Visitor to Azkaban

The cold and gloomy Azkaban prison stood atop a cliff on an isolated island in the North Sea. Waves crashed against the jagged rocks, while Dementors circled and hovered above the prison.

At this moment, Sagres Greengrass sat on the stone bed of his cell, holding a slender wand in his hand, its tip flickering with a faint silver light.

His gaze was focused and indifferent; neither the howls of the prisoners nor the hisses of the Dementors could stir him in the slightest.

A tattered spellbook floated in mid-air, flipping incessantly as the dense runes and formulas upon its pages were rearranged by an invisible force.

Suddenly, the door to the cell was pushed open.

Sagres did not stop the movement of his wand.

"This is quite a surprise."

He said without looking up, "Since when does Azkaban allow visitors?"

"For an old man like me, there are always some privileges."

Dumbledore walked into the cell with a smile, his blue eyes peering at Sagres through his half-moon spectacles. His robes glowed with a soft light in the dim surroundings, appearing entirely out of place in the grim environment.

"It seems they didn't assign you a roommate." Dumbledore placed a bag of Lemon Sherbet on the stone table.

Sagres's fingers flicked slightly, and the floating spellbook turned into ash and drifted to the floor.

He looked up at the old man, his expression calm: "There are plenty of empty rooms in Azkaban, Headmaster."

"Yet they didn't even confiscate your wand?" The old man blinked with a hint of playfulness.

"I understand your confusion; after all, you were the one who personally placed the Trace on my wand, but now..." He waved the wand in his hand, his calm tone revealing a touch of pride: "Even the Dementors cannot smell the aura of my wand."

Dumbledore did not speak, instead looking around the room, eventually letting his gaze rest on the Anti-Magic Stone Brick of the cell wall—it was covered in carved magical formulas.

"It seems that even here, you haven't stopped your research." He leaned in to look, reading softly: "'The Energy Conversion of Emotional Magic and its Symbiotic Relationship with Dementors'—it appears your prison life isn't too bad; perhaps this place cannot hold you at all?" The old man smiled, taking a Fizzing Whizzbee from his pocket and popping it into his mouth.

"Just killing time." Sagres waved his wand, causing the writing on the wall to vanish.

"I don't know if it's because I'm getting old, but lately I've often thought that expelling you from Hogwarts five years ago might have been the greatest mistake I've ever made." Dumbledore said with a sigh.

Sagres frowned upon hearing this: "Professor Dumbledore, if you came here to mock my situation, then you may leave. Researching stupid Dementors is already enough to annoy me; I don't need another self-righteous visitor."

Dumbledore sighed, his tone carrying a trace of helplessness. "Sagres, I never intended to mock you. I expelled you back then because your research had touched upon the edge of danger. I had to consider the students of Hogwarts."

"Danger?" Sagres shook his head, "Magic itself is dangerous." The wand in his hand tapped the stone bed, transfiguring it into an oak chair. "Of course, I understand your actions at the time, and I have never held a grudge against you for it."

The old man smiled again upon hearing this, pulling the chair over and sitting down, the oak seat creaking slightly.

"I am very glad to hear you say that; after all, in the five years since you left Hogwarts, you haven't sent me a single letter."

Dumbledore's half-moon spectacles glinted slightly: "I heard about you from Filius. I know you haven't given up on pursuing the essence of magic all these years, and that you have achieved significant results. To be honest, I am very gratified."

"As for the purpose of your visit, I think you might as well be direct." He reached out to interrupt Dumbledore: "You have provided enough preamble."

"Ah, of course. What I mean is, judging by your past achievements, you deserve a better research environment." As he spoke, the old man took a wax-sealed letter from his robes: "At the same time, Hogwarts needs a Charms Consultant to be responsible for guiding the theoretical research projects and spell practice of senior students, teaching all students who have passed their O.W.L.s."

Sagres took the appointment letter but did not break the seal, his fingertips tracing the Hogwarts crest on the flap as he whispered: "Return to Hogwarts?"

His thoughts flashed back, his experiences as a student at Hogwarts surfacing in his memory. To be honest, that was truly a "peaceful" and "wonderful" time.

Dumbledore did not rush him. After a long while, Sagres regained his focus: "I think I can accept, but Professor, this will require you to use your status as a Wizengamot judge to let me leave this place in a legitimate manner."

"Of course, I will resolve these issues." Dumbledore stood up: "The Ministry of Magic will send your pardon first thing tomorrow morning. Besides that, Sagres..."

"Come to the Headmaster's office for tea every Thursday afternoon, and..." He paused for another moment, "When the castle needs it, protect it in your own way."

The cell fell into a brief silence, with only the sound of the North Sea waves seeping in through the iron bars. Sagres walked to the stone table, his wand tapping the bag of Lemon Sherbet, and the candies automatically arranged themselves into a miniature model of Hogwarts castle.

"I can agree to that, Professor Dumbledore." The towers built of sugar grains were crystal clear in the moonlight, "But I also have two conditions."

"Please, speak."

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"First, my research shall not be interfered with by any Ethics Review Committee." With a light wave of his wand, the sugar castle collapsed and reorganized into complex three-dimensional runes.

"Second, when I believe certain 'traditional wisdom' hinders the truth, I have the right to carry out teaching reforms."

Dumbledore stared at the floating sugar-grain runes—that was a form of ancient Norse Rune Magic.

He remained silent for a long time, eventually extending his hand calmly: "Then Hogwarts welcomes you, Professor Greengrass."

Sagres also smiled and extended his right hand: "This time, browsing the Restricted Section of the library won't count as breaking school rules."

"Indeed, though please do not replace the index pages of Most Potente Potions again." Dumbledore blinked: "Madam Pince still thinks it was her own classification error..."

Watching Dumbledore depart via Phoenix Apparition, memories that did not belong to this world occasionally flashed through Sagres's mind: glassware in a laboratory from another world, blackboards filled with formulas, endless experiments.

But those images were always quickly replaced by reality—the disgusted expressions of his family when he was young, his mother's screams as she was tortured by the Cruciatus Curse, and his father's cold back...

In fact, as a transmigrator, Sagres had been happy with his setup at the beginning of his journey. After all, most people who receive a transmigration script end up as orphans with both parents dead, while he not only had both parents, but also belonged to the Greengrass family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

In his initial vision, as an aristocrat of the magical world, he would at least be free from worry, only needing to experience the beauty of magic while living a life of leisure, perhaps even starting a hedge fund to short Gringotts or something similar.

He would let these old fossils of the magical world get a taste of what "Muggle wisdom" was and properly realize his own self-worth.

But reality soon dealt him a heavy blow.

Because from the moment he transmigrated until before he enrolled at Hogwarts, the British magical world was shrouded under the rule of Voldemort.

That's right, he knew Voldemort would eventually fail, but the man hadn't fallen yet, and the Boy Who Lived was still in his mother's womb.

Most importantly, he only knew that Harry Potter was the savior, Voldemort was the great villain, and Harry would eventually defeat Voldemort.

But he had no idea when or how that victory would come to pass.

The Greengrass family, being loyal followers of Voldemort, consisted almost entirely of Death Eaters.

His father was an Unspeakable at the Ministry of Magic who rarely spoke, while his mother was a Muggle-born witch.

Yes, Sagreles was a half-blood.

Although his beautiful mother was a Muggle-born witch, she deeply loathed Sagreles's half-blood lineage.

She made no effort to hide her malice toward him, as if doing so could make others forget the fact that she wasn't pure-blood herself.

If it had only been the hatred and abuse of his family, he might have endured it, but later, the Death Eaters of the Greengrass family, in order to align with Voldemort's pure-blood ideology, actually used Sagreles's mother as a token of their loyalty.

This pathetic woman was tortured into madness by the very Death Eaters she sought to support using the Cruciatus Curse, and then her life was carelessly ended by a single Killing Curse.

At the time, upon hearing the news, Sagreles didn't even know whether to be happy or sad, because his mother in name had given him nothing but life, followed by endless daily verbal abuse and torture.

The five-year-old Sagreles had just experienced his first Accidental Magic; he didn't even have his own wand, yet he was forced to face his situation head-on.

The phrase he muttered to himself most often back then was, "This is even worse than being an orphan!"

There was no other way; the threat of death forced him to seek the help of magic. Thus, at only five years old, a desperate Sagreles was compelled to create the first spell of his life.

Yes, after his first bout of Accidental Magic, he discovered his own cheat—when the magic in his body accumulated to a certain level, he could forcibly improve or even create spells out of thin air.

The "Potent Confundus Charm"—this improved version of the spell had no offensive power, but it could make people automatically ignore his existence, especially since he was already a non-entity in the family.

He used this spell to hide himself and lived in the house for six years while constantly looking over his shoulder; it was nothing short of a miracle.

Later, he received his letter from Hogwarts. On the eve of his departure, he personally sent two Death Eater elders who had cast the Cruciatus Curse on him to Azkaban.

As for his father, he had already been sentenced to prison when Voldemort fell, and by now, he had likely died under the Dementor's Kiss.

"Flap, flap." A raven landing on the windowsill interrupted his memories.

Sagreles took the fragment of the Dementor Cloak from the raven's beak. With a light tap of his wand, the fragment turned to ash, and a wisp of ghostly blue energy surged into his body.

The flame-shaped rune scar on his wrist shimmered in the moonlight—it was a souvenir from a dark magic experiment and the source of his confidence to walk calmly through Azkaban.

"Time to leave."