Cold waters of the North Sea, on a small island.
Here stood Britain's most terrifying place: the legendary academy for dark wizards, the Death Eater training program—Azkaban Prison.
A stone building fully fifty meters high stood there. It had no windows in its outer walls, only several three-meter-high doors at the bottom, each guarded by two Dementors.
Powerful magic clung to the walls, along with numerous Ancient Runes, all there to keep the prisoners from escaping.
But the upper levels of the prison were small fry. They held people locked up for stealing and selling secondhand cauldrons, smuggling banned goods, or illegally keeping Fantastic Beasts.
Even when the prison was at its fullest, no more than one-twentieth of its cells were occupied.
After all, before its discovery, the place had been a research institute built by the Wizards' Council to study Dementors. The upper floors had originally housed researchers and members of the Wizards' Council.
The truly heinous criminals, such as powerful dark wizards and important Death Eaters, were all imprisoned deep beneath Azkaban.
Far below Azkaban, there was a ring of cells arranged in a circle.
The cells were filthy. Each held only a toilet, a stone slab covered in straw, and two empty bowls.
Two iron rings hung from the ceiling, with chains attached to them. The other ends were fastened to the prisoners, severely restricting their movements.
The prisoners inside were all middle-aged or elderly men and women, emaciated to the bone.
Their hair was unkempt, their bodies coated in dust that had surely gone unwashed for ages, and their nails were long enough to serve as daggers.
They wore handcuffs and shackles, and each cell held just one person, apparently to stop them from working together to break free.
But the prisoner in one particular cell