A/N - Once more, thank you to my reviewers (especially the lovely Kat-tak).

Chapter Ten

"Bring my soul out of prison"

Psalm 142:7

Hermione held the parchment in her hand and stared unseeingly out of the window of her new cottage. It was about a week since she had seen Draco and Luna disappear into Hogsmeade and she hadn't heard from either of them since although she'd seen Luna around the Hogsbridge campus. The contents of this parchment on the Malfoy letterhead put all thoughts of that visit right out of her mind however.

Draco had asked her a favour. He wanted her to go with him to Azkaban to visit his parents. She frowned and re-read the note.

Hermione,

I have a special favour to ask and I am asking you as I don't know who else to make this request to at this point in my life.

My parents were sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss as I'm sure you know from all the press coverage and are know in Azkaban for the term on their natural life. I would like to go and visit them even though I know they will not recognise me.

I can't explain exactly why I want to go and see them. I'm not entirely sure myself but I was wondering if you would be so kind as to come with me? For some reason, I don't really want to go on my own.

If you are agreeable, I was thinking of going on Sunday afternoon so it won't clash with your University lectures.

Draco.

Hermione already knew she would go. She knew perfectly well that Draco would go on his own if she didn't agree to accompany him. With a sigh, she picked up a quill to scribble her agreement.

* * *

Hermione examined Draco carefully when he apparated to her cottage that Sunday. Severus was seeing to the beginnings of repairs and renovations to his estate, and she was alone. He looked as though he hadn't slept the previous night but he was as always, immaculately groomed in tan trousers and a camel coloured pullover.

"Why do you want to go?" Hermione asked as she handed him a cup of tea before they left.

He shrugged. "I don't really know. Maybe I just need to see with my own eyes that they really aren't coming back," he said, his voice subdued and his light eyes lowered as he sipped the tea.

Hermione nodded. She could understand that. What she didn't understand was how Draco was keeping himself together so well. She had heard from Luna that the two of them had gone out a few times in the past week so he was still managing to live some semblance of a normal life. Hermione had not had a chance to talk to Luna about what had been going on in Draco's life just before he met her and she wasn't even sure it was her place to do so.

Draco put down the teacup and said, "ready to go?" Hermione nodded.

* * *

Hermione had never even seen a picture of Azkaban before and was rather glad of it. Seeing it instantly called to mind a description from Poe's 'Fall of the House of Usher'.

*"I know not how it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant eye-like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after- dream of the reveller upon opium--the bitter lapse into everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime."

"My God," Hermione breathed. The mere sight of the grey-brown, castle-like structure surrounded by a low, dense, thick, brownish fog made her feel nauseous with horror.

They had apparated at one end of a very long, low, stone bridge that led over a swamp and up to the heavily barricaded drawbridge. "What is this? The Bog of Eternal Stench?** The Swamp of Sorrows?***" Hermione was muttering as they began the long walk to the drawbridge. The swamp was mostly covered with the oily brown fog but in patches there were stunted, twisted, gnarled, bush-like trees without leaves and every now and then the murky water would erupt with foul-smelling gas in patches.

Draco kept in the centre of the low bridge to avoid being splashed by one of the eruptions. His aristocratic nose was slightly wrinkled at the smell. Apart from that, he did not talk and stared straight ahead at the castle.

The walk itself seemed to take an ice age but when they drew close to the structure, close enough to have to crane their heads backwards to see the top of the towers, Hermione looked at her watch and realised the walk had only taken them an hour or so. Finally they reached the drawbridge and then turned and looked at each other. "What now?" Draco asked as though Hermione should know.

"I don't know," Hermione admitted. Azkaban was one of the few subjects she had absolutely no interest in.

"Name!" a voice said above their heads and slightly to the right.

Draco and Hermione looked up. A small window with wooden shutters had been opened and a goblin was looking down at them. "Oh! Hermione and Draco," Hermione answered, getting over her surprise more quickly than Draco.

"Surnames!" the goblin said impatiently, glaring down at them.

"Granger and Malfoy," Draco replied this time.

"Don't know no Granger but we have Malfoys. Oh yes, we have the Malfoys alright!" the goblin said, grinning evilly.

"We want to visit them," Hermione said hastily, glancing quickly at Draco. His face was tight and he looked like he wanted to hex the goblin.

"You'll have to come in the guest entrance," the goblin said flatly.

"Where is that?" Draco said but the goblin had shut the window and disappeared. Draco swore. A few seconds later a door slowly appeared in the stonework under the wooden window. It swung open and the goblin ushered them inside.

The room was plain stone without a stick of furniture or a window. The door disappeared behind them quickly. This made Hermione decidedly nervous.

"Put your hand here," the goblin directed tersely, indicating a shiny black stone set into the wall at shoulder height.

"Why?" Draco asked suspiciously.

"To identify you both, of course. We don't just take your word for it! This is a prison," the goblin snapped.

Hermione put her hand on the stone and felt a slight tingling. Her name and personal details showed up on the stone wall above her hand. "Cool! Handprint identification. A bit like using iris'," Hermione said with interest.

After Draco had done the same, the goblin handed them both a silvery cloak. "What's this?" Hermione said curiously.

"Ask a lot of questions, don't you?" the goblin snapped.

"You don't know the half of it," Draco said drily.

"It's made of a material similar to a patronus. It will keep Dementors away from you while you are visiting. Don't take them off unless you want to have your soul sucked out of you," the goblin said nastily.

"Nice," Draco muttered.

"Your wands won't work in here except for the Patronus charm but you shouldn't need that anyway if you've got the cloaks," the goblin added and put his own hand on the black stone. The wall next to it dissolved and they found themselves in a stone hallway, again completely plain without furnishings or windows. It was lit with a reddish light that seemed to have no source and the low ceiling gave it an oppressive feeling.

They had to walk very fast to keep up with the goblin. Hermione lost track of the long hallways and narrow stairwells she travelled down. They passed numerous Dementors along the way patrolling the empty hallways but they avoided the group, repelled by the cloaks. Finally they came to yet another long hallway but here the goblin stopped. He traced one fingernail down the wall and a doorway opened up to reveal a cell. Suddenly Hermione realised that all the hallways they had come down contained any number of cells along them.

The goblin stepped inside and beckoned to Hermione and Draco. Hermione glanced at Draco and realised he was pulling back. Quickly she stepped in first to give him time to gather himself. The room was completely bare. There was not even straw on the floor, let alone a bed. There was no window and the only light was the same diffuse red one that lit up the hallways. Hermione put one hand over her mouth and bit back a gasp. Lucius and Narcissa were both sitting on the floor with their backs against one wall but Hermione would never have recognised them. Their beautiful, fine, white hair which they had passed on to their son was matted and a dirty grey. They faces were blank, their eyes staring and their mouths open. They were dressed in rather filthy cotton robes similar to those given to patients in Muggle hospitals. They sat unmoving, barely even blinking. It was obvious that whoever Lucius and Narcissa had been, they no longer existed. They were gone and all that was left were hideous shells almost like life-sized puppets of themselves.

Hermione pulled herself together quickly. She couldn't show her shock to Draco, she was here to support him not collapse herself.

He had come into the room himself by then. He stood very still when he saw them and bit his lip until it bled. Without even thinking Hermione went and stood close beside him and took his hand. They stood there like two bewildered children for a long time. Finally Draco gently let go of her hand and went over to his parents. His steps were hesitant but determined. He crouched next to them and passed one slender hand in front of their eyes. Their eyelids didn't flicker.

"Mum? Dad?" Draco said. The sound of Draco's voice almost brought Hermione to tears. It was the voice of a child looking for its parents - hesitant and afraid and lost. "It's me, Draco." He stared intensely at them, obviously hoping for some hint of recognition even just a flicker.

It was useless. They were as good as dead. He stared at them for a long time as though trying to imprint their faces on his memory. Finally he got up and walked out of the cell. Hermione took one last look at the pair and followed him. The goblin led them back through the labyrinthine hallways and to the entrance room. They handed in their cloaks and left, Draco paying the goblin a gold coin.

The walk back along the low bridge to where they could apparate seemed far shorter than the walk there. "What really happened that night?" Draco asked quietly, as soon as they were well away from the drawbridge.

"What night?" Hermione asked although she suspected the answer.

"The night Voldemort was defeated. You were there and Voldemort was about to kill you. Then you were gone and the Black Unicorn was there. Where did it come from and why did Snape use Avada Kevarda on Voldemort rather than letting the Black Unicorn kill him?" Draco asked.

Hermione decided to lie. She trusted Draco but the best way to keep a dangerous secret was for as few people to know it as possible. "I don't know where it came from but if it hadn't come, I would have died for sure," she replied then went on to explain about the properties of a Black Unicorn and why Snape had not wanted the creature to sacrifice its nature in destroying Voldemort.

Draco merely nodded. "That does explain it then but I still wonder where it came from just in time to save your life," he added thoughtfully.

Draco didn't talk again until they were back at Hermione's cottage. "Stay for dinner," Hermione invited, seeing the boy's white, pinched face.

"No, I don't think I could eat anything," Draco said honestly. "Can I have a cup of tea though?" he asked politely.

Hermione nodded with a smile and waved her wand at the kettle. Snape was back from Snape Manor and was looking intently at Draco through narrowed, black eyes. "Did it help?" he asked suddenly, his deep voice rasping slightly as it sometimes did.

Draco glanced up at him and considered. "Yes and no," he replied truthfully, looking away again.

Hermione handed him a cup of tea. She could tell that it had affected him probably more profoundly than even their capture or trial. It made it final for him, she realised. Something had changed in his face, she decided and it would probably take awhile for him to get used to it himself. She suddenly realised that she would need to write to Luna the next day.

* The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe

** The Bog of Eternal Stench is from the movie 'Labyrinth' by Jim Henson and George Lucus and Brian Froud.

*** The Swamp of Sorrows is from Michael Ende's 'The Never-Ending Story'.