The icy touch of stone had barely left his fingertips when Harry suddenly sat up in bed.
He blinked at the gold and red canopy above him.
But in the next instant—
"Ugh!"
The exploding pain from the lightning-shaped scar made him instinctively curl into a ball. In the darkness, his emerald eyes contracted sharply from the residual visual shock—
Boiling black waves, countless withered arms wielded magic against the crowd blocking the hole in the wall, the hole in the wall continued to enlarge under the green light until it completely collapsed—a salty, biting wind carried snowflakes into his mouth, revealing the ink-black ocean outside the structure that swallowed all light.
"Charge out! Tear them to pieces—"
The wizard's hoarse shout still echoed within the boy's skull.
"For the master—!"
The woman's shriek seemed to pierce his eardrums as well.
Harry could even feel "his" anger and ecstasy, the contradictory emotions nearly driving him to collapse, until now a laugh irrepressibly rose from his throat—In the next moment, a pale blue halo glimmered in his pupils and the laughter abruptly stopped. Harry finally managed to catch his breath, regaining normality.
"Harry?"
From the neighboring bed, Ron was awakened by the laughter, groggily propped himself up, "Are you bloody mad?"
…The boy was clearly a bit grumpy from being woken up.
"...I think maybe I am."
Harry's breathing was somewhat erratic, as if something scared him, but his calm voice, clear and measured in the darkness—
Ron's sleepiness evaporated. He quickly sat up, cautiously poking his head out of the canopy. When he finally saw the blue light in Harry's eyes, he managed to breathe a sigh of relief, "What on earth happened?" He didn't brush it off and instead got out of bed, standing next to Harry.
"I saw it, there… Azkaban? They all broke out!"
Harry suddenly paused, a strong feeling of resistance clenched his throat, causing him to instinctively cover his throat.
He seemed unwilling to let anyone know about this; it must be kept…
This was Voldemort's thought.
In the flow state, Harry completely observed his psychological and physiological reactions from a third-person perspective. It was indeed effective; at least he didn't feel nauseated anymore—although, for so long, this connection with Voldemort was nothing new to Harry, yet the boy still… felt sickened.
"Azkaban? That prison run by the Ministry of Magic?"
Ron blinked. Having heard the latter part of Harry's sentence, he instinctively wanted to shout. But then he realized it was still pretty early, and if he screamed, most likely half of the boys' dormitory would come over to pummel him.
So, Ron covered his mouth, eyes fixed on Harry, "You dreamt that all the prisoners escaped? Like Sirius?" Pausing, he continued, "Uh… maybe you should write that in your Divination homework? That old bat would love the story."
"…Yes, but it wasn't a dream."
Harry was still panting, his words coming out with difficulty, "Ron, I told you—I sometimes can slip into Vol… You-Know-Who's mind, see what he sees." The boy instinctively glanced at the three others in the dorm still asleep, unusually choosing "You-Know-Who" instead of Voldemort—
Although he wasn't afraid of the name, he wanted to avoid alarming Ron with it, so after a brief hesitation, he opted for an alternative.
"…Really… we should…"
Ron instinctively stood up, trying to circle around the bed to wake Neville on the other side.
"Don't tell him—"
Harry blurted out, instinctively grabbing Ron's arm, his knuckles white from the grip, "Or Hermione either!"
"What? Why?!" Ron looked flabbergasted, "This is huge! We should find a way to inform Professor Dumbledore…"
"Dumbledore must know!"
Harry whispered, his heart lightly thumping against his ribs, "If You-Know-Who dares do this, maybe… maybe he has insiders at the Ministry of Magic! If Hermione accidentally… or Neville lets it slip…" Harry was even trying to convince himself with this argument, rather than confronting why he truly didn't want the two to know—
"Now only we know, it's safest!"
Yet this reasoning clearly hadn't fully convinced Ron, but he obediently halted, pausing for a moment, "So, now what?"
"…He definitely knows something?"
Harry suddenly said out of the blue, then pulled open his bedside drawer and began rummaging inside, soon finding a note.
"He?"
Ron asked, somewhat baffled.
...
In the early morning, the Gryffindor common room was empty.
In the fireplace, the glowing embers cast a faint reddish light. Harry held his magic wand and, under Ron's gaze, slowly waved it in front of the fireplace while reciting the spell from the note. Soon, the flames flickered slightly, and a face that seemed to be formed by coalesced charcoal, looking somewhat blurred, appeared at the bottom of the flames.
Sirius yawned widely the moment he "appeared."
"What's up? Harry, got some teenage troubles? How about that move I taught you last time? Did that red-haired girl...
Sirius stopped speaking because he saw the red-haired boy sitting next to Harry.
"... 'red-haired girl'?"
Ron squinted, and any previously tense emotions instantly vanished, "Are you referring to Ginny?"
"Ahem—ahem—Ron, that's not the point—"
Harry instinctively said, with no joking tone, but no one knew if it was due to his flow state or genuine anxiety.
Ron stared at the blue glow in Harry's eyes and fell silent for a moment, then nodded obediently.
"Sirius—"
Harry sat in front of the fire, speaking at a speed like a runaway Firebolt, recounting fully what he had just discussed with Ron.
After hearing this, Sirius's apparition flickered a bit, but his voice remained calm, "Don't panic, boys, take a deep breath—I indeed spent over ten years in that hellish place; forget about breaking out, those locked up there would never take interest in anything. If I hadn't seen Peter Pettigrew..." He glanced at Ron, "in your family photo, I'd probably just remain there... until I died—"
"But it couldn't just be a dream! Sirius—"
"So, have you talked to William or Lupin about it?"
Sirius interrupted Harry's explanation, showing with his eyes that as a godfather, he absolutely trusted his godson.
"...No."
"Then let me tell him—"
"No!"
"...Why?"
This time, Sirius also voiced the confusion Ron was feeling.
"Yeah, telling the Seniors should be the best solution, right?"
Ron nodded quickly, "He's defeated Voldemort more than once and even saved your life—as you personally told me, right?"
"...He'll have his channels; I... just don't want him to know that I know about this."
Harry's voice was low, even carrying some doubt in his tone. His gaze fell on an empty spot beside the fireplace, murmuring—which made Ron and Sirius exchange a glance, then Sirius directly changed the topic—
"Listen, Harry, if something big enough to shake the world really happened in Azkaban, the Ministry of Magic couldn't cover it up. Black wizards breaking out, Dementors losing control, then they will definitely attack the Muggle world—by tomorrow's breakfast, 'The Daily Prophet' will only be reporting this one thing—"
"If, if they managed to suppress it—"
"Impossible, Harry, absolutely impossible. Others wouldn't tolerate Fudge suppressing such a matter, especially those Aurors—that guy would probably be overthrown, unless he managed to overnight erase everyone who knew about this affair..."
Sirius gestured slicing his neck with his hand, then his tone lightened, "Relax, that's impossible. Fudge doesn't have that kind of power—this thing is like Peter Pettigrew's tin can butt climbing out of the grave to serve Voldemort again—it simply does not exist—"
He seemed to want to say something else, but just then, there was a soft sound from the shadow behind them.
Hermione, neatly dressed, came down the stairs from the girls' dormitory, her smooth hair obediently wound at the back of her head, fireplace flames reflected in her eyes, "Harry? Ron?" She looked with a puzzled expression, then glanced at the head in the flames, "Sirius? What are you doing?"
"Nothing!"
Harry abruptly cut off the conversation, his heart nearly jumping to his throat, "It's just that my Firebolt's having some issues since I haven't ridden in a while, so I'm asking Sirius to send me the receipt from when he bought the broomstick—" The boy instinctively chose a lie about broomsticks, as Hermione wasn't interested in flying.
The shadow in the flames quickly raised an eyebrow, but his voice seamlessly shifted to a lazy tone, "Aha, Miss Granger—yeah, that's about it, so you dressed up so nicely so early, going to... wait a moment, isn't today—"
Hermione instinctively widened her eyes, "You! Don't go alert them—"
"Never!"
Sirius winked, miming pulling a zipper across his mouth, "Don't worry, I'm probably the tightest-lipped person you know." With that, he winked at Harry, "Next time, just write a letter about things like this... All right, I'm off to sleep some more, have to take a stroll in the Muggle City later—"
"Oh, right."
Saying this, it seemed he suddenly remembered something, "I've got a surprise for you, Harry, I'm going to say it right now—yep, that's right, just to tantalize you." Along with the man's "evil" chuckle of "ha ha ha," his head vanished from the flames—