Chapter 7
The next few weeks practically flew by with the warm sunny afternoons and light chirping of the birds outside. Draco was now completely able to make most things they needed to make basic dishes on his own and was actively asking how to preserve things for the winter-something that Harry had been doing on and off as things matured in the gardens.
Eventually, though, Harry did cave and taught him how to make jams, pickle vegetables and even how to preserve meat. He’d have to remember to teach him how to prepare preserved meat properly once they started using it in the winter.
Not too long after the weather started to cool and fall came.
Then the snow.
Hermione still hadn’t sent anything through the book. A week after the new year, Harry wrote in the book for Hermione and Ron to have a happy yule and new year-belated though it was. No response came.
With the snow melting came Harry teaching Draco how to start the seeds they’d saved from the year prior. It only took a month to get everything started and another for the seedlings to establish themselves in the ground. Things were thriving once again.
Harry was watching Draco closely. Ever since the first dress, he’d slowly asked Sunni for more clothes and started wearing the more feminine things more and more often. Currently, he was in a white flowy skirt with an indigo dyed shirt. He’d insisted Harry show him how to dye it when he found out Harry knew how; the garment had been white when Sunni had given it to him.
Draco was staring at the book like he often did when something was bothering him. Harry was gathering his courage to attempt to ask Draco what was the matter, but Draco started talking before he could open his mouth.
“I think that whatever’s going on is connected to the cases I'd been working on. I know, I know. We talked about it. But something’s missing.” Harry sat down, but he kept his mouth shut. Sure they’d talked about it, but Draco always conceded that the ministry would flush out the weed and they’d be fine to come back any time now.
“Look, I know you want to believe that everything is fine and that they’re just compiling evidence and whatever but this is bad. Whatever is happening is being done in a way that Hermione doesn’t feel comfortable even opening that book of hers, let alone writing in it. I think that the ministry has a huge problem. There were signs in those cases…”
“Like?” Harry was just humouring him, but it was either that or deal with a sulky Draco for the next few days and that was the last thing he wanted.
“Like all the mistakes. It wasn’t just with one particular department; it was all of them. But the people at the head of approvals…they all signed off on it and never once questioned anything. Auror leads approved reports that their supervisors then approved, to which Robards approved…this goes deep. It’s multiple departments too because there was a lot of mishandled or lost evidence that was always signed off on and the Evidence department is located at the other end of the building to the Aurors! No, this has to go above them.” That left Harry more confused than anything.
“But the only one above the Aurors and Evidence is-”
“The minister, I know. And that’s unlike him. I’ve had several meetings with him and he always seemed normal, never a hint of anything off so it can’t be the Imperius…Either someone has something insanely huge on him, or he’s being threatened-no,” he stopped himself for a moment. “No, the only thing that could make him risk trials and criminals walking free is something bigger than that, something worse than that, something-”
“Something that would be classified as ‘for the greater good’,” Harry snarled. He hated the phrase and all the baggage that came with it. But Kingsley had worked with Dumbledore long enough to think that one sacrifice for the betterment of all was worth the sacrifice. That may be the case with petty thieves and the like, but with multiple murderers? Someone had to have a pretty credible and large threat to a huge chunk of the magical population in Britain for him to consider letting things go under the table.
Harry said as much and then asked Draco if it was all cases or just a select few. Draco replied with the latter and the two went to work trying to find the common denominators with all the cases that were handled so poorly that Draco Malfoy had a hard time in the courtroom.
Spring practically flew by, as did most of the summer. The two had an incredible harvest coming in, and all the work was eating into their time trying to figure out what was going on with the cases Draco had seen issues with.
One morning, while Harry was drinking a rare cup of coffee from the pot he’d decided to brew, it clicked. He started arranging case files into piles and was almost done when Draco walked up to the kitchen table.
“You look mad, what are you doing? Merlin, I had those all in chronological order you berk!” Harry looked at Draco with bright eyes.
“Don’t you see? They all fall under three categories! This pile here,” he pointed to the one on his left. “These all have to do with people who are largely connected to either magical or muggle water access. And this pile,” he gestured to the smallest one in the middle. “This all has people connected to muggle and magical transport. Either with the ministry or repair services. And this last pile is people that have a loose connection with Voldemort; either Voldemort wronged them or they followed his beliefs. Don’t you see?” Draco shook his head, but at least he looked intrigued.
“I don’t, but I’m sure you’ll explain it while I get some of that coffee you made.” Harry simply passed him his mug and motioned for him to sit down. He might be focused on the cases, but even Harry was human and couldn’t resist looking at Draco in a pink nightgown with white lace around the arms and bottom. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and continued.
“Look, these suspects were all a part of the public works for both muggle and magical communities. Keep that in mind. And this pile was all transportation related. Now this pile, this is where it gets interesting. All the suspects in this pile weren’t able to be convicted due to lack of substantial evidence.” Draco glared at the pile; Harry was surprised it didn’t catch fire.
“Draco, all of these people got away. They all had an issue with reparations being taken either from them or their family. Ianth Greengrass didn’t side with the light because the light killed her husband-he was a death eater, albeit a rather low one-she works with the Apparitions Wards department. Terence Higgs was also related to the Greengrasses-from what I hear, he dotes on Ianth who’s been in hiding and keeping a low profile. Both of them are excellent at potions. And the Crouches-Charis and Caspar to be exact-had a squib that goes by Phillip Monet-he works in muggle transportation. High up, too. Something to do with the muggle military. And this one, Regulus Black had an illegitimate daughter and sent her off to an orphanage.”
“Let me guess, that’s her case file?”
“Yes! And she works in the ministry floo networking. She never did forgive Regulus for dumping her off with muggles and going to get himself killed for the greater good. He left her a note explaining who he was and that he was going to do something to help Dumbledore win a war-she pieced it together later on.”
“But what does any of this have to do with each other?” Harry looked up at Draco, ignoring the rest of the pile.
“Draco, what’s the easiest way to poison an entire society?” Draco’s jaw dropped and the colour drained from his face as his eyes went wide with disbelief.
“You don’t think they all banded together?” Harry nodded.
“I think they all got together, figured out they all had nothing to lose, and-for whatever reasons they each had-decided to blackmail the minister into letting them go for petty crimes. What better way to rob people and take their own reparations than to hold the entire wizarding community and muggle community hostage? It even makes sense, look this one from over here was tried for stealing an unknown amount of nightshade! We don’t know if we received the lot of it because the original amount was unknown they could have tonnes of it sitting around for their use!” Draco looked at the third pile, his colouring looking worse and worse.
“And um…what does transport have to do with it?”
“Draco…if your water is being poisoned, would you not go in search of clean water?” He nodded. “And what happens if you can’t travel to clean water?”
Draco gulped and they both looked back to the book on their coffee table.