I know I know its been a long time since I updated. I have a good reason I promise! I was in a pretty bad car accident and I've been spending these last couple months just trying to recover. I was working on the story a bit but I didn't like the original direction I was planning to take it so I had to rewrite a lot of what I already had.

Anyway I appreciate everyone being so patient with me and a huge thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! You guys are why I keep writing.

Ok enough of my blather, enjoy the new chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Skyrim


Chapter 3: Searching For Answers

'Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin'

A week had passed since Harry had first had the dream about the talking dragons. Every night since then this dream reoccurred always ending with the giant golden dragon and the chanting men. The young wizard just could not figure out what this dream meant.

'Naal ok zin los vahriin'

It was obviously important and trying to tell him something. Why else would it keep repeating? But what did it mean? It would certainly help if he could understand the strange language the dragons and chanting men used. His gut told him that the answers could be found if he could only translate those strange words.

'Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal'

Despite his anger at her, Harry had sent Hermione a letter asking her what she knew about dragon languages. All he got back was 'Dragons don't talk, Harry.' And a book called All You Need To Know About Dragons. While the book proved to be interesting it didn't contain the answers that Harry desperately wanted.

'Ahrk fin norok paal graan'

In fact Harry was so desperate for answers that he had even sent a letter to Hagrid that morning asking what he knew about talking dragons. The half giant was obsessed with dragons so surely he would know right? He just hoped Hagrid didn't say anything to Dumbledore about his letter.

'Fod nust hon zindro zaan.'

Once upon a time Harry trusted the Headmaster and looked up to him and even saw him as a surrogate grandfather. That trust cracked a bit when Harry's name was spat out from the goblet of fire and Dumbledore did nothing to get him out of that god forsaken tournament. It cracked even more when the Headmaster didn't realize his good old friend Mad Eye Moody was actually an imposter and the real Mad Eye had been trapped in a trunk for months. These cracks widened when Dumbledore ignored Harry's pleas for training so he could protect himself from Voldemort. During the beginning of the summer Harry thought back to all of his previous school years and how some of the bad events could probably have been prevented. How could the Headmaster expect the philosopher's stone to be protected from Voldemort if three 11 year olds could get past the puzzles? And when it became obvious that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened why didn't he immediately evacuate the school? Ginny would have died if Harry hadn't found her in time! The more Harry thought about it the more he saw the things that didn't make sense and the less he wanted to do with Dumbledore.

'Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!'

With a snarl of anger and frustration, Harry found an extra burst of energy that allowed him to push himself past the playground he usually stopped to rest in. The morning of his birthday Harry kept true to his promise that he would start training on his own. Since he couldn't use magic outside of school the teen strived to make himself stronger physically. Every time his life had been in danger he found himself physically exhausted from all the running and dodging he did. Even though he got some exercise from playing Quidditch during the school year it wasn't enough to prepare him for fighting in combat. So physical training was the perfect place to start.

As it turned out the exercise was a great stress reducer. The steady rhythm of his feet hitting the ground was almost hypnotizing allowing the young Potter to think calmly without the usual anger clouding his thoughts. Whenever his thoughts led him to topics that caused him great anger or frustration Harry just picked up the pace of his running. This forced him to focus more on keeping his breathing steady until he ran out his negative emotions and could return to his thoughts without the dark cloud impeding his judgment.

The only thing he couldn't seem to outrun was the chanting he always heard at the end of his dream. Each line of the chant seemed to reverberate around in his skull. He even found that he ran in time to the rhythm of the chant. Well if he couldn't figure out its meaning yet at least it helped him pace himself as he ran. Who'd have thought that random words of gibberish could be useful?

If Harry was honest with himself it wasn't the talking dragons that bothered him the most about his dream. What freaked out the young wizard was the deep seeded desire to hunt down and kill the dragons. It was like an instinct that flowed through his very blood, his magic and down into his soul. The first time Harry had the dream he hadn't felt any ill feelings towards the baby dragon but after he had felt that initial rage against the adult dragon he couldn't deny feeling it towards the baby as well though not quite as extreme.

The only dragon he didn't seem to have any ill feelings towards was that strange golden dragon that always appeared at the end during the chanting. There was something…otherworldly about it. Sometimes the dragon was crystal clear; it's every glowing scale clearly visible. Other times Harry could only make out the vague outline of the dragon's frame. Something told Harry that the times the dragon was clearer symbolized that he had been close to figuring out what the dream was trying to say. It's a shame that book Hermione had sent him didn't have more useful information.

"But another book might….I wonder if the muggle library might have anything." Harry thought aloud.

It was a long shot but it was the last place he could look until the school year started back up in September and as patience wasn't really one of his virtues, he didn't really feel like waiting another month to get the answers to his questions. Even if the library only answered one of his questions it would be worth it. Besides he hasn't seen the library since he was eleven. Quickly changing course, Harry jogged towards the local library.

As a child before getting his Hogwarts letter Harry used to visit the library all the time. It was the one place his cousin Dudley wouldn't go to look for him, giving the young Potter a brief reprieve from his hateful relatives. It seemed that his feet still knew where to go without having to think about it as Harry quickly found himself standing at the steps leading up to the library entrance. Doing a quick jog up the few steps Harry caught a glimpse of dark clouds out of the corner of his eye towards the direction of the park and felt the wind pick up, bringing in a slight chill and even a small feeling of trepidation.

"Looks like I got here just in time. I hope it's not pouring down rain when I leave." Harry commented to himself as he entered the library.

The teen looked around the small room he had walked into and saw a circle of computers sitting in the middle of the room with a couple other computers in opposite corners of the room.

"I don't recall there being this many computers before. I wonder when they got these." Harry pondered aloud.

"We got them about 4 months ago." A voice responded.

Looking to his right, Harry noticed a girl about his age sitting at the checkout desk. She had black hair with deep red streaks through her bangs that framed her face. In front of her was a rather large open book though she had an utterly bored look on her face with her head propped up on her hand, her dark blue eyes watching Harry with a slightly curious look.

She raised an eyebrow after a couple moments of silence with Harry just staring at her with a blank look in his eyes, not realizing he was caught in an internal battle trying to decide if he should ask her for help.

"Can I help you find something or are you just gonna stare all afternoon?" the girl asked breaking the silence.

Harry snapped out of his thoughts quickly and ran a hand through his dark messy locks of hair. It'd be a lot easier if she could point him in the right direction but how do you ask a muggle for a book on magical stuff? Somehow he thought 'Uh yea I need a book about talking dragons' probably wasn't a good place to start.

"Er…uh yea I actually could use some help. Do you…uh…do you have books about….dragons here?" Harry asked feeling rather dumb.

This seemed to be an ok question as the girl adopted a thoughtful look.

"Hmm yea I think so. Are you looking for children's books or more mythology type books?"

"The mythology books." Harry said quickly.

He didn't need people thinking he's looking for children's books. The girl already thought he was strange.

'Not that they are entirely wrong. How many people dream of angry talking dragons?' Harry thought.

Turning towards the computer sitting to the left of her, the teenager typed away at the keyboard for a couple seconds then quickly scribbled down something on a piece of paper before handing it to Harry.

"It's downstairs along the far right wall. This paper will tell you what shelves to look for. Let me know if you need anything else."

Harry gave her a quick nod of thanks as he headed for the stairs next to the entrance. Taking the steps two at a time the teen quickly found himself standing next to the rows of mythology books, eagerly searching for anything with dragon in the title.

"Hmm Encyclopedia of Folklore looks good. And Year of the Dragon. The Medieval Dragon could be good too." Harry murmured to himself as his stack of books steadily grew.

Five minutes and what felt like ten pounds worth of books later Harry sat himself at one of the round tables and grabbed the closest book to him, An Instinct for Dragons, quickly getting absorbed into what the different books had to say.

Over time the once organized stack of books slowly migrated over the table as Harry devoured each one's information. It was amazing how much accurate information these books contained! There were even books with drawings of real dragon species like the Horntail and the Chinese Fireball though the names were wrong. There was plenty of inaccurate information too like dragons didn't actually kidnap beautiful women and didn't horde piles of gold and jewels. Not that he knew of anyway. Harry wasn't sure how he was going to pick out what was accurate and what wasn't if he did manage to find anything about a Dovahkiin or dragon languages. Shaking these thoughts away the wizard focused just on trying to find anything that sounded plausible.

"Hey kid!" a voice called out.

With a yelp of surprise Harry found himself sitting on the floor instead of on the chair he had been in a moment ago. Blinking rather sluggishly he looked up to see the black haired girl from before giggling at him.

"Sorry did you say something?" Harry asked.

"Yea I said the library is closing. If you want to keep reading those books you're gonna have to check them out." The girl replied trying to quiet her giggles.

"Wait closing? But I just got here!" Harry protested.

The teen girl couldn't hold back and let out a laugh, "Hardly. You've been here for a little over five hours kid."

Harry's eyes bugged out and he quickly looked at his watch. Sure enough five hours had passed since he had arrived at the library. Looking around him in a daze he realized the once neat pile of books was now spread out all over the table. There were three books lying open besides the one sitting in front of him, several small random piles of books and even a few books lying on the chairs near him. He absentmindedly wondered if this is how Hermione felt on a daily basis.

"Oh Merlin I'm so sorry about the mess! I'll clean it up real quick and be on my way." Harry apologized quickly.

The girl gave him an odd look, "Oh Merlin?"

Harry's eyes widened as he quickly tried to think up an excuse, "Er yea sorry I picked it up from a book I've read."

"A book huh? Just what kind of books are you reading?" The girl grinned as she walked closer to his table and picked up a random book.

"The Complete Dictionary of Mythology. I guess it makes sense that these kinds of books have a phrase like 'Oh Merlin' in them. Why are you so interested in dragons anyway?"

"Oh um I'm doing a book report for school." Harry lied quickly.

The teenager shot him another odd look, "Homework during the summer?"

"Uh yea. I go to a boarding school in Scotland and we get summer assignments that are due the first day back." Well that part was true, she just didn't need to know what kind of school Harry went to.

The girl gave him a sympathetic look, "I understand. A distant cousin of mine goes to a boarding school in America and she has homework during the summer too. That really sucks though. Anyway would you like some help cleaning up? I've finished all my closing stuff already I'm just waiting for my coworkers to finish up their tasks."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief having not been caught in his lie, "That would be great. Thank you Miss..er."

The girl grinned at him, "Stephanie Gausson. You can just call me Steph though it's easier to say. What's your name?"

"Harry. Harry Potter."

Stephanie held out her hand and as Harry shook it she grinned, "Pleasure to meet you Harry."

Harry grinned back at her, "Likewise."

With introductions out of the way the two teens started to gather up the books.

"Wow did you really need so many books? You could build a large fort out of all these." Steph joked.

Harry blushed lightly, "I guess I did go a bit overboard. I'm trying to find a specific book but I just can't seem to find it among all of these. Granted, I didn't get through all of them so maybe I'll come back again to search."

"Well what's the name of the book? I might know off hand if we have it." Steph offered.

Harry shook his head as he started putting his stack of books back on the shelf, "I'm not looking for a specific title more like a specific topic."

"Okaaay how about you tell me what your paper is about and I can point you in the right direction?"

Harry frowned in thought for a moment, "Well…it's supposed to be about what dragons would be like if they actually existed. You know like…behaviors and different species…if they might have been able to speak how their language would work…that kind of stuff. The language is actually what I'm stuck on. These books had plenty on everything else."

This time Steph looked thoughtful for a few moments as she started putting her own stack of books back in their proper spot.

Several moments passed before she said, "I think I might actually know a book that could help you. It's in our juvenile section but it's not a story. It's more like an encyclopedia actually. I think it might have been checked out though. It's a pretty popular book among the kids."

After all the books Harry had already been through he didn't dare let more than a tiny spark of hope flare up. It was a muggle book after all so even if it was helpful it probably wouldn't be completely accurate. Then again he had seen those pretty accurate pictures of the horntail in a couple of these books so maybe.

"At this point I'll take any help I can get really." Harry replied.

"Cool. I'll go check to see if we still have it once we get this stuff put away."

It only took a couple minutes for the two teens to get all the books put away and for Steph to lead Harry to the 1st floor where she typed away at her computer like she had before. Harry looked around the room some before he returned his attention to Steph when she let out a sigh.

"Crap looks like it has been checked out. It's due back next Monday though so if you want you could leave your contact information and I could give you a call when we get it back." Steph offered.

Harry let out a sigh, "It's ok. I'll just come back next week to see if you got it back. Thanks for checking though."

Steph gave him a nod, "Of course. I could put the book on a waiting list if you want. You'd be at the top so you'd be the first one to get it once we get it back."

"Sure why not? I probably won't find anything else between now and then anyway. Not very many people seem to write about dragon languages." Harry said with a shrug.

The other teen gave him a grin, "Yea it's not exactly something most people think about. It's an interesting topic though." Pulling out a piece of paper and a pen she looked up at Harry again, "Alright what's your last name again?"

"Potter."

"Harry Potter." The girl said quietly as she wrote down his name then the title of the book.

Looking at the paper with a satisfied smile Steph placed the paper into a binder then turned her attention back to the raven haired wizard.

"Alright time for me to kick you out. I wanna go home sometime tonight!" Steph teased.

Harry grinned, "My humble apologizes. I'll get out of your hair. Have a good night and thanks again for your help."

Steph waved him off, "Ah it was nothing. You helped alleviate some of my boredom for a bit so it was the least I could do. Now scat! I don't want to see you until the library opens up again."

Giving her a mock salute, Harry bid Stephanie good night and braced himself for the storm he saw earlier as he quickly threw himself out the door. He blinked when he realized he wasn't being pounded by rain. Looking around Harry saw that there were only a few clouds in the sky and there was still a bit of sunlight left in the day. It didn't even look like it had sprinkled at all.

"That's weird I could have sworn I saw storm clouds when I first got to the library."

Giving a short shrug Harry started jogging home.