The Fat Muggle, Ten Years Later

--------------The Fat Muggle, Ten Years Later. chapter nine,"Us and Them"---------

Icecold water woke Harry from his uneasy dream.

"Get up!" Draco's voice ecchoed in the cold dungeon.

Harry tried to stand, but his legs were weak from the lack of nourishment and water the past two days, and the chains holding him captive were more than most people could lift.

He sat on his knees and didn't want to look at Draco.

A punch hit him in the face which was already sore from the broken nose, still covered with dried up blood.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!!" Draco yelled.

Harry lifted his face and looked at him defiantly.

Draco was wearing a white silk shirt with long sleeves that hid his hands all except his fingertips and his trousers were made out of green satin.

Slytherin colours.

"How are you enjoying this little dungeon, Potter?" Draco said and waved his hands around as if he was giving a tour of a spectacular castle.

"It is almost exactly like my cell in Azkaban," he continued.

"The reason why I have stripped you naked might be of interest to you," he said as he began pacing back and fourth.

"The rags I wore in that little room of deprived freedom for ten years grew so tattered and torn in less than a year that I may as well have been naked," Draco crouched over and looked Harry in the eye, not two feet away and Harry could smell his breath; the only warmth in a cold pit.

"Why are you doing this?" Harry said.

"I want you to suffer as much as I have suffered during these ten years, Potter," Draco said and stood up.

"All of you! You, Weasley, the Mudblood Granger, Dursley and Longbottom shall all suffer for what you did to me," he continued in a low voice.

"Longbottom? Didn't you hear? He died several years ago when he killed Voldemort! You really should do some research, old fool," Harry said, not knowing anything about what had happened the last few days.

About Neville's return from the dead.

"You should be the one doing research, Potter! But how could you? You're mine!" Draco drawled and smirked with his arms crossed.

Harry was completely convinced Draco was delusional.

"What could you possibly get out of doing this? Isn't breaking out good enough for you?" Harry said, irritated by Draco's supposed supremacy.

"Revenge!" Draco said simply, and felt the glory he'd painted up in his mind about how he would stand tall over the bodies of his old enemies.

Harry laughed.

"Revenge? Is that all? How pathetic!!" Harry laughed on.

"You mock me?!?" Draco exclaimed.

"Mock you? I don't just mock you, Malfoy! I spit on your name and step on all that is you and what you've planned, for only a fool would spend even a second thinking about actually getting away with such a thing. Espescially when he has the whole Ministry of Magic out looking for him," Harry said calmly.

Draco rushed up to him and kicked him repeatedly in the gut and anywhere else he could reach.

After a good minute, Draco finally stepped away towards the door, wiping the hair out of his forehead.

"I'm not a fool, Potter! You'll see. You will all see," he said as he exited and left Harry on the floor, bleeding even more.

But Harry didn't care.

He had a plan for his escape; he'd stayed here long enough.

These chains can hold any human, he thought.

But they can't hold the paws of a wolverine!

"Get in here! There's been an update on the Malfoy case!" Grindle shouted into Ron's office and left just as sudden as he'd popped his head in.

Ron got up and rushed into Hermione's office and found Dudley sitting in a chair in the far corner, Grindle just inside the door on his feet and Neville sitting in the open window next to Dudley, holding his hand.

Hermione was, of course, seated in her throne.

Ron sat down opposite her.

She cleared her throat and handed Ron a piece of parchement.

Ron read it out loud.

"I have Potter and the words you read are written with his blood. I heard that you managed to arrest Wormtail and my father and I therefore assume that you found Longbottom in the basement. Congrats! I want you to send Dursley and Weasley to me for a duel over Potter's life. If you win you get him, and maybe me too, but if I win I keep you all and Potter will be the first one to die. I will deal with the Mudblood later on. This letter is also an illegal Portkey, designed to carry only Weasley and Durlsey at exactly seven o'clock in the evening next Wednesday. If you try to bring anyone else or disguise someone to be any of the two, they will be torn apart by the Portkey without warning during travel. Come on. Fight me! I dare you. Kisses, D."

Ron put the parchement on the desk.

"I think we should go for it!" Hermione said.

"It's obviously a trap!" Grindle said.

"I don't think so. He's much to arrogant to set a trap. He want's to fight us and he truly believes he can take us both on at the same time," Ron said and giggled, mocking Malfoy for himself.

"Don't you laugh at him, Weasley! And don't underestimate him either," Grindle said.

"He's strong! Very strong! And our interrogators got information out of Wormtail that indicates Malfoy's been given some kind of illegal potions and an intricate mix of spells to make him the most powerful wizard alive!" Hermione said.

"Why would Wormtail give him these powers and not take it himself?" Neville asked.

"Lucius said something interresting while he was under Veritas. He said that the remaining Death Eaters have chosen Draco Malfoy to take the Dark Lord's place," Hermione said.

"That's true. I heard them talk about it many times during my years in that basement," Neville said, still looking at the sunset.

"It must have been hell for you," Grindle said.

"That is the mildest of words you could choose to describe what I went through down there. I count my stars every night now and thank what ever God or Power or whatever it was that led Ron and Dudley to me," Neville said as a single tear left his eye.

It was quiet for a while.

"I've got it!" Neville said and startled them.

"I remember a certain plant I read about in Herbology in school, that created a link between two people so that they could see what the other was thinking!" Neville said excitedly.

"Yes. The Thought-Uniter root. But it's an illegally grown plant! Only Dark wizards use it because of the unpredictable side effects," Hermione said.

"Yeah! You never know what it'll do to you. You could loose your memory or even wipe your brain out. I heard of two Death Eaters that had taken it and one lost his mind and they had to share the others mind and memorys!" Ron said.

"What are you thinking about, Neville? Surely you don't want to use such a dangerous plant?" Grindle said.

"I do! I think I know how to minimize the side effects and if Dudley and I were to take it, I could see where they would end up if Ron and Dudley go on ahead with the Portkey. Then I could fly to them in my Animagus form, a Bald Eagle, remember?" Neville said.

"That's a pretty risky plan, Nev!" Ron said seriously.

"How do you think you can minimize the risks of side effects?" Grindle said, being truly interessed as not one of the Herbal specialists had found out how to tame this wild potion.

"If I use Dudley's Smartwatch and read up on the potion and work together with the Ministry's specialists, I'm sure I could find out how it works," Neville said.

"How long do you think it would take? We only have a week untill the Portkey has to be used," Hermione said.

"I think that would be enough!" Neville said.

Hermione thought about it for a good two minutes.

"It would be good if we could plan an ambush with Ron's and Grindle's Auror teams, but Dudley must be willing to do it," Hermione said.

Dudley nodded.

"I'm doing it! No matter what the side effect may be," he said and squeesed Neville's hand.

"It's settled then! Neville. You go work on the root right away and I want Ron and Dudley practising dueling in the Auror training room this minute!" Hermione said and they all rose from their seats.

Dudley gave Neville his Smartwatch and kissed him quickly before following Ron and Grindle down to the Auror training room.

Dudley was a bit nervous as he hadn't really duelled in several years and the only real fight with a Dark wizard happened only four days ago.

No-one spoke during the walk downstairs, passing several security doors, guarded by gargoyles, and long dark corridors.

They came to a massive steel door, three times the height of Ron, who was the tallest one of the three wizards.

Ron punhed in a code in a big green square next to the door and stuck his wand into the big blue hole over the square.

"Where's my damned card?" he said lowly and searched his pockets.

He found it in his left arm pocket and slid it into a tiny slot in the square.

A loud buzz was heard and Ron took his card and wand and the door opened.

It was a huge room with white walls, floor and ceiling and thin bluegreen streaks where moving along the walls down over the floor and up again.

"I'll go to the controle room and fix a good surrounding," Grindle said and walked up a small flight of stairs.

A window emerged high up on the wall and Grindle's voice ecchoed.

"Let's find something that is close to the scenery in Scandinavia, ok?" he said and soon the room shifted into a green meadow with a barn only fifty feet away from where Ron and Dudley where standing.

"What do we do now? Fight eachother?" Dudley asked.

"No. We fight Dark wizards!" Ron answered and raised his wand.

Dudley had no idea what he meant by that, but he had barely had time to think the thought before the door to the barn opened and four Death Eaters ran at them!

"Get ready! Here they come!" Ron exclaimed and started running towards their enemy's.

---------to be continued in chapter ten, "Preparations" --------------

the chapter has now ended.