Last resort

Sam looked up in wonder as the boat docked again. This time the boat was full of people. Happy people, happy women! Most of them looked to be of middle age, some perhaps a bit older. What on earth were they doing here? He didn't see Dawson anywhere.

One of the women jumped off the ship as Marietta went to greet them. That was new. The few times he had tried to start a conversation with Marietta, she had just looked at him like he was an idiot and not even replied. Marietta fed the prisoners and otherwise just sat and stared out over the sea from the window in the kitchen. She ate if Sam put food in front of her, but otherwise did nothing.

They were all blocked from his view by the harbour building, but before long they all seemed to have disembarked, and now they followed Dawson towards the main area, where Sam had made the more regular cells. Sam hurried towards them. He wanted to know what would happen next.

Marietta seemed to talk and smile normally with these women, as if she knew them. Dawson seemed annoyed more than anything. As Sam approached the strange group, Dawson motioned for him to come closer.

"There you are. Everyone, meet Sam Crickey. He will make sure you are all fed and taken care of while we are here. He will show you to your rooms in just a few moments, let me just have a quick word with him first."

Dawson dragged Sam a little bit away from the group. "Place them all in separate cells. One empty cell between each of them, to be sure."

"How am I going to be able to do that? You haven't restrained them at all."

"Don't worry. All they will see is a lovely hotel room where they can sleep off the headache they will begin to feel in about 3 minutes. When they wake up tomorrow though, you might hear another story."

"Why have you brought them here? What have they done?"

"No need for you to worry about that. You just make sure that they are watered, and fed. Marietta is the only one of these that listened to me, and I had to do a lot of persuasion to manage that. That is why I want you to feed this lot. She will stay over at the top-security area and keep up feeding them."

Sam just nodded. This all became stranger and stranger. But he had agreed to this, though he hadn't known what he signed up for. He heard the first complaints of a headache coming from some of them already. Better to get this over with.

"Follow me ladies," he said with what he hoped was a convincing smile. "I have your rooms prepared for you."

Surprisingly, everything happened exactly as Dawson had said. Each of the women happily entered the cell Sam pointed out to them and none of them batted an eye as Dawson locked the cell door after them. They all gave him their wands as they entered the cell. One of them even took out a spare wand she had in her robes. What sort of control did Dawson have over these women? Sam dreaded the next morning though. The way some of these women complained about their headaches now, he didn't even want to think about how much worse it would be when they went back to normal tomorrow and found themselves in a prison cell.

"What do you want me to tell them, if they ask why they are here?" Sam asked as Dawson prepared to leave again. He had given extra instructions to Marietta as well. She now started to prepare food for the prisoners in the hole. Both holes this time. He supposed they would see if the mystery person had managed to get themselves free from their bonds by now. If they took the food, at least they were alive. Sam hadn't dared go near the top-security cells ever since Marietta arrived, not even to finish the third cell. But he really needed to get that done.

"That they are in jail awaiting trial for breaching the Statute of Secrecy. They will have a vague memory of being very drunk and staging an epic wand duel in the middle of Edinburgh Castle. Confirm that, if they ask, but otherwise, say you don't have any details."

"Did they do that?"

Dawson didn't reply, just removed the mooring for the boat as he walked over to it.

"I bring greetings from your brother," he said as he took off. "He says he is happy you chose to cooperate. He is released from Azkaban now."

Sam should be happy about that. But it also meant that no one would believe him if he got caught and told them that Dawson had threatened his brother. There was nothing left to prove that he hadn't done all of this knowingly.

***

Scorpius barely held himself together. He kept up a front for James' sake, but he suspected Ginny noticed how desperate he was. She didn't say anything though.

They had made good progress on the second tunnel, but if there were more cells, it was further between them than it had been between theirs and Ginny's. They all felt that this was pointless, but no one seemed to want to be the first one to suggest stopping.

Scorpius had noticed that Ginny didn't get any food. Why bring her here to starve to death? Why not just kill her? He didn't want to voice such thoughts out loud. They shared what food they got and didn't discuss anything else. When they talked, they talked about home. Of good memories, of the people they loved, of the family. No one said anything about whether their absence had been noticed, or the chance of rescue. Scorpius had at first held out a small hope that James' Tracker would help them get found, but too much time had passed for that. Maybe it didn't work underground? Or maybe the impostor had found it and removed it. He should really check that, but how to do it without the others noticing?

James spoke up for the first time since they started the day's digging.

"If there had been another cell this way, I think we would have found it by now. We have already dug more than twice as far as we did to get to the other one."

"I know, but what other choice do we have?" Ginny said. She was clearly relieved that someone had finally admitted that this wouldn't work.

"Maybe our cell is the middle one? Maybe we will find another cell, or better, a cellar, if we dig the other way? This way the earth is getting more and more soggy, I suspect we are getting close to the shore."

Scorpius tried to remember the geography of the island above. Since it was only a hole in the ground, he hadn't been able to see if there were other cells. He had many other things to think about at the time. But he did seem to remember that the shore wasn't too far off.

"You're right," Scorpius said. His voice cracked; he hadn't used it much lately. "The shore wasn't too far from the cells. It wouldn't do for the cells to begin to fill with water."

"Water could maybe help us get up to the ceiling though," Ginny said. "Then you could blast open a hole and get us out of here."

Scorpius shook his head. "That is assuming we manage to keep afloat as the water floods in. It is too unpredictable. We should try digging the other way first, and rather do that as a last resort. And put some of the excess dirt over here, to prevent an accidental flooding."

Last resort. More like a quick death. Scorpius knew that there was very little chance of all three of them managing to get out of the hole with that plan. Most likely, Ginny knew that too. But they were desperate and clung to the small strains of hope they could. Just as they started moving back to start digging the other way, they heard the now familiar sound of food being sent down the tube. But this time, it was sent down both tubes! Ginny hastened over to remove the food in her tube, then held it out questioningly.

"Do you think it's safe?" James asked.

"If they wanted to kill her, I can think of better ways," Scorpius said. "Maybe they have just forgotten that they had two cells to feed before now."

"It looks exactly the same as what you got. I don't think we have much of a choice, this is scant fodder as it is, no use turning away food when they give it. As Scorpius said, if they wanted me dead, they could do that easily."

"Maybe they sent it down to see whether you are dead. I mean, you were pretty tied up when you got here, I can't see how you would have gotten out of that alone." James said. Scorpius agreed, though he didn't say anything.

"Either way, I have taken it, so no use putting it back. If they wanted to see whether I was alive, why not just open the hole and check?"

"There is no use speculating about this," Scorpius said. "Whoever is running this is completely crazy. Let's just eat, then start digging again."