Carpathian Gorynych (After the Flaw: Oligarchy, Chapter 1)
Title: Carpathian Gorynych (After the Flaw: Oligarchy, Chapter 1)
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: After the Flaw
Rating: PG-15 for language, disturbing images, and Luna Lovegood
Summary: An ancient threat emerges
Notes: Surprise! Welcome back! I give you chapter one in After the Flaw 2, now known
as After the Flaw: Oligarchy. Later chapters will be coming, well, later, as there is still a lot
of work to be done before I'm ready to jump in. But I was getting antsy and this one was already
prepared, so enjoy the teaser!
As usual, I've taken some liberties with geography in this chapter. I don't own these characters,
they belong to JK Rowling.
After the Flaw / Antaeus
As he scanned the mountains below, Charlie Weasley grunted in frustration.
Shadows are getting too long, he thought. Pretty soon the sun'll be down and I won't be able to see where we're landing.
He had been to this area before, sure. Working in a dragon sanctuary for a living, especially one that was right across the border, Charlie had flown into this section of the Ukraine a few times in the past. Still didn't mean that he knew his way around.
Don't worry about it. You know the general area. Besides, do you really think she's going to let you try to find her in the dark?
At that moment a strong burst of wind smacked against Charlie's left side. He felt his ride twist beneath him, wings beating hard in order to compensate for the sudden change in the jet stream, and Charlie tightened his grip in order to not be thrown off the side and onto the jagged peaks far below.
He heard a breathless scream from behind him as the beast once again found his bearings. The arms that already had a vice grip around Charlie's waist tightened even more, and he closed his eyes in anticipation as the scream shifted into a quiet gagging sound.
"Don't throw up on me yet, alright?" he said. "We're almost there."
"Sorry," the muffled voice replied, face pressed into his spine. "I just..."
"You know he's not going to let you fall."
"I know, but..."
Light from the mountains to Charlie's left. Green sparks from a shadowed area of the mountains, a circular divot in the otherwise imposing ridges surrounding it.
"There's our spot," he said. "Hold on tight, we're going to land."
A faint groan was all that answered, and the arms squeezed him even tighter. Better land fast or you're going to suffocate, Charlie thought wryly. He leaned forward and whispered into the beast's ear.
"Go to the green light, boy," he said. "To your left."
The hippogriff replied with a hearty squawk, and Charlie heard another, throatier scream from his back as it banked hard left, descending rapidly. Charlie himself had to tighten his grip as he felt his body lift from the 'griff's back, wings ceasing their rhythmic beating and now stretching straight out, allowing a controlled fall/glide towards their destination.
As they descended, Charlie began to make out structures below him. Tents, mostly, maybe five or six, and piles of large wooden crates. A dozen witches and wizards were mingled around the campsite, a few being waved away by a hunched wizard with a cane.
Standing in the empty space made by the evacuating wizards was the girl Charlie was looking for. With one hand she held something to her face, while the other hand held aloft her wand, green sparks spurting from it like a shimmering fountain.
Charlie felt the body beneath him stiffen, and the wings began to beat heavily once again as their speed slowed considerably.
Thirty meters. Twenty. Ten.
"Hang on, love," Charlie said. "We're landing."
"Okay..."
Finally, the hippogriff touched down, its hind, horse-like legs landing first, followed soon after by its taloned forelegs. Its wings folded down to rest at its sides, but as Charlie tried to dismount he found he was still hindered.
"We've landed," he said, touching the hands clutched around him. "Vickie, we're down."
Victoire Weasley was finally able to peel her face from her uncle's back. She looked around frantically, convincing herself that, yes, they were on solid ground before scrambling from the 'griff's back and sprinting to the scrub brush at the edge of the campsite.
As Charlie did his best to block out the sound of his niece regurgitating her breakfast, he smiled slightly as his landing coordinator lowered her Omnioculars, glasses glinting in the sunset as she approached.
"Hello, Charles."
"Lovegood," Charlie replied as he dismounted, patting his steed and pulling the two packs from its back. Luna bowed deeply to the hippogriff, which paused only a few moments before returning the gesture. Knowing it was now safe to approach, she brushed her hand idly along its snout.
"Thank you for coming," she said. "I did not know where else to turn. We could have gone to the Ukrainian Ministry, but we are not supposed to be in this region."
"That's fine," said Charlie. "I'm glad to help."
"Did you have a nice flight?" Luna asked, both to Charlie and the creature.
"Depends on who you're asking," Charlie replied as Victoire stumbled out of the shadow, absently wiping her arm across her mouth. She approached the hippogriff and clamped her arms around its neck.
"Thank you for not letting me fall," she blubbered, "thank you thank you thank you." Luna glanced over at Charlie, who could only shrug as Buckbeak the hippogriff nuzzled Victoire's shoulder with his razor-sharp beak.
It had been six months since she had begun her apprenticeship with him, and Charlie still had difficulty wrapping his head around the idea that he had never seen Victoire bow once to the hippogriff before interacting with it. She had a rapport with the 'griff that defied explanation. Which, he supposed, was why Hagrid reluctantly allowed Victoire to take temporary custody of the beast soon after finishing her education at Hogwarts.
"Amazin', she is," Charlie remembered Hagrid telling him, not without some awe in his voice, that day almost a year ago now. Charlie and Victoire, along with Victoire's parents, Bill and Fleur Weasley, had visited Hagrid's hut soon after the end of the school year, in order to pick up Buckbeak and exchange last-minute farewells before Victoire moved to Romania for the next three years.
"Thirty-five years I've had ol' Beaky," Hagrid, who looked like he hadn't aged a day since Charlie first met him off the Hogwarts Express at age eleven, had said. "Thirty-five years and I've always had to bow to 'im. I always had ter bow to feed him, bow ter tie 'im up at night. Sirius hadda do the same, I figger, when they was on the run. But Vickie..." The great bear of a man shook his head in wonder, lost for words.
"Why do you think that is?" Charlie had asked as the two sat beneath the awning of Hagrid's hut, watching as Victoire introduced Buckbeak to her mother for the first time. Fleur, of course, flinched backward at the sight of the hippogriff, as much in revulsion as in shock, and Bill had a look in his eye that said, as much as he loved his daughter, he still wasn't entirely comfortable with entrusting her with the care of the creature.
"Couldn' tell yeh," said Hagrid, taking a swig of ale. "But I could wager a guess, if yeh like." Charlie nodded in assent. "Well, you know 'bout Vickie's Patronus, don' yeh?"
"A bit, yeah. Haven't seen it myself, but I've heard Harry and Victoire talking about it."
"Then you know what it is," said Hagrid. "Vickie's got herself a hippogriff Patronus. Golden. Right powerful, from what I heard Cal say 'bout it. Fully corp'ral from the word go."
"So you think that's why she's got such a connection to Beaky?" ask Charlie, pointing out to the paddock, where both Bill and Fleur were bowing to the creature. "Because of her Patronus?"
"Makes sense, don' it?" said Hagrid with a grin. "Maybe Beaky sees a... whaddayercallit... a kindred spirit in little Vickie. Some kinda connection that he hadn' had with other witches or wizards."
Charlie had nodded, his brow furrowing in thought. It did make as much sense as any explanation. A Patronus was a manifestation of a witch or wizard's positive energy. If Victoire's positive energy radiated as an extremely powerful, extremely corporeal hippogriff, it would stand to reason that Buckbeak would find comfort in that aura.
The question rose to the surface again as he and Luna watched Victoire kiss the hippogriff on its beak before turning back to the two adults, and Charlie in the end decided that some things just didn't need to be rationalized. They lived in the world of magic, after all, and anything was possible.
"Do you have something for him?" Victoire asked Luna. "He flew so well, and he didn't let me fall."
"He would never have let you fall, Vickie, you know that," said Charlie.
"I know," Victoire said, her voice still shaking slightly as she ran her hand along the 'griff's feathered neck. "But still..."
Charlie could only shrug. Despite her acclimation with the beast that carried her here, Victoire was still deathly afraid of heights, had been since her first flying lesson. She didn't own a broom, and the only way that Charlie had been able to convince her to fly here in the first place was on Buckbeak's back. The only thing, living or wizard-made, that Victoire would allow to lift her more than ten feet off the ground, she nonetheless carried an almost palpable fear whenever she needed to climb onto the hippogriff's back.
That Buckbeak recognized the fear and still allowed her to approach was yet another reason why Charlie, and everyone else in Victoire's life, was left mystified by their connection.
"Perhaps we have some beef left over from dinner," Luna replied. "We may not have any that is uncooked, however. Will that be suitable?"
"More than," Victoire said with a grateful smile. "He likes it medium rare sometimes."
"I will return in a moment," Luna replied. She gave Charlie a small, misty smile before making her way through the slowly gathering crowd of explorers. A tall, longhaired wizard stepped forward from the group, gingerly using his cane for support as he approached the Weasleys.
"Magnificent," Xenophilius Lovegood trumpeted. "Simply magnificent! You so rarely see a Feathered Faldinger in this kind of condition nowadays."
"A Feathered... A Feathered what?" Victoire asked, her eyebrow arched.
"Well, of course you must know, my dear, considering your rapport with the great beast," Xeno said. "Wherever did you find him? I searched high and low around the shores of Iceland forty years ago, and never..."
"But it's not..."
"It's not a Feathered Faldinger, father," said Luna as she returned to the clearing, a plate of roast beef in her hands.
"Eh, what?" Xeno replied, his slightly crossed eyes doing their best to focus on his only daughter.
"It's not a Feathered Faldinger," Luna repeated. "It's Buckbeak. He's simply a hippogriff."
Xeno stared at Luna. Stared at Buckbeak. "Are you sure?"
"Quite positive," Luna said in her soft, soothing voice. "Hagrid introduced me to him when I was thirteen. You remember Hagrid, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, of course I remember Harvard," said Xeno. "Are you sure...?"
"I am," said Luna. "Feathered Faldingers have a feline snout, remember?"
"Oh, yes," said Xeno, pursing his lips. "How disappointing." At that he turned around, made his way through the crowd and entered to the largest tent, closing the flap behind him.
"I apologize for my father," Luna said quietly as she gave Victoire the platter. "Years of travel and stress are catching up to him, and he is not quite sure of anything anymore. I still allow him to travel, but sometimes he is more of a hindrance than a help. It is sad, really."
"What's a Feathered Faldinger?" Victoire asked. "I've never seen one in any of my magical creature texts."
"Oh, the Feathered Faldinger is a wonderful creature," Luna explained as Victoire fed the meat to Buckbeak. "It hasn't been seen in over three hundred years, and of course those texts have been lost for some time. But the word of mouth remains strong that it can be found in the mountainous regions of Peru. In actuality, they look more like a tree frog than a hippogriff but, as I stated, my father isn't quite as aware as he once was."
"But... But didn't he say he searched Iceland?" Victoire asked, looking back and forth between Luna and Charlie.
"Don't ask," Charlie said quickly. "Luna, can we get on with it? Our trip took longer than anticipated, and I'd like to get started."
"Oh, yes," said Luna as Buckbeak finished the remainder of the food. "I can understand the delay, of course."
"Yeah, no Apparating across the border of the Ukraine," Charlie grunted. "All that bollocks between them and Russia, and East Europe has to pay for it. We had to fly Buckbeak all the way across Romania, and he's not as young as he used to be."
"Don't talk badly against him," said Victoire, rubbing the hippogriff's beak. "He did a marvelous job."
"Are you sure you do not need anything?" asked Luna. "Tea? Sandwiches?"
"Can your crew take care of a hippogriff?" asked Charlie. "They're trained?"
"Of course."
"Then I'd just like to get going," he replied, shouldering his pack while handing the spare to Victoire. "Take us to them."
---------
The first thing Victoire Weasley noticed as the trio made their way down the final ridge of their hour-long hike was the smell, which was like nothing she had expected. It reminded her of the Hogwarts Owlery, only a hundred times more potent. She had to pull her jumper up over her mouth and nose, hoping to mask the stench, and saw that Charlie, at least, was doing the same. Luna, who was leading the way, seemed unaffected.
"Be aware of the root here," she said, the tip of her wand glowing in the quickly encompassing darkness. "One of our crew members twisted their ankle earlier, and was not very pleased."
"You set protection spells, I'm assuming?" asked Charlie from the back of the line. "Make sure that Muggles didn't come around?"
"Repello Muggletum, do you mean?" asked Luna. "No, we did not."
"Why not? Lovegood, you know how important-"
"We did not cast any protection spells because protection spells had been cast on the area before we arrived."
Victoire's head turned in surprise, and she saw the same look of shock on her uncle's face through the glow of his Lumos spell. "How is that possible?" she asked. "This isn't..."
"We have arrived," Luna interrupted as they broke through the trees and into a clearing.
Clearing doesn't begin to describe it, Victoire corrected as she gazed around the twilit area. This place was leveled. Maybe half a dozen trees remained in the space, which Victoire guessed was around fifty meters across. The other trees had been downed; some were snapped at the trunk, while others had been torn out of the ground by their roots.
"Hell of a struggle here," Charlie muttered. "Where are we looking?"
A weak, pained honk, which reminded Victoire of an elephant's call, answered Charlie's question from the other end of the field. She noticed for the first time three lumps, each about the size of a small automobile, scattered amongst the wreckage. The horn-like call had come from one of them, and Victoire gasped as a head lifted from the ground nearby, attached to the lump by a long neck.
"Over there," Luna replied, pointing her wand in that direction.
"Right," Charlie said, and the three made their way through the downed trees. "Bloody hell, what is that smell?" he added.
"I do not know," said Luna as they approached the creature. "But it is very unique."
"Smells like a nappy filled with Thai food," Charlie coughed. "Alright, Vickie, time for your lessons."
"Okay, Uncle Charlie," Victoire replied.
"What are we looking at?" he asked as he circled the moaning creature. "And, remember, keep your distance. I know it's dark, and you can't see much, but we don't know how alert this girl is."
Victoire extended her wand hand, allowing the light to bathe the body of the creature while still keeping her a safe distance away from its hind legs. Its emerald-green hide was covered in both large gashes and small puncture wounds, and Victoire had to control her already-emptied gullet at the sight of all of the blood, red with a greenish shine.
"Large hind legs," she said quietly. "Membranous wings, green skin..."
"Come around front," said Charlie. "That'll help."
Victoire nodded, and made her way around to Charlie's side. The creature's front legs were noticeably smaller than its rears.
"Stands on its hind legs, right?" Victoire asked Charlie. "Bipedal?"
Charlie nodded in the dark, and Victoire made her way to the injured head, smoothly ovular with small eyes and a large jaw, only to find that it wasn't alone.
"Three necks," she breathed. "Three... oh, my God, two heads. Uncle Charlie, what happened to it?"
"What is it, Victoire?" asked Charlie, his calm demeanor barely covering his growing tension. "What are we looking at?"
"Well, the only three-headed bipedal dragon with this color hide is a Carpathian Gorynych," Victoire replied faintly. "But... But, God, what happened to it? What... Where's its third head?"
"One of many questions I want fucking answered," Charlie snapped, looking around the clearing. "Gorynyches aren't native to this area of the Carpathians. There's no way they should be any further east than the Czech-Polish border. And there's no way that... Bloody hell, this is Muggle ground, they shouldn't be here, so why the fuck are they, and who the fuck cast a bloody Muggle protection spell around this area?"
"Ukrainian officials?" Victoire asked, forcing herself to look away from the decapitated dragon. "Keeping them hidden until they can do something with them?"
"I don't know," Charlie said with a shake of the head. "The nearest dragon sanctuary is ours down in Romania. The Ukraine has one, but they're outside Kharkov, way over on the other side of the country. They would have contacted us before trying to ship them all the way to the Russian border.
"But at the very least there'd be some sort of presence nearby. They wouldn't leave this kind of devastation unattended until they cleaned it up, or at least figured out what happened. Because there's no way these Gorynyches did it all themselves."
"Can you help her?" Luna, who had faded back as the two Weasleys made their initial prognosis, now asked. "The other two have passed, I know that, but she is still alive."
"She is," said Charlie quietly, daring himself to move closer to the heads. "But I don't know if I can. Or, hell, even if I should."
"Why is that?"
"It's a three-headed creature," Victoire explained. "Three brains, one mind. One of them is gone."
"Two," Charlie snarled, getting down on his haunches and examining the head in the middle. "This one's dead, too. Fucking savages..."
"It would..." Victoire's voice cracked, and she forced herself to swallow the small amount of saliva still in her mouth. "It would be torture for her to continue to live with a third of her mind, of herself, gone. Plus they travel in small herds of no more than three or four, and with her companions dead..."
"I could heal it, or I could put it out of its misery," Charlie said, holding his glowing wand to the dragon's small eyes. "Damn it."
"So what do we do?" Victoire asked.
Charlie sat silently for a moment, his hand covering his mouth, his eyes closed in thought. There seemed to be no noise around them but the wind and the occasional moans of the Carpathian Gorynych. "What we can," he said presently. "You two take a look around, see if you can find anything out of place. Anything odd. Anything that would tell us what happened. If you can stomach it, examine at the other two. I'll take a look at this one, see if I can at least ease her pain before deciding what happens next."
Victoire decided the last thing she could stomach right now as the examination of two dead dragons, so she and Luna silently wandered away from Charlie and the Gorynych, waving their wands back and forth across the ground to see if they could find anything unusual.
"Are you excited?" Luna asked eventually.
"For what?" Victoire replied, climbing over a fallen tree.
"For the wedding."
Victoire stopped in mid-step, her legs straddling the trunk. It took her a few moments to even get around what was being asked. Wedding? What did that have to do with...?
"Theodore and Hermione's wedding," Luna clarified.
Oh, right. Victoire thought. Subject change.
Not that this one was any better or worse than what they had been discussing minutes before...
"Yeah, I guess so," Victoire shrugged, finishing her climb. "I mean, sure, why not?"
"You do not seem to be excited," Luna said, her eyes never leaving the ground as the two searched. "Are you having problems with them?"
"No!" Victoire said quickly. "No, I mean... Things are busy, and... And I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it, what with everything that's going on, and me moving to Romania, and..."
"And your former relationship with Theodore?"
"Our relationship consisted of one horribly timed kiss that was so fantastic, so life-changing, that it drove him to propose to HC two weeks later."
"I do not believe that you drove him back to Hermione," said Luna with that same calm demeanor that she had carried her entire life. "There were many circumstances between the two of them, if from what I heard from Harry and Ginny is correct. It was my belief that he would have returned to her eventually, whether you had kissed him or not."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Victoire said with a wave of her hand. "Just sour grapes, I guess."
"You are still jealous?"
"Am I?" Victoire paused. "I guess I am, yeah. I mean, it's... Yeah, I mean, I broke up with Nate because I had this stupid schoolgirl fantasy that Teddy and I could end up together, and in the end I ended up with neither of them, and my maman, you know how she is. 'Oh, Veectoire, my petit agneau, you are so preety, you should not be going off and steeking your arms elbow-deep in dragon fumier, how weel you ever find a man with thees job that you choose?'"
"Sticking your arms in dragon dung would only make your arms unattractive," Luna countered. "The rest of you would be very pretty, even if your arms are brown and smelly."
"Um, thanks, I think?" Victoire said, absently tucking her blond hair, cut short like Luna's in response to the rigors of her job, behind her ear.
"You are welcome. You are a very attractive woman, Victoire."
"Okay, but I'm straight," Victoire said quickly. "I know you're into girls, but I'm not. And besides, you're, what, twenty years older than I am?"
"Nineteen years, three months, and twenty-five days," Luna corrected. "And do not mistake me, Victoire. I would not approach you in that fashion. As I said, you are very attractive, and I often wonder what it would be like if you were sexually attracted to me..."
"More information than I need, thanks..."
"But I often think that about many people, and I hope you would not feel uncomfortable in my telling you this."
"Too late..."
"But that is all," Luna concluded. "Please accept my compliment that you are an attractive woman, as that is all I can offer."
Victoire stared after Luna as she continued to examine the dark grounds. Eventually, she shook her head and jogged to catch up with the older blonde. "Sorry," she said. "I do. I mean, I accept the compliment."
"You are welcome."
"It's just... I guess I get snippy about relationships lately," Victoire sighed. "There's Teddy and HC, and there's all the owls I get from Christine who can only talk about how great she and Sam are doing, and there's Chelsea raving about the guy she met at the Ministry, and here I am, doing a job that I love, but doing it with a bunch of men who are older, grubbier, and, in all honesty, not very attractive. Meanwhile, any men that I do have a chance with will shy away from my pet hippogriff and my excruciatingly powerful dragon shit smell and I'm about this close to just casting a confringo on my vibrator and joining a convent, you know what I mean?"
"I do not know who some of these people are," said Luna, "but I also do not believe you need to take such extreme measures."
"Yeah, I know," Victoire said, stopping and searching around the ground where she stood. "Like I said: snippy. You notice a lot of bird poo around here?"
"I have," said Luna, approaching one of the few remaining standing trees. "There is a great deal of it splattered on this tree's bark, as well."
Victoire walked up behind Luna and raised her wand to get a better look. Like the other trees, this one was studded with small indentations, like someone had taken a knife and stabbed it again and again. Also like the others, there were large claw marks gouged across it.
This tree, however, was also covered with a white and green... Well, it is what it is, Victoire thought. Looks like bird poo, is bird poo.
And, of course, the Owlery smell was stronger as she leaned in. Now we know where that came from, she thought. She breathed in in order to say the words aloud, but as she did she felt the odor hit her like a force. It coated her sinuses, her mouth. She felt it burn as it went down, and she instinctively pulled away and collapsed to her hands and knees, once again feeling the gorge rise in her throat.
Well, would you look at that? she thought absently. Looks like I still had some breakfast in me after all. At least this time, thankfully, she didn't have to hold her hair back, as Luna had kneeled beside her and did it for her.
"Let it all come," Luna said quietly, not flinching away at all as Victoire's stomach convulsed twice, three times, four. Her stomach was now completely emptied, but she continued to gag, now releasing only water and other stomach fluids.
"The stomach comes next," Victoire rasped, her throat feeling like it was on fire. "Maybe a lung, or my spleen."
"You are doing fine, Victoire," said Luna, gently rubbing Victoire's back. Victoire took a deep breath through her nostrils, and the whiff of the remaining odor caused one more bout of dry heaving before she was able to get it all under control.
"Is everything alright over there?" Charlie called.
"Everything is fine," Luna replied, helping Victoire off the ground. "It is, correct?"
Victoire nodded, but as she gained her feet she felt a wave of vertigo roll through her. Instinctively she threw her arm over Luna's shoulder, and Luna, her arm around the young Weasley's waist.
"See what I mean?" Victoire said hoarsely, wiping a sick sheen of sweat from her forehead. "I'm a catch for all the guys."
"I believe that is quite accurate," said Luna. "And if I might say, I believe you place far too much importance on finding someone."
"I know, I know," Victoire said with a weary nod as the two slowly made their way towards the glow of Charlie's wand. "I try not to, but..."
"Not everyone needs to be in a relationship to be happy," said Luna. "Look at your uncle and I. He and I may have intercourse occasionally..."
Victoire stumbled as she stopped in her tracks. "What?"
"But that does not mean that we want a relationship," Luna continued unabated. "We are perfectly happy being friends and occasional lovers, and that is all that we want."
"Oh, God!" Victoire gasped in horror. "I can't know that!"
"Luna, are you traumatizing my niece again?" Charlie asked.
"I did not think I was," said Luna. "Surely, she knew why you were staying in my tent tonight, and..."
"A subject change would be lovely right now!" Victoire cried out.
"Gladly," Charlie said calmly, standing up. "I tended to most of her wounds, and I've bandaged the severed portion of her neck as best as I could, but there are still some wounds beneath her. Vickie, how are you feeling?"
"Trying desperately to not think about you two doing the horizontal mambo in her bunk," Victoire said, her eyes pressed closed, "but otherwise just fine, thank you."
"I heard you talking about your sex toys, so don't think I'm doing any better," Charlie mumbled. "Are you strong enough to cast a spell? I need to flip her over, but she's big, I'll need all three of us."
Victoire did a quick mental check of her faculties, and nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."
"Alright," he said, extinguishing his wand. "We're going to do a Mobilocorpus, you know that one?"
"Yeah."
"Luna?"
"On the count of four," Luna said, extinguishing her wand and pointing it at the dragon. "One... two...three...four."
"Mobilocorpus!" the three cried out in unison, and the huge three-headed dragon lifted limply into the air.
"Okay now," Charlie said from the middle. "We're going to very carefully roll her over. We're going to roll away from me, so Luna to your left, Vickie to your right. Got it?"
Luna, who was holding the tail with her spell, nodded. Victoire, at the dragon's head, did the same, but as she did she saw a brief glimmer on the ground beneath the Gorynych.
"Right," Charlie said. "On three..."
"Uncle Charlie!" Victoire called out. "There's something on the ground there, do you see it?"
"I see a lot of blood, Vickie," Charlie said, "which is why we're going to do this fast."
"No!" Victoire exclaimed. "Something shiny. Metal. Do you see?"
"It's thirty four inches from your foot, Charles," Luna said.
"No, I... Wait," Charlie said. "Yeah, I see it. Hang on..."
Very carefully, Charlie bent his knees. Still keeping his wand hand aloft, he reached out to the metallic object. The dragon, now almost five feet off the ground, was casting her shadow across Charlie's back.
"Almost got it," he said. "She's big, tough to get under. Hang on. Got it BLOODY HELL!"
As he grasped the object, he howled out in pain. The metal thing, covered in blood, flew from his hand, and he instinctively dropped his wand, clutching at his wounded fingers.
"Charles!" "Uncle Charlie!" the two women screamed in unison as his connection to the dragon broke. The dragon erupted in a horrific scream as its midsection bowed fast. Now being held a loft by only its tail and its neck, and Victoire had the perilous image of her uncle being crushed beneath its enormous body before both she and Luna instinctively shifted their spells towards the main bulk of the dragon.
This saved Charlie Weasley from a messy death, but it unfortunately didn't do as much for the Carpathian Gorynych. No longer held aloft, the dragon's tail and its remaining living head both fell quickly to the earth, and Victoire heard a gut-wrenching crack as the head connected with one of the logs. The screams that echoed through the canyon were unbearable as the already weakened dragon roared in pain from its cracked skull.
"Put her down!" Charlie yelled as he rolled from beneath the floating body. "Put her down! Fucking drop her, now!"
Luna and Victoire did as they were told, pulling their wands away from the injured beast. The body fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Barely thinking, Charlie grabbed Victoire's wand from her shaking hand and dropped to the howling head.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, pointing the wand at the dragon's temple. "Avada Kedavra."
Charlie's face emerged in the darkness as it was bathed in green light, and the forest was once again silent.
"I'm sorry," Victoire ran over as Charlie Weasley fell back, now sitting on the ground, his eyes wide with shock. "I'm sorry I'm sorry Uncle Charlie I'm sorry I didn't mean..."
"What?" Charlie asked faintly as Victoire fell down beside him, clutching him in a tight hug.
"I thought you were going to die," Victoire said, now sobbing. "I'm sorry I let go I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt her I didn't mean for her to die..."
"Shhh, shhh, shhh," Charlie said, holding his niece and running a hand across the top of her head as she pressed her face into his shoulder. "Don't cry, love, don't..."
"I messed up," Victoire said. "I shouldn't have let her go, she shouldn't have..."
"It happened," Charlie said gently. "And it's over. You did just fine."
"No, no, I didn't," Victoire sobbed. "She shouldn't have, not like that..."
"She was going to die anyway," Charlie said, kissing her forehead. "I was going to put her to sleep after the other wounds were healed. Besides, I was the idiot. I could have just moved her a few feet to the right instead of reaching under her, and you two saved my stupid life. I'm not mad..."
"I didn't want anyone to die," Victoire said, slowly calming down in her uncle's arms. "Not you, not her."
"That makes two of us," Charlie chuckled. "But it happens. You're new to this, Vickie, and you'll learn that we can't save all of them. Sometimes we can only do what's best for them in their final hours. That's what we're here for as much as anything. Alright?"
Victoire nodded, but only held onto her uncle harder, as if trying to convince herself that he was still all there.
"You're bleeding," said Luna, calm throughout the entire proceedings. Charlie looked over Victoire's shoulder to see that his left hand was spreading a large stain of blood on the back of her jumper. Now that he saw it, now that he remembered that he was actually injured, the shock of his near-death faded and the pain of the wound came back with interest.
Charlie gritted his teeth as he lifted his hand from Victoire's back. Victoire pulled away, and clasped her hands over her mouth as she saw the damage.
It was a lot worse than any of them had anticipated. Even simply grasping the... whatever it was had done some major work on him. Charlie closed his eyes quickly as Luna re-Lumosed her wand and examined the wound, not wanting to see it in the pale light.
"Whatever it was, it was very sharp," she commented. "You are very close to losing your index finger, Charles."
"The pain is telling me I'm not surprised..."
"Episkey."
Charlie felt a warm tingle through his hand, and breathed a sigh of relief as the pain diminished to a dull roar.
"This is as much as I can do," said Luna. "But you will want to get it examined in the next few days."
Charlie nodded. He tried flexing his fingers, but they felt stiff and unresponsive, and could only bend them half way before the pain returned. But it was tolerable, at least.
"I should be fine until we get back to Romania," he said with a nod. "Which won't be tonight."
"So you will still be staying?" Luna asked. "I do not believe that your injured hand would hinder our relations."
"Please don't ever say that," Victoire said, the rest of her tears disappearing in terrified chuckles. "Never ever say that."
"We still have work to do, anyway," Charlie said, pushing himself to his feet. "I threw that thing over there. Let's find out what it was that killed these dragons."
Charlie, Victoire, and Luna both walked to the general area where Charlie had thrown the metal object. After a few minutes of searching, Victoire raised her hand.
"Found it!"
"Don't touch it," Charlie said quickly. "Float it."
"Do you want to see it?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Wingardium Leviosa."
Victoire carefully floated the metal object in the air, and both Luna pointed her glowing wand in order to illuminate it.
"What is it?" Charlie asked, Scourgifying the blood, his blood, from the object.
"It looks like a feather," Luna replied.
Indeed, it was a feather. Roughly six inches long and an inch across, the feather was composed entirely of some sort of metal.
"Wizard-made?" Charlie asked.
"I don't think so," said Victoire, squinting as she used her wand to carefully rotate the feather in mid-air. "The work's really well-done. Hang on."
Without taking her eyes from the feather, Victoire reached behind her and grabbed a twig that was lying on the ground. Very carefully she touched the tip of the stick to the feather. She was surprised to see the feather cut through the stick like it was made of nothing, but not before...
"Yeah, it's really well made," Victoire said. "Did you see that? The barbs are each independently attached to the rachis, they moved when I touched it with the stick. And each... Bloody hell, each barb has its own set of barbules, this is amazing..."
"Now you know why she's here," Charlie said to Luna. "I'm the dragon expert, Vickie's the everything else expert."
"It's organic," Victoire continued, lost in the feather. "It has to be. There's no way a wizard could be this precise. Something had to grow this somehow."
"But what?" Charlie asked. "And why? And how? And what the hell is it doing here and what does it have to do with these dragons being killed?"
Victoire shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "there aren't any known species that..." her voice trailed off and her eyes widened.
"What is it?" asked Luna. "Have you remembered something?"
"That can't be," Victoire said, shaking her head. "That can't..." She lowered her wand, and the feather, instead of floating, dropped to the ground fast, sticking into the dirt like a dagger. Victoire stood up and ran back to the tree where she had vomited earlier.
"What is it?" Luna repeated. "Victoire."
"It's not possible," Victoire muttered to herself, vaulting over a downed tree. "There hasn't been a reported sighting in over two thousand years, they're extinct, they can't be..."
"Vickie," Charlie said carefully, "what is it?"
"But it all fits," she said, gazing at the excrement-covered tree. "Bloody hell, it all fits."
"Vickie!"
Victoire pulled her eyes away from the tree, remembering the other two. "It's... the feathers, the claws, the droppings... Have you ever heard of the Stymphalian Bird?"
Charlie shook his head, but Luna's eyes, usually so calm, widened slightly. "They do exist," she breathed.
"It looks like it, doesn't it?" Victoire said.
"What the hell are you two talking about?" asked Charlie. "What's a Syphilitic Bird?"
"Stymphalian," Victoire corrected. "It's... Well, it's lost in most modern texts because, yeah, it's been dead for almost three thousand years."
"Muggles remember it better than we would," said Luna. "There was a myth written in ancient Greece about them."
"Hercules, right? One of the trials?" asked Victoire, and continued after Luna nodded. "They've been dead for thousands of years. They haven't been seen... but it all fits, Uncle Charlie, all of it. Their claws are metal, and their feathers are metal, and they can... what... shoot their feathers at their enemies like arrows."
"And their feces is considered highly toxic," Luna added. "Victoire, you got a strong amount of some in your system, will you be fine?"
Victoire paused. "I didn't take much, but I think it'd be safer for everyone to take a few doses of Fizzing Flush when we get back to camp. We've all breathed it, lord knows how long it takes to affect the system. Looks like we'll all be keeping near the toilet for the next few hours."
"But this is preposterous!" Charlie said. "I mean, sure, there's one feather, but they had to have shot enough to take down three Gorynyches!"
"They'd have enough," Victoire nodded. "The feather's regrow within minutes, and they're big. Not as big as the dragons, but if there were enough of them..."
"Where are all of the feathers?" asked Luna. "Why is this the only one?"
"Because they've already been taken," Victoire said quietly, looking up and down the tree, seeing the pierced trunk for the first time. "There were feathers everywhere, stuck in every tree and every dragon, but someone or many someones took them. They must have missed this one because it was under this dragon."
"The same someones that cast the protection spell," said Charlie. "And I wager the same someones that brought the Gorynyches from the Czech Republic in the first place."
"And probably brought the Stymphalians, too," said Victoire. "They were located in Greece. They would never come here unless they were transported. Why?"
"Target practice," said Luna. "Training."
"Fuck," Charlie said, slapping his hand against his forehead. "This is... Bloody hell, this is too much. Why would they leave the dragons here?"
"Maybe they didn't leave them," said Victoire, her lips going numb as she realized what they had gotten themselves into.
Luna finished her thought. "Whoever brought the Birds here would want to treat them better than the dragons. They wanted to make sure that they were gathered, cared for, and housed before they returned to deal with the Gorynyches."
"They'll be back," Charlie concluded. "We need to be away from here as soon as possible, ladies, and we need to get Luna's crew packed up and gone. If there's any way to warn the surrounding magical villages and the Ukrainian Ministry, we should do that as well. Whoever took down these dragons is not to be taken lightly."
"I agree," said Luna. "What about the feather? Should we leave it?"
"We can't," said Victoire. "It's too important of evidence. If we're going to go to the Ministry...."
"Can we carry it?" asked Charlie. "It's way too sharp to carry in a normal bag."
"Stymphalian feathers were magically enhanced," Victoire explained. "They'll cut through most anything. Stone, metal, anything."
"Then we'll have to leave it." Charlie replied. "I hate doing it, but we have to. Hide it somewhere, maybe, and hope that no one finds it."
Eventually the three agreed that it would best buried on the edge of the clearing. As Charlie dug the hole with a Defodio charm, Luna and Victoire located a recognizable rock to use as a marker. Victoire floated the feather into the hole, Charlie re-covered it, and Luna finally laid the stone atop it.
"That's the best we can do," said Charlie. "Hopefully it'll still be here when we come back with some authorities."
"Three thousand year old birds," Victoire said with a shake of her head. "Three thousand year old birds over five hundred miles north of where they should be, killing dragons that are over three hundred miles east of where they should be. In Muggle territory. And someone's cleaning up the evidence. I don't like this. I don't like this at all."
Luna placed a hand on the Weasleys' shoulders and the three Apparated into the night. When they returned two days later with Ukrainian Department of Magical Creatures officials, the dragons had already been removed, the downed trees cleared, and the feces scourged.
The marker was gone, and the hole in the ground where they had placed the now-vanished feather was the only evidence that someone had been there at all.
After the Flaw / Antaeus
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: After the Flaw
Rating: PG-15 for language, disturbing images, and Luna Lovegood
Summary: An ancient threat emerges
Notes: Surprise! Welcome back! I give you chapter one in After the Flaw 2, now known
as After the Flaw: Oligarchy. Later chapters will be coming, well, later, as there is still a lot
of work to be done before I'm ready to jump in. But I was getting antsy and this one was already
prepared, so enjoy the teaser!
As usual, I've taken some liberties with geography in this chapter. I don't own these characters,
they belong to JK Rowling.
After the Flaw / Antaeus
As he scanned the mountains below, Charlie Weasley grunted in frustration.
Shadows are getting too long, he thought. Pretty soon the sun'll be down and I won't be able to see where we're landing.
He had been to this area before, sure. Working in a dragon sanctuary for a living, especially one that was right across the border, Charlie had flown into this section of the Ukraine a few times in the past. Still didn't mean that he knew his way around.
Don't worry about it. You know the general area. Besides, do you really think she's going to let you try to find her in the dark?
At that moment a strong burst of wind smacked against Charlie's left side. He felt his ride twist beneath him, wings beating hard in order to compensate for the sudden change in the jet stream, and Charlie tightened his grip in order to not be thrown off the side and onto the jagged peaks far below.
He heard a breathless scream from behind him as the beast once again found his bearings. The arms that already had a vice grip around Charlie's waist tightened even more, and he closed his eyes in anticipation as the scream shifted into a quiet gagging sound.
"Don't throw up on me yet, alright?" he said. "We're almost there."
"Sorry," the muffled voice replied, face pressed into his spine. "I just..."
"You know he's not going to let you fall."
"I know, but..."
Light from the mountains to Charlie's left. Green sparks from a shadowed area of the mountains, a circular divot in the otherwise imposing ridges surrounding it.
"There's our spot," he said. "Hold on tight, we're going to land."
A faint groan was all that answered, and the arms squeezed him even tighter. Better land fast or you're going to suffocate, Charlie thought wryly. He leaned forward and whispered into the beast's ear.
"Go to the green light, boy," he said. "To your left."
The hippogriff replied with a hearty squawk, and Charlie heard another, throatier scream from his back as it banked hard left, descending rapidly. Charlie himself had to tighten his grip as he felt his body lift from the 'griff's back, wings ceasing their rhythmic beating and now stretching straight out, allowing a controlled fall/glide towards their destination.
As they descended, Charlie began to make out structures below him. Tents, mostly, maybe five or six, and piles of large wooden crates. A dozen witches and wizards were mingled around the campsite, a few being waved away by a hunched wizard with a cane.
Standing in the empty space made by the evacuating wizards was the girl Charlie was looking for. With one hand she held something to her face, while the other hand held aloft her wand, green sparks spurting from it like a shimmering fountain.
Charlie felt the body beneath him stiffen, and the wings began to beat heavily once again as their speed slowed considerably.
Thirty meters. Twenty. Ten.
"Hang on, love," Charlie said. "We're landing."
"Okay..."
Finally, the hippogriff touched down, its hind, horse-like legs landing first, followed soon after by its taloned forelegs. Its wings folded down to rest at its sides, but as Charlie tried to dismount he found he was still hindered.
"We've landed," he said, touching the hands clutched around him. "Vickie, we're down."
Victoire Weasley was finally able to peel her face from her uncle's back. She looked around frantically, convincing herself that, yes, they were on solid ground before scrambling from the 'griff's back and sprinting to the scrub brush at the edge of the campsite.
As Charlie did his best to block out the sound of his niece regurgitating her breakfast, he smiled slightly as his landing coordinator lowered her Omnioculars, glasses glinting in the sunset as she approached.
"Hello, Charles."
"Lovegood," Charlie replied as he dismounted, patting his steed and pulling the two packs from its back. Luna bowed deeply to the hippogriff, which paused only a few moments before returning the gesture. Knowing it was now safe to approach, she brushed her hand idly along its snout.
"Thank you for coming," she said. "I did not know where else to turn. We could have gone to the Ukrainian Ministry, but we are not supposed to be in this region."
"That's fine," said Charlie. "I'm glad to help."
"Did you have a nice flight?" Luna asked, both to Charlie and the creature.
"Depends on who you're asking," Charlie replied as Victoire stumbled out of the shadow, absently wiping her arm across her mouth. She approached the hippogriff and clamped her arms around its neck.
"Thank you for not letting me fall," she blubbered, "thank you thank you thank you." Luna glanced over at Charlie, who could only shrug as Buckbeak the hippogriff nuzzled Victoire's shoulder with his razor-sharp beak.
It had been six months since she had begun her apprenticeship with him, and Charlie still had difficulty wrapping his head around the idea that he had never seen Victoire bow once to the hippogriff before interacting with it. She had a rapport with the 'griff that defied explanation. Which, he supposed, was why Hagrid reluctantly allowed Victoire to take temporary custody of the beast soon after finishing her education at Hogwarts.
"Amazin', she is," Charlie remembered Hagrid telling him, not without some awe in his voice, that day almost a year ago now. Charlie and Victoire, along with Victoire's parents, Bill and Fleur Weasley, had visited Hagrid's hut soon after the end of the school year, in order to pick up Buckbeak and exchange last-minute farewells before Victoire moved to Romania for the next three years.
"Thirty-five years I've had ol' Beaky," Hagrid, who looked like he hadn't aged a day since Charlie first met him off the Hogwarts Express at age eleven, had said. "Thirty-five years and I've always had to bow to 'im. I always had ter bow to feed him, bow ter tie 'im up at night. Sirius hadda do the same, I figger, when they was on the run. But Vickie..." The great bear of a man shook his head in wonder, lost for words.
"Why do you think that is?" Charlie had asked as the two sat beneath the awning of Hagrid's hut, watching as Victoire introduced Buckbeak to her mother for the first time. Fleur, of course, flinched backward at the sight of the hippogriff, as much in revulsion as in shock, and Bill had a look in his eye that said, as much as he loved his daughter, he still wasn't entirely comfortable with entrusting her with the care of the creature.
"Couldn' tell yeh," said Hagrid, taking a swig of ale. "But I could wager a guess, if yeh like." Charlie nodded in assent. "Well, you know 'bout Vickie's Patronus, don' yeh?"
"A bit, yeah. Haven't seen it myself, but I've heard Harry and Victoire talking about it."
"Then you know what it is," said Hagrid. "Vickie's got herself a hippogriff Patronus. Golden. Right powerful, from what I heard Cal say 'bout it. Fully corp'ral from the word go."
"So you think that's why she's got such a connection to Beaky?" ask Charlie, pointing out to the paddock, where both Bill and Fleur were bowing to the creature. "Because of her Patronus?"
"Makes sense, don' it?" said Hagrid with a grin. "Maybe Beaky sees a... whaddayercallit... a kindred spirit in little Vickie. Some kinda connection that he hadn' had with other witches or wizards."
Charlie had nodded, his brow furrowing in thought. It did make as much sense as any explanation. A Patronus was a manifestation of a witch or wizard's positive energy. If Victoire's positive energy radiated as an extremely powerful, extremely corporeal hippogriff, it would stand to reason that Buckbeak would find comfort in that aura.
The question rose to the surface again as he and Luna watched Victoire kiss the hippogriff on its beak before turning back to the two adults, and Charlie in the end decided that some things just didn't need to be rationalized. They lived in the world of magic, after all, and anything was possible.
"Do you have something for him?" Victoire asked Luna. "He flew so well, and he didn't let me fall."
"He would never have let you fall, Vickie, you know that," said Charlie.
"I know," Victoire said, her voice still shaking slightly as she ran her hand along the 'griff's feathered neck. "But still..."
Charlie could only shrug. Despite her acclimation with the beast that carried her here, Victoire was still deathly afraid of heights, had been since her first flying lesson. She didn't own a broom, and the only way that Charlie had been able to convince her to fly here in the first place was on Buckbeak's back. The only thing, living or wizard-made, that Victoire would allow to lift her more than ten feet off the ground, she nonetheless carried an almost palpable fear whenever she needed to climb onto the hippogriff's back.
That Buckbeak recognized the fear and still allowed her to approach was yet another reason why Charlie, and everyone else in Victoire's life, was left mystified by their connection.
"Perhaps we have some beef left over from dinner," Luna replied. "We may not have any that is uncooked, however. Will that be suitable?"
"More than," Victoire said with a grateful smile. "He likes it medium rare sometimes."
"I will return in a moment," Luna replied. She gave Charlie a small, misty smile before making her way through the slowly gathering crowd of explorers. A tall, longhaired wizard stepped forward from the group, gingerly using his cane for support as he approached the Weasleys.
"Magnificent," Xenophilius Lovegood trumpeted. "Simply magnificent! You so rarely see a Feathered Faldinger in this kind of condition nowadays."
"A Feathered... A Feathered what?" Victoire asked, her eyebrow arched.
"Well, of course you must know, my dear, considering your rapport with the great beast," Xeno said. "Wherever did you find him? I searched high and low around the shores of Iceland forty years ago, and never..."
"But it's not..."
"It's not a Feathered Faldinger, father," said Luna as she returned to the clearing, a plate of roast beef in her hands.
"Eh, what?" Xeno replied, his slightly crossed eyes doing their best to focus on his only daughter.
"It's not a Feathered Faldinger," Luna repeated. "It's Buckbeak. He's simply a hippogriff."
Xeno stared at Luna. Stared at Buckbeak. "Are you sure?"
"Quite positive," Luna said in her soft, soothing voice. "Hagrid introduced me to him when I was thirteen. You remember Hagrid, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, of course I remember Harvard," said Xeno. "Are you sure...?"
"I am," said Luna. "Feathered Faldingers have a feline snout, remember?"
"Oh, yes," said Xeno, pursing his lips. "How disappointing." At that he turned around, made his way through the crowd and entered to the largest tent, closing the flap behind him.
"I apologize for my father," Luna said quietly as she gave Victoire the platter. "Years of travel and stress are catching up to him, and he is not quite sure of anything anymore. I still allow him to travel, but sometimes he is more of a hindrance than a help. It is sad, really."
"What's a Feathered Faldinger?" Victoire asked. "I've never seen one in any of my magical creature texts."
"Oh, the Feathered Faldinger is a wonderful creature," Luna explained as Victoire fed the meat to Buckbeak. "It hasn't been seen in over three hundred years, and of course those texts have been lost for some time. But the word of mouth remains strong that it can be found in the mountainous regions of Peru. In actuality, they look more like a tree frog than a hippogriff but, as I stated, my father isn't quite as aware as he once was."
"But... But didn't he say he searched Iceland?" Victoire asked, looking back and forth between Luna and Charlie.
"Don't ask," Charlie said quickly. "Luna, can we get on with it? Our trip took longer than anticipated, and I'd like to get started."
"Oh, yes," said Luna as Buckbeak finished the remainder of the food. "I can understand the delay, of course."
"Yeah, no Apparating across the border of the Ukraine," Charlie grunted. "All that bollocks between them and Russia, and East Europe has to pay for it. We had to fly Buckbeak all the way across Romania, and he's not as young as he used to be."
"Don't talk badly against him," said Victoire, rubbing the hippogriff's beak. "He did a marvelous job."
"Are you sure you do not need anything?" asked Luna. "Tea? Sandwiches?"
"Can your crew take care of a hippogriff?" asked Charlie. "They're trained?"
"Of course."
"Then I'd just like to get going," he replied, shouldering his pack while handing the spare to Victoire. "Take us to them."
---------
The first thing Victoire Weasley noticed as the trio made their way down the final ridge of their hour-long hike was the smell, which was like nothing she had expected. It reminded her of the Hogwarts Owlery, only a hundred times more potent. She had to pull her jumper up over her mouth and nose, hoping to mask the stench, and saw that Charlie, at least, was doing the same. Luna, who was leading the way, seemed unaffected.
"Be aware of the root here," she said, the tip of her wand glowing in the quickly encompassing darkness. "One of our crew members twisted their ankle earlier, and was not very pleased."
"You set protection spells, I'm assuming?" asked Charlie from the back of the line. "Make sure that Muggles didn't come around?"
"Repello Muggletum, do you mean?" asked Luna. "No, we did not."
"Why not? Lovegood, you know how important-"
"We did not cast any protection spells because protection spells had been cast on the area before we arrived."
Victoire's head turned in surprise, and she saw the same look of shock on her uncle's face through the glow of his Lumos spell. "How is that possible?" she asked. "This isn't..."
"We have arrived," Luna interrupted as they broke through the trees and into a clearing.
Clearing doesn't begin to describe it, Victoire corrected as she gazed around the twilit area. This place was leveled. Maybe half a dozen trees remained in the space, which Victoire guessed was around fifty meters across. The other trees had been downed; some were snapped at the trunk, while others had been torn out of the ground by their roots.
"Hell of a struggle here," Charlie muttered. "Where are we looking?"
A weak, pained honk, which reminded Victoire of an elephant's call, answered Charlie's question from the other end of the field. She noticed for the first time three lumps, each about the size of a small automobile, scattered amongst the wreckage. The horn-like call had come from one of them, and Victoire gasped as a head lifted from the ground nearby, attached to the lump by a long neck.
"Over there," Luna replied, pointing her wand in that direction.
"Right," Charlie said, and the three made their way through the downed trees. "Bloody hell, what is that smell?" he added.
"I do not know," said Luna as they approached the creature. "But it is very unique."
"Smells like a nappy filled with Thai food," Charlie coughed. "Alright, Vickie, time for your lessons."
"Okay, Uncle Charlie," Victoire replied.
"What are we looking at?" he asked as he circled the moaning creature. "And, remember, keep your distance. I know it's dark, and you can't see much, but we don't know how alert this girl is."
Victoire extended her wand hand, allowing the light to bathe the body of the creature while still keeping her a safe distance away from its hind legs. Its emerald-green hide was covered in both large gashes and small puncture wounds, and Victoire had to control her already-emptied gullet at the sight of all of the blood, red with a greenish shine.
"Large hind legs," she said quietly. "Membranous wings, green skin..."
"Come around front," said Charlie. "That'll help."
Victoire nodded, and made her way around to Charlie's side. The creature's front legs were noticeably smaller than its rears.
"Stands on its hind legs, right?" Victoire asked Charlie. "Bipedal?"
Charlie nodded in the dark, and Victoire made her way to the injured head, smoothly ovular with small eyes and a large jaw, only to find that it wasn't alone.
"Three necks," she breathed. "Three... oh, my God, two heads. Uncle Charlie, what happened to it?"
"What is it, Victoire?" asked Charlie, his calm demeanor barely covering his growing tension. "What are we looking at?"
"Well, the only three-headed bipedal dragon with this color hide is a Carpathian Gorynych," Victoire replied faintly. "But... But, God, what happened to it? What... Where's its third head?"
"One of many questions I want fucking answered," Charlie snapped, looking around the clearing. "Gorynyches aren't native to this area of the Carpathians. There's no way they should be any further east than the Czech-Polish border. And there's no way that... Bloody hell, this is Muggle ground, they shouldn't be here, so why the fuck are they, and who the fuck cast a bloody Muggle protection spell around this area?"
"Ukrainian officials?" Victoire asked, forcing herself to look away from the decapitated dragon. "Keeping them hidden until they can do something with them?"
"I don't know," Charlie said with a shake of the head. "The nearest dragon sanctuary is ours down in Romania. The Ukraine has one, but they're outside Kharkov, way over on the other side of the country. They would have contacted us before trying to ship them all the way to the Russian border.
"But at the very least there'd be some sort of presence nearby. They wouldn't leave this kind of devastation unattended until they cleaned it up, or at least figured out what happened. Because there's no way these Gorynyches did it all themselves."
"Can you help her?" Luna, who had faded back as the two Weasleys made their initial prognosis, now asked. "The other two have passed, I know that, but she is still alive."
"She is," said Charlie quietly, daring himself to move closer to the heads. "But I don't know if I can. Or, hell, even if I should."
"Why is that?"
"It's a three-headed creature," Victoire explained. "Three brains, one mind. One of them is gone."
"Two," Charlie snarled, getting down on his haunches and examining the head in the middle. "This one's dead, too. Fucking savages..."
"It would..." Victoire's voice cracked, and she forced herself to swallow the small amount of saliva still in her mouth. "It would be torture for her to continue to live with a third of her mind, of herself, gone. Plus they travel in small herds of no more than three or four, and with her companions dead..."
"I could heal it, or I could put it out of its misery," Charlie said, holding his glowing wand to the dragon's small eyes. "Damn it."
"So what do we do?" Victoire asked.
Charlie sat silently for a moment, his hand covering his mouth, his eyes closed in thought. There seemed to be no noise around them but the wind and the occasional moans of the Carpathian Gorynych. "What we can," he said presently. "You two take a look around, see if you can find anything out of place. Anything odd. Anything that would tell us what happened. If you can stomach it, examine at the other two. I'll take a look at this one, see if I can at least ease her pain before deciding what happens next."
Victoire decided the last thing she could stomach right now as the examination of two dead dragons, so she and Luna silently wandered away from Charlie and the Gorynych, waving their wands back and forth across the ground to see if they could find anything unusual.
"Are you excited?" Luna asked eventually.
"For what?" Victoire replied, climbing over a fallen tree.
"For the wedding."
Victoire stopped in mid-step, her legs straddling the trunk. It took her a few moments to even get around what was being asked. Wedding? What did that have to do with...?
"Theodore and Hermione's wedding," Luna clarified.
Oh, right. Victoire thought. Subject change.
Not that this one was any better or worse than what they had been discussing minutes before...
"Yeah, I guess so," Victoire shrugged, finishing her climb. "I mean, sure, why not?"
"You do not seem to be excited," Luna said, her eyes never leaving the ground as the two searched. "Are you having problems with them?"
"No!" Victoire said quickly. "No, I mean... Things are busy, and... And I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it, what with everything that's going on, and me moving to Romania, and..."
"And your former relationship with Theodore?"
"Our relationship consisted of one horribly timed kiss that was so fantastic, so life-changing, that it drove him to propose to HC two weeks later."
"I do not believe that you drove him back to Hermione," said Luna with that same calm demeanor that she had carried her entire life. "There were many circumstances between the two of them, if from what I heard from Harry and Ginny is correct. It was my belief that he would have returned to her eventually, whether you had kissed him or not."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Victoire said with a wave of her hand. "Just sour grapes, I guess."
"You are still jealous?"
"Am I?" Victoire paused. "I guess I am, yeah. I mean, it's... Yeah, I mean, I broke up with Nate because I had this stupid schoolgirl fantasy that Teddy and I could end up together, and in the end I ended up with neither of them, and my maman, you know how she is. 'Oh, Veectoire, my petit agneau, you are so preety, you should not be going off and steeking your arms elbow-deep in dragon fumier, how weel you ever find a man with thees job that you choose?'"
"Sticking your arms in dragon dung would only make your arms unattractive," Luna countered. "The rest of you would be very pretty, even if your arms are brown and smelly."
"Um, thanks, I think?" Victoire said, absently tucking her blond hair, cut short like Luna's in response to the rigors of her job, behind her ear.
"You are welcome. You are a very attractive woman, Victoire."
"Okay, but I'm straight," Victoire said quickly. "I know you're into girls, but I'm not. And besides, you're, what, twenty years older than I am?"
"Nineteen years, three months, and twenty-five days," Luna corrected. "And do not mistake me, Victoire. I would not approach you in that fashion. As I said, you are very attractive, and I often wonder what it would be like if you were sexually attracted to me..."
"More information than I need, thanks..."
"But I often think that about many people, and I hope you would not feel uncomfortable in my telling you this."
"Too late..."
"But that is all," Luna concluded. "Please accept my compliment that you are an attractive woman, as that is all I can offer."
Victoire stared after Luna as she continued to examine the dark grounds. Eventually, she shook her head and jogged to catch up with the older blonde. "Sorry," she said. "I do. I mean, I accept the compliment."
"You are welcome."
"It's just... I guess I get snippy about relationships lately," Victoire sighed. "There's Teddy and HC, and there's all the owls I get from Christine who can only talk about how great she and Sam are doing, and there's Chelsea raving about the guy she met at the Ministry, and here I am, doing a job that I love, but doing it with a bunch of men who are older, grubbier, and, in all honesty, not very attractive. Meanwhile, any men that I do have a chance with will shy away from my pet hippogriff and my excruciatingly powerful dragon shit smell and I'm about this close to just casting a confringo on my vibrator and joining a convent, you know what I mean?"
"I do not know who some of these people are," said Luna, "but I also do not believe you need to take such extreme measures."
"Yeah, I know," Victoire said, stopping and searching around the ground where she stood. "Like I said: snippy. You notice a lot of bird poo around here?"
"I have," said Luna, approaching one of the few remaining standing trees. "There is a great deal of it splattered on this tree's bark, as well."
Victoire walked up behind Luna and raised her wand to get a better look. Like the other trees, this one was studded with small indentations, like someone had taken a knife and stabbed it again and again. Also like the others, there were large claw marks gouged across it.
This tree, however, was also covered with a white and green... Well, it is what it is, Victoire thought. Looks like bird poo, is bird poo.
And, of course, the Owlery smell was stronger as she leaned in. Now we know where that came from, she thought. She breathed in in order to say the words aloud, but as she did she felt the odor hit her like a force. It coated her sinuses, her mouth. She felt it burn as it went down, and she instinctively pulled away and collapsed to her hands and knees, once again feeling the gorge rise in her throat.
Well, would you look at that? she thought absently. Looks like I still had some breakfast in me after all. At least this time, thankfully, she didn't have to hold her hair back, as Luna had kneeled beside her and did it for her.
"Let it all come," Luna said quietly, not flinching away at all as Victoire's stomach convulsed twice, three times, four. Her stomach was now completely emptied, but she continued to gag, now releasing only water and other stomach fluids.
"The stomach comes next," Victoire rasped, her throat feeling like it was on fire. "Maybe a lung, or my spleen."
"You are doing fine, Victoire," said Luna, gently rubbing Victoire's back. Victoire took a deep breath through her nostrils, and the whiff of the remaining odor caused one more bout of dry heaving before she was able to get it all under control.
"Is everything alright over there?" Charlie called.
"Everything is fine," Luna replied, helping Victoire off the ground. "It is, correct?"
Victoire nodded, but as she gained her feet she felt a wave of vertigo roll through her. Instinctively she threw her arm over Luna's shoulder, and Luna, her arm around the young Weasley's waist.
"See what I mean?" Victoire said hoarsely, wiping a sick sheen of sweat from her forehead. "I'm a catch for all the guys."
"I believe that is quite accurate," said Luna. "And if I might say, I believe you place far too much importance on finding someone."
"I know, I know," Victoire said with a weary nod as the two slowly made their way towards the glow of Charlie's wand. "I try not to, but..."
"Not everyone needs to be in a relationship to be happy," said Luna. "Look at your uncle and I. He and I may have intercourse occasionally..."
Victoire stumbled as she stopped in her tracks. "What?"
"But that does not mean that we want a relationship," Luna continued unabated. "We are perfectly happy being friends and occasional lovers, and that is all that we want."
"Oh, God!" Victoire gasped in horror. "I can't know that!"
"Luna, are you traumatizing my niece again?" Charlie asked.
"I did not think I was," said Luna. "Surely, she knew why you were staying in my tent tonight, and..."
"A subject change would be lovely right now!" Victoire cried out.
"Gladly," Charlie said calmly, standing up. "I tended to most of her wounds, and I've bandaged the severed portion of her neck as best as I could, but there are still some wounds beneath her. Vickie, how are you feeling?"
"Trying desperately to not think about you two doing the horizontal mambo in her bunk," Victoire said, her eyes pressed closed, "but otherwise just fine, thank you."
"I heard you talking about your sex toys, so don't think I'm doing any better," Charlie mumbled. "Are you strong enough to cast a spell? I need to flip her over, but she's big, I'll need all three of us."
Victoire did a quick mental check of her faculties, and nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."
"Alright," he said, extinguishing his wand. "We're going to do a Mobilocorpus, you know that one?"
"Yeah."
"Luna?"
"On the count of four," Luna said, extinguishing her wand and pointing it at the dragon. "One... two...three...four."
"Mobilocorpus!" the three cried out in unison, and the huge three-headed dragon lifted limply into the air.
"Okay now," Charlie said from the middle. "We're going to very carefully roll her over. We're going to roll away from me, so Luna to your left, Vickie to your right. Got it?"
Luna, who was holding the tail with her spell, nodded. Victoire, at the dragon's head, did the same, but as she did she saw a brief glimmer on the ground beneath the Gorynych.
"Right," Charlie said. "On three..."
"Uncle Charlie!" Victoire called out. "There's something on the ground there, do you see it?"
"I see a lot of blood, Vickie," Charlie said, "which is why we're going to do this fast."
"No!" Victoire exclaimed. "Something shiny. Metal. Do you see?"
"It's thirty four inches from your foot, Charles," Luna said.
"No, I... Wait," Charlie said. "Yeah, I see it. Hang on..."
Very carefully, Charlie bent his knees. Still keeping his wand hand aloft, he reached out to the metallic object. The dragon, now almost five feet off the ground, was casting her shadow across Charlie's back.
"Almost got it," he said. "She's big, tough to get under. Hang on. Got it BLOODY HELL!"
As he grasped the object, he howled out in pain. The metal thing, covered in blood, flew from his hand, and he instinctively dropped his wand, clutching at his wounded fingers.
"Charles!" "Uncle Charlie!" the two women screamed in unison as his connection to the dragon broke. The dragon erupted in a horrific scream as its midsection bowed fast. Now being held a loft by only its tail and its neck, and Victoire had the perilous image of her uncle being crushed beneath its enormous body before both she and Luna instinctively shifted their spells towards the main bulk of the dragon.
This saved Charlie Weasley from a messy death, but it unfortunately didn't do as much for the Carpathian Gorynych. No longer held aloft, the dragon's tail and its remaining living head both fell quickly to the earth, and Victoire heard a gut-wrenching crack as the head connected with one of the logs. The screams that echoed through the canyon were unbearable as the already weakened dragon roared in pain from its cracked skull.
"Put her down!" Charlie yelled as he rolled from beneath the floating body. "Put her down! Fucking drop her, now!"
Luna and Victoire did as they were told, pulling their wands away from the injured beast. The body fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Barely thinking, Charlie grabbed Victoire's wand from her shaking hand and dropped to the howling head.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, pointing the wand at the dragon's temple. "Avada Kedavra."
Charlie's face emerged in the darkness as it was bathed in green light, and the forest was once again silent.
"I'm sorry," Victoire ran over as Charlie Weasley fell back, now sitting on the ground, his eyes wide with shock. "I'm sorry I'm sorry Uncle Charlie I'm sorry I didn't mean..."
"What?" Charlie asked faintly as Victoire fell down beside him, clutching him in a tight hug.
"I thought you were going to die," Victoire said, now sobbing. "I'm sorry I let go I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt her I didn't mean for her to die..."
"Shhh, shhh, shhh," Charlie said, holding his niece and running a hand across the top of her head as she pressed her face into his shoulder. "Don't cry, love, don't..."
"I messed up," Victoire said. "I shouldn't have let her go, she shouldn't have..."
"It happened," Charlie said gently. "And it's over. You did just fine."
"No, no, I didn't," Victoire sobbed. "She shouldn't have, not like that..."
"She was going to die anyway," Charlie said, kissing her forehead. "I was going to put her to sleep after the other wounds were healed. Besides, I was the idiot. I could have just moved her a few feet to the right instead of reaching under her, and you two saved my stupid life. I'm not mad..."
"I didn't want anyone to die," Victoire said, slowly calming down in her uncle's arms. "Not you, not her."
"That makes two of us," Charlie chuckled. "But it happens. You're new to this, Vickie, and you'll learn that we can't save all of them. Sometimes we can only do what's best for them in their final hours. That's what we're here for as much as anything. Alright?"
Victoire nodded, but only held onto her uncle harder, as if trying to convince herself that he was still all there.
"You're bleeding," said Luna, calm throughout the entire proceedings. Charlie looked over Victoire's shoulder to see that his left hand was spreading a large stain of blood on the back of her jumper. Now that he saw it, now that he remembered that he was actually injured, the shock of his near-death faded and the pain of the wound came back with interest.
Charlie gritted his teeth as he lifted his hand from Victoire's back. Victoire pulled away, and clasped her hands over her mouth as she saw the damage.
It was a lot worse than any of them had anticipated. Even simply grasping the... whatever it was had done some major work on him. Charlie closed his eyes quickly as Luna re-Lumosed her wand and examined the wound, not wanting to see it in the pale light.
"Whatever it was, it was very sharp," she commented. "You are very close to losing your index finger, Charles."
"The pain is telling me I'm not surprised..."
"Episkey."
Charlie felt a warm tingle through his hand, and breathed a sigh of relief as the pain diminished to a dull roar.
"This is as much as I can do," said Luna. "But you will want to get it examined in the next few days."
Charlie nodded. He tried flexing his fingers, but they felt stiff and unresponsive, and could only bend them half way before the pain returned. But it was tolerable, at least.
"I should be fine until we get back to Romania," he said with a nod. "Which won't be tonight."
"So you will still be staying?" Luna asked. "I do not believe that your injured hand would hinder our relations."
"Please don't ever say that," Victoire said, the rest of her tears disappearing in terrified chuckles. "Never ever say that."
"We still have work to do, anyway," Charlie said, pushing himself to his feet. "I threw that thing over there. Let's find out what it was that killed these dragons."
Charlie, Victoire, and Luna both walked to the general area where Charlie had thrown the metal object. After a few minutes of searching, Victoire raised her hand.
"Found it!"
"Don't touch it," Charlie said quickly. "Float it."
"Do you want to see it?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Wingardium Leviosa."
Victoire carefully floated the metal object in the air, and both Luna pointed her glowing wand in order to illuminate it.
"What is it?" Charlie asked, Scourgifying the blood, his blood, from the object.
"It looks like a feather," Luna replied.
Indeed, it was a feather. Roughly six inches long and an inch across, the feather was composed entirely of some sort of metal.
"Wizard-made?" Charlie asked.
"I don't think so," said Victoire, squinting as she used her wand to carefully rotate the feather in mid-air. "The work's really well-done. Hang on."
Without taking her eyes from the feather, Victoire reached behind her and grabbed a twig that was lying on the ground. Very carefully she touched the tip of the stick to the feather. She was surprised to see the feather cut through the stick like it was made of nothing, but not before...
"Yeah, it's really well made," Victoire said. "Did you see that? The barbs are each independently attached to the rachis, they moved when I touched it with the stick. And each... Bloody hell, each barb has its own set of barbules, this is amazing..."
"Now you know why she's here," Charlie said to Luna. "I'm the dragon expert, Vickie's the everything else expert."
"It's organic," Victoire continued, lost in the feather. "It has to be. There's no way a wizard could be this precise. Something had to grow this somehow."
"But what?" Charlie asked. "And why? And how? And what the hell is it doing here and what does it have to do with these dragons being killed?"
Victoire shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "there aren't any known species that..." her voice trailed off and her eyes widened.
"What is it?" asked Luna. "Have you remembered something?"
"That can't be," Victoire said, shaking her head. "That can't..." She lowered her wand, and the feather, instead of floating, dropped to the ground fast, sticking into the dirt like a dagger. Victoire stood up and ran back to the tree where she had vomited earlier.
"What is it?" Luna repeated. "Victoire."
"It's not possible," Victoire muttered to herself, vaulting over a downed tree. "There hasn't been a reported sighting in over two thousand years, they're extinct, they can't be..."
"Vickie," Charlie said carefully, "what is it?"
"But it all fits," she said, gazing at the excrement-covered tree. "Bloody hell, it all fits."
"Vickie!"
Victoire pulled her eyes away from the tree, remembering the other two. "It's... the feathers, the claws, the droppings... Have you ever heard of the Stymphalian Bird?"
Charlie shook his head, but Luna's eyes, usually so calm, widened slightly. "They do exist," she breathed.
"It looks like it, doesn't it?" Victoire said.
"What the hell are you two talking about?" asked Charlie. "What's a Syphilitic Bird?"
"Stymphalian," Victoire corrected. "It's... Well, it's lost in most modern texts because, yeah, it's been dead for almost three thousand years."
"Muggles remember it better than we would," said Luna. "There was a myth written in ancient Greece about them."
"Hercules, right? One of the trials?" asked Victoire, and continued after Luna nodded. "They've been dead for thousands of years. They haven't been seen... but it all fits, Uncle Charlie, all of it. Their claws are metal, and their feathers are metal, and they can... what... shoot their feathers at their enemies like arrows."
"And their feces is considered highly toxic," Luna added. "Victoire, you got a strong amount of some in your system, will you be fine?"
Victoire paused. "I didn't take much, but I think it'd be safer for everyone to take a few doses of Fizzing Flush when we get back to camp. We've all breathed it, lord knows how long it takes to affect the system. Looks like we'll all be keeping near the toilet for the next few hours."
"But this is preposterous!" Charlie said. "I mean, sure, there's one feather, but they had to have shot enough to take down three Gorynyches!"
"They'd have enough," Victoire nodded. "The feather's regrow within minutes, and they're big. Not as big as the dragons, but if there were enough of them..."
"Where are all of the feathers?" asked Luna. "Why is this the only one?"
"Because they've already been taken," Victoire said quietly, looking up and down the tree, seeing the pierced trunk for the first time. "There were feathers everywhere, stuck in every tree and every dragon, but someone or many someones took them. They must have missed this one because it was under this dragon."
"The same someones that cast the protection spell," said Charlie. "And I wager the same someones that brought the Gorynyches from the Czech Republic in the first place."
"And probably brought the Stymphalians, too," said Victoire. "They were located in Greece. They would never come here unless they were transported. Why?"
"Target practice," said Luna. "Training."
"Fuck," Charlie said, slapping his hand against his forehead. "This is... Bloody hell, this is too much. Why would they leave the dragons here?"
"Maybe they didn't leave them," said Victoire, her lips going numb as she realized what they had gotten themselves into.
Luna finished her thought. "Whoever brought the Birds here would want to treat them better than the dragons. They wanted to make sure that they were gathered, cared for, and housed before they returned to deal with the Gorynyches."
"They'll be back," Charlie concluded. "We need to be away from here as soon as possible, ladies, and we need to get Luna's crew packed up and gone. If there's any way to warn the surrounding magical villages and the Ukrainian Ministry, we should do that as well. Whoever took down these dragons is not to be taken lightly."
"I agree," said Luna. "What about the feather? Should we leave it?"
"We can't," said Victoire. "It's too important of evidence. If we're going to go to the Ministry...."
"Can we carry it?" asked Charlie. "It's way too sharp to carry in a normal bag."
"Stymphalian feathers were magically enhanced," Victoire explained. "They'll cut through most anything. Stone, metal, anything."
"Then we'll have to leave it." Charlie replied. "I hate doing it, but we have to. Hide it somewhere, maybe, and hope that no one finds it."
Eventually the three agreed that it would best buried on the edge of the clearing. As Charlie dug the hole with a Defodio charm, Luna and Victoire located a recognizable rock to use as a marker. Victoire floated the feather into the hole, Charlie re-covered it, and Luna finally laid the stone atop it.
"That's the best we can do," said Charlie. "Hopefully it'll still be here when we come back with some authorities."
"Three thousand year old birds," Victoire said with a shake of her head. "Three thousand year old birds over five hundred miles north of where they should be, killing dragons that are over three hundred miles east of where they should be. In Muggle territory. And someone's cleaning up the evidence. I don't like this. I don't like this at all."
Luna placed a hand on the Weasleys' shoulders and the three Apparated into the night. When they returned two days later with Ukrainian Department of Magical Creatures officials, the dragons had already been removed, the downed trees cleared, and the feces scourged.
The marker was gone, and the hole in the ground where they had placed the now-vanished feather was the only evidence that someone had been there at all.
After the Flaw / Antaeus