Chapter 1: Break Outs and Owl Posts

Antonin Dolohov was a man of simple pleasures: torture, murder, and doing the tasks his Lord demanded of him. If he could have all three, he was ecstatic. He didn't talk much, which was possibly why he'd had a secret for sixteen years. It wasn't a particularly big secret, but he hoarded his privacy like a dragon hoarded treasure, but when he'd been stuck in a high security cell in Azkaban for twelve of those sixteen years, keeping his Animagus status a secret had been child's play. Other than the tiny barred door and window, his cell was in perpetual darkness, so whenever he felt the presence of Dementors nearby, he could simply slip into the darkness and shift, and he would barely be affected. Now, he'd had a vague plan for escaping this hell hole for years, but he had no idea how to find the Dark Lord, let alone bring him back.

However, because he still retained some form of sanity, he had noticed that two years ago, his Dark Mark had become just the slightest bit darker than the barely-there red it had become when the Potter boy had destroyed his Lord's body. It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to use it in an Arithmantic ritual to pinpoint the Dark Lord's position. The downside to the ritual was that it required a blood sacrifice; he would have to make a shallow slice into the Mark and collect the blood that welled there. He preferred avoiding pain if at all possible, so he had to find a way to get through it unharmed. Eventually, he came up with the idea of using someone else's Mark, but then the difficulty arose of picking the right person, because obviously he couldn't do the ritual here, so he'd have to help them escape with him. They had to be loyal to the end, and willing to undergo pain and difficulty to find their Lord. They had to be smart, but not smarter than he was, because when on the run from Wizarding Authorities, the smarter you were, the longer you could hold out—he had no illusions that if he freed someone like Rookwood and escaped with him, then the ex-Unspeakable would no doubt take over his little operation, and he preferred to be in charge, thank you very much. If he was the mastermind behind the escape, then he damn well better be the one behind everything else they did.

This thought led him to the perfect partner for an operation like this: Bellatrix Lestrange. In a criminal organisation where the vast majority of members were violent, sadistic men, the few female members had to be more violent and more sadistic than her comrades. Bellatrix had taken it a step further, though—she'd become very masochistic as well, knowing her Lord sometimes used torture to de-stress, she had volunteered. Antonin had heard whispers that she'd undergone a Dark Arts ritual that replaced pain with pleasure, but he'd known her before she'd entered the Dark Lord's services—hell, they'd been in the same year at Hogwarts, and he'd been the one to recruit her into the Death Eaters—and even then she'd been known to have a pain kink.

Anyway, back to his previous train of thought. Even with his skill in Occlumency, it was still hard to concentrate in Azkaban sometimes.

Once he'd decided that he'd escape with Bellatrix, he'd snuch out of his cell and into hers. To say that she'd been surprised when a white wolf walked into her cell, calm as you please, then turned into Dolohov was actually pretty accurate, because in a world of magic, there was very little that was considered impossible, and even less that could truly surprise people who'd grown up in this world. This just meant that Antonin appreciated her shocked expression while it lasted.

He'd taught Bella the Animagus transformation for the past year and a half, in the hope that her form would be something small that could escape easily. The easy part was the meditation; the hard part was the actual transformation, depending on the size of your animagus form. The closer you and your form were in size and/or weight, the easier the transformation was. It had been fairly simple for him as a wolf because, although it weighed quite a bit less than he did, he was a master Occlumens, and the mental organisation which went along with that had helped him immensely to visualise him becoming the animal. Sadly, Bellatrix had no form of Occlumency whatsoever, so the first six months of the two extra years they spent on the island prison was spent teaching her the necessary meditation and mental organisation techniques necessary. He was extremely excited when she discovered her form to be that of a Margay, the smallest 'big cat', which was known for its small but deadly size, its skill with its needle-like claws, and its ability to climb down a tree face first as if it were as easy as climbing up one.

This happy revelation gave way to Bella only needing two weeks to complete the transformation, and then their escape was as sunoke as slipping out their cells and swimming to Britain. In the great scheme of things, this was nothing. After that, they hunted down two wands, slew their previous owners, and slipped away again into the night to find an acceptable hideout.

oOoOo

PRISONERS ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN!

Harry didn't know what to think about the article, really other than to hope Neville hadn't seen it yet. Without a word, he threw the paper onto the table with the horrifying images of the two deranged killers facing up, and ran to the Floo. "Longbottom Manor!" he called, throwing the Floo powder into the flames and stepping in. He almost fell out the other end in his attempt to get to Neville quickly. He arrived in time to see the Prophet owl handing the paper to Madame Longbottom, and her eyes going impossibly wide.

"Gran?" asked Neville, worried about what could have caused the expression on her face. Then he noticed Harry, standing in the doorway, panting slightly. "Harry? What're you doing here? Where's Draco?"

"Draco's still asleep. I swear, he'd sleep past midday if Sirius would let him. I'm here about the Prophet article your Gran's reading."

"Why, has Skeeter been lying about you again?"

Harry snorted. "No. Nev, I came here because I think it's better for you to hear it from a friend than to see it splashed across the front page. If you still want to read it afterwards, go ahead."

Neville looked quite worried now. Harry went on. "Bellatrix Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov have escaped from Azkaban."

At these words, Neville went white. For ten, long minutes, he just sat there and said nothing, caught up in a flashback. During this, Harry sat down next to him and held him, because he was unknowingly making a high-pitched whining noise in the back of his throat. About two minutes in, Augusta snapped out of her shock and rushed over to her grandson, rocking him and hushing him softly.

Finally, Neville croaked out, "How?"

"They don't know, dear," said his Gran. "They don't know."

It took what seemed like hours for Harry and Augusta to calm Neville down, and by the time they'd put him to bed under a Dreamless Sleep Draught, midday had come and gone. Harry stumbled back through the Floo and was caught by his godfather. "Hey there. Are you okay? Where have you been?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Harry said. "I was at Neville's, helping his Gran calm him down. He went into shock when I told him about Bellatrix. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if he'd seen the Prophet. They've made what she did to his parents sound like a horrible drama show on the telly."

Sirius nodded, a dark expression on his face. "The Prophet likes doing that. We've just got to be grateful it wasn't Skeeter who wrote the article."

Harry sighed and rubbed his face. "Has Draco seen it?"

Sirius shook his head. "I guess I had the same idea you did. The only one related more closely to her than him is me, and I figured it would be better if he didn't see the article at all. He's in his room. Oh, before I forget, this arrived for you."

He held out a letter and a small parcel with the chicken-scratch scrawl of Fred and George addressing the letter to 'Our little Harrikins', and couldn't help snorting. He doubted they'd seen this morning's Prophet when they'd sent this letter off, but somehow they'd managed to get it to him with perfect timing. This might be enough to get Draco out of his funk.

He hurried upstairs to Draco's room and knocked on the door. "G'way," came from inside, but Harry opened the door anyway.

"You shouldn't stay hidden in here all by yourself after news like that. Nev's going to be fine, I think. Sirius will be fine, too, and the Weasleys will bounce back just like always. You'll get over it, I promise."

Draco looked up at him from where he was sitting on his bed and sighed. "Merlin, I didn't even think about Neville's reaction. I just heard she was free and freaked out. Er, how were the Weasleys affected by Bellatrix's escape?"

"Not her, Dolohov. He killed Gideon and Fabian, Mrs Weasley's older brothers. Apparently, Fred and George remind her of them a lot, so she's probably going to be really overprotective of them for a while."

"Oh, okay. What're you in here for?" he asked.

"Thought you might like to read Fred and George's letter with me. Bound to be some funny stuff in here. Even when they don't know we're miserable, they find some way to make us better."

Draco gave a small smile and patted the bed next to him in invitation, and Harry sat down next to him, gave him a peck on the cheek, and opened the letter.

Dear Harrykins (And Draco, reading over Harry's shoulder),

We're sending you this to wish you an early happy birthday, since we're sure we'll be the first to wish you that.

It's brilliant here in Egypt! Loads of tombs and mummies and sphinxes and… well, you get the picture. There's sand everywhere! All the curses these old Egyptian wizards put on everything are insane, and they've given us some great ideas for pranks this year! Mum wouldn't let Ginny come in the last one, but we convinced Bill to sneak us and Ginny in when Mum and Dad were asleep. There were all these mutant skeletons in there, of Muggles who'd broken in and grown extra heads and stuff.

I couldn't believe it when Dad won the Daily ProphetDraw. Seven hundred galleons, and most of it's been spent already on this holiday. We could've all gotten better robes and wands that chose us, and still had some left over for lots of other stuff, like new brooms or something, but six people taking a portkey to Egypt ain't cheap, and Mum and Dad decided it would be better for six to go there now than Mum and Dad going there for Christmas and the rest of us staying at Grimmauld.

Anyway, that's enough moping. We'll be back about a week before term starts and we'll be going to Diagon Alley for new books and stuff. Any chance of getting the gang together there?

Try to do more than read, you bookworms,

Gred and Forge

P.S. Percy's Head Boy. He got the letter last week. Almost fainted, the BigHead. First thing he did was send an owl to Ollie, then he told Mum. Priorities.

Harry and Draco were snickering away by the time they'd finished reading the letter. Once they were done, Harry opened the parcel and found a Pocket Sneakoscope, along with a packet of colour-changing bubble gum. There was another note attached to the bubble gum.

The Sneakoscope is self-explanatory. We tried it out by putting beetles into Bill's soup and it flashed and whistled like crazy, so it works. We got Bill to change the charms on the gum — instead of the gum changing colour, your face changes colour every time you chew. Best part is, when you look in the mirror, your face looks normal, but everyone else sees it change colours. Brilliant pranking material, right?

"Those two are absolutely brilliant!" exclaimed Draco. Then, he hugged Harry. "Thanks for that. I needed something funny to cheer me up. Let's go and fly outside for a bit, then go over to Neville's and see how he's holding up."