A single glance was enough to know this island was no place for the living.
The sky was shrouded in a perpetual veil of dark clouds, so low it felt like the heavens might collapse at any moment, pressing down with an oppressive weight. Combined with the chilling, near-opaque fog that clung to the island's edges, it was as if the entire place was wrapped in a suffocating cocoon, exuding a sense of confinement. The island itself felt like one giant prison.
There wasn't even a proper dock—just a rickety wooden walkway stretching into the sea, flanked by jagged reefs of all sizes. The visible rocks alone blocked any ship from drawing closer, to say nothing of the hidden ones lurking beneath the waves.
Beyond that, in the distance, Harry could make out the weathered hulks of ancient shipwrecks, leaning against massive reefs. Moss clung to their decayed frames, hinting at untold years spent rotting here—perhaps even predating Azkaban's founding. A strong wave might reduce them to splinters.
Harry suspected the dock, the reefs, and even the wrecks were deliberate defenses conjured by the Ministry of Magic to safeguard Azkaban. But what truly caught his attention was the towering structure at the island's heart—the former lair of the dark wizard Ekrizdis.
A lighthouse-like tower loomed taller than the island's modest hills, surrounded by a cluster of Gothic castles. Time had etched deep scars into the stonework. Vines crawled over the castle walls and up the tower, but they weren't the vibrant green of living plants. Black and charred, they looked like they'd been scorched by fire, clinging to walls cracked by sea winds and marred with inexplicable burn marks.
Ancient, dilapidated, eerie, and seemingly on the verge of collapse, the place gave off an air of feeble defenses—but Harry knew better. It was all an illusion.
He'd already spotted several black-robed figures gliding through the gaps between the tower and castle. Dementors, the creatures wizards spoke of with dread.
"No wonder you lot don't want to stay here," Harry said, casting sympathetic looks at the two Aurors.
"You're telling me," Diaz sighed heavily. As he led Harry and Lucius up the creaky dock, he pointed at the tower. "See that? When the Ministry first sent Aurors here, they were housed in that tower. The prisoners were kept in the lower levels and the castle."
"And then you moved out?" Harry asked.
"Damn right," Baldwin said, his face impassive. "That place isn't fit for humans. You'd hear the prisoners' screams all the time."
"Screams are the least of it. Just a bunch of lunatics," Diaz cut in, gritting his teeth. "The real problem is those blasted things—Dementors! They'd swoop through the tower constantly. You'd tell them to stay away from the top, but they'd come anyway—damn it!"
Maybe it was the isolation of this forsaken place, but the two Aurors, once they warmed up, turned out to be surprisingly talkative.
"I'd bet my wand they're itching to give us a kiss!" Baldwin added, unable to hold back. He waved a fist in the air. "You know how they love that!"
The Dementor's Kiss—a soul-sucking act that left its victim dead.
Harry and Lucius didn't have much choice but to listen as Diaz and Baldwin vented, their words more about unburdening themselves than informing. Harry followed them toward the tower, and when Lucius tried to hush the chatty Aurors, Harry stopped him.
"…Can you imagine waking up from a dream, feeling colder and colder, only to open your eyes and see a black-robed monster hovering over you? You can even make out its disgusting face under the hood—withered, rotten, like a mummy!" Baldwin's lips trembled as he recounted the nightmare, clearly shaken.
It was a horror he'd never forget.
"Yeah," Diaz sighed deeply. "That's why we moved to the other side of the island. I'm not letting those things sneak up and steal my happiness."
The Ministry didn't just send two Aurors to guard Azkaban, of course.
"But if you've all moved out, doesn't that mean no one's watching the prisoners in the castle?" Harry asked, curious. "What if someone tries to break out or stage a jailbreak?"
Diaz and Baldwin exchanged a glance, then burst into sly chuckles.
"No chance, Harry. The Dementors are always here. No one escapes," Diaz said with a grin. "As for the deeper reasons—oi! Back off! They're not prisoners! Get lost! No food for you here!"
As they neared the castle entrance, Diaz's demeanor shifted to a snarl. He berated a group of Dementors that had slithered out from some crevice, drawn by their approach. Harry finally got a close look at the creatures.
They wore tattered black cloaks—though to Harry, they seemed more like heavy, translucent veils. Beneath, their bodies were corporeal but grotesque. The hands poking from their cloaks were blistered and scabbed, as if rotted in water. Their flesh was decayed, faces devoid of features, reduced to a hollow, gaping hole where a mouth should be.
Dementors could understand human speech and respond accordingly; otherwise, the Ministry wouldn't have struck a deal to use them as Azkaban's guards. But complete obedience? That was another matter.
Even as Diaz waved his wand and shouted, the Dementors kept gliding closer, moving swiftly. In a blink, they were barely two meters away.
"…Are you alright, my lord?" Lucius whispered, sidling up to Harry and pressing a piece of chocolate into his hand.
"Chocolate?" Harry asked, surprised.
"It helps counter the… effects of Dementors," Lucius said, his face pale.
"I see. Don't worry, I'm fine," Harry said with a slight nod. To Lucius's astonishment, he remained calm, even commenting, "So these are Dementors? Interesting."
Lucius, meanwhile, was shoving chocolate into his mouth. He maintained a veneer of composure, but the Dementors' presence was unraveling him. Memories surged—green flashes of light, a man's voice chanting Avada Kedavra in varying tones, bodies crumpling in the wake of that green glow. Terror, fear, dread, paralysis… He could barely breathe.
Under the onslaught of these horrific recollections, Lucius glanced at the boy beside him. Harry stood unfazed, as if nothing was wrong. Was that even possible?
"…As long as you're alright," Lucius said, condensing a thousand thoughts into one sentence. He stepped back, privately convinced his earlier decision to treat Harry as a figure on par with Voldemort was utterly justified. This level of resilience wasn't normal.
Those who hadn't faced a Dementor couldn't fathom their power—the way their mere presence stripped away joy and positive emotions, like a natural force, unstoppable.
The Ministry held some sway over the Dementors, and Diaz finally drove the creatures off… or perhaps they left after sating themselves. Either way, they were gone.
"Sorry about that. They're just used to it," Diaz said, wiping sweat from his brow as he holstered his wand. He'd been shaken too. "You okay, Harry?"
The Aurors, truth be told, were rather protective of the Boy Who Lived.
"Thanks, I'm fine… just remembered some bad things," Harry replied vaguely, then asked, "What did you mean by 'used to it'?"
"Oh, it's like a welcome gift," Diaz said as he led them deeper into the castle. "Whenever a new prisoner arrives, we let the Dementors get… close. Not a full Kiss, mind you, but close enough to suck out their hope and happiness."
"Some of the weaker or more timid prisoners are half-mad by that point," Baldwin added with a shrug. "What's the term? Mental breakdown?"
"So that's why you're not worried about escapes?" Harry asked, piecing it together.
"Exactly. Hardly any prisoner has the strength to move under the Dementors' influence. Those things drain every ounce of joy, leaving you like an empty husk. You can't do anything," Diaz said with a grim chuckle. "No wand, no proper food, no sunlight. Tsk, tsk."
"And even if someone survives the 'welcome,' we'd bet on how long they last before going mad. Two, maybe three years at most, even in the outer cells," Baldwin said, his tone turning serious. "Except for the worst of them, locked in the deepest parts. The Death Eaters."
"Ugh, don't bring those up," Diaz shuddered. "I swear their souls are already consumed by dark magic. Even the Dementors… Never mind, let's drop it."
He clammed up, unwilling to dwell on the topic.
"Terrifying," Harry said, playing along. "Good thing the Ministry can control the Dementors and keep them on this island. I heard they're immortal?"
He was genuinely curious about these dark magical creatures.
When the Dementors had approached, Harry hadn't been unaffected. He'd seen flashes of green light, heard a woman's scream, witnessed burning houses and trees, torn wounds, gushing blood, and fallen warriors. But he'd held firm, his mind unshaken.
Compared to the whispers of the Old Gods or facing them in battle, the Dementors' influence was a mere drizzle. Still, their ability to forcibly dredge up buried memories was intriguing, especially since wizards claimed they were immortal. Immortal? Now that was worth studying.
"No one's managed to kill them, at least," Diaz said, unaware of Harry's thoughts. "So, to keep them from causing havoc outside, the Ministry made a deal. They guard Azkaban."
"Yeah, the prisoners' emotions are their food. The Ministry doesn't have to shell out Galleons for guards," Lucius said with a sardonic smile. "Cheap and effective. No need to worry about escapes—even if the prisoners die, no one cares. It's a bargain."
Madness or death—either way, escape was impossible.
"Pretty much. If the Dementors didn't keep trying to sneak a sip of my happiness, I'd say they do a decent job," Baldwin said with a shrug. "At least the wizards who get out swear they'll never come back."
A stint in Azkaban for petty crimes, and wizarding crime rates drop. Quite the deterrent.
Before entering, Baldwin had pointed out a patch of land near the hills, far from the castle—Azkaban's graveyard. Dead prisoners were buried there, no reports filed.
This was wizarding society: a civilized facade hiding brutal undercurrents. Or rather, a patchwork society, loosely stitched together. Harry's understanding of it deepened.
As the most loyal of Voldemort's Death Eaters, Sirius Black was held in Azkaban's heart, the deepest and most inescapable part: the tower's dungeon.
A special cell.
The closer they got to the dungeon, the quieter Diaz and Baldwin became, a shift they didn't even notice. They grew stern, alert.
Harry, meanwhile, noted changes in the prisoners. In the outer cells, inmates had the energy to grip the bars, shouting pleas or claims of innocence. But here, in the dungeon, they were husks—lying on stone floors, slumped against walls, occasionally letting out eerie laughs or muttering incoherent madness.
"…They're Death Eaters, Harry. Ignore them," Diaz whispered, perhaps worried Harry might feel pity.
Harry had no sympathy for Voldemort's followers, imprisoned twelve years ago. They might have once reveled in their master's power, but after years of torment by Dementors, they were spent. Cells that should've been full now stood half-empty, their former occupants' fates obvious.
They lacked even the strength to curse or howl. The most active prisoner Harry saw was sluggishly raising an arm to tap a crack in the wall beside him.
"That's Rufus," Baldwin said with a cold laugh. "At least two Muggle families died by his hand. Look at him now, thinking that crack's his ticket out. Pathetic."
"Seems dark magic didn't save them," Harry said, shaking his head.
When Diaz had mentioned it earlier, Harry thought dark magic might shield wizards from the Dementors' effects. Apparently not.
"Of course not," Baldwin said with a sneer. "Even the ones who can still move or talk are broken. The Dementors changed them forever, shattered their souls."
What about Sirius?
The question flashed through Harry's mind. His godfather—the man who thought he was atoning—was locked in Azkaban's deepest cell.
Enduring daily Dementor patrols, having every happy memory and emotion drained, reliving endless painful recollections, surviving on moldy bread and filthy water… Could Sirius still be sane?
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