Rustle—Rustle—Rustle!
Before the cold, hard iron gates, the breeze drifting through the sparse oak grove suddenly turned chill, and the leaves whispered against one another in the silence.
It was as if the young wizards had all been struck in unison by a Petrification Curse. They stood stock-still and stared blankly at Professor Watson, their eyes seeming to wait for something—for Professor Watson to break into that familiar teasing look, to smile and tell them he had only been joking.
But he didn't.
Professor Watson stared back at them calmly and so did Mr. Barry, the prison guard standing beside him, his face just as quiet and composed. Not a flicker of amusement showed on either one.
And so, slowly, one realizing face after another, the young wizards understood that this was no joke.
Gulp—
Someone swallowed. Harry closed his gaping mouth, his throat working as he tried to find somewhere to put the word that was still ringing in his ears.
"This isn't allowed!"
Suddenly, one of the students shrieked, the cry tore through the silence.
Harry and the others whipped round and saw that it was Millicent Bulstrode of Slytherin.
She was the strongest girl Harry had ever seen at Hogwarts; hardly an ordinary boy had a build as sturdy as hers, big-shouldered and thick-armed, and not much in the world had ever seemed to rattle her.
But now Millicent's face was chalk-white, and she shouted at Professor Watson in a shrill, cracking voice, like a timid little girl who had spotted a mouse.
"I've never heard of this!"
Millicent went on, the words were tumbling over one another. "It can't be lawful, it can't be—the Daily Prophet never reported it, Professor Watson! Never once said that the Ministry had passed a decision on the death penalty!"
Daphne, Zabini, and the rest of the Slytherin-born young wizards nodded frantically, bobbing heads, some of them were too frightened to manage a sound.
Harry looked at Hermione. Understanding what he meant—that if anyone would have caught such a thing in the papers, it would be her—Hermione was silent for a moment, then nodded too, slowly.
"You're quite right, Miss Bulstrode—"
Bryan nodded calmly, not so much as raising his voice.
"Whether the death penalty should be restored, and under what circumstances it would apply, is indeed still under discussion at the Ministry. It may be some time yet before anything is settled—"
In other words, the death penalty really might be restored.
The colour bled, bit by bit, from Daphne Greengrass's lips as she stared at Professor Watson in terror.
Her father was the only wizard confirmed as a Death Eater since the Battle of Diagon Alley who was still on the run.
If… if the Ministry judged his stubborn resistance to be egregious…
"But this case is special, so…"
Bryan paused to consider, and the pause stretched, letting every one of them feel the weight of what he was about to say.
"I'll explain the situation to you shortly. For now, you must first decide: do you wish to witness the first execution in centuries?"
Who was to be executed?
What crime had he committed?
Not one young wizard wasn't curious. But… that was an execution!
To witness a living person being killed before your very eyes… the mere thought of it chilled the young wizards to the bone!
Wouldn't it be too cruel, to make young wizards who hadn't yet even graduated witness such a thing?
Harry saw the flinching in Hermione's eyes, the way her hand had crept up to grip her own sleeve… never mind Hermione; even Harry himself was having second thoughts!
Half an hour later, beneath a crowd of awed gazes, Harry walked into Avalon Prison once more!
Few dared to enter. Not one of the Ravenclaw girls came in, and from Hufflepuff only Cedric raised his hand.
Even among the Gryffindors, apart from Harry himself, Hermione, and Neville, only the three Weasley children made the choice, Fred and George and Ginny walking close together without a word between them.
Slytherin, which had reacted most strongly of all, was the surprise: more than half of them walked in, though none of them looked as if they wanted to.
"I just want to know who drew the winning ticket!"
In the silently advancing line, George muttered it under his breath.
But Harry could tell that this time George's quip wasn't meant to amuse everyone; he was trying to steel himself.
They came once more to the platform they had visited before, and Mr. Barry opened a concealed door set into the wall, so seamless in the grey stone that none of them had noticed it earlier.
Down a dark staircase, the air grew cooler with every step, they reached the underground plaza.
They crossed the whole plaza, their footsteps echoing under the high vault, and went on down another flight of steps, and after a long stretch of maze-like underground passages, twisting and turning until Harry had lost all sense of direction, they stood before a cell.
To their astonishment, the cell's bright style clashed utterly with the underground dungeon around it.
Its four walls were not cold, hard rock either, but had been enchanted.
The scene projected on the walls was a grassland: lush green grass rolling all the way to the horizon, cattle and sheep wandering across the plain, a snaky river glinting against a deep blue sky, and, across the vault of heaven, flawless white clouds drifting and unfurling.
The beauty of the scene, like a painting come to life, left the young wizards in a daze. It was hard to believe that they were standing far beneath the earth, behind an observation window, at the door of a prison cell.
A sturdy oak stood not far from them, and beneath its dense crown was set a table draped in a clean white cloth.
Beautiful, and cruel.
"Yarland Selwyn—"
Professor Watson began, his calm voice without a ripple.
"He was a loyal member of Voldemort's earliest followers. Before Voldemort's last downfall, he was already imprisoned in Azkaban—"
"Why…"
Millicent asked through clenched teeth, her voice was hoarse now, all the shrillness had gone out of it.
"Why… is he being executed?"
"He suffered the Dementor's Kiss."
Professor Watson's calm words raised gooseflesh all over Harry!
The Dementor's Kiss… which meant a Dementor had taken his soul!
"And that is why, when Voldemort last sent his Death Eaters to break into Azkaban, they did not take Selwyn with them—"
Bryan said coldly.
"He was of no further value to Voldemort."
No value… and so, discarded.
Standing outside the observation window, glaring at everything inside the cell, some of the young wizards looked ashen.
"Once a person's soul is taken, his body decays much faster—"
Bryan said.
"By the time Avalon Prison received him, there was little life left in his body. To keep him from dying, the guards here have had to tend to him day and night—"
He paused, then went on.
"After the guards reported the situation, Minister Bones, the members of the Wizengamot, and I decided to end his life early."
That isn't fair!
The thought rose instinctively in Hermione's mind. But she said nothing.
A prisoner with bloody hands and terrible crimes, facing such an end… it was only what he had brought upon himself, wasn't it? She held that thought tightly, and it did not feel as real as she wanted it to.
They stood too far away for the young wizards to make out Selwyn's emaciated face. They could see only his grey-white hair, as faded as his prison uniform, stirring faintly in the wind that blew across a grassland that did not exist.
A few guards were busy around him.
They stripped off his prison clothes, exposing a dried-out body in which every muscle and bone showed. One of them slowly wiped down his body with a towel, gently, patiently, cleaning that dreadful face, skin stretched over a skull, and helping to comb hair that was worse than withered grass.
When he had been cleaned, two of them took him by the arms on both side and held him straight, while another took a decent wizard's robe that had been set beside the table and considerately fastened its buttons, one by one, as a son might for an aged father.
"These are a life's final moments—"
Professor Watson's soft words carried a sombreness.
"All sins end with death, and living deeds scatter with the wind. So, at such a moment, the Ministry is willing to grant these gravely guilty prisoners a measure of dignity."
He turned to look at the crowd of young wizards, their bodies tight, their breathing ragged. A light flickered in his violet eyes.
"The passing of a life is dazzling, and it is tragic… and so I want to remind you: do not lightly challenge the proper order of this world. Do not lightly challenge humanity's universal values."
'Do the right thing.'
Theodore was dazed for a moment; the words his father had cautioned him with just before were echoing in his ears.
Harry had seen death.
His parents had died before his eyes… though of course that was long ago, and he had been too young to keep more than a green flash and a woman's scream. More recently, in the brief time after he rushed onto the battlefield of Diagon Alley, countless lives had vanished before him.
The two sides in that battle had been unafraid of death as they lived out the ideals in their hearts.
But what he saw now was a death that delivered a life to the "gallows" with no possibility of refusal, and to him it was colder, and more frightening!
Upholding order was not so tender a thing!
Many of the young wizards realized this, each in their own silence.
They watched the guards feed the lavish food on the table to the condemned man, bit by bit, spoonful by spoonful… a body that had lost its soul still knew how to chew and swallow, which was, truly, something well worth pondering, and something none of them would forget.
This last supper went on for a long time. Nearly an hour passed before the guards finished feeding him, the light of the enchanted sky never changed, the clouds in there were drifting on.
They wiped the corners of the prisoner's mouth clean and cleared away the table before him. Then four guards took their places before, behind, and on each side of the blank-eyed prisoner, facing him, waists slightly bent, hands raised and pressed together as if in prayer.
The final moment was about to arrive.
The young wizards all sensed it, and although the distance between them was considerable, Hermione and some of the girls stepped back instinctively, as if the glass might not be enough.
"What will they… what will they do?"
Daphne Greengrass looked at Professor Watson and asked blankly.
"There will be no pain—"
Mr. Barry answered with an expression of reverence on his face.
"He will return to nature—"
As the words fell, green light suddenly bloomed between the four guards' pressed palms, and the dazzling radiance blurred everything.
Harry squinted and dimly made out the prisoner, sitting quietly, dissolving in the light, while the chair beneath him seemed to be growing!
In a daze, it felt as though the sigh of Death had brushed past his ear.
Whoosh!
Everything settled.
Before the oak with its lush crown, a newborn sapling swayed in the breeze.
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