Charlie always remembered the fire at The Burrow merily cracking in the cold winter, he made he feel warm and safe. For Charlie Weasley fire was home. So when he learn of dragons, big fire-breathing creatures, Charlie felt in love.
Charlie still has, after all those years his pushy dragon, a ratty thing that he had gotten when he was five. The old toy had lost his enchanting long time ago. He had gotten as a Christmas gibe from one of his uncles, when his love for the creature had been discover. It had been second hand, like the rest of his posesions ay that age, but the green little dragon moved his wings and sometimes even fly.
Charlie fastination for dragons grew up with him, his favorite book were about dragons and he always asked his parents to charm a picture of a dragon on his clothes. His room was full of posters and drawings of dragons.
Charlie was nine he already knew that he would be a dragon tamer, to the horror of his mother who wanted a safer job for his children. By that age Charlie tried to change the family pets to small dragons, but lacking the ability and wand to made any transformations on the animals he sticked fake wings to Scabbers and put a dragon mask in old Errol. He spends lots of afternoons following the animals as if studing a dragon.
Charlie spend a lot of time in the air too, flying in the old broomstick with his brothers, playing Quiditch with an apple. While Charlie was flying he imagined a future when he was flying in the air, between mountains, dragons around him.
When Charlie was eleven he was exited, he would start Hogwarts, he would learn magic and more about dragons. He was sure that there would be books in the library about them, Bill always said that the school library had book about everything.
Charlie was a little dissapointed that his wand didn't have as a core a dragon heartstring. His wand was second hand, and came from a great-granduncle. Between all the wands that the Weasleys had gathered for generations, there wasn't even one that didn't have a unicorn hair.
September first came and with it Charlie left the nest for the first time, the train ride was long but the redhead soon made friends with some others first years. The castle was breath taking as they crossed the lake in small boats. Charlie was the last being sorted. The hat didn't even touch his head berfore screaming Gryffindor, and sson he was by his older brother having Griffindor common room had a chimney too, with fire burning in it, Charlie felt instatly at home.
The years passed by.
Charlie explored the castle and the Forbidden Forest, looking for a dragon, he had a great friendship with Hagrid, bonding over the love of dragons. In his second year he joined the Griffidor Quiditch team as a seeker, leading the team for the victory until he left.
He took Care of magical creatures as an optative in third year, as it was the subject were he was hopping to learn more about dragons. He had perused the library, but the books about dragons weren't enought to satisfy him.
He was a great student and was made a perfect by his fifth year and Quiditch captain the next.
Charlie Weasley finished his Hogwarts journey one sunny day in June 1990. His destination the Dragon Reserve in Romania.
The first day at the Reserve was a dream come true for Charlie. The dragons flying in the sky, the handlers taking care of the dragons, there were people charming discharged dragon scales and teeth. There was so much to learn.
When Christmast came, Charlie's family visit the reserve. His father was proud of him, his little sister enjoid greatly the baby dragons, his mother on the other hand had spend more time in the holidays trying to convice him to go back to Britain and work at the ministry. All in all Charlie was happy to see them go, he had miss his family but his mother could be to much sometimes.
There were a couple of calm month, until his younger brother's letter arrived. Somehow Hagrid had go his hand in a dragon egg, that had hatched and growing up too fast. The dragon needed to get out of Hogwarts quick, at Ron thought that he could help. As such he contact some of his friends that were in England visit some family, and they would bring the dragon to the Reserve.
His second year at the reserve was without incident. His knowledge of dragons increasing everyday. Norberta had adapt to her new home. And with all his younger brothers at Hogwarts his parents decided to stay at the Burrow that Christmas.
But something had happened at Hogwarts that year, his little sister had somehow got posessed and had almost die. And for the first time dragons were left behind, as Charlie decided to spend the summer with his family. Egypt was a hot place, with lots of sun and sand everywhere, his brother Bill worked there for Gryngotts and the family had went to visit. Everything consider Charlie had a nice holiday, he felt like he had done his best as a big brother and his siblings looked much better when he went back to Romania.
During his third year at the Reserve Charlie was on edge, he had ascend from handler on training to junior handler, but the news back from Britain were worriedsome. A known murder, who had escape from Azkaban, was on the path to Hogwarts where his siblins were. Luckily Black hadn't cause any trouble and didn't appeared at the castle, the Prophet had debated that the man was probably run away from the country when he discovered the security at Hogwarts.
The next summer Charlie took some days off to enjoy the Quiditch cup and spend some time with his family. It all started great, homemade cooking cooking, playing Quiditch with his sibblings and meeting Ron's friends. The final match was a great game and the irish won the Cup, to the cheering of their supporters. But happiness didn't last, in the middle of the night, as the partly was dying down, some Death Eaters made their presence know, destroying tents and attacking people. It was pure luck that the next day all were back at The Burrow beeing hugging by Molly.
Charlie went back to Romania, with promises to take care of himself and secretly telling his parents that he would visit again soon. The Triwizard Tournament had been revived, and Charlie would be back to England in a couple of month as part of the first task. But it wasn't easy parting away, with Back free and the Death Eaters attack at the Quiditch Cup, the signs were pointing to a war in the future.
The travel from Romania to Scotland with four nestling dragons needed great plaining and a lot of people, and Charlie was part of the team. The landing in the middle of the forest late at night to avoid beeing discovered was tricky but a susceed. He just hopped that his brothers didn't think to join the tournament. Charlie was relived when he recived a letter from Fred and George saying that they hadn't been able to enter their names in the goblet, as they had told him were planning when he saw him at Hogsmade the previous day. But when he read who had beeing entered he knew that he had to do something, specialy as the twins were asking how to teld Harry without the younger boy thinking it was a joke. Charlie was bussy, and not knowing the boy much, he decided to write a letter to Ron, as he knew from last summer that they were close friends a would tell Harry. That done, he went back to looking after the dragons, it was close to dinner time for them.
When Hagrid came to visit with the Beauxbatton headmittres, and having seen the Durstram headmaster arround a couple ot times, Charlie hopped that all Champions will know the task and could prepare, and luckily noone would be badly hurt. But at the end of the task Charlie was sure that even if they knew that they were against dragons, noone had been much prepared. They dragons and handlers left Hogwarts grounds a coupke of days later, after the dragons had calmed from the task, it was dangerous to travel with dragons and even more if they were angry mother dragons. As they flew to Romania, Hogwarts getting smaller at their backs, Charlie vow to never being part of anything like this again.
The end of the Triwizard Tournament came with the death of Cedric Diggory and the return of You-know-Who. Dumbledore had contacted his parents to join a group of people against the dark wizard. Charlie even if not in England had join the group too, his mision to recruit people in Romania and prepare in casw thwere is a fight.
With the war there, Charlie finally was ascended to dragon handler. Now his days were packed with trining first years handlers in training everything posible about dragons and flying around the reserve supervising dragons. In the little free time he crafted amunets with discharged teeth and scales, for protection in the upcoming battle, and recruited people.
With the increasing tension in England Charlie focused in his job at the reserve and his position in the order and didn't visit his family in two years. In that time Charlie was now a respeted Senior dragon handler, loved by much of the reserve. He had gathered a dozen of witches and wizards that were ready in case there was a battle agains Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
The Romanian Reserve was a safe place from Death Eaters, after some Death Eaters that had appeared there and turned into dragon meals and a note sent to their families nooen had dare to enter. The same could not be said about the one in England who had seen increased the Death Eaters attacks, a coordinated operation had been created to move as much dragons and handlers until the end of the war. Those dragons that couldn't or wouldn't travel and remained in England were taking care of handlers from both reserves that volunteer, Charlie included.
Bill's wedding was a beautiful thing, family flew from all the country to enjoy the event. But what started into what should be one of the best moments of someone's live turned into a batte, where everyone was trying to survive. Death Eaters appearing after the wasn't in anyone's plan, fighting in a wedding for your life and your family wasn't what Charlie, or anybody else, thought that it could happend. But it did, the ministry felt under Voldemort control and Death Eaters raids occurred throught the country in the houses of those aligned with the Order of the Phoenix. And with what was a day of celebration started the begining of the regimen of the dark forces.
Luckily the defences at the dragon reserve were impenetrable, even by Death Eaters, so Charlie discretly invited people to live there, those persecuted like muggleborns and their families and blood traidors. The reserved was full of refuges and more came everyday, while the country turned darker and more dangerous. Charlie knew that his brother Ron and his friends had been encomended a mission to destroy Voldemort, by Dumbledore no less. And while he was hopefull that the three would suceed in the end, couldn't stop to worry about them.
Everything ended that fatidic day of May, the battle, which had lasted all night and through the early hour of the next morning finished with the defeact of the most feared wizard in the last fifty years. But not everything was happy, there were lost of loses and even more wounded, families broken and friends lose. His brother Fred lying unmoving under his mother, his twin George staring at the distance as in a trace, mourning the lost his other half.
But time pases and things calmed, there will always be a empty chair at the Burrow, but the family started to be happy again, with a new generation of Weasleys runing arround. The kid grew up, went to school and had children themselves. They had their own lifes but everyone took time to go to family meetings.
Charlie never married of had kids, being in love with his dragons, but he loved all his nieces and nephews.
It was a show to everyone when Ginny and Harry's son Albus had started to talk to snakes when he was a kid, but he had been encoraged to use his gift and follow his dreams. He ended being a potion master in the England dragon reserve, having found that dragons speak parseltongue in one of his visits. The young man developed a great amount of potions and was a great conversationalist with the dragons, advancing the knowledge in the noble creature at great speed.
Charlie got older and started to spend more time teaching the younger handlers. With time he started to spend less time following the dragons in the air and spending time with Al taking with the old dragons.
Charlie know when it was time to go, he was and old man, the oldest by far in the reserve, and felt that he would go to the next adventure soon. That night while most of the handlers sleep he got out of his home and sneak into the nest of an old dying dragon that wasn't spected to live through the night. He laid down next to it, his lavored breath lulling him to sleep, he closed his eyes, his breath mixing with the one of the dragon, and soon man and dragon as one took one last breath.
Notes
The career of Dragon Handlers. Handlers are divided in four groups depending of experience.
From 0 to 2 years. Handlers in training. The base of a good dragon handler is his/her knowledge of dragons. The first two yearsnon the reserve wizards learn everything posible about the dragons that live there and the reserve, including other creatures that reside there. Under teacher supervision the take care of the more calm dragons, learn to harvest the death dragons and how to enchant teeth and scales for diferent uses (protection against fire, low level curses...)
From 2 to 4 years. Junior handlers. The practical part of the jobs is learn. The junior handlers work in groups to care the more calm dragons without supervision of a superior. With a superior work with the rest of the dragons, except with the most dangerous. Do everyday task like feeding and taking care the dragons that can do it for themselves, like sick or injured ones. The earn a Mastery of care of creatures with the speciality in dragons.
From 4 to 7 years. Dragon handlers. They take care of the dragons without supervision from a superior. They are assigned dragons to take supervise on their own. In groups or with superiors in especial cases, like the more difficult to control dragons or types that are not common in the reserve. They are in charge of teaching and supervising first year handlers in training.
After 7 years working on the reserve. Senior dragon handlers. These wizards had great knowledge in dragons as such they are in charge not only of their dragons but in teaching the handlers in trining and junior handlers how to take care of dragons, how to harvest them and enchant their parts.