Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER! *sniffle*

Word of warning: definitely rated T - no high K+ here.

Water dripped through the cracks of the rough bricks to fall with a nearly silent splash to the floor. More dampness seeped through the mortar to continue forming the oily black slime coating the walls. Wind moaned through cracks in iron bars, carved with magic suppressing runes nearly invisible under the muck. There was a soft whisper of cloth on stone in the hallways as Dementors patrolled.

By a cell, the next drop of water was turned to ice in the mortar, widening the cracks a bit further. The dementor glided silently by, not pausing as it did with the cells farther down the block. The inside of the cell was shrouded in impenetrable darkness, obscuring whatever lay within.

An inmate moaned.

Two brilliant green orbs appeared in the blackness. They glowed like twin killing curses, seemingly attached to nothing. A hand, emaciated and filthy, delicately emerged from the darkness, wrapping itself around the thick bars, finger by bony finger.

Slowly, a figure emerged from the shadows, with hair so dark that it blended in with the walls. Dirt and other unmentionable things stained his skin a multitude of different shades - yellow, black, and brown mixing to an unsavory putrid green.

The figure gave an unhinged grin, and using the inch long yellow nail, cracked and sharp, of his index finger, scraped away at the muck of the bars. The nail made a quiet screeching sound that in the near silence of the prison echoed forebodingly. The dementors paid it no mind - if they were capable of such thought processes in the first place.

The inmate pressed one long finger to the newly revealed rune, careless of the sharp edges slicing into the pad of his finger. Crimson liquid oozed from the wound, mixing with the dirt and turning brown. As blood trailed down the bar, the runes lit up a dim gold.

In the cell, the prisoner threw back his head and laughed. It started low, building hysterically in his chest, before bursting forth at a pitch that would hurt the other prisoner's ears if they were coherent enough to hear it.

Still giggling, the inmate dragged his other index finger sharply across his remaining three fingertips, before splaying his hand across the bars nearest to to the glowing first one.

As blood trickled their length, they too lit up gold.

The prisoner cackled, forming a fist and pooling blood on his palm, before smearing it across the remaining bars in one smooth motion. There was a sharp crack as the bars fractured neatly in the middle, breaking the glowing runes in half.

The prisoner paused, examining his handy work.

For a few seconds, he stood perfectly still. Then, with a violent slashing motion, he blew the bars from the wall with powerful magic, making a crashing noise loud enough to wake the dead.

The dementors stayed down the block with no visible reaction, possessing no hearing whatsoever, but all but two other inmates moaned and screamed at the sudden noise.

The man carefully stepped out the door of the cell, neatly avoiding the surrounding rubble and protruding metal. He turned to the right, stopping in front of the cells adjacent to his.

In the cell directly next to him, a woman started giggling. She moved into the light, stopping a foot from him on the other side of the bars. Neither was bothered by the proximity. She reached through the bars and dragged her nails down the side of his cheek, a disturbing parody of a mother's fond gesture.

An eerie grin lit her face. "We will be free, yes?"

The man matched her grin as he replied, in a voice just as rough, "Yes."

The woman cackled, twirling a matted brown curl of hair around her finger and backing away into her cell. The man placed his hands on the bars, and with another sharp crack, separated them from the wall.

The woman let out a gleeful shriek as the bars fell to the ground, stepping out of the hole to join her companion. The two paused for a moment in joy, before turning to the right and continuing on their way.

She bounced as they walked, humming under her breath and muttering, "One more, one more, and then they'll take the world by storm!"

They finally arrived at their destination down the row of the highest level of Azkaban cells, stopping in front of a man slumped against the ground with hair the color of dried blood.

The woman leaned down next to his ear, matted clumps of hair swinging into her face. "Daaaarling, it's time for the world to burn!"

The man opened his blue eyes half way, before catching sight of her chocolate brown orbs and the man standing behind her, maniacal grin in place. He started to laugh, clapping his hands together once and rising to his feet, backing away from the bars.

The green eyed man stepped forward, placing his hands on the bars once more,before promptly blowing them dust.

The woman jumped up and down next to him. "You're already regaining your strength. Soon we'll burn, burn, burn!"

She punctuated each 'burn' with a clap. The red haired man stepped from his cell and joined the others.

He daintily picked dirt from his filthy fingernails as he asked, "Where shall we go first?"

The dark haired man lowered his head in thought. "I'm thinking the Ministry of Morons… We can make their tiles crimson!"

The woman shook her head in disgust and whined, "Not like this! We must be suitably dressed!"

The dark haired man shrugged, and snapping two bloody fingers together, sent out a pulse of magic.

His hair unknotted, falling in short messy waves across his head, lightened to the color of a raven's wing. The dirt vanished from his skin, showing him to be unnaturally pale, and his rags were replaced with a black robe.

The woman's curly brown hair fell neatly to her shoulders and covered the top of a blood red robe courtesy of her companion. She frowned and snapped her own fingers, turning her clothing into a black form fitting dress.

"Much better."

The man next to her, hair now a brilliant red, rolled his eyes. He fingered his own robe, adding small red highlights.

The black haired man frowned, but his eyes never lost their eerie green glow, tempered with more than a hint of insanity.

The brunette cackled. "Perhaps we should wear gold! We are the Golden Trio, after all!"

The glowing green eyes of the leader narrowed to slits as a macabre grin spread across aristocratic features. Harry Potter bared his teeth at his compatriots. "Haven't you ever heard of black gold, Hermione dearest? It looks innocent until it lights up the world with flames."

The two wizards and witch joined hands, cackling at their soon to be victory and newly found freedom, before vanishing in a pillar of black flames.

Their laughter echoed up and down the hallways before fading to nothing, the dementors resuming their ceaseless circuit.

A/N: In my defense, someone ate all my chocolate. And I was on a Dark!Harry reading binge. For those of you wondering, black gold is another name for coal.