"YOU'RE GOING WHERE?!"
"Ginny! Shhhh! Not so loud! At this rate I will be shocked if they haven't heard you all the way in Jersey!"
Ginny Weasly turned, and with a face of ashen shock, quietly asked, "Please explain to me how on earth this is the choice you have made… I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all for woman power and bucking the expected, but this…. This is never the career choice that I would have even considered hearing you decide on… I mean seriously… dragons Mi! Dragons!?"
With this last statement Hermione looked up and gazed directly into her best friend's eyes and simply said, "I have to. This is my call, Ginny. I can't not do this. I cannot for the life of me get those eyes out of my mind. They hit me straight to the deepest depths of my innermost self… she… she looked so lost, so broken… so pleading. I have to help her, change the world that did this to her."
Ginny tilted her head, and sympathetically looked toward Hermione.
"Who Mi? Who do you mean?"
Hermione took a deep breath and looked straight into her best friend's eyes.
"The Gringotts dragon, Gin. You don't understand. You weren't there. She was so... broken. The pain, torture, and hurt she had survived. I don't understand how on earth she could possibly have been forced into that situation. Left to be abused and mistreated. I have always advocated for fair treatment for magical creatures, and there she was, never even given a chance to stretch her wings to their full capacity! And all for what?! To guard the wealth of the wizarding world? It's just not fair Gin! I cannot stand by and pretend that this practice isn't happening. I need to do something, but I know that no one in the ministry will listen to me. Yes. If I walked into the ministry right now and told Kingsley that I wanted to work for him, he would almost certainly ensure that I had a position, but what good would it do? I could talk and argue until I am blue in the face, but nothing would change. No one would take me seriously. To them, I will always be one of the Golden Trio. One of the fixtures of peace, but not a staple of justice. For them to actually hear me, not just professionally listen, but actually hear and absorb what I say and advocate for would take a miracle! To them I will always be a symbol… a totem of the advocated vision of renewed peace… but never will I be able to move them. They will never say it, but they will always see me as an outspoken muggleborn who does not understand the world of magic. To them, I will always be a guest allowed to coexist in their world. They will never see me for what I stand for… they will only ever just stand for me because they would be looked down on for snubbing me. Yes, some might agree with me, but they are few and far between, and they will not risk their own reputations openly agreeing with me. I will never have the majority I need to make any real change from within that office. Knowing this, I cannot and will not work alongside them, hoping and praying for a change. Yes, I cannot make the reality different for her right now, at this moment, but I can protect others. I can nurse them, heal them, care for them, study them. Don't the other dragons deserve someone who will fight for them, to understand them? Someone who will not turn and walk away from them leaving them in the hands of those who will only abuse them for their own benefit like I saw in Gringotts?"
Hermione paused her rant to breath, and Ginny, navigating her next words carefully, asked the question that was deepest in her mind;
"But Hermione… why Romania?"
Why? Why Romania?
This question was the one that Hermione still did not have an answer to. The question that she had subconsciously hoped would not come up, because in the end, she did not actually know the answer. What was drawing her there specifically?
Sure, there were many dragon reserves she could have chosen. There was even a new one in Whales that she could have opted for, but for some inexplicable reason, Hermione knew… deep down she just knew, she was meant to be in Romania, and though she could not explain why, she was confident in the clarity of this call. Without knowing why, she felt an inexplicable pull, a voice calling out to her, begging her to come.
Come to Romania. We need you brave one.