Chapter 479: Hunger
Chapter 479: Hunger
The morning sunlight was warm but not scorching, accompanied by a gentle breeze that made the small garden particularly inviting. Roses in shades of pink, white, purple, and red bloomed in competition, their layered petals spreading out with a vibrant vitality.
A young man in a hospital gown sat on a bench in the garden, gazing at the scenery with a mix of longing and confusion in his eyes.
His father, with graying hair, stood beside him and leaned down to ask with concern, “How are you feeling? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”
The young man smiled weakly, his voice faint, “Dad, I’m fine. I’m just a bit tired.”
“Let’s go back to the ward if you’re tired,” his mother, who looked equally weary, said with a forced smile. “The flowers will bloom for a few more days. We can come back tomorrow.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Supported by his parents, the young man stood up and slowly walked out of the garden. Suddenly, he said, “I’m a bit hungry for some hot pot.”
“Sure,” his mother choked back a sob and quickly wiped her tears. “When you’re better, we’ll go eat hot pot, grilled meat, and everything you want.”
“Yeah, everything!” The young man took a few steps and then suddenly added, “If I… if I don’t have the chance, then you two should go and enjoy all the delicious food for me. That would be nice too.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” his father said sternly. “The doctor said your condition isn’t serious. As long as you cooperate with the treatment, you’ll get better. You have to keep fighting, do you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah…” the young man drawled, sounding helpless. “Just talking! Dad, you’re being too serious.”
“Mr. Gray! Mr. Wade Gray!”
—Who’s calling?
Oh, it’s for me…
Leaning against a garden pillar, Wade shifted his position, knowing someone was calling him but not wanting to leave just yet.
He pretended not to hear and followed the trio for a while, listening to their hopeful plans for the young man’s recovery and travel, as if their dreams could really come true.
Suddenly, Wade heard a muffled voice, as if coming through a wall—
“Sorry, Master,” the magic cube automaton said. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to bring Dumbledore in.”
—Dumbledore?
The name dispelled Wade’s reluctance to move. Just as he was about to step out, he felt a jolt as if electrocuted, his whole body twitching. He shot up from the bed, gasping for breath.
“Great, it really worked!” Zoe exclaimed. “I thought Mr. Gray had been put into a coma by some dark magic! It’s wonderful that you’re awake!”
Wade: “…”
Seeing his master radiating a low-pressure aura from being abruptly woken, the magic cube didn’t dare take credit. It extended its mechanical claws, grabbed the other automata, and quickly darted back into the wardrobe space.
Wade silently watched their retreating figures, his teeth grinding together.
“Mr. Gray, hurry up and get ready,” Zoe tugged at Wade’s sleeve. “We’ll miss the train if you don’t.”
Wade slowly exhaled. “Thank you, Zoe. I’ll be quick.”
After Wade finished washing up, the diligent house-elf had already packed his trunk onto the train. Too lazy to catch a carriage outside the castle, Wade bid farewell to Zoe and the house-elf, then retracted the wardrobe space, opened the window, and transformed into a falcon, flying out.
The Hogwarts Express was parked on the platform, with many students already boarding, and carriages continuing to arrive from the school.
Wade circled the train, looking for a quiet spot to transform back. He saw a compartment window open, with Michael leaning out, waving at him.
Wade folded his wings and dived down. Michael quickly moved aside, and the next moment, the falcon flew through the window and transformed back into his familiar classmate.
“I should have called you when I left.”
Michael, seeing Wade’s disheveled hair, couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought you were off researching alchemy or had some business with Dumbledore. Turns out you just overslept?”
Wade ran his fingers through his hair, sighing. “I had a really long dream last night.”
“Must have been a great dream to keep you asleep for so long,” Michael said, sitting down and taking out his pet automaton to pass the time.
Wade hesitated, feeling a sudden sense of melancholy, and fell silent.
The compartment door burst open, and Theo’s voice preceded him. “Harry didn’t see Wade this morning. He’s going back to his Muggle aunt’s house for the summer. I think Wade is still at the school. Should we tell Professor…?”
He had already seen Wade, but the inertia of speech still made the last word float out of his mouth: "...sir."
Then Theo finally reacted. "Wade? You left early this morning?"
"No, this guy overslept and just rushed over", Michael said mockingly.
Wade raised his hand in greeting.
"Fortunately, we didn't miss the train", Ryan said, closing the compartment door behind him and sitting down with Theo. "Otherwise, we would have alarmed the professors."
"What's there to be afraid of if we alarm the professors?" Michael said proudly. "Which professor doesn't like our Wade?"
Everyone laughed.
The train let out a long whistle and slowly started moving, pulling away from the station. The castle of Hogwarts gradually disappeared from view.
"Did you hear that Professor Trowbridge resigned? Is it true?" Rich asked.
"It's true", Michael said. "I overheard him talking to Professor Flitwick this morning. He was just temporarily replacing Professor Abigail and only intended to teach for half a semester."
"Will Professor Abigail be back next semester?" Theo asked hopefully.
"Probably not", Michael shrugged. "It's said that Professor Dumbledore has already chosen a new professor, and it's going to be a very powerful wizard."
"I just hope this one stays longer", Theo said wistfully. "It feels like our Defense Against the Dark Arts professors are changing more and more frequently."
"But they're also getting better, right?" Michael said optimistically. "Don't worry, Dumbledore will have it all figured out."
Suddenly, he noticed that someone in the compartment was unusually quiet and asked, "Wade, what are your plans for the holidays? Want to watch the World Cup with us?"
Wade snapped back to reality. "I need to visit someone first... and if there's time, I might watch the World Cup final."
"If possible, I don't want to miss a single match", Michael said. "My dad bought a whole set of tickets! This summer, I'll basically be living around the stadium!"
Theo and Ryan were a bit envious. Their families had other plans, and they wouldn't be able to watch the matches until the end of June.
They talked about each participating team, discussing famous players and past performances, speculating which team would win the championship.
The recent issues of The Prophet were all about the World Cup, listing all the teams' information. They pulled out the newspaper from their bags and pointed at the text to strengthen their arguments.
The excited chatter around him gradually blurred into a noisy background, and the stone necklace in his pocket felt heavy. Wade looked at the distant mountains, and for some reason, his eyes felt a bit moist.
He restrained the urge to take out the necklace and enter that corridor again. He casually unwrapped a candy and tossed it into his mouth, crunching it into pieces. The sweetness slowly spread in his mouth, stimulating a thin release of dopamine in his brain.
...
In the cold sea, a towering fortress stood on a lonely island. Behind the thick iron walls, eerie sounds occasionally echoed—
Whispers, moans, screams, mad laughter, and sobbing cries. The prisoners' voices intertwined with the howling wind, creating a noise that could drive one to madness.
Bullock, a Ministry of Magic official responsible for prison management and maintaining the magical barriers, could leave after a three-year term. Now he only had a year and a half left, but Bullock already felt like he was going mad.
The man shoveled two coal blocks into the fireplace, huddled in his coat in front of it, and stared blankly at the dancing flames.
In such an environment, time seemed to lose its meaning. After an unknown duration, a bolt of lightning suddenly split the darkness, followed by a rumble of thunder.
Bullock shivered, peering through the small hole in the wall. He saw countless dark figures dancing eerily in the lightning-lit sky, bringing a bone-chilling cold from a distance.
"Dementors... How did these dementors return so quickly?"
Bullock's heart pounded uncontrollably. He rushed to the wall, grabbed a lever, and nervously watched the dementors flying around.
The thunder rolled, and lightning flickered, casting the sky in a dim, eerie light. The figures that appeared and disappeared in the darkness became even more terrifying.
The lever in Bullock's hand was his strongest assurance for staying in this place. Long ago, when dementors became the guardians of Azkaban, the Ministry of Magic installed a powerful magical mechanism here.
In this room, where Dementors cannot enter, the moment the guard lowers the lever, an extremely powerful magical energy erupts around Azkaban. Even if the Dementors don't die, they will suffer severe injuries.
As Bullock nervously swallowed, he suddenly saw a carriage flying toward him from the sky, adorned with the familiar flag and emblem of the Ministry of Magic.
Bullock let out a sigh of relief and quietly released the lever. After the carriage landed on the nearby platform and a wizard jumped out of the carriage, he opened the door to the control room.
The wizard rushed into the control room, shaking off the raindrops, and complained, "This damned weather, these damned Dementors! Thank Merlin, this miserable task is finally coming to an end!"
He took a roll of parchment from his pocket and handed it to Bullock, saying, "Let's go through the handover! The Ministry of Magic's order: the search for these monsters is over, and they need to return to Azkaban."
Bullock unrolled the parchment and carefully inspected the seal and the magic, then asked casually, "Did you catch the escaped prisoners?"
"No! Not a single one of those rats! These Dementors are completely useless! They even attacked some passersby, causing us a lot of trouble."
The Ministry official grumbled, "If you ask me, this decision was utterly stupid! They want us to catch the prisoners but not to get close to people—do they think the prisoners will stand in an open field waiting for us? Peter Pettigrew's Animagus transformation is so convenient; he's probably hiding in the city's sewers!"
His resentment was so thick it almost seemed tangible, giving the perpetually oppressed Bullock a slight sense of superiority.
Bullock said, "Weren't you looking for that Obscurus? Did you at least find that?"
"No, they misreported once and then wandered all over Britain. For a while, they even thought about crossing the sea! Thankfully, I stopped them in time! I think they just wanted to escape!"
The Ministry official continued to grumble for a while, then asked, "Are you done? Send these monsters back in, and I can leave!"
Hearing that he was about to leave, Bullock, whose mood had just improved a little, felt uneasy again. He checked the handover order three or four times and asked, "Since you didn't catch anything, why is the task over?"
"Of course, it's because of the World Cup! Wizards from all over the world are coming to watch the matches. How can we let a bunch of happiness-sucking monsters run around? The matches start on the 15th, and the Ministry managed to drive the Dementors off the island by the 14th, which was already very late!"
The official urged him several times, and Bullock finally completed the handover, watching the irritable official escape into the carriage. The Thestral let out a long neigh and pulled the carriage up into the sky.
Bullock stood by the small window, watching the carriage disappear, and sighed deeply.
He waved his wand, locking the control room, then dragged his heavy feet back to the fireplace, wrapping himself in a black, sooty sheepskin blanket, looking like a large coal ball.
...
The number of Dementors in the prison suddenly doubled, and the prisoners, who had enjoyed a few months of "good days", began to wail. As the Dementors' hissing and sucking sounds filled the air, the massive prison gradually fell silent, leaving only faint moans and sobs.
A ring-wearing Dementor drifted from one cell to another, finally stopping in front of the deepest cell.
Inside the iron bars, a disheveled woman with a sinister and mad gaze looked up. She crouched on the ground, swaying back and forth, seemingly completely insane. Unlike other prisoners, she didn't show fear when she saw the Dementor but instead bared her teeth in a grotesque smile.
The Dementor stood silently for a moment.
It remembered that it was looking for this woman—Bellatrix Lestrange... but why?
After a moment of thought with its not-so-clever mind, the Dementor concluded: it was probably to prevent her from escaping as well?
After all, there were only a few prisoners who hadn't gone mad after being imprisoned for over a decade, and they were all highly dangerous individuals in the magical world.
The Dementor opened its mouth and slowly inhaled a long, deep breath. Something extremely subtle and intangible flowed through the air into its mouth.
A gurgling sound came from Bellatrix's throat as she struggled to support herself on the floor, as if trying to stop something. Moments later, she rolled her eyes and fainted.
The Dementor thought for a moment and decided not to neglect the prisoner in the neighboring cell. It drifted from one cell to another, and soon, everyone was silent.
The Dementor stood in the middle of the corridor, still feeling a strong hunger, desire, and resentment within its body. It had not been satisfied by the recent feeding.
It would never be satisfied.
(End of Chapter)
Chapter end
Report
