𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐂 || 𝐒𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖

Chapter Eight: Unexpected

Chapter Eight 

Midway through September, the weather began to cool. Some leaves began to fall and some of the weaker greenery was slightly turning to more muted tones of browns. The vibrant oranges, yellows, and reds wouldn't come till October.

The last thing Matty expected to see on this cool autumn morning was the sight she was met with when she entered the Great Hall first thing in the morning.

Several students were huddled around the Slytherin table—all from different houses. By the time Matty curiously made her way over, some people left, making it easier to see. Then, she saw Thomas Beckham holding a copy of that day's edition of the Daily Prophet with Sebastian reading it over his shoulder.

"What's going on?" Matty asked, leaning over the table a bit.

"See for yourself,' Thomas said, tossing the paper to her a moment later.

Grabbing the paper, Matty's eyes trailed down it to find out what all the ruckus was about. Finally, she found it. A headline that read of a former Hogwarts student's death while in Azkaban came into view. Matty read the small section silently, shocked, but she wouldn't show the expression on her face.

Apollo Morganach—a former friend and now enemy (or now, past enemy) was dead. The paper read that his cause of death—along with the death of two other prisoners of Azkaban who had died on the same day—was unknown. But with how sudden and unexpected it was and with the death of the two other prisoners it seemed highly suspicious.

"The cause of death is "unknown," they said," Sebastian spoke. "But the real kicker is, is that this happened a month ago. The ministry just released this information. They were trying to keep it a secret." His words came out in a rather unamused tone.

Matty furrowed her brows. A month ago? How could they even keep this a secret for so long? Yes, they were the ministry, but the Daily Prophet was known for having nosey journalists who somehow got into every bit of information they wanted. Seemingly more important things had been aired by the daily prophet before so why did this take so long?

Down lower and across from the section she had been reading, the was a small headline about how goblins were seemingly going missing. Although that wasn't what Matty was focused on, she took a moment to read over the words that had been printed. Odd...

"How do three prisoners just die on the same day? And how do you say the cause of death is unknown? Doesn't that seem suspicious?" Matty questioned, folding the paper and putting it down on the table. "Did something happen in Azkaban they don't want us to know about?"

"Do you think someone's escaped? Maybe killing these three people as a distraction?" Poppy chimed in from beside Matty. "And maybe the Ministry just doesn't want to tell people because it'll cause utter bedlam?"

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. But I find it unlikely. Not even the Ministry could keep something like that a secret. Besides, if someone had escaped there'd be Aurors everywhere on the lookout for them. Surely we would know." He replied but even he wasn't completely sure that they'd know. The Ministry had a record of not caring about important things or keeping things a secret that they thought would thwart the view of their control over things.

"Besides, escaping from Azkaban is practically impossible." Thomas chimed in. "Even if you get out of the prison alone, you have to deal with being surrounded by the North Sea and that's a death sentence to swim in."

Matty was still stuck on the fact that Apollo was now dead. It had only been a couple of months since he had been thrown in there. But to think that Apollo was dead... She didn't feel guilty, the feeling inside of her definitely wasn't guilt but more shock—just as she'd feel with anyone she had once known was suddenly murdered. There was an awful lot of murder going on recently and maybe the stress of reading about it all was just catching up with her.