Far, far away from where Harry sat reading his book, a rowboat was cutting through choppy white-crested waves on the North Sea. The boat moved magically at an astonishing speed through the dark, icy waters. The sky was clear, allowing the crescent moon to cast a faint silver light on the hideous face, whiter than a skull, with red eyes and pupils like slits, of a wizard who stood imperiously at the bow of the boat. Behind him in the boat were two other wizards, who sat wordlessly fingering their wands and watching their master.

Lord Voldemort's snakelike features were impassive as he stared forward at the giant stone fortress looming up straight ahead on the water. The two seated wizards shivered as the boat approached the island on which the stone fortress sat, and it wasn't because of the wind that whipped their black robes and tousled their hair. It was because even at this distance they could feel the bleak, dismal coldness that the fortress exuded. Their blood was turning to ice and their hearts were filling with a strange, melancholy despair as if there would never be good times again. It was a feeling even worse than physical pain. But Voldemort stood motionless, and it was difficult to tell whether he also felt that misery.

Straight ahead there was a deserted wooden dock, and this was where their boat glided to a stop. Voldemort and his two servants disembarked and moved up to the fortress. The two Death Eaters tried to mask their agony as they stumbled after their calm, almost regal master. It was clear now that Voldemort felt none of the horrific effects of the vile Dementors that guarded this fortress.

They reached the front of the fortress, where the huge, heavy front doors split the windowless uniformity of the high stone walls. Though it was large enough to be a medieval king's castle, it was clearly not the case. This was a bleak, joyless building, a plain grey box of the soundest stone available to man. This was Azkaban Fortress, the wizard prison, the most dismal place on the face of the Earth. It was also widely considered to be the most secure place on Earth because of the soul-sucking Dementors who guarded the fortress; but two people knew that this was not the case. Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort were both aware that the Dementors had their weaknesses, and that there were ways to get past the Dementors. One was to find some way to resist their powers, and slip past the blind fiends; and the other was to trick them into become allies. Two years ago Sirius Black had succeeded in the first method and escaped to the mainland, and now Lord Voldemort was using the second method.

Voldemort strode to the giant double doors and knocked three times. The sound echoed ominously inside the desolate fortress. Then the door opened and a Dementor ushered them in.

It was pitch-black when they entered, but at the command of the first Dementor, another of the creatures magically lit the torches that lined the wall and they found themselves in a large, empty stone chamber.

Voldemort began conversing in a low voice with the Dementor. The pale, terrified Death Eaters tried not to faint from the presence of the Dementor.

Lord Voldemort and the Dementor at length finished their discussion, and the Dementor beckoned to the three, indicating that it would lead the way. The Death Eaters' stomachs turned at the sight of the Dementor's greyish, slimy, scabby hand poking out of its sleeve, but they followed their master, their hearts heavy with a peculiar despair, out of the chamber into a wide, darkened corridor. Voldemort gave his servants a torch, because though Voldemort and the Dementor shunned light, the two Death Eaters did need light to see. The Death Eaters managed to take in some of their surroundings as they followed the Dementor down cold stone staircases and through twists and turns in the winding corridor. All along the walls were prison cells. The light from the torch cast striped shadows across the faces of the sleeping convicts.

The Death Eaters were confused in the maze of hallways and stairs, but they understood that they were heading downwards, to the maximum security prisons. These cells did not have one open side of bars like the ones upstairs. Here lived the most dangerous convicts in Britain, and this warranted a lockup system similar to that of Gringotts Bank in London. They had no padlocks, but could only be opened by a Dementor's touch. These were the cells that Voldemort wanted to visit.

The Dementor stopped in front of one heavy iron door and ran its sickly grey finger down the metal. The iron slid upwards into the stone wall. Then the Dementor stood aside to let Voldemort pass him and enter the cell.

A gaunt, disheveled creature was crouched in the corner, shivering miserably. His light brown hair was long and straggly. The bones in his face jutted out markedly under his paper-thin skin because he was so emaciated. His skin was the sickly white colour of skin that has not seen the light of day in many years, which was what this man had gone through for sixteen years. His brown eyes were glassy and had a haunted sort of look. He jumped, terrified, when Voldemort's shadow fell across the floor.

"Who's there?" croaked the man in a thin, feeble voice. "It's not my time, it's not my time! I can't get the Kiss, please don't do it."

"Derrick," Voldemort said.

The prisoner stared, then gasped. "My Lord! Master, they said you'd fallen, they said you'd been defeated, oh, I never expected that you would come."

"Come here, Derrick," Voldemort said gently.

Derrick Lestrange struggled to his knees and crawled across the slimy stone floor to his master. Half-blind, it took him a moment to find the hem of Voldemort's robe so he could kiss it. Then he backed up and squinted up at Voldemort's face.

"My loyal Death Eater," Voldemort said, touching Derrick Lestrange's skeletal face. "What miseries you have suffered for me."

"They were well worth it," Lestrange whispered hoarsely. "But I had no idea that you were still alive. Great wizard that you are, I didn't think it possible for anyone to survive Avada Kedavra! I heard the new prisoners screaming that you had fallen to a boy, a small boy, and I did not believe it at first. But as time went on and I languished here in this hellhole, I thought that perhaps. But how did you do it?" He was agitated. "What happened, master? Please, tell me!"

"Soon, we will talk calmly and I will tell you everything that you have missed in the last sixteen years. But not now. Now is the time for quiet and discreet action. Can you not stand and look me in the face? You have no reason to be penitent."

"My legs are too weak, my Lord, for I have not stood in ages. My eyes sting with pain because I am unused to the light. And my voice is faint because I have had no one to speak to in so many years." He looked up pleadingly at Voldemort. "My wife, my darling wife Maldora-is she still living?"

"I am not certain," Voldemort said. "But come, we will see her now."

At Voldemort's command, the two Death Eaters came inside and carefully lifted up Derrick Lestrange. They carried him out of the cell and down the hall after Voldemort and the Dementor. Derrick clung to his companions gratefully.

"Forgive me, my friends, but I can't see your faces. Do we know each other?"

"Derrick, it's us," said one Death Eater. "Remember? Walden MacNair?"

"MacNair?" Derrick thought he recalled the man's voice in some far-off chamber of his mind. "Ah yes. MacNair, I think I remember."

"And Tiberius Nott," said the other Death Eater. Derrick recognized this voice quickly, because he and Nott had been close friends years ago.

"Tiberius, my old friend," Derrick whispered, excited. "This is like a wonderful dream. I think that I am going to wake up soon."

"It's real, Derrick, and everything is under control," Nott said soothingly. "We'll see Maldora now."

They stopped in front of another iron door and the Dementor performed the same trick on it with his scabby, repulsive hand. The door slid open to reveal a haggard witch lying prone on the dank stone ground by the wall across from the door. Her head lay on a pillow of her own long flaxen hair. Her eyes were closed.

Derrick gave a weak gasp. "Maldora!"

The witch's eyelids fluttered. "Who's there?"

MacNair and Nott looked at each other, surprised. Maldora did not speak in Derrick's feeble croak, but instead in the clear dulcet tones they remembered from years before.

"Maldora?" Lord Voldemort said.

Maldora Lestrange sat up quickly and stared at them in wonder. MacNair and Nott noted that her ice-blue eyes were clear and her face did not have the nervous, edgy sort of look about it that Derrick's had. "Master? Why, it is you! You've come at last! Oh, I knew you would come, I knew you could never be defeated." She scrambled to her feet and came forward to kneel at Voldemort's feet and kiss the hem of his robes.

"Maldora," Derrick croaked, as she stood up without difficulty. "Maldora, my love."

She noticed him at last, and the Lestranges stared at each other for a moment. Then she rushed forward to embrace him, crying, "Derrick, oh Derrick, how long it's been!"

"I love you, Maldora," Derrick said tenderly. "I never stopped thinking of you."

"I never stopped thinking of you either," Maldora said, fervently kissing his gaunt face. "I knew, I knew that one day we'd be reunited."

The Dementors suddenly made a rattling, sucking noise, and all present except Voldemort drooped. Derrick clutched at his wife's neck.

"It's getting excited," he whispered. "It wants to suck out our happiness."

"Hush, darling, calm down," Maldora said.

"How do you look so well?" Voldemort asked her suddenly. "It is incomprehensible."

"No my lord, it was an easy matter. My voice is fine because I talked to myself for all these long years to keep myself at least a little sane. And I have been pacing my cell endlessly, which is why my muscles did not atrophy."

"But how did you find the strength to resist the guards?" MacNair said, casting a nervous look at the Dementor.

Maldora frowned. "Truly I don't know. I've always heard such terrible tales of their powers, of the anguish that they create in people's hearts; but when I myself am here near them, I don't feel it much. It's more annoying than disheartening."

"This is unusual," Voldemort said slowly, frowning. "The very reason I selected their kind to be our allies is because I have never seen anyone who could resist their powers. Except for myself, of course. And-" He stopped and looked at Maldora. "But perhaps there is some kind of magic inside you that gives you this extraordinary ability."

"Perhaps," Maldora said, bored of the discussion. "Though I do not know of any."

"Tell us, master," said Derrick, "how has the miracle of our release come to pass?"

Voldemort smiled thinly. "I have arranged with the guards to remove several prisoners tonight. You two are the first, but your some of your friends are still trapped in this miserable hole. Come, Death Eaters, and help me liberate your brethren."

The Dementor made a displeased noise, and Voldemort paused to smile at the hooded creature.

"Ah yes. I must fulfil my part of the deal as well. MacNair!"

MacNair reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches, which he carefully handed to Voldemort. Derrick and Maldora stared uncomprehendingly.

"Look," Voldemort said, opening the box and holding it out.

"Ten matchsticks," said Maldora.

"No," said Voldemort. "Ten Muggles."

He took one matchstick out of the box and threw it on the floor in Maldora's cell. Then he pulled out his wand and pointed at the match.

"Finite Incantato."

The match lengthened quickly, growing longer and fatter into the shape of a human male. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and his Muggleness was painfully obvious in his outlandishly magical surroundings. He sat on the cold floor, staring at them dazedly.

"Good-bye, filthy Muggle," Voldemort said. The Muggle's eyes widened and he was scrambling across the floor towards the doorway when the Dementor let the iron door slam down, sealing him in forever. His screams were hardly audible through the door.

Nine cells in total were vacated and subsequently re-filled with different inmate. The Dementors were aware of the change but hardly cared, because a human soul was a human soul, and the Dementors needed their nourishment. What did it matter to them which ones were convicted criminals? The Dementors even got a bonus human. Halvard Travers, one of the Death Eaters that Voldemort had been planning to take away, had turned out to have died without anyone noticing, but Voldemort had graciously agreed to leave the Muggle who would have taken Travers' place at Azkaban with the Dementors.

All in all it was a very successful night for all parties involved, Voldemort decided as the Death Eaters all climbed into the boat. They cast off from the dock and as they sailed across the dark water for the other shore, Lord Voldemort stood calmly at the bow of the boat, faced his loyal followers, and began telling them the story of a boy named Harry Potter who had stymied the Dark Lord so many times-but who would not escape this time. Not when Voldemort had all his Death Eaters back. Harry Potter was as good as dead.