Draco woke disoriented in the second-floor bedroom, unsure why he had woken until the light tap on the door was repeated. He had not drawn the curtains the previous night before collapsing onto the bed, and sunlight streamed steeply down through the window. It was late morning.

"What?"

As the events of the previous day re-asserted themselves in his mind, Draco felt tiredness stealing back over him as if the sleep he'd apparently had was draining away. He wished he had been left to sleep.

"There's someone here to see you," Andromeda said, her voice muffled by the door. "A friend of yours…Ron brought him through the wards."

A friend? Draco narrowed his eyes confusedly at the door. "Who is it?"

"His name is Seamus."

Finnigan. Draco felt the sting of betrayal douse him quickly back into wakefulness. A friend, was he? The revelation earlier in the trial that Finnigan was trained in psychological Healing still gnawed at Draco's nerves. Finnigan should have told him—but instead, the Healer had encouraged him to speak about his dead wife. Under the guise of a friend, Finnigan had tricked Draco into being his latest project.

"If you don't want to talk to him, I'll tell him to come back another time."

"No," Draco said firmly, sliding off the bed. "No, I'll talk to him."

He dressed quickly and descended the stairs, allowing the resentment he felt to build into potent aggression. It was all too easy to twist the burn of deceit into cold savagery; by the time he entered the front room, he could almost welcome the anger. In comparison with the past few weeks it was far better than the alternatives.

Finnigan stood quickly as Draco came in, looking nervous. He opened his mouth to speak, but Draco cut him off..

"Why are you here?" he asked harshly. He found himself hoping Finnigan would respond in kind. Draco wanted a fight, and at the moment there was no one he wanted to fight more than the untrustworthy Healer.

"I just wanted—I'm sorry about the trial," Finnigan said awkwardly, discomfited by the inhospitable reception. "I didn't know Dawlish was going to—I would have warned you—"

It had not occurred to Draco to be angry at Finnigan for the testimony he had provided, although it had surely strengthened the case against him. Finnigan had only answered the questions truthfully, unprepared for the Minister to twist them into a false narrative of his own creation. However, Draco was not about to say this.

"Psychological Healing," he spat, stopping Finnigan dead. "You never told me that."

"It—It didn't seem relevant."

"Not…relevant." Draco crossed his arms over his chest. "I suppose you just wanted me to talk about Astoria as a friend."

"Oh, come on," Finnigan said unhappily. "I was just trying to—"

"To what?" Draco glared at him. "What am I to you? A project?"

"No!" Finnigan protested, visibly upset. "No, of course not. It wasn't like that. I wasn't trying to—"

"It wasn't like that," Draco repeated with heavy sarcasm. "How, exactly, was it? Because I'll tell you what it sounds like to me—"

"Draco, please! I was only trying to help!"

"Help? You tricked me!" Draco snarled. "You lied to me. I thought you were my friend."

"I am your friend."

"No, you're not!" Draco half-shouted at him. "Apparently you're my counselor, and I'm the only one who didn't know!"

At that moment there was a loud knock and before either of them could respond, the door opened to admit Weasley. He was scowling. "You can stop yelling now," he said to Draco, who glared at him in almost speechless fury.

"You were listening?"

"You weren't exactly keeping your voice down," Weasley retorted. "Listen, if you're going to be mad at someone, be mad at me. I'm the one who asked Seamus to come talk to you in the first place."

This statement was so nonsensical that Draco found it difficult to maintain the momentum of his anger. "What are you talking about?"

"The day Harry interviewed you—you lost your damn mind in the Minister's office," Weasley told him bluntly. "If you were in my department—"

"Well, I'm not in your department," Draco growled.

"Thank Merlin for that," Weasley shot back. "You'd make a terrible Auror. But that's not the point." He made a visible effort to calm himself. "But if you were one of my Aurors, I'd have referred you for counseling. I know Seamus can keep his mouth shut, so I asked him if there was anything he could do, and he said he'd come talk to you. Alright? You can blame me for it, if you like, or you can stop acting immature. We couldn't put you in front of the Wizengamot if you were going to try to attack the Minister."

Weasley's strange comments following the mistrial were beginning to make sense. He'd implied in a conversation with Potter that the debacle of Finnigan's testimony before the court had in some way been his fault, which, it now appeared, it had been.

"And I came as a friend," Finnigan put in. "Honestly. I was worried—"

"I doubt I would have had the chance to," Draco said coldly to Weasley, ignoring Finnigan. "You made that decision for me, didn't you?"

"Ah," Weasley said with a humorless grin. "Muffliato. It's a convenient little spell, I admit. But you didn't really want to hear what Dawlish was saying, I can promise you that."

On that score, Draco knew the Auror was right. However, that wasn't the point. He felt as if they had all been talking behind his back, talking about him, never giving him the chance to speak for himself or be anything more than a problem to be shuffled around and dealt with as necessary. He hadn't been given a choice. There had been precious little of choice in his life in the last few months, and they had taken away the last few pieces of it that still remained to him. How many of those who were supposedly allies had known about this? Potter, surely; Granger, Thomas, and who else? He had been the only one left in ignorance. Humiliation crawled sourly in his stomach.

"That wasn't your choice to make," he said, in a voice that trembled with resentment. Weasley sighed and crossed his arms defensively.

"Look, Malfoy. I'm gonna try to explain this to you, and I'm only going to say it once. I don't like you, and I won't pretend to. But what the Minister tried to do to you was wrong. Now, I can't make that right by you, and neither can Harry, as much as he tries. But I have been trying to do right by your son. He needs a father who's—well, first, not in prison—but also who's able to help him through something—some things—that no kid that age should ever have to deal with. And what I saw in the Minister's office was not a person who could do that.

"So if you want to be a prick about this—fine, go right ahead. I don't care what you do. But you might stop to think about Scorpius, because that's what I've been trying to do all along. If I was in your position, I'd want someone to be thinking about what my kids needed."

Weasley shrugged as he finished. He looked deeply discomfited with the frankness of his words. Despite the embarrassment that he still felt, Draco found it increasingly difficult to hold on to the self-righteousness of his anger. He felt very slightly ashamed of himself, and he did not like it. He'd had far too much of that for comfort in his life.

"In that case," he said, coolly, "I appreciate your concern for my son, but you have no reason to continue to interfere with him or with me. So I'd thank you to leave. And there won't be any need for you to come back, Finnigan."

"I'm your friend," Finnigan said, sounding hurt. "I only wanted to help."

"I'm starting to think he wouldn't know help if it punched him in the face," Weasley said distastefully, back to his usual self in a moment. "Not that I wouldn't like to try, mind. Come on, Seamus. Let's go."

Finnigan's face as he left looked almost as wretched as Draco felt.

"I finally had the chance to read your case against the Minister."

In the frenetic activity of the past two days, the case he had put together against Dawlish had already sunk low in Draco's thoughts. Granger pushed a few pieces of paper, covered with her neat handwriting, across to him.

"It's a bit more organized now."

"Oh."

It was late afternoon. Potter, Weasley, and Granger had gathered in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place to discuss the beginning of the Minister's trial on the following morning. In light of the Minister's repeated and vicious attacks on Draco in court, which had been proven unfounded, along with the book of records detailing the surveillance Dawlish had illegally ordered on Draco, Potter had been able to convince the Wizengamot to forego the hearing that usually preceded such a trial. It was extremely short-notice, and Draco suspected that the Wizengamot was becoming heartily sick of watching the same people arguing fiercely with each other day-in and day-out.

In the background, Andromeda moved between the stove and the sink, making supper. Draco had slept most of the day, and that combined with the absence of his own trial hanging over his head had conspired to leave him feeling slightly more human than he had in a while. Although only that morning he had been fiercely arguing with Weasley, Draco found that the immediate irritation had worn down, leaving only the dull ache of resentment directed more towards Finnigan than Weasley. From the Auror's stiff manner, Draco suspected that he did not feel the same.

"It's…very good," Granger admitted. "You're trying to put him out of office, aren't you?"

"I thought you wanted that."

"Mm," Granger hummed noncommittally, glancing sideways at Weasley and Potter. "It's not as simple as it may sound. Elphias has been more than pulling his weight in the Wizengamot so far, but I'm not sure if he'd be willing to help us push this through. And you know how Bagman is…they may be willing to slap Dawlish on the wrist, perhaps a misdemeanor, which should be enough to stop him from conducting illegal surveillance on…well, people he doesn't like. But a felony—it's never happened before, and I'd have to think that almost forces the Wizengamot to at least try to remove him from office. I don't know if they'd be willing to go that far."

"How convenient," Draco said snidely. "The Wizengamot's willing to follow the letter of their own damn law up until it's not convenient. According to the law, what he did was a felony, and—"

"Hang on," Potter said, raising a hand. He still looked tired, though much less sick than he had the last time they had convened in this room. "I'm sorry Hermione, I haven't had the chance to read your case. How is the surveillance a felony?"

"It's really Malfoy's case," Granger said graciously, and Draco took that as his cue to explain.

"The surveillance isn't a felony," Draco told him. "That's only one of the charges, and we're putting it under 'unauthorized violation of privacy'."

"Which isn't as serious of a crime as it should be," Granger said. "It's a shame we can't put together a class-action. But this should force him to halt the surveillance, and he'll be under a closer watch even if he does stay in office."

"A class-action?" Draco asked Granger, puzzled by the term.

"It's something in Muggle law," she explained. "When a group of people go to trial together against someone who committed the same crime against all of them…it's not in Wizarding law, though it should be."

"If it's a minor charge, then where's the felony coming from?" Potter asked.

"Attempted poisoning," Draco said with grim satisfaction. "And that is a felony."

"Poisoning?" Potter looked doubtful. "Veritaserum isn't a poison—"

"Isn't it?" Draco asked pointedly. "Allow me to enlighten you, Potter. The crime of poisoning requires the knowing and intentional administration, to a non-consenting individual, of a substance known or suspected to cause harm, sickness, or death. As it happens, Veritaserum can very rarely cause an adverse reaction resulting in illness. There was even an occasion when the reaction was fatal. In that case it was a severe overdose anyway, but the law doesn't make any mention of amount."

"So technically, Veritaserum is a substance known to cause harm."

"Correct. And as I didn't give permission for the Minister to administer it, I was a non-consenting individual. By the letter of the law, he tried to poison me. It doesn't matter that he didn't intend to physically harm me; as long as he intended to administer the substance, the charge fits. It's a legal hole the size of a Quidditch field, if you ask me, but that's the law."

"I wouldn't have thought to push for such a serious charge," Granger said, "but Malfoy's right. If we want to remove him from office, this is the way to go. So I think that's what we have to decide. Are we really going to take a side against him? Originally, we supported his campaign for Minister. Do we really want to have him removed?"

"It's my choice," Draco said angrily. Granger raised an eyebrow at him.

"And it's our choice whether to speak as witnesses for the prosecution or not. But I'm not saying I disagree with your case, Malfoy. It's just that we need to think this through."

"From what Harry's told me, it's either Dawlish or you," Andromeda spoke up from the stove. "All of you work for the Ministry…He can't fire any of you during this, of course. But if Dawlish is still Minister when this is over, he's not going to want anything to do with you three. And once he's rid of you, do you really think he won't go right back to what he's been doing? He's not someone I want in charge of the Ministry, and I'd rather live in a country with Harry as Head Auror, especially now."

Draco had been nodding in agreement, but hastily desisted at Andromeda's final sentence. Though he wasn't willing to show it, however, he knew she was right. If anyone in the world had a chance of finding a way to free him from being continually hunted by Dementors, it was probably Potter. The Head Auror had managed the impossible more times than Draco cared to remember, and as uncomfortable as it was to put his faith in someone he'd thoroughly disliked since childhood, there was really nowhere else to put his hopes.

"So would I," Granger said, with a smile, and Weasley gave Potter a heartening pat on the back.

"Better you than Dawlish, Harry."

"I'm not going to be Minister," Potter said in alarm. "Don't make it sound like that…I'm sure the Wizengamot would only choose someone for the interim until an election can be organized. But I'm not even sure we'll get that far. We still have to convince the Wizengamot of all this."

"That's what this is for," Granger said, placing her hand on the stack of papers in front of her. "We may just have a shot. We have the book with all of the surveillance records, and we have you as a witness to the Minister trying to give Malfoy Veritaserum. Ron heard a lot of that, too. I don't know that Malfoy's testimony will mean much to the Wizengamot, unless he consents to Veritaserum again…"

She glanced at Draco, and despite the stern looks that Weasley and Andromeda sent his way, Draco shook his head firmly.

"…but I don't think that would help the case anyway. We have strong proof of what happened; the difficulty will be in convincing the Wizengamot that it needs to be taken seriously, and that Dawlish's position shouldn't protect him."

Potter ran a hand through his messy hair and grinned weakly. "Well, then…I guess we're staging a coup?"

"I think you're more than qualified to do so," Andromeda said wryly, "given that you started an army for that purpose at the age of fifteen…"

"That's not what the DA was for," Potter protested, as Weasley laughed. "And it wasn't my idea then either."

Draco looked between them, feeling not for the first time extremely out of place. He could recognize faint hints in their words of events that he had apparently misunderstood thoroughly during the time they had been at Hogwarts together, but he could not quite piece together what they were talking about or what Weasley apparently found so funny. Underneath the confusion of trying to deduce what they were talking about, he felt the stirrings of an old familiar jealousy and tried vainly to put it out of his mind.

"Does that mean you'll do it?" he ventured hesitantly, and Granger nodded, looking as if she couldn't quite believe what she was agreeing to.

It was strange to be seated along the side of the courtroom rather than in the center, but Draco had no objection to the change. He watched the members of the Wizengamot from the corner of his eye, wondering how many of them would support Dawlish regardless of their beliefs about his guilt or innocence.

Granger placed a magnifying charm on the black leather gold-trimmed book that held three years' worth of images, notes, and reports on the activities of Draco and others. As she spoke at length to the court about the contents of the book, she paged slowly through it and Draco found himself staring at a series of photographs in which Astoria walked with him, spoke with him, and carried a younger Scorpius. In one, she was holding Draco's hand. For a moment he could almost feel her touch. He felt as if the moving pictures were windows through which he looked into the better past.

At length, Granger returned to the side of the courtroom to sit beside Draco, and Potter got up to interview a rather frightened young Auror about two reports that she had written on Draco's movements. The book lay open to one of these reports, and Draco watched the image it revealed as he walked through Diagon Alley beside Astoria, who had one arm around his waist and Scorpius's hand in hers. The picture had been taken from behind, and he could not see their faces, but he thought he could remember the occasion. It had been just over a year ago.

If he had known then that he only had a year left with her, Draco wondered, would he have done anything different? He wanted to think not, but how could anyone possibly know the answer to a question like that?

Draco was beginning to feel light-headed. He had a terrible suspicion that this stifling room with its inescapable images of his dead wife would crush him alive if he didn't get out of it.

"Pardon me," he murmured to Granger, and as she turned toward him he got up and quietly climbed the steps to the side door at the top of the rows of seats. In the narrow hallway that circled the outside of the courtroom, he sank down onto a bench against the wall and leaned his head back against the stone wall. His hands were clammy on the cold surface of the bench and he breathed heavily. The pictures of Astoria replayed in his mind, superimposed over his memories of her last moments alive in an unsettling blur.

The door opened and Draco quickly straightened, forcing his face into a veneer of calm as Granger stepped into the hallway.

"Are you alright?" she asked him, frowning slightly in concern.

"Do I…have to be here?" Draco asked, unwilling to answer the question. His voice was not as strong as he'd hoped it would sound.

"Not if you don't want to," Granger said in an gentler tone. "If you'd rather not stay, I can have Ron take you to Harry's office so you can Floo back to Grimmauld Place."

Weasley was the last person Draco wanted to interact with right now, but he nodded tightly. "Please."

"He'll be out in a moment," Granger said, and went back into the courtroom. Draco rubbed the palms of his hands on his robes and took a few quick, shaky breaths to calm down. They're only pictures. But it wasn't the pictures that troubled him so much as the memories that they dragged into the front of his mind—the memories that he could not seem to be rid of, that had a habit of reappearing to haunt him at the most inconvenient moments.

Draco rose to his feet as the door opened for a second time, not wanting Weasley to see how shaken he was. He followed the red-haired Auror along the interior passageway and out into the main corridor beyond, where as on the previous occasion a number of people had gathered. Draco blinked as a bright light flashed over him and Weasley. Two or three of the group had cameras, he saw, and there was a preponderance of Quick-Quotes quills among them.

"Sod off," Weasley said, annoyed, as the group of reporters clustered forward in a tangle of curious inquiries. He pulled out his wand and flicked it warningly towards them, causing several of the reporters to jump backward. "Come on," he muttered to Draco, who followed him through the continued questions and flashes of light toward the entrance to the Auror Department at the end of the hallway. He could hear his name spoken behind him, but the demands of the journalists blended together into a rumble of noise.

"Mr. Malfoy!" a voice shouted, above the others, "is it true that you're on trial for murdering your wife?"

"What?"

Draco stopped dead, absolutely stunned. He started to turn back, but suddenly Weasley was beside him with a firm grip on his upper arm.

"Let's go." The Auror propelled him forcibly along the hallway and into the Auror Department amid a renewed storm of questions. He did not let go of Draco until the door of Potter's office had closed behind both of them.

"What—what was—" Draco could not put together a coherent sentence. He was badly shaken and felt nauseous. Weasley hurriedly pulled a chair out from the desk with a flick of his wand.

"Sit down."

Draco half-sat and half-collapsed into the chair. Weasley said, "Because the Minister's involved, we haven't been able to release a statement about the trials yet."

"So you—" Draco could not catch his breath. "You told them—"

"No, of course not. I told you, we couldn't release any statement. They're mad to know what's going on, and they've been throwing around all kinds of wild theories. We'll tell them the truth as soon as we legally can."

"But they—that's—"

"It's rubbish," Weasley said coolly. "Yes, of course it is. No one who knows anything listens to them."

"Is that what they've been putting in the papers?" Draco asked in a strangled voice. Weasley shrugged.

"Who cares? They'd rather have scandal than truth, it's always been like that. Give it two weeks and no one will even remember—"

"They're saying I murdered my wife!" Draco's voice was shrill with border-line hysteria.

"And tomorrow they'll be saying the Minister tried to murder you. It doesn't matter what they say, it's nonsense either way—"

"It matters to me!" Draco cried. "I loved Astoria, I would never do anything to hurt her!"

"Malfoy, we know it's rubbish," Weasley said very firmly.

But that wasn't what mattered right now. The horror of the accusation choked and blinded Draco. The office smothered him.

"I—I have to go," Draco stammered, although he was not sure he could even stand at the moment.

"I don't think so," Weasley said. "I'm not letting you go back to your son until you've calmed down."

Draco clenched his hands together so tightly that it hurt, willing himself not to have a breakdown in front of the detested Auror. Through the chaos of his thoughts, he heard Weasley speaking again.

"They've said crap about all of us at one point or another. It's all going to blow over as soon as this trial is finished. Whatever the outcome, we'll be able to release some kind of statement about what happened, and that'll shut them up."

Draco did not understand how the Auror could sound so unconcerned about the matter. But then, Weasley was not the one who had just been asked if he had murdered his beloved wife who he'd far from finished grieving.

"Don't let it get to you too much," Weasley was saying. His voice was low and unruffled. "Nobody believes them. They're only making up stories to stir things up, it's better not to react to them and they'll get bored sooner or later."

Draco found himself listening to the words despite himself. It was better than his own racing thoughts; he felt the tightness in his chest easing slightly as his attention turned from his own panic to the Auror's calm voice.

"I've heard even stupider stories than that," Weasley was saying. "Don't worry about it. They're not worth the time it takes to wonder where they come up with this crap. Just ignore them, and we'll set the record straight as soon as we can. It's just because the Minister's involved that we can't release a statement. We don't want to give him the chance to come back accusing us of slander, and there's legal precedent that sets a lower bar for what's considered slander when it comes to the Minister of Magic. Not necessarily a good thing, but there you have it. Protects him from his own jackals, I suppose. Well, they'll get to him soon enough when this is over and we can release what really happened."

Weasley had moved to fiddle with something by the fireplace, and while his back was turned Draco pressed his fingers briefly into his eyes to dry them. He hoped that the Auror had somehow failed to observe how close he'd come to making a complete fool of himself.

"Anyway, just ignore them," Weasley finished. "We'll have it taken care of as soon as we can." He cast an appraising glance over Draco as he turned back towards him. Draco wondered uncomfortably what showed in his face, but Weasley seemed satisfied with what he saw. He held out a small dish of green Floo powder. The fine grains stuck to the moisture on Draco's fingers when he took a handful. He wanted to throw the stuff into the fireplace and be gone as soon as he possibly could, but something held him back.

"I—er—thank you," he said awkwardly. Directed to the loathed Weasley, the words tasted bitter in his mouth. Draco turned his back quickly on the Auror's surprised expression and dropped the Floo powder into the fire.

"Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place."

Andromeda seemed surprised at Draco's premature return from the Minister's trial, but fortunately she did not ply him with questions and only offered to heat up leftovers from lunch. Although it was already mid-afternoon and he had eaten only a few bites of food that morning, Draco did not think he could stomach anything at the moment. Scorpius appeared presently to greet him with the exciting news that Teddy had managed to make the slinky walk eleven steps across the floor.

Draco felt his heart lightening at the sight of his son's childish excitement. Scorpius might have been through a terrible few months, but at least he had not entirely lost the innocent playfulness that surely must have come from Astoria. He joined the two boys in attempting to walk the slinky down an entire flight of stairs, which was considerably more difficult than he had expected and wasted nearly two hours. He had expected Granger or Potter to show up with news at some point, but as the afternoon grew later and gradually evolved into early evening there was still no sign of them. To distract himself from the growing tension he felt, Draco joined his son in a game of hide-and-seek, for which the big old house was well-suited.

"You can't find me and Teddy," Scorpius giggled conspiratorially.

"Teddy and I," Draco corrected, ruffling Scorpius's silky hair. "Just stay out of the drawing room," he added, to Teddy, whose mischievous grin did not reassure Draco that his instruction would be followed.

Scorpius and Teddy were nowhere to be found on the first floor following a brief wait, and with a resigned sigh Draco climbed the stairs toward the drawing room, following a sneaking suspicion that Teddy's strategy involved hiding somewhere that Draco would be less likely to look, having told the boys to stay out of the room. The door was closed when he approached, but Draco thought he heard a slight sound from inside and hoped, as he turned the handle, that it was only Teddy and Scorpius instead of another Boggart.

The room was empty, except for the sofa on one side and the chest of drawers at the far end, but Draco could see immediately that someone had been in here. One of the drawers of the heavy wooden chest was open. Perhaps Teddy and Scorpius had hidden behind the furniture; there was certainly enough room there to hide them. As he approached the object, the open drawer drew his eyes again. Draco squinted at it in the dim light. There was something odd about the drawer. Although from the outside it was clearly only a number of inches deep, he could not see the bottom of the drawer when he looked into it. Could it have an Undetectable Extension Charm on it? If so, had Teddy and Scorpius climbed into it to hide?

"Scorpius?" Draco asked uneasily. "Are you there?"

He heard nothing in response, but the feeling of apprehension only grew. "Teddy?" He reached into the drawer, and as he did he felt his hand sink into what felt like a rubbery fluid. With a gasp of alarm he tried to pull his hand away, but there was a sudden sensation of the entire drawing room spinning wildly around him, and then he was falling through black, airless emptiness, trying desperately to grab onto something—

A solid but uneven surface seemed to leap up towards him as the blackness vanished and Draco caught only a whirling glimpse of his surroundings before the ground slammed into him as he landed heavily with one leg twisted under him. A searing pain shot through his left ankle, so intense that his vision momentarily blackened and he was too disoriented even to try to comprehend what had happened.