Chapter Five :
'Vero, Lies Redemptio'
In Truth, Lies Redemption
"I want to give the Order all the information I can about Voldemort and his operation." He blurted out as soon as he walked into the room.
Remus Lupin looked at Moody and raised his eyebrows. "I see." He said softy.
Draco took a step closer to Lupin and took a deep breath, "I don't think you do", he said, "I want to do it under the effects of Veritaserum, so you know I'm telling you the truth!"
Remus Lupin looked at Draco Malfoy as though he had never seen him before. Indeed, the young man standing in front of him, his eyes nervously flitting between Remus and Moody, was so different in demeanor to the sneering bully he had taught Defense Against The Dark Arts to during his year at Hogwarts, that had he not know better he would have thought him at best to be a relative, not the same person at all.
"Why would you want to do that Draco?" the casualness in his voice a glaring juxtapose to the importance of the question he asked. "Why is it important?"
Draco was shaking with equal parts determination and fear; the knowledge that he had given no-one in this room any reason to trust him did nothing to ease his nerves
"Professor Lupin..."
"We both know that I'm no longer a Professor, Draco, so how about you just call me Remus just like the others do eh?" Remus smiled slightly and leaned against the desk, his back to Moody, who surprisingly had said nothing as yet. Draco merely nodded his assent.
"Re…Remus, my whole life I've listened to my father talk about bloody Voldemort and how great he is, I watched my father as he subjugated himself before a man who could care less about him. He lied for him, he stole for him, he killed for him, he ruined people's lives and then finally he went to Azkaban – all for the approval of a cruel, twisted, deranged, pathological narcissist. " His voice rose as he spoke, underscoring the passionate belief he had in what he was saying.
"After the Death Eaters came to Hogwarts, after Dumbledore…after Dumbledore was killed, I was on the run, alone, I had no friends, no family to rely on, no money and no place to go. I spent my time thinking about how I got myself into this mess – it was then that I began to realize that we were not so different, my father and I. As much as I despise him, as much as I want to be anything other than what he is – I was headed the same way. He did everything he did, for the approval of Lord Voldemort, the harsh reality I was forced to face was that I was doing the same for my father's, and it made me no better than him."
"Codswallop!" Moody growled from behind the desk. "Your father is a death eater boy. He stood before Voldemort and took an oath to do nothing but evil deeds; he swore to kill for him, to surrender his soul to him. But you..." Moody said getting out of his chair and walking around the desk to stand in front of Draco, "You, my boy, were given a choice to either kill a great opponent of Voldemort, or lose your life in defiance of him. Know that the choice you made that night at Hogwarts makes you nothing like your father."
Draco looked at Moody as he limped back around the desk and sat down heavily in the leather chair, his 'mad' eye jerked from one direction to the next seemingly of it own accord.
"I want to help the Order fight Voldemort in any way I can. I don't expect you to accept me and I'm not asking you to help me in any way – all I ask is that you don't throw away the opportunity to get information that could help end this bloody war. I don't want to see any more people I care about die if I can do something to help stop it and if it means taking Veritaserum to do it, then I'm more than willing."
Lupin eyed Draco carefully, "I must ask you Draco, is your insistence that we use the serum so that so you can maintain deniability should Voldemort win the war?"
Draco had expected them to suspect such a thing, truth be told he would have thought the same had he been in their position – but his purpose was clear, his conviction strong. "Remus, Voldemort, my father, the entire Death Eater society and their supporters want me dead, in fact they've spent the last four months practicing exactly how best to accomplish that feat – if Voldemort wins this war, I'm as good as dead anyhow. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by telling you the truth."
"Then why would you want to voluntarily take the serum?" Lupin asked him.
"I don't exactly have a stellar track record with most of the members of the Order, in fact, with the exception of Tonks I've acted like a prat to almost everyone in this house at one time or another. Do you honestly think that they would believe anything that came out of my mouth without the serum?" he asked with a defeated look. "I'm the son of a convicted Death Eater and Voldemort's right hand man and I was responsible for the death of the head of the Order of the Phoenix - I wouldn't blame them for needing a serum to be convinced." Draco's voice was heavy with shame and the weight of not only his own failings, but those of his father.
Lupin looked at Moody who nodded surreptitiously to him in assent.
"The serum will take some time to create Mr Malfoy, as I'm sure you can imagine, the war has depleted several of our potions stocks and there is the slight issue that the potion cannot be guaranteed to be 100 effective…"
"We think we can help you there!" two voices intoned from the doorway.
Fred & George Weasley, successful businessmen, Order members, legendary Hogwarts pranksters and creators of some of the most amazing lotions, potions, pills, charms and spells the wizarding world had ever seen, stood in the doorway looking at Malfoy with equal measures of intrigue and contempt.
They had been keeping tabs on Malfoy's movements since he arrived, so when Malfoy had left his room earlier this evening, they had followed and sat on the stairs, listening with avid interest to his conversation with Lupin and Moody via their best selling invention 'extendable ears'.
Indeed, when Tonks told the story of her capture and subsequent torture the night before, the twins had listened; torn between pity for her and the dark thought that Malfoy's role in it could all be part of another plot by Voldemort to bring down the Order. There had been much discussion amongst the younger Weasley's that night about Malfoy and what he was actually here at Grimmauld Place for.
After listening to this most recent conversation with Lupin and Moody, they mutually decided that Malfoy had either been completely misjudged or was part of the most devious plot ever devised by the Dark Lord, and they were just the ones to expose the truth.
Remus Lupin was forced to stifle a chuckle as he heard the Weasley twins chime their offer and although his mouth showed no hint of a smile; his eyes twinkled with unbridled humor.
"Meaning?" Malfoy asked, turning around to look at Fred and George as they walked into the room and nodded to Moody and Remus.
"It just so happens Malfoy that we have managed to get out hands on not only a newly brewed batch of the Veritaserum, but one that has been 'modified' to increase its 'potency' so to speak." Fred and George grinned at each other.
"I suggest you start explaining yourselves gentleman, in case you haven't noticed there's a war going on and we're a little short on time." Moody grumbled from behind his desk. "How is it that you managed to get your hands on the serum and who modified it?"
"We did, we've been planning on manufacturing it about a year now, we thought it made more sense for the Order to have it in supply and know that it was legitimate rather than rely on sources that may, or may not, be pro-Order." Fred said without hint of a smile, "We started manufacturing the first bulk batch of the enhanced serum 4 months ago, in fact, we completed the final testing on it only a few days ago – you may have noticed that for a few hours last Friday George was inordinately truthful when mum asked him about his plans for the evening."
Lupin smiled, recalling the incident very well. They had been in the kitchen and Molly Weasley had asked her son what his plans were for the evening, only to have him tell her point blank that he planned to sneak out of the house so as not to alarm her, hit the Leaky Cauldron with Fred and get blind drunk and if he was lucky meet some 'lovely ladies' with which to round out his evening. Molly had naturally been scandalized by his comments.
"So, how exactly is the serum enhanced?" Moody asked, although he would never tell them to their face, he had the greatest respect for the Weasley twins abilities with potions and charms. In fact, he had used their inventions on several occasions since the start of the war.
George cleared his throat and looked slightly uncomfortable.
"Well, we actually have Hermione to thank for the modification. We were talking months ago about truth serum and its effectiveness, Fred here said that there was nothing like it in the whole world. That's when Hermione rattled off the information on the muggle truth serum that some of the government agencies use to interrogate their criminals. It seems the muggles use chemicals called sodium amytal and sodium pentathol to produce a truth serum effect." Being the more scientific of the twins, George could barely hide his excitement whist explaining their discovery. "When Hermione passed this information on, we thought about how easy it would be to use the muggle product as a back up to our Veritaserum stores. Then, Fred asked the question of what would happen if we combined their truth serum with our own. It took us weeks of trying to find the right combinations, we had to call in a scientist from the muggle world to consult, the taste of the serum caused us particular problems as it the muggle solution tastes of garlic but we got past that with a neutralizing charm, naturally we obliviated the scientist afterwards, but we finally managed to create a unique combination of the serums…we've done some rather..."
Fred chimed in, "We've done some rather extensive testing on the serum, it's as close to perfect as a truth serum can get. Voldemort himself would spill his guts after 5 drops of it." He turned around a looked at Malfoy with a grin on his face. "So what do you say Malfoy, you up to test the new serum or not?"
Draco looked at the twins and then from Remus to Moody.
"Just tell me what you need me to do."