Adelaide was woken up in the middle of the night by an owl that furiously banged on her bedroom window with its beak.
She tumbled out of bed, rushing over to let the bird in. What could possibly be so urgent to send someone an owl at this time?
She quickly took the letter from its ankle and saw it was addressed to her by the Minister. Fumbling to open the seal, she read it quickly,
Come to the Ministry at once.
She ran over to her closet, throwing on a black dress and dark green cloak. She threw her hair into a french twist and made her way over to the fireplace, stepping into the Ministry.
It was about three in the morning, yet people were frantically running all over the place and yelling, it was pure chaos.
She turned her head as another flash of green from the fireplace erupted, Percy Weasley stepped out with just as much urgency and confusion as her.
"Percy what's going on?" she grew incredibly nervous as she realized that the people who were frantically running around the Ministry Atrium were all Aurors.
"I don't know, I just got a letter from the Minister and came as soon as I could."
They both furrowed their brows and made their way through the crowd. Percy grabbed Kingsley Shacklebolt by the shoulder, "Is the Minister in his office?"
Shacklebolt looked down at Percy with a glimmer of disdain, "No. He's in the Ministry auditorium 3. There's been a massive jail break in Azkaban. They were all high-security prisoners."
Adelaide and Percy began to quicken their pace as they raced down to the Ministry's auditorium.
As Percy and Adelaide entered the large room a large screen projected on the wall. Pictures of the most dangerous people Adelaide knew flashed across the screen with their crimes listed below and bits of information like "Last seen in Surrey"
The Minister was reading out loud the pictures as they flashed across the screen and teams of Aurors would run out of the room as their names were called.
Adelaide's heart stopped as she saw her mother and father's picture on the screen with the words, "Last seen in London".
Percy looked at Adelaide with an intense fear in his eyes, she realized she wasn't breathing and with the huge pressure building up in her chest going to her head, she grew incredibly light headed.
She shook herself to focus, she needed to focus. What was she going to do? What was she going to say? How was she going to help the Minister without disrupting the Dark Lord's plans? She felt a chill spread through her spine at the thought of what happened the last time she didn't stop the interference of the Dark Lord's plan.
She ran up to the front of the room, grabbing her necklace and yelling, "EVERYBODY STOP AND LOOK AT ME NOW."
The loud commotion came to a grinding halt as everyone, including the Minister, looked up to her, their blank eyes awaited her further instruction.
"Everybody needs to calm down now. If people see Aurors frantically bursting around they're going to panic. So please, let's just take a moment and stop what you're doing. Call back the Aurors that are on the ground now, let's gather more information, and then act accordingly. There's no way you'll be able to find them while running around aimlessly."
The Auror's shoulders relaxed at her command and the panic left their eyes. The Minister also took a calm breath, "Of course..of course, yes Adelaide's right. Call everyone back. Let's conduct more interviews, review the tips, print out the wanted posters, and consult with the wand tracers to see if they've made any progress." as the Aurors began sending messages to the Aurors out searching for the Death Eaters, The Minister turned to Adelaide, "Ms. Burke, prepare a statement for the press. I don't want anyone to panic, blame it on Sirius Black, but assure everyone that we are working on it and not to worry. I'll place a guard with you. I'm sorry you had to find out this way about your parents, but you'll be safe I assure you."
He called over a younger looking man with an incredibly handsome face, "Elijah, this is Ms. Adelaide Burke. I'll need you to stick by her side and make sure her parents don't try to find her, they are two of the prisoners who escaped last night."
Elijah stared questionably down at Adelaide before giving an unconvincing, "Yes Minister"
Adelaide nervously made her way out of the auditorium, feeling her new guard staring her down ominously. "So..how long have you been and Auror for?" she blurted, trying desperately to avoid his menacing glare.
"Less than six months I graduated from Durmstrang last year, so your parents are Death Eaters?" she could hear the sharpness in his voice.
Adelaide gulped, "Uh..well yeah, they were sent to Azkaban for it."
He pushed into her more, "Curious you'd suggest stopping the hunt..even more curious everyone blindly agreed with you."
She realized her necklace somehow didn't work on him. Of all the people the Minister could assign to her, why why why would she get the one random person who couldn't be affected by her necklace? How was it even possible?
She quickly scrambled to cover for herself snapping, "Maybe because I was right? Did you see the Aurors? Everyone was running around like crazy, there was no way anyone would find a Death Eater in a panicked frenzy like that."
His shoulders still remained tense and his eyes squinted at her. He was one of the most skilled Aurors in the Ministry, especially for his age. He quickly rose through the ranks as he caught Dark Wizards at a much faster rate than the rest. He had a gift passed down from his mother's side of the family called aura reading. By touching someone, he could quickly sense their energy, what they were feeling, who they were, if they were good, evil, neutral. Dark Magic clung to a person like mud on a clean cloth. If they used it, he could tell. It was like a pinch that would cause the hair to stand up on the back of his neck.
She was drenched in Dark Magic. All his internal alarms were sounding the first time he saw her. She clearly had the Ministry wrapped around her finger and was somehow able to convince the entire Ministry to listen to her, he just didn't know how. He had noticed this earlier on in the year over the summer during his Auror training. He spoke to a few people, but they all seemed to say the same exact thing, "Just because her parents were, doesn't mean she is. She's quite a sweet and incredibly intelligent girl, Elijah. Give it up."
He spent most of his time obsessively collecting information on her. Watching her movements, what she did, who she associated with. He just needed to touch her and he would have all the evidence he needed to haul her off to her own cell in Azkaban. She thought she could hide behind the Malfoys for protection? There were a solid few people who saw the Malfoys for who they truly were, pure evil Death Eaters. If he caught the girl who had infiltrated and tricked the entire Ministry purposefully, he would be as famous as MadEye Moody.
She walked tensely towards the Floo Network to go to the Daily Prophet in Diagon Alley. The silence was awful between the two and she definitely sensed that he did not like her at all. She felt like he was on the verge of attacking her.
As she turned her back on him, he reached out and apparated them into the middle of Diagon Alley. When he touched her, he experienced the strangest sensation. There was no good, there was no evil, there was no neutral. The reading was fuzzy, unclear.
She looked at him angrily as they landed in the middle of the empty street, "I thought we were using the Floo." She straightened her cloak, trying to swallow down the nausea from the unexpected apparation, "A little heads up would've been nice."
He stared at her as if she was the most interesting puzzle he'd ever seen. She huffed, her fear of him now turning into frustration, "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
There was unfortunately only one other way to get a clear reading. Most people's aura's were worn around a person like a second layer of skin. However, some people were able to withhold their auras from others whether intentional or not. There was only one other place to store one's aura, which was in the mind. The mind would transfer information of one's aura during an emotional connection, especially with the emotion of surprise.
He leaned down quickly and pressed his lips against hers. There it was, her aura was strange. At first it was dark, very dark, but underneath was a blinding light. She was, at her core, good. One of the most strong positive auras he had seen, yet it was surrounded by darkness. Not necessarily evil, just dark. The most overwhelming sensation in her aura was fear, perpetual fear.
She pushed him away, smacking him across the face, "What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed.
He gathered his composure, keeping a straight, serious face, "I had to read your aura. I couldn't get a clear reading from touching your arm."
She scrunched up her face, "My aura? You wanted to see my aura?" her voice growing progressively more loud and angry.
Before he could explain himself, she shot into his mind to see what he had discovered, she realized he had been watching her for months now and was suspicious of her, but she was happy to see he didn't find any solid evidence and after reading her aura he felt somewhat guilty of thinking she was a Dark Witch like her parents.
She ripped out of his mind with so much force, the both of them fell backwards. A fear overcame her as she realized she had just used legilimancy on an Auror. Unauthorized legilimancy was illegal, it was grounds for arrest.
She squirmed up to her feet, looking at him in horror as he got up. She had to think of something quickly, her necklace didn't work on him, she definitely didn't have the guts to kill him, maybe a memory spell, but if that didn't work she would be in even more trouble.
"I-I'm sorry." she wavered. "I didn't mean to, I shouldn't have-"
He cut her off, "It's fine. I shouldn't have kissed you I'm sorry."
She sighed heavily in relief at the realization that he wasn't going to arrest her. In truth, legilimancy and occlumency were the two forms of magic that Elijah didn't think was wrong and wished the Ministry used more often. It was incredibly useful at times.
They both awkwardly stood in the middle of the alley before making their way over to the Daily Prophet. She opened the door to see Rita Skeeter laughing fliratiously at one of the editors. She smirked in delight, "Ah Madame Press Secretary! What do we owe the pleasure at this time of the night? I see you're growing bored of Draco." she gazed lustfully up and down at the ruggedly handsome Auror who stood next to her.
Adelaide growled, "The Minister would like to put out a statement on the Azkaban Prison Break."
The sly smile immediately disappeared from Rita's face as she scrambled to grab her quick-quotes quill and sent the photographer to Azkaban for pictures.
Adelaide gave a brief statement, explaining what time the breakout had occurred, who the Minister thought was responsible, and what the Ministry planned on doing to keep everyone safe.
Once she was finished Adelaide began to walk out the door, but Rita called out, "Wait! Wait! Ms. Burke! Are you still dating Draco Malfoy?" Adelaide ignored her, walking out into the dark alley with Elijah.
"I despise working with that vulture." Adelaide seethed.
Elijah let out a chuckle that startled Adelaide. In the few minutes she had known Elijah, she did not peg him to be the laughing type. He was actually quite friendly to people, he just grew incredibly intense and serious when he was working.
"Heard she was quite a menace. You handled her well enough though."
Adelaide was infuriated by his sudden chummy behavior. Just ten minutes ago he was acting like he was about to rip her head off.
"What does it mean?" she asked.
He looked at her questionably, "What does what mean?"
"In your mind, you saw a darkness around my aura. What does that mean?" she was beginning to regret asking him, but she was curious as to whether it meant she was turning bad.
He was wondering the same thing. She had large traces of Dark Magic around her which required quite a bit of hatred, fear, anger, and sadness to conjure. However, she was a good person. He knew that unshakably.
"Not quite sure. All I know I was wrong about you."
She'd never met someone so open to admitting they were wrong. He was, as she could gather from the little information on auras she could gather from his mind, good, despite his initial vendetta against her.
"I suggest whatever Dark Magic you're playing with, you stop it. It's practically caked onto your presence." he whispered.
She looked at him incredibly confused. He knew she used Dark Magic, but he wasn't going to arrest her? He was the strangest auror she had ever met. Most of them were black and white. You practiced Dark Magic, you were bad. You don't, you're good. He seemed to be incredibly comfortable in the grey area.
"But I do wonder why you associate with the Malfoys."
She quickly snapped at him, "They took me in when my parents were arrested and practically saved me."
He laughed, "Yes, your Death Eater parents left you with other Death Eaters. They probably couldn't bare to leave you with anyone else."
An anger boiled in the pit of her stomach, "The Malfoys are not Death Eaters" she growled.
"Well you probably didn't think your parents were either. Lucius had one of the darkest auras I'd ever encountered. I met Draco a few years ago, his aura was dark and cold. So much hatred and self loathing."
She drew out her wand and shoved him against the wall, "You don't know anything about Draco." she yelled, jabbing her wand into his throat. Red hot anger was beginning to cloud her vision. She stared venemously into his eyes and grew even more angry seeing that he showed no sign of fear, he was calm. He knew she wouldn't do anything to actually hurt him.
"Plan on using that wand outside of school Burke? I could have you arrested for that."
She exhaled loudly, shoving him away from her and continuing down the Alley, "Take us back to the Ministry."
He obliged, grabbing her arm and apparating them into the atrium. People were now walking calmly around, carrying wanted posters and enchanted maps with wand traces that she knew wouldn't help them at all. She relaxed as she recognized that she had tremendously slowed down the Ministry and gave the escaped Death Eaters a chance to hide. The Dark Lord would be pleased with her, he wouldn't hurt her this time.