Chapter 2 ? Carpa?ii Meridionali

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters belong to JK Rowling. But Trent, the yummy dragon keeper that he is, belongs to me, well no, to Hal.

Chapter 2 – Carpaþii Meridionali

Charlie stepped out of the enormous stone fireplace into the kitchen at the dragon reservation's headquarters. He shook his head a little to steady the spinning sensation that had not quite wound down its impetus yet. Before stepping over the fireguard onto the rough stone floor, he brushed off the residual layer of soot that always seemed to cling when travelling via the Floo Network.

Charlie glanced up from his coat. Trent and his girlfriend, Halyn, stood in an embrace across the room on one of the shaggy fur rugs that were scattered here and there. His arms were at her waist with hers wound around his neck. They were standing close, so close that their foreheads were touching. The unmistakable intimacy and the aura of shared comfort between them had Charlie's heart and stomach clenching with an unwelcome wave of envy. Few understood the relationship between keeper and dragon, and while Hal wasn't a keeper, she seemed to have an affinity with the dragons as well. Trent was lucky to have such a beautiful, understanding woman to share his sorrow with.

Charlie had been in love once, back when the Order of the Phoenix had been restarted in 1995. Gwyneth Jones, Hestia's younger sister, had joined the Order as well. He'd never really felt the time was right for any major declarations though. Not during wartime. He'd contented himself with friendship, but always told himself that he'd wait until Voldemort's remains were smouldering to steal her heart. And then the Death Eaters had stolen her life. Charlie had promised himself that he'd never leave feelings like that unspoken again.

Charlie and Trent worked well together, although the Australian wizard had only been in Romania for a couple of weeks now. After the war ended...in the spirit of reconstruction and rebuilding trust in wizarding Europe...many of the wizarding institutions and Ministries had developed exchange programmes for young professionals. Trent was in Romania for three months, on loan from the British Ministry, and Hal had taken time off from Ollivander's to work with Gregorovich.

They turned their heads and smiled faintly. Charlie knew how they were feeling. It was still hard to believe that someone would have attacked one of the sentinels. So much history had been lost along with the Father...they were ancient dragons that had silently observed humanity for many years. He sighed inwardly and thought that another cup of coffee might go down well.

"Hi, Charlie. I'll get you some coffee," Hal said. Charlie nodded. She had an almost uncanny ability to guess what he was thinking or wanted, which was rather disconcerting sometimes. Trent gave her a cryptic look before turning to him.

Trent tilted his head in greeting, quiet as always. He was very economical with his words, but he was great to talk with when you got him going. "Morning." Trent looked tired, and his usually untidy mop of blonde hair was in even worse disarray than usual. It was understandable; he'd likely been up all night, long past his usual watch.

"Morning." Somehow, small talk didn't seem appropriate in the sombre texture of the room. He knew they would have to wait for the Aurors to arrive before detailing the facts, but he was eager to find out the basics about what had occurred that morning as well.

He leant against the edge of the kitchen table, crossing his legs at the ankles and folding his arms across his chest. "So, what happened?" he asked.

"Well, last night was quiet until around one o' clock when the other sentinels sounded an alarm. It's the first time I've ever heard dragons roar like that, Charlie. They sounded so mournful, like they were in pain." Trent shook his head slightly. "Anyway, Hildebrand and I were still on duty, so we left on broomstick and headed out to sentinel territory. There..." Trent let out a deep breath and seemed to be trying to settle his stomach before he started talking again.

"We found the remains of the southern Father. It was terrible, Charlie. They had cut open his head. They left the horns, so I don't know what they were looking for. I don't think they were poachers though. The horns are the most valuable part of the Romanian Longhorns." Trent shrugged.

"Hmm." Charlie nodded, thinking hard, and then looked up when Hal handed a steaming mug of coffee to him. "Thanks, Hal." Hal smiled and moved to stand next to Trent, slipping her arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder.

As he sipped the coffee, Charlie took the time to digest the information. He had never heard of a dragon killing where some saleable part of the dragon wasn't taken. Other than their parts, there was no reason to kill the creatures.

The fireplace flared green and the whooshing sound of an activated Floo Network connection alerted them that somebody was coming through. Charlie shook himself from his internal reverie and glanced towards the fireplace. A woman tumbled into the kitchen, her long red hair obscuring her face.

Charlie started a little. "Ginny?" He knew that it logically wasn't his sister (security clearance to the reservation was tight), but he could not help but wish to see a family member that might actually smile and be good company. Ginny refused to visit Charlie while Ron was staying with him anyway; she and Ron were not on speaking terms at the moment.

The woman laughed and brushed her hair from her face, revealing amused indigo eyes. "Wotcher, Charlie. Now do you really think that your sister would have left my delicious cousin behind in England to come and visit you?" Tonks asked, grinning broadly.

She was, of course, referring to Ginny and Draco. Draco and Snape had played a pivotal role during the war, living on the tightrope that had been the double agent's role. They had all been surprised to discover that Snape had been acting on Dumbledore's orders and the duress of an Unbreakable Vow. It had taken a while for most of them to accept that the two Slytherins were just as determined (and likely more so than most) to see Voldemort's downfall, but they had proved their worth in spades.

As Tonks stepped forward into the kitchen, she tripped over the fireguard, sending the fire pokers clanging to the stone floor. "Bugger." Charlie stood to help her up.

"Just the same as always, eh?" he teased lightly. He and Tonks had been in Gryffindor together at Hogwarts, and they were still good friends. He was so glad to see that she and Remus were happy together, and planning a wedding. He had been the one to give Remus a pep talk, just before Dumbledore had died, actually. That had been a miserable year for both Remus and Tonks, and Charlie had been glad to see Remus coming to his senses about the situation.

"Trent Fleming, Halyn Lestrange, this is Nymphadora Tonks, world class Auror," he said, winking at Tonks.

"Tonks, if you please," she said, huffing a little at Charlie. Tonks raised her eyebrows at Hal. "Lestrange?"

Hal smiled and shrugged, as though she was used to answering that question. "Yes. My mom was Bellatrix. My father...in a rare flash of conscience...sent me to New Zealand when I was a baby. I never knew them."

Tonks laughed happily and barrelled across the kitchen to give Hal a big hug. "That makes me your cousin too, you know. My mother, Andromeda, was Bellatrix's sister," she recited. She grinned as she stepped back from Hal, who was smiling broadly at meeting a friendly member of the Black family. "Welcome to the family."

"Thanks, Tonks. It's wonderful to meet a sane member of the family," Hal said, smiling broadly. She glanced up briefly at the complicated looking clock above the large mantelpiece and sighed. "I've got to get going, sadly. I wish I could stay, but we're going collecting for wand cores today." Hal kissed Trent goodbye and stepped towards the fireplace and Floo'd to Gregorovich in Bucharest.

Tonks turned from where she'd watched her newly acquired cousin disappear. "Now then. To business." She rubbed her hands together and scrunched up her face, concentrating. Her hair shortened to an impish cut and the hue deepened to a midnight black. "I'm in mourning for the dragon," she said seriously.

Charlie shook his head. Yes, same old Tonks. He cleared his throat. "Right then. We'd better head to the scene of the crime and let our Auror here investigate the visual aspect of the crime. We can only hope that perhaps some sort of clue was left behind."

They Apparated to the ledge outside of the sentinel's cave, lead by a guiding beacon that Volkov had set up for them earlier. It emitted a magical energy pulse that guided their Apparition, as the ledge was rather narrow. This is why the initial investigative journey by the keepers had been done on broomstick. The Apparition wards around the reserve had been lowered to allow the investigation to proceed expediently.

Charlie wrinkled his nose at the acrid scent of the Father's blood that had etched a deep, curving trough into the ledge. His stomach lurched, but he managed to stay in control of his body. While this wasn't the first dragon he had ever seen killed, it was the worst mutilation he had ever seen. The dragon's head, three foot high, lay split in half, revealing gleaming white bone and shredded, scaly hide. Charlie put his hand over his mouth and leant forward, frowning when he noticed that the skull was empty, the dragon's brain removed.

He grimaced again and shook his head. "Merlin, this is really bad. His bloody brain is gone! How could someone get this close to a Longhorn sentinel, much less kill him like this?"

There was a silence from Tonks and Trent as they absorbed the horrific sight. After a few moments, Tonks cleared her throat and started moving around the massive body of the slain dragon. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves, muttering about Kingsley and stupid Muggle gloves that cut off circulation. Trent and Charlie shared an amused look. Somehow, Tonks had managed to diffuse the tense situation with her odd brand of humour. Then, she pulled a dicto-quill from her robe and started noting her observations.

"The dragon's head has been spilt open cleanly with what appears to be a modified slicing spell," she said, leaning forward to have a look. She had the advantage of morphing a nose without nostrils, which Charlie thought was really nifty.

She glanced up at Trent and Charlie, who were standing off to the side now, observing her investigation. "So, unlike most poaching it seems that only the head was cut open and the brain removed. Is that a typical poaching method?"

Charlie shook his head. "No, this isn't normal at all. Poachers would have taken the hide, claws and at least a couple of teeth. That is where the value is. The head..." He paused as if trying to remember something he had heard before.

"I remember something about the head, but I can't remember what it was now. I think it was a legend or myth about the head." Shrugging, Charlie looked over at Trent to see if the other keeper knew anything. Trent gave him a blank look and lifted one shoulder. "Nothing rings a bell, mate. But there's loads of old books that might have forgotten legends. You're the reader," he said, managing a wry grin.

Charlie shrugged, but there was still something that niggled in the back of his mind about the dragon's head and the significance thereof. "I'll think about it and get back to you, Tonks."

She smirked a little. "That's what you always said, Chuck," she teased. She frowned at the parchment floating next to her. "Oi, scratch that last bit." She walked around the dragon again, looking for something besides the head that seemed to be out of place. On her second rotation, she tripped over the broad tail of the Father and swore. Molly Weasley would have had a conniption, hearing that sort of language, even from one of her boys. She put out her hands to push herself up and frowned. "What's this then?" she said, lifting a wispy shred for view between latex covered fingers.

Charlie and Trent moved closer. "Hmm," Charlie mused. "Looks like grass to me, but it's not native to this area," he said, looking at the other two for confirmation.

Trent nodded his agreement. "Never seen blue grass before, though. Well, not neon blue at any rate, mate. And you're right, that kind of grass doesn't grow around here."

Tonks placed a sample of the grass into a small plastic packet. "It might have some residue of a potion or something on it. I'll have Neville and Hermione take a look at it." Neville was apprenticed to Professor Sprout at Hogwarts, and Hermione worked in the Potions research division. "Gives me an excuse to visit London for a bit." Her mischievous expression told of somebody else that she'd probably visit too.

"How are they doing?" Charlie asked.

Tonks lifted a shoulder. "Oh, Neville seems to be in his element. He's even given up being heartbroken after Luna told him that her destiny was in Egypt... without him." She chuckled. "Susan Bones seems to have helped with that issue."

She put her quill and parchment, along with her sample back into a robe pocket and scratched her head. "Hermione's working hard: nothing new. She erm... seems to be much happier now that your brother's here with you."

"Lucky me," Charlie muttered darkly.

Tonks gave him a quizzical glance then continued, "She's been very mysterious about her after work life though. I reckon she's hiding a new man." She flashed a grin. "And that, gents, is your gossip update, fresh from the source. Well, I can't see anything else that might give us any clues about what happened. Hopefully that grass will give us a starting point. The perpetrators must have been on broomstick, I reckon. Not much other way to access this ledge if you don't have an Apparition beacon."

Trent and Charlie nodded in agreement. "I'll see what I can dig up about the dragon's head," Charlie said. "Thanks for coming out, Tonks. It was good to see you again. Keep us posted on the progress?"

"You betcha," she said, saluting.

The three of them Apparated from the cliff ledge, leaving the Father's body for Volkov to take care of. The keepers would hold a memorial of sorts for the ancient dragon. It was part tradition, part respect.

The rest of the day passed in a subdued atmosphere, and Charlie was only too pleased to Floo back to his flat, even though another confrontation with his brother was inevitable.

Thank you to WickedlyWanton for a marvellous beta job and such wonderful encouragement.