Annabeth Chase the Triwizard Champion

Chapter Seven

"That Chase girl knows. Or she suspects."

Harry looked up from his lunch as Hermione sat down in the seat next to him and piled some food onto her plate.

"Are you going to tell us what, or...?"

Hermione looked around and lowered her voice.

"About Sirius!" she said in a harsh whisper. "She was talking to her friends about it. She knows Sirius was spotted on purpose. She's going to do research, I know it."

"Then she'll find out he's innocent," Ron said.

"Or she won't!" Hermione whispered shrilly. "She might find out that he's an animagus, but she might not find out he's innocent, and she'll tell someone!"

"How can you be sure?" Harry asked, worry seeping into his voice. "Maybe she won't find out anything?"

"She's going to go to the library at some point," Hermione said. "I'll follow her. I'll see what she finds out."

"Since when did you become a stalker?" Ron asked incredulously, as Hermione pulled her plate towards her and started wolfing down her food.

***

Annabeth couldn't focus on her other classes. She was busy thinking about Sirius Black. She wasn't paying attention in divination, or whatever classes followed. The second the bell rang, Annabeth was gone, searching for the library.

She figured any self respecting library would have newspaper records. She would look for background information about Sirius Black first. Then she would read about his crime, his conviction, and his escape, then anything that followed.

After about a while of wandering and getting sidetracked by the architecture, Annabeth finally found the library. It was huge. Towering bookshelves stretched out in all directions, all filled with multicolored books of all sizes.

Annabeth could have spent days looking through it all, but instead she skimmed the shelves, looking for the newspapers. She found them after about twenty minutes of searching.

She went back to the time of Sirius Black's conviction, thirteen years ago. Then she went back a little further. She found something about Lily and James Potter getting married and Sirius Black being James's best man. That was a start.

Dated about a year and a half after that, she found a few articles about his arrest and the crimes he was charged with. Then she found an article from the year before about the Minister of Magic visiting Azkaban, so she took that, too, along with the articles about his escape. Dated around seven months after that, she found an article about Black being caught at Hogwarts, held in one of the school's offices, and then escaping.

She took her stash and brought them over to a nearby table, and started to read.

***

A little while later, these were the facts: one, that Sirius Black was best friends with James Potter when they were at Hogwarts. Two, when Voldemort threatened the lives of Lily, James, and baby Harry, the family went into hiding, entrusting Sirius Black with the secret. Three, Sirius had betrayed them, sold them out to Voldemort. Four, another one of their friends from Hogwarts, Peter Pettigrew, had confronted Sirius Black about it. Black had blown him apart with a curse that also killed twelve muggles. The biggest part of Pettigrew they ever found was a finger. Five, Black had been arrested only a few minutes later, and he laughed as he was taken away.

Six, Minister of Magic Fudge had visited Askaban to check up on the security. Seven, only a few days after that, Black escaped. Eight, Black broke into Hogwarts a total of three times, each of them meant to target and kill Harry.