Thank you YetiBettyFoufetti for looking over this chapter and for your thoughtful notes.
Chapter Text
The days got shorter and colder as winter drew on. Not that it mattered much. Draco spent most of the following week shut in his office or at the St. Mungo's potion lab, leaving late into the night and coming in early in the morning. He had gotten into the habit of falling asleep completely dressed, only taking a shower and changing into a new set of clothes in the morning.
It seemed that he and Harry were on completely different schedules. Sure, they crossed each other on crowded hallways as one left and the other one came in, glanced at one another from opposite sides of the room during strategy meetings. They even managed to steal five minutes here and there, just to hold each other. Share hurried kisses. There wasn't much to say in those moments, the last exchanges still weighing heavily between them. Just "I miss you," and "maybe I'll finish early tonight." But he never did. The texts all resembled each other: "Stuck in Somerset, new lead"; "Interrogation running late"; "I'll go home, I imagine you're already asleep." Draco read them in the morning, woken up by the chill that had crept into his bedroom through the gap in the old windows, before taking off his clothes and stepping into the shower.
At night he dreamt of dark, hooded silhouettes. Sometimes the silhouettes turned into Ulmer. Sometimes into Voldemort. Most often, they turned into Harry. The words he'd told him - the words he'd craved so much yet brought so little comfort - came back to him in his nightmares. Deformed. Poisoned. The words he hadn't said back - why hadn't he? - were like molten metal on his tongue, burning the back of his mouth.
During the day he could barely keep up with the tediousness of his work, worn out by the incessant need to keep at bay the horrifying images from the previous night. Little by little, he lost his appetite. His skin became paler. The door leading to the dungeons became a source of stress every morning when he needed to walk past it to get to the lifts. He twitched nervously every time someone opened the door when he wasn't expecting it. He did his best to stay out of Ulmer's way, certain sooner or later the man would take his revenge. Strangers became dangerous overnight, every offhand glance in his direction turning into evidence of malintent. For the first time since he was nineteen, he looked behind him after every corner. It was something he started doing after he'd been attacked in the middle of the day and it was what eventually drove him to leave the wizarding world. He was starting to wonder why he had come back. Hadn't he considered how dangerous it was to be constantly surrounded by people who could do inimaginable harm to him? How defenseless he was?
If only he'd have something to show for it. If only he would have come up with a solid lead for Harry and the team, something to make their job easier. He could see the worry eating away at Harry, could see him completely consumed by the mystery of Cole's poisoning. How he wished he could take that away from him. But there was nothing to do when Harry got it in his head that he was going to crack a case. He didn't listen to anybody telling him to slow down, let the others do part of the work. Ron had tried. Draco had tried. Really, the only thing he could do is offer him something useful.
That was his job, after all. He was supposed to be good at it, god damnit. Yet here he was. His tests kept coming back inconclusive. The work on the cure was slower than he'd hoped it would be. Every time they thought they were close the poison fought back, refusing to relent in front of their timid attempts to tame it. One week after the fact and Cole was still unconscious, the country was still in disarray and, in absence of any real news, the press had no choice but to rely on speculation.
Draco scoured the spapers every morning, searching for any mentions of himself. They were fewer than he'd dreaded, but Draco had seen it before, the way ideas grow bigger and bigger in people's minds once they're planted there.
Riddle was, above everything else, a tactician, one article from the Diagon Times started. He knew how to bide his time and, more importantly, how to subvert expectations. Is it really a coincidence that one year after a former Death Eater infiltrated the Ministry as Head Potioneer, the Minister of Magic wound up poisoned?
He noticed they rarely mentioned his name, preferring the much more dramatic appelative of Death Eater. Each time Draco read those two words he could hear the echo of Voldemort's voice - the way he stressed the first word but not the second - reverberating against the inside of his skull. Ron snatched the paper from his hand just as he was reliving the day he'd gotten his mark for the tenth time that week.
"Why are you reading this?" he asked, glancing at the title. "It's written by a conspiracy theorist."
Draco shrugged. He half listened to Ron's rambling about the press, made as if he was really busy when in fact he'd been procrastinating writing to a former colleague from France - a good friend of Camille - since he'd arrived at work that morning.
When he finally left he leaned to grab the newspaper from where Ron's thrown it, only to be distracted by his own photo on the front page of the Daily Prophet. Underneath, in bold black letters, the title read: Is Draco Malfoy who we should be talking about right now? Even worse than that was that Trey Davidson had written it.
He didn't want to read it. The memory of Ron's birthday party and of his deplorable conduct towards Trey still tormented him. The last thing he needed was to find out he too thought Draco was just a victim of his circumstances.
Despite his best efforts, morbid curiosity got the better of him. He placed the paper on top of the still empty parchment and scanned the article until he found his name.
No, it's not Riddle's fault people are flocking to buy counterfeit Felix Felicis in order to find work. No, it's not Draco Malfoy's fault that the Head of State was poisoned in an act of political sabotage following a time of mounting tensions between our two leading parties.
The public discourse has been invaded by voices that only seek to amplify fear and brush under the carpet the fact that civil unrest still exists, even post war. That corruption and malfeasance are just as dangerous as Dark Magic. The level of fear mongering being put forward by some of the most reputable wizarding news outlets is outrageous. Almost a year has passed since we elected a Minister of Magic that was in the middle of a corruption scandal. Is it so hard to believe someone other than a Dark Wizard could muster a grudge against him? Or, on the contrary, have we decided as a people to ignore the friction between Cole and the purists right before the next elections?
Just a month ago Cornelius Fudge, the acting minister at the time of Riddle's return, announced his candidacy for one of the most important functions of our Ministry, and nobody bat an eye. Yet in a display of collective hypocrisy, our newspapers are wasting gallons of ink talking about hypothetical Azkaban escapes and exhuming every single person linked to Riddle still alive, throwing Draco Malfoy's name around as if he was a jack-of-all-crimes. As if he's the answer to every single thing wrong in the UK today. Let us not forget Malfoy was not only a victim of Riddle, but also of our flawed judicial system.
Draco pushed the newspaper to the other side of his desk in disgust. He dipped his quill in ink and went back to his letter, so angry he'd all but forgotten about his initial reticence in asking Camille's friend for help. He didn't know if he was angry because it seemed Trey and Harry had exactly the same discourse - had they talked about him? Was he their conversation subject when they were together? Was Harry trying to convince just about anybody of his delusions? - or because things had gotten so out of hand that that useless article had made the front page.
Concentrate, he told himself, commanding his feelings into order. He needed to find the best way to explain the complexity of the poison to this man. He took out his notes and went back and forth between the different sections, trying to decide how best to organize the mountains of information they had amassed. But Trey's words kept coming back to him, invading his thoughts, and there was nothing he could do to keep them away.
Stay focused , he told himself again, but at that point he knew it was too late. The quill was shaking in his hands, sploshing ink all over his unfinished sentence.
Of course you're trembling, a voice spoke, but it wasn't his voice anymore, you've always been weak and pathetic. Can't even hold a damn quill straight.
He knew too well who that voice belonged to. He simultaneously dreaded hearing it and craved it all the time. And just like that, an idea came into his head. Once it settled there, there was no turning back.
He kept his eyes down and concentrated on his breathing. Fortunately, nobody paid him any mind as he crossed the Atrium with a long, determined stride. Once he was on the dimly lit corridor leading to the dungeons he did his best to play the part of someone with an urgent job to do, flashing his BAO badge without stopping to chat. Luckily, the guard didn't ask any questions; he didn't think he could have kept his voice steady enough to tell the story he'd prepared if he had. As he turned the final corner before the spiral staircase leading down towards the holding cells, his confidence wavering with every step. He realized how cold it had become and that he didn't have his coat on. He stared down into the familiar darkness. The darkness stared back.
Who are you fooling, son? You've always been a coward. Ain't changing now.
Using his hands to steady himself, he lifted his left leg just to put it back down in the same spot. He could turn back. But then what? Where would he go? Back to his messy office, filled with evidence of his incompetence? To his empty apartment? Wherever he'd go, they'd come to. So maybe - just maybe - he needed to go to them.
Still holding on to the stone walls, he took the first step. He waited, but nothing took another one. Still nothing.
Come on. One more step, he kept repeating to himself as he continued going down and the voices agreed.
It was indeed a strange feeling, being back there. He recognized every step, every torch hanging from the stone wall. It was as if no time had passed since he'd last been there.
The first time he'd seen the spiral staircase he had his hands tied up at the back. He was flanked by two Aurors, their Patronouses lighting the way. One of his legs was still bleeding from when a heavy armor had fallen on him just hours before, during the battle at Hogwarts. He'd just been separated from his parents and he didn't know where they were and that was all he thought about while the two men descented lower and lower - where had they taken his parents and would he ever see them again. He never saw his Father again. Mother, just once. He'd cried, probably. He couldn't quite remember but thinking back to it, how could he have not?
It was supposed to be temporary - his lawyers told him as much every week, for months. He'd have to climb those stairs each time they came. Some guard would unlock his cell with the flick of a wand. "Up you go, my lord," he'd mock. "Your presence has been requested." And Draco would get up from the mattress they called a bed, wait until the guard tied his hands and follow him up the stairs.
The guard's patronus was never as powerful as the Aurors', its light barely as strong as the odd torch lining the walls. One time, he had produced such a feeble one the Dementors hadn't even left the staircase, only moving slightly out of the way as the guard and Draco passed by. Their black cloaks brushed past his feet as their voices became louder and louder in his head. Just like they were now.
At some point, Mother's voice replaced them. He closed his eyes and he saw her as she was the last time he'd seen her. With her habitual resourcefulness, she had managed to buy them five minutes in an interrogation room. He spent them crying in her arms while she caressed him, speaking softly into his ears. But it wasn't what she said then which came back to him now. It was her letter. The way she described the Dementors taking away her thoughts. For him it had been the opposite. The Dementors spoke with him. They told him things he had learnt how to hide from himself. They took what he had hidden and brought it to light. And he'd hidden so many things lately.
You've hidden so many things lately.
He could feel it before he saw it - lingering behind the next turn. Just a few more steps and he'd be face to face with it.
As if woken from a trance, Draco suddenly realized what he was doing. Realized he was wandless and alone and that nobody knew where he was.
He turned on his heels just as the rim of a black cloak stuck out from behind the wall. He ran as fast as he could, almost tripping on the uneven stairs. He ran past the half asleep guard, past the bustling sea of wizards in the atrium, past the indifferent muggles going around their day. He ran even though he knew the Dementors couldn't leave the staircase, couldn't follow him into the streets, under the cold November sun. He ran until he was out of breath and entered the first café he stumbled upon. The sweat made the thin shirt he was wearing cling to him. The café was crowded and loud and he thought his head was going to explode.
He somehow found the toilets. He wanted to turn on the hot water, try to warm up his freezing hands, but they were shaking so badly he couldn't operate the tap. He could feel his entire body pulsating.
"Are you OK?"
A muggle was looking at him with a concerned look on his face. Startled, Draco mumbled something intelligible.
"Hey, take it easy," the man said, coming closer. There was something about him that felt very safe, very calming. Maybe the lack of magic. "Just breathe in, breathe out."
Draco complied. He closed his eyes and let the man's voice guide him. Once his shaking had subdued, the man walked him to one of the tables in the back. He had one of his friends buy him a bottle of water and they stayed with him until he was able to speak normally again. He thanked them profusely, embarrassed to have taken so much of their time.
"Do you have anybody you could call to come get you?" one of them asked, looking at his watch. "Lunch's break over."
"Yes," Draco said, even more embarrassed.
Once they were gone, Draco took out his phone. He stared at its black screen for a while, pondering. He did have somebody to call. He could call June. He could cry on the phone with June, get it all out, and she'd understand. She'd meticulously walk him through every step he needed to take to get himself out of this situation, staying calm even though Draco knew deep down she'd be worried sick. Or he could call David. David would get in his car right away and come get him, take him in for as long as he wished. He could even call Camille, who understood what was happening to him better than most. He'd tell him exactly what to do - "Go home, take a calming potion and write in your journal." He could call Ron, who'd be there in a heartbeat, who'd get mad at him for doing something so stupid and so dangerous but who'd make a joke about it right after and Draco would burst into laughter even though laughter had felt like such a far away possibility just a minute before. He could call either one of them, as he did at different moments in his past. But somehow, despite how thankful he was for each and every one of those people, he found he didn't want any of them.
I need you, was all he wrote. Harry walked into the café one minute later, Auror coat drenched in water as if he'd just Apparated from the middle of a storm. He scanned the room until he spotted Draco in the far end corner. Every head in the room turned to look at him as he left a trail of wet mud behind him.
"What happened?" he asked, sitting down on the bench next to Draco, his eyes going over Draco's disheveled face, his hunched back, the way he was all tucked in a corner. "What happened, Draco?"
Draco threw his arms around him. The rain on Harry's cloak seeped through his thin shirt. "Can you take me home, please?"
Harry put an arm around him and Draco understood everything would be alright now that he was there.