With the Ministry of Magic actively denying Voldemort's return, and Voldemort doing nothing to open their eyes, Aurora found her summer very boring. With nothing to do for months on end, there were times when Aurora felt like she was going to go sti...
The next morning, Aurora woke having had very little sleep. Her dreams couldn't seem to find a focus, jumping from the pink toad to a large bear-like dog that looked much like Sirius's animagus form to a large snake. When Hermione's Daily Prophet arrived she smoothed it out, gazed for a moment at the front page, and then gave a yelp that caused everyone in the vicinity to stare at her.
"What?" said Harry and Ron together.
For an answer she spread the newspaper on the table in front of them and pointed at ten black-and-white photographs that filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards' faces and the tenth, a witch's. Some of the people in the photographs were silently jeering; others were tapping their fingers on the frame of their pictures, looking insolent. Each picture was captioned with a name and the crime for which the person had been sent to Azkaban.
Antonin Dolohov, read the legend beneath a wizard with a long, pale, twisted face who was sneering up at Aurora, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.
Augustus Rookwood, said the caption beneath a pockmarked man with greasy hair who was leaning against the edge of his picture, looking bored, convicted of leaking Ministry of Magic Secrets to HeWho-Must-Not-Be-Named.
But Aurora's eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. Her face had leapt out at her the moment she had seen the page. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture, though he had seen it sleek, thick, and shining. She glared up at him through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. Like Sirius, she retained vestiges of great good looks, but something — perhaps Azkaban — had taken most of her beauty.
Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom.
Hermione nudged Aurora and pointed at the headline over the pictures, which Aurora, concentrating on Bellatrix, had not yet read.
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"Black?" said Harry loudly. "Not — ?"
"Shhh!" whispered Hermione desperately. "Not so loud — just read it!"
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