One month timeskip! Here we go!

Merlot and Ron doing some things. Dragon hoard clearing, and some spidery stuff for the redhead.

Next chapter will have the bit from Moody, giving an interview to a witness, and then telling Dumbledore. That chapter will end with Ron arriving in London a few days before the Hogwarts express is scheduled to leave, and having everything ready for school.

So three more chapters until Hogwarts begins again. Let's go.

—0—

Merlot looked down at the nest that she and Scortwit had scouted a few weeks prior. The dragons hoard had grown to a problematic size, and now it was laying outside of its home.

Scortwit wrinkled his nose. "Ugh… should've come back earlier, yeh smell that?"

Merlot inhaled, before covering her mouth to stop from throwing up. "It smells like rotting fruit and spoiled milk. Urg… what is that?"

Scortwit shook his head. "Scalehives. The rainwater gets into the dragons scales and irritates them. The skin beneath the scales gets irritated and begins to ooze. Nasty business…"

"We don't have to… clean that, do we?" Merlot swallowed.

"I'll bring Charlie boy to help me with it." Scortwit drew his wand. "For now, let's focus on making sure he can get back into his nest."

Merlot pulled her dragonflame proof cloak around her and was handed a bag. "We don't just vanish it?"

Scortwit shrugged. "Well, here's the thing. I can't really run an operation like this off of just one vineyard. Grapes and wine, as good as they may be, are just a hobby. No, the real money in dragonwatching is hoard clean up."

The man flicked his wand, causing himself to become scentless and near invisible. With a mutter, he did the same to Merlot.

"So we're stealing from a dragon?" Merlot whispered. "Isn't that kindof the number one no-no for dragons?"

"Keep quiet. Most of the treasure goes to improving the preserve and keeping them protected. I don't consider it traditional thievery."

Merlot sighed. "Okay then… how much will we be getting?"

"Probably about half. We need to make sure he has enough to be happy, and enough space to live without issue for a while."

Merlot gazed at the gemstones spilling out of the dragons cave. "That has to be a fortune…"

"Not the biggest I've done. Much harder when I had to run them alone." Scortwits voice chuckled. "This'll probably go through Goblin customs and be transferred directly to the reserve fund. We'll get a five percent cut of it? Well, five percent each. That's about a hundred thousand galleons."

Merlot felt faint. "Five percent is a hundred thousand? That's so much…"

Scortwit chuckled. "A lot of my savings go to household upkeep and insurance for the vineyard."

"What does the preserve need that much gold for?"

Scortwits camouflage hand patted Merlot's own hidden shoulder. "Upkeep of the wards, mostly. The magic of the ward system that disguises the Dragonlodge is some of the most complex in the world. Best modern wards one can get, and over a magically multiplied fifty mile square area, they take a lot of power. Instead of being tied to the ley lines, the goblins fuel them with condensed dragon magic, which is in the gold and gemstones we harvest."

Merlot shook her head. "How big is the preserve?"

Scortwit shrugged. "The area we work in is fifty miles. But it is magically expanded to around three hundred. It takes a lot of magic power to do that, like I said. Now keep it down, we have a hoard to chip away at."

Merlot watched as Scortwits barely visible outline shifted forward, out of their hiding place and down to where the dragon was sleeping.

Merlot shook her head and quickly followed, doing her best not to make noise with her limp. Up ahead, she could see Scortwit slipping around the dragon easily, before moving the last fifty feet to the overflowing cave.

Merlot made her way along the same path, almost letting out a squeak as the dragon exhaled, bathing her in hot air. Somehow, she managed to hold back the sound, and quickly pushed herself to move all the way to Scortwits side.

The man was already knee deep in gemstones, using his wand to funnel a steady stream of riches into his bag. Merlot drew her own wand and began doing the same.

Even at the rate at they were going, it took approximately two hours to make tier way to the caves real entrance, and another four to clear out enough of the cave for the dragon to fit. Scortwit kept them another two hours after that to make sure that the dragon had enough space to be comfortable, and they finally finished.

"We've been stealing from a dragon… for eight hours…" Merlot shook her head. "How the hell is it still asleep?"

Scortwit shook his invisible head. "I might have told it to sleep in draconic. We've got about an hour to get out of here."

"Will it wake up then?"

"Yup, and you don't want to be anywhere near one of these gusy when they realize what happened."

Merlot nodded and stuck close to Scortwit as he picked his way back up to their hiding place. From there, they began their trek back to the dragonlodge."

'I hope it lasts as long as he says…'

—0—

Anne McAllen was your everyday woman. She had a daughter and three grandchildren, and lived alone at the corner of a small village near Crawley ever since the death of her husband. Anne had lived a rather peaceful life. She remembered the world war, of course, when she was little. Times were hard then, and so she had endeavored to keep her family out of poverty afterwards. No longer employed, she was paid by the country as she was of retired age. Of course, every now and again, her daughters family would step in to help with some expenses, as little as she liked them to.

Though, while her life was peaceful after the war, she found that strange things happened every so often. Growing up paranoid of the Germans made them impossible to ignore, but at the same time, they were things that shouldn't have been possible.

When she was a young woman, and had met her husband, their first date had been at a zoo. While petting one of the horses that was kept there, she could feel a stump on its head. A discreet look had shown her that it was the stump of a horn.

It was odd, but the zookeeper brushed it off as a mutation. Still, it stuck in Anne's head.

When she had her daughter, there had been strange occurrences. And even after her Daughter left, she found her sometimes doing things out of the ordinary. When they had family dinner at their house, there had been strange books on bookshelves. A pot that held something inedible, and odd plants in the garden.

Her own daughter told her that they were simply play things made up by her first grandson.

When Dale died, she could no longer ignore it. Although she was brutally cut up, she couldn't remember just what happened. Any time she asked, she found herself a week later, still not knowing. And she had lost a week, and then another week, and then another.

Soon, Anne stopped complaining, and began observing. She became a master at sneaking around and listening in. It was a year after her husbands death that she found that magic was real. Her daughter herself was magic, and had married a wizard who taught her how to use it.

But they had different politics, and named people that couldn't be real. What kind of a name was Fudge?

She began seeing people doing their best to use magic discreetly, and eventually developed a knack for spotting it or even feeling it on a whim. Though she couldn't use it, it always let her know that there was a wizard or witch nearby.

And that made the night all the more terrifying.

Anne had finished her dinner and had gone out to walk her dog. A well groomed purebred yorkshire terrier named Teatree. They had gone around the neighborhood, giving their nightly greetings to neighbors before returning home.

And then, without warning, it happened.

First, it was three. Bigger than Anne had seen in quite sometime. Spiders that seemed a bit out of place, but which were native to the the British isles. Anne would know, she had studied some when she had gotten a late degree in botany at the age of thirty three.

But then, it was more. Six more. Then eight. Then twenty and a hundred.

Then there were millions.

They covered the street, crawling forward in a wave of black and brown, swallowing up buildings and blotting out streetlights. Anne was frozen in a mixture of fear and awe as they moved, and yet, they did not touch her or Teatree.

It had to be magic. Anne knew it. But she couldn't feel anything. She couldn't understand what was going on without the explanation of magic. It had taken root in her mind as a way to explain the unexplainable, and had even caused her to stop believing in a god.

But this here… there was no magic, just spiders crawling around. A plague of arachnids of biblical proportions.

And then, he appeared. A boy with black hair, his face pale and unhappy. He almost seemed sick with the archnids crawling around, and yet… they seemed to be there for him. Not obeying any commands, but rather simply offering their work to him. A series of spiders climbed out of her home, carrying a sandwich on rye bread to the boy and pushing it into his hands.

They shouldn't have been that synchronised.

"I don't want this…"

Anne paused as she heard the boy speak softly.

"You are kind, but I am afraid."

Afraid? Afraid of what? All these spiders served him… how could anyone like him be afraid.

"I can hear you all speaking… I've always heard you speaking… Yes, I know, but-"

The boy froze, before turning. Anne found her eyes meeting his. The boy shook his head, stepping back, and in an instant, the spiders receded. They crawled into a pile that covered the boy and swept him away, out of the town, towards London.

Anne watched the spiders go, before looking around, wondering if she was the only one who had seen.

If she had been the only one. Maybe she was crazy…

—0—

Charlie sighed as he sat down at the kitchen table. Scortwit had been nice with the days off, but now that Bill was okay, he had time to help out again.

The loss of his wand arm had hit Bill hard, but not as hard as losing dad. Nor was it as bad as losing Ron. Now, seeing Charlie do his best to take care of him and the twins, Bill had poured a lot of his energy into recovery.

Learning how to use spells with his non dominant hand was hard, but once the young man had gotten it down, he had leapt ahead quicker and quicker.

The twins were a bit different. They were quiet, but not as much as they had been. Charlie knew he'd regret it, but he pushed them to get back to their pranks. Using their emotions as a boost, they had come up with some pretty dubious creations, none of which Charlie wished to test for them.

Sitting down, Charlie cracked his knuckles. Both Merlot and Scortwit said he needed to take some time, but what he really needed was to take his mind off of the situation. Working would help with that.

"Let's see where you are…"

Charlie flipped the preserve ledger open and moved to the days date. As he began to read, his face went white.

"Idiot… idiot idiot idiot!"

"What's wrong,"

"Big brother?" The twins popped out from the sitting room.

Charlie was already up and donning hs jacket. "I need you two to take care of Bill while I'm gone."

"Where are you going?"

Charlie huffed. "Scortwit took Merlot to help him on a treasure run."

"Treasure run?"

"Clearing out an overflowing dragon hoard. It's bad for the dragons because they can get sick."

George frowned. "Stealing from a dragon is like, the biggest no-no in the business, right Fred?"

"Well, can't Scortwit talk to them though?"

Charlie shook his head. "That normally helps, but they're dealing with Ryggrad."

"Rygrrad?"

Charlie nodded, running out of the door. "He's hard of hearing."

Fred and George turned and looked at each other as the door slammed shut.

"You think?"

"Oh yeah."

"Should we?"

"Hell no."

A roar louder than a muggle aeroplane shook the lodge, rattling the windows and causing the earth to tremble.

"Yeah, I'm with you on that one."

—0—

Shorter chapter. I said I'd get to more than I didn, but I'm tired now and I think that's a good place to stop. Sorry for another cliffhanger, I'm really bad at them. I put up too many or far to little.

Anyways, the dragon thing is the last major action chapter before Hogwarts. Everything will be slower at the school, I have a lot to do.

I can actually give a rough outline of what's happening today.

So, I intend to do a similar outline to the last book. Academics, studying, plot, quidditch, rinse and repeat. Of course, everything in this story is plot based, so every little thing is in there for a reason.

When we start Hogwarts this year, I will still do the sorting. There will be four chapters of classes and then quidditch practice. There will be Ginny chapters and Hermione chapters, but one comes later than the other.

The chamber of secrets being opened will most likely not occur until the late twenty's in chapter numbers. Of course, petrification and Draco developments will ensue. There will be more to come.

The prophecy will be uttered near the beginning of the schoolyear, and brought to the attention of Albus at the first teacher conference, which will take place after the first basilisk attack.

All in all, this book will be of similar length to the first, if not longer by a few chapters. I promise that cliff hangers will not be as often, only in certain plot chapters, and even then. Most of the time, you know what is going to happen.

So, as always, leave a review. Sorry for any spelling errors, it is late, and I am tired. I will fix them eventually.

Until the next chapter, Adios.