What Shakes The Elephant

What Shakes the Elephant

Chapter 2 – News

Draco stepped out of his office and into one of the lifts. This was the part of his day that he both grudged and adored. It was likely impossible to feel both at once, but somehow Draco managed every time.

He left the lift, waving a curt farewell to his colleagues and superiors. Most were the former as there were few people actually higher up than Draco at this point. He was mildly pleased about that, though would never dare to go around boasting. As a child he would not have wasted a moment’s breath without bragging to his friends and enemies, but he knew better now. He was in a very delicate position and was intent on keeping in.

Not everyone, of course, thought he deserved to have the job he did. Thankfully, none of those people mattered at all.

“St Mungo’s,” he called out, stepping into the emerald green fire of the Floo Network. He felt the flames dance and tickle his body as it transported him to his chosen location.

Draco stepped out of the clean white hearth and into the offices of St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. He exited the room and found himself just behind the Welcomewitch’s desk.

“Good evening, Livia,” Draco greeted as he passed her by. She was quite busy with a line-up of lost visitors and new cases but still took the time to turn around and smile at him.

“Good evening, Mr. Malfoy,” she replied cheerily, though her normal tone was one of disdain and irritability when dealing with visitors. “I hope the news is good today.”

“Thank you, Livia,” Draco remarked as he walked down the hall. “Have a nice night.”

He walked steadily onwards and into another lift. There were several people inside with him and, much to his annoyance, every other floor button had been pressed. He sighed heavily and marked his own floor before standing back to let the doors close.

They passed the Creature Induced Injuries floor, Magical Bugs and Diseases and Potion and Plant Poisoning. The lift was empty after the third floor and Draco was left on his own.

“Fourth Floor: Spell Damage,” a kindly woman’s voice informed Draco as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened.

He sighed and stepped out, passing by the usual rooms with the usual patients and towards the door at the end of the hall. It was always the most ominous of walks, Draco thought. It seemed to him as though every time he stepped down this hallway he was walking towards his doom.

He came to a rest before the locked white doors and his eyes, as usual, roved over the clear cut and very painful words above the entrance.

Janus Thickey Ward. This ward was for permanent residents of long-term spell damage. Draco knew that the description was not as accurate as it could be, and every time he read it he reminded himself to get it renamed.

He lifted his wand to the keyhole and pressed the tip into the small opening. There was a red spark and immediately a small speaker popped out in front of him.

“Name?” the odd voice demanded.

“Draco Malfoy,” he responded mechanically. It took a moment to search.

“Welcome Mr. Malfoy,” it told him more kindly. “You may enter.”

Draco nodded to the speaker though he knew it couldn’t tell. The door swung slowly open for him and he stepped past it into a moderately lit hallway with more off-white rooms on white walls.

He passed right by the intensive care reception desk and went to the private room at the end of the hall. He stopped in the doorway and a Mediwizard immediately appeared at his side. Draco paid no attention to the man at all, but let his eyes fixate on the patient within the dark room.

“Any change?” he asked simply, his voice softening in a way that only this particular situation called for. He never spoke this way to anyone apart from the Mediwitches and wizards that he dealt with on a daily basis.

“I’m afraid not, sir,” the man responded sadly. Draco knew that this was the kind of tone Healers were trained to give, but he also knew most of these people personally. It was genuine sadness and the knowledge of that made Draco even more uncomfortable.

“And you have found nothing at all?” he pressed further, his voice betraying his desperate need for a shred of hope to grasp. The man hesitated and shook his head. Draco saw him out of the corner of his eye but made no mark of recognition.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Malfoy,” he apologized. Draco set his jaw and took a deep breath.

“Thank you, Hobbs,” he replied. “Keep searching, will you?”

“Of course, sir,” Hobbs nodded and left Draco alone.

*******

“Happy Birthday, Hermione!” the massive group of Weasleys cried out. Hermione’s parents were the only Muggles in the room and they were currently being lectured in the complexe art of Pymgy Puff rearing by a very proud Lily.

Ginny handed Hermione the large, brightly wrapped box in which she and Harry and wrapped her gift. She unwrapped it carefully to find a number of large and rather old volumes on complex rune translation as well as well as two crisp new books. Hermione picked them both up and read the titles. Her eyes went wide and she looked up at Harry and Ginny who were both smirking mischievously.

“You didn’t,” she said with some kind of disbelief in her voice.

“We did,” Harry answered happily. The titles of the books were “Hogwarts: A Revised History” and “S.P.E.W.: A Formal Chronology of The House Elf Liberation Movement”. Both, naturally, by Hermione Jean Granger.

“You got my manuscripts published?!” she demanded incredulously. Her voice was wavering as though she was hoping against all hope that this was not a joke. Harry couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well it wasn’t difficult at all,” Ginny answered amused. “The editors hardly had any work to do at all. Your facts were all correct and precise. All they had to do was order the print. You really did it all yourself, Hermione.”

“They’ll be on sale at Flourish and Blott’s in two weeks,” Harry continued. “We got advance copies for revising and to approve final changes.”

“I can’t believe you did this for me,” she went on, aghast. Her eyes were filling up with tear and an ecstatic smile drew itself on her face.

“Why shouldn’t we? After all the work you’ve done,” Harry added. “But we have to admit, the original idea was Ron’s. We just took it on so that you wouldn’t suspect anything.”

She turned, with even more shock on her face, to her husband who was now a lovely shade of magenta.

“Oh, Ron,” she cried. “All of you,” she turned back to those seated at the table. “Thank you so much! I can’t even begin to tell you how thankful I am!”

Harry sat back in his chair once the table had calmed down and the newly published books had been passed around the table for all to gawk at. Teddy Lupin came up and sat next to Harry in Ginny’s vacated seat.

“Wotcher Harry,” he said. Harry had never quite gotten used to hearing him speak once he passed puberty. Teddy sounded remarkably like Remus had but his voice was more forceful and his vocabulary matched his mother more. He also looked a lot like Remus, though his hair was turquoise on a daily basis and his eyes changed colours progressively throughout the day.

“How are you Teddy?” Harry asked his godson.

“Not bad, worked to the bone though,” he said with a smirk. George Weasley passed by at the moment and clapped him on the back.

“Ah yeah, George can be like that,” Harry agreed sarcastically. George snickered and went on to speak with Bill and Fleur. “Still working with him, then?”

“Of course,” he answered. “Wouldn’t give up a job like that for the world.”

“Are you living in your grandmother’s house still?” Harry continued, pleased to have some time to talk with his godson. He didn’t see him nearly as often as he would like but he was quite pleased that Teddy was adjusting well and enjoying his life.

“Naw, moved in with George,” he said rather darkly. “It wasn’t the same without Nana ‘Dromeda. The house reeked of her and mum and dad… couldn’t keep living there alone. So I moved in with George over the shop and we’re planning to sell the house once we clean it up.”

“I understand, Teddy,” Harry told him, clapping a reassuring hand to his shoulder. Andromeda had died a few months prior and Teddy had not taken the whole thing very well. He had no reason to, of course, but Harry had told him that if he ever needed to talk or vent, he could call on him.

After the end of the war, once the Ministry got back on its feet and Shacklebolt took over as Minister, they held a massive gathering of the wizarding world to both mourn and celebrate the brave souls who lost their lives in the battle. Harry found the whole thing a brilliant idea, but it was nevertheless one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. It took everything he had to stay the whole time. He had to see the faces of his friends and family displayed in massive banners and hear speeches and eulogies presented for each of them.

George had been the one to speak about Fred, and Harry had never seen him seem so solemn. His speech was a beautiful depiction of exactly who Fred was and, much in the manner of the twins, it ended with one of their most secret unreleased joke items. There were fireworks that exploded into a grand procession leprechauns and flying salamanders. They painted Fred Weasley’s face on the sky and subsequently turned everyone’s hair a different colour.

It was not too late after that, that George took a liking to Teddy. He went through months of depression and dark times before he met Teddy Remus Lupin. Harry was glad for the both of them. Teddy had followed George around like a puppy at every family gathering and George would visit Andromeda’s old house every week to spend time with Ted and teach him the ways of mischief makers.

Ted spent all his Hogwarts days trying to live up to the legend of Fred and George Weasley and (though he didn’t explicitly know it) James Potter and Sirius Black.

Once he left school, he joined George at the joke shop to become his new partner. Harry regretted not having played a larger role in Ted’s upbringing, but he could not imagine him having turned out any better than he did.

“Let me know if there’s anything at all I can do to help, yeah?” Harry told his godson. “I know what it’s like to go through your parents’ old things.”

“Thanks, Harry,” Teddy told him with a bright smile. He hugged him and got up to run after George.

“Harry,” Ginny called from behind him. He spun around to see her holding Lily in her arms. “I think we should get going. You’ve got to work early tomorrow.”

“Ah, you’re right,” he agreed, getting to his feet to say goodbye to the rest of his family. “Thanks for the lovely evening everyone!”

“Thank you, Harry, Ginny!” Hermione called out once more before Harry and Ginny disappeared back to their home with Lily in tow.

*******

Harry dropped into his desk chair early the next morning feeling groggy and slow. He hadn’t slept much the night before and felt the haze of the morning-after-firewhisky setting in on his head.

He groaned and dropped his briefcase next to him before picking up the stack of inter-departmental memos that seemed a mile high on his desk.

“Funeral, retirement, law revision, new appointments, media warnings,” Harry said aloud as he rifled through them before he decided to drop the lot of them into the rubbish bin.

He spun around just in time to see a new purple letter flying towards him. He caught it in midair and opened it up. After a first glance he considered throwing it into the bin with the others until he realized that it was not a normal memo and rather important.

--Mr. Harry Potter,

In light of the law revisions and unstable situations between pureblooded wizards and all those of mixed descent, you have been assigned a new project.

As you know well, there are a number of pureblooded witches and wizards who have passed on in the recent months, in most unexpected ways. The Ministry is being urged by Equal Rights groups to look into the strange occurrences and report any findings. There is no need to remind you of the specifications of your assignments.

Please keep up a weekly report on your findings. You are awarded the usual rights and budget. Good luck.

Signed,
Kingsley Shacklebolt—

Harry’s eyes lingered momentarily on the name at the bottom. He knew that the letter, being uncommonly distant and curt for Kingsley, was most likely written by his secretary and simply signed by him. His attention, however, diverted directly back to the details of his new assignment and he bit his lip.

Purebloods dying? He supposed that was only normal and that the Daily Prophet was simply blowing things out of proportions as usual.

After all, there were few purebloods left anymore and many of them were indeed getting on in years. Was it really so unnatural?

And yet his mind wandered towards Andromeda Tonks and he reminded himself that the details surrounding her death were rather odd. She was healthy and independent up until the very last week of her life when her health suddenly went drastically downhill.

He chewed his lip for a moment before getting to his feet to begin his investigation.

This was the part of Harry’s job that he loved the most: the very beginning of his assignments when everything could still go perfectly and the anticipation in his stomach, the desire to find the truth, grew steadily until it overwhelmed him completely.

It was a feeling almost more powerful than flying, though he didn’t think that anything could beat the rush of wind and the weightless feeling in his stomach that flying on a broomstick sent through him.

Nothing was better than that.

----

A/N: Not my usual cliffhanger ending but kinda. I hope you like it! I live off of reviews. And yeah. Draco/Harry smut too. That's definitely necessary to my life.

Anyway, if you have questions about anything, feel free to ask! I can't promise to answer everything right away, but I'll do my best!