He's Coming
Harry knew he was being inconsistent and that only about thirty percent of that inconsistency could be blamed on Kingsley, clearance level restrictions, and their current case. True, there were a lot of things he couldn’t tell Draco without the proper permission. Things like: who their suspect was, what the case involved (other than the little Draco had been told as context for the recipe scrap), or what their current suspicions were. But, he also hadn’t told Draco who Aidan was. Or tried to explain why he acted so cold and distant towards Draco whenever the psychoanalyst was in the room.
He also hadn’t brought up the dysprosium incidents or the panic attack—but that had been a conscious choice on his part because reminding Draco of past vulnerabilities would only make him shut down more. The blond hadn’t seemed angry that Harry had tried to help him through the panic, but then again he hadn’t known it was Harry. So, for the moment, Harry was planning to leave that point alone. Because the last thing he needed was to give Draco more reasons to be angry with him.
Marge had memoed him shortly after he’d finished explaining the situation to Kingsley who, to his credit, had done nothing but listen. He told Harry to send Andrea home—she had no official status with the Ministry other than ‘Harry’s friend’ so that was, unfortunately, justified—and to take over her position as Draco’s accompaniment. Harry hadn’t bothered trying to explain why Draco would hate that.
“Oh, and Harry?” Kingsley tossed a coin at him, which Harry barely managed to catch. “Get yourself a coffee. You look like death.”
Harry tried to smooth out his expression and gave the Minister a small nod. He took the coin and obediently retrieved a disgusting, sludgy coffee from the very machine Draco had been standing at earlier. His hand shook as he waited for it to brew.
It was only natural, he reasoned, to not like the fact that Draco had been attacked. Andrea clearly had been upset too, which meant that the curling, churning weight in his stomach was a justified, friendly sort of concern, right? Harry clicked his tongue at himself (because that was bullshit) and leaned against the nearest wall.
His left hand was clenching itself into a fist. He noted it idly at first, barely registering the pain of his nails digging into his palm, before it hit him that he was angry. No , he thought, I don’t have any reason to be angry about any of this . It was his own fault that Draco was putting distance between them and that he wasn’t allowed to have more than a casual level of concern. He’d been the one to put them in this situation.
But he was just standing there at the machine and forced to wait, so his brain began spinning of its own accord. He wasn’t angry with Draco—okay, maybe he was a bit annoyed that the blond had clearly shown up when he wasn’t supposed to be at the Ministry without even mentioning it to Harry—and he wasn’t angry at the suspect or the junior Aurors. They’d made a mistake, of course, but that didn’t make it their fault.
No, Harry knew deep down that he was angry at himself because he was supposed to be protecting Draco. It wasn’t his job or his right to step into private issues like Draco’s panic attack, his obviously horrid sleeping habits, or any of his relationships with his coworkers. But this was the bloody Ministry! Harry had a basic, human responsibility to make sure that Draco was at least not physically harmed.
And he hadn’t even been able to do that.
Shaking his head, Harry grabbed the coffee and chugged the entire thing in one go. It was disgusting, as expected, but he’d had enough of them during his first year of training to know that chugging was the easiest way to stomach it. He glanced at his reflection in the closest darkened window and suddenly understood why Kingsley had insisted he spend a whole galleon on shit coffee.
Harry really did look like death. The adrenaline of getting a suspect, then reacting to the confrontation and working under pressure had worn off during his debriefing with Kingsley. In its wake, it’d left Harry with the same bone-deep exhaustion he’d felt that morning and an additional weight to his expression that he decided he would rather not examine too closely. It had nothing to do with Draco, of course.
Behind him, Harry heard the door to Kingsley’s office open and he wondered briefly how long he’d been standing there at the coffee machine with an empty cup. Too long, apparently, was the only acceptable answer because Kingsley emerged and shot him a look. The Minister raised his eyebrow.
Without needing to be told, Harry tossed the cup in the trash and started for the elevators. He wasn’t avoiding Draco—he wasn’t , okay? But he also didn’t want to be the one to tell Andrea to go home because he could already imagine how well that would go over. Draco would be thrilled to end up with ‘Potter’ as a bodyguard again, of course, and the neutrality that Harry had so carefully engineered the day before was already gone. There was nothing neutral about this anymore.
So, he found himself back in the on-site Healer department shifting in place as he scanned the report Marge had prepared and waited for her to bring him Andrea. No magical remnants in the scratches, Marge had noted, which was good. He’d requested the Gatherer be brought to him because he didn’t want her anger to scare Draco anymore than he already was. No injected poisons or curses either, though the Dark Mark had proven quite difficult to heal over.
“Harry! What the fuck is going on? Who was that guy?”
He winced at Andrea’s tone and tried to brace himself for the coming storm. She was already emotional and on edge which meant that the news that she not only couldn’t know what was going on, but would soon be escorted out by Aurors was not going to go over well. Fantastic.
“Hey, Andy, how’s he doing?”
She glared at the fact that he hadn’t answered her questions, but seemed to deem it reasonable enough that he would want to know about Draco first. Harry tried not to breathe a sigh of relief as her posture relaxed. He wasn’t in the clear yet.
“Well, he’s about as good as you’d expect. Shaken up and confused, but healed and ultimately not at risk of dying so that’s something. I’ll ask you again, Potter, what the fuck happened?”
At least Draco was okay. Harry took a deep breath, already reaching for his wand for a defensive shield, and finally met the Gatherer’s eyes. She clearly was beginning to understand where this was going.
“Harold. Jameson. Potter. Don’t you dare tell me that some bureaucratic bullshit is more important than explaining to us why Draco was just bloody attacked! ”
Harry shifted again, wincing as he took in the fire in her expression. She was really not going to like this… He glanced over her shoulder to where a blond figure was sitting motionless on a cot, then back at her. Maybe if he just hinted at it first…?
“Oh,” Andrea said flatly. “Not us, then. Just me.”
She clenched her jaw and Harry fought his limbs not to take a reflexive step backwards. Andrea wouldn’t hurt him—not seriously, at least—and he’d gotten very quick with a shield charm so he stood a solid chance of blocking whatever she threw at him. Before he could try to explain how insistent Kingsley had been, Andrea’s expression closed off.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Potter. This whole, entire system is complete shit and you know it.”
“I’m sorry…” he offered meekly, but it only made Andrea’s expression flare once again.
“You’d better take care of him, Harry, because if I hear that you let the Aurors fall on him like vultures I will rip off each of your toenails one by one and shove them up your ass. Do you understand me?”
Harry nodded, feeling the muscles in his ass clench defensively at the mere suggestion. Toenails was a new one, he noted, and he wondered if Andrea was more angry at being kept out of the loop or at being forced to leave Draco. She would do a lot more than curse him if he let Draco get hurt, he knew.
He tried to shoot her an apologetic look as a junior Auror appeared to escort her out, but she’d turned her rage on the girl almost instantly. Poor girl, he thought. Whatever she’d done to get on her supervisor’s bad side and earn this assignment did not warrant being the subject of Andrea’s wrath. Intervening would only make it worse, though, so Harry took a deep breath and surveyed the room.
It was empty, aside from the blond figure and Marge’s stout frame in her cubicle. A flood of relief and the urge to hug Draco close, shielding him with his own body, overtook Harry’s system. He forced himself to stop and let the feeling pass.
Finally, after a few beats of silence, he let himself approach the bed and stayed resolutely at least six feet away from the blond. The blond who now had an entire armful of bandages. Harry swallowed the fierce desire to cast his own healing spells on Draco and tried to assess the non-physical damage. Draco was just sitting on the cot still, and staring at the wall as if he couldn’t process what had just happened.
“Draco, hey, thank god. Are you okay?”
The blond lifted his head, eyes sluggish and uncomprehending. Harry took a tentative step closer, watching closely for any hint of a negative reaction, but saw nothing so he made his way over to the cot. Slowly, one step at a time, as if any wrong move might spark another panic attack.
“Hey,” he tried again, keeping his voice soft. “You okay?”
Draco lifted his bandaged arm as if that answered Harry’s question. Without even realizing what he was doing, Harry had moved to stand almost directly in front of the blond and he’d put himself within touching distance. Stupid . He was exhausted and had much less self-restraint than he normally would have.
Not even realizing what he was doing, Harry reached out and ghosted his fingers over the bandages. Draco shuddered, closing his eyes. Harry bit back the sharp, choked little sound that bubbled up in his throat and tried not to stare. This Draco was not the confident, sharp-tongued potioneer that he’d seen the day before and instead resembled the version of Draco Harry had seen just after the panic attack: small, shaky, and walking a very thin line between holding it together and losing it completely.
“Draco, can you please answer me verbally?” Harry prodded, making sure to put as much of a genuine, questioning inflection on that phrase as he possibly could. “Are you okay? Do you want me to get Marge again?”
The blond shook his head, but his eyes were locked on the spot where Harry’s fingers were still resting against his arm. He swallowed hard—Harry saw the bob of his Adam’s apple—and blinked. Everything about him from the way he was moving to the way he was breathing felt dull and numb, but maybe that was just Harry’s post-adrenaline haze manifesting itself in his observational skills. It felt like more than that, though.
“I’m okay,” Draco finally said. “Why did Andrea leave?”
Harry desperately fought the urge to take the blond’s hand or to put an arm around his shoulders and assure him that Andrea hadn’t left him . She hadn’t wanted to go. It felt like he was trying to fight his way through sludge as he gently traced the straight lines made by the bandages, but Draco either wasn’t reacting or was battling the same invisible force. Either way, those silver eyes were open now and were tracking the faint movement of his fingers—wondering why Andrea had just up and left. They sat in silence because Harry didn’t have a better answer than: ‘because I made her’.
“Well, isn’t this a cozy little scene?”
Harry jolted, immediately launching himself off the bed and trying to act as a barrier. Aidan was standing a few feet away, leaning against a support beam with his arms crossed and a small smirk playing at his lips. He looked far too happy for the situation.
Draco had gone rigid, Harry noticed, but he wasn’t sure if that had more to do with his own sudden reaction or with Aidan’s presence. The taller man was just looking at them, clearly drawing his own conclusions. Part of Harry ached to sit back down and maybe place a hand possessively on Draco’s lower back or intertwine their fingers as an attempt at comfort but he knew better. Even if Draco let him—which he wouldn’t—Aidan couldn’t know that there was anything there.
Which, Harry reminded himself, shouldn’t be that hard because, as far as anyone else was concerned, there was nothing there.
“Aidan, what are you doing here? Did Kingsley send you?”
The psychoanalyst smiled, but those dark, endless eyes were focused entirely on Draco and it made Harry want to punch him. Trust Aidan to show up whenever someone was vulnerable.
“I’m here to tell you that Kingsley wants a meeting with all three of us,” Aidan replied smoothly, motioning between them as if their little triangle of animosity could possibly be referred to as ‘us’. “But he didn’t send me, no. I volunteered.”
Draco took a long, deep breath and tried to summon the rational, functioning part of his mind. He knew—logically—what was happening. People, especially during the war, had always talked about fight or flight instincts and Draco had nodded along as if he understood. Draco rarely ever ran from fear and he certainly had never fought, unless dueling Potter counted. Back then, he hadn’t known there was a third option.
Elle called it a ‘freeze’ response. When she’d first brought it up Draco had argued that he wasn’t freezing, clearly, because he was still standing and breathing and talking to her. She’d explained it more in-depth, though, and Draco had gone through a long, long process of realizing, understanding, hating, and then finally accepting that his default reaction was to freeze. He still hated it sometimes.
Like now, for instance, when all potential danger was gone and he was stuck in a room with Potter, Aidan, and the Minister himself. Was he always this involved in cases? Draco doubted it, but then again that might explain why nothing ever seemed to get done. He dug his nails into his thigh, trying to focus. Dammit, he needed to be listening and to absorb what was being said even if he couldn’t manage to coax his brain out of that freeze response.
It hadn’t taken long for Draco to make the connection between the ‘Malfoy mask’ and freezing internally. Growing up, even before the Dark Lord, Lucius had demanded perfection in everything from Draco’s robes to his emotions and facial expressions. Therefore, Draco had learned to act. His brain, unable to run and unable to fight or physically freeze, had decided that shutting down mentally would be enough.
And it was, usually. It’d gotten him through living with the Dark Lord, through the war, and through the aftermath of it (more or less, depending on how optimistic he was). But that had been survival, and this… This was at least the kind of thing he should be paying attention to, right?
“So, Mr. Malfoy, you’re all caught up with what we know so far. Mr. Drummond has argued for having you try to question the witness—with proper protection, of course—because he seemed to respond to you. Auror Potter has argued against involving you with the witness at all. As Minister, I can hardly support anything that places someone without formal training in the role of interrogator for the Auror department. The potential lawsuits alone could bankrupt the entire Ministry. As a compromise, I suggest that you may watch the interrogation and potentially suggest questions that the appointed interrogator could then ask. However, the decision is ultimately yours, Mr. Malfoy.”
Draco blinked, trying to force his expression into anything that even remotely resembled intelligent thought. They wanted him to watch them interrogate the guy who’d scratched him. Well, everyone but Potter did. Potter probably didn’t think he could handle it, the asshole—although, to be fair, Draco hadn’t been listening at all when the Auror had made his case against it. The mere idea of proving Potter wrong, though, was too good to resist.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
He heard Potter suck in a sharp breath, and Aidan’s grin was palpable in the air. Kingsley just nodded. Apparently, that was their signal to be dismissed because Potter and Aidan both stood, moving towards the door as Draco rushed to follow them. Aidan looked thrilled, but Potter was glaring daggers into the man’s back. Interesting.
Draco followed mindlessly as they led him down into the deepest underground floors of the Ministry. Dark, damp, and meant to instill fear. He hated the Ministry, but these lower basement floors were worse than the motivational banners and shit coffee upstairs. They walked in silence past labelled doors and didn’t stop until room 47.
It didn’t hit him until they stepped into the observation side of the interrogation room that he’d been there before. Not this room exactly, probably, but one very similar. He’d seen glimpses of a few other interrogation rooms on their trek down the hall and they’d looked nothing like this—just bland, grey walls and a plain, wooden table. This one was evidently built with a purpose.
The walls were plastic. He knew because he could remember being pushed against it and feeling the cool, smooth, nameless material against his skin. Draco remembered, vaguely, that Andrea had called the Muggle material a great insulator. They probably used it to create a sort of containment room in case the person inside somehow got hold of an Auror’s wand or attempted to lash out with magic, even without a wand.
The table and chairs were plastic too. In front of him, the one-way glass had ancient runes clearly carved into their side of it that would have been invisible to the person being interrogated. Runes for strength, runes for clarity—basic, damage-prevention runes—but then there were also runes for deflection and runes for protection. Specific protection.
His stomach churned as he realized that this interrogation room had clearly been designed to hold people who were thought to be skilled at dark magic. He wasn’t sure, at this point, if his reaction to that thought hit hard because it meant the man he was about to watch was potentially a dark wizard, or if it was because he’d been considered dark.
Or you just don’t like the idea of Harry being around dark magic .
Draco shook that thought away very, very quickly because Potter was a bloody Auror and had killed the Dark Lord for Merlin’s sake. He could handle himself. With a flash of sudden awareness, he realized that Potter and Aidan were arguing about who was going to interrogate the man and who was going to stay with Draco.
They both, evidently, wanted to stay with him. As much as Draco really did not want to be alone in a room with Aidan, his mind and body could not handle one more second of Harry looking at him with that gentle, searching concern.
“Potter, you should interrogate him first. You’re the one who talked to me, so he’s more likely to make the connection that you know me and talk.”
Potter’s eyes flared and, just for a second, Draco felt the floor fall out from under his feet. He looked away, staring instead at the man who had been led into the interrogation room, and tried not to sift through the air for currents of anger.
“See, Harry?” Aidan interrupted. “Even your little potioneer agrees with me.”
Draco tried incredibly hard not to let that title go to his head, and to focus on the task at hand. Two people, now, who evidently knew Potter better than he did—though Aidan’s connection to the man was still unclear—had now described Draco as if he belonged to Harry. They had both called him ‘little’, too, which had felt like a joke from Andrea but landed more like an insult when it came from Aidan.
Without another word, Potter ripped a page out of his notebook and placed it on the closest desk. He charmed it, performed a linking spell between it and the next page in his notebook, then handed it, along with a Muggle pen, to Draco—who was definitely not overwhelmed by the sensation of Potter casting a single fucking spell. Draco blinked, but took it.
“Just write anything you want me to say on the top half of the page, and anything you want me to know but not say on the bottom of the page, okay?”
Nodding, Draco drew an impressively straight line through the center of the page to demonstrate that he understood. Potter watched an identical line appear on his own page, apparently satisfied. Honestly, with how badly Draco’s hands had been shaking lately, he was just relieved that he’d managed to make a line at all. He gave Harry a nod and the Auror disappeared back out into the hall.
Instantly, Draco felt a dramatic change in Aidan’s energy. The man didn’t say a word or try to move closer to him, but Draco was very aware of the sudden shift and he wasn’t sure what it meant. He’d expected that, without Potter as a buffer, the man would become a thousand times more predatory. However, that deviousness that he’d had around Potter had softened—though, make no mistake, it was very much still there—and something more like genuine curiosity had taken its place. For now, at least.
Inside the interrogation room, Potter took a seat across from the now much more heavily restrained man. He introduced himself again, asking if the man remembered him, and Draco noticed immediately how intentionally non-defensive Potter was with his body language. It was probably part of their training, of course, but then why had Potter let it slip through when he was with Draco?
“As you can see, your new bestie is very cooperative.”
Draco ignored Aidan, instead leaning over to scribble quick instructions at the top of the page. Call me your friend. On the other side of the glass, Potter scanned the words. He kept the page out of the suspect’s view and had his back to the one-way glass so Draco couldn’t read his expression but he thought he saw a slight stiffness in the Auror’s shoulders. Was Potter really that disgusted by the mere idea of being fake friends?
“So, would you like to tell me why you attacked my friend earlier?”
At that, the man looked up and his eyes zeroed in on the glass as if he could see straight through it to where Draco was standing. He couldn’t—Draco knew he couldn’t—but it was still incredibly unnerving.
“Even you’ve lapsed into mindless acceptance, then?”
The man didn’t call Potter by name or use any of the titles the press typically did like ‘Savior’, but the implication was there. He didn’t like the idea of Potter being friends with a Death Eater. Tell him that I’ve changed . Draco grit his teeth as he wrote it, and tried not to watch for Potter’s reaction. This was the same Potter, he reminded himself, who had thought he was capable of trying to kill an innocent little kid.
“Draco’s different now. Surely you know that he was pardoned.”
Their suspect sneered at the sound of Draco’s first name, and again at the word ‘pardoned’. Clearly, he was not a fan of Draco Malfoy. Was this some kind of war grudge? And, if so, why were none of the people who had ‘committed suicide’ so far confirmed former Death Eaters? Most of them had barely even been connected to the war.
“A rose by any other name...” the man replied enigmatically.
A name. Names were important. Draco gripped his pen again and began to write. Ask him if he knows who I am. My last name. He’d assumed—like Potter, probably—that the man had gone after him because he’d recognized the signature platinum blond hair. But Draco hadn’t had his Dark Mark showing (he never did) and the man had known it was there.
“Speaking of names,” Harry segwayed. “Do you know my friend’s name? Did you know him before the war?”
Draco held his breath, waiting for the inevitable, tasteless growl of ‘ Malfoy’ that people usually reverted to. The man didn’t say it, though. Instead, he continued to stare directly at the glass over Potter’s shoulder. Potter had called him Draco, but if this man hadn’t immediately connected that with ‘Malfoy’ then how the hell had he even known that Draco had a Dark Mark?
“They’re all the same, you know. Doesn’t matter what they’re called—they all reek of corruption, they’re all cowards, and he’s coming for them all.”
Draco swallowed hard. The man didn’t know who he was, that was clear, but was he implying that he’d felt Draco’s Dark Mark? He remembered the warning the man had hissed at him before being hit with a body bind: he’s coming for you . His pen moved, but Potter was a step ahead of him.
“Who’s coming for them?”
That earned them a small, smug smile that seemed to say: wouldn’t you like to know? Draco narrowed his eyes because yes, he would like to know, but tried to focus on the situation. Being snarky wouldn’t get the man to talk. Think, dammit! Aidan was standing beside him, watching him and seeming to catalogue every single microexpression that crossed his face.
Ask him if he’ll tell me.
Potter tensed, but did a good job hiding it. Draco knew from years of watching the Gryffindor that he carried tension in his lower back whenever he was trying not to let his shoulders seem stiff and he saw the muscles there clench now. The Auror didn’t have a pen to write back or argue with, so Draco just underlined the sentence.
“Don’t feel like talking, huh? What about my friend? Would you tell him who’s coming for him?”
“If he has the balls to ask me himself.”
Before he even knew he’d moved, Draco was in the hall and had his hand on the door. It opened—which was not very secure, now that he thought about it—and Draco found himself standing beside Potter to face the man. This was a very stupid idea. He knew that, and the terrifying realization of the position he’d just put himself in burned through his nervous system. Too late to back out, though.
“Who’s coming for me?”
The man grinned and it was that same blood-stained grin he’d given Draco during that first encounter. Draco stood a step closer, noticing the short chain keeping the man’s cuffs relatively close to the floor, and felt Potter’s hand close around his wrist. Instantly, the man’s eyes zeroed in on that point of contact. It made his grin twist into a sneer and Draco remembered how he’d reacted to Potter calling Draco his friend. Turning his wrist, he let it slip until he was holding Potter’s hand.
Fuck it was so warm and steady. Draco nearly collapsed, but managed to hold himself still and keep his expression blank. He cocked his head at the man, striving for an innocent sort of ignorance that usually managed to piss people off, and was pleased to see his jaw clench.
“I’ll ask you again,” Draco said slowly, trying to enunciate each word. “Who’s coming for me?”
Potter squeezed his hand, sending an involuntary jolt of sensation up Draco’s arm, but he tried to ignore it. The man was staring at him and Draco was focused. He was good at manipulating people and pushing their buttons so he dropped Potter’s hand and turned like he was going to leave.
“And you call me a coward.”
The air in the room evaporated. For a second, Draco thought that Potter might have performed some kind of wordless spell but then he realized that it was the man. He was drawing in the energy, sucking it from Draco like a bloody leech. What the fuck? Draco turned, trying to seem unaffected, and raised an eyebrow.
“Well? Last chance.”
“He’s coming for you,” the man hissed again.
“Yes, yes, we’ve established that thank you. Unless you can give me a name, though, I’m not particularly inclined to believe you.”
Potter snorted and, even if it was fake amusement, it seemed to egg the man on. He glowered at Draco. His hands, Draco noted, were clenched into white fists beneath the edge of the table and that oppressive, draining force had lifted almost entirely. Emotions were clouding his judgement, now.
“He’s coming.”
“Who? The boogeyman? Because it’s starting to sound like you’re just another broken record addict who thinks a monster lurks in every dark alley.”
Their suspect hissed and lunged at him, but only succeeded in doubling himself over on the table. He opened his mouth, only to spit at Draco. An invisible shield appeared less than an inch from his face, though, and blocked the attack which seemed to surprise the man just as much as it surprised Draco—until he felt the telltale swoop of Potter’s magic over his skin.
“You’re going to pay ,” the man spat. “You and all the rest of your kind! You’re going to suffer for the pain that you’ve caused and justice will be served!”
There was a loud crack like the breaking of bone and the man swallowed hard before grinning back up at him.
“Broken Crown is coming.”
Vaguely, Draco heard Potter pressing him about who ‘Broken Crown’ was or why he was coming after ‘Draco’s kind’ but his eyes couldn’t leave the man’s face. His pale skin was rapidly becoming cherry-red. He was still grinning, but Draco realized with a jolt that he wasn’t breathing.
“Potter—”
Even as he started to warn him, the man slumped back in his chair and fell to the floor where he began to cough and convulse against his restraints. Draco took a step back and heard someone yell for a Healer, but he was transfixed. The man’s eyes were closed but bulging out beneath his eyelids and he was making wet, frantic choking sounds that made much more sense once he began to foam at the mouth.
A Healer burst into the room—not Marge, he noted, but a man this time—and demanded to know what had happened. Potter had no answers, but Draco’s mind was working overtime. The crack. It had sounded like a bone being broken, but what if it had been a tooth?
“Poison!” he managed, and the Healer immediately altered the diagnostic spells he was using. “He poisoned himself.”
Draco was guessing at best but he remembered reading something about false teeth and poisoning during a war that had happened. They’d used a capsule of poison in place of a tooth. It was just supposed to be a myth, but maybe a dark witch or wizard had made it possible?
Time didn’t exist, in that moment, and Draco felt Potter’s hand on his arm. The Healer was frantically yelling for different supplies and poured an antidote down the man’s throat but half of it was spit back out and the half that was ingested didn’t seem to do anything. Draco saw the Healer perform a spell to empty the man’s stomach, but it didn’t help either.
Slowly, the convulsing stopped. Grimacing, the Healer pronounced the suspect dead and asked ‘Auror Potter’ to take Draco to another room and wait. Harry squeezed his arm again, gently leading him towards the door. They needed to gather forensic evidence, apparently, and review the scene before they could move the body. It made sense.
Draco knew, theoretically, that he was not thinking clearly. His brain felt sluggish and his eyes refused to see anything other than that blood-stained grin. He was aware of Harry guiding him through different hallways to something that resembled a break room, but then another Auror that Draco didn’t know appeared. She was short and had a soft, round face. She apologized to Harry, but said she couldn’t leave them alone until the death had been officially ruled a suicide.
In the back of his mind, Draco knew that they should have separated him and Harry. If they were trying to preserve evidence, they should have split them up immediately and started interrogating before the body had even been reported. But, whether it was Harry’s status in the Ministry or some strange bit of luck from the universe, Draco was grateful. Harry’s hand on his arm was the only thing reminding him to breathe.
He’d just watched a man die. His brain jumped helpfully to the last time he’d seen someone die that close to him and he shuddered, curling in on himself at the memory of Charity Burbage falling dead on the dinner table. Harry squeezed his arm, then let go and Draco felt like he was losing his grip on reality. Just as quickly, though, he felt a warm arm settle around his shoulders.
They didn’t say anything. The Auror who was babysitting them sat in a chair on the other side of the room, trying to avert her eyes while still paying attention to them. Harry seemed pretty shaken up but it was hard to tell, honestly, because Draco’s brain was only taking in every third or fourth piece of information. Everything was disoriented and nonsensical. He didn’t realize he was shaking until he felt the weight of Harry’s arm pulling him into the man’s side and forcing him to stop.
Unable to physically panic, Draco turned inward and felt his own brain begin to implode. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get that last sentence the dead man had said out of his mind. It played on loop, over and over again. Just another detail that didn’t make any sense.
Broken Crown is coming.