Prisoner of the Past
Summary: The world has changed. The Light has fallen and Voldemort has overtaken wizarding Britain. Languishing in Azkaban for the last six years, Harry Potter has no knowledge of this until he is freed by the remnants of the Order of the Phoenix. Will he be able to rally the failing forces of the Light and end the reign of the Dark Lord?
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No copyright infringement is intended. Just a harmless piece of fun, but please don't reproduce this without asking me first!
Pairings: HarryxGinny, RonxHermione, Justin Finch-FletchleyxHannah Abbot, Cedric DiggoryxCho Chang, NevillexSusan Bones, Oliver WoodxAlicia Spinnet for definite, others may follow. No slash, I can't write that convincingly, sorry.
Author Note: This is not an Azkaban fic, strictly speaking, it was just a convenient device to get Harry out of the way while Voldemort came back. That is not to say that Harry will be unaffected by his time inside, but Azkaban is not the focus of the story. The focus is Harry and Voldemort. This story is now undergoing a rewrite, so here is Chapter 1 rewritten. Not a great deal has changed, mainly some alterations to Harry's POV at the start to accommodate some of the new tacks I've taken in subsequent chapters. To be honest I was pretty happy with the way it was, and no one seemed to have major criticisms about the story yet. Changes will become much more evident next chapter. In the meantime, enjoy…
Eighteen-year-old Harry James Potter huddled on the cold stone floor of his cell, a lifeless wreck of a teenager. He still tried, occasionally, to block out the incessant screaming and the horrible memories that played in his mind ad nauseam, mostly due to sheer stubbornness, but he had stayed here so long now that it was well-nigh impossible to raise any mental defences at all. Six years, that was how long he had been in this hellhole. It seemed much longer to him, but the calendar scratched on his cell wall remained accurate, or at least he thought it did, insanity meant that he could not be sure, he might have missed a few days, but what the hell? Six years at least then, with no contact with the outside world, no visitors, no letters, nothing. Not that he had anyone to write to, or to visit him, the entire world was convinced that he was the murderous heir of Salazar Slytherin, and that he spent his days plotting ways to exterminate Muggle-Borns and torture innocent people into insanity. Even Ron and Hermione, his staunchest supporters from before, or at least he hoped they were, sometimes he wondered whether they too had succumbed to public pressure and repudiated him, had never once tried to contact him. He had become a man under these appalling conditions, conditions that would have broken a fully-grown wizard, let alone a twelve-year-old boy. But Harry was no ordinary boy; he had grown up with the Dursleys, surrounded by harsh abuse, both physical and mental, on a daily basis. He had not broken then, and he did not break now either. He stubbornly clung to the person he had once been, when he was sane enough to display anything resembling a personality, which was not all that often.
Today, however, was his birthday, and for once he was relatively lucid. The presence of Dementors during his formative years meant that he was by now mostly accustomed to their presence, so on the rare days that he was able to drag himself back out of insanity, he was fairly clear-headed. He had awakened with the dawn and, on consulting the scratched calendar on his wall, which had informed him of the significance of this particular day, had ironically sung himself a Happy Birthday in a loud, raucous and horribly off-key voice. After that, however, there was little to do. Azkaban was not heavy on things to amuse one and pass the time. There was no library, no socialising, nothing, although to be fair most prisoners were not in any condition to want or need such things. From his seated position in the corner of his cell, Harry could just about look up through the grate that was embedded into the wall of his cell about ten feet over his head and see the sky through it. Most days it was either flat and grey or roiling and stormy, but every so often, as was the case today, the sky was mostly clear with a few clouds. The sunrise was turning the clouds a fiery red from below, and Harry stared up at them.
As it frequently did in his lucid moments, Harry's mind turned back to the reason he was where he was. It was almost humorous really, what a simple quirk of fate, like dropping a stupid book, could so easily destroy his life. Without the diary, there was no proof of the involvement of Tom Marvolo Riddle as the instigator of the attacks, and the revelation that he was a Parselmouth had pointed the finger of suspicion directly at him when the monster in the Chamber of Secrets had been proved to be a Basilisk. He thought Dumbledore might have believed his story, Ron too judging by the impassioned testimony he had given at Harry's trial that his best friend would never do anything like what people were suggesting, and Ginny certainly would have since she knew the truth, but the rest of the wizarding world had turned against him faster than he could say 'not guilty' and was screaming for his condemnation. Even the other Weasleys, who had treated him like family during the summer of that same school year, had not come to his support, or had they? He could not recall them being there, but the Dementors had started taking his memories years ago, so he could no longer be sure. Sometimes it was best not to dwell too much on the certainties that might or might not be certain in his world. If there were a death penalty in the wizarding world, he was sure that he would have gotten it. As it was, Fudge had circumvented law to improve his own popularity with the wizarding world by acquiescing to public demands, and as a result he had been sentenced to life in the maximum security section of the prison, never to see freedom again, a sentence that could not technically be given to a minor.
His mind wandered off on other bitter tangents as he considered friends who had turned against him. Memories of his trial and particular faces jumped to the fore. Hagrid shouting angrily at him, McGonagall staring at him stonily, Snape grinning maliciously, the pain he had felt when the Weasleys never showed up, Oliver Wood sitting there with his parents, shooting death glares at the boy who had been the star of his Quidditch team for two short years, Justin Finch-Fletchley's parents and three brothers cornering him outside the courtroom as he was escorted back to the cells at the ministry and beating him until he was raw and bloody while the Aurors who were supposed to be guarding him stood by and laughed, occasionally throwing in a blow of their own. The litany of faces went on and on, a whirl of pain and depression to rival that induced by the Dementors.
He dropped his head, feeling sanity slipping away again. He wondered when death would take him. It was not that he wanted the end to come. Desiring death was tantamount to giving up; to letting those who had put him here win. But he was not stupid. He had long since given up on getting out himself, or on anyone on the outside managing it. He would die here, but he would do so on his own terms, as the person he was. That was his last coherent thought before he slipped back into the grey fog of madness once more, his screams and cries joining the howling cacophony of the other inmates as his mind was dragged back to the Halloween night that he had lost his parents.
Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, was having a bad day. This was not a new situation, he had not had a good day in a long time now, but the fact was still noteworthy at least once a day. In theory he had won. The Ministry of Magic was his, Hogwarts was his, and virtually the entire British wizarding community bowed at his feet. Resistance to him had been reduced to a few scattered individuals, who ran and hid far more than they caused trouble. He had personally killed Dumbledore during the siege of Hogwarts, his Death Eaters had rounded up the vast majority of the Order of the Phoenix and either killed them or cast them into Azkaban. The remaining members at large constituted those who were beneath his notice, refuse like Mundungus Fletcher or flea-bitten Muggle-lovers like Amelia Bones.
The only exception was Harry Potter. The damnable Boy-Who-Lived, cause of his previous defeat and, according to prophecy the only person capable of defeating him, continued to elude his grasp. He had not been seen or heard from in over six years now, and many believed him dead, but for Voldemort that was not enough. He needed proof; he needed to see the boy's mangled body lying at his feet, to see the still chest and the green eyes blanked in death. Only then could he be certain that his position was secure, only then would his victory be complete. Old issues of the Daily Prophet informed him that Potter had been found guilty of unleashing the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and using it to attack students. This had caused him to come closer to mirth than he had been in years, since he knew the truth about his Diary-Horcrux, and on recovering it from the Chamber and examining it had discovered that it had in fact been possessing Ginevra Weasley to achieve the intended aim of purging the school of Mudbloods. According to the Prophets, Potter had been sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban, but a thorough search of the prison records had yielded no information about Harry Potter whatsoever. He had even gone out to the island prison and personally searched every cell for his mortal foe, but had not found him. His Death Eaters were at a loss, and so was he. The boy was nowhere to be found, as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him whole. But Voldemort had the nagging feeling that he had not seen the last of the boy, that he was still out there waiting for the opportune moment to cause trouble, and so he continued to expend incredible resources on an extensive manhunt for the boy. He held out no hope, however, that this morning's reports on that search would be any different to those of the previous day's, or the day before, or the week before, or the month before, or even the year before.
Sensing the approach of his most trusted Death Eater, he turned away from the balcony and the orange sunrise that he had been watching and towards the interior of the mansion that was his.
"So, Severus," he stated in his high, cold voice, "What news today?"
"My lord," Snape said, inclining his head respectfully, "The search for the Potter boy continues to be fruitless. Perhaps my lord, it might be prudent after all this time to…"
"You seek to question my instructions, Severus?" Voldemort's voice was quiet but dangerous and Snape blanched ever so slightly at the implied threat.
"Not at all, my lord," Snape stated deferentially, but not too hastily, "I was merely pointing out that after six years without a trace of him, the search could easily be futile. If the boy were alive he would surely have shown himself by now, he is not the type to be idle when there is trouble about, and if he is dead then six years is more than enough time for a body to be unrecognisable or even gone altogether."
"Your point is logical, Severus," Voldemort replied, he could not deny that, "But nevertheless my instinct is that Potter remains alive and at large. I too thought that he would show himself by now. From what I have heard and what I recall the boy was an insufferable heroic type. I am astounded that he has managed to control his impulse to rush into the fray for so long, especially given the fates of some of his friends, but he is out there, and he must be found. His demise will end all threats to my plans."
"As you wish, my lord," Snape said with another incline of his head.
"What other reports are there?"
"Our infiltration of the Muggle government continues apace, my lord. Recent elections in Birmingham and Newcastle were subverted and three more Death Eaters have now gained seats in their House of Parliament. However our efforts overseas have not been so successful. The Americans remain stubbornly in isolation. Our representatives to their Department of Magic have been turned away for the third time without a hearing, and they continue to deny British wizards immigration rights, so placing spies is impossible. In the rest of Europe, however your support is growing, especially among the old noble families of the continent."
"The Americans are of no consequence, they are nothing more than a remnant, a shadow of the greatness that exists in the Old World. The ancient and powerful magical families and creatures exist on this side of the Atlantic. Once Europe, Asia and Africa are mine they will be forced to bow before me. Cease sending emissaries. When they are finally forced into servitude, I will make them regret their disrespect for me. Otherwise things are to proceed as planned. Now go, I must consider how next to try and flush Potter out of his hiding place."
"As you wish, my lord," Snape repeated, bowing as he retreated once more. Voldemort watched him go before turning back to the sunrise and to the infuriating puzzle that was Harry Potter.
Justin Finch-Fletchley sat in silence as he contemplated the course of action he was about to embark upon. Many would call it futile, foolhardy even, what he was about to attempt. He had no choice though; Harry Potter was their only hope against Voldemort, something Justin had learned on his induction into the Order of the Phoenix a nearly three years ago. The boy was, according to prophecy, destined to meet the Dark Lord in a kill or be killed confrontation. The news had made them all deeply uncomfortable, given that Harry was in Azkaban for attempting to murder several students, himself included by setting a Basilisk on them. Then Dumbledore had revealed another piece of information about Harry that had shifted them all from deeply uncomfortable to inconsolably guilty: Harry Potter was innocent.
At first Justin had not been able to believe his ears, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and his sister Ginny had always maintained this stance, even after his imprisonment, they still argued against anyone that bad-mouthed Harry in the slightest, but they were easy to dismiss as being in denial. Two of them were his ex-best friends, and the third had a crush the size of a mountain on the boy. Coming from the Headmaster, however, it was a different story. There was evidence, however flimsy it might be, and Dumbledore had been completely candid with them about what was fact and what was his own supposition. Justin, in particular had been horrified to learn of the innocence of the Boy-Who-Lived. He recalled all too well the moment immediately after the trial when Justin's father and three brothers had caught up with Harry and his escort outside the courtroom. They had not even needed to do anything but ask, the Aurors had quite happily stood aside as the Finch-Fletchley men administered a little 'justice' of their own for his Petrification. At thirteen Justin had felt more than a little satisfaction as the Aurors dragged the battered and bleeding Boy-Who-Lived away to Azkaban. At fifteen he had realised that it had been a terrible thing to do, even more so if Harry was indeed innocent. Now at eighteen he hoped to finally be able to go some way to exculpating the guilt he felt by setting Harry free. Indeed he had been clamouring for a chance at this ever since he had learned that the Order was working on breaking Harry out of prison. Dumbledore had denied him, however, stating that while he was a wizard of decent skill and power, he simply did not have what it took to assault one of the most impregnable fortresses in the Wizarding world. For the first time Justin fervently hoped that Albus Dumbledore was wrong because here he was about to lead another attempt to free Harry from Azkaban.
Fortunately he had able help in this effort, his team consisted of Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Ron Weasley. By all rights one of them should be leader, not him, but they had insisted that he lead. He had been clamouring to go after Harry for so long that it was his right, they said. He viewed it more as a penance; he was orchestrating the release of the man he had so desperately wronged six years ago. He looked over the other three. Justin felt that he had chosen well. Each of them was connected to Harry in some way. Ron had been his best friend at school, Sirius and Remus had been friends of his father, and Sirius was his godfather. No one that was left in the Order of the Phoenix would be more motivated than they to see Harry free, plus they had each participated in prior rescue attempts, and so had some knowledge of what they were up against. A voice brought him out of his contemplation.
"Justin?"
Justin looked up into the sky blue eyes and freckled face of Ronald Weasley, the man who had maintained for six solid years that Harry Potter was innocent, and had turned out to be right. Justin would give almost anything to be him, to escape from the guilt of being wrong, of committing an innocent man to six years of hell, but he knew that it was a futile wish, just like his desire to have back that day at the courtroom so that he could take back his testimony against Harry. Now all he could do was rescue the Boy-Who-Lived from his imprisonment and hope that in return Harry would forgive him.
"It's time?" he asked, standing.
Ron merely nodded and the two walked outside to join Sirius and Remus. The sun was two points above the horizon now, and if the guards were keeping to their assigned patrol schedules of the island that contained the forbidding prison that was just visible in the distance, then two wizards on the landward side of the island would currently be standing almost a mile apart on the dismal grey shore. What came next was a tricky piece of magic that required careful timing. Azkaban island was covered by triple-layered anti-Apparition wards to prevent sudden invasions. Wards, however, had to be anchored to solid objects at the edges, or else the ward's boundaries could move and the overstretched spell would lose power and dissipate. Therefore only the island itself was warded, the water around it was not. That said, Apparating to open water was not the smartest idea as it would be all too easy for a high wave to intersect an Apparating wizard and disrupt him as he reappeared, most likely causing death or at least severe internal damage, and the waters around Azkaban were enchanted to be choppy for just this reason, frequently reaching as high as twenty feet.
To be safe, therefore, the four rescuers would be Apparating to a spot just off the shore of the island almost fifty feet in the air, a safe height up from the rough waves, but without aid a fatal distance to fall and hit rough water. The tricky part was that they would all have to Apparate there, and then, without more than a second's pause for thought, each of them would have to cast a levitation charm on his team-mates. Three levitation charms per person should provide enough upward force to give them a relatively gentle landing into the water, and then they could emerge from the sea directly onto the shores of the island. That was the theory anyway, time to see if they could bring it off.
Together the four men lined up on the cliff facing Azkaban, drawing their wands now as they would not have time to do so once they reached their destination. Justin counted them down and with a loud crack of displaced air, all four Disapparated at the same moment, reappearing at the designated points. Justin searched the air wildly around him as he felt gravity begin to take hold of his body, and found his comrades. Three quick levitation charms slowed their descent, and Justin felt his own fall slowing as the water drew nearer and nearer. The impact still drove the air from his lungs, and blackness encroached briefly on his vision, but he was alive and no major harm was done. He kicked for the surface and, upon reaching it gulped in huge gasps of air as his head turned wildly, once again searching for his team-mates. Unfortunately he saw no sign of them. Were they alright? Had the fall killed them? Was he now alone in this desperate mission? He verged on the brink of panic at the thought. Then his training took over. He heard again the whisper of Alastor Moody's voice in his mind, a memory from the combat classes that Moody taught to all joining members of the Order: 'Always remember the mission. So long as one remains, the mission takes paramount importance. Mourn your dead later, after you've done what you came to do.'. Striking out with a strong stroke, Justin swam for the grey, rocky shore of the island. It was difficult going with the enchanted waves buffeting him about, but eventually he made it. Unfortunately it had taken too long and the perimeter patrol had returned to the mid-point of his route.
"You there! Stop!"
Justin looked up from his prone position to see a burly wizard in black robes but without a Death Eater mask running towards him, wand out and aimed already. Justin went for his own wand, and discovered to his horror that he had lost it, maybe on impact with the water, or possibly during the long swim to shore, it did not matter, his hand had come up empty. He was, in a word, screwed, and had to bite back several choice swear words at the thought. Dumbledore had been right after all, he could not even hang onto his wand. He raised his hands in surrender as the guard skidded to a halt ten feet away, too far for Justin to try to jump him. He gestured with the wand for Justin to kneel, and Justin complied. Ropes shot out of the end of the guard's wand, binding Justin's body tightly and he could not break his fall as he overbalanced from the sudden forced changes in his body position. He stared up at the guard who was now coming closer cautiously. He could also feel the pound of running footsteps through the hard rock that indicated the approach of someone else, probably the other guard on patrol. Sure enough another black robed figure entered Justin's field of view. He was not just screwed. He was royally screwed now.
There was a quick muttered conference between the two wizard guards that Justin could not make out from his supine position on the hard ground, but the substance of the conversation became immediately apparent when the first wizard flicked his wand, causing a shower of red sparks to erupt from its tip and shoot into the sky. His body suddenly lifted about a foot into the air and, judging by the sudden motion of the clouds, he was being levitated in the direction he knew the prison fortress lay in. Was this an automated defence? Was one of the guards escorting him? He could not be certain. Nothing like this was listed as part of the prison's defences, but he was not so foolish as to think that everything about the place was well documented. Craning his neck around to look earned him a boot in the back, so at least one of the guards was with him. He hoped that he might be wrong about the others and that with at least one of the patrols taking care of him, they might have an easier time getting through, but needless to say he could not count on it. Options and possibilities skittered through his brain at top speed. Unfortunately without a wand, and bound without the possibility of movement, running through his options took very little time at all, they were rather limited. He was capable of doing some magic without a wand, simple spells like levitation, perhaps even a stunner if he really thought about it, but he was on very shaky ground. The possibility of magical exhaustion loomed large, and with it the failure of the mission. This was do or die, he would not have the time to recover any sort of magical power if he exhausted himself, and he would surely need it to break into the fortress itself. So many problems, so few solutions, his head was starting to spin.
Deciding it was all or nothing, Justin wriggled his fingers against the conjured ropes. Pointing his right index finger towards the knot that secured his wrists and arms, he cast a Fire-Starting Charm. The knot disintegrated into ash and Justin felt as though he had just been sucker punched in the gut. His hands free, he flung an arm out in the direction that the boot that had connected with his back must have come from. Justin was not much of one for believing in higher powers, or luck, or fate, wizards frequently believe that they are above such things because of their superior powers, but in that moment he prayed hard to anyone that might be listening that he was accurate as he cast another Fire-Starting Charm. Strangely enough it took less power than a Stunner, and it would be more effective in this situation. The guard was almost certainly a supporter of Voldemort, so Justin felt little remorse at the thought of him being severely burned. Suddenly he dropped the two-foot distance to the hard earth, the wind knocked out of him once again, but he smiled. Someone up there must still like him a little bit. Then he realised that it was still silent. This seemed odd since the most common reaction to being set on fire was to run around screaming at the top of one's lungs. Justin pushed himself up into a sitting position using his freed hands, and immediately saw the reason for the lack of screaming on the guard's part. His throat was a charred hole in his prone body. Whoever was up there must really like him.
Quickly undoing the rest of the ropes that bound him, Justin expropriated the dead guard's wand. It would not work as well as his own, but it was much better than nothing. Then he surveyed the scene. He was now standing about half way between the shore of the island and the looming walls of the forbidding fortress, well beyond the outer perimeter patrols. In a way this was a good thing, there were no other patrols between him and the fortress. However the danger was now much greater. The walls of Azkaban were spell-shielded in ways that made Hogwarts' defences look like paper, and they were manned exclusively by Dementors. Fortunately the Ministry had made one small oversight when constructing the defences of the prison. Every cell was warded against any form of transport intending to leave the prison, the only way of exiting the prison was via a specially constructed magical gateway that landed its users back outside the walls at the docks to take the boats back to the mainland. Apparition wards, of course worked both ways, so that was out, and flying was not an option since the Dementors would be all over him like a rash. However incoming Portkeys would go through the wards on the castle itself just fine. In fact that was how the Ministry transported people into their cells, to the extent that the walls of Azkaban were unbroken by doors of any sort. The island as a whole was warded against incoming Portkeys, but the fortress itself was not. Justin took out from under his robes a perfectly ordinary pocket watch. It had been his father's, before his father was killed in one of the many purges of Muggles connected to the magical world that Voldemort had instituted in the last eighteen months. He tapped the watch with his borrowed wand and muttered 'Portus' causing the watch to glow a bright blue for two seconds before returning to its perfectly inconspicuous state. Since this wand was borrowed, he felt the drain of the powerful and complex spell, combined with his earlier wandless spells it was wearing. Justin now felt as though he had just run half of his usual morning three mile run, except without the invigoration that came with the physical exercise. He prayed that he would have the endurance to see this through. Tapping the watch again with the wand, he was instantly transported into the fortress, to find himself in an empty cell whose door hung askew from one hinge instead of the three that should have secured it.
Needless to say he was quite shocked by this turn of events. This should, if the information Snape had managed to get to them before erasing the prison records all those years ago, have been Potter's cell, and Harry should most certainly not have been able to get out. According to his file, a Dementor stood guard outside his cell day and night, he was that highly classified. Was the man possessed of a power none of them realised? Had he escaped recently? Once again questions skittered across his mind. Then he heard the heavy grunting and scraping coming from the corridor outside. He crept up to the door way, and leapt out into the corridor, his borrowed wand at the ready.
For the second time that day he was confronted by sky-blue eyes and a freckled face, although this time they were preceded by the tip of a wand. However when Ron saw who it was he lowered the wand.
"Took you long enough," he muttered, somewhat reproachfully, " Sirius and Remus have gone on ahead a bit to clear the way for us. Get his other arm and help me, he's not heavy, but he's not entirely right in the head. Who would be after spending six years in here?"
At the mention of Harry, Justin realised that the arm that was not holding his wand, Ron had wrapped around the body of a frail man at roughly armpit level. What got to Justin was that armpit level on the Boy-Who-Lived was almost waist height for Ron. He could also tell from behind that the man was severely undernourished, which probably accounted for his stunted height. His black robes, little more than tattered strips of cloth that were arranged to preserve basic modesty, revealed a back that was almost like a perfect model skeleton from behind with a thin white covering of some sort. Justin gasped involuntarily, and he knew that he had probably not yet seen the worst of it, had not seen Harry's face, the blank look of madness that surely filled his eyes. Getting a hold of himself, he transferred his wand to his left hand, moved forward quickly and put his right shoulder beneath Harry's left armpit, draping the arm across the back of his neck before lifting. Ron was right, Harry was light, disturbingly so for an eighteen year old. When they lifted together, Harry's head was level with his. He stared straight ahead at where they were going, afraid to look at the face of the man he had wronged so badly, to see the result of his mistake.
Harry did not say a word as they dragged him bodily through the corridors of the prison. His feet made feeble attempts at walking motions, but he had no apparent sense of co-ordination, so after a few stumbles, Ron and Justin hoisted him higher, lifting him off the ground entirely, and once again Justin was struck by how easy it was to do so. Now came the difficult part of their plan, the getaway. The hallways of the prison were patrolled by Dementors every thirty minutes, but Sirius and Remus could handle the two-Dementor patrols that did this. Their prime problem would be making it to the portal chamber, which was guarded, according to the records by thirty Dementors and a series of vicious kill-first-ask-questions-later type wards that would take an expert curse-breaker years to unravel if he did not know the password, a password that changed on a daily basis and whose only record was kept in a room in the Ministry so secure that it had its own team of twenty four hour Auror guards, which needless to say they did not. Fortunately, however, the Ministry had once again made a minor oversight in the construction of their defences, a necessary flaw in the shield in case one of their own should be captured. There was a master password, known only to the minister himself, never written down, never spoken aloud to anyone except the minister's successor, who then wiped the memory of his predecessor to ensure that the secret remained safe. The master password never changed, and one of the first things Dumbledore had done when Fudge had refused to hand Harry back over was to Legilimise the password out of him and wipe his memory. This still left, however the not so minor inconvenience of thirty Dementors between them and their goal, too many for four Patroni to overcome at once, even if they could all produce Patroni as powerful as say Dumbledore or Flitwick could have done, which they could not. In fact of the four of them, only Remus could even produce a corporeal Patronus that would charge down the Dementors, the others of them could only conjure Patronus shields that would fend off Dementors and drain their strength until exhausted. Not to mention the fact that Voldemort had probably added to the defences, additions of which they would have no knowledge until they got there.
They were halted, however, by Sirius and Remus running towards the three of them, back up the corridor.
"The portal chamber's surrounded," Sirius panted as they skidded to a halt in front of Ron, Justin and Harry, "Must be a hundred Dementors standing at the entrance. No chance we can get out that way."
Justin swore, loudly. How many other things would go wrong today? They had only one option left, an option they had not considered to be a real recourse given the strength of the construction of Azkaban's walls. They would have to find their way to a corridor that bordered the outer perimeter of the fortress and chip away at the thick walls with Reductor curses until they could get out, an endeavour that could take hours given the sheer volume of stone and the protective wards involved. Still they had no choice, one hundred Dementors was too many for fifty wizards to handle, let alone four, and there was a chance, however ridiculously slender it might be, that no one would notice until they blew a nice big hole in the outer walls, what they were up to. Justin had the feeling that they would not be that lucky.
Nevertheless, bereft of other options, they ran through corridor after corridor. Each of them knew the plans of the prison perfectly, so there was no hesitation as they headed for the perimeter of the prison. There were no cells near the perimeter walls, only large empty rooms, and the outer walls themselves were over ten metres thick, composed of solid stone blocks weighing over three tons each, the sort of construction that only wizards could achieve. Added to that, the stones were laced with charms to protect their integrity in the face of magical assault, making them ten times stronger towards spells than they were to mundane tools, and hardened granite was impenetrable enough to begin with. Finding a suitable corridor, Sirius, Remus and Ron drew their wands and wasted no time in getting to work on the walls, conjuring steel tools and animating them with magic to chip away at the blocks as well as casting Reductor curses as fast as they could make the wand movements and think the incantation. Bereft of his own wand, Justin was unable to join in and so was relegated to the role of lookout. Harry huddled against the wall of the corridor, unmoving except a slight flinch when chips of stone from the wall bounced off the corridor walls and floor around him.
As Justin predicted, barely ten minutes into their excavations, the familiar chill of approaching Dementors washed over them. Ron, Remus and Sirius stepped up the pace of their work, the tools they had conjured now smashing into the wall at a frenzied pace and the Reductor curses hit with more force as adrenaline ran high. It was not going to be enough though, the crater they had made in the wall so far was barely half a metre deep, although its diameter was large enough to accommodate a standing man. Their salvation came from a most unexpected source.
Unnoticed by anyone, Harry was shakily clawing at the stonework, rising inch by inch to his feet. He had a vague idea of what was going on, people were trying to get him out of this hellhole, but they were blocked by the wall, it was the only explanation for their determined attack of it. Fortunately he knew just the spell they needed, except he could not seem to find his own wand. Had he dropped it? Was one of these other people using it because they had lost theirs? He did not know, but this spell needed a wand, he knew that much. He scrabbled in his ragged robes – how had they got like that anyway? – his hands coming up empty. Finally he gave up, he could do this with someone else's wand and find his own later, for now they needed to get out. He clawed another brick higher, bringing himself nearer to upright. He could not work out why his legs would not do as he commanded them, perhaps he had been hit by a Tarantallegra curse. Again he could sort it out later, for now he needed to get a wand. He tottered over to the nearest of his rescuers, a tall man with red hair and freckles who looked vaguely familiar, nearly falling over again twice on the way. The man did not even notice his approach, Harry would have to teach him how to duel properly, Tom would have had his guts in a heartbeat if he were here. Who was Tom again? Harry pushed away the irrelevant thought, now was the time for action, not wondering at abstracts. His hand closed over the man's wand hand, his skeletal fingers clasping over the man's long digits. The red-haired man met his eyes in shock, and Harry could see his mouth opening, forming words, but he could not spare the concentration to try to work out what he was saying. Reaching down into himself, he called upon the memories-that-were-his-without-being-his. The incantation he needed was in there, he knew it. At last he found the right one. He heard his high cold voice-that-was-not-his scream the spell into the night, watched as the jet of deep blue light shot out and hit the house, blowing it to smithereens as though it had been packed with dynamite. Drawing his breath in, he screamed the same incantation to the torch-lit corridor.
"Corrumpero Maxime!"
The jet of deep blue light that shot out of the red-haired man's wand was not as intense, nor as wide as he remembered the one he had cast himself being, but it did the job. The stone wall in front of them blew outwards with a blast that sounded as though an entire arsenal of grenades had all gone off at once, stone shards exploding outwards as a hole three metres wide was blasted in the wall. It was the last thing Harry saw before he slipped into black unconsciousness, his hand unclasping from the red-haired man's as he did so.
Ron Weasley stuck out his hand and halted the form of his best friend as he slid towards the hard stone floor, but the action was completely automatic. His mind was still trying to process what had just happened. To say that what he had just seen was impossible was a gross understatement. Somehow Harry, who had looked like death warmed over from the minute he had seen him in his cell, had cast a powerful spell, using another wizard's wand - only barely touching said wand for Merlin's sake! – that had blasted through the formidable protections surrounding Azkaban like they were paper. He should not be capable of lighting a candle with his own wand, and he had just destroyed probably around five to six tons of solid granite, completely pulverising the stone, protected by some of the strongest protective charms that could be employed in buildings. And where had he learned that spell anyway? It was well beyond anything he himself had ever learned at Hogwarts, and Harry had been imprisoned after only 2 years of magical education!
Ron recognised, however, that here and now was not the time or place for such questions, not with an escape to complete and Dementors on the way. He tucked his wand back into the holster on his left forearm and scooped Harry up into both arms, carrying him bodily.
"Come on!" he shouted to Sirius, Remus and Justin, who were all standing there, totally shell-shocked, although whether that was from the blast or the fact that Harry had done the impossible Ron could not be certain. Then he leapt into the ten metre long tunnel that Harry had created in the walls.
Empirically speaking, there was no real difference between the air inside the prison and the air outside it, but Ron had never tasted anything so sweet as the first lungful of air he drew in after clambering out of the massive hole in Azkaban's walls. They were out and they were practically home free! All that remained was to make a mad dash to the shores of the island. They could Portkey away from the shallows of the island, where the wards had their boundaries. Heedless of the other three, he made that dash, leaping over the fallen body of a guard whose throat was a blackened, burned mess, only briefly wondering how that had happened before he reached the shore. He ran into the shallow water like a five-year-old on their first day at the beach. Lowering Harry's legs to the grey sand, he fumbled in his robes for the return Portkey he carried. They all had one so there was no need for him to wait, but he looked behind him anyway, and saw Sirius, Remus and Justin trailing him by a good ten yards despite his burden. He took out the wristwatch that had belonged to his mother's brother, Fabian Prewett. She had planned on giving it to Harry for his coming-of-age present since it was tradition for parents to give their children watches on that day, and his mother had considered Harry one of her own. He would pass it on as soon as Harry was lucid enough to understand the significance of the gift, which might be sooner than he had dared hope judging by Harry's cool performance under fire just a minute ago. By that time, the other three had caught up. They crowded around, each putting a finger on the watch, and Ron ensuring that Harry also had some contact, then Remus tapped the Portkey with his wand, whisking them away, leaving behind the violated fortress with the gaping hole that would not be concealed anytime soon in its walls as a mute testament that something important had occurred that day.
Rewritten 12/5/8