Chapter Text
The morning dew had long evaporated when Charlie Weasley woke up. Calls from hungry dragons sounded from somewhere nearby, which did not help his hangover induced headache at all.
"Urghhh" he grunted as he slung a freckled arm across his closed eyelids. Yup, he had a 'hangache' as Soo-young, the 21 year old boomer, called them. She was one of the other dragon keepers in his team.
They worked shifts at the reserve, and his team had been off duty yesterday, and would only return for the evening shift today. Which meant, naturally, they had gotten drunk on firewhiskey and a not advisable amount of 'Unicorn' shots. The traditional romanian wixen drink. It was called that because it was said to turn you into one if you had enough of it. It was made from dubios herbs and tasted horrible, in Charlies opinion. But after Jack had introduced them to his 'special' rum, which burned like dragonfire and was probably made from the worlds spiciest chillis, they preferred the 'Unicorn'.
Charlie hadn't turned into a Unicorn, but his head felt like one had run over it. Nevertheless, he maneuvered himself into a sitting position, and then out of his enchanted tent. The pavillion covering the outdoor cocking area, as well as an assortment of different kinds of chairs and tables, was mostly deserted. Only Jack was sitting at a table, a bowl of stew in front of him. The golden beads in his dreadlocks reflected the midday sun right into Charlies eyes, which made him shield them.
"Mornin'! Sleep well mate?" Jack asked him way too cheerfully. A grin split his face and exposed the gold tooth that replaced his left canine. Jacks white teeth stood in beautiful contrast to his dark skin. If Charlie wasn't so hungover, he would also be appreciating the other mans dimples more.
"You bloody well know my heads killing me. Made your hangover stew yet?" Charlie inquired as he slumbed down in the rocking chair across from his slightly older teammate.
"Ye know me well. I'll fix you a bowl and you can read that letter that came for ya earlier." Jack pointed to a folded piece of parchment that had a worn thread around it. Charlie immediately recognised that it must be from one of his brothers at Hogwarts. To save money on envelopes, they usually sent letters as just the parchment. The owls magic would keep them dry anyway, so it wasn't necessary when they wrote to family.
Stone tiles covered the grass underneath the pavillion, and in the middle of the various pieces of mismatched furniture stood a cauldron over a fireplace. Jack got up and waved his wand at it, heating the stew within. After another wand-flick a clay bowl flew from one of the cabinets surrounding one side of the area. Then his teammate got to work fixing his breakfast. Or lunch, whatever.
Meanwhile, Charlie was reading the letter:
Hey Charlie!
Hogwarts is great!!!
I also made a few friends and the twins are causing trouble as usual. Gin was crying when we left but she'll be here with us soon enough.
Listen, we have a little problem here. One of my friends hatched a dragon egg this week, he's not a student but is definitely still not allowed to have one here. He lives in a wooden hut!
Me and my friends don't want him to be caught but we want the dragon, and him, to be save. My friend Hermione she's really smart but sometimes annoying about it. But don't mention I said that! says it's illegal to hatch a dragon or own one, so we were hoping you could take him to your reserve somehow?
Yours, Ron (a.k.a your favorit brother)
P.s DON'T EVER TELL MUM ABOUT THIS PLEASE
---
Charlie had a strong suspicion this 'friend' of theirs was Hagrid. Who else could it be?
After reading, Charlie put the letter down and slowly dropped his head onto the table. Jack, who was just about to place a bowl of stew in front of him hastily retreated his hand.
"Dude, whats up with all that?" The other man asked. The redhead just groaned in reply and felt around blindly until he could hand the letter over. He refused to lift his head from the table. The hangover was still there, it was bright even in the pavillions shadow, and he didn't want to face whatever madness his little brother was dragging him into yet. Jack whistled loudly, presumably after he had also finished reading.
"So, your wee brother wants us to smuggle an illegally hatched dragon, over international borders, illegally. Which is illegal" Jack spoke with emphasis, and then chuckled.
"I knew ye always said your family was a bit mad, but by Merlins beard lad, isn't Ron only eleven? If thats his madness then what are those troublemaker twins up to, I wonder?" He laughed aloud this time.
Sighing deeply, Charlie bravely lifted his head from the table.
"I don't even wanna know, mate. Think we can help him?" Charlie asked as he finally got his hands on the bowl of stew he craved and started eating.
"If the others agree, I bet we could work something out. Soo-yong would have a heartattack during the whole thing but she'd still do it. And we both know Indrani's gonna love every second of illegal shit we'd be doing." As Jack thought aloud, he was playing around with the many rings on his fingers. The man knew their team-members best, since he was the 'Captain' of their team. Of the five teams at the dragon reserve, theirs was the youngest overall. They had only become their own team when Charlie joined two years ago. Before that, the three others had worked under an older keeper who had since retired.
"What about the other Captains, they're gonna ask where we got a new baby dragon from." Charlie furrowed his brows in worry at the thought.
"They know that sometimes ye gotta disregard a few laws in order to make a difference for endangered species. If everyone waited for a cursed court order everytime they wanted to save a creature in danger, a lot more species would 'ave kicked the bucked." Jack grumbled darkly.
"So we won't get into trouble if we manage to bring the dragonling here?" Charlie's red brows were raised in surprise.
"We better not give 'em any details but they know not to ask questions they don't wanna hear an answer to. This lifestyle isn't luxurious so it's obvious everyone here truly cares for 'em firebreathers. If we bring a dragonling here, they'll know it has no place in the wild to go back to." His team-captain explained.
At that time, their other teammates emerged from their tent. The taller one, Indrani, had Soo-young's arm slung across her shoulders, supporting her. Indrani's shiny black hair was cut short at the sides, but fluffed out in curls at the front and back. Her dark brown skin was in contrast to the white, scaly leather jacked she wore. Soo-young had lightly tanned skin and long, sleek black hair. At least, it was sleek usually. Now it was still tangled and hid her face.
"Need some stew to cure this one's hangover." Indrani called over, unnecessarily loudly. Charlie and Soo-young groaned in protest at the noise simultaneously.
"Why am I in love with you again?" Soo-young asked rethorically as she wiggled out of her girlfriends grip and went over to an unoccupied chair. She almost fell off sat down gracefully next to Charlie. Leaning back Soo-young blew air against the hair covering her eyes in frustration. Indrani patiently moved it out of her face before dropping into the armchair next to Jack. The short-haired woman sprawled a leg across it's armrest and summond two more of the bowls of stew Jack had filled previously.
The hungover duo of their team ate in silence as Jack and Indrani happily recounted the prior evenings shenanigans. Charlie stopped chewing abruptly when they reminded him of how he had burned off half his eyebrow. It hap happened during an attempt to immitate a dragons breath with conjured fire, as Indrani cheerfully reminded him. As he lifted a hand to his brow, the memories came back to Charlies mind. His finger touched the slightly blistered skin where hair should be and Charlie had a feeling his face was matching the color of his hair.
"Bloody 'unicorn' shots." He grumbled as the others laughed good naturedly. It wasn't often that they got a day and a morning off consecutively. So they may have gone a bit overboard with drinks yesterday. They couldn't drink often, so lowered tolerance probably had been another factor. A dragon didn't care if you were drunk or not, they demanded full attention at all times.
As they finished eating, Jack looked to Charlie for permission before handing Ron's letter to Indrani. The redhead appreciated the gesture. Jack always made sure to respect everyones boundaries; which Charlie was mostly thankful for. If he sometimes wished there were less boundaries between him and Jack, that was nobody's buissness.
After reading the letter silently, Indrani smirked and enthusiastically recounted it's contents for Soo-young.
"I have too much of a hangache for this nonesense." Soo-young complained with a whine.
"But not for bad word-play?" Indrani teased and lifted a pierced eyebrow at her lover.
"Never." Soo-young answered seriously.
"Next week we have a morning shift and then nothing until the evening the day after. Could be just enough time if we take an international portkey the way there and then fly back on brooms. Well, we'd need breaks but it works if we ask another team to cover one of those shifts." Charlie proposed.
So everyone is okay with this?" Jack asked, looking at the others one by one. It was probably wishful thinking, but Charlie could have sworn Jack's gaze softened as he looked into the redheads eyes.
"No."
"Fuck yeah, adventure time!"
Soo-young's denial was drowned out by her girlfriend's enthusiasm.
"Harold's team owes us one for last week anyway, we should-" Indrani's words turned muffled as the more responsible dragon keeper had clambed a hand over her mouth.
"You know this is illegal, right?" Soo-young asked. A defeated look was already on her face, even if she was still holding her girlfriends mouth closed. Nonetheless, she knew her reasoning would fall on deaf ears. It was a good thing they had at least one somewhat responsible person among them.
"Yep" Jack answered, popping the P at the end. Charlie just shrugged and nodded.
"And you know licking my hand won't dissuade me." Soo-young frowned at her lover, but the corners of her mouth twitched upwards. She let go and Indrani smiled in victory. The long haired woman groaned and put her head in her hands, admitting defeat.
After spending the rest of the afternoon planing, they got ready for the evening shift. Jack activated the tracking runes on his compass, and the team got on their brooms to fly towards the mostly free living dragons.
As usual, their Captain made a striking figure on his broom. The golden beads in his dreadlocks blinked in the sunlight as they were blown around by the wind. Not for the first time, Charlie had to put effort into searching the grassy planes with his eyes, as he was supposed to. Instead his eyes stubbornly strayed back to the broad shoulders with defined back muscles in front of him. Naturally, he was just appreciating the Captains physique, simply admiring the view from an aesthetic perspective. No reason to get hysterical.
After managing to force his thoughts into workmode, which of course took no effort at all thank you very much, Charlie spotted the dragon they had been looking for.
A Romanian-Longhorn that had the end of it's tail cut off by a hunter. It had been released recently but still required daily check ups and diagnostic spells to see if it managed to hunt properly. Most of the other free dragons were checked up on according to a weekly schedule. The few that couldn't live in the wild were fed twice a day. The feeding of those dragons was also done by their team, but since they didn't have a veterinarian, they were otherwise rarely in the medical-area. Charlie preferred the field work anyway.
As they switched with the next team around two in the morning, they got lucky. Harold's team was on shift after them and they were able to ask the older team to cover a shift for them. If they agreed they would have enough time to fly all the way back from Scottland. Dragons and portkeys or apparition did not mix. Besides, if they were caught by the authorities with an unregistered dragon they would be in substantial amounts of trouble.
Charlie took the lead during negotiations since he was the most polite, or most people-skilled, person on the team. A big family really helped with improving ones people skills. While Charlie's back was turned towards his team, he missed Jack's lopsided smile. The wistful look in the Captain's eyes while he watched Charlie sweet-talk the old dragon keeper went unnoticed, by all but Soo-young. The small woman shook her head exasperatedly and sighed. Indrani shot her a questioning look at that, but Soo-young waved her off rolling her eyes. Captain Harold and his team thankfully did agree to take one of their shifts, albeit a bit reluctantly.
After Charlie wrote a reply to his little brother, they spend most of their time between shifts scheming. Once they had confirmation for the date and time, an international portkey to scottland was booked and they started acquiring supplies for the way back.
The nervousness Charlie felt at what lay before them, as well as the fear of possible consequences, came and went. His biggest concern was being kicked off the dragon sanctuary. It felt like home, and his team like a second family. The saving grace was Indrani's infectous excitement. The bengali woman was adventurous, and additionally struggled to sit still. She kept them busy, so they didn't have time to overthink their impeding criminal ventures. Indrani seemed to always be looking for the next exciting thing to occupy her attention. Except when it came to her love for her girlfriend and dragons. Over the recent years, Charlie was certain their team had become an additional constant in her life.
As soon as they had made the decision to rescue the dragonling, Soo-young had reached out to a distant relative of hers who worked in international wixen law. When she told him about it, Charlie felt slightly stupid he hadn't immediately remembered the fact his brother worked as a cursebreaker. Bill probably knew one thing or another about how magical communities and countries protected their borders. He shared his epiphany with Jack and they brainstormed what to ask Bill, while the girls did the same for law questions. They came up with many hypothetical questions to ask their contacts. Most were about border security and magical creature regulations, which wasn't suspicious at all.
As the time to leave approached, Jack had to reassure Charlie repeatedly that helping Hagrid and his brother had been a collective choice. The redhead was worried about putting his friends into the greedy clutches of the law. Or worse, in danger. One evening while talking alone at the campfire Jack had taken Charlie's freckled hand in his own, dark and light skin in beautiful contrast. As his team Captain and one of his best friends explained to him how the others wanted to save the dragon regardless of who asked them to, Charlie was busy ignoring his erratic heartbeat. He was probably just too nervous about planning. Or the hot romanian nights were getting to him. Or whatever. He was definitely not thinking of how good his hand looked eveloped by Jack's.
After an unrestful night the moment almost felt like a dream to Charlie, but he knew he hadn't imagined it. Anyhow, time went on and what Indrina lovingly called *The Plan* (stage whispered and accompanied with fluttering hand gestures) was hatched.
Amid serious planning sessions Indrani and Jack suggested increasingly ridiculous strategies to by-pass border patrols. Then Soo-young added puns to the mix while Charlie was busy alternating between dying of laughter and trying not to stare at his Captain too noticeably. However, the redhead was oblivious to the way Jack always looked for his reaction first after making a joke.
All the while both of the men missed the growing, hand-shaped bumb on Soo-young's forehead as she had to witness these behaviors repeatedly.