A/N Hey! A massive thank you to everybody that's reviewed, favourited/followed this! This chapter took a bit longer to write, but since school's started up again you'll have to get used to it from now on =P

Disclaimer I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER. Unless you count the copies of the books sitting on my bookshelf. The Potterverse is all JKR's wonderful imagination.

~Parseltongue~

'Mind speak'

4. News

"Harry, my boy, please take a seat," Dumbledore exclaimed happily from his place by the fire as the door opened, nodding towards the empty chair opposite him.

Even after all such meetings over the years, Harry still couldn't quite manage to suppress a flinch at the endearment. Harry didn't belong to anyone, least of all to this irritating hypocrite. His actions were pure reflex, after years of practice: looking shyly up at the wizened man with a hint of awe in his eye. He made sure to blush slightly as Dumbledore smiled at him before sitting dazedly in the offered chair. His little escapade with the Weasley twins had only been the night before and Harry was still deciding on what to do concerning Peter Pettigrew's return from the dead, so he wasn't entirely thrilled with the surprise audience with the headmaster.

"Liquorice wand?" the man asked, which made Harry scowl inwardly, hating the confectionary.

"Yes please sir," he somehow injected an eager tone into his voice. Harry took one from the bowl on the desk and started chewing on one end, looking at the tie in Dumbledore's beard.

"Now then my boy, what can I do for you?" Harry supposed that this a trick to make people feel indebted towards the headmaster, assuming that he could deal with anything that they couldn't, it was a power play. Unfortunately for Dumbledore, Harry wasn't about to fall for any of that.

"Sir?" he asked, affecting a puzzled expression, "you were the one who wanted to meet with me." There, he thought, pleased as he made it seem that he was setting time aside for Dumbledore.

The ever present twinkle in the headmaster's eyes didn't falter, irritatingly, it seemed to intensify as he contemplated Harry. "So I did, forgive me, but I was curious about the manner in which you passed the first task," Harry looked up, surprised at the directness of the question and wary with the headmaster's sudden change in tactics. The worried expression he wore on his face was more real than he felt entirely comfortable with.

"I – I don't know what happened sir, I just remember feeling really scared, I didn't want to die. I wanted something to shield me, protect me. I just wanted the dragon to go away. Then the flames came out of nowhere, and when they were gone, so had the dragon! I was so relieved," Harry mumbled all of this so quickly that it took Dumbledore a moment to register what he had said.

In the pause Harry nervously shuffled his feet and chewed on his liquorice wand, casting anxious glances at the other man. In his head he was panicking, he didn't know where Dumbledore was going with this line of questioning; he had come to his office expecting nothing more than their usual sparring match when Dumbledore tried to trick Harry into revealing himself, who then deflected the questions whilst trying to maintain appearances. He always felt off kilter in the headmaster's office, he never took his companions to see the headmaster with him, afraid that his hatred of the man coupled with their predatory instincts would result in the man's death. Harry wouldn't mind it if Dumbledore died, but there were too many portraits on the walls, too many witnesses, and Harry wanted to get through Hogwarts with as little attention paid to him as possible. He swore in his head, he was front page news due to the damn Triwizard Tournament; he had the old coot to thank for that too.

"And you didn't feel tired? At all?" Harry noted that the man's eyes kept flickering towards the roaring fire.

With tremendous effort, Harry managed to slow his heartbeat, retreating behind his mask, "a little bit," he said, shifting guiltily in his seat, "but I wanted to look strong in front of everybody, so I hid it," talking around the liquorice.

Again, Harry's heartbeat rocketed as Dumbledore gazed piercingly at him, ignoring Harry's antics. This was different, something was wrong. Dumbledore knew something. Harry very suddenly missed Chiana's comfortable weight underneath his robes.

"Minerva also told me of your night-time incident with the Weasley twins last night," Dumbledore's gaze softened, as did the pounding in Harry's ears, "I'm very disappointed in you, growing boys need their sleep after all."

Harry stiffened with the hidden barb, he was quite sensitive about his height, he'd barely grown a foot since his first year and he hated the way that nearly everybody was rocketing up around him. He forcibly relaxed his shoulders, "I'm sorry sir," he said softly, looking shamefaced, "I just wanted a walk, I couldn't sleep after the dragon." He hoped Dumbledore took his stiffness as an admission of guilt, rather than what it really was.

Dumbledore smiled, as if finally satisfied with something, before speaking again, "It's quite alright my boy. Now, off you go, dinner will be served in half an hour."

Harry beamed at the man, turning away and heading for the door, "Oh, and Harry?" Dumbledore added softly, contemplating the fire again, a slight frown on his face. Harry inwardly groaned and turned on the spot at the same time.

"Yes, headmaster?" he said, matching Dumbledore's tone.

"I'll be watching over you, I don't want anything untoward happening to one of my champions." This was said in absolute seriousness, sharp eyes flickering up to meet Harry's own. Anyone could hear the warning with those words, don't push your luck again, but to Harry they were thunderous.

"Okay," Harry replied, still smiling, and walked out of the door, shutting it rather harshly behind him.

He leaned back against the wall to the side, letting his head fall back and releasing a troubled sigh. He stayed like that a moment, content not to think, before relaxing his face into the pureblood mask.

One of his champions. That's what he had said, the other obviously being Cedric Diggory, or was it? Harry just couldn't believe that the man was talking of solely something as petty as the tournament, and then the headmaster's sudden change in toneerw, Harry couldn't remember ever seeing the man so serious, so deliberate. Well then, that could only mean one thing, Dumbledore had plans for Harry, other than being a puppet for the light, that Harry wasn't privy to, to his great annoyance; even if it was only because he wasn't then able to foil them.

So Dumbledore wanted to use him, Harry allowed a small smile to grace his lips, able to guess exactly what Chiana and Rasp would think about that. Meeting reviewed, Harry reconstructed his face, eager to tell his companions his most recent revelations: either Dumbledore still believed his act, and was trying to seduce Harry to the light, or he wasn't entirely sure but still trying anyway, wanting an obvious source of powerful magic by his side. He returned to his dorm at a near jog.

The sight of the fireplace in the common room brought to mind Dumbledore's apparent fascination with fire during their meeting. As he was leaving the office, he had noticed what looked like burnt parchment on the flames, but since he couldn't do anything about it, he had decided to ignore it. Harry now regretting not probing the issue, but no matter, he had a feeling he would find out if the parchment contained anything significant in the near future.

x ~ x ~ x

Dumbledore looked down into his fireplace; one corner of the single piece of parchment he had thrown on earlier hadn't completely burnt away, leaving two lines of barely legible handwriting.

'-to turn out this way. I'm so sorry. I'm begging you to forgive me my foolishness pup.

Your loving godfather,

Padfoot'

The man sighed, looking his age for once, and removed his glasses to rub tiredly at his eyes. Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban had surely complicated matters concerning Harry. He would have to ponder the best course of action.

x ~ x ~ x

~You need more sleep,~ Harry winced at the disapproving voice. He had given his companions a brief summary of the events in Dumbledore's office in the few minutes he had before dinner, and had spent the next hour afterwards explaining the meeting in detail and answering any questions that the snakes had asked until they were both content. Chiana didn't seem that worried about the headmaster, but Harry was more inclined to believe in Rasp's concerns, promising him that he would keep especially alert around the old man in the future. He had then spent most of the night in the restricted section of the library, researching necromancy and the dead with the map by his side, opened to show Pettigrew's dot. Frustratingly, his search had turned up nothing. He had noticed that Pettigrew seemed to gravitate around Gryffindor tower though, and the boy's dorms especially. He had sent Chiana to watch over the entrance.

~Child!~Harry focused on the scene in front of him, leaving his thoughts on Pettigrew for later, just in time to see himself walk headfirst into a fuming Ron Weasley.

They both separated with a surprised "oof," Harry whispered a quick apology to Rasp, who had also gotten bashed on his place coiled around Harry's waist.

"OI! Watch it will you! Bloody Ravenclaw, head in the clouds," Ron snarled down at him, a full foot taller than Harry before recognising the face, or rather, the lightning bolt scar across his forehead.

Hermione, who was by Ron's side, recognised Harry and tried to placate the angry redhead, Harry stood by, bemused by it all as she shot him an apologetic look. Weasley was a hothead, and it seemed as if he was already pissed off, so he was probably planning to use Harry as a stress reliever. Harry would use the opportunity to play Weasley and earn some sympathy from the rest of the school, he was getting tired of ignoring their suspicious looks. He tried to appear as apologetic as he could, looking anxiously between his housemate and the irate lion, looking for all the world as if he wanted the ground to open up under him and swallow him whole.

"No Hermione, not this time!" Ron said loudly, causing everybody in the hallway to look between the two of them and, like vultures, pause to watch.

Ron turned back to Harry, who would have been proud if he could see what a pathetic picture he was creating, "You think you're so special don't you, Mr. High-and-Mighty Triwizard champion?!" Harry put all his effort into appearing positively cowed by the taller boy. He noticed Hermione putting her hand on Ron's shoulder; it was gratifying to know that she wasn't completely leaving Harry to fend for himself. Harry would reconsider the girl at a later time.

"What makes you so special, huh? How come you can break all the rules and get away with it, while my brothers get detention? You were all caught at the bloody same time! As if that wasn't enough you put your own bloody name in the goblet! You really must crave the attention!" he started ranting, shrugging off Hermione's hand with barely a thought. Against his instinctual nature, Harry shrank back into himself, his persona demanding such an action, although this only seemed to fuel Ron's rage to a higher level, "Look at you!" he sneered, eyeing Harry up and down with distaste, "you're a pathetic excuse for a wizard. You barely get by in your classes, you're a failure of a Ravenclaw, sure you vanquished you-know-who as a baby, but the fame's gone to your head! Everybody's saying that you're the great hope of the future, but all I see is a weak, mad little child who wouldn't win in a duel against a first year!"

Harry pondered this, almost laughing at how wrong the Weasley was, he had suffered worse at the orphanage as a child, he still hadn't found a spell to remove the cigarette burns that Peter had placed on his body, but all the other scars were long healed. Nevertheless, he conjured tears to his eyes, not letting them fall just yet, but appearing just on the edge of broken. His lower lip trembled.

~Look at their faces! You truly have become a master,~ Harry disguised a laugh as a hiccup as he heeded Rasp's words, looking around at his audience. He had them wrapped around his finger, making them see him as the poor, helpless victim and Weasley as the unreasonable antagonist, even though most of them hated him for the same reasons Weasley was describing.

~Hypocrites,~ Harry managed to whisper back to the snake, barely moving his lips, he felt a small hum in agreement.

Ron, the egoistic git that he was, didn't notice any of this, "What makes you better than the rest of us?" he reiterated, "All I see is a near-squib FREAK that has a wand!"

Harry stopped at that word, 'freak'. The children at the orphanage knew better than to get on Harry's bad side now, every time someone was even slightly rude to him Harry made sure that they were regretting it for weeks. His 'punishments' were always considerably worse whenever someone had called him a freak, so much so that the word quickly became taboo. All the children there were now afraid even to think of it.

But Ron Weasley wasn't, and Ron Weasley would be punished.

Harry's eyes darkened as he whipped out his wand, the tip less than an inch away from Weasley's throat. He now stood taller, and he had stopped with his trembling. Perhaps it was time that the 'Harry' everybody knew finally grew a backbone.

~Do not appear so confident! Stupid child! All those years in hiding, all that hard work! And you throw it away for what? A petty jibe!~ Harry noted Rasp's useful tip, making his wand arm tremble, and the fist by his side to shake. He made his stance a bit awkward, as if unused to wielding a wand and made his eyes shine, but not with tears as he looked up at Weasley, who was now wearing a shocked expression. He couldn't do anything about the speed at which he had drawn his wand; that had already come to pass. He ignored the rest of Rasp's words.

"Don't ever call me that again," he said, hating how he had to make his voice waver. What he wouldn't give to show Ron just how pathetic and weak he really was. He would have Ron licking the floor within seconds.

Ron seemed to catch up with the situation, disregarding Harry's wand, probably thinking that the raven haired boy wouldn't ever use it on him. He narrowed his eyes at Harry before smiling gleefully, "what Potty? Call you a freak? Why not Potty, it is what you are after all!" he taunted, before leaning in to Harry's face, "freak," he hissed loudly, before turning away.

Suddenly Harry was eleven again, seething with anger as he watched Peter walk away from his doubled over form. He had been humiliated and called a freak then too. He hadn't done anything about it then, he hadn't had the power to. But he did now.

He glared at Weasley's retreating back, ignoring the concerned look Hermione shot him before chasing after him. The crowd around him dissipated slowly, leaving Harry standing in the middle of the hallway, glaring at the empty space where Ron had been before he had turned the corner, about to set off in the same direction.

~Child! ... CHILD!~ Rasp tightened uncomfortably around Harry's waist, causing him to wince in discomfort.

~Please,~ started Harry, realising how ridiculous his scheme was and was suddenly weary, ~can we not talk about this later? I don't have the energy for it right now.~

Harry could feel the snake's malcontent, ~Very well, but we will be discussing this later tonight. Don't think I'll have forgotten about it.~

He sighed, grateful, pocketing his wand and making his way to his next lesson, plotting various untraceable, unfortunate events that would befall Weasley before the week was out.

x ~ x ~ x

"Mr. Potter, care to share your thoughts on the question?" Harry stifled a yawn, it was the last lesson of the day, and he was far too tired to really care about arithmancy, especially considering that he had self studied it years ago. He merely looked up at Professor Sinistra in a way that said he didn't have any idea what to say and, as if on cue, Hermione's hand shot up from beside him. She then answered his question for him, quoted straight from the textbook, page 462, if Harry remembered correctly.

He was bored as well as grouchy: stuck with ways of tracking down Pettigrew, unable to initiate his revenge on Ron until the next morning, in dire need of sleep and not finding the arithmancy challenging enough to fully engage his brain. It was only fifteen minutes until the lesson was over, but Harry simply couldn't help but fall asleep.

He was standing at the entrance to a decrepit mansion; the iron gates were rusted over and paint was flaking off in varying sized chunks. The door swung open at his touch. So the building knew magic. Instinctively, Harry knew that this wasn't a dream, everything was in sharp focus, every detail crystal clear. So what did that make this? A vision? No, visions of the future were never in focus as the events within them hadn't actually occurred, so he was seeing either the past or the present, it was night-time, so he presumed he was watching a scene from the past.

"Yes master, everything is moving according to plan. The boy will be with us near the end of the year, then you shall be glorious once again," the voice was harsh, as if it hadn't been used for a very long time and came from the top of the stairs in front of him. Harry cautiously climbed up them.

"Good, good. You'd best not fail me Wormtail. Else things will get very... unpleasant... for you in the future."

Wormtail. The voice had said Wormtail, one of the names of the Marauders! Harry followed the voice, walking silently up the rest of the stairs and through an open door, hugging the shadows as he spotted two men and a doll like creature sitting on a chair. The men were both kneeling, facing the chair.

"Have faith in me, my lord! I will not fail you," one of the men keened, desperate to prove his worth. Harry made sure to drink in every detail of the man before turning back to his earlier train of thought: was Wormtail actually Sirius Black? He wasn't what he had imagined him to be, in fact, something deep inside Harry told him that it was not. So either his father or Pettigrew could be Wormtail, but his father was dead, meaning that this had to be Pettigrew!

Harry's first assumption proved correct at the other man's words, "My lord," he said with a flourish, Harry rolled his eyes at the theatrics, "is it true that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban?"

Harry froze, shell-shocked; Sirius Black, escaped. His mind was spinning with the implications of that sentence.

The doll, which Harry had deduced was some strange form of Lord Voldemort, seemed bored with the line of conversation, "Yes," he said slowly, watching as a giant python made its way luxuriously to his side, before turning sharp red eyes towards the figure, "plans will not change because of his escape. He is inconsequential."

The second man swallowed nervously, "but what if he came for Harry, he is the child's godfather after all."

Voldemort sneered, "then keep him away. The plans will not change. Keep up your reports on what you learn of the boy in your classes."

The man paled, "yes, my lord," he whispered, rising from his knees and backing respectfully out of the room. Voldemort turned in a bored manner to Pettigrew.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked and, before Pettigrew had a chance to answer, "Crucio."

x ~ x ~ x

Harry opened his eyes to a white ceiling, his vision was blurry, and he frowned as he tried to remember where he had put his glasses.

'You're bleeding,' Harry near jumped at Chiana's voice in his head, suddenly noting the dull pain in his forehead and the scent of blood. Well, perhaps that was Chiana's senses leaking through their mind link, Harry's sense of smell wasn't that acute. Curious, he steadily bridged the gap to Chiana's mind, wanting to see if he could sense what she did. It was remarkable, despite a noticeable lack of colour everything else was enhanced, the familiar scent of the hospital wing was almost lost under a thousand other scents of potions, people and predominantly Madam Pomfrey.

'Do you always see like this?'

'Yes,' was Chiana's smug answer, 'that's nothing though, watch this.' Chiana took over his sight and focused on the moving portrait of madam Pomfrey that hung above her office door, then the picture got a hundred times bigger. Chiana's eyes had zoomed in on the portrait. He also noted how perfect the eyesight actually was, snake eyes might be a topic worth looking into in order to fix his own imperfect vision.

'That's... amazing. Can all snakes do this?'

'No, just my kind.'

'And what is your kind?' It was the one question that Harry had never thought to ask either of his companions over the years, type had seemed inconsequential.

'I am what snake-kind call streamscales. Humans have other names for us. Rasp is septura, very important amongst us, more important than me.'

Harry blinked, not expecting snakes to have a hierarchical system, hand wandering over to the table beside his bed that his glasses would surely be placed upon. He felt the metal frames and grabbed at them. He then frowned as he noticed the absence of his companion.

'Where are you?' he asked, wondering if she was playing a small joke on him and sitting up as he did so. He felt her confusion through their bond.

'In your dorm,' she said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Harry's heart thudded in his ears, it normally took months, if not years for mind bonds to strengthen enough to allow communication over long distances.

'Impossible.'

'Obviously not.'

'Amazing,' Harry shook his head in wonder, regretting it as the pain in his forehead quadrupled.

"Honestly Mr. Potter, we see far too much of you in here! We should place a plaque over this bed, dedicating it to – oh my goodness!"

Harry blinked as blood dribbled into his eyes, turning his vision red, belatedly noticing Madam Pomfrey standing at the foot of his bed. He put on a pained smile in reply, "I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I didn't know it was bleeding so much."

Madam Pomfrey narrowed her eyes at him, "It wasn't, at least not when I last checked on you. What have you been doing to it?" she demanded before drawing her wand and casting a quick 'scourgify' at him and the bloodied sheets.

He shrugged hopelessly, casting his stare down to his hands before asking, "What happened to me?"

Madam Pomfrey's mind registered the question and she let off her nagging, "I'm not quite sure Mr. Potter, can you remember anything at all since your arithmancy lesson?" Harry furrowed his eyebrows in concentration; all he remembered was feeling sleepy.

After a short while the healer spoke up, "No dreams, visions?" To which Harry shook his head, but he couldn't help but listen to a little voice in the back of his head telling him that he was missing something important.

"Hmm..." Pomfrey sighed thoughtfully before smiling brightly at him, "well sweetie, if you're feeling okay do you want to return to school? Dinner's about to begin."

Harry felt very grateful at that moment, he desperately wanted to talk to Chiana and search for Pettigrew. He nodded energetically, masking the pain in his head. He could brew a quick pain and blood replenishing potion, as well as a few pepper ups. His stores were starting to run low with all his late night escapades.

Pomfrey smiled indulgently at Harry, "Well then, off you go! Shoo!" Harry bounded out of the hospital wing, not having been changed out of his school robes and walked post-haste towards the Ravenclaw tower.

He ducked out of a secret passageway close to the tower, answering the question the brass knocker asked with barely a thought and briskly climbing the stairs to his dorm. He whispered the spell to detect other magical auras before entering the room, glad that it was empty for once. Everybody else had probably gone to dinner already, he reflected, but a few more minutes up here couldn't hurt. He cast a locking and anti-eavesdropping charm on the door, also putting up silencing shields and a notice-me-not charm. Some might call him paranoid, hell, he called himself paranoid, but paranoid was better than found out. He then went to his bed and sat crossed legged across the neatly made sheets, closing his drapes forcefully, applying the same charms that he had on the door, and waited for Chiana to slither up from her place under the bed.

~Master,~ she said by way of greeting. Harry tried his best to ignore his discomfort at the title.

~Chiana,~ he replied back slowly, partially in greeting and partially to focus his attention, ~how has our bond grown so strong so quickly?~

Chiana took a moment to coil herself loosely around Harry's frame, bringing her head to Harry's eyelevel, ~I know not,~ she admitted, a bit miffed, ~does it really matter how? Surely the important thing is that it has.~

Chiana was many things, and Harry loved every part of her, but at times she did lack a certain something that all the other snakes he had met possessed. Her thought process was simplistic in style, and she seemed under the impression that everybody else thought in that same way. Her naivety was actually rather endearing at times but at others, such as now, it only served to frustrate him. He sighed, exasperated and wished that Rasp was around. Now, there was a snake whose advice was always worth listening to.

~Never mind, I will research it later. Do you know anything of my blackout?~

~No, except I didn't like it. I reached out to you but it seemed as if you had gone – elsewhere. I don't know how.~

Harry nodded, slightly disappointed with her answer, but more determined to find out the truth, ~and have you come any closer to finding Pettigrew?~ referring to the watch that she had kept outside the Gryffindor common room, that morning she had reported seeing nothing for the entire night before warming herself up with Harry's body heat.

~No,~ she said irritably, ~all I have seen leave that place are school children.~

Harry's face turned cold, he felt guilty for tasking Chiana such a boring job, but he didn't think Rasp would forgive him very quickly if he had asked it of the smaller snake. He wouldn't ask her to stand vigil again; it was a waste of time. A small growl left his lips, he was no closer to his goals, and an answering growl from his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten dinner yet either. He took a moment to compose himself, closing his eyes and mentally filing and sorting his thoughts away for later. His face morphed back into one befitting of his alter ego as he cancelled all the charms in effect around him. He then made his way down to the great hall, Chiana still wrapped around his slim frame.

He quickly slipped into the hall, carding his hand through his hair in an abashed manner before sitting in his customary seat beside Luna, who smiled dreamily up at him.

"Hi Luna!" he grinned.

"You've missed the announcement," Luna smiled, as if finding this very amusing and tucking into her pudding.

Harry's eyebrows creased slightly in mock concern, "was it about anything important?"

"No."

Harry grinned, readily accepting Luna's answer, before heartily attacking the plates of food spread out in front of him.

"Hey Harry!" came a voice from down the table, Harry identified the speaker as Michael Corner and the tone as degrading. He looked expectantly at the boy, "Who are you gonna drag along with you then?"

Harry's eyes furrowed in confusion, "He means to the Yule Ball," Harry turned slowly to face Luna.

"Yule Ball?"

"Mhmm... That's what the announcement was about, each champion has to find a partner."

Harry stared blankly at her, "and this isn't considered important?" he asked, slightly bemused at Luna's strange way of thinking.

"Not to me," Harry marvelled at Luna's ability to never miss a beat. Maybe she too had something to hide and had simply mastered the art of pretending a lot more than Harry had. It was an interesting notion. Harry ignored the rest of the table as he decided on a course of action.

"Then, would you accompany me to this ball?" he asked, projecting a slight air of confidence. He knew he had made the right choice when Luna's eyes widened fractionally in surprise.

"Of course I will Harry," she said with a small smile, recovering so quickly that Harry couldn't help but envy her. He nodded in acceptance before turning back to Corner and his cronies.

"I'll be taking Luna," he said whilst trying not to smirk at their gobsmacked expressions.

"Oh, of course you'd be taking Loony," Corner replied spitefully. But the reply was late and lacked any real imagination, so everybody knew that Harry had just won that point. Harry just smiled blithely, as if missing the tone.

"Ooh, look! The owls are early today," Luna looked at the descending birds happily.

"They're all Prophet owls!" a sixth year commented with surprise. Harry looked up the find that, sure enough, each and every owl carried a rolled up edition of The Prophet. He watched as one landed in front of him and stuck its leg out, asking for payment. Harry dug a knut out of a pocket, dropped it in the owl's collection pouch, and took the newspaper from its other leg.

There were already whispers, and a few whimpers of fright dispersed among them, coming from every corner of the Great Hall. Harry saw why as he caught sight of the front page, sucking in a deep breath at the title:

Sirius Black Escapes from Azkaban

by Rita Skeeter

Sources at the ministry confirmed that early yesterday morning notorious murderer Sirius Black had somehow escaped the so called impenetrable walls of the island prison of Azkaban.

This reporter has heard numerous theories about Black's escape, the most popular is the conspiracy that followers of the dark lord You-Know-Who finally acted to save the dark lord's most faithful follower, somehow bypassing the dementors that guarded him.

Black is best known for betraying the parents of our saviour, the boy-who-lived, and is thought to be the dark lord's right hand man. Killing –

Harry folded the paper in half. Disgusted that Black had somehow managed to escape from what was supposed to be the most secure wizarding prison on the continent. Again he felt that twinge of unease that told him he was missing something. Curiously, news of the escape didn't surprise Harry as much as he thought it would have done, it was almost if he had already known that Black had escaped. But that was impossible, wasn't it?

Remembering himself, he looked up to the headmaster, filling his eyes with fear and desperation, making sure he sat stiffly in position, hand fisted around the newspaper. It was also curious that Dumbledore refused to meet his gaze. Harry noticed how there was a distinct lack of the Daily Prophet in the general vicinity of the headmaster, but he made no attempt to attain one, merely sitting in his seat, looking vaguely disturbed and saddened.

So it seemed as if the headmaster had also known about Black's escape. Harry growled inwardly, how dare the old coot keep this to himself! Harry had had a right to know, and now he was sitting here as clueless as the rest of them. He eventually dropped his gaze, unable to sustain it without looking like he had lost control of all motor functions.

He sat silently for the duration of the gossip, then quietly left the hall, wanting to be alone. Chiana stayed silent, for which Harry was grateful, and quickly explained the situation to Rasp when they returned to the dorm, who then joined Chiana in her silence. Both companions watched over Harry as he lay in bed, physically and emotionally exhausted.

It was all happening too fast! He hadn't properly prepared for a confrontation with Black, and he wouldn't have time to with this damn tournament going on. There were a lot more eyes in the school this year, making it harder for Harry to find an empty space to study and train whenever he did find the time. He felt overwhelmed by it all and he felt himself panicking as he looked unblinkingly at the wood above his bed. He took another calming breath, letting it out agonisingly slowly, realising that he needed to sleep. He was in no fit state to think of how to modify the plans his entire life had revolved around to date.

x ~ x ~ x

Harry woke up with a cold sweat, throat sore from screaming profanities. He was glad that he had still had enough of his wits about him to put up silencing and privacy charms around his drapes before he fell asleep, this was one event that he would not have liked to explain to his dorm mates.

Harry had dreamed of his vision earlier in the day and he put his head in his hands, rubbing his face to stay awake. At least he had remembered this time. Black had escaped and Voldemort had dismissed him as insignificant, meaning that the dark lord hadn't played a part in it.

Either Black had truly managed to escape on his own, or he had some other form of help on the outside. The latter idea was the more disturbing of the two, as it meant that there was some other faction out there that Harry knew nothing about. And it was on the move.

And then there was Pettigrew, who was somehow in the school, but meeting with the dark lord on what Harry assumed was a regular basis. He had to be leaving the school at some points, but it was impossible to monitor the black dot on the Marauder's map constantly, never mind the physical body that Harry had never seen wandering around the school before.

He sighed, frustrated. Idly, he wondered if Black would try to come after him as the second man had suggested, making a mental note to brush up on his offensive and defensive magic, no longer trusting the wards around Hogwarts as much as he might have done before news of Black's escape. If the man had escaped the most heavily warded prison in the country, what was to say he couldn't penetrate the school's defences?

Harry lay back on his bed, snuggling under the duvet as he had cooled rapidly since waking, intending to review the scene again and try to gain as much from it as possible. Unfortunately for his intentions, his sleep deprived mind had had enough, drifting towards subconscious before Harry had even fully formed his thoughts.

A/N Well, do tell me if you like it or not! And do tell me if you notice something not quite right, I don't always manage pick everything up. But yeah.. moved along nicely I think =) Tell me how you want Luna to be, I'm not sure whether or not to make her into a major character =S. I'll be skipping out a few parts of Harry's 4th year and zoning in on the intersting parts. Hopefully I'll manage to fit Harry and Sirius' first meeting into the next chapter, but we'll see how it goes! Thanks for reading, I love all of you guys!

apisci