The morning sun was warm but not scorching, and a gentle breeze made the small garden particularly pleasant. Pink, white, purple, and red roses bloomed in a riot of color, their layered petals unfurling freely, exuding vibrant life.
A young man in a hospital gown sat on a garden bench, gazing at the scene before him, his eyes filled with a mix of longing and bewilderment.
His father, with graying hair, stood nearby, leaning over to ask with concern, "How are you feeling? Is anything uncomfortable?"
The young man smiled faintly, his voice weak. "Dad, I'm fine. I'm just a little tired."
"If you're tired, let's go back to the ward." His mother, also looking weary, tried to force a smile. "These flowers will bloom for days. We can come back tomorrow."
"Alright, let's go back then." The young man stood up with his parents' support and slowly walked out of the garden. Suddenly, he said, "I really feel like having hot pot."
"Okay." His mother choked up, quickly wiping away tears with the back of her hand. "Once you're better, we'll go have hot pot, and barbecue, and eat everything you've ever wanted to eat."
"Okay, eat it all!" The young man took a couple of steps, then suddenly said, "If I... if I don't get the chance, it'd be great if you two could eat all the delicious food for me instead."
"What nonsense are you talking about?" His father immediately said sternly. "The doctor said your condition isn't serious. As long as you cooperate with the treatment, you'll slowly get better. You must keep fighting, do you hear me?"
"I hear you, I hear you..." The young man drew out the words, helplessly. "I was just saying! Dad, honestly, why are you so serious?"
"Mr. Gray! Wade Gray!"
Who's calling?
Oh, it's me...
Wade, leaning against a garden pillar, shifted slightly. He knew someone was calling him from outside, but he didn't want to leave just yet.
He pretended not to hear, following the three people for a while, listening to them discuss travel plans for the young man after he recovered, their hopeful expressions making it seem as if dreams could truly come true.
Suddenly, Wade heard another faint voice, as if muffled by a wall—
"Apologies, Master." The Rubik's Cube Golem said, "If this still doesn't work, we'll have to call Dumbledore."
Dumbledore?
That name dispelled Wade's urge to procrastinate. Just as he was about to step out the door, he suddenly felt as if he'd been electrocuted. His whole body twitched, and he shot up from the bed, gasping for air.
"That's great, it really worked!" Zoe cheered. "Zoe thought Mr. Gray had been put into a coma by some Dark Magic! It's wonderful that he woke up!"
Wade: "..."
Seeing his master radiating the low pressure of someone forcibly woken up, the Rubik's Cube Golem didn't dare to take credit. It extended its mechanical claws, grabbed the other Magic Golems with a few "clack" sounds, and quickly scurried back into the Wardrobe Space.
Wade silently glared at their retreating forms, his teeth grinding together.
"Mr. Gray, please hurry and get ready." Zoe tugged on Wade's sleeve. "Otherwise, we'll miss the train."
Wade slowly exhaled. "Thank you, Zoe. I'll be quick."
By the time Wade finished washing up, the diligent House-elf had already sent his trunks to the train. Wade couldn't be bothered to catch a carriage outside the castle. He bid farewell to Zoe and the House-elf, then put away his Wardrobe Space, opened the window, and transformed directly into a Peregrine Falcon, flying out.
The Hogwarts Express was stopped at the platform, with many students already on board, and more carriages arriving from the school.
Wade circled once, just about to find a secluded spot to change back into human form, when he saw a compartment window open. Michael was leaning out, waving towards him.
Wade folded his wings and swooped down. Michael quickly dodged aside. The next moment, the Peregrine Falcon flew through the window and transformed into his familiar classmate.
"I should've called you when I left this morning."
Michael couldn't help but laugh when he saw a few tufts of Wade's hair sticking up. "I thought you were somewhere researching Alchemy, or had gone to see Dumbledore. Turns out you just overslept?"
Wade ruffled his hair twice, sighing. "I had a really long dream last night."
"Sounds like a super good dream, one you didn't want to wake up from?" Michael said casually, sitting down and pulling out his pet Magic Golem to pass the time.
Wade paused, a sudden sense of melancholy filling him, and he forgot to speak.
The compartment door was pushed open with a *BANG*. Theo hadn't even entered yet, but his voice preceded him: "Harry hasn't seen Wade this morning either. He's going back to his Muggle aunt's house first for the summer. I bet Wade's still at school, should we tell a professor..."
He had already seen Wade, but the momentum of his words still carried the last syllable out of his mouth: "...about it."
Then, Theo reacted. "Wade? Did you leave early this morning?"
"Nah, this guy overslept and just flew over in a hurry," Michael scoffed.
Wade raised a hand in greeting.
"Good thing you didn't miss the train." Ryan closed the compartment door behind him, and both he and Theo sat down. "Otherwise, we'd have alarmed the professors."
"What's there to be afraid of alarming the professors?" Michael said proudly. "Which professor doesn't like our Wade?"
Everyone laughed.
The train let out a long whistle, then slowly started moving, pulling away from the station. Hogwarts Castle gradually faded from view.
"I heard Professor Trocar resigned, is that true?" Leitch asked.
"It's true," Michael said. "I overheard him telling Professor Flitwick this morning that he was only temporarily filling in for Professor Abigail and only planned to teach for half a semester."
"So, will Professor Abigail come back next semester?" Theo asked hopefully.
"Probably not," Michael shrugged. "Apparently, Professor Dumbledore has already decided on the new professor, and they're supposed to be a very powerful Wizard."
"I just hope they stay for a while," Theo said wistfully. "It feels like our Defense Against the Dark Arts professors are changing faster and faster."
"But they're getting better and better, aren't they?" Michael said very optimistically. "Don't worry, Dumbledore will definitely have a plan."
Suddenly, he noticed someone in the compartment was unusually quiet, so he proactively asked, "Wade, do you have any plans for the holidays? Want to go watch the World Cup together?"
Wade snapped back to reality. "First, I need to visit someone," he said. "Then, if there's enough time, I might catch the World Cup final."
"If I can help it, I don't want to miss a single match," Michael said. "My dad bought a whole set of tickets! I'm practically living around the stadium this summer!"
Theo and Ryan looked a bit envious. Their families had other plans, and they wouldn't be able to watch the matches until the end of June.
The boys rattled off every participating team, discussed famous players and past achievements, and speculated on which team would win the championship.
The Daily Prophet had been full of World Cup reports lately, listing all the team information. The boys pulled newspapers from their bags, pointing at the text to reinforce their arguments.
The excited chatter around him seemed to blur into a noisy background. The stone necklace in his pocket felt heavy. Wade looked at the distant mountains, and for some reason, his eyes welled up slightly.
He suppressed the urge to take out the necklace and re-enter that corridor, instead casually unwrapping a candy and popping it into his mouth. He crunched it into tiny pieces, the sweetness slowly spreading, stimulating his brain to release a faint trickle of dopamine.
...
In the icy seawater, a tall fortress stood on a secluded island. From behind its heavy iron walls, chilling sounds occasionally emanated—
Whispers, moans, screams, insane laughter, anguished sobs—the prisoners' voices intertwined with the mournful wind, creating a noise that could drive one to madness.
Burlock was a Ministry of Magic official responsible for prison management and maintaining the magical barrier. He could leave after a three-year term. Now, he only had a year and a half left on the island, but Burlock already felt like he was going insane.
The man shoveled two scoops of coal into the fireplace, then huddled by it, pulling his coat tight, his gaze vacant as he watched the flickering flames.
In such an environment, time itself seemed to lose meaning. After an unknown duration, a flash of lightning suddenly pierced the darkness, followed by a rumbling thunder.
Burlock shivered. He peered out through a palm-sized hole in the wall, seeing countless dark figures flitting eerily across the lightning-illuminated sky, bringing with them a bone-chilling cold from a great distance.
"Dementors… why are these Dementors back so soon?"
Burlock's heart involuntarily pounded. He quickly rushed to the wall, grabbing a lever, nervously staring at the Dementors swirling in the sky.
Thunder rolled, electric tendrils snaked across the sky, and in the fluctuating light and dark, those flickering figures appeared even more terrifying.
The lever in Burlock's hand was his most powerful safeguard in this place. Long ago, after Dementors became Azkaban's guards, the Ministry of Magic had installed a powerful magical mechanism here.
In this room, which Dementors couldn't enter, if the jailer pulled the lever, an extremely powerful magical energy would instantly burst forth around Azkaban. Even if the Dementors weren't killed, they would be severely injured.
As Burlock nervously swallowed, he suddenly saw a carriage approaching rapidly from the sky, bearing the familiar flag and emblem of the British Ministry of Magic.
Burlock breathed a sigh of relief, quietly releasing the lever in his hand. Only after the carriage landed on a nearby platform and a Wizard jumped out of the compartment did he open the door to the management office.
The Wizard rushed into the management office, shaking off raindrops, and complained, "This damn weather, these damn Dementors! Thank Merlin, my dreadful task is finally over!"
He took a roll of parchment from his pocket, handed it to Burlock, and said, "Let's do the handover! Ministry orders, the search for these creatures is over, and they're returning to Azkaban."
Burlock unrolled the parchment, carefully checking the seals and magic on it, and casually asked, "Were the escaped prisoners caught?"
"No! Not a single one of those three rats was found! These Dementors are absolutely useless! They even attacked passersby a few times, causing us a lot of trouble."
Talking about this, the Ministry of Magic official was full of complaints: "If you ask me, this decision from above is utterly idiotic! They demand we catch the prisoners, but also tell us not to approach crowds—are the prisoners going to stand in an open field waiting for us to catch them? Peter Pettigrew's Animagus transformation is so convenient, he's definitely hiding in the city sewers!"
His resentment was so thick it was almost tangible, making the constantly depressed Burlock feel a slight sense of superiority.
He said, "Weren't they supposed to be looking for that Obscurus? Surely that one was found?"
"No, they misreported once, and then they've just been drifting all over Britain. For a while, they even thought about going across the sea! Luckily, I stopped them quickly! I think they just want to escape!"
The Ministry of Magic official grumbled for a while, then asked, "Are you done? Once these creatures are back inside, I can leave!"
Hearing he was leaving, Burlock, whose mood had just improved, felt miserable again. He slowly checked the handover orders three or four times, and then asked, "Since nothing was caught, why is the task over?"
"Because of the World Cup, of course! Wizards from all over the world are coming to watch the matches, so how can we have a bunch of happiness-sucking creatures running wild? The matches start on the fifteenth, and the Ministry of Magic held out until the fourteenth before driving the Dementors off the main island. It's already very late!"
The official urged him several more times, and Burlock finally completed the handover, watching the ill-tempered official practically flee into the carriage. The Pegasus let out a long neigh, pulling the carriage into the air as if treading on clouds.
Burlock stood by the small window, watching the carriage disappear, and let out a long sigh.
He waved his Wand, sealing the management office, then dragged his heavy feet back to the fireplace, wrapping himself in a dark woolen blanket, looking like a giant lump of coal.
...
The number of Dementors inside the prison suddenly doubled. The prisoners, who had enjoyed a few months of "good living," began to wail. Then, amidst the Dementors' sucking sounds, the vast prison gradually quieted down, until only faint moans and cries remained.
A Dementor wearing a ring floated past cell after cell, finally stopping in front of the deepest one.
Inside the iron bars, a disheveled woman looked out with a sinister and insane gaze. She squatted on the ground, swaying back and forth, as if completely mad. Upon seeing the Dementor, she didn't show the same terror as other prisoners, but instead bared her teeth in a grotesque smile.
The Dementor stood silently for a moment.
It remembered it was supposed to find this woman—Bellatrix Lestrange… but why was it looking for her?
After a moment of thought with its not-so-clever brain, the Dementor concluded: Perhaps to prevent her from escaping too?
After all, there were only a few prisoners who hadn't gone mad after being incarcerated for over a decade, and all of them were highly dangerous individuals in the Wizarding World.
The Dementor opened its mouth, taking a slow, prolonged breath. Something extremely subtle and invisible flowed into its mouth with the air.
Bellatrix made a gurgling sound in her throat. She struggled to push herself up from the floor, seemingly trying to stop something. Moments later, she rolled her eyes and simply fainted.
The Dementor considered, The prisoner in the next cell shouldn't be overlooked either. So, it floated from cell to cell, one by one. Soon after, everyone was quiet.
The Dementor stood blankly in the center of the corridor. Its body still seemed to be filled with intense hunger, craving, and resentment. It had not been satisfied by the recent feeding.
It could never be satisfied.
-----------
Machine Translation by: https:// randomtranslator.com/
Read ***+ original & fanfic translations in English, Español, Português, Deutsch, Français, or Русский
Or Translate for free at : https:// randomtranslator.com/translate
Join our Discord: https:// discord.com/invite/XXUR9nkjwa
-----------