Chapter 12

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Draco tapped his foot nervously on the stone floor. He checked his pocket watch but didn't register the time; he just needed to do something with his hands while he waited to be called into the courtroom to give his testimony. It had been several years since he had last been down here in the bowels of the Ministry. Back then, he had been the one on trial, and it was only thanks to the testimony of people like Harry that he had secured his and his parents' freedom. Although he wasn't the one on trial this time around, just being here made him feel uneasy.

Without warning, the heavy oak door to Courtroom Ten swung open and Draco instinctively straightened his back. A court clerk, wearing long black robes, greeted him with a polite smile.

"Mr Malfoy, we're ready to see you now," he said.

Draco smoothed down the front of his robes with the palms of his hands before entering. The courtroom was just as he remembered: gloomy, poorly lit, with solemn air that seemed to permeate across the benches where a sea of red hair sat in support of Percy Weasley. Percy sat alone in the center of the room on a stiff wooden chair, hunched over with his head hung low. He did, however, look up at Draco as he passed on his way to the witness box. Draco kept his eyes straight ahead. When he entered the witness box, the clerk asked him to raise his right hand.

"Do you solemnly affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you under pains and penalties of perjury to the Wizengamot?" they asked.

Draco gave a curt nod. "I do."

A couple of hours later, Draco was pushing the door open to the Leaky Cauldron. He found Pansy sitting at a table on her own, reading the latest issue of Witch Weekly while nursing a glass of white wine. She only noticed Draco's appearance when he pulled back the chair across from her.

"There you are!" she cried, tossing the magazine aside. "I've tried calling you a dozen times. What took you so long?"

"I'm sorry that court proceedings don't fit around your drinking schedule," he teased, carefully folding his cloak and placing it in the empty chair next to him.

Pansy shook her head. "Honestly, if you're not going to use the bloody thing, what's the point in even having one? Having a mobile phone could save your life one day, you know."

Draco simply rolled his eyes. There was no point arguing with her.

"Are you seriously still wearing that?" Pansy pointed to the green ribboned medal pinned to Draco's chest. He glanced at it as though he were surprised to see it there.

"What?" he asked innocently. "Oh, you mean this old thing?"

"You didn't wear that to court, did you?"

"Of course, I did," Draco puffed out his chest. "It's not every day that one receives an Order of Merlin, First Class. For an act of outstanding bravery in the face of danger."

"As you like to remind me frequently," she drawled. "You are absolutely shameless."

"I know," he agreed unabashedly. "But I did save two lives that night."

"A fact which you also like to remind me of frequently," she muttered into her glass before taking another drink.

Draco made a show of straightening the medal and smiling at it. After Percy had willingly handed himself over to the authorities, Draco had assumed that his life would go back to normal. But to his surprise, many things had changed: he was awarded the Order of Merlin by the Minister of Magic himself—not everyone could say that they had saved Harry Potter's life. He'd also made it to the front page of the Daily Prophet, and for the first time in his life, it was for something positive. Even his parents had heard about how young Malfoy, former Deatheater, now heroic saviour of the Boy Who Lived (and Percy), had saved the day.

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