DISCLAIMER : The characters and some events described in this story are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute.

5: On probation

(July 1991)

Even though he had played it cool in front of Bill and his parents, now that he let go of the portkey and sailed towards the ground, his stomach fluttered quite uncomfortably. It was an evening in the fourth week of July, and he had received his N.E.W.T. results just in time – this morning, in fact – for his job interview. He landed in a meadow, not far from several small houses that formed something like a settlement in a valley of what he guessed to be the Carpathian Mountains. Shouldering his bag and holding his broom in one hand (a new one would be the first thing he bought if he got the job), he trod towards two men who leaned lazily against a fence and enjoyed their evening pipe. 'Evenin',' he greeted them. 'Can you tell me where I find Régis' office?'

The guys stared at him listlessly.

A couple of other people came down the narrow path that stringed the houses loosely together. Amongst them was a young bloke that carried the same equipment that he had with him. Another candidate? –Most likely.

He had heard of the dragon reservation from a friend of his and had sent a motivation letter together with his O.W.L. results to the address he had been given without knowing if they were even looking for knew people. It had mostly been an escape-attempt, trying to flee the plans his mother was making for him. They included a nice, comfortable office job at the Ministry and quite possibly a wife and children in the not too far future, not to forget a new hair cut. No, he really was not made for that. He would rather have his butt grilled by dragon breath than place it on a nice, comfy cushion eight hours the day, five days the week, forty-nine weeks the year for the next decades to come.

The men had drawn level with him, and one of them halted right in front of the young man. 'Charlie Weasley, I take it?'

'Yup. Nice to meet you, sir.' He held out his hand, which the other man took while giving him the once-over. The guy had a firm grip that he matched. Charly was glad he had managed to convince his mother to buy him some fire-resistant clothes as a reward for his N.E.W.T. results. Everyone but the other young bloke wore them.

'Scratch that sir and mount your broom,' answered the bearded man that wore his shoulder-length hair in a tight ponytail. 'I'm Reg; the guy in the green robes is the second applicant. Do yourselves a favour and don't even start contesting each other. We're looking for good men, and if we get two at once we won't complain. To see what you've got, you're gonna take turns replacing me during this night's first shift while I'm keeping a close eye on you. Questions?'

Wow. That guy did not waste time. Charlie shook his head in answer and got onto his broom. They flew over a mountain toward a plateau. Charlie could feel the tingling of strong magic. A strong hand landed on his shoulder and he looked beside him to see the no-nonsense guy keep level with him. Gazing behind him, he saw someone else do the same with the second candidate, and then he felt magic sweep over him. Realisation hit him – they had just flown into heavily warded dragon area, and only by being physically connected to authorised personnel had they been allowed to pass through. Anticipation rose.

They landed between trees. 'Okay, Weasley, you go first. Of course, we don't expect you to be a pro. We just want to see how good your instincts are, and how quickly you're adapting. Keep close to Gerd here,' – he patted a tall man with a round but serious face, broad shoulders, and a nice beer belly on the back -, 'and listen to every word he says. You get me?'

Charlie nodded, locking eyes both with Reg as well as with his instructor for the night.

'Well then,' Reg said while he red the time on a pocket watch that seemed a little quaint on a man like him, 'let's not keep the others waiting.'

While they went on by foot, Gerd walked beside Charlie and filled him in. 'We go to a girl, now,' he said in heavily accented (German, if Charlie was not mistaken) and somewhat awkwardly worded English. 'She has been in a fight before five years, and cannot fly. But we want babies. With a little help, she got pregnant. Now she has problem.'

'Merlin's beard!' Charlie whispered a few minutes later when they stepped out onto a clearing and he took in the sight of the huge beast in front of him. 'A Romanian Longhorn!' Indeed, held in check by dozens of magical ropes that needed constant inspection, was an enormous dragon whose scales shimmered dark green in the gentle light of a number of fairies that silently fluttered around it. On its snout, it carried a glittering golden horn. However, the upper half had been broken off.

'Did you take the horn off for security reasons?' Charlie whispered to Gerd.

He shook his murky blond mane. 'Was in the fight. Found it later. I'm sure it cost much money.'

'And the fairies? Why d'you use them? Wouldn't torches or lumos do?'

'Lumos is no good. We need our magic for other things. Torches are fine, but dragons that carry eggs are… they don't like other dragons near. And fire…'

'-Reminds them of their kin,' Charlie supplied.

Gerd nodded in satisfaction that he had understood.

They were greeted by the men of the day shift. They exchanged a few swift words with Reg, of which Charlie understood not a single one, and then Gerd gave him a shove toward the dragon. 'We help Gregor.'

Gregor turned out to be a mediwizard, or at least someone who had knowledge about dragon medicine. Two wizards constantly circled the dragon to make sure the restraints held, and two others were busy diverting the expectant mother's attention while Gregor was busy feeling her abdomen. 'Ah, too much eggs,' was his analysis. 'See,' he prompted Charlie to touch the place himself. It bulged in what he supposed was an unnatural manner. The poor lady certainly was in pain.

'And what do we do, now?' Charlie asked.

Gregor furrowed his brows. He left his kneeling position and walked over to Reg. They had a quick discussion; then he hurried back to the dragon. 'We take out one egg.'

'Isn't that dangerous for her – and us?' enquired Charlie doubtfully.

'No choice.'

'How do we go about this? You can't anaesthetise a dragon, can you?'

Gregor shook his head. 'Course not. Not the whole beast.'

'…but a part of it?' reasoned Charlie.

'The belly, yes. No scales there,' Gregor indicated. Right. Only the dragon scales held off the magic and made dragons such dangerous opponents.

All three of them fired a variety of spells at the expecting mother's abdomen, while she was fed with morsels of raw meat. From his care of Magical Creatures classes, the second Weasley son knew that dragons had very sharp senses, and therefore every attempt of feeding them something that was imbued with potions (or poisons) was bound to fail. Gregor carefully cut an opening with a sharp knife (he could work with it more precisely than with a slicing charm); then he asked Charlie to cast a strong cleansing charm on his hands and hold the abdomen open for him. With hardly a flinch, Charlie fulfilled the rather bloody task. Greg gently pulled out a big egg with dark green sprinkles beneath the red film that covered it. He enveloped it and handed it to Charlie. 'Good job. Put a warming charm on this and get it to Reg.'

When he came to Reg, the egg cradled in his arms, he was granted a curt nod. Then the man turned to the other candidate. 'You go and take Bo's place,' he indicated the men that fed the dragon. 'And keep calm.' At the sight of the guy's pale face, that seemed a justified demand.

As if Reg had sensed that the other candidate meant trouble, everything went awry. Gregor was barely half finished with magically closing the cut when the dragon suddenly roared up. Not a heartbeat later, Reg started toward the beast and called back to Charlie, 'put that egg safely down and come!' He jumped onto his broom.

After taking the egg into the woods and depositing it safely there wrapped into his outer robes, Charlie stared up in awe at Reg while he ran toward the scene. The man looked like a fly circling around the beast's nose, like a bothersome insect that the dragon could easily swipe away with one swish of its claws. However, the dragon did not. Whatever Reg did seemed to calm it down.

'Get the boy away!' someone shouted, and Charlie concentrated his attention on the ground, where the other candidate stood rooted to the spot. On second sight, while he already had seized the guy by the arm and started to drag him away, Charlie noted that he had literally wetted himself. Having pulled him a relatively safe distance away, Charlie ran back to see what else he could do, but there was nothing. Gerd and Gregor were busy securing the wound, but everyone else just watched their boss. Gradually, the dragon sank lower and lower until it put its front claws back down on the air and folded in its wings (or what was left of them). After ten minutes, it bedded its head, that was about the size of the Weasley's living room, on a soft patch of grass, and the wizards adjusted their magical ropes. Still Reg kept on singing a chant Charlie had never heard before. It put an unnatural calm upon all of them. It was strange – should Charlie not have heard of this technique before? He had always learned that a single wizard could never be able to subdue a dragon. Or if indeed this was the extraordinary piece of magic that he thought it was, should he not have heard of the wizard who had the power to wield it, then? Wizarding society always went on about this or that great conjurer, loving its adventure stories. Just think of that Lockhard-bloke that had popped up lately and told one unbelievable story after the other, growing more famous with each one. None of them had included keeping a dragon in check single-handedly…

Eventually, the chant stopped. 'Get that fool off our land,' Reg commanded, pointing to the second candidate. He flew over to Charlie and levelled his broom next to him. 'Do you feel up to finishing the shift?'

'Sure,' Charlie answered in surprise.

Reg nodded. 'I need to take care of the egg, now,' he explained gruffly, apparently annoyed by the incident. 'If you finish up alright, let Gerd show you to my office. We'll discuss the details then, should you still be interested.'

'Of course I am!' exclaimed the redhead immediately with obvious enthusiasm.

The look he received in return made him freeze. It felt as if Reg regarded Charlie's elation as a personal insult. Yet before he could react in any way, the other man took off toward the egg, lifted it up, and flew up over the mountain back to the houses.

Charlie and Gregor remained with the dragon lady for another hour to make sure she was alright while Gerd and the four others flew on to another fosterling. 'What exactly did Reg do there?' the applicant asked with subdued voice as they sat staring at the slowly rising and falling belly of the Romanian Longhorn.

Gregor shrugged. 'No idea. There are strange rumours whispered about his father. Perhaps he has taken a leaf out of the same book.' At Charlie's bemused look he added, 'Dark magic.' After a pause, Gregor remarked, 'But he doesn't seem to like it. Only uses when there is no other way and has a horrible mood.'

Charlie chuckled uneasily. 'Yeah, I noticed that.'

'Don't let him fool you. He always plays tough with the greenhorns, but once you prove yourself, he is really fair, reliable guy. Stands in for his men.'

About four hours later, Charlie stood in front of Reg's door. He inhaled deeply, putting his thoughts back in order one last time before going inside. This was a dream coming true. The only thing that left a slightly bitter aftertaste was the mention of dark magic. He knew what his parents would say to that. But Gregor had made it sound as if it was anything but a regular, normal thing here. More like a last resort. Who knew what would have happened if Reg had not stepped in today? Most likely, some of the wizards would have been severely injured (or worse), and the Romanian Longhorn would have lost its eggs and would have been left with a gapping wound. He knocked.

Reg opened and with a nod of his head prompted the eighteen years old to come in. 'Tea, coffee, firewhiskey?' he offered with a smirk.

'Tea with a shot sounds good,' Charlie replied with feinted calm.

He was motioned to an assortment of cosy looking, dark green armchairs (resembling the Romanian Longhorn but made of velvet) while Reg moved over to a corner in which a hearth and a cupboard stood and prepared the drinks. Looking around, Charlie found the room quite nice. Was the kitchen corner to his right, there stood an old-fashioned, big desk to his left, and behind that some stuffed bookshelves. On the wall opposite him, right next to the door hung a huge notice board, and next to that in the far right corner led a spiralling staircase to the upper storey. In the right wall squeezed in between the stairs and the kitchen cupboard led a door off to further rooms – probably private ones, he guessed.

Reg set two big mugs of tea on the table in front of them and poured them each a healthy amount of firewhiskey. He leaned back, mug in hand, one booted foot resting lazily on the other leg's knee. 'So, Mr. Weasley. You plan on leaving comfy Britain to join us in our humble settlement. Why would that be?' He cocked an eyebrow.

Sensing that, in contrast to what he had thought, he did not yet have the contract bagged, Charlie smiled. 'Seems quite obvious – I want to work with dragons.'

'You could do that closer to home,' Reg pointed out. 'There's a nice little reservation in Wales, or so I'm told.' Reg's voice was playful but there was still an edge to it. This clearly was a test. 'Wouldn't it be more convenient to stay at home and floo off to work from there each morning?'

The redhead shrugged. 'As you say, it's a small reservation. I don't want to do things half-heartedly.'

Reg blew over his tea. 'Home getting a bit too stuffed with six siblings, does it?' he goaded Charlie.

Well, that guy was well informed, and he clearly was angling for something, he thought, only he did not yet see what it was.

'I think at eighteen most people want to start a life of their own, no matter the size of their family,' he retorted therefore without taking the bait.

Reg sipped his tea and gazed out of a small window between two bookshelves. 'So, why dragons? Why not curse-breaking or wand-lore or owl breeding?'

'Well, as for why working with magical creatures, it's what I'm best at. Because it interests me the most.' Charlie fished the roll of parchment out of his bag that held his N.E.W.T. results and handed them to the other man.

Reg gave them a cursory glance, with a short rise and fall of his brow that Charlie was unsure how to interpret, and put the parchment aside.

Keep talking! the young man prompted himself. 'I like working outside, combining knowledge with experience and a good instinct. I don't want to be shuffling papers around, and I prefer dealing with living and breathing beings to inanimate objects. They have a character of their own, which is an additional challenge.

'Now, dragons are just one of the most interesting species. They are full of powerful magic, but little is known about them. A friend told me you research them.' Charlie thought he should have mentioned his interest in that earlier already, but at least he had thought of it at all.

Reg nodded minutely and took another sip. 'Let's say we accept you. Where do you see yourself in a few years' time? What are your goals?'

That question! Bill had warned him about it, but he still did not really know what to answer. How was he supposed to know what life would bring? 'I'm open for many things. I like hard work, a bit of adventure. From what I've heard and seen of your work, this is the perfect place for me. So I guess I see myself still here. Not as a simple worker, more as a researcher or in some other position with responsibility,' he answered honestly.

'What if things aren't as easy as that? Where are you standing politically? You're a pureblood, after all. Granted, the Weasley-name is not standing in very high regard at present, but I'm sure you could cleanse it if you chose the right side…'

Charlie's eyes narrowed and his face darkened. Who was that guy that he knew all these things and dared to make such insinuations? He took a few seconds to stomach that comment; then he rose from his seat. 'I think I've made a mistake coming here.'

Reg calmly looked up at him while he smirked into his tea.

'Could I please have my N.E.W.T.s certificate back?' demanded Charlie, holding out his hand. The scroll still rested on Reg's knees.

'Sit back down,' the older man commanded quietly, but with a firm voice.

'Sorry, but I don't associate with dark wizards,' Charlie said determinedly.

'Neither do I,' purred Reg, 'which is precisely why I was bound to bring that topic up.' Then with more emphasis: 'Sit. Down.'

After a moment's hesitation, the redhead did.

'Now that we've dealt with that issue-,' Reg rose, throwing the scroll on Charlie's lap and walking over to his desk for another one. He handed it to Charlie as well. 'This is the contract. Take it home, read it carefully, show it to your parents, and sign it. Guys with no wife or girlfriend get a room in one of the houses, sharing with two others. Many of them don't speak English very well. I have been weary so far of hiring Brits, and I'll definitely have your head should I find but the merest trace of Dark Magic on you at any point in the future, mark my words.'

'Aren't you a bit biased? I mean, just because You-Know-Who was an Englishman doesn't mean every one of us is dark,' Charlie felt the need to defend himself.

Another smirk. 'Of course it doesn't, or else you wouldn't be here. Neither is every supporter of pureblood rights on the Dark Lord's side, or every act of Dark Magic in itself evil. Yet it carries potential, and I think you have gotten the message.'

Charlie inclined his head.

'What I wanted to say before we made a detour into that dark alley is that you'll be assigned to Gerd for the next six months, unless you have major problems with him, which would surprise me. He's a good, easy-going type of person and he'll introduce you to the basics. By the end of that time, I hope you'll have picked up enough of the other guys' languages to at least be able to understand enough to work with them.'

'Any language in particular?' Charlie tried to coax out a little more information. He was not a multi-linguist.

Reg shook his head. 'There're all kinds of nationalities represented here. Over time, we've formed a somewhat awkward working vocabulary – a mix of languages. It'll come to you, don't worry. Any further urgent questions?'

Charlie could think of none for the moment, although he was sure he was going to have many once he had sorted out his thoughts. He shook hands with Reg and, elatedly, portkeyed back to The Burrow.

Any mistakes in Gerd's and Gregor's speech are intentional.

Resolution for the new year: post a review every three chapters. ;P