Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange Escapes from Azkaban!
By: Rita Skeeter
Late Friday evening, guards at Azkaban making rounds found Bellatrix Lestrange's cell empty. The infamous Death Eater, one of Lord Voldemort's most devoted followers, was locked up eight years ago following an unanimous indictment in the Wizengamot. Her characteristic manic insanity and confession to killing dozens of witches, wizards, and muggles during the war, made her a particularly easy collar for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There has only been one other escape from the island prison in the last century, that of Lestrange's late cousin, Sirius Black. Lestrange's whereabouts are unknown, and Minister of Magic Cassandra Crickerly has asked everyone to be cautious and on the lookout for the dangerous criminal. This reporter wonders if we've all gotten a little too relaxed in these quiet years.
Hermione folded the Daily Prophet and set it beside her now cold tea. Waving her wand in a slow circle, she heated up the delicate mug and looked out of the window that her small dining table faced. It was her favorite part of the day, the calm two hours she gave herself before heading to the Ministry. Every morning, she sat at the little wooden table that might barely fit two people comfortably, read the paper, drank her tea with a squeeze of lemon, and picked at a scone or slice of toast. In the winter, she would be early enough to watch the sun rise; in the fall, she watched the rain coat the thin pane of glass. In fact, she had picked the apartment for this odd window near the kitchen. This summer morning, the sky was already bright and warm, and Hermione made an intentional effort to listen to the songbirds.
Trying to tell herself that this news wasn't anything to be overly concerned about, Hermione sighed deeply and reached down to her cup and hissed as she pulled her now burned hand away. She bit her tongue to keep from cursing, despite being alone. Apparently, it was going to be one of those days. Worst of all, she had a meeting this afternoon that she had been dreading for weeks. Draco Malfoy was coming to the Office of the Minister to discuss the new Potions Ingredient Importation Regulations.
Hermione was still cautious about Malfoy. Harry had forgiven the boy with a totality and speed that Hermione tried to understand, but Harry was different. He had absolved Snape, Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson and plenty of other people who he insisted were acting with good intentions or had changed sides in the middle of the Battle. Hermione didn't find it quite so easy to forgive the Death Eaters and bullies. She was forced to admit, however, that Malfoy had been doing his best to turn his image around in the last few years, though that certainly wasn't a selfless act. He had turned his father's old Apothecary business, which had essentially become an empty front to import dark objects and brew illegal potions, into a high-end all-encompassing potions business, with ingredients and pre-made brews sought after by St. Mungo's healers, students, and the wizarding elite alike. Hermione rolled her eyes to herself. His "self-made" success was obnoxious, and he had an opinion on nearly every policy the Office of the Minister tried to pass, so today's meeting was sure to be especially annoying. Draining her cup, she pushed herself out of the small wooden chair and began her day.
Harry was standing at the door outside of her office when she got there. His eyes glowed with that mix of anger and excitement that Hermione had become accustomed to in the last fifteen years. He could have been about to tell her something horrible Snape had said in detention.
"Good morning, Harry."
"Did you see this?" Harry ignored her and any attempt at pleasantries and held up a copy of today's Prophet. Hermione winced at the photo of the wild haired madwoman, who snarled and winked back at her on a loop.
With a huff as she blew her wild hair out of her face, Hermione opened her door and gestured for Harry to enter. "Yes, Harry. I saw it this morning."
"And?" He had very clearly been expecting more of a reaction.
Hermione shrugged, but Harry's exasperation made her reconsider her casual attitude, at least for his sake. She looked up at him with an expression wearier than she actually was. She didn't want to talk about this, or think about this, or even work on this, to be honest. She wanted desperately to ignore it. She had been through too much ministry-required therapy to bring up this trauma all over again. "You'll catch her, Harry. The department works since you turned it around. Don't worry, you'll get her."
Harry's eyes gleamed a little with the compliment, but his face was determinedly serious. "If she can get out, others can too."
Hermione sighed and continued to unpack her bag, preparing for a long work day. "I know."
Harry leaned in and his voice grew low and soft. "What she did to you…"
Hermione cut him off with a sharp look. "I know, Harry." When he opened his mouth to speak again, Hermione stopped him. "Why are you here talking to me when you should be finding her? And securing the prison?" She walked around the desk to put a small hand on his lanky shoulder and saw the little wrinkle near his mouth that told her he was stoically hiding concern. "Don't worry about me." She gestured to her desk. "I've got enough to worry about, and so do you." She stood up straight and lifted a corner of her mouth in a gentle grin. "Go put that big, over-funded department of yours to work."
Harry scoffed. "It's not my department."
She waved a hand at him, like she was dismissing the difficulty of a spell in Charms class all over again. "Gable does whatever you say, just tell him-" she looked up at Harry with the first sense of fear she had allowed herself all morning. "Tell him what you know about her." Harry nodded solemnly and moved towards the door. "Oh! and Harry!" Hermione shouted at his back, playfulness in her voice. "You know you'll have to work with the D.A. on this one." He scowled, and with a laugh and a wave of her wand to close the door, Hermione was alone.
The tan ministry owl flew to Ginny's cubicle more than two hours after the Prophet had been sent out. "About bloody time, Potter" she said to no one, feeding the owl a treat from the jar on her desk.
Come to my office ASAP; Lestrange Escaped.
"Certainly doesn't waste any words, does he?" Ginny addressed the owl, who tilted its head thoughtfully. Ginny checked the time at the comically huge clock on the wall of the enormous room of cubicles that made up the Daily Prophet reporter's room. The first scouting session she wanted to cover wasn't until noon. With a head pat for the owl, she grabbed her outer robes and walked to the employee fireplace at the far wall, shouting for the Ministry of Magic.
Landing in one of a hundred fireplaces and walking through the bureaucratic lines that made up the Ministry lobby always gave Ginny the creeps. There was no art or interesting architecture here, and they had torn down the heinous statue for a depressing Wall of Memorial, forcing her to avoid eye contact with a shining black tile engraved with Fred's name every time she visited. Upon entering one of the creaky lifts with five wizards in dull navy and black professional robes, Ginny grinned at the sight of the flying memos that hovered above their heads. She always wanted to reach up and read them, sure that some of them were flirtatious or even dirty messages bored ministry employees passed back and forth. Ginny liked to bug Hermione for good ministry gossip, but she never provided. Spoilsport.
Arriving at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, fifth floor, Ginny sashayed off of the lift, her shortened forest green robes and tall dragon leather boots forcing the eyes of the middle-aged bored-looking wizards to watch her go.
"Come in" Harry's voice called while Ginny was still knocking.
"You summoned. What can I do you for, Potter?" Ginny smirked as she watched Harry attempt not to look at the peek of her athletic legs that flashed between her robes and boots.
Harry gruffly closed the notebook he was writing in and put his quill in the inkpot. The sound he made was very nearly a growl. "You think this is funny, Ginny?"
Ginny plopped herself into the one of the remarkably ugly red tartan chairs he had picked for his guests on the other side of his desk. She crossed her legs, letting the skirt of her robes ride up a little and tilted her head at him. "You know, you remind me more of Mad-Eye with every passing day."
"How did she get out?" He pushed his glasses further back on his nose and leaned forward in his seat.
"I believe that's supposed to be your job." Ginny's voice, still playful, had taken on a sense of gravity and a bite of bitterness. "Dumbledore's Army isn't responsible for keeping the criminals in prison. We just help you capture them and let you lot take the credit."
Harry glared at her. "We're just trying to keep people safe."
"And how's that going this morning, Harry?" Ginny's voice was flat and she flashed another small smirk as she uncrossed her legs.
"You really want to joke about that?"
"You really want to work for the organization that thought you belonged in prison for years?"
"Like the Prophet's any better!"
"For goodness sake, I'm writing about Quidditch, not gossip."
"Skeeter still works there, doesn't she? You defending her?"
"At least she's not useless like Gable or half the department heads in this place!"
Ginny realized she was standing, her hands propped on her desk, her face flushed when she noticed that Harry was doing the same. Their faces were only inches away and she could see the dilation in his famous eyes and the crooked eyelashes behind his glasses from sleeping on his stomach. Her gut clenched at the way his breathing had grown heavier. Exhaling a slow breath to calm herself, she stood straight and backed away from the desk, her posture straight, her face all business while her blush faded.
"What do you want the D.A. to do?"
Harry had stood up to mirror her. "We'd like to begin tracking her, as soon as possible." He looked down at his desk and uselessly shuffled a few pages around. "Obviously we'll put a team on her here but you have better informants on the ground and can use...more methods than we can." Ginny nodded, resisting the urge to gloat at his compliments. "You should probably put-"
Ginny cut him off with a fierce eyebrow raise. "Going to tell me how to run my organization, Potter?"
"Wasn't always yours." Harry grumbled.
"You're right, Hermione can come run it anytime she likes." Ginny flipped her hair behind her shoulder, wondering if it smelled the same as when he had told her that scent drove him wild. She felt his eyes on her as she exited.
Harry set his head down on his desk. Hard. And groaned. He couldn't be sure what bothered him more, that being an Auror meant working for the ministry, which though improved still acted like a corrupt government agency sometimes, that the D.A. could be more effective than the DMLE, or that she headed the D.A. Because no matter how friendly you are with their family, having to work with and see your ex on a very regular basis was trying.
Ginny Weasley had become an inexplicable person in his life. They were supposed to be…he didn't like to put the words to it. He had thought about her and worried about her every day during the war, and her arms afterwards had been a relief sweeter than the first time he woke up unafraid. She had been supportive of him even while she mourned Fred. She practically took care of the rest of the Weasleys through her own grief. Harry thought about that summer more often than could be considered healthy. They would fly for hours and spend wonderful afternoons doing not much at all but always touching, grazing, holding, kissing. She had gone off to her last year at Hogwarts and they had written letters and shared Hogsmeade weekends and had the best Christmas of his entire life at the Burrow.
And then, just as they were building their own lives, it all fell apart. She hated that he worked for the Ministry; he hated that she chose to play for the Harpies and was never home. It bothered him that she partied a fair amount with her team; it bothered her that he was still fighting, still living like they were at war. Then Ron and Hermione had broken up and suddenly they couldn't think of a reason why they were together.
That was six years ago, and Harry still hadn't dated anyone he liked very much. Ron did a good job at setting him up with the seemingly endless line of women he knew. Being Deputy Head Auror didn't hurt when it came to getting dates, and being Harry Potter didn't either. But then Ginny was a war hero, and a Quidditch star, and some American teammate of hers had taught her that new way of wearing her robes at just the right length. Harry still felt a painful twinge of jealousy when Ginny went out with anyone, even if he was doing the same.
In the end, it didn't matter how much he still dreamed about her, or how angry he was at her, or how much he missed flying with her. He still saw her at nearly weekly Weasley dinners, and holidays. The Aurors and the D.A. collaborated far more than the public would ever know, and he was still a member of the D.A. besides, though she was polite enough not to give him direct orders too often. She would never be out of his life, and she would never be in it the way he had once been so sure that she would be. Harry sighed and slammed his hand into his forehead, as though he could push her out of his head. The same question that always popped into his head recurred. Why couldn't she just be my best mate's sister?
Harry startled. Ron. He had forgotten his lunch meeting with Ron. Harry's eyes ran from the paperwork he still needed to complete, to the clock that said he was already late, to the cover of the Prophet and the screaming woman silenced by the camera. Damn. Harry reached for a scrap of Ministry Memo paper and cringed at the memory of Ginny's comments.
Can't do lunch. Lestrange taking over my whole day. Have to delay dealing with the banshee problem. See you at the flat.
Charming the memo and sending it to Ron's office, admittedly just a hallway from his own, Harry resigned himself to a hungry afternoon glued to his desk, somehow saving the Wizarding World from Bellatrix Lestrange and securing Azkaban.
Draco Malfoy had found a swanky Muggle restaurant/bar where he preferred to hold any meetings. The irony was not lost on him, but a well-made martini, staff that didn't bother him, nearly guaranteed privacy of conversations, and a rather spectacular rib-eye steak made up for the necessity of exchanging gold for pounds. He liked the lighting too. He really liked the lighting when its blue and white bulbs shone on the woman walking towards him now. Hermione Granger's skin had a glow that was uniquely hers. Today she was carrying her outer robes in her arms, no doubt having peeled them off in the heat, and her white blouse was almost transparent in the neon brightness. The sight of her warm brown skin pressed under the fabric made a shiver run down Draco's spine and he hissed an inhale, quickly averting his eyes.
As he was raised to do, Draco stood to pull out the chair for her as she approached. "Afternoon, Granger."
She looked around the room as though it had personally offended her. "How can you even tell?" He answered with a short laugh because it felt appropriate. Draco always did what felt appropriate nowadays. He clenched a fist to keep from brushing her shoulders with his hand as he moved back to his seat.
"I find it easier to focus here. Far better than those fluorescent offices you poor Ministry workers suffer under. I don't know how you get a single thing accomplished." He raised a blonde brow at her, silently remarking at how inefficient the Ministry had become.
Hermione eyed him up and down, finding where his chest hit the table and following the well-fitted robes all the way to his eyes. He thought she probably didn't even realize she did it. She held his eyes. "Perhaps we would get more done if business owners didn't feel the need to weigh in on every policy we are trying to enact." She looked up as the waiter approached silently but she blanked, suddenly looking at Draco and the drink in front of him as though it would provide answers. "Oh…um. Whatever red you have open, thanks."
Draco tried to repress the cocky sneer he was itching to release. "Your best Merlot for her, and another for me as well." He tapped his own nearly empty martini glass. The bar was under strict instructions to make them weak when he had company. Hermione's face flashed anger towards him at his correction.
Draco let the sneer escape. "You'll like it, Granger. I promise." He relished the slight blush that rose on her brown cheeks and watched her gather herself into professional mode.
"Shall we discuss the P.I.I.R. or did you just want to waste my time, Malfoy?" Her tone just walked the edge of mean.
Draco gave her a real smile. The truth was, he only had a few nitpicking issues with the regulations. It was just an excuse to see her, to fight with her, to look at her, under perfectly acceptable circumstances. All the meetings were an excuse. A perfectly appropriate excuse. And he was always perfectly appropriate. That's what he had sworn when he rehabilitated his image. No temper tantrums, no speaking of Lucius, no cheating or bribing (unless necessary), no girls. But in the challenging process of becoming legitimate, he had found Hermione Granger back in his life.
She ran the Minister's office, she practically ran the Ministry, and he would try to sneak a shipment under the radar of the Department of Dangerous Substances and she would find out somehow, or he would bribe (again, only when absolutely necessary) an assistant to slip up on a sentence to change a policy just a bit, and she would find out. The fines were one thing, her tidy scrawl arriving via ministry owl, but the lectures were another. Her wild hair flying behind her, her eyes almost gleeful with the opportunity to chastise him. She had irritated him to no end for months. Then she was all he could think about. Then she showed up in a few choice dreams. Finally, one day, she caught him leering at an intern, convincing the poor girl to misplace a few invoices, and she grabbed his collar, stood an inch from his face, and asked that he set meetings with her if he had issues with policies from now on. He could tell that she regretted that invitation. They had lunch or drinks on a near-weekly basis. It was a fascination, nothing more, nothing to worry about, and he had grown good at telling himself that.
Draco folded his arms in front of him and leaned back. "I have quite a few problems with the new regulations, Granger. Where shall we begin?"
The back room of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was crowded with flattened bright purple shipping boxes, cardboard boxes full of stock for the shop, red boxes full of the Weasley's defensive products for D.A. use, and an entire corner full of brooms, enough for most of the D.A., in case of emergency. The chairs and extended table that took up the middle of the room were almost an afterthought. Sometimes D.A. meetings felt like they were taking place in a storage shed. Ginny secretly loved the feeling. Grimmauld Place had always felt like a mansion, and it made the Order of the Phoenix feel a bit big for its britches, all due respect. This felt like a field office, like they could actually fight a battle out of this room. It felt useful, and that was how the D.A. felt too.
Neville was already there when she apparated into the alley outside and walked into the back entrance of the store. He hid it well, but Ginny could see the pale flatness of his face. She hugged him gently, her long arms stretching around his wonderfully broad shoulders. Mm. She helped herself to a hand on his hard chest and looked up at him, conveying apology and concern and I'm here for you. He gratefully rubbed her back and nodded his thanks. They were still wrapped around each other when the door opened to let in the Patil twins.
"This again?" Parvati raised an eyebrow and giggled. The twins had both, how would Ginny put it, blossomed. Parvati had gone from a gossipy teen to a real soldier, albeit a unique one. Her divination skills were better than anyone had imagined, and Lavender's death had hardened and focused her. She was quite popular in certain witch communities, and her bright violet pompadour and the many delicate piercings that made her face sparkle made her a fascinating woman to even look at. Meanwhile, Padma had taken on a bookishness even Hermione had never attempted. She wore glasses and dark, flowy robes that made her look almost bat-like and gave her an eerie ability to hide in plain sight. She was a walking encyclopedia, and her attention to detail and gift for de-escalating any situation made her invaluable. Ginny had called them for a reason, and not because Harry was about to tell her to do so.
Neville laughed and Ginny pulled away from him, leaving a hand on his chest for a brief moment. "No, but could you blame me?" Ginny tossed the joke at the girls and winked at Padma, whose expression didn't change except for a tiny smile that was gone in a blink. It was really as much as anyone got from Padma, and it made Ginny laugh. She hopped up on the table, sitting hunched over and beginning. "So."
"She's out." Neville finished for her, her face still wan.
"What's the plan?" Parvati looked between Neville and Ginny. They shared the role of leading the D.A., and hardly ever disagreed about what to do.
Ginny fixed her posture on the table. "Neville's going to up security on…his parents, and anyone else we think she might target. You two are on tracking." They nodded simultaneously. "Do whatever you need to do, but if you get close-" Ginny's eyes widened and her voice became hard. "call for help. Do not try to take her on alone." Ginny watched Padma agree and Parvati pause. She addressed the Gryffindor forcefully. "If you see something that can convince me otherwise, I'll consider it. Until then, this stands." She glanced at Neville and his eyes gave no sign of disagreement. Parvati nodded with a mischievous smile.
"Do you have any leads?" Padma's voice floated.
Neville looked at Ginny, then the ground and shook his head, answering for them both.
Hermione left her meeting with Malfoy carrying a headache and a stack of notes. The pounding in her forehead was primarily due to the knowledge that Malfoy would get the changes he had asked for, "on behalf of the larger business community." The two glasses of wine and sudden adjustment to natural light didn't help either.
He had asked for completely reasonable changes, nothing she could argue adamantly against (though she had done her best), and she knew that the business community actually did put their trust in him to represent their interests with the Ministry. It was the way he asked for the changes that made her clench her thighs tightly together under the table to keep from screaming at him. Malfoy had been so tense at Hogwarts, even when he was acting cool or being a horrible bully. He had always seemed one insult away from imploding, like an over-full balloon or a particularly skittish cat. He had flinched far too often for a child.
Hermione sighed as she packed up her bag and prepared to leave the office, knowing she wouldn't get anything further done that day. Among the paperwork she preferred to sort into organized piles at the end of the day, only to fervidly strew them about the desk while being productive, lay the morning's Prophet. Bellatrix Lestrange's face shrieking out at her. Hermione sat back into her chair, suddenly defeated.
Without thought, she moved a hand to her left bicep, rubbing the old scar there. Her bloodied tattoo that stung of both hate and victory. Sometimes in a certain light, Hermione would catch a glance of the scar on Harry's hand. Now it was barely legible, but she knew it read Umbridge's nasty refrain. Secretly, Hermione was a little glad to have a scar and she wondered if Harry felt the same, but doubted it. He had worn scars his entire life. Hermione had a possibly perverse appreciation of having been marked physically by the war that had wounded them all in so many invisible ways.
Yet here was the woman who had taken an hour to carve deep into her skin, each slice dripping with a disgust Hermione couldn't even imagine. Bellatrix was loose, and Hermione could admit to herself, silently, in the windowless privacy of her office, that she was afraid. She had earned this scar and won that war; she didn't think she could handle another.
There was a very angry woman at Harry's door when he finally reached the flat he and Ron shared.
"Erm, ello Lila." Harry greeted her nervously. She was tapping her foot, arms crossed, with quite a small dress on. The picture of a jilted woman. Harry didn't have much experience with those but he knew they weren't exactly predictable.
"Where is your roommate?" Her tone was sharp, her slightly Irish accent doing little to dull the anger in it. Ron had met Lila when she interned at the Department of Magical Creatures. She was quite a few years younger than them, thin, and very tall. Harry wasn't sure if either of them really liked each other, but they had gone out regularly for a couple of months. She made very strong tea in the morning and didn't take long in the shower, so Harry didn't mind her.
Harry looked at her sideways. "I'm guessing he was supposed to be with you?"
Lila just raised both eyebrows in emphatic agreement. Harry had the distinct feeling that he was silently being called an idiot.
"Er...right." He gestured to the now open door. "Would you like to come in and wait for him?"
She nodded and followed him in.
Lila waited for another hour before she made a rather timid excuse and left, pulling her skirt down behind her as though she had just realized how short it was.
Harry didn't get concerned until he was going to bed. Assuming Ron had simply gone out after work and was having too good of a time, he left out a large glass of water and some Pepper Up Potion and went to bed.
The owl wasn't an owl at all, but a large, menacing crow that scratched its claws at Harry's window at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night. Harry cursed and got up to retrieve the letter, keeping his distance from the bird. As he began to open it absentmindedly, he walked into the hallway and peeked into Ron's room, the door still ajar and the lights off, just as it had been when he had gone to bed. The water glass on the table hadn't been touched.
Harry looked down and found not a letter, but a photo: Ron, a rope around his neck, bright red scars and bruises on his naked chest and arms, his hands tied behind him, a gag in his mouth, balancing frantically on a chair.
Harry's heart stopped.
But he knew that chair. Ginny had been sitting in it this morning.
A/N: I tried to make myself wait until I had more of this written but I got way too anxious to find out what y'all think, so please review and let me know!
And Happy Pride Month to all my family out there!