"Whence it is to be noted, that in taking a state the conqueror must arrange to commit all his cruelties at once, so as not to have to recur to them every day, and as to be able, by not making fresh changes, to reassure people and win them over by benefiting them." Nicholo Machiavelli, The Prince.
Harry shouted to Victor. "You and Fleur hold off the Dementors with the basilisk corps. Hermione needs our help to do war crimes!"
Victor "Aye Aye, Expecto Patronum!" Victor shouted, and his silver wolf patronus began to rage along the deck aft to drive off the Dementors lucky enough to come in low and aft to avoid the basilisk close air defenses that swept the tides of Dementors from the sky.
The roaring and flames behind the castle argued the close air support was beginning to move back towards the castle, the earlier sortie towards Norway having been engaged and destroyed by Draco in all his rainbow/peacock/and yeah better not forget DRAGON glory.
The bow of the ship was Dementor free on sea level as the Cauldron of the Brave, Cauldron of Dagda, Goblet of Fire, however you styled it really didn't like Dementors. Those that strayed within so much as the light of its beacon burned in flames and fell. The three Tuatha DeDannan battle goddesses with their terrible and thirsty bronze swords seemed to enjoy cutting down any that strayed close to the deck in a way that showed that fairy maternity clothes put more emphasis on "does it look good in blood spatter" than was common in the witch community.
Against this backdrop, Hermione, Neville, and Milicent were gathered around their own cauldron just before the mainmast.
"Harry, I have told you before it is not a war crime because.." Hermione began.
Harry gave her a quick hug. "Because the Ministry fell, we are a nation that has not signed any treaties with anyone, even the ICW, so we don't recognize any international law, so nothing we do in war is actually a crime. That is the best way of announcing we are about to do war crimes I have ever heard, and I am totally on board."
Hermione endured the hug with a sigh. "That is not the takeaway I was hoping you would get, but you are not factually wrong."
Milicent laughed. "Oh you sweet summer Hufflepuffs, only now do you come to realize why we have all those quotes on the Slytherin common room wall. This one is totally a Machiavelli classic. Out of The Prince. Let me see if I have it memorized….
'Whence it is to be noted, that in taking a state the conqueror must arrange to commit all his cruelties at once, so as not to have to recur to them every day, and 80 as to be able, by not making fresh changes, to reassure people and win them over by benefiting them.' "
Neville looked at her in suspicion. "Can you translate for the morally gifted and philosophically challenged?"
Harry translated. "No, that one mom taught me. It means everything bad you are planning to do you hit them with first, so they get a good idea that fighting you is a going to end really badly. Then you do the good stuff slowly, to teach them obeying you is going to work out well in the long run."
Neville looked at Harry suspiciously. "Are we still the good guys?"
Harry gripped his shoulder and squeezed. "We were never the good guys. Dumbledore has been feeding sacrificial good guys to Voldemort since forever so he can stroke his beard and play the martyred saint of the Light at funerals, pissing away every single advantage he had in numbers, skill, and support among the wizarding public because it looks bad to kill people.
Dumbledore has sold the wizarding world on the fact that good guys don't kill, they lose. Die bravely, get tortured to worse than death, lose everyone they love in a war they could have won in a week just to prove they are nicer than the people murdering them.
Sod that.
We are the survivors. We will kill every Death Eater, ally and collaborator when we sweep up his forces. If Dumbledore and the Light want to get in the way, we can do them too."
Neville looked at the howling hordes of Dementors grown numberless while the Ministry fed witches and wizards to the demons of despair and shuddered.
"This has to end. Okay. Lets do war crimes." Neville said, and the cuddle badger turned to the cauldron to make magic muggle death juice.
The Frigate made its slow way towards the Azkaban fortress, past its great wardstones, it drew close to the garrison castle, and dared not pass it, to be caught between the garrison and the fortress when they needed to assault it.
With the wards down, the garrison and its freed Death Eater allies had mustered in a great mass to man the walls of the windswept fortress, ready to test their spells against the HMS Demeter, the ship of the Durmstrang students was hardly designed to face the battering of the most powerful destructive wizards of the Ministry of Magic, and the elite among the Death Eaters who refused to renounce the Dark Lord at his first fall.
Too bad Harry had no intention of getting in range to fight anyone. Turning to Hermione he asked her again.
"Right, so what is this muggle potion called again?" Harry asked. "And double check we have a handle on all the risks. Sounded like a bit of a touchy one when you discussed it."
Hermione smiled, happy as any muggleborn bringing chemistry back to alchemy, making a witches brew that promised to be more powerful than any spell Dumbledore, Grindelwald, or Voldemort ever cast.
"Right, this is called VX gas. S-[2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl]-O-ethyl methylphosphonothioate meaning Sinestro, because the whole dextro\lavro rotational isomers matters when you are making nerve gas. We are really going to need Milicent to wield Isa like a hammer to keep this thing non reactive when I tell you to, Neville, you will use Jera to free it to react when Harry uses Ansuz to get all these helpful little storm sprites to carry the potion we made in a nice tight spray right over the fortress, then Harry and Milicent can use wind and wave to blow the damned thing through the whole garrison."
Milicent looked at the cauldron, and the brew that was coming together under the magical fume seal that Harry maintained, and the very careful temperature and pressure controls Hermione was handling.
"There is maybe sixty liters in this cauldron, is that going to be enough?" Milicent asked, eyeing the looming castle of the Azkaban garrison, separated by the long bridge to the Dementor run prison.
Hermione looked prim. "We are only making ten liters. Theoretically, a single liter can kill a million people, but those are muggles, and given warning witches and wizards can put up a bit of a defense. Still, as the goblins like to say, overkill is still dead."
Harry looked impressed. "Hermione, if we can kill the garrison with a bit of it, can we….."
Hermione's eyes went wide. "You want to keep some VX gas for later? What part of kill a million people with a liter didn't you understand."
Harry grinned back in goblin, then waggled his eyebrows suggestively, holding up a potion bottle.
Hermione eyed the rest of them. "Alright, who wants a bottle of war crime to take for later?"
Three hands went up around the cauldron. Hermione eyed Neville who shrugged unapologetically. The ship beat to windward as it worked its way around the island to bring the fortress on the bow with the wind behind them. As Victor wore the ship around, using the water and wind magic of the ship powered by his own Durmstrang crew while the Hogwarts and Beauxbaton troops largely dealt with the Dementors who came in too low, with Griphook leading the goblin contingent with hand weapons when and if any Dementors lived long enough to get to the deck.
Around the cauldron, all traces of joking were absent. The creation of VX gas in a cauldron on a heaving ship of war in the North Sea is not something students who have not done their Potions OWL or NEWT should be attempting. Not that Snape would survive a Hogwarts class attempting to make VX gas in a dungeon classroom. The only way it was possible was Hermione's master of fire gave her control over the heat of reaction, not only creating and maintaining it, but sensing it. Likewise Harry's control over the element of air had passed beyond the crude levels wizards accepted to the level of precision that allowed him to make second by second adjustments to pressure in the cauldron and maintaining an air barrier of zero permeability. Harry thought ruefully that if he got his part wrong, the entire ship, and every living thing with a nervous system within several nautical kilometers of Azkaban would all die, but no worries.
Neville and Milicent were a hardened potion making team, Milicent could stop reactions, stopping individual reaction chains so that a chemical interaction with several outcomes that usually resulted in a mix could only produce one. Neville's control of the natural cycles of organic creation and destruction made him able to start, speed, and end reactions, even lowering their threshold for energy and time.
Through all of it, Noodle wove their minds together in a mental concert in which all of their minds shared Hermione's understanding of the muggle chemical processes, and their own magical ways of making that happen. The steps muggles needed to do, they didn't. Muggles have to create the conditions and apply the reactants and catalysts and let nature take its course, but witches and wizards did not gather around a cauldron to let nature decide what happened. They made magic, and the magic they made was death.
When they were done, there was about ten liters of a yellow oily substance. Six liters of it were drawn into the tightest series of hard air bubbles he could construct, and launched into the air for the gathered air sprites to guide to the Azkaban fortress.
The spray fell unnoticed in the deep fog and mist that the warring magics had created around the fortress, and the waiting garrison who snarled and snapped in fear, gripping their wands and telling themselves they were not afraid, far too often and too loudly for it to be true, almost didn't notice the fine spray of oily mist.
Death Eaters had a mask that was developed to include the Bubblehead charm, a lesson learned from Grindelwald's followers in the Great War, when muggle Chlorine gas had killed too many wizards before they realized that muggle poisons could kill wizards they couldn't even see if the gas was present in enough strength to bleed across the veil into the magical side. They knew they were immune.
When the garrison troops began to panic and fall, Ignatius Wilkes sneered, knowing the Ministry Auror traitors might die, but the Dark Lord' genius would keep them safe.
"Gas, its gas. Dumbledore is using a killing gas on us!" The nearest section chief shouted as some of his wizards on the highest ramparts had already fallen, unmoving, unbreathing, and unresisting.
The Ministry troops ran for their safe bunkers, slipping and sliding on stones that were already slippery from some kind of oily mist. Ignatius Wilkes was a Death Eater, and while the guards had turned for the Dark Lord now, for too long they resisted his rule, and for that he laughed as they died.
"Pathetic weaklings! Had you been true to the Dark Lord you would have his protection!" Wilkes said, then slipped to one knee. His leg was not responding for some reason. He tried to reach out and grab his potion belt for an antivenom, but his fingers wouldn't work.
Wilkes tried to scream, but his lungs just would not help him push enough air. He tried to summon his magic to at least cast a final spell in defiance, but his brain and body simply slipped beyond his will before he could do anything.
The HMS Demeter passed the Azkaban garrison without a single shot fired. Harry was able to sense motion in the air, and there wasn't any. Even the flies were dead. Hermione bathed the castle in phoenix fire to purify it, letting the fire whipped by Harry's storm winds ravage the castle, but no one was willing to enter the place where silence and death settled in a cloud created by school children.
The crew stared at the silent island as the HMS Demeter passed, and there were no more smiles, or jokes. The Dementors dove inward to Azkaban, diving into the tunnels and holes of the prison fortress to escape the hundreds of dragons that roared and flamed overhead, and the ship of death that slaughtered every Dementor that dared to approach it.
For centuries, Dementors had been the demons of despair, the parasites that fed on the living, but could not be killed. They had grown arrogant that in this dimension, nothing could kill them. They had known that goblin steel could kill them, experience with Godric Gryffindor and his sword taught them that, but even goblins could be worn down by their despair, and lacked a patronus to protect them.
Dementors signed a treaty with wizards when neither side was sure they could win in a war if they fought at the time. Since that time, wizards had grown soft and weak from centuries where they did not take part in the wars of the outer world. Aristocrats sparred over some resources, and dueled over honour and imagined offense, but the days of the great war wizards passed safely into legends while the Dementors of Azkaban fed on the captive souls of the wizarding criminals and grew powerful.
Deep beneath Azkaban was the Stone of Despair. Ekrizdis the Dark Wizard created the stone through rites so dark those who discovered them not only burned the books, but burned the knowledge of the names of those books from their own minds. He used it as a place of torture and sacrifice, for with enough suffering, enough pain and despair infusing human souls, a demon of despair could be conjured from the realms beyond.
When the Dementors have fed on enough their prisoners, they can go to the stone and use that despair and suffering to conjure another Dementor. For centuries, while witches and wizards forgot the days of their ancient wars, and the terrible land shattering magics that they once wielded, the Dementors grew many, and many beyond many.
When Voldemort came, he offered them not the pittance of souls that the treaty gave them, but to work his will in the outer world, feeding on the lives, soul and suffering of all who dared to oppose him. Had he not fallen swiftly, Harry wondered how long it would have been before the Dementors had grown strong enough to turn on Voldemort and sweep all intelligent life from this world, as they had their own.
Those who died without heirs, lose their vault's goods to the Goblins of Gringotts. Over the centuries, those who had been part of the initial assault on Ekrizdis the Dark Lord's fastness at Azkaban had lost more than one family line. Goblins horde secrets like they horde gold. While the wizarding world forgot, the goblins remembered.
Harry knew that as long as the Stone of Despair existed, so would Dementors. Voldemort and the Ministry, even Dumbledore thought the Dementors were a necessary evil. Harry was unwilling to let any power that was not him decide the fate of the Dementors. Whatever peace would follow, the Dementors would have no part of it.
Genocide was the whole point of the raid on Azkaban. Saving the captured loyalists was nice, and killing Death Eaters was always good, but the Dementor race ended today, even if Harry had to die to do it. Harry had been smiling, but not joking when he told Hermione they were here to do war crimes, but this one he was committed to.
Milicent led them to the great open pit that the wastes of Azkaban were tossed down. There were bodies in all states of rot, and of the things that clung to the side, dung was the least objectionable. Dropping down on their brooms, they rode from the ship deck to the great gaping hole of Azkaban, the stench of misery and death so thick it scarred the soul. The silver light of their Patronus may have driven the Dementors back, but not all the light in the universe could get all the darkness out of Azkaban.
Harry, Milicent, and Hermione led the squads on brooms to secure the landing zone. There had been some wizard guards possible, but it seems that they had all joined the main garrison at the castle when the Dementors had been unleashed en masse to attack the ship.
Neville used his wand to lower a boat from the ship. On it were ten basilisk, Noodle, three Fairy Queens and one flaming cauldron. The song of the cauldron drove Dementors away, but the basilisk would be of less utility in the prison, as innocent prisoners were scattered throughout the prison.
The strike teams were on there own, driving deeper into the castle, driving up to the occupied portions of Azkaban, where the last holdouts remained.
Harry ducked for cover as a transfigured suit of armour charged down the corridor at him, and he almost got himself killed as he stepped out to blast it and a cutting curse passed under his legs, only his reflex jump saving him from being cut off at the knees.
"One step forward and I will kill the prisoner. It's one of your friends right? It's an Auror, one of the ones who tried to arrest the Minister." The witch shouted back.
Harry snarled, readying himself for a dive around the corner, trusting his reflexes to save the hostage and get his spell off before the renegade guard did.
Milicent, who had dealt with the transfigured armour by simply using her rune on it and stilling the magic in it, wove her own magic into it, letting Hermione chisel a quick rune formation for remote control on it as she pulled objects from her storage. She waved Harry off.
She whispered. "Don't get all Hufflepuff on me now. This is a Slytherin situation. Lets be bad guys."
Putting a Death Eater mask and robe on the armoured suit, she got ready to march it down the corridor after the hold out. Milicent called out.
"How about an exchange, I will let one of your Death Eater buddies go, and then you give me the hostage?" Milicent offered with a worried voice.
"You aren't going to let us go. Everyone in the castle is dead. That is all the message we got. Everyone is dead. You are going to kill us. Why should I believe you will let us go?" The renegade guard asked.
Milicent had Hermione march the armour dressed as a Death Eater forward, the stunning potion strapped to its chest beneath the robes.
"Someone needs to show good faith. I will send your friend ahead, to show that those who surrender are safe. Then you can send your hostage out next. Does that sound fair." Milicent asked, and Hermione face palmed as her innate desire for honesty in communication met the tactical realities of an assault in which no prisoners were being taken.
The armour marched around the corner, and before the renegade guard could react, Milicent pointed to Hermione who cast a silent flame spell to ignite the robes, then caused the automaton to wave its arms around and stagger like it was on fire. Pointing at Harry, Harry gave the most convincing screams of someone burning alive as possible, and when the witch tried to banish the flames burning her "Death Eater" friend, the stunning potion went off with a bang.
Walking around the corner, they found two figures collapsed in a heap. A bound and gagged Amelia Bones, and a stunned renegade guard whose throat Harry cut without a second thought. Coming to and spitting out her gag, she accepted the wand of the dead guard and looked at Harry cautiously.
"Killing prisoners is illegal." Amelia said.
Harry squatted in front of her and looked Susan's aunt in the eye. "Wizarding Britain fell. Voldemort took it. Azkaban was part of his nation, and now it fell to me and mine.
There is no law here, but what we say there is. The law is that those who have gone to war with coven and clan will die. Those that serve Voldemort will die. All of them. There will be no third blood war in another decade when enough people we let wiggle out of punishment convince enough of the sheep it wasn't really all bad the last time just because they want to hate or feel superior to some other group.
One kind of person is leaving here. Those who are willing to fight Voldemort. Those who are willing to live alongside witches and wizards of all blood status, those who are willing to work alongside the other magical races, not as rulers, but as partners in the magical world.
Everyone else dies."
Amelia Bones, former head of the DMLE looked at Harry and whispered. "You think you can do this? You children?"
Hermione sighed, and moved past Amelia as Milicent reached down to pull her up. "We kind of have to." The amazonian Slytherin beater said with a grin.
Milicent came to a stop before a familiar cell. When she came here last to free Sirius, she had shattered the door and killed a very much resisting Bellatrix LeStrange. Now she was facing a very much alive, and very protectively standing Arthur Weasley, with two witches in guard uniforms hiding behind him.
Amelia Bones winced as she came around the corner and saw the tableau of Milicent, Harry, Hermione all facing Arthur and his two witch guards. Amelia offered quietly. "It isn't how it looks. There is an actual explanation. Some of the guards were not okay with siding with Voldemort. These two had been talking with Authur off an on since his arrest. The other guards had to move Arthur into Bellatrix cell because it's the only one that has the alarm formations to trigger when someone of the wrong gender gets in.
They were worried because Bella kept luring in and murdering guards. I guess they were worried about Arthur doing, well, this." Amelia made a vague gesture at the defiant Arthur with his borrowed wand.
"I won't let you kill Lavern and Shirley. They never swore to Voldemort. They never did anything wrong!"
Milicent looked over her shoulder, and called down the hall. "Hey minions, now is a good time to talk to your parents about us dating."
Arthur Weasley stood defiant, which should look ridiculous for a balding redheaded pot bellied middle aged man with two witches clutching his waist from behind, trying to fit two of them behind his one not to large body. He waved his borrowed wand back and forth, even though no one was pointing one back at him.
Harry swore. "Damn it. I bet on Amelia Bones!"
Amelia Bones looked at Harry in confusion. "Bet on me for what?"
Hermione explained. "Bet on who got Bellatrix LeStrange's cell as the arch traitor to the new regime. Now I bet on class prejudice making the peasant revolt from Arthur more of a threat than a noblewoman like yourself. Fighting for power among nobles is expected, when the peasants join in the purebloods panic."
Fred and George, looking very piratical with crossed bandoliers of potions that did strange, disturbing, and frequently surprising even to them, things, sidled up beside Milicent, each taking and kissing one of her hands.
"You called," Began Fred
"My blood soaked" continued George
"And still smoking" cheered Fred
"You should probably put that out" opined George
"Light of love?" Finished Fred.
Milicent pointed to Arthur Weasley being rather firmly hugged by two desperate and very definitely non Molly Weasley witches. She offered quietly. "Found your da. Want a word about us dating?"
Arthur blinked a few times, then lowered his wand. "Fred, George, is that really you? What is this girl saying about you both dating her? You know that isn't the sort of thing I can allow!" Arthur began.
Hermione pulled out her camera from her storage bag, and snapped a photo from each side, making sure to get a good shot of Lavern and Shirly both trying to press rather as close to Arthur Weasley as humanly possible.
She nodded to Fred and George, who grinned and leaned on the bars.
"Now dad, what would mom say" George began
"About the two birds we caught" Fred smirked
"Sneaking in your cage." George chided, shaking a disapproving finger at his father.
"What happens in Azkaban" Offered Fred
"Stays in Azkaban" Agreed George
"As long as we have" Fred said, as the two hugged Milicent who smirked back at Arthur.
"Your full support." Fred and George said together, as Milicent put an arm around each of her minions.
Amelia Bones looked in horror at the teenage drama, in a hallway littered with dead bodies. "Are you running a war or a dating service?"
Harry scratched his head. "Bit of both really. Look before you hear parts of it and get excited, can I have a word with you about Neville and Susan. There is a bit about an extra credit herbology assignment that I really want to get through before you, your wand, and Neville are in the same room….."
Hermione looked at Harry attempting to describe Neville and Susan's deep and abiding love that has not actually gotten as far as broom closets, at last report, possibly now out of date, but that has the slight complication of Neville impregnating three fairy queens to stop them slaughtering all the Hogwarts students while they slept. She followed, ready to disarm or stun the head of the DMLE if she looked ready to go hunt Neville because Harry said the wrong thing, or to stun Harry if she felt he was about to definitely say the wrong thing.
Honestly, the war was probably safer.
-Meanwhile, down below.
Basilisk lit the corridor with the burning of their golden killing eyes as they slithered down the hallway. The three queens strode with blades bare at the sedate march as the goblet of fire, the Cauldron of Dagda who had been their king and husband, blazed and floated down and down the stairs to the secret heart of Azkaban, the Seat of Despair.
The Dementors died in waves, trying to use the bodies of their dying to shield them long enough to reach Neville, the only one they could see/feel/feed off of. He was the bait, and everyone else the trap. Neville felt the fear and despair roll off him, but raised a wand in trembling hands and spoke again. "Expecto Patronum!"
A silver badger growled as it formed in front of his wand and paced before him. The runes of power in Neville's chest blazed, and the fury of the ritual still running at Haroldwick poured into him, and through him to his patronus.
Silver light could not throw back the darkness, but it could keep it from swallowing Neville. He led the advance of his three Queens and the goblet of fire deep into the pits where the Stone of Despair cast the shadow of a realm where all intelligent life had been devoured by the Dementors, into a realm rich with souls to scream and feed the demons of despair.
Smiling the Morrigan, strode forward and struck at the Stone of Despair.
"There are those who in battle shall know no fear."
Macha moved to her side, and struck again.
"Shining heroes who knew death, but never despair."
Badb moved to flank and struck a third time, carving a place for the Cauldron of Dagda, the Cauldron of Heroes to stand atop the Stone of Despair.
"And the Grave is no bar to our call!"
Neville stood in awe as the goblet of fire, the Cauldron of Heroes gave voice like the tolling of a great bell. At each sounding a shining figure stood forth. First to come caused Neville to fall to his knees with a whisper.
"Cedric." Neville whispered.
"Hey Nev. I guess, champions don't get to rest." Cedric said, the shadow of him more than a ghost as he drew his wand and shouted "Expecto Patronum!" and a shining silver crow tore into the Dementors huddling in the shadows. Where it struck, Dementors died.
The Cauldron kept sounding, and at each tolling of the bell, another fallen Tri-Wizard champion stood forth to do battle. A legion of deathless heroes, who knew no fear nor despair in life, called by the Cauldron of Heroes to ward the Stone of Despair to defend a mortal world they had left behind.
Morrigan summoned a throne, and her sisters did the same. They turned to Neville and whispered.
"A life for a life we asked." Spoke Morrigan.
"Fallen Dagda taken from us." Spoke Macha
"Our husband, slain by Amergin the wizard." Cursed Badb.
"A life for a life we asked." Spoke Morrigan.
"Three lives you gave freely." Smiled Macha.
"A debt is owed. A theft is redeemed." Sighed Badb
"Let the lives we stole be returned." Spoke the Morrigan
"Let the Champions stand against the dark." Shouted Macha
"For as long as their courage holds. Warned Badb
Cedric smiled at Neville. "Its alight Neville. Could you tell them, Roger, my dad, the Hufflepuffs. This has to be done. It has to be us."
Cedric smiled as a witch in Durmstrang robes centuries out of date stood beside him, then a more modern Beauxbaton boy. "And I'm in good company. We chose to be champions." Cedric said softly.
They looked at the stone, and the Dementors. The witch from Durmstrang muttered something in Swedish, then translated to English. "At least this time it means something."
Morrigan turned to Neville and spoke a final time.
"Tell your people to be gone. This island is no longer theirs. I will take it sideways from the world for now. There is no Azkaban, only Albion where three queens rule, and the Cauldron of Heroes guards. Should the time come that our sons and daughters wish to join your world, perhaps a letter can reach Albion." Morrigan smiled, and rested her had on a slightly swelling belly, causing Neville to blush.
Remembering his manners, he bowed to the Queens, and moved upwards towards the cells and those they were here to rescue.
-Noodle in the cells.
This was his task. Speaker had given it to him, for none other could do it. He thanked Mouse Giver for the spatial expansion she had given to his fangs, for no living serpent could produce enough venom for what he did today.
Cell to cell Noodle slithered. As he entered each, his eyes locked onto the prisoners in their cells, and his mind struck, driving past the shattered wreckage of their brains to interrogate them.
"What was your crime."
"Are you willing to stand against Voldemort?"
"Are you willing to accept witches and wizards of all blood status as your equal?"
"Are you willing to work along side the other magical races not as rulers but as partners in the magical world"
Some crimes were not something that a witch or wizard could be allowed among them again. Slavers, rapists, serial murderers, the various forms of experimentation of living sentient beings, the summoning of creatures from dimensions beyond our own (see how we got Dementors in the first place), and those who sought to meddle in time (because this universe ending if you get it almost right is not okay) were unforgivable.
Those who would not stand for Voldemort, or who could not accept the new order that his Speaker sought to create, Noodle could not permit to leave Azkaban.
Then there were those too broken to heal. Those alive only in the sense that they breathed and suffered, but that is all they were, all they could be again.
Noodle walked the minds of each, plumbed the depths of the wounds in their soul. As judge and jury he weighed them, then as executioner, struck.
An it were done, 'twere best it done quickly. Thought Noodle, quoting Shakespeare's MacBeth. He thought to himself, how lucky it was he was a snake, for not all great Neptune's Oceans would wash the blood from his hands. Noodle didn't have any.
Still, he would need some cuddle time with his Mouse Bringer before he wanted to face sleep again. He had walked through so many nightmares. He didn't mind the people he executed for being guilty, or for not being willing to live under Speaker's new world.
The killing of all those too broken and suffering to ever return. Those whose only crimes were getting in the way of someone with enough power to make you disappear. Noodle wondered if Mouse Giver had a potion for a mouse that would wash that taste out of his mouth.
Noodle was a rock viper, the familiar of the Speaker, he who brought the tongue of serpents back to wizardkind. He was a predator, a killer. Until today, killing those whose only crime is they had been too broken to save, he had never felt like a murderer.
Slithering back towards the boat, hearing the cries of alarm at the bodies found in the cells, Noodle understood he was creating a fear and hatred that would linger against his kind for centuries. He wondered if muggle soldiers got to come back from their wars clean, or was it all a twisted mess of horror and waste like wizarding war?
He would ask Mouse Giver.
When night fell, the HMS Demeter left with a few hundred freed souls onboard, and a legacy of fear and division that would persist for generations, and including historians, probably for eternity.
