August 1st. Disciplinary Hearing. Defendant: Ares Delfino?"
"That would be me, Madame Bones."
"You are accused of being in Diagon Alley on the 27th of last month, where you hawked 'Baruffio's Brain Elixir' to seven incoming Hogwarts first-years and their Muggle parents. However, the investigation reveals these were actually expired Sleeping Draughts diluted with water?"
"It's a complete misunderstanding, Madame Bones. I really was selling Brain Elixirs—"
Ares paused, looking earnest. "Of course, I may have failed to notice they were slightly past their shelf life. And, as we know, expired Brain Elixirs have a slight probability of causing temporary drowsiness in the consumer... You can verify this with Mr. Wiseacre. He runs a magical equipment shop in Diagon Alley and sells potions; he's an expert in the field."
A ripple of rustling whispers broke out across the Wizengamot benches.
"We will verify your claims," a cold, authoritative voice rang out from the high bench. "But until then, you are to be remanded to—"
"Don't tell me it's Azkaban?"
"Precisely."
Bang!
The gavel fell.
---
It was the height of summer in August, a rare time when the British Isles actually enjoyed clear, starry nights. Yet, Azkaban remained locked in an eternal winter.
Gray mist coiled around the island—a hellscape that haunted the nightmares of every British witch and wizard.
Within the gloom, the ocean roared like thunder. Furious waves, laced with jagged ice crystals, surged twenty feet into the air, crashing violently against the rocky shore and the lighthouse that stood watch across the narrow sea.
A flickering white light startled the duty guard awake. He was curled up by a fireplace, dozing off. Grumbling complaints, he hauled himself out of his lounge chair and looked at the iron cage that had suddenly materialized in the center of the room. Inside were two people—though he mostly focused on the unconscious form of Ares Delfino.
"Last one for the day? What's he in for?" The guard yawned, unlocking the cage so the escorting Auror could levitate Ares out with his wand.
"Hard to say... Knocked out a few Hogwarts first-years with expired potions?"
"Tsk, tsk!" The guard clicked his tongue, admiring Ares's handsome features.
In the dim firelight, the guard gave a lazy wave of his willow wand, transfiguring Ares's clothes into the standard blue-and-white striped prisoner uniform. Then, with great enthusiasm, he began rifling through the wizarding robes Ares had just been stripped of.
"For the sake of a few Galleons, I could arrange a cell that's out of the wind," the guard muttered.
He fished twenty Galleons out of Ares's money pouch. With zero shame, he shoved half into his own pocket and tossed the other half to the escorting Auror.
He locked up the rest of the personal effects in a cabinet. Just as he was about to sign the transfer papers, he paused.
"Wait a minute. Where's his wand? I didn't see a wand."
"Rumor has it he was expelled from school in his fifth year. They snapped it back then," the Auror said with a shrug, his tone dismissive.
"Tsk, tsk!" The guard shook his head again, not bothering to ask why he was expelled.
Without specific orders, the Dementors were not allowed to leave the island proper. The guard waved his wand, dumping Ares onto a frayed Axminster flying carpet. As they crossed the stretch of sea, the violent wind shoved against layers of leaden clouds, allowing a single beam of moonlight to slip through the cracks.
Ares's "new home" was on the top floor of the tallest tower. It offered a "panoramic view," and true to his word, the guard found him a cell facing away from the wind.
But the chill clung to the stones like a curse. In the darkness, things far more terrifying than the cold were approaching in silence.
"Good luck, pal," the guard muttered, shivering. He locked the cell door and hurried toward the exit at the end of the corridor.
On the cold stone slab, Ares remained unconscious. The pale moonlight, having pierced the clouds, filtered through the tiny, high-set barred window, draping him in a soft, silvery gauze.
Two Dementors glided out of the despair-ridden gray fog.
They pressed against the iron bars, their scabbed hands gripping the metal. Their hooded heads, deformed and terrifying, squeezed through the gaps, taking deep, rattling breaths as they tried to feed on Ares.
But they were confused. The prisoner on the stone bed seemed dead. Or perhaps... he was just a stone in the shape of a man.
There was no emotion. No fear, no happiness, no despair.
Despite their efforts, which only caused the moonlight on Ares to ripple like water in a breeze, they received no sustenance.
Dementors possess an intelligence lower than that of most beasts; they couldn't process complex problems. They simply assumed the man on the bed had already been drained dry by one of their kind. Disappointed, they drifted away.
The clouds sealed shut again, cutting off the moonlight.
"I'm in."
A whisper of excitement broke the gloom.
Ares's eyes snapped open. He hopped off the stone bed with agile grace, his black eyes twinkling with a lively intelligence as he scanned his surroundings.
Azkaban was exactly as the legends described: shrouded in despair and death. A suffocating darkness and abyssal silence reigned, broken only occasionally by shrill screams and weeping. It was a literal hell on earth.
If he had the time, Ares would have loved to sightsee a bit more. But he hadn't broken into Azkaban for a vacation. He was on the clock.
Withdrawing his amused gaze from the frost-covered stone walls, Ares stepped toward the iron bars.
The gaps in the rusty bars were so narrow a gnome couldn't squeeze through. But as Ares approached, the space seemed to warp, as if viewed through a magnifying glass. The air twisted.
"First up is... ah, Patton Klein, Level 32," Ares muttered to himself. He took a step forward and vanished into the void, passing straight through the bars.
The howling wind and the distortion of space went unnoticed by the prisoners and guards. Ares quickly arrived at the only occupied cell on the 32nd floor.
Moving as silently as a falling snowflake, Ares approached a skeletal man shivering on a stone cot. His dirty blonde hair was going white. Ares waved a hand, sprinkling a soft, milky-white luminescence over the man to wake him from his nightmare.
"Patton Klein? Imprisoned for casting a Confundus Charm on a Muggle bus driver, causing a bus full of passengers to flip into a river?"
"That's me... but... who are you?"
"Oh, don't worry about the details. I'm on a tight schedule with a heavy workload, no time for chitchat... Your mother paid me to smuggle in two stoat sandwiches. She said they're your favorite."
"Oh, by the raging Gorgons! Someone actually—you're absolutely insane... I mean, brave!"
"Naturally. I was a Gryffindor, after all... Less talking, more eating!"
Chomp, gulp, chew.
"By the way... how much did my mom pay you?"
"Five hundred Galleons per sandwich... Hey! Don't you dare spit it out! No refunds!"
"Boohoo... my poor mother. Is she doing okay?"
"I think she's fine... Oh, slight update: your wife gave birth to a daughter last month. Congratulations."
"But—but I've been in Azkaban for at least two years!"
"Oof. That is... that is truly regrettable. Here, I have a contract. I need you to sign it. A thumbprint will do."
"What's it for?"
"Proof to your mother that I completed the job. And a magical binding to ensure you never mention seeing me until the day you die."
Out of humanitarian concern, Ares even threw in an extra piece of rye bread for free.
"Can you get me out of here?" Klein grabbed Ares's striped uniform, eyes welling with tears as Ares turned to leave.
"Sorry, your mom didn't pay that much... Let go!"
---
One minute later, Ares appeared on the 19th floor.
"Hein Fick? In for illegal sales of Amortentia and smuggling Veela?"
"Yes, sir. Did... did I finish my sentence?"
"Don't be silly, darling. I have a letter for you. From your former fiancée."
"Oh! My dear Victoire! She still cares about me!"
"Fix your hair, Hein. I need to take a picture of you to bring back. Hurry up!"
"Sob... I don't worth it... I'm not worthy... What a silly girl, paying a fortune to send someone into Azkaban just for a photo of me!"
"To be accurate, it was her current husband who paid. He wants to put your mugshot on their bedside table. Said something about it making things 'more exciting.' I don't really get it, but your ex-fiancée seemed to understand perfectly. She was very supportive."
Hein Fick fainted dead away. Ares grabbed his limp hand, pressed it onto the confidentiality contract, and stuffed the break-up letter into the man's shirt.
---
Over an hour passed. Ares ran up and down the spiraling tower of Azkaban, finally reaching the levels below the tenth floor.
According to rumor, the worse the crime, the lower you go. The prisoners down here all had blood on their hands.
"Second to last... hmm, yes, right here. Mr. Donald Musk."
Ares arrived at a new level. Here, the gray fog of despair was as thick as morning mist in a forest, damp and clinging to the skin. The cold was so intense the floor was coated in a thin layer of ice.
There were two prisoners on this floor. Ares ignored the cell on his left, where a massive black dog the size of a bear was curled up in the shadows. He used his Patronus's light to wake the man in the right-hand cell.
"Is it Xavier? Did the boy send you? Has he forgiven me for killing his mother?"
After Ares explained who he was, the man fell to his knees, sobbing loudly.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Musk, I wouldn't know about that. But your daughter paid me to visit you. She sent you a roast chicken."
"Thank you—thank you so much... Oh, roast chicken, it's been so long... Wait?"
The tearful man stopped mid-bite, blinking at Ares in confusion.
"There must be a mistake... Xavier... I mean, I only have a son!"
"Oh. Well, she's a lovely girl now."
Thud!
"Tsk. Another one down."
Ares shook his head and sighed. After pressing the unconscious man's hand onto the contract for a legally binding fingerprint, his eyes darted to the roast chicken on the floor, which had barely been touched.
"What a waste," Ares said.
He thought for a moment, picked up the chicken, and turned to face the cell opposite.
The large black dog was gone. In its place stood a gaunt man, wasted away, yet possessing eyes far brighter than almost any other prisoner Ares had seen tonight.
The man was staring blankly at Ares... and the chicken in his hand.
"Eat up, you dog."
Ares spoke with a surprisingly affectionate tone and tossed the chicken through the bars.
In the blink of an eye, the man devoured the chicken like a whirlwind, not even leaving the bones behind.
"Last one... Yes, the big job. The absolute big ticket."
"Bellatrix Lestrange—but I don't have intel on her location. Where is she kept?" Ares muttered thoughtfully.
In the left-hand cell, the man—who had the good sense to turn back into a dog, pick up the contract Ares tossed him, and press a paw print onto it—froze. He transformed back, his voice rasping like sandpaper.
"She's in the basement... Who sent you to feed her? Narcissa Malfoy?"
"Thanks for the tip. And—none of your business."
Ares retrieved the contract and vanished from the man's sight.
---
Seawater and leaking groundwater had pooled in the lowest depression of Azkaban's foundation. The stagnant water was ice-blue, radiating a bone-deep chill.
By the faint phosphorescence of the water, Ares scanned the area.
This was the home of the lifers. Ares recognized several notorious Death Eaters.
Perhaps because their souls had already been sucked dry, there were no Dementors patrolling down here. Of the dozen or so prisoners, only a few were collapsed on stone beds. Most sat withered in the darkness, their expressions hideous and twisted, their eyes vacant.
However, just to be safe—
In the dead silence, Ares extended an index finger. A dozen streaks of brilliant red light, trailing tails like comets, danced around his fingertip.
Pew, pew, pew!
The heavy-hitters dropped one by one, stunned by the red spells. Confused, but brain-intact.
"Wakey wakey, Ms. Lestrange—"
Ares walked into a cell, a strange smile playing on his lips. He spoke gently to the woman on the stone bed who, even in sleep, was letting out sharp, ghost-like cackles.
"Time to go home."