Chapter 5
Draco met with Harry in the new café that had opened up in Diagon Alley. Though they had planned to discuss how they were going to track down Ron and what strategies they would use to prove to Arthur that Ron truly was guilty for rape, the two of them ended up bantering over who did a better job beating the cowardly redheaded the other night. Next thing they knew, they were having a friendly argument over who would be a better Weasley assassin.
"Hey!" Draco banged the table, grimacing at Harry. "We both know that I would make the better Weasley assassin for two reasons: one, I have hated Weasleys longer than you have. And two, I am a Slytherin. I'm a better assassinator by default."
"Pfff!" Harry rolled his eyes while smiling. "As if hatred and having the conniving nature of a Slytherin are the most important qualities for an assassin. As a Gryffindor, I'd make a physically stronger and more assertive assassinator by default. Just look at how many times I used to whoop your arse in Quidditch back at Hogwarts-- no Slytherin can ever top such physical prowess. You guys are too self-preserving to have the assertiveness that gets you far, physically and mentally."
Draco leaned forward, smirking. "Don't you dare get me started on Quidditch, Potter. I can go on about how much potential I had to slay you but chose to suppress it-- I didn't want to accidentally kill you during the game since it would've damaged the Slytherin reputation quite a bit."
"Oh come on, what a pathetic excuse!" Harry was laughing now. "You weren't suppressing anything during Quidditch. You seriously weren't as dangerous as you thought."
"Yeah…that's what I want you to think," Draco winked as he took a sip of his coffee. "A truly dangerous person never lets anyone know about their real potential."
"A dangerous person also doesn't have the courage to admit that they aren't as strong as they think they are," said Harry with a shrug. He sipped his own coffee. "I'd make a better Weasley assassin than you because I've got more courage, and given that I've been friends with Weasley before, I know where his courage falls short compared to mine. And I can use that to my advantage."
Draco chuckled smoothly. "You Gryffindors place too much value on courage. But a truly courageous person would have the courage to refrain themselves from bragging about their courage." Draco then raised an eyebrow. "Plus….you were just speaking about how your courage compares to Weasley's and how you can use that to your advantage…..that sounded very Slytherin of you. You just made your case for why a Slytherin would make a better Weasley assassin. Thanks, Potter!"
"Shut up!" Harry grimaced. "I was--"
"I say!" Draco interrupted him. "Potter, I daresay you would have made a good Slytherin. Just listen to yourself talk about your clever negotiation with Arthur to get him to agree that working with someone like me would be an advantage to tracking Weasley down-- both for your own motive to show how much of a garbage person Weasley truly is, and also appealing to Arthur's motives to want to keep a closer eye on Slytherins." He crossed his arms and pointed his chin at Harry. "If I were in your position, I could totally see myself doing something very similar."
"Shut up!" Harry banged the table, still grimacing as he leaned forward and spoke in a challenging tone. "What you're seeing is not the 'Slytherin in me', but simply just a reflection of how a brave Gryffindor has the courage to try and adopt different schemes that don't always involve brute force to accomplish a noble goal. It's another reason why I'd make a better Weasley assassin-- I am brave enough to do things outside my comfort zone to take down that bastard!"
They ended up spending the next hour bantering over more topics related to their hatred for Weasley.
Then Harry's phone buzzed. Harry pulled out his phone, and his playful expression suddenly morphed into a solemn look of concern. "Pansy…" he muttered.
Draco suddenly felt his elation suddenly calm down. He stared at Potter with a similar look of concern. "Is she okay?"
Harry sighed. "She's home from work. She says Arthur assigned a new Auror for her house surveillance-- it's someone we've never met." He slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood up. "I'm gonna visit her."
Draco nodded. "You take care of her." He would have tagged along to visit her as well, but that stupid Arthur had enforced regulations that Slytherins were not allowed to visit other Slytherins' homes-- it was another way he minimized the risk of having them scheme with one another in case there were still any lingering motives to engage in Death Eater activity with Snape and Bellatrix.
Harry nodded back. "Of course. And we'll meet here again tomorrow-- this time to actually go over our plans for tracking down Ron."
Draco left the café, feeling strange that he actually felt like….he had fun around Potter? And for some reason, he wasn't ashamed of it. There may have been a moment where he was scolding himself for getting too friendly with his longtime rival, but it instantly passed as he found himself laughing over some of the hilarious remarks they exchanged during their banter over who hated Weasley more and how pathetic the redhead was.
Draco found himself looking forward to meeting with Potter again. He was eager to crack down on a scheme for tracking down Ron and subsequently convincing Arthur that he truly had raped and impregnated Pansy, but even if they got sidetracked with exchanging Weasley insults with each other, he would not mind.
Draco entered the café at 4pm sharp and looked around for Harry. He felt a mild surge of elation as he found him sitting at their same spot from yesterday….then his elated state immediately faltered.
Granger was sitting in his seat. The mudblood was talking to Potter, and the two of them seemed to be engaged in a serious conversation.
Draco fumed. He made his way over to them and cleared his throat. "Potter," he spoke formally.
Harry looked up from whatever heated conversation he was having with Granger and raised his eyebrows at Draco. "Ah! Great, you're here! Grab a chair and join us-- Hermione's just shared some important things with me that would totally help us provide the evidence that we truly need to convince Arthur of both his son's crime against Pansy, as well as his possible whereabouts right now."
Draco glared at Harry and spoke in a sinister tone. "I will not sit anywhere near the fiancé of that pathetic, loathsome Weasley."
"Ex-fiancé," Hermione retorted, fixing a fierce glare on Draco. "How dare you think I'd still be engaged to that foul excuse of a human."
"Oh, did I hear something?" Draco didn't even look in her direction as he shifted his glare off Harry and looked up at the ceiling. "Hmm….nope! I must just be hearing things." He shifted his gaze back on Harry. "Anyone who was well-acquainted with Weasley is simply dead to me. You, Potter, are the exception, only because you are there to take care of the victim he assaulted and said victim is genuinely grateful to have you around. Everyone else is dead."
Hermione fumed. "If you think I'm still tied to Ron in any way--"
"I must still be hearing dead people talk!" Draco started laughing mockingly. He still didn't even look in Hermione's direction to see how repulsed she looked.
Hermione instantly stood up. "Harry, I'm leaving. Apparently, your new Slytherin comrade is also damaged by what Ron did, and I am not going to stick around to bear with it." She turned and walked toward the exit.
"Hermione, wait!' Harry called.
But Hermione had already slammed the door behind her, causing several heads to turn.
Draco smiled smugly and sat in her previously-occupied seat. "Alright, Potter, let's get to our Weasley scheme. Enlighten me with what you gleaned from talking to the spirit of his dead ex-fiancé."
Harry was glaring sternly at him. "Malfoy, Hermione's the Advisor to the Minister of Magic-- the second most powerful position in the Ministry of Magic, after Arthur Weasley's position as the Minister himself. So if you have any interest in stopping Arthur Weasley from wrongly accusing you Slytherins about Ron's disappearance, you should try to stay on her good side."
"Why should I care about what a dead witch thinks of me?" Draco drawled.
"Malfoy, I'm serious. Hermione has powerful influence in the entire Ministry, and she was actually trying to help us. I will be keeping her posted about what we're doing to track Ron and bring to light his assault against Pansy," Harry crossed his arms, looking at Draco straight in the eye. "I will be arranging plenty of meetings with Hermione to get her input on how we should proceed with our plans to track down Ron and bring him to justice. So if you're not going to at least try and be civil to her, you can simply hunt for Ron by yourself and not waste your time working with me."
Draco fumed. "Okay then I will. It was nice working with you, Potter."
Harry raised an eyebrow.
Draco then felt a pang of hurt, realizing that he truly didn’t mean what he just said. Or at least, he didn't want to mean it. He then rolled his eyes and looked away, frowning. "Let's just get on with it. You said the dead Granger girl revealed something helpful in finding Arthur's arsehole son and proving his assault-- what was it?"
"Well, Hermione actually already ordered a paternity test that proved Ron truly is the father of the child she's carrying."
Draco stiffened. "You mean one of those sciency muggle experiments? I thought the father needs to be present for those."
"Well, apparently, there's a way to do it without the father present-- you can do it if you have a blood sample from the mother and from a close relative of the father. So Hermione simply contacted a clinic that does paternity tests and they were able to run the test just by having a blood sample from Pansy and Ginny, who offered to provide her own blood sample," Harry pulled out his phone. "Hermione emailed me the results." He furrowed his eyebrows in disgust as he glanced at the results on his screen, and then put his phone away.
Draco was both amazed and disgusted. "Hmph….did she email those results to Arthur?"
"Well…here's where it got weird," Harry looked around to make sure no one was within earshot, then spoke in a lowered voice. "Hermione was going to just transfer the results to Arthur Weasley's secure database. Since she's his advisor, and he has much trust in her, he has granted her access to such things. So Hermione simply transferred the paternity test results to the secure files folder, and was just about to log out…until she decided it would be worth her time sifting through some of the camera footage Arthur had stored."
Draco's jaw clenched. He knew just what Potter was talking about. When Arthur had established house surveillance for all Slytherins to monitor potential Death Eater activity, not only did he place an Auror to be physically present at the houses, but also cameras. There were plenty of those garbage accessories in Bellatrix's house, so he never felt like he had any privacy whenever he was home.
Draco listened carefully as Harry went on, "As Minister of Magic, it's no surprise that Arthur Weasley would have all the footage of the cameras-- after all, he was the one who put them there. So she went to Pansy's file to access her camera footage. Well…it turns out that there was missing footage from 5pm to 8pm on the exact day Pansy claimed to have been raped. " Harry tensed. "There is a recycle bin for the database, and it turns out the footage was sent to that bin-- someone had tried to delete it, but apparently they weren't familiarized enough with muggle technology to recall that the recycle bin also needed to be emptied if you fully want to erase a file. So Hermione checked the database's recycle bin and pulled up the missing footage. And the footage showed Ron raping Pansy in her living room. It was obvious rape."
Draco leaned forward, his face livid. "So the Weasley bastard's father already knows the truth. That arsehole has just been hiding the evidence!"
Harry huffed. "Actually, we can't be entirely sure. Hermione thought the exact same thing when she saw that-- she highlighted how awfully tortuous it was for her to watch that video and restrain herself from phonecalling Arthur with a frenzy of accusatory lashes. But after she got a hold of herself, she decided to email a copy of the footage to herself, and then searched the recycle bin to see if there was any other suspiciously content that had been recently deleted.
"She….found one more footage that was deleted. It was sent to the recycle bin at 4 AM-- the same time Pansy's footage was sent there. She opened it up, and watched 3 minutes of Snape and Bellatrix standing at the door of Bellatrix's house, facing Arthur Weasley. They were talking about something….but unfortunately, Hermione couldn't make out what they were saying. They were speaking in very low voices and the camera couldn't catch the audio well. All Hermione could notice was that this footage took place a few moments after the timeframe of Pansy's rape."
Draco tensed. "Dammit. That annoyingly complicates things…"
"I know," muttered Harry. "But hey…get this: in that 3-minute footage of Snape, Bellatrix, and Arthur, Hermione noticed there were four people gathered in front of the house across Bellatrix's, just a distance behind where Arthur was standing in the doorway. When she zoomed in, she noticed it was Blaise, Theo, Luna, and Ron. They were too blurry, though, so she was unable to get a good read on any body language or facial expressions to see what they could've been up to. But she was certain that it was the four of them." Harry leaned back, crossing his arms. "She already made plans to speak to each of them--Blaise, Theo, and Luna-- to see if they have any idea about what was going on with Arthur, Snape, and Bellatrix during that 3-minute footage. To see if whatever they were talking about had anything to do with why Pansy's rape footage was deleted, and who's responsible for doing it."
"Hmph," said Draco, looking disgruntled. Leave it to Granger to take the reigns on something he and Potter were set out to do. He tapped his fingers on the table and spoke in a scornful tone. "What does Granger make of all this?"
"She's pretty sure Arthur deleted the files himself," said Harry. "And I agree with her logic behind it-- he probably wanted to hide evidence of Ron's wrongdoings so that he could make him look like the real victim when he goes 'missing.' Perhaps that footage of Arthur, Snape, and Bellatrix was the last time Ron was seen, likely because Arthur may have been threatening Snape and Bellatrix that he will make them look like they are responsible for Ron's disappearance unless they comply with him over something…..something that we cannot be certain of yet." Harry shook his head. "I mean, we can hypothesize all sorts of things for hours, but the most important thing we can do right now is talk to Blaise, Theo, and Luna, since they were seen with Ron in that deleted footage. And they may have some idea with what Arthur, Snape, and Bellatrix were discussing since they were right across the street."
"Well I'm down to talk to Theo," said Draco. "I could sure use a drink after hearing all this too."
"Same," Harry mumbled, looking exhausted. "Let's get some fire whiskey again."