Fudge after the incident always had a bad feeling revolving around Draco and hearing him, talk about such s.a.d.i.s.tic things so carelessly, made him fear Draco a little bit more, as he remembered the gruesome scene at that mansion in the forest."Can you tell me a bit about this room?" Draco asked suddenly, waking Fudge from his thoughts, "I"ve never read about this place."
"It"s because the place doesn"t exist." Fudge said, "The moment we get out of here, we forget about the place."
"Like the Fedilus charm right?"
"Not exactly, since there are no secret keepers." Fudge said, "There is a similar stone statue in my office well at least a miniature version of it, the statue is there for the sole reason of giving permission and access to the people, as long as your reasons are valid the statue wouldn"t reason and give you the papers, which you"ve to exchange at the gate and after you get the papers you remember the place."
(I felt with this secret thing it will fit in with the story along with how it never mentioned again.)
"Do we really have to go through such a long procedure?"
"Don"t ask me... I am not the one who created it." Fudge shook his head walking towards the vase.
"You only talked about getting in..." Draco asked, "So how do we get out."
Fudge didn"t say anything as he signaled Draco to come closer, Fudge grabbed Draco"s shoulders and put his hands on the vase. The vase sucked both of them in as both of them teleported to Azkaban. Reaching there, Draco forgot his question as he never even remembered the place, to begin with. Draco looked in awe at the Fortress, in front of him.
Azkaban has existed since the fifteenth century and was not originally a prison at all. The island in the North Sea upon which the first fortress was built never appeared on any map, Muggle or wizarding, and is believed to have been created, or enlarged, by magical means.
The fortress upon it was originally home to a little-known sorcerer who called himself Ekrizdis. Evidently extremely powerful, but of unknown nationality, Ekrizdis, who is believed to have been insane, was a pract.i.tioner of the worst kinds of Dark Arts. Alone in the middle of the ocean, he lured, tortured and killed Muggle sailors, apparently for pleasure, and only when he died, and the concealment charms he had cast faded away, did the Ministry of Magic realize that either island or building existed. Those who entered to investigate refused afterward to talk of what they had found inside, but the least frightening part of it was that the place was infested with Dementors.
Many in authority thought that Azkaban was an evil place that was best destroyed. Others were afraid of what might happen to the Dementors infesting the building if they deprived them of their home. The creatures were already strong and impossible to kill; many feared horrible revenge if they took away a habitat where they appeared to thrive. The very walls of the building seemed steeped in misery and pain, and the Dementors were determined to cling to it. Experts who had studied buildings built with and around Dark magic contended that Azkaban might wreak its own revenge upon anybody attempting to destroy it. The fortress was therefore left abandoned for many years, home to continually breeding Dementors.
Once the International Statute of Secrecy had been imposed, the Ministry of Magic felt that the small wizarding prisons that existed up and down the country in various towns and villages posed a security risk, because attempts by incarcerated witches and wizards to break out often led to undesirable bangs, smells and light shows. So after different Ministers came and went, they finally decided on using the dementors and created a prison here in the middle of nowhere.
Even though there weren"t any wizards in this place other than the prisoners, the place was safe as the dementors in this place were enough to keep them in check. The effect of the prison is so secure that many believe, that as long as the Dementors were there, the prison could even be built in an open s.p.a.ce rather than an island.
As Draco was looking around, suddenly a Dementor came flying out of the place looking at them. Draco couldn"t help but feel cold and weird looking at the Dementor as it came closer. The bad feeling got Draco"s heart racing as his emotions were starting to get out of control again, Draco was ready to take out his wand but Fudge stopped him, as he shook his head signaling Draco to not make an irrational move. Draco trying to calm down took deep breaths as he controlled his emotions back again.
The Dementor had a humanoid shape, approximately 10 feet high, and was covered in dark hooded cloaks of long ripped black cloth, making them closely resemble wraiths. Its body looked greyed and decayed looking, like a decomposing corpse, and its breath sounds rattling like it is trying to "suck more than air" out of a room. Its hands glistening, greyish, slimy-looking, and scabbed.
"I am here to inspect, the prison." Fudge said holding out a paper. As if looking at it, the dementors looked at it for a while and turned back not coming any closer.
"What just happened?" Draco asked, "Aren"t they blind?"
"They are but we have a contract built." Fudge said patting the doc.u.ment, "As long as I have this in my hand, the dementors wouldn"t attack us. Ever since I became the Minister, I had to visit here frequently as it"s my job to inspect the prisoners, time and time again."
"Oh right, how do we escape, if something goes wrong?"
"There is an island nearby, where we can apparate to and from there through ministry authorized channels we can sail back to another island a bit far away and after that, we can just use the floo powder to return back to the Ministry headquarters." Fudge explained.
"Wait how did we come here again?"
"Don"t ask." Fudge said walking towards the entrance of the prison, "No one knows, even I don"t."
Draco was still struggling to remember what was going on but as Fudge said, he couldn"t remember anything at all.
They kept walking inside the fortress, the place filled with Dementors riddling around. "Why aren"t they attacking us?"
"The permit, they can sense it." Fudge said, "You don"t have to worry about other details than that."
Draco didn"t ask any further questions as one by one they pa.s.sed through several prison room. Inside each prison, the wizards and witches looked lifeless, some yelled in agony whereas some just stayed silent staring into nothingness.
As they were walking deeper and deeper into the prison, the denseness of the dementor increase as they kept floating around. The temperature inside was extremely cold and freezing as Draco tucked himself properly. Fudge didn"t speak much along the way and kept silent as he kept walking forward but he suddenly stopped.
"This is the maximum security area, most of the prisoners here are You-know-who"s follower." Fudge said trying to scare Draco but the other party wasn"t even looking at him, A bit frustrated Fudge leaned over to the fence and pointed his fingers towards a cell opposite of them "That is your aunt"s cell, don"t you want to visit her?"
"Would you allow me to?"
"I can make an exception."
"I am not really in the mood." Draco said, "Also, I don"t really have times for family reunions."
Fudge muttered some words as he looked back at Draco once again, "I am sure you"ve done your "research" by now, so shall we leave."
Draco looked around the place one last time, as he looked at every cell one at a time carefully and nodded. "I am fine with going back."