Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 7: Azkaban

The island of Azkaban first came to the attention of Wizarding Britain in 1443 when non-magical (for Muggle was not yet a word) traders reported sighting a previously uncharted isle halfway between the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Even more surprisingly, those traders claimed that there was a mighty fortress already built there with a foreboding tower far taller than even the greatest castles of the British Isles. While the non-magical authorities dismissed the reports as the result of too much liquor, word soon passed to wizarding ears. Curious and concerned, the Wizengamot sent an expedition to the island.

What they found there was the stuff of nightmares.

The island had apparently been raised from the seabed by the dreaded Emeric the Evil sometime during the previous century, and he constructed a great tower there for some fell purpose. After Emeric's fall and execution, his disciple, the dark wizard Ekrisdis, claimed the island and tower for his own ends and hid both behind impenetrable wards and invisibility charms. Ekrisdis dwelt in the tower of Azkaban for nearly a century while continuing his vile experiments into the darkest arts (usually on captured non-magical sailors) until death from old age finally claimed him. Azkaban's protective charms endured for nearly twenty years after Ekrisdis's death before failing and leaving the island visible to the world.

Most of the horrors contained within Azkaban were scoured away by the Wizengamot's expeditionary forces, though many wizards lost their lives in the attempt and many others later took their own lives rather than live with the knowledge of what they had seen. Yet the greatest horror of Azkaban could not be purged. For in the caverns and tunnels beneath the tower lay something that was beyond a nightmare – a nest of Dementors numbering in the hundreds. Though Dementors were known to the wizards of Britain and Europe, their numbers had been thought small. Previously, most Dementors had been encountered individually or, at worst, in packs of three to five. Before Azkaban was revealed, most wizards would not have believed there to be more than a few hundred Dementors in the world, let alone in a single place. But the great pit that lay beneath the foundation of Azkaban teemed with the creatures. Frightened and unable to cleanse the island of its Dementors, the Wizengamot withdrew, sealing the island away with its most powerful wards and Notice-Me-Not Charms in the hopes that the folly of Emeric and Ekrisis could be safely forgotten.

And so it was forgotten for nearly three centuries until the International Statute of Secrecy was passed into magical law and the wizarding world was changed forever. Among the unforeseen difficulties imposed by the Statute were certain problems inherent in wizarding criminal justice. Despite the best efforts of the aurors, jailbreaks had always been surprisingly common among the wizarding criminal classes, for few local jails could be built to withstand the power and versatility of magical rescue attempts perpetrated by outsiders even when the inmates had been stripped of their wands. Before the imposition of the Statute, such escapes would result in local authorities, both magical and mundane, joining forces to track down escapees under what British common law would later call posse commitatus. But after the Statutes' passage, the magic used during such jailbreaks risked drawing the attention of Muggles (so named now because it was deemed essential that such non-magicals be fooled, or "mugged" in the vernacular of the day, into thinking that magic did not exist), and wizarding law enforcement was forbidden to seek the assistance of their Muggle counterparts except in the most extreme circumstances. To address these concerns, the Wizengamot directed the newly established Ministry of Magic to devise plans for a new prison in some remote location from whence escape would be impossible.

During this same time, the British Isles were increasingly plagued by wild Dementors who were eventually traced back to lost and fabled Azkaban. Frightened both by the danger of these Dementors and by their challenge to the nascent Statute of Secrecy, the Wizengamot charged Damocles Rowle, then the Minister of Magic, with addressing both the Dementor threat and the need for a new prison. His solution to both problems pleased virtually no one.