Chapter Five

That night felt like the longest and most terrible the Potter orphans had ever had, and they'd had plenty. There was one night when all the kids had gotten the flu and they'd tossed and turned for hours, feeling hot, sticky and uncomfortable. The children had also spent time living with Mr. Fudge and they had hated his two daughters, Sugar and Vanilla Fudge. Both girls were snobby and rude. And of course the children had spent miserable nights under Lord Vodlemort's care.

But this particular night seemed much, much worse. Form the time of Hagrid's return to the house until bed time, Nicholai hadn't let the children out of his sight. They couldn't possibly run to Hagrid and blurt out everything they knew about Nicholai's real identity. When they brought in Hagrid's supplies for the trip to Romania to the house, Nicholai carried a bag with one hand and kept the other hand in his pocket where his wand was. When they were preparing dinner, Nicholai smirked and used his wand to make the potatoes fly through the air and chop themselves into pieces. Hagrid was extremely impressed.

"I can't use me wand anymore." Hagrid explained, shaking his head. "Yeh see, I was expelled from Hogwarts in me secon' year, so they broke me wand in half."

"I went to Hogwarts School." Nicholai smiled. "I know all about that. Didn't it have to do with some sort of dangerous creature that…?"

"You'd best start cooking the poatoes, Nicholai." Hagrid said loudly, and glanced at the children who were helping chop carrots nearby. Neither of them was too skilled with a wand, so they just used muggle knives.

"Why'd you get expelled?" Harry asked, curious.

"Not important." Hagrid insisted, and refused to discuss it further.

During dinner Nicholai talked about his previous work with dragons and laughed loudly at Hagrid's jokes and stories. Hagrid was so pleased he had found a new assistant that he didn't notice that Nicolai kept his wand on the table through the entire meal.

When Hagrid dismissed them from the table, they went each to their own rooms, but they felt very lonely. Harry looked sadly at all the Quidditch pictures on the walls and tried to figure out what Nicholai was up to. Hermione glanced at the books on her bookshelf and tried to think of how to tell Hagrid who Nicholai really was. Ron glanced at the chessboard that he hadn't yet played on and tried to think of how to get rid of Nicholai and find a new assistant.

The children thought about going to Hagrid's room, but then they would have to walk past Nicholai's room, and Nicholai wasn't sleeping. He was sitting in a chair in the hall and smiling.

Finally, the next morning the Potters trudged blearily down the stairs, aching from their sleepless night.

"This is worse than how I felt when we were playing a family Quidditch game in the fog and I fell ten feet off my broomstick trying to catch the snitch." Harry groaned.

"This aching is much more intense than when I stayed up late studying for one of Dad's tough transfiguration tests." Hermione moaned.

"I feel more pain now then when I accidentally stepped on one of the marble knights in my chess set back at home." Ron sighed.

"I suppose we should go to the Dragon Dungeon." Harry said, after scarcely nibbling his toast.

"I'm sure Hagrid will be waiting." Hermione agreed.

"And I'm sure Nicholai will be too." Ron said angrily, glaring at his piece of burned toast.

"If only Hagrid knew what we know. Hermione said sadly, "and Nicholai knew that he knew that he knew what we know. But Hagrid doesn't know what we know, and Nicholai knows that he doesn't know what we know."

"I know." Harry agreed.

"I know that you know." Hermione said.

"I know that you know that I know." Harry countered.

"Well, I don't know what are you two talking about!" Ron said angrily. "Hermione, you talk to much."

"You complain too much." Hermione retorted.

"Fighting isn't helping." Harry said. "We need to figure out what Nicholai is really up to."

"Maybe he's just waiting until you're 18, so then you'll get the fortune and he'll steal it." Ron suggested.

"Four years is quite a long time to wait." Harry pointed out.

The children all sat and thought about what they were doing four years ago. Harry remembered that when he was 10 he was given his first broomstick. It was a Nimbus 2000, and he loved it. Hermione remembered when she was 9 and she started memorizing the book Hogwarts, A History so that when her parents finally stopped home-schooling her and let her go to school, she would know all about it. When Ron was 8, four years ago, he remembered that he beat his father for the first time in Wizard Chess. Then his pieces finally trusted him, and he beat him almost every time after that. Four years did seem like a long time.

"Come on yeh slugs!" Hagrid came bursting into the kitchen with a big smile on his face. "Nicholai just got here, and he's already workin' in the Dragon Dungeon. In fact, he was up way before I was. He was sitting in a chair outside his room when I woke up. We need teh hurry! I'd like teh watch a play at the Ned H. Rirger Theater called Orphans in the Dungeon. Sound good? I thought so too.

"We'd like to talk to you about Lord- Nicholai." Harry said quickly, seizing the moment, a phrase which here means, "started to tell Nicholai's real identity since he finally had left them alone".

Hagrid nodded gravely and leaned forward across the kitchen table to whisper to the children. "I've had my suspensions, an' I would like to tell yeh about 'em."

The Potter children looked at one another in relief. "You do?" Hermione asked.

"'O course." Hagrid nodded. "Last night I was suspicious. There's somethin' kinda spooky about him." Hagrid looked around him carefully, then said softly, "I think that this man who's calling himself Nicholai is really a spy from the Dragonologist society! He's trying to learn about the Extremely Dangerous Lizard. Then he'll steal it and claim it as his own discovery! This is why we can't take him on our expedition to Romania! He would steal all our samples of dragon breath and our scales for himself!"

"He's not a spy!" Cried Ron. "He's Lord Voldemort."

"I agreed." Hagrid agreed. "He acts just like that terrible Lord Voldemort. Fortunately, he only wants to steal dragons, not children. That's why I'm making sure that I only book the Portkey for four. The Portkey is an old beer bottle about a ten-minute walk from the house. The Portkey will take us to Diagon alley, and there we can get a fireplace connected to the Floo network. I didn't want to use broomsticks at the beginning because it would take a week or more to fly to Romania. The Portkey won't work for five people. I'll tell him he is to stay and look after the dragons at home."

"But Hagrid-" Hermione began.

"I ain't finished." Hagrid said. "And don' yeh worry abou' the dragons at home. The cages have got a nice lockin' spell, and they're protected against anyone else tryin' to move 'em."

Then suddenly the refrigerator that Hagrid was standing near tipped away from the wall. Hermione screamed as it fell, pinning Hagrid's leg underneath it.

Harry and Ron rushed to help Hagrid get his leg out. Fortunately, Hagrid was quite a large and tough man. Then they noticed that Nicholai was standing in the room, fiddling something in his pocket that was long and thin.

"That gave me quite a shock." Nicholai said.

Hagrid nodded. "Guess I didn' plug it in right or somethin'. Stuipd Muggle invention." Hagrid kicked it and dented it. "Whoops."

Hermione pulled out her wand and repaired the dent, but not even the three of the children together could lift it into its proper place.

"It might have something to do with the fact that you're saying it wrong, Ron." Hermione said crossly. "It's Wingardium Leviosa. Make the 'gar' nice and long."

"Whatever." Ron grumbled.

"I'm goin' teh get a bandage." Hagrid said, and left the room.

"That was stupid, Nicholai." Hermione said. "You almost hit us, and if you did, you wouldn't get the fortune."

"Oh, I don't want to kill you." Nicholai smiled, and his eyes were very shiny. "I'm not going to harm a hair on any Potter's head, even though you have plenty." He eyed Hermione's bushy hair. "Don't be afraid of me until we find ourselves in a remote place where crimes are harder to trace."

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked. "We're staying right here."

"Really?" Nicholai asked. "Why, dear me. I thought we were leaving for Romania tomorrow."

"You're not going." Harry spat. "There's only room for four! The Portkey's been set."

Nicholai's sneer turned to a scowl and he glared daggers at the children. "I wouldn't be too sure. Even the best of plans can change if there's an accident." And he pointed at the refrigerator. "And accidents happen all the time."

REVIEWER NOTES-

Queenofinsanity- That's really cool how you had a test on the Water Cycle after you had read the book! It's also really creepy that the waiter looked like Stephano. What's the Unofficial Autobiography? I've only read the Unauthorized Autobiography. Are they the same thing? Let me guess who JS is. Jerome Squalor! My sis thought about him after we'd finished reading the GG. I bet that's who you think it is too.

Arkday Jeanette Phoenix- I don't care if you tell me Happy Hanukah, but I do celebrate Christmas. I did celebrate Hanukah once with a family friend and I really liked the potato pancakes they make. Yummmy. Glad you liked the Reese's Cup story. Thanks, but I'm not really that good of a writer. If I was really good I'd be able to make up my own characers and not have to steal them from other authors. Don't worry, I'll use Snape eventually. Haven't decided where yet, though. Yeah! Another trekkie! Who's a girl! They're so hard to come by these days. I haven't seen all of the episodes, but my Dad got me all of season 2 on DVD for Christmas, so we're going to watch them all. I love long reviews! Keep writing them long!

RikkuHermione- I'm glad you're still waiting for the Baudelaires, but it's a pity that they're never going to show up. Thanks for the review.

Ooga- Ok, I'll do more. I'm glad you liked my story.

VisualPurple- Hey S! I emailed you! I hope you got it! I'll call you a lot during finals week. Yo estudio mucho para los examen. Y tu? Que tal? Soy estupenda! Mi clase favorita es espanol, y tu? Tu eres rubia y simpatica y comica! Mis amigos (say) "Aragorn y Legalos son muy guapos!" Adios!

Star Wars nut- Ok, I'll update. Thanks for the review

Fire Ever Blazing- READ LEMONY SNICKET WRITE NOW!! I'm glad you like my story, but Lemony snicket is really a lot better then my story, trust me on this. Don't watch the movie until after you've read the books because the movie is really weird and different and a lot worse!

ERMonkey- Burner of Cookies- Yeah, I saw the movie. It wasn't nearly as good as the books, plus they threw in weird stuff about the movies go by really fast since they crammed in all three books.

Crystal-Clear Krystal- I'm glad you liked my story. If you haven't read Lemony Snicket before, be sure you do so.

Ignotus- Veritas- Yuppers, I finally updated. Yup, I saw the movie, and the books were diffently better. They threw in a lot of weird stuff that I didn't like and KLAUS WAS TALER THEN VIOLET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WON'T BE UPDATING PROBABLY FOR A WHILE SINCE FINALS ARE COMING UP! SO EXCITING!