She lay there in bed, staring up quietly at the ceiling of the room she had moved into recently. This move had nothing to do with her incident inHebrides, she’d told the MacFustys. Her body felt tired, bones and muscles ached from hard work and the bruises on her arms and legs varied in size, shape, and color. She enjoyed her studies and work as a dragonologist. There was nothing more fulfilling than to help take care of, and keep safe, such ferociously beautiful creatures. Nobody else really thought so, when she’d announced her future plans during her last days of school, even giving worried looks that a girl would be willing to handle fire-breathing beasts.
But she knew this was what she was born for. All those years, electing Care of Magical Creatures every year that it was available to her, studying hard in Defense Against the Dark Arts, even learning how to create Draconifors in her Sixth year.
But it wasn’t the dragons that kept her up in the middle of the night or the aches in her joints or the small burns and cuts she might’ve gotten. Her dreams got worse the more she thought about those people. Witches and Wizards alike who stole themselves away onto the grounds of the reserve she was previously staying at. Magical poachers, sneaking into the territories of the creatures she’d gotten to observe and understand. This didn’t happen often, either. Magical folk knew it wasn’t smart to go after Hebridean Black dragons.
But she heard the roars and screams, and later she would find it was a rogue band of wizards who had hoped to try and steal the creature alive with the intent of releasing it into a large population of Muggles. So there were still some of those people around. She shouldn’t have been so shocked. But it was what they did to the dragon when they realized their plan was bound to fail. No more did she wish to see the countryside of her homeland. Her father was understanding, her mother less so, but she couldn’t say no. Shae had apparated before the poor woman even had a chance.
Here at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, she felt she could start anew. She was living in the shared quarters Harvey Ridgebit had built for the dragonologists who were all here for the same purpose, even recognizing one fellow as a member of the famed Weasley family. She supposed his name was Charles, but she didn’t see much of him, preferring it that was as she left in the early morning to begin her rounds, assigned to care for Ukrainian Ironbellies. By care, there wasn’t much to do aside from making sure they were fed and that no one was snooping around the grounds that weren’t welcomed there. She was fiercely good at finding these people too, even after the loss of her pet, Moon. She refused her father’s offer for another Kneazle, when she was eaten.
But there she was, awake, and thinking back – past the scarring incident with the Hebridean, past the extensive tests she went though to be allowed into her new position. She had dreamt of Hogwarts and wondered what it looked like now. Were the children of her classmates attending or just graduating? Where were her friends now? Why was she suddenly thinking about them? She frowned and closed her eyes, bringing her freshly singed and bandaged arm over her face with only her nose, mouth, and chin poking out. She didn’t want to think about them if all it did was bring back memories of places and sights she didn’t want to remember. The day she apparated to Romania after saying goodbye to her parents was the beginning of her new life, turning into herself and to her work, letting only what she was passionate about continue to drive her, nothing more.
She rolled onto her side and looked out the window. It was still dark, likely not even past midnight, judging by the moon’s position. This was going to be another long night and she wasn’t willing to let herself go back to sleep. But she couldn’t be here in this bed, either.
The woman got up, moving to her desk to grab a hair brush laying there and made sure to get any knots out of the long hair she’d refused to cut. Hatchlings helped to singe it short once in a while, anyway. She walked to her window and opened it, only reaching for her glasses before she felt her form shift and take shape. Wings fluttered and stretched silently as she set herself at the window’s ledge, looking out with her now sharper eyesight.
Spreading her wings, she leapt and lifted herself into the air, carrying herself into the sky to watch over the new lands below her. The one thing that could keep her mind off of her past was seeing her present pass below her in slow, wide circles.
(( Turns out she will become an Animagus and will be a Eurasian Eagle Owl. ))
