The Day After

The Warden of Azkaban sat slumping in his chair. His head lay buried in his hands as he sagged wearily and miserably across his desk.

Bloody wonderful. He finally had a chance to rest - but rest was one thing he could not get. The events of last night finally had a chance as well - a chance to catch up with him. And he was feeling the full toll.

It had been the worst night of his entire career as Warden of Azkaban. For that matter, it was the worst night in the whole of Azkaban history. Furious, scowling, deeply ashamed or embarrassed, and in some cases, weeping, portraits of his predecessors attested to that. From all corners of his office, the Warden could feel the walls glaring down on him. All night they had been raging, cursing, crying, buried their heads under their portraits in shame, or just sat in plain, dumbfounded astonishment. Now most of them had settled for cold, harsh silence except for the odd curse, snarl or sob. Or maybe they, like the Warden himself, were just too plain exhausted to shriek and rage anymore. They, like the Warden, should have spent the night sleeping, but the worst night in Azkaban history had kept them screaming all night. Just as it had kept the Warden himself up all night. Whatever the reasons for their respective demeanors, they all shared the same common denominator - none of them would speak to the Warden.

But the Warden couldn’t care less about that. Right now, it was the least of his worries.

Escape from Azkaban.

That was supposed to be impossible.

That was what everyone believed.

That was what everyone had always said.

That was what Azkaban had always held itself proud for since the day of its founding.

That was what the Warden himself, just like the Wardens before him, was always telling new prisoners in the most definitive tones - “there is no escape from Azkaban.“

And everything attested to “no escape from Azkaban.“

It was not just because prisoners were locked up in a fortress surrounded by guards, stone walls, bars and charms, in the very north of the North Sea, where they were surrounded by volumes of icy, chilling water that would freeze them to death long before any sight of the mainland. It was because the very thought of freedom, and escaping to freedom, were happy thoughts. And everyone knew that Dementors sucked all happy thoughts out of the prisoners, and rendering them incapable of thinking a single one. Therefore none of them could even think of escape. Before long, most of them were so crazy that they had no coherent thoughts left at all, much less direct any in the direction of escape.

But last night the impossible had happened. The Warden had been sitting quietly over his Evening Prophet when the klaxons had sounded. That alone had been most startling. So little happened at Azkaban that having the prison alarms sounding at all was a most rare thing indeed. When the Warden heard them go off, he could only assume one thing - they had intruders. This had been quite common in the days of You-Know-Who; His armies trying to break in to liberate their comrades, or even to destroy Azkaban itself. But these days it was so rare. The only other time they had the alarms was when the Warden wanted to give the security a little test. But this was no test, and in seconds the Warden had whipped out the wizard equivalent of a portable radio, demanding to know what the hell was going on.

Words could not describe how he felt when the reply rasped through:

“Sir, it’s Sirius Black! He’s escaped from his cell!”

The Warden was so stupefied that he was a Muggle automaton when he arrived at the cellblock some minutes later.

Cellblock D.

“D” for Dire, Deadly, Deatheater, Dreadful, Dreaded, Disgusting - you name it. This was not just because of the conditions which cannot bear mentioning here, but because it housed the very worst of the worst of the convicts in all the wizard world. They and Cellblock D deserved one another. They were all here; Mulciber, Travers, Rookwood, the Lestranges, Dolohov…the most dangerous, and infamous followers of You-Know-Who. These scumbags and Cellblock D deserved one another. So they were all lumped together in Cellblock D - only on this night, there was one exception.

Guards were swarming around one glaringly empty cell. They were now expanding their search to include the rest of Cellblock D. Some of them were still scouring every inch of the cell, getting more and more desperate to find one single clue as to how Black had done it. Searching, probing for traces of any spells, hidden tunnels, anything that might bear some hint as to how Black had done it. They might have been more successful if they were a Muggle forensic team. They could rake the filth and muck of the cell for any clue that might be buried within. Most certainly it would have been a daunting task, finding any clues amid such layers of filth. All the same, they could have found bits of doggy hair that should not have been there, and maybe even faint traces of paw marks imprinted in the dirt. But wizard guards did not think like Muggle forensic teams. Their policy was to tear the cell apart looking for magic signatures, and were quite oblivious that they might be destroying any clues hidden within the dirt.

The guard who had raised the alarm just about jumped out of his skin when he saw the Warden facing him. He seemed to shrivel before the Warden’s very eyes - not to mention the scowls of his fellow guards - and could only stammer and cower. But the Warden was having none of it. He seized the man by the collar and shook him until the man managed to muster enough fortitude to stutter:

“I-I was doing my r-round when-when I saw Black hadn’t t-touched his food. I-I thought that was odd. You know he eats r-regular. Maybe he-he’d st-stopped eating, maybe he was s-sick or something. I opened up and-and w-went over to his c-cot. But-but there was n-nothing there but-but his blanket. I looked around, no sign of him. No-nothing in the cell, nothing in the c-corridor - it was like he’d dis-dis-disapparated-”

“You can’t disapparate in Azkaban, Harrison! You know that perfectly well!”

“I-I know, sir, but it was like he had! Anyway, that’s when I called the alarm.“

From then on it was utter chaos and increasingly-frantic searches of Black’s cell, Cellblock D, the fortress itself. Nothing, nothing, nothing…only swarming, angry Dementors, furious at being cheated of their prey. Wizard guards swirling and cursing in rage in frustration. Deatheaters watching, laughing and jeering from their cell doors. Bellatrix Lestrange was the worst. From the depths of her cell, the Warden could hear her cursing and shrieking on how her foul, blood traitor cousin should escape Azkaban while she, a true pureblood, was left to rot here…

The Warden briefly wondered why she wasn’t celebrating that her cousin, the most loyal servant of You-Know-Who, was free at last, free to pursue their Master…but he quickly shrugged it off. It all showed how insane she had become. And frankly, he was more concerned with wondering why none of the other Deatheaters had escaped as well. Why had Black not taken any of them along with him? And then a most horrible thought came him - suppose Black did come back, perhaps even with You-Know-Who himself, and free his fellow Deatheaters? For the first time that night, the Warden shivered with true terror. Those awful days when the klaxons were set off to herald intruders from You-Know-Who looked set to return…only when a Deatheater cursed at him, did the Warden realise that he had been violently sick right in front of his cell door.

But the thing the Warden dreaded most was yet to come.

And here it was.

The Warden almost preferred to meet You-Know-Who than this blustering, flustered fellow who represented the Ministry and its incompetence. But here he was in the flesh. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself. A blustering, pompous idiot, the Warden had always thought of Fudge. Pompous and blustering he was now. Fudge was pale and blushing by turns; his mouth stammered and flapped like he didn’t know what to say; his eyes round with terror and dread; and still he was that pompous, blustering idiot who couldn’t run his house-elf, much less the Ministry of Magic. Yet now the Warden found himself shriveling before Fudge as much as Harrison had shriveled before him. Shriveling before the biggest idiot in the history of the Ministry of Magic. What a come down.

Only - who would come out the bigger idiot when word got out to the Press? The Warden already had a very nasty feeling about that. Fudge would come out the biggest idiot - and he, the Warden of Azkaban, was going to come out as the biggest scapegoat for Fudge’s idiocy.

*~*~*

Rays of the light before true dawn broke now filtered through the window in the Warden’s office on the day after. The Warden slumped even further over his desk, his mind a numb blank and his body feeling like a stunned jellyfish. All he could do right now was stare blankly at The Daily Prophet lying on his desk. Staring back at him was the mugshot of a wizard who shrieked “No! No! No!” as he clutched the plate bearing his Azkaban prison number and wrestle with the guards who kept restraining the deranged newcomer while they snapped the mugshot. Now that same mugshot had come back to haunt him. Although there was no scorn in that mugshot, it now seemed to be mocking him from the front page. And to make it even worse, the Warden was to find that there was no escape from that mugshot. Back on the mainland, that mugshot would be everywhere he turned; an inescapable reminder of Azkaban’s greatest failure. Its greatest failure was now emblazoned in You-Know-Who-size lettering across the front page above the mocking mugshot:

ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN!

That was supposed to be impossible.

That was what everyone believed. That was what everyone always said. That was what Azkaban had been so proud of. That was what the Warden, like the Wardens before him, was always telling new prisoners.

Until last night.

What had Azkaban to be proud of now?

The Warden had only skimmed over the ensuing article, but had read enough to know that the Ministry had mouthed as many platitudes it could to the Press to deflect any blame from itself as much as it could - or maybe to allay fears that You-Know-Who himself was responsible. Fudge was stressing “dark magic unknown”, or “outside help from Deatheaters” as the most likely cause of Black’s breakout. However, the Warden had yet another nasty feeling that none of this was going to allay any accusations of incompetence on part of the Ministry - or himself or his staff - for this whole sorry affair.

He didn’t think that Fudge’s reassurances that they “we are doing everything we can to catch Black” would do anything much either. Translated, “we are doing everything we can” meant “we can’t do a damn thing. Certainly not while Fudge is around, anyway”.

Last night Fudge himself bore indisputable proof of that by stamping his own mark of bungling idiot on the hunt for Black. He just wouldn’t listen to reports that there was no trace of Black anywhere on the island. Over and over again he insisted that the fortress, the island, every square inch be searched and searched over and over again. Wasting time over and over again - time they could have better spent getting teams of Aurors, Hit Wizards and Unspeakables on Black’s trail. Search the oceans for any sign of Black, try to work out where he might have ended up had he tried to swim for it, search the skies in case he got access to a broom somehow, set up the Department of Magical Transportation to search for traces of any unauthorized Portkeys. Instead, they had been wasting time obliging that idiot Fudge in searching and searching the fortress. The same time that Black, no doubt, had been putting to good use in getting further and further away from Azkaban. Now, thanks to Fudge’s bungling, Black had been given all the more time to make a clean getaway. He had probably reached the mainland by now. Or even long since. The Warden grinded his teeth all the more furiously. Black had been given all the more time to make a clean getaway thanks to that idiot Fudge - but he, the Warden, was probably going to take the blame. Bloody lovely.

The Warden glanced at the newspaper again. He had suddenly noticed that the newspaper had omitted the most telling clue of all. Just before Black escaped, the guards had been reporting that Black had been talking in his sleep for the past few days. He kept saying, “He’s at Hogwarts” over and over. Well, that could only mean one thing - Black was heading for Hogwarts. To kill the Boy who Lived, no doubt. But there was not the faintest mention of this in the paper. The Warden scowled in further contempt. This was Fudge’s idea, no doubt. To avoid a panic, Fudge would say. To avoid further embarrassment, he meant. Not only was Fudge the biggest idiot the Ministry had ever had but he was a contemptuous, bureaucratic coward.

The Warden shoved the newspaper away in utter disgust. Still, it had finally roused the Warden from his slouching. And now he had suddenly thought of one other thing he could do. He pulled out his wand and pointed at the shelves bearing all the prison records:

“Accio file Sirius Black!”

The file in question jerked off the shelf and he snatched it in mid-air.

The Warden had been filling out this same file on an annual basis for years. But never had he bothered reading it from cover to cover before. He gnashed his teeth again, cursing himself. If only he had…maybe he could have picked up on something that might have prevented this whole bloody fiasco.

But oh, the wonders of hindsight. Since when did he read a prisoner’s file from cover to cover?

He already knew that Sirius Black had been one of the strangest prisoners he had ever seen. Most prisoners here went mad in weeks, some only in a matter of days - but Black had been here twelve years and still seemed to be sane. Fudge had commented during his last visit that he was most shocked at how sane, merely bored, Black seemed to be. Then again, madness could take many forms. The mad could sometimes be deceptively sane…mask of sanity.

Yet as he pored back over the files, the Warden had indeed noticed a pattern. At first Black had seemed like everyone else who got dumped here. He well remembered the night Black had arrived. The man looked already mad, but the Warden could not tell whether the wrestling, shrieking man was mad with terror, mad with anger, just plain mad, or a combination of them all.

Later that night the Warden had been rushed to Black’s cell. The man had tried to kill himself. They found him lying in a pool of blood where he had been dashing his head against the wall, and somehow slashing his wrists open for good measure. Hardened though he was by his long career in Azkaban, the Warden had found himself deeply affected by the sight. Black had been watched most carefully after that. Their job was to make sure Black suffered a long, long time for his atrocious crimes. All the same, the suicide attempts continued. Black still wouldn’t eat either, so they had to tie him up and force-feed the gruel down his throat.

Then all of a sudden, Black seemed to turn around. He began to eat, stopped killing himself, and grow increasingly calmer. The Warden knew this well - but as he stared down at his report, it suddenly struck him that this was strangely sudden. A little too sudden, in fact. Too quick.

What had happened?

The Warden sat for a long, long time, puzzling and ruminating. At last he felt there was only one conclusion.

Black had discovered something. Something to cling onto. The Warden had seen this in other prisoners. They had clung onto something, fixated onto it. It had helped to keep them sane for a while longer than most.

But eventually they too had snapped. The Dementors became just too much for them to bear and their sanity caved in under the relentless torment. Still, in some cases, when their sanity went, they still clung onto their fixation. He had seen these prisoners, muttering their fixation over and over. It was all that was left in their empty, senseless heads.

But not Black. He had stayed sane - if it really was sanity - for twelve years.

What was the difference?

The Warden dwelled even longer on this. He turned his own reports on Black over and over, trying to find the slightest clue.

Until, at long last, he realized that he could find no answer.

But there could be no doubt that this difference, whatever it had been, had made the difference between Azkaban’s success and its failure with Sirius Black.

Metaphorically, at least. But was it also the same reason - literally?

As the Warden pondered it even further still, he realized that it had to be. This difference, whatever it was, was the reason that it had not been impossible for Sirius Black, at least, to escape from Azkaban after all.

The Warden heaved his greatest sigh yet and proceeded to fill in his final report on Sirius Black. This was the details of Black’s escape as far as they were known. The Warden took great care to fill in the fullest details, as far as he knew them, of what had happened. His earlier reports, he now realized most ruefully, had not provided enough detail. And now he was paying the price. He could not find enough detail to find the slightest clue as to what that difference might have been.

The Warden concluded his last report on Sirius Black by writing down what he had concluded about “The Difference”. He then added a second note. It was a stern warning for his successors to keep a much sharper eye on, and write much more detailed reports, on the prisoners who seemed to be resisting madness. Above all, they must not overestimate the security of Azkaban.

The Azkaban guards had never yet failed. That was something else that everyone had always said, always believed.

But last night, they had failed.

Failed to keep the most infamous and most heavily guarded prisoner in all of Azkaban, contained in his cell. If they had failed to do that, what else could they fail at?

That seemed an all-too-easy one to answer. They would fail to recapture the prisoner. After all, if he had slipped past them once, what was to stop him doing it again? Over and over again?

Belatedly, the Warden began to wonder if perhaps they had grown too dependent on the Dementors to uphold the security of Azkaban.

If so, were they now paying the price?

For that matter, was it really wise to have these high security prisoners guarded by Dementors at all?

After all, Dementors were dark creatures and these prisoners were dark followers. The Warden had never given it a second thought - but he knew that Dumbledore had been making such comments for years. Indeed, Dumbledore was well-known for his disapproval of putting Dementors in charge of Azkaban, as much as anything else. Privately the Warden dismissed Dumbledore as an irritable soft-hearted fool who had no understanding of how criminals should be dealt with. Dumbledore, in his opinion, should stick to Hogwarts and leave the running of Azkaban to him.

But now…

Maybe Dumbledore had a point after all?

Had their dependency on Dementors been a factor in Black’s escape? Would Black have been able to escape had he been guarded by wizards rather than Dementors?

If they continued to depend on the Dementors, would they ultimately pay an even bigger price than the loss of the most infamous prisoner in Azkaban and their own prestige?

The Warden shrugged glumly. He could provide no answer to that. He could only leave an open question on this matter as he concluded his report on Sirius Black’s escape, and hope to goodness that someone with far more foresight than Fudge would act upon it.

The Warden’s final report on Sirius Black was now complete. But Black’s file was not to go back on the shelf. It remained on the table, its pages open at the Warden’s final report. It would lie there to await the arrival of his successor.

Yes, there had to be a successor. For now the Warden faced his final task as Warden of Azkaban - write out his letter of resignation. He definitely was not going to become an even greater scapegoat for Fudge’s bungling. Better for his already damaged reputation to get out before he was made the scapegoat and have his head rolling in place of Fudge’s. He snatched up yet another piece of parchment and his quill for yet another heavy piece of writing.

The Warden was far too weary and heavy-hearted to care who his successor might be. He knew that it was bad enough to find a suitable candidate. But now it would be all the more difficult. Traditionally, there were plenty of sadists on his own staff who would be only too happy to step into his shoes if the Ministry was really desperate. But none of them would be eager to pick up the tab of the biggest failure in Azkaban history. For a start, they would not be able to carry on the fine tradition of the Warden drilling into new prisoners, with all the pride and finality that the security of Azkaban stood for, that there was no escape from Azkaban.

The ex-Warden sealed the letter and gave it to his eagle owl, which looked as dour as he was. He watched most sadly as his beloved owl disappeared out the window and fade into the horizon. The hardened ex-Warden now surprised himself as he felt tears welling in his eyes while he summoned his old Hogwarts trunk…

*~*~*

The Azkaban owl was now soaring gracefully towards the majestic coastline of Scotland’s uppermost shores. It glided dutifully on over the lonely beach, bearing the Warden’s letter of resignation from Azkaban to the Ministry. It paid no heed to the emaciated, pitiful black dog that lay thoroughly exhausted and unmoving on the sand below.

THE END