Azkaban's nights never had starlight.
This black fortress, standing on an isolated island in the North Sea, was like a crouching beast, its cold spine rising above the waves as the ceaseless sea battered it day and night. "Crash~ crash~"
The seawater carried the chill of the deep ocean as it struck the rocks beneath the fortress again and again, releasing muffled, despairing roars like the sobs of countless prisoners, echoing endlessly across the empty sea.
The fortress walls were built from massive black stones, every one of them engraved with ancient, frigid containment runes. The runes gave off a faint gray glow in the darkness, radiating a suffocating sense of oppression.
Dementors were everywhere, circling above the fortress like ghosts. Their broad black robes snapped in the night wind, and there was no light in their hollow eye sockets. Yet they could precisely catch even the slightest trace of living emotion, slowly drawing out despair and fear before returning it in full to every living being within this prison.
Even on the clearest days, only dim gray daylight could barely pierce the thick clouds. At night, dense darkness swallowed everything completely, leaving only bone-deep cold. Like countless fine needles, it slipped through gaps in clothing, pierced the skin and sank into the marrow, making every breath sting with icy pain.
At that moment, Dumbledore and Grindelwald stood side by side on a reef outside Azkaban's main gate.
Years of erosion had left the reef smooth and slick, glimmering with a cold bluish-gray sheen as though a massive wave could sweep it away at any moment. The sea raged beneath their feet. Enormous waves leaped up before crashing down heavily, their spray shining with a deathly pale light in the darkness like scattered bones, only to be swallowed by the