AN: Well, I'm back. Actually, I've been back for a week, but I needed time to rest. So this has been in my head for a while, and this is only half the original chapter. So you should expect to see a chapter pretty soon, since I know what I'm going to write. So, onwards!

Darkness. That's all Harry could see. A thousand shadows creeping up on him, just waiting for him to turn his back before they attacked.

It was about 3 in the morning. Or maybe it was 1. Harry couldn't tell; his sense of time was always warped during the nighttime. All he knew was that Draco should've been back by now. Ron never took a particularly long time, even when he was feeling energetic. And it was long past the time that Draco should've been back.

The two boys had fallen into a pattern over the time they had come together. No matter who went out during the night, the other would always wait for them to return. Of course occasionally Draco would fall asleep, especially after a really hard day's work. He always marveled that Harry never fell asleep, and the blond boy often muttered things about secret stashes of caffeine pills, but it never had any effect on Harry. In fact, it just made him smile.

But, the truth being told, there was a reason that Harry could never sleep. When he had first arrived in this god-forsaken place, he had slipped in and out of consciousness for a few days. During that time, he could never once remember a point when Draco wasn't present. The blond had become a part of his routine before there even was one. Harry depended on him, and couldn't sleep knowing that the taller boy was missing.

Minutes passed, though they may as well have been hours. The dark-haired boy began to become restless. He paced the small room, but it was of no use. He eventually decided to walk through the manor. Well, the slaves' quarters, as that was the only place he was allowed without permission.

Harry walked down the hallway and turned left. At first he thought he was hallucinating, but he could've sworn he could hear voices. As he turned another corner, the sounds became louder and he saw light creeping through the cracks in the door, giving the hallway a surreal glow. He hovered outside the door for a few minutes, trying to decide whether he should enter or not. As he debated he caught small snippets of the conversation, though he couldn't place the voices.

"-mus. Are you sure?"

"He was with- a few hours later."

"-corner. I followed a-"

As Harry continued his inner struggle, light flooded the hallway, and a figure stepped out. He was tall, with curly black hair that fell to his chin. He had violet eyes that pierced into Harry, a suspicious look adorning his rather feminine features. His eyes swept over the bespectacled boy's body judgmentally and threw in a glare for good measure.

"Who are you?" The tall boy addressed Harry with suspicion and scorn.

Harry's eyes found the floor and remained there as he answered the intimidating boy.

"Uh, I'm a slave?" The tall boy snorted and rolled his eyes.

"I know that. Who are you? As in your name. I hope you're at least sure about that." Harry blushed and nibbled his lower lip, a nervous habit he had acquired as a young child.

"My name's Harry." A moment after he answered a voice with a light Irish accent came from inside the room.

"Isn't that the kid who shares with Draco?" The violet-eyed boy turned back towards the room and responded in an annoyed voice.

"How the hell am I supposed to know, Seamus?" A pause followed before the Irish boy responded in an equally annoyed voice.

"Well, Blaise, why don't you take him inside and find out if he does know Draco?" He spoke as if he was giving directions to a rather dull preschooler. Blaise huffed, crossed his arms and pouted, beginning to look like the aforementioned preschooler. He turned and entered the room. Harry stood for a moment unsure whether to follow or not, until he was confronted by Blaise's impatient face.

"Well, are you coming or not?" Curiosity quelled any feelings of doubt that may have existed in Harry's mind, and he stepped into the light-flooded room.

Harry took a moment to gather his surroundings in the unfamiliar room. It looked rather similar to his and Draco's. It was small, though instead of two beds on separate sides of the room, there was one large bed in the middle. Though, Harry mused, that one bed probably consisted of the two separate beds that were found in most slave quarters. However, it wasn't the bed that had his attention. It was the figure on it.

He knew that blond hair anywhere, though if it had not been visible, he wasn't sure if he would've recognized Draco. The figure in the bed was horribly bloodied up and his body was bundled up into a cloak, completely covering his lithe form.

The pale skin of his face was decorated with a bruise on his right cheek and the left corner of his forehead. His lip was cut and blood trickled down to his chin, leaving a red trail that contrasted his skin. It had always been pale, but now, Draco looked almost as light as a ghost, and they were dead.

A sharp intake of breath was heard from Harry, and he swayed a bit. After a moment he had finally gathered his thoughts well enough to speak.

"What have you done to him?" Harry desperately cried out. The other occupant of the room raised his head. He had shaggy blond hair with light streaks of brown covering it. As he spoke to Harry, a thin Irish accent coloring his words, he tended to a wound over Draco's left eyebrow.

"I've done nothing. Neither has Blaise. I found him in a corner, passed out. A nasty little trail of blood leading towards him too."

Harry stood and stared for a moment. He tentatively stepped towards the bed and took a deep breath. With a greater purpose to his stride he walked over to the bed and stared down at Draco. The boy's breathing was soft, but it was present and it was regular. He brushed some hair from the blonde's face and gasped softly. The skin was cold as ice, and Harry soon felt the blood leave his face too. If it weren't for the light breath that was being emitted from Draco's bloodied lips, Harry would've thought him dead.

He stayed in that position, just staring down at the blond boy, while his hand rested on the pale cheek, for a good few minutes. Seamus and Blaise merely watched in silence, though the dark-haired boy had moved next to the Irish one and had the sandy blonde's hand in his own. Eventually Harry turned to face the couple.

"Do you know Remus? He's the shorter slave with brown hair. Always with Sirius. He teaches the kids." Seamus nodded slowly, but before he could ask why, Harry cut him off. "Go fetch him. His room is the last one down the corridor from the kitchens."

Seamus nodded and made to leave the room, but Blaise placed a hand on his shoulder. Their eyes met for a brief second, before Seamus pulled away and stood by the bed again. Blaise left the room, his soft footfalls being the only noise now heard. Harry resumed staring at the boy in the cloak, steadily petting his cool skin. He was startled from his actions when the sandy-haired boy finally spoke.

"You care about him, aye?" Harry just nodded; he didn't trust himself to speak. He had at last gotten past the initial shock of his discovery, and the realization that Draco was truly hurt had finally sunk in. He battled back tears as he watched his friend. It was distressing to think that the boy who had stayed with him and comforted him so often was reduced to the bag of skin filled with blood, bones, and organs that lay before him. To be honest, Harry was scared shitless.

AN: The review monkeys say, "Join us!" Well you heard them. The review monkeys are not to be denied. Trust me…