Inspection, 1982

Inspection 1982

An ancient tower on the northernmost cliff of the Island of Unst, northernmost island of the Shetlands, is the farthest one can travel by convenient magical means.

On a chill February morning, the Shetland gulls cry, the shaggy ponies gallop about their fields, and a merry fire crackles in a large circular room at the top of Azkaban Keep. Minister Millicent Bagnold, who has suffered motion sickness for as long as she can remember, arrives by Portkey, landing softly in the Chief Warden's office. From this edifice on the Island of Unst, she will travel the rest of the way to the fortress of Azkaban.

From here, it is a short journey to the rocky isle. Jutting from the sea to the north of Unst, Azkaban Island is unplottable, sealed by Apparition and Portkey barriers, laced with Muggle repelling charms, and has not a single hearth on the Floo Network; it is accessible only by air and by sea. On a clear day, the fishermen off the coast of the Shetlands can look across blue grey sea and catch a glimpse of the small, dark speck on the horizon. This is all they will ever see of the island.

Millicent straightens her robes and runs a hand through her long greying hair. She places the Portkey, a polished wood block inscribed with the Ministry seal, on the Warden's desk and looks around. The morning sun slices through the room, and the Warden's collection casts long shadows on the wall; angular spikes and thin chains, leather straps and sturdy buckles, a collection of blades ranging from fine silver scalpels to large machetes, and a vast array of curvilinear potion vials, twisted, torqued, and distorted in the light. He is a great collector, the Warden, of the tools of his trade -- the trade of 'information gathering,' he had once told her with a smile.

Millicent has never liked euphemism, though she accepts, given the nature of his hobby, that a softer turn of phrase is necessary in certain situations.

The Warden keeps a tidy office. Its circular walls are lined with shelves of books on wizarding history and law, but she highly doubts that the Warden has so much as glanced at the dusty tomes during his entire tenure. A white bearskin sprawls on the floor, its dead eyes shining in the sun, mouth open in a frozen snarl, revealing sharp, menacing teeth that will never bite again. One open window looks south, over the rocky fields of Unst. Across the room, a second window faces the fortress. Piles of paperwork cover the polished wooden desk, along with several blotters, a row of multicoloured ink bottles, and a small moving model of the solar system.

Millicent paces the circular room impatiently, from fireplace to window and back. Four steps. Surely he has received her itinerary. She does not wish to be kept waiting, though she considers herself a very forbearing individual and will forgive this discourtesy. Her dinner with the new chairman of St. Mungo's might begin a few minutes late. She sighs and walks to the second window. Outside, the cliff on which the Keep is situated drops hundreds of feet to the churning waves below. In the distance, the sea melts into a clouded sky, obscuring the remote island. She hopes it does not rain today, but the island seems to have a weather pattern of its own.

On the stone sill there is a large, clear crystal sphere in a brass frame. Bagnold places her hand on the sphere and watches a swirl of the smoke gather inside. As she looks back out to the horizon, the fortress appears to fill the window before her, distorted as though seen through curved glass. Shifting the position of her hand, she is able to view the entire island of Azkaban.

Even now, though she has inspected the prison many times, its name makes the back of her hands itch. She recalls stories of black-hooded figures that steal children away from their homes, stories of soulless creatures that had once been human. Then her father's voice echoes in her memory, deep and reassuring. Silly teacher, to frighten you like that, doesn't she know the things we learn first stay with us longest?

From this distance, the prison is no more ominous than the old castles at Orkney or Hampton. Its pale grey stone is weather-worn, and ancient vines of ivy snake up its walls in vaguely predatory fashion. She can see no black shapes moving about, but knows they must be there, in the shadows, waiting. The fortress was built to hold human and shadow in closest possible proximity; its outer walls are sheer and tall, punctuated by small, rectangular windows. These windows wind around the fortress, tracing the rows of galleries and cells that have seen prisoners come and go for hundreds of years. The walls and shadows never change, only the faces beneath them. On the far side of the structure is the unmistakable zigzag of a staircase climbing to the aerie. Built more recently, the walls and roofs of the aerie bend and fold upon themselves in a convoluted pattern of shadow. It is there, in the crevices and crags at the very summit of the fortress, that the darkness gathers.

Except for the crackling fire, the office is silent. Even the sound of the waves below does not carry to this height.

The Minister regards the island once more. The fog rolls across the sea, partially obscuring ramparts in mist, and she idly spins the globe beneath her hand.

From this distance, she cannot hear the screams.

"Minister!" The Warden's voice shatters the silence like a sledgehammer. She starts, quickly drawing her hand away from the cloudy sphere and turning to face the newcomer. The man standing before her is of average height and build. He wears simple black robes, and his hair is evenly trimmed. She glances back at the window, but the image of the island has disappeared. She is seized by the sudden desire to leave this office, the silence and harsh light tracing the outlines of instruments for torture. She wishes to complete her inspection in the five or so hours of wintry daylight left.

"Well," she says, businesslike despite her surprise, "shall we be going?"

The Warden offers her his arm, which she curtly declines. He shrugs and smiles slightly, thin lips parting to reveal dull white teeth. Blinking slowly, over a dark-eyed gaze as steady as a cat's, he leads her down spiral stone steps and to the waiting carriage.

Winged horses. As her stomach lurches in anticipation, she inwardly groans.

***

The wrought iron gate closes behind her with a clang. The sound echoes through the square, amplified and ringing from the high stone walls. The Minister and Warden are in a small courtyard between the gate and the heavy oak doors of the fortress, walled on three sides by sheer grey ramparts that disappear into foggy heights; this open space feels more closed than any cell. A flue, Millicent thinks, for the cold fire of Azkaban.

The Warden holds the door for her, and, after passing through, shuts it firmly behind him. The sound falls dead on stagnant air. Millicent suppresses the urge to open it again and clenches her teeth. No need to be afraid of the basement, love, I won't let the doxies get hold of you. Childish fears do not belong in the mind of the leader of the most powerful wizarding government in the world. She carefully removes all expression from her face and surveys her surroundings. Her visit has been coordinated in advance with the guards, and she has been assured that they will assiduously avoid her and the Warden. She can't help but feel, however, that something of their presence lingers in the stonework, a chill that makes her want to rub her hands together for warmth. She follows the Warden down a corridor to their left.

The man walks with the smallest hitch in his gait. It is not quite a limp, only a slight imbalance in the way he weights each foot. Funny, she thinks, in all her inspections, she has never noticed that before.

They walk through a few windowless, high-ceilinged rooms, in which blankets lie mouldering on shelves, chamber pots are precariously stacked, and tin bowls wait for the house-elves to fill with the evening's slop.

The Warden turns and smiles crookedly. "We'll start with the Minnies."

The Minnies, she thinks, is such an odd term. They are the prisoners that will not be here long, a month, maybe two, serving sentences for petty crimes, small thefts, idle threats.

They walk down a hallway so narrow, that if she spread her arms, Millicent could brush her fingers against the damp stone on either side. She pushes her hands deeper into her pockets. Old wooden sconces flare as the Minister passes, lighting the halls for her inspection. There are no cobwebs in the corners; there are no insects on the island. Millicent had asked, on her first visit to the fortress many years ago, why that was. The stooped old Warden had simply looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

Ahead of her now, the current Warden slides up a black portcullis; it drags along the walls with an angry scrape.

They enter the ward, and Millicent is instantly assaulted by the stench. The scent of human refuse mingles with the sour fear of kennelled animals. Rows of cells fronted by iron bars extend ahead of her. Swallowing a rising tide of nausea, she follows the Warden past the cells of the Minnies.

She can feel their eyes on her, pleading in the darkness; she can hear their sharp and spastic movements. The prisoners rock back and forth, arms curled around their knees, or leap to the front of their cages, clutching at the bars and reaching through with grimy hands. Some begin to speak, but the words are half-swallowed nonsense, broken gasps that barely form before dying on their lips. All rational rhetoric has been lost somewhere in their throats. Millicent looks stonily ahead; every one of them will soon leave this place and forget these indignities. From one visit to the next, this group is always changing. Most people forget more in a day than they will remember in a lifetime, her father used to tell her. They never adjust to the air of the fortress, and it never truly touches them. Bagnold and the warden come to the end of the hall, pass a few empty cells, and exit swiftly through another black gate.

She walks brusquely, having no desire to linger longer than is necessary. The inspection is perfunctory, another item to check off her list of annual activities, another four-line blurb to be printed on page seven of tomorrow's Prophet. She knows, from experience, that there is nothing she can say that will alter the operation of Azkaban fortress. The Warden, guards, and prisoners will carry on as they have always done, regardless of what she sees or hears.

"Everything seems to be in order there."

The Warden nods. "We'll see the Middlins next."

He leads her through a complicated set of passageways, turning right and left so many times that Millicent wonders, were anything to happen to the Warden, whether she would be able to find her way out in time. It is not a reassuring thought, and she pushes it from her mind. She has always been a self-sufficient woman.

There is a cool breeze as Millicent and the Warden round another corner. It must be the gathering storm outside the small windows, she thinks as the light of the torches flickers.

Dear, are you certain you're alright?

Millicent shakes her head to clear it of the unwelcome memory. The torches flicker again.

Fine, Aunt. I can look after myself.

This corridor is draughtier than the others, and she fights the urge to wrap her arms around her body. She must ask the Warden about it.

A hand is on her shoulder, not there to comfort. The blue blood running through Aunt Augusta's veins would never be there to comfort. Aunt doesn't believe Millicent can run the house alone, can't boil water without him, can't manage the farm. He wasn't cold in the ground before Aunt stepped in, sold the farm, and brought the child to the city. She didn't mourn, she slithered into his place, and she did it right in front of his unseeing eyes.

The eyes.

Millicent stops walking. The torches are out, and all she can see is her father's lifeless face looking up at her, the features that had not been set quite right, even after all the Reconstruction Charms. She sees him pinned under the tree, scent of ozone in the air, remnant of the lightning. He looks up at her, so utterly still she no longer recognises him. Movement had been a part of his face as surely as the skin and dimples. He'd raised her to be strong, but now strength is a necessity, not a lesson. She throws Aunt Augusta's hand from her shoulder.

"Get gone!" snaps a voice.

Millicent doesn't know whether from her memory or the hallway around her.

A long whip bursts from the end of the Warden's wand.

Minister Bagnold's eyes open wide. She steadies herself against the wall, grateful for its solid presence and oblivious to the slimy damp, as the Warden drives the dementor away. A good, strong Patronus; it is one of the most important requirements for his work. His is one of the few she has seen that takes the form of an implement rather than a being, but the silvery whip seems to have a sentience of its own, snakelike as it curls and coils, then fades.

"I apologise, Minister," the man says, head bowed. When he looks up, Millicent sees the scrutiny in his eyes. She knows a test when faced with one, but decides to disregard his impertinence. Reliable Wardens for Azkaban are difficult to find.

She waves him on, and they continue to the Hall of Middlins.

**

Millicent pauses before the Warden opens the door. "There were, I believe, some problems in this wing?"

"Aye," replies the warden gruffly. His obsequious tone returns when he opens his mouth again. "Hall was on this ward. Went bad, that one did." There is an emotionless quality to his voice that prickles the skin on the back of Millicent's neck.

She knows the name. Steerforth Hall. Perhaps, if she thinks hard enough, she can even recall his overlarge ears, the freckles on his nose. She resists the urge to scratch the back of her hands. She certainly remembers the day he sat before her, quivering in his chair and making the inkwells on her desk rattle. It isn't customary for cases of small theft to come before the Minister of Magic. Such things are most often left to the head of Magical Law Enforcement or one of his subordinates. But most petty thieves know better than to steal from the homes of foreign dignitaries, especially those from whom the Minister is requesting aid.

"I will see justice done!" railed the imposing South African wizard.

Bagnold had nodded and sighed.

The official charge had been, "Larceny with Intent of Basilisk Breeding," though the boy claimed not to have known that the mysterious box was full of bright orange toads when he took it. Basilisk breeding, a far more serious charge than the childish prank of stealing and releasing a box of toads, earned the fourteen-year-old boy a four month stay in Azkaban.

Four months.

He hadn't survived two.

And in the end, You-Know-Who had been defeated without the aid of the South African wizards.

Millicent instinctively scans the shadows for the presence of any cloaked creatures. "What have you done to remedy the situation?"

"Cut the number of guards here. I can always use more upstairs."

"Very well." Millicent signals that he may open the second portcullis.

The hall they enter is very different from that of the Minnies. The Middlins are prisoners who will be here anywhere from three months to several years, but there is knowledge in their eyes that they will not be here forever. Here is none of the fear of the Minnies. There is no smell of refuse, no incoherent mumbling. They have, somehow, grown accustomed to their prison, absorbed the shadow. The chill, however, seems deeper in the Middlins, and the Minister glances into the cells as she passes. Most inmates seem to be enjoying today's respite from the the dementors.

A young woman stands, unfolding long limbs, and walks to the front of her cage.

"Date?" she asks.

The Warden stops and turns to her. Millicent wonders if it is her imagination, or if his limp is more pronounced the longer they spend in the fortress.

For a moment she thinks he will lie to prisoner, but he says neutrally, "Sixteenth of February. You've got another year yet, Bullstrode."

The woman nods, long tangles of dark, dirty hair falling past her shoulders. Bagnold cannot remember a Bullstrode imprisoned, and wonders what crime the woman committed. With a disinterested glance at the Minister, the prisoner returns to the far wall of her cell, sitting gingerly and staring out the high, miniscule window.

Farther down the hall - this one is much larger than the Minnies - she sees more prisoners doing the same. There is a forlorn resignation in their gestures, in the hunch of their shoulders, in their nails bitten to the quick. Some turn to watch the Minister and Warden as they pass. Most do not. They are men and women lost at sea, treading water and waiting for rescue.

Millicent finds that her shoulders are more relaxed upon leaving this wing than when she had entered.

***

The Warden leads her up a never-ending staircase.

She knows this staircase. When she reflects upon her inspections of the fortress, this is the part she remembers most clearly. The steps are carved from the stone of the wall, and there are windows at intervals that allow the ambient light from outside. The light is grey, monochrome, and does not cast shadows so much as it coats the surfaces it touches. Reaching through the windows are tendrils of green and rustling, razor-sharp leaves. Millicent is surprised that the creeping Azkaban Ivy can find purchase here, but the desire to live is strong - even for carnivorous vegetation. She can smell the sea, can almost taste the spray from waves crashing against the rocks of the island, though the surf is too far below to hear.

The cold and damp increase as they climb. Step after step, the exertion reminds Millicent that she is no longer a young witch, no longer the farmer's daughter chasing after chickens in the yard, no longer the schoolgirl running with her friends up the shifting staircases at Hogwarts. Every year, her knees protest this climb a little more. She winces, and stops, clearing her throat to alert the Warden. He does not look back, but he stops and waits several steps above. When Millicent has caught her breath and the sharp pain in her knee has receded, she pushes herself off the inner wall and continues.

"Almost there," the Warden says, his tone only slightly patronising.

They are close enough to see the door at the top. Perhaps fifty more steps. The Minister feels a little trill in her chest that has nothing to do with the effort of the climb. If she investigates the feeling further, she suspects she will identify it as pride. This is the final ward: the Residence. This is her legacy.

The last few years have seen it fill. When Bagnold first toured Azkaban, more than twenty years ago, there were only two old wizards in the room at the top of the stairs. They were dirty and wizened, their voices gone; they no longer remembered their names, much less the crimes for which they had been imprisoned. One is gone now. The other sits in the smallest cell at the end, white hair grown down to the floor, his back so bent he will never stand upright again. His face is frozen in the blissful smile of an imbecile. Even the children he slaughtered would be older than Millicent today, but he doesn't remember them. He is as harmless as a child himself, still and silent in the cell. He is the skeleton of proof that the system worked.

Due in no small part to the ringing success of Crouch's policies, the Ministry has recently expanded the wing.

Barty Crouch.

His little boy is here today, the blond little angel that ran to shake the Minister's hand every year at the annual Christmas party. Millicent shakes her head; to think that he could have done something so horrible. She remembers Frank Longbottom, with whom she'd shared many a cup of tea while discussing his cases in minute detail. His torturers are all here, the boy included. She knows that she has helped to fill this room with the worst of wizardkind. Though not all were personally tried before her, her signature graces the imprisonment orders of every single criminal in the Residence. This is her ward.

She pauses, slightly short of breath, and a little voice nags her. She knows she does not have them all. She remembers her father's face looking down at her after she'd rid the barn of an angry nest of wasps. If you don't get every single one of them, Millie, you're gonna be left with some awfully angry survivors.

She will find the rest and bring them here. The system works. Beyond the iron portcullis now rising, this room is her legacy. She stands up a little straighter as she enters the Residence.

***

These are the inmates most heavily patrolled by the guards. These are the wizards whose screams drive the Minnies mad with fear. These are the killers of brothers, torturers and traitors, thieves of life. These prisoners will never leave.

The gate rolls closed behind her, and Millicent stiffens. Even so high in the fortress, the ceiling is low and the air is close. The raw smell of fear and decay permeates the space. She looks through the bars of the cells as she passes. She recognises every face on the ward. Past the smiling old man, more a totem than a living being, is the Crouch boy's cell. Millicent hears her own sharp intake of breath. She is not ready to see him so soon.

He is gaunt and supine on the floor of his cell, whimpering, without acknowledgement of the visitors to the ward. She can see open sores through the bare patches of his robes, as though he has not moved in the last months; the protrusion of bones along his back suggests that he does not even rise to eat on a regular basis. Millicent closes her eyes, ashamed for old Barty's sake, and hopes that the ordeal is over soon. Looking at the boy, she feels certain it will be.

There are long walls and sharp turns between the cells here to prevent the prisoners' conspiring with one another. The windows are small and there are no fires. The February cold seeps into Bagnold's robes as she follows the Warden. She passes Travers, hugging his knees and muttering to himself in the dark. Then Mulciber, who lunges for the bars, a manic light in his eyes; he is promptly thrown backwards by a Banishing Spell from the Warden's wand. At the rear of the cell, he stalks the visitors, hunched over, fingers arched like talons, pacing and growling deep in his chest. Periodically he shakes his head and spits. After they pass, Millicent hears him crash against the bars once more and howl in frustration.

They pass Elias Rosier, breathing heavily in the shadows, then Sloot and Vives. Rastaban Lestrange and his brother, Rodolphus, in cells side by side. Rastaban is insensible, little better than Mulciber. Rodolphus sits by the bars of his cage, legs crossed in front of him, eyes staring blankly ahead. He does not track the motion of the visitors as they pass, and Bagnold nearly jumps as a low, rumbling voice breaks from unmoving lips.

"I'm waiting," he says.

There are more prisoners: Rattray, Fuchs, Oilman, Rookwood, Norling, Dolohov, Langholt, Porter, Chase, Black.

She pauses before the most infamous prisoner in the fortress. He is standing, gripping the bars of his cell, watching the Minister's approach. She pretends not to see his pale eyes following her progress. He reaches out a hand as she passes, palm up in twisted supplication.

It seems like an age since she ordered the Aurors to take him away, as he shouted insensibly. She is surprised to find that he looks more like the young man Dumbledore once introduced her to, though gaunt and grey, and less like the madman whose picture screamed on the front page of the Prophet for so many weeks. He opens his mouth to speak and, for a moment, it seems the entire fortress is waiting. But the Warden holds up a threatening wand and the prisoner has no words. The hand is still there, pale and tremulous in the space between them, and Millicent cannot meet the young man's eyes. She turns up her chin and walks past.

There is a thud, and she looks back. Black has fallen to his knees, head pressed into his hands and the bars of his cell.

She continues the inspection.

Ziemann, Boyle, Flynn. Millicent passes the few women on the ward. She walks quickly, more disturbed than she cares to admit by their dishevelled hair and incoherent mumbling. Darling, her father once said, someday, you're going to be the envy of all the fairer sex.

One woman stands to greet the inspectors. A Black as well; Millicent wonders if there is something in their blood that draws them to the dark, a pride that keeps them from raving like the madmen all around. Bellatrix Lestrange looks out from under heavy-lidded eyes. Her hair has lost its lustre, but her expression is surprisingly normal. Unlike her cousin, there is nothing pleading in her glance, no unasked questions, not a trace of shame.

"You're afraid," she says. Her voice sounds too low to belong to a woman.

Millicent opens her mouth before remembering that the Minister of Magic does not defend herself to prisoners.

Gonna be left with some awfully angry wasps.

"You aren't afraid of what you didn't do," says the woman, her voice almost seductively smooth, and Bagnold wonders momentarily if she is a Legilimens before dismissing the thought as ridiculous. "You're afraid of what you did."

"Silencio!" snaps the Warden. He takes the Minister's arm and leads her away. She does not protest.

***

Finally outside the fortress, Bagnold greedily drinks the February air. She enters the carriage, thankful for the wretched flying horses that will carry her away from this island.

As the carriage lurches into the air, a swarm of black cloaks descends on the fortress, and the last thing Minister Bagnold hears before crossing the magical barriers is the sound of a distant scream.