"Happy? You're about to regain your freedom. The Dark Lord is bringing you home..."
Lys walked while muttering under her breath:
"I don't want this either. You getting out means I—who freed you—must share in the senseless bloodshed on your hands. I've endured that agony before. I refuse to become the very person I despise."
The hollow stairwell gaped open on all sides, howling wind masking Lys's soliloquy.
"But everyone must choose sides, and I'm no exception. I could slaughter all of you—I'm capable of it. I'm willing to eliminate any threat to the peace I crave. Just one curse—what's the bloody difficulty?"
Lys continued her descent, her mumbling directed at either the seawater rushing through stone cracks or the shrieking wind that pierced every gap.
"But as long as he lives, I'll never have the chance to lift my head and say 'no.' Of course I'm terrified—how could I not be?"
"Even with the slightest possibility, I refuse to have my corpse dangling somewhere, the children at home fed to serpents, adults used to demonstrate others' loyalty and allegiance."
"What lies beyond that sea? Where is this fertile land Herpo reached? Why, despite all my efforts to move forward, despite changing so much, can I still not glimpse the end?"
Lys descended the final step and saw Bellatrix, who had long been clutching the bars with white-knuckled desperation, alongside the agitated prisoners in neighboring cells.
Lys heard her own slightly hoarse voice, cold and detached: "The Dark Lord requires your service. He brings you freedom. How utterly enviable..."
Lys raised her wand and approached Bellatrix's cell bars, studying the woman who no longer resembled her once-tall, beautiful self. She pressed her wand tip against Bellatrix's hand. "Bella, don't get so excited. You're still far too weak, aren't you?"
Lys's eyes peered through her mask's openings at Bellatrix's sunken sockets and the bruised darkness surrounding them. "How long since you've slept properly?" Lys's voice dropped to barely a whisper.
Subtle light flickered at Lys's wand tip, carefully concealed by her robe's edge.
Seconds later, Lys stepped back and addressed the prisoners with feigned regret: "I've made an error. Perhaps I should've brought those Aurors' wands down for you—let you savor the pleasure of opening your own cells personally, shouldn't I? Don't fret. We'll return shortly."
Ignoring the desperate pleas behind her—don't leave, free us now—and the grasping arms thrust through bars, Lys turned and vanished up the stairs.
Among the voices she abandoned rose a slow, piercing cackle.
"My lord! My lord came for me! He's returned! Finally returned! I knew it! My! Lord! Hahahahahaha!"
Standing in the fierce gale, Lys plugged one mask opening before asking: "Lucius, what did you need?"
Lucius merely shook his head. "Nothing—it's resolved. Negotiations with the Dementors are concluded. Bloody hell..."
Lucius muttered something nervously and glanced back, as though fearing tattered robes might cling to his shoulders.
When he turned around, he found Lys offering him a substantial piece of chocolate.
"I really—now isn't appropriate, truly. We must hurry. This place—"
"Eat it."
Faced with chocolate Lys tossed directly into his hood, Lucius obediently consumed it, surprised to find the cold receding. He then directed others to bypass the recently satiated Dementors and proceed to the prison.
Lys clutched the Aurors' wands and carelessly hurled the Aurors into the rubble.
She hoped the one feigning unconsciousness possessed some sense—his eyeballs shouldn't roll so obviously beneath closed lids.
Silently wishing them luck, Lys gripped her wand and descended the spiral stairs again, speaking with annoyance that sharply contradicted her mask's cold expression: "Bloody hell, I've botched this. Came down too late, didn't I?"
Just as Lys prepared to perfunctorily discard the wands, a raspy voice called: "Give me a wand. I want to free myself—to reach my lord's side..."
Lys's eye twitched violently. Bellatrix, that deranged woman, always defied convention. Reluctantly, she handed over a confiscated wand and retreated behind the crowd.
When they emerged from the prison, Lys immediately regretted arming that madwoman. After more than a decade, the woman wielding power again cast reckless spells that injured their own forces no less than Lys's accidental friendly fire.
Lys sidled close to Lucius and whispered urgently: "The Ministry will send reinforcements. They'll arrive faster than we can escape."
Actually, Lys had no idea if this was true, but she was utterly sick of sharing ground with Dementors. It made her want to hit that cackling madwoman with Avada Kedavra.
She could barely restrain herself.
"Brother..."
Lys turned back. A windowed cell occupied the far corner—relatively prime real estate in Azkaban.
"Brother..." Within the now-open cell crouched a small figure curled into a tight ball. Lys identified him from the grime-covered nameplate on the door.
Little Barty Crouch Jr. and his brother's cell. His brother's name bore disturbing notation—
Deceased 1990
Lys recalled the trial's bright, well-behaved youth and the young man who'd tearfully rolled up his brother's sleeve, then studied the figure before her. "Aren't you leaving?"
Perhaps no one had spoken to him for too long. He only reacted as Lys prepared to depart, asking: "Was I wrong?"
Lys's robe hem swayed as she repeated: "Aren't you leaving?"
"Leaving—yes, leaving. But I must bring my brother. Where's my brother?"
Lys considered the crude graveyard behind this structure. Without addressing his persistent "Was I wrong?" she seized his shirt collar—practically hardened into cardboard—and led him to the cemetery.
"As long as you can bear the consequences, there's no right or wrong."
Ultimately, Lys returned alone to Lucius's signal point. She'd left little Crouch with a wand.
As Lys turned away, she thought she heard feathers falling... or perhaps someone remaining at the ocean's depths...
But reality offered only fierce wind whistling through her mask's openings, producing sharp, piercing shrieks.
Lucius glanced behind Lys, frowned, then turned back and led everyone away across the water.
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