Corruption

CHAPTER TEN

Gold

The staircase began to spiral upwards long before the water stopped, and Draco knew it would take a far deeper breath than the one he already held to get up. He went back to Lara, and shook his head, spouting a mouthful of water high into the air.

`We need to go really fast,´ he told the blonde girl. `The water´s miles up that staircase.´

Lara glanced back at the bronze doors, which she had been using as their marker. The water was rising steadily. It now covered the whole of the doors, and left a little of the doorframe visible.

`Let´s go before it gets any deeper,´ she decided.

`You look nice when you don´t scowl,´ Draco murmured to himself, then realised he´d said it out loud. Lara answered it with a scowl.

They paddled over to the wall above the study hall door. The two Corrupters exchanged glances, before taking deep breaths and plunging down into the ever-deepening pool.

Lara hadn´t expected the corridor to be so long. Weren´t these things supposed to feel much smaller when you visited them later on? Apparently not. They dropped down and pulled themselves up the arch into the spiral stairwell. Lara could feel the tightening in her chest as she ran out of air, and pushed past Draco, using her hands to walk up the worn stone steps.

They broke the surface of the water, gasping and raking hair out of their eyes. Lara sat on the steps with her booted feet in the icy water, gulping the stale air. Draco rose to his feet and held out his hand. She nodded finally, and stood up. The last stretch of corridor lay before them, then that door. She had feared it so long, was she going to face it again? It was, truly, as much the door as what lay beyond. The door was where you stood, unsure of your fate until you were called. The door was the beginning of the worst. The beginning of the end.

Their waterlogged boots squelched on the clean stone and their sodden cloaks trailed heavily at their backs. Lara´s hair was in wet straggles, and she knew it, but there was very little she could do, really. It was all very well being vain and conceited, but where was a mirror when you needed one? Draco´s nostrils were flaring, and his lip was curled. She could feel waves of anger radiating off him, and could almost imagine the soaking tendrils of his hair steaming and catching fire.

Naughty Lara,

she chided herself. Here you are, walking to a certain death, and you´re fantasising about your worst enemy getting hot.

But that did little to stop her rapid imagination. She couldn´t hide from the dark visions that clouded her. It became almost a game. You had to think of a horrible way to die, then argue with yourself over whether or not it would come to pass. The corridor was longer than anything she had ever walked. It just went on and on, and if anything, the door was getting further away. She decided what she would do long before she ever reached the iron bound door. There was no turning back now. This was her last chance to avenge her suffering, and she would take it by the decorative tie, and throttle it like a monster.

So she just barged on through the door, and was totally disarmed to find the room empty.

`Oh shit!´ she exclaimed, stamping her foot. Draco came in behind her, and pointed to the narrow aisle between two bookcases. Of course, that led to another room. She had never been allowed to go in there...

There was a first time for everything.

She stormed down the aisle, and stood in a blaze of glory, cloak blowing in the breeze from a window, straggly hair trailing in the same meagre puff.

`So, you heard me Calling,´ Voldemort smiled, serpentine. He sat at his desk, fingers in a steeple before his reptilian face.

`I...´ Lara faltered.

`I was too harsh with you, you did not deserve my punishments.´

`You, however, deserve everything you will get,´ Draco spat, coming behind Lara, and laying a protective hand on her shoulder.

`I think not,´ the Dark Lord hissed. He pointed his wand at Draco, and the boy was abruptly bound in gold manacles. He sank to the floor, utterly weakened.

`My faithful one,´ he simpered to Lara. `You will be my weapon again.´

`I...´ She looked over her shoulder at her ally. `I don´t want to be your weapon!´ she yelled. `I don´t want to serve a foul monster like you! I found you so that I could kill you, not aid you!´

`Oh, how you remind me of her,´ he said, smiling sadly. `She too, died this way. Goodbye, my daughter. May the Angels lead you in.´ He pointed his wand lazily at her wrists, and manacles formed from the ether. They latched onto her wrists, burning her skin with their very touch. `You deserve the best, of course,´ he said. `Only the finest, purest gold, for a daughter of mine.´

She choked out a `no´, but couldn´t continue. She slumped to the floor, her head feeling tight. `No...´ He turned and left them on the floor like animals for the slaughter.

~*~

The water began lapping over the top step to the basement long before Harry and Hermione started to explore. It was too much work to get up and go somewhere, when they´d probably get lost or killed, or both. But they could hardly ignore the puddle creeping across the marble floors towards them. Hermione yelped like a kicked dog, and jumped into the air.

`What?´ Harry asked, looking at her pale face in the darkness.

`Water!´ Hermione gasped, holding a hand to her chest as though to calm herself down.

`Ooh! Scary!´ Harry said sarcastically, then squealed like a little girl when the liquid began soaking into the back of his trousers.

`Where´s it coming from?´ Hermione asked rhetorically, peering around the corner.

`I can hear sort of slushy noises from over there,´ Harry pointed.

`Let´s check it out,´ Hermione decided, lifting the hem of her cloak up and tiptoeing through the massive puddle.

Harry groaned and rolled his eyes before following.

`There´s a sort of stairway down into the water!´ Hermione said, pointing. Harry looked down. The water glowed a glacial blue, as though lit from beneath.

`Well, what are we going to do about it?´ he asked.

`I would say that´s the way Lara and Draco have gone,´ Hermione observed, leaning out over the hole.

`Yeah, they have this amazing ability to wreak havoc wherever they go,´ Harry said, but quietly.

`We can´t go through there. I´ll bet it´s a really long way before it surfaces. We´d be trapped.´

`Well, we can´t stay here any more. We´ll get flooded out of here too,´ Harry told her, lighting his wand to see into the shadows. `We´ll just have to find another path.´

`No. I´m going down here,´ Hermione insisted. `I just have to remember the spell...´ She went off muttering and gesticulating, her trainers slapping in the water on the checkerboard floor.

`Well I´m going to look for another way,´ Harry announced, poking the shadows with his beam of light.

`See you in hell,´ Hermione smiled, casting a charm that left a bubble over her head.

Harry snorted, and watched her take off her shoes and cloak. She waded into the water, wincing at the cold.

`Bye,´ he said quietly, watching her sink out of sight.

He turned and looked around him. There was what could have been a door. He walked over and pushed on the protruding panel. It swung around abruptly, and the other side knocked him down the hole into the darkness.

~*~

Draco wasn´t in pain, he just couldn´t move. He could almost feel the life draining out of him. The Slytherin dragged his eyes over to Lara. She was curled in the foetal position and her skin had turned a ghastly grey. She hardly seemed to be breathing.

`Lara?´ Draco whispered hoarsely. `Lara?´

She didn´t move.

`Lara, can you hear me? Breathe in if you can hear me.´ But she didn´t. He shifted himself over to her, and pressed a manacled hand against her neck. Her pulse fluttered against his fingers like a dying butterfly, so she was still alive. `Seeing as you can´t hear me, and we´ll never make it out of this,´ he croaked, pausing for breath. `I was never your enemy. I didn´t like you, but that wasn´t because I didn´t like you. It was cos I didn´t know you, I think. I never took time, and now I´ll never have it.´ He stopped, closing his eyes against the bone-deep weariness. `You´ll go out of this life hating me, and wishing you could have killed me. I know you, you see. I´d do the same.´ He laughed softly, and broke off coughing. `I want you to know, even if you still hate me, I... I don´t think you´re too bad,´ he said, and, lacking the blood flow to blush, he rolled over. He couldn´t look at her.

You aren´t so bad, either,

Lara thought.

She coughed weakly. Draco spun as fast as he could.

`Lara?´

`Yeah?´ she whispered.

`Thank the Gods you´re alright!´ he breathed. `Cos I need you to help me out,´ he added quickly.

`Of course,´ she said, but she smiled to herself. `Is there anything we can do?´

`We´re stronger than he thinks, but I don´t know how long we have.´ He pulled his linked wrists out in front of him. `Gold´s really soft. We can break it.´

`Or we could, if we had any strength,´ Lara corrected.

But Draco wasn´t listening, he kept looking from the floor to her face with wonder in his eyes.

`Don´t take this wrong,´ he told her. He shifted himself around until his head was next to her stomach, then he began biting at her belt.

`What are you doing?´ she croaked. `This isn´t really a good time to be getting busy. I mean, I appreciate that you want to get some before you die, but...´

`Just stay still,´ he insisted. Then he gave a little grunt of triumph, and pulled away with her dagger between his teeth.

`Brilliant!´ she hissed.

He leaned double, and put the dagger blade up between his knees. He clenched it tight, and began to dig the chains of soft gold into it. The gold was wearing through slowly, and in the end it broke. The chains swung down, and Draco snatched the blade with a tired hand. He dragged it through the wristband of his cuffs, and pulled them apart. They fell to the ground, and he leapt away from them quickly. Then the sodden boy knelt beside Lara, and hacked her cuffs away. He hurled them out of the open window, and his own. Lara sat up, rubbing her wrists.

She tried to speak, but words failed her. She flung her arms around his neck, and then stood up, leaning against the wall for support.

`What do we do?´ she panted, scratching at the cuff marks on her arms.

`We find him, and kill him,´ Draco said firmly, his eyes shining. He could feel his strength returning already. The effect of the gold was immediate, but it faded rapidly, too. He looked around the study, and saw a case of antique daggers. He shattered the glass with his elbow, ignoring the shards that dug into his skin through his shirt and cloak. He chose a particularly large knife and hefted it a couple of times before tucking it into his belt.

Lara stamped her small feet for a minute, then, satisfied that the feeling had returned she drew her dagger.

Draco nodded to her, and they headed for the door against the back wall. But just as Draco lay his bleeding and scraped hand on the brass handle, someone came in at the other end. Without thinking, Lara spun and hurled her dagger at the entranceway. The person squealed and dropped to her hands and knees. The knife stuck, quivering, into the wall just above Hermione´s head.

`You idiot!´ Lara fumed. `What the HELL do you think you are doing?´

`I was coming after you, to help,´ Hermione said, in a tremulous voice.

`Well, we already managed to escape, thanks. Now we´re going to go after the man who nearly killed us both and you and Weasley and Potter on countless occasions.´

`Well, I have a right to come,´ Hermione said firmly, slamming her hands onto her hips.

`You come, you hold up your end.´

`I will,´ Hermione promised.

`Then let´s go,´ Draco said, waiting for Lara to retrieve her dagger before opening the door and going out.