Chapter 21. The Evil Experiments

After so long in the cold and gloomy cave, Kingsley's office on the top floor of Azkaban's citadel felt as comfortable and warm as the Gryffindor common room, where the fireplace had always been burning brightly. Only Harry and Kingsley returned to the office as Teddy and the other Aurors went to the infirmary to rest and heal their injuries. Using his wand to intensify the flames in the fireplace, Kingsley sat across from Harry at the desk with the bag full of retrieved books on it. In the black sky outside, dark clouds rained endlessly over the raging sea, interrupted only by the occasional flash of lightning.

"Nothing like searching for a dark story in this weather," Kingsley said, taking half of the books out of the bag and handing them to Harry. "The next step is to look at each one and find out more about Ekrizdis."

The crackling log fire and the candles on the desk gave them the light they needed to read the books Ekrizdis had written. The first book Harry picked up didn't even have a title on its tattered leather covers; when he unwrapped it, a table of contents was written in black letters. Though the paper had yellowed over time, the black ink remained remarkably clear, as if it had just been written on. Based on the table of contents, Harry thought the book mostly explained how to make various poisons and where to get their ingredients. When he turned the pages and scanned the densely packed letters, he found no reference to the Fourth Curse.

Harry put the book down and picked up another. The new one was about the numerous curses Ekrizdis had either known or invented, but he was still unable to find anything remotely about the Fourth Curse. Since powerful spells prevented the curse from being recorded in the normal way, it must have been even stranger if the desired information had been recorded at all. Still, Harry couldn't help but feel frustrated — it was as if an invisible dementor had followed them all the way up here.

One by one, Harry opened the next books without much expectation, and without exception, there was no mention of the Fourth Curse. Apparently, Kingsley had the same problem, seeing the books he had put off piling up on his desk. While Harry stared blankly at the fire after finishing his fruitless investigation, Kingsley closed the last book he had read.

"Nothing — nothing at all," sighed Kingsley. "We went so deep into the underground, and still had no income . . ." He pulled out a thin book from the pile and opened it, flipping through several pages, all white and clean. "See — this one is even empty. I opened it with great anticipation — it says JOURNAL in the title. . . ."

"Hang on, Kingsley — let me have a look."

There was a sudden leap in Harry's heart. He took the empty journal from Kingsley and examined it for himself; it had a worn black cover with the title "Recerche Journal" and Ekrizdis's signature on the back. Harry remembered seeing a diary with a similarly tattered cover. . . . Opening the book, he used a quill to drop a speck of ink on the first blank page. Instead of smearing, the ink glistened brightly on the paper for a moment before disappearing as if absorbed.

"I've seen something like this before!" said Harry excitedly. To take a closer look at the journal, Kingsley pulled up a chair beside him. "Instead of showing the letters to the reader, it works like a Pensieve, allowing the reader to experience past memories directly. A similar diary was smuggled into Hogwarts in my second year, opening the Chamber of Secrets and causing quite a stir."

"Right, I remember hearing that from you before," said Kingsley. He picked up the research journal and began to look through it. "Do you think it could be a Horcrux, like Riddle's diary?"

Thinking the same thing, Harry held the journal in his hand, anxious to feel the dark energy emanating from it. But the thin, light book seemed harmless.

"I don't think so. Even if it is a Horcrux, as long as you don't obsess about writing down your secret worries in here, you're in no danger."

As for his wife Ginny, she was still reluctant to talk about the terrible time Riddle's diary had taken over her thoughts. Still, he thought it would be all right for Kingsley and himself, who had had enough experience to be fed up with Dark Magic.

"In order to get past the Record Obliteration Jinxes, Ekrizdis must have recorded his experiments with some of his Dark Arts," said Kingsley thoughtfully. "Let the book take us back in time, shall we?"

"All right."

He picked up his quill and thought before writing, "I want to know what you remember about the experiment."

As Harry expected, the words that had glowed on the paper vanished without a trace.

The following words then appeared on the blank page. "Greetings, Master. Could you please tell me exactly what experiment you would like to see?

"Er — what do you reckon I should write back?" Harry asked Kingsley, who had been watching the conversation over the empty journal with interest.

"Say that we are interested in seeing an experiment on the Fourth Curse."

Following Kingsley's advice, Harry wrote in the journal. The blank page absorbed the words and brought back new ones.

"As you wish, Master. Would it be all right if I took you back to the day you began this experiment?"

When Kingsley nodded, Harry wrote: "Yes, I would like to relive those days with my friend."

Despite the warm, humid air in the office not stirring, the pages of the diary began to turn as though blown by a strong wind. It was like looking at a small television screen in a square box, for now he had a view of the desolate landscape of Azkaban in the journal. As Harry and Kingsley's bodies bent forward, the screen grew larger and larger. It wasn't long before the screen inside the swollen journal swallowed them both whole.

The soles of his feet finally touched the rough floor after Harry had been spinning dizzily in the gray and black vortex. An intimidating black fortress stood before him on a tiny rocky island, not much different from Azkaban today. Thick raindrops fell from the gray, dark clouds above and passed through Harry's body.

"That must be Ekrizdis," Kingsley muttered, looking in the direction of the citadel.

A wizard in a dark hood and cloak emerged from the castle and walked toward the shore. With black hair and a long beard, he had a stern expression on his face, as if he had never smiled before. Seeing a house-elf following close behind, Harry turned his attention to him. The appearance of the house-elf, whose name was Menetti according to Kreacher's account, was a far cry from the terrible fame that would come to haunt him later. This elf looked like his kind, with pointed ears, a long pencil-like nose, and huge eyes. However, unlike normal house-elves, he had an expressionless face that wasn't frightened, and his eyes, which didn't blink even when raindrops were dripping down, looked slightly creepy. Harry and Kingsley followed Ekrizdis and his house-elf to the edge of the rocky island. An approaching wooden ship flapped its sails in a storm from the nearby sea.

"Muggles — those fools are running wildly toward their inevitable doom, with their eyes blind as usual," Ezrkzdis murmured in a gruff, somber tone.

As he had observed, the Muggle sailors were steering their ship in that direction, apparently unaware of the black citadel and the rocky island. Soon, the Muggle sailors hit a submerged reef near the small island, causing the ship to tilt to the side. There was a large hole in the bottom of the hull, and water was rushing through it. Since the sailors could not see any reefs or rocks hidden by magic, they ran around the deck in panic and fear. Their captain desperately tried to turn the ship away from the reef, but he could not.

"They need your help, Menetti," said Ekrizdis coldly. The house-elf slowly raised his head and looked at his master in disbelief. His face, dripping with rainwater, wore a subtle expression of skepticism and anticipation.

"Help them face the god they long to meet, you worm!" Ekrizdis shouted sharply when he saw the elf's hesitation.

As the Muggle captain and his crews fought for their lives, they almost managed to save themselves; the ship began to pull away from the reef. Then Menetti raised his hand and snapped his fingers. An explosion ripped through the lower part of the ship's hull, splintering planks in all directions and spewing flames.

"So you blew up the gunpowder. . . . Well done, it surprises me that your tiny brain could come up with such a creative idea."

Ekrizdis stared at the burning and sinking sailboat, and his face curved into a mirthless smile. To escape the flames rising up the hull from below, sailors threw themselves into the water or climbed the mast to survive. It broke Harry's heart to see them crying for their families and holding their hands in prayer. Even though he knew it had already happened and there was nothing he could do, he still wanted to jump into the sea and save them. The flames engulfing the hull erupted in black smoke upon hitting the swirling sea below. The water bubbled as the broken masts and pieces of wood fell into the sea.

The ship finally sank beneath the raging waters, leaving only a handful of sailors floating helplessly on small planks. Watching the sailors being tossed about by the waves, Ekrizdis pulled back the hem of his cloak and pulled out a long, thin stick. Harry couldn't take his eyes off Ekrizdis's wand: its bumpy surface indicated that it was the same Elder Wand that Eisenbein had taken from him so recently.

"Now, Menetti — finish what you have started . . ." Ekrizdis dropped his hand holding the Elder Wand, not even looking at the house-elf. "Drown those wretched things and bring back their dead bodies."

"Master, but —" Menetti's unblinking eyes were filled with a mixture of fear and skepticism. "Why can't we just take them alive like before?"

"You stupid little monkey!" snapped Ekrizdis. "What good is a soul-filled body for me? Only empty bodies can be lent to the lost souls." He grabbed his elf by the shoulder and pushed him forward. Then he forced his wand into Menetti's hands. "Now do as I told you. . . . Unless you want to face my full wrath."

Menetti staggered to his feet and pointed his master's wand at the survivors of the wreck. The elf slowly returned to his original expressionless state as the faint agony on his face faded. In a moment, raindrops falling from the sky bounced off of them by an unseen force, as if the nearby air was expanding. When Harry looked up, he saw what appeared to be a transparent dome enveloping them, allowing the rainwater to run off. Similarly, the sailors floating in the sea were being pulled beneath the surface, along with their wooden planks, by the same mysterious force. No matter what they tried, no matter how loud and terrible their screams, they couldn't stop the force from drowning them.

"It's just awful what happened here," muttered Kingsley. "Something like this should never happen . . ."

But there was nothing they could do about what had already happened. The Elder Wand was held in the same position for over five minutes before Menetti finally lifted his arm, gasping for air. The dead bodies of the five sailors floated limply in the air after their escape from the water.

"Good. Now we've got fresh bodies," Ekrizdis said with satisfaction as he turned away. "Elf, take them underground. . . . It is time to commence my experiments."

Using his wand, Menetti levitated five bodies over the rocky shore as he followed his master toward the black citadel. Darkness suddenly fell over everything like an early night. The next moment, Harry and Kingsley found themselves in the underground area.

"So this is . . ." Harry surveyed the vast cavern, dimly lit by a few blue lights.

"Yes, we were here a few hours ago," said Kingsley.

During his earlier visit, Harry had seen the deep pond in the middle, but there was not much water on the rocky ground now. Otherwise, the place did not look much different than it did now. As Ekrizdis and Menetti emerged from the cave that led there, the drowned bodies floated behind them, dripping with seawater. Black carpets were spread out on the floor. The house-elf arranged the dead sailors in a row on them and returned the wand to its master. Ekrizdis tucked the Elder Wand back into his robes and looked around the dimly lit room.

"Do you by any chance know what kind of creatures roam down here, Menetti?

"No, Master. Your humble servant does not know," Menetti said politely, bending down so low that the tip of his nose almost touched the ground.

"The living will not be able to see it. . . . But there are many spirits wandering around here: Muggles affected by my Fourth Curse, of course."

Ekrizdis seemed to be reminiscing about his happy memories of this place as he gazed at the dark, shady landscape around him. At the mention of the Fourth Curse, Menetti shuddered slightly and looked around in fear.

"We can't see or hear my victims, but I know they're still here, cursing and blaming me for everything that happened to them. . . . Neither alive nor dead, they are . . ."

Harry and Kingsley looked at each other and both raised their eyebrows. Ekrizdis's description of the Fourth Curse matched Eisenbein's remarks. Was the curse really capable of destroying one's body, leaving only one's soul earthbound forever? Hearing this, it seemed that the five sailors before them were at least lucky enough to die for good.

"Master is right, Master enjoyed casting that curse on the captured Muggles," said Menetti weakly. With his back bent, the elf lifted only his head. "But why did Master order Menetti to kill those Muggles this time? It's beyond Menetti's limited understanding."

With a hint of resentment in his voice, Menetti looked back at the sailors he had drowned. Then Ekrizdis stomped forward in silence, grabbed Menetti by the neck, and threw the squealing house-elf over the wet corpses.

"You stupid little thing, look at them. My bright future lies in these bodies!"

In his contempt, Ekrizdis glared at Menetti, who tried desperately to get away from the wet corpses. In Harry's heart, there was a strong feeling of pity for the house-elf, who was whimpering on the cold ground.

"Elf, do you think I feel the slightest pity for these petty Muggles? It's not to my taste to kill so easily, indeed. . . . I'd have liked to release a few more wandering spirits here with the Fourth Curse. Didn't you have some fun drowning them up there?" Menetti coughed into the rocky earth at his master's words. "Still pretending to be noble, Menetti. . . . Your usefulness is dwindling." The Dark wizard's eyes were fixed on the Elder Wand as he held it close to his mad face. "The experiment will solve my temporary predicament, and I will then be able to fully control the Fourth Curse. There will be crowds of people willing to serve me at that time, if not you. I will rule the entire world by its might . . ." He looked coldly at Menetti, who jumped to his feet, shaking. "What are you waiting for, worm? Get started now! Bring me my potion!"

In the aftermath, Harry and Kingsley sat on a nearby stalagmite and watched as Menetti, following his master's instructions, filled a bucket with a viscous, disgusting gray liquid. Using a syringe and a tube, Ekrizdis injected the liquid into the lying corpses one by one.

"Menetti, do you know what this is?" asked Ekrizdis, having finished his evil work.

"No, Master," the elf said weakly. But with a hateful look he glanced at his master before turning his head back.

"There is a mixture of unicorn blood and snake venom in the solution I just added," Ekrizdis mused. "Though it has some limitations, it can give even the dead some vitality."

Hearing this, Harry was strongly reminded of Voldemort's use of the same materials to create a temporary body. He was sickened by the thought of Voldemort's scaly, dark reddish body just before his resurrection. With time, the five corpses placed on the black cloth blushed, and their pale, bloodless faces began to turn pink. Ekrizdis, who had been watching the horrible sight for a while, finally raised his head.

"Now listen to me, you lowly souls. . . . You're watching us right now, it's no secret! No matter how much you hate me, the one who made you this way, you still wait in vain for me to change your harsh circumstances. . . ."

The dim void of the cave seemed empty to Harry, but Ekrizdis was addressing someone who could not be seen. If Harry hadn't seen Eisenbein's face become completely transparent with the Cloak of Invisibility, he would have thought the Dark wizard had gone completely mad.

"Let me do you a favor," Ekrizdis said, obviously enjoying himself. "Here are empty corpses I can provide you with. Make these bodies your new vessels if you wish to materialize your being, which has been reduced to less than air."

The most extraordinary thing happened: Just as he finished speaking, the wet bodies of the sailors on the black cloth began to twitch and their lips and eyelids began to tremble. Kingsley, who had been through all sorts of hardships, looked absolutely terrified, and Harry felt sick at the sight.

"Now look, Menetti," muttered Ekrizdis, his mad eyes inspecting the evil work. "Hungry souls are looking for a new body. . . . Let us hope that some of them have the strength to achieve this goal."

At first, the corpses twitched slightly like electrified insects, but soon they began to convulse more and more violently. Some of them even opened their eyes a fraction, their eyelids quivering. It didn't take long for the other corpses to become sluggish and finally static as before. Only one continued to wriggle and move its arms and shake its head from side to side a little as its eyelids blinked. Harry found it oddly difficult to look away from the bizarre, disgusting sight of the reanimated corpse. The only moving body was that of a stocky sailor with blond hair and a shaggy beard. The sailor's eyes were finally fully open, revealing icy blue pupils. Ekrizdis approached the corpse with an expectant look and knelt beside it, and Harry and Kingsley joined them. The close encounter with the resurrected man only fueled Harry's disgust at the experiments in necromancy that defied the laws of nature. Strangely enough, with his eyes open, the reanimated body of the sailor seemed even more lifeless than any of the dead colleagues around him.

"Can you hear me, Muggle?" asked Ekrizdis excitedly. The sailor slowly turned his face to Ekrizdis, who was both his killer and his creator. His blue pupils, looking colder than a frozen lake, were all blank and Harry's arms tingled with goosebumps. Even though it was only a memory, his body shivered and depression gradually filled his heart.

"A new body has been given to you. . . . Do you hear me?" Ekrizdis asked again. The corpse did not answer, but turned its head and looked the dark ceiling with a blank stare.

"Perhaps he needs more time to adjust to his reborn state . . ." Ekrizdis muttered, snapping his fingers at Menetti. "Stack these bodies in a corner. They may show an even more interesting side of themselves if we wait for the right moment," Ekrizdis said, his voice tinged with disappointment. "Perhaps the corpse lacks life force. . . . I'll have to make the solution a little thicker next time."

There was a sudden rush of time around Harry and Kingsley. It was like watching things on a moving train: Ekrizdis and Menetti came and went quickly from the cave, bringing more corpses to repeat the same experiment on. There was no clear indication of how many weeks or months had passed, but it looked like a lot of time, since the pile of corpses seemed to have grown quite a bit.

Time had returned to its normal flow: As they emerged from the cave, Ekrizdis and Menetti slowed their pace. In the empty air behind them were, as usual, the floating bodies of newly drowned sailors. Harry had no way of knowing how many people had fallen victim to this mad experiment. While Menetti placed the new bodies neatly on the black cloth, Ekrizdis examined the previous subjects piled up in the corner.

"Are you hiding something, elf? There seem to be fewer bodies now," said Ekrizdis accusingly.

Gradually, the house-elf turned to look at his master, his face devoid of emotion. "That cannot be true, Master. What would Menetti use it for?"

Menetti stared at his master with pupils as empty as a reanimated corpse, never blinking. Ekrizdis was about to snap at the elf, then stopped and thought for a moment.

"The experiment may have been successful," he muttered and looked at the corpses. Harry also noticed that the pile was partially empty when he looked at it. Ekrizdis glanced around the dim cave. "Could some of them have overcome the Fourth Curse and made their newly acquired bodies their own? Then where did they go?"

Harry turned in shock as he heard a choking sound among the freshly brought corpses. One of the sailors on the black cloth was half standing, coughing and spitting seawater.

"You worthless scum!" Ekrizdis shouted at his elf. "You didn't soak them long enough in seawater. . . . Get rid of him!"

But before Menetti could obey his master's command, a black figure glided out of the darkness. Harry could not stop his hand from reaching for the wand, even though he knew it was nothing more than a memory. It was a dementor. . . . It might have been the first one to ever appear in Azkaban. Two slimy, grayish hands peeked out from under the creature's dark, hooded cloak as it emerged in the blue light.

He now understood why a dementor's skin looked like that of a corpse decomposing underwater — the hideous creature was, after all, made from the body of a drowned man. . . . There was something downright terrifying about the face partially exposed under the hood. With its eyes and nose almost smoothed out like a melted candle, the dementor's lips were barely present, leaving only a large open mouth. Grabbing the lone survivor's shoulder with a wet hand, the dementor brought his face closer to its own. The sailor's cries were drowned out by the dementor's ragged breathing, like that of a dying man. Its wide mouth seemed to absorb sound as well as air. Harry and Kingsley were not the only ones frozen in place.

With his eyes glued to his own hideous creation, Ekrizdis watched in rapt attention as the dementor's kiss took the poor sailor's soul. When the dementor finished kissing, it glided across the cave and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The sailor, left with only his shell, sank helplessly to his knees. At first, the face retained its horrified, stunned expression, but gradually it lost emotion, and his lifeless eyes became cold as ice. Having been on the verge of having his soul sucked out by a dementor long before, Harry could not help but shudder at his soulless face. It was like a nightmare from which he could not wake up. . . .

As on the rocky island earlier, the darkness grew thicker and the landscape before them blurred. An earthen wall surrounded Harry and Kingsley as the lights came back on. It appeared to be the room in the crypt where they had retrieved the journal. Sitting on the shabby bed, Ekrizdis was writing something in the journal with a quill.

"The Fourth Curse robs a person of the greatest source of happiness . . ." The Dark wizard murmured, putting his words into writing. Finally learning the true effect of the curse, Harry took a step closer to the bed to listen more closely, and Kingsley did the same.

"For my Muggle subjects, their bodies were their greatest source of happiness, allowing them to communicate with others and receive all sorts of stimuli from the outside, which the curse ultimately deprived them of. In my experiment, I gave replacement bodies to the victims of the Fourth Curse . . ."

When a rustling sound came from outside the room, Ekrizdis jerked his head at the closed door. Compared to the first time Harry had seen him, the Dark wizard looked gaunt and his cheekbones were more pronounced. His sunken eyes, however, were brighter than before. Continuing to write, he muttered, "Countering the Fourth Curse, however, is no easy task. When the victims were given magically resurrected bodies, their souls began to decay on the spot. As their consciousness deteriorated along with their newly acquired bodies, they became monsters with nothing but a longing for a healthy soul. It is as if they are animated versions of the Fourth Curse itself. . . . Their presence robs me of all joy and happiness, leaving me in an extreme state of depression. I am haunted by memories of the darkest day of my life, the day I lost the duel. . . . I feel like I'll never be happy again . . ."

Harry had to move in closer as Ekrizdis's mumbled voice grew fainter and foggier. Almost whispering, he went on, "I'll call them 'dementors' from now on. I hypothesized that my experiments had not removed the effects of the Fourth Curse, but rather turned the subjects into dementors. It is most plausible that such a result occurred because death cannot be undone. Souls that have lost their bodies are no different than those that have died, and even if they are forcibly regained, they cannot regain true life. In which case, I need the Deathly Hallows to master Death . . ."

Harry moved closer to the bed, listening intently to what Ekrizdis was saying. The muffled voice of Ekrizdis accompanied his writing as he smeared ink on the quill.

"I may be able to overcome the Fourth Curse if I collect the three powerful objects that will allow the possessor to rule as master of Death. Some dismiss the Deathly Hallows as nothing more than a legend, but I have already acquired one of them — the Elder Wand. The situation is getting worse, though. . . . I have trouble even getting out of this room, let alone finding the Deathly Hallows. The underground is infested with dementors. I get depressed and weak, and sometimes I just want to die and end this misery . . ."

Ekrizdis closed the journal, buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Harry was repulsed to see this cruel and cold-hearted man, who seemed incapable of feeling any emotions, behaving like this. Suddenly, the candle that had been weakly illuminating the crypt shook and gradually lost its light. Harry and Kingsley turned their eyes to the door leading outside when Ekrizdis jumped up from his bed, startled. There was a gurgling sound as the air was sucked in and the flimsy wooden door creaked open. Through the crack in the door, a rotting hand with scabs and gray skin stuck out. . . . Before he realized what had happened, everything went black and Harry was thrown to the ground —

Harry and Kingsley slammed back into the chair in the governor's office the next moment. Turning his head to make sure the door was locked properly, Harry gasped. He had the feeling that a scab-covered hand was just about to open the door.

"We've seen some pretty horrible things, but we've also gathered some information," Kingsley said, catching his breath. "At least now we know why Eisenbein is obsessed with the Deathly Hallows."

"Right, his goal is to lift the Fourth Curse on himself and use it for his own benefit. He must be wearing the Invisibility Cloak to lessen the effects of the curse!" He looked back at the fireplace, reflecting on what he had just said. With the light and warmth of the burning wood, his thoughts began to organize themselves. "I know what I have to do now, Kingsley — I'll get my Cloak back somehow. Eisenbein will then lose his physical form and become powerless again."

"That makes sense to me. Go for it," said Kingsley in his deep voice. "Just as Albus Dumbledore believed in you, Harry, so do I. I'm confident that with the Chosen One on our side, we can win this fight again."