Chapter 02:

Just before lunch is usually the best time to catch Granger in her office, so after reviewing files and updating my Officers on their next moves, I step out and knock firmly on her door.

"Come in." She says, voice sounding harrassed, even her hair sounds like it's just... everywhere. "Malfoy? What are you doing here?"

"I presume you've heard about Shacklebolt?" I say, without preamble.

"Yes, I have. I trust he's doing well?" Sharp. Impatient.

I nod. "He's doing fine. He's talking about retirement."

"Malfoy, I'd really like to talk about it, but it's honestly nothing to do with you, and I just don't have-"

"He asked me to talk to you about his Department of Intelligence." I interrupt, calm and to the point. She goes completely still, and gives me a look.

"You can't possibly tell me anything about the Department of Intelligence, Malfoy." She says, snapping back to herself, ever the know-it-all.

I can't help smirking. "Granger, I am the Department of Intelligence. I founded it with Shacklebolt in 1999."

"You can't have," she says, doing some calculations in her head. "You were a Known Dark Criminal in 1999."

"Cover story." I say casually, making a show of checking my fingernails.

"A cover story, was it?" She shuffles her papers, disbelief in her tone. "Where you kidnapped Harry and tried to take over Manhattan with your girlfriend?"

Girlfriend? The actual nerve. "Well, not quite. I was framed for all that, actually…"

I try to explain everything as thoroughly as I can, as quickly as I can. The whole thing about Potter going missing, about me being the Prime Suspect, about Pan framing me, about Potter creating a Portkey at the Manor and leaving behind evidence, about fighting alongside Shacklebolt. It feels like I'm telling the story about someone else - hard to believe I was so young, and so foolish back then.

Granger punctuates with questions, too often for my liking. But she is the Minister for Magic, so I try to accommodate.

Her eyes are wide by the time I'm done. "Does Harry know? Has he known, this whole time?"

"No. He doesn't know." I say shortly. No other explanation necessary.

Granger's eyes flick back and forth over nothing, her mind must be racing a mile a minute. "I can't believe, all this time, it was you. Big Ben?"

I nod. "And my people."

"But why you?" Granger says, but then tones it down a bit. "I mean, not that you're not competent, obviously you are, but… why you?"

I shrug. "That's something you'd have to ask Shacklebolt. He said something about Slytherin values, traits you can't teach an Auror, something about Centaurs I think…?"

Cut me some slack, the speech was twenty years ago, I only remember the parts that were about me.

"I can't believe it." She sits back in her chair, seemingly delighted by these facts. "All this time!"

"Well, now you know. I was hoping we could schedule a meeting of the Department Heads? Shacklebolt pulled a lot of strings for me while he was here, but now I'll need their full cooperation."

"Of course, of course." She says, rummaging around in her papers for a blank memo. As she writes, she keeps muttering "all this time" and "right under my nose!", and shaking her head.

"You know." She suddenly says, after putting down her quill. "Harry always did suspect something fishy going on after the whole Manhattan business."

My heart constricts, but I mask it. He couldn't have suspected a thing. "Hm?"

"He told me Shacklebolt must have found his Cloak, which he dropped on purpose, and given him his wand, which he also left behind on purpose... Later on, Shacklebolt seemed to take awkward credit for getting him his wand back, but had no idea about the Cloak part, seemed confused that Harry even mentioned it. Harry couldn't figure out how you were the one to end up with it when you had been on the American side."

I shrug. "He should have considered himself lucky he even got it back. That thing was worth millions, even back then."

She accepts me dodging her question without comment, but with a knowing look. We arrange to have the meeting some time in the next few days, once she has rounded up the Department Head's schedules, and I leave with a polite bow.

There's a spring in my step as I head to lunch, and I can't help but feel like a weight has been lifted. We've spent so long worrying what if they find out, that it's nice to have that taken care of. I picture all the Department Heads looking at me with admiration upon finding out, like Granger did, and maybe someone even cheers, and maybe a champagne cork is popped…

It's starting to get dark by the time I arrive home that night, and the September wind is bringing a chill from the north. I clasp my cloak together with one hand while I pull open the heavy Manor doors with the other.

Suddenly the wind makes a noise that sounds like my name, and I turn my head to hear it.

"Malfoy!" Comes the voice, clearer now. I look back at the locked gates, and see a figure in the distance.

I squint, pull my cloak tighter around me, and squint harder as I make my way back down the gravel driveway. It can't be-

Is it..? It can't be.

It is. It's Potter.

I unlock the gates with a heavy clunk, and they scream rustily as they swing open wide. I haven't had visitors in a long time.

"What are you doing here?" I say, raising my voice over the wind.

Potter storms towards me, face like thunder, eyes flashing. I step back, but not back far enough - he wrenches me by the collar. "You lied, for twenty years. You lied!"

His anger crumbles, and he lets me go. He paces away for a few steps, then turns back to face me, pushing his hair out of his eyes, accidentally exposing his scar, which has faded to a very light silver.

"I did lie." I say, plainly. No point sugar coating it now, is there?

"Why?"

I shrug. "Shacklebolt asked me to."

Maybe that's enough for him, maybe it's not. Either way, his shoulders slump somewhat, and the tension in his face fades away. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here."

"No, please come inside. There's a lot we've never had the chance to discuss."

He looks like he may regret it later, but follows me in. My heart is thudding in my chest, my ears, my whole brain. Am I nervous? Should I be?

Potter knows where to hang up his coat, and follows me through to the dining room. I pull out two glasses and serve some drinks. "Sorry, all I have is red."

The glass is snatched up as soon as it's poured, and Potter downs it in one. Alarmed, I pour him another, then begin to sip my own.

"So listen," I say, trying to sound calm, "the whole thing started out as a misunderstanding-"

"For twenty years I thought you had switched sides after the Battle just to escape Azkaban, only to turn around and betray us all in Manhattan. I thought you were a turncoat, a despicable Slytherin, I had a fit when Albus made friends with Scorpius, I treated you like-"

"I know." I stop him. "I was there."

"But why?" Potter says, his drink almost jumping out of his glass.

I open my mouth, but Potter interrupts. "And don't blame Shacklebolt. I wasn't Head of the Aurors back then, and I was just a kid myself. There was no reason to lie to me."

So I take a deep breath.

"I told you I was innocent, on the plane, on the way home to England." I remember the way his eyes wrenched away from mine on that day, like it was yesterday. "You looked at me like I was still a Death Eater. I knew you would always see me that way. So I knew that we couldn't- I knew that I couldn't ever convince you otherwise. So when Shacklebolt told me I didn't have to, that it was better off if you didn't know, I was glad."

I see something resembling sense beginning to penetrate his thick skull, so I hit my point home. "Lying doesn't always make you a bad person, Potter. Sometimes it just makes you Slytherin."

He opens his mouth, closes it, then looks at me with a frown that melts away after a while. His face is an open book.

"You really have been operating under our noses this whole time, haven't you?" Potter finally says after a long pause, his second drink completely gone. "You said you weren't a Ministry man."

"I'm not." I say, somewhere between mock-offended and actually offended. "I was Shacklebolt's man. I haven't had to answer to the rest of the Ministry, until tomorrow."

"That's right." He says, nodding, then seems struck by a memory. "So, Hermione never told me how you ended up with my Cloak."

I shrug. "I found your wand at the Manor. I found your Cloak in that toilet stall."

"You found my wand? So how did Shacklebolt get my wand and you got my Cloak?"

I let out a little laugh. He's still seriously convinced that I didn't - couldn't have - saved him. I turn my head away from him as I tell the truth for the first time in decades, and keep my voice flat so as not to betray any emotion.

"I found the wand, and it Porkey'ed me to Manhattan's Central Park. I found the Mirror and the Cloak. I used the Cloak to get to you and give you your wand back. I did use the Cloak to get my parents out of there, but then I went back to fight."

Three drinks in, and Potter looks like he can't handle any more of my story. He puts a hand up. "Where does Shacklebolt come in, during all of this? All these years I've given him all the credit for rescuing me, then bringing backup."

"He wasn't sure if he trusted me. He had put a Trace on me during questioning. I was the prime suspect when no one could find you. I apparently had been the last to see you. So when I was Portkeyed to Manhattan, he must have been alerted and followed me with a squadron of Aurors."

Potter squints at a far-away memory, then nods. "Yeah, I remember. I went looking for you, after you left mine. The only place I could think to go was the Manor. Vanessa ambushed me there. With your parents, who could have fooled me that they were acting of their own free will, by the way."

"Me too." I say darkly, remembering how they treated Astoria. And Scorpius. "I still don't fully know whose side they're on."

Potter changes tacks. "Would your Father be proud of you? He always wanted you to be in the Ministry, right?"

"Oh, no." I say as flippantly as possible. "He never could abide by spies. Never saw any value in trusting them."

"And does Scorpius know?"

I shake my head. "He thinks I'm some kind of accountant."

Potter looks around the large kitchen. "Sounds lonely, if you ask me."

I put my drink down, empty, and refill both our glasses again. "You're the second person to accuse me of that today. But I've been doing alright."

"Scorpius is a great kid." Potter admits. "So you can't be doing too badly."

That makes me smile. He really is great, isn't he? That's all down to Astoria, though.

"Does this mean you're not going to make my life a living hell at work, then?" I say, since he doesn't seem to be all that angry anymore.

"I can't make any promises about that." He says. "But I'll try. And we can be… friends, if you like. Our kids manage it somehow, I'm sure we can too."

I shrug. "I can try."

He holds out his hand and leans forward somewhat. A truce.

I put my hand in his, and shake firmly. The friction on my palms as we pull away is magical, like the sealing of a promise that neither of us is entirely sure we can fulfill.

And with that, he downs his forth wine, and says his farewell.