Arriving at Azkaban as fast as they could, Amelia Bones and Mad-Eye Moody, accompanied by a five-man squad of Aurors, rushed toward the guards and started asking questions.
"What happened here? You all sent urgent messages saying someone escaped without any more clarification! And where in Merlin's name are the Dementors?!" Amelia asked quickly while looking around, clearly bewildered by the absence of the Dementors and—how escaping their supposedly inescapable prison is starting to look like a trend…
"Madam Bones, the Dementors started acting strangely five days ago and haven't come out of the east wing area ever since. As for the escapee, well…" The guard stopped speaking and began looking around, clearly seeking help from his companions.
This hesitant behavior caught Amelia's ire, which made her snap at him, "Well, what?" she asked—more like yelled—at him, making the guards flinch and back away a little…
"Umm, Madam Bones, the one who escaped is Harry Potter," the young guard's voice came from behind her, making her turn around and look at him with a frown. She was about to ask him more, but Moody started talking…
"Harry Potter, you say? And pray tell, how did a kid escape Azkaban?" Moody responded gruffly, a hint of mockery in his voice—his prosthetic eye freezing mid-spin to glare at the guard…
The guards exchanged uneasy glances—their breaths fogging in the prison's icy air—then the only female among them seemed to have gathered her courage and pointed at the entrance of the building.
This gesture earned a bewildered look from the newly arrived Aurors. Seeing their expressions, she cleared her throat and said in a hushed voice, as though naming a curse, "Uh, he walked through the exit, sir!"
This clearly was not the answer they expected, so the Aurors just looked at each other, seeing if they all heard what she said correctly…
The first to shake off his stupor was Moody, who asked again, his voice low, like someone who was in too much disbelief to actually raise his voice and speak normally, "So you're saying that Harry Potter escaped Azkaban by walking through the exit?"
All he received in response was a nod from every guard present, their faces pale as the prison's moonlit stones, clearly afraid…
Massaging her temples, Amelia finally couldn't take it as she could feel a headache coming, her jaw tightening as she had just stayed quiet and listened to their conversation while observing their reactions. She finally snapped at them and said, "Gather around and give us your memories, one by one… Now!"
She then looked at Moody and asked, "What do you think?"
Moody just stared at her passively, his prosthetic eye darting around wildly—fixating on shadows as if expecting Potter to materialize—clearly, he did not have an answer…
After taking the memories and waiting for the Auror team to check for magical interference or influence—and finding everything clear—they left.
Upon arriving at the Ministry, Madam Bones quickly inquired about the whereabouts of the minister, only to learn that he was in session with the Wizengamot in Trial Room 5…
She and Moody made their way toward Courtroom 5, where they forcefully entered—the heavy oak slamming against the wall like a gavel's strike—forcing the minister to halt the trial and look at them with an angered expression.
"What are you doing, Amelia? Don't you know we are having a trial here?" shouted Minister Fudge, his jowls quivering with indignation.
"Then the session is temporarily suspended because we have a very serious problem right now," Amelia raised her voice, bringing the room to sudden silence, her tone sharper than ever. "We have an Azkaban escapee—one Harry Potter escaped Azkaban about 10 to 15 minutes ago, and we have just arrived with their memories."
Then she paused, took her wand, and cast a spell on the wall, making it part away—revealing a hidden compartment thick with decades of dust—it was clear this thing had not been used as much as it should.
Moody moved his wand and cast several spells and authentication charms on what now appeared to be a modified Pensieve lodged between the parted wall, its basin carved with serpentine runes—clearly showing that the one who made it was a fan of snakes—before stepping closer to its edge and dumping the contents of one of the small glass bottles.
The Pensieve's surface shimmered slightly before it began to play the events that occurred between Harry Potter and the guards until the moment he escaped, the memory's edges flickering with static, clearly showing the fear the memory owner held.
This process continued, showing the same event from different perspectives. By the end of this, the entire room was deathly quiet—and rightfully so; they had just received a wealth of information that left them unsure of how to proceed, the air was thick enough to choke on.
"Ahem, ahem, this is irrelevant evidence," a shrill voice came from a toad-faced woman in pink sitting just below the minister's chair, her smile sugary, her eyes darting to Fudge as if looking for approval.
"Shut up, Dolores! Now is not the time for you to run that stupid mouth of yours," an angered voice came from the Wizengamot seats on the right side, belonging to one Madam Longbottom—her cane slamming the floor like a thunderclap—accompanied by a spell that magically and forcefully closed Dolores's mouth.
"What is your take on this, Madam Bones?" asked one of the Wizengamot members who sat next to Madam Longbottom, his fingers nervously tracing the Abbot family crest on his robes.
"My take on what exactly? Are you talking about the usage of wandless magic, the information about the prophecy, the information concerning the immortality of You-Know-Who"—here, a collective flinch rippled through the room—"or the subtle and direct threats thrown our way by a kid who I'll just assume to be the strongest in the British Isles as of this moment?" Madam Bones retorted, her voice a mix of mockery and anger—this kind of stupidity was one of the reasons they were in this situation in the first place…
"Well, let's first analyze the events before we can continue further," Minister Fudge's voice broke the silence that had begun to envelop the room again, his words ringing hollow, like a Galleon dropped in mud.
"The kid is powerful. He went out of prison like he owned the place, predicted that we would ask for the memories, and in doing so, revealed information we have been trying to uncover since the death of the Potters"—Moody's eye lingered on a witch in the back row—*Augusta's ally, perhaps?* he thought before continuing—"Now that I think about it, it's his way of calling all of us idiots.
He subtly and directly threatened all of us not to get in his way—and last but not least, he practically told us that this will be an all-out war," Moody said in a somewhat tense voice—he had seen wars, and they were not anything pretty—and he knew deep in his bones that this war was going to be either more brutal or have more consequences than they could handle…
"This is all your fault! You sentenced a kid to death, and now he's coming for all of us," one of the Wizengamot members on the left side yelled—though it wasn't clear who he was actually blaming—still, his voice was filled with fear, and his accusation hung like a Dementor's kiss.
This broke the heavy tension that Moody's words brought, sparking heated arguments.
"Silence!!" Minister Fudge yelled, hitting the table with his gavel, the sound echoing through the courtroom, bringing order into the tense room…
"Am I the only one who heard the kid imply that Dumbledore is a dark lord?" Madam Longbottom said, her words slicing through the room like a Gryffindor's blade, igniting yet another argument between the light and dark factions of the Wizengamot.
This debate quickly escalated. It continued with occasional random observations from the members, dragging on until Madam Longbottom yelled, "Enough!"—making the chandelier above them tremble.
"We have all seen the same thing, and I'm sure everyone has come to their own conclusions—but right now, one thing is certain: by the end of this upcoming war, there won't be as many noble houses left as there are now—just like the previous war.
The dark faction are slaves to an apparently immortal madman, the light faction is shackled to an egotistical maniac"—her gaze flicked to Dumbledore's empty seat—"and the neutral faction won't be able to remain neutral for long—need I remind you about the kid's advice to flee the country? That suggests he is either planning to turn this country into hell on earth or he knows something we don't.
So you do what you want, but I'm not making an enemy out of him," she concluded, standing up, leaving her seat, and walking out of the courtroom, her robes billowing as she walked in a way that would have made Snape proud had he been there to see it…
She paused as she reached the door, turned around to look at Madam Bones, and said, "Amelia, take my advice and don't send your Aurors to their deaths by going after him. He's not just a kid anymore"—the word "kid" dripping with irony.
Before she could return and resume her dramatic exit, a white owl flew past her and directly onto the table where Amelia was sitting…
It opened its mouth, dropped an envelope that was left unsealed, hooted, and flew away as if oblivious to the stunned expressions in the room.
Amelia, as if by instinct from working in an office for a long time, took the envelope, opened it, found the letter inside, took it out, and began reading it, her eyes narrowing with each line.
After a minute or so, she dropped the letter on the table and started massaging her temples as if doing so would make her forget what she just read—the parchment glowing faintly in her other hand, clearly charmed to make the words on it linger in memory…
"Well, a letter from Harry Potter just arrived, directly to me—now, I want you all to remember that this is the Ministry, and owls can't just get in here, but Potter somehow made his owl do it"—her thumbs tracing the unsealed envelope—"anyway, here's what it says,"
she began reading:
*"Dear Madam Bones, how are you? I'm sure that by now you have learned about my escape from Azkaban—like I owned the place, if I say so myself—anyway, by the time my owl delivers this to you, I'm sure you all will just be arguing without reaching a decision, so let me do that for you.
As of tomorrow, I want my godfather, Sirius Black, exempt from all charges and declared innocent, or I'll start sending memories to the *Daily Prophet*. Tuesday's headline: 'Minister Fudge's Secret Toad Collection'—you get the idea.
I don't care what you decide about me because you can't really do anything to me anyway—try it, and I'll turn your fancy courtroom into a greenhouse, at least that way it would have been more useful.
Oh, and just in case some idiot hasn't reached this conclusion yet: we are at war. Now I'm not participating just yet; I'll let you stew a little, lose some people, and when you're desperate, that's when I'll come to cut you a deal, worse than Dumbledore's, better than Voldemort's—you can pick your poison.
Oh, and you can thank Dumbledore for this idea. He did the same thing in the previous two wars—ask Moody, he knows, and don't forget to ask him about Albania. He'll twitch. It's hilarious.
Anyhow, that's all. Ciao!"*
Amelia finished reading the letter and dropped it on the table once again.
Madam Bones had a look of contemplation on her face before reverting to her usual stoic demeanor—though her quill hand twitched, itching to draft a resignation letter…
Moody stood there—twitching slightly as he remembered the Albania incident—but also considering how to handle the situation, his eye now fixed on Dumbledore's vacant seat, wishing Dumbledore was there.
Fudge was left wondering where everything had gone wrong, his mind spiraling: *Toad collection? Albania?!*
Meanwhile, the other members of the Wizengamot were deep in thought about what to do next, their faces a mosaic of dread, ambition, and quiet awe.*
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