The first thing he realised was how cold he was. The second thing was the pain. It took several minutes for Draco to convince himself to open his eyes.

He didn't know this place. Not at first glance. But as his eyes swept the darkened stone walls with bars of moonlight cutting across them as if they weren't made of stone at all… He knew.

He was only on the wrong side of the bars this time.

He shivered again, realising that he was quite naked, and hugging his knees to his chest. He felt as though he'd been pummeled by herds of hippogriffs the night before. And no matter how much Potter teased him, years after his first encounter with one of those ghastly beasts - it hurt.

Potter.

It was like suddenly remembering a dream. Emotionally so clear but otherwise intangible. Potter had something to do with all of this but the memories were refusing to fall into place. He put his hands to his head. It ached. Ached like the first time He had ever intruded upon his thoughts, screaming at him.

Potter had taught him a lot. Potter had taught him enough to keep Potter a secret, at least at first. And he didn't know, didn't care, probably, but Draco had. Potter would never understand how much it hurt.

Harry was many delicious, complex things, but when it came to his emotions there remained a childlike simplicity to figuring them out. It was his biggest vulnerability. Draco knew that, and he knew that Potter did not.

There was a noise, somewhere in the darkness where the moon's light wouldn't trespass. Draco squinted into the blackness but was rewarded with nothing. He shivered again. How the fuck had he ended up here?

There it was again. This time he recognised the noise as a cough. A familiar cough. But sometimes one's ears heard things they wanted to hear, instead of what was actually there. Draco knew this well, and so he sat back against the wall, and waited.

One of the powerful, slashing beams of moonlight shifted as a figure broke its line.

"Potter."

He shouldn't have spoken, this he knew before he opened his mouth. The figure froze.

"Draco?"

This was a terrible lie. This was all a terrible, awful, fake lie. There was no way things were going to end this way. There was no way Draco and Harry were trapped in cells mere metres away from each other in the dungeons of Voldemort's fortress, simply awaiting execution. He didn't want to answer this time, and his mouth obeyed him.

But there was more shuffling from the cell across the way and now a familiar, yet paler face was pressed against the bars, his glasses missing along with his clothes. Draco stared.

"Fuck."

Harry squinted into the darkness before backing into his cell again. Had that been fear? Now Draco was intrigued. He convinced himself that the wave of nausea he had just experienced was owed more to Harry's naked and moonlit body than the fact that the boy seemed afraid of him, and Draco stood quickly, striding across his cell to the bars.

"Potter, what the fuck do you think you're doing here?"

Silence rang through the dungeons. Draco wondered where the other prisoners were. Wondered why Voldemort would leave his most prized capture without a guard. He scowled into the darkness and as he focused on it, he heard something else. Shouting.

His eyes flickered back to the stripes of light invading Harry's cell, but there was no sign of the other man.

It had probably been another dream. These happened to Draco more frequently as the years progressed. He would find the hero in the most unlikely of places. They would talk. Reminisce. Hate each other. And Draco would wake up. Always, he woke up and Harry was gone.

But Harry was gone and he hadn't woken up yet.

"Hallucinations don't suit you Draco," he mumbled to himself as he returned to his seat against the wall.

"Is it really you this time?"

Draco froze in a rather awkward pose, midway towards his seat at the back of the cell. He did not have the same advantage as Harry - windows faced his cell higher up, and moonbeams striped his figure wherever he sat. Resigned to be calm, he took a seat, pulling his knees close to him again and staring into the darkness.

"No, Potter, it's Granger. What the fuck do you mean?"

But his chest had done something weird at those words. Maybe Harry was having the dreams too.

There was another sound from the other cell and Harry was pressed against the bars again, trying his best to survey the dungeons before fixing his stare on Draco, still squinting from the loss of his spectacles.

"Why are you in here?"

Draco opened his mouth to retort but found that he was unable to come up with a suitable response. He glared at the other boy instead.

"Why do you suddenly care?"

Harry shrugged and turned, and the darkness had swallowed him again in the next second. Draco cursed under his breath. How had he gotten here?

He leaned his head back against the cool stone, closing his eyes as a barrage of disconnected images passed through his mind's eye. His left arm burned, and the sensation was so remarkably clear that he opened his eyes to examine the pale, unmarred flesh.

He was obviously here because the Dark Lord wished it so, though he could not fathom why.

"I can tell you why."

That annoyingly comforting and familiar voice broke the silence again. Draco glared at the other man who was watching him closely through the bars. It was rather pathetic of Draco to have forgotten such an important detail about Harry. But as his eyes swept the man's naked form once more, he smirked.

"You don't have your wand."

"He destroyed it."

Draco gaped for a second but recovered.

"You can't do that without a wand, Potter, I don't care if you're The Boy Who Legilimens."

Harry wrinkled his nose and shifted his feet, and Draco noted, not for the first time that evening, that Potter made no move to cover himself, even with his advantage of the darkened cell.

"I can sort of… feel, sometimes. And I know you don't remember. You've been out for days."

Days?

Draco stared at him but found no way to contradict Harry's words.

"Fine."

He thought the moonlight caught a fragmented smile on Harry's face, but it was gone before Draco could tell for sure.

"He pretended to be you. And got me. He knew."

His ears were ringing now. He didn't know if Harry was talking or not anymore, something ironic considering all of those nights where he had heard the other's voice and he had not been there. He sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes and threading his fingers through his hair.

"Potter?"

"Yea?"

"Do you understand now?"

"Yes."

Draco nodded, and his hands were wet. He couldn't remember having cried before, not since childhood.

"Draco?"

He didn't try to answer the boy, instead dragging his hands over his face and looking up rather defiantly.

"I'm sorry."

FIN