The visitor left, and the isolated prison fell silent once more.
The island fortress was eerily quiet. Dim light flickered from a kerosene lamp, casting faint glows on the cold, stone walls. Scabbers, the rat, wasn't sure if other rats inhabited this place. He didn't dare make a sound.
Click… clack…
Bellatrix Lestrange's lips twitched, her teeth chattering together in a chilling rhythm.
She was still chewing moss, not swallowing, spitting it out after savoring its taste. The residue of grass juice and dirt clung to her gums and teeth, forming dark green-black grime so foul even Scabbers felt uneasy.
Huddled in a corner, Scabbers kept his limbs tucked tightly beneath him. Around his neck hung a glass pendant containing a colorless, odorless liquid.
Bellatrix had once been a core Death Eater, while Peter was merely a lowly spy, barely above a house-elf in status. They weren't close and had rarely interacted.
The witch looked utterly deranged from her torment. Peter didn't know what would happen if she discovered him, and he wasn't willing to find out.
He had no intention of saving a fellow Death Eater. His only goal was to extract information about the vault key, summon Professor Levent with the Ouroboros mark, escape this wretched place, and disappear into some remote village where no one could find him.
"Damn it, why did I have to deal with this?" Scabbers muttered in his mind.
In the dim lamplight, the moss in the floor's crevices had been picked clean. Piles of chewed filth surrounded the mad witch. Exhausted, she leaned against the wall, her eyes slowly closing, shoulders slumping.
Scabbers waited, watching her breathing grow slow and steady—a sign of sleep. Heart pounding with suppressed excitement, his tiny forepaws touched the pendant around his neck as he crept out from his hiding spot.
The rat crawled slowly across the stone floor, his soft paws silent on the solid surface. But Bellatrix's eyes snapped open.
"Who's there?!"
Her shrill voice echoed, piercing the air and stinging Scabbers' ears.
Terrified, he scurried back to the corner, holding his breath, not daring to make a sound.
Bellatrix's eerie gaze swept the room, finding no trace of intruders. She didn't care. After so long in this place, with Dementors turning her mind and soul into swamp sludge, hallucinations were normal. She couldn't always tell dream from reality.
She knew this well—when she'd tortured other wizards with the Cruciatus Curse, they'd hallucinated too.
Leaning back against the wall, she closed her eyes, muttering, "I think I smell a rat…"
She smacked her lips, as if recalling the taste of fresh flesh.
Scabbers trembled but stayed silent.
If that mad witch caught him, she'd eat him alive, crunching his bones to dust.
He couldn't get caught. Couldn't reveal himself.
He had to wait for the perfect moment—one where she couldn't resist, couldn't struggle, couldn't scream. Then he'd pour the Veritaserum down her throat.
"…"
Scabbers' mind flashed with images of prisoners broken by Dementors.
…
Hogwarts, Muggle Studies Professor's Office
Melvin was sorting through Azkaban-related documents.
That night, when he'd proposed visiting Azkaban to Madam Bones, his main goal was to help Scabbers infiltrate. But after the actual visit, he found aspects worth exploring and began compiling materials for a potential paper in a Muggle Studies journal.
Nearly two years as the Muggle Studies professor, and he hadn't published a single academic paper.
Teaching and research were a professor's core duties. McGonagall was a signed contributor to Transfiguration Today, Flitwick frequently appeared in charm-related journals, and Sprout had even published a herbology compendium. Snape, the Potions professor, was more low-key, but still respected.
Even less central subjects like Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Astronomy boasted leading figures.
Muggle Studies, though non-magical, was a popular field. The most prominent scholar was Quirinius Quirke, Dumbledore's original choice for the post. Quirke had locked away his wand to live in Muggle communities, regularly publishing articles advocating for mutual respect and learning between wizards and Muggles, intermarriage across species—wizards with Muggles, wizards with werewolves, even werewolves with vampires—and arguing that the decline of pure-blood wizards was positive.
His views stirred controversy. Many wizarding scholars openly criticized him, and extremist pure-bloods sent Howlers to publishers. Undeterred, Quirke planned to compile his essays into a Muggle lifestyle guide.
Compared to them, Melvin had little to show.
No word yet from that rat. With the holidays freeing up time, publishing a paper seemed a good way to pass it.
"Discipline, Punishment, and Breeding: The Birth of Azkaban"
The paper had three parts: an overview of Azkaban's ecological conditions, an analysis of the prison's role, and a subtle critique of the Ministry.
Melvin planned to incorporate Muggle legal theory to explain the logic of Muggle societal systems.
The content wasn't overly complex, just enough to spark discussion and help wizards better understand Muggles.
Flipping through hefty tomes, he duplicated relevant pages with a Geminio charm, stacking them beside his desk with annotations.
The desk started tidy but grew cluttered with papers.
Yurm, the snakelet, watched for a while before growing bored and slithering across the desk.
Melvin, still working on his literature review, noticed his papers being disrupted. He set down his quill and fixed the white snake with a stare.
Yurm froze, meeting his gaze with innocent, round eyes.
Melvin poked its head, slipped off his ring, and placed it on the snake's tiny horn. "Behave, little guy. Sleep in there or play elsewhere—just don't mess with my work."
"Hiss…"
Yurm, possibly not understanding, flicked its tail and slithered off.
Uncomfortable with the ring on its horn, it used its tail tip to nudge the emerald-encrusted ring off, tossing it onto the desk. Then it poked the gem's tiny hole with its horn.
The gem's Undetectable Extension Charm activated, green light flaring. A gentle suction enveloped Yurm, pulling it into the gem.
The emerald lay still for two seconds before trembling, bouncing wildly on the desk like a dog trapped in a plastic bag, panicking and thrashing.
Judging by the buzzing frequency, the snakelet inside was terrified.
Melvin sighed, tapping the gem. The external space reconnected to the snake nest, and Yurm shot out, coiling around his wrist, head buried in his palm, tail quivering.
"…"
Melvin shook his head. His snakelet didn't seem particularly bright.
The night Dumbledore gave him the emerald snake nest, after lulling the basilisk back to sleep, he'd tried letting Yurm settle in it. The results were underwhelming.
Anyone would think it was a common garter snake, not a horned water serpent. A disgrace to magical creatures.
"Yurm, you…"
Footsteps interrupted him.
Knock, knock, knock…
"Come in."
The door opened, revealing a figure in a slightly oversized black wizarding robe, a gold-and-red tie, and untidy hair spilling over their shoulders. A youthful face stood at the threshold.
Hermione's smile faltered when she saw the snakelet in his hand, her voice stuttering. "P-Professor, Hagrid asked me to invite you to his hut."
Melvin looked up. "What's the occasion?"
"Hagrid wants to thank you for guiding us to the truth and helping clear his name."
Having faced a basilisk, Hermione wasn't scared of a snakelet, but girls often found snakes unsettling, and her tone softened.
"Alright, let's go."
Melvin slipped the ring back onto his finger, pocketing the snakelet as he stood.
The trench coat's fabric, a sturdy blend for structure, wasn't soft—nothing like a custom-made snake nest for magical creatures. Yet Yurm loved it, nestling comfortably in the pocket.
Its head poked out, hissing.
Hermione pursed her lips, standing still. As Melvin passed, she locked eyes with the snakelet.
"It's Yurm, my friend's child," Melvin said lightly, tapping its head. "This is Hermione."
"Hiss…"
Yurm, expressionless with its blank snake face, kept hissing, possibly not understanding.
"Hello, Yurm," Hermione said, noting its black eyes and recalling Harry's words.
Before they found the basilisk, the professor had already interacted with it, asking it to incubate an egg—likely this snake.
Its horn marked it as a horned water serpent, a symbol of one of Ilvermorny's houses. It must be from Ilvermorny, explaining why Melvin called it his friend's child.
"Don't dawdle, let's go."
Melvin closed the office door and headed out.
Hermione hurried after him. "Professor, is Yurm a horned water serpent?"
"Yes."
"Does it have any special magic?"
"Not yet."
"??"
…
Half an Hour Later, Forbidden Forest Hut
A pot of Irish stew—pure meat, no vegetables—simmered over a fire built on stacked stones.
Harry and Ron sat beside Fang, their hands and faces greasy, grinning with oily sheen.
Hagrid's cooking wasn't better than the house-elves', nor was the stew tastier than Hogwarts' kitchen. But the ambiance—gathered around a campfire and clay pot—added flavor, making the meal more about joy than taste.
"Let me tell you, Malcolm's eyes nearly popped out! Haha…" Hagrid gnawed on a beef knuckle, regaling them with tales from the pub, sharing the patrons' shock at the truth, their newfound respect, and their regret for past misunderstandings.
Melvin sat across, sipping broth from a clay bowl. A layer of oil trapped the heat, requiring long blows to cool it. He occasionally asked questions, fueling Hagrid's enthusiasm.
Mostly, he listened, a faint smile on his face.
Outside, the sky darkened.
Torches and the fireplace were lit, and more wood fed the campfire, its orange glow warming the hut. Crackling logs and the scent of burning pine created a cozy atmosphere.
Hermione ate daintily, favoring soft mushrooms and potatoes. Accidentally scooping up a fatty rib, she wrinkled her nose.
Glancing aside, she saw Fang wrestling a bone, paws pinning it, teeth bared.
Her eyes lit up. She discreetly tossed the rib his way.
No one noticed, except Yurm, poking out of Melvin's pocket. Its eyes gleamed too, and it slithered out, across the couch, toward the bone-gnawing hound.
Melvin noticed but didn't intervene.
Hermione watched the snakelet climb Fang's hind leg, slithering up its fur toward its neck, her heart rising to her throat.
Fang was a hunting dog, trained with the centaurs last summer, bold enough to chase birds, rabbits, and even kick gnomes and bowtruckles. A snake this small? One snap, and it'd be in two.
Fang, engrossed in the rib, sensed something off. Why was his back itchy and cool by a campfire?
Dropping the bone, he turned—
A tiny snake face stared back, mimicking him, flicking its tongue near its mouth.
"!!"
Fang jolted, fur bristling, and let out a startled, "Woof!"
Yurm raised its head, round eyes fixed on him, tilting its head and mimicking, "Woof!"
But it lacked Fang's menace, sounding more like a kitten's mew—soft, sweet, with a hint of warmth.
Fang froze, dumbfounded.
The two stared at each other, drawing everyone's attention. Harry and Ron gaped at the snakelet, then at Hermione, who looked equally baffled.
Melvin fell silent. This snake was definitely off.
It hadn't learned Parseltongue or human speech, only hissing—until now, when its first word was a dog's bark.
Hagrid's eyes sparkled. He nudged Fang's rear with his foot. "Bark again!"
Fang, a bit aggrieved, barked, "Woof, woof…"
Yurm echoed, "Woof, woof~"
Its voice was crisp and melodic.
Everyone fell silent. It was just a dog's bark, but from the snakelet, it sounded oddly… prettier.
Even Fang shook his head, his doggy brain unable to process the absurdity.