Disclaimer: Do I really have to go through this with you? Again? Ok, ok,
Harry Potter is not mine. If it were I would not be slaving away at the
hellhole- aka my school. *Deep Breath* Did I go over the top there?
Special Thanks to Annison Crane for telling me the name of the song I wanted - thank you so much!!! It's now clogging up my entire play list on media player now!
Is it just me, or does the lead singer out of the band 'Feeder' look like Remus Lupin? I just saw the video for their latest single and me and my friend both screamed (well, had a sharp intake of breath but that isn't quite as dramatic is it?).
Chapter 15:
Harry grimaced as he misplaced his foot again and felt all the murky water seep into his once remotely clean shoes and squelch around his socks. Around him he could see everyone else wasn't exactly thrilled to be in the middle of a stinking wasteland up to their eyes balls in.
"I was pretty sure you said moor Malfoy," Ron grunted as he tried to keep his large feet in the narrow path and not exactly succeeding. Malfoy, clearly used to this terrain, lightly stepped over to him and smirked,
"When I said moor I meant marshland,"
Mark was stopped lunging at Draco by the fact that Maria tripped and had to grab his jacket to stay out of the festering water.
"How long have we been walking?" Maria moaned, sitting down on what was barely recognisable as a rotting tree stump, "You can't even see the sun in this fog,"
Harry squinted up into the sky or upwards where he supposed it was. She was right. There was no sunlight - only a dull light coming from everywhere. Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and wriggled his toes to try and get some feeling back into the icy digits at the end of his feet.
"This is the Ministry's elite fighting squad?" Draco replied scathing looking Maria up and down as she massaging her swollen feet and Ron as he pulled a shoe off and let all the water pour off, "It was a miracle that the Dark Lord was defeated-"
"Shut up!" Harry snapped Draco's sarcasm finally getting to him, "Or I'll shut you up!"
No one spoke for a moment before Maria cut in,
"You try working on three hours sleep . . ."
Harry rubbed his brow tiredly,
"How much longer Malfoy-"
"Draco," Draco corrected pushing his luck but not realising what he was doing was on a par with poking a sleeping dragon in the eye,
"Just answer - where is the entrance?" Harry hissed.
"She's sitting on it,"
Everyone swung round to face Maria - she was the only female in the company as both Hermione and Dumbledore weren't here - who stood up as if it was burning hot. Unfortunately, she hadn't replaced her shoe,
"Eww!" she screeched loudly and unusually girlish for her. However, she didn't not get the chance to say anymore as Draco clamped his hand around her mouth,
"Do you think this place is sound proof?" he asked quietly but none the less venomously, "Trust me - they know if a Kelpie nested anywhere around here for a hundred miles they'd know,"
Maria decided against elbowing him in the stomach and wiggled free instead and put her shoe back on silently scowling at Draco all the time.
Ron didn't seem impressed by this, in fact, quite the opposite,
"Then why did we come traipsing all around her in plain view?"
Draco waggled a finger at his old school friend,
"Now, now," he tutted, "This isn't a muggle bank- they don't have cameras,"
Mark glanced at Ron and backed away when he started to see a muscle near his eye twitch.
Harry was still rubbing his head - he could feel a migraine coming on.
Draco must have seen that everyone except him had a wand and they were all making a circle around him like a pack of very hungry wolves. So he dropped the sneering to a minimum,
"Don't worry - they don't know we're here-"
No sooner as the words escaped his lips, the rotting carcass of the trees started to shaking and rising out of the ground like a ghost. Over the roaring it made and the disgusting sound of mud being ploughed out, Harry heard several swear words being thrown about.
~*~
Ever since they had taken her photograph, they had more or less left Ginny alone with the exception of insults thrown in when anyone walked past.
Ginny didn't care. She threw some back not really bothered that they might just turn around and kill her. She didn't care.
No one else did so why should she? This was where she was going to spend the rest of her days not, by the looks of things, there was going to be many of them.
There was no way of knowing how long she had been here for there was no windows at all in her cell that she could see - only a small rectangle in the door way where a little light wafted in.
Earlier on, she had peered through and listened to their conversations and after about five times when they pushed her back in; they put some charm on it. Now, whenever she touched the bars in the window, she'd get an electric shock.
That caused many laughs after she had tried the first time though none on her part.
Now they seemed to be staying in the area around her prison. There was no need - she absolutely no intention to try and escape but she remained hopeful nonetheless that they would do something stupid.
So now she just hovered around the door, not touching it, and peering through at her captors for a chance to hear something useful.
They were playing cards now - Lucius wanted to play poker but it turned out that the other two didn't know how to so now it was whist but they still forgot what were trumps half the time.
Ginny peered through, getting as close as she dared to the bars, and watched whoever's back was to her and their set of cards.
It was pathetic really but she didn't care. She felt cold, hungry and the constant worry of death hung around her shoulders like a very heavy backpack.
Lucius looked up at her and muttered a few words. The next thing she knew was that she was thrown back and head her head on the slimy wall - hard.
The last thing she saw was the black clouds around her eyes before she passed out.
~*~
Someone yanked her by her collar as if she was only a rag doll - that was how she felt and they dropped her on the chair and slapped her round her face.
It didn't hurt as much now - she was numb with cold and the world seemed so bleary and uninviting she would jut sleep back to sleep again -
Then they threw a bucket of water over her.
Blinking the water out of her eyes furiously, she was greeted by the smirking face of Lucius Malfoy.
"Glad to see you awake - finally,"
Ginny gritted her teeth. With her consciousness came her hatred for him. She felt better now she had slept well - whatever she was it had cleared her head.
He nodded to his lackeys either side of him and they disappeared out of the room and with them, a little of Ginny's fear.
Lucius smirked down at her for no reason expect to past the time. Ginny just waited for whatever insults he was going to throw at her. She decided to break the silence first,
"Isn't this the time where the bad guy explains his evil plot?" she stated a little too cockily but as it was he didn't notice as he was obviously dieing to explain the reasoning behind his plan.
Swaggering over to her, he brought out his wand and undid the binding around her wrists, and bend down to her level and looked her straight in the eyes.
Neither of them spoke and the only sound to be heard was the constant drip of whatever was coming of the walls.
"This isn't one of your muggle films Ginny my sweet," he said slowly making her skin crawl, "They'll be know good guy coming to rescue you. Or, at least if he does, he won't be coming out again,"
Ginny didn't give him the pleasure of knowing exactly how worried she was.
"An eye for an eye,"
Lucius returned to his feet, for no reason except to stare down at her, and looked pleased that Ginny didn't understand his statement.
"Do you realise just how many innocent people your lover-boy has killed,"
"Yeah," she scoffed, not even bothering to correct the big mistake in that statement "All those innocent Deatheaters,"
The only thing that stopped Malfoy hitting her was that he was too busy stroking his ego,
"You'd be surprised," he remarked scratching his chin idly, "Anyway, there are few of us left now and any new recruits seem to get caught within forty- eight hours. He has to pay Ginny - you understand,"
She understood - too well.
"What good will it do?" she wondered aloud, "Voldemort's dead-"
"That's what you think!" he yelled, the ice in his voice shattering away to be replaced by anger, "He's not! He's always listening, watching and judging us!"
She had always been kind of wary of his past and all the things he had done to her and her family but he had always been vindictive about the ways he got to them.
Now he petrified her.
He seemed capable of killing her without a second of remorse not bothering that he would not longer have any bait.
Ginny opened her mouth to retort something but her brain didn't supply it - her mouth had gone dry and her throat had seized up.
Lucius took some deep breaths,
"You wouldn't understand," he hissed, using the heel of his shoe to take his anger out on a dead rat skull instead of her own, "If the person who killed him was dead, he would come back,"
Ginny swallowed,
"That's were you come in," he smirked, "And he will reward me above all others!"
"Wh-w-what about Draco?" she asked, stuttering slightly - being faced with a cackling megalomaniac can do that to you.
"How did you know about him?" he asked sharply, stopping his manic laughing at once,
"I heard the other men talking about it," she answered well aware that he was now circling her. She might as well have been tighter down to the chair - she wasn't going to get up.
"Fools!"
A shadow of a smile flicked on Ginny's face for a moment although she regretted it as she felt the bruise on her left cheek. It looked like someone was going to be in some trouble.
"Well, while we're on the subject," he continued, composure regained, "Why don't you hazard a guess?"
When she was younger, she was never really that good at English so now, when she had less than three hours sleep, her imagination wasn't at his best.
"Erm, you want him out of prison?"
A cruel laugh rang through the dungeon and rattled around in her brain for a long time after,
"Really," he stopped to chuckle for a moment, "You still think I actually want the boy out for his own good?"
She wouldn't ever admit it out loud but she really wanted to hear this,
"He never like dark arts," Lucius continued, taking Ginny silence as a cue to carry on, "He's smart as well - mores the pity. No, I wanted him out for no reason except to kill him myself,"
~*~
After they last spoke, Lucius left Ginny to wallow in the pool of her self- pity for a couple of hours while he sat outside with his friends. He seemed to be watching them making sure nothing else slipped out.
They were playing cards again now though not very successfully. Lucius still wanted to play polka but no matter how many times he went over the rules, they still forgot how to play,
The group of three men were sitting around a very old and mouldy looking wooden table and the only source of light was a flaming touch on the wall near them.
"Eww!"
Dropping his cards almost lazily, Lucius looked up at Ginny,
"Can you please stop that," he drawled over as his partners sniggered. Ginny scowled - that wasn't her and it couldn't be any of them, as it sounded very girly,
"*I* didn't say any thing-" Ginny snapped angrily but as soon as the words came out of her mouth she regretted it.
The effect was instant.
All of her captors shot up as if the seat of their pants were on fire and swept off except one who stayed and grinned at her menacingly.
Whoever was up there, she realised, could be the people to could maybe save her. Great - she just blew their cover. Some friend she would be.
The tow thugs ran out of Ginny's sight quickly, knocking the table and all the drink on there onto the floor, and Lucius rose slowly and walked closer and closer to her cell door.
Ginny took a step back, caught her heel on a rock and went crashing to the floor.
Scrambling desperately away, she heard a cruel laugh and the door being slammed open. He stood in the doorway for a moment before taking three strides and grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and dragging her onto her feet.
"I've found a better job for you darling," he grinned down at her menacingly before knocking her out.
~*~
"Ah,"
Mark was the first to react to Draco's comment,
"Ah?" he snapped, pushed Maria off him who fell into the water with a strangled cry and walked over to Draco and grabbed his shirt roughly, "What do you mean 'ah'?"
No one came to his rescue.
Draco pushed him off and into the marsh that surrounded them,
"Don't you see," he yelled over the wind that suddenly arrived that was throwing every ones hair about and pointing to where the tree stump was,
"They know we're here-" everyone looked at Maria, who just smiled charmingly though backing away slowly,
"That's the door!"
No one reacted until the wind died down and the sound of hundreds of bolts being drawn across magically.
Panic flooded Maria's face as she pulled her shoes on tighter; Ron swallowed nervously and gripped his wand tighter whereas Mark merely stretched some shoulder muscles.
"Go!" Draco bellowed at them, "Do you want them to know you're here? They only heard a noise - not how many there were here!"
Everyone woke up and dived into the bushes just as the door/tree swung open - everyone except Draco who was held back by Harry who had grabbed his collar.
~*~
"If we get out of here Malfoy-" he hissed out of the side of his mouth as they started binding his wrist together and searching him for any weapons,
"When," Draco corrected, standing in front of Harry with his wrists already bound,
"When we get out of here," Harry growled as one of them pushed him harder into the manky table, "You had better run far 'cos I'll be the one chasing you!"
Draco just shrugged and inspected the room from where he was - he didn't look at all surprised to find that they seemed to be in some kind of medieval dungeon - they even had flaming torches to light up the place.
From what he what he could see, with his face pressed against the wet table, they appeared to be underground and the only window he could find was near the ceiling.
"C'mon," some said gruffly behind him before yanking to his feet and pushing him towards the door, "There's someone waiting for you,"
However it was, neither Draco nor Harry looked exactly pleased about seeing them.
~*~
Suddenly the pushing and shoving stopped and the both he and Draco fell to their knee and found their bounds undone.
The sacks that had covered their heads before now were pulled off roughly and a small popping sound followed. After Harry had finished hissing at the light he squinted around.
Those thugs had gone.
Draco was on his feet almost at once,
"This is not good,"
Harry looked up from his raw wrists and squinted around the room. This room was much, well there was no other word for it, nicer than the rest of this place he had seen.
There was actually light around here with lamps sitting on varnished tables and dark rugs covered the scrubbed stone floor. Several pictures filled the walls he noted as Draco pulled him to his feet.
"Why is this not good?" he asked though regretted after. What was really good about this whole situation?
They both stood in silence,
"There's no way out," Draco said simply as the pair of them glanced around for a door or window that might just suddenly appear out of nowhere. The room itself was circular and Harry couldn't even see where they had come in,
"There's no way out,"
Harry frowned,
"Then there's no way in,"
"I wouldn't be too sure about that,"
His frown turned into a scowl. Draco went off and tried to look for an escape route - behind pictures, under the rugs he tried everywhere while Harry was some how drawn to a table on the side.
His mind was already tired and weak from lack of food and sleep so when his brain went blank and carefree he couldn't fight it.
Reaching forward with his mud encrusted hand; he touched the portrait in front of him lightly.
The fact that it was a portrait of a man clad in black and green clothes didn't worry him in the slightest - clothes were clothes as far as his numbed brain was concerned.
As soon as his fingertips brushed the silver pendant on the subject's cloak, a hole appeared and after a couple of seconds of morphing on the pictures side, a door appeared.
Open it, something whispered in his mind, Open it.
For a moment, his real self fought out of his minds prison and managed to send a loud enough warning. He stopped and closed his out stretched fingers.
Finally, the spell wore off and Harry shook his head crossly. Nothing like that had happened since his forth year - he wasn't in control then and he had nearly done something stupid. Deciding against asked Draco to slap him, he rubbed his eyes.
The words 'Open it, open it,' still rung in his head like ghosts as he tried in vain to clear his head. It had been so tempting - hat was what had scared him. How far would he have gone?
But the door was still here. Looking over his shoulder, his little dilemma had seemed to gone unnoticed by Draco who was still searching for another escape route.
Three hours of sleep can make you do very foolish things, and unfortunately for us Harry had only had two hours of sleep so when he reached forward and yanked the door open, the only thing he was thinking about was the look he was going to give Draco when he found a way out first.
"Harry, don't!"
Behind him he only just caught the yell that Malfoy shouted before the door slammed shut.
Realising his foolishness too late, Harry looked up at the stairs in front of him. He had two choices: Stay here and be found or go and find. Of course, he was half way through the second choice before his brain had even thought about taking the first one.
Finally, he reached he top of the stone steps, panting slightly,
Harry looked up and found himself in another room and at the windowsill sat Ginny.
If he had been closer, he would have seen the tears streaming down her face and the rope binding her wrists together.
All he could think about was the way her red hair fell in curls around her shoulders and how he just wanted to make the bruises on her skin go away.
As it was he only just saw the look of fear of something behind him she was sending before a door shut behind him,
"Glad you could come Mr. Potter,"
~*~
Authors Note:
Well, I, uh, hope you enjoyed it.
Special Thanks to Annison Crane for telling me the name of the song I wanted - thank you so much!!! It's now clogging up my entire play list on media player now!
Is it just me, or does the lead singer out of the band 'Feeder' look like Remus Lupin? I just saw the video for their latest single and me and my friend both screamed (well, had a sharp intake of breath but that isn't quite as dramatic is it?).
Chapter 15:
Harry grimaced as he misplaced his foot again and felt all the murky water seep into his once remotely clean shoes and squelch around his socks. Around him he could see everyone else wasn't exactly thrilled to be in the middle of a stinking wasteland up to their eyes balls in.
"I was pretty sure you said moor Malfoy," Ron grunted as he tried to keep his large feet in the narrow path and not exactly succeeding. Malfoy, clearly used to this terrain, lightly stepped over to him and smirked,
"When I said moor I meant marshland,"
Mark was stopped lunging at Draco by the fact that Maria tripped and had to grab his jacket to stay out of the festering water.
"How long have we been walking?" Maria moaned, sitting down on what was barely recognisable as a rotting tree stump, "You can't even see the sun in this fog,"
Harry squinted up into the sky or upwards where he supposed it was. She was right. There was no sunlight - only a dull light coming from everywhere. Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and wriggled his toes to try and get some feeling back into the icy digits at the end of his feet.
"This is the Ministry's elite fighting squad?" Draco replied scathing looking Maria up and down as she massaging her swollen feet and Ron as he pulled a shoe off and let all the water pour off, "It was a miracle that the Dark Lord was defeated-"
"Shut up!" Harry snapped Draco's sarcasm finally getting to him, "Or I'll shut you up!"
No one spoke for a moment before Maria cut in,
"You try working on three hours sleep . . ."
Harry rubbed his brow tiredly,
"How much longer Malfoy-"
"Draco," Draco corrected pushing his luck but not realising what he was doing was on a par with poking a sleeping dragon in the eye,
"Just answer - where is the entrance?" Harry hissed.
"She's sitting on it,"
Everyone swung round to face Maria - she was the only female in the company as both Hermione and Dumbledore weren't here - who stood up as if it was burning hot. Unfortunately, she hadn't replaced her shoe,
"Eww!" she screeched loudly and unusually girlish for her. However, she didn't not get the chance to say anymore as Draco clamped his hand around her mouth,
"Do you think this place is sound proof?" he asked quietly but none the less venomously, "Trust me - they know if a Kelpie nested anywhere around here for a hundred miles they'd know,"
Maria decided against elbowing him in the stomach and wiggled free instead and put her shoe back on silently scowling at Draco all the time.
Ron didn't seem impressed by this, in fact, quite the opposite,
"Then why did we come traipsing all around her in plain view?"
Draco waggled a finger at his old school friend,
"Now, now," he tutted, "This isn't a muggle bank- they don't have cameras,"
Mark glanced at Ron and backed away when he started to see a muscle near his eye twitch.
Harry was still rubbing his head - he could feel a migraine coming on.
Draco must have seen that everyone except him had a wand and they were all making a circle around him like a pack of very hungry wolves. So he dropped the sneering to a minimum,
"Don't worry - they don't know we're here-"
No sooner as the words escaped his lips, the rotting carcass of the trees started to shaking and rising out of the ground like a ghost. Over the roaring it made and the disgusting sound of mud being ploughed out, Harry heard several swear words being thrown about.
~*~
Ever since they had taken her photograph, they had more or less left Ginny alone with the exception of insults thrown in when anyone walked past.
Ginny didn't care. She threw some back not really bothered that they might just turn around and kill her. She didn't care.
No one else did so why should she? This was where she was going to spend the rest of her days not, by the looks of things, there was going to be many of them.
There was no way of knowing how long she had been here for there was no windows at all in her cell that she could see - only a small rectangle in the door way where a little light wafted in.
Earlier on, she had peered through and listened to their conversations and after about five times when they pushed her back in; they put some charm on it. Now, whenever she touched the bars in the window, she'd get an electric shock.
That caused many laughs after she had tried the first time though none on her part.
Now they seemed to be staying in the area around her prison. There was no need - she absolutely no intention to try and escape but she remained hopeful nonetheless that they would do something stupid.
So now she just hovered around the door, not touching it, and peering through at her captors for a chance to hear something useful.
They were playing cards now - Lucius wanted to play poker but it turned out that the other two didn't know how to so now it was whist but they still forgot what were trumps half the time.
Ginny peered through, getting as close as she dared to the bars, and watched whoever's back was to her and their set of cards.
It was pathetic really but she didn't care. She felt cold, hungry and the constant worry of death hung around her shoulders like a very heavy backpack.
Lucius looked up at her and muttered a few words. The next thing she knew was that she was thrown back and head her head on the slimy wall - hard.
The last thing she saw was the black clouds around her eyes before she passed out.
~*~
Someone yanked her by her collar as if she was only a rag doll - that was how she felt and they dropped her on the chair and slapped her round her face.
It didn't hurt as much now - she was numb with cold and the world seemed so bleary and uninviting she would jut sleep back to sleep again -
Then they threw a bucket of water over her.
Blinking the water out of her eyes furiously, she was greeted by the smirking face of Lucius Malfoy.
"Glad to see you awake - finally,"
Ginny gritted her teeth. With her consciousness came her hatred for him. She felt better now she had slept well - whatever she was it had cleared her head.
He nodded to his lackeys either side of him and they disappeared out of the room and with them, a little of Ginny's fear.
Lucius smirked down at her for no reason expect to past the time. Ginny just waited for whatever insults he was going to throw at her. She decided to break the silence first,
"Isn't this the time where the bad guy explains his evil plot?" she stated a little too cockily but as it was he didn't notice as he was obviously dieing to explain the reasoning behind his plan.
Swaggering over to her, he brought out his wand and undid the binding around her wrists, and bend down to her level and looked her straight in the eyes.
Neither of them spoke and the only sound to be heard was the constant drip of whatever was coming of the walls.
"This isn't one of your muggle films Ginny my sweet," he said slowly making her skin crawl, "They'll be know good guy coming to rescue you. Or, at least if he does, he won't be coming out again,"
Ginny didn't give him the pleasure of knowing exactly how worried she was.
"An eye for an eye,"
Lucius returned to his feet, for no reason except to stare down at her, and looked pleased that Ginny didn't understand his statement.
"Do you realise just how many innocent people your lover-boy has killed,"
"Yeah," she scoffed, not even bothering to correct the big mistake in that statement "All those innocent Deatheaters,"
The only thing that stopped Malfoy hitting her was that he was too busy stroking his ego,
"You'd be surprised," he remarked scratching his chin idly, "Anyway, there are few of us left now and any new recruits seem to get caught within forty- eight hours. He has to pay Ginny - you understand,"
She understood - too well.
"What good will it do?" she wondered aloud, "Voldemort's dead-"
"That's what you think!" he yelled, the ice in his voice shattering away to be replaced by anger, "He's not! He's always listening, watching and judging us!"
She had always been kind of wary of his past and all the things he had done to her and her family but he had always been vindictive about the ways he got to them.
Now he petrified her.
He seemed capable of killing her without a second of remorse not bothering that he would not longer have any bait.
Ginny opened her mouth to retort something but her brain didn't supply it - her mouth had gone dry and her throat had seized up.
Lucius took some deep breaths,
"You wouldn't understand," he hissed, using the heel of his shoe to take his anger out on a dead rat skull instead of her own, "If the person who killed him was dead, he would come back,"
Ginny swallowed,
"That's were you come in," he smirked, "And he will reward me above all others!"
"Wh-w-what about Draco?" she asked, stuttering slightly - being faced with a cackling megalomaniac can do that to you.
"How did you know about him?" he asked sharply, stopping his manic laughing at once,
"I heard the other men talking about it," she answered well aware that he was now circling her. She might as well have been tighter down to the chair - she wasn't going to get up.
"Fools!"
A shadow of a smile flicked on Ginny's face for a moment although she regretted it as she felt the bruise on her left cheek. It looked like someone was going to be in some trouble.
"Well, while we're on the subject," he continued, composure regained, "Why don't you hazard a guess?"
When she was younger, she was never really that good at English so now, when she had less than three hours sleep, her imagination wasn't at his best.
"Erm, you want him out of prison?"
A cruel laugh rang through the dungeon and rattled around in her brain for a long time after,
"Really," he stopped to chuckle for a moment, "You still think I actually want the boy out for his own good?"
She wouldn't ever admit it out loud but she really wanted to hear this,
"He never like dark arts," Lucius continued, taking Ginny silence as a cue to carry on, "He's smart as well - mores the pity. No, I wanted him out for no reason except to kill him myself,"
~*~
After they last spoke, Lucius left Ginny to wallow in the pool of her self- pity for a couple of hours while he sat outside with his friends. He seemed to be watching them making sure nothing else slipped out.
They were playing cards again now though not very successfully. Lucius still wanted to play polka but no matter how many times he went over the rules, they still forgot how to play,
The group of three men were sitting around a very old and mouldy looking wooden table and the only source of light was a flaming touch on the wall near them.
"Eww!"
Dropping his cards almost lazily, Lucius looked up at Ginny,
"Can you please stop that," he drawled over as his partners sniggered. Ginny scowled - that wasn't her and it couldn't be any of them, as it sounded very girly,
"*I* didn't say any thing-" Ginny snapped angrily but as soon as the words came out of her mouth she regretted it.
The effect was instant.
All of her captors shot up as if the seat of their pants were on fire and swept off except one who stayed and grinned at her menacingly.
Whoever was up there, she realised, could be the people to could maybe save her. Great - she just blew their cover. Some friend she would be.
The tow thugs ran out of Ginny's sight quickly, knocking the table and all the drink on there onto the floor, and Lucius rose slowly and walked closer and closer to her cell door.
Ginny took a step back, caught her heel on a rock and went crashing to the floor.
Scrambling desperately away, she heard a cruel laugh and the door being slammed open. He stood in the doorway for a moment before taking three strides and grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and dragging her onto her feet.
"I've found a better job for you darling," he grinned down at her menacingly before knocking her out.
~*~
"Ah,"
Mark was the first to react to Draco's comment,
"Ah?" he snapped, pushed Maria off him who fell into the water with a strangled cry and walked over to Draco and grabbed his shirt roughly, "What do you mean 'ah'?"
No one came to his rescue.
Draco pushed him off and into the marsh that surrounded them,
"Don't you see," he yelled over the wind that suddenly arrived that was throwing every ones hair about and pointing to where the tree stump was,
"They know we're here-" everyone looked at Maria, who just smiled charmingly though backing away slowly,
"That's the door!"
No one reacted until the wind died down and the sound of hundreds of bolts being drawn across magically.
Panic flooded Maria's face as she pulled her shoes on tighter; Ron swallowed nervously and gripped his wand tighter whereas Mark merely stretched some shoulder muscles.
"Go!" Draco bellowed at them, "Do you want them to know you're here? They only heard a noise - not how many there were here!"
Everyone woke up and dived into the bushes just as the door/tree swung open - everyone except Draco who was held back by Harry who had grabbed his collar.
~*~
"If we get out of here Malfoy-" he hissed out of the side of his mouth as they started binding his wrist together and searching him for any weapons,
"When," Draco corrected, standing in front of Harry with his wrists already bound,
"When we get out of here," Harry growled as one of them pushed him harder into the manky table, "You had better run far 'cos I'll be the one chasing you!"
Draco just shrugged and inspected the room from where he was - he didn't look at all surprised to find that they seemed to be in some kind of medieval dungeon - they even had flaming torches to light up the place.
From what he what he could see, with his face pressed against the wet table, they appeared to be underground and the only window he could find was near the ceiling.
"C'mon," some said gruffly behind him before yanking to his feet and pushing him towards the door, "There's someone waiting for you,"
However it was, neither Draco nor Harry looked exactly pleased about seeing them.
~*~
Suddenly the pushing and shoving stopped and the both he and Draco fell to their knee and found their bounds undone.
The sacks that had covered their heads before now were pulled off roughly and a small popping sound followed. After Harry had finished hissing at the light he squinted around.
Those thugs had gone.
Draco was on his feet almost at once,
"This is not good,"
Harry looked up from his raw wrists and squinted around the room. This room was much, well there was no other word for it, nicer than the rest of this place he had seen.
There was actually light around here with lamps sitting on varnished tables and dark rugs covered the scrubbed stone floor. Several pictures filled the walls he noted as Draco pulled him to his feet.
"Why is this not good?" he asked though regretted after. What was really good about this whole situation?
They both stood in silence,
"There's no way out," Draco said simply as the pair of them glanced around for a door or window that might just suddenly appear out of nowhere. The room itself was circular and Harry couldn't even see where they had come in,
"There's no way out,"
Harry frowned,
"Then there's no way in,"
"I wouldn't be too sure about that,"
His frown turned into a scowl. Draco went off and tried to look for an escape route - behind pictures, under the rugs he tried everywhere while Harry was some how drawn to a table on the side.
His mind was already tired and weak from lack of food and sleep so when his brain went blank and carefree he couldn't fight it.
Reaching forward with his mud encrusted hand; he touched the portrait in front of him lightly.
The fact that it was a portrait of a man clad in black and green clothes didn't worry him in the slightest - clothes were clothes as far as his numbed brain was concerned.
As soon as his fingertips brushed the silver pendant on the subject's cloak, a hole appeared and after a couple of seconds of morphing on the pictures side, a door appeared.
Open it, something whispered in his mind, Open it.
For a moment, his real self fought out of his minds prison and managed to send a loud enough warning. He stopped and closed his out stretched fingers.
Finally, the spell wore off and Harry shook his head crossly. Nothing like that had happened since his forth year - he wasn't in control then and he had nearly done something stupid. Deciding against asked Draco to slap him, he rubbed his eyes.
The words 'Open it, open it,' still rung in his head like ghosts as he tried in vain to clear his head. It had been so tempting - hat was what had scared him. How far would he have gone?
But the door was still here. Looking over his shoulder, his little dilemma had seemed to gone unnoticed by Draco who was still searching for another escape route.
Three hours of sleep can make you do very foolish things, and unfortunately for us Harry had only had two hours of sleep so when he reached forward and yanked the door open, the only thing he was thinking about was the look he was going to give Draco when he found a way out first.
"Harry, don't!"
Behind him he only just caught the yell that Malfoy shouted before the door slammed shut.
Realising his foolishness too late, Harry looked up at the stairs in front of him. He had two choices: Stay here and be found or go and find. Of course, he was half way through the second choice before his brain had even thought about taking the first one.
Finally, he reached he top of the stone steps, panting slightly,
Harry looked up and found himself in another room and at the windowsill sat Ginny.
If he had been closer, he would have seen the tears streaming down her face and the rope binding her wrists together.
All he could think about was the way her red hair fell in curls around her shoulders and how he just wanted to make the bruises on her skin go away.
As it was he only just saw the look of fear of something behind him she was sending before a door shut behind him,
"Glad you could come Mr. Potter,"
~*~
Authors Note:
Well, I, uh, hope you enjoyed it.