"In."
Albert took one last glance at the raging sea of fire, tapped his head with his index finger, cast a Cannonball Charm on himself, waved his wand to summon the Patronus again, and after expelling the Dementors that Cedric and the others were struggling to resist, he turned around and walked into the door behind him.
This ancient fortress had been expanded more than once by the Traceless Extension Charm. When Albert entered Azkaban from the main gate, he had the illusion that he had just entered Platform 9 3/4. What came into view was not a narrow room, but a dim, cold, and damp corridor.
Although there was a brazier every few dozen feet in the corridor, the flames burning on them were deep blue, temperatureless demonic flames.
Albert narrowed his eyes slightly, and observed the surrounding cells with the help of the light from the brazier in the corridor. Suddenly, he understood why Hagrid was afraid of this place.
If there is a hell in this world, it must be Azkaban.
"Ugh, what's that smell?"
"Damn, are they using trolls as jailers?"
The people who came in later cursed in low voices. They had obviously forgotten Albert's instructions and forgot to cast the Bubble Head Charm on themselves to isolate themselves from the outside air. After facing the terrible environment in Azkaban prison, they directly felt physical discomfort.
There is nothing that can be done about it. Dementors cannot smell any stench, so they naturally don't care about the poor hygiene in Azkaban.
In the past, there were not many prisoners, and no matter how bad the environment was, it was actually just that. But ever since the Death Eaters started stuffing people into Azkaban, the sanitation in this wizard prison began to deteriorate rapidly.
This wizard prison was originally a fortress. Even if the wizards of the Ministry of Magic had renovated it well, that was centuries ago. Besides, the wizards imprisoned here also needed to eat, drink, defecate and urinate.
Once there are enough people, it becomes a terrible nightmare.
But the Dementors didn't care about that. They didn't care about the lives of the wizards trapped here. Albert even suspected that if the windows here had not been open all the time, many people would have been suffocated to death.
"Close the door and use magic to seal it."
Albert's voice rang in everyone's ears, pulling them back from the harsh environment of Azkaban.
Although Albert knew that the order sounded a bit ridiculous, the closed door always brought them some comfort.
With the entrance to the fortress sealed and turned into solid marble by a spell, angry Dementors swarmed towards the entrance to the second floor.
In fact, there are similar entrances on each floor of the fortress to facilitate the entry and exit of Dementors.
"This place is simply hell. If these people who were rescued don't have the courage to stand up and resist, they deserve to die here."
Listening to the noise, Lee Jordan felt inexplicably irritated.
"Act according to the plan!"
Albert took the box handed to him by Moody and placed it directly on the damp and dirty floor. He reached out and knocked on it gently. The lid of the box opened automatically, and a door as tall as a person appeared in front of everyone. Albert asked others to rescue the prisoners who were knocked unconscious by Kingslai and his gang who had arrived earlier, and transfer them all into the box.
Dobby the house-elf will be inside to help move these unfortunate creatures to an open area.
"There are a horde of Dementors up there, and we need help."
Suddenly, Kings' voice was heard from the stairs on the second floor.
Without Albert's order, Cedric followed the plan and took his team to the second floor to reinforce Kings.
"Can your box hold so many people?"
Moody, who was on guard all around, suddenly asked. He found that there were more unfortunate people imprisoned in Azkaban than he expected.
If they hadn't come, it wouldn't be long before at least half of the unfortunate people at the bottom of society would have died in prison.
"I hope Hogsmeade can buy us more time." Albert did not answer, but turned his head to ask Moody: "What is the current situation of the Dementors?"
"They still refuse to give up and are pouring into the prison from the entrance upstairs. Kingsley and his men are having a tough fight. I think you may need to go up and help." The Dementors' madness was somewhat beyond Moody's expectations. Normally, Dementors would not confront Patronuses head-on.
"Why do you think there are no Dementors on the first floor?"
Albert did not leave. He knew very well that once he left the first floor, Dementors would swarm into this floor from all directions, and the situation on the first floor with fewer people would become even worse.
This is actually normal, after all, this is the lair of Dementors. And as the damn prison guards, they are the strongest line of defense in Azkaban Prison, even more trustworthy than the Aurors.
If the people Albert brought had not been good at using the Patronus Charm, they would have become food for the Dementors when they broke into the island.
"How do the Dementors in Azkaban contact wizards?" Albert asked again. He had asked a similar question before coming to Azkaban.
According to Kingsley, the Dementors had no way to contact the Ministry of Magic urgently. If the Dementors were sent from Azkaban to the Ministry of Magic to inform the news, it would take at least several hours.
However, unexpected things can happen.
Albert had a hunch that the Dementors might have a faster way to contact the Ministry of Magic, such as using the Floo Network or a Portkey.
Although he didn't know whether those monsters could use that thing, the sense of urgency in his heart did not disappear. They had to complete the prison break and leave here as soon as possible.
"There are more prisoners here than we expected!"
Kenneth, who brought the first group of people here, pointed at the group of people who were knocked unconscious by the spell and said, "Besides, some of them are almost dead. I don't know if they can be saved."
"Don't worry about these problems. We are only responsible for clearing Azkaban. Let others act quickly!"
Although things were going better than Albert had expected, he was still not satisfied with the current progress.
Based on this efficiency, we will not be able to evacuate Azkaban within the scheduled time.
This is not good news. Every minute you stay increases the risk.
To be honest, although they had prepared for the worst, Albert did not want to face such a predicament.
"Don't worry, the situation is not as bad as you think!"
Moody noticed how often Albert checked his watch and comforted him hoarsely, "The efficiency of the Ministry of Magic has always been very low, and the efficiency of those Death Eaters is definitely worse than you think. I doubt that even if we take all the prisoners of Azkaban away, they may not realize what happened in Azkaban. It took the Ministry of Magic several hours to react when Blake escaped from prison."
It took them fifteen minutes to clear the first floor. A total of forty-three people were imprisoned on the first floor. Several unlucky ones died in the cells before they could be rescued.
By the time they reached the second floor, the group of enraged Dementors were finally contained. Albert's patronus made these dark creatures instinctively fearful. They rushed out of the fortress like they were on fire, stabilizing the originally shaky defense line.
"Take the third option." Albert reminded.
In this case, rescuing people in different layers obviously cannot improve efficiency. Instead of being forced to spend a lot of energy on fighting the Dementors, it is better to give the task of driving away the Dementors to Albert, and let others focus on rescuing people.
After the team reunited, efficiency was significantly improved.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that the number of wizards imprisoned on the second floor is far less than that on the first floor. According to Kingslai, the higher the floor, the longer the imprisonment time.
There were even fewer people on the third floor of Azkaban, and the prisoners in the iron-barred cells were very excited, probably because they didn't expect anyone to come and rescue them. However, their enthusiasm made the people who had just arrived on the third floor feel irritated.
"Just wait quietly."
Albert's words shocked them immediately, but there are always a few people who can't see the situation clearly and like to stir up trouble.
"Don't worry about him, he will be a nuisance if he gets out anyway."
Albert only glanced at them and saw through their thoughts. His voice was so cold that it gave people a chill.
Those who originally wanted to say something shut up, fearing that they would also become the ones who were abandoned.
As for the three people who were directly named, they finally realized that the other party really intended to keep them, and began to beg desperately.
"What a jerk."
"Why bother?"
"Legendary."
Noticing Moody's look, Albert calmly explained, "If you have bad intentions, why save them? Will it make things difficult for yourself?"
Albert will never allow stupid teammates to appear in the team.
When they reached the fifth floor, which is the top floor, something unexpected would definitely happen and the enemy would arrive.
The Ministry of Magic's reaction was even faster than Albert expected!
They seemed to be using some faster method to connect to Azkaban.
In fact, if they could complete the rescue within half an hour, the Ministry of Magic would definitely not be able to react in time. Unfortunately, things always like to be beyond people's control.
"Robards, you should pretend that you don't know about this instead of getting involved in this mess." Moody raised his wand and pointed at his former colleague.
"Sorry, they threatened us with our families." Gadwin said helplessly.
"You asked for it." Kingsley sneered, "If you hadn't betrayed Scrimgeour, how could the shelter be easily breached by the Death Eaters? Don't forget that Anderson is the secret keeper."
When Scrimgeour was mentioned, all the Aurors fell silent. The Minister did fight Voldemort to protect them, but their betrayal and joining the enemy the next day was truly despicable.
The members of the Defense Association, who had already been extremely frustrated by the group of Dementors, didn't want to listen to their nonsense here, so they cleverly seized the opportunity and launched a sneak attack.
Half of the Aurors were caught off guard and fell down in the blink of an eye. The rest were pointed at by wands and were eventually disarmed and controlled.
The incident took less than a minute from the beginning to the end, and the Aurors who arrived were taken prisoners.
"Perhaps Azkaban would be more suitable for you traitors."
After Fred took their wands, he took people to throw them into the prison next door.
"Wait, you can't do this..."
After coming to his senses, Delish held the iron fence with both hands, looked at the footsteps gradually fading away, and roared angrily.
However, no one responded to them.
"It's good that they didn't kill us." Gadwin smiled bitterly, "Maybe we were wrong from the beginning."
"I should have pretended not to know."
Most people in prison regret getting involved in this mess.
"We have no other choice. After killing so many Death Eaters, even if Scrimgeour dies, they will not let us and our families go easily." Savage sneered. There was a reason why they chose to be loyal to the Ministry of Magic instead of becoming the backbone of Harry's fight against the You-Know-Who as Scrimgeour thought.
"It's no use saying this now, let's find a way to get those Dementors to let us out."
"It's too late. I heard the sound of Apparition. How on earth did they do it?" The Aurors all heard the crackling sound in the corridor.
The use of Apparition was forbidden in Azkaban, but house-elves were immune to wizarding magic, a fact that most of the arrogant wizards apparently ignored.