Cad and Dracul seemed to have adopted each other, much as Dracul had seemed to adopt Shay. While she still toured the Reserve, helping the trainers with some of the more difficult cases and trying to persuade dragons that following the trainers' orders was the best course of action, Shay could often be found in Dracul's cavern, as she was now. Dracul permitted Shay the use of a few spectacularly embroidered cushions from his stash of treasure, which she used to soften the hard stone floor...and protect from any treasure-shards that might be scattered about. Cad was playing happily with several diamonds as large as Shay's fist, allowing them to collide together and then spin away. Dracul, whose head was resting on Shay's lap, watched him with a great deal of amusement.

You've made him different, Dracul told Shay. Not like other dragons.

Shay furrowed her brow for a moment, worried.
"What do you mean?"

He thinks like dragon, Dracul said, blinking his enormous eyes slowly, But his thoughts do not feel like dragon. His mind is...mixed.

"Is that...is that alright? I mean, he won't be in trouble because..."

No, Dracul said, and then seemed to laugh with a dry, rasping noise that could have been a cough. No, he will be fine. Is only...interesting. Dragons reason, yes, but they do not...this one looks at the future in ways no dragon does. He...he does not see it, just as you cannot, but he worries and wonders as you would.

"Dragons don't do that?"
Dracul sighed and shifted, allowing one wing to unfold slightly, tenting over Cad. The little dragon peered up at the wing, blinking, surprised at being suddenly encompassed by shadow.

Not as humans do, he said finally. We see future only as food to be eaten and treasure to be had. Humans...wonder. They see the future as glorious and terrible at once. They worry about their species, ones they've never met. They wonder if they've done the right thing for the future. Dragons do not. Dragons say tomorrow will come, no matter what, and that is the only thought.

"But Cad...?"

The young one wonders, Dracul said after a moment's pause. About a great, Dark Wizard he sees in your words. He loves humans more than any dragon I've met - you're his mother. The word in his mind for you is the same as our word for...we don't call them "mothers", but the same feeling. He would happily follow you to the end of his life. He loves what you love. Your...notmate...is second in his mind to you. He loves your notmate because you love him.

Shay laughed.
"You could just call him Charlie, you know," she said. "It might make it easier for all of us."

He sees there is great darkness coming, Dracul said. But...that is something none of us can escape.

Shay's mood instantly sobered, and she rested her forehead against Dracul's enormous head.
Just as he had once (it seemed, now, so long ago!) taken her flying over his home, he now offered her a glimpse of something terrible. Darkness swirled from every angle, screams of anguish erupting from a void. The screams came from humans, Shay could tell, but there was a rumbling, echoing groan that emerged from beneath, rolling like a steady pulse beneath the chaotic screams. It was no less anguished for being so steady, and Shay knew it to be the cries of dragons, enslaved and unhappy. An image of the Dark Mark swirled between the grey-and-black clouds and shadows, and then she was back, blinking back tears and staring at the top of Dracul's head.

"That...that's what you see coming?" She said.

That...and worse, Dracul said. Dragons...are ancient, and we know things humans cannot. We can tell the approach of such darkness as humans can tell the approach of a storm. Some...thrive...on it. Others, most of us here, dread it as you do.

"Is there nothing we can do to stop it?"

We? Cad asked. No. I...they do not listen to dragons like you do, hatchling. No. You must help. You are very small. Even by human standards. But there are people here who know your mind. Who will listen. Help us. The humans here...they are good, though scared and...misinformed...they will help. The Dark People, the people who come...will hurt. Will kill. Will make us kill. And we do not...wish war with humans again.

Shay nodded, determination settling somewhere in her chest. He was right. She knew he was right. And, if she could do anything about it, the rest of the Reserve would, too.

******

It didn't take much to convince the higher-ups of the Reserve that Shay was right - they knew of her ability with the dragons, knew the way she communicated with them and, above all...seemed to trust her. New emergency plans were put into effect, which would allow the release of dragons (with Shay's help) if the Death Eaters ever attached the reserve. New defensive spells were put up in layers surrounding the reserve and outlying area, and all of the cooperative dragons were informed of what would happen, should an attack begin. They would each fly with a squad of trainers on broomsticks, who would be armed with wands and sleeping draughts. They were not to attack the trainers in any way, or they would not be saved.
Those dragons who would not cooperate, Shay was sorry to say, would need to be left behind. They were a danger to themselves and to their trainers, if left behind. For a very long time, hours upon hours, Shay tried to convince the Horntail. But to no avail. It, along with a handful of others, would have to be left to the mercy of the Death Eaters, if the time ever came.

The process took some months, until Shay and Charlie were satisfied with the results - the Ministry-approved research projects had been put on hold until further notice. Very few on the Reserve seemed to trust the Ministry, these days, and were more than willing to feign ignorance to anything that went against them.

Shay and Charlie felt as if they were living in a constant state of motion and confusion, always working and rarely resting. Cad was growing fast and he, along with the other dragons, kept Shay busy. Charlie, following a recent promotion within the Reserve, was balancing his new responsibilities with the old projects and helping care for Cad. Both of them spent some nights away from home on Order business, keeping the other anxiously awake and awaiting the return. Shay hated those nights of stillness, sitting at the kitchen table with a sleeping Cad at her feet, pretending to sip tea and trying to read until an exhausted Charlie stumbled through the door. Often, there was blood and whispered, strained conversations full of fear and worry. Beyond their work and these midnight conversations, they saw too little of each other. The time that they did have was spent quietly, curled up together in armchairs or sleepily sprawled on the bed, talking quietly and glad to simply be close. These times were, as a rule, free of Order-talk and work. They spoke of everything and anything else, trying to keep the other's minds from the darkness around them.

The day the next Order letter came, coded and magicked for protection, was one of these days. Late morning had crept up on them, sun streaming through the thin curtains over Charlie's window. They were both awake but unwilling to move, foreheads pressed together, Charlie's hand tangled in Shay's hair. One of her hands held the arm that belonged to the hand in her hair, lightly tracing old scars and burn marks. The other was curled softly between them, its back pressed against the warm skin of Charlie's chest. The baby dragon was curled against the back of Shay's legs, his chin resting on her ankle. His breath was warm and slow and even, tickling against Shay's skin even through the light blanket that covered it.

The tap at the window made Shay jump.

"I'll get it," Charlie murmured. Shay's fingers slipped over his forearm as he disentangled himself. He kissed her forehead and stood, the muscles moving beneath his skin as he stretched and headed for the window. The owl perched on the sill tapped, insistent - it was a majestic-looking horned owl, which still seemed to shimmer in and out of sight with the effect of some kind of disguising spell. Charlie let it in and took the letter from its leg. The owl hooted and flew off immediately, leaving nothing but a cool breeze in its wake. Shay drowsily watched Charlie open it, propping herself up on her elbow when his reaction to the letter made him go still and silent.
"Charlie?"
He glanced at her, dumbstruck, his eyes telling the whole story before Shay knew anything.
Someone else was dead. They'd had far too many notices of deaths that no one else but the Order would report...and both knew that it would only get worse.
Today, Shay could see, it had already done so.
"Charlie, you're worrying me," she said. "What is it?"
Cad awoke and growled unhappily at being disturbed. He stood and padded up to sit next to Shay, flopping down with his head on her collarbone, staring at her face. She was sure that the steadiness of the little dragon's heartbeat and the warmth of him was the only thing keeping her anchored to earth until Charlie replied.

She watched him tug at his hair, something he only ever did when anxious, then watched him slowly, very slowly, sit down on the edge of the bed. She reached out a hand to touch him on the shoulder, and he pressed the paper into her hand.
"It's...it's bad," he croaked, resting his head in his hands. "Shay. Everything...everything just fell out from under us. What do we do, now?"
Shay read the information once. Then again. And again. Unwilling to believe the words that were right there in front of her.
"Dumbledore is dead..." she whispered, eyes flooding as she remembered the kind old wizard. Her heart and stomach seemed to plummet from their normal positions, almost felt as if they'd disappeared altogether.
Beside her, Cad's heartbeat went on.
Charlie turned to look at her, enclosing the hand that held the letter with one of his own. Shay thought, abstractly and out-of-place, how amazing it was that one of his hands could so enclose her own.
Cad and Charlie. Cad and Charlie were still alive, and that was all that mattered, really. Right?
She took a breath and nodded, shook her head.
"We'll just have to fight all the harder then, won't we?"
Charlie nodded.
"It's about to get very dark, very fast. Isn't it?"
Charlie nodded, eyes locked with hers. She turned her hand and interlocked their fingers, mangling the paper between them as she did so.
"We'll make it," she said, feeling a pang of guilt at a promise she had no power to give. Charlie was trying hard to hide his sadness and fear, she thought, but it was there, stronger than she'd ever seen it.
"Come on," she whispered, patting the bed beside her, "We'll go to the funeral. But we still have the rest of today."
But the rest of today was nothing like their other, peaceful days off. Though they were still and quiet, Charlie's face pressed against the side of Shay's neck, his arms holding her just a little too tightly, the stillness was nothing like peace.

Shay absently ran her fingers through Charlie's shaggy hair, trying to remember Molly Weasley asking her to make him keep it short, trying to focus on the two heartbeats that kept on and on and on. Charlie was shaking, she could feel it in his hands, in the taut muscles of his arms. And she couldn't help the feat and the guilt that set in as she wondered how they were all going to survive.
Now that Dumbledore was dead.

There was nothing left that Shay was sure of. Nothing but the fact that she was still alive. That they were still alive.
And the fear that she might now always be able to say that.