Ok, so... another Dramione, and possibly my first multi-chap story! I want to go the distance with this one. But, I've never written anything but one-shots. In my words I do "situations & emotions", plots sometimes elude me... But I do have a plot for this and it will happen!

AU, but don't sue!

Please R&R, the out-pour of love for my last Dramione, made my heart soar. You guys rocked my world!


It was a horrid place. Dark and dank, with slimy flagstone walls and dingy overhead lighting. He wondered what it had been before. A prison? A mausoleum? It had never been this before. A slave market. When did it become this? When was the last shred of dignity in their society destroyed?

There was someone screaming somewhere. A woman he thought. It was a painful noise, cutting through his mind like a blade. He had heard too many screams in the past years. Everyone screamed these days, the air was thick with noise and pain and despair. No one was happy any more. The darkness had won. He had won. It didn't feel that way.

"Are you impressed, Master Malfoy" Yaxley asked proudly from behind him. He seemed delighted by the situation. The hundreds of figures locked in squalor seemed to provide him nothing but amusement. This was power, Draco supposed, control and dominance, fear and cruelty. This was what he had helped fight for. It turned his stomach.

"What do you do with them all?" He asked, ignoring Yaxley's initial question. Hoping he hid the disgust in his voice, hoping he sounded awed.

"Make them work." The older man answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Magic can do many things boy, but sometimes brute force is more practical. And here we have a ready-made work force!" He gestured to the huddled individuals around him.

Draco nodded, secretly unconvinced. The figures here seemed too small, too weak to even stand up, never mind be capable of manual labour. They were here for cruelty's sake. As a statement of power to any group crazy enough to stand against the Dark Lord; as a statement against the Order.

Bony fingers reached out through the darkness, clutching around his ankle, causing him to stumble. Yaxley cracked a whip, and the skeletal figure pulled back, screeching like a wild animal. He was sure that at one time that screech would have been comprehensible. Now it was just sound, the words were gone. They no longer mattered, nobody listened anymore.

"I think I've seen enough" Draco said coldly, shaking out his cloak, glad of an excuse to appear disgusted enough to quit the tour.

"Are you quite sure? You're father thought you might wish to take a souvenir home with you" Yaxley flashed a cruel smile. Rotten, yellow teeth. Draco knew what he meant. They all knew. That's why these scrawny, bony women were here. Playthings for the Death Eaters.

"As charming as that sounds, Yaxley, I'd rather keep this filth away from my home, and myself." He spoke as cold and controlled as always. He wouldn't let the cracks be seen.

He walked back along the thin runway, towards the door through which they entered. That was when he saw her. From the first glance he was certain it was her. She was thinner and paler, but she was unmistakeable. She had been watching him, but the minute he had met the gaze she had dropped her head, dark knotted curls masking her face. She didn't want to be seen. They mustn't know who she is, he reasoned. If they did, she wouldn't be sitting in this pit. Clever girl, he thought, at least she hasn't lost her mind.

"Something catch your eye?" Yaxley sneered over his shoulder.

Draco froze. Eyes still focused on the bowed head. He should walk away, leave her there, she was nothing to him.

Except she was; she was real.

A real live person, a person he knew, he had gone to school with. He couldn't leave her here in this hell, to be beaten and whipped and starved, or worse... Death Eaters playthings. The thoughts swirled in his head. He needed to get out... He was definitely going to be sick this time.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to go back. Wasn't it easier once? Bickering in Potion's class, Mocking Weasley, Teasing her; that had been his life once. Hadn't it? Maybe it was just a dream... It felt like one.

He shook his head and moved to leave. She raised her head. What was that in her eyes? Fear? Hatred? Desperation? Had she expected him to tell? Had she expected him to save her? Hadn't he been able to read her once?

She was an open book once. He was sure of it. Wore her heart on her sleeve. She laughed, she cried, she punched him. No great mysteries. But, now he couldn't even tell what that shimmer in her eye meant.

He sighed. Turning to Yaxley, his voice almost a whisper, nowhere near how he had wanted to sound. "The girl, in the corner... curls." He swallowed, eyes darting back to hers. Her brow furrowed, eyes wide, shock evident on her face.

"I want her"


R & R pretty please...