Disclaimer: guess what, I still don't own HP :(
Again a big thank you to my wonderful Beta Clover Bay
Hermione slept a lot better than before but she still woke up before everybody else in the morning. On one of those mornings she decided to go for a walk. She went to the general direction of the dragon preserve and soon found herself in front of the visitor entrance.
She peeked inside and saw Charlie passing by, getting ready to start his workday.
"Morning Charlie," she called out softly.
Surprised he turned his head and walked over to her. "Morning", he said, "you're an early riser."
"Yeah, I don't sleep much." She answered, avoiding his gaze.
He nodded understandingly, then he said all of a sudden, "Come in, I want to show you something."
She followed him in and they walked in silence for a few minutes until they reached a huge tent.
Out of the tent came a woman in her thirties, she had short dark blond hair and her tan and athletic figure told you that she spent a lot of time outdoors.
"Morning Charlie, oh you got a helper today." She smiled.
"Yeah, I got myself an assistant today, this is Hermione, a friend of my youngest brother," Charlie replied then turning to Hermione he added, "this is Jen, she is a zoologist and here to study the dragons."
Hermione and Jen nodded at each other and then Jen left to start with her work.
Charlie led Hermione into the tent, inside where small enclosures that looked like miniature versions of the real ones outside down to the miniature mountains and all.
Hermione looked at them in wonder still following Charlie. He stopped in front of one of the mini enclosures and Hermione saw that there was a small dragon sitting on the cliff of one of his miniature mountains.
"This is Ben, he said, he is an Antipodean Opaleye, his mother died because of a sickness that is why he is here"
Charlie carefully took out the baby dragon that just cracked open one eye to see what was going on and then snuggled closer to the hand that was holding him.
Hermione took a closer look at him and saw that he also had those beautiful pearly scales. She cooed at him when she saw him cuddling with Charlie's hand. He was so small and pretty you could almost forget what a huge and scary creature he would become soon.
"The other Opaleye we saw the other day was also protecting an egg," Hermione stated.
"You're quite observant," Charlie answered,"yes we expect the little guy to hatch any day now."
"How old is that one here?" Hermione asked.
"He is six days old now, he hatched one day before you guys arrived, his mother had died before already, we had to breed the egg," his voice sounded sad.
When she looked at him, she saw a softness in his face that she had never seen there before, and while he softly cradled the little dragon in his calloused hands, she realized that there was a soft and almost nurturing side to him that she had never encountered before, that she hadn't thought was even there, he always seemed so strong and rough like a rock and she understood that he deeply cared for and loved his dragons.
After feeding Ben, Charlie took Hermione to visit Norberta. The dragon Hagrid had taken care of while she was still in the egg and her, Harry and Ron had watched hatch.
Norberta had grown quite a bit since the last time Hermione had seen her. She greeted Charlie affectionately by breathing a stream of fire in his direction that was deflected by the charms surrounding her enclosure.
Hermione took a step back but Charlie simply laughed.
"She's one of the more docile ones around here, but stay clear from her when she is in a bad mood she's gonna roast you like a chicken."
Hermione just looked at him incredulously. One of the more docile ones? She thought. And once again she wondered why someone would take care of these beasts out of his or her free will.
Suddenly they heard Matti's amplified voice calling all dragon keepers to Henry's enclosure, since the dragon was wounded.
Charlie excused himself hastily and darted off, Hermione followed him unsure of what to do.
When she arrived at Henry's enclosure she already saw several dragon tamers waiting outside. She wondered briefly why they would need so many dragon tamers to deal with one wounded dragon, but soon she understood why.
The dragon tamers went inside the enclosure on their brooms their wands at ready. They had to get the dragon out of his cave to treat him. Once the dragon, however, realized that there were intruders in his enclosure he came out by himself.
And now Hermione understood why they needed so many dragon tamers. The dragon was huge, he was by far larger than the other dragons she had seen. He was metallic grey and his eyes shone blood red. From what she had learned about dragons so far, this one must be an Ukrainian Ironbelly, the largest dragons.
Hermione shuddered, the beast certainly was not a nice sight and enough to give anyone nightmares.
He was roaring and spitting fire and trying to rip anyone apart with his large talons who came too close.
Hermione flinched everytime she saw that one of the dragon tamers was hit. They sent stunning spell after stunning spell at the dragon and finally the beast fell to the ground with a loud howl.
Immediately some of the dragon tamers started to tend to his wound. Hermione saw now that his one wing stood off in a weird angle and seemed to bleed. The others hovered around in a circle on their brooms and send an occasional stunning hex at the dragon to keep him unconscious.
After they finished the dragon tamers quickly left the enclosure. Now Hermione saw that most of them were injured. The two medi witches were already waiting for them outside. They looked over at Hermione and asked her whether she knew some healing spells. She could just nod numbly, still chalk white and shaking from the sight she had just witnessed.
After treating the first one who had a broken ankle, she got back to her normal practical self. She looked for Charlie, when she found him she saw that his leg was bleeding profusely. His pants were torn, and the cut was quite deep, he was actually lucky that he still had a leg. Hermione at once got to work, she poured several potions on his wound and then started a healing spell so the skin would grow back together.
She admired Charlie's stoic expression for a second, he hadn't complained once during her treatment, Ron would have gone ballistic already, she figured that he must be used to this kind of procedure.
"So does this happen a lot?" Hermione asked tentatively.
"No, there are actually less serious incidents then one might expect, of course there are a lot of minor things like small burns and scratches, but nothing big like this." Charlie answered, "It's just the Ironbellies really are vicious devils."
"I guess we shouldn't tell your Mum about this incident," Hermione said thoughtfully.
Charlie just laughed, "I guess we shouldn't."
XYX
Several days later and only two days before they had to go back home Hermione was again sitting under what she now called "her tree" in the preserve for magical plants reading one of Charlie's dragon books.
She was a little sad that soon she would have to leave her little paradise again.
Suddenly a shadow fell on the side she was reading, when she looked up she looked straight into Charlie's smiling face.
"Thought I would find you here," he said. "I've heard you've come to like it here."
"Yes, it's just so peaceful", she said, "I just love all the smells and colours around me, I would love to stay here longer." Hermione stopped, she hadn't meant to say the last part.
Charlie looked at her for a moment, then he suddenly said, "Well then you should stay here."
"What, stay here? I can't just stay here, what am I supposed to do?" She suddenly started to feel shy around him again.
"They're looking for someone to work here in the preserve." Charlie replied.
"But I don't know much about plants," Hermione stuttered.
"I'm sure you had an O in your herbology Newts," he joked. "Besides, I think they only need someone to do the dirty work."
She still had an indecisive expression on her face so Charlie added, "Well just think about it. But now we should go back, the others had sent me to get you for dinner."
Hermione followed him back to where the others were, deep in thought. Staying and working here sounded tempting, it would be a spur of the moment thing, something she usually didn't do, but she really didn't feel like going back to England at the moment.
Yes she would think about it, she decided.
