zagreb. He has taken a table for four; when Marina comes, they'll pull up another chair. He is writing, with a little stick, in a Muggle palm pilot, and frowning at it. Viktor is the only child of a family with money to burn, and he often indulges in Muggle contraptions, but he is rarely, if ever, pleased with them.

"It is stupid," he announces, in precise, heavily accented English, as the three of them stroll up. "The idea is clever, and it could be useful, if one converted it to magic. The miniature quill, which never vorks, is quite unnecessary. There is also an on-off button—quite pointless. To make it vork properly one vould need to remove the battery, enhance the legibility of the screen, and charm it to respond to vocal commands."

Charlie smiles faintly. He says, "Talk to my brother George."

"I vill do that," says Viktor Krum.

"Quidditch," murmurs Katie, gently but firmly. Katie is a woman who has her priorities straight.

Slovadan stifles a laugh. Charlie and Viktor, on the other hand, snap to attention and start talking Quidditch. That's what they're here for, after all.

Good thing Katie has her priorities straight.

Mihail brings Charlie a brandy and Viktor a firewhiskey and Slovadan a hideous local liqueur tasting of garlic and bat wings. He ogles Katie as he takes her order. Not many English witches choose to visit Croatia.

The door swings forward, and Marina walks in.

She is dressed, as she often is, in a dramaticallyupdated version of Romanian peasant costume: embroidered white blouse, embroidered black skirt,garish belt, and chunky heels. It is less conspicuous than robes when she leaves the Ministry, and it allows her to pretend that she is a Muggle if she is approached aggressively by strange wizards, something that happens more often than it ought to on the streets of Bucharest. She has masses of thick brown hair, plaited and pinned to her head. Her eyes are dark and large, her visage youthful and resolute. She is swinging a small black leather pocketbook, which is empty because it's been months since the Ministry last paid her, and a marked-up copy of the long proposed, long ignored International Ban on Dueling, which has become one of her pet projects in the long lonely hours at the Ministry's law library, a library that no one consults.

"Marina," says Charlie, gesturing. "Katie. Viktor."

Viktor leaps to his feet, takes her hand, and kisses it. Marina looks slightly intimidated, though not displeased. She probably thinks that Viktor greets every strange woman this way.

Charlie knows better.

"Good evening, Marina," says Viktor in flawless Romanian. "Your servant, Viktor Krum."

THE END

Author note: Many thanks to those who reviewed the early chapters of this story. Encouragement is always helpful! I have recently begun posting a sequel to this tale, "Autumn into Spring."