Chapter 163: Breakout

1st November 1995, Hogwarts Earth 2

(Harry Potter POV)

Harry was especially cautious today. It was the day after Halloween, and for some reason nothing horrible had happened to him yet. This had never happened before, ever since he came to Hogwarts. For some reason the day was cursed. It was bad enough that it was the anniversary of his parents’ deaths, but dangerous situations and inconvenient surprises kept following him every year. He fought a troll in his first year, found the first Basilisk victim in his second, Sirius Black – who he thought to be a criminal at the time – had broken into his dorm room I his third year, and he had been chosen as a champion to a dangerous and deadly tournament the previous year.

So yeah, Harry Potter was waiting for the shoe to drop, for the surprise to unveil itself and darken his day even further. For some reason, nothing happened when he woke up and got down to the common room. He had thought that the Halloween curse was broken.

He should have known better, and realized that it was still a thing when he entered the great hall and his suspicions were proven right by Hermione who had given him today’s daily prophet.

In big bold letters was the title of ‘MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN, BLACK CONSIDERED AS THE MAIN SUSPECT.’

The news had shocked the Boy-Who-Lived to the core. How the hell was the Ministry this incompetent, that they lost pretty much every inner circle Death Eater in a single night. Harry knew from Sirius that Voldemort had allied himself to the dementors during the previous war, but he thought that the Ministry had at least a minimum of competence, so as to not let just anyone stroll into the prison and break out some of the worst wizards and witches in recent history. Considering the crimes that were listed in the article, Sirius' supposed crimes would have made him a boy scout in the Death Eater squad.

From torture, flaying, treason, mass murder, use of the unforgivable curses, they were monsters. Hell, every single one of them had at least fifty kills under their belts and those were only the ones where the victims were wizards, that the Ministry knows of. How people thought that Sirius was Voldemort’s right hand man was a joke. It was probably an actual Death Eater who had started this rumor. And as you know, rumors might as well be considered fact in the wizarding world.

Harry looked up and noticed that most of the students didn’t seem to care about the Azkaban escapees. Apparently since the Ministry didn’t make a fuss about them, like say that they would guard Hogwarts or do something stupid like send the dementors to Hogwarts again. The other students kept talking about their everyday lives, like Quidditch or homework, completely ignoring the danger that awaited them outside these halls.

The last Potter looked up to the teacher’s table, where the atmosphere was unsurprisingly grim. McGonagall and Dumbledore were deep in conversation looking extremely grave. Professor Sprout had the Prophet propped against a bottle of ketchup and was reading the front page with such concentration that she was not noticing the gentle drip of egg yolk falling into her lap from her stationary spoon. Most curious though was Professor Sayre’s reaction who had simply raised her eyebrows for a second before going back to normal. It was like she was slightly surprised but not overly so.

Harry ignored his best friends little squabbling and decided to speak with Sayre about what happened. She was the only professor that actually listened to him and somehow understood him deeply. It was so odd; he was so comfortable talking with her. Harry had never been this comfortable around people, the Dursleys had beaten that into him when he was younger.

The last Potter waited until the defense professor finished and followed her to her office. The woman turned around and smiled, “Ah, Mr. Potter, what can I do for you today?”

Harry ignored the attempt for small talk, “What can you tell me about the Azkaban escapees?”

“Ah, the inner circle members. At least the ones that were caught after Voldemort’s fall. Some of the vilest men and women in their generation. They were a generation that practiced the dark arts since they were children, and well, developing minds have a hard time coping with the constant negativity that the dark arts require. The result was an entire generation of wizards and witches that are completely unhinged. Chief among them is Bellatrix Lestrange, or as she was known before her forced marriage, Bellatrix Black. The woman had broken down from all the hate, anger and her family’s expectations. Voldemort was there to pick up the pieces and then he molded her into his personal attack dog. She would kill her own family for him, she has tried to kill her own sister Andromeda, for him, because she married a muggle. Other than that, be very careful with Dolohov, he was one of the most formidable fighters in the previous war. I think he was even a dueling champion at a time. And finally, Augustus Rookwood, one of the most dangerous men in Voldemort’s camp, not for his fighting ability but for his knowledge. He's the only Unspeakable that has betrayed his post in over a century. Let’s just say if he wasn’t such a high profile target, the Department of Mysteries would have disposed of him as soon as he was outed as a traitor. The rest, while formidable, aren’t that big of a deal.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Harry stumbled; he hadn’t expected her response to be this detailed, “You didn’t look surprised about it.”

The defense professor snorted, “I expected this to happen at some point, but I didn’t expect it to happen this soon,” at his confused look she continued, “Voldemort, as a wizard, is just one man. What made him dangerous are his allies. Powerful wizards and witches are born every generation, what makes Voldemort so dangerous is the fact that he became more than a man in the eyes of the wizarding world. The truth is that Voldemort cultivated the fear of his enemies, of the general population. He didn’t even have to show himself, his Death Eaters were enough. If you look up how many times Voldemort actually showed himself, I guarantee that it would be less than twenty times. Although, he probably fought Dumbledore for half of those times. Voldemort the wizard isn’t much of a problem, Voldemort the movement, is very dangerous.”

“How do you know all this?”

The woman snorted, “Oh, Harry, I make it my business to know these things,” the woman looked away and changed the topic of the conversation, “I knew your mother, you know.”

Harry stiffened as she continued, “Brilliant witch, very kind, compassionate, and she had a fiery temper. Merlin help you if you got on her bad side. Your father, though, I never liked him much.”

“Why?” the young Gryffindor asked.

“He was a bit of a bully, back in the day.”

Harry looked shocked, disgusted. He immediately wanted to disagree with her, to scream at the witch who was speaking ill of his father. Instead, he gritted his teeth, “Explain…”

The woman didn’t seem to care about his aggressiveness, “Don’t get me wrong, he was a good person, and he cleaned up his act in his seventh year, but he tended to be very biased against Slytherins. It first started as harmless pranks, but he chose to target Professor Snape in particular, and it became harassment.”

“Why?”

“Snape was a childhood friend of your mother’s, but they stopped speaking with each other when they were around your age. There was some big fight, I think, and Snape chose to side with the Death Eaters. Don’t judge him too much, he was a brilliant young man in Slytherin who was angry at the world and wanted someone to acknowledge him. Voldemort took advantage of this and got an amazing young wizard in his camp. Anyway, James particularly chose to target Snape just because of his closeness with your mother. He was infatuated with her for years, so it was easy to take it out on what he thought to be his rival for Lily’s affection.”

Harry was disbelieving, his mother and Snape were childhood friends? “Then why does he treat me like this?”

The woman smiled warmly, “You have no idea how much Severus Snape hates James Potter. I know that he has saved your life out of respect for his friendship with your mother, he still couldn’t bare to like someone that looked like James Potter. I’m not defending him; it’s petty, childish, and pathetic for a man his age to take his anger with a dead man out on his son. But you have to realize that the white knight image that people describe your father as, is not true. He was a person with flaws just like anyone else.”

“But, didn’t he save Snape’s life? Dumbledore said so, himself.”

The woman snorted, “yes, but what he didn’t tell you is what he saved him from. Black ended up taking a prank too far and invited Snape to the Shrieking Shack during a full moon. Snape was almost killed by Lupin but your father saved his life. He didn’t know what Black had done and acted by instinct. Dumbledore hushed things up, and the most they got was a detention. Understandably, Snape was furious about the encounter.”

Harry was floored. Everything he had learnt about his parents was a lie. Professor Sayre continued, “the truth of the matter is that your mother was too good for your father, even if he came from an old rich family. I was surprised when she started dating him in her seventh year. A shame what happened to her, but at least, you’re proof of her brilliance. Your survival is proof that a muggleborn was able to trick a dark lord into killing himself, and giving her son one of the most powerful protections ever made.”

Harry looked at the woman in front of him pleadingly, “Then why won’t you fight her murderer? Why wouldn’t you oppose Voldemort?”

The woman’s face softened, “I would say that this doesn’t concern me, and it doesn’t, but I don’t think that you’ll accept that as an answer. The truth is quite a bit simpler, other than me not trusting Dumbledore, for many reasons, I think that defeating Voldemort before he reveals himself would be a mistake. As I told you, Voldemort is a movement where the entire premise revolves around people’s fear over Voldemort. Him coming back from the dead is something like that. Everyone thinks that your survival was a fluke of magic, that Voldemort is still all powerful. The only way to stop a movement, an ideology, would be to defeat its core in public, which means that someone will have to defeat Voldemort in single combat in front of a crowd. If I just snuck into his base and killed him, then no one would even acknowledge what happened and another dark lord would rise decades later picking up from where Voldemort left off.”

“You told me about the prophecy, I’m supposed to fight him…”

Professor Sayre snorted, “Kiddo, you’re a fifteen year old brat that hasn’t even completed his OWLs and you think that you’ll beat a magical genius with decades of experience? He might be half mad, but it’s more than enough to snap you like a twig in seconds. For Merlin’s sake, your magic hasn’t even matured properly yet. He was messing with you before and you had luck on your side, fighting him directly will get you nowhere.”

“But what about his Death Eaters, can you teach me how to fight them?”

The woman sighed and nodded, “Alright. Consider this to be your first lesson.”

“What is it?”

The woman chuckled, “Reality as you know it is but an illusion. You need to hone your senses, to differentiate between what is true and what is false.”

Suddenly, gravity seemed to have reversed itself, and Harry was pulled away to the side. The wall sort of separated itself, revealing a familiar dark damp room. This was the chamber of secrets. But there was something wrong, something horrible, the basilisk wasn’t dead. Harry ran for his life with his eyes closed.

What the fuck was going on?