Against the Dark - A Dramione Fanfiction

F i f t e e n

His mother hadn't bothered with pleasantries in the letter. She'd broken the news to him right away, sending a jolt through him every time he read it.

Draco

Something's gone wrong. Ministry Aurors burst in this evening, ordering a raid. They were obviously looking for your dad. Lucius hid in the basement for almost an hour before they found him. He couldn't run away, escape, do anything. They took him, Draco. They arrested him. They took him to Azkaban without a trial.

I don't even know how they figured out he was still here. Lucius is supposed to be abroad, in Bulgaria or Romania or somewhere else looking for the Dark Lord's remaining followers. The Ministry believed the news that your dad spread about himself. Aurors have been looking for him away from England for months. We read about those searches and reported sightings in the Prophet. But somehow they knew he was here. I tried very hard to stop them, Draco. I even took down a few, but we were so outnumbered that I couldn't do anything. The other Death Eaters weren't here to help as well. In the end, I had to run away so that I wouldn't get caught too. Right now I'm in hiding, but I can't tell you my location. 

I don't know what to do, Draco. I don't know if I should just stay down or return home or go to the Wizengamot and plead for a trial. The worst bit is that I know that even if Lucius is tried, he will come off as guilty and will have to bear the humiliation in a full court. 

Write to me soon, Draco. I really need your advice. 

N.M.

Her mother's upright, slender, beautiful letters were shaky and wobbly today. The ink was smudged in several places, as if tears had splashed and ruined the writing. Draco could sense the desperation in her tone. He was worried for her - alone, in hiding, waiting for her son to reply, to help her. Unaware that he was too caught up in his own swirling emotions to help. 

He had enough hatred piled up inside of him to not care very much about his father. But that was not what was troubling him. The fact that was raging inside his head was that it was he himself who'd had that falling upon himself. It was he who had got his father arrested, and not just metaphorically.

He remembered the time back in Leaky Cauldron when he'd wanted his father to get out of his life so fervently. So fervently that he'd picked up that damned quill and parchment and given Lucius away to the Ministry. He punched the wall, once, twice, repeatedly, thinking bitterly about that night when he'd written that letter to the Minister of Magic himself and revealed Lucius' whereabouts while keeping himself anonymous. 

Draco had almost forgotten about it, or maybe he'd chosen to forget, hoping somewhere in his subconscious that the Ministry wouldn't pay attention to a random message from an unknown and unreliable source. But they took care of that, he thought bitterly. That was why it took them more than two weeks to arrest Lucius - because they must have checked and rechecked about the accuracy of the message and swooped into the Malfoy Manor only when they were sure because they would have to be answerable to the people if the intel had been wrong. 

He didn't feel sorry for his father. At least, he told himself he didn't. It was shame, guilt, concern about his mother that was clawing at his insides. How would he ever face his mother again? How would he ever face the fact that he was a traitor, a double-crosser, and everything else Lucius had accused him of being that day when he'd stormed out of the manor in his fateful rage?

Draco curled up by the window, crumpling up the parchment and leaning his head against the cool glass surface as a solitary tear left his eye.

What the hell have you done, Draco?