A HP fic - A Warning
A WARNING
Cornelius Fudge was thinking about Azkaban. He was thinking of the storms that perpetually battered the place, of the wrecks of fishing boats and other ships that slept restlessly where the rocky reefs that ringed the island had bitten and torn into them, of the ghosts of Muggle sailors and travelers seeking for their home forever in vain. He was thinking of the worse thing that lay beyond the killing and haunted rocks, if you could only navigate through them: of the abyss where soul and body were both lost, where, even if you are a powerful Wizard with equally powerful companions on an official visit, you can always smell the dozens - hundreds - thousands of hungry, leering voids slobbering for you, waiting for the opportunity - and forever spreading around them the terror of empty, greedy hunger.
And he was thinking of the kind of wizard it took to govern that horror. For it took a particular kind of wizard. There were sports - freaks - one in ten thousand, maybe, who could live with the Dementors day after day unaffected, who did not feel the fear of their void or the horror of their greed. And as Azkaban needed to be kept under control for the Ministry, a wizard needed to be in charge. One of them…
“Send him in,” said Fudge to his personal guard.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The man who came in was long and lean, in all his parts - lanky arms and legs; bony hands and fingers with thick joints that looked carved out of wood; a long bony face with a long high-bridged nose, eyes that smoldered darkly under heavy and prominent brows. His brownish complexion also reminded one of thick-grained wood, hard and impenetrable. His clothes were of his own designing, a strange arrangement of long strips, mostly black or grey, heavily marked with magic signs, and woven and knotted into something that covered the whole body. His name was Kau Tezai, and he had come from a long distance away to take charge of the wizarding prison.
“Mr.Minister, my homages,” said the Warden politely, bowing from the waist with his hands half-opened in a curious motion before his chest. “Welcome, Mr.Warden,” answered Fudge in a voice from which he managed to keep anger and disgust away. “You wanted a confidential conversation?”
“Yes, Mr.Minister. I have some things to tell you, which perhaps are not ripe for public consumption.”
Fudge’s attention sharpened.
“Mr.Minister, you have been in Azkaban a few times.”
“Yes, I have.”
“And you have had some opportunity to observe the strange effect of constant contact with Dementors on wizard prisoners, I imagine.”
“I suppose so. At least, I have seen them drool, or talk uncontrollably, or be silent and wild-eyed.”
“Oh, yes, yes… these things and others. But you noticed that uncontrolled talk is one of the symptoms.”
Fudge nodded.
“Well, Minister, I spend days and nights in that place. And I spend more time in the castle, keeping watch, than in my office, because Dementors can’t be trusted and need constant supervision.” Warden Tezai stopped, to make sure that the import of what he was saying sank in properly. “I hear the prisoners’ babble, Minister, hear it constantly.
“Now let me remind you of who it is that we have in custody there. A good third of my charges are lifers captured when Lord Voldemort’s” - here Fudge openly shuddered - “first organization collapsed. There was such an intake of prisoners at that time that we had to recruit extra Dementors to perform all the ordinary duties of the jail.
“Not many of them do much by way of talking, Minister, which is why it took me so long to be certain of what I have to tell you. In general, they are hate-ridden fanatics, holding on to their sense of superiority to stay sane and keep control of themselves. Pride, corrosive, murderous pride, such as they cultivated in the days of their power… pride is not a happy feeling. It has more to do with jealousy, and with a rather miserable kind of hatred, than with anything else. The Dementors cannot take it from them, cannot feed on it or metabolize it. You remember, that was what we suggested might account for Sirius Black’s remarkable endurance.”
Fudge nodded. Behind his shielded face, however, these sentences were rousing some rather irritable and unsettling thoughts.
There had been debate about Azkaban in the corridors of Government, of late. There was a suggestion going around - many people seemed to be repeating it in their own words - that Azkaban was counterproductive: that the Dementors destroyed exactly those characteristics of culprits that a wise prison policy would want to foster - pleasure in life, cheerfulness, respect for oneself and for others. Fudge was sure that Dumbledore was behind this - it showed signs of becoming a campaign - even though he never heard the old wizard stating the view himself. But the polemic spread so fast. He had heard many people - and not just the usual suspects, either - say that the Dementors were vicious in and of themselves, that they left in their wake ruined husks of men and women, and that it demeaned justice itself to be allied with such creatures. To which he always felt like answering - since you do not want Dementors to watch these dregs of the wizarding world, would you do it yourself? Would you volunteer? Of course not. These people, Fudge felt, were always ready to make all sorts of moral demands from the guys at the frontline, witches or wizards, to be more righteous; never to take their place - never, never, to get their hands dirty. Fudge had been silent and polite whenever such attitudes were expressed; his feelings, kept well shielded from his interlocutors, had been pure disgust. And if the truth be told - Fudge was not yet ready to acknowledge this, even to himself - but his anger on this matter was no longer ready to spare even Dumbledore himself.
It’s not as though you were dealing with common or garden problems. Those men and women in Azkaban were not ordinary; nobody was sent to the awful island unless they were felt to be of a depth of corruption that made them a danger for ever. Fudge did not know if the Devil existed, but if he did, he surely could not be worse than some of those jailbirds. He thought of Bellatrix Black, Voldemort’s mad torturer; of her cousin Sirius Black, who murdered a whole street full of Muggles and burst out laughing when he saw what he had done. Surely, he thought, mere contact with such creatures must be polluting. Their fun, their satisfactions, their ambitions, must be so wholly depraved, that even their conversation was a threat. Fudge had felt this himself; the ugly attraction of degeneracy, the sense of another world - a world of red, pulsating, vile, but intense and fiery life, of living as normal humans do not. He had felt it again and again when questioning Voldemort’s scattered followers before their trials. He did not want to feel it again.
His mind turned again, with a conscious effort, to Warden Tezai, who was beginning to set out the things he had heard from collapsed and delirious Death eaters. What a repulsive feel he had, thought Cornelius Fudge; like a deathbird morphed into a human. If he were an Animagus, Fudge would sure that the Warden would turn into a vulture.
“To make a long story short, Minister, I made a chart of all the utterances recorded by members of the enemy party, and I think you will find it interesting.”
Behind his studied poker face, Fudge was already wishing for this interview to be over; it dragged unbearably. So a few Death Eaters had definitely implicated Lucius Malfoy; so what? He was definitely implicated - last time, when he was under the Imperio curse. It would take a lot more - though Fudge did not admit this to himself - to make him disbelieve Malfoy, forsake his charming conversation, and last but not least pain his dazzling wife. And they were not the only ones either… too many people Fudge knew and liked. This struck him as a deliberate Enemy attempt to smear the whole leadership of the -
“PETTIGREW?”
“Quite, Mr.Minister. It does seem to be an important strand of the Death Eaters’ collective memory, that Pettigrew had not died, that he was a Death Eater, that he had betrayed the Dark Lord and led him to his doom, and that he was hiding somewhere as an Animagus.” The Warden fell silent for a second. “There is a remarkable consistency to many of these statements. They were made by people who had nothing to do with each other.”
“Well, listen, man, that cannot be right! Pettigrew’s death was witnessed by both Muggles and wizards. What is more, I happen to know that he was barely above Squib level. Even supposing for a minute that he could conceive of a plan to fake his own death, he did not in a million years have the power to mass-murder Muggles, let alone make himself an Animagus! Do you know how many registered Animagi are there? Do you know what level of power and skill it takes to become one?”
“I know all those things, Minister. I also have an idea how many unregistered Animagi there are - and they are rather more than you seem to believe. Anyway, it is just because it seems so unlikely that I arranged this collection of data. You have to understand that it is practically unheard of for so many prisoners to have similar dreams and nightmares, unless they refer to reality.”
Warden Tezai’s tone lost Fudge completely. He already did not like the man, and hated the freak gift that allowed him to live calmly where normal wizards would rave or die. But the tone he unconsciously took now, as of a schoolmaster explaining things to a somewhat backward child - that might as well have been calculated to anger him. A Minister of Magic does not enjoy being treated as a clueless teen-ager. Fudge’s mind shut itself.
“Very well, Warden,” said he in a neutral tone - ever the politician. “I have taken vision of your evidence, and, unlikely though it may seem, I will keep it into consideration. I am grateful for the trouble you have taken with this…. I think we will agree to keep your findings secret for the time being.”
“Indeed, Minister,” answered Tezai. “Should they turn out to be true, it would never do for the Enemy to get wind of our knowledge of them.” Neutral for neutral, false face for false face; if Fudge did not want to show what he felt and physically throw him out, then neither did Tezai want to show that he had seen right through him, and that he knew he had wasted his time. With a few conventionally courteous words, he left.
It was still months before Sirius Black made his celebrated jailbreak; almost a whole year before a few members of Dumbledore’s inner circle became aware that he was innocent; two and a half before a revolt of Dementors wiped out Azkaban and released dozens of the most murderous followers of Voldemort. But it was then, seeing that Fudge had closed his mind, that Warden Tezai resigned himself to the certainty of his death. That was why he did not try to resign when, in the wake of Black’s escape, he easily could have. He did not relax his watchfulness or his distrust of Dementors. But he knew - for great things arise from small beginnings - that war must be, and that the Dementors would betray the Ministry; he knew that whoever stood in their way would die; and he knew that if he did not die at their hands, someone else would.
Three years later, the revolt being safely over, Ministry forces took back deserted Azkaban. But they never could find Warden Tezai’s body.
Cornelius Fudge was thinking about Azkaban. He was thinking of the storms that perpetually battered the place, of the wrecks of fishing boats and other ships that slept restlessly where the rocky reefs that ringed the island had bitten and torn into them, of the ghosts of Muggle sailors and travelers seeking for their home forever in vain. He was thinking of the worse thing that lay beyond the killing and haunted rocks, if you could only navigate through them: of the abyss where soul and body were both lost, where, even if you are a powerful Wizard with equally powerful companions on an official visit, you can always smell the dozens - hundreds - thousands of hungry, leering voids slobbering for you, waiting for the opportunity - and forever spreading around them the terror of empty, greedy hunger.
And he was thinking of the kind of wizard it took to govern that horror. For it took a particular kind of wizard. There were sports - freaks - one in ten thousand, maybe, who could live with the Dementors day after day unaffected, who did not feel the fear of their void or the horror of their greed. And as Azkaban needed to be kept under control for the Ministry, a wizard needed to be in charge. One of them…
“Send him in,” said Fudge to his personal guard.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The man who came in was long and lean, in all his parts - lanky arms and legs; bony hands and fingers with thick joints that looked carved out of wood; a long bony face with a long high-bridged nose, eyes that smoldered darkly under heavy and prominent brows. His brownish complexion also reminded one of thick-grained wood, hard and impenetrable. His clothes were of his own designing, a strange arrangement of long strips, mostly black or grey, heavily marked with magic signs, and woven and knotted into something that covered the whole body. His name was Kau Tezai, and he had come from a long distance away to take charge of the wizarding prison.
“Mr.Minister, my homages,” said the Warden politely, bowing from the waist with his hands half-opened in a curious motion before his chest. “Welcome, Mr.Warden,” answered Fudge in a voice from which he managed to keep anger and disgust away. “You wanted a confidential conversation?”
“Yes, Mr.Minister. I have some things to tell you, which perhaps are not ripe for public consumption.”
Fudge’s attention sharpened.
“Mr.Minister, you have been in Azkaban a few times.”
“Yes, I have.”
“And you have had some opportunity to observe the strange effect of constant contact with Dementors on wizard prisoners, I imagine.”
“I suppose so. At least, I have seen them drool, or talk uncontrollably, or be silent and wild-eyed.”
“Oh, yes, yes… these things and others. But you noticed that uncontrolled talk is one of the symptoms.”
Fudge nodded.
“Well, Minister, I spend days and nights in that place. And I spend more time in the castle, keeping watch, than in my office, because Dementors can’t be trusted and need constant supervision.” Warden Tezai stopped, to make sure that the import of what he was saying sank in properly. “I hear the prisoners’ babble, Minister, hear it constantly.
“Now let me remind you of who it is that we have in custody there. A good third of my charges are lifers captured when Lord Voldemort’s” - here Fudge openly shuddered - “first organization collapsed. There was such an intake of prisoners at that time that we had to recruit extra Dementors to perform all the ordinary duties of the jail.
“Not many of them do much by way of talking, Minister, which is why it took me so long to be certain of what I have to tell you. In general, they are hate-ridden fanatics, holding on to their sense of superiority to stay sane and keep control of themselves. Pride, corrosive, murderous pride, such as they cultivated in the days of their power… pride is not a happy feeling. It has more to do with jealousy, and with a rather miserable kind of hatred, than with anything else. The Dementors cannot take it from them, cannot feed on it or metabolize it. You remember, that was what we suggested might account for Sirius Black’s remarkable endurance.”
Fudge nodded. Behind his shielded face, however, these sentences were rousing some rather irritable and unsettling thoughts.
There had been debate about Azkaban in the corridors of Government, of late. There was a suggestion going around - many people seemed to be repeating it in their own words - that Azkaban was counterproductive: that the Dementors destroyed exactly those characteristics of culprits that a wise prison policy would want to foster - pleasure in life, cheerfulness, respect for oneself and for others. Fudge was sure that Dumbledore was behind this - it showed signs of becoming a campaign - even though he never heard the old wizard stating the view himself. But the polemic spread so fast. He had heard many people - and not just the usual suspects, either - say that the Dementors were vicious in and of themselves, that they left in their wake ruined husks of men and women, and that it demeaned justice itself to be allied with such creatures. To which he always felt like answering - since you do not want Dementors to watch these dregs of the wizarding world, would you do it yourself? Would you volunteer? Of course not. These people, Fudge felt, were always ready to make all sorts of moral demands from the guys at the frontline, witches or wizards, to be more righteous; never to take their place - never, never, to get their hands dirty. Fudge had been silent and polite whenever such attitudes were expressed; his feelings, kept well shielded from his interlocutors, had been pure disgust. And if the truth be told - Fudge was not yet ready to acknowledge this, even to himself - but his anger on this matter was no longer ready to spare even Dumbledore himself.
It’s not as though you were dealing with common or garden problems. Those men and women in Azkaban were not ordinary; nobody was sent to the awful island unless they were felt to be of a depth of corruption that made them a danger for ever. Fudge did not know if the Devil existed, but if he did, he surely could not be worse than some of those jailbirds. He thought of Bellatrix Black, Voldemort’s mad torturer; of her cousin Sirius Black, who murdered a whole street full of Muggles and burst out laughing when he saw what he had done. Surely, he thought, mere contact with such creatures must be polluting. Their fun, their satisfactions, their ambitions, must be so wholly depraved, that even their conversation was a threat. Fudge had felt this himself; the ugly attraction of degeneracy, the sense of another world - a world of red, pulsating, vile, but intense and fiery life, of living as normal humans do not. He had felt it again and again when questioning Voldemort’s scattered followers before their trials. He did not want to feel it again.
His mind turned again, with a conscious effort, to Warden Tezai, who was beginning to set out the things he had heard from collapsed and delirious Death eaters. What a repulsive feel he had, thought Cornelius Fudge; like a deathbird morphed into a human. If he were an Animagus, Fudge would sure that the Warden would turn into a vulture.
“To make a long story short, Minister, I made a chart of all the utterances recorded by members of the enemy party, and I think you will find it interesting.”
Behind his studied poker face, Fudge was already wishing for this interview to be over; it dragged unbearably. So a few Death Eaters had definitely implicated Lucius Malfoy; so what? He was definitely implicated - last time, when he was under the Imperio curse. It would take a lot more - though Fudge did not admit this to himself - to make him disbelieve Malfoy, forsake his charming conversation, and last but not least pain his dazzling wife. And they were not the only ones either… too many people Fudge knew and liked. This struck him as a deliberate Enemy attempt to smear the whole leadership of the -
“PETTIGREW?”
“Quite, Mr.Minister. It does seem to be an important strand of the Death Eaters’ collective memory, that Pettigrew had not died, that he was a Death Eater, that he had betrayed the Dark Lord and led him to his doom, and that he was hiding somewhere as an Animagus.” The Warden fell silent for a second. “There is a remarkable consistency to many of these statements. They were made by people who had nothing to do with each other.”
“Well, listen, man, that cannot be right! Pettigrew’s death was witnessed by both Muggles and wizards. What is more, I happen to know that he was barely above Squib level. Even supposing for a minute that he could conceive of a plan to fake his own death, he did not in a million years have the power to mass-murder Muggles, let alone make himself an Animagus! Do you know how many registered Animagi are there? Do you know what level of power and skill it takes to become one?”
“I know all those things, Minister. I also have an idea how many unregistered Animagi there are - and they are rather more than you seem to believe. Anyway, it is just because it seems so unlikely that I arranged this collection of data. You have to understand that it is practically unheard of for so many prisoners to have similar dreams and nightmares, unless they refer to reality.”
Warden Tezai’s tone lost Fudge completely. He already did not like the man, and hated the freak gift that allowed him to live calmly where normal wizards would rave or die. But the tone he unconsciously took now, as of a schoolmaster explaining things to a somewhat backward child - that might as well have been calculated to anger him. A Minister of Magic does not enjoy being treated as a clueless teen-ager. Fudge’s mind shut itself.
“Very well, Warden,” said he in a neutral tone - ever the politician. “I have taken vision of your evidence, and, unlikely though it may seem, I will keep it into consideration. I am grateful for the trouble you have taken with this…. I think we will agree to keep your findings secret for the time being.”
“Indeed, Minister,” answered Tezai. “Should they turn out to be true, it would never do for the Enemy to get wind of our knowledge of them.” Neutral for neutral, false face for false face; if Fudge did not want to show what he felt and physically throw him out, then neither did Tezai want to show that he had seen right through him, and that he knew he had wasted his time. With a few conventionally courteous words, he left.
It was still months before Sirius Black made his celebrated jailbreak; almost a whole year before a few members of Dumbledore’s inner circle became aware that he was innocent; two and a half before a revolt of Dementors wiped out Azkaban and released dozens of the most murderous followers of Voldemort. But it was then, seeing that Fudge had closed his mind, that Warden Tezai resigned himself to the certainty of his death. That was why he did not try to resign when, in the wake of Black’s escape, he easily could have. He did not relax his watchfulness or his distrust of Dementors. But he knew - for great things arise from small beginnings - that war must be, and that the Dementors would betray the Ministry; he knew that whoever stood in their way would die; and he knew that if he did not die at their hands, someone else would.
Three years later, the revolt being safely over, Ministry forces took back deserted Azkaban. But they never could find Warden Tezai’s body.