Disclaimer: I do not own HP

Summary: Harry, Ginny, and Charlie are framed for a murder and are sent to Azkaban. They break out with other prisoners and still fight against Voldemort.

The Darkest Days and the Brightest Nights

Chapter 3: The Cave of the Grim and the old Goblin Castle

As the group walked back to the cave, their minds constantly lingered on one thing:

What could be in that cave?

As the entrance grew nearer and nearer, the group prepared themselves for the worst. Once they were at the entrance to the cave, they stood waiting for something.

"All together?"was replied with a bunch of "lets go"s and "Lumos."

The cave was extremely large, being at least 20 feet high after going 50 feet in. All there were were stalagmites and stalactites ranging form 5 to 15 feet high. It was plenty wide, and a very quiet. Everyone used this time to think, and nothing was said.

Harry's mind wandered around, thinking about each and every other person. Neville and Luna look so happy together. Even Draco looks like things changed for the better. I only wish I knew how this would turn out. There is also Bellatrix. I was shocked when she asked to be friends. She sprung it on me a year ago. I understood as to why she wanted it. Only so she could stay somewhat sane. But, now that we're out, what is she going to do? She could stay with us, or go back to that bastard Voldemort. At least now that we're out, I could find a way to make some veritaserum. That way I could figure out if she was lying to us about never betraying us. At least she has somewhere to go. The rest of us were betrayed.

As they walked through the cave, things got drier and and hotter. And the walls started to narrow down the passageway. They hit what they thought to be a dead end. "Crap. Wrong way. Lets go back and try to find another passage."

This is no wrong way, you just don't know what your looking at. A voice bellowed out in the cave.

"Who's there!" Ginny was extremely freaked out.

Someone who used to reside here. I was known as Grim at one point, due to my appearance. However time took its toll and my body. My soul should have joined it though.

"S-so you're the soul of the – the Grim?" Ginny was ready to faint.

Yes.

Thump.

"Nice. Now we have to carry her the rest of the way," Harry was getting a bit frustrated at the timing of the moment, "and we have to find the right passageway. Do you know where it is?"

I told you already, this is not the wrong way. Just look at what you see.

"Whats that supposed to mean? Grim? GRIM! ANSWER ME!"

"Harry, calm down. I bet I know what it is." Neville was trying to calm him down before the cave collapsed. "Its probably an illusion. Watch." Neville started to put his hand on the wall, but as soon as his hand actually touched it, the wall disappeared. "Told you."

"Shut it."

As they walked, or in Ginny's case, got carried, the air suddenly got warmer every few feet or so.

"Somethings up ahead." Draco could hear someone, or something, very deeply breathing. "Which one wants to come with me?"

No one moved an inch.

"Honestly, are we a bunch of cowards? Just to see what it is, not to fight it."

At that moment everyone started walking in the direction of the breathing.

"I just said one person!" Cricket chirp "Oh, forget it. Lets go."

They could soon see a small light up ahead flickering as if it was almost dead. As soon as they rounded the corner, they saw something they never expected to see in a cave like this. A baby dragon was sitting on the ground looking very worn out. All around it were small pieces of eggshell.

"It must of just hatched. What worries me is that there is no mother." Charlie started to worry a bit while thinking what if we have to take it with us?

A few seconds later they heard what could easily of been distinguished as a dragon's roar. Followed by a very loud...

ROAR!

As they headed forward to see what was going on in the cave, they saw a fight unfold in front of their eyes. Ginny woke up just at this moment.

There was a dragon in this part of the cave fighting against a giant three-headed dog, known as a cerberus, that looked strangely like Fluffy. The cavern was big enough to allow plenty of room for fighting, and there was a very large opening on top. The dragon would fly above and every once in a while, it would swoop down and try to hit the cerberus. However, the dog would constantly sidestep and then leap at the closest thing it could grab, and this time, it was the dragon's tail. The dragon roared in pain and while being distracted, hit the wall with a resounding thud. As it fell to the ground, the cerberus got ready to strike, and as soon as it launch itself at the dragon, the dragon flew back up and out of the way. There was a large crack in the wall now, and the cerberus was dazed. The dragon took advantage of this and started to burn the cerberus alive. The cerberus started to howl in enormous pain, but was able to lurch one of its heads in a last ditch effort to take the dragon with him. It worked, and the dragon's neck was severed and it became beheaded quickly. The loud roars quickly slowed down also as the cerberus burned until all of the life was out of it. Both creatures died right in that cavern.

Everyone was shocked at what they had just seen.

If you fight, nothing lives. This was just an example. Armies have walked in this cavern and fought others, but nothing survived.

"Decide to return to us?" Cho was the first one out of her shock.

Nothing that stays in the cave can survive either. There are two entrances. One above you, and the one you came through. To survive the cave, you must go in one way and out the other. That cerberus was the only thing to live here, living off of creatures unfortunate enough to come through the entrance above this cavern. It looks like it finally met its match. I still don't know how the dragon egg got in here though.

"With the speech you just gave us, I have a fairly good idea." Luna paused for a moment while everyone got out of their shocked states. "Some bird must of carried it down here in hopes for a good meal, and left the egg here to get more food. Unfortunately, it was probably eaten on the way out. That dragon was probably its mother."

"So we're taking it with us?" Charlie asked with puppy dog eyes. "Do we want it to die? Of course were taking it with us." Bella looked at Charlie with a 'well DUH' look. Charlie quickly ran back to the dragon and bundled it up in his cloak, which was more of a blanket.

"I'm more worried about how to go from the bottom of this cavern to the very top." Harry searched the walls for some sort of route up.

Once again, what you see may not be true.

"Hey, whats that supposed to mean!" Ginny knew that Grim wouldn't answer them, but it was worth the answer to ask.

But something else responded: the floor. There was a small rumbling as a small stalactite rose from the ground. As everyone went near it, Neville tripped accidentally and caught himself on the rock. It suddenly glowed a bright yellow, and the ground everyone was on followed suit. A faint rumbling was heard, and the glowing ground started rising.

"What did you do Neville?" Draco's voice was starting to hint he was getting scared.

Soon, the ground was shot into the air. As they went up faster and faster, the air howled at them. The ground started to slow down, and stopped at the opening at the top of the cavern.

"I got us to the top. Too quickly for my liking though" Everyone agreed that the platform went way to fast, but they were at the top.

And in the middle of a courtyard.

"We're in! Look around!" Cho's eyes went wide as she saw the castle surrounding them. The courtyard wasn't in great shape, with a fountain in the middle that was broken and cracked, but the walls looked like they were in perfect shape.

"Shall we explore?"

The castle was huge beyond modern standards, and none would be surprised if it went underground. It also had four parts, sort of like mini castles, one north, one south, one east, and one west, and had four towers. Each tower was much taller than the 'mini castles' and was in a corner were the 'mini castles' reached each other.

"We should split into pairs and explore each part separately, but all at once. Neville, Luna, does either of you have quills and parchment, large pieces at that?" Harry was eager to start exploring, but he had and idea first. "Hold on." Luna disapparated away and apparated back in with a bunch of quills and parchment and ink. "What are you going to do with those anyway?" Everyone was getting curious to this. "Back in my third year, I got a map that showed everything and everyone in and about Hogwarts, from secret passageways to passwords. I figured that we should make maps of each part of this castle, then combine them to make one big map and copy it." Harry explained and avoided any names of the people involved with it due to the fact that half of the people he was with would go off and rant at their stupidity.

"Sounds like a good idea to me, but do you know how to enchant it to do that?" Ginny had heard about the map, but never knew who gave it to him.

"I do." Bella spoke up. "I made one while I was in school, but lost it after I graduated."

After a few quick enchantments, everyone split up into pairs and took off for separate parts of the castle. Harry and Ginny took the north part. As they walked inside, they realized that they were in a corridor no larger than one in Hogwarts. As they walked farther in, torches on the walls started to light automatically. Not long, there were two doors, one on each side of the hallway. They went into one at a time. The first produced an extremely large storeroom and kitchen. All of the food was rotten, but that was to be expected, seeing as the castle hadn't been used for centuries. The other room was a resting room. The walls were lined up with dusty beds, and windows above each one. As Harry and Ginny walked farther down, they came across a room that looked suspiciously like the Great Hall at Hogwarts, except without the magic ceiling, banners, or very long tables. Instead, it was filled with large platforms, which looked like they had been used for dueling practice at one point. They went up the stairs farther down the corridor and found themselves in pretty much a mirrored hallway, but only two rooms, both which were extremely large and old libraries. On the third story, it was once again a couple of very large libraries. Their map took note of all of this and quickly wrote down all of the rooms and their purposes.

Every pair took about an hour each exploring their part of the castle. It turned out that the first floor was the same in each part. However, Draco and Cho uncovered a couple of weapon storerooms and two thriving greenhouses in the west side of the castle. Bella and Charlie found two potion ingredient storerooms, a hospital wing, and an owlery on the east side. Neville and Luna found two storerooms with nothing in them, but found what looked like tactical and army offices on the top floor.

Once everyone put their maps together, it left one very large piece of parchment. Only a few words had to be said about the castle.

"This place is HUGE!"

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