Chapter Ten:

INTO THE DEEP

THEY WALKED FOR what felt like hours down a musty corridor. Every now and then Hermione would slip on the damp floor and brush against the stone of the wall, grimacing at the slimy filament that rubbed off on her robes. This was the last place she expected to be. Over and over she imagined the warm fires of the Gryffindor Common Room, a tall pint of Butterbeer, and a plate of scones. Her stomach growled and she licked her lips one last time before she crossed her arms tightly over her stomach.

"You okay?" someone asked behind her.

"Hm?" she glanced over her shoulder. Ron walked behind her with a stern look on his face, almost looking like he'd been beaten with all the dirt covering his pale features.

"You haven't really said much since we started walking," Ron fixed his eyes on her and she felt uncomfortable for a moment before replying.

"I don't really have much to talk about."

Ron nodded and his eyes flicked to the right, looking past her towards Draco.

"And you're not being bothered?"

She almost stopped walking, a creeping, tingly feeling making its way down her legs to her feet. But she didn't stop. She kept forcing one foot in front of the other and tried her best not to look at Draco. This was no time for trivial fights, but there seemed to be nothing within her power that would defer the hatred between the boys, even in these small confines.

"I'm doing just fine," she tucked her hair behind her ear and reached into the pocket of her robes, clutching her wand, feeling the smooth finish of it beneath her fingers.

Ron raised his eyebrows and looked away to the side, almost down at the floor.

"All right," he said, putting his own hands in his pockets. "Just wanted to make sure. You can do what you want, but I just want you to know, if you need help, I'll be there. No matter what."

Draco seemed to catch that last bit up ahead and looked down at the floor, even though with the dark it was useless to do so. Everything was so dark down here, and Hermione hated it. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but who knew how far down the passageway would go?

Before long they spotted something up ahead.

"Look," Harry's voice echoed off the walls and he held up his wand until the light reached as far back as it could.

"Oh great," Neville stopped immediately and Draco nearly crashed into him.

"Watch it!" he jumped back as far as he could, almost as if the mere thought of touching the skittish boy would infect him. But then he noticed what was up ahead and his shoulders slumped. "What the hell is this?"

Water. Lots of water. It looked like the tunnel went deeper, almost down a steep decline, and the way was filled with glassy, black water. It reminded Draco of a story he read once about how the pyramids in Egypt were set up to discourage grave robbers. He wouldn't be surprised to find spikes or sharp objects or even a solid wall beneath the serene cover of water.

"What are we going to do now?" Neville asked, standing against the wall.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," Harry crouched at the edge of the water, his hand hovering just above its surface. Specks of light glinted off the water from the group's wands. He looked back at Hermione. "Any ideas?"

Hermione didn't have a clue. And that was saying something because usually she had ideas for everything. Every book she ever read, every spell she ever studied, pretty much anything she'd learned over the past three years was always at her disposal, ready to be used in any situation. But now her mind was blank. She tried to think of some enchantment, some something that would solve their problem, but she had nothing.

"I don't know," she said, reaching her hand up to her face and taking her wand out of her robes with the other. "There must be something I can use, but..."

"Wait a minute," Harry looked up. "I just thought of something."

The group waited with baited breath until he spoke again.

"How much oxygen do you think we have?"

"Oh no," Draco covered his eyes with his hand while Neville started gasping furiously.

"I can't breathe!" he spluttered. "I need to get out of here -"

"Neville, shut it!" Ron shoved him and looked around at all of them. "Nice one, Harry. Now we really aren't going to get out of here without Neville dying of pure spinelessness."

Neville stopped gasping and frowned.

"Hey - come on. I'm not that wimpy!"

"Yeah?" Ron had a dead stare on his face. "You could have fooled me. We need to keep our heads cool here. There's no way we're going to get out of here if we panic and lose it. Especially when we have wands at our disposal. You all clearly have never read about the Sullivans."

"Wait, what?" Hermione started. "The Sullivans? What are you talking about?" This was a story she had never heard about. And she considered herself well-read in all the magical history books that Hogwarts provided.

"Yeah. It's not a book you can find at Hogwarts," Ron swallowed and looked away. "Dad told me about it when I was younger. It's one of those stories that you tell your kids so that they don't mess around with wands when they get into a jam."

Hermione blinked. "Wait, I think I heard about this..."

"A family of wizards went on a vacation to the Grampians. They were going to camp there for a few days, and it was the father's first week off in two years. He worked for the Ministry. Well, one of the kids thought it would be a good idea to explore a cavern they found, and surprise, surprise - the family got lost somewhere deep inside a network of underground caves. With no food or water, the family soon became frantic. When they thought that there was no chance of survival, the father took out his wand in a fit of insanity and murdered all of the family members before turning on himself."

The group was silent for a long while after Ron finished.

"We have to stay calm," Ron said, looking down at the water. "That's out only way out of this."

There was nothing but the sound of the water against the stone walls for a while until Draco walked knee-high into the water.

"Malfoy, what're you -" Harry started, but Draco didn't stop until he was waist deep in the water, his robes soaking up the blackness and spreading out around his legs.

"There's only one way to find out what's under the water," he said, looking at Hermione primarily. "That's to swim under this water and see what's on the other side."

"What about holding your breath?" Ron started. "That tunnel could go for miles."

"Miles?" Draco chuckled. "Really? I don't think whoever or whatever built this tunnel was that determined. I'll be fine."

"And we're just supposed to stay here and wait for you?" Hermione asked. She felt a chill run down her spine at the thought and tried to shake it off quickly.

"Either that or you can follow me. I don't think we have much choice. We can't really go back. There's nothing to really go back to."

And with that he waded further into the water until it was up to his shoulders.

"Wait a minute," Hermione said, hurrying forward. She held her wand up and reached for Draco's hand. "Give me your hand."

Draco stared at her for a moment with a look that was neither curious or upset, just tranquil, and slowly held out his hand to her. She took it in hers and circled the tip of her wand around his wrist, and to everyone's surprise, what looked like a shining, silver rope appeared, growing out of the wand. She didn't stop until there was a large stretch of rope going from Draco's wrist to her wand.

"When you make it to the other side, give this a tug. If you...okay, this is going to sound like a crappy movie -"

"- What's a movie -" Draco started, but Hermione wasn't listening.

"- Give the line a tug twice if you get stuck on something and we'll try to pull you back."

Draco nodded, but he still didn't know what a movie was.

He took as much air into his lungs as he could. Once. Twice. Three times he expanded his lungs until it felt like he couldn't possibly take in any more air, and then he dove under the water.

Everything was pitch black beneath the water. Draco kicked off from the slope where he started and swam down along the corridor, feeling his way down with a hand against the wall. The weight of his robes became too much, and the edges kept getting caught in his legs, so he shrugged off the thick Hogwarts robes and let them float up to the surface. His eyes ached. It was almost as if there were some sort of algae floating in the water.

He waved his wand and a light came on, shining ahead of him so he could see the way, if only a bit more clearly.

Suddenly he bumped into something. Reaching out his hands he felt the hard stone surface of a wall in front of him.

Dammit, he thought. Now I really am stuck. What was the point of having a tunnel if it went nowhere?

But then he noticed that the particles in the water were moving upwards. Looking towards the ceiling he noticed that the tunnel jutted upwards ninety degrees, so he kicked off from the floor of the tunnel and started up. It was about this time that he felt his lungs start to ache from holding his breath.

There was a light, very faint, but a light nonetheless, and after a minute or so of kicking, feeling weaker and weaker every moment, Draco broke the surface of the water.

He gasped. Old, stale air left his mouth and new, cold air filled its place. He treaded water there for a few minutes as he felt life re-enter his limbs. If it had been any longer under the water, he wouldn't have been able to make it.

Then, after recuperating, he looked around him.

He surfaced in what looked like an underground chamber deep beneath Hogwarts. The walls reminded him of the dungeons, and he noticed an archway at the far end of the barren room. This portal was blocked off by a door of iron bars with spikes that reached down to the bottom of the doorway.

But it wasn't the doorway that really caught his attention. It was the man who was standing in front of the doorway that caused him to gasp and move back towards the wall.

"Well, hello there," the towering man said through his mane of black hair. "Welcome to the nightmare."