Chapter 9
I hated the musty office Weasley lorded over, but I hated the auror trainees who hero worshiped him even more.
There were five of them, plus me made six. Fresh out of Hogwarts, the trainees might as well be children. Sense of time warped in my head. Somehow, the years I’d spent here outnumbered those I spent at Hogwarts. Over twice as long as the war itself.
Eight years in and the new recruits didn’t know me. I’d lost my wand before any of them even got theirs. I was strange because I was old, not because I was a Malfoy. When they left, older recruits had to whisper the truth in their ears like I was a bogeyman. Fresh stares haunted me between work and my room.
I knew I would miss records but it made me miserable I was proven right. Even with Potter up in my space it had been quiet. Contained. Controlled. A domain I had mastered when the rest of the world would see me rot.
These trainees wouldn’t stop talking. Weasley wanted us talking. He wanted new ideas. Potter had a new idea with the computer and he’d received a commendation. I could see the glint in Weasley's eyes as he angled for one, too. He’d had his dad come in and wire up a computer of his own, connected to the one in records through some “network”. All I saw were wires. The sort of wires I recognized for being eager to zap people. Weasley put a muggle-born witch at the helm and I was glad to say I didn’t miss muggle boxes. Heaven forbid I ever sunk so low.
I did my best to hide from the ruckus. I tucked myself into a corner and read, read, read. The room was two-thirds full of boxes if it was an inch. Each box home to files. Not my files. These dust-covered relics were ice cold and pulled out of somewhere more dreary than where even I’d been kept. Not even my father was guilty of these crimes, unless he was murdering from the cradle. Which I shouldn’t put past him, having been the enterprising sort.
I told that joke to a trainee to scare them off and they laughed. They fucking laughed. It was Trix. I hated the name Trix. They chose it themself and informed me trying to guess their deadname made me a bad person. I told them I was a bad person and they looked unimpressed. Apparently it took baby murder jokes to impress them. I wanted to impress Trix less than I wanted to impress the senior aurors but I kept doing it anyway. Worse, the other trainees followed Trix’s lead and before I knew it there were amused snickers at my every snap and scowl.
I thought I could escape into my reading. Weasley gave me colorful square paper with an adhesive on the back that would stick to other paper without needing a charm. I left notes on each file that someone else would put in the computer. It felt innocuous, but the others started asking me how I made my choices and when I had to explain everyone listened. Worse still, they copied my methods.
I was on constant edge. I built a fort of boxes between me and them. I read of century old smuggling and murder. I tracked which decades valued penmanship. I contemplated sending a sample to Potter and informing him he was a disgrace to the forefathers of his profession.
I blocked all thoughts of Potter from my mind.
I was not lonely when no one chided me for working late. It was the only time there was silence. Silence was a blessing. It did not ring hollow in my ears. I did not shuffle around the room in the wee hours, examining others’ work, because I craved connection. These people could offer connection no more than Potter had. I was a resource to be managed. Something to be forgotten once you left for home. A person with nothing to my name but a report Potter once gave me, filled with empty promises.
I heard they hired three people in records after I left. They were working through my index at a fast clip, then would go through all the files one by one until everything was added in. It was quite muggle of them. They said muggle like I said magic, when I was young. Like I would say magic now, if anyone would give me mine back.
Trix was old school like me. They had claimed an entire wall to pin up pictures and notes. It was vast and disjointed. I stared for literal hours until something shifted in my brain and I understood. I fucked with their shit because I was a bad person who didn’t care. Because I had no sense of what was mine and what was theirs, since I wasn’t allowed to have anything. I kept at it until the sun rose on the outside and I was dead on my feet.
When I walked back into the office late afternoon that same day it was with a very large, very strong cup of tea. It meant another night without sleep ahead of me, but what price was that against recovering from the previous night without sleep? Two steps in and I froze in place. Just me and the tea warming my hands. That, and a frantic throng of trainees adding snarls to the conspiracy web on the wall. Building off the additions my sleep-addled mind had put up mere hours ago. Weasley sauntered up next to me. I didn’t know what to expect until the exact moment I did.
You did good. You cracked this case open. We’re making history and no one’s going to forget it.
Three weeks later, having sifted through decades of records cross referenced against modern day case logs and screened through new methods to identify magical traces, Weasley took credit for leading the team that took down the biggest drug ring in a century, while closing a dozen cases more than sixty years old. I didn't join the team at the press conference. But I did read a copy of the Dailey Profit abandoned in the canteen. Weasley’s smug face was on the cover. His extended quote was on page three. He thanked every team member by name. Even me.
It had been eight years since Hogwarts. Eight years, and the children didn’t know to be afraid of me. Weasley celebrated me. I wanted it to be real.
But back in my room I tore the shirt off my back so no sleeves would cover my arm. It was still there, that vile Mark that defined all my horrid choices. I had been out longer than I had been in. I wanted to be past it. I wanted to be able to move on. The team Weasley dragged me onto thought I could move on. But the mark was still right there.
Under my mattress was an old letter opener, no longer sharp. I’d put it there once, for emergencies.
I gripped it in my hand. Lifted it. Slammed the edge down. Screamed when it stabbed into me. Right into the snake head on my arm. Deep enough to reach bone. Deep enough the pain stole my breath and made my vision blur.
Then I yanked it out, blood spurting behind the bed curtains, in the space where I was supposed to be safe.
My breath heaved, and I watched. I had to know. I had to see.
The head of the snake knit itself back together. The Mark as smooth as the skin Voldermort laid it upon. All the pain and agony left deep underneath. Invisible.
I wanted to see it. I needed to see it. I needed everyone to see it.
I lifted my makeshift blade again, and stabbed.