In the dungeons.

She turned on her knees to face the little elf.

"Mippy is sorry! Mippy tells Miss to stay upstairs!" Mippy's lips trembled, and then she Disapparated.

Hermione stood, spinning in a circle as she took in her surroundings, expecting a dragon to emerge from the shadows. She'd never been down in the dungeons before. Only Harry and Ron had been dragged down here while Bellatrix kept her upstairs. The air was thick and moist, and there seemed to be a draft coming from somewhere.

Moving to the stairs, she found her feet couldn't climb. Mippy had cast a ward against her leaving the dungeon. She huffed and leaned against the stones. Perhaps she'd regret vexing Mippy later, but the information she'd learned had been worth it.

People were successfully getting out. She considered Liverpool — at first glance, not a particularly important location. But it was close to the water. The Apparition Line.

Her mind whirred. George and Angelina's attacks had been deliberately planned away from Liverpool. Diversions.

She desperately wanted to know who had escaped. Was it anyone she knew? Any of the Lots? Had Ron or Ginny gotten out?

A cold shiver passed over her.

If Voldemort was looking for Harry in her mind…

If there was any chance that Harry had survived the Final Battle…

She chewed on her lip, thinking.

Perhaps he'd gotten out somehow, preparing to regroup…

Her eyes drifted up, catching on the dark corners of the dungeon. There was no way for her to know. Not right now, anyway.

Hermione stepped forward into the shadows and examined the space. She hadn't considered that the dungeons would be worth looking into before — there would be no way out down here for certain.

One torch lit the room, flickering near the stairs. There were shackles and chains mounted to the walls and an ominous table with cuffs, something dating back centuries.

A small blanket folded carefully lay next to a stone pillar. Beside it, a game of jacks and a few cards belonging to an Exploding Snap set.

Luna.

Hermione swallowed. Luna had been kept here. And according to her, Draco had visited with her. Kept her company and told her about what was happening at school.

This is where prisoners were kept. This should have been where she was kept. A wave of grief crashed over her, knowing that countless friends and classmates had been kept in similar locations for the past few months. She simmered in her own thoughts, staving off tears by focusing on what she'd just heard about Liverpool.

Possibly twenty minutes later, she heard the grate at the top of the stairs creak open. Scrambling to a pillar out of instinct, her blood was still pumping furiously when recognizable boots stomped down the stone steps, followed by thin legs she knew.

"What the fuck, Granger?" he hissed before he even fully appeared in the opening of the stairs.

"There are people getting out?" Her skin tingled with the questions she needed answered.