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CHAPTER 49

"Next duel will be fought by Mr. Harry Potter and the two Carters. Please step forward and take your place at the center of the battleground" Mr. Caerwyn Jones the DADA teacher said.

They had all just witnessed a fantastic fight between Draco and John Nemesis another student in the class who was nearly five years older than him, only minutes ago wherein Draco had used his dagger 'Aegisess' to paralyze his victim with its black blade ending a long and rather bloody battle.

Harry got up from his seat and clapped Draco on his back, smiling at him. Draco had fought superbly well without even attempting to use his seer abilities to visualize his opponent's strategy beforehand; he said it usually tired him out during the battle so unless the other person was really strong he would not waste unnecessary energy over it.

Harry walked up to the center of a huge hall which Mr. Jones liked calling the 'Battlefield', it had been divested of Anti-Apparition jinxes for the time being since today they would be fighting using Apparation as a means to outwit their enemies.

Harry stood before his competition Jade and Hailey Carter who were identical twins. They were strong individually, but as a team they were quite formidable. They had a very flamboyant style of fighting using several gimmicky moves to make their duels entertaining to watch, but Harry knew that underneath all that pomp they were so tough that they had been on a winning streak for quite a while now.

Trying to dispel the embarrassment that came from having to fight while he had an audience, Harry took a deep breath, praying that all the training he had had over these past months with Fletcher Garret in weapons class would finally pay off.

They had been training to improve their speed, agility and upper body strength to be able to wield their weapons masterfully by simply channeling the magic within themselves to be able run faster, be nimbler and more aware of their surroundings.

Luckily for him, he had had Draco as his sparring partner and because Draco could use his seer powers to predict his moves beforehand, Harry had had to try to be faster than hi and since he'd always had magic at his fingertips, literally, this technique had come rather easily to him so ultimately he was able to surpass Draco's speed by a good margin.

Now looking at the identical girls standing before him striking a battle pose while wearing tight jumpsuits and evil twin smirks, he straightened up and gripped his wand tightly.

"Right on the count of three you will begin. One…two…"

Suddenly Harry found himself being surrounded by ring of fire, the tall flames closing steadily in on him, their heat scorching his robes,

"Shit!" he exclaimed, trust those two to start before time with this flashy method.

Holding up his wand he said 'Partis Temporus' and the flames before him split, leaving space enough for him to run past them.

He disapparated in the same instant, appearing right behind the twins and cried 'Ventus'

A gust of wind arose and blew the girls back, Jade scrambled to her feet shouting 'Petrificus Totalis,' which Harry blocked by throwing up a silver shield which made the hex rebound. Hailey the other twin who had been standing next to her sister blocked it effectively and threw a spell at him,

'Defodio' she cried, a purple beam shooting out of her wand and hitting the wall behind Harry producing a grating sound.

Turning around reflexively he saw the words 'You're dead meat!' gouged on the wall above him in large ugly letters, rolling his eyes at the childish prank he said "Not your best line Hailey!"

"Had to do it" she said, the smile on her face widening slyly, suddenly careening out of the way as a bolt of light came whizzing from behind her,

'Sectusempra' Jade cried coming out from behind Hailey, using Harry's momentary lapse of attention as an opportunity to strike back.

Harry felt his arm slice open and trying not to howl with pain, he held his wand above his head and said 'Protego Totalum' a dome-like shield formed around him and hiding him from his enemies for a minute. Placing his hand over his wound he said 'Vulnera Sanentur' and his hand glowed blue closing the wide bleeding gash.

He had just started to feel his shield flicker and give way so he disapparated just before he heard the words 'Bombarda Maxima' being shouted at him.

'Crap' he thought 'these girls mean business.'

Appearing beside Hailey he shouted 'Locomotor Mortis' locking her legs together and as she fell over looking surprised, he stood pointing his wand at her and said 'Stupefy' knocking her out of the duel.

Enraged Jade disapparated and appeared above Harry's head crying 'Expelliarmus' before landing on the floor with a loud thud.

With unnatural speed and magically enhanced reflexes, Harry rolled away from under her and got up kneeling on the floor with one knee extended called out, 'Falatheil.'

His wand was instantly replaced by a golden bow which appeared with a wave of magic and everyone sitting by the sides watching, gasped. It was very beautiful and emitted great power. Harry held out his other hand and a golden arrow appeared.

Knocking it to the bow with swift, effortless movements, he aimed and shot at Jade. Just before it touched her he cried out 'Aranea' and the arrow reshaped into a spidery web with sparkling, fine, golden threads that enveloped Jade completely within it knocking the wand out of her hands and dragging her for a short distance with the force of its impact, completely immobilizing her.

Walking up to her, Harry asked "Do you yield?"

Jade stuck her tongue out at him but nodded smiling.

Harry said 'Finite Incantatum' and released her, only to find himself being thumped by a grinning Draco and cheered on by the rest of the class. A mere thirteen year old had taken on two strong fighters and had won definitely not something you see every day.

Mr. Caerwyn Jones looked proudly at the two boys and smiled secretly to himself, they had indeed accomplished a great deal in a short span of time and were almost already better than the rest.

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It had been quite some time since the mass breakout in Azkaban and since then, Harry had been to the library several times to borrow the newspaper that had had Peter's article in it and also several books on Azkaban.

He and Draco had been studying them relentlessly for some clue but had come up with nothing. They found out that only Aurors and Dementors were allowed inside Azkaban and escaping it was virtually impossible.

Standing in front of the target during Weapons Class practice almost absentmindedly shooting arrows, Harry turned to Draco who was standing beside him holding his dagger and said "You know what's really strange?"

"What?" Draco asked frowning at him.

"The daily prophet on a daily bases has been writing about the escapees and how we should stay safe, but did you notice that they've not even once mentioned how the death eaters escaped the supposedly impenetrable fortress during either one of the breakouts? It's weird, either they know how it happened and don't want to reveal it which makes no sense or they haven't yet figured it out themselves!"

"You're right" Draco said extending his arm backwards a bit and throwing the dagger at the target, watching it as it whistled towards its goal "I've started to feel that Peter Pettigrew and the six death eaters escaping seems almost coincidental. The really strange part of it being, that you would expect the six to have escaped first since they are ten times stronger than Peter. So how was it that he, the weakest of them all, managed it first?"

"Hmmm…" Harry said twanging the string on his bow, "that actually makes a lot of sense, Peter was weak, his greatest power being his animagus form and that was something people were already aware about since the Marauders had registered after school, so unless he had help…."

Harry suddenly started to frown looking deep in thought, when he raised his head and looked at Draco with something akin to fear in his eyes "If Peter used help escaping the prison, then I think I know who his accomplice was."

"Whom?" asked Draco looking quizzically at him.

"Lord Voldemort" Harry said causing Draco to drop the dagger that he had just caught after it had rebounded back to him on striking the target.

"Okay…umm Harry that's really far-fetched, I mean how did you come up with such random reasoning?"

"It's not random" Harry whispered "I think if I showed you something you might agree with me, but we're going to have to prove my theory later on just to be sure."

"Show me" Draco said and followed Harry who was heading towards the library.

After reaching the library Harry pulled out the newspaper which had Peter's story in it and pointed at the article below it.

Draco took the paper from him and began reading the article with curiosity. It was about two murders that had happened in some village near the port and that it was infested by weird snakes, looking at Harry puzzled Draco handed him back the paper questioningly.

"Notice the name of the village?" Harry asked.

"Yeah and?"

"It's in a place that is only few miles away from where Azkaban is supposed to be, and those two brutal murders and the sudden appearance of snakes makes it looks suspiciously like what I had heard the last year when Snape said it was a sign of Voldemort. What I'm about to say is confidential, but I know for a fact that the Auror's only way to get into the prison is by boat from a village with has the same name as the one the newspaper! I remember dad had told us about it long ago when he had worked as an Auror. This is me hypothetically speaking, but I suspect that somehow Voldemort possessed one of them and rescued Peter."

Draco looked stunned at the idea and then asked "So why Peter, why not one of the stronger death- eaters?"

"Because he used Peter for his rat form, only Peter would have been able to sneak back in so easily to rescue the others, even Scrimgeour agreed that it was nigh impossible to nab a rat."

"Harry, if you're right, then what on earth, are we going to do about it? The Ministry doesn't have a clue that The Dark Lord has returned and they probably haven't even dreamed of the possibility of it ever happening, they think he's dead."

"Well, I think we have to still find proof that I could be right, it is warped reasoning on my part, so I think first we have to visit this village and ask people what had really happened. Maybe we could use one of our free weekends?"

"Maybe" Draco said, looking down at the ratty man in the picture that Harry held in hands.