A man in billowing black robes walked down the steep steps to the dungeon cells. The air was cold and suffocating, but he paid it no mind. As he walked purposefully past the many cells, he hummed a little tune under his breath. Click, click went his shiny black shoes and many prisoners shrunk from the sound.
He stopped when he got to the last cell in this particular corridor. The two people within did not cringe like the other's and maybe that was their undoing. The man slowly put his hand in his pocket and fished around for his keys. He found them, and with a grunt he pulled them out and roughly shoved the right key into the keyhole.
"Come out," he commanded gruffly and without a word the two people walked as dignified as they could out of their prison cell.
They had been imprisoned for their activities as spies for Dumbledore's Army, a group of young witches and wizards keen on fighting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. A muggleborn witch and a pureblood wizard they were, completely opposite in nature, but likewise in goals.
Hermione Granger tried to not seem weak, nor scared as they were led out of the dark hole they'd occupied for the last three months. Her long brown hair was a ratted mess, and her face was haggard and dirty. The man beside her, Draco Malfoy, was more skilled at hiding his emotions, so it required little effort, instead he was scanning everything around him.
His clear silvery eyes missed nothing in the damp gloomy hallways. Hermione nudged him as they passed a specific door. They had heard about this particular room, it was where they took prisoners and killed them. The black ash door was a pretty good indicater of the horrors within.
They kept walking down the hallway, slowly and delibrately Hermione reached out and grabbed Draco's hand. He nearly let go, her hand felt like ice. The man ahead of them came to a halt and knocked on a wooden door. The door creaked open and he prodded Hermione and Draco inside.
The room was dark, and shapeless in their sight. They could see only a dark shadow of someone sitting in a chair across from them, and nothing else. The man who had taken them from their cell hobbled over to a sconce wedged into the wall and lit the candle sitting there.
The light it produced was feeble, but to Hermione and Draco it was like a rising sun. They peered cautiously at the figure who was sitting, nothing prepared them from when the a candle sitting next to him errupted in flame and they could finally make out the face.
Draco kept his emotions in check, but Hermione gasped and squeezed his hand. Sitting smugly in a high backed chair was Lucuis Malfoy. The candlelight reflected off his white blond hair, although his face was shadowed. He slowly folded his hands in his lap in the most calm and frightening way.
"Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, spies for Albus Dumbledore, we have taken you into custody, where you shall remain until we find a more..... desirable use for you. Tomorrow morning you will be awakened by Mr. Alexander, here," he gestured to the man hunched in the corner, "And you will be taken to the Rotting Green to bath and then you will be put on a carriage headed for Malfoy Manor. Details of your stay there will be told to you on the journey."
"Yes, sir," both of them murmered.
"Alexander, take them to the holding cell on the second floor, please," Lucuis said before he got up and exited the room.
"Come along," Alexander said pushing Hermione in front of him. Draco followed meekly, never letting go of Hermione's hand.
Alexander led them up a long flight of stairs to the ground floor of house. Servants hurried by, paying no attention to them. They were led up the servants staircase to a shabby hallway with peeling green wallpaper. Alexander opened the first door to their right and shoving them in, locked the door.
The room they were to occupy for a night was better than the one they had been rotting, but now there was an added problem. While in their old cell, there had been two dirty straw palets for them to sleep on, this room contained only a small wooden bed with a straw filled mattress.
Hermione let go of Draco and sat on the bed, it didn't look entirely clean, but she'd seen worse.
"I'll sleep on the floor," Draco muttered grabbing on of the lumpy pillows off the bed.
"No, we can both sleep on here, I don't take up much room and it will be warmer," Hermione protested practically.
"Fine," Draco said and he sat on the bed next to her.
No one would have ever guessed that Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger would ever be anything but enemies, but sharing the same horrible situation and being on the same side had tempered them. In this place they were all each other had.