❝ If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. ❞ — Matthew 21:22

Junius had told me the first day not to expect much from the food here, but I soon realized that was pretty much the generous version of "the meals are barely edible."

It was early December when I decided to give up on eating. I'd go to the cafeteria for breakfast and gulp down one thing at most. Samuel would push a tray of food through the chute on my cell door at lunch and dinner time, and I'd push it back. Most days I lived on tap water only. Occasionally, they gave us bread. It was rock-hard, stale and tasteless, but it was the most I ate when offered.

My immune system was never the greatest, so starving myself had its side effects—other than my apparent, severe weight loss. Twice, I passed out in the shower. Malnutrition and cold water were not a good match. It became one of the reasons I would skip shower day some weeks.

Another time, I got a fever. Worst I've ever gotten. Getting through it without a Healing Potion in this freezing weather was even worse. It took me two weeks to recover, and honestly, it was a miracle I even did. I'd like to think it was God's doing, that it was praying that saved me. But with time, it started getting more and more difficult to see why God would want to keep me alive.

Each day that passed was a day closer to my birthday on July 5th, which was also my date of execution. Every year, my family and I traveled somewhere new to celebrate my birthday. This year, my celebration would be death. The Ministry would give me a Killing Curse for a present, as a reminder that my very birth was a mistake.

"You're not eating," Junius said after two weeks of picking up my untouched trays of food. "You'll die, you know."

"Nah," I told him. "The human body can survive three weeks without food. I eat just enough to get through the day. The rest is water. I'll be fine."

"You're getting worse," he said. "You'll catch another fever soon."

I started laughing. My ribs hurt and I had to sit down. "Nun'ya."

"Pardon?"

"Nun'ya business, Junius. I mean, what's it to you? Don't y'all want us to die, anyway?"

He looked at me for a long while, his brows furrowed, his dreadlocks obscuring half his face.

"I don't want to see you die, 354," he said.

I didn't care of it back then. Looking back, if it weren't for him feeling that way, I would have been dead by now.

I remember it was around this time I hit rock bottom. I didn't think I'd make it to the next day, or even cared to. My faith in God was lost, the same as my appetite. I had failed Sophia, broken the promise I made her. I'd stopped praying. There was no use in it. Had the Ministry cared, they would have ended this madness years or even centuries ago. I was a lost cause. Matt and Joseph and Zoë were too. The best I could do was let myself die of natural causes, rather than live long enough to be offed on my birthday.

"I talked to Lieutenant Longstreth about changing the meal plans," Junius told me one evening. "You're not the only one starving yourself."

I remember rolling my eyes. "And you thought he'd give a darn, why?"

"Because he listened," Junius said and gave me a pointed look. "He heard me out and said he would consider my suggestions regarding a reform on meal quality improvement for inmates."

Silence. I didn't thank him then. Truth is, I didn't believe Longstreth would actually do anything. But no longer than a week after, Matt talked to me and it turned everything around.

"Dude, there's new stuff to eat! Longstreth announced a change in meal plans yesterday at breakfast. I don't know if you're still there or if you care even, but you don't want to miss this, I'm telling you. We have eggs, raspberries, Swiss cheese and even pumpkin juice once a week. Like, real pumpkin juice! He said he had a meeting with Celander and the guards and most of them agreed to a meal improvement reform. I know you haven't talked to any of us in weeks, but I know you're still there, my friend. I know it. I know you care about this. We have chicken too. It's nothing like Salem's Sorcerers' Taverna chicken, but—"

"I'm vegetarian, Matt," I interrupted. He knew that. He knew that I knew because that's why he'd said it, to get a reaction out of me. To make sure I was listening.

"Theo, my guy! I knew you were still there," he said. There was no change in his telepathic voice, but I could nearabout hear the enthusiasm in it.

That was the last of Matt's old ramblings before he made a hundred-and-eighty degree turn and went all taciturn. But if it weren't for him reaching out to me, despite my unresponsiveness to any of his, Joseph's or Zoë's conversation attempts, I would still be in that same miserable position.

I joined them for breakfast the next morning. They were all there, Joseph, Matt and Zoë, sat around a table, eating and laughing like they were at a feast instead of in prison. I smiled when I looked at them. Matt looked skinnier, Joseph's cheekbones were more prominent and Zoë's dark hair roots had started growing back under the pink, but they all looked happy. Hopeful.

I didn't know then how short-lived that hope would end up being, but I allowed myself to smile and enjoy the moment. After half a month of near starvation, I ate a full meal that was more than just "barely edible." It was far from delicious, but at least it was fresh and different and had flavor to it. It was a change.

When Junius escorted me back to my cell that morning, I finally thanked him.

"You were right," I said. "They listened."

He gave me a benign smile.

"It only takes one person, 354," he said. "We're not all monsters here. And we don't all think you lot are too."

I thought about Sophia's promise and the Crucifix that hung round my neck. I'd be nowhere without her believing in me and encouraging me to believe in myself. And when I lost sight of the latter, it was Matt who pulled me back by not giving up on me, and Junius, who cared enough to not let me die and did something to help. Then and there I realized that the God I thought had abandoned me, was actually speaking to me in ways I had stupidly dismissed, because I had been too busy wallowing in my own misery.

I went back to praying three times a day. I thanked God for each breath I took, for each meal I had and for my friends still being alive. I started getting out of bed again. I started feeling healthier, happier. It didn't all stay with me long, but the hope did. Because after that moment, my faith never wavered again.

I started talking to Junius a lot more. Samuel didn't like it, and often scolded him to not be friendly with me, but he'd always find a sneaky way to start a conversation when Samuel wasn't around. He told me he had worked at the Auror Office in the Ministry of Magic for twelve years before being assigned as an Azkaban guard, a job he'd had for only five. He had a wife named Andrea and they soon expected a child, a daughter they were planning to name Rosemary. He liked to play Gobstones, a wizard game I'd never bothered to learn but he didn't mind teaching it to me one night. After I got the hang of it, we started playing it almost every morning before the wake up call and I usually beat him to it.

When I showed him my tattoo on my left bicep, which I'd designed myself, he asked if I was some sort of artist. I told him I liked drawing and painting. He was generous enough to give me sheets of onion-skin typing paper and a pencil, which was another blessing I thanked God for every day.

I didn't go a day without drawing after that. Having that opportunity meant being granted a liberty I thought I had lost forever. So I expressed my gratitude the only way I knew how, apart from keeping him in my prayers: I sketched him a portrait.

"I know it's far from perfect," I said awkwardly as I handed it to him. "I'm more of a painter than I am a drawer, so it would have turned out better if I had my watercolors from my Magic in Visual Arts classroom—"

"Nonsense," he interrupted. "All that modesty for no reason. This is absolutely beautiful. I thank you, 354."

He ran a finger over the drawing before folding it carefully in half and putting it in his pocket. Then he looked at me with grateful eyes and gave another one of his abundant smiles.

"No, I thank you, Junius," I said. "I don't know where I'd be without your help. You've done so much for me that you didn't have to."

"Nothing is more important than a man's life. If they plan to take that from you, I see no reason why I should deny you the only freedoms you have left while you're in here. There's so much about the current system that needs change and reformation."

"I have hope that change will come soon," I said. "While there's people like you on their side, there's still hope."

Silence. Junius nodded and reached a hand through the bars to pat my shoulder. After months of the only physical contact I'd had being harsh grips and shoves by the guards, the simple gesture felt warm and gentle.

"If there's anything else I can get for you, 354, let me know," he said.

I was about to thank him with a no and hit the sack, but an idea popped in my head.

"Actually, there is," I said. "If it's not much trouble, do you reckon you could get me a diary?"