"...What a horrible story!"
The two of them muttered in complaint.
Sirius took a deep breath and asked, "You came all the way to Azkaban in the middle of the night just to give these people psychological treatment?"
He left the second half of the sentence unspoken: You lot are the ones who should be seeing a psychiatrist!
Edward walked over to Audrey. "Any of them cured?"
She shook her head. "Some have already been driven mad by the Dementors, and for others, it's not as simple as psychological trauma...Even if I forcefully use Psychological Cues, there's no way to actually cure them."
"I see. Then I'll try a different method of treatment. Hope you don't mind me interfering with your work."
As he finished speaking, he pointed quickly to three of the cells holding Death Eaters.
"Sirius, you take care of those two over there. I'll handle this one."
"What?"
Edward strode to the front of one cell, drew his revolver, and without hesitation, fired three shots.
Without wands or magic, a wizard's physical resilience wasn't necessarily better than a Muggle's. After three shots, the Death Eater inside was more than dead.
Edward holstered his gun and smiled. "When you're dead, there's no more psychological suffering. That counts as a form of treatment too, doesn't it?"
"…"
The rest of the prisoners suddenly reacted, bursting into cries of panic and desperation:
"Guards! Where are the Aurors?! The Dementors? Someone help!"
"Someone's broken in! Damn it, where are the guards?!"
"Help! Somebody help us!"
Edward immediately raised the revolver again and aimed at the noisy crowd. "Whoever makes another sound...dies next."
After a moment, he turned to Sirius. "What are you standing there for? Get to it. Don't tell me you can't bring yourself to kill a few Death Eaters?"
Sirius pushed his long hair back and grinned darkly.
"No, I just think...this is too good for them!"
He suddenly turned, and his wand released a beam of deadly green light.
"Avada Kedavra!"
——
At some point, large snowflakes began to fall again from the pitch-black sky. The bone-piercing winds blew them into the inner halls of Azkaban. The outer wing prisoners huddled together, trembling in fear.
After the group—two men, a dog, and a cat—entered the prison's depths, there had been no more sound for a long while. Just when the prisoners thought they'd left after rescuing their target, several furious and venomous shouts rang out—
Someone was using the Killing Curse.
In the span of half a minute, at least twenty Avada Kedavras had been cast. The inmates had no idea what was happening inside—let alone whether the killers would suddenly burst out and start massacring everyone else too.
Their fear and panic only grew.
Sirius stood panting heavily, his eyes bloodshot, staring down at the two corpses he had executed—corpses which he had then blasted and hexed a dozen more times.
After a long pause, he finally calmed his breath and turned to Edward. "Anyone else?"
The rest of the inmates were utterly silent, terrified he might turn and throw a Killing Curse their way too.
Edward coughed twice and said, "Don't worry, I'll stop soon. The rest are yours to deal with."
Audrey, though still somewhat uncomfortable with the slaughter happening around her, didn't find it inappropriate. Just as Sirius had said, killing them outright was too merciful—they should have been left here to rot, tormented slowly by the Dementors.
But Edward knew the truth: Voldemort would inevitably return and rescue these old followers of his. If they weren't eliminated now, they'd become future threats.
Time passed slowly.
Audrey moved from cell to cell, administering her version of "treatment." Sirius, standing right behind her, would immediately execute each Death Eater once she was finished.
The inmates who weren't Death Eaters gradually began to relax.
Audrey and Sirius had become like death itself—wherever they went, people died.
"What's your name?"
"Claude Selwyn."
"Avada Kedavra!"
"What's your name?"
"Carfield."
"Avada Kedavra!"
Edward stood to the side holding Lilith in his arms. Suddenly, an odd thought occurred to him: If this scene were turned into a painting, maybe I'd call it..."Your Name."
At that moment, Lilith climbed onto Edward's shoulder and whispered, "Edward, I want to go out and take a walk. Susie too."
Susie: "???" Since when?!
Edward immediately guessed what she was planning and nodded. "Alright."
He carried the two of them through the stone gate and placed them just outside, before turning and heading back in.
By this time, Audrey had arrived at Bellatrix's cell.
The moment she saw Bellatrix's face, Audrey instantly realised she had seen it before—inside the Longbottom couple's mental world.
At the time, Bellatrix and another man had taken the lead in tormenting the poor couple, laughing maniacally as they did. The most crucial thing was that Audrey had later learned: in that world, Neville had still been living peacefully at home—
—But that was just a fantasy, a delusion the couple had clung to.
In reality, little Neville had been right there, watching the entire thing as his parents were tortured into insanity by the Cruciatus Curse. That was why the Matriarch Longbottom had painfully chosen to erase that memory from her grandson's mind, causing damage that left him with a poor memory ever since childhood.
Audrey's expression darkened immediately. This time, she didn't even bother lighting a candle before speaking.
"What's your name?"
Bellatrix burst into manic laughter. "Hahaha, don't you know already? Or rather, doesn't the one behind you know best? My name is Bellatrix Black…no, I am Bellatrix Riddle! Hahahahahaha!"
Audrey silently stepped back and gave Sirius room. "She's all yours."
But Sirius hesitated. Even though he knew Bellatrix was a thoroughly wicked Death Eater, even though he knew she was crueller and more merciless than the rest and deserved to die, she was still his cousin.
He gripped his wand tightly, pointing it at Bellatrix. His arm trembled slightly.
"Come on, Sirius, kill me! Kill me! Hahahaha! You disgrace of the family, the shame of the House of Black, the pitiful traitor who turned his back on pure-bloods—kill me! Kill me now!!!"
She shrieked madly, struggling with all her might, as if she wanted to lunge forward and tear out Sirius's throat with her teeth.
Edward pulled out his revolver again. "Want me to take care of her instead?"
Sirius leaned in close and spoke in a low voice, "The Black family…no, the entire Sacred Twenty-Eight are the same. They were never noble because they were pure-blooded. It's because of them that being pure-blooded appears noble. You've got the order backwards, Bella."
"Otherwise, why would you pledge loyalty to Tom Riddle, that filthy half-blood?"
"Shut up! Shut up! The Dark Lord is not a half-blood! He is the most noble of—"
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light.
The fury and madness in Bellatrix's eyes instantly vanished. Her limbs went limp, still suspended midair by the warped iron bars.
Clang.
Sirius's wand slipped from his fingers and hit the floor. His expression remained calm. "She was the last Death Eater here."
"Man, I hope Voldemort comes running, expecting a grand reunion, only to walk right into this lovely surprise," he added with a shrug. "Then again, word of what happened tonight will spread soon enough. Voldemort is bound to find out."
Audrey said, "Edward, my spirituality is nearly depleted. I can't continue."
Edward gently took her cold hand and spoke warmly, "I'm sorry. You've worked hard tonight."
She gave a sweet smile. "Not at all. I came here to play my part, didn't I?"
Their moment of tenderness made Sirius unconsciously step back a little. In his eyes, these were two men in their thirties being lovey-dovey.
Sure, same-sex love was common in England, but that didn't mean everyone was into it.
"Alright, let's wipe their memories and get out of here."
Audrey hesitated as she looked back at the rows of cells. "Some of the prisoners aren't Death Eaters…but they're even more despicable than most Death Eaters. Some of them killed Muggles just for fun."
Before Edward could speak, Sirius had already raised his wand. His voice was icy. "Which ones?"
Well then. Did Sirius just unlock some kind of hidden trait?
Audrey quietly gave the cell numbers, and Sirius, like a cold-blooded assassin, stalked off wand in hand.
"Wait a sec," Edward called, pulling out a vial of Polyjuice Potion. "Pluck a hair and drop it in. Make them drink it before you finish them."
"Why?"
"You don't want the Ministry chasing you endlessly after this, do you?"
Sirius understood.
He strode over to a prisoner, cast the Imperius Curse, and forced him to drink the Polyjuice Potion. When the man transformed into a copy of Sirius, the green light of the Killing Curse followed right after.
The other prisoners, who had just started to feel some semblance of safety, were once again thrown into panic.
Weren't they only killing Death Eaters? What happened to that plan?!
A few minutes later, Sirius had finished off the targeted dark wizards and shoved the transformed body into his own old cell. He returned and asked, "Anyone else?"
"Nope," Edward yawned. "Then I declare tonight's operation a complete success. Let's go get some sleep."
The trio passed through the stone gate into the outer section of Azkaban. Sirius glanced back in astonishment. "What spell was that just now? It let us walk right through?"
"Just a little trick. Don't worry about it," Edward replied.
"That's not a little trick!"
Sirius was about to keep questioning when a chorus of shouting erupted around them. He turned and saw the prisoners in the outer cells breaking into fights, shouting curses and howls of pain echoing throughout the prison.
"What the hell…happened to them?"
Edward and Audrey weren't surprised at all. To Audrey, Azkaban was the perfect place to play her role. And for Lilith…it was just as suitable.
Soon, Lilith and Susie came running back. Lilith's face was full of smug delight, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, she stopped herself and looked toward Sirius.
"You can talk," Edward said.
"Yay!"
Lilith beamed. "Edward, Miss Lilith's potion is almost fully digested!"
"You're amazing, Miss Lilith."
"Heehee!"
Audrey picked Lilith up and cast a sideways glance at Edward. "That means our Miss Lilith is one step closer to becoming human."
Edward: "…"
Just say it if you want to brag. Why are you looking at me like that?
———
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