Chapter 195: The Unquenchable Flame

A long black metal corridor led to a pure white cell.

A woman was magically fixed to a chair; her appearance was terrifying, her skin stretched over a skeleton, and on her haggard face two mad black eyes stared out.

She laughed hoarsely, her laughter sending chills down the spine; her teeth were black and yellow, making her look even more dreadful.

This was the infamous Death Eater—Bellatrix Lestrange.

Fudge dared not meet Bellatrix's gaze; he covered his nose with a pink handkerchief and waved to have Bellatrix taken away.

"The Bellatrix of old was a beauty; who would have thought she'd become like this! Voldemort has been dead for so many years, yet she remains so stubborn! Still so mad!" Fudge muttered to the two reporters beside him.

One reporter nodded hastily in agreement, his quick-writing quill scribbling rapidly in a notebook.

"Minister, who else will you interrogate?" an Auror asked obsequiously.

Fudge's short, stubby fingers slid over the list. "Sirius Black!"

In a short while, Sirius Black was brought up as well.

Indeed, the once-handsome Sirius Black had also turned into a skin-and-bones figure; a mass of dirty, tangled hair hung down to his elbows, and his waxy skin clung tight to the bones of his face, giving him a skeletal look.

There was not a shred of light in his sunken eyes; he gazed blankly into the distance, like a living corpse.

If Bellatrix still clung to hope for life, Sirius Black had nearly become a walking dead man.

No matter what Fudge said to Sirius Black, Sirius Black only mumbled, "I caused their deaths..."

Fudge, looking helpless, signaled for Sirius Black to be taken away.

But just then, Sirius Black suddenly struggled; he stared fixedly at the Daily Prophet in the young Auror's hand.

The young Auror, stared at like that, was utterly baffled, at a loss...

"Want to see?" Fudge raised an eyebrow.

Sirius Black did not answer him; a glimmer of spirit suddenly appeared in his previously dull eyes.

"The Daily Prophet means freedom; let him have a glimpse of freedom!" that reporter, with great ownership spirit, advertised for the newspaper. "You must know, the air outside is sweet!"

Fudge nodded. "After all, he carries the blood of an ancient and noble family!"

"Take Black back!" Fudge picked up the newspaper and threw it onto Sirius Black.

The young and middle-aged Aurors quickly stepped forward, escorted Sirius Black through the corridor, shoved him hard, and sent him sprawling into a filthy cell, then locked the cell door.

"It seems the Minister today interrogated only prisoners from pure-blood families: Bellatrix, Sirius Black, Barty Crouch Jr..." the young Auror said puzzledly.

"You are still too young; these great figures have a purpose for every step they take," the middle-aged Auror sneered.

"Oh? How so?" The young Auror was indeed intrigued.

The middle-aged Auror cautiously looked around; seeing no one else, he whispered carefully, "Tomorrow's Daily Prophet will certainly report on the Minister's inspection of Azkaban today; the report will certainly mention whom the Minister interrogated. The Minister is subtly warning certain pure-blood families, urging them to support some of his policies..."

The young Auror let out a gasp of sudden realization...

Sirius Black lay on the ground for a long time without rising; only when he heard the voices outside gradually fade did he eagerly throw himself onto the Daily Prophet and find the photograph he had just glimpsed by accident:

The Weasley family stood before Jin Zita, waving vigorously; among them, a boy stood in the middle of the crowd, with a rat on his shoulder.

Sirius Black's face turned dark and terrifying. He knelt half on the newspaper, threw back his head, and let out a beastly roar that pierced the eardrums; the room trembled from the sound, shaking loose much dust.

"He is at Hogwarts..."

Tears welled up in Sirius Black's eyes.

His voice suddenly gained much vitality; he was no longer that numb figure.

He recalled every little moment of his time with his dearest friend James...

These memories were like gentle rain threads, constantly nourishing his heart.

These years locked up in Azkaban, he had become less and less human, more and less ghostly; he felt only that he was atoning.

For James and Lily!

This atonement lasted twelve years... Now he wanted to get out.

Also for James and Lily.

Their child, my godson Harry Potter, must be twelve years old this year! He must be at Hogwarts too!

Does he... look like James?

Sirius Black's chest heaved violently; his emotions were surging wildly...

Night fell; the cell door opened, and a Dementor glided into the cell.

This was its happiest moment of the week; you see, when no new prisoners arrived, it could only get a turn to absorb a prisoner's happiness once a week.

It dropped some moldy food on the ground; its round, hole-like mouth gaped open, eager to suck up the happiness in the air.

But suddenly it stopped; because the happiness had vanished...

The Dementor had no eyes; it could only vaguely sense its surroundings, searching for Sirius Black...

A black great dog, as thin as ribs, quietly and greedily swallowed the food on the ground; it sidestepped the Dementor and squeezed through the narrow gap in the prison bars.

It walked all the way out of that black castle; not a single Dementor noticed it!

The black dog ran successfully to the shore; the wild wind blew up its long black fur; lightning flashed constantly in the sky; the ghastly white lightning cast its figure in shadowy outlines; the torrential rain poured down on it; wave after wave of huge waves kept crashing against the black rocks beneath its feet...

It jumped in without hesitation; even though it knew its weak body would easily be swept back to shore by the huge waves, and dashed against the rocks on the shore into a thousand pieces, it still did so without a second thought, just like the things they in the Marauders group used to do for each other...

The vast sea was like boiling water; wave after wave of huge waves, tens of meters high, kept rising; the black dog, like a black sesame seed, was repeatedly beaten underwater by the huge waves, yet it stubbornly surfaced again and again...

Now it only needed to swim from Azkaban back to Britain.

The straight-line distance between the two was merely three hundred-plus kilometers!

It floated on the water like a duckweed, swimming with all its might in the standard dog-paddle style...

As for how long it would take to swim that distance at its current speed...

Sirius Black did not care about that!

A flame seemed to burn in his eyes; he was also burning his life-fire without sparing it to complete this journey...

Huge waves kept surging toward him, yet they could never extinguish that flame...

England, I am coming!

Hogwarts, I am coming!

Wormtail, I am coming!

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