Hello everyone. I don't think I've updated anything on here in a good two years or so. XD Here is a story I'm writing currently that's a bit darker then my normal stuff and a bit more interesting since my writing has improved. (I hope.) I hope to update my current (very old) fanfiction in this account and also to post new stuff that I've been having fun with. I've also written a large amount of original fiction, but that can't be posted here so oh well. :P Enjoy the first chapter and please review! -Nat

P.S. This story disregards the last book or two of the HP series so don't get all up in arms that I had my way with some stuff. XD It's more fun to invent a new ending anyhow. (J.K Rowling owns all the characters, I just manipulate them!)

Everyday was the same.

Footsteps would echo down the stone hallways, a small tray of moldy food would be shoved mockingly through the slot at the bottom of the door, and a cruel laugh would fade away with the footsteps as the man retreated. Late at night, someone would always force a bit of food and water down his throat, merely as a method of keeping him alive, but he had stopped fighting the rough hands months ago. There was little he could do, being chained to a cell wall. The blond man had lost track of how many days he'd spent in this damp Azkaban cell. His arms had gone numb from constantly being above his head and his body was covered with a thick layer of grime and filth. He knew that after his trial he would be left to rot, but there had always been a faint glimmer of hope that someone would somehow realize he was innocent. Regardless of the fact that he had joined the ranks of death eaters, he wasn't evil. In fact, he'd only murdered one person in his entire life. But that one time was his undoing.

His body ached with the need to move and bring circulation back to his limbs, but what could a man do when he was hung by his arms from a wall? Not much else other then wiggle his toes. A deep resentment had filled him at first and he had snapped and screamed at any person to pass by or enter his cell. As time went on, he shouted less and less and sank into an angry depression, hoping as each day went by that someone would realize their mistake and come and fetch him out. But a convicted death eater had few friends, if any at all, and he had barely had any before being imprisoned. They had clearly abandoned him.

Eventually, once he'd realized he was probably going to remain here until his dying days, he had simply given up. He always hung slack against his magical bindings and gave no response other then a gag or two when he was being force-fed. His once proud face now held a constantly defeated expression and his eyes had grown dull. Azkaban was enough to make any man reduced to a pathetic shell of his former self. At least when he had stopped fighting, the tortures and punishments had stopped as well. Strangely, the dementors mostly stayed away from his cell. Maybe because they and he both knew he wasn't a despicable human being. Maybe they knew he was innocent? He hadn't killed in cold blood… But no one wanted to hear that. Only that he had killed.

Today was no different then any other one. Or so he believed. The same footsteps he heard everyday made their way towards his cell, but when they paused outside his cell, no sound of a metal dish scraping against the stone floor came. If he had had the strength to lift his head in surprise, he would have. Someone…was opening the door? The sound of hundreds of charmed bolts and locks twisting and receding into the wall reached his ears and his heart beat a little faster. No one had been into his cell in months. He knew it had been a very long time. Why now?

"Are you sure this is the one?" a soft voice spoke from the door as it was pushed inwards with an almost rusty screeching noise. More footsteps. This time inside his cell. A soft hiss of pain emitted from his lips as his head was jerked roughly upwards and a light was shone into his face. He scrunched his face up in annoyance, keeping his eyes firmly shut against the intrusive light. How dare they? He made a small sound in protest, almost as if he'd forgotten how to speak.

"Yes, this is him. Draco Malfoy," a gravelly male voice assured the other person in his cell, "a bit dirty and roughed up, but this is the blighter. Hasn't given us any trouble in some time now." He wished his arms were free so he could take a swing as the bastard who was talking about him like he was some sort of animal for sale. Though…he wasn't sure he was strong enough to stand, let alone hit someone.

The painful grip on his hair that had jerked his face upwards left and his chin lolled back against his chest. A considerably smaller and more gentle hand took its place, using a soft grip on his chin to lift his face once again. "All right. Please ready him for transport. I have no need of a dementor or a guard to accompany me."

"Are you sure?" the man's voice said in surprise, "you…know what he did. It would be safer if-"

"He's wandless and clearly unable to lift even his own chin. What's he going to do? Dirty me to death?" she interrupted. The woman wrinkled her nose at the smell of the chained prisoner and his dirt-encrusted figure. "No. I'll be quite capable of taking him myself. Thank you. I'll return tomorrow afternoon and I expect that he will be ready?"

"Yes ma'am," the guard agreed, their voices growing soft as they discussed her method of transportation. The door screeched closed again and the locks all righted themselves, locking him into his prison once again. The woman's voice faded off down the hall as they left him in peace again. The last bit he caught was 'executions beginning next week…' He felt his body stiffen in fear. Executions? He was being prepared to be killed…

For the first time since he'd been captured and thrown into this god-forsaken place, he was scared. Although this wasn't much of a life or anything worth living for, he still didn't want to die. For the rest of what he assumed was night, since there was no way of telling in the cell, Draco worried and shifted slightly although it hurt to move against the chains. He was unable to fall asleep as he thought about the next day. These were his last few moments of life and he was spending them chained to a damp prison wall, unable to move. It wasn't fair.

He was still wallowing in self-pity hours later when the footsteps returned, unlocking his cell once again. Bright light from a lantern pierced through his eyelids and he squinted as someone came forward and roughly shoved him up against the wall.

"That's really unnecessary," the same woman's voice spoke from the doorway, "I doubt he can stand on his own. He isn't going to attack me…" Sighing, she stepped aside as the man helping her unlocked all of Draco's bindings and half dragged the prisoner over to her.

"The new law is in effect ma'am so you can do as you see fit with him," the guard explained. Draco shifted in the painful grip under his arms and choked as a tight collar was suddenly fastened around his neck in a very ungentle way and the man muttered a few spells. He didn't bother trying to lift an arm to feel it since he didn't doubt he couldn't remove it anyway. "Harmless with that thing," the man nodded confidently, "and only you can remove it now. I'll get his papers and then you'll be all set." Draco sagged against the wall at the suddenly loss of support and a soft groan escaped his lips. Apparently this woman held no sympathy for him and planned to watch him suffer before dragging him off to have his head hacked off or whatever they had planned…

The light from the oil lamp she was holding was too bright to make it worth the effort of opening his eyes and he slid down the wall to the floor with another pained sound. None of his limbs seemed to work properly and a searing burn spread through his shoulder muscles as the blood rushed back to the areas that had been raised in the air for so long and stretched painfully. He grunted and she dimmed the light a little as if she'd noticed it was bothering him.

"A lot of light where we're going," she scoffed quietly, frowning at the prisoner she was taking. He was pathetic…a mere shadow of the man he once was. It was satisfying in a way to see him like this after what he did, but she still couldn't help feeling the same twinge of guilt she got watching all the other helpless people chained up here.

"Here we are," the man said almost cheerfully, handing her a quill and glaring in disgust at the heap of Draco where the blond man had collapsed on the ground. "You sure you don't want some help?"

"Positive," she said a little more forcefully this time, initialing and signing everywhere necessary and then taking out her wand to magically sign the last part, binding her to the contract. "Is that everything?"

"It is ma'am. Do be careful."

She nodded and shook hands with the concerned wizard, eyeing Draco briefly before sighing. Accepting her half of the papers, the woman tucked them away in her robes and reached down to grip the blond man's dirty wrist tightly, apparating them away.

Draco landed hard when they arrived, but the woman made no move to help him and her footsteps moved into a different part of wherever they were. Tears blurred his vision as the lights burned his eyes worse then the lantern and the pain of the rough landing was still tearing through him. He knew he was a wreck. A dirty, smelly, wreck that could barely stand. And he was going to be executed.

"Oh for heavens sake, are you really that…ugh…nevermind," an annoyed and oddly familiar voice spoke as the woman returned. He squinted up at her, trying to make out anything through the blur of his tear-filled eyes. The lights were horribly bright and after spending months in an always blackened cell it was incredibly hard to adjust. Clearly he would find no sympathy here though.

A foot nudged him in disgust and she sighed. "If you don't get off my new rug I'm going to light your arse on fire you stupid ferret," the woman snapped, nudging a great deal harder.

A little light went on in Draco's head as he tumbled off of her rug and he groaned in horror and pain from his new position on the carpeted flooring. When he spoke, there was far too much disbelief in his voice for a proper sneer and his throat was raspy anyway. "Granger?"

"You catch on right away, don't you?" Hermione snapped sarcastically, lifting him off of her clean carpet with a bit of wandless magic. "If you weren't ruining my floor and carpet then I'd leave you there to rot in your own filth! For now…I'll just have to hose you down outside. Off we go." Without waiting for an answer, the bitter woman dragged him magically after her, not caring what he bumped into along the way, and dropped him unceremoniously onto the gravel path beside her house.

As Draco opened his mouth to protest the new sharp pains she was causing, he found himself with a mouthful of metallic tasting cold water. It would have been refreshing if it wasn't coming out of the hose so forcefully that it choked him. Spluttering and choking and attempting to scream at her, Draco lowered his head enough that the water hit him in the head instead of the mouth. It was still too icy cold to be pleasant, but at least he could breathe again.

She really wasn't being in any way gentle and he was confused why she was cleaning him off if he was just going to be killed anyway. Was this her house? Why did she even take him there in the first place? At least outside it was either sunrise or nearly dark, or perhaps even an overcast day, since it was dark enough to give him temporary relief from the electric lights inside.

"Pathetic," she muttered, watching the man before her cower under the persistent beatings of the hose water as the dirt slowly released itself from his skin. The clothes he was in were very ratty, dirt encrusted and torn. They would have to be burned or thrown out and she'd find him something more suitable to wear… Something he'd rather die than wear. And he'd wear it.

Draco let the water beat at his exposed flesh for a few moments longer until he began to get frustrated. He wasn't just some animal she could hose off when it got dirty! From her behavior so far he felt like a bad dog or something. Gathering up every ounce of strength he had left in his body, he lunged forward far enough to knock the hose from her hand, panting in the muddied gravel as she gazed at him in surprise. Hermione's glare intensified as she levitated him with her wand and muttered a quick drying spell as she headed back inside, the blond in tow.

He wasn't sure why she was so angry since she was the one who chose to bring him here, but he was too weak now to really think about it. As they passed through the living room and then the kitchen, Draco couldn't hold in his curiosity any longer and had to say something. "Granger-"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Hermione snarled, "shut your mouth and don't you dare speak to me again." He looked up at her, again in surprise, from his upside-down view of the world and winced when she slammed open the cellar door and it bumped him on the way through. Despite the threatening he had just gotten, Draco opened his mouth a little to speak again. Before he even uttered the first syllable he found himself slammed hard so hard against the stone wall of the wine cellar that he felt dizzy and he was held tightly around the neck.

"I said do not speak to me," she hissed, angrier then he'd ever seen her in his life, "you do not speak to me or look at me or even try and pretend that you're anything but a filthy piece of scum, do you understand me?" It was hard to answer with the pressure of her hand crushing into his windpipe, but he managed a faint nod. "Good."

Looking disgusted, the curly haired witch released him and wiped her hand on her pant leg as Draco collapsed to the dirt floor. "This place is warded and spelled just for you, so if you so much as move, I'll know, and I'll come back down here to make sure you can never move again." Heading back up into the kitchen, she locked and sealed the door behind her, knowing that in his current state Draco was no threat at all. Still…she didn't want to underestimate him. And it wasn't like he could get into much trouble in her wine cellar. Maybe drink all the wine, but she doubted he had strength to lift a bottle, let alone open it.

She stormed up the stairs into her second floor bedroom and warded that door as well before heading into the bathroom. Having Draco here dragged up many things she had tried to push to the back of her mind for months now. The war had caused many casualties for both sides and even though they had won it was not without great losses, many personal for Hermione. Her best friend…her fiancé… Mr. Weasley had lost three children and a wife and she still couldn't bare to visit him at the burrow because of the things it made her remember. The only person she'd even been in contact with since then was Harry himself.

Drawing a hot bath, Hermione began to slowly undress. Steam billowed behind her as she studied her face in the mirror, wondering what life would be like if Ron were still around. Glancing to her ring finger where there was still a line lighter then the rest of her tanned skin, she felt tears prickly at the back of her eyes. They had been so close…promising to get married as soon as they finished helping Harry with horcruxes. How was the order supposed to know that the last one would be an ambush?

She hugged her arms tightly to her chest and remembered the feeling of holding Ron in her arms, watching the life slip away from his eyes as they dulled to a glazed green. He had told her not to hold a grudge…that he loved her and it wasn't what she thought. How could seeing that bastard's spell rip through Ron's body not be what she thought?! Hermione had tried desperately to do everything she could, but it seemed that the healing spells only made it worse. Her red headed hero had died in her arms and she had been left behind…unable to save him.

Kicking off her pants with pain and anger raging through her, she slipped into the nearly scalding water and pulled her legs up against her as she leaned her forehead against them. Then Hermione Granger did something she had done since the day Harry had defeated Voldemort.

She cried.

Draco lay miserably in the dark cellar, consoling himself with the fact that at least this was more comfortable then his cell and his arms weren't chained… If only he could move or have enough strength to apparate. Then again, Hermione had probably warded the place so he couldn't go anywhere. Dammit. He needed to get away before they killed him. This was the closest to freedom he'd been in so long. If these damn legs would start working then he could go! Straining again, he sighed heavily and gave up. He was too sore and too tired. Maybe tomorrow would be better…after some sleep.

Vowing to escape finally and start his new life, Draco dozed off against the cool dirt with renewed hope in his heart.

So there it is! Hope you liked chapter one, folks!