Hey, guys! Another update! I got a day off of school today, so a it's time for a new chapter! Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Chapter Thirty-eight
"Got some good news!" Anthea announced as she came into my cell.
"What?"
"You are getting out!"
"Wait!" I shouted, jumping up from the cot. "Really?"
"Well, not out out. But you get out of the cell for a few hours," she clarified.
"Oh. Thanks for getting my hopes up." I shoved her shoulder lightly, getting her to smile a little wider. "What am I getting out for?"
"Ministry finally wants to ask you some questions about...well, everything."
"Questions? You mean interrogation, I'm sure."
"Yeah. Probably," she conceded. "Might be some Veritaserum involved, too, because of you Mark."
"That's fine," I sighed. "Not like I'd lie about it in the first place.
A few hours later, three Aurors barged into my cell and ordered me to stand. I got up from the cot and turned around for them, placing my hands behind my back. Something slithered over my wrists and bound them together. The Aurors grabbed me by the arms and roughly dragged me out of the cell. I spotted Anthea in the hall, and she gave me an encouraging smile that always filled me with an odd excitement.
The Aurors guided me through the maze of corridors and cells until they brought me out of the prison entirely. One of the Aurors raised his wand and waved it above his head as they walked me down the path. The air in front of us mistified, but it quickly cleared. The Auror raised his wand again and Disapparated, taking me and the two Aurors holding me with him.
We appeared on a Muggle street in London. Their vehicles made loud, jarring noises as they passed, clattering over the black stone of their road. The sun was so blindingly bright that I could barely see, but the heat of it was one of the most welcome things in the world.
I didn't get to enjoy the heat of the sun or the sight of a cloudless sky for long. The Aurors pulled me through the sidewalk, weaving me through crowds of Muggles. They dragged me across a street and passed a red, white and blue sign labeled Underground-whatever that meant. They pushed me passed the stream of people heading into the public lavatory, guiding me to the back of the building. They stopped me in an alleyway filled with rubbish that only one door. The third Auror approached the door and forced the tip of his wand into the lock of the door. A green light consumed the door and pushed towards us. I panicked and tried to duck under the light, but the Aurors kept me firmly upright as the light touched us.
The light faded out, revealing a large, tiled hall with a deep green and gold colour scheme that I instantly recognized as the inside of the Ministry. The Aurors shoved me out of the fireplace we appeared in and guided me through the mass of people coming out of their own grates. People turned to look as we passed, latching their gazes onto my exposed wrist and giving the Aurors a wide berth. Eventually, they shoved me into a golden lift and the third Auror waved the cage doors closed. The lift moved back and down, then left and down again before stopping.
"Department of Mysteries," the voice of the lift announced.
The Aurors gave me their usual rough treatment, pulling me from the lift and dragging me through the black corridors and to another door. The third Auror waved his wand and opened the door. Whatever had bound my wrists together released me, and the other two Aurors pushed me into the room, slamming the door closed behind me.
The room was about the same size as the cell, but there was much more in it. A lamp hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room, dangling above a metal table that had one chair on either side made from the same material as the table. A large black glass was inserted into the wall, and for some reason, it was uncomfortable to look at.
A door formed next to the black glass and opened, admitting a tall man with greying hair. The door disappeared as he closed it. He gestured to the chair closer to me and said, "Why don't you take a seat."
It wasn't a good idea to refuse, so even though I was overjoyed to get out of the cell and walk somewhere that wasn't in a circle in the same room over and over again, I complied and sat down.
The man sat across from me, placing his wand on the table. "I'm Detective Inspector Blackwell."
"Nice to meet you," I sighed, already forming answers to his questions of why and how I got the Dark Mark.
Blackwell smirked without amusement and clasped his hands together on top of the table. "So. You're a Death Eater, but-"
"Nope," I interrupted.
"What?"
"I'm not a Death Eater," I repeated. "And before you say 'But you've got the Mark', I never wanted this Mark, and Voldemort threatened me and my family before and after I got it."
"Yes, that's what you keep insisting, isn't it?"
"What do you mean 'insisting'?"
"I mean that you keep saying you never wanted the Mark, but here you sit with the Mark on your wrist," Blackwell clarified. "You say that the Dark Lord threatened you and your family, but that's just your word. There's no proof of it, and don't say you scars. You could have easily gotten those in the Battle of Hogwarts."
"But the fact remains that it is the truth," I countered.
"So you say. We'll just have to make sure of it."
I glanced at the black glass behind him, suspecting that the "we" he was talking about was behind it.
The door that let Blackwell in formed again and admitted another, shorter man who walked in with a cup. He placed the cup on the table in front of me and walked back out, the door disappearing behind him.
"Drink it," Blackwell ordered.
"Veritaserum, I assume."
"If you're not going to drink it, I can get someone in here to make you," he threatened.
"No need," I said, taking the cup. "I'm not hiding anything."
I put the cup to my lips and was about to take a drink but hesitated, temporarily thinking it was poisoned. But it was pointless paranoia. There was no reason for them to poison me if they wanted information, plus the fact that they could have easily thrown me to the Dementors in Azkaban or killed me in my cell long ago.
I swallowed a mouthful of the water-potion mixture and placed the cup back down on the table. The mixture burned a little as it went down my throat, but nothing else happened.
"Ask you questions," I sighed.
Blackwell gave me an odd look before sitting back in his chair and asking me the exact questions I expected: "Did You-Know-Who-sometimes called the Dark Lord-threaten you life?"
"Yep. And tortured me when I said no."
"How did you get the Dark Mark on your wrist?"
"The Death Eaters put up some sort of shield around my house and trained me in Dark Arts magic the summer before my Fifth Year. The Mark slowly formed over time on its own and fully formed about halfway through my Sixth Year."
"If you didn't want the Mark, why did you help him?"
"He vaguely threatened my life and my parents' lives."
The interrogation went on for hours, and I told him everything. It was good to get it all out of my head and into the open, but it brought unwanted memories to mind again that made my hand shake. Blackwell hesitated at one point, and then repeated some of the questions that I gave the same answer to. His voice gradually took on a biting tone and his muscles tensed bit by bit.
"Why is your hand shaking?"
That question threw me. No one has asked me that before. "I don't actually know," I answered. "It started my Sixth Year, and it hasn't stopped."
The Auror's eagerly returned me to my cell in Azkaban as quickly as possible, ripping away the warmth of the sun. I was left alone long enough for two meals to go by before Anthea came in.
"Welcome back," she greeted. "How was the outside world?"
"Found out that the sun hurts my eyes."
She snickered quietly. "But it was worth it?"
I smiled at her and nodded, but she seemed dissatisfied.
"What're they gonna do?" she asked.
I sighed and wandered over to the cot and sat down, stalling for time. I didn't want to answer her, but the last of the Veritaserum was still in my system, so the answer bubbled up in my throat, though I clenched my teeth to bite it down. "They're going to hold a full criminal trial for me, and if they still can't get me to 'admit to being a Death Eater' they're going to use my memories as evidence."
About ten meals went by when they let me out of my cell again. Though the Aurors gave me the same unnecessarily harsh treatment as before, I was looking forward to getting out again and getting a small glimpse of the sun.
But the Aurors didn't lead me out Azkaban. Instead, they dragged me through the corridors, down a few levels and eventually released me into a room that was similar to the interrogation room in the Ministry. It had the same light fixture, table and chairs, but there was no glass pane on the wall.
A few minutes went by before a door appeared where the black glass would be. It opened, and Harry Potter walked through. The door closed behind him and disappeared as he came closer to the table, looking me over.
"You look terrible," he said.
I didn't say anything. I was still trying to process the fact that he was here at all.
"If you're not going to say anything, I could just walk out of here, and they'd put you back into your cell," Potter warned, turning slightly back towards the wall.
"No. It's okay," I said. "Just surprised that you're here." I loved to see Anthea every now and then, but Potter was the first new person I've seen here that didn't look like they wanted to kill me besides her.
Harry nodded and took a seat in one of the chairs, and I followed his lead. We both sat in silence. Several avenues for conversation passed through my mind, but I tossed them all out. They were all topics that my parents taught me to talk about if I ever hit a dry patch with other children of our former social status. Potter wouldn't be able to relate to any of them. So we both sat quietly, the silence pressing on every part of me.
"It's cold here," Harry eventually commented.
"You should try my cell," I added with a fake laugh. "There's a window that the Dementors like to see through."
Potter nodded and gave a strained smile that quickly fell away. "You know, I had this whole thing planned out in my head, but it disappeared the moment I walked in here."
"So you actually planned to talk with me?" I asked, trying to make the atmosphere a little lighter and less awkward. "You didn't lose a bet or something?"
"Actually I came to talk about your trial."
My heart jumped in surprise. "How do you know I'm going on trial?"
"It's all over the papers," he explained, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a copy of the Daily Prophet.
Harry unfolded the paper and laid it out on the table. A picture of Lucius, my mother and me took up the majority of the page under the headline "Draco Lucius Malfoy to go on Trial".
"It's going to happen two weeks from now," he said, pointing to the paper.
I finally noticed the date at the top of the article. July twentieth. "It's already July?"
Harry gave me an odd look. "Yeah…"
"Don't give me that look, Potter. If you haven't noticed, it's not like there's a sun here," I countered. "It just goes from grey to...slightly less grey."
Harry stifled a laugh, but I hardly noticed.
It was July. Last time I truly remembered the date, Harry, Ron and Hermione showed up at the manor house with a sword. That was months ago.
"Hermione's done research on Ministry trials of Death Eaters, and she said that if you keep honest, you'll be let go sooner," Potter counseled.
"Already tried the honest approach," I informed. "They didn't believe me. They gave me Veritaserum, and yet, they still don't think I'm telling the truth."
"Really? The papers said they think that you would use Dark Arts magic to overcome the effects of Veritaserum, so they didn't give you any."
"Well, they lied."
We both fell quiet again for a while until Harry broke the silence. "According to Hermione, the Ministry has authority when dealing with high profile cases-like Death Eaters-to review the defendant's memories. They don't do it often, though, because it's ethically wrong."
"Yeah. They're going to that during the trial," I informed, my heart beating faster as I said it.
On the one hand, it would feel good to get it all out of me for a while. For just the few hours it would take, I wouldn't have the memories in my head anymore. But it would also be put straight back inside. They would see it all. They would see my nightmares and what they did to me. Not just the Death Eaters, but Lucius, too. No one else should have to deal with that.
Potter's expression lightened, and he smirked inwardly. He was thinking of something, and that was never good.
"Don't go getting one of your ideas," I warned.
"What?"
"You know. You're ideas. Like, 'Hey! Let's fire this unknown and possibly deadly spell in the bathroom. Not like anything bad can happen.'," I mocked. "Or 'Hey! Let's go into the forbidden corridor at school and hope we don't die.'"
"My ideas aren't bad!" he countered.
I just stared at him, waiting for him to remember every idea he's ever had since school started.
"Not all of them, anyways," he conceded.
"There we go," I agreed, forcing a smile.
Harry rolled his eyes, then checked the watch. "Anyways, I kind of have to go." He rose from his seat. "I got a date."
"With who? Ginny?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow as he picked the paper up off of the table.
He froze and looked at me.
I laughed a little thinking of our Second Year. "That little red head finally got to you, huh?"
"Shut up," Harry groaned.
He walked over to the wall and knocked twice on the stone. The door reformed, and he opened and walked through it, looking back at me. "Good luck at the trial."
The door closed and disappeared, and it wasn't long before the Aurors returned and took me back to my cell.
Hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you soon for the next update!