Chapter 44:

Hermione's daily prophet arrived as usual the next morning, except what ever was on the front page caused her to give a yelp in which everyone in the vicinity heard and turned to stare at her.

"What?" said Harry and Ron together as Alicia looked at her, surprised at the sound she'd made like many others.

For an answer she spread the newspaper on the table in front of them and pointed at ten black-and-white photographs that filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards' faces and the tenth, a witch's. Some of the people in the photographs were silently jeering; others were tapping their fingers on the frame of their pictures, looking insolent. Each picture was captioned with a name and the crime for which the person had been sent to Azkaban.

Antonin Dolohov, read the legend beneath a wizard with a long, pale, twisted face who was sneering up at them, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.

Augustus Rookwood, said the caption beneath a pockmarked man with greasy hair who was leaning against the edge of his picture, looking bored, convicted of leaking Ministry of Magic Secrets to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Alicia looked at the nine wizards before turning to the witch. She was easily recognisable as Alicia had seen her on a couple occasions already, one in a picture, another in a pensieve.

She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture and she glared through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. Like Sirius, she retained vestiges of great good looks, but something — perhaps Azkaban — had taken most of her beauty.

Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Along the very top, for the headline of the paper in bold letters read:

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN

MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS "RALLYING POINT" FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

"Black?" said Harry loudly. "Not — ?"

"Shhh!" whispered Hermione desperately. "Not so loud — just read it!"

The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban.

Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening, and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.

"We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped," said Fudge last night. "Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals and beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached."

Alicia felt terribly angry. There were so many signs that Voldemort was back but they were resulting in blaming Sirius, when there had been no accounts or stories of him doing anything wrong since he'd escaped.

"There you are, Harry," said Ron, looking awestruck. "That's why he was happy last night…"

"I don't believe this," snarled Harry, "Fudge is blaming the breakout on Sirius?"

"Of course he is." Alicia grumbled

"What other options does he have?" said Hermione bitterly. "He can hardly say, 'Sorry everyone, Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort' — stop whimpering, Ron — 'and now Voldemort's worst supporters have broken out too.' I mean, he's spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn't he?"

Hermione ripped open the newspaper and began to read the report inside while Harry looked around the Great Hall.

"We knew this was going to happen." Alicia mumbled as she put her head into her hands. "Voldemort said in the graveyard that his followers who were loyal and locked up would be freed." she banged the table and many people looked at her. "Fudge is an idiot. He's going to let the world fall to ruins!"

"Oh my —" said Hermione wonderingly, still staring at the newspaper.

"What now?" said Harry quickly, he seemed rather jumpy all of a sudden.

"It's… horrible," said Hermione, looking shaken. She folded back page ten of the newspaper and handed it back to Harry and Ron.

TRAGIC DEMISE OF

MINISTRY OF MAGIC WORKER

St. Mungo's Hospital promised a full inquiry last night after Ministry of Magic worker Broderick Bode, 49, was discovered dead in his bed, strangled by a potted-plant. Healers called to the scene were unable to revive Mr. Bode, who had been injured in a workplace accident some weeks prior to his death. Healer Miriam Strout, who was in charge of Mr. Bode's ward at the time of the incident, has been suspended on full pay and was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokeswizard for the hospital said in a statement, "St. Mungo's deeply regrets the death of Mr. Bode, whose health was improving steadily prior to this tragic accident.

"We have strict guidelines on the decorations permitted on our wards but it appears that Healer Strout, busy over the Christmas period, overlooked the dangers of the plant on Mr. Bode's bedside table. As his speech and mobility improved, Healer Strout encouraged Mr. Bode to look after the plant himself, unaware that it was not an innocent Flitterbloom, but a cutting of Devil's Snare, which, when touched by the convalescent Mr. Bode, throttled him instantly.

"St. Mungo's is as yet unable to account for the presence of the plant on the ward and asks any witch or wizard with information to come forward."

"Bode…" said Ron. "Bode. It rings a bell…"

"We saw him," Hermione whispered. "In St. Mungo's, remember? He was in the bed opposite Lockhart's, just lying there, staring at the ceiling."

"Wasn't he mumbling in a different language?" Alicia said and Hermione nodded.

"And we saw the Devil's Snare arrive. She — the Healer — said it was a Christmas present…" Alicia hit herself in the forehead.

"How come we didn't recognise Devil's Snare…? We've seen it before… we could've stopped this from happening…" Harry believed

"Who expects Devil's Snare to turn up in a hospital disguised as a potted plant?" said Ron sharply. "It's not our fault, whoever sent it to the bloke is to blame! They must be a real prat, why didn't they check what they were buying?"

"Yeah right, like this was an accident." Alicia scoffed

"Oh come on, Ron!" said Hermione shakily, "I don't think anyone could put Devil's Snare in a pot and not realise it tries to kill whoever touches it? This — this was murder… A clever murder, as well… If the plant was sent anonymously, how's anyone ever going to find out who did it?"

"You know, I bet you'll find that the workplace accident wasn't an accident either…" Alicia thought "Maybe the person sent the Devil's snare to finish the job." they looked at her and she shrugged.

"That's literally a guess though." she made a point of.

"I met Bode," Harry suddenly said slowly. "I saw him at the Ministry with your dad…"

Ron's mouth fell open.

"I've heard Dad talk about him at home! He was an Unspeakable — he worked in the Department of Mysteries!"

They looked at one another for a moment, then Hermione pulled the newspaper back toward her, closed it, glared for a moment at the pictures of the ten escaped Death Eaters on the front, then leapt to her feet.

"Where are you going?" said Ron, startled.

"To send a letter," said Hermione, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. "It… well, I don't know whether… but it's worth trying… and I'm the only one who can…"

"I hate it when she does that," grumbled Ron as he, Alicia and Harry got up from the table and made their own, slower way out of the Great Hall. "Would it kill her to tell us what she's up to for once? It'd take her about ten more seconds, Alicia what's she on about?" he demanded of her.

"I, have no clue." Alicia said and the boys looked at her surprised.

"But that never happens — hey, Hagrid!" Ron said, his voice moving from shock to cheerfulness as they saw the giant man.

Hagrid was standing beside the doors into the entrance hall, waiting for a crowd of Ravenclaws to pass. He was still as heavily bruised as he had been on the day he had come back from his mission to the giants and there was a new cut right across the bridge of his nose.

"All righ', you two?" he said, trying to muster a smile but managing only a kind of pained grimace.

"Are you okay, Hagrid?" asked Harry, following him as he lumbered after the Ravenclaws.

"Fine, fine," said Hagrid with a feeble assumption of airiness; he waved a hand and narrowly missed concussing a frightened-looking Professor Vector, who was passing. "Jus' busy, yeh know, usual stuff — lessons ter prepare — couple o' salamanders got scale rot — an' I'm on probation," he mumbled.

"You're on probation?" said Ron very loudly, so that many students passing looked around curiously.

"Ron!" Alicia hit him.

"Sorry — I mean — you're on probation?" he whispered.

"Yeah," said Hagrid. "'S'no more'n I expected, ter tell yeh the truth. Yeh migh' not've picked up on it, bu' that inspection didn' go too well, yeh know… anyway," he sighed deeply. "Bes' go an rub a bit more chili powder on them salamanders or their tails'll be hangin' off 'em next. See yeh, Alicia… Harry… Ron…"

He trudged away, out the front doors and down the stone steps into the damp grounds.

"Could today get any worse?" Alicia groaned.

The fact that Hagrid was now on probation became common knowledge within the school over the next few days, but hardly anybody appeared to be upset about it; indeed, some people, Draco Malfoy prominent among them, seemed positively gleeful. As for the freakish death of an obscure Department of Mysteries employee in St. Mungo's, Harry, Alicia, Ron, and Hermione seemed to be the only people who knew or cared. There was only one topic of conversation in the corridors now: the ten escaped Death Eaters, whose story had finally filtered through the school from those few people who read the newspapers. Rumours were flying that some of the convicts had been spotted in Hogsmeade, that they were supposed to be hiding out in the Shrieking Shack and that they were going to break into Hogwarts, just as Sirius Black had done.

Those who came from Wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these Death Eaters spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemort's; the crimes they had committed during the days of Voldemort's reign of terror were legendary. There were relatives of their victims among the Hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors: Susan Bones, who had an uncle, aunt, and cousins who had all died at the hands of one of the ten, said miserably during Herbology that she now had a good idea what it felt like to be Harry or Alicia.

"And I don't know how you stand it, it's horrible," she said bluntly, dumping far too much dragon manure on her tray of Screechsnap seedlings, causing them to wriggle and squeak in discomfort.

"You sort of get used to it." Alicia murmured.

It was true that Harry and Alicia were the subject of much renewed muttering and pointing in the corridors these days, yet there seemed to be a difference in the tone of the whisperers' voices. They sounded curious rather than hostile now, and once or twice snatches of conversation were heard that suggested that the speakers were not satisfied with the Prophet's version of how and why ten Death Eaters had managed to break out of Azkaban fortress. In their confusion and fear, these doubters now seemed to be turning to the only other explanation available to them, the one that Harry, Alicia and Dumbledore had been expounding since the previous year.

It was not only the students' mood that had changed. It was now quite common to come across two or three teachers conversing in low, urgent whispers in the corridors, breaking off their conversations the moment they saw students approaching.

"They obviously can't talk freely in the staffroom anymore," said Hermione in a low voice, as she, Alicia, Harry, and Ron passed Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout huddled together outside the Charms classroom one day. "Not with Umbridge there."

"Reckon they know anything new?" said Ron, gazing back over his shoulder at the three teachers.

"If they do, we're not going to hear about it, are we?" said Harry angrily. "Not after Decree… What number are we on now?"

For new signs had appeared on the house notice boards the morning after news of the Azkaban breakout:

— BY ORDER OF —

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts

Teachers are hereby banned from giving students any information that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-six.

Signed:

Dolores Jane Umbridge

high inquisitor

This latest decree had been the subject of a great number of jokes among the students. Lee Jordan had pointed out to Umbridge that by the terms of the new rule she was not allowed to tell Fred and George off for playing Exploding Snap in the back of the class.

"Exploding Snap's got nothing to do with Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor! That's not information relating to your subject!"

When they next saw Lee, the back of his hand was bleeding rather badly. Harry recommended essence of murtlap.

"Yes well they wouldn't have told us what they're talking about even if they weren't stopped by that decree." Alicia said.

It seemed the breakout of Azkaban had done nothing to abash Umbridge after the catastrophe considering it happened right under her beloved Fudge's nose. Instead it seemed her desire to control everything and anything at Hogwarts had intensified. If anything she was more determined to sack at least one teacher, the only question was, whether it'd be Trelawney or Hagrid first.

Umbridge was in every Care of Magical Creatures class and according to Ron and Harry she was also in every Divination class. It seemed Trelawney wasn't it taking it very well.

Hagrid wasn't either. Though he seemed to be following Hermione and Alicia's advice and had shown them nothing more frightening than a crup, a creature indistinguishable from a Jack Russell terrier except for its forked tail, since before Christmas, he also seemed to have lost his nerve. He was oddly distracted and jumpy in lessons, losing the thread of what he was saying while talking to the class, answering questions wrongly and glancing anxiously at Umbridge all the time. He was also more distant with Alicia, Harry, Ron, and Hermione than he had ever been before, expressly forbidding them to visit him after dark.

"If she catches yeh, it'll be all of our necks on the line," he told them flatly, and with no desire to do anything that jeopardised his job further, they abstained from walking down to his hut in the evenings.

It seemed with nothing else to distract him, Harry decided to throw himself into the D.A. meetings. He had Alicia helping him plan, practice and decide on the lessons, dates and spells they were going to do. Of course she didn't mind and with the escape of ten more Death Eaters, those within the meetings were working much harder as well, including Zacharias Smith. However, nobody saw this improvement more pronounced than in Neville. The news of his parents' attacker's escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him. He had not once mentioned his meeting with Alicia, Harry, Ron, and Hermione on the closed ward in St. Mungo's, and taking their lead from him, they had kept quiet about it too. Nor had he said anything on the subject of Bellatrix and her fellow torturers' escape; in fact, he barely spoke during D.A. meetings anymore, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and countercurse Alicia or Harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents, working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when the twins taught them the Shield Charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville.

Unlike Neville in the D.A. meetings however Harry was not getting any better at Occlumency, and ever since they'd started Alicia had noticed the change in Harry and their scars, which always seemed to be prickling. Alicia was working very hard at the sessions, having even gone back to the room of Requirement to replace the Legilimency book, which she'd finished, with an Occlumency book, which she read to Harry some evenings to educate them on the art.

"I think we should, a couple nights a week, give it a shot just with ourselves. It'll be better for you if you're not getting all these emotional signals all the time and good for me to not feel your pain every time you do." Alicia said one night. Harry had admitted to her that he felt terribly like he was turning into a kind of aerial that was tuned in to tiny fluctuations in Voldemort's mood, which he blamed on Occlumency with Snape.

"And how do we do that?" Harry wondered

"Well, during our lessons I've been focusing on the feeling of Snape in my head more than pushing him out so that I know when my memories are being invaded." Alicia admitted

"I noticed he didn't seem very happy with you." Harry mumbled

"From there I can work out how to either divert my memories."

"Divert them?" Harry asked

"Look, from this book I've learnt that very skilled Occlumens can suppress only the thoughts, emotions, and memories that would contradict whatever it is an Occlumens wishes a legilimens to believe. In other words say someone wanted to know you're weakness you suppress those memories, emotions and thoughts so they can't find them, but you don't necessarily block the person out." Alicia explained "So far getting Snape out of my head as proven hard… though this is supposed to be harder." she sighed "I think directing thoughts sounds easier than clearing my entire brain when there's so much going on."

"So how does that help us practice?"

"Well I can get into your head, but you never know when I'm there, if you can work that out then you can work on blocking or diverting me." Alicia said "It'll allow you to relax more if I do it than Snape after all, and I doubt it'd be as painful."

"But what about the other way around, I can't see your memories." Harry believed

"You probably can actually considering, it seems, Voldemort can do it to you." Alicia shrugged "I got no idea how though,"

Harry didn't take long to agree to the extra practice sessions with Alicia, especially after Hermione agreed.

"You're the one Voldemort can access Alicia through, as long as you block yours then Alicia should be fine." she thought.

"It's not as easy as it seems Hermione, especially as it seems to be getting worse as we practice." Harry mumbled

"Maybe it's a bit like an illness," said Hermione, looking concerned. "A fever or something. It has to get worse before it gets better."

"It's lessons with Snape that are making it worse," said Harry flatly. "I'm getting sick of my scar hurting, and I'm getting bored walking down that corridor every night." He rubbed his forehead angrily. "I just wish the door would open, I'm sick of standing staring at it —"

"I just wonder what's on the other side. Department of Mysteries, it's so curious." Alicia admitted who'd been subjected to most of her nights seeing the same thing, although not always.

"That's not funny," said Hermione sharply. "Dumbledore doesn't want you to have dreams about that corridor at all, or he wouldn't have asked Snape to teach you Occlumency. You're just going to have to work a bit harder in your lessons."

"I am working!" said Harry, nettled. "You try it sometime, Snape trying to get inside your head, it's not a bundle of laughs, you know!"

"Maybe…" said Ron slowly.

"Maybe what?" said Hermione rather snappishly.

"Maybe it's not Harry's fault he can't close his mind," said Ron darkly.

"What do you mean?" said Hermione.

"Well, maybe Snape isn't really trying to help Harry…"

Harry and Hermione stared at him. Ron looked darkly and meaningfully from one to the other.

"Wow, you don't change your spots do you Ron." Alicia sighed as she understood where he was going. Harry and Hermione glanced at her before Ron continued.

"Maybe," he said again in a lower voice, "he's actually trying to open Harry's mind a bit wider… make it easier for You-Know —"

"Shut up, Ron," said Hermione angrily. "How many times have you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough."

"He used to be a Death Eater," said Ron stubbornly. "And we've never seen proof that he really swapped sides…"

"Dumbledore trusts him," Hermione repeated. "And if we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."

"Well I still think we should try without Snape." Alicia said to Harry. To which he'd agreed.