Hermione shifted in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. The Wizengamot had been called into emergency session at 11 p.m. and it was shaping up to be a long night. Wizards and witches — many of them elderly, most of them deeply unimpressed by the late summons — poured in, the silver W prominent against their plum-coloured robes. The full court seldom assembled for ordinary sessions, but on this occasion every seat was filled.
Draco and Harry arrived together, both of them late, both of them with scowls on their faces. Draco took his seat between Hermione and Pansy, and Harry, as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, sat on Pansy's other side.
"Do you know what this is about?" Hermione whispered. Pansy's summons had been remarkably lacking in details.
"A bloody headache."
A commotion on the corridor outside heralded the arrival of two dishevelled middle-aged men in chains, dragged in by a group of Aurors. The men looked worse for wear, their faces bruised and their Muggle clothes filthy. They shrieked and whimpered as the Aurors shoved them into cages in the centre of the auditorium.
Pansy banged her gavel.
"The court is now in session. Auror Sadoski, present."
"Yes, ma'am." Auror Alison Sadoski, a petite, dark-haired witch, shifted in place under the scowling gaze of the assembled court. "Auror Moody and myself have earlier in the evening apprehended these men. They stand accused of the torture and murder of wizard Neal Patel, by means of fire."
"They burned him at the stake."
Moody's announcement caused an uproar on the stands, and the torrent of indignant cries and shouted insults threatened to derail the proceedings.
Pansy gavelled the session to order.
"Enough," she said when most of the commotion had died out. "Auror Moody, you will spare us the running commentary and refrain from talking out of turn."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, looking not the least contrite. Reese Moody did not resemble his famous uncle. Unlike Alastor, Reese was tall and lanky, with dark hair that he wore long, tied back in a ponytail. He did have Mad-Eye's bearing, however, the look of someone who was not to be intimidated by bureaucrats and people in fancy robes, however shiny the silver W embroidered on them.
"Chief Warlock, if I may." Hermione caught Pansy's eye and the other witch nodded. "Auror Sadoski," she continued, "were you aware, when you captured these men, that they were Muggles?" Burning someone at the stake was the classic punishment for witchcraft in the Muggle world. A few centuries out of fashion, but still.
"Yes, ma'am."
Next to her, Draco sighed, as if anticipating her next question.
"Were you also aware that neither the Auror Office nor this court have jurisdiction over Muggles?"
That caused a renewed upheaval among the judges, with shouts of, "Bloody disgrace" and, "Hang jurisdiction" clearly discernible among the ruckus.
Pansy banged her gavel a number of times before she was able to subdue her mutinous brethren.
"Enough! The next person who speaks out of turn will be held in contempt of court. Do not try me." She stared at the judges around the room, as if daring them to defy her. "The Madam Secretary does have a point, and we will discuss it. Calmly."
But there was no calm to be had. The discussion that ensued over the next hours was many things — heated and acrimonious and hectic — but not calm. There were calls for the law to be changed, calls for the men to be sent to Azkaban without so much as a trial, even calls to hang them, on the premise that Azkaban was too good for the likes of them.
Moody demanded that the Auror Office be given leave to use Unforgivables on the men, in order to ascertain exactly what they knew about the wizarding world and who else was in their confidence, which caused Auror Sadoski, who already looked remarkably uncomfortable, to pale noticeably, and Harry to order Reese to remember his place and be quiet.
The idea gained traction among some of the judges, however, and before long some of them were already debating the merits of extending the powers of the Auror Office, while others decried the notion as a plot to turn wizarding Britain into a police state.
Draco listened to the debate in silence, leaning back on his chair with an impassive face that gave nothing away.
"Planning to jump in here at some point?" Hermione asked under the general uproar.
He did not reply, did not so much as acknowledge he had heard her. She was about to call out to him again, when a proposal from Judge Dev Munn that all Squibs in Britain be interrogated to discover who was divulging wizarding secrets drew her attention back to the debate.
"Well, if that's not the most preposterous thing I've ever heard."
Neither the tone nor the content of the debate improved with the passing hours. Close to 5 a.m., Draco suddenly got up, interrupting a long tirade by Judge Don Sabbith on how the bilateral accords between the Ministry and the Muggle government were clearly biased in favour of the latter.
"That's enough," Draco said, and silence fell on the room. He had been quiet so long that even Hermione had at times forgot he was there. "We've been here long enough. The law is the law, and the Wizengamot is bound by it, as much as any citizen on the street. The only way for the law to change — this or any other — is for the Minister for Magic to propose a change, and I won't. The Wizard-Muggle Criminal Law Act doesn't just ensure Muggles are tried in Muggle courts; it also ensures that our people are tried in our own courts."
"Minister, you can't just—" Moody started, but a look from Harry silenced him.
"I want these men handed over to the Muggle authorities tonight." Reese looked positively mutinous, but the other Aurors present nodded. "And I want the Auror Office to investigate the circumstances surrounding Patel's death and to share any relevant information with the Muggles. I will meet with the Prime Minister tomorrow. That is all. We're done here. Session adjourned."
Without waiting for a reaction, Draco walked down from the dais and walked out. For a moment everyone was too stunned to react in any way, and then the room erupted in shouts and complaints, all the judges indignant, incensed and livid, even those who agreed with Draco. The Wizengamot had traditionally been a powerful court and had grown more so under Pansy's time as Chief Warlock. It was not used to having its opinions dismissed in such a cavalier fashion.
Pansy did not try to call them to order. The witch motioned for the Aurors to remove the captives and then headed for the door, followed by Harry and Hermione.
They caught up with Draco just outside his office, where he had stopped to talk with Blaise. The open plan section of the floor was eerily quiet, the desks void of people and the air empty of owls and flying dispatches.
Blaise stopped whatever he was saying and nodded at the approaching group. Pansy ignored the Chief of Staff and went straight for Draco.
"How dare you?" She was livid. "Need I remind you that you are Minister for Magic, not king? You do not dismiss the Wizengamot like that."
"And do I need to remind you that the Wizengamot is, by and large, an advisory body? You advised. I took your input under advisement. And then I made a decision."
"You do not govern alone, Draco, much as you lately seem to believe you do. There are judges in the Wizengamot who have served for over half a century. We keep you in office."
"If you plan to start a coup, kindly leave it until the morning. It's late and I, for one, would like to get some sleep." He turned to leave, but Pansy's words stopped him.
"They burned him at the stake," she all but screamed, her words full of rage.
Draco sighed, but turned to face her, and Blaise placed a hand on her shoulder that she immediately shook, too angry for comforting gestures. For several moments the three pure-bloods stood there in silence, farther away from Harry and Hermione than the space between them.
They came from old families, the three of them. Families with long memories. Families that remembered a time of persecutions and witch hunts and burnings. Ancient fear had turned to prejudice and spawned a different kind of horror, but it had started with a community turning inward to protect itself and to protect its own. Pansy heard those old echoes in a way that Harry and Hermione — brought up in Muggle households, cared for by Muggle hands — could not.
"I won't do it, Panse," Draco finally said. "We have these laws in place for a reason. They're good laws, solid laws, laws that have kept us at peace with the Muggles for centuries. And I won't risk that for one wizard."
Just then Pansy looked much like the girl Hermione remembered from Hogwarts — full of vicious fury barely held together by pride and poise. She was no longer a girl, however, and whatever retort she might once upon a time have uttered, she kept it now to herself.
"As you will," she said only, haughty arrogance worn like an armour. They watched in silence as she stalked out, plum-coloured robes trailing behind her.
"That won't be the end of that," Blaise said.
"I'll be sure to care about it tomorrow." Draco opened the door to his office. "Goodnight."
"It is tomorrow," Blaise said to the closed door. "Granger, if you're free before lunch, I need to know in exactly how much trouble we are with the Wizengamot."
Lots and lots of trouble. "I'll come find you."
"Great. Goodnight." Blaise's footsteps receded in the distance until everything was quiet and still once again.
Hermione leaned back against a desk, wondering if going home was even worth it. She would normally be waking up in a couple of hours.
"What a night," she complained, bone-weary. "What will you do about Reese?"
Harry sighed. "Depending on the amount of paperwork on my desk in the morning, murder him, like as not."
Hermione was too tired to laugh, too exhausted to find anything funny.
"I'm serious."
"Me too. My whole week is gonna go to hell over this circus. Damn kid." Harry ran a hand over his messy hair, in a gesture so familiar that Hermione couldn't help but smile. "He could be my best Auror if he weren't so bloody-minded. Sharpest wand in the department, but stubborn as a mule, arrogant, convinced he's always right, always on some bloody crusade—"
"Remind you of anyone?"
"Mad-Eye had common sense."
That did get a laugh out of Hermione. "I didn't mean Mad-Eye," she said, kissing Harry on the cheek. "Goodnight, Harry."
"Oi," he cried after her. "I resent the implication."
Ignoring her body's demands that she find a horizontal surface — any horizontal surface — and lie down on it for a week, she made her way to Draco's office and walked in without knocking.
"Go away," Draco said without stirring from the sofa in the corner, without so much as opening his eyes. The only light in the room came from the fire burning in the fireplace.
Hermione sat on the armrest and looked down at Draco.
"Don't antagonise the Wizengamot," she said.
Draco sighed. "Blaise will smooth it over."
"Blaise wouldn't have to smooth it over if you were a little bit more diplomatic."
He opened his eyes, looking straight up at her. "What would you have had me do? Let them undermine three centuries of peaceful co-existence between Muggles and wizards for the pleasure of throwing two Muggles into Azkaban?"
"It's not what you did I object to, it's the manner in which you did it."
"Feel free to nag me about it tomorrow."
"It is tomorrow," she said, echoing Blaise. He deserved nagging, but she was too tired to put much heart in it. "It was a brave thing to do," she said instead, because it had been. Foolish and rash and brave. It would not be a popular decision.
"It wasn't bravery." Draco's eyes shone with the reflected light of the fire. "What do you think the Prophet would make of a Death Eater handing Muggles over to Dementors? It wasn't bravery. It was politics."
Hermione snorted. "They won't thank you for this night's work either."
"Probably not. But it's a decision I can live with."
Too tired for rational thought, she ran an affectionate hand through his hair, in a gesture that was both misguided and achingly familiar. Draco hummed his approval, demonstrating that he too had retired rational thought for the night.
"Go home," she said, getting up. "Don't sleep here."
"I won't. Goodnight, Madam Secretary."
She smiled at his teasing tone. "Goodnight, Minister."
Maybe it would be fine. Wizengamot proceedings were technically confidential, and everything had happened so late at night that maybe, if they were very lucky, everything would be kept under wraps.