Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. I only own Silvia.
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To Silvia, starving to death was the least of her worries. Every time the guards would come into her cell, carrying a tray of the slop they called food, she would leave it there on the floor by the enchanted door, not really seeing the point of eating.
She would only crawl towards the tray and eat if she was absolutely ravenous. If she wasn't, she would stare at the far wall all day and think about the only happy thing she could remember: her brother.
Scorpius had always been very kind to Silvia, very gentle. He never let her down. He had always sat beside her during lunch periods, and did homework with her whenever he had free time.
This was all during their time in Hogwarts, which had also been the worst five years of Silvia's life. Azkaban was worse, though—at least in Hogwarts, she had Scorpius to keep her sane.
What would he be doing right now? Silvia thought. She imagined him sitting in the Slytherin common room, doing homework or talking with friends and such. Did he even have friends? Silvia had never brought herself to think about it, but now that she had, she couldn't help but feel envious.
Silvia never had any friends. As soon as she was sorted into Slytherin, she had a very hard time making acquaintances. Slytherin House had always been infamous for their very… imaginative welcoming committee. Her first night there and Silvia was told that she had to sneak into the Potions' cabinet and steal a flask of mandrake juice. Scorpius hadn't wanted her to do it, but Silvia did it anyway, and she wasn't caught.
Not that it had changed anything. She was still the outcast, always known as the daughter of the one who had betrayed Hogwarts, plotted with the Dark Lord.
The students never jeered at Scorpius as much as they did Silvia. He was quiet, always watching from the side-lines. Whenever the teasing got too far Scorpius would always step in, threatening her adversaries until they left.
But she could still remember that dreadful day—the day she finally decided that it was time for all of it to end.
It wasn't something a person could easily forget.
Silvia had killed someone out of pure hatred and rage. Sometimes, she told herself that she deserved to be locked up in Azkaban. Her father hadn't killed anyone during the war, had he?
Killing one of her demons hadn't helped her. If anything, the act had brought her the devil itself. It sat beside her every day in her cell, watched her, kept her at bay with memories that she wanted to forget.
Forgetting was the hardest thing to do in Azkaban.
Occasionally, they would let the Dementors in, let them hover just outside the doors of the cells. Their chilly breaths would waft into the room, devouring any ray of hope that she could have mustered in-between her dreams and reality.
It was difficult to keep track of time, but Silvia guessed that in the past year she'd spent in her prison, only eight times did she have the honour of having Dementors watch her outside. But eight times was enough to leave her a crumpled, miserable heap.
Silvia brought her legs up and laid her chin in-between her knees, never taking her eyes off the wall. In her own arms was the only place where she could find warmth, her last living hope. She held it to her chest, envisioning it as a real thing. And when she thought of hope, she remembered her teddy bear: a little fluffy brown thing she always slept with when she was still too young to go to Hogwarts.
For a moment, Silvia thought she felt the soft fur of the teddy bear, but it was only her hair. She was still in her prison; there was nothing in the room with her except darkness and misery.
Lightning struck outside. The sound had become Silvia's soundtrack. She heard it every day, fell asleep to it, woke up to it… Whenever silence remained for more than five minutes, she found herself unnerved.
Cold air filled her cell and she started thinking about the boy she had killed. Had he been buried? Cremated, maybe? Did his parents hate her? Were they happy that she was in Azkaban? Did the boy's friends attend his funeral?
Silvia thought that the Battle of Hogwarts was supposed to teach the Slytherins a lesson, that they would finally let go of their sour personalities and turn towards brighter features.
But then, which House had always been unrelenting, unforgiving, and unredeemable?
Silvia didn't know why she had been sorted into Slytherin. Was it because her father had aided the enemies of Hogwarts during the Second Wizarding War? She had been perfectly happy to just graduate and live a happy life out of Hogwarts, maybe even make a name for herself in the Muggle world.
Then she just had to snap.
She was in her fifth year—her fifth year! Why couldn't she have just held out for a bit longer? Why couldn't she have been stronger?
Silvia had been counting the seconds in her head, more than happy to let them pass while she tapped her fingers on her cold cell wall. The dull sound echoed all around the room, fading away before another tap took its place.
Thunder shook the room, rocking her. Then she heard yelling outside.
She pulled herself up shakily. Using the wall for support, she walked to the entrance. Loud banging startled her, making her jump and rush back to her little corner at the end of the room.
It was then that she noticed the banging hadn't come from the door.
It had come from the wall.
But that can't be right. These walls are made of iron, Silvia thought.
She put her ear to the wall. Louder banging made her ears throb, but she kept listening. A voice was calling out from the other side as well.
"Back away!" it said. "Back away, Silvia!"
Silvia's heart dropped to her stomach. She knew that voice.
Without another thought, she threw herself across the room. Though she was weak, having deprived herself of food for days, her limbs reacted quite quicker than she'd expected.
As she slid away, the wall exploded.
Rain came pouring in, accompanied by iron debris that could have easily crushed her if she didn't push herself against the door. Opening her eyes, she was able to see behind the heavy sheets of rain, saw a face she never thought she'd see again in her lifetime.
"Scorpius?" she said, yelling past the noise of the wind.
"Silvia!" he shouted back. Her brother was wearing his Slytherin robe, not a single thing over it. He was on his broom stick, making a panicked gesture for her to come. "Silvia, come on!"
Through the torrents of falling water, she imagined a huge grin on her brother's face. And for the first time in months, she laughed. As she wondered how many people had had enough glee to still be able to laugh in Azkaban, Silvia ran for the massive hole on the iron wall, towards her brother.
Without a second thought—because she trusted her brother with her life—she jumped, holding her arm out. Scorpius grabbed her arm and with a huge pull, tugged her onto his broom. Silvia gripped her brother's waist like a lifeline.
Just as he was pulling away from the prison, the raindrops got colder, eventually turning to ice.
Silvia whipped her head around and found about a dozen Dementors, all hurtling towards them. "Scorpius, your wand!" she said. Her brother took out his wand from his boot and handed it to her.
Immediately, Silvia cast a Patronus charm.
For a while, the Dementors stayed back as she and her brother flew away from Azkaban. But Silvia's magic wasn't as strong as it used to be. A dozen Dementors became twenty, maybe even more, and sooner rather than later, Silvia could feel the familiar weight of helplessness on her shoulders.
They were surrounded.
The ghouls took turns drinking from them, sucking out their happiness, their souls. With bleary eyes, Silvia saw that Scorpius's grip on the broom was loosening. Their flight was slowing down.
And then they fell.
Silvia screamed.
She found it odd how watching her brother fall onto Azkaban's jagged rocks made her stronger.
Maybe she wanted revenge. Maybe she knew that living to see another day would give her the chance to get angry. But was that what she really wanted to do?
Time seemed to slow down. In front of Silvia, dozens of Dementors raced toward her, as if they were going to catch her, stop her from falling. But in a millisecond her thoughts were clear. Silvia gripped the broom stick tight in her hand and mounted it.
She pulled, hard, stopping her descent.
Silvia had never been good with Flying, but she flew straight, holding her hand out behind her, a Patronus charm holding up. Her heart pounded in her chest, but she no longer quaked in fear. With a yell of defiance, she tightened her grip on her brother's wand, sending a particularly strong wave of the Patronus that pushed the Dementors back.
Silvia flew like hell, not giving the prison behind her a second glance. She didn't need to. She knew her brother was there, on the rocks with the waves crashing over him, dead.
She knew that she was going to avenge him—had to avenge him—in any way possible. She would.
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