BANALITY : Draco Malfoy

77

It is only hours later that Auror Dawlish reappears. There is nothing that I have prepared to tell him. Hestia told me about potential questions he could ask, and I am trying to run them through in my head. If he is going to interview me, doesn't Hestia have to be here? Wizarding laws are quite different from muggle laws. Wizards, to some degree, still torture inmates by using Dementors.

Auror Dawlish doesn't enter. I try to preoccupy myself with practicing spells. Truly, I try to do anything but think about what he is going to ask of me. It shouldn't worry me. I have committed no crime, that I can think about. I have done nothing wrong. The worst part is, I'm more worried about the possibility that the aurors are going to catch Draco than I am that they are going to realize the huge cover-up involved by their war heroes.

Instead, it isn't him that enters the room. My healer does. I feel bad that I don't know her name. Usually, I am good with names, but she said it to me in a thick Eastern European accent, and I didn't have the heart to ask again. She explains that due to the monitoring that they have done over the past forty-eight hours since my arrival, they know that I am going to be able to at least manage my own health in wizarding society. So, they are releasing me, rather than inter me in St. Mungo's Ward for maledictions.

Only then does Auror Dawlish join us. He explains that the ministry is going to be providing me emergency housing as a victim of crime so that I do not have to live with strangers nor travel back to North Ireland to live with Terry. The aurors want to keep me close. So, they are transferring me to a shelter where victims of crimes are housed until they are safe.

Honestly, I think the hospital doesn't want to deal with any more reporters. I don't blame them.

"It's mostly muggle wives of wizards in protection," Auror Dawlish tells me. "Often, they are more afraid than witches, because they feel like they have fewer resources, and they cannot tell anyone about the nature of their husbands' abuses."

"Is that not... a bit extreme?" I ask. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but is there no other space that I can be housed?"

"It's very secure," Auror Dawlish says. "We would not be able to put you up in an inn and ensure your safety, as I'm sure you understand."

"Is there a reason to believe that I am unsafe?" I ask.

"Until we understand the motives of Blaise Zabini, it is entirely possible that someone else will come after you," he presses.

I try to read his face as he tries to read mine. Maybe he believes the story that was fed to me; some Death Eater or Order secret is in my head, and someone might be desperate enough to get to me and crack it.

They wouldn't be cracking my head like a safe though.

After that, Auror Dawlish wants to apparate me to the location. The healer insists I cannot. She explains, in complex magical terms that I do not understand, that part of my injury involves the cramming of two sets of memories in my head. Some part of apparating jolts the filing cabinets which Blaise set up, and rather than jumbling and scrambling them, it puts them at risk of shattering.

The location where I am to go is not connected to the floo network for security reasons and seeing as portkeys are worse than apparition for my head and I don't remember ever flying on a broom, we have to take a more muggle method. Auror Dawlish escorts me in a muggle cab. There is only a brief second that I am outside before I am squished into the back beside him. He doesn't grumble, which at least provides me with some relief.

Even though it is raining, I roll down the window. Auror Dawlish glares at me, but I ignore him. I lean my hand outside and feel the raindrops on my skin. My shoulders relax. They hadn't seemed tight before, but now they are relaxed.