"Enter!"

Charlie pushed open the wooden door of Magda's office and walked in, Dragon at his heels. Magda was scribbling furiously on a sheet of parchment and didn't even look up as Charlie walked over to her desk and sat down opposite her.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked her.

"I did," Magda said, her attention still on her writing. "I want to talk to you about this dragon challenge in November."

"Right," Charlie nodded slowly. "Look, Magda, I know transporting the dragons over to Scotland will be difficult and time-consuming, and I know that we shouldn't be endorsing using them for entertainment, but I swear-"

"I want you to be in charge of it," Magda interrupted Charlie mid-sentence. He blinked.

"You want me to be in charge of the dragons for the Triwizard Tournament?"

"This is what I said, no?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's what you said. And yeah, I'll do it. Thanks, Magda," said Charlie, and Magda dismissed his gratitude with a wave of her hand. Charlie exhaled. "I'm surprised you even agreed to it, to be honest."

"I am surprised, also. But your friend, the one who is helping to set up these challenges, she is very persuasive. And I think she cares about the dragons, also."

"She is, and she does."

"I liked her much more than I expected to."

Charlie laughed gently. He knew all about that.

"She's got a way of doing that," he said, and Magda's eyebrows shot upwards.

"You should say something to her, Charlie," she told him, her voice stern.

"I say lots of things to her."

"Ah ah. Don't pretend with me. I am not stupid, I know you know what I mean, yes?"

"Yes," Charlie sighed. There was no point in asking Magda how she knew. She just knew. But then, so had all the rest of his colleagues, before he had known, even. He just hoped that no one back at home knew as well. "The thing is, Magda, I don't want to say anything to her. I mean, she's with someone, and even if she wasn't, she doesn't feel the same way about me, so—"

"You do not know this," said Magda.

"I do," Charlie said, shortly. Magda raised her eyebrows again, and he shrugged. "Trust me, if she did, I'd know. We've been friends for so long, and she's practically made herself a part of my family. We've been through a lot together." He shook his head, and continued, "That's probably why she doesn't think of me like that. I don't know. Maybe if things were different she would feel the same way about me as I do about her. If we'd met at a different time or... I don't know."

"In another life, maybe."

"Maybe. But as it is, she sees me as a brother or a best friend. I'm not going to take either of those things away from her. I can't do that to her."

As he finished talking, Charlie jutted his chin and drew his shoulders back, his whole body tensing involuntarily. Magda looked at him, her face softer than he had ever seen it before.

"You are a good man, Charlie," she said, gently.

The door to Magda's office flew open, and Dragon the Crup began to bark loudly at the newcomer: Nikolai, one of the newest dragonologists on the reserve, only eighteen years old and barely six months out of school. Nikolai's cheeks were pink, and he was out of breath, panting as he spluttered out his sentence.

"I found... a nest. Ridgeback territory... Clutch... Hatching... Now. Mother isn't there... I didn't... know... what to do."

Charlie jumped to his feet. If the dam wasn't there, something might have happened to her. If the hatchlings were orphaned, they would need to be taken in and introduced to a different clutch as soon as possible. Even if they weren't, without their mother's flames to keep them warm, the hatchlings would soon die from hypothermia.

"I'll go and check it out," he said. "I'm a fast flier. Where's the nest?"

Stammering, Nikolai told him. Charlie nodded and left Magda's office, wand in hand.

"Remember, Charlie, no stupid hero games," he heard Magda call after him. "You know I don't like paperwork."

He laughed as he summoned a broomstick, mounted it, and set off to find the nest. He knew the Ridgeback territory fairly well, never missing a chance to go back there since he had released Norbert into the wild, almost a year and a half ago. Every time he visited, he had hoped to catch sight of his former charge, but so far, he had been unlucky. Not one of the dragons he had spotted had been Norbert, or at least, if they were, Charlie hadn't recognised him.

He found the nest exactly where Nikolai had told him it would be, in a shallow cave on the side of a mountain top, surrounded by craggy outcrops. He paused outside the cave, and quickly peered inside. There was no adult dragon in sight.

Still keeping one ear out for the sound of beating wings and dragonsong, he took another closer look through the mouth of the cave. In a bed of grass, leaves and sticks, surrounded by a ring of stones, were three eggs and - Charlie's breath caught as he noticed - a hatchling.

The hatchling was damp, as if it had only just freed itself from its shell, and one of the other eggs was starting to split and crack. Charlie watched with bated breath as a second hatchling made its way out into the world, blinking and shivering in the cold, dimly lit cave. Not long after, the third hatchling joined the clutch. Charlie pulled his gaze away from the baby dragons to look back outside. Still no sign of their mother.

He was relieved for his own sake, but terrified for the hatchlings. They were already trembling with cold, and if they were going to survive, they would need heat, and soon. Not only that, but the fourth egg wasn't hatching. Not properly, anyway. There was a tiny hole appearing, but the shell wasn't splitting, and the baby dragon wasn't able to get out. There was only so long it could stay inside the egg once it had started to crack. If it didn't get out quickly, it wouldn't make it out at all.

"Come on," Charlie whispered, willing the egg to break apart. It didn't. The other three hatchlings were huddling together now, and the smallest one was starting to go limp. Charlie looked out of the cave again. "Come on, come on."

But the mother dragon wasn't coming. Charlie bit his lip. There was only one thing for it. It was stupid, he knew it was stupid, but he couldnt stay there and watch the hatchlings die. So he entered the cave, and stepped quickly and quietly over to the nest.

"Incendio," he whispered, setting one half of the nest alight. He stamped out the flames, and crouched down to move the three hatchlings onto the warm embers. "Here you go, look. Nice and toasty. Just stay there a minute."

He turned his attention back to the fourth egg, picking it up and finding the weak point where the hole had appeared at the apex. Hoping that it wasn't too late, he prised open the shell, freeing the lifeless baby dragon inside. He placed the tip of his index finger under the hatchling's tail.

It had a pulse.

He opened the baby dragon's mouth, and saw that it was filled with fluid. No longer caring about his own dignity, he placed his lips to the hatchling's face and sucked the fluid away, clearing its airways so that it could breathe. He placed it next to its siblings on the embers, where it began to stir, stimulated by the movement of the others in the clutch. Charlie smiled. They were alive. All four of them were alive.

Charlie's relief was short-lived. He was still crouching in the nest when a loud thud echoed from the mouth of the cave, and a low growl sounded from behind him. His heart skipped a beat, and his blood turned to ice in his veins. The mother dragon had returned to her nest.

If there was one thing all dragonologists agreed on, it was that female dragons were fiercely protective of their young. If encountering a dragoness in the wild was dangerous, being found by one in her nest was a death sentence.

Cursing himself for being so stupid, Charlie turned around to face the dragon. He looked into her amber-coloured eyes, and his blood ran cold. He steeled himself, ready to be devoured, or incinerated, or both. A thought struck him, worse than anything he'd ever thought before, even worse than the fact that he was about to die.

He'd broken his promise. The most important promise of all.

Charlie closed his eyes, and wishing with his last breath that Artemis would forgive him for doing something so incredibly stupidly dangerous, he braced himself for the flames.
But the flames never came. Instead of burning him alive, the dragon merely snorted. Charlie frowned, and the dragon snorted again. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Norbert?"

Hearing his — no, her — old name, Norbert snorted once more. Charlie blinked.

"Right. Well, hello," he said to the dragon. "It's nice to see you again. And, um, congratulations, I guess."

He stood up, and stepped out of the nest so that Norbert — or should he call her Norberta now? — could get to her hatchlings. She walked straight past him, his presence all but forgotten as she started to dry her offspring by blowing flames over the top of them.

Charlie stood still, watching her mother them, pride swelling in his heart. He could have stayed there all day, but just because he could, it didn't mean that he should. Norbert — Norberta — was wild. He had known that from the start. It was time for him to leave. Besides, Charlie thought, he had a letter to write. There was someone he couldn't wait to tell about this.

He left the cave and picked up his broomstick. Before he flew back home, he turned back to take one last look at the small family of dragons, huddled together in the cave.

"Goodbye, Norberta," said Charlie.

And this time, he meant it.

THE END.