A/N: Finally!! It's a bit short but I wanted to update soon, so I hope you enjoy this chapter while I continue working on the next ones. And I hope you guys aren't too mad at me! 

The next morning, they were hit with terrifying news as soon as the daily mail had arrived. Hermione and Ben received their copies of the Daily Prophet at once, and they were both understandably shocked by the front page, although Hermione containing her yelp of surprise would've avoided them quite a lot of stares.

"What?" asked Harry and Ron.

Hermione spread the newspaper in front of them, and Ben turned his copy for Harry to see. There were ten black-and-white pictures of different wizards, along with a particularly scary-looking witch. Ben hadn't needed to take a look at the captions underneath the pictures to know who these people were.

Those were criminals; Death Eaters. All of them. He hadn't met them in person, thankfully, but he knew his parents had. He had seen photos of his parents with them. According to his grandmother, his father used to be really good friends with Antonin Dolohov, and his mother was always around Bellatrix Lestrange, the only woman amongst the escapees. The woman who had tortured Neville's parents to insanity.

He forced himself to read the article under the heading that read 'MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS "RALLING POINT" FOR OLD DEATH EATERS'.

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

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

"I don't believe this," snarled Harry. "Fudge is blaming the break-out on Sirius?"

"What other options does he have?" said Hermione bitterly. "He can hardly say, 'Sorry everyone, Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort'- stop whimpering, Ron- 'and now Voldemort's worst supporters have broken out too.' I mean, he's spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn't he?"

She was right, of course. Hermione began searching for something else inside the newspaper, and dove onto a report as her friends remained silent.

The staff place was the only place where there seemed to be a discussion similar to their own. McGonagall and Dumbledore were deep in conversation, not hiding their worry. It semeed like the only teacher who wasn't reading the Daily Prophet was Umbridge.

"I don't understand," commented Ron. "Two years ago, when Sirius broke out of Azkaban, absolutely everyone was freaking out... Yet nobody seems to care that there are ten Death Eaters on the loose."

"Oh my..." said Hermione.

"What now?"

"It's... horrible," she replied, very shaken. "Take a look at page ten, Ben."

TRAGIC DEMISE OF MINISTRY OF MAGIC WORKER

St. Mungo's Hospital promised a full inquiry last night after Ministry of Magic worker Broderick Bode, 49, was discovered dead in his bed, strangled by a potted-plant. Healers called to the scene were unable to revive Mr. Bode, who had been injured in a workplace accident some weeks prior to his death.

Healer Miriam Strout, who was in charge of Mr. Bode's ward at the time of the incident, has been suspended on full pay and was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokeswizard for the hospital said in a statement, "St. Mungo's deeply regrets the death of Mr. Bode, whose health was improving steadily prior to this tragic accident.

"We have strict guidelines on the decorations permitted on our wards but it appears that Healer Strout, busy over the Christmas period, overlooked the dangers of the plant on Mr. Bode's bedside table. As his speech and mobility improved, Healer Strout encouraged Mr. Bode to look after the plant himself, unaware that it was not an innocent Flitterbloom, but a cutting of Devil's Snare, which, when touched by the convalescent Mr. Bode, throttled him instantly.

"St. Mungo's is as yet unable to account for the presence of the plant on the ward and asks any witch or wizard with information to come forward."

"Bode..." repeated Ron. "Bode. It rings a bell..."

"Didn't we see him?" frowned Ben.

Hermione nodded. "Yes, in St. Mungo's. He was in the bed opposite Lockhart's, just lying there, staring at the ceiling, remember? And we saw the Devil's Snare arrive. She- the Healer, said it was a Christmas present."

"How come we didn't recognize Devil's Snare?" said Harry, looking very pale. "We've seen it before- We could've stopped this from happening..."

"Who expects Devil's Snare to turn up in a hospital disguised as a potted plant?" said Ron sharply. "It's not our fault, whoever sent it to the bloke is to blame! They must be a real prat, why didn't they check what they were buying?"

"Do you really think it was an accident?" asked Ben.

Hermione was shaking her head. "I don't think anyone could put Devil's Snare in a pot and not realize it tries to kill whoever touches it? This- this was murder... A clever murder, as well... If the plant was sent anonymously, how's anyone ever going to find out who did it?"

"And why him, out of everyone at St. Mungo's?"

"I met Bode," said Harry very slowly. "I saw him at the Ministry with your dad, Ron..."

Ron's mouth fell open. "I've heard Dad talk about him at home! He was an Unspeakable- he worked in the Department of Mysteries!"

They looked at one another for a moment, then Hermione pulled the newspaper back toward 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?" asked Ron, startled.

"To send a letter," she replied, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. "It... Well, I don't know whether- But it's worth trying... And I'm the only one who can..."

"I hate it when she does that," grumbled Ron as they got up from the table and made their own, slower way out of the Great Hall. "Would it kill her to tell us what she's up to for once? It'd take her about ten more seconds- Hey, Hagrid!"

Hagrid was standing beside the doors into the entrance hall, waiting for a crowd of Ravenclaws to pass. He was still as heavily bruised as he had been on the day he had come back from his mission to the giants and there was a new cut right across the bridge of his nose.

"All righ', you three?" he said, trying to muster a smile but managing only a kind of pained grimace.

"Are you okay, Hagrid?" asked Harry, following him as he lumbered after the Ravenclaws.

"Fine, fine," insisted Hagrid with a feeble assumption of airiness; he waved a hand and narrowly missed concussing a frightened-looking Professor Vector, who was passing. "Jus' busy, yeh know, usual stuff- Lessons ter prepare, couple o' salamanders got scale rot... An' I'm on probation," he mumbled.

"What?"

"You're on probation?" shrieked Ron very loudly, so that many students passing looked around curiously. "Sorry- I mean... you're on probation?" he whispered.

"Yeah," nodded Hagrid. " 'S'no more'n I expected, ter tell yeh the truth. Yeh migh' not've picked up on it, bu' that inspection didn' go too well, yeh know... Anyway," he took a deep sigh. "Bes' go an rub a bit more chili powder on them salamanders or their tails'll be hangin' off 'em next. See yeh, Harry, Ron, Ben..."

He trudged away, out the front doors and down the stone steps into the damp grounds.

———————————————

As time went on, everything seemed to go from bad to worse.

Umbridge was becoming increasingly strict, her punishments, rules and decrees kept multiplying, even limiting the topics that teachers could discuss in their classes. Hagrid's probation was not going as well as his friends had hoped; the man was so nervous in Umbridge's presence- which had become an usual during his classes- that he kept losing track of the lessons and made mistakes when answering questions. It even led to him not allowing Harry, Hermione, Ben and Ron to visit him in the evenings. And Harry's private Occlumency lessons with Snape seemed to be having the opposite effect to what one would have expected; the frequency of his dreams was increasing nonstop, and his scar was hurting more and more every time.

Everything seemed helpless.

But the first ray of sunlight came in the unlikely form of Rita Skeeter.

Well, it was actually in Hermione Granger's form, of course... But nobody would've expected the reporter to be involved in the slightest. However, the girl's plan was brilliant. Ben had always known she was one of the brightest witches in the entire school, but he couldn't hide his surprise when, after spending the day with Thomas and Leah at Hogsmeade, he catched up with what Harry, Hermione and Luna had been up to.

They had met up with Rita Skeeter at the Three Broomstickers, and Hermione had told her she wanted her to interview Harry about what happened the night Cedric had been murdered by Voldemort. And then, said interview would be published as an article in The Quibbler, the tabloid edited by Luna's father, Xenophilius Lovegood. According to Harry, Rita was nowhere near as happy as Luna's dad about the idea. But, once Hermione reminded her of the fact that she knew she was an unregistered Animagus, she couldn't refuse. So it was all settled.

Despite the fact that things were still going terrible, their mood was slightly better. At least they knew there was hope of some sort, and they had something to await: the release of the article. Harry didn't want to discuss exactly what he'd said, which honestly made Ben worry.

He had already been told what happened that night, but Hermione said he'd shared a lot of details, and that it had been difficult. He wondered if he didn't tell him because he didn't think he was strong enough to handle it. So the only thing he could do was wait.

And it arrived a couple of days later, during breakfast, when at least six owls landed beautifully right in front of Harry- and one of them on top of Ben's head.

"What's going on?" Ron asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forward to watch as another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting, and flapping their wings.

"I don't think I've ever seen so many owls at once!" exclaimed Alycia, who had only just joined them when the first few hooting creatures arrived.

"I have," commented Harry amusedly, his eyes sparkling at the memory of when hundreds of them surrounded his Aunt and Uncle's house nearly five years ago, bringing him Hogwarts acceptance letters.

"I think I know what this is about!" gasped Hermione, and reached into the feathery mass to take out a long, cylindrical package. "Here, open this one first!"

"Oh, of course!" smiled Ben.

Harry ripped off the brown packaging, unrolling a copy of March's edition of The Quibbler. A very flattering picture of his face grinned at them all from the front cover, under big red letters showing the main title:

HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN

"It's good, isn't it?" said Luna, who had drifted over to the Gryffindor table and now squeezed herself onto the bench between Ron and Ginny, who became very stiff all of a sudden. "It came out yesterday, I asked Dad to send you a free copy. I expect all these," she waved a hand at the assembled owls still scrabbling around on the table in front of Harry, "are letters from readers."

"That's what I thought," hummed Hermione, eagerly. "Harry- Er, d'you mind if we..."

"No, go ahead."

So Hermione, Ron and Ben all began ripping envelopes open.

"This one's from a bloke who thinks you're off your rocker," said Ron, glancing down his letter. "Ah well..."

"This woman recommends you try a good course of Shock Spells at St. Mungo's," added Hermione, looking disappointed and crumpling up a second.

"This one looks okay, though," said Harry slowly. "Hey, she says she believes me!"

Ben showed Harry his own. "So does this one!"

He smiled at him. A smile so dazzling he wished thousands of other owls would swoop in enough letters of support to flood the entire Gryffindor table so he'd never have to drop his smile.

"This one's in two minds," said Fred, who had joined in the letteropening with enthusiasm. "Says you don't come across as a mad person, but he really doesn't want to believe You-Know-Who's back so he doesn't know what to think now... Blimey, what a waste of parchment!"

"Here's another one you've convinced, Harry!" added Hermione, excitedly. "'Having read your side of the story I am forced to the conclusion that the Daily Prophet has treated you very unfairly... Little though I want to think that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned, I am forced to accept that you are telling the truth...' Oh this is wonderful!"

"Another one who thinks you're barking. "Ron threw a crumpled letter over his shoulder. "But this one says you've got her converted, and she now thinks you're a real hero... She's put in a photograph too."

"Another one here!"

"What is going on here?" said a falsely sweet, girlish voice.

There's no way. Professor Umbridge was standing behind Fred and Luna, her bulging toad's eyes scanning the mess of owls and letters on the table in front of them all. Students all around the hall were watching avidly.

"Why have you got all these letters, Mr. Potter?"

"Is that a crime now?" Fred nearly shouted. "Getting mail?"

"Be careful, Mr. Weasley, or I shall have to put you in detention," snapped Umbridge. "Well, Mr. Potter?"

They watched as Harry hesitated.

"It's fan mail," spoke Alycia, all of a sudden.

Ben's neck nearly snapped because of how hard he turned to her. But he couldn't blame his sister, he had been half a second away from saying pretty much the same thing. He hoped Umbridge wouldn't get as mad at her as he would have had it been him.

"About what, Mr. Potter?"

"People have written to me because I gave an interview. About what happened to me last June."

"An interview?" repeated Umbridge, her voice thinner and higher than ever. "What do you mean?"

"I mean a reporter asked me questions and I answered them," he replied. And threw her the copy of The Quibbler. "Here."

She caught it and stared down at the cover. Her pale, doughy face turned an ugly, patchy violet. Her voice was trembling slightly when she next spoke. "When did you do this?"

"Last Hogsmeade weekend."

She looked up at him, incandescent with rage, the magazine shaking in her stubby fingers.

"There will be no more Hogsmeade trips for you, Mr. Potter," she whispered. "How you dare... How you could?" She took a deep breath. "I have tried again and again to teach you not to tell lies. The message, apparently, has still not sunk in. Fifty points from Gryffindor and another week's worth of detentions."

And she began stalking away, clutching The Quibbler to her chest.

"Can't even buy yourself a copy, Professor?" Ben shouted after her.

She stopped on her tracks, and breathed in deeply again before turning to him, not even faking a smile anymore. "Do you want to join him, Mr. Walker?"

"Well, I don't know, do you have a backup quill this time?"

She either didn't have one or didn't feel like continuing the conversation, because she simply said, "A week of detention for you as well," and left.

Ben took a sip of orange juice.

"Well done," deadpanned Harry, frowning.

"Hey, don't even-"

"What do you mean, a backup quill?" asked Fred.

"He snapped Umbridge's torture quill last time he was in detention," explained Ron.

George and Fred let out identical cackles. "That's genius!"

"Not really, she did have a couple of backup ones for the next day, and she obviously still does," Ben muttered blankly. He stood up and sighed. "I forgot something at the dorms."

And walked away, feeling as stupid as ever. It was strange. Before, he would always feel a wonderful high after talking back to people who deserved it, although he had always known it wasn't very smart of him. But it made him feel somewhat better, as though he was in a way fighting against injustice. However, he had come to realise it was always completely useless and, as usual, there was nothing he could do to change anything.

At least before it made his friends laugh, because he assumed they thought he was just one of those silly class clowns, or simply a friend who liked standing up against injustice. But now that they knew everything, he knew it had changed. Now they thought he was a reckless idiot who had no sense of self preservation and kept pushing himself in complicated situations. And the worst part is that he couldn't defend himself or try to prove it wrong, because it was, in fact, the truth.

Oh, and to top it all, he didn't even feel that funny heartbeat rise of knowing he was kind of testing his luck. He didn't care, and he hated that. And he was bored of it. He just hoped his friends weren't bored like him. He wished Harry didn't find him as boring as he did.

He had paid a subscription to The Quibbler, so he'd get his own copy of the edition so he could read it privately, without anyone else's eyes on him. He was glad to find it rolled up on top of his bedside table, as though it was waiting for him. Snowie was sitting right next to it, and gave it a little kick as soon as Ben entered the room, dropping it to the floor.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Snowie meowed at him as he bent down to pick it, and nearly gave him a heart attack as he felt her trying to jump on top of his head.

He sat down on his bed, grateful that the rest of his roommates weren't there, and began reading, with his cat sitting next to him until she saw Boots walking by, and ran up to her. He did his absolute best to keep calm as Harry started getting into the subject. It was hard, really hard. A part of him wanted to just drop it and pretend like he had read it, but he refused. He breathed in deeply and blinked very quickly in an attempt to get rid of all the tears welling up in his eyes. An attempt that did work, but only for a couple of sentences more.

It hurt a lot to remember that Cedric was actually dead, and would never come back. Sometimes he found himself thinking of him in the way you would think of a friend who you haven't seen in a while because they're on a trip, or studying abroad. But reading how his best friend was describing the moment in which his brother's life was taken away forcefully as though it meant nothing to the monster who had done it... It was something else. He didn't think he could continue lying to himself thinking he would see him someday. He won't. He would never see him again.

In the same way that he couldn't see anything anymore, because tears were completely blurring his vision. He couldn't keep fighting them back. He let them fall for a couple of seconds, rubbed his eyes so hard he saw red, and forced himself to continue.

His description of the moment Voldemort came back was terrifying. Ron's rat had been the one to do it, through a disgusting ritual that made him wince when he imagined it.

Apparently, Voldemort didn't have a nose. Which wasn't the most important detail in everything Harry had mentioned, but it certainly caught Ben's attention. He made a mental note to ask him what he exactly meant by that, if it came to a conversation in which it would make sense and wouldn't be too uncomfortable.

But the worst part arrived after all of that. Once Voldemort had been fully revived, he called his Death Eaters, and the speed at which they answered his call made his stomach turn. And then Harry proceeded to name the ones he remembered: Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Avery, Nott, Macnair and the Walkers.

The Walkers.

He stared at his surname, his mind completely blank, waiting for it to magically change. Wasn't he a wizard? Didn't he know how to do magic? Why couldn't he do a spell that would make 'Walker' mean nothing to him, then? Oh what wouldn't he give to make it mean nothing more than somebody who walks.

And that's when it hit him, all of a sudden. Firstly, that that was precisely the reason why Harry refused to tell him about the article, because he didn't want him to know that he had just betrayed him. Secondly, that while it was impossible to change what his surname meant to me, it was also impossible to change what it meant to anyone.

Nobody would truly look past it, no matter how hard he tried.

And he was so tired, so exhausted from it. He was tired of trying and failing all the time.

And now, everything he had fought for was worth nothing, just like himself. The Walkers are Death Eaters. And he had even saved his last name for the last, to make sure it hit harder, to make it more memorable. He couldn't have kept it, to protect him. To protect Alycia.

He didn't even know what it meant for them.

What if Audrey thought Ben had taken part in the interview? What would she do? Would she change her mind again about him? He found himself crying, feeling all hope being sucked out of him at the mere thought of her leaving him again. She couldn't leave them. They were helpless without her, without the idea of being able to leave their parents and go with her. He wasn't sure of how long he'd be able to continue living like that. Living at all.

The door swung open, and someone ran inside. "Ben! We're gonna be late for class, is everything-"

"DON'T TALK TO ME!"

Harry frowned from beside Ben's bed, his face full of confusion. "What?"

"Get away from me."

He took a step forward, so Ben got up from his bed to keep a distance. Harry gaped at him. "What's wrong, what happened?"

"Go away."

"Why are you crying, Ben?"

"Oh, so now I'm Ben?"

"What are you talking about?"

Ben rubbed his eyes to wipe away the tears. He refused to let him see him crying. He couldn't believe he actually had the nerve to pretend like nothing was happening, like he hadn't done anything.

"How could you do this to me?"

"Wha... What did I do?"

"You know what you've done! I know you're not that stupid, Potter."

He frowned again. "Hey, what's up with the surnames?"

"I don't know, what's up with them?"

"You never call me that."

"Isn't that your surname?" he asked bitterly. "Aren't you a Potter, and aren't I a Walker?"

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"Ben, look, I didn't tell you this because I-"

"Because you knew I would get mad. Did you think I wouldn't read it, Harry? Did you think I'd be dumb enough to not realise what you're doing? Of course I would, I'm not fucking stupid!"

"I know you're not, Ben. I never said or thought you were. Look, Hermione said-"

"Oh, of course! Of course she had everything to do with this. How could I not imagine it? What did you tell her last year, to convince her to lie to me and act like she was actually sorry? Or was it all a plan, starting with that fucking elf thing, to make sure you can completely ruin me and show me that all I'm ever going to be is one of them?"

Harry looked at him as though he had just punched him in the face. "Do you really think that's true?"

He breathed in. "Leave me alone, I need to write a letter."

"To who?"

"Audrey. I need to make sure she knows I didn't know you were doing this."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want her to leave us!"

"Why would she... Ben, listen-"

Since he refused to go away, and Ben couldn't bear it anymore, he went and grabbed his things before storming off, slamming the door behind him.