A/N: This is the Chudley Cannons Captain checking in for Season 7 Round 5.

Captain prompt: Write about a secret world or society that exists and operates beneath the surface of the Earth.

Word count (before A/N): 2,912 words

I am not JK. This is her world, and I merely dabble.

Heart pounding, lungs aching, she ran.

It didn't matter that her legs felt like rubber beneath her weight, didn't matter that the sticker in her side was painful enough for bile to pool in the base of her stomach. All that mattered was getting out of there.

The trees whipped past her, barely recognizable behind the white spots clouding the edges of her vision. The noise of her pursuers had long-since faded, but Astoria would not stop. Could not stop. Not until she knew, without a doubt, she was safe.

Pumping her arms to keep moving, she tried to block out the images of her parents and sister lying dead at her feet. Daphne had dropped first, unable to control her whimpering in the face of danger. Her mother screamed, and she too followed her daughter to the floor. Her father had held Astoria tight, his fingertips imprinting small, purple bruises on her shoulders as he clutched her, willing them both to remain quiet as the Death Eaters raided their home.

But no corner was left unchecked. No crevice forgotten. They ripped her from his arms and soon he was brought to his knees.

So she ran. Out the front door of her childhood home, passed the hyacinth and daffodils her mother tended every spring, through the wrought iron gate, passed the charms that were meant to keep them safe, and deep into the woods surrounding Greengrass Manor.

Back in the forest, she jumped and dodged over fallen branches, passed trees and rocks, pushing herself onward. After Voldemort won the war, it was only a matter of time before those who betrayed him were caught and disposed of.

She just wished she had had more time.

Suddenly, pain shot up the back of Astoria's legs, both of them knotting beneath her stride. She fell face down into last year's fallen leaves, her body skidding along the dampened earth. All the air left her body in a strangled gasp, her arms curling into her chest.

She flipped her body over, pushing her dark hair from her face, willing her lungs to inflate again. All she felt was the pounding of her heart beating inside her temples, the blood rushing to her sore limbs in tectonic rhythm. The sky peeked through the trees above, but her eyes barely focused.

The last thing she saw as she desperately tried to suck in air was the flurry of black robes and a streak of blinding white. Her eyes closed shut, fading to nothing.

When Astoria opened her eyes again, she was greeted with a very dim light. She expected panic to rise and bubble out of her, but all she could feel was the pain in her throbbing legs. Her chest felt both heavy and hollow, as if her heart had been replaced with a lead weight. She tried to sit up, but her head pounded in protest. She could barely make out the room around her, though she caught a faint earthy smell. Feeling with her hands, she determined, at least, that she was in a bed.

"Hello?" her voice croaked out into the derelict room. There was movement on her left, and her head snapped to the side.

"Ow," she murmured, resting her head back against her pillow.

"Don't move," said the shadow on her left. It stepped in closer, allowing her to see him.

"Draco?" she whispered, head still spinning. "You're dead."

Which was true, she thought, because the deaths of the Malfoys had been publicized across wizard and Muggle news alike after the fall of Hogwarts. Voldemort all but rejoiced at their demise. Astoria had wept. Draco was her friend, after all, even if they had only known each other for such a short time.

"Well, it appears as though I'm not," his smile was strained. She decided not to push.

"I should be," was what she said instead. "How did I escape them?"

Draco's face relaxed, slightly. He perched at the end of her bed, taking great effort not to touch or disrupt her.

"When we found out your family was the next target, I knew I couldn't stand by and wait," he said, his voice quiet in their little room. For the first time, Astoria realized the four walls surrounding them didn't hold a single window. There was one solitary candle burning in the corner on a rickety wooden desk. Save for that, there was no other furniture in the tiny room.

The only way out was through a crooked wooden door. But it had no handle to speak of.

"Where am I?" she asked. She wanted to know more, to understand how Draco was alive and how he even knew her family was being targeted when they had no warning until it was over. But that panic she'd been expecting had started to crawl up her arms and around her neck, choking her where she lay. She grabbed Draco's hand to steady her racing mind.

"It's—we call it the Underground," he said, his grey eyes meeting hers. She could see the same terrifying depth behind them that she saw when they first spoke months before. He had seen too much, known too much for someone his age. Her hand closed around his even tighter, and she was grateful to feel him lace his fingers with her own.

"I'm sure you have about a thousand questions," he said, his back still rigid. "I don't know where to start."

"The beginning," she prompted, forcing herself to sit up so that she could stare into those great grey orbs. "I won't ask a thing until you're done."

Draco nodded gratefully, and began his tale.

After Voldemort rose to power about a year ago, those who had any sense left went into hiding. Harry Potter was dead, so his closest friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, led the charge. They raced into the Forbidden Forest after the battle, immediately becoming lost to the Death Eaters and their forces. A group of twenty or so, they raced through the mountains until they had stumbled upon an old dwarf cave.

Astoria knew that the dwarves had long since disappeared from their history books, becoming nothing more than creatures of legend. Yet apparently their homes had withstood the tests of time.

Ron, Hermione, and their ragtag team had entered the cave and traversed the deep caverns the dwarves had mined centuries ago, diving deeper and deeper under the earth's crust. They turned it into a refuse, bringing in stragglers and anyone else who wished for a better life outside of Voldemort's clutches.

Over the last year, their forces had matured, Draco said, to the point they were no longer just recuperating but retaliating. Several rescue missions had been deployed to save targeted families. Several people from the Underground had even infiltrated the Ministry, working from the inside out to gain intel on what was happening above, needling out where his forces moved next.

Draco's parents had died, and Voldemort had gloated. But Draco had slipped away, thanks to Blaise Zabini, one of the original twenty who had seen the light just in time to flee with those who fought for good.

"I've been here ever since," Draco told Astoria. "The moment I heard they were coming for you, I -I couldn't believe you were still alive. No one had heard from your family in months"

"We'd been hiding in our summer home," Astoria whispered to the dark room. She blinked back the tears threatening to spill over.

Draco squeezed her hand and continued. He had risked it all, she learned. Ron forbade him from leaving the Underground, seeing that Draco had not been training and still didn't spark much confidence from his fellow refugees.

"But what if I could save you?" Draco asked.

He found her lying on the ground after her flight from her home. Hermione had determined Astoria had pulled the muscles in both her calves, each unprepared for the mad dash from her home.

"You brought me here?" she asked tentatively, her hand still clutched in Draco's.

"It's safe," he said. "For now. Of course I brought you here."

Astoria threw her arms around him, all the stress and sadness and despair finally catching up to her. She was safe, but nothing would be the same.

"We're going to have to get you a wand somehow," Draco was helping Astoria walk along the paths of the Underground tunnels. Although she had been there for three weeks, her legs were still aching with each step. Since no one had any real Healer experience, she was left healing the old fashioned way—through rest and moderate exercise.

Twice a day, Draco would come to her room and help her walk the paths. The Underground was actually quite amazing when Astoria had the chance to look around. It was like this city had cropped up underneath the floor of the earth's crust. Paths zigged and zagged down the length of the cavernous walls, passing tiny room after tiny room. It turned out that the dwarves weren't big on living spaces, and everyone had found themselves confined to little hovels much like her own.

Astoria could see to the bottom of their cave, too, from the paths. Down there, the refugees milled around, training to fight, researching advances, or counting out their resources. Everyone had a job to do. Everyone contributed.

"A wand?" Astoria took a small step downward, her leg muscles tingling. Draco held her steady.

"Of course," he said, his voice incredulous. "Though how is another story. Maybe Finnegan could swipe one while at the Ministry. Though I doubt the Weasel will ever go for it."

Astoria patted his shoulder gently as they rounded the corner leading to her room. Draco had gotten into quite a bit of trouble going after her, and at first she feared they'd turn him away. Instead, he was stripped of his rations, forced to work from the bottom up again to gain back their trust.

"I suppose even if someone had studied wandlore down here, it might be a tad bit hard to actually make one, what with the lack of trees and all," Astoria quipped. It made Draco smile, just for an instant, and Astoria's heart fluttered.

When they reached her hovel, he gently pushed open the rickety door.

"You know," he said, letting her hoist herself onto her bed, "you don't have to hide your grief around me."

"I'm not hiding," Astoria said, unable to mask the defensiveness in her voice. She cleared her throat, trying again. "I've always known my family was on borrowed time after Hogwarts fell."

"That may be true," he said, assisting her in lifting her left leg onto the bed. "But you aren't feeling your grief, and that's not good. I would know."

Astoria sank back into her pillow, sighing.

"I don't mean to pry, of course," he whispered, and his voice was so sincere, Astoria felt like crying. Instead, she closed her eyes. "Fine. I'll let you be for the night, Story. Until tomorrow's walk."

He closed the tiny door, shuttering her in darkness.

Astoria couldn't shake the feeling that they were sitting ducks. Dead men walking. After all, they were already buried under the earth's crust, weren't they? Maybe the Underground was like living in a grave.

And she missed the sun something awful.

"Remember when we first met?" she said, distracting herself from her thoughts. Months had passed since she joined the Underground and its now sixty residents. Her legs felt a lot better most days, and she was released to light duty work—sorting laundry, counting supplies, serving meals.

Tonight she was cleaning up the dinner plates. Draco was drying.

"Do I? I think you all but saved me from myself," he smirked. His voice fell upon her ears like the whisper of trees in a summer wind. Most of the Underground was in bed for the night. Astoria had quickly learned that with giant walls came giant echoes.

"You were so lost," she scrubbed away at a stubborn food stain. They only had tiny washbasins to work from. And since she still didn't have a wand, she was unable to charm the plates to wash themselves. "My heart nearly broke."

Why she had picked that particular memory, she couldn't say. But she remembered it like it was yesterday: the train ride, the solemn students, the tears.

She was just about to start her fifth year when she learned the Carrows and Snape would be running the school. Draco had stumbled onto the train, skinny and haunted looking, like a ghost dressed in black. Everyone stared at him, openly mocking him. They all knew what happened in the Astronomy Tower months before with Dumbledore, and few were willing to stand idly by. He had dove into what he thought was an empty compartment, but Astoria was there, pressed into the corner, trying to soak in the last bit of peace she might have before the school year began.

"I don't think I've ever cried like that before," Draco said now, bringing her back to this world underground. His face was cast in shadows as he dried the dinner plates. He had a wand, of course, but he always did things with her the Muggle way so she wouldn't feel left out.

She sighed, the bowl in her hands plopping back into the basin with a splash.

"I wish we could go back," she whispered. She had sat with him on the train that day and listened to his troubles. She learned his heart, and a kinship blossomed between them during the school year, right up to the final battle, where she was convinced he had died. "I wish I could tell past us to run away, hide before it even begins. At least we might have been above."

Her eyes raked across the cavern's walls, lighted by enchanted flames. It was surprisingly dry down there in the dwarf mines, and that only made her ache to feel the rain on her face again.

"You miss it that much?"

She nodded.

Draco set down his plate and pulled out his wand, casting a nonverbal spell over the dishes, and suddenly they were washing and drying themselves. Astoria looked around, certain someone would stop them, but the floor of the Underground was empty, save for a few house elves who had come loyally with their masters. But she knew they wouldn't say anything.

"Come with me."

Draco took her hand and led her to the training area, where mats and pillows lined the floor to cushion the blow of stray curses. They ducked behind a large stone that acted as a punching bag for charms and countercurses, its once-smooth exterior lined with slashes and gashes. Behind it was a tiny crevice. She held onto Draco's hand as they moved through it and onto a hidden path. It took her a few minutes until she realized they were moving upward, the air becoming less dense with each step.

"This is how I came to get you," he whispered. "I don't know who else knows about it. Sometimes I'll sneak up here just to see the sun."

He led her through the tight turns, never letting go of her hand. Astoria quickened her pace behind him, eager to feel even the smallest hint of a breeze against her skin.

When they finally broke free of the earth's crust, they were standing at the mouth of a tiny cave. Draco had to crawl to exit, and Astoria ducked down to follow. Standing, she greedily sucked in the night air, nearly blinded by how exquisite it felt just to breathe.

Draco took her hand in his again.

"I know it's hard, losing everything like that."

They both looked up into the night sky, the stars more vast and plentiful than she even remembered they could be. She felt small, one person in a sea of endless night sky. Tears forced their way out of her eyes, staining her cheeks.

"I can't believe they're gone," she choked.

The next moment, the sky was blotted out by Draco's chest. He hugged her to him, enveloping her in his arms. For the first time since she fled her home, Astoria cried openly, letting the shock of it all wash over her. She could still feel the ache in her lungs sometimes, could still see the spots in her vision from when she fled.

But the images of her parents and sister—they were constant.

It felt good to let go.

"I hope that was okay," Draco said later as he walked her back to her room. They had stayed until the sun rose, allowing themselves those few seconds with its magnificent light before returning to the Underground. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"I needed it," she smiled, glad her fingers were still laced with his. She could feel his heartbeat through the sole of his palm, reminding her they were alive despite it all. "Thank you."

"I miss our walks," he said, stopping in front of her door. "But I'm glad we're here together now."

"Me too," she stood on the tips of her toes and pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth. She closed the door behind her, Draco's beaming face imprinted on her retinas as she climbed into bed.

The Underground wasn't easy, she thought, but together, they just might make it through.