A/N: The Azkaban in this story isn't how it appears in canon, but this isn't canonfiction dot net, is it? No!
Chapter 41: Azkaban
"How long do we let him go on for?" I ask Albus quietly.
"This looks to only be partway through." He murmurs back.
After almost being eaten by dementors, or our souls at least, the boat ride to Azkaban was uneventful. Once we made it ashore, Moody exploded. The small group of guards that were waiting, alongside the current Warden of Azkaban, in line and Moody quickly took to marching in front of them, shouting. Although I have the strangest feeling that this isn't the loudest he can go.
The island of Azkaban doesn't have much in the way of scenery besides the prison. The small pier that the boat pulled up against and the dead grass pretty much covers the sights for tourists. Twenty metres from the shore stand the looming doors of Azkaban. It would be generous to call it a path, but the line of tightly packed dirt leads from door to dock. The rain and sea water frequently takes off any layer that I would be able to pull any old information from, so until we get inside the prison, I can't know much about Barty's escape, although I highly doubt he used the front door.
"Did you think it was wise to pop that little aptitude test on me in the middle of a dementor-storm?" I ask him as Moody makes it to the part of his tirade where we actually landed on the beach.
"I often find that people perform best when under pressure." If Albus ever shrugged, I'm sure he would do so right now.
"You're losing the plot, Albus." I say, looking down to cover my smile.
"I'm afraid I never quite had a grasp upon it." I think it's a testament to his stalwart mind that he is cracking jokes on the shore of Azkaban.
"The ley lines are kind of messed up beneath us." I let him know. "Kind of shaking." He looks over to me with a raised eyebrow, running his hand over his beard casually. "Stable, but I think it's the prison having an effect on it." A giant monolith of solid mithril might be disruptive? I don't know how these things work completely. Excluding the warbling, these ley lines look the same as any other. I've always wondered if the hues correspond to different kinds of magic. "Do you think you could drop me in the Leaky Cauldron when we're done here? I'll floo back on Friday morning." I know that this is being overly-optimistic about not being put into a coma by dementors in a few minutes time, but I can hold onto this in case I need some motivation to go feeling around in a prison.
"Before breakfast on Friday, or you will be in detention. Again." He peers at me over his glasses. He doesn't look happy, even with the smile. The sooner we get of this damned rock, the better.
"Could you send a patronus to Hedwig so she doesn't wait up? I don't think I can replicate mine again." I suspect the strange circumstances in which I bonded with the Elder Wand had some effect on the spell, and maybe will do so more in future. I've not used it a whole lot since Albus handed it to me in St. Mungos, specifically favouring my holly wand because I don't trust myself with the power residing in the Elder Wand. No other user was already the master of another Deathly Hallow when they won the wand either, maybe I'm going to have to work out the kinks. The Peverell Brother's linked the items in a way that I have yet to decipher.
"Bloody amateurs." Moody stomps back over to us after. The other men quickly turn on their heels and run back up to the gateway. "There's no way the Crows have anything else planned inside the prison. It's secured more than the journey ever could be." We follow the guards to the prison.
"You know, Albus, I was thinking of actually becoming a wand maker." I say conversationally.
"Truly?" He seems surprised. Although if it's due to my superb timing about bringing the topic up, or the topic itself, I'm not sure.
"Find some materials, get my hands on some wand maker's tools – I think it could be a fascinating hobby." Ollivander is too weird and possibly more crafty than he lets on, I doubt he would fall for it and allow me to touch his tools. "Maybe a dementor bone, or something."
If he had anything to say to that, it is drowned out by a groaning cacophony as my bare foot touches the icy metal of Azkaban. Much like Hogwarts, the tower is alive. All the parts talk to each other but, where Hogwarts sings, Azkaban screams. Construction of this part finally finished in 1550 on the first of August, no other materials were ferried through this part of the prison, which probably means that it was the last piece to be finished. Ekrizdis, the ruler of the tower before the ministerial acquisition, used stone golems to move the ultra-dense mithril blocks for construction. Once the bricks were in place, at least in this section of the floor, Ekrizdis merged the individuals into one seamless plane. Seamless for anybody that isn't able to rifle through the floor's history, of course.
"Potter." I look up at confused faces ahead as Moody grabs my attention. The human guards, alongside Albus and Moody, made it a few metres before realising I'd stopped. Damn it. Need to come up with something fast.
"Sorry." I hurry to catch up with them, trying my best to ignore the fact that I'm walking along the path that Sirius was forced to walk in 1981. "Didn't think the floor would be so cold." I wink at Albus as the guards look down at my bare feet. Suckers.
"If the three of you could wait here." The warden steps towards us. "Your escort will be taking you further during their inspection of the inner cells." And with a nod, he leads the other guards. The only time they seem to leave their posts is for new arrivals. I've read that the dementors distribute the nutrients potions to the prisoners, to further depress them. No solid food, so if you are sentenced here for life imprisonment, you will never eat real food again.
The ceiling here is around 5 metres high, the same dark metallic colour as everywhere else, and completely flat. This area is a crossroad of corridors. One way leads to the outside of the prison, the two going left and right after entering are closed off with bars and gates, the guards have gone left into a side room. Straight ahead is a much meaner looking set of gates, presumably going further 'inside' Azkaban increases the security, dementor density, authorisation requirement, and prisoner 'meanness' levels.
"Anything?" Moody asks me whilst his eye spins rapidly. Can he even see through mithril?
"This place is amazing." He glares at me. "Sorry. Uh, It's cold and smells salty." Description of Azkaban, or Moody? Who can really say? "It'll get better once we go deeper." I say, tapping my ear again. They both get the message. Moody look like he's bitten into one of Albus' lemon drops.
The left-hand gate slides open with a creaking rattle admitting a stocky guard to pass through with his horse patronus. The man's face sags, possibly from spending too much time here, and it makes him look a lot older than his forty three years should. Ex-Auror Jessie Jensen, American. Nine years of uninterrupted service in Azkaban.
"Follow." He says, not stopping as he walks past us to the centre gate, turning to face us after he reaches it. "No unauthorised wands beyond this point." He might be looking at Moody, but his eyes don't really appear to be focused.
"Potter, You're not allowed to carry a wand here." Moody explains to me.
"What?" Not allowed a wand? What nonsense it this? "They want me to wilfully disarm in one of the most dangerous places on the planet?" The silence of my companions mean 'Yes, they do'. This seems like a great way to get people killed. Or assassinated. "Fine." I try not to sound like a petulant child, but I'm not happy with this, not after what happened on the boat. Like most other guests passing through this gate, I retrieve my wand and hand it over. If I didn't have the untraceable elder wand stored … somewhere, I would be making much more of a fuss.
"Very well." Jensen turns around and takes a step towards the gate, which dutifully slides open.
"If anything happens whilst we are here, I will personally raze this bloody tower to the ground." I mutter under my breath.
"No more Crows here, Potter." Moody assures me.
"You've brought in 12 yourself." I counter. "So I wouldn't say that there are none." But the chances another attempt on our lives, by humans, is pretty low.
As we continue through the fortress, I gain small glimpses of Ekrizdis throughout. Tall, usually hooded, with white hair, but a surprisingly youthful face. His eyes look grey, but then all whispers do, and he is usually shouting instructions at his stone golems. They were his mindless servants, they built the tower and dragged the corpses of those he lured here after he was done with them. I've yet to cross a point where he's actually killed one, or done anything else to one, but their screams have imprinted so deeply into the mithril that I can hear them over the current inmates.
"Excuse me, How many layers deep are we going?" I ask Jensen after the third set of gates. It's interesting that these inter-layer ones are made of mithril. Where did Ekrizdis even get all of this?
"All of them. Seven." Jensen replies, not turning to look at me.
Of course it's seven.
As we venture deeper into the prison, I notice that, along with the ever decreasing temperature, that my companions are slowly becoming more withdrawn. Heavy frowns and less enthusiastic walking. The most troubling part is that I'm almost buzzing with energy, every step tells a thousand stories, everything from the construction, to Ekrizdis' golems dragging mutilated corpses, and the high security inmates being led to their fates. Like a train wreck, I can't stop myself from looking. I'm very close to actually dragging my feet to not interrupt the flow by lifting my feet for walking. Why don't I feel the dementors? I've probably gone insane years ago, but most of the people this deep into the tower are insane too, and their screaming definitely indicates that they are still feeling the effects of their guardians.
"Last gate. Don't look down unless you have a strong stomach." Jensen taps his wand against the lock of the final gate and waits for a few seconds for the metal to slide with a loud screeching. I guess nobody gets paid enough to oil this thing.
The innermost section of Azkaban is the smallest, and, judging by the almost water-thick feeling of the wards, it's the most secure. The walkway surrounding the sheer drop is around six feet wide and only a single, thin handrail running around the entire triangular space assists in not being drawn in. The cells here appear to have caged doors, made of the same dark mithril, perhaps to further un-hinder the dementor's aura unto the prisoner. A solid door would be too kind, wouldn't it?
I tentatively rest my hands on the flimsy looking rail to ensure it will hold my weight. It will, mithril is incredibly strong. I peek over the edge and into, what I can only describe as, a bottomless abyss. A swarm, a flock, an army of dementors gently gliding below. If there is a bottom, it is impossible to make out through them. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them within the pit, slowly thinning out as the mass reaches closer to the sky. The very heart of the prison. Each dementor holds a dark grey aura of magic around them, which gives the entire pit a very bleak look to my magical eyes – What lies beneath?
A loud – louder than the rest – shriek catches my attention. Moody is a few cells away from the door.
"Mad-Eye, you are looking almost as mad as when I last saw you!" Another shriek, but it's laughter. Insane cackling. I step away from the edge of the abyss and slowly walk towards the cell, knowing, through my feet, that there is only one person this could be.
The woman is clinging to the bars, as gaunt as a skeleton and covered in filth. Her black hair resembles a bird's nest, and the odd patches of grey hair stick out even more. Sirius' grey faded fairly quickly after he left here. She quickly loses interest in Moody and stares at me.
Bellatrix Lestrange.
I've seen her grow up in Grimmauld Place. When she took her first steps under the watchful eye of Irma Black, her grandmother. When she was punished for not, as her mother would say, 'adhering to etiquette befitting a Black' at the dinner table. Repeatedly. The stern talking to she'd been given before she left for her first day of Hogwarts, and from there I'm more familiar with her. Her first few years mostly consisted of her keeping her head down, watching people. I don't know what she was like in her own common room, but she was always a bit odd outside. She reminds me of Luna. In her later years, she'd become a witch to respect as much as fear. Devilishly beautiful and dangerous with, or without, a wand. The corrupting influence of Voldemort had Bellatrix firmly in it's grasp by her seventh year.
I feel sorry for her. Anything that was once Bellatrix Black seems to be long dead. She is drawn to power, and Voldemort was almost unmatched. Addicted to his power, I think she couldn't help become one of his most devout followers. Mental illness? Was there a cause? Aura reading? Some kind of extra sensory ability?
"And you have brought me James!" She bares her filthy teeth with a grin. "How's that filthy mudblood pet of yours?"
"Dead, oddly enough. James too." Her smile vanishes and she squints at me.
"Who are you?" She demands. I probably shouldn't be talking to her. Her arm lashes out through the bars, flailing as she attempts to claw at my face, but falling an inch for of my nose. I spot Albus taking a few steps towards me from the corner of my eye.
"Perhaps if we press on?" He suggests. Moody mutters something and Jensen guides his patronus onwards.
Deciding to mess with Bellatrix, I hiss 'Harry Potter' in parseltongue, High Parsel in fact. She scrambles back into her cell, eyes wide.
"...Potter...Potter...Potter...ter...ter..." My words bounce off the mithril and echo around the prison. My companions don't turn back, so they don't hear anything, mainly because of the screams and the fact it's not in a language they could ever hope to understand, but they also don't feel in induced fear because of the dementors already pressing on that front. The only one disturbed was Bellatrix, and now the dementors floating nearby are looking at me.
I'll just pretend that didn't happen. I walk swiftly to catch up with the others, leaving a laughing Lestrange behind.
"Up ahead." Moody says as we reach the first corner.
"You have until I circle back." Jensen tells us, wandering away. "One patronus is certified." Albus quickly fills the void whilst Moody pulls the unlocked cell door open. The three of us squeeze inside.
"Well?" Moody grumps.
"Scrying ward doesn't reach this far in." I explain. "Give us some privacy." I say, sliding my hands along the walls as I pace around the tiny cell. Moody casts the charms and Albus' phoenix patronus stands guard outside. What does he thinks of when he casts his patronus?
"I couldn't say earlier, but Mr and Mrs Crouch came to visit their son when she became ill. Senior put Junior under the imperius curse, a quick switch of clothes and a dose of polyjuice later and Barty Crouch Jr walked out of Azkaban in plain sight looking like his mother." I explain to them. "I don't know why it took so long for his to resurface at your place, Moody, but Barty Crouch senior has broken a lot of laws. Unforgivable curse, attempting, and succeeding, in breaking a criminal out of Azkaban, aiding a criminal – You know the spiel. Why name your son the same? Confuses things when I try and talk about them." I shake my head. I don't know how to refer to them. "Dementors, supposedly, can't tell the difference between people, so they just saw a soul to feed from in the cell and nobody knew."
I run my fingers over the ancient shackle mounts as they digest what I've told them.
"His arrest will not be problem-free, but it is necessary." Albus frowns deeply. "It will be for the best if it is to happen before the Tri-Wizard tournament begins, as Barty being arrested during the game will cause an even larger uproar." I rhythmically pat my thighs as Albus appears deep in thought.
"What do they keep on the layers below us? Deeper into the pit? Does anybody even want to go that deep down to put prisoners there?" I ask Moody rapidly.
"Last I heard, nobody would dare go more than two floors lower. Only the floor beneath this one is used. Why?" He asks suspiciously.
"I can't just ask a question?" I question questioningly as I walk back out of the cell and lean against the rail. I can see at least four floors lower than ours across the pit, but they don't all have barred doors. "But, hypothetically, if I wanted to go down and take a look, could I?"
"Anything lower than sea-level is beyond Ministerial jurisdiction." Jensen has returned. "Down the stairs takes us to the remaining floor we are using." He points to a cut-out in the wall a few metres down. "Below that, I can't go with you, but if you're eager to get yourself killed, feel free to. If you die down there, it's not my fault." Albus doesn't look happy with the blunt response.
"OK." I nod. "If you don't mind hanging around once I'm down there..."
"You'll have one hour, and then I will assume you are not coming back up." Jensen doesn't seem to care in the slightest. Although it seems more the lack of ability to do so any more. "You two, get your patronus' ready. I'd prefer to have three here. And Potter." He retrieves my wand and holds it out to me. "One hour."
Most of the cells and room are completely empty, just the screaming history left of them. Some still hold the occasional operating table, still stained with blood, and chains are still attached to the walls. The original investigators of the island made it two floors down before turning back, possibly due to the dementors' influence. As with the other cells in the prison, any remaining bodies were simply cast over the edge, into the heart of Azkaban.
Oddly enough, the wards don't extend down here, not the Ministry ones anyway. That seems like a big security risk.
The last few appearances of Ekrizdis involve the golems being instructed with loud commands. He looks like he knows he is going to die, he knows that the island will be de-mystified – So he's packing up.
As I run through the abandoned halls, now 3 floors lower than the dementor surface, I follow the golem march to a large mithril door. Three metres high, double doors. Perhaps six metres wide. I point my holly wand around the arch, as the only light down here is from my lumos. I lean hard on the door and it slowly grinds open a crack large enough for me to pass through.
"Lumos Maxima." The light flows into the room. "Holy..."
It's like a terracotta army. Rows upon rows of the stone golems. Their hulking forms looking much more like suits of troll-sized armour than my lumbering minions I tend to go for. They are squatting down, tucking themselves in to conserve space. At the far end of the room there are a few tables stacked up. Should I steal one? No. That would probably be a terrible idea.
I tiptoe back out of the room and use my wand to pull the door shut.
According to the handwritten books, A wizard's soul is a passageway to an astral plane, a 'realm' as Ekrizdis called it, that consists entirely of magic. Through our connection, we pull the magic through to cast our spells and fuel our magic. Gellert Grindelwald had a similar theory, but he sought to try and expand his own passageway to gain more power, sometimes attempting to pull the souls from other wizards to increase his potential. He could actually do it too, push and pull souls from peoples bodies, very close to creating a horcrux or soul container by mistake. I think that severing the connection whilst the soul is outside of the body would probably do it.
Anyway, Ekrizdis believed in another route to power – Finding the magical realm himself. I conjured some gloves so that I could read quick extracts of his volumes without straining my ability. He became obsessed with finding this place, researching and experimenting the way that our own souls connect with magic, and the differences with that of muggles too. He, too, learnt to manipulate souls, even trying to bestow magic from a wizard into a muggle. It didn't work, but that didn't stop him from cutting people up.
I shrink the books and wrap the tiny replicas in my invisibility cloak, stuffing if back into my pocket. They don't have anything tracking them, but I don't want to risk it.
After running around for twenty minutes, I reach the bottom floor. The lowest point dug out in Azkaban. The triangular room, the size of the abyss, has a mithril floor. I follow the one-way whisper of Ekrizdis. He never went back from here, these were his last steps.
The space has no roof, just a layer of dementors menacingly floating above me. In the centre of the room is a grand podium make of rough, uncut, grey stone. Atop it sits an archway of finely carved stone. Intricate runes litter the surface. Ekrizdis built this archway, and it seems that his last steps took him through it.
I step up onto the dais and pace around the arch. It holds a pale watery-smoke, gently swaying to a non-existent breeze, a curtain. Voices. Whispering words just beyond what I can hear. I reach my hand out and lay it against the cold stone.
A portal.
He did it.
A doorway to another realm. When he finished carving the runes, the archway had sparked up and the dementors had came through. That was almost sixteen months before he stepped through. For a while, the dementors had passed back and forth from here to the other side, wherever that may be. Ekrizdis saw the effects of these demons and decided to enslave them. The next charms he put on, when coupled with the rune just barely on this side of reality, made a magical toll-gate.
The price of admission? One human soul.
Whereas Gellert could smoothly manipluate the human soul, Ekrizdis made a mess of them according to his books. The dementors, however, pulled them cleanly out of the host, ripe for further experimentation. They also, in Ekrizdis' opinion, would be perfect fuel for his journey into the realm of magic. Perhaps he thought they would disguise his soul so he could safely pass through. Whatever his reasoning, he never came back through, but the dementors still patiently wait until they are selected for kissing a prisoner so that they may pass back through.
But the most disturbing part, excluding the fact that the souls are stored inside the podium like some sort of battery, is the colour of the magic that reside inside the arch. Purple.
The exact shade of purple found on my cloak and wand. Did the Peverell brothers also work with this kind of magic? Did they go to the other side and learn something that made their objects so different, so much more powerful than they should be?
Where the hell does this doorway lead to?
"Albus, I think I'm ready to go back now." I say as I arrive back, handing my wand over to Jensen.
"Harry, Are you OK?" Albus grasps my shoulder.
"Fine, fine. I didn't go very far."
The world just got a lot bigger, or perhaps smaller?
A/N: World building! Woop! A nice long chapter with lots going on, hopefully it makes sense, because i'm really happy with this one.
I'd love to know what you think about this one.
Enjoy!