ICARUS ↝ H. GRANGER

[15]

A draft swept through the corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, leaving a cold chill to settle in the stone walls. As Rigel wandered through the halls that morning, the chill settling deep into his bones, he couldn't help but be aware of every pair of eyes trained on him, the students parting to let him through as if they were the Red Sea, some even going so far as to turn away and run the opposite direction to avoid passing him.

While younger students being frightened of the sixteen-year-old boy was nothing new to him, there had always been the select few students who passed him by without a care in the world, now not daring to come within ten feet of him, as if they might catch dragon pox or spontaneously catch on fire. Although he'd certainly wished he could've inflicted either on a percentage of the Hogwarts student body, he still hadn't quite figured that out.

As he stepped into the Great Hall for breakfast, it was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. All conversation ceased the moment he walked in, leaving the room quiet enough to hear the fork slip out of Nigel Wolpert's hand and clatter to the stone floor at the far end of the Gryffindor table. Rigel glanced around at the crowd now staring back at him, before he wordlessly stalked over to the Slytherin table, and as the noise started up again, it came out in hardly more than a whisper.

"There he is," a Ravenclaw second year student was saying to her friends at the Hufflepuff table.

"That's Rigel Lestrange," a third year Hufflepuff pointed out to a group of friends.

"Do you think he had anything to do with it?" a fourth year from Gryffindor asked a friend.

"Could be," his friend responded. "Probably snuck off campus after hours while we were all asleep."

"Come again?" Rigel asked, stopping in front of the two briefly and glaring daggers in their direction. "Something you'd like to say?"

"N-no," the first boy stammered, instantly averting his gaze from Rigel and back to the pancakes in front of him, the second boy soon following suit, and as Rigel realized he wouldn't get any further information out of the two boys, he shook his head, shrugging them off and continuing his trek to the Slytherin table where his friends waited.

While his friends didn't share the same fear that seemed to paralyze the rest of the student body, they all watched him with curious expressions, adding to the grim mood that spread throughout the room. Will held a stony expression on his face as he studied Rigel, along with Draco who sat between a speechless Crabbe and Goyle. Blaise's eyes darted back and forth between Rigel and the other boys, and Pansy was nowhere to be found, as she'd made herself scarce around Rigel since the Christmas party.

"Has this whole bloody school lost their damn minds this morning?" Rigel asked, sliding onto the bench between Will and Blaise and glancing around at where stares from his classmates still burned holes into the back of his robes. "Why does everybody keep looking at me like I'm about to curse their families?"

"This was on the front page of the Prophet this morning," Blaise said in a grim tone, grabbing the discarded newspaper from where it sat on his other side and passing it to Rigel.

As Rigel unfolded the newspaper, he was met by ten large pictures adorning the front page, all of famed Death Eaters where they stood locked up in Azkaban Prison. He'd known all of them by name, of course, either hearing them as a child or in the meetings he'd eavesdropped on at Malfoy Manor the summer before, but two faces in particular stared back at him from the center of the page; the same two faces he should've known as well as he'd known Lucius and Narcissa's but instead had only ever seen in photographs.

Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange.

Rigel's eyes lingered on the photographs of his parents for a moment. Like the others on the front page of the paper, his parents were bound in handcuffs in their prison cells, screaming at the camera. Although, while his father appeared to be screaming in rage, almost as if he were in pain, there was a sort of madness evident in his mother's eyes, as she almost appeared delighted, and seemed to be taunting the camera. Tearing his eyes away from his mother's face, he finally allowed himself to read the accompanying article, his blood turning to ice in his veins as his eyes scanned over the headline.

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN:

MAYHEM AT HIGH SECURITY PRISON

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

Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for 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 is 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."

Rigel threw the newspaper back down onto his empty plate as he suddenly stood up, the goblet in front of him toppling over from the force and clattering against the wooden table. The room had grown quiet again once more at the sound of the falling goblet, but he didn't have it in him to care as he searched for his nearest escape path. His head swam as he dizzily moved away from the bench, staggering back the way he came.

"Get out of my way!" he roared at a group of second years, the students scattering out of his way as he stalked quickly out of the Great Hall, taking the first staircase he could find and moving up, up, up away from the rest of his classmates.

As Rigel's lungs began to burn from rushing up stair after stair, flight after flight, he stopped for air at the sixth floor, allowing himself to sit down in an empty alcove, devoid of any passersby or any pestering portraits demanding to know his business. He pulled his robes tighter around himself, the chill deep in his bones no longer having anything to do with the January weather but instead the ice running through his blood, freezing in his veins.

For the first time since he'd been a mere toddler, four days shy of his second birthday, his parents were running free from Azkaban. All he'd ever wanted as a child was to be able to know his parents, instead of hearing the stories Narcissa would tell and trying to make up memories of his own to hold onto, rather than being too young to form any in his mind. However, instead of the times he'd spent daydreaming as a kid about what it would be like to have his parents home, he was now filled with dread, and even a flicker of fear at what they were capable of.

He wasn't sure how long he sat in the drafty alcove behind the stairs as the morning rush began for students to get to their first block of classes, but he sat unmoving, staring out the window as if he'd become one of the many stone statues that lined the school. Not even the odd prefect wandering the halls to make sure everyone was in class dared to come near him, fearing for what might happen if they crossed him that morning.

The Daily Prophet was full of idiots, that much Rigel was certain of. Although Sirius Black was taking the fall for the outbreak, Rigel and anyone with half a brain had to have known it wasn't him, that it'd be too risky to go back after the time he'd spent on the run. He also knew that Black was the furthest thing from a Death Eater imaginable, and had been long cursed off the Black Family Tree before the first downfall of the Dark Lord.

Rigel knew exactly who had been responsible; the same people who paraded proudly around Malfoy Manor as if it were their own whenever they visited for meetings. And now their numbers had grown with some of Voldemort's most loyal followers, turning the Dark Lord back into the most powerful being in the Wizarding World.

Whether Fudge wanted to believe he had returned or not.