The Mysteries of FICO Scoring

[Anonymous]

I recently had to use two of my three credit cards for large purchases putting my balances close to the limit but not over and had an inquiry for new credit.  When the alert came this morning I knew for sure my score had gone down but no my score went up. Any clues as to why it went up and not down?  Not that I am complaining. 

[llecs]

This was through ScoreWatch, right?

Were any of these two cards unused in the past several months? Aside from these two, was the other (or others) being used?

Are you certain these two CCs reported the new balance?

Was the alert due to the inquiry?