Chapter 155: Chapter 155: Azkaban
Hoffa couldn't break free. In fact, from the moment the Dementors appeared, he knew escape was impossible. That overwhelming void-like force washed over him like a tidal wave, corroding his soul and leaving him powerless to resist.
In the end, a hood was placed over his head, his hands were shackled again, and he was plunged into darkness. He was taken to an unknown destination.
At that moment, regret began to creep in. Hoffa realized he had been completely caught in an unfamiliar and perilous whirlpool.
After being dragged endlessly through an unlit journey, he was brought into an unknown structure, passing through numerous checkpoints. Eventually, his clothes were stripped off, and he was forced to stand under a water jet that rinsed every inch of his body. Then, a glowing red branding iron was pressed onto his arm. He struggled to resist but soon discovered his magic had already been sealed once more.
After enduring countless unspeakable procedures, when the hood was finally removed, Hoffa found himself dressed in an orange prison uniform, his hands and feet securely bound in heavy metal shackles.
On either side of him stood towering wardens in iron masks. Their muscular torsos heaved as they breathed, and the cold air turned the heat from their nostrils into visible clouds of mist.
Hoffa realized he was standing on a massive iron bridge. On both sides of the bridge were towering walls of dark brown stone. Lining the walls were countless metal grates, each one guarding a prison cell.
A notification chimed in his mind:
System: Wizard Secret Realm Discovered.
[Azkaban Wizard Prison]
The cold and indifferent system notification seemed almost mocking, as if taunting Hoffa in his current predicament.
His fury boiled. Just this morning, he had been sipping cocoa in a hotel café, and now, by nightfall, he was in Azkaban. This had to be the most bizarre and insane day of his life.
Although the system had alerted Hoffa, he was in no state of mind to care about exploration or progress.
Prisons, among all human constructions, are the most fearsome institutions. Other species often punish rule breakers by taking their lives. Humans alone build vast structures to imprison their kind, stripping them of their time instead. Perhaps humans had long realized that what they feared most wasn't death, but the loss of freedom.
Before Hoffa's chaotic thoughts could drift further, one of the wardens gave him a push, forcing him to walk barefoot.
As soon as he moved, it seemed to trigger a hidden mechanism.
From within the cells along the high walls, countless bony, desperate hands suddenly stretched out. The imprisoned wretches screamed, laughed maniacally, and wailed in sorrow, as if trying to snatch something from Hoffa.
"Look! A newcomer!"
"Hahaha, a fresh one!"
"And such a young boy!"
"Welcome to Azkaban, kid!"
Someone howled with laughter:
"Hey, Warden Vincent! Have your tastes changed?"
"Gone softer, haven't you?"
"Hahahahaha!"
The air was thick with an indescribable madness.
These people, robbed of their time by the rules, were struggling in a darkness worse than death.
Hoffa was pushed forward step by step. At this moment, he finally understood—this was no joke. He truly had been imprisoned in Azkaban.
"Bach! It's you, Bach!"
As he passed a row of cells, amid the chaos, Hoffa heard someone calling his name. He turned in astonishment toward the voice.
Three tall but emaciated figures clung to the bars of one cell. Their filthy hair was matted together, and they huddled close like a three-headed demon from hell, staring unblinkingly at him.
Despite their drastic changes in appearance, Hoffa recognized them immediately. They were his old first-year adversaries—Grindelwald's followers and dark wizards who had controlled magical creatures: Schmidt Rutroth and his cohorts.
After being defeated by Hoffa in his first year, they had been imprisoned here.
Seeing Hoffa, they burst into wild laughter.
"It really is you!"
"By Merlin's beard, you little brat, now it's your turn!"
"What crime did you commit, you runt?"
"Did you finally kill that old goat Dumbledore?"
Two of them spat insults with flecks of saliva flying.
Only Schmidt Rutroth in the middle remained silent. He stared intently at Hoffa. As Hoffa passed, Schmidt leaned in and coldly murmured, "Mr. Grindelwald sends his regards."
Hoffa froze, horrified, and turned back.
But just then, several black Dementors drifted out from the corners of the prison, gliding toward the cells.
They extended their decayed, icy fingers, calmly gripping the iron bars one by one as they floated forward.
Under the touch of the Dementors, the prisoners' screams, wails, and laughter all fell silent.
Schmidt was no exception. As a Dementor touched him, his fingers loosened from the bars, and he collapsed to the ground, trembling and convulsing.
The madness and chaos vanished, replaced by a suffocating void.
But this void was even more chilling to Hoffa.
He walked for over a hundred meters through this oppressive silence and despair, the wardens pushing him forward across narrow bridges and winding paths. Finally, they arrived before a massive, grim iron door.
The iron door resembled an oversized morgue drawer, set into walls packed tightly together. It was cold and utterly devoid of warmth.
The warden opened the iron door and removed Hoffa's shackles.
Then, Hoffa was shoved inside.
Bang!
The iron door slammed shut.
From start to finish, neither of the two wardens said a single word to Hoffa.
With the light extinguished, darkness enveloped everything, making it impossible for Hoffa to see even his own hand in front of his face. All he could feel were some peculiar protrusions on the icy ground beneath his cheek.
Mechanically, he pushed himself up from the floor and got to his feet.
"Damn this life!"
He cursed angrily in his heart.
The madness of fate seemed hellbent on tormenting him—throwing him high up only to smash him down hard, over and over again. And this time, the fall had landed him in Azkaban Prison, falsely accused of being a murderer.
Exhausted and utterly drained, Hoffa leaned against the cold wall, panting heavily. He wondered when he would ever be able to take control of this chaotic life. Perhaps he never would. Perhaps he'd never even get the chance to try.
Now he was locked up in Azkaban. Without some extraordinary intervention, his life was essentially over.
No parents. No family. No backing.
As his thoughts spiraled, a wave of sorrow welled up within him.
Leaning against the wall, Hoffa found himself growing more and more bitter.
Out of all the people in the world, why was he the one to end up like this?
He raised his middle finger skyward, silently protesting against the unfairness of it all.
But before even a second had passed, an intense chill seized his heart. Shivering, he hugged his arms around himself.
He sensed something gliding past him, bringing with it the stench of decay and an unbearably icy aura.
Even in the pitch black, where nothing was visible, Hoffa knew exactly what it was: a Dementor.
Realizing this, he was almost ready to let out a string of curses.
Azkaban was utterly insane—keeping prisoners in the same room as Dementors? It was no different from locking a predator and its prey in a cage together.
His teeth chattered uncontrollably as he pressed himself tightly against the wall.
After about half an hour, Hoffa's eyes finally adjusted to the darkness.
He could see the towering three-meter figure of the Dementor silently "staring" at him. Its breaths, slow and long like a bellows, came at intervals of nearly half a minute.
Floating in mid-air, it had no eyes, not even a face—only a decayed, pallid maw faintly visible beneath its hood.
Hoffa swallowed hard and shivered. Yes, he felt cold, as though trapped in an icy grave.
Yet, this creature, which in the future would haunt Harry for an entire school year, merely floated there, quietly, without making any unnecessary movements. To the Dementor, it was as if Hoffa didn't even exist.
For a long time, the two simply faced each other in silence.
Clinging to a sliver of faint hope, Hoffa tried to summon happy memories, digging through his mind for anything remotely joyful. But he found that most of his life had been consumed by battles—either fighting, preparing to fight, or recovering from fights.
Defeating opponents. Being defeated by opponents. Ending in a stalemate.
He tried to extract some joy from these memories but found none. There was nothing truly happy he could cling to.
Then he remembered the first time he transformed into Animagus form. That might've been his happiest moment.
Tentatively, he whispered, "Expecto Patronum."
Nothing happened. He was as much a Muggle as a Muggle could be.
The Dementor tilted its head slightly and took a deep, deliberate breath. Hoffa pressed himself back against the wall and sighed deeply.
The emptiness that comes after prolonged activity quickly consumed him. The faint spark of hope he'd just ignited was sucked away by the creature before him. Truly, this was a being that fed on hope.
Strangely, however, it only took that one breath. The Dementor didn't move closer to Hoffa.
Half an hour passed.
An hour.
Two hours.
Five hours.
Eventually, Hoffa's emotions began to recover from the initial helplessness. It was then that he felt a twinge of confusion.
The Dementor simply hovered there, gazing at him, but it didn't take any further action. From the black void beneath its hood, it seemed to convey an intense longing.
The creature wanted to approach him.
Its psychic field radiated pure, unfiltered desire.
This actually piqued Hoffa's curiosity. Rising slowly, he crept cautiously closer to the creature, inch by inch.
In the dark confines of the cell, the boy sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at the bizarre entity before him in perplexity.
Time ticked by, second by second.
Man and creature simply stared at each other, unmoving.
Finally, Hoffa decided to speak. "Can you talk?"
To his astonishment, the Dementor gave a faint shake of its head.
(To be continued...)
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