X Chapter 4: Kingdom Come X
Draco spent a restless night in his cell, tossing and turning, images of grotesque silhouettes looming over his sleeping mind. He woke with the threadbare sheets wrapped about his legs, one arm dangling over the side of his cot.
Although he couldn't see the morning, Draco felt the early hour. All was silent within the dreary, dungeonesque walls of Azkaban. There was no stirring of convicts, no patrolling of guards, and even the ever-present dripping seemed to have ceased. It was ominously quiet.
Twisting his hips so that his legs hit the floor beside the bed, Draco sat up slowly. He didn't stand though, just stayed on the edge of the thin mattress, head in his hands.
He had told Hermione he wasn't nervous, but here he was the morning of the trial, scared out of his mind. Part of his stress was over his own nerves, but an overwhelming percent of his concern was for his dark-haired lawyer. And that's what scared him.
When had he started to think of her as more than the buck-toothed, know-it-all Muggleborn she had been in their school days? Was it the moment she incredulously listened to the truth of his beliefs on that first day? Or was it when she had first slid The Daily Prophet over the table?
Whatever the moment was, Draco did realize, reluctantly, that he had had some sort of change of heart about her. He didn't care about her, not really. He just knew she wasn't what he had always thought of her as. She was a feeling, thinking witch, more capable than he would ever be.
He sighed deeply then, a rattling, tired breath that seemed to come out of his shocked heart. He had been so wrong before, oh so wrong. And now he was placing his future in the hands of a woman he had always hated but didn't anymore. How things had changed.
Draco wasn't aware of how long he sat pondering, realizing, until a guard came to the door of his cell. It wasn't the same gruff man he usually was accompanied by. This man had cold, calculating eyes and smart Ministry robes over hard, trained muscles. He spoke quietly, the kind of voice that carried hate and intelligence in a whisper. He strongly reminded Draco of Snape.
"It's almost eight-thirty, Mr. Malfoy. The Council is waiting." Effortlessly, the Ministry official slid open the iron bars and moved towards Draco. Heavy shackles were attached to each of his arms before he was pulled toward the opening of the room.
Now Draco was able to see two more guards standing in the shadows of the corridor. They wore the dark uniforms of the specialized Ministry Police. Lithely, they came and took hold of the chains dangling from each of Draco's wrists. Their faces showed no trace of emotion as they strode down the hall flanking the first cold guard.
Draco smirked silently as he walked between them. The Ministry must really be afraid of him if they sent an Auror and two of the best Ministry guards to bring him to the Court.
They paused at a door before the two Policemen pushed him through into an unfamiliar room. The walls were shiny and cold-looking, obviously made of some impenetrable metal, and Draco could almost feel the security magic crackle around him.
There were no furnishings, not even the table and chair the visiting and interrogation rooms held. There was only a crushed soda can lying in the middle of the floor.
The four men stepped up to it as the Auror glanced at a watch on his wrist.
"Mr. Malfoy, you know what to do. If you don't come with us, those magically-bound chains around your wrists will drag you along. I've heard it's quite painful that way, so I'd come willingly if I were you. Forty-three seconds, boys," he said, almost mockingly congenial.
Draco's face remained stonily emotionless, but his heart jumped a little at the Auror's words. This was definitely not a man to trifle with.
At the Auror's indication, each man reached a hand out, and after a heavy pause, touched a few fingers to the can.
Instantly, Draco was spinning swiftly, pulled along by some unseen force. His three escorts stayed close but they were merely dizzy shapes whirling around him. His head spun painfully as he caught glimpses of different places in the hazy vortex. Then all at once, the group hit the ground.
Draco remained on his knees, breathing heavily and shaking his head as if to remove the dizziness.
The two Policemen and the Auror were already standing, waiting restlessly for him to gain his bearings.
The Auror scoffed at Draco's lack of balance. "It's been a while since you used a Portkey, hasn't it, Mr. Malfoy?" His words were menacing, spiteful.
Draco glared back at him and cautiously rose to his feet to stand rebelliously straight in front of the men.
The Auror smirked, so much like Draco's own familiar expression it was startling. "Finally," he remarked indifferently.
They were in a room very similar to the one they had left in Azkaban, but the Policemen quickly led him out into a dimly lit hall. They strode down the seemingly endless corridor until he was stopped in front of a solid wood door. The rich, golden oak was intricately carved with decorative runes and ornamental hieroglyphs. The number 13 curled delicately across the top.
For several minutes, the men stood in front of the door, unmoving and silent. Draco's eyes furrowed in confusion and he swiveled his head to look down the hall each way.
Just as he was about to speak, the door swung open just enough to let a small, mousy man out. A chorus of angry voices briefly broke the silence, but they were muffled as the door was hurriedly closed again.
The small man wrung his hands together nervously as his eyes shifted over Draco. Then resolutely, as if he didn't want to look at him again, the man turned to the Auror.
"They're ready for him, Maddock." His voice was high and trembled as he spoke.
The Auror nodded once and placed a hand on the door. He paused before he pushed it open and turned to Draco. Harshly, he breathed, "Your kingdom come," then swung open the door and pushed him through.
Orange light from suspended torches illuminated the large room luridly, casting a glow on the rows of faces stretching before him. There were no windows in the solid stone walls and it was warm from the heat of the many people seated against the walls. If the temperature had been thirty degrees cooler and the audience hadn't been present, it would have been much like Azkaban.
Wooden benches lined the room at different levels, like a Quidditch stadium, only not nearly as welcoming. Although at least fifty people sat in the rows, many of the upper levels were conspicuously empty.
On one side of the room, the twelve witches and wizards of the Council of Magical Law sat stoically, elevated on a platform. Each of their hardened faces turned to him as he stumbled through the door.
Several members of the Wizengamot were present as well, marked by their purple robes and the silver W embroidered on their chests. They sat stonily in the rows just to the left of the Council.
Directly opposite the twelve was a long plank table. Hermione stood alone behind it, her chair pushed out, papers organized in three piles across its surface. She seemed small, standing there by herself on the empty floor. She had removed her cloak and outer robes to reveal a sleek gray skirt and a modest button-up blouse, its sleeves rolled up from the heat. She had an unreadable expression etched upon her face as she watched his entrance.
The rest of the crowd began to murmur angrily as he was led to a chair that was angled so he could see the Council, Wizengamot, and Hermione. The two Wizarding policemen flicked their wands over the shackles. Immediately the chains snaked around his wrists and ankles, tightening uncomfortably.
Draco's eyes were drawn to the crowd across from where he sat; a few of the faces were familiar to him. He recognized the werewolf professor, Lupin, and what must have been his cousin Nymphadora beside him. Only she would come to a Ministry court with lime green hair and startlingly violet eyes.
Several other Aurors sat around them, a number of whom Draco had had previous run-ins with. Two men with bright orange hair and freckles had to be Weasleys, easily recognizable by the family traits.
Draco searched a moment but couldn't find Harry Potter. He would have thought that the black-haired young man would be there, both to support Hermione and to see his childhood nemesis condemned.
Suddenly, an irritated tapping permeated the murmuring and all eyes went to Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister of Magic, as he hit his wand repeatedly on the wood in front of him where he sat among the Council.
"Order, order! Please, ladies and gentlemen, we have a case to proceed with!" The Minister's voice was gravelly and rough as it cut through the air, but the court soon quieted.
Scrimgeour nodded once then proceeded. "Thank you, Mr. Belby and Mr. Maddock," indicating at the nervous little man and Draco's Auror guard.
Then he turned back to the Council. "We have heard Draco Malfoy's defense as given by his attorney, Miss Granger, and her, uh, proposal for his sentence." He paused for a moment as the Wizengamot and Council scoffed mockingly.
"The case is exempt from witnesses, so it will continue with the trade of information about You-Know-Who, his followers, and his whereabouts. Miss Granger, would you please conduct?"
Hermione nodded curtly and shuffled through some papers before stepping towards Draco. Anger and frustration waved off of her as she came closer and looked up at Scrimegeour. She shot him a pointed look before turning to Draco again. She glanced at the court scribe, a scrawny young man who Draco recognized as a former student at Hogwarts, who nodded that he was ready.
She sighed once, as if calming herself before she spoke to him, using her official tone. "Draco Malfoy, you have been convicted of multiple crimes of a heinous nature. As agreed upon earlier in the case, your sentence may be lightened if you provide sufficient information on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Please start your disclosure with the names of witches and wizards you know are Death Eaters."
Then Hermione smiled encouragingly, small enough that only he would catch it. Swiftly he glanced around the room before he took a breath and spilled the words that could save him or kill him. He was betraying the Dark Lord, and there was no going back now.
With a decided smirk he began. "It would be my pleasure, Miss Granger. Let's see, there's Theodore Nott, Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe,"
Scrimgeour interrupted. "Those three have already been apprehended, Malfoy."
Draco raised his brows slightly. "Congratulations then. You managed to catch the Dark Lord's stupidest followers," he retorted sarcastically.
Whisperings broke out among the crowd and Scrimgeour had to rap his wand again.
"Please, Miss Granger, control your client," he said contemptously.
Hermione turned back to Draco, her eyes stern and her mouth set in a firm line. Draco's smirk faltered for a split second.
"Fine, I'll play nice. I apologize for my uncouth behavior, Minister," he said, seemingly ruefully. Only Hermione heard his underlying sarcasm, her lips upturned slightly in amusement.
Scrimgeour nodded suspiciously but conceded, "Proceed then, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco drummed his fingers rhythmically on his chair as he continued. "Hmmm. There's Blaise Zabini and his wife, Isabella. Pansy Parkinson, Stewart Ackerley, Ellie Branstone,"
"She's an upstanding healer at St. Mungo's!" one of the members of the Wizengamot called out.
Draco rolled his eyes. "She's also an undercover Deatheater. She was the one responsible for that Muggle massacre last year, along with Rose Zeller and Graham Pritchard."
There was a collective gasp among the audience. Even Hermione's eyes were wide in surprise, but she nodded for him to continue.
"Thomas Rednish, Emily Band, Graverly Stephens, Whittier Dawlish,"
"The Auror?" Scrimgeour asked in disbelief. Lupin and Tonks were staring at him, eyes wide and betrayed.
Draco nodded. "He's been a Death Eater for several years, feeding Ministry secrets to the Dark Lord. So has Cormac McLaggen, the Head of the Ministry Treasury."
Many of the Wizengamot members were shaking their heads and several wizards on the Council looked appropriately decieved.
He continued. "One of the Dark Lord's best sources is Herbert Chorley, the assistant to the Muggle Prime Minister. He's the reason the Dark Lord has been able to kill off several prominent Muggle leaders."
Scrimgeour's face was now contorted with rage. He seemed to be muttering under his breath. "I knew there was something about him that couldn't be trusted. Do you have any more names, Malfoy?"
Draco's brows crinkled pensively as he paused to think. "There's Bertie Higgs as well, although he hasn't been very active as of late. But he was the one that murdered Amelia Bones, the previous Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
The room was speechless as the crowd turned to the Minister. His mouth was dropped open in shock. Dazedly, Scrimgeour commented, "I used to go hunting with him. We were childhood friends."
After several moments of hushed silence, the Minister sat straight again, determination written across his weathered features. "Is that all, Mr. Malfoy?"
The sea of faces turned back to Draco and Hermione looked at him in awe.
He looked down at his hands before hesitantly continuing. "Horace Slughorn isn't exactly a Death Eater, but he's had a foot in the Dark Lord's circle for years. He provides a lot of materials for the Death Eaters, like rare potion ingredients. He has also backed them financially for awhile. But I can't remember any other Death Eaters you don't know about."
There was a lull of talk for a moment before Hermione spoke again, brisk and business-like.
"Now that you have given up the names of many," she paused to glance satisfactorily at the Council, "Death Eaters, is there anything you would like to share about You-Know-Who himself? Remember, if it's beneficial to the Ministry at all, you'll have your reward."
Glancing around once more, Draco focused his eyes back on Hermione as he spoke. "The Dark Lord has many plans for the future, one of them including a full-on attack of Ministry Headquarters. He plans to overthrow the Ministry so that he will have political control. I think that is planned to happen in two or three months."
The Council frowned, but didn't look surprised.
"He has also placed spies in nearly every major Wizarding area in Europe. There are several watching the Ministries in Paris, Madrid, Frankfurt, Dublin, even Moscow. In addition to Europe, he's staked out a few other, smaller areas like Cairo, Washington, D.C., and Montreal. He wants to cut off all of London's aid and eventually attack all of this Ministry's allies."
Hermione's own face reflected the shock that coursed through the rest of the room.
"He wants to take global control?" Scrimgeour asked.
Draco nodded. "Eventually, yes. He's very ambitious about exterminating those he deems not worthy of magic." He paused for a moment then spoke again, nonchalantly, as if what he said was of no importance.
"The Dark Lord has an obsession with defeating Harry Potter. Given the chance to take over the world or kill him, I think he'd choose to kill Potter. You can use that to your advantage." He stopped to glance at Hermione's reaction. She was looking at her feet, her hands clasped resolutely behind her back.
"He is almost immune to spells coming from a single person, so if you are going to battle him, it better be with more than one wizard. He has a particular hatred of anything associated with love or families and so spells that harness emotions related to those things can really affect him. His one weakness is his own heritage. It kills him that he's not a true pureblood and it's the only thing, beside Potter, that he'll lose his cool over. He's murdered some of his most faithful followers for just mentioning it."
Scrimgeour frowned but asked, "What about his headquarters, do you know where they are?"
With another glance at Hermione, as if Draco needed her strength for his next admittance, he continued.
"The Dark Lord's headquarters are hidden with a Secret-Keeper."
The Council murmured in frustration. "How are we supposed to find it then?" a woman from the Wizengamot section asked.
Draco glanced at her but turned to look at Hermione as he spoke.
"I tell you. You see, Voldemort made the mistake of making me his Secret-Keeper."
The crowd gasped again, both in horror of the spoken name and in the revelation that they had the most decisive information in their hands.
Hermione took a step closer to him, her eyes pleading. Her voice was broken as she begged, "Tell them where it is, Draco. It could end this war."
Her outward appearance remained collected and pulled together, but Draco knew how to read her eyes. Inside, all of her raw pain and distress was almost tangible to him.
Never pulling his eyes from hers, he quietly revealed the most pivotal knowledge of the Wizarding world.
"It's about 90 kilometers from here, out on the coast of the English Channel. 258 Downs Street, Dover, Kent. It looks like a little brick cottage."
The scribe's quill was the only sound as it scratched frantically across his parchment.
"Oh, and you can only get to it by four ways. There's an Apparation Point in the basement of the Riddle House, one on the back doorstep of the Shrieking Shack, one in the back of Knockturn Alley, and one around the corner from the Ministry in a little bookshop called Turning Pages. Occasionally he'll set up Portkeys for the Death Eaters if they have a particular mission that isn't near any of those points."
Scrimgeour finally spoke, a sort of revelatory tone coating his voice. "That means You-Know-Who has access to the most important Wizarding areas in London: Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and the Ministry and St. Mungo's."
Draco nodded in confirmation, but he kept his eyes on Hermione. She was breathing deeply, her eyes crinkled in relief, her face pale. But her eyes were alight with more hope than he had ever seen.
Scrimgeour's eyes were hard as he thought, his mind already planning a way to use this information. Distractedly, he nodded to Draco's escorts. "If that's all Mr. Malfoy, we'll have you escorted back to Azkaban while we deliberate." The Minister smirked for a moment while Draco was unchained and then turned to Hermione.
Draco was pulled into a standing position and pushed to follow Maddock out of the room. But he hadn't quite made it out the door before he heard Scrimgeour address Hermione.
"Counselor, if you would step forward. As The Wizengamot and the Council of Magical Law have earlier stated, your terms of Mr. Malfoy's punishment are ridiculous. There is no way we could give such a lenient punishment. But he did give us information, so it is most likely we will decide on a life of imprisonment instead of something worse."
The last sound Draco heard before the door shut heavily behind him was Hermione's outraged reply.
"But Minister, he willingly gave up knowledge that could very well turn the tides of this war and give us the advantage we so desperately need! We have a fighting chance now, yet you want to shut him away?"
Then one of the Wizarding police slammed the door shut, and all was silent once more.
A/N: Hurray for cliffhangers! I hope that you all are satisfied with that chapter, and I'm sorry it took me so long to update. I had surgery and quarter finals, but being an invalid finally gave me some time to write. I know it was very long, but I couldn't find a natural stopping point and I wanted to get the entire court scene into one chapter. Let me know how you liked it, I think there were a lot of errors and it wasn't quite up to my usual par. Maybe I'll edit it sometime.
Thanks to all of you who reviewed last chapter, I love you guys!