The Azkaban Girl

Chapter 2

'So, how are we getting to Scotland?' Nova asked as soon as they woke up again.

'Good question. I mean, we could just walk, but you can easily get captured if you're spotted... at least, when you're human...'

'What're you on about? Nova asked slyly.

'I think I just had an idea, but I want to work it out first.' Sirius said. 'Not get you overexcited, you know? In case it doesn't work. Actually, there's a big chance it won't work. Not just big, humongous. Now I think about it, it probably won't work. Never mind the whole idea, it's dumb anyways.'

'You do realize you said this all out loud, right?'

'What? Yeah, I think so. Guess my mind is not used to thinking like this. Never doing it again.'

Nova chuckled at that. 'Guess I'll just do the thinking, you do... well... whatever you like doing and we'll get there.' She joked. 'Back to the actual question, any other idea?'

Sirius shrugged slowly. 'Walk?'

'I thought we weren't doing that?' Nova asked.

'It's the best thing now, until I've worked out my idea..' Sirius said. He seemed deep in thought. Nova, of course, noticed this. 'The  Sirius Black, lost in thought? If you took a picture of this and sold it to a museum, you would be quite a few Galleons richer!' She joked.

When they left their spot, Sirius was still thinking about 'his idea'. Nova wondered what it was about, she had never seen him think like this before. Nova thought he had a weird expression, she had never seen it on someone before. Now she had come to think of it, she hadn't seen many expressions. Nova didn't know what a face of pure joy looked like, as well as enthusiasm, or love. Maybe she had seen love before, probably not, but not realized what it was. She wondered if she would ever fall in love, and how it would feel. It was hard to believe there were actually other people her age.

She hadn't seen anyone else but Sirius, a few people she didn't know who had walked past her cell at some point in her life, and prisoners who had gone insane.

Nova often wondered why she didn't go insane after years in Azkaban. The Dementors didn't affect her much, that was probably because she had no thoughts happy enough to suck out of her. She only knew the same dark, cold and depressing room she had lived in for twelve years of her life.

Her best childhood memories were her rolling on the ground as a six year old with a certain big black dog, or her being taught how to read, walk and speak with the black dog or the skinny black haired man by her side. Her childhood was no more than that. Grey, and dull.

Somehow she still managed to laugh. The prison had often resounded with her laughter, slightly cheering up the depressing mood of the dark cellars around. For some prisoners, this was even the reason they were sane for a bit longer than they would have been without it. The laughter of a child is able to cheer everyone up.

But as Nova started getting older, she realized this wasn't normal. It wasn't normal to live in a small, dark cellar, miles away from land and other kids like her. This wasn't a place for a child.

When Nova turned eleven years old, she even waited for her Hogwarts letter, not knowing if to expect one. She didn't get it. All the stories Sirius had told her about his own adventures with the Marauders, and she didn't even get to go herself. That's depressing.

Then, two years later, when she was thirteen, they finally escaped. They escaped that horrible place they didn't even deserve to go to in the first place, and Nova finally had a chance to really be happy. That was all the wanted. To be happy.