The Visitor to Azkaban

The bleak, cold prison of Azkaban stood atop the cliffs of an island in the North Sea. Waves pounded the reefs, while Dementors wheeled overhead.

Sagres Greengrass sat on the stone bed in his cell, a slender wand in his hand, its tip shimmering with a faint silver light.

His gaze was focused and cold. Neither the prisoners' howls nor the Dementors' hisses could stir him in the slightest.

A battered spellbook floated in the air, its pages turning ceaselessly as the densely packed runes and formulas on them rearranged themselves under an invisible force.

Suddenly, the cell door swung open.

Sagres didn't stop moving his wand.

"How unexpected."

Without looking up, he said, "Since when does Azkaban allow visitors?"

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

Professor Dumbledore smiled as he stepped into the cell, his blue eyes studying Sagres through his Half-moon Spectacles. His robes glimmered softly in the dim light, utterly at odds with the gloom around them.

"Looks like they didn't give you a roommate." Dumbledore set a bag of Lemon Sherbets on the stone table.

Sagres twitched his fingers, and the spellbook in the air crumbled into ash.

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

"But they didn't even take your wand?" The old man gave him a playful wink.

"I understand your confusion. After all, you personally put a Trace on my wand. But now..." He waved his wand, his calm voice revealing a hint of pride. "Even the Dementors can't smell its magic."

Dumbledore said nothing. Instead, he looked around, finally settling his gaze on the Anti-Magic Stone Bricks lining the cell walls, covered in magical formulas.

"Looks like you haven't stopped researching, even here." He leaned closer and read softly, "'The energy conversion of Emotional Magic and its symbiotic relationship with Dementors.' Your prison life must not be too bad. Perhaps this place can't hold you at all?" The old man smiled, took a Lemon Sherbet from his pocket, and popped it into his mouth.

"I'm just passing the time." Sagres waved his wand, making the writing on the wall disappear.

"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 may have been the greatest mistake of my life," Dumbledore said ruefully.

Sagres frowned at his words. "Professor Dumbledore, if you came here to mock my situation, you can leave. Studying those idiotic Dementors is irritating enough. I don't need another self-righteous visitor."

Dumbledore sighed, a trace of helplessness in his voice. "Sagres, I never meant to mock you. I expelled you back then because your research had reached a dangerous threshold. I had to think of the students at Hogwarts."

"Dangerous?" Sagres shook his head. "Magic itself is dangerous." He tapped the stone bed with his wand, conjuring an oak chair. "Of course, I understand why you did what you did. I've never held it against you."

The old man smiled again, pulled the chair over, and sat down. The oak seat creaked softly.

"I'm glad to hear you say that. After all, in the five years since you left Hogwarts, you haven't written to me even once."

Dumbledore's Half-moon Spectacles caught the light. "I heard about you from Filius. I know you never gave up seeking the truth of magic, and that you've made remarkable progress. To be honest, I'm relieved."

"As for the reason you came here, I think you should just say it." He held up a hand to stop Dumbledore. "You've done enough laying the groundwork."

"Ah, of course. What I mean is, judging by your past achievements, you deserve a better environment for your research." As he spoke, the old man drew a sealed letter from his robes. "At the same time, Hogwarts needs a Charms Consultant to guide senior students in theoretical research projects and practical spellwork, and to teach every student who has passed their O.W.L.s."

Sagres accepted the appointment letter but didn't open it. His fingers traced the Hogwarts crest on the seal as he murmured, "Return to Hogwarts?"

His mind flashed back to his school days at Hogwarts. To be honest, it had been a "peaceful" and "wonderful" time.

Dumbledore didn't hurry him. After a while, Sagres came back to himself. "I think I can accept. But, Professor, you'll need to use your position as a Wizengamot judge to secure my lawful release."

"Of course. I'll take care of it." Dumbledore stood up. "The Ministry of Magic will deliver your pardon first thing tomorrow morning. Besides that, Sagres..."

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

Silence briefly fell over the cell, broken only by the sound of the North Sea seeping through the barred window. Sagres walked to the stone table and tapped the bag of Lemon Sherbets with his wand. The sweets arranged themselves into a miniature model of Hogwarts Castle.

"I can agree to that, Professor Dumbledore." The sugar towers gleamed in the moonlight. "But I have two conditions, too."

"Go ahead."

"First, my research is not to be interfered with by any Ethics Review Committee." With a wave of his wand, the sugar castle collapsed with a rumble, then reassembled as a complex, three-dimensional rune.

"Second, when I believe certain 'traditional wisdom' stands in the way of truth, I have the right to reform the curriculum."

Dumbledore studied the floating sugar runes. They were a form of ancient Norse Rune Magic.

He fell silent for a long time, then finally held out his hand. "Then Hogwarts welcomes you, Professor Greengrass."

Sagres smiled and held out his right hand as well. "This time, browsing the Restricted Section won't count as breaking the school rules."

"That's true. But please don't replace the index pages in Most Potente Potions again." Dumbledore winked. "Madam Pince still thinks she misfiled it..."

As he watched Dumbledore leave by Phoenix Apparition, memories that didn't belong to this world occasionally flickered through Sagres's mind: glassware in a laboratory in another world, blackboards covered in formulas, and experiments that never seemed to end.

But those images were always quickly replaced by reality: the look of disgust on his family's faces when he was young, his mother's screams as she was tortured with the Cruciatus Curse, and his father's cold retreating back...

Actually, as a transmigrator, Sagres had been pleased with his circumstances at first. After all, most people who got dropped into another world ended up as orphans with both parents dead, while he had both parents and belonged to the Greengrass family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

In his original plan, he'd be a nobleman in the Wizarding World, with a comfortable life guaranteed. All he'd have to do was laze around, enjoy the wonders of magic, and maybe start a hedge fund to short Gringotts or something.

He'd show those old-fashioned relics of the Wizarding World what "Muggle ingenuity" looked like and make something of himself.

But reality soon dealt him a crushing blow.

From the time he arrived in this world until he entered Hogwarts, the British Wizarding World had been under Voldemort's rule.

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

Most importantly, all he knew was that Harry Potter was the Chosen One, Voldemort was the big bad, and Harry would eventually defeat him.

But he had no idea when or how it would happen.

Meanwhile, the Greengrass family were staunch followers of Voldemort. Almost the whole family were Death Eaters.

His father was an Unspeakable at the Ministry of Magic, a man of few words. His mother was a Muggle-born wizard.

That's right, Sagres was a Half-blood.

Though his mother was beautiful and a Muggle-born wizard, she loathed Sagres's mixed blood.

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

If it had been only his family's hatred and abuse, that would have been one thing. But later, the Greengrass family's Death Eaters, eager to echo Voldemort's Pure-blood ideology, made Sagres's mother an offering to prove their loyalty.

Those very Death Eaters she had once sought to support tortured the pitiful woman into madness with the Cruciatus Curse. Then a single Killing Curse struck her, bringing her life to a miserable end.

When five-year-old Sagres heard the news, he didn't even know whether to feel happy or sad. His mother in name had given him life, but beyond that, all she had ever given him was endless abuse and torment.

At the time, five-year-old Sagres had just experienced the first Accidental Magic of his life. He didn't even have a wand of his own, yet he had no choice but to face his situation.

Back then, the thing he muttered to himself most often was, "This is worse than being an orphan!"

With death looming over him, he had no choice but to seek help from magic. So, forced into a corner at the age of five, Sagres created his first spell.

That was right: after his first Accidental Magic, he discovered his own special ability. When the magic inside him built up to a certain point, he could forcibly improve spells or even create new ones out of nothing.

The "Potent Confundus Charm" was an improved spell with no offensive power, but it made people automatically overlook his presence—especially since he was already invisible within his family.

He used the spell to hide himself and lived in fear at home for six years. It was nothing short of a miracle.

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

As for his father, he had been sentenced to prison when Voldemort fell. By now, he was probably already dead from a Dementor's Kiss...

A raven perched on the window fluttered its wings, interrupting his memories.

Sagres took the scrap of a Dementor Cloak from the raven's beak and tapped it with his wand. The scrap turned to ash, and a wisp of blue energy flowed into his body.

The flame-shaped rune scar on his wrist glimmered in the moonlight. It was a memento of a Dark Arts experiment, and the reason he could walk through Azkaban in peace.

"It's time to leave."