He only woke when he could feel a stinging pain in his wrist. His eyes didn't adjust to the harsh light at first, it was blurry and disorienting compared to the mellow sunlight he had grown adjusted to. When he finally could see, he was surprised to see that he was in an enclosed room, with a lamp sitting directly above his head, burning into his eyes.

He tried to sit up, and immediately, a pair of hands shoved him down. He was sprawled out in a reclining chair made of leather cushions that had long lost their shine. His arms were on the arms, and he realized that the stinging pain in his wrist was because there were gold restraints chained tightly around his wrists and elbows. He glanced around and saw a pair of women in white robes, masks, and hairnets moving cautiously around him. They were attending to his feet, he noticed, which were puffy and red and crisscrossed with small cuts. He tried to flex his toes, flex his ankles, but they refused to move. It was as if the bones were frozen in place.

"Stay still," one of the Nurses warned him in a harsh voice. "It's a wonder we don't have remove whole limbs." He glanced towards out of the corner of his eye and saw a man standing in front of a door at the end of the room. The man was vaguely familiar, tall and mocha skinned, with an earring in one ear. His arms were crossed menacingly, his wand just visible as it perked out from one purple-robed sleeve.

"Where am I?" He asked. The nurses didn't answer. "What's going on?"

One of the nurses moved forwards and thrust a vial in his face. Silver vapors rose from the surface, unfurling around his nostrils. He could feel the tendrils of the vapor sink into his skin, travel up into his brain. Immense warmth spread through his body, and suddenly, he could move his toes again. He frowned.

"Where am I?" He glanced side to side, but the nurses moved away, seemingly evaporating into the white walls that enclosed him. The man at the door answered him this time.

"You are in Whitby."

The name stirred something in his memory. A school teaching, so long ago. It had been in History of Magic, that he knew. It had something to do with the imprisonment of mad witches and wizards, but he couldn't remember the details of the lesson. He had spent it sleeping in the back row or quietly pretending to curse Harry Potter, much to the amusement of his friends.

"East Yorkshire?" When he spoke, he realized how his voice crackled. It had been so long since he had something to drink—hours on end. "What in the bloody hell-"

"We've been searching for you and your parents for some time now." The man stepped forward and slipped his wand away from sight. He clasped his hands in a sympathetic-seeming manner, but it was hard to tell if this was genuine. "You managed to evade us for sometime, Draco."

"Where are my parents?"

The man ignored him and began to pace around the chair. Draco struggled against the restraints in the chair, but they simply grew a lilac color and he felt zaps of electricity rush through his skin, painful little blips entering his bloodstream and shaking his body uncontrollably. He fell back against the recliner and grit his teeth.

"What do you want?"

"It doesn't look good for you," the man continued to pace. "Running away from the Ministry, from the Minister, it makes you look as if you have something to hide."

"I have nothing to hide," Draco spat immediately. "I demand you release me at once. I haven't done a thing. You can't prove anything."

The man paused right by Draco's feet and sighed. "Sadly, we have half a dozen witnesses who say otherwise. And they can prove it. I presume you've heard of veritruserum?"

"I'm not an idiot," Draco retorted. His pulse quickened, and he could feel himself begin to sweat. However, when he shook his head to clear the sweat from his brow, he found that his hair did not shake out like it used to. They had cut his hair short, much like it used to be, but even a little shorter. It was a shame; he had grown somewhat attached to his long hair.

"We are conducting trials of these witnesses I've mentioned. And when juries hear of what you've done, you will be put on trial too, Mr. Malfoy."

"And what is it I'm supposed to have done?"

The man glanced down at him for a long moment. He thought he saw a shimmer of pity cross the man's face, perhaps it was doubt, but the man turned away without a word. He crossed the room in powerful strides and yanked open the door.

"What did I do?" Draco howled at the man's retreating back, bile rising into his throat. He struggled against the restraints, despite their painful grasp. He glanced around the room, helplessly, realizing that there was nothing there—no people, no furniture, just the lamp and the chair and the restraints. There weren't even windows. "Where am I?"

A pair of men entered the room, each uniformed in dark black robes that were cut short, sweeping against the top of their feet rather than brushing against the concrete floor. The men were identical themselves—heavy set and scowling, with salt-and-pepper streaked bowl haircuts. If he hadn't been so confused and frightened, Draco would have pictured them comically: as a pair of bumbling but angry friars. The men approached Draco and began to tap at the restraints, pressing the pads of their fingers against the smarting metal. The metal seemed to absorb their fingerprints, and the restraints broke open.

Draco wanted to move his arms. He wanted to punch them, fight them, and even just hold them off. But instead, his arms were too limp to even raise half an inch above the cushioned arms. The men seized his arms and began to pull. Draco found his whole body was limp and exhausted. He could hardly keep his head forward, he wanted to just rest, sleep, but he forced himself to keep his eyes open, watch every move and everything that passed through his eyesight. He would memorize his surroundings now, in order to break free of them later. It wasn't the first time he had done this.

But there wasn't much to be seen. The guards lead him down the hall, keeping a tight grip on his arms. The walls were bare, devoid of windows except for a few small ones that were set up high and reinforced with metal bars that seemed to thick to dismember. The only doors were metallic, industrial ones at the end of either hallway, with signs that read: Authorized Personnel Only. The guards lead him through one of these doors and up a narrow staircase, into what seemed like another bare hallway.

But this one, Draco realized, wasn't like the first hallway. There were cells lining the walls—jail cells. However, they were all empty, devoid of prisoners, and the thought made him anxious and somewhat terrified. He struggled and let out a shout, but the guards were too strong and at this point, Draco was simply too weak. They carried him right to the center of the hallway, opened up a cell on the right hand side, and pushed him in. He collapsed, his exhaustion beating him, and collided his upper arm with the metal frame of the cot that was pushed against the wall. His arm burst with pain, he could feel blood pulsing from the cut, and angry, exasperated tears rose in his eyes.

"Let me out!" Draco cried, leaning against the bars. He could see, in his peripheral vision, the guards walking away, ignoring him without so much as a flinch. Draco grasped his arm tightly and lowered his head. He hated himself for feeling as if he might cry, but indeed, he thought me might.

"Don't bother screaming. They can't hear you anymore." Draco's head shot up, confused and alarmed, and he caught sight of a girl across the hallway, sitting in her own jail cell. She was curled up on her cot, her legs crisscrossed almost peacefully. Her head leaned back against the wall with ease, and she kept her eyes closed.

"Who are you?" Draco asked. She seemed vaguely familiar, as if he had seen her once or twice before but had never quite gone as so far to really get to know her. He blinked at her. Judging by her appearance and her size, she was maybe his age, but a little younger. She picked feebly at her own nails, and Draco saw her cuticles were torn apart and bloody.

"I thought you might recognize a fellow Slytherin," she said tonelessly, and then rolled her head to the side, so she could look him in the eye. "Loosing your touch, Malfoy."

"How do you know me?" Draco asked. He was quite sure he had never spoken to this girl before.

"Like I said, Slytherin. You were a prefect, after all." The girl rose from her cot, the camel-colored blankets wrapped tightly around her shoulders, as if she were a swaddled infant. "Astoria Greengrass. We've met."

Draco Malfoy had night terrors. She was unsure if he knew it, but it kept her awake. All through the night, she could hear him shaking in his cell, moaning, yelling. Once, she rose up and squinted though the dark and saw him flailing around in his cell, his arms and legs forming a mad windmill as he fought invisible foes. He tangled himself in his blankets and fell off the cot in the process.

She was used to sleep deprivation. She told herself this the next morning as she used the leaky sink to flush out her mouth. She splashed water on her face too; there was nothing more effective than make once man up and face reality than a splash of freezing cold water. The dark circles beneath her cat-like eyes were permanent now, she noted with displeasure. They looked especially horrendous with her pale skin.

"Are they going to feed us, or do they just let us starve?" Astoria turned to glance across the hall. Draco was sitting on the edge of his own cot, his knees propped on his elbows as he stared down at the filthy, concrete floor in despair.

"If they didn't feed us, I'd be dead." Astoria watched plaintively as Draco rose from his bed, went to his own sink, and ran a hand down the length of his face when he caught sight of himself in his own mirror. If he paid her any notice, he didn't show it. Draco stripped off his own shirt, and then winced visibly as he glanced down at his arm. The wound had begun to well and pucker, the surrounding skin an angry, fiery color. The wound itself had begun to ooze as well. "That looks bad."

"You think?"

"What happened?" She asked. She went to the bars of her cell, instinctively, to get a better look. Draco, almost unconsciously, moved towards the front of his bars too and shoved his wounded arm up between the slats, so she could see it better. He dabbed apprehensively at the cut with his own shirt and then took in a deep intake of breath.

"Got hit by a curse yesterday. Well, it brushed me." He stopped dabbing at the wound and then fixed her with a questioning, but trusting gaze. "They could give me medicine for this, right?"

"They'll do anything to keep you alive and in one piece," Astoria said. "But don't count on them trying to make you comfortable."

"How long have you been here?"

Astoria paused. She gripped the bars for support. She couldn't see Draco anymore. Green flashes of light. Screams. Feet all around her, running and running away. Her sister screaming, just trying to get out, just trying to escape—

"Hey, hey, are you okay?" Draco's sounded through her head, and it snapped Astoria out of her reverie. He was watching her with concerned authority, as if he were a Doctor. "You looked like you might pass out."

"No," Astoria replied, her voice barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat impatiently. "No. I'm fine. I've been here for four months now. Or it will be, soon."

She turned away from him, suddenly struck by just how long it had been. It had been four months since she had been outside, felt the wind on her face. It had been four months since she had been able to read a book. Four months, she realized, since she had really been able to talk to another human being.

"What did you do?" She asked, turning on her heels and pacing the length of her cell.

"Sorry?"

"There's a reason you're here, I'm assuming? This isn't just some holiday."

"That's the thing," Draco said, with such gravity in his tone that she was compelled to stare him in the eye. His silver eyes were marked with confusion and sadness. "I don't know. I really don't know."

A/N: Hello Readers! If you wouldn't mind, please take a few moments to review this story if you have enjoyed it at all. I'm trying to gauge who actually enjoys my stories out of the people who read them, so if you could just take a few moments to let me know what you think, please do so! Thank you!