'Well, well, well,' a cold, inhuman voice spoke quietly into his ear. 'At last our pretty Malfoy is out of his hiding-hole.'

Draco turned around, and looked, proud and unafraid, into the terrible, cruel, snake-like face.

'Visiting your parents, I see,' Voldemort sneered. Draco saw the shapes of the Deatheaters in the distance, surrounding them. This was it. He was going to die. There was no way the three Aurors were going to save him now.

'Yeah. You killed them, in case you don't remember. You wouldn't, would you? I suppose its hard to keep up when you've murdered thousands.'

'Feisty, Mr. Malfoy, feisty,' Voldemort's vice-like grip on Draco's shoulder became harder. Draco grimaced a little as Voldemort's nails cut through his skin. He felt the damp coolness of blood. 'Just like that Potter boy.'

He must have seen something in Draco's face, because a moment later a look that was something like glee lit Voldemort's face.

'My, my, this is precious! I would not have believed it if I had not just seen it in your mind! You're in love with Harry Potter!'

Malfoy flushed. Damn, he thought, where had all his famous Malfoy self-control gone?

'This is certainly a pleasant discovery,' Voldemort continued in his jeering voice, 'not only will I have the location of what I need, but I will also get to kill idiot Potter's lover! And I will certainly enjoy doing it...'

Draco moved to grab his wand – but Voldemort twisted his hand so hard that for a moment Draco thought he'd pass out from the pain.

'Ah, ah, Draco dear, be a good boy, shall we? Perhaps I'll let you live an hour longer if you behave. Or kill you faster, whichever you prefer.'

The Deatheaters were close now, and Draco could make out their faces. Hard faces, faces that were made mask-like by the torturing, the killing, the inflicting of pain and suffering.

'What do you want?' Draco hissed, cold fear creeping into his heart.

'I want what your father stole from me.'

'What?'

'Stop playing the idiot.'

'God, I am not! What did he steal from you?'

'Something precious to me.'

'And why do you think I have it?'

'I do not think. I know you have it.'

'What?'

'I refuse for a moment to believe you know nothing, Draco Malfoy,' Voldemort was quickly losing his temper. He turned to the Deatheaters, 'bind him, put him in the dungeon that was prepared. Let him think a little.'

Three pairs of hands grabbed Draco. He looked round wildly, hoping to see the Aurors appear any moment now. But they did not. They let the Deatheaters take him and lead him away, into the dark and cold night.

Harry was pacing his room, covering the distance from the window to the door in ten level steps. Again and again he walked the short distance, unable to keep calm, unable to steady his erratically beating his heart and his raging nerves.

To say that he was afraid for Draco would have been to say nothing at all. He was shaking with fear, shaking so hard that one would have though he was naked in the snow.

It had been four hours and twenty-five minutes since Draco left. Harry's eyes had been fixed to the clock all this time, and it seemed as though time was moving unnaturally slowly.

He tried to eat, but food refused to go down his throat. Then he tried to drink, to get drunk and forget all of this, even if for a little, but he remained terribly sober. He saw Draco's pack of cigarettes by the bed, and lit one. He spluttered a little as he inhaled the smoke, and the warm smoke fell into his stomach, comforting and calming.

More hours passed. It was late night now, and no news had come. He knew that to try and sleep would be folly, so he went no-where near the bed. He was also afraid, lest he should fall asleep, of having dreams. Horror-filled dreams of Draco.

He looked around the room, the sight of all the little things that reminded him of Draco making his very soul ache. 'The Da Vinci Code,' lying half-opened on the couch. Draco's denim jacket, hanging on the chair. An apple that Draco had meant to eat, on the bedside cabinet. Draco's reading glasses next to the book...

He could bear it no longer; any longer, and he knew he'd go insane. Harry got up, pulled on a coat and walked outside. He did not yet know where to go. Visit Fleur in the hospital? No, he could not bear coming face-to-face with proof of his failure. The Weasleys'? No, the thought of Fred and George's cheerfulness and Mrs. Weasley's gentle comforting was just too much.

There was one other place he could go.

Draco had been in here for hours. The freezing, pitch-black dungeon. For the first half hour or so he had walked the walls, blinding groping and feeling the stone. The door through which they had tossed him unceremoniously inside had disappeared. There was nothing at all in here – just the stone and the darkness and the horrible loneliness.

He knew he was doomed. He had seen it in the inhuman, red eyes of Voldemort, in the cruel taunts and jeers of the Deatheaters who had brought him here. He would not live to see Harry again. He'll be killed as soon as Voldemort got what he wanted out of him.

The question was – what?