The salty and bone-chilling wind from the North Sea, as always, ravaged the jagged black rocks on Azkaban Island.
On this Muggle-invisible island, the pitch-black fortress stood like a giant rock amidst the storm. Inside the fortress, on a plaza expanded by magic—
Here burned a kind of madness-inducing pathological fervor.
Gilderoy Lockhart curled his arms, shrinking on the outskirts of the crowd, suppressing the urge to yawn.
The man's previously meticulously groomed curls had long lost their sheen; dry, yellowed, and messy, they stuck to his sweaty forehead. The black robe he wore, of uncertain origin, looked rather crumpled.
"Hiss—"
Lockhart instinctively clutched his cramping abdomen, his stomach having started protesting due to long consumption of poor food. Recently, although the Dementors had reduced their contact, the brief "clarity" this situation brought was far from as pleasant as imagined. Deep down, he felt more discomfort and deep-seated fear regarding the current fervent atmosphere.
"...They have stripped us of our freedom! Imprisoned our free souls in cold cages..."
Voldemort's hoarse voice, like countless metal scraps rubbing together, emanated from the high platform at the center of the plaza. Karkaroff's broken body still lay half-slumped there like a discarded puppet, but on Karkaroff's neck, a large, vein-covered tumor pulsated violently, its crimson slit-like eyes constantly surveying below.
"They sent these monsters to torment you—
"But now! They have joined us! The fear they once brought upon you will be returned twice as much to our future enemies!"
Voldemort's words elicited a suppressed, wolf-like howl of agreement from those squeezed in front of Lockhart, including Radolphus Lestrange.
Among them, Bella was the most exaggerated, even bursting into tears of joy...
Damn it, a bunch of lunatics!
Lockhart instinctively stepped back half a step, only to be pushed forward again by the crowd behind him.
Carefully hiding his entire face under the hood, the man finally dared to sneak a glance, looking into the deeper shadows behind the high platform, where countless tattered black cloaks floated silently, like particles merging into the darkness, seemingly insignificant but torturing every obsessive-compulsive sufferer to madness—
Once, these creatures were the true rulers of the prison, embodiments of fear. But now, they remained silent, unresponsive to the term "monster," and the one that caught Lockhart's attention most was...the Dementor standing behind Voldemort.
That Dementor seemed somewhat different from the ones he had seen through door cracks before—
Lockhart didn't know how to describe it, but he felt a sense of familiarity with that Dementor...Damn it, why would he feel familiar with a Dementor?
It wasn't like he had ever kissed these creatures...
...
...Gilderoy Lockhart.
After searching his memories for several seconds, William finally retrieved the man's name from the "trash heap" of the crowd.
It wasn't his memory at fault; the man had changed significantly since his time at Hogwarts. Back at school, Lockhart was always dressed in vibrant, eye-catching clothes, always with the most ostentatious ways to attract attention, but now...
No one could instantly connect the despondent middle-aged man to the once spirited fraudster.
However, now, Lockhart seemed to have noticed something?
Under a layer of Dementor's tattered cloth, William's visual perception sharpened, and after brief observation, he quickly decoded Lockhart's facial expressions, guessing that Lockhart had probably sensed something. After all, for effect, his identity-concealing magic was only targeted at Voldemort.
Besides this guy, no one else in the entire Azkaban knew who he was.
He never sent anyone to Azkaban; he preferred sending people to Hell over this place.
But at the same time, William realized that even if Lockhart had truly noticed something, he couldn't trust his brain's assumptions, so he shifted his gaze—
A cold, emotionless sensory network covered the entire area before him.
Below the stage, every wizard's emotional fluctuations were vividly clear—
Fervor, fear, numbness, greed...the "anger" of the parasite atop the platform appeared to him like twisted crimson flames.
Yet the directives to those "monsters" behind had already been issued—silence, wait, William had merged into the Dementors' consciousness network and forcibly seized the GM position, weaving his thoughts into an invisible web controlling those restless creatures.
Wait, then you all shall feast...to your heart's content.
...
Below the stage.
For reasons unknown, a mysterious fear prevented Lockhart from daring to look at those Dementors again. He forced his gaze to fix on the horrifying, creeping tumor on the platform.
Though he had seen it many times, each direct sight of the thing still churned his stomach. Fortunately, his stomach had nothing left for him to vomit, thus avoiding unwanted attention from others.
Staring at that tumor, a thought sprang into Lockhart's mind—
If he really planned to write a book about this experience, should it be titled "My Azkaban Years with the Dark Lord" or "Under the Shadow of Dementors: Confessions of a Faux Death Eater"? Of course, the second title would only be used as a confession if the Death Eaters were defeated...
However, what he should worry more about now is whether he could survive until the "war" ended.
Indeed, Lockhart had foreseen the war looming near.
In fact, his "prophecy" wasn't wrong—
"...they're weak! Decayed! Only capable of playing vile tricks in the Wizengamot court! Throwing my most loyal followers into this land of despair!"
Voldemort's speech continued, filled with inciting hatred. His anger wasn't entirely a facade; every time he recalled William's casual yet profoundly disruptive actions that left him extremely passive and ultimately forced him to parasitize the place, the wrath from the torn soul's aftermath became hard to suppress.
At this moment, he needed chaos to distract those fools until he obtained sacrifices enough to restore his strength...
"I still advise you to hide, Tom, like that cowardly rat Helbo—to earnestly offer advice from someone experienced."
Little Tom's voice rang in Voldemort's ear, sincere yet tinged with obvious sarcasm, "At least we'd live longer, wouldn't we? Unless William could conjure Nicolas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone before dying, my 'Old Man Strategy' would surely prove most effective—"