"You must be Professor Kasen, right? My brothers often talk about you at home," said a red-haired wizard—clearly a Weasley—walking over.
"Very glad to meet you, Bill, they're always telling me about you too!" Kasen took two quick steps forward and gave the man a hug.
"Thanks, but I'm Charlie," Charlie replied, hugging Kasen back.
"Oh… ah… sorry about that, I really don't give a fuck to be honest," Kasen said, looking a bit... embarrassed...?
"Umm.. I really don't know what to say now.."
"Hahaha! I was just joking! You resemble the Twins a lot. I thought I would start with a joke."
"Ahahaha, and I can see why they respect you so much, professor."
"But I'm sorry about making that lame joke.."
"Ahaha.. No problem. I should thank you for taking care of my younger brothers at Hogwarts."
"It's nothing—just what I should do as a professor."
Behind Kasen, the other three watched as he and Charlie got stuck in an endless loop of polite compliments, and with a helpless glance at each other, they silently set up a private group chat.
"Do they actually know each other? They're chatting like old friends," Sirius asked.
"You don't get it—this is mandatory adult small talk," Harry explained.
"Oh… Actually, Harry, I'm more of an adult than you are," Sirius retorted, a bit speechless.
"Heh, two childish brats," Lupin muttered, rolling his eyes.
On the other side, Kasen and Charlie had finally finished most of the pleasantries when Kasen suddenly said, "This job will require at least enough people to handle three dragons—and that's the bare minimum. There might be some uncontrollable situations when the time comes."
"Understood. We'll arrange a team capable of handling at least four dragons," Charlie nodded decisively.
"And here's a letter from Dumbledore. You might want to take a look… it's for the director here." Kasen glanced at Lupin, signalling for him to take out the letter of recommendation Dumbledore had given him.
"No problem. Let's go find the director first."
The group followed Charlie through the inner grounds of the dragon reserve. Along the way, Harry couldn't hide his curiosity at everything he saw—nor could anyone else except Charlie and Sirius.
The first because he worked here, and the second… because before the Black family declined, they had invested in several dragon reserves. Sirius was, in all seriousness, a young master of a dragon farm.
"There sure are a lot of dragons here," Harry whispered in awe.
"Actually, not that many. We currently have no less than seven dragon eggs stored in the vault, but because dragons require huge territories—even in captivity—if there are too many of them, they'll still attack each other. So we have to wait until their numbers drop to a very low level before we can take some eggs from the vault to hatch," Charlie explained.
"Wouldn't dragon eggs go bad like chicken eggs?" Harry asked—and instantly regretted it, because it was a really stupid question.
"In fact, no. Last year we took out a dragon egg that had been in the vault for fifty years, and it still hatched successfully," Charlie said, pointing to a young dragon in the distance scratching itself against a big tree. "That one was hatched from the fifty-year-old egg."
Harry nodded. "We really should have brought Hagrid. He'd definitely fall in love with this place."
Charlie nodded as well. "Haha, true. How's Hagrid doing now?"
Harry shrugged. "Ecstatic. Last term he even became the professor for Care of Magical Creatures."
"Then I really should congratulate him. Alright, we're here. That two-metre-tall, muscle-bound old man over there beating a dragon by the scales—that's the director."
The group followed Charlie's gaze and saw a burly middle-aged man, built like an Astartes, gripping the scales at the base of a dragon's neck while lecturing it sternly.
"Merlin's balls… that's a wizard?" Lupin swallowed nervously and leaned closer to Charlie. "If he gets angry, he's not going to take it out on the staff, is he?"
"Of course not—there are dragons for that," Charlie replied, waving his hand. "Neos! They're here!"
Neos, who had been menacing the dragon like an evil Batman cosplay, turned his head. The next moment, he jumped straight to the ground. "So you're here!"
Kasenhis stared at the man in front of him, whose size was not much less than Hagrid's, and instinctively flinched—carbon-based biology at work. Then he quickly shoved Lupin in front of him. "Quick! It's your boss-hiring moment!"
Lupin pulled a wry face, then reluctantly took out Dumbledore's letter and handed it to Neos. "I was recommended by Dumbledore to work here."
Neos took the envelope, glanced at it, then looked up at Lupin. "Welcome aboard!"
Kasen and Sirius subtly breathed a sigh of relief. After all, according to the usual script, this kind of situation generally went one of two ways:
First, Neos would try to scare Lupin, and then, thanks to Lupin's courage, he'd get the job.
Second, Neos would turn out to be the hearty, straightforward type—maybe they'd have a few drinks together and Lupin would land the job that way.
But in either scenario, one scene was indispensable: Neos' massive, fan-sized hand slapping Lupin's shoulder—successfully knocking half the life out of him in the process.
Unfortunately, they didn't get to see that today. Instead, Neos simply nodded calmly, showing none of the recklessness one might expect from someone of his build—or at least, none that a Muggle might expect.
To a wizard, though, he still had that strange, instructive, almost majestic presence, like the beauty of a well-kept park.
Soon after, Neos left to go find more dragons, leaving the group staring at each other in awkward silence—until Charlie broke it. "Shall we go sign the contracts?" Official source ıs 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝕟𝕖𝕥
"Let's go, let's go," they replied, heading toward one of the few buildings in the dragon reserve. Before long, Charlie had picked out over forty sturdy-looking wizards and brought them over.
Kasen took a contract out of his pocket. "This isn't just a magical contract—it also includes a confidentiality clause you'll need to follow."
Charlie glanced back at his colleagues, then blinked in mild surprise—because Lupin, who was supposed to be standing on Kasen's side, had somehow ended up in their group instead… and was already casually chatting with the wizard next to him, looking like he might whip out a deck of Exploding Snap cards and start a game on the spot.
Poor Lupin had no idea that this magical contract was meant to bind the dragon reserve's staff. For him, what really mattered was not signing it.
After all, he was part of Hogwarts, and had even served as a professor for a year—teaching young wizards should come twice as easily for him, and he couldn't afford to be tied down by a magical contract.
Meanwhile, behind Kasen, Sirius and Harry kept sending Lupin messages in their party chat, and finally, just as it was almost Lupin's turn to sign, they managed to get through to him.
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