In the months that followed, Holly must have searched the castle and the surrounding grounds million times. She had also searched Hogsmede and with Hagrid, the grounds keeper's help, the Forbidden Forest. And yet not one trace of Black anywhere. She had never let anyone go this long without being captured. Ever. Go figure it was the once love of her life, giving it to her. Holly sensed a cruel form of irony here. She looked at her watch. She had ten minutes in between tutoring sessions. She had just gotten done with a trying fourth year Ravenclaw, Mac D. Templeton, and had a few minutes before her next appointment came in.
Over all she enjoyed her work with the kids. It was refreshing, and a weird change of pace form her normal bounty hunt of criminals, Griffins, ichneumon (who were wiping out the dragons in Romania), and other dangerous creatures plaguing random villages all over Europe. Her and Avrik had gotten their partnership back together, working free-lance of course. It was only after his death, Holly had to force herself to keep going.
But sense Black's escape she was totally focused on getting him before the Ministry, or for that matter, the Dementors. She had a personal score to settle. By escaping he mocked her profession. Her grip tightened on her desk, even after all those months she still felt the same rage under her skin, exactly the same as she did when she heard he escaped.
Holly stormed into Azkaban, not even an hour after Black's escape. Through her network, naturally she was one of the first to know about it.
"Evans, what are you doing here?" the guard behind the desk asked.
"What the fuck do you think I'm here for?" she snapped.
"Right, go on then." he opened the door, and she walked at a very quick pace down the halls. She stormed right passed his former cell and to the one she wanted to go to. When she got there Holly opened the door to the cell and stepped in.
"Where is he?" Holly yelled.
"I don't know what your talking about." Bellatrix said from the corner she was sitting in, her long raven hair covering most of her face. Holly didn't have time for these games. She grabbed Bellatrix and slammed her against the wall.
"Where is he!" she yelled in Bellatrix's face.
"Oh, what? My dear cousin?" Bellatrix spoke with an icy
tone.
"Yes."
"You think I know? Ha!" Holly tightened her grip. "Even if I did I wouldn't tell you." Holly threw Bellatrix to the ground with a great force.
"Give me the answers I want." Bellatrix tried to attack Holly.
"Never." Holly kicked Bellatrix in the stomach, and she doubled up in pain.
"If you cooperate, I might be able to get your sentence reduced." Bellatrix thought about this for a moment, she was in here for life.
"I don't make deals with Mudbloods." Bellixtrix got up and spat at Holly's feet. In return Holly threw a punch, and it connected with Bellatrix's jaw. "Ok, I don't know anything. It's the god's honest truth." Anyone who was in Azkaban could only take so much brutality, even Bellatrix began to crumble after all these years.
"Fine." Still fuming, Holly locked Bellatrix back up.
"So, you going to get me out of here?"
"You really bought that didn't you? Your never getting out of here." and Holly left, leaving a wounded tiger in her cage.
"Ms. Thane?" a voice brought her out of her memory. Holly looked down at her hands, and released her grip on the desk.
"Yes, come in. Ah, Mr. Weasley, what can I do for you?" One of the many Weasley children stepped into her office.
"Look, I know this is no big deal, but could you keep this on the down low. I don't want to know people to know I need the help." He was tall and lanky, he sat down at the chair next to her desk.
"Don't worry Fred, I won't tell. What do you need help with?"
"Potions." he mumbled.
"Don't worry. I needed plenty of help with that back in my day. Which one is it?"
"Ethereal Amazon's Elixir." he said to the floor. In her time here she had never know either of the Weasley twins to act shyly.
"Wow."
"Yeah. I don't want to go to Professor Snape, he'll just mock me. He figures that if your fifth year you don't need the help. And I need the help for my O.W.L's."
"Well, Professor Snape is mistaken. Don't worry Fred, I'll help you. Those O.W.L.'s are nasty. But if we can handle this, you'll be in good shape."
"Thank you Ms. Thane. You know, your not like the other teachers. Your almost cool." Fred said getting out his ingredients, book, and cauldron.
"Um…thank you?"
"Don't get me wrong or anything." he blushed.
"Think nothing of it. Are all of your teachers so out of it, that they make me look cool. You may be the first person to ever use those words to describe me. Ok, now first you're going to chop up your ginger roots into small, fine, pieces." Fred began to chop them up slowly and carefully.
"Well, you and Professor Lupin. I guess he's pretty cool." she smiled, and helped him with his potion.
"Wow! It actually didn't blow up." Fred said an hour later, when they finished.
"Thankfully." she laughed a bit. Fred was blushing again. He sure seemed to do that a lot when he was around her.
"Well, thanks for the help. And remember, not a word."
"My lips are sealed." Fred packed up his things and left. He was a good kid. He reminded her of someone, though she wasn't sure who. His and his twin's lack of respect for the rules, going around prank-ing everyone, house pride, then it hit her. She knew exactly who the twins reminded her of. And she felt a twinge of worry for them, secretly hoping that history wouldn't repeat it's self.
"Remus. Why did you keep so quiet about Pete when I got back?" Holly asked a week later in his office.
"What are you talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. When I first came home, everyone was all "hush-hush" about him. Every time I mentioned his name everyone either twitched or changed the subject. Come on Remus, you've always been straight with me, don't play these games. I hate these games." Remus thought about this for a while, contemplating the right words to use.
"It's complicated."
"Why?"
"He just, I don't know, changed. More needy, if you can you
believe it. It got annoying really. I honesty think James was the only one who didn't…out grow Pete."
"That's not that complicated Remy."
"He started asking weird questions. Like stuff he knew the answer too."
"Like what?" she said leaning back in her chair, resisting the urge to put her feet up on his desk.
"Personal questions, about James and Lily mostly. It got really annoying. I think he stared losing his mind. I expressed my concerns to James, he just smiled an said Peter was lonely, with him having Lily and Sirius and myself having you back in our lives. James also said Peter had told him he found some new friends, at work. And he was torn between loyalties to us and them."
"I guess that's weird. Who would have though shy Peter making new friends." Remus laughed, then let out a huge yawn.
The full moon had just past, surprisingly Remus as able to teach class that day but then again he taught his 6th and 7th years today, and he said the only trying students were Percy Weasley ("He's too smart for his own good, and one day it's going to get him in trouble"), and a 6th year Hufflepuff named Shaun Pandovich who, in Remus' opinion should have been in Slythern.
"Remus, go to bed."
"I'm fine." her protested.
"Your tired, go to bed."
"Fine." he really wasn't putting up too much of a fight.
"Goodnight Remus."
"'Night Holl."
Holly left his classroom and walked into the hallway. She began to search the castle. Everything was still, like most nights, until she got to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. She saw Minerva McGonnagal rushing down her hallway, with Percy Weasley on her tail looking bothered and important.
"Is everything ok Minerva?"
"Come with me Ms. Evans, I mean Thane, we may have a
situation." Holly didn't questions the Deputy Headmistress, and followed her into the Gryffindor Common Room. It looked exactly as she remembered it. Except for the fact that it was full of students, dressed in their pajamas, looking worried at Percy's youngest brother Ron.
"Mr. Weasley what happened?" Minerva asked.
"Sirius Black! He was! He was standing over me with a big knife, and he was going to kill me!"
"That is prepositions Mr. Weasley. How could Sirius Black get into the Common Room?"
"I don't know, I was a bit busy trying not to get killed!"
"If I might interject malady!" one of the portraits spoke up. He was knight. Holly recognized him, as the knight that narked on, her and James out for being out of the Tower at one in the morning. He was now aplenty taking over until the portrait of the Fat Lady, until she got back from being repaired.
"What is it? Did you let a strange man into the Tower?"
"Yes of course! He had all this weeks passwords, on a little piece of paper."
"Who in the right mind would have wrote all of the
passwords on a paper, then lose it!" All the students turned and looked at a rounded face boy looking sheepishly at his feet.
"Is it always you Longbottem?" "Longbottem? Like Frank and Alice's son? Must be. He does look like Frank a little." Holly thought, it was because of his mom and dad, she hated Bellatrix even more.
"I'm sorry 'mam." he spoke meekly.
"Well, Sirius Black is gone for tonight, just try to act more responsible in the future." she gave a short speech on acting responsible, most students looked like they were going to fall asleep right then and there.
"Professor, would you mind before the third year boys go back to bed, I might check their dormitory out?" Holly asked once Minerva was done with her speech.
"Naturally. Would you like me to accompany you?"
"No thank you. But I would like to have a word with young Mr. Weasley about the incident, while I check everything out."
"Weasley, go with Ms. Thane. Goodnight everyone." Minerva finished, Ron's ears went red, but followed her up to the third year's dormitory.
"How do you know where our dorm is?" Ron asked on the way up the stairs.
"You know I did go to school here." she said lightly, looking up and down the hallway for any signs of Blacks presents.
"So you were in Gryffindor too?"
"I was. Back then, there weren't as many rules about which gender could visit which dormitory during the day. Matter of fact, it was because of a few of my friends, that rule go changed and Professor McGonnagal put a charm on the girls stairs so boy's couldn't enter by themselves." Holly laughed at the memory of James' face when he realized he couldn't visit Lily in the dead of night anymore.
"Now Ron. I want you to tell me exactly what happened." she said once they got to his dorm. Ron walked over to his bed and demonstrated exactly what had happened. Holly looked at the drapes surrounding Ron's bed. There was a giant tear in it.
"I don't get it." she murmured.
"And now my rat's gone too."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Well, everything seems to be clear, if you need to talk about it Ron, feel free to come and talk to me, ok?"
"Alright. Thank you."
"Hey, it's my job." she gave one look around to the area surrounding Ron's bed. She felt along the stone walls, her fingers ran over something that felt engraved. "Ron can I see your candle for a moment?"
"Yeah sure." he handed her the lit candle on his bed side. "What does that mean? 'HE.Lovely.' I've been trying to figure it out for ages and it doesn't make any sense." Ron asked. This had been the boy's room. Ron's bed must have been Sirius.
"It was along time ago." was what she came up with, while fighting a hundred emotions. "Goodnight Ron." she left, on the way telling the rest of the third year's to go back to bed.