The Gallows Chapter 1

“You have five minutes, Miss Granger.”

Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat. Dementors hadn’t inhabited Azkaban for years and yet she thought she could still feel their chill, the sickly rotting of a hand curling around her throat. Was that a deep breath she took, or was it the ghost of their past coming to haunt her?

The guard stood beside the open door, so thick no one would have been able to blast through it even if they did have possession of a wand. A chill breeze swept back the loose curls framing her face, the scent of salt and brine and rot washing across her tongue.

Five years since the war, five years of the Wizarding World rebuilding what they lost. Of watching Kingsley fight against the purists who still lingered within the cogs of the Ministry. Death Eater after Death Eater had been tried, some freed and others still trapped within the crumbling stone walls of this very prison.

And now there was only one left.

The click of Hermione’s heels echoed and she winced, lightening her steps as she crossed the threshold into the cell. A trickle of magic ran down her spine, her own suppressed slightly as a result of the wards, to keep those imprisoned here from building up their strength and casting wandlessly.

She cast her eyes around the room, frowning when she thought it empty. For the last two years she’d worked within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as an advisor on the trials of the Wizarding World. Mainly she spoke with the victims from the war, believing it was her duty to continue the fight for all those they had lost.

Now, as she scanned the cell, she wondered if she had been foolish to take on such a task. Especially when the pile of rags she’d seen beside the slim window overlooking the roiling sea shifted, a pale hand glimmering in the sunlight running through scraggily, white-blonde hair.

“Hello.” Hermione winced again at the quiet, breathiness of her voice, but the wizard before her did not turn her way, only rested his forehead against the stone.

He was thinner than the last time she’d seen his photo in the Prophet. Hair now grown out around his shoulders, the rounded edges of childhood giving way to a razor-sharp profile that could cut through dragonhide. But the hollows beneath his eyes mirrored the darkly stained fabric of his worn prisoner robes, almost the same color as the dark ink running down the side of his throat — a series of runes and numbers that identified him. But Hermione needed no confirmation.

Draco Malfoy sat before her, hollow and lifeless as the cell she stood in. She was not sure if he was even breathing, for she could not see the rise and fall of his chest. Only the slight movement of his irises gave him away and then his tongue swept across his cracked lips. She thought perhaps he might speak, but he only sighed, lifting a trembling, grime covered hand to trace the edge of the thin window.

“I’m,” she cleared her throat, “do you have a moment?”

Another wince. He had nothing but moments, nothing but time.

Well… that was not quite true, Draco Malfoy was rapidly running out of it.

When he did not respond, she took a few steps closer, fingers digging into the folder clasped across her chest. In the years that she had imagined Malfoy within Azkaban — admittedly, she did not imagine it often — it had been with a similar air to which he’d paraded around the castle. There had been rumors of Lucius Malfoy’s cell, only a few doors down, lush with rugs and furniture from their manor. He had lived like a king until one day the guards entered his room for his first trial only to find him dead, his morning meal poisoned.

Hermione had assumed Malfoy experienced a similar sort of luxury within Azkaban. But judging by the threadbare mattress atop a lopsided iron frame and bucket in the opposite corner, nothing could be further from the truth. The scent of decay was coming from the cell itself, from the empty trays of food piled in one corner, a steady drip of water sliding down the wall behind it from the constant misting of the ocean. And swirling through it all was the scent of what was unmistakably months or even years of sweat and grime and fear. She knew it well enough from their time on the run — but at least she and Harry had their wands and the occasional stream to wash.

“Your trial begins this afternoon and I’m here to discuss a few arguments I’ve prepared,” Hermione tried again, taking a step closer. She was wrong, she realized. His eyes were no longer silver, but merely a lifeless gray.

Malfoy did not reply, only continued to trace a crack in the stone with the jagged nail of his index finger, the sleeve of his robe falling back enough to expose one bony wrist, and the shadow of the dark mark now mottled beneath layers of scars.

Well… if there was one thing Hermione enjoyed it was a captive audience. And yet, the moment she thought it, she winced again at the poor joke. But she drew the folder from where she clutched it to her chest and began to rifle through the parchment.

“I have written a very compelling argument for your release, all centering around the way in which Vol—”

Malfoy flinched, turning his face to the window, long fingers splayed wide against the stone.

“demort marked you.” She took a breath, swallowing back the lump once again rising in her throat and blinked away the heat in the corners of her eyes. “I believe that…”

Hermione fell into her explanation. How Malfoy had been marked when he had still been underage and obviously under coercion. Malfoy had been forced to attempt to end the life of Albus Dumbledore with the understanding that his failure meant his parent’s executions. The list went on and on. The ministry had checked his wand with priori incantatem only to find not a single killing curse had been cast.

The wizard curled on the floor was innocent.

“Therefore I believe if you could—”

“Time’s up, Miss Granger,” the guard called, the door swinging open and allowing in a rush of fresh air.

With a sigh, she gathered up the parchments arranged within her timeline across the dirt covered floor. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Malfoy.”

Hermione made it almost through the threshold before a cracked voice slithered through the space, whisper quiet as the wind.

“Just let me die. It’s what they want.”