The boy stood in the wide triangular courtyard, the dementors gliding passed him without a care. The boy tossed his black mane from his face, so he could better see. His hostile blue eyes looked at the man before him without emotion. He had lived on Azkaban for the entirety of his life he had known, and therefore emotion was alien to him.
"I ask you again, who are you?" the man demanded. The boy watched the man shiver as a dementor passed. The man was irritable from their presence. So had all the others who had come before this man. The boy had watched them the past seven years. They would come, the boy would hide, and these men and women would inspect everything. Then they would leave and the island would be free of them for the next month.
As another dementor glided incredibly close, the man shouted and pulled the thin stick from his pocket.
"Expecto Patronum!" the man bellowed. The Patronus flew out, and the silver eagle shot towards the dementors. The boy moved into the Patronus' path, and it exploded against his chest before the silvery wisps vanished. Before the man could express his outrage, the boy looked to the dementor.
He inhaled slowly, his breath rattling and sinisterly like their own breathing. The man drew back as the dementors left the courtyard.
"What did you do?" the man demanded. The boy looked at him and then smiled, a cold gesture.
"You are one of those wizards, aren't you?" the boy said, his voice charismatic and powerful for someone his age, which was in the middle teens. "You're from this Ministry of Magic, right?"
"Wrong," the man said as he waved his wand. Thin gold chains wrapped around the boy's form. The boy laughed and the chains vanished in smoke. Then the boy fell as his laugh gave into coughs. Blood flew from him as he coughed. In seconds however, a dementor was there. The dementor picked up the boy and glided off while the man struggled to his feet. A sudden kick to his back sent him sprawling. A new man picked up the wizard's wand.
"Obliviate," the man said with a careless flick. The American wizard's mind lost itself and he passed out. The standing wizard bent down and placed the wand gently into the wizard's hand then let it roll out naturally. After this, the man rushed over to the dementor who held the boy. Many others left their cells, which had been unlocked when the wizard had seen the boy and left to question him; the dementors now only locked the prisoners up when Azkaban had a powerful wizard inspecting the estate of the prison, and they had unlocked it at that point because they hadn't bothered, hoping the wizards would aid the boy.
The boy himself was a great idol of fear and respect in Azkaban. He had arrived from nowhere, had no knowledge of anything, and had held a mind that was entirely wasted. But even more, the dementors didn't only have no effect on him, but the boy followed them everywhere.
When the boy had grown, he began to remember things, including that there were no such things as wizards and that these "things" couldn't exist. However, the witches and wizards who were still sane taught him a great deal of things. In no time at all, the boy knew all he needed about the wizarding world. And then he realized he was a Muggle, a term they used scathingly. Yet he could see the dementors, could see Azkaban, and he had power.
His broken mind had mended while he remained imprisoned on Azkaban. The only way on and off the island was by magic, and that was not allowed since he shouldn't even exist in this world. However, the boy had managed.
Get away, I'm fine! the boy said in his head. The wizards and witches had only heard him take a rattling breath, which is how the dementors breathed while speaking their language.
You used magic, again, the dementor said in the language they used. The boy settled his head and opened his blue eyes.
Yes I used their powers again, and this time I meant to. The boy stood up and his cloak fell about him. He had outgrown the rags he had arrived in, and at that time the dementors bestowed upon him their smoke like cloak. The boy found the material was neither solid, gas, or liquid, but all three, and it grew with him, always the perfect size. He found he was not only unaffected by dementors, but he spoke like them, and he even had their powers. He also had the powers of wizards. He wondered, then, if he met a house elf, could he steal their knowledge of their power from them?
"I am fine, Larkesus," the boy said to the wizard who had used the Memory Charm on the official. The boy walked to the wizard and watched him rest unconscious. "This is that Memory . . . Charm, yes?" The boy asked as the witches and wizards dispersed. The boy had talked the dementors into letting them roam Azkaban as they pleased, but he didn't care if the dementors fed off the ones who got too close or stood too still outside of their cells.
"Yes," Larkesus replied, bowing slightly. "I altered his memory so he wouldn't remember you or the day here, but he would recall that Azkaban is perfectly orderly." The boy nodded. "Why did you reveal yourself to this one?" the man added softly. The boy turned his cold eyes on the man.
"I have no reason, I just felt like I should," the boy replied before turning away. "Don't forget that tonight is Saturday," the boy added as he walked off, being surrounded by several dementors. The man watched as the dementors vanished into the mist, or rather the mist absorbed them.
The boy was not there when they had disappeared.
The boy watched as he set down his card. The seven little figures on it climbed out of the picture and charged across the table towards the three trembling defenders. Over the brutally violent slaughter, the boy looked at the man and smiled.
"My seven of clubs beats your three of hearts," the boy said. His seven soldier's large wooden bats bludgeoned the three white flags as the figures faded back onto their cards, the man tossed his three into a discard pile.
"My turn, however, Lord," the man said. A vein in the boy's forehead twitched slightly. His irritation was nothing compared to the inferno in his gut, exploding from the man's final word. He held up a card and waited for the boy to do the same. The boy lifted his card, chosen at random, and they set their cards down. The man's queen of spades, a large sphinx, charged forward to be roasted by the massive silver dragon the boy had set down. However, before the two figures could meet up, the table iced over, and as the cards were buried, the figures faded. The man was about to swear when he saw the boy. The boy's hands were frozen to the table, and it was from them that the ice was coming. As the ice traveled up the boy's arms, he smiled.
"Briar, why did you call me that?"
Briar realized his folly too late. His apology was lost, for when he opened his mouth, a dementor's lips intercepted them and his lost was lost at once. Briar sat there, his life no longer worth living. The boy did Briar a favor by holding out his own palm to Briar's forehead. A bright flash of purple and Briar fell, dead.
To the spectators, the boy shook the ice from his arms and addressed.
"I am nothing like your old Lord Voldemort," the boy said. "He was Half-Blood, he was a trained wizard, and he was powerful. I am not even a Mudblood, for I leech the powers of any magical creature rather than inherit the power from some unknown source. I am untrained, living o this island for so long and not knowing the world beyond. And finally, I am not powerful with magic, for I can barely control it. And the greatest of all: my name is not Tom Marvolo Riddle or Lord Voldemort." The boy turned and walked off, even the dementors parting for him. As his cloak and the mist swirled around him, taking him into the world where dementors traverse, he laughed.
"My name is Messor Umbris Angeli."
The wizards and witches stood around the frozen table and corpse. The dementors stood where they were.
Umbris was a wizard¾no, he was not even that¾was a Shade everything could easily grow to fear.