I will always find you

OOTP 17

The D.A. were continually approaching Harry in the corridors between classes, asking hopefully whether there would be a meeting that night on the first day back.

"I'll let you know when the next one is" Harry said over and over again "But I can't do it tonight, I've got to go to - er - Remedial Potions"

"You take Remedial Potions?" Asked Zacharias Smith superciliously, having cornered Harry in the entrance hall after lunch. "Good lord, you must be terrible, Snape doesn't usually give extra lessons, does he?" As Smith strode away in an annoyingly buoyant fashion, Ron glared after him.

"Shall I jinx him? I can still get him from here" He said, raising his wand and taking aim between Smiths shoulder blades.

"I can punch him if you'd like" Ella added from Harry's side.

"Forget it" Harry said dismally. "It's what everyone's going to think. isn't it? That I'm really stup-"

"Hi Harry" Said a voice behind them. Harry turned around and found Cho standing there.

"Oh" Harry said "Hi"

"We'll be in the library, Harry" Hermione said firmly and she seized Ron above the elbow and dragged him off towards the marble staircase as Ella followed behind them after sending Harry a small smirk.

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The very next morning 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 Ella, 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 them, 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 Ella’s eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture. She glared up at them 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. The headline over the pictures read.

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

“Black?” said Harry loudly. “Not — ?”

“Shhh!” whispered Hermione desperately. “Not so loud — just read it!”

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 of 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 beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached.”