stjorthotic Chapter 232 Brothers
Chapter 232 Brothers
Chapter 232 Brothers
In the frigid waters of the North Sea, a fortress stands out starkly on a lonely rocky island, like some kind of huge, deformed black skeleton.
This is Azkaban prison—a place whose very name is enough to send chills down the spines of British wizards.
Before becoming a wizarding prison, Azkaban was just an isolated island fortress in the North Sea.
It was originally built by a dark wizard named "Despicable" Extis.
He enjoyed tormenting stranded Muggle sailors here and set up all sorts of cruel magical traps inside the fortress. Thus, this place has been steeped in pain and evil since its inception.
When the Ministry of Magic discovered Azkaban, Dementors were already present in large numbers there.
The then Minister of Magic, Damocles Roll, considered this a "godsend," because Dementors are born to guard prisoners, draining their joy and hope so that they cannot have the idea of escaping.
Therefore, the Ministry of Magic at the time did not try to eliminate the Dementors, but instead reached an agreement with them: allowing the Dementors to remain in Azkaban as guards and "enjoy" the prisoners' emotions in return.
Thus, starting in the 18th century, Dementors officially became the jailers of this wizarding prison.
Although Dementors are the de facto "guardians" and enforcers of punishment in this prison, the Ministry of Magic has not completely relinquished control. Instead, it has established an organization called the "Azkaban Oversight Committee" to symbolically maintain management over that gloomy place.
One of the committee’s core responsibilities is to restrain the natural-born jailers and prevent them from making excessive demands on a whim, which could lead to the death of prisoners.
A small number of officials are forced to take turns on this assignment—either as a form of punitive assignment due to being ostracized, or in exchange for a "gloomy qualification" that others would avoid.
Besides dealing with tedious official documents, their duties also include acting as guides for important guests who rarely visit, especially on special occasions like today.
At this very moment, a young official in a slightly wrinkled Ministry of Magic uniform was walking ahead with a fawning smile, eagerly leading the way for Albus Dumbledore, whom he considered a very important figure.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, this way please."
The official's voice echoed faintly in the empty stone corridor. He tried to keep his tone professional, even though he knew the chances were slim, but deep down he still held a sliver of hope that he might be favored by this important figure and thus leave this godforsaken place forever.
"Those—well, the mysterious person you specifically requested to see—their core followers are all imprisoned in the lowest level of the quarantine area."
Dumbledore's arrival was sudden. As the chief wizard of Wizengamot, he had free access to most magical institutions in the world, including Azkaban, where he only needed to register.
This caught the young official off guard.
To alleviate the tension in this gloomy environment and make himself more comfortable, he would spend long periods of time in his small office, warming himself with the roaring fire in the fireplace and escaping reality by reading.
Before Dumbledore arrived, he was reading the latest edition of the Daily Prophet.
In his haste to greet Dumbledore, he forgot to put the newspaper away and simply carried it out in his hand.
It wasn't until the cold air hit him that he realized he had done something stupid, but it was too late to undo it.
So he could only clutch the newspaper tightly in his hand, as if it could bring him a tiny bit of security.
Dumbledore followed calmly, his long silver hair and beard seemingly glowing in the dim light, standing out starkly from the surrounding darkness.
His sharp blue eyes, peering through his crescent-shaped glasses, swept over the huddled, lifeless figures in the cells on either side, as well as the Dementors that hovered in the air, bringing a chilling aura. His face remained expressionless.
They eventually stopped in front of a specially reinforced iron gate, engraved with sealing runes.
The official took a deep breath, pulled out his wand, and while chanting a spell, he scratched the tip of the wand against the door frame. The iron door slowly opened with a screeching sound.
"This is it, sir." The official stepped aside, unconsciously tightening his grip on the newspaper in his hand.
Dumbledore glanced into the dark cell, then turned gently to the officer: "Thank you very much for your guidance. You may now attend to your own business."
Although the official was young, he understood the implication in Dumbledore's words and immediately replied, "I still have some patrol work to complete in the surrounding area. Please feel free to call me if you need anything."
The officials stepped back a short distance and began to pretend to "inspect" the dimly lit corridor.
As he passed another cell, he noticed that the Dementor at the door seemed overly "active," its cold power that drained joy and hope so intense it was almost tangible, directly facing the figure inside the cell who lay sprawled on the floor like a rag doll—Sirius Black, who had been imprisoned for twelve years for blowing up a street and killing more than a dozen people.
"Hey! Back off!" the official shouted, waving his wand—along with the rolled-up newspaper—at the Dementors. "Keep the distance! Did you hear me?!"
The Dementor slowly and reluctantly drifted back a few inches, its rotting cloak making an unpleasant rustling sound in the cold air.
Its hollow face still seemed to be facing the direction of the cell, as if in silent protest. The biting chill in the air had not completely subsided, but had only slightly diminished.
Perhaps due to nervousness, the official waved his arm too wide, and with a "whoosh," the roll of the Daily Prophet flew out of his hand and scattered.
The front-page headline, featuring a huge color family portrait of the Weasleys taken in Egypt, seemed to come alive, swirling precisely between the iron bars of Sirius Black's cell, and landing lightly on the cold, dirty stone floor.
The official exclaimed "Oh dear!" and instinctively reached out to pick it up.
But when he peeked into the cell at the prisoner who was completely unresponsive to his surroundings, as if he were dead, and then glanced at the Dementor that was slowly floating out of the cell, a chill ran down his spine.
"For a tattered newspaper, what if this thing targets me—" he thought to himself, "This Blake is already insane, a complete idiot. What harm could a newspaper possibly cause? To provoke a Dementor or get close to that murderer for it? Not worth it."
"Luckily I came to patrol today," he thought to himself, glancing at the Dementor that was reluctantly retreating. "Otherwise, who knows if this thing would have completely crawled inside and killed the prisoner—if something had happened, I would definitely have been held responsible by the higher-ups."
Thinking about this, he couldn't help but feel a lingering fear.
So he straightened his robe, rolled up the newspaper tightly in his hand, and held it as if he were holding a pointer.
Then he began his patrol again—this time, his gaze was sharp, sweeping over every shadow and corner of the stone corridor with more focus and meticulousness than ever before.
When the patrol was finally completed, a subtle sense of fulfillment, brought about by complete concentration, quietly emerged in his heart.
On the other side of the cell, deathly silence and coldness once again engulfed the area.
Time passes little by little.
Sirius Black's fragmented consciousness trembled slightly in the depths of darkness.
He tried to open his eyelids, a simple action that felt like moving a mountain.
The eyelids tore at the corners of the eyes that were stuck together, making a faint cracking sound.
There was no light, only a darkness, slightly lighter than when your eyes are closed, filled with a grayish mist.
Then came the pain.
It's not just the dull pain that comes from the depths of the soul, rotting away all joy and hope, but also real, physical pain.
It came from his hips and shoulder blades, which were pressed against the rough stone ground; from his chapped lips; from every inch of his muscles, which were stiff from maintaining a curled-up posture for so long.
The pain made him want to laugh, but only a strange, silent twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"————James————"
A name, a nearly forgotten syllable, was squeezed out from his lungs, which were etched with despair like a broken bellows.
The voice was so faint that even he could barely hear it, yet it resounded like a thunderclap in the empty cell.
With this name, something began to flow back.
It's not a continuous sequence of images, just fragments.
The moment James and Lily fell replayed in his mind, with the sound of baby Harry crying in the background—these fragments of memory were false, imagined by himself, but that did not prevent them from becoming exceptionally sharp under the influence of the Dementors, repeatedly cutting into his already riddled soul.
More fragments began to surface in his mind.
A dazzling, shimmering gold—was it sunlight? No, it was the dappled sunlight dancing on James's tousled hair as he rode back on his broomstick, laughing at him. A burst of rapid barking—it was himself, as the big dog, chasing something across the fields of Hogsmeade.
These fragments, still warm, scalded his already numb nerves.
More sensations awakened.
He smelled not the stench of damp stones and his own filth, but the aroma of pumpkin pie that wafted through the Great Hall of Hogwarts in his memory, and the sweet, frothy smell of the butterbeer Lily had given James.
He struggled to tilt his head back and tasted a salty liquid sliding down from the corner of his dry eye and into his mouth.
Tears.
The things that Dementors cannot completely take away are simply buried too deep, so deep that even they themselves believe they have long since disappeared.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, watch out, there's a hole in the ground here."
The sound was like a fine needle, gently piercing the deathly silence around him.
He heard someone walk past his cell door, but he didn't care.
The footsteps faded away, and the corridor returned to silence.
He used all his strength to turn over, falling sideways onto the stone bed like a lump of rotten flesh. His eyes mechanically rolled, and his empty gaze caught a sudden burst of color.
It was a newspaper.
He had absolutely no interest in that thing.
What does the outside world have to do with him?
Happiness, news, color—all of these will only become tools to torment the Dementor the next time he returns.
No.
Perhaps this is better!
He began to stare at that small patch of color, trying to draw nourishment from it for his suffering.
Just then, fate revealed the answer to the joke: a gust of cold wind blew in through the vent, flipping the newspaper over.
On the back of the newspaper, the huge family portrait of the Weasleys, all smiles in front of the pyramids, was unobstructed and came into his downcast gaze.
His gaze swept indifferently over the familiar yet unfamiliar red-haired figures.
Arthur and Molly — their child is so big now.
A barely perceptible ripple stirred within him—for those who could still enjoy the sunshine and happiness.
Then, his gaze froze.
Half a chubby gray mouse peeked out of the shirt pocket of the boy who looked the youngest.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
He saw...the mouse—its front paw missing a toe—
A name, a name he thought had long been devoured by the Dementors along with his rage, exploded in his mind like a thunderclap:
Peter Pettigrew!
"Uh—" A suppressed sob, as if coming from the deepest part of his chest, suddenly choked him.
His numb nerves felt as if they had been instantly electrified, and a violent tremor erupted from the depths of his soul.
No—impossible!
But that mouse, with its appearance and characteristics—he could never mistake it!
Twelve years of injustice, the anger of betrayal, the pain of losing a close friend, the guilt towards his godson Harry whom he had never met—all the suppressed emotions erupted like a volcano, instantly breaching the dam that the Dementors had set up in his mind.
"Ah—!!!" A hoarse, inhuman roar finally burst from his throat, echoing in the cramped cell.
After the roar, there was a deathly silence. Only his heavy, bellows-like breathing could be heard.
Then, like a maddened beast, he suddenly struggled to get up from the stone bed.
Long-term malnutrition and lack of activity had left his limbs weak and powerless. This violent movement caused him to fall heavily from the bed onto the cold floor. He was completely unaware of the pain of his bones hitting the stone slab.
His eyes were fixed on the newspaper, which was so close yet seemed so far away. His filthy and scarred fingers dug into the ground as he dragged his weak and powerless body toward the newspaper, inch by inch.
Each movement exhausted his dwindling strength, the cold stone slabs rubbing against his knees and elbows.
Finally, his trembling, bony hand grasped the newspaper.
He strained to hold the newspaper up to his eyes, his cloudy gray eyes almost bulging out of their sockets as he stared intently at the gray mouse in the photo, fast asleep in Ron's pocket.
Tears, anger, and an almost manic determination mingled on his face into a terrifying expression.
"Peter—" he gritted his teeth, squeezing out the name from between them, each syllable soaked in blood and hatred.
He is still alive.
That traitor is still alive, and he's hiding in Hogwarts, right next to Harry!
At this moment, the thought of escaping Azkaban, the desire for revenge and to protect Harry, surged again in his cold veins like the hottest lava, giving him a power that even Dementors could not devour.
Two weeks later, Sirius Black disappeared from his cell in Azkaban, officially becoming the first wizard known to have successfully escaped from Azkaban.
The news spread like wildfire throughout the British magical world, causing an unprecedented uproar.
The Daily Prophet has used the largest font size and its entire front page to report on this for several consecutive days: "Azkaban's shocking loophole! Serial killer Black is on the run!"
"The Ministry of Magic has pledged increased security, and Cornelius-Fudge has urged the public to remain calm!"
"Black is the most notorious fugitive in the history of the Ministry of Magic! — Statement from Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement"
Every report exaggerated Black's dangerousness and madness, repeatedly mentioning his identity as a "loyal follower of Voldemort" and the "murder of thirteen lives," but remained vague about the specific details of the prison break, which only exacerbated public panic.
The Daily Prophet, printed with Sirius Black's wanted poster, was everywhere on the streets.
In the photo, his face was gaunt, and his gray eyes were filled with gloom yet were also unusually sharp, as if they were piercing through the newspaper, silently mocking the chaos and incompetence of the entire magical world.
Meanwhile, Sirius Black was considered to have a history of massacring Muggles and was extremely dangerous, forcing the Ministry of Magic to break with convention and urgently notify the Muggle Prime Minister in accordance with the special provisions of the International Secrecy Act.
So Sirius Black's wanted poster appeared in Muggle news, but Muggles described him as a dangerous criminal with a handgun.
Even with an unprecedented collaborative search between the Muggle and wizarding worlds, no reliable trace of Sirius Black could be found.
He seemed to have completely merged into the air, disappearing without a trace.
The only thing the Ministry of Magic could be certain of was that he had returned to England—a conclusion reached through some complex trail magic and the vague senses of the Dementors.
How he crossed the North Sea and broke through the ancient defenses surrounding Azkaban, which even the most evil dark wizards feared, remains a huge mystery hanging over the Ministry of Magic, casting an even more unsettling shadow over the entire event.
The top-floor offices of the Shita Chamber of Commerce seemed isolated from the world, with heavy wooden doors completely shutting out the hustle and bustle of the shopping mall below.
Reggie sat alone behind the large desk, the fire in the fireplace burning quietly on the brass wood rack, occasionally making a soft crackling sound.
A newly delivered quarterly report from the Chamber of Commerce lay open before him, the densely packed numbers on the parchment gleaming with an old sheen in the dim candlelight.
However, his gaze had long since lost focus, lingering on the same passage of text, his slender fingers unconsciously stroking the rough edges of the parchment.
The ink in the ink bottle had dried up, and the quill pen lay askew beside the inkstone, all of which indicated that the owner had not actually done anything during the long time he had been sitting there.
A kind of indescribable anxiety, like tiny insects, was silently gnawing at his heart.
He raised his hand to rub his temples, trying to suppress the turbulent thoughts in his mind, only to find that the tangled mess was getting tighter and tighter.
Just then, the flames in the fireplace suddenly shot up, transforming into a magnificent emerald green vortex.
Lynch calmly stepped out of the Floo Powder smoke, his black leather shoes leaving no footprints on the smooth ground.
Reggie's fingers, which were resting on the parchment, paused almost imperceptibly.
But he then casually turned to a page of the report, the rustling sound of the paper against the paper particularly clear in the quiet room, as if he had been reading intently the whole time.
Lin Qi, however, did not let him off the hook. He strolled to the desk and casually placed his hands on the smooth surface: "What are your thoughts on that major event that happened recently?"
'
Reggie didn't even look up, his voice completely flat: "What's your opinion?"
He tried to keep the conversation at a very basic level of small talk.
He certainly knew what Lynch was referring to—the news that had dominated the front page of the Daily Prophet for days, the news that had caused a huge uproar in the wizarding world.
But that was precisely the forbidden zone he was extremely reluctant to touch.
Lynch did not answer immediately, but instead took out a neatly folded copy of the Daily Prophet from his pocket and gently placed it on the Chamber of Commerce report that Reggie was reading.
On the front page of the newspaper, Sirius Black's wanted poster was prominently displayed.
The man in the photo looked haggard, and his gloomy eyes seemed to be staring right at me.
The face loomed before him, and Reggie's breath filled the room almost imperceptibly. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, as if trying to break free. But he quickly regained his composure and said in his flat, hoarse voice, "A dangerous Death Eater has escaped." His fingers tapped lightly on the table. "The Ministry of Magic is as incompetent as ever."
At this moment, he felt more grateful than ever for his hoarse and broken throat that had become after his injury.
Only such a voice can perfectly disguise all the turbulent waves in one's heart as a deathly silence.
"Aren't you going to do anything?" Lynch stared at him, his gaze seemingly able to see through all pretense. "Like, help him out? You can use all the channels available to the First Order; I'll fully support you."
Reggie finally raised his head, his gray eyes completely still, like a frozen lake: "Why did I do that?"
The air in the office seemed to freeze.
Lin Qi leaned forward slightly, his eyes filled with genuine concern.
He knew Reggie too well. He knew that since his injury, Reggie had gotten used to hiding all his emotions under a cold exterior, he knew his feelings for his family and loved ones, and he knew what kind of torment Reggie was going through at this moment.
His voice was gentle yet firm: "Because we are friends."
After a pause, Lynch continued, "He is, after all, your brother, Reggie."
Reggie clenched his fingers and the quill pen in his hand snapped in two.
The ink smudged on the report, but he didn't care.
A ripple finally stirred in the depths of those usually calm, gray eyes.
"That surname," he slowly put down the quill pen that had broken in two, "and those so-called blood ties, have had nothing to do with me for many years."
His voice was still hoarse and steady, but with a hint of coldness and hardness.
"I'm Reggie, just Reggie. The Black family's business is none of my concern."
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