'And when you awake, the face of Salazar Slytherin will be the first thing that you see.'
'So, do mum and dad have the least idea where you are?' said Charlie, fixing Ron with a look so terrifying it almost made Harry glad that he had no older brothers.
When they had arrived at the camp — and it really was a camp, a collection of tents of various sizes, most of which were occupied by Charlie's dragon-studying colleagues — the first thing Charlie had done was to call for several medic wizards, who had carted Draco away to the tent that apparently served as an infirmary.
This left Harry, Ron and Ginny to face the music. The music, in the case, was an extremely irritable Charlie Weasley, who wanted nothing more than to immediately owl both his parents and tell them that Ron and Ginny were in fact, not at home, but wandering at large around some rather distant forests with Lucius Malfoy's son and Harry, both of whom were supposed to be at school.
'Charlie, don't,' said Ron, sounding rather desperate. 'They're on vacation in the Lake District…I didn't want to bother them.'
Charlie shook his head. 'You're up to something, Ron,' he said.
'Remember, I'm related to Fred and George as well as you. I know that up-to-something expression.'
'Like you've never been up to anything,' said Ron heatedly. 'All those times when I was a kid and you swore me to secrecy, I never grassed on you, not once.'
'You're still a kid, Ron,' said Charlie. 'Your safety is my main concern. Your safety, and Ginny's.'
'Don't talk about me like I'm not here!' snapped Ginny. 'And you're being totally unfair to Ron!'
Charlie looked taken aback.
'He's not Fred or George,' she stormed. 'When Ron does things, it's because he's got a good reason. He doesn't take stupid risks. And neither does Harry!'
'Mum and Dad wouldn't be happy if — '
Ginny cut Charlie's protest off with a wave of her hand. 'I remember when you decided you wanted to work with dragons, and Mum cried for a week,' she said sharply. 'She was sure you'd be killed. They don't like your job or Bill's hair or Percy being a workaholic either, but they trust us, all of us, and especially Ron. Why don't you?'
Charlie opened his mouth, with the stunned expression of someone who just knows there's a loophole in the logic he's just heard, but can't quite put a finger on what it is.
'Ginny…'
'Just trust us, Charlie,' she said.
Wearily, Charlie raised a hand and rubbed at his bleary eyes. Then he sighed. 'Anyone want to come and see the dragons?' he offered, rather abruptly.
'I do,' said Harry and Ginny immediately — Ginny, because she truly liked dragons and Harry because he had a feeling that this was the way to get on Charlie's good side. Ron, still looking thunderous, agreed more reluctantly.
They followed Charlie through the camp, casting each other uneasy glances as they went. Despite Charlie's sudden offer, they had a feeling he was still in a fairly apprehensive mood.
Several meters past the last tent was a large cleared area, about the size of two Quidditch fields, ringed around with magical barriers.
Inside the cleared area were several dragons, none of them as large as the Hungarian Horntail Harry had faced his third year. Harry thought he recognized one of them as a Swedish Short-Snout.
Charlie pointed at it. 'That's the dragon that told me about Draco's Patronus,' he said.
'Dragons talk?' said Ron, looking startled.
'Well, you have to learn Dragonish to communicate with them, and even them it's unrewarding,' said Charlie. 'Mostly it's a lot of reminiscing about the good old days when villagers used to leave girls tied to stakes for them to eat, and complaining about why don't they get to fly more, and wanting to be told how pretty their scales are. But,' he added, 'every once in a while they've got a useful piece of information. Like tonight.'
'We told you,' said Ron. 'It wasn't a real dragon. It was a Patronus.'
'Helped me find you, didn't it?'
Ron looked as if he wasn't sure whether or not this was a good thing.
'Would you look at that,' said a voice behind them. It was Draco, having emerged at last from the infirmary tent. His clothes were as battered and dirty as they had been before, but the cuts and scratches on his arms and face were mostly gone, and his leg, obviously, was back to normal — although the medic wizards had cut away his left trouser leg below the knee, presumably to get at the broken bone. Draco didn't seem to mind, though. He had a rapt expression on his face as he gazed past them at the dragons.
'They're fantastic,' he said.
Charlie suddenly beamed. 'Aren't they?'
'Don't know why we've never done dragons in Care of Magical Creatures,' said Draco, still staring upward.
'Probably the same reason we've never done Certain Death Charms in Flitwick's class,' said Ron sourly. 'Mortality rate.'
'Malfoy,' said Harry, sounding curious, 'that dragon is staring at you.'
He was right. The blue Swedish Short-Snout had fixed its enormous dinner-plate eyes on Draco and was gazing at him with a look that could almost be described as fond. Charlie looked amazed. 'I think she likes you,' he said to Draco. 'That hardly ever happens.'
'Maybe he smells like food,' muttered Ron.
Draco approached the barrier, stood as close to it as he could, and gazed up at the dragon, which gazed
