"It's true," Michael said. "I accidentally heard him talking to Professor Flitwick this morning. He was originally just temporarily replacing Professor Abigail's work, only planning to teach for half a semester."
"Will Professor Abigail be back next semester?" Theo asked hopefully.
"Probably not." Michael shrugged. "Rumor has it that Professor Dumbledore has already decided on a new professor candidate, who will be a very powerful wizard."
"I just hope he can stay a bit longer," Theo said wistfully. "Feels like our Defense Against the Dark Arts professors are changing faster and faster."
"But they're also getting better, aren't they?" Michael said optimistically. "Don't worry, Dumbledore definitely has plans."
Suddenly, he noticed someone was unusually silent in the compartment and asked proactively, "Vid, do you have any plans for the holiday? Want to go see the World Cup together?"
Vid snapped back to reality, saying, "I need to visit someone first... then, if time permits, I might go to watch the World Cup finals."
"If possible, I don't want to miss a single game," Michael said. "My dad bought a full set of tickets! This summer, I'll basically be living around the tournament area!"
Theo and Leian were somewhat envious; their families had other plans, and they couldn't go to watch until the end of June.
The group eagerly discussed each participating team, debated the famous players and past records, and speculated on which team could win the final championship.
Recently, "Prophet Daily" is full of reports on the World Cup, listing all the teams' intelligence, and the group pulls out newspapers from their bags to strengthen their arguments.
The excited discussion beside him gradually blurred into somewhat noisy background noise, as the stone necklace in Vid's pocket felt heavy. Looking at the distant mountains, for some reason, his eyes felt slightly moist.
He resisted the impulse to take out the necklace and enter that corridor again and casually unwrapped a candy and popped it into his mouth. The candy crunched into fragments, the sweetness spreading slowly in his mouth, stimulating the brain to release a thin bit of dopamine.
...
Amid the icy seawater, a grand fortress stood isolated on a lonely island. From behind the heavy iron walls, creepy sounds occasionally emerged—
Whispers, moans, screams, mad laughter, and painful sobbing entwined, mixed with the chilling wind, forming a nearly insane noise.
Bullock was the Ministry of Magic official in charge of prison management and maintaining the magic barrier. Once his term ended after three years, he could leave. Now he only needed to stay on the island for another year and a half, yet Bullock already felt he was about to go insane.
The man shoveled two loads of coal into the fireplace, tightened his coat, and crouched in front of the crackling flames, staring dazedly at the flickering fire.
In such an environment, time seemed to lose all significance. No knowing how much time passed, a bolt of lightning suddenly pierced the darkness, followed by the rumbling thunder.
Bullock shivered, peering through a palm-sized hole in the wall, he saw a dense mass of black silhouettes flying eerily in the lightning-illuminated sky, bringing a piercing cold from a great distance.
"Dementors... Why did the Dementors return so soon?"
Bullock's heart began to race unconsciously, and he quickly rushed to the wall, gripping a lever, nervously staring at the Dementors flying all over.
Thunder rumbled, lightning snaked across the sky, dark and bright by turns, those flickering figures appearing increasingly terrifying.
The lever in Bullock's hand was his strongest assurance for staying in this place—long ago when the Dementors became Azkaban's guards, the Ministry of Magic set up a potent magical device here.
In this room where Dementors could not enter, as long as the warden pulled down the lever, tremendous magical energy would erupt around Azkaban, leaving even the Dementors devastated or severely injured.
As Bullock nervously gulped, suddenly, he saw a carriage racing through the sky toward him, bearing familiar flags and emblems of the British Ministry of Magic.
Bullock breathed a sigh of relief, silently released the lever. Once the carriage landed on the nearby platform and a wizard jumped out of the carriage, he opened the door of the management room.
The wizard rushed into the management room drenched in rainwater, shook off the water droplets on his coat, and complained, "This damn weather, these damn Dementors! Thank Merlin, this tough assignment is finally ending!"
He took a roll of parchment from his pocket and handed it to Bullock, saying, "Hand over! The Ministry's order; those creatures' search mission is over, they're returning to Azkaban."
Bullock unfurled the parchment, carefully examining the seals and magic on it, and casually asked, "Did you catch the escaped prisoner?"
"No! We didn't find a single one of those three rats! These Dementors are utterly useless! They even attacked passersby several times, causing us a lot of trouble."
Touching on this topic made the Ministry official vent full of complaints: "I say, this top-down decision is downright idiotic! Requiring to catch prisoners while keeping them away from people—do they expect prisoners to stand in the open fields waiting for us to catch them? Peter Pettigrew's Animagus transformation is so convenient; he's definitely hiding in his city's sewers!"
His thick frustration almost materialized, making Bullock, who had felt suppressed all day, feel a slight sense of superiority.
He said, "Weren't we supposed to find the Obscurus? That one we at least found, right?"
"No, they gave a false alert once, then they just drifted wildly across the UK, even trying to head for the other side of the sea for a time! Thankfully I stopped them quickly! I think they were just trying to escape!"
The Ministry official cursed a good while longer and then asked, "Is it done? Once these monsters are sent inside, I'll be on my way!"
Hearing he was about to leave, Bullock's mood, which had just improved a bit, again felt dreary. He painstakingly checked the orders three to four times before reluctantly asking, "Since nothing has been captured, why is the mission ending?"
"It's because of the World Cup! All the wizards worldwide are coming to watch the matches, and there's no way to let a group of creatures that feed on happiness run around! The matches start on the fifteenth; the Ministry managed to chase the Dementors off the mainland on the fourteenth, and that's already late!"
The official urged multiple times, and in the end, Bullock completed the handover, watching the hot-tempered official scurry into the carriage to escape. The Pegasus let out a long neigh, galloping into the sky with the carriage, stepping on air.
Bullock stood before the small window, watching the carriage's departing silhouette, letting out a long sigh.
He waved his magic wand, sealing off the management chamber, then dragged his heavy steps back to the fireplace, wrapped in a black sheepskin blanket like a large lump of coal.
...
The Dementors inside the prison suddenly doubled, and the prisoners who had spent a few months in "good days" began howling miserably one after another, and subsequently in the Dementors' sucking sounds, the vast prison gradually quieted down, leaving only faint whimpers and sobs.
The Dementors with rings on their fingers drifted past each prison, eventually stopping at the deepest cell.
Inside the iron bars, a woman with matted hair shot a ghastly and insane look. She squatted on the floor and rocked back and forth as if completely deranged. Upon seeing the Dementor, instead of terror like other prisoners, she grinned, revealing a sinister smile.
The Dementor stood silently for a while.
It remembered it was supposed to find this woman—Bellatrix Lestrange. But why was it supposed to find her?
After pondering briefly with its not-so-brilliant mind, the Dementor concluded: probably to prevent her from escaping as well?
After all, of the prisoners who haven't gone insane after more than ten years, there are only a few, all deemed high-risk in the Magic World.
The Dementor opened its mouth, took a slow, deep breath, a subtle, intangible essence flowing into its mouth through the air.
Bella's throat emitted a gurgling sound, she struggled to prop herself up, seemingly trying to stop something. Moments later, she rolled her eyes and fainted directly.
Considering for a moment, the Dementor decided not to ignore the prisoners in the adjacent cell either. So it drifted from cell to cell, and soon, everyone was silent.
The Dementor stood blankly in the center of the corridor, its body still filled with intense hunger, longing, and resentment; it hadn't been satisfied from feeding moments ago.
It could never be satisfied.