Stan threw her bag out after her and rammed the doors shut; there was another loud BANG, and they were thundering down a narrow country lane, trees leaping out of the way.
Harry wouldn’t have been able to sleep even if he had been traveling on a bus that didn’t keep banging loudly and jumping a hundred miles at a time. His stomach churned as he fell back to wondering what was going to happen to him, and whether the Dursleys had managed to get Aunt Marge off the ceiling yet.
Stan had unfurled a copy of theDaily Prophetand was now reading with his tongue between his teeth. A large photograph of a sunken-faced man with long, matted hair blinked slowly at Harry from the front page. He looked strangely familiar.
“That man!” Harry said, forgetting his troubles for a moment. “He was on the Muggle news!”
Stanley turned to the front page and chuckled.
“Sirius Black,” he said, nodding. “‘Course ’e was on the Muggle news, Neville. Where you been?”
He gave a superior sort of chuckle at the blank look on Harry’s face, removed the front page, and handed it to Harry.
“You oughta read the papers more, Neville.”
Harry held the paper up to the candlelight and read:
BLACK STILL AT LARGE
Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today.
“We are doing all we can to recapture Black,” said the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, this morning, “and we beg the magical community to remain calm.”
Fudge has been criticized by some members of the International Federation of Warlocks for informing the Muggle Prime Minister of the crisis.
“Well, really, I had to, don’t you know,” said an irritable Fudge. “Black is mad. He’s a danger to anyone who crosses him, magic or Muggle. I have the Prime Minister’s assurance that he will not breathe a word of Black’s true identity to anyone. And let’s face it — who’d believe him if he did?”
While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other), the magical community lives in fear of a massacre like that of twelve years ago, when Black murdered thirteen people with a single curse.
Harry looked into the shadowed eyes of Sirius Black, the only part of the sunken face that seemed alive. Harry had never met a vampire, but he had seen pictures of them in his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes, and Black, with his waxy white skin, looked just like one.
“Scary-lookin’ fing, inee?” said Stan, who had been watching Harry read.
“He murderedthirteen people?” said Harry, handing the page back to Stan, “withone curse?”
“Yep,” said Stan, “in front of witnesses an’ all. Broad daylight. Big trouble it caused, dinnit, Ern?”
“Ar,” said Ern darkly.
Stan swiveled in his armchair, his hands on the back, the better to look at Harry.
“Black woz a big supporter of You-Know-’Oo,” he said.
“What, Voldemort?” said Harry, without thinking.
Even Stan’s pimples went white; Ern jerked the steering wheel so hard that a whole farmhouse had to jump aside to avoid the bus.
“You outta your tree?” yelped Stan. “‘Choo say ’is name for?”
“Sorry,” said Harry hastily. “Sorry, I — I forgot —”
“Forgot!” said Stan weakly. “Blimey, my ’eart’s goin’ that fast…”
“So — so Black was a supporter of You-Know-Who?” Harry prompted apologetically.
“Yeah,” said Stan, still rubbing his chest. “Yeah, that’s right. Very close to You-Know-’Oo, they say…anyway, when little ‘Arry Potter got the better of You-Know-’Oo” — Harry nervously flattened his bangs down again — “all You-Know-’Oo’s supporters was tracked down, wasn’t they, Ern? Most of ‘em knew it was all over, wiv You-Know-’Oo gone, and they came quiet. But not Sirius Black. I ’eard he thought ’e’d be second-in-command once You-Know-’Oo ’ad taken over.
“Anyway, they cornered Black in the middle of a street full of Muggles an’ Black took out ‘is wand and ‘e blasted ‘alf the street apart, an’ a wizard got it, an’ so did a dozen Muggles what got in the way. ‘Orrible, eh? An’ you know what Black did then?” Stan continued in a dramatic whisper.
“What?” said Harry.
“Laughed,” said Stan. “Jus’ stood there an’ laughed. An’ when reinforcements from the Ministry of Magic got there, ‘e went wiv em quiet as anyfink, still laughing ‘is ‘ead off. ‘Cos ‘e’s mad, inee, Ern? Inee mad?”
“If he weren’t when he went to Azkaban, he will be now,” said Ern in his slow voice. “I’d blow meself up before I set foot in that place. Serves him right, mind you…after what he did…”
“They ‘ad a job coverin’ it up, din’ they, Ern?” Stan said. “‘Ole street blown up an’ all them Muggles dead. What was it they said ‘ad ‘appened, Ern?”
“Gas explosion,” grunted Ernie.
“An’ now ‘e’s out,” said Stan, examining the newspaper picture of Black’s gaunt face again. “Never been a breakout from Azkaban before, ‘as there, Ern? Beats me ‘ow ‘e did it. Frightenin’, eh? Mind, I don’t fancy ‘is chances against them Azkaban guards, eh, Ern?”
Ernie suddenly shivered. “Talk about summat else, Stan, there’s a good lad. Them Azkaban guards give me the collywobbles.”
Stan put the paper away reluctantly, and Harry leaned against the window of the Knight Bus, feeling worse than ever. He couldn’t help imagining what Stan might be telling his passengers in a few nights’ time.
“‘Ear about that ‘Arry Potter? Blew up ‘is aunt! We ‘ad ‘im ‘ere on the Knight Bus, di’n’t we, Ern? ‘E was tryin’ to run for it…”
He, Harry, had broken wizard law just like Sirius Black. Was inflating Aunt Marge bad enough to land him in Azkaban? Harry didn’t know anything about the wizard prison, though everyone he’d ever heard speak of it did so in the same fearful tone. Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had spent two months there only last year. Harry wouldn’t soon forget the look of terror on Hagrid’s face when he had been told where he was going, and Hagrid was one of the bravest people Harry knew.
The Knight Bus rolled through the darkness, scattering bushes and wastebaskets, telephone booths and trees, and Harry lay, restless and miserable, on his feather bed. After a while, Stan remembered that Harry had paid for hot chocolate, but poured it all over Harry’s pillow when the bus moved abruptly from Anglesea to Aberdeen.