Hermione's Daily Prophet arrived during breakfast and she smoothed it out, gazed for a moment at the front page and gave a yelp that caused everyone in the vicinity to stare at her.
"What?" said Harry and Ron together.
For 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 Harry, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.
Algernon 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.
But Harry's eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. Her face had leapt out at him the moment he had seen the page. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture, though he had seen it sleek, thick and shining. She glared up at him through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth.
Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom. Hermione nudged Harry and pointed at the headline over the pictures, which Harry, concentrating on Bellatrix, had not yet read.
MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN
OLD DEATH EATERS ESCAPE
Harry, Ron and Hermione read more. Death of Broderick Bode, who worked in Department of Mysteries, and was healing at St.Mungo's. They understood that it was a murder, committed with the help of poisonous plant. They looked at each other for a moment, then Hermione pulled the newspaper back towards 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 on to her shoulder, "It ... well, I don't know whether ... but it's worth trying ... and I'm the only one who can"
Suddenly the doors of Great Hall opened wild. It happens a lot last time. There were two people. One was Danny, obviously, who was holding a half finished bottle of Fire Whiskey. Another person was scary. He was a young adult, about twenty years old, but he was the same height as Danny. He had white skin, auburn hair and crimson red eyes, much to everyone's fear. He was wearing black leather jacket, torn jeans and boots. Man was also very thin. He also had a Fire Whiskey, and he and Danny had hands on each other's shoulder. It made them look like drinking buddies, because they were.
"And finally we have a Great Hall!" Danny said, making a gesture and taking a gulp.
"Nice," the man said in deep voice, "But it's still better at home"
"Eh, no offense, pal, but you live in an abandoned shack in a middle of nowhere"
"And you know the reasons," he glared at Danny.
"Pff, you aren't THAT scary," Phantom shrugged, spilling some drink on the floor.
"Easy for you to say! You faced Pariah!"
"Okay, okay. Good point. Still, you could use some company, besides me"
"Fine! Don't complain later, then. I will be on my way!" With that the man dissappeared in a cloud of smoke. Danny shook his head.
"Sometimes I wonder, why we are friends"
"Mr. Work, who was that man?" Dumbledore asked, voicing everyone's thoughts.
"Oh, that was a good ol' buddy of mine, Death"
People around started to faint. Danny just achieved the title of the strangest student in Hogwarts' history. And here he thought he got it earlier.
-Lateer-
The halls of Hogwarts were filled by murmurs and whispers of students, which were about escaped Death Eaters and changing opinion about Harry, since not so much people believed Ministry's explanation. 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. It happened after decree.
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
It had been the subject of a great number of jokes among the students. Danny had pointed out to Umbridge that by the terms of the new rule she was not allowed to tell UGH members for playing Exploding Snap in the back of the class.
"Exploding Snap's got nothing to do with Defence Against the Dark Arts, Jane! That's not information relating to your subject. Oh wait, you aren't even teaching that"
At the next day the Great Hall was filled with Hitler's photos with Dolores' face on them.
But now fourteenth of February has arrived. Danny was putting on a tux in Slytherin dorms. They never saw a muggle attire before, but they somehow heard about his date, so they guessed this costume was for official events. He proceeded alone to the Entrance Hall to meet Luna.
She was waiting for him a little to the side of the oak front doors, looking very pretty with her hair tied back in a long pony-tail.
"Hey," she greeted.
"Hello, milady, shall we depart?" He bowed slightly.
"What is that you are wearing?" Luna asked.
"What," Danny whined playfully, "too official? Well," he snapped his fingers and he was dressed in black T-shirt and pants, "I never liked tux"
"There is cold outside," she said.
"Nah, cold never bothered me, anyway"
Danny was getting a LOT of shocked looks at how casual he was, walking in shirt during -15, no more. Then a large gang of Slytherin girls passed them, led by Pansy Parkinson. The only one who didn't care about Danny's nobility and power. Big mistake.
"Work and Lovegood," screeched Pansy, to a chorus of snide giggles, "Two loonies finally found each other!"
"Says the one, whose last name is a disease," Danny smirked. Not finding any comeback, Parkinson glared at him and stomped away. He and Luna laughed.
"Looks like the Hat was right, you ARE witty," she said, "Where are we going?"
"Hm ... shall we just have a look in the shops or something?"
They wandered towards Dervish and Banges. A large poster had been stuck up in the window and a few Hogsmeaders were looking at it. They moved aside when Danny and Luna approached and Danny found himself staring once more at the pictures of the ten escaped Death Eaters. The poster, 'By Order of the Ministry of Magic', offered a thousand-Galleon reward to any witch or wizard with information leading to the recapture of any of the convicts pictured.
"It's funny," said Luna in a low voice, gazing up at the pictures of the Death Eaters, "When that Sirius Black escaped, there were dementors all over Hogsmeade. Now ten Death Eaters are on the loose and there are no dementors anywhere ..."
"Yep," said Danny, "Do ya think I can get some money for this Death Eaters?" Hogsmeade residents, who never heard about Danny's antics, gaped at him.
"You probably can," Luna answered, shocking people even more, "But how are you going to find them?"
"Well, they are 'Death Eaters'. Just search for the most scary places in England and voilà! They will be in Azcaban in a blink of an eye. Plus Dad may help. Soo...Butterbeer?"
"Butterbeer"
They both didn't want to go to Madam Paddifoot's. Too luscious for their liking. It was a cramped, steamy little place where everything seemed to have been decorated with frills or bows. So the couple went to Three Broomsticks.
The inn was warm, crowded, and a bit smoky, but clean and welcoming. There they sat at the table and ordered Butterbeer. It was brought to them in big tankards.
"It's good place," said Luna, taking a sip.
"Yeah," Danny chuckled, "way better than Hog's Head"
"Have you noticed something about barman there?" She asked.
"I had a feeling that I saw him somewhere..."
"He looked a bit like Professor Dumbledore," Luna said. Danny blinked.
"Hm, so you think that Dumbledore has a brother?" She shook her head.
"I know it," Luna said.
"Well, we better keep it in secret. I don't think that he is incognito here just for fun," she nodded in response.
Suddenly a huge man with beard lifted his mug and rose to his feet.
"What, no one is brave enough to stand against me in drinking contest? I'm ready to bet fifty galleons!" Danny smiled evilly.
"Shall I go?" He asked Luna quietly. She smiled.
"It should be funny," Danny jumped from his seat and came closer to the man.
"Well, I'd like to," everyone stared at him, and the man, who was two times bigger than Danny, roared with laughter.
"YOU?! Pipsqueak, you still have a milk on your lips!"
"Even so, I'm of age already. And I have money as well," he flipped a bag on the table.
"Alright, you asked for it, kid"
-Laater-
When Harry entered the pub, he noticed something unusual. Danny was casually drinking a fifteen tankard of red currant rum, sitting on a chair with his legs on a table. There wasn't a single sign that he was drunk. The same can't be said about his opponent, who was hardly keeping his head from hitting the table. Every visitor was staring a that scene in shock. Finally, after a final gulp, the huge man fell unconscious.
"I won!" Danny shouted, throwing his hands in the air, he then grimaced, "Do you have a toilet here?" People pointed at the door in the far end of the room and Danny ran there. You can't just drink seven liters of liquid without consequences.
"Harry! Harry, over here!"
Hermione was waving at Harry from the other side of the room. He got up and made his way towards her through the crowded pub. He was still a few tables away when he realised that Hermione was not alone. She was sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates he could ever have imagined: Luna Lovegood and none other than Rita Skeeter, ex-journalist on the Daily Prophet and one of Hermione's least favourite people in the world.
"You're early!" said Hermione, moving along to give him room to sit down. 'I thought you were with Cho, I wasn't expecting you for another hour at least!"
"Cho?" said Rita at once, twisting round in her seat to stare avidly at Harry, "A girl?"
She snatched up her crocodile-skin handbag and groped within it.
"It's none of your business if Harry's been with a hundred girls," Hermione told Rita coolly, "So you can put that away right now"
Rita had been on the point of withdrawing an acid-green quill from her bag. Looking as though she had been forced to swallow Stinksap, she snapped her bag shut again.
"What are you up to?" Harry asked, sitting down and staring from Rita to Luna to Hermione.
"Little Miss Perfect was just about to tell me when you arrived," said Rita, taking a large slurp of her drink, "I suppose I'm allowed to talk to him, am I?" she shot at Hermione.
"Yes, I suppose you are," said Hermione coldly.
Rita took another great gulp of her drink and said out of the corner of her mouth, "Pretty girl, is she, Harry?"
"One more word about Harry's love life and the deal's off and that's a promise," said Hermione irritably.
"What deal?" said Rita, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, "You haven't mentioned a deal yet, Miss Prissy you just told me to turn up. Oh, one of these days ..." She took a deep shuddering breath.
"Yes, yes, one of these days you'll write more horrible stories about Harry and me," said Hermione indifferently, "Find someone who cares, why don't you?"
"They've run plenty of horrible stories about Harry this year without my help," said Rita, shooting a sideways look at him over the top of her glass and adding in a rough whisper, "How has that made you feel, Harry? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood?"
"Try angry as Walker, when someone breaks the rules," everyone turned to see grinning Danny, "And believe me, it's a sight to behold"
"Who is Walker?" Rita asked. She was very curious about this 'insane student'.
"He is a warden of the main prison back at my home. When you mix muggle and magical security systems, then you get an unbreakable place"
"You talk as though you are familiar with him, why?"
"This idiot once threw me into his prison by the false accusation. I broke out, though, and cleaned my reputation. It happened when I was twelve," she scribed everything down, "Now, if you will make some dirty article about me, I will find you, and you wouldn't be able to write at all," her threat made a strong effect at her, so she turned back to Harry. Danny sat back with Luna, who was quietly singing 'Weasley is our King'.
"So you actually stick to it, do you, that He Who Must Not Be Named is back?" said Rita, lowering her glass and subjecting Harry to a piercing stare while her finger strayed longingly to the clasp of the crocodile bag, "You stand by all this garbage Dumbledore's been telling everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being the sole witness?"
"I wasn't the sole witness," snarled Harry, "There were a dozen-odd Death Eaters there as well. Want their names?"
"I'd love them," breathed Rita, now fumbling in her bag once more and gazing at him as though he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, "A great bold headline: "Potter Accuses ..." A sub-heading, "Harry Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us"
"We don't need another story about how Harry's lost his marbles!" said Hermione angrily, "We've had plenty of those already, thank you! I want him given the opportunity to tell the truth!"
"There's no market for a story like that," said Rita coldly.
"You mean the Prophet won't print it because Fudge won't let them," said Hermione irritably.
Rita gave Hermione a long, hard look. Then, leaning forwards across the table towards her, she said in a businesslike tone, "All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won't print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It's against the public mood. This last Azkaban breakout has got people quite worried enough. People just don't want to believe You-Know-Who's back"
"So the Daily Prophet exists to tell people what they want to hear, does it?" said Hermione scathingly.
Rita sat up straight again, her eyebrows raised, and drained her glass of Firewhisky,
"The Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl," she said coldly.
"My dad thinks it's an awful paper," said Luna, chipping into the conversation unexpectedly. Sucking on her cocktail onion, she gazed at Rita with her enormous, protuberant, slightly mad eye, "He publishes important stories he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn't care about making money"
Rita looked disparagingly at Luna.
"I'm guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?" she said, "Probably, Twenty-five Ways to Mingle With Muggles and the dates of the next Bring and Fly Sale?"
"No," said Luna, dipping her onion back into her Gillywater, "he's the editor of The Quibbler"
Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked round in alarm.
"Important stories he thinks the public needs to know", eh?" she said witheringly, "I could manure my garden with the contends of that rag"
"Of course you will, Prophet isn't good enough even for that," Danny glared, keeping his eye from flashing green, "Luna says her father's quite happy to take Harry's interview. That's who'll be publishing it"
Rita stared at him for a moment, then let out a great whoop of laughter.
"The Quibbler!" she said, cackling, "You think people will take him seriously if he's published in The Quibbler!"
"Some people won't," said Danny in a level voice, "But the Daily Prophet's version of the Azkaban breakout had some gaping holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether there isn't a better explanation of what happened, and if there's an alternative story available, even if it is published in an unusual magazine, I think they might be rather keen to read it"
Rita didn't say anything for a while, but eyed Danny shrewdly, her head a little to one side.
"All right, let's say for a moment I'll do it," she said abruptly, "What kind of fee am I going to get?"
"I don't think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the magazine," said Luna dreamily, "They do it because it's an honour and, of course, to see their names in print"
Rita Skeeter looked as though the taste of Stinksap was strong in her mouth again as she rounded on Hermione.
"I'm supposed to do this for free?"
"Well, yes," said Danny calmly, making her to turn back on him, taking a sip of his drink, "Otherwise, as you very well know, me and Hermione will inform the authorities that you are an unregistered Animagus. Of course, the Prophet might give you rather a lot for an insider's account of life in Azkaban"
"How did you..."
"Lady, I'm Lord and a king of the whole country, I have connections"
"I don't suppose I've got any choice, have I?" said Rita, her voice shaking slightly. She opened her crocodile bag once more, withdrew a piece of parchment, and raised her Quick-Quotes Quill.
"Daddy will be pleased," said Luna brightly. A muscle twitched in Rita's jaw.
"OK, Harry?" said Hermione, turning to him, "Ready to tell the public the truth?"
"I suppose,"said Harry, watching Rita balancing the Quick-Quotes Quill at the ready on the parchment between them.
"Fire away, then, Rita," said Hermione serenely, fishing a cherry out from the bottom of her glass.
-Laaterr-
"Don't worry, Luna, it's safe," Danny said, leading his girlfriend deeper inside Forbidden Forest. It was already dark, but it didn't bother him.
"Where are we going, anyway?" She asked, not worried in the slightest.
"You will see," he grinned.
They approached the huge cave.
"Hey, buddy, I'm here with a guest!" He called.
The loud noise filled the air and the dragon, familiar one, came out. She already healed for the most part, Danny took care of it, the scales grew back, sadly, she was still blind. Luna stared in awe at the creature, while dragon moved her head closer. Phantom chuckled.
"She wants you to pet her," he made a 'go on' gesture.
Luna slowly stretched her hand and stroked the dragon under chin, making her growl softly.
"That's amazing!" Luna said, "what is she doing here? Her specie doesn't live here"
"I befreed her from Gringgots, when I was there"
"You were the one to rob it?" She asked.
"Yep, I stole the cup of Hufflepuff. The same thing as with diadem"
After some time, about midnight, the two finally returned inside the castle. Danny was following Luna to her house homeroom.
"Well, that was awesome, too bad it's over," Phantom smiled. She planted a kiss on his cheek.
"I agree, good night"
"And don't let the bed bugs bite," he grinned.
A.N. Who can find an Easter Egg?