When Harry finished, something else occurred to him and he added quickly,
"Oh, right—after Professor Trelawney said all that, she suddenly went back to normal. And it looked like she had no idea what she'd just said."
Arthur fell silent, brows knitting together.
From Harry's description—her glassy eyes, the broken sentences, the way she'd "come back" and forgotten everything right afterward—that did sound like one of Trelawney's genuine prophecies.
The real question was: who exactly was Voldemort's "faithful servant"?
She'd mentioned "breaking free of chains," which meant this so-called servant was still imprisoned at the moment.
As far as Arthur knew, Voldemort had a whole flock of followers currently rotting in Azkaban. With a target pool that big, the prophecy was almost useless in practice.
Still, whether some small fry Death Eater escaped or not didn't have much to do with him. Another underling running loose wasn't exactly enough to keep him up at night.
Harry, however, had been watching Arthur's expression the whole time. Seeing that thoughtful frown, his heart tightened.
"Arthur… is there something wrong with Professor Trelawney's prophecy?"
Arthur explained,
"Trelawney's ancestor was a genuine Seer. By the time it trickled down to her generation, the gift is very diluted, but she can still make real prophecies once in a while.
From what you described just now—rambling, that trance-like state, and then not remembering anything afterward—that's exactly what she was like when she made the prophecy about you being the Chosen One."
Harry's face went stiff. "So… you're saying this prophecy might actually be true?"
"Most likely, yeah," Arthur nodded.
"No, then I have to tell everyone about this."
Harry pushed back his bench and was about to bolt when Arthur grabbed him and pushed him back down.
"Harry, that's not going to help," Arthur said. "Most people don't believe Trelawney's prophecies in the first place. And even if some of them did, what could we actually do about it?
The prophecy didn't say who this servant is. Voldemort's got a lot of followers—we can't just march down a list and track each one personally."
Harry still looked troubled, his brow scrunched tight.
Arthur sighed and patted his shoulder.
"If you're really that worried, write to Dumbledore," he suggested. "You know why he left Hogwarts, right?
It's because he found signs of Voldemort in Albania. He's there now, combing through the forest Trelawney mentioned.
So even if that servant does break free, it's not going to be easy for him to actually reach Voldemort."
That finally eased something in Harry's chest. He decided he'd write to Dumbledore as soon as he got back to the common room, tell him the whole prophecy, and hope the Headmaster managed to cut that "reunion" off before it ever happened.
The next morning, Harry came sprinting into the Great Hall clutching a copy of the Daily Prophet.
He slammed it down in front of Arthur, breathless.
"Arthur, I think I know who that servant is now—look!"
Arthur took the paper, lowered his eyes to the front-page headline, and let out a slow whistle.
Well, well. Peter Pettigrew had escaped from Azkaban.
The article not only reported his escape, it also laid out all his old crimes in painstaking detail.
The wizarding world finally learned the truth: it wasn't Sirius Black who had sold out the Potters—it was this no-name rat of a man, and Sirius had been wrongfully imprisoned for over ten years.
The reaction was immediate and vicious.
The Ministry of Magic became the target of public fury. Wizards all across Britain raged about its incompetence—not only had it misjudged Black and thrown an innocent man into Azkaban for over a decade, it had let the real culprit roam free that entire time.
And just when they'd finally caught the real criminal and locked him up, somehow he'd wriggled out and escaped as well.
In just a few short months, the supposedly "most secure prison in the wizarding world" had produced two successful breakouts.
"Embarrassing" didn't even begin to cover it.
Fudge, in particular, was getting roasted.
Most of the Sacred Twenty-Eight had sent joint letters condemning him, especially over Sirius's wrongful imprisonment.
It wasn't because Sirius was such a beloved soul. It was because the Blacks were one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Those families might squabble with each other in private, but once an outsider threatened their shared interests, they always closed ranks and faced outward together.
That unity was a big part of why they'd managed to stay at the top for so long.
From their point of view, Fudge had stomped all over their bottom line. When Sirius had been thrown in Azkaban, the Ministry had taken full advantage, raiding a massive chunk of the Black estate.
By the time it got down to Sirius's generation, the Black family's people were nearly gone—but their money was not.
He had three female cousins: Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa.
Andromeda had been blasted off the family tapestry for marrying a Muggle-born. Bellatrix had married into the Lestrange family. Narcissa had married Lucius Malfoy.
On the male side, it had just been Sirius and his younger brother, Regulus. Regulus had been dead for years. Sirius had been behind bars in Azkaban.
Looking at that pile of unclaimed gold and property, who wouldn't be tempted? Even the other Sacred Twenty-Eight were eyeing it hungrily.
Back when Fudge had just taken office as Minister, the pure-blood families had wanted to curry favor with him and let him take the lion's share.
So a huge amount of Black family assets had been "nationalized" into Ministry hands. If Narcissa hadn't begged Lucius to step in, the old Black family manor and their vault at Gringotts might have been carved up too.
If that had really happened, Sirius would probably be sleeping under a bridge right now.
Now that Sirius had been officially declared innocent, the Sacred Twenty-Eight were naturally demanding that Fudge return what he'd taken.
They might not get to keep it themselves, but they absolutely weren't going to let some jumped-up Ministry bureaucrat keep sitting on it.
When Pettigrew had been caught the first time, Fudge had deliberately chosen not to make a big public announcement—not just to save face, but also to avoid poking that particular hornet's nest.
Poor Fudge. He'd thought that once Peter was safely shipped off to Azkaban, he could quietly bury the whole affair.
He hadn't counted on Pettigrew escaping as well.
Now the Ministry had no choice but to issue a wanted notice and slap a hefty bounty on his head… and in the process, all of Peter's crimes had been dragged into the light.
As the flames of public anger grew taller and hotter, Cornelius Fudge felt like this might be the darkest day of his career as Minister of Magic.
Back at Hogwarts, Arthur put the newspaper down and let out a long breath.
He really hadn't expected Peter Pettigrew to pull off an escape as well.
He frowned slightly.
Dumbledore couldn't have forgotten to mention Pettigrew being an Animagus… right?
He couldn't help suspecting that when Dumbledore had brought Pettigrew to the Ministry, in his rush to head for the Albanian forest, he might have "forgotten" to tell Fudge Peter was an Animagus.
Which would mean Peter had walked out of Azkaban the same way Sirius had—by turning into an animal and slipping through the bars.
Arthur shared his guess with Harry.
Harry nodded quickly. "That… actually makes a lot of sense. He faked his death as a rat back then—I should've guessed he'd escape as a rat too."
Right at that moment, Ron happened to be passing by and caught that last sentence.
"Wait, what?" he said, stopping short. "Since when do you guys know Peter Pettigrew's an Animagus? That wasn't in the paper."
Arthur blinked and turned to Harry. "You never told him?"
"I—uh—I was afraid he wouldn't be able to handle it," Harry admitted. "So I never brought it up."
"What do you mean, 'handle it'?" Ron stared. "Harry, is there something you've been keeping from me?"
Left with no more room to dodge, Harry explained everything: that Peter Pettigrew was an Animagus, that he'd been hiding as an ordinary rat, and that for years… he'd been living in the Weasley household under a different name—
Scabbers.
Ron sat there, shell-shocked.
His first reaction was flat disbelief. His pet? That lazy, fat, slightly pathetic little rat he'd carried around for years? An adult wizard—and a Death Eater at that?
But as Harry calmly laid out more and more details, denial became harder and harder to hold onto.
Back then, the Aurors had supposedly found a single finger on the scene of the explosion—Pettigrew's finger. And that missing finger happened to match the stump on Scabbers's paw perfectly.
Add to that the fact that the average rat lived two or three years at most… while Scabbers had already been around for over a decade.
At first the Weasleys had assumed he had some magical creature blood.
But after a proper examination, everyone had agreed he was just a perfectly ordinary rat.
An ordinary rat that lived more than ten years and was clever and cunning like a human.
When you stacked all the clues together, it painted a very clear—and very disturbing—picture.
The more Ron thought about it, the colder he felt.
He'd spent years cuddling that rat. He'd slept with Scabbers on his pillow. He'd cried to him. Confided in him. Carried him everywhere.
And all that time, it hadn't been a pet at all—it had been a middle-aged Death Eater in disguise.
If Peter had ever decided to hurt him…
Ron swallowed hard, suddenly very, very grateful that Pettigrew's survival instincts had apparently outweighed any desire to murder the youngest Weasley son.
That afternoon, Harry ran into the one thing he least wanted to see.
Dementors.
Yes—Fudge had released them again.
He was convinced that, since Harry had been the one to catch Pettigrew the first time, the rat would almost certainly sneak back into Hogwarts to take revenge on the boy who'd exposed him.
So Fudge, in his infinite wisdom, decided to lie in wait.
If he stationed Dementors around Hogwarts again, maybe they could bag Pettigrew on the rebound.
Life, Arthur thought, really did have a flair for dark comedy.
Not long ago, Lupin had solemnly promised Harry he wouldn't be seeing Dementors again anytime soon.
And now… there they were.
As the cloaked figures glided and hovered at the edges of Hogwarts grounds, Harry had no choice but to speed up his training.
He threw himself into his schedule with grim determination.
Lessons every day, homework every night, Quidditch practice several times a week… and on top of that, he had to carve out extra time to slip off to Lupin's office and practice the Patronus Charm.
In short—
Harry Potter once again became the busiest Gryffindor in the entire House.
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