A Daily Prophet Exclusive - July 24th, 2014

  "I Never Meant To Play Quidditch. It Just Came And Got Me."

  An In-Depth Look at How Daniel Weston went from Convicted Felon to World-Class Beater - Part Two.

  Interview by Ginevra Potter-Weasley, Senior Quidditch Correspondent

  When one's personal situation took a right good plowing, it was, of course, the fault of good old 'George.' The vengeful little blighter, of course it was.

  One was in one's favorite nook. and 'secret headquarters.' It was a ventilation channel, dug into the rock walls so as to be unnoticeable inside the room. Further, it was at the level of the roof of the room, while the only magic light crystal hung in the air three feet below the roof, and only shone downward.

  And the channel went nowhere. One went through the vent cover, and one was in the center of a length of square-cut rock tunnel, roughly four feet wide and the same height. The inner wall was ten feet long, from inner corner to inner corner of the tunnel. It was square as well. One could crawl just over forty feet, turning four times in the same direction, and end up exactly where one had started. And that was it. Four sides, four hatches, three open, one closed. The only airflow was pressure change from room to room.

  What took one longer to figure out was that each of the three hatches one could access opened into a different barracks complex. There was a ladder leading up one floor, with exactly the same set-up, save that two were more men's barracks, and one had a dusty unused smell that reminded me of trolls. Possibly the fourth and eighth one did as well, but one only knew of six barracks at Azkaban. All three Men's, usually quite full, one Women's, usually three-quarters empty, and Solitary/Special Prisoners, no idea. And Dusty Troll Smell, as I mentioned. And then the closed ones. And, my dear girl, they were closed. For reasons one found good at the time, and that one still finds good, one avoided the Women's, Solitary/Security, and Dusttown.

  Hah! One just thought of something. Will you, Dear Lady, be forced to redact the Hel out of this? (Well, Crap. GPW). Not one's problem, of course. One is a loyal and highly prized member of the German Magickal Community, and the good old Blighty D.M.L.E. can bite one..

  Naytheless, one did explore the three Men's barracks quite thoroughly. Each had the same basic set-up. Three large bunking areas, each of which was run as a personal fiefdom, by either a very strong man, a very scary man, or a small committee of moderately strong and scary men who could work together. These last could be either reasonably uncaring, or very, very bad.

  Good, you ask? None of them were good.

  There would also be one walled-in exercise area, which the bunking areas were cycled through, and one Dining Hall/Recreation Area. This last used to be fairly theoretical when one started one's sentence, but the DMLE were having trouble keeping Dementors out of the place. And actual games and competitions were beginning to be available, depending on the tyranny level of one's fief-holder. There was even talk of Barracks-Level Quidditch, and Inter-Barracks-Level Tournaments. One had no idea how they could make that work. Not that one cared. Quidditch had never been one's raison d'etre.

  (Daniel looked down at his scarred and knotted hands. 'How times change,' he said quietly).

  "One pretty much had the run of the three Men's Barracks, becoming sort of a supplementary 'George' in each. One always slept in a different dormitory than whomever one was conversing with, and one never answered to any name but 'George."

  And at the time one is speaking of, one was in his nook, preparing to return to his 'Home' Barracks. The rooms that allowed one to access the ducts were each filled with floor to ceiling columns of translucent material, with either liquid or gas flowing through them. The material was unbreakable. The columns were spaced in a way that made it possible for a slender chap to eel through with a modicum of ease. It was uncomfortable to spend too long in any of these rooms. One got a feeling of something being missing, of being unwelcome... Pardon, are you quite well? Ah, if you insist.

  One was about to exit, preparing to open the vent cover. These blended seamlessly with the wall surface in the rooms. One had found the first by the unlikeliest of coincidences. They did not block airflow in either direction, and only blocked vision and sound from inside. A door from the barracks opened, and one needlessly froze in place. People did use these rooms as a shortcut from the rearmost bunking area to the hallway that ran from the Lock and blocked Barracks Entrance to the Dining Hall.

  It was one's Oldest and Dearest Friend in Azkaban, Our Mr. Bates. A tricky reflection through a series of the pillars showed him entering. He shut the door behind him, looking as if he would lock it if possible. He waited a few moments, becoming visibly more agitated with each passing second. He finally walked further down, edging along the wall. One doubted he would fit between the pipes.

  His image grew and shrank, twisted, distorted and flat out disappeared as he walked along beyond the pipes and combination of pipes between oneself and him. When he stopped, though, one could not see him at all. One had a strangely clear and very magnified view of the section of wall he was near. There was a slight circular discoloration near the bottom of the magnified image. A truly massive finger came in and touched that spot.

  "Alohomora," Bates said softly, but not too softly for me to hear. The wall opened like a great gate in the image, but one knew rationally it must be a small panel. The stacks of Galleons and Sickles around the walls gave me the true perspective.

  Bates' wand lay in a channel inset into the bottom of the box, in what looked like a perfect fit. A giant hand laid a single Galleon and several Sickles on their respective columns. His other hand reached in to lay a hand-written note on a stack of similar papers. One saw dates encompassing the past week, and columns of numbers.

  The massive finger came up and touched the tip of the wand. "Colloportus," he said, and the panel shut, blending seamlessly into the wall.

  All that was left was a small circle that was not quite a match for the color of the wall.

  Instead of leaving as he came, Mr. B sidled around the sides until he reached the door that opened into the hall. After carefully checking, he left.

  ***

  Well, well, well. The 'George' in one was bubbling over with excitement, half-grown plans, ideas, and urges flashing through one's mind. Frankly, one was a bit concerned as to one's mental stability. By the Blinding Blue Eyes of Freyja's Favorite Chariot Cat, one needed to calm down, and think!

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  First things first. Check if the coast was clear. One took one's sad excuse for shoes off, tied the strings, then hung them around one's neck. Opening the hatch, one crouched on the lip. Straightening as one leaned across the aisle, one wrapped arms around the closest slender pillar. Once one brought one's bare feet over and got secure purchase, one reached out and touched the outside of the hatch cover with one finger. It closed and sealed, blending perfectly. The reverse would open it, but it was much more of a stretch.

  One worked one's way down the pillar until one's feet were about nine feet above the floor. Here the textured surface of the pillar ended, becoming frictionless the rest of the way to the floor. To say one slid the rest of the way is an understatement. Being up became being down with no transition time.

  This was the only pillar that had this dichotomy of texture. I had checked thoroughly.

  One worked one's way over to the site of the... safe, one supposes? Proceeding as one always did in these rooms, flat on one's stomach and eeling through the foot-high grey metal collars at the base of the pillars. Those who might pass along the outer aisle would have had very little chance of spotting one, between the distorted, sometimes nauseating light, and one's clothes, grey from repeated soapless washings.

  Oh, one's golden curls might have caught the eye, but one kept them shaved off. They tended to attract the wrong sort of attention from new meat. By the time they became old meat, they knew to leave one be, but honestly, the intervening process was tedious. One beat-down leads to another, and then it's nothing but work, work, work. Easier to shave one's head. One was a busy, busy man, after all.

  The adjoining dormitory, officially designated C Block, but currently known as Deiter's Lot, should have been emptyish, it being their 'Outside Recreation' period. One checked anyway, then checked the Hallway. Returning, one quickly found the off-color spot, and momentarily regarded it.

  It could be a trap. It could be a lethal spell. It could silently notify the Bates Blob. All of these were unlikely, due to the undeniable weakness of the wand. That it could produce any effects under the enchantments on Azkhaban was a miracle in itself. But still... a Toast?

  (Daniel produced a lovely Muggle Single-Malt Whisky, and we toasted... GPW).

  'He Fears His Fate Too Much,

  And His Deserts Are Small.

  Who Will Not Put It To The Touch,

  To Win Or Lose It All!'

  (A Note to a Certain Brother of Mine. 'Deserts' as used herein refers to 'What One Deserves.' Not Treacle Tart... GPW).

  One mentally rehearsed the actions needed to access one's sanctum. It would take less than fifteen seconds.

  Then one touched the tip of the wand, and said, 'Alohomora.'

  ***

  That first time, one touched nothing, save with one's eyes. The safe was deeper than expected, and should have projected into the dormitory beyond. Dimensional Magic, of a certainty. One could not see into the depths, and had no clean means of making a light. The few Muggle matches one had 'liberated' would leave a lingering smell. If they worked at all.

  Enough. Retreat and Plan. One resealed the safe and vacated the premises.

  ***

  The first week, one was on tenterhooks. The plans made were fragmentary at best. One had to wait to see if The Bates-tard noticed one's intrusion. One had hoped he would bring his wand out for one of his infrequent, 'Remind Everyone As To Whom Is REALLY In Charge' forays. Followed by a run on bandaging and burn salve, both of which Bates had almost a monopoly on.

  During that week, to keep one's mind from spinning out of control, one began pondering some of the imponderables that had been building in one's mind.

  Where had the money come from? Commerce in The Rocks was mostly barter, services, hoarded food, or crafts. I include home made alcohol as a form of crafting, and quality ranged from acceptable to 'Put Me Out Of My Misery.'

  Good? You should probably give up asking that question.

  There were Knuts about, to be sure, but not enough to base an economy around. They were mostly status symbols, mainly, and changed hands so often that they were usually worn down to shiny bronze disks in no time.

  There might be a few Sickles, as well, but they would be well-hidden, and no doubt reserved for some life or death emergency.

  Galleons? Please.

  The top note in the safe had been laid down slightly skewed, and one was able to confirm the slip beneath was from the week before, thus one's week of forced introspection. The columns of numbers had been of little help, either, mostly because one had no idea what the single letter abbreviations meant.

  Enough of that line of thought. Move on.

  Three full Men's Barracks, and one three-quarters empty Women's Barracks.

  Does the Gentler Sex commit less crime? Are Officials more lenient with them? Or are Women so much smarter that they rarely get caught? Perhaps not necessarily smarter. More pragmatic? Less inflamed by their desires, passions, or needs?

  Perhaps a combination of all these. One's money, however, is on smarter.

  Move on.

  What was the purpose of the rooms with the pillars? One knew of six now, three on each floor, and possibly two behind the sealed hatches. Were the ones above and below single units that pierced the floor between levels? They were certainly unbreakable by anything we prisoners had. In Muggle prisons, they might have been vandalised, but Azkaban's infrastructure was unalterable. Ugly, but unalterable. Nothing to disassemble for weapons, no surface would take a mark, neither dirt, hair, or body fluids would accumulate. Even the mattresses were inviolable.

  The pillar rooms, though. No one lingered. One had built a tolerance of sorts, but an hour was the most one had been able to last. And that was just one's Weston stubbornness defying fate.

  Were the pillars magical infrastructure? The workings that hid us from the outside world? Or even, perhaps, their own kind of prison for entities one could not recognize or understand?

  My Dear Ginevra, one left Azkaban gladly, and has no desire to return. But the mystery of those pillars...

  ***

  The week passed without incident, and one began to firm up plans. One was waiting now on what passed for a holiday in one's 'Home' Barracks.

  Bates Sahib would occasionally fall off what passed for his 'wagon.' What one means by that, instead of just getting drunk, and being a monster the next day, he would inflict full-blown alcohol poisoning upon himself. It would last until his body purged enough to make him functional again. Seeing that one side-effect was to make him unable to keep more than a single sip of water down, it could be an extended process. It could be anywhere from a full day, to the morning of the third day. One never knew. Add to that, one of those worse -than-migraine headaches that extended all the way to his skin's hair follicles... well.

  The entire dormitory would be cleared for the duration. His cubby was sealed against light, and air was provided by a jury-rigged ventilation duct. The air was nudged, not pushed, by a very well-oiled fan blade being slowly hand-cranked by a rotation of his flunkies. Can't have moving air tearing at one's arm hair, after all. His muscle guarded the only doors this first dormitory had, one to the Hallway, and one to the second dormitory. Once the doors were closed, the rooms were perfectly sound-proof. The muscle was merely to prevent anyone with a deathwish from bursting in. It says a lot that the need for peace even outweighed the sadism of the Bates-Blob.

  The other two fief-holders in one's Barracks were reasonable about the refugees. They were subordinate to Bonny Prince Bates, when all was said and done. But there was still what passed for a holiday atmosphere. Bates was truly that bad.

  This was one's moment. One had one's schedule and itinerary planned to the minute. One had to be especially careful in accessing the room with the pillars. what with the current overcrowding. One waited 'til Dieter's Lot were at their Outdoor Recreation, with the refugees waiting in the Hallway under the wary eyes of a couple of Deiter's muscle. Giving them a place to kip was one thing. Pilfering about, another. Give Dieter that, one will. Once acknowledged as one of his, one had a recognised place. One had seen much worse.

  One loitered in the hall, a bit closer to the pillar room than most found comfortable. Once Deiter's Lot started to come in, the refugees were lining up to go out, and one was in and among the pillars with none the wiser.

  One took one's time working across the room to the safe. By the time one was in position to make a move, one was assured there was no pursuit. One's heart was in one's mouth, peering around the last pillar beside the aisle.

  Yes. Relief settled heavy on one. The wand was there. One had worried that Bates might keep it to hand, when weak and vulnerable. The opposite was more likely, that he feared its loss to one of his 'caretakers.'

  One eased out and up. Touched the spot. Alohomora.

  One was off.