make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats.
When he arrived at work the next morning, it was pandemonium.
Newspapers fluttered through the air like black and white confetti. The headline: DEATH EATER ARRESTED FOR ILLEGAL MAGIC USE
The cells below the Ministry were not dungeons. They were furnished with flush wooden panels and back-lit lanterns. They smelt of lavender and justice and money. Malfoy was sat in a cell with no bars, just the near-invisible sheen of warding keeping him from freedom. It was almost crueler.
“Come to gloat?” Malfoy said rather plainly, looking rather put together despite the giant bruise blooming over his cheek.
“No.” Harry was shocked to say that he believed himself. He brought his mind back to Andromeda’s study, re-interrogated the scene before him; the way Malfoy’s wand had shaken slightly before he’d pulled Teddy against his chest. “There was no rule change, was there?”
Malfoy stared at the wall beside his head. “Of course there wasn’t.”
“Then why did you cast?” But Harry had already figured it out before the words left his mouth.
The hand that wrapped around Harry’s shoulder, pulled him up against the current. Malfoy gently suggesting that Pansy reconsider her youthful marriage. A levitation charm to save a falling child.
Did Draco Malfoy…
Have a heart?
“Kingsley informed me that they’ll review my wand,” Malfoy said very quietly. His finger nails were red and bleeding. “Said I’ll be on my way home before the sun goes down.”
“I’ll go testify now. That it was necessary. You were trying to help Teddy. ”
Malfoy shook his head. “There’s no need.”
“I will,” Harry affirmed, feeling useful for the first time in months. “I’ll go right now.”
The wards caved in slightly as Harry stepped up to them, as if magic itself was too bowing down to him. He watched Malfoy carefully as he picked at his nail beds; perfect crescent shapes ruined.
“Thank you,” Malfoy muttered to the wall. “I appreciate it.”
But as Harry’s foot hovered above the steps to the elevator, he turned back to see Malfoy staring at him.
“What I don’t understand,” Harry said quietly. “Is why you lied? Why not just admit you’d done it for Teddy?”
Narcissa had been sentenced to Azkaban in these cells. Lucius sent to the gallows. Now Malfoy, sat so politely, the only sign of distress his tattered nails. It felt wrong, all of a sudden, to be keeping him there for casting a simple levitation spell. People had done far worse.
Draco didn't answer, but his voice shook as he said, “You’re welcome, Potter.”
He was home in time for dinner.