The meal was brought around a few hours later—she couldn't really call it supper because she had no idea what time it was. Then again, she couldn't really call it a meal either. It consisted of a flat of hard, dry bread, a cup of murky water, and a little wedge of cheese.

Hermione used the water to soften the bread and ate that, but she put the cheese aside. She had caught a look at it when the guard brought the food and it was practically popping with mites and hardly looked like cheese.

"Oi, Granger," whispered Draco. "What did you get?"

She looked up at the vent, but couldn't see him. "Hard bread, water, and something that might be cheese," she said.

"You got cheese?" he said.

"I think so," she said. "Do you want it?"

He hesitated only a moment. "Don't you want it?"

"No," she said. "It has bugs in it."

"Give it here then," he said.

She got up and took it to him. He pulled it back through the bars of the vent and she didn't hear anything from him for a few minutes.

"Are you really eating that?" she asked finally.

"Course I am," he said. He swallowed, then asked, "Why?"

"Well, it can't be healthy with all of those mites crawling—"

"Protein, Granger," he said, chewing the last of it and wiping his hands on his filthy tunic.

"That's disgusting," she said.

"Yeah? Well, give it time. You've only been here, what, a day?"

She thought that sounded about right, though she couldn't actually be sure. There were no windows looking out at the sky in any part of the fortress that she had been in, so it might well have been the middle of the night, or the next morning. "I think so," she said.

"So who was your visitor, Granger?" he asked.

He had not asked when she was first brought back, though she suspected that he had wanted to. It would seem that curiosity had finally gotten the better of him.

"A lawyer," she said.

"Yours?"

"No, Malfoy, somebody else's lawyer," she said sarcastically. "Yes, mine."

"Is he going to appeal?"

"Yes."

"Won't do any good, you know."

"Well aren't you just a ray of fucking sunshine," she snapped irritably.

He snickered. "Who's paying for him?"

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"Don't be absurd, Granger," he said, and she could almost hear him rolling his eyes. "I'm not a moron. I know that the Ministry confiscates all of your possessions when they throw you in here. If they didn't, do you think I'd still be in here?"

"It was Harry," she told him.

"Potter?" he said. "Isn't that just typical."

Hermione didn't argue the point. It was typical.

"So Golden Boy Potter is still alive," he mused.

"Don't sound so disappointed."

"You're defending him?" He sounded incredulous. "Tell me something, Granger; if Potter's so fucking noble, why did he wait until they clapped you in irons to come to your rescue?"

She was silent for a long time, then finally she said, "I don't know."

"And why hasn't he come to visit you? Why did he send his little pet lawyer to you without him?"

Hermione didn't think 'pet lawyer' was a very fair estimation of Zabini. She couldn't think of anyone who looked less like someone's lackey.

"He has a wife and children now, Malfoy," she said instead of defending Zabini's honor. "He has other responsibilities."

"Potter has a wife and kiddies?" Draco said. "Isn't that sweet. I bet they've all got flaming red hair and more freckles than a dart board, too."

Yes they did, and Harry's wife would probably skin him alive if she ever knew that he was paying to defend the woman that she and her entire family believed to be her brother's murderer. She didn't tell Draco this; he would have only laughed.

"Why do you have to be so nasty?" she demanded.

"What? I'm not," he protested. "I'm just making conversation, Granger. Don't get your knickers in a twist."

"You are," she said. "And my knickers are none of your business."

"Only because I can't get to them from in here," he said lewdly.

Her eyebrows shot up at that, but she didn't comment on it. "What if I decided to stop talking to you at all?" she asked instead. "How would you like that?"

"Oh, come on, Granger, don't be like that."

Silence.

"Granger?"

Somewhere on the other side of Draco's cell, the prisoner started calling for his mother.

"Granger, talk to me."

Silence.

"Granger, damn it."

Silence.

"Granger, please. I'm sorry."

The prisoner's screams for his mother started to become more desperate.

"Granger, don't leave me alone here with the Mother Crier, for God's sake."

Hermione lay down on the floor, wrapped her blanket around herself, and tried to ignore him.

"Granger, you can be such a bitch sometimes, you know that?"

She smiled and a few minutes later, she was asleep.

A/N: Yes, the Mother Crier was inspired by Stephen King's The Stand. I thought it was funny, and it fit in nicely with this, so I shamelessly used it./ For those of you who have read my other story "Not Long At All", no, the character Henry Cain was not inspired by the Dark Tower series' Henry Dean(several people have asked me this). The name was actually inspired by Henry DeTamble from The Time Traveler's Wife, which I happened to be reading at the time (fantastic book by the way). Just a little FYI for you. Thank you for Reading, and please, if you have the time, Review.