The Silver Envelope

The Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Notes

TW: substance abuse

The most adamant supporters of the Rebellion had proclaimed that Azkaban was completely different now that the Dementors had been banished from it. These days, the Dementors were confined to a forest somewhere in Wales, and the prison was now a dedicated rehabilitation center.
A humane place of reform, they'd called it.
They were wrong.
It took Draco the better part of an hour to get through security once he'd arrived on the tiny island.
The storm that raged outside was so dark and vicious, he might have thought the skies were reading his mind and reflecting his mood back to him. However, the storm outside, which had violently tossed his boat for the entire trip there, would fade. The one inside him, he was beginning to realize, would not.
The fortress was built into the rock, towering above the sea like a throne for some ancient, cruel god.
Draco didn't know how the Dementors had even survived this place. Creatures that fed on hope and happiness would surely have died of starvation on this godforsaken, frozen rock. It was filled with the least hopeful, least happy people in the entire wizarding world.
And Draco was here to visit one.
He had to relinquish his wand to enter, something he loathed worse than the vomit-inducing trip there. That feeling of powerlessness, combined with the buzzing fluorescent lights stuck to the stone ceiling of the waiting room, which was full of equally depressed people, served to put Draco back in a mental state he'd sworn never to return to.
Of course, it didn't help that his...er, that Hermione... wasn't talking to him anymore.
Draco had to admit that even this horrible place only brought his mood down another notch or two.
It wasn't as though he had a long way to fall. He'd been a fucking terror for weeks now. Scared Ignoma half to death, at one point. She'd threatened to haul him off to St. Mungo's last week. He probably should have gone, but instead he'd swallowed half a dozen tonics and slept for two straight days.
Only to wake up to the worst news possible.
In between ads for Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and Flint's Finest Wand Polishing Pomade was the image of Hermione, smiling and showing off her new diamond ring, her fiance's arms wrapped around her. It had brought him to his knees with shock. He almost didn't believe it, until he remembered how passionately she'd defended Weasley at the wedding. When he realized that he had likely been the one who'd pushed them back together again, Draco thought he might have died and gone to hell.
And here he was, alive, despite himself.
"Malfoy," called the squat witch from behind a pane of grimy, thick glass. She took his paperwork, punched it with a device to mark it, and handed him his visitor's badge
"Follow the security guard at the door. You have one hour. Do not touch the inmate and do not give the inmate anything. If you have an emergency or want to leave before the hour is up, speak to
one of the guards in the room."
Draco followed a surly, pudgy wizard in gray robes down a long hallway that looked to be carved straight from the rock of the island. Sparse torches had been spaced along the walls, glowing with the sort of cold, blue light that told Draco they couldn't be used as weapons. Not that he would ever bother trying to break anyone out of this place
They entered into a large, gray room that was so cold, Draco could see his breath. Several tables had been arranged for visitors around the room. Only two were currently occupied.
Draco's eyes landed on the table in the very center of the room, at which, a thin, gaunt wizard with long blond hair and wild, sunken eyes sat, staring at him.
"Hello, father," Draco said.
Lucius Malfoy's eyes were examining Draco with, if not hope, something near frenzied anticipation.
"You got my message, then?" Lucius said.
His voice was breathy, wheezy. Draco wondered if he'd been coughing, or perhaps screaming.
Either seemed likely.
"If you ever tell my mother something like that again, I'll have her stopped from coming to see you. You know I can make that happen," Draco said coldly.
His father's face twitched, something like remorse mixing with irritation on it.
"I had to get you here somehow," Lucius complained. "You haven't been in months."
"Years, actually," Draco corrected without emotion.
Lucius furrowed his brows, as if trying to count the days in his head. Draco sighed. The man was allowed a calendar. If he hadn't kept track of how long it had been since he'd last seen his son, that wasn't Draco's fault.
Draco spared one disgusted glance at the rusty metal bench that he was meant to sit upon while he visited, and decided against it.
"I don't intend to be here for long, father, so say what you need to say already, before I get tetanus," Draco snapped.
The strange gleam returned to his father's eyes, and he braced his weathered hands as he leaned across the table to speak softly to his son.
"There have been... whisperings. Between bars, I mean. I thought they might be of interest to you," he said.
Draco raised an eyebrow.
"I highly doubt that," he said.
Lucius looked surreptitiously around the room and leaned closer. Draco fought the impulse to scoff. The prison security would have multiple ways of listening in on their conversations in here.
His father was obviously putting on a show.
"I will tell you in a moment," his father said. "But first...I hear you've been spending time with the Granger mudblood. Potter's friend."