Her vision adjusted quickly to the wandlight. Just four steps ahead of her, she could make out a descending staircase carved crudely into the rock. She glanced over her shoulder and found Draco just behind her, his mouth hard and his eyes fixed ahead. He lit his wand as she turned back to face the stairs and followed them down.

The glow from their wands extended deep into the darkness, but there was no end in sight. The further down they stepped, the colder and thicker the atmosphere. There was a metallic tang in the air, and a dripping sound echoed from down below. After several dozen steps, there was a landing of about six feet before the stairs continued down.

There was only the sound of Draco's cloak sliding down the stairs as they descended endlessly — stairs, landing, stairs. Hermione's legs started to protest and she paused, looking up at Draco. Moonlight shone through the entrance behind him, all those steps above.

"Do you think maybe we missed something when we came in? On the walls?"

"I didn't see anything." He paused, letting her catch her breath. "It's probably just a very long ways down."

She frowned as she turned back to the stairs leading down, down, down. It would be terribly difficult to leave — unless one could fly, of course. Perhaps that was the point.

Draco squeezed her arm and stepped around her, taking the lead. It was much easier to follow his blond head instead of the end of her wandlight, but even still, once they'd reached the sixth landing followed by more steps, Hermione's frustration began boiling over.

Something was nagging at her, like an itch between her shoulders she couldn't reach. She spun around to look at the top of the steps again, and her feet faltered.

The moonlight was casting the same shadows she'd seen four landings ago, as if the distance hadn't grown at all. Her ears strained to listen to the dripping water — the volume just as faint as before. She heard Draco halt ahead of her.

"What is it?"

"We're not moving."

Her heart pounded in her chest as he hurried back to her. She took in his pale face for a moment before she began scurrying around the landing, her fingers skimming for a hidden doorway as she searched the wall for runes. She cast her wandlight upward, and only found a damp stone ceiling. Draco cursed and jogged up the stairs to the previous landing. She watched him vanish with her heart in her throat, listening to his boots slap against the steps—

A sound behind her. A shadow stepped up to her.

Hermione gasped and slammed herself against the wall, her wand shooting out to point at—

Draco.

His feet stumbled as he jerked backward, yanking his wand down.

Hermione gaped at him, and he gaped back. She whipped around to look up the stairs Draco had jogged up a minute ago. Empty. When she looked behind her again, she found Draco staring anxiously down the steps he'd just come from — somehow from behind her.