A/N: I got the idea for this fic while listening to folklore by Taylor Swift. Major parts of the plot are inspired by the album, with quite a lot of inspiration coming from the album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence and the Machine as well.


In the years since the war had ended, Draco Malfoy had made a habit of not venturing into the halls of the Ministry unless it was of vital importance. He and his mother may have been cleared of all major charges and sentenced to a probationary period with wand monitoring for a number of years, but Lucius' lifetime sentence of house arrest with a stunted wand capable of little more than third-year spells would continue to cast a shadow of suspicion over his actions for years to come.

But this was of vital importance, potentially a life or death situation. After all, there's little else that could have dragged him into Harry Potter's office at nine o'clock on a Monday morning.

It seemed as if everyone in the Ministry that morning was determined to make his life as difficult as possible. Couldn't they tell that this was an emergency? First, the wand wizard at the door decided to take close to twenty minutes weighing, measuring, checking, and cross-checking the details of his wand and it's one-hundred most recent spells against a list of spells he was actually permitted to use. After all, if he had decided to break the terms of his probation, wouldn't he have brought a burner wand, or simply not come at all?

After finally leaving that infernal man behind, Draco was dismayed to find that at least ten of the thirty lifts in the lobby were out of order. Rather than fight his way through the throng of ministry workers attempting to cram into the rickety lifts remaining, he rushed up five flights of stairs to get to the second bank of lifts near the cafeteria. Of course, arriving there he found that those—naturally—were the ten lifts that had been out of order in the lobby, forcing him to walk back down and queue with the rest.

By the time he finally arrived on the floor that held the auror's offices, he was beyond frustrated. Every moment that he spent piddling around the Ministry was another moment that she was missing. Possibly even d— no. Best not to think about it. 'Missing' would have to suffice for now.

But, of course, luck was still not on Draco Malfoy's side, and he felt as if every bit of karmic energy due his way based on his Hogwarts-era behavior was arriving all at once.

"Draco Malfoy for Harry Potter, please," he said to the woman at the desk, trying to catch his breath without doing anything so obviously crass as panting or coughing. He could tell that his cheeks were slightly flushed, and wished that he could cast a cooling charm without catching attention for drawing his wand in the office as a non-Ministry employee.

"You don't have an appointment with Head Auror Potter," the woman at the desk said nastily, the look on her face revealing that she knew exactly who he was, and was more than glad to attempt to turn him away. "Head Auror Potter does not take walk-ins, especially not from any riffraff off the street. Please schedule an appointment via owl at your earliest convenience."

"You don't understand," he said, leaning forward and clutching the edge of her desk so tightly that his knuckles whitened. "Something terrible has happened, and I desperately need to talk to Potter. I need his help."

The woman behind the desk rolled her eyes lightly and sniffed, tossing her hair back. "Simply everyone believes that they need to talk to Head Auror Potter. And I dare say that I believe he's helped you rather enough already. Good day, Mr. Malfoy. But feel free to make an appointment in the regular way, like the rest of us."

Damn and blast. He wanted to keep as few people involved in this as possible out of respect for her privacy, but that didn't seem to be an option anymore. "If you don't let me in to see Potter, someone will die."

The witch flushed white, and slammed her palm down on a button perched on top of her desk, a shrill alarm sounding somewhere deeper in the office. "Auror corps to the front desk please! Belligerent trespasser is threatening assault on a Ministry employee!"

"No, you daft woman!" He cried, afraid of what would happen if he was forced to spend his morning trying to explain his way out of Azkaban. "Why won't you just listen to me?"

"Alright, Malfoy," he heard from behind as he felt the familiar ice-cold deprivation of magic-dampening handcuffs closing around his wrists as someone wrenched his arms back behind him. "It's your time to listen. Trespassing in the Ministry and threatening to harm a Ministry official is a violation of your probation. Regardless of your reasons for doing so today, it is therefore my official recommendation that you are remanded to—"

"My mother is missing, and I think my father might have done something to harm her!" Draco shouted over the upstart Auror, seemingly too young to be more than a year or two out of Hogwarts. The grip on his arms faltered, before tightening viciously and wrenching them higher up his back, causing his shoulders to scream in protest.

"Likely story, Malfoy. Your father's little more than a squib these days. I, Junior Auror Reginald Butterwa—"

"Quiet, Butterwald," came a calm voice from across the room. "Drop his arms. And take off those blasted cuffs."

"But sir—"

"The cuffs, Butterwald, if you please?"

Junior Auror Butterwald reluctantly released Malfoy's arms with a sigh and unclasped the dampening cuffs. The feeling of his blood and magic rushing back through his veins caused him to go slightly lightheaded, and he stumbled a little from the adrenaline of the past few minutes as he stepped away from the uppity auror.

"Why don't we have a cuppa, Malfoy. Tell me about whatever's happening with you mother. Biscuit with your tea?" Potter asked, as he gestured for Malfoy to follow him back into his office, separate from the cubicles of the junior aurors.


The last time he had sat across from Harry Potter, he had been on trial. He'd been forced to sit in the accused's cage while Potter took the stand to explain away a multitude of his sins and plead for clemency on his behalf.

As high as those stakes had been, anyone who knew anything about Draco Malfoy would know that the stakes on this particular morning were higher to him yet.

Potter slid a cup of strong, steaming tea toward him, a few pieces of shortbread resting on the saucer. He gestured imperiously at the sugar and little pot of cream on the edge of the desk.

"Help yourself. And start at the beginning, if you please."

Malfoy took a deep breath, and tried to figure out where the beginning was. He picked up the cup of tea in his hand — a lovely French blue floral pattern on the china, particularly popular for those of his grandparents' generation, well-made, but potentially mass produced— and stared down at the milk swirling to give his hands and eyes something to look at besides Harry Potter.

"My mother is not a happy woman. This is likely common knowledge. The crimes and atrocities committed by my father did not always end at the front door. The attitude and ferocity that he espoused in public was common in the halls of my childhood home as well."

Draco took a deep breath, and continued, trying to forget that it was Potter of all people that he was forced to reveal such personal information to. "I don't know if I would say that he's abusive, per se. But he has very strict and traditional views of the role of a woman, a wife, a mother. If he's stuck at home for the rest of his mortal life, he sees no reason that she should be venturing out of the house on her own. He's becoming increasingly irritable— shouting, throwing things, and I believe I've seen bruises on her wrists a time or two."

"That is textbook abuse, Malfoy," Potter said, still staring at him with an odd ferocity, something unsettling glinting in his eyes behind his glasses. "There's far more to abuse than backhands and the cruciatus. Go on, please."

"Yes, like I said— she never leaves. Ever. She hasn't left the home since the day that my father's life was tied into the wards of the manor. No shopping, no social visits, hardly even a stroll around the garden. And she's just… gone. Father told me the first day that I asked that she was sick and was not to be disturbed. But when I knocked on the door to her chambers the next day, she didn't answer. I got an elf to open the door, and while I could only just see her bed from the door, it was clear that she hadn't been sleeping there. In the days since, I still haven't seen her nor heard from her. And my elves all seem to be sworn to silence, telling me that they can't 'feel Missy Cissy'."

"Has your father said anything else about her whereabouts?" Potter asked.

"No. He says he has no idea where she is, when she left, or if she'll return."

"Did you go into her room? Did you touch any of her things while looking for her?"

"Merlin, no. There's a spell that many pureblooded women of her stature put on their private rooms, specifically designed to keep out anyone but the master of the estate unless they're escorted in. It turns her room into a veritable panic room if necessary. But the room was dark, all of the windows were closed, and the fire was out. The windows are always open during the day, and the fireplace lit at night if she's inside. She spelled it that way to keep the air in the room fresh. I don't think she'd been there in a number of days. The flowers in the vase on the mantle were dead, which makes me think the elves haven't been allowed in either."

"Do you believe that your mother is in danger?" Potter asked, leaning forward in his chair to reach into his desk drawer and pull a crisp sheet of parchment from a folder.

"Do you think I would be here if I didn't?" Malfoy replied, surprised at the question.

"I asked— do you believe that your mother is in danger," he repeated pointedly, gesturing at the parchment and picking up a quill.

Understanding bloomed as to the purpose of the question, and Malfoy nodded. "Yes, I believe my mother to be in danger."

Potter made a quick note on the parchment and looked back at Malfoy across the table. "Do you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, lawful resident of and heir to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire, willingly grant the Department of Magical Law Enforcement permission to enter your domicile to conduct a preliminary investigation into the whereabouts of Narcissa Black Malfoy?"

Malfoy nodded, hands twisting in his lap. "Yes, I grant you permission to enter my ancestral home.""

Potter nodded, making another note on the parchment before sliding it and the quill across the table for Malfoy to sign. After they had both signed, Potter triplicated the parchment, sending two away to places unknown in labelled outboxes on his desk, while he filed the other in the drawer beside his chair.

"I've been to the Manor a time or two now, and I'm more than capable of apparating myself. Would you prefer to take a few moments to collect yourself, or are you ready to return now?"

Draco stood, taking a quick moment to rebutton his jacket as he rose from the chair. "Isn't every moment we spend here a moment that the trail gets colder?"

Potter nodded, and rose with him, grabbing his wand and badge from the desktop. "Yes, it is. But she's your mother. And given that the elves say that they can't sense her any longer, this might not be the kind of trip that you're ready to take. Finish your tea. I'll go collect a few men to come with us."

As Potter left the room in a whirl of red robes, Draco fell back into the chair again heavily. 'Not the kind of trip he's ready to take'? He wasn't intimating that his mother could be- was already- no. Of course not. He couldn't be.

Draco took a few more deep breaths, taking Potter's advice and finishing the tea. It felt foolish to sit in what was functionally a waiting room while Potter piddled about and did whatever bureaucratic nonsense was required for them to leave the Ministry for the manor.

Close to twenty minutes later, at least according to the incessantly ticking clock on the desk, Potter returned, two junior aurors trailing behind him. One was a small pale man with mousy features and hair the color of weak coffee, while the other was a taller, thicker man who looked as if he snapped trees in half for fun.

"These are Junior Aurors Roshan and Towler. I figured you'd appreciate it if Butterwald stays behind on this one. They'll be coming with us to investigate this locked room and to see if we can find your mother."

"Bet she ran off to France," one of them muttered so quietly that Draco couldn't tell which had spoken.

"Probably sick of playing house with death eaters," the other one said.

Potter sighed, and brought his palm down to smack the auror's badge clipped to his belt. "And that's two weeks' probation for both of you, without pay. I'll send along the information for your mandatory counseling on how to address members of the public when I return. Get out."

The two grumbled, one of them looking relieved to be sent home rather than deal with helping a Malfoy, while the other one sent him a look so mutinous that it could have curdled the milk in the tea he'd had with breakfast.

"I'll go get two more to come with us, and we'll head out. I'm sorry about that. They're fresh out of Hogwarts and think they're so very clever. I'll be right back."

With a long suffering sigh, Potter left the room for the second time, leaving Draco to once again sit in silence with nothing but the ticking of the clock and the racing thoughts of his mother's welfare in his head. If that was the best that the auror's could drum up to help him, his chances of finding his mother before something horrible happened to her weren't looking good.