Carpathian

Thursday, 9:28 am

Comfy. Cosy. Content.

That all rattled away in an instant.

"Wake up, love birds!"

Charlie's cry awoke Hermione and Draco with a startle. His bangs persisted on the door.

"C'mon, you two. Doru's looking for you, mate!"

"Hold your bloody Hippogriffs!" Draco shouted back. He leaned his head on the pillow with a groan. "You'd think he'd spare me one fucking minute when he knows I'm in here with someone."

His easy smile lit up Hermione's morning.

"Or he just wants to make sure you don't miss the big day."

Draco beamed. "Big day indeed."

He gave Hermione a short kiss good morning before he rolled out of bed and pulled on his pants and trousers. Hermione soon followed, but not before she lingered in the sheets to absorb the scent he left behind. A few seconds was all she had, though. According to Draco's estimates, Norberta's eggs were due to hatch before mid-day.

Draco was ready first and started to open the door when Hermione called out for him to close it.

"You can't come in!"

The door shut in Charlie's face and Hermione stared at Draco in disbelief. Not because she wasn't dressed—dressing was easy when her options were limited to the three outfits she had on rotation. The problem was everything else in the room.

She motioned towards their theory board and the gigantic map of the grounds and Draco looked immediately abashed. Clearly his brain took a little bit longer to reach proper functioning levels in the morning. Or maybe he had other things on his mind when he woke up. Like the hatching dragons. Or her.

An involuntary blush pricked her cheeks. Hermione supposed she could forgive Draco for his temporary oversight.

Transferring her coin for Mundungus into today's jeans and snatching her notebook off the desk, Hermione joined Draco at the door and they met Charlie on the opposite side.

"Do I want to know what you two did to that room last night?"

Hermione and Draco exchanged private smiles.

"That's better kept to us," Hermione said.

Charlie Apparated with them back to the sanctuary—Hermione had a feeling he didn't trust they'd actually return without his escort—and they landed outside the grounds' enchantments. All three of them walked through the split in the wards, but instead of guiding them towards the mess hall, Charlie went straight towards the supply shed.

"If you wanted breakfast, you should have woken up earlier," Charlie said when Hermione's mild confusion must have become apparent. "We need to head straight to Norberta. All of us."

Now Hermione was truly confused. "All of us?"

"I secured special permission from Doru for you to witness the hatchings. Couldn't let my little sis miss out on the big event." A knowing glint reflected in Charlie's gaze. "After all, that's the reason you stayed, isn't it? To see the dragons hatch?"

He raised his eyebrow an almost imperceptible amount, but that didn't stop Hermione from rolling her eyes. They both knew that wasn't the reason she stayed. But even if Charlie still didn't know her true purpose for being there, she must admit that Draco turned out to be a good reason to stay, too.

The shed door creaked when Charlie opened it, revealing a single room filled with dragon keeping supplies. Three rows of shelves extended to the back. Standard equipment like gloves, chest plates, and hip pouches were all towards the front, but in the distance, Hermione spotted specialised items: shrunken cages for transport, syringes for potion administration, chains for worst-case situations. Charlie disappeared to the back while Draco retrieved two pairs of gloves.