Marlene was standing in the foyer, waiting for me. Once her eyes fell on me, she waved and I made my way through the crowd of ministry officials.

"Hi," I greeted.

"Hi," she grinned back. "Ready for that field trip?"

"Sure," I replied when we started to make our way to the classroom. "Where do you reckon we're going?"

Marlene shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe we'll watch a trial?"

"Uuh, you're right, that might be it."

"But whatever it is, I'm sure I'll prefer it over a day full of boring lessons and 'constant vigilance'."

I snorted. Marlene's Moody impression was improving rapidly.

We entered the classroom. "Oh no," I murmured when I saw Lina. So she was still part of the class.

"What?" Marlene followed my eyes. "Ugh," She groaned when she found her. "I was hoping she'd fail the test. We're like 5 people down, why couldn't she be one of them?"

I didn't reply, but definitely agreed. Just my luck, I suppose.

We made our way to our seats in the front.

"Honestly, it surprises me that they passed the tests. Didn't expect that, from Freya especially. I mean, look at her..."

I bit my lip and clenched my hands to fists. She did not.

"I hate her," Marlene muttered gloomily. "I hate her, I hate her. Please, let me punch her."

I didn't reply and looked straight ahead.

"Freya!" Marlene hissed. "Stop letting her trample all over you! We've gotta do something or this'll never stop!"

"Yeah," I murmured. "I'll think about it."

Marlene sighed and leant back on her chair. I knew that this wasn't the reply she'd wanted, but she knew that she wouldn't get me to say anything else.

"Whatever you say."

We were ingulfed in silence until Moody barged in. (And no, I didn't know why he kept doing that.)

"Get up, everyone. The portkey leaves in three minutes." I only realised then that he was holding a broom in his hand. (But a normal one for sweeping.)

"I hope all of you've brought warm clothes."

Marlene and I exchanged confused looks. It was summer. Had he completely lost it now?

"C'mon now, all of you, gather around!" Moody waved his hands up and down to make us hurry.

We all did as he'd instructed, getting up and holding on to small pieces of the broom's wood.

Then Moody looked at his watch. "Four, three, two, one-"

There was the godforsaken tug in my stomach and then my feet hit the ground again.

I immediately began to shiver at the coldness. I opened my eyes and saw that it was surprisingly dark and cloudy for the warm summer day that the weather witch had predicted.

"Oh my Merlin," Marlene muttered, and I tried my hardest to not look terrified.

I'd only heard of this place, but all descriptions fit perfectly. We were surrounded by water, standing on hard and sharp rocks with a massive grey building without any windows about twenty feet away from us.

We were in Azkaban.

The most feared place in the Wizarding World. The most dangerous wizards and witches of all time were (and had been) imprisoned here.

Holy shit. I'd never considered that if I was to become an Auror, I'd have to go there.

I gulped.

Terrible moment to remember that I wasn't able to cast a proper Patronus...

I shuddered when I saw the silhouettes of really tall, hooded creatures in front of the gates.

Whispers erupted in our group when everyone stared at the building in surprise and fear.

"That's right," Moody said. "Today I'm showing you around Azkaban."

"Without any heads up?" Lina asked with an angry expression on her face.

"Constant vigilance!" Moody snapped back. "I've given you more than enough heads up."

Then he turned to the rest of our class. "Now, let's go in. I'll show you the place, starting with the smaller criminals and then getting to the mass murderers and Death Eaters. You'll see where we bring in the convicted and get to know how we hand them to the Dementors. Once in a while, someone does a check up on the building and the prisoners, since Dementors can't really see. Alright?"

We were all still too stunned to react, so Moody just headed towards the entrance gate, expecting us to follow him. I gulped, exchanged a look with Marlene (who looked more excited than scared, which I envied a little) and made my way to the guards.

The whole group was silent, something I'd never heard before. I think all of us were too scared (or in Marlene's case excited) to talk.

The closer we got to the building, the colder it got. I didn't even realise that I'd started to shiver until Marlene put a calming hand on my shoulder. "Try to relax," She instructed. "The Dementors won't hurt you and you're safe. I'm with you the whole time."

I only managed to thank her with a weak smile.

Don't look at them, don't look at them, don't look at them, I inwardly screamed at myself when we passed the gates and guards.

And gosh, it felt terrible. The last time I'd felt that bad was when I'd locked myself in the Ministry's bathroom.

All happiness was simply.... gone, leaving space for negative emotions only.

The whole place was unnaturally quiet and I felt sadder and sadder the closer I got. When I passed the Dementors, I almost felt as if I couldn't breathe because of my fear, worries and sadness.

No cheering charm I'd casted on myself that morning could've helped.

I scooted closer to Marlene.

Once we'd passed the first two guards, everything just got worse.

I didn't know what I'd expected, exactly, but the place was swarmed with Dementors.

I wouldn't get rid of those horrible feelings anytime soon, I tried to brace myself for that.

We saw how an Auror handed someone to a Dementor and followed the Dementor to watch the imprisonment.

Then Moody showed us the different areas of the prison. Different kinds of criminals were kept in each one.

The worst part of the day was when we got to the area for Death Eaters and mass murderers. There were more Dementors than anywhere else, and of course they affected all of us, too.

Even Marlene was pale now.

I barely looked at anything that wasn't the hallway. I didn't want to see the prisoners; I didn't think I could handle it.

"I kissed Marlene!"

I spun around, but to no avail. Of course he wasn't here.

It was a memory.

The Dementors were slowly making me lose my mind.

Right now they were showing me one of my worst memories.

"I really did it! I kissed Marlene!"

"Shut up!" I whispered forcefully, earning weird looks from Marlene.

That lead me to the belief that she didn't hear things.

Great. So now I was not only the only one who couldn't cast a Patronus, no. I was also the only one who was that affected by the presence of the Dementors.

"You little brats! Let me punch some sense into you-"

I tried my best not to whimper. Unconsciously, I brushed over my cheek, almost feeling the stinging pain.

This place was horrible.

"Sirius!" Marlene's horrified voice made me look around, but after seeing her worried and confused look at me, I realised that that had been a memory too.

I had to get out of here.

Panicking, I made the mistake of looking around - and saw one Dementor staring directly at my face.

I felt nauseous and quickly turned away again, but that didn't help with suppressing my shuddering. Marlene noticed it and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, ignoring Lina's mocking grin. Marls flipped her off.

"You're the worst, brats!" My father's voice echoed in my head again, making me feel dizzy.

I was really grateful for Marlene's support.

"C'mere, now!"

I heard the belt fly.

Smack.

I flinched.

"C'mon, Frey, hold on, we're almost out of here," Marlene muttered, trying to distract me.

All of the memories kept replaying over and over again, to a point where I felt as if I'd collapse, hadn't Marlene supported my side.

It felt like an eternity until we finally stepped out of the prison again.

It felt as if some part of the black smoke in my head had cleared off and I could finally breathe normally again.

Gosh, I wanted to cry. Had I known that this day would turn out like that, I'd never had stepped foot out of my bed.

With Marlene's help, I tumbled further away from the building and the Dementors, until we finally reached our portkey.

As soon as Marlene had apparated me home, making sure that I was alright and that she could leave me alone, I ran upstairs and into the bathroom.

Although the Dementors were hundreds of miles away, I could still feel them.

My throat clogged again and I threw up, reaching the toilet just in time.

As horrible as the day had been, it had taught me a lot, not only Auror related stuff.

For one, Dementors and I didn't go well together at all.

Secondly, I never wanted to go to that place ever again.

And lastly, I really, really, really had to get the hang of the Patronus charm.