Hi! I want to say sorry, first, for the length of time it has taken me to
write another chapter for this story, and my others stories on
Fanfiction.net-I had exams to study for, then there was Christmas, and I
had to get a new modem for my PC, so it was only a day or two ago that I
finally got back online after a month or so of absence!
Thank you to all my reviewers, your opinions are really important to me.I
want to say a special thank you to prongs-666 and PAdmez, and the anonymous
reviewer who reviewed my stuff in the past few days, and have encouraged me
to continue!
So, here's Chapter 5! Enjoy!
***********
The journey across the wastelands would take two weeks, according to Sirius' estimation. The Order members found great difficulty in trying to find a safe path through the wastelands. The place also brought back some powerful memories to Sirius; the last time he had travelled across these lands, he had been carried, somehow, by a host of Dementors, and anything he could remember about that journey struck terror into his heart. As leader of his little party, he was forced to cast aside his fears and senses of foreboding, and act as cheerily as possible. On the evening of their second day trudging across the wastelands, Remus sat down beside his old friend and nudged him.
'Sirius', he said quietly, 'you needn't pretend this is easy for you.'
'Who's pretending?' Sirius said lightly, not looking at Remus.
Remus sighed. 'You'd make life a lot easier for yourself if you admitted you're terrified.'
Sirius shot up to his feet indignantly. 'I am NOT terrified', he argued hotly.
Remus shook his head, and smiled slightly. 'I didn't expect you to admit it', he remarked, 'but just remember-we won't think any the less of you if you feel horror at having to return to Azkaban.'
Sirius gave a derisive snort, but as he strode past Remus, he patted his friend on the back, showing that there were no hard feelings.
'I'll lead you to Azkaban', he murmured, 'because I have to.'
Their progress was slow-Bill hobbled along as fast as he could on his crutches, but was suffering from a mild concussion since his fall. He vomited on several occasions, and was running a small fever. Snape was having problems due to prolonged use of Polyjuice Potion-his body was objecting to having to look and behave as Charlie Weasley's would have done. Remus was tired, and constantly watchful, searching the skies for the moon. 'I have lost track of the days, and I won't know when it's a full moon, because here, it is always black-dark.'
'It is twenty-two days since you were last a werewolf', Snape informed him, grimacing, 'I would advise you to take the Wolfsbane early tomorrow.'
'Good', Remus heaved a sigh of relief, 'at least then I can travel as fast as the rest of you, on four legs instead of two.'
'Mmm.' Snape made a sneering sort of sound, which gave Sirius a sudden urge to throttle him on the spot. He was about to give Snape another verbal dressing-down in front of the whole Company, when a shiver passed through the whole land, and a dark shadow descended on his heart. Tonks let out a cry of despair, and with a groan, Bill collapsed on the ground, unconcsious.
'Get out of the way!' Sirius cried, 'run, and don't stop 'til you begin to feel warm again! Oliver, help me with Bill!'
'What's happening?' Oliver asked, terrified, as he supported Bill on one side, while Sirius grabbed the other side, and began to run as fast as he could.
'Dementors', Sirius gasped, 'A lot of them, by the feel of it. Don't look back, whatever you do.' He could hear Peter Pettigrew's voice in his head, crying 'Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?' He could see a Dementor coming towards him, its hood lowered...He shook his head, and the image disintegrated, but only to be rapidly replaced by an Azkaban cell. His legs felt like lead, and his heart was sinking fast. He glanced at Oliver, and saw that the young man was staggering now, muttering to himself, with tears on his cheeks.
Remus came running back towards them. 'There's a sort of ditch about a hundred yards away', he informed them, 'where you can't feel them anymore. Come on, as fast as you can!'
This news roused the two men from the darkness which had threatened to defeat them, and they managed to get to the ditch quickly, the adrenalin triggered by their fear giving them extra strength and speed. They collapsed into the ditch to which Remus led them, and dropped Bill, who was still out cold.
'What was that?' Tonks asked, an expression of horror on her face.
Sirius did not answer, but went to the lip of the ditch, and peered over it; he shivered, as not a quarter of a mile away, he saw a group of at least sixty Dementors gliding in the direction of Azkaban. Oliver joined him, and spotted something with his keen eyes that Sirius had not been able to make out.
'They've got some prisoners with them', he whispered, sounding scared.
'Snape!' Sirius hissed, looking over his shoulder, 'have you got that spyglass handy?'
Snape reached into his robes, and pulled out the requested instrument. His fingers trembling, he pulled it to its full length, and placed it to his eye. After about five seconds, he let loose a string of curses under his breath, before allowing the spyglass to slip from his fingers. Remus grabbed it, and peered through it as Sirius had done.
'No', he breathed, 'it cannot be so.'
'What is it?' Eva asked sharply, although not entirely sure she wanted the answer.
'Those Dementors', Sirius replied huskily, 'they've got four Order members with them.'
'Who?' Tonks' hands flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened with fear.
'Mad-Eye Moody, Minerva MacGonagall, and Charlie and Arthur Weasley.' Remus replied grimly, watching through the spyglass until the Dementors had passed out of sight.
There was a stunned silence in the ditch, as everyone tried to make sense of what Remus had just told them. Then, naturally, their gazes turned to Bill, who was beginning to come round.
'What happened?' He moaned, 'my head was just beginning to stop swimming, then I felt like someone whacked me with a brick!'
'Dementors happened', Eva replied gently, kneeling down beside him, 'their power is much stronger the closer they are to their home in Azkaban, and you were already weakened.'
'I feel like a right prat', he murmured, turning red, and struggling to his feet. He hopped about on one leg, brushing down his robes, then noticed the immense silence around him, and looked up, astonished.
'Who died?' He asked, looking around.
Sirius felt it his duty to break the news to Bill, and so he walked over to the other wizard, and placed a hand on his shoulder. 'That group of Dementors', he said quietly, 'they had some prisoners with them.'
'Poor souls', Bill said grimly, shaking his head.
'They were Mad-Eye, Minerva, Charlie and your father', Sirius interrupted.
Bill froze, and turned a ghastly shade of white. 'D-dad?' He stammered, 'and Charlie too? Both of them? Being taken to Azkaban? Wh-why? Wh-what for?'
'That's an excellent question', Snape said thoughtfully.
'Now's hardly the time for sarcasm, Severus', Tonks snapped, thinking that Snape was making little of the situation.
'I don't mean it in that way', Snape replied coldly, 'what I was going to say was: Surely the Dark Lord would want to question such prisoners himself? Why would he give them to the Dementors, who would only destroy them, and give him no chance to interrogate them?'
'Maybe they've already been questioned', said Eva in a small voice.
'No', Sirius disagreed swiftly, glancing at the dumbstruck Bill, 'I can see what you're thinking, and if my experiences with Lord Voldemort count for anything, I know he would want to kill them himself, after questioning them, and make an example of their destruction. To him, destruction at the hands of a Dementor would not seem spectacular enough-it has happened dozens of times before. If I'm right, these four are his first really important captives-he'll want everyone to remember what happens to them, in the hopes that others will not oppose him in the same way.'
'So what are you saying?' Tonks asked curiously, 'why are they being brought to Azkaban?'
'I think I see what Sirius is getting at!' Remus cried suddenly, 'the Dementors aren't taking them AWAY from Voldemort, they're bringing them TO him!'
There was a collective gasp. 'You believe the Dark Lord is dwelling in Azkaban?' Snape said tensely.
'Why not?' Sirius reasoned, 'Azkaban is beyond the Ministry's control now, that's why we're on this mission in the first place. Azkaban is already a place of fear and dread, and a lot of his supporters are already imprisoned there-it's as good a place as any! After all, what person in their right mind would launch an attack on Azkaban?'
'So what are we going to do?' Oliver asked hollowly, 'If Voldemort and all his Death Eaters are based in Azkaban, our chance of success is almost zero.'
'I don't give a damn what the odds are', Bill spat furiously, finding his tongue at last, 'we're going to get to Azkaban and destroy the whole bloody fortress-and if anything's happened to Charlie or Dad...'
He left his sentence unfinished, and kicking his crutches aside, he limped up the shallow side of the ditch, and turned to face the party below. 'We've run out of time', he cried angrily, 'don't you see, if Voldemort gives them Veritaserum, he'll know we're on the way! And the he'll....he'll kill them.'
Sirius climbed out of the ditch, followed by the others. 'Come on', he said sadly, 'we will travel as fast as we can, for as long as we can. Voldemort just made this personal.'
****************
Remus and Snape put their heads together, and created a spell to strengthen the bone is Bill's leg, and enable him to walk properly, and at the same speed as the rest of them. For four days, they walked on through the dismal country, paying no heed to weariness, or blisters. Remus took his Wolfsbane potion religiously each of those days, and on the third transformed into the creature he loathed so much-a werewolf-but a tame one, thanks to the potion.When Sirius woke from a brief rest on the fifth night, he found the werewolf sitting next to him, gazing at him solemnly.
'Lucky you', Sirius said, smiling ruefully, 'able to turn into an animal! Yes, I know, it's not your choice, but I wish....well, I just wish that I could be Padfoot again, for one night, and it could be just like old times.' He sighed heavily, and patted the werewolf on the head. 'But old Padfoot disappeared when I came back through the veil. I'm not going to have a much longer life than if I'd just stayed beyond the veil that time, am I?'
Don't look at me like that!' He exclaimed, as Remus looked at him reproachfully, 'oh, I don't know. Nothing's straightforward anymore. I don't feel like...like ME, without magic. I feel weak, and useless. What am I going to do, when we get into Azkaban, eh? I can't stun anyone, or ward off Dementors. And Voldemort knows that now, since Wormtail attacked me down that alleyway. I still wonder how he did that. But enough of my ramblings. We'd better head off again soon. Wake up the others, will you Moony?'
Remus nodded, and padded off to wake the rest fo the Company, while Sirius stood, stretched and surveyed the surrounding landscape. They had made good time in the past few days, and Sirius reckoned it would take another three days or so to reach the sea. He remembered vividly the day three years ago when he had swum across that violent sea, and collapsed on the shore of the wastelands, feeling emotions such as triumph and joy for the first time in thirteen years.
Bill came and stood beside him. He had spoken little in the past few days, but kept his head bent and concentrated on walking as fast as his legs would allow him. Even Snape had stopped drinking the Polyjuice Potion with Charlie's DNA in it, as he realised this would not be a sensitive move. He instead took on the appearance of Mundugus Fletcher, a man whom he abhorred above all except Sirius.
'How much longer?' Bill asked quietly.
'About six days', Sirius replied, 'three on land, three on sea.'
'How will we cross the sea?' Bill questioned anxiously.
'We'll swim if we have to', Sirius responded grimly, 'don't worry about that yet. Concentrate on crossing land first, before you even think about the sea. Are we all ready? Right then, on we go.'
They travelled until the sun was high in the sky, then stopped for a five minute rest. Oliver untied his broomstick from the load he carried on his back, and laid it across his knees. It was a Nimbus Two Thousand and Two, the best broom so far in the Nimbus range, and Oliver's pride and joy, bought by his mother, as a present when he got a place on the Puddlemere United team. He stood up, and held the broom in front of him, then let it go. He let out a shout of surprise; he had expected it to drop like a stone, since magic did not work properly close to Azkaban, but instead, it hovered in the air where he had left it.
Sirius and Eva, hearing Oliver's cry, turned around, and gasped at the broomstick. Immediately, the entire group began to remove their broomsticks from their packs and command them to hover-and every single broom worked.
'How can that be?' Remus (who was, now that the sun had brought an end to the reign of the full moon, a human again)asked, puzzled, 'I thought there was no magic here?'
'Voldemort probably changed all that', Sirius said, this fact dawning upon him suddenly, 'his followers might need to use magic here, and so he probably did something that only he knows how to do, to allow magic to work here! Well, for once, Voldemort has done us a favour! If only he knew, he's made our journey a lot easier!'
The wizards and witches flew as low as possible, so as not to draw attention to themselves, and made amazing progress. Without having to pick their way carefully over rocky patches and muddy bogs, they cut hours off their journey. So encouraged was Sirius by their progress that he did not let them stop to rest, until twenty-four hours later, when they were all almost asleep on their brooms, a gloomy, grey mass of water could be made out in the distance, and Sirius ordered them to descend, and walk the final stretch, in case any Death Eaters were lurking by the shore.
'Can we fly over the sea?' Bill asked eagerly.
Sirius shook his head. 'I wouldn't risk it', he explained, 'the enemy could spot us and attack us too easily, and we would have nowhere safe to land. Plus, we need some extra days to plan what we will do when we actually get to Azkaban. We'll obviously be spotted before we get there, so there can be no element of surprise, which means our plan has to be absolutely flawless.'
The others looked at him doubtfully, but said nothing. Sirius felt the sand beneath his feet, and his heart gave a leap as he realised their journey was coming to an end, whether good or bad.
'What'll we do for a boat?' Remus whispered worriedly.
'No idea', Sirius muttered, 'I'm sort of doing this as I go along. Any ideas?'
And Remus burst out laughing. Sirius stared at him, wondering if the stress had finally got to him, but then he looked to the spot where Remus was pointing and his jaw dropped:
A large raft, made of thick wooden logs, with a white sail and a red flag, was sitting on the shore. The red flag bore the emblem of Gryffindor house on it: a golden lion. Sirius ran forwards, and gazed up at the raft, which, it seemed, had been sent especially for them. He caught sight of a piece of cloth tied to the mast, which seemed to have some writing on it. He recognised the loopy script at once:
I SET THIS RAFT AFLOAT ON THE SEA, IN THE HOPES THAT IT WILL REACH THOSE WHO CAN MAKE USE OF IT, WHEN THEY NEED IT MOST. D.
'Dumbledore!' Remus chuckled, 'the old devil! He found a way to help us, even if he couldn't actually come with us, or help us with the journey directly. All he did was create a raft, and send it out to sea-probably from the other side of this ocean, beyond Azkaban!'
'Probably put an innocent invisibility spell or two on it to stop it from falling into the wrong hands', Eva remarked with a smile.
'THANK YOU DUMBLEDORE!' Bill cried, doing a small victory dance with Tonks on the spot, 'come on, let's go!'
And so, the Order of the Phoenix set out on the last leg of their journey, and for once, they felt that luck was going with them.
PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!!!! Hope you liked it!
So, here's Chapter 5! Enjoy!
***********
The journey across the wastelands would take two weeks, according to Sirius' estimation. The Order members found great difficulty in trying to find a safe path through the wastelands. The place also brought back some powerful memories to Sirius; the last time he had travelled across these lands, he had been carried, somehow, by a host of Dementors, and anything he could remember about that journey struck terror into his heart. As leader of his little party, he was forced to cast aside his fears and senses of foreboding, and act as cheerily as possible. On the evening of their second day trudging across the wastelands, Remus sat down beside his old friend and nudged him.
'Sirius', he said quietly, 'you needn't pretend this is easy for you.'
'Who's pretending?' Sirius said lightly, not looking at Remus.
Remus sighed. 'You'd make life a lot easier for yourself if you admitted you're terrified.'
Sirius shot up to his feet indignantly. 'I am NOT terrified', he argued hotly.
Remus shook his head, and smiled slightly. 'I didn't expect you to admit it', he remarked, 'but just remember-we won't think any the less of you if you feel horror at having to return to Azkaban.'
Sirius gave a derisive snort, but as he strode past Remus, he patted his friend on the back, showing that there were no hard feelings.
'I'll lead you to Azkaban', he murmured, 'because I have to.'
Their progress was slow-Bill hobbled along as fast as he could on his crutches, but was suffering from a mild concussion since his fall. He vomited on several occasions, and was running a small fever. Snape was having problems due to prolonged use of Polyjuice Potion-his body was objecting to having to look and behave as Charlie Weasley's would have done. Remus was tired, and constantly watchful, searching the skies for the moon. 'I have lost track of the days, and I won't know when it's a full moon, because here, it is always black-dark.'
'It is twenty-two days since you were last a werewolf', Snape informed him, grimacing, 'I would advise you to take the Wolfsbane early tomorrow.'
'Good', Remus heaved a sigh of relief, 'at least then I can travel as fast as the rest of you, on four legs instead of two.'
'Mmm.' Snape made a sneering sort of sound, which gave Sirius a sudden urge to throttle him on the spot. He was about to give Snape another verbal dressing-down in front of the whole Company, when a shiver passed through the whole land, and a dark shadow descended on his heart. Tonks let out a cry of despair, and with a groan, Bill collapsed on the ground, unconcsious.
'Get out of the way!' Sirius cried, 'run, and don't stop 'til you begin to feel warm again! Oliver, help me with Bill!'
'What's happening?' Oliver asked, terrified, as he supported Bill on one side, while Sirius grabbed the other side, and began to run as fast as he could.
'Dementors', Sirius gasped, 'A lot of them, by the feel of it. Don't look back, whatever you do.' He could hear Peter Pettigrew's voice in his head, crying 'Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?' He could see a Dementor coming towards him, its hood lowered...He shook his head, and the image disintegrated, but only to be rapidly replaced by an Azkaban cell. His legs felt like lead, and his heart was sinking fast. He glanced at Oliver, and saw that the young man was staggering now, muttering to himself, with tears on his cheeks.
Remus came running back towards them. 'There's a sort of ditch about a hundred yards away', he informed them, 'where you can't feel them anymore. Come on, as fast as you can!'
This news roused the two men from the darkness which had threatened to defeat them, and they managed to get to the ditch quickly, the adrenalin triggered by their fear giving them extra strength and speed. They collapsed into the ditch to which Remus led them, and dropped Bill, who was still out cold.
'What was that?' Tonks asked, an expression of horror on her face.
Sirius did not answer, but went to the lip of the ditch, and peered over it; he shivered, as not a quarter of a mile away, he saw a group of at least sixty Dementors gliding in the direction of Azkaban. Oliver joined him, and spotted something with his keen eyes that Sirius had not been able to make out.
'They've got some prisoners with them', he whispered, sounding scared.
'Snape!' Sirius hissed, looking over his shoulder, 'have you got that spyglass handy?'
Snape reached into his robes, and pulled out the requested instrument. His fingers trembling, he pulled it to its full length, and placed it to his eye. After about five seconds, he let loose a string of curses under his breath, before allowing the spyglass to slip from his fingers. Remus grabbed it, and peered through it as Sirius had done.
'No', he breathed, 'it cannot be so.'
'What is it?' Eva asked sharply, although not entirely sure she wanted the answer.
'Those Dementors', Sirius replied huskily, 'they've got four Order members with them.'
'Who?' Tonks' hands flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened with fear.
'Mad-Eye Moody, Minerva MacGonagall, and Charlie and Arthur Weasley.' Remus replied grimly, watching through the spyglass until the Dementors had passed out of sight.
There was a stunned silence in the ditch, as everyone tried to make sense of what Remus had just told them. Then, naturally, their gazes turned to Bill, who was beginning to come round.
'What happened?' He moaned, 'my head was just beginning to stop swimming, then I felt like someone whacked me with a brick!'
'Dementors happened', Eva replied gently, kneeling down beside him, 'their power is much stronger the closer they are to their home in Azkaban, and you were already weakened.'
'I feel like a right prat', he murmured, turning red, and struggling to his feet. He hopped about on one leg, brushing down his robes, then noticed the immense silence around him, and looked up, astonished.
'Who died?' He asked, looking around.
Sirius felt it his duty to break the news to Bill, and so he walked over to the other wizard, and placed a hand on his shoulder. 'That group of Dementors', he said quietly, 'they had some prisoners with them.'
'Poor souls', Bill said grimly, shaking his head.
'They were Mad-Eye, Minerva, Charlie and your father', Sirius interrupted.
Bill froze, and turned a ghastly shade of white. 'D-dad?' He stammered, 'and Charlie too? Both of them? Being taken to Azkaban? Wh-why? Wh-what for?'
'That's an excellent question', Snape said thoughtfully.
'Now's hardly the time for sarcasm, Severus', Tonks snapped, thinking that Snape was making little of the situation.
'I don't mean it in that way', Snape replied coldly, 'what I was going to say was: Surely the Dark Lord would want to question such prisoners himself? Why would he give them to the Dementors, who would only destroy them, and give him no chance to interrogate them?'
'Maybe they've already been questioned', said Eva in a small voice.
'No', Sirius disagreed swiftly, glancing at the dumbstruck Bill, 'I can see what you're thinking, and if my experiences with Lord Voldemort count for anything, I know he would want to kill them himself, after questioning them, and make an example of their destruction. To him, destruction at the hands of a Dementor would not seem spectacular enough-it has happened dozens of times before. If I'm right, these four are his first really important captives-he'll want everyone to remember what happens to them, in the hopes that others will not oppose him in the same way.'
'So what are you saying?' Tonks asked curiously, 'why are they being brought to Azkaban?'
'I think I see what Sirius is getting at!' Remus cried suddenly, 'the Dementors aren't taking them AWAY from Voldemort, they're bringing them TO him!'
There was a collective gasp. 'You believe the Dark Lord is dwelling in Azkaban?' Snape said tensely.
'Why not?' Sirius reasoned, 'Azkaban is beyond the Ministry's control now, that's why we're on this mission in the first place. Azkaban is already a place of fear and dread, and a lot of his supporters are already imprisoned there-it's as good a place as any! After all, what person in their right mind would launch an attack on Azkaban?'
'So what are we going to do?' Oliver asked hollowly, 'If Voldemort and all his Death Eaters are based in Azkaban, our chance of success is almost zero.'
'I don't give a damn what the odds are', Bill spat furiously, finding his tongue at last, 'we're going to get to Azkaban and destroy the whole bloody fortress-and if anything's happened to Charlie or Dad...'
He left his sentence unfinished, and kicking his crutches aside, he limped up the shallow side of the ditch, and turned to face the party below. 'We've run out of time', he cried angrily, 'don't you see, if Voldemort gives them Veritaserum, he'll know we're on the way! And the he'll....he'll kill them.'
Sirius climbed out of the ditch, followed by the others. 'Come on', he said sadly, 'we will travel as fast as we can, for as long as we can. Voldemort just made this personal.'
****************
Remus and Snape put their heads together, and created a spell to strengthen the bone is Bill's leg, and enable him to walk properly, and at the same speed as the rest of them. For four days, they walked on through the dismal country, paying no heed to weariness, or blisters. Remus took his Wolfsbane potion religiously each of those days, and on the third transformed into the creature he loathed so much-a werewolf-but a tame one, thanks to the potion.When Sirius woke from a brief rest on the fifth night, he found the werewolf sitting next to him, gazing at him solemnly.
'Lucky you', Sirius said, smiling ruefully, 'able to turn into an animal! Yes, I know, it's not your choice, but I wish....well, I just wish that I could be Padfoot again, for one night, and it could be just like old times.' He sighed heavily, and patted the werewolf on the head. 'But old Padfoot disappeared when I came back through the veil. I'm not going to have a much longer life than if I'd just stayed beyond the veil that time, am I?'
Don't look at me like that!' He exclaimed, as Remus looked at him reproachfully, 'oh, I don't know. Nothing's straightforward anymore. I don't feel like...like ME, without magic. I feel weak, and useless. What am I going to do, when we get into Azkaban, eh? I can't stun anyone, or ward off Dementors. And Voldemort knows that now, since Wormtail attacked me down that alleyway. I still wonder how he did that. But enough of my ramblings. We'd better head off again soon. Wake up the others, will you Moony?'
Remus nodded, and padded off to wake the rest fo the Company, while Sirius stood, stretched and surveyed the surrounding landscape. They had made good time in the past few days, and Sirius reckoned it would take another three days or so to reach the sea. He remembered vividly the day three years ago when he had swum across that violent sea, and collapsed on the shore of the wastelands, feeling emotions such as triumph and joy for the first time in thirteen years.
Bill came and stood beside him. He had spoken little in the past few days, but kept his head bent and concentrated on walking as fast as his legs would allow him. Even Snape had stopped drinking the Polyjuice Potion with Charlie's DNA in it, as he realised this would not be a sensitive move. He instead took on the appearance of Mundugus Fletcher, a man whom he abhorred above all except Sirius.
'How much longer?' Bill asked quietly.
'About six days', Sirius replied, 'three on land, three on sea.'
'How will we cross the sea?' Bill questioned anxiously.
'We'll swim if we have to', Sirius responded grimly, 'don't worry about that yet. Concentrate on crossing land first, before you even think about the sea. Are we all ready? Right then, on we go.'
They travelled until the sun was high in the sky, then stopped for a five minute rest. Oliver untied his broomstick from the load he carried on his back, and laid it across his knees. It was a Nimbus Two Thousand and Two, the best broom so far in the Nimbus range, and Oliver's pride and joy, bought by his mother, as a present when he got a place on the Puddlemere United team. He stood up, and held the broom in front of him, then let it go. He let out a shout of surprise; he had expected it to drop like a stone, since magic did not work properly close to Azkaban, but instead, it hovered in the air where he had left it.
Sirius and Eva, hearing Oliver's cry, turned around, and gasped at the broomstick. Immediately, the entire group began to remove their broomsticks from their packs and command them to hover-and every single broom worked.
'How can that be?' Remus (who was, now that the sun had brought an end to the reign of the full moon, a human again)asked, puzzled, 'I thought there was no magic here?'
'Voldemort probably changed all that', Sirius said, this fact dawning upon him suddenly, 'his followers might need to use magic here, and so he probably did something that only he knows how to do, to allow magic to work here! Well, for once, Voldemort has done us a favour! If only he knew, he's made our journey a lot easier!'
The wizards and witches flew as low as possible, so as not to draw attention to themselves, and made amazing progress. Without having to pick their way carefully over rocky patches and muddy bogs, they cut hours off their journey. So encouraged was Sirius by their progress that he did not let them stop to rest, until twenty-four hours later, when they were all almost asleep on their brooms, a gloomy, grey mass of water could be made out in the distance, and Sirius ordered them to descend, and walk the final stretch, in case any Death Eaters were lurking by the shore.
'Can we fly over the sea?' Bill asked eagerly.
Sirius shook his head. 'I wouldn't risk it', he explained, 'the enemy could spot us and attack us too easily, and we would have nowhere safe to land. Plus, we need some extra days to plan what we will do when we actually get to Azkaban. We'll obviously be spotted before we get there, so there can be no element of surprise, which means our plan has to be absolutely flawless.'
The others looked at him doubtfully, but said nothing. Sirius felt the sand beneath his feet, and his heart gave a leap as he realised their journey was coming to an end, whether good or bad.
'What'll we do for a boat?' Remus whispered worriedly.
'No idea', Sirius muttered, 'I'm sort of doing this as I go along. Any ideas?'
And Remus burst out laughing. Sirius stared at him, wondering if the stress had finally got to him, but then he looked to the spot where Remus was pointing and his jaw dropped:
A large raft, made of thick wooden logs, with a white sail and a red flag, was sitting on the shore. The red flag bore the emblem of Gryffindor house on it: a golden lion. Sirius ran forwards, and gazed up at the raft, which, it seemed, had been sent especially for them. He caught sight of a piece of cloth tied to the mast, which seemed to have some writing on it. He recognised the loopy script at once:
I SET THIS RAFT AFLOAT ON THE SEA, IN THE HOPES THAT IT WILL REACH THOSE WHO CAN MAKE USE OF IT, WHEN THEY NEED IT MOST. D.
'Dumbledore!' Remus chuckled, 'the old devil! He found a way to help us, even if he couldn't actually come with us, or help us with the journey directly. All he did was create a raft, and send it out to sea-probably from the other side of this ocean, beyond Azkaban!'
'Probably put an innocent invisibility spell or two on it to stop it from falling into the wrong hands', Eva remarked with a smile.
'THANK YOU DUMBLEDORE!' Bill cried, doing a small victory dance with Tonks on the spot, 'come on, let's go!'
And so, the Order of the Phoenix set out on the last leg of their journey, and for once, they felt that luck was going with them.
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