"Friends", when Dumbledore said this word, his eyes seemed full of memories.
Jon stood quietly beside him, making no sound.
They stopped for some time at the edge of the ancient city of Winchester.
"Jon, take my arm!" Dumbledore suddenly ordered.
Jon hesitated for a moment, then reached out and grasped Dumbledore's outstretched forearm.
"Very good," said Dumbledore. "Let us go, then!"
Jon grabbed Dumbledore's arm tightly, and then he found that the surroundings had become pitch black.
He was squeezed hard from almost every direction, and couldn't breathe at all. His chest seemed to be tightly bound by several iron hoops. After an unknown amount of time, he was finally able to breathe in the cold night air in big gulps and forcefully opened his tearful eyes...
For a moment, he felt as if he had just been squeezed out of a very narrow rubber tube.
...
...
"Apparition!" Professor Dumbledore said calmly, "It will be painful, but you have to get used to it."
"Yes, Professor!" Jon got up and straightened his clothes.
Then, he suddenly felt an inexplicable chill coming from all around.
On this mid-July night, I was wearing two layers of clothing, and this chill was not normal at all.
However, the phoenix that Dumbledore had summoned earlier flew from the sky to his side, and the phoenix's wings covered Jon's body... The coldness quickly dissipated, and was replaced by a warm feeling.
Jon finally had the energy to look around...the area they had just Apparated to.
They were on a small island, by the sea.
In front of them was a huge and gloomy castle, and behind them was the endless ocean.
Countless black spots can be seen in the sky. They seem to be trying to fly towards this side, while also seeming to be fleeing desperately out of fear.
"This is..." Jon said softly.
"Azkaban!" Dumbledore said calmly, "A terrible wizard prison."
…
Seeing Jon's terrified look, Dumbledore laughed: "Don't worry, no one will send you to Azkaban just because you turned a Boggart into a headmaster... Those imprisoned here are all the most notorious criminals."
Jon smiled innocently and rubbed his head.
Dumbledore checked his watch, "There are still ten minutes until nine-thirty. We still have some time to chat."
He began to search his pockets again... It took about a minute for Albus Dumbledore to finally take out what he wanted.
"Look at this, Jon!"
Jon carefully took the thing from Dumbledore's hand, looked down... his heart almost rose to his throat, but he had to keep a calm face.
He had to us occlumency to force himself to calm down.
Dumbledore was looking down at a pretty pebble and paying him no attention.
"I think..." Jon said calmly, "This should be a bullet shell?"
"Yes!" said Dumbledore, knocking two pebbles together like a child. "Interestingly, I found it where Mr. Percy Weasley was attacked!"
"This is indeed a little incredible..." Jon said softly.
At the same time, he returned the bullet casings to Dumbledore.
"Very interesting stuff, but also very dangerous..." Dumbledore's voice trailed off.
Dumbledore threw the thing in his hand forward... After a few fluttering sounds, several bullet casings disappeared into the sea.
Jon found himself unsure of what Professor Dumbledore meant.
Was he warning me? Was he conveying goodwill to me? Or was it just an unintentional act?
"That was fifty years ago!" Dumbledore's voice became deeper. "It has been fifty years since that terrible war..."
"It took away many of my students and friends!"
"Yusef Shacklebolt, Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts from 1927 to 1941, a very, very good teacher...died in Benghazi, Libya in July 1941."
"Edward Tufte, a seeker for the England national team at the time; he set the record for the time it took to catch a Snitch when he played for the Slytherin team, a record that was only broken by Harry Potter more than a year ago...died in Normandy, France, in June 1944."
"Alan Ross, he was the most gifted student I have ever seen in Transfiguration... In December 1940, he was burned to death in Diagon Alley by a firebomb dropped by an airplane. He was only 15 years old..."
Albus Dumbledore's expression did not look like that of the most powerful wizard in Europe, but rather like that of an old man in his twilight years who was reminiscing about the past.
"Almost half of Hogwarts' teachers and nearly a quarter of its graduates died in that war... So many years have passed, many people may have forgotten about it, but unfortunately I still remember it, as if it was just yesterday!
...
"Please forgive a foolish old man for reminiscing about the past!" Dumbledore sighed, and then his expression gradually became serious: "If there is anything truly terrifying, it must be a complete war between wizards and ordinary people who cannot do magic!"
"So, we must stop this from happening!"
…
Jon was still thinking carefully about the meaning of Dumbledore's words.
However, there was a crisp explosion in the air, and then two figures appeared less than ten yards away from Jon and Dumbledore.
"Good evening, Cornelius!" Dumbledore said gently, "and Amelia."
"Oh, Dumbledore, you are always so punctual!" said the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, a sturdy little man in a dark green coat and with a gloomy look on his face.
Next to Fudge was a witch with a broad figure, a square chin and short grey hair.
"Professor Dumbledore!" The witch Amelia Bones nodded to Dumbledore, and looked at Jon with some confusion.
"Just a first-year student!" Dumbledore said with a smile, without explaining too much: "Jon, this is Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, and Amelia Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
"Hello, Minister, and Director..." Jon greeted them quickly.
Mrs. Bones smiled kindly at him, but Fudge ignored him.
"What is the matter, Cornelius?" Dumbledore asked. "You called me here."
"It's terrible... a prisoner escaped... the first prison break in Azkaban in so many years..." Fudge stammered:
"Sirius Black!"