HP: A Magical Adventure Chapter 34: The Prisoner of Azkaban

The island of Azkaban first ca to the attention of Wizarding Britain in 1443, when muggle traders reported sighting a previously uncharted isle halfway between the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Even more surprisingly, those traders claid that there was a mighty fortress already built there with a foreboding tower far taller than even the greatest castles of the British Isles. While the muggle authorities dismissed the reports as fanciful products of their inebriated state, word soon reached wizarding ears. Curious and concerned, the Wizengamot sent an expedition to the island.

What they found there was the stuff of nightmares.

The island had apparently been raised from the seabed by the dreaded Eric the Evil soti during the previous century, and he constructed a great tower there for so fell purpose. After Eric's fall and execution, his disciple, the dark wizard Ekrisdis, claid the island and tower for his own ends and hid both behind impenetrable wards and invisibility charms.

Ekrisdis dwelt in the tower of Azkaban for nearly a century while continuing his vile experints into the darkest arts (usually on captured muggle sailors) until death from old age finally claid him. Azkaban's protective charms endured for nearly twenty years after Ekrisdis' death before failing and leaving the island visible to the world.

Most of the horrors contained within Azkaban were removed from existence by the Wizengamot's expeditionary forces, though many wizards lost their lives in the attempt and many others later took their own lives rather than live with the knowledge of what they had seen. Yet the greatest horror of Azkaban could not be purged.

For in the caverns and tunnels beneath the tower lay sothing that was beyond a nightmare—a nest of Dentors numbering in the hundreds. Though Dentors were known to the wizards of Britain and Europe, their numbers had been thought small. Previously, most Dentors had been encountered individually or, at worst, in packs of three to five.

Before Azkaban was revealed, most wizards would not have believed there to be more than a few hundred Dentors in the world, let alone in a single place. But the great pit that lay beneath the foundation of Azkaban teed with the creatures. Frightened and unable to cleanse the island of its dreadful residents, the Wizengamot withdrew, sealing the island away with the most powerful wards and Notice--Not charms in the hopes that the folly of Eric and Ekrisdis could be safely forgotten.

And so it was forgotten for nearly three centuries until the International Statute of Secrecy was passed into magical law and the Wizarding World was changed forever. Among the unforeseen difficulties imposed by the Statute were certain problems inherent in wizarding criminal justice system.

Despite the best efforts of the aurors, jailbreaks had always been surprisingly common among the wizarding criminal classes, for few local jails could be built to withstand the power and versatility of magical rescue attempts perpetrated by outsiders, even when the inmates had been stripped of their wands.

Before the imposition of the Statute, such escapes would result in local authorities—both magical and muggle—joining forces to track down escapees. But after the Statute's passage, the magic used during such jailbreaks risked drawing the attention of muggles, and wizarding law enforcent was forbidden to seek the assistance of their muggle counterparts except in the most extre circumstances.

To address these concerns, the Wizengamot directed the newly established Ministry of Magic to devise plans for a new prison in so remote location from whence escape would be impossible.

During this sa ti, the British Isles were increasingly plagued by wild Dentors who were eventually traced back to the infamous Azkaban. Frightened both by the danger of these Dentors and by their challenge to the nascent Statute of Secrecy, the Wizengamot charged Sebastian Macmillan—the then Minister of Magic, with addressing both the Dentor threat and the need for a new prison. His solution to both problems pleased virtually no one.

In 1718, Minister Macmillan journeyed to Azkaban and sohow initiated a dialogue with a representative of its Dentor population. Together, they brokered the Treaty of Azkaban. The exact text of the Treaty was classified by Ministry security, but the general terms are fairly well-known among modern British wizards and witches.

The Tower of Azkaban would beco the new prison for Wizarding Britain. The Dentors would act as guards under the direction of a skeleton crew of aurors and other DMLE personnel. The Dentors would only give the Kiss to inmates under very specific circumstances, but were otherwise free to feed upon the misery of the inmates.

And those inmates would consist of every wizard or witch convicted of treason, murder, rape, assault on the person of a mber of the Wizengamot or their families...or nearly any lesser cri upon a second offense. Life imprisonnt in Azkaban was also the penalty for escape attempts, successful or not, from any of the Ministry holding facilities where persons convicted of lesser cris were detained, while escape attempts from Azkaban itself were punished with the Dentor's Kiss.

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4th Sept 1992

Azkaban Island

"I must once again thank you, Madam Bones, for humouring an old man's unusual request," Dumbledore said to his companion.

The sun was still trying to peek over the hills behind them as Dumbledore waited alongside the maroon-robed Madam Bones. Before them, the dark waters of the North Sea stretched away in choppy waves. Occasionally, white foam atop the waves made an appearance, breaking up the monotonous greyness.

"You can lay off the formalities, Headmaster. In case you have forgotten, you used to be one of my professors," Madam Bones said with a small smile. "Although I'm curious about your sudden desire to interview Sirius Black of all people. What's that about?"

Dumbledore gave a sigh. "So new information has co to light, which suggests that Sirius Black might be innocent of the cris for which he was condemned."

Alia turned sharply to look at Dumbledore with wide eyes. "Sirius Black is innocent!? How could that be?"

"That's what we're here to find out," said Dumbledore, as an old black ferry suddenly ca into view. It was a small sailboat, one that hardly seed up to the challenge of crossing the choppy waters. Both of them boarded the creaky boat, and after a little while, the ferry set off into the sea, seemingly by itself.

Looking up at the dark grey fortress above him, Albus shivered in disgust. Not so much for the witches and wizards imprisoned in the desolate tower, as much as for the loathso beings that called the island ho.The whole island, even when they were still well off-shore in the ferry, felt incredibly dark and foreboding. A heaviness and a feeling of wrongness pervaded in the very air.

Passing through the narrow stone entranceway felt confining, with dark shadows pressing on either side of him. As they erged through the portcullis into the open air, the grey sky above suddenly broke apart as intense beams of sunlight lanced down into the courtyard. Albus looked up and caught sight of the dentors for the first ti since setting foot on the island.

High above the prison, midnight black shapes floated about. Most were obviously encircling the island. Others seed to be drifting aimlessly about. So, though, remained stationary above the great stone fortress, concentrating on the towers that housed the High Security Wings of the prison.

"I take it you still don't approve of them?" Madam Bones said, as they crossed the courtyard.

"I have said it before and I will say it again, Alia—Dentors are among the foulest beings known to wizardkind. It was the Ministry's greatest blunder to ally with them. No one deserves this kind of tornt," said Dumbledore, as they passed through a heavy wooden door reinforced with black tal bands.

"Perhaps...but there are always exceptions," said Alia, rembering the scum that murdered her brother Edgar and his wife.

"Madam Bones, Chief Warlock—it's a pleasure to see you both," a grizzled looking old man said from behind the desk in the office that they had entered.

"Warden Smith," they both nodded in greeting.

"I have to say, I was surprised to hear about your sudden visit. Is there anything I should be aware of?" the warden inquired.

"Nothing to be concerned about, warden," said Dumbledore. "Although if my speculations are correct, you might be getting a high security prisoner soon."

"Is that so? I'll look forward to it, then," said the warden. "Very well, shall we get the security part over with?"

At Madam Bones' nod, two guards stepped forward. They both already had their wands out, and while they were currently trained on the floor, they looked like they were ready to send a spell their way at a mont's notice.

"Your wands, please," the guard on the right asked.

Both Albus and Alia handed over their wands, only to have them scanned with the guard's wands before they were passed across the desk to the Warden. In return, the two visitors were handed a small grey wooden disc.

"Hand that in when you're ready to leave and we'll give you back your wands," the guard instructed.

With a nod, Madam Bones turned towards the door. "I assu that Black's in the interview yard?"

"Ready and waiting whenever you are," the security guard on the right replied. "If you'd care to follow us?"

As the four of them exited the door back into the courtyard, the dentors gliding overhead cast sweeping shadows on the floor.

One of the guards looked up with a grimace. "Ah, dentors...you will not find a more vile creature that ever polluted this good earth. That's my expert opinion after having to spend eight years in their charming company. Damn things drain off and feed upon every happy thought a person has."

"Bit of a necessary evil, though—at least here," supplied his friend. "With no happy thoughts, it's damn well near impossible to perform magic. Perfect for guarding a prison. With no happy thoughts and no magic, the prisoners give up even the idea of attempting to escape."

The guard turned to address the visitors. "There'll be a couple of dentors on the wall of the interview yard," he warned. "But you'll be in no danger. We will provide patronuses to keep you safe."

"Expecto patronum!"

"Expecto patronum!"

Two bright shiny streaks of light shot out from the wands of the guards as they crossed the threshold of the door in front of them, which was guarded by two more n. The patronuses, a horse and a fox circled the periter of the small yard they had just entered. On the ramparts above, half a dozen dentors shied away from the bright animals below them.

"Dumbledore?" a dry raspy voice called.

The center of the yard was occupied by a couple of stone tables and stools, seemingly rising from the floor below. Seated on one side, his hands and legs manacled to chains that led to massive iron bolts set in the rock floor to either side of him was a man—Prisoner LY390.

Sirius Black looked decades older than the young man Albus rembered him as. His black hair, which he'd always seed to wear long, hung down to the middle of his back in a greasy, dirty, tangled ss. A dark matted beard dropped to near his chest. The dirty grey shirt and pants he wore looked to be four or five sizes too big for his frail, emaciated body.

"Sirius," nodded Albus, taking the seat next to Madam Bones across from the man he ca to see. "You look awful."

Sirius gave a laugh, or at least he tried to, but it turned into a coughing fit. "Yeah... prison food will do that to you. Unfortunately, they don't have room service in the tower."

Albus peered closely at the man sitting in front of him. There was nostalgia and resignation in his eyes, but no sha or defiance that was usually present in the faces of Voldemort's servants that stood in front of him. No, this was no Death Eater, Albus decided.

"Why, Sirius?" said Dumbledore softly.

"Why what? Why did I betray Jas and Lily?" Sirius said with a mocking grin. "Why did I murder those muggles?"

"Why didn't you tell anyone that you were innocent?" said Dumbledore, ignoring the tightening of Madam Bones' fists.

That seed to take the air out of Black's sails. He stared at the Headmaster for a long while, looking for any hints of deceit. Finally, he lowered his head and said in a small voice, "Because I'm not...not innocent. I may not have betrayed my friends... I may not have killed all those people... but I'm just as responsible for their deaths as they say."

"What do you an 'just as responsible'?" Madam Bones asked quickly.

Sirius raised his head and looked at Madam Bones as if noticing her for the first ti. His eyes narrowed before widening slightly.

"Alia Bones," he rasped.

She gave a short nod. "Yes. I'm now the Head of the Departnt for Magical Law Enforcent. Now I repeat—what do you an by 'just as responsible'? Did you not reveal the location of the Potters to You-Know-Who?"

"No, I didn't," said Sirius, his eyes dropping once more. "But they are dead because of ."

"How?" said Madam Bones.

"What does it matter?" Sirius intoned dully.

"I think, it would matter a great deal to Harry knowing whether his Godfather is a mass-murderer or an innocent man," Dumbledore interjected wisely. Sirius raised his head sharply at the ntion of his Godson. "You rember him, Sirius? He started Hogwarts last year. He looks just like Jas. In fact, he even beca the Gryffindor seeker in his first year—the youngest in a century. I guess he gets that from his father."

Sirius smiled with tears in his eyes. Dumbledore continued. "Harry doesn't know how Voldemort ca to find his family all those years ago...and neither it seems, does the rest of the world. You owe it to Harry, Sirius. He deserves to know."

Sirius shakily nodded his head. "You're right... If there's anyone who deserves to know, it's him."

He sat in silence for a long ti, gathering his thoughts before a great shuddering sigh rippled through his body. Lifting his great shaggy head, he began to tell his story in a dead monotone.

"It all started back in Hogwarts. Jas Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew," this na was distinctly spat, "and I were the best of friends. In the course of our many adventures, we beca animagi. Well, not Remus, anyway."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Madam Bones.

"You were all illegal animagi?" At Sirius' nod, she continued, "What were your forms?"

"Jas was a stag. I'm a great black dog and Pettigrew is a rat."

"What does that have to do with Jas and Lily's deaths?" Madam Bones asked.

"Everything!" Black stated. "Peter was always the weakest of us all. He was never a threat to anyone, preferring to hide behind our backs. When Jas and Lily put their ho under the Fidelius charm, they wanted to use as their secret-keeper, but I convinced them to use Peter instead!"

"Are you saying that you weren't the Potter's secret-keeper?" Madam Bones asked quickly.

"That's right! It was all an act. No one in their right mind would think soone as cowardly as Peter would be the Potter's secret-keeper. We hoped that by doing so everyone would think that I was the secret keeper, since I was the obvious choice. Little did I know that the rat we trusted had already joined Voldemort's ranks," Sirius bitterly spat.

"If that is true, why didn't you speak about this at your trial?" said Madam Bones with narrowed eyes.

A great barking laugh erupted from Black. "What trial? I never had one. The last thing I rember is watching Peter slink away into the sewers before I was stunned. Next thing I know, I'm in Azkaban!"

"What?" Madam Bones asked, half out of her seat in obvious outrage. "You should have been given a trial within 48 hours of your arrest!"

"Yeah, well I wasn't. I bla Barty Crouch for that." Sirius shrugged half-heartedly. "The man did beco overzealous towards the end about taking down Death Eaters. Not that it was a bad thing... just didn't think it would bite in the arse."

Madam Bones composed herself with visible effort. "Let's focus on sothing else. You implied that Peter Pettigrew is still alive. What really happened that day?"

Sirius gave another jagged sigh. "After Jas and Lily were... after that night, I knew Peter was responsible... so I tracked him down. I ant to kill him... I wanted to kill him... still do, when it cos down to it. When I confronted him on the street, he yelled out that I was the one who betrayed Jas and Lily.

While I was wondering what he was playing at, he used his wand that he'd hidden behind his back to blast the street, before cutting off a finger and transforming into a rat. He then disappeared into the sewers and I never saw him again," Sirius replied, his black eyes dark as coal. "If only I had taken him out—instead of wasting ti talking—all those people that died that day would still be alive, and Jas and Lily would have been avenged."

"I must say that's quite a story you've got there, Black," Madam Bones stated from where she leant back in her chair.

"Yeah," Sirius replied. "Every word of it is true though."

"Perhaps... we'll see," said Madam Bones. "When I get back to the Ministry, I'll look into whether or not you actually had a trial. If you didn't, then I'll see what I can do about arranging one. Be warned though, the trial will be held under Veritaserum."

"Thank you, Madam Bones. Can't ask for anything more than that," said Sirius.

"If you're innocent, then you'll be out of here. If you're guilty, I'll be pushing for the death penalty," Madam Bones stated. "I've got no idea how long that'll take. Might still be a couple of months before I can get the Wizengamot to grant you a trial. But it will happen."

"Actually, as Chief Warlock I have the authority to summon an ergency session of the entire Wizengamot," Dumbledore finally spoke with a soft smile. "I can assure you, Sirius, that your belated trial will be held within a week at most. You have my word."

A sudden look of hope shone out of Sirius' eyes. He nodded his head, and for the first ti the ghost of a smile crinkled the corners of his mouth.

"Thank you," said Sirius.

With a final nod, Dumbledore and Madam Bones rose and made their way across the yard.

"I must say, that is not how I expected this morning to go," said Alia, shaking her head. "Sirius Black, innocent? Who would've thought?"

"Indeed," agreed Albus. "Unfortunately, our inability to look past the obvious resulted in the illegal incarceration of an innocent man for more than a decade."

"Yes," said Madam Bones, going silent for a few monts before speaking again. "Still, as tragic as it is, at least Black will be a free man soon."

"At least," repeated Dumbledore.

"I suppose you have no further need of today?" said Alia, as they made their way to the Warden's office.

"As a matter of fact, I do," said Albus calmly. "I need you to co with to Hogwarts and arrest Peter Pettigrew."

"What?" Alia asked blankly.