New Beginnings

Chapter 40

Tom knew that finding Dumbledore was imperitve however he also knew that the lestranges would be best suited for the job.

So whilst he wanted to send out every and any person available to catch Dumbledore, he also wanted to get the Lestranges back who were probably better suited to tracking the old man than most of his forces. Already he'd been slowly working to break them out, by first choosing three muggle prisoners, from three separate prisons, to break out.

Rita had thankfully acquired the files (no wanted to or were going to ask how) of three muggle criminals who probably wouldn't be missed, but they weren't the ones who had to deal with fall-out either way.

Together with Lucius and Tom, Rita planned the jail break of the muggles, knowing a bit more about the muggle world than the two men. The sole reason the whole thing took so long was that Lucius had to put the standard anti-muggle wards that broke their technology and left everyone confused.

The next day, Tom was able to stroll in, posing as a security guard, and walk back out with their prisoner of choice. This could only be done once a week, because they didn't need the type of attention that came with three jailbreaks in a short time frame and it would seem less suspicious if was a once a week kind of thing.

Of course their prisoners were held in the Malfoy dungeons, unconscious until they got into Azkaban.

Which was why when news came that Dumbledore had broken out of the ministry (Umbridge hadn't thankfully), Tom hadn't had the Lestranges there to track him. Nevertheless they did have all three prisoners and enough polyjuice potion to drown a small city.

(Severus had said they probably wouldn't need it all but he also had a habit of stress potion-making, which was oddly useful and concerning.)

Lucius and Tom had planned to go together, with Tom using a few glamours to hide his red eyes, aside from them he looked like the average wizard and everyone who knew what a young Tom Riddle looked like wasn't anywhere near Azkaban.

They chose a random day and imperioused their three muggles to just blindly follow them, not needing any complicated orders from them. Aurors on the island never tested for unforgivables, because there were rarely visitors to a place infested with dementors. Only the minister was forced to go, which had allowed for Lucius to go with and see Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan.

Now they just charted a boat to Azkaban, keeping the muggles at the rear and waited the few hours it took to get there. They'd didn't bother with conversation, particularly when they got within a few hundred miles as the aurors may have erected new eavesdropping wards since Lucius had last visited.

The island itself was a ragged outcropping of rock. A constant storm system surrounded the place, keeping it dark and dreary constantly, with the vague outlines of dementors seen right at the center of the storm clouds. For some reason, the prison was built in a triangular shape, all sharp lines and dull grey marble.

Tom saw the rotting dock first and had to wonder if it was held together by magic or just rotted slowly, because he was honestly surprised when the wood held his and Lucius's weight when they stepped off the boat.

The three muggles dutifully clambered onto the pier, but only once the two wizards had, at which point a group of aurors had come to meet them. The group of four cautiously eyed the three muggles (though they'd been dressed in pureblood robes to not arouse suspicion) and Tom.