A Dream For The Dead

A Dream for the Dead

Chapter 12

Answer In Spades

Against all logic and reason, against the rational progression of things, Harry felt better. He was worn and weary. He hadn’t slept in a week and may not have eaten in longer. His hair was a more unruly mess than usual and his robes were perpetually rumpled. His muscles ached and his eyes protested as he squinted at the same words he had been studying for over two hours. His throat was parched and his fingers were splattered with ink.

All in all, he felt very good.

The reason for Harry’s improved mood was precisely the thing that was keeping him up at nights and impeding him from eating. He had a case and, contrary to his initial assessment, it was serious.

It was also ridiculously difficult to find a lead.

He had been reading the one letter that Narcissa Malfoy had given him for a week without having found anything new in the words. She had told him that there were dozens more letters but that she had only managed to bring one. It hadn’t occurred to him, at the time, that the reason for this was that her son had not agreed to going to the Aurors.

She had informed him that, should he decide to take his job more seriously and actually fight evil rather than nap on his desk (at which point Harry had frowned deeply and flushed red), he would be given access to the other letters in Malfoy’s presence. This, of course, was something Harry assumed would be easy. He now knew better.

Still, Narcissa had offered what little details she could about the body of the letters. The key similarities, it seemed, were the signature and the threats. Though there were multiple threats to Malfoy’s safety, as well as that of his family, in particular his son, there was one very specific threat that did not change. It was the common thread between all the letters that indicated it was the same person –or group of people, Harry reminded himself –sending them all.

The Dementor’s Kiss.

The signature itself was the threat. The one punishment that the sender seemed to think was fitting of Malfoy’s crimes was a Dementor’s kiss. They believed that Mafloy deserved to have his soul ripped violently from him, leaving him nothing but a shell.

Harry found this not only terribly disturbing, but profoundly odd.

The Dementors had been removed from Azkaban roughly twenty years ago, as soon as it was clear that they had abandoned their agreement with the Ministry and had shifted their allegiance to Voldemort, who promised them more souls, more often.

Since their removal, the Ministry has changed the guards of Azkaban more times than Harry cared to remember. They had attempted numerous magical creatures, each of which had negative consequences that generally outweighed the good.

First they had asked a herd of Centaurs to stand guard, considering their powerfully magical nature and their willingness to be vicious in regards to wizardkind. They did not particularly enjoy the idea of being out to sea on a small, unplottable island, all the while under the employ of wizards.

They tried to employ boggarts. One boggart was stationed in every cell to subdue the prisoners by using their own fears against them. It worked quite well until overcrowding became a problem, at which point many boggarts were so confused at to their subject that they exploded from the lack of focus.

The Ministry briefly considered the use of Dragons as guardians for the prison. They transported female dragons with their broods to the island and placed them strategically around the prison. Unfortunately, Dragons do not take well to one another when they meet. Furthermore, the hatchlings multiplied the number of beasts on the island and, in the massive chaos that ensued between the warring creatures, the Ministry acknowledged the inability of the prison to ensure the survival of any of the prisoners. Though it was an effective tool in frightening future offenders off the path of crime, it did nothing to encourage Death Eaters to cooperate with them in any way. Furthermore, there was nothing to stop the Dragons from attacking Ministry officials transporting new prisoners to their cells.

A similar problem was encountered when someone at the Ministry suggested the use of Giants. Harry shuddered when he recalled that particular fiasco.

Then there were arguments back and forth about instating Hippogriffs to guard the cells, as no prisoner would surely manage to prove themselves trustworthy to a Hippogriff. Or, instead, Sphinxes, because the prisoners were surely not clever enough to decipher all the riddles required to make an escape.

None of these suggestions ever saw light.

Eventually, it was decided to hand over the control of Azkaban to the Goblins and the House-Elves. Goblins had proven themselves powerful and infinitely clever with their magnificent control of Gringott’s Wizard Bank. Furthermore, their magic was not compatible with Human Magic, which ensured that even the most skilled prisoner in wandless magic could not counter the wards they set up. The House-Elves were servants of the Ministry and, so, were unfailingly loyal to the Ministry instructions. Furthermore, they ensured that all the prisoners survived the length of their sentences.

Though there were clearly still problems with this arrangement, the Ministry had run out of ideas. This seemed to work best.

That had been six years ago. The Dementors had been classified XXXXX, as being known wizard “killers” (though they did not precisely kill), and impossible to train or domesticate.

Soon after the battle at Hogwarts, Aurors were dispatched to banish Dementors from all inhabited areas. It was believed by many that Dementors had been banished from the British Isles entirely. Harry knew this was not true, but perhaps it was best to let people believe it.

Given that the letter writer was insistent on the use of a Dementor’s kiss on Malfoy, Harry was sure that they also knew that the Dementors were still very much present in England. The threat also suggested that the sender had known a time when the Dementors were the guards to Azkaban and the Kiss was a Ministry employed sentence.

The paragraph that gave Harry most problems to decipher was the one describing a boy Malfoy had apparently watched being led to the slaughter. There were mentions of souls and memories. The sender seemed to believe they knew something that Malfoy kept secret from the world.

Harry couldn’t decide if these comments were meant as taunts to disconcert the blond Quidditch player, to drive him to madness, or if they were genuine. He couldn’t decide if they had real meaning, if there was something more to the whole ordeal than Malfoy was telling him.

But then, Malfoy wasn’t telling Harry anything, so the latter was quite likely.

Harry placed the letter down on his otherwise clear desk and muttered an incantation over the parchment. He had muttered this same incantation several hundred times over the same letter.

The ink on the parchment shimmered momentarily before little glittering specks lifted off the page and rearranged themselves to spell out information.

Harry shook his head as his eyes scanned the glittering letters in the air. Nothing new. Not that he really excepted there would be. Unless the parchment was enchanted to suddenly reveal all the secrets of the sender after the millionth time it was probed, Harry was sure it would only ever tell him the same useless details.

The ink was generic ink, enchanted into a quill. Said quill was a magical one, with a charm designed to record spoken words, much like the one Harry had used when he visited Malfoy in the hospital to take his statement. The parchment itself revealed its parent tree (birch, in this case) and that it had been touched with a cleaning charm before being sent. The wax seal revealed nothing special at all. It was generic wax with a nonspecific seal. The pressing was magical, not manual.

Harry frowned and flicked his wand, causing the words to disappear. This was useless. Harry couldn’t discover much useful information at all without more background information from Malfoy, which he knew he wasn’t going to get.

He grumbled and fisted his hair, staring down at the letter again. He had done everything imaginable to this letter. He had attempted charms and spells to reveal invisible ink, to reveal embedded curses and charms that might be concealing something helpful.

Nothing.

He had read it over and over, committing the words to memory in case, inexplicably, the letters words changed, even in the slightest, over time. He had even flipped it upside down to see if there was an ambigram hidden in the writing., or perhaps a code of some sort.

Nothing.

He had brushed the paper with various potions to identify poisons or other magical properties, but still…

Nothing.

The only spell that had given him anything was the incantation he had performed innumerable times, and even that had offered little.

Harry placed his wand down on the desk and glared at the letter, picturing a blond man with cold grey eyes in the place of the indecipherable writing. The room began to pulse slightly, though he pretended it was only his temples.

Why couldn’t Malfoy just cooperate? Harry was doing him a favour, helping him. He was only trying to find the psychopath who was threatening him and stop it. He was trying to help protect Malfoy’s family. Why couldn’t the bloody git just see that and stop acting like a child forced to share their dessert?

Harry ground his teeth and sat back, slapping the letter away. It would all be so much easier of the bloody arse would just work with him.

There was a knock at the door before it opened slowly. Harry relaxed slightly and a tired smile spread across his face.

Hermione walked in, her long bushy hair wrestled back into a braid with only a few flyaway pieces. She was carrying a number of scrolls with her and dropped them carefully onto Harry’s desk.

“I hope you’re not busy,” Hermione said, clearly intent on continuing regardless of whether he was or not. “But I did as you asked. I went through the Archives to see what I could find.”

Harry smiled brightly and widened his arms.

“And you found something!” he exclaimed, ready to kiss her. He didn’t think he had ever been so glad to hear Hermione’s research results. “Please tell me there is another Death Eater who has been getting death threats and promises to have their soul ripped out.”

“Death threats?” Hermione began, rifling through the scrolls she had dropped. “All of them. Threats against their souls? Only one.” Harry’s expression shifted quickly from excitement to disappointment and back again. It was not a pleasant experience to change one’s feelings so quickly. The room shrank slightly around him. “Though I don’t think it will be very helpful.”

“What?” Harry asked, rubbing something away from his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Hermione, pulled up the chair behind her and sat down across from him. She unrolled a scroll and handed it over to him. It had a year and date heading. Then beneath it was what seemed to be a transcribed letter.

“Well, he wasn’t actually a Death Eater,” Hermione began slowly. “Everyone just thought he was.” Harry’s eyes scanned the letter. It had little in common with the one sent to Malfoy, save for the threat of a Dementor’s kiss. There was no clear indication as to the address. Harry looked up, confused. Hermione shifted. “It was sent to Sirius while he was in Azkaban.”

Harry looked back down at the letter and felt his stomach sink. He swallowed and placed it back down on the desk. He didn’t know what to say.

“Harry,” Hermione began again. “I don’t think he ever received it, though. The Ministry didn’t allow owls into Azkaban and everything intended for prisoners came here. The letters were transcribed and filed away, the originals destroyed. They are meant to receive their post upon their release.”

Harry took off his glasses and began to clean them on his rumpled robes. The thought of Sirius’ soul being threatened was unnerving to him, but not something that he had never heard before. Sirius nearly did fall victim to a Dementor’s kiss in Harry’s third year at Hogwarts.

Harry found himself wondering, momentarily, if Snape had been the one to send the letter to Sirius, given how intent he had been on watching Sirius have his soul sucked out. But Harry quickly banished the thought. Snape was a good man, in the end. However much he might have hated Sirius, he wouldn’t have sent him threats like that.

Besides, the letter didn’t seem to match the pattern of the new one. Granted, he could have identified a stronger pattern if he had more than one letter to work with, but for now Harry could not. This letter wasn’t going to help him.

“I guess that’s not very helpful,” Harry murmured, replacing his glasses. “Anything else?”

Hermione offered a sad smile, her brows knitted and her shoulders shrugging.

“Not really,” she admitted. “I found the transcripts for the Malfoys’ trials after the war, as well as the record of their sentences. The whole account was not very pretty.” Hermione made a disgusted face at the scrolls in front of her.

“I don’t expect they would be, would they?” Harry shrugged, picking a scroll at random.

“No,” Hermione answered. “But I don’t mean their accounts of what happened.” Harry paused before unrolling the scroll. He gave her a quizzical look. “I mean the way the Ministry treated them.”

Harry stared at her for a long moment. He never quite ceased to be amazed at the compassion Hermione had for other people. She had been a direct subject of Voldemort’s attacks and the Death Eaters’ prejudice, but still felt for them. She had been tortured at Malfoy Manor during the war, but still found it in her heart to sympathize with her attackers.

“How do you mean?” Harry asked. “They were Death Eaters, Hermione. They got treated as such.”

“Not really,” Hermione answered, shaking her head. “The Ministry were harsher with Death Eaters than they had ever been in the past, that was certain. They doled out punishments as they never had. But, because the Malfoys had lived so long in power and prestige, holding positions of influence in the Ministry and fooling the Minister and many other officials, the Wizengamot was far more dire in their treatment of them than anyone else.” Harry blinked and shook his head, unable to understand.

“What did they do that was so bad?” Harry asked. “Lucius Malfoy only received a reduced sentence and was released from Azkaban. Narcissa Malfoy was never jailed. Neither was Draco. They paid reparations and were allowed to live freely.”

Hermione’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair. She picked up a scroll and unrolled it for him.

“That’s what they told you?” she asked, flipping the scroll so he could see. “That wasn’t all. Lucius Malfoy spent his internment in Azkaban in a cell to himself. They placed a boggart in his room, as well as three Dementors. They documented it and had the records sealed, just to keep track of the Dementors.” Harry’s eyes travelled over the paper. “Only Wizengamot members could unseal them. They fought to take all his magic from him and snap his wand. But that requires a unanimous vote and they didn’t get it.” Hermione seemed pleased about that. “Narcissa and Draco Malfoy weren’t sent to prison, but they were stripped and probed in every possible way, changing their magic forever.” Hermione seemed to have trouble going on. Harry felt his throat close as well. “They weren’t just forced to pay reparations, afterward. They were forced to give up everything. The Ministry took every last knut they had, as well as all of their properties.”

Harry looked up at her now and his lips parted slightly. This wasn’t right. The Malfoys had committed crimes, yes. They had allied themselves with Voldemort until the very end, yes. But they had proven themselves. Narcissa Malfoy had saved Harry’s life, regardless of her intentions. They had cooperated with the Ministry in seeking out the rogue Death Eaters. They offered information and confessed to everything they could.

No matter how much Harry might have hated Malfoy in school, he did not deserve this.

“But, I just… they took everything? Even the Manor?” Harry asked, shocked. He wasn’t sure why this surprised him, but it did. It hadn’t occurred to him that Malfoy no longer lived there. He knew that the house he had visited twice was not the Manor, but he assumed Lucius and Narcissa were still there.

“They took the Manor first,” Hermione explained. “They claimed it was for the protection of the wizarding world against the Dark Magic that was embedded in the walls. They said they needed to search the whole building and strip it’s magical properties down to the stones. That’s where the Death Eaters had their headquarters during the second war. It seemed logical enough at first. But they never returned the Manor to the Malfoys. They warded the property, even after stripping what they could. There was no reason to keep it, except spite.” Hermione sighed softly and presented him with another scroll. “Malfoy has been fighting for sixteen years to get it back.”

Harry frowned at the parchment. It listed appeal after appeal, presented by Draco Malfoy to the Wizengamot, with intent to have his home returned to him and his family. Every time the courts denied him, with little or no reason at all. Still, he tried. There was an open-ended appeal at the bottom of the long list. It had been placed just over a month ago.

Harry pressed his fingertips to his temples and rubbed in circles, staving off a growing headache. He could see now, in some ways, why Malfoy would mistrust the Ministry and the courts. They had done nothing but abuse their power from day one.

“But he got everything else back,” Harry concluded oddly, unsure of why he felt the need to point this out. Perhaps he was intent on denying Malfoy the right to mistrust his office. “He’s made all his money back and more, I’m sure. He’s a bloody famous Quidditch player and he’s still not happy. I’d say that’s more his own doing than anyone else’s.” Harry glanced at the Prophet on Seamus’ empty desk. There was a flying picture of Malfoy catching and kissing the snitch from his match against the Tornadoes. “He put himself in the public eye, as well…”

Hermione gave him a sharp look and swatted him. Harry snapped out of his odd trance and looked at her imploringly.

“Don’t start believing that he deserves being threatened all the time,” Hermione snapped at him. Harry flushed slightly and sighed.

“No, no,” he offered. “I don’t know what made me say that…”

“He didn’t want to be a Quidditch player, you know,” Hermione added briskly. Harry gave her a strange look.

“How do you know that?” he asked. “Been corresponding with him, have you?”

Hermione glared at him and pulled out yet another scroll.

“No, but the Ministry keeps track of every job application within its breadth,” she explained. “The Quidditch try-outs he completed were at the end of a very long list of other attempts.” Harry glanced at the extensive list. There were all sorts of other jobs listed there, including teacher at Hogwarts, Healer at St Mungo’s and curse-breaker for Gringott’s bank. All of his applications and interviews had been declined. “They wouldn’t let him do anything else.”

“Did he not have the right credentials?” Harry asked, seeing that various jobs had very extensive school requirements. He couldn’t remember Malfoy being particularly great at anything but Potions.

“He had all the required N.E.W.T.s for everything he applied for,” Hermione huffed. “Don’t you see? He was rejected because he was a Death Eater. The Ministry ensured that he couldn’t get hired for any kind of job that would allow him any power.”

Harry made a derisive noise and shook his head.

“Ok, fine,” he conceded. “So he has no reason to trust the Ministry. I don’t really trust the Ministry either. Not since Fudge, anyway. But I still don’t see why he won’t cooperate with me. I’m an Auror and the Aurors never did anything to him, other than arrest him. But there was a reason for that.” Harry shook his head and sighed in an exasperated way. “I get that he didn’t deserve all of this, Hermione. But this whole case is still frustrating to me. We can’t find any information and he’s not giving an inch. I’m doing this to help him, but he’s being a prat about it.”

Hermione sighed and frowned.

“Harry, he’s too proud to let you help him,” she told him sadly. “I think he should work with you, as well, but… I’m sure he doesn’t feel too kindly towards Aurors either, not after his first job application was so vehemently denied.”

“What was that?” Harry asked, glancing back at the list.

“He wanted to be an Auror.”

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A/N: Ok, so this is not the chapter I'm most pleased with. That would be the next two chapters I think. *ponders* >.> Well, anyway. I'm more pleased with the way things are progressing now, to be sure. I hope you liked this! There is far more hidden in the Ministry files than even what was revealed here, just so you know. :) I also know this whole story started off slow. I've been trying to retrain myself to write, for various reasons. I think I'm getting back on track now so I hope you agree and are enjoying it.

I also have TWO new story ideas that I'm working out too, if anyone is interested lol. Hopefully I'll get to working on those too.

I love you all for reviews and, as always, reviewing again will garner more love. And cookies. I like giving out cookies, lol.