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BS - Chapter 85: Gathering The Forces
🕑 Added 2025-09-22 10:34:55 +0000 UTCDisclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
“Dialogue”
‘Thoughts’
-Author notes-
Chapter 85: Gathering The Forces
The fortress of Azkaban had been built on top of a small island.
The closest land was one mile away, and the coast was filled with massive cliffs.
Between the sharp stones composing the walls and the violent water currents at the bottom, it was nearly impossible to approach by ship. Five hundred years ago, a powerful Muggle kingdom had to sacrifice its entire army and fleet to conquer this place.
However, for wizards and witches, getting into the island was not difficult at all, since they could do it by air alone.
Ten individuals were standing on top of a cliff that overlooked the terrifying island.
A week after Harry’s takeover of the prison, the Order of the Phoenix was ready to fight back for the first time, and some of their members were getting anxious already.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go there now!” Sirius exclaimed, having his flying broom in hand.
“Kingsley…” McGonagall turned to the man next to her. “Where are the Ministry forces?”
Minister Fudge had been somewhat reluctant to part with his men, but in the end, he was convinced that taking back Azkaban should be their first priority. Otherwise, the image of defeat would inevitably spread to the public, and his career as Minister would be over.
No one wanted to have a weak leader during a war.
“I personally spoke with Minister Fudge this same morning,” Kingsley Shacklebolt responded. After Amelia Bones’s death, this man had been given the position of Director of the Department and was now the best-connected member of the Order.
“And he assured me that he will send as many forces as he could spare to get this matter taken care of.”
“Let’s just wait a bit longer. What’s the hurry? That boy is not going anywhere without us noticing,” Hestia Jones commented.
“I’m not worried about the Potter boy.” Mundungus pointed at the sky. “I swear I saw something flying over the roof of the prison, and it wasn’t a dementor.”
It was already dusk, and the sun was starting to disappear on the horizon.
“What else could it be?” Sirius asked as his eyes moved to Alastor Moody. “You don’t think he used that cursed book, right?”
“You mean… d-demons?...” Hagrid’s face turned paler. As much as the giant loved all sorts of magical creatures, demons were definitely not on that list.
“We should be prepared for the worst-case scenario,” Moody said.
Over the past week, another small British village had suffered the same fate as the other two, with its entire population disappearing.
Even though they still hadn’t discovered exactly how this was accomplished, they could now get an idea of what kind of fate those people had suffered.
“Ohh!” Tonks suddenly reacted to something, alerting everyone in the process.
“What is it?” Sirius asked with urgency. "Did you see something?."
Tonks was quickly putting her hands inside the pockets of her pants and pulling out a small notebook. “I just received a message!”
They all exchanged some looks, as they knew what this meant.
The only missing member of the Order who could be sending her a message right now was Severus Snape, who was still undercover on Voldemort's side.
Tonks opened up the book and looked for the correct page. Each one of these pages had a ‘partner’ that was in possession of some member of the Order. Whatever was written on the partner one would appear here.
“What does it say?” McGonagall got concerned when she saw Tonks’s expression changing as she read the contents of the page in her hands.
“He’s saying that… they are coming here.” The young Auror responded softly.
“When you say ‘they’....” Mundungus muttered.
“You-Know-Who is coming right here, to Azkaban?!” Remus asked.
“Why, though? And why tonight?” Moody wondered for a moment.
He had no doubts that Voldemort had many spies inside the Ministry and must have known that the Minister had planned to send his men tonight.
“Does he say how long they would take? Because I would rather not be here when that happens,” Mundungus said.
“You can’t be thinking of leaving now.” Sirius frowned. “We have to do something about it.”
“Do what, exactly?” Hagrid spoke next. “We were still waiting for the Ministry troops to do something about Azkaban. Now Death Eaters are coming here as well?”
“Hagrid is right. We are completely unmatched… as much as I hate to admit it.” Hestia told them what she thought.
The Order of the Phoenix was too small at the moment, and with the loss of Albus Dumbledore, they couldn’t hope to hold their ground against Voldemort by themselves.
“Isn’t this a good thing then?” Mundungus said.
“How is this good?” Remus asked the man.
“Don’t you see it? We have two crazy dark wizards about to start a fight. I say let them kill each other. That would save us a lot of trouble.”
“We don’t know You-Know-Who’s intentions,” McGonagall reminded him.
“Come on! You think he is coming here to give Potter a hug?” Mundungus huffed.
“Fletcher has a point, for once,” Hestia added. “And it’s not like we can do anything to stop those two from fighting if that is what they want to do.”
“We won’t have to wait long to find out…” Moody’s artificial eye was making noises as he glared into the dark sky. "They are already here."
The others didn’t understand what he was talking about at first, since they had been expecting Voldemort to take much longer to get here.
“Oh no…” McGonagall said, the moment she was able to see a large number of figures moving across the sky. “Severus must have written that message at the last moment…”
They all saw them more clearly as they got closer.
There were over a dozen figures flying on brooms, with Voldemort at the front, and they were going directly towards the roof of the prison.
“Things are about to get ugly…” Moody commented.
