Ooooohhh here we go! What do you think - guilty or innocent?

Lucius spent the night in the cottage again. They were all still investigating Malfoy Manor, which in his opinion was taking a very long time and getting nowhere. A restless night. Barely any sleep. When dawn broke, the small fireplace lit up with green flames—an indication he had a firecall coming in. Lucius scrambled out of bed, wondering if this was a ransom call or any information towards where his wife and son might be. Dora's face appeared in the fire. "Mr. Malfoy?" she asked. He crouched onto his knees; perhaps they'd found something. "Speaking," he said. It came out a lot gruffer than he'd expect it too, and he mentally cursed his morning voice. She paused for a moment—seemingly reading his expression—and then went on. "We're furthering our investigations into this crime scene. But The Daily Prophet has become suspicious and started raising eyebrows. They want to know why we haven't taken you into questioning yet." A long silence passed. What on earth do you say to that? Lucius sneered. "And why haven't you?" Apparently that wasn't the right thing to say, because Dora's eyes flicked open wider as if she realized she was miles from home and forgot to turn off the iron. She appeared a little speechless. Lucius instantly became aware of how challenging that sounded (and honestly suspicious) so he tried to make light of it. "You know, as in why would they be thinking you're not doing your job? After that press conference I don't see how they would want to see if I'm guilty." Even worse.

"Mr. Malfoy, if you want my honest opinion I can tell you that hardly anybody found you to be convincing yesterday." Dora replied. Silence. "Now the reason why I haven't called you in for any type of formal questioning is because I don't believe you did it. Is that what you've wanted to hear? There's someone out there that thinks you didn't have anything to do with your wife and son's disappearance. But the public likes to believe the disappearances are because of a force close to home. So I'm asking if you'd be here at the Ministry of Magic—Auror Office—this morning at ten o'clock for a formal questioning. Don't worry. It's all just routine stuff. Whenever someone goes missing unexpectedly we always look into the close family and friends first. Not because they're usually guilty but because it just eases the public's mind. So will you be here?"

More questions. More things he couldn't answer. More things he didn't want to answer. Lucius sighed, looking down at the smoldered logs in the fireplace and tracing a pattern in the ashes with his eyes. "I will," he answered. Dora thanked him and reminded him of the time once more. The moment the flames disappeared, Lucius put his head in his hands. Narcissa and Draco, Narcissa and Draco, Narcissa and Draco. Did anyone care about what he was thinking? What he was feeling? He'd spent months and months both during and after the war trying to figure out what was behind his wife's smile, what she held in that brain. Now, nobody even cared to see what was in his. It was always about her; the girl with the Death Eater husband, 'the woman who stopped the war'. Lucius stood up from the floor, thinking hard as he made his way across the room. And Draco, what did everyone believe Draco was? Bullied. Pushed into his role in the war by a father that was jailed for not being able to carry out all orders. At first, students and the younger population hated him; they loathed his status, his actions. But after the fallout of the Battle of Hogwarts, when the paper revealed him to be a broken, scared little boy, people began their pitying. And out of all this? Lucius was still the one being tried for treason. Lucius was the one that had to go to court and deal with evidence being thrown at him and Azkaban sentences pushed into his face. Lucius was the one that people were still skeptical about. All this happens and he's left as the one person that literally had his world robbed from him, and they are beginning to think he did it?!

In a fit of mental rage, he gripped the edge of the barren table and flipped it completely over.

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A few hours later, Lucius calmly sat before Dora and another Auror, a wandtip placed against his bared elbow's pressure point. "I'm going to ask you a set of questions. Don't worry, they're all routine. Just things we have to ask to dispel suspicion. Brade's got his wand on your vein because it'll be sensing your pulse—and when we're done, the results will show whether you've lied or not. But don't worry, this is all routine. It's normal in a kidnapping case." Dora recited. Lucius didn't reply. "Now the first question: do you have any idea where your missing wife, Narcissa, and your son, Draco, could be?" she proceeded.

"No," came Lucius's answer.

"Did you have anything to do with their disappearance at all?"

"No,"

"Did you know of anyone that could have posed as a threat to your family?"

"No,"

"Was Narcissa at any point in your marriage afraid of you?"

"…Afraid of me? Afraid of me?! After everything I've done for her?! I kept her safe, I did everything in my power to decrease her chance of unfair punishment from the Dark Lord! I proved to her how strong my love for our family was! How dare you ask me if she was afraid of me?!"

"Mr. Malfoy, we require just a 'yes' or a 'no'. Please."

"…No."

"And your son Draco? Was he ever…afraid of you?"

"Absolutely not."

"Have you ever been seduced by the influence of alcohol or any cognition-effecting potions?"

"No."

"Did your wife express any fear or unhappiness with her life within thirty days prior to the date of disappearance?"

"Not at all."

"Did Draco ever need to be hospitalized at St. Mungo's for injuries or illnesses after the time of the Battle of Hogwarts up until the date of disappearance?"

"Never."

"Can you tell us of a time where this sort of thing has happened before? For example, have you ever before come home and found that your wife or son was gone unexpectedly, even if they did leave a note explaining where they had intended to be?"

"Not that I can remember,"

"And finally: do you have a history of a bad temper?"

"Of course not."

The wandtip was removed from Lucius's arm, and he rolled down his sleeve. Dora tried to smile calmly at him. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?" Again, Lucius just made a noise that could be taken as an agreement or a sarcastic dismissal. Brade began unrolling a scroll and murmuring an incantation as he touched his wand to the blank parchment. Dora rose to escort Lucius out of the ministry doors. "We'll call you if anything breaks in the case. You're allowed to go back to the Manor and get your own personal belongings if you want now. There will be Aurors around though. The investigation isn't complete. You'll have to present identification if you want to enter the scene; don't feel like you can't get into your own house, by all means—"

"Miss Tenner. I understand. Now if you'll excuse me…" Lucius interrupted, stepping past her to get away from this place, the questions, the recognition. If people wanted to think something about him then let them do it—what did he care. He was just so over all this. The Aurors weren't doing a very good job of locating the missing people, nor were they coming up with any substantial evidence as to who did it or why this could've happened. Lucius felt he owed them nothing. Not even the truth.

Dora watched as the tall man stalked away from her as if he didn't have to worry about a word people were saying. She turned back into her small office, where Brade was leaning over the freshly transcribed pulse reading with his head in his hands. "Tenner, you're not going to believe this." he said when she stepped inside. She moved a little quicker over to the desk where he was sitting. There were spikes and troughs all over the place in this graph—it didn't make it look promising. She glanced at her partner for a clue as to what that all actually meant. She wasn't a specialist in reading these lie-detectors; she was the one that would use the findings of them for or against a suspect. Brade gulped and turned a paling face up to Dora.

"He only told the truth for two questions out of all ten."