𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀, harry potter

seventy two

72 || breakouts and breakthroughs

Alex had accidentally overslept the next morning, missing her alarm clock, Astoria trying to wake her up and Adelaide also giving an attempt. And so, she was forced to rush down to breakfast with her uniform looking scruffy and her eyes filled with fatigue. That was the reason she thought so many people were giving her weird looks as she passed. After all she did look like she had been dragged through a bush repeatedly. However, her thoughts were proven wrong when she approached her friends and saw a variety of emotions. Fear, sadness, anger.

"Who died?" Alex attempted to joke but no one laughed, "Seriously, what's happened?"

Theo slid the Daily Prophet down to her, "Before anyone else gets to tell you first."

Her eyes immediately filled with dread as she remembered a conversation she had overheard in the holidays, "Salazar."

Ten black-and-white photographs filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards' faces and the tenth, a witch. 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.

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 He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

But Alex'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 she had always seen pictures of it sleek, thick, and shining. She glared up through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. 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.

Alex's breath was caught in her throat. She had heard the plot, but she never thought it would happen and certainly not this early. Everyone's eyes were on her, probably thinking she had something to do with it. Alex didn't for clarification.

"You feeling okay?" Adelaide asked, "I can tell the Professors you're feeling sick if you need."

Alex shook her head, "No. That will make them more suspicious of me. I just have to keep my head up. What will they do? They can't arrest me for something they have no proof of." Then her eyes swept to the headline of the article and snapped back at Adelaide.

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS "RALLYING POINT" FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

"Guess we're both battling our demons today," Adelaide said stiffly, "Just tell them to fuck off. They don't know what it's like."

Over the next few days, word had been spread that Hagrid was on probation and whispers in the corridors followed the topic of the ten escaped Death Eaters. Those who came from Wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these Death Eaters spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemort's; the crimes they had committed during the days of Voldemort's reign of terror were legendary. There were relatives of their victims among the Hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors. And there were also the relatives of the escapees. Adelaide was used to the looks given by her classmates, after all her father had escaped over two years ago now. But Alex didn't know how to cope with the stares, the fear in those she used to call her friends as they dodged her in the corridors.