"Level two. Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
Joey let her eyes adjust to the flickering brightness of the corridor, stretching in seeming endlessness before her. The sconces filled with scarlet flames; the slate gray stone walls, and dark, polished wooden floors created an intimidating aura - precisely what the Ministry intended with a remodel, Joey heard, after being broken into a few years back.
"Are you getting out or not?" asked a stooped wizard in forest-green robes.
Joey realized she was standing nose to the grate, hands hanging limp at her sides. "Yes," she mumbled, too preoccupied with her thoughts to apologize as she stepped out of the lift.
Draco had approached her two days ago at the Academy, where Joey, as their mission's leader, had been filling out some last-minute paperwork before Commander Connors gave their next assignment. Draco had been nervous, unshaven, nails bitten down to the beds, and strangely, unaccompanied by Harry. Joey had been surprised to see him out of his flat, especially after what happened to his father. Still, she'd supposed she couldn't blame Draco for getting over it fast. Fathers weren't worth a lot of time and energy in her experience.
"I'm under an indentureship," Draco had blurted, without even a greeting, and Joey, shocked and confused, lent a willing ear. Draco told her about the Ministry's assignment of him to a twenty-year Auror job, in payment for… something. He'd skimped on the details, rapping his fingertips on the table, wiping at his face, and generally behaving like a wreck. Draco's wellbeing wasn't exactly Joey's responsibility, she knew - but something strange was going on. Draco didn't want Harry involved, and she intended to get to the bottom of all of it.
"I know who to talk to," Joey had assured him. "Give me a few days. It'll be hard to get an audience, even for me."
"What do you mean, even for you?"
"Tell you later."
As the lift rattled away, a short, mousy-haired secretary emerged from a nearby door. "Ms. Clarke?" she said softly.
"Auror Clarke," Joey corrected through gritted teeth.
"My apologies, Auror. Please, follow me. Commander Danjuma is ready for you."
About damn time, Joey thought, with an eye-roll behind the secretary's back for good measure - Draco's mannerisms must have been rubbing off on her. The English Ministry of Magic, Joey had found, had a terrible track record of making meetings on time. She'd accept it as an intimidation or weakening tactic towards enemies, maybe. But the Head Auror, deliberately making a valued subordinate uncomfortable? Downright tasteless.
The secretary knocked once on the door. "Come in," Commander Danjuma called, and Joey was let inside.
The office hadn't changed since she'd last been in it, about half a year ago. A fireplace flickered with heatless flames, the large desk and gold nameplate upon it was polished to a high shine, and the enchanted window showed the same, timeless view. The carpeted crags of the Mbe mountains rose high over a small hut, its chimney eternally trailing with smoke. Joey had never seen this place in person, but her mother's many sisters had described the mountaintops, the surrounding trees, the weathered mud of the house's walls. The ancestral home of the Obianagha bloodline - Joey's mother's maiden name.
"Joanne." The Head Auror stood from her desk, spreading her arms wide in welcome. "Please, have a seat. It's been too long since we've caught up." She spoke in Igbo, and the familiarity of the language Joey hadn't heard in months sent a jolt down her spine.
"I've come for business, not family, Aunt Caroline," Joey said in English, remaining on her feet.
"So you use a 'business' language, eh?" Caroline asked wryly, brow crinkling. She sat heavily into the armchair behind her desk. "Make your poor auntie stumble through her words."
"You do no stumbling," Joey said roughly in Igbo, then switched back. "Speak in what you like. I'm here to discuss a coll- um, friend of mine."
"A friend?" Caroline repeated, abandoning her native tongue. She interlaced her fingers and nodded again at the chairs before her desk, but Joey did not move.
"Draco Malfoy." At his name, Caroline immediately stiffened. "He's another junior Auror I worked with on a mission that ended about a week ago. He attended Cambridge Auror Academy with a focus on potions and healing, yet our mission saw much more combat than intended."
"I know this information, Joanne," Caroline said wearily. "I have examined all my Aurors' files in great extent."
"I have discovered that Auror Malfoy's goals did not align with his current career," Joey said, speaking over her and deliberately leaving out that Draco had approached her himself. "Maybe he chose to follow in the footsteps of one Harry Potter. But that can't be the only reason. I don't buy it."
The whoosh of the flames in the fireplace and the creaking of the boards above them filled the silence. Joey clasped her hands behind her back to keep them from shaking. Every moment of Caroline's silence made her angrier. Caroline had left the sisterhood behind, had packed up for England the second that Joey's mother died, leaving Joey in the clutches of her father. She'd barely kept in contact with Joey, and only when she was a full-fledged adult did she extend any sort of favor: a place at her own school, where Caroline could keep reins on her niece.
It didn't feel much like familial love to Joey. It felt like an indentureship. Which, apparently, Caroline had experience with.
"Did Auror Malfoy tell you about his past?" Caroline asked.
"I know he was a Death Eater. I also heard he was acquitted."
"Acquitted of what, exactly?" A desk drawer slid open. Caroline reached inside and pulled out a slim folder, yellowed with age. She tossed it onto the desk and waited.
Curiosity got the better of Joey, and she came forward, opening the folder and spreading out its contents. "Acquitted of lots of things, I imagine," she muttered, eyes roving over newspaper articles, Wizengamot reports, Azkaban records. Bellatrix, Abraxas, Narcissa, Lucius - Draco's family, Joey realized with a jolt - and all their crimes lay before her in black ink. "Breaking and entering, maybe. Uses of Dark magic, destruction of property…." Joey trailed off as her eyes fell upon a newspaper article depicting a younger, thinner Draco, his eyes haunted, shadows beneath his eyes and cheekbones.
"Murder," Caroline said quietly.
Death Eater, Heir to the Malfoy Fortune, Suspect in the Murder of Darla Major.
The name meant nothing to Joey. She stared at one word in the headline, the word that turned her trusted friend and colleague into a cold-blooded killer.
Joey's gaze flicked again to Draco's photo. He couldn't have been older than seventeen, his eyes hollow, pleading. She wondered how long he'd had that look in his eighth year - when the war had finished, but its wounds were fresh.
"Darla Major was a twelve-year-old Muggle," Caroline said gravely, once she realized Joey wasn't going to read the rest of the article. "The niece of England's Prime Minister. I do not know if Draco knew that. The Death Eaters killed Muggles indiscriminately in those days."
Joey briefly shut her eyes. It was hitting her again, that fear, the injustice-fueled rage that came when she first realized that a member of a pureblood supremacist syndicate was serving on law enforcement. But she knew Draco better now. He'd healed her, fought for her, did his best to keep their trio safe like any Auror would. And she remembered, too, that steely yet hurt gaze in his eyes when she held a gun to his head, as if he was saying, I didn't do whatever you think I did.
"You're not telling me everything," Joey said decisively, jabbing the article. "If this got out, if this was true, there is no way the Academy would let him in. And if it did, the news would spread like wildfire."
"These are the facts, Joanne," Caroline said irritably, "Draco's wand cast the spell that killed Major. We extracted Draco's memory, observed it, and replaced it without his knowledge."
"You did what!" Joey cried.
"Draco prepared to kill Major on Voldemort's orders," Caroline continued. "He raised his wand, blacked out from stress, and when he woke up, Major was dead. Fill blanks."
"Did he get a trial?"
"No," Caroline began, and Joey growled in frustration, turning her back to face the window. "If he had a trial, he would have been found guilty, Joanne. Serving as an Auror will erase the blame."
"That is not your decision to make."
"I was protecting a child from his own mistakes!" Caroline bellowed in Igbo.
"Draco is older than I am!" Joey whirled, fists clenched at her sides. "Do you know how many people I've killed for what I believe in?"
"Silence, nwa nwanne." Caroline widened her eyes, shaking her head fervently.
"Guess."
Caroline pressed her lips into a thin line.
"Six." Joey's hands relaxed, and she was unable to meet her aunt's eyes. "The sisterhood taught me that life was precious. And then they trained me to take it when they thought it was necessary."
"You should not say these things to me," Caroline said in English. "Not here."
"The Ministry can't prove any of it," Joey said darkly. "My record is spotless, remember? You did that."
She looked at the hut again, at the crags and thick forest surrounding it, teeming with beasts and providing plenty of places to hide. A dangerous place, despite its beauty. Untamed.
"I will not hide the things I've done," Joey said. "And neither will Draco. He will face a fair trial. Like he should have years ago."
"You are still under my command, Joanne," Caroline said warningly.
Joey glared at her. "I'm finished here. Think about what I've said." She turned, heading for the door.
"Joanne."
She stopped but did not look, hand resting on the doorknob.
"Your mother would have accepted my decision. Being stubborn, seeking your own version of justice, even compromising safety of others. That is a choice your father would have made."
Joey clenched her jaw. "No, Auntie. This is my choice alone." She closed the door without looking back.
• • •
The first weekend in August came and went with a gray, heavy downpour that kept Joey indoors, sitting by her bedroom window and downing ridiculous amounts of hibiscus tea, watching Cambridge college students hurry through the rain, coats over their heads. Joey wondered what Harry and Draco were up to; she preferred solitude and didn't feel pressured to invite them over. Still, it worried her that she hadn't heard from either of them since Draco approached.
Commander Connors had informed the junior Aurors that they would be moving into their new offices at the Ministry the following week. Joey woke early on Monday morning to iron her uniform, cook breakfast, and fret over her hair. It was still short, aided by a hair tonic, but Joey hadn't yet decided if she wanted to wear braids or curls.
She took the Tube to London for the novelty of it, and despite folding up her shrinkable outer robes, earned a few strange looks from the Muggles for the military-like outfit.
At eight o'clock, the atrium at the Ministry was crowded, wizards in robes of all colors erupting from the fireplaces, opening their Daily Prophets, and chattering to each other as they headed for their respective offices. Joey spotted a crowd of gray uniforms near the golden fountain in the center and made a beeline for it, careful not to meet any strangers' eyes.
The fountain's water gushed from the twisting branches of an unidentifiable tree, gilded in silver, its leaves dripping with tiny topazes, sapphires, and opals far above their heads. Joey stopped to look at it as she reached the edge of the group of Aurors, their voices mixing with the splashes in garbled background noise. Harry was nowhere to be seen; Joey didn't look for him. She closed her eyes and listened to the water flow on and on….
Joey followed the group of juniors as they were led by an older Auror to their new offices. She felt a flash of indignation at the absence of Caroline Danjuma - perhaps she'd been scared off by Joey's confrontation, or otherwise, she was working on a solution to Draco's problem. Joey suspected the former. Though she'd heard that Head Auror Danjuma's deeds had been great in her youth, both she and Joey shared the Obianagha quality of dealing horribly with personal conflict.
"Draco didn't get one?" Harry asked, and Joey blinked at him with a start, realizing that she hadn't been fully aware of her surroundings. What's the matter with me?
"Didn't get what?" Joey ran her hands absentmindedly over the back of her designated chair. Each chamber in the Auror division had been separated into four desks, with the original trios sharing space with a more experienced Auror. The chamber was cozy, the cherrywood furnishings shining with polish. Cubicles separating the desks were lined in cork, pockmarked with pinholes from previous owners.
"A desk." Harry leaned against his own desk and cast a mournful glance at the one opposite; its surface was empty, unlike Joey's and Harry's, which bore silver nameplates. The third plate read Bennyson Carraway and was surrounded by clutter, including a moving figurine of a Quidditch player and a mug filled with quills.
Joey frowned. "Have you… heard from Draco lately?" She said carefully.
"No, have you?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.
It took only a few moments of Joey's hesitation as she decided what lie to tell for Harry to figure it out. His expression clouded. Christ's sake. Harry was the most emotionally perceptive person she had ever met, unfortunately for her intentions.
"Fucking unbelievable," he growled, kicking his chair, and it teetered for a second before clattering to the ground. Joey flinched, but Harry's anger seemed to be aimed more at Draco than anyone else. "A week and a half, and nothing. No owls, no hints, no 'hey darling! I'm going to run away to some unfindable place where I could be in danger!'" Harry fell off into angry muttering, pacing the floor. His robes were beginning to smoke.
"You don't know where he is?"
"No, I bloody well don't!" Harry rounded on Joey, and she raised a brow. He might be the Chosen One, but if he planned to fight her, she wasn't going down easy. "When did he talk to you? And what about?"
"Haven't you considered that he might want that kept private?"
"Merlin, Joey, I'm his husb- his boyfriend!" Harry clammed up, cheeks rosing, and meekly righted his chair as if he hadn't been yelling a moment ago.
Joey bit down a sudden grin and pretended as if she hadn't heard his slip-up. "He told me about… you know."
Harry's brow furrowed. "About what?" He asked, latching onto the opportunity to change subjects.
Joey lowered her voice, furtively glancing around the wall of the next cubicle to make sure no one was listening. "The indentureship."
Harry inhaled sharply. "He told you…?" He seemed perplexed, lost for words.
"Listen, Harry, I can help," Joey assured him. "I talked to the Head Auror. I think I might have gotten through to her. Draco needs a trial. He's never had one. I don't think he really…." She made a slicing motion across her throat. "That girl. I'm sure you don't, either."
Harry seemed too flabbergasted to speak. He flipped his chair around and sat, so he was facing Joey. Feeling as if she'd laid all her cards on the table, Joey waited.
Finally, Harry repeated, "He didn't tell me any of this. I want to know that he's okay. Where can I find him?"
Joey wanted to grab Harry by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. Instead, she sighed, rubbing her face. "Consider this, Harry: Maybe Draco doesn't want to be found." Harry opened his mouth to argue, and Joey talked over him. "He can take care of himself. He doesn't need a babysitter."
"I never said-"
"Draco needs someone to be there for him at the right time," Joey insisted. "He can take care of himself. Hasn't it occurred to you that he might be staying with someone else he can trust?"
Harry considered this. "Hermione and Ron haven't seen him. Andromeda said…" His face lit up. "Actually, she was rather vague about it; I asked if Draco was there, and her letter only said 'I'm sure he's fine,' he's probably…." He leaped to his feet, buttoning his cloak. "I'll see if I can-"
Joey groaned. "Did you not hear a word I said? Harry!" She grabbed his arm as he tried to leave, ignoring the discomfort that came from touching others. "Promise me you won't check at the manor until this weekend."
Harry's eyes narrowed. Joey raised a brow at him, unyielding. "Fine," Harry said, wriggling out of her grasp. "Fine." He opened his mouth, closed it, then turned his chair and sat in it, back to Joey. He was seething, but Joey knew his anger would be eclipsed by concern for Draco before long. If she'd learned anything about Harry in the past month, it was that he never loved by halves.
Joey sighed and sunk behind her own desk. She hoped that Draco's situation would be resolved soon. If she was going to continue being an Auror, Joey needed a little less stress in her life. God willing.
[Translations from Igbo:
nwa nwanne = niece]