A/N: I, sadly, don't own Harry Potter. It would be marvelous if I did, but I don't.

1 Chapter 15

2 Broken Promises

Harry and Hermione sat in the library, flipping through books, trying to see what they could find to help solve the mystery. Harry had told Hermione about Hagrid's dragon, and with great guilt, too. He couldn't break his promise to Ron, though. Hermione had drawn out a list for herself and Harry, where they wrote down the clues and then tried to see what it could mean. A few clues were missing, since Harry hadn't told her of Charlie.

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Clue~~~~~~~~|Meaning ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Rebecca Crick| She wants to scare Harry, and it wasn't

tried to kill. . .|an attack on Sirius then.

Hedwig ? ? ? ?|

_______________________________________________________

Timothy Rower| Age needed to be known of a Whitescale,

killed, he KEPT| since at 100 they can give someone

Whitescale pa-| life, make them stronger. At young age, they

pers. ? ? ? ? ? | can be used to transform people to diff. shape

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Hagrid's White-| Young Whitescales needed to have one's shape

Scale is taken, | changed into something else. The gold button

gold button left| was part of clothing - who has gold buttons and

at the scene. ? | where?

________________________________________________________

Rebecca Crick | Avada Kedavra takes a long time to learn. She

Practicing the | would have had to start around age 7 to learn -

Avada Kedavra| she might have been trained to do it? Why does

Curse - why? ?| she need to know it? Timothy Rower died from it.

________________________________________________________

Hermione looked at her list, not quite satisfied with it. "Harry, you know what this list is missing?" She finally said.

" What?" He asked.

" Well, it's a bit unclear of a few things, for instance, why would Timothy Rower's records be taken? It wasn't a dragon from Charlie's dragon farm that was taken." Hermione puzzled over this. "Maybe I should speak with Ron, perhaps he knows of a reason that I'm not catching?"

" I don't think he'd know." Harry told her, guilt washing over him.

" Oh." She tapped her quill on the paper, then said: "Well, we do know a lot more about the English Whitescales now, don't we? And Rebecca Crick is awfully suspicious to me anyway. Do you think she was writing those mean letters to me?"

" Maybe." Harry said. " She is second best in marks other then you, she might want to threaten you into stepping down or else she'll hurt me."

" Should I add that to the list, as a suspicion? It might have something to do with all this." Hermione asked.

" Sure, add it." Harry said, then remembered something. "That book we found in the library! It was someone else's, wasn't it?"

" Yes." Hermione nodded.

" And then Rebecca was writing to a bookstore, wasn't she?" Harry had told Hermione about how he caught Rebecca writing to a bookstore.

" Yes, she was." Hermione nodded again.

" And didn't Draco mention something about Rebecca having a book on English Whitescales!" Harry was now delighted at the clues that they had solved.

" But why would having a book already make her write to the bookstore?" Hermione asked.

" Maybe she lost it, when it really just wound up in the library." Harry replied. " And she wrote for another one. The only thing that doesn't add up is the name inside the book, it didn't really match it."

They went to get the book (Hermione had hidden it under the twelve copies of Hogwarts: A School History), and they stared at the distilled writing at the inside left cover:

_eb_o_a_

" Rebecca doesn't really fit that, does it?" Hermione said. "It matches the beginning, but then it has an 'o', and another letter after the 'a'." She shook her head. " Nope, I don't think this is Rebecca's book.

" Oh." Harry sighed and closed the book. " This is a pretty complicated case. Nothing much seemed to be happening lately, though. The death of Timothy Rower was all that Voldemort - I mean, You-Know-Who - seemed to cause."

" We can't get too comfortable." Hermione said. " Perhaps You-Know- Who is making plans, just waiting until he can strike at someone. The more the reason you should honestly avoid the spotlight."

" I've heard it a million times from you." Harry rolled his eyes. " I really don't think that something would happen to me."

" You never know." She said, in a tone of foreboding.

*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*

Half a week oozed by, slowly and painfully. It was boring at Hogwarts lately. Everything seemed to go by like the day before. From time to time, Peeves would tie someone's shoelaces as they sat in class or something, but other then that, nothing happened that was worth noting.

Harry was dosing off in his common room one evening, waiting for dinner, when Ron burst into the room, panicked.

" Harry! Harry!" He shouted.

" Ron? What is it?" Harry sat up, his stomach hurting as he did, the muscles tightening. He had played a bet with Nick Chang that he could do more sit ups then he could, and they both ended up tying at two hundred four in five minutes time, and now Harry could barely sit up without wincing.

Ron plopped himself down on the lazy-boy chair beside the couch and moaned out: " Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible!"

" What's horrible?" Harry exclaimed. " Speak with some sense, Ron."

" Look! Didn't you open the newspaper today?" Ron cried out.

Harry shook his head. He hadn't opened the newspaper. He stared at the cover and then exclaimed to himself: " Why, it's. . . they found out about Charlie!"

The front page of the newspaper blared out, in huge fat-font letters: " CHARLES WEASLEY MARKED WITH DARK MARK". Beneath was a picture of Arthur and Molly Weasley, desperately trying to fight off the invading reporters as they wanted to get a glimpse of the severely-bleeding mark on Charlie's face.

" Did you tell anyone?" Ron shouted, angrier then an erupting volcano. " This could get the Ministry on our backs in no time!"

" I didn't tell anyone! I kept your promise, Ron, I swear I did!" Harry cried out. He read the article to himself:

From an anonymous letter to a local

facility that helped distribute our

newspapers, some citizen had tipped

off that the Ministry is hiding a deep

and dark secret behind our backs. It

appears that the treacherous You-Know-

Who had attacked someone else with

an Avada Kedavra curse, but the curse

had missed and Charles Weasley, the

victim, had simply been marked with

a horrid scar on his face.

Though the Weasleys denied this

reporter any details, it had been found

that Charles had been working in

Norway with dragons for a long time

now. He was in charge of the section

taking care of English Whitescales. With

the recent death of Timothy Rower from

the same department, it appears that

there is more to this then it seems.

There had been a dragon gone

missing for a while now from Charles'

department. This dragon, the rare

breed of English Whitescale, had been

taken by a mysterious cloaked stranger.

Despite the efforts to get an interview

from Charles, the Weasleys protected their

son savagely. But there might be more reason

for this close protection - Charles's face is

covered with bandages on one side, and

black liquid is seeping from the scar. When

one of the photographers had exclaimed

"Blood!", Molly Weasley slammed the door.

There is a tie with this case and the

case of Timothy Rower somewhere, and

there is the odd happenings of the sighting

of an English Whitescale in the sky by

Muggles and wizard folk alike all over

England.

There will be a continuation of this

article next week, when we have more

scoop. For now, this faithful reporter

will remain on guard for clues.

Natalia Crick.

Harry looked at the name. " Could that reporter be related to Rebecca in some way?"

" Who cares!" Ron burst out. " My family is doomed! The Ministry is furious! They'll have my father's head, that's what they'll do!" Ron suddenly burst into tears. " My family won't be able to afford our house anymore. . . my dad will be out of work. . . and. . ." He kept sobbing.

" Ron!" Harry got up and put his arm on his friend's shoulder. " Come on! Stop crying. Look, there has to be an explanation for how this was found out. I don't know who this anonymous tipster was, but we have to find him."

" Or her." Ron added. " It can't always be men that are evil."

Harry could sense some humor coming back into Ron. " Or her." Harry smiled. " Here, clean yourself up." He handed Ron a tissue.

Harry's stomach was wringing with worry though, despite how he tried to appear optimistic. He knew Hermione would be furious with him now, since if Ron knew about Charlie then Harry would have known too. And that would mean that she was left out of all this.

*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*

Harry had walked with Ron to the dining hall, trying to appear as if they were unworried. In the hallway, though, people kept stopping Ron, asking if his brother Charlie was all right, and then begging if they could find out more about the case. Some people simply said that they were sorry about what happened to Charlie.

Ron's lower lip trembled in worry as he sat down at the Gryffindor table, his eyes dropped low to the grainy surface of the wood.

Harry knew it was no use comforting Ron, he was beyond getting comforted. Ron's ears burned as red as his hair and he looked as if he wished to fall into a ditch and die. It was rather serious, breaking the secrecy of the Ministry. Perhaps it was Fred and George that had told someone something? Maybe they had hinted off their girlfriends about it?

Harry wondered if the day could get any worse. He told Ron, softly: " Hey, Ron, don't worry yourself too much. I mean, we both know that it wasn't us, so you can be happy."

Ron whimpered something out like: " Happy? Yeah right!"

Harry turned away from Ron and then gave a mean scowl at the group of people standing there, clutching newspapers, having questions about the article that they wished to ask Ron.

" Harry!" Harry heard the familiar voice of Hermione in the crowd. She pushed forwards, the newspaper held in her hand. "Is this true? Tell me this is a prank paper." She dropped the newspaper down on the table in front of Harry.

Harry couldn't look up at her as he said, quietly: " It's true."

" And you didn't tell me?" Hermione cried out. She looked near tears. " Harry, I thought. . . I thought we were a team, working on this together. You had to know this, I mean, Ron had to tell you."

" I promised Ron that I wouldn't tell. I couldn't break his promise." Harry said, in his defense.

" So you broke my promise instead!" Hermione began to cry. "I hate you! How could you have done that? And I thought. . ." She didn't finish. Instead, she yanked the newspaper back off the table and shouted at Harry: " I'm gonna do the research on my own from now on! Good riddance!"

" Hermione! Wait!" Harry shot up to his feet, trying to grasp hold of her shoulder, to explain to her.

His hand landed on hers, and she slapped it away. " Leave me alone!" Hermione hissed, her eyes growing into slits.

Harry knew he had no way but to leave her alone. He dropped his hand back down at his side and then turned back to Ron, who was being bombarded with questions.

Dumbledore's voice finally calmed the uproar:

" SILENCE!"

The room slowly fell to a silence. Dumbledore looked at the dining hall with blazing-angry eyes and continued: " I will not watch you harass Ronald Weasley with insolent questions! The boy is grieving for his brother's fate, and his family's. Can't any of you have a heart?"

Guilty looks crossed the faces of most of the students around Ron and they slowly moved backwards away from Ron. Ron didn't even notice this. He remained with his head down, his arms wrapped around the sides of his face, only his red hair visible.

The Weasley twins were suspended, after all, so nobody could pester them. That meant. . .

A few people turned to Ginny, who was silently eating dinner. Her eyes widened and she said: "Leave me alone, people!" She had also been pestered with questions.

Harry saw Hermione leave the dining hall, still crying. He wanted to go after her, to calm her down, to explain, but he was at loss of words. He was ashamed with himself, too. He realized that he shouldn't have made promises that he couldn't keep.

*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*

Defense Against the Dark Arts was gloomy that day. Thea patted Ron's head sympathetically as she walked by Harry's desk. She announced to the class:

" We'll be having seat changes today, due to the request of a student."

Harry felt his stomach drop. He knew Hermione had made the request, she no longer wished to sit by Harry. He had hurt her feelings brutally.

" I'm sorry." He mouthed to Hermione as Thea switched her seat with Lavender's. Suddenly, Thea stopped and said:

" Wait. No, not with Lavender! Switch with Draco instead."

" Aw, man." Draco grumbled. He was going to have to leave his seat beside Parvati, Pansy, and Hannah. Behind him was Crabbe and Goyle, his best buddies, and he liked having somewhat pretty girls around him, too.

Draco gathered his things and took his seat beside Harry. Harry turned to him and said: "Hi."

Draco didn't reply, he was too busy pretending that he had never been so insulted. Harry knew Draco didn't mean it, but he figured it was something to do with his pride.

Thea wanted it to look a bit concealed that it was Hermione who had wished to switch, and she then switched Neville's seat and he quite accidentally now ended up sitting by Hannah. Neville was no longer a boar, and he was blushing madly when he took his seat by Hannah. She was even pinker then normal, too.

Harry listened as Thea began the lesson:

" Today, class, we will learn how to successfully fend off a possessed dragon. It appears that oftentimes, evil humans possess dragons so they work for them. There is a spell that won't hurt the dragon, but will protect you."

The class listened intently, for this could easily help out with the recent happenings. Thea took her wand and slowly moved it upwards. "Class, follow the movements that my wand is making."

They followed, their wands moving upwards too.

" Now, to the left, and do a half-circle with it!" She grinned at the students.

Harry took his wand and brought it up, then to the left, and made a half-circle movement. The air filled with sparkles as the wands powered up.

" Move it down, up again, and shout out: Defendius Darkendum!" Thea said the words, and then her wand let out a thick white laser of light which blinded the eyes of all her students. Then, when the laser of light faded away and the students could see again, they noticed Snape had walked in the room.

" Practicing defense against possessed dragons." Snape said. "Great idea, with these times."

" Oh. Hello, Severus." Thea said from the front of the room. "Care to show the class another demonstration? I'm sure you're here for Potions books again?" She smiled.

Snape shook his head. " Actually, I need to see a student. Neville Longbottom, please come out here with me." Snape said. Neville looked genuinely frightened as he slowly rose from his seat and then walked out to where Snape was waiting. Snape led Neville out of the room.

The classroom's attention returned to Thea. She smiled warmly at them and said: "Alright, then. We can move on, I believe?"

They all nodded.

Thea tapped her wand on the desk, then raised it. The tip glowed with a beautiful white flame. " See this? It wasn't the beam of light that came out that was going to repel the dragon. It's this white flame."

She held it out to the class. "Any of you wish to touch it?"

Everyone shook their head, except Hermione. She stood and went up to touch the flame. Her fingers went right through it, and didn't get burned.

" Impossible." Draco murmured quietly from Harry's side.

Harry turned and saw that Draco was looking rather bored with the teacher's presentation. He raised his hand.

" Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" Thea asked.

" I have a question, if I may ask it." Draco stood up. "How can that little flame protect someone? It makes no sense. You'd think that the laser- light was the thing - but if that doesn't repel the dragon, how's that little puny fire going to do anything? And how come it didn't burn her hand?" Draco motioned with his hands at Hermione.

Thea grinned. " Good questions, Draco, and I can answer all of them. Starting with the last one: the fire didn't burn Hermione's hand because it is a white fire, only repelling things with darkness in them. None of you should be burned by it."

" Oh." Draco sat back down.

" This fire will work on the dragon in a simple way. It burns with white light, which is rather odd to some of you to see. It looks rather beautiful now, but watch this." She held it up to different colored wedges. The white light was distorted and began to take the colors of the rainbow. Tiny rainbows bounced all over the wall. "There is no black in a rainbow, no gray, no white." Thea said. "At least, not when you look at it directly, am I correct?"

The class nodded with her, awed.

" A dragon's eye naturally distorts white light, and so the burning white flames assume the colors of the rainbow. Now, here in this room, it is harmless. But dragons usually see strictly black and white due to the fact how they distort colors to turn into whites or grays, and then objects normally white are the only ones that appear in color to dragons. Does this make sense?" Thea asked the class.

The students nodded once more.

" This white light burns with the force and color of millions of rainbows. It might not hurt us, but it hurts the untamed eye of a dragon. It's like how we react when we look directly at the sun." She smiled at the students, who were all awed.

" This is why dragons prefer to stay in their caves or in hiding during winter. The snow is unbearable for them to look at it." Thea pulled her wand out from the colorful prisms on her desk and all the rainbows on the walls disappeared.

Out in the hallway, Harry heard a muffled cry. He turned his eyes to see what was going on, but Thea noticed and said:

" Harry, the presentation is taking place in the front of the room."

" I think you need new glasses, Potter." Draco said.

A lot of the students laughed, and Harry looked to see if Hermione was laughing. She wasn't. In fact, she was also intrigued by the muffled cry in the hallway.

Thea waited until Harry turned back to face the front of the room and she then continued the presentation. She took the white light on her wand and she wrapped her hand around it. The flames burned right through her skin. " These flames will not hurt anyone but those who have the darkness in them, and they will hurt the eyes of the color blind. Thanks to these flames, the color blind can see, but most importantly, dragons are repelled by the flash of the colors it erupts inside their eyes."

The class ended just then, and Thea told the students to have a nice day. Harry grabbed his books and raced from the room. He wondered where Neville had gone, since he didn't return to the room at all.

*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*

Harry was reluctant to practice his broom flying, but he knew he had to if he didn't want his skills to waste out. He went outside that evening, the crisp November air cold and refreshing, and flew his broom around the field.

He had a lot to think about as he flew around.

Neville hadn't returned to Thea's class, and Harry didn't see him at all for the rest of the day. He would have to ask Neville where he'd gone tomorrow; now Harry had other things to think about.

His hands steered the broom around the field and he then ducked around a goalpost. His hands jerked upwards the wooden handle of the broom and he practiced nose-dives.

One after another, he flew up and then did a sharp dive down. The fall air whipped at him, biting his cheeks frostily. He let the wind hurt his eyes, until tears streamed from them from the sharp painful blowing of the wind. By his chest, his mother's locket burned, and he moved his hand upwards to feel it through the material of his shirt.

It was reassuring, knowing something of his mother's was so close to him. He bit his lower lip and then did a mighty swoop around the nearest goal post, then did a skidding halt and slowly levitated upwards. The Firebolt worked seamlessly through this routine, knowing it well.

Harry had often thought that the best way to relieve yourself of guilt was NOT to do dangerous things to make up for what you did. It didn't make him feel better and the person he'd hurt didn't feel any better, either. But at that moment Harry felt like doing something dangerous and stupid.

" Hermione, I'm sorry." Harry whispered, as he did a dangerous swoop dive and then pulled away from the ground in the last minute before the broom grazed the frosty soil. He sailed upwards, turned, and then dove down again. "Hagrid, I'm sorry for breaking your promise too."

This time, he went so low his boots rubbed the earth and when he looked down he saw that he had shredded the leathery binding at the tip of his left boot.

Harry thought again to whom he wanted to apologize, then shrugged and dove again, thinking: 'Forgive me, Hermione.'

He raised his broom out of the dive and then practiced twirling around on his Firebolt. He let go of it and he swung down so he was hanging from it upside down by his knees. His glasses were sliding down so he cast a spell on them to keep them on his face. Hermione had taught him that spell . . .

He flew around, hanging upside down. This could come in handy to catch a low-flying Snitch. He then let his legs go too and for a brief moment he wasn't holding on to the broom at all, fifteen feet up in the air. Then, he did a little twist and grabbed the broom with his hands instead.

This was the most difficult, to switch from hanging on his hands to his legs, or vice versa. He'd done it only three times successfully, this time included.

Harry closed his eyes and then made his way back onto the top of his broom. He felt the cold fall winds blast through him, and he liked this refreshing feeling. He slowly lowered his broom, deciding that he'd practiced enough.

He took his Firebolt and then headed back for Hogwarts, when he heard something behind him. He turned, wondering what it was, and just managed to see a dark shape slink into the bushes. Harry called out:

" Hey! Wait!"

He raced after the sneak. Whomever it was, the person had no right just sneaking around after him.

The cloaked person ran quickly, panting heavily, face streaked with tears. Finally, the person collapsed, and Harry was a few feet away before the human stood and began to run again. Harry's eyes darted towards the feet of the person. The person was completely barefoot!

" Wait!" Harry called after it.

He reached out, trying to grasp the cloak, but the person began to hiss something. Was it a chant or a spell? Harry couldn't hear much, and then suddenly felt a cold pain flash through his body, and then he saw black.

A/N: Cliffhanger. Not a big one? I don't know, since I know how it's going to turn out! He he he *laughs happily* Well, get on to it! Review or the next chapter might take a long time to upload. Since it is reader's support that keeps me going.