We met in a pub the first time. I introduced myself as Julie Eyry, a biographical journalist from the Daily Prophet – U.S.A. Edition. I already knew his name but he extended his hand, albeit reluctantly, and said, “Charlie Weasley.”
He pulled out my chair, as one would expect from a gentleman. Then, when he sat he slouched in his chair at his ease and said quite bluntly that he’d only agreed to the interview when his superiors forced him to.
When the barmaid asked us for our drink orders, he ordered an entire bottle of Firewhiskey and his eyes crinkled a bit with amusement when I ordered pumpkin juice. I didn’t feel the need to tell him that just being near him was potent enough without the added alcohol.
Charlie Weasley is an exceptionally good-looking man. He stands just shy of six feet and is very muscular. I suppose that’s to be expected given the amount of physical exertion his vocation requires.
He works on the dragon preserve in Romania and is quite gifted in dealing with wild beasts. Rubeus Hagrid, the former gamekeeper and now Care of Magical Creatures Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, told me Charlie was “great with animals.”
Charlie’s visage is deceptive — he has so many freckles that he appears to be quite tan. His red hair is longish, and slightly shaggy. He doesn’t appear to give much thought to looking crisp and very put together. I don’t feel embarrassed to say that he looks very good rumpled.
My first questions to him were for basic background information.
“When and where were you born, Mr. Weasley?” I asked.
“Call me Charlie. My dad is Mr. Weasley,” he stated quickly. “I was born in Devon on December 12, 1972.”
“Do you have siblings?”
He laughed for a moment before answering, “Yeah, you could say I’ve got siblings. I’m the second-oldest of seven.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of siblings. Do you get along with them?” I was amazed and intrigued at the family dynamics of a household that large.
“We squabble now and then, that’s the normal way of things when you’ve got that many kids in one family,” he admitted. “There was one particular instance I remember that seems quite funny now, but at the time was considered to be the harshest insult imaginable to me.”
I gestured for him to go on and he continued telling the story.
“I’d been made Seeker for my House team at school. Gryffindor was in the lead for the Quidditch Cup and heading in to the last game of the year, my younger brother, Percy, thought he’d try out my new broom.” He stopped to take a drink from his glass and smile before continuing. “I’d just gotten a new broom and for me that was the best present ever. Our parents didn’t have a lot of money for extravagant gifts, so that broom meant the world to me.”
Not wanting to interrupt the story, I nodded that I understood.
“Anyway, Percy thought he could fly it around without me finding out. He misjudged the speed of if and crashed into the lake instead of landing on the shoreline like he’d meant to.”
I was smiling by this point, waiting for the inevitable.
“I found him floundering in the water and my broom was nowhere in sight. It had sunk to the bottom of the lake and there was no way I could swim down to get it. After I dragged him out I wanted to pound on him for a while, but he was shivering so much and apologising through chattering teeth, that I couldn’t stay mad for very long. I dried him off and watched in amazement as my second-year brother performed a perfect Summoning Charm and retrieved my new broom from the bottom of the lake.”
“Wow, that must have been horrible not to be able to yell at him for losing it in the first place.” I wondered if he realised how much that one snippet of his life showed his loyalty and love for his family. Not many people would care more for whether or not the person who’d just almost lost a prized possession was cold and unhappy.
Charlie grinned and said, “Well, he was just so pitiful I didn’t have the heart to lay into him.”
“If you were given the choice of living closer to home and family and still being able to work with your dragons, would you? Or do you like having so much distance?” I tried steering the interview away from memories and onto the present.
“I would love to see my family more, but being close has its drawbacks too.” Shifting in his seat, he leaned his forearms on the table. “My mum has definite ideas on how her children should look and act. I like to make those decisions for myself.” He glanced ruefully at his rumpled robes and ran a hand through his shaggy hair.
“Why dragons?” I was curious to know why anyone would want to spend all their time with huge dangerous beasts that could kill you.
“They’re amazing creatures. The differences in sizes, depending on the species, the maternal protectiveness of the eggs, the different temperaments. They’re just -- fascinating, really.”
“Speaking of temperaments, how would you describe yours?” I’ve always liked to hear how my interviewees thought of themselves.
“Fairly easy-going. I can get angry, and I do sometimes, but for the most it just blows over and I can get over it.” He shrugged and showed a bit more of himself with a slight blush.
“I’ve got a few basic questions that I’ll need answers to, so if you wouldn’t mind I’ll get them out of the way pretty quickly,” I pulled out a list of generic questions that I am required to ask.
“All right. I’ll do my best to answer them. ” He nodded, cracked his knuckles and taking a fortifying sip of his Firewhiskey.
“Question number one, what is your opinion of the politics in the wizarding world at the moment?”
Charlie looked stunned at the question and took another sip of his drink. “Right now, I think its complete rubbish. The Ministry is failing the public by not recognising the fact that You-Know-Who is back and it’s maligning two of the only people stating the truth.”
“Well, that’s blunt enough.” I was amazed that he would criticise the Ministry.
“It’s the truth. I’m not one to keep my mouth shut, or my opinions to myself,” he said, giving me another glimpse into his temperament.
“Okay, question number two. Do you have any hobbies you enjoy or any habits that keep you entertained out here in the middle of nowhere?” I looked at him over the top of the parchment.
“Hobbies? Sure, I like to play Quidditch, and whenever we get time there’s some real interesting games. Habits? I’m not really sure you’d be able to publish some of my habits, but I’ll give you the least offensive of them.” his grin was slightly crooked and had a hint of the devil in it. “I eat in a clockwise fashion.”
Since my next question had to do with quirks and eccentricities, I asked him to expound on the eating clockwise, “What does that mean?”
“When I eat, I start with whatever is at the top of the plate. Then I move to the right, then the bottom, then the left. I know it’s strange, but when the world is full of chaos- you have to find your own things that give you a sense of control and calm.”
His explanation made perfect sense to me, so I went on to ask, “Next question then, are you afraid of anything?”
He gave a soft snort that almost sounded like a laugh and answered, “I’m afraid of a few things actually. That You-Know-Who won’t be defeated and gains more power. That something will happen to my family and I won’t be able to stop it or help them. And, though this one is embarrassing to admit, I’m afraid of lizards.”
I was confused, so I asked, “Wait- you work with dragons, but you’re afraid of- lizards? How does that work?”
He did laugh then and said, “Dragons are big and you can see where they are. Lizards are small and can run up your pant leg, or back, or anywhere and you won’t know it until it’s too late. They’re just creepy and I don’t like the thought of little feet running up any part of my body.” He shuddered at the thought.
I laughed for a few minutes then tried to control myself. I took a sip of my pumpkin juice and glanced back to my list of questions. Seeing the next one on the list I asked, “What are your goals for your life?”
He sat back and looked thoughtful, his brow furrowed and he tilted his head slightly. After a moment or two he said, “I’d like to have this war over with, find the right girl, and settle down. Maybe have a few kids.”
“You see yourself married? How many kids?” I couldn’t help but ask this question. Curiosity is the bane of a journalist’s life.
“I don’t know. I’m sure I wouldn’t want to have seven, but two or three would be nice.” He smiled and winked at me.
It was funny; he’d not wanted to do this interview when he sat down. His superior had all but forced him to it, and now he was laughing and joking and winking at me. I guess he was right; he really is a laid back easy-going person.
“You were a Prefect at Hogwarts?” I knew he had been.
“Yeah, it still surprises me that Dumbledore chose me, but yeah, I was a Prefect.”
Whether it was just me and my amazing observational powers, or he was just really easy to read, but I could see he honestly didn’t know why the headmaster had chosen him.
“Modesty? Or did you think there was someone more deserving of the position?”
Somehow, his answer felt important to me.
“You being from America, I doubt you’d know him. But, there was a boy in my year that should’ve gotten the badge. His name was Aislen and he was always doing that extra thing.” He looked at me as if I should know what he was talking about. “He helped the younger kids out all the time. He was on a bunch of different Professors’ best lists. Hell, he even tutored some of the dimmer ones, just so they’d pass their exams.
“When I got the badge, I went to Dumbledore and asked him why he didn’t give it to Aislen and he said something about me trying to give it to someone more deserving proved I really did deserve it.” His blush had overtaken the freckles and he was beet-red.
Well, that had answered my morals and ethics question, so I moved on to likes and dislikes.
“What is it you dislike, Charlie?” I asked while reaching for my drink.
“Hatred, fanatics, and parsnips.” He grinned at being able to put in such a mundane dislike with two such extremes.
“What do you like?” I continued, though I planned to come back to the dislikes soon.
“Sunshine, Quidditch, and dragons,” he stated simply.
He kept away from the personal answers; I’m sure he did it deliberately, but my job was to get the man under the impersonal and often times generic answers.
“There has to be more than just those three,” I chided him lightly.
“You’re right, there are more, but until I know you a hell of a lot better, that’s all you get.” He sat back and waited to see what I’d do with a dare like that.
My eyes narrowed on him for a minute. I took another sip from my glass then I started packing the parchment and quill away in my bag. Just when he looked as though he really thought I was leaving, I glanced at him again through my lashes and asked, “How do you propose we get to know each other better?”
A gleam entered his eyes that matched my own and he wasted no time in taking my hand and leading me out the door.
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I found this old edition of the Daily Prophet yesterday, after I read about the battle at Hogwarts. I read the death toll and the names of those that fell. I feel sorry that Charlie lost a brother, but I know there’s a strength in him that’ll help him make it through. His close ties to family and his caring nature will bolster his grief and give him a reason to face each day as it comes.
Maybe one day he’ll find that girl to marry and have a few kids. I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to settle down — maybe I’ll go back to Romania and see if that chemistry is still there.
Maybe I’ll wrangle a dragon wrangler of my own.
An Interview With A Dragon Wrangler by red haired mom
Chapter Notes: This was originally posted in the Ravenclaw Tower for a Character Development Essay Challenge. I decided not to do the expected and write Sirius. Instead I wrote a fun story about Charlie. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks so much to Alison, R_Ravenclaw, for the wonderful beta job she did on this!
Chapter Endnotes: Thanks again to Alison, R_Ravenclaw, for beta-ing this for me. I hope you liked my version of Charlie and will leave me your thoughts in a review. Look—there’s a little box right down there for you to leave it in. Convenient, isn’t it?