A/N: This chapter is dedicated to the fabulous rhmac12! *hugs* As soon as I got your message, I typed this up for you. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 2

...talking about Muggles...

...was undercover...

Two harsh voices must have woken Ron, and he could make out blurred shapes in the distance as he cracked open his eyes, noting that his left eye appeared to be swollen, the lid heavy and strained, brow throbbing wildly above it. His face was pressed to a concrete floor, rough unsanded edges digging into his cheek. He lifted his head, just enough to clear it as he blinked, bringing the blurry shapes into focus.

And he remembered everything.

His trainers skidded against the floor as he jerked up into a sitting position, eyes darting around the small room in an attempt to locate Hermione, but the two men who had been standing halfway across the larger room that adjoined Ron's, suddenly looked over at him, startled by the sounds he was making in his attempt to return to full alertness.

"Oi!" called the shorter of the two men, blond beard and hair, combined with his relative bulk, giving him the look of a Viking. "Is your name Brun?" he asked, glaring across the open space at Ron.

Ron stared back, eyes as wide as his swollen lid would allow, at the man, no idea what he was supposed to say to this strange question. His name certainly wasn't Brun... but should it be?

"I think it's him, Ned," said the taller, dark-haired man.

But before any one of them could speak another word, a loud gasp, followed by strangled coughing, sounded out behind Ron. He whipped his head around, straining to see who was there, hidden in the dust and shadow... though he guessed by the pitch of the cough, and some deep second sense of her, something he felt he'd gained one night so distant, locked in a dungeon beneath her desperate cries.

"Hermione? !" He scrambled frantically onto his knees, surely bruising them as he crawled deeper into the darkness, bumping softly against her as he fumbled around on the floor.

"R..on..." she managed through a deep wheeze. And as Ron reached out to touch her face, he heard the footsteps of those two men behind him. He'd almost forgotten.

"Get up," one of them demanded, and Ron was able to find Hermione's glistening eyes with his own, squinting to meet them. She had to understand what he was going to do, that he'd protect her. And he tried with all he had to make her believe him, to give her hope with his gaze. And then he stood, and turned to face his captors.

"What do you want?" he asked evenly, voice sounding hollow and distant to his own ears.

"If you're him, you'll already know that," said Ned, scanning Ron carefully.

But a third man approached them, and it was clear from the way the other two parted to let him through, that he was their leader.

"It's him," he said, "and he needs to be briefed."

"Gordon, how do you know-" began Ned, but their leader held up a hand.

"The wand he was carrying, 9 ½ inches, chestnut..." Gordon trailed off, looking Ron over carefully.

Ron considered so many things he could say, all of them useless. He'd been carrying Peter Pettigrew's wand. Though he'd like to have gotten a new one, to disassociate Pettigrew's life from his now that the war was over, he hadn't had the chance. But why the hell did Pettigrew's wand now appear to link him, somehow, to this Brun character?

"You know why that's significant, don't you?" Gordon asked, eyes never leaving Ron, though his two companions glanced at each other behind his back. He gave them no more time to think it over. "Brun gave us a list, several months ago. A list that had on it the wands of several wizards. And this wand... the one this man was carrying... it was on the list. You can stop playing a fool, Brun, we know it's you."

Ron swallowed hard. And in a fit of desperation, opened his mouth to reply...

"Well. How do I know you're really the guys, and that I can trust you?"

Gordon smiled slightly as Ron's head pounded with anticipation, heart beating wildly inside his ears. He could hear Hermione breathing sharply behind him, and he prayed she trusted him still. She had to.

"We'll show you what we've done," Gordon said, grinning wider as he motioned for Ron to follow him. All three of the men turned and walked back through into the next, well-lit room, and Ron was stuck, holding his breath as he trembled for Hermione. He couldn't leave her here alone. He couldn't...

"What about her?" he asked, gesturing towards the floor behind him.

Gordon turned, a look of disgust filling his features as his eyes dropped to Hermione.

"Leave her. We'll deal with her when we return."

He felt ripped in two, part of him knowing that if he didn't do as these men said, he might endanger himself and Hermione much further. Whatever it was they thought he was here to do, perhaps he could do it and he'd be allowed to leave... and take Hermione with him. He had to gain their absolute trust, and he saw some hope that he'd be able to do that, now that he'd clearly been confused with someone else. But he could almost feel the air move around him with each of Hermione's near-silent whimpers. He glanced back, finally, and lowered his eyes to her form, her own eyes lifting to meet his. And he must have adjusted well to the darkness over these past few minutes, because he could see her clearly. He spoke without words, begging her to understand, not to give them away, and to know he'd be with her, even when he walked away.

It could have been a nod that she offered him. He wasn't sure. He wanted to believe it, as much as he'd ever wanted to believe in anything. And he had to let it be what he'd thought it might... because if he couldn't know she'd be alright, he'd blow it and go to her now.

One chance.

He turned his back on her again, steadying his jaw as he felt his soul nearly ripped from his body to wait with Hermione, and he followed the men into the light... and down a long hallway, out of sight.

"Paul's gotta go back and wait with Louis, Mark and Hugh. They're the ones who brought Brun and the lady down from the street," Ned said to Gordon as they walked, a few paces ahead of Ron.

"Go," Gordon said dismissively, and Paul turned off down a side hall, disappearing at a jog. And before Ron could really steady his jagged breathing, Gordon turned back towards him, meeting his eyes over his shoulder as he continued down the hallway. "You came unarmed?"

Ron thought desperately of Pettigrew's wand, his only defence, which had been taken from him, clearly, and was now being put to some unknown purpose...

"Just the wand," he said, and Gordon laughed, stopping as he reached a tall wooden door on the right.

Gordon grinned at Ron, and Ron instinctively grinned back, needing to fit whatever idea it was that they had of Brun, following Gordon's lead at every opportunity.

Gordon leaned against the door, turning the handle and opening it. It was nearly pitch black behind the doors, and the room smelled of dust and mold, stale water and...

Ron held his breath, pounding heart stopping dead in his throat. He clenched his shoulders and begged his stomach not to lose control. He knew that smell... didn't he?

Death.

"We've killed them all, Brun," Gordon hissed in Ron's ear, somehow behind him now, pushing him gently closer, further into the room. Gordon's voice was laced with delight, all pretense of power and leadership dropping away as some version of blood lust oozed to the surface, contained in every syllable.

Ron's foot hit something solid, and though he couldn't see anything anyway, he closed his eyes, counting backwards from ten. Horror rolled through his body, and he knew. He knew exactly what he'd touched, what he was standing over.

He thought of Hermione, of how she'd smiled at him just this evening, on their way out the door... the way she'd kissed him so gently outside the Burrow just before sunset. Her lips were so soft and warm, her hands so cool through his hair, slowly moving around his neck. She'd stood on her tiptoes, locking her elbows around his shoulders then as she'd tugged him down to meet her...

But suddenly, Gordon shoved Ron hard in the back, half-cackling with sadistic joy. Ron's eyes slid open, and he could no longer forget. His image of Hermione was replaced with one of her body crumpled against the floor of a manor, crying out in pain. And Ron could not stop the tremors that began somewhere close to his heart, wracking him with the pain of memories.

Gordon took a step back, and with a whispered "Ned", the bulbs hanging overhead clicked on, filling the room with stark white light.

Death, in every crevice, every crack, every corner.

Ron felt fortunate to still be able to lose some small particle of control as his eyes filled with tears, blurring the sight before him, distancing him from the nightmares all around him.

Bodies littered the soiled floor, twisted and mangled, blood caking their clothing.

Ron bit his lip and wiped a roughened hand across his face before swallowing hard, and turning back to face the two men who'd brought him here, who had, in an instant, both taken away his hope of escape and made him strong enough to face anything they could lead him towards.

"Okay," Ron said, nodding. "You're them. I trust you."