A day later, the trio were standing in a tall hall with a Greybeard. He was quite tall, and spoke softly, as if he was afraid that the mountain would collapse if he spoke too loud. He did, ironically, have a long, grey beard and wizened features. He had introduced himself to them as Arngeir.

Harry yelled at a pyramid of baskets stacked up in front of him. "FUS!" Nothing happened. He sighed. Arngeir was teaching them what he called Shouts. This one, he said, was called Unrelenting Force. At the moment, absolutely no force was hitting those baskets.

"You have to fill your voice with power. Blast them with your strength, Harry. You try now Ron." The Greybeard walked over to Ron.

"FUS!" Ron yelled. Again, nothing happened.

"Do not simply shout. You have to infuse power into your voice. It is not easy to explain. Let me show you."

"FUS." The Greybeard Shouted and the baskets were blown back. He did not aim at them, but Harry, Ron and Hermione felt some of the force in his voice, and staggered. "Hermione, you try now."

"Okay Arngeir." She took a deep breath as Arngeir, the Greybeard, stacked the baskets up again. This time, she did not yell or scream, she shouted, projecting her voice, infusing it with force.

"FUS." The baskets were blown backwards, tumbling away from Hermione. Harry and Ron quickly grasped the same feat. Arngeir smiled, and started to restack baskets. "Now I want you to add another word." He finished stacking and moved next to Ron. "FUS... RO!" The baskets this time hit the wall so hard that they started to tear. He restacked them. The trio found it much easier to blast them now, having understood the principle of Shouting. Soon, the baskets fell apart. Arngeir brought out more.

Two hours later, the three could use all three words in the Shout, FUS, RO, and DAH. They grinned, exhausted. Confusion hovered around the edge of Hermione's face, however.

"Arngeir?"

"Yes, Hermione?" The wizened man asked.

"How many Shouts are there? What are they used for? What language are we speaking when we Shout?" Arngeir smiled, and gestured them to follow. They walked into a room with a table, loaded with food. He told them to eat. Immediately, the trio fell on the food like wolves. Arngeir stood at the head and talked.

"To answer your questions, Hermione, I do not know how many Shouts there are. They are scattered around Skyrim on Word Walls. Only one trained in the Voice can read them. They will teach you Shout words. As you can see, they are used for different things. Using different ones, I can stop it snowing briefly, slow time, or breathe fire or frost. A skilled Voice user can do many things with his voice.

When we Shout, it is Dovah language. Dragon tongue. You see, dragon battles are actually verbal debates! Different words do different things, and certain words add more power to others, for example Unrelenting Force is much more powerful with Ro and Dah then just with Fus." Hermione nodded. "But how does this all involve us?"

"You are Dragonborn. You must have the blood of dragons to know the Verse of Light, and to Shout so powerfully. This means that you must defeat the evil Alduin, leader of Dragons. The prophecy is coming to pass, and this time of strife between Empire and rebels is the perfect chance for Alduin to come again and try to enslave all of humanity. You three may well be our only chance." Harry, Ron and Hermione's heads were reeling at this new information. All of a sudden, the fun of Shouting had turned deadly serious.

"Why can you not do it? You are trained in the Voice too?" Ron said, eyes wide.

"I would not last five seconds against Alduin. He would roast an old man like me. All I can do is prepare you. I believe in you three. You are young and strong. You are the only hope."

They finished supper and went back to their quarters for bed, stunned. None of them slept easy, caught in images of the powerful dragon against three tired and weak teenagers.

The next day they had breakfast in the grey stone hall and Arngeir warned them "Better wrap up warm, we are going outside today."

Harry and Ron groaned. Hermione shivered. The High Hrothgar should have been cold, but actually contained lots of braziers which kept it quite warm, but not as hot as they would like. "Like spring in England." Harry had told Ron earlier. They were used to it now, but always wore lots of clothes when they went out – Arngeir had let them borrow some.

Ten minutes later, they were bundled up outside a pair of big gates, that looked intimidating but where less when you realised that you could walk round them. They were not blocking anything.

"I am going to teach you one more Shout. This is called Whirlwind Sprint." Ron whispered to Harry

"Like I am going to sprint anywhere when my feet are as cold as Merlin's uncovered nose in winter."

"Shh, listen!" Hermione whispered. Harry rolled his eyes and stamped his feet.

"My fellow Greybeard here is going to open these gates and then close them immediately. You have to say the Shout, which will propel you from here," He scratched a line in the snow, "Through the gates. The word is Wuld. Hermione, you go first." She breathed deeply walking over to the line. Arngeir counted down, and as he reached one the Greybeard opened the gate as Hermione Shouted

"WULD." She blurred through the gate, reaching the other side before the Greybeard had even started closing it. Harry and Ron applauded.

"Ron, you go next." Ron looked nervous as he walked to the line.

"WULD." Again, the snow churned as he sped forward. "Oh, Harry that feels so cool! You go!"

Harry gulped, and walked over. His stomach was churning and his palms were sweaty. He watched the Greybeard pull open the gate and –

"WULD." The world around him blurred as he sprinted, feet hardly touching the ground. He felt ecstatic with the freedom of running hard. He stopped and grinned at his friends. He knew he could master any Shout instantly now that he had the hang of Shouting.

Arngeir spoke to them. "The Khajiit is outside. She says she has something to tell you." He looked quite disapproving about her.

"Amdesa!" Hermione cried. They grinned, and ran to the main doors. Outside, they saw the Khajiit sat on a chest between the stairs. She heard them come down, and smiled.

"Hello you three!"

"Hi Amdesa! You must be freezing out here! Why don't you come inside?" Hermione ran to her, noting how cold she was.

"I am fine. Years of reclusiveness means the Greybeards probably wouldn't welcome me." They could see in her glance that she was nervous this close to High Hrothgar. "Anyway. Are you ready to come back to Whiterun?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Why?" Amdesa's face was grim.

"A dragon has been spotted near Whiterun. We need you."