Kriegspiel (R, Ron, Lucius)

[wideworldsend]

Title: Kriegspiel
Author: Mad Maudlin
Rating: low R
Characters: Ron Weasley, Lucius Malfoy
Warnings: Violence
Summary: Voldemort has claimed Azkaban for his own. Ron is captured. You can't beat learning from a master.

A/N: Wow, this took a lot longer to finish than I thought it would. tarie and marginaliana deserve to be showered in praise and scantily clad youths of their choice for all the help they gave me. This fic is for the ronlucius Inaugrual Challenge.

Kriegspiel
by Mad Maudlin

Ron Weasley had never imaged that Azkaban would be so quiet.

The cold, he had almost expected, but there was no way he could've truly imagined the breeze that burst through the unglazed windows and shrieked down the halls like a salty knife. He had also pictured the darkness well enough, since Dementors were blind; indeed, only those open windows (more like slits, really) and the lamps at the intersections of corridors provided any light, and more than half of the latter were broken or dark. The two burly Death Eaters who had hold of his arms didn't seem bothered by the darkness, and part of Ron wondered wildly if they too were blind, if they were beginning to become like Dementors themselves because they had lingered too long in Voldemort's new stronghold.

The silence, though, that was unexpected: he had always pictured the prison to be filled with shouts and despairing moans, usually at dramatically appropriate intervals. When they passed the lighted intersections, he tried to peer with his good eye at the cells to see if they were even occupied, but all the doors were solid iron with only two tiny slots to see through, and the insides were all darkness. Perhaps all the remaining prisoners had died, and frozen solid in the icy wind instead of rotting; or perhaps they all had all been silenced with charms, as Ron had been when MacNair got tired of listening to him swear. The Death Eaters were silent, too, as they dragged him through the warrens of cells. Ron couldn't hear their breathing, let alone the sound of their boots on the frosted floors.

The journey ended in the center of a corridor; the lamp at the last turn had been broken, and the light of the next seemed miles away. One of the Death Eaters charmed open the door of a cell—my cell, Ron thought, semi-hysterical, perhaps I should hang a sampler—but there was no light inside, just a deeper blackness and the sensation of space. They shoved him forward without word or warning, and Ron stumbled on his aching legs and crashed face-first into the back wall. The impact knocked his left shoulder back into its socket, though, and he wondered if he should thank them for that.

The cords binding his wrists behind his back dissolved the moment the iron door clanged shut. The silencing spell was gone as well. Ron staggered back to the door (a journey of all of eight feet) and began screaming after them, every foul thing he could think of, pressing his face against the higher of the two slots. Azkaban rang with his hoarse insults, but the Death Eaters did not return, and eventually Ron's voice gave out, and he collapsed gasping onto the dusty, freezing floor.

He couldn’t say how long he lay on his face, lost in his pain and too weak to move. He kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, but there was nothing for them to adjust to, not the faintest light coming from anywhere. Initially he thought he heard nothing but his heartbeat and the echoes of his own voice ringing in his ears, but as he regained his breath he realized, no, there was one other thing to be heard in the mausoleum, one sound distinct from all the others.

Someone was laughing at him.

It was soft, faint, and cruel, but it was laughter, and Ron stared into darkness for a moment and strained to hear it, hardly daring to believe his ears. "Who's there?" he tried to call out, but hours of screaming had ruined his throat and the words came out in a faint croak that tasted like blood.

The noise stopped, or at least he thought it stopped. It seemed to keep echoing in his ears, even longer than the screaming had, until he wasn't certain what he'd heard in the first place and what was in his head. He squinted into the dark, but his right eye was swollen shut and full of odd starbursts, and the left couldn't discern anything. Perhaps his ears were playing tricks on him?

"Keep your voice down, unless you with for the guards to return."

That wasn't a trick.

Ron crawled hesitantly towards where he thought the whispers originated—his hands and knees screamed with pain and cold, but having fallen, he wasn't certain he could stand again. With the fingers that weren't broken, he felt out the path before him—rough stone, and then a thin straw mattress covered by a ragged blanket, then a wall. The wall was made of the same huge granite blocks as the rest of the fortress, but as he felt his way along the seams between he detected cracks where the frost and salt air had worked their way past the preservative magic. Some of the cracks were actually quite large, and in a few places the stone flaked away at his touch, leaving shallow pockmarks in the middle of a block or deep divots at the edges. He found a place in a corner where almost half a block seemed to have crumbled away, a tremendous bite missing from its lower corner, and he probed it with his remaining fingers—

—and felt an icy, bony finger pushing back.

Ron recoiled with a yelp. The voice laughed again.

"Who are you?" he asked, after the initial shock had worn off and he had fought down panicked thoughts of monsters in the walls. The crumbled block—and it was not that badly crumbled, when he felt it again, barely wide enough for his middle finger to fit through—lead only to the next cell over.

"I told you to lower your voice," the voice whispered again. Ron hadn't been that much louder, but he supposed that in the vast silences of the Azkaban every sound was huge. "I do not wish to provoke another visit from our jailers."

Ron stretched out on the mattress and pulled the blanket up, for all the good it did him. In that position, the cracked block was at eye-level and the whispers loudest. "Why not?" he asked. "After all, the worst they can do is kill us."

There was a pause in the other cell. "Only a Gryffindor could make such a jest," Ron's neighbor said. "What family are you?"

"I asked you first," Ron shot back.

Another faint chuckle. "A Gryffindor indeed, and a youth besides. I wonder what use the Dark Lord might have for such a lion cub, besides entertainment?"

Ron had been hoping faintly that the voice on the other side of the crack would at least be friendly, if not a friend—he could think of a dozen vanished people he wouldn’t have mind whispering with in his prison. But that remark made him bristle, and he began to wish the man on the other side of the wall had never spoken up. "I'm not a cub," he whispered back. "And you're still not answering my question."

"I have no wish to be interrogated by a schoolboy," the voice hissed, sounding annoyed.

"Then it's a good thing I'm not in school this year, isn't it?"

Ron realized a beat too late that he'd given himself away with that remark, and his neighbor realized it, too. "Ah," he whispered, and "yes. I think I know you now. You're the Weasley boy, aren't you? Harry Potter's lap dog and personal shadow?"

"I'm Ronald Weasley, and you can shut the fuck up about Harry Potter."

A snicker from the other side of the wall. Something about the man was starting to seem familiar. "I must say, you're showing far more spirit than the last time I saw you."

"The last time—?"

"Use your brain, boy, if you haven't had to sell it off to buy your schoolbooks."

Ron clenched his jaws to keep from shouting, and almost clenched his fists before remembering his broken fingers and lacerated palms. This was ridiculous anyway; he had far more important things to worry about than insults from a stranger. It wasn't even a particularly good insult, he'd heard far worse once upon a time from Malfoy—

The pieces came together. They didn't make sense, but they came together anyway. "No," he whispered without even realizing it.

"No, you won't use your brain, or no, you haven't had to sell it yet?"

"You're Lucius Malfoy, aren't you?"

A long silence from the other side of the wall, and Ron knew he was right. "Very good," Malfoy admitted. "Perhaps you are not the same caliber of fool as your father, young Ronald."

"What are you doing down here?" Ron asked before he could stop himself.

"Then again, perhaps you are."

Ron scowled into the darkness. "Shouldn't you out there, living it up with your mates and You-Know-Who?"

Another pause, this one charged with tension. "I no longer have any 'mates' among the Dark Lord's followers," Malfoy said so softly Ron barely heard it. "Thanks to my wife and idiot son."

Ron didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything at all, and neither did Malfoy. The silence settled in again, heavy and absolute, until some small part of Ron's brain began to wonder again if Malfoy was really there, if Ron had really heard that voice, if those whispered had really been that much different from the echoes of his own labored breathing. He was almost afraid to speak up in case he was met with more of the endless silence, and the thought of how Malfoy might respond if he were really there wasn't all that much more appealing. Still, he found himself straining his ears through the darkness, and it was only when he was certain he could hear signs of life from the other cell—subtle motion, or perhaps just slow breathing that overlapped the echoes of his own—only then did Ron was finally able to curl up on the mat and settle into a fitful sleep.

-\--\--\-

There was no means of telling time in the cell. Ron awoke, slept again, awoke and had to pee. His hands had scabbed over and the throbbing in his shoulder had faded a little, but his broken fingers still ached and something flashed around the edges of his swollen, ruined right eye, a trick light like a redcap's lantern that taunted him in the absolute dark. He felt his way around the cell until he located a privy in the corner opposite the sleeping mat—an open hole, really, one that let draughts of icy air up into his face and he struggled to kneel upright and aim. Not that it mattered if he splashed, really; in this cold it would freeze over anyway.

He crawled back to the mat and huddled into the blanket again, but just as he was about to drift into another exhausted sleep, he heard Malfoy's harsh whisper though the hole in the wall again. "So you haven't died yet. Interesting."

Ron pulled the blanket over his head. "Go 'way," he muttered.

"The last person they tossed in that cell was dead before I even finished introducing myself."

"Thanks for sharing," Ron muttered.

Somehow he was willing to bet that Malfoy was smirking at him through the dark. "Of course, the one before him screamed for three days straight before they came back to put her out of her misery, so all in all he was a rather refreshing change of pace."

"Is there a reason you're telling me this?" Ron whispered sharply. He didn't need any help imagining what else might happen to him while he was buried in this hole—

"Would you rather I remained silent?"

The question fell between them. Ron swallowed several times without answering. A Yes! leapt to his lips, but was that what he really wanted? To wait whatever would come in perfect, consuming silence? He could always talk to himself...but then Malfoy would hear...or would he? If Malfoy wasn't talking, how did Ron know he was even still there?

He choked on his answer for three heartbeats before Malfoy sighed softly through the hole. "I didn't think so."

"Just...just keep that sort of thing to yourself, all right?" Ron growled.

"No, no," Malfoy said; he really sounded like he was enjoying this. "That's not how it work, my dear boy. Either I speak or I am silent, but I shall choose what to say and when to say it."

"Fine," Ron said. "Doesn't mean I'm going to pay attention, though."

There was something about Malfoy's voice he didn't like at all when he said, "Yes, you will."

-\--\--\-

Malfoy fell silent for a while after that, and Ron tried not to think about what that meant. He relied on meal trays to keep the rhythm of time, though he wasn't totally sure they were coming at regular intervals. Each tray bore a cup of water, usually half-frozen, and some pathetic excuse for a meal—gluey oatmeal, icy soups, sandwiches with damp bread and sharply rancid fillings. Ron forced himself to eat anyway, because he wasn't at all sure of how regularly the trays would come, and if he ignored them for too long they disappeared, food and all, right from under his hands. The only proof that they'd even existed as the aftertaste clinging to his teeth and the temporary fullness of his stomach.

He tore strips off his pathetic blanket and tried to bind his broken fingers, but the attempt reduced his left hand to a useless flipper and did nothing to lessen the pain. The swelling in his right eye began to dissipate, but the stars didn't go away, even in the depths of the dark. Malfoy left him alone, and the silence went on, and on, and on, and on. He tried whistling to himself before he remembered that he was tone-deaf, and then he tried tapping his finger against the rough cloth of the sleeping mat, just for that little noise in his ear. He tried listening for Malfoy's breathing again, but couldn't catch it—maybe he'd been imagining it the first time. Maybe he'd been imagining everything.

When Malfoy sighed loudly through the hole, Ron started. "They really should've killed you by now," Malfoy whispered.

"Are you disappointed?" he asked. It was a half-serious question; the inflection of a whisper was hard to read.

"I'm merely curious," Malfoy said. "They haven't even come to interrogate you a second time."

"Maybe they're waiting for me to go mad down here," Ron mumbled.

Malfoy snorted. "And how long would they have to wait?"

"Go to hell," Ron blurted, then bit his lip.

After a few moments, Malfoy sighed a second time. "Boy," he said, "allow me to explain something to you. Dialogue is a social phenomenon requiring the active participation of at least two people. Generally, when one person asks a question, the other is obligated to answer, if not by common courtesy then at least the desire to carry on the conversation."

"That was my answer," Ron said. "Next question."

"If you're not going to be cooperative, I see no point in wasting my time on you."

Ron's jaw clenched, and he would've balled his hands into fists if he had been able to bend all his fingers. He wanted to say something haughty back, something clever and biting, something like I never asked you to! or don't bother! or good! But it was so dark in the cell, and so quiet, and the only things he could be absolutely sure of were the mat under him and the blanket over him and the sounds of his breath and his heart. That, and Malfoy's voice filtering through the wall. Maybe.

"I don't need you," he whispered, hardly aware he was going to do it until he did it.

Malfoy sounded surprised. "Are you so sure?"

"I'm not afraid of the dark."

"Perhaps you should be."

-\--\--\-

A meal tray came and went again. At least Ron thought so; he had begun to dream about food while he slept, which was often. When Malfoy wasn't speaking to him, there wasn't much to do besides sleep; at least in his dreams he could see and hear things. Usually.

When Malfoy deigned to talk to him, of course, it didn't matter what Ron was in the midst of doing. "Boy," came the whisper, barely more than a breath. "Boy."

"'ve got a name," Ron muttered back groggily, and tried to steal a little more warmth from the blanket.

"Of which I am well aware, but it's hardly necessary here, is it?"

Ron bit down on his lower lip to keep from answering. I'm not afraid, he told himself. Not even of silence.

He was rewarded with four heartbeats of silence and then a long, low sigh. "Ronald, then," Malfoy whispered reluctantly, then added, "a common name for an uncommon young man."

Ron's eyebrows knit in suspicion. "What d'you mean, uncommon?"

"The Dark Lord still hasn't killed you," Malfoy said. "I find that remarkable enough."

Ron sighed himself, and almost shrugged before remembering the darkness and the wall; he said, "He's probably hoping Harry will try to rescue me."

"That doesn't mean he needs to keep you alive." Ron thought of his mother's clock, but didn't speak. Let Malfoy kept wondering if he enjoyed it so much.

Malfoy didn't speak for a long time, and Ron tried to settle to sleep again. After a few minutes, though, the voice from the other side of the wall carried on. "You're quite the chess player, Ronald, or so I've heard."

Ron did shrug this time; it only made his shoulder ache sharply. "I can beat my brothers," he whispered back.

"Do you think you can beat me?"

That struck him dumb for a moment. "Sure," he said. "If there was any way we could play."

Malfoy sighed again. "Clearly you've never heard of the blindfold game."

"The what?"

"True masters of the game—" and Ron could just tell from the tone that he included himself in that—"can play without a board, young Ronald, by merely picturing the moves in their heads. Such a master might even the odds for a lesser opponent by playing on a conventional board, but blindfolded, hence the name."

"That's mental," Ron told him. "Why go to all that trouble for no reason?"

"It improves one's understanding of the game," Malfoy said. "One can better anticipate one's opponent's next move."

"Yeah, well, sorry, but I'm not that clever."

"Have you ever tried?"

Ron shut his eyes—not that it changed what he could see—and tried to imagine a chessboard, his chessboard, and the pieces on it. He sort of could: he could picture the pieces lined up in their starting positions and the space between them. But he kept mixing up the colors of the squares and the number of rows, and he couldn't figure out which way the king and queen went. "Nope," he whispered. "Sorry. No good."

"Try harder," Malfoy said.

"I'm not interested."

"I didn't ask if you were. I asked you to try."

"I don't want to, all right?"

"I remind you once again that a conversation requires two active participants who—"

"Fuck, Malfoy, just leave me alone!" Ron blurted aloud, and the sound echoed faintly through the halls of Azkaban.

Malfoy didn't reply to that. He didn't make a single noise. Ron pressed his ear against the hole in the wall and strained to listen, but there was nothing—not even the soft breathing noises he had heard in days (had it really been days?) before. That was fine. He didn't really care. He wasn't afraid of the silence. Not at all.

Six meals came and went, and even these were silent, he realized—he never heard anyone approach to deliver them, and the dishes made so little noise on the tray that they might as well have been padded. He tried pounding a plate against a wall and it fell to shards in his hand, then vanished immediately. He tried pounding a tray against a wall and managed to bend it in half before it evaporated. Malfoy didn't remark on these experiments, though he surely had to hear them. Malfoy didn't say anything at all.

Ron slept a lot, and dreamed intermittently of food, and music, and his family and friends. When he was awake he sometimes paced, but it wasn't a productive habit—his legs hurt terribly, he kept nearly tripping on the piss hole, and the sound of his footsteps echoed and overlapped even inside the cell until it seemed that a whole army of invisible men were pacing behind him, just out of reach. It also made him tired faster, and hungrier, and he gave it up as a bad job almost as soon as he started. He lay on his mat and tried to hum to himself, and then he tried scratching the mat with one ragged fingernail just to listen to the sound. It seemed very small, and sometimes he wasn't sure if he was hearing the scratching or his own breathing or maybe, just maybe, Malfoy crouched near the hole in the wall, listening for Ron listening for him.

Eventually, his nail snagged on a thread and tore down to the quick. The bare fingertip just didn't make the same sound. And eventually, Ron put his face back to the hole in the wall. "Malfoy?"

No response. Not at first.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

No voice, but—he thought he heard movement. Just a rustle of something. Maybe an indrawn breath. Maybe nothing. He licked his lips, shut his eyes, and concentrated harder than he ever had in his life.

"Pawn to king four," he whispered into the crack.

Another rustle, another breath. "Pawn to queen's bishop six."

That was how it began.

-\--\--\-

From then on Ron and Malfoy played the blindfold game, and as Ron had suspected, he was fantastically bad at it. Even in the dark and silence, with nothing but his injuries to distract him, with nothing to focus on but the voice from the wall, he couldn't hold the board in his head the way Malfoy seemed able to. He constantly forgot where pieces were. He lost track of his own moves. He had to concentrate so hard on the lay of the board now he had no time to spare for anticipating what it would be, and he was always several moves behind, always struggling just not to fuck up too badly this time.

Malfoy didn't help him, either, though Ron hadn't expected he would. Malfoy called out moves that seemed deliberately designed to confuse him, and kept a greedy tally of Ron's forfeits. He also kept trying to start a conversation in the middle of a match. "Knight to king's bishop six," he whispered once, then added, "You're really not very good at this."

"Shut up," Ron said, trying to remember where all of his pawns were. "Um. Bishop to...to...queen's knight two?"

"You've got a pawn there."

Dammit. "Queen's knight's pawn to queen's knight three."

"Bishop to king's knight seven. Your reputation is rather misleading."

"Bishop to queen's knight two."

"Bishop takes bishop on queen's knight two. Again."

"Would you shut up and let me concentrate!"

"And what would be the point of that?"

Ron forfeited that match and resolved not to speak to him again. He curled under his blanket, struggling to steal the maximum amount of warmth from the ragged thing, and he slept a bit. Another meal tray came and vanished, or at least he thought it did, but his mouth was so foul for want of a toothbrush that he could longer tell the rancid aftertaste of moldy cheese from his own bad breath. He probed his right eye with his unbroken fingers. He picked at the scabs on his palms and knees. He flexed his fingers and wiggled his toes against the numbing cold. He counted backwards by sevens from a million, and tried to tap his foot along with the count, but the echoes overlapped and ate each other and it became too much to bear listening to. He slept again.

And in the end, he played again, because anything was better than the silence.

"Pawn to king four," he whispered.

"Knight take pawn, king four."

"Bishop takes knight, king four."

"Oho!" Malfoy actually sounded delighted. "Pawn to queen's rook five."

"Er...knight to...to..."

"Not so clever now, are you?"

"King's knight to king's bishop three!" he blurted.

"Pawn to king's bishop five."

Hell, was there's a reason for that move? Ron could no longer remember. "Pawn...pawn to...I mean, castling kingside."

"Pawn takes bishop, king four."

"Bloody hell!"

He voiced the exclamation, and he found himself holding his breath while the echoes faded. In a whisper, Malfoy said, "You know, I don't believe that's a legal move."

"Do you want to play this stupid game or not?" Ron hissed back.

"I want to win this game," Malfoy said, "and you are not doing terribly much to stop me."

"You keep distracting me!"

"Exactly."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ron demanded, but Malfoy didn't respond. Ron waited for him, listened at the hole to catch his breathing, and then lay back down on the mat. He wasn't sure whether he slept any or not, but the silence stretched far and wide and deep.

-\--\--\-

The guards came silently back and dragged Ron from his cell, kicking and biting and screaming behind the silencing charm. He wasn't conscious for the return trip. When he finally swam back to himself, the pain and cold and coarse stone under his face told him that he was truly awake and alive, though the cell was still absolutely dark—not even flashes from his ruined eye now—and the choking silence still reigned.

He tried desperately to remember what had happened, what he might've said, what they had even asked of him. The insides of his brain felt like mush, though, and his clothing was soaked with sweat, which had begun to freeze. He dragged himself, whimpering, to the mat in the corner and huddled in the ragged blanket, unable to even catalogue his wounds.

"Ronald?" whispered Malfoy from the other side of the wall.

"Fuck off," Ron croaked. His throat felt stripped raw and there were loose hard bits on his tongue that might've once been parts of his teeth.

Malfoy made a small noise that could've meant anything. "I'm not surprised it took you this long to awaken," he said. "I fancy I could almost hear you screaming from down here."

Yes. There had been plenty of screaming, but he hadn't...or had he? The really important things were protected by the Fidelius charm anyway, and he'd talked Harry out of making him Secret-Keeper for anything. And Hermione had tried to teach them all Occa...Occul..."Occlumency," he mumbled aloud. His tongue bumped against the broken teeth and he whimpered again.

"Occlumency?" Malfoy said, as if Ron had been talking to him. "No wonder you screamed."

No wonder his brains seemed to slosh when he moved his head. The bandages were off his fingers, which were broken again, or maybe they hadn't begun to set from the first time, and his left foot throbbed in time with his heart. He didn't even have the energy to check that he still had all his toes.

Time slipped, in the darkness and silence; Ron thought he heard Malfoy whisper to him again, but the words were blurry and soft, and he thought he may have dreamed them. He remembered the interrogation in fits and snatches, but it bled and merged with the one before it, and Hermione wailing you have to keep your mind still! and Malfoy whispering you are not doing much to stop me. Hunger woke him, and when a meal tray was delivered he crawled the few feet across his cell to eat as much of the rotten egg-salad sandwich as he could with his teeth screaming. The mug of water that came with it was almost frozen solid; he smashed it against the wall and picked out chunks of ice to suck on. He thought it would help the teeth somewhat, but the cold only mad them flare in agony.

"You really are an uncommon young man," Malfoy told him when he had collapsed onto the mat again.

"Glad you think so," Ron said.

"Not many people could've resisted my sister-in-law's Legilimency."

He couldn't remember if it had been Bellatrix Lestrange torturing him or not; he remembered loads of white masks floating in front of him, partially obscured by the gray veil on his right eye, but he hadn't been able to match those masks to voices. He remembered Hermione again, scolding him and Harry as she tried to lecture them out of a book. You have to keep your mind still! The angrier you get, the weaker you become—you can't just outstubborn a really good Legilimens. "Shows what you know," he told her.

"Excuse me?" said Malfoy.

"I'm stubborn," he said, and almost found himself laughing. "Too stubborn to be stubborn. Hermione would be angry with me."

Malfoy seemed to make sense of this; he snorted. "Your Mudblood underestimates you."

"Call her that again and I'll fucking kill you," Ron snapped. He had to add a weak, "Eventually."

"Your mouth is much fouler than mine, young Ronald."

Ron shook his head; it made his neck hurt, and his brains still felt runny. "Just don't. I...I won't talk to you if you do."

"Do you really believe you can school me with your silence?"

"It worked on your son."

Malfoy paused; Ron couldn't hear if he was even breathing. "I do not wish to speak of him," he finally said, breathlessly low.

"Why not?" Ron asked, dizzy and reckless. "Still too bitter that he's not evil enough to follow in your footsteps?"

"I expressly forbade him to take my Lord's Mark before he came of age," Malfoy suddenly hissed. "I instructed him to obey the counsel of Severus Snape. I warned him not to involve his mother in any foolish grabs at glory. Time and again he disobeyed, and now I pay price of his stupidity."

Ron blinked at this; he realized that this was the first time he had really heard Malfoy sound angry. "Erm," he whispered, "Snape was a spy."

Malfoy sighed and said tonelessly, "He was."

"Just so you know and all."

"Would that Draco had gone to Severus from the beginning, then," Malfoy mumble. "It would've been so much more efficient."

Ron didn't know what to say to that. It crossed his mind to tell Lucius that he'd broken Draco's nose when they had stumbled onto him this past autumn, but he didn't know if that would make things better or worse. He pressed his face close to the wall, though his arms shook so much he wasn't sure they'd really hold him up until they did. "They're alive," he whispered. "Not Snape, I mean, but—your wife and Draco. They're alive and they're safe. Or they were when I...whenever."

Lucius seemed to think on this for a long time, long enough that Ron collapsed back on the mat and almost missed his reply. "Then I pray to God that they are working hard for Potter's cause," Lucius whispered, "because if the Dark Lord takes them, they shall be a very long time dying."

-\--\--\-

Ron slept off his new hurts in silence; Lucius didn't speak to him again for the span of at least three meal trays. He dreamed broken dreams about Occlumency lessons and assorted Malfoys, interspersed with floating white masks and the sound of his own shrieking. He dreamed of chessboards and Hermione telling him not to outstubborn anyone, and the feeling of a fist closing around his brain. When he was awake and knew he was awake, he tried to clean and bind his wounds, but he ran out of anything to bind them with, and his hands were clumsy even discounting his injuries. Sometimes he didn't realize when he was awake, or perhaps he was actually dreaming about the cell in the darkness; he couldn't be sure. Those times he might've tried to talk to Malfoy, or not, and Malfoy might've even tried to respond, but Ron couldn't understand the words. He would lay on his mat for hours at those times, wondering if he was awake or asleep, thinking about chess and Occlumency, and suddenly certain things seemed to make sense.

When his head felt merely bruised inside instead of pulpy, and when he was sure he was totally awake, he pressed his face against the cracked stone. His breath formed a frost there, which dissolved against the tip of his nose. "Malfoy?" he whispered. "Mr. Malfoy?"

Nothing, but Ron was certain he could hear breathing, at the very least.

"Malfoy...pawn to king four."

A blanket rustled. "Are you so eager to be beaten again?"

Ron concentrated on the board in his mind and ignored this. Stubbornly. Because he understood this now, at least this part of it. If he couldn't do real Occlumency he could fake it well enough. Hermione, he thought, would be proud.

Malfoy seemed to notice his silence, and he sounded a little odd when he said, "Very well...pawn to king five."

"Knight to queen's bishop three."

"Pawn to queen five."

Ron squeezed his eyes shut as if that had an effect. "Pawn to king's bishop three."

Lucius sighed. "Knight to king's bishop six. This is really quite tiring—"

"Bishop to queen's bishop five," Ron blurted. "Checkmate."

Lucius said nothing for a moment, and then—laughed. Soft, voiceless and chilly, but laughter all the same. "An uncommon young man, Mr. Weasley," he said.

"No," Ron said, slumping back onto his mat. "Just stubborn."

-\--\--\-

And he did improve, after that—when he made himself ignore Lucius' jibes, he began to improve a great deal. He managed to play out a few complete games without losing his concentration; he even managed to win some of them.

And Lucius began to talk about something other than Ron's disappointing play. Or rather, he asked questions, floating them into the darkness with a casual curiosity that Ron didn't trust at all. "How did you come to fall into the Dark Lord's hands, Ronald?" Lucius asked. "I would think you were as well-protected as Potter or your—friend."

Ron was too cold and hurt and hungry to remind Lucius that Hermione had a name, but not so far gone that he was going to tell the truth. "Harry doesn't much like being protected," he said. "We were out by ourselves when the Carrows caught up with us."

"And you were unable to duplicate your admirable performance in the Department of Mysteries?"

Ron's face burned in the darkness, even though he knew the you was plural, and the description only half-sarcastic. "We couldn't Disapparate from where we were, and there wasn't any cover," he mumbled, and we had a Horcrux on us that we weren't about to let them see.

"I see," Lucius said, and Ron wished he would so he'd shut up about it. He didn't. "Still, with odds of three to two—"

"I got hexed, all right?" Ron blurted. "They knocked me down with a bloody Leglocker Jinx."

"And the Great Potter left you behind?"

Because I told him not to be a git. "I held them off long enough for Harry and Hermione to get away," he said.

"A true Gryffindor to the end."

"And also a bit more expendable."

Lucius chuckled. "I think you underestimate yourself, Ronald. It sounds as if Potter could use a genuine tactical thinker at his back."

Ron snorted. "Yeah, right."

"You don't think he does?"

"I think he's got plenty," more than he wants, actually, "and I've never been one of them."

Lucius did not snort; he guffawed. "What do you suppose chess is but a game of tactics, Ronald? The assault and retreat, the trap and the pin..."

"That's completely different!" Ron shot back. "Chess is...chess. It's a game."

He heard Lucius move slightly, perhaps shifting closer to the hole in the wall. "Think of it this way," Lucius said smoothly. "Have you ever seen a litter of kittens at play?"

"Sure," Ron said, thinking of the mouser they had once kept around the Burrow until the twins drove her off with one too many pranks.

"And have you ever seen a pair of cats fight?" Lucius asked.

It took Ron a minute to figure out what Lucius was getting, a minute where he almost said something stupid. "That's still different," he said.

"Is it really?"

"It's not real," he insisted. "They don't really get hurt. Nobody dies in chess."

"The game is an imperfect metaphor," Lucius admitted. "But there is a reason why the pieces are called knights and bishops, Ronald. Checkmate, shah mat—the king is dead. You really think these things have nothing to do with the real world?"

"The real world isn't laid out on a board," Ron insisted.

"True," Lucius replied. "That's what makes it so interesting."

-\--\--\-

Once Lucius had finished inquiring about the state of affairs in the outside world (if there even was a world outside these walls—if they would even notice, if there suddenly wasn't—) he turned to speculation about what would happen next, particularly to Ron. "Potter must still be at large," he whispered through the crack one night, while Ron struggled to bend his fingers, to keep blood flowing against the cold. "But either he lacks the means to attack the Dark Lord directly, or the will."

Or he's still short a Horcrux, Ron thought. He asked, "How do you reckon?"

"You are still alive," Lucius said. "It seems the Dark Lord is no longer interested in interrogating you, so your only purpose can be as a hostage—a guarantee on Potter's good behavior. Or your family's."

Ron wanted to say that the idea was bollocks, because Harry ought to know that he was good as dead now and not worth losing the war over...then he remembered that they were talking about Harry. He sighed. "Maybe he's waiting for something else," he offered, more than half in hope. "The Ministry might be in the way. Scrimgeour wants the Chosen One appearing at press conferences, but he wouldn't mind locking up anyone else who wasn't cooperating with him, same as Fudge."

"You're learning," Lucius said, but he didn't sound enthusiastic. "However, I maintain that if you weren't of some potential use to the Dark Lord, you would be dead, and any information you have is growing rapidly out of date. Therefore, you are a hostage. I would not be surprised if he sent someone down soon to collect a few appendages...just a friendly reminder to your loved ones that you're still here."

Part of Ron wasn't sure how many appendages he'd have left if they waited too long. The last two fingers on his left hand had gone painfully numb, and they felt colder than the rest when he tried to bend them. He had finally confirmed that one of the toes on his left foot was gone, torn raggedly off, and while the stars had faded from his right eye it still ached faintly in a way he didn't like at all. He could too well imagine what would happen if the Death Eaters decided to make a late Christmas present of one of his thumbs. Or an ears. Or his nose. Or his wand hand. Or—

"If You-Know-Who only holds onto useful prisoners," he hissed to Lucius through the wall, searching for a distraction, "what are you still doing here?"

That actually seemed to surprise him. "You know," he said, "I do believe the Dark Lord has forgotten about me."

"Or maybe he just doesn't care," Ron said. "About either of us."

"Would we were so fortunate."

Ron laughed voicelessly. "Fortunate?" he repeated. "You think this is fortunate—?"

"It is better to be ignored by the Dark Lord than to be his enemy," Lucius said. "It is better still to be his servant, but only just."

"Really?" Ron asked. "Thought you and You-Know-Who were mates."

A series of sharp clicks cut the silence, and Ron started, before he realized Lucius was just clucking his tongue. "Listen to this, young Ronald," Lucius whispered. "Powerful wizards do not have friends. They have allies and they have servants and that is all. This is true of the Dark Lord, this was true of Dumbledore, and it will be true of your Potter, if he lives."

"Harry's got friends," Ron protested. "I'm his friend."

"Indeed. And what has that profited you?"

Ron opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. "You wouldn't understand," he finally said.

Lucius sighed. "Of course not. I am older and cleverer than you, but I cannot possibly understand, because young men always know more of the world than those who actually made it."

"No," Ron said, "You wouldn’t understand because you're a goddamn Slytherin who thinks the whole world's nothing but a game of chess."

"I am what I am," Lucius said; he was beginning to sound annoyed. "I am a Slytherin and I am a chess master and once I had wealth and power beyond your wildest fantasies, young Ronald."

"And now we're going to die the same damn prison," Ron snapped back. "Only difference is somebody's gonna miss me."

Malfoy snorted. "Ah, yes, and I'm certain that's wonderful consolation to you. You'll die here, frozen and broken, with naught left of your brain but gray jam—you'll never see sunlight again, never marry your Mudblood bitch or get your own crop of ginger brats on her—you'll die cold and in pain and alone but for me, Ronald Weasley, but at least you will be missed. That certainly makes all the difference in the world."

"There are some things that are worth dying for," Ron snapped back, but his voice quavered. "I saved Harry and Hermione. I gave them a chance."

"You are, what, eighteen years old?" Malfoy said—full-voiced, no whispers now. "And you choose to spend your life on a chance? You have a future of possibilities and you throw them all away so lightly?"

"If Harry doesn't win, I don't have a future," Ron snapped back. "Because I'd rather die than kneel to You-Know-Who!"

"Your death would be a waste," Malfoy said. "Not to mention completely unnecessary."

"What do you—?" Ron almost, before he actually did realize what he meant. In the tomb of Azkaban, he almost laughed. "You can't be serious. No."

"You were the one railing before about how chess is not like life," Malfoy said. "Don't you suppose knights and pawns would change to the winning side if they could?"

Ron shook his head fiercely; it made him feel as if his mat were a raft on high seas. "No. No, never. You hear me? Never."

"Good Lord, boy, calm down," Lucius snapped. "And here I thought I had managed to teach you something."

"What? How to Be a Traitor in Five Easy Steps?"

"I want you to understand," Lucius said, "that you do not have to die down here. Not unless you truly want to. Do you want to die, Ronald?"

"Better to die in the dark than betray my family and my friends," Ron shot back.

Lucius sighed. "Of course, I forget. One of the requirements for being Sorted in Gryffindor is suicidal recklessness."

"Or moral standards," Ron said. "Either one works."

Lucius actually chuckled at that. "Nevertheless, Ronald, you are not without options...if you choose to take them. As regrettable as your family is, your bloodlines are good. And you have been close to Potter. You could rise very high, if you acted with discretion...very high indeed."

"I'm not a traitor," Ron said again.

"No," Lucius said, sounding annoyed. "But you are a tactician. Surely you can see where you own best interests lie. You could be a truly great wizard one day, Ronald—influential, if not powerful. All you require is a little...guidance."

Once again, Ron came precariously close to saying something stupid. Then he realized, really realized what Lucius was saying. And he laughed at him. "Go to hell," he said, then corrected himself. "No, wait. Stay in hell."

A loud crack split Ron's ears—in the other cell, Lucius has struck something. "I am showing you an opportunity!" Lucius roared, and Ron heard panic—panic!—in his voice. "You are merely too craven to take it—too stupid—too proud—"

Ron let him babble. Ron let him sputter out. Ron slowly, carefully turned on his mat, pointing his head away from the wall and Malfoy's whispers. He didn't need them. He'd never needed them. It was only a bloody game anyway.

Lucius waited several minutes for him to respond, then tried to prompt him. "Well, boy? Have you no more impassioned counter-arguments?"

Ron didn't speak, just pulled his blanket over his head and wrapped his arms around his chest. There was nothing left to say.

"Ronald? Have I struck you dumb?"

They'd been talking for days and there was nothing left to say.

"Fine," Lucius spat. "You've chosen your death. I leave you to it."

After that Lucius matched Ron's silence with his own, and they remained like that for hours, ignoring one another in the dark. Azkaban bore down on them both, but Lucius wouldn't talk and Ron was tired of listening. The weight of the silence pressed down on him, and he thought that was why something in his chest began to ache.

He may have fallen asleep—he must've, because he could not believe Lucius would be the one to speak first, not this time. Ron's dream was cold and dark silent, though, and he could hear a hoarse whisper faintly through the frigid air. "You should thank me for teaching you these things," Lucius said. "They are the lessons my own son never learned."

He paused.

" Of course, he was never particularly good at chess, either."

-\--\--\-

Time grew soft and slippery in Ron's mind. He didn't—wouldn't—talk to Lucius, and Lucius did not talk to him. He felt unmoored from the world, unreal, and he could no longer tell his dreams from his realities. Sometimes he felt his body over, felt knitting wounds and the scars and the shape of bones under skin. Sometimes his ribs felt like a washboard. Sometimes they felt waxy, pliable. Sometimes they vanished altogether. There was no more careful tracking of meal trays now, no more attempts to fill the cell with some small noise. Going mad no longer sounded like half so frightening a proposition; at the very least, he told himself, it had to be more interesting than the silence.

There was no telling how much time had passed when he began to hear the footsteps.

They started faintly, so he thought he had dreamed them; then he mistook them for the fluttering of his own heart. It was only when he heart a sudden movement from the other cell that he realized Lucius must have heard them too; when he really listened, he realized he was hearing heavy boots pounding on stone. Ron held his breath as they grew louder and distinct. Every time he told himself that they must have arrived, must be just outside his cell, the sound continued to approach without pause, until he had to gasp for air and hold his breath again.

And then the footsteps stopped. A cell door opened with a clang.

It took Ron a moment to realize it wasn't his.

It took another moment to realize there was light coming through the hole in the wall—a pale light, faintly, but it was more than he had seen in many days. He fell back to his knees and pressed his face into the crack. His right eye saw nothing, not even fog; squinting through his left he made out the shapes of objects. A moldy straw mat, a ragged blanket, a pile of odd-sized chips of stone. He couldn't see Lucius, but he could hear him well enough. "Greetings, gentlemen. To what do I owe this—"

There was a meaty thumping sound, like a bag of laundry hitting the floor, and a muffled gasp. A clatter of footsteps and rustling robes, a dance of shadows over the hole—but even the shadows weren't as dark as Ron's cell, not with that faint light—and then another sound, something wetter. A new foul smell floated through the cold air, and somebody whimpered, pathetically.

And just like that, the light went out. The door to Lucius's cell shut, and the footsteps faded away for a very long time. From the other cell Ron heard heavy breath, almost gasping. When the sound of the footsteps had faded almost to nothing, he whispered as loud as he dared. "Malfoy?"

A loud swallow. "Ronald."

"Are you—er—?" He found he couldn't say it.

Lucius chuckled a bit. "I appear to have misplaced a few of my fingers," he said in a high, weak voice.

Ron slumped against the wall and shut his eyes. Just a friendly reminder for your loved ones. "Reckon he hasn't forgotten you after all," Ron said. "Or maybe Draco's reminded him."

Lucius didn't say anything.

Lucius was silent for a long time, in fact, and that made Ron wonder if he was bleeding to death, and that made him think of the frozen corpses hidden in the other cells and the difference between silence and silence. It made him think about going mad. It was one thing to be buried in the dark down here, but another to be truly and totally alone—

"Malfoy?" he whispered again. "Mr. Malfoy?"

A groggy grunt.

Ron swallowed hard. "Pawn to king's knight three."

"Ehh?" Malfoy whispered thinly.

"I said, pawn to king's knight three."

And Malfoy chuckled. Just a little bit. "Are you quite serious?"

"It's your move."

"You can't be serious."

"Don't think you can beat me?" Ron said, forcing contempt into his voice.

Malfoy chuckled again. "Clever boy," he whispered faintly, and then, "pawn to king five."

It was not really a game; Lucius was in too much pain to play properly, and Ron suspected that only his pride kept him from forfeiting entirely. Ron did not bother to point out the repeated moves, the misplays, the squares that did not, strictly speaking, exist; he kept the game going long past the point where it ceased to be a game, kept calling plays even after Lucius fell silent, kept talking even into his own troubled dreams.

-\--\--\-

Before Lucius showed any sign of regaining consciousness they came for Ron again. If his previous interrogations were blurry memories, this one was a nightmare: he could not have recalled for the world what they did to him or asked, nor what he might've told them or not. They may have shredded his skin or only his clothes; they may have beaten him, cursed him, threatened him; they may have pulled out his fingernails by the roots or clattered carelessly through his mind. He was almost certain that he hallucinated, or maybe passed out and dreamed, because intermixed with the concrete thoughts of pain and questions and white masks were things that didn't make any sense—tremendous colored flowers blooming unnoticed from mid-air, the voice of his mother scolding him for being rude to his elders, Martin Miggs laughing cheerfully as he waved a serrated knife in Ron's face.

And the dreams didn't stop with the questioning. There were great steep-sided pits in his memory, but he knew when he was back in his cell, and that something was seriously wrong. Faces and voices seeped in through the cracks, glowing like swampfire in the darkness. Sometimes he followed them out, out of Azkaban, soaring over the clouds like an owl back to the Burrow, back to Hogwarts, back to Grimmauld Place, back to the pier at Brighton where his family had once gone on holiday—except the waves there churned a thick as jelly and the stones of the beach were spongy-soft, and tiny versions of his brothers shouted in their grown-up voices to come on, hurry up, we're waiting for you—

(In the moments when Ron could pull himself together, he could almost put a name to what was wrong: he felt hot, hot all over, for the first time in prison, and when he sucked in cold air he could also smell a putrefying stench. He tried to keep his blanket tucked around himself, but that was difficult to do when the blanket might at any moment turn into a lethifold, or a flying carpet, or one of his brothers trying to wrestle him for a sweet.)

Lucius whispered hoarsely through the crack in the wall, and Ron wasn't certain whether that was a dream or not. Lucius kept whispering even when Ron didn't respond—his voice faded in and out, and sometimes it went runny, or maybe that was just Ron's brain. "I see they've brought you back alive. Well, after a fashion. Clearly they still think you're valuable to them, either for what you know or what you can be used for. I suspect the Dark Lord may be getting rather nervous..."

"...I still hope for the Dark Lord's eventual victory. I'm sure this surprises you immensely, but you see, I am a dead man if the Dark Lord falls I have no leverage to secure my release, no gold left with which to buy it, no information for which to trade it. Rufus Scrimgeour's Ministry will not make the mistakes of its predecessors; there will be no mercy for the likes of me. The Dark Lord has seen to it. He has learned, you see, that the most devoted servants are those with nowhere else to go..."

"I will not go quietly, however. Should the Dark Lord indeed fall again, I will not go passively to the Dementors. You see, Ronald, I am a proud; we have that much in common. If I am to die, it will be on my feet with a wand in my hand...but I do not intend to die..."

Time passed. Ron dreamed of massive chessboards that spread out infinitely in every direction, filled not with carved pieces but with people, some that he knew. Harry stood sadly with his miter in hand; Hermione loitered at the top of her rolling tower; Scrimgeour charged the board with a cudgel-like scepter; Draco Malfoy wrestled with a snowy white horse. "Pawn to queen three," he called out into the swirling fog; Celestina Warbeck pirouetted into place, and Lucius laughed.

"Still with us, Ronald? You must be stubborn indeed. Pawn to king five."

He was standing in the middle of the board, but it rippled beneath his feet; he could see the White Queen on the far side, terrible behind her mask. "Pawn," he tried to shout, but he was the only one left, "Pawn to...to..."

There was another crater in time, and then Lucius whispered drowsily to him: perhaps from his cell, perhaps from atop his own white horse with its dented armor and bleeding, vacant eyes: You have been a most attentive student, young Ronald. Perhaps I should have traded you for Draco at his birth...you might have done very well for yourself in the tutelage of a more ambitious man. As for Draco...perhaps he would've been happier with a softhearted simpleton like your father. Perhaps he would've been safer. He is ruled by his heart himself, you see, and that is not a luxury a chess player can afford. Perhaps Arthur Weasley would've done better by him...instead, it seems that he has ruined you...

Rain fell from the very stones of Azkaban, rain mixed with drops of pale blood, and Ron shivered as he surveyed the board. The Irish Quidditch team had taken off their hats and were sitting in a circle off to the side making daisy chains, Lucius Malfoy loomed overhead on his maggot-ridden charger. The White Queen glided forward with a great iron sword in her hands—no, a wand—no, a scepter—it was all of these and none of them, a blur of green flame, and it was pointed at Harry's mitered head.

You are a tactician, Lucius Malfoy asked, reaching out a hand that was missing two fingers and still streaming blood. And Ron realized that the white horse wasn't really white: the maggots fell away, revealing black flesh stretched tight over bones, and from under the dented armor a great pair of bat-like wings unfurled. Ron took the offered hand with his own, feeling the broken bones click, feeling the last two fingers burst like overdone sausages, and climbed into the saddle. He took the reins in one hand and a black sword in the other.

"Knight to queen two," he whispered

No one answered. Everyone stood silent and still on the board, looking up into the rain falling over Azkaban, letting it seep into their clothes and armor until both black and white turned red—red with blood, red with rust. Ron urged the thestral forward, but the beast merely leapt through the gently rolling board and began to dive...and dive...and dive...

"Queen two!" he tried to scream, as he wrestled with the reins. "Queen two! Malfoy! Queen two!"

Lucius didn't answer. The thestral dove through a great red fog. Ron lost his grip on the reins, and then on the sword, and then the saddle, and then he fell.

-\--\--\-

He didn't know how long he fell or when he landed. He came back to himself somewhere soft, though, soft and warm, and for the first time in a long time he was not in pain. There was light seeping dark pink through the lid of his left eye, and sound—footsteps and clatters and thumps and bangs. There were also lots of voices he didn't know, but luckily there were also one or two he did.

"...pawn captures, er, king four," one of those voices said distinctly off to his right.

"Well, pawn to queen four," it replied to itself...or maybe not.

"Bishop to king's, erm, king's knight four."

"Pawn captures king...five."

"Aha!"

"What d'you mean, aha?"

"Nothing, nothing..."

Ron opened his eyes; the right was totally blind, maybe forever blind, but with the left he saw high green ceilings and bubble-shaped lights. "Bishop captures king's, er, your one knight. King's bishop whatever," one voice said, and there was brief scrape of wood and a few high squeals as the pieces carried out their orders.

"Well, queen captures your bishop," the other voice said indignantly.

"Bad idea," Ron whispered.

There was a brief yelp, and then the sound of a chess set clattering to the floor. Ron turned his head all the way to the right and saw Fred and George blinking at him from seat just inside a white privacy curtain.

"Blimey," Fred blurted, "you're awake already? They gave you enough potions to kill a hippogriff!"

"How d'you feel?" George said, reaching out for Ron's right hand. "You had us worried about you, you know."

"'M fine. Sleepy." Ron tried to wiggle his fingers and toes, to see how many he had left; he discovered the smallest finger of his left hand was gone completely, and his ring finger was cropped to the first knuckle, a withered stump.

"Frostbite," George said, squeezing Ron's other hand. "The Healers said it was too far gone to be helped—there's a bit off one of your ears, too, but it's not even noticeable."

"Yeah," Fred said with a bit of a grin. "You're no more hideous than you used to be."

"I'm alive," Ron whispered, then repeated it louder. There was no need to whisper anymore.

The twins both nodded. "Yeah, thank goodness," George said. "When we fetched you out of there—well. You were a right mess, that's for sure."

"I'll go find the others," Fred said. "They'll want to know you're awake."

Ron watched him go, then turned back to George. "How long ago?"

"A couple of days," he said. "Harry said he'd done whatever Dumbledore set him to, and asked the whole Order to help him storm Azkaban. Well, we all thought he was mad, but then he said he was going to do it whether we came with him or not, so it wasn't really much of a choice, was it?"

"What happened?"

George sighed. "Ministry apparently had the same idea. We spent so much time trading hexes with them that almost everyone got away...if You-Know-Who was ever there, which, well, Hermione can explain that. But we did find you, that's the important thing, and we got you out before—"

Before he died. Ron looked again at his truncated hand and wiggled the stubby ring finger. "What about Malfoy?"

"Little brat was actually helpful," George said grudgingly. "Turns out he's got a wicked Stinging Hex—"

"No..." Ron swallowed. "I mean Lucius Malfoy."

George blinked. "What about him?"

"Did you find him? In Azkaban?"

"Nope," George said. "Do you know if he was there? His family got a couple of his fingers in the post a while ago, it really did a number on them...."

Fred returned with a gaggle of family and friends, and they welcomed him back while he looked his fill to confirm that they were all still as he'd left them, that if he'd confessed anything under torture it hadn't harmed anyone yet. Harry looked horrible, skinny and pale with big shadows under his eyes, and he looked at Ron like he expected to get hit. "I'm sorry I left you," he said. "I shouldn't've—"

"Yeah, you should've," Ron said.

"I didn't have to."

"It was the smart thing to do," Ron insisted. "Horcruxes are more important than me."

Harry grimaced, and looked at his feet. "I could've gone back for you," he muttered. "Somehow."

Ron thought of something Malfoy had whispered to him—Powerful wizards do not have friends—but he didn't say it. Instead he poked Harry in the chest. "Quit it. I'm alive, aren't I?"

Hermione didn't say anything to him at first; she just flung herself against his chest and clamped her arms around his neck. Ron clung back to her, feeling her warmth and weight and smelling her hair, watching his own hands trace the shape of her body just to prove he wasn't dreaming, not this time.

"Thought I'd lost you," she mumbled into his shoulder after a while. "Oh, Ron, I didn't dare think you'd survive..."

Your Mudblood underestimates you, Lucius Malfoy whispered in the back of his mind. Ron pushed the thought aside. "I didn't think so, either," he said, and squeezed her tighter.

Everyone lingered, talking over and across each other, and Ron didn't even try to keep up—he just savored the light and the warmth and the rush of noise. It was much later, after everyone else had gone and Ron was almost asleep again, that Draco Malfoy came. He looked pale and agitated, with his hair in his face and circles under his eyes. He was limping slightly, and wearing some suspiciously familiar robes that were too large for him by inches.

Ron almost didn't notice him slip through the privacy curtain, but there he was, staring at Ron like something in a specimen jar. "What d'you want?" Ron asked groggily, and tried to sit up again.

"Post," he said simply, but his voice was tight with all kinds of suppressed emotions. He is ruled by his heart, Lucius may have said, or it may have been just another hallucination.

Ron looked at the slim letter Draco was holding in his hand. It didn't look big enough to hold any more fingers, thankfully. "Who appointed you post owl?" he asked without thinking. "Or is that the only job you're fit for?"

Draco scowled deeply and almost flung the letter at Ron—probably would've, except it was too thin and light to do more than flutter weakly and then plummet. As it was, Draco thrust it into Ron's face, inches from his blind eye. "It arrived at The Burrow," he snapped. "Your parents gave it to me, but it's addressed to you inside."

Ron picked up the letter—really, barely a scrap of paper, like the last couple inches left at the end of a scroll that are too long to leave on whatever you've written but too short to bother with keeping. He fumbled it open and saw his name was indeed written at the top in jagged, swooping script. All the letter said was:

2 ... BQn4

Will you let yourself be pinned so easily?

There was no signature.

Ron glanced up at Malfoy, who was standing with his arms folded tight across his chest now, glaring. "I know who wrote that," he snapped. "I know the owl that delivered it. That's why they gave it to me."

"What do you want me to say?" Ron asked.

Draco didn't seem to know, for a moment—he just glared at Ron with his jaw clenching and his fists wrapped around his sleeves. Finally, he growled low, "What's it mean?"

Ron looked again at the note and thought for a moment about how to answer. Eventually he just said, "It's chess. We played."

Draco's scowl got deeper. "I hate chess," he said.

"It's just a game." There wasn't anything else to say.

Draco glared even more fierces, but then his eyes dropped from Ron's face to his hand, where the last two fingers were gone—rotted off by the cold, not cut off, but Ron wondered if Draco knew that, or cared. Finally Draco said with his jaw barely moving, "Where was he?"

"The cell next to mine," Ron said.

"We searched that cell."

"The one to the left?"

"We searched every cell in that prison," Draco snapped. "The Order or the Ministry or Mother and I. We found nothing." There was an edge in his voice Ron couldn't describe. "We couldn’t find a trace of him except for the bloody fingers they sent us by owl."

"He was there," Ron said, and shrugged. "I don't know what else to tell you."

He looked Draco in the eye, and Draco looked away first—he was shaking, Ron realized, actually shaking with rage, but he had enough self-control not to vent it here. Just enough. A word might shatter it, and while part of Ron thought it might worth seeing (that's what makes it so interesting, Lucius whispered faintly) another part was tired, just tired. Part of him didn't understand what had happened. Part understood that there was nothing he could do about it.

"I'm sorry," he said, as if it would help.

Draco spat on him. "Go to fucking hell." He snatched the letter out of Ron's hands and stalked away, crushing the rag-end of paper in his fist.