Beauxbatons [Charlie Weasley]

Explanation

"You have two fucking minutes to explain yourselves," Charlie growls, snarling in Daniel's face.

"We're on your side," he says quickly. "We have been from the very beginning."

"Bullshit."

"No, it's true!" Elena exclaims, looking up at Isabelle with big, pleading eyes. "It was Florin who put us up to it, last year when you were working for the Ministry."

"You expect me to believe that Florin put you up to kill him?" Isabelle asks quietly, her voice dangerous.

"She isn't lying," Daniel says, hands in the air at the end of Charlie's wand. "We were the only two out of our group of eight that stayed at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary when we passed our exams. You two went off to the Ministry and I haven't heard from the others since then. Because we had been training with Florin and because we had been working with the rest of you for so long and because we did so well, Florin trusted the two of us above most of the others that work at the Sanctuary."

"That was when he gave us a mission," Elena continues for him. "Pretty much the only one he's ever given us. It was at a time when the Dragon Hunters were becoming a real problem for us, and for dragons everywhere. But he had no idea where to begin, except one. For Daniel and I to go undercover. For us to infiltrate the Hunters from the inside. He told us nothing else at the time, but to go along with them and really become a part of their group. And so we did."

"To gain their trust, we even had to kill a baby dragon each," Daniel says, his eyes dropping to the floor. "That's something I'll never forgive myself for. Ever."

"Me neither," Elena says quietly, her voice breaking.

"So Florin put you up to this?" Charlie asks gruffly. "How come he didn't get you to capture them and arrest them then, huh?"

"Because we couldn't take on everyone," Daniel says. "We're just two people, against hundreds."

"Well, we are just four people," Isabelle says softly. "Against hundreds and a dragon. What is your excuse?"

A pause. They both hesitate.

"Florin didn't want us to," Elena finally says. "We told him several times that we could kidnap the leader, that we could take him to Florin, that we could get them all. He refused. He kept on refusing, over and over again. He said he had a plan. And he said that plan involved both of you, so we had to wait for you both to come back to the Sanctuary."

"Us specifically?" Charlie scoffs. "And why's that?"

"Because you're the best tracker, because Isabelle's incredible at duelling, I don't have a clue!" Daniel says, throwing his hands up in the air. "But you two came back to the Sanctuary, and Elena and I wanted to tell you all about our mission and about Florin's plan for the Hunters, but he wouldn't let us. He said that you two couldn't know until the last minute."

"How come?" Charlie snaps.

"He said it would only be truly believable to the Dragon Hunters if you two had no idea," Elena says. "So we didn't tell you. But we kept on going to the Hunter meetings at night, and we kept up appearances with them, being truly integrated into their group. We even led them to the Romanian Longhorn and Norwegian Ridgeback that are in the Sanctuary at this very moment — they praised us so much, but then were incredibly pissed off when Florin managed to recover them. We had to plead for our lives that we had nothing to do with it."

"We told them that Florin barely trusts us anymore, that he has to be onto us," Daniel continues. "Eventually, they believed us, and we were welcomed back with open arms when we got them this Horntail." He nods at the struggling dragon in the barred cage behind them.