87. The Beetle At Bay

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Harry's question was answered the very next morning. When Hermione's Daily Prophet arrived she smoothed it out, gazed for a moment at the front page and gave a yelp that caused everyone in the vicinity to stare at her.

"What?" said Harry and Ron together.

Y/n lowered his knife and fork. "What have they said about Harry and I now?" He sighed.

But Hermione spread the newspaper on the table in front of them and pointed at twelve black and white photographs that filled the whole of the front page, ten showing wizards' faces and two showing witches. 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 Harry, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.

Algernon 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 He Who Must Not Be Named.

Harry's eyes were drawn to the picture of one of the witches. Her face had leaped out at him the moment he 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.

But Y/n's own eyes bared down with an intensity on the paper, for he had recognised two of the pictures immediately. One belonged to the other witch, her hair was long and straight flowing down to her waist. Her eyes stared back at Y/n's own with a look of uncaring for why she had been incarcerated.

Below her picture read the name Priscilla Grindelwald. Convicted of mass murder, torture, mutilation, arson, assault.

Y/n's eyes moved to the next picture. It was of a wizard with hair a similar length to his own and eyes that sported a depraved madness to them. Below the picture, he saw the name Ivan Grindelwald. Convicted of mass murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, assault.

He saw the headline over the picture now

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN

MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS 'RALLYING POINT'

FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

'The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban.

Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.

We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped, said Fudge last night. Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals, and we beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached.'

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