Chapter Two

Alastor Moody rubbed his temple absently. The new magical eye was useful, but the socket wasn't entirely healed, after losing his original eye. It chafed. He'd get used to it.

"Door, Raines," he told the younger Auror standing beside him. Raines nodded, and strode up the mansion's graceful marble steps to the front door. He usually did this part, since he had enormous fists apparently made of teak, and a booming baritone that frightened the widdle out of most wrongdoers... literally, in a few of the more nervous cases.

He pounded on the door, and Alastor could hear the booming echo inside the house - big hall, good amplifier. "Open up!" he bellowed. "Department of Magical Enforcement!"

He paused for a moment, and just as he was raising his fist to bang again, the door cracked open the slightest bit. "My mistress is coming down, please wait!" squeaked a tiny voice from somewhere below waist height - house elf - before the door slammed shut again. Of course, they would have one, being such an old and wealthy family.

Raines looked at Alastor, who nodded. The house was surrounded and being watched closely - nobody would escape. And with a case involving someone so wealthy and influential, it was wise to observe the courtesies. Malfoy would have no grounds for complaints against them. "Two minutes," he grunted. That would be long enough.

One minute and forty-five seconds later, the door opened again, a tiny, rather dirty house-elf giving them frightened looks as he bowed and scraped obsequiously. No sign of the 'mistress'... then Moody heard Raines' breath catch, and looked up. A lovely blonde girl was coming down the stairs, wearing a deep blue, sleeveless something-or-other, all frills and delicate lace. Alastor had no idea what women actually called such things, but even he had to admit it was rather fetching. And Raines - being young, and still a little green - was all but drooling.

Alastor, who didn't drool, noticed instead that she'd clearly just woken up, and looked bewildered and a little frightened - very young, too. According to the files, she'd married Malfoy at eighteen, and was only just twenty now. "What is it?" she asked anxiously, looking around at the Aurors crowding into her hallway. "Is something wrong?"

"Mrs Malfoy?" At her nod, Alastor continued. "We need to see your husband, Mrs Malfoy. At once. Is he on his way down?"

She gave him another bewildered look. "I... I don't know. Dobby, go see if the Master is awake. If he isn't, wake him. And wake the nanny, too." The house-elf bobbed and vanished, and she looked at Alastor again, biting her soft lower lip nervously. "I... do you want to come in and... and sit down, or something?" she asked, clearly uncertain as to what she should be doing.

"If you don't mind, Mrs Malfoy, we'll wait for your husband here," Alastor said, but he signalled the others to tone down the menace a little and relax. The girl seemed nervous, but not inclined to bolt or start throwing curses around, and if she had a wand on her, she'd swallowed it.

"Of course." She wrung her hands nervously, looking back up the stairs. If Alastor was any judge - and he was - she was desperate for her husband to come down and Deal With Things, since she was incapable of doing so on her own.

It was a minute later that the house-elf reappeared, looking frightened. "The nanny is attending Master Draco, Mistress, but the Master is not in his room, and his bed has not been slept in."

Separate beds and bedrooms. Interesting. Most men married to lovely young women wouldn't have arranged things that way. "Do you have any idea where your husband might be, Mrs Malfoy?"

She looked downright panicked now. "I... I don't know. He didn't tell me he was going out, and usually he does." She brightened suddenly. "Perhaps he dozed off in his study. I'll go and see."

"That seems like a good idea, Mrs Malfoy," Alastor agreed, inclining his head. "Rowanwood will go with you." A tall, grim-faced witch nodded, and moved past him to stand beside the smaller woman.

"Of course, if you wish," Mrs Malfoy agreed, apparently automatically. "It's this way. But you mustn't go in, he doesn't like people to go in."

Rowanwood nodded silently, giving the blonde girl a suspicious look as they headed down a hallway. Alastor made a mental note to explain that just because they were frightened, didn't mean they were guilty. Often, it meant they were entirely innocent.

The two women rounded a corner, and Alastor listened carefully. He heard a door open, and then a little gasping cry. Then Rowanwood's voice, raised without caution. "Moody, we've found Malfoy," she called, her voice as grim as her face. "But I don't think he'll be answering any questions."

Narcissa Malfoy had been sent away with a young Auror named Merryweather, to sit down and sip some restorative brandy or something. Adele was very good at Sympathetic and Understanding, and if there was anything blurted out in Mrs Malfoy's distress, Adele would pick it up.

"The door wasn't locked... she looked frightened when she opened it, though," Rowanwood observed. "Husband doesn't seem to have thought locking it was necessary. Doubt anyone would have dared to open it without his permission. Seemed that sort."

"Oh, yes, almost certainly. Master in his own home, that would have been his way." Alastor examined the body. It looked quite peaceful, as if Malfoy had simply dozed off, but the body was long cold, and had the greyish tinge of death. "No marks on him."

"Avada Kedavra, maybe? That doesn't leave marks," Raines suggested.

"Leaves magical residue, though." Moody muttered a spell under his breath. A few brief flares of light answered, mostly suspended in the air. "No major spells have been used in here in at least twenty-four hours. He hasn't been dead that long."

"Probably last night," Rowanwood agreed, having been examining the body herself. "Wife wouldn't know, if they were using separate bedrooms."

"Probably not." Alastor noticed an empty wineglass set down on a small table by the body, and picked it up, sniffing carefully. The residue was of red wine... good, too, he would guess, given who'd been drinking it. On an impulse, he touched the tip of his wand to the rim of the glass. As he'd expected, a misty bunch of grapes formed above the glass before dissipating, indicating the nature of the contents. And as he'd suspected, it was followed by another image- a small, bulgy-looking purple flower. "Poison," he said softly. "That was an ezerin flower. The seeds are the basis for a deadly, almost undetectable poison."

Raines glanced at the body. "Who do you think put it in there?" he asked softly. "Might've done it himself, don't you think? If he knew we were coming..."

"Maybe. If he did, there'll be more somewhere," Alastor said, looking around. The magical eye really was an enormous asset... with it, he looked through the side of the cabinet, and saw the secret compartment with a small bottle inside it. "Gloves, Rowanwood."

It didn't take long to confirm that the bottle, too, contained ezerine poison. A childishly simple spell of like-to-like confirmed that the poison in the glass was identical to the one in the bottle... from the same brewing, then, since no two were ever perfectly identical. And he let Raines play with his 'fingerprint kit'... a muggle notion, but not without merit... to check that only Malfoy had handled the bottle. "Seems obvious, sir," he said, sitting back on his heels. "Must have done it himself."

"Maybe." Alastor frowned thoughtfully. "But why hide the bottle again, if he did?" He scowled at it, then nodded thoughtfully. "Time to talk to the wife, I think."

"Poisoned?" Mrs Malfoy's tear-filled eyes were wide with surprise. "But who could have poisoned him?"

"I don't know yet, Mrs Malfoy," Alastor said coolly. "Do you know if your husband saw anyone last night?" Merryweather was sitting near Mrs Malfoy, looking sympathetic, while Raines and Rowanwood stood behind Alastor, scowling in an intimidating way. It usually worked.

She shook her head. "I wouldn't know," she admitted, looking down at her hands. "I... I'm rarely invited into his study. My husband likes - liked - his privacy." She twisted her handkerchief unhappily between her fingers, her cheeks going pink. "He did sometimes have visitors, but I didn't... didn't pry. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me."

Other women, Alastor guessed. Malfoy wouldn't have been the faithful type. And it would have made a very good blind for another kind of visitor - the wife would be very careful not to know who went in or out. "Would anyone else know? One of the servants?"

She shook her head. "They're not to go near the study unless summoned," she told him a little more firmly. "Only Dobby is permitted to go in, and only to clean. If my husband wanted something, he would have it left at the door."

Alastor nodded. "And that insistence on privacy didn't seem at all strange to you?" he prodded. "You are his wife, after all... did he have something to hide from you?"

She gave him a blank look. "I never wondered," she said simply. "It was just how he was."

Rowanwood made a sceptical noise, but Alastor nodded. It tallied with what he'd already observed. "Mrs Malfoy," he said, meeting her eyes, knowing that his would unsettle her. "We came here with reason to believe that your husband was allied to He Who Must Not Be Named. When we examined the body, the Dark Mark was on his arm. Was he the only supporter of the Dark Lord in this house?"

She trembled visibly, her eyes filling with tears again, but she held out her arms, left bare by the frilly garment wrapped around her. Both were pale and unmarked. "I never swore alliegance to He Who Must Not Be Named," she said, her voice shaking. "I didn't, I'll take Veritaserum if you don't believe me..."

"But your husband did," Rowanwood snapped, glaring suspiciously at the other woman. "You must have known, he couldn't have hidden that mark from you!"

Mrs Malfoy stared at her, her lips trembling, and then suddenly her face crumpled."I didn't want to know!" she wailed, hiding her face in her hands. "I was afraid! Terrible things happen if you say anything, and I was frightened, they might have hurt my baby..." She gulped, lifting her head to gaze pleadingly at Alastor. "I just did what I was told," she whispered, her face tearstreaked. "I didn't hurt anyone. I had my baby to think of..."

Rowanwood started to speak again, but Alastor quieted her with a sharp movement of one hand. "I understand, Mrs Malfoy," he said quietly. "I have more questions, but they can wait. I suggest you go upstairs and compose yourself while you get dressed. Check in on your son, if you like."

She nodded tearfully, and slipped out of the room, Merryweather following after a signal from Alastor. Rowanwood snorted. "Pretty damn implausible," she said grimly. "Does she expect us to believe that?"

Alastor leaned back in his chair. "I do believe it," he said flatly. "And it won't be the first time we hear that story, so get used to it."

"Sir?" Raines moved around from behind him, giving him a puzzled look. "It seems... well, a very lame story."

"If she was lying, she'd probably do it better." Alastor fingered his nose absently, the new chunk taken out of it still feeling odd. "You saw her when we came in. What did you think?"

"She acted guilty from the beginning," Rowanwood said grimly. "Anyone could see she was afraid of us."

"She seemed... sort of confused," Raines added hesitantly. "Like she wasn't sure what to do."

Alastor nodded. "Typical pure-blood girl from an old family," he agreed. "Got caught without anyone to give her instructions and panicked."

"Without instructions?" Raines asked, frowning.

"Pure-bloods tend to be traditional. Old-fashioned. Girls aren't encouraged to think for themselves, makes 'em harder to marry off." Alastor tapped his magical eye thoughtfully. "She was telling the truth, when she said she wasn't sworn to You-Know-Who, and that she was afraid. Probably just went along with everything her husband told her."

"So you think she's innocent, sir?" Raines ask, a little hopefully. It wouldn't sit well with his rather romantic view of the world to have such a pretty, helpless girl be a villain.

"Hell, no. Think she was an accessory, at least, probably helped her husband and sister with some of their dirty work. But if we arrest everyone who was just frightened and stupid, we won't have any room left in Azkaban for real criminals." He shook his head. "We'll look into it a little more, maybe have her questioned again... but I'd say we'll probably write Malfoy off as a suicide... he knew we were coming, probably thought we had more on him than we did, and decided to take an easy way out. For the baby's sake, we'll let the wife alone." He stood up, looking around. "Raines, go call off the others. We won't need them. Even if the Malfoy woman tries something, which is bloody unlikely, the four of us can handle her." The poor stupid child, he thought, remembering her fear and confusion with a little pity. It was a sin what some people did to their children.

Upstairs, Narcissa wiped her eyes one more time, and inspected herself anxiously in the mirror. The heavy black robes made her look even paler and more fragile, which was good... she wanted to be sure the Aurors saw her as helpless and weak.

So, Lucius was dead. Although it had come as a shock to have it happen so suddenly, she wasn't really surprised. She'd known from the moment he'd sworn himself to Voldemort that he'd die sooner or later, and although she'd observed every wifely duty scrupulously, and had respected him and been loyal to him while he lived, she'd never been especially fond of him. He hadn't been a likeable man, really, and since he was going to die, she hadn't let herself get attached.

Not like the gruff, scar-covered Auror. He was a very likeable man. He wasn't going to punish her for what Lucius had done, she could tell. She probably wouldn't even have to have a trial or anything nasty like that. She smiled a little at her reflection. Lucius and Bella had always told her what to do. They thought she was stupid. And maybe they were right... she didn't think very fast, and she got frightened when she didn't have anyone to explain things to her and tell her what to do. But she was cleverer than they were in one way... she knew that quite often, telling the truth was much better than lying.

So she'd told the scarred Auror the truth... that she hadn't ever sworn loyalty to Voldemort (in so many words), that she hadn't wanted to know about her husband's activities (because they were unpleasant and uninteresting), and that she'd been afraid for her son (if Voldemort had ever truly wanted to punish either of them, he would have killed Draco, the way he'd tried to kill the Potter child). It hadn't been the whole truth, but it HAD been true. She was very good at telling the truth and making it sound the way she wanted it to.

"Dobby," she called, going to her dresser to fetch a dry handkerchief.

"You called, Mistress?" Dobby squeaked, appearing with a small pop of displaced air.

"The Aurors will probably want to ask you questions. As long as they don't impinge on the family's secrets, you may answer them." She turned to look at him. "You were downstairs cleaning last night."

"Yes, Mistress, as you instructed," he agreed, bowing again.

"Then when they ask you if anyone else was in my husband's study last night," she said, turning back to her mirror, "you will answer that as far as you know, there was no-one there. Do you understand? You will not swear to nobody having been there, in case they can prove otherwise. You. Do. Not. Know."