How Are You, Really? (Drarry)

Chapter Fifty-Two: Prejudice At Its Worst

            While Draco sat chained to the interrogation room chair, his mind sluggishly replayed over and over his mother's last moments. He was numb. He watched her crumple again and again under her own weight, hit by a spell of her own making. He didn't want to cry, but he felt like he should. No, what hurt Draco most was that a tiny part of him was relieved, and no good person should feel that way after watching their mother die.

The door was flung open, and Hopkins and Jorgan strolled into the room, Cheshire cat smiles firmly in place.

"Well, well, well, Mr. Malfoy, we meet again!" Jorgan crooned. "And sooner than I expected!"

Draco's heart dropped. This was bad, very bad.

Hopkin flicked his wand to double-check that the chains were tight enough; they bit into his flesh a little more. He resisted the urge to groan.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Draco hissed.

"I wouldn't start with the attitude, Mr. Malfoy."

"Please call me Draco," he requested, knowing full well Jorgan was calling him that to get under his skin.

"No."

"Well, where's my lawyer?" Draco huffed. Peters was never late, and of course, he had to choose the worst time to break this habit.

The door swung open again, and a disheveled, black-haired man in his pajamas stumbled into the room, roughly pushed from behind by a guard. "Draco! Thank god! They were trying to tell me you weren't here! I had to bribe three different departments to get here! You don't want to know how much it will cost you, by the way."

Draco almost cracked a smile. Peters may seem like an imbecile, but it was all an act. He had one of the sharpest minds Draco had ever met, second only to Hermione Granger. "Glad to see you. And you're right on time. I believe things were just about to get interesting."

Hopkins and Jorgan scowled. Clearly, they hadn't expected this intruder.

Peters walked over to Draco and stared down at the chains in disgust. "Can we take these off?"

Hopkins shook his head. "All dangerous wizards must have the chains."

"Dangerous?" Draco raised an eyebrow. "I don't even have a wand?"

Jorgan growled, "We know you can do wandless magic, Mr. Malfoy. In fact, we know an awful lot about you." He pulled out his wand and waved it. A two-inch-thick folder materialized on the interrogation table.

"That's lovely," Peters said. "But what I care about is getting my client free."

"That won't happen," Hopkins smiled smugly. "We have first-hand evidence that Mr. Malfoy here killed his mother. Everyone knows there was bad blood between them, and we walked in, and his wand still raised."

Peters raised an eyebrow. "I need to speak to my client in private." Without waiting for permission, he cast the muffliato charm.

"Draco, what happened?"

He quickly outlined the events of the afternoon to his lawyer and relaxed when Peters smiled. "Don't worry, this is an easy one to fix."

Peters waved his wand and lifted the charm. "Okay, gentlemen, let's make this quick. Use priori incantatem on Draco's wand – no, both his wand and Narcissa's wand."

Jorgan's smiled didn't waver. "No can do."

Peters frowned at them."What do you mean 'you can't'? It's a simple spell I'm sure even you two can manage."

"Wands are gone. Vanished. Can't find them anywhere." Jorgan grinned wolfishly.

Draco frowned at them. "How could that happen?"

"I would like to know that as well," Peter seconded.

"Don't know," Hopkins shrugged. "But the Death Eater's wand is gone."

"I object to you calling him a Death Eater," Peters said.

"Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater," Jorgan intoned.

"Fine. If there are no wands, then go grab some veritaserum and ask him what happened."

Jorgan laughed. The sound echoed around the chamber and chilled Draco. "Can't. There was an accident just this morning that destroyed our entire stock. A new blooded Auror tripped into the cabinet. It's all gone."

Peters sighed in exasperation. "Then go get some from someplace else. My client doesn't have all night."

"Your client has as much time as we need," Jorgan laughed again.

Hopkins added, "We cant use any that wasn't brewed and tested by the Ministry. You should know that."

Peters sighed. "Fine. Then grab a pensive."

Jorgan was almost vibrating with glee. "We don't accept memories from Death Eaters, Peters. You can change them if you have enough power, and we know for sure this one does. So no. We will not grab a pensive."

"So, it's your word against mine?" Draco gasped.

Jorgan nodded slowly, enjoying the look of panic on Draco's face.

Peters stiffened. "Fine. My client was dueling with his mother after he was imprisoned with a blood ward, and when he cast a shield charm, the curse she sent his way rebounded off and killed her. May we leave?"

"No," Hopkins and Jorgan said in unison.

"For fucks sake, who do I have to pay to get out of this chair!" Draco yelled, anger getting the best of him.

"You can pay whoever you want, but you're staying right here because -," Jorgan was cut off by a woman entering the room. She ducked down and whispered to Jorgan and Hopkins before hurrying out of the room.

"Please excuse us," Hopkins said, rising. The ministry workers left the room.

Draco turned to Peters. "Is this as bad as I think it is?"

Peters nodded, never one to lie. "They might send you to Azkaban while they await new veritaserum."

The color drained from Draco's face. "I'll be killed. My testimony put half the people in there!"

"I know."

The two men sat in silence. At the two hour mark, when Draco was nodding off to sleep, Hopkins and Jorgan returned. "You're free to go, Mr. Malfoy." The chains holding him hostage disappeared.

Rubbing his wrists, he asked, "Why?" before he could stop himself.

"A witness stepped forward. A reliable witness. Your friends are outside waiting for you."

While Draco was trying to process that there had been a witness inside his house he hadn't known about, Peters pushed him out the door and into the open. Once in the hall, he was engulfed in screaming, crying hugs from Ron, Hermione, Blaise, Pansy, and Harry.

"Do any of you know who the witness was?" he found himself asking.

Hermione beamed. "Of course! It was Rita Skeeter!"