The Weasley of Slytherin: The Half Blood Prince

Chapter 1: The Trial

"Hello little llwynog." The voice in the cell next to me said. I sighed.

It was Vaughn. He occupied the cell to my left. I'd seen him a few times being escorted to solitary, usually by just shy of a dozen guards. He was a large muscular man, that reminded me quite a bit of a pirate.

He had a mane of dark wild unruly hair, and a large bushy beard, both streaked with grey. His face was rough and lined, a large scar reaching from his left ear and into his ever expanding beard that was a reminder of his capture.

His arms were large and, given how he'd managed to send one of the guards flying across the hall where they slumped down unmoving with a single blow, clearly powerful.

His voice however did not fit him at all, it may have been deep but it was melodic, almost soothing with a southern welsh accent.

"Vaughn, glad to hear you're doing well. How was solitary?" I asked him.

Vaughn ignored this. I could hear him moving in his cell.

"You know what I like about you llwynog?" He asked. I could hear that he'd moved to the bars now. "You're not afraid of people bigger than you. I'd be careful about that though. One day someone might. Just. Break you." I'd seen him enough times to know he must've been grinning, his thin mouth would've been barely visible through his beard.

"I suppose you're going to do that then?" I asked him. His threats didn't phase me much, he'd murdered over a dozen people, seven or eight of them wizards, during a robbery gone wrong. He was in here for life.

"You'd better hope I never get out of here llwynog, else you'll be running your entire life."

"And why." I said with a snort. "Should I be scared of you?"

"You'd better watch yourself llwynog." He said with a laugh. "You'd better watch yourself."

He told me my first week that he was going to kill me. He'd overheard a guard saying how I was in here for the suspected murder of over two dozen people. And Vaughn didn't like to be outdone.

"just...ignore him..." The girl in the cell to the right of mind asked in her faint falsely sweet voice. "how...are...you...anyway?"

Her name was Grace and she'd been locked in her cell for almost nine years. She would've been in the same year as me at Hogwarts. When she was six her brother was killed by muggles, they were scared of him and what he could do.

And so she'd taken revenge, killing the muggles, in her rage she didn't even realize what she'd done. And now she spends her days locked in a tiny stone box, scared of the "beast" surfacing again.

"Same as the day before Grace." I told her lying down in my bed. If you could even call it bed, I'd wager it was harder than the floor. "You?"

"still...keeping...it...at bay."

I knew what she was talking about, she was living in constant fear of the "beast" breaking free.

"What are you gonna do when you get out of here?" I asked her. Staring through the crack that was supposed to be a window at the silvery moon.

"i'll...never...leave."

"Sure you will." I told her trying to keep her hopes up.

"i'm...in...here...for life. but...you...you'll...be out."

"Well...once I am I'll finish Hogwarts and then come and get you out." I couldn't leave her. She'd been helping keep me sane. I couldn't imagine what it must be like for her, living almost two-thirds of her life behind bars.