In a bleak and desolate forest, a gloomy castle stood solitary. Its gray stone walls were covered with ivy, and the dark-paned windows looked like empty eyes.
Inside the castle, a hooded figure slowly descended a narrow spiral staircase, torches flickered in the darkness, casting dancing shadows on the stone walls. Each step echoed like a heartbeat in the gloom.
Reaching the top of the stairs, the figure stopped in front of an iron door, its surface cold and rusted. From his sleeve, he drew a wand, and with a slight movement, the door creaked open on its own, revealing a windowless four-by-four room. It was a typical cell.
The cell had the basics. A simple wooden table with a chair and a toilet. Nothing else.
The imprisoned person, upon seeing the hooded man, stepped back quickly. His expression was filled with fear.
"Why so scary?" asked the figure in a monotone and unchanging tone.
"We are already acquaintances," he added, removing his hood and revealing his identity. "Professor Eustace."
His height had changed, now exceeding five feet. His hair was still as messy as before, only slightly shorter. His blue eyes, cold and calculating, glowed with an intensity that would not allow one to guess his thoughts as he watched Eustace.
"Professor Eustace," James repeated, with an almost eerie calmness, as his eyes examined the man who had once been a formidable foe.
Eustace looked thin. He seemed to have lost years of life, his sunken cheeks and dull eyes, surrounded by deep dark circles under his eyes, reflected suffering and wear and tear.
Eustace backed up until he hit the wall. His eyes looked with fear and great caution at James.
"You look...different," James commented with a tone that bordered on mockery. He watched Eustace, his gaze sweeping over every aspect of the decay that enveloped him. "Time has not been kind to you."
Eustace, unable to find the words, could only watch James with a mixture of fear and resentment. His voice, when he finally spoke, was rough, broken with disuse. "What do you want from me, Potter?" he asked.
James smiled a gesture that didn't reach his eyes. "Just a conversation, Professor," he replied, pulling a tray full of hot, delicious food from his ring.
He rested the tray on the table and, with his wand, conjured another chair in which he sat.
"Let's get something to eat. You're in pretty bad shape," he added, sitting down at the table.
Eustace looked at him suspiciously, but he had no form to refuse, or he might suffer the same again as he had months ago. He sat at the table, his gaze fixed on his plate as his trembling hands reached for the food. His hands were not normal, they were prosthetic, as James had cut off both of his hands in the past.
"It's not poisoned," James said, cutting off a piece of steak and eating it. Eustace began to eat already without hesitation. If James wanted to kill him, he would have done it without making this whole scene.
After a few minutes in which only the sound of silverware and food being swallowed could be heard, Eustace looked up and watched James warily.
"Why are you giving me this delicious food now? Is it time for me to die?" he asked the last with a faint, odd smile. He would have wished to die the day the sunken vault came crashing down. Before he was captured by this demon.
"You want a dementor to kiss you? Your crimes are enough for such a sentence. Manslaughter of a minor, escape from Azkaban, and you've used the Unforgivable Curses on students countless times," James commented as he continued to cut the meat as if he were commenting on the weekend's quidditch match.
Eustace grimaced at hearing about the dementor's kiss. For all he knew, it was a fate worse than death. A dementor sucked the soul out of you. Leaving you in a sort of vegetative state.
"Looks like you're still not that desperate. That's good. It means you still have a faint hope," said James, and his eyes glittered for a moment before changing the subject.
"I give you this delicious food, since thanks to you I managed to complete my research," he added.
"Research?" repeated Eustace uncomprehendingly.
"Yes. Do you think all the experiments I performed on you were simple tortures?" asked James, shaking his head.
'Simple torture?' thought Eustace in disbelief. Simple was an understatement. That was why he was in this state.
"Thanks to having a competent wizard like you as a subject for experiments, my research progressed much faster. For that, I thank you," James said, rising from the table with a smile that gave Eustace chills.
Eustace tried to remember the tortures, looking for a clue to the focus of this "research" of James', but he couldn't link anything. It seemed like complex torture, but not purposeful.
"You don't seem to get it. Let's do a test," James said, and Eustace quickly got up from his chair and stepped back.
James paid no attention. From his ring as black as the abyss, he pulled out a wand. This ring was unique in the world. It was inscribed with ancient runes that gave it the ability to store countless items. The best part was that you only needed to use your mind to store and remove the objects. A simple mental command. Although the method to make it work was not simple at all. James had to study a lot of Dai Ryusaki's ancient rune books.
"Catch. I suppose you'll recognize this wand," James said, tossing the wand to Eustace, who caught it awkwardly.
Eustace looked rather gloomy at the wand in his hands. Of course, he recognized it. It was his wand. The first one he got from Ollivander when he was a brat.
"Don't look at me with that face. Do magic, attack me, whatever. Just cast a spell," James said, and Eustace, after a few seconds, nodded. He knew that if he disobeyed, he would be in for worse nights.
'Lumos,' Eustace thought, and the tip of his wand lit up. However, the light emitted from his wand was extremely weak. Weaker than a simple candle.
"A first-year Hogwarts student would cast a more powerful Lumos than that," James commented with a slight smirk.
Eustace looked down at his wand in surprise. He cast a non-verbal Lumos again, but the wand's glow did not improve in intensity. He cast it verbally, but there was hardly any improvement.
"Throw an Expelliarmus," James said, pointing it at himself for the bald man to aim.
Eustace hesitated for a moment but ended up agreeing. This time, he opted to cast an Expelliarmus verbally. The red flash was weak, and its speed was low. James deflected it without difficulty with a simple, non-verbal Aeromanteo.
"Weak... A second-year student would beat you in a duel, Professor," James said with a smirk.
"T-this is due to my current state," Eustace replied, stammering and looking distrustfully at his wand. He was skinny, gaunt, and hadn't used magic in years. He wanted to believe that his magic was simply rusty and that it was just a matter of practice to regain his former power.
"Indeed, your condition is not optimal," James said calmly. "But I always fed you three times a day. Even if you haven't used magic in a long time and are somewhat rusty, casting such a weak 'Lumos' is completely unheard of." James looked at him with a mixture of pity and contempt. "It is unheard of for a wizard who in the not-so-distant past would cast unforgivable curses to now barely manage to light the tip of his wand."
Eustace felt a chill inside him, far icier than the prison air. "W-what did you do to me...?" he asked, stuttering again as his hands shook.
James smirked, like a professor about to reveal a crucial lesson. "It looks like you're finally catching on. My research focused on the anatomy of the magical human being. And you, Professor Eustace, were the perfect experimental subject."
Eustace looked at him in horror, his mind trying to process what he was hearing.
"Wizards, unlike Muggles, have something I call magical veins," James explained, pronouncing each word precisely. "It's the circulatory system through which magic flows in the body. Finding these magical veins was a huge challenge. Research in magical biology and anatomy is extremely precarious, you know? We should learn from the Muggles and their advances in medicine. They've studied their bodies thoroughly, while we barely know ours." James paused, letting his words sink deep into Eustace's mind.
"I studied your body, Professor. During this time, I searched and analyzed those magical veins and watched how the magic flowed in you. However," he added in an almost nonchalant tone, "In the process of my experiments, it was inevitable that I damaged your magic veins. To understand how they worked, I had to try different methods, intervene in their flow, and analyze the consequences. The deterioration of your magic was a necessary sacrifice for my research."
Eustace brought a trembling hand to his chest as if he could feel those magic veins deteriorating inside him.
"That explains why your magic is so weak now," James said, leaning toward him. "You are no longer the dark wizard you once were. You're a shadow of your former self, barely able to turn on a light. And my research didn't end there," he added with a smile that to Eustace was that of the devil himself.
"I concluded my research by developing a spell," James continued, his voice lower and more lethal. "A spell capable of destroying those magical veins. With a simple wave of my wand, I can turn you into a Squib, or worse, a Muggle. Imagine, Professor... turned into a Muggle. The people you a supremacist see as if they were cattle animals," he said, ending his speech with a cold smile.
"No... impossible!" exclaimed Eustace, unable to believe such a dangerous curse. A curse worse than death. Worse than a kiss from a dementor. A wizard who experimented with magic was stripped of his powers and turned into a Muggle.
James watched Eustace with an implacable coldness. "Let's see if it's impossible or not," he muttered, his voice laden with palpable menace.
With a determined gesture, James extended his right hand, focusing his telekinesis on Eustace. An invisible field of energy seized the dark wizard's body, immobilizing him completely.
James, holding the wand in his left hand, pointed it directly at Eustace. The wand glowed with a cold, metallic light as he uttered the incantation he had perfected over a long time of research. His voice was clear and precise.
"Venatrum Exuro,"
A beam of silvery magical energy emerged from the wand, slamming into Eustace with searing force. The energy seemed serpentine and cruel, it slid through the air with a painful intensity, as if it pierced the very core of his being.
Eustace screamed in agony as the spell acted upon him. A wave of indescribable pain swept through his body as if his magical veins were disintegrating from within. It was a sharp, stabbing pain that seemed to consume him completely, causing his vision to blur with every heartbeat he felt.
As the spell continued, the pain gradually began to subside. Eustace, exhausted and trembling, fell to the ground as the invisible force that kept him immobilized dissipated. He lay there, breathing heavily. He sat up with difficulty, his movements clumsy and weakened.
His body felt lighter, but he did not notice any other immediate difference. He thought the pain had been some sort of intense curse, similar to the Cruciatus, but he didn't feel any strange alterations.
Quickly, he bent down to pick up his wand from the floor. The wand was in perfect condition, and his mind still hoped he could cast a spell, relieved that the torment was over.
He picked up the wand and, with a mixture of desperation and hope, tried to cast a simple spell. But when he tried to concentrate his magic, nothing happened. The wand remained inert in his hands, unresponsive to his attempts.
"No... no... no... NO!" shouted Eustace, who kept waving his wand without stopping, but nothing came out of it.
"Damn you! Avada Kedavra!" shouted Eustace with hatred and great intent, but nothing came out of his wand.
"Shut your mouth," said James after a few seconds, making a slight gesture with his hand. Eustace's mouth was closed against his will by an invisible force.
"Now, you will leave this comfortable room. Your destination is London. Specifically Brixton Prison. A Muggle prison. You will be tried as a Muggle criminal with a life sentence. You will spend the rest of your life with Muggle criminals," James explained as Eustace's eyes widened and bulged in shock.
"Now the dementor's kiss seems like a better option, doesn't it?" added James with a slight smile as he saw Eustace's expression. Someone as supremacist as Eustace would rather be kissed by a Dementor than have to live with Muggles for the rest of his life and be a Muggle by being stripped of the magic that made him superior.