A stack of newspapers was perched high on a rocky ledge, made from the wall crumbling and leaving a good-sized shelf behind. The pages were damp and the corners turned upwards, and in some places I could hardly read from the blurred text. But the newspapers kept my sanity. It kept my soul from disappearing into a dementor's mouth.

The cell's occupant that stood next to mine let out a ragged scream of desperation. His scream turned to sobs, and in them I could hear his pleas that would never be answered.

"I'm sorry, mother," he cried. The cold wind blew some of his words away. "...understand that I had to do it or I was..." He dissolved into hysterics. Through the small window of light of my door, I saw five dementors pass, no doubt heading to the poor man's cell.

He had been screaming and falling into hysterics for three days now. I wondered when the dementors would decide his time was up. Then I might finally get some sleep.

But Azkaban was never silent. There was always someone screaming. Always someone crying out in the dark as a dementor passed by them. And even when nobody spoke, the sound of despair weighted heavily in the air.

Cold wind whistled through the chinks in the wall, and chilled the heavy iron chains that were secured around every prisoner's hands and feet. It penetrated the lightweight, ragged grey clothes we wore and fed the dementors' passion for sorrow. Water leaked from who knows where are pooled everywhere. Vermin of all sorts ran around— and I had seen other prisoners eat them when they got too hungry and too desperate.

Azkaban was a place where the darkest wizards were hidden, to prevent them loved you; no friends who cared about you. Azkaban was a place that stole the happiness and hope from the same people who had stolen it from the innocents.

Azkaban was the place where I, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, belonged.

And if for one moment, one single, fleeting moment I forgot that fact, all I needed to do was shift my gaze to the stack of newspapers on the ledge. I only needed to think of the headlines I had memorized by now: SCORPIUS MALFOY SENT TO AZKABAN FOR THE MURDERS OF PRESIDENT HAROLD AND MINISTER GRANGER— NO TRIAL — LIFE SENTENCE — HAZEL MALFOY REDUCED TO HYSTERICS — PRIME MINISTER ROSE WEASLEY DENOUNCES EX-HUSBAND.

Then I remembered that I belonged here in Azkaban. In the place of no silence and no hope.

For a moment I realized the other man's screaming had stopped. The only sound left of him was the dragging as his body was dragged out of his cell. As the dementors went past my cell, I felt their hunger turn to me.

I wondered how long I would last before it was my stone-cold body being dragged across the cracked cement.

I wondered how long it would be before I was buried here, buried so not just my soul rested with the dementors, but my body too. I wondered how long it would be before I was tied to this piece of rock for good.