A/N: Hello my dear fanfiction readers. This is MrOakzzz, proudly presenting you with the second chapter of Estranged. I hope you will enjoy reading this and I would be pleased if you were to leave your thoughts and opinions on this in a review.

Now before we start, I want to apologize to anyone here who might like my Pokemon story, Serena Phoenix. I know that one hasn't received an update for almost the entire month, but I have been very busy with school and stuff. I do stand on about 7k words on that chapter though, so if you are waiting for it, then you shouldn't have to wait for too much longer.

And with that, I won't keep you from the story any longer. Here we go guys! Chapter 2 of Estranged! Starting...

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. I only own the plot and my OC. The rest belongs to JK Rowling.

...NOW! =)

Chapter Two: Taking the Blame

Not a word was said in McGonagall's office, as the room's occupants were digesting what had just been said. Everyone stared at Harry and the boy swallowed hard as he felt Dumbledore's piercing gaze from the side, but he stubbornly refused to look at the man. Instead, he kept his gaze locked on Lucius Malfoy, silently daring the man to question his statement. Both father and son Malfoy was staring at him with a frown. It couldn't be more obviously they didn't believe him. Fudge however, was gaping in shock and so was one of his bodyguards. The other one hadn't moved a muscle, but he had turned to look at Harry with a calculating look. The Weasleys were staring at him wide-eyed and he could also feel McGonagall's shocked stare at his neck.

"I opened the Chamber of Secrets." he repeated, this time with a little more force behind his voice. He would need to make it look like he really had opened the Chamber. How would someone who actually had opened the chamber behave when he willingly declared that he had commited the crime? As he thought about it, an image of Voldemort, or "Tom Riddle", proudly declaring his heritage and his role in all the petrifications and the death of Harry' friend in the chamber swam to the front of his mind.

Remembering that facial expression of pride and arrogance that had graced Riddle's face as he declared his pride in his heritage, Harry did his best to put on a crazed grin and threw out his arms to the sides, as if he was about to start calling out to the heavens.

"I opened the Chamber of Secrets and let the Basilisk lose in the castle once again! Just like my predescessor Lord Voldemort did 50 years ago!" he exclaimed, doing his best to put on an arrogant face.

At the mention of Lord Voldemort's name, all people in the office flinched. All except Professor Dumbledore that was. His eyes were locked on Harry, but his forehead had furrowed into a very deep frown. Harry did his best to ignore it and not let it affect him as he looked around the room. Everyone was staring at him with varying degrees of disbelief. He would need to come up with something more. This was too much unlike him. He would need something more... he would need to have had a reason.

"Only a Parselmouth can open the portal to the Chamber. When Voldemort learned that I was a Parselmouth at the end of last year, he offered to revive my parents in exchange for me doing this for him."

By now, Harry had grown too uncomfortable by the headmaster's intense staring at the back of his head and turned to look at him. Albus Dumbledore was looking down at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Harry shivered and swallowed harshly as he stared back into Dumbledore's calculating eyes. Could Dumbledore see through him? Did he realize that no matter what, Harry would never really ally himself with Voldemort? Wait, stupid question. Of course he would see that! He and so many others in this room!

"If that was the case Harry, then why did you keep Voldemort from the Philosopher's Stone last year?" Dumbledore asked, obviously hoping to try and show that Harry was innocent. No doubt he could see that Harry was lying.

Hearing the headmaster's question, Harry felt his heart run cold. What should he say now? What could possibly have driven him to change his mind over the summer? Something that during summer would make him want to turn his back on Dumbledore's beliefs...

"At that time, I still believed that love could prevail over everything and that I was doing the right thing. But over summer, something changed and I opened my eyes to the truth that Voldemort told me at the end of last year. That 'there is no good or evil. There is only power and those too weak to seek it'."

Harry mentally patted himself on the back for remembering what Voldemort had said word for word. And as he took the words in his mouth, he felt that they actually did mean something. Not in the way Voldemort meant it, that all actions could be justified, but that nothing was really born evil or good.

Dumbledore's gaze hardened at the words, obviously recognizing the phrase. Had Voldemort used that phrase more than once? It sure sounded like it would be a phrase he would use. By now, everyone in the room, including Dumbledore were holding their breaths, with their eyes fixed on Harry.

"Why would you change your views on this over summer? It doesn't make any sense." Dumbledore said.

Luckily for him, Harry already had an answer in mind. It almost felt natural for him to say it, as if he had been wanting to say it to the headmaster for a long time.

"Because you sent me back to the Dursleys." he said, trying to look angry, which wasn't very hard. He really was angry at Dumbledore for sending him back to the Dursleys. Why had Dumbledore insisted that he returned there? Drawing upon that actual anger that was bubbling in his chest at the thought, Harry's gazed hardened as he looked back into Dumbledore's eyes.

"You said to me at the end of last year that love was the key to everything, yet you tossed me aside just a few days later." Harry accused while looking straight into Dumbledore's eyes. "I was treated like trash for the entire summer and even got an official warning by the ministry for something I hadn't even done, yet you still didn't do anything to help me."

At this, Fudge opened his mouth to protest, but he was quickly silenced by a hand wave from Dumbledore. By now, Ginny seemed to have shaken herself out of her misery and was staring at Harry with wide eyes, not wanting to believe what he was trying to do.

"Harry... you don't really mean that." Dumbledore tried to reason with him as he took a step towards the boy, but in response to this Harry took a step back.

Now everyone was looking at him with shock and horror written all over their faces. Professor McGonagall had placed her hand over her heart in shock, while Molly had pulled Ginny closer to her in a protective gesture. Unfortunately, or fortunately in Harry's case, that had Ginny's face burried in her mother's protective embrace, making her unable to speak out against Harry's claims. Seeing as this was as good an opportunity he would get to try and put the last bolt in his coffin, Harry reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out Tom Riddle's diary.

"When Ron rescued me from the Dursleys, I thought that maybe someone did love me after all, but I was wrong. The Weasleys were nice, but they weren't really my family. I will never be able to be truly loved as long as I don't have my own family. So with the help of this," Harry held up the diary for everyone to see, "I have finally been able to achieve what have been my goal for the entire year."

As he said this, he once more looked around the room with what he hoped was a menacing and slightly mental look on his face. Everyone had now taken a step away from him and he could swear he saw Mrs Weasley try to pull Ginny out of the room, but the girl was struggling against her mother's grip. Harry swallowed as he saw the panicked look in Ginny's eyes as they met his own. Her chocolate brown eyes were wide with fear, but not fear of him, but fear for him. He looked away. He didn't want to see that look in her eyes. He was doing this for her. He just hoped that in time, she would be able to understand.

"Using the memories contained in this diary, memories of a certain Tom Marvolo Riddle, I finally figured out how to use up Ron's, Ginny's and Professor Lockhart's life forces to create a new body for the soul that was hosted in the diary. You know what that means, right?" he heard Mrs Weasley gasp and saw Dumbledore's eyes widen, for the first time ever since he first met him show fear. "Lord Voldemort... has returned!"

-Z-Z-Z-

Ginny desperately tried to fight off her mother's protective grip as she heard Harry exclaim with a voice of false pride that he had revived Voldemort. It wasn't him who did it! It was her and her alone! If she hadn't written in that bloody book in the first place, then nothing of this would have happened! Why was Harry doing this? Why did he try to take the blame?!

And then it hit her, as Harry's words from earlier came floating back to her again. 'I won't let anything happen to you Ginny. I promise.' She swallowed as she slowly came to realize what Harry was trying to do. He was trying to protect her!

"Harry... please tell me that he isn't back." Dumbledore whispered, but Ginny barely heard him. Her focus was on the raven haired boy standing in the middle of the room. He didn't say anything, but his face had twisted into a menacing grin, making Ginny shudder just by looking at him. He looked so different, so un-Harry like that she could hardly believe that it really was him.

When Harry didn't say anything, Dumbledore seemed to take that as a confirmation for what he had been told and burried his face in his hands. He drew a shaky breath and shook his head. McGonagall looked over at her boss, still with a look of shock and disbelief on her face.

"Albus? Is it true? Can he be speaking the truth?" she whispered, doubtfully.

However, Dumbledore didn't give any indication to have heard her. The news that Lord Voldemort had been revived must have shaken him up really badly. Ginny swallowed and turned back to Harry. He was looking at Dumbledore with an almost symphathetic look, even though it was well hidden. She felt her chest constrict as he turned towards her and met her eyes. They were full of regret, of pain. It felt so real to her that she felt she could almost touch it.

"He's lying!" she heard herself say. Her voice was shaky, and she realized that she was trembling. She felt her eyes grow tearful as she stared back at Harry, defiantly. "I opened the Chamber of Secrets! Harry had nothing to do with it!"

"Be quiet!" Harry roared, but below the words, Ginny could detect a hoarse, hissing sound. Her eyes widened as she realized that Harry had spoken out in Parseltongue.

The entire room's eyes shot up in shock and bewilderment. Even the quiet, unresponsive auror who hadn't said a word or even given a hint of a facial expression so far widened his eyes in surprise. Ginny felt her mother shudder through their embrace and felt a shiver run down her own spine as the hoarse, hissing sound reminded her of Riddle. Before when Harry spoke in Parseltongue, it had been in a casual speech. This time, it was more hoarse, more ferocious... more like Riddle. It sounded even more hollow than when she herself had spoken it while she was being possessed.

As if Harry had somehow managed to snap up her thoughts, he looked back at her again. But this time, she saw none of the regret or pain she had seen earlier. This time, his eyes were filled with a look of sad determination.

"You need to be able to speak Parseltongue to open the chamber. Are you a parselmouth, Ginny?" he asked, looking her straight in the eye, just daring her to try and speak it in front of everyone.

Ginny had half a mind to try, but then she was reminded that she could no longer speak it, only understand it. She had failed to speak it down in the chamber when they were exiting and that had been a place where she knew she had been able to speak it before. Nothing spoke in favour of her being able to do it now. She bit her lip in frustration and looked down. Why? Was there really no other way for Harry to do this? Why did he have to take the blame instead of her? Why couldn't she stop him?!

"Where's my son?"

The voice came from somewhere above Ginny's head and she looked up to see her father looking at Harry with a strange expression on his face. Ginny didn't know what to make of it, but at the mention of her brother, she felt her heart constrict painfully again. Ron... Ron was...

"He's dead." Harry's voice floated over to them, but to Ginny it sounded as if it came from far away.

Ron was dead. He was dead because she hadn't been able to fight off Riddle when she was being possessed. Her brother was dead and it was all her fault! She had practically killed her own brother! The mere thought of it made Ginny feel sick and she felt her breathing become unstable. She was vaguely aware of panicked voices around her and arms and hands that tried to shake her out of it, but she didn't respond. Everything felt like it was slowly drifting away. For the second time that day, Ginny felt herself being swallowed up by the darkness of her own mind.

-Z-Z-Z-

It was early the next morning when Albus Dumbledore sat alone in his office. The Board of Govenors had agreed to allow him to resume his post as headmaster for the school, but Albus didn't feel the least bit satisfied. Voldemort was back. Had he really failed that badly with Harry? Where had he gone wrong? It didn't make any sense to him. Even if Harry had been bitter about being sent back to the Dursleys again, why would that make him suddenly hate muggleborns and make him desperate for a family enough to kill off his two best friends? It just didn't add up in Albus' mind.

Perhaps he had underestimated the treatment he had gone through at the Dursleys? Perhaps it really had been as bad as Harry had claimed it to be? Albus wasn't stupid. He knew that the Dursleys had been all but happy to have their nephew under their roof. But had they really treated him as badly as Harry had told him? He had just assumed that Harry was exagerrating.

And then there was Voldemort... What would happen now? Would they have yet another war up their sleeves now? Despite all the questions and questionable statements Harry had made during the interrogation, there had been no doubt that Harry really had spoken the truth when he said that. Voldemort was back. The mere thought of it made him shudder. And what if Harry really had allied himself with the Dark Lord? According to the prophecy, only Harry could kill Voldemort, so what if they joined forces? Would the prophecy remain unfulfilled or would it just play out in a different way than Albus had thought it would? It had never actually said how Harry was supposed to kill Voldemort, just that he had the power to do so. Could it be that the prophecy would be fulfilled by Harry joining Voldemort, then stabbing him in the back to take over the reign of terror himself? So many questions...

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. Albus snapped back to reality and looked up with a frown. He wasn't expecting anyone at this hour. And his next meeting wasn't due before lunch so who could that be?

"Come in."

The door opened and in stepped Professor McGonagall. She had dark shadows under her eyes and looked tired and worn out. Albus hadn't seen her this worn out for several years. To be honest, he couldn't think of any occasion when she had looked this tired since the last war.

"Minerva? To what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise visit?" Albus asked as he rose from his seat and waved his wand in the air.

At his wand wave, a big fluffly armchair appeared out of thin air in front of McGonagall. The woman nodded gratefully and walked over to sit down in it, letting out a sigh of relief as her legs finally gave out.

"I wasn't able to sleep after... well, after what happened yesterday." she said as she looked up at the headmaster with a worried look. "Albus, do you really think Harry opened the Chamber of Secrets?"

Not completely caught off guard by the question, Albus sat back down in his chair and began to play with his beard. He didn't know. For once, Albus Dumbledore honestly didn't know the answer to the question he was being asked. He wanted to say that Harry in no possible way really could be responsible for what he claimed himself to be, but at the same time Harry's arguments from yesterday had been very convincing. It would certainly make sense that only a Parselmouth could open the Chamber. Parseltongue was a very rare language and only the Slytherin family were known to have the trait passed down through generations. It could still show up in certain individuals without any connection to them, but only the Slytherin family seemed to have it in their blood, so that would definetely make sense.

Furthermore, Harry had said that the monster in the Chamber was a Basilisk. As much as Albus had been trying to find any kind of hint to what the monster could possibly be, he hadn't known exactly what it was. He had suspected it, yes, but not been quite sure since Slytherin no doubt could have cooked up something much more terrifying. That Harry had known exactly what was inside the chamber and how the mechanism for the petrification and killing worked made him all the more nervous and unsure of if maybe Harry really had opened the Chamber after all.

"I really don't know, Minerva. I wish I did, but I can't say for sure if he did or did not open the chamber." Albus reluctantly told his Transfiguration Professor.

Minerva sighed in slight disappointment and leaned back in the armchair, desperately wishing to wake up from this horrible nightmare. She couldn't believe it, yet it seemed to be the truth. Lily and James Potter's son...

"I don't want to believe it. Harry can't have opened the Chamber. There must be something here that we have missed." she tried to deny the statement, more to herself than to Albus.

"Unfortunately Minerva, there is nothing we can do about it until we find what that something might be. I don't want to believe that Harry really did turn his back on us like he did, but until we have valid proof that he didn't we will have to act from the viewpoint that he did in fact revive Voldemort willingly." Albus sighed and shook his head.

Both professors became quiet after that, lost in their own thoughts. Neither of them wanted to admit that at the moment, it really did look like Harry had turned to the Dark Side. Once more thinking back to what Harry had said about his 'reason' to turn his back on his old beliefs, Albus couldn't help but draw the parallel to another 11-year old boy, who had changed in that exact way 55 years earlier. Tom Riddle might have been a much darker shade of light than Harry had ever been when he came to Hogwarts, but nevertheless he had been an almost innocent boy back then and not even close to becoming the monster he was today. Albus himself had noticed that the older he got, Riddle had become much slyer and darker as a person. And the greatest changes always occured over the summer. At the end of his last year, Tom Riddle had reluctantly left Hogwarts to return to his orphanage, but he had at least been happy during the past school year and made something akin to real friends. But after that summer, Tom Riddle returned to the magical world with a much more distant personality. If Albus hadn't been so set on convincing Professor Dippet to send Tom back to the orphanage back then, maybe Lord Voldemort would have never been born?

Minerva felt her head spin, trying to find any kind of reason or proof that would be enough to save Harry from the fate he had set up for himself. But she couldn't come up with anything. Her thoughts were a bit hazy due to lack of sleep and her eyelocks were also starting to feel the strain of not sleeping for 36 hours. Had Harry really opened the Chamber of Secrets? It all sounded so bizarre to her. She had seen how Harry interracted over the year and how utterly horrified and overcome with sorrow he had been when Hermione Granger had been killed by the monster. You couldn't fake that kind of sadness. His grief at the time had been real. But how could she prove it?

"You think that we could get Miss Weasley to tell us her story? She must know something, considering she came out of the Chamber along with Harry." Minerva tried to convince Albus.

The headmaster stopped playing with his long beard and sighed. That thought had stricken him as well, but there were several holes in it.

"As much as I think that would help us understand this, it would not serve as enough evidence that Harry did not commit the crimes he claims. Since he have already admitted to the crimes and accepted his punishment, the ministry will not back down their descision for anything but solid proof and a testimony from Miss Weasley would not serve as that. Not even if she was willing to give us her memory would they accept it, because as I said yesterday memories can be altered."

He sighed. There really was no way out of this, at least not at this point. Harry had built his own bed and he would have to sleep in it himself. There was nothing Albus could do, other than using force to break him out of Azkaban, but that would be too risky. The minister would know who did it because of Albus' fierce protests against throwing Harry in Azkaban in the first place and all they would need to do was ask for Albus' wand afterwards. If he didn't give it to them willingly, they would know he was hiding something and if he did give it to them, they would see whatever magic he used to break into the prison. So no matter how he looked at it, there wasn't anything he could do at this point. Whether he liked it, believe it or not, Harry Potter would be spending the immediate future in the Azkaban Prison.

-Z-Z-Z-

Harry took a deep, trembling breath and tried to steel himself against the biting cold. Despite it being in the spring and summer was fast approaching, the air out at sea was chilling and somehow got in under his skin easier than Fred and George Weasley landed themselves in detention. Behind him, one of the bodyguards from McGonagall's office was standing. At least, he had been lucky enough to get the quiet, unresponsive one. The man in question was tall with broad shoulders and had an emotionless expression on his face. If he hadn't been Harry's escort to prison, he might have seemed like a nice guy.

But as it stood now, Harry doubted he would see anyone he would be able to classify as a "nice guy" in the future. He was not going to meet many nice people from now on and he knew it! He was going to prison... the full meaning of what he was exposing himself to by taking the blame for Ginny hadn't hit him before the minster Cornelius Fudge had arrested him. But he couldn't have let Ginny go through this! She was too fragile for this... she had been so weak and scared when he found her in the Chamber that exposing her to this kind of treatment was a sure way to send her to her death. He couldn't consciously let that happen. Not after he promised her that he would never let anything happen to her.

"Why did you lie?"

The voice caused Harry to jump and look around bewildered, half expecting someone other than the two of them, the prisoner and the auror, to stand somewhere on their small boat. But there was no one else. As he glanced over his shoulder, he found the otherwise so quiet and unresponsive auror looking back at him with an expectant look on his face, the first real expression Harry had seen on the man's features.

"What makes you think I am lying?"

The man looked down at Harry and his stern gaze made Harry shudder. It felt like the man could see straight through him, almost as if he could see what Harry was thinking in that very moment. Harry twisted slightly in his spot, trying to shake the very unwelcome feeling of being seen through. He swallowed as he looked back up at the man defiantly. Or well, as defiantly as he could while his teeth were clattering from the biting cold.

"The minister might be a naive idiot, Potter, but I am not. Any decent wizard can see that you are hiding something."

His voice wasn't as stern as his gaze, but it still put Harry on edge. He felt a lump form in his throat. What should he answer? Should he keep trying to deny the truth? What difference would that make? How would that affect Ginny? If he told this man that he had not opened the Chamber, then would that mean the ministry went after Ginny again? These thoughts flew through his mind as he stared back into his prisonguard's eyes.

"Are you asking this out of your own curiousity or in order to gain information for the ministry?" Harry wanted to know.

The man turned away from Harry and nodded towards something that came drifting towards them in the morning mist. It was barely visible, but it was huge and it looked like a tower in the shape of a triangle. It took Harry a moment to realize that they were getting closer. That... had to be the Azkaban prison. This... was where his freedom would be taken away from him.

"I just don't get anyone would willingly go to the Azkaban Prison. I want to know what could possibly have driven you to take the blame for that girl if it meant getting sent to this place."

Right then and there, Harry couldn't really blame him for asking. Looking up at the huge building that would soon be his "home", Harry felt an unnatural cold make its way into his system and he shivered all over. There was something unnatural about this place, like a haunted house from one of Dudley's horror movies, but worse. He felt himself growing dizzy and began to sway in place. His knees were starting to buckle under his weight, and he was just about to fall to the ground when he felt a pair of strong hands grab him and help him sit down gently. Surprised at the kind gesture, he looked up to find that the auror had knealed in front of him, looking back at him with an unreadable expression.

"I know you didn't open the Chamber of Secrets, Harry. What I want to know is why you were so set on taking the blame for that girl?"

Harry didn't know why. It might have been the gesture of kindness, the fact that the man hadn't actually moved to arrest neither him nor Ginny back in McGonagall office despite the Minister's orders or it might have been because he felt so weakened at the moment, but he felt like it wouldn't hurt to tell this man. There was something about him, something that Harry couldn't quite make out, but he felt that he could trust this man.

"Ginny was as innocent as I was, even though she blames herself for what happened. The diary that I showed really had been used to revive Voldemort, but it wasn't me who did it. Ginny had been writing in it all year and the soul or memory or whatever it was inside that diary managed to take control of her and force her to do Voldemort's bidding. She did open the Chamber, but it wasn't her fault. I couldn't let her get taken away for something she had no control over."

His prisonguard studied him for a moment, taking in and contemplating what Harry had just said. The boat kept gliding towards the prison and the closer it got, the weaker Harry felt. It was as if he was being filled up with cold, negative emotions. Why had he done this? He could be sitting in the great hall this very moment! He could be enjoying a nice breakfast with his fellow Gryffindors instead of being taken to prison! What had possibly made him put Ginny's wellbeing over his own?

"If what you are saying really is true, then you got my respect, Harry. You are probably the only person in the world who would willingly go to Azkaban, even to save an innocent from the same fate. I'm not even sure if I myself would be able to do it." came the voice of the auror, sounding as if it was spoken from far away, yet at the same time it felt close.

Yeah, that's right. He had willingly gone to Azkaban because he wanted to protect Ginny. She had been innocent! She didn't deserve to go here, neither did he! But he had chosen back then, he had chosen to take the blame because he cared about her! It had been his descision and his descision alone! Feeling a strange kind of warmth spread through his chest at the thought of Ginny, Harry sat up straight and drew in a shaky, but deep breath. Thinking about Ginny, his only friend left in this world, somehow filled him with a warmth that managed to conquer the coldness and negative emotions that had welled up in him when he got closer to the prison. He had managed to save her! Despite all the hardships along the way, he had really managed to save her! She was free because he had taken the blame. This wasn't the end of his life, it was the beginning of Ginny's. Thanks to him, Ginny would be able to live freely.

"Well, I'm not exactly normal now, am I?" he asked the auror as he shakily got back on his feet.

"You most certainly aren't." the auror chuckled.

After that, silence once more befell the two of them as they glided closer to the huge prison. Harry felt the strange hollow feeling from before trying to once more get a grip in his chest, but the thought of Ginny living a free, happy life managed to keep it at bay. The auror behind him seemed to be in deep thought. As they closed in on the prison and were almost by the shore, he finally spoke up.

"When we get to the prison, I will need to fill in some papers before taking you to your cell. It will probably take a little while for me to do so, enough for you to write a note to that girl. I'm sure she would want you to expalin your actions to her."

The offer caught Harry off guard. In surprise, he looked up at the auror, who had an unreadable expression on his face again. How did he do that? As much as he used that stiff, unreadable face, Harry was sure that his facial muscles must be cramping. But never mind that now. He had been offered to write a short letter to Ginny? Why would the auror be offering him that opportunity? Could he have an ulterior motive? And in that case, what could that be? No, at this point he doubted that this man would try to pull his leg or decieve him.

"That would be great, but how am I supposed to get it to her?"

For a moment, Harry thought he saw the shadow of a smile grace the stern auror's lips, but it might just have been a twitch. Shaking it off as mere imagination, Harry opted to just wait for his answer.

"I will take it to her personally. We don't want anyone to know about this." the man said. Then, after a moment of thought, he added: "At least not until you can get back out of prison again."

This, if possible, caught Harry even more of guard and his brows furrowed in surprise. He had been told that the Azkaban prison was inescapeable and that no one had ever managed to break out of it, not even those with help from outside. Did this man know how to break out? No, that couldn't be. In that case, then why hadn't he made sure that the loophole was blocked? He was a ministry worker, granted a very objective and intelligent one, but still a ministry worker.

"Do you know how to break out of Azkaban?" he couldn't help but ask.

The man chuckled again, startling Harry slightly. It just felt so weird being here, on his way to prison, talking civilly with his supposed Prison guard.

"There is no known way out, but let's hope we can get you out in a legal way. It would be a shame to let someone like you rotten in prison. God knows there are too few like you in this world already."

Harry frowned at that declaration. Where was this coming from? For a prison guard, this auror sure seemed to be quite helpful towards his charge. And since when did prison guards do small talk with their charges? Or praise them in any way?

A thud and a sudden jerk of the boat brought Harry out of this thoughts. He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed the shore appear through the mist. The jerk turned out to be the impact when the boat docked against the small shore. They were here at least. They had arrived at the Azkaban Prison.

-Z-Z-Z-

From her cell in one of the more secluded parts of Azkaban, a young girl looked down towards the shore where the boat with the new arrival had just docked. Her cyan-blue eyes took in the scene of the auror, Kingsley Schacklebolt if she was not mistaken, helping the raven-haired boy he had brought with him to step onto the shore and then guiding him into the building that was the Office building, a small, hut-like building that was located on the shore of the island that housed the Azkaban prison. The Ministry of Magic had opted to build a slightly more secluded hut to keep their important documents and other things nescesary for the prison, to try and lower the proximity to the Dementors their workers would be exposed to when someone came here to fill in a file or while transporting prisoners.

Seeing such a young boy being taken to prison, even if the guard appeared to be unusually gentle with him, caused the girl's heart to ache. He couldn't be more than 12, possibly 13 years old. Was this how low the British Ministry of Magic had fallen? Had the world really sunk so low as to allow a 12 year old boy to go to prison? What had happened to the justice and morals in this world?

Of course, she herself wasn't much older when she first got thrown in here 3 years ago, but it was an entirerly different matter to see someone that young being taken here from the outside than to actually be the one who got thrown into her cell. Well, she didn't remember it very well to be honest. That had been a time when her mind was very unstable so her memory from then was a little blurry. She vaguely remembered being taken away from Hogwarts by a team of aurors, but she couldn't remember exactly what had happened after that. Her memory had long gaps in it from the moment she was taken from Hogwarts up until just about a year ago, when her puberty had began to settle and her mind had become more stable again. Ever since she was born, her mind had been outstandingly overdeveloped, but not so much in the academic part, but rather its mental state. Sure, she was far from unintelligent, but it had been her mental prowess that stood out.

This girl's name was Emma Samantha Bones. She had grown up as an orphan after her parents, Edgar and Samantha Bones, had died in the war against Voldemort. Emma had only been 2 years old when it happened, but at times she could still vaguely recall the incident. It had been shortly before the war's ending. It was a night like any other night, but something had been different. Her dad was late home from work and even as a mere 2 year old, Emma had been able to sense that her mother was getting worried. And it would turn out that she had good reason to be worried. After Edgar finally did return home, the little family had tried to just shake off their worries and have a normal dinner, but halfway through, it had happened. Without warning, the door had been blasted off its hinges and 4 men in black robes with masks covering their faces had invaded their home. Emma had later heard that they were called "Death Eaters".

All that Emma could remember from then on was how scared she felt and how horrified she had been when she had witnessed her mother, and a few moments later her father, fall victim to the Death Eaters' curses. In the aftermath, Emma had found herself on the floor, next to her parents' corpses. She remembered that one of the men had turned his wand towards her but then, everything went blank. The next thing she remembered was waking up the morning after that incident to find all 4 of the invaders dead on the floor. It wouldn't be until later that she realized that she had been the one to kill them. That night, her mind's true powers had aweakened and the result was one that frightened her even to this day. As an infant, she had lost control of her powers and it had been enough to kill 4 fully grown men. The ministry had been in an uproar, not being able to make sense of what had happened. Her aunt, Amelia, had been able to tone down the demands for investigations and experiments to judge her power by officially taking her in as her charge. Since then, Emma had grown up with her aunt.

When she had turned 10, she had been accepted into Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry and during her first two years, she seemed to be a girl just like anyone else, except the fact that she was unusally quiet. She rarely spoke to others, mainly because she couldn't speak to them normally. The only way Emma could communicate with people around her was her telepathy and gestures with her arms and hands. She had been mute since birth, apparently because her vocal muscles were underdeveloped. So she kept mostly to herself and didn't really spoke to anyone, because most people thought she was weird and speaking to them telepathically would most likely not change that view. But at the end of her second year, she had entered puberty, which brought along some... unexpected problems. While her hormones were unstable and her body adjusted to her new, teenage body, her mind became unstable, along with her mood. She would have mood swings in an even worse way than a mentally disturbed Hungarian Horntail. One moment she could be fine, only to find herself in a depression just a few moments later, often without reason. But worst was when she got angry. As her mind and mental prowess was unstable, her mind would send out waves of mental energy without her being able to control it, often resulting in any person in her vicinity experiencing a terrible headache or suffer from migraine. After a particularly nasty incident, where she had been provoked by a Slytherin boy and went into a cold rage after the boy insulted her parents, which had resulted in the boy being sent to St. Mungos for treatment and mental rehabilitation, the Ministry of Magic had deemed her too dangerous to allow to roam free.

In the present, Emma gave a mental sigh as she turned away from the window, through which she had seen the new boy being taken into the prison itself. Thinking about her past always made her feel depressed. She had been here for 3 years now and yet it didn't look like someone would bother trying to get her released, despite the fact that she was now perfectly stable after her mind had gotten more accustomed to her teenage body. Her mood swings had stopped and for a little more than a year now, she had been in complete control of her mental prowess. But the ministry didn't seem to agree with her and after seeing them throwing yet another 12 year old in Azkaban, Emma was starting to doubt that they would ever see it fit to release her. It would seem that they thought it would be much more comfortable for them to just try to forget that she existed. Not even Aunt Amelia had come to visit her even once since she got sent here. That in itself was weird, because Amelia had never shown anything but unconditional love for her, not even when her mind had become unstable during her third and last year. She had always told Emma that it would get better, everything would sort itself out eventually. But since Emma got thrown in prison, she hadn't even heard a word from Amelia. Not for the first time these years, Emma Bones found herself wondering: What had the world really come to?

A/N: So, how was that? I know the progressing of this story might be a bit slow, but I want to be very accurate in my writing of this fic and try to be as detailed as I can. I still think this chapter turned out pretty well and I hope that you think so as well.

And now, we have had our first OC presented: Emma Samantha Bones. And before anyone asks, no. Emma is not Susan's older sister. They are however related to each other as cousins, as Edgar Bones is the older brother of Amelia Bones and Susan's father. It was confirmed in canon that Amelia and Edgar were siblings and that they had yet another sibling, most likely a brother since Susan carries tha Bones surname. Please tell me what you think of Emma so far. I am always super-nervous when inserting OCs into fics, because they can either make or break a fic. And people tend to have varied feelings about them, but I want to know what those feelings and thoughts could be so I can work on Emma from that ground.

As always I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and I want to give a big thanks to shadowz101 for being a good sounding board to throw ideas at and get a good opinion and answer out of. I would be utterly pleased if as many as possible left a review to let me know how I am doing with this, as I am not yet very accustomed to writing in such a dark and sadistic manner. If you want to flame me however, I kindly ask you to either save your breath or use a registered account so that I can report you to my friend "The Keeper of Worlds", who is driving a campaign against flamers here on FF. And with that, MrOakzzz signs out for tonight! =)