Stuck With You / drarry

The Exoneration of Narcissa Malfoy

Evergrey slammed his fist on the table, and the loud sound was magnified in the austere room. "We know about your grandfather, and the Marigold, now tell us... were you working alone?" his voice was frustrated and demanding. Patrick's hair was dishevelled and he had opened the first few buttons of his work robes. He was pacing back and forth in front of the table, behind which Ridgenorth was sitting, with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Patrick and Harry had been at it for hours, and Ridgenorth was not cracking. Instead, the bastard had been taunting them with sarcastic quips, and giving them the silent treatment. He was sitting in the hard metal chair, his previously neat garments changed into the jail robes with the Ministry logo on their back. His dark silvery hair was greasy and partially covered his face, but he seemed as cheerful as ever. Perhaps because he knew he was making this unnecessarily hard for the two Aurors.

On Thursday morning Harry had arrived to work to find out that in the early hours of the night, the Department of Mysteries had managed to finish and bottle the antidote to the memory potion. The Aurors working nightshift had fetched Ridgenorth from his cell and thrown him into an interrogation room, giving him the potion, which would take a few hours to take effect. They had chained him up to the chair, and when Harry and Patrick arrived to interrogate him, they found him pissed off that his plan hadn't worked.

Apparently, he had thought that they'd just throw him in Azkaban, where he could spend enough time for the potion to wear out, and by that time, his sentence would be nearing its end. Granted, it didn't seem like he had put a lot of thought into it. Alas, he found himself in the Ministry, a mere couple weeks later, chained up to a chair, being interrogated for his crimes that warranted a sentence he would have to go through completely conscious.

Now the bastard was smirking up at Patrick. "Since you know so much about my dear pap Irving, surely you have already figured out whether I'm a lone wolf or not," he said with an insufferably confident shine in his eyes. He turned his head to look at Harry, who was monitoring the situation from the corner of the room, arms crossed, silent. "How did you find me anyway?" Dargan inquired curiously, "Did that bitch Dubois give me away?" Harry hated how casually the man insulted his former partner.

Patrick straightened his posture. "Actually, she said that the source was Narcissa Malfoy," he stated reluctantly. It had gone like this the whole time, Harry wasn't sure who was interviewing who in the situation. Dargan was chained up to the chair, but was still dominating the course of the discussion, Patrick attempting to regain his authority. Harry saw a drop of sweat appear on his partner's temple, the low room was becoming warm, what with Patrick pacing it back and forth constantly. Otherwise there was nothing there, only a table and a chair, and three men, each fighting their own battle.

Now Ridgenorth's face turned from curious to victorious. "Ha! Of course, it is her, she's behind everything, she used the Imperius Curse on me, I swear!" The man's tone was almost mocking, he was clearly trying to fuck with them. His lack of seriousness really irked Harry's nerve, who was not in the mood for dancing around one another, he had done that enough with you-know-who (Malfoy). What he really wanted was to get to the bottom of the matter, but it seemed that the harder they pressed, the more difficult it was to get answers out of the man.

Now Harry spoke, for the first time after quickly introducing himself and Patrick when they came in. Of course, Ridgenorth already knew who he was, but there was no telling what the memory potion had done to his mind. "We know that's a lie, you and Dubois framed her, isn't that right?" Harry strolled to take Patrick's place in front of the interrogation table, while his partner retreated to where he had been standing and observing.

"Why does it matter? I'm going to Azkaban anyway," behind the cocky façade, Harry could hear desperation in the suspect's voice. For the first time, he felt like he might be able to lure out the truth, like trying to get a stubborn clam to open, slowly but surely. He had found the weakness, Dargan was afraid of going to Azkaban, and now Harry just needed to pull on that thread, play his cards right.