Veritas Vos Liberabit [Drarry Fanfiction]

Lipton Yellow Label and No Sympathy

That tastes vile, he thought, twirling a bright yellow label from a muggle teabag in his fingers. The Auror that was sitting across from him smirked understandingly but continued to drink her tea from a crimson mug with a golden letter M on it.

It had been the third day in a row that they met in this very interrogation room and Draco had a splitting headache almost every time those brown eyes drilled into him demanding the truth. He was embarrassed at first, this girl looked like a complete rookie, she was breaking protocol, smuggling tea and biscuits for her suspect and talking too keenly to a Death Eater scum that he was. Something in her demeanor reminded him of Potter, and that was very unnerving since it felt like it was him Draco was confessing to.

Maybe this is how people, raised by muggles, act all the time, he contemplated as Elise Baelish was rummaging through her messenger bag, looking for an important piece of evidence.

"Ah, gotcha. So let's continue, shall we?" she smiled maliciously and repeated the spell.

In these moments Draco understood why she had been sorted into Slytherin, Auror Baelish was as rustles as Pansy could be when she needed a piece of information from him. Only he couldn't brush this girl off that easily, the legilimency spell was prickling his mind already, and he felt as though dementors were there in this chamber, waiting to take him to Azkaban.

"We have an eyewitness statement, that suggests you did not kill Albus Dumbledore. What can you say about this?" Baelish was relentless.

"Shouldn't you be mind-raping your eyewitness then, instead of me." gritted Draco through clenched teeth. He felt dizzy and nauseous and completely drained, their little tea-break didn't help one bit.

"We have a memory from the said eyewitness. I need you to corroborate their statement"

"This is ridiculous!" Draco tried to lift his hand to clench his hair but the shackles were once again on his wrists, so he lowered them grimly. "If I hadn't known better, I would have thought you were trying to help me! Were you bribed? Was it one of my Father's associates?!"

"Lucius Malfoy must be completely delusional if he thinks any of his associates would try to help him now..." the Auror laughed.

Then why... He was once again feeling like somebody was drinking his mind through a straw, his memories were pouring out involuntarily at the skillful flick of her wand. It felt almost pleasant, to be once again enveloped by his feelings, emotions, to experience fear, anger, lust, despair once again instead of complete numbness he felt these days.

... You're not a killer, Draco...

He was dry heaving, once again Draco was pulled back to that night, the night of his failure. He shut his eyes, trying to stop the shameful tears from spilling, trying not to vomit his tea and biscuits, trying to keep some semblance of self-restraint.

"Listen," Baelish said after a while. "I think you might want to know why I even work for the ministry... It's because of Albus Dumbledore and a disaster that happened with Sirius Black. When the Dark Lord first came to power, many of his followers and those who opposed him were trying to become immune to Veritaserum. Purebloods like Black were more skilled in Occlumency due to natural inclinations, and thus were more likely to fight the potion, so of course, nobody would even bother giving him the serum. If they had, they'd known he was innocent. I moved across the Pond to study legilimency and Dumbledore persuaded a good portion of Wizengamot to employ a mind-reader into their due process protocols. So that a pureblood ponce like you might have a fighting chance."

He shook his head and laughed almost madly, "So I must be grateful I wasn't the one who killed your dear departed mentor!?"

"That wasn't that hard now, was it?" the grin on her face was carnivorous, "Now let me see some more..."