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Sorry, Mum, but I’m going to be a bit late getting to the Burrow this year for Christmas. I got selected for a special job I can’t turn down. I promise I’ll be there sometime late Christmas Eve. Love, Charlie.
“There. I hope that is enough,” observed Charlie. “What do you think?”
He showed the note to the house elf sitting at the desk next to the one he currently was bent over trying to write at.
“Pandy is not sure, sir,” she replied. “Pandy has never written a letter to someone – just collected them.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot.”
“Charlie Weasley need not apologize to Pandy. Pandy was just telling Charlie Weasley the truth. Pandy is paid to collect letters. But from what letters Pandy has read, Charlie Weasley’s sounds much better.”
He wasn’t sure this was much of a praise, consider most of the letters she had read were from children, but he smiled nonetheless.
“Thank you, Pandy. I’ll send it out right now.”
He walked over to the window and whistled a little ditty. A puffin flew onto the windowsill and stretched his foot out. It only took Charlie a moment to affix the note to its leg before it was flying off south.
“Well, that’s the end of my break. See you later Pandy.”
“Goodbye, Charlie Weasley!”
He headed over from the window to throw open the door back to the main room.
To an untrained eye like Charlie’s, it looked like pure chaos was happening in there. The room was huge and fully of house elves scurrying around faster than his eyes could focus well on. He tried not to spend too much time in there, partially from the disorienting feeling but mostly because he couldn’t get used to the house elves repeating his name over and over as they apologized for running into him.
No, Charlie was much more comfortable outside in the snow. Here was the reason he would be late getting to his parents’ house.
Every few decades someone with animal experience was selected to come North and help train the reindeer to fly. The magic used in the process was most similar to the magic used in brooms, except it was only found in potent enough amounts to get them airborne for a few months a year. As such, most reindeer struggled to do more than leap extra high, and it was only a very select few that ever achieved true flight.
Charlie had been brought in on recommendation to help with a particularly poor batch of flyers. He had been working with them for a few weeks now, getting them ready for a very important mission, but they were still struggling. It was going to be right down to the wire this year, and even then he still wasn’t confident he’d get it done.
Running around the edge of the room, he quickly slipped through a side door and trudged over to the stables. He grabbed his broomstick from beside the large, open door before clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth Soon, eight reindeer fell in line beside him.
“Good job, boys. That was the fastest lineup yet! Now then, who wants to show me how well they can fly around the buildings. Jingle?”
Straddling his broom, Charlie took off with a kick – soaring just over the reindeers’ antlers in a tight circle before coming to a pause a few feet in front of them.
“Come on, Jingle. You can do this!” he encouraged to a reindeer that was slowly backing up.
“No? Okay, we can try again in a bit. How about you Snow Cloud – you’re always up for a sprint. Show me what you’ve got.”
The big, white reindeer took a running start off the ground before kicking off like Charlie had on his broom and zipped most of the way around the large building before dropping like a brick into the deep snow. He could tell the gentle beast was upset.
“It’s alright, boy. Come on back over with the others and take a rest. You did great!”
Snow Cloud perked up and soon he was trudging his way through back to the others.
“How about we change things up a bit. Everyone get into launch formation for starting and stopping drills. Except Snow Cloud. He still needs a break.”
The remaining reindeer lined up in two rows and got ready to jump.
“On the count of three, boys. One – two – THREE!”
Charlie took off out of the way as seven large quadrupeds came sailing up to where he had been hovering.
“That’s it, boys! Soar – one, two, three, four, five. And now, land!”
In almost complete unison, they landed, took a few steps, and launched back up.
“Looking good! Now keep going until you reach the Pole!”
Four quick jumps later and all but one of the flyers landed together.
Speeding across the yard at his top speed, Charlie pulled to a stop perfectly above a light brown reindeer with a jagged mark down his back.
“Lightning, you don’t quite have your leap in sync with everyone else yet. Remember, the power’s not in your toes – hooves! It’s in your knees.”
He landed beside the group and demonstrated again how to kick off.
“Plant your hooves, but use your knees for the power. Do it again, back to the barn, and we will take a water break.”
This time he trailed behind them, making sure to watch how each one of them were jumping. Once they landed near the barn and headed in for some water, Charlie landed just outside and headed around to the side of the barn.
He dropped his broom into the snow with a sigh. Resting his head on the barn, he tried to fight down the overwhelming feeling of a failure before slamming both of his fists onto the wood.
A Voice, at the same time both twinkling with youth and full of the deep tones that comes with years of wisdom, came from behind where Charlie was leaning.
“What’s wrong, Charles?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, Boss,” Charlie explained. “I don’t think I’m right for this job. You should call in someone else before you run completely out of time.”
“Now why would I do that? Look here, Charles.”
He turned towards the Voice, but could only bring himself to look at his boots.
“You are a master on a broom – the best Seeker Hogwarts had in years. Not many people get selected for national teams straight out of school, but you were a shoe in. Instead you decided to devote yourself to working with dragons. Why?”
“Because dragons were cool,” Charlie stated dejectedly. “Not a good thing to base a career on.”
“That’s not what you said to your parents when you told them you were heading to Romania. See?”
He watched as a scene played out on the snow like looking at a portrait move, or maybe a mirror, just below the boots he had been staring at. He saw his mum and dad standing in the kitchen near the stove, as well as himself a few years younger.
“This is what I really want, though. To make a difference in a way only I can. Anyone can play Quidditch, but these dragons need someone who will fight for them, respect them for who they are and what they can do, and never stop doing so, no matter how hard it might seem some days. Not everyone can ‘get’ these creatures, and I want to do my best to help them.”
The scene faded back into the snow as quickly as it had appeared.
“That’s why I chose you, you know,” the Voice expounded. “Not because you thought dragons were cool, not because you could pull of some fancy moves on a broom, but because your passion to fight for magical beasts of all sorts is unlike any I have seen in years. The rest was just extra.”
Charlie felt a bit better and looked up to face the Voice. “Thanks, Boss. I needed that pep talk.”
“I didn’t do anything. It was your words that did it, not mine. Chin up, Charles. I have yet to pick out a trainer that didn’t manage to get my team ready in time, and you are much further along than I have ever seen someone at this point.”
“But, you leave tomorrow night, sir? How is that even possible?”
The Voice chuckled. “You should have seen the team I had back in 1920. Poor bloke did everything right with that lot and he still hadn’t had a successful launch before we hooked them up to leave. Everything still turned out all right.”
“Thanks, boss,” Charlie told him as he turned to grab his broom. “I won’t let you…down…?”
He turned to see he was now alone – not even a boot print in the snow besides his own. He smiled and headed back to the barn with a new vigor in his step – confident now that he could succeed no matter what the odds.