Chapter 68 Azkaban in the Dark
"Friend," Dumbledore's eyes seemed to fill with memories when he said the word.
Jon stood silently beside him, making no sound.
At the edge of the old city of Winchester, they stopped for a while.
"Jon, grab my arm!" Dumbledore ordered suddenly.
Jon hesitated for a moment, then reached out and grabbed Dumbledore's outstretched forearm.
"Very well," said Dumbledore. "Then let's go!"
Jon clutched Dumbledore's arm tightly, and then he found it was pitch black.
He was squeezed strongly from almost all directions, and he couldn't breathe at all, and his chest seemed to be tightly restrained by several iron hoops. I don't know how long it took, but I can finally take a big mouthful of the cold night air and barely open my tearful eyes...
For a split second, he felt as if he had just been squeezed out of a very narrow rubber tube.
"Apparation!" Professor Dumbledore said calmly: "It will indeed be a little painful, but you have to get used to it."
"Thank you, Professor!" Jon got up and straightened his clothes.
Then, he suddenly felt an inexplicable chill coming from all around him.
In this mid-July night, I was wearing two clothes on my body, and this chill was not normal at all.
However, the phoenix that Dumbledore summoned before flew to him from the sky, and the phoenix's wings covered Jon's body... The chill quickly dissipated, replaced by a warm feeling.
Jon now has the energy to look around... the area they just Apparated into.
They were on an island, by the sea of the island.
In front of them is a huge and gloomy castle, and behind them is an endless ocean.
Countless black spots can be seen in the sky, they seem to be trying to fly towards this side, and they seem to be fleeing desperately out of fear.
"This is..." Jon said softly.
"Azkaban!" Dumbledore said lightly: "A terrible wizard prison."
...
Seeing Jon's frightened look, Dumbledore laughed: "Don't worry, no one will send you to Azkaban because you turned Boggart into a headmaster... The most notorious criminals."
Jon smiled and touched his head.
Dumbledore looked at his watch: "There are still ten minutes to nine-thirty, and we still have some time to chat for a while."
He started digging into his pockets again...it took about a minute for Albus Dumbledore to finally get what he wanted.
"Look at this, Jon!"
Jon carefully took the thing from Dumbledore's hand and looked down... His heart was almost in his throat, but his face had to remain calm.
He had to use Occlumency to forcibly calm down his emotions.
Dumbledore was looking down at a beautiful pebble, ignoring him at all.
"I think..." Jon said calmly, "Is this supposed to be a cartridge case?"
"Yes!" said Dumbledore, playing with two pebbles like a child, "funny, I found it where Mr. Percy-Weasley was attacked!"
"It's kind of incredible..." Jon said softly.
At the same time, he returned the few bullet casings to Dumbledore.
"A very interesting thing, and at the same time, very dangerous..." Dumbledore's voice became lower and lower.
Dumbledore threw the thing in his hand forward... Only a few thumps were heard, and all the bullet casings disappeared into the sea.
Jon found himself unsure of what Professor Dumbledore meant.
Is he warning himself? Or to convey kindness to yourself? Or is it just unintentional?
"It was fifty years ago!" Dumbledore's voice became deep: "From that terrible war..."
"It took away many of my students and friends!"
"Youssef Shaker, Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts from 1927-1941, a very, very good teacher... finally died in Benghazi, Libya in July 1941."
"Edward Taft, England's Seeker at the time; his time record for the Snitch when he was playing at Slytherin was only broken by Harry Potter a little over a year ago... ...died in Normandy, France, June 1944."
"Alan Ross, the most gifted student in Transfiguration I've ever met... He was burned alive in Diagon Alley by an incendiary bomb dropped by a plane in December 1940. 15 years old……"
Albus Dumbledore's expression did not look like the most powerful wizard in Europe at all, but an old man who was nostalgic for the past.
"Almost half of the teachers at Hogwarts, and nearly a quarter of the graduates, died in that war... After so many years, many people may have forgotten it, but unfortunately I still remember it, it all seems to have been yesterday!"
"Dumbledore...Professor..." Jon said softly.
"Please forgive a stupid old man, for the nostalgia of the past!" Dumbledore sighed, and then the expression on his face gradually became serious: "If there is anything truly terrifying, it must be a wizard or a wizard. Ordinary people of magic, go to war!"
"So, we have to stop this from happening!"
...
Jon was still mulling over the meaning of Dumbledore's words.
But there was a crisp explosion in the air, and then two figures appeared within ten yards of Jon and Dumbledore.
"Good evening, Connelly!" Dumbledore said gently: "And Amelia."
"Oh, Dumbledore, you're always so punctual!" Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge was a stout little man in a dark green coat with a scowl on his face.
Beside Fudge, there is also a witch with a wide body, a square chin, and short gray hair.
"Professor Dumbledore!" The witch Amelia Burns nodded at Dumbledore, and glanced at Jon with some doubts.
"Just a first-year student!" Dumbledore said with a smile, without explaining too much: "Jon, this is Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, and Amelia, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. -Bones."
"Hello, Minister, and Director..." Jon greeted quickly.
Mrs. Burns smiled kindly at him, but Fudge ignored him.
"What's the matter, Connelly?" Dumbledore asked. "You called me this way."
"It sucks... a prisoner escaped... Azkaban's first escape in years..." Fudge stammered:
"Sirius Black!"