A/N: I just wanted to say thanks to my beta-reader, dogstar-ebony. So, thanks! :)

And please, review!!

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Harry Potter.

DRAGONS?!

"DRAGONS?"

It may seem unbelievable, but I can still hear my mother's shrieks, louder than the melodic roar of a Welsh Green Dragon, as we sat, all 9 of us, around our kitchen table the day after I got back from my 5thyear at Hogwarts.

"Dragons?" Yes, hysterical women can get very repetitive. "What do you mean dragons?"

"You know, big, flying, fire-spitting lizards!" my 10 year-old brother, Fred, answered mockingly, to what his twin, George, added, "Yeah! Nasty beasts!"

"I know perfectly well what dragons are, thank you!" She snapped with a murderous look. "What I want to know is what you mean by 'working with them'!" She said, this time looking at me, while slamming down another steaming pot on the table.

"I didn't know dragons had jobs!" My 6-year-old and only sister said innocently, eyes wide with surprise and excitement.

Not even my mother could ignore this sudden statement, and my naïve 16-year-old self took this brief moment of silence as an opportunity to be heard.

"No, Ginny, they don't. When I say 'work' with them, I mean fighting for their well-being, taking care of them and protecting them."

"Do you reckon they need your help?" My youngest brother asked while shoving even more food into his infant mouth.

But my 12-year-old know-it-all brother got ahead of everyone else, as usual, and answered whilst pushing his overly large glasses up the bridge of his nose, "Of course they do! Dragons are an endangered species. When wizards restrict their area, hiding them from Muggles, they interfere with mating habits, leading them to extinction."

"That's not the point," my mother cried as soon as we, my dad included, fell into a loud chattering about the recently stated facts. "Weren't you lot supposed to have career guidance this year at school?" She asked, putting her hands threateningly at her hips.

I don't know why I even tried to make myself heard, because even then I knew it was a lost cause. You see, my mother has a history of lecturing to exhaustion. She only stops when she's absolutely positive that you agree with her. And seeing that she has a knack for telling when you're just trying to make her stop, it has to be really believable. But that's not what I was aiming to achieve that day. I needed to be heard and I wanted her to understand me.

"We did, mum..."

"Then why," she asked serving me potato salad, even though I was the one who didn't like it, with such ferocity that my father had mayonnaise splashed into his glasses, "why did you choose to babysit dragons?"

"Whaaat?" Ginny asked so softly that at first no one gave her any attention. But when she raised her head, staring at my mother, her breath was already uneven, her lower lip trembling and her eyes flooding with tears. "Babysit?" She seemed to be working in slow motion when she looked at me. "Why?" And then, back to my mother, "What happened to their mummies?"

"Nothing! Nothing happened to their mothers, because we're talking about dangerous, full grown-up dragons here!"

I was startled by the surrealism of it all. My little sister was helplessly crying, mumbling words about orphan dragons, my oldest brother was desperately trying to soothe her and the twins were having fits of hysterics. But the worst of it all was Mum. She was yelling at the top of her lungs and seemed to be on the verge of a heart-attack.

I must have looked like a fish out of water. I would open my mouth to speak, but she just wouldn't let me. The woman was unstoppable. I remember looking at my dad, desperate for some kind of help, but the poor old man never stood a chance against her.

"Molly, honey," he pleaded.

"Don't you dare!" And then, her fury was being directed towards him. "Your son just told us he wants to waste his brilliant academic life with dragons, and you're taking his side?"

"I still think it's bloody brilliant," my little brother imprudently added, raising his eyebrows.

But my mother was way beyond hearing any of us. She was still ranting at my father (something about a prefect, soon-to-be head boy, expecting at least 8 OWL's) when I took the boldest step of my life.

Now, don't get me wrong. Despite everything you've heard so far, I do work with dragons. I have been doing it for about 5 years already. But even facing a Hungarian Horntail isn't as frightening as facing my enraged mother.

When I pushed my chair back, the scratching sound it made on the floor was muffled by 7 pairs of silverware being dropped by my father and my 6 disbelieving brothers and sister.

"Mum, listen!" I shouted. I could hear their gasps and I knew no one was blinking, because I could feel their gaze piercing into my skin.

"Mum," I repeated, almost begging for her attention, "I did talk to my Head of House, and she thought it was a good idea."

"McGonagall must be barking mad, then! For Merlin's sake," her voice was starting to sound a bit desperate, and she finished her sentence placing her hands on my cheeks. "You're a smart boy, Charlie!"

"And that's why I think I'm going to be great at it. Do you know what it takes to be a dragon keeper?" I looked into her eyes before continuing, "It takes incredible transfiguration skills, mastering potion making, not to mention outstanding spell casting."

I am still looking at her bewildered eyes, my blood boiling with mixed emotions, her red hair puffier with static, as if all her outrage was being radiated through it, when I feel a warmth on the back of my neck that wasn't there the last time I've visited this memory.

"Oi, Charlie, little help over here, would you mind?"

Suddenly it all comes flooding back to me.

Here I am, staring at the stone walls of the place that awoke this deep buried memory, the cold night wind sweeping my face, the loud shouts of my co-workers and the deafening roars of dragons thundering in my ears, the breath of a silvery-blue Swedish Short-Snout intruding on my reverie.

As I look at the candle-lit windows I can't help but feel this rush of gratefulness for the castle that welcomed me so many years ago and let me discover its secrets, that taught me more about the world that I could ever dream of and pulled out of me all the Gryffindor courage I needed to stand up to my mother and became the man I always wanted to be. The place that prepared me to follow the path that brought me back here: babysitting dragons at Hogwarts for the upcoming TriWizard Tournament.