In July 1991, violent waves crash against the walls of Azkaban Castle.
Owls that take off from the Scottish Highlands carry acceptance letters signed with the Quill of Acceptance as they fly over.
“Other people go from beginner to imprisoned, belonging to the ‘prison-entry cultivation’ type; but me, I’m pure prison from birth.” Rayleigh holds a broom and sweeps the trash along the corridor.
He has grown up here since he was little.
He has no official identity, and he is not a prisoner in the registry either.
From the moment he woke up, he has been inside Hogwarts’ fifth house, the advanced academy for wizards: Azkaban.
Outside the castle, a tired little creature flaps its wings and fearfully dodges the Dementors drifting back and forth in midair.
Trembling all over, it lands on the windowsill and widens its orange-yellow eyes to look inside.
The little thing does not understand why there would be a young wizard who is supposed to attend school in a place like this.
Seeing a Dementor drifting over, it panics and drops the acceptance letter before fleeing.
The administrator Paul is in the room stirring a cauldron.
The worn and tattered container is full of a blue-green paste-like substance, and every so often one or two hot bubbles rise from it.
“Damn the Ministry of Magic!
Damn Millicent!
Damn the Wizengamot!” While furiously waving his wand, he mutters an incantation under his breath.
The officials in London never care about this place.
They only dump garbage here in one pile after another.
They never give him more manpower, and they never let him transfer away.
Damn Azkaban, he is the only wizard administrator here.
Poor Paul still does not know that the current Minister is already Fudge.
“My transfer letter?” Paul sees the letter dropped by the owl and jumps up in excitement.
He grabs it at once, only to discover that it is the damned Hogwarts acceptance letter.
“How is it this!” He turns his head and glances over.
Rayleigh, holding the big broom, is outside cleaning up trash.
“Rayleigh, go find Jessica.”
“Lord Paul, are you serious?” Rayleigh looks up at the clock, puzzled about what madness has gotten into Paul this time.
“Of course.” Paul hides the letter behind his back and urges the little thing in front of him to leave quickly.
Eleven years ago, Jessica and her husband Theodore were being hunted by Barty Crouch as Death Eaters.
In order to cover their mother and child’s escape, Theodore was killed by Barty, and the baby in Jessica’s arms also unfortunately was hit by the Imperius Curse.
Barty Crouch thought the baby was already dead, so he threw Jessica and the child in her arms into Azkaban together.
Rayleigh’s transmigration made the child open his eyes again, and it also gave this poor woman a reason to keep living.
Under Jessica’s bitter pleading, Paul carried him out of the cell.
At first, he even wrote letters to London, asking them to take the child away.
But those pigs actually said he had mental illness and delusions.
Helpless, Paul had no choice but to keep raising him.
Fortunately, Rayleigh did not cry or make a fuss.
Otherwise, he would have thrown the child into the sea to feed the fish long ago.
He only treated it as picking up a cat or dog and kept it around to pass the days.
Rayleigh carefully puts down the broom and tiptoes downstairs.
At the end of the passage there is a narrow little room, and his mother Jessica is inside.
“Lumos.” Rayleigh quietly chants the spell, and a faint light immediately lights up in the cell.
The faint light cuts off the tentacles of darkness, and through the small window it reveals all kinds of horrifying scratch marks on the wall.
These were left behind by prisoners of past generations after they went mad.
They are the work of the Dementors.
“Rayleigh, you came?” A tired and hoarse voice comes from the dark corner, and Jessica painfully supports herself against the wall to stand up.
“Mom, Paul might be in a better mood today, so he let me come down early.” Rayleigh and Jessica are separated by the cell door, and their hands hold each other through the small window.
“That’s great!” Jessica says excitedly, then shakes her head.
“No, there are Dementors everywhere here.
You cannot stay long.
What happened to your hand?”
Through the fluorescent light, Jessica discovers that the back of her son’s hand is covered in bruises.
“It’s nothing.” Rayleigh extinguishes Lumos, and through the darkness, he sees faint glimmers sliding past the window.
Jessica cannot stop her tears from flowing, ‘If only I had not brought my son in back then…
It is all my fault!’
“Mom, don’t cry.
If not for you, maybe I would already be dead.” Rayleigh holds Jessica’s bony hand, not knowing just how thin and wasted his mother behind the cell door must be.
“Rayleigh, it is Mom who has made you suffer.” Jessica wipes her tears.
How she wishes there were no cell door blocking them so she could hold her son in her arms.
“Mom, I am eleven this year, and I can use magic too.
Will I receive a Hogwarts acceptance letter?” Rayleigh is very grateful that Paul raised him, but he has never thought of letting him leave Azkaban.
Every time a wizard escorts a prisoner inside, he locks himself in the dark room.
Only after the other party leaves does he let himself out.
He is still fairly familiar with the story of Harry Potter, and he clearly remembers that the professors use countless letters to make sure young wizards receive their acceptance letters, and they even visit the homes of new students.
“Mom?”
“Hogwarts professors will not come.
They only go to Muggle families.” Jessica’s words are like cold water in deep winter, waking him from his dream.
“Maybe the rule has changed now.”
“Mm.” Rayleigh nods, ‘Who do you think you are?
Just an existence no one knows about, a dead little Death Eater.’
Rayleigh’s heart is filled with despair and coldness.
He is locked up like a prisoner in the unnoticed Azkaban, and he himself is nothing more than an unnamed prisoner.
“Cough, cough…” Jessica’s continuous coughing wakes Rayleigh.
The damp environment, the Dementors’ terror, and the scarce food make Jessica’s body weaker and weaker, to the point that she can no longer even stand.
He holds his mother’s palm and secretly makes up his mind: Since there is no acceptance letter, then he must escape from prison, at any cost!
Rayleigh closes his eyes, and his consciousness sinks into the data panel.
[Rayleigh Travers
Magic Power: 1.2/2.3
Spiritual Power: 12
Talents: Dark Affinity, Strong Will, Night Vision
Skills: Wandless Casting
Spells: Lumos lv3 (36/50), Patronus Charm lv1 (0/1)]
Below the panel there is an orange rounded button that says: Simulate Life.
Rayleigh takes a deep breath, invests 1 point of magic power, and begins simulating future encounters.
[1.
You search the room for a wand, and discover your own Hogwarts acceptance letter.]
[2.
Paul tears the acceptance letter to pieces, and you are thrown into a cell.]
…(Insufficient magic power.
Please continue investing magic power to proceed with the simulation.)
The remaining 0.2 magic power makes Rayleigh’s head swell and ache.
He rubs his temples and looks at the simulation content.
‘So the acceptance letter had already been sent.
Paul simply hid it.
But judging from Paul’s attitude in the simulation, he will not let me leave Azkaban at all.’
‘Come to think of it, the British Ministry of Magic operates on the principle of using someone to death if they are useful, keeping Paul stationed here the whole time.
If I leave, then Paul will only have Dementors for company.’
‘It seems I need to find someone… And the other party must be someone Paul is willing to send a letter to.’ Rayleigh looks at Jessica, who has fallen asleep from weakness, and desperately recalls the plot of Harry Potter.
‘This person must be very famous in the magical world and has great influence.
Only that way can they make Paul and us leave this place.’ Rayleigh calculates in his heart, crossing out the vast majority of people in his memory.
‘Their identity must be clean.
They cannot be a Death Eater, and they also has to have a strong motive to do this.’ Rayleigh rules out pure-blood families like the Malfoys.
Those pure profit-seeking creatures would not care about anyone else’s life or death.
Rayleigh carefully recalls, and slowly locks onto a dazzling figure.