Dragon's Rage

Chapter Three

Beginning of the Darkness

-o0O( Eighteen Weeks Later, Seven Months Altogether )O0o-

Ginny Weasley sighed heavily as she finally felt her trunk slid into the metal racks above her head. Sitting down she closed her eyes trying to regain her breath and allow her muscles to relax after the strain of lifting her trunk by herself. Hearing the compartment door slid open she opened her eyes and saw Neville standing there along with the Patil twins, silently asking if they could enter. Nodding her head she stood up to help put the trunks away when the three easily lifted them and slid them into place.

Ginny stood there in shock before groaning and slapping herself on the forehead.

"Featherweight charms…Merlin I'm an idiot." She murmured before casting the charm on her trunk as well. Sitting back down she looked out the window as the train finally began to depart, slowly gaining speed until the scenery outside was a blur.

"Ginny…" Padma began. "We were wondering what we're going to do about Harry." The Indian teen asked quietly, glancing at the door to see if anyone was outside listening.

Ginny sighed a little bit before answering. "There isn't really much that we can do. We don't have any leverage with the Ministry, we're going up against corrupt officials, as well as Dumbledore, and no one would take even bother listening to us since we're still in school."

Everyone in the compartment nodded along with her knowing what she said was true. Neville noticed that the mood was slightly depressed as it always is when they think of Harry, and he was about to ask if they wanted to play a game of Exploding Snap when the compartment door slid open revealing Ron and Hermione.

Over the past seven months both Ron and Hermione had changed, Ron more so than Hermione. In the beginning, when Harry was first thrown in jail, Ron was walking about Hogwarts acting as if he was the one who fought a great battle to take down the "rabid" Harry Potter. This resulted in eight weeks of being constantly pranked from all the people who supported Harry until all Ron had left was his humility.

Another thing that changed was Ron's clothing and material items. At first they slowly began to get better, maybe a new set of school robes on week, then a new trunk the next, but after two months the changes began to blossom at an incredible rate. In a short period of three months Ron had all new items and the top of the line fashion. No matter how expensive an item was, be it clothing or a new broom, Ron had it.

With this newfound money, Ron's attitude slowly began to change from that of a loyal fun loving person to that of someone remarkably likes how Draco Malfoy was. If you were wearing something that looked cheap that Ron would either ignore you or talk down to you.

As drastic Ron's personality change was it was nothing compared to Hermione's. Where Ron became the new Draco Malfoy, Hermione became a recluse. For the remainder of the year she either kept to the darkest corner of the common room or the darkest part of the library. She was never around for meals, preferring to eat alone in the kitchens and always had dark rings under her eyes.

Her outfits were always wrinkled and had a few stains on them showing that she changed every few days, and she kept dropping tings. When in class, she wouldn't speak to anybody and would only answer questions asked by the professors when asked directly. The only thing that didn't change for the negative was her schoolwork. In fact it became ever better than before so much so that even Snape was forced to give her an E on all of her work.

Without waiting for a form of acknowledgement Ron pushed Neville out of his seat and onto Luna's lad before claiming the seat for himself. Everyone in the compartment looked at him in disbelief then each other, and back again. Ron however didn't notice any of this since he was currently rubbing the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed before speaking.

"Seeing as how everywhere else full and for some reason most people glare at us whenever we try to enter their compartment, we decided to stay in here and grace you with my presence."

Everyone who had just gotten over their shock and were beginning to glare at him once more changed their expressions back. Looking up Ron saw the looks he was getting and misinterpreted them.

"Now, now. I realize that you're all honored to be sitting in the same compartment as I am, seeing as how it was my testimony that sealed Potter's fate. But we've known each other for roughly six years. You all should know by now that I'm still humble Ron, who's good at chess, school, and amazing at Quidditch."

Needless to say Ron was too dimwitted to realize the rather large amounts of danger that he was stepping into and continued to speak.

"However," Ron continued looking, rather leering, at the Patil twins. "My achievements also include those best talked about behind closed doors."

Ron said this in a voice that he thought to be husky and seductive, yet to all others it came out as if he was gasping in pain. After hearing that sentence, all the females in the compartment shuddered in disgust and Neville narrowed his eyes at Ron before standing up and looking him in the eye.

Now even though Ron was taller than Ron, this didn't exactly mean that he was bigger. In fact Neville, due to training that he and several others were doing, had put on a nice amount of muscle. As such Neville was far more intimidating than anything that Ron could do.

"Listen and listen closely Weasley. I don't care what you do or think anymore, but if think for a second that just because you're fifteen minutes of fame is here, that you're going to have girls throwing themselves at you then you have another thing coming."

Looking into Neville's eyes and seeing the anger, disgust and determination in them actually caused Ron to step back. Catching himself, Ron pulled his cloak around him and drew himself up as high as he could before opening him mouth.

"Listen here Longbottom, who do you think capture Potter, who was it that sent him to Azkaban? Who-"

Ron stopped speaking when a sickly purple curse hit him the back of the head. Turning around swiftly, Ron, along with the other, were surprised to see Hermione standing there shaking in rage, her eyes blurry with tears.

"How dare you." She hissed out, muck like her cat. "How dare you say that it was you that sent an innocent person to Azkaban without remorse. How dare you stand there like a hero with any guilt in your heart like me. You never really stopped to think about what we did, did you? You, much like me, listened to Dumbledore when he told us that Harry was dark. I cried myself to sleep thinking back to the week and have nightmares about Harry's face when he saw us testifying against him."

She was breathing rather heavily and a few burning red sparks were coming out of her wand showering the quivering Ron making him flinch in fear. She took no notice as she continued to talk.

"I was there with you Ron as we both decided that fame, money, and rare books were more important than our friend. I sold someone who was my brother in all but blood, just for some scrolls that were thousands of years old. And you, you sold him for money. Tell me Ron when you look back at this time now in the future, will you regret what you did because you knew you did something wrong. Or will you look at your bank account and upon seeing that it's empty, will you rage, thinking that you should have gotten more gold then you got?"

Not waiting for an answer she turned and fled down the train corridor in tears. For the people in the compartment this was rather shocking news to them, and without looking at anybody else, the three girls ran after Hermione leaving Ron alone with Neville.

"I suggest that you think about what she said Weasley. I know that you won't change at all nor that you'll ever think that you're wrong, but a little remorse goes a long way." Neville began pushing Ron out of the compartment before speaking again. "By the way, if I ever hear you talking to any female like that again, I'll personally see to it that you're humiliated in the worst possible way."

Ron watched in shock that slowly morphed into anger as Neville slammed the door in his face. Glowering at the person behind the glass, Ron shouted out.

"!?mottmbgonL taerht a taht saW"

Ron clapped his hands over his mouth in shock and looked around as several people laughed at him. Once more his shock turned into anger and he drew his wand.

"?uoy od ynnuf s'taht knihT"

Seeing more people laughing at his Ron sneered before casting his spell without really thinking about the consequences of speaking backwards.

"!yfeputS"

Ron was blasted backwards by his own spell and slammed into a physical shield someone cast in order to prevent being hit by the body. Every laughed once more before leaving him lying on the floor unconscious.

-o0O( )O0o-

Ginny, Padma, and Parvati rushed out of the compartment after Hermione. Each girl shoved past people without apologizing and when Nott stood in their way, Ginny hit him with a tripping jinx and all three girls ran over him making sure to stomp hard on his extremities.

The three teenagers slowed down when the neared the final compartment and walked up to it. When they looked inside they saw Hermione curled up into a ball crying, with Crookshanks trying to lick her face. The three girls opened the compartment and entered, each taking a seat on the same side, just watching Hermione, unsure of what to do.

"G-go away Ron!" Hermione shouted, her voice thick with sadness.

It was Ginny who answered scaring Hermione out of her ball of misery. "We're not Ron, and judging by the shouting that came from the direction, then he wont be here for awhile." She said lightly.

Hermione slowly moved over to the unoccupied seat and sat down on the edge, looking like she wanted nothing better then to bolt. She was just as shocked when Padma handed a handkerchief to her.

Cautiously accepting it she nodded her head thanks and cleaned he face up as best as possible. Hermione looked down at her lap and began fiddling with a loose string on her sweater, not daring to look any of the girls in the eye.

"W-what do you want?" she asked in a timid voice.

Parvati was immediately reminded of their first year, bar Ginny, and how Hermione would speak like that when alone with the girls, before she became friends with Harry and Ron.

Sighing, she moved over next to Hermione and was saddened a little by how she flinched.

"Hermione…" she began slowly. "What made you change your mind back there with Weasley?"

Hermione sniffed a little before answering. "I-it was about a month into summer break and I was in my room r-reading, when my mother entered my room a-asking me about Harry. When I told her what happened and how I felt about him, she started to talk me through everything, and in the end I realized what I did to him."

Hermione sniffled again and wiped her eyes on her sleeve before continuing. "When I asked her why she didn't believe me about Harry being the one who committed the murders she replied, 'It was rather simple. At the end of your second year at Hogwarts, you told us about how Harry ran off to save someone that he only knew by name. He risked his life for a girl who he didn't even know on a personal level.'"

"Before she left, she looked back at me one more time and told me that from the stories I had told her about Malfoy, and our little group, it was more likely Ron who would commit the murders, and not Harry."

All the girls in the compartment settled back in their seating, thinking about Hermione's short story. The silence was only broken by the occasional sniffles by Hermione.

"So…did you try explaining this to Ron?" Parvati asked after a few moments.

"Of coarse I did…or at least I tried to, but all he would do is shake his head, calmly tell me that it was obviously Harry who did it, then walk away. No matter how many times I tried to make him understand, he would ignore me. After awhile I stopped because each time I tried to talk to him about it, he would slowly get more and more angry."

"He didn't hurt you did he?" Ginny growled, anger and concern showing in her eyes.

"No, although there were times when I thought that he would." Hermione shook her head a little, "He would become angry when a date with a girl failed, and blamed it on Harry. In fact whenever something went wrong, he always blamed it on Harry."

Parvati spoke up once more with a thoughtful expression on her face. "I remember that he once got a failing grade on a Transfiguration test and started complaining about how it was all Harry's fault for making him fail. When someone asked him about it, he would just glare at them and growl a little. Now that I think about it though, he didn't look intimidating at all. In fact he looked like he was constipated."

All the girls broke out in giggles thinking about that before they slowly died away and silence once more filled the compartment.

-o0O( Platform Nine and Three Quarters )O0o-

It stayed silent for the rest of the train ride before the train pulled into the station. As the girls departed from the train, Hermione grabbed each of them in a hug before whispering 'Thank you' into their ears. Before she could get far though, Ginny grabbed her arm and told her that if she needed to talk to her, then she should owl her.

Hermione nodded before leaving the station with her parents, a small smile on her face, and the weight on her heart a little lighter. Saying goodbye to the twins and telling them that she would contact them with a set date for the next "Harry is Innocent" meeting, Ginny grabbed her trunk, which was placed on a trolley, and Hedwig, before walking towards the barrier, silently steeling herself for that meeting with her parents and Ron.

Exiting the barrier she looked around for her parents before spotting a patch of red hair in the sea of brown, black, and blond. Making her way over she was tensing a little thinking about how her parents acted towards her ever since the trial.

As she managed to push through the large groups of people, she sighed heavily before finally reaching the pair of redheads standing near the entrance to the station.

"Mum, Dad." She said, while looking anywhere else but at the two.

There was silence for a moment before she heard a voice decidedly different from her parents talking.

"Which one is mum and which one is dad?"

"Well obviously it's you who's mum, my slightly slower sibling, you're the one who shows the most resemblance."

"I think not my less fairer and delightfully dimwitted twin. If it's anyone who looks like our dear mother, then it is most certainly you."

"Fred, George! What are you two doing here?" Ginny asked feeling relief flood into her system.

"Well our favorite sister," George began. Ginny snorted a bit before mumbling, 'I'm your only sister.' "You see, we managed to convince mum and dad that it would be beneficial to you, if you stayed with us for the summer, helping around the shop."

Ginny stood there a moment letting the information sink in before smiling brightly at the both of them. "Brilliant! How did you manage that?" She asked excitedly.

"We said that since you were about to enter your sixth year, and thus had one last summer, after this one of course, that it was high time you learned how to stand up on your own two feet."

"With a bit of help from dad, mum managed to say yes with the stipulation that you're to stop by once a week."

Ginny sighed a bit before smiling at the twins. "I suppose that it's better than nothing. At least I wont have to put up with mum try to comfort me about 'that horrible, lying, deceitful, Slytherin of a monster'."

Both Fred and George grinned when she imitated their mother perfectly before glancing at the clock, and grabbing Ginny's trunk. "Come on, we don't have much time before mum and dad get here. It would be better if we leave now."

As they began to walk out of station, Fred looked over at Ginny and asked a question that was bugging him a little. "Ginny," when he received a nod and a curious look, he continued. "Where in Merlin's name is Ron?"

People a like looked towards the stations doors in confusion when they all heard two people burst out in loud laughter.

-o0O( Hermione's House )O0o-

After Hermione left the train station, she slipped into her parent's car, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Her mother, noticing that she wasn't her usual self, only looked at her with concern lit up in her eyes. Seeing the look that her mother was giving her, Hermione merely shook her head and laid down in the back seat, quickly falling asleep.

Over and hour later the Granger's vehicle pulled into the driveway to their modest two-story house. Gently shaking Hermione awake, Mr. Granger helped her out of the car before grabbing her trunk and taking it inside. As soon as she got settled into her room she fell onto the bed, buried her head into her pillow and begun to cry.

Hearing a knock on her door she gave a muffled 'Go away!' before burying further into her pillow. Hearing her door open, she ignored whoever it was and continued to try and hide from the world. Feeling the person sit on her bed, she jumped a little bit when she felt their hand start to rub circles onto her back. Recognizing the hand as her mother's she moved from the pillow and into her mother's arms.

"What's wrong?"

For such a simple question, Hermione wished that she had a simple answer. Barely moving from her position on her mother's lap, she told her mother everything, starting from first year and moving forward. Throughout the first four years, her mother listened quietly while gasping at some of the thing's that her daughter and her friends had done. When Hermione came upon fifth year, she paused a little before going on to explain everything that the wizarding world had done to Harry. The finishing piece was telling her mother everything she did to abandon Harry.

Once she was finished, she couldn't look her mother in the face. Not hearing anything, Hermione began to get up before she felt her mother's arms surrounding her.

"Do you realize what went wrong where?"

Taking a moment to think about the confusing question, Hermione answered back, her voice a little raspy from the crying and talking.

"I was so caught up in gaining new friends, and placed so much belief into authority, that I lost sight of my true friend, and believed anything Dumbledore had told me."

"Good, now that you realize that you were wrong, and that you can admit it to yourself, you can now start doing the right thing." Hermione stared at her mother a moment before replying.

"W-what do you mean?"

"Well, first off I'll take you to London tomorrow so that we can go to Gringott's and give the scrolls and books that Dumbledore had given you out of Harry's vault back to him. Next we'll start working on you. You just went through and are still going through an extremely emotional time. That rollercoaster of emotions isn't good for the mind. Finally we'll do something about Harry. For now though rest. You'll need all you can get for the summer."

With these words of wisdom, Hermione's mother left the room, closing the door behind here. Hermione just stared at the door for a moment before a small, true smile appeared on her face. Taking her mother's advice, she snuggled under the covers and quickly succumbed to the sandman's grasp.

-o0O(Harry's Cell, Thirteen Weeks Later, Ten Months and a Week Altogether )O0o-

Harry sighed for what seemed to be the millionth time for that day. Normally when he would get bored he would begin to work out. However, yesterday some guards decided that when he look far to healthy for being around at least one dementor all day, everyday, that he needed something else to remind him of Azkaban. The beating that followed was the worst one he had gotten thus far. Afterwards, he had cast a simple diagnostic charm and read the list the showed up above him.

It stared with the less dangerous wound and worked towards the most dangerous. The first one was a slight bruise on his knee's, from where he fell to the ground, and the worst was slight internal bleeding in he brain. Before he could panic, the list glowed a brief green before the internal bleeding was wiped from the list, leaving internal stomach bleeding. To him amazement that too glowed a green before disappearing.

It had stayed like this all night, the list getting progressively shorter and shorter, until the only things left on it were his legs, both broken in at least three different places. From what he could tell was that his magic was healing him. He had felt bliss when his arms were finally healed though, for throughout the night the small itching in between his shoulder blades was a raging inferno.

So here he laid, quietly waiting for the final break in his right leg to heal, occasionally scratching his back. After an hour of waiting, he felt the bone fuse together again before cautiously standing up. Testing his body, he did several of his warm up exercises before beginning his normal routine.

He was almost done with his training regimen and was finishing his pull ups when he collapsed to the ground in agony. Writhing on the ground he reached up his back towards the shoulder blades, where the pain was coming from. From the small touch he was able to get, he felt something pushing against the skin, like something was trying to get out.

Feeling the pain subside, Harry stayed on the floor gasping for air. Slowly he flipped over onto his stomach and slowly moved onto his hands and knees. Shaking his head to clear it a little bit, he was about to stagger onto his feet, when the pain came back with a vengeance, only this time he felt his skin tearing, and he noticed that blood seemed to be flying everywhere. When He felt the first rip in his back, he arched upwards, staring blankly at the ceiling, arms spread wide and mouth open in a silent scream.

Just as quickly as it came, the pain disappeared. After a minute or two of staying in the same position, he slowly looked over to his right, seeing something move in the corner of his eyes. Looking, he saw that a large, blood red dragon-like wing was stretched outwards. Turning to his other side, he noticed an identical wing. Relaxing onto his knee's he felt the wings flutter a bit before closing in on themselves over his back.

'Holy Shit.' Was his final thought before falling into darkness.

-o0O( Darkest Part of Harry's Mind )O0o-

Within the darkness, something stirred before two glowing blue eyes opened. Glancing into Harry's mind it noticed the newest development. Before going back to sleep the thing smiled, a large mouth filled with razor sharp appeared under the glowing eyes before being swallowed into the darkness once more.

The last heard throughout Harry's mind was a deep, malevolent laughter.

-o0O( Somewhere in Ireland )O0o-

There is a place in Ireland that no human has ever heard about. This place is so well hidden thatno amount of searching, or using any type of magic will help you find it. The only creature who know of it's location is a select clan of dragon's, each special in it's own way, created this way to guard the location.

You, the reader however are about to read something that was guarded from the humans since the beginning of time...the location itself.

First a little history, taken directly from the elder dragon herself. The location is a cave, which extends down the earth's crust and dangerously close to the mantle of the planet. Now that you know the basic layout, some history is in order.

The cave has been around since the beginning of time itself. Many dragons believe that it was created before anything else. Others claim that the magic in the air from the birth of all things had accumulated at this one spot, there by creating the cave. From what we were told, the cave is a veritable bottomless well when it comes to magic. The dragons have studied it, not for their use but due to natural curiosity, and have found that when something is brought into the world, be it a newborn hatchling, human, or blade of grass, the cave supplies the magic needed for it to grow.

Now, many people had read about this cave, for in the past, one of the guardian dragons became so obsessed with the magic that it slowly began to corrupt him. Fearing the worst, the clan bound all knowledge of the well inside his mind, and banished him from the land. This dragon had slept for a millennia until one day a powerful wizard found him and broke the spell over his mind.

Feeling grateful, if a little ashamed that he needed a humans help, the dragon decided to impart his knowledge of the cave upon the human. The dragon told him about the cave's beginnings, and how the dragon clan guarded it. How should one person control the cave, then they shall become immortal and unstoppable. The human, so greedy for the key to stopping death immediately agreed to side with the dragon. With this said, the dragon bound the two together, greatly increasing the man's own power and life.

For the first few years, everything went as the dragon and the human planned, until the human was destroyed by none other than an infant. Due to being bound together, the dragon had not suspected that he himself would also loose his power and body. It was at this time that the dragon had decided to tell the ex-man about the true power that was hidden in the cave.

A sword, crafted by the gods and given incredible powers, able to wield the elements themselves like child's play should the legends be believed, was sealed inside the deepest, darkest, and most dangerous part of the cave. Any who shall wield the blade, shall have the power to become a god themselves. However the one thing that the dragon decided to keep from the man was that it required a certain type of person to be able to hold the sword, let alone wield it.

When Harry had grown his wings and was unconscious in his cell, the sword, kept locked and sealed into the earth, in pure darkness, pulsed once before settling back down once more.

-o0O( Undisclosed Location, Two Weeks Later, Ten Months and Three Weeks Later )O0o-

It had been several months since the reuniting of Remus, Sirius, James and Lily. All four of them had expressed disbelief in the beginning at first, not truly believing that the others were alive, or safe and sound. After the initial shock finally wore off, Remus and Siruis began filling the two missing parents in on everything that had happened since 1981.

Hearing about how Dumbledore had manipulated their child like that, sending him to the Dursley's and Harry's years at school, had made them develop and unearthly amount of hatred towards the old wizard. After hearing about how Harry was framed, and Dumbledore didn't do anything about it in any way, shape, or form, had made Lily, surprisingly, start ranting, thus making James the one to try and calm her down.

After learning about how there was a group trying to get Harry out of Azkaban, both parents settled down a little and made a vow to do everything in their power to help.

After Sirius and Remus finished talking, it became James and Lily's turn. Both told the two about how they were approached by Dumbledore, told how Voldemort had killed Harry, and used their grief against them, making them go into hiding. Next they told the two about how they had two other children, Thomas who was nine, and Rose who was three. Both Remus and Sirius promised to see them as soon as they could.

Now, after almost a year, both James and Lily were about to make the world know that they were never truly gone, and start to support Harry the way that he should.

A/N:

My…god… The chapter is finally finished! The main reason that it took so long was due to the fact that I'm constantly doing something that revolves around school or work. Hopefully the next chapter will come out sooner. Actually it should since I'm out of school for three weeks.

I don't like this chapter. Nope, in fact I hate it. For some reason it doesn't seem to fall together like I wanted it too. However unless I come back later to re-write the story, then I'm not touching it. I've been over this stupid thing for months, I suffered through colds, headaches, writers block, and power outages just to get the chapter how it is.

Any ways, I hope you enjoy reading the chapter far more than I did writing it.

Dragonmage182.