Wake of War
The Prisonier Of Azkaban
8. The Prisonier Of Azkaban
Far away from Scotland and from the dungeons where Hermione was reading what seemed to be the most important parchment she’d ever read in her life, under the watchful eyes of Severus Snape, her favourite professor, there was a place in the middle of the North Sea, on a sea surrounded rock, just as imposing and magnificent as Hogwarts and yet as different from it as night was from day. There, in the middle of nowhere, where nobody was reading life altering parchments and nobody was feeling the happiest they’ve ever been, the chilly mist of despair -- as the foul creatures, the Dementors, where known in those parts -- was, after months of absence, once again settling over Azkaban Prison.
The prisoners, those who hadn’t succumbed to madness a long time ago, back when the Dementors were on a daily basis sucking all that was good and decent in people who had little of good and decent to begin with, had relished those months as they would relish their freedom if it will ever be theirs to relish, because for the first time in years, for some even decades and for the luckier of the lot months, they finally had something the mist never allowed them to have before. For the first time in a very long time, the prisoners of Azkaban had hope. Yet now as the mist once again slithered its way up the tall, black walls of the fortress of death, hope -- that little thing too many gave too little credit to -- deserted them again.
All that was left in its stead as hope left them again, many for good -- all that was left where for a while stood dreams and futures -- was nothing but the putrid stench of despair.
On the thirteenth floor, where the mist hadn’t yet reached -- it was moving slower than you’d expected it to move and yet the slow dance of dark and cold and gloom seemed more tariffing than anything else that existed be it in Muggle or Wizarding world -- a dark figure stood tall and proud by the huge windowless window watching through crazed, grey eyes the mist and the tall, black-cloaked Dementors floating above the swirling and curling black treads of fog. He had been standing there, staring out into the nothingness of sea and sky -- into the nothingness of death as the prisoners called it -- since the Ministry in its infinite wisdom decided to return the Dementors to Azkaban; the news reaching Azkaban three nights ago. And ever since the man, known now only as Prisoner 26790348 after he had renounced his name as soon as he’d set foot in Azkaban, never to use it again, had been waiting, dreaming and wishing for the creatures return.
Now, three days later, as he stood motionless, staring into the dim morning light, gazing upon thousands of Dementors and the mist of despair the beings conjured by their mere presence, the man was finally seeing the thing he wished and dreamed for the most, happening and seeing it he was finally happy and as he stared into the abyss below he smiled for the first time in what seemed like years.
Idiots, they don’t take hope away -- they bring it! he thought and smile some more. It was not the smile of sanity though, but that of madness in its purest form and as if any more proof was needed about the mental state of this man, this mad looking man, he laughed, closed his grey eyes and jumped right out the window and into the death that awaited him below.
Still laughing… still smiling…
Prisoner 26790348 had made no sign of distress as he’d rushed towards his death, laughing all the way, even as the mist spread out to welcome him into its deeps as if welcoming an old friend. And in a way, they had been friends; at one time, in a life that had him lose everything and also brought him here.
The man laughed even more -- the kind of laugh that makes the hairs on your neck stand -- when the mist, his long-time friend, closed over him just as hundreds of tall, black-cloaked figures rushed from the morning sky to greet him, to have him… to kiss him.
The Dementors were hungry this morning; hungry for being so long without souls to destroy -- there were no steady meals of souls on the run and in hiding -- hungry for what this place had to offer, but most of all, hungry for something the man reeked of. They didn’t know what it was -- they couldn’t’ understand feelings especially not ones so intense -- but they could feel, and feel they did: the raw emotion, the raw need, the power that surrounded it all.
It was a feast to have, a feast they had no wish of missing on.
We will be kissing him, they thought as one.
They were nearly there.
He could already feel their mere presence devouring his emotions, feeding on his hate and his dreams, pouring revenge from him as if pouring wine from a cup, when suddenly from the centre of his being, a feeling so bright and strong burst out as a huge dark silver falcon Patronus, which flew right into the sky. It was an eerie silence that followed the silvery winged manifestation, as high up into the morning sky Dementors fled from the Patronus, running as they have never run, because on this particular Patronus they couldn’t feed as it wasn’t good or love or pure. No, this one, this Patronus as no other had ever been, was hate, revenge and dark, pure darkness and pure hatred, Oh, no, they couldn’t feed on it not when it was exactly what they were made of too.
The man -- he wasn’t falling anymore -- the tall, dark figure with crazed, blood-shoot grey eyes stood below, floating above the waves and gazing at the soaring falcon, all the while twirling with long, bonny, death-pale fingers a silver snake head handled wand and smiling.