"Congratulations, young master, you have company." The Prison Guard/Death Eater sneered at what appeared to be more shadow in this unlit, frosty dungeon as Harry was thrown in.

The metal portcullis slammed shut with a sense of finality.

Harry groaned as his night vision was blinded by a solitary candle lighting up. He coughed roughly and spat the blood in his mouth onto the grounds of the Malfoy Manor dungeon. His ears heard a faint tinkle of shackles off in the shadows.

"Who's there?" a familiar voice spoke from the darkness.

"It's me, Harry." When he spoke his name, the shackles moved quickly, suddenly, once, and were then still again.

"I see." The voice was male, definitely familiar, but he could put neither name nor face to it.

"Who are you? Show yourself." The shackles dragged towards him slightly, and out of the dark came blonde hair, blue eyes, once perfect skin torn with numerous beatings. "Malfoy?" Harry stared in disbelief at the visage of his enemy of enemies. He studied each feature carefully, nowhere did it contain even a trace of the once superior sneer that it had always worn.

A broken person sat in front of him. Of that he had no doubt. "What happened to you?"

He readjusted his gaze, uncomfortable under the stare of the Golden Boy. "I…displeased them. Lord Vol-… you-know-who ordered me to kill someone. I couldn't, so someone else had to do it. They reported back to him and I was locked in here."

"You had to kill Dumbledore."

"Yes."

"But Snape did it, in the end."

"Yes…how did you know that?"

"I was there." The shackled rattled as the fallen angel stared into Harry's eyes, trying to find an element of a lie, or an explaination.

"Then…can I ask you something?" Harry gave a cautious nod. Draco subtly shifted onto his hands and knees, looking straight at him. He spoke clearly. "Why didn't you stop me?"

"Dumbledore petrified me." Harry blinked. In the dim candlelight, he noticed the shackles bound the broken boy's leg to the wall. However, it was old, rusty.

"Oh," he shrank back, half his face covered in darkness once again. There was a silence for a number of minutes, which seemed like an eternity in the abyss. Then Draco spoke, "It's funny, really. The stories I've heard of living in prisons for as long as I have, they learn to hate the captors. I do too, even my own parents. But through all of that, all the beatings, it felt as if they were mentally kicking me off the pedestal I built for myself, and because of that, I've thrown away all the old feelings. Especially hate. I never want to feel that emotion again." He shuddered. Harry wasn't sure if it was because of the memories or the cold. "I want to begin again. Harry," they both glanced up at each other's eyes. Shock powered its way through Harry, he had heard his first name uttered from those lips for the first time in seven years, "If a chance of escape is ever presented to you, can you take me with you? I swear, I am going to fight the captors, and I can't do anything effective in here." His eyes held absolutely no falsehood in them.

"Yes." The fallen angel smiled, a pure smile that held no hate, he rose, slightly, and, with a split-second movement, took Harry in his arms and hugged him. Harry was shocked, the boy was so thin. He guessed, remorsefully, that he had not been fed for a few days, and this hadn't been the first time.

"Thank you." He whispered. After several seconds, he released him. The sound of his shackles scraping the cold stone floor was accompanied by sounds from above. A door opened, flooding the dungeon with a blinding light, and several people were led in by masked Death Eaters. The jail cell doors around them creaked open, in the cell next to theirs, Ron and Hermione were ushered in, and on the other side, the Wand maker, Ollivander, along with a goblin Harry faintly remembered as working at Gringrots, Gripfoot, or something like that… and finally, in the cell opposite them, were Luna Lovegood and Dean Thomas. The cell doors shut in the same final tone and the Death Eaters departed, leaving the room to return to the dusky gloom it had held before.

"Harry? Are you in here?" came Hermione's voice, wet, Harry dreaded if it was with tears, or with blood.

"Yes, are you okay?" he pressed his face against the bars, struggling to see into the next cell.

"We're fine, mate." Harry breathed a sigh of relief, Ron sounded in good condition, which made one of them.

"Listen. Does anyone else hear banging?" chimed the almost silver voice of Draco Malfoy. There was indeed an argument in progress upstairs. There was plenty of banging, shouting and cursing.

"Malfoy? Is that Malfoy in there with you?" Ron sounded incredulous and angry.

"Shh!" Draco silenced him. At that moment, a small ping! sounded in the dungeon. The doors all unlocked themselves. In the dark, they could make out the small features of a gentle house elf. "Dobby!" the broken boy did not notice, but another mental part of him stitched itself back on to the main part.

Then the quivering voice came from the dark. "Master?" Everyone but Draco climbed out of their cell.

"Harry…" Draco's voice was weak, he was lying on the ground, reaching out for him. Then The Question appeared in Harry's head.

Should I take him?