The Great Hall was filled with the smell of food, and a line of owls flew in through the morning light as they always did, wings were beating past the ceiling as they scattered piles of letters and newspapers down in front of the students.
This was, by all accounts, an utterly ordinary sight in the daily life of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
In fact, with the O.W.L. exams now over, the mood among the fifth-years was more relaxed than usual. But this time, things were different.
When many of the young wizards picked up their letters or newspapers and skimmed a few lines, their faces went pale in an instant.
Some of them couldn't help gasping.
Some let their cutlery clatter down onto their plates.
Others cried out in outright shock.
Almost in an instant, the Hall, which had been fairly quiet, erupted into chaos, as if someone had thrown in a Dungbomb.
Cries of alarm, whispers, and the scraping of chairs all tangled together, shattering the morning calm in the space of a breath.
"What happened? What happened? What's going on?"
Listening to the gasps and murmurs rising and falling all around him, Ron could no longer contain himself.
He'd just shaken off the shadow of exams and was ready to eat and drink to his heart's content, savouring this unburdened breakfast.
Seeing the scene now, he immediately grew restless, glancing this way and that.
He even craned his neck like a curious goose, eager to find out what on earth had happened.
Harry's curiosity, too, was thoroughly piqued.
But unlike Ron, he turned directly to the ever-composed Sherlock beside him.
"Sherlock, do you know what's going on?"
As the saying went: when in doubt, ask Sherlock.
And time and again, in moments like this, Sherlock never disappointed.
His gaze swept calmly over the Hall, taking in every panicked face and every murmured whisper, and then he nodded slowly.
"I do."
"What is it?" Harry pressed at once, a note of barely-hidden tension in his voice.
"No need to rush, dear friend. I imagine you'll have your answer soon enough."
No sooner had Sherlock spoken than an owl, feathers ruffled and looking utterly exhausted, came flapping down onto their table. A moment later, a crumpled roll of parchment landed with a smack in the plate in front of Ron, splattering a few drops of pumpkin juice. "Errol!"
Ron stared at the ancient owl that belonged exclusively to the Weasley family and snatched up the parchment in astonishment, his fingertips trembling slightly. "This is Mum's handwriting—"
Fred, George, and Ginny recognized their family owl at a glance too, and crowded around Ron at once, their eyes full of urgency. At the same moment, Hermione received her subscription copy of the Daily Prophet.
She unfolded the paper at once, her eyes were darting across the front-page headline.
The next instant—
She and Ginny let out a short, sharp cry of shock at almost the exact same moment.
"Azkaban has been broken into, Percy is hurt. Your father and I are going to St Mungo's now.
Stay put at school and don't worry, we'll send word as soon as we can—Mum."
As Fred read out the words on the parchment in a tense, hoarse voice, the four Weasley children's faces changed at the same time. Ginny's eyes went red instantly.
Ron pressed his lips into a thin, flat line.
The smiles on Fred and George's faces vanished without a trace.
The fewer the words, the bigger the trouble.
Azkaban—the place once said to be the safest in the wizarding world.
"Once," because, going by what was currently known, two people had already managed to break out of it.
The first was Barty Crouch Jr.
But at least he'd had a father working at the Ministry secretly helping him, and even then, he'd only gotten out through his devoted mother's sacrifice.
As for the second, Sirius Black, he'd escaped entirely on his own.
These two incidents rather undercut the whole notion of "the safest place in the wizarding world."
And yet, even so, Azkaban still counted, in most people's minds, as an ironclad fortress that let them sleep easy at night.
Back when Dumbledore had first suggested freeing Azkaban from the Dementors' control, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge had said that the moment he brought such a proposal forward, he'd be thrown out of office on the spot.
It was no exaggeration to say this reflected the views of a great many people in the wizarding world.
It was precisely because they knew Dementors stood guard at Azkaban that people like these could sleep soundly at night.
After all, that was where the losers of the last war were held, no small number of them vicious, dangerous criminals.
But now, Azkaban had actually been breached.
If that alone was shocking enough, the news of Percy's injury was undoubtedly salt in the wound.
Although the Weasley children at school weren't especially close with this particular brother—had in fact grown somewhat distant from him over his officious ambition and pride—the moment they learned he'd been admitted to St Mungo's, every one of their hearts still clenched tight.
Blood was thicker than water, after all.
But Molly Weasley's brief note had left out so much that everyone was still, so to speak, utterly lost.
Percy, a desk clerk—how could he possibly be caught up in something as enormous as the breach of Azkaban?
Fortunately, Hermione had by now spread the Daily Prophet flat across the table for everyone to see together.
The front page took up an entire spread, printed with over a dozen black-and-white photographs, men and women both, though more men than women.
Some of them sneered silently within their photographs, eyes dark with malice.
Some tapped arrogantly at the edges of their frames with their fingers, an air of contempt about them.
Others wore expressions of pure menace, as though they might burst free of the page at any moment.
Beneath each photograph, a name and the crime that had sent them to Azkaban were clearly printed.
Antonin Dolohov, a man with a pale, twisted, long face, sneered coldly.
His crime: the brutal murder of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.
Augustus Rookwood, a man with a greasy head of hair and a pockmarked face, leaned against the edge of his photograph with a weary look.
His crime: leaking Ministry secrets to the Dark Lord over a long period of time.
But the most eye-catching photograph of all was that of a woman.
Or rather, it was hard for anyone looking at these photographs not to be drawn to her.
Her long black hair looked wild and unkempt in the photograph, as though it hadn't been combed in a very long time.
Beneath heavy lids, her eyes glareds fixedly at everyone reading the paper, brimming with madness and malice.
Her high-bridged nose gave an impression of iron will, and her thin lips curved in a faint, haughty, contemptuous smile.
Even so, one could still tell, looking at that photograph, that she must have been a beautiful woman in her youth.
Only now, that beauty had long since been consumed by savagery and madness.
Bellatrix Lestrange.
Her crime: torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom to the point of permanent disability.
Above the photographs, in bold, striking type, ran a headline meant to shake the reader to the core.
MASS BREAKOUT AT AZKABAN
"Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed in a brief statement on Tuesday afternoon that Azkaban prison had suffered the most severe attack in its history."
Hermione pointed at the text on the page and read it aloud in a soft voice, her tone w as quavering slightly with tension:
"'It is with the deepest regret that I must announce the identity of the attacker has been confirmed as the wizard who styles himself the Dark Lord—ah, you all know who I mean—along with his followers.'
Fudge said this while addressing reporters, looking both exhausted and thoroughly dishevelled.
"The core reason for the breach at Azkaban was a mass mutiny among the Dementors, who have made it plain that they refuse to continue working for the Ministry. We believe these Dementors are now serving that fiend.'"
Hermione paused, then went on reading:
"It is understood that the Ministry suffered heavy losses in the attack, with a number of brave Aurors killed in the line of duty.
Several others, including John Dawlish, sustained serious injuries.
Cornelius Fudge admitted that the unrest allowed more than a dozen dangerous convicts to escape, including Bellatrix Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, and Augustus Rookwood.
This includes a number of Death Eaters imprisoned after the Dark Lord's return last year, some of whom also died in the fighting.
Cornelius Fudge has notified the Muggle Prime Minister of the danger posed by the escaped convicts.
The Ministry has now issued an emergency statement declaring Azkaban closed indefinitely, effective immediately, and classifying all Dementors as hostile forces. 'We are doing everything in our power to recapture the fugitives, and we ask the public to remain vigilant and under no circumstances approach these dangerous individuals.'"
"Closed indefinitely? Hostile forces?"
Ron's voice shot up an octave, thick with disbelieving outrage.
"Those revolting things should've been marked hostile ages ago! Why are they only doing it now?
"Professor Dumbledore warned them ages ago that the Dementors couldn't be trusted!"
"What else was he supposed to do?"
Harry said coldly, his eyes were filled with disappointment and disgust.
"Was he supposed to stand in front of every reporter there and say, 'Sorry, Dumbledore actually warned me ages ago that Azkaban's guards might defect to Voldemort, and I just didn't listen'?
"Sorry, Ginny—"
Noticing Ginny flinch violently the instant he said the name, Harry apologized, then went on: "A man like that would never admit it was his own mistake!"
"But Dumbledore warned them more than once, and just before this, even—"
Ron said, worked up, nearly blurting out the business of Malfoy's tip-off before he caught himself.
He stopped himself just in time and changed course.
"Are those bureaucrats' brains stuffed with pixie droppings, or—Ginny, what's wrong?"
Just as Ron was in the middle of railing against the Ministry's incompetence, he noticed Ginny beside him already in tears, her face wet, and asked at once, worried.
Her hands were gripping the hem of her robes tightly, her shoulders were trembling faintly.
Harry, seeing this, was startled too.
He thought at first that mentioning Voldemort's name had frightened the girl, and hurried over to comfort her.
Ginny promptly burst into loud sobs, throwing herself against Harry's shoulder and choking out through her tears: "Percy... this article doesn't even mention Percy...
Mum only said he was hurt, but how badly? What's happening to him right now?"
Harry hadn't expected Ginny's feelings to overflow so suddenly, and with her clinging to him, found himself unable either to push her away or not to.
All he could do was pat Ginny gently on the back, then turn his pleading gaze toward Sherlock and Hermione.
Watching this, Ron couldn't help feeling a little awkward.
He'd been sitting closest to Ginny the whole time, and yet the moment Harry came over, she'd just—
Still, Ginny wasn't wrong: the Daily Prophet article really hadn't mentioned Percy at all.
So, following Harry's lead, he turned toward Sherlock too, and asked on something of a whim.
"Sherlock, do you happen to know—"
"I do." Sherlock's voice came, calm as ever.
"What?" Ron stared at Sherlock in surprise, his eyes went round. "I haven't even said anything yet!"
"Whatever you meant to ask was already written on your face."
Sherlock sighed softly, as though he found answering the question rather dull.
"Percy was hurt because he happened to be accompanying Cornelius Fudge to Azkaban yesterday—incidentally, he volunteered to go along himself."
His tone was flat, but the information he'd given was unmistakably clear.
"What?"
At Sherlock's words, Ron, Fred, and George all widened their eyes at once.
Even Ginny, still slumped against Harry's shoulder, lifted her head, staring at Sherlock in disbelief, her face was full of shock and confusion. Harry and Hermione were staring at him with the same look of astonishment.
"You worked this out too?"
Hermione's expression was one of pure disbelief.
Even as she spoke, she bent her head again, flipping quickly through the paper's inner pages, hoping to find more coverage of it.
"Not worked out. Gemma told me," Sherlock said, calm as ever.
Hermione: "..."
She shot Sherlock a faintly aggrieved look.
Not this again!
By now Sherlock had already drawn a thin roll of parchment from an inner pocket of his robes and unrolled it gently.
The handwriting on it was terse and forceful, the strokes were somewhat hurried, its was obvious that it was written in haste.
"Oh, I remember now!
"It was right when you'd just come back from your morning run—Watson brought a letter.
"Only we were all still lazing about in bed at the time, so we didn't pay it much mind!"
Ron caught on all at once, rubbing his nose as he spoke.
Sherlock nodded, gesturing for everyone to read the letter's contents first.
Sherlock,
The Dark Lord led an assault in force; Azkaban has fallen; Death Eaters have broken out en masse; the Dementors have defected wholesale; Aurors have suffered heavy losses.
Beforehand, Dumbledore had advised reinforcing security and removing the Dementor guards.
To prove his own decision correct, Fudge insisted on going to inspect Azkaban in person; Percy Weasley volunteered to accompany him.
As the attack came without warning, fierce fighting broke out between the two sides.
Percy was struck and wounded by a Death Eater while protecting Fudge. Fortunately, he is in no danger of death and has been sent to St Mungo's for treatment. Writing in haste.
The Ministry is currently in a state of panic; Fudge has called a meeting to organize an emergency response.
Arthur and Penelope are assisting within the Ministry to keep day-to-day operations running.
I am unharmed, but things will be extremely busy going forward, and I may not be able to reach you promptly.
Stay alert.
—Gemma Farley
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