Chapter Four – Headline News

Nov. 8, 7:12 am

Ron moodily poked at his breakfast.

This was something of an odd sight for his fellow Gryffindors, as Ron was largely known for letting his stomach outdo his mind, and rarely, if ever, allowed his emotions to put him off of food. Seamus Finnegan was unabashedly staring at the redhead, his own two plates remaining untouched.

Ron wasn't feeling well. Well, that's not true – physically, he was perfectly fine; good health, no fever or nasty cough or anything. But there was what felt like a very cold rock inside his body, sitting just above his navel and stubbornly refusing to move. It gnawed away at his stomach and left him quite unenthusiastic for his morning meal. He was fully aware of the odd looks he was receiving, but he couldn't bring himself to be embarrassed by them.

He was worried. More than that, he was concerned.

Those who knew Ron Weasley knew that it was very difficult to get him genuinely worried; he was a very easy-going person, and didn't let things bother him too much. Sure, his temper wasn't the easiest thing to keep under control, but there was a vast difference between sending him off and making him worry. After all, a good majority of the time he was in good health, as were those he cared for, he himself was cared for – fed, watered, getting to sleep in a bed and take a shower and the like – and his life wasn't being threatened (something which, if patterns held true, would become a regular occurrence, much to his dismay).

But now…

…now, Harry was hurt. Hurt bad. His best mate was lying up in the Hospital wing, unconscious, after having been pummeled by a Bludger resulting in one broken arm and a cracked-open skull, and then falling off his broom four-hundred feet above the ground. And if Dumbledore hadn't been as great as he was, it would have been much, much worse.

But that wasn't even the end of it: his two older brothers were up there, too. After free-falling from a similar height to the ground and snapping one arm each in the process, Fred and George got their own beds in the Hospital Wing and had not yet woken up. He had talked to Madame Pomfrey, and the medi-witch hadn't a clue what the cause of that was; she had ruled out concussions and tumors and exhaustion and a host of other things, and the only thing she could go on to say with any certainty was that she could not explain it.

Needless to say, this didn't exactly instill hope towards their condition; nor did it inspire faith in Madame Pomfrey's abilities.

So focused was Ron on his thoughts – and on repositioning his breakfast on its plate – that he didn't even notice when Hermione came up beside him.

She was already talking, and didn't pause her breath as she swung her bag off her shoulder, dropped it to the floor, and collapsed into the seat next to him. She continued talking, one long stream of unintelligible consciousness, talking about classes and Harry and the blue pulse and wondering what it all was and something about Creevey and the Hospital Wing and Malfoy –

"Malfoy?" Ron asked suddenly, perking up and taking notice. "Wait, where'd you come from, Hermione?"

Her answering frown was not an attractive sight. And when her companion could only stare at her, bewildered, and ask her why she was looking at him like that, she gave up with a deep sigh and an annoyed shake of her head.

She put a few slices of toast on her plate and scraped a few scoops of jam over them, just as something to calm her down a little, before she spoke again. Her voice had dropped from a rushed babble – easily discernable, volume-wise – to a hushed conversation-level, or a loud whisper. "I went up to see Harry last night-"

"Yeah, so did I," Ron cut in. "I was there too, remember? It was around 8 when Madame Pomfrey kicked us out, right?"

"No, Ron," Hermione said urgently. "I went back after curfew, and-"

"What?"

The Great Hall quieted for a few seconds, and all eyes locked onto Ron Weasley. Then, slowly, the noise began to build up again as his outburst was passed off as unimportant. A good half of the Gryffindors present were still casting strange glances down the length of the table, and Hermione had the good grace to blush. Ron didn't seem to notice, so wrapped up was he in the very thought of someone like the know-it-all of their year going and willingly breaking a rule like that.

"Ron, shut up," Hermione hissed, yanking him back down into his seat. "And close your mouth – it's disgusting." His mouth closed with a clack, and he blinked and shook his head, as if to toss off his shock.

He scootched a little closer to her and said, in a whisper, "Sorry – so you went to the Hospital Wing after curfew…"

Hermione swallowed and continued on. "I went in and I just sat over by Harry's bed for a while; I was having trouble sleeping, I was really worried about him, so I went up to check on him. The next thing I know, Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall burst through the doors, carrying Colin Creevey."

"Colin?" Ron repeated. "Doesn't sound familiar."

"He's one of the first years, Ron; he's completely enamored with Harry."

"Is he the squirt that's been following him around with a camera?"

"Yes, Ron. And don't call him that."

The redhead shrugged and plowed on. "Okay, so why were they carrying him into the Hospital Wing?"

"He was petrified."

There was a long moment where he thought in silence on the word; when the implication sunk in, his face grew pale, causing his freckles to stand out in stark contrast. He swallowed thickly and said, "Like – like Mrs. Norris?" Hermione nodded. "Bloody hell…" Then he blinked and looked at her. "You said something about Malfoy." It wasn't a question.

Hermione nodded again. "He wasn't in the Hospital Wing when Colin was petrified."

"I knew it!"

He had jumped to his feet again and garnered the brief attention of the majority of the Great Hall once more. She yanked him back down into his seat for the second time and told him off in a sharp voice. Despite quieting down, Ron ended up more annoyed than contrite by the scolding, and he kept glancing over at the Slytherin table with a haughty look.

Hermione sighed in frustration; she had needed to tell someone about the Hospital Wing, but it seemed like choosing Ron as that someone could have been an error in judgment. If Harry had been there, she'd have chosen him over Ron, easily – despite the rivalry between Harry and Malfoy, Harry was by and far more constrained with his disdain; he might dislike the Slytherin greatly, but he wouldn't go to the lengths of battering down and humiliating him like Ron might be tempted to do.

She was cut off from further thinking as the morning mail delivery began; an enormous collection of owls and minor assorted birds swooped into the castle through the towering windows, where the glass had vanished to allow their passage. A small brown owl practically dive-bombed onto her plate, smashing into one of her pieces of toast and sending jam everywhere. On its leg was a small bag, and when it got to its feet, it proudly proffered it to her. She reached into it and withdrew her copy of the Daily Prophet – she'd ordered a subscription in the beginning of the year – and replaced it with a few knuts. The owl chirruped in satisfaction, helped itself to some of the broken toast, and took to the air.

She picked it up and the headline was both as she suspected and as she hoped for; regarding the events that happened the previous day, it stated in big, bolded letters:

MYSTERIOUS ENERGY WAVE SWEEPS OVER BRITAIN

The article, which took up the entire front page but managed to say very little beyond what she already knew, described what they'd all seen firsthand; a blue mass of energy moving across the land like a tidal wave. The injuries at Hogwarts had not been included, and there were no other odd instances like it mentioned. The Ministry of Magic 'refused to comment or speculate on the unexplained phenomenon or its origins', but made it a point to assure the masses that at this point in time, 'it did not seem Dark in nature' and that the Department of Mysteries was trying their damndest to figure the entire event out.

The next page boasted the only-slightly-smaller headline of 'Dementors Gone Mad – who guards us from our guards?'. This, being something that Hermione had not heard about, instantly gained her attention. Dementors, she knew, were the watchmen of the wizarding prison of Azkaban; they had the foul ability of whittling away at a person's emotions, sucking away their happiness and joy and whatever else and leaving only despair and madness. They were almost solely stationed on Azkaban, in a colony bordering on the two-hundred range, with a few locked up in the bowels of the Ministry for trials and executions.

If she didn't hate the vile creatures so much, Hermione might have felt bad for them.

The article stated that at approximately twelve o'clock the previous afternoon – the same approximate time that the blue energy wave swept the land – all the Dementors under Ministry control had gone into some sort of frenzy. They had turned on their handlers and begun 'kissing' every human that they possibly could, both in Azkaban and in the Ministry; in the Ministry, the defenses and safety precautions that supposedly kept the monsters on a leash, so to speak, seemed to have been momentarily screwed up by the appearance of the blue wave, allowing them to escape from their own prisons. In Azkaban, the Dementors had swarmed over the prison population, along with the few Aurors stationed there. Over half of the inmates had died – it wasn't specified how. The reporter guessed that the blue wave and the Dementor's behavior were linked somehow, and quoted a 'Ministry Official' as having agreed that 'the two did seem to be connected' and that it was a huge coincidence if they were not; the reporter went on to say that word had not been given to explain their behavior, nor the exact numbers of the deceased. And another anonymous ministry employee was quoted as saying that 'the Dementors that had used the riot in order to flee from their positions at Azkaban Prison have been recaptured and detained', and that 'the prison, with the remaining prisoners and its hopefully soon-to-be-destroyed wealth of Dark Creature 'guards'', was now under the control of a great number of the Ministry's top Aurors.

The rest of the paper was tame by comparison, and it took her little time before she was finished. She folded it up and put it into her bookbag. With a glance at Ron, whose concentration had fallen onto his food as per normal, she picked up a piece of her toast and took a bite.

The energy, Harry, Dementors…

…what was going on?

-Nov. 8, 8:00 am-

It was dark.

He didn't know why it was dark, or how long he'd been in the dark – such thoughts and concerns evaded him – but he knew that he was in the dark and he knew that this didn't bother him nearly as much as it usually would.

He didn't usually like the dark.

It hadn't always been dark, though, even though he didn't know how long it had been that way. He recalled bright lights – white, red, orange, blue, blue the worst, blue the most threatening – and faded colors – grey, rust-red, and the soothing, dark, deep purple. He recalled bone-white and gleaming silver. He remembered the moon – twisted, inverted, not the same moon he saw in the night sky.

He heard chanting, and words that burned. He heard cheering and screaming. He heard a voice whispering, hissing like a snake, spitting like a cat, screeching like a falcon, whispering and telling him hidden things, secret things, telling him to talk back, to tell his own secrets to the darkness.

He didn't want to.

His hands swam into view, thin and stark white in comparison with the rippling shadows, and he brought them both to his face. He ran his fingers through his hair once, before massaging his temples; it felt like he had a troll pounding away at the inside of his skull.

Slowly, the shadows began to dissipate. Black softened to grey, and his focus sharpened and details began jumping out at him: a wall, a floor. Tables. Chairs. Window. Light.

He hissed briefly as the sunlight slammed into his eye sockets, squinting to block it out and keep it from adding on to his headache.

He was in a classroom…Hogwarts. Why was he in a classroom?

He shakily climbed to his feet.

The last thing he remembered…he remembered dreams. Dark dreams, filled with fire and screams, and strange dreams, filled with blue and purple and an unearthly silence. But before that…

…flying?

Quidditch. He was playing Quidditch – Slytherin vs Gryffindor. Potter had been getting attacked by that crazy Bludger, and he had hung back, wary of getting the same treatment…he had seen Potter, arm broken, practically delirious, dive after the Snitch…he'd caught it...and then…?

He couldn't remember seeing anything after that – just noises: the roar of thunder, the crack of lightning. He heard screaming. Then there was pain. Then…nothing. The dreams. Nothing.

How did he get here?

If he were injured during the game – which he was quite certain that he was, based on the tight tenderness of his wrist, the ache of his jaw, and the way his tongue felt three times too big in his mouth and cut bolts of pain through the muscle when he tried to move it – he would have been in the Hospital Wing, with the ever-fretting Madame Pomfrey bullying him around; he was convinced that he had been in the Hospital Wing sometime between the Quidditch game and the present, seeing as how he was just hurting instead of bleeding heavily, but he couldn't find reason as to why he wasn't still there.

He looked out the window, still squinting.

He was in a classroom on the second floor, and the Hospital Wing was on the third floor – on the other side of the castle. His muddled mind couldn't come up with a reason for why, exactly, this was so. It didn't make sense.

He looked down at himself, and at the floor. His robes were missing, but he was dressed in his underclothes; sharply-pressed pants and a white-collared cotton shirt, half-unbuttoned. His polished shoes were gone; his feet were covered by his black socks. Just beside his foot lay a familiar-looking length of wood.

His wand.

He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. Then he re-buttoned his shirt, tucked it into his pants and smoothed out his hair, and he walked over to the door, opened it, and exited the room. He turned right and began heading down the stairwell.

He should have been getting back up to the Hospital Wing, but he had more important things on his mind. Professor Snape would want to know what had happened.

Draco Malfoy headed down to the dungeons, and the ache of his injuries throbbed with every step of the way.

-Nov. 8, 8:08 am-

Albus Dumbledore sighed heavily.

His thin, knotted fingers traced over a world map like the keyboard of a piano, tapping a country here, a key there, a city elsewhere. A few dozen points on the map were circled with various colors of ink – some black, some blue, some bright red. The bright red points almost formed a sort of ring around the States, spreading outward over the map like a plague; the blue points were few in number, and seemed to be clustered mainly in the Middle East, in Russia, and Africa; the black points were sparsely set, dispersed unevenly among both the red and the blue.

His finger rested on a red circle over Scotland, and he sighed once again.

The red was the schools hit by the mysterious blue wave; blue was the ones it had not yet hit. Black was for schools they'd been unable to get into contact with.

Minerva had been up the entire night, Floo-calling the Heads of every major magical institution in the world; she'd used his fireplace while he visited several libraries across several continents looking for theories or explanations for the blue energy wave. As it stood, he was no closer to the truth than he was almost an entire day ago. Minerva had been more successful, and as a small reward he had allowed her to take the day off in order to catch up on the rest she'd missed; her classes had been cancelled for the day. From what she'd found out through her widespread investigation, it seemed that their original conclusion had been the correct one: the Energy had emanated from the States, from the mid-west.

As a favor to Minerva, Ms. Penstone of Salem had agreed to get in contact with a few of her own friends, and as of six o'clock this morning, she had assured him that two teams of US Auror-equivalents were investigating the phenomenon, and were quite positive that it would be wrapped up in a matter of days. There was no further specification yet on the location, but one could not hope for miracles, even in the magical world.

But if there was ever a time for miracles to start showing up…

Dumbledore placed his head into his hands and rubbed at his tired eyes.

He hadn't been too concerned when Mrs. Norris was petrified. There were a great many things that were capable of causing petrification – spells, potions, a few magical plants, and of course magical creatures – and the majority of them were relatively harmless. The message on the wall was ominous, but quite possible just as harmless as the petrification, and he was not too concerned when he put it out of his mind in order to focus on Lucius Malfoy's newest attempts at strong-arming several departments in the Ministry.

But now there was a human victim. A student. A child, under his protection.

And what had been an inconvenience had now become unacceptable.

He could not hail the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for assistance, at least not this early. While there was something going on here, there was little that the Aurors would be able to discover at this juncture, be they competent or not. One victim (technically two, but a non-magical, non-sentient animal was not a liable concern), not even technically dead, was not a case that any investigating agency, let alone the DMLE, would follow up on.

He had no choice but to figure the situation out internally; and really, he liked it better that way. He was able to hold all the pieces that way – stay in control of the game. It wouldn't do to lose the influence he had in his many social and political circles, and keeping his school safe despite its inherent dangers was just one of the many things that illustrated his power to those around him.

He would solve this; he'd solve it before anyone else was struck down by the Petrification.

Before anyone died.

-Nov. 8, 9:30 am-

He stood before her desk, posture rigid, hands clasped tightly behind his back. His steel-blue eyes never wavered from her dark brown, even as, each time she opened her mouth, her words came out sharper than a sword, as accusation on accusation were laid upon him.

How he'd failed to prevent the escape of a half-dozen of Azkaban's worst criminals.

How he'd failed to protect the other Aurors.

How he'd failed to keep the security of Azkaban as tight as it should have been.

How he'd failed to make sure his subordinates were properly trained for the event that had occurred.

How, now, several people were quietly – for now – accusing him of conspiracy, of aiding and abetting the escape of those half-dozen criminals.

Because he was Auror Simon Ulysses Jenks, right? Decorated hero of the last War? Highest-rated Auror of Azkaban for the last ten years? Caster of the most powerful Patronus of the entire Ministry Auror Corp?

If Jenks didn't want you to leave Azkaban – you weren't leaving.

Right?

That was the line of reasoning for people like Rufus Scrimgeour, and Alastor Moody – two bitter old war veterans with more collective paranoia than his mother back in the States. They wanted him locked up in his own damned prison; they wanted him dead - Scrimgeour much more than Moody. Jenks was pretty sure that, while Moody did want to see Jenks pay for his apparent crime, he would be in something of a good mood now that he had prey to hunt once again. It had been too long since 'Mad-Eye' Moody had a challenge.

Auror Jenks looked Madame Bones square in the eye, and she looked right back.

"Head Auror Scrimgeour is trying to build a case against you as we speak," she said evenly. "It is his belief that you, directly, had a hand in the escape of those fugitives. Your overwhelming knowledge of Azkaban Prison, coupled with the power that you hold over it, its other guards, and its prisoners, make you a prime suspect to him; the fact that you had one of the most dangerous of them out of his cell for relocation when the Dementors broke the wards and attacked – again – does not help things for you, either."

Jenks didn't move a muscle at the accusations. "Understood, ma'am," he said. He understood, all right. He understood that they – Scrimgeour, mainly – were trying to screw him over for something that wasn't his fault. Scrimgeour had his eye on Amelia Bones' position, and he intended to knock down any contenders beforehand. Plus, the Ministry was searching desperately for an explanation as to what happened, and they needed their scapegoat. It seemed Scrimgeour, in addition to his own goals, was quite happy in assisting them as well.

"Jenks – Simon," Bones said, sighing, "we worked together for a long time during the War. I know that you had nothing to do with what happened." She took off her monocle and rubbed tiredly at that eye. "But I still require your report – your statement – and I will have to put you into custody for a short time."

Jenks allowed himself a small sigh and a frown. "Yes, ma'am," he said. Stiffly, he drew his wand from its holster and, stepping forward, set it gently on her desk. Two Aurors – Dawlish, Proudfoot, he recognized them both – entered through the large double doors and led him away.

The doors closed behind them.

Well, it's been...nine months. I'll tell you, this story doesn't write itself - this's hard to put down, and I have to force myself down once in a Blue Moon (hah! see what I did there?) just to churn out a page or two. This's easily one of the harder stories to hash out, and that's probably because I've already got it planned out. I never thought following an outline would be so difficult - it seemed so easy on highschool English papers!

I didn't originally intend Jenks to be a Major character, but in these last nine months, he's gotten twisted around and added on to a little bit, so he'll be more important than I had originally thought. As for why he's getting bitched-out by Bones, it has to do with Azkaban; see, what happened was - for the ignorant - that when the Blue Wave hit yesterday, the Dementors went nuts. Wrecked the prison, killed the inmates, fled into the night, etc. They (only 18 left) were then locked away through magical means while the Aurors took control. Then, at midnight, the magic (spells, wards, runes, whatever) didn't work in the Blue Time and the Dementors (they get FUN inside Midnight...) escaped again and had an entire hour to kill people before the Blue Time fell and they were rounded up / destroyed. Hope that clears things up; I wasn't sure how to sneak that information into the story without it coming off as stilted / lame.

Anyway, this'll update eventually - don't expect any miracles, it'll probably be another half-year. Sorry. Next chapter, though Harry wakes up into Midnight. It's going to be fun.