Everyone waited on the ground.
"What exactly was that?" A young Auror finally could not hold back any longer, his voice hoarse and trembling. "Was that... Dumbledore's phoenix?" "A phoenix?" His companion gave a bitter smile. "Phoenixes are golden. They breathe fire and sing. That was a raven—a black raven, larger than any raven I've ever seen. And—didn't you see? Those Dementors acted before it like... like trained dogs!"
No one could explain any of it. They were merely Aurors from the Ministry of Magic, well-trained and experienced, with Dark Wizards being their specialty. But everything that had happened today—that godlike duel, those frenzied Dementors, and that raven that had every Dementor bowing obediently—lay far beyond their understanding.
Grison slowly rose to his feet, his legs still weak. He looked in the direction the raven had vanished, his eyes full of complicated emotions.
"This... has to be reported," he said with difficulty. "The Ministry of Magic has to know there's a raven... capable of controlling Dementors." No one objected.
But they all knew how absurd that report would sound.
Rumble!
Just then.
The tremendous sounds of battle rang out again.
The night over the North Sea had always been deathly silent and bitterly cold.
Lead-gray clouds hung low, tightly shrouding Azkaban Prison, isolated amid raging waves.
This prison, reputed to be the wizarding world's most heavily guarded and impregnable cage, was perpetually cloaked in the chilling mist of Dementors. Waves battered its rough black stone walls, producing dull, despairing crashes. Even the sea wind carried the cold, decaying stench left behind by Dementors, as though time itself had stopped here.
Only eternal confinement and despair remained.
But tonight, that deathly silence was utterly torn apart. Unprecedented magical fluctuations swept across the entire prison like a tsunami. Even the defensive spells