Shay flopped onto her bed, beating her fists into her pillow.

Damn him, it had worked! The dragon was listening to her even more closely than Altair ever had! And Charlie Weasley had put a stop to her progress, to any progress she could have made following that.

Oh, she could just kill him.

Shay had been staring at the ceiling, going over the early stages of her "conversation" with the dragon for an indeterminate amount of time. Maybe it had been hours, or perhaps it was only minutes. But before she knew it, there was someone knocking (or, rather, pounding) at her door.

"Shay?"

"Charlie Weasley, I have absolutely no desire to speak to you," Shay called back.

"I have a key, you know."

"Why the hell…"

"I am related to the infamous twins, you know."

"I still don't want to talk to you."

"Would you stop being childish and let me in so that I can apologize?"

"Apologize?" Shay had to admit, she was intrigued. "Are you Imperiused?"

"No. Crazy."

"You aren't doing yourself any favors."

"Sorry. Let me in?"

"Fine. But only because you'd come in, anyway."

Shay scrambled to a sitting position, and flicked her wand to open the door. "Alright, Mr. Moodswing. What brought about this apology?"

"Claire."

"I should have known."

"I'm not sorry, really. But I do think it would be better to actually – er – discuss The Incident there, rather than leaving it at a screaming match."

"Ah, here's the Charlie Weasley I vaguely remember."

He turned his head to the side, looking, for a moment, like a puppy. "What?"

"It's just…" Shay flushed slightly. "I just remembered you being different at Hogwarts than you have been, here."

Charlie had the decency to look rather sheepish.

"I know," he replied. "And for that I do apologize. Let's just say I'm not exactly fond of having a winged horse breeder telling me what to do."

"Apology accepted. Now. The Incident?"

"Yes," Charlie coughed. "Well. I'm not sorry for stopping you. I am sorry for not having the manners to listen to you. But, erm…what in the name of Merlin were you doing, anyway?"

Shay laughed. "What did it look like I was doing?"

"Talking to yourself like a lunatic, quite frankly. You do know that the things don't understand English, right?"

"They understand intentions, though," Shay said, already feeling weary. She knew that what she had been doing would seem strange to Charlie, almost impossible. But if she wanted to continue here (and, surprisingly, she did – her curiosity was getting the better of her) she would need to explain this to him. "Our creatures are different from Muggle animals, obviously," she began. "Dragons, unicorns, winged horses, hippogriffs, are more connected to us than muggle animals are to Muggles, because of the magic."

Shay sighed, shifting to cross her legs, grasping her ankles in a habit from childhood.

"We all have a measure of magic. We just use it in different ways. We cast spells, dragons breathe fire, for example. But it's still there, and it's still magic. And because we all have magic in one form or another, we can communicate."

Charlie was squinting at her, eyebrows furrowed.

"So what you're saying is that you can actually communicate with dragons, horses, whatever, because you and the animals are both magic?"

"Kind of. That's not the extent of it. The communication is a brand of magic itself. Even though we share magic, there is an enormous difference in the way our brains function. The magic works to kind of jump that gap. I can't tell what they're thinking, but I know their general perceptions. That dragon, for example? The strongest emotion he felt was anxiety because he didn't know what in the world I was doing, at first. He was waiting for me to cast a spell on him, to force a potion on him, to sedate him. When I didn't, he got worried. And when he started…rattling? He was curious. Just curious. There was no defensiveness, no malice. He was just wondering."

"They make that sound when they're building up their poison reserves," Charlie said.

"Only then? Or have you just not been paying attention to them?"

Charlie's ears turned red.

"I've been around these things far longer than you have," he said. "No matter how many books you've read on them, you're not going to replace years of experience."

"Charlie," Shay said, exasperated, "it's not about experience or knowledge, it's about…I guess "instinct" is the best word. And…and I can't explain it."

She watched him for a moment, watching as the color faded from his ears. The slight anger he had been feeling must have dissipated. Funny that he let his emotions make him such an open book.
Then again, he was a Gryffindor.

"But I can show you," she said quietly. "If you'd like."

"Show me? How…"

"It's easy enough. Technically, you already know how to use it. We've just separated ourselves so much from the creatures that it's hard to remember. Like I said, it's ancient magic. We've never lived in total peace with magical creatures, but there used to be some semblance of understanding."

"But you can show me how it's done?"

Shay nodded, turning her head to glance out the window.

"It won't stay, after that," she said. "It takes practice. Lots of it. Years and years of knowledge in order to perfect. I still don't have a perfect grasp of it. But I can make you understand."

"Well." Charlie said, standing "If you're going to stick around, I'd better figure y – this out, sooner rather than later. Where do we start?"

"You take me back to the Welsh Green, with no teams of handlers, and no sudden movements or magic," Shay said. "And we work on my terms."

For a minute, they could have been having a staring contest. Neither moved. Neither blinked.

"Deal," Charlie said, finally. "But only if you relinquish any ideas of command after this…er…experiment. And if I perceive anything…off…about the circumstances, I reserve the right to remove us from the dragon's presence. Deal?"

"Deal. When do we start?"

"Right now, if you'd like."

"Well then, let's get a move on."