Author's Note: Please review. Flames are welcome, if not unfounded. Fic originally written before OotP came out, though there are very few references.
Chapter NineThey walked forward, slowly at first, but gaining confidence with each step. There was a path, grey and worn. They began to follow it, but it stopped abruptly, completely without warning.
"Well, what do we do now?" Draco asked. "The path seems remarkably unnecessary if it's just going to stop."
"Cut the sarcasm, Draco," Ginny said. "It doesn't become you."
"Sorry," he said, not exactly sounding as if he meant it.
"Oh, aren't we irritable?" Ginny shot back.
"Knock it off, guys," Ron said, trying to break up the argument that was threatening to begin. "If you hadn't noticed, we have a crisis on our hands."
"What crisis?" Lavender ask3d. "I didn't think rescuing Harry was that much of a crisis. We aren't technically in danger yet."
"Can we just move on?" Hermione cut in. "We still have to find Harry and get him out of here, all of us still intact."
"Good plan," Draco muttered.
"Draco! You are going to shut up now, or I will drown you."
Draco glared in response, but when he realised it was to no effect, he stopped.
"Well, if I were a Death Eater, where would I put Harry?" Lavender mused aloud as they continued to walk. "In a dungeon, I suppose. It makes sense."
"Wait!" Hermione cried, about fifty paces later. "The spell!"
"The spell?" Ginny repeated blankly.
"Yes! The Amorae Libertas! I can sense Harry if I keep chanting the incantation. Or something like that. I think I remember the book saying something like that…" she trailed off.
"Reassuring," Draco muttered, but no one was paying enough attention to hear him.
"Well, try it," Ron said. "It's the only thing we've got, right now."
"All right, I'll try it," Hermione said. "But I'm not sure if it will work." She closed her eyes, and the words came easily to her tongue. "Amorae Libertas Coure Salve Amorae. Amorae Libertas Course Salve Amorae."
Her voice had a rhythmic quality to it, like the swaying of a boat, the tides of the ocean or the path of a glacier.
Strange, Ron thought, how everything about her reminds me of water. Well, not very strange, I suppose, considering that's what she is.
Hermione began to move, her feet gliding gently. She broke the rhythm only once, quickly saying, "Follow me."
They obeyed. It wasn't hard to follow her. She was moving slowly, swaying back and forth, back and forth, chanting, chanting, always speaking. No one knew when she drew breath.
She led them down corridors, twisting, curving, bending, never straight. Each corridor looked the same; no one could figure out how she knew where she was going—or how they were going to get back out of the labyrinth or corridors to escape. Finally she halted next to a bare stretch of wall.
"He's behind here!" she said, frantically clawing at the wall. "I can feel him, he's right there. I can picture him, his outline. I've come to know him so well. I can see his face, his expression, the way he's sitting. Oh, open up!"
Hermione continued her frenzied clawing until Draco drew her away from the wall.
"Here's an idea," he said. "Each of these cells are made specifically. There's a door on the outside, but none on the inside. Why don't we walk right over there"—Draco pointed—"And open it?"
Hermione's face held a look of bewilderment for a few seconds, then realization dawned on her as she came back to her senses. She nodded.
Draco walked to the door, turned the knob and it swung open easily.
"I keep telling you all," he said. "I am always right, but no one ever listens to me."
The other five followed him, and rushed into the room.
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione cried, when she saw him. "Are you all right?" She already had tears springing to her eyes.
But Harry didn't even look up from the wall he was staring at.
"Harry?" Hermione asked again. But then she remembered that they were wearing the Water Skin. It shut off all sound.
"We have to get out of this thing!" Hermione yelled.
"Mione, calm down so you can get us out of here. We can't. Once you do, you can talk to Harry," Ron said, speaking rationally.
Hermione closed her eyes and peeled away the Water Skin, messing up twice because of excitement.
"Harry!" she finally shouted, when she had finally gotten it off of them.
"Hermione?" Harry said, looking unbelieving. "Is that really you? Or another hallucination?"
"You've been having hallucinations? Oh, that isn't good. In the book we used in seventh year for Magical Methods of Healing it said…"
"Yeah, it's you. You're about to start quoting the book, aren't you?" Harry asked, standing up. Hermione stopped, mid-sentence, for she had indeed been about to begin quoting the book.
"Oh, Harry, you're all right! You would not believe what we had to do to get here." With that said, Hermione flung her arms around Harry's neck and kissed him.
"Aww, how sweet," Ginny said from the door.
"All right," Draco said, sidling up to her and putting an arm around her waist. Ron did the same to Lavender. Harry and Hermione didn't even move from each other's embrace.
"Love you," Harry whispered. "I dreamed of you every time I slept."
"I love you too, though I haven't slept since we left. Not eaten."
"Ariadne brings me food," Harry said.
"Ariadne?" Hermione asked, drawing away slightly.
"Yeah, she's the daughter of some Death Eaters. She wants to escape, so I thought we could help her. We were already planning a way out, so now that you guys are here, you can help. She never got a Hogwarts education. All the spells she knew before I got here were illegal. And she can't leave. She's never even seen the sky."
"That's awful," Hermione murmured. "We'll take her with us."
"I knew you would agree."
~*()*~
Mother was calling again. It was time for yet another lesson in the Dark Arts.
Ariadne jogged down the corridors to the chambers reserved for her lessons. As the youngest Death Eater, she was granted special privileges and permissions. Moreover, Voldemort liked her quite a bit and said she showed potential, making her mother proud.
Truth be told, Ariadne liked her lessons with the prisoner, Harry, better. He was much less harsh, and the spells he taught actually seemed to have other uses than killing someone. But she didn't have a choice. She just followed orders.
As Ariadne entered the chamber called her classroom, she saw her mother standing in the middle of the room.
"Hello Ariadne," her mother said, voice void of all emotion. "You are thirty seconds late. Do better next time."
"I am sorry mother," Ariadne replied, also emptying her voice of emotion. "I was with the prisoner."
"Then I have no choice but to excuse you. But it will not happen again. Now, stand in the centre of the room and show me what you remember from our last lesson."
~*()*~
"Is this girl coming back anytime soon?" Draco asked a while later. Harry and Hermione had finally moved, and now they were sitting and conversing quietly in the corner.
"What?" Draco sighed and repeated his query.
"Oh, yeah, she'll be back soon."
"How soon?" Draco persisted.
"Very." Harry didn't elaborate.
Draco sighed again, and went back to sit next to Ginny, leaning against a wall. Ron and Lavender followed suit. Harry and Hermione just kept talking, Hermione once in a while making a gesture or two, and once Summoning Water and letting it dance in her fingers.
"Harry?" a voice timidly asked, about half an hour later.
"Ariadne!" Harry said, standing up. "Everyone is here now. We can escape!"
"Oh, good!" Ariadne's face lit up. "We have to go, now. There will be no one in the entrance hall, because it's a mealtime. There will only be a few guards and we can avoid, or Stun, them easily."
"Already?" Hermione asked, surprised. "We have to leave now?"
"If you want to get out alive, we do," Ariadne replied, sounding surprisingly determined.
"That would be preferable," Draco said lightly.
Ariadne barely glanced his way before saying, "Wait, shouldn't you introduce me so I know names?"
"Oh, sorry," Harry said. "Ariadne, this is Hermione, my fiancée and the love of my life. The giant redhead is Ron, who was my first and best friend. Lavender is the girl next to Ron, she is marrying him. Ginny is the other redhead, she's Ron's sister. Ginny is marrying Draco, the only person left in the room."
"Well, that was nice. Go ahead, say something about everone except me."
"All right, I hated Draco until sixth year."
"Thanks," Draco grumbled.
"Anytime. Everyone, this is Ariadne. Suffice it to say, she will be escaping with us."
Everyone nodded to each other.
"All right, let's go," Ariadne said, clapping her hands. A door appeared at the sound.
"Wait, we need a Water Skin," Hermione said.
"What's that?" Ariadne asked. "I've never heard of one."
"No time to explain," Hermione said hurriedly. "It would take to long. I've already explained to Harry. Just take someone's hand and let me do the work."
Hermione Summoned Water and soon had it cupped in her palm. Ariadne yelped and backed away.
"It's only Water," Hermione soothed.
"I know. It's just that I'm terrified of water. It's probably because…when I was young I tried to escape once before and I almost drowned in the water surrounding the island. Please, just let me go outside your bubble, and I'll tell anyone who asks that I am moving you to another cell on my mother's orders. Most Death Eaters are too stupid to notice there are six of you in there instead of one."
"All right," Hermione consented grudgingly. "I hope it works."
She resumed making the Water Skin, and when it was complete, she stepped in with everyone else following her lead.
"You know," Lavender said, the last to step in, just before she pulled her head in, "We won't be able to hear anything you say, and vice versa."
"That's all right," Ariadne assured her. "I'll use actions an gestures, and so can you. It'll be fine. Just follow me. I know my way around here better than anyone."
Lavender nodded and stepped all the way into the Water Skin.
~*()*~
The Water Skin moulded itself to fit them, stretching and shaping itself. When it had finished writhing, Ron spoke.
"She can't hear us, right?"
"Right. Why?"
"I don't like her. I don't trust her."
"Why not?" Harry asked, surprised. "I probably would have died if she hadn't brought me part of her food. I would have died of starvation."
"You haven't been here that long," Lavender pointed out.
"Well, I'd still be very hungry," Harry said. "Why don't you trust her, Ron?"
"Because she seems untrustworthy. Why is she a Death Eater if she doesn't want to be?"
"Her mother is and is forcing her."
"Oh, that makes perfect sense," Ron said, words dripping with sarcasm.
"Can we shut up?" Ginny snapped. "We have to follow Ariadne whether we like it or not, so can we please do it in peace?"
Ron grumbled for a second, but stopped with a glare from everyone.
"Look," Draco said, pointing.
Ariadne was waving them forward, looking around nervously every couple of seconds.
"What's she saying?" harry asked. "I can't read lips."
"Neither can I," Hermione replied, "But I can guess she is saying 'Come on!' os something like that. Let's follow, quickly."
They set out, back down the twisting corridors, whispering, even though no one could hear. And unawares of the horrors in store.
