Just as Dumbledore had expected, the Hogwarts Great Hall was buzzing that day. "Sirius" had become the focus of every young wizard's conversation.
Ever since the Azkaban Breakout, public opinion had become polarized. Some pointed the finger at Fudge, fiercely criticizing his abuse of power, while others accused Vaughn, believing the whole affair was a conspiracy he had engineered to bring Fudge down.
The same divide existed at Hogwarts. Popular as Vaughn was, he still could not escape criticism.
After all, he had made no attempt to distance himself from the affair, placing himself squarely at the center of the storm.
The students merely enjoyed the spectacle and offered their own opinions, but to the politicians of Wizarding Britain, Vaughn was being outrageously arrogant.
They felt that this Weasley could not even be bothered to hide his involvement. Others thought Vaughn was not as clever as he appeared, and that this was simply an oversight.
But everything took a dramatic turn with that day's front-page headline in the Daily Prophet!
The article was written by Rita Skeeter and accompanied by clear photographs. In them, two black-robed wizards were fighting while the surrounding Muggles either pointed and stared or fled in terror.
There was more than one such photograph in the article. Some had even been taken from cunning angles that gave readers a clear view of the two black-robed wizards' faces.
Even the Hogwarts students recognized one of them. They had only recently seen that man in the newspaper.
Sirius Black! The other man, however, was someone almost none of the students knew.
"I've met him! That's Corban Yaxley!" Draco's haughty voice rang out from the Slytherin table.
"Really?" Ron was a long way off, but he still shouted, "I bet he's a Death Eater, then! What decent people would