Work Text:
~*~*~*~*~*~
It had been four days of complete and utter chaos. You would think that Charlie Weasley – who had grown up with five younger siblings and now worked in a high-energy and rather dangerous dragon sanctuary where he was surrounded by nearly sixty enormous, fire-breathing creatures – would be more able to roll with the punches and keep up with a flood of sensory input.
Well, you’d be wrong, because the deep roar of a rampaging dragon struck a very different note than the ear-piercing squalling of the mystery infant who had appeared at the entrance to the reserve in the early hours of the morning.
Charlie hadn’t held a wee babe for more than a handful of minutes in more years than he could count. He was rarely around his siblings’ many children during infancy considering he only made it back to Britain once a year. Even then, the youngest among them would have been nearing three years old by this point, and Charlie was most definitely rusty in this particular skill set. Every time the babe started crying again (some stomach upset common in infants, he’d been told by the midwife in the village), Charlie felt like he was going to start crying right along with her.
Charlie cursed every other hour at the hulking form of Natiya, whose dinner-plate-sized eyes peered into the front windows of his cabin and whose tail curled around to block his back door. The ancient Ukrainian Ironbelly with whom Charlie shared a close bond had been the one to first scent the baby on the perimeter of the wards, and it was her ruckus that had led to the discovery of the infant. The babe was poorly swaddled in an old woolen blanket, laying in a packing box in the snow, and it was only Natiya’s flames – directed at the solid stone boundary of the perimeter wall – that kept the ambient atmosphere immediately around the babe warm enough to ward off the deadly cold long enough for the dragonologists to locate her. Unfortunately, the dragon had then refused to allow anyone other than Charlie to handle the infant from that point on, and was now acting as the world’s worst – and most terrifying – nanny. Natiya hadn’t permitted anyone to get within forty feet of his cabin in the three days since she’d run off the midwife. There had been no reports of a missing or abandoned baby in the village, and no one on the reserve had any idea where she had come from.
The young one was less than a week old, the midwife had guessed, and though the other keepers on the reserve did their best to offer advice through their shouted greetings (staying clear of Natiya, of course) and letters levitated to his door, they could only do so much when Charlie and the babe were being effectively held hostage by the sanctuary’s eldest and largest resident. He’d been sent plenty of supplies, and Natiya was allowing the food deliveries and parcels of clothing the keepers had scrounged up for the tiny babe, but Charlie’s patience and sanity were both wearing a bit thin. He’d changed more nappies in the last four days than he had in the last eighteen years, and though he was largely desensitised to smells and fluids after a career in the vicinity of dragon dung, every time the little one burped up her milk on his shoulder he gagged heavily.
If he could keep an entire clutch of corrosive and fiery dragon hatchlings alive, he could keep one little girl alive, surely.
The two of them – giant dragonologist and week-old baby – settled into a routine of fitful sleep, vomit, and nappies that held them through another three days before Charlie thought he was going to have to literally slap a dragon to get a reprieve.
On day seven, Charlie had just laid a hastily swaddled and sleepy Ylenia down in her makeshift cot when a sharp knock on the door made both burly man and babe jump in shock. The newly-named little Ylenia choked out the beginnings of a whimper as Charlie cursed and gathered her back into the crook of his arm to investigate who had managed to get past his brute of a guard dragon. Wrenching open the door to permit entrance to his apparent saviour, Charlie was taken aback by the sight in front of him.
Hermione Granger was crouched on his porch, knapsack on her back and both hands scratching the enormous face of Natiya where it rested on the wood planks.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” Charlie spluttered.
"Hey, Charlie," Hermione said quietly, tossing him a grin over her shoulder as she dropped to a kneel before Natiya.
Natiya seemed to appreciate the additional force Hermione was able to put behind her scratches in this new position, for the world's worst nanny-dragon began purring with contentment. The fearsome, crotchety creature that only had let Charlie touch her twice in the last five years was flopped over like a sodding housecat for the woman.
"What are you doing here?" Charlie finally asked, still staring at Natiya.
"Well, when you didn't show up the first day of Yule as expected, your mum sent a letter. Stevie answered it, saying something about a baby and you being trapped in your cabin, and I think Molly might have misunderstood what was going on. She was adamant that she come up to see what was going on and give you a dressing down for not informing her you were 'settling down' or some tosh," Hermione used her fingers for emphasis, "but since I'm still on medical leave after the Erumpent incident in October I offered to come check on you instead. Plus, I missed my girl here," she finished with a grin and a noisy, smacking kiss pressed to Natiya's snout.
The great dragon closed her eyes contentedly and issued another rumbling purr. Hermione peppered another half-dozen kisses across the enormous head and stood stiffly, favouring her left flank and shifting her gaze to the slowly-stirring infant in Charlie's arms.
"This must be Natiya's foundling, eh?" Hermione asked with a grin and twinkling eyes that darted to meet Charlie's before settling on the babe.
"Aye. Staff apparently took a vote last night at dinner, so this is little Ylenia."
"She looks well enough," Hermione mused. A small, vertical crease appeared between her brows as she took closer stock of the infant. "It's been about a week, Stevie said?"
"Yeah," Charlie answered. With careful movements, he transferred the lightly wriggling Ylenia to Hermione's welcoming arms. The little one settled instantly, turning her tiny head into Hermione's chest and sighing loudly.
Whether it be a two-stories-tall dragon or a six pound baby, Hermione Granger apparently had a magic touch.
"You've clearly not slept in a week."
Hermione's words were coupled with a quick glance-over, and Charlie became aware of the right mess he must appear: rumpled joggers, bare chest, unshaven face, the positively stifling smell of infant formula.
Yep, quite the mess.
"Considering Natiya won't let me leave and you're the first one she's allowed through, I'm sleeping when Ylenia is. Admittedly, it's not often because she's still sick."
"Colic?"
Charlie shrugged. "I guess? The midwife was about a hundred and fifty years old and only spoke five words to me."
Hermione hummed in thought, shifting the small infant to her shoulder.
"Well, I'm no expert in human babies, but we'll see what we can do to get you sorted out. Both of you," she added with a smile in his direction. "Why don't you take a long shower? Maybe a nap, too. Little miss and I will see what we can figure out on our own. How's that sound, love?" She directed the last at the infant, who cooed softly back at her.
Charlie thanked her profusely, dropping a hasty kiss to both Ylenia's and Hermione's cheeks and retreating hastily to his bathroom.
Finally being "off duty" long enough to relax fully into a shower felt like heaven. Under the spray, Charlie thanked all the ancestors that Hermione Granger had stepped foot back onto the reserve. It had been nearly five years since her rotation here had ended, and though she'd considered staying on at the time, there had been a number of other postings she was eager to explore before she settled down. From the occasional letter or update from one of Charlie's parents, he had learned a fair bit of Hermione's travels over the years. She'd studied Selkie genealogy, started several charities for habitat protection and population support for various creatures, and most recently had joined a team that was trying to mitigate the declining numbers of Erumpent in Uganda. Until her injury – an attempt at magical tagging gone awry when the targeted Erumpent had rammed the vehicle they had been using to travel the habitat. The vehicle exploded, as expected after being gored by the creature, and Hermione had focused her energy on protecting the young magizoology students that were with them. Her shield wasn't completely able to cover all of the researchers from the force of the explosion, and she and one of her colleagues had taken hits from the shrapnel. Because of her proximity to the vehicle, she had taken the hardest blows and had been forced into an extended leave from field work to recover.
But Hermione Granger was nothing if not resilient, and Charlie wasn’t going to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth when it came to her assistance with Ylenia. It made sense that Natiya had allowed her to enter, as Hermione had been Natiya’s favourite during her brief tenure at the reserve. Charlie was a close second, but he had no doubt that if Hermione had been present when Ylenia was discovered that even he wouldn’t have been allowed near the babe and Hermione would have been the one trapped in her cabin by an overprotective, overgrown lizard.
Charlie chuckled fondly to himself as he finished his ablutions in a leisurely fashion. The lack of crying from his sitting room clued him in that things were going well, and Charlie quickly tiptoed across the hall to his bedroom to sort out the dirty clothes situation that awaited him and maybe – if he was exceedingly lucky – get a few minutes of rest whilst the laundering charms did their job.
By the time he emerged some forty minutes later, slightly more refreshed and looking more pulled together than he’d done in a week or more, Hermione had clearly gotten the youngling down for a much-needed nap. When Charlie located them in the sitting room, he leant against the door and watched silently for several moments.
Hermione had removed her jumper and was in a vest, some large swatch of fabric wrapped and tied strategically around her body. As she turned in profile there was a telltale bump against her chest that clued Charlie into the fabric’s purpose: wrapped up inside and held close to her body, Ylenia was quiet and Hermione had free use of her hands. Which she was making full use of as she levitated pine boughs and ribbon to wrap themselves in beautiful braids and drape themselves across his mantle. In the corner, a bare fir stood awaiting decoration. If the number of boxes around Hermione’s feet were any indication, they would be decorating the whole cabin for Christmas, which was only two days away. Charlie’s gifts for his family were still in a rucksack in the corner, next to the box that had contained his International Portkey – it had blipped out of existence without him, no doubt prompting his family to send their letter (and subsequently Hermione).
“Is she yours?”
The low voice Hermione used was still enough to startle Charlie from his perusal, and he jumped slightly before redirecting his attention to her.
Charlie shook his head. “No. Well, not biologically. I haven’t – ah, haven’t been with anyone who could possibly get pregnant in quite a bit longer than would make sense for her to be here.”
Hermione nodded understandingly. Charlie had made no secret of the broad scope of his attraction, and in the remote wilds housing the dragon sanctuary it was far from an uncommon proclivity. It was still an slightly awkward thing to discuss at times, no matter the company.
“I think Natiya has decided she’s mine, though.”
Hermione smiled. “Your colleagues seem to be of the same mind. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Stevie so excited about anything.”
“This is the first time there’s been a baby among the keeper families in at least a decade,” Charlie conceded. “Maybe two, actually.”
“And Ylenia Weasley does have a certain ring to it.”
Charlie grinned at her. “It does. And I’m not opposed, necessarily. But – gods, Hermione, you know how difficult it will be to raise her here. And alone.”
Hermione rubbed her hand gently along the infant’s back, humming in perusal of his words. “No partner at the mo’?”
“Only very casually. He’s not someone I can picture doing this with, and I can’t imagine he feels differently. Kids weren’t in the plans for either of us, and I wouldn’t ask him even if they were.”
“But you want to keep her?”
Charlie fell quiet, reflecting on the last week. For all the chaos and noise that had defined the week, there were beautiful moments as well.
The relief when the midwife determined she would make it despite the winter ordeal the newborn had endured. The first time she’d fallen asleep against his chest. The first successful latch on a bottle. The hazy grey-blue of her eyes seeming to focus on him for the first time. The dove-like coos she emitted in her drowsy moments. The first time her little fingers had grasped his own. Singing half-remembered lullabies from his youth to soothe her in her illness. Stevie’s letter explaining the staff’s name for her – their little light.
“Yeah. She’s mine now.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
The evening found the odd trio cosied up on Charlie’s sofa. Hermione was sitting sideways, her back against the arm and her knees pulled up to create a valley where Ylenia rested. Ylenia had permitted Hermione to feed her, though she had fussed a bit at the new formula Hermione had brought along with her (It’s a Muggle brand, common to use for babies with stomach trouble. It’s easier on the belly than the stuff you have, so it might help with her colic.). Hermione was keeping Ylenia propped up a bit after eating to allow gravity to aid with her digestion and try to avoid excess gas. She was rubbing a salve into her little chest and belly – vervain, lemon balm, and something like licorice. Charlie’s siblings had come through with a whole care package of products, recommendations, clothing, and supplies from their days with newborns, which Hermione pulled from her magically extended knapsack to pass along. The soft brown wisps of hair on Ylenia’s head burnt brighter in the firelight, and she cooed little raspy noises every few moments.
Watching them from the other side of the couch, a mug of coffee in his hand and the soft sounds of carols in the background, Charlie was struck by the warmth of the moment.
“Thank you,” Charlie said suddenly.
Hermione looked up from where she had been pulling faces and murmuring to Ylenia during the salve’s administration, and gave Charlie a brilliant smile that made Charlie’s heart stutter a bit in his chest.
“Of course, Charlie. I’d much rather be here helping with this little darling than sitting home.”
“Are you heading back for Christmas? I’m sure Mum’s been happy to have you close the last couple months.”
Hermione shrugged one shoulder, shifting Ylenia from her knees to her chest. “I’m staying. I haven’t anywhere else to be, not really. I know you need some relief here, whether it’s here with Ylenia or actually out on the reserve. Anyway, I doubt Natiya will let me leave just yet.”
“You can’t be cleared for duty,” Charlie interrupted. “You’re still recovering. Pietro won’t clear you to work with the state of your spine.”
“Maybe not with the adults, but we both know I’m better with dragon babies than human babies. And there are still patrols that need done and wards to reinforce after the solstice. All of which I can do easily. Harrowgate can shuffle me ‘round with the keepers to ease the shortage of staff for the holidays. It’ll be fun – like my first Christmas here with Natiya following me around like a lost pup.” Hermione turned her head to blow kisses at Natiya, whose head was still laying within view of the front windows, her eyes trained on the three of them.
“Except this time, you’ve brought Christmas to me instead.” Charlie gestured at the tree and greenery awaiting their final touches. “Thank you.”
He reached out and squeezed Hermione’s knee affectionately, and she dropped a hand atop his to squeeze back.
“And you’re very good with human babies,” he added with a grin. “She’s taken to you.”
Hermione smiled softly, tightening her hand on his fingers. “She’s quite the charmer, just like her daddy.”
Charlie’s heart felt as if it were in a vise, constricting with a swell of emotion. Ylenia was his, he’d already admitted as much. His daughter.
Charlie hoped his silence – and the tightened grip on Hermione’s leg – communicated what he couldn’t put to words.
~*~*~*~*~*~
They decorated the next day, after a late Christmas Eve lunch.
Hermione had insisted on taking Ylenia’s nighttime feedings so that Charlie could have some uninterrupted sleep, and Charlie accepted her offer with some measure of guilt for foisting off his newfound parenting duties. When he had finally risen, Hermione greeted him in the kitchen with omelettes, coffee, and his daughter. After a bit of cajoling, Hermione taught Charlie how to wrap himself up in the long bit of fabric (It’s just called a baby wrap, Charlie – it’s nothing fancy.) to hold Ylenia securely to his own chest. Then, together they decorated his cabin.
Hermione had even talked him into setting up some strong atmospheric spells to allow Natiya to join them. With buffer wards in place, Natiya had stretched her head and neck in through Charlie’s front door to enjoy the atmosphere with them. She had huffed a smoky, long-suffering sigh when Hermione approached her with tinsel, but the massive grey dragon eventually allowed her to wrap the gold decoration around her horns.
The love and tolerance Natiya expressed for Hermione was unlike any other bond Charlie had seen before or since, and it addled his brain in the best way each time he witnessed a moment like this.
Natiya kept a close eye on Charlie as he soothed a freshly-awoken Ylenia and prepared a bottle for her, and she shifted her head closer to the sofa as he settled down on it to feed her. The firelight glinting off the tinsel seemed to draw Ylenia’s focus – as undeveloped as her eyesight was at this age, all she could possibly see were the flashes of light. It held her attention long enough for her to finish her bottle, and Natiya seemed to give him an approving glance as he lifted Ylenia to his chest to burp her.
Ylenia fell asleep on his chest, and Hermione flitted around the two pouring Christmas decor and cheer into every corner of his cabin. On the mantle, a tiny Christmas stocking caught his eye. Ylenia's name had been lovingly stitched onto it, and there was a small dragon embroidered on the soft felt. It brought a wide grin to his face when he realized Hermione must have made it specially that day.
Charlie contented himself with watching Hermione for many minutes before finally snagging her hand as she passed by. A startled squeak escapes her, and with some gentle tugs and a smirk, he manages to get her on the couch next to him. With where they were sitting and the angle she had to keep to avoid bumping Ylenia, she ended up in a somewhat awkward position with one of her legs draped haphazardly across his lap and her shoulder tucked against his own.
"Thank you. Seriously."
"It's nothing, Charlie."
"It's not nothing," he averred, cupping her jaw and smiling at her. "I was drowning a bit here, we both know it. I have no idea what I'm going to do next, how I'm going to raise her here, but you being here and bringing us Christmas… well, it's just what I needed. So. Thank you, Hermione."
A pretty blush had spread up Hermione's cheeks, and Charlie found his gaze lingering on her lips for a few seconds longer than proper. She pulled in a deep breath, opened her mouth to say something –
And then Ylenia woke with a loud wail, breaking the moment and drawing a warning rumble from the crotchety old Natiya.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Eleven years later, Christmas in Charlie's cabin looked very different. Ylenia was now an active participant in the decorating each Christmas, for she seemed to thrive in the season. Not only because of her birthday having just passed, but because she loved the joy and excitement that settled on the snowy hills and dips of the vale. She loved talking Natiya into allowing her to drape tinsel or tie bows around her great head and neck, and she loved the stories told over cups of cocoa and bowls of stew late in the evenings as guests filtered into their cabin. Even if half the reserve staff were away with family for Yule, their cabin was always busy with guests and they never wanted for company.
Hermione had once told Charlie that "it takes a village" to raise a child. And oh, was she right.
The dragon keepers at the sanctuary had banded together easily in raising young Ylenia. Once Natiya had finally allowed the three of them to leave Charlie's cabin – close to six weeks after Ylenia's timely arrival – it had been easy to settle into a schedule of who would mind her when and who would pop into Bucharest for the Muggle formula that Ylenia best tolerated. There were volunteers for starting her tutoring and specially-sized, fireproof clothing crafted by their tanner, and it had only taken the crew a mere three days to expand Charlie's cabin to include another bedroom for the girl who had stolen away his heart.
Ylenia was a child of the sanctuary – their little light. She learnt to stand by pulling herself up on Natiya. Flames in a fire always calmed her down. She rose and slept with the sun and kept to the schedules of dragons. She grew winsome as the days shortened and itched to run in the sun along with the dragonlets. She knew every blade of grass and every scale pattern, and the dragons in turn watched out for her. She never lacked for love or kindness from the rough-and-tumble bunch of dragonologists that called the remote Romanian wilds their home.
And now that she was eleven – eleven – Charlie was grappling with a new reality.
Ylenia would be going off to her more formal schooling in the next year. The wild foundling – raised among dragons – had elected to enroll at Hogwarts rather than the much-closer Durmstrang, much to his joy and dismay. She would be so far away, but she understood his wild child's love for adventure, and she would be among family with several of her cousins still being students in the years above her. Having grown up hearing stories of his and Hermione's youths in Scotland, Ylenia had made her mind up years ago.
Ylenia promised she would come home for Christmases once she went to school, but Charlie knew she would one day prefer to spend it with her friends. It would be bittersweet to witness the evolution, but no less beautiful than the rest of the milestones Charlie had been blessed to pass as she grew up.
He was savoring this last Christmas before his world was upended by his little light once again. It was the day after the solstice, and she and Charlie had hung the stockings and set pots of cider to mull. Greenery was draped on mantles and wound around porch rails, and Natiya napped in the snow with holly strung between her horns. The only thing missing was a tree, and the space had already been cleared in preparation for its arrival.
Ylenia was humming along with the carols on the wireless as she wrapped gifts at the kitchen table. Charlie paused at the mantle on his way to join her, running his fingertips over the worn stitching spelling out Ylenia's name on her stocking. The memory of Hermione hanging the painstakingly crafted stocking more than a decade ago played in his mind, drawing a soft smile to his weather-wrinkled face.
"Is Mama coming back tonight?" Ylenia's soft voice broke his reverie.
Charlie looked to her, her small face scrunched in concentration as she tied ribbon haphazardly around a parcel.
"She should be here anytime now. Her Portkey should have arrived in the village about an hour ago, and she was going to go cut down the tree we picked out so we could decorate tonight."
Hermione would be arriving fresh from a five week expedition in Siberia studying the local Paymur dragons at their peak breeding season. She and Stevie had been gone since early November, and Charlie knew Ylenia missed her just as much as he did. It had only taken seeing Ylenia's first true smile for Hermione to decide to return to the reserve for good, but she still led small research groups on field work once or twice each year. She often ended up on the Paymur trip since she spoke the best Turkic. Charlie missed her in their bed each time she volunteered, but she always filled his heart even in her absence.
"Mama always brings Christmas home."
As if on cue, Charlie spied movement in their front garden, where Natiya was being greeted by a snow-packed Hermione. Even through the falling snow, Charlie could see the smile light up Hermione's face as she greeted Natiya with a kiss to her snout. A tall fir tree levitated just behind the two, ready to be set with lights and draped in Ylenia's favourite ornaments.
"Yeah, little light. She does."