Pack!

Chapter Fourteen
Looking at the hall full of red hair, Harry opened his mouth to say hi, but didn’t get a chance before he was half crushed by Bill. Suddenly struggling for air, he waved his hands at the twins, who just snickered. Upon being released, he gasped. “What was that for?” Bill looked away and didn’t answer, the twins now looking in concern at Bill. Baffled, Harry looked at Lee, who raised his brows and shrugged, and then at Charlie, who shook his head, also disavowing any knowledge. “Oooookay then, moving on. You guys here for the party?”
Fred grinned, although he was still sending a sidelong glance at Bill, “Yep. We talked to Bill this morning, and he was going to talk to Dad when he had a chance. Then you told us about Charlie, so me’n George went to Bill’s to wait while Bill was at the Burrow. Charlie walked in, and Bill got back from Dad’s right about then, too. We don’t know exactly who said what,” another glance at Bill, “but apparently Dad shoved Bill out the door, told him to collect us and Charlie, find you, and that we were to go with you.” There was a silence, then George said, “Dad said we shouldn’t talk to mum, said we were to leave immediately, no arguments, no discussion, and when Bill told us he agreed with Dad, well, here we are. We collected Lee from downstairs on our way through.”
Bill sighed. “It’s not the right time to discuss this, and I’m not sure I’ll ever want to, but I promise, Dad’s not angry with us, he’s really not. And that’s all I’m going to say about things for right now.” Charlie slung an arm around Bill’s shoulders in a brotherly hug. “No worries, mate. We know you and Dad must have reasons, and we’ll wait. For a while,” he added, not wanting Bill to think he could avoid the conversation forever.
Harry knew there was more to the story, but he just gave the twins and Lee a hug, told Charlie he looked like he needed a nap and that he wanted to hear his rescue story later, pointed them at Angelina to go learn the pack spell, and asked them to check in with Linmy so they could be added to the roster. They should talk to Seamus, Angelina, or any of the elves if they have any questions.
Charlie’s Story:
Charlie woke up that morning in a good mood, all things considered. It was his turn on the schedule to complete their weekly go-round of the reserve borders, checking for weak spots in the wards or signs of attempted incursions by poachers, an ongoing problem. Last night had been his monthly floo call home, and he’d survived it relatively unscathed. His mother was never going to stop insisting he move back to England, get married and work for the Ministry, and he was never going to do that, so they didn’t usually have much to talk about once that was out of the way. Talking to his Dad always made up for it, though. Dad never failed to be intensely interested in how his children were doing, what they were doing, and what they were planning to do, offering up unconditional support. Charlie regretted the many miles between them, but Mum made it impossible to go home, and she also made it impossible for Dad to travel, insisting either the whole family went or no one went. Dad’s salary didn’t allow for that, and Charlie understood. Dad had stood up for them when it was it was necessary, when Molly tried things like favoring the youngest at the older children’s expense, sending the twins to school with badly outdated secondhand books, or denying the children their weekly allowance so she could get Ginny an expensive party dress for a party that didn’t exist. Merlin, but he loved his dad, he’d done that knowing full well what he was in for. The screaming in the Burrow had been non-stop each time he’d had to put his foot down, and his dad had no ready escape. He’d reassured his father that it was fine, and on his ocassional trips to other reserves, when his portkey took him via the London Transport Hub, he’d pop in to surprise his dad at the Ministry, where they’d head out to lunch and a lively conversation for a couple of hours. It let Charlie avoid telling his mother he was back in England, and it let his dad enjoy time with him that wasn’t constantly being interrupted with his mum’s nagging. So yeah, it was a good start to the day, he thought.
Charlie liked riding the circuit. It was two to four days of freedom, just him and his broom, free from all other obligations and oversight. He loved his job, he really did, but the paperwork part of his job was certainly not his favorite, and he much preferred being up in the air to the crowded employee quarters.
The other handlers didn’t much like riding fenceline, they’d always come back complaining that they forgot to pack something that would have helped in this or that unexpected situation, or that the weather was completely foul and they’d spent the entire time soaked, or picked up a bit of a cold, etc… Charlie was pretty unsympathetic.
Just before he’d graduated Hogwarts, he’d received word that his application for an apprenticeship had been picked up. He’d been fortunate enough to be taken on by a premier Care of Magical Creatures Master, and the unusual deal they brokered was that Charlie would forgo all spending money a Master was usually required to give their apprentice, and Charlie’s hellishly expensive fees for the apprenticeship would be covered by his essentially indenturing himself to Master Thesselbad for five years. He’d be at his beck and call, twenty four hours a day, for any errands the Master felt like sending him on. Master Thesselbad would send him out for anything and everything, having him pick him up new socks, darning his old ones, running messages when all the owls were busy, cleaning the chicken coop, looking after his daughter’s bad tempered Pegasus pony. His training hours were sacrosanct, but they only encompassed eight hours out of twenty four.
Master Thesselbad hadn’t taken complete advantage of him, but it had still been pretty rough. At the end, Charlie had been surprised and very touched when his Master had presented him with a Ranger’s Trunk as a graduation gift. The trunk was well stocked with muggle camping gear, as well as added wizarding conveniences. The pop up tent wasn’t charmed larger on the inside, but it did have wizarding weatherproofing, temperature controls, and comfort charms on the floor. The weather related clothing didn’t autosize, but were also weatherproofed and temperature controlled. Additional rope, pitons, shovels, axes, fire starting materials, compartments to keep a weeks worth of firewood at hand and and dry, a months worth of food stores, heavily expanded stasis racks for collection of mining samples and specimens, and all warded to Charlie’s signature. The trunk wasn’t top of the line, and it had been bought well-used, but Charlie was aware that significant gold had been spent, the charms and rune work newly refreshed, and the trunk itself carefully repaired and polished.
Charlie used his trunk for everything. His entire life was packed up in various compartments, he never saw a need to unpack just to have his things in arms reach. He liked being able to just grab his trunk and go whenever, wherever. He never forgot anything because he never had to remember everything, although Charlie would never have been careless enough to fail to go over his trunk with a fine tooth comb at least quarterly, checking for worn charms or low stock on firewood and such. He kept it with him at all times, fitting it into a charmed slot on his wand holder, the charm kept it secure, releasing with to a finger pressed to a specific rune, a firm tug, and even then only to Charlie’s magical signature.
Charlie could ride the circuit comfortably regardless of the weather or minor inconveniences, with only brutal winds or the heaviest thunderstorm grounding him to wait out the weather. Looking forward to getting started, and after pulling out his cold weather gear and goggles, Charlie left the snores of his bunkmates behind, heading to the loo then the kitchen for a meal he didn’t have to cook, the one tiny drawback to the next couple of days. Once finished, Charlie grabbed his broom. It spent it’s non-flight time masquerading as a gold charm on a leather thong around his neck, always readily available to him. He gave a casual wave to the new manager of the Reserve, who was trudging back to his office, the man had arrived three days ago and had spent most of it in long hours behind his desk, catching up on the weeks of paperwork that had accumulated. He expected they’d be seeing more of him once he came up for air.
Mounting his broom, he he pushed off and climbed to a respectable fifty feet, then with a happy whoop he leaned forward and raced to the closest fenceline.
Charlie spent six hours on his broom that day, periodically landing to take a closer look at various areas, or stopping to add in current location when one of their dragons came into sight. Possible new nesting sites were also updated to the charmed map, but Charlie wasn’t crazy enough to get closer to those. Dragons tended to find some incredibly out of the way spots for their eggs, and although the area may look unprotected, it was guaranteed one of the parents was keeping an eye on things and would take it badly if someone went poking around. Poachers almost never got away with eggs, and if they did, it was because there was enough of them working together to take down the parent or parents. Mosty, riding fenceline was an exercise in locating various bits of the poachers body parts. Which were noted separately; their map would be a complete mess if they had to account for this hand here, that nose there.
Settling in for the night, he caught up on some reading, reminding himself to get a new pillow next time he had a chance to send off an owl. He drifted off listening to the night sounds of the reserve.
The following day he was back in the air. By noon, he estimated that he’d gotten about half the fence covered, there seemed to be an excessive amount of body parts on this part of the loop, but he hadn’t seen any large scale damage to the wards. They’d have to send someone back out to this section to make sure, though. It was starting to edge toward late afternoon, and he was had just touched down and was reaching for his map to note that Gladys, their largest Ironbelly, was hanging out nearby. Dialing up the magnification on his goggles, he scanned her for any new signs of wear and tear, then blinked when she just … vanished. One minute she’d been napping on the ridge, then she was gone. He knew what he’d seen, it wasn’t an optical illusion or mirage. Mounting up again, he cautiously headed that way, gaining altitude steadily. Higher was safer, when it came to dragons. It didn’t equate to safe, but it was safe-er. Peering down through his magnified goggles at the ridge, he saw a few shed scales, but no signs of any disturbance. He slowly spun himself around, examining the area, to include overhead. Nothing. Zip.
He approached gradually, stopping often to repeat his 360 degree visual scan, and hovering for several moments before touching down next to the shed scales. He picked one up, it was still warm. Dragon body temperature was high, the larger breeds running at about 60 degrees. It took a time for the heavy, metallic scales to lose that heat once shed. The scale didn’t appear torn or damaged, possibly it had been shed some time back and Gladys had just been laying atop it long enough for it to warm back up, but either way, what had happened here?
He saw no signs of poachers, and there clearly hadn’t been any sort of fight. He was unaware of any method of capturing a dragon that didn’t involve several handlers and a struggle. There were a few dragons on the reserve that were accustomed to their human caretakers and were somewhat amenable to being nudged in various directions, but Gladys certainly wasn’t one of those. Gladys went were Gladys wanted to go, getting her to the reserves in the first place was a fifty year old story that was still used to illustrate just how difficult a dragon could be, and how Horntails weren’t always the nastiest ones around.
Charlie checked the map, looking for where the most recent sightings were. There were seventeen dragons on their reserve, and he’d seen two of them yesterday. He read that Molly was logged in just north of here a couple of days ago, in what was her usual area, by a team retrieving a cache of shed scales and horns. There was a very rough vertical cliff face there, and passing dragons used it to scratch various itches and loosen old scales. There was often a sizeable amount collected when a team was dispatched on that run. He decided to that way for a bit to see if he could spot her. This time of day, if a dragon was hungry, they’d be out on a last hunting flight before settling down for the evening.
He headed off, looping and circling, looking for the distinct red of a Chinese Fireball. They had two, but Molly had an exceptionally nasty temper, he certainly didn’t want to come up on her by accident. He hoped his mother never found out that he was the one who’d named the hissing and spitting juvenile who’d glared nothing but hate when she was brought in. The dragon boss had asked what they should call her, and his mother’s name had blown out, waving it’s way past his “should not say that” filter.
He didn’t see her, but did see where she’d been, there was quite a patch of burned vegetation and the recent remains of what was probably a meal or two. Touching down nearby, he lifted back up immediately, the ground was still hot. Not hot from summertime heat, but hot as this was a long term rest spot and a dragon had still been there less than twenty minutes ago hot. Charlie spent the next two hours searching. He saw not a single dragon.
Making a judgement call that this was a critical issue, he left his circuit, heading back to headquarters. Touching down, he walked through doorway built into the staff section wards, or at least meant to. He’d bounced off what had to be fully closed warding. Looking around, he took in the eerie quiet. There was no smoke from the kitchens, no movement on the paths, no thud of doors or overloud conversations from the floo point. He headed for the emergency bolt hole, known only to the handlers, and one you had to take a binding oath to never speak about. He crawled through it, passing through the invisible hole left in the ward scheme. Running from building to building, he found no one. Thoroughly spooked, he went to call the Creature Control office in the Ministry. The floo refused to connect, a message flashed “Denial by Wards”, blinking twice before fading. The wards were denying floo calls, too? Which wards, the wards here, or the wards at the Ministry?
Charlie tried apparating to the kitchen without success. It was the wards here, then. They must be under lockdown conditions for the floo and apparition wards to be in effect. Had to have something to do with why everyone was gone. What had happened while he was out and why hadn’t anyone sent him a message? With a tight jaw and a grim look, he headed for the manager’s office. He thumped the door open, and started looking for anything that might offer an explanation. He found an emergency issue of the Prophet, which told him were all the people probably were, especially as the cabinet holding the emergency portkey was empty, but the paper said nothing about vanishing or missing dragons.
Charlie tipped back in the chair he’d appropriated to search through the papers on the manager’s desk. Kicking his feet up on the desk and folding his hands behind his head, he lost himself in thought. Point one, magic was going to vanish in a day or two. Point two, he was in a fully locked down reserve, he couldn’t contact anyone until he left the grounds and made his way to Bucharest Gringotts. Fortunately, it was less than a one hour broom flight. Point three, it sure looked like all the registered dragons were gone. Alright, then. Heaving himself back to his feet, he started planning his next trip; it looked like he wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. Stopping off in the storage room, Charlie carried several large crates out, loading them into his trunk. Heading back in, he returned with a dozen smaller crates, adding them to his collection. He walked to the kitchen, where he added even more crates to his trunk, having cleared out all the food supplies left behind. He took the time to make a couple of flasks of hot tea, dropping them in his pocket. Squirming back through the bolt hole into the reserve proper, he mounted up and made a beeline due east. Time to go check in with his friends, if they were still there.
The reserve was much, much larger than shown on muggle maps. The relatively small space under unplottable charms had been expanded to a fare thee well. Dragons required huge spaces that they were pretty territorial about. The Romanian Reserve housed the largest number of dragons ever kept within a single reserve, the second largest being the Australian Kaayi Reserve, which housed twelve. The fenceline circuit was generally ridden from just outside the wards, dipping back in for closer looks. Doing it that way meant it took a only couple days to ride, instead of the nearly two weeks to ride from the inside. It was a long four hours later that Charlie landed and immediately was swarmed by the kids. Scooping up the smallest, he carried them with him while he headed for the nearest adult.
A second long flight later, and he was through the bolt hole, then tapping the emergency exit sequence on the exterior ward, (another vow held secret) that opened a two second doorway as an exit from the warded area. Snagging his jacket on an invisible rough spot, he twisted, tugging it loose just as the wards reclosed, shearing through the half of his broom that hadn’t yet cleared the threshold.
Charlie’s shoulders slumped as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, both annoyance and resignation expressing themselves in a deep sigh. Looks like he now had a very, very long walk ahead of him. He didn’t think he’d ever voluntarily walked when he could fly, but his options had just cut themselves down to one. A quick Tempus showed him he’d best get moving, it was going to take him about sixteen hours to get to Bucharest from here. With absolutely no hope in his heart that it would be seen, he sent up a silver wand flare into the night sky, repeating it every thirty minutes or so.
It was about seven in the morning, and he had many hours of walking behind him when a smooth tenor voice came from above. “Need a ride, kid?”